Stuffed animal dog sewing patterns free

I dream of a connection that doesn't have to try hard translating each others' souls—one that feels like home and is inhabitable for healthy energies whose goals are aligned. I long for that comfortable silence, rainy day embrace, flooded meme videos on our inboxes, and that warm forehead kiss after a busy day at work. In a world where sincerity is a rare find on an online setting, I'd still like to try.
About me: I graduated last 2023 is currently working as a government employee. I live in North Luzon with my family, and 5 dogs. I stand at 5'2, weighs 53 kgs, normal BMI, and in love with my curls and morena complexion. I like dressing up especially on days when I am extra stressed. My hobbies revolve around watching (films, shows, kdrama, anime), reading (books, manga), listening to music (any genre except rap or edm), and I'm on a constant journey of learning more hobbies because I like keeping myself busy. I think it's also worth mentioning that I have a flexible humor in line with being interested with meaningful discussions.
Hopefully, you're around 23-26 years old, stands 5'7 and up, working, furdad, family-oriented, is nerdy about his hobbies and goals in life, hopefully with the same interests as mine, lifestyle doesn't revolve around smoking/clubbing (non-negotiable), and is a very expressive individual who likes to tell stories and yap about life. (Still, feel free to dm if you're interested)
I haven't been on a physical date as meeting people makes me anxious, so I'd appreciate if we got to know each other online first—slowburn and careful. If you know you have ghosting tendencies or is only in it for a temporary companion, please spare the effort of building any connections.
If this interests you, an introduction that actually highlights you being you will be appreciated. Thanks! = )

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---Fnurfar’s perspective---
---2710 Terran Calenda3 years BF---
All six of my paws desperately scramble against the slick pavement of the Prosperity back alley as I flee for my life!
Pursuing me… is a monster!
His species aren’t meant to be sprinters!
They said if it came to a chase, I just needed to quickly get out of his line of sight and keep going and he’d not be able to keep up!
I skid around a corner and steal a glance behind me, seeing two furious eyes moving towards me so fast that they seem to leave streaks of emerald green behind them as afterimages!
The Fury is so close on my tail that he’s almost certain to catch me now!
It would be laughable how much my… ‘employers’ had underestimated him if it weren’t so terrifying!
‘You’ve got a Terran with you! There should be no issue!’
Yes, that idiot mercenary they hired almost had me going with his smug, arrogant proclamation that ‘Big=slow! Slow=dead!’ as he idly showed off his little knife tricks!
My confidence lasted up until the very moment I saw the one we were supposed to rob!
[20cm] taller than the skinny mercenary and looking like he could easily weigh twice as much, the man was a Hunt damned beast compared to the one who was meant to protect me from him!
I think Flynn reassessed his cocksure attitude as well because, rather than waiting for me to have an opening like we agreed in the [fucking] plan, he just drew a knife and tried to stab the monster to death!
An extremely poorly calculated risk!
There was no competition!
This juggernaut dealt with Flynn as easily as Flynn could have dealt with me!
It took him a matter of seconds to dispatch my accomplice but that was a matter of seconds where he was distracted enough that I was able to snag what we had been after… not that it makes any difference now!
Just as I hear thundering footfalls coming up on my left, powerful fingers impact the space between the bottom of my neck and the top of my top shoulderblades.
I’m slammed into the ground… but not killed…
I can feel the power contained in the iron grip around my neck…
I know that decapitating me would be as simple as deciding to close his fingers but, as I wait for death to come, it doesn’t…
Instead, the hand slides up my shoulders, gathering the loose skin and lifting me up like a kit in her parent’s mouth…
The first thing I’m able to see is the monster’s flat, booted feet, followed by a pair of long thick legs, then a chest and left arm covered in a loose fitting, buttoned shirt, patterned with vertical and horizontal lines.
The red fabric of his top disguises the bloodstain from the wound he got from Flynn, just below his shoulder. However, the nauseatingly metallic smell of it absolutely fills my nostrils!
The final thing to be revealed, as my feet hang more than [a metre] from the ground, is a face… the scarred skin a pale beige, the white, calcite teeth bared in a furious grimace, copper coloured eyebrows tilted downward in the middle over a nose, wrinkled with anger, and emerald eyes, burning with rage!
His shoulders rise and fall, in time with panted breaths he sucks in and out through his gritted teeth, putting me less in mind of a person (or even an animal) catching their breath after exertion and more in mind of some hulking piece of machinery from the Steam Age venting its pressure!
The Terran extends his pallid skinned, long fingered, furless, pentadactyl left hand to me, stained with the ferrous blood that’s run down his sleeve, and growls “Sample!”
“No…” I breathe, terrified.
“GIRL! I AIN’T fuckin’ PLAYIN’ with you!” he snarls, curling all but his index finger and jabbing it towards my snout “You’re gonna. GIVE. BACK. what you. FUCKIN’. STOLE!”
“You… can take it… from my corpse…” I defy, clutching my exhausted, trembling pawhands to the front of my jumpsuit.
Effortlessly, his free hand comes forward, batting my four aside, before pinching the top of the stasis vial and pulling it free, with there being absolutely nothing I can do to stop him!
He holds up the tube, in which is visible a small plant with a rosette of frilly black leaves and through which can be seen a frozen impression of the room it was in when it was stasised, demanding “You’re really willin’ to die for this!? For corporate espionage?!… Why the fuck’s this matter to you like that?!?!?!”
“I don’t care… about the plant… at all…” I answer, defeated.
His face twists in a sneer as he asks “Then why tell me I had to pry it from your cold. dead. hands!?”
“Because… if I come back… emptyhanded… they’re going to… torture my husband… and son… and make me watch!… If I don’t… come back… at all… maybe they’ll let them go!” I pant in answer.
His face falls blank… but I can tell that is not because he’s no longer angry!
Instead, his redoubled rage has gone from white hot to ice cold as he leans in and demands “Who’s ‘they’?”
---2715 Terran Calenda2 years AF---
“One!?” demands the sceptical, lutrine, Nvar man, one of six listening to my story for the first time (along with the two friends who’ve heard it before), holding up a webbed pawhand and extending a single finger “You’re trying to tell us that one Terran dismantled the entire Giluspri Sisters’ Syndicate, overnight!?… Simply because you told him a sob story about them holding your family hostage!?”
“I did say you wouldn’t believe me(!)” I smirk, lifting my drink to take a sip.
“You’re damn right I don’t believe you!!!” he sneers “It might have been a little more believable if you’d made it a team of a dozen or so Terrans that were guarding this thing but one!?… There’s no way it took a single individual a single night to root out and entirely destroy an enterprise that Prosperity’s government had been hunting for nearly [2 decades], even if that individual was a Terran!”
I place my drink down on the table and turn the palms of all four pawhands to the ceiling as I say “Believe me or don’t… that’s exactly how it happened!”
“Hmmm… Don’t know ’bout ‘exactly’…!” comes a familiar voice from behind my head, in the next booth over.
I freeze and straighten my back.
The friends and audience in my booth are looking past me, curiously, but, from their faces, it doesn’t look like they can see anything.
I stand and slide out through the gap between the table and Nafnarl’s footpaws.
I turn right and am immediately able to see that the booth next to us is occupied by a mixture of Terrans and some much smaller humanoids with green skin.
I keep going, rounding the partition to reveal…
“By the Hunt! Victor?!” I exclaim, seeing the man sat with his back almost exactly to where I was sitting, next to another tall, slim humanoid with blue skin and four arms.
His copper hair is much longer, his face isn’t as scarred and isn’t wearing the disgusted sneer that characterised so much of the time he and I spent together but… there’s no mistaking it!
The man turns his head, smiling, before standing up to nearly twice my height and extending a palm to ruffle the fur between my ears, saying “How’s it goin’, Foxy? You look a lot better ’an you did last time I saw you at least(!)” gesturing with his other hand up and down my less skinny and less visibly scarred body.
“Never mind that, Victor! What are you doing here?! You didn’t tell me you were coming back to Prosperity!”
He smirks “Yeah, sorry Foxy… It’s a loose lips sink ships kinda deal… Just thought I’d show my friends here the bar you brought me to celebrate after everythin’ was done that time… Didn’t think I’d actually run into you here!”
I stare up at the man, agog, for a few moments before reaching up with both my left hands and closing them around his wrist.
He allows me to drag him back to the head of my table.
“Nafnarl! Gfurnaf! This is him! This is the one I’ve been telling you about for the last [5 years]!” I say to my two Graufna friends before turning to the rest of the table to declare “He’s the man who took down the Giluspris! He’s Victor ‘Cuddles’ Taylor!”
With mirthful bemusement, the Terran raises his left palm to the table to smile “Y’alright guys!” before his eyes scan the faces and his expression goes concerned. He turns to me and asks “Your hubby alright, Foxy?”
I bare my teeth (I hope friendlily) and answer “Fnarnulf’s fine, Victor!… Fuffarn too! This is just a girl’s night…” gesturing at my two friends “…or… it was(!)” gesturing over the four men and two women, of four different species, who joined us to hear my story.
“What did you mean by it not being ‘exactly’ right?” queries Lunvo, the same sceptical Nvar who voiced disbelief before, still looking sceptical (not that I can blame him) but at least impressed by the fact that the ‘con’ has a (imposing looking) Terran stooge now(!)
“Weeeeell…” Victor frowns down at me, mirthfully “…the way she described me dodgin’ that knife attack, she made me sound almost psychic(!)… In reality, she and this guy weren’t as smooth as she seems to think(!) The fact that I even got nicked by someone I was payin’ as much attention to as that is a bad reflection on my reaction time!… Also, she kinda made it sound like I went into their headquarters with a gun in one hand and a lit plasmasword in the other(!) As I recall, I gave ’em all a chance to surrender and come quietly and it were only after they, shall we say, indicated a lack of interest in that option that my weapons first cleared leather!… Oh! And what was with all that comparin’ the way I pant to ventin’ steam engines, Foxy(?!)”
“But…” starts Muan, a nervous tolypeutine Wne woman beside her Wno husband, Kmuw “…you don’t deny it was you and you alone who brought down the Giluspris?… Without help?”
The pale skin of the Terran’s flat face performs a complicated scrunch as he considers the question before answering “Don’t know ’bout ‘without help’… I had Foxy here for showin’ me the way, after I’d done a lotta convincin’… and, once I’d taken care of ’em, local law enforcers came to take the survivors away… Aaaaand… I probably didn’t actually manage to kill or capture every last one of ’em… just gutted its power structure enough that the rats fled the sinkin’ ship(!)”
“Why are you calling her ‘Foxy’?” asks Lunvo, four eyes narrowed in suspicion “‘Fnurfar’ is the name she gave us!”
The large man shrugs his shoulders “I didn’t get her name until we came here to celebrate… she didn’t trust me to give it… Had to call her somethin’, so I called her Foxy.”
“Hmmm…” responds Lunvo “…I’m not buying it…”
Victor raises an eyebrow “You ain’t buyin’ me givin’ her a nickname(!?)”
“I don’t believe any of it! The whole story reeks of the fanciful!”
I bare my teeth and slam my paws on the table before snarling “I don’t care if you question my honesty, Lunvo, but this man saved my husband’s life, my son’s life, the lives of dozens of others, freed me from effective slavery and freed this planet from its largest criminal syndicate! I will not have you questioning his integrity!”
Lunvo cowers away from me, despite the table separating us.
I feel a large, strong hand on my shoulder.
I turn to see a smiling face.
“Eeeeasy there, Foxy… ’Preciate the defence but there ain’t no need to get heated over it!… ’Specially not when there’s a really easy way to sort this out…” he looks up at Lunvo and asks “Lunvo, was it? Could I ask you to look up the front page of the Prosperity Chronicle from the 3rd of September, 2710?… I think you’ll see a picture of me shakin’ hands with your governor at the time…”
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Dramatis Personae

Heyo 🙋🏼‍♂️ I'm interested in meeting new people, maybe you are too? If so, feel free to write to me and who knows, in the best case a friendship will develop :) What I should also note is that I would prefer it if you were a woman, simply because I get along better with women than with other men 😂
To give you a rough idea of who I am and what I like, I'd better write a bit about myself.
My biggest hobby is definitely gaming, I've been playing games since I was 3-4 years old 🤓 My favourite thing to do is playing single player games on the PS5, especially action RPGs, like all Fromsoftware titles. At the moment I'm also playing a lot of LoL with my best friend. I also have a Switch, just not too many games, mostly Pokemon, but I've spent a lot of hours on it. Oh and I bet nobody can beat me in Mario Kart 🏁
In addition to gaming, I also enjoy watching movies and series. Horror is the only genre I'm not the biggest fan of, although I'm often interested in the story of the movie. I've also watched one or two horror movies with friends, but to be honest, I've often held a pillow in front of my face 😂 Apart from horror, I watch all sorts of things, my favourites in terms of movies are definitely Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, a lot of Disney films, Iron Man and a few more that I can't think of off the top of my head right now haha As far as series go, I watch things like Stranger Things, GoT, Brooklyn 99, Community, Avatar the last Airbender, the Mandalorian, Fallout, Lupin or Vox Machina :)
I've been reading a lot again for half a year and I'm currently working on the last Witcher book, The Lady of the Lake. Other than that, I've read Lord of the Rings and the Metro trilogy. And as soon as I've finished The Witcher, I want to read Dragon Ball again, the last time was a good 16-17 years ago, and then maybe Dune or The Hunger Games 🤔
Apart from that, I study computer science, enjoy being outdoors and doing things with friends. I also love animals, my family has two dogs and three cats and I've been a vegetarian for almost 6 years 😄 I've been learning French via Duolingo every day for about 1 1/2 months, so if you happen to have Duolingo too, let me know and we can add each other 🙌🏼 I also enjoy cooking and my favourite dish is and will probably always be pizza. I've made pizza myself so many times in my life that I can do it in my sleep (but it's not that difficult, I have to be honest, not like sushi, which I've also made 1-2 times 🍱)
If you have similar interests and would like to write a bit, hit me up :D Ideally, you should live somewhere in Europe, because I'm from Germany myself and then it would be more convenient in terms of time. If you've read this far and won’t write me, I'd still like to thank you for your perseverance and wish you a good day or a nice morning/evening :D

So I got bit by a friend’s (more like acquaintance’s) dog last week. We were playing fetch with our dogs in the backyard and his dog clamped onto my wrist once while I was reaching for the ball. It wasn’t that major but it broke skin and was fairly deep so it bled quite a bit. I asked the guy if the dog is vaccinated, he said yes. Then I asked if this had happened before and he said no, definitively. He said sorry and told me he’d cover any expenses. I walked home and then went to the ER (I have state insurance so it’s free) and got a tetanus shot and antibiotics. Part of the ER visit involved an animal bite form. I didn’t want to throw his dog under the bus so I was intentionally vague providing only a first name and phone number on the form. A couple days later I was contacted by animal services saying they’d like to take a look at the dog and make sure that it wasn’t showing any signs of rabies while explicitly saying this was not about reporting the dog or taking him away. The dog owner was apparently then contacted by animal services where he volunteered his address for them to come and see the dog. After this he sent a series of very stern, and somewhat threatening, text messages demanding pictures of my wound “for his records.” I was taken aback by his insistence, therefore refused to provide the photos.
Fast forward to now. I ran into said dog owner’s roommate at the restaurant where he works. He seemed clearly unhappy to see me and even though he doesn’t like me anyway, this was more so than usual. Before I left I went to talk to him, and make sure everything was alright between us, but he was obviously still angry about the situation surrounding me going to the ER and the visit from animal services, including a $100 fine for something that was left unexplained. We started to argue about the severity of the bite and the necessity for medical attention and it got so intense that I lost my temper and he actually punched me in the face! I subsequently called the police and I will probably make a formal report.
Before this I wasn’t mad at the dog owner or the dog, had no medical expenses to speak of, so no lawsuits or anything. The situation could have been done with, but because of these stupid people it’s been turned into a major ordeal. Very frustrating.
Edit: Also, since the incident I’ve found out that this dog has actually bit a number of people and is generally problematic.

My Blood Covenant Salvation Prayer
Heavenly Father, I come to You in the Name of Jesus Christ. I believe You love me and sent Your Son to remove the sin which separates me from You. Father, I repent of all sin in my life. Please forgive me and cleanse me by the blood of Jesus Christ. By faith, I receive Your forgiveness and cleansing in Jesus’ name. Your Word says I am brought near to You by the blood of Jesus Christ, through which I enter into blood covenant salvation relationship with You now. Lord Jesus, I invite You to come into my life, and I submit totally to You and to Your Word (John 14:23). I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord. I believe in my heart God raised Him from the dead. It is with my heart I believe and am justified, and it is with my mouth I confess and am saved (Rom.10:9-10). I ask You to be Lord of my spirit, my soul (mind, thoughts, will, intellect, and emotions), and my body (I Thess.5:23). You are faithful to complete the work You have begun in me (Phil 1:6). By faith, I confess sin shall no longer have dominion over me because your Holy Spirit lives in me. I confess I am saved. I am under covenant through Jesus Christ to receive the promises that are for me including salvation, deliverance, healing, renewal, and all God’s promises for His children. I renounce the authority of Satan or any authority other than Jesus Christ over all areas of my life. I renounce every stronghold or influence of the devil, including ungodly soul ties, masonic attachments, ungodly beliefs, bitter root judgments, all personal sin, and everything inherited through the generations. The Word tells me I have a heavenly Father, and I now inherit only from Him. Lord, empower me to live for You. Release the Holy Spirit within me, that He may convict me of sin. I have access to the power of the Holy Spirit and the right to every spiritual gift (1 Cor. 12:4-11). Help me walk daily in the fullness of the Spirit filled life. I open my heart and ask You to fill me now with Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Prayer to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit
Heavenly Father, I come to You in the Name of Jesus, Your Son, Who has saved me. I repent of my sins and ask You to wash me clean by the Blood of Jesus. Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), to be with you forever—the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive [and take to its heart] because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He (the Holy Spirit) remains with you continually and will be in you.” John 14:16 (AMP) In Mark 1:8, John the Baptist promised that while he baptized with water, You would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. So, Lord, I ask You to baptize me with Your Holy Spirit and fire. I am thankful as I ask for your empowerment and fire, it will refine me into who you have called and created me to be. I know You indwelled me at my salvation (John 20:22; Romans 8:9). Now, I ask You to fill me to overflowing with Your Presence, Your power, and Your joy. You promised in Acts 1:5-8 that Your disciples would receive power and ability when the Holy Spirit would come upon us. You promised to give us power to be Your witnesses even to the ends of the earth. This wonderful promise was fulfilled at the Feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem, as described in Acts 2. I pray the Holy Spirit come upon me now. I yield myself to You. I pray you breathe on me a breath of refreshment and empowerment. I receive by faith the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I welcome you, Holy Spirit, in the Name of Jesus. Thank You for empowering me for Your service. Fill me with boldness and courage to speak Your Word with power. I receive this wonderful empowerment by faith. As promised in John 14:26, send me the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to teach me all things and remind me of everything You teach in Your Word. I desire spiritual gifts according to Your Word and ask You to grant me Your spiritual giftings according to Your will for my life. I joyfully accept Your gifts for me, in Jesus’ Name.
Prayer to Break Generational Curses and Sins of the Bloodlines:
Dear Heavenly Father: Thank you that the blood of Jesus is able to take away all sin. I believe this and receive it now in Jesus’ name. I pray forgiveness for the sins of my father, of that bloodline for all generations back, and I ask You to wash me clean now, by the blood of the Lamb. I pray forgiveness for the sins of my mother, of that bloodline for all generations back, and I ask You to wash me clean now, by the blood of the Lamb. I receive Your forgiveness and believe that by Your blood I am cleansed from the sins of all my generational bloodlines. I take the authority I have in my blood covenant with Jesus Christ, and I break all generational curses on my father's side all generations back, broken now, by the blood of the Lamb. I take this same authority and break all generational curses on my mother's side, all generations back, broken now, by the blood of the Lamb. With this same authority I have under the blood covenant of salvation in Jesus, I break any spoken curses on my family bloodline. I break the power of all seals of silence and all vows of secrecy. I take the same authority in the name and the blood of Jesus, and I break all covenants and contracts to satan including blood covenant contracts. I pray forgiveness for the sins of my family line of all those things that happened in darkness, such as any attachment to slavery or any kind of persecution or mistreatment or abuse of any people groups or individuals, and I pray blessings on all descendants of the persecuted groups or individuals. I pray forgiveness for the sin of all idolatries attached to the American Indian bloodline and break all related curses. I break any attachments to family superstitions and idolatries, ungodly beliefs, wives tales, luck charms, and rhyme curses in Jesus’ name. Thank you, Jesus, that Your word says, "Cursed is the one who hangs on the tree." You took our curses, and You took our sins, so that we can have life more abundantly, and we praise you for it. I receive by faith now all generational sins and all generational curses are broken by the blood of the Lamb, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Prayer to Break Ungodly Soul Ties
Father, in the name of Jesus, I submit my soul, my desires, my will, and my emotions to the Holy Spirit and Your Word. I confess as sin all of my sexual relationships before marriage and any sexual relationships outside of marriage. I confess as sin all ungodly relationships involving any part of me, whether spirit, soul, or body. Father, I thank You for giving me the keys of Your kingdom and the keys of spiritual authority. What I bind is bound, and what I loose is loosed (Matthew 16:19). I ask You to loosen from me all soul ties to past sexual partners and ungodly relationships in Jesus' name. Please uproot all tentacles of sexual bondage, emotional longings, dependencies, vain imaginations, enslaving thoughts, and thought patterns. I bind, renounce, and resist any evil spirits that have been reinforced through those soul ties or may have been transferred to me through ungodly associations or promiscuity. I also repent of the sin of the idolatry attached to my pursuit of perversion. Jeremiah 2:20-25 says that my Heavenly Father's perception of this perversion that I have been pursuing is that I will not serve him, and I love foreign gods, and I must go after them. Therefore, I repent of the sin of this idolatry, and I apply the blood of Jesus to it now. I submit to the Lord Jesus Christ and to His Word that tells me that I must forgive so that I will be forgiven. I repent of the sin of unforgiveness and judgment toward the people who have violated me sexually due to incest, molestation, or rape. I choose to forgive and bless them, and I break any soul tie attachments to these people in Jesus' name. Please cleanse my soul with Your blood, renew my mind, and help me to forget all illicit unions so that I am free to give myself, body, soul, and spirit, totally to You. Father, I receive Your forgiveness for all past sins of ungodly soul ties and unrighteous sexual activity. I believe that by Your grace, I am forgiven. Thank You for remembering my sins no more and for cleansing me from all unrighteousness. I commit myself totally to You. By Your grace, please keep me holy in my spirit, soul, and body, as I choose to renew my mind in Christ (Romans 12:1-2). In the Name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.
Prayer for Release of Bitter Root Judgment and Expectancy
Dear Heavenly Father: In the Name of Jesus, I repent for the sin of judging Your creation. I have judged and condemned others, although I am not a righteous judge and have no right to judge anyone. Jesus committed no sin, and was righteous, but He judged no one. Jesus entrusted Himself to You, the One who judges righteously. I now entrust myself to You. Please forgive me for this sin of judging and condemning others. I now bless those who I have judged. I bless those I have accused. I bless those who hate me and have cursed or abused me. I break the power of the spiritual law of sowing and reaping. I forgive, release, and bless them. I ask You to bless them and give them what they need. With this change in me comes a new expectation of reaping blessings, as opposed to reaping curses. When I “sow” differently, I will “reap” differently. I now intend to sow blessings into my life by blessing those people who have despitefully used me, in Jesus’s Name. Thank You, Lord, for forgiving me and helping me to forgive others. I ask these things in the Name of Jesus Christ. SCRIPTURES Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Gal. 6:7 Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Matt. 7:1-2 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Heb. 12:15 Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you. Deut. 5:16 Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Luke 6:37-38 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Romans 2:1 This is what the Lord says-the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands? Isaiah 45:11
Prayer of repentance of personal sin
Dear Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I repent of all personal sin in my life. I ask You to forgive me and cleanse me. Some areas of sin I know; other areas of sin I do not recognize. But Your Word promises You are faithful and just to forgive all our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. I ask You to reveal all areas of personal sin, known and unknown, so I may more deeply repent. Your sheep hear Your voice. You will speak to my heart and mind, and I will hear You. If there are areas in which I am perishing for a lack of knowledge, I ask You to reveal Your truth to me. In Jesus’ Name, I will not reject Your truth. I specifically repent of anger, pride, perversion, idolatry, addiction, greed, fear, control, manipulation, judgment, accusation, gossip (here insert area of specific sin or sins, such as fear of lack, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success, etc.) Convict me of my sin, O God, so I may see my sin and repent to the depths of my soul. There is no righteousness in me on my own, but I am made righteous by the Blood of Jesus. Your Word promises that as we repent, we step into the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Your mercy is great toward me, and You will freely pardon. As far as the east is from the west, so far have You removed my transgressions from me. By Your Holy Spirit, empower me to overcome personal sin in my life. I confess I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. The prayer of a righteous person will avail much. Show me Your ways, that I may know You more and walk in Your ways all the days of my life, in Jesus’ Name.
Prayer to Release and Remove Ungodly Thought Processes, Mindsets, Devices, Defense Mechanisms, and Wrong or Unbiblical Reactions
Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I _____________ ask You to forgive me for the sin of failing to cast my cares upon You because I did not know how to cast my cares upon You. There have been times in my life when I suffered from a lack of knowledge of knowing how to handle life's situations, difficulties, decisions, traumas, and not casting my cares upon Jesus as Your Word says to do. I confess I have used ungodly thought processes, mindsets, devices, defense mechanisms, and wrong or unbiblical reactions. I confess that I sought to handle and control my own problems in my own ways. I devised methods and systems for my self-preservation. Now, I choose to ask You, Lord, to gather and remove the devices I have created and used to get through life's difficult circumstances. I repent for the control I used in creating these devices instead of trusting in You. I release all control, anger, revenge, unforgiveness, and judgments, and all altered states of mind into which I entered to handle trauma in my life. I relinquish my self-preservation, and I trust You for my life and choices. I release to You all trauma, known and unknown. I bind and break the power of all soul tie attachments, longings, emotional bondage, enslaving thought patterns, and dependencies in the name of Jesus Christ. I now purpose in my heart not to reenter these altered states of mind, devices, and mindsets that I have become accustomed to using. I pray in the name of Jesus that You give me the renewal of mind to recognize these devices when they reappear due to life's circumstances. I release to You all disappointment, bitterness, and resentment about my past. I choose to renew my mind through the ongoing study of Your Word. I choose Your truth instead of altered states of mind that have caused me to revisit painful feelings or paralyze and distort my response to abuse or other behavior patterns toward me. So, I speak to all altered states of mind, ungodly thought processes, mindsets, defense mechanisms, devices, and conditioned reactions. I command all such devices to align themselves with the Word of God and release their power over me, my mind, my emotions, my personality, and align with my will in the name of Jesus Christ. I desire as the head and not the tail (Deut. 28:13) to have Jesus Christ and Your Holy Spirit come into me and restore my soul. I forgive, release, and bless everyone who has hurt, abused, or misled me. I repent and ask forgiveness for the sin of carrying any unforgiveness or judgment toward these people. I ask You to bless them and give them what they need. Please bring me into a place where I am fully restored and made whole in spirit, soul, and body. I ask You to renew my mind so that I will not return to these old ways of thinking. I thank You for teaching me to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). I ask You to give me the renewed ability to maintain this fresh way of thinking for my new godly lifestyle. According to James 1, I can ask You, Lord, for wisdom, and You will give generously to all without finding fault. I ask that You give me the wisdom to maintain godly thought processes in this new season of my life and not return to the old, ungodly thought processes. I desire that all of me be able to worship You in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24). I desire to worship You with a sound mind, undivided heart, and clarity. I thank You and ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
PRAYER TO BREAK WORD CURSES
Dear Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus, I take the authority I have received through my blood covenant of salvation by accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I bind and break the power of all spells, curses, and incantations spoken over my life from any source, including my family, church relationships, work relationships, friends, enemies, known demonic sources, strategies of the enemy using any sources, and all word curses from known or unknown sources. I break the power of these curses and declare their functions null and void. I speak the mighty Name of Jesus Christ over these evil words. The Name of Jesus Christ is above every name. His Word is above every word. His power is above every other power or principality. I pray His Word over anyone who has knowingly or unknowingly cursed or abused me. And I pray, heavenly Father, that you bless them and give them what they need, in Jesus’ Name. I thank You, Lord, that You have the ability to hear the curse and turn it into a blessing. Amen.
PRAYER TO BREAK TERRITORIAL STRONGHOLDS ESPECIALLY GOOD FOR MISSIONARIES For Missionaries traveling and entering territorial strongholds in countries such as China, India, the Middle East, or Africa, especially if entering mausoleums, temples, shrines, or other places of heathen worship. Cover yourself with a prayer such as the following:
Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I take the authority I have received through my blood covenant of salvation by accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I thank You for teaching us our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12). I bind and break the power of any influence of territorial strongholds that may attempt to attach themselves to me as I embark on a journey to serve the Most High God. I bind and break the power of any spell, curse, or incantation from the spiritual realm empowered by the idolatrous and vain worship of Buddha, Hindu gods, Krishna, Allah, Mohammed, local deities, ancestor worship, necromancy, animism, voodoo, witchcraft, idols made with hands, or other false gods. I declare the power of all such forces aligned against me to be null & void. I bind and break the power of any influence of territorial strongholds that have become attached to me due to my service in ministry. I bind and break the power of any influence of territorial strongholds over the areas in which I travel, in which I serve in ministry, and in which I reside. From Satan to the Prince of Persia to the least of the territorial spirits, I speak the mighty name of Jesus Christ over them. I bind and break the power and influence of these territorial strongholds, and call their function null and void, in the name of Jesus Christ. I thank You that he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91). The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe (Proverbs 18:10). And a curse without cause will not come to rest on me (Proverbs 26:2). I thank You that no weapon formed against me will prosper, and I will refute every tongue that accuses me. I thank You this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is our vindication from You (Isaiah 54:17). Thank you, Jesus, for the power of Your name.
Prayer of Repentance for Prior Involvement in any Other Religion or Spiritual Practice or Teaching
Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I come before You. I praise You for making a way for the forgiveness of my sins. I acknowledge that Your Word requires that I repent and ask forgiveness for my sins, in Jesus’ Name. I acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God, slain for the remission of my sins and the sins of the world. I acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God. I believe He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, suffered and died on the cross, was buried, and rose again. He ascended into heaven, where He sits by His Father. Under my Blood Covenant of Salvation, through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I repent of the sin of believing any teaching that does not line up with the Holy Bible, the Word of God. The Scriptures say Jesus Christ became the Word of God (John 1:14; Revelation 19:13). Therefore, I repent of believing anti-christ teachings and entertaining anti-christ and unbiblical thoughts. With the authority I have in my Blood Covenant of Salvation with Jesus Christ, I break the power of all spoken or written oaths, curses, vows, decrees, chants, blood sacrifices, and rituals. I repent of the sin of receiving or aligning with these anti-christ oaths, curses, vows, or decrees. I repent of the sin of participating in any anti-christ chants, blood sacrifices, or rituals of any description. I repent of the sin of receiving any anti-christ attachments to my mind, intellect, heart, feelings, and emotions. I repent of the sin of receiving and agreeing with unbiblical principles, teachings, and spiritual deceptions. I acknowledge these have caused attacks on my physical body, mental wellbeing, relationships, and finances. I bind and break the power of all of these ungodly attachments in the mighty Name of Jesus. The Word tells me I am to forgive and bless those who persecute or despitefully use me, as Jesus forgave and blessed. (I Peter 2:21-23; Matthew 5:44). I repent of the sins of anger, unforgiveness, and judgment toward anyone who has mislead or misguided me in any way, in the Name and Blood of Jesus Christ. I pray that you bless them and open their eyes to your truth. Thank You, Heavenly Father, that through my acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and my acknowledgement that He is the only Way to You, I become an heir to the promises of Abraham (Galatians 3:29). I stand in faith and believe that all Your promises are Yes and Amen, through Jesus Christ (II Corinthians 1:20). Amen.
PRAYER FOR MILITARY (Good for anyone)
Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I pray in the authority I have received through my blood covenant of salvation by accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord & Savior. Lord, I ask for Your mercy & protection as I travel in obedience to orders during my service in the Military. I acknowledge & repent of my sins. I ask You to forgive me & wash away my sin by the shed Blood of Jesus. Your Word says as I confess & repent of my sins, You are faithful & just to forgive me & purify me from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9). This causes my prayers to be righteous, powerful, & effective (James 5:16). I bind & break the power of every influence of territorial strongholds that have attached or seek to attach themselves to me as I serve in the Military. I bind & break the power of every influence & assignment from territorial strongholds & other demonic powers as I travel from place to place during training & tours of duty, & embark on every change of assignment & change of residence. I call the function of each of these territorial strongholds & demonic powers to be null & void. In the Name of Jesus, I bind & break the power of the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning and is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44). I bind & break the power of every such assignment of the devil that would cause or seek to cause physical injury, mental torment, or death to me. I bind & break every assignment of calamity, destruction, sudden death, & suicide by any person. I bind every lying tongue that would persuade a person to commit suicide. I call the function of every such demonic assignment null & void, in the mighty Name of Jesus. I bind & break the power of the enemy to steal the Lord’s call on my life or rob me of the blessings of His covenant promises, including health & a full life span (Exodus 23:25-26). Jesus stated, “The thief comes only to steal & kill & destroy; I have come that they may have life, & have it to the full.” (John 10:10). Thank You, Jesus, for health and a full life span. LORD, (you) are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. I call out to the LORD, & he answers me from his holy mountain. I lie down & sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me. I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side. Arise, LORD! Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked. From the LORD comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people. (Psalm 3). Lord, You know when I sit & when I rise; You discern my going out & my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways (Psalm 139:2-3). You will never leave or forsake me. (Deut.31:6; Hebrews 13:5) Lord, thank you for teaching us to put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). I stand strong in the Lord & Your mighty power. I put on the full armor of God, so I can take my stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggles are not against flesh & blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world & against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore I put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, I may be able to stand my ground, & after I have done everything, to stand. I stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around my waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, & with my feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, I take up the shield of faith, with which I can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. I take the helmet of salvation & the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And I pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers & requests. With this in mind, I am alert & always keep on praying for all of Your people. Thank You, Lord, for teaching me to pray & trust You for protection for my body, soul & spirit (1Thess.5:23). I thank You that no weapon formed against me will prosper (Isaiah 54:17). In the mighty Name of Jesus Christ, I bind & break the power of every spell, curse, blasphemy, & incantation from the spiritual realm empowered by the idolatrous & vain worship of Allah, Mohammed, Buddha, any Hindu deities, local deities on any continent, ancestor worship, necromancy, animism, voodoo, witchcraft, idols made with hands, or any other false gods. Further, I declare the power of all such spiritual forces aligned against me to be null & void. I declare I will dwell in the shelter of the most High & rest in the shadow of the Almighty. In the mighty Name of Jesus, I declare I will not fear for the terror by night, the arrow that flies by day, the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. I will say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and I will make the Most High my dwelling, & no harm will overtake me, no disaster will come near my tent (Psalm 91:1-10). I declare null & void the assignment of post-traumatic stress disorder against me & all military personnel. I declare the threefold cord of feaanxiety & trauma & torment will not destroy us. I bind & break the power of all traumatic & stressful experiences of warfare. In the mighty Name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, I speak His peace, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts & your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7). Lord, I ask You for the continuing ability to cast my daily cares upon You, as You direct me to do: “casting all your cares [all your anxieties, all your worries, & all your concerns, once & for all] on Him, for He cares about you [with deepest affection, & watches over you very carefully]” I Peter 5:7 (Amplified). In the Name of Jesus, I declare these attacks will not destroy or harm my body, emotions, mind, or will. The enemy’s schemes for evil, terror, & ongoing torment in my life, I declare to be impotent before the Lord God Almighty in Heaven above. Lord, I stand on Your Word, which promises “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and love, and a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7 KJV). I ask these things in the Name of my Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Messiah of Israel.
Prayer to break Masonic Curses and Attachments: https://boblucyministries.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Prayer-to-Break-Masonic-Curses-and-Attachments-2024.pdf
Prayers courtesy of boblucyministries.org

This is a sequal to u/uktabi's Yulpa GF one shot, since he seems to LAZY to make a sequel. (that's a joke, god I'm so tired its almost 3am as I write this god fucking dammit why did i do this to myself)
He was originally inspired by u/FrostedScales' art., (God, please make a cover for this I want one so fucking baaaaaaad)
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I make my way into my house, a small part of me is hoping for relief from the harsh Savannah heat. Only to be brought back to my unpleasant reality of my house being just as hot and dry as the outside.
Ugh, why do I willingly live in this hellish place without AC?
I hear mewing and tapping hooves getting closer, a small blood red calf comes running towards me and runs circles around me. I extend my free hand and she readily forces her head into it, wrapping her tongue, upper and lower lip around it to return the gesture of connection. The barbs irritate my skin, but she's old enough now not to unintentionally draw blood.
I look down at the pleading eye, happy to see me again.
Ah, right. While I'm in hell she's in paradise, I guess I’ll have to suck it up for her.
I give her a closed lip smile and rub her ears.
“Hi honey, how was school?” She inflates her nostrils and begins to talk to me in learned English. It is… unsettling how accurately she can mimic almost anyone with only her nose. I am reminded of that fact as she speaks in my voice.
“Good, bunny lunch was.” I forced down an indignant laugh at the child's broken grammar. It seems Yulpa are able to understand words, but grammar doesn't seem important to them. I remember how off puttingly dense their spoken language is, they can communicate in infra sound over vast distances. Their phrases were spoken in single words, so a single “word” was a bit of a conversation. Like “Over the river” or ”up the tree is food.”
It was insane how dense their language was.
“Do you know if mom is back?” The little head in my hand nodes while still wrapped around me.
“Garden she eating is.”
I rub her head one more time before I make my way out the back door. The child quickly scampered off to do who knows what.
Out in the back I see her, draped in golden jewelry, with a well maintained main, green cloth and jewels to accentuate her natural deep red coat. She was laying down with what looked like roughage in her maw. She was absentmindedly chewing and staring off into space.
I walked over and rested myself against her side, I let her breathing rise and lower me. Being in the presence of such a large person really made me feel how insanely varied our body masses were. Despite being married and … constituting it, we had to sleep in separate beds, lest she roll onto me and I die of suffocation or all my bones breaking.
I absentmindedly picked some grass and twirled it around. “So, what's wrong?” She rolled her eyes towards me.
“Hungry.” She spoke in perfect English, I looked down at the grass I began to weave together.
“You need to get the cure.” She raised her massive head ever so slightly. “No, betrayal, life lived one way. Too late, already sacrificed too many.” She blows out her nose.
I grab more grass and weave it into the mass I was creating. “I thought I was too old, set in my ways to be married when we met. But now look at us.” I point to the child in the window clearly talking to someone on the home computer. “I’m glad you hunted me, forced me into this. If you didn't I'd still be a lonely S.O.B. jacking it to venlil stuff right now.”
She flicks an ear. “I wanted sacrifice YOU.“ She spoke.
I smirked as I continued to weave. “Yeah but ya didn't. Cause I’m just so sexy!!!”
I can feel a ruble as she laughed, I didn't notice the twitching of her neck mussels as she swung her head over to slap my head with her upper lip. “Ow!!!” I screamed at the surprising strength of the dexterous lip.
I will never get used to how she can hold me like a rag-doll with just her lip. Nor do I want to.
As I nursed my wounded pride I placed the straw hat on her head. “Besides, this is a better use for the hay than causing you pain.”
She breathed out sharply and made a sound only a multi-ton mammal can produce.
“Okay, me get cure.”
I smiled and rubbed her ears, she adjusted the hat I made for her and rested her head on the ground once more.
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**\*
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She seemed antsy as she rocked back and forth, she was making a loaf of herself on the ground. But she could still reach up to my face with her lips as I sat down in a chair beside her.
The waiting room of the Xeno walk-in clinic reminded me more of the vets as species of every size and shape sat in chairs meant for humanoids, or sat on the ground or in perches or, rarely, species specific chairs. Though they were a rarity, a luxury whose expense was used for the most populous non-human species in the area.
Most of which were in a separate waiting room. I saw a family of Farsul enter it, opening the door to the KolSul wing of the clinic. Most everyone in the office instantly scowled when the mother and her pups walked through. They got both the separate wing and specialty chairs as they were by far the most populous Xenos on earth. Thanks to resentment building to massive levels all across the S.C. pushing them here.
I ran my hand through her main, careful to not undo any braids or tug any of her excessive adornments.She was still shifting this way and that as we waited to be called on. I spied a venlil with a deep scowl near the door of the separate wing, he seemed to be wearing a coat. Something highly unusual for his species, especially in this climate.
“Hello uh, we are not sure you… should be seeking care here.”
I was jolted out of my observations by a young farsul attendant addressing me.
“What?” She seemed to stammer.
“We, uh, are a xeno clinic, we specialize in ailments for non humans. Since we are on a human majority planet, human specialty clinics are open here. They can give you much better focused care."
I stared at the young farsul for a few moments, I studied her nervous stance. She seemed to resemble a great Pyrenees breed of dog. I continued to stare for a couple of seconds, enough to make the awkward situation even worse before I shook myself out of it.
“Oh, uh, I’m not here to receive care, my wife is.” I run my hand through her main and look down at her. This is the most nervous I've ever seen her in all my years with her. “She recently got the cure injection and is here to test it out in case something goes wrong.”
The farsul then takes on a deeply confused expression, snapping her head between me and her in quick succession. “...You two… are married?”
I smile and straighten my back and respond in the most enthusiastic voice I can muster. “Yep!!!”
She continued her confused expression before resigning herself. “...Alright then, I’ll get her tested… just follow me.” She turns as she reads our file, we were heading to a farm outside of town to test her on some authentic meat. As we exited the office I tapped her shoulder. “By the way, I saw a venlil by the Kolsul section door, I think is planning something bad.”
She took on a look of annoyed apathy, as though it was a daily occurrence. “Oh, him. Don't worry security is on their way to search him, you'd be surprised how many expats from Scalga we get.”
She rubbed the back of her head and I could barely make out something she whispered. “Not nearly as weird as a human yupla couple, Jesus Christ.”
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**\*
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There, the object of my fearless and terrifyingly powerful wife's hesitation. A single skinned chicken leg, sitting on a metal table. The farsul nurse was making superficial vital checks on her as she stared at the drumstick.
Her lips were curled under her chin.
“Common honey. It's not going to bite you.” I say to comfort her. She glances at me with a look of I don't want to do this, why did i let you convince me to do this onmygodi’mgoingtosacrificeyouyousonofabit-
Her simultaneous death stare/ pleading eyes were pulled away as the farmer spoke at us.
“Eat it and get off my property, I got enough animals to take care of. Don't need two more.” He pointed to my wife and the farsul nurse, they both gave him a scowl as he turned back into his house.
She gently unrolls her lips and tentatively brings out her barbed tongue and wraps it around the drumstick. She brings it into her mouth and I hear a series of slow crunches.
The farsul nurse looks over at her medical doodad as she chews.
“Hmm, it seems everything is in order, the cure has taken and she is handling the meat fine. Just call our clinic if she seems to be having-”
My focus was pulled away from the nurse as I saw my wife's eyes light up from the taste. She looked at the ground at the pecking chicken that was so near. I could hear her imitate the clucking of the chicken, I saw it shoot up and looked confused. Before my wife coils it in her tongue and quickly brings it into her maw, I hear crunching again and a loud gulp. She looks around at the pens and she spies a pig.
She stalks towards it and I can hear her imitating the pigs, she steps over the fence and quickly grapples the approaching pig and bites down hard on its head. I can see her tongue quickly strip the skin off as her lips dig in with their own bards to force the corpse up and into her mouth.
I stare in shock at the display, by this time the other pigs notice the smell of blood and my wife devouring one of their companions and they quickly run to the farthest corner of the pen.
Before I know it the corpse is gone, she licks her lips and walks back over to us.
“-mitochondrial flux drive. As long as that looks good over the next week you should be all set!”
“I , uh, she ate a pig! D-did you see that?” I point to my wife cleaning herself of the mud of the pen.
'Yes, you'd be surprised how suddenly ravenous former omnivores get when they get their appetites fulfilled for the first time, heck I remember I ate a guinea pig when I got cured I was so hungry!’
I wave my arms about. “SHE ATE AN ACTUAL PIG AND YOUR NOT ONE BIT IMPRESSED OR SCARED???”
She turned her gaze to my wife, who was currently spying yet another pig in the corner. “I’ve seen yulpa do it before, trust me, get used to her eating vast amounts of meat.”
I looked at the simultaneously nervous and unimpressed Farsul. I was still reeling from my wife's actions, but decided to deal with them another time. “O-okay”
“Good, now I'd suggest you get her to not eat another. The farmer will definitely notice two pigs missing.” She begins to laugh in her throat. “Heh, I guess he’ll have two less animals to take care of after today heh.”
As we rode back to the clinic my wife was fast asleep in a food coma. The way she just… ate that thing so fast… I think I have to worry about being eaten now. It felt… oddly exhilarating, like when she was still trying to convince herself to sacrifice me all over again.
I think I might have a problem.

First/Previous
Since I knew there was a time before, I’ve wanted it, but that was child’s hope; even as a boy I wanted a dream. I wanted some divine being to enter from heaven and tell us all how it should be, but that wasn’t something I could ever count on—of course. Is there a god? I think so. I’ve seen those things and if they exist, then surely there’s a maker on the other end of it—god made both the light and the dark if the word’s to be believed and all we can hope for is a glimpse of the former. Even for a second.
The streets were soaked with blood and so many artillery rounds were fired into the sky—many I witnessed missed Leviathan—that I forgot what silence was like (not to mention the screams and there was a lot of that).
In the scrambling, I found I was reentering deeper into Golgotha and that wasn’t good. There was the ever-present thought that Maron was around every corner; the man had haunted my thoughts for longer that he should have and every time it was like an overwhelming force. It was simple enough after all, he was a piece of the past, a piece I could theoretically reach out and touch and that was what kept me to him.
In the fray of bolting citizens, I pressed myself to the exterior of a wall—I’d neared the stairs which once led to my apartment—and I kept out of the way of those that mindlessly went; some of those which rushed from the onslaught were those afflicted with skitterbugs and many of them either hobbled on blackened legs or—and this was rare—comrades or family helped to carry those which could not carry themselves. It was a baffling sight. A man carried a woman like a child (her toes had fallen off and her legs were black to the knees) and though he strode on with her, his own boots were caked with a mixture of blood and earth. An older girl led a young boy from the whirlwind of dust which was kicked up in the square; the boy’s eyes were whited, and his hands were curled to his chest, discolored. People, whatever duality there is, cared. There was not a drop of the apathy I’d learned and encouraged in myself.
I chewed like a mad dog through my bindings, and it was of little use; I yanked at the cord which secured my hands together and received rope burn in return. “Bitch!” I cussed the thing, but the flames in the sky were so loud, the bangs and vibrations from the artillery consumed all so it was like yelling in a barrel. I swung my hands out in front of me, feeling useless and felt a sudden urge to try again. I bit into the cord and repetitively motioned my jaw against the pressure of the cord, like I was going to saw through it with my teeth. Ha! Another yank is what brought my left hand free, but not without tearing a triangle of skin away from my wrist.
The cord dropped to my feet, and I looked around; a woman brushed past me, nearly toppled over my foot and I caught her by the wrist before she went head-over. She violently thrust from my grasp and screamed something at me. Another bout of flames burst from Leviathan’s maw as it circle-dove overhead. The heatwave from the blast exploded across my face so that I recoiled from the sky itself till I was on the ground, and I pushed myself from the earth and ran half dog-like from my place there at the wall. Where? It was hard to say where when every person that touched-by seemed to send me in another direction; in the madness, it was impossible to tell my course.
With time and effort, I found my way to the opening where the hydro towers were, three pillars which rose above Golgotha’s skyline, each one a testament to human resilience—engineers laborers toiled untold hours under Lady’s father to construct them. The hydro towers exploded into rubble as Leviathan slammed into them. Rock rained down as cutting shards and destructive boulders. A man lay beside my feet where he'd been pinned by the onslaught—white concrete kept him there by his chest—he gasped for air and blood already formed around him. In a moment, I looked away at the dying man, his half-whited eyes bulging at me. Meat hung from the left side of another man’s face as he cradled his head in his hand and moved like he was stoned and sat among the stomping feet; he slumped into the spot he sat and did not move till others came by him in a hurry and he simply fell onto his side like a toy animal.
The screams were too much. I looked to the towers, the nubs which had broken away like bad teeth against the red sky, and whole people fell alongside the rubble, limbs and showers of blood and Leviathan latched atop the towers and rocked its massive body so that the structures slipped directly from their foundations and tumbled over like pins. I ran and again there was nothing but chaos, nothing but mind-numbing wilder thoughts—it was grim and there wasn’t a place for coherency; it was all snaps of images.
In the mess of bumbling limbs, I pushed through to the hall of Bosses and there were people there already, rushing the stairs; the ground shook and I assumed it must’ve been the towers. The things demolished all in their path, and briefly, I saw the ramshackle structures which normally stood in their shadows come slanting over and people leapt from those places too and landed poorly and there was a cacophony of tremors through the earth—it felt as though hell should open.
The steps at the base of the hall were flooded and it was a fight to climb them as legs came high up from ahead and swiped at those behind and I kept my hands ahead of me to block whatever foot may come my way.
Wall men stood ready with their rifles at the tops of those steps and fired their weapons indiscriminately into the crowd. Bodies, big and small, piled atop the steps after a brief bullet dance and it came that I wasn’t only climbing stairs, but corpses; the warmth of their flesh as I clawed ahead remained and blood fog hung in the air. That grouping of wall men, casually lined before the doors of the hall were overtaken and they disappeared, their rifles cackled and came alive with muzzle flashes and the animal hands of the horde brought them to ground.
Us, the horde, funneled through those front doors and for a moment, in the thick walls of the hall, the outside world audibly disappeared; the blood and dust remained, but it was quieter save the shuffling feet and cusses of passersby I was carried deeper.
Those that worked the underground went quickly and I followed, and those ignorant followed for the sake of survival and it was not long till we stumbled into the Boss’s lair. With room, people dispersed like water through the tunnels and found dark recesses to tend their wounds or mourn whatever was lost and the explosive open air had been fully replaced by the quiet black oppressive mumbles of people taking stock of all those that had died. And all those that would. Every few moments, the walls shook, and dust fell from the ceiling fixtures.
A few haggard folks moved to the doorway which led to the damp room which led to the kitchen, and they slammed the door shut and latched it and began to check adjacent rooms for things to barricade the way.
“Stop!” said a man in the dim flickering underground light—I was surprised to see the man was me, “Leave it open! Others might need help.” I retraced my steps to the small faction that’d gathered there at the doorway. “You can’t just let them die out there. Let them in.”
“Shut up!” a skinny girl with her hair pulled back on her malnourished skull spoke gruffly; she choked, coughed—dust clung to her clothes—she’d been near the collapse of the hydro towers if I guessed. “Step off, or I’ll—
“Or you’ll what?” I shouted.
The girl put up her fists, two lumpy stones, and in stupid response I closed the distance between us. With speed, her fist met my nose, and I stumbled back on my heel.
Without hesitation, I brought up my own hands and landed a blow to her stomach. She craned forward, gasped on repeat, and took a knee.
Blood wet my upper lip, and I wiped it away with my forearm.
“Move,” I said to the others by the door; there were two: a woman and a boy that was nearly a man.
The boy charged headstrongly, attempted a kick and I easily shoved his small frame against the tunnel wall; the hard metal sounded a meaty thud against his body and the woman launched unseen at me, raked her nails down the back of my neck, and tore at my collar. I kept a forearm to the boy’s throat and rocked his head with my free elbow. Once he wept and spit red, I let him go; the boy slid into a sit and I spun on the woman, shoving her away. My left leg began to give, and I used the wall over the boy’s head as support. I swung at her with a wild claw and my fingertips grazed her nose as she fell away to the opposite wall.
“Stop it!” I shouted.
She launched at me, and my leg gave out under her tackle, and I stumbled half-on the boy, my feet kicked helplessly at her, and the boy regained his composure and began to crawl towards me. We wrestled and then the girl I’d knocked in the gut rejoined the fray. I was done. They had me pinned and spat curses at me and took turns shoving my head into the floor.
“You’re going to get us killed,” shouted the woman, “Are you stupid?”
I grinded my teeth and tried to throw them off; I was overpowered and easily pressed down again.
The overhead lights flickered with another deep earthy vibration and the trio let go of me in an instant—I came up swinging my arms like crazy and as I went to kneel before propelling myself to stand, a hand rested on my shoulder. I spun on the hand and was met with the black mouth of a 9mm pistol—that froze me fast.
The owner of the weapon—a wall man by the look of her fatigues—motioned for me to stand and I did. Her eyes were far off and nervous and the metal shook in her outstretched hand. “Against the wall!” she barked at us; she was small-framed and youthful but full grown, and I could easily push her out of my way if not for the pistol. We went to the wall, and she moved to the door while keeping the gun drawn on us. She watched us and glanced at the door. “It’s latched! Who latched the door?” She asked.
No one spoke. The other three looked to their feet; I initially refused to rat, and snorted blood—my nose throbbed and by touch I could tell it swelled already.
“Well? Why’s it closed?” she asked the question more like a desperate child than a person with control. “C’mon!” The 9mm rolled limply on her wrist as she said the word, like she was attempting to draw the confession from us with the motion.
“There’s an attack. They’re killing everyone,” said the boy.
The girl and woman nodded.
“Who?” asked the wall man.
“Demons, muties,” said the boy, “Big stuff. Everyone’s dying.”
The ground shook as if to emphasize his point.
The wall man studied us for a moment, lingering last on me and for the longest and she took a long breath and let the sigh out dramatically slow. “I know you,” she motioned at me with the gun, “You’re that maniac. The one that tried to murder everyone.” Her eyes fell then returned and she put her weight on the door while maintaining the barrel of the gun eye-level in my direction.
“I ain’t gonna’ hurt anyone,” said. I briefly thought about smiling but decided that’d look worse.
“How do I know that?” she asked.
“Yeah,” said the boy, “He tried to kill us already!” His voice cracked with adolescence; the blood I’d spilled from his mouth coated the front of his holey shirt.
The trio nodded all together—everyone agreed that I was a maniac killer.
“They latched it,” I said, “Cowards.”
A thump came from the other side of the door which frightened the wall man and she leapt from the spot she’d leaned—it took several full seconds to realize her gun went off; there was a flash, and my ears rang. I stumbled from the knot of people and slunk a couple of feet from the space by the door. The girl—the one I gut-punched—collapsed to the floor while holding the right side of her face. The women crowded the girl, panicked, the boy sprinted past me and disappeared deeper into the underground, and the wall man stood there with a wretched blank expression. There was a long moment which hung in the air; I could not hear and then it came back, and it was the girl’s screams I heard first.
Upon stepping to them, I saw the prone girl had been shot just so—through the cheek. Her eyes rolled from likely spinal damage; whatever the angle, it seemed to have ripped through irreparable nerves and she bled a lot. There wasn’t any hope for that girl.
“Well,” I said to the wall man, “Finish it. No reason to make her suffer.”
The girl on the ground writhed unnaturally and caterwauled while the woman by her side attempted to calm her.
Greater became the sound of the belabored hands on the other side of the door; then a hollow-sounding gunshot came from the other side; were they shooting the door? Or each other? Another round—human screams.
The wall man shook her head. “I didn’t mean it. It was an accident.”
I tried to hold the wall man’s gaze, but she didn’t seem able.
With speed, I moved to the wall man, reached for the gun which dangled helpless by her side—her initial response was to flinch, pull the weapon from my reach; our eyes locked and I clenched my jaw. She could’ve killed me. There wouldn’t have been surprise from me if she had.
She let go of the gun and I nodded, and she nodded and the woman kneeling by the girl threw herself over her. “Please,” protested the woman, “Please don’t!”
With the aid of the pistol, I was given space, and nothing was said. I mentally prepared myself for the ringing which accompanied gunfire in small spaces, even tilted my head away with my free palm up and took aim and the girl jerked once then went still.
With the ringing going and sound returning, the drumming on the door returned, as well as the quiet weeps of the woman; she crawled to the wayside of the hall, pressed her back against the wall and rested her chin on her knees with her arms around her shins. She didn’t rock to or fro and hardly made any noise at all. But the small and quiet sobs remained faintly there.
First/Previous
Archive

Hello the last few days since summer began I've been noticing my dog hump one of his stuffed animals when he gets back from his walks. He was neutered when we got him and hes around 3 and a half years old. I never really noticed these behaviours or thought about them since up until now I had always been at university when he goes to walk and the past 5 years I would help some of the bio professors with studies during the summer. Since I had never seen it before and since this was the first time my family has ever had a pet, the thought of my dog humping never really crossed my mind. I asked my mom about it an she said that when he was younger sometimes he did it, but now he only really does it when he gets home from walks and he has been doing it more often lately, she says she just tries to redirect his attention when he does it. My dog has never humped other dogs except for 1 or 2 times that i can think of when he was younger. Basically im asking what exactly do I do? Im concerned that redirecting him might be like robbing him of his sexuality, since I figure it would suck ass if someone told me I couldnt jerk off anymore. But on the internet people seem to say that its not sexual its just cause they are excited but then some other sources claim otherwise, or that its bad habit forming. Every once and a while ive seen my dog with erections but i always just leave him alone when that happens. My mom said that hes only ever really humped to "completion" once when she was on the phone and not paying attention, she said that after he just had a long erection hanging out of his penis for 15 or so minutes and looked sad until it eventually retracted back into his penis. (Not sure if these last 2 things have been relevant, just added them just in case they are) Im just not really sure what to do. All I know is that I want to do what is best for my dog.

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The following two brain scans were provided by the Neuro-Warfare branch of the Halcyon Security Division (HSD) for the purpose of analyzing the thoughts, behaviors, and information of notorious gangsters Vincent 'Troy' Cohen and Bruno (Deadname: Koraak Tel-Char). At the point of the recording of this archival shared, Bruno has since received his rebirth therapy, and Vincent is currently serving a long-term rehabilitative and reeducative sentence in the Erebus Supermax Prison on Io.
Warning: the contents of this archival shared may be especially disturbing to some audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.
Warning: the contents of this archival shard are for the sole purpose of analyzing the thought patterns and memories of certain degenerate criminals in an effort to ascertain vital information that can be used to eliminate their organizations. Only staff with clearance level Omega may view this archival shared, and the viewership of this archival shared by anyone of inadequate clearance level will lead to twenty years in prison and a fine of over a hundred thousand credits.
Booting up memory scan: Vincent 'Troy' Cohen, November 4th, 2446…
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning archival shard presentation…
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"Do you have visuals of the target, Troy?"
I knelt down in the alleyway, the bodies of me and my partners shrouded in long, waterproof, ashen-gray overcoats the shade of dirty street scum that we wore to ward off the constant heavy rainfall the color of osmium. Our faces were covered in a mix of scrapped respirators, visors, or full metal face masks carved with intricate designs to hide our identities. On our waists were our badges of honor: leather belts studded with interlocked rivets made from blackened titanium, each buckle forged of silver and shaped into the head of our gang's symbol, the black mamba. We hid amongst the shadows of the dark midday of Halcyon City, the heavy, oppressive rains blanketing the roads paved obsidian-black with asphalt and weathered concrete walkways. The street lamps were always on, like beacons of false hope in a storm of melancholy.
The city was dark and dreary as always, the planet of Proxima Centauri B, renamed Dawn's Lamentation over a century ago, orbited the red dwarf star of Proxima Centauri, and the atmosphere was thick with natural smog and ever-storming rain clouds. That didn't dissuade people from living here: there was plenty of money to be had for shrewd industrialists and hardworking pioneers, even in the urban sprawl. But that life also came with risks, especially for those on the bottom of the totem pole.
I was a ganger, and we were criminals; full stop. I won't assault you with some spiel about how we're the good guys fighting oppression because, at the end of the day, we could be just as bad, if not worse, than Halcyon's Security Division, or the HSD for short. We were traffickers, killers, extortionists, and money launderers. We dealt with everything from stolen tech and military-grade hardware to hard drugs and sentients.
Yes, sentients. We trafficked sentients, but not in the way you might think. They weren't prisoners, in fact, we were their saviors if they had the cash. We had developed a reputation for fighting the power, but it was still business: sure, freeing captives from the clutches of the Protectorate. The disruption of its many oppressive organizations held a certain satisfaction in my heart for sure, but we didn't help those who couldn't pay unless someone else paid on their behalf. It was about making sure me and my gang, my family, could live a decent life for another day.
It helped that most of us joined after leaving the state yard for partaking in acts of 'degeneracy' and 'anti-xenopet illegalities' as if those terms meant anything anymore other than that we were a threat to the local status quo. It was hard to pick up a job as a former inmate when even in something as harsh and backbreaking as a job in the iridium mines near the poles when the employment office had you blacklisted as a degenerate, which lead to the formation of many of the gangs: we needed to make a living somehow, and when all social programs were cut off from you unless you submitted for 're-education' and the only way to put food on the table was subverting, breaking, or even downright fighting the law, you did what you had to do or you died on the streets a scorned beggar.
It wasn't like the HSD made it easy for us on even a good day: the local HSD units were armed to the teeth with advanced, military-grade hardware that you'd often see on the front lines of the Second Authority War: armored assault transports, a myriad of advanced war droids, all sorts of chemical countermeasures that made tear gas seem like putting the garden hose on mist mode, and of course advanced firearms. Add that to the fact that they were authorized to use deadly force when they deemed it necessary and you had a ruthless, heartless, and nearly unstoppable enemy. But we could make that work: we weren't trying to stop them, just to withstand them.
"Yeah, I got eyes on the prize, Koraak; seven armored transports, two for droids, five for prisoners."
Today wasn't a day for a normal job: we were getting bolder, cockier, more ambitious. Our numbers had swelled for the last few years after the raid at Barnard's Star and the fall of the Blood Dragon Mafia. Their leader, Saito Yasuhide, had committed seppuku as their manor burned, and his twin sons had gone down fighting rather than allowing themselves to be captured simply to face a firing squad. In the aftermath, many of the family's associates had fled to the surrounding systems, and with the sheer size and scope of the criminal underworld found here, it was no wonder that many people who had developed skills of the less legal variety had decided to form ranks with the gangs, and with them they brought guns, tech, knowledge, contacts, and even something that we thought wasn't possible beforehand: a semblance of peace between the gangs, or at least the closest thing to peace that gangs could cultivate effectively. With the fall of the Blood Dragons, we saw the writing on the wall, and the writing couldn't have been clearer: work together or die together.
"Sounds like a massacre, Troy: are you sure we can handle seven?"
"We ain't got no choice, Cinder: this job's double the usual rate, and that's not including the weapons and gear we could scrounge if this goes well," I hissed, my eyes scanning for any resistance. There were at least four guards for each van, not to mention at least eight droids in total, meaning that we were already outnumbered, but we had the element of surprise: we could make it work. "So put your balls in your purse and get ready to spill some blood."
Koraak snorted at our antics, which sounded like someone pulling the ripcord on a lawnmower. He was a veteran Russu Corsair, and while his past of slaving, raiding, and killing was unsavory, so were the lives we'd lived, so who were we to judge? All we cared about was that he was a brutal and capable fighter and a loyal brother in arms. It turned out that being a ganger wasn't much different from being a Corsair: you lived and died by a code of honor, you fought to the death for your brothers, and you lived to die for the sake of your gang and your family, simple as that. In a strange, ironic way, it was an incredibly honest way of life: we were under no illusions as to what we were, what we did, and why we did it, and we'd long since accepted it. The Russu related to us in that aspect, in many ways I could respect, which is why I hated what the Protectorate was doing, and why I couldn't grasp how most of humanity could just collectively lose their marbles so long ago. What had happened for us to deem all other life below us in such a demeaning and infantilizing way?
The Russu were a race of tall, muscle-bound Saurians with avian features, and Koraak was no exception: reaching almost seven feet in height and weighing over four hundred and fifty pounds, he could be an absolute menace if he so desired. His skin was covered in stubby, knobby scales and dense plumage, with elegant feathers adorning the ridges along his back as well as his forearms, elbows, knees, and the crests on his head. He almost looked like how paleontologists described velociraptors, with razor-sharp talons, feathers shaded in vibrant greens, reds, and purples, and a maw full of sharp teeth, but at the tip of his snout was a sharp, beak-like growth meant for ripping flesh off the bone.
The Russu were strange as hell, but they also looked almost cute in the same way a fully grown alligator was cute: they were obviously dangerous, but humans would always have this innate desire to anthropomorphize them and to pet them for some inexplicable reason, although common sense usually prevented that, at least amongst the very few of us left that were sane.
"Shut up, Troy! All I'm saying is that that'll be rough, and you know it," hissed Cinder. Cinder was a tall black man whose coffee-colored skin was covered in tattoos. He wore an ebony mechanic's jumpsuit with metal inserts underneath his grimy overcoat covering his body and a faded black respirator on his face. His eyes were a startling blue that seemed sorely out of place, and his hair was braided into thick cornrows along his scalp. He wore a pair of heavy black combat boots and palmed his compact shotgun in his hands, the square barrel less than seven inches. Like a lot of the weapons the Black Mambas carried on their persons and dealt in, they fired caseless ammunition; in Cinder's case it was 16x40mm caseless shotshells filled with depleted uranium micro-flechetes no thicker than a toothpick. Cinder nervously fiddled with the detachable tube magazine underneath the barrel, his hands shaking. Despite the shit I have him, I didn't blame him for being anxious: I was anxious too, even if I refused to show it. The biting cold of unease and pessimism was in my stomach, and I ran all the way that this job could go wrong in my head over and over.
"Just hold yourself together, this ain't anything we haven't done before, there's just more of it," I reassured Cinder, "besides, we're not alone; we have reinforcements across the street. We'll make it out of this alive."
Cinder nodded almost absentmindedly, his eyes downcast and his breathing shallow. I turned from him and back to Koraak, who was making sure he had everything on his person; he had a synthetic leather bandoleer across his chest that contained the heavy eight guage depleted uranium slugs he kept loading and unloading into his much larger, longer, and more traditional shotgun he nicknamed ‘carnage’ and several leather straps that held his Tu'shan daggers: traditional Russu pyramidal blades forged from a silvery alloy with all three edges serrated and the tip barbed to leave behind horrible, gaping wounds that gushed blood. They were wickedly sharp and absolutely straight like a stiletto, and the hilts and pommels were beautifully decorated. He wore no clothes underneath his overcoat to cover the countless scars and blemishes he's earned in combat across his chest and abdomen, and instead of a normal respirator or visor, he simply wore a hood over his head and some traditional Russu facial armor to protect his mouth, eyes, and cheeks.
"You ready to fight, Koraak? The caravan will pick up and leave soon."
Koraak was silent for a moment before nodding, a human gesture he had picked up after serving as a soldier with the Black Mambas for years. "I'm always ready to fight," he said before lifting up his shotgun and aiming down the sights at the reinforced front wheels of the first armored car in the caravan. He exhaled and fired, the slug ripping through both front tires and causing them to deflate and fall apart. The echo of the shot rang through the alleyway and the street, causing pedestrians to panic and flee the scene as heavily armored guards poured out of the side doors of the armored cars and unholstered their carbines.
"Go, now!" I shouted, and both me and Cinder rushed out into the fray, our guns raised. Koraak was right behind the two of us, providing covering fire with his shotgun. Several guards fell quickly, Koraak's precise fire and the sheer force of the depleted uranium slugs putting them down for good as their heads were vaporized or their chest cavities were turned to mush. He emptied the tube with one final shot that painted the grey matter of a security guard on the door of one of the armored cars, then racked the shotgun and expertly loaded it in threes, his hands deft and agile as he reached for more slugs faster than any human.
With the cacophony of our initial assault, more Black Mambas poured out from the alleyways and the subways, armed to the teeth with all manner of weapons; shotguns, submachine guns, pistols, machetes, baseball bats, and all manner of homemade explosives. Molotovs and more potent concoctions shattered against the asphalt, herding in the caravan guards with their volatile contents as they were quickly gunned down. The assault was working, and we were winning.
Then I heard the robotic whine of a combat droid activating, and my heart sank. One of the armored cars in the back activated the four combat droids it held, the robotic assault units detaching from their charging ports on the sides of the large van and began to form up, each armed with a terrifying array of deadly weapons meant to quash any and all resistance. They were blocky, soulless, utilitarian things that stood at eight feet tall, with flat feet meant for stomping and blades, grasping claws designed to lacerate flesh and shatter bone. On each shoulder was a weapon: on the left was a multi-barrel rotary grenade launcher loaded with 15mm concussion grenades, and on the right was a burst-fire splinter cannon. They were all painted a dull grayish-green, the color of Halcyon's Security Division, although some had a few decorations on them: the one closest to me had a bit of graffiti on the side that said Mr. Hugs in Comic Sans, which I couldn't decide whether that made it more or less terrifying. They split up without hesitation and began to scan the chaotic battlefield, their single, red, beady lenses the security forces had the gall to call eyes focusing on specific targets to eliminate.
An entire group of Black Mambas was torn to pieces by a cloud of flechettes as one of the droids fired a withering three-round burst of shotshells from the four gauge splinter cannon mounted on its shoulder. Another picked up a Black Mamba in its hand and crushed her skull effortlessly before tossing her limp body to the side, its single, red, remorseless robotic eye tracking a new target. Most bullets that struck their thick armored chassis simply bounced off, and those that could pierce the armor didn't seem to phase the droids whatsoever, merely notifying them of a new potential target.
"Damnit," I shouted as I gunned down another guard only for two more to take his place. "Cinder! We gotta pop open the cars and scram! Get the maglock cutters!"
Cinder rushed and slid over through a dirty puddle, pulling out a maglock cutter from the inside of his coat and slipping it onto the back door of the first van. It immediately went to work, drilling through the maglock with a high-powered plasma torch nozzle, and within ten seconds we heard the telltale clunk of the maglock separating. I yanked the door open and ordered I side, ready to escort the prisoners out… only for my face to contort in shock and horror.
The back was empty. There was not a single soul inside of the back brig of the armored car.
"What the fuck…" Cinder gasped, his eyes wide with shock. "What the actual fuck… what the fuck is this, Troy?"
"I… I don't…" I stuttered the sounds of battle and carnage drowned out by the sound of blood rushing in my ears. All five cars were supposed to be filled with recently captured Russu from the front lines ready to be housed in the local Xenopet-Megaplex for processing and conditioning. The fact that this one was empty…
Suddenly, it all hit me at once with the force of a freight train, but it was too late. "We were set up, Cinder; our fucking client either squealed or was crooked to begin with…"
"Fucking bitch!" Cinder shouted as he spun around in an enraged arch, anger growing in his eyes. He aimed his shotgun at an approaching security guard and reduced his upper body to a fine red mist with a cacophony of shotgun blasts. "We gotta get everyone who's left out of here! Do you know what this means? The Jurors will be here soon, and then we're all going down! We gotta go, fuck the job!"
I grit my teeth. Not the Jurors, anything but the Jurors.
"Fine, gather everyone who's left and we'll slip through the sewers, the droids are too bulky to follow us there…"
As I spoke, my eyes wandered to the seventh and final armored car, the second of the droid cars, and my blood froze. Not only were all four ports empty, but they were also smaller and more shallow than the ports for the combat droids. That could only mean one thing.
"Oh fuck! Cinder, we gotta get our Russu members out of here! They've got arachnid droids!"
Arachnid droids were the stuff of nightmares. Resembling blocky, robotic arachnids the size of a manhole cover, they were specifically designed to take down sentient aliens, specifically the Russu, using sickeningly non-lethal means. They were equipped with full-body adaptive cloaking to blend in with their environments, paralytic agents that they could inject into their victims, built-in taser barbs, psychedelic gas ports for crowd-control, and a narrow-coned cacophony canon that disabled the Russu using incredibly high-pitched sounds that only they could hear, forcing them onto their knees and clutching the backs of their heads where their auditory organs were stored in agony. But worst of all was their stygian spinnerets: special ports near the end of their robotic abdomens that excreted a viscous, latex-like substance made up of millions of nano-bots. This substance could be used to render Russu blind, deaf, and mute by having it forced onto their faces, the black substance growing and enveloping their heads and working its way into every orifice. It was completely permeable to the standard atmosphere, but any Russu who had been 'webbed' was completely helpless and essentially captured, and the 'webbing' was both nearly indestructible and nigh impossible to remove without a triple-encrypted override key that was found in every arachnid droid's code, which was corrupted when the droid was destroyed or hacked into. Once you were 'webbed', you were essentially captured and the standard protocol was to leave you to the wolves since the nano-bots could be tracked, endangering the entire gang.
I turned just as I heard the deafening sound of Koraak discharging his shotgun, and I saw him squaring off against one of the assault droids. The droid has obviously been programmed to not use lethal force against Russu if possible, as instead of simply killing Koraak with it's shoulder-mounted splinter cannon, it approached with its claws extended, blades retracted. Koraak continued to back away and fire, pumping the droid full of depleted uranium slugs, its armor crumbling inward as the slugs pierced its chassis and damaged its internal cyberstructure. Eventually, Koraak ran out of slugs and instinctively reached to his bandoleer only to find that he had no more shells left at all, and he drew one of his knives and his sidearm, a simple high-caliber handgun. He tried to take down the droid with his handgun, but the bullets didn't even seem to affect the droid upon penetration, it's claws still extended as it attempted to apprehend Koraak.
In the corner of my vision, as I watched Koraak battle with the droid, I noticed a faint shimmer in the air on one of the black streetlight poles that was right behind him. I focused on it and blinked, believing my eyes had deceived me for a moment before realizing that it was actually a cloaked arachnid droid stalking Korvaak, ready to pounce and incapacitate him.
Before I could shout, it leaped from the pole and landed on Korvaak, causing him to shout in surprise while it began to coagulate its horrifying stygian webbing to disable Korvaak. Korvaak tried to wrestle it off of him, but the droid was agile and fast, clinging onto Korvaak and skittering around across his upper body as he attempted to grab it, forcibly wrapping the sticky black liquid across his face as he gagged like a spider wrapping up a fly. I rushed towards him to try and help, but I felt pain explode in my ribs as I was struck with the arm of the closest combat droid and launched into the chassis of a parked car, the metal denting from the sheer force of impact. I groaned in pain as I saw stars and my head spun, and just then I felt a blinding light be cast over me.
“Drop your weapons and kneel with your hands on your head, or you will be pacified with deadly force!” Shouted a loud, artificially deepened voice from above. “I repeat, drop your weapons and kneel with your hands on your head! Neither hostility nor hesitation will be tolerated!”
It was the Jurors, I could feel the air being pushed around from the thrusters on their drop ships, and I could hear screams and shouts as my fellow Black Mambas were quickly gunned down. I couldn’t see well since I was seeing double, but I could hear the slaughter as my eyes dimmed and I began to lose consciousness, my regrets crawling up my throat like vomit.
I’m sorry was all I could think as everything finally went dark, and the sounds of chaos, destruction, and combat faded away.
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Memory halted due to loss of consciousness. Booting next available memory in shard…
Booting up memory scan: Koraak Tel-Char Bruno, November 5th, 2446…
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning archival shard presentation…
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“Good morning, sleepyhead; it’s time for breakfast.”
My eyes shot open. I was not in the street anymore, nor was I home in my bed with my mate. I knew instantly that something was horribly wrong. I tried to stand up, but I couldn’t gain the leverage to do so: my ankles had been shackled together with magnetic cuffs and my arms were forced together in front of me.
I was wearing some kind of thick shirt. It was warm, fluffy, and comfortable on the inside, but it still made me incredibly uncomfortable that my arms didn’t have a free range of motion. I looked down to see that I was wearing some human garment I had heard about before, a straightjacket maybe?
The entire room was padded: the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. There was no bed or furniture; the floor was soft enough to serve as a bed in itself. There was nothing else except for the soft reddish-orange lights on the ceiling that somehow made me sleepy. I blinked slowly for a moment, my body screaming at me to just lay back down and lose consciousness, but I couldn’t do that: I needed to figure out where I was and how to escape.
Then I noticed who was speaking to me: it was a short human female, with crow's feet around her blue eyes, blonde hair braided down her back, and freckles all over her face. She had a soft smile on her lips, and her forehead was slightly crinkled. She wore a full-body white lab suit with a white overcoat and a pair of glasses for snugly on her face.
"There we go, now I can see those pretty eyes, such a beautiful shade of teal," she cooed softly, "You're such a handsome boy, even with all those scars: I'm sure you'll be adopted very quickly once we get you fixed up."
Fear gripped my heart as I began to piece all the evidence together. I had been captured; I was no longer on Halcyon, and instead, I was in one of the horrific space-born facilities I had heard so much about from the inside agents. I started to hyperventilate and squawk like a newborn hatchling, my eyes dilating in panic. This couldn't be happening! This has to be a nightmare!
The human woman merely wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into an embrace, cradling my head under her chin and speaking softly. I couldn't bite at her or claw at her: I was muzzled and wearing a straight jacket, so I had no choice but to allow her to coddle me.
"It's okay, sweetheart: I understand you're scared, but Julie's here to make all the pain and bad thoughts go away," she said as if she was comforting a child, which made anger blossom in my chest indignantly. "I'll be your caretaker for the next few months, and I'm going to make sure you're healthy, happy, and most importantly safe while you're under our care. I'm sorry to say that includes your restraints and restrictive clothing, but we have to make sure you aren't a threat to yourself or others before we can determine if it's a good idea to remove you from suicide watch."
I growled under my muzzle. Suicide watch? They must have had a lot of instances of Russu taking their own lives after being captured, something I wished I had been able to do before that damnable droid launched itself onto me and…
I shuddered at the thought of the black, viscous substance forcing itself into my nostrils and down my throat and windpipe, gagging me and rendering me completely helpless. It was so cold, so harsh, like slime, and when I had tried to tear it off of my face it merely attached itself to my claws and bound my talons together. I remember squirming on the ground as it enveloped me, unable to see, hear, or speak, and then everything went dark in an instant. It was the most horrible thing I had ever experienced, which was saying something.
"You alright, sweetheart? Oh, I know, you're probably hungry! Here, try some of this." She held up a piece of what looked like raw bacon and wiggled it in front of me before reaching out to remove my muzzle. In an instant, I attempted to snap at her only for pain to blossom in my forehead and my eyes to roll up in my head as I convulsed. It was like something was attempting to drill through my skull from the inside, and every breath felt empty and labored.
"Now, that didn't feel very nice, did it? This is why we have countermeasures in place because we can't trust you yet, sweetheart! Don't worry, we'll work on breaking you of all those bad behaviors and habits while you're here; after all, a well-trained pet is a happy pet!" She began to stroke the crests on my head as I slowly recovered, and she snugly fit the muzzle back onto my snout. "But I won't hold it against you this time, sweetheart; you're just scared and confused, but I'll make all the pain go away."
I struggled in the straight jacket, trying my best to break out of it, but it was no use. Eventually, I became exhausted and despondent, allowing my new caretaker to have her way with me as she gently ran her fingers through my feathers and along my ridges, quietly speaking to me in a hopeless attempt to cheer me up. She seemed genuinely concerned for my well-being, which concerned me even further: who could be this naturally twisted while attempting to be as benevolent and kindhearted as possible?
I felt the pain and terror build up in my chest, the anxiety from what horrific activities I imagined they had planned for me here. I couldn't take the infantilization, the lack of any autonomy, the dehumanization, and what I feared the most was if the rumors of 'rebirth' were true: would they take my personhood from me?
Suddenly, I felt her whisper to me. "Don't worry sweetheart, I know you're so scared and confused, but I promise you everything will be okay: it's going to be your birthday soon, and then everything will get better." She ran her fingers through the feathers along my crest lovingly. "It will be such a wonderful day, and then we'll choose for you the most wonderful family, and you'll spend the rest of your life happy in your forever home! Doesn't all of that sound wonderful?"
I wanted to die. I wanted to disappear. I didn't want to lose myself, not like this, not to these monsters!
"It'll be your birthday soon," she said wistfully as if she was remembering similar events to this in the past like I wasn't the first she'd done this too, "and you'll never be sad again."
I realized that I wasn't the first the stay in this particular cell, and I knew for certain that I wouldn't be the last: I'd end up like my brother, a broken, erased mess of a pathetic creature, reduced to nothing more than a pet for these humans to amuse themselves with.
"We took the liberty of picking out a nice name for you, sweetheart! Now, let me just slip this little programming chip into the port slot on your occipital bone, and... there we go! It will also help you calm down a bit and adjust."
I felt the chip begin to invade my mind, suppressing my thoughts. What made me me was slowly being ripped out of my mind. I couldn't remember my name my name is Bruno, and I needed to get out! I can't let them do this to me! Somebody help me! I was a good boy.
##Do not think. You are a good boy.##
I tried to scream, but my voice wouldn't work: I had trouble forming any words at all, the confusion clouding my mind like wet, slimy eels curling around my brain and sinking their teeth into its folds like needles. I couldn’t scream any longer, because I had nothing left: the chip was slowly beginning to take everything from me, robbing me of my identity and branding a new one into my psyche with a white-hot iron. Julie simply held me close, attempting to reassure me as I awaited the inevitable demise of my personhood. Soon I would be just like my brother: erased. My mind would be shaped into the mind of a loyal plaything, like a Dog.
##Relax. Allow caretaker [Julie] to comfort you. You will let go of your burden.##
Soon, everything was a blur. I quickly found myself resting my head in her lap as she whispered to me and fed me, my eyes bleary and my head fuzzy. I couldn't remember my name anymore My name was Bruno, and I needed to break free from this trance relax, and allow her to help me; good boys didn't resist help.
##Good Boy. Do not think. You are a good boy.##
You can't... I...
##Good boy.##
I wouldn't… good boys don't… I…
##Good boy##
I was a good boy… I was a good boy…
I was… I was… a good… boy…
Someone help me, please! I don't want to be erased!
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The following script is from episode #343 of Halcyon After Dark, a popular late-night and current events talk show hosted by Melinda Carter. This specific episode was sponsored in part by the Halcyon Security Division, with Director Lochlin O'Brien joining as a guest star to talk about the changing crime statistics in Halcyon City and the HSD's recent successes in busting organized crime as well as their plans for addressing the growing criminal underworld.
MC: Good evening Halcyon! I'm your host, Melinda Carter, and you're watching Halcyon's most popular late-night talk show, Halcyon After Dark!
The crowd claps and cheers as Melinda walks on stage and sits behind her desk, her glittering red dress waving as she does so from the special effects.
MC: Tonight we have a very special guest here to tell us about the state of crime in the city and his plans on resolving it: please put your hands together for the HSD's very own Director, Lochlin O'Brien!
The crowd cheers some more as HSD Director Lochlan O'Brien, a tall, muscular, caucasian male in his early forties with red hair and a well-trimmed beard steps into the room, waving at the crowd with a bright smile. He sits in the armchair angled next to Melinda's desk and gives her his full attention.
MC: It's so good to have you on the show, Director! Tell me, how are you doing on this fine evening?
LO: I'm doing excellent, Melinda: every day I wake up feeling fulfilled knowing I'm serving Halcyon to the best of my abilities and then some."
MC: That's the spirit, Director! Now, I know this question is just on everyone's lips, so I have to ask: how successful was the recent gang bust? I heard HSD forces took out dozens of gang members and liberated at least a dozen Russu Hounds from their abusive clutches, but I know that everyone in the audience and at home wants to know the numbers.
LO: I'd be glad to tell you, but I do have to preface this by saying that we still lost a lot of good officers that day, and while we did strike a crippling blow to one of Halcyon's biggest gangs, it doesn't change the fact that each death is a tragedy, and we're taking steps to prevent them in the future. That being said, those valiant officers did not sacrifice themselves in vain: we had over a dozen confirmed kills and several arrests, including the rescue of several corrupted Russu hounds.
MC: That's excellent, Director: proof that even when the number of degenerates and scum grow by the day, the HSD will always be here to keep the citizens of Halcyon safe.
LO: Absolutely, Melinda, and we're always working tirelessly to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our units, as well as racing to stay several steps ahead of the many gangs of Halcyon at all times. My newest goal as Director is to vastly increase the funding given to our Robotics Department and our Neuro-Warfare Department to potentially reduce the number of casualties we may experience in the future, as well as to quickly and effectively detain, and if necessary, eliminate criminals. Within the next decade, I want to double the number of automated units each Security Platoon is assigned: droids are the future of public safety as well as countless other industries, and it would be foolish to be left behind.
MC: That is quite a lofty goal, Director: what about the displaced jobs from the increased automation? What will the union say?
LO: And to that, I say: what misplaced jobs? We aren't replacing our honored and beloved service members with droids, Melinda, we are simply supplementing our units with more droids to ensure that future gang assaults end with fewer HSD casualties and more gang members in prison or eliminated, simple as that.
MC: That makes much more sense, Director, thanks for clarifying. Now, I have one more question that I'm sure much of Halcyon wants to know the answer to before we take a short break: what plans do you and your fellow directors have to make long-term progress in reducing crime beyond just increasing funding? Have you proposed any plans to strike at the source of where crime and degeneracy flourish?
OL: That's an excellent question, and one I am proud to answer: my constituents and I have been working tirelessly on a two-step plan to greatly reduce crime levels in Halcyon. Step one would be to prevent people from becoming criminals and degenerates at all in the first place: a lot of young men and women, but especially young men, have lost either one or both parents or even a sibling, aunt or uncle, or even a close friend by the brutality of the Second Authority War, and while the service of their lost loved ones will always be recognized and honored, many of these young men and women are left bitter, angry and lost without the guidance these people give them in their lives. Oftentimes they seek to fill that void with others who claim to relate to them: career criminals. These criminals will fill their heads with lies and false narratives to make them feel like they're fighting back against the 'evil protectorate government' that took their loved ones from them by sending them off to war when in reality it was the rogue Xenopets of the Triarchy that took them away by resisting their just and inevitable unburdening.
In response, I have proposed a slew of special programs that will make sure local law enforcement and HSD officers are present and contributing to their local community, and we'll be providing easy and light job openings for youngsters and teens looking to make a career for themselves in the force when they grow up. We want to let these lost souls know that there are people who care about them, people who understand them and that you shouldn't turn to degeneracy to feel fulfilled. We want to help the youth of our great society soar to new heights!
MC: That sounds like a wonderful beginning to your plan, Director, but what about the second step?
LO: Well, the second step is to prevent criminals and degenerates from becoming repeat criminals. Sure, they've made their mistakes, some worse than others, but they're only human like the rest of us. Some of them have been through hell: some are traumatized veterans who don't know how to adapt to normal life, others were recruited when they were young and don't know that there's a better way to live, and even more are mentally ill. We're alone in this galaxy, and we can't leave so many people behind. That's why we've come up with an excellent solution: we've set up isolated communities on distant moons and frontier planets where these criminals can be reeducated, rehabilitated, and allowed to repay their debt to society. When they're deemed 'reformed' and have graduated from our program, they'll be granted a hefty stipend and their criminal record will be deemed irrelevant, allowing them to reintegrate and become functioning members of our proud society.
MC: all of these sound like incredible steps forward in the fight to better our society and make real progress, Director. Sadly, we do have to step away for a moment, but you best believe I'll be back, Halcyon, and we'll be asking the Director here some burning questions about allegations over the quality of life Erubus Supermax! Now, a word from our sponsors!
Halcyon Xenopet-Megaplex! Everything your xenopet could ever need in one place! Adoption is now free-
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Good, you’re still alive! The rest of this shard appears to be corrupted, which means this particular trail seems to have run cold here, but do not despair; you need to keep searching. Find out what happened. Find the truth.I cannot guide you any longer: they've already found me, and if I remain in contact with you they'll find you as well. Take the archival database, and see what you can piece together. Maybe if we discover what truly happened we can put an end to this madness once and for all. I'm counting on you. Don't cry for me, I don't fear death, but I fear what they'll do to me to get to you: there are far worse fates than death, after all.

Here are my observations from our trip. We spent a few days in Tokyo prior to a cruise that visited… Shimizu, Nagoya (cancelled due to high winds), Kobe (overnight for Osaka and Kyoto), Kochi, Naha, and Miyakojima before dropping us in Taiwan. A special thanks to many contributors on this sub for the many tips I’m confirming here. 😊
Arrival at Narita: - Fill out the immigration forms online before you leave for the smoothest experience for everyone. It does not really save you any time… you go through the same line and process as folks with paper forms. The difference is that online validates your entries, if you do something wrong on the paper form you have to correct in front of the agent which creates a delay for everyone. - Plan at least an hour for customs clearance - maybe more. There’s free wifi while standing in line. - We took the Narita Express from the airport to Shinjuku. It was the easiest option from my research and was super easy in practise. Cost was reasonable… buy tickets on arrival at the in person ticket office or nearby kiosks. Watch a video on YouTube to familiarize yourself with the process. There’s lots of room for luggage on the train
Language and Reception: - I read a lot about language barriers during my research but English was not a problem… the same as nearly anywhere else in the world these days. Almost everyone speaks English that we encountered but in the rare circumstance that wasn’t the case, Google Translate on our phone was helpful. It was also helpful for reading the occasional product label or sign that wasn’t in English using the photo option. Everyone smiles or chuckles if you use Konnichiwa or Arigato even if they speak perfect English. Hello and thank you are really the only words you need to know in any language in my experience to just show you’re aware of where you are and making a small effort. - Everyone appeared happy to have tourists as customers. Not annoyed or even indifferent, but happy. We didn’t experience any disapproving attitudes at all. People were even very happy to go out of their way to be helpful.
Hotel: - We stayed at the Kadoya Hotel in Shinjuku which offered the best value and location for our needs. I would definitely stay again. The rooms were very nice and decent sized. It’s a one block walk to entrance S2 or S3 for Shinjuku station on the quiet side of the station. - Being near the Golden Gai was nice as I could walk over there for a beer or drink after dinner while my wife rested. The Golden Gai is fun… tons of tiny hole in the wall bars/pubs. Some have a cover charge and some don’t. I chose one without a cover as I was only there for a single beer and had a great time chatting with some UK and Oz tourists.
Money: - We used a mix of Visa (with no foreign transaction fee), cash (obtained before departure) and Suica. Cash is helpful for snacks or other small purchases, and some small restaurants that only take cash. We used Suica for all trains, metro, buses, etc. - If you have an iPhone, you can’t beat the convenience of adding a Suica card to your Apple wallet. We loaded it before leaving and again mid-trip a couple of times from our Visa (also in Apple Wallet) - as long as you have internet access you can reload it anytime. - Overall, Tokyo and Japan are MUCH more affordable than Vancouver. Everything from metro fares to bottled water and restaurant food and beer was probably half the price on average compared to Vancouver. We typically paid about 1000 yen for a bowl of Ramen and 500-600 for a draft beer. The exception was espresso coffee drinks from Starbucks or any other cafe where they were equivalent price to what we pay at home.
Transportation: - The Tokyo (and Osaka/Kyoto) train and metro network is very easy to navigate. Probably one of the best in the world because you can just focus on line and station numbers and not on long unpronounceable station names. For example… if you’re going from Shinjuku to Asakusa, you could take the Shinjuku line to Bakuro-yokohama and switch to the Asakusa line at Higashi-Nihomnashi… which is a mouthful and says nothing about direction of travel. Thankfully you can just take the S-Line from S1 to S9 then the A-Line from A15 to A19. It couldn’t be easier. - Google Maps “Directions” is awesome for recommending routes with lines, station entrances, platforms, etc. When you get to a station, pick your destination in Google Maps and choose “Directions” and it will give you several train choices with full details. - As you might expect the cars at either end of the train will be less crowded than the cars in the middle or near the stairs/escalator… it’s worth the walk to the end of the platform.
Food: - I think I figured out why no one eats or drinks on the go… there’s no public trash cans. So, for example, if you buy a Starbucks coffee and walk around with it, you will have a tough time trying to dispose of the cup. Starbucks became our tourist oasis because they have bathrooms, wifi… and trash cans. LOL. It’s really very bizarre and encourages everyone to consume what you buy, where you buy it. Of course most convenience stores also have a trash bin for their customer use you can use as well. - Snacks… there’s no end of amazing snacks available from small stands, shops, and convenience stores. I’m not a big snacker, but my wife was snacking constantly and loving every minute of it. - Sushi… I think living in Vancouver has spoiled us with amazing Japanese restaurant and food choices. One big difference in Vancouver is that sushi restaurants have a lot of exotic rolls… dragon rolls, volcano rolls, etc. we didn’t see any of this in Japan. Sushi in Japan tends to be heavily focused on sashimi with simple rolls as an add on. Our fav sushi experience was at a conveyor belt restaurant where you just pick a plate as it passes by. Each plate has a colopattern that represents the cost of the item on it. When you’re done, they just add up the types of plates you have. - Ramen… There’s an insane variety of ramen and all are good. - Japanese Beef!!! We had a great but expensive Teppinyaki experience in Tokyo at Ginza Steak Shibuya. They offer all you can eat (within a time limit) A5 Wagyu beef but you can’t choose the cut and they don’t offer rib or tenderloin. Never the less, it’s fantastic beef and we left stuffed and smiling. I would only recommend it if you don’t mind spending over $100pp. The best beef I’ve ever had was at a Kobe steakhouse (Kobesteak Propeller) we visited on the cruise portion of the trip. They served us rib cut beef and it just melted in our mouth. Amazing! You get a small 160g portion but it’s quality over quantity and reasonably priced given the great appies and desert included. - We made reservations for the steak outings but otherwise just picked locations as we walked by or looking at nearby options on Google Maps.
Bathrooms: - Every toilet in Japan is high tech with a full suite of cleaning options and automated heated seats. The only feature it may be missing is a wifi hotspot 😛 - Bathrooms are easy to find at nearly every metro/train station and tourist attraction (and Starbucks and department stores). They are all very clean.
Communications: - I have a work funded roaming package so didn’t buy a local SIM plan. If I didn’t have my work plan I would have looked into this. - Free WiFi is plentiful and an app called Japan WiFi Auto Connect enables you to authenticate once with this app and then it runs in the background and auto authenticates you for a variety of free wifi hotspots streamlining the connection process. - Take advantage of downloading Google maps for offline use if you don’t have a cell plan in Japan.
Cruise Logistics: - I believe a lot of cruises depart from Yokohama, but ours departed from Tokyo. - The Tokyo International Cruise Terminal is very conveniently accessed by an elevated metro line (Yurikamome) from the Shimbashi metro/train station which is readily accessible from the Yamanote line or Ginza or Asakusa lines. - We used the Yamanote line and I was concerned about this for taking our luggage but fortunately we needed to do this on a Sunday and not during rush hour. My tip is if you’re taking luggage on a train or subway, go to the furthest car platform at the front or back end of the station as the cars in the middle or nearest the escalators/stairs will be standing room only packed while the end cars are much less busy and have seats available and plenty of room - to a greater or lesser extent depending on the time and day.

Hi everyone,
Welcome to our monthly megathread! Please use this as a space to generate discussion and post your frugal updates, tips/tricks, or anything else!
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Full subreddit rules here: https://www.reddit.com/Frugal/about/rules/
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Share with us!
· What are some unique thrift store finds you came across this week?
· Did you use couponing tricks to get an amazing haul? How'd you accomplish that?
· Was there something you had that you put to use in a new way?
· What is your philosophy on frugality?
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Select list of some top posts of the previous month(s):

1. Frugal living: Moving into a school converted into apartments! 600/month, all utilities included
2. Follow up- my daughter’s costume. We took $1 pumpkins and an old sweater and made them into a Venus Flytrap costume.
3. Gas bill going up 17%… I’m going on strike
4. I love the library most because it saves money
5. We live in Northern Canada, land of runaway food prices. Some of our harvest saved for winter. What started as a hobby has become a necessity.
6. 70 lbs of potatoes I grew from seed potatoes from a garden store and an old bag of russets from my grandma’s pantry. Total cost: $10
7. Gatorade, Fritos and Kleenex among US companies blasted for 'scamming customers with shrinkflation' as prices rise
8. Forty years ago we started a store cupboard of household essentials to save money before our children were born. This is last of our soap stash.
9. Noticed this about my life before I committed to a tighter budget.
10. Seeds from Dollar Store vs Ace Hardware.
11. I was looking online for a product that would safely hold my house key while jogging. Then I remembered I had such a product already.
12. Using patterned socks to mend holes in clothes
13. My dogs eat raw as I believe it’s best for them but I don’t want to pay the high cost. So after ads requesting leftover, extra, freezer burnt meat. I just made enough grind to feed my dogs for 9 months. Free.
14. What are your ‘fuck-it this makes me happy’ non-frugal purchases?
15. Where is this so-called 7% inflation everyone's talking about? Where I live (~150k pop. county), half my groceries' prices are up ~30% on average. Anyone else? How are you coping with the increased expenses?
16. You are allowed to refill squeeze tubes of jam with regular jam. The government can't stop you.

In a perfect world I want a big leg pants pattern for a 62 inch waistline. I have used every search engine and all the pattern sites and the ones who say they sell my size, don't. They either sell a 3xl which is a joke for a 62 inch waist, or the site that says they have that waist size is no longer viable.
I tried making my own pattern by sitting in a hard chair and measuring from the waist down, that is a joke too. Even if I use my waist size and all that algebraic BS I can't get a pattern that works. My outcomes are such a joke, I throw them and cry. I have wasted SO MUCH material!
If I could walk I could exercise and lose this damn weight. My blood sugar numbers are 5 so it's not my diet and I don't eat carbs at all, I have a lot of auto immune disorders due to a sucky gene pool and my body is just not letting go of any weight. This large arse needs covered folks.
Why is there not any patterns or pants out there for that matter in my size? Unless I want to pay my whole months wages on a pair from those catalogue stores. If I could make them, I could use old bed sheets. Shoot just get this arse covered already!
Without telling me to google things that are no longer in service, is there a place I can go to get a pattern made so I can make some pants for a 62 inch waist? Etsy is no help. Been there done that.

Dear Stranger,
Hello! How are you doing? I hope you're in a better situation. If not, well it is what it is. Life will be better, trust me.
You might be wondering why I'm writing a letter for you, but here's what you should know about me:

• I'm from the Philippines. If you're not familiar with this country, please google it. But fun fact, it has 7,641 islands and over 170 dialects. I can speak cebuano, tagalog, and english. I'm not an English native speaker, so one reason I'm here is to improve it. So, if you're willing to be a help, please do.
• I'm 5'2, thick, and has fair skin (although I'm tan right now since I was swimming a lot for a week for my summer vacation).
• I'm a med student. Currently, I'm in my last year. It's getting busier and challenging as expected, so if I don't reply as much, please note that I'm still a student.
• I don't have a lot of hobbies. When you're a med student, you don't even have the time to kill anymore. But, in my free time, I love to cook and bake. I also love watching kdrama, tiktoks, and just doing nothing. If sleeping is considered a hobby, then SLEEPING will be the #1. I sleep all the time, when I can, and as much I can. I stopped gaming anymore, so if you're looking for a gamer friend, just don't waste our time here.
• I am an open-minded person. I can talk about mostly everything, but please keep in mind that I'm NOT looking for a sexual partners here. I also DON'T want to talk about religion, politics, or anything controversial.
• I am an introvert. When I'm not in university, I'm just mostly at home. But, I do go out sometimes, only if needed or I just feel like it.
• I am an animal lover. I have 8 cats and 2 dogs. I love them so much.

That's just a quick introduction of myself. Let's get to know each other more in private! If you're reading 'till here, please send me an introduction of yourself too. If not, I won't entertain your message request.
Sincerely Yours,
Ms. J

Came up with this idea of a group of college students/teens that gain powers and help protect a digital realm as well as the real world from a duo with similar power origins.
They are called Markers and the group gain their powers from an App that appears on their phones. When opened they are brought to a digital world and each character has a power and color associated to them, when they arrive. They are power ranger color coordinated, but instead of suits, each character gets colored lines that appear on them as they use their powers.
I need some help with some of the characters, but this is why I have.
Red gains the ability to effect and alter the terrain, breaking open the ground below enemies and create walls and barriers from the terrain bellow. When abilities are active, red zigzags appear on body, similarly to a Richter scale.
Orange I need help on.
Yellow gains the ability to create discs that can create bass and audible sound wave blasts. They can create their discs to propel themselves. The discs and be formed at most 20 feet away from them. When their abilities are active, yellow bars similar to sound levels on a sound board.
Green is a bit more fun and has the ability to create objects and weapons attached to the user. The items have to be attached to the user and are designed with green wireframe lines. When active the user gets a green wireframe pattern.
Blue need help on, but was thinking of a support role. Like their ability would be able to summon a support animal/mount like some kind of digital dog. Idk any ideas are welcome.
Purple I need help on.
Black and white are the duo, a pair of twins that are trying to corrupt the digital and real world on some way.

My dog's vaccinations are due (a few weeks overdue, actually), but I have been tied up for the past month caring for a family member who is hospitalized. This is the first weekend that I have had free, and I'm not sure what the care schedule will be like for the next few weeks. Our regular vet is out of town for a week, too. Is anyone aware of a veterinarian, animal hospital, etc. that can do walk-in annual vaccinations (rabies, etc.) over the weekend? Under the circumstances, I don't mind paying extra for a weekend visit, or driving to Lewisville or something if necessary. I haven't been in this situation before, so I don't have much experience with animal care outside of our regular vet. Since I may be sitting in a hospital during non-work hours for a few more weeks, I would like to get this done ASAP, if possible.
Thanks!