Humans are not the fastest, not the strongest, not the most durable, or even the smartest race. They do not proliferate quickly, live very venerably, or evolve rapidly at will. They variously track higher on all of those scales, certainly making them one of the most formidable species among the stars, but none of that is what makes them the most terrifying predators in the known universe.
As humans would put it, the six sensory groups are touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing, and place. There are many many more specific senses of course, but each is a subset of one of those, such as a sense of temperature being part of touch, or the sense of motion being part of place. There is however a seventh sense that all humans possess and only humans possess: Precognition.
Several thousand cycles ago, a ship of the Tlygot was investigating the human home world long before they came to be and found many species of similar build to modern humans proliferating across the planet. They were all variations of the same evolutionary line, but not quite sentient. Seeing potential to corral them into a docile, slave race they collected a few specimens to see which genetic variations had the most desirable traits and began experimenting with the Terran genome.
They wanted a race capable enough to complete nearly any task they might be assigned, but not innately intelligent enough to defy their masters. They removed genetic markers for dangerous traits like claws and fangs, and then crippled their infants to prevent escapees from becoming invasive to the local environments wherever they may be. As fits the Tlygot reputation, it was masterful bioengineering, but there was a single flaw. One of the newly spawned hominids possessed a genetic mutation that seemingly gave them the ability to predict future events. This was not immediately apparent to the Tlygot, and all evidence had been written off simply as savantism. As such, the Tlygot release the first humans to their homeworld to reproduce and eventually become a valuable source of labor amongst the galaxy once they’d reached significant enough numbers to collect.
Following their standard procedure for such ventures, the Tlygot left the world under the eye of an AI meant only to alert them of anything that might spoil their investment. A few hundred cycles later they were alerted that the planet had begun to show signs of civilization which should never have occurred. Assuming another race had missed, or more likely ignored, their claim to the planet, they returned with a small task force of assault craft should they need to deal with them aggressively. Instead they found that their creations had spread across the globe and advanced far faster than even the most intelligent known sentients would have in that time. Still primitive and restricted to simple wood and stone, but a dangerous development nonetheless.
As per galactic treatise, no species may subjugate or enslave another without formal declaration of war, requiring witnesses from at least three non-party races. As an uncontacted race would have no representation, the war could not be approved by the Assembly. This was a problem for the Tlygot because, before bioengineering, the various species of the world had been pre-sentient; therefore outside jurisdiction of the treatise. A clearly sentient species however could not be enslaved, and furthermore, resource rights to the entire local cluster would be lost.
Attempting to hide their mistake before it was made known to the wider galaxy, the Tlygot had their assault craft divert an asteroid to strike the planet in an attempt to wipe the slate clean. The impact caused massive climate change across the biosphere that decimated the populations of all life on the planet, but unexpectedly enough humans survived to not only replenish their numbers, but allow them to advance further still. The Tlygot tried again by setting off a super volcano, and both again, watching the evidence each time they returned and witnessed as the humans somehow managed to predict what decisions would lead to another advancement. Even lacking the Tlygot's own genetic memory traits, they passed their knowledge on to subsequent generations despite the crippling of their young. It was in the young that they found the truth of their mistake.
Lacking the physical ability necessary to survive in any capacity for the first several cycles, the species had adapted to continue development of the brain far beyond infancy. Particularly the enlarged frontal cortex. This has been well documented to be the origin of sentience, or at least its equivalent in other species. All sentient species in the galaxy evolved as predators due to the increased need for the brain to predict the actions of its prey and prepare the appropriate reaction. This would eventually lead to planning and reasoning and the building blocks of sentience. Humans have a frontal cortex so highly developed that what most species would take rotations to calculate and predict, they can often do off handed in moments. While most species could not develop any feasible ranged weapons of war until the development of advanced mathematics, humans could sling stones at avion prey while in motion and predicted where large beasts would flee over long distances, all before they had even invented clothing.
For the Tlygot, the species they had created was beginning to become too expensive to hide and while resetting a biosphere was doable without being noticed on the galactic stage, destroying one would be troubling to say the least; but better to lose a single planet than the entire cluster. The Tlygot with their final attempt decided to crash a comet into the planet's moon on a path that would then in turn cause the moon to collide with the planet. Gravity tugs were dispatched to gradually curve the comet into a collision course to better avoid any unexpected witnesses. As if by cosmic coincidence, the new path accidentally converged with a major hyper lane and an antimatter fuel ship collided with it, destroying both of them along with many more; and slingshotting the situation to the forefront of the galaxy's awareness.
The debacle immediately cost the Tlygot much more than they would have ever lost had they simply openly admitted to everything from the start. The Tlygot were immediately sanctioned and the entire sector of space around the Human homeworld was quarantined while the Galactic Assembly reviewed the records turned over by the Tlygot. The ruling against them for the destruction of the fuel ship and cascading damage to everything within 500 stellar units along the hyperlane was damning. They were forced to inevitably sell themselves into indentured servitude to pay off the debt that could never be repaid.
While the Assembly prioritized matters of blame and repayment, the matter of the fledgling sapients at the center of the events was entirely overlooked. After all, new sapients blinked in and out of existence frequently, and few ever advanced far enough to even be worth contacting. Those that did, took millions of cycles to stumble into electricity let alone any form of communication that could be interpreted into galactic common. They had expected to have ages to come back to the small world, after they settled the financial matters first. The quarantine enacted after the hyperlane disaster had left their corner of the galaxy practically uninhabited and untouched, and with the cloud of antimatter blocking the hyperlane, it stayed that way until the Assembly ordered a proper clean up.
By the time the Tlygot’s sentence was carried out, the Galactic Assembly found themselves facing an entirely different monster than had ever been expected. The humans had advanced. They had advanced into a thriving interstellar civilization. Not just one civilization either, but several independent states of their own. Their ability to predict possible futures inevitably gave way to the means of creating said futures. While every sentient race was capable of planning and devising new means of accomplishing goals, they did so out of immediate need or convenience. None did so with the foresight of humanity.
The disastrous antimatter explosion that ravaged the hyperlane and facilitated the human’s isolation didn’t go undetected by them. Their primitive detection systems registered the energy release and caught their attention like lightning to an iron rod. The whole of humanity suddenly became aware that they were not only not alone, but that they had been in the direct path of imminent destruction. They leapt forward into the stars with all their intuition, which they had mistaken for imagination and ingenuity.
They imagined reviving the reassembled dead with lightning and manufactured their medicine into defibrillation and artificial organs. They imagined being able to fly like insects and avians and navigated their means of transit to hypersonic jet propulsion. They imagined statues that could think and function autonomously and fabricated their machinations into robotics and cybernetics. They imagined harnessing the power of stars and delineated the secrets of fusion power. They imagined faster than light travel and illuminated their physics to the warping of space and time. They imagined instantaneous communication and compiled quantum mechanics into the creation of an ansible.
It was the humans who made first contact with the Galactic Assembly, much to the shock of every other sapient race. Humanity had used its time to not only advance to a level of technology almost on par with the Assembly, but had predicted where and how to communicate with them once the cleanup of the hyperlane was underway. As far as the rest of the galaxy was concerned, a new galactic power emerged from the aether overnight. A power that proved proficiency in nearly everything they came in contact with. Anything humans didn’t know, they quickly figured out; and anything they couldn’t do, they quickly made something to do it for them.
In physical ability they were certainly not the strongest or the fastest, they didn’t have the most powerful weapons and armor, and there were ships far larger and more advanced; but all of that counts for little in combat if your opponent knows what you are going to do before you do. Even more so if your opponent is the one who planned for you to do it. Their ability to predict what others might do and what events might unfold was so ingrained in their society that their most simple spawnling games involve divining where their opponents might hide from a predator.
By adolescence most were already so proficient in prediction that they played dozens of advanced simulations that follow various sets of goals and restrictions involving everything from combat and commerce to technological development and social engineering. They even bestowed the title of Grand Master to those so proficient in their clairvoyance that their greatest competition wasn’t each other, but advanced artificial intelligences that could calculate every possible move faster than their own minds.
Humans were the most cunning diplomats and merchants because they could guess how far to negotiate before settling any deal. Humans made the best security forces because before danger they always felt their hair “stand up”. Humans seemingly avoided disasters and created miracles seemingly on a whim based on nothing more than a “gut feeling”. Humans navigated the ins and outs of societal norms and taboos simply by feeling “the vibe”. Even works of art or ability they themselves deemed masterful were often attributed to simply being “in the zone”.
In the span of only a few Human centuries, the new galactic standard of time, humanity had seemingly conquered all of known space simply by existing. They may have been products of the Tlygot’s less than savory business practices, but even they were freed by their creation as the humans saw no need to enslave what could be just as easily guided to a better future.
A future of their own design.

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Z is back to drinking again, which is no good. I haven’t found a place to move to yet, so I’m stuck here. He put me into a full blow panic attack tonight. I thought I was having a heart attack. My heart rate even hit 129. All over a months long issue. So here’s the story:
I wake up at 1, am to pee. I had been asleep. While I am peeing he’s accusing me of poisoning his weed with a chemical. He been over this for 2 months now. I didn’t do anything to his weed. My 8 year old did not do anything to his weed. So he’s going on about how the neighbors must have snuck in here and did something. And how he’s going to kill them for this. All while I’m peeing he’s going about. I walk into my room and he follows and he’s now back to saying it was me, and I’m a lying bitch.
Anyways, he’s leaves me be, but my chest starts to hurt, and I can barely breath and I can’t talk. Because hello, he just told me he’s going to kill then people who poisoned his weed, and even though I didn’t, he does blame me.
I go out to the living room where he is because I thought I was having a heart attack or something at first. I Couldn’t talk. All I could do was hold my neck and chest. And the whole time he’s accusing me of poisoning his weed, and saying he doesn’t care if it was me. He won’t do anything if I tell the truth. Just throw it out. I literally can’t talk. After 10 minutes he’s gone by, I’m on the floor in a turtle position. It was helping my breathing, and he’s trying to ‘comfort’ me, and what does he do? He starts rubbing my butt and then touches my vaginal area. I am fully clothed, but was able to get out words finally and told him to his fucking hands off me. I still can’t breathe well, but he’s just going on about how I’m having a panic attack because I did it. And I’m guilty. I told him again, I didn’t do it. This is probably the 10th time tonight, and the 200th since he started this whole thing. Finally I don’t feel like I’m dying and I go to bedroom, and he follows me and is still going on about if I just tell the truth he won’t hurt me, he sweats on 4 year olds life. He didn’t leave until 4 year old woke up and told him to go back to his room.
My chest still hurts some, but my heart rate is better. I just hate my life tonight though. Hate this housing market, which is the reason I can’t leave. Hate he’s drinking again. And how he knows how to make me feel bad without doing anything anyone can charge him for. When he’s not drinking he leaves me alone, but drinking brings out the more awful in him.

I just finished reading Taming the Tiger and oh my god it was so beautiful! I'm a huge sucker for the "in every life I'll choose you" trope and this fulfilled it. I also really loved how beautiful the historical clothes were.
So could you guys recommend me some preferably completed manhwas with either the historical or the reincarnation genre ?

My mom is my mortal enemy since birth. everyday she never fails to remind me how she wants me out of the house or how I'm completely useless even though i do the most chores among my siblings. She's a Manipulator and she always finds ways to make my problems about her. I don't feel bad about saying thid but the day i leave her to her own, is the day I'd actually be free and happy. She's always pointing things about me and always make sure I'm insecure as ever. before i leave the house? she'll comment on my legs or my clothing and she'll even go so far to comment about my face. I'm the oldest and I've been wanting to get a job and move out of the house as fast as possible. I don't want to spend another year in this house and be around my mom anymore. if anything, I'd even choose to be alone in the streets than be in the same room as my mother. i don't think she is fit to be called that. She keeps telling me that I'll understand once i have a kid myself but no. i will not, because matter of fact, i will not be treating my kid with the same crap she did to me since i was 7.
At the young age of 9 I've already despised that woman and i didn't think I'd hate anyone like this in my life until I've matured as a teen and realized how bad of a mother she is. I have 4 more years till i turn 18 and I'll move out then. I just pray to God that she wouldn't treat my siblings the way she did with me.

im a hopeless romantic potato whos looking for someone to vibe and get to know each other with :)) gusto ko i share sayo mga kung anu-anong memes nakikita ko sa fb, mga things na alam kong interested ka, would love to take u out on dates, or we can just chill watch anime/movies on disc. love language ko un eh :)) share music, etc..
about me: 6/10, normal BMI, likes to talk about anything anime, manga, gacha games, webtoons, etc. jpop, indie, alternative, breakcore are my fuel to go through life. i also play games like league, dotes, csgo, can also play valo but im new at it. tho im open to new experiences.
about u: please be 19-24, same interests and hobbies as mine (mahilig sa anime, big + points if gacha game addict din), taga OLFU antipolo (pref but not req.), normal BMI, average looking, hindi ghoster, around qc so we can go on dates or okay with traveling
HMU with an intro if ur interested

Keep in mind this is the same girl(s) who
• openly uses disrespectful words, • repeatedly drags her ex(s) and their families,
• gets absolutely shitfaced WHILE OPENLY ON MEDICATION (which’s like the worst biggest no no & is HIGHLY spoken about by medical professionals who prescribe said medications),
• overly drinks (cause it’s not just once in a while shitfaced it’s multiple days a week),
• emotionally and financially abuses whatever guy she’s sleeping with this week (currently Jacob) and holds it over their heads as leverage,
• disrespects her boyfriend’s/their families (both during dating and post dating) by exploiting her body across the internet
• has a history of being known for being in sexual relationships with multiple partners within a small time frame,
• bullies her “friends” looks and thinks they all only like her to get clout (& allows them so she can get the victim angle when she does bully them)
• exploits a child,
• doesn’t care about the health and wellbeing of the child’s mother,
• treats her animal(s) terribly (because what 3 month old puppy doesn’t love being crated 15 out of 24 hours a day…)
• refuses to acknowledge that her following (“fans”) bully, stalk, harass and more any and all of her ex friends/boyfriends/associations. (Literally she smiles at you, expect your page, lives and comments to be bombarded with her following until eternity)
• doesn’t even make an attempt to minimize the damage and victimization of those former whatever’s (yeah you can’t control who posts what but let’s be real a simple “guys please stop posting hate/death threats/etc on their pages & lives” would go a LONG way.
just to name a few things
….. stop with the “I’m not a fan but”.
No. Body shaming ain’t right. On any level. Doesn’t matter if you dish it you should take it. It’s disgusting and it’s 2023. LIFT OTHER WOMEN stop shaming them!!! However! 95% of the posts regarding her or Whitney’s body and/or weight gains, are in regards to the fact of HOW they gain and/or present it. It’s not healthy to drink so much alcohol, eat trash food and not go to the gym or anything. It’s simple facts. If they were presenting it in a healthy manner then it would be different but they’re not. Christen wants to fit in her 16 year old self clothes and Whitney is ashamed obviously of her weight gain so she lies and says she’s not over a certain weight. How does that look to the 16-20 year old girls that follow them and are going through body changes? I’m not saying there’s not the occasional post or comment that is absolutely wrong and is no better than them. Because until people stop putting others down that’s just how it is and it’s sad. I’m guilty of it and be honest every single person in here is guilty of it too -regardless of it being towards her or in your personal life. The world is still evolving but 9/10 of these posts are nothing of the sort. However little miss perfect refuses to evolve with the times and thinks she isn’t in the wrong.
As a former nurse who assisted addicts with their pregnancy & deliveries yeah it’s wrong to assume any type of usage for instances of self harm… however when you’re putting it on display like she does … it’s called a cry for help. But let’s be real. If she treated her health (mental and physical) half as well as she claims, none of that would happen. She doesn’t try to hide it, she literally swallows her pills with alcohol. That’s dangerous! She knows that, she knows better. But again, she doesn’t care. She is flaunting dangerous habits for young girls and women to follow - “If C does it I can!” “I want to live just like C”. - Come on. If she had half a smart conscience she would think about the consequences of her “platform”. If Whitney truly cared as much about Christen as she claims she would honestly work with her to be healthier and /or work out. But in case anyone’s not noticing Whitney’s giving up on her own health lately… if Whitney really cared, she would say something about her guzzling pills with alcohol. She would point out it’s extremely dangerous to mix alcohol as much and medications. She doesn’t. Whitney is just as ignorant about it as Christen is. You’d think with her dads history she would have a lot of issues with the clear abuse Christen does?
The girls literally says things JUST to get a rise out of this group! They fuckin knows people are listening and they knows exactly what they’re doing. Do some of the posts get out of hand? Sure. But they doesn’t give two flying fucks. They are that aggravating at times! Christen is literally Little miss I can’t be bothered who wants help but anytime someone reaches out to try, she bullies and abuses them. She could help to minimize the damage and harm done around her that would also make her feel and look better. But she won’t. She thrives off it.
Cut her some slack my ass. Quit defending her by any means.

i’ve jumped across different classes in the same community college after high school and have seen family members deal with student loans in front of me until they were 50 so i’m afraid of investing so much money on university if i had transferred and not even having any direction in what i wanna do in life , i know for a fact i have a lot of ptsd and trauma and want to be okay mentally as well but i get anxiety everyday knowing i still am so indecisive about what i’d like to pursue in life , i feel like time is slipping away, i really wanna pursue something i can find healing in as corny as that may sound, i feel as if i chose something in the art realm i’ll be able to healthily express myself while being sober since i’ve been trying to be sober recently and quit smoking herb, im just over trying to cram my classes in my unhealed head and normalizing smoking herb to cope, id much rather just be sober like i am right now and even try to learn some techniques in art , something that keeps spinning in my head is the idea of having my own art studio, i feel like i could genuinely be happy making something with my hands i put my blood sweat tears in , i feel like i could heal too , i want to try taking some lamp work & torch sculpting classes because i’ve always gravitated towards making jewelry and i already run a small vintage business on my insta but i want to re direct that energy to my passion and run a small business selling perhaps pieces i made and poured my heart into instead of clothing even tho that’s my main source of income right now , i just wanna express myself through something i can create i feel like i can find it therapeutic and find peace and happiness in a future little art studio one day

this story was an inspiration by a 2 sentence horror story I heard a while back I hope you guys enjoy I'm not trying to make it too long or else that would be boring PT2 should be out someday after this lots of love to whoever decides to read!!
I wouldn't say I have the best life I didn't grow up in luxury like most people I knew which I never found to be affecting my life, growing up in a small village outside the city my family didn't have much and so I was always circled out most of the time. I wasn't in school as early as the other kids and didn't have the clothes everyone else cared about but truth be told I was pretty happy with my simple life until..... Until the very night when everything changed for the worse or the better? My village had this urban legend, I never paid much attention to it because as a kid parents would scare you for fun it was a thing they did if a child was disobedient and disrespectful so things such as the eyeless lady or the goat man were always a laugh for me children would go around in school talking about it, upper-class scaring the younger kids for a quick laugh or attention I didn't understand because I didn't believe. I Remember this like it was yesterday. My mother had gone out to fetch water for that day's supper and as the ignorant 14-year-old I was I didn't listen when she asked me to tag along, I thought I could handle being home alone for a few minutes or hours I mean what the worse that could have happened as I saw my mother head down the rivers rout I set on my bed and started finishing my book it was an amazing book I thought to myself and then I dozed off. when I woke up I realized how late it was already calling out to my mothers I realized she wasn't back yet which was off it had been at least 3 hours since she left for the river which wasn't that far from our house just a bit outside into the middle of the town I was scared I was worried my mother was a very sensitive gentle woman she was hard to persuade and it was very unlikely for her to leave her only child at home for this long but I gave it some thought and I waited like I said what's the worst that could happen?.............

Age: 20M Country: Nepal Height: 5ft 6inch Weight: 54kg
Problem: Both in Left & right shoulders
History:
i) Nearly 6 Years ago, I fell from cycle, and I had this part of my right shoulder separated out slightly. (This picture is only a reference picture I took from internet)
ii) About 10 months ago, I was normally laying in my mat and when I stand and tried to move my left hand there was intense pain moving my arms in a certain direction. Like unbearable pain, where one would loose control of his arms suddenly. I didn't go to checkup that time because of exams. This problem went eventually.
iii) 3 months ago, when I was doing pushups, I pushed myself to higher limit and did excessively and the pain started in left shoulder from that time. The pain persisted for some time and vanished.
Medical Reports & Conclusions from Doctors(2 weeks ago)
X-ray report : https://ibb.co/JnjN4ks Their Conclusion: There is nothing wrong with the bones and the pain was caused due to exercise only.
Left shoulder: Current Situation: https://ibb.co/rvXCRjx . Rotating left shoulder in anticlockwise is fine, but rotating in clockwise direction creates some tick like sound and minor pinpoint pain. I become conscious of this pain when I was doing inclined dumbbells' press, when the area near front deltoid pained intensely even with small amount of weight. I checked the pain appears only when I was bringing my arms to certain range of motion. If I do it the other way, then there is no problem. In relaxed position(arms 90 degree) when I try to move my arms forward then there is constant friction/ popping like sound coming from that area. As you can see from the image there's a small part that seems to have come out. Under relaxed condition, touching that part with my fingers of same hand and trying to rotate clockwise, I observed that the bone slides to some other bones below it.
Right Shoulder: Current Situation: https://ibb.co/HCdHcM7 Whenever I try to rotate my shoulder in clockwise direction, it feels like 2 bones were in friction & pressure and a sudden jerk occurs with loud sound and some pain. I used to feel pain in winter without doing anything, perhaps due to cold till some years ago, but it has gone now. I still have some trouble washing clothes by hand the shoulder tires fast.
Lifting left hand feels kind of heavier than lifting right hand. (But it might be my illusion as well)
I can do all other exercises with no problem, like pullups, pushups, chin-ups. Problem arise when doing barbell bench presses, dumbbell presses etc. And I have become too much obsessed or over conscious about my left shoulder on every movement which is affecting my life. I want to know if this is injury of deltoids, shoulder dislocation or other.
Thank you so much for giving time to read all of this.!!

I havent felt like myself in a while now. Most people I know think I'm nice, funny. Im just not that person around my partner anymore.
Honestly, I feel like a monster half the time. There is a huge weight on me when I'm around him, because I'm always waiting for a tantrum, complaint, just generally negative attitude.
He is obsessed with having me thank him for everything. Not a typical thank you of course. He wants me to "acknowledge and appreciate" every day that he goes to work. If he washes clothes I'm also supposed to be grateful, even when he just them on the floor. If he plays with our kid 10 minutes, once a week, Im supposed to praise him for being the best dad.
It is exhausting and insane that he expects all this praise but maintains such a poor attitude most of the time. The only time he is nice to me is when other people are around or he wants sex.
We got into a heated argument earlier because I suggested he go to a therapist and consider medication. I know that can seem extreme to some people, but he has been medicated before. He went crazy. Yelling, stomping, slamming, telling me all sorts of nasty things. Even that my own parents don't like me lol.
I let it get under my skin this time, more than I have in a long time and I just started poking back. Telling him he is the most hateful person I know, that he only thinks of himself, that I want to leave him as soon as I can. I was yelling it at him and frankly I just felt worse because I dont want to be at his level. I dont feel like me around him anymore. I'm constantly stressed and trying to bide my time all the same. It just isn't working anymore. I dont like him as a person. He lies, emotionally manipulates (as he suggested self harm during the argument), continuously says things about how no one likes/loves me, then records me when I get upset.
Because I didn't just take his attitude and no longer want to be with him, he suggest it is because I'm cheating of course. It can't simply be because I dont want to live with an abusive asshole.
He tells me I need to have a mind of my own and stop telling other people, not to share my life online because people will "offer advice when it is none of their business and blow up your life" lol. It's like he is terrified for anyone to find out just how he is.
Interestingly though, I managed to shut my mouth and listen to try to gain insight. He loves talking about himself. He told me I just pretend, that my family and friends dont really know who I am. I asked "Do you think your family knows how you really are?" He said no. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. This man is sick. He really believes everyone is like him. He genuinely believes everyone just "pretends" to get what they want.
He then asked why he shouldn't drain the bank accounts if there was nothing in it for him. Meaning, if I plan on leaving, why not blow it all?
Again, just selfish. Id say, to a normal person, don't blow it so I can actually afford to care for our child.
To him? I said nothing, just threatened that he would regret it and certainly wouldn't be around my kid, alone, drinking.
To catch glimpses into how he thinks...just sad. I thought it would just make me angrier or validate me, but it honestly just broke my heart that he is even worse than I thought. That I gave so much of myself to a man that is like a black hole. Sucking everyone around him into a dark, lonely, void.

The title is a gross understatement of the whirlwind of thoughts and feelings I'm going through. I recently as of the last year or two begun to think of myself as trans due to my passion of crossdressing for which I've done for years. I realize that that doesn't automatically mean you're trans but I have read that it can be a door so to speak that can lead further down to self discovery of being trans. I first crossdressed when I was about 7 and something awoke inside of me that later in my teens I heavily indulged in. In school I often would look at the girls clothes and wonder how they felt and where they got them. While I did have some thoughts about having a feminine body, I didn't put much stock in it because I blamed it on hormones and puberty and the like. It wasn't till I was about 20-21 did I really start to feel something was up. I started to look behind the clothes and longing for breasts, hips, buttocks, soft features etc. I dismissed this several times and got mad at myself. I would tell myself I was a man and society was doing this to me. Even when I did tell my doctor and got a therapist, I was hard headed and threw away any tiny progress we made. Only recently have I noticed that other parts of my life are hindered because of this. My mind is constantly at war between possibly being trans and being angry at myself for even entertaining the thought. I often use dysphoria as a weapon against myself to prove I'm not trans, yet I do find myself unhappy with my body. Whether that's because I'm just unhappy with my current image or trans...I'm not sure hence why I'm confused.
Sorry for the rant and even if this post doesn't get responses I'm just glad I was at least able to write this. This is a lovely community filled with lovely people I'm sure.

Well, it's official. All my friends have reached that stage in their life where they're getting engaged / married and having kids. As the only single one in the group, I'm starting to find myself having no one to really talk to these days as they're all busy with SOs and relationships and starting a family. Which admittedly gets kind of lonely and sad.
So I'm looking for some new friends to talk to! Hopefully also single, because I hear about cute relationships enough from my current friend groups. xD I'm NOT looking for a romantic relationship though! Just want platonic friendships with fellow singles living the solo life.
No huge expectations, not gonna say we have to promise to talk every day or call or anything immediately. Let's see if we click and get along and where the friendship goes!
Some facts

• I generally work from home, so I have a decent amount of free time to text and talk, but I may not always reply immediately due to working.
• I love video games. Some favorites include Rimworld, Slay the Spire, Civ 6, Ark Survival Evolved, Stardew Valley, Divinity Original Sin 2, etc.
• I currently play three gacha games daily which is admittedly NOT great for my wallet. xD
• I'm not really a huge fan of anime though I've watched and enjoyed a handful.
• If MBTI means anything to you, I'm an ISFP.
• Introverted, kind of socially awkward, a bit shy. Not the best at making friends, so please be patient with me at the start. xD
• Absolutely not an outdoors person. The day I go hiking or doing any outdoorsy thing willingly is the day I've been taken over by an alien.

Please be around my age, gender doesn't matter. Night owls preferred if you're from USA-ish.

This will be long, but if I don't get this off my chest I'm going to drive myself insane. I have 2.5 months left and with creeping blood pressure and worrying about kicks on my mind I don't want this to eating me.
So myself (30 f and FTM) and my husband(32 M) decided to move in with my mother for the last 3 months of pregnancy. I had a bad experience at the prenatal clinic in the town I moved from (northern BC, Canada) the medical was awful plus my husband was on break up (2-3 months a year when the oil and gas industry essentially shuts down during the first thaw) so financially and medical it made sense. (My husband is back at work now).
Anyways, my mom and me do not have a mother daughter relationship, it's non existent. She blames it on the fact that I put her through "hell" as a teenager and she never fully forgave me for lying stealing and being over all disrespectful. I apologized and did my best to rekindle everything. This was when I was 16 and again I am now 30, she never even remotely tried to help rekindle the relationship. Everytime she sees me she still brings up something I did in the past. Something that happened over 10 year ago.
She has sought after other younger females, these could be co workers who are younger or my brothers girlfriends and puts them under her wing. When I did visit she would almost always treat these girls like they were her daughters and she would make me feel like an outcast. She felt like a mean girl at school. As I got older and when I found my husband I stopped visiting all together, hardly ever talked to her and when we did visit I couldn't wait to leave again. She was always so condescending..
So this is her first grand child, and after my dad passed last September, she seems lonely. She lives in southern BC, and I lived in the north and I knew she'd make 0 effort to come up north, she never made an effort to visit my my husband and I before so why now she blamed it on being "to old" to travel (she's 49btw) . We always made the trips. After being guilt tripped basically. So that was another deciding factor to move because I'm considerate. I guess.
On to the concerns..My mom has suddenly taken a weird Interest in me and I know the only reason is because I'm carrying her grandchild, she referred to me the other day as her "baby girl" which was really cringy because it is the only time she has referred to my that way that I can remember. She went shopping for maternity clothes for me and when she asked me my style I said I'm not sure and she said "I'll just pretend to be pregnant and see what they offer ". She made a comment about her "helping " me raise the baby because my husband won't be around much( camp work oil and gas 14 days on 7 days off) and when she mentioned a name suggestion for the baby I said no husband doesn't like that name and she said "well he's not going to be here is he".
She bought my stroller, which I was hesitant to let her buy but appreciated it anyways. It's a beautiful jogger and she then goes "now I can take the baby running" I shrugged it off I mean no big deal but idk why it's replaying in my head, well all of this is.
Now the part that is going to sound awful. I have a strange suspicion my mom is going to try and idk the word I wanna use but I'll say "take" my baby over and try and raise her as her own. It's a girl btw so maybe she sees it as a do over. I also feel like that she might any day offer to adopt her from me. It's so irrational and it makes me feel like a awful disgusting human for thinking this but I cannot for the life of me shake this feeling.
Anyways, thanks for getting this far I appreciate any feed back. Lay it on me but basically I'm just venting.
TLDR : I think my mom might try and "take" my baby over from me

I had been contacted by the magistrate to investigate a night wedding in the countryside that had involved the loss of human life. There seemed to be a recent rise in tourists involved in ghost dowries over the years. However, from my research I believe it was a man in search of night weddings for personal gain that was the cause of so many deaths.
When I received the request, I was nearby on Green Island, and addressing a rather unique matter even for my line of work. A little girl from the mainland had arrived two weeks prior and claimed to be the recently deceased husband of the grieving widow.
The child claimed to have woken up in the hospital where the doctors informed them that they had drowned and was clinically dead for 4 minutes when the body inexplicably sat upright in the gurney. This would have seemed to be great news, except when the child looked into the mirror, it was not their face staring back at them.
In old Taoist texts I have read of such events, where the bodies of the recently deceased are not put to ground quickly enough, and their souls are left to wander. They could get carried away by the Northeast or Southwest wind. Depending on the location from where they died. And possibly attach to an empty host.
This seemed to be the case, as the wife acknowledged that due to the wet season, they did not bury her husband's body right away. Because the grounds were so wet, that any graves would wash away, leaving corpses laying in the street. Still, I had the responsibility of testing the child. Whom passed a simple test of naming names. Where they used to live. The wife's habits. A conversation they recently had, and even childhood memories. All were confirmed by friends and family. But it would be the child's handwriting that ultimately convinced me. They were a perfect match, down to the signature.
Upon my approval, the villagers had no choice but to accept that this child was indeed the man come back to life. And when I left, he was sitting outside of his house cleaning fish as he had always done for 32 years, except now in the body of a 10 year old girl.
I didn't have much time to dwell on this case as I was needed at the aftermath of the failed night wedding. Ghost dowries have been in use for thousands of years, and traces of it can be found in many different cultures. From the Aztec to the Egyptians, and more recently from old Spain to the streets of Southeast Asia. Though in recent times, only a few remote places continued the practice, and there are a limited number of priests today who are qualified enough to handle such a case. Luckily, I had plenty of experience in this matter.
In my early years, I had married many ghost brides.
And was often asked, "But you're a priest, how can you get married?"
"Zhengyi Taoist priests can choose to take a wife or not. In fact, in order to pass on my Celestial title, I must have an heir."
The man looked distraught, "And you're sure this will stop her from whispering into my ear every night?" He clutched the bag rather tightly.
"Don't you worry," I took the bag from his hands. "Everything will be fine."
We would perform the customary vows and the following night the man reported no more whisperings from his daughter, yet a week later, the police raided my hotel in a different district. The man had claimed that I had swindled him. That his daughter had returned and continued her whispering of terrible, horrible things that he dare not listen. Clanking and banging away in the walls as he covered his ears in fear until sunrise.
Fortunately, I was allowed to prove my innocence.
I returned and stayed in the man's room, waiting with him for signs of his daughter. And surely enough, late in the hour, I heard the wretched scraping and dragging in the walls. The man stopped breathing in his bed and laid perfectly still. Even I was afraid to move as the most dangerous aspects of my job are in the unknown. My mind began racing, wondering if I had somehow botched the night wedding. Or worse, that the ghost bride wasn't his daughter at all, and I had inadvertently given this mysterious entity a special anchor to this world, a holy man.
The walls shook without reason. And a tiny noise could be heard near the man's bedside. He jumped off his mattress and ran to my side. The two of us watched as the noise traveled back and forth against the back wall like wooden clogs.
"My daughter did always carry around a rattle drum when she was little," the man whispered.
"Hush, don't let it capture your breath," I warned him. "Whatever this is, I don't believe it is your daughter. And because of the ritual, we may have increased its hold on this realm."
He whimpered, "Not my daughter?"
I held up my finger and traced the noise as it traveled in an odd form. I began to wonder if the entity was creating some sort of symbol.
"What are you drawing," the man cried.
"It may be creating a portal," I told him. "Now hush before it turns its attention toward us."
"Please, there must be something you can do?"
I reached into my bag and pulled out some incense. I lit the ends and began chanting. From my waist I pulled out a long yellow parchment. And drew on it a sealing spell. "Spirit," I called as I stepped forward. "I am a guiding light." The noise rattled with conviction as I drew closer. "Let me lead you to peace!" And with one quick motion I punched my hand into the wall, clutching the sealing spell in my palm, at the last place I heard the noise. To my displeasure I felt something wriggling in my grasp as something long and thin wrapped itself around my wrist, its end clawing at my forearm. I screamed when I felt its teeth sink between the soft flesh of my thumb and index finger. But I did not let go. Instead I pulled out this demon from the wall and threw it roughly to the ground.
The man screamed as he jumped onto a chair and screamed, "Rat!"
Yes. A simple field rat. That had a trap stuck on its tail which caused its movements to rattle in the wall. That had been rummaging near the man's nightstand because in one of the drawers he had left a bag of watermelon seeds.
Not all cases are this simple, and plenty are true to life supernatural encounters. Over the years my experience has taught me to be more cautious in my evaluations. Which was why when I finally arrived at the house of the massacre due to a failed night wedding. Every hair on my neck stood on end as I tried to be objective as possible.
But there was no denying that something heinous had occurred here. Bodies were still laying on the floor. Some with their faces in the dirt. Some missing their heads completely. And those with their faces up, were unrecognizable. And my first wife leaned into my ear and whispered to me, "This is the work of a ghost bride."
"How do you know?"
"I recognize her anger. It was mine before we were married."
"How do I know what?" A man walking toward me asked. "Are you the priest they called out here?"
He was average built, and in plain clothes, "Detective, why yes. I am here to assist you in anyway that I can."
The detective spit on the ground, "Assist me? As far as I'm concerned we're wasting valuable time carrying on with this hocus pocus bullshit. The killer's trail will be cold by the time we get through all this religious tape." He wafted the air in front of his face, "And the dead bodies boiling out here. This is all your fault as far as I'm concerned. Assist me," he snorted.
"Where there any eyewitnesses, Detective?"
"Several. But they're all saying the same damn thing. Spouting a bunch of nonsense. Which is why those religious nuts down at the station dredged you up."
"All non-relatives to the home owners?"
He snorted again, "Coincidence."
"Let us hope so," I told him. "Because the alternative is much worse." I walked the scene, going around the upturned tables, tracing the steps of carnage in the courtyard, to the main living room. There I saw the body of an old man, both hands clutching his chest, his face was completely missing. "Any surviving family members?"
"Some are still left," he grunted. "But we've gathered most of them under police protection."
"Have you located the husband?"
"Yeah, we're trying to extradite him."
"Extradite?"
"The foreigner took off in the middle of all the commotion. Boarded a flight back home according to our investigation. We've contacted the airline, and the airport security in America will hold him when he lands. As he is currently my number one suspect."
I circled the area in front of the shrine. Noting the spilled bowl and its contents on the ground. The position of the spoon next to it. Before standing in the spot on the left side where the effigy would have stood. "What about the bride?"
The detective shook his head, "What bride?"
"It was a night wedding," I told him. "There must have been a physical object acting as a stand in for the daughter's soul."
"Nothing more than bags of cotton usually," he paused. "But they did report that the stand-in this time was some sort of department figurine. A mannequin of some sort."
"Have you looked into that?"
"Why would I look into that. Are you crazy?"
"Right, you're right of course. You'd have to wait until after sunset to be able to figure out which mannequin serves as the ghost bride's earthly form."
The detective stormed off as if I had said something outlandish. Leaving me to my own devices, I interviewed a few of the neighbors who had attend the night wedding, gathered some evidence and sorted with the other officers at the site, and then left for the nearest hotel in the city.
It had been a long month for me and I couldn't think of anything better than I would enjoy more than a cold beer. So after checking in I went down to the bar, where an ethereal creature sat alone. She was beautiful to say the least and I had to strike up a conversation lest I live a life of regret, "S'il te plaît ma chérie, dis-moi comment on t'appelle pour que quand je sois perdu dans les ténèbres. Puis-je demander la lumière."
"What?"
"Oh, American. I apologize. I thought you were French."
"On my mother's side," she brushed away her hair.
I noticed the ring, "Ah, you are married. My sincerest apologies miss."
"Newly married," she told me. "My husband speaking with the concierge."
"Activities on vacation," I mused. "How wonderful."
"It's nothing like that. It seems someone has left him a note. And we're technically on our honeymoon." She paused, "Though this isn't where we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be in Hawaii."
I ordered a beer with the bartender and sipped my drink, "Hawaii is wonderful, but this is also a beautiful island. In fact, when the Portuguese came here, they named it Formosa. Which translates to beautiful island. It may not be where you're supposed to be, but perhaps you'll find that this is exactly where you need to be."
The woman sighed, "I don't even know anymore."
"Ah, I know what this is. I've great experience in these matters. Having been married many times. You feel doubt."
She laughed, "How many times have you gotten a divorce?"
"Divorce?" I laughed. "I never leave a woman after we have been wed."
She looked taken aback, "Oh. I didn't know polygamy was so common in these parts." She glanced behind her to where a tall man was standing with what looked to be the hotel's concierge. "I guess we're in the same boat."
"It's not what you think," I told her.
"Where have I heard that one before," she rolled her eyes.
"Larissa!" The man called for her.
She stood up, "Well, it was nice meeting you. Tell your wives I said hello."
I smiled as she left, glancing at my sides. "If only you knew," I said while sipping my beer.
Now in hindsight, if I were not so fatigued after nearly a month of hard work and constant traveling. I would have perhaps picked up on the fact that she too was familiar with the concubine lifestyle. Which was unusual in itself for an American. Or perhaps I would have picked up on the fact that Larissa was an uncommon name. As I had read Jim's article. But there was no such luck, which is why, when I say that I am deeply regretful of what I read on the news later about the couple, I am truly at a loss for what I could have prevented. But that is not my story to tell.
After I finished drinking at the bar I made my way to the elevator and got in. When a man came towards me to hold the door, I called out, "It's full." He looked at me bewildered as I was the only person he could see in the elevator, before sticking his hand out to stop the doors from closing. Huffing and puffing as he glared at me angrily before pressing his floor number. Except the elevator pinged. The weight capacity light had turned on above our heads. "Like I said, it's full." The man shook his head in amazement. Pressing his floor number again. The elevator pinged again. Unwilling to budge. I sighed and got out, "I'll wait for the next one."
And wait I did, even in my room I waited for night fall instead of resting. The thoughts of a botched night wedding swirling in my head. For the many things that could go wrong. Because even though I had much practice in these matters, I was still always nervous before a fight. So when night fell, I was red eyed and exhausted, but better mentally prepared than before.
But when I arrived back at the scene of the crime, I was not prepared for all of the commotion.
"Ka-kin-eh Ka-kin-eh," a man shouted as the fire blazed.
I grabbed one of the men running by with an empty bucket, "What happened here?"
"T-the villagers, they set the p-place on fire. Trying to rid the evil demon."
I let him go and shook my head. The fools! I made my way toward the courtyard where I saw the detective from earlier moping his forehead as he was helping put out the fire. "Detective! This is terrible," I yelled as the flames licked the night.
"No shit dumbass, it's a fire."
"You don't understand," I told him. "Now the entity has nowhere to return. We may never find it."
He threw the bucket to the floor and whirled around, "Enough! I've had enough! Listen here, there is a fire. F-I-R-E. This a real problem. If it catches to the fields, it could light the newly laid fertilizer on fire and catch the entire mountain!"
"Detective!"
That was the only word I had to say before he punched me. It was a dark night out, but stars had suddenly appeared. He hovered over me and I thought he would strike me again but then suddenly he froze. "What is that?"
I turned my head and looked out into the field. The heat of the fire burning the back of my head as I tried to stop my nose from bleeding. "Where?"
Neither one of us moved as we watched the tall field.
"Right there." He pointed.
I reached up and threw his hand down, "No! You never point at entities," I told him. "Now you could be marked!"
He ignored me and reached for his gun, "Stop! Hey you! I order you to stop or I'll shoot!"
I looked into the field, scanning the endless rows before my eyes stopped and froze in horror. At one point in time the thing must have been a simple plastic mannequin. Standing in a department store perhaps. But now, it was twisted and gnarled. It's first dirty and unrecognizable. It stood on all fours sometimes threes as it swayed slowly back and forth. The thing was also without form because it didn't need to bend or move as normal people. It was still objectively, plastic. It swung its arms behind it and used that as leverage to run, turning its head - cracking the seams that had somehow still held and took off.
The detective rung a shot out at it. I think it struck but it didn't matter. Though the mannequin was gone. The detective must have lost his mind because he gave chase.
I couldn't let him go alone so I followed. Pulling out my long yellow parchment as I wrote on it the symbols for sealing, hoping the simple spell would work. As we entered the tall field.
It was chaos. The ground was mushy beneath my feet, and the smell of fecal matter assaulted my senses further. In the brush I had lost the detective, so I was forced to tell my wives to help me locate his whereabouts. They didn't often leave my side, and some were reluctant but ultimately agreed.
I stood in the field, waiting with bated breath as I heard further gunshots in the distance. I couldn't wait for my wives to gather as I tore after the detective. And just in time as I saw him standing, looking absolutely terrified as he shot blindly into the fauna until his pistol clicked. The mannequin lunged for him. But I got there first. Pushing him to the ground, causing both of us to tumble.
He was eating a mouth of dirt as I pulled him to his feet. "We have to get out of this field! The ghost bride will pick us off in this thicket!"
Stumbling, and running, the two of us were covered in more than dirt. Several times we heard rustling nearby as if something were running alongside us. But eventually we made it out into the open plain. The detective trying to catch his breath as he reloaded his pistol.
"Shooting it doesn't work," he panted. "But maybe I can disable it from moving."
"Shut up," I told him. "Listen."
He stopped for a moment and we waited. Then all of the stalks before us shook wildly as if a hundred people were running through it. The detective raised his arm but I stopped him as my wives ran out of the field.
They were terrified as they ran right through us.
I hadn't experienced the feeling in awhile but the coldness as their ghostly forms went through our bodies was cold as ice. It was enough to bring us both to our knees, clutching our chests as we struggled to breathe. I had passed through one or two in a row before. But never 10 or 20 at a time. I lost count.
"What was that," the detective managed to gasp, his fingers in a death grip around his gun.
"A blue procession," I told him. "Something caused all of my dead wives to flee."
We looked up as the leaves in front of us rustled.
"Is it..."
I shook my head, running forward to catch her. My 13th wife, Ah-ren. Her arm was missing, and a part of her shoulder. She was an innocent girl that had drowned when she was alive. Her innocence carried on with her to the afterlife where many souls generally grew up embittered. But never her, always sweet my girl, just weary of water.
"I didn't want to go," she told me.
"I know," I held her. "I'm sorry."
"It got some of the others too. But Meita got in its way and told me to run." She cried.
"Don't cry I told her. You know how you hate getting wet."
"I don't want to go. I wanted to stay with you. All of us together."
I watched as her soul splintered and disappeared forever.
I had never felt such fury. In all my years, a womanizer, a liar, a cheat at cards, a scoundrel, a bastard even. But an undutiful husband? Never.
Without thinking I approached the field and cast a spell that was been forbidden.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm purging the field. All beings alive or dead will forever feel displaced when they enter here. A feeling of unending dread and doom will overcome them, causing madness if they do not leave or are unable to. But I have no other choice." I reached into my side and threw a handful of salt. It landed on the ground as I chanted. The winds carrying it into the field, the small white morsels rolling obediently into the darkness.
"Nothings happening," the detective's word stuck in his mouth as a horrible scream echoed into the night. It sounded like two pieces of steel being twisted together.
"There," I took off after it. The jumbled figure of the mannequin fled toward the village.
We followed it through people's homes, and between alleyways; the villagers screamed and fled when they saw it. We barged through home after home as we chased it. Until we cornered it at an abandoned building at the edge of town.
"It was supposed to be a mall," the detective told me. "But the developers ran out of money."
We walked quietly into the empty building. Shells of stores stood in various degrees of construction. Checking a few of the fronts before venturing further inside.
"You've got to be kidding me," the detective said as we came near the center of the complex. There next to the escalators and the fountains was an army of mannequins of all shapes and sizes lined up like terracotta warriors. "They must have stashed them all here when the place was being built, and forgot about them when it closed."
"There are hundreds."
"We'll go through together. Quickly and quietly." He added, "Stay alert."
We moved through the rows, staring at all of the stuck faces, searching for one covered in grime and bullet holes. But it was more difficult than it sounded. Many of the mannequins were in bad shape, weathered, broken, laying in pieces on the ground. It was hard to tell if a pile of parts was indeed our culprit.
Slowly we began to clear the rows and I could see the other side in sight.
"There!" The detective shot his gun. The surrounding mannequins dropped like dominoes when the entity scattered. Falling down all around us, drowning in a sea of plastic arms and smiling faces. I was struggling to stand as I looked up and saw the entity come rushing toward us. The detective fired his gun blowing out a knee cap. I hurriedly reached for my parchment but could not find my pen. Another shot, but the scorned bride kept on charging unable to feel pain.
It jumped into the air and another shot blew a part of its face away. The detective screamed as it tore at him. Pieces of his sinew was launched into the air as he was torn apart. I rushed forward trying to help but the creature grabbed me by the throat and lifted me into the air. My feet searching for the ground as my lungs folded trying to breathe. The thing turned its head toward me and said, "Will you marry me?" As the darkness closed into the corners of my eyes.
The fight was leaving my body as I saw several of my wives rushing forward. Their ghostly forms ethereal as they began tearing at the mannequin, slowly pulling out pieces of her soul, causing the mannequins arms and legs to go limp as they dragged her out.
I scrambled the floor blindly with my fingers searching for my sacred parchment but could not find it amongst the rubble and the ghost bride was fleeing, leaving the shell of her mannequin in a heap on the floor. My wives chasing her, screaming their fury for killing the others. For destroying their souls.
I chased after them into the open air, where she was being cornered. Crying as I approached, trying to escape into the Southwest wind. I knew what I should have done, but could not bring myself to do the right thing. Instead I bit my finger and drew symbols on my forearms with my own blood. Approaching the bride that never was and tore her soul into pieces.
When I was done my wives sat down around me before slowly dispersing as the sun began to rise.
"We did it huh?"
I continued staring at the sun, "Yeah."
"Well then," the detective said before disappearing. "Maybe in the next life I'll be sooner to trust you."
Later they would find his body in the abandoned mall. Still clutching his gun. The department gave him a 21 gun salute at his funeral and a medal as commemoration. I was just glad that his soul had not been eaten.
I, on the other hand, went back to the hotel. To the bar and ordered a well deserved drink. Where I saw a pretty woman sitting alone, "Did you know that in order for me to pass on my Celestial title, I must bear an heir?"
​
​
s

But I never thought living with my closest friend would drive me even further in that desire. I never could have predicted the screaming, yelling, the violence. When her episodes get bad and her body contorts. When she rips the mirror from the bathroom wall. When she tears a door down from its hinges. When she flails out of all her clothes. Fifteen hour periods of constant chaos and noise and pain. I haven't eaten a meal in two weeks. I had my life on track getting out. I did. I got out of the military and had a little savings to hold me by as I figure out my life and deal with my own health issues. But this, this is beyond my ability, financially and emotionally. She has broken numerous things in this AirBnB. The worst is the fucking door. How do I replace the door? How do I explain this to the owners? I don't have much time here. I don't have this sort of money for all these fucking problems. I have spent so much on fucking weed because that is the only thing that helps. I have spent thousands on her. I do love her... When she is sane. She has been diagnosed with stuff and she believes she has dystonia. But the movements and the episodes she gets into do not look at all like dystonia. I believe they are way more mental health related. It is just fucking insane. I can't deal with this. I haven't self harmed in years and now I am doing it again. If I had a gun I would have done it. I am being pulled into the void because of this person's problems. And I am sorry they have these problems. I wish they didn't exist. But I had my own and I was content helping them with money but being a full time physical therapist, therapist, caretaker as well? She has bitten into my flesh. She has dug her nails into me. We have traumatized each other. I can't deal with this. How do I cope? I can't betray her. She has nothing and no one else. But I am being brought to my destruction. I gave up everything in my life for this friend. I will at some point have no more money. And I can't work because I can't leave her alone. This chaos is too much. Too much fucking nonsense and lack of sleep and no hunger. I haven't showered in a week either. I love being clean. I used to have a lot of pride in self care. And I am sympathetic to how her condition is horrific and ruined her life. But I had no idea it was this bad. I am an emotionally stunted 26 year old man who has a lot of life to figure out and I have no idea on how to proceed in the slightest manner. I need to get her to a psych hospital stat so I can fix all these fucking issues. But then do I ghost her? Do I not take her back when she gets out? I don't know where I am going to fucking love next. I was hopping place to place. Jesus, help me. God help me. She tried to get me to murder her to end her suffering and of course I said no. This experience has been so traumatizing and painful and my feelings towards this person clouds my judgment and prevents meaningful action in my and her best interests.

Posts in this series (note: link will only work properly in new Reddit): https://www.reddit.com/lds/collection/363e4ce4-8cec-40ad-8ea9-5954cf1fe52d
Sorry for taking so long to get this posted! I’ve been putting in more than 60 hours a week at work lately, and I just didn’t have time to properly research this post.
This week, the topic under discussion is Joseph’s wives and the way that he personally practiced plural marriage. It’s true that some of the circumstances a little unusual compared to how later members practiced it, and it’s also true that sealing practices in general were unusual compared to how we practice them today. The world was also very different in the 1840s than it is today in the 2020s.
All of that means that it can be very difficult for us to understand what was going on and why. I’m going to do my best to break this all down so that it makes sense, but just remember, it’s okay if it makes you uncomfortable. It’s okay if you don’t like the idea of plural marriage. It’s okay if you don’t ever want to practice it. I don’t, either.
But I do have a firm testimony that it was commanded by God. That testimony didn’t just magically appear one day. I had to earn it. I had to get on my knees and pray, and I had to ask Heavenly Father whether He instituted it or not. I had to study the issue and the circumstances surrounding it. More importantly, I had to ask Him to help me understand the reasons why He instituted it.
That’s the only way to really know for yourself.
So, having said that, let’s get into Faulk’s claims.

• The Women

Due to the secretive nature of Joseph’s affairs, the actual total number of wives Joseph took is unclear. Written records, primary accounts and second hand accounts puts the number between 29-65 women.

They were not affairs, they were sealings. Sixty-five is also a pretty exaggerated number. Most reputable sources put it at around 30-35. And again, remember that sealings are different than marriages, even though we often perform them together today. Many of those sealings were for eternity only, not for both time and eternity the way that sealings are done today. In fact, some of those wives, such as Cordelia Morley and Rachel Ivins Grant, did not have any kind of union with him at all while he was alive, and were sealed to Joseph for the very first time after he was already dead.
One thing to remember is that the sealing power is to seal us all together as one giant family. It’ll be one unbroken chain connecting all of us together. Many of these sealings of Joseph’s were done for that specific reason, to bind families together in the next life. That’s why there were things like adoption sealings, where people would be “adopted” into each other’s families through the sealing process. Siblings were sometimes sealed together. Women who were married to men who were not members of the Church would sometimes to be sealed to righteous Priesthood holders for the next life.
Also, it drives me batty that Faulk keeps repeating that Joseph took wives. None of them were married to him against their will. They all had a choice in the matter.

Most disturbing was the fact that many of these women were already married, much younger and related to each other.

Why is that “most disturbing”? The women were all of legal marriageable age, and there is no evidence of any sexual relations between Joseph and any of the civilly married women, or with any of the youngest wives.
One of the reasons it’s believed that Joseph was sealed to so many women who were already married is because he was trying to satisfy God’s commandment while not hurting Emma. If he was sealing himself to married women, he wouldn’t have to actually marry them and live together as husband and wife. As the Gospel Topics Essay Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo says:

These sealings may also be explained by Joseph’s reluctance to enter plural marriage because of the sorrow it would bring to his wife Emma. He may have believed that sealings to married women would comply with the Lord’s command without requiring him to have normal marriage relationships. This could explain why, according to Lorenzo Snow, the angel reprimanded Joseph for having “demurred” on plural marriage even after he had entered into the practice. After this rebuke, according to this interpretation, Joseph returned primarily to sealings with single women.

Joseph’s youngest wife, Helen Mar Kimball Whitney, was sealed to Joseph when she was fourteen. We’ll discuss her in some detail a little later in this post. But that union was done for dynastic/adoptive reasons at her father’s request, to join Heber C. Kimball’s family to Joseph’s in the eternities.
And, believe it or not, some of the women who practiced plural marriage probably found it easier to do so when the other wife was biologically related to them. After all, they already loved them and knew how to live together with them in harmony.
At this point in the LFMW, Faulk posts a small chart taken from Todd Compton’s In Sacred Loneliness. You can find that chart here.

1. Married: Between 8-11 women were married to other men at the time Joseph took them for his wives.

And every single one of them remained married to their husbands after they were sealed to Joseph. That’s because, again, sealings and marriages are not the same thing, and sealings for the next life had no bearing on their marriages in this one. Joseph did not live with these women as husband and wife.

He sent several men on missions for the Church then married their wives, or married their wives in secret and then sent the husbands on missions afterwards.

Many of the husbands in question knew about the sealings and even participated in them. Joseph also did not send the husbands on missions so he could marry their wives in secret.

• Marinda Nancy Johnson-Hyde-Smith

In September 1831, Joseph and Emma Smith moved in with the Johnson family while Joseph and Sidney Rigdon worked on translating the Bible. While staying with the Johnsons in March, 1832, Joseph Smith was dragged out by a mob and tarred and feathered. Marinda’s brother Eli led the mob because he felt that Joseph had been too intimate with Marinda.

Um. No. Eli Johnson was Marinda’s uncle, not her brother, and he wasn’t the leader of the mob. The mob also didn’t attack him for that reason. Marinda herself said that Joseph had never acted inappropriately while he was staying in her father’s home. This accusation was first introduced during the infamous 1884 Braden-Kelley debate, and repeated by Fawn Brodie, Grant Palmer, and a host of others.
The mob was led by Symonds Ryder and Ezra Booth, because they thought he’d try to steal their property under the Law of Consecration. They’d both already apostatized for various reasons, then led a smear campaign against Joseph and the Church through local newspapers for a while before leading the attack. The only evidence that Eli Johnson was even involved are brief reports that he was the one who provided and heated the tar. According to at least one account, he wasn’t even an active participant, but just left it out for them to use. The mob tried to castrate then murder Joseph and nearly did kill Sidney Rigdon, and were unsuccessful in all attempts.
However, as we all know, Joseph’s infant son tragically died from the effects of the frigid weather that night. Pretty tough bunch of guys, right? Gathering up a violent mob to go murder a baby.

Soon Marinda married apostle Orson Hyde. On April 6, 1840, Orson was sent on a 3 year mission to Jerusalem. Shortly after his departure, Joseph married his wife Nancy Marinda Johnson-Hyde while Orson was gone. In Joseph Smith’s journal, in a list of his marriages he wrote “Apr 42 Marinda Johnson to Joseph Smith.” In 1858 Orson and Marinda separated.

The separation of Orson and Marinda Hyde had nothing to do with her sealing to Joseph, which had happened 15 years earlier. The rest of this is also pretty heavily distorted. Orson Hyde was sent on his mission on April 15, 1840, and returned on December 7, 1842. There are two sealing dates for Joseph and Marinda, making it unclear when it actually happened. It was written down in Joseph’s journal by his scribe Thomas Bullock as taking place in May of 1842. This entry was apparently not recorded until after July 14, 1843, however, and the affidavit Marinda signed stated that the sealing took place in May 1843, after Orson was home.
Regardless of which date is accurate, Orson was not sent on a mission so Joseph could steal his wife if the sealing happened 2-3 years after he left. They were not sealed “shortly after his departure” at all. In fact, even the earliest sealing date is closer to the date he returned than the date he left.

• Zina Diantha Huntington-Jacobs-Smith-Young

Zina was 18 when her mother died and after went to live in the Smith’s home. Soon she met Joseph’s friend, Henry Jacobs. Joseph was to officiate their wedding, but never showed. Instead, bishop John C. Bennett performed the marriage. Later, Zina asked Joseph why he didn’t show, “He told her it had been made known to him that she was to be his Celestial Wife and he could not give to another one who had been given to him.” (Henry Jacobs, History of Henry Bailey Jacobs)
During Henry and Zina’s marriage, Joseph sent Henry on 8 missions. At one point Joseph sent a message to Zina through her brother Dimick. It read, “Tell Zina I have put it off and put it off until an angel with a drawn sword has stood before me and told me if I did not establish that principle and live it, I would lose my position and my life and the Church could progress no further.” After four proposals and pressured with the responsibility for the life of the prophet, Zina finally accepted. (Brian C. Hales, Mormon Historical Studies 11, no. 2 (Fall 2010): 69–70.)

That last line there is a pretty big exaggeration of what the article actually says. In fact, the article doesn’t talk about Zina Huntington at all. The only place she’s mentioned at all is her inclusion in a chart of the different accounts of the angel with the drawn sword. I’ve included a screenshot of the only three mentions of her from Faulk’s cited source. In fact, it’s actually a paraphrased line from Todd Compton’s In Sacred Loneliness.
Zina, however, clarified that she came to accept the principle through searching the scriptures and praying, and that she received an answer from God that it was from Him. It wasn’t because she felt pressured into it at all.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to pin down exact details when it comes to Zina’s timeline, as there are a lot of discrepancies. When I wrote my response to the CES Letter, I cited liberally from a book titled 4 Zinas: A Story of Mothers and Daughters on the Mormon Frontier. This book used to be housed on the Internet Archive, but has since been taken down. Forgive me that I can’t show exact pages anymore on those citations. Many years after all these events took place, Zina gave testimony saying that she first learned of the principle of plural marriage from Dimick, who had heard it from Joseph. Other sources, seemingly reliant on her diary, say that she learned it from Joseph while she was staying at his home. Some sources say that Joseph proposed to her three times while she was living at his home and that she refused him each time out of respect for Emma. Other sources say she declined to give him an answer and kept putting him off, also out of respect for Emma. Some sources say that Joseph wrote Zina a letter saying he’d been threatened by an angel with a drawn sword, while others say that it was a verbal message passed to her by Dimick, who had been sent to offer her another proposal (even though she was already married to Henry Jacobs at that point). Some sources say that Henry was present for that initial sealing to Joseph, but absent from the other resealing to Joseph for eternity and sealing to Brigham for time. Others say Henry was there for the sealing to Brigham, but are silent on whether he was there for the first sealing to Joseph. Zina said in her later testimony that it was just Joseph, her, and Dimick present at their initial sealing, but that Brigham later resealed them after he returned from a mission to England, meaning that she would have been sealed to Joseph three times in total. However, in signed affidavits collected by the Church, Zina, Dimick, and Dimick’s wife Fanny all verified that Fanny was there at the sealing, too. Etc.
Because of all of this, it’s difficult to know exactly what happened, who was aware of what, and when and how they all became aware of it. However, Zina did say that the Lord had prepared her for the doctrine prior to her hearing it:

I will tell you the facts. I had dreams — I am no dreamer but I had dreams that I could not account for. I know this is the work of the Lord; it was revealed to me, even when young. Things were presented to my mind that I could not account for. When Joseph Smith revealed this order I knew what it meant; the Lord was preparing my mind to receive it.

Additionally, Henry was called on his first mission in May of 1839, before he ever even met Zina. The guy was a prolific missionary who served repeatedly throughout his life. None of those missions overlapped with Joseph’s sealing to Zina.
In fact, according to family tradition, he was present when Joseph told Zina that the reason he hadn’t officiated their wedding is because she was meant to be his plural wife. Henry accepted the news because he was close to Joseph and trusted him. Zina was the one who hadn’t received an answer yet and still had reservations.

After Joseph’s death, Brigham Young also took Zina for his wife while she was still married to Henry Jacobs. Brigham called Henry to serve a mission in England and told him to find another wife. While Henry was in England, Zina began living at the Young house with her children and soon bore a child with Brigham.

Let’s walk through all of this. First, many of Joseph’s sealed wives who were already civilly married to someone else just stayed married to their husbands after his death. They had the choice on whether to re-seal themselves to Joseph or not, and the single wives had the choice of which members of the Twelve they wanted to be sealed to for time. Zina wasn’t forced to leave her marriage to seal herself to Brigham. She chose to do that.
Brigham supposedly told Henry to find another wife, though that can’t be corroborated. He also supposedly had to tell Henry to stop writing love letters to Zina after they were married.
Brigham eventually had several dozen wives and 57 children, in addition to being the leader of the Church and the governor of Utah Territory, owning multiple businesses, and directing the settlement efforts across a very large area. Dude was a busy guy, just saying. Zina did not live with him and did not spent tons of alone time with him. She lived for a time in a separate home with her children, and for a time in a house with several of his other wives. The time she spent alone together with him was sporadic and infrequent.
How would Brigham know that Zina was getting love letters from Henry Jacobs unless she told him? And if she enjoyed receiving those letters, why would she tell him? Why not hide them from him? It would’ve been pretty easy to do so—all she had to do was keep her mouth shut. It’s not like Brigham was snooping through all of his wives’ things in his limited free time. The only reason for her to bring the letters to his attention was if she didn’t like receiving them.
Imagine it from her point of view. You get divorced and move on. You describe that marriage as an unhappy one at several points throughout the rest of your life. You marry someone else and even have a child with them, but your ex keeps contacting you, telling you how much they still love you and still want to be with you. How uncomfortable would that be? It’d be an extremely awkward situation for anyone.
To me, it’s far more likely that Zina went to Brigham and asked him to intervene because it was making her uncomfortable than it is that Brigham found out on his own and flew into a rage and forbade Henry from contacting Zina despite her protestations.
Aside from a very few notable exceptions, most of Brigham’s wives and children spoke of him in glowing terms. Zina herself mentioned his kindness repeatedly.
Henry, meanwhile, was married three more times and all four of his marriages ended in divorce. I don’t know what led to the end of the other three marriages, but I do know that he’s the common denominator in all of those marriages.
It seems clear that Zina left him in what is sometimes called a “folk divorce,” which was a thing in the 19th Century where the man and woman decided to dissolve their marriage and go their separate ways, leaving each of them free to marry again. She chose to marry Brigham for time, and Henry struggled to move on afterward...for a time. Brigham asked him to back off, and he did.

• Vilate Kimball

Shortly after Heber’s return from England, he was introduced to the doctrine of plural marriage directly through a startling test. He had already sacrificed homes, possessions, friends, relatives, all worldly rewards, peace, and tranquility for the Restoration. Nothing was left to place on the altar save his life, his children, and his wife. Then came the Abrahamic test. Joseph demanded for himself what to Heber was the unthinkable, his Vilate. Totally crushed spiritually and emotionally, Heber touched neither food nor water for three days and three nights and continually sought confirmation and comfort from God. On the evening of the third day, some kind of assurance came, and Heber took Vilate to the upper room of Joseph’s store on Water Street. The Prophet wept at this act of faith, devotion, and obedience. Joseph never intended to take Vilate. It was all a test.” (Heber C. Kimball, Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer by Stanley B. Kimball, p.93)

Yep, because blessings come after the trial of our faith. Heber and Vilate were sealed for time and eternity that same night as a reward for their faithfulness. Theirs was one of the very first sealings of this dispensation.

Teenagers: Ten of Joseph’s wives were teenagers.

Here, Faulk posts another little chart, which I have also linked.

• Helen Mar Kimball-Smith

Instead of taking Heber C. Kimball’s wife, Vilate, as Joseph had done with others, he married Heber’s 14 year-old daughter, Helen, in May of 1843.

This is presented somewhat disingenuously. Joseph and Helen were sealed two years after Heber and Vilate were sealed. The two incidents are not connected at all. And, as mentioned earlier, Joseph and Helen were sealed at Heber’s urging. He wanted to link his family to Joseph’s in the eternities.

“The youngest was Helen Mar Kimball, daughter of Joseph’s close friends Heber C. and Vilate Murray Kimball, who was sealed to Joseph several months before her 15th birthday.” (Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo, LDS.org, Oct. 2014)
In a letter written by Helen Kimball, her father had asked her if she would be willing to be sealed to Joseph Smith, Joseph himself came to her and said,
“If you will take this step, it will ensure your eternal salvation and exaltation & that of your father’s household & all of your kindred.” She talks of her mother’s hidden grief “to see her child, who had scarcely seen her fifteenth summer, following in the same thorny path [of polygamy].” “I would never have been sealed to Joseph had I known it was anything more than ceremony. I was young, and they deceived me, by saying the salvation of our whole family depended on it.” (Helen Mar Kimball, Mormon Polygamy: A History, by LDS Historian Richard S. Van Wagoner, p.53)

Ooh, this is super dishonest framing! The first two lines in quotation marks are indeed taken from an autobiographical letter written by Helen to her children in 1881. The first is from page 482 of a book titled A Woman’s View: Helen Mar Whitney’s Reminiscences of Early Church History, and the second from page 486.
But that third quotation, about how she’d never have been sealed to Joseph if she knew it was anything more than a ceremony? That’s taken from page 19 of an early anti-Mormon pamphlet called Narrative of Some of the Proceedings of the Mormons: Giving an Account of Their Iniquities by Catherine Lewis, published in 1848. She claimed to have Helen say this to her mother at some point, though everything in the book is suspect. It’s all pretty badly distorted from reality, which you can see for yourself just by reading it.
Helen herself certainly never backed up its claim. She did admit to being upset as a 15-year-old at being prevented from going out to dances with her friends because of the sealing, so it’s possible she said something like that at one point in her frustration and disappointment. But the circumstances surrounding it are certainly skewed, since Catherine reports it in the context of Helen refusing, after Joseph’s death, to be sealed for time as her father’s plural wife. That surely never happened. And in fact, after a few more years, Helen became a very vocal defender of plural marriage and of Joseph Smith for the rest of her life.
So, I’d take that statement with a very big grain of salt. That Faulk presents it here as if it was a direct quote from Helen’s own letter to her children is repulsive.

Joseph told a reluctant Helen Mar Kimball that if she married him it would ensure her salvation and the salvation of all her family. Imagine the burden on a 14 year old girl’s emotions of the salvation for her entire family riding on accepting Joseph’s proposal.

Except that Helen herself admitted that she didn’t understand what he was trying to teach her, and neither of her parents, who were there at the time of the proposal, understood it that way at all.

• Nancy Winchester Smith

While records show Nancy was married to Joseph, no dates were written. At the time of Joseph’s death, Nancy was 15 years old. It is possible that, like Helen Mar Kimball, Nancy could have been 14.

It’s not confirmed that Nancy Winchester was a plural wife of Joseph Smith, though evidence leans that way. We also have no idea when that sealing would have taken place, because no records of the sealing exist. We don’t know much about her at all. Her brother Benjamin was a known and rather hostile critic of Joseph’s who never mentioned the fact that they were sealed, so either he didn’t know about it, he didn’t see anything wrong with it (which is highly doubtful), or it never happened and her inclusion on the list was a mistake.
Eliza R. Snow listed her as one of his wives, and so did Orson Whitney, the son of Helen Mar Kimball Whitney. Helen was one of Nancy’s good friends so there’s solid evidence to believe it, but it’s not confirmed.

Unlike what is commonly taught in Sunday school lessons, marriages to young teenagers were not “common in pioneer days.”

Not true, and Faulk’s evidence for this claim doesn’t even say that:

“In 1890, when the U.S. Census Bureau started collecting marriage data, it was recorded that the average age of a first marriage for men was 26 years, and the average age of marriage for women was 22 years.” (http://classroom.synonym.com/agemarriage-us-1800s-23174.html)

Note that this quote says the average age was 22 years old. That means that some women were much older and some were much younger. 1890 is also half a century later than 1840, and society can change a lot in 50 years.
Craig Foster wrote a great article for the Interpreter a few years ago) which demonstrated that in frontier America in the 1800s, females often married quite young, and their husbands were usually older and more settled. It was much less common in the settled cities along the East Coast, but on the frontier (which included Ohio, Missouri, Illinois, and especially Utah), it was relatively common. Men in their 20s-40s marrying teenagers was not unusual.
Even today, it’s legal for teenagers to get married. Let’s not forget that most of Joseph’s teenaged wives were 17-19 years old. Many of us in this church know women who got married at 18 or 19. While they are technically still teenagers, calling them teen brides is implies that they were underage.
The entire concept of “underage” did not exist in the 1800s. In fact, the concept of “teenagers” didn’t even exist back then. You were either a child or an adult, and there was no in-between.
Applying our societal standards to a past society and judging them for their lack of adherence to our norms is a logical fallacy known as “presentism.” I get it—today, it’s unusual and it makes us squirm to hear of girls aged 14-16 getting married. But it was also not out of place in that day and age. And, most importantly, there is no evidence of any sexual activity between Joseph and his youngest wives.

3. Mothers and Daughters: Joseph married a mother and daughter pair.

• Patty Bartlett Sessions (Mother – already married to David Sessions)

She was sealed to Joseph for eternity while her husband was a faithful member of the Church, and though she and her husband both later received their endowment, they weren’t sealed at that time. She also didn’t re-seal herself to Joseph in the temple after his death the way that many of his other plural wives did. The reasons why are unclear. After her husband’s death, she was sealed for time to another man. Around 1867, after submitting an affidavit concerning her plural marriage to Joseph, she was offered the chance to be re-sealed to Joseph again, though I’m not sure if she accepted or not.
We don’t know the reasons for this sealing, just like we don’t know the reasons behind many of Joseph’s sealings to civilly married women.

• Sylvia Sessions Lyon (Daughter – already married to Windsor Lyon).

Windsor Lyon was excommunicated from the Church in November of 1842. Joseph and Windsor remained good friends for the rest of Joseph’s life. There are conflicting dates from two unsigned affidavits saying that Sylvia’s sealing to Joseph either took place in early 1842 or early 1843. Brian Hales favors the later date.
If he’s right, this appears to be one of those sealings where Joseph was sealed to a woman whose husband wasn’t (at the time) a faithful member of the Church so that she could still obtain exaltation.

Sylvia bore children with both husbands; three children with Windsor and one with Joseph. (Josephine - February 8, 1844)

No, no, no. She most certainly did not have a child with Joseph. For a long time, it was considered an unproven possibility, but was never definitive. However, even the possibility was ruled out by DNA testing in 2016, seven years ago.
The fact that this is still in the LFMW after all this time caught me by surprise. We know the LFMW has been updated since its first posting, since the original FAIR rebuttal addresses differently worded accusations. There was plenty of time to correct the inaccuracy. In fact, this particular objection appears to have been added to the original text, rather than removed.

4. Pairs of Sisters: Joseph married 3 pairs of sisters.

• Emily Dow Partridge and Eliza Maria Partridge.
  
• Sara Lawrence and Maria Lawrence.
  
• Zina Huntington Jacobs and Presidia Huntington Buell.
  

Yep, he sure did. Zina and Presendia (her name is not Presidia) were both sealed to Joseph for eternity only, with no marriage in this lifetime. But Emily and Eliza Partridge and Sarah and Maria Lawrence were all sealed to Joseph for time and eternity.
Again, though, I’m not sure why this is supposed to be a point of scandal. None of them were married against their will. They all had the choice, and they all agreed to these arrangements. Is it unusual? Sure. It’s weird, I think we can all agree with that. But is it sinful? Nope. When God commands polygamy, it’s not sinful, and levirate marriages have been around for thousands of years. This is somewhat similar to that practice, particularly in the case of Mary and Mercy Fielding and Hyrum Smith.
Remember, when plural marriage was first introduced, they weren’t really given a rule book. There are some directions and guidelines given in D&C 132, but they only cover certain situations. In the Nauvoo days, they were basically winging it. They had to adjust to the new commandment that completely upended their entire lives and then figure out the best way to live it. There was trial and error, heartache, sacrifice, and suffering involved. It was not easy for any of them, and they did the best they could. If they made mistakes, they need our grace, not our judgment.

Hey, I’m out on bond reading books and browsing trying to find out what to do.
What happened briefly: An officer arrested me for trespassing even though I was trying to get bank statements and leave. Im at the bank at like 4:59, this lady has called the cops but there’s fraud, so they finally get my statements, I head to leave and still get arrested. Cops let me go and give me back my belongings but don’t give me police report & don’t give me my statements of which i went the whole process to get. They say they don’t have them, I ask for the police officer supervisor comes back and says “oh so you won’t leave ?” And I’m like no I just called you over here, to ask if you could retrieve papers. Arrested. Cops drives me to county jail in a garage, (unbeknownst to me) he tells me “I’m free to go” while I’m in the back of the police suv handcuffed, then I ask for the hand cuffs to be removed and the police report (if im free to go). He puts on gloves and drags me out of the vehicle where I’m striped of my clothes, put on a leg handcuff and beat until I bled on the floor. The officers tase me, and won’t let me give myself up. I turnover and put my hands up but they still beat on me. They then tried to pick me up and put me in a wheelchair. In my haze of being beaten & being scared to be taken somewhere with no camera, (I didnt know I was in a jail), I dropped my weight to the ground and tried to get them to just stand me up. I truly was scared for my life, they continued to beat me and then while protecting my face. With all these officers on top of me, An officer punches me then claims I bit. A nurse came by, asked if I could get up and I said not with all these people on top of me. They got up and I went to the hospital. Chargers of 1st degree assault on officer dropped down to battery on Leo.
My question is, I have mental health history, but im truly not guilty but am afraid the tussle of the wheelchair thing and the statement on the police report basically saying another corrections officer “saw” me bite him is worrisome that I will be set up. The officers went to the hospital with “bite lacerations”. This is totally bogus and there will be no video evidence of me biting an officer. I’m a first time offender. I have a public defender but I’m wondering how “as law” when you get to court is a police report or an officer lying and saying I bit them?
Is it true, they would need saliva or can I request for samples of something? When an officer body cam isn’t red, does that mean it’s not recording audio? Can I submit my phone video recording of the trespassing for trail? If I allow myself to testify/be testified, can prosecutors pull up my mental health history, or is allowed to search out court orders or my records? Even though nothing was wrong with me, officers were just having a bad day, I annoyed them by filming our interaction and tirelessly trying to get my statements.

I have found a couple of girls to have highly invested boy friends. As in, these are the guys whose sole aim in their life is to take care of their gf. I have gotten very close to these girls and they down play their relationship initially or simply hide it or else I wouldn't get as close to them.
What I discovered, I wouldn't have done what they did as my self respect would get in my way.
For example, this guy would cover his face with clothes and buy vegetables for the girl and come to college and the girl's friend would come to receive the bag of vegetables because the original girl doesn't want to be seen with him in public. The girl would be excited about it because it is freebie.
When she told me about him for the first time she told me that her boyfriend cold approached her in WhatsApp and she didn't talk to him for months at times but he was still willing to talk. This again shows lack of 50% investment which I believe is the ideal case for any investment. If I find any girl taking too much time to reply I move on.
She told me about the property he has in his name while telling me about him, it was probably the first or second thing she told me. I am like, if that's too important for you then you are a gold digger.
I don't understand what's up with these kind of people.
The girl probably hides that she talks to me from her bf or else he will get mad. She has feelings for me and likes the rush that these feelings get because the relationship is about 2 years old and the excitement has died down.
Similarly there was another guy who was exactly similar. He would do all sorts of crazy things for this girl. I got heavily involved with the girl and then learned about him. It was long distance.
He would put in too much hard work for her etc.
I basically realized that all this is result of scarcity mindset. These guys believe that these are "good" girls and the world lacks them, hence they must fight for them while risking their life. Secondly, I realized that the second guy I mentioned suffered from Madonna whore complex, that means, the reason that he judged the girl to be good was because "She is not like other girls" whereas the other girls are "slutty or who simply like sex". Whereas they hope that this girl would like having sex with them eventually ofcourse. Bruh, what the heck, every human likes sex. This second girl loved to flirt as well. (she soon broke up with him).
Regardless, this is my personal study and analysis of such cases.
I just think that if they would have put in as much effort as they put in on their gfs on themselves instead then they would have become some kind of champion, basically their quality of life would improve a lot and they would find themselves with girls putting in efforts to pin them down as their husbands.