This is the updated version of u/mykeedee's wonderful guide written with their express persmission.
Whilst most of the contents of the guide are still golden, the mod has gone through a lot of changes since 2020, prompting me to write this update. As such, I would like to humbly introduce the 2023 edition with OP's from the original.
"Ever wanted to be an invincible Mary Sue slaughtering your way across Tamriel and dominating the continent without cheating or dying? Well unlike in Vanilla CK2 Elder Kings has a defined path to success for this outcome with zero RNG involved. Many of us have done this, but there's a bit of inherent knowledge of the mechanics required to do it with minimal headaches, hence this guide.
This is a guide for people who own Jade Dragon, don't ask how if you don't have it because I don't know."
The guide is tooled towards making you a high-stat Legendary Pureblooded Vampire Mage. A legendary mage can remove bad congenital traits, add positive ones, and amongst the many OP benefits of being a mage in the Elder Scrolls. A Pureblooded Vampire is immortal, can sire children, and will never be exposed as one unless if you feed or tell a friend/lover.
AI can be set at extreme handicap, the AI having more money is ironically a good thing for you

Step One: Selecting your starting position.

The strat is going to require an immense amount of cash. As raiding is not limited to certain religions in EK1, you would want to play someone coastal and could raid literally everywhere, a patrician, or ideally both. Whilst you could technically do this strat as genuinely anyone in Mundus, you are going to look real silly trying to raid anyone as a single-holding count in the middle of Alinor.

Step Two: Selecting your natural lifespan.

The ruler designer ages you per good trait and de-ages you per bad trait. Playing as a long-lived mer is obviously the best foil to this caveat and you could simply ignore this guide to play as a 70 year old genetically perfect bosmer. However, the guide also works excellently for short-lived races (if you're not actively trying to age your character) or for starting off as a 16 year old elf.

Step Three: Designing your character.

Traits:
You are NOT to gain vampirism and immortality from ruler designer. As such, ignore all of the vampire traits. You are however looking towards becoming a legendary mage. To do so you will start your character, STRICTLY, as Experienced Mage.
For positive traits, especially congenitals, we recommend the following as they are either impossible or an extreme b*tch to get and are remarkably valuable

• Genius - can't be magicked by Legendary Mage
• Tall - can't be magicked by Legendary Mage
• Lucky - can't be magicked by Legendary Mage
• Left Handed - can't be magicked by Legendary Mage
• Shrewd - an extreme b*tch to get. Practically unobtainable within your own life time
• Daedric Scion - you are some daedric prince's spawn.
• Erudite - an extreme b*tch to get. Practically unobtainable within your own life time
• Any of the character history traits - You will start off as 16 year old child of who knows what. You want to add any of these in, I prefer Former Soldier
• Your preferred Birthsign

For negative traits, especially congenitals, we recommend the following as they are removable, insignificant, or can be dealt with

• All of the bad congenitals (dark bluish purple background in icons) except dwarf, inbred, slow/imbecile, unlucky - can be magicked away by Master Mage and replaced by good congenitals by Legendary Mage
• Bastard/Adopted - get both. A ruler designed character has no parents and the negatives are cancelled by your super high stats.
• Drunkard, Lunatic, Possessed - can be magicked away by Master Mage
• Uncouth - can be removed and even replaced with Groomed by being a member of the Scenarists
• Gluttonous, Arbitrary, Craven, Slothful - will be removed by the passage of time
• Cruel - is actually a positive if you want to become a Necromancer

This is a risky trait to add but if you think you're lucky and will gain magicka early, go take Scurvy which you will be curing ASAP.
Stats:
Put a base 10 points in all your stats, then pump your Total Learning to at least 30 and put what's left into Martial. Anything north of 50 martial will ensure your char is a nightmare to beat when leading an army. Add 5 clicks to fertility if you want an easier time spawning kids.
If you've stacked so many negative traits, you would notice that your char is still 16 years old. If this is so, go wild in dumping points into Martial until around 90 at most as the designer will Stack Overflow your Martial back to zero if you go anywhere above that. At 80+ martial, your ruler will practically win every single battle.
Here are some more recommendations for the stat dumps after 80-90 Martial, rationale, and ranked by importance

• IMPORTANT - Dump some points into Intrigue until reaching a total somewhere north of 36-40. this will make it easier to do jobs as a member of the Thieves Guild or the local version of it
• Important - Dump some points into Learning until reaching somewhere north of 45-50 for a larger Magicka pool. You will need it. A bit higher if you want to be a Necromancer.
• Somewhat less important - A Stewardship skill of 40-50+ improved by boosts from Black Book quests will give you enough Demesne Limit to personally hold all the tower holdings (White-Gold, Greensap, Adamantine, Crystal-Like), and get an impressive income as a patrician
• Unimportant - Just have a base of 18-20 for Diplomacy. By the end of this guide, your vassals should immensely like/fear you regardless.

Keep dumping points into stats/traits until your character ceases to be 16 years old.
Religion
Publicly-worshipping short lived mortals gain a discount for Favor (Ardor ingame) interactions. If you want to save time as a short lived race and is fine with the likelihood of becoming middle aged, start off as publicly Cult of Hermaeus Mora. Elsewise, start off as publicly Cult of Molag Bal. Either works as you are going to be worshipping both of these in sequence.
Why are we worshipping Hermaeus Mora - We are going to use the Oghma Infinium twice to graduate our Experienced Mage to Master Mage then to Legendary Mage. We can also use the Black Book events to boost our stats even further.
Why are we worshipping Molag Bal - To gain Pureblooded Vampirism

Step Four: Playing the Game

To gain benefits from Daedric Princes, we have to spend Ardor. To gain Ardor, we would have to sacrifice a ton of Artifacts. As the PC has no cost-efficient ways to craft artifacts for sacrifice, we would have to steal these from elsewhere in the world.
So upon starting the game, you are to join your local Thieves Guild or version of it. Upon joining, you will be given the option to personally steal artifacts, as long as the target is located in the same continent, as opposed to having someone else doing it for you. If you've started off with an impressively high score in Intrigue, you will successfully steal the following artifacts around 95% of the time and at markedly lower cost. These artifacts are usually the easiest to steal, the most prevalent, and are ordered according to my subjective ranking by cost-efficiency

1. Silver Ring - steal for 25-50 drakes, sacrificed for 150 Ardor.
2. Superior Mithril Armour - steal for 75-150 drakes, sacrificed for 400 ardor
3. Superior Steel Sword - steal for 25-50 drakes, sacrifice for 100 ardor
4. Mithril Armour - steal for 75-150 drakes, sacrificed for 300 ardor

As stealing requires gold, gold will be gained either by raiding or trade posts. If you're a patrician near or a non-patrician on the Imperial Isle, slap a trade post on there IMMEDIATELY and forget it until later. In this time of the game, gold is mostly gained by raiding.
Whilst you start off as an unbeatable 80+ Martial god, you will still need the numbers to raid down holdings. I suggest dabbling into Necromancy and summoning up risen dead armies for this purpose, unless if you started out as a King/Emperor with an acceptable amount of vassal levies. Do take care as learning Necromancy quickly, and the Necromancer's Ring and Necromancer's Amulet, comes with a significant semi-temporary health malus. So cure that Scurvy ASAP using Expert Mage.
So the gameplay is

1. a loop of raiding, stealing an artifact, sacrificing to daedric prince
2. once you have gained what you need from the respective prince (reminder: two uses of Oghma Infinium for Hermaeus, one request for Pureblooded vampirism from Molag), take Scholarship focus, build Observatory, study Oblivion, and secretly convert to the other prince. Alternatively, you can secretly convert if you personally own a county that is the other prince's holy site.
3. a loop of raiding, stealing an artifact, sacrificing to daedric prince. if mastelegendary mage, simultaneously improve your congenitals (get brawny, strong, perceptive, agile, powerful/melodious voice, attractive, hardy)
4. once you have gained what you need from the respective prince (reminder: two uses of Oghma Infinium for Hermaeus, one request for Pureblooded vampirism from Molag), the world is your oyster. You are now the most dangerous being in Aurbis, a Legendary Pureblooded Vampire mage.

That's it

My grandmother was a baby when the coup took place. Her father, my great grandfather, was a tailor in the city. He could be frequently seen debating about many different topics at the main intellectual hangout spots of the time, where there was a very clear left leaning sentiment. He was a member of the workers' socialist party, one of the more mainstream and moderate leftist parties at the time. When the uprising got to the city and the fascists took over he was imprisoned. The charges against him were of political nature and at some point, like thousands of others in his situation, he was set to be executed by a firing squad. He was luckier than many of his friends, because thanks to the testimony of a few people who defended him on account of his kind nature he was spared and set free after a few months of very rough conditions (he already was a skinny man, but in a picture taken shortly after his release he looked like David Byrne in his big suit). Life wasn't the same for him afterwards, he lost many of his clients, and whenever some important political figure came into town he was one of the people who were preemptively incarcerated for a few days. He passed before the return of democracy to our country.
My grandfather was around ten years old when the war started. He lived in a small village in the countryside, where his parents and siblings worked the land. The conflict arrived there later than most places, but when it did its effect wasn't greater than that of a gust of wind, or a drizzle. Several men with rifles came to the village and my great grandfather signed wherever he had to sign in order to avoid problems with these armed soldiers. In this case they were fascists, so my great grandfather became a member of the fascist party to show that he wasn't a threat. The soldiers left and life went on, they kept living in the same small village, working the same land, suffering the same struggles. It was that easy, not the slightest hint of pushback against what would be a military dictatorship that would submerge the country in decades of brutal oppression.
Once a country has a somewhat stable system set in place, I don't know to what extent one political party being in charge rather than another can truly make society better or worse, or if they can at all and it's not just a pantomime where publicity and manipulation of the public have people fighting over unimportant laws while the massive institutional structures maintain course relatively unbothered. Do I really have a part to play in all that? "The left wing is dissolving the social fabric that kept our society stable". "The right wing is going to defund every single public service that involves helping those in need". I really don't know.
When I recently told someone that I didn't vote because I didn't feel like it, he tried to shame me through the words of his grandfather: "A lot of people have died for you to have the right to vote". I didn't have the heart to defend myself and start an argument because I could feel the emotional depth in the way he said it, a depth I understood. I don't know if I'll vote in the next election. I just might. For those who couldn't.

Here is a lil story about the last year of my life... I wonder if the crazy stalker I married for all this crap to blow up will find it... but it is a testimonial that has been provided to an officer friend of mine just in case.
To whom it may concern:
I am writing out this testimonial in the event that my wife pursues unjustified legal action against me.
A year ago my wife and I had separated due to unresolvable issues… during that time frame she was contacting previous relationships and family members trying to get them to admit to actions on my behalf that never occurred… such as sexual abuse to family members or physical abuse to ex relationships.
Accusations were made by her making claims I had been in contact with her ex boyfriend and was conspiring with him to upload “nude” photo’s of her and that he was doing the same because their relationship “ended badly” and she had read a random post on reddit about a lady that was being recorded previously.
I had asked to see said post but by that time the post had “miraculously disappeared” so no evidence of said post could be found. From there accusations were made by my wife accusing me of recording her 24/7 and watching her. Later she had made comments to a neighbor that was a friend of ours saying that the landlord was also recording everyone and watching them.
She had contacted family to get her and her animals to move back to Arnprior. Throughout a 6 month period I would receive texts with wild accusations about how movies were based on her life… crazy individuals in said movies were me and that we had to discuss what was going on.
She had also requested that I send her a few of her items via Purolator however I did not because anytime she made said request… the next day she would be telling people I was intolerant to transgender… potentially a serial killer and many other disgusting false accusations to my character.
Finally I had gone over a month without hearing from her, started to get my life back in order… then our anniversary came around and she had contacted me again with a complete tone shift… she wasn’t making any wild accusations against me but she apologized admitting her head was in the wrong place… and that her grandfather was very ill and she missed me.
So we got to talking again… I got emotional feeling like I was hearing my old wife again… loving, caring, compassionate… still a little “out there” but hearing the genuine… her in the tone of her voice… from there we continued to talk over the phone for a few months… things were getting a bit rocky but when she got very stressed about what was going on in Arnprior… she would slip into a manic state…
She had talked about how she was special… god is a space whale talking to her… and she needed to build a space catapult to benefit man kind and to show the world that she was more capable than anyone ever gave her credit for… also claiming she is highly intelligent but has just been hiding it from the world.
At this point I had relapsed back to the emotional I want my wife back… I want my family back state so my judgement got bad at this point… she clearly wasn’t all there so to speak but after about a month of talking on the phone my only concern was to “get my wife home” and try to help her with the relentless love method… express my appreciation… pride for her… etc etc almost hourly.
She had finally made it back home with the help of one of my friends… unfortunately she had set my friend off during the drive because the duration of the trip my wife was… well saying how one of my coworkers was dangerous because he had a bad alcohol issue and cocaine habit during his depression…
This set my friend off because my friend knows this particular gentleman and his struggles and knows he isn’t a bad guy at all… so she quickly shut down that conversation… I gave my friend 250$ as appreciation for her bringing my wife home.
When she got back into the house… immediately it felt like she had never left… in the sense she didn’t need any readjusting period despite being gone for so long… as soon as she was back in the place she was already proceeding to set it to her fashion… which I didn’t mind I wanted her to feel at home because for me it was her home too despite everything.
She had lost her financial backing with ODSP due to dishonesty and not following their instructions in regards to a house she had half ownership with a previous relationship with but she had just signed over the place to him to quickly sort that matter however she couldn’t do that in Arnprior as the office was located in Renfrew for ODSP.
After getting settled for a few months she had gone to talk to ODSP as per my instructions to get back on as… she was causing tension financially so to speak. I wanted to keep my wife happy at that time… so I was spending money to keep her happy or attempts to… but later she started saying it was causing a financial sword over our heads… and the things I got her pissed her off more because as she put it… she should be able to do this stuff for herself and “not have a man do it”… from there getting angry at myself and the government for her financial situation or lack there of.
It did bug me I was working my ass off to support my wife and her pets… and when mention of wanting a pet of my own I was denied because we “couldn’t afford it”… but she wanted karate lessons, she wanted supplies for arts n crafts… she wanted to try variations of foods for her health benefits and when they didn’t pan out (none of them did) it’d just cause more issues.
She began to fall back into her old habits… living in her own filth… mountains of used Kleenex… sleeping all day, doing nothing to really contribute… I didn’t mind because I thought I was helping my wife get rest… then it felt like she was just out to find any reason to literally scream at me… We had spent many years enjoying open world survival games together, does a lot of exploring… It got to the point anytime her character got attacked I was accused of abandoning her… not just in the game but suddenly now I was doing it in real life too… I explained to her it’s a game, and I am there for her when I can… both virtually AND in reality… as you can imagine that was not met with kindness or understanding.
From there I was accused of not understanding the situation and not listening… that day I came home from work after an entire day of horrifically heartless texts from her, to find her gone… nothing but a passive aggressive painting of a black streak across a white canvas… her non married initials signing the work and a letter stating that since I didn’t understand anything maybe this painting will spell it out for me.
She later returned to not say a thing, just stormed off to the room to give the silent treatment (take a nap) then woke up hours later to aggressively inquire if I got the hint… I just apologized… didn’t want to set her off more and there was nothing I could say that will make her feel better… or less hostile… so I swallowed my pride as guys seem to be taught to do against losing battles. Then later came out informing me to shut up… don’t talk… don’t move… don’t even breathe… “Shut the fuck up and listen to me”… and I did…
From there she grew more angry… I would attempt to take her out for breakfast… a nice walk during nice days… and it didn’t matter… if she saw someone walking their dog without a leash regardless of how well trained the dog was she would flip out for the rest of the day about how it’s irresponsible, that dog was probably the dog that bit a squirrels tail (there was a stumpy tailed squirrel in the park) and how the lady was probably a horrible mother to her kids… just completely scattershot anger.
By this point I was frustrated… I worked my ass off daily to make her happy, feed her and her animals, and all I was getting was spite and hatred… I couldn’t talk to her about anything or anyone because it would set her off… I was done at this point, saying how all she did was find some reason to get angry… insult my coworkers (the troubled guy)… and all she could say was it was my fault… I make the world seem so horrible… I made those people sound so horrible… I had mentioned my coworkers bad habits but defended him stating he went through hell… he’s not a bad guy, I listed off all the wonderful things he did for complete strangers… that wasn’t met with understanding… I was accused of doing cocaine, hanging out with the guy doing bad things and that I was JUST as bad as he was for defending his troubles… I wasn’t defending I was understanding.
By this point I was so broken down she had stopped to ask me one night… and I saw the blank emotionless expression on her face and deep down I knew she was in a manic state… but asked me… “Do you hate me?” I said no… I love you… but I hate the way you escalate everything… a walk in the park can destroy your day… nice things ive done for you… you found a way to turn that against me and make me feel bad for trying to love and take care of you. I don’t hate you but I don’t feel like you love me… honestly I feel like you hate me.
She escalated it… screaming how she doesn’t feel loved, she feels like I’m treating her like a ticking time bomb and I cant just BUY her affection with trinkets… I never honestly bought her anything short of a massager for her pains… everything else she had specifically asked me to purchase with some speech about why she needed it… I was literally begging her at this point not to escalate… HEAR MY WORDS… PLEASE… She stormed off to the room yet again… I didn’t want to share a bed with her so I slept on the couch… I also had to work in the morning time.
I woke up early in the morning at around 6 for my shift at 8am… she was up, hopping in the shower, saying she’s going out (she never goes out) and she doesn’t want to be here with me here cause I “hate” her. I proceeded to inform her I didn’t want her there anymore… I didn’t want to keep being a scapegoat for her unresolved traumas… yea bad thing to say but that’s essentially what was happening… generally happens between folks and still happens to me this day… severity depends on the person screaming at me… So while I was in the washroom before going to work she storms out of the room screaming “YOU NARCASSISTIC RAPIST ASSHOLE!”… I was done by then, I’ve taken a lot of her false accusations over when she left the first time… and since she returned…
I got out of the bathroom informed her she needs to leave!... and went to work while getting her screaming and trying to chase me out the door. From there she proceeded to post lies about what happened… so at this point I got annoyed… temporarily changed the wifi password because she didn’t pay for it anyways and I wasn’t offering it up to someone blasting me with lies on the internet…
By the time I returned home from work I changed it back because I knew she needed internet to find her way out of my home… she didn’t realize… said I was trying to trap her there and left to go sit at tim hortons. I had sent her a message saying I did change it back before I even got home but you didn’t notice clearly… but I changed it back BECAUSE I don’t want you to stay and I know you needed it to find someone.
She came back a few hours later grabbing her stuff and her dog… asked me to watch her cat till she could return for her… Which I did, I loved Carrie and despite my wifes accusations of me being abusive towards animals in the past and a public reddit post that had also stated that her pets were scared of me… she clearly wasn’t concerned about leaving her cat with me… and rightfully so, I fed her when I woke up and fed her again when I went to sleep until she came and collected her.
This time around I didn’t say bye to the cat like I did the first time she left… holding Carrie and bawling my eyes out cause I didn’t want… any emotional farewells… She came back with a notoriously known junkie in town whom she was moving in with. This lady was apparently in an abused women’s group so my wife had given her some sob speech I’d imagine… the boo hoo my husband is abusing me when the reality was quite the opposite.
She had started showing up in my apartment when I wasn’t there with this individual I didn’t trust with good reason (she later stole from my work… or her sleazy drug addled boy toy).. so I had informed my wife I didn’t want her showing up with this lady while I wasn’t there because at this point I didn’t trust ANY of them.
December 9th she had contacted the police for an escort to pick up her stuff… saying how I wasn’t allowing her to, I was being unreasonable all because I asked she didn’t do it with her friend when I wasn’t there… hell she had the option to come alone when I wasn’t there if that made it easier… but she didn’t feel “safe” so she came by collected her things with the police, I stood outside chatting with them… they didn’t seem too impressed with her and rightfully so with what followed..
The officer had informed me that she had reported that I was sharing explicit pictures of her… but she didn’t have anyone SAY I was… didn’t have any evidence stating I was (cause I wasn’t) but she wanted it to stop… how the hell would she think I could stop anything if I never started it… so I informed the officer any “loving” pictures I had from my wife that she voluntarily (and did) send me… were long gone and she knew that… Officer said okay she will let her know… and everyone parted ways.
I started up my night schedule with work a month or so later to find a pounding on my door at 10:30pm… thinking ah crap… only person crazy enough to show up at my door at that hour when I never get guests… is her… I opened the door and an officer is standing there… asks me if I knew Marie… I said in an unimpressed tone yes… that is my wife who has been trying to make my life a living hell… he looked at me with understanding and informed me that she had reported me for “sexual assault” however… they had to inform her that alleged dirty pictures… wasn’t sexual assault (it was over pictures again) I informed the officer that I had told the officers who showed up December 9th that the pictures were long gone already. The sad irony of the accusations is she was closer to sexually assaulting me than anything else... (Yes that is possible... when you dont want to engage in sexual activities with the person and they pressure you throwing your marriage as an excuse... that is how you pressure a guy into sex)
He apologized for the inconvenience and informed me that they were getting a little tired of her constantly showing up and harassing them over all of this stuff when its pretty clear im not doing anything… she was wasting their time and mine and everyone was getting tired of it. I was less surprised at this point that it had gone this far... one issue with her disorder is she cant take guilt anymore... she had a lifetime of it... as a result she lost all accountability for her actions to the point that the bad things she was doing... became the things i was apparently doing in her eyes because she couldn't take the fact she sunk so low.
I get to work that day and my coworker informed me that the junkie (she knew her too) had called my work to put in a complaint against me… saying I violated her privacy when she was a guest at my workplace (I wasn’t employed here during that time so she shot herself in the foot) then proceeded to tell my coworker that she was going to apply for a job here but didn’t feel safe with ME here and that I had sexually assaulted my wife. (I informed the cops of this slander and they informed me they’d talk to them about it, not sure if they did or not)
From there I hadn’t heard much until she got a job as a crossing guard at a school in town… a school one of my coworkers had kids going to… from there she overheard my wife saying very unpleasant things in front of the kids… the parents… and my coworker had reported her for it… didn’t hear any follow up I just thanked my coworker for being the first person to stand up for me rather than just say “Ignore her, we know the truth even if she doesn’t”
I started talking to an amazing person online recently through a dating website… go figure… I’m willing to bet if I ever started dating this person my wife will claim that I cheated on her with this person I didn’t know prior to her departure or some other crazy accusation… It’d be nice if she just left town… she is just annoying the people here… hurting me… and doing nothing to help her own reputation… People were mad that I brought her back and I don’t blame them… I hate myself for it too... stupid me though i put my heart out on the line and what did i expect from someone who couldn't handle her own physical let alone mental health and was too busy going after everyone else's to distract from her own.

I'm Trying to help a friend who has extremely harmful beliefs, and habits that have been extremely detrimental to his mental, spiritual and physical health.
WARNING & APOLOGIES THOUGH: This is a really long post. But I'm very scared for my friend's health because he's smoking a lot of tobacco products and eating fried foods everyday while also being at least 200 pounds (or more) overweight. And I'm even more scared about how he views God, his faith, and life as a whole. And I think the only thing that has any chance to convince him that how he views his faith and his life is wrong, is scriptural evidence.
​
I have a very close friend and he is actually much much more of a devout christian (and Latter-day Saint) than I am these days. I have a history in the LDS church, but I'm kinda half and half on my faith these days, while he goes to the LDS church every Sunday and claims to believe in it fully. But this is about him. He also is extremely schizophrenic (he's been officially diagnosed I think 7 or 8 years ago or more) and he is actually on disability for his schizophrenia so it's very severe. He eats fried foods constantly almost everyday and is probably 200 or maybe even inching on 300 pounds overweight. He also smokes black & milds every single day, for those of you who know anything about smoking, black & milds are actually way way worse than cigarettes somehow...so it's very very bad. I just love the man and don't want him to die when he's 38 (He's 30 now). He has told me many many many times over the years that he believes that he can literally just pray all of his problems away, without doing any work whatsoever, and his prayers will still be answered. I think this is complete non sense, and I believe that God helps those who help themselves. And I also believe it's just a simple fact of common sense reality that you have to pray along with action to make things happen in life.
Tonight we had a heated debate about this topic and I brought up 2 big examples. One being me and his weights. I'm about 60 or 70 pounds overweight myself and I'm only 5'4 so I'm extremely overweight also so I brought up the example that me and him are both extremely overweight...but I told him, we can't simply pray away our weight. I told him praying for God to give us the strength to work out or eat better etc. is great. But for us to actually lose weight we have to physically put in the work also, along with praying. And he disagreed. He literally was trying to tell me that we both can just sit on our fat butts and pray and somehow, some way God will make the weight go away on it's own.
I brought up another example. We're both single men, and we've both been single for a very very long time. We both want girlfriends and potentially wives eventually, but I don't think either of us are focused on it too too much right now. But I brought up the example that let's say tomorrow we decide we are done being single and we want a girlfriend really really bad now. I told him we can pray for that, of course. But it's not actually going to happen unless we actually meet women in some kind of way. Whether it be dating sites or apps, some way on the internet, going to public places and talking to women, something in the physical world to meet women. I said the percentage that if I pray for a girlfriend tonight that God will have one magically knock on my door tomorrow is so tiny, that's it's literally not even worth thinking about or considering at all. And he disagreed. He thought it was a perfectly reasonable thing to believe that if he prays for a girlfriend tonight that God could have one knock on his door tomorrow. And look, I know God performs miracles and totally could do that. But 99.999 times (or more) out of 100, it's just simply not going to happen. We all know that.
I'll be honest I think a lot of this could be his schizophrenia, I'm no mental health expert but from what I have been told a lot of schizophrenics have trouble staying in reality sometimes. And from I understand he is extremely schizophrenic. He is on disability from the government because of his schizophrenia, so it is severe enough for him to be on that. So I don't know how much of this is his disability or not.
And to be honest I don't care what is causing it, it just pains me that he is looking at life like this everyday because I think it's an extremely unhealthy & harmful way to look at life. And I know my only chance to show him he is wrong at this point is to show him some kind of scriptures that refute his current views on this, if there is any. I don't know if some of you may find this to be manipulative or not, what I'm wanting to do, and if you do I fully understand and we can have conversations about that. But I just love this guy to death and it pains me that he is looking at life this way. So anything to help him with this topic, to me personally, would be a good positive thing. He always brings up different scriptures in the bible about "waiting on God" to defend his views on all of this. And I never have any scriptural evidence because I have to be honest, I'm nowhere near as devout of a christian as he is. And I've only read the bible a little bit probably one time in my life. I've read more of the book of Mormon, but I'm not the best at interpreting scriptures so I haven't read much of it. I still identify as a christian, and I fully believe in a christian God. But I'm nowhere near as devout as him so I don't know any scriptures.
But I think showing him some scriptural evidence that God helps those who help themselves may have a chance on helping him. I've always heard the phrase "God helps those who help themselves" but I don't if there's anything in the actual book of Mormon to prove that scripturally. I just found out there's nothing in the bible that says that, but now I'm curious if there is in the book of Mormon. And I don't know if scriptural evidence will even help him, if it doesn't, I will honestly probably give up forever when it comes to this because I've tried to talk him out of this for probably going on at least 5 to 7 years now. But I feel like it's worth one last try by doing this because I have known the man since we were both in 6th grade and I love him like a brother. And it kills me that he really thinks he can pray away all of his problems without doing any action whatsoever at 30 years old. And I think it's really leading to him not fixing any of his problems for the past 7 to 8 years (maybe longer) So if you guys have any suggestions on what I could do to try to help, and like I said any scriptural evidence on God helping those who help themselves, I'd greatly appreciate it.

What I’m not trying to say

As I tread on an inherently sensitive ground of race, I want to start by pointing out, specifically what I don’t want to say. So — I’m not saying that there is some symmetry between whitewashing and portraying traditionally white characters as PoC. I’m not saying that guys who rant about these racebending decisions are right. To the contrary — they get angry for all the wrong reasons and their anger is part of the problem. I simply believe that we should move on and stop considering this subject as “controversial”, ”brave”, ”taboo-breaking” and stuff like this.

Aragorn and Cleopatra are white, but not for the reason the Right thinks.

So — the two latest “controversies” consider Netflix’ Cleopatra and Wizard of Coast Aragorn portrayed as black characters. The discussion around their race seems to focus on the question of “if a modern American saw X would they consider X white”. But this question is moot. If we look in the context of the respective story (fictional or historical) we can see a much better criterion to think about their race.
Aragorn is a member of “High People”. A nation chosen by gods. A nation that leads other groups of humans against the literal embodiment of evil. Other groups of humans being “Middle Men” and “Wild Men” can either ally with them or they fall on the “evil” side. There is no criticism in Tolkien’s book for the Gondorians treating other human races as lesser. Tolkien promotes unity, but this unity includes a “Wild Men” leader kindly asking “High Men” not to kill them and being granted this „privilege” as a reward for their alliance.
Cleopatra is a member of Ptolemy family. Descendants of a Macedonian general that took part in the conquest of Egypt under Alexander the Great and usurped the throne when the Alexander’s empire fell apart. The Ptolemies practiced inbreeding to keep their lineage pure. They generally (Cleopatra being an exception) didn’t speak the language of the people they ruled. They were an alien colonizing force in Egypt.

So why I’m disappointed?

So why I see racebending as a cheap trick? Because it contains no deep reflection over race. It is a simple strategy — you take a character traditionally seen as white. Portray them as black. Then you get a cheap publicity with nazis ranting about it and normal people defending it. And that is all. It doesn’t contribute anything to the discussion about race.
So maybe we should just get over it. Stop pretending that these companies do something controversial.

What could be done instead (but won’t be)

First, the stories could try to deconstruct the whiteness of some characters. Ask, whether the position Gondorians have is right. Show them as oppresors and part of the problem. But this is not something big media companies will do, because this would mean pointing out inherent racism of a beloved author’s worldbuilding and questioning the morality of a beloved character.
Second, they could show some history without white people. Show an episode of pre-colonial history or a story from PoC heritage. But they won’t, because this won’t sell. Everybody knows something about Cleopatra, but who cares about Hiawatha or Shaka Zulu.
So yeah. This is the state of today’s culture. The race question got stuck on a fabricated controversy.

Fanfic name: Pokemon A(sh)/S(erena)
--------------------Continuity and Placement-----------------
After 1 years of MPM Epsiode 11
For Liko and Roy: Somewhere After Pokemon Horizon Epsiode 6-8 and it's subject to change
--------------------Character settings--------------------
Protagionist: Ash and Serena (Of course)
Main Cast: Clemont, Bonnie, Misty, Brock, Gary Oak
Everyone will receive the Mega Evolution
Gary Oak become Professor before the fic starts.
May become Top Coordinator before the fic starts. (I might consider to make the Advancedshipping side story of how May become Top Coordinator by defeat Dawn)
Dawn will become Top Coordinator by defeat May and Serena on Screen.
May and Dawn will become Serena's rival.
Chloe is May, Dawn and Serena's apprentice
Pokemon Master scaling from best to worst: Ash >>>> Leon > all 6 Masters
Pokemon Coordinator scaling from best to worst : May >= Dawn > Serena > Chloe > Miette > Drew = Zoey
Pokemon Performer scaling from best to worst :Serena > May > Dawn > Aria > Chloe > Miette> Jessie
​
​
--------------------Change from Anime in this fanfic--------------------
-Ash:

• become smarter and more mature at beginning, but still a dense shell (slowly breaks)
• Use Aura and his superhuman strength very often
• Ash will not release any non Pikachu pokemon at beginning, Regularly use his old pokemon and keep switching his party except Pikachu, because in this fanfic, Ash want to spent more time with their old pokemon. However, as the times comes by, Ash will slowly have the fixed team that features with few Paldea Pokemon.
• Some of his Pokemon like Bayleef and Gable will be fully evolved
• Acknowledge that Team Rocket Trio have heart and will display Sympathy to them

**-**Serena:

• will slowly become a better battler than anime counterpart (become as strong as Clemont) , joining battle way more often and will even features with several back-to-back action with Ash

​
-While Bond Transformation is exclusive to Greninja in anime ,in this fanfic bond transformation can also be accessed if the Trainer have unusual high relationship with their Kalos Starter (might subject to change in future) such as Serena-Delphox and Clemont-Chesnaut
​
-Clemont's Chespin will evolve to Chesnaught because of some Lab accident which also blow up the Prism Tower(lol!)
-Up to 6 on hand Pokemon Limit still applys here, but can use some device to replace members in their party as they wish before entering battle, and it can be bypassed by simply befriend with other pokemon rather than caught them in pokeball
-Introduce various of team finisher move which will not be considered as one of the "4 moves"
-4 moves limit are still applies here, but trainers can bypass it by create their very own charge move on their pokemon
-Trainers can use all 6 pokemon at the same time
-Features tons of OC enemy, pokemon or the antagionist that are neither Pokemon nor Humans.
-Bonnie will become part of the team instead of Tagalong Kid and use squishy to help saves the day more often.
-Clemont will become more successful Scientist because he now got the more competent assistant (Clembot MKIII and his Chesnaught)
-Clembot will be upgraded to Clembot MKIII in this fic
-Arceus become way more loyal to Ash into the point that will makes Arceus angry enough to personally
--------------------Miscellaneous--------------------
Everyone will have their official age +1, except Ash who is still stucking at 10 years old (There'll be the story arc which explains why Ash was still 10 years old)
Team rocket trio will be sent to jail at ending of Team Rocket Arc because I feels like they're superfluous in the fanfic. But they might return if I can make use of them and appears as reformed person because they're not entirely bad person I think
Liko and Roy will appear as side characters
Greninja will be actively used, but there'll be few chapter where Ash didn't bring his greninja in his party
Almost everyone will get Mega evolution
Serena will move to Pallet Town and live with Ash, while Clemont, Bonnie and Meyer will temporary living with Ash as well
Calem will appears in this fanfic as cameo alongside with Serena's Game counterpart) , who will appears with Anime Serena at the same time
I might consider to make the Pearlshipping Side Story which will take place before
--------------------------------------Season 1--------------------------------------
--------------------Arc 1: The dream begins and reunion (ep 1-6)--------------------
Type: Storytelling, Action, Romance, Amour
Ash recieved the invite that will makes him reunite with his girlfriend, but he must deal with the plant from giant rock which will eventually not only makes him reunite with his girlfriend, but also reassamble the entire XY cast and makes the story looks like XY sequel (lol!)
Episode 1: Story begins with Ash saw the nightmare where the world being destroyed and even Arceus unable to do anything about it. Then Ash wake up and he just realized that he was invited to see the Pokemon Contest final (Serena Vs Aria) in Kalos, but when Ash went to Kalos, he saw his Greninja being unconscious because of being overworked for cutting wood so many years non stop without taking any break (Lol!)
Episode 2: It's only 1 hours before Pokemon Contest final starts, Ash had sent his Greninja into Pokemon center. Meanwhile Bonnie and Clemont calls Ash that the plant from Giant Rock had nearing the Luminse City. Ash and Lucario attempt to sense where's the source of those plant are but unable to. Meanwhile at this time, Greninja had been fully recovered and returns to Ash!
Episode 3: Greninja had been recovered! With Greninja's help, Ash was finally able to find the source of the Giant Rock- on underground. Clemont used the newly devloped drill to make the tunnel so that Ash (with Pikachu, Lucario and Greninja), Clemont (with Luxray) and Bonnie (With squishy) will able to reach the underground and saw the core of those plants. With the combined effort of Pikachu, Lucario, Greninja, Luxray and Squishy, they was able to destroy the core and stopping the Giant Rock plant once and for all.
Episode 4: After the Giant Rock Plant Core had been Destroyed, Ash had found that the Pokemon Contest final had already begin. Ash was tried to reach Pokemon Contest as soon as possible. At first, Aria's excellent Contest skills makes Serena begin to self-doubt if she could made it, but Ash was eventally managed to arrives and cheers Serena, allowing Serena to unlock Bond Transformation on Her Delphox to become Serena-Delphox and become Kalos Queen (Yes, I made her Kalos Queen that early because I have struggle to write Pokemon Contest chapters)
Episode 5: At last, Ash and Serena had finally reunion! To celebrating Serena become Kalos Queen, Ash was going to buy the new clothes for Serena as suprise gift so that Serena can put her Blue Ribbon back on her chest, but Ash have struggle to do so because Ash know nothing about clothing style, but thanks to Diantha's help, Ash was eventally able to find the clothes that fits Serena and fits her Blue Ribbon.
Episode 6: Ash and Serena say goodbye to Miette, Diantha and May and moved to Pallet town. But at the next day, they found themselves had been trapped inside the crowd as both are now become the celebrity and all of the billboard had their own face! Diantha will teach Ash and Serena must find the way to move around in public
--------------------Clemont single chapter (ep 7)--------------------
Type: Storytelling, Action, Humor
I made this chapter so that I can give Clemont bond transformation form
Episode 7: Clemont was devloping the devloution device which allows the Pokemon to devolve if they accidentally evolved against their will. However, like most of Clemont's device, his devlution device went malfunction and begin to explode and accidentally fully evolved his Chespin into Chesnaught as well! Everyone was managed to escape, but the explosion was so huge that it blows half of the Prism Tower, leaving them homeless and have to temporary move to Pallet town to live with Ash until the Prism Tower had been fully restored. Meanwhile, Xerosic managed escaped from jail and separated Clemont from Bonnie and Meyer. Xerosic's power protector easily overpowers all of his pokemon and his chesnaught! Xerosic was teasing that Clemont's science is terrible, but Clemont determination that the science was supposed to be used for justice allows his chesnaught to unlock the bond transformation to become Clemont-chesnaught, allowing Clemont to defeat Xerosic and sent Xerosic back to jail. Unfortunately, Xerosic was managed to damage the Prism Tower which forcing Clemont, Bonnie and Meyer to living in Ash's house temporarily until the Prism Tower had been rebuilt.
-------------------Ash pidgeot single chapter (ep 8)--------------------
Type: Action
Despite Ash's pidgeot had officially returned to Ash, it's another questions of how long can his pidgeot live with his trainer.....
Episode 8: Tons of Fearow had invaded and caused the huge chaos in Pallet town and steals Serena's blue ribbon! Ash's Pidgeot had found that those Fearow are came from Viridian Forest. Ever since Pidgeot had reunited with Ash, those Fearow had rapidly reproduce, quickly take over the Viridian Forest and begin to spread out of nowhere! Those Fearow demands Ash's Pidgeot in exchange for those Pidgey and Pidgeotto's life and the Blue Ribbon. Ash and Pidgeot arrived Viridian Forest but those Pidgey and Pidgeotto told them not to leave his Pidgeot here because they thinks that the Pidgeot was belong to Ash and Ash refuse to leave his Pidgeot here. Those Fearow now attempt to hurt those Pidgey and Pidgeotto and ate the Blue Ribbon! Ash Mega Evolved his Pidgeot to fight against those Fearow but being slowly outnumbered by those Fearow. On the verge of Ash's Pidgeot's defeat, those Pidgey and Pidgetto had evolved into Pidgeot and helps Ash's Pidgeot to defeat those Fearow and give Ash back the Blue Ribbon, ending those Fearow's threat once and for all! Ash and his Pidgeot was bid farewell to those Pidgeot and give the Blue Ribbon back to Serena, now Ash's Pidgeot can live with Ash forever!
--------------------Ash single chapter (ep 9)--------------------
Type: Adventure
Ash will caught Dunsparce in this episode
Epsiode 9: After 27 years of failure, Ash had finally caught his most longed wanted Dunsparce ! (which will later evolve into the rare 3 segment dundunsparce by TM him Hyper Drill)
​
--------------------The Muted Princess of Hoenn Arc (ep 10-12)--------------------
Type: Adventure, Humor
May, the Princess of Hoenn had been diagnosed spasmodic dysphonia and become inability to speak like Red) did! Meanwhile, Ash and Serena being sent to Hoenn in very funny way and reunited with May and Max! This epsiode also features
​
Epsiode 10: Team Rocket trio caught Ash's Pikachu once again! Ash jump to the Team Rocket ballon to save Pikachu while having Serena caught his feet, but Ash had end up makes the Team Rocket ballon explodes and sent Ash, Pikachu and Serena to Hoenn! (lol!). May and Max meet Ash and Serena once again and was surprised why Ash would hugging Serena so tight and lying on the ground (lol)! Ash and Serena attempt greets May and Max but May didn't speak and respond with sign language! Max then told Ash and Serena's sad news about May become inability to speak because of the spasmodic dysphonia! Knowing that Jirachi will took 980 years to become useable again, Max decided to find which pokemon can cure May.
Serena will get Absol in this epsiode
Epsiode 11: While May and Max was staying at their home to find if there's any pokemon to makes May can speak again, Ash and Serena went outside and saw the Absol laying down outside and end up seriously injured.
Epsiode 12: After Serena caught Absol, Max had found that the only way to makes May can speak again is to find the Unown, and Molly is the only person who can use Unown to make May speaks again. Ash, Serena, May and Max went to greenfield and found Molly to use unown to spell "May Speak" so that May can speak again
------------------Arc 3: Team Rocket invasion (ep 13-21)--------------------
Type: Action
XY/XYZ cast had finally reassambled! But let's not forget about that they must deal with the very first and longest lasting villain organization-Team Rocket!
Epsiode 13: Gary had reunited with Ash, where former had become the Pokemon Professor. Gary brings Ash and Serena to visit the extension of Professor Oak's laboratory (Clemont and Bonnie was here too!). Meanwhile, Giovanni had arrived the laboratory and defeated Professor Oak. Gary came out and fight against Giovanni once again and.....lose once again. Meanwhile, the Team Rocket Grunts kidnapped Professor Oak while they're battling and Giovanni had left the laboratory!
Epsiode 14: Giovanni kidnapped Professor Oak to Team Rocket base to make Professor Oak works for him. Ash and Gary was thinking about how to save Giovanni. Meanwhile, the Team Rocket trio appears once again and attempt to steal his Pikachu, but Misty and Brock arrives and saves Ash's Pikachu. Ash respond with a heavy heart as Ash aware that this might be their last time to prepare for trouble as Ash had decided to destroy Team Rocket once and for all (Yes, he feels sympathy for those Team Rocket Trio because he aware that Team Rocket Trio have heart) and Ash's pikachu sent Team Rocket Trio flying once again like usual!
Epsiode 15: Thanks to Clemont's science, Ash, Misty, Brock and Gary was able to track down the location of Team Rocket base. Clemont gives Ash the device which allows Ash to freely switch his Pokemon party anywhere and anytime. Ash, Misty, Brock and Gary went to Team Rocket base while leaving Serena, Clemont and Bonnie at Ash's house. Ash, Misty, Brock and Gary charging towards Team Rocket Base and begin the final battle against Team Rocket!
Epsiode 16: Ash, Misty, Brock and Gary fight against thousands of Team Rocket Grunts who "Welcomed" them. But they slowly outnumbered by those Team Rocket Grunts and they realized that those Team Rocket Grunts are here to buying Giovanni's time! Misty and Brock decided to stay here and clean the road for Ash and Gary to reach Team Rocket Base! Meanwhile, Professor Oak had been tied into the chair which extract his knowledge about the pokemon.
Epsiode 17: Ash and Gary was finally managed to find Giovanni and Professor Oak. Giovanni transfer his consciousness into the Armored Mewtwo (this Mewtwo is different from the first movie one and it's nothing more than Giovanni's new body) while Gary was going to save Professor Oak. Serena, Clemont and Bonnie saw the news about Ash is fighting Armored Mewtwo and decided to head to Team Rocket base together with the help of met Korrina, Alain and Diantha. Meanwhile, Ash had been defeated by Giovanni and being tied outside the Team Rocket base!
Epsiode 18: Clemont, Bonnie and Serena met Korrina, Alain and Diantha to rescue Ash, but being interrupted by the artifical pokemon army. Meanwhile Giovanni was about to end Ash's life, but being stopped by Gary. Inside Ash's mental world, Aaron was teaching Ash to master Aura power. After Ash mastered the Aura power, Ash breaks free with his newly mastered Aura power and team up with Gary to fight against Giovanni.
Epsiode 19: Thanks to Ash and Gary's excellent teamwork, in addition of Ash's mastered Aura power, Giovanni had been easily defeated and Giovanni's mewtwo armor had been teared apart. At the same time, Misty, Brock, Serena, Clemont, Bonnie, Korrina, Alain and Diantha had defeated al of the grunts and artifical pokemon army and reunited with Ash and Gary. Meanwhile, Giovanni still refused to give up, he used the knowledge that being extracted from Professor Oak to create the gigantic ultimate pokemon called Chimera. Giovanni insert his consciousness into Chimera and razed half of Pallet Town into ground!
Epsiode 20: Despite the combined effort of Ash, Gary, Misty, Brock, Serena, Clemont, Bonnie, Korrina, Alain and Diantha, Chimera was proven too much for those heroes to handle! Chimera then begin to cover the entire sky with the black smoke which will slowly turns all pokemon all over the world into shadow pokemon! Seems there's nothing to stop him, the real mewtwo appears and helps those hero to fight against Chimera. Meanwhile, Ash's Greninja was managed to use his extrasensory to emulate almost all of Pokemon moveset while his Lucario's aura power had been enchanced which allows his Lucario to create the spirit bomb sized aura sphere. Ash, his pikachu, Greninja and Lucario eventally able to blown Chimera to pieces and sent Giovanni's consciousness back to his human body. Ash came in front of Giovanni and about to kills him with Aura sphere, but Serena, and later the newly arrived Team Rocket Trio pleding Ash not to. Following Giovanni, Team Rocket Trio and rest of Team Rocket member being arrested, Team Rocket had finally being taken down for good. Korrina, Alain and Diantha say goodbye to Ash, Gary, Misty, Brock, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie as Korrina, Alain and Diantha head back to Kalos. Ash and Team Rocket Trio made the promise that they'll be travel together once the Team Rocket Trio served their sentence
Epsiode 21: Few days after Team Rocket being taken down, Ash, Gary, Misty, Brock, Serena, Clemont and Bonnie made the celebration for that.
--------------------------------------Season 2--------------------------------------
--------------------Arc 4: Ash being dense shell (ep 22-24)--------------------
Type: Storytelling, Action, character building, emotion
The world had back to it's peace following the shut down of Team Rocket. However, Ash's dense shell kick in ane he'll will learn the the hard way about what will happen for being dense shell
Epsiode 22: Ever since Ash become much stronger since the Team Rocket fight, he begin to become arrogant and addicted in Pokemon Battle! (Yes, typical dense shell Ash for ya) He begin to refuse other people's help and even end up having Quarrel with Serena! Ash ragequit his house and being attacked by Damian, who is looking for revenge of his charamder's betrayal. Despite Ash become lot stronger since they last met, Damian's newly obtained Psychic power and his Charizards army (Mega charizard X and Y, Gigantmaxed Charizard and Shadow Charizard that Damian created with his Psychic power) was proven even more ahead of Ash, but Ash's bond between pokemon quickly turns the table! While Ash was about to defeat Damian, his Pikachu suddenly unleashed the large amount of power and went berserk!
Epsiode 23: Having his pikachu went berserk, Ash had slowly realized that he's only care about Pokemon and become megalomaniac had corrupted his bond with pikachu! He begin to feels sorry about how he treat his friends especially Serena. Ash was later apogoized to Serena and his friends and slowly reconcile with each other and discuss how to bring his pikachu back to control. With the combined effort of Serena and his friends, Ash was eventually able to bring his pikachu back to sense.
Episode 24: Those evil Malamar had finally returned to present and attempt to brainwash Ash and Serena once again, but Clemont used his device to prevent the brainwash from happening! **Ash and Serena was quickly blows those evil Malamar into ashes but the energy crystals absorbs those evil Malamar's body and activated and quickly defeated all of their pokemon except Pikachu. That energy crystals attempt to shoot laser on ground and Ash have only pikachu left to stop that energy crystal! Ash's feelings resonance with pikachu which allows pikachu utilized that power once again to **create the deadly new move for pikachu: Ragnerok!
--------------------Single Pokeshipping chapter (ep 25)--------------------
Type: Story telling, Action
Misty must find the balance between traveling with Ash and her gym.
Episode 25: Misty had been tired of her having to do all three jobs from her 3 Irresponsible sisters, which making her leave her gym behind and went to Ash's house. Ash was suprised how Misty would willing to give up her gym for that Meanwhile, Damian hijacked Misty's gym and kidnapped Daisy, Lily, and Violet, to demands Misty in exchange her gym and her sisters. Ash and Misty worked together to defeat Damian and saved all 3. Misty's 3 sisters apogoized for over-reliance the gym operation to Misty alone and promised Misty that they'll become more responsible for their gyms. Misty give her gym back to her sisters and says goodbye to them.
--------------------------------------Alola Arc -------------------------------------
Ash,Serena, Misty, Clemont, Bonnie and Brock will go to Alola and meet Ash's classmates.
Lillie will merge with the Shiny Nihiliego with same name#Lillie) in this Arc
Ash,Serena, Misty, Clemont, Bonnie and Brock went to Alola for vacation and reunited with Ash's classmates. Meanwhile, the parallel version of Lusamine (from Pokemon Sun and Moon game) had went to this universe using the Ultra Wormholes and kidnapped the Shiny Lillie#Lillie) for parallel Lusamine's evil deed! Ash and his Alola classmate must find the way to recuse the Shiny Lillie and stop the Alola from being invaded by the Ultra Beast army!
--------------------------------------Planned Future story Arc:--------------------------------------
Pokemon Contest Arc (Mittie vs Serena) or:
Features with May vs Dawn, but I don't know who should win the contest. If May wins, Serena will encounter May and if Dawn wins, Serena will encounter Dawn. Serena will lose either way.
Wallce Cup Arc(May vs Dawn, Chloe vs May, Chloe vs Dawn, Dawn vs Serena) or:
countine the romance amour with Ash arc: (Should I? But I really suck at writing those)
--------------------------------------Oizys Arc (adopted from this one shot): --------------------------------------
Type: Action, Deconstruction Fic, drama, passion, Original Story, Fantasy, Meta
Warning: Starting at this Arc, the typical Amour and even anime Pokemon logic will be thrown out the window and replaced with the original plot that you might not asked for!
Warning: This Story Arc features with full of ridiculousness, rather dark story, in-face towards TPC and filled with heavy irony and even fourth wall break etc. Please watch at your discretion! If you want something closer to Pokemon Anime, skip to Paldea Arc.
Ash teachs Goh how to take care of Pokemon, but Goh's dark side came to manifest as its own entirely separate, physical entity called Oizys, Goh's evil counterpart who is the psychopath pokemon hunter (a parody of many chinese amourshipping fic features with Goh as antagionist), Goh was paralyzed with fear after witnessing his evil counterpart's cruelty and end up in coma for a while. Oizys steal all Serena's pokemon, all Ash's ace (including his Greninja) and almost managed to steal his pikachu but his pikachu managed to free all of Ash's ace and Serena's pokemon, Ash and Serena got the upper hand and defeats Oizys, but Ash being posessed by Oizys in front of Serena's eyes and defeated almost every single Ash's traveling partner, all 7 Pokemon Masters , Gary Oak and Serena. But Serena was eventally managed to free Ash from Oizys control. After defeating Oizys, Goh finally wake up and learned the harsh lesson about how to take care of his pokemon.
--------------------------------------Season 3--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------gossip Arc (adopted from this one shot): --------------------------------------
Type: Deconstruction Fic, drama, Original Story, Break Fourth Wall, humor
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Warning: Another original plot which full of ridiculousness, filled with heavy irony and even fourth wall break sans Action. Please watch at your discretion! If you want something closer to Pokemon Anime, skip to Paldea Arc.
Ash and Serena must find a way to debunk various of the fake news (like Liko is Ash and Serena's daughter) that damaging their reputations and free Liko from being cyberbullied. In addition, they'll also met Nemona marks the first appearance in this Arc and will join Ash's team!
--------------------------------------Paldea Arc 1--------------------------------------
Ash and Serena finally went to Paldea for first time, Liko, Roy and Necoma finally join Ash's team in this Arc.
Ash, Serena, Roy, Liko and Nemona will meet Steven to obtain the Tera Orb to Terastalize their Pokemon.
Ash will also caught the Paldea flying type Pokemon here
--------------------------------------Kalos Queen defend Arc --------------------------------------
The new season of Pokémon Showcase begins! Can Serena Defend her Kalos Queen title?
--------------------------------------"Shipping War" Arc (adopted from This one shot): --------------------------------------
Warning: This Story Arc features with full of ridiculousness, rather dark story, in-face towards TPC and filled with heavy irony and even fourth wall break etc. Please watch at your discretion! If you want something closer to Pokemon Anime, skip to Paldea Arc.
Type: Deconstruction Fic, drama, Original Story, Break Fourth Wall, humor
After The giant blue bird had makes Serena and Misty , all Ash's female travel companion and even all humans in pokemon kills each other until there's only 1 left against their will! Ash was able to free all of his friend before any tragic happens but that giant blue bird absorbed Serena and begin to spread all over the world! The only way to save Serena is to have Ash insert the feelings toward Serena into the water shuriken to open the hole out of Twitter's physical body so that Ash can save Serena.
--------------------------------------Season 4--------------------------------------
--------------------------------------Ash's 10 years old truth Arc Prequel (adopted from this one shot**):**--------------------------------------
Type: Deconstruction Fic, drama, Original Story, Amour, Break Fourth Wall, romance, character building, Action
Warning: Another original plot which full of ridiculousness, rather dark story, in-face towards TPC, filled with heavy irony and even fourth wall break! Please watch at your discretion! If you want something closer to Pokemon Anime, skip to Paldea Arc.
After Ash and Serena discovered the truth about Ash's being cursed with eternal 10 years old which might potentially eventally wipe away his character development and revert him back to the 10 years old stupid dense shell like in Uvona, Ash and Serena got psychological shadow and escape from reality by living in their own dream and refuse to wake up. However, Ash and Serena would eventually overcome their fear and . It'll also features with the cameo appearance of Calem and Game Serena.
--------------------------------------Fanfic Flashback Special Single Epsiode--------------------------------------
Type: Crossover, Flashback
After Calem being freed from Camel's possessing, Ash, Serena, Calem and Serena (Game) will meet each other and share their life experience before sending Calem and Serena (Game) back to their own universe.
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--------------------------------------Tobias Arc:--------------------------------------
Type: Deconstruction Fic, drama, Original Story, Amour, Break Fourth Wall, romance, Amour, character building, Action
Warning: This Story Arc features with full of ridiculousness, rather dark story, in-face towards TPC and filled with heavy irony and even fourth wall break etc. Please watch at your discretion!
Tobias was revealed to be the "Ash's dream crusher", so strong that not even the combined effort of 7 Pokemon Master can stop him! This Arc features with the return and the final battle against Oizys and Damian.
--------------------------------------Ash's 10 years old Arc: --------------------------------------
Type: Deconstruction Fic, Original Story, Amour, Break Fourth Wall, romance, Humor
Warning: This Story Arc features with full of ridiculousness, rather dark story, in-face towards TPC and filled with heavy irony and even fourth wall break etc. Please watch at your discretion!
Last Story Arc where Ash is still 10 years old
Ash finally defeated Tobias, but Ash's 10 years old curse had finally reverted Ash back to the tough dense shell. Ash's friend and Serena must find the way to break that curse to stop Ash from being 10 years old and bring the mature Ash back.
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--------------------------------------Oshi no Ko crossoveIdol industry dark truth Arc:--------------------------------------
Type: crossover, drama, Break Fourth Wall, Humor
Warning: This Story Arc features with full of ridiculousness, rather dark story, heavy irony, fourth wall break etc. Please watch at your discretion!
Ash finally grown up! Serena was being invited to went to Japan for the performance but eventually rejected after she discovered the shocking, ugly truth of the idol industry in Japan. Officer Jenny gives the secret mission for Ash, Team Rocket Trio (served their sentence), Latias and Team Rocket Trio's Ditto will camouflage as Serena, Dawn, May and Chloe to sneak into those idol industry and debunk the dirty act in idol industry in Japan, while the real Serena, Dawn, May and Chloe will appeals to her fans all over the world to boycott such dirty act in idol industry in Japan.
--------------------------------------TBA Arc--------------------------------------

I was raised to be religiously devout but without spiritual purpose, so memorial day weekend meant two things: watching auto racing live on TV and tidying up family graves. The graves of my grandparents are located in two cemeteries on opposite ends of the county they lived their whole lives in, and cleaning the graves required a little planning plus a trip to the florist. Dad would handle weeding around the plots, while mom scrubbed the gravestones, running a wet sponge along each of the engraved letters and numbers, such that the names and dates gleamed from the face of the stone. My job was to hold the flowers, and though I can’t recall where the debate landed regarding artificial or fresh, the holiday gained stature with so many flowers in hand, like everyone was headed to the cemetery to get married. With remembering, I guess.
The only grandpa I knew – my dad’s dad – was a lifelong farmer, and the only grandma I knew – my mom’s mom – sewed gloves in a factory her whole life. Though I only remember seeing the two of them together at weddings, they were both stoical Midwesterners who could listen to others talk for hours while saying very little themselves. My grandpa always wore bib overalls and a railroad engineer’s cap, and my grandma always wore housedresses and flats. My most vivid memory of my grandpa has him hand pumping water out of a well and into a tin cup. My most vivid memory of my grandma has her cutting potatoes into a pan of boiling water. How were they different? Grandma Alice smoked menthol cigarettes, and Grandpa Fred spread fresh manure on his fields. If memory is often scent-based, I offer these ones up to this memorial day.
On this memorial day, I remember Brian and Greg – two souls who were made into activists by life, then death, then life again. Both survived decades in prison, years in solitary confinement, and then, upon release, both worked full time to stop such treatment of others still incarcerated by developing a public advocacy and legal expertise through a nonprofit public law clinic. They were advocates for incarcerated individuals throughout the state, effective because they had an extreme kind of survivor’s authority. They were open about the trauma they endured, and their accounts of the torturous conditions of state-run facilities left audiences stunned. They died within a year of one another, each having taken his own life, and my insides want to spill out in response to such horror unrelenting. May Brian and Greg know a painless and eternal peace.

I came to the UK as an international student and have been living here for almost 18 years now. I am now a naturalized citizen. I have worked in both the USA and the UK for several years. I started my own business in the UK, and it has been successful. However, my family attempted to build a furniture business in the USA 10 years ago, but unfortunately, it did not work out. On the other hand, my wife attended an Ivy League university and worked at Goldman Sachs at NYC for a few years. Although I genuinely love the USA and acknowledge that it offers unique opportunities, I would like to share some perspectives on immigrating to the UK and learn more about America as well.
TL;DR: The USA is advantageous for making money, while the UK offers a more stable and family-friendly lifestyle.
What does the UK do better than the USA?

• Safety: Violent crimes are rare, and I personally haven't witnessed any in my 18 years here. The country is considered fairly safe to live in.
• Public healthcare: The UK has decent and free healthcare. My son frequently uses the National Health Service (NHS), which is sufficient for basic health needs. Whenever needed, we simply call the nearest health clinic, and my son can get same-day doctor appointments with good quality service. For instance, when my son had an epileptic fit, we called an ambulance, and the medics arrived within 10 minutes.
• Politics: The UK has a slightly better political climate, being more progressive and less extreme compared to the USA. Unlike the USA, the UK doesn't have news media outlets like Fox News or Newsmax, nor politicians like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
• Better work-life balance and workers' rights: The UK provides more job security, more holidays (25 days paid leave is the norm), and better workers' rights, although the pay may be lower.
• Centralized government system: The UK's centralized government ensures that all public services are available in one place through a well-designed government website called Gov.UK. It simplifies tasks such as paying taxes and claiming benefits. In contrast, the US system is fragmented between the federal government and states, and often features poorly designed and outdated websites (although this information is based on my wife's experience until she left the US in 2015, so it may have changed).
• Robust welfare system: The UK subsidizes university education, with the maximum tuition fee capped at £9,000 per year (it was £4,000 when I attended university). Additionally, there are numerous programs to support lower-income families. I have a child, and I receive child benefits, free nursery for up to 30 hours per week.
• Proximity to Europe: Being closer to Europe, the UK offers convenient holiday destinations in Europe and Africa.
• Smaller country with higher population density: The UK's smaller size and higher population density make it easier to visit family and friends. I appreciate this closeness, as I often travel to different parts of the UK for business, and it can all be done in a day.
• Better public services and transportation: The UK boasts better public services and public transportation systems compared to the USA.
• Immigration system: The UK has a more immigrant-friendly immigration system. Qualifying for permanent residence status in the UK requires working for five years, without any quotas or lotteries.
• More culture and tradition as the UK is an old European country.

What does the USA do better than the UK?

• More opportunities for making money: The USA is a global hub for high-tech and financial services, providing abundant well-paid job opportunities that surpass the UK. As an example, during my time working for an American tech company, an American consulting firm, my US colleagues earned 30-40% more than I did. This pay disparity has likely increased due to the current strength of the USD and the Sterling has lost so much value over the years.
• Natural beauty and diverse landscapes: The US offers an array of beautiful and diverse landscapes, which is one of my favourite aspects of America. I have fond memories of living in Orange County, CA, with its proximity to several beaches, year-round sunny weather, mountains, and valleys. These options are not as readily available in the UK.
• Larger houses: Houses in the UK tend to be small and expensive compared to the USA.
• Perceived upward mobility: The US is often perceived as having more opportunities for upward mobility, as it lacks a rigid class system traditionally seen in the UK. The country's history of being built by immigrants contributes to a more flexible class structure.
• Better economic prospect than the UK in the longer term. Being the only superpower in the world, US simply has more resources to work with than the UK. I invest mostly in US companies and I do believe it has a brighter future than the UK
• Lower taxes and fewer regulations. Value-added tax in the UK is 20%, in the US is 8-9%.

I have lived in many countries and no country is perfect. Each country offers different things and can be great depending on what you are looking for. I am in my late 30 now and I am looking to retire this year. I don't find living in the UK or US appealing, as both countries are money-sinking holes. I am moving to South East Asia for a more relaxed, basic and cheaper lifestyle.

Special thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for allowing fanfiction and giving us Tilfish. The man gave us a canon art of the bugs, and they're rad!
I'm surprised I got this motivation in my to write this part so quickly. I think the fine comments I got motivated me pretty well. Now, I'd appreciate your thoughts and opinions on this. If its flow is smooth and feels right, let me know, I'm not usually good with dialogue.
Also, Feenstra, thank you for your kindness and support. I don't know how to respond to it, honestly, but you're a cool cat.
[First] [Prior] [Next]
.*~*.
Memory Transcription Subject: Marullo, Tilfish agricultural practitioner.
Date: December 2, 2136
.~*~.
I gripped the fabric over the side window and pushed it aside, spotting a Tilfish on the other side of the door instead of a cluster of predators. He appears rather calm, even though he's alone out in the open. My grip tightened on the blind before I tugged the door open.
"Visiting hours are closed." I stated curtly, my antennae twitching outside of my control. Formi I'm still riled up, and I want this man gone so I can dig a hole in peace. I eye the visitor sharply, not seeing any garment or air to him that would tip me off if this was a visiting politician. He's too soft to be a farmer, and I know for a fact there's no appointments he could be attending.
"Oh, uh, is this a business?" I don't even bother with a reply and give the stranger a long look, waiting for him to either acknowledge the massive emblem on the wall right above us or get on with it. He fidgets in awkward silence for a long few seconds. "Uhhh... okay, okay. Off on the wrong feeler here. I'm concerned, is all. I could hear you yelling for the past hour."
My antennae dropped slightly. "What?"
"You uh, your window was open." The stranger explained, mandibles clicking slightly in concern as I shut the door behind me and scuttled down the steps into the yard. I felt my chitin warm around my skull as I looked at the aforementioned window.
Don't tell me I broadcasted that entire conversation to the world.
Stupid sand spitters. Stupid sand spitters!
"I... am sorry for disturbing the peace." I hissed. "I had to wrangle some insubordinates into line. How much did you hear?"
"Not much. Just a lot of yelling. We could hear you from the apartments."
I dipped my head at the mention of the living block. The Regional Agriculture Advisory building was on the edge of the business and government district, and down the road was the start of a residential area. Towering buildings loomed over there, and on occasion they provided a nice view from my old office window with the setting sun reflecting off their many windows.
I was lucky that the masses were too nervous to be out and about in this sector. There was an infestation of predators in and around the capitol building, and even more outposts spread through the surrounding sectors. Being on the streets wasn't popular any more, so the normally lively road we were on was all but abandoned the past several days.
Oddly, I noticed that this stranger was very much alone. There was no swarm to keep him safe, and no vehicle in sight. On the far end of the road leading into the residential sector was a hastily erected barricade that still stood untouched by the predator's roving patrols, comprised mostly of furniture and scrap wood and metal. Looking towards the other end of the road leading towards the capitol building was a more firm barricade that surprisingly still stood, but the filthy tire tracks that cut over the sidewalk and through carefully maintained gardens and lawns told me how the predators got by. There was still nobody else in sight.
"It won't happen again. I had to enforce who's the new boss."
"The predators?"
My mandibles clacked and the stranger flinched at my snap, but stood his ground as I side eyed him intently. "No, me. I'm in charge of this operation."
"Did the predators tell you that yesterday?"
You tar sucking wretch.
The airy accusation made me clench my mandibles and feelers, and my antennae grew still. It must've encouraged the stranger to keep going.
"Because replacing our leaders with more traitorous Tilfish won't work. We're not the Venlil."
So that was what this was really about. Okay.
"You're mistaken," I began smoothly, ready to cut down this wretch with words alone. "My daughter got into trouble while I was working, and was returned to me. I've been terribly busy as you've heard in the old Advisor's place, with everything ongoing. Their visit yesterday did not pertain to my office, and any insinuation to the contrary will not be taken lightly."
"There was a boy as well. He seemed unnaturally comfortable with the beasts."
I will bury you underneath my garden.
"Your vision must be failing, because I assure you I saw no such thing under my roof."
"Good, good. We cannot have the diseased among us, no matter the times. I was wary of calling the exterminators prematurely, so I'm glad I checked in."
"The dead Exterminators?" I asked sharply, cocking my head. "Or the ones leashed to the predators?"
"..." The wretch stared at me for a long moment. "The dead ones, I suppose."
"What a shame about them, really." I drawled. "Anyways, did you have anything else on your mind you felt worth coming over this way to ask?"
"What happened to the old Advisor?"
"Dereliction of duty and cowardice. He's fled to a different system by now. For all the good that'll do him." The wretch's antennae flicked in irritation. "Now, the office is closed and I have work to do yet. Admittance is by appointment only. Good day."
The wretch didn't leave, apparently unsatisfied. We stared at each other a moment more.
"Is something else the matter?" I buzzed firmly.
"The swarm is more than capable of defending itself without the Exterminators. Don't think yourself above it's reach."
Something cold settled in my carapace. My claws itched. "Be very careful; threatening the Agricultural office is a high crime. I'm more than capable of protecting myself without the Exterminators."
A twitch from the wretch. "Is that so?"
"Don't come around my office again. Bounders are not welcome here, same as any predator."
His antennae lowered and he remained quiet, and I felt a faint trill in my chest. "Enjoy your day..."
"Eat sod." I responded sharply. I eyed the wretch as he retreated down the sidewalk, and something clicked in my mind.
Twenty paces. In twenty paces I could retrieve the gun in the lobby. You won't even see it coming.
A flicker of movement, and another Tilfish stepped out from some ornamental carvings in front of the filing office down the way, joining the wretch. I waited until the two were out of sight and long gone, arms crossed and feelers clenching my chitin as I waited even longer, before turning back to my abode and striding around to the garden.
.*~*.
"Marullo?" The voice above me is hesitant, and I bury my tool into the soil and look up. Tugal is above me at the lip of the hole, and I realize that I've dug way too far down. My arms hurt. My legs hurt. I don't feel like stopping, but I might hit a gas line if I keep going. I feel a flash of pity at my brother's distressed state.
"What... what happened while I was asleep? Holywood and Aegan are fighting over burning the last of our food- those Nectar Pods the predator touched. I thought we threw those out, but somehow they're back. Muttart climbed up the wall and left tracks everywhere, and he won't come down because he's still mad about last night. Cleo's locked herself in the bathroom and won't stop crying and vomiting. She searched the net for something and nobody can get through to her now. She mentioned the predator wanted something terrible from you, but that's all I could understand through the door. And you're out here destroying the gardens?"
"I was in my office all day. Food distribution is back on track for now, but who knows how long that'll last. It was stressful, and this is how I'm handling it." I began. I clacked my mandibles and ran my feelers over my antennae.
Formi, I'm filthy.
"Why destroy the gardens? And the hole?"
"The old boss's taste in décor was tacky. I'm sprucing it up. Oh! The Head of Agriculture is still with us. He approved my promotion, so I'm now the new Regional Agricultural Advisor." I rubbed at my face, my antennae twitching aggressively once more now that I'm not putting my entire focus onto tearing asunder this pathetic excuse of a garden.
"I'm making a burrow in case we need to hide the kids outside the building. I've already made two others in case we need to retreat through the back and into the next property."
"What did the predator do? Are you okay?"
I kicked at some loose soil before stretching my legs and scuttling out of the hole. I pulled myself up and fruitlessly wiped at the filth coating my carapace. "I'm not okay. Nobody is okay, or we wouldn't be here Tugal. We wouldn't need to worry about predators, or pests, or starving, or the humans, or each other if we were okay. For once, our predator didn't do anything wrong."
Tugal became alert, his mandibles clicking quietly as he waited for me to continue.
"There was a Tilfish that left the swarm. He went into one of the predator nests to talk. They didn't hurt him- the humans are too patient to eat the first ones that come to them, but after he left some witnesses told the swarm about it." How I really felt about the matter was slipping through with every single errant twitch I couldn't control. We were not supposed to be the monsters in this story. We were not supposed to be so susceptible to our wicked past. We were civilized!
I lowered my voice. "A group took him away from the city and tore him apart while he was still alive. They tried to feed him to Bark Saws, Tugal."
"Are you certain the story wasn't deception?" Tugal whispered back. "It's what they're known for."
I flicked my antennae in confirmation.
"Maybe... maybe they were defending themselves. Don't look at me like that, how they did it was sick. I hope they're screened and dealt with properly; we can't have people doing that in these times. It's no excuse. I'm just trying to understand it." Tugal stated, making my innards twist. "But these predators we're facing hunt through social deception. They're tricky, and the more of us they corrupt the more susceptible the swarm gets. That man, he could've done untellable damage. I just... I'm sorry you had to hear that. We have to stand strong against them, but we can't lose ourselves doing so."
Tugal watched me for a moment more, then gently prodded me: "...now, why the burrows? What else happened?"
I swallowed, my mandibles clicking repeatedly as I tried to reign in my thoughts. It was hard to speak suddenly, and I gripped my feelers until my claws started scraping into my chitin. "Where does that leave Muttart?"
Tugal flinched and his mandibles flexed. "No. Marullo, no."
"He's not afraid of them, Tugal!" I hissed quietly, feelers trembling. "He isn't! How do I help him? How long can I keep him here before he's too curious and sneaks out? What if someone sees him? What if Cleo finds out? He's not a threat: he's still a child!"
"Marullo, he'll be fine." My brother stated firmly, gripping my arms. "Nobody's going to touch him. We just need to talk to him- he doesn't understand what predators are capable of."
"And what about us?" I buzzed back. "What are we capable of? How can normal people do that?"
"It's fear, Marullo. Fear breaks us. You freeze when you're terrified. Others abandon the ones they love. Some... some fight back. Everyone goes crazy when threatened, and those people will pay for what they did."
Too many things flashed through my head at once. It felt like I was boiling.
"It's not just them, Tugal. Someone down in the residential area was watching the predators last night. He asked about him." My brother's feelers tightened on my arms, and he grew still. "They asked about me as well, and I think they believe I'm a threat. They're no different than the people that mutilated that poor man."
"How many? What did you say?"
"Two, at least. They didn't give their names. I didn't tell them anything about us. We can't trust anyone else to keep quiet. One word to the wrong person and we're all dead. Our chance at making this right dies. I told them off, but I don't think it'll be enough."
"They might come back because of that."
"What was I to say? Was I supposed to advertise that we're one of the last resistance networks left?"
My brother's grip loosened and he stepped away, antennae flicking with concern. "I can figure this out. We'll... I'll set up a watch throughout the day with the exterminators. If they're on hand if a mob shows up, one of them in their gear should dissuade any further action. They won't get to you or Muttart. You did good. Can you- please rest. Go clean up, you'll scare Holywood and Muttart."
I twitched my mandibles a few times, looking at the ruins of a once barely acceptable garden. "Let me tidy up back here. I have to order flowers and a few trees, and work on other gardens in the public view. I guess that part can wait." I tacked on quickly, trying not to flinch under Tugal's sharp gaze.
"I'll go out to the market and pick up food afterwards. We shouldn't need to worry about basic necessities."
"If you're up for it. Be watchful out there" Tugal warned softly. I appreciated his concern, and bobbed my head wordlessly. He paused a moment, and asked quietly: "How did the predator come across that crime?"
"I... I don't know."
Tugal sighed quietly. "How did it affect it?"
I paused, wondering why Tugal cared. Absently, I ducked my head in thought. "It's furious. I... I almost want to say bitter. We got into a fight over the Bark Saws, and it escalated. It's angry with me, and I need to figure out how to fix that before we lose it."
"We can try and-""
"No." I interrupt, surprising my brother. His antennae raise, and I continue. "Because I've been handing off the conversation to you and the others, we accidentally crossed it. If I had been the one to talk to it first instead of you, I could've avoided starting the argument with the Bark Saw. Cleo, Aegan, Zoil- they're hostile towards it and it believes I talk like that now. It feels threatened. I need to do this on my own and try and fix it. I can bring it back to us."
Tugal buzzed quietly, thinking. "Okay. Get yourself cleaned up first. Give it some time to calm down and go bring back some groceries. I'll talk with the others and get them back on track. I think our window to do this is closing, Marullo. If we can't get this human the risks we took will be for naught. Every other option will be riskier if this falls apart."
"I know. I won't let you down."

I'm Trying to help a friend who has harmful beliefs. WARNING & APOLOGIES THOUGH: This is an extremely long post.
​
I have a very close friend who and he is actually much much more of a devout christian than I am. He also is extremely schizophrenic (he's been officially diagnosed I think 7 or 8 years ago or more) and he is also probably at least 200 pounds overweight (if not more). He has told me many many many times over the years that he believes that he can literally just pray all of his problems away, without doing any work whatsoever, and his prayers will still be answered. I think this is completely non sense, and I believe that God helps those who help themselves. And I also believe it's just a simple fact of common sense reality that you have to pray along with action to make things happen in life.
Tonight we had a heated debate about this topic and I brought up 2 big examples. One being me and his weight. I'm about 60 or 70 pounds overweight and I'm only 5'4 so I'm extremely overweight myself so I brought up the example that me and him are both extremely overweight...but I told him, we can't simply pray away our weight. I told him praying for God to give us the strength to work out or eat better etc. is great. But for us to actually lose weight we have to physically put in the work also, along with praying. And he disagreed. He literally was trying to tell me that we both can just sit on our fat butts and pray and somehow, some way God will make the weight go away on it's own.
I brought up another example. We're both single males, and we've both been single for a very very long time. We both want girlfriends and potentially wives eventually, but I don't think either of us are focused on it too too much right now. But I brought up the example that let's say tomorrow we decide we are done being single and we want a girlfriend really really bad now. I told him we can pray for that, of course. But it's not actually going to happen unless we actually meet women in some kind of way. Whether it be dating sites or apps, some way on the internet, going to public places and talking to women, something in the physical world to meet women. I said the percentage that if I pray for a girlfriend tonight that God will have one magically knock on my door tomorrow is so tiny, that's it's literally not even worth thinking about or considering at all. And he disagreed. He thought it was a perfectly reasonable thing to believe that if he prays for a girlfriend tonight that God could have one knock on his door tomorrow. And look, I know God performs miracles and totally could do that. But 99 times out of 100, it's just simply not going to happen. We all know that.
I'll be honest I think a lot of this could be his schizophrenia, I'm no mental health expert but from what I have been told a lot of schizophrenics have trouble staying in reality sometimes. And from I understand he is extremely schizophrenic. He is on disability from the government because of his schizophrenia, so it is severe enough for him to be on that. So I don't know how much of this is his disability or not.
And to be honest I don't care what is causing it, it just pains me that he is looking at life like this everyday because I think it's an extremely unhealthy & harmful way to look at life. And I know my only chance to show him he is wrong is to show him some kind of scriptures that refute his current views on this, if there is any. I don't know if some of you may find this to be manipulative or not, what I'm wanting to do, and if you do I fully understand and we can have conversations about that. But I just love this guy to death and it pains me that he is looking at life this way. So anything to help him with this topic, to me personally, would be a good positive thing. He always brings up different scriptures in the bible about "waiting on God" to defend his views on all of this. And I never have any scriptural evidence because I have to be honest, I'm nowhere near as devout of a christian as he is. And I've only read the bible a little bit probably one time in my life. I still identify as a christian, and I fully believe in a christian God. But I'm nowhere near as devout as him so I don't know any scriptures.
But I think showing him some scriptural evidence that God helps those who help themselves may have a chance on helping him. I've always heard the phrase "God helps those who help themselves" but I don't if there's anything in the actual bible to prove that scripturally. And I don't know if scriptural evidence will even help him, if it doesn't, I will honestly probably give up forever when it comes to this because I've tried to talk him out of this for probably going on at least 5 to 7 years now. But I feel like it's worth one last try by doing this because I have known the man since we were both in 6th grade and I love him like a brother. And it kills me that he really thinks he can pray away all of his problems without doing any action whatsoever at 30 years old. And I think it's really leading to him not fixing any of his problems for the past 7 to 8 years (maybe longer) So if you guys have any suggestions on what I could try to help, and like I said any scriptural evidence on God helping those who help themselves, I'd greatly appreciate it.

As a response to a comment on my last post, "Top 10 Most Important Roads in Indy," I have created this latest countdown of the Top 25 Busiest Intersections in Indy. Note that these are the BUSIEST intersections in Indy, whereas the last post looked at roads most IMPORTANT to the city.
​
25.) Kessler Blvd and Michigan Rd
24.) 38th St and Dr.MLK Jr St/Michigan Rd
23.) 96th St and Meridian St
22.) Pendleton Pike and Sunnyside Rd
21.) Southport Rd and Emerson Av
20.) 38th St and Lafayette Rd
19.) 86th St and Michigan Rd
18.) 21st St and Shadeland Av
17.) County Line Rd and Emerson Av
16.) County Line Rd and Meridian St
15.) Washington St and Post Rd
14.) Kentucky Av and Mooresville Rd
13.) Kentucky Av and High School Rd
12.) Washington St and High School Rd
11.) County Line Rd and US 31
10.) Edgewood Av and US 31
9.) 82nd St and Allisonville Rd
8.) 71st St and Binford Blvd
7.) 38th St and High School Rd
6.) Pendleton Pike and Franklin Rd
5.) 86th St and Keystone Av
4.) Rockville Rd and High School Rd
3.) Fall Creek Pkwy and Keystone Av
2.) 96th St and Keystone Av
​
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Washington St and West St; Fall Creek Rd. and Shadeland Av; 10th St and Dr.MLK Jr St/West St; 86th St and Meridian St
​
And the busiest intersection in Indianapolis is....
​
1.) Rockville Rd and Country Club Rd
​
How Were These Entries Selected?
Unlike the last post, which was simply based on my experience living in the city for 25 years, this countdown was made using measurable data. The data comes from the INDOT Traffic Count Database System. The data was measured mostly in 2022 or later, with a few readings coming from as early as 2020.
Traffic Count Database System (TCDS) (ms2soft.com)
To make this list I searched for reading locations in Marion County and then sorted the list by highest AADT (Annual Average Daily Traffic).
As one might guess, nearly all of the top 100 were located on interstate highways (I-465, I-65, I-70, etc.). However, for this countdown I excluded all locations situated on interstate highways. This means I even excluded locations situated on the interchange of an interstate highway and a non-interstate (eg., Keystone and I-465 on the northside,, 82nd and I-69, etc.). I only included reading locations situated near interstate highways if there was a non-minor intersection nearby (eg., I included Rockville and High School since both roads are non-minor but excluded US 31 and Elbert St. since Elbert is a minor road).
Using this criteria, I compiled a list of 48 intersections in Marion County, each with an annual average of over 30,000 hits per day.
​
From this list of 48 intersections, to avoid redundancies I grouped entries together where all of the intersections occurred within 1 mile of a single intersection and kept the highest reading, then named the entry after the central/largest intersection (eg., I combined US 31/Stop 11, US 31/Stop 12, US 31/ Stop 13, US 31/Co. Line, Co.Line/Airport and called it US 31/Co. Line)
Below are the 28 entries I got after grouping, with the AADT in parentheses to the side.
​
Southside
Kentucky Av and Mooresville Rd (36,267)
Kentucky Av and High School Rd (36,348)
Meridian St and County Line Rd (35,231)
US 31 and County Line Rd (37,374)
US 31 and Edgewood Av (38,034)
Emerson Av and Southport Rd (34,201)
Emerson Av and County Line Rd (34,979)
​
Westside
Washington St and High School Rd (36,707)
Rockville Rd and High School (43,558)
Rockville Rd and Country Club Rd (46,971)
38th St and High School Rd (40,746)
​
Eastside
Washington St and Post Rd (36,090)
Pendleton Pike and Franklin Rd (42,892)
Pendleton Pike and Sunnyside Rd (33,867)
Shadeland Av and 21st St (34,809)
Shadeland Av and Fall Creek Rd. (30,101)
​
Northside
Allisonville Rd and 82nd St (39,468)
Michigan Rd and 86th St (34,386)
Keystone Av and 86th St (43,310)
Keystone Av and 96th St (46,929)
Meridian St and 86th St (31,421)
Meridian and 96th St (33,859)
​
​
Central
Lafayette Rd and 38th St (34,220)
West St./MLK St. and 10th (31,103)
MLK St./Michigan Rd and 38th St (31,819)
Michigan Rd and Kessler Blvd (31,736)
Fall Creek Pkwy and Keystone Av (45,904)
Binford Blvd and 71st St (40,146)
​
Surprised at anything in this list? Wondering how any intersections didn't make this list? Please feel free to comment below.
​
Thank you for reading!

Demographics: White, $100k+, New England, good suburban public school
Intended major: economics, international development (depending on school's programs. Very commited to working in international development, even if my company fails.) Hooks: mega-legacy at Harvard) father, step-mother, uncle, aunt, sister, etc).
Academics: 1600 SAT, 1500 PSAT, 4.9 to 5.0 weighted GPA out of 5.33 potential, 3.97 unweighted (1 B in Multivariable Calc as a junior). Not submitting ACT. Not sure on class rank, but maybe 15-25/700? Coursework: most challenging available, 13 APs taken, 6-7 more as a senior, 5 years of Spanish self-studied over two years. Probably 5s on most APs but haven't gotten scores back for 9 of them. Also took precalc, linear algebra, econometrics, and a data analytics course outside of school.
ECs:

1. Started a recruitment agency in a small African country that has found full time work for 20+ people. Brokered services for software engineering firms in said country. Created and marketed a data analytics team. $20k+ profit, $120k+ wage income earned. By far the thing I am most proud of.
2. Heavily involved in political advocacy in said country. Raised $100k+ for a small political organization there, representing a 1000% increase in their funding. This is a LOT for the region, but I can't say too much here as my involvement in this is very private.
3. Debate captain (one of five). Only started in my junior year, but was very successful for my level of experience. Have won a few tournaments and placed t10 at states. It's possible I'll be the first nationals qualifier from my school in a while by the time I submit some of my apps.
4. Founder of school world awareness club, discussing current events and history in lesser-known countries. Used this to coordinate some of my political activities.
5. We the People Constitutional Law Team: 2nd place for unit group at states. Won most valuable team member award. Competed in various other related competitions independently.
6. 3x Varsity Cross Country: 17:30 ish 5k, lol I tried to be better :(
7. Co-leader of school philosophy club: will be honest, totally stumbled into this position recently. 20+ members, though.
8. Published book of poetry by application season, hopefully. Won a variety of not-so-prestigious poetry competitions.
9. Chess team: board 2 on state and county championship winning team (this is a lot less impressive than it might sound, but hey).
10. Volunteering as a tutor on Schoolhouse. Certified in every US curriculum topic available. 100+ hours tutored.
11. Squash, total wildcard here. I have not competed recently but should be top 20 in state. It's totally possible I could be recruitable, or that this could be a non-factor. I played a lot when I was younger and was very good, but purposefully avoided playing it as I felt that it was forced upon me by my parents. Now I'm picking it back up.

Honors/awards:

• NMS, semi-finalist or finalist, ap scholar or whatever
• won $1000 political essay contest by state org
• won $500 political essay contest by local org by unanimous vote of 20 judges
• Princeton Book Award (basically just an award for being your English teacher's favorite student).
• NHS, volunteering in classrooms, yay!
• won some awards at Scholastic Art and Writing
• We the People most valuable team member award
• Cross country coach's award (I know).
• a bunch of debate things I can't list here without doxxing myself, moderately impressive
• JV tennis most improved player award 💀

Essay: personal statement about my background as a homeschooler and how I developed a global awareness and a passion for working towards international development. I write a lot and have worked extremely hard on it, but there's no way for me to really rate it.
LoR 1: English teacher, got a 100% on nearly every assignment in his class and have a close relationship with him. 8/10. LoR 2: We the People Teacher: essentially did more than half of the work for the team of 13 all year. Worked with him all year to try to get a group of people from a lot of different backgrounds to work together. By far the most successful student in other competitions associated with the class. Knows about my political activism stuff and my company. That being said, I am quite nervous about this one, as he has very open strong political beliefs that I have questioned all year, and he might also think I'm a little awkward and disorganized. 7/10? counselor's rec: should basically say that I made her life difficult by asking for various courses and that my mom likes me
Applying to:
Reaches:
Harvard (REA), Penn (Wharton), Dartmouth, UChicago, Cornell, Brown, Columbia, Yale (maybe), Swarthmore, Berkeley, Princeton, Stanford (maybe), MIT (maybe).
Targets: UMich (EA), Claremont McKenna, Pomona, NYU,
Safety: my state school.
A bit nervous going in to my junior-senior summer, as my top 3 ECs are in critical periods. That being said, I care about all three of them for reasons far beyond college, especially the top 2. Some cynical part of me still wishes I just played squash all my life and made this a cake walk, though. Would love feedback on my chances and potentially recommendations for more schools to apply to.

I had a female narc ex, covert with probably comorbid BPD, we dated for 6 intense months from fall - spring 2022. at first I was the perfect love of her life, she would love me always and forever, wanted to marry me, came to my parents house for the holidays, accepted gifts from my mom, ate my fathers home cooked food. I am also responsible from saving her brother from going to prison (can’t give too much details - but eventually the brother stopped talking to her and was still friends with me.) love bombing and hot sex turned into devaluation, turned into physical, emotional, psychological abuse such as hitting me in private and public, throwing food and drinks in my face, breaking my hand with a lifelong injury while I was trying to defend my face, cuts, scars, and a serious traumatic brain injury. In addition there were threats to ruin my career if I told anyone, blackmail threats to steal my property. And of course she would break up with me everyday because I was so terrible, she would cause me intense emotional pain, yell scream, rage, and the next day apologize and come back until eventually she stopped apologizing and it would take longer and longer for her to come back, always less loving, less human.
After the head injury and she said she would clean up the mess she made throwing food all over my face, walls, carpet, and she did not, threatening my career as a licensed professional, tell the police I abused her, I was a wreck. I gained 60 lbs. I was in complex PTSD due to the prolonged traumatization. I had constant nightmares, flashbacks, wanting her to come and love me the way she would and did with other men and would with me if I weren’t so terrible, but I was also afraid of her and didn’t want to see her. she would still contact me when she needed a favor and because of her threats to my career, I complied. I talked to a lawyer about her threats to my career. I was a wreck and fat and I knew she was going on hinge dates with other guys bc “she was only trying to make friends” which actually might be true, she was beautiful and would go out on dating app dates just to get expensive dinners. I finally began to see the light. I was still hungry for her breadcrumbs of love but stronger than before and eventually went No Contact in summer. From late summer through mid fall, she attempted to contact me several times through text first from different numbers saying it was her then from fake numbers pretending to be different women. I also learned she was getting evicted from her building next to mine.
I filed a restraining order though I hadn’t seen her in 4 months and made police reports about her abuse. Since she had just been evicted, it took forever to get her served with the summons. During the process of finding her to get her served, I hired a private investigator and continued to learn the depth of her lies, which I thought I knew by the end due to figuring it out plus what her brother told me, but she lied about her entire biography essentially. I spent at least a month driving like a maniac around the city to all her dozen or more listed addresses to surveillance and find her. I hired really expensive lawyers and multiple PIs and finally found her through a mixture of her brother and looking at her IG story and figuring where they were eating that day for a reconciliation dinner.
​
She was served with the restraining order summons and for the first time ever, I had the “upper hand” or at least wasn’t under her foot being abused and bossed around because of her threats to my career. Finally we had our first court appearance in Jan 2023, she requested continuances and showed up two more times in court. She contacted my lawyer to try and settle but then stopped replying. Finally our trial was in April and she didn’t show. I was granted the full Order of Protection for 2 years.
The court found domestic violence including multiple lifelong injuries (broken bones, traumatic brain injury), stalking, property damage, false imprisonment, race-based threats to have me arrested on false allegations of abuse/rape, blackmail threats to ruin my career as a physician, extortion to put me in jail in exchange for my condo, hacking into my electronic devices including credit cards and financial abuse, and, after I terminated the relationship when I went No Contact, her continued months-long harassment and attempts to contact me using spoofed numbers, her family members, and fake identities pretending to be other women to try and get me to meet. So that was a month ago with the protection order. On the criminal side, the prosecutor is still deciding whether they can file charges considering it is a historical he said/she said despite texts, audio admission of the TBI, and medical records. Of course when I called the cops both times with the lifelong injuries she told me that if I told them the truth that she would allege rape and put me in prison and destroy my medical career which I spent 12 years building. Now a few days ago I’m coming back from work and I see the Nex sitting on my building patio having wine with a dude. This dude looks like humpty dumpty, and the first time she became aware of him - she and I were working out in my building gym together and he was ogling her, and she called him a disgusting creep. Now humpty dumpty heard we’d broken up I guess and shot his shot, and as a narc she was using him for attention and supply.
But why on earth would you be so stupid to sit outside my patio in my condo building knowing that you have a restraining order? Is it to tell me that she doesn’t care about what I think and will not let me “control” her? Is it to subtly try and hoover me? (When I was in the relationship she would break up w me and I would come crawling back, when I left she started to hoover me harder and harder. Even lots of messages and phone calls from unknown numbers right around the court dates). Is it really simply because she had no empathy or decency or consideration to not come by my place after knowing how much she hurt me??
Regardless, she was there. So I start recording on my phone and confront her telling her she is violating the protection order. She starts talking back nonsense about how she’s visiting humpty dumpty and I don’t own the entire building, and I tell her about my broken bones and near fatal brain injury, current fear, her threats and blackmail - and she basically smirks or doesn’t respond. I walk back to my parking lot while humpty dumpty tries to de escalate, I tell him to screw off and call 911. They come, examine the order, and arrest her. She’s been in jail over the long weekend and will likely face a misdemeanor charge.
She deformed me for life, could have killed me, and after that I still wanted her to clean the mess she made from destroying my condo in a rage over literally nothing minutes after we were lying naked and I was brushing her hair. And I was scared of her and her threats to my career. I was a broken man. That was 15 months ago.
I hit some lower lows but eventually came out of it, and against the odds not only won a restraining order, but tonight she is literally sitting in jail for a criminal violation against me. I wish it was a felony assault charge, but I was able to force accountability on my narcissistic abusive ex, and damn it feels good.

The week and weekend leading up to Memorial Day was not as quiet as expected. Our clinic buzzed with last-minute occupational testing, worker's comp cases, and unexpected injuries so severe that I thought we might transfer the patients to the ER. Luckily, only one or two fit that category.
Patients are still waiting too long to seek treatment. We saw a patient with a dislocated shoulder that suffered for a week before seeking treatment. More cellulitis patients arrived. I caught an article about it written by - of all people - Melissa Gilbert (Little House on the Prairie). If you are ever in a position where a relative is refusing treatment for a severely red and inflamed limb, show them her article:
https://parade.com/news/little-house-on-the-prairie-melissa-gilbert-er-horrifying-bug-bite-instagram-photo
That article should be enough to convince them.
Eye infections, styes and chalazions were up. No bilateral (both eyes) infections showed up.
Sinus pain and pressure were common complaints, with just one or two reporting yellow or green "alien" mucus.
On the Covid front, I heard they had three Covid cases on Monday, but we had just one or two this week and weekend. This may be due to the fact that most patients are now refusing COVID testing. The vast majority of them ask for Strep testing, and only a few resulted positive for Strep A. The rest were put down to "unknown virus", or "viral syndrome" (in the very young). To say that I am disappointed that so few chose to Covid test is an understatement.
Of course, one of those positive cases was given to me to discharge, and to my great relief she was at least directed to wear a mask as she sat at my desk. The problem? She leaned into the window so closely that I nearly felt the need to back myself away. I resisted it, knowing that the cloud of viral aerosolized particles was not directed toward me; but I hastened her paperwork and excused myself from the scene as quickly as possible. Sometimes it's better to just let the air clear, so to speak.
None of my coworkers are wearing masks anymore, not even my fellow front office workers. I overheard a conversation between a supervisor and some unidentified person (I don't eavesdrop, but when my name is mentioned I tend to pay attention). It seems they were talking about how well the dropping of mask-wearing was going. I was mentioned as being "proactive" versus everyone else, and that things seemed to be running smoothly...but I am not entirely of that opinion. In fact, I was somewhat angry that I had been singled out as a representative of a class of people; it had a ring of political side-taking even though the words were carefully chosen.
Several patients who were obviously ill with respiratory ailments refused to mask. I insisted, prompting scowls and grumbling, but my coworkers gave up, and said nothing. This in turn caused other patients to insist upon waiting in their cars. The divide between patients who just don't care about spreading disease and those who don't want to catch any seems to be developing quietly. While some people won't wear masks, they are still interested in separating themselves from obviously sick people. I do wish they would understand that Covid can be carried by even "healthy" looking people. Three years in, and they still haven't received the message.
When I look out over the crowd of unmasked patients, I see vulnerable seniors, babies, pregnant women... I feel that our signs should say, "Enter at your own risk."
I had a conversation with one of our doctors about Paxlovid when a middle aged couple came in asking for it due to symptoms (feeling "Very sick, nauseous, with a fever,") and a positive COVID test. I prefaced my question to the doctor with, "As I am sure you have heard that the FDA formally declared Paxlovid a safe and effective treatment for COVID," and then followed up with, "Are you now of a mind to consider writing a prescription for it, if the situation warrants it?"
His reply was curt, to the point, and had a somewhat annoyed and confused tone: "I have never written a Paxlovid prescription because...I cannot be sure of the patient's liver function." And that was that. No mention of a survey for the patient, no request for a test for liver enzymes...nothing. He went back to his paperwork, and I promptly directed the patient to the local CVS Minute Clinic.
Once again, I felt defeated. My own clinic, my favorite practitioners, too worried that someone might sue them, and too worried that they might cause harm - to act to give comfort. It distracted me that day. Just in case you're in a position where your provider is on the fence, here is the announcement by the FDA:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-oral-antiviral-treatment-covid-19-adults#:~:text=Today%2C%20the%20U.S.%20Food%20and,19%2C%20including%20hospitalization%20or%20death.
For those seeking COVID stats, I spent a couple of days compiling areas showing a rise in wastewater and hospitalizations:
Marion County appeared to have a rise in hospitalizations earlier this week. Citrus was also shown. I am now convinced that areas with shared hospitals are being linked, and the counties are not separated by geographical area.
Comparative hospitalizations for COVID treatment between this and last week:
Citrus: 13 new patients, a 62.5% rise, 2.50 patients per 100,000 (above the US average of 2.49). Marion mirrored this.
Indian River: 35 new patients, a 59.1% rise, 4.6 patients per 100,000.
Santa Rosa: 35 patients, a 94.4% rise, 4.2 patients per 100,000. Escambia, Okaloosa, and Walton were linked.
As a control:
Pasco: 130 patients, down 19.8%, 4.1 patients per 100,000.
We do seem to have had more COVID in Pasco, but it is slowly relaxing. That may be short-lived though, considering the holiday.
I have not included any other counties due to the fact that their levels were the same or reduced by a very small level. If you're in any of those fortunate counties, smile! (But still wear your mask.)
Wastewater Levels per the CDC show:
Levi: Significant rise
Alachua: Significant rise
Orange: Tentative rise, just beginning
All other levels were decreasing slowly or unreported.
Memorial weekend and Day will result in people getting together for barbeques, solemn ceremonies, and family outings....and you know more gatherings means more spread. I'll report what I see, of course.
For everyone still masking, keep it up. I've had patients confront me: "Are you comfortable in that mask?" I simply reply that it is the best thing that I can do to guard myself at the clinic....and at the grocery store....and on public transportation. Don't ever apologize. It's your right to stay healthy and happy.
For those dealing with Memorial Day as I do, in remembering lived ones lost to the wars, or just simply lost to time, I am with you.
Be safe, be masked, and be well.

I'm a software professional who works from home in Apex.
There are some days where it would be useful to have another place to work from (change of scenery, distractions at home, etc.).
I don't require a dedicated desk, just somewhere to sit and free internet without a lot of distraction.
Coffee shops are fine, but I'm preferably looking for something with a bit less coming-and-going, no music playing, minimal chit-chat, etc.
Does something like this exist for free in the Greater Triangle area? I'm not willing to pay $100+ per month for this, as many commercial coworking spaces charge (and oftentimes much more).
Would Wake County public libraries (Apex or Cary) be good for this purpose? I've never been to either, and have been considering getting a membership.
Any advice or feedback is greatly appreciated!