H&r block mountain home idaho

Me and my roommate moved into our first place (a 2 bedroom 1 bath apartment) a little under 6 months ago. The place is quite shit but the bills are cheap, its in a good place in town, and its quite spacious, so we're planning on staying for a while and want to invest into the space. When we moved in plenty of things were left unfinished and dirty. The "cleaning lady" even left her nice swifer mop which we kept. I wanna fix some cosmetic things and some actual issues.
Me and my roommate have decided to no longer include management unless there is a big issue (like how we got our leaking pipes fixed and moldy carpet pulled) But we're tired of not getting any efficient help. They only come if repairs are dire to health and safety. And even then theyre flaky and will take a long time to respond. And when they do come we have to block out our entire days, as maintenance will come hours late and stay for hours even on quick repairs. We also cant be alone with him as he is creepy and inappropriate and this makes it even harder to schedule. We suspect maintenance gets paid hrly and thats why he overstays his welcome and constantly talks abt wanting to do big, days-long, and unneeded upgrades while avoiding actual repairs.
We have already fixed smaller stuff (like putting on switch/outlet covers) but the two cosmetic ones are drawers and doors. Our doors are similar to those in a trailer home where theyre thin. They had a bunch of holes that were patched but now we're left with the infamous door vaginas. Its from where they drew in wood grain with marker and never stained over. God forbid I just want to stain them so bad. The second is a kitchen drawer, or more the lack there of. When we moved in the maintenance man said he was getting one custom made bc of its odd-small size. He offered to cover the hole with a piece of wood, but we declined bc he said the drawer would be done in a couple of weeks. We still dont have a drawer, just a hole. Can I go ahead and cover it? The only other thing is the bathroom vent, it doesn't work. Maintenance brought it up when we first moved in but hasn't since. I would probably have my dad do it bc he is skilled, unlike maintenance who took 4 hours to install a dishwasher (1hr max job) and didn't even put the dust panel on.
Management is lenient (ex: no pets allowed but every tenant has a pet). The landlord has never came, only maintenance. Maintenance man is pretty dumb. It took him two visits to notice our rabbit enclosure that is next to the entrance and half of our living room. So we think he wouldnt even notice or care if we changed things. He also has a huge man crush on my dad and always asks abt him and whenever my father is over he'll ask him for help/advice. I think if I just say my dad did it then he wouldnt even bat an eye. I feel like I've heard in some places if tenants do repairs theyre required some form of compensation, but I dont even care abt that I just want my place to feel like a home without getting into trouble.

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The floor of the cell is covered in decades of mildew and dust. This disgusting carpet does nothing to dull the pain as I skip across it, thrown in by someone with the intention of making a point.
My Name’s Mike, and if any of you are the types to go on a deep dive, you probably know A little about me already.
For those of you that don’t, Jesus I don’t know exactly where to begin.
The Cliff’s notes would be that I spent a little over a decade either being a serial killer or a vigilante. I won’t try to justify my actions, both of those are just sides of the same shitty coin. I’m not a person to be idolized or emulated, so I choose not to plead my case.
Now, while I thought that was just about as screwed up as life could get, one day, out of the blue, after burying my best, fuck, my only friend I found myself, somewhere else. A world that looked and felt like mine, but one where the things that go bump in the night actually existed.
Where I came from, I’d seen monsters, to be sure, but only the kind that happen when people break.
Since I’ve been here? Got caught up in some demented gameshow for demons or something, threw a massive shit in the punch bowl of the thing running the production, and got the world’s unluckiest man his freedom.
And that leads me to my current situation, staring down the rage filled, mildly bruised face of that asshole, that fucking, demonic Ted Turner, Art.
He runs a hand aggressively through his slicked back hair, standing at the door to my cell.
“Looks like your little plan didn’t work, exactly as I predicted, you fuck.
I mean, great try with the little cat thing you had, honestly didn’t see that coming. But, Jesus, Mike, what was your end game? “ Art gloats.
“Cards on the table? It was a lot better, but shit fell through, that whiskey abomination, it was the one that ratted me out I assume?
That being said, still got Kev out. And you can’t really ‘flip off his lightswitch’ if he didn’t let you screw around with his wiring, can you? “ I grin, I keep it, even as a Gucci shoe slams into my face.
Am I scared? Of God damn course I am, I’ve been pissing myself (metaphorically speaking.) since I realised that the rules of reality don’t really apply any more.
Every new grain of sand on the beach of hell my life has become, tosses me further down the road of mental failure. Shit, that’s half of what fucked up my last plan in the first place.
If I could have just kept my shit together long enough, I’d be sipping a beer with Kev in some shit hole town somewhere. But the only thing harder than trying to stamp down fear in the face of God’s and monsters, is trying to do it while projecting some kind of ‘death fears me ‘ persona.
Between you and I? Death doesn’t fear me, in fact, it seems to love to hang around. And every day I have to stare down that grim spectre, the closer I get to losing the tenuous grip on reality I have .
“Oh, fuck Kev. He’s smart enough to stay off my radar, and too stupid to figure out a way to come back at me.
He's got a 1 bedroom in Idaho or something? Salud, good on him.
You, I had high hopes for, and then you decide to wipe your ass all over my carpet, cost me more than I could even explain, and even, get me a little roughed up. My favorite shell, anyway.
I want to recoup some loses Mike. So, you, get to be a part of another one of my projects.
You thought The Path was bad? Oh, you literal, fucking clown, you haven’t seen anything.
I won’t spoil it for you, the devil’s in the details and all, but you know what everyone loves?
Prison.
Not being in it themselves, of course, but seeing others, especially those they hate in there.
This place isn’t fair, the path was a boxing match with Queensbury rules, this is a handcuffed knife fight.
And I can’t wait to see you figure out, all the little surprises it has in store for you. “ Art laughs and tosses me a battered, ancient looking smartphone, “ Feel free to drum me up some good press online if you want. “
My heart is pounding, I have to use every bit of will I have to stop from shaking, to roll my neck and sit against the cold, padless cement bed behind me.
I feel sick, my stomach boiling and gurgling.
“For the love of whatever the demonic equivalent of Christ is, why not just kill me? I’m right here, I have no way of fighting back, and you know damn well that if you give me enough time, I’m going to find a way to wipe my ass on your doorframe next. “ My tone is flippant, or at least, I hope it is.
“The ego on you kid, you think you’re that guy don’t you?
They exist, don’t get me wrong, probably a couple thousand folks capable of taking me out, but trust me, you are not one of them.
This isn’t some ‘Arch’ idiocy where I leave my greatest rival alive. This is me watching you squirm because I can, and making a little profit on the deal.
Don’t flatter yourself. “ Art has produced a long thin knife as he talks, he spins and rolls it absently.
“Before your guys dragged me off, I met something. A corner store, I don’t know if it was haunted, possessed, or if it was some kind of creature that just decided to look like a knock off 7-11.
Point being, it was out there, ethereal, I couldn’t hurt it, outwit it, even slow it down. I ran from that thing as fast as I could. It gave me some serious Lovecraft vibes.
You, Art, are not that guy. “ I notice myself tapping my finger nervously on the slime covered floor, I focus, stopping the tic.
The tip of Art’s knife glows, the sick, grey sheen isn’t heat, but something that makes me start to back up.
“I am, but you will never see that. You’re not worth the effort.
I want to give you a little something though. “ Art stalks toward me, I stand as I back into the farthest corner of the cell, “ Proud of your face paint were you? “
Art grins, and for a moment lets some of his true self slip through. For just a moment I see timeless horror in his eyes, a dark black void of consumed souls and unrestrained evil.
That knife parts my flesh with pain like a whip. Without even using the blade, it’s presence flenses my face, opening up raw, textured furrows in my flesh.
He leaves after he is done, laughing to himself.
The pain makes me black out, my stomach is boiling, I come to dry heaving, the effort sends me back into the oblivion of sleep.
I don’t know how long has passed, my face feels like it is on fire, and the thick steel bars of my cell door are closed.
It takes me two minutes of cupping my hands under the grime laden steel tap to get enough water to clear off a spot on the rusted, old, wall mounted steel mirror.
No mortal hand could have scarred me as accurately as Art did. The wounds, not healed, but cauterised as to not make me bleed out, used depth, and width, to create a colorless replica of my makeup.
I know trauma, physical as well as mental, and these are scars that will never heal. As the fact sinks in that my face is literally no longer my own, I scream, heart pounding, I split open my knees on the cold cement floor.
Pain flares, threatens to send me back to the bliss of unconsciousness, but I don’t care.
I read Kev’s journals, and they paint me in a really… positive light, in a sense.
What I mean is, going by what he thought he saw, I’m some kind of supervillian or something. Tossing three hundred pound air conditioners ( it was the outer shell, seventy pounds, physics and luck did the rest.), wrestling Art ( I was clinging on for dear life, had it not been for Jr and the mass of denizens, I’d have been killed with a flick of his wrist.), or appearing like a ghost (people, even immortal are very unobservant. Especially in an emergency.).
I’m great at seeming horrifying, and that’s a weapon in and of itself, but at the end of the day, that’s all it is.
Kneeling in my own blood, vision blurry with pain, I realise how small, vulnerable, and unarmed I truly am.
By the time daylight shines through the yellow reinforced glass window, I’m already awake. I’ve spent an hour and a half calming myself, trying to find some focus, some centre to keep me going.
I’ve been in prison before, back home, first and last time I tried plying my trade outside of America.
Being the stupid payaso gringo that I am I bit off so much more than I can chew that I wound up choking on it for 2 months in a Mexican prison.
The routine of, count, lineup, chow, remained the same.
The demographics of the population on the other hand…
Being observant is one of my main skills and as I was brought into the absurdly sized cafeteria, I was taken aback at just how many people were here.
Tens of Thousands, easily, maybe a hundred. I try and think of how many missing person cases this accounts for, and even that math doesn’t quite add up.
I quickly inventory the groups that make up the place, not that it wasn’t obvious.
The first, of course are the guards. Some, the majority, appear to be human, well geared up and in intimidating physical condition.
But a handful, they are clearly, something else. Some are smooth featured ebony skinned giants, carrying truncheons that could crush a car engine. Others are grinning, pale skinned bad attempts at human copies, wild eyed and twitching.
Second would be what I called the cultists. They all appeared to style themselves after certain tropes and urban legends, clearly human, but dressing, tattooing and mutilating themselves to appear like, myths, legends, and monsters.
The subtle violence I see tells me I’ve found the gangs.
Third are the Everymen, I can’t see any kind of pattern to them, but they seem to make up the majority of the population. They keep their distance from the guards and the cultists, but on more than one occasion I see then stand, united against attempts at extortion.
The last group, I call the candles, people that are clearly on their way out mentally and physically. Sunken eyed, and set upon from all angles, at any moment these folks could be simply snuffed out.
I keep my distance, and stay respectful, the meandering, twisting line seems to take hours to get me my thick slice of crumbling yellow bread, and thick red slurry that reminds me of porridge masquerading as meat.
My coat is gone but I’m left with the majority of the clothing I fashioned back in the path. I see a mix of unwashed orange uniforms and ‘civilian’ clothing, some of the cultists, bordering more on costume than wardrobe.
As the massive, butchers apron wearing man in smeared clown makeup sits down, I wish I’d have been issued something more generic. I saw this coming the second I noticed a lump of Chlorophiles in blood stained getups.
“You sit with us. “ I can’t tell if it’s an accent or speech pattern, the clown sounds strange, either way.
I eat a spoonful of the red sludge.
“No disrespect intended, I’m not one for clubs. I’m going to make no waves, no plays, nothing. I’m a ghost. “ I say, levelly, avoiding eye contact.
Why, you might ask, having been told about my adventures in murder.
Well, that’s just it. Murder is easy, and any time you saw me end a life, it was just that.
A fight, that’s another thing entirely, especially against someone with a significant weight and height advantage.
“Not asking. You got friends. “ The massive clown moves his bulk closer, it’s like sitting next to a forklift.
I eat the bread, it tastes amazing until I swallow, then has a foul, chemical aftertaste.
I drink some tepid, burgundy fluid that might be caffeinated.
No weapons nearby, no one watching that might step in. I’m full of bruises and sprains, and probably anemic from blood loss. Not to mention one eye is running at about fifty per cent. Art didn’t sever the optic nerve last time, but he wasn’t gentle. My heart races.
“I don’t play well with people who take clowning and slap a coat of dark paint on it.
You guys are Clown Killers. You are good at killing, I’m sure, but the clown part, it’s tacked on.
Myself, I’m a killer clown…. “ I had a really good rant planned, honestly, it was a corker, douche bags would have used it in memes for a decade.
But before I can react, with one massive hand, he bounces my face off of the pitted steel table.
It rings my bell, but not as much as I let on. In clowning terms, what I do Is called a pratfall.
For those of you that don’t speak nerd, I oversell the hit, falling backwards, eyes fluttering.
I tip backwards, reaching out my left arm, as if to steady myself. The meat mountain is unbothered, knowing I have no chance unarmed, in this close, he let’s me grab one shoulder of the butchers apron. The material is thick, and matted in stains that will never come out, literally or metaphorically.
If you want to take someone out, in a relatively harmless way, you don’t want to choke them. It takes forever, usually ends up killing them, and generally is a bad idea for everyone involved.
Your goal is go cut off blood flow to the brain as quickly and fully as possible.
I hook my thumb around the opposite shoulder strap, and snap my body backward, the apron acting as an impromptu Garrotte.
His right arm is knotted through my left, as he tries to struggle, to put his murderous intent and ability to work, the choke only becomes tighter.
I don’t want enemies here, and I only have so many tricks to play before things come to a knock down drag out fight, so I leave the clown unharmed.
I do need friends, but the look I get as I take a seat at a loose collection of men is cold and fearful.
A red haired guy, five foot nine or so, makes eye contact, “Anything we can help you with? “ he says, fearless.
“Yeah, despite the face work I’ve had done, I have fuck all in common with any of those penny wise, Icp, Gacy dressed, assholes.
I need a tribe guys, you all look like the unlucky ones around here, but I don’t want to get involved in bloodshed.
I’m Mike “ I know, that’s only mostly true, but I mean it, either way. I extend a hand.
“Chris. “ the red haired guy says, he wears a white dress shirt and surprisingly blue jeans, “Those stains around your cuffs tell me otherwise.
If you’re telling the truth, that’s great. If you are lying, and still sane enough to keep your word, that’s even better. “ Chris’s tone is mirthless, I read him easily. He’s been here a long time for a short life, he looks thirty max, and I shudder to think how young he may have been when he came in.
Chris catches me up on the ins and outs of this place, beyond what a general knowledge of prison would give.
Everyone here has crimes they were not convicted of, that would, otherwise put them in jail for life. A large amount, obviously are murderers, torturers, real bastards.
But a significant minority are just regular folks, maybe a bit thoughtless, but that have collected a litany of small, petty, in cases almost victim less crimes.
No one seems to be aware of the… reality t.v. Meets demonic fast food aspect of things, but there is a Doom cherry on this fear Sunday.
There is a single way someone can get out. To earn 20 tokens.
And how does one earn these tokens you ask?
Each day the prison holds an event, to call it a challenge would insinuate a level of fair play that is simply not there. The events range from somewhat fair, a fight or game of chance, to esoteric rituals complex enough to rip someone’s soul from their body.
These tokens are also the sole form of currency in the prison, they can buy everything from commissary snacks to literal free passes from guards.
The economy has created a cut throat society, the heads of the cults not even taking advantage of being able to be free, but simply reveling in the power of being psychotic and enabled.
The weak are enslaved, their lives traded on the off chance at tokens.
So, of course, braindead asshole that I am, I signed myself right up. Feeling a little more confidant after climbing Mount Bozo.
It's 8pm and the volunteers are rounded up and brought to a massive room that has all the trappings of a gymnasium, but the scale is large enough easily hold the focus of tonight’s events.
In tiered bleachers all around us, our fellow prisoners cheer and scream. The smell of thousands of unwashed, men is overpowering, the din of excitement is deafening.
But my attention is focussed on the small, single floor home, sitting out of place in the middle of the polished wood floor.
What I wouldn’t give for Demi to appear right now, give me the low down on all the supernatural bullshit that is heading my way. But the longer we stayed in the mountain the less and less the most useful voice in my head could, or would, make an appearance.
I study each of my fellow volunteers, the goal seems simple, last the longest in the home. Men enter and leave within minutes. They come out looking shaken, with minor lacerations, and a general sense of shell shock.
By the time my turn arrives, I think I know what I’m in for.
I’m wrong.
As the baby blue door closes behind me, nothing immediately in the home causes me concern. The fixtures and furniture is a bit out of date, the lighting is, not inviting, and there is a general fog of gloom hanging around.
I smile, I’ve felt this before. Granted I had Demi feeding me supernatural errata at the time, but, I’m positive I can wing it.
“So, I think I may have met one of you guys before. Back in New York, a Happy-Face corner store, anyone you know?
Scary dude, took a couple of pieces out of me.
But this, it’s more like an MMA fight, right? I tap out when you start kicking my ass? “ I stretch, trying to see if I’m getting any kind of reaction.
I inventory the objects around me, last time everything that wasn’t nailed down, shifted, changed and tried to take me apart.
You may have noticed by now, I love using the phrase ‘ last time’, and that’s because up until this moment, I haven’t learned a fucking thing here.
Mike’s first rule of paranormal survival, last time means nothing.
“It’s you” the voice is young, late teens, and male.
I spin, expecting violence, then, wishing violence.
I know the young man, not this pale, older, revenant with a self inflicted gunshot wound, but I know him none the less.
I’m not being metaphorical when I say my heart misses a beat, I almost fall over, pounding at my chest to stop it’s arythmatic pounding.
I knew what happened to him, found it out long after I could do anything about it. And wasn’t in the best of places when I did.
I’ll call him a ghost for simplicity sake, but this kid, he’s my first, and biggest mistake.
I based who I turned into on finding what I thought was one of the worst people on earth. This kid’s father.
I did things to him worthy of what I knew he did. And to top it all off, I had him die by his wife’s hand.
Well, a decade later I find out, the guy wasn’t a Saint, but he didn’t do anything worthy of the twisted shit I put him through.
I got wind of some false information put out there in a moment of rage by a tech savvy ten year old. The kid never intended it to see the light of day
“I found out about you Mike, I saw that you were a hero. “ The voice is thin echoes like a stuck record.
“No kid, don’t think that. “ I mumble, I’m shaking, the air is freezing, each breath comes out as white mist.
I’m sitting on the flower printed couch now, and it hits me.
I’d assumed because Art couldn’t screw around in my head last time, the same went for everything here.
Remember what we said about last time.
“My told me what happened one night, what I made you do.
I destroyed her memory of him, I made a real Hero kill him, I couldn’t keep hurting people. “ I can see images, flashing in my mind, memories that are not mine.
I’m counting seconds, trying to focus, trying to stay long enough to get the token. It has to have been fifteen, twenty minutes at least.
I try to work up a smirk, to convince myself that I’m just being played by the paranormal equivalent of a heckler.
That’s not it though, This place, this house, is reaching inside me and finding places to look. As I stare into the young man’s rotted eyes I know this is some part of him, torn away from whatever rest he was entitled to.
The lights dim, then turn off. The house is silent.
Hollywood gets being both a lunatic and a hitman wrong in equal measure. No matter how much morality you want to inject into the profession, there are going to come times when you make mistakes.
As the lights slowly turn to a dull orange glow, I’m surrounded by the hovering, mutilated forms of mine.
Those that died that could have been spared, those that died because of my inaction, or stupidity. I’ve never forgotten them, I use them to make sure I never make the same mistakes again, but having them looming, screaming, all demanding I hear their stories, their accusations, their placations.
It's too much, I stumble from the couch, trying to avoid the icy touch of these phantoms. For a moment I find some last scrap of courage, I close my eyes, shut out the shrieking din of the dead.
The silence hits like a truck, I focus, trying to calm my burned out nerves.
Then they are reignited like a fucking welding torch.
“This place didn’t bring us here.
We’ve been right next to you for years Mike. We can’t leave. “ The voice of my first mistake.
Like a toddler I try to run with my eyes closed, I trip over a glass coffee table, clawing my way up the door, grasping at the handle.
I can feel a slight pull now, almost magnetic, trying to drag me backwards.
My hands shake too much, I have to steady my right wrist with my left hand, the floor becomes slick, I see the door, escape start to move further away as I’m pulled backward.
I've taken a hit or two, and had a couple of three day benders that have made me piss myself. But as I stumble, trying to make progress on the nearly friction less floor, I have another unpleasant first experience.
I grab the handle, pulling myself out of the house, launching my body into a skin peeling tumble across unforgiving plank flooring.
I’m a shaking, fetal wreck, by the time I’ve pulled myself together enough to take in my surroundings, I see the red Led clock displaying my time.
42 seconds. Bottom of the barrel. The jeers and booing from the crowd do nothing for my frayed nerves or the storm of fear and anxiety going through my mind.
I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep, it has nothing to do with the concrete slab that serves as my bed.
My stomach has been knotting and cramping, with each passing second I get more worried I blew some internal gasket in one of the many life or death struggles in the past months.
When I finally manage to vomit, the urge is strong enough I get no where near the filth crusted hole in the floor that serves as my toilet. And my worst fears are confirmed as I see the massive pile of vomit is mostly blood.
… and bones? Is that an eyeball? A piece of fur?
The mass begins to pull itself together, bits and pieces forming the most rudimentary attempt at a face.
“Junior? “ I say, stunned.

Drank too much last night in town, and called it a day. My brother picked me up from the town centre, my friends helped me get into the car. When I got home, I realised my glasses were not on me. I remember my friend taking them off me when I had to puke by this block. He remembers this too, but can’t remember where they are now, he was also drunk.
I have a feeling the glasses could still be outside the pub by the block. I kinda want to back to check for them.
Do you think it’s a lost cause?
The glasses are worth £80ish (prescription glasses)

Backstory first, I (27f) had basically no friends from being in a horrible relationship for almost a decade and was stuck living with him. I was determined to go out and regain myself.
I started going to drag shows as a regular thing. I would ask for pics and take videos. Being a regular had me making friends with the performers, like Alex (29nb) and other regulars, like Freddy (35m). Freddy and I enjoyed the shows and started hanging out outside of events. We connected over feeling like we didn't fit in. From then on, we both made sure to invite each other out and he let me stay over when I didn't want to go home. Alex would join when available.
My anxiety kept me quiet about my birthday, except for Alex and Freddy. Alex offered to help me celebrate it. I told them not to worry about it. I told Freddy about my birthday later and we hung out and we had a wonderful time.
Couple months later, I was informed that Alex and Freddy have birthdays 3 days apart and they're coming up. Freddy announced he wanted to go to a concert for his birthday. One of his favorite artists, but not one of mine. He's so excited and he was there for my birthday, so I told him that I would buy us the tickets. He invited a small group, including Alex, but due to other obligations everyone declined. Alex declined because they were having their birthday party on the same day as the concert. Alex knew about the concert, but said feel free to stop by their party. I told Freddy that the party sounded really fun and that I would like to go to both events. He agreed and said okay, we'll figure it out.
The day came, Freddy came up with the plan for us to meet at the birthday party then head to the concert then back to the party, if it's still going. I get there a little late (still enough time to get to the concert) and say hey to Alex and some others before I'm pulled into a side room by Freddy.
In the room, Freddy said I think we should stay here for the party. And I said cool, you know I love parties! I leave the room and start mingling and having fun. Some time passed, Alex asked what we're still doing there. I explained that Freddy said we should stay. I saw Freddy being moody, so I tried to talk to him and asked what's wrong and he said you can't be serious and don't talk to me anymore. I go to Alex to see if they knew anything, they stated that Freddy wanted to go to the concert. So I pointed out that it was his decision to stay, but I mentioned making it up to him later. Alex agreed to help. I proceeded to have a fun time at the party for the rest of the night. Freddy moped in the corner for a while and then left without saying bye.
I went home and noticed that he had blocked me on social media and was not answering my texts. On that Mon, I learned from Alex that he's going around calling me manipulative and trying to get me canceled by friends.

I'm traveling solo, first time in Cancun, staying at an Airbnb on Calle Orto in downtown Cancun. Wondering how safe the neighborhood is, esp at night till about midnight. House is really beautiful, reviews say area is safe and nice, but who knows. Figure it pays to ask for other opinions. Their home is located in the area between Home Depot, Walmart and Costco. Looks like an ADO Bus route is 1-2 blocks from their house as well. Anything I should know about this area, as well as any great restaurants or sights to check out downtiown ? Thanks.

Valentines Day saw my little Hyundai i10 premium written off to the tune of about 5.5k. I come from a family of mechanics so I'm gebrtally happy to run my cars until the wheels actually fall off (or we drive it back home with a diesel canister feeding the engine through some hose from the front seat - necessity engineering at its best, that one).
Anyway
I'm now in perpetual decision roulette. I drive about 40 miles per average day, up and over a mountain each way. I have two 6 foot tall passengers. Ideally, I want something hybrid or electric but I'm happy that I just don't have the budget for that right now.
I had the newer i10 as a courtesy car and wasn't too impressed - started stuttering in the cold which I've had as an electrical fault in a Getz previously. So we've been looking at new cars: Peugeot 208 (blame Belinda Carlisle), the Mokka, the Fiesta (because I figured that it's the last of its kind and I might see some money back when it comes to resell), and the outlier... Dacia.
But do I just wait out the second hand market going bananas?
The Dacia is ridiculously affordable but I don't know about them holding their worth at all. I also don't know whether I look for something short term and get into the electric stuff sooner rather than later, or plan to run something to the ground again.
I just need some help pinning ideas down, I guess.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Hi, I am looking for some advice. Sorry for the long post.
Myself and my partner rent a townhouse in NSW. The townhouse has 2 upstairs bathrooms.
When we first moved in, we noticed water damage on the downstairs ceiling. We documented this in our condition report.
Fast forward a few months later, we went to retrieve some bedding from a cupboard adjoining the bathroom, and noticed the bedding covered in mould. Turns out the upstairs bathroom had been leaking for some time. We later found out that all the townhouses on our block had similar bathroom issues.
Over the next 12 months, we have had at least 15 different tradespeople come to inspect the damages. These tradespeople were sent separately by the REA and Strata. I had to take a fair amount of time off work to accommodate these requests.
According to the REA, the delay in repairs was allegedly because a member of Strata kept voting "No" to the repairs being performed. I think this was because they were waiting for an insurance claim to come through.
We were advised to not use the affected bathroom. Our rent was reduced by $30 a week to compensate. However we still had to live with mould the whole time.
We have recently put in notice to leave the property, as our patience with this REA has been exhausted, and we cannot live with the mould any longer as my partner has asthma.
In the last week, the REA has finally contracted a construction company to rip out the entire bathroom. I have requested works not to begin until we vacate (we first alerted the REA of the damage 18 months ago so I figured a further delay of 4 more weeks would be acceptable), however the REA and owner do not want to delay repairs any longer to "avoid further financial loss".
The REA has never inspected the property and has not physically seen the water damage. I have been home on every occasion the routine inspections were scheduled (so I could point the damage and mould out to them) but no one showed up.
1) Do I have grounds to request the repairs wait until we leave so as to avoid living in a property whilst a bathroom is being ripped out? I work from home, so this will impact my working arrangements.
2) Are we entitled to any compensation for work hours lost to accommodate for tradesperson access/living with mould?
Thanks for reading, I appreciate it

I tried a couple of load order templates I found online and the current one has been pretty good at making sure the mods worked as intended across a few character builds but recently started having the game crash more often without any change to it, or the game failing to even start on Xbox. So hopefully someone who knows modding better can help me out this mod list in a more reliable order or suggest a better mod or if any are known to cause issues and should be removed. Here’s my current load order:
USSEP
Reforging - to the masses
Modern brawl bug fix
[XB1] Simple time scale change
Civil war quest immersion bundle
Paarthurnax - quest expansion
The enemy of my enemy
Sursummer assault
Night mother’s embrace - an assassin’s tale
A dishonest day’s work
Destroy the thieves guild
Destroy the dark brotherhood
Penitus oculatus
Return to helgen SE
The forsworn we’ve been waiting for
Where darkness dwells
Where darkness dwells: shadow kingdom
Mythic dawn expansion
Good guys quests
Better thieving alternate
Castle volkihar rebuilt
[XB1] recover cities
Crusader - a dawnguard bundle
Soljund’s sinkhole
Windstad mine
Training adjustments
Guild leader perks
VioLens
Summermyst- enchantments of Skyrim
Heart of gold - an adoption bundle
Free player home hearthfire bundle
Better vampires 8.7
[Xbox One] vampire lord perks
Double perks
Rich merchants of Skyrim
Better courier
Improved slow time shout
Effective blocking
Wards act like shields
Magic scales with level
Buffed bound weapons
Simple paladin [X1]
Archery skill set
Convenient horses
Scales one-handed attack speed for Ordinator
Faster casting SE for XB1
Vampire underwater suffocation fix
[XB1] truly absorb dragon souls
Berserker rage for everyone
Run for your lives
Better vampire NPCs 1.9
Serana infinite
Populated forts towers places
Tolft TG fence
Auri updated - song of the green
Immersive patrols lite
Warrior poet powers
Cloaks of Skyrim
Elemental walls redone
FYX - 3D Skyrim
Realistic water two
Enhanced lights and FX
Enhanced blood textures
A quality world map - vivid with stone roads
Dawnguard map markers
Wear multiple rings
King ports - arvak replacer
Better shadowmere (armored)
Auri re-imagined CBBE
Gritty animations requiem 2.0
Animated mounted casting
PrivateEye’s heavy armory - new weapons lite
PrivateEye’s heavy armory - USSEP patch
Jlmountainkeep (must fall keep player home I think, deleted from Bethesda net)
Better vampire weapons 1.4
Dark dawnguard armor
Nether mage armor
Ebony blades - by CrazyLion
Summerset shadow armor
Dragon infused daedric armor
Dragon knight armor
Clipsymoon weaponry artifacts
Silver elven armor
Silver dagger
Kynreeve armor
Vampire Mira armor
Molag bal - armor
Volkihar knight armor
Ebony Damascus crossbow
Liliths harbinger custom sword
Hoodless dragon priest masks
Green thumb - rare curios
ARs Metallica
Tweaks crafting recipes v2
Vortikai’s playable clothing
Jewelry of power
Elemental vision of Skyrim
Improved spellbreaker ward
Simple upgradable leveled list items
Ring of carry weight
Instant mastery
CBBE
Unique uniques by insanitysorrow
aMidianBorn steel pack
aMidianBorn dark elven armor
aMidianBornnordic carved
Molten glass armor & weapons replacer
Ancient shrouded armor replacer
Mxblack dawnguard weapons & armor
Visage of mzund replacer
Superior harkon’s sword
CL’s weapon replacer 5 in one
True dawnbreaker
Unlimited sprinting
Visible favorited gear
Relationship dialogue overhaul
RDO - USSEP patch
Undead beloved - Serana bundle
Serana dialogue add-on
Serana dialogue add-on castle volkihar rebuilt patch
Serana dialogue add-on RDO patch
SDA convenient horses patch
Stones of barenziah quest markers
Critical weapon mastery
[xb1] vampire sun damage clothes covering
Tweaked arrows and bolts
Convenient arrows and bolts
My home is your home
Awesome artifacts - anniversary edition
Unique thane weapons
XP32 maximum skeleton + realistic ragdoll and forces
Weapons on back - swords and quivers
Dawnguard as a vampire
No vampire cure on rumors
Ordinator - perks of Skyrim
Apocalypse - magic of Skyrim
Ars arcanum nova
Apocalypse - Ordinator compatibility patch
Odin - Ordinator compatibility patch
Sustained magic
Sustained magic apocalypse patch
[xb1] proper aiming
Growl - were beasts of Skyrim
Mannequin maker
Xbox - disenchanting overhaul
[ICS] enchantments unleashed
Infinite charges
Debug menu

I was finishing up my trading hall in my HUGE world (started it about 4 years ago). I have been experiencing horrible lag (the world d is massive so thought nothing of it. 260mg) and all a sudden a wither arrived at my home base. (I spawned a wither in the end a few days back and it went through the end portal, from what I read it completely despawns if that happens) well it destroyed everything and ended up killing me. I immediately just shut off my Xbox but what can I really do? There are so many destroyed blocks that I can hardly move and either way all my gear is in the middle of it, the last back up I have is less than a quarter smaller than the full world is.(60mg). Is there anything I can do? I looked and looked for that either that went through the portal but i could not find it. My base is directly next to the world spawn so why would it all of a sudden appear after spending hours apon hours on my world at my base? I can help but be sad now everything is probably gone

can you write me a story?

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a small village nestled between two mountains. The villagers were simple folk, who lived a peaceful life, tending to their crops and livestock. However, there was one person who stood out from the rest. Her name was Lily, and she had the most beautiful voice anyone had ever heard.
Lily loved to sing, and she would often sing while she worked in the fields. Her voice was so enchanting that the birds would stop singing just to listen to her. The villagers loved to hear her sing, and they would often gather around her to listen.
One day, a group of travelers passed through the village. They were on their way to the king's castle, where a singing competition was being held. The winner would receive a grand prize, and the travelers were sure that Lily had what it took to win.
Lily was hesitant at first, but the travelers convinced her to enter the competition. They traveled together to the castle, where they were met with hundreds of other contestants. The competition was fierce, and the judges were tough.
Lily was nervous, but as soon as she stepped on the stage, she began to sing. Her voice was so beautiful that the judges were speechless. When she finished, the entire audience erupted into applause.
The judges deliberated for hours, but in the end, they declared Lily the winner. She was overjoyed, and the villagers back home were proud of her. She returned to the village a hero, and her beautiful voice was celebrated for years to come.
From that day on, Lily's voice was known throughout the land, and people would travel from far and wide just to

You Matter to Her in a Way No One Else Could
When you died and were reborn, you became divine. You were love, and you were violence, and you were my miracle. A God sprung forth from the decaying machinery of your broken body. Koishi, the God of Love and Hate—have mercy on us all.
Down by the shore of one of the great Lunar seas, there sat a lonely shack thatched with feathers. Inside, there was a massive wani no less than eight leagues long… and her infant son. To that crocodile who had never known true familial love, that delicate little child—who cooed and smiled at his mother’s every move—was nothing less than a miracle. Such a delicate life in her claws, who knew nothing but unconditional love for his mother—to the crocodile, it was proof there was still good in the world.
She was tired, but the crocodile forced herself to stay awake. There was something she needed to do—a memory she wanted to share with the most important person in her life.
So, with all the caution and tenderness in the world, she picked up her child with her jaws and coaxed him into her throat pouch. The newborn child, perhaps having some shared instinct with his crocodilian mother, did not cry or struggle. Instead, he let out a giggle as he poked his head out from between his mother’s jagged teeth. With a snort, the dragon climbed out of her thatch hut, and crawled along the shore, drawing a meandering trail in the sand as she went.
When she reached the point where the water came to shore in gentle waves, the crocodile set herself down in the sand, letting the waves wash in and lick at her child in gentle sprays. Her child giggled as the Lunar sea’s tickled him with its pure waters, and as he did, his mother couldn’t help but feel at peace.
Nothing. Nothing at all would be able to take this from her.
Her miracle.
Toyohime opened her eye to clear blue skies.
She flexed her fingers, and instead of feeling the cold steel of the ship she started to tear apart, she felt so many tiny pebbles, warmed by their time in the sun. Sand? She brought a fistful of the stuff into her vision, before letting it fall through her fingers and run down her face. It was too real to be a dream.
Toyohime sat up to observe her surroundings. As far as the eye could see, there were infinite stretches of sand collected into wind-swept dunes that obscured the horizon. It was hot. Unbelievably so for what was supposedly the void. She felt a gentle gust of warm wind pass by her and toss her hair. This place… this impossible place… was she dead?
She rose to her feet, fighting biting aches and pains from her battle not too long ago. No—not dead. Somehow, she had survived—there was no other explanation. And as she looked down to assess the damage she had taken, her suspicions were only confirmed. Her right arm was missing, and in its place was nothing but a healed stump. The nasty cuts and bruises she had received in the fighting had all healed over for the most part, the only evidence they happened at all being residual scars that were yet to disappear. The ground was covered in dried blood. She must’ve been laying here in this sand trap for hours.
She brought her free arm, completely healed, up to the general space where her right eye was to find an arrow still protruding from it. Wrapping her fingers around the shaft, Toyohime tore it out in a fluid motion, causing the wound to reopen and drip blood onto the sands below. But, through some miraculous action, it was mere moments before the flow of blood stopped as the wound healed shut. Her right eye was still inoperable, but this healing ability was downright uncanny, even for a god.
She flexed her fingers. It felt like there was a hole in her head from which memories and feelings poured out. The mystery of how she got here, who she killed, and whether she could even trust her own senses had no answer—Toyohime knew she herself had made sure of that. She supposed there was a good reason. The less she knew, the better. That was something she could trick herself into believing.
Though no matter how much she forced herself to forget, she had the horrible feeling she had done something unforgivable—something she would kill over. In a sea of atrocities however, she could hardly even begin to suppose what that might have been. Maybe the heat was starting to fry her brain.
After spending a few minutes snapping the arrows lodged in her body by their shafts, Toyohime looked to the horizon, and then up. Ahead, there was a massive sand dune, no less than five times her height, and beyond the crest—a black pillar of smoke. Toyohime was not alone.
As she made her way up the shifting incline, Toyohime got to thinking about her next course of action. If this wasn’t a hallucination, then it most certainly had to be some extension of Koishi's will. Land in an impossible space… the creation of something impossible like that could only be a factor of a deteriorating mind, or God. And Toyohime had no time to consider the possibility of a crumbling psyche—not when she had a duty left unfulfilled.
But then… that would mean this was the paradise of Koishi’s mind. Surely, by her side is where she would find her salvation. She had already come to terms with it—that there was nothing left for her in the old world. Koishi could pervert and corrupt reality in whatever twisted ways she wanted—as long as it was the creation of her heart, it would be sufficient. Everything beyond that was not worth saving to the former princess.
… But that also meant there would be more enemies. More people she had to kill. She was ready. Ready to kill and ready to die in the name of love.
And as she planted her boot upon the peak of that sand dune, she saw the whole world become bare before her. A fair distance away was the crashed wreck of a golden ship, releasing plumes of black smoke as it burnt away. From this distance, it was difficult to make out any finer details, but she was sure the occupants had escaped. Satori was resourceful and stubborn, if nothing else. Dying in a crash was an impossibility.
She then traced a line from the ship through the shifting sands—to a city upon the horizon. Massive towers of glass and steel pushing against the sky, half buried in the sand, bending light around them as they reflected the intense heat of the sun. It gave the sight an unnatural fuzziness, as if the city was threatening to disappear at any moment.
As she traced the decaying visage of those buildings upwards, she saw a thin line reach beyond and into the sky. The line separated into two before converging back on itself. Above the city, etched upon the sky itself, was a pitch black gap in reality, opened and filled with so many eyes. And above still, the object of Toyohime’s desires and her sole driving factor—Koishi Komeiji.
Though the God’s eye was open, as well as the myriad collection of smaller eyes and drooling jaws that had lined every square inch of her squirming appendages, it was hard to tell if she was awake or conscious. Toyohime knew Koishi best, and if she had any guess as to what Koishi had been doing in the time they spent apart, it was receding back into the numbing comfort of her own mind. Even now, Toyohime figured she was still dreaming, avoiding the cruel weight of her responsibility. What manifested outside of her mind must’ve been some sort of twisted runoff.
Down there, hidden in the dunes, Toyohime knew there were those who would take this dream from Koishi. Those who would hurt Koishi. Those people would’ve done just as well to dig their own graves and build their own coffins. Because so long as Toyohime drew breath, she would protect Koishi with everything she could muster—that was her promise and the nature of her impossible, unconditional love.
Koishi was Toyohime’s second chance.
This time, one way or another, there would be no opportunity for a third.
Mima, on the other hand, had woken up quite a bit earlier than Toyohime had.
She had not suffered any fatal wounds or debilitating strikes leading up to the point where the reality around her started to crumble and distort—but she had briefly lost consciousness regardless. She figured that might’ve been a good thing; an action so absurd and so against everything she knew, perpetrated by an impossibly powerful being… even if a mere glimpse didn’t physically tear her mind to ribbons, she had no interest in trying to understand such a nonsensical event.
Mima awoke not in a desert, but in a grand sprawling city of seemingly human construction. Though the sun still hung overhead, the impossible hills and mountains of sand that caged the city in, always seemed to shift and move in the most calculated way… such that the sun was always put out. Caught in the shade, the city looked like it was in a perpetual night, in spite of the blinding yellow of the endless desert just beyond its limits.
Though that was the case, the city was far from dark. Street lamps, blinding neon signs, blinking traffic lights, apartments and houses with windows illuminated by the fluorescent lights within… It gave the impression the city was alive. It seemed exactly as a real bustling city at night, with its breathing and blinking—but there were no people. No matter how far Mima walked, no matter how many buildings she popped in, she would encounter no souls. She would find, in those buildings, immaculate setpieces filled with lived-in charm, hints and implications of life—but not people. Not even Yukari, who she wandered the streets in search of.
She recognized this place. This city—Tokyo. It couldn’t have possibly been, but it was the same Tokyo she grew up in, back before the Moonlight Descent and before the Kaiju. Before her chance meeting with the youkai who used to be her friend. This city, trapped in the middle of the desert, caught in an artificial night that obscured the flow of time—somehow it managed to be the perfect recreation of a long lost city, as if someone had taken a scalpel to the part of Mima’s brain that held onto the precious memories of her past life. It was comforting, being back in familiar territory, but it also carried along a pervasive uneasiness. The nostalgia said it was real, but the rational mind knew better than to buy into an impossible mirage—made all the more uneasy by the deathly silence of its streets.
After wandering around for a dozen minutes or more, Mima eventually came to find Yukari in a 24-hour fast food joint. She was sitting, out of her suit and miraculously healed, on a stool that faced the street outside, with her head down and a small pool of drool collecting at the point where the corner of her mouth met the countertop. Renko always said Maribel could fall asleep anywhere.
Mima floated back and forth around the gently snoring form of Yukari for a bit, considering her options. She changed back into her Renko form for a second, and after adjusting her hat a little, she reached over to tap Yukari on the shoulder… but then shied away. Glancing at Yukari, then back to her bag, she rummaged through its bottomless contents and pulled out a whole host of items: hand mirrors, makeup kits, two liter bottles of listerine, mints and peppermint breath spray and assorted beauty products.
She stole a quick glance back at Yukari to make sure she was asleep before going at it—in one go, she dumped every minty product she could into her mouth before swishing the unholy mixture in her mouth. It was not a moment later that she coughed out all of that liquid ice with a retch and a gag. Sheepishly, she turned her head to see if Yukari had woken up in all the commotion. Luckily, she was still knocked out something fierce. Mima might’ve guessed she was dead, if it weren’t for the occasional snore.
Undeterred, she opened a hand mirror and began to apply her makeup. Carefully. There was a subtle art to it—she only needed enough to hide any unsightly blemishes she might’ve gotten from her rather shut-in lifestyle as a ghost. Anything more, and Maribel was bound to notice Mima was purposefully fixing her appearance around her. None of that. Mima was trying for a more subliminal approach… It’s what worked in the past, after all.
Well, upon further thought, Mima figured “worked” was too strong a word. She did die before she saw any results, after all. But enough of that, Mima thought—now that she regained her memories, she’s finally gotten another shot. This being the apocalypse and all, she figured she should probably make it count.
She clicked close her portable hand mirror and, along with the rest of her stuff, threw it back into her field bag. She stole one last glance at Yukari, who was still sleeping soundly, before straightening her hat and clearing her throat.
“Maribel…” she said in a quiet, sing-song voice. She placed a hand on Yukari’s shoulder and gave it a gentle shake. “Maribel, wake up.”
No response. Mima pouted as she shook her around again. “Merry? It’s so scary around here—I need someone super strong and amazing by my side. Maybe we could hold hands?”
Nothing but more snoring. Mima’s expression fell. “... Okay, seriously. Wake up.”
“Don’t make me break out the big guns, Merry,” Mima said, digging through her bag and pulling out an airhorn. “I’ll do it. You think I’m bluffing?”
A tense beat passes. Mima stows away the airhorn. “... Ah, I’m just kidding. I wouldn’t do something like that to you. You’re too cute, hehe.”
“I’m not above this, though.” She reaches back into her bag and pulls out a spray bottle filled with water… before giving Yukari’s face a couple of quick spritzes.
That quiet, tranquil expression to Mima seemed almost a timeless representation of the relationship she shared with Maribel quickly contorted into one of disgust. After a moment of being pelted with spray after spray of water droplets, Yukari finally was roused from her sleep, a squinty, grouchy mess.
“Who..? Urgh…” She mumbled with a groan. When Yukari saw Renko, immaculately constructed before her with enough accuracy to convince her she came straight from her memories, she froze. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “... Renko?”
“Hehe… Yep, it’s me! Your best friend. Best girl-friend, even. That is, a girl who is also a friend. Not a girlfriend, you know? Aha… Unless? Kidding, kidding.” Mima flashed an easy smile. “Glad you’re awake. Hey, before you say anything else—how do I look? I look cute, right? I know we’re in the middle of saving the world and everything, but I’ve actually been spending a lot of time taking care of my appearance.”
As Mima continued to ramble on and Yukari continued to wake up, her expression made a slow and gradual pivot. Where at first Yukari couldn’t hide her bemusement from her face—as well as that strange pained expression someone would have, seeing a loved one they have long since finished mourning appear upon their doorstep—she eventually came to settle on an empty stare and a neutral, apathetic expression. It hurt Mima a little, seeing such a radical turn in her demeanor.
“Oh,” Yukari muttered. “It’s just you.”
Mima didn’t think she intended it, but there was a layer of latent annoyance in her words. Or maybe it was disappointment? A thousand years or more apart did a lot to shift their relationship. That much was clear—and it hurt.
Yukari took a moment to look Mima up and down. With a scoff and a roll of her eyes, she delivered an unceremonious answer. “You look fine.”
Mima sighed in response. “Hey, I’ll take it.”
“More importantly…” As Yukari continued, she craned her neck around to absorb every detail of her surroundings: everything from the light fixtures above to the tables that were so meticulously set and prepared. “... Where are we?”
Her eyes naturally gravitated toward the front counter and the kitchen section that was just behind—meticulously wrapped burgers and fresh fries, set underneath heat lamps… it was as if they were all made recently. But that wasn’t even the strangest detail Yukari’s eyes were able to pick out. Upon one of the tables was a tray, filled with half eaten food—as if the patrons ceased to exist in the middle of their meal. This was beyond a mere liminal space, where it gave the impression of once being a place where people gathered—it was closer in relation to the scene of an ongoing disaster, where people had left in a hurry.
In that way, it didn’t carry much of the surreal quality of a place no longer meant for humans—it more so felt like a place with a cursed history, its sinister and mysterious narrative etched into its skin and flesh through the vestiges of human presence. Mima could tell, being a ghost herself, there was more to this place than the physical construction. As to what ‘more’ was, she could not place.
She could tell Yukari was thinking something similar by the way she walked around and took in the feeling of the place. Her posture was rigid and cautious, but not necessarily ready and waiting for danger. There was a quiet dread to the things that weren’t, but should’ve been.
“I’m trying to figure that out myself,” Mima replied, following Yukari around with her arms folded behind her back. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but… I think we’re back in Tokyo.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy.” Yukari replied. She walked over to the table with the food and traced a finger across its top. No dust clung to the surface of her finger, as if the tabletop had recently been cleaned. She brought the back of her palm close to the food. It was still radiating just a little bit of heat, as if it had been freshly served. “That’s the part that scares me.”
“... Assuming this is all very much real, this must be Koishi’s doing,” Yukari declared, taking a moment to look down at herself. As she flexed her fingers, her eyes narrowed. Mima figured she might’ve just realized she had been healed and mysteriously back to her usual outfit. She still looked younger and weaker than she once was, but there was an undeniable, albeit subtle increase in the vitality she seemed to convey. As Yukari’s eyes wandered to the empty city street outside, Mima couldn’t help but notice that expression—that idle, faraway gaze that looked like Yukari had trapped herself in a vivid daydream. She couldn’t help but realize how much Maribel had changed—and yet stayed the same.
“Whatcha thinking, Merry?” Mima tried, shuffling up to Yukari’s side.
“Yukari.”
“Oh. Right. Ha, that’s my bad. My bad…”
“I’m thinking: why Tokyo specifically?” With a wave of her hand, Yukari opened a gap next to her. Through that little tear in reality was a bird’s eye view of the whole city, as well as the infinite desert that surrounded it. “... There must be some significance to this location, but I couldn’t possibly imagine what it could be. Not right now, knowing what we know.”
“Hey, I grew up in Tokyo, you know? Maybe it has something to do with that? And… y’know, we were teaching in Tokyo before…” Mima gestured vaguely around herself. “... Everything, I guess. Maybe Koishi’s reacting to our memories.”
“Could be. Could just as easily be something related to Koishi. Could be nothing at all.” The view through the gap eventually fizzled out, leaving nothing but the inky blackness of the pocket dimension Yukari held dominion over. She let out a sigh before stitching the gap closed with a wave of her hand. “I’d suggest we keep on moving. Collect as much information as we can about this place. But only what we need—the plan is still largely the same. There’s no telling when she will appear again. Best be as quick about it as we can.”
“Oh. Uh… Alright. That’s cool.”
“... What?”
“Hm?”
“What’s wrong? You disagree?”
“Oh no, ah…” A sheepish grin crawled across Mima’s face. “I was just thinking about how much you’ve changed, is all. It’s just… you know, a huge city missing all of its people is pretty mysterious, huh? Don’t you want to do more exploring? Poke around a bit and take in the sights? Like we used to—just one last time?”
There was an unsettling period of silence where Yukari stared straight through Mima with that flat look. She averted her eyes for a passing moment. When Yukari returned her gaze to Mima, it was steely and cold. “No. Neither of us are kids anymore. We have duties and responsibilities that we can not abandon. Not for anything.”
Yukari brushed past Mima. The gesture wasn’t very rough at all, but Mima felt it come at her hard. As Yukari opened the door, she looked back at Mima and gestured to her to follow.
“Let’s go.”
Orin did not want much from life.
There was Satori, her master, who she cared about deeply. There was Okuu, her best friend, who she loved. There was Koishi, the younger sister of her master, who she felt obligated to take care of. And of course, there was her job of transporting corpses, which she could do endlessly and without tiring. Those things more or less encompassed everything she cared about—Orin was a simple person.
So as she crawled out the emergency hatch located at the top of the ship her master had so recklessly buried into a sand dune, she couldn’t help but feel so hopelessly out of her depth. With a groan, she hoisted herself over the lip of the hatch before losing her balance and tumbling over.
As she tumbled downward, bumping her head against every little edge the ship had on her way down, the visor to her suit cracked and then shattered. But as she flopped down into the warm sand, her arms and legs spread in a state of absolute fatigue, she couldn’t really bring herself to care about the warning tones in her helmet—or the fact she was able to breathe the air here, in what used to be the void. Frankly, all she could think about was how much she wanted to go home.
“Orin! Are you okay?” A familiar voice called from somewhere outside her field of vision. It was followed by the hasty clattering of boots on metal as they no doubt clambered down the ship in a hurry.
All Orin could offer in response was a weak grunt and the extension of a thumbs up.
“Are… are you insane?” Another voice called soon after, all breathless and hoarse. It cracked with exertion, as if it had already been worn out by so much screaming. “Satori, what form of devil possessed you to do that? We could’ve all died!”
Satori, of course, didn’t respond. Not before she entered Orin’s field of view, her own helmet long since thrown away. Her face was etched with a rare look of concern, and she breathed a deep sigh of relief when she saw Orin manage a weak smile. Wordlessly, Satori jostled off the smashed helmet from Orin’s suit and brushed away any remaining debris… before pulling her into a tight embrace.
Orin, dazed and shocked from the crash, could manage little else than to rest her head upon her master’s shoulders as she was pulled in. But through whatever stores of energy she had left, she managed to raise her arms and wrap them around in loose reciprocation.
“I’m okay,” she whispered. “I’m okay.”
Satori pulled back from the hug, but stayed kneeling by Orin’s side. Cautiously, she looked to the horizon, as if she had caught a vanishing glimpse of something stalking them from behind the shifting sands. She extended an elbow for Orin to grab on to. “Let’s go. Can you stand?”
“I… I think so,” Orin mumbled, hooking one of her arms around Satori’s elbow and placing a hand on her shoulder for support. Her master lifted, and in response Orin tried her best to stumble onto her feet, with mixed results. As she straightened herself out with the help of Satori, she heard her bones shift and crackle in strange ways—followed by an absolute lightning strike of localized pain in the leg and the fuzzy static that came to replace it.
After a sharp intake of breath and a pained wince, Orin settled into a decidedly unconvincing posture—she plastered a smile on her face and shifted all of her weight onto the other leg in a poor imitation of nonchalance, but Satori’s face only got graver. It broke Orin’s heart. For a moment, Orin tried to separate herself from her master so she could stand on her own—but Satori only squeezed her in closer, as if she would’ve lost Orin the second she let go.
That didn’t surprise Orin much. She knew better than anyone that the events one year ago were still fresh in her master’s mind. Even now, it haunted her every action, and now the consequences were starting to catch up with everyone involved. But to Orin, that didn’t matter. It never did—not so long as Satori was her master, and Orin was her pet. Satori could march to the deepest pit of Hell, pick a fight with a God, oppose reality itself… and Orin would march along right beside her, no matter what.
Patchouli, on the other hand, did not share the same sentiment. She marched up to the two, at least temporarily uncaring of the fantastical environment they found themselves in, and went straight to airing out her grievances.
“Recklessly engaging with Toyohime like that, against all better logic… one day, and this day might very well come sooner than you think, your obsession with that cursed woman will hurt someone you care about,” Patchouli snapped. As she looked to Orin, whose body was riddled with evidence of blunt trauma, her expression softened. “... It already has.”
“As if we had any other choice. It was our best shot to kill her, once and for all,” Satori replied, stone-faced and cold. “... Besides, let Orin speak for herself. As if you know what she does and doesn’t wish for.”
“... Orin wasn’t the only person who got hurt. Or killed.”
“It just so happens that Eirin conveniently falls outside my definition of ‘people I care about.’ I fail to see the issue.” Satori snorted with disgust, as if offended by the mere implication. Orin wanted to speak up and cut between the fighting, but couldn’t find the strength to oppose her own master. “That aside, who says I was the one who got her killed? She got herself killed, following her own incomprehensible mess of half-baked ideas and strategies. What are you coming at me for?”
“How could you be so cold toward someone like her? Especially since we were all fighting out there together, as comrades? Have you no shame?”
“I’ve no love for her. Not after what she did to my sister.” Satori stared straight into Patchouli’s eyes. Sometimes her master was like this—staring straight ahead through a person, as if judging the content of their soul itself. Sometimes, this was literally the case, given that she made liberal use of her opened third eye. “We might be fighting beside each other, but we’re fighting for completely different things. Yukari, Eirin, Kaguya, even you and I—we’re all fighting for something different. Those are just the facts. Just as it was a fact that Koakuma had darkness in her heart. It’s that kind of fact.”
“How cynical. Aren’t we friends?”
Satori fixed Patchouli with a steady glare as she thought through her answer. Even with an open eye, Orin found her master’s thought process difficult to parse.
“... No. We aren’t,” Satori settled. “It’s not a secret—I’m fighting to get my sister back. I’m fighting to kill the person who turned her into a monster. I’m fighting to protect my family. You are doing none of those things—you’re fighting for a more abstract reason: protecting the world, or preventing human suffering, or whatever other justification you assign to your actions. It’s admirable, but recognize that It’s only by convenience that we’re here, helping each other out.”
“... Is that right?” Patchouli muttered under her breath. “Then if it came between Yukari, or Eirin, or me, or anyone else… and your family. Who would you choose?”
Silence.
“It’s best to be honest with ourselves. It saves us the heartache.”
“I see.”
In the silence that came after, the atmosphere seemed to become heavier. Orin spent each passing beat being suffocated by the pressure. Her eyes darted from Patchouli to her master, and then back again.
“Er…” Orin started. “Let’s ah… could we just figure out what we’re going to do next, maybe? Without fighting—that would be nice.”
“Good plan, Orin,” Satori said. Though strangely enough, she wouldn’t take her eyes off of Patchouli. “I’m not quite sure what we would do without you.”
Patchouli looked away. Orin couldn’t help but feel vaguely responsible—though the second the thought even popped into mind, Satori squeezed a little tighter, as if in reassurance.
“... There’s no use in arguing,” Patchouli said with a heavy sigh. “Or rather, it’s a subject for later, when we aren’t all in danger. For now, I agree—we should figure out our next steps.”
The guns had long since run quiet.
Those satellites—their powerful bodies forged by the greatest minds, cast in the strongest metals, and mounted with the fiercest weapons humanity could muster—how could they have possibly matched the horror of God’s wrath? They could never, and for their hubris, their bodies and their souls were scattered and broken as a million glittering lights upon the ocean.
Those were the kinds of things Kaguya Houraisan thought about as she sat beside a flickering fire, her only source of light deep in the darkness of a desert night, not a few meters from the turned and battered wreckage of the CNS Beyond the Sun. In the void, It was battered by unseen force, turned three times—and upon the fourth, struck down and consumed by the void, as was the divine will of God. To its crew, it might have seemed like nothing less than a castigation of divine nature—but Kaguya knew it was nothing more than the temper tantrum of a child. As infant children must necessarily cry, Koishi must necessarily kill—it was her unconscious will.
Woe upon humanity, as its greatest accomplishment was brought low and made worthless before a child. Her own child. What a dubious honor it was—being the mother of such a terrifying, omnipresent killer.
Kaguya was on the ship when it was attacked by Toyohime. She was there to see Eirin march on to meet her. And she was there to see her die. It didn’t bother Kaguya too much—after all, she had watched Eirin die countless times. She will likely watch her die countless more, before all is said and done. But it was there, seized by the temporary shock, that Kaguya lost consciousness. When she woke up, she was deep within the fresh wreckage of humanity’s greatest weapon—alone. On what happened to her crew, and why Kaguya was spared, she could only make guesses.
With no direction and no plan, Kaguya spent what felt like hours wandering the claustrophobic halls of that great metal cage of a ship. But she was alone. Alone in such a way that not even the impression of humanity remained. Even the spot where she saw three men become atomized by Toyohime’s attack, which had burnt dark impressions of their silhouettes into the steel, was mysteriously void of any sign they were killed at all. The damage remained, but the people were gone—erased from existence in a way only God could manage.
When she eventually emerged from the dark recesses of the ship into a darker night, with nothing but the stars above and the inexplicable ground below, she could do nothing but start a simple fire. The night was cold, and she had a feeling it would be long. Warmth would be needed.
This, alone and huddled by a dying fire, must have been the end. Kaguya shifted closer to the flame, and held her knees closer to her chest. She didn’t know what to do. When her own daughter had sought her out, she didn’t know what to say. All she could do was recognize—that in pursuit of an easy life, she had made things so much worse. She wondered if it was too late to make things right between herself and Koishi. If Kaguya had looked up to her daughter now, and said sorry, would she hear? Would she care?
She wasn’t sure. And she wasn’t sure if she wanted to find out.
As she stared at the stars above, Kaguya heard the shuffling of boots displacing the sand. The sounds came in an irregular, halting motion. When it came to a stop, Kaguya lowered her gaze to the figure who stood at the edge of her fire’s light.
A moon rabbit in a pilot suit, all ripped up, tattered, and blackened by combat. In the gaps of her suit, her skin had melted away from severe burns—and froze in place, creating large patches of gangrenous tissue that covered her body. As Kaguya’s eyes drifted downward, she noticed a patch of body that had a view to the other side. Somehow, by some miracle of medicine, the wound remained stable and closed.
Her face was concealed by her helmet, tinted and patterned by a spider web of cracks, but by the way she stood, so still and lopsided, Kaguya had the impression of an empty gaze just behind the facade.
The moon rabbit carried in her left hand a revolver, its chambers empty and on display as the mechanism that connected the grip to the top half of the hung loose. In her other hand, was an ax, splintered in half at the handle from excessive use and its blade caked in a thick layer of blood.
Without a word, the moon rabbit collapsed into a heap by the fire.
Kaguya rushed to the moon rabbit’s side and, upon removing her helmet, froze.
Atonement—she wondered if it was even possible.
Previous Chapter:
Interim Chapter 11

Hello, Initially as a demo to help me learn more with Javascript, but now more a curiosity to see it be done, I've attempted to make a HTML landing page that fetches and embeds content from 3rd party sites to itself. (Think like a section of the page the user can give a URL to, allow the user to select a specific element or section of HTML on the foreign site, then that selection will be displayed in the section on the home page.) I initially presumed this a simple task, but CORS policies have become an issue for me, and iframes, objects, and embed tags will not render many sites either. Every resource I've found online has run into this same issue: CORS or otherwise blocking embeds.
I have an idea of using locally running node to act as a proxy, to make the request then forward site data to the landing page, but I see that becoming more complicated than I'd like very quickly, and Puppeteer and Selenium introduce other browser instances, and I would like to keep it all running within the user's browser if at all possible. Perhaps an extension? I've found myself stuck on this.
I've searched for similar solutions but I wonder if I am overthinking this (or misunderstanding the technology), and so I'd like to ask for your thoughts on this.
What are some ideas/resources I could pursue to successfully embed foreign HTML into my own page?
Thank you for your time.

so i've been talking with this girl for a little bit and she's really sweet, funny, is into playing music like i am, just all around a cool girl. so after a while of talking she wants to meet up finally and i did cause well i like her. she is trans and pre-op, so i had some hesitation due to past trauma from a sexual assault. i've done a lot of work on myself and come a long way on that though.
so the first night we were making out and then she wanted to go further. i was fine with it at that point and kinda knew what she wanted coming into this anyways. so i was mentally prepared and ready to just take things slow.
i'm mostly bottom and looking back on it o realized that most the time i had my eyes closed, blocked, or looking up. she's very beautiful and really does make me want to do more with her. still every time i'd look more directly at her i didn't see a strap, i saw her.
i kinda blew that sign off and took the good time for what it was. i felt like i had really gotten over a big hurdle that night!
the next day i had a flashback or two but nothing that brought me too out of the moment. another day goes by and we'd been texting and she was going to come by to smoke and watch some movies. i started my period today though and the mood swings really hit halfway through.
tonight we ended up getting hooking up again and i didn't think much of it. as we did though i did the same thing of not being able to look. this time she mentioned docks a lot more too which kinda was triggering for me. i really didn't want to just turn that on her though especially after talking for so long and already hooking up once.
at the end i told her i just wanted to cuddle so we did, watched a movie, then she went home. i know i can't go on romantically with her. she's so sweet and really is beautiful, i just can't put her through that.
in the end i'm just not really sure what to tell her. i feel really horrible about getting her into this situation. i thought i was fine enough but i'm not. i've been getting a lot more flashbacks tonight and have been very out of it. im just not sure how to address this at this point.
i'd really hate to tell her a rape from a man is not allowing me to sleep with her.
TLDR: met a nice, pretty, trans women and hooked up twice. first time went well but second kept brining flashbacks. not sure how to communicate that i can't continue romantically but it isn't her with light dropping the ptsd from rape bomb on her.

so i've been talking with this girl for a little bit and she's really sweet, funny, is into playing music like i am, just all around a cool girl. so after a while of talking she wants to meet up finally and i did cause well i like her. she is trans and pre-op, so i had some hesitation due to past trauma from a sexual assault. i've done a lot of work on myself and come a long way on that though.
so the first night we were making out and then she wanted to go further. i was fine with it at that point and kinda knew what she wanted coming into this anyways. so i was mentally prepared and ready to just take things slow.
i'm mostly bottom and looking back on it o realized that most the time i had my eyes closed, blocked, or looking up. she's very beautiful and really does make me want to do more with her. still every time i'd look more directly at her i didn't see a strap, i saw her.
i kinda blew that sign off and took the good time for what it was. i felt like i had really gotten over a big hurdle that night!
the next day i had a flashback or two but nothing that brought me too out of the moment. another day goes by and we'd been texting and she was going to come by to smoke and watch some movies. i started my period today though and the mood swings really hit halfway through.
tonight we ended up getting hooking up again and i didn't think much of it. as we did though i did the same thing of not being able to look. this time she mentioned docks a lot more too which kinda was triggering for me. i really didn't want to just turn that on her though especially after talking for so long and already hooking up once.
at the end i told her i just wanted to cuddle so we did, watched a movie, then she went home. i know i can't go on romantically with her. she's so sweet and really is beautiful, i just can't put her through that.
in the end i'm just not really sure what to tell her. i feel really horrible about getting her into this situation. i thought i was fine enough but i'm not. i've been getting a lot more flashbacks tonight and have been very out of it. im just not sure how to address this at this point.
i'd really hate to tell her a rape from a man is not allowing me to sleep with her.
TLDR: met a nice, pretty, trans women and hooked up twice. first time went well but second kept brining flashbacks. not sure how to communicate that i can't continue romantically but it isn't her with light dropping the ptsd from rape bomb on her.

I (22F) am awake typing this because I can’t sleep no matter how long I lay here. This is the most ridiculous and horrific experience I have, and hopefully will, ever had. My sister (17F) started dating her boyfriend (16M) in June of 2022. He’s a junior and he’s a senior, and me and my sister are very close but she never mentioned anything about him to me at first because she was embarrassed that he was younger. I had a bad feeling about this from the beginning, esp bc of my sister graduating soon, but I brushed it off.
We’re a traditional Pakistani Muslim family, kids born here but my parents immigrated. Dating for us girls is absolute taboo and I always thought if one of us were caught it would end up with us moving to Pakistan. Her bf is a nice kid and I liked him. My sister would be pretty risky about seeing him and I always had a feeling she’d get caught. Never like this though.
His parents found out first (they’re Indian, not strict on dating like my parents) and his mom actually was supportive at first. She met my sister and liked her. Somewhere though the moms brain switched and she started hating my sister. I think she was definitely jealous of her in some weird twisted way. She started telling him to break up with her and finally pushed him to do it - obviously they didn’t and just faked the breakup. His mom caught him a few times and would get mad at him every time until she finally took his phone away. My sister then gave him her old phone to still talk to him and his mom found that quickly, and really had it out for my sister. His mom threatened to contact our parents, but despite all of this they still kept talking and even got caught in my car at one point after this.
I invited him to my bday dinner, where I wore a mini dress. I have my mom blocked on Instagram so I thought I was safe posting pictures from the dinner. Fast forward and the bf gets rlly sick (coughing, sneezing, pooping, and peeing blood) to which a stupid ER doctor told him he was gonna die (70% chance???). Since then it’s been downhill. My sister was worried sick for weeks thinking he was gonna die, and his parents kept neglecting him and refused to allow him admission into the hospital. I was ready to call DCF at this point but I held out. Then soon after his parents found out he was still talking to my sister and beat him with a rod of metal. He then ran away from home and stayed with a friends house for a few days. During this time he would spend hours talking to my sister and convincing her with “evidence” that he would be murdered when he went back home. We were like okay, let’s call the cops then. He refused to get anyone involved and just “accepted his fate” essentially. The decline my sister took during these days was so insane and I was really worried her health and about this kid actually dying, so I sent a email detailing the abuse to the school. I felt responsible as an adult knowing that this kid was beat up and sick and certain his parents would kill him - I felt I had to do something. The parents of the friend that he was staying at had already contacted the school which got the police involved, but nobody detailed the abuse, including the parents and him. I was hoping this could get them arrested for neglect and abuse, but the bf denied everything and got upset with me. The police visited his house and questioned his parents, and I think somewhere in this situation my name may have been mentioned. This will def teach me to not meddle again, or if I do at least do it anonymously.
Fast forward, he goes home and isn’t killed (wow!) and they actually had a real break up conversation this past weekend. He shows his mom and everything seems to be okay. I guess she wanted the last laugh because she found our home address and pulled up and told my mom everything. My mom hasn’t talked to us about what she said yet but I’ve never seen her so upset. She thinks that my sister and her bf had sex, and I have a huge feeling she showed her pictures from my Instagram because she took his phone multiple times and he follows me on Instagram; my mom also said I wasn’t out of the woods either so she def saw something. Probably that mini dress picture from my bday or something. His mom even went as far as insulting my mom to her face because she thought she was “incompetent” for letting us wild out like this.
This all feels surreal. I never thought anything like this would ever happen. If anyone has advice for me that would be great. She said she’s probably gonna tell my dad everything, which is the last nail in the coffin because if he finds out it’s really over. We will def move back to Pakistan. This is just such a horrible situation and I rlly hope if I sleep this nightmare will be over.
TLDR; my sisters bfs parents are abusive and exposed her (with the fact that she has a bf) and me (with my inappropriate outfits probably) to my traditional Muslim paki mom. Our lives are over and I can’t sleep.

i have a ender quarry with the items being transported by a tesseract to my village and then put into my ME system, it was working for awhile then i wake up this morning and it stopped working, here are screenshots but if i swap the tesseract with a chest at home and fill it with the same blocks it feeds just fine and if i put the tesseract going into a chest it fills just fine, so i have no idea what the issue is, i could feed the tesseract into a chest then export bus that into the me but i think it would cause alot of clogging and be slow