Once during a church service invitation, I barely opened my eyes and my piano teacher was also our church pianist and she happened to see me and got my attention by mouthing angrily and giving me the evil eye. I didn’t understand what she was doing or why, but whatever it was, it distracted me enough that I kept my eyes open trying to understand her. I think I was 11.
After we got home from church that day, my parents laid into me about this and my piano teacher made this HUGE deal about me not honoring God and being a blasphemer and yada, yada…and I got spanked (of course) and grounded for the ENTIRE summer from everything. Not that I had a lot of pleasure in my life anyway…but all and any fun that I could’ve had that summer was doomed after that Sunday.
I wasn’t able to see my 2 homeschool friends I was close to, go to my grandparents house or even sit with a friend WITH my parents during church.

This is a fan fiction set concurrent to episode 122 of Nature of Predators. Events depicted here are not cannon, though perhaps they could be...
-----
Memory transcription subject: Tamil, Venlil observer, UNS Cheyenne
Date [standardized human time]: January 15, 2137
​
“Con, Sonar, Deep Core is advancing, sir” the sonar operator informed Captain Thompson. It was our signal to begin our own operation. Cheyenne had orders to cover Deep Core, a mission which the captain had referred to as “operation ruckus”. My translator implied to me that this meant we would be making a lot of noise.
“Con aye. Mr Kamorov, make your depth 700 meters.”
“Make my depth 700 meters aye, sir.”
I shivered a little as the hull of the submersible groaned around me, being compressed by the ocean's depths. The thought of it honestly terrified me, but several months ago I would have said the same of my human companions. Their crisp professionalism was on full display though, and it calmed me as I watched the various crewmen perform their duties.
From what I read of my briefing, Cheyenne was smaller than Deep Core, lacking several of the features that the larger submersible had, but emphasizing others. The humans called it a “hunter-killer”. Honestly, they weren't even trying to hide their predatory nature with this one. In the compartments to the front were a set of torpedo tubes, loaded with the latest of their underwater weapons, ingenious devices that could be either remotely or self guided. Behind me were the engine spaces, housing a single powerful reactor and what the humans called a pump jet. An extensive sensor suite rounded out the ship.
“Con Sonar, new contact, Sierra 1. New Contact, Sierra 2.”
“Con aye. Chief, I want a fire solution for both contacts.”
“Aye captain, already working on it.”
“Open outer tube doors”
“Open outer tube doors, aye.”
The crew was so calm, but I had seen them drill on this sequence of commands before. The humans were about to strike like the predators they were. It would be quick, deadly, and without mercy.
“Solution ready captain.”
“Target Sierra 1, tube one, fire.”
“Target Sierra 1, tube one, fire. Torpedo away!”
“Target Sierra 2, tube two, fire.”
“Target Sierra 2, tube two, fire. Torpedo away!”
“CON, SONAR, SIERRA TWO EVADING!”
“Con aye! Helm, make your course 240, depth 900. Steer the weapons.” “240, depth 900 aye.”
“Steer the weapons aye”.
The human weapons responded instantly as Cheyenne came about. I watched the ranges tick down to zero, and a moment later we heard two detonations.
“Con, Sonar, contacts breaking up. New contacts, Sierra 3, Sierra 4... HIGH SPEED SCREWS!”
“Torpedo in the water!”
“Hard left rudder, all ahead two thirds, up 20!”
My heart skipped a beat and I grabbed hold of a railing to steady myself as the Cheyenne leaned into the turn and pitched upwards. A few moments later we heard the scream of the farsul weapon as it passed below us.
“Captain, we have solutions.”
“Con, Sonar, Deep Core is firing.”
“Steady on course 090, all quiet.”
Cheyenne came level and glided through the water. We heard the tell tale sound of two more detonations, with the sonar operator reporting Sierra 3 and 4 breaking up.
"Now what, Captain?” I asked. Honestly I was frightened out of my mind. The humans had a term called claustrophobia, fear of enclosed spaces, but I never knew what it meant until now. A large part of me was filling with panic but there was nowhere to go.
Captain Thompson smiled, his mouth closed, lips forming a thin line in deference to me. “Well Mr. Tamil, it's doubtful that there were only four defenders. The rest are likely hiding, waiting for a better opportunity. They know we're here, we're ready to fight. They're not going to provoke us when we have the advantage.”
“So we won?”
“Hardly. They're just being more cautious. Predators are in among the heard, best to hide and wait for the chance to strike back.”
The human captain's words did little to reassure me, but I focused on his calm voice and found my panic easing.
DONG!!!
The sound made me jump and my ears rang in pain. “What was that?”
“Active ping. Sonar, Con, was that Deep Core?”
“Yes sir. New contact, Sierra 5. Deep Core is under attack, but is evading. Deep Core is returning fire.”
“Any other contacts?”
“Nothing I can classify sir. Sierra 5 hit, contact breaking up.”
“Very well.” Captain Thompson turned towards me. “Are you ready for things to get interesting, Mr. Tamil?”
I swallowed hard. “More interesting than they already are, captain?”
The captain smiled again, but this time there was a much more predatory gleam in his eye. “The farsul want to hide. Our job is to draw them out. Chief?”
“Aye Captain?”
“Remember that list of targets of opportunity we were given? Let's go down the list.”
“Aye Captain! Diving officer, make your depth 50 meters. Fire control, battle station missile.”
“Make my depth 50 meters aye”
“Battle stations missile aye”
I watched as the weapons officer flipped several switches and a new bank of lights turned on. With a wave of his hand, the lights turned from green to red as the hull around us popped and sighed. As we leveled off, the weapons officer began typing quickly. Every time he tapped the “enter” key, the words “target locked” appeared next to one of the numbered lights.
“Solutions ready, Captain.”
“Thank you Chief. You may fire when ready.
“Fire when ready aye. VLS one through four, open outer doors.”
“VLS one through four, open outer doors aye. Outer doors open. Weapons ready for launch.
“Launch VLS one through four.”
There was a slight lurch and four missiles kicked out of their launch tubes in the front of the Cheyenne. Within seconds the Sonar operator was calling us again. Dozens of contacts making themselves known, approaching rapidly.
“Alright Cheyenne, time to get to work!”

A RE/MAX real-estate agent from a neighboring town is selling a house in my neighborhood. She apparently put some Open House sign at the entrance to our neighborhood but the sign disappeared so she called the town PD to report it stolen. PD decides that since this all went down "next to my property" that I must know something, which I won't lie is actually reasonable, but everything that came after wasn't:

• Dude blows up my personal and work lines with repeat phone calls, voicemails, and texts. I have no idea how they know these numbers
  
• He does the same to my ex who hasn't lived here for a year - also unsure how they have her info
  
• Drives to my house and pounds (not knocks) on the front door and peeps in the windows for about 15 minutes straight
  
• Interrogates my neighbors and also my mother when she stopped by
  
• Leaves business card at the door then camps at the end of my driveway for 2.5 hours
  
• Following morning shows back up at 7am
  
• Blows up my phone again
  
• Pounds on front door, side door, walks around all sides of the house peeping in windows then pounding on back door too
  
• Tries hiding around the corner which made me laugh because it was so obvious he hadn't actually left
  
• I finally call down and ask his supervisor what's up with his guy. He sounds legit perplexed that I don't "just go out and talk" to the armed man who's spent 16 of the last 48 hours trying his best to terrorize me over a ~$100 sign that I have no knowledge of (outside the many texts and voicemails), and ended the conversation with "... you know you don't have to talk to him, right?" like no shit, that's literally what I did and look what happened; if I did this to anyone I'd be lucky to not be shot, but yeah I'm clearly the psycho here.
  

Best part: Not only is the property in question indeed mine, the city itself has laws that would have made the sign 'illegal' no matter what - he didn't care! These pigs go full CIA to 'just talk to me' but can't fucking read a GIS map or ask basic probing questions! So message received: Fuck tax-paying homeowners who mind their own business because some random business from another town came here, broke a bunch of laws, then made shit up. Fuck realtors and fuck the police.

I’m so tired of not feeling real. constantly panicking over everything. constantly worrying. not being able to leave my house. I stopped leaving my house and pretty much just sit around all the time. i’ve put on about 25 pounds and now i’m terrified that I have pre diabetes or just diabetes. I cant go to the doctor because of my anxiety. i’m so done with this. I feel like nothing matters anymore. I cannot for the life of me find motivation to do anything. I cant even work about because feeling my heart race makes me panic. my anxiety has gotten so much worse over the last year and nothing is helping it. pretty sure something is actually wrong with me. I feel nothing. I’m never calm. I constantly worry about having low blood sugar so I eat all the time. I cant do this anymore. life isn’t even worth living with the way I feel. I cant do anything anyways so what’s the point in it.

This is my very first Reddit post so bare with me.
I (22m) have always done my best to be a good son and brother. For context I live with my dad (56) and my younger brother (20m), for storytelling sake I will call my brother Gabe and my father Paul.
I will be the first to admit that I’m not perfect, and I have done my fair share of being hurtful and spiteful to both Paul and Gabe when I was a kid up until I was a teenager. Since growing and working on myself, I’ve recognized that I’ve done wrong and have apologized to the both of them back when I was 19 and done my best to show them I’ve changed. On the other hand, my parents got divorced when I was in 3rd grade and Paul took the divorce pretty hard, so much so that he took his anger out on me by verbally and emotionally abusing me, so I’ve always had a bit of a chip on my shoulder.
I moved out when I was 18 due to Paul and I butting heads on a regular basis. For example; Paul would down play any accomplishments I made such as graduating with honors and finding a lifelong partner at the time, or constantly blame me for things not being right in the house or not doing enough. Whenever we would get into arguments I would always try to work towards a solution and apologize if I was at fault, but Paul would always tell me it’s my fault, completely invalidate my feeling, put the blame back on me, and attempt to put words in my mouth that I never said or try and spin the story in his favor.
Whenever Paul talks about me to any family or friends, he always makes me sound like a lazy, manipulative, and selfish individual. When in reality I’m constantly trying to accommodate Paul’s feelings. I’m emotionally exhausted from just rolling over and taking whatever Paul berates me with.
As for Gabe, I’ve always done my best to protect I him and pass along any wisdom I’ve picked up. I even went so far as to writing his college essay for him him to get into a great university. Additionally, I prow texted him from our former step dad who was emotionally and physically abusive to myself and my mom. Trying to be a good big brother also means sometimes supplying him and his friends “drinks” and “herb” for parties, I don’t even think about telling Paul about Gabe’s party habits because gave us just young and wants to have fun, I was there at one point myself.
What made me realize Gabe is a two faced back stabbed is he tells Paul even when I’ve done something remotely “out of line according to Paul “ something as simple as accidentally forgetting to put the laundry basket back.
Here’s what really made me lose all hope; I have a gf (32f) and we rarely get to spend quality time together due to her having roommates and me living at home still, so on weekdays I invite her over when it’s just my brother and I home because I’m the past my brother had always been cool whenever I have a friend over or a significant other. I was in bed winding down and getting ready to fall asleep when I overheard my brother tell Paul that my gf was over. Paul doesn’t like her just by the fact that she’s older than me and is “too nice” (she’s from the Midwest).
Paul has always favored Gabe more by being more patient and understanding of him during his time of need. Gabe even failed out of college and Paul was forgiving. Whereas if I get anything less than a 4.0 then all hell breaks loose.
I’m tired of feeling so alone and never actually seen or listened to. I can’t point out to Paul how he makes me feel because he immediately turns the conversation into how that’s my fault and I’m being ungrateful. Paul has never told me that he’s proud of me or Higgs me anymore.
If you’ve made it this far thank you so much for reading.

Part 1 - https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/11ovngn/i_play_a_game_they_call_sleep_points_every_night/
Previous Part - https://www.reddit.com/nosleep/comments/13deva8/i_play_a_game_they_call_sleep_points_every_night/
When I got home from school, even though I knew the clock wasn’t literally going to try to eat me alive like it always seemed to want to on weeknights, I still watched it intensely, dreading every minute that passed. Even though this had all been what I was hoping for over the course of the last week and a half, going through with everything I would need to do to meet up with Anastasia at her hour in the middle of the night still seemed way scarier than just dealing with the clock’s nightly threats against my life which, by that point, had become something of a routine for me.
At 11:00 PM, my parents looked like they had gone to sleep. I would wait another hour as Anastasia had advised. I would leave at midnight. And that wouldn’t be a problem since it was a Friday night, and my clock wasn’t going through its usual changes. By that time, the clock hadn’t started glowing or even turning the slightest shade of red.
When midnight did come, the clock was still in the same state as it was at 11. My parents were still asleep. They hadn’t even gotten up for a bathroom break. I turned on the kitchen lights, hoping it wouldn’t wake my parents up. It didn’t. I went to the kitchen table to take the keys to my father's truck. They weren’t there. I had no idea where else to look for them.
I tried looking all around the kitchen and living room. I checked mom and dad's bathroom. Nothing. I didn’t know how I would make my way to Anastasia’s house now. I could just picture her, spending all night at her back door, waiting for me to show up, without me ever coming. Maybe I'd find the keys tomorrow. But that seemed like a fat chance since dad wasn't gonna be driving anywhere tomorrow.
I wouldn't have him to find them for me. It looked like I’d have to wait a whole nother week on any answers now.
I had recently invested in a new watch. I had some allowance money left over from when I was a kid. My school has a little gift shop with small things like school-themed wristwatches, so after my last class of the day, I stopped by and picked up a College High watch so I could check the time without needing to look at the clock in my room or at my phone. I'm bringing this up because at around this point I was watching with increasing anxiety as time was passing by. According to the watch, the time now was 12:30 and I still didn’t have any access to my father’s car.
I was already feeling hopeless enough, just thanks to that fact, but then I remembered that I still didn’t even know how to get to Anastasia’s house.
Since I still didn’t know where the keys were and it didn’t look like I’d find them any time soon, I figured I’d take a break from looking, and go on my phone to look up her address on google maps. I knew I shouldn’t have been using my phone since it was apparently super important not to let it die. I figured it must've been one of those rules like keeping my head under the blanket when The Sandman showed up, along with the rest of my body. But I would only need my phone for a few minutes. Just enough time to look at google maps and sketch out a rough map of the route from my house to Anastasia’s.
The first thing I noticed when I typed in her address was that, thankfully, her house wasn’t too horrendously far away from mine. It would just be a 4-mile drive. So hopefully this meant that, if push did come to shove, I could still just walk there if I had too. I’d probably be late, but that would be better than not showing up at all. So, I at least had that as a back-up plan if nothing else. But it would still be risky. It would take a lot of time to walk there, and then to walk back. Maybe mom and dad would be up after all was said and done. Maybe they’d hear me coming back inside the house, regardless of how I made it to Anastasia’s. Maybe I’d wake up Anastasia’s parents too.
Since I only had an hour and thirty-five minutes left, I had no time to worry all that much about any of this though. I had to get to work, jotting down the path to Anastasia’s house. I would turn left out of my driveway, stay on that road for about a mile and a half, then turn right and stay on that road for another half-mile, then turn left for another mile, and then left again for a final fourth mile.
Another thing I noticed was that Anastasia lived out in the middle of absolute nowhere. I thought I did too, but Anastasia’s house was on a whole nother level of out there.
Fortunately, that meant I’d be driving pretty much exclusively on backroads, so it would literally be impossible to take a wrong turn after I made my first turn out of the driveway and the next right turn after that after about a mile and a half. It also meant that I would be pretty much guaranteed not to run into any other drivers, especially at that time of night. But I guess her remote address explained why she didn’t have the internet connection she would need to do a video call.
Since it was a quarter to 1 by that point, after I found out how to drive to her house, I put on all the layers I could find, took the flashlight that my mom had given me for the walk I had went on during the week prior, and started trying to walk over there, without my parents’ car, despite her recommendations. Even though it was four miles by car, I wouldn't have to worry about staying on the road if I just walked there. If I walked in a straight line, I could get there in just over 2 and half miles or so. I had decided to leave, not out of the front door, but out of the door in the hallway that led to the garage. That door made less noise than the front door.
Unfortunately, I started to get the sense that I hadn’t thought this plan through when I realized I would still have to open the garage door in order to make my way into the outside world. Which, yeah, made considerably more noise than the front door. But then I realized it didn’t matter, since I was gonna have to open the garage door anyway if I wanted to get the car out of the garage and onto the road. So, I had still made the right decision. Except no I hadn’t, because I had just remembered that I still didn’t have the car keys, and so I was supposed to be ditching the whole car idea anyway and had just randomly forgotten about all of that.
I know that all probably sounded pretty messy and wasn't very easy to follow, but maybe someone else reading with ADHD can relate. But anyway, confusing thought processes aside, I walked out the front door and started making my way to Anastasia’s on foot. It really was freezing though. I really did wonder if I could actually make it all the way to her house.
Before I even made it to the end of the driveway, I began to change my mind and decided driving really would be a more reasonable alternative. Obviously, the backroads wouldn’t even be close to snow plowed. But the snow only looked to be about maybe 6 or 7 inches deep, which was still driveable enough with the snow-proof tires that my dad had on his truck. This level of snow isn't all that uncommon around here, so those tires are pretty much a must-have for anybody living in deathly cold climates like us.
So, I could still drive despite the snow, albeit only very slowly what with how much the snow would slow me down. But I was supposed to be driving slowly anyway because I was only 14 and didn’t have a license. But I still couldn’t drive without those keys. Then I remembered I still had my bike in the garage. It was supposedly “all terrain”, so hopefully that meant it could handle the snow. I went into the garage, got my bike out, and tried riding it. Unfortunately, the tires on that bike weren’t even close to capable of handling the snow. I tried pedaling as hard as I could but hardly got anywhere before falling over. I had a feeling this would probably happen. It seemed like a dumb idea but, since I didn’t want to steal my dad’s truck and I couldn’t even seem to find his keys anyway, I figured it was at least worth a shot.
I was just about to say “fuck it” and try meeting Anastasia again on some other night when, just as I had put my bike down in the garage, I had seen that my dad had left behind his keys in the key slot of his car door. Apparently, the reason that they weren’t where they usually were was because my father had locked the truck and just forgot to take his keys with him. I turned the key sticking out of the driver’s side door and it opened. So I really could get inside of his truck after all.
I put the key into the ignition and then put it in reverse. The truck made quite a bit of noise when its ignition started, so I had just hoped that I hadn’t woken up my parents with that. Luckily, my garage is on the other side of the house from where my parents sleep, so the sound did at least have a long way to travel. Once I started backing the truck out of the garage and into the driveway, I ran into another problem. Since the roads weren’t plowed, they were just as snowy as anywhere else. So even with the rearview mirror, I had no idea where my driveway stopped and the road started. I figured I would just keep backing up until I felt like I’d gone far enough.
Far enough came sooner than expected though. Eventually, the car had very clearly backed into the grass, meaning I had backed up too far. Fortunately, I saw that I hadn’t veered too much out of the straight line I was trying to go in, because driving in reverse meant I could see the truck’s tracks right in front of me with the help of the headlights. The car fell onto the grass from back to front. So that meant that the road was now directly in front of me. Since I needed to take a left from my house if I was facing away from it, and I was now facing the opposite direction given that I was looking right at it, that meant that I now had to make a right turn in order to still be going in the right direction.
I took a moment to make sure my logic was right and, once I felt confident, I turned the truck right and then tried to feel for where the road was based on how well the truck was able to move. Eventually I was able to drive relatively smoothly, so I took that to mean that I was back on the road. I tried to angle myself properly so that I wouldn’t wind up veering off the road again. Now and then I would wind up driving myself off the road. But since I was only going like 5 miles an hour, I was able to catch myself before the car wound up falling into any ditches or something.
Since the road was entirely empty, I eventually made the decision to just drive in the middle of the road. Or at least, wherever I thought the middle of the road was. That way, I’d limit the likelihood of driving myself off the right edge.
After about 20 or 30 minutes of driving painfully slowly, I finally saw the sign for my first turn. Since all the turns I was making were fairly sharp ones, they were basically all 90 degrees, there were road signs that I could use to gauge when I should turn without needing to see the road itself. So I still knew when to do it, even though I couldn’t see the road under all the snow and I couldn't use GPS since my phone had to stay on the charger at all costs.
But the snow still made those sharp turns very difficult to make. So I had to start all my turns pretty far ahead of where they actually would’ve been in the road. Naturally, I wound up driving off the road when making literally all of them. But I was always able to work out where the road was supposed to be soon enough. I guess since people are more likely to veer off the road when making turns as opposed to when they’re driving straight, there didn’t seem to be any ditches around all those sharp turns, thankfully enough.
After I made that first turn, I checked my watch. It was now a quarter after 1. I still had 50 minutes to go. I wasn’t making great time, but I had still made it about a third of the way in only about 25 minutes. If I kept up the pace, I’d be there after just under an hour of driving. Which would put me there a little bit after 2 AM. So, pretty much exactly at 2:05, the time we agreed on.
I kept on driving incredibly slowly for what felt like forever. Finally I had made my last turn, and after a bit, I could see lights from the houses off the side of the road in the distance. I figured that this must be the neighborhood Anastasia lived in. If you could even call it a neighborhood. The houses were so hugely spaced out that it hardly even made sense to say you had neighbors. But then, she really did live out in the middle of nowhere.
Every time I passed by a house, I got out of the car and looked for an address with my flashlight. This slowed me down, but it still ensured that I would be headed for the right house. I kept the slip of paper with her address on it since I knew that, without that sheet, I’d absolutely forget which address was hers. I was actually pretty pleased with myself for having thought ahead like that. I usually didn’t. I guess I still usually don’t, if I’m being honest.
I was worried that this whole procedure of getting out of the car to scope out for an address every time I passed a new house would make me late. But fortunately, Anastasia’s house was the third house I came across on that street. So thankfully, I didn’t wind up having to check that many houses and it only cost me maybe another 5 minutes. When I checked my watch, I found I had actually arrived sooner than I had thought. Even with checking every house I had come across up to that point for the address, it was only 1:50.
I had made it with 15 minutes to spare. That meant I had made that last two thirds of my trip in about the same amount of time that I had spent on my first, meaning I had wound up going twice as fast. I suppose as I had gotten comfortable with driving, I sped up the car a little without even realizing it. Doubling your speed sounds like it should be a huge difference, but when you’re only going from 5 miles per hour to 10, I guess it must be pretty hard to notice.
Since I had so much time left and the weather outside was still hellishly cold, I stayed in the truck with the heater blaring. After a couple of minutes, I noticed an ominous red light glowing out of the side of the house. That seemed off to me since surely that couldn’t have anything to do with Anastasia’s clock. It wasn’t a weeknight and even if it was, it was still well past midnight. I remembered what she had told me about how I was still on Stage One. Maybe the fact that she was on a much later stage had something to do with what I was seeing. The fact that I was still on Stage One did, after all, seem like it had something to do with the fact that I was only threatened by the clock on weeknights.
My curiosity had gotten the better of me, and so I braved the cold and snow to go check out what was happening. There was a window on the side of the house. The curtains were left open so with the red light blaring from it, I could see inside fairly easily. Especially since the house was only one story, so it wasn’t like the window was too high up off the ground for me to see through, either.
My fears had been confirmed. Upon looking into the room, I could see exactly where the red light was emanating from: the clock on the nightstand. The face inside was as clear as ever. Every feature slowly growing, approaching the glass in front of the clock’s face. But it wasn’t looking at me. It was very clearly directing its vile and hateful gaze at the person under the covers.
The person had her head covered underneath the blanket, so I couldn’t directly tell who it was. But I figured it had to be Anastasia. For one, there was no way in hell anybody else in her family was playing Sleep Points too. I mean, what are the odds of that? And for another, the room pretty clearly looked like it belonged to a teenage girl about Anastasia’s age. Everything looked like it was pink and had all kinds of frills to it. I even noticed some boyband poster on the other end of the room. If this wasn’t the most stereotypical teenage girl’s room, I had no fucking clue what was.
Finally, 2 o’clock had come. I could see why she had told me 2:05. I had never seen the monster from the clock break out. I had always had my head under the covers whenever it happened. But since this was Anastasia’s clock and not mine and since the face in the clock was staring her down and not me, and since I had entire wall separating me from the thing, I guess I somehow managed to muster up the courage to watch the monster in action.
Suddenly, the hands and numbers of the clock’s face began to almost melt into the monster’s face. It had broken out of the sheet of glass holding it back. But that seemed to be the only thing that was broken. The rest of the actual clock remained pretty intact as the unspeakable thing from within started to slither out of the clock and onto the floor. Since the hands and numbers were still on its face, it kinda looked like they had been imprinted on it like some kind of tattoo artwork. It very quickly expanded in size and let out this unholy screech that I could hear very loudly even from behind the window. But Anastasia was still sleeping very peacefully. Totally motionless like nothing at all was going on.
It prowled around her bed, looking for the slightest sign of motion. It looked almost skeptically at her. As if it could tell whether she was really sleeping or not. And God only knows what would’ve happened to her if she wasn’t. Eventually the monster seemed satisfied with what he saw and shrunk himself down to his original size. He slid back into the clock and as he did so, there was one last glow of red light. The glass had been restored. It was now 2:01.

one of my employees lives with his Aunt as a result of his mother having a stroke several years ago. His Aunt took full control of his mother and basically required him to move in and care for his mother. (something he feels he has a moral responsibility to do). However, his aunt is a bitch. she treats him as a personal slave and forces him to often miss work because the lawn isn't cut, her dogs haven't been fed, she needs lumber to fix the deck she's too fat to walk on. She constantly plays mind games and restricts access to utilities like power, internet, etc to "teach him a lesson". What lesson you might ask? The lesson that it's her house and her rules. To be clear, he diligently does chores and regular upkeep for her. She makes things up so that he purposely will miss work. He has had issues at past jobs because they would simply fire him for showing up late. He has told me she really doesn't want him working, because that means she has to do everything herself when he is gone all day and takes out her fury on him when he gets home at night.
My questions are this:
Are there any tenant laws (even though he doesn't pay to stay there) that can help him avoid abuse?
Are there any antislavery laws that may apply?
Does mental anguish qualify as Domestic Abuse?
Are there blackmail laws that may help as she is using the situation with his mother to personally profit (she has full Power of Attorney over his mother) and keep him subservient?
​
I really want to help him. I've tried talking to him about getting leasing another place, but he is determined not to abandon his mother (which I totally understand).
The State is Mississippi.

After grinding for 5 months I can finally rent a shop, not to open it to the public, but to put all my personal studio there, it's 80m² (860 SF) with soundproof walls and ceiling, so I can work even if it's 4 am and scream as much as I want.
And it's only a street away from my home, so it's a 1-2 minute walk from my house to the shop, I'm so happy everything is working out after dropping out, just wanted to share that :)

If you send gifts on Tik Tok, this is for you.
Think to yourself, how much money do you make per year?
What do you have to do in order to make that money?
Do you have really nice things like expensive cars, big house, tons in savings while traveling the world on vacation?
If not, why are you sending gifts to 20 YEAR OLDS MAKING THEM RICH???For those of you who don’t know, every 100,000 coins a creator gets, they profit $500 while TikTok takes the other $500(50/50 split). If you take a look at the rankings each night, it’s typically the same 100 people every night with the lowest being 200,000 coins and the highest usually around 3 MILLION coins! That means these lower end creators are making $1,000 PER DAY which is $350,000/year while the big time creators are making $5,000- $15,000 PER DAY which is $2,000,000 - $6,000,000 A YEAR!!! You think I’m joking? The numbers are right there in the rankings. DO THE MATH!! These guys can go LIVE a few hours a day a few days a week(which is fun for them) and make 6-7 FIGURES ANNUALLY.
Meanwhile you’re busting your ass at your 9-5 job just trying to get by making these people filthy friggin rich. And the worst part is, these creators don’t do shit!! These creators make you feel like your important and gas your head up and make you feel like you’re apart of this great team. They don’t give a shit about you. If you stop gifting them, you’ll never hear from them again and if you do it’s to find out why you’re not gifting them anymore.
You work too damn hard to give your money away for other people to live the way YOU should be living. STOP GIFTING THESE PEOPLE because if you look at your total coins spent and do the math on how much money it equates to, it’s going to make you SICK to your stomach when you realize you’ve gifted out THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to these random people. Just think about what you could have done with that money!?!! I’m sure you could think of a bunch of things….Instead you gave it to a creator and it just covered their trip to Bora Bora. I know it’s addicting as hell but I hope this helps you understand how stupid it really is. I was one of those gifters until I understood all of this. If you’re gonna gift someone, give it to the creator that actually has real content and puts a ton of effort into it. Stop giving it to the people who just battle all F*cking day which is no different than a lazy person without a job getting on tik tok everyday begging for donations. I bet you wouldn’t gift that person. You would make fun of them and tell them to stop begging and to get a job. Well, WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE!?!? NO MORE GIFTING!!
Spoil yourself with your hard working money. Not random people who don’t give a damn about you. Or, give it to someone who actually truly needs it like a homeless veteran, or a kid who’s never been to a ball game, or someone behind on bills. Not some tik toker who’s already rich as hell. At least if you go to the casino you have a chance to win, when you gift money to these TikTok battlers, you win NOTHING and they win EVERYTHING!
I hope if you’ve read all of this, it’s opened your eyes. For those of you that still choose to gift, it’s your money so do as you please but if you have half a brain, you’ll stop making other people rich when there’s others who could use it including yourself!

Me and my family just recently moved into a new neighborhood. The first month was no problem from neighbors. A month later one afternoon I was sitting in front of my house in my car and all of sudden a woman comes out of nowhere and proceeds to bang on my driver side car window. I rolled my window down a little bit to speak and she then accuses me by saying she saw me hitting my neighbors bricks who lives directly next door to me and driving on their grass. I told her she was mistaken and that I never hit anyones bricks. She then proceeds to blow her cigarette smoke in my car. I then get out of the car and speak to her as I don't want her to continually blow her cigarette smoke in my car. I then asked her where she lives and she tells me she lives at the corner house while still blowing her cigarette smoke in my face. It seemed like she was doing all of this out of pettiness but as we were new to the neighborhood I decided not to start and argument and just politely ended the conversation. She then walks down to the corner house and turns the corner to another street. I thought nothing of it until a week later come to find out she doesn't live at the corner house and that she actually lives directly cross the street from me. I had hardly seen her or crossed paths so when she initially came up to my car I had no idea who this woman was. Please stay with me because this is where the madness begins. A week later I was leaving out for work. Now mind you I park my car on the street in front of my house sometimes and as you know you sometimes have to drive in a neighbors driveway when parking on the street to turn around. I did just that but instead of using the neighbors across the street driveway (cigarette lady) I decided to use the neighbor who lives directly next door to her to avoid any problems with cigarette lady since she lied and accused me of something I didn't do. As I was driving in this lady's driveway (who lives next door to cigarette lady) I ENSURED I didn't drive on her grass since again me and my family are new to the street and also since the cigarette lady has already made up a lie about me driving on someone else's grass I didn't want anymore problems. As I drove in her driveway was I went slow and made sure I didn't drive all the way in her driveway only up to the sidewalk. This lady then runs out her back door and comes up to her gate and yells something at me. I rolled my windows down and asked her what did she say because I didn't hear her. She then says "Don't get on my motherfucking grass". I was in complete shock. Because I made sure I wasn't on her grass and that I drove slow. I then say to her "You don't have to speak to me like that I never met you. You're being very ignorant with me. I'd appreciate it if you not talk to me in that manner" she then says "I don't give a fuck don't drive on my fucking grass, bitch" After this we get into a brief argument and I drive a way. When I come home she's already waiting on her porch and I was prepared to ignore her as I was still in shock someone could talk to someone like that who've never down anything to them. She then "Hey, I wanted to apologize for earlier." and I then say I do not accept your apology kindly as If Im being honest I was still upset by the names she called me. After I declined her apology she then says "Nevermind bitch". I knew then none of this was going to be good. I concluded that night that what might have triggered her to lie and say I was on her grass was because the cigarette lady told her I drove my neighbors grass so when I drove in her driveway she already had preconceived notions about me off of what she has heard from cigarette lady. Ever since then her and the cigarette lady has went to half the neighbors on our street lying to them telling them that I did this, that, and the third as if Im bullying them for no reason. Other neighbors has chosen "their side" because other neighbors would say stuff to me as Im walking my dog or when I wave at them they blatantly don't wave back. Whenever I would water my grass cigarette lady and driveway lady would get on one of their porches and gossip about me. I just ignore them until a week ago. Last week I decided to take my dog on a walk around the neighborhood as I normally do. Usually when I walk my dog I try to stay on my side of the street to avoid further confrontation but and sometimes I walk my dog on both sides cigarette lady and driveway lady side of the street as well as my own. And I decided to walk on both sides. As I began to walk my dog, driveway lady then looks out her front door and then rushes out her back door to walk her dog. I then said I will try to talk to her today and try to end the conflict. So I walked my dog to the corner of our street and waited for her to come around the block to speak to her. And I did I spoke to her and also mentioned to her I don't like the things she been doing and that it's ridiculous she has involved all the neighbors. She then said yes "I told everyone, I will keep telling everyone" from there I knew she was insane. So I politely asked her to stop the drama with my family and I and leave us alone and walk away and she agrees and we go our separate ways. Out of nowhere her mother and father pulls up in the middle of the street then jumps out the car and begin to yell at me. Mind you this lady is about 41 years old. I knew this was her parents because she called them mom and dad. I then say a few words back and just go home. I didn't even get to finish walking my dog. I go home lay down and 30 minutes later the police shows up at my door saying that the "driveway" lady parents called and told them I was walking my dog on the wrong side of the street and that I have been harassing her and the neighbors. I then ask him is it a crime to walk by dog on a public side walk although I always make sure my dog doesn't poop on anyones lawn. He says no and then actually agrees that her calling the police on me was ridiculous and that I have every right to walk my dog on either side of the street. So after that the police gives me an incident report number and I go inside. The police then goes over to driveway lady's front yard and speak to her and her family. So decided to walk my dog again since I didn't get to finish walking him the first time and I thought this was the perfect time since the police was there. I began walking my dog and this time I was going to walk around the corner to a different street. As I passing by the corner house on my street to go around the corner to a different street a man and his wife are on their porch starring at me with anger in their eyes I just looked away and kept walking. Then the woman on the porch goes "Who the fuck are you starring at" I said "I don't know you" and she then jumps off the porch and goes "Im [insert name] who the fuck are you" I tried to keep walking before I know it she's slapping me upside my head. Before I can defender myself the police who was once talking to "driveway" lady then runs up puts me in handcuffs then gives me a ticket for disorderly conduct. They then let me go and gave me my ticket. I was in tears and in shocked that this was really happening to me. I then told my family about it who lives near and my brother rush over and confronts the lady and her husband. Apparently she claims that I have been bullying "driveway" lady and that I'm a horrible person which is why she attacked me. The police refused to give her ticket for assault as they said "They didn't see anything" I know this was very long but what do I do. We have a court date set as well. She I hire a good lawyer or do I even have a case. Pertaining to the neighborhood do I contact city council? Where do I go from here?

Hey reddit. Ive had this issue for months, but only recently has it gotten as bad is it is now. I didnt sleep at all last night and lately i usually dont fall asleep until 3am/4am. i constantly feel tired to a point where i feel like i cant exercise or leave my house. Its gotten to a point to where i constantly feel awful about myself unless im distracting myself (through music, social media, youtube, etc). How do i fix this?

So for some back story my mom is one of the guidance counselors at my private highschool so they all have known me for pretty much my whole life so one of them was talking to me the other day about what I should write about but I am a bit on the fence. So me and my family (mom dad both educators I was a freshman when it started my sisters were in sixth and fourth) we lived in a 3 bed 2 bath house in a decently wealthy neighborhood and started a major renovation to our house. To make a very long story semi short the project took way longer than it was supposed to it was supposed to go from September 2021 to March 2022 and ended up ending in January 2023. The originally contractor stopped sending guys to the house even after we paid him and is getting sued by us and all of his other clients for the same reason. He also left faulty electrical wiring in our walls which was very dangerous. During this time it was really isolating because I couldn’t see my friends as often because we lived with my grandparents about 20 minutes away from my town. I also started highschool a week before we left and went to a different one then all my friends and we were living in someone else’s house. I am on the fence about writing about this for a few reasons, even though mentally it was probably one of the lowest points in my life I don’t think I could articulate that in a constructive way. I just think it’s also kinda pretentious because I was living in my grandparents pretty nice house while we were pretty much completely redoing ours. I know it’s a pretty unique experience but I’m just not sure it’s right for an essay please let me know your thoughts below.

Compiled by u/zhilia_mann and extensively revised by u/Loleeeee.

Reminders for Dust of Dreams

Notes on half a book

Dust of Dreams is an odd read. It hasn't seen the reconsideration that Toll the Hounds has; it's ranked ninth in our last reader survey. The Author's Note at the beginning spells out some of the reasons:

Dust of Dreams is the first half of a two-volume novel, to be concluded with The Crippled God. Accordingly, if you’re looking for resolutions to various story-threads, you won’t find them. Also, do note that there is no epilogue and, structurally, Dust of Dreams does not follow the traditional arc for a novel.

He's not kidding. But that's not the whole story.
DoD does have a climax, but it feels more like the mid-book climax that is Y'ghatan in The Bonehunters chapter 7. It's monumental, it changes things, but it doesn't reach out and incorporate disparate storylines or tie together themes. It also arrives incredibly suddenly and catches me off guard even when I know what's coming.
More generally, DoD takes its time. Erikson continues to lean in to the slow character moments that characterize Toll the Hounds, but now does so with the urgency dictated by the imminent conclusion of the series. Theme drives DoD as much as plot -- to the extent that some readers like to claim that basically nothing happens.
There are two specific things to look out for as you read. First, there's a specific plot that seems very odd if you don't catch one hint in the prologue. In order to not give away the game, u/kashmora and I have decided to discuss that plot in more detail under spoiler tags in order to maintain a balance between spoon-feeding the reveal and actually having something to say.
Second, there's a notorious event in chapter 15. It's effectively foreshadowed and won't come as a huge shock, but it's brutal. If any previous sexual violence has bothered you, this is guaranteed to turn your stomach. It's handled respectfully, but it's vile. As the chapter approaches, we will likely give lines and timestamps to stop and then restart reading if you feel you just can't do it.
I genuinely like Dust of Dreams (and, unusually, tend to rate it over The Crippled God). But it's an experience.

Characters

Since Dust of Dreams picks up largely where Reaper's Gale left off, we have a somewhat limited cast of new characters. That said, a) we continue to expand on the Lether continent and b) we're bringing back characters we haven't seen since The Bonehunters.

Gods and Ascendants

Elder

• Errastas: The Errant, Master of Holds. Likes to "push" and claims that to be his nature.
• Kilmandaros: Primarily known for pummeling her problems into dust. Mother of Sechul Lath.
• Sechul Lath: Knuckles, the Lord of Chance and Mischance. He, like his mother, seems to have extra joints and a horizontally hinged sternum.
• Mael: Bugg, Tehol's one-time man-servant and now Ceda, Chancellor, and Treasurer. Also the god of the sea.
• Ursto Hoobutt and Pinosel: Ancient gods of beer, wine, and fertility.
• Olar Ethil: Goddess and Soletaken Eleint Bonecaster of the T'lan Imass.
• Togg and Fanderay: The Wolves of Winter, gods of war and current occupants of the Beast Throne. Worshiped by the Perish Grey Helms and, before their destruction, the Grey Swords under Toc Anaster.
• Grizzin Farl: An ancient god, now disappeared.
• Tiam (or T'iam, or Tiamatha): Goddess of dragons.

New Gods and Ascendants

• Hood: You remember Hood, right? The Jaghut god of death that just died himself?
• D'rek: The Worm of Autumn, goddess of decay.
• Dessembrae: Lord of Tragedy. Divine aspect of Dassem Ultor.
• Shadowthrone and Cotillion: God of Shadow and the Rope, Patron of Assassins. Schemey plotters.

Letherii

• Tehol (the Only) is now the King of Lether
• Janath Anar is his Queen
• Brys Beddict titled a Prince now, Commander of the Letherii Army
• Aranict a promising High Mage, Atri-Ceda

The Wanderers

• Last: An ex-Letherii farmer. Lived with his father after his mother died when he was young. A big but meek fellow.
• Asane: A meek Letherii woman. Talked down upon by both Nappet & Sheb.
• Sheb: An ex-convict. Sentenced to what amounts to a death sentence, he survived prison, though was significantly changed for it.
• Rautos: A man with scant few memories, reminiscings of his wife, and a familiar name.
• Taxilian: An architect from the city of Taxila, Seven Cities, also with a familiar name.
• Nappet: Another Letherii ex-convict. He's a bully.
• Breath: A Letherii witch that's filled with spite & thoughts of drowning.
• The Ghost: An unnamed character that can move between the Wanderers at will. Has peculiar memories, though is presumably incorporeal.

The Refugium

• Rud Elalle: Son of Menandore and Udinaas, growing up very fast (think Silverfox).
• Ulshun Pral: A leader of the Bentract Imass of the Refugium. Son of Onrack T'emlava and Kilava Onas.
  • Seren Pedac: Acquitor and budding mage of Mockra, Trull's widow.
• Udinaas: Former slave to the Sengar household and former confidant of Rhulad. Dark, cynical, but way too insightful.

The 14th and its Allies

Malazan Leadership

• Lostara Yil: Former Red Blade, former lover of the Claw Pearl, now Tavore's right hand in T'amber's place. Trained in the Shadowdance.
• Blistig: Former commander of the Aren Guard, now Fist under Tavore.
• Kindly and Pores: The notorious captain and his long-suffering lieutenant, and/or Master Sergeant, and/or Quartermaster.

Marines

• Keneb: Fist who led the defense of Froth Wolf and Silanda in Malaz City. Detached to the Marines.
• Faradan Sort: Keneb's second in command. May have stood the Stormwall in the past.
• Bottle, Cuttle, Smiles, Koryk, Tarr, and Corabb Bhilan Thenu'alas: Fiddler's squad. Bottle is still a mage who can control animals and Corabb is still Oponn's favorite. 4th squad, 9th company.
• Gesler, Stormy, Sands, Shortnose, Flashwit, Uru Hela, and Mayfly: Gesler's squad, almost entirely composed of heavies. 5th squad, 9th company.
• Hellian, Touchy, Brethless, Balgrid, Tavos Pond, Maybe, and Lutes: Hellian's squad. Hellian is a drunk and has arachnophobia. Touchy and Brethless, her two corporals, have served under her since way back in Kartool. 8th squad, 9th company.
• Thom Tissy, Tulip, Ramp, Jibb, Gullstream, Mudslinger, and Bellig Harn: 12th squad, 9th company under Thom Tissy.
• Urb, Reem, Bowl, Hanno, Saltlick, and Scant: 13th squad, 9th company. Urb earned his own squad after dragging Hellian out of Y'ghatan, an event she still periodically wants to kill him over.
• Pravalak Rim, Honey, Strap Mull, Shoaly, Sinter, Kisswhere, and Lookback: 4th squad, 3rd company.
• Badan Gruk, Ruffle, Skim, Nep Furrow, Reliko, and Vastly Blank: The heavily Dal Honese 5th squad, 3rd company. Nep Furrow is a bush warlock, who talks in an incomprehensible accent.
• Primly, Hunt, Mulvan Dreader, Neller, Skulldeath, and Drawfirst: 10th squad, 3rd company.

New Bridgeburners

• Hedge: previously dead, now seemingly alive, Bridgeburner.

Other Soldiers

• Cord, Shard, Limp, Ebron, Crump, and Sinn: 7th squad, 9th company, largely former Ashok Regiment. Sinn is a traumatized girl and high mage. Crump's actual name is Jamber Bole, High Marshal of the Mott Irregulars.
• Balm, Deadsmell, Throatslitter, Galt, Lobe, and Widdershins: This humble writer's favorite squad, the 9th, 9th company. Deadsmell is a mage of Hood. Throatslitter's laugh can nearly kill all on its own.
• Masan Gilani: Dal Honese heavy and excellent rider. She has... other charms. Technically in Urb's squad?

Civilians

• Banaschar: Former high priest of D'rek, the Worm of Autumn. Stole the entire temple coffers after D'rek killed her followers (except Tayschrenn and Banaschar himself).
• Withal: "Foreigner" from The Bonehunters and the Meckros blacksmith who made Rhulad's sword for the Crippled God.
• Sandalath Drukorlat: Tiste Andii wife of Withal. First killed long ago, her soul was released by the Crimson Guards traveling with Seren Pedac in Midnight Tides. She was restored as a companion for Withal and it didn't go well at first. Now they're married, so something worked out?
• Grub: Keneb's adopted son. Walked the Chain of Dogs. Now the only friend of Sinn. Has a knack for saying prophetic things. Oh, and there's an epigraph in House of Chains (Chapter 19, if you're curious) that identifies him as a future First Sword of the Malazan Empire.

Khundryl Burned Tears

• Warleader Gall: still headed by him
• Hanavat: his wife

Perish Grey Helms

• Mortal Sword Krughava: Fifty-odd years old Mortal Sword of the Wolves of Winter (you may recall that Toc held that title in conjunction with Krughava).
• Shield Anvil Tanakalian: Shield Anvil of the Grey Helms. Homesick, young, and with some curious ideas about his role.
• Destriant Run'Thurvian: Destriant of the Grey Helms. Befriended Fist Keneb in the Bonehunters. Doesn't hold Tanakalian in particularly high esteem.

K'Chain Che'Malle and Associates

We meet a surviving nest - Ampelas Rooted - headed by Matron Gunth'an Acyl. She is guarded by J'an Sentinels (Bre'nigan), K'ell Hunters (Sag'Churok, Kor Thuran, Rythok) and Shi'gal Assassins (Gu'Rull). Her One Daughter is called Gunth Mach who was last seen cutting down Redmask at the end of RG, along with Sag'Churok.

The Snake

A group of refugee children on the run from Kolanse, marching through hostile lands and suffering from hunger and thirst. The train is led by the oldest/tallest boy among them, called Rutt. He carries a baby called Held. His second in command is Badalle, who is also our main Snake POV character. Other notable children among them are Saddic who follows Badalle and commits her poems to memory; Brayderal who seems pale inspite of the harsh sun.

The Shake

• Yedan Derryg: Half-brother to Yan Tovis. Known for a chiseled jaw.
• Yan Tovis: Preda at Shake Tower, also called Twilight.
• Pully and Skwish: Ancient Shake witches.

White Face Barghast and Associates

• Onos Toolan: Warleader of the White Face Barghast. You may note, technically not Barghast.
• Hetan: His wife. Daughter of the late Humbrall Taur.
• Cafal: Hetan's brother and Great Warlock of the White Faces.
• Setoc (of the Wolves): Known as Stayandi. A Letherii child and sole survivor of Redmask's attack in Reaper's Gale. Now a wolf-born child with an innate connection to wolves.
• Maral Eb:Chief of the Barahn clan of the White Faces
• Sekara (the Vile): It's in the name, really.

T'lan Imass

• Nom Kala: Bonecaster of the Brold T'lan Imass.

The Bolkando

• Chancellor Rava: Chancellor of the Bolkando Kingdom. Is oddly attracted to Felash. Is also in his seventies while Felash is fourteen.
• Conquestor Avalt: Military commander of the Bolkando Army with the glaring exception of the Evertine Legion. A decent military commander and he looks the part.
• Queen Abrastal: also called Firehair, commands the Evertine legion, co-ruler of the Bolkando lands
• Princess Felash: 14th daughter of Queen Abrastal, deemed the cleverest by her mother, 14 years old, away from the kingdom on a diplomatic mission.

Forkrul Assail

There are Pures, Watered and Shriven. The Pures are - as the name suggests - pure-blooded Forkrul Assail. The Watered are hybrids of Forkrul Assail and other races - often humans - while the Shriven refer to any race that doesn't have enough Forkrul blood to be considered Watered. The Shriven are essentially the slave caste of the Forkrul.

Other

• Icarium: Half-Jaghut son of Gothos. Cursed to forget but immensely powerful.

Wait, what's going on again? What you need to know to start reading.

The Malaz 14th - now Tavore's Bonehunters - invaded the Letherii Empire, ostensibly as a punitive expedition against the Tiste Edur raiding on Imperial lands (namely, Sepik). At the same time, due to machinations by Tehol Beddict, in conjunction with the Malazan invasion, Letherii society was in intense upheaval which ended in a defacto revolution placing Tehol at the head of the Kingdom of Lether.
In a similar timeframe, Icarium Lifestealer activated a strange machine with far-reaching consequences, one of the many among which being levelling an entire city block and killing - among others - Taxilian, Senior Assessor, Taralack Veed, and Rautos Hivanar.
The Errant was bound to Feather Witch through a temple sanctified in his name, and though he eventually won out - drowning Feather Witch in the fetid waters beneath Letheras - he lost his eye. The loss of power stings, and due to a combination of factors, the Errant craves a return to his ancient power. Also, Brys Beddict has returned to the world of the living.
There's a whole lot of skykeeps within the Imperial Warren, as well as a handful of dragons nailed to crosses throughout the books - among them, an "otataral dragon" as witnessed by Pearl & Lostara in House of Chains, and Sorrit, a dragon aspected to Serc, as found by Icarium & Mappo in the Bonehunters.
Redmask failed - and died - in whatever quest the K'Chain Che'Malle set to him, and it seems they're getting desperate.
Silchas Ruin set off to attack Letheras but was beaten back - chiefly by a few well-placed cussers to the face. "Fucking dragon."

Geography

We mostly stay in the continent of Lether but now we also include the Eastern end called Kolanse. Here is a fan made beautifully rendered map of all the places we encounter- done by u/joshuabbutler
Note: Given the extensive Dramatis and the convergence of dozens of threads in this pre-final book, we are stopping the intro here. We plan to update more and expand this further as we keep reading.

Not sure if this belongs here, but thought I would share anyway. I recently moved out of my old apt here in Las Vegas, because I couldn't take the noise, state of disrepair of the complex, and complete lack of caring on management's part.
I found a cute, little 1 bed and shared bath over by Whitney Ranch near the mountains, and my rent went from $1100 to now $675 ($775 after utilities). Everything about the house is great, and although the room I have is small, I feel better saving a bunch of money every month.
Fast forward to last week, and now I have the homeowners (who are in the Philippines) texting my roommate and I telling us to not turn the AC down past 76 EVER (again, this is Las Vegas). I told them I would try my best, but it does get hot here, esp since I have the upstairs room.
It was fine when we had 3 people, I could keep the AC at 72. Now that the 3rd person moved out, they're saying we can't put it past 76 because we're not paying enough to cover the utility bill. They even asked my other roommate for MORE money than he owes in the lease.
What should I do here? They can't tell me suffer and be hot and miserable just because they can't rent out their home while they're in the Philippines. I recommended they install solar panels, and they shot it down, saying they can't afford it. Any help or advice would be great thanks.

I'm a 28 year old male and a few weeks ago I just moved out of my parents house for the first time. I got a new job in a city that's 2.5 hours away from my parents. I went to college near my parents and lived in my hometown with them until this move a couple weeks ago. I love the new job and feel it was the right choice taking it but I miss my parents really badly. I've always been a person who's introverted and not had many friends so my parents have basically always made up for that and been the ones I've been closest to. I want to add that I also think it was the right choice taking this job because I'm close enough that I can even go home on weekends to see them occasionally and I think that will help knowing that, even if it doesn't happen that often. The last few days I've just been missing them a lot and want to know how I can get over this.

Weird post, not sure where/who to ask... but want some advice on "giving back", story could be graphic, not sure but here goes...
I've been feeding some roosters/baby chicks (not mine but they always come to my yard), I put a little old cat house I had in my yard with a little pillow and some food. It's been the cutest dang thing seeing the mom and babies walk around, eat, follow the mother, etc. Well I left for a small vacation for a week, and came back and the cat house and fallen over (strong winds when I was gone) and trapped 3 of the babies and they died (squished). I felt absolutely horrible, nearly cried, I try not to think about it which makes me think about it more, sometimes keeps me up at night, etc. I know it's just nature, and they could have died any other way (they cross the street with their mom multiple times a day and have never been hit by a car and I live on a main/busy road), but something about just seeing them there, the aftermath, something I did (not intentionally obviously) just eats me up inside.
So I feel the need to somehow make up for this, anyone have any recommendations? Like can I rescue some baby chicks, can I raise some on my own? Is it a lot of upkeep to buy a chicken house and raise some chickens? I know nothing of farming/homestead but can learn if it's easy. Maybe donate somewhere? I dunno, I just feel in my mind I need to balance the universe somehow and make this right :

I've had lower back issue for years. My right outer thigh is always slightly numb sometimes more. Usually stops above the knee. I haven't been able to walk long distance unassisted in a while. Well tonight I'm rolling around my house in an old computer chair that has those rollerblade type wheels. I keep for this purpose but usually I can at least make it to the fridge and back. Not tonight. Shooting pain down both legs. And the outside of both are slightly numb to below the knee. My left can take some weight. My right can't take any. Fun fun fun. There goes my weekend.

I'm working on a small village and decided to use a modular building approach so I can make everything within unity. I model each individual parts I'll need such as doors, stairs, walls, roofs, trees etc. in blender and I put it all together in unity.
Problem is, unity's building features are extremely lackluster. What would take me 10 minutes in blender takes almost half an hour in unity because I'm constantly fighting the Unity interface.
The reason I chose this approach was to take advantage of batching to get that extra performance. I duplicate the modular parts as I'm building the houses and whatnot in Unity, and batch them together, giving me a slight performance boost.
I got frustrated and decided to try out exporting an entire scene from Blender complete with houses and trees and rocks to see what kind of difference there is on performance.
Turns out, the scene that was made entirely within Blender gives the same fps if not more than the one using modular parts in Unity.
I did not expect this at all because all the duplicated parts (reused trees and rocks and walls and doors and windows...etc.) show up as their own fbx's in the project folder. If I were to build the whole thing in Unity I'd just have one fbx of each duplicated multiple times in the scene itself.
So I guess the only difference is the final build size? I just get more duplicates of the same thing in the projects folder as trade off for getting something done quick? Am I missing something?

The default forever alone sub was my go to for the last few months to vent. Despite being trans, I felt like everyone there shared that same feeling of being completely alienated from the world. I felt understood like never before.
I have been hiding in my parents house since graduating college 6 years ago, I barely go outside, I haven't had friends since I was 14, I have never been kissed, never went on a date, never had a boyfriend, never had sex. I missed out on every single milestone, I have no social life, I have no work experience. All I ever wanted was the white picket fence life, to found a soulmate, get married young, now as I'm approaching 30 I would be starting to think about having children and starting my own family. The realization I will never be this beautiful, delicate and normal woman, that I'll never be acepted by society or my family, that I'll never find love and bear my own children keeps me up at night. So much so I have been only falling asleep about 5-6am for the last few months. I hate myself, I hate how I look even if there is no one around to see me. I just wanted to be normal.
Until last night at least I had a sub to vent, I felt welcomed and would often comment on other people's posts. I made a post about these thoughts that trouble me, about how I wanted to have a normal experience at life. There were only two comments, one told me that transwomen are a big hit in hook up apps, that as long as I dressed up I could probably have sex with men. Other said he didn't understood how I could be FA, that gay men have no standarts and that having sex for me would be easy.
I really thought about killing myself after that, the people who I thought were in the same boat as me just invalidated everything I feel. What good would it do for me to either pretend to be a gay man or dress up in womens clothes to attract someone because of their kinks? It's like they didn't read the part about being accepted by my family, about having a normal job, about being respected by society, about getting married and having children.
Sometimes I feel completely invisible, I jsut want someone to acknowledge I exist and that my pain is real. I'm sick of being supportive to others only to be dismissed. I just want to die.

Hey there. We're in England.
My partner and I left a residential tenancy December last year - the place was electrically dangerous. We lived in the property for 2-3 years. The property had many electrical faults and the electrics blew every couple of months to some problem or another (One time the fridge they left us started tripping fuses, another time a random socket upstairs was blowing fuses, at one point we realised the whole house was on a single circuit and had to be fully rewired. Shower started blowing fuses at one point.) We were working on finding another place to live at the time and when we had no heating during that big cold snap and some wires behind a blanking plate started sparking badly enough to melt the connector blocks, we called it quits. We sent an email advising we were leaving 12/12/22 and would give vacant possession as soon as possible.
We only ever dealt with the lettings agent - never with the landlord. Lettings agent did their best to deny the electrics were in a bad way. When we vacated the house, it was a difficult time and the house was left messy and definitely in need of an end of tenancy clean. Nothing was damaged by us. Some light sockets and plugs didn't work, but that was a long standing issue that we raised with the agent several times. Some furniture and black bags would need removing. We informed the agency of this and offered them our full deposit (£825) to cover it. We just wanted out. The house wasn't damaged, nothing unsavoury or unsafe like food was left as we cleared and cleaned as much as we could despite being homeless and crashing at work.
The agent on behalf of the tenant tried to claim about 2 grand for various works, including a brand new bathroom. We disputed this and offered the full deposit and no more. We sent quotes to full house cleans and removals that fell under the deposit value to prove what we were prepared to pay was reasonable. This was denied and they didn't budge on their demands. They took a post-tenancy walkthrough video on 16/01/23 where it shows the house needs a clean, but doesn't show any damage at all. We went back and forth until halfway through February wherein I fell unwell and told them that unless they were willing to accept our offer or to meaningfully negotiate, to please stop contacting us. They made a claim a few days after we gave vacant possession for the full deposit (Which is protected with the DPS) which we disputed pending an agreement that it would be accepted as full payment. Nothing happened and it's now been sat waiting for a court order to be released for 6 months.
Fast forward to not hearing anything from the agent or the landlord since February, my partner and I get a county claim through the post from the landlord (not the agent) claiming £3298 plus £205 court fees. They claim we didn't vacate on the agreed upon date as per a notice period, the property was left in a mess which resulted in a rat infestation and damage was caused to some fixtures resulting in work costing £1998. No further details are given about any claim. They also claim that due to the works required, they lost 3 "about 3 weeks of rent" at a value of £1300 (For reference, we paid £825 a month in rent) as the property was not ready for the next tenant to move in. They also claim interest from the period of 12/12/2022 to 01/06/23 at a daily rate of £123.00 (I'm guessing they got their daily rate wrong, because yikes.)
The claim has the name of who we assume is the landlord and their address. We didn't have any contact details, so we reached out to the old agency and asked them to pass our email address on to the landlord so they could contact us and we could discuss. Heard nothing back, chased the next day and the agency confirmed that the landlord instructed the agency to not give out any contact details.
As far as we understand it, the property was left in a state that definitely did need a good clean and removing of some furniture and black bags, but at no point were rats ever mentioned and the claims they're making are at the moment entirely unsubstantiated. We have almost no details to go on. I'm also pretty sure that a county court claim is supposed to follow pre-court guidance on the Gov website including two "warnings" about intention to claim in court as well as both parties having an obligation to work together to prevent the issue getting to court or at-least reduce the scope of the issue. Fully aware and happy to pay for reasonable fees despite the landlord being an ass, but don't want to pay a ludicrous amount for no reason.
Current plan is to talk to citizens advice, send a letter via recorded delivery asking for contact details to the physical address located on the form and talk to the few solicitors who seem to represent tenants in disputes on Monday. Happy to receive any further advice.
Thanks!

i think one of old friends was dead. this is a bit of a rant because i just remember a majority of this.
(i don’t remember much of when i was fairly younger than i currently am (15) so i might be missing some details but i have been piecing together together who i met 5 years ago)
I remember sometime around February of my 5th grade year a girl seemed to appear out of nowhere. i didn’t have class with her but she was in the class right next door. (there were no door separating the 5th grade classes from each other only thin walls). she never really seemed to talk or interact with people and i rarely saw her myself. she was almost never at school and i don't think i ever heard the teacher call her name for attendance. she always sat alone at lunch and the few times she ever sat with other people (usually my friend group) she wouldn’t really talk to any of them. the only time she ever talked to me was when the other people around us were busy with something else or were looking away. i slowly got to know her bit by bit. her name was molly and she had a few brothers. she had brown hair that was always in a perfectly straight bob-cut and she only ever wore 5 shirts, the only one i can really remember was a light purple t-shirt with some white details and a cat on the front. she had a few freckles and her eyes were a pretty brown. she was very shy and wouldn’t really say much other than short sentences. Molly loved walking around the outskirts of the playground at recess but after the whistle blew and we had to go in she never seemed to line up with the rest of us. around the time my birthday was coming up and i was handing out invitations i really wanted to invite her to get to know her more because she seemed like a nice girl. i saw her when we were outside taking a short break from class when i began talking to her about it. i told her it would be a pool party at the rec-center in the next town over because it had a better pool. she told me she would try to make it but only if her dad would let her. she never gave me her dads number so i could give it to my mom yet she told me her dad would call my mom if she could make it. around this time some of my friends were approaching me and she noticed this, she seemed a bit frantic and told me to give her my hand. she pulled the plastic heart ring she was wearing and placed it in my hand saying “if i can’t make it to your party, this is my gift to you” before walking off. (after she gave me that ring i didn’t take it off for the rest of the year. some of my friends would ask me why i was wearing it because it was ugly. i would tell them that molly gave it to me but they would give me weird looks yet they never asked more than that about it.)the next day i didn’t see her but in my classroom mail box she left a little pink bear and a torn up cake squishy with a note reading something along the lines of “happy birthday this is the rest of my gift to you” she never made it to my party nor did my mom ever get a call. after that i didn’t see her again until a few weeks before school ended. our school was having us take tour of the middle schools we chose to go to. before i saw she was sitting alone in a section all the teachers said was empty. i asked her what school she was going to and she simply replied with “garden of the gods.” after that because i wanted to stay in touch with her i asked where she lived so i could visit her sometime. she described the old abandoned house on one of the outter streets of my neighborhood. that no had lived in in years. i told her that i would try and visit sometime that week with my mom to make sure it was the right house. molly nodded then walked off. at the end of that week me and my mom visited the old house, molly wasn’t there, neither was either brother or her dad, no one was in that house because like i said it was abandoned and never sold again after the last people to move in left right after hearing about what happened to the man in that house and how he died. after that interaction with her i never saw her again. not even at the end of the year assembly we were all required to go to for “bonding time” when the teachers were showing pictures of everyone who was in our current 5th grade classes molly was never brought up nor did she make in appearance in the year book as far as i remember. (i would check but i don’t have my yearbook anymore) after that, my mom and friends pestered me more and more about my ring until i eventually stopped wearing it. (i still have it but i repainted it after all the silver paint had came off it) i always told them it was a gift from molly but they had no idea who i was talking about so i stopped bringing her up until a little but ago with my mom. she told me she never remember the girl i was talking about she only remember that i was looking for someone. i told her that that was crazy because she was the one that gave me the ring and stuffy but nothing ever clicked. then we talked more about the house molly told me she lived in and my mom told me the last owners tried to sell it as quick ad possible because of the man who died there, but no one ever moved back it thats why the grass was never cut and it looked like it was starting to fall apart. eventually we started to consider the idea that molly was a ghost, it was just strange that i got a physical gift from her but it wasn’t impossible especially because of other incidents with spirits we had. i still have no idea what happened to molly or how she really was but i really do think she was simply a ghost and thats why no one remember her, i must have been the only one that could see her. i have met plenty of other ghosts but she is the first and only spirit to give me a physical gift. and don’t get me wrong i normally don’t mind meeting ghosts i just wish i knew she was one before i told the people that i did about her.