All posts in this series: Getting Started, Introductory Textbooks, Grammar Guides, Dictionaries, Phrasebooks and Supplements, Online and/or Downloadable Courses, and Online Media and Useful Websites
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Somali Common Expressions
by Abdullahi A. Issa
Dunwoody Press
https://www.dunwoodypublishing.com/product-page/somali-common-expressions
Abdullahi Issa’s Somali Common Expressions is an expensive but ultimately very worthwhile phrasebook. It includes 600 common phrases organized by topic, and it has excellent examples of the many different forms Somali sentences can take. It is a fairly slim book, but it includes 3 CDs that have audio of male and female native speakers reading each Somali phrase. Qasim Farah’s Teach Yourself Somali is the only other book of common expressions that has audio tracks for every phrase, but Farah’s book is so short and so elementary that it alone can’t really prepare one for speaking in many different situations. Somali Common Expressions may be expensive, but there’s nothing else quite as wide-ranging and useful that also has complete audio.
All of the Dunwoody Press Somali books are great, and though I would recommend getting this one as well, it’s not as essential as Somali Textbook, Somali Reference Grammar, and Somali-English Dictionary with English Index. Those are the crown jewels of the Dunwoody series. Somali Common Expressions is great, but you can still find other decent phrasebooks for a lot less money if your budget is tight. (See the other phrasebooks reviewed in this document.)
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Somali Newspaper Reader
by Abdullahi A. Issa and John D. Murphy
Dunwoody Press
https://www.dunwoodypublishing.com/product-page/somali-newspaper-reader
Reading the news in Somali is an important way for intermediate-level students to practice their comprehension and learn new words. Somali Newspaper Reader by Issa and Murphy is an excellent book for learning how to read news articles in Somali since it introduces students to the type of vocabulary and tone that is common in news articles. This isn’t a book for beginners, but for those who are ready to start working with news articles, Somali Newspaper Reader from Dunwoody press is pretty much the only place to start. It includes 50 excerpts from Somali-language news articles, accompanying audio CDs of the articles read in Somali, vocabulary lessons, complete English translations, and a Somali-English glossary of terms. The first article excerpts in the book are just a paragraph or two in length, but these get longer as the book goes on. By the end, you’ll be reading full-length news articles.
Like the other Dunwoody Press resources, Somali Newspaper Reader is of a very high quality, and its translations are very precise. As soon as you’re ready for this intermediate-level book, it will open the doors to working with many other authentic news sources. The audio is excellent. The reader does not have a typical Somali name, so I assume he isn’t a native speaker, but his pronunciation is so good that he must be some kind of scholar. After finishing Somali Newspaper Reader, using and learning from those Somali news sources becomes a lot more straightforward.
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Somali Handbook
by Madina Osman & R. David Zorc
Dunwoody Press
https://www.dunwoodypublishing.com/product-page/somali-handbook
Osman and Zorc’s short handbook is good, but it’s probably the least essential of all the Dunwoody Press resources. Somali Handbook appears to be designed for foreign aid workers and medics who do not speak Somali but occasionally need to communicate using basic relevant phrases. This book is 84 pages with lists of common phrases and a short dictionary, and it’s the only pocket guide to Somali that can actually fit into a regular-sized pocket.
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A Somali Language Learning Manual
by Gleeson, Awad, Rorick, Farah, and Smoker
U.S. Peace Corps
I love using this book. Don’t dismiss A Somali Language Learning Manual just because it doesn’t look as stylish as some of the other resources out there. Gleeson et al.’s work sounds from the title like it might be another textbook or grammar guide, but really it is a large collection of the types of phrases you’ll study as a beginner. This isn’t a book of common phrases grouped by topic either-- it starts with the simplest phrases you learn how to say in any other textbook, and then gradually becomes more complicated as it goes on. A Somali Language Learning Manual is great because as intuitive as it sounds, there really aren’t a lot of resources like it. There are so many ways to use it, such as for reviewing content, practicing speech, or using it to build up your bank of flashcards.
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English-Somali Phrasebook with Useful Wordlist
By Susan D. Somach
Center for Applied Linguistics
In my opinion, Susan Somach’s book is the best of the Somali phrasebooks. Somach’s book has more and better phrases than Awde’s, and it is really easy to find a copy. I’d still recommend getting both books. Each section of Somach’s English-Somali Phrasebook deals with a different topic, and it has great phrases and topical vocabulary that can be easily turned into flashcards to help with conversational Somali. Everything you could ask for!
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Somali – Hippocrene Dictionary & Phrasebook
by Nicholas Awde
Hippocrene Books
https://www.hippocrenebooks.com/store/p302/Somali-Dictionary-and-Phrasebook.html
Of the different pocket guides to Somali that you can get in book form, Nicholas Awde’s Somali is one of the best. Though size-wise it’s more suited to a bag or purse, it could probably fit into a large rear pants pocket. It starts out with a little bit of the history of Somalia, a very quick summary of Somali grammar, and then about half of this book is a short dictionary of terms. The other half of its 176 pages has lists of common words and phrases, helpfully categorized by topic and situation.
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Teach Yourself Somali: Your Passport to Mastering Somali
by Qasim Farah
Global Publishers Canada Inc.
Qasim Farah’s 65-page phrasebook, Teach Yourself Somali, doesn’t look like much at first. But the fact that it has free audio makes it potentially worth buying. The content is quite basic and it’s pretty easy to find these types of basic phrases for free on the internet, but with the audio you can listen to the book on the go.
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Somali-English phrasebook for School Use
Ali Suleiman
HAAN Associates
This is a short one, but it has lots of great school-related words and phrases that I haven’t seen in other books. Surprisingly, most of the other phrasebooks don’t have substantial sections on school topics, so this book adds some balance.
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Somali for Beginners
Abdi A. Arale
Independently published
It’s a slim 50 pages of simple common expressions you can find in other resources and websites. Somali for Beginners seems to be available in limited quantities, and only on Amazon. This book doesn’t have any material that you couldn’t find in the Somach’s or Awde’s phrasebooks.
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A Dictionary of Somali Verbs in Everyday Contexts
by Liban A. Ahmad
AuthorHouse
Liban Ahmad’s books on Somali are tremendously useful because they attempt to fill gaps in the current literature available to students. A Dictionary of Somali Verbs in Everyday Contexts is not a long conventional dictionary aiming to include as many words as possible. It is a brief book which focuses on about 500 verbs, where the aim is providing the greatest depth and nuance in the definitions. Ahmad’s Dictionary includes definitions next to each verb, but then explains the different contexts for using the verb, modeling an example sentence for each separate meaning the verb can take. This means that some verbs have four example sentences in their entries. As the verbs in Ahmad’s Dictionary are quite common, it is worth studying each one of them, and converting the sentences to flashcards for practice. I haven’t seen any other Somali dictionaries like this one, and it’s refreshing to see the attention to depth, nuance, and example rather than to word count.
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Iftiin's Super Handbook: English - Somali Reference Guide
Iftiin Publishers
Iftiin is a great publisher, and it has many books for Somali speakers learning English. Most of those aren’t helpful for English-speaking students of Somali, but Iftiin’s Super Handbook is the rare book that works both ways. It’s extremely helpful, and it contains one of the best phrasebooks available. Iftiin’s Super Handbook is three books in one: a phrasebook, an idiom dictionary, and a vocabulary builder. The phrasebook is comparable to the great English-Somali Phrasebook with Useful Wordlist by Susan Somach, and it has a much larger section on business and job-related sentences and vocabulary than any other book of its kind. This first section alone makes Iftiin’s Super Handbook worth getting.
The middle section, the idiom dictionary, is probably even more helpful than the standalone idiom dictionary by Yusuf Kahin from Scansom Publishers (see my review in my post on Somali dictionaries). Kahin concentrates on explaining much longer English-language idioms and slang expressions, while the Iftiin guide focuses on much shorter expressions that most English speakers use constantly but do not perceive as idioms. Phrases like “catch up”, “by far”, “root out”, and “touch on”. The third section is a very simple English-Somali dictionary. Each entry has an English word, Somali-language definitions, and an example sentence. It’s not bad but it’s no replacement for having a real dictionary. Iftiin's Super Handbook can be relatively difficult to find for sale online, but if you check eBay you may be in luck.
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The 2000 Most Frequently Used Somali Nouns
By Neri Rook
Amazon Kindle Store
https://www.amazon.com/2000-Most-Frequently-Somali-Nouns-ebook/dp/B01EMHCFIQ
Neri Rook has several of these Kindle books for sale, where the author appears to have taken English word lists and run them through Google Translate, and then published the results for Kindle. I am not certain Rook did it that way—I’m just saying that’s how it looks to me. Normally that kind of approach isn’t advisable, but it works for a basic list of nouns. One of the problems with word lists in other Somali resources is that they usually only list nouns in the indefinite form, meaning the student has to spend hours looking up each noun in the dictionary to find its grammatical gender, which is necessary for any type of conjugation. Rook’s noun list is refreshing because all the nouns are listed in their definite forms.
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The 750 Most Frequently Used Somali Adjectives
By Neri Rook
Amazon Kindle Store
https://www.amazon.com/Most-Frequently-Used-Somali-Adjectives-ebook/dp/B01EPL4X2U
We’re on slightly shakier ground with these translations of adjectives, but most of them are accurate. On the whole, I think this resource is useful if you have already studied Somali long enough to spot some of the more questionable renderings.
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The 1200 Most Frequently Used Somali Verbs
By Neri Rook
Amazon Kindle Store
https://www.amazon.com/1200-Most-Frequently-Somali-Verbs-ebook/dp/B01ETX9ICO
Terrible! Don’t waste your money! Something went terribly wrong in the translation process. Use Liban Ahmad’s A Dictionary of Somali Verbs in Everyday Context instead.
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Learn Somali with Word Scramble Puzzles, volume 1
By David Solenky
Independently published
This is a short book of vocabulary puzzles where you unscramble the letters of common words and short phrases in Somali. It’s not very deep, but it's a fun way to review basic material.

Part 1
Now I know that my reaction might have been just as odd or at least nearly as strange as the one of the neighbors. I obliged to the curfew and stayed inside despite knowing that something was not right. But then again what else was I supposed to do? They stood there all night. Even when it started raining and hailing. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were somehow helping me, keeping me away from whatever caused the torture outside. However, one look at their stiff faces that had smiles plastered on them assured me that they couldn’t possibly have good neighborly duties in mind. And wondering whether it was only them, Harold and her, who had an issue or two proved wrong as well when it slowly became a crowd of people out there on our lawn.
Grandma acted like it was the most normal thing and I was sure at least one of us was going insane. Or possibly both of us went a bit looney in our own ways. Inside this home and this neighborhood that we weren’t leaving. Sanctuary Hills had its hands wrapped around us tightly and we stayed. Well, grandma did because she had been living here for ages and saw no reason to leave now. I will elaborate on her far too apathetic reaction to the insane neighbors later. I must have been even crazier for not leaving either but I believed to have good reasons.
One, I didn't have a car and my only form of transportation was my feet, and walking or even running from those weirdos did not seem like a great plan. Second, I couldn't possibly leave my grandmother and as previously mentioned, she certainly was not going.
I did try to call for help as one should in a terrifying situation as such. It seemed logical to me and under normal circumstances, it sure would have been.
The first one I tried to reach was my mother. My mother, who is the personification of concern and who I normally would choose last to share my fears with simply because she is so terribly anxious. And no, she didn’t try to talk sense into me or prove to me that everything was fine and well, no, she acted awfully worse. Our call went just the same way as it did with anyone else I tried to reach.
“Mum, I don’t know what to do. I think we might be in danger, grandma is not-”
“Oh darling, say hi to your grandmother for me! I haven’t called her in ages. I am an awful daughter, aren’t I?”
“Mum no, you need to listen. Something is terribly wrong.”
“Are you making sure she is eating well? I know how she adores sweets but-”
“What is going on?” I shrieked. “Mum, I can’t get ahold of the police, I don’t know what to do.”
“Right, oh honey, I almost forgot. Make sure your grandpa takes his medicine!”
After those words, I hung up. My mother couldn’t have possibly forgotten that her own father died more than a year ago.
My hands were shaking, no, my entire body was trembling. At first, I believed that only the people in Sanctuary Hills were going insane or have been insane all the time without me consciously noticing but now it was spreading. Believing that maybe, just maybe, it was only my family, I called others too. All sorts of numbers I had in my phone. Friends, old colleagues, and even an ex. Every conversation went like me talking about one thing and them responding to questions I never asked.
For the rest of the night, I locked myself and grandma inside her room. She went to sleep and I went crazy until morning came.
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After numbing down from the shock just enough, my mind started calculating and racing through every logical explanation, as well as illogical ones including their prospective outcomes. Like a machine, my head went through the algorithms. No result was satisfactory, however.
Everything was nice and normal and fine.
That's what grandma assured me was happening. I still wasn’t sure what to do next. Our lawn was empty but I did see people walking around outside as they do each day. A postman walking around, filling the peculiar mailboxes, gardeners watering plants, and children playing hopscotch. They all appeared so awfully regular that I almost decided to open the door and talk to someone but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to turn the doorknob. I was too anxious.
The curfew wouldn’t start for another many hours but I didn’t dare to leave the house. It proved safe last night at least. More hours passed and I eventually fell asleep from all the exhaustion and from staying up all night. It must have been late in the afternoon when I woke up again.
When there was a knock on the door later in the evening, my heart skipped a beat. I started cold sweating only thinking about those neighbors standing outside again. They had left sometime in the early morning, I saw when I quickly peeked through the curtains.
I tiptoed towards the door and looked through the spy.
It was Jack.
I stood behind the door, suddenly too scared to even move. I wasn’t sure if I could trust this stranger. No, I felt like I couldn’t trust him one bit because if he was as normal as he appeared yesterday then he wouldn’t be here. Because if he was outside during curfew then he wasn’t safe out there and couldn’t stand here normal and fine.
I was genuinely sure that those screams came from him. Now I was wondering if he was the one causing him.
“Mrs. Allen? Charlie? Hello?” I heard him say through the door and then he knocked three times but I still didn’t move.
I prayed that he would leave so I could just plan my next steps. It felt ludicrous being this anxious when the street seemed normal just as it did the past days that I was here. But it wasn’t. After last night nothing felt normal anymore, even if the appearance tried to make me believe it was.
I slowly took a step back, fearing that he might hear me breathe but that was a big mistake because before I could help it, grandma had appeared and opened the door. It all happened so quickly, I didn’t even realize she was standing here, I thought she was in bed.
“Good afternoon, dear,” she politely said.
“Good afternoon,” he responded and his eyes quickly shifted to me.
“Are you okay?” he carefully asked.
I stayed silent.
“I didn’t know that you were acquainted, how wonderful that you’re making some friends Charlie. Oh come on in, dear, let me make some tea,” grandma opened the door wide and then walked towards the kitchen and even had the audacity to wink at me. I couldn’t believe her. Did she purposely forget the nightmare we went through?
I was ready to just slam the door shut but Jack had already made his way inside.
“It’s strange how all the houses look exactly the same on the inside,” he laughed and when his eyes met mine again, he suddenly looked a bit more concerned “are you ill? I was wondering why you didn’t show up. Imagined you changed your mind or something.”
I breathed in deeply.
“I couldn’t. The curfew,” I said, making sure to closely watch how he’d respond.
He raised an eyebrow.
“So you decided to be a law-abiding citizen after all?”
I clenched my fist. I surely didn’t feel like playing this game after the night I had.
“Why are you here?” I hissed and he seemed a bit taken back by my sudden anger.
“Uhm, well I was a bit worried when you didn’t show up yesterday but,” he paused for a moment. “I didn’t want to appear too stalkery either. We don’t really know each other after all.”
“So?”
“So I’m here to check on your grandmother's cameras outside and casually trying to find out if you stood me up on purpose?” he nervously laughed. Somehow, in this moment, he really did seem genuine. I wanted to believe that this was all normal but how on earth could he be so oblivious to the situation?
“Didn’t you hear the screaming last night?” I asked.
He looked confused.
“Screaming?”
“Yeah and if you were outside did nobody try to stop you? Because they certainly made sure I would stay inside,” I raised my voice again.
“They?”
“The neighbors. The ones from the scarlet red house and all their psychotic friends.”
“Oh,” he laughed, “I see you met Trudy and Harold. I suppose they are a tad eccentric.”
“Eccentric? They didn’t leave all night!”
Now he was raising an eyebrow again and that reaction was really getting on my nerves.
“Charlie, is everything okay?” he said in a worried tone.
“She had a fever last night,” my grandmother who appeared behind us with a tray spoke, “she mumbled all sorts of nonsense all night, nightmares I suppose.”
“No, it happened. They were out there, they-”
Now both grandma and Jack had that worried look on their faces.
“I’m sure something happened, but maybe your mind played some tricks on you?” Jack said.
“Why don’t you just show her whatever the camera on my lawn filmed the night before? Possibly that will calm the poor child down.”
Cameras. It was the first helpful thing my grandmother said.
--
Looking at the security cameras must have been the most terrifying experience so far. Not because of what we saw but because of what we didn’t.
A couple appeared in the frame. Harold and Trudy. They were dressed just as I remembered from what I could make out on the screen. However, Trudy was holding something in her hand. A basket of some sort. I didn’t remember her carrying anything yesterday but then again, I was slightly distracted by her face which seemed to be cracking up.
From the view, I could exactly see myself when the door opened. I’m trying to emphasize that it was my face that I saw.
Until that point, it all made sense and I felt a shiver only thinking about what would happen next.
Except, it didn’t.
Trudy handed me the basket, I smiled, we chatted some more as it seemed and then they turned around and left. Soon they were out of the picture and clearly not on our lawn with other neighbors gathering. No, there was nobody, even when we fast forward the tape.
I sat there in shock.
“It’s not possible,” I whispered.
“Well, darling, you simply cannot and often should not trust your mind. It’s trickery!”
Jack laughed at what she said but collected himself quickly.
“I’m sorry, Charlie. I’m sure it felt very vivid, that can happen with fever dreams.”
“But it’s not possible,” I muttered, and then with more confidence, I exclaimed “the basket! She never gave me a freakin’ basket!”
“Oh, honey,” grandma said as she pointed towards the stool next to the bathroom were of course sat a wooden basket filled with biscuits and a bottle of wine.
“They really are awfully attentive neighbors, aren’t they.”
Jack gave me a sympathetic smile. Until this point I thought something was wrong with him, now he must have been sure I was the lunatic.
Grandma had just gone to the kitchen as we all forgot that it was dinner time. I for one had forgotten all other meals as well and so she jumped up quickly to scramble something up for me that would hopefully unscramble my mind.
“If you like we can watch some other tapes too? If that would ease your mind. I mean I’m technically not allowed to but you seem really worried,” Jack said to me. I really didn’t trust what I saw on the tape, basket or not. I was sure that Trudy had doctored it in one way or the other. My mind was hazy and slow at that point, I couldn’t think for myself anymore. All I wanted was a bit of truth.
I suppose that’s why I didn’t consciously notice the announcement. It almost sounded like some sort of background noise that my mind was blocking out.
Attention, attention! Residents of Sanctuary Hills. Please be aware that the curfew begins in only five minutes. Find your way home swiftly and have a pleasant Sanctuary evening inside your homes.
But even tired as I was it doesn’t make sense to me how my legs started moving and following this boy to the threshold of the door. And I swear there was a sparkle in his eye when he took my hand and guided me through it.
Only the sudden movement and the feeling of pain brought me back to the moment.
Grandma had grabbed my arm, in a sudden and seldom moment of clarity, and pulled me back inside just in time.. I didn’t believe her weak arms were capable of but it was so hard I thought my arm might dislocate.
“You will not have my granddaughter killed just so she stays out there with you, forever and ever. She is here to visit and will leave when the time is right and she will abide by the rules just as I have for the past years! Do you hear me?” Grandma was shouting louder than ever before.
Jack, seemingly unimpressed just grinned and turned around.
“We’ll see about that, Abigail. We both know she won’t be able to cross that threshold.”
With that, he slammed the door shut but he didn’t leave. He stayed right outside.
I knew that soon Trudy and Harold and the others would join but I didn’t expect to see their faces glued to our window when I opened the curtain. I jumped back, ignoring the group of neighbors that had gathered. Two groups. The ones that looked old-fashioned and were smiling, just like Trudy and Harold, and the ones that appeared bloodthirsty, just like Jack.
"Grandma, what the hell?" I shouted. She looked genuinely shocked by my sudden outburst, she wasn't used to me getting loud with her.
"Charlie," she mumbled.
I clenched my fists. I was so incredibly angry. Although suddenly it made sense that my grandmother never came to visit us. She always had an excuse, like back when grandpa was alive that he was feeling too sick or that she had too much on her mind to travel. After a while, Sanctuary Hills traps you in.
"Why did you not warn me? Why did you not tell me to stay away?" I collected myself enough to lower my voice but it surprised me how evil I still sounded.
Grandma looked to the ground. She was mumbling something I couldn't understand.
"I told you at first not to come but you insisted. And then the thought was nested into my mind, I couldn't decline."
Strangely, this was the first thing she said that actually made sense to me as I'd been corrupted by their doings as well. They have a way to play with your mind, only a bit, not too much. Not enough to change you entirely, only so much that you won't doubt. You can control it a bit, at least I can. I stop when their manipulative worms dig in too deep. However, grandma's mind is not as strong anymore.
Not only due to her age. Being here and living here it gradually changes your interpretation of the surroundings. The longer you stay, the more you interact with the people, the more you become a part of Sanctuary Hills. I've come here before to visit and I left without a scratch, though I did always leave before dark. Grandfather used to insist that the roads get too dangerous at night. They never let me stay past dinner and now it made sense why.
I've been corrupted. By Jack and Harold and Trudy and the streets. By the peculiar food, we buy and consume, by swimming in the pool. Sanctuary Hills is protecting me but not for my own benefit. It creates its perfect residents. Bit by bit.
If you don't oblige to the rules, it simply will swallow you as that is the only solution. Jack was helping. Not me but the neighborhood.
"Maybe you can leave but I never will. You see my love, I don't even want to. Sanctuary Hills has all I need. I could never go, it would rip my heart out,” my grandmother said after a long silence.
I didn’t understand what exactly she meant by that but then I looked outside despite not wanting to see the faces of those neighbors ever again and I saw someone new waving at me. Someone was standing there waving and smiling and while I should have been even more terrified by that figure than by anyone else so far, I somehow felt safe. I somehow felt like I belonged just a tiny bit more. He was dressed very well, his hair was combed and thick and his smile felt truly genuine, maybe because he hadn’t been a part of them for long.
And that’s when I understood why grandma felt so safe despite all that was happening here. And why she felt comfortable in Sanctuary Hills.
A tear rolled down my face when I saw the man standing close to the uncanny neighbors because he was not like them and I whispered, more to myself than to my grandmother who smiled just as warm as he did.
Part 3

I will keep a long story as brief as I can, for the sake of everyone.
My entire life, I have never held any interest for music at all. I avoided films with overwhelming soundtracks. I turned off the music if playing a video game. I drive in silence. The simple fact that I listen to nothing has unnerved people throughout my life. So many people define themselves my the music they listen too, and I've always known that there is something cultural that I've been severely missing out on. Music has always just been unnecessary noise to me with no redeeming qualities.
Strangely enough, the only time that I've found myself enjoying a tune is while drinking. I couldn't tell you what any of the music was, though-- I don't know any names of songs or bands. I've found that music sounds 'unscrambled' when my brain is altered with alcohol, and I can sort decode the sounds that are coming to me. I'm having trouble explaining it.
At 25, though, it finally... clicked. Growing up, I was forbidden from watching TV and movies, playing games, or listening to music for six days of the week. This probably had some kind of psychological effect on me, but it's also more than that. I was recently diagnosed with severe ADHD as an adult and learned that it doesn't need to involve hyperactivity, but can just be a lack of mental focus. The medication has had a gradual effect on my behavior and ways of thinking until, suddenly, I listened to something a friend was playing. And it was... really good.
Now I want to listen to everything and I have no idea where to begin. I don't know songs, bands, genres, instruments, nothing. Are there songs that are almost universally loved that I can use as jumping-off points?
Truth is, coincidentally, I have a blind date coming up too, and I'm absolutely done with being embarrassed to say my favorite music isn't any music at all. I need to find something that I love to talk about.
Thank you very much for everyone who reads this.
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TLDR: I disliked music up until recently, and I do not know where to begin. I have no background knowledge of any songs, bands, albums, genres, or instruments. Are there any basic recommendations anyone has for must-listen music that you would expect anyone to know?

Electronics Are Magic - Conspiracy Theory All electronics and other complex devices are being powered not with electricity but with magic or some other unknown energy source. This truth is kept secret from us in order to keep us from accessing this energy source which is unlimited and would help power the world, thus they would lose their control over us.
I’m not saying I have definitive proof of this and I know this theory is pretty out there but I wanted to present some of my findings and suspicions and see if others could add to this if it seems like something could be here. Our pursuit should be the truth, always, so if this turns out to be simply a creative fiction idea so be it, but if you think there’s something to it let me know too.
First, an honest reflection about how little most of us truly understand first-hand about how these electronic devices work; Think about it, do you truly feel you understand how your phone, or laptop works? With mechanical tools we can take them apart and see the process, but with electronic devices we are much more limited with this approach. Inside most electronic devices, such as your phone, is simply smaller electronics (batteries, transistors, wires, etc.)... These can be further taken apart, but we never get to a point where we can literally see what is really happening. You can make simple circuits at home but anything complex requires prebuilt parts. Experts in the field do most of their research in books or through computers which are already built with electronics and so it is hard to find a source who truly has a first hand understanding from the most basic inner workings of a complex electronic device.
Of course these electronic devices do work so something is happening to make them work, but what? We are taught that it is with electricity, and we are told to have faith that they are telling the truth. But I believe everything should be able to be questioned. So like a good researcher I built my own computer. No, I’m lazy. I went on my pre-built “magic” computer to try to prove my wacky magical electronics theory wrong by researching how electronic devices work. I must say I was surprised that many of the explanations for how some of these electronics work seem very unlikely to me. Granted I am not an expert in electronics so maybe I just don’t grasp it yet. But her are a few of the things I found most baffling:
Flash Memory/SD Cards. How does flash memory work? Specifically, how is the memory retrieved and organized? I get the basic concept (loosely) that hundreds of millions of bits are being stored in places on the memory as electric charges, but how are the correct bits accessed at the correct time and then arranged to be interrupted as turning on the exact number of bits on the screen? How do each electric bit not accedentally overlap? Watch this video and tell me if it doesn’t seem rather impossible for how they propose it works. According to this the flash memory must be accessing littleraly like billions of bits per second to play a video. What mechanism is telling the computer where to go to access the precise bit at the precise moment? Think about how unbelievably precise this must be when you are scrolling through random pages on the internet or watching a video or playing a game. All this information stored on a tiny SD card or flash drive. I get that it works I’m just not sure I fully accept their explanation of how it works. Also, maybe I’m being paranoid here, but it almost feels like the video is not so much teaching you but trying to convince you… “watch this video twice,” it says… “you will understand…”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Mh3o886qpg&list=PLNiM9M2Z_Y_3izH6lSAJVauaF1ZHAA2iM&index=4
Speakers A guitar is shaped like it is so that it can create the specific sound a guitar makes. Same with a piano. Or a violin. Or any instrument. They all have a very unique shape and material. So how is it that a speaker shape can produce all of these sounds nearly identical to the instrument without being similar shape of material? In what precise way is the speaker cone vibrating to produce the different sounds of a guitar, a human voice, and all the other instruments? If this is possible why is it only electronic devices that can create this ridiculously vast array of instruments from a single shape? (The speaker box shape). Is it possible to play a violin sound from a speaker box shaped instrument that is not electronic? Theoretically it should be, yet I’ve never heard of this.
Vinyl Record Players How do record players work? Beyond the speaker making these impossible sounds, how does the speaker “read” the sound it needs to make based on a needle bumping along a groove? I get the concept, that the different bumps are read as different levels of vibration and thus interpreted into sound, but on a practical stand I can’t understand how the speaker could read much past Morse code from bumps in a groove, yet somehow they are able to play full orchestras and thousands of instruments from these grooves. It seems like an impossible amount of information to translate on a record bump. In addition, some records claim to transfer the information for surround sound too! Take a look at a record player in slow-motion through a microscope. Does it really look like the information of an orchestra is encoded here? Speaking of encoding information, it seems incredible the process they use to create a record. The giant finely tuned machine that cuts the record is very precise. I find especially incredible the explanations for how the The original phonograph machine used to etch grooves into a plate using a hand wound crank. The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison. Of course we generally think of Edison as very logical and scientific but actually Edison was supposedly fascinated with the occult. He supposedly had a lost invention that communicated with the dead. But, who knows, that’s sort of just legend. But In fact many great inventors and physicists were more spiritual and mystical than you would probably expect. Read about Tesla, Issac Newton, and many others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OWEEFg6fTY&list=PLNiM9M2Z_Y_3ORZI4u31a9zuwyhCLoXFO&index=111
Television How do televisions unscramble a linear stream of radio signals into a full moving video image? What is the intelligence or logic behind the unscrambling of this stream of bits to make it into a picture?
Taking Electronics Apart I watched videos of people taking apart electronics. Transistors. Capacitors. Batteries. Etc. Like literally just cutting them in half with a pair of pliers to see the inside. What is strange is there seems to be basically nothing inside of them. Usually just a solid looking chunk of metal or plastic with maybe a metal strip inside. I just thought they would be more intricate inside. It’s really odd to me. Again, I don’t know exactly how they work but this finding might help someone who does to see if it makes sense to them? I would really like to cut open a flash memory to see if it is complex, but I guess it may be too small to see. Anyone have a microscope?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep4nyDqxR3M&list=PLNiM9M2Z_Y_3izH6lSAJVauaF1ZHAA2iM&index=3
Internet Live delay When you play a multiplayer game on your phone the signal must be carried through the air. I don’t know exactly where it goes but I suppose to a tower and then to another tower or to a satellite or the cloud (what is the cloud exactly?). Anyways, the question is all of these signals must come in at different times according to how far away the different players are. How are they all then arranged with no delay? I suppose this could be done by everyone waiting on the slowest person. But can this continuously work in real time? Maybe it’s so fast we don’t notice? (Maybe someone smarter than myself can think about this).
Limited First-Hand Experiences Do you know anyone who designs electronic circuits? Not works in the factory and does one tiny part but I mean someone in charge of having a full picture of what they are creating when they physically piece together the parts of a new circuit. There should be a design director of sorts I just don’t know of any I could talk to first-hand. The thing is even if there is someone who does this circuit board design job the entire process could be too complex and compartmentalized enough that no one single person has a full grasp of how the process works. Also, I believe they often piece together parts that are already fully built in other places like the various transistors or the SD cards. They don’t often design the inner workings of the SD card itself. And even if they are completely legitimate electronic designs I’m sure the companies would not want to give up their trade secrets, so first-hand experiences of this knowledge are very limited.
Possible Alternative Explanations These devices obviously do work, so what is really powering them? An argument against my conspiracy theory is that if there is already a good theory for it in electricity, why should you invent a new theory? But that is being a bit misleading;, the primary focus of this theory is to 1. Be more honest with our self about what we really know versus what we have been told. First hand knowledge versus second hand understand. I first-hand how a hammer and nail works. I understand it both logically and intuitively. I understand first hand tthat my phone works. From watching videos explaining the electronics I sort of understand second-hand how my phone works. I know what someone tells me, but that is only as good as my trust in that person. Which in this case is various youtubers who quote various other people. So, it’s a bit hard for me to fully trust when I don’t even know who I am ultimately trusting. I could simply trust that they are experts but I have learned that experts can lie too. Or be tricked themselves. Religious leaders could be seen as experts in their field. Secondly, simply have a healthy skepticism of the current explanations of electronic devices, and be ok with saying maybe you don’t fully know how they work.
That said, I do have a few other possible theories I would like to present. And they are all in some ways actually simpler than the mainstream explanations.
Theory 1 - Magic they are powered by “magic”. By magic, I basically mean a power or energy that is being tapped into that is not fully understood but is understood enough to manipulate it in various ways that we have learned. This “magic” may be “alive” in a sense. Or atleast more complex than just a force. there may be many complex aspects of the magic we don’t fully understand yet still use parts of it. In the same way a man can ride a horse yet not understand all of the inner workings of how a horse moves. The high scientists or “wizards” don’t need to fully understand magic to tap into its power.
The “enchantments or spells” may not need to look “magical” in the way we think of them, so long as you carry out the correct “spell” the device (phone, CD, etc.) would work. Perhaps the spells or enchantments are hidden under layers of unnecessary things and explanations so that we “muggles” don’t see where the true power is and how simple it could be. Perhaps most of the enchanting and magic spell work is done at a distance or before hand at the early stages of the design work. These spells or pieces (circuit boards, etc.) are transported and replicated and thus maybe the spell is also replicated, so only one high wizard would be needed to have a strong influence. I won’t pretend to know what all the spells and enchantments could be or how they work but they would have a logical (by magic logic anyways) for how they work just that this logic or rules are kept hidden from us so that we are not allowed to use it. perhaps the Illuminati are the ones using it. Perhaps the enlightenment marked the time that they decided to begin hiding it as “science”.
Theory 2 - The Power of Belief I find this the most original and interesting of all the theories. And perhaps the hardest to disprove. And interestingly it is a simpler explanation than the official explanation, so according to Arkham’s razor it should be the chosen theory I guess! The theory says that all electronics are powered through our belief that they will work. The idea is that our minds generate a positive field of pure creative energy. Things that we believe in become reality. Or atleast gain energy from this field. Simply because enough people believe cell phones will work they do. An old busted phone, no one really believes it will work and so it doesn’t. You might think this theory could be easily proven wrong by simply believing your phone won’t work and yet it does. But actually this would not work because you did not truly believe your phone wouldn’t work because you have been so taught that your phone works because it is charged with a battery. Your belief power is truly in the battery and so you are powering it. An interesting side thought of this is that perhaps belief powers all of reality. You manifest reality through your creative belief. Perhaps it is simply delayed a bit so you have time to experience it. Thus separating the conscious and subconscious. Mind and spirit. Perhaps people go crazy because they no longer believe life is real. Perhaps geniuses invent great things because they believe life could be more. Would explain the fine line between genius and madness. And means you should be careful. Stay positive. Believe in good. Anyways, according to this I think humanity must be slowly integrated into believing greater and greater things so that the belief is strong enough. A hundred years ago people wouldn’t believe smart phones would work, but they would believe an old wired telephone. Then years later cellphones. And finally smart phones. The belief energy was gradually gained as people’s faith in science grew. So perhaps we are creating our reality through belief but maybe it’s a shared collective belief energy we are all contributing to.
Theory 3 - Simulation Idea is we are in a simulation and they don’t want to use all the crazy processing power to simulate every little electron circuit and how all the data is stored so they just don’t create unless they need to. Logically this theory is solid I just personally really don’t like it. I find it needlessly nihilistic and makes you think people aren’t real which I don’t like, so I’m not really going to entertain it here further. One problem I have with this theory is I think it is viewing the universe from the wrong perspective: we say, hey, I built a little computer simulation that looks like the universe so the universe must be a little computer simulation. But actually it’s more like our simulation just looks like the universe, because it is the universe. Or part of it.
Theory 4 - Alien tech. Kind of amazing this theory is the most grounded in reality. The theory is that most of our complex technology is actually alien technology. Perhaps stolen, but more likely “gifted” to us by the aliens. A darker theory is they are controlling us with it. I think more likely they are guiding us, or perhaps experimenting a little. If this is the case the technology likely is powered differently than how it is taught in our text books because they don’t want us using the energy to create other things, rather they want to control it. If this is the case we may could find new energy in these devices by studying them closely. Or perhaps they do work as described but the aliens are simply advanced enough to actually craft these electronic devices (for example, flash memory, which seems far beyond our capabilities).
So what is real? This theory is about questioning everything. But it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also choose to trust some things. Some things that I do want to say I have “faith” in, whether or not I fully “understand them: Love and relationships are real. It’s kind of ironic because love is something that is notorious for not being provable and not being logically understood, yet it feels like the one thing I don’t need to prove because I inherently understand it because Ipersonally experience it. Anyways, I know this might be getting a little out there but I think it’s important to remember so you have something solid to hold onto when you start questioning everything. Actually this goes for any conspiracy theory.

Everything in the world has a two sides, like a coin has a head and a tail. The busy streets of Delhi has turned into a immensely cold and savage silence in the darkness. The Subzi Mandi clock tower ticks when the hand moves straight up to twelve, the dead hour of night.
Everyones has a flavour too which describes and makes them glow among thousands and millions.
The Subzi Mandi train station is isolated and is draped in a cover of silence except the flickering sound of the lights and the buzzing sound of mosquitos. This quietness is slowly uncovered by the sound of footsteps which comes raising from the stairs towards the platform very slowly, turning the mood sad and depressed. It was a teen who was flavourless, around the age of twenty-five.
Holding on to his pockets of his dark-coloured and thick leather jacket, this boy walks slowly to the bench with a dejected expression on his face. His beardy and strange looking face shows the inner pains which he is feeling and the unknown hope which he had lost. This young fellow rises his head to see the time of arrival of the next train in which he is going to board. With a sorrow feeling of having yet another thirty minutes for the arrival of train, he takes his hands out of his pockets and rubs his hands with one another to keep himself warm.
The balmy and boiling heat of late summer reduced to a cold one during the night in Delhi, which meant a morning Ice cream which freezes our tongue and a late night coffee which roasts the same.
Then, he takes his purse from his pocket, taking a look at a photo of his father which was in it. His eyes were filled with tears instantly, but he is able to keep it under control. On switching on his laptop and wearing his headphones, the fella starts to do his office works.
Out of nowhere pops a colourful-looking Rubik's cube near him. First ignoring it, he pushes it aside contininuing to remain busy. After few instant moments, when he turns to his side, he sees the cube back again near him. Paying weird attention to this, eventhough leaning hopelessly, he keep aside his laptop and takes a keen look at the cube.
Not knowing how to solve this, he gets confused. But by continuous rotating of the sides of the cube, he encounters to match up one of its sides. When he tries to match up another one, he finds the previous one getting collapsed. Messing up with doubts and questions about this, the teen sits straight challenging himself to solve this one. The negativity filled environment starts to glow with flavours and colours.
On his final stage, the teen sees a beam of yellow light glowing from a little far distance, accompanied along with the whistling sound of the air horn, that of the wheels aligned on the track and the hot engine of the train. In a great hurry , he leaves the cube just without completing the last block which was difficult for him and sets his way in the train.
Slowly the doors close in the departing train and the teen keeps his hand on the window waving a goodbye to the cube. Getting himself seated, he imagines the uncompleted cube. Gradually thoughts rush in his mind relating the cube to his life.
Life is just like a unscrambled cube, beginning with incompleteness. But is we who have to design it and make it colourful. When we make a part perfect and move on with the next one, the things may go wrong with the first one like in each sides of the cube. But it is we who needs to find a way to our destiny. With this conclusion, the boy takes some decisions and starts to take things light. Slowly burdens fade out of his mind as the train and the story does.

Everything in the world has a two sides, like a coin has a head and a tail. The busy streets of Delhi has turned into a immensely cold and savage silence in the darkness. The Subzi Mandi clock tower ticks when the hand moves straight up to twelve, the dead hour of night.
Everyones has a flavour too which describes and makes them glow among thousands and millions.
The Subzi Mandi train station is isolated and is draped in a cover of silence except the flickering sound of the lights and the buzzing sound of mosquitos. This quietness is slowly uncovered by the sound of footsteps which comes raising from the stairs towards the platform very slowly, turning the mood sad and depressed. It was a teen who was flavourless, around the age of twenty-five.
Holding on to his pockets of his dark-coloured and thick leather jacket, this boy walks slowly to the bench with a dejected expression on his face. His beardy and strange looking face shows the inner pains which he is feeling and the unknown hope which he had lost. This young fellow rises his head to see the time of arrival of the next train in which he is going to board. With a sorrow feeling of having yet another thirty minutes for the arrival of train, he takes his hands out of his pockets and rubs his hands with one another to keep himself warm.
The balmy and boiling heat of late summer reduced to a cold one during the night in Delhi, which meant a morning Ice cream which freezes our tongue and a late night coffee which roasts the same.
Then, he takes his purse from his pocket, taking a look at a photo of his father which was in it. His eyes were filled with tears instantly, but he is able to keep it under control. On switching on his laptop and wearing his headphones, the fella starts to do his office works.
Out of nowhere pops a colourful-looking Rubik's cube near him. First ignoring it, he pushes it aside contininuing to remain busy. After few instant moments, when he turns to his side, he sees the cube back again near him. Paying weird attention to this, eventhough leaning hopelessly, he keep aside his laptop and takes a keen look at the cube.
Not knowing how to solve this, he gets confused. But by continuous rotating of the sides of the cube, he encounters to match up one of its sides. When he tries to match up another one, he finds the previous one getting collapsed. Messing up with doubts and questions about this, the teen sits straight challenging himself to solve this one. The negativity filled environment starts to glow with flavours and colours.
On his final stage, the teen sees a beam of yellow light glowing from a little far distance, accompanied along with the whistling sound of the air horn, that of the wheels aligned on the track and the hot engine of the train. In a great hurry , he leaves the cube just without completing the last block which was difficult for him and sets his way in the train.
Slowly the doors close in the departing train and the teen keeps his hand on the window waving a goodbye to the cube. Getting himself seated, he imagines the uncompleted cube. Gradually thoughts rush in his mind relating the cube to his life.
Life is just like a unscrambled cube, beginning with incompleteness. But is we who have to design it and make it colourful. When we make a part perfect and move on with the next one, the things may go wrong with the first one like in each sides of the cube. But it is we who needs to find a way to our destiny. With this conclusion, the boy takes some decisions and starts to take things light. Slowly burdens fade out of his mind as the train and the story does.

Everything in the world has a two sides, like a coin has a head and a tail. The busy streets of Delhi has turned into a immensely cold and savage silence in the darkness. The Subzi Mandi clock tower ticks when the hand moves straight up to twelve, the dead hour of night.
Everyones has a flavour too which describes and makes them glow among thousands and millions.
The Subzi Mandi train station is isolated and is draped in a cover of silence except the flickering sound of the lights and the buzzing sound of mosquitos. This quietness is slowly uncovered by the sound of footsteps which comes raising from the stairs towards the platform very slowly, turning the mood sad and depressed. It was a teen who was flavourless, around the age of twenty-five.
Holding on to his pockets of his dark-coloured and thick leather jacket, this boy walks slowly to the bench with a dejected expression on his face. His beardy and strange looking face shows the inner pains which he is feeling and the unknown hope which he had lost. This young fellow rises his head to see the time of arrival of the next train in which he is going to board. With a sorrow feeling of having yet another thirty minutes for the arrival of train, he takes his hands out of his pockets and rubs his hands with one another to keep himself warm.
The balmy and boiling heat of late summer reduced to a cold one during the night in Delhi, which meant a morning Ice cream which freezes our tongue and a late night coffee which roasts the same.
Then, he takes his purse from his pocket, taking a look at a photo of his father which was in it. His eyes were filled with tears instantly, but he is able to keep it under control. On switching on his laptop and wearing his headphones, the fella starts to do his office works.
Out of nowhere pops a colourful-looking Rubik's cube near him. First ignoring it, he pushes it aside contininuing to remain busy. After few instant moments, when he turns to his side, he sees the cube back again near him. Paying weird attention to this, eventhough leaning hopelessly, he keep aside his laptop and takes a keen look at the cube.
Not knowing how to solve this, he gets confused. But by continuous rotating of the sides of the cube, he encounters to match up one of its sides. When he tries to match up another one, he finds the previous one getting collapsed. Messing up with doubts and questions about this, the teen sits straight challenging himself to solve this one. The negativity filled environment starts to glow with flavours and colours.
On his final stage, the teen sees a beam of yellow light glowing from a little far distance, accompanied along with the whistling sound of the air horn, that of the wheels aligned on the track and the hot engine of the train. In a great hurry , he leaves the cube just without completing the last block which was difficult for him and sets his way in the train.
Slowly the doors close in the departing train and the teen keeps his hand on the window waving a goodbye to the cube. Getting himself seated, he imagines the uncompleted cube. Gradually thoughts rush in his mind relating the cube to his life.
Life is just like a unscrambled cube, beginning with incompleteness. But is we who have to design it and make it colourful. When we make a part perfect and move on with the next one, the things may go wrong with the first one like in each sides of the cube. But it is we who needs to find a way to our destiny. With this conclusion, the boy takes some decisions and starts to take things light. Slowly burdens fade out of his mind as the train and the story does.

Most of the games that are consistently posted on this sub and receive the most attention are the big budget, breathtaking AAA games and franchises that are pretty much “must plays” for any PlayStation gamer. Not that there’s anything wrong with that - those types of games tend to be my bread and butter when it comes to trophy hunting, and they are the ones that continually provide those jaw dropping moments that remind you what gaming is all about!
However, as an avid trophy hunter and curious gamer always looking for new experiences, one of my favourite things about being a part of this community is getting to see all the different types of games and platinums people are working on, and having new ones land on my radar. Over time I’ve learned to keep my eye open for those lesser-known or less popular games that I might not have heard of before, and have found the occasional gem here & there!
I absolutely love discovering a new game or genre in this sub every so often, and so in that spirit of adventure I thought perhaps people could share some of their most fun and enjoyable platinums that the rest of us might not have heard of. 🙂

A few of my favourites so far:
​

1. Alice: Madness Returns - I’m a big fan of the 3D platforming genre, and so this one was a real treat when I picked it up dirt cheap in a PS3 sale. Jump, glide, solve puzzles, and fight your way through a gorgeous and imaginative fantasy world as you work towards this platinum. If you’re a fan of games like Sly Cooper, Ratchet and Clank, Spyro etc. then this one will scratch that itch.
   
2. Tearaway Unfolded - Speaking of 3D platformers, this is by far the most unique one I’ve ever played. I picked this up after a recommendation from a friend, and boy am I glad I did! Everything about this game was unique and mesmerizing, from the brilliantly crafted arts & crafts “paper” world that feels like it was literally hand-created with scissors, glue, and an abundance of construction paper, to the interactive narration that constantly breaks the fourth wall in order to get you (the player) involved in the story. This game also has the most innovative use of the camera and Dualshock 4 features that I’ve ever seen, something very few developers have even bothered trying to integrate into their games.
   
3. Steamworld Dig 2 - In a rare move for myself, I picked this game up completely on a whim, knowing absolutely nothing about it besides the fact the art style and the reviews on the case looked intriguing. I’m SO glad I did! It’s a 2D platformemetroidvania, but has a very unique premise. You play as a little robot, and the entire game is built around underground exploration and Minecraft-like pathing (creating your own pathways by digging blocks out). You collect gems, resources, and gold, but due to limited inventory space and a limited light source, you have to constantly traverse back to the surface in order to sell off your goods before returning back into the mines. As you gradually traverse the different environments and caverns spread around the map, you unlock more tools and abilities to make exploration fasteeasier, and to allow you to access new areas to explore.
   
4. Typoman: Revised - Another 2D platformer with a rather interesting gameplay premise. You control a stick man named “Typoman” as you navigate an apocalyptic world full of industrial machinery, dangerous traps, and tricky puzzles. It seems pretty standard at first. But what really makes this game unique is the way it incorporates words and spelling into the game. The environment is quite literally made up of letters, words, and anagrams which you must unscramble and/or rearrange to spell things in order activate levers, open doors, power up elevators etc. It’s a fairly short game, and none of the word puzzles are excessively challenging at all, but it’s by far one of the most creative and refreshing little puzzle platformers I’ve encountered.
   

​

So that’s my list of a couple of my favourite obscure, but highly fun platinums. What is yours? 😁

Hi! I'm going to use a throwaway just because my parents know my usual account and I don't want them knowing this story. I am currently a 15 year old male.
I think I am gay, or at least bisexual, this has been a battle for me to come to terms with due to the amount of name calling and bullying I had to endure in my childhood years (4-11) for sounding/acting flamboyant which put a target on my head. It felt like I was wrong as gay is still an insult used and calling myself that felt like I was giving into all of the kids using gay as an insult towards me. Luckily I had close friends who didn't care about my sexuality and it was never an issue for them, but I still didn't feel ready to say how I felt, so I turned online in hopes of someone helping me unscramble all of these weird thoughts in my head.
I went into a gay chatroom at aged 12. I hoped that this would be a place that I could build a friendship with people who was going through the same struggles, or maybe someone more mature that had a better understanding of me then I did of myself. At first, it did go well, I had made a friend with someone who truly understood all of me as me (he never explicitly told me but I think he was in his mid/late 20's). It felt like he was a release that was nothing but supportive, and you wouldn't believe how much it supported my mental health. I think when he knew I needed him for support in my life was when he showed his true intentions.
He asked me to do things that no (now 13 year old) should've had to do, and when I had done it once, he had this leverage on me and I was now unable to back out and say no which I should've done in the first place and I hate myself for not doing. This continued for too long and I was terrified, but I never let it get to me when I was around anyone as this was an issue that I had to keep with myself. But eventually, I knew I couldn't.
I gradually began to come out to my closest friends, and one girl actually said she felt the same way and we have really connected as we shared similar experiences with our sexuality struggles and bullies. I formed such a great bond with her that I decided that I should just try and leave what happened (and was still happening) behind me in hopes that it goes away and I can forget about it. A few weeks after that I basically told her the story that I am telling you. She was so kind to me and I love her for that. Sometimes I feel like I just want to go back to this person, they were there for me for 3 years, it sounds stupid but I feel like I am missing something and I really don't know what to do.
There is really no completion to this story, i'm still struggling and still feel weirdly alone, but i'm hoping getting this off my chest will help with healing and I can move on. Thank You if you've read all of this, it really means a lot. (Also if there are grammar mistakes English is 100% my first language... i'm just a dumbass)

BY PHILIP K. DICK VALIS 11 IT HAD BEEN years since I'd visited Sonoma, California, which lies in the heart of the wine country, with lovely hills on three sides of it. Most attractive of all is the town's park, set dead-center, with the old stone courthouse, the pond with ducks, the ancient cannons left over from used-up wars. The many small shops surrounding the square park pan- dered by and large to weekend tourists, bilking the unwary with many trashy goods, but a few genuine historically-important buildings from the old Mexican reign still stood, painted and with plaques proclaiming their ancient roles. The air smelled good——especially if you emanate from the Southland——and even though it was night we strolled around before finally en- tering a bar called Gino's to phone the Lamptons. In a white VW Rabbit both Eric and Linda Lampton picked us up; they met us in Gino's where the four of us sat at a table drinking Separators, a specialty of the place. "I'm sorry we couldn't pick you up at the airport," Eric Lamp- ton said as he and his wife came over to our table; apparently he recognized me from my publicity pictures. Eric Lampton is slender, with long blond hair; he wore red bellbottoms and a T-shirt reading: SAVE THE WHALES. Kevin, of course, identified him at once, as did many of the people in the bar; calls, shouts and hellos greeted the Lamptons, who smiled around them at what obviously were their friends. Be- side Eric, Linda walked quickly, also slender, with teeth like Emmylou Harris's. Like her husband she is slender, but her hair is dark and quite soft and long. She wore cut-offs, much washed, and a checkered shirt with a bandana knotted around her neck. Both of them had on boots. Eric's were sideboots and Linda's were granny boots. Shortly, we were squeezed into the Rabbit, sailing down resi- dential streets of relatively modern houses with wide lawns. "We are the Rhipidon Society," Fat said. Eric Lampton said, "We are the Friends of God." Amazed, Kevin reacted violently; he stared at Eric Lampton. The rest of us wondered why. "You know the name, then," Eric said. "Gottesfreunde," Kevin said. "You go back to the fourteenth century!" "That's right," Linda Lampton said. "The Friends of God formed originally in Basel. Finally we entered Germany and the Netherlands. You know of Meister Eckehart, then." Kevin said, "He was the first person to conceive of the God- head in distinction to God. The greatest of the Christian mys- tics. He taught that a person can attain union with the Godhead ——he held a concept that God exists within the human soul!" We had never heard Kevin so excited. "The soul can actually know God as he is! Nobody today teaches that! And, and——" Kevin stammered; we had never heard him stammer before. "Sankara in India, in the ninth century; he taught the same things Ecke- hart taught. It's a trans-Cristian mysticism in which man can reach beyond God, or merges with God, as or with a spark of some kind that isn't created. Brahman; that's why Zebra——" "VALIS," Eric Lampton said. "Whatever," Kevin said; turning to me, he said in agitation, "this would explain the revelations about the Buddha and about St. Sophia or Christ. This isn't limited to any one country or cul- ture or religion. Sorry, David." David nodded amiably, but appeared shaken. He knew this wasn't orthodoxy. Eric said, "Sankara and Eckehart, the same person; living in two places at two times." Half to himself, Fat said, "He causes things to look different so it would appear time has passed.'" "Time and space both," Linda said. "What is VALIS?" I asked. "Vast Active Living Intelligence System," Eric said. "That's a description," I said. "That's what we have," Eric said. "What else is there but that? Do you want a name, the way God had man name all the animals? VALIS is the name; call it that and be satisfied." "Is VALIS man?" I said. "Or God? Or something else." Both Eric and Linda smiled. "Does it come from the stars?" I said. "This place where we are," Eric said, "is one of the stars; our sun is a star." "Riddles," I said. Fat said, "Is VALIS the Savior?" For a moment, both Eric and Linda remained silent and then Linda said, "We are the friends of God." Beyond that she added nothing more. Cautiously, David glanced at me, caught my eye, and made a questioning motion: Are these people on the level? "They are a very old group," I answered, "which I thought had died out centuries ago." Eric said, "We have never died out and we are much older than you realize. Than you have been told. Than even we will tell you if asked." "You date back before Eckehart, then," Kevin said acutely. Linda said, "Yes." "Centuries?" Kevin asked. No answer. "Thousands of years?" I said, finally. "'High hills are the haunt of the mountain-goat,'" Linda said, "'and boulders a refuge for the rock-badger.'" "What does that mean?" I said; Kevin joined in; we spoke in unison. "I know what it means," David said. "It can't be," Fat said; apparently he recognized what Linda had quoted, too. "'The stork makes her home in their tops,'" Eric said, after a time. To me, Fat said, "These are Ikhnaton's race. That's Psalm 104, based on Ikhnaton's hymn; it entered our Bible——it's older than our Bible." Linda Lampton said, "We are the ugly builders with claw- like hands. Who hide ourselves in shame. Along with Hephais- tos we built great walls and the homes of the gods themselves." "Yes," Kevin said. "Hephaistos was ugly, took. The builder God. You killed Asklepios." "These are Kyklopes," Fat said faintly. "The name means 'Round-eye,'" Kevin said. "But we have three eyes," Eric said. "So an error in the his- toric record was made." "Deliberately?" Kevin said. Linda said, "Yes." "You are very old," Fat said. "Yes, we are," Eric said, and Linda nodded. "Very old. But time is not real. Not to us, anyhow." "My God," Fat said, as if stricken. "These are the original builders." "We have never stopped," Eric said. "We still build.W e build this world, this space-time matrix." "You are our creators," Fat said. The Lamptons nodded. "You really are the friends of God," Kevin said. "You are liter- ally." "Don't be afraid," Eric said. "You know how Shiva holds up one hand to show that there is nothing to fear." "But there is," Fat said. "Shiva is the destroyer; his third ere destroys." "He is also the restorer," Linda said. Leaning against me, David whispered in my ear, "Are they crazy?" They are gods, I said to myself; they are Shiva who both des- stroys and protects. They judge. Perhaps I should have felt fear. But I did not. They had al- ready destroyed——brought down Ferris F. Fremount, as he had been depicted in the film Valis. The period of Shiva the Restorer had begun. The restoration, I thought, of all we have lost. Of two dead girls. As in the film Valis, Linda Lampton could turn time back, if necessary; and restore everything to life. I had begun to understand the film. The Rhipidon Society, I realized, fish though it be, is out of its depth. An irruption from the collective unconscious, Jung taught, can wipe out the fragile individual ego. In the depths of the collec- tive the archetypes slumber; if aroused, they can heal or they can destroy. This is the danger of the archetypes; the opposite qualities are not yet separated. Bipolarization into paired oppo- sites does not occur until consciousness occurs. So, with the gods, life and death——protection and destruc- tion——are one. This secret partnership exists outside of time and space. It can make you very much afraid, and for good reason. After all, your existence is at stake. The real danger, the ultimate horror, happens when the cre- ating and protecting, the sheltering, comes first——and then the destruction. Because of this is the sequence, everything built up ends in death. Death hides within every religion. And at any time it can flash forth——not with healing in its wings but with poison, with that which wounds. But we had started out wounded. And VALIS had fired heal- ing information at us, medical information. VALIS approached us in the form of the physician, and the age of the injury, the Age of Iron, the toxic iron splinter, had been abolished. And yet . . . the risk is, potentially, always there. It is a kind of terrible game. Which can go either way. Libera me, Domine, I said to myself. In die illa. Save me, pro- tect me, God, in this day of wrath. There is a streak of the irra- tional in the universe, and we, the little hopeful trusting Rhipi- don Society, may have been drawn into it, to perish. As many have perished before. I remembered something which the great physician of the Renaissance had discovered. Poisons, in measured doses, are remedies; Paracelsus was the first to use metals such as mer- cury as medication. For this discovery——the measured use of poisonous metals as medications——Paracelsus has entered our history books. There is, however, an unfortunate ending to the great physician's life. He died of metal poisoning. So put another way, medications can be poisonous, can kill. And it can happen at any time. "Time is a child at play, playing draughts; a child's is the kingdom." As Heraclitus wrote twenty-five hundred years ago. In many ways this is a terrible thought. The most terrible of all. A child playing a game . . . with all life, everywhere. I would have preferred an alternative. I saw now the binding importance of our motto, the motto of our little Society, binding upon all occasions as the essence of Christianity, from which we could never depart: FISH CANNOT CARRY GUNS! If we abandoned that, we entered the paradoxes, and, finally, death. Stupid as our motto sounded, we had fabricated in it the insight we needed. There was nothing more to know. In Fat's quaint little ream about dropping the M-16 rifle, the Divine had spoken to us. Ma/7 Obstat. We had entered love, and found ourselves a land. But the divine and the terrible are so close to each other. Nommo and Yurugu are partners; both are necessary. Osiris and Seth, too. In the Book of Job, Yahweh and Satan form a partner- ship. For us to live, however, these partners must be split. The behind-the-scenes partnership must end as soon as time and space and all the creatures come into being. It is not God nor the gods which must prevail; it is wisdom, Holy Wisdom. I hoped that the fifth Savior would be that: split- ting the bipolarities and emerging as a unitary thing. Not of three persons or two but one. Not Brahma the creator, Vishnu the sustainer and Shiva the destroyer, but what Zoroaster called the Wise Mind. God can be good and terrible——not in succession——but at the same time. This is why we seek a mediator between us and him; we approached him through the mediating priest and atten- uate and enclose him through the sacraments. It is for our own safety: to trap him within confines which render him safe. But now, as Fat had seen, God escaped the confines and was transubstantiating the world; God had become free. The gentle sound of the choir singing "Amen, amen" are not to calm the congregation but to pacify the god. When you know this you have penetrated to the innermost core of religion. And the worst part is that the god can thrust himself outward and into the congregation until he becomes them. You worship a god and then he pays you back by taking you over. This is called "enthousiasmos" in Greek, literally "to be possessed by the god." Of all the Greek gods the one most likely to do this was Dionysos. And, unfortunately, Dionysos was insane. Put another way——stated backward——if your god takes you over, it is likely that no matter what name he goes by he is actu- ally a form of the mad god Dionysos. He was also the god of in- toxication, which may mean, literally, to take in toxins; that is to say, to take a poison. The danger is there. If you sense this, you try to run. But if you run he has you anyhow, for the demigod Pan was the basis of panic which is the uncontrollable urge to flee, and Pan is a subform of Dionysos. So in trying to flee from Dionysos you are taken over anyhow. I write this literally with a heavy hand; I am so weary I am dropping as I sit here. What happened at Jonestown was the mass running of panic, inspired by the mad god——panic leading into death, the logical outcome of the mad god's thrust. For them no way out existed. You must be taken over by the mad god to understand this, that once it happens there is no way out, because the mad god is everywhere. It is not reasonable for nine hundred people to collude in their own deaths and the deaths of little children, but the mad god is not logical, not as we understand the term. • • • When we reached the Lamptons' house we found it to be a stately old farm mansion, set in the middle of grape vines; after all, this is wine country. I thought, Dionysos is the god of wine. "The air smells good here," Kevin said as we got out of the VW Rabbit. "We sometimes get pollution," Eric said. "Even here." Entering the house, we found it warm and attractive; huge posters of Eric and Linda, framed behind non-reflecting glass covered all the walls. This gave the old wooden house a modern look, which linked us back to the Southland. Linda said, smiling, "We make our own wine, here. From our own grapes." I imagine you do, I said to myself. A huge complex of stereo equipment rose up along one wall like the fortress in VALIS which was Nicholas Brady's sound- mixer. I could see where the visual idea had originated. "I'll put on a tape we made," Eric said, going over to the au- dio fortress and clicking switches on. "Mini's music but my words. I'm singing but we're not going to release it; it's just an experiment." As we seated ourselves, music at enormous dBs filled the liv- ing room, rebounding off the walls. "I want to see you, man. As quickly as I can. Let me hold your hand I've got no hand to hold And I'm old, old; very old. Why won't you look at me? Afraid of what you see? I'll find you anyhow, Later or now; later or now." Jesus, I thought, listening to the lyrics. Well, we came to the right place. No doubt about that. We wanted this and we got this. Kevin could amuse himself by deconstructing the song lyr- ics, which did not need to be deconstructed. Well, he could turn his attention to Mini's electronic noises, then. Linda, bending down and putting her lips to my ears, shouted over the music, "Those resonances open the higher chakras." I nodded. When the song ended, we all said how terrific it was, David included. David had passed into a trance-state; his eyes were glazed over. David did this when he was faced by what he could not endure; the church had taught him how to phase himself out mentally for a time, until the stress situation was over. "Would you like to meet Mini?" Linda Lampton said. "Yes!" Kevin said. "He's probably upstairs sleeping," Eric Lampton said. He started out of the living room. "Linda, you bring some cabernet sauvignon, the 1972, up from the cellar." "Okay," she said, starting out of the room in the other direc- tion. "Make yourselves comfortable," she said over her shoulder to us. "I'll be right back." Over at the stereo, Kevin gazed down in rapture. David walked up to me, his hands stuck deep in his pockets, a complex expression on his face. "They're——" "They're crazy," I said. "But in the car you seemed——" "Crazy," I said. "Good crazy?" David said; he stood close beside me, as if for protection. "Or——the other thing." "I don't know," I said, truthfully. Fat stood with us now; he listened, but did not speak. He looked deeply sobered. Meanwhile, Kevin, by himself, contin- ued to analyze the audio system. "I think we should——" David began, but at that moment Linda Lampton returned from the wine cellar, carrying a silver tray on which stood six wine glasses and a bottle still corked. "Would one of you open the wine?" Linda said. "I usually get cork in it; I don't know why." Without Eric she seemed shy with us, and completely unlike the woman she had played in Valis. Rousing himself, Kevin took the wine bottle from her. "The opener is somewhere in the kitchen," Linda said. From above our heads thumping and scraping noises could be heard, as if something awfully heavy were being dragged across the upper-story floor. Linda said, "Mini——I should tell you this——has multiple my- eloma. It's very painful and he's in a wheelchair." Horrified, Kevin said, "Plasma cell myeloma is always fatal." "Two years is the life span," Linda said. "His has just been di- agnosed. He'll be hospitalized in another week. I'm sorry." Fat said, "Can't VALIS heal him?" "That which is to be healed will be healed," Linda Lampton said. "That which is to be destroyed will be destroyed. But time is not real; nothing is destroyed. It is an illusion." David and I glanced at each other. Bump-bump. Something awkward and enormous dragged its way down a flight of stairs. Then, as we stood unmoving, a wheelchair entered the living room. In it a crushed little heap smiled at us in humor, love and the warmth of recognition. From both ears ran cords: double hearing aids. Mini, the com- poser of Synchronicity Music, was partially deaf. Going up to Mini one by one we shook his faltering hand and identified ourselves, not as a society but as persons. "Your music is very important," Kevin said. "Yes it is," Mini said. We could see his pain and we could see that he would not live long. But in spite of the suffering he held no malice toward the world; he did not resemble Sherri. Glancing at Fat, I could see that he was remembering Sherri, now, as he gazed at the stricken man in the wheelchair. To come this far, I thought, and to find this again—this, which Fat had fled from. Well, as I al- ready said, no matter which direction you take, when you run the god runs with you because he is everywhere, inside you and out. "Did VALIS make contact with you?" Mini said. "The four of you? Is that why you're here?" "With me, "Fat said. "These others are my friends." "Tell me what you saw," Mini said. "Like St. Elmo's Fire," Fat said. "And information—" "There is always information when VALIS is present," Mini said, nodding and smiling. "He is information. Living informa- tion." "He healed my son," Fat said. "Or anyhow fired the med- ical information necessary to heal him at me. And VALIS told me that St. Sophia and the Buddha and what he or it called the 'Head Apollo' is about to be born soon and that the——" "——the time you have waited for," Mini murmured. "Yes," Fat said. "How did you know the cypher?" Eric Lampton asked Fat. "I saw a set to ground doorway," Fat said. "He saw it," Linda said rapidly. "What was the ration of the doorway? The sides?" Fat said, "The Fibonacci Constant." "That's our other code," Linda said. "We have ads running all over the world. One to point six one eight zero three four. What we do is say, 'Complete this sequence: One to point six.' If they recognize it as the Fibonacci constant they can finish the sequence." "Or we use Fibonacci numbers," Eric said. "1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 and so on. That doorway is to the Different Realm." "Higher?" Fat asked. "We just call it 'Different,'" Eric said. "Through the doorway I saw luminous writing," Fat said. "No you didn't," Mini said, smiling. Through the doorway is Crete." After a pause, Fat said, "Lemnos." "Sometimes Lemnos. Sometimes Crete. That general area." In a spasm of pain, Mini drew himself up in his wheelchair. "I saw Hebrew letters on the wall," Fat said. "Yes," Mini said, still smiling. "Cabala. And the Hebrew let- ters permutated until they factored out into words you could read." "Into KING FELIX," Fat said. "Why did you lie about the doorway?" Linda said, without animosity; she seemed merely curious. Fat said, "I didn't think you'd believe me." "Then you're not normally familiar with the Cabala," Mini said. "It's the encoding system which VALIS uses; all its verbal information is stored as Cabala, because that's the most eco- nomic way, since the vowels are indicated by mere vowel- points. You were given a set-ground discriminating unscram- bler, you realize. We normally can't distinguish set from ground; VALIS has to fire the unscrambler at you. It's a grid. You saw set as color, of course." "Yes." Fat nodded. "And ground as black and white." "So you could see the false work." "Pardon?" Fat said. "The false work that's blended with the real world." "Oh," Fat said. "Yes, I understand. It seemed as if some things had been taken away——" "And other things added," Mini said. Fat nodded. "You have a voice inside your head now?" Mini said. "The AI voice?" After a long pause, and a glance at me, Kevin and David, Fat said, "It's a neutral voice. Neither male nor female. Yes, it does sound as if it's an artificial intelligence." "That's the inter-system communications network," Mini said. "It stretches between stars, connecting all the star systems with Albemuth." Staring at him, Fat said, "'Albemuth'? It's a star?" "You heard the word, but——" "I saw it in written form," Fat said, "but I didn't know what it meant. I connected it with alchemy, because of the 'al.'" "The al prefix," Mini said, "is Arabic; it simply means 'the.' It's a common prefix for stars. That was your clue. Anyhow, you did see written pages, then." "Yes," Fat said. "Many of them. They told me what was go- ing to happen to me. Like——" He hesitated. "My later suicide at- tempt. It gave me the Greek word 'ananke' which I didn't know. And it said, 'A gradual darkening of the world; a sickling over.' Later I realized what it meant; a bad thing, a sickness, a deed that I had to commit. But I did survive." "My illness," Mini said, "is from proximity to VALIS, to its en- ergy. It's an unfortunate thing, but as you know, we are immor- tal, although not physically so. We will be reborn and remem- ber." "My animal died of cancer," Fat said. "Yes," Mini said. "The level of radiation can sometimes be enormous. Too much for us." I thought, So that's why you're dying. Your god has killed you and yet you're happy. I thought, We have to get out of here. These people court death. "What is VALIS?" Kevin said to Mini. "Which deity or demi- urge is he? Shiva? Osiris? Horus? I've read The Cosmic Trigger and Robert Anton Wilson says——" "VALIS is a construct," Mini said. "An artifact. It's anchored here on Earth, literally anchored. But since space and time don't exist for it, VALIS can be anywhere and any time it wishes to. It's something they built to program us at birth; normally it fires extremely short bursts of information at babies, engram- ming instructions to them which will bleed across for their right hemispheres at clock-time intervals during their full life- times, at the appropriate situational contexts." "Does it have an antagonist?" Kevin said. "Only the pathology of this planet," Eric said. "Due to the at- mosphere. We can't really breathe this atmosphere, here; it's toxic to our race." "'Our'?" I said. "All of us," Linda said. "We're all from Albemuth. This atmo- sphere poisons us and makes us deranged. So they——the ones who stayed behind in the Albemuth System——built VALIS and sent it here to fire rational instructions at us, to override the pa- thology caused by the toxicity of the atmosphere." "Then VALIS is rational," I said. "The only rationality we have," Linda said. "And when we act rationally we're under its jurisdiction," Mini said. "I don't mean us here in the room; I mean everyone. Not everyone who lives but everyone who is rational." "Then in essence," I said, "VALIS detoxifies people." "That's exactly it," Mini said. "It's an informational anti- toxin. But exposure to it can cause——illness such as I have." Too much medication, I said to myself, remembering Para- celsus, is a poison. This man has been healed to death. "I wanted to know VALIS as much as possible," Mini said, see- ing the expression on my face. "I begged it to return and com- municate with me further. It didn't want to; it knew the effect its radiation would have on me if it returned. But it did what I asked. I'm not sorry. It was worth it, to experience VALIS again." To Fat he said, "You know what I mean. The sound of bells . . ." "Yes," Fat said. "The Easter bells." "Are you talking about Christ?" David said. "Christ is an ar- tificial construct built to fire information at us that works on us subliminally?" "From the time we are born," Mini said. "We the lucky ones. We whom it selects. Its flock. Before I die, VALIS will return; I have its promise. VALIS will come and take me with it; I will be a part of it forever." Tears filled his eyes. Later, we all sat around and talked more calmly. The Eye of Shiva was of course the way the ancients repre- sented VALIS firing information. They knew it could destroy; this is the element of harmful radiation which is necessary as a carrier for the information. Mini told us that VALIS is not actu- ally close when it fires; it may be literally millions of miles away. Hence, in the film Valis, they represented it by a satellite, a very old satellite, not put into orbit by humans. "So we're not dealing with religion then," I said, "but with a very advanced technology." "Words," Mini said. "What is the Savior?" David said. Mini said, "You'll see him. Presently. Tomorrow, if you wish; Saturday afternoon. He's sleeping now. He still sleeps a great deal; most of the time, in fact. After all, he was completely asleep for thousands of years." "At Nag Hammadi?" Fat said. "I would rather not say," Mini said. "Why must this be kept secret?" I said. Eric said, "We're not keeping it secret; we made the film and we're making LPs with information in the lyrics. Subliminal in- formation, mostly. Mini does it with his music." "'Sometimes Brahman sleeps,'" Kevin said, "'and sometimes Brahman dances.' Are we talking about Brahman? Or Siddhar- tha the Buddha? Or Christ? Or is it all of them?" I said to Kevin, "The Great——" I had intended to say, "The Great Punta," but I decided not to; it wouldn't be wise. "It's not Dionysos, is it?" I asked Mini. "Apollo," Linda said. "The paired opposite of Dionysos." That filled me with relief. I believed her; it fitted with what had been revealed to Horselover Fat: "The Head Apollo." "We are in a maze, here," Mini said, "which we built and then fell into and can't get out. In essence, VALIS selectively fires in- formation to us which aids us in escaping from the maze, in finding the way out. It started back about two thousand years before Christ, in Mycenaean times or perhaps early Helladic. That's why the myths place the maze at Minos, on Crete. That's why you saw ancient Crete through the 1:.618034 doorway. We were great builders, but one day we decided to play a game. We did it voluntarily; we were such good builders that we could build a maze with a way out but which constantly changed so that, despite the way out, in effect there was no way out for us because the maze——this world——was alive? To make the game into something real, into something more than an intellectual exercise, we elected to lose our exceptional faculties, to reduce us an entire level. This, unfortunately, included loss of memory ——loss of knowledge of our true origins. But worse than that—— and here is where we in a sense managed to defeat ourselves, to turn victory over to our servant, over to the maze we had built——" "The third eye closed," Fat said. "Yes," Mini said. "We relinquish the third eye, our prime evolutionary attribute. It is the third eye which VALIS reopens." "Then it's the third eye that gets us back out of the maze," Fat said. "That's why the third eye is identified with god-like pow- ers or with enlightenment, in Egypt and in India." "Which are the same thing," Mini said. "God-like, enlight- ened." "Really?" I said. "Yes," Mini said. "It is man as he really is: his true state." Fat said, "So without memory, and without the third eye, we never had a chance to beat the maze. It was hopeless." I thought, Another Chinese finger trap. And built by our own selves. To trap our own selves. What kind of minds would create a Chinese finger trap for themselves? Some game, I thought. Well, it isn't merely intel- lectual. "The third eye had to be re-opened if we were to get out of the maze," Mini said, "but since we no longer remembered that we had that anja faculty, the eye of discernment, we could not go about seeking techniques for re-opening it. Something out- side had to enter, something which we ourselves would be un- able to build." "So we didn't all fall into the maze," Fat said. "No," Mini said. "And those that stayed outside, in other star- systems, reported back to Albemuth that we had done this thing to ourselves . . . thus VALIS was constructed to rescue us. This is an irreal world. You realize that, I'm sure. VALIS made your real- ize that. We are in a living maze and not in a world at all." There was silence as we considered this. "And what happens when we get outside the maze?" Kevin said. "We're freed from space and time," Mini said. "Space and time are the binding, controlling conditions of the maze——its power." Fat and I glanced at each other. It dovetails with our own speculations——speculations engineered by VALIS. "And then we never die?" David asked. "Correct," Mini said. "So salvation——" "'Salvation,'" Mini said, "is a word denoting 'Being led out of the space-time maze, where the servant has become the mas- ter.'" "May I ask a question?" I said. "What is the purpose of the fifth Savior?" "It isn't the 'fifth,'" Mini said. "There is only one, over and over again, at different times, in different places, with different names. The Savior is VALIS incarnated as a human being." "Crossbonded?" Fat said. "No." Mini shook his head vigorously. "There is no human el- ement in the Savior. "Wait a minute," David said. "I know what you've been taught," Mini said. "In a sense, it's true. But the Savior is VALIS and that is the fact of the case. He is born, however, from a human woman. He doesn't just generate a phantasm-body." To that, David nodded; he could accept that. "And he's been born?" I asked. "Yes," Mini said. "My daughter," Linda Lampton said."Not Eric's, however. Just mine and VALIS's." "Daughter?" several of us said in unison. "This time," Mini said, "for the first time, the Savior takes fe- male form." Eric Lampton said, "She's very pretty. You'll like her. She talks a blue streak, though; she'll talk your ear off." "Sophia is two," Linda said. "She was born in 1976. We tape what she says." "Everything is taped," Mini said. "Sophia is surrounded by audio and video recording equipment that automatically mon- itors her constantly. Not for her protection, of course; VALIS protects her——VALIS, her father." "And we can talk with her?" I said. "She'll dispute with you for hours," Linda said, and then she added, "in every language there is or ever was." 

VALIS, by Philip K. Dick. Copyright © 1981 by Philip K. Dick. First Mariner Books edition 2011. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003. pp. 190-209.
go ask yeezy, or elon, where it all came from. you can see the falsehood, but what is the truth? 雨

Date: 13 March 2024
Location: Groom Lake, Nevada
Interviewer: Dr. H. Roth
Interviewee: One (1) rebuilt Foxy the Pirate Fox animatronic, assembled from scraps 1994-2023, in the possession of UCN, Inc.
Q: Hello there. How are you?
Y'argh, I be fine today. And how are you, Dr. Roth?
Q: All is well. So, what do you remember about your past? Anything...do you remember what you saw, or heard, prior to your rebuilding and acquisition?
Well, I used to have a young laddie onboard with me, called Fritz, but I helped put him to rest. I hang out with him a lot in the void until his parents are "ready" for him.
Q: Ready? What does that mean?
Y'argh, to be blunt...it means that he's dead and they aren't. After my good friend Charlie released his soul, my memory banks got unscrambled and I was able to recall things better, so I tried reaching out to his folks, but no luck until about a week ago, when you guys put me in touch with Debra Smith, his mom. I told him that I'd taken him under my wing, and that he was safe with us. You know, when he finally was unbound from me, and I got my intelligence back...
(Foxy's voice gradually shifts into an American accent)
Q: Intelligence? Do you know how you got endowed with AI?
I...I don't want to think about that, knowing that later on those men would use dead kids like Fritz explicitly to power their robots. The Funtimes, you know. They say that...that management began taking money from Freddy's because they realized that the technology was worth more than the restaurants...and they let it all go downhill after '87...I don't want to think about how many more innocent people they must've hurt. I mean, there are like 50 or 60 different souls staring down Will at any point in that pit, and I sure hope he didn't have 44 other victims, but who...oh no...
(Foxy makes noises of extreme distress and begins convulsing. Dr. Roth gently holds him on the back until he calms down)
Q: Everything okay? Did I trigger you?
Just...the thought...of all the other innocent lives I couldn't protect...smashed children...bloody bodies...He must've killed a lot more after Freddy's closed and he set up Circus Baby's.
(Over the next 15 hours Foxy gives detailed information that is used to solve approximately 30 other deaths and disappearances of children ranging in age from 15 years to 2 days. It's concluded that those children were used in the creation of other animatronics, including "Funtime Chica" and "the Minireenas.")

Technically, it’s tomorrow. But I’m going to have a very busy day and didn’t want to forget to do this. This is ClawingBackAgain. I’m changing over to a new name and stopping the day tracking. I find that I’ve changed and don’t need a counter or karma as that could be idolatrous instead of focusing on Christ. So here I am.
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This is going to be a long one. If you don’t like a lot of detail, or really long walls of text, I recommend you avoid reading this post. I don’t know how to be brief when it comes to this. This is a celebration of sorts for me, so I feel I’ve earned the right to be self-indulgent. Feel free to indulge with me if you so choose. A warning: this is not prescriptive. What worked for me may not for you. But I’m providing it in the hopes it will help someone. And, in reality, 90 days is just the start. I’m in awe of you who have done this for 180, 360, and in perpetuity.
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I’m in my 40s. I’ve been married for almost half those years. I’ve been fighting this issue that we are all here (unless we are supporting someone who is going through this, or a troll) for almost 30 years since my early teens. For me, it was encountering my father’s stash of magazines as well as intently watching the bits of unscrambled content on the premium cable channels that initially set me off. I had sexual contact with girls when I was in high school in a way that was not intended by God, all the while fighting PMO. I met a lovely woman when I was in my early 20s and married her. I then brought PMO into my marriage instead of working hard to fight it before hand. For you single people, I commend you for wanting to get this handled before proceeding into marriage. You have a strength I never possessed.
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For years, I tried treating the symptom; the P of PMO. I could quit at any time, right? Wrong. I could abstain for a bit, but I’d always come back to it. Plenty of assurances that I had this under control, plenty of relapses, and plenty of hurt inflicted on my wife. After this latest round of discovery, and there have been many rounds of this, her hurt and anger was intense. I didn’t know if the marriage would survive, but I knew that regardless of the outcome, I had to rid myself of this affliction. First and foremost, I had to stop relying on my flesh and rely on God for my help. Next, I confided in some people that I had a problem (word of caution: only talk to people that are trustworthy and won’t share the details of your life. I made that mistake.). I got counseling and got into the Word. I prayed to God to help me fight this. I then put a few systems in place. Lustful thoughts were combated by focusing on the sacrifice of Christ for all of us. Gradually, my wife began to see that I was all in on fighting this. Not to please her, but that I truly wanted to change my life so that He may be glorified.
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After 90 days, my desires for PMO have greatly diminished. Am I fully rid of it? No. In fact I have the occasional tough day, but for the most part I don’t want it. It’s destructive, it has a cost that I don’t want to pay, and I don’t need it. My marriage is the best it has ever been and my wife tells me she is the happiest she has ever been in her life. Going forward, I will continue with my system of prayer, technological blocks, accountability and counseling, prayer and word, and ultimately turning my mind to Him.
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My thoughts in a numbered list, because I like numbered lists. This has worked for me; it doesn’t mean it will for you. But feel free to steal what you want:
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1. PMO isn’t something that can be indulged just a little bit. For a lot of us, you are excited and stimulated by something, and then you reach a tolerance level and have to find something new. This can lead to seeking out awful and illegal things. I didn’t reach that point, but I’m not deluded enough to think I wouldn’t. Someone on NFC once posted that we may be 100 clicks away from child P. That stuck with me. I wish I could credit whomever posted it, but I forgot (feel free to come forward for my thanks).
   
2. This battle can’t be won without Christ. By myself I can’t beat this. I’ve tried over and over and over. Failures abound. But leaning into the limitless strength of God made all this possible. I don’t obsess anymore, I don’t have a massive collection or link repository.
   
3. I’m not under the impression that I can go on auto-pilot. I will fight this the rest of my life. I have to be deliberate. I am a digital alcoholic; not a drop. And my flesh is weak, but He is strong.
   
4. I layer my protections. I have counseling, support groups, studies, digital filters (two) and several accountability partners. It’s all important, because if you have one disruption, you still have others in place. I strongly recommend Christian counseling as it helped me treat my problem rather than continuing to try to treat symptoms. And, if you feel oppressed by this heavily, you have many systems and people to rely upon. No excuses.
   
5. Get in the Word. I try to read a bit of scripture every day. I pray for people every day. I find people to talk to, get knowledge of their situation, and pray for them. Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you”. Praying for people and understanding their needs gets your thoughts off you. Matthew 11:28-30, “If you are tired from carrying heavy burdens, come to me and I will give you rest. Take the yoke I give you. Put it on your shoulders and learn from me. I am gentle and humble, and you will find rest. This yoke is easy to bear, and this burden is light.”
   
6. Reward yourself. I like video games, they’re my guilty pleasure. So I play a few minutes a day to celebrate abstaining PMO. (Word of caution: Don’t play games that might trigger you). I’ve also obtained a set of AA tokens and my wife and I have a little ceremony when I’ve earned another one. It makes her feel good about what I’m doing, and I get a little reward. Plus, with my momentum, I don’t want to break that streak and turn them all in.
   
7. Be deliberate. You’ve made the commitment to beat this. Commit to talking to an accountability partner before relapse. Commit to praying. A lot of people use the Cortez analogy on burning the ships (https://www.pbs.org/conquistadors/cortes/cortes_d00.html). It’s cliched, but it’s apt. Don’t give yourself an out. Use mental check downs. “Yes, I am lusting and a relapse would feel good, but if I do that I have to tell my accountability partner, I don’t get my reward for the day, my systems will log my failure, and it will reaffirm to my spouse/friend/sibling/parent that I gave in”.
   
8. Hard questions. One of my accountability partners is someone who I respect greatly in my daily life. He asks me a list of questions that have to be answered by yes or no, so that I can’t do any creative maneuvering. If you don’t have anyone like that, talk to your pastor or cleric.
   

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That’s probably enough words for the day. If you have questions or want me to pray for you, drop me a line. Remember Acts 3:19, “So turn to God! Give up your sins, and you will be forgiven.” God bless you all.

Hey, all. It's been a while since I made any substantial updates to my app. I was working through my Russian and wondering what I wanted PollyGot to do better for me. Anyhow, I found a few solutions to them.

The Stuff That Hasn't Changed:

• It's still a universally back-translated app. That means that you can start from any number of languages to learn any of the other languages. For instance, in my settings (⚙), I set my languages to English, Spanish, and "Traditional" Chinese. So, for any translation pair, I get a random L1 translation to help inform me of the meaning of the Russian sentences I practice.
• It's still got ten languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese.
• It's still text-based. You enter text for an anticipated translation for the target language you want to learn. The database is sorted by difficulty, and you climb your way to the end of the database.
• It's still only for Android. The Apple Store sucks for developers. Once it's cheaper and less hassle, I'll optimize it for iPhones.
• It's still totally ad-free and functions offline. No "freemium" bullshit, either.

The Stuff That Has Changed:

• The monitoring is more straightforward. Instead of having three different pieces of data to consider, you now just have one. It used to have a set of scrambled characters, the number of characters to enter, and the number of mistakes. The last two are gone. Instead, you just check against a modified text piece.
• The challenges are presented more gradually. Instead of having a full scramble of the sentence for a hint, only a percentage of the sentence, based on your progress, is hidden from view. So, if you're 10% through the database, only 10% of the L2 sentence will be scrambled. If 10% of the sentence is not at least one character, there is no scramble, and you just transcribe the translation verbatim.
• The L2 sentence, once unscrambled, never re-scrambles if you delete characters.
• The audio follows pace with your work. The audio buttons for the anticipated L2 entry and for what you've actually typed are still there. However, if you complete a sentence to 100%, it will then play the whole sentence's audio automatically. From there, hitting the space bar or deleting the final space at the sentence's end will re-trigger the audio. I'm considering doing this at the word-level, but it would require a separate database to handle Chinese and Japanese data correctly.
• The database is more saturated. I've been seizing on relevant corpus data to find major n-grams and build modified sentences from what is already in the database. With this method, I'm able to get over 1,000 new sentences a month, many of which fill gaps in complexity, and thus mitigate perceived leaps in difficulty.

Lots of people have found me on HelloTalk, downloaded the app, and shared their opinions. Feel free to do the same, especially if you've downloaded it before and can offer some comparative notes.

"Small insects experience time in slow-motion," Dr. Yang explained to me. "Our perception of time is governed by the speed of which our mind and body process sensory information. In essence, a swifter nervous system allows for slower passage of time, and vice versa. The housefly, for example, experiences time at roughly 20% of the rate at which we do."
I stood next to Dr. Yang as a nurse administered IV for my sister Wei Wei, her mouth agape, drool running down to her chin.
"Animaformin B is a formula in development which aims to replicate this phenomenon in humans," he continued.
"We believe that this will allow the brain to thoroughly process sensory data, rather than unscrambling some of it and making up the rest. Tests in small animals have shown drastically improved cognitive capability, most notably in their reaction time and fine motor skills..."
I watched how crudely the nurses handled my sister as they cleaned her. Wei Wei was a prospect on the national table tennis team, poised to eventually represent our country in the Olympics. Seeing her reduced to this shell of her former self while I myself was healthy and whole... it made me feel helpless.
One day, Wei Wei had suddenly collapsed during the middle of practice. Dr. Yang from Sina Biotech, who oversaw the medical needs of the team, informed me that an aggressive tumor had developed in her brain. He said they had to perform an emergency operation in order to save her life, but at the cost of damaging a section of her cerebral cortex.
Dr. Yang paused for a moment when he noticed that my attention was fixated on my sister. "You can imagine how this treatment, should it prove effective in humans, would greatly benefit patients with impaired brain functions."
Nine years ago, when we were just twelve, Wei Wei was recruited at a regional tournament by a scout of the national team. This was tremendous news to our parents, who were farmers and had always wished for a boy but instead got two daughters. After some back and forth about compensation, our family agreed to let the state's athletic committee take custody of her. Because of my potential and special bond with my sister, I was also "sold off" to live in the city and placed into the same school as my sister. We were twins, after all, no matter the fact that she was deemed more talented than me.
"I will do it," I declared. "I will volunteer for the clinical trial."
Dr. Yang applauded my courage and reassured me that the medical team will do everything in their power to heal my sister.
After some tests to determine whether I was fit to undergo the trial, I signed a waiver releasing Sina Biotech of legal responsibility in the event that the trials result in any harm up to and including my death. This was merely a formality, however, because Sina Biotech was a state-owned enterprise.
I knew the risks. I understood the chances. But if there was even a one in ten thousand chance that this treatment could bring back my sister, I had to give it a shot. For just this one time, I wouldn't have to be the worthless one.
Two days later, on the first day of the trial, I was instructed to take three capsules along with a small packet of a flavorless blue fluid.
"This is the lowest dosage that would have any measurable effect on an adult human being," said the technician, who eventually introduced himself as Li.
Ten, twenty, thirty minutes passed more or less uneventfully. "How do you feel now?" Li asked, for the seventh time.
"Normal," I answered, for the seventh time.
"Very well. That will be all for today."
"That's it?"
"For today."
And that concluded the first day of the clinical trial. I remember having all kinds of doubt going thru my mind. What is this drug supposed to even do? How is this going to help my sister? Am I being taken advantage of?
As consideration for signing the waiver, I was awarded 8000 RMB. From what I gathered, taking the money meant that I'd obligated myself to carry out my duty as the test subject of the trials.
Over the course of the next six weeks, I returned to the facility every Thursday to visit my sister and allow them to perform more tests on me, upping the dosage marginally during each subsequent trial.
Finally, on my way home from the 5th trial, I got my first taste of the "housefly effect." It was so brief and so sudden that I almost brushed it off as a figment of my own imagination.
It happened while I was riding the metro during the rush hour mania. All around me frenzied commuters suddenly slowed down to a snail's pace. When the station announcer's voice came on the speakers, I noticed that it was deeper than usual--but only for several seconds. Then the doors shut and the train was moving again, and everything returned to normal.
At the following test I relayed to the researchers my experience on the metro, and so they asked me to remain at the facility overnight for monitoring in case there was another delayed reaction. I agreed--only this time, there was no delay.
For this test, the dosage was upped to six capsules and a small bottle of the blue fluid. Almost immediately upon ingesting the fluid, my body began to panic.
By the time I gave Li the signal that I was under the effect of the drugs, I could no longer communicate verbally with him. His words were eerily distorted, and I couldn't get mine to come out right. Because my heart rate was racing out of control, he sat me down and gestured for me to remain calm.
It was just as Dr. Yang had described it. When my perception of time slowed down, my mind was able to process more information and with more clarity. My focus sharpened and my peripheral vision expanded. I could read the characters from a notice on the wall without looking directly at it. I could hear my own heartbeat, the hum of the monitors, the footsteps down the hallways, the friction of the sliding doors--all at the same time. I could feel the hairs standing on my skin. It was a strange sensation yet marvellous at the same time.
Several minutes later, when my body had adjusted to my accelerated nervous system, some simple tests were conducted to determine how much my biological flicker rate had increased. Because I had trouble hearing their distorted voices, we communicated by typing on a tablet.
The first experiment was fairly straight forward--I sang the national anthem, without music, and clapped to its beat. Compared to the original tempo of the song, I was performing at 196% speed. I never got the chance to listen to the recording, but to my own ears it sounded like an unintelligible, alien language. Almost like the ramblings of a deaf mute attempting to speak.
Then I was shown some videos on the tablet--people eating, people crossing the road, people doing their laundry--and asked to adjust the playback speed until the video appeared to be moving at a natural pace. Again, it indicated that my personal rate of time had approximately halved.
Before we got to do more tests, however, my sense of time gradually began to normalize. My speech returned, my heart rate decelerated, and my eyes were no longer bloodshot.
Shortly after, the fine details of my vision began to fade away. The printing on the notice on the wall reverted to a blur. My focus narrowed, and all the vivid objects outside of focus were dull again.
I remember sitting in that lab with a peculiar thought: I want more.
During the following days, I remained at the facility and was allowed to stay in the same room as Wei Wei. I had a strange dream one night, where the two of us were kids again. We were playing ping pong in that little court yard back in our village. The ball went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth for what seemed like an eternity. I woke up in the middle of that dream, looked over to my sister, and found her staring at me from her side of the room.
"Wei Wei?" I sat up and shuffled towards her side. No response, just her absent gaze again.
I tried going back to sleep, but it was difficult to do so knowing she was still staring at me. In the end, we spent that night looking at each other.
After a week of testing the drug on a daily basis, I was given an increased dosage of the formula for yet another experiment--only this time, I was instructed to wait three hours before ingesting the blue liquid.
During these three hours, they took from me a blood sample, a saliva sample, and an urine sample.
I was taken up to another floor of the building, and on that floor were some rooms full of exercise equipments--nothing out of the ordinary, considering these were researchers and doctors working with national level athletes. But the room I was brought to, to my surprise, had a ping pong table.
"You want me to play table tennis... while on the drug?"
Li simply nodded and gestured for my opponent to enter the room. Unlike everyone else, who wore white lab coats or nurses uniforms, she was wearing a red and yellow tracksuit.
"We need to record a couple of matches before you take the liquid," he said, "for reference."
The first set was over as soon as it began. I was barely able to return her services, let alone score a point or keep a volley going.
The second set was hardly better, though I managed score a single point when she hit the ball into her side of the net.
The gap in our skill level was far too wide. 'Even with the drug I would be no match for her,' I thought to myself. I was wrong.
After taking the liquid component of the formula, I managed to score five points against her in our third set.
As the sets went on I moved faster and faster, my joints and muscles eventually catching up to the speed of my nervous system. I could see the angle of her paddle and read the trajectory of the ball as it gently sliced through the air. It reminded me of playing the first levels of Tetris. By the sixth set, I was overwhelming my opponent. I kept going and going until it was she who could not sustain a volley.
And then it happened.
I felt something snap. Not physically, but I knew something'd gone wrong inside my head.
I dropped the paddle and uttered some non-sense to Li, who could tell that I was in distress.
The effect of the drug was rapidly wearing off. My sense of time was accelerating, and at some point their jumbled voices became clear again.
But it didn't stop there. It kept speeding up.
My surrounding was like a video tape on fast forward. Li was trying to speak to me but at this point his face had become nothing but a vibrating blur. Anything that moved were reduced to quivering lines and figures.
And still, It kept speeding up.
I could no longer hear anything but a constant, high-pitched ringing. My world was speeding past me so rapidly it felt as though I was falling into a bottomless pit. From time to time I could feel my body going to sleep, but my mind could no longer tell whether I was asleep or awake.
At some point, in that dream-like state, I saw a clear image of my sister sitting in a wheelchair across from me. She was the only one I could see because she was perfectly still. Her lips kept on repeating the same words:
"Make it stop."
It was then and there I finally understood what really happened to my sister. To us.
And then, as spontaneously as she had appeared, Wei Wei disappeared.
"Make it stop."
Make it stop. Make it stop! I was screaming in my head. Make it stop! Those were the only words I could think of, and so I kept repeating it over and over until finally, after what felt like hours, I found myself in Dr. Yang's laboratory. I was hooked up to an IV and some monitoring equipment, much like how my sister was when I use to visit her. The ringing in my ears stopped at last, and I could hear the nurse behind me utter something to Dr. Yang.
He spread open my eyelid and pointed a small flashlight directly into my eye. When I flinched, I saw that he was startled.
I looked around and saw that everyone had the same startled expression on their faces, as though I had risen from the dead.
As I tried to speak, I realized that my lips were nearly sewn shut by dried saliva. When I raised my hand to touch my mouth I realized how frail my arm had become. I could hardly muster the strength to sit up from the wheelchair.
Somehow, five months had lapsed since that experiment with the game of table tennis.
I was informed that Animaformin B had since been ruled unfit for testing on humans. Furthermore, Sina Biotech offered a sizeable sum to buy my silence on my experience.
Although they denied having performed any experiments on my sister, she were to remain in their care. She was relocated to another facility, and I was no longer allowed to visit.
I fear that she will forever be imprisoned in that timeless world.
Clearly, as you are reading about this now, I had turned down their offer. I've tried posting my story to a number of platforms here in China, all of which were swiftly removed. And so I turn to you, with the hope that this will reach the eyes and ears of the international community.
A personal thank you to anyone who can translate my story.
Originally written in simplified Chinese by user jiujiuweiwei on a forum based in Taiwan, dated September 2nd, 2014

Hi all! This is a continuation of my response to this prompt from about a week ago.
Part 1
It was then that I knew – I had been here before.
The airport. The agent. The people staring. It was all so … familiar. How many times had it been? Two? Three? A hundred? How many times had I relived this exact scenario? How many times had I realized that I been through this all before?
I thought of running but that was too obvious. I had certainly tried that before. It was likely I wouldn’t even make it out of the airport, and, if I did, the town was a half mile away. No one would help me escape. They all knew. They were my Keepers.
Keepers. The word drifted through by whirling mind like a single falling snowflake.
What were they keeping me from? What were they keeping from me? Obviously, I was somehow important, but was I dangerous? I decided to find out.
I retracted my hand, leaving the agent to hold my ID. Fluidly, I spun my backpack from my shoulder and reached inside. I sensed the Keepers inch closer. I somehow knew they were teetering on the edge, wondering if they needed to act quickly.
I decided not to reveal that I knew. Not yet. I wondered if I had ever tried something like this before and decided it didn’t matter. I may never reach this point again.
“What about this?” I asked, unveiling my passport.
I knew it to be just as legitimate as my license was, but I thought another question might keep the agent off-balance. At the very least, it allowed me another moment to think. Time was precious. The Keepers were still staring at me uncertainly, still unaware that I had noticed their lie. That was good.
“Sir? Wait right here. Just a moment.”
I met eyes with the agent as he spoke into his headpiece, trying to keep my face unassuming. He knew as well as I did that I would never be allowed to walk through the gate. At that instant, the terminal filled with the sound of a descending plane. Somewhere in my mind, I remembered that the planes were real. That the Keepers were assigned here on a rotational basis.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two burly Keepers approach in lime green jackets. Security. Not for the others.
Just for me.
It was time to make my move. Now or never. But why did they fear me? Why did they Keep me locked within an entire town? Why such an elaborate simulation? Why not just kill me?
Then, I remembered. They couldn’t. Not before they understood what I could do. I flexed the muscle in my mind, flinging the two security guards through the air and into wall of the airport lounge. The two men disappeared in a mist of rubble.
I took the agent next, just as he was drawing the gun from his waist. I knew the bullets were a preventative mechanism, designed just to put me down. If they managed to hit me, I would wake up in my own bed. How long before I would have another chance at escape?
Instinctively, I raised my hand at a flurry of gunfire. A hundred bullets hung in the air before me, several mere inches from my bare skin. Before they had hit the ground, I was through the gate and racing down the artificial boarding tunnel.
Two more Keepers appeared ahead. I sent them through the temporary wall with a single thought. But the others were coming. They always did.
The plane appeared empty. No passengers. No pilot. I sealed the door behind me.
Did I know how to fly it? I saw a book spread over the console and began to leaf through it as the Keepers assaulted the door. It wouldn’t hold long.
How did I know that? Had this happened before as well? How often had I made it this far?
As if in an answer to my question, I felt a hand on my shoulder and the barrel of a gun pressed to my neck. I turned to see a familiar face, and my heart sunk.
How could I forget that he was the one who always caught me? The King Keeper. My father.
“I’m sorry son.”
How many times had it ended this way?
Part 2
How many times had I been here before?
I knew without looking that the plane was empty. That the blue carpet was frayed, that the luggage racks lining each aisle were open, and that a single black bag had been left behind.
Why did I know these things? Why was this a truth I did not question?
The pounding came a heartbeat later, disrupting my thoughts. I watched the sealed door nearly break from the impact of a heavy blow. The Keepers always tried to cave it with brute force in before shooting. Why? I decided it didn’t matter. Not when time was so short.
I found the book on the pilot’s console where I somehow knew it would be. The language inside was alien, endless runic letters dancing around intricate designs. I knew the book was important, but it wasn’t important yet. There was something else.
Something I was missing.
I turned at the last instant, catching the Keeper by surprise. I knocked the gun from his hand with a wordless command and launched him backwards through the aisle with another. There was a sickening crunch as the man’s body bent around one of the seats. I guessed that he was dead. I couldn’t waste time making sure.
I had already wasted enough.
The door was near its breaking point. If the Keepers came through, it would all be over. I wondered how long it had been since I had made it this far, if I had ever been further. I looked longingly at the cover of the book for aid, but I knew it held no answers. Not yet.
Suddenly, the muscle in my mind had begun to throb, a growing pain nesting deep within my skull. The pain felt familiar, but I couldn’t know for sure if it had come before. Maybe it always did at this point. Every step beyond the gate was the first step all over again.
I shook off the pain and turned back to the console as the shooting began.
Sweeping the book aside, I placed both hands across the countless instruments, but I was no longer helpless. This was supposed to work. I was sure of it. The plane was supposed to fly.
I had flown it before.
Inexplicably, the engine roared to life and the plane began to roll forward. Slowly at first, then gradually gaining speed upon my command. I watched the runway as it blurred by, Keepers diving out of the way to preserve their own lives. A flurry of bullets struck like hail across the glass of the cockpit, but none managed to break through.
The pain came again as I willed the plane upwards. It was stronger this time. Blinding. I fell to my knees, hoping against hope that the plane didn’t crash. Yet, somehow, I knew that it wouldn’t. Not as long as I maintained my grip.
Wait. Was the plan supposed to crash? Something told me that I couldn’t simply land it. I had certainly tried that before. The Keepers would be there. They would be waiting.
The pain lessened as I evened the plane’s ascent and stumbled down the aisle, book in hand. I passed the broken Keeper on my way to the overlooked black bag. The man wasn’t dead, but he was near it. His eyes regarded me with a look of terror. A stream of blood ran from the corner of his mouth, staining the ancient carpet.
I knew there was no point in questioning him. Keepers didn’t talk. Especially to me.
Grabbing the black bag, I made my way back past the dying Keeper and to the emergency door. I placed the book inside the bag and found myself staring at the exit for a long moment.
Was this the right thing to do? Was this a mistake? How many times had I tried it before?
I decided I shouldn’t change my mind. That I had to trust myself. I forced the door open and allowed the skies to take me.
There was something liberating about falling. Oddly, I wasn’t worried about dying. I knew that I had done this before, that I had survived the jump. When the time came, I pushed against the ground with my mind, slowing my descent gradually.
I landed in what appeared to be a desert road in the midst of a barren land, running as soon as my feet hit the ground. I knew that the ghost plane wouldn’t fool the Keepers for long. They were already on my trail.
The sun had long since set when I gave into exhaustion. I had managed to make it to an abandoned gas station just off the main road. Once inside, I collapsed and sought sleep. Only for a few hours. My body would know when to wake…
I woke staring up at a familiar face. The face of the shadows that haunted my dreams. The face of my father. The Keeper of Keepers.
“I’m sorry, son.”
Part III
I sensed movement in the second before I opened my eyes. I knew that they had found me. That they always found me. How many times had it ended this way before?
I was determined not to let it end this way again.
The Keeper gave a sharp cry of pain as I bent his hand backwards with my mind. Somehow, he still managed to fire his gun, the sound of the shot thunderous in the small room. I thought for an instant it may have been the end, an end at least.
Then, I realized the shot had missed. There was still a chance to move on. To find out what was being kept from me.
I sent the Keeper flying through the empty remains of the station’s aisles. Glass shattered as the man burst through the door. He fell on a fatal bed of shards, broken glass cutting through his armor and severing his spine. I knew that he would never move again.
Just as I regained my feet, the others struck. I knew that there were four of them. That the Keepers had surrounded the abandoned building, and that the dead man had served as their scout.
Since jumping from the plane, I had been questioning less and less the things that I knew. The further I made it, the more I knew, and there was no longer time to question it all.
I reached out internally, seeking the individual minds of the Keepers. It would only take one. I touched the man nearest me and pulled him forward in the moment before the gunfire came. Again, I didn’t know how it actually worked, only that it would.
The bullets struck the Keeper a heartbeat after he had arrived, two after I had picked up my bag and begun to run through the cramped aisles.
I knew that the bullets wouldn’t kill me, but I didn’t know if they were deadly to others. I didn’t know what would happen if the man died while I still touched his mind. Would that somehow kill me as well? Would it only be another reset? Could I even die?
As I moved through the empty station, I forsook my grip on the man’s mind; instead, I focused on manipulating his armored body. I repurposed him as a revolving shield, instinctively moving him to where I knew the bullets would arrive. I fled in the opposite direction from the shattered door, somehow knowing it was the only way to escape.
I slew the next Keeper as he entered through the alternate exit. In the dark, I couldn’t see the man in black armor. I didn’t have to. I never did when I made it this far.
My flight had become purely instinctual. I was simply certain that the Keeper was there. That whenever I reached this point, he always was. I seized his neck with the growing muscle in my mind and forced it to break, overcoming the man’s initial internal resistance.
The fallen corpse rocketed through the air at my command, collecting the next Keeper and driving him into steel post coated with flaking red pain. Again, I didn’t question how I knew where my foe was hidden, or what I knew I had to do next.
Spinning my Keeper-shield behind me, I caught a flurry of bullets from inside the store. Instead of stepping forward, I sent my shield into the approaching enemy. The two bodies tangled together, reaching a deadly speed at my insistence before crashing into the far wall.
One more to go.
I raced into the sunlight, diving for the cover behind the heavily rusted truck I knew to be parked at one of the long empty pumps. The bullets of the last Keeper sprayed across where I had stood an instant before, finding nothing but the frosty morning air of the desert.
Without thinking, I ripped the Keeper’s gun from his hands and drove the stock into his chest. As he staggered backwards, I spun the floating gun so that the barrel faced upwards and drove it into his throat. The Keeper maintained his balance for an instant before finally cratering forward and allowing the barrel to finish the job.
The Keepers dead, I took a deep breath. I knew there was something that the last of them held. Something of great importance, much like the book. I walked over to where the man had fallen and began to search. For some reason, his blinking earpiece drew my eye. I went to remove it and–
Wait. This was another mistake. How many times had I made it before?
Raising my hand, I stopped the sniper’s bullet just before it reached my temple, seconds before I would hear the man’s words though the headset as I lay dying. Grimacing, I reversed the bullet’s force and sent it back to the hidden Keeper.
This time, the words would not come.
The words. What were they? Who spoke them? It was something else I didn’t know. Something that I wasn’t supposed to know. Not yet anyways. I knew that I was destined to hear them again soon enough.
I sunk down next to the dead Keeper as the sharp pain returned to my mind. It was worse than it had been when I had flown the plane. Was this supposed to happen? Wasn’t I supposed to keep moving after the shootout at the station?
I realized I didn’t know where to go next.
No. That wasn’t right. There was something that told me where to go. Something I had overlooked before. Something critical.
Taking the book from my bag, I opened it to the first page. Like magic, the foreign words unscrambled before my eyes. However, the magic only lasted a moment. Just long enough for me to decipher what I needed to. Then, the words were again illegible. They would be until I needed them again.
Once the pain receded, I took the Keeper’s earpiece and began to walk north down a path I traveled at least once before. A path I somehow knew would bring me answers.
Thank you so much for reading! The story is continued in its entirety starting here. There is a total of eight parts.

More of a rant, just felt the need to make something like this to unscramble my thoughts after googling her name and seeing what she has done. I also decided to write down my past since I've never done it before.
I understand my life is still better than most people on this planet. What I view as scarring and horrific is only a scratch for many of the people I see. That being said, it still is taking a constant beating on my own thoughts that continues to get worse. Hopefully this text could serve as a make-shift remedy if it serves to relieve the bottled up thoughts that continue to beat down on my psyche.
I've done fuck all at this fork in the road for the past few years despite it probably playing a large part in how I'll think of myself when my mom is gone. I'm 16 and have always hid behind my youth for not taking action, but I think at this point I need to do something if I want to find my own sense of self during this time of identity vs role confusion.
I had a pretty normal childhood up until probably 6 or 7 when everything started to turn gradually strange. Before hand we had a pretty normal family, doing well in school, spending quality time with my parents, and generally everything that goes along with your typical suburban household. My mom held a PhD in International and Intercultural Communication while my dad held a major in both Economics and English.
I still don't have a clear memory of what exactly happened and changed from my point of view, but I just remember many one off weird situations that started to occur in quicker succession as time progressed in my town up north. While writing this suddenly numerous snapshots of the house flooded into my mind at once like I opened up a door I locked up. (repression?) The earliest I remember is my mom coming into my room and then arguing with my dad non stop for hours on end about details I have no recollection about. I remember sometimes going into my sister's bed for company until my mom freaked out one night when finding my bed empty. This seems pretty normal from what I've heard, but the actual argument wasn't over money or spending time together or sex drive. It was always over my dad's alleged affairs. I remember her yammering about how my dad cheated on her with a lady, often repeating how she was white and already had a family (It's really funny because my dad isn't attracted to white women, and often jokes how they age the worst :P) I remember her saying something about them meeting on an online dating site and more. I think at some point I believed my mom without any evidence, but my dad always acted normal around my sister and I like a great father would.
It got worse though. The arguments started occurring every single day. I remember my dad asking her not to on my birthday while I sat out on the front porch, but she would never stop bickering about something. It kept progressing until the apex of anxiety when listening to her body thud down the stairs following a shrill scream. She returned back to the room, only remembering her hands bleeding telling us to come with her. I don't remember what happened after that. At some point, it started affecting relationships outside the house. Slowly but surely, others started to play brief roles in the on going conflicts. At first, it was just neighbors complaining, but after a while real shit started to occur. She was taken home after being seen by police practicing takewondoe at 3AM in a parking lot, (she had an interest with the activity and had a belt of some kind) crashing into a stop sign at an intersection, blowing up the engine of my dad's 67 Firebird, accusing my dad of crushing on and flirting with every women he glanced at. He's said to me recently that she burned bridges with all of their friends, and that they couldn't go outside much anymore because of her disfunctionalism. This continued for months until a welcomed fall. She was finally checked into (I may have the details wrong, I'm not sure exactly how this works) a psych facility of some kind to be examined and treated, missing both her and my birthday.
She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (I was told manic depression) and paranoid schizophrenia.
It seemed like everything would improve from there. She was given medicine that at first mended her back to a normal mood and mental state. As long as she would take her medicine we would be able to act as a normal family. The thing is, she didn't want to take her meds. My dad reminds me that while taking them, everything would feel numb and senseless, and the only way she would experience the full spectrum of her sensations would be to go off of her medicine. And so she did. As time progressed, she again continued to ruin all connections and ties, now even severely lesioning the ligaments of family bonds. She would start to act irrationally around her brother and sisters, something that I got to see firsthand when maturing.
This started to affect me, but not my resilient sister. Being two years older than me, she always left a reputation and legacy of unique social positivisty, friendliness, and leadership, while also having a noteable intelligence. I would follow in her foot steps in an equally notable but different way. My only friend my age was David from a block over that would eventually stop seeing me as a result of my dad yelling at him one time for being overly demanding. (It's a pretty funny story about waffles) As a result, I had unhealthy relationships with older Jared across the block and my neighbor Joe in the future. I had one large issue. I would cry over everything. If I got hurt, if I struck out in baseball, if I even got politely asked to refrain from something (like a teacher asking me to be a bit more quiet) then I would begin to bawl. Understandably, no one wanted to talk to me, and as a result, I did some pretty strange things. I remember one day pushing over all of Joe's flower pots on their porch because I felt like it. I would tackle myself in the street playing imaginary football until a police man came over one day to ask me if I've witnessed someone tripping themselves in the general area. I would play sports with myself all day long commentating everything. The two people that I got to hang out with regularly in healthy ways was my dad, who loved to play and watch football with me, and my sister, who I never fought with. Despite the social hardships, I was able to build relationships with my teachers. I remember my second grade teacher would let me stay after class to watch his snake eat mice since I didn't scream and just liked to watch (plus he already had a spectacular experience with my sister when she was in his class). I was praised for my intelligence in the classroom and learned to love my school in the cold city as a result.
However, my dad wanted to start something new. He told me to tell others we moved down south for the weather and to not bring up the issues about my mother. I know that he wanted to achieve his dream of having friends again and living a normal life, and that he would be determined with the help of my now 12 year old mature sister to keep my mom on medicine. I would get a chance to start new relations at school, and my sister would get to spread her social legacy in a much larger middle and high school.
It was just a dream. My mom quickly fizzled out of any attempt to live a healthy life, and would clearly demonstrate the vicious cycle of bipolar disorder. She would be in bed all day, everyday. That's all I remember her doing for years at a time in the new house. My dad would get frustrated at trying to live with her and began to talk to no avail. It was too much for them to handle as I idlely sat by, doing nothing but attempting to socialize.
That didn't go well. I remember on the first day in my new elementary school going to the basketball court during recess and just pretending to meditate until my teacher asked if I was alright. I made two friends that I would later stop talking to as a result of one having a strange step father, and the other for flashing me while I was still innocent to the idea of other's nudity (I was and still am very avoidant of anything affiliated with grossness, even with words like butt and poop perhaps because of this) I would start to cultivate a distinct identity of intelligence but social inconvenience. I was aging up to the double digits and continuing to cry during baseball everytime I got out or made an error. I remember crying when the person I ran against in StuCo brought lolipops for votes, and when I would get knocked about in basketball. I was still the asocial weirdo that everyone was friendly to but attempted to distance themselves from whenever possible. I wouldn't get better for quite a while, probably until the end of middle school where I stopped talking to most students beyond school work almost entirely, and would continue to only interact regularly with my teachers. I remember the absolute most despicable thing I did during this time of unsocialised behavior was sexually violating my sister. It wasn't done out of spite. I just wanted to wake her up, and after being convinced she was pretending to be asleep, I tried to make her give up the act by pulling down her pants, which for some reason continued to her underwear, at which point she woke up and instantly starting screaming. She never treated me differently and I'm partly convinced she repressed the memory, but I will never forgive myself for doing such an atrocious act, even if it was done without malicious intent, or even intent at all. At this point, I was developing an unseperated love with computers, getting into the realm of video games and making my first best friend that I've still talked to for 5 or 6 years. This would be both a blessing and a curse, I would finally develop my passion for computers, the internet, and later programming that are all paying off right now, but I would also worry my father isolating myself in my room all day. I believe I saw his full free association with the relationship, where when seeing melted ice bags on the laptop to prevent it from overheating he repeated scolding me, calling me insane over and over again. "You're insane. You're fucking insane." has been singed into the basililar membrane of my cochleas, only masked by one other audio snippet occurring in a few years.
My sister would develop a sense of social greatness, becoming known by seemingly every student and teacher simply on her blend of intelligence with relentless positivty and friendliness. My dad would continue to live a quiet hell with no one to escape to while trying his most to have unconditional support for his children. I would develop an identity of strange behavior but exemplary academic achievement. I went through a brief time of suicidal thought that was thankfully answered with my dad letting me see a therapist and was later treated for my social anxiety. My mom became a souless container of accusations that would follow a viscous cycle of days on end in bed only to be met with nearly sleepless weeks, continung to keep awake my father. In our city up north, she was put on a special program at the university she taught at because of her mental health, and now would make the ambitious move of working in a university in China. It would bring great relief but mark what I consider to be the second part in my life so far. As a result of her moving for most months of the year, a divorce was filed, though even I at that age could see it clearly onset. Briefly they would remarry when a brief instance of good mental health occurred, but would quickly be tarnished again, never to be mended again.
In this second part, life took a diverged path for me, with having tremendous success in my personal life within the city, but a relationship that would dive into the unknown with my mother. She would return over the summers to the house, to again cause the same problems that at this point have been occuring for 6 or 7 years. At some point she was forced to leave (I'm not sure how all the mental health works with universities and stuff, it all seems confusing) and find a new job at a new university. Every since getting this job, she has only visited twice. But the first time she visited is what caused me to hate her.
She already started the visit with relentless questions about my father. We were determined to keep her separated from him, as he knew she only caused trouble. We all had one family breakfest in a resturant, which of course ended in her accusing him of flirting with the waitress. It was already a horrific start, that would peak on the second to last day of her occupation. She decided to visit the next town over to hang out with a few of her strange friends. After spending the time probably spent doing nothing, she called me asking for a ride. I was only 14 and suggested a taxi service, but was told she attempted to call every one in the area. She suggested my dad pick her up. Again, and again she pleaded for him to drive her home. I would reply in gritted teeth that he was not there knowing what was to come, and sure enough she started spatting out how all he does is fuck his girlfriend at her place and how he does nothing for us and is never home. I ignored all of her hurtful comments, thinking I was immune to all words at this moment, and found a taxi service that would pick her up, which was the second one I attempted, confirming my speculation that it was just a ploy to speak to my father. After telling her I got a cab called, she continued the tangent about my "unsupportive" father. And then she said it. The sentence I hear everytime I think about her.
I wish he would just die.
After years of my father giving all of his free time and sanity to help me and my sister live a functioning life in the chaos of her breakouts. After years of him being the only figurehead to support me. After making every meal for me, after waking up sleep deprived for me, after doing everything in his power to make sure I have the best future possible, she wants him to die. She wants him to leave the miracle of this planet leaving my sister and I stranded with a psychotic maniac. A maniac that did all she could for a decade to ruin my father's life, successfully doing so twice. He has no friends, he has damaged family relations without him being remotely at fault, he has had to do everything in this god damn family for who knows how fucking long and you want him to die. FUCK YOU. FUCK OFF. HOW ABOUT YOU DIE YOU UNHELPFUL BURNING PILE OF UNMITIGATED DESTRUCTION. YOU DESTROY EVERYTHING IN HIS LIFE AND WANT HIM TO SUFFER AFTER HES DONE ALL HE CAN TO RECOVER FROM THE MESS YOU'VE MADE.
At this point she's cut off all relations except for my sister, which is growing more difficult, and me, who she loves with all of her heart. After a lot of trouble we were able to put her on a special position at her job since she is insane, and the future is left for the next page.
My sister now is in university and studying abroad, away from the stress that is her mother. My father has a girlfriend and now has a lot healthier life, being able to do yoga, exercise, while still making dinner and taking care of all my needs.
I've somehow grown into a normal human of society. I don't cry over almost anything anymore, and most people treat me normally, but I still haven't got over my social anxiety and have no school mate friends at school. I have become very close with many of my teachers and get to talk to them as if they're my peers. I've done well in school, being in the top 1% of my class, maintaining all the work needed for ivy college admission. I've finished first in regional computer science events, developing large personal projects of software and hardware right now. I've developed a love of public speaking despite all my troubles, and have a STEM-like youtube channel with tens of thousands of subscribers. I hope I'm on track for MIT, and will consider my life a success if I manage to be admitted in.
I've taken an AP class in psychology that covered both of my mother's illnesses and have learned to respect what she has gone through. I know it's a burning hell in her mind and admire her ability to continue living despite what she faces. My dad often tells me it's not her fault that she has these mental problems and how he wishes everything was back to normal and how we never had to move. I still talk to her whenever she calls and pretend to be fine around her even though I still admit I hate her. She's visiting soon in the fall which I dread and I hope is over or cancelled. Currently she's fallen for that army scam where some army dude who's really from an undeveloped country says that they need money for a plane to come over and how they'll marry one they're back. There's no convincing her that he's not real, and at this point the damage has been done with her giving him all of her money. I don't know how she'll make it, and hope she didn't scrape money out of her retirement plans. Shes asked many family that she has tarnished before for thousands of dollars, even asking me for my sister's credit card. I hope the scammer stops.
I still can't face my mother and don't know what will happen in the fall. This last Christmas Eve my dad, sister, and I were playing a board game when the subject of having to visit my mother came up. My sister, being the responsible woman she is, said she will go to help her. Then when asking if I would be willing to go, I freaked out and had a major emotional breakdown, where I started freakishly grabbing my pants and screaming non-stop "I hate her" over and over again. This is the first time they even knew I had a big problem with my mother since they already had enough to deal with, and who was I to talk when I've just been the bystander in the chaos that has occurred this whole time.
I don't know what I'll do at this point. I don't know if my hatred for her which she doesn't know about is ever going to unravel in front of her. I'm scared what she'll do. She has never resulted to drastic actions in the past physically, but I'm scared she may commit suicide if the last thing she loves shows their real colors for her.
I keep having this vivid memory for some reason where she is the person in front of an ISIS clip and then quickly shoot her before she falls to the ground lifeless. I'm not sure why it keeps occurring or why it occurred in the first place. Despite hating her, every time I remember it I feel horrible and my throat chokes up like I'm about to cry, just thinking about her body hit the ground lifeless.
My mental state is getting worse. Starting from a while ago, every time I remember something embarrassing from my past I need to do something to get my mind out of it. At first it would be something like a soft mouth noise, but now it's physical doing weird things like making really strange mouse sounds, moving my arms rapidly, slapping myself, or screaming that I was so stupid. My relationships online have started to decay too. Online, I get to be an over-reactionary buff with my friends, the stark opposite of what I'm like in real life. At this point I believe I'm over doing it, with people not wanting to hang out anymore, perhaps even my own friend I've gotten really close with. Whenever I try to be more timid, people get bored of me and I feel the need to become again the large attention whore that reacts loudly to everything, with some of my friends mocking me for it seriously hurting me, but I don't want to admit it since they're teenagers and teenagers do teenager things. I think I should see a therapist about this, but I don't like how much it costs my dad for one session, even if he says he wants me to get any help I need.
I'm not sure what is to come. I have swaying perceptions of myself, noting my academic achievement and feeling on top of the world, but at other times I remember all the horrible stuff I have done and currently refuse to do. I have a fear that I may develop my mother's conditions and ruin the lives of my family that have worked so hard to give me a bright future.
I think this is good enough. Sadly I don't feel healed and instead just feel like weight in my stomach that occurs whenever my mom is over. Again I know I'm very lucky to be in my current position and I'm very thankful for all that has come, but I feel there's a large problem that I need to address, but I also don't want to.

I wanted to take a moment and illustrate my fapping history. I hope that my story will help me and others accomplish their goal. I haven’t PMO’ed in 15 days and it hasn’t been easy.
The Early Years
My parents got a divorce when I was three. When they split up my Dad moved to an apartment. He was one of the first people to get HBO. I’d stay overnight on the weekends. Something he let me do that my Mom didn’t was watch R rated movies. HBO would have parental warnings before the movie. I’d pray for the word "nudity" to appear. Sometimes my prayers would be answered by glorious full female frontal. It was my first exposure to naked girls. At my Mom’s house we had cable TV in the basement. I’d stay up late and “scramble search”. I’d flip through the channels and stop when I’d hear moaning or girls laughing. I couldn’t see anything because the channel was scrambled. But if you were very, very patient the picture would unscramble itself for a glorious second or two. If there happened to be a sex scene you’d see some boobs or a butt cheek. It was just a taste and I wanted to see some more. I’d go to the magazine section at the 7-11. On the top shelf, there’d be a row of porno mags (Hustler, Club, Penthouse, Cherry, Playboy, etc). I couldn’t reach them so I’d search the magazines on the lower shelves. Sometimes I’d get lucky and find a Playboy or a Penthouse behind one of the legit mags. I’d sneak a few peeks before the overweight old guy chased me out of the store.
My Teens
My Mom remarried. I found some VCR tapes in the back of my step-dad’s sock drawer. I hit pay dirt. It was my first exposure to real porn tapes. I remember the story set up of one. A guy had just come back from a tour of duty. Two girls surprised him and they had a saucy threesome right in the living room. One of the girls begged the other girl to get off his cock so she could mount him. My step-dad also signed us up for some pay channels. I’d stay up and wait for the "blue hours". Those were the late night/early morning hours where they’d show quasi X-rated movies. I’d put in a blank tape and record the sexy bits. Then I’d catalog my recordings in my secret notebook. I’d write, "minute 1:05 - guy on girl" and "minute 2:08 - girl on girl". Then I’d go back later to those parts when my parents were gone.
This was right around the time the web was taking off but you could get on BBSs. I remember finding an adult BBS. I had to upload a nude picture of a girl to get an account. There wasn’t a lot of porn on the web back then. You’d have to go to the newsgroups or IRC. I remember spending countless hours trading pics with people on IRC. I built up my collection and started to catalog it. I’d have countless folders with names like "1 on 1" or "threesomes" or "behinds". This continued all throughout my teenage years. I had some porn mags too. But the internet was better because it was like a porn mag that never ended. Eventually I got DSL and started trading for movies instead of pics. Then I cataloged those.
My favorite parts in porn were the first moment when a guy entered the girl and seeing a girl really getting off. You could tell that she was in ecstasy by the way she moved, how wet she was, or her expressions. I especially liked European porn because the girls were always more kinkier and uninhibited. They were just down for having all kinds of sex anywhere and anytime. I liked to see girls get really wet. Sometimes it would get white and frothy because of all the lubrication and friction. I was never into anal, double penetration, or S&M. The stuff that gets me going is threesomes with 2 girls, interracial, college girls, and doggy style. I love doggy style. Usually I’d fast forward to the doggy style part.
My 20s
I was shy around girls and never made a move. I didn’t understand "the game" or "the hunt" until much later in life. I kissed girls and got to second base here and there. But I kept coming back to my computer screen. I remember telling a girl once that I’d rather fuck my computer than her. I knew that I could always get off with just a few clicks. I always searched for new stuff to jack off to. If I’d already seen it, I’d skip it. There were some exceptions. Some of the really memorable scenes: a European threesome with two cute blonde nuns and a priest, a movie setup where a guy finds a cologne that instantly makes girls horny, and a very hot Scandinavian college girl with a pink see-through dildo that was suction-cupped to her bed.
After a while the polished porn of blondes with big boobs got old. I could tell they were faking it. I switched to amateur. This was my only major switch. I’ve heard of guys that keep switching because they have to find kinkier stuff to get off to. I wasn’t really like that.
My 30s
Ok, fast forward a few years and I was starting to get girlfriends for longer than a month. My frequency of watching porn went way down. There was a time when I had a girlfriend and stopped watching porn. One day I was going through some old boxes of mine that were in storage. I came across my old porn tapes and magazines. My girlfriend wanted to watch some together. I was hesitant but she persisted. It was a part of me that was just for me. It was my own private masturbation time. I didn’t want to share that with anyone. Even my girlfriend. This was the first time I thought that something unhealthy was going on with me.
A few years later I met another girl. We weren’t romantic but we were fuck buddies. At first I never had a problem keeping it up. Then about a year into it, I had problems. The problems were never really that big of deal. I could almost always finish. It was alarming to me though because I thought only really old guys had problems staying hard.
Now
With my current girlfriend I’m still having problems. We don’t use condoms. I hate wearing them. I can stay hard in them but it’s just not the same as skin-on-skin. I’m very worried that I’m not going to pull out in time and she’ll get pregnant. I’m not ready for a baby (financially or otherwise). When I pull out, I use my hand to finish myself off. Sometimes it takes a long time. I’ve noticed my libido has gradually gone down over the years. I also don’t get as excited about sex as I used to (before or during). I’m attracted to my girlfriend in all the right ways. I’m hoping that by cutting out porn I can clear up my erectile and libido problems.
My girlfriend and I are doing a long distance relationship. We’ve done Skype sex but it’s just not as hot as porn. I went back to the tube sites and squeezing one off into a paper towel. Even when I’m alone I have problems sustaining my erection. If I’m watching the clip and touching myself I stay hard. But if I watch the clip and not touch myself I usually lose my erection. When I was younger and I saw a girl in a bikini in real life or even just a hot girl I’d get semi-hard or fully hard. Now that never happens. I’m 37 now and don’t want to go down the porn spiral any further than I already have.
I’m going to do Hard Mode (no edging, no porn, no masturbating, no orgasming whatsoever) for 90 days. After that I plan to masturbate without using any porn.
Since I became a fapstronaut I’ve noticed some things. Some weird and some good. First the weird. I was watching a G-rated prank clip on YouTube. There was a 15 second teaser clip at the end. The teaser clip had a red glaze (that’s how I remember it), the prank kid was there, and he had a scantily clad girl over his shoulder. She was wearing nothing but black g-string panties. That’s how I remember it. I think my brain was playing tricks on me because I went back to that same clip. The teaser wasn’t there. Now for the good. My libido has increased. I have some more energy. It hasn’t been life changing but I’m on the right path. I’ve come to this community to find some support, some facts, and some tips. Mostly support though. Thanks for reading this and best of luck to you.

I used to work in billing for a major cable company. One of the "perks" of the job was access to our General Correspondance department - every random thing some jerk would send us by mail got scanned and entered into a huge database we could sift through if need be. There was lots of interesting stuff in there, but this letter took the cake. I saved it when I quit a couple years ago and have been holding on to it ever since. We got a ton of crank letters from disgruntled customers, but this one always had a little ring of truth to it to me. I'll let you decide.
There was no account number or name associated with the letter.
Dear [REDACTED],
I recently received a survey in the mail from your company inquiring as to the reasons why I canceled your service. Since I felt the questions provided on your form ("on a scale of 1 to 5, how satisfied were you with picture quality?") were somewhat besides the point and the space on the form for "additional feedback" wholly inadequate to explain my reasons, I've written this letter and enclosed it along with the form. I hope you don't mind; it was hell fitting it in that tiny envelope.
Issues like picture quality had nothing to do with my decision to cancel, at least not directly. I've been a loyal customer of your company for about two years now, and have never had any problems to speak of. Your high-definition programming is crystal clear, on-demand content loads swiftly and looks fantastic even on my little 32-inch bedroom TV set.
Likewise, price wasn't a factor: a cursory check of cable prices in my area shows three options (you, Comcast and Verizon) of competitive price and quality. In fact, I have it on good authority that my monthly cable bill is about ten dollars less than that of my neighbor's. (And he doesn't even get HBO). Your customer service is fine, as far as I can tell; I've never had any particular reason to call and complain. Incidentally, the process to close my service was much easier and less stressful than I was expecting - I'd been anticipating some pushy, high-pressure sales pitch to keep my account open and the actual call was much less intense. Thanks!
If you're still reading this, you've probably realized I'm... well, I'm taking a rather roundabout path to explaining exactly what the issue is. I apologize. To tell you the truth, I'm hesitant to speak about these things - I think I'm only writing this letter now because I half-believe it's going to be torn up and thrown away unread by an automated system somewhere. I've never told any one about what I've come to think of as the weird thing that I saw when I was a kid - not my parents, not my pastor, not any of my girlfriends. When someone would ask me, up until two years ago, why it was that I neither watched television or owned a TV, I'd make up some spiel about culture and rotting your brain and better things to do. No one ever questioned it.
The real reason I didn't watch TV for twenty years is far stranger.
...
It might be hard to imagine now in our world of on-demand programming and 1000+ channel cable plans, but when I was ten years old it was a big deal for our family's cable to be upgraded from 36 channels to 48. It added a number of now well-known networks to our lineup, like Comedy Central and The Learning Channel, but what had me jazzed was what was on our TV listings for channel 48: Cartoon Network. Granted, I was getting a little bit old for the Flintstones and Scooby Doo, but CN had just launched it's late-night block of Japanese anime cartoons and I had spent countless lunches at school listening to my classmates talk about how cool it was. Giant robots and fights with blood; what could be more awesome than that?
I stayed up late the first night after our channel listings updated, a two-liter bottle of soda and a bag of Doritos secreted under my bed. I heard the sound of footsteps going up the stairs, letting me know my parents were going to sleep, and tossed off the covers. The TV was on in a flash, and I flipped it to Cartoon Network.
Nothing. The station didn't change.
Confused, I pressed the four and the eight on my remote again. The digits appeared in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and then disappeared. Weird. I shrugged and started flipping through the channels manually. Channel 38, the old top channel, was the TV listings, followed by a pair of public access channels. Forty through forty-four were scrambled pay-per-view.
I clicked the 'Channel Up' button again. It went back to Channel Two.
It took me a second to figure out what was going on. My TV was an old model inherited when my parents got a newer set; as such it didn't have forty-eight channels. It cut off at Channel 45, which was currently unoccupied and just static.
Goddamnit, I thought. This is not fair! Robots were destroying cities just a couple of channels away, and my stupid TV set couldn't show it to me. I let a muffled scream of frustration into my pillow. Idly, I flipped back through the channels, settling on the scrambled pay-per-view networks. I flipped back and forth through them, narrowing my eyes. If there's one activity every ten-year old boy with cable engaged in at the end of the 1990's, it was staring at scrambled pornography. Of course, as a ten-year old kid, I knew about as much about pornography as a snake does about cross-country skiing, so I wasn't even sure if what I was seeing was what I was seeing, mixed up and blurry as it was. I flipped between the three pay-per-view channels for a few minutes, eyes squinted to piece together the images. Was that a hand or a calf? I guess I could have gone back and checked the listings to make sure I wasn't watching Independence Day or something like that, but it would've sucked out what little fun there was in the activity to discover I was expending all this effort struggling for a murky, flesh-toned glance at Jeff Goldblum.
I was just about to give up and go to bed when, flipping back to channel 42, I saw something strange. The fuzzy, multicolored scramble was gone, replaced with a generic gray screen. Written in white text in the center was a short message:
"This station is undergoing maintenance. Please turn to Channel 67 for further updates."
I flipped back through the pay-per-view channels. Same message. In fact, it was on every channel. Great, I thought: my first night of having expanded cable and the only channel not blanked out was one my television couldn't tune to. Come to think of it, we weren't even getting 67 channels - it must've been some sort of typo. Maybe they meant 47. I sighed and shoved a handful of Doritos into my mouth. What a bust. Just for kicks, I pressed the number six on the remote, then the seven.
To my surprise, it worked.
The '67' hung in the top-right hand corner of the screen for a long moment before disappearing. I wasn't sure what I had been expecting to see - a series of instructional slides, maybe - but it wasn't this. The scene appeared to be the kitchen of a fairly nice-looking house. It was evening, and a young woman in a t-shirt and cutoff jeans was cooking some kind of stir-fry dish in a huge pan. She hummed softly to herself as she worked, swaying from side to side and occasionally stirring the food.
My mouth dropped open as I comprehended what I was seeing. I had been led here from the pay-per-view channel. Could this be the program that had been showing on the previous channel, but without whatever program made it unwatchable?
Could this be....unscrambled porn?
Forget anime! I was about to be the coolest kid in school. This was the Holy Grail! I only wished I had a VCR hooked into my television - no one at school was going to believe this otherwise. I stared at the screen as one minute became two, then five.
The woman didn't move. She didn't do anything except sway back and forth, hum the same snatch of a tune, and stir vegetables. This was getting weird. Even if this wasn't pornography, five straight minutes of cooking dinner was a really weird way to start. It didn't make for a very compelling program. I thought maybe it was some kind of cooking show, or artistic movie I didn't understand. Come to think of it, shouldn't the vegetables have been burning by now?
I continued to watch, the thrill of seeing something I wasn't supposed to see gradually overtaken by boredom. Despite the soda, I was getting sleepy. Finally, after ten minutes or so, there came a knock at the woman's door.
She started as if from a trance and smiled, putting down her spatula. “Who is it?” she called. Despite the sounds of sizzling vegetables, I could hear every word as clear as if it were written on the bottom of the screen.
“Please let me in,” a voice said from outside the door. “There's been an accident.”
The woman's face screwed up into an almost comical expression of mistrust. In fact, everything she did felt overacted, overstated – her gestures were big, her emotions were plain as could be. Much later in life I'd understand the term kabuki theater, but right then the only way I could describe it would be that she was like a clown, all big smiles and exaggerated frowns. Something about it gave me the creeps.
I decided immediately that I didn't want her to open that door.
“I'm not supposed to open the door for anyone but my husband,” she said, much too loudly. “We're having stir-fry tonight.”
“Please,” the voice repeated. It sounded younger, childlike. “Someone is hurt bad. We need to call an ambulance.”
The woman frowned hugely. “I can call an ambulance for you.” Yes, I thought. Call an ambulance and send this person away.
“Could you please let me in,” the voice asked. I realized what about it gave me such a chill – it was completely flat. No one sounded like that in an emergency. “I'm scared and it's raining out here.”
I could see the setting sun through the woman's windows. It wasn't raining.
“Well, I guess I can let you in,” the woman said.
I wanted to scream at the screen: No! Don't do it! Couldn't this woman hear what I heard? Was she incapable of noticing the weather outside, of realizing the utter wrongness of the situation?
This is a movie, I told myself. It's just a pay-per-view movie; why are you freaking out?
The woman straightened up and unlatched the heavy bolt on the door. In the foreground, vegetables finally began to smoke and burn on the stove top. She pulled off the chain and slid the door open on silent hinges.
“Hello there,” she said, her voice a parody of helpfulness, “are you alright?”
There were three of them standing there. They had the forms of children, pale emaciated children in what looked for all the world like sackcloth. It was only a few shades lighter than their skin.
Their eyes were as black as coal.
They...they glided into the room. They never moved their legs, the entire time I watched they never did. It was like the room itself moved around them. They glid into the living room and turned around, their backs to me. Thank God their backs were to me.
I felt them change. I couldn't see what happened to their faces, but whatever it was caused the woman to go into paroxysms of fright. Much, much later in life I went to a concert for a black metal band and wound up standing next to a man whose idea of enjoying the music was to make comically overdone faces of grief and pain while headbanging; I nearly had a panic attack when I saw it, though it took a long time for me to remember why. It reminded me of her.
Imagine a doll with the grinning face of a wolf.
She ran for the door but they were on her almost before she knew it. They pulled her to the ground, the door slamming shut.
They had teeth.
She screamed; I screamed. I have no idea how it didn't wake the entire house.
It's only a horror movie, I told myself. It's a horror movie for adults.
It went on for far longer than I thought possible. They were thorough. Finally, her bloodied body lay on the floor, barely recognizable as human. I felt my gorge rise, the foul taste of Doritos and stomach acid in the back of my mouth.
They stood there, in a line, staring at me. Could they see me? Anything resembling rational thought had left me. I felt for the remote with trembling hands and was reassured when I felt it's hard plastic shell between my fingers.
If they rushed the screen, I thought, I would change the channel. I would turn the set off. Nothing they do could hurt me.
Then they fucking melted.
They drained into the floor, the paleness of their blood-covered bodies running down like old candle wax. As it hit the ground it broke into clumps, as the clumps rolled across the woman's carpet they began to change. Roaches, centipedes, spiders; bugs of all sorts crawled across the carpet in a tidal wave of crawling limbs and chittering mouths.
As I lay there, struggling to understand, a roach crawled across the camera eye. Then a fly landed on it, and an instant later the screen crawled with bugs. Through the growing wall of insects, I could see the half-melted bodies of the things staring up at me. By turns the screen became more and more covered, until the hissing of insects and the wiggling of their legs was nearly indistinguishable from static. I reached for the POWER button on the remote; as I did the screen gave a sudden shake, like a door coming off it's hinges. In that brief instant before the screen blacked out, the frame of the television moved enough for me to see what was beyond it.
Worms. Writhing, headless worms.
...
Why didn't I tell my parents, you're probably asking – or better yet, the police? You'd have every right to ask, but recall I was ten years old at the time. By the time I woke up in the morning, I had half-convinced myself that I had dreamed the whole thing, or that part of it was a horror movie I'd watched on TV and part of it a creepy dream. Not to mention that telling anyone about what I'd seen would've required me to admit that I had stayed up past my bedtime to watch TV, which would've gotten me in trouble for sure.
So, in the way that only a child can, I forgot about the whole thing. Except in one way – I took the television out of my room that very day. I'd still watch some occasionally at a friend's house or at a party, but I never felt quite right doing it: the act of watching TV would bring the memory of Channel 67 back to my mind and fill me with an overwhelming sense of dread. For twenty years I avoided television.
Then you came in, [REDACTED].
You'd think there was some grand reason I decided to start watching TV; like I'd caught an episode of Deadwood or The Wire or Breaking Bad at a friend's house and decided that damn the torpedoes, I needed to watch every episode of that. The truth is, there wasn't any moment of revelation involved: I just figured twenty years was long enough. Something inside of me had decided it was finally safe.
Your employee came by and got me hooked up with the fanciest package they had, and for two years I was a couch potato. I got caught up on everything I'd missed, I watched it day and night. You couldn't find a more satisfied customer than me. And for two years, nothing happened. I began to wonder if I really had dreamed up Channel 67 all those years ago.
That, unfortunately, brings me to the reason I decided to cancel my service.
Because yesterday there was a knock on my door in the middle of the night. And when I went to check on it, I could hear a little child's voice on the other side saying “Let me in, there's been an accident.” And in the morning, I found the neighbor's dog on my porch. And in my yard. And on top of my car...
So I threw my TV away. Maybe I'll try again in another twenty years.