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Admiral Tenrah returned to the battle map, looking at all the various icons and routes to and from star systems. So far, the Sennes Armada was keeping its pace mostly on track. The delay due to the diplomats from the Misan Li Heptarchies no longer would matter.
King Siran had pulled back from the battlefront against the High Federation in an attempt to pivot to the Hive Union. He had won the battle, but the stragglers included the remaining leadership of the High Federation anyway, so they could continue to remain somewhat organized. The massive civil war would soon spill into a more international affair, due to the King's rhetoric. But that was entirely his fault when he so strongly advocated for the deaths of Cawlarians who had lived on planets for generations that he happened to desire.
And he would not let his name be stained with even the suggestion of a loss. The Battle Planner and Fleet Commander Annabelle Weber were also now on their way to the front, and the diplomats from the Heptarchies were tagging along. Phoebe was in discussions with them now, and supposedly there'd been a few breakthroughs on that front. Whatever she'd promised them or get them to agree to, the fleet buildup along the Hive Union's border with the Heptarchies was slowing.
The Interstellar Gathering seemed to have realized no amount of bluffing would get the High King out of war. Even if he was a proxy force aligned with them, King Siran was not valuable enough for them to risk a wider war. It was just as Tenrah had expected and had told Eyahtni, Kawtyahtnakal, and the Patriarchs when he'd met with them several days ago. Just as a young hatchling couldn't be allowed to stray too far from the nest, there was simply no sense for the Heptarchies to risk economic ruin.
Orith and those who ruled over him would shift their tone while pretending it was a natural decision, not one they'd been forced to make to align with reality.
"I must commend your tactics in the latest training exercise," Tenrah said, ruffling his feathers slightly before respectfully nodding to Annabelle.
"I am pleased to hear such high praise from you, Admiral," the woman said. She was fully dressed in her regulation spacesuit, meaning most of her face was obscured. But Tenrah wouldn't complain since it was more than prudent to be ready for anything. The next unknown ships might not be friendly.
He had also looked into the parties responsible for the lack of communication or warning of the Misan's arrival. As it turned out, general incompetence was to blame. A receiver hadn't been properly calibrated, so the transmission signal had just been noise. He'd given the officer in charge of that an earful before eventually letting up and telling him to do better. A personal visit with the Admiral was one thing. But a second personal visit was quite another.
Tenrah drew a vector toward some of the outer systems controlled by the High King. A few garrison forces were there, but they would be swept away almost instantly. What most concerned him was the shipyards in the region that received most of their metals from a select group of planets in those systems. They were rich in the metals required to forge the alloys needed in the High King's fleet.
The High Federation had been something of a dumping ground for either overthrown species or other alien species that had been deported from their homeworlds before the war broke out. This was reflected in the number of species inhabiting the worlds, each with unique names, traits, and temperaments.
"We plan on taking this path, and then splitting to conquer these systems and disable their metal exporting abilities," he explained. "Then we will move to this system."
He zoomed in more and drew a new vector from where the previous one ended. "We have intelligence that they have at least four planet crackers there. Brey will send FTL suppression satellites through portals on the outer edges, with her portals boosted by our psychic amplifier fields. we will be able to take over the system quickly, and begin the process of either disabling the planet crackers or moving them back to our territory."
"We will need to know the angles the superweapons are at before committing to the battle," Annabelle said. "Otherwise, judging by the trajectory cone you have, we can bypass them entirely and reach Siran within two weeks."
"And that is an interesting proposal. Can you lay out your plan, in that case?"
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Annabelle did so. She and Tenrah discussed the strategy's risks, and they eventually decided that such a tactic, while bold, wouldn't do what they set out to do: ensure the safety of the Cawlarians near the border. They were already trying to evacuate from the coming war front, but cities and planets were large things that took a lot of time to completely empty.
And more garrison forces, whether they were androids from Phoebe or specialized and highly trained defenders from the Union, were still moving in as the civilians evacuated. Kawtyahtnakal had established a fund for them, but many people were too stubborn to leave. Despite the looming threat of war and possible massacre, they still refused to board the passenger ships. Annabelle could respect their tenacity and courage, though she personally believed it was counterproductive.
A few encroaching splinters of Siran's fleet had already struck the evacuation forces. He'd sent around 2% of his ships away to harass all the border systems within reach in an attempt to get the Armada bogged down in defense. But with such small forces and the Union on such high alert, all of the important stations with weak shields were well within the protective layers of planetary shields in the area.
Larger garrisons than necessary were still required, of course, but Tenrah had managed to navigate the desperate concerns of the Feathers and those like them in charge of governing their planets with his natural political skill. He didn't need to ask them for favors because, as an Admiral, he alone held power over how his portion of the fleet would respond. Annabelle had witnessed that loyalty and control well within the organization of his fleet. Even at his advanced age, she continued to be impressed with his adaptability and skill at monitoring three-dimensional battle planes and fields.
She pointed to the cone of possible directions Siran was expected to take. They were generally adjacent to the border, though they would head around the left side of the territory he claimed from the Union. If he reached it, millions of lives would be lost every day. Once he broke the shields entirely, the planets would be utterly glassed down to their mantles.
She'd read up on his methods and had seen videos of them in action. Despite all her training, it still was haunting. The hivemind helped to soothe her when the unpleasant parts of command sizzled up to meet her in the middle of the night.
But they would not impede her on the field of battle. When she went to war, the hivemind suppressed all that wasn't necessary for the mission. It was their agreement, one which she'd asked of it. And being a node of the network meant that her stability was paramount, even more so than her title as Fleet Commander. For if she fell, others could take her place. Protocols ensured and demanded that.
But her place in the hivemind was what allowed it to have any strength this far out. It could form avatars and help with long-range communications, though the main mind back on Earth and Luna obviously remained disconnected from this distance.
"I would normally agree with you, Fleet Commander, but I am reminded of your tactic to use decoy hard light holograms."
"They will suspect that any ships heading right for the barrels, or close enough, are either not valued enough or are the decoys."
"Then all you have to do is make them impossible to ignore," Tenrah said. "I can lend you bombs capable of remaining armed and capable of being triggered inside of hard light holograms, even with jamming involved. Then, they will be unable to ignore them, and the explosions generated would destroy the shields in place around the planet crackers. If they fire the weapons, then the residual magnetic interference will allow us to destroy them, since the shields will be far weakened."
Annabelle could see the potential brilliance of the strategy. But it was just that- potential. In space, there were no obstacles. Without stealth fields, there was no hiding. And with hard light holograms, stealth was obviously off-limits.
They would be left approaching from angles that they would be unable to adapt to. She had her VI plot several routes but was unsatisfied, so she had Edu'frec link into the network to do it. Phoebe had been replaced after contacting a Sprilnav network to ensure she could scrub any programs that may have gotten through to her without distraction.
It would be a terrible thing for a Sprilnav AI to make it to her dreadnaught, for sure.
"We will likely need a threefold diversion at least," Annabelle said. "Maybe fourfold, if we can spare the forces, and brave any minefields that may exist."
"Well," Tenrah began. He pulled up a few schematics of the weapons her dreadnaught carried. "I believe you can solve the minefield issue from a distance, even with the lightspeed limit. After all, they can't move easily. As for the actual attack? I suggest a sixfold flower formation, with a twisting wings accent."
"You will have to show me a diagram of that," Annabelle said, grasping uselessly at the unfamiliar words. Before their integration had begun, there had been a limit to how much doctrine she could memorize.
Tenrah pulled up an image of an alien flower blooming with six petals. And then the image faded, overloading with a stylized ribbon of red shapes. The ribbons spun on their sides every thirty seconds, like corkscrews that were flatter.
"And in this case, the ribbons represent the drone formations. I can send a few carriers into the battle with fighter escorts, though we will need to keep them spread out to avoid any direct lines of sight from the planet crackers."
"I heavily doubt they will waste such shots on carriers," Annabelle said. "And if you commit more, you will overwhelm their defenses. I believe your drones are highly reflective, so only missiles and bullets can deal sufficient damage at the involved speeds and numbers we are working with here."
She tapped the diagram, shifting it by about 45 degrees.
"I believe I can fit a stealth force here, which will engage the back defenses of the planet crackers once they focus their shields frontward. I can likely get a full battlecruiser group in, and if you can press in as a wedge around 10 million kilometers above me from where I come in, and around 30 million kilometers below," Penny paused to draw the vectors with her hands, "Then it will aid in my ability to subdue them. It would likely shorten the battle time from a week down to four days."
"Assuming their detection satellites are not capable of seeing it."
"And we will target those too. I believe the first strike can fall on those, since the planet crackers will interfere with their ability to scan behind themselves, and such large power signatures can be noted."
"There is one more problem," Tenrah said. "We are generally working on the assumption of trying to capture these ships, yes?"
"Yes," Annabelle said.
"Then will we board them?"
"Yes, but no. Edu'frec and Phoebe's commando androids will open up the beach heads on the physical surfaces of the planet crackers, while our specialized mental warfare agents will take the fight to them in the mindscape. I assume you have your own plans in that regard?"
"It depends on how we will split the planet crackers. There are 12 in the system. Half and half?"
"That seems prudent," Annabelle replied. She selected the ones that would be most advantageous for her various gambits and strategies to work. They were closer together, which meant more capacity for coordination, mutual aid, and shielding. But it also meant a larger target, one which she could hit from many vectors without worrying about each enemy ship having a wide field of view. Some battlecruisers and cruiser groups were scattered around, but they were not enough to resist the Armada. And once Siran was robbed of a quick way to end the war, the Union would hold the upper hand, capable of committing devastating power to a fleet that remained in a system for a long time.
Yet the same was true for the Union and the Alliance. If the battle took too long, or their command positions were located, then the terrible might of the planet cracker beams would be turned upon them instead. Annabelle's dreadnaught was powerful. More so than all the ones before it. But that didn't mean she wanted to test her shields against alien planet crackers.
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Penny was talking to a group of freed slaves on Justicar. These were recent ones who still held quite a bit of trauma. They'd taken to calling her 'Liberator' despite her never identifying herself as such. It was oddly endearing and did make her feel quite a bit better. It was good to just be able to go out and help people.
She felt some perturbations in the mindscape but ignored them. Right now, she needed to ensure that the gangs couldn't continue their horrific industry. She'd taken out most of their heavy equipment and was now waiting for the Guides to finish searching.
Sirens and alarms echoed in the distance. Penny sent psychic energy into her eyes, but she was too far underground to see anything without using the energy itself instead of light to see. Justicar's mind seemed busy, so she couldn't connect with him. As time went on, Penny felt that something was wrong. It was a gut feeling that she couldn't place. But because of that, she was on edge. She made a large shield of psychic energy above them.
She held it for several minutes. Nothing happened, but Penny wouldn't let it down that quickly. Justicar still didn't respond. Her communicator rang. Kashaunta was calling.
"What's going on?" Penny asked.
"The Grand Fleet is-"
Light and heat smashed into her, easily breaking through her shields. She briefly saw tens of thousands of Sprilnav burning before the light overwhelmed her eyes. Her communicator was destroyed. The onslaught was accompanied by a monstrous level of sound. Shockwaves drilled Penny into the melting and fracturing ground, forcing her lower and lower into expanding pools of magma and liquid metal.
The city's upper layers fell upon her, crashing with great and terrible force. But Penny was now fully reinforced with psychic and conceptual energy. She erupted furiously from the rubble. The air around her burned with heat as she continued to accelerate. The armor plates now surrounding her glowed cherry red, but they were white by the time she'd reached space.
She reached the first planetary shield.
"Displace," Penny growled. She forced reality to move as she willed and to place herself where she saw fit. The Grand Fleets were high above, firing upon a small group of ships that had detached from Azeri's fleet. They seemed to be directly attacking the broken-off contingent and not Justicar itself.
So Penny increased her eyesight and analyzed the battle in both real space and the mindscape. Nilnacrawla helped her identify Justicar's targets. The massive Elder was angrier than she'd ever seen him, and his size, which was even larger than Tetelali, made that incarnation of him appear more like a god of wrath. She saw him brutally tear through groups of minds desperately running to avoid him.
She could faintly see spheres of psychic and conceptual energy area denial fields. From this distance, the flagships' strength was truly impressive. Both of them were at least ten times as powerful as Azeri's had been during their battle. It was clear both Kashaunta and Valisada had ordered upgrades.
Then, her attention came to the dreadnaught, which seemed to be at the head of the attack. Penny explored the ship with her psychic power, pushing aside all resistance. Several lasers struck her, but she ignored them, denying their impact in reality against her own.
It glowed with the fury of weapons firing. Missiles and fighters flowed out of its bays. Bullets, nukes, and lasers streamed from red-hot gun barrels. A nuke hit her but didn't explode. She ripped it apart, using the materials to add energy to her reserves.
Justicar continued to go in inside the mindscape. He tore at them like a shark at a school of minnows in a coral reef. His ravenous anger and hatred were frightening, but Penny rapidly got used to it. Calling up her own memories of the innocent people who'd been killed for no reason, Penny wrapped herself in energy and began to erase her signature from the area.
Fighters flew past her, no longer hitting her psychic shields with bullets. Lasers stopped firing at her since she'd moved from her last position, and there was no longer anything for them to track. Penny floated in the stars, with bright blooms of white fusion explosions blossoming around her. And so she moved forward. She reached a cruiser. She reached forward, teleporting past its shields, and shut down the ship's reactor by teleporting all of its fuel into the void.
Soon, a missile from Kashaunta's Grand Fleet found the vessel, and it vanished in another sphere of heat and light. Of course, it was all silent in space. Penny could only hear her heart beating and occasional warnings from Exile or Nilnacrawla at incoming attacks. Exile occupied the area in her ears, which felt weird, but it allowed him to speak without showing himself in the mindscape. Given his nature and the fact that the Grand Fleets likely had detections for speeding space entities, it would be a terrible idea for him to appear there. Nilnacrawla continued to help Penny with the mental aspects of the battle.
He processed the energy input and output that Penny was giving off in the hopes of keeping her off the sensors of the dreadnaught battlegroup. She didn't want to attract the full focus of one of those massive guns. The explosions on Justicar would have been capable of cracking apart a mountain range if not for the extensive dampening Justicar's shields had done. And she'd withstood them only because she could shunt off most of their impact into reality, leaning into her conceptual nature and the nature of Cardinality to escape certain death.
Even with her power, as high as it had ever been, the blow she was taking were the most powerful physical impacts she'd ever endured.
She also suspected Yasihaut's work in this, though she had nothing to prove. She also had to remain vigilant about the Judgment. She couldn't take overly hostile actions, so she didn't just teleport the Sprilnav in the area out of their ships. She tried it on a smaller scale, and a weak pressure from the dreadnaught made her power fail to affect them.
But those Sprilnav were still doomed to die by their commander. But Penny didn't wish to doom the Alliance and herself by taking their deaths into her own hands. And she was stained with enough blood, metaphorical and literal. The ashes of the people she'd freed had fallen away with her ascent into the atmosphere, but the gritty memory and feel of them never would.
Once again, she'd been powerless to save those who'd needed her. And if she'd had that power, what could she have really done? Would she have been forced to stand there and take it? Or could she have really fought back in a way that wouldn't be turned against her in the Judgment? And was she wrong for considering all of that during such a horrendous time, when she'd literally seen thousands of people turned to slag and ash before her very eyes just ten minutes ago?
Penny burned with shame and grief. She hated this. She hated that things always turned to this. Why couldn't the galaxy just leave people alone? Why did there have to be so much suffering? Her anger threatened to overwhelm her, but with a herculean effort from her, Nilnacrawla, and Cardi, it was beaten back.
Penny felt Justicar getting close to breaking through the shield. She sent a small jolt of power to its underside. A thick bolt of psychic lightning infused with rage leaped from her arms, shattering the shield completely and taking roughly half her power. In the dreadnaught, the antimatter reactor she could sense radiating its energy suddenly lost all coolant access.
She pushed her psychic energy into herself and her conceptual energy into words that she harmonized into existence with the force and might of her will.
"Cardinality: One to zero. Reversal."
A heap of her energy left her instantly, stopping a budding explosion from ripping the dreadnaught apart. Justicar absolutely ravaged whoever was inside that ship, including what appeared to be a leader figure in the mindscape. Penny watched Justicar smash the Elder's corpse in his jaws and tear his soul from his body before shredding it violently with a contraption that looked straight out of a horror movie.
She let the explosion go, and so it went. The dreadnaught cracked in half. The Grand Fleets, which had never stopped firing, finally broke through the shields as the circuits failed to supply them with power. Hundreds of thousands of lives winked out instantly, torn to subatomic particles by beams coming from two different flagships. Penny went straight to Kashaunta, appearing on the ship's bridge still in stealth. To their credit, her guards noticed immediately and bared their weapons at her.
The guns that were powerful enough to blast holes in skyscrapers and sturdy enough to withstand a fall from orbit with hardly a scratch unloaded their payloads into her. Penny opened her mouth, and strings of psychic energy writhed outward, wrapping themselves around the guns and wrenching them out of the claws of Kashaunta's guards while the impacts' explosions were contained by thick shields.
Kashaunta herself had already drawn her sword but hadn't moved an inch.
"Penny," she said dryly. "Welcome to my ship. I apologize for your reception."
A new shield came down on both of them, preventing their words from reaching the ears of Kashaunta's subordinates.
"Think nothing of it, Elder Kashaunta. What punishments will be given to the Grand Fleet Commander?"
"Well, technically I am not the Grand Fleet Commander of this fleet," she said. "So that is not really something I can enforce. However, the Grand Fleet Commander of the 85th Grand Fleet does wish to talk with you, Justicar, and myself about what just occurred."
"And you believe him?" she exclaimed.
"He sent transcripts of the message he sent to one Elder Solei, asking him to cease his actions before it was too late."
"Even the Alliance can make deepfakes," Penny said.
"And do you think I would be ignorant of such things, child?" Kashaunta asked. "We have ways around those. That is why we still have a society after billions of years of time to screw it all up. Deepfakes are a problem of less advanced species and cultures, not those with the tools to handle them."
"Which are AIs, which you also ban throughout the galaxy."
"Yes."
"Isn't that hypocritical?"
"Yes, it is," Kashaunta said. "You can go and complain to the Judges who decided that if you wish, though asking them to think of the children instead of preserving the power of the entire Sprilnav species will get you laughed at by a billion mouths."
Penny felt something in her mind take offense to Kashaunta's wording. It didn't feel like it was part of her, but it also did. The shock of all the lives lost hit her again, making her scowl.
"So there will be nothing done?" Penny growled.
"No. Prepare for a neutral and level-headed discussion. If you wish to have any seat at a table such as this, you will conduct yourself with decorum. You will not accuse Elder Valisada of being responsible for whichever fool did this, and you most certainly will not baselessly claim that Yasihaut is at fault for this, even if it is likely that she or her backers are. It is time you learn the lesson that all Elders have: there are always more Sprilnav. Recognize that this was a strike against you without casting aside all of your goodwill among those that matter."
"Those that matter," Penny mused. "Sometimes I forget what you are."
Kashaunta stepped forward, eyes narrowing. She let out a hiss.
"You saw a few thousand people die, and now you're back to the racism again? Grow up. People die all the time in this galaxy. You complain about the status quo. I would respect that, if you could stomach what is required to change it. Death will continue to run rampant, and you will be the reason more die no matter what you do. 760 sextillion Sprilnav, Penny. And you cry over ten thousand?
During the Source war, we sent two years olds to war. You don't get to slide back into comfortable dumb hatred of our species because of a few stupid people. Rest assured, if you ever get this Alliance-based order, you or your successors will become tyrants. There will be a human who has the power and will to start wars, and enact genocides, for functionally no reason. Need I remind you of World War Two, and World War Three? If you multiply the population of Humanity by a trillion, that means you'll get a trillion Pol Pots, or Hitlers, or Genghis Khans.
And a hell of a lot more dumb idiots in power, which ascribes most of the history of nearly every species in the galaxy. Notice how Valisada and I both fired on Solei once he decided to be an adult daycare nominee? Notice how Valisada has not fired at us, or Justicar, and is trying his best to start a constructive dialogue? People die in war, Penny. This is reality. And you cast your disdain onto me, the only Sprilnav keeping you alive in this place, because I happened to be born an Elder. But no. I'm still some alien, right? Just another dirty animal for you to kill when the Judgment ends."
Kashaunta's fury caught Penny off-guard. The Elder truly meant her words. Penny had deeply offended her, cracking open the facade she usually maintained. The smug feeling at having made Kashaunta go on such a tirade faded when she considered the circumstances. Maybe she had acted like a child. But she hadn't said anything truly deserving of such a furious tirade, had she?
Not unless her proclamation that she remembered 'what Kashaunta was' had an implication that she didn't understand. Kashaunta was a mass murderer, one who was more than willing to justify it when necessary. And she downplayed the fact that this attack was on Penny herself and on thousands of innocents on a Sprilnav planet where she was meant to be safe. This wasn't a pair of assassins in the night, slipping poison into water or dropping snakes into a bed. This was a much more insidious and terrifying evil. Penny had been powerless to stop it.
Penny knew she was right, but Kashaunta did not. Could she truly weigh her scant decades against Kashaunta's billions of years of age? Perhaps. Age was not wisdom, though it certainly could be experience. Kashaunta turned around and started to walk away. Sadly, Penny still needed her.
"I'm sorry, Kashaunta. I am... incredibly charged. I am very pissed right now. I am not apologizing for how I feel about this attack. I have every right to be upset, and I will remain so. I will not be bullied or cowed into submission, even by a thousand more tirades. There comes a point where something must be done. But if you are upset over what I said, then I would at least like an honest clarification why."
"Because you had showed me you could think like a person should. That you didn't see people's species anymore. That you were becoming less racist. And yet, when you are cut raw, you still see me as a Sprilnav Elder alone, and therefore complicit in this massacre I literally did everything I could to do stop before it worsened. You said you knew 'what I am' as if you'd forgotten that. And it is clear that you meant that you'd forgotten your belief that I am some dirty criminal Sprilnav, who deserves to be slaughtered in the dark for the crime of being born in her species.
You care more for the ash on Justicar than you do for what I have given you. Your simplistic view of reality would mean that if you could push a button to kill us Elders, you'd do it, robbing countless families of their loved ones, because you now remember 'what we are,' and are again regressing away from your previous growth."
"I am one person, Kashaunta. I don't understand why you care this much about me. But I can recognize that the message you received is one of terrible bigotry. I am suffering, every day, every week, that I remain in this god-forsaken place. It hurts for you to dismiss the people I care about, even for a moment, dying just because there are many of them. But that does not excuse what I said to you despite the death toll you carry on your own head. It was a half-truth."
Kashaunta laughed. "Do you know why I care so much about what you think, Penny? It is because you are the other aliens. All at once. The Alliance is the face of all things 'alien' in many places. Remember what conceptual energy is? Lecalicus told you, I believe. You represent more than just your own views. And if you're able to forgive a speeding space entity, but not me, then it shows that we will never have peace. That no matter what, this cycle of hatred will continue, and I will need to either build a new galaxy with aliens that don't hate us for our ancient crimes, or just figure out another way. You are the face of the rest of the galaxy, Penny. And you have just told me that you still hate me for being an Elder. After I thought you had changed."
"And you believe you are undeserving of such hatred?"
"Penny," Kashaunta said. "The Alliance didn't exist when many of these events happened. Some of your grievances are older than the mountains on Earth. You say you hate us for genocides that happened so long ago that they no longer hold any meaning. There is no compensation we can give to dead species on dead worlds. What you want is an alien species to hate and blame for all the universe's problems. Because it is easier to hate us than to confront reality. And we are the ones you have been told to hate."
"They were not small things. It was the deaths of trillions of people, Kashaunta."
"Yes. And it was wrong. I can understand that. But what do you think will happen when your Alliance, filled with people who hate us, takes over? You will see humans bombing Sprilnav schools, and the hivemind will do nothing, for it will share that hate. Acuarfar will abduct and torture us. Knowers will devour our children. And in the face of that? You would turn a blind eye, because it is too hard to solve with a simple fix. You will only propagate generational hatred, just as all the Alliances and Galactic Republics and Peace Unions did before you.
Because underneath your message of equality for all species is oppression and genocide for us, the villains in your little story. That is what happens in reality, once the benevolent dictators die. And you, who have lived with us, eaten with us, and talked with us, will sit upon your golden throne, and when I am brought before you, naked, bleeding, and in need of support, you will throw me away, because all I am to you is an Elder. That mindset is exactly what stands in the way of peace. It is why I stopped giving you aliens chances for so long. And having to argue this with you at all makes me think you may no longer be worth my effort."
More manipulation. Penny was ready to shout at her, but Nilnacrawla pulled her thoughts away from blind anger. And it did feel unnatural for her. Alien.
"This is not peace," Penny said. "This is war. And we are circumstantial allies. I will not become what you claim."
"I have sown the seeds of a thousand despots," Kashaunta said. "I recognize them when I see them because I have reaped the heads of a million more."
Penny sighed. She wanted to resist and continue arguing, but it wouldn't get her anywhere. Now that she had thought about it, she was unlikely to overturn a viewpoint set in a billion years of experiences. Perhaps Penny could explore this later, when she had time to properly process it all.
"Very well. I will go to this meeting of yours, and I will conduct myself with decorum. However, while I refuse to belittle or forget thousands of deaths, I am sorry that you feel this way."
"But you are not sorry about making me feel so."
"No," Penny replied. She suppressed her emotions more, taking the time to carefully consider her words. Kashaunta was wrong and oddly sensitive right now. Saying the wrong thing could damage far more than their mutual feelings. As much as she wanted to win this argument, Kashaunta was who she was. She was the alien dictator keeping the Alliance alive.
"We are both right in some ways, and perhaps we might be both wrong, too. This only shows how tough the road will be. We at least are consciously trying to come to an understanding. But for the billions of Alliance citizens, quintillions of aliens, and sextillions of Sprilnav? It is a gargantuan task. And... right now, I don't think it is possible."
"It isn't," Kashaunta said. "And it won't be for thousands of years. But we don't get some neat little time skip to wait and solve all of our problems for us. Change will start only when we make it."
Kashaunta was throwing her a bone, then. They both knew the argument couldn't continue right now.
"So we have an understanding, then," Penny said. "Hatred will remain, but it must be minimised. That way, cultural and social pressure will eventually stamp it out, and we may have peace."
"No. We will have a truce, which will only become peace with much more work. The Alliance is a nation that is 24 years old. Only a single generation has grown up within it. Negotiations will be hard with so many who remember the hatred. But Valisada is not like other Sprilnav. He will seek to bring a hybrid war to you and the Alliance, unless you can convince him that you truly mean to bridge the divide. You are clearly misguided, but have a genuinely good heart. That will make life hard for you. Your words today would have spelled the death of you and the Alliance, had I not established this shield around us to hide them. Out of the spirit of our friendship, I will not request a favor in return for this boon."
"Thank you, Kashaunta. Though I'm not sure I can consider you a friend."
"The fact that you bothered to listen to my side of things, in this limited aspect, despite the hurt you must feel right now, proves otherwise. I am well aware of my past crimes, Penny. I know that my emotions today were a weakness I should have been able to seal, and that you will still see me for who I was, and not who I am. I know how it sounds for me, a killer and a ruler, to be upset at being confronted. But that is how I am. I still have my pride as an Elder, and there is only so far it can be pushed. Who I was certainly would qualify as beyond evil. But to remain at the top, there are limits to how far you can swing into benevolence.
I cannot atone. Do not try to make me repay debts that you don't own. If you are ever to have more Elders on your side, whether Progenitors or otherwise, you will need to learn to deal with this. There will be people with death tolls higher than the population of the Alliance, who were once the heart of evil and are now at least acceptable. The first step will be recognizing that, yes, we are in fact friends, despite my history. Because only from friendship and understanding can hope come."
"I will think about this more. My feelings about this, and about you, have not yet solidified."
"I was wrong for what I said to you, Penny. We are both on edge, and said things that we didn't properly express. We should get our heads in order before re-entering this argument with logic instead of emotions."
"I agree. I will go and see who I can save. And I will think more about this. I freed people from slavery, and watched them die today. Respectfully, I must spend some time away from you for now."
Penny left the ship. In something near her subconscious, anger remained. When she landed in the rubble once again, she missed a small but steady stream of conceptual energy wafting into her from below.

Big ups to Accidentally Adopted for inspiring this white hot dumpster fire. Enjoy, or don't I have shenanigans elsewhere that need my attention.
“So we’re screwed?”
“Well, Neb, let’s go over the day's events. Pirates have boarded, they’ve blown away our communications relay, all but slaughtered us and those of us who survived are stuck in the safe room with no control over the ship, so-”
A third voice flatly interrupted the condescending tirade. “Specimen’s loose.”
“And now the specimen is loose. Yeah Neb, I think we’re screwed.”
Four scientists were all gathered in the ship's safe room. They were all that remained. Pared down from a crew of over two dozen they were the only ones that happened to be close, or perhaps lucky, enough to make it to the final bulwark.
“But we’re in the safe room. They can’t get in here, right? We just have to wait them out, wait for help?”
That question belonged to Trest, the youngest and most inexperienced of the lot. She had just earned her apprenticeship and had come to Kem’s ship wide-eyed and primed for adventure. But fate occasionally has a cruel sense of humor, so her first foray into the stars would be her last, it seemed.
Kem turned to face her, he didn’t want to be mean, he really didn’t. But the time for pleasantries and comforting lies had passed. The poor lass needed to know what they were facing so that she could make peace with whatever god it was she prayed to.
“I’ll humor you Trest,” he quipped “Let’s assume that these particular pirates are the special kind of bland that happen to be the only crew that galavants around without plasma cutters. They’ve already cut out our comms. They’ll simply steal everything of value, everything of no value, anything else not nailed down, and blow our engines. Doesn't matter if they can’t get in, there is a finite amount of oxygen in this room. With no signal or signature, we’ll be corpses before anyone even realized we were missing.”
He could see the tears begin to well in her eyes as the realization washed over her. Perhaps he could have used a little more tact in his hypothetical, but the stress of being about to be consigned to the void was weighing on him. He made a mental note to apologize to her in the afterlife.
He was also not trained or ready to deal with a blubbering intern, so he decided to distract himself with more pertinent matters.
“What are they up to out there?” He asked Wren, purposely avoiding the torrential sob storm that Trest was about to unleash.
“No idea.” Wren huffed as he tossed his tablet to the side, “After they broke the locks on the specimen’s cell, they cut the feed. We’re stuck blind and waiting now.”
Kem’s frills rippled. It was one thing to be trapped waiting for death, but to do so with no inkling as to the estimated arrival time of the Great Winged Guardian was a different beast altogether. Fortunately, or perhaps, unfortunately, the universe grew tired of its malicious malarky and decided not to leave the beleaguered scientists in bated anticipation as the muffled roar of a plasma cutter opposite the security door broke through the air.
Instinctively the four moved toward the back wall, away from their impending demise. Not that it mattered much, there really wasn’t anywhere to go. The loud thunk of the safety interlock being cut, and the scraping metal on metal of the door being pried open gave finality to the doomed researcher’s situation.
Two Korrivian pirates strode through the threshold. Their armoured carapace would be more than enough to ward off any feeble assault the biologists could muster. Their mandibles were hungry clacking at the sight of new, succulent prey.
Oh good Kem thought They’re not just the steal your stuff kind, they’re also the kill and eat you kind. And currently, he was very much hoping that they would choose to do it in that order.
So it came as a minor relief when one of the insects raised its rifle towards him. It then came as a major shock when the pirate was suddenly relieved of his weapon. And one of his arms.
The bug didn’t even have time to register the missing appendage when the stock of his former rifle became intimately acquainted with his face plate. He crumpled to the ground in a heap of twitching chitin. His associate turned to face this unexpected intrusion only to be met with the same weapon slamming down on the top of his head, shattering whatever minuscule cluster of neurons that passed for a brain it had once had.
The quartet had no time to feel any relief, however, as their would-be savoir turned out to be the thing of their nightmares set loose. It was the specimen. It stood over the pirates, skin glistening and breathing heavily, likely examining its most recent handiwork. It took a long deep breath and dropped the rifle to the floor with a loud clang. This led to Trest letting out a petrified yelp. Bad move. The specimen took notice and looked up. It scanned the petrified group of academics until its predatory eyes landed squarely on Trest. It bore its teeth and raised one of its hands, waving it back and forth violently in some aggressive hunting display.
Wren and Neb took measured steps to distance themselves from poor Trest, who appeared to have, for some reason or another, attracted the targeted ire of the bloodthirsty beast. Kem, however, was made of slightly stiffer stuff and took his role as expeditionary leader rather seriously, so he stepped between the beast and the quivering intern. After the violent display the specimen just put on he seriously doubted that this gesture would make any difference, but at least he could make a good show of it, and maybe provide the girl a few more moments of precious life.
The specimen recoiled slightly and looked almost offended. It shook its head back and forth a few times.
“Friend,” it said as it pointed a single digit toward a violently trembling Trest. “Friend sing me.”
The three others turned toward her looking for clarification on the bizarre statement. Her frills deepened with embarrassment. She had been, admittedly, more than a little unsettled to be in such close proximity to what could best be described as a walking war machine, so while running her experiments she had taken to singing hatchery rhymes softly to herself to soothe her nerves. The bizarre creature had mistakenly thought she was singing to it, though given her current precarious predicament, she thought better of correcting it.
Neb would be the voice to ask the question that now lingered in everyone’s mind. “Wait. How the hell does it know how to mimic our speech? Where could it possibly have learned that?”
The specimen it seemed had anticipated that question, or at the very least one in the same vein. It cocked its head to one side “See-know, same not same.” Its face seemed to condense, it tried to clarify, “Learn speaks. Learn space.”
“Great” Wren moaned “All it knows is gibberish.”
“No, I don’t think that it's gibberish.” Neb retorted. “I think it’s trying to communicate. I’m fairly certain we can decipher what it's trying to say if we look at it scientifically. We have to work backwards; extrapolate from incomplete data.” He began pacing as he was wont to do when faced with a particularly vexing quandary.
“Learn space is fairly obvious, it’s likely analogous to one of our schools or academies. Learn speaks is more difficult, but seeing as it was able to use the singular for Trest’s singing and used the plurality for speaking, combined with the speed at which it picked up words from our language we can reasonably surmise that it wasn’t actually learning to speak per se, but likely was learning languages, or at least something adjacent like linguistics. Same-not-same is a different challenge.” His pacing became more erratic as he fell deeper into the linguistic mystery. “Likely something that is close, but not the exact same.” His eyes lit up as the pieces began to fall into place “Something similar! See-know is a little more difficult…I think that, in conjunction with similar, we can assume it to be comprehension, or at the very least understanding.”
Neb’s tail smacked the floor with insight “Recognition! So if we combine all the data points, of course factoring in interpretation errors, I think it’s trying to say that it has pattern recognition and picked up our language because it was studying them at an academy!” Neb’s pride at deciphering the solution quickly gave way to abject terror “Wait…if it has pattern recognition…and was studying at an institution…that would mean…NO! No. Nononononononono.” He pointed a shaky phalange at the specimen “It’s a sentient! We’ve been running experiments on a sentient!” Neb collapsed to the floor, embracing himself in a fetal position at the revelation, incoherently rambling about “moral failings.”
The specimen looked slightly upset at Neb’s existential crisis “Hurt.” It said as it pointed to the whimpering mess
“No, not hurt. Stupid.” Kem hoped his simplified answer would suffice, but the empty stare he received indicated the opposite.
Though it couldn’t fully understand Kem its ability to perceive and react to change did lend weight to Neb’s theory. This gave him an idea to truely test the sentient capabilities of the specimen. He stared down the one working computational station in the room. Show time.
Kem made a gesture to the specimen to follow as he walked over to the console, and much to his surprise it dutifully followed him without any hesitation.
He booted up the translation matrix input program. The screen flickered and a crude picture of a dwelling appeared. “Speak,” Kem said.
The specimen narrowed its eyes at the image before it turned to Kem and lifted its shoulders briefly.
Kem scoffed. “You. Speak.”
It stared back at the picture for a moment, before bringing up one of its hands, moving it in a way that created an odd clicking sound. It then growled something in a strange dialect that he assumed was its mother tongue. The image changed and the specimen belted out something else.
Shit, it's figured it out. Looks like Neb was right Kem reasoned. As the specimen continued to work through the images brought up on the console, he made his way over to Neb, plucking the earpiece from his incapacitated colleague.
He made his way back to the specimen, as it was finishing up with the program, and let out a short cough to grab its attention. He offered up the earpiece and pointed to the side of his own head. The specimen took it and moved its head up and down. With some difficulty, it managed to seat the piece on its alien anatomy.
“Hello? Is this better? Is it easier to understand?” Kem asked the specimen.
Its face contorted briefly, “Yeah…yes. Better. Thank you.”
“It won’t be perfect, syntax, idioms and grammar may become distorted or incorrect, but it’s a logarithmic learning algorithm. The more we speak, the clearer it will become, you understand?”
The specimen nodded its head. “Yeah, I get it. What I don’t get, however,” Kem flinched at the sudden shift in tone from the specimen “is why we didn’t just do this off the hop. It would have made everything easier!”
This decidedly posed a problem for Kem. He could lie, and risk pissing the specimen off. Or he could tell the truth, and risk pissing the specimen off. As science is the pursuit of truth and to his core he was a scientist, he went with the latter.
“We didn’t know you were a sentient,” he said quietly.
“What?!” the specimen seemed incensed. “When you scooped me up, did you not notice the cities? The signals? The satellites? Like I get it, it’s not Star Trek-level space shit, but surely that level of civilization should have given it away.”
There was a strange silence as no one apparently wanted to answer the question. The specimen once again regarded the others in the room, all of whom had suddenly, simultaneously found the floor incredibly fascinating.
Kem sighed, the next answer may be more difficult, but seeing as thus far the specimen had been fairly amenable, he pressed on. “You were purchased.”
“WHAT!? WHY!?”
Kem’s tail flicked non-commitally. “Because grant funding has been sparse recently. To get any appreciable amount, a shattering discovery needs to be made. One of my crewmen said he “knew a guy” as it were, and it turns out his contact was good. So we pooled what little funding we got, along with some of our own savings, and purchased you, stasis pod, and all. You were billed as an exotic, unknown, apex ambush predator. Something that’s relatively difficult to get one's hands on.”
The specimen stared blankly at him for a few moments before bursting out in a fit of laughter. “Buddy, you got railroaded. I may be one of those things. But if that’s what you were paying for, you got scammed.”
“How’s that?” asked Kem.
“For starters, I ain’t apex. I could rattle off a dozen animals that would beat my ass, half of them prey, off the top of my head.” the specimen explained “Plus, not an ambush predator, there’s persistence hunting in my lineage, sure, but not something we’ve done for a long time. All in all, we’re pretty bland. I think the ‘unknown’ thing is the only category I qualify for.”
“Persistence predation? That would explain why our experimentation was going awry, we were chasing the wrong path!” Kem froze, in the excitement he had accidentally, explicitly, revealed their ethically dubious enterprise. He looked back to the specimen who seemed to have not reacted to the information.
“I do apologize. Had we known about your sentience, we wouldn’t have performed such invasive procedures. I can only hope you aren’t too angry”
The specimen let out a strange snort “You call those invasive? Hell, I’ve had worse blood draws at the lab. Other than the weird mix-up where you assumed I wasn’t a person, this whole trip has been a ride on easy street. So no, I’m not angry.”
This made very little sense to Kem, if he had been kidnapped, mistaken for a beast, and had experiments performed on him he would be more than a little miffed. So for the Nth time today, he decided to be bold. “I’ll risk overstepping, but why aren’t you at least a little mad?”
“Because this is so objectively absurd. If you had told me six months ago, that I’d be bouncing around a starship, waxing alien cockroaches to save a bunch of walking Geico ads that thought that I had the cognitive capacity of an ant and had plans to vivisect me, I would have asked if you were smoking crack cocaine, but…” The specimen gesticulated widely around the room “Here we are!”
The specimen thought for a moment. “Wait…you said stasis pod and all? Hell, it may be longer than six months, but my point stands. All of this, it’s insane.”
“Insane as it all may be,” Kem said as he wandered back to the console “Now that we’ve cleared up this, uh, unfortunate misunderstanding, I think it would be beneficial for all parties to get you back where you came from.”
He pulled up a holographic galactic map and turned back to the specimen, whose demeanor had once again shifted, this time it emanated an air of disappointment.
“Something the matter?” He asked.
“Well, it’s just that, where I’m from, this would literally be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” It paused “I was kind of hoping you’d allow me to stay, even if for just a while. A grand space adventure sounds pretty neat.” It pointed to the map “‘Sides, that might as well be written in hieroglyphs, don’t know if I could find Earth even if I was chomping at the bit for it.”
Kem thought on this, there was a lot of potential to having such a creature around. If he could somehow convince it to allow experimentation to continue, even at a reduced rate, the data provided could be invaluable, not to mention recrewing would be infinitely easier with the level of protection the specimen could offer. He prepared himself to negotiate with all the tact that he could muster, but the specimen seemed ready to do his job for him.
“I ain’t no freeloader. I’d be willing to pull my weight, hell I’d be willing to let you keep running your experiments, with the euthanasia and dissection bits off the table, of course.” It offered.
Kem was shocked. Not only was the specimen ready to work to earn its stay, but it had also willingly offered its body for science. He was practically salivating at the academic prestige, not to mention the grant funding that would roll his way. There was no chance he was going to let this opportunity slip through his webbed fingers.
“No cutting you open. Seems a reasonable compromise.” He hissed with amusement “I’m sure we can make reasonable accommodations to facilitate your stay, if you’re certain. Though if you do find yourself lacking anything, once we crew up, feel free to ask.”
“I think I'm alright. I’m a creature of few earthly comforts, all I need is the clothes on my back and-”
The specimen stopped mid-sentence, glancing down briefly at its own form. Its face twisted into one of abject horror. Realizing, seemingly for the first time, that in this entire escapade, it had been naked as the day it was hatched.
“Actually, there is one thing,” it added quickly “You guys got a towel? Bit chilly in here.”

Greetings fellow redditors and coders, I started my coding journey back at January, when I started to learn C++ at my community college. This said intro to coding course covers just the basics of procedural programming (I'm not too sure if that is the technical term for non Object Oriented Programming) such as:
variable declarations/types/expressions/assignments
some string/char manipulation (for a lack of a better term)
Booleans
if-else branches
fowhile loops
vectors/arrays
functions
The online textbook I'm using is Zybooks, and other than the required labs I need to do for a grade, I don't really find the non-graded practice problems really interesting to do. A lot of the times I either finish the said practice lab in like 20 - 30 minutes, or I spend little over a hour figuring out a practice problem, just to get more frustrated than its worth. In addition, for the most part I feel somewhat comfortable of the core concepts being taught in this course. However, there are some concepts I feel more shaky on such as functions, vectors, or loops. But I feel like with given practice, and me not getting really frustrated, I hope to get comfortable with these concepts. At the current moment, I recently registered for the next programming class which would focus more on the Object Oriented side of C++ over the summer (2-month long course), in hopes to better concentrate on programming, before I go back with the normal full-time class load. I wanted to get everyone's opinion on good resources to get practice problems or projects that covers topics in a more fun format. I've seen some sites online that tried to mix gaming elements with coding problems, but I am not sure if those are even good in general. On top of that too, for C++ and other C-Family languages, is there any other sites similar to Cplusplus.com, that is also accurate and or up-to-date, that you guys can recommend? Lastly, is there any techniques/recommendations from your time as a programmer to help with debugging and or solving coding problems, I've heard that programming is like 90% planning and 10% coding itself. So far I had a hard time to put this into practice, and I think its the driving reason of my frustrations in some of the problems I tried. Also, if there happens to be anyone who has experience in Machine Learning or Computer Vision on this subreddit, do you guys recommend it to new undergrads, since my goal at the moment is to go down the more Machine Learning path when I progress throughout my degree! Sorry for the lengthy post, however I am open for any suggestions y'all bring in this discussion! :)

I'm posting this not only to share this information that might be useful to others, but also in hopes of hearing some advice or your own personal theories on the subject. This post will be a bit long.
After having one intense dream I haven't been able to lucid dream, and I started recording any information on it in a journal in hopes of finding a way to lucid dream again. I'll share my dream below, as well as some journal entries that I found important, including posts and comments from reddit and other online forums I thought were relevant.
I've been an avid lucid dreamer since childhood, more than half of my dreams have always been lucid as long as I've known. About seven years ago I believe I started traveling to the astral realm during my dreams, often seeing the mall hub, airport and large city. I always thought they were dreams until I started researching astral travel as well as the TheMallWorld subreddit. It also sent me down a spiritual rabbit-hole including hermeticism, gnosticism, simulation and prison planet theory.
Spring 2023 was when I woke up to the matrix and reconnected with my spirit. I was meditating daily at this point and never felt more free and "myself". In my last lucid dream almost a year ago, I was in an office with a man. I felt he held some sort authority over me. I told him I wanted to leave and he said I couldn't, I still had more to do. When I tried to leave he called security and they chased after me. I became lucid. I stopped in my tracks, and willed myself out of the dream. I didn't wake up like usual, I'd teleported to a beautiful mountain scene. I looked down and in my hand was my cell phone, it was ringing. I answered, and on the other end was the man supposedly in charge of my dreams. He was angry that I'd left. He told me I needed to come back, I wasn't ready to be where I was. I knew he was trying to manipulate me, so I told him I wouldn't fall for his lies anymore. I'm a sovereign being and he can no longer control me. This made him furious, he screamed into the phone that he would call the police on me and have me arrested. I just laughed and hung up the phone, knowing wherever I was it was out of his reach. I think he was an archon.
Since then, I haven't been able to lucid dream. My dreams have all mostly taken place in Mall World or a hospital, I'm hiding from the police or nurses while trying to escape every night. I'm always being stabbed, shot or injected with a needle most often. A few times I've managed to almost become lucid, I say almost because it's like I forgot as soon as I realized that I was dreaming. Once I tried fighting off three police officers, I managed to overpower them but then more came and tazed me. I've also tried fighting back against the nurses, I stood my ground and firmly yelled "NO I REFUSE" but another one snuck up behind me, injected me and I woke up. They've also pretended to be people I know, an entity pretended to be my husband before shooting me in the chest with a shotgun and I bled out in the snow. Another one pretended to be my mother who laughed hysterically while I watched my husband die and desperately tried to save him.
Here is a great post on the subject, OP has some excellent info. I agree with everything included. Especially how these beings control lucidity and their eyes look strange. When I focused on a nurse's face it looked like the girl from system of a down's "Aerials" music video.
Here is another post, from the mall world subreddit. I was one of the only people who agreed with OP, he got torn apart in the comments.
I've recorded some other people's experiences that match up with mine, I've noticed an increase in manipulated dreams being reported on multiple subreddits including this one. I won't include usernames for privacy, don't be surprised if you see your own experience paraphrased here. Thank you to all who shared, this is very valuable to me.
Reports of "Evil Hospital" in Mall World
Described by many astral travelers and lucid dreamers, Mall World is a shared place in the dreamscape/astral plane, definitely check out theMallWorld sub for more context if you don't know. Here is a link to an older thread about it. A common theme besides the mall is an "evil hospital" where people including myself are trapped and often trying to escape. We're chased down by nurses or uniformed guards and drugged, injected and sedated. There is a dark and endless basement in the hospital. Here is a link on a post about it.
"It looked more like an airport or something inside. Tons of windows/glass walls and ceilings."
"I've been there, dark and creepy. They strapped me to the bed and injected me after capturing me at the airport."
"I was taken to this sphere in the sky. I could see people going about their day, like an alien mall. Then they took me to perform tests, they love puzzle tests and injections."
"Before I woke up I dreamed I was being injected and couldn't move."
"I'll 'wake up' in a hospital setting or be in a situation hiding or being hunted. The fear, pain, sadness— these are all fully experienced. I have felt, for instance, myself being shot in the back. They can make you feel yourself being shot and bleeding to death, or being operated on, over and over and over."
"People whose dormant DNA is being activated and their frequency is elevating. I believe these injections are used to keep the energy body trapped inside this dimension."
"There is some very fucked up MKUltra type shit always going in in this place; from what I've read on Mall World, I'm guessing it's a similar brainwashing scenario"
That last quote— am I being brainwashed? I noted in my journal that it feels like my lucidity and perception is being controlled.
Here are some reports on the "authorities" and lucid dreaming, I believe the police/security are archons and the nurses are some sort of greys or artificial intelligence. I've also heard accounts from real people acting as nurses or security for lucid dreamers.
"Feels like every time I lucid dream, some authorities pluck me out of the dream and plop me into Mall World, where even if I realize I'm dreaming I cannot lucid dream."
"I manage a security team in my dreams tasked with stopping or dealing with folks who go lucid. I don't really understand why."
"Lucid dreaming is not just happening in your head when you do it. When you dream, you're returning your consciousness to its natural state. There is much manipulation carried out to prevent this. When you go into the dream state, your conciousness can be doped with a sort of anesthetic... these dream characters chasing people when they become lucid is a common occurance; they're there to make sure you don't get info on what they're doing behind the curtains and bring info back here. This is why you wake up as soon as they touch you."
"I don't think you're allowed to lucid dream there. I think lucid dreaming gets you locked in"
I've been locked in ever since I stood up to that man in my dream. I can't escape this place in my dreams.
Some people also mention underground tunnels in the hospital, when I've seen them I was running and hiding from the nurses and men in white lab coats.
"They [the tunnels] all connect in some way and once the authorities figure out you're trying to help people or rebel we always end up running away from them because it's the only way out but I wake up before I escape with anyone. Some of the doors have extra supplies or it's a broom closet or another door that connects to a high school."
"These service tunnels are the back door to the entire realm. Tends to be filled with hospital workers and employed "locals" who can navigate it. Not a place you want to end up, honestly."
From my compilation of notes and the experiences of other people, this is what I concluded: 1. Mall world is part of the simulated matrix, fake reality meant to keep me trapped. 2. The "evil hospital" is a prison to prevent lucid dreamers from escaping this reality. 3. The "drug" in these dreams sedates the astral body or consciousness and prevents lucidity or awareness. 4. I can use lucid dreaming to affect my waking reality or communicate with my inner source
This is some of the notes I've taken that I believe are relevant. I've tried many things to gain lucidity. During the day I practice mindfulness and self awareness and control. At night before bed I declare my sovereignty and demand I be left alone during my dreams. I've tried visualizing a safe house to keep me safe in my dreams, a practice I found here in this sub. I've also tried doing reality checks and wake induced lucid dreaming (WILD). Nothing has worked. I would love to hear your thoughts or advice. I hope you found this post helpful.

This is a long story so I'll try to keep to the facts, but it's a lot.
I (37F) have a childhood friend I'll call Alex (35M) that I love like a brother. We would be in and out of contact for years at a time but it was always the same when we were together. Alex has always been troubled and has carried some heavy traumas which I didn't learn about until we were in our late teens - but I always made an effort to be there for him whenever he needed me.
Our most recent connection after years apart, Alex was suffering deeply, drinking the "spicy juice", and his mental health was spiralling. We spent a few weekends sharing how our lives had been over recent years and drinking together. I listened about his (not-so) recent heartbreak, and again about his childhood trauma (he had forgotten I already knew), offered what support I could and did all the things I knew were comforts to him.
One day Alex called me saying he had been evicted and asked if he could come to stay with me. I live in a 2 bedroom apartment with my child (7f) but I told him if he didn't mind sharing with me, then we could make it work until he was back on his feet. He lived with me for a few months, and I made arrangements with my friend Sarah, who was planning to move out of town on a trial basis, that when she moved Alex would take the apartment and act as a sitter of sorts. I felt it would give Sarah a chance to come back to town if things went wrong, while giving Alex a chance to get on his feet and testing out having his own space and independence again.
While Alex was staying with me, my child would spend weekends and some random week nights with family and friends so her contact with him was minimal. I love and trust Alex but I knew he wasn't himself and wanted to protect her from his mental state as much as possible. As someone who suffers from anxiety and depression myself I know how it can be when I'm not on medication and I didn't want my daughter to be exposed to anything that could result in traumas of her own. When Alex was working in the evening, she would be home and in bed before he arrived back and any limited contact they had was always fully supervised. This was the first sign for me that Alex needed more help than I could give him. The fact that I knew he needed to be kept from my daughter as much as possible is an obvious red flag.
Over those weeks with me there were triggers that made Alex worse. He kept encountering the person who broke his heart and he was a mixture of devastation and rage. He began going to their old home together and passing by, stalking his ex and trying to figure out how their life was even though they had been separated for almost 2 years by this time. He ended up speaking to his ex a few times, and would come home to me bragging about these encounters and how he'd come across, then he'd switch and start talking about how wonderful his ex was and their life together could have been, then go to rage about how he'd been betrayed and he would never forgive them and could never believe in love. This went on pretty much every day and he would indulge in dangerous behaviours including driving after vast quantities of "spicy juice"
When Alex moved into Sarah's apartment I was a little less in the loop, but only marginally. He would call me every day, come visit me almost every day, text me throughout the day. Sometimes it would just be about how he was getting on, how work was making him angry, or to show me things he was proud of like progress cleaning or his physical appearance. I praised every progress, telling Alex how well he did on his own and told him I was proud of him. I encouraged him to keep working hard and not let work his job difficulties outweigh the things he liked about it. When he called me or visited me in his worst moments I would comfort him and talk it through with him, holding him and letting him stay over often so he wasn't alone.
However, things deteriorated fast and he found out his ex had moved on. Over the next few weeks Alex broke into his old home with his ex, continued the stalking with plans to "scare" them out of town, and was barely sleeping. Eventually his dark thoughts turned to causing physical harm and even deleting people and he admitted he was struggling to tell the difference between being asleep or awake. I decided to discuss this with my mother and told her that it was at a stage where I didn't feel he was safe anymore. She told his parents and it was agreed that I should try to reach out and see if we could get him some mental help.
I admit I knew this would not go well as Alex behaved aggressively and spoke disgustingly when I had previously suggested any kind of therapy. I also admit that I was no longer mentally or physically capable of taking care of him and keep him from harming himself or others, and so I made a call to ask advice on who I should contact to get him help.
During this call the operator asked me for reasons that I thought he needed help, so I explained some of the behaviours he was displaying and things he'd say that had me concerned. At this point the operator told me they would be contacting the police as they have a duty of care and they felt that Alex was too much of a concern to leave unchecked. I asked if they had any ideas who I could call to get help for him and they told me it would most likely be handled by police, so I thanked them and ended the call. At this point I called him and told him he needed to get himself straight because the police were going to be looking for him. Of course, he was furious and soon cut me off. I warned his parents of the same thing, then had to attend to my daughter as she had finished school. I got a phone call soon after from police asking if Alex was with me and if I would give them his number but I panicked and hung up. I took my daughter to my mothers and turned my phone off - and there my own mental health finally crumbled.
Police caught up with Alex and he was arrested and his parents were contacted. They said they'd take responsibility for him and moved him out of town to live with them. Right after he moved he lost his license and his job, due to a DUI that took place a couple of weeks before all this happened.
In the months that have followed I have had strings of texts from Alex saying he can never trust me again as I reported him. He told me he is hurt that I would believe he was capable of hurting anyone and that he was now alone in the world. He said his mental health has not improved, that he still feels the same, and yet he hasn't acted on it. He told me that he would still, even now, protect my daughter and myself with his life if it came to it, but he could never forgive me for my betrayal.
I don't feel I did the wrong thing, as I could no longer be responsible for his mental health and holding him accountable for his bad choices. I was struggling myself and I was close to drowning in it. I have told him I won't apologise for what happened as I don't regret the choice I made. So am I the A-hole for reporting my childhood friend and letting it get passed on to the police?
P.S. Sorry it's so long, that's as condensed as I'm capable of. If there's errors, I apologise - I'm tired. I'll answer any questions if necessary. Obviously names have been changed for anonymity. We live in the UK.

Ok so calc ab is done, I have taken 3 practice exams (1 in class) and gotten all 5's. World is not going too well but Heilmer can probably save me. Lang is not a real AP test in my head. AP BIO is my problem. My teacher flat out doesn't teach. I have self studied all year basically. We are only up to unit 5 in class but I finished the course at home and I still feel so unprepared. We never did FRQS in class and we just got thrown unit tests straight from college board for every single test. I averaged a 95 on all of them but I still feel so unprepared and on top of that my grades are going to shit rn cause my reachers are not slowing done AT ALL and keep throwing assessment after assessment and so much homework. I am a 4.0 student and I am literally going to have a mental breakdown LMAO SAVE ME!!!! No but fr if u guys have any advice in any of these tests I literally love u because what the fuck is this mess

Hello, my name is Jonathan Kerr and I’m looking for help paying for a mistake in my life. Growing up I had always had two dreams: 1. Becoming a great husband and father 2. Becoming a cardiovascular surgeon. The most important of the two was that I wanted nothing more than to be a great husband and father, and make sure I did everything to provide for a happy and stable family after growing up a child of divorce myself.
I chose to become a cardiovascular surgeon because the heart has always fascinated me and I had the mental fortitude to succeed in classes as well as a desire to fix many of the issues that we have in healthcare today... I’m sure we’ve all encountered a doctor worn out by the long hours.. exhausted by the same cases day after day. Sometimes ignoring the things we’re trying to tell them.. And instead of treating us as human beings, we are treated as a task to check off. This has led to most patients becoming nonchalant about their health because when asked questions they need to settle worry, they are brushed off. I wanted nothing more than to become a part of changing that..
On my journey, I excelled in my undergrad but had only applied to 3 schools albeit on my part it wasn’t the smartest choice to apply to so few.. but money was always tight and I just couldn’t afford 100-200 dollars for every application. I tried to stay as close to home as possible, growing up in a split home.. made me want to keep my family as close as possible. Long distance wasn’t something that I thought I could handle.
After the first time I decided to talk to an admissions dean and they suggested nursing to get clinical experience and boost my applications experiences there, so I did. I worked in an OR on a lung transplant team. I loved my job, I had an amazing partner that I thought I’d live the rest of my life with ( I even bought an engagement ring for when she was ready— because I had money I started saving from our first date to get my dream ring I started designing at 8yo and could afford it), there wasn’t really anything missing but the feeling that I could offer more. I watched some surgeons slack off, some excellent at their job, some take time to talk to patients, some ignore them entirely. I decided this would be a great place for me to start doing more to get that second dream and be more of a solution.
So my partner supported me, she was magnificent at all of it. Helped me study, helped me pick schools, helped me practice interviews, everything I needed to succeed and I did. Issue was that even though I asked to only apply to schools she was comfortable with me being at distance wise, I ended up at the farthest one. I was nervous it could affect our relationship but she assured me we would be okay and it was only temporary. Within the first two weeks at the school I was written up for a professionalism violation because I, albeit with an upset tone but without any rude language or raising my voice, asked a professor what kind of doctor she was —implying (PhD or MD- we had both and it’s the first weeks so how was I supposed to know) because she had told everyone the answer to a question earlier in the week and it was on the quiz she marked that same answer incorrect and refused to acknowledge what she told/taught us, just told everyone to study better. I was trying to tell her that you can’t lie to patients in clinic. I had some experience from nursing and it isn’t fair to our patients not to own up to our own mistakes, even if you mark us wrong please admit it or you’re teaching these young students that behavior is okay.
Even though within 10 minutes we hugged and I apologized to the professor after talking to my partner and she explained that my phrasing may have been offensive, 2 weeks later I was told I could possibly be expelled and would need to do a 1 year professionalism program, drug screening, IQ test, mental disability test, and physical. I complied with the program, but felt very isolated at this school from the start due to a fear that any verbal mistake or lack of perfect phrasing could get me expelled. So it was hard to make friends. My parents being over 5 hours away visited a combined 3 times in 2 years. My partner was very attached to her family and I told her it was okay, saw me roughly 30-50 days out there in 3-5 day chunks that slowly got shorter and farther apart over the 18 months.
I started missing family events to study to pass exams or giving up sleep/studying to make a drive back for a birthday party. It slowly was breaking me, I cried everytime I came home that I was afraid that this career would give me 1 dream but destroy the other and I’d never be there for my family. My partner assured me that it was only a short time and continued supporting me back to strength no matter how many times I tried to fold. I listened to more surgeons talk about making the most of the time with their kids or waiting weeks to see their partners in other states. I witnessed more doctors on rotations that would just say “oh well” about miscommunications between specialists or it’s written down they’ll find it. I witnessed nurses over using sedatives on patients for “agitation” and the descriptions of agitation were just raising voices or doing weird stretches. I witnessed physicians tell me I took too long talking to patients when I tried to understand their underlying issues and one patient that this came up had been an alcoholic with liver disease and through our discussion he came to ASK ME to get him help with his drinking to better his health. In other cases I watched people who had their “capacity for decisions” taken away and when talking with them it seemed very questionable if this was just stated to force a treatment on them or hold them in the hospital. The things I was witnessing were weighing heavier on me: if I’d ever be able to be a solution passing orders down to nurses? Would they follow them or even over use them? would correct decisions be made if communication by all physicians isn’t the same level of effort? And much more ran through my brain.
With the way I commit to jobs and activities I push myself to keep going until the problem is fixed or finished to the best of my abilities, I started to see all the extra hours I’d start putting in to fix this and the hours with my future family disappear. During this time I called that partner, because her sister said she was worried about her, and she broke up with me over the phone. I won’t do specifics, because I still really don’t understand what happened, but I’ve found my peace through prayer and breakthrough, as well as witnessing what I’d call some miracles.
I attended school for a little longer after this, but the fire wasn’t there. I helped patients and felt great in my last few days pushing myself to do more when the others seemed to be done with a case, I even got complimented by an attending that I would be a great clinician and have a great skill set.
Sadly for that attending and his compliments, I decided I needed to take a leave of absence to figure things out. So I left school and I’ve been home a few months and seeing therapy to discuss everything. I came to the decision that this dream isn’t worth losing my most important dream, because a career will always be just a career and I can do so much at point of care as a nurse.
When my grandmother got cancer last year I thought I’d lose her and called her weekly but now I see her every day and it makes me monumentally happier. She’s recovering well and just got news a few weeks back we don’t need radiation or chemo! I’ve developed more self esteem and self love over this time as well. I’m not sure of anyone’s beliefs but I’ve found comfort in Gods answers for me and I’m sure life will lead me back to that second dream if I keep pushing forward. The reason I’m on here, starting other posts to different Reddit pages and developing a gofundme is that i have ~$300k in student loans.
I’ve written letters to prominent religious figures for prayers, letters to prominent wealthy figures in media for assistance, and I have interviewed and got a new job to start tomorrow April 29th as a cardiovascular nurse and they even offered to train me for first assist in surgery.
My dad is allowing me to stay with him to save on rent and put all my money towards my loans that I can and help take care of my grandma, like I said I want to and enjoy working hard Im not asking for all my loans just help with the new large sum added by the degree that was a mistake, at this rate even with assistance programs i wont be able to do anything but pay on them till my late 30’s. I don’t want to keep imposing on my father as kind as he is and I want to pursue my true dream, after proper healing of course, of being an amazing partner and father that can be there for his children without pushing for overtime constantly. I want to be the dad at all the sporting events, the uncle at every birthday, visit my grandma often, the husband who cooks for his wife after work because she shouldn’t have to every day.
If there’s anything even a dollar it would help me immensely every day, and I will continue to find every way possible to keep pushing for ways to succeed in getting that dream. If you’d like to make a contribution to the loan account directly feel free to reach out and ask for the information. I passed all the book courses for anyone curious and I’m free to answer any questions if you text me at 724-302-9272, please ask anything you need I will have to respect the privacy of people involved though. Don’t forget though, while their are many stories of ways that I saw the system fail physicians and them in turn start to give up on the patients or lack effort, there are plenty of physicians out there I’ve seen giving up everything to see patients health prosper and make a solution out of the most dire situations.
I just can’t commit to giving up my family to make that happen. God bless you all, and I hope everyone finds their dream no matter how big or small.
https://paypal.me/silverjon?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US

You sit shoulder to shoulder in the auditorium. Your scratchy black suit rubs against two arms wrapped in finer material. You shift in your seat, moving uncomfortably in the plush chair beneath you. Your leg is shaking; you are anxious for the show to begin. The massive room rumbles with murmurs of conversation—inquisitions about how the show will be, complaints of hunger, protests of too-tight clothing, and ties choking necks. You are silent.
September 6, 1981
Louise trudged up the dusty gravel path towards her home, a rotted trailer perched atop a steep hill. The bus driver never ventured up the path, leaving Louise to trek the quarter mile herself. She stopped momentarily and watched as the yellow bus sped away; the shadow of a lone hand waved her goodbye. She waved back, too late for anyone to see it, “Bye, Miles.”
Her house stank of cigarette smoke. The soft shag carpet collected to odor, spitting it out with every step. The windows and walls were yellowed with nicotine. The trailer was quiet; the constant droning of the radiator was the only thing to be heard. Louise set her backpack down and walked into the kitchen to make herself dinner. Her mother wouldn’t be home for several hours, and school lunch was never enough.
After Louise ate a measly bowl of microwaved leftover Kraft, she sat down to do her homework. She pulled out the math sheet they had gotten that day. Numbers shifted and combined; they peeled off the page and swam around her. Louise needed help. She dialed a number she knew by heart. The line rang.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice answered, her voice slightly distorted through the phone.
“Hi, Mrs. Wilson,” Louise said in a timid voice.
“Hi, Louise,” Mrs. Wilson’s voice softened, “I’ll get him for you.”
Louise heard her muffled yell, “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Hey Louise! What’s up?” a boy's voice asked.
“Hi, Miles. Have you done your math homework?”
“I’m doing it right now.”
Louise stretched the cord to where she sat at the table, “Great.”
The lights dim, and silence washes over the crowd. The curtains part. Fifty people in tuxedos sit on stage, various instruments in hand. The conductor stands tall. He introduces the orchestra, lifts his gloved hands, and the music begins.
March 9, 1983
“You’re still coming, right?” Miles questioned nervously.
“Yes, Miles, I’m still coming,” Louise rolled her eyes before smiling at him.
Miles relaxed a little bit, “Okay, good.”
Miles had mousy brown hair that was cut short. His dad had served in the military, so he thought this boy should have a ‘man’s haircut.’ He was tan even in the wintertime. He had bright hazel eyes that glowed electric green in the sunlight. Louise was about an inch taller than Miles, a fact she was immensely proud of.
The pair walked down the school hallway. It was Friday. Wonderful, glorious Friday. Louise rejoiced in the days that she didn’t have to come into school and pretend she liked people— pretend she liked anything, really. She hated the teachers, her peers, the hospital grey of the walls. She liked Miles. He ignored the cigarette stink of her clothes and the rudeness of her tone.
Today was Miles’ birthday. He’ll be ten. Miles had invited everyone to the party; there would be a bounce house. He’s ‘going all out for the big one o’ as he kept telling Louise. She was nervous about the party; her gift was okay at best, and she dreaded the disappointed but polite smile she knew Miles would pull.
“My mom will be here right after school to pick us up. You know what my mom’s car looks like, right?” Miles asked.
“Yeah, I remember.”
Lousie walked out to Mrs. Wilson’s car, a sleek, silver Porsche; Louise felt like a celebrity when she rode in it—rich and important.
“Hi, Louise,” Mrs. Wilson smiled, “How was school?”
“Hi, Mrs. Wilson. It was good.”
Louise settled into the plush leather seats and set her backpack in front of her. They sat in silence for a moment, the soft drum of the radio filling the air. Miles ripped open the door, excitement lighting up his face. He sat down, his position mirroring Louise’s.
“Hey, buddy. How was your day?” Mrs. Wilson asked.
“It was great, Mom,” he smiled.
She smiled back warmly, “Well, that’s good.”
Mrs. Wilson pulled out of the parking lot, Louise and Miles chatted idly about school and the party. After a short while, they pulled up to Miles’ house—a two-story white house with columns in front. Louise loved it. Sometimes, during sleepovers, late at night, she pretended it was hers. She quietly walked down hallways, running her fingertips across the smooth wallpaper. She felt the soft carpet on her bare toes and imagined it knew the shape and weight of her foot. She opened the fridge and pretended not to be surprised at the selection of food that awaited her. Then, she would return to Miles’ room and lie down next to him in the sleeping bag he lent her, stare up at the tiny glowing stars stuck on his ceiling, and pretend it was her and her mom that put them up— that it was her mom that held the step stool for her so she wouldn't fall.
Louise and Miles hopped out of the car, ran up to his room, and plopped their bags down. They still had a few hours before their other classmates would arrive. They sat on the ground and leaned against the bed. Louise pulled out Miles’ gift from her bag and handed the small gift bag to him, “Happy Birthday.”
“It’s not time for the party,” Miles said, confusion evident in his voice.
Louise shrugged, “I wanted to give it to you now.”
Miles smiled at her before gently taking the tissue paper out of the bag and reaching in. He pulled out a light blue paper swan. Lousie had spent hours getting the folds just right so the paper was sharp instead of rumpled. It was beautiful.
“Louise,” Miles started, his face curved into a slight frown, like he was about to cry, “Thank you.”
“Do you really like it?” Louise asked nervously; she fidgeted with her fingernails.
Miles set the swan down gently and dove towards her, wrapping her in a hug, “I love it.”
The party was a hit. Louise nearly made herself sick from the combination of an ungodly amount of candy and jumping in the bounce house. Almost everyone from their class was there, shoving presents in Miles’ hands before running to the snacks and entertainment. Night fell, and Louise climbed in the Porsche again, though it was just her and Mrs. Wilson this time.
“Did you have a good time, Louise?” she asked, making eye contact through the rearview mirror.
“Yeah, it was awesome. Thank you for having me,” Louise responded, polite as ever.
“Oh, you are always welcome, sweetie,” Mrs. Wilson smiled.
Louise looked out the window for the rest of the drive, the stars blurring against the black night sky. They pulled up to Louise’s house; her driveway was empty.
“Are you sure you are okay until your mom gets here?” Mrs. Wilson asked.
Louise smiled fakely, “Yeah I’ll be alright. She should be home soon.”
“Okay, sweetheart.”
Louise climbed out of the car and walked to her door. She looked back before stepping inside—Mrs. Wilson’s face was a mirage of pity and sympathy. Louise waved and stepped inside, choking down guilt as she did.
The sweet sound of a violin fills your ears—a lone instrument bellowing a quiet tune. It starts slow—soft, like a warm hand caressing your face, a mother wiping away your tears.
You forget yourself for a moment; you are back in your childhood home, where your bed is indented with your shape. You smell your favorite meal being cooked downstairs. You hear your mother humming her favorite song from the kitchen. Your father isn’t home yet. You are excited to see him.
You wish it were real.
It is not.
June 11, 1984
Louise was having a terrible day. Her mother was off work and slumming around the house— she was like a ghost in her own home, and she had nothing to do. They didn’t have cable this month, so Louise’s options were to sit in her bed and do nothing or visit Miles. She chose the latter. Louise bid her mom a short goodbye, telling her where she was going and not much else, and peddled off on her bike. She was drenched by the time she arrived at Miles’ house. So she ditched her bike in the grass and ran to ring the doorbell. Mrs. Wilson answered.
“Oh. Hello, Louise,” she smiled.
Mrs. Wilson was a nice woman, and Louise absolutely loved her. She was as thin as a twig but had a motherly warmth about her that Louise itched for. Miles was the spitting image of her, matching her tanned skin and bright eyes.
“I’m afraid Miles isn’t here,” she continued.
“Oh,” Louise said, disappointment swirling around her tongue.
“I’m sorry, hun,” Mrs. Wilson gave her a sympathetic look, “He’s out with his dad fishing for the day.”
“That’s okay,” Louise lied and started to walk back to where she abandoned her bike.
“Wait a second, sweetheart,” she called, “Do you want some lemonade? I’d hate to just send you home after you rode all this way.”
“Sure, Mrs. Wilson. Thank you.”
Louise followed her into the kitchen and sat down at one of the barstools to wait. It wasn’t long before she had a nice tall glass of lemonade in front of her and a bag of chips in her hand.
“You can go watch TV if you want,” Mrs. Wilson smiled at her, “I’ll be out in the garden if you ever need anything.”
“Okay, thank you,” Louise said.
She wandered into the living room, and the plush carpet under her feet felt amazing. She flicked on the television and turned it to her favorite cartoon station. She did feel strange behaving like she lived there, especially when the house was empty, but her desire to relax in the air conditioning trumped the feeling. She mindlessly watched Jerry outsmart Tom in the comfort of a home that wasn’t her’s.
Louise finished her snack but didn’t feel like returning home; she knew her mother would be there, heating the house with cigarettes and sex. Mary had moved on from Steve quickly. So, she laid down and continued watching television. At some point, she fell asleep. Louise woke up to the soft voices of Miles’ parents talking in the kitchen. Someone had turned the TV off and taken her dishes. She could hear the shower running upstairs. Louise had no idea what time it was; the sun was now visible in the living room windows, the sky was orange. She was about to get up and ask Mrs. Wilson when she heard her name. Miles’ parents were talking about her. She got up as quietly as she could and snuck closer to the swinging kitchen door.
“Is there something we can do?” Mrs. Wilson asked her husband in a concerned tone.
“I don’t think so, Jenny,” Mr. Wilson responded, “She just has a hard life, that’s all.”
“I feel like we should do more for her.”
Mr. Wilson sighed, “We can only help her when she’s here. You know what Mary thinks about handouts.”
“Oh, poor Mary,” Mrs. Wilson said, her tone sympathetic, “I should call her and tell her Louise is gonna stay the night.”
Louise heard footsteps sound in her direction. She ran as softly as she could back to her position on the couch, feigning sleep. Mrs. Wilson swung open the door and picked up the phone that hung on the wall next to it. Louise heard the click-clack of buttons being pressed, the muffled ringing, and then her mother’s voice on the other line.
“Hey, Mary,” Mrs. Wilson said, “Is it alright if Louise stays here tonight? She passed out on the couch and I don’t think it’d be smart to have her ride home now.”
Lousie couldn’t hear her mother's exact words, but she must have said it was fine because the next thing Louise knew, she was being picked up and carried up the stairs. Mrs. Wilson set her down in a room she was unfamiliar with. She figured it was the guest room. Mrs. Wilson kissed Louise gently on her forehead and told her goodnight in a whispered tone. Louise missed her mother.
The room was bird-themed. The walls were painted a dark navy, and a thin metal peacock stared at her from where it hung. A copy of the NATO phonetic alphabet was hanging, too. It must have been Miles’ old room. Louise remembered when he came to school in second grade and told her he was moving into the attic. There was an opening to the roof up there, and Miles was in love with the idea of sitting up there and watching the sun set and rise.
Miles was in love with a lot when he was little— the sun and sky, the warmth of his mother’s hugs, iced tea on a hot day. Louise didn’t think she was in love with anything. She didn’t think she ever would be. Louise was almost asleep, the plush, silky sheets lulling her into another bout of slumber. Her door squeaked open. Miles’ small frame was a shadow in the doorway. He looked so small. He didn’t walk into the room, choosing to loom in the entrance.
“Goodnight, Louise,” he said in a small voice.
“Goodnight, Miles.”
When you were little, you thought everything was perfect. The world was alive with hope and magic. Everyone got along, and there was nothing wrong.
Of course, now you know that is not true. But a part of you, a little tiny part, wants to go back to when you didn’t know. When life was good, and you didn’t know better.
That’s how the music sounds. Like you are an innocent kid sitting on the front porch eating a red cherry popsicle. The juice runs down your face. It looks like blood.
July 15, 1984
Louise was once again sitting in the back seat of the Wilsons’ Porsche, but this time, she was without a backpack-- sans her school clothes. She wore the itchy Easter dress her grandmother had gotten her two years prior. Louise wore it to her funeral. She stuck out like a sore thumb, a pastel beacon amongst the waves of black. It was Sunday—the Lord’s Day, as Mrs. Wilson had told her. Louise hadn’t been inside a church for a good reason—she’d never been to a regular Sunday mass. But last night, she had stayed the night at Miles’, so she was on her way to church. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
They pulled into the parking lot, the ancient steeple looming over the car. Louise could recognize that it was a beautiful church, but the body of Christ hanging in the stained glass window did nothing to settle her nervous stomach. The pop of car doors sounded; there was no going back.
The wooden pew was uncomfortable, the kneelers even more so. She listened to Miles’ soft whispers of direction and did as he said. She fell and rose when she should; she crossed her arms instead of taking communion, she shook hands with strangers, and mumbled, ‘Peace be with you.’ And then it was over, and Louise was waking back to the car, her white flats cutting into her feet.
“What did you think, Louise?” Mrs. Wilson asked in a kind voice.
She shrugged her shoulders, “It was okay. I didn’t really know what to do.”
“You’ll learn,” Mrs. Wilson responded, a promise on the tip of her tongue.
Louise was silent on the ride back; she leaned against the window and watched as trees blurred together in a mirage of green. Louise didn’t know what it was like to believe in God. She thought she felt it there for a moment-- a quiet tingling in the back of her mind. But then she remembered that she wasn’t with her family; the Wilsons were not her parents. She remembered her mom was working a double today so they could have electricity. And what God would think that was fair? Not one Louise wanted to believe in.
The music sounds like the church hymns your mother made you sing. She meant well; she thought she was giving you the gift of her religion. You couldn’t tell her you didn’t want it. It was all she had ever known.
What child betrays their mother?
May 21, 1985
It was the summer after sixth grade. Lousie and Miles had biked to the pool in town, a desperate attempt to escape the heat. The air was thick and humid, and sweat sprouted from Louise's skin, dampening her shirt and shorts. The sun beamed down on her back; there wasn’t a cloud in sight. The pair parked their bikes out front and ran into the small building. A bored-looking teenager accepted their fifty cents each and let them in. The air reeked of chlorine, and the painted concrete was slick with warm water. Miles and Louise threw their towels down and began to shed their swimsuits. Louise’s hands were shaking with anticipation; she hadn't been to the pool in so long.
“Race you,” Miles said, darting towards the water's edge.
“No fair,” Louise groaned as she kicked off her flip-flops and ran after him.
Louise heard a distant whistle ringing and a call that running wasn’t allowed before she splashed into the blue depths. The cool water encapsulated her, and goosebumps formed on her skin. She bobbed to the surface and saw Miles climbing out and heading towards the diving board.
They stayed until the sun was beginning to set; Miles’ mom didn’t like him being out that late on his own yet, so they peddled back home soggy clothes and pruny skin.
When Louise returned to her house, it was dark. She could see the kitchen light shining out onto the brown lawn. Steve was home. Louise’s mom, Mary, had picked him up a few months back. He was a short, fat man. His breath always smelled like beer, yeasty and vile. He had dark hair and a beard to match. Her mother claimed she really liked him, but Louise knew she just needed someone to help pay the bills.
One of the few good things about having kids as young as Louise’s mom had her is that she never had a hard time finding a sleazy older guy to keep around. Being pretty also helped, and Mary sure was pretty. Mary was tall and slender, with long, curly auburn hair. She was covered in freckles and had eyes that glowed emerald green. When Louise was young, Mary would smile often, but as her eyebags grew, her smile faded. She could fake it when needed, but it was never like Louise remembered.
Mary and Louise could have been twins— minus the smile lines she didn’t think she’d ever have the chance to earn. Maybe that was why, when Louise walked into her kitchen in nothing more than a bathing suit, Steve forced himself on her.
You clutch the armrest on your chair, digging your nails into the fabric. The music is screeching, a distorted version of what it once was. You want to cry. You think your ears are bleeding. You bite the inside of your cheek, hoping to distract yourself from the perverted disgust mess of noise assaulting you. Your mouth tastes like metal. The urge to stand and walk, no, run, out of the theater is so strong you can hardly bear it.
You do not get up.
May 22, 1985
Miles called and asked if she wanted to go swimming again. Louise didn’t have the heart to tell him she never wanted to go swimming again, so she lied and said she was sick. Miles was at her door an hour later with a container of homemade cookies and Guess Who.
The two sit on the floor of Louise’s bedroom, the soft blanket she put down covering the scratchy carpet. Louise’s room was small and dingy. The walls were cracked and stained; she lived out of one small bureau that had been unceremoniously shoved into a corner of the room. Last Christmas, she begged her mother to help her hang lights on the ceiling. They were still up, casting a rainbow glow over the room. It was the only source of light she used. She had a small nightstand piled with pencils and markers; she had long since stained her light pink sheets while drawing. Cookie crumbles littered the floor. Louise was losing the game; most of her people were still up, while Miles only had about five people left to choose from. He chewed his lip in concentration. Louise usually laughed at him for it; he always seemed to take the board games they played too seriously. This time, she didn’t notice he was doing it.
“Does your person have brown hair?” Miles questioned.
Louise didn’t respond. “Louise? Are you alrigh—”
“Do your parents ever touch you?” Louise said, eyes trained on the floor.
Miles’ face scrunched up in confusion, “You mean like hugs?”
“No.”
“What do you mean then?” Miles questioned.
Louise’s eyes fogged up with tears, “Never mind. Let’s just play the game.”
Miles eyed her with sympathetic confusion before realizing what she meant, “Louise…”
He moved to hug her, but she flinched away from him. Miles sat back; he wasn’t touching her but was close enough for her to feel the heat radiating off of him. Louise sniffled, trying desperately to contain her emotion.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” Miles whispered.
Louise turned to look at him, her face pale and puffy, “Please don’t.”
Louise and Miles sat like that for a long time. When the sun set, he got up and called his mom, begging her to let him stay the night. Louise didn’t hear the conversation, but Mrs. Wilson must have agreed because the next thing she knew, she was being guided to bed, and Miles was settled on the floor next to her, leaning against the bed and holding her hand.
The music turned sweet. It drifted through your ears pleasantly, passing over the cracked, dry blood. A chorus of flutes is playing, light and soft.
It feels like the pillow in your dorm room, childhood mixed with freedom.
You know this feeling won’t last. But right now, in this moment, you lay your head down and pretend the world is new.
May 17, 1986
Miles and Louise had biked miles to the movie theater. Miles had begged Louise to see the new movie coming out, one that Louise was less than excited about. He had been to the movies some months before with his mom and had seen the trailer. The next day, he begged her to see it with him when it came out, and she agreed, not knowing anything about it.
Miles was practically giddy with excitement. His eyes glowed with it. The theater was packed; they stood in the line shoulder to shoulder with what must have been every other kid in town. Louise clung to the red crushed velvet rope that segmented the line for dear life. The feeling of so many people pressed up against her was nauseating. She screwed her eyes shut, pushing down a wave of oncoming dizziness. Before she knew it she was being pulled along to the ticket stand. Miles produced them with a broad smile on his face, “Two for Top Gun.”
He then bought a giant thing of buttery popcorn and two glass Cokes. They made their way to their seats and waited for the movie to begin. Miles shoved popcorn in his mouth, salty yellow kernels going everywhere. Trailers for various movies played on the big screen— Miles leaned over nearly every time and asked Louise if she would go with him. She said yes every time.
The movie was beautiful. It was nothing like Louise had ever seen before; it made her yearn for the sky, the feeling of freedom unlike anything she would ever know. And then it was tragic, and she was crying in her seat, wailing over someone she didn’t know. Begging him to wake up.
They left in silence, walking to the bike rack to a chorus of shoes against pavement. They stalled for a moment before getting onto their bikes and parting their ways.
“What would you do if I died?” Miles said, his eyes trained on Louise’s.
“I don’t know,” her eyes were red and puffy, “I don’t think I could go on.”
“Me neither,” Miles agreed.
Miles stared at her for a beat before getting on his bike and peddling home. Louise imagined her life without Miles on the way home. Sharp metal against skin, blood seeping into water. She didn’t think it would be much of a life.
When you were in 6th grade, you played the clarinet. You always had a fondness for them.
They were the only ones playing, the dulcet tones of a wooden reed against black plastic. The song was picking up pace, like a heartbeat.
In 6th grade band, you sat next to a girl you liked. She was better at the instrument than you. You didn’t care. You remember taking her to the winter formal and carrying her shoes when her feet got sore. You remember your dad giving you the talk before you went.
You haven’t seen her in years. You wonder how she’s doing.
The clarinets are done with their solo. You forget about her again.
August 21, 1987
This year, Louise’s birthday fell on the first day of school. She dressed nicer than usual, an attempt at vanity that made her hate herself. Miles had given her a music box that played You Are My Sunshine. Louise had told him that she missed it when her mom sang it to her before bed. She cried in the bathroom.
At lunch, she stood in line with a group of girls in her PE class. Miles was a few feet ahead of her, and the kids in her school took cutting in line more seriously than she thought was necessary, so she stayed put. She stood silently while the girls talked about a teacher they didn’t like, choosing instead to eavesdrop on the conversations around her rather than contribute to the one she was in.
Brian Miller’s voice sounded broken and raspy, like a kid with money for cigarettes and not much else. He was a stereotypical bully, big and tall, with an ugly look plastered everywhere he went. He couldn’t stand the thought of someone not being in pain. He was talking to Miles, his voice loud enough for Louise to hear from where she was: “Why do you hang out with that poor girl all the time? Does she give it up easily?”
His lips were curled in a cruel sneer, showing off his yellow teeth. Miles looked at him, barely visible to Louise over the people between them. Then, suddenly, he wound up and punched Brian square in the face. Louise heard the crunch of his nose being broken— blood spurted on the floor and onto the onlooking students. Brian grunted in pain, bringing his hand to touch his bloodied face slowly before launching into a vicious returning attack. He only got a few punches on Miles before the nearest teacher pulled him away. Louise pushed through the crowd that had formed, leaning down at Miles’ side. His face was nearly unrecognizable; bruises were starting to form already.
“Why did you do that? Oh my god, Miles, why did you do that?” Louise choked out, tears fogging her vision.
“I love you,” Miles tried to smile, blood staining his teeth.
A teacher pushed Louise out of the way, assessing the damage. What felt like seconds later, an ambulance appeared, along with Mrs. Wilson. She was frantic; her hands were shaking with fear. Everything was silent. At some point, everyone had cleared out except Louise. She was standing here like an idiot, staring at Miles’ bloodied face.
Louise felt a strong hand grab her arm, a mother’s hand, “Come on, Louise. You can ride along.” Mrs. Wilson stood in front of Louise. Her eyes were red, but she had composed herself. Louise’s voice came out as nothing more than a whisper: “Okay.”
She let herself be pulled into the ambulance; the siren was the only thing she could hear. She watched as the EMTs worked, their skilled, gloved hands dancing over his body.
“Louise, he’s gonna be okay,” Mrs. Wilson whispered in her ear, “Come here.”
She pulled Louise into a hug, hiding her view of Miles. Louise closed her eyes against Mrs. Wilson, willing her breath to slow. They stopped abruptly at the hospital. Louise and Mrs. Wilson climbed out and watched as nurses and interns swarmed Miles’ gurney. They were ushered to the waiting room and sat down on hard, terribly patterned chairs. At some point, Mrs. Wilson called Louise’s mother to tell her where she was. A doctor brought them to Miles’ room after over an hour. His face had been cleaned and bandaged, and his nose was clearly broken.
“Louise,” Miles said, his eyes lighting up.
“Miles,” Louise responded, “Are you okay?”
“I’m right as rain,” he tried to smile but winced.
“Don’t lie to me, Miles.”
“I’ll be okay,” he reassured her, reaching up to squeeze her hand.
They stood like that until Louise’s mom came to get her. Louise crawled into Mary’s beat-up Sedan and slumped in the seat.
“Are you okay, baby?” Mary asked her.
“Mom, what if he died?” Louise ignored the question.
Mary sighed, “Sweetheart he’s fine. He’s just got a concussion and a broken nose.”
“I know,” Louise said, “I know he’s fine.”
The bags under Mary’s eyes seemed heavier today, and her face seemed more wrinkled. Louise looked more like her every day.
The music takes on a somber tone. Long, drawn-out notes fill the air. You think of your mother again, the way she looked sunken in her hospital bed— decaying before your eyes. You remember the feel of her bony, pale hands wiping away your tears in her final moments.
It was the first time you saw your dad cry.
The wail of violin chokes you.
December 17, 1988
Louise was lying on her back in Miles’ bed. He’s had the same one since they were kids; the box springs creak under their weight. Miles was above her, his eyes boring holes in hers. His parents were not home, the house was eerily quiet— the ambient creaking distracting Louise. His record player sang sweet music from his desk. His room was cluttered with dirty clothes and various knick-knacks. A blue paper swan sat on his bookshelf next to his worn copy of The Hobbit. His closet was open, casting weird shadows along the walls. The lights were off.
The soft touch of Miles’ lips trailed down her chest to her stomach. She tried to push down the nausea— make her body stop squirming. Her hand clutched his shoulder tightly. He had asked if this was okay. She had said yes.
Louise felt another article of clothing being slid off her body. She was cold. Her eyes shot to the ceiling. One glowing star was still stuck on the popcorn texture. Miles had taken them off the year before. He had missed one. Louise felt the heat of salty water run down her face into the soft pillow. She hated herself.
‘Dear God,’ she thought, ‘if you can hear me please, please just let me be okay. Let me want this.’
She didn’t receive a response. God wasn’t listening. It was just her and Miles in a house too big, in a world too small.
“Louise?” Miles said, his voice laced with concern, “Hey. Are you okay?”
All she could muster was an ‘I’m sorry’ before getting up, running into the bathroom, and emptying her stomach into the toilet.
The air stunk of sour yeast.
The music bounced up and down, building up to its crescendo. Excitement filled your chest, the entire orchestra almost all playing now.
A chorus of brass filled the air—French horns and trumpets battle for dominance on stage. Your eyes are wide in anticipation; you have waited the entire night for this.
You are sixteen, and you and your friends sit around a fire, passing a bottle of Jack around. It is the Friday before school starts. You wanted one last night of summer fun before your life filled with books and assignments.
The whiskey burns a path down your throat. It makes you nauseous. You get so drunk you can’t stand up. Your vision blurs as you stumble into the surrounding woods. You are alone. You vomit more than you thought was possible. You think you are going to die. You miss your mom.
You haven't drank since.
You don’t think you ever will.
August 4, 1989
The granite bar was cool under Louise’s fingertips. She sat in Miles’ kitchen, spinning nervously on the metal bar stool. She was chewing her lip; her mouth tasted like blood. Miles sat next to her, his demeanor the exact opposite of Louise’s.
“I mean, come on, Louise. What are you gonna do with your life?” Mrs. Wilson lectured her.
“I don’t know,” Louise mumbled.
Mrs. Wilson sighed, “Miles has wanted to be a pilot since he was eight. What do you want?”
Louise took a deep breath, “I don’t know. I’m sorry I can’t be like Miles. But I’m not your fucking kid so leave me alone.”
Louise stood up and stomped up the stairs. She heard Mrs. Wilson yelling her name, but she didn’t turn around. She buried herself in Miles’ bed, wrapping herself in his soft comforter. Louis heard the stairs creak with weight and then a knock on the door.
“Louise, I’m sorry,” Miles said, walking into the room.
Louise sat up, her face dry, “Why are you sorry? You didn’t yell at me.”
“I still feel sorry,” he said as he sat down next to her.
Louise took a deep breath and leaned on his shoulder. Miles rested his head against hers, “She loves you, you know.”
“I know.”
“She just wants you to do well,” Miles said.
“She wants me to be better than my mother,” Louise corrected.
“Is that so bad?”
The music doesn’t matter right now. You are fifteen, and your father is yelling at you about your future. You don’t know what you want to do. You want to be better than him.
He backhands you.
The arm of the person next to you brushes against yours. You jump. The conductor's hands are blurry with movement. The theater is alive with sound.
You miss your dad.
February 14, 1990
Louise and Miles sat across from each other in a restaurant that was too nice for the amount of money they brought. Louise ran her fingers across the laminated menu, fidgeting nervously with the edge of the paper. The restaurant was packed, Miles had made the reservations months in advance.
“Do you know what you want?” Miles asked.
Louise pursed her lips, “I think I’m gonna get the chicken piccata.”
Miles eyed the menu, “That looks good.”
“What are you gonna get?” she returned the question.
Miles smiled, almost boyishly, “The steak.”
Louise hummed in response. She set her menu down and reached for her water glass, running her finger across the rim. Condensation dripped down outside the glass, her fingerprints marking the surface.
“Are you excited about prom?” Miles asked.
Louise laughed a little, “Do we really have nothing else to talk about other than a dance in two months?”
Miles rolled his eyes playfully, “I guess not. What did we talk about when we were kids?”
“I have honestly no idea,” Louise smiled, “I don’t think we talked a lot. We mostly played.”
“We did play an ungodly amount of Donkey Kong.”
Louise chuckled, “God, was that game even good? Or were we just kids?”
“I honestly have no idea,” Miles smiled.
The waiter came by and took their order, collecting their menus and refreshing their drinks. It wasn’t long before their food arrived; the plates were decedent and beautiful. They left the restaurant with doggy bags in hand and significantly poorer than when they walked in. Louise clambered into Miles’ truck and waited for Miles to start it. But he didn’t. He was staring at her instead.
“What?” she asked incredulously.
He smiled at her, “I have something for you.”
Her face fell in surprise, “Miles, you told me the dinner was a gift.”
“Well,” Miles shrugged. He reached into his pocket and produced a small velvet box. She took it gingerly into her hands, excitement boiling in her chest. She opened the box softly and found two silver rings. One was engraved with ‘Miles,’ and the other said ‘Louise.’ Miles picked up the one that said his name and handed it to her.
“This one is for you,” he looked at her with huge puppy-dog eyes, “And the other one is for me.”
“Miles…”
“Do you like it?” he asked nervously.
She melted, “I love it. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he said, leaning in and kissing her sweetly.
“Are your parents home?” she asked against his lips.
“No, they won’t be home in hours.”
This time was different than the first. No bile rose up into Louise’s throat; she didn’t have to repress her squirming body. The air smelled like clean linen— fresh and new.
You are crying, and you don’t know why. The music sounds more like singing now, wrapping you in lyrics and hugs. You feel warm and fuzzy. Like you are a little kid who just got home after swimming all day. You are tired in the perfect way. You sink into your blankets and fall asleep.
A humming noise wakes you up. You are in the theater. There is music playing. You aren’t a kid anymore.
You had a drink at dinner before the concert.
You swallowed it with ease.
March 20, 1990
The hum of the radio filled the sweet night air. Louise and Miles lounged in the bed of his beat-up pickup. It was his father's old farm truck, a janky, rusty thing that only ran when it felt like it, but Miles loved it. It was his pride and joy. Any weekend he wasn’t with Louise, he was fixing it up; he would spend hours under the body of that thing, coming into the house reeking of oil and exhaust. Mrs. Wilson hated it; she feared for the safety of her nice beige carpet and the cleanliness of his jeans.
It was freshly spring; it was dry and warm for the first time this year. They were laying on his mother’s old picnic blanket, something she probably wouldn’t care for if she knew. It was pitch black, the only thing that illuminated them were the stars and the faint light of Louise’s kitchen light. They had returned from cruising around town, and neither wanted to go inside yet. They had been lulled into a comfortable silence, their hands knotted together perfectly. And then, suddenly, Louise had a question.
“Do you hate me?”
“Louise…” Miles sighed.
Nervousness leaked into her tone, “I was just making sure.”
“That I don’t hate you? Even though we’re dating?” Miles scoffed, “Why would I be with you if I hated you? What would I gain from that?”
“What if you were using me?” Louise said, her voice small.
“Oh my god,” Miles sat up and put his head in his hands, “‘What if’ Louise, when have I ever, in our entire lives, used you?”
“I don—” she started.
“If you are basing your fear of our relationship on ‘what ifs,’ maybe we shouldn’t be together. You are so absorbed in your past that it's like you aren’t even seeing me, not now, not in the present,” Miles shot at her.
“That’s not fair,” Louise said, her voice breaking with emotion.
Miles took a deep breath, “I’m sorry for what happened, and I get that healing is a hard and long process. But, Louise, I’m tired, too. ”
Hot, stinging tears rolled down Louise’s face, wetting the blanket, “I know you love me. Sometimes I’m just scared.”
“Why are you scared?” Miles whispered.
“I don’t know,” she sniffled, “I am what I am.”
“You are what you are,” Miles repeated, “And I’m tired of pretendning I can change that.”
“Then stop.”
Louise wiped the tears off her face and climbed out of the truck. Her receding footsteps echoed in Miles' head, a pounding that sounded eerily like his heartbeat— fast and hard. Miles sat there for a long while. The radio was still on, blasting The Smiths.
Trumpets blast loud, then louder. You think your eardrum might burst. Then, the music lulls to a stop. The lights do not come on. It is like the entire world has stopped to take a breath. One big inhale. You fill your lungs. The air smells like honeysuckle.
You are a child running in the yard with your dog. You are barefoot. You step on a bee. You limp into the house and cry to your mother. She puts your foot on ice.
You will never feel the grass on your bare foot again. You do not need to learn the lesson twice.

Hello all,
Looking for help in developing a school list.
GPA: cGPA – 3.689, sGPA – 3.892 graduateGPA – 3.764
MCAT 517 (128/132/128/129)
Residence: FL
Demo: White Male
Undergrad: Good Florida State School - Nursing Grad: Same Florida state school - DNP
Clinical experience: 2 years phlebotomist, 3 years nurse, 5 years NP. Majority of the time as an RN and NP has been full time or near full time clinical practice.
Research: DNP project with related publication, mentored other projects as faculty. Remote (>10 years ago) research in microbiology over 2 semester in independent study course
Shadowing: Outside of work, part of school, roughly 1000 hours, maybe 500 with physicians
Non-clinical volunteering: Nothing since high school
Other EC: National committee member for NP association
Honors: Award for clinical work in rural setting
Other info: 10 years out from many prereqs. Finishing orgo 1 now, will finish with an A. Will have orgo 2 and biochem done by end of year, well ahead of school deadlines.
Non-trad, will be turning 30 as MS1 if I get in this cycle.

Current attempts with school list: Started with MSAR and all schools +/- 5 of my MCAT scores, dropped all schools that have less than 50% OSS (minus instate schools). Dropped schools that had CASPER as requirement and schools that had hard stops on prereq age.
Looking to apply to 20-25 schools
Current list:
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Case Western Reserve
Charles E. Schmidt
Creighton
Duke
Emory
FIU
FSU
George Washington
Georgetown
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
Kaiser
Loyola U
Mayo Clinic Alix
Northwestern
Nova
NYU Grossman
NYU Grossman Long Island
Stanford
Tufts
Tulane
U of Chicago
U of Pittsburgh
U of Rochester
U of Virginia
UCF
UF
USF
Virginia Tech
Washington U of St Louis
Carle Illinois COM
Eastern Virginia
Geisel at Dartmouth
Icahn School of Med
Saint Louis
Sidney Kimmel
U of Arizona
Vanderbilt
Warren Alpert
Western Michigan

Hey folks,
I'm excited to share with you all a project I've been working on called CrossBLAS. It's a modern fork of the original netlib BLAS code base, now revamped for better compatibility and cleanliness.
What's CrossBLAS? CrossBLAS aims to bring BLAS's robustness to a wider range of platforms and compilers. I've ensured it compiles seamlessly with Intel's ifort.exe on Windows and GNU's GFortran on WSL Ubuntu. The code is now more organized and less cluttered, making it easier for developers to navigate and contribute.
Current Status: While the core functionality is up and running, there are still several issues to tackle: - CTests are not operational yet. - The Config.cmake file generation is a work in progress.
Call for Collaboration: This is where I need your help! I'm calling on all Fortran aficionados and coding enthusiasts to test CrossBLAS. Your feedback is invaluable, and I encourage you to open issues on the GitHub repository to discuss any problems or suggestions you might have. Of course, pull requests are more than welcome—let's make CrossBLAS even better together!
Get Involved: Check out the repository, give it a spin, and let's collaborate. Your contributions will improve CrossBLAS and support the broader Fortran community.
Thank you for your time, and happy coding!

Demographics
Gender: Male
Race/Ethnicity: East Asian
Residence: Ontario, Canada
Income Bracket: 125k~ USD/yr (need financial aid, and i'm international)
Type of School: Public School
Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): None rly, Potential walk-on athlete?
Intended Major(s): Biology
Academics
GPA (UW/W): 3.25 UW/3.9 W (unofficial GPA, school doesn't calculate or send GPA)
Rank (or percentile): School doesn't rank

of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: Full IBDP, AP Calculus BC (5), AP Stats (5)

Senior Year Course Load:

1. IB2 English HL
2. IB2 Chemistry HL
3. IB2 Biology HL
4. IB2 Math AA HL
   
5. IB2 History SL
   
6. IB2 French B SL
   
7. Grade 12 Physics
   

Standardized Testing
SAT: 1550 (760 English, 790 Math)
June 2023 (1st attempt, didn't retake)
Extracurriculars/Activities
List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.

1 - Senior Boys Basketball Team Member for 3 years, Regional All-star sr year

(Only received recruiting interest from Canadian Schools)

2 - Biochem Research Assistant at Local University (presented a portion of the research I completed at science fair)

3 - Local Gym Club Founder

4 - Gym Tiktok (if yk me don't dox me) (20k~ followers)

5 - Family Responsibilities

6 - Local Basketball Youth team Coach

7 - Investing

8 - Hospital Volunteer

9 - Paid Math tutor (not for long)

10 - Math Circle Member (Community)

Awards/Honors

1 - CMO Qualifier (2023) - {top quartile in 2023, invited to write IMO TST, did not go tho}

• Documented in my Rec letter from math teacher
  
• also qualified for 2024 CMO, not in app tho, did worst than last year
  

2 - AMC Distinction (2022) - {AIME Qualifier in 2023}

• also qualified for AIME in 2024 and barely qualified for USAMO (120 AMC, 13 AIME 250 index), updated unis following qualification and sent AIME I '24 score of 13 in February 2024.

3 - Regional Science Fair Bronze Medalist (2023) - Qualified for National Science Fair

4 - Canadian Chemistry Contest Distinction (2023)

5 - USACO Gold

(Updated Schools with USAMO Qualification + some other smaller Math/CS contests results in February of this admissions cycle)
++ included some lesser known math/cs contest results in additional information section
Letters of Recommendation
IB French B teacher (9/10) - super chill she let me write it, wrote a lot about me being funny and actually caring about the class a bit despite nobody gaf about french at my school
IB Math teacher (10/10) - wrote about my strength in math and problem solving, how I made the class hella fun to be in, and how im a person everyone likes to be around. Bro blessed me tf up, but tbf i was prolly the best student he ever has had in terms of math strength. I also talk to him about the NBA regularly and he talked about that too. Really well written was acc super happy he wrote me such a good letter. He showed me it and I was pre surprised that he blessed up like that.
School Basketball Coach (9/10) - wrote this myself. Short and sweet stating im a hardworking player and great teammate/leader. pre well written tbh, some anecdotes too
Research Mentor (8/10) - wrote about my professionalism and strong logic/reasoning abilities combined with my aptitude/passion for science
Interviews
Dartmouth (6/10) - 25 mins, cool interviewer but short and just asked scripted questions lmao
UPenn (8/10) - 1 hr, pre cool guy, he was an athlete and we talked about a bunch of diff things
Princeton (4/10) - 25 mins, interviewer just asked scripted questions, didn't even smile or anything so robotic and lame
Harvard (9/10) - 3 hours, Investment banker dude who loves basketball, talked about a bunch of stuff esp basketball and he told me he would put in a superb note for me
Essays
Personal Statement (9/10): Spent a lot of time on this mofo, at least 50 hours (idk why I was such a perfectionist). Topic is deeply personal but reflected my growth as a human. Semi trauma dump, but also one that showcased lots of intellect id say.
Supplements (8/10): Friends/teachers helped me edit these, i'd say they were very unique. Wrote about biotech, the basketball community and a bunch more topics. I always told a story through these. My english teacher said they were very pleasing to read.
Decisions (all RD, was super busy in the beginning of the year)
Acceptances:
Harvard
Waterloo CS (Canada)
UofT CS (Canada)
UBC CS (Canada)
some other safeties in Canada
Waitlists:
UPenn
Rejections:
Brown (applied for need as intl)
Columbia (applied for need as intl)
Dartmouth
Princeton
Yale
MIT
Amherst (LAC)
Bowdoin (LAC)
Additional Information:
Didn't care about grades in freshman year and had all barely passing grades except for math/science so like equivalent to a 1.7~ something GPA in grade 9.
but yeah. got harvard with my shitty ass transcript. IG USAMO + breadth in ECs + not applying for CS/math helped. good interview + sat also played into my favour. 21 people from my school applied and a lot of them have lame ass personalities and im sure that reflected in their essays. even though my grades sucked in grade 9, they were roughly equal to everyone elses in my school for grade 11 who applied which is the most important year i hear so yeah thats that.
got decent finaid so i will be attending.
At a certain point in February even after scoring highly on AIME, I thought I'd have no chance so I was just ready to commit to a Canadian school which is cheap and provides a strong education (i got into waterloo early bc i did rly good on all their math/cs contests and had a decent top 6 course average) Waterloo CS is like roughly equal to t5 cs in the US and is crazy for industry placements.

Good Timber by Douglas Malloch

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.
The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.
Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.
Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.
_______________________
If a tree does not encounter enough wind as it grows, it will eventually collapse under its own weight. Its roots simply won’t grow deep enough to maintain structural integrity as it ages.
Trees fight for the light they get in the forest. They also have to be strategic in their pursuit. If they maximize their branch growth too early, they experience arrested height growth, and fail to reach the canopy above. This often happens if the tree experiences too much light too early in its grown trajectory. The tree becomes content with what light it already gets, and so it stops reaching upward. It gives up on the struggle, and spreads it branches at its earliest convenience. It’s early good fortune robs it of its ability to fulfill its potential. It mistakenly assumes its current position is its peak. It fails to realize, brighter days await it, if it only continues to fight upwards towards the sky.
Those trees that ultimately peak above the canopy, and obtain the greatest light exposure, are the ones strategic enough to refuse complacency at its earliest beckoning. Often times, its able to do this, because it was never given an over abundance of light during its stressful journey upwards. Some light along the path is necessary, but too much light, given too early, can seduce the tree into abandoning its struggle to the top. The forest kings needs to experience sufficient darkness. They need to be made to fight for the light. Stopping can’t be an options. For if it were to do so, it would mean death. All the way up, is the only viable path. Straight through the darkness is the only way out.
Here I’ll be explain the Core Concept that We Humans Are Antifragile. I’ll break this into four parts. First, I’ll introduce the property of antifragility. Second, I’ll explain how antifragile systems need to be challenged during development. Third, I’ll cover how easy success can result in a weak foundation. And fourth, I will address how good fortune and easy times can cause the systems regression and undoing.

We Humans are Antifragile.

1. Antifragility is the property of a system in which it requires stress, pressure, failure, and adversity, in order for it to actualize its capacities and capabilities.

• Bones are antifragile. If they don’t undergo enough stress during their development, they’ll remain weak and brittle. They’ll break easily.
• As I just described, many species of tree are anti-fragile, and require the strain of wind to develop the strength to bear their own weight. The more storms a tree survived during its growth, the deeper its roots.
• Some trees require stifled light exposure in order for them to breach the canopy above.
• Civilization is antifragile. It requires repetitive failures and mistakes, in order for it to learn the wisest laws and develop the infrastructure to support its growth. It requires attacks upon it, and hardship, such that it learns to defend itself, repair itself, and satisfy its own demands. For the civilization to learn, failure and hardship is required.
• These are each examples of antifragility. And we humans follow this same principle.

2. Antifragile systems need to be challenged during development.

• This is why helicopter parenting and being overly protective of your child can be so damaging to the child’s maturation.
• If a child isn’t allowed to limit test reality and themselves, they have no chance of becoming formidable adults. They’ll remain spineless, skidding, unable to bravely confront the challenges of adulthood.
• They’ll remain naive, lacking the direct experience of life’s dangers. They won’t have the understand of how to skillfully handle themselves when faced with genuine threats.
• The children that grow to be the most cunning and capable of handling themselves, are the ones that were allowed to roam the world with minimal oversight. They were allowed to learn from direct experience.
• This phenomenon is commonly delineated as having street-smarts, opposed to book smarts. Knowledge isn’t sufficient. Direct experience is mandatory.
• Facing real threats, real adversity, real suffering, and overcoming it on one’s own. This is a necessary prerequisite to a fully developed individual

3. How easy success can result in a weak foundation.

• It’s often the case in many domains, those who are most naturally talented become stunted in their growth once they reach the point at which they must strain for improvement.
• In his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, the Zen mast Shunryu Suzuki explains how in calligraphy, its usually the students that are most naturally skillful that ultimately hit a mental wall they can’t surpass. This is because their hands were too cleaver from the beginning. They never had to learn the practice deeply, the success came too easily for them. They didn’t have to work for it. Once they reach the point at which they had to strain, they become discouraged. They couldn’t account for what allowed them to learn before, and not now. They had never learned the skill of overcoming struggle. They didn’t understand the level of hard work necessary for the full actualization of their potential. They then often quit.
• Where as those students that were bad from the beginning. Struggle was all they knew. And so at no point, do they hit a wall that they aren’t willing to patiently face and overcome. They already understood what greatness would cost them. And they had already decided long ago that they were willing to pay it. But the ones that learned too quick, never realized what they were in for. The force with which that sudden realization hits them, cause them to break.
• Gifted children who aren’t sufficiently challenged in education can follow this same trajectory towards failure. Often floundering and falling apart in higher level course work that actually requires them to put their nose to the grindstone and fight for their grades. They never developed the skill of rigorous study, as they’d never had to do it prior. This sudden and unfamiliar strain can cause them to fall apart when the stakes are the highest.
• When success comes to easily, the growth is porous and fragile. The bone that grows in low gravity grows easily, but lacks the density. The student that effortlessly passes through school never really develops deep learning. They might climb high, but until they dig deep, they will lack true mastery of the subjects. It’s like a tower built on toothpicks.

4. How good fortune and easy times can cause the systems regression and undoing.

• As discussed earlier, some trees will stop their upward growth prematurely, if they are lucky enough to hit a overly substantial patch of sun-rays while being far below the canopy. Luck would have it that they were positioned just right upon sprouting from the ground, that an abundance of light was available to them amid the low branches of greater trees. They’re content to remain nestled there, far below their ultimate potential.
• This similar dynamic plays out with humans. Often times, when people reach a sufficiently comfortable life, they ease off. The desire for self-growth diminishes. They nestle in. They soften. And if catastrophe strikes, and more is required of them than usual, they crumble. As they never developed themselves beyond what was necessary to sustain their current altitude.
• Even entire societies face this dilemma. We’re all familiar with the notion that Hard times make for great men. Great men make for easy times. Easy times make for weak men. Weak men make for hard times. And the cycle repeats. When we’re no longer fighting upwards, we begin to lose the skill of fighting. And in time, we will begin move backwards. We will regress.
• When an individual wins the lottery, it can often times be the worst thing that ever happened to them. That’s because, an undeveloped person winning the lottery, is like a deep sea fishes being pulled up to sea-level. Many deep-sea fishes require tons of external pressure to maintain their bodies form and structural integrity. Without that pressure, they literally implode and die. That’s how humans work. If a person hasn’t developed themselves, and formed the skill of self-imposed strain and adversity, they will be destroyed when all external pressure is removed from your life.
• Because the truth is, humans atrophy from a lack of challenge and hard work. Unless we are pushing our limits, we are moving backwards.
• Humans operate like bicycles. When in motion, remaining upright is relatively easy. When at a stand still, toppling over is just a matter of time.

There’s a far deeper truth at play here, but the time to address that will come in the future. For now, simply seek to understand that stress, suffering, and failure are necessary feature of a healthy lifestyle. They are mandatory prerequisite for a deeply fulfilling existence lived by a self-actualizing individual. Without continually confronting them, you will erode. The goal isn’t to eradicate them. But to instead, skillfully walk beside them. Journey amid the shadows, both arms extended, with your fingers running along the cusp of darkness. The only way out, is through.

Good Timber by Douglas Malloch

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.
The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.
Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.
Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life. ______________________________
If a tree does not encounter enough wind as it grows, it will eventually collapse under its own weight. Its roots simply won’t grow deep enough to maintain structural integrity as it ages.
Trees fight for the light they get in the forest. They also have to be strategic in their pursuit. If they maximize their branch growth too early, they experience arrested height growth, and fail to reach the canopy above. This often happens if the tree experiences too much light too early in its grown trajectory. The tree becomes content with what light it already gets, and so it stops reaching upward. It gives up on the struggle, and spreads it branches at its earliest convenience. It’s early good fortune robs it of its ability to fulfill its potential. It mistakenly assumes its current position is its peak. It fails to realize, brighter days await it, if it only continues to fight upwards towards the sky.
Those trees that ultimately peak above the canopy, and obtain the greatest light exposure, are the ones strategic enough to refuse complacency at its earliest beckoning. Often times, its able to do this, because it was never given an over abundance of light during its stressful journey upwards. Some light along the path is necessary, but too much light, given too early, can seduce the tree into abandoning its struggle to the top. The forest kings needs to experience sufficient darkness. They need to be made to fight for the light. Stopping can’t be an options. For if it were to do so, it would mean death. All the way up, is the only viable path. Straight through the darkness is the only way out.
Here I’ll be explain the Core Concept that We Humans Are Antifragile. I’ll break this into four parts. First, I’ll introduce the property of antifragility. Second, I’ll explain how antifragile systems need to be challenged during development. Third, I’ll cover how easy success can result in a weak foundation. And fourth, I will address how good fortune and easy times can cause the systems regression and undoing.

We Humans are Antifragile.

1. Antifragility is the property of a system in which it requires stress, pressure, failure, and adversity, in order for it to actualize its capacities and capabilities.

• Bones are antifragile. If they don’t undergo enough stress during their development, they’ll remain weak and brittle. They’ll break easily.
• As I just described, many species of tree are anti-fragile, and require the strain of wind to develop the strength to bear their own weight. The more storms a tree survived during its growth, the deeper its roots.
• Some trees require stifled light exposure in order for them to breach the canopy above.
• Civilization is antifragile. It requires repetitive failures and mistakes, in order for it to learn the wisest laws and develop the infrastructure to support its growth. It requires attacks upon it, and hardship, such that it learns to defend itself, repair itself, and satisfy its own demands. For the civilization to learn, failure and hardship is required.
• These are each examples of antifragility. And we humans follow this same principle.

2. Antifragile systems need to be challenged during development.

• This is why helicopter parenting and being overly protective of your child can be so damaging to the child’s maturation.
• If a child isn’t allowed to limit test reality and themselves, they have no chance of becoming formidable adults. They’ll remain spineless, skidding, unable to bravely confront the challenges of adulthood.
• They’ll remain naive, lacking the direct experience of life’s dangers. They won’t have the understand of how to skillfully handle themselves when faced with genuine threats.
• The children that grow to be the most cunning and capable of handling themselves, are the ones that were allowed to roam the world with minimal oversight. They were allowed to learn from direct experience.
• This phenomenon is commonly delineated as having street-smarts, opposed to book smarts. Knowledge isn’t sufficient. Direct experience is mandatory.
• Facing real threats, real adversity, real suffering, and overcoming it on one’s own. This is a necessary prerequisite to a fully developed individual

3. How easy success can result in a weak foundation.

• It’s often the case in many domains, those who are most naturally talented become stunted in their growth once they reach the point at which they must strain for improvement.
• In his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, the Zen mast Shunryu Suzuki explains how in calligraphy, its usually the students that are most naturally skillful that ultimately hit a mental wall they can’t surpass. This is because their hands were too cleaver from the beginning. They never had to learn the practice deeply, the success came too easily for them. They didn’t have to work for it. Once they reach the point at which they had to strain, they become discouraged. They couldn’t account for what allowed them to learn before, and not now. They had never learned the skill of overcoming struggle. They didn’t understand the level of hard work necessary for the full actualization of their potential. They then often quit.
• Where as those students that were bad from the beginning. Struggle was all they knew. And so at no point, do they hit a wall that they aren’t willing to patiently face and overcome. They already understood what greatness would cost them. And they had already decided long ago that they were willing to pay it. But the ones that learned too quick, never realized what they were in for. The force with which that sudden realization hits them, cause them to break.
• Gifted children who aren’t sufficiently challenged in education can follow this same trajectory towards failure. Often floundering and falling apart in higher level course work that actually requires them to put their nose to the grindstone and fight for their grades. They never developed the skill of rigorous study, as they’d never had to do it prior. This sudden and unfamiliar strain can cause them to fall apart when the stakes are the highest.
• When success comes to easily, the growth is porous and fragile. The bone that grows in low gravity grows easily, but lacks the density. The student that effortlessly passes through school never really develops deep learning. They might climb high, but until they dig deep, they will lack true mastery of the subjects. It’s like a tower built on toothpicks.

4. How good fortune and easy times can cause the systems regression and undoing.

• As discussed earlier, some trees will stop their upward growth prematurely, if they are lucky enough to hit a overly substantial patch of sun-rays while being far below the canopy. Luck would have it that they were positioned just right upon sprouting from the ground, that an abundance of light was available to them amid the low branches of greater trees. They’re content to remain nestled there, far below their ultimate potential.
• This similar dynamic plays out with humans. Often times, when people reach a sufficiently comfortable life, they ease off. The desire for self-growth diminishes. They nestle in. They soften. And if catastrophe strikes, and more is required of them than usual, they crumble. As they never developed themselves beyond what was necessary to sustain their current altitude.
• Even entire societies face this dilemma. We’re all familiar with the notion that Hard times make for great men. Great men make for easy times. Easy times make for weak men. Weak men make for hard times. And the cycle repeats. When we’re no longer fighting upwards, we begin to lose the skill of fighting. And in time, we will begin move backwards. We will regress.
• When an individual wins the lottery, it can often times be the worst thing that ever happened to them. That’s because, an undeveloped person winning the lottery, is like a deep sea fishes being pulled up to sea-level. Many deep-sea fishes require tons of external pressure to maintain their bodies form and structural integrity. Without that pressure, they literally implode and die. That’s how humans work. If a person hasn’t developed themselves, and formed the skill of self-imposed strain and adversity, they will be destroyed when all external pressure is removed from your life.
• Because the truth is, humans atrophy from a lack of challenge and hard work. Unless we are pushing our limits, we are moving backwards.
• Humans operate like bicycles. When in motion, remaining upright is relatively easy. When at a stand still, toppling over is just a matter of time.

There’s a far deeper truth at play here, but the time to address that will come in the future. For now, simply seek to understand that stress, suffering, and failure are necessary feature of a healthy lifestyle. They are mandatory prerequisite for a deeply fulfilling existence lived by a self-actualizing individual. Without continually confronting them, you will erode. The goal isn’t to eradicate them. But to instead, skillfully walk beside them. Journey amid the shadows, both arms extended, with your fingers running along the cusp of darkness. The only way out, is through.

To any of the Gen Z who were born in the early-2000s like me, who just so happened to have unrestricted internet access as a child, found YouTube by accident in the early-10s and grew up watching videos during the old YouTube era, have you ever watched one video that scarred you so much you never want to watch it again? A video so horrifying that, for a few years since, it left you a scared mess wherever you went; at home, at school, outdoors and on seasonal vacations? A video that made you think that IT (the main subject in the video) will come find you and kidnap/kill you on the spot for no justifiable reason than for having watched that video?
This was me after watching one Mario horror video, where Mario becomes an undead corpse and kills his friends. I never remembered the name of the video nor the name of the channel it was uploaded on. For clarity, this wasn't a Mario screamer video nor an edgy Mario plushy video. I'm not sure either if it was made from Gmod. From memory, I only have two ideas of what it was: a Blender animation by a professional 3D animator or a claymation made using clay models of Mario characters and practical effects by a clay animator (my initial guess at the time; again, not plushies).
8 year old me and my brother found this video in around mid-November 2011 while going through random Mario videos at the time, pressing through the videos on the sidebar on my dad's iPad. This was months after accidentally discovering YouTube through Angry Birds in May that year. My brother's initial reaction was calling it "lame" but I was left terrified unlike him.
In the time since, I had the crawling feeling that Mario from the video was coming for me. When I was going to bed, I feared that Mario would appear in my dreams and kill me so I used to stay up late or sleep with my parents. When I was at my elementary school's park during recess, I felt like Mario would come from the fields and chase me so I stuck close to my elementary friend group. When I was in a Boy Scouts trip, I was scared of kids talking about Slenderman, reminding me of that video. So much so, my brother stood up during one campfire discussion and told them about our experience watching that video. Of course, being kids, they didn't stop talking about it.
That was my childhood trauma. I ended up forgetting and moving on from that video in atleast mid-2014. I'm fully grown up now, meaning that childish worries like that no longer affect me. I was then reminded of that video while watching a Lost Media compilation video, thinking that video or webseries (I'll explain later on) was gone in the depths of old YouTube history. I can't remember the name of the video; even if I were to look up matching words in the search bar, I'd just get results from the Mario horror fangame scene.
What I do remember is exactly how the video went out. This summary will sound alot like a creepypasta. Speaking of which, its also possible this webseries is based on an obscure gaming creepypasta since those were on the rise in the early-10s. So I want to see if anyone here can recognize this summary and name the possible webseries that matches it.
―――――――――――――――――――――――――――
I'll be splitting this summary into scenes. The video goes as follows:
SCENE 1: The video takes place outside of Peach's castle. To be more specific, its the Mario 64 Peach's castle. Mario is standing still like a statue by the rooftop's edge. When I said that this was likely a doll video, I mean that Mario doesn't have any animation at all. This also applies to all the other characters in the video. The camera pans to Mario before panning to his POV: looking at the outskirts of the castle.
Suddenly, Mario falls off the rooftop edge, still still like a statue in that same pose, while his iconic "WAAAOOOOHHHH!" shout plays. Then, the camera fades to black to Mario under black water (I'd assume the moat that surrounds the castle) before fading to black again.
For reference, the camera doesn't pan downwards while he falls. It just captures Mario falling off out of screen before transitioning to the black water.
SCENE 2: The scene fades in to Mario's corpse lying on the moat's shores. Mario's eyes are, in cliche creepypasta fashion, completely void and black with hints of ink around its eyelids. I think I remember as well that much of his attire was torn up too. His shoes on the other hand were gone. All that remains of his feet are the threads from his overalls.
Then, Mario's corpse gets up on its own. Orchestra music starts playing, which lasts for the rest of the video. Best comparison I have for this music is the "Graveyard" soundtrack from SpongeBob; overall creepy violin music but I doubt it's the one from SpongeBob. Mario then turns around to face the castle's bridge. Luigi was standing there like a statue at its entrance way.
Mario's corpse levitates through the path towards Luigi. The way Mario moved was like he was dragging himself towards Luigi like a ghost. The strands from his overalls where his feet would be were dragging against the ground while his arms were slumped downwards. Luigi doesn't react at all even with Mario right in front of him. Remember, none of the characters have reactions or animations.
After Mario approaches Luigi, the camera pans to his face and his iconic "Ough!" shout plays. Then, Luigi's face explodes and black ink shoots out of it. His body falls down on its side.
SCENE 3: After Luigi dies (however he was killed off), Mario turns over to see Rosalina at the spawn area (the area where Mario appears from the pipe after starting up a Mario 64 savefile). Then, Mario drags his way over to Rosalina. Like Luigi, Rosalina's face explodes with black ink blasting out of it and she falls down on her back.
I do remember that after Rosalina died, the music stops abruptly with a record scratch and the camera suddenly pans towards Mario's face. His mouth was opened like he was surprised or something. I just know that my brother cackled at the shot. I didn't know either what the point of that shot was.
SCENE 4: After that, music resumed and the camera was shaking dramatically. First, it panned over to Mario before it panned downward to Rosalina's exploding face.
Out of nowhere, Luma (Baby Luma to be exact) appears closeby to where Rosalina laid. As usually, she was standing still with no reaction towards Rosalina's death. Mario was then facing Luma. Further out of nowhere in that shot, he was carrying a gun which was aiming towards the Luma. Mario fires a shot at Luma's head before black ink busted out towards the left.
The video ends with the camera facing Rosalina and Luma'a ink spilling corpses with Mario standing still while a "wah wah wah" sound plays after the music stops.
―――――――――――――――――――――――――――
As you've read, this video plot-wise is poorly written. It doesn't elaborate on what caused Mario to turn into a living, ghost-like corpse. It doesn't show what caused Mario to fall off from the roof (though I'd assume its suicide). None of his victims have any reaction whatsoever other than standing still and dying. Doesn't even elaborate how Mario killed them except for Luma who got shot in the head. All this is just a possessed Mario senselessly killing his friends with little to no plot.
One thing I'd like to give this video credit for is the effort put into it. This video utilizes very well rendered special or practical effects, including the black ink spilling out of the characters' faces. There are no screamers either; just the dread of seeing Mario turn into a monster and killing the people he once saw as friends and allies. This may as well be an early analog horror series before the genre became popular later in the decade.
As for series, you may have noticed I referred to this as a "webseries". That's because I remember vividly seeing another video on the sidebar with Peach herself on the thumbnail. She had void eyes like Mario and was lying on the ground, meaning this is either a sequel/prequel to that video or part of a bigger horror webseries.
Again, I don't remember the name of the video nor the name of the channel that uploaded it. I still don't know if it was a 3D animation or a claymation and it's not a plushy or Gmod video either (I never watched those). I just know the video's contents and the fact that video impacted my childhood significantly.
Overall, I just want to see if anyone here can recognize this webseries and be able to find it. Just wanna revisit an old video that once affected my childhood. Thanks!

I have just 5 days before the test.
I've been studying with Jeremy's Course + Tests for the last 4 months, last year I studied for 8/12 months in college for a CCNA Course. I feel very prepared to do the exam but I have a problem, I don't know what to study. I am out of material and I don't know if I should just rewatch and check notes on topics that I am not strongly good at (just STP and Subnetting of IPV6 really) or if I should look for more resources.
Since last week I've been just doing subnet practices online, Anki Flashcards, and reviewing old notes but I don't think it's the best way to use my last days.
Should I do anything else? What would you guys recommend or what did you do on your last days before the test.

This is kind of long and ramblely, but I wanted to be as truthful as possible and give as much context as possible. Please give it a read through and let me know your thoughts!

Race Information

* **Name:** Jim Thorpe Marathon
* **Date:** April 28, 2024
* **Distance:** 26.2 miles
* **Location:** Jim Thorpe, PA
* **Website:** https://runjimthorpe.com/
* **Strava:** https://www.strava.com/activities/11284682370
* **Time:** 3:32:09

Goals

Goal Description Completed?
-------------------------------
A around 3:20 *No*
B sub 3:25 *No*
C PR *No*

Splits

Mile Time
------------
1 7:44
2 7:19
3 7:44
4 7:18
5 7:49
6 7:42
7 7:42
8 7:50
9 7:51
10 7:54
11 7:49
12 7:45
13 7:58
14 7:48
15 7:37
16 7:49
17 7:58
18 7:57
19 8:07
20 8:24
21 8:06
22 8:07
23 8:17
24 9:03
25 9:28
26 9:41

Training

For context, I am early 20s F who has been running consistently for almost two year now, though I have been generally physically active all my life.
I got into running thinking I'd do a half, and then I enjoyed running a bit too much and ended up training enough to run a marathon, so I did my first marathon (Philly 2022, ~mid Nov) after starting May 2022. My training plan for this marathon was just run a lot, and run everything slow. In 2023, I trained for Philly again following the Pfitzinger 18 weeks/up to 55mi plan (did speed workouts for the first time!) and ran 3:27:02 with a super pro friend pacing me. I was pretty excited by this race and figured I'd have a good chance of being able to run Boston 2025 if I kept up the momentum and trained for a spring marathon. This led me to sign up for Jim Thorpe, which I thought that being a downhill course would definitely let me run within 3:25:00 and qualify for Boston 2025.
I followed the same Pfitzinger plan as before, with a few modifications. I trained for a goal marathon time of 3:20:00, thinking that I would have 5min leeway during the race if things went wrong. I tried to run the recovery runs slower, especially as I got closer to the race because in the previous cycle I was running these around 8:45min/mi, which isn't really "fast" but definitely isn't recovery. I also paid a lot closer attention to my marathon pace runs. In the previous training cycle, for a workout like 14mi marathon pace with 18mi total, I'd run 2mi warmup, 14mi at marathon pace with breaks in between to eat gels (definitely cheating), and 2mi cooldown. I changed to 4mi warmup into 14mi at marathon pace with no breaks. This was definitely a really rough adjustment at first and I would often be under my desired pace towards the beginning of the plan, but I got better towards the end. Finally, I had the general goal of "stick with my lactate threshold runs" because those runs were by far the hardest for me and were the workouts I was mostly likely to not hit pace on.
Here were my goal paces for the run types: * Easy: ~9:30min/mi * General Aerobic (~8-12mi runs): ~8:45-9:00min/mi * Long Runs (14mi+): ~9:00min/mi, held steady throughout * Marathon Pace: ~7:40min/mi * Lactate Threshold (4mi - 7mi): ~7:15min/mi * VO2 Max (speed workout kinda stuff): ~6:40min/mi
The beginning 4 weeks felt a lot harder than I expected. I took a month "off" (running ~30-40mi/week) which I thought would keep me in decent shape, but all of those runs were generally slow (~9:30min/mi) and for fun. Workouts were really a slap in the face starting the training plan again. However, coming into the middle of the training plan I really felt pretty good. I struggled a lot with exhaustion during the last training plan like falling asleep in class, but I felt like my recovery was faster this time. The only workout I still struggled with were the lactate threshold workouts. I'm fine for the first 3mi, but after that my breathing is so hard and my legs feel toasted and it's really hard to keep pace. At some point I just started looking at heartrate instead of pace and trying to keep a hard effort since keeping pace was so demoralizing. I settled for about 180bpm.
With five weeks to go, I ran a beautiful 18mi with 14mi at marathon pace. Tried a beefy caffeine gel for the first time (SiS Beta Fuel + Nootropics, 200mg of caffeine) and felt like I was flying. I actually easily hit my marathon pace and felt confident about my race. Then, the great calamity. I rested for one day, and then ran 11mi the next day with friends... after that my left shin/calf hurt while walking. I ended up having to skip the next two long runs and cut back on mileage. This hurt so much after such a good marathon pace run because it felt like my pace dreams were slipping away.
My shin/calf managed to get well enough to run a 20mi three weeks before the race with only some pain. I replaced the 16mi Sunday long run with the 20mi because I felt like I needed a long run as a mental confidence check and prove to myself that I can still run longer distances, and I figured because it was only 4mi more than scheduled it shouldn't hurt my taper. With the two week taper after that long run, my shin/calf felt fine enough to race in.
To give people a better idea of my mileage while injured: * 6 weeks to go: 52mi (week I ran the marathon pace run) * 5 weeks to go: 29mi * 4 weeks to go: 24mi * 3 weeks to go: 39mi (skipped 1.5 runs to make sure I could push out the 20mi) * 2 weeks to go: 31mi (back to following the plan as normal at this point) * last week: 48mi (includes the marathon)
And some other random details: * I train using the gels I use while racing, and I take the gels at the same interval (so in theory my stomach should be very used to the gels) * I run with a water bottle/waist belt thing and drink whenever I want to (maybe only drinking at "water station miles" would be better? Or learn to run using less water?) * I'm in a running club and I run races with them during the training season for funsies. This spring, I ran a half at marathon pace, and set a 10K PR. I also ran 5Ks but didn't try to PR because either a. heavy training week or b. injured later.

Pre-race

At this point, I had no clue what I'd be able to run, but I felt like I still has a good chance of at least getting a PR. My plan was to start out at 7:40, on track for 3:20:00, and have a slower second half if needed but hopefully still keeping around the same pace. Perhaps too optimistic looking back?
Last race in Philly I wasted 2min cause my stomach was so bad I had to go to the bathroom twice in the middle, and my stomach was cramping for a good 2/3 of the race too, before and after the bathroom breaks. The stomach cramps during Philly made my legs feel really weak which I think made me go slower than I otherwise could have. Because of this, I focused on eating healthy the week before (diet was generally healthy during training too, but was especially careful the week before). I also slept a full 8 hours every night the week before the race. The day before the race, I ate pretty much only simple carbs (bagels, pasta, dinner roll) and avoided fibers/fat to minimizing the chance of needing to use the bathroom during the race.
Unfortunately, the weather was not super great. The week before was all 50F highs, but for the day of the race the temperature spiked to an 80Fe high, and the humidity was >90% with a 40 some degree dew point. Most of the race should still be in the 50Fs, but the last stretch would be in the 60Fs. I trained in pretty frigid dry winter conditions, so I was worried about being able to handle the heat, and whether I'd be thirsty/cramping at the end. I decided to use 5 SiS electrolyte gels, one SiS caffeine gel that was so good during training, and drink at every water station (roughly every 2-3mi).
Another thing is that because Jim Thorpe is in a gorge, the GPS was going to be really bad according to the race organizers. Therefore, my plan was to manually lap every mile with the Race Screen on Garmin, and try to find some people going for the same time at the beginning of the race to run with. I depended so much on seeing my current pace during my training runs that this part made me the most nervous.
I had a 0.78mi warmup (way too little in hindsight, but I was worried about adding unnecessary mileage for my shin/calf to deal with), and lined up at the starting line.

Race

The first 4 miles saw some crazy pacing issues with me. I genuinely had no clue how fast I was running until I hit the mile markers and lapped my watch. My watch was telling me my current pace was 8:30min/mi ish when I ran those two miles at 7:20min/mi... not a great confidence booster at the start, but I figured I would run a bit slower to let my pace even out.
Over the next few miles, I tried to problem solve keep my pace even by looking at my heart rate instead of my pace. Outside of my lactate threshold runs I pretty much never checked my watched heartrate during my run, and I didn't know what my marathon pace heartrate was to be honest, but I tried to keep it around 170bpm. Was this reasonable for my age? I had no clue. It felt like a reasonably hard effort effort at the time, where it would be challenging to keep up but not be so hard that I would hit the wall later. As the miles went on it became so much harder to maintain that heart rate, and my pace was slower for the same heartrate, so I opted for a pacing strategy based on effort, where I tried to feel like I was pushing myself but hopefully not too hard, and try to run faster if the lap pace for that mile was slow.
At mile 6, I could feel my stomach start to cramp, an added factor that made it even harder to keep pace. I also missed picking up water at one of the stations by whiffing the cup (in these circumstances, should I go back for water?). At mile 12 I tried going to the bathroom hoping that it might help, but I was empty. I think this meant my diet choices worked, but something else was just making my stomach cramp up pretty badly.
By mile 12 I was sure that 3:20:00 was completely unrealistic, but I was still hoping for sub 3:25:00. I had my caffeine gel around this time too, and while it didn't feel as good as during training it helped me feel more focused. I tried to make back some time, but it was really hard to devote all of my concentration for long enough periods to break out of the 7:50ish pace. My stomach was still cramping in the background, which I did my best to ignore, and I started feeling pretty nauseous when I went fast so I tried to run right at the edge of a bit of nausea, but not too much nausea. Choking down gels became harder. And by mile 18, I was so thirsty despite drinking water from every station that I was just looking forward to the next station.
By 20mi, my watch said I still had a chance of PRing, so I tried to up my pace for the next two miles. Everyone was so spread out by this point in the race that it felt like I was running alone, and the race course was now exposed to the sun. I was getting even thirstier and my stomach was cramping hard enough I thought I might shit myself (despite having no shit, as evidenced earlier), and my legs were starting to hurt but I still wanted to PR.
By mile 23, I felt like I hit the wall. I am sure the dehydration, heat, my whole digestive system wanting out from my body, blah blah blah contributed to that, but it was also a mental collapse. My watch told me that my finishing time would be slower my PR, and in that time while I was hurting and running alone I just couldn't convince myself that I could run fast enough to still PR. My pace fell off a cliff and I dragged myself across the finish line in a time way slower than what I envisioned in my worst case scenario.

Post-race

So, feeling pretty ashamed about giving up at the end. Boston 2025 is no longer possible, but I am determined to be there at Boston 2026. Here are my thoughts/questions on things to do next and improve. Feel free to be brutally honest with feedback:
* Dealing with the mental aspect: As soon as I felt like I wouldn't have a chance of hitting my last goal it was hard to find a reason to continue running fast. I think it's something I struggled with during my training too specifically with the lactate threshold runs, where when I fall off my goal pace for the workout I am always tempted to just fold. That's why I ended up using the heartrate method to continue giving myself a goal to strive towards, but even then there were two lactate thresholds that I caved in for. If I believe that I have a chance of hitting my goals though, I give it everything I have. I guess my question is that is there a way to train the "give everything" mindset even when I think I've failed to hit your goals? Any ways to practice convincing myself there's still a chance? Any other runs/workouts I can adapt to give me more chances to practice achieving this goal? I'm thinking I could make my long runs into progressions, but I'm not sure if that would be too exhausting for recovery purposes (and I love doing my slow long runs :( ). I know the solution to the mental aspect is partially "just try harder", but that hasn't been working well so far so I'm wondering if there's a specific way to improve at "trying harder".
* Another part for the mental aspect: I wanted to run a faster pace than I was running throughout the whole marathon, even before my mental completely gave in. Part of me failing to do so was me being unsure about whether going to hard would set me up for failure later in the race, and part of it was just that it was so hard to maintain a faster pace, taking way more sustained mental effort than I had put in for long runs. I think I am not used to concentrating too hard when running, which is fine for when I am feeling good but clearly a skill I need to build for days where I am not feeling good like in this race. How do I train this too?
* Side tangent, though perhaps relevant: Interestingly, I don't have this issue for the 5x800 style runs, maybe because the distance is so short that the pain seems temporary and its easy to mentally tell myself that the goal holds for the next 800 even if I run one too slowly. But this sectioning doesn't happen as well for long hard efforts because floating in the back of my head I know that even if I finish a chunk I have to do it again and again without a break.
* How do I pace? I didn't appreciate how much of a boon it was to have my own personal pacer during Philly. My friend was super experienced and tried to keep an even effort throughout. I felt like I didn't need to think about what the optimal amount of effort to put in was, I simply turned off my brain and followed. I didn't even look at my watch the whole race, and in the end when I was tired and dying he kept me motivated by reminding me of my goals and giving me encouragement. But obviously, I need to learn how to pace by myself.
* So what is the optimal heartrate range when running a marathon? Some sources online say 90% of max heart rate, which would be around 180bpm for me. However seeing as how I struggled to keep up that effort for 6mi during a lactate threshold run, I am sure I can't keep up that effort for a marathon. I looked back at that one marathon pace run and my heartrate was ~170bpm. I have no heartrate data for Philly because I had to borrow someone else's watch, their their heartrate sensor was really off. What might be a reasonable range for me, and how could I train it up more effectively? Probably more lactate threshold runs I guess, but maybe there's a better workout to ease into those since I am so used to running slow? In addition, how do I account for drift where my heartrate speeds up anyways throughout the race, regardless of my pace?
* Is pacing by effort even valid? My marathon pace run before I got injured felt relatively easy, which is why I really tried to rein in my effort throughout the race because I didn't think it should feel that hard. Even compared to the last marathon, it felt a lot harder earlier on. And in training, I have good days and really bad days where an easy pace feels hard. So for you all, if you aren't feeling well during a race, do you just ignore the relative effort you have to put in and go full steam for your desired time? Is it smarter to try to race by effort and try to get the best time for the conditions that day? I think I was wavering between these two ideas for most of the race.
* Sticking with a group? I saw this advice online, and I tried running with people at the beginning, but me trying to stay in certain groups led to some of the crazier pacing in the first four miles. Is there something I'm missing on how to select groups to follow?
* The stomach: I tried so hard to fix this since my last race. I really think my stomach cramps this time are not due to diet problems/literally having shit. I've found that before my long runs if I eat a healthy balanced diet and avoid fiber the day before I am fine. Maybe my stomach cramps from too much exertion while running? Perhaps a longer warmup would have been better to get used to the pace? I wore my running belt to carry my gels, but maybe the slight up down bouncing movement induced bowel movements in my stomach (although the belt/stomach issues in generally were nonexistent during my marathon pace run before injury). I've read about imodium on this sub, does that work by making the poop more solid or by causing the muscles to move less? I think this is a huge factor that has held me back in my past two races, and any and all advice would be appreciated.
* Hydration: I don't think I mentioned this before, but I was also really thirsty in the last 6 miles of Philly 2023. This time I drank way more, but also felt so much worse possibly because not used to the heat/humidity anymore. Would it be worth it to just carry a water bottle with me or is that too much time loss? Should I full on stop at the hydration stations and drink a lot? Issues with that is a. severe time loss, and b. chugging water tends to give me side stitches when I start running after. I usually sip as needed from a water bottle while training, is it a viable strategy to start limiting my water intake during runs to match race conditions better or would that just be needlessly dehydrating myself?
* Thoughts on continuing to use the Pfizgerald 18 week/55mi max plan? I really do not want to move up to a higher mileage plan because of how much extra time it would be; balancing training on top of college, extracurriculars, and friends is already a tall order. Maybe there is another plan floating out there that would be specific to areas I need to improve on?
* Shoes? I used the Adidas Ultraboost because they were my workout shoes while training, even though they were a bit heavy. For my last marathon, I wore the Nike Vaporfly 2, but with online ordering I got a size too small and two of my toenails completely fell off, which is why I didn't want to wear them for this race. I didn't buy new shoes for this race cause the Vaporflys were already so expensive, and I didn't want to spend more when my workout shoes are technically already a "fast" shoe. I generally feel pretty fast in the Ultraboosts, so I didn't think having Vaporflys for the race would make that much of a difference (at least for a $260 difference). Also, my form isn't super good and I do a more midfoot/heel strike, so it felt like I was wasting the carbon fiber plate but not maximally activating it. I guess my question is, do they actually make that much of a difference even for someone with my running form?
* Did my injury really warrant such a decrease in performance? I knew that this marathon was going to hurt more than my pre injury marathon pace run, but it genuinely was so much harder than I expected. I thought I'd still be okay because my injury seemed relatively minor compared to how bad it could be, seeing as how I was still able to push out some short runs without pain even during the weeks where I was injured. Also now, about 8 hours after finishing, I don't think my legs hurt as much as they did after Philly 2023, so I think my legs are relatively fit. I don't know how much of my performance today was due to a mental failure and the conditions with the weathemy body versus how much was due to a genuine loss in fitness. I would love to hear people's thoughts on this. Also, if I get injured in the future, how can I recalibrate my goals?
* Finally, if I train for 18 weeks, I get a small off season period until late July. How do I utilize this the most effectively? Do I continue running a lot after a short break? Should I do workouts during the off season so I can associate them with fun (like my long runs) instead of painful tests of my fitness? Is it worth cross training and what would I do to cross train, considering the fact that I don't know how to ride a bike and I don't have access to a pool/gym?
If you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! Let me know if you have any additional questions or if there's additional info I can give. This race wasn't my best but I am determined to do well on my next one!
TL;DR:
Trying to qualify for the Boston marathon, previous time 3:27:02 and aiming for at least sub 3:25:00 with this marathon. Training was solid up until a minor injury 5 weeks before the race that made me cut back some mileage. During the race, felt like maintaining pace/speeding up took more effort than expected, even though the pace was slower than goal pace by about 10sec/mi. Also struggled with thirst, heat, pacing myself/running long stretches alone, and stomach cramping/nausea. Ended up giving up on keeping pace at mile 23. Would appreciate advice on practicing building mental strength during the training phase, how I can avoid the stomach cramps with diet being eliminated as a factor, learning how to pace, among other things. Thank you so much!
Made with a new [race report generator](http://sfdavis.com/racereports/) created by u/herumph.

This field guide is meant for the influx of Divers who joined up in the advent of the Second Galactic War and serves to encourage fellow divers to learn the most basic and rudimentary of co-operative fundamentals (see: etiquette). As such, it should be read with the intent to reduce and minimize 'toxic elements' in operational capacities.
On Removal of Squad Mates from Mission Capacities:
At times divers may find themselves beset by traitors in their midst. These traitors can and should be dispersed by squad leaders when just cause is presented. However, squad leaders who disperse divers without just cause should be considered traitorous; the denial of adequate pay in requisition slips and needed research materials (formally known as 'samples') is necessary for all divers to further democracy. The dispersal of patriotic divers under the guise of "traitors" without just cause is among the highest forms of treason - aiding and abetting the enemy, especially so when performed during mission extraction.

• Friendly Fire is not Just Cause: Divers are subjected to rigorous training elements to take the utmost effort to avoid friendly fire (both administering and receiving). Most friendly fire is accidental, incidental, and coincidental. While some cases may present themselves for a squad leader to make a judgement call, they should not disperse divers from operations purely because of incidental casualties.
  • Addendum: Squad leaders are highly encouraged to "laugh it off" or submit a rest and relaxation request in the event they are unable to make good judgement calls.
  • Addendum: Use of the 'Sorry!' strategem after accidental friendly fire is highly encouraged.
• Sample Acquisition is not Just Cause: The findings of research materials is disseminated among all divers in their respective operations. Which diver has possession of research materials when they are submitted for inquiry (upon boarding the shuttle) is not considered. As such, the dispersal of divers with high quantities of materials for the purposes of obtaining 'credit' for their submission is be a form of treason.
• Subsidiary Mission Objective Exploration is not Just Cause: Divers are encouraged to take any means necessary with which to attain research materials - up to and including breaking away from squadrons to do so, if the flow of battle warrants such. As per Ministry of Truth standards ("get those samples!"), research materials are a key element to our victory. Dispersal of divers from squads who are successfully obtaining materials should not be confused with "rogue elements".
  • Addendum: Referring to earlier clause pertaining to good judgement calls, squad leaders are highly encouraged to provide ample questioning and warning to collapse proximity before resorting to dispersal.
• Equipment Selection is not Just Cause: While some equipment options are more adequate for select mission and operational capabilities, all equipment options are tested and proven viable (with the exception of some incendiary and air-burst launcher capab-REDACTED: Pending investigation). Squad leaders should not disperse divers on the basis of equipment selection.
  • Addendum: Many divers are given Personal Orders to use specific, select equipment for field testing. Dispersal of divers in the process of completing Personal Orders is considered an especially high form of treason.
• Rank is not Just Cause: All divers are considered resources toward achieving victory, regardless of rank. While upper echelons have more varied equipment options, divers' ranks are not an indicator of effectiveness. Squad leaders should not disperse divers on the basis of rank.
• Replacement of Preferential Elements MAY be Just Cause: Divers fulfilling SOS Requests are doing so to assist in mission objective completion. Replacement of divers with preferential elements ('friends') may be just cause, but squadrons are highly encouraged to provide prior warning and an opportunity for the respective diver to leave - of their own volition - with grace and dignity.
  • Addendum: Squadrons should only commit to this option upon mission completion (aboard their destroyer) as to not prevent payment of requisition and research materials to dispersed divers.
  • Addendum: Remember that the option to restrict squadrons to preferential fulfillment ('friendly-only') is a viable option.

On Reinforcing Squad Mates during Mission Capacities:
A full squadron of divers - consisting of four (4) elements - is the most effective means of conducting and accomplishing mission objectives. Divers are highly encouraged to make use of their Destroyers' reinforce strategem with which to replenish casualties. Excessively delayed, unnecessarily delayed, or outright failure to reinforce fallen divers when capability to do so presents is a form of treason as it undermines mission capabilities. If squadrons are not shooting, committing to a tactical retreat, or otherwise pre-occupied with mission objectives, they should be reinforcing.

• Reinforcing for Divided Elements: In the event that squadrons are divided to attain multiple mission objectives simultaneously, it is the responsibility of the nearest element to reinforce. If no such element exists, responsibility to reinforce falls on the remainder of the squadron.
  • Addendum: Referring back to clause of 'Subsidiary Mission Objective Exploration', fallen divers are still in need of reinforcing - especially so in the case of re-obtaining collected materials.
• Reinforcing in Unsafe Conditions: In the event that squadrons are heavily suppressed, divers should make every effort to reinforce safely, with several factors to consider:
  • Proximity to Equipment: Quick retrieval of deployed equipment is optimal and preferable to deploying new equipment, especially so when strategems are being re-armed.
  • Proximity to Research Materials: Retrieval of research materials is a core element of our victory.
  • Proximity to Enemy: A reinforcing diver deployed into the middle of enemy forces - while a unique and opportune distraction - is a short-lived, waste of resources.

On use of Resupply Strategems:
Divers are encouraged to make use of Resupply Strategems, rearming and re-equipping themselves with vital mission resources. However, divers should make note of what materials they have available before obtaining supplies. A single supply box will (roughly speaking) replenish half of maximum materials and ammunition. If divers are unsure if they should rearm with an additional supply box, they are encouraged to wait until the remainder of the squadron has received needed materials.
Addendum: Divers are also highly encouraged to make use of materials available on the battlefield instead of relying entirely on resupply strategems. The delay to replenish the strategem is a lengthy one.
On Strategem Request During Extraction:
Squadrons are permitted and encouraged to use strategems during extraction to show our enemies fearlessness and 'flash'. However, divers should take the utmost caution to time their strategem requests to reduce and minimize both friendly fire and failure to acquire research materials. Best practices are as follows:

• Be the last one on the shuttle: Divers within shuttle compartments are nigh invulnerable on account of shuttle armor plating.
• Proper Timing: Inexperienced divers should only request strategems on extraction when the shuttle has fully landed and lowered its ramp
• No risk to high-value research materials: Divers who, with relative certainty, know that there is little to no risk of high-value research materials posed through the request of strategems on extraction.

This completes the field guide.

Hi Charlotte! If this does appear in one of your videos, I just want to say that I really admire your content, it uplifts my day and you really make me laugh. I love being apart of the Petty Express and I looooove listening to people spill tea while I lurk in the shadows, so here's some tea of my own to spill.
First off: If any of my friends are on reddit and they see this... hi. :) I love you guys~
I (19F) turn 20 in three weeks and I'm pretty damn stoked about it because it will be my first birthday while I'm going to college that I'm celebrating with an actual group of friends that I love and adore.
Flashback to pre-middle school in 5th grade when I was in public school (before COVID era), I had a different small group of friends that I was apart of. We were a group of people who have been in the same classes for years, and I got along with everyone as the anchor of the crew. Everyone in that group liked to tell me everything because I was really good at keeping secrets, so of course I knew all the tea on everyone there.
During 5th grade I had a crush on this boy (let's call him Kay) that has been in our class since 3rd grade, and we had finally ended up in the same music class together (I played violin and he played the cello). Needless to say, I was super nervous but also excited to be around this guy, because you know how pre-middle school crushes are, and my friends always teased me about it lightheartedly. Sadly, at the end of our 5th grade year, at our elementary graduation, that was the last time I actively got to see him before he moved back to Ukraine. I am still wishing him well wherever he is.
Well, as it turns out, that year in 5th grade there was another girl (let's name her Sierra) who had just transferred to the school. She was nice... At first, but she seemed to have it out for me for some reason. I think it was because she had the same crush I did. Kay was the boy in our class who did the most, like he did gymnastics, played cello, did arts and crafts, sang and stayed for afterschool clubs and activities with our group. Needless to say, a lot of girls in our grade liked him after about a year in. Sierra always seemed jealous of me being so close to Kay. She would always see us playing kickball together or be in the garden together to watch the mint leaves grow. At that time we were just really good friends who liked each other. She would do little things to try and tear him away, like purposefully pick me and her to be team captains and she would pick Kay before I could, not that I minded at the time, and make him play against me.
One time in afterschool, me and Kay were in the arts and crafts class together while I was waiting for my sewing instructor to arrive so we could finish the apron my class was working on together. I was holding pipe cleaners for him while he was gluing them together and we were talking. It was one of those moments were we were super close and it was like something out of a romance comedy. He was staring at me and suddenly said, "You know, you really mean a lot to me." (This became a core memory of what could've been, I still remember those sweet words to this day).
I obviously was choking on the butterflies that were in my stomach and, me being the total idiot that I was, responded with "...What do you mean by that?" Needless to say I did make it awkward, but he laughed, so it was all good. What I failed to notice, however, was that Sierra had entered the cafeteria where we were working at and overheard Kay share that line with me, and she was furious. She practically stomped over to us both, put on a sweet smile and said, "Cami, your instructor for sewing is here! I wish you luck on not pricking your finger." And basically shoved me aside to talk to Kay. I didn't mind it so much, but when I told one of my best friends at the time, we'll call her Anise, she basically said that Sierra was blowing me off to have Kay all to herself.
Small little things like that went on for the entire 5th grade year, all the way up to the last week before graduation, and on the last day of school Sierra came up to me and started chatting. She kept saying how much fun she had this year, and was happy to get to know me and my group, blah blah blah, but then she said something that made my heart drop to my feet.
"OH, by the way, Kay is moving back to Ukraine for 6th grade, and he's not going to stick around long for the graduation because his mom has to leave for another job."
Obviously she could tell I was a little hurt by that, and so could my friends. They encouraged me to go tell Kay right before he leaves, so I could at least have that to rub into Sierra's face, the fact that I would've confessed before she did so she'd never get a chance to before he was gone. I never did it though because I was too shy. The day of graduation, I waved to him, he waves to me and that was the last time I ever saw him. After the gym ceremony however, Sierra still seemed upset, so of course she started mocking my wave to her sisters before she told me that if I was too shy to try and get someone like Kay now, I'd never be able to land anyone in the future.
Thankfully, she moved away that year as well, so I no longer had to deal with her subtle jabs at me, and the years leading up to 8th grade, went better than I expected.
Now, you may be wondering why this super long story is tagged as "petty revenge." I'd just like to say that, even if she's not in my life anymore, I still wanted to post this to prove her wrong about that last sentence she said to me.
Flash forward to the present. It is nearing the end of my first year at Community College and I am having a blast. Since the second semester started about 4 months ago, I instantly made new friends in my favorite class of all time, Anime History. I made friends with four people, we'll call them Sunday (20FTM), Marci(20FTM), Barrie(22F) and Belle(20F).
Recently, I have developed another crush on someone, and it just so happened to be none other than Sunday, the soul cosplayer of our group. I noticed it about three months after we became a group of friends and as soon as I pieced it together, I ran to go tell Marci (who is now my bestie for life).
In a shocking twist of events, after I told Marci, we all had a group discussion about my crush on Sunday without him being in the room, and it got crazy. As it turns out, Sunday is actually liked by almost everyone in our circle (no surprise), and it turns out that all three of us; Me, Marci and Belle, all had/still have a crush on him. Marci and Belle told me that Sunday is a bit dense and they've told him before that they've had crushes on him, as well as two guys that I don't really know have a crush on him as well, since they were in 7th grade together. When Sunday was told that, he just laughed it off and took it as a joke, and Marci has said that they're stuck in a situation ship at this point.
I was shocked to hear that Sunday had apparently hooked up with all of them at one point and we're all in a strange limbo between "are we really good friends? Or are we ever going to be in a relationship?" I originally thought my friends were joking about being situational couples, but I GUESS IT WASNT A JOKE. Anyway, I brought up the topic about all four of us just being one big polyship at one point as a joke, and of course we took it half serious. I told them that in 5 years, if we have not all found suitable partners outside of Sunday to date, then we're all dating each other, no exceptions... And they agreed.
All this to say, that I know that if I don't find someone of my own in the future after about 10 years of being alone, I know that I have 4 people I can pull close to be in a relationship in. No strings attached.
In your face Sierra, after 8 years of feeling shame for being alone like you said, I snagged three other people that I will love until the day they put me in the ground with my manga collection.
Thank you for listening to me spilling my tea, this is only my second ever reddit post and I've been needing to tell this story for a while lol. <3
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