Devs in Arms

Growing up as a girl comes with challenges. You are constantly taught how you are to be more subdued, less energetic. I'm sure you've watched a little girl scream at the top of her lungs as she ran around in a fit of imaginative play. I've seen mothers and fathers both try and calm the child, even going as far as telling the poor thing off.  Have you ever seen a little boy behave in the same way? Shouting and yipping out in glee as he battles against the monsters that resides only in his mind? I've seen mothers and fathers heave a loving sigh before shaking their heads, often following their actions with a muttered "Boys will be boys." Little girls then grow and are told to not sit with their legs apart as it's 'unladylike'. This has always been such a strange request, as I've never been able to truly define what a lady is and why she shouldn't be allowed to sit how she pleases.  All the while, when boys sit like that, they're told that...

  As I've said in previous posts, I work at a vape shop. For privacy reasons I'll reference the company as 'Authentic Vapes'.  My average day at work consists mostly of cleaning the surfaces of the shop, maintaining the displays and serving customers as they come and go throughout the day. We're located on a small side road just on the outskirts of the city.  While my time working can be rather mundane and at times boring if we're particularly quiet (I always make sure to refrain from using said word for risk of invoking the manic-customer gods that retail and NHS workers cower in fear before). I also find that my day can be remarkably rewarding, specifically when I help a customer finally kick their smoking habit. The day in which I am talking about was fairly normal, we were running a Black Friday event and had reduced the price of most of our stock to barely more than a few pounds with such a drastic price drop, I had a few people come by in search for produc...

It's common to question your own personality traits, at least I believe so. If it wasn't common, then why would there be so many online tests to show what kind of potato you are or, laying in theme with this post, to what percentage of psychopath you are.  I have a staple group of friends, who I invite around every week or two. We have dinner, play a board game and then retire for the night.  It was at one of these get-togethers that one of our friends, we'll call him Jaques (all names in this post have been changed for privacy and confidentiality) mentioned a test that we could all take. It would tell us in no uncertain terms if we were a psychopath or not.  Being a curious bunch of people, we each loaded the test on our phones and began to check if we are psychopaths or not. My fianc èe was the first of us to finish with a score of 4 points, RJ scored 8 along with his boyfriend, Jaques. Me, however, I scored 20.  Now isn't that interesting?  Not wanting to bel...

Being ordained into a cult seems like something that you might notice, or maybe even an event that would be classed as unforgettable. But what happens when you’re accidentally accepted as a member of a cult? Well that changes things in ways that you may never expect.  I work at a vape shop (now for privacy and confidentiality, I won’t be naming the shop or the man in question. Instead I will refer to them as either Mick Doe or Authentic Vapes.) Have you ever felt like you were truly understood by someone? Truly accepted without any hesitation? Well I have, and on a number of occasions. The most recent one (as of the time I'm writing this) is when I was ordained into a cult.  I was serving Mick Doe without any hesitation. We’d previously chatted for a while and gained a very stable professional relationship between shop clerk and customer. We’d laughed and joked with one another and even formed the vestiges of a friendship. Now I constantly try to be a proficient and proactive ...