070 shake lose my cool lyrics

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full [R-word censored by jobs] to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

Previous Chapter Table of Contents
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Sarah's Perspective
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As I looked up at my boss, I could feel my heart racing with nervousness. No matter how much I do my job, whenever I’m asked a question, I feel like I’m back in school and didn’t do the homework. “Sarah, would you be so kind as to please explain what Dr. Shepherd’s report means in plain English,” my boss asked, bringing me back to the present moment?
I took a deep breath and looked down at the report Isaac had prepared, scanning through the pages to identify the parts my boss referred to as “not plain English.” As I flipped through the pages, I could feel my palms starting to sweat with anxiety as every pair of eyes bore down on me.
Finally, I found the section my boss referred to and started summarizing the key findings in my own words. “The object was observed for six months before reaching the heliosphere, which is the space we believe is the edge of our solar system,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. I paused, looking for the next section.
“Then, the new telescope gave us good readings and measurements on size and speed. This thing appears to be very big,” I continued.
“Approximately two weeks ago, the object completed a turning maneuver and turned on the engines to slow down. In those two weeks, we have seen a measurable reduction in speed. The transit estimate time for the entire heliosphere went from approximately four months to two years, give or take one year, due to the margin of error in our calculations,” I finished, looking up to see the other diplomats and delegates in the room staring at me with varying degrees of concern and disbelief.
“Any questions?” I asked, hoping that someone would come forward with a reassuring response and take the focus away from me.
As I finished my summary, my boss looked at me and said, “Thank you, Sarah. Why is there such a large uncertainty?” I blinked, trying to understand the question and how to answer it.
After a moment, I slowly replied, “Because we don’t know what the object will do. It might cut its engines after slowing down 1% or increase engine power and slow down further. There are many factors that could come into play, and we are still trying to understand them.”
My boss nodded, deep in thought, and then continued, “In light of the clear images we now have, we know this will be some form of first contact. We must be prepared no matter the kind of first contact. We will be relocating to Texas to better coordinate between all the teams involved, science, diplomats, military, and others.”
I couldn’t believe it. I knew we were talking about moving, but now it was happening. I couldn’t wait to call Issac and tell him the good news. I was finally going to see my kids daily, not monthly.
My boss continued, “Anyone not transferred to Texas with us will receive new assignments over the weekend and need to report to their new departments. It was a pleasure serving with you all. For those of us moving to Texas, you have two weeks off to make it there without any issues. We will have our first all-hands meeting on the Monday after two weeks. If you have any questions, please address them to your coordinators.”
As the meeting ended, I felt a sense of excitement and relief wash over me. I said my goodbyes to the few colleagues I knew were not coming with us to Texas and headed toward the front door. The thought of being closer to my children was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.
Once outside, I hailed a taxi and quickly gave the driver my address. I couldn’t wait to call Issac and tell him the good news. As I dialed his number, my heart raced with anticipation, but to my disappointment, he didn’t pick up. So, I decided to text him instead. I told him I had good news and asked him to call me back as soon as possible.
As we drove through the city, I pulled out my phone and looked up plane tickets to Texas. A flight was available on Tuesday morning, which would be perfect timing for me to finish everything over the weekend and turn in my keys on Monday.
The taxi dropped me off in front of my apartment building before Issac could call me back. As I walked up the stairs to my apartment, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of melancholy. The apartment was now nearly empty, with nothing but a blow-up mattress in the living room, a cheap chair I had picked up from a local store, and a single suitcase I had taken back and forth from Texas. No pictures, mementos, or personal touches would make this place feel like a home. All of that already moved, and I was here alone.
I walked to the kitchen and reheated some takeout on my only plate. As I sat down to eat with a plastic spoon, I felt a wave of gratitude. My “Bachelor Lifestyle” was finally ending, and I couldn’t wait to be reunited with my children. It was time to start fresh in Texas, and I was ready for a new beginning.
After finishing my meal, I washed the plate and decided to frame it as a bittersweet reminder of what I went through when I got home to Texas. I froze mid-wash, realizing this was precisely what Issac went through when we decided to move to New Your City. With a shudder, I resolved that I would apologize for what I had put him through.
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John Cooper, 3 months after object turned on engines.
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I spent my last day in the office at Langley poring over the latest images and reports from NASA. A sinking feeling grew in my stomach as I looked through the data. The eggheads have been geeking and writing report after report of all the wonderful and crazy things they were discovering. My job as the realist was to look at the worst-case scenario.
The images showed what appeared to be an alien craft, and the size of it was measured in thousands of miles. I prayed that the eggheads had made a mistake, that they had added a zero or two or misplaced the decimal point, but deep down, I knew that was wishful thinking. It would change everything we knew about our place in the universe if it was real.
Even more troubling were the tubes that the eggheads didn’t label as anything but suspiciously looked like launch tubes to me. They were estimated to be multiple miles in diameter. To put that into perspective, it was large enough to engulf a small Midwestern town and still have plenty of room for some cows. My mind raced as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.
Pouring a finger of whiskey, I sat down at the computer to hammer out my last report from this office. Thankfully the eggheads have been adding “Layman’s Abstracts” as they labeled it, so my job was now to add the things their Utopian minds didn’t think of.
Still, I kinda felt offended by the label “Layman’s.” The first time I read it, I thought it said “Lame-man’s.”
As I sat there, sipping my whiskey and staring at the screen, I couldn’t help but wonder what the aliens’ ultimate goal was. Did they want to conquer us, or were they just passing through? Did they want to teach us something, or were they studying us like lab rats? And what did their presence mean for our future?
The fact that the aliens had brought about world peace was a silver lining but also a double-edged sword. It was true that no one wanted to waste bullets on each other anymore, but the new threat also had us all on edge. We were all just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I chuckled, imagining the aliens compensating with big guns for something, but I knew better. The reality was rarely that simple. The fact was were finally working together, sharing information and resources to prepare for the unknown.
Reagan was absolutely right. Nothing united humanity quite like a universal outside threat. We were shipping bullets and missiles to every country willing to build a bunker deep enough to hide it. We were basically treating explosives and ammo like candy on Halloween. And no one was complaining about budgets since there was a decent chance the banks would go away if the world ended.
Maybe?
I took a sip of my whiskey and leaned back in my chair. The idea of the aliens compensating with big guns for something still lingered in my mind. I wondered if they were as afraid of us as we were of them. Or maybe they were just being cautious. After all, they were the ones with the advanced technology.
As I finished typing up my report and printed out a few copies. As the printer spit out each document, I placed it in an envelope, sealed it with my stamp, and hand-wrote the date and time. One was for my official file. The next was for my boss. The last was for his boss.
As I walked over to my boss’s office with the two envelopes I had just sealed, I was already running through the list of things I needed to do next. This was the last time I would make this walk, at least until the next time I get stationed here. If the world doesn’t end at the next of this next assignment.
Once I arrived at my boss’s office, I knocked on the door and waited for him to call me in. As I entered, I handed him the envelope meant for him and explained that it contained my final report from Langley. I then gave him the second envelope, which was for his boss. As he took it from me, he thanked me for my work in this office and asked how my preparations for the move to Texas were going. I told him everything was in order and that I needed to pack my personal belongings and transfer my equipment.
He wished me luck and said he was sad to see me go. I said it was only sad if everything got blown to smithereens. Otherwise, we had more dances to have in the future. He nodded and ripped open one of the envelopes I delivered.
I left his office and walked out of the building to the car. All I had to do was load my single luggage case of clothing and momentous up my car and set off on the long 20 drive to Texas. Maybe longer if I got stuck in New Orleans again. In any case, I had to be there on Monday at a 9 am meeting as the new security advisor for future operations.
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Issac’s perspective
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Eventually, I saw my wife’s missed call and text messages and called Sarah back. She told me the good news that she was being transferred full-time to Texas. And I couldn’t be happier. It had been months of her flying back and forth. The thought of her finally being here with me was comforting. The next day I called my brother and explained the situation to him. He and his friend were more than happy to help with the kids while I picked up Sarah from the airport.
I arrived at the airport early, eagerly awaiting Sarah’s plane’s landing. As soon as she stepped out of the terminal, I ran up and embraced her tightly. It felt like the world had stopped spinning, and for a moment, everything was perfect.
We returned to the house, and Sarah asked about my brother’s friend after greeting the kids. I could tell by the look on her face that she had figured out something I had missed. My brother and his friend exchanged nervous glances.
They said they’ve known each other for a while. They met at work. But then Sarah dropped the bombshell question: “How long have your brother and his friend been dating?”
My brother and his friend froze, and I felt like the world had come to a screeching halt. I had no idea that they were even dating, and it never occurred to me to ask. I felt like a complete fool for not putting two and two together. And after the initial shock, everything seemed to work out just fine. My brother and his friend seemed happy, and I was glad they had found each other.
Life was going well for me. Working with Sarah and Miles in the same building was great, and I enjoyed my job. However, the looming thought of the end of the world was always in the back of my mind. Ignoring the reports and rumors of the aliens and their intentions took a lot of work. But I tried to focus on the positive aspects of my life and not let the fear consume me.
That didn’t stop the reports pouring in, each more detailed than the last. We learned that the object was much larger than we had initially thought. And it seemed to be dumping an unbelievable amount of energy to slow down. All the instruments and measurements showed that it was slowing down at a gradual linear rate.
Five months later, I was in Miles’ office discussing the latest information packet from the Mars orbital satellites. We repositioned them to get good images of the opposite side of the object, and what we saw was both fascinating and terrifying.
The object was covered in strange symbols and markings, and as we zoomed in, we realized that they were not random. There was a pattern to them, and it was clear that they were not of human origin. There were also tubes and what appeared to be doors, hatches, windows, and hangers in various places.
Miles looked at me with a quizzical expression and asked, “What do you think, Isaac? How large do you think those doors are?”
I shifted in my seat uncomfortably. “I’m not really sure, Miles. I don’t have a point of reference to make an accurate guess. Everything would be pure speculation and useless.” I said, trying to evade the question.
Miles pushed me further, insisting that I give it a guess. I took a deep breath and said, “Well, if I had to guess, gun to the head, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were at least a mile high and 10 miles wide for the large ones. But the smaller ones were squished into little pixels, so they’re probably smaller than that.”
Miles raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That’s roughly what I was guessing as well. That’s huge,” he said, his voice trailing off as he tried to process the scale of the object we were dealing with.
I nodded in agreement. “It’s almost incomprehensible,” I said, feeling a sense of unease creeping over me as we discussed the object’s sheer size and complexity.
Obviously trying to change the subject, He asked, “Issac, do you have the data on positioning for the object. We’ve been tracking its deceleration for the past 6 months.”
“Sure thing, Miles,” I said, looking up the data on my tablet, “I have the latest data on the object’s speed and trajectory.”
Miles leaned forward, his eyebrows raised with interest. “Great, let’s see it.”
I pulled up the graph I had been working on that morning, indicating the steady deceleration the object had been experiencing. I handed the tablet to Miles, watching as he studied the information. His face looked like he was checking my math as he absorbed the information.
“What about future projections?” Miles asked, looking up from the tablet, and handing it back.
I quickly changed files and handed the tablet back to him, showing him the potential trajectory range of the object. “If it continues on this path, it will be in planetary orbital speeds to match Earth and within 10 lunar orbits of Earth,” I explained, gesturing to the graph with my hand.
Miles furrowed his brow, processing the information. “That’s closer than I was hoping for,” he said, looking back at the tablet. “That will give us a very near-earth orbit opportunity for observation and samples. Maybe even drop a rover on it.”
I nodded in agreement, feeling a sense of unease growing inside me. “Yes, it’s a bit too close for comfort for me,” I countered.
Miles looked up at me pensively and asked, “What’s the highest probability path?”
I thought for a moment, took the tablet from him, and highlighted the data and trajectory predictions, “Based on our data, there’s roughly a 10% chance that the object will be just beyond the moon when it’s in the same place.”
Miles sighed, sinking in his chair, defeated and deflated, “That might cause some problems for sample gathering, and we could lose out on many imaging possibilities.”
Sitting up straight, he took out a pad of paper. He started scribbling down some project ideas, occasionally glancing at me for my opinion. “What do you think the chances are that the object will get caught in our orbit?” Miles asked, looking up from his notepad.
I hesitated momentarily, weighing my words carefully, “It’s not impossible. I’d say it’s a decent chance, but we have to be very careful with any attempts to capture it. If we get it wrong, it could crash into Earth and cause a mass extinction worse than the one that killed the dinosaurs.”
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The following is an expert from the Blog The Illuminati Insider
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Greetings, fellow truth-seekers. It is I, the Illuminati Insider, here to share with you some exclusive information that will blow your minds and shake the very foundation of your beliefs.
My fellow conspirators, listen closely to the words I am about to say. I have uncovered some information that will make your hairs stand on end and your blood run cold. The craft we’ve been tracking for the past 6 months is not what we thought it was. It’s not some puny little thing that will fizzle out before it gets close to our planet. Oh no, my friends. This craft is as big as the continental United States, and it has cannons the size of cities.
I can hear you gasping in disbelief, but I assure you, this is not a drill. The object we have been tracking is not of this world. It’s a behemoth, a juggernaut, a beast that could obliterate our planet in a matter of minutes. This is not going to be a peaceful meeting, mark my words. We are in the midst of the war of the worlds.
We must prepare ourselves for the fight of our lives, my dear comrades. We must gather our resources, our weapons, our courage, and our faith, for we are about to face the ultimate challenge. This is not a time for hesitation, for second-guessing, for doubting. We must act, and we must act fast.
I know some of you might think that this is just another conspiracy theory, that I am just some lunatic spouting off nonsense. But I assure you, I have seen the evidence with my own eyes. I have talked to insiders, whistleblowers, and other brave souls who have risked everything to bring us this information.
We are not alone in this fight, my friends. We have each other, and we have the power of knowledge. We know what’s coming, and we can prepare ourselves accordingly. We can join forces, share our resources, and strategize our attack. We can fight this beast with all our might, and emerge victorious.
So, my fellow Illuminati insiders, let us not waste another moment. Let us band together and prepare for the war of the worlds. Let us show this alien force that we will not be taken down without a fight. Let us be brave, let us be fierce, let us be victorious.
So, my friends, stay vigilant, stay alert, and stay strong. We are in this together, and together we will prevail. Let’s show the world what we are made of.
Yours truly,
The Illuminati Insider
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The following is an excerpt from the blog GalacticGuru.net
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Welcome, fellow seekers of truth and knowledge. This is the Galactic Guru, and I am here to share with you some important information that could save your life and the lives of your loved ones.
As we have been tracking the strange craft that has been approaching our planet, it has become clear that this is no ordinary visitation. This is an invasion, my friends, and we must be prepared for the worst.
We have reason to believe that the aliens who are approaching our planet are not friendly. They are not here to make peace, to share knowledge or technology, or to be our friends. They are here to conquer us, to destroy us, to take over our planet, and to enslave our people.
We must not take this threat lightly, my fellow galactic warriors. We must be ready to defend ourselves, our families, and our way of life. We must stockpile weapons, ammunition, food, and seeds, and antibiotics to prepare for the coming invasion.
I urge you all to take action now, before it’s too late. Gather your resources, arm yourselves, and prepare for the worst-case scenario. We must be ready to fight for our survival, for our freedom, and for our future.
We must also remember that we are not alone in this fight. There are other like-minded individuals out there who are also preparing for the coming invasion. We must join forces, share our resources, and strategize our attack. Together, we can fight this alien force with all our might and emerge victorious.
We must also remember that knowledge is power. We must stay informed, stay vigilant, and stay aware of any new developments in this alien invasion. We must be ready to adapt to any situation, and we must be prepared to make sacrifices for the greater good.
So, my fellow warriors, let us not waste another moment. Let us prepare ourselves for the coming invasion, and let us fight for our survival. We can do this, my friends. We are strong, we are brave, and we are united. Together, we will defeat the alien invaders and protect our planet from harm.
Stay strong, stay vigilant, and stay prepared. The Galactic Guru is with you, always. And to get 20% off your next order please use our promo code. We will even give you free shipping if you do.
The following was left as a comment and promptly removed from the blog post above.
The GalacticGuru.net has always been a source of knowledge and information for those who seek to uncover the truth about the mysteries of the universe. However, I cannot help but feel angry at the recent post about the impending alien invasion and the need to stockpile weapons, ammo, food, seeds, and antibiotics.
While the post may seem like a call to action for those who want to protect themselves and their families, it is also a blatant attempt to profit from people’s fears and anxieties. It is an exploitation of an emergency situation to make money off the backs of those who are genuinely concerned about the future of our planet.
Moreover, the post fails to address the elephant in the room. The elites, the ones who are truly in power, are not concerned about the impending invasion. They have already made arrangements to join their alien overlords and sell us all out.
While the common people are being urged to stockpile weapons and food, the elites are secretly building their spaceships and packing their bags to leave the planet. They have no intention of fighting for our survival or protecting our way of life. They are only concerned about their own interests.
It is time for us to wake up and realize that we are being manipulated by those in power. We must not fall prey to fear-mongering and conspiracy theories that only serve to divide us and distract us from the real issues at hand.
Instead, we must come together, unite as a people, and demand that our leaders take responsibility for their actions. We must demand transparency, accountability, and a plan of action that truly puts the interests of the people first.
The GalacticGuru.net should be ashamed of itself for using an emergency situation to make money. It is time for us to hold them accountable and demand that they use their platform to promote truth, not fear, and to stand up for the common people, not the elites.
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Previous Chapter Table of Contents

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full retard to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

"Tim McGraw" Hint: blond guitarist with yellow jacket and red shorts on occasions
He said the way my blue eyes shined
How are her eyes? Needing sleep? So worried for her, she needs to eat more warm food. When she went to Vegas she was panhandling with song and she got $21 or so with her mom after throwing trash on the fountain like Detti soaped the fountain with a bar and got quickly bailed, and after the first girl scolded the security guard after the littering event. But what she earned with her mom that night was for 1 buffet that night. Not for breakfast. How is her mom? How is her makeup supply? She smeared her guitar with kohl from her tears?
Put those Georgia stars to shame that night
What do you mean? No more singers or celebs from Georgia could come to Nashville then/anymore? Or they were blinded by the LED light? Or the constellations put on a veil?
I said, "That's a lie"
Do you really have blue eyes? Or sunflowers are coming? You uplifted the homeowners of Georgia/ I heard real estate was quite affordable there. But your penthouse is $15K a month - does that include Lisa's 1800GOTJUNK services?
Just a boy in a Chevy truck
How old? Legal to drive? Tall enough to drive that truck? No limb fractures? Eye health OK? Is he wearing his mascot costume, eg Banana SLUG? Sun Devil? Blue Devil? Cardinal?
That had a tendency of gettin' stuck
How? Elmer's glue? Gorilla glue? Uhu?
On back roads at night
Oh, did you have special car lights on like according to the DMV book? And where did the back roads lead to - the stones?
And I was right there beside him all summer long
Why do you expect me to be with my date 24 hours all summer long? How can one date practice swimming in the pool when I am singing a duet with Alicia Keys or Beyonce on my phone in the gym nearby? How can another date earn money for us by Uber Eats while I'm at the office for Uber? How can a third date play tennis while I bargain with the sports store salesman about getting Penn balls vs Onix balls? How can a fourth date record his song in the studio while I coordinate the concert venue? How can fifth date comfort a downcast kid - not her own - with a Happy Birthday song while the peer circle arrange the audiovisual equipment on stage called Rhino Co.?
And then the time we woke up to find that summer gone
"When September Ends" was a cool song? Are you Sleeping Beauty? Who fought the dragon and the thicket for you? Who woke up the castle crew for you? Did you eat pufish? Who almost found a cliffhanger for you? So... what are you going to do in the Fall (Sem.)?
But when you think Tim McGraw
So you had his EP like Goodbye, Norma Jean single in CD? Cool. On Autoloop? What do you like about his songs?
I hope you think my favorite song
Which one? What do you love about it?
The one we danced to all night long
How many hours of dancing? How many calories burned? Was it like with Ed Sheeran for Perfect? What did you wear? What did he wear? Where did you dance? How many stars were in the sky that night? What styles of dancing did you do? How was "Loki" and "...Wonderland strummer"?
The moon like a spotlight on the lake
Cool poetry. Who do you think is worthy of performing on stage? Of having the spotlight? By the way, which lake were you talking about? Do you want to get an MFA degree and upon the conferral, you can write/perform for Equine Therapy Ranches where kids with sadness may go?
When you think happiness
Do you like Gretchen Rubin's work? Do you like Pharell's song, which is on Wii? What do you think of the emoticon deodorant?
I hope you think that little black dress
Do you know Jomaire Studio's sister in a little black dress and black stilettos for weddings? What do you think about Meghan Markle in a little black dress at a baseball game? I liked the white belt a lot.
Think of my head on your chest
Got the ALS challenge? How long did you have to wait for it? I thank Coleman too for supporting the neighborhood around Galleria, which had a cafe and their version of Sparkletts.
And my old faded blue jeans
Can anyone help her get Wrangler jeans? Or Rock Republic trousers? Or jeggings eg from the pharmacy? Or Old Navy blue denims?
When you think Tim McGraw
How often do you think of his name/face? Why? Do you pray for him?
I hope you think of me
Do you like Phantom of the Opera? What do you think if her dress? What if there was a modern version for Jabbawockeesz?
September saw a month of tears
What kind of tears? Was it because of first day of school again?
And thankin' God that you weren't here
Oh, what were the advantages of him not being "there"?
To see me like that
Were you wearing makeup in September - and what brands if so? Did you lose much weight in the summer(s)?
But in a box beneath my bed
Is it from ULine? Was the bed from Ikea or from Sleep Number?
Is a letter that you never read
I remember I had letters foregarding different people, like one of the top human/child traffickers of China and one on a cover for a football player and some for a farmer and some for a colleague and I regret one which was like under hypnosis (I praised his enumeration of "Crayola") - which I sent to someone whom I wanted to say goodbye and I found him as a storekeeper who shooed me away, as a guy who hung around the doorway of my bedroom at 3 am or so, as a guy wanting to know how to get a Peruvian passport, as a guy who bragged abou eating cat dumpling, maybe trying to gain 9 lives (is that the canned cat food?).
From three summers back
Oh you met him at around university? Thanks for your loyalty.
It's hard not to find it all a little bittersweet
You like Dove dark chocolate like fortune cookies? The Ghirardelli dark cocoa squares? The dark chocolate bars by the checkouts of dollar stores? The dark chocolate at the airports? Do you like black coffee? Like Colombian coffee? Do you like Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You"?
And lookin' back on all of that, it's nice to believe
How often and how long do you go into nostalgia? Did you do Throwback Thursday posts?
When you think Tim McGraw
What do you share about Tim McGraw?
I hope you think my favorite song
What is your favorite song, if it's okay to ask?
The one we danced to all night long
Was it a country song? Fast? Duet? With banjos or fiddles? Any props when you danced?
The moon like a spotlight on the lake
What was the phase of the moon then?
When you think happiness
What three things minimum would you do today to be happy?
I hope you think that little black dress
How is your weight (I am concerned with your photos, and you look like a politician in a Christmas green dress in front of a mic, with empty row before her)? When did you buy that little black dress (the song's topic) for yourself? Waist size? Do you think Lululemon or Walgreens leggings would go well with it, like a ballerina?
Think of my head on your chest
Did you have to sanitize the Coleman? What was in it?
And my old faded blue jeans
What brand? When did you buy it? Was it fashionably torn?
When you think Tim McGraw
Someone said he has an MBA - would you be inspired to get an MBA degree as well?
I hope you think of me
What are your three hopes before the weekend? And when someone remembers you, what are the top three qualities of yours that people can publish/televise/discuss/promote action about you?
And I'm back for the first time since then
Where did you return? How?
I'm standin' on your street
What have you been wearing on that street? How long/what time have you been standing there?
And there's a letter left on your doorstep
Can you summarize the letter in a Tweet? What's the color of the envelope? Does it need the HMat?
And the first thing that you'll read is:
What is the first thing that you think of every morning? And every sunset?
"When you think Tim McGraw I hope you think my favorite song Someday you'll turn your radio on
What is your favorite radio show and your favorite radio channel? Your favorite song on the radio? Who is your favorite DJ? I hope it takes you back to that place"
What place? How does it look like?
When you think happiness I hope you think that little black dress Think of my head on your chest And my old faded blue jeans When you think Tim McGraw I hope you think of me
Oh, think of me Mmmm
He said the way my blue eyes shined Put those Georgia stars to shame that night I said, "That's a lie"
Whom do you accuse to be lying?

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full retard to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

I made a character and this sotry for star wars (i made this story for my English finals, i had a month to make it and got an A on it), the characters name is Saya Eban and is a character I have been thinking of for over a decade now (im not in my 2nd decade so since i was super young). Saya at this time is 13-14 years old and was given inspiration by almost all the other jedi and also star killer. He is human and with reliance on the force he can live up to 1000 years with hi peak being between 35, 40 ish to around 800 years of age. In terms of prime power level and potential, in my canon he is 3rd most powerful character just underneath luke and anikan Skywalkers, but could contend with them at some points. Little background: he was a prodigy in school before he became a padawan, he always had an intrest in a character named Ahsoka Tano but never became more than friends because of the Jedi teachings. He was a fast learning youngling and became a padawan earlier than most other younglings, becaming a padawan at the age of 11 - 12. He was in the first battle of Genesis but his troop transport ship was blasted out of the air, landing behind enemy lines leaving him the sole surviver, and scarring him, making him want to never see uneeded bloodshed ever again. He met Count Dooku before he had met Obi-Wan and Anikan on geonosis, he locked blades with him once... once, before he was thrown aside like a house fly, not worth his time, he was out until the retreat of the battle was initiated. This gave him night terrors and nightmares, after this day he could never sleep more than an hour, if that, before he woke up feeling the dark side creeping in. So he had learned to use sleep meditation. Sleep meditation allowed him to accelerate his trainings and connect greater to the force, he had unlocked 1/3 of his life now, the force helping his cells heal his body while he sat and meditated.
This story is of how he lived through one of the bloodiest battles and worst losses of the Republic, the battle of Sarrish, and of how he had obtained his later main star ship, a Kom'rk Mark 1 class star fightetransport, aka the Puro (i made this story before I have watched the 3rd season of the Mandalorian, as of right now i still haven't so Idk if thats in season 3 or not).
There is about 11,340 words in the story, and I don't 100% know of what I should make him look like so have your imaginations run wild.
Ok here we go:
Tales of Saya Eban's Puro
Chapter 1

 The battle of Sarrish was one of the worst battles of the Clone Wars, it was a great devastating loss to the Republic and the Jedi, and I was in the middle of it all. Before the battle I was doing some touch-ups on my A-wing Fighter. I had managed to get my hands on a hyperdrive that would fit in my small fighter, although being able to enter hyperspace without an external hyperdrive wing is very convenient, fast, and easy, it does slow my fighter and hinder some mobility, but not an uncontrollable amount of loss. Little did I know it'd save my life later that week. After I had finished my work, gotten it restocked for my next battle, I was called to the Jedi command center for a briefing by Master Yoda, saying it was an urgent mission and I was needed now, with his backwards way of speaking annoying me slightly. In a flash, I had gathered my battle ready loadout and headed off to the command center. When I entered the command center with the center planning table showing starships from both Confederate and Republic sides, One chasing another. I look and see Masters Yoda and Windu and a holoprojected Obi-Wan Kenobi surrounding the Table, with deeply serious thoughts in their eyes, fingers on their concentrating chins. When I swiftly strolled in, I was greeted with Master Windu's cheerful, but serious voice: "Ah, Padawan Eban, good you're here, come quick, we must act with persistence if we want to gain an upper hand in this war." "Master Windu, good to see you, you too Master Yoda, Master Kenobi, what's the situation?" Master Obi-Wan states, "We are currently chasing Separatist forces to the planet Sarrish and we will need some back up, could you bring your part of the 104th battalion right away, we have heavy casualties and they're going to have reinforcements when they reach the planet." "Is there not anyone closer than me, it may take a few days for me to get there, yall mabe finished by the time I get there!" I said with hope in my eyes. "I'm afraid that you're the only one that is available with the most minimal time of arrival, you'll have to be quick though, it will be anytime now they will reach the planet and have reinforcements. we need this win, it will be a great victory for the Republic if we are able to capture the planet." Stated Obi-Wan with certainty. "All other generals are on missions right as we speak, you are the only one that can provide back up at this current time." Master Windu added "Closer to Knight after this mission you will be, great padawan you are, your great swift improvements, Master Plo is pleased with, believe in you I do." Master Yoda said with a jolly old-man voice. "Now go, there's not much time to waste, gather your men and go help Obi-Wan!" Rushedly said by Master Windu. "With determination in my voice, I yell "Yes Masters, right away!" And like a flash, I was gone. As I'm running off, I catch a glimpse of a green swoosh and the sound of a bolt deflection. I stumble to a stop and put my legs in reverse to give curiosity the wheel. When I peer in, I see Master Skywalker and Ahsoka, along with roughly 8 clone troopers all in a circle around Ahsoka and her one blade ignited. Master Skywalker had her eyes welded to her as he walked around the trooper. I could see Captain Rex standing and watching as well, although he seems to be the only one who spotted me poking in my head. He motioned his finger to his lips as to tell me to shush and not interfere, so I watched with anticipation. And after a lifetime stillness ending in a second after Master Skywalker yelled "START!" And stun doughnuts fire from the blasters of the troopers, sending a volley of blue twords Ahsoka from all directions. With great flexibility I pair with, she jumps into the air, spinning like skates on a skate rink in mid air deflecting all incoming plasmic projectiles landing with swift grace ready for more, And more came, she stands in the center blade moving almost faster than what my eyes could keep up with, until that one bolt punches her right in the back, knocking her to the ground, diminishing the blade back into the hilt. I spring into the room, speaking with worry in my voice when I squeak out "Ahsoka! Master Skywalker, what was that!?" 

"She was just training deflecting blaster fire, she's going to be outmatched a lot in this war, and clones are better than droids to practice with." Anakin said with pride that she was able to last little over a minute, thats improvement.
"Well I guess you're not completely wrong, but your going to give her a brain injury at this rate! Could you not go a bit easier on her?"
"She'll never learn if I go easy on her." Master Skywalker said with little arrogance in his voice.
"W- well, here, l-let me wake her then." I stuttered as I walked up to Rex holding Ahsoka like he's a pillow.
"Rex, do you mind if I-"
"Not at all General, here." Rex said as I sat next to him holding Ahsoka's top half of her body.

 As he caringly sets Ahsoka's rhythmically beating top half in my lap, head facing the heavens, I softly lay my hand over her forehead, close my eyes, and concentrate. A few suspenseful seconds later, I take my hand off and observe Ahsoka's hand softly glide to her now curling forehead, eyes fluttering open. 

With a smile I voiced"Wakey Wakey warrior princess, have a good nap?" Smirking the whole time.
"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes Nicksters." She groaned with fading pain.
"What are you doing here?" She leisurely grumbled as she started to lie propped up by her desirable, fluorescent orange arms made of flexible muscle.
"I was walking by, and saw a 'damsel in distress', I HAD to come and 'save the day'." I joked, smirking the whole time, annoying her little bit more.
"You know I have been dying to use my force heal on you since I had learned it. I bet you don't even feel bad at all right now hm?" I said leaning in
Ahsoka starts to stand as to get a feel for her own body.
"You're right, I feel better than I did before, not bad for someone named Nicks." Ahsoka said smirking right back at me.
"Oh come on, that was one time, that was even before we became patiwans!" I said with little dramatics in my vocal verberations.
"Ok Master, I'm ready to try again." Ahsoka said to Master Skywalker
"Not now Ahsoka, we have a mission from the Jedi council we have to attend to while Obi-Wan is on his own mission." Anikan said to Ahsoka, elongating his 'not' like he usually does
"I'm actually about to go give help to Obi-Wan right now… WHICH I NEED TO GET PREPARED FOR NOW!! Karabast, got to go! See yah Ahsoka, Master, Rex." And like a ship entering hyperspace, I was gone.
Chapter 2

 After 2 boring days traveling in hyperspace, me and my 5 Veneter class Cruisers are nearing our destination, this would make 12 Cruisers for the Republic side. A new commander CT'-4112 or Zerek, debriefs on the battle situation. As I had sensed, Obi-Wan was outmatched seeing as backup was on planet Sarrish for the fleeing Separatist ships, now it's 11 Munificent class Cruisers and 2 command stations blockading the planet. Kenobi was starting to be pushed back, relying on our Cruisers longer ranged cannons to hope the Sepies didn't get too close. Our Cruisers have longer ranged main canons and toms of fighter room, while the Sepies Cruisers have more fire power at closer ranges with more fighters than our Vendor class Cruisers, at closer ranges, the Sepies would completely destroy a Venetor class Cruiser, but we have strategies and will power. 

"Glad to see a friendly face Saya." Kenobi said exhaustingly.
"Well, it looked like you needed help. You know I need to be the one to save everyone. I'll move into position to fortify our defenses to push the Sepies back and for us to make a plan. What is your fleet's condition?"
"We have 2 Venetors heavily damaged and the rest either have mild to no damage. And we have lost half our fighters as of now." Urgently said by Kenobi.
"Ok, I'm sending men and supplies to you right now, let me take the front so I can take the damage if they send another attack." I calmly said to Kenobi.
"Men battle positions and set all power to front cannons and shields. Venators get into pincer position and get ready for an attack. Fighters get ready to launch." I commanded to all my Cruisers
"Master, if you could, could you add in your undamaged Venetors? " I wandered and directed with much mastery, I even made Obi-Wan himself visually impressed considering my inexperienced mind in life, and especially war. I even managed to make him smile.
"Getting in position now." Obi-Wan stated, still smiling.
"Understood, While you get everything fixed, I'll see if I can weaken their defenses, it seems as if they're in attack positions so we gotta be ready for anything." I said in deep thought.
"Ok, 10 to 13, I like those odds, makes it even, more so for the Sepies." I grinned.
"Now Saya, remember this is still a battle, don't be too cocky, you're starting to remind me of Anakin." Obi-Wan said with conviction.
"Yes Master, sorry about that." I answered to Obi-Wan, pulling back a little.

 Just then, many starfighters come from the enemy Cruisers, hundreds of them lightning fast, closing distance fast. 

"All right men, time for some fun. Obi-Wan, if you want to take command of my control center, I'll lead this fight." I said before Obi-Wan could respond.
"Ok- but Saya! Blast, maybe he's too much like Anikan." Obi-Wan said defeatedly.
As I get into the hangar I yell "Alright Wolfpack, let's get goin!" Then I hop into my modified Jedi A-wing.
We rush out from the center roof door along the Cruiser with my squadron aka The Wolfpack, with me leading my 23 fighters into battle and many more friendly's following from the hangars.
"Ok Wolfpack, let's make a break for them Cruisers, get as many of them gone as possible. 411 you ready?" I asked R2-411. R2-411 bleeps with readiness.
"Ok, time to blow them out of the sky, remember, stay in formation" I commanded.
"Yes sir!" The Clones bellowed.

 Then we hit the swarm with a mighty thundering sound of lasers flying through the emptiness of space seeing one after one of enemy fighter droids dropping all over the place. Me and my Wolfpack fly through all the 2 winged Vulture droids that look like each wing was sideways and has 2 prongs each side for wings. They were way more quick and maneuverable than us, but we had a duty to win, and we won't lose today. It's like a firework show, but you're dodging all the fireworks, and they're aiming right at you. While we are defending the Venator Cruisers, they're mostly firing at the Sepies Cruisers, slowly dwindling their energy shields down. 

"Boys, I have a plan, but I'll need yall to get back to the Cruisers." I urged
"Obi-Wan, how's the 2 heavily damaged Cruisers? We've been out for a long while. They should be good by now right?" I questioned Master Kenobi.
"They're about to come back into the fight, but one of our Cruisers is at a quarter shield, few good hits or bombing runs and it's gone, what's your plan Saya?" Obi-Wan said, perplexed.
"Just give me an opening to the left Separatist control center, that's all I need to get on that ship." I stated with confidence.
"I'll try my best, but don't be stupid Saya, we can't afford to lose you."
"Yeah yeah I know, just get me an opening please Master!" I begged.

 After the words fleeted from my mouth, all the Cruisers fired a hole through the droid fleet with friendly fighters also making way for me to get through. I blast the afterburners straight through the enemy swarm that's been lesson by the commotion, just barely being hidden by smoke from a just destroyed fighter straight into the leftmost control ship hanger landing with an explosive entry. And immediately I jump out, igniting both, my straight emerald green saber in my left, and my yellow saber with a curved hilt similar to the Count's hilt himself in my right. I'll face him again one day, it's inevitable, like me. I land and immediately cut a group of B1 battle droids heads off with my yellow saber facing out, giving me more reach, but as I start to take fire from the army that quickly form from my landing, I swiftly doge left to right almost able to doge the sight of a human eye. Left, pop goes the heads of 3, right, pop goes 5, jump through the air on an almost straight path through the thick of the army, spinning with a light show if one were to be an onlooker at this chaotic organization of flying red plasmic bolts going to a mix of yellow and green, then proceeding to fly straight back at the shooter with twice the velocity. I land on my feet with a thunderous "BOOM" with what seems like an explosion that incinerates half of the whole hanger with an electric yellow glow seeming like yellow lighting exploded from the epicenter of the explosion. When the smoke cleared, it seemed that everything within a 5 meter radius was completely incinerated, and everything within 40 meter radius was heavily damaged, and any technology within eye shot was either scrape or short-circuiting, but all B1 battle droids and super battle droids were out. 

I sighed with relief with little heavy breathing when I looked around me, but with no time to rest, 6 Vulture droid fighters came through the hanger's magnetic shield door, transforming to walk on its pronged wings like they were legs. They scanned me and started raining a flurry of red down onto me, but with my lightning fast reflexes, I raised my sabers to block the incoming hellfire from all six fighter's. Then came the flurry being deflected in any direction possible, and I could just barely see the 6 droids started to surround me by going behind my back, but I ain't done yet. As I'm blocking, jumping, spinning, twisting on a micrometer, I stomp with a mighty force, launching through the air, slowly spinning straight for a Vulture that has became the prey. Bolts whizzing by me, inches, centimeters near my skin, singeing my arm hairs to their roots. I land on top of the droid with a thunderous boom crunching where my foot had landed, driving my sabers straight through the brain of the story high droid, with a counterclockwise rotation around my back, dragging my sabers across the metal of the droid, I leap off the droid landing with the feathers and fly forward with a flashing dash slicing through 2 other droids legs, leaving gravity do its magical job. 3 down, 3 to go, but with little time left. I launch forward running on hairs dipping and dodging blots, I leap up slicing through one leg of a droid and pushing off of its gravity taken hull, coming down on another droid's leg, cutting with ease. I land like a leaf in the autumn skies, and launch with a swift leap, flying my yellow saber straight down the middle of the 6th and final droid with no time to spare.

 I land with caution, ready to fend off another foe, but none came at that second, so I took the opportunity and ran with it straight to where the main reactors should lie. I swiftly sprint with force leaps through the air to get to the reactor, the ship is 270th of a circle with a ball where the command center is, the middle is the only connected between the back of the ball and the inner back of the circle, that's where the reactor is, im at the left most side, may take me a minute to reach it, but I can get there without being seen. My plan was to quickly fix and rewrite a Vulture droid's code to go with my command, not going to be the best work but it will work, hopefully. I had to act fast because I knew there were going to be hundreds more droids to come to see the commotion, I'd say within the minute. The codes used on the droids are not the best, because of mass production, so It was an easy fix, I just needed it to fly a small bit. It comes back to life with a putt to its movement, I directed it to start flying while I'm on its back, putting the whole time with smoke, just what I needed. I start to move forward as fast as possible. As we get around the hundreds of battle droids below, I'm starting to speed up, and as I see the reactor room, I could hear B1's yell " HEY! STOP! YOUR GOING TO FAST" in their robotic voice. Before I hit the Shield covering the reactor room, I jump off to the left where the blast door is for the room. With the distraction of the droid smashing into the shield, I use this time to slowly cut through the blast doors with both sabers starting at the bottom of the door, going up and around to form a circle I can fit through. I was through within a Minute, unnoticed, or so I was led to believe. When I get into the reactor room, I throw explosives all over the reactors, with a detonation in T minus 1 minute. I fly out of the room, calling for 411 to bring my ship as fast as possible, 55. Running across the hanger, I'm spotted by the hundreds of battle droids, which immediately start firing right as they see me 50. The explosion of the fighter droid caused a chain to nearby explosive barrels, exploding more Vulture droids causing tons of smoke and fires to spread around the hangar area, 45. As I'm running, my yellow saber is blocking multiple bolts flying at me while I'm jumping, spinning, performing acrobatic movements while being shot by hundreds of droids, from B1's, to super's, to droideka's, all firing at me, adding to the smoke, 35. Running with young blood in my veins, I perform 1, 2, 3 long jumps and leap onto the side of a slanted destroyed Vulture droid, 30. I jump up, reaching for the cloudy sky just as 411 swoops in predictively shoving my hand into the side of the sharp A-wing hull, 25. I grab the side of the hull and pull myself up into the cockpit, grabbing the controls, 20. I spin to the exit with roughly 67° of the hanger I need to shoot out of, I fire the afterburners using the circumference of the circle and my fighters movment to my advantage, 15. Pushing forward, I am drifting an A-wing around the hangar of a Separatist capital ship skimming the walls centimeters away from an explosive fiery death, 10. I barely screamed out of the hanger, to be able to see a view of the capital ship flying stright for the other Sepie capital ship, 5. Im still firing the afterburners to try and attempt to get a safe distance away from the soon to be collision sight, 4. I let 411 take the control's, 3. I turn my head to look back, 2. I see the collision of the 2 270° hangers, 1. I watch as i get the view of a star being formed right infront of my eyes, and seeing many Sepie Cruisers being absolutely engulfed by the flames, and a blast wave decimating the Vulture droids… blast wave…. BLAST WAVE! Just then I'm thrown far, along with the debri. I manged to gain control of the craft and start performing advanced monuvers to avoid being hit by debrie that will demolishe me and my tiny fighter. 

"Saya, can you hear me? Saya?" Master Obi-Wan Kenobi pleaded.
"Yeah, yeah master, I'm good, I'm fine. Woo…!" I said with a sigh of relief.
Chapter 3

 The explosion had decimated the Separatist forces leaving 4 Cruisers sustaining heavy or mild damages, but with an opening, Obi-Wan and I travel to the ground along with Captain Cody to go for a large ground assault. Master Obi-Wan's plan was to drop in and gather our troops and split them between Obi-Wan and commander Cody. We were west, they were east. The Separatists had the high ground seeing as they had a cliff to their advantage. Flying in on gunships, we were taking heavy fire from their anti aircraft cannons. Commander Cody and I are debriefing the squad on the way to the rally point, seeing gunships after gunship falling to the rocky ground in a fiery explosive ball of red hot metal, and screams, with no plants in sight, just rocks, gunships, and red streaks flying by. Explosions booming right next to us with our doors right open. We have been ordered and ordering troops to stay far away from the mountain top gun fortifying the mountain top of the cliff, leaving that gun for the gunships and the best of the clone troopers, or ARC (Advanced Recon Commandos) troopers to deal with that later, seeing as a ground assault is too dangerous for us. As some of the clones have said, it's not an easy mission, but hops are high. 

"30 seconds until landing." A clone trooper yelled to me and Cody.
Cody starts with "All right, listen up! Maintain squad formations, 'A' squad, You're on me-" ZZZZZEEEROW- BOOOM!
"Where hit!" I yell "Everyone! Hold on!"
Before we hit the ground I leap out of the gunship with a backwards somersault, force pulling all the troops out of the burning fireball heading for the ground, grabbing all of the men, including the 2 pilots at the front, breaking through the windows. I land like rain from the sky, catching the troops I just pulled out with my powers and have them roughly land on the fluffy rocks next to our now downed gunship, no casualties yet. I rush over to take cover under our gunship on its left side behind enemy lines. I sit and meditate as they come up with a plan.
"What's the status lieutenant?" Cody asked
"5 injured thanks to General Saya, but that's not that bad news… Does that Rock look familiar?" The lieutenant asked.
"Yea, the mountain, right where we're not supposed to be." Said Cody
"General Kenobi ordered us not to try taking this section from the ground." The lieutenant regenerated back again with what was already established.
"That's what he said…but what would the general do if he were here?" Cody rhetorically asked.
"Saya sir, what do you think?" A trooper asked me somewhat desperately.
"I think Cody should take this one, I've got your back Cody." I answered with my legs crossed, eyes closed, slightly levitating over the rocks.
"Eight-Eight-Six-Seven through Eight-Eight-Six-Nine and Saya, fix your grapples and come with me. Everybody, prepare for covering fire." Cody ordered.
I get up, eyes still shut, ready to block anything coming our way.
"NOW!" Cody yells, sprinting across what is our no-man's-land
I open my eyes, ignite my Sabers, Green in left, yellow in right, and dash towards the now incoming blaster fire. I sense it, left side, block, right side, deflect, one for Cody, deflected. We get to some stalagmites at the bottom of the mountain, sustaining heavy fire, I pose as a distraction for all the fire, deflecting as many blots as I can back at the metal men. One troop trips and falls, pow, bolt straight through the head. Cody and the men shoot the grappling hooks up towards the top of the mountain and start climbing. I jump from my spot reigniting my sabers, driving them through the mountain side, helping me grab hold with my feet. And when I look up, I see a grapple fall behind me. I tried to grab the rope but I was too late. When I managed to obtain it, he had already hit the ground. Another tragedy, one that never had to happen, life being wasted away. I look up, a droid stairs emotionlessly down into my emotion filled eyes. A blue bolt shoots past me, impacting the droid's head, sending the body backwards.
Cody and the other clone rises from the cliff side as I leap up from the side, landing in front of the clones and immediately start deflecting with my 2 sabers having nothing pass. Cody takes this opportunity to run around my defense and attacks the droids head on, bashing one droid with the butt of his rifle and swinging his rifle at another, destroying both of them. The droid manning the anti aircraft gun turns and aims at Cody. Instinctively I jump in front of the cannon as it fires, I deflect the large bolt away with my right yellow saber, knocking my body to the right, making me stumble. But with the motion throwing me to the right, I use the momentum to throw my green saber with my left hand, impaling the droid in the metal chest. Cody then hops onto the turret, points the gun at the droids firing at our men, and lets loose, destroying all in its reticle.
"Thanks General, I owe you one, ill getcha next time." Cody said slowly getting off the turret.
"You're alright my friend, just pay it forward, let's go see how Obi-Wan did." I slightly worried, staring off to the north.

 We group up at the randevu, where we have set base camp on the planet in a small raven a bit away from where we captured the cliff with some makeshift scouting towers dotted around our position. Obi-Wan had more resistance than what he had anticipated, he was a little banged up, but he was fine in the end. This was a huge victory seeing as we have been able to set base on a planet that allows us to get resources through this hyperspace route and onto parts of the army past this point. Before, General Grievous snipped our route to where we couldn't get resources to our army on the other side from Coruscant. 

Chapter 4

 12 hours later, we have rested and have managed to build up a good base incase of a surprise attack. We are still fighting a few fronts of Separatist holdouts with a fortress a few klicks west, or about 4 miles west. 

I sit in my tent meditating, reflecting back on the weeks events, and what Ahsoka was doing back at the temple, training hard. I recite what I did with an almost overwhelming amount of blaster fire attempting to fly into me, how I was just mostly averting the blots away from me and not in a direction that would benefit me most.
'RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE'

 The ground started to shake out of nowhere, breaking my peace. I rush out of my tent, only to be met with a face full of B2 battle droid. I jump back over my tent flipping onto my feet as I see my tent being lit into flames from heavy bolt fire flying at me. Igniting both my sabers, I deflect the incoming fire away from me up into the sky as much as I physically could. I took a glance around, it was becoming more sunlit as we fought. It was a slaughter, clones dying left and right, Kenobi was on the Command ship getting patched, so it was just me, and the clones down here, being manicured. With a swift right step, I change lightsaber form, combining my form 3, (defensive form blocking anything coming way, and either making, or waiting for an opening to strike) with a combination of form 2 (saber to saber form, putting least amount or saber movement and preferring precise efficient movements) and form 4 (saber from using the force to enhance physical abilities, and heavily utilizing fast acrobatic movements to move around and disorient the opponents, using wide sweeping saber movements to block and hit targets) I use the power if the many bolts to propel my body onto my right leg, crouching down and taking a huge lead in to the air. Looking around like it is moving in stop motion, I see thousands of droids around, completely outnumbering my men. Glancing down where I had jumped from, there seems to be a super battle droid rising from the ground, looking as if it has been there for at least a few days. Time seems to start like normal again, immediately I have to block bolts coming for my body, twisting, turning, deflecting every. single. bolt. right to another droid. I can't have any more unneeded deaths in my hands. I land with an impactful explosion of yellow lighting, rendering half of the electronics on the field obsolete. Shots fire over the wall, exploding near me. 

"Everyone, Retreat!" I yelled into the comms.
I ran towards the lieutenant that I had survived the crash with, he was running for a troop transport.
"Get to the ships, return to the Venators! Get Kenobi and relay what has happened!" Urgency blowing through my voice.

 I push him into the ship as it takes off. As it's doing so, I force push it away from the field as to be in less danger of being shot down. But rockets fly through the air, I reach through the force and grab onto the hurdling death traps, I grab 1, 2, crash them into one another, 3, grab, 4, grab, 5, miss. ERRROW… BOOOM! With a hopeless explosion, the ship bursts into an explosive ball of fire, right in front of my eyes, out of my grasp. Shots fly past my head from behind me, I ignite my sunlit yellow saber to block incoming bolts. No men, only metal remains, and it wants me dead. I dash for my ship on the other side of the airstrip, luckily barely touched from this horrible surprise party that invited everyone I very much dislike. Hopping into my A-wing, I lift-off dogging left, right, up, down, roll left, roll right, barely being passed by on all sides by cannon fire. When I reach the point past the clouds, there's a whole war above. Separatist forces have surprised Kenobi with an overwhelming number of ships, putting our war torn 12 Venators against 16 Munificent class Cruisers. We were greatly out matched. But the time I was in space we had lost 3 Vectors compared to there 1 lost. Droids noticed me coming from the planet and started to verge onto my position. 

"Obi-Wan! You there? Can you hear me?" I yelled, pulling evasive maneuvers.
"Saya, is that you?" Kenobi asked.
"Yes, we got surprised on the ground, seems the same happened here." I rushingly said.
"Yes, they came out of nowh-" Kenobi is cut off by a blaring siren from my cockpit.
"Wait, my ship is damaged, it's starting up my hyperdrive, 411 can you fix it?" I said dipping left and right while trying to stop the hyperdrive activation.
With a few bleeps of fear, I understand what's happening.
"When I was thrown from the capital ship explosive wave, I must have been hit near the hyperdrive, and explosions from my escape, along with the maneuvers I have been pulling, it may have caused damage that is registering a hyperdrive activation. Master Obi-Wan, I don't know, I-I don't know what to do!" I claimed with fear in my eyes.
"Can you deactivate the hyperdrive at all 411?" Kenobi asked
411 bleeps with a sad toon.
"Blast, Saya, does it say where you're going?"
"N- No, my council just says ERROR." I stated, now with much fear in my voice.

 I managed to steer my craft into the position of the hyperspace lane. 

"Tell Ahsoka good bye if I don't-" I get cut off when the the hyperdrive powered up woth a vvvvvvvvvvvVVVVERRRRRRR PEEOW, and just like that, me, my A-wing, and R2-411, are gone.
Chapter 5

 It's been days since the battle, mabe 2 or 3 days. Luckily I always keep many ration bars in my fighter to last me a good few days, along with my extra water and my ability to go into a deep meditative state, conserving food and water. Keeping me company is my meditation and 411. We have almost hit some unknown objects, could have been planets, asteroids, other ships, but we seem to be staying in hyperspace lanes luckily, or I would have been dead a long time ago. My class 2 hyperdrive could have taken me all over the galaxy by now, I could be heading towards Coruscant right now for all I know. 

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
My hyperdrive warning kicked on, showing that there is a massive gravity force in my path. The console flashed with big red dangerous letters "Exiting Hyperdrive" on the screen.
"YES! FINALLY!" I yelled with excitement.

 I watch through the glass to see a barren looking planet, and a similar looking moon, a moon I was heading to. I was moving fast, as I entered the moon's atmosphere, Im grabbing the controls, barely anything. My craft is red hot from the rate at which I'm coming in on. I'm grabbing the stick, pulling back as much as I can, as to try and save myself and 411 from a fiery death. I scraped by a big rocky mountain dealing more damage to my A-wing. 

"HOLD ON 411!"
"Come ooooon. Pull pull pullllll…. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!-" VERRROW BOOOOSH!!! The crash landing sounded like a bomb flying through the air, then landing on its target. I try to get from my seat just to find my strap and window will not open. Using my saber I cut off my seat strap and broke the window from the hinges and leaped out, taking 411 from the craft, swiftly landing on a tall mountainous rock. The craft seemed to have pushed through the land 50 meters from the initial impact spot. The area I was in seemed to be very rocky terrain with many rocky canyons and huge rocks that are almost mountainous. The sun was close to setting down for the night but was still a good hour away from sleeping.

 With the force by my side, I felt a very uneasy sensation telling me to stay out of sight. I duck down on the tall skinny rock taking 411 down with me. 411 confusingly bleeps when I do so. "Hey, I have a feeling right now, just keep quiet real quick, there's somebody coming. Trust me." Me and 411 peer over the edge looming over my crashed ship just as a group of 6 men in full armor covering their whole body fly in with jetpacks strapped to their backs, blasters in hand. As they land, they search around my wreckage, presumably looking for survivors. One seems to be ordering the others around, pointing at one to look in one direction, another a different direction, and scanning around for the unexpected visitor. I look down at my Wrist link, my distress signal wasn't sent, I guess that was damaged from entering the planet at such high speed with no deflector shields surrounding the ship like a protective blanket. 

"Blast, 411, what's your S.O.S signal situation, did it go through?" 411 beeps with a little drama like I should know it didn't go through.
"Well sorry for busting your rusty bolts you rowdy rancor, better to try than to just give up mister sassy pants. Maybe I should wipe your memory for a change, see how you like it."
"Now shush, don't want them to find us spying on them, won't look too good." I demand. "Now here, in case we get caught, I don't want them to know I'm a Jedi, so here, take my sabers, I'm not gonna need them anyways." I said shoving my lightsabers into 411's storage compartment and looking towards the crash again.

 Just then the suit of armor that had been commanding his squad bursts up into my view right on my face out of hyperspace blue. 

"Ah, found ya trespassers, you 2 are coming with me." Demanded the Mandalorian with a snickering sound in his voice as the others rise from the portal of the abyss from down below.

 It was a good thing my ropes where in the tent back on Sarrish, or this may have been an even worse situation, Mangalorians like them hate Jedi with a passion, and it's a good thing I always have a broken blaster in 411 for any cases where I need to blend in with a crowd or pose as a normal civilian; although, the ability to become a civilian at any point is great, I've had little need to do so much. I'm quite popular with the people for being one who tries to connect with the population as a fellow citizen. So I rarely stay in the temple for too long. I love being with the people and learning skills without the force, like being a mechanic, electrician, public speaker, security guard, an all around great person to talk with about anything. I'm quite known on all levels of Coruscant for being one of the most friendly Jedi to be around. Right now though, I need to focus on not being caught, at least That's what my gut is telling me. After they searched my character for any weapons and found the broken blaster that 411 had put in my holster where my lightsaber usually is, they were satisfied and pushed us into one of their big Kom'rk Mark 1 class Mandalorian starfightetransport ship. 

(Look in comments for 6th)

I know quitting your job as a cook usually simply comes with two weeks notice or a ragequit walkout, but for eleven months I worked at a new franchise that had such potential which was being squandered by the incompetence of upper management. I present the nearly 6000 word thesis I turned in on my last day. Locations and names have been changed to cartoon references. Brackets represent ambiguous information in place of specific details.
Krusty Krab Careers Jobs
Opening in [Month/Year], Krusty Krab (KK) Bikini Bottom is on its 4th kitchen manager in less than a year. Krusty Krab O-Town has recently let go its inaugural kitchen manager and sous chef. Almost no member of the Bikini Bottom opening management team remains employed by KK. There is a pattern developing where one must question both the choice of employee and the directive given to new franchises. These lingering issues I brought concerns about in the first weeks of opening but was disregarded at every turn despite my experience with festival traffic. As a result I decided this was not a place I wanted to advance, but with a good-enough paycheck I’d be a lowly grunt in the kitchen four days a week, at five days a week I would have quit or been fired over a public outburst long ago. If Krusty Krab alters course slightly while being true to the brand this could be a successful chain.
My unique employment history in brick and mortar restaurants, food trucks, pop up culinary concepts, trade shows/conventions, and the film industry make me an ideal candidate to be on the opening team for new KK locations. My outgoing nature and foresight are valuable assets. For example, on training week before opening when I was standing around idly without a task I took it upon myself to organize the disarray that was dry storage. Overhearing Krabs tell another manager where he wanted the cleaning products placed, I had a jumping off point and the organization I created nine months ago is still largely in place. Since returning from my vacation in early February I have made it my mission to keep the storage area organized because it was again starting to resemble a hoarder’s house rather than a commercial kitchen. This is now part of my weekly routines because every time I turn my back there is more product being placed haphazardly just anywhere with little regard. I also recently reorganized the walk-in cooler because of problematic stocking with items being placed on the same shelf or below raw proteins. I also simply put all the like products together such as cheeses or fruits that were scattered amongst several shelves. With recent overordering I cannot keep up with the organization of the walk in cooler. The pattern recognition of food types and even simple shapes appears to be lost on the Bikini Bottom crew. My daily reorganization of containers is proof of this. Most days I’ll take a few minutes to put all cylinders together, all cambros together in descending volume, all deep and shallow pans next to each other rather than intermixed. My decision to be a kitchen manager at age 19 from 2005 thru 2008 and rarely enter restaurant management since is very calculated.
With my prior knowledge of professional kitchens I was becoming Bikini Bottom’s resident nag to coworkers as I made note of health department violations on a daily basis. I stopped after being largely ignored for two weeks. My regular health department nags include; a battle with jackets and hats being placed only in the designated area (a designated area that did not exist until I created a place for personal items a in January by neatly organizing the dry storage area again), waiting until prepped items are cooled before a cover is placed on top, placement of raw seafood, open containers (very often sugar, flour, and pancake mix bags ripped open and left), and dirty dishes/containers placed back in rotation. The dirty dishes and containers in rotation with the clean ones are at an atrociously high number. I have given up on making the 4th fryer seafood allergy safe too. With the low volume of seafood allergy safe items Bikini Bottom should purchase smaller baskets to visually discourage cross contamination with the other fryers and baskets. My skills to organize the kitchen do not end with simply where to store products to meet minimal health department standards.
Half of the space in the Bikini Bottom kitchen is completely wasted on an ill-advised walkway to the dishpit. An intelligent design would place a second doorway directly to the dishpit connected to the bar or where the bathrooms reside. Numerous times during the opening week of KK Bikini Bottom I said, yelled, sang, and muttered that we have too many food items for the amount of space we have. Icus stated that there was more space than Bluffington. Is Bluffington intelligently designed? Because Bikini Bottom most certainly isn’t. So Bikini Bottom actually has less space even if there is more square footage. See the attached diagram for an intelligent design that could potentially house a menu of this size. Bikini Bottom forces a line design on this kitchen when an open concept is needed for this menu. It’s as if this floorplan was created by a person who had only ever seen one commercial kitchen previously and couldn’t think 4th dimensionally to understand the needs of the workers to smoothly serve customers.
There is not enough counter space for pizzas without getting off the line, the microwave is placed completely out of the way, the freezer’s curved design is a waste of potential counter space and a falling hazard for containers stored on top of it, the toaster is an overcomplicated and overexpensive piece of machinery that serves exactly one purpose when a flat top could be used to toast bread and other purposes like a quesadilla special, sautee was designed without an overhang for spices, the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter for seafood allergies, there are no Frialator fryers which I have worked with at every single kitchen job previously instead we got the cheap Vulcan model (is that logical), the cheap low boy in pantry that doesn’t drain excess water anywhere it’s just supposed to evaporate somehow but doesn’t, the grill and fryer should be placed next to each other (with a higher volume of crossover than other stations), the floors are flat instead on having a mild decline towards the drains (just look at the standing water residing behind the oven right now), in the dishpit the spraying area and the filled sinks are backwards of a logical dipshit, the ramp to the back door is on the wrong side, there is no refrigerated place downstairs to stage extra food for busy shifts (the beer cooler is once again used for such food items because of this massive oversight), the prep station is an afterthought and miniscule, the dishes on the line are difficult to grab for anyone under 5’11” and inaccessible for anyone under 5’6” (instead of putting them underneath tables that also give that desperately needed counterspace I spoke of), there is not enough space to store to-go containers or boats behind the line, expo is lacking a low boy for the numerous items that are supposed to be cold but are instead kept at room temperature all day long, no one in management thought about buying shelves until right before Bikini Bottom opened as a result the clean full sheets sat on the floor for days, we had only the exact amount of 1⁄6 pans for an absurd amount of time making it impossible to rotate and clean them when necessary (which is daily), we still struggle with 1/9 pan supply. And just when I thought I documented all the poor design choices possible I stumbled upon a person whose office holiday party was booked at KK Bikini Bottom. The deck space works just fine as a deck. It does not double well as a gathering space. The space is too long and narrow for parties, it promotes little splitoff groups rather than a coming together of a larger gathering. It may be advantageous to contact a social psychologist for help designing a private party space that promotes intermingling rather than enforcing small pockets to form. The reorganization of the physical kitchen isn’t all that screams for an overhaul.
There are six positions on the line at the Krusty Krab; expo, oven, grill, sautee, fryer, and pantry. But the pantry and fryer positions are forced together like a bad remix. Everyone who mainly works pantry deserves a $6 raise immediately because it is a station and a half. Both Icus and Krumm, while kitchen manager, kind of acknowledged the pantry is too big for one station without outright mentioning the lopsided distribution of work. I imagine in the only location where this works, Bluffington, a second person joins the pantry at noon because of the unreasonable amount of items one person is tasked with. Bikini Bottom only has one person in this position at all times, maybe modify it for one person? The excess of items on the pantry position largely resembles a position I would call “set-up” or “build” at a previous job that made sensible choices. This build position should have tostadas, tacos, butcher’s blocks, toast, salads, lettuce wrap set ups, and preparing plating for whichever station is most bogged down. I have absolutely lost my mind yelling about salads at least once a month, ranting that they do not belong on the fryer position because of how illogical it is that five salads are included on the mountain of other items the pantry has. I have always considered working in a kitchen a kind of dance, and the pantry station demands an unnecessarily convoluted dance to keep up with the demand. Without the salads, tostadas, and tacos the station is already the busiest. Do we really need to combine ballet and swing by including these extra awkward dance steps in this single station? For a kitchen designed this poorly I suppose it is. Again, see attached document for an intelligently designed kitchen that might be able to accommodate this menu. Unless Bikini Bottom is going to close for a month to fix the baffling floor plan design the menu is shouting to be reduced to 30-36 items.
The menu is too big. Krusty Krab is the jack of all foods, master of none. In general I believe individual locations should be allowed 18% omissions, and 18% unique items to this wildly unwieldy menu sitting around 50 food items including sides. The insistence on keeping menu items that don’t sell at Bikini Bottom because of Bluffington is mind boggling. Chicken tenders do not sell at Bikini Bottom. fried sushi does not sell at Bikini Bottom, not enough to justify their place on the line. I don’t care how well these items work in Bluffinton. They. Do. Not. Work. At. Bikini. Bottom. If the KK location in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sells an incredible amount of live krill does that mean Bikini Bottom and O-Town must sell live krill too? Take the fried sushi off the menu. I had a complete meltdown about this during a Dimmadome service and my valid point was met with indifference. Replace the kid’s tenders with a kid’s fish sticks. We already have the tilapia fish sticks on the line for tacos. Or make the kid’s fish sticks cod. We cut cod to order for fish tacos in spite of health code violations because it is too rare of an order to make beforehand. Saffron in mashed potatoes? If you must. Why are green tomatoes only on the menu during lunch? Bikini Bottom throws away a sizable amount of spoiled green tomatoes each week. Have green tomatoes on the menu all day long or don’t have them at all. The smoked salmon could go on salads or a special taco to justify its place on the line. The corn pico’s place on the line is unjustified. It only goes on one item, tostadas, which are not particularly popular. If we had a taco salad we could throw the corn pico on there. We also have unreasonable waste from unusable taco shells, smash up those imperfect taco shells and throw them on said taco salad. But before we add salads, let's get rid of the pear and kale salads. The pears' position on the line are unjustified, if we threw them on a taco variation maybe their place on the Bikini Bottom line could be argued but for now they only go on a salad that isn’t particularly popular. The kale salad is an issue of space for a 4th green for salads is too much. The krusty salad is my most hated house salad of all time. And it comes down to the toast with goat cheese. This ancillary step of spreading goat cheese on a cracker is an unnecessary step for an overly complicated dance and should be part of the expo dance if expo wasn’t a shoddily designed afterthought lacking a low boy.
There are a plethora of squeeze bottles on the pantry station that have no place on the overloaded station. They belong to an expo station with a low boy to keep them cold. Pantry has an overwhelming ten squeeze bottles: chipotle crema, sweet chili vinaigrette, buffalo, korean bbq, ranch, caesar, wine vinaigrette, lemon vinaigrette, honey mustard, and lemon aioli. Only the first four are justified on an intelligently designed fryer section, the second four belong on the build station, the last two have no place anywhere but expo. With this extra space sautee could keep their bottles and two purees cold in the fryer's lowboy instead of leaving them at room temperature all day inviting a pathogen party. This theorized intelligently designed expo would have room to keep these four squeeze bottles and a double of every sauce chilled to pour them into ramekins, a move that is highly common in the expo dance. The fact that expo doesn’t have a double of all squeeze bottles is foolish. Expo has to bother an overloaded station to pour these side sauces instead.
How many gallons of basil aioli has Bikini Bottom thrown away in 11 months? Four aiolis in general is way too many and most go on a single item; basil aioli on the incredibly unpopular veggie burger, lemon aioli for calamari, sweet chili aioli for the BLT that is only served half of the day, and garlic aioli actually goes on two items…I believe. What a colossal waste of precious little space, lose two aiolis and then you can sing the logical song with me. Perhaps we can put garlic aioli and sweet chili vinaigrette on the BLT separately and accomplish the exact same thing the sweet chili aioli does. The wings too have unneeded complications. Having worked at a sports bar specializing in wings for the better part of a decade I find KK’s plating of wings to be overly pretentious. The carrots, celery, and blue cheese have lost function. Heffer Wolf always said no one eats the carrot/celery julienne with blue cheese. It’s a complete waste of all the ingredients because you’ve gone too far with the presentation. Wings aren’t fancy. Wings are supposed to have a small pool of sauce and be sloppy. It’s like a sloppy joe that’s not sloppy, an unsloppy joe is a failure to sloppy joes just as the KK presentation of wings is a disparagement to the dish. Ever since training week back in 2022 I have used a scale to give Bikini Bottom a passing or failing grade.
Chokey Chicken to Chum Bucket is the scale I use to judge efficiency and sanity at Bikini Bottom. Both establishments are upscale casual dining experiences in Capitol City in the same vein as KK. Chokey had high employee retention and relatively smooth openings for new locations. Chum Bucket’s employee turnover was high and every location opening was chaotic. Which one sounds closer to KK? Chokey Chicken was filled with chefs I respect including Chef Ren Hoek who remains a close friend to this day. Ren lost his lifelong passion for kitchen work after working management at Chum Bucket. He’s actually seeking work in Bikini Bottom. Call him up at [phone number], but KK will give him Nam’ flashbacks of why he chose driving for a living rather than cooking for five years. The pair of us together helming Bikini Bottom with the ability to omit and create 18% of the overloaded menu can bring success to this franchise. We have worked well numerous times in the past on various concepts in the past including creating The Attack of the Pickled Tomatoes Burger for [Promotional live performance of a TV show] at the Capitol City Theater. We served 100 people in 60 at the [sitcom filming] lunch. That’s physically impossible but somehow we did it quite a few times.
A fun anecdote about Ren Hoek’s KK experience from the soft launch; on training week numerous times I brought concerns about being seafood allergy safe that were dismissed. As mentioned earlier the pantry station lacks the counter space to have two containers of flour and two containers of batter, one each of which seafood never touches. Before the soft launch Chef Stimpy from Bluffington insisted all customers just kind of know everything is prone to be seafood contaminated. Well, chef Ren was a customer that night and this absolutely was not communicated to customers. He claimed to have a slight seafood allergy and was not informed of what the crab soup was. In reality he does not have a seafood allergy. I didn’t discuss the seafood issue with Ren, separately we noticed egregious violations of food safety standards and we each responded in our own way. The soft launch service was so awful that night Chef Ren walked out of a free meal to pay for some ramen, never to return to Bikini Bottom. I attribute this oversight, and many of Bikini Bottom’s (and probably O-Town’s) problems to hubris over the Bluffington location.
Chef Chokey would also be hesitant to join the KK team. It will cost a finder’s fee just for me to reveal Chef Chokey’s name. Chef Chokey was a lead in the rapid expansion of Chokey Chicken restaurants. He opened numerous restaurants and was big on the philosophy that each restaurant must have its own personality in order to fit the unique local culture and the variety of working spaces. This is in direct conflict with the KK way that everything must be exactly like the Bluffington location no matter what. There was only one Chokey Chicken location that had the full menu, Chokey Springfield. Chokey Springfield had a large space which was intelligently designed to accommodate such a large menu. The KK menu is all over the place, closing in on 50 menu items which comes up as a failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale. This is not the only area KK comes up as a major failure on the Chokey Chicken/Chum Bucket scale.
Has anyone in this company ever worked festival traffic before? Does anyone have the experience of working next to a major venue with 8000 seats before this one? The way Bikini Bottom handles Dimmadome services it certainly appears that the decision-makers fall on the wrong side of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Having all 50 items available during such massive traffic is completely asinine. An unwillingness to serve a partial menu is hindering the Bikini Bottom kitchen staff. I have worked festival traffic before, and Dimmadome events bring in festival traffic. I’ve worked inside a festival whose line never ended but every customer got their order in 5 minutes or less because the line kept flowing with only four items on the menu as that’s what was warranted at the B-Sharps Music Festival. I refuse to be set up for failure the way Bikini Bottom sets up Dimmadome services for failure. The entire week of concerts in [summer] 2022 I was set up for failure every day (it was after this I modified my availability to keep my sanity and my paycheck). When I brought my concerns about running efficiently during Dimmadome services I was labeled a B-worker for the first time in my employment history by Icus and Krabs. It is that moment which I was either going to holler at them both for being 2-dimensional thinkers who were obviously unqualified for the positions they accepted in this company, or just put my head down. If Bikini Bottom has a successful concert day service, hail your team because they snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. They swam with concrete shoes. I often wonder how many customers had bad experiences and never returned after concert days. A Dimmadome service should have no more than 25 items and have one or two specials to divert traffic towards an area the kitchen can keep moving. An Open Cup Open Plate (OCOP) special for foot traffic is absolutely needed. When I suggested OCOP special, Heffer was intrigued by this idea and immediately named burgers as the special to keep foot traffic flowing. Smithers wouldn’t hear this idea, babbling on about what’s advertised instead of hearing out a sound idea. This prattle despite radio commercials having inaccurate hours and social media promoting Bikini Bottom’s steak tacos to this day. I always found Smithers to be a better fit as a middle management office pencil pusher than as a hands-on restaurant manager. Overall I find KK managers are selected to be automatons not to question their orders rather than critical thinkers who could take the restaurant to the next level. During brunch service is another period of time that must be modified to lessen the heft of items. Having a full menu that barely works plus brunch is so deep into Chum Bucket territory, in my opinion we now have to use the Tropic Thunder scale of full retard to describe a 60-plus-item brunch. Chef Ren hired back a Chum Bucket cook who had a mental breakdown and stormed out during brunch (plus full menu) service because Ren knew the employee was justified and upper management was completely unreasonable in their brunch requests. It’s not just questionable decisions that hinder KK staff but improper equipment as well.
This is the first restaurant I have worked at which uses a touch screen on the line rather than tickets. From day one I found this to be technology for technology’s sake inferior to tickets. Chef Ren forced a new Chum Bucket location to rip out touch screens from the line and bring in ticket printers because of the higher efficiency. The touch screen is a great idea for expo, not the entire line. My biggest gripe is that each station does not get all the information. Early on I was regularly yelled at for not staggering my items, well I can’t see the rest of the order; a problem I have never had with a ticket system. Touchscreen software is also much more prone to errors and glitches. When I reported an error during a heavy service Icus and Krabs blamed my skills on the line without looking into the malfunctioning screen further. It was glitchy for weeks before the two finally investigated and corrected the issue I brought to their attention long before. Those two gave me an immense amount of ammunition to dislike them in the opening weeks until I stopped caring. The issue I had with being unable to scroll beyond the bottom of a completely filled screen has returned and is still there as of [my last day]. There are also important details that get buried. A frequent meltdown I have is that sauce on side requests and other important modifications are not capitalized or in red to catch the eye as they have been at jobs with tickets. These details get lost on Bikini Bottom’s touchscreens. A sauce on side salad made by me will be wrong 50% of the time because of the instructions being camouflaged in a word salad. This goes for coleslaw on the side and drizzle on the side too. Drizzle in general I dislike because of the pretentiousness, but whatever, drizzle it on top rather than putting it in a ramekin if you must. There are numerous places where Bikini Bottom overcomplicates matters for reasons I cannot ascertain.
Why is there such a large variety of plates? Why do we have a medium circular plate for salads and a large bowl for salads with protein? This just confuses the simplest of matters. I was told this is done because of the high price hike with protein, a larger presentation was desired. But that price hike is the price of protein in 2023. Bikini Bottom should put all salads in the large bowls and use all the circular salad plates in a skeet shooting promotion. I understand why we have both a circular platter plate and a pizza plate but in my restaurant the circular platter plates must go...or maybe the large platter plate instead. Is the large platter used for anything besides fish and chips? That extra space on fish and chips plates are only used for side sauces which can easily be delivered to customers on small circular plates. What is the medium oval plate doing that the medium rectangular plate isn’t? And vice versa. Why do they both exist when they are approximately the same size? Let me write an internet commercial where we break a lot of plates so we can get some logical use out of the superfluous plates. I don’t care which one is destroyed, the ovals or the rectangles but one of them is an unnecessary redundancy in excess done again. Speaking of commercials, the unimaginative radio advertisements for Bikini Bottom are doing little to lure new customers to the restaurant.
The three radio spots I have heard on KBBL all sound like they were produced by a marketing 101 student who wasn’t a natural in the field. The voiceover actor was so uncharismatic I was certain someone from the office was chosen at random to read the copy. Then I heard that same voiceover actor selling pool supplies on another radio station so I concluded that Bikini Bottom must have hired the cheapest guy in town to produce the most basic of commercials. Perhaps there is someone else you could hire more qualified to voiceover these commercials, an actor with experience on an Emmy award winning cable program whose unique place in the film industry was written about on [website] would be a much wiser choice to be the voice of the KK? (See external link). In the ad there was no catchphrase, no jingle, no music whatsoever. This simple approach to commercials lacks the pizazz to catch the attention of radio listeners. The first two commercials I heard would get a C in marketing 101 as they were nearly the exact same and accomplished the bare minimum to sell wares, the third one would maybe get a B- because there was some sort of attempted gimmick with the voiceover whispering to represent thinking inside his head about what he was going to eat later at KK. Not only does this commercial give no reason for the man to think inside his head, the outside world still and unpopulated. To see what a creative person would do with this concept see the attached script. There is an attempted slogan that could become part of an ad campaign. Commercials aren’t the only lost opportunities in promotions.
There are numerous promotional celebrity tie-ins at Bikini Bottom’s fingertips with Dimmadome performers. The restaurant could have a Phish sandwich as a OCOP special on [Phish performance dates], or a pretentious Jelly Roll on [Jelly Roll performance date]. Has anyone reached out to the Dimmadome theater or talent management for approved special menu items to be promoted inside the dome? Perhaps a special 20% discount to ticket holders? Is Bikini Bottom capable of getting permits to extend Open Container hours beyond [cutoff time] for an afterparty or block party throughout a Dimmadome concert? I see additional marketing opportunities left on the table for all new locations.
I believe new KK locations are missing out on a marketing campaign by opening with the entire cumbersome 50 item menu. This is a staggering amount of menu items which is too much to ask new staffers to perfect all at once. After a few months expanding the menu by approximately ten items is catching to customers who haven’t returned after a single visit or infrequently stop into KK. There are ten new food items that might appeal to them. Just like it appears KK doesn’t know what it’s looking for in a good commercial spot, this company doesn’t appear to recognize a talented from an untalented worker until it’s too late.
It is my understanding that KK had a headhunter to find Icus, the first Bikini Bottom kitchen manager. If it were up to me I’d hire someone to break the legs of that headhunter for bringing in a subpar kitchen lead. We are still attempting to recover from the lousy choices she made in the floor plan. If anybody responsible for Bikini Bottom’s floor plan is still giving input, stop them immediately. Once the doors were open to the public Icus had his head in the clouds to a point where I questioned if he saw the writing on the walls of an imminent demotion and stopped trying as a result. I had a full deck of 3x5 cards in an archaic powerpoint presentation bringing numerous concerns to light that he kept putting off listening to until he was fired. Those same cards were broken out for this essay. The second kitchen manager, Krumm, is a good lesson in honesty. According to Heffer, Krumm was given a bill of goods about how smoothly KK Bikini Bottom was running. Since Krumm stepped into a latrine pit which he was led to believe was a heated pool, he left in short time. Krumm also had plans to modify the menu but when his bosses told him to be a rodeo clown rather than a cowboy Krumm didn’t take too kindly to that. Meanwhile Heffer was the savior of the Bikini Bottom kitchen. I didn’t agree with every single decision he made, but I did with a majority of them. Heffer’s overhaul was such a blessing so I didn’t have to fiddle with the organization of 60% of the equipment anymore, only about 20% now. Too bad Heffer’s crippling depression came back after bashing his head into the wall out of frustration with the shackles KK restrained him with.
The current management team is enthusiastic but inexperienced. I see an accumulation of small infractions that might bring down Bikini Bottom’s health department rating significantly. I see the entire management team being inattentive or unaware about organizational issues. Whatever bureaucratic nonsense corporate tasks everyone with from the original sous chef Skeeter to Patty Mayonnaise that makes them walk away from the line between 11am and 1pm especially is infuriating. I have never been left alone on a multi-person line during peak hours so regularly, and I won’t tolerate it anymore. As much as I believe in his drive, I imagine our current kitchen manager SpongeBob will be let go after a disastrous service during the Dimmadome concert season that someone has to take the fall for. Chef Ren and I could help bring experience in management and dealing with festival traffic...if corporate does not force us to follow a failing strategy.
After working nearly a year at KK you may ask why I’m not proficient on more than one station. Excellent question. First, when I move over to another station the squeeze bottles are never labeled (until Stu Pickles was hired, now they’re sometimes labeled), so I always looked at the glut of unlabeled sauces and I’d go back to my station because the basic information is missing (also a health department violation for having numerous unlabeled, unchilled bottles). In his first week the new general manager Stu Pickles pulled out 90% of the containers under the grill station because they were lacking labels despite an expected health department visit. The second reason for my menu ignorance is the mountain of prep for my own and upcoming shifts I have piled up on my station throughout service. My attention to detail appears to be next level with my ability to anticipate stocking all items for all shifts including the weeknd. The third reason I wouldn’t learn multiple stations is a defense against the afternoon conference calls. In [month] the Bikini Bottom line was unprepared for a busy post lunch because one cook was cut and our expo person was busy with a conference call. The two of us remaining on the line had a miserable slog through an unexpectedly busy afternoon. When I brought this up to Krabs he disregarded me, being a good bean counter he quoted the cost percentage. What he didn’t take into account was the missing expo person who could have jumped on the line and expo to help the understaffed two man team. That person was stuck on a conference call. Just recently I saw the company actively lose money because of this poorly thought-out meeting during business hours. A customer wanted to order a dessert that was 86ed but had been restocked by our prep cook an hour before. The server was unable to sell them their dessert because the only person in the building who could help un-86 an item was on a conference call. This conference call calamity is another bone-headed choice that speaks to a larger decision-making problem within the corporate structure. Finish the conference calls by 10:45 am eastern.
In conclusion, I quit my position as a lowly grunt for this company because of its unwarranted perplexing dance steps and below average management. I don’t care how much varnish and lacquer is supplied, I refuse to polish this Bikini Bottom turd as a manager or full-time employee under the current circumstances. You would have to take a pickaxe to the floor, possibly relocate the bathrooms to add a door to the dishpit, get rid of the cheap low boy that doesn’t properly drain excess water, and Mr Gorbachov knock down that wall in the middle of the kitchen to give the proper amount of space to work. Or simply reduce the menu to 36 items (including sides) because that’s the amount of space this dreadful design can comfortably output. Would Gordon Ramsay compliment KK for all the unnecessary convoluted complications abound, or would Chef Ramsay yell about keeping it simple and demand KK chuck it in the flip? Thanks to the numerous pop up restaurants I have been a part of and the hectic world of trade shows/conventions, I may have more experience than anyone else employed by KK in smoothly opening a new location. I would enjoy being part of the opening team to ensure new locations have an efficiency Bikini Bottom lacks, and to keep upper management away from their worst instincts. Work with me and Chef Ren and we will help you become a well oiled machine like Chokey Chicken instead of the Chum Bucket cesspit Bikini Bottom currently embodies.

I made a character and this sotry for star wars (i made this story for my English finals, i had a month to make it and got an A on it), the characters name is Saya Eban and is a character I have been thinking of for over a decade now (im not in my 2nd decade so since i was super young). Saya at this time is 13-14 years old and was given inspiration by almost all the other jedi and also star killer. He is human and with reliance on the force he can live up to 1000 years with hi peak being between 35, 40 ish to around 800 years of age. In terms of prime power level and potential, in my canon he is 3rd most powerful character just underneath luke and anikan Skywalkers, but could contend with them at some points. Little background: he was a prodigy in school before he became a padawan, he always had an intrest in a character named Ahsoka Tano but never became more than friends because of the Jedi teachings. He was a fast learning youngling and became a padawan earlier than most other younglings, becaming a padawan at the age of 11 - 12. He was in the first battle of Genesis but his troop transport ship was blasted out of the air, landing behind enemy lines leaving him the sole surviver, and scarring him, making him want to never see uneeded bloodshed ever again. He met Count Dooku before he had met Obi-Wan and Anikan on geonosis, he locked blades with him once... once, before he was thrown aside like a house fly, not worth his time, he was out until the retreat of the battle was initiated. This gave him night terrors and nightmares, after this day he could never sleep more than an hour, if that, before he woke up feeling the dark side creeping in. So he had learned to use sleep meditation. Sleep meditation allowed him to accelerate his trainings and connect greater to the force, he had unlocked 1/3 of his life now, the force helping his cells heal his body while he sat and meditated.
This story is of how he lived through one of the bloodiest battles and worst losses of the Republic, the battle of Sarrish, and of how he had obtained his later main star ship, a Kom'rk Mark 1 class star fightetransport, aka the Puro (i made this story before I have watched the 3rd season of the Mandalorian, as of right now i still haven't so Idk if thats in season 3 or not).
There is about 11,340 words in the story, and I don't 100% know of what I should make him look like so have your imaginations run wild.
Ok here we go:
Tales of Saya Eban's Puro
Chapter 1

 The battle of Sarrish was one of the worst battles of the Clone Wars, it was a great devastating loss to the Republic and the Jedi, and I was in the middle of it all. Before the battle I was doing some touch-ups on my A-wing Fighter. I had managed to get my hands on a hyperdrive that would fit in my small fighter, although being able to enter hyperspace without an external hyperdrive wing is very convenient, fast, and easy, it does slow my fighter and hinder some mobility, but not an uncontrollable amount of loss. Little did I know it'd save my life later that week. After I had finished my work, gotten it restocked for my next battle, I was called to the Jedi command center for a briefing by Master Yoda, saying it was an urgent mission and I was needed now, with his backwards way of speaking annoying me slightly. In a flash, I had gathered my battle ready loadout and headed off to the command center. When I entered the command center with the center planning table showing starships from both Confederate and Republic sides, One chasing another. I look and see Masters Yoda and Windu and a holoprojected Obi-Wan Kenobi surrounding the Table, with deeply serious thoughts in their eyes, fingers on their concentrating chins. When I swiftly strolled in, I was greeted with Master Windu's cheerful, but serious voice: "Ah, Padawan Eban, good you're here, come quick, we must act with persistence if we want to gain an upper hand in this war." "Master Windu, good to see you, you too Master Yoda, Master Kenobi, what's the situation?" Master Obi-Wan states, "We are currently chasing Separatist forces to the planet Sarrish and we will need some back up, could you bring your part of the 104th battalion right away, we have heavy casualties and they're going to have reinforcements when they reach the planet." "Is there not anyone closer than me, it may take a few days for me to get there, yall mabe finished by the time I get there!" I said with hope in my eyes. "I'm afraid that you're the only one that is available with the most minimal time of arrival, you'll have to be quick though, it will be anytime now they will reach the planet and have reinforcements. we need this win, it will be a great victory for the Republic if we are able to capture the planet." Stated Obi-Wan with certainty. "All other generals are on missions right as we speak, you are the only one that can provide back up at this current time." Master Windu added "Closer to Knight after this mission you will be, great padawan you are, your great swift improvements, Master Plo is pleased with, believe in you I do." Master Yoda said with a jolly old-man voice. "Now go, there's not much time to waste, gather your men and go help Obi-Wan!" Rushedly said by Master Windu. "With determination in my voice, I yell "Yes Masters, right away!" And like a flash, I was gone. As I'm running off, I catch a glimpse of a green swoosh and the sound of a bolt deflection. I stumble to a stop and put my legs in reverse to give curiosity the wheel. When I peer in, I see Master Skywalker and Ahsoka, along with roughly 8 clone troopers all in a circle around Ahsoka and her one blade ignited. Master Skywalker had her eyes welded to her as he walked around the trooper. I could see Captain Rex standing and watching as well, although he seems to be the only one who spotted me poking in my head. He motioned his finger to his lips as to tell me to shush and not interfere, so I watched with anticipation. And after a lifetime stillness ending in a second after Master Skywalker yelled "START!" And stun doughnuts fire from the blasters of the troopers, sending a volley of blue twords Ahsoka from all directions. With great flexibility I pair with, she jumps into the air, spinning like skates on a skate rink in mid air deflecting all incoming plasmic projectiles landing with swift grace ready for more, And more came, she stands in the center blade moving almost faster than what my eyes could keep up with, until that one bolt punches her right in the back, knocking her to the ground, diminishing the blade back into the hilt. I spring into the room, speaking with worry in my voice when I squeak out "Ahsoka! Master Skywalker, what was that!?" 

"She was just training deflecting blaster fire, she's going to be outmatched a lot in this war, and clones are better than droids to practice with." Anakin said with pride that she was able to last little over a minute, thats improvement.
"Well I guess you're not completely wrong, but your going to give her a brain injury at this rate! Could you not go a bit easier on her?"
"She'll never learn if I go easy on her." Master Skywalker said with little arrogance in his voice.
"W- well, here, l-let me wake her then." I stuttered as I walked up to Rex holding Ahsoka like he's a pillow.
"Rex, do you mind if I-"
"Not at all General, here." Rex said as I sat next to him holding Ahsoka's top half of her body.

 As he caringly sets Ahsoka's rhythmically beating top half in my lap, head facing the heavens, I softly lay my hand over her forehead, close my eyes, and concentrate. A few suspenseful seconds later, I take my hand off and observe Ahsoka's hand softly glide to her now curling forehead, eyes fluttering open. 

With a smile I voiced"Wakey Wakey warrior princess, have a good nap?" Smirking the whole time.
"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes Nicksters." She groaned with fading pain.
"What are you doing here?" She leisurely grumbled as she started to lie propped up by her desirable, fluorescent orange arms made of flexible muscle.
"I was walking by, and saw a 'damsel in distress', I HAD to come and 'save the day'." I joked, smirking the whole time, annoying her little bit more.
"You know I have been dying to use my force heal on you since I had learned it. I bet you don't even feel bad at all right now hm?" I said leaning in
Ahsoka starts to stand as to get a feel for her own body.
"You're right, I feel better than I did before, not bad for someone named Nicks." Ahsoka said smirking right back at me.
"Oh come on, that was one time, that was even before we became patiwans!" I said with little dramatics in my vocal verberations.
"Ok Master, I'm ready to try again." Ahsoka said to Master Skywalker
"Not now Ahsoka, we have a mission from the Jedi council we have to attend to while Obi-Wan is on his own mission." Anikan said to Ahsoka, elongating his 'not' like he usually does
"I'm actually about to go give help to Obi-Wan right now… WHICH I NEED TO GET PREPARED FOR NOW!! Karabast, got to go! See yah Ahsoka, Master, Rex." And like a ship entering hyperspace, I was gone.
Chapter 2

 After 2 boring days traveling in hyperspace, me and my 5 Veneter class Cruisers are nearing our destination, this would make 12 Cruisers for the Republic side. A new commander CT'-4112 or Zerek, debriefs on the battle situation. As I had sensed, Obi-Wan was outmatched seeing as backup was on planet Sarrish for the fleeing Separatist ships, now it's 11 Munificent class Cruisers and 2 command stations blockading the planet. Kenobi was starting to be pushed back, relying on our Cruisers longer ranged cannons to hope the Sepies didn't get too close. Our Cruisers have longer ranged main canons and toms of fighter room, while the Sepies Cruisers have more fire power at closer ranges with more fighters than our Vendor class Cruisers, at closer ranges, the Sepies would completely destroy a Venetor class Cruiser, but we have strategies and will power. 

"Glad to see a friendly face Saya." Kenobi said exhaustingly.
"Well, it looked like you needed help. You know I need to be the one to save everyone. I'll move into position to fortify our defenses to push the Sepies back and for us to make a plan. What is your fleet's condition?"
"We have 2 Venetors heavily damaged and the rest either have mild to no damage. And we have lost half our fighters as of now." Urgently said by Kenobi.
"Ok, I'm sending men and supplies to you right now, let me take the front so I can take the damage if they send another attack." I calmly said to Kenobi.
"Men battle positions and set all power to front cannons and shields. Venators get into pincer position and get ready for an attack. Fighters get ready to launch." I commanded to all my Cruisers
"Master, if you could, could you add in your undamaged Venetors? " I wandered and directed with much mastery, I even made Obi-Wan himself visually impressed considering my inexperienced mind in life, and especially war. I even managed to make him smile.
"Getting in position now." Obi-Wan stated, still smiling.
"Understood, While you get everything fixed, I'll see if I can weaken their defenses, it seems as if they're in attack positions so we gotta be ready for anything." I said in deep thought.
"Ok, 10 to 13, I like those odds, makes it even, more so for the Sepies." I grinned.
"Now Saya, remember this is still a battle, don't be too cocky, you're starting to remind me of Anakin." Obi-Wan said with conviction.
"Yes Master, sorry about that." I answered to Obi-Wan, pulling back a little.

 Just then, many starfighters come from the enemy Cruisers, hundreds of them lightning fast, closing distance fast. 

"All right men, time for some fun. Obi-Wan, if you want to take command of my control center, I'll lead this fight." I said before Obi-Wan could respond.
"Ok- but Saya! Blast, maybe he's too much like Anikan." Obi-Wan said defeatedly.
As I get into the hangar I yell "Alright Wolfpack, let's get goin!" Then I hop into my modified Jedi A-wing.
We rush out from the center roof door along the Cruiser with my squadron aka The Wolfpack, with me leading my 23 fighters into battle and many more friendly's following from the hangars.
"Ok Wolfpack, let's make a break for them Cruisers, get as many of them gone as possible. 411 you ready?" I asked R2-411. R2-411 bleeps with readiness.
"Ok, time to blow them out of the sky, remember, stay in formation" I commanded.
"Yes sir!" The Clones bellowed.

 Then we hit the swarm with a mighty thundering sound of lasers flying through the emptiness of space seeing one after one of enemy fighter droids dropping all over the place. Me and my Wolfpack fly through all the 2 winged Vulture droids that look like each wing was sideways and has 2 prongs each side for wings. They were way more quick and maneuverable than us, but we had a duty to win, and we won't lose today. It's like a firework show, but you're dodging all the fireworks, and they're aiming right at you. While we are defending the Venator Cruisers, they're mostly firing at the Sepies Cruisers, slowly dwindling their energy shields down. 

"Boys, I have a plan, but I'll need yall to get back to the Cruisers." I urged
"Obi-Wan, how's the 2 heavily damaged Cruisers? We've been out for a long while. They should be good by now right?" I questioned Master Kenobi.
"They're about to come back into the fight, but one of our Cruisers is at a quarter shield, few good hits or bombing runs and it's gone, what's your plan Saya?" Obi-Wan said, perplexed.
"Just give me an opening to the left Separatist control center, that's all I need to get on that ship." I stated with confidence.
"I'll try my best, but don't be stupid Saya, we can't afford to lose you."
"Yeah yeah I know, just get me an opening please Master!" I begged.

 After the words fleeted from my mouth, all the Cruisers fired a hole through the droid fleet with friendly fighters also making way for me to get through. I blast the afterburners straight through the enemy swarm that's been lesson by the commotion, just barely being hidden by smoke from a just destroyed fighter straight into the leftmost control ship hanger landing with an explosive entry. And immediately I jump out, igniting both, my straight emerald green saber in my left, and my yellow saber with a curved hilt similar to the Count's hilt himself in my right. I'll face him again one day, it's inevitable, like me. I land and immediately cut a group of B1 battle droids heads off with my yellow saber facing out, giving me more reach, but as I start to take fire from the army that quickly form from my landing, I swiftly doge left to right almost able to doge the sight of a human eye. Left, pop goes the heads of 3, right, pop goes 5, jump through the air on an almost straight path through the thick of the army, spinning with a light show if one were to be an onlooker at this chaotic organization of flying red plasmic bolts going to a mix of yellow and green, then proceeding to fly straight back at the shooter with twice the velocity. I land on my feet with a thunderous "BOOM" with what seems like an explosion that incinerates half of the whole hanger with an electric yellow glow seeming like yellow lighting exploded from the epicenter of the explosion. When the smoke cleared, it seemed that everything within a 5 meter radius was completely incinerated, and everything within 40 meter radius was heavily damaged, and any technology within eye shot was either scrape or short-circuiting, but all B1 battle droids and super battle droids were out. 

I sighed with relief with little heavy breathing when I looked around me, but with no time to rest, 6 Vulture droid fighters came through the hanger's magnetic shield door, transforming to walk on its pronged wings like they were legs. They scanned me and started raining a flurry of red down onto me, but with my lightning fast reflexes, I raised my sabers to block the incoming hellfire from all six fighter's. Then came the flurry being deflected in any direction possible, and I could just barely see the 6 droids started to surround me by going behind my back, but I ain't done yet. As I'm blocking, jumping, spinning, twisting on a micrometer, I stomp with a mighty force, launching through the air, slowly spinning straight for a Vulture that has became the prey. Bolts whizzing by me, inches, centimeters near my skin, singeing my arm hairs to their roots. I land on top of the droid with a thunderous boom crunching where my foot had landed, driving my sabers straight through the brain of the story high droid, with a counterclockwise rotation around my back, dragging my sabers across the metal of the droid, I leap off the droid landing with the feathers and fly forward with a flashing dash slicing through 2 other droids legs, leaving gravity do its magical job. 3 down, 3 to go, but with little time left. I launch forward running on hairs dipping and dodging blots, I leap up slicing through one leg of a droid and pushing off of its gravity taken hull, coming down on another droid's leg, cutting with ease. I land like a leaf in the autumn skies, and launch with a swift leap, flying my yellow saber straight down the middle of the 6th and final droid with no time to spare.

 I land with caution, ready to fend off another foe, but none came at that second, so I took the opportunity and ran with it straight to where the main reactors should lie. I swiftly sprint with force leaps through the air to get to the reactor, the ship is 270th of a circle with a ball where the command center is, the middle is the only connected between the back of the ball and the inner back of the circle, that's where the reactor is, im at the left most side, may take me a minute to reach it, but I can get there without being seen. My plan was to quickly fix and rewrite a Vulture droid's code to go with my command, not going to be the best work but it will work, hopefully. I had to act fast because I knew there were going to be hundreds more droids to come to see the commotion, I'd say within the minute. The codes used on the droids are not the best, because of mass production, so It was an easy fix, I just needed it to fly a small bit. It comes back to life with a putt to its movement, I directed it to start flying while I'm on its back, putting the whole time with smoke, just what I needed. I start to move forward as fast as possible. As we get around the hundreds of battle droids below, I'm starting to speed up, and as I see the reactor room, I could hear B1's yell " HEY! STOP! YOUR GOING TO FAST" in their robotic voice. Before I hit the Shield covering the reactor room, I jump off to the left where the blast door is for the room. With the distraction of the droid smashing into the shield, I use this time to slowly cut through the blast doors with both sabers starting at the bottom of the door, going up and around to form a circle I can fit through. I was through within a Minute, unnoticed, or so I was led to believe. When I get into the reactor room, I throw explosives all over the reactors, with a detonation in T minus 1 minute. I fly out of the room, calling for 411 to bring my ship as fast as possible, 55. Running across the hanger, I'm spotted by the hundreds of battle droids, which immediately start firing right as they see me 50. The explosion of the fighter droid caused a chain to nearby explosive barrels, exploding more Vulture droids causing tons of smoke and fires to spread around the hangar area, 45. As I'm running, my yellow saber is blocking multiple bolts flying at me while I'm jumping, spinning, performing acrobatic movements while being shot by hundreds of droids, from B1's, to super's, to droideka's, all firing at me, adding to the smoke, 35. Running with young blood in my veins, I perform 1, 2, 3 long jumps and leap onto the side of a slanted destroyed Vulture droid, 30. I jump up, reaching for the cloudy sky just as 411 swoops in predictively shoving my hand into the side of the sharp A-wing hull, 25. I grab the side of the hull and pull myself up into the cockpit, grabbing the controls, 20. I spin to the exit with roughly 67° of the hanger I need to shoot out of, I fire the afterburners using the circumference of the circle and my fighters movment to my advantage, 15. Pushing forward, I am drifting an A-wing around the hangar of a Separatist capital ship skimming the walls centimeters away from an explosive fiery death, 10. I barely screamed out of the hanger, to be able to see a view of the capital ship flying stright for the other Sepie capital ship, 5. Im still firing the afterburners to try and attempt to get a safe distance away from the soon to be collision sight, 4. I let 411 take the control's, 3. I turn my head to look back, 2. I see the collision of the 2 270° hangers, 1. I watch as i get the view of a star being formed right infront of my eyes, and seeing many Sepie Cruisers being absolutely engulfed by the flames, and a blast wave decimating the Vulture droids… blast wave…. BLAST WAVE! Just then I'm thrown far, along with the debri. I manged to gain control of the craft and start performing advanced monuvers to avoid being hit by debrie that will demolishe me and my tiny fighter. 

"Saya, can you hear me? Saya?" Master Obi-Wan Kenobi pleaded.
"Yeah, yeah master, I'm good, I'm fine. Woo…!" I said with a sigh of relief.
Chapter 3

 The explosion had decimated the Separatist forces leaving 4 Cruisers sustaining heavy or mild damages, but with an opening, Obi-Wan and I travel to the ground along with Captain Cody to go for a large ground assault. Master Obi-Wan's plan was to drop in and gather our troops and split them between Obi-Wan and commander Cody. We were west, they were east. The Separatists had the high ground seeing as they had a cliff to their advantage. Flying in on gunships, we were taking heavy fire from their anti aircraft cannons. Commander Cody and I are debriefing the squad on the way to the rally point, seeing gunships after gunship falling to the rocky ground in a fiery explosive ball of red hot metal, and screams, with no plants in sight, just rocks, gunships, and red streaks flying by. Explosions booming right next to us with our doors right open. We have been ordered and ordering troops to stay far away from the mountain top gun fortifying the mountain top of the cliff, leaving that gun for the gunships and the best of the clone troopers, or ARC (Advanced Recon Commandos) troopers to deal with that later, seeing as a ground assault is too dangerous for us. As some of the clones have said, it's not an easy mission, but hops are high. 

"30 seconds until landing." A clone trooper yelled to me and Cody.
Cody starts with "All right, listen up! Maintain squad formations, 'A' squad, You're on me-" ZZZZZEEEROW- BOOOM!
"Where hit!" I yell "Everyone! Hold on!"
Before we hit the ground I leap out of the gunship with a backwards somersault, force pulling all the troops out of the burning fireball heading for the ground, grabbing all of the men, including the 2 pilots at the front, breaking through the windows. I land like rain from the sky, catching the troops I just pulled out with my powers and have them roughly land on the fluffy rocks next to our now downed gunship, no casualties yet. I rush over to take cover under our gunship on its left side behind enemy lines. I sit and meditate as they come up with a plan.
"What's the status lieutenant?" Cody asked
"5 injured thanks to General Saya, but that's not that bad news… Does that Rock look familiar?" The lieutenant asked.
"Yea, the mountain, right where we're not supposed to be." Said Cody
"General Kenobi ordered us not to try taking this section from the ground." The lieutenant regenerated back again with what was already established.
"That's what he said…but what would the general do if he were here?" Cody rhetorically asked.
"Saya sir, what do you think?" A trooper asked me somewhat desperately.
"I think Cody should take this one, I've got your back Cody." I answered with my legs crossed, eyes closed, slightly levitating over the rocks.
"Eight-Eight-Six-Seven through Eight-Eight-Six-Nine and Saya, fix your grapples and come with me. Everybody, prepare for covering fire." Cody ordered.
I get up, eyes still shut, ready to block anything coming our way.
"NOW!" Cody yells, sprinting across what is our no-man's-land
I open my eyes, ignite my Sabers, Green in left, yellow in right, and dash towards the now incoming blaster fire. I sense it, left side, block, right side, deflect, one for Cody, deflected. We get to some stalagmites at the bottom of the mountain, sustaining heavy fire, I pose as a distraction for all the fire, deflecting as many blots as I can back at the metal men. One troop trips and falls, pow, bolt straight through the head. Cody and the men shoot the grappling hooks up towards the top of the mountain and start climbing. I jump from my spot reigniting my sabers, driving them through the mountain side, helping me grab hold with my feet. And when I look up, I see a grapple fall behind me. I tried to grab the rope but I was too late. When I managed to obtain it, he had already hit the ground. Another tragedy, one that never had to happen, life being wasted away. I look up, a droid stairs emotionlessly down into my emotion filled eyes. A blue bolt shoots past me, impacting the droid's head, sending the body backwards.
Cody and the other clone rises from the cliff side as I leap up from the side, landing in front of the clones and immediately start deflecting with my 2 sabers having nothing pass. Cody takes this opportunity to run around my defense and attacks the droids head on, bashing one droid with the butt of his rifle and swinging his rifle at another, destroying both of them. The droid manning the anti aircraft gun turns and aims at Cody. Instinctively I jump in front of the cannon as it fires, I deflect the large bolt away with my right yellow saber, knocking my body to the right, making me stumble. But with the motion throwing me to the right, I use the momentum to throw my green saber with my left hand, impaling the droid in the metal chest. Cody then hops onto the turret, points the gun at the droids firing at our men, and lets loose, destroying all in its reticle.
"Thanks General, I owe you one, ill getcha next time." Cody said slowly getting off the turret.
"You're alright my friend, just pay it forward, let's go see how Obi-Wan did." I slightly worried, staring off to the north.

 We group up at the randevu, where we have set base camp on the planet in a small raven a bit away from where we captured the cliff with some makeshift scouting towers dotted around our position. Obi-Wan had more resistance than what he had anticipated, he was a little banged up, but he was fine in the end. This was a huge victory seeing as we have been able to set base on a planet that allows us to get resources through this hyperspace route and onto parts of the army past this point. Before, General Grievous snipped our route to where we couldn't get resources to our army on the other side from Coruscant. 

Chapter 4

 12 hours later, we have rested and have managed to build up a good base incase of a surprise attack. We are still fighting a few fronts of Separatist holdouts with a fortress a few klicks west, or about 4 miles west. 

I sit in my tent meditating, reflecting back on the weeks events, and what Ahsoka was doing back at the temple, training hard. I recite what I did with an almost overwhelming amount of blaster fire attempting to fly into me, how I was just mostly averting the blots away from me and not in a direction that would benefit me most.
'RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE'

 The ground started to shake out of nowhere, breaking my peace. I rush out of my tent, only to be met with a face full of B2 battle droid. I jump back over my tent flipping onto my feet as I see my tent being lit into flames from heavy bolt fire flying at me. Igniting both my sabers, I deflect the incoming fire away from me up into the sky as much as I physically could. I took a glance around, it was becoming more sunlit as we fought. It was a slaughter, clones dying left and right, Kenobi was on the Command ship getting patched, so it was just me, and the clones down here, being manicured. With a swift right step, I change lightsaber form, combining my form 3, (defensive form blocking anything coming way, and either making, or waiting for an opening to strike) with a combination of form 2 (saber to saber form, putting least amount or saber movement and preferring precise efficient movements) and form 4 (saber from using the force to enhance physical abilities, and heavily utilizing fast acrobatic movements to move around and disorient the opponents, using wide sweeping saber movements to block and hit targets) I use the power if the many bolts to propel my body onto my right leg, crouching down and taking a huge lead in to the air. Looking around like it is moving in stop motion, I see thousands of droids around, completely outnumbering my men. Glancing down where I had jumped from, there seems to be a super battle droid rising from the ground, looking as if it has been there for at least a few days. Time seems to start like normal again, immediately I have to block bolts coming for my body, twisting, turning, deflecting every. single. bolt. right to another droid. I can't have any more unneeded deaths in my hands. I land with an impactful explosion of yellow lighting, rendering half of the electronics on the field obsolete. Shots fire over the wall, exploding near me. 

"Everyone, Retreat!" I yelled into the comms.
I ran towards the lieutenant that I had survived the crash with, he was running for a troop transport.
"Get to the ships, return to the Venators! Get Kenobi and relay what has happened!" Urgency blowing through my voice.

 I push him into the ship as it takes off. As it's doing so, I force push it away from the field as to be in less danger of being shot down. But rockets fly through the air, I reach through the force and grab onto the hurdling death traps, I grab 1, 2, crash them into one another, 3, grab, 4, grab, 5, miss. ERRROW… BOOOM! With a hopeless explosion, the ship bursts into an explosive ball of fire, right in front of my eyes, out of my grasp. Shots fly past my head from behind me, I ignite my sunlit yellow saber to block incoming bolts. No men, only metal remains, and it wants me dead. I dash for my ship on the other side of the airstrip, luckily barely touched from this horrible surprise party that invited everyone I very much dislike. Hopping into my A-wing, I lift-off dogging left, right, up, down, roll left, roll right, barely being passed by on all sides by cannon fire. When I reach the point past the clouds, there's a whole war above. Separatist forces have surprised Kenobi with an overwhelming number of ships, putting our war torn 12 Venators against 16 Munificent class Cruisers. We were greatly out matched. But the time I was in space we had lost 3 Vectors compared to there 1 lost. Droids noticed me coming from the planet and started to verge onto my position. 

"Obi-Wan! You there? Can you hear me?" I yelled, pulling evasive maneuvers.
"Saya, is that you?" Kenobi asked.
"Yes, we got surprised on the ground, seems the same happened here." I rushingly said.
"Yes, they came out of nowh-" Kenobi is cut off by a blaring siren from my cockpit.
"Wait, my ship is damaged, it's starting up my hyperdrive, 411 can you fix it?" I said dipping left and right while trying to stop the hyperdrive activation.
With a few bleeps of fear, I understand what's happening.
"When I was thrown from the capital ship explosive wave, I must have been hit near the hyperdrive, and explosions from my escape, along with the maneuvers I have been pulling, it may have caused damage that is registering a hyperdrive activation. Master Obi-Wan, I don't know, I-I don't know what to do!" I claimed with fear in my eyes.
"Can you deactivate the hyperdrive at all 411?" Kenobi asked
411 bleeps with a sad toon.
"Blast, Saya, does it say where you're going?"
"N- No, my council just says ERROR." I stated, now with much fear in my voice.

 I managed to steer my craft into the position of the hyperspace lane. 

"Tell Ahsoka good bye if I don't-" I get cut off when the the hyperdrive powered up woth a vvvvvvvvvvvVVVVERRRRRRR PEEOW, and just like that, me, my A-wing, and R2-411, are gone.
Chapter 5

 It's been days since the battle, mabe 2 or 3 days. Luckily I always keep many ration bars in my fighter to last me a good few days, along with my extra water and my ability to go into a deep meditative state, conserving food and water. Keeping me company is my meditation and 411. We have almost hit some unknown objects, could have been planets, asteroids, other ships, but we seem to be staying in hyperspace lanes luckily, or I would have been dead a long time ago. My class 2 hyperdrive could have taken me all over the galaxy by now, I could be heading towards Coruscant right now for all I know. 

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
My hyperdrive warning kicked on, showing that there is a massive gravity force in my path. The console flashed with big red dangerous letters "Exiting Hyperdrive" on the screen.
"YES! FINALLY!" I yelled with excitement.

 I watch through the glass to see a barren looking planet, and a similar looking moon, a moon I was heading to. I was moving fast, as I entered the moon's atmosphere, Im grabbing the controls, barely anything. My craft is red hot from the rate at which I'm coming in on. I'm grabbing the stick, pulling back as much as I can, as to try and save myself and 411 from a fiery death. I scraped by a big rocky mountain dealing more damage to my A-wing. 

"HOLD ON 411!"
"Come ooooon. Pull pull pullllll…. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!-" VERRROW BOOOOSH!!! The crash landing sounded like a bomb flying through the air, then landing on its target. I try to get from my seat just to find my strap and window will not open. Using my saber I cut off my seat strap and broke the window from the hinges and leaped out, taking 411 from the craft, swiftly landing on a tall mountainous rock. The craft seemed to have pushed through the land 50 meters from the initial impact spot. The area I was in seemed to be very rocky terrain with many rocky canyons and huge rocks that are almost mountainous. The sun was close to setting down for the night but was still a good hour away from sleeping.

 With the force by my side, I felt a very uneasy sensation telling me to stay out of sight. I duck down on the tall skinny rock taking 411 down with me. 411 confusingly bleeps when I do so. "Hey, I have a feeling right now, just keep quiet real quick, there's somebody coming. Trust me." Me and 411 peer over the edge looming over my crashed ship just as a group of 6 men in full armor covering their whole body fly in with jetpacks strapped to their backs, blasters in hand. As they land, they search around my wreckage, presumably looking for survivors. One seems to be ordering the others around, pointing at one to look in one direction, another a different direction, and scanning around for the unexpected visitor. I look down at my Wrist link, my distress signal wasn't sent, I guess that was damaged from entering the planet at such high speed with no deflector shields surrounding the ship like a protective blanket. 

"Blast, 411, what's your S.O.S signal situation, did it go through?" 411 beeps with a little drama like I should know it didn't go through.
"Well sorry for busting your rusty bolts you rowdy rancor, better to try than to just give up mister sassy pants. Maybe I should wipe your memory for a change, see how you like it."
"Now shush, don't want them to find us spying on them, won't look too good." I demand. "Now here, in case we get caught, I don't want them to know I'm a Jedi, so here, take my sabers, I'm not gonna need them anyways." I said shoving my lightsabers into 411's storage compartment and looking towards the crash again.

 Just then the suit of armor that had been commanding his squad bursts up into my view right on my face out of hyperspace blue. 

"Ah, found ya trespassers, you 2 are coming with me." Demanded the Mandalorian with a snickering sound in his voice as the others rise from the portal of the abyss from down below.

 It was a good thing my ropes where in the tent back on Sarrish, or this may have been an even worse situation, Mangalorians like them hate Jedi with a passion, and it's a good thing I always have a broken blaster in 411 for any cases where I need to blend in with a crowd or pose as a normal civilian; although, the ability to become a civilian at any point is great, I've had little need to do so much. I'm quite popular with the people for being one who tries to connect with the population as a fellow citizen. So I rarely stay in the temple for too long. I love being with the people and learning skills without the force, like being a mechanic, electrician, public speaker, security guard, an all around great person to talk with about anything. I'm quite known on all levels of Coruscant for being one of the most friendly Jedi to be around. Right now though, I need to focus on not being caught, at least That's what my gut is telling me. After they searched my character for any weapons and found the broken blaster that 411 had put in my holster where my lightsaber usually is, they were satisfied and pushed us into one of their big Kom'rk Mark 1 class Mandalorian starfightetransport ship. 

(Look in comments for 6th)

I made a character and this sotry for star wars (i made this story for my English finals, i had a month to make it and got an A on it), the characters name is Saya Eban and is a character I have been thinking of for over a decade now (im not in my 2nd decade so since i was super young). Saya at this time is 13-14 years old and was given inspiration by almost all the other jedi and also star killer. He is human and with reliance on the force he can live up to 1000 years with hi peak being between 35, 40 ish to around 800 years of age. In terms of prime power level and potential, in my canon he is 3rd most powerful character just underneath luke and anikan Skywalkers, but could contend with them at some points. Little background: he was a prodigy in school before he became a padawan, he always had an intrest in a character named Ahsoka Tano but never became more than friends because of the Jedi teachings. He was a fast learning youngling and became a padawan earlier than most other younglings, becaming a padawan at the age of 11 - 12. He was in the first battle of Genesis but his troop transport ship was blasted out of the air, landing behind enemy lines leaving him the sole surviver, and scarring him, making him want to never see uneeded bloodshed ever again. He met Count Dooku before he had met Obi-Wan and Anikan on geonosis, he locked blades with him once... once, before he was thrown aside like a house fly, not worth his time, he was out until the retreat of the battle was initiated. This gave him night terrors and nightmares, after this day he could never sleep more than an hour, if that, before he woke up feeling the dark side creeping in. So he had learned to use sleep meditation. Sleep meditation allowed him to accelerate his trainings and connect greater to the force, he had unlocked 1/3 of his life now, the force helping his cells heal his body while he sat and meditated.
This story is of how he lived through one of the bloodiest battles and worst losses of the Republic, the battle of Sarrish, and of how he had obtained his later main star ship, a Kom'rk Mark 1 class star fightetransport, aka the Puro (i made this story before I have watched the 3rd season of the Mandalorian, as of right now i still haven't so Idk if thats in season 3 or not).
There is about 11,340 words in the story, and I don't 100% know of what I should make him look like so have your imaginations run wild.
Ok here we go:
Tales of Saya Eban's Puro
Chapter 1

 The battle of Sarrish was one of the worst battles of the Clone Wars, it was a great devastating loss to the Republic and the Jedi, and I was in the middle of it all. Before the battle I was doing some touch-ups on my A-wing Fighter. I had managed to get my hands on a hyperdrive that would fit in my small fighter, although being able to enter hyperspace without an external hyperdrive wing is very convenient, fast, and easy, it does slow my fighter and hinder some mobility, but not an uncontrollable amount of loss. Little did I know it'd save my life later that week. After I had finished my work, gotten it restocked for my next battle, I was called to the Jedi command center for a briefing by Master Yoda, saying it was an urgent mission and I was needed now, with his backwards way of speaking annoying me slightly. In a flash, I had gathered my battle ready loadout and headed off to the command center. When I entered the command center with the center planning table showing starships from both Confederate and Republic sides, One chasing another. I look and see Masters Yoda and Windu and a holoprojected Obi-Wan Kenobi surrounding the Table, with deeply serious thoughts in their eyes, fingers on their concentrating chins. When I swiftly strolled in, I was greeted with Master Windu's cheerful, but serious voice: "Ah, Padawan Eban, good you're here, come quick, we must act with persistence if we want to gain an upper hand in this war." "Master Windu, good to see you, you too Master Yoda, Master Kenobi, what's the situation?" Master Obi-Wan states, "We are currently chasing Separatist forces to the planet Sarrish and we will need some back up, could you bring your part of the 104th battalion right away, we have heavy casualties and they're going to have reinforcements when they reach the planet." "Is there not anyone closer than me, it may take a few days for me to get there, yall mabe finished by the time I get there!" I said with hope in my eyes. "I'm afraid that you're the only one that is available with the most minimal time of arrival, you'll have to be quick though, it will be anytime now they will reach the planet and have reinforcements. we need this win, it will be a great victory for the Republic if we are able to capture the planet." Stated Obi-Wan with certainty. "All other generals are on missions right as we speak, you are the only one that can provide back up at this current time." Master Windu added "Closer to Knight after this mission you will be, great padawan you are, your great swift improvements, Master Plo is pleased with, believe in you I do." Master Yoda said with a jolly old-man voice. "Now go, there's not much time to waste, gather your men and go help Obi-Wan!" Rushedly said by Master Windu. "With determination in my voice, I yell "Yes Masters, right away!" And like a flash, I was gone. As I'm running off, I catch a glimpse of a green swoosh and the sound of a bolt deflection. I stumble to a stop and put my legs in reverse to give curiosity the wheel. When I peer in, I see Master Skywalker and Ahsoka, along with roughly 8 clone troopers all in a circle around Ahsoka and her one blade ignited. Master Skywalker had her eyes welded to her as he walked around the trooper. I could see Captain Rex standing and watching as well, although he seems to be the only one who spotted me poking in my head. He motioned his finger to his lips as to tell me to shush and not interfere, so I watched with anticipation. And after a lifetime stillness ending in a second after Master Skywalker yelled "START!" And stun doughnuts fire from the blasters of the troopers, sending a volley of blue twords Ahsoka from all directions. With great flexibility I pair with, she jumps into the air, spinning like skates on a skate rink in mid air deflecting all incoming plasmic projectiles landing with swift grace ready for more, And more came, she stands in the center blade moving almost faster than what my eyes could keep up with, until that one bolt punches her right in the back, knocking her to the ground, diminishing the blade back into the hilt. I spring into the room, speaking with worry in my voice when I squeak out "Ahsoka! Master Skywalker, what was that!?" 

"She was just training deflecting blaster fire, she's going to be outmatched a lot in this war, and clones are better than droids to practice with." Anakin said with pride that she was able to last little over a minute, thats improvement.
"Well I guess you're not completely wrong, but your going to give her a brain injury at this rate! Could you not go a bit easier on her?"
"She'll never learn if I go easy on her." Master Skywalker said with little arrogance in his voice.
"W- well, here, l-let me wake her then." I stuttered as I walked up to Rex holding Ahsoka like he's a pillow.
"Rex, do you mind if I-"
"Not at all General, here." Rex said as I sat next to him holding Ahsoka's top half of her body.

 As he caringly sets Ahsoka's rhythmically beating top half in my lap, head facing the heavens, I softly lay my hand over her forehead, close my eyes, and concentrate. A few suspenseful seconds later, I take my hand off and observe Ahsoka's hand softly glide to her now curling forehead, eyes fluttering open. 

With a smile I voiced"Wakey Wakey warrior princess, have a good nap?" Smirking the whole time.
"Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes Nicksters." She groaned with fading pain.
"What are you doing here?" She leisurely grumbled as she started to lie propped up by her desirable, fluorescent orange arms made of flexible muscle.
"I was walking by, and saw a 'damsel in distress', I HAD to come and 'save the day'." I joked, smirking the whole time, annoying her little bit more.
"You know I have been dying to use my force heal on you since I had learned it. I bet you don't even feel bad at all right now hm?" I said leaning in
Ahsoka starts to stand as to get a feel for her own body.
"You're right, I feel better than I did before, not bad for someone named Nicks." Ahsoka said smirking right back at me.
"Oh come on, that was one time, that was even before we became patiwans!" I said with little dramatics in my vocal verberations.
"Ok Master, I'm ready to try again." Ahsoka said to Master Skywalker
"Not now Ahsoka, we have a mission from the Jedi council we have to attend to while Obi-Wan is on his own mission." Anikan said to Ahsoka, elongating his 'not' like he usually does
"I'm actually about to go give help to Obi-Wan right now… WHICH I NEED TO GET PREPARED FOR NOW!! Karabast, got to go! See yah Ahsoka, Master, Rex." And like a ship entering hyperspace, I was gone.
Chapter 2

 After 2 boring days traveling in hyperspace, me and my 5 Veneter class Cruisers are nearing our destination, this would make 12 Cruisers for the Republic side. A new commander CT'-4112 or Zerek, debriefs on the battle situation. As I had sensed, Obi-Wan was outmatched seeing as backup was on planet Sarrish for the fleeing Separatist ships, now it's 11 Munificent class Cruisers and 2 command stations blockading the planet. Kenobi was starting to be pushed back, relying on our Cruisers longer ranged cannons to hope the Sepies didn't get too close. Our Cruisers have longer ranged main canons and toms of fighter room, while the Sepies Cruisers have more fire power at closer ranges with more fighters than our Vendor class Cruisers, at closer ranges, the Sepies would completely destroy a Venetor class Cruiser, but we have strategies and will power. 

"Glad to see a friendly face Saya." Kenobi said exhaustingly.
"Well, it looked like you needed help. You know I need to be the one to save everyone. I'll move into position to fortify our defenses to push the Sepies back and for us to make a plan. What is your fleet's condition?"
"We have 2 Venetors heavily damaged and the rest either have mild to no damage. And we have lost half our fighters as of now." Urgently said by Kenobi.
"Ok, I'm sending men and supplies to you right now, let me take the front so I can take the damage if they send another attack." I calmly said to Kenobi.
"Men battle positions and set all power to front cannons and shields. Venators get into pincer position and get ready for an attack. Fighters get ready to launch." I commanded to all my Cruisers
"Master, if you could, could you add in your undamaged Venetors? " I wandered and directed with much mastery, I even made Obi-Wan himself visually impressed considering my inexperienced mind in life, and especially war. I even managed to make him smile.
"Getting in position now." Obi-Wan stated, still smiling.
"Understood, While you get everything fixed, I'll see if I can weaken their defenses, it seems as if they're in attack positions so we gotta be ready for anything." I said in deep thought.
"Ok, 10 to 13, I like those odds, makes it even, more so for the Sepies." I grinned.
"Now Saya, remember this is still a battle, don't be too cocky, you're starting to remind me of Anakin." Obi-Wan said with conviction.
"Yes Master, sorry about that." I answered to Obi-Wan, pulling back a little.

 Just then, many starfighters come from the enemy Cruisers, hundreds of them lightning fast, closing distance fast. 

"All right men, time for some fun. Obi-Wan, if you want to take command of my control center, I'll lead this fight." I said before Obi-Wan could respond.
"Ok- but Saya! Blast, maybe he's too much like Anikan." Obi-Wan said defeatedly.
As I get into the hangar I yell "Alright Wolfpack, let's get goin!" Then I hop into my modified Jedi A-wing.
We rush out from the center roof door along the Cruiser with my squadron aka The Wolfpack, with me leading my 23 fighters into battle and many more friendly's following from the hangars.
"Ok Wolfpack, let's make a break for them Cruisers, get as many of them gone as possible. 411 you ready?" I asked R2-411. R2-411 bleeps with readiness.
"Ok, time to blow them out of the sky, remember, stay in formation" I commanded.
"Yes sir!" The Clones bellowed.

 Then we hit the swarm with a mighty thundering sound of lasers flying through the emptiness of space seeing one after one of enemy fighter droids dropping all over the place. Me and my Wolfpack fly through all the 2 winged Vulture droids that look like each wing was sideways and has 2 prongs each side for wings. They were way more quick and maneuverable than us, but we had a duty to win, and we won't lose today. It's like a firework show, but you're dodging all the fireworks, and they're aiming right at you. While we are defending the Venator Cruisers, they're mostly firing at the Sepies Cruisers, slowly dwindling their energy shields down. 

"Boys, I have a plan, but I'll need yall to get back to the Cruisers." I urged
"Obi-Wan, how's the 2 heavily damaged Cruisers? We've been out for a long while. They should be good by now right?" I questioned Master Kenobi.
"They're about to come back into the fight, but one of our Cruisers is at a quarter shield, few good hits or bombing runs and it's gone, what's your plan Saya?" Obi-Wan said, perplexed.
"Just give me an opening to the left Separatist control center, that's all I need to get on that ship." I stated with confidence.
"I'll try my best, but don't be stupid Saya, we can't afford to lose you."
"Yeah yeah I know, just get me an opening please Master!" I begged.

 After the words fleeted from my mouth, all the Cruisers fired a hole through the droid fleet with friendly fighters also making way for me to get through. I blast the afterburners straight through the enemy swarm that's been lesson by the commotion, just barely being hidden by smoke from a just destroyed fighter straight into the leftmost control ship hanger landing with an explosive entry. And immediately I jump out, igniting both, my straight emerald green saber in my left, and my yellow saber with a curved hilt similar to the Count's hilt himself in my right. I'll face him again one day, it's inevitable, like me. I land and immediately cut a group of B1 battle droids heads off with my yellow saber facing out, giving me more reach, but as I start to take fire from the army that quickly form from my landing, I swiftly doge left to right almost able to doge the sight of a human eye. Left, pop goes the heads of 3, right, pop goes 5, jump through the air on an almost straight path through the thick of the army, spinning with a light show if one were to be an onlooker at this chaotic organization of flying red plasmic bolts going to a mix of yellow and green, then proceeding to fly straight back at the shooter with twice the velocity. I land on my feet with a thunderous "BOOM" with what seems like an explosion that incinerates half of the whole hanger with an electric yellow glow seeming like yellow lighting exploded from the epicenter of the explosion. When the smoke cleared, it seemed that everything within a 5 meter radius was completely incinerated, and everything within 40 meter radius was heavily damaged, and any technology within eye shot was either scrape or short-circuiting, but all B1 battle droids and super battle droids were out. 

I sighed with relief with little heavy breathing when I looked around me, but with no time to rest, 6 Vulture droid fighters came through the hanger's magnetic shield door, transforming to walk on its pronged wings like they were legs. They scanned me and started raining a flurry of red down onto me, but with my lightning fast reflexes, I raised my sabers to block the incoming hellfire from all six fighter's. Then came the flurry being deflected in any direction possible, and I could just barely see the 6 droids started to surround me by going behind my back, but I ain't done yet. As I'm blocking, jumping, spinning, twisting on a micrometer, I stomp with a mighty force, launching through the air, slowly spinning straight for a Vulture that has became the prey. Bolts whizzing by me, inches, centimeters near my skin, singeing my arm hairs to their roots. I land on top of the droid with a thunderous boom crunching where my foot had landed, driving my sabers straight through the brain of the story high droid, with a counterclockwise rotation around my back, dragging my sabers across the metal of the droid, I leap off the droid landing with the feathers and fly forward with a flashing dash slicing through 2 other droids legs, leaving gravity do its magical job. 3 down, 3 to go, but with little time left. I launch forward running on hairs dipping and dodging blots, I leap up slicing through one leg of a droid and pushing off of its gravity taken hull, coming down on another droid's leg, cutting with ease. I land like a leaf in the autumn skies, and launch with a swift leap, flying my yellow saber straight down the middle of the 6th and final droid with no time to spare.

 I land with caution, ready to fend off another foe, but none came at that second, so I took the opportunity and ran with it straight to where the main reactors should lie. I swiftly sprint with force leaps through the air to get to the reactor, the ship is 270th of a circle with a ball where the command center is, the middle is the only connected between the back of the ball and the inner back of the circle, that's where the reactor is, im at the left most side, may take me a minute to reach it, but I can get there without being seen. My plan was to quickly fix and rewrite a Vulture droid's code to go with my command, not going to be the best work but it will work, hopefully. I had to act fast because I knew there were going to be hundreds more droids to come to see the commotion, I'd say within the minute. The codes used on the droids are not the best, because of mass production, so It was an easy fix, I just needed it to fly a small bit. It comes back to life with a putt to its movement, I directed it to start flying while I'm on its back, putting the whole time with smoke, just what I needed. I start to move forward as fast as possible. As we get around the hundreds of battle droids below, I'm starting to speed up, and as I see the reactor room, I could hear B1's yell " HEY! STOP! YOUR GOING TO FAST" in their robotic voice. Before I hit the Shield covering the reactor room, I jump off to the left where the blast door is for the room. With the distraction of the droid smashing into the shield, I use this time to slowly cut through the blast doors with both sabers starting at the bottom of the door, going up and around to form a circle I can fit through. I was through within a Minute, unnoticed, or so I was led to believe. When I get into the reactor room, I throw explosives all over the reactors, with a detonation in T minus 1 minute. I fly out of the room, calling for 411 to bring my ship as fast as possible, 55. Running across the hanger, I'm spotted by the hundreds of battle droids, which immediately start firing right as they see me 50. The explosion of the fighter droid caused a chain to nearby explosive barrels, exploding more Vulture droids causing tons of smoke and fires to spread around the hangar area, 45. As I'm running, my yellow saber is blocking multiple bolts flying at me while I'm jumping, spinning, performing acrobatic movements while being shot by hundreds of droids, from B1's, to super's, to droideka's, all firing at me, adding to the smoke, 35. Running with young blood in my veins, I perform 1, 2, 3 long jumps and leap onto the side of a slanted destroyed Vulture droid, 30. I jump up, reaching for the cloudy sky just as 411 swoops in predictively shoving my hand into the side of the sharp A-wing hull, 25. I grab the side of the hull and pull myself up into the cockpit, grabbing the controls, 20. I spin to the exit with roughly 67° of the hanger I need to shoot out of, I fire the afterburners using the circumference of the circle and my fighters movment to my advantage, 15. Pushing forward, I am drifting an A-wing around the hangar of a Separatist capital ship skimming the walls centimeters away from an explosive fiery death, 10. I barely screamed out of the hanger, to be able to see a view of the capital ship flying stright for the other Sepie capital ship, 5. Im still firing the afterburners to try and attempt to get a safe distance away from the soon to be collision sight, 4. I let 411 take the control's, 3. I turn my head to look back, 2. I see the collision of the 2 270° hangers, 1. I watch as i get the view of a star being formed right infront of my eyes, and seeing many Sepie Cruisers being absolutely engulfed by the flames, and a blast wave decimating the Vulture droids… blast wave…. BLAST WAVE! Just then I'm thrown far, along with the debri. I manged to gain control of the craft and start performing advanced monuvers to avoid being hit by debrie that will demolishe me and my tiny fighter. 

"Saya, can you hear me? Saya?" Master Obi-Wan Kenobi pleaded.
"Yeah, yeah master, I'm good, I'm fine. Woo…!" I said with a sigh of relief.
Chapter 3

 The explosion had decimated the Separatist forces leaving 4 Cruisers sustaining heavy or mild damages, but with an opening, Obi-Wan and I travel to the ground along with Captain Cody to go for a large ground assault. Master Obi-Wan's plan was to drop in and gather our troops and split them between Obi-Wan and commander Cody. We were west, they were east. The Separatists had the high ground seeing as they had a cliff to their advantage. Flying in on gunships, we were taking heavy fire from their anti aircraft cannons. Commander Cody and I are debriefing the squad on the way to the rally point, seeing gunships after gunship falling to the rocky ground in a fiery explosive ball of red hot metal, and screams, with no plants in sight, just rocks, gunships, and red streaks flying by. Explosions booming right next to us with our doors right open. We have been ordered and ordering troops to stay far away from the mountain top gun fortifying the mountain top of the cliff, leaving that gun for the gunships and the best of the clone troopers, or ARC (Advanced Recon Commandos) troopers to deal with that later, seeing as a ground assault is too dangerous for us. As some of the clones have said, it's not an easy mission, but hops are high. 

"30 seconds until landing." A clone trooper yelled to me and Cody.
Cody starts with "All right, listen up! Maintain squad formations, 'A' squad, You're on me-" ZZZZZEEEROW- BOOOM!
"Where hit!" I yell "Everyone! Hold on!"
Before we hit the ground I leap out of the gunship with a backwards somersault, force pulling all the troops out of the burning fireball heading for the ground, grabbing all of the men, including the 2 pilots at the front, breaking through the windows. I land like rain from the sky, catching the troops I just pulled out with my powers and have them roughly land on the fluffy rocks next to our now downed gunship, no casualties yet. I rush over to take cover under our gunship on its left side behind enemy lines. I sit and meditate as they come up with a plan.
"What's the status lieutenant?" Cody asked
"5 injured thanks to General Saya, but that's not that bad news… Does that Rock look familiar?" The lieutenant asked.
"Yea, the mountain, right where we're not supposed to be." Said Cody
"General Kenobi ordered us not to try taking this section from the ground." The lieutenant regenerated back again with what was already established.
"That's what he said…but what would the general do if he were here?" Cody rhetorically asked.
"Saya sir, what do you think?" A trooper asked me somewhat desperately.
"I think Cody should take this one, I've got your back Cody." I answered with my legs crossed, eyes closed, slightly levitating over the rocks.
"Eight-Eight-Six-Seven through Eight-Eight-Six-Nine and Saya, fix your grapples and come with me. Everybody, prepare for covering fire." Cody ordered.
I get up, eyes still shut, ready to block anything coming our way.
"NOW!" Cody yells, sprinting across what is our no-man's-land
I open my eyes, ignite my Sabers, Green in left, yellow in right, and dash towards the now incoming blaster fire. I sense it, left side, block, right side, deflect, one for Cody, deflected. We get to some stalagmites at the bottom of the mountain, sustaining heavy fire, I pose as a distraction for all the fire, deflecting as many blots as I can back at the metal men. One troop trips and falls, pow, bolt straight through the head. Cody and the men shoot the grappling hooks up towards the top of the mountain and start climbing. I jump from my spot reigniting my sabers, driving them through the mountain side, helping me grab hold with my feet. And when I look up, I see a grapple fall behind me. I tried to grab the rope but I was too late. When I managed to obtain it, he had already hit the ground. Another tragedy, one that never had to happen, life being wasted away. I look up, a droid stairs emotionlessly down into my emotion filled eyes. A blue bolt shoots past me, impacting the droid's head, sending the body backwards.
Cody and the other clone rises from the cliff side as I leap up from the side, landing in front of the clones and immediately start deflecting with my 2 sabers having nothing pass. Cody takes this opportunity to run around my defense and attacks the droids head on, bashing one droid with the butt of his rifle and swinging his rifle at another, destroying both of them. The droid manning the anti aircraft gun turns and aims at Cody. Instinctively I jump in front of the cannon as it fires, I deflect the large bolt away with my right yellow saber, knocking my body to the right, making me stumble. But with the motion throwing me to the right, I use the momentum to throw my green saber with my left hand, impaling the droid in the metal chest. Cody then hops onto the turret, points the gun at the droids firing at our men, and lets loose, destroying all in its reticle.
"Thanks General, I owe you one, ill getcha next time." Cody said slowly getting off the turret.
"You're alright my friend, just pay it forward, let's go see how Obi-Wan did." I slightly worried, staring off to the north.

 We group up at the randevu, where we have set base camp on the planet in a small raven a bit away from where we captured the cliff with some makeshift scouting towers dotted around our position. Obi-Wan had more resistance than what he had anticipated, he was a little banged up, but he was fine in the end. This was a huge victory seeing as we have been able to set base on a planet that allows us to get resources through this hyperspace route and onto parts of the army past this point. Before, General Grievous snipped our route to where we couldn't get resources to our army on the other side from Coruscant. 

Chapter 4

 12 hours later, we have rested and have managed to build up a good base incase of a surprise attack. We are still fighting a few fronts of Separatist holdouts with a fortress a few klicks west, or about 4 miles west. 

I sit in my tent meditating, reflecting back on the weeks events, and what Ahsoka was doing back at the temple, training hard. I recite what I did with an almost overwhelming amount of blaster fire attempting to fly into me, how I was just mostly averting the blots away from me and not in a direction that would benefit me most.
'RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE'

 The ground started to shake out of nowhere, breaking my peace. I rush out of my tent, only to be met with a face full of B2 battle droid. I jump back over my tent flipping onto my feet as I see my tent being lit into flames from heavy bolt fire flying at me. Igniting both my sabers, I deflect the incoming fire away from me up into the sky as much as I physically could. I took a glance around, it was becoming more sunlit as we fought. It was a slaughter, clones dying left and right, Kenobi was on the Command ship getting patched, so it was just me, and the clones down here, being manicured. With a swift right step, I change lightsaber form, combining my form 3, (defensive form blocking anything coming way, and either making, or waiting for an opening to strike) with a combination of form 2 (saber to saber form, putting least amount or saber movement and preferring precise efficient movements) and form 4 (saber from using the force to enhance physical abilities, and heavily utilizing fast acrobatic movements to move around and disorient the opponents, using wide sweeping saber movements to block and hit targets) I use the power if the many bolts to propel my body onto my right leg, crouching down and taking a huge lead in to the air. Looking around like it is moving in stop motion, I see thousands of droids around, completely outnumbering my men. Glancing down where I had jumped from, there seems to be a super battle droid rising from the ground, looking as if it has been there for at least a few days. Time seems to start like normal again, immediately I have to block bolts coming for my body, twisting, turning, deflecting every. single. bolt. right to another droid. I can't have any more unneeded deaths in my hands. I land with an impactful explosion of yellow lighting, rendering half of the electronics on the field obsolete. Shots fire over the wall, exploding near me. 

"Everyone, Retreat!" I yelled into the comms.
I ran towards the lieutenant that I had survived the crash with, he was running for a troop transport.
"Get to the ships, return to the Venators! Get Kenobi and relay what has happened!" Urgency blowing through my voice.

 I push him into the ship as it takes off. As it's doing so, I force push it away from the field as to be in less danger of being shot down. But rockets fly through the air, I reach through the force and grab onto the hurdling death traps, I grab 1, 2, crash them into one another, 3, grab, 4, grab, 5, miss. ERRROW… BOOOM! With a hopeless explosion, the ship bursts into an explosive ball of fire, right in front of my eyes, out of my grasp. Shots fly past my head from behind me, I ignite my sunlit yellow saber to block incoming bolts. No men, only metal remains, and it wants me dead. I dash for my ship on the other side of the airstrip, luckily barely touched from this horrible surprise party that invited everyone I very much dislike. Hopping into my A-wing, I lift-off dogging left, right, up, down, roll left, roll right, barely being passed by on all sides by cannon fire. When I reach the point past the clouds, there's a whole war above. Separatist forces have surprised Kenobi with an overwhelming number of ships, putting our war torn 12 Venators against 16 Munificent class Cruisers. We were greatly out matched. But the time I was in space we had lost 3 Vectors compared to there 1 lost. Droids noticed me coming from the planet and started to verge onto my position. 

"Obi-Wan! You there? Can you hear me?" I yelled, pulling evasive maneuvers.
"Saya, is that you?" Kenobi asked.
"Yes, we got surprised on the ground, seems the same happened here." I rushingly said.
"Yes, they came out of nowh-" Kenobi is cut off by a blaring siren from my cockpit.
"Wait, my ship is damaged, it's starting up my hyperdrive, 411 can you fix it?" I said dipping left and right while trying to stop the hyperdrive activation.
With a few bleeps of fear, I understand what's happening.
"When I was thrown from the capital ship explosive wave, I must have been hit near the hyperdrive, and explosions from my escape, along with the maneuvers I have been pulling, it may have caused damage that is registering a hyperdrive activation. Master Obi-Wan, I don't know, I-I don't know what to do!" I claimed with fear in my eyes.
"Can you deactivate the hyperdrive at all 411?" Kenobi asked
411 bleeps with a sad toon.
"Blast, Saya, does it say where you're going?"
"N- No, my council just says ERROR." I stated, now with much fear in my voice.

 I managed to steer my craft into the position of the hyperspace lane. 

"Tell Ahsoka good bye if I don't-" I get cut off when the the hyperdrive powered up woth a vvvvvvvvvvvVVVVERRRRRRR PEEOW, and just like that, me, my A-wing, and R2-411, are gone.
Chapter 5

 It's been days since the battle, mabe 2 or 3 days. Luckily I always keep many ration bars in my fighter to last me a good few days, along with my extra water and my ability to go into a deep meditative state, conserving food and water. Keeping me company is my meditation and 411. We have almost hit some unknown objects, could have been planets, asteroids, other ships, but we seem to be staying in hyperspace lanes luckily, or I would have been dead a long time ago. My class 2 hyperdrive could have taken me all over the galaxy by now, I could be heading towards Coruscant right now for all I know. 

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
My hyperdrive warning kicked on, showing that there is a massive gravity force in my path. The console flashed with big red dangerous letters "Exiting Hyperdrive" on the screen.
"YES! FINALLY!" I yelled with excitement.

 I watch through the glass to see a barren looking planet, and a similar looking moon, a moon I was heading to. I was moving fast, as I entered the moon's atmosphere, Im grabbing the controls, barely anything. My craft is red hot from the rate at which I'm coming in on. I'm grabbing the stick, pulling back as much as I can, as to try and save myself and 411 from a fiery death. I scraped by a big rocky mountain dealing more damage to my A-wing. 

"HOLD ON 411!"
"Come ooooon. Pull pull pullllll…. Ahhhhhhhhh!!!-" VERRROW BOOOOSH!!! The crash landing sounded like a bomb flying through the air, then landing on its target. I try to get from my seat just to find my strap and window will not open. Using my saber I cut off my seat strap and broke the window from the hinges and leaped out, taking 411 from the craft, swiftly landing on a tall mountainous rock. The craft seemed to have pushed through the land 50 meters from the initial impact spot. The area I was in seemed to be very rocky terrain with many rocky canyons and huge rocks that are almost mountainous. The sun was close to setting down for the night but was still a good hour away from sleeping.

 With the force by my side, I felt a very uneasy sensation telling me to stay out of sight. I duck down on the tall skinny rock taking 411 down with me. 411 confusingly bleeps when I do so. "Hey, I have a feeling right now, just keep quiet real quick, there's somebody coming. Trust me." Me and 411 peer over the edge looming over my crashed ship just as a group of 6 men in full armor covering their whole body fly in with jetpacks strapped to their backs, blasters in hand. As they land, they search around my wreckage, presumably looking for survivors. One seems to be ordering the others around, pointing at one to look in one direction, another a different direction, and scanning around for the unexpected visitor. I look down at my Wrist link, my distress signal wasn't sent, I guess that was damaged from entering the planet at such high speed with no deflector shields surrounding the ship like a protective blanket. 

"Blast, 411, what's your S.O.S signal situation, did it go through?" 411 beeps with a little drama like I should know it didn't go through.
"Well sorry for busting your rusty bolts you rowdy rancor, better to try than to just give up mister sassy pants. Maybe I should wipe your memory for a change, see how you like it."
"Now shush, don't want them to find us spying on them, won't look too good." I demand. "Now here, in case we get caught, I don't want them to know I'm a Jedi, so here, take my sabers, I'm not gonna need them anyways." I said shoving my lightsabers into 411's storage compartment and looking towards the crash again.

 Just then the suit of armor that had been commanding his squad bursts up into my view right on my face out of hyperspace blue. 

"Ah, found ya trespassers, you 2 are coming with me." Demanded the Mandalorian with a snickering sound in his voice as the others rise from the portal of the abyss from down below.

 It was a good thing my ropes where in the tent back on Sarrish, or this may have been an even worse situation, Mangalorians like them hate Jedi with a passion, and it's a good thing I always have a broken blaster in 411 for any cases where I need to blend in with a crowd or pose as a normal civilian; although, the ability to become a civilian at any point is great, I've had little need to do so much. I'm quite popular with the people for being one who tries to connect with the population as a fellow citizen. So I rarely stay in the temple for too long. I love being with the people and learning skills without the force, like being a mechanic, electrician, public speaker, security guard, an all around great person to talk with about anything. I'm quite known on all levels of Coruscant for being one of the most friendly Jedi to be around. Right now though, I need to focus on not being caught, at least That's what my gut is telling me. After they searched my character for any weapons and found the broken blaster that 411 had put in my holster where my lightsaber usually is, they were satisfied and pushed us into one of their big Kom'rk Mark 1 class Mandalorian starfightetransport ship. 

(Look in comments for 6th paragraph)

Once Madeline and Billie had hauled themselves out of the lake it was time to get moving again. Lena had used the time they’d been “mucking about” in the medic’s words to plan out the next section of their route on the map.
Madeline struggled to pull on fresh socks over her shrivelled, soggy feet before hurriedly retying her trainers and hauling her bag onto her back. It was going to be odd walking in sodden clothes, but she was sure they’d dry soon. In fact, the cooling effect might even be a bonus — so long as the chafing wasn’t unbearable.
As the three of them made their way out of the valley, they converged slightly, all having to take the same path before they diverged out to a safe distance again so as to avoid detection by the Poiloogs. Lena went ahead, leaving Billie and Madeline to linger until they judged she was far enough away.
“Enjoy the swim?” Billie shouted over to her.
Madeline pointedly lifted her walkie-talkie to her lips and pressed the button. “Pardon?”
“I said did you enjoy the swim?” Billie’s voice came over the radio.
“You know I did!”
“Yeah, but it’s good to hear you say it.”
Madeline turned to face them more fully, glaring. As she did, she noticed their gaze skirt over her body and glanced down to realise her clothes were plastered to her skin. She instinctively went to wrap her arms around herself but paused. What point was there in being shy or ashamed of herself anymore? The world had practically ended. The apocalypse had come. Being alive was achievement enough without worrying about what your body looked like.
Heart fluttering at the brazenness of it, she let her own gaze slip down slightly, taking in Billie’s chiselled form underneath the wet fabric. Her lip twitched up as she noticed Billie’s arms jerk slightly, before falling to their sides just as hers had. It was nice to know that, as confident as her friend seemed, they all had their insecurities.
“Are you two coming, or not?” Lena’s voice jerked Madeline back to reality, and heat rapidly rose up her neck.
“Right behind you,” she said quickly, hurrying after the medic as Billie watched her go with a grin on their face.
The feared chafing soon reared its ugly head, wet fabric rubbing against her skin under the straps of her backpack, but it was a price worth paying for even a moment of fun. And there was plenty of time to take the journey slow, with lots of opportunities for breaks. They had to make the most of the time they had left, after all. Once they attempted their rescue mission, who knew what would happen?
Their next stop was at an old holiday park — a perfect place to stay the night. Once they’d performed a quick sweep of the area between them, they each chose a static caravan. The selection of keys hanging behind the front desk by the entrance made breaking in significantly easier than usual, and they were soon tucked away and getting settled.
Though there was still a little daylight left, they had a rule never to congregate before a night’s sleep. If a Poiloog detected them because of their proximity, they wouldn’t have long enough to disperse before darkness fell. Besides, they still weren’t sure how far away Poiloogs could sense them from. It might take a while for the creatures to turn up, and if they were already asleep by then…
If only they knew more about the Poiloogs. But even after sharing knowledge with Billie and the rest of the resistance — as she called them — there were still so many questions. How did they sense humans? Why was it easier for them when people were closer together and in larger groups? How did their mind control work? And what were they doing with the people they took away?
At least some answers might finally be on the horizon.
And until then, they had all their precautions to keep them safe amid the uncertainty.
Not wishing to dwell on questions that she could do nothing to answer just yet, Madeline settled onto one of the sofa beds in her caravan and tried to absorb herself in her book.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When morning came, and still with more than enough time to reach their destination, Madeline, Lena, and Billie decided to hang around a little before setting off for the day. After a lot of searching, they managed to find a caravan that still had gas left in the external canister. Billie fired up the stove as Lena and Madeline searched through their packs for anything that would make for a nice hot breakfast.
Between them, they came up with some baked beans and some tinned spam. It wasn’t exactly a full English breakfast, but it was as close as Madeline had managed in a while.
The more relaxed pace of the last few days had had many benefits. With all the sitting around outside, Madeline had managed to fully charge all her solar-powered battery packs. Now she’d be able to use her hot plate and her walkman without fear of running out of power. It was nice to feel at least a little on top of things rather than like she was continually drowning and just about scrambling to keep up.
Once they’d wolfed down the food, Billie left to patrol and keep watch while Madeline and Lena reclined in a pair of camping chairs. Though Madeline always enjoyed the other woman’s conversation, she also loved moments like this, sitting in comfortable, companionable silence. It felt like such an indulgence to enjoy the presence of someone else with no purpose. To just relax.
Of course, relaxation never lasted long when Billie was around. They returned from their patrolling at a jog. Madeline was halfway to her feet, sweat pricking at her skin and heart racing before Billie waved at her with a relaxed smile.
She slumped back into her chair, clutching a hand to her chest. “You scared me half to death!” she shouted. “I thought you must be running from something.”
“Nope,” Billie replied. “Just figured I’d enjoy this wonderful morning and make my patrolling more efficient by going for a jog.”
“Of course they did,” Lena said, throwing her a sidelong glance.
Madeline laughed. It was an oddly giddy giggle, bubbling up out of excess adrenaline that was no longer needed. “How silly of me,” she said. “I forgot for a moment that you were completely insane.”
“Not insane! Just… enthusiastic. There are some habits it’s hard to shake.” Billie grinned. “Did I ever tell you that I used to be a personal trainer?”
Suddenly, so many things clicked into place in Madeline’s mind. Another giggle bubbled up. “No, I don’t think you did,” she said. “But it makes perfect sense.”
“I know, right?” Lena climbed to her feet. “I suppose one of us should go and keep watch,” she said as she walked off. “I’ll come back when I’m bored. Or if I see anything dangerous.” She glanced over her shoulder, a grin pulling at her lips. “But I’ll try not to give you a heart attack when I do.”
“So,” Billie slumped into the now vacant chair, “what did you mean by ‘it makes perfect sense’?”
Madeline turned to face them, returning the challenge of their arched eyebrow with her most innocent expression — eyes wide with a slight smile. “Oh, you know,” she said. “Just that you’re insufferably chipper and energetic. Not to mention bossy.”
Billie gaped at them. “Wow! Tell me what you really think.”
For a second, she worried that she might have gone too far in her teasing. It wasn’t too long ago that she’d managed to hurt her friend’s feelings and the experience had been unpleasant enough that she knew she never wanted to repeat it.
Then, Billie cracked a grin. “You know me so well, Mads. Or do you?” They dramatically whipped their head around to face her, narrowing their eyes in an accusatory stare. “Can you guess what my second job was?”
“Second job?” Madeline asked, buying time as she considered everything she knew about them. They were definitely into fitness, but that had already been covered. They were friendly and good with people, but that could lend itself to all kinds of roles.
“Yeah. The PT work could be a little sporadic so I had another way of making money.”
Coming up empty, Madeline spread her hands in a shrug. “I don’t know… delivery rider?”
“Aha! No!” They paused, eyes drifting up as they considered. “Okay, well, I might have done that for a bit. But it wasn’t what I was doing most recently.”
“So what was your second job?”
“Bartender. And I was damn good at it too.”
Just like before, as soon as Billie had said the words it all fit perfectly. She could imagine them behind the bar, charming customers, darting back and forward mixing drinks, and, of course, swiftly dealing with any inappropriate or violent behaviour.
“See,” they said, sitting back and folding their arms, “maybe you don’t know everything about me.”
“I’m certain I don’t,” Madeline replied. “You certainly don’t know everything about me.”
Billie instantly leaned forward again, rising to the challenge. “Oh really? I bet I can guess what you used to do!”
The childish excitement on their face at this new game made Madeline’s chest swell with warmth. “Go on then.”
“I think you were…” They stared at her, rubbing their chin as if deep in thought. “I think you were a librarian.”
“I wish!” Madeline scoffed.
“An English teacher?”
“What, with all those children? Hell no!”
“A writer? Journalist? Editor?”
Madeline clutched a hand to her heart in mock affront. “Wow! It’s almost as if you only know one thing about me!”
“Hey! I know lots about you!” Billie insisted. “It’s just that none of it is useful in figuring out what sort of job you’d have had. So are you going to put me out of my misery, or what?”
“I was a marketing executive,” she said with a sigh.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means sitting at the same desk every day coming up with ways to promote products to people who don’t need them.”
“Sounds fun!”
“It wasn’t.” Madeline shifted forward slightly in her chair, leaning her elbows onto her knees to be ever so slightly closer to her friend. “So what do you know about me then?”
Billie tilted their head quizzically. “Huh?”
“You said that you knew lots about me. So what is it you know?”
“Ah.” They leaned forward too, mirroring Madeline as they chewed their lip in thought. “I know that you love books — obviously. I know that you’re slow to trust, but that once you do you trust completely. I know that despite everything you’ve been through, you still put others before yourself to the point you're willing to risk your life for those you care about. I know that you’re smart, and like to plan things out properly. And that you hate it when things don’t go to plan. I know that you’re tough and fiercely independent, but that you crave connection even though you fear it. Oh, and I know that you favour your left foot and your right hand in a fight.”
Madeline stared at them, mouth hanging open slightly as she took in their view of her. It wasn’t that it was completely wrong. It was just that it seemed somewhat selective. Sure, she’d put her life on the line for Liam or Billie or Lena, but she was fairly certain she’d killed people, or that her actions had at least led to their deaths. She’d hoarded supplies for herself tucked away in the safety of her library without worrying about anyone else. She wasn’t sure whether she liked this view of herself, or if it sat in uncomfortably stark contrast with what she knew to be true.
Finally, her mind caught up with Billie’s words, reaching the final sentence. She snapped her mouth shut and forced her eyes to focus once more. “Hey!” she said. “How is it that you find a way to bring everything back to sparring or exercise?!”
“Because I’m insufferably chipper and energetic. Not to mention bossy.”
Madeline rolled her eyes and groaned, but she couldn’t help the smile creeping across her face.
“Speaking of, how about we work on evening up your form a little now, eh? We’ve got a while before we have to get moving.” They pushed themselves up and started clearing a space.
“I’m going to regret ever saying that, aren’t I?” Madeline said as she got up to join them.
They grinned. “Definitely!”
The rest of the morning was spent sparring, interspersed with the occasional break when Lena stepped in for a turn. Madeline was soon sporting many a bruise, but she managed to inflict a few of her own too. She also got the satisfaction of seeing Billie visibly struggling against Lena. With the woman’s longer reach and well-practised form, she was a formidable opponent indeed.
It was nice to know that she had these two in her corner for whatever was coming next.
Next chapter hopefully on 8th June

<< First Chapter
< Previous Chapter Next Chapter >
Once Madeline and Billie had hauled themselves out of the lake it was time to get moving again. Lena had used the time they’d been “mucking about” in the medic’s words to plan out the next section of their route on the map.
Madeline struggled to pull on fresh socks over her shrivelled, soggy feet before hurriedly retying her trainers and hauling her bag onto her back. It was going to be odd walking in sodden clothes, but she was sure they’d dry soon. In fact, the cooling effect might even be a bonus — so long as the chafing wasn’t unbearable.
As the three of them made their way out of the valley, they converged slightly, all having to take the same path before they diverged out to a safe distance again so as to avoid detection by the Poiloogs. Lena went ahead, leaving Billie and Madeline to linger until they judged she was far enough away.
“Enjoy the swim?” Billie shouted over to her.
Madeline pointedly lifted her walkie-talkie to her lips and pressed the button. “Pardon?”
“I said did you enjoy the swim?” Billie’s voice came over the radio.
“You know I did!”
“Yeah, but it’s good to hear you say it.”
Madeline turned to face them more fully, glaring. As she did, she noticed their gaze skirt over her body and glanced down to realise her clothes were plastered to her skin. She instinctively went to wrap her arms around herself but paused. What point was there in being shy or ashamed of herself anymore? The world had practically ended. The apocalypse had come. Being alive was achievement enough without worrying about what your body looked like.
Heart fluttering at the brazenness of it, she let her own gaze slip down slightly, taking in Billie’s chiselled form underneath the wet fabric. Her lip twitched up as she noticed Billie’s arms jerk slightly, before falling to their sides just as hers had. It was nice to know that, as confident as her friend seemed, they all had their insecurities.
“Are you two coming, or not?” Lena’s voice jerked Madeline back to reality, and heat rapidly rose up her neck.
“Right behind you,” she said quickly, hurrying after the medic as Billie watched her go with a grin on their face.
The feared chafing soon reared its ugly head, wet fabric rubbing against her skin under the straps of her backpack, but it was a price worth paying for even a moment of fun. And there was plenty of time to take the journey slow, with lots of opportunities for breaks. They had to make the most of the time they had left, after all. Once they attempted their rescue mission, who knew what would happen?
Their next stop was at an old holiday park — a perfect place to stay the night. Once they’d performed a quick sweep of the area between them, they each chose a static caravan. The selection of keys hanging behind the front desk by the entrance made breaking in significantly easier than usual, and they were soon tucked away and getting settled.
Though there was still a little daylight left, they had a rule never to congregate before a night’s sleep. If a Poiloog detected them because of their proximity, they wouldn’t have long enough to disperse before darkness fell. Besides, they still weren’t sure how far away Poiloogs could sense them from. It might take a while for the creatures to turn up, and if they were already asleep by then…
If only they knew more about the Poiloogs. But even after sharing knowledge with Billie and the rest of the resistance — as she called them — there were still so many questions. How did they sense humans? Why was it easier for them when people were closer together and in larger groups? How did their mind control work? And what were they doing with the people they took away?
At least some answers might finally be on the horizon.
And until then, they had all their precautions to keep them safe amid the uncertainty.
Not wishing to dwell on questions that she could do nothing to answer just yet, Madeline settled onto one of the sofa beds in her caravan and tried to absorb herself in her book.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When morning came, and still with more than enough time to reach their destination, Madeline, Lena, and Billie decided to hang around a little before setting off for the day. After a lot of searching, they managed to find a caravan that still had gas left in the external canister. Billie fired up the stove as Lena and Madeline searched through their packs for anything that would make for a nice hot breakfast.
Between them, they came up with some baked beans and some tinned spam. It wasn’t exactly a full English breakfast, but it was as close as Madeline had managed in a while.
The more relaxed pace of the last few days had had many benefits. With all the sitting around outside, Madeline had managed to fully charge all her solar-powered battery packs. Now she’d be able to use her hot plate and her walkman without fear of running out of power. It was nice to feel at least a little on top of things rather than like she was continually drowning and just about scrambling to keep up.
Once they’d wolfed down the food, Billie left to patrol and keep watch while Madeline and Lena reclined in a pair of camping chairs. Though Madeline always enjoyed the other woman’s conversation, she also loved moments like this, sitting in comfortable, companionable silence. It felt like such an indulgence to enjoy the presence of someone else with no purpose. To just relax.
Of course, relaxation never lasted long when Billie was around. They returned from their patrolling at a jog. Madeline was halfway to her feet, sweat pricking at her skin and heart racing before Billie waved at her with a relaxed smile.
She slumped back into her chair, clutching a hand to her chest. “You scared me half to death!” she shouted. “I thought you must be running from something.”
“Nope,” Billie replied. “Just figured I’d enjoy this wonderful morning and make my patrolling more efficient by going for a jog.”
“Of course they did,” Lena said, throwing her a sidelong glance.
Madeline laughed. It was an oddly giddy giggle, bubbling up out of excess adrenaline that was no longer needed. “How silly of me,” she said. “I forgot for a moment that you were completely insane.”
“Not insane! Just… enthusiastic. There are some habits it’s hard to shake.” Billie grinned. “Did I ever tell you that I used to be a personal trainer?”
Suddenly, so many things clicked into place in Madeline’s mind. Another giggle bubbled up. “No, I don’t think you did,” she said. “But it makes perfect sense.”
“I know, right?” Lena climbed to her feet. “I suppose one of us should go and keep watch,” she said as she walked off. “I’ll come back when I’m bored. Or if I see anything dangerous.” She glanced over her shoulder, a grin pulling at her lips. “But I’ll try not to give you a heart attack when I do.”
“So,” Billie slumped into the now vacant chair, “what did you mean by ‘it makes perfect sense’?”
Madeline turned to face them, returning the challenge of their arched eyebrow with her most innocent expression — eyes wide with a slight smile. “Oh, you know,” she said. “Just that you’re insufferably chipper and energetic. Not to mention bossy.”
Billie gaped at them. “Wow! Tell me what you really think.”
For a second, she worried that she might have gone too far in her teasing. It wasn’t too long ago that she’d managed to hurt her friend’s feelings and the experience had been unpleasant enough that she knew she never wanted to repeat it.
Then, Billie cracked a grin. “You know me so well, Mads. Or do you?” They dramatically whipped their head around to face her, narrowing their eyes in an accusatory stare. “Can you guess what my second job was?”
“Second job?” Madeline asked, buying time as she considered everything she knew about them. They were definitely into fitness, but that had already been covered. They were friendly and good with people, but that could lend itself to all kinds of roles.
“Yeah. The PT work could be a little sporadic so I had another way of making money.”
Coming up empty, Madeline spread her hands in a shrug. “I don’t know… delivery rider?”
“Aha! No!” They paused, eyes drifting up as they considered. “Okay, well, I might have done that for a bit. But it wasn’t what I was doing most recently.”
“So what was your second job?”
“Bartender. And I was damn good at it too.”
Just like before, as soon as Billie had said the words it all fit perfectly. She could imagine them behind the bar, charming customers, darting back and forward mixing drinks, and, of course, swiftly dealing with any inappropriate or violent behaviour.
“See,” they said, sitting back and folding their arms, “maybe you don’t know everything about me.”
“I’m certain I don’t,” Madeline replied. “You certainly don’t know everything about me.”
Billie instantly leaned forward again, rising to the challenge. “Oh really? I bet I can guess what you used to do!”
The childish excitement on their face at this new game made Madeline’s chest swell with warmth. “Go on then.”
“I think you were…” They stared at her, rubbing their chin as if deep in thought. “I think you were a librarian.”
“I wish!” Madeline scoffed.
“An English teacher?”
“What, with all those children? Hell no!”
“A writer? Journalist? Editor?”
Madeline clutched a hand to her heart in mock affront. “Wow! It’s almost as if you only know one thing about me!”
“Hey! I know lots about you!” Billie insisted. “It’s just that none of it is useful in figuring out what sort of job you’d have had. So are you going to put me out of my misery, or what?”
“I was a marketing executive,” she said with a sigh.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means sitting at the same desk every day coming up with ways to promote products to people who don’t need them.”
“Sounds fun!”
“It wasn’t.” Madeline shifted forward slightly in her chair, leaning her elbows onto her knees to be ever so slightly closer to her friend. “So what do you know about me then?”
Billie tilted their head quizzically. “Huh?”
“You said that you knew lots about me. So what is it you know?”
“Ah.” They leaned forward too, mirroring Madeline as they chewed their lip in thought. “I know that you love books — obviously. I know that you’re slow to trust, but that once you do you trust completely. I know that despite everything you’ve been through, you still put others before yourself to the point you're willing to risk your life for those you care about. I know that you’re smart, and like to plan things out properly. And that you hate it when things don’t go to plan. I know that you’re tough and fiercely independent, but that you crave connection even though you fear it. Oh, and I know that you favour your left foot and your right hand in a fight.”
Madeline stared at them, mouth hanging open slightly as she took in their view of her. It wasn’t that it was completely wrong. It was just that it seemed somewhat selective. Sure, she’d put her life on the line for Liam or Billie or Lena, but she was fairly certain she’d killed people, or that her actions had at least led to their deaths. She’d hoarded supplies for herself tucked away in the safety of her library without worrying about anyone else. She wasn’t sure whether she liked this view of herself, or if it sat in uncomfortably stark contrast with what she knew to be true.
Finally, her mind caught up with Billie’s words, reaching the final sentence. She snapped her mouth shut and forced her eyes to focus once more. “Hey!” she said. “How is it that you find a way to bring everything back to sparring or exercise?!”
“Because I’m insufferably chipper and energetic. Not to mention bossy.”
Madeline rolled her eyes and groaned, but she couldn’t help the smile creeping across her face.
“Speaking of, how about we work on evening up your form a little now, eh? We’ve got a while before we have to get moving.” They pushed themselves up and started clearing a space.
“I’m going to regret ever saying that, aren’t I?” Madeline said as she got up to join them.
They grinned. “Definitely!”
The rest of the morning was spent sparring, interspersed with the occasional break when Lena stepped in for a turn. Madeline was soon sporting many a bruise, but she managed to inflict a few of her own too. She also got the satisfaction of seeing Billie visibly struggling against Lena. With the woman’s longer reach and well-practised form, she was a formidable opponent indeed.
It was nice to know that she had these two in her corner for whatever was coming next.
Author's Note: Next chapter to be posted 8th June (hopefully). This is an ongoing project so I welcome any feedback you might have.

Once Madeline and Billie had hauled themselves out of the lake it was time to get moving again. Lena had used the time they’d been “mucking about” in the medic’s words to plan out the next section of their route on the map.
Madeline struggled to pull on fresh socks over her shrivelled, soggy feet before hurriedly retying her trainers and hauling her bag onto her back. It was going to be odd walking in sodden clothes, but she was sure they’d dry soon. In fact, the cooling effect might even be a bonus — so long as the chafing wasn’t unbearable.
As the three of them made their way out of the valley, they converged slightly, all having to take the same path before they diverged out to a safe distance again so as to avoid detection by the Poiloogs. Lena went ahead, leaving Billie and Madeline to linger until they judged she was far enough away.
“Enjoy the swim?” Billie shouted over to her.
Madeline pointedly lifted her walkie-talkie to her lips and pressed the button. “Pardon?”
“I said did you enjoy the swim?” Billie’s voice came over the radio.
“You know I did!”
“Yeah, but it’s good to hear you say it.”
Madeline turned to face them more fully, glaring. As she did, she noticed their gaze skirt over her body and glanced down to realise her clothes were plastered to her skin. She instinctively went to wrap her arms around herself but paused. What point was there in being shy or ashamed of herself anymore? The world had practically ended. The apocalypse had come. Being alive was achievement enough without worrying about what your body looked like.
Heart fluttering at the brazenness of it, she let her own gaze slip down slightly, taking in Billie’s chiselled form underneath the wet fabric. Her lip twitched up as she noticed Billie’s arms jerk slightly, before falling to their sides just as hers had. It was nice to know that, as confident as her friend seemed, they all had their insecurities.
“Are you two coming, or not?” Lena’s voice jerked Madeline back to reality, and heat rapidly rose up her neck.
“Right behind you,” she said quickly, hurrying after the medic as Billie watched her go with a grin on their face.
The feared chafing soon reared its ugly head, wet fabric rubbing against her skin under the straps of her backpack, but it was a price worth paying for even a moment of fun. And there was plenty of time to take the journey slow, with lots of opportunities for breaks. They had to make the most of the time they had left, after all. Once they attempted their rescue mission, who knew what would happen?
Their next stop was at an old holiday park — a perfect place to stay the night. Once they’d performed a quick sweep of the area between them, they each chose a static caravan. The selection of keys hanging behind the front desk by the entrance made breaking in significantly easier than usual, and they were soon tucked away and getting settled.
Though there was still a little daylight left, they had a rule never to congregate before a night’s sleep. If a Poiloog detected them because of their proximity, they wouldn’t have long enough to disperse before darkness fell. Besides, they still weren’t sure how far away Poiloogs could sense them from. It might take a while for the creatures to turn up, and if they were already asleep by then…
If only they knew more about the Poiloogs. But even after sharing knowledge with Billie and the rest of the resistance — as she called them — there were still so many questions. How did they sense humans? Why was it easier for them when people were closer together and in larger groups? How did their mind control work? And what were they doing with the people they took away?
At least some answers might finally be on the horizon.
And until then, they had all their precautions to keep them safe amid the uncertainty.
Not wishing to dwell on questions that she could do nothing to answer just yet, Madeline settled onto one of the sofa beds in her caravan and tried to absorb herself in her book.
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When morning came, and still with more than enough time to reach their destination, Madeline, Lena, and Billie decided to hang around a little before setting off for the day. After a lot of searching, they managed to find a caravan that still had gas left in the external canister. Billie fired up the stove as Lena and Madeline searched through their packs for anything that would make for a nice hot breakfast.
Between them, they came up with some baked beans and some tinned spam. It wasn’t exactly a full English breakfast, but it was as close as Madeline had managed in a while.
The more relaxed pace of the last few days had had many benefits. With all the sitting around outside, Madeline had managed to fully charge all her solar-powered battery packs. Now she’d be able to use her hot plate and her walkman without fear of running out of power. It was nice to feel at least a little on top of things rather than like she was continually drowning and just about scrambling to keep up.
Once they’d wolfed down the food, Billie left to patrol and keep watch while Madeline and Lena reclined in a pair of camping chairs. Though Madeline always enjoyed the other woman’s conversation, she also loved moments like this, sitting in comfortable, companionable silence. It felt like such an indulgence to enjoy the presence of someone else with no purpose. To just relax.
Of course, relaxation never lasted long when Billie was around. They returned from their patrolling at a jog. Madeline was halfway to her feet, sweat pricking at her skin and heart racing before Billie waved at her with a relaxed smile.
She slumped back into her chair, clutching a hand to her chest. “You scared me half to death!” she shouted. “I thought you must be running from something.”
“Nope,” Billie replied. “Just figured I’d enjoy this wonderful morning and make my patrolling more efficient by going for a jog.”
“Of course they did,” Lena said, throwing her a sidelong glance.
Madeline laughed. It was an oddly giddy giggle, bubbling up out of excess adrenaline that was no longer needed. “How silly of me,” she said. “I forgot for a moment that you were completely insane.”
“Not insane! Just… enthusiastic. There are some habits it’s hard to shake.” Billie grinned. “Did I ever tell you that I used to be a personal trainer?”
Suddenly, so many things clicked into place in Madeline’s mind. Another giggle bubbled up. “No, I don’t think you did,” she said. “But it makes perfect sense.”
“I know, right?” Lena climbed to her feet. “I suppose one of us should go and keep watch,” she said as she walked off. “I’ll come back when I’m bored. Or if I see anything dangerous.” She glanced over her shoulder, a grin pulling at her lips. “But I’ll try not to give you a heart attack when I do.”
“So,” Billie slumped into the now vacant chair, “what did you mean by ‘it makes perfect sense’?”
Madeline turned to face them, returning the challenge of their arched eyebrow with her most innocent expression — eyes wide with a slight smile. “Oh, you know,” she said. “Just that you’re insufferably chipper and energetic. Not to mention bossy.”
Billie gaped at them. “Wow! Tell me what you really think.”
For a second, she worried that she might have gone too far in her teasing. It wasn’t too long ago that she’d managed to hurt her friend’s feelings and the experience had been unpleasant enough that she knew she never wanted to repeat it.
Then, Billie cracked a grin. “You know me so well, Mads. Or do you?” They dramatically whipped their head around to face her, narrowing their eyes in an accusatory stare. “Can you guess what my second job was?”
“Second job?” Madeline asked, buying time as she considered everything she knew about them. They were definitely into fitness, but that had already been covered. They were friendly and good with people, but that could lend itself to all kinds of roles.
“Yeah. The PT work could be a little sporadic so I had another way of making money.”
Coming up empty, Madeline spread her hands in a shrug. “I don’t know… delivery rider?”
“Aha! No!” They paused, eyes drifting up as they considered. “Okay, well, I might have done that for a bit. But it wasn’t what I was doing most recently.”
“So what was your second job?”
“Bartender. And I was damn good at it too.”
Just like before, as soon as Billie had said the words it all fit perfectly. She could imagine them behind the bar, charming customers, darting back and forward mixing drinks, and, of course, swiftly dealing with any inappropriate or violent behaviour.
“See,” they said, sitting back and folding their arms, “maybe you don’t know everything about me.”
“I’m certain I don’t,” Madeline replied. “You certainly don’t know everything about me.”
Billie instantly leaned forward again, rising to the challenge. “Oh really? I bet I can guess what you used to do!”
The childish excitement on their face at this new game made Madeline’s chest swell with warmth. “Go on then.”
“I think you were…” They stared at her, rubbing their chin as if deep in thought. “I think you were a librarian.”
“I wish!” Madeline scoffed.
“An English teacher?”
“What, with all those children? Hell no!”
“A writer? Journalist? Editor?”
Madeline clutched a hand to her heart in mock affront. “Wow! It’s almost as if you only know one thing about me!”
“Hey! I know lots about you!” Billie insisted. “It’s just that none of it is useful in figuring out what sort of job you’d have had. So are you going to put me out of my misery, or what?”
“I was a marketing executive,” she said with a sigh.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means sitting at the same desk every day coming up with ways to promote products to people who don’t need them.”
“Sounds fun!”
“It wasn’t.” Madeline shifted forward slightly in her chair, leaning her elbows onto her knees to be ever so slightly closer to her friend. “So what do you know about me then?”
Billie tilted their head quizzically. “Huh?”
“You said that you knew lots about me. So what is it you know?”
“Ah.” They leaned forward too, mirroring Madeline as they chewed their lip in thought. “I know that you love books — obviously. I know that you’re slow to trust, but that once you do you trust completely. I know that despite everything you’ve been through, you still put others before yourself to the point you're willing to risk your life for those you care about. I know that you’re smart, and like to plan things out properly. And that you hate it when things don’t go to plan. I know that you’re tough and fiercely independent, but that you crave connection even though you fear it. Oh, and I know that you favour your left foot and your right hand in a fight.”
Madeline stared at them, mouth hanging open slightly as she took in their view of her. It wasn’t that it was completely wrong. It was just that it seemed somewhat selective. Sure, she’d put her life on the line for Liam or Billie or Lena, but she was fairly certain she’d killed people, or that her actions had at least led to their deaths. She’d hoarded supplies for herself tucked away in the safety of her library without worrying about anyone else. She wasn’t sure whether she liked this view of herself, or if it sat in uncomfortably stark contrast with what she knew to be true.
Finally, her mind caught up with Billie’s words, reaching the final sentence. She snapped her mouth shut and forced her eyes to focus once more. “Hey!” she said. “How is it that you find a way to bring everything back to sparring or exercise?!”
“Because I’m insufferably chipper and energetic. Not to mention bossy.”
Madeline rolled her eyes and groaned, but she couldn’t help the smile creeping across her face.
“Speaking of, how about we work on evening up your form a little now, eh? We’ve got a while before we have to get moving.” They pushed themselves up and started clearing a space.
“I’m going to regret ever saying that, aren’t I?” Madeline said as she got up to join them.
They grinned. “Definitely!”
The rest of the morning was spent sparring, interspersed with the occasional break when Lena stepped in for a turn. Madeline was soon sporting many a bruise, but she managed to inflict a few of her own too. She also got the satisfaction of seeing Billie visibly struggling against Lena. With the woman’s longer reach and well-practised form, she was a formidable opponent indeed.
It was nice to know that she had these two in her corner for whatever was coming next.

"It doesn't matter what I say So long as I sing with inflection That makes you feel I'll convey Some inner truth or vast reflection But I've said nothing so far And I can keep it up for as long as it takes And it don't matter who you are If I'm doing my job, it's your resolve that breaks"
-Blues Traveler - Hook - Verse 1   Every time new music gets released the same thing happens. People, especially younger Gen Z types, rush to google the lyrics and decipher it's meaning. Often before they even listen to the song. There's thousands of song react videos on YouTube where they aren't actually reacting to the song, they're just listening to the lyrics. Hell, there's an entire generation of people who have grown up with modern pop and think music = lyrics.   I listen to a lot of metal, hard rock, classic rock, etc. A common theme I've noticed whenever seeing someone else hear the music I love is them saying "I don't like it. I can't even tell what they're saying.", especially for metal distorted/growl vocals. This drives me absolutely nuts. Them not liking it isn't the issue, them not even listening to 80% of what's actually in the track is. It's like writing off a painting without looking at it because you can't read the name of it or the concept behind it on the plaque underneath it.
  Here's my rationale for this opinion. I'm sure it won't be too popular.   This applies solely to lyrics. Not singing. The voice is an instrument so while the quality of singing matters, what they're actually saying doesn't   1. Song lyrics are heavily limited in scope. They can never express as much meaning as other more free forms of writing/language. Literature, journalism, and some forms of poetry have a no restrictions. They don't have to fit neatly into 12 bars. They don't have to rhyme or complement the arrangement. Song lyrics, by their very nature, are confined to a template they must follow, and that limits what can be said. It's hard to deliver a poignant political message or convey profound messages if you have to constantly dumb down your complex thoughts to fit the song.   2. Music by itself without lyrics (again lyrics and singing are not the same thing) is already one of the most emotional, meaningful, deep experiences humans have. Lying outside looking at the sky listening to David Gilmour playing a solo or bobbing your head to an epic groove metal riff can be extremely meaningful and allow for far more complex thoughts of your own to flow. Ignoring that in order to try and decipher the meaning behind the miniscule amount of words in a song misses 90% of what makes up a song.   For most of human history "music" wasn't usually associated with lyrics or even singing like it is today. It wasn't until the 18th century or so that lyrics outside of chanting, opera, and hymns became popular. I'm not saying it didn't exist, plenty did, but the pop stars of those eras were conductors and instrumentalists. The most famous musicians of all time, the ones who created many of the concepts and structures today's music follows, didn't write lyrics. It wasn't just a lack of technology limiting the scope of a human voice among a full orchestra either. The arrangements and the notes the instruments played conveyed as much or more meaning than lyrics could. Symphony No. 5's DUM DUM DUM DUMMMM didn't need someone rhyming in sync over the top. Those 4 notes did the job.   3. Context matters. Why someone would ever care about the message being expressed in a ballad by an artist who's previous songs were all about getting laid, being awesome, or how rich they are is beyond me. Part of that is just the weird celebrity worship in western culture, but not all of it. If those same exact lyrics were said without the fame and music, would you even give a shit? This obviously doesn't apply to all artists, but the top 100 charts isn't exactly the place to go to find the best and brightest. You wouldn't be picking a human rights expert or political advisor from that list.   I'm not saying artists shouldn't be putting their thoughts and messages into their music. I'm saying people should put a lot less stock into what that message is. Unless it's overt hate speech or openly advocating something terrible, the meaning behind the lyrics is irrelevant. At it's absolute best it's still watered down and lacks context. Listen to the music first. If you somehow realize the lyrics are relevant to you, cool, but stop going out of your way to look for it.   "There is something amiss I am being insincere In fact I don't mean any of this Still my confession draws you near To confuse the issue I refer To familiar heroes from long ago No matter how much Peter loved her What made the Pan refuse to grow"
-Blues Traveler - Hook - Verse 2

For starters I am a big fan of trace rifles and think they are pretty neat and my favorite build in the game is and has been acacia's w/ conditional. Now maybe I've been spoiled by how good of a partner conditional is to a trace, but man The Navigator just feels bad in any loadout I try.
Nav + shotty: bad
Nav + fusion: bad
Nav + trace: Very Bad
Nav + Sniper: No
Nav + Wave Frame: Fun because you actually have an add clear option, but still bad
Nav + Primary: bad (This basically makes it so you are using two primary weapons and one doesn't have infinite ammo)
Now before the Nav enjoyers rise up and start rioting. I think the weapon is cool and quite interesting as being able to have woven mail on any subclass is neat and you can even proc the artifact mods for it pretty easily including the one that will boost your super damage to things affected by strand debuffs. Having said that, how about instead we just use pretty much any other exotic in that slot and just kill the thing that is a threat instead of weakening it and buffing up against it? I feel like I am actually debuffing myself using this thing. I've seen people say well its not meant for damage its just utility in high end content where you need the resist, which is a fine statement and all, BUT you are literally taking up a weapon slot just to gain 10 seconds of refreshable damage resist when you are already and or should be already running 10 res. Yes I know it stacks, but is that really worth losing a weapon slot...no. Also, Agers's exist which proves utility can be lethal as well.
Maybe if this wasn't an exotic and was instead a strand legendary weapon with a unique perk that allowed for woven mail on sustained damage or something it would be better as it wouldn't take up an exotic slot, but it just straight up feels useless. Also, to those who will say "but it also lets you give woven mail to other people in dire situations..." yeah, no. Once again, it is better to just kill the threat than buff against it and weaken it. Cool concept just falls flat to me.
In regards to just doing planetary run and gun sure its fine there, but even in the first level of night falls it just feels bad. I can only imagine in GMs...
Also remember to remain civil >.> it's just a game and it's ok to be passionate about a game, but no need to be unnecessarily rude.
What do you think? :)

Hi all, F32 here, him M42 Losing my wits. Trying to keep it short to the best of my ability. I’m giving context in the hopes of getting help from you guys, below is how I currently would interpret my experience.
—————————————————— It’s been revelations after revelations, slowly important aspects of my shadow brought to light, this guy is still there and it has been 2-3 years.
Viewed love as manipulative and controlling. As if men wanted to figure me out as to controll me and to strip me from my autonomy. I thought during this experience that my relationship with my father was pretty much healed, we have a wonderful relationship today but clearly at this time there was still work left to do.
I’ve never had problems connecting deeply with my beloved male friends. Objectively good looking fellas. But I’ve been hurt in the past in other friendships with men, where the connections meant a lot to me but they fall in love and thus rejected me and the friendship, leaving me trying to figure out where I did wrong. I became closed off and mindful of my femininity, I wanted to ensure that it wasn’t gonna happen again.
I’ve had infatuations, pure lust, but in retrospect I’ve only truly been in love with this guy. We started out as friends via work. He was in a long-time relationship and I was too. It was turbulent in my relationship during almost all of the 11 years we were together, me projecting sides of my shadow viewing my partner as being emotionally unavailable.
The guy later confessed being in love with me, he was educated in jung, I knew a little but never to the same extent. I was in love too, in a very new way for me. I was surprised he felt the same, and I was trying to repress it, thinking we would snap out of it and get back to a platonic friendship.
I believed both intellectualized the process as being nothing but projections, for some reason I had a better time at accepting the connection in the beginning. I tried to let him battle whatever was going on, I viewed it as him trying to figure out the situation so he could get rid of the illusion. At the start I seemed fine, I valued the friendship and really wanted him to stay in my life.
He was more and more verbal of his romantic feelings but at the same time questioning, almost like I was manipulating him to fall in love with me (that’s how I viewed it). I viewed his feelings as if it was my closest male friends saying it to me. Sometimes I slipped and felt his romantic feelings as being true and thus responding to it.
The more we got to know each other the more the feelings grew and to me it started to feel like a ticking time bomb, something uncontrollably was starting to surface within me and I struggled with not seeing him in a bad light.
Last time we met our connection climaxed, for lack of a better word, we both had never experienced something like it, we could simply just be in the connection without resistance, he texted me that ”he didn’t know then, but that he knew now” along with a song. I was too afraid to think it meant what he felt was true, or that he now could accept it. I tried viewing it as true. But later in a conversation, I heard him questioning again and then it all came as a flood.
My destructive aminus came as a full tornado and I later texted him in a way were I wanted to let him know I was seeing right through him, that I was the victim and if we could cut it out and talk about the anima projection so he could intergrate whatever it was he was projecting. Again, I knew briefly about jung so obviously I didn’t understand fully but I sure as hell felt arrogant enough to ”call” him out. He had a meltdown, work and people could not get a hold of him. We were suppose to go on a job together, but they had to replace him and I talked to him as if trying to get closure, him letting me know he still felt the same and me admitting I was afraid and being happy that someone like him was out in the world. I wanted to end it as I had convinced myself it was my intuiton warning me he was playing around. But I still hoped to talk to him about our experience.
The connection never got physical nor was the conversations sexual, more a longing. I saw his flaws and his beauty but I wasn’t able to see the flaws of my own. He could see them because he had to deal with it, whenever it lashed out like a child. Parts of the beauty he saw in me I already knew and felt was true before I met him due to my own journey. I could never understand why he said I kept myself in control because that’s what I felt he was doing by questioning, but it takes 2 to tango. What I projected as his short-comings were my own.
I healed my relationship with my father a few years ago, before I met this guy. I think I was able to bring parts of my femininity back to my consciousness. But my partner kept being emotionally closed and I could no longer relate to him. During my relationship I’ve had a crush on a guy and looking back I learned my type, if you could put it like that. I didn’t see any flaws but it died away as I figured what I was mirroring.
With the guy I’m referring to in the post I just can’t figure it out. I know what I truly desire is to surrender to him, like giving myself up to him but I can’t do it in the physical world. I tried to reach out after a year, just sending the same song back and nothing else. Part of me wanted to open up a dialogue and talk about what I’ve learned, or maybe he had learned something about the experience that could help. He didn’t answer.
I have to respect him not wanting to talk to me. I feel ashamed and in my search of trying to transcend from all of this I’m constantly swinging between consciousness and unconsciousness (maybe shadow would be correct here) and I can’t get them to merge. The closer I seem to get, the crazier I’m starting to feel.
I feel stuck in a circle and it stops whenever I manage to find a truth, and then it starts again from a new angle, on and on again. I thought of his feminine aspects, thinking it must be the answer and I’ve managed to relate to those aspects from within, thus creating parts of that sensation I felt from being with him. Ultimately, I find myself wanting to share it with him. I can’t seem to shake away relating to him.
I feel ashamed and I want to take responsibilty for my actions but I also want to leave him alone to not cause him any trouble. Instead, I’ve tried implementing these inner lessons into all my relationships and as a result my outside world is so much more balanced, not just black and white, but both. And sometimes this feels like a psycosis.
Why is he still there? I met someone else after him and after separating from my partner, it was pure sexual and he was a lovely man but it was like regressing back to being 16 again.
I would be truly grateful if someone reads this and can bring a perspective to my situation. Any blindspot you as a reader can see? Any litterature that might be useful to me?
If you managed to read all of this, thank you.

Hi everyone ! I’m very excited to be part of this community. I am an aspiring fantasy and sci-fi author and I’ve been working tirelessly on finishing revisions on my first book. I am just about to finish my third draft and I think I will do one more round of revisions before seeking Beta readers. However, I feel like my writing has existed in a vacuum for so long and I would really appreciate an outside perspective on it. Due to this I was wondering if anyone would be willing to provide me some feedback on a exert from my novel. Thank you !
She snaps to awareness in the middle of the stone chamber. Her candle has fallen from her hands and she watches it sink into the maw of the pool.
An unfamiliar voice crawls into the edge of her awareness, and Gydeon turns to see one of the silver-robed priests belonging to the Temple. The Priest is asking her something, but all she can hear is the frenetic beating of her heart. The Priest tries again, louder this time," is everything alright your Highness?"
“Yes, I just dropped my candle.” Gydeon replies, giving a half-hearted laugh before adding, "I hope that's not a bad omen." Before she can get away the Priest places a hand on Gydeon's shoulder and replies, "The candle is merely meant to guide your sight, it is the vision you were given that matters." “How many years has it been since someone has truly received a vision from the Gods?”She asks. He breathes deeply and removes his hand from Gydeon's shoulder before bowing and murmuring. “It is forbidden for me to discuss with patrons what they saw. So I cannot answer your question.” Gydeon swallows down the bile in her throat and nods, “thank you for your services."
The Priest smiles at her before retreating to another part of the temple. Without sparing him a second glance Gydeon crosses the threshold of the temple doors and takes a deep breath of the cool night air.

She retreats down the steep stone stairs without bothering to look where she is going. Halfway down she knocks squarely into the broad chest of her brother, Alarik. He reacts quickly, stepping backwards, but catching her by the shoulders so she does not fall. He's wearing a crooked holy robe and an even crookeder grin. Gydeon is certain that beneath the robe he is in full uniform. Such things can always be expected of Ari Thaneus. As Gydeon's elder, he should have been the Crown prince, but the legitimacy of his birth had long ago been called into question. Now whispers of bastard follow in his footsteps and Ari does everything to pretend he does not hear them. “What are you doing here?" She asks, struggling to keep her voice even. 

Ari takes a step towards and his eyes land on the tips of her fingers, "what's wrong with your hands?” Gydeon steals a glance and notices her fingers are stained with blue so dark it looks black beneath the sparse lantern light. "It's ash. There’s a lot of ash from spent candles in there." Ari nods accepting her lie, "So was this a satisfactory way to spend the first evening of your twenty first year? What did you see?"
She ignores his first question and responds to the second, “you know I'm not allowed to tell you." "Of course not, I just knew asking would bother you. Now you're going to retreat into your room and write down every minuscule detail of what happened and spend the whole evening puzzling out what it could mean. No coming of age ball or elaborate celebrations for you." Gydeon wrinkles her nose and replies, "parties aren't to my taste." "Of course, yet I regret to inform you that you'll be in attending one. It's the Turning Banquet tonight. Or had you forgotten?" Gydeon fiddles with a loose thread hanging from the sleeve of her robe, unable to look at Ari as she replies, “no, I hadn’t forgotten."

"Cheer up. We are also celebrating the arrival of a visitor from across the sea. A princess Mariyama from the Kingdom of Damoth I believe.” 

"What brings her here?" Gydeon asks and Ari shrugs, "I have no idea." There's something in his tone that tells her he knows more, but doesn't want to answer. Instead of elaborating he offers, “how about you ride back in the carriage with me? I’m sure several suitors will want to dance with you and you don’t want to smell like a horse.”
As they reach the bottom of the steps Gydeon sees the gilded silver mass of the royal carriage awaiting her. She shakes her head and says, “Sachen suits me just fine,” before turning towards the stables. “You’ll smell,” Ari calls out to her. Gydeon waves a hand dismissively, “they’ll all want to dance with me anyways.”

Notes in advance: this is a bit of a long writing of a late teen’s current problem. Also please excuse the mistakes because English is not my first language.
I have been fancying a guy who I first met last Saturday. For context, I work in a retail store and he was my customer. That morning he came in, I thought he was so fine and I was attracted to him for that moment. In my store, we can look up customer's information for their past purchases so I asked for his name and he gave it. Normally, I can easily have small talk with customers to break the silence. (this job gave me the confidence to talk to strangers and socialise with them) But I didn't get a chance to speak to this guy a lot because I had to fix his stuff at the counter and he was just browsing the store far away. So when I finished, he took it and just quickly left, however, I got so curious and decided to look him up on social media by searching for his name. I know it's wrong to exploit your job to access someone's personal information. I'm sorry, please don't go too hard on me. But I have no other intentions besides checking him out. Anyway, I found his social media, I did not follow him but ever since I check him out every day. Now, I'm afraid to say that I am having a huge crush on a guy who I barely know and could possibly never meet again. Being a 19 yr old and inexperienced, I tried to tell myself off because I don't want to become too obsessed with that guy. But I can't stop browsing his social media and looking at his photos because he is actually cute and my type. Doing that makes me so happy and whenever I think of him, I have to restrain myself from giggling like a little girl. I started daydreaming and imagining him and me together. I was praying every night that the universe will let me see him again this Saturday. Honestly, this sounds creepy but I like him so much that the desire of wanting to get him made me strongly believe in manifestation. So I tried all of the manifesting methods (Law of Attraction??)I wrote his name on letters, journals, and wishes and planned the whole story of how we’re gonna fall for each other (imagination of course). I constantly say positive affirmations to myself and believe the universe is gonna grant my wish. I also ask for signals from the universe and of course, there is absolutely nothing shown.
I can see myself going down a rabbit hole. I am scared of it since I don’t want to keep high hopes for him, and if things don’t happen, I’ll be hurt. I know some people won’t understand why I get so attached to a stranger, but let me tell you: the emotions are real. This past week has me feeling so euphoric (thinking about him) and sad (thinking about the possibility ). I realised that I have an attachment issue, it happens every time I like a guy who doesn’t like me back. It’s always me who likes them first because they catch my eye (I don’t even know their personalities, but still I fall for them like crazy), tho, I never make the move. So the story always goes like this: I’m having a big crush on someone I barely know, I keep high hopes, then nothing happens and I am left disappointed and miserable and desperate. Today is the fifth day since I met that guy. I still think of him and put myself out there in the hope of bumping into him magically. I can feel my energy getting low, I was losing hope even though deep down inside I still really really want to see him. I guess it’s understandable because my brain is just trying to protect me from pain in the future based on my past experience.
I was struggling with my emotions until tonight I finished work and went out by myself. I was browsing a bookstore, and for some reason, I picked a book and it was talking about Limerence (a state of mind which results from romantic or non-romantic feelings for another person, and typically includes intrusive, melancholic thoughts, or tragic concerns for the object of one's affection as well as a desire to form or maintain a relationship with the object of love and to have one's feelings reciprocated. Wikipedia ). I was so surprised because it is exactly my situation right now, moreover, this has been a symptom of mine that I have been wanting to figure out because I didn’t know better and all I did was doubt and blame myself for being too sensitive and easily attached. Later I met up with my friend and when she drove me home, she showed me a song whose lyrics are so beautiful and it is a piece of spot-on advice that I need to hear. I don’t know why she showed me that song, though I did tell her about the guy I like, I did not exactly tell her how I feel towards him or how I try to manifest him because I find that embarrassing. Anyway the song was "Vienna" by Billy Joel, I know the song can mean something else, not just romantic or relationship, but I interpret the lyrics such as “Slow down, you crazy child” or “Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true” are accurately describing my situation right now. I felt touched by it and my emotions are at ease now. After that, I thought the universe has listened to me, but not in the way that it will grant the wish of my impatient heart, instead the universe gave me signals to realise that I need to slow down and reflect on myself. Maybe there is something in me that hasn't been discovered and I need to work on it, that’s why I randomly discovered the term Limerence. Maybe my mind has not been in the right place because of the emotions I’m going through this past week (family issues, anxiety, studying, work and menstruation), and that’s why I need to slow down and not expect too much.
Anyway, everything is off my chest, I’m practising my routine gratitude now and I’m so thankful that this sub exists so I can express myself and tell my story. Thank you to everyone who spends their precious time reading this. That will mean a lot to me because I just want to be heard tonight without being judged. This reminds me of a quote: “You don’t attract what you want, you attract what you are”. I might not be able to see that guy again, though it was enchanting to meet him. I know I will be alright tomorrow! Goodnight to the world, send you my love!!

Girls: Izzy
Boys: Ezekiel, Mal
Episode 25: Planes, Trains, and Hot Air Mobiles
"Last time, on Total Drama World Tour!" Chris opened as the plane icon was shown flying northward from Rapa Nui to Alberta, Canada on the season's world map, and the jumbo jet itself was shown blowing past a precariously-balanced boulder and knocking it off its perch. "Alberta! It'll blow you away!" The barren pit in Drumheller they'd visited was shown, as was Topher sitting in the electric chair. "How could this happen?!" the host asked angrily over a clip of the plane exploding in the distance.
"Well first, Mal and Izzy bickered the whole challenge about their moralities," the two were shown teasing each other, "and Ezekiel started to doubt if Topher even liked him or not," Both were talking to each other as they dug. "But Ezekiel was able to let go of his suspicions when Topher rescued him from being squished by a boulder," Topher was shown tackling Ezekiel and himself away from a boulder.
"And Izzy confirmed herself as being crazy with a heart of good before voting Mal off," Izzy was shown telling off Mal, followed by the final vote against him being read. "Dude sooo would've been a goner. Except Topher," the Chris wannabe was shown slipping on the pool of oil and the candles on the cake hit the oil, "demolished my plane!" The host was shown standing in the moonlit wreckage of the Total Drama Jumbo Jet, bringing an end to the recap montage.
"Did I mention we've got no ride now?" Chris asked, he and Chef now sitting in the remains of the cockpit in their usual piloting outfits, the sun now shining overhead. As the host spoke, Chef grabbed the control stick, looked shocked as it immediately detached, and threw it away with wide eyes. "BECAUSE TOPHER BLEW IT UP?!" Chris continued angrily, slamming his hands down on the broken console and standing up towards the camera.
He sat back down, pulled out a paper bag, and started to breath into it. After a few seconds he calmed down enough to stop hyperventilating, letting go of the bag and looking back at the camera. "Our Final Three are jetting to Hawaii...," he said as the series's capstone music began to play, "without a jet, so...get set for some other kind of race to the million, right here on Total! Drama! World Tour!"
The camera zoomed out as always, showing the morning sun over the wreckage of the plane that was now stranded in Drumheller, Alberta. The front part of the fuselage, which had been intact enough for Chris and Chef to use the cockpit, promptly fell off whatever had been supporting it.
XXXXX
"The hot tub with my name spelled out in Italian tiles...gone...," Chris muttered despairingly, the episode opening on a pan across the wreckage of the plane to where the host stood with Mal and Izzy near the remains of last night's campfire pit. "My monogrammed sneakers!...gone...," he added, looking at the two uncaring contestants. "My custom-calibrated stubble-trimmer," Izzy and Mal looked at each other in boredom, "gone..."
"Can we continue the game now?" Mal suggested.
"I agree," Izzy chimed in.
"As usual," Chris turned to them, "you two are thinking of nothing but yourselves."
He looked to the side as Ezekiel grunted with effort, then pushed a large sheet of broken metal away from the wreckage. "Could I get some help with this?" he asked the others.
"What about the bigger humanitarian crisis?" Chris asked. "How am I supposed to keep this face fresh," he pointed at his stubbled visage, "without my hyperbolic chamber?"
With another grunt of effort, Ezekiel leaned down and lifted a bald and scuffed Topher out of the wreckage on his back. "Good morning," Topher said woozily. "I've always wanted to be the one carrying someone down, but the roles are reversed."
"Why were you even in there?" Ezekiel asked as he dragged the boy away from the jet's remains.
"I think some more stuff fell on me while I was asleep," Topher guessed.
"The plane is busted," Ezekiel said. "Are you okay?"
"I am emotionally!" Topher answered, "but physically, my bones are broken."
Ezekiel groaned, then collapsed under Topher's weight.
Confessional: Ezekiel
"I know Topher did some underhanded things to stay in the game, but losing your hair on international television is worse than harming an animal in his world," Ezekiel confessed in the remains of the restroom confessional.
Confessional: Izzy
"Topher needs some medical assistance, but given that Chris is a windbag who's as cheap as Mr. Krabs, I'll be his nurse until he gets home!" Izzy declared in a superhero pose. "You can call me…" she put an orange mask over her eyes, "Doctor Izzy!"
Confessionals End
The static cut away to show the camera focused on a wheelchair, pushed by a just-out-of-frame Izzy. "Here," she said as he reached Ezekiel and Topher and the shot zoomed out, "use this to help you." Ezekiel lifted the fanboy into the wheelchair, and Izzy put the hat from Rapa Nui onto Topher's head to cover his baldness.
"Does it make me look attractive?" Topher asked..
The shot cut to the wreckage and Chef pushed a giant metal box out into the open, earning an excited look from Chris. "Hey! My emergency kit! We're saved!" he declared, running towards the giant box with a hearty laugh. "That's right, kids," he turned back with a grin. "Get ready for surf, sun, and beauties in grass skirts, we're going to Hawaii!" He did a few short hula moves as the Final Three cheered.
"I know," Chris said as he walked over to Chef, "best host ever! Never doubt me." It was then that Chef pulled on the rope he'd been holding, causing the walls of the metal box to fall away and reveal the small red helicopter inside.
The four teens moved closer, and Mal was the first to speak. "That's a two-seater."
"That it is!" Chris replied happily. "Chef flies, I supervise."
"And we?" Mal followed up.
"Will be competing to get to the big island first, using only your wits, and whatever you find out here," Chris explained.
"But we're in the middle of nowhere!" Ezekiel complained.
"True," Chris told him, "so check these fancy dancy GPSes I'm generously giving you!" he said as he took a trio of walkie-talkies and GPS devices from the helicopter and tossed one each to each finalist.
Izzy raised an eyebrow as she looked down at the GPS; the screen showed a single yellow dot and nothing else around. "Middle of Nowhere, Alberta," she read before looking up. "It does work."
"Set 'em for Tijuana Beach," Chris told them. "It's right on the Mexican border. Now move it!" he commanded as the helicopter started up behind him. "Go! Go! Go!"
Ezekiel, Izzy, and Mal frantically entered the destination into their devices, and the shot moved over to a confused Topher. "Wait, what about me?" he asked the host.
"Make like you took the Drop of Shame," Chris answered angrily, standing in the doorway of the hovering helicopter, "and figure it out yourself!"
Topher gaped, then scowled.
Confessional: Topher
"First he makes me do these dangerous challenges," Topher said in the ruined confessional, still in his wheelchair, "then he disqualifies me because I unintentionally blew up his plane, and now he's willing to leave me to fend for myself?"
He glared at the camera. "Chris really is a jerk. When I get home, I'm throwing out all of my Chris merchandise and everything related to him."
Confessional Ends
"Don't worry!" Chris called out to the Final Three, "you're all totally gonna make it!" The helicopter finally took off, leaving the four teens to watch in stunned silence for a few seconds.
Izzy was the first to make a move, turning and heading back into the wreckage with Topher right behind her. "If I was able to find a wheelchair in the wreckage," she reasoned, "maybe we can find something to get to Tijuana."
"Good idea!" Topher told her. "And did you say 'we'?"
"Duh," Izzy replied, looking back over a large piece of sheet metal. "I'm not going to leave you out here. I have to take care of you until you get to an actual doctor, and I can create something for both of us to ride on."
"Makes sense to me!" Topher smiled, and the two went back into the wreckage.
The camera cut to Mal and Ezekiel, watching nearby. "So, is this the part where you team up with me to make the finale?" Ezekiel asked sarcastically.
"No," Mal answered. "You'd obviously say no."
"That's right," Ezekiel huffed.
"I don't need you or Izzy. I've gotten here on my own," Mal gloated.
"You could've been eliminated in Africa or Drumheller, but something else happens to conveniently keep you in," Ezekiel retorted. "Don't count your eagles before they spot on red, white, and blue stripes!"
"That's the wrong expression, but I'm not even going to bother with a fool like you," Mal scoffed.
Confessional: Mal
"The million dollars is in my grasp," Mal chuckled. "I'm gonna use the prize money to live like a real villain. In a tower. Preferably overlooking a volcano."
The camera zoomed in on his smiling face before diving deeper into his subconscious, where Mike and his personalities were standing in front of Mal's tower. On the top was Mal's sculptured head, the purple light coming out of his right eye. The camera panned down to feature the white horns spiking out of the tower and ground.
"Here we are. Welcome to the Tower of Mal," Manitoba presented the tower to the group.
"Uh, why ain't it guarded by bouncers or dogs or an ugly cat or something?" Vito asked.
"Mal just figured we'd never get this far," Svetlana deduced.
Mal looked at the poster on the wall featuring the silhouette head of Mal over five stick figures. "Check it out. This door's got five people on it."
"Five of us! This must be the right way!" Svetlana said.
Mike grabbed the handle and pulled. "C'mon, let's get-" he didn't get to finish since the door trampled him and his personalities.
"I knew it was too easy," Chester moaned.
The group of four hastily pushed the door with their strength. "Come on. Just a little... mo-!" Mike motivated, but they got crushed again. "Was everyone pushing their hardest?" Mike asked his alters.
"What? I got noodles for arms!" Chester defended.
"On three, everyone," Mike informed as they were going to free themselves again. "One... two..."
"Three!" everybody said at once, forcefully pushing the door on the opposite side of them. Once that was settled, they entered the tower, Vito carrying Chester along the way.
"Yes! Nothing can stop us!" Mike confidently spoke, only to see the number of stairs they'd have to walk up with a groan.
\
"I'm going off now," Mal said into his walkie talkie while walking away. "I do not wish you good luck! I wish for your downfall!"
"And I wish you could just leave the game already," Ezekiel retorted.
"You know, I can turn you off right now," Mal shot back.
"And I'm going to beat you to it!" Ezekiel cut the radio feed off by pressing the button. "Much better," he said. "He was only distracting me. Now to get to that million dollars. As soon as I find a way to get there..." He looked around a bit, then started walking in the same direction Mal had gone.
The scene moved to the wreckage of the first class cabin, where Izzy and Topher were searching through the rubble.
Izzy pulled out a large inflatable raft...with a hole in it. "Zodiac?" she said, putting it down. "Bicycle?" she said, pulling out a rusty bicycle...that promptly lost its front wheel. "Unicycle?" she said. She tossed the broken bike away, then sighed sadly. "None of this trash will get us to Hawaii," she told Topher.
"Obviously," Topher said. "I found this seat belt, meal tray, and parachute!" he held up the first item he listed.
Izzy's eyes widened in realization. "Topher, you are very helpful!"
"Really?" Topher said, the seat belt now wrapped around his head.
Another scene change took the focus to a large rock formation as Mal hauled himself up from behind it to get a better look. He smirked to himself as he looked down at the other side of the formation. "What do we have here?" The perspective moved over his shoulder to show the plane's wreckage, and more importantly two interns with a caged baby panda outside a truck. The camera zoomed in as the interns picked up the cage and loaded it onto the truck.
"Following that panda will be my ticket to victory!" Mal dropped back down behind the rock.
\
The camera cut to the blazing midday sun, then panned down onto Ezekiel. The homeschooler was walking through the cactus-filled desert with his eyes locked on to his GPS, until he suddenly tripped and fell over something.
"Ugh!" he said, the camera moving down to show him lying on train tracks. "What kind of nimrod leaves train tracks in the middle of nowhere?"
He looked to his right, and spotted a building and windmill next to the tracks off in the distance. "Trains!" he repeated with excitement.
\
The scene flashed to a head-on view of the truck, a walkie-talkie switching on inside it. "Attention 'competitors'," Mal announced, the shot cutting inside to show a monkey, baby panda, baby seal, and book-reading bear sitting in cages listening to the nearby malevolent one talk, "I am traveling south at 90 kilometers per hour. In other words, you all should give up."
Just as he ended his message, a caged sasquatch behind him reached out and pulled him into a kiss. He immediately pushed away and recoiled in disgust, but lost his balance as he backed up and tripped into an open crate...the lid of which promptly closed on top of him.
"When I get out of here, it is not going to be pretty!" Mal said over the walkie-talkie.
The camera cut back outside as he made his declaration, showing the trucking driving away and honking its horn.
\
Another flash took the focus to Chris and Chef in the helicopter, the camera quickly cutting in for a close-up of the host's master GPS device. It showed three dots moving along a simple roadmap: a yellow dot unmoving in the upper right; a blue dot on the road approaching it, and a red dot further behind unmoving on the same road.
"Ezekiel's ahead but stalled," Chris commented with a gleeful smile over his own walkie-talkie, "and the yeti's new boyfriend is quickly catching up! But Izzy can't seem to get her butt in gear."
\
The camera flashed to a shot of a deployed parachute, then panned to the right as Izzy was heard explaining "I just moderate the flow of fuel," as the pan ended on her pulling a lever on an orange fuel barrel, making a small flame appear, "and that balloon will go up or down."
"But you need a basket!" Topher replied. "If there was any grass," he said while looking around, "you could weave one."
"All I need is a chair," Izzy said thoughtfully. "And one with arms."
"I'm sitting in a chair with arms," Topher said. "Just sit in my lap and you're gold. My bones are broken, but it'll be worth it to stop Mal."
"Wow. You really aren't as self-centered as I thought you were," Izzy commented. "You're really willing to let me be in your wheelchair?"
"Are you really willing to lose the race?" Topher asked. "Now come on! We've got a beach to get to!"
Izzy smiled. "Let's go!"
\
Whoops and hollers of excitement were heard as the footage skipped forward, showing the makeshift hot air balloon in flight tied to the wheelchair. Topher was sitting in the chair, with Izzy in his lap and holding her walkie-talkie.
"Attention boys!" she said into it. "Izzy is flying sky high! I repeat! This girl is airborne!" she said as the balloon ascended off-camera.
\
"Airborne?" Ezekiel repeated, the scene cutting to him walking down the aisle of a train's passenger car and stopping in front of a young white woman dressed in black typing on a laptop. He sat down in the seat opposite the woman in black. "Is this seat taken?" Matthew asked the woman upon noticing her stare, prompting the woman in black to return to her work.
"Okay," Ezekiel muttered, sitting at the booth and grabbing a newspaper that was on the table.
The camera moved to the window behind them, showing a certain truck driving past. Cutting outside, the truck was shown dumping its cages and crates into a cargo car of the train, and Mal could be heard yelling in alarm from his wooden prison.
"Too bad he turned off his walkie talkie right before this update!" Chris said over his walkie-talkie as the scene cut back to the helicopter. "Advantage, Mal."
Back down below, the train let out a burst of steam and started moving. It blew its whistle, and the scene cut back to the car Ezekiel was in, now looking up and down the aisle with confused eyes.
"Hello, passengers!" an unfamiliar male voice came over the train's intercom system, immediately gaining Ezekiel's attention. "And welcome to this non-stop trip to Mexico!"
"Yes!" the home-schooled guy cheered. "In your face!"
The woman in black gave him a questioning look, to which Ezekiel replied "That wasn't directed at you!" The woman in black wasn't impressed.
Back outside again, the camera zoomed in on a boxcar, then cut inside to show the caged Total Drama animals... and the smaller wooden crate that Mal promptly and finally burst out of. "Finally," he groaned as he took in a breath of fresh air; kissy faces from the nearby sasquatch earned another groan and a quick spit and mouth-wiping.
"Now to end Ezekiel's trip here," he declared, standing up and stepping out of the crate. "Wherever here is," he added, looking around the room.
He made his way to a nearby doorway, but stopped upon hearing a dog-like whine from inside another crate. He opened it, and recoiled in shock when Ezekiel Clone lifted his head out of the crate.
"How did you get here?" Mal asked in wide-eyed disbelief, and the Clone muttered something unintelligible. "If you promise to act right, I will release you."
\
A flash took the scene back to Topher and Izzy, still sailing through the sky. "Stop giving it so much fuel!" Topher said to his companion.
"I'll do that after you stop pinching my body!" Izzy shot back.
"I'm sorry, but I want to survive!" Topher argued.
"So do I, but I'm not being a whiny pants about it!" Izzy sniped.
"LOOK OUT!" Topher cried in alarm as he pointed ahead of them, and the viewpoint changed to show that they were quickly approaching a certain red helicopter.
Izzy and Topher screamed in alarm, then Chris and Chef screamed in the helicopter, then Izzy and Topher screamed again, then Chris and Chef, and finally the helicopter swooped under while the balloon ascended, the two airborne groups safely passing each other.
"Um, Izzy? Bra?" Chris asked into his walkie talkie.
"Watch where you're going!" Izzy shouted.
"Are you sitting on Topher's lap?" Chris followed up, the helicopter moving to keep pace next to the newly-annoyed teens.
"So what?" Izzy replied.
"We've already got one cling-on named Ezekiel Clone," Chris continued. "We do not need two."
"Cling-on?!" Topher exclaimed in outrage. "Give me that walkie talkie!" he yelled as he tried to snatch the radio from Izzy.
"You said we could use whatever the heck we found back at the crash site," Izzy smugly told him.
Chef nodded, and Chris smirked. "Hey, it's your funeral," he told her.
He ended his broadcast there, just as a message came over the helicopter's radio. "Attention, an extreme weather warning has been issued for all aircraft," the voice announced.
Chris shut off the radio, then turned to Chef. "I should probably warn them," the host said, holding a smile for a second or two before he and his assistant burst out in laughter.
\
"Who knew winning could be so easy?" Ezekiel said to himself.
"Tickets, please! Tickets!" an unseen man called out, quickly earning Ezekiel's attention.
The announcement was answered by a more familiar voice, explaining "You see, my brother is not a wild animal. He's just a really crazy fool." The shot cut to Mal, standing before a conductor and holding Ezekiel Clone's hoodie as the clone sniffed at the conductor and bared his teeth.
It was then that Ezekiel saw them; immediately locking eyes with Mal in a horizontal split-screen.
"You!" the two exclaimed at the same time.
Mal let Ezekiel Clone go. Ezekiel turned and ran away, and his clone chased after him with Mal following behind.
\
"So I bought all of Chris's wigs at an auction!" Topher was saying as the scene cut back to them in the balloon. "I could have used that money to buy myself new clothes!" he finished.
The camera zoomed in on the two. "I do not know why you even idolized him!" Izzy exclaimed.
"I admired his hosting skills and charisma, but I'm done with him after that plane explosion," Topher claimed.
Izzy nodded happily before turning around and looking alarmed. "If we don't move now, we're going to get killed!" she screamed as they flew into a very dark and ominous mass of clouds. A bolt of lightning flashed as they disappeared from view, and the shot cut down to the top of the train as Ezekiel slowly backed up along the roof of a car.
"You won't push me off a speeding train, would you?" he asked as Mal advanced menacingly into the shot.
"I threw Owen off the plane in Jamaica and threw Cody off the cliff in Australia," Mal said as Ezekiel reached the edge of his current car and nervously looked over his shoulder at the gap to the next one. "I have no limits."
"Duncan, Sky, and the others have every right to hate you," Ezekiel said.
"Of course they do!" Mal claimed, advancing enough for Ezekiel to turn and hop to the next car of the train. He nearly lost his balance on the landing, but recovered quickly enough to turn around and proudly face down Mal over the gap. "You were too distracted with impressing Sadie and being cool to even see me coming!"
"But I still made it as far as I did!" Ezekiel replied.
A clap of thunder echoed ominously, and the sky opened up in a downpour of hail. Ezekiel, who'd started backing away again, slipped on one of the icy pellets and fell on his butt with a pained grunt.
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Up in the clouds, Izzy and Topher were also being battered by the elements, screaming as they struggled to keep their balloon aloft in the wind and ice.
\
The hail rained down upon the windshield of the helicopter as well, but it only elicited a hearty laugh from the host and pilot. "Uh-oh. Will the game be called on account of deadly weather?" he asked the camera following him. "Will anyone be left to take home the million? Find out right after this break, on Total! Drama! World Tour!"
Lightning flashed right outside the helicopter, earning a panicked yelp from Chris.
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(Commercial Break)
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As far as I have checked the community guidelines, I did not violate any of them, so I am surprised as to why my story was removed. I would be really happy to get some input and critique as to what is wrong with my writing, so I can improve to better contribute in the future. Thanks in advance! I'll attach the post in question here:
Something is wrong with my dreams
You won't believe this, but I swear on my life, it's the truth. I think I'm losing my goddamn mind. I have to... okay, okay, I need to start from the beginning. See, I've been dabbling in lucid dreaming lately. Been having these vivid, messed up nightmares, you see... I just wanted some semblance of control over my mental state, you know?
I felt like therapy wasn't cutting it anymore, I needed something more, so I gotten into this lucid dreaming thing. But the things I've seen, the encounters I've had, they've changed me, man. I've gotta get this out, gotta let the world know about this shit 'cause its importance... it can't be overstated.
So here's the thing, in my lucid dreams, I've been having these bizarre experiences. In the dreams, waking up suspended over an abyss, right? Surrounding me, there's this sterile, white room, bathed in blinding lights, and in the distance, a glass pane. Can't exactly make out what's behind it, and it paints this real surreal scene.
At first, it didn't bother me much. I woke up, had this lingering unease the whole day but shrugged it off. But then the next few times, as I regained lucidity in my dreams, the same scenario would play out. At first, I could do the usual stuff, you know, flying around and the likes, but then the dream would always, without fail, transition into this... this suspension above the abyss.
I'd be strapped in place with ropes or chains, my limbs stretched out toward the cool walls of this clinical, white room. And beneath me, just infinite darkness. It felt like gazing into the maw of oblivion, and it was... it was downright petrifying.
The dread, man. The absolute fucking dread. In particular that glass pane in the distance and the infinite abyss below me, it was eating away at me. I started wondering what was behind the glass, and what, if anything, was at the bottom of that godforsaken hole. Its vast, infinite expanse was just pulling me in, gnawing at my sanity. It's hard to describe, you know? It's not something you can just put into words.
Soon, it became a nightly routine. Almost every single dream ended with me suspended over that abyss, and this paralyzing sense of dread seeping into me, becoming more and more prominent. Eventually, I decided I had to stop, I couldn't go on like this. I spoke to my therapist about it, and they said it might be a manifestation of some negative childhood experiences, and advised me to quit lucid dreaming for the time being. It wasn't doing me any good, they said.
I upped my meds, and tried something else, but no matter what I did, I couldn't shake off the lucidity. It's weird because in the past, becoming lucid required effort, with reality checks, dream journaling, and whatnot. But now, even when I set the intention to not lucid dream, I found myself more lucid than ever, and always, without fail, ended up above the abyss.
At one point, I tried to inspect my body in the dream, and I think I was naked. I noticed something on my arm, like a small needle. I realized it was an IV drip. Something was being pumped into me. I freaked out, man. What the hell was happening? Was I part of some fucked up mind control experiment? Was I being drugged? I couldn't make sense of it all.
Soon after noticing the IV, I saw shadows moving behind the glass pane. There were figures there, watching me. The terror I felt about these figures lurking behind the glass was even more pronounced than the dread induced by the abyss. It was all kinds of messed up, but amidst the fear, I felt this sudden urge to know more.
So I shouted out, "Hey! Who's there? Talk to me, you creepy fucks!"
To my surprise, a voice crackled to life over the speakers. It said, "We've never seen someone maintain lucidity to this extent. Your perceptive abilities are impressively consistent. How did you achieve this?"
"I don't fucking know", I said. "It's not like I want to be here. Is this even real?"
The voice replied, "Yes, this is happening. This is the actual reality, the true nature of reality."
"What the fuck? You say my dreams are reality? You'll have to prove that for me to believe you at all", I said.
"You will see by the consistency of this reality", the voice said. "But first, demonstrate to us that you are indeed lucid enough for us to continue this conversation. It's not something we usually do. It might, however, be a path to conquer the darkness."
And then, like every other time, the dream ended.
I relayed the whole fucked up scenario to my therapist, who, unsurprisingly, suggested it was a fantastical manifestation of my own fears. My subconscious testing boundaries, pushing limits, trying to get under my skin. But when I asked them what to do, they proposed a plan: continue engaging with the dream. Try to spot inconsistencies in its logic. After all, if it is all just a product of my mind, it is bound to falter at some point.
So yeah, I haven't slept yet after that convo with my therapist, so I'll see how it goes. I just wanted to post this here so people can share whether they had similar dreams about a white room and/or bottomless hole like that. It's terrifying to me. But I think my therapist is right. I can prove that it's just a dream by showing how its logic is inconsistent you know... dreams are just sorta messy like that. Anyways, would be really happy to hear what you guys think about all this. Is this common for lucid dreamers? Should I be concerned? What could I ask the guy in the dream?
Thanks for reading everyone, it means a lot to be able to get this off my chest.

Had a massive argument with my LDR partner of one year. Had a few troubles lately with finances and me perceiving them to be slightly immature. Was in a situation a couple of days ago where i was sat next to them and they started gossiping about me to their mother and saying all manner of negative things about me, none of which they'd ever directly addressed with me.
I then absolutely lost my cool completely. I pretty much shouted and screamed at them for about 10 minutes at the top of my lungs which I feel so awful about. I felt this white hot anger inside of me and just couldn't control it and called my partner a child for going to their mum striaght away. Now I feel so awful and guilty about my behaviour. We have made up now but I feel so guilty and can't shake off this feeling. I feel that I've disrespected my partner but does anyone have nay suggestions as to how to move forward? I have had angry outbursts at my family but never to my partner before and didn't even recognise I was capable of being like this to my partner which makes me feel worse