Sunshine tattoo lettering
Reddit's Home for all Tattoo Translations - please check out /r/translator instead
2014.09.24 18:14 TokingMessiah Reddit's Home for all Tattoo Translations - please check out /r/translator instead
Have you ever gotten so drunk that you decided to get a tattoo with some foreign characters on your body? Did you ever wonder what it **really** says? Well wonder no more - at /tattootranslations, we're happy to help! Simply post a pic of your "strong, agile tiger" lettering, and someone will help you to realize it actually says "let's have a picnic".
2024.05.20 00:07 Late-Law7437 Child Support and paternity fraud
Where do I begin. For the purpose of this post, I will use fictious names and locations as it is ongoing, and out of respect (even though she doesn't deserve any)
My name is Daniel. I am 35 years old, and i am dying. I have a disease called systemic sclerosis. I am currently on a supplemental disability plan, until I get approved for SSI (social Security). Until then, my income is about 4K a month. I own a home but after child support and bills, NOT INCLUDING gas, food, haircuts, medical appointments, and or emergencies like my fridge just broke. (which i never go out) I am left with $260 that has to last me a month. I also have three children who I have to take care of half the time per the 50/50 agreement.
Recently, I found out my oldest, (who is 13) is not biologically mine. I decided to look into it as I had concerns for a while since my divorce as her cheating was very rampant. I also had caught her in 2017 with a man in my house, which is what prompted the divorce. But FL being a no fault state, doesn't matter. I also had to pay child support since the beginning and WHILE LEGALLY Married since 2010 because she had applied for financial support like food stamps and government assistance then. I know what your thinking. Why didnt you stop it then? I tried. You cant take yourself off child support. I also never grew up with a father and wanted that two-parent household. I don't run from responsibilities, like he did. Its how I was raised. Anyways, I married her, tried to do the right thing, she lied numerous times. she never worked, and I worked 90 plus hours a week. To look into her cheating, was impossible at the time as I was never home. and to busy providing for my family.
fast forward to now. My disease started to become worse and over three years; it didn't reveal itself until last year fully to actually pinpoint what this was. for instance, I had in 2019 pain behind my eyes and horrible headaches to the point that I thought I had MS. following year, I had trouble swallowing for 3 months. next year itching in the skin for three months. But prior, I had visited various doctors to see what was going on, each time a flare up then would last 3 to four months, which again, when you don't understand what's going on, you need to take time off to go see doctors, run tests, but this illness was and still is very elusive. with that being said I had 5 jobs since its first flare up till last year to continue to support my family and to pay child support. as of last year. I'm having trouble moving on certain days, breathing and acid reflux and muscle atrophy. (disease progression) especially when this is going on, it worsens everything as this is flared up. I was working under the table to try and make ends meet as I was paying child support still. I should add that the child support with 50/50 custody was $1029 for three kids cause I was making six figures at the time of divorce in 2018. Last year however, I couldn't work anymore, and filed for disability.
In june of last year, I had asked Susan, to get the children school supplies, (which she never does) as I was still paying at the time $1029 in child support. She said she didnt have the money despite now making 70k and her new BF living with her and is working whom she cheated on me with. With me working under the table, I bought them clothes, haircuts, school supplies (ive done every year) but then, I noticed she went on vacation to puerto rico and got a giant leg tattoo. At the time, I had already known what I had, and I asked myself why the heck am I doing this? So i turned to an attorney to get it modified. Again, this is June 20th to be exact of last year. My lawyer, stated that this was only going to be a 90 day turn around for the temporary modification then we will go for the final.
Since then, I have gone for a DNA test. I had to know. I am dying. I wanted to know. And you may judge me for this. but i have filed for disablement for paternity, meaning I am removing myself from the birth certificate. However, in the state of Florida, a mother can deny this and so can the courts. before you judge me, I have many reasons none of which have to do with him other then his mental disability (Aspergers) This illness, as days go by takes more and more from me. As previously aforementioned, I am left with 250 a month. I cannot go get a drs appointment pay for groceries or start planning my funeral which I will start making payments on soon. He also eats three times the amount that we all collectively do (Not his fault) but I have paid enough both mentally and financially. He also has trouble communicating as my suspicions is, that he was born of incest (gross) which is why I was 'chosen' to be his father at the time. Before you ask how do you know? Lets just say she had an uncle 'leave' during that time.
anyways, in February, I had the temporary modification hearing for child support and needless to say it was a circus. My doctor was subpoenaed to be there by my attorneys request to better my argument, even though I felt we didn't need her, she advised me to have my doctor there. Well, he attorney attacked my doctor and me for an hour and 40 mins when the court case was only supposed to go for an hour. He said "you saw another dr Max so and so and they said it was all in your head" (again I had flare ups on a illness that hadnt revealed itself correctly since last year). So there argument was that I was doctor seeking to avoid child support. After I have paid for 13 years never missing a payment. Her lawyer also targeted people who are living with me. Now I'll admit that I said they were friends which is true but how else can I pay for my attorney? Cant work, cant sell drugs, cant rob a bank? So they want to take there income into consideration. BS. She also hired a private investigator to watch me exercise outside and stated that because I can exercise, I can work..... Ok. Where's the 23 hours of the rest of the day watching me in pain. or when do you have me on video of a flare up from this terminal illness? (that's what I wanted to say)
Although I was granted the temporary modification, of $209, I left the court thinking wow, this woman can cheat, commit paternity fraud, not give two craps about our children, live with her mom in a section 8 home, and here I am doing whatever I can and I've done nothing wrong but be lied to and this is how my government, my country treats me? No wonder men my age dont have children this is insane. The paternity issue wasn't even brought up they said that this isnt the place for this and that the disestablishment will be another trial for those wondering. My lawyer only spoke for 5 mins. Asking her about her income cause thats the only thing that has changed since 2018 since she didnt work at the time. Other than that, it was an attack on me and my disease arguing my ability to work.
after leaving that, I didnt eat for 96 hours. I have since been crying nonstop. Compilating suicide. I am already heart broken about my son not being mine. Sure does a terminal illness make me said, no question everyday. But a life wasted on another? Cause I decided to be a man and take up responsibility? thats soul crushing. And to say "well, there is a big chance the courts will deny your request' thats BS. If i go to prison because I was accused of a robbery for 13 years, and DNA evidence proves I wasnt there, I get out of jail and can sue. This is no different. If anything, DNA evidence needs to be more of a factor in family law than in almost every court of law if not as equally important. My bad for not investigating her infidelity not only in the beginning but also in the end. How about not being a POS. sorry rant over
gets better. Her mom and dad smoke in the section 8 house, kids reek of cigarette smoke and marijuana, all day. they dont take showers there, they were hand me down clothes, they live in the garage shared with there mother, that isn't air conditioned. and he makes only a few thousand less than I do a month. She stated in court that she pays her mom $500 in rent which is BS, she is only doing that now so that she makes herself look bad. I know she is doing pills, like oxy and what not. Id love to prove it.
after the temp hearing, in april, I had to go to court to contest my drivers license suspension as I hadn't paid child support since, august of last year. again, there is no way, I can pay my bills, feed my children, go to the doctor, pay my lawyer to end all of this BS and pay the current child support amount. and again, this final hearing is still not set yet. So they intercepted my tax return, even though the temporary modification was approved, the final is what gets it retro backed to the date of filing, so they took, a much needed 5500 tax return from me. I needed that cause one of the issues I failed to mention as well, hurricane Ian has destroyed my home and I'm still going through that process too. not to mention I am on payment plans with Mayo clinic and other various medical facilities. (no one cares) but the interest that accrues, makes it impossible to catch up. also, Florida department of rev is overstepping I feel, and asking for medical info to be sent to them as well as updated doctors letters to be sent saying that I am still on disability.
a few weeks ago, I got an email from my lawyer having a withdrawal notice from her lawyer. in the withdrawal, he stated that he cannot represent her, due to something she may have withheld or lied about (more or less wasn't worded like that but you can tell). In feb court appearance they never produced the PI report, or videos, they had medical info they shouldn't have had, and they had very outlandish comments about my lifestyle. So my lawyer filed immediately a motion to compel. meaning, we want to see everything you have on my client. this was filed almost immediately after court appearance on feb 20th. Susan has failed to provide any updated info requested by my attorney so on june 18th, we have that upcoming hearing.
in the mean time, I have sent my lawyer, a very heavily requested topics, such as "where did they get my medical records, if those were lies, what are the consequences if any"? What did exercising have to do with any of this despite various drs saying he has to or he will get worse.
I know wat you must be thinking, what about your oldest, how can you do that to him. Please listen. This woman has taken everything from me. And i mean everything but the roof over my head. I am seeing a therapist to help with the suicidal thoughts. it isnt enough. the reality of it is, I chose to be loyal and it bit me in the butt. This disease will rob me of everything, my teeth will fall out ( I had 5 cavities last time I went to the dentist) I haven't had a cavity since I was 30 and even then I was suspicious. And I am brushing 5 time s a day to save them. My skin is tightening, and my arms and muscles are wasting. I will literally be left with nothing. My organs will also start to harden, and I will have to start getting around the clock care.
I forgot to mention they (child support) recently, sent a letter to SSI (social security) saying that they would garnish my SSI before I even got it, totaling $1029. the incorrect amount. I sent this to my lawyer and she is looking into it. But it shows that child support will overstep and breaks every law or freedom you may think you have. I DO take care of my children. if they need a haircut i do it, school supplies clothes, anything I do it. And I do it, cause she wont. What I want to leave you with, is that woman can be dead beats too. Child support was designed to have woman off of government subsidized programs like section 8 food stamps and what not. Also to make the man pay for their children man or woman I should say, I know this. I am not running from my obligation. I just want Susan, to have to pay for what's she's done to me and the kids.
I would like to hear your thoughts on this, please comment and share, all names are fake, but everything else is unfortunately real. I know it was wordy, but I wanted to provide as much backstory as possible. And please. Respect my descions. When you are end of life, I hope someone would be kind enough to respect yours. You may not agree and that's ok, but I am asking you to respect them. Thank you for reading.
submitted by Late-Law7437 to Paternity [link] [comments]
My name is Daniel. I am 35 years old, and i am dying. I have a disease called systemic sclerosis. I am currently on a supplemental disability plan, until I get approved for SSI (social Security). Until then, my income is about 4K a month. I own a home but after child support and bills, NOT INCLUDING gas, food, haircuts, medical appointments, and or emergencies like my fridge just broke. (which i never go out) I am left with $260 that has to last me a month. I also have three children who I have to take care of half the time per the 50/50 agreement.
Recently, I found out my oldest, (who is 13) is not biologically mine. I decided to look into it as I had concerns for a while since my divorce as her cheating was very rampant. I also had caught her in 2017 with a man in my house, which is what prompted the divorce. But FL being a no fault state, doesn't matter. I also had to pay child support since the beginning and WHILE LEGALLY Married since 2010 because she had applied for financial support like food stamps and government assistance then. I know what your thinking. Why didnt you stop it then? I tried. You cant take yourself off child support. I also never grew up with a father and wanted that two-parent household. I don't run from responsibilities, like he did. Its how I was raised. Anyways, I married her, tried to do the right thing, she lied numerous times. she never worked, and I worked 90 plus hours a week. To look into her cheating, was impossible at the time as I was never home. and to busy providing for my family.
fast forward to now. My disease started to become worse and over three years; it didn't reveal itself until last year fully to actually pinpoint what this was. for instance, I had in 2019 pain behind my eyes and horrible headaches to the point that I thought I had MS. following year, I had trouble swallowing for 3 months. next year itching in the skin for three months. But prior, I had visited various doctors to see what was going on, each time a flare up then would last 3 to four months, which again, when you don't understand what's going on, you need to take time off to go see doctors, run tests, but this illness was and still is very elusive. with that being said I had 5 jobs since its first flare up till last year to continue to support my family and to pay child support. as of last year. I'm having trouble moving on certain days, breathing and acid reflux and muscle atrophy. (disease progression) especially when this is going on, it worsens everything as this is flared up. I was working under the table to try and make ends meet as I was paying child support still. I should add that the child support with 50/50 custody was $1029 for three kids cause I was making six figures at the time of divorce in 2018. Last year however, I couldn't work anymore, and filed for disability.
In june of last year, I had asked Susan, to get the children school supplies, (which she never does) as I was still paying at the time $1029 in child support. She said she didnt have the money despite now making 70k and her new BF living with her and is working whom she cheated on me with. With me working under the table, I bought them clothes, haircuts, school supplies (ive done every year) but then, I noticed she went on vacation to puerto rico and got a giant leg tattoo. At the time, I had already known what I had, and I asked myself why the heck am I doing this? So i turned to an attorney to get it modified. Again, this is June 20th to be exact of last year. My lawyer, stated that this was only going to be a 90 day turn around for the temporary modification then we will go for the final.
Since then, I have gone for a DNA test. I had to know. I am dying. I wanted to know. And you may judge me for this. but i have filed for disablement for paternity, meaning I am removing myself from the birth certificate. However, in the state of Florida, a mother can deny this and so can the courts. before you judge me, I have many reasons none of which have to do with him other then his mental disability (Aspergers) This illness, as days go by takes more and more from me. As previously aforementioned, I am left with 250 a month. I cannot go get a drs appointment pay for groceries or start planning my funeral which I will start making payments on soon. He also eats three times the amount that we all collectively do (Not his fault) but I have paid enough both mentally and financially. He also has trouble communicating as my suspicions is, that he was born of incest (gross) which is why I was 'chosen' to be his father at the time. Before you ask how do you know? Lets just say she had an uncle 'leave' during that time.
anyways, in February, I had the temporary modification hearing for child support and needless to say it was a circus. My doctor was subpoenaed to be there by my attorneys request to better my argument, even though I felt we didn't need her, she advised me to have my doctor there. Well, he attorney attacked my doctor and me for an hour and 40 mins when the court case was only supposed to go for an hour. He said "you saw another dr Max so and so and they said it was all in your head" (again I had flare ups on a illness that hadnt revealed itself correctly since last year). So there argument was that I was doctor seeking to avoid child support. After I have paid for 13 years never missing a payment. Her lawyer also targeted people who are living with me. Now I'll admit that I said they were friends which is true but how else can I pay for my attorney? Cant work, cant sell drugs, cant rob a bank? So they want to take there income into consideration. BS. She also hired a private investigator to watch me exercise outside and stated that because I can exercise, I can work..... Ok. Where's the 23 hours of the rest of the day watching me in pain. or when do you have me on video of a flare up from this terminal illness? (that's what I wanted to say)
Although I was granted the temporary modification, of $209, I left the court thinking wow, this woman can cheat, commit paternity fraud, not give two craps about our children, live with her mom in a section 8 home, and here I am doing whatever I can and I've done nothing wrong but be lied to and this is how my government, my country treats me? No wonder men my age dont have children this is insane. The paternity issue wasn't even brought up they said that this isnt the place for this and that the disestablishment will be another trial for those wondering. My lawyer only spoke for 5 mins. Asking her about her income cause thats the only thing that has changed since 2018 since she didnt work at the time. Other than that, it was an attack on me and my disease arguing my ability to work.
after leaving that, I didnt eat for 96 hours. I have since been crying nonstop. Compilating suicide. I am already heart broken about my son not being mine. Sure does a terminal illness make me said, no question everyday. But a life wasted on another? Cause I decided to be a man and take up responsibility? thats soul crushing. And to say "well, there is a big chance the courts will deny your request' thats BS. If i go to prison because I was accused of a robbery for 13 years, and DNA evidence proves I wasnt there, I get out of jail and can sue. This is no different. If anything, DNA evidence needs to be more of a factor in family law than in almost every court of law if not as equally important. My bad for not investigating her infidelity not only in the beginning but also in the end. How about not being a POS. sorry rant over
gets better. Her mom and dad smoke in the section 8 house, kids reek of cigarette smoke and marijuana, all day. they dont take showers there, they were hand me down clothes, they live in the garage shared with there mother, that isn't air conditioned. and he makes only a few thousand less than I do a month. She stated in court that she pays her mom $500 in rent which is BS, she is only doing that now so that she makes herself look bad. I know she is doing pills, like oxy and what not. Id love to prove it.
after the temp hearing, in april, I had to go to court to contest my drivers license suspension as I hadn't paid child support since, august of last year. again, there is no way, I can pay my bills, feed my children, go to the doctor, pay my lawyer to end all of this BS and pay the current child support amount. and again, this final hearing is still not set yet. So they intercepted my tax return, even though the temporary modification was approved, the final is what gets it retro backed to the date of filing, so they took, a much needed 5500 tax return from me. I needed that cause one of the issues I failed to mention as well, hurricane Ian has destroyed my home and I'm still going through that process too. not to mention I am on payment plans with Mayo clinic and other various medical facilities. (no one cares) but the interest that accrues, makes it impossible to catch up. also, Florida department of rev is overstepping I feel, and asking for medical info to be sent to them as well as updated doctors letters to be sent saying that I am still on disability.
a few weeks ago, I got an email from my lawyer having a withdrawal notice from her lawyer. in the withdrawal, he stated that he cannot represent her, due to something she may have withheld or lied about (more or less wasn't worded like that but you can tell). In feb court appearance they never produced the PI report, or videos, they had medical info they shouldn't have had, and they had very outlandish comments about my lifestyle. So my lawyer filed immediately a motion to compel. meaning, we want to see everything you have on my client. this was filed almost immediately after court appearance on feb 20th. Susan has failed to provide any updated info requested by my attorney so on june 18th, we have that upcoming hearing.
in the mean time, I have sent my lawyer, a very heavily requested topics, such as "where did they get my medical records, if those were lies, what are the consequences if any"? What did exercising have to do with any of this despite various drs saying he has to or he will get worse.
I know wat you must be thinking, what about your oldest, how can you do that to him. Please listen. This woman has taken everything from me. And i mean everything but the roof over my head. I am seeing a therapist to help with the suicidal thoughts. it isnt enough. the reality of it is, I chose to be loyal and it bit me in the butt. This disease will rob me of everything, my teeth will fall out ( I had 5 cavities last time I went to the dentist) I haven't had a cavity since I was 30 and even then I was suspicious. And I am brushing 5 time s a day to save them. My skin is tightening, and my arms and muscles are wasting. I will literally be left with nothing. My organs will also start to harden, and I will have to start getting around the clock care.
I forgot to mention they (child support) recently, sent a letter to SSI (social security) saying that they would garnish my SSI before I even got it, totaling $1029. the incorrect amount. I sent this to my lawyer and she is looking into it. But it shows that child support will overstep and breaks every law or freedom you may think you have. I DO take care of my children. if they need a haircut i do it, school supplies clothes, anything I do it. And I do it, cause she wont. What I want to leave you with, is that woman can be dead beats too. Child support was designed to have woman off of government subsidized programs like section 8 food stamps and what not. Also to make the man pay for their children man or woman I should say, I know this. I am not running from my obligation. I just want Susan, to have to pay for what's she's done to me and the kids.
I would like to hear your thoughts on this, please comment and share, all names are fake, but everything else is unfortunately real. I know it was wordy, but I wanted to provide as much backstory as possible. And please. Respect my descions. When you are end of life, I hope someone would be kind enough to respect yours. You may not agree and that's ok, but I am asking you to respect them. Thank you for reading.
2024.05.19 23:38 shaneka69 GEMINI TAROT ~ NEW LIFE OPENING UP FOR YOU AND EXPECT SENTIMENTAL DEPARTURES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PnZX7fiFDk&t=232s
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2024.05.19 22:54 CDown01 Eagles Peak pt. 5.5
Previous Part
I grabbed the back pack Bianca had left in the kitchen and waited in the living room. I had no idea what she was packing for but after this morning I wasn’t going up there to check. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to ask Tuck yet. I wanted him to tell me he was a werewolf himself, that seemed like pretty important information just on the basis of trust. But I also wanted to know why he was really out by the mine yesterday. His story didn’t add up and there’s no way he knew we would be up there, I think that was just a coincidence. As I was trying to come up with exactly how I wanted to broach the question to Tuck, Frank put a hand on my shoulder. He was wearing his lab coat so I guessed he just came up from the basement. The hairnet he always seemed to wear when he was working was in its usual spot. I suppose he wore it to protect the memory of hair that was once on his head. He looked solemn and a little sick as he turned to me.
“Keep her out of trouble will you? I know we haven’t always been the best to her and I’m sure Stein and I don’t really give her the help she needs. But she’s like the daughter I never had time to have, I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to her.”
“Frank, you probably do more than you know for her. Did she ever talk about her family with you?”
“Very briefly throughout the years, I don’t know if she’s told you much or anything for that matter. It… it certainly wasn’t easy for her growing up and it never got easier.”
“I’ll do my best to keep her out of trouble. If she does end up following me into… whatever this trial ends up being just promise me you’ll have a way to get her out. Some kind of contingency, I can fend for myself but I’ve seen her just shut down before. Like yesterday in the caves someone grabbed her and she lashed out and just… wasn’t herself. She just froze and I don’t want that to happen anywhere near Shaoni.”
“I’ll work on something but I can’t promise that. Like Stein said we’re scientists, we don’t really do field work like that. If I do come up with something you’ll be the first to know. I’m glad she ran into you when she did Keith, she could really use a friend.”
With that Frank walked away, back towards the kitchen and into the basement.
It wasn’t long after that when I heard Bianca coming down the stairs asking if anyone had seen her toothbrush. At which point Rocco appeared in front of me from god knows where holding a suspicious disassembled toothbrush.
“Not. A. Word. Kid.”
Rocco growled at me as he scampered out the door behind me.
“I have a couple that I packed for the trip here from Wisconsin I can just give you one of those.”
I called to Bianca. Partially because I wanted to get a move on and partially because I wanted no part in whatever Rocco was getting up to. If there was one supernatural thing about this town it was that raccoon’s knack for mischief. I get that’s what raccoons are known for but seriously, Rocco was on another level. Bianca reluctantly agreed to take one of the travel tooth brushes I had back at my house. I wasn’t even going to ask why she packed a duffle bag to go a few hundred feet into town and back again.
“Come on we’ll take the bikes again.”
Bianca said as she made her way behind the house.
“I’m telling you they’re going to give me tetanus one of these days but sure. Lets just stop at my place first, I want to drop off this backpack you took yesterday first.”
Bianca was still wearing the ratty jeans she’d taken from me yesterday and at this point I just figured she could have them. I really wasn’t about to get into an argument as to why she should take my pants off and… ugh even saying it is just… no. Those were hers now as far as I was concerned.
We rode over to my house through the crisp autumn afternoon. The trees along the street were finally being to change color, it looked like a scene from a postcard. One of those one’s of the idyllic towns that could’ve come straight out of a hallmark movie. I had to give it to Eagles Peak, it may by turning into a den of vipers for me minute by minute but it sure could be beautiful, in it’s own isolated kind of way.
“Wow its very… small.”
Bianca commented as she stepped into my house and looked around.
“Yeah not everyone has a blank check from two different governments like Stein.”
“I didn’t mean li…”
“It’s ok I know what you meant, its different.”
I said cutting her off before she had the chance to apologize. I dropped off the backpack in my room and rooted around in the one duffle bag I still hadn’t unpacked from my trip here. I found the toothbrush without to much trouble and walked into the living room to give it to Bianca only to find her unpacking on the couch.
“What’s going on here, are you moving in?”
I joked, not expecting the answer I was about to get.
“Yeah, kind of hard to keep an eye on you from my house. I suppose I could from the top floor but if we’re working against Shaoni that doesn’t seem like a great idea. She’s got that whole thing with lighting and I get the sense her being angry at you while your up in the air isn’t a great combination.”
Bianca said, unpacking a blanket like she wasn’t just inserting herself into my house.
“WHAT?”
I shouted, maybe a little too loud.
“Is there a problem?I thought you wanted me looking out for you, this is me, doing that.”
She said looking up at me with puppy dog eyes. You’ve got to understand, those eyes coming from someone like Bianca, glowing or otherwise, well you just can’t say no to that. When it’s Bianca you really can’t say no. She can just take that option away in an instant but again she didn’t for me, it was still my choice.
“I.. sure but you can have my bed. We’ll get everything set up once we get back from the Roost. You did tell Frank and Stein about this right?”
I gave in, deciding to let her stay.
“I’m a big girl, they doin’t need to know everything I do, and… thanks”
“It’s alright, just let me know next time you’re going to pull something like this ok?”
I added, equal parts excited to actually have someone to talk to besides myself in my own home, and worried what Frank and Stein might think was going on here. I put those thoughts out of my head for the moment as we got back on the bikes.
It was about 3 by the time we made it to Tuck’s bar after the delay Bianca had caused by moving herself out before we left. Just as I expected the sign said closed but the door was unlocked. The bar looked exactly the same as the last time I was there. Stone fireplace roaring and pristine wooden floor looking like it had been polished just this morning. Tuck was sitting behind the bar looking worse for wear. The look on his face said he knew we were coming and he wasn’t to thrilled about it.
“Does he know?”
Tuck asked pointedly, looking straight through me and speaking to Bianca.
“About me or you, because the answer is both of us.”
Tuck shook his head at this and a grim look came over him.
“Ya shouldn’t have pulled him into this.”
“Actually I pulled her into it if anything, going out there was my idea. I’ve got a mark like Robert’s, its actually what brought me to town in the first place.”
I said, hoping my honesty would get the same out of Tuck.
“So that bird called ya out here somehow?”
“More or less, but that’s not what I’m here about. I want to know why exactly you followed us out there yesterday.”
Tuck sighed and gestured to the seats at the bar, beckoning Bianca and I to take a seat.
“When Robert chased ya out the other night some of his friends came by. They all got that mark like him, they were sayin’ something about the thunderbird makin’ an appearance back at the old mine. I wanted to see for myself and make sure they were wrong. I found those bikes and ended up followin’ the trail. By the time I got there some guys were poking around that hole in the wall and a storm had kicked up. I saw them cut that rope and figured they weren’t doin’ no good. I… changed and dealt with them then forced my way into the old mine entrance, the rest ya already know cause I ran into ya not long after.”
This story made more sense to me, Tuck never came out there to find me, I just so happened to be out there. Those boulders I thought were moved had been, by Tuck which made me question just how strong he was. Each of those huge things had to weigh tons and there were three strewn about the entrance.
“Ok that makes more sense than what you told me, but what were you hoping to accomplish up there. If you ran into the thunderbird what would you have done?”
“I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t really up there again but the storm seemed to say otherwise. No storm like that just pops up and goes away, the bird had to be involved with that.”
“Actually she was there, just not as some huge bird. She was down in the caves with us but she looked human, native American to be more precise. That’s how I met her when I got marked and now she’s holding some kind of trial out in those mines.”
“You met the thunderbird, its a person? What does she want with this place now.”
Tuck said his demeanor changing into one full of concern. I didn’t know what else to say cause at the moment I didn’t actually know much more than that. It’s infuriating, this being in the dark thing. I just settled for dodging the question.
“Not to change the topic but are we to early to grab a bite to eat?”
I wish I had a camera handy because the face Tuck made at that whiplash change of topics was priceless. I can’t properly do it justice with words. Suffice it to say one of his eyebrows hit the ceiling while the other hit the floor and a violently confused expression plastered his face.
“Sure I guess, what do the two of ya want!”
Tuck exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air and walking back behind the counter. I ended up ordering some fried chicken sandwich with bacon and pickles, and as I took the first bite my risk of heart attack increased ten fold. Bianca ordered the same thing and was pecking at it inquisitively when I asked,
“So what’s the story with Rocco?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean why, why did Frank and Stein make him in the first place?”
I asked through a mouthful of greasy goodness.
“Well I think it started out as a joke, then Stein actually wanted an assistant and that joke became Rocco. They worked on him for a while, pretty much they took a random raccoon off the street and played around in its head. I know there was some gene splicing involved but if you want to know how they did it ask them.”
“So he was supposed to be an assistant in the lab? I think I’ve seen him doing one thing to help them out this whole time and he was poking through a back alley for old batteries.”
“Yeah, he’s not a great assistant, must be good enough though cause they haven’t tossed him out.”
“Are you kidding me! If they tossed him out he be so much worse! Just think, Rocco left to his own devices without any supervision.”
Both of us shuddered at the thought, if he was bad now he’d be a menace to society without the little control we had over him.
Bianca and I ate and eventually Tuck came out and I told him my story about Imalone. He seemed really concerned at the fact that the thunderbird could be walking around town and he wouldn’t know about it. I assured him that Shaoni was really hard to miss if you just looked at the eyes. It wasn’t like she looked any different either, no matter what she was wearing those tattoos would be a dead giveaway. Tuck assured me he was going to keep an eye out and gave me his number to call if I saw her. I don’t want to talk down on Bianca, but something about having a werewolf looking out for me as well was reassuring. Tuck told us a bit about what he was doing with Frank and Stein too. Apparently he contracted his “disease” as he called it long before he came to work in Eagles Peak. He was originally from Louisiana and moved to New York for a change of scenery and ended up getting a job in the mines here around 1940. I should also mention Tuck ages very slowly due to his “disease” so he looks like he’s in his 50’s or so but he was born in 1900. To his credit you’d never know he was anything other than your friendly middle aged bartender.
Bianca and I were getting ready to leave as it came time to open the bar for real. When Tuck offered us a round of drinks on the house.
“No, no that’s alright Tuck, you’ve done enough for us we’ll see you later.”
Bianca politely declined, pulling me towards the door. After I said my goodbyes and we had gotten back to the bikes I asked Bianca,
“Do you not drink? I’m not judging just… when Tuck offered you seemed kind of jumpy.”
“I just never have, I was kind of bouncing around the country when I turned 21 so I just never started.”
“So your telling me you never had your first drink? Well, we have to fix that then.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, its like a right of passage where I’m from. We’ll pick up a six pack or something on the way back but we don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”
I said, trying to convince her. I’m not a huge drinker but I am from Wisconsin, alcohol is a way of life out there and we’re know for our beer. In my family turning 21 and having your first drink is cause to bring the whole family together. I couldn’t do that for her but I could at least give her the experience, maybe give her just one more good thing to remember.
Bianca agreed and we pulled into the Save-A-Lot just outside town. The building was painted white bit it was slowly peeling away revealing a concrete grey underneath. The big glowing sign was missing a few letters now simply reading Sav- -Lo. Despite its decaying state it still had the classic beer cave inside. I took a second to look for something from Wisconsin, call me a snob but we do beer right. I settled on a 12 pack of Leinenkugel, that was close enough to home for me. Bianca trailed behind me in the store, a bit like a scared cat looking for a place to hide. Obviously she didn’t get out much and having people she didn’t really know much about was stressing her out somewhat. We got to the checkout and an older cashier eyed my suspiciously.
“Can I see an ID”
She croaked in a hoarse smokey voice. Now I don’t always look my age but I’m 28 there was no reason to try and ID me. That didn’t really bother me so much as the fact that my wallet was still at home. I’ve been spending the cash Bianca gave me back when I watched her house and I just keep that in my pocket. I also have a bad habit of only brining my wallet when I knew I would need it instead of carrying it on me. Regardless I started to sweat a little as I tried to explain the situation.
“You see I would but I left mine at home and I’m not sure if…”
I was cut off by Bianca reaching out and brushing the cashier’s hand Then looking her straight in the eye. I knew exactly what she was doing.
“Look we don’t have an ID for you right now can you just take it on faith?”
“I understand sweetie, here why don’t I cover it for you, my treat.”
The cashier said, turning a complete 180 on her previous question. I looked from Bianca to the old woman a few times before Bianca finally shrugged.
“What?”
I wondered if it was that easy for her to change my mind back when she manipulated me into watching the house.
“So she just payed for it?”
I asked Bianca as we walked back to the bikes.
“That was her, not that I couldn’t make her do that. As far as I can work out, if I suggest something people tend to do it. Over the years I learned how to control that to the point where I’m only able to do it when I want to. Frank said it has something to do with pheromones in my breath or something like that.”
Bianca explained, hoping onto her bike and keeping pace with me back towards my house. I didn’t ask for an explanation but she gave it. I’m not really sure pheromones were something that could have that profound of an effect on someone but I’d just add it to the list of questions I’d have to ask Frank or Stein at some point.
“Still it was a bit weird seeing it from the outside. Was I that easy to convince before?”
Bianca got a mischievous look in her eye.
“Oh, you were so much easier, I barley needed to try. Just flip my hair and flutter my eyes a few times and that was that.”
She said, smiling devilishly at me. I blushed a little bit, partly because that’s probably all it would’ve taken from someone who looked like her and partly because I was embarrassed that she might not just be poking fun at me.
“No you definitely did something to me, I lost like 6 hours in your kitchen! That was you right…right?!”
I asked a little nervous. Bianca just laughed and pedaled off ahead of me. She did not put my mind at ease with any sort of answer but she did beat me back to the house.
When I got in She was sitting on the couch sorting through a pile of movies she pulled out of her duffle bag. She really had just thrown the entire contents of her room into a bag and brought them over. Bianca seemed to settle on a movie before she realized I’d walked in.
“So you like horror?”
I said, gesturing to the same movies I’d seen lying out earlier when I watched her house.
“Yeah, I just like seeing how people think all these things act. Like Tuck, werewolves are always looked at as these big imposing things in movies but he’s a puppy in comparison.”
“The guy looks like he could tear me apart down the middle with his bare hands buuuut, I see your point.”
Thinking back to every interaction I’d had with the guy so far, he never really was as scary as he looked. I sat down on the couch, dropping the case of beer on the coffee table.
“So, have you picked out a movie yet?”
To which Bianca closed her eyes and poked at a random movie in the pile. “Dog Soldiers”, it was called, actually I think I’ve heard of that movie before. One of those its so bad its entertaining things. I popped the movie into my DVD player and sat back, handing Bianca a beer.
“ Is this how normal people feel?”
She asked as the movie started.
“Depends on what you mean by normal, even then I’m not sure that’s the question I’d be asking. Maybe you just finally have a chance to relax after years of never being able to.”
“Oh sure, I’ll just relax now that I know we have the actual thunderbird looking to force you into some kind of trial.”
Bianca joked sarcastically before suddenly softening and taking a sip of her beer.
“Uggg that’s bitter… but not bad. Maybe your onto something Kieth.”
I don’t remember much from the movie. One scene stuck with me, a guy trying to fist fight a werewolf. It was already campy but the effects on the werewolf were just dated enough to make it that much funnier. Bianca and I couldn’t help but to Imagine Tuck as the werewolf, bewildered as to why this scrawny thing thought it could fight him. At some point the beer ran out, Bianca and I making it through the whole case. I remember getting up to go to my own room and Bianca pulling me back. What I didn’t remember though was letting Shaoni into my house. I was woken up by a tap on my shoulder, coming face to face with her. Shaoni’s hand was on one shoulder and Bianca’s head was on the other. At some point we both feel asleep on the couch together, the TV was still on, illuminating the dark room.
“Well well, I wasn’t expecting you to have guests Keith.”
Shaoni mocked, clicking her tongue at me as she finished. She wore the same white night dress I’d seen her in before. Something in the house was open, a window, a door? I didn’t know but the smells of an autumn rainstorm blew into the house, a storm no doubt caused by Shaoni.
“I… its not what it looks like.”
I stammered out, embarrassed to be caught like this.
“I don’t care what you get up to in your free time Keith. I just came to tell you I’ll expect you at the mine tomorrow, The trials will be starting soon and I want everyone who will be participating to meet each other, you will be participating, won’t you Keith?”
She asked like it was a question but it really wasn’t, wether I liked it or not I was going to be there, I could come willingly or kicking and screaming. She was simply asking which I wanted it to be.
“When do you want me there?”
“Oh don’t worry about that, I’ll send someone to collect you around noon.”
With that she turned to walk away, but I wasn’t done with her yet.
“Wait! What exactly are these trials, what am I going to be doing out there?”
“That would spoil the surprise Keith, be patient, you’ll know in time. That pretty little thing there, her name wouldn’t happen to be Bianca, would it?”
Shaoni asked, pointing at Bianca who was still asleep on my shoulder.
“How did you know that?”
I shot back, immediately jumping to Bianca’s defense. I hadn’t known her all that long true, but I didn’t want her any closer to this than she had to be.
“Oh no reason.”
Shaoni said with a snicker that sounded more like a hiss. With that she disappeared, and I mean she was just gone. One minute she was there the next there was a gust of wind and a brief flash of light and she was gone. The disruption was enough to wake Bianca up finally.
“Ugh, head..still…spinning.”
“Heh, I think you overdid it a bit last night.”
“Ugh maybe.”
She said, holding her head that still rested on my shoulder.
“What’s going on anyway, why’d you wake me up.”
“It’s just… well things are moving a bit faster than I hoped.”
I said, trying to reassure her that it was nothing, most likely failing miserably but she didn’t seem to notice. There was a second there that I thought maybe things could just be normal. This whole thing would just blow over and Shaoni would never come back and get me for these “trials” but I always knew it was wishful thinking. Now Bianca was a part of it to somehow, that had made up my mind. She’d been through enough, now Shaoni seemed interested in her all of a sudden. If putting myself through these trials kept her away from Bianca that’s exactly what I’d do.
submitted by CDown01 to AllureStories [link] [comments]
I grabbed the back pack Bianca had left in the kitchen and waited in the living room. I had no idea what she was packing for but after this morning I wasn’t going up there to check. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to ask Tuck yet. I wanted him to tell me he was a werewolf himself, that seemed like pretty important information just on the basis of trust. But I also wanted to know why he was really out by the mine yesterday. His story didn’t add up and there’s no way he knew we would be up there, I think that was just a coincidence. As I was trying to come up with exactly how I wanted to broach the question to Tuck, Frank put a hand on my shoulder. He was wearing his lab coat so I guessed he just came up from the basement. The hairnet he always seemed to wear when he was working was in its usual spot. I suppose he wore it to protect the memory of hair that was once on his head. He looked solemn and a little sick as he turned to me.
“Keep her out of trouble will you? I know we haven’t always been the best to her and I’m sure Stein and I don’t really give her the help she needs. But she’s like the daughter I never had time to have, I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to her.”
“Frank, you probably do more than you know for her. Did she ever talk about her family with you?”
“Very briefly throughout the years, I don’t know if she’s told you much or anything for that matter. It… it certainly wasn’t easy for her growing up and it never got easier.”
“I’ll do my best to keep her out of trouble. If she does end up following me into… whatever this trial ends up being just promise me you’ll have a way to get her out. Some kind of contingency, I can fend for myself but I’ve seen her just shut down before. Like yesterday in the caves someone grabbed her and she lashed out and just… wasn’t herself. She just froze and I don’t want that to happen anywhere near Shaoni.”
“I’ll work on something but I can’t promise that. Like Stein said we’re scientists, we don’t really do field work like that. If I do come up with something you’ll be the first to know. I’m glad she ran into you when she did Keith, she could really use a friend.”
With that Frank walked away, back towards the kitchen and into the basement.
It wasn’t long after that when I heard Bianca coming down the stairs asking if anyone had seen her toothbrush. At which point Rocco appeared in front of me from god knows where holding a suspicious disassembled toothbrush.
“Not. A. Word. Kid.”
Rocco growled at me as he scampered out the door behind me.
“I have a couple that I packed for the trip here from Wisconsin I can just give you one of those.”
I called to Bianca. Partially because I wanted to get a move on and partially because I wanted no part in whatever Rocco was getting up to. If there was one supernatural thing about this town it was that raccoon’s knack for mischief. I get that’s what raccoons are known for but seriously, Rocco was on another level. Bianca reluctantly agreed to take one of the travel tooth brushes I had back at my house. I wasn’t even going to ask why she packed a duffle bag to go a few hundred feet into town and back again.
“Come on we’ll take the bikes again.”
Bianca said as she made her way behind the house.
“I’m telling you they’re going to give me tetanus one of these days but sure. Lets just stop at my place first, I want to drop off this backpack you took yesterday first.”
Bianca was still wearing the ratty jeans she’d taken from me yesterday and at this point I just figured she could have them. I really wasn’t about to get into an argument as to why she should take my pants off and… ugh even saying it is just… no. Those were hers now as far as I was concerned.
We rode over to my house through the crisp autumn afternoon. The trees along the street were finally being to change color, it looked like a scene from a postcard. One of those one’s of the idyllic towns that could’ve come straight out of a hallmark movie. I had to give it to Eagles Peak, it may by turning into a den of vipers for me minute by minute but it sure could be beautiful, in it’s own isolated kind of way.
“Wow its very… small.”
Bianca commented as she stepped into my house and looked around.
“Yeah not everyone has a blank check from two different governments like Stein.”
“I didn’t mean li…”
“It’s ok I know what you meant, its different.”
I said cutting her off before she had the chance to apologize. I dropped off the backpack in my room and rooted around in the one duffle bag I still hadn’t unpacked from my trip here. I found the toothbrush without to much trouble and walked into the living room to give it to Bianca only to find her unpacking on the couch.
“What’s going on here, are you moving in?”
I joked, not expecting the answer I was about to get.
“Yeah, kind of hard to keep an eye on you from my house. I suppose I could from the top floor but if we’re working against Shaoni that doesn’t seem like a great idea. She’s got that whole thing with lighting and I get the sense her being angry at you while your up in the air isn’t a great combination.”
Bianca said, unpacking a blanket like she wasn’t just inserting herself into my house.
“WHAT?”
I shouted, maybe a little too loud.
“Is there a problem?I thought you wanted me looking out for you, this is me, doing that.”
She said looking up at me with puppy dog eyes. You’ve got to understand, those eyes coming from someone like Bianca, glowing or otherwise, well you just can’t say no to that. When it’s Bianca you really can’t say no. She can just take that option away in an instant but again she didn’t for me, it was still my choice.
“I.. sure but you can have my bed. We’ll get everything set up once we get back from the Roost. You did tell Frank and Stein about this right?”
I gave in, deciding to let her stay.
“I’m a big girl, they doin’t need to know everything I do, and… thanks”
“It’s alright, just let me know next time you’re going to pull something like this ok?”
I added, equal parts excited to actually have someone to talk to besides myself in my own home, and worried what Frank and Stein might think was going on here. I put those thoughts out of my head for the moment as we got back on the bikes.
It was about 3 by the time we made it to Tuck’s bar after the delay Bianca had caused by moving herself out before we left. Just as I expected the sign said closed but the door was unlocked. The bar looked exactly the same as the last time I was there. Stone fireplace roaring and pristine wooden floor looking like it had been polished just this morning. Tuck was sitting behind the bar looking worse for wear. The look on his face said he knew we were coming and he wasn’t to thrilled about it.
“Does he know?”
Tuck asked pointedly, looking straight through me and speaking to Bianca.
“About me or you, because the answer is both of us.”
Tuck shook his head at this and a grim look came over him.
“Ya shouldn’t have pulled him into this.”
“Actually I pulled her into it if anything, going out there was my idea. I’ve got a mark like Robert’s, its actually what brought me to town in the first place.”
I said, hoping my honesty would get the same out of Tuck.
“So that bird called ya out here somehow?”
“More or less, but that’s not what I’m here about. I want to know why exactly you followed us out there yesterday.”
Tuck sighed and gestured to the seats at the bar, beckoning Bianca and I to take a seat.
“When Robert chased ya out the other night some of his friends came by. They all got that mark like him, they were sayin’ something about the thunderbird makin’ an appearance back at the old mine. I wanted to see for myself and make sure they were wrong. I found those bikes and ended up followin’ the trail. By the time I got there some guys were poking around that hole in the wall and a storm had kicked up. I saw them cut that rope and figured they weren’t doin’ no good. I… changed and dealt with them then forced my way into the old mine entrance, the rest ya already know cause I ran into ya not long after.”
This story made more sense to me, Tuck never came out there to find me, I just so happened to be out there. Those boulders I thought were moved had been, by Tuck which made me question just how strong he was. Each of those huge things had to weigh tons and there were three strewn about the entrance.
“Ok that makes more sense than what you told me, but what were you hoping to accomplish up there. If you ran into the thunderbird what would you have done?”
“I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t really up there again but the storm seemed to say otherwise. No storm like that just pops up and goes away, the bird had to be involved with that.”
“Actually she was there, just not as some huge bird. She was down in the caves with us but she looked human, native American to be more precise. That’s how I met her when I got marked and now she’s holding some kind of trial out in those mines.”
“You met the thunderbird, its a person? What does she want with this place now.”
Tuck said his demeanor changing into one full of concern. I didn’t know what else to say cause at the moment I didn’t actually know much more than that. It’s infuriating, this being in the dark thing. I just settled for dodging the question.
“Not to change the topic but are we to early to grab a bite to eat?”
I wish I had a camera handy because the face Tuck made at that whiplash change of topics was priceless. I can’t properly do it justice with words. Suffice it to say one of his eyebrows hit the ceiling while the other hit the floor and a violently confused expression plastered his face.
“Sure I guess, what do the two of ya want!”
Tuck exclaimed, throwing his arms in the air and walking back behind the counter. I ended up ordering some fried chicken sandwich with bacon and pickles, and as I took the first bite my risk of heart attack increased ten fold. Bianca ordered the same thing and was pecking at it inquisitively when I asked,
“So what’s the story with Rocco?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean why, why did Frank and Stein make him in the first place?”
I asked through a mouthful of greasy goodness.
“Well I think it started out as a joke, then Stein actually wanted an assistant and that joke became Rocco. They worked on him for a while, pretty much they took a random raccoon off the street and played around in its head. I know there was some gene splicing involved but if you want to know how they did it ask them.”
“So he was supposed to be an assistant in the lab? I think I’ve seen him doing one thing to help them out this whole time and he was poking through a back alley for old batteries.”
“Yeah, he’s not a great assistant, must be good enough though cause they haven’t tossed him out.”
“Are you kidding me! If they tossed him out he be so much worse! Just think, Rocco left to his own devices without any supervision.”
Both of us shuddered at the thought, if he was bad now he’d be a menace to society without the little control we had over him.
Bianca and I ate and eventually Tuck came out and I told him my story about Imalone. He seemed really concerned at the fact that the thunderbird could be walking around town and he wouldn’t know about it. I assured him that Shaoni was really hard to miss if you just looked at the eyes. It wasn’t like she looked any different either, no matter what she was wearing those tattoos would be a dead giveaway. Tuck assured me he was going to keep an eye out and gave me his number to call if I saw her. I don’t want to talk down on Bianca, but something about having a werewolf looking out for me as well was reassuring. Tuck told us a bit about what he was doing with Frank and Stein too. Apparently he contracted his “disease” as he called it long before he came to work in Eagles Peak. He was originally from Louisiana and moved to New York for a change of scenery and ended up getting a job in the mines here around 1940. I should also mention Tuck ages very slowly due to his “disease” so he looks like he’s in his 50’s or so but he was born in 1900. To his credit you’d never know he was anything other than your friendly middle aged bartender.
Bianca and I were getting ready to leave as it came time to open the bar for real. When Tuck offered us a round of drinks on the house.
“No, no that’s alright Tuck, you’ve done enough for us we’ll see you later.”
Bianca politely declined, pulling me towards the door. After I said my goodbyes and we had gotten back to the bikes I asked Bianca,
“Do you not drink? I’m not judging just… when Tuck offered you seemed kind of jumpy.”
“I just never have, I was kind of bouncing around the country when I turned 21 so I just never started.”
“So your telling me you never had your first drink? Well, we have to fix that then.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, its like a right of passage where I’m from. We’ll pick up a six pack or something on the way back but we don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”
I said, trying to convince her. I’m not a huge drinker but I am from Wisconsin, alcohol is a way of life out there and we’re know for our beer. In my family turning 21 and having your first drink is cause to bring the whole family together. I couldn’t do that for her but I could at least give her the experience, maybe give her just one more good thing to remember.
Bianca agreed and we pulled into the Save-A-Lot just outside town. The building was painted white bit it was slowly peeling away revealing a concrete grey underneath. The big glowing sign was missing a few letters now simply reading Sav- -Lo. Despite its decaying state it still had the classic beer cave inside. I took a second to look for something from Wisconsin, call me a snob but we do beer right. I settled on a 12 pack of Leinenkugel, that was close enough to home for me. Bianca trailed behind me in the store, a bit like a scared cat looking for a place to hide. Obviously she didn’t get out much and having people she didn’t really know much about was stressing her out somewhat. We got to the checkout and an older cashier eyed my suspiciously.
“Can I see an ID”
She croaked in a hoarse smokey voice. Now I don’t always look my age but I’m 28 there was no reason to try and ID me. That didn’t really bother me so much as the fact that my wallet was still at home. I’ve been spending the cash Bianca gave me back when I watched her house and I just keep that in my pocket. I also have a bad habit of only brining my wallet when I knew I would need it instead of carrying it on me. Regardless I started to sweat a little as I tried to explain the situation.
“You see I would but I left mine at home and I’m not sure if…”
I was cut off by Bianca reaching out and brushing the cashier’s hand Then looking her straight in the eye. I knew exactly what she was doing.
“Look we don’t have an ID for you right now can you just take it on faith?”
“I understand sweetie, here why don’t I cover it for you, my treat.”
The cashier said, turning a complete 180 on her previous question. I looked from Bianca to the old woman a few times before Bianca finally shrugged.
“What?”
I wondered if it was that easy for her to change my mind back when she manipulated me into watching the house.
“So she just payed for it?”
I asked Bianca as we walked back to the bikes.
“That was her, not that I couldn’t make her do that. As far as I can work out, if I suggest something people tend to do it. Over the years I learned how to control that to the point where I’m only able to do it when I want to. Frank said it has something to do with pheromones in my breath or something like that.”
Bianca explained, hoping onto her bike and keeping pace with me back towards my house. I didn’t ask for an explanation but she gave it. I’m not really sure pheromones were something that could have that profound of an effect on someone but I’d just add it to the list of questions I’d have to ask Frank or Stein at some point.
“Still it was a bit weird seeing it from the outside. Was I that easy to convince before?”
Bianca got a mischievous look in her eye.
“Oh, you were so much easier, I barley needed to try. Just flip my hair and flutter my eyes a few times and that was that.”
She said, smiling devilishly at me. I blushed a little bit, partly because that’s probably all it would’ve taken from someone who looked like her and partly because I was embarrassed that she might not just be poking fun at me.
“No you definitely did something to me, I lost like 6 hours in your kitchen! That was you right…right?!”
I asked a little nervous. Bianca just laughed and pedaled off ahead of me. She did not put my mind at ease with any sort of answer but she did beat me back to the house.
When I got in She was sitting on the couch sorting through a pile of movies she pulled out of her duffle bag. She really had just thrown the entire contents of her room into a bag and brought them over. Bianca seemed to settle on a movie before she realized I’d walked in.
“So you like horror?”
I said, gesturing to the same movies I’d seen lying out earlier when I watched her house.
“Yeah, I just like seeing how people think all these things act. Like Tuck, werewolves are always looked at as these big imposing things in movies but he’s a puppy in comparison.”
“The guy looks like he could tear me apart down the middle with his bare hands buuuut, I see your point.”
Thinking back to every interaction I’d had with the guy so far, he never really was as scary as he looked. I sat down on the couch, dropping the case of beer on the coffee table.
“So, have you picked out a movie yet?”
To which Bianca closed her eyes and poked at a random movie in the pile. “Dog Soldiers”, it was called, actually I think I’ve heard of that movie before. One of those its so bad its entertaining things. I popped the movie into my DVD player and sat back, handing Bianca a beer.
“ Is this how normal people feel?”
She asked as the movie started.
“Depends on what you mean by normal, even then I’m not sure that’s the question I’d be asking. Maybe you just finally have a chance to relax after years of never being able to.”
“Oh sure, I’ll just relax now that I know we have the actual thunderbird looking to force you into some kind of trial.”
Bianca joked sarcastically before suddenly softening and taking a sip of her beer.
“Uggg that’s bitter… but not bad. Maybe your onto something Kieth.”
I don’t remember much from the movie. One scene stuck with me, a guy trying to fist fight a werewolf. It was already campy but the effects on the werewolf were just dated enough to make it that much funnier. Bianca and I couldn’t help but to Imagine Tuck as the werewolf, bewildered as to why this scrawny thing thought it could fight him. At some point the beer ran out, Bianca and I making it through the whole case. I remember getting up to go to my own room and Bianca pulling me back. What I didn’t remember though was letting Shaoni into my house. I was woken up by a tap on my shoulder, coming face to face with her. Shaoni’s hand was on one shoulder and Bianca’s head was on the other. At some point we both feel asleep on the couch together, the TV was still on, illuminating the dark room.
“Well well, I wasn’t expecting you to have guests Keith.”
Shaoni mocked, clicking her tongue at me as she finished. She wore the same white night dress I’d seen her in before. Something in the house was open, a window, a door? I didn’t know but the smells of an autumn rainstorm blew into the house, a storm no doubt caused by Shaoni.
“I… its not what it looks like.”
I stammered out, embarrassed to be caught like this.
“I don’t care what you get up to in your free time Keith. I just came to tell you I’ll expect you at the mine tomorrow, The trials will be starting soon and I want everyone who will be participating to meet each other, you will be participating, won’t you Keith?”
She asked like it was a question but it really wasn’t, wether I liked it or not I was going to be there, I could come willingly or kicking and screaming. She was simply asking which I wanted it to be.
“When do you want me there?”
“Oh don’t worry about that, I’ll send someone to collect you around noon.”
With that she turned to walk away, but I wasn’t done with her yet.
“Wait! What exactly are these trials, what am I going to be doing out there?”
“That would spoil the surprise Keith, be patient, you’ll know in time. That pretty little thing there, her name wouldn’t happen to be Bianca, would it?”
Shaoni asked, pointing at Bianca who was still asleep on my shoulder.
“How did you know that?”
I shot back, immediately jumping to Bianca’s defense. I hadn’t known her all that long true, but I didn’t want her any closer to this than she had to be.
“Oh no reason.”
Shaoni said with a snicker that sounded more like a hiss. With that she disappeared, and I mean she was just gone. One minute she was there the next there was a gust of wind and a brief flash of light and she was gone. The disruption was enough to wake Bianca up finally.
“Ugh, head..still…spinning.”
“Heh, I think you overdid it a bit last night.”
“Ugh maybe.”
She said, holding her head that still rested on my shoulder.
“What’s going on anyway, why’d you wake me up.”
“It’s just… well things are moving a bit faster than I hoped.”
I said, trying to reassure her that it was nothing, most likely failing miserably but she didn’t seem to notice. There was a second there that I thought maybe things could just be normal. This whole thing would just blow over and Shaoni would never come back and get me for these “trials” but I always knew it was wishful thinking. Now Bianca was a part of it to somehow, that had made up my mind. She’d been through enough, now Shaoni seemed interested in her all of a sudden. If putting myself through these trials kept her away from Bianca that’s exactly what I’d do.
2024.05.19 22:39 violentre Need an alternative sunshine MMC and a preppy (grumpy) FMC, please 😩
 | As far as goth/alt MMC, I’ve read Easy by Tamara Webber and Punk 57 (definitely don’t want this vibe!) by Penelope Douglas. Preferably KU, but doesn’t have to be. submitted by violentre to RomanceBooks [link] [comments] But I am in desperate need of a sunshine, tattoo/punk/alt/goth MMC who likes a preppy (as far as fashion style goes) FMC. Super bonus points if she’s a grump or introverted. I’m willing to read any books if it only fits the MMC description. 🙏🏽 |
2024.05.19 22:23 Life_Equipment381 Recommendations for Tattoo Artists good at lettering (Sanskrit phrase)
Hi everyone,
I am planning to get my first tattoo (यद् भावं तद् भवति). None of my friends have it so need your help and guidance. Longevity is very important to me. Other than that, just looking for a great experience for a newbie.
Would you recommend a tattoo artist around the area who is excellent at writing quotes? If they have knowledge or prior work that they have done in Sanskrit script, that would be even better.
I'd also appreciate how much I should expect to pay for it. I found a shop that I like and it is quoting me $700. My first reaction is that's a bit expensive but I have no idea.
Thank you in advance.
submitted by Life_Equipment381 to AskSF [link] [comments]
I am planning to get my first tattoo (यद् भावं तद् भवति). None of my friends have it so need your help and guidance. Longevity is very important to me. Other than that, just looking for a great experience for a newbie.
Would you recommend a tattoo artist around the area who is excellent at writing quotes? If they have knowledge or prior work that they have done in Sanskrit script, that would be even better.
I'd also appreciate how much I should expect to pay for it. I found a shop that I like and it is quoting me $700. My first reaction is that's a bit expensive but I have no idea.
Thank you in advance.
2024.05.19 20:11 thatmozzie_ Created A CyberPunk Dystopian Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Novel Set In The Year 2124 In Los Angeles
 | "The Neon District" submitted by thatmozzie_ to ChatGPT [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/h6j5xnthef1d1.jpg?width=1792&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2dac28553adfcd5e9a5762f45cecd76ca2071491 I was inspired after reading another user's experience creating his own world, so I decided to give it a shot. I wanted to create a sort of interactive choose-your-own-adventure cyberpunk story set in 2124 Los Angeles. I prompted ChatGPT to essentially create a story and world that revolves around common themes within a typical CyberPunk setting such as rampant crime, corrupt cops and politicians, massive drug usage, mega-corporations out of control, poverty, and technology blurring the lines between humanity. One of my favorite video games lately of all time is CyberPunk 2077, so I just wanted to create something similar that I could experience and live through in a different interactive way while also testing out ChatGPT out of boredom. Here are some of the results from the simulation. I'll denote "USER INPUT" as anything I wrote or input, and "CHAT GPT" anytime it outputs anything. Rules: I will use minimal intervention / altering and mainly allow the program to pretty much lead me through the story barring any world-breaking narratives or plots:
Setting: Los Angeles, 2124General Environment
Society
Key Locations
Main Character: ZoeBackground
Appearance
Plot ElementsConflict
Themes
Lets create some additional characters to the story and more world building, starting with her childhood best friend. He's trustworthy, loveable character type. Strong, loyal to a fault, pure, but also an amazing fighter and can be mean to those that do him or his family wrong as quick as any common thug on the streets. What should his name be? CHATGPT Let's name Zoe's childhood best friend Lucas. Here's a detailed character profile and additional world-building elements: Character Profile: LucasName: Lucas "Luc" RainesBackground:
Skills and Abilities:
Relationships:
Additional World-Building Elements:Key Factions:
Key Locations:
Plot Hooks and Story Arcs:
USER INPUT Can you generate an image in an anime/cyberpunk style reminiscant of the style of Ghost In The Shell. Generate our main character Zoe CHAPTGPT ZOE
CHATGPT New Character: Marcus "Iron Hand" KaneRole: Father Figure to Zoe and LucasBackground:
Additional Characters:1. Lila "Viper" Santos
New Locations:1. The Hub
New Scenes:1. The Heist
can you create images in the same style as the original image for the new Characters Marcus Iron Hand, Lila Viper Santos, and Riko Ghost Tanaka, Lucas, etc? Also generate additional images of some of the new locations etc separately. CHATGPT LUCAS MARCUS \"IRON HAND\" RIKO \"GHOST\" TANAKA LILA \"VIPER\" SANTOS THE HUB THE SPAWL NEOCORE HEADQUARTERS "THE VAULT" https://preview.redd.it/anol60qpef1d1.jpg?width=1792&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fcfb76dc6ac42f816de6148e66d3f3f60f442d64
Scene: Zoe's Apartment - Late Saturday MorningThe dim light filtering through the grime-covered windows of Zoe's apartment barely illuminates the cluttered room. The remnants of last night's celebration are scattered everywhere—empty bottles, discarded clothes, and the faint hum of old electronic music playing in the background. Zoe groans and sits up in bed, rubbing her temples to ease the throbbing in her head.Narration:Narrator: Zoe squinted at the holographic display, her vision still slightly blurry. The notifications were a mix of urgent messages and missed calls, each vying for her attention. She quickly scanned through them, her fingers moving with practiced ease over the interface.Zoe: (mumbling to herself) "Great, just what I need. More problems to deal with..." She swings her legs over the edge of the bed, stretching and wincing at the persistent hangover. With a sigh, she picks up her cybernetic arm from the nightstand and attaches it, feeling the familiar click as it integrates with her neural network. She taps her wristband, bringing up the missed messages and calls. Dialogue:Zoe: (talking to herself) "Let's see... job offers, updates from the underground... and what's this? 'Urgent Opportunity – High Reward.' Sounds promising."Her stomach growls, reminding her of her hunger. She heads to the small kitchenette, grabbing a protein bar and some instant coffee. As she munches on her makeshift breakfast, she taps the message to read the details. Zoe: (reading aloud) "High-risk, high-reward job, requiring a skilled netrunner. Substantial payout. Meet at The Hub tonight. Perfect." Her thoughts are interrupted by a knock at the door. She frowns, not expecting visitors this early. Cautiously, she approaches and peers through the peephole. Recognizing the familiar figure on the other side, she relaxes and opens the door. Lucas: (with a grin) "Morning, sunshine. You look like hell." Zoe: (rolling her eyes) "Thanks, Lucas. You’re a real charmer. Come in." Lucas steps inside, looking as rugged as ever with his scruff and tattoos. He drops a bag on the table and takes a seat. Lucas: "I brought breakfast. Figured you’d need it after last night." Zoe: "You’re a lifesaver. So, what’s up?" Lucas: "Got a tip about a job. Sounds like it could be worth our while. But first, you need to get your head straight. Eat up and let’s talk." They share a quick meal, discussing the potential job and catching up on recent events in the underground. Choice Point 1: Zoe's Response to the Job OfferOption A: Agree immediately and start planning. Option B: Ask for more details and express caution. Option C: Refuse the job and suggest looking for something safer.Please choose an option by typing "Option A," "Option B," or "Option C."
Choice: Option B - Ask for More Details and Express CautionZoe: (taking a sip of her coffee) "Hold on, Lucas. Before we jump in headfirst, I need to know more about this job. What exactly are we dealing with here?"Lucas: (nodding) "Fair enough. It's a high-stakes heist at NeoCore Headquarters. Our client wants us to steal some sensitive data from their secure servers. The payout is massive, but so are the risks. We'll need to get past top-tier security, both physical and digital." Zoe: (raising an eyebrow) "NeoCore, huh? That place is a fortress. Who's the client?" Lucas: "No name, just an anonymous contact. But they seem legit. They've provided detailed blueprints and security protocols. Still, I get it if you’re hesitant. This one's big." Choice Point 2: Zoe's Next ActionOption A: Accept the job but suggest taking extra precautions and planning thoroughly. Option B: Contact Marcus "Iron Hand" Kane for his advice and see if he has any additional information or support. Option C: Investigate the client further to ensure their legitimacy before making a decision.That's all i have so far but this was a super cool way to pass some time on a Sunday. I am considering starting a parallel story similar to this but a horror-survival one, similar to something like the original Silent Hill etc. What do you guys think - Anyone interested in seeing how this develops?! |
2024.05.19 16:16 bitterlybitter what the fuck is this crap
 | airheadinflopernaters are not ok submitted by bitterlybitter to ArianaGrandeSnark [link] [comments] |
2024.05.19 15:53 Gazooonga [Diary of a Press-Ganged Saurian] #1
Just another fun little story idea I had. I am still working on Humans are the violent ones but I like to bounce around and experiment with ideas to see what I really like. I also suck at writing more casual stories, as they give me severe writer's block as I try to map out how to make a scene feel genuine in my head, but I promise I'll update that soon. If you like this story and want to see more, then like and comment. I'll gladly continue this series as well.
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.
submitted by Gazooonga to redditserials [link] [comments]
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.
2024.05.19 14:58 LindseyEmiliaHale Surreal nonsense by a guy who has posted in other subreddits about being the Messiah
 | submitted by LindseyEmiliaHale to insanepeoplefacebook [link] [comments] |
2024.05.19 12:42 Averyoto the girl is mine Easter Egg predictive psychoanalysis. I conclude: the boy is me in her upcoming music video.
 | I talked to Kamala Harris this morning. Then I partially-completed this interpretation of 2019-2024 Ariana this afternoon. Just for my amusement, I collected these treasures to solve an explanation over why no Arianators EVER I MEAN NEVER upvote my dog theory. Thankfully, I have been given access to 200+ media platforms, so I can use another viral method to WAKE UP Ariana in the name of Jesus. submitted by Averyoto to ariheads [link] [comments] If you can psychically tune in to my problematic opinion, this "situation-ship" has to end. The boy is not Ethan, the boy is me. I wrote her 85 love letters. So why is her next perfume “LoveNotes?” I invited her to the moon. So why did she post 29 Instagram photos of the moon? (Seen around the borderline.) I told her manager, agents, and publicists what I thought about her hidden 15 song album (she deleted) about my Jew's hopes, but these Redditors still can't find their sympathy for my claim to be the Son of Eternal Sunshine, because Ariana is still on a news strike! If for many reasons, I am considered Toulouse in her art, can you agree with what I just unraveled, there is a strong obligation from this comment section to spot my♌️"supernatural"🦮when it comes knocking. With what I deduced, in order of business, when "the boy is mine" releases, I should fill in the top right corner with some still frame from the video, because it's going to be something about a NASA mad scientist. I have to invent light-speed travel after we meet each other's True Loves, which happened to be each other. In that order. Agree to disagree, is anyone out there🙈sus?🪽👀🪽 |
2024.05.19 03:00 No-Exercise5869 Pick a Place! (Part 1)
That’s all it was. A game.
Something my friends and I used to play during the summer when we had nothing better to do. I never expected that it would get so out of hand.
I never expected it to come back long after recovery.
To anyone reading, please don’t do what I did.
I’m putting this out there to warn people.
On that warm summer evening, we played the role of Pandora.
Except, the monsters we released were far worse than what’s told in stories.
Because stories end.
And this doesn’t.
I still remember the date. July 16, 2013. I was an upcoming senior in high school while the others were getting prepared for their freshman year of college, raving on about their majors, life plans, dorms, you get the point. The summer had been bittersweet as those months would be the last I’d see them for a while. Because of this, Anthony, Lola, Eliza, and I would spend the bulk of our time together going to festivals and various camping trips, trying to make the most out of the summer while we could. On that day, the day I wish I could forget, Eliza had run late to one of our hangouts at my place. This was odd since as an Ivy league student, she was usually early or right on time to these kind of things. Half past three, we heard her knocking on my door rapidly, which was also out of character considering that she was usually the calm one in our group. A bit worried, I hurried down the stairs with Anthony and Lola following close behind, expecting Eliza to be in hysterics due to her frantic behavior. When I opened the door, however, there she was with a bright smile on her face, her red hair getting in the way of her eyes, which were a dark green shade. She pushed her hair out of her face with one hand and held a brown box in the other, and she was bouncing up and down as she usually does when she’s about to talk about something exciting.
“You’ll never believe what I found.” Eliza’s voice could barely hold her impatience as she stepped inside and kicked her shoes off once she crossed over my threshold.
“What’s up with you today?” Anthony questioned, looking more confused than concerned now.
“I’ll show you guys in a minute. Can we go up to your room, Felix?” Eliza looked over at me with her trademark smile, knowing damn well we were all too curious to just leave that box unopened. Without a word, I led the group up to my room and shut the door after everyone had walked in. Anthony took his usual spot on my beanbag and unzipped his hoodie, which had the MSM logo sprawled across the front in big red letters. He adjusted his dark rimmed glasses and took on his usual stoic expression. Lola wore a dark blue FIT shirt, which she revealed more of when she moved her locs over her shoulder as she sat on my desk chair and wheeled over to us. As she did, the various necklaces she wore clinked against each other. Eliza herself was the smartest out of the group, and probably in the whole school as well. She had gotten accepted into multiple prestigious schools, but ultimately settled for Harvard to pursue a degree in some obscure philanthropic career. Unlike Anthony and Lola, Eliza wore her regular outfit –usually a white tank top and jeans– and sat on my bed with the box in her lap. I took a seat next to her to get a closer look.
“So what’d you find?” The others moved closer.
“Something we probably haven’t thought about for a really long time. Do you guys remember that one game we used to play in middle school? The one we made after Felix joined our class?” Eliza looked at our puzzled faces to see if we had connected the dots, but her clue didn’t seem to strike any of us with familiarity.
“After Felix joined? Didn’t we just hang out or something that weekend?” Anthony questioned.
“We did, but there was something else,” Eliza raised an eyebrow, “you guys seriously don’t remember?”
At that moment, I saw Lola’s eyes light up and a thin smile grew on her lips, something she always did whenever she was able to figure something out.
“You mean that little map game we played? Where we would go out to the woods and explore?”
Both Anthony and I seemed to have remembered as well with the mention of a ‘map game.’ I chimed in, “ yeah I remember! Every once in a while when we were all bored, we’d pick a random spot on a map to go to and explore there for a bit, right? When did we stop doing that anyways? I remember really enjoying it.”
“Well life happens,” Eliza responded to me, “but I was thinking of things to do for the rest of the summer when I suddenly remembered that game! That’s why I was so late for our meetup today, I was looking through my attic for this.” Eliza shook the box slightly and a couple things clattered around inside.
“There’s no way.” Anthony sounded like he was in disbelief.
“You mean…?” Lola sat forward in the chair. Eliza smirked, her adventurous nature creeping out as realization swept over us like a wave.
“Mhm! I found the map we used to use as well as the things we collected from our little escapades.” With that, Eliza opened the box, revealing a folded piece of paper and various trinkets scattered over the bottom of the capsule. Lola squealed with excitement and immediately snatched the box from Eliza, who simply chuckled and leaned back on the bed.
“No way! Everything’s still in here!” Lola digged through the box and placed whatever objects she found across the blanket. Anthony got up and sat at the foot of my bed, to observe our findings more closely. There was a piece of some clay pottery, some rusty springs and scraps of metal, an old digital camera, and some other random stuff I can’t recall to memory right now. Anthony picked up a spring and turned it in his palm.
“Shit man, this is from that abandoned junkyard we found in 8th grade…that feels like such a long time ago now.”
I examined the piece of pottery with Eliza looking over my shoulder. Lola picked up the digital camera.
“Do you remember where this came from?” I turned to Eliza and held up my discovery.
“No clue,” she shrugged. It must have been a while ago if even she didn’t remember. I turned the piece over and grew curious when I saw weird symbols inscribed on the inside of it. I squinted a bit, trying to discern some sort of pattern within the scribbles.
I turned to Eliza again, “hey, what do you think-”
“OH MY GOD GUYS IT STILL WORKS!” Lola’s voice went up a whole octave as she motioned to us.
The rest of us looked up as she turned the camera to face us. There were various photos we went through. All of us at lakes, museums, exploring the woods; everything we did from 7th grade until my freshman year seemed to be documented. The last photo was arguable the best and msot bittersweet. It was a picture of the whole group from a while ago. We were sitting at Eliza’s dinner table with a giant chocolate cake on the middle of it adorned with two candles shaped like the numbers one and five. Eliza was talking to me in the photo. Her hair was even more red at the time and she wore it in a braid. I looked about the same in the photo as I did then, with light brown hair, blue eyes, and freckles scattered all over my body and face. I was smiling sheepishly at Eliza. I now knew why Anthony said it was obvious I had a crush on her in 8th grade. Lola went through the most changes out of all of us. At the time in the photo, she had her hair straightened and side-swept, with a bright pink streak in her bangs. She wore clunky jewlery and a frilly skirt underneath a long tank top, leaning over the table to cut another slice of cake. All of us had birthday hats on except for Anthony, who kept his sitting on the table. He held up a peace sign staring straight into the camera with a stoic expression. He looked like a statue compared to the rest of us, who were laughing and smiling. You could tell he was having fun, though.
“Well don’t you look like a ray of sunshine,” Lola snickered as Anthony shot her a dirty look.
“At least I didn’t go through some weird scene phase in freshman year,” He smiled and watched Lola’s face, knowing she was blushing despite her dark skin which made it practically invisible. I let a laugh slip out, but quickly stifled it knowing that if I kept going it would mean death. Lola side-eyed me and continued, “I was using my creative liberty to experiment with my options as an artist,” she said with an overly-posh accent that made Eliza laugh.
“Yeah Anthony, don’t be such a downer,” Eliza teased. Anthony simply rolled his eyes and suppressed a smile to pretend like he was mad at all of us. He looked into the box and picked up the paper we left, unfolding it with a hint of excitement and curiosity. When he looked at it, only two words came out of his mouth.
“Holy shit.”
“What, what is it?” Lola tried to look at the other side of the paper, but Anthony quickly held it out of her view.
“What if I didn’t want to show you?” A smile crept onto his face. This was one of those rare moments where he’d be in the moos to joke around with us.
“Don’t be a dick bro,” I said, laughing as I went to grab for the paper. Anthony just held it up in the air and pushed me off of him and I landed on my floor. While he was distracted, though, Eliza took her chance and snatched the paper right out of his hand.
“You boys need to learn to be nice,” she warned in her jokingly stern voice as she unfolded the paper and spread it out onto my bed. We all leaned over to look.
It was a map of a couple towns including ours. There were around ten small star stickers placed on different areas on the map near the streets the four of us lived in. On the top of the map, a couple words were scrawled in black sharpie; “Pick a Place!” I could see everyone’s faces light up.
“Oh my god it’s our map!” Lola shouted and pointed to one of the stars near her street, “this was where we found that old junkyard right?”
Eliza smiled, “I remember that. It feels like such a long time ago now.” She pointed to another star, “and this is where we found that lake we made a hideout of. I still remember swimming in there in 8th grade…”
The four of us reminisced for a while, talking about where we had gone and what we did there, and how impressive it was that we didn’t get tetanus from that junkyard. After nearly an hour of conversation, Eliza asked something that made all of us stop.
“So how about it guys? Do you want to do one last round before the summer ends?”
The rest of us looked around at each other. It was clear we all wanted to do it. Eliza seemed to catch on and she nodded.
“Who wants to pick where we go?”
“How about you do the honors?” Lola suggested, motioning towards the map. “You’re the one that brought this stuff in anyways.”
Eliza raised her eyebrow but didn’t object. Without a word, she examined the map for a few minutes, then placed her finger on one spot a bit far from my house.
“How about here?”
“You think we can make it that far?” Anthony asked.
“Well, we can drive now so why not?”
“You sure there’s some type of trail we can drive on? That spot looks pretty deep in the woods”
“We can find a path to drive on for a bit then walk the rest of the way. C’mon guys, this is probably our last chance to do something like this! Felix, you can drive right?”
Eliza and the rest turned to me with a hopeful expression. I had to comply.
“Sure. No big deal, right?”
All three of them cheered and high fived each other, looking pretty excited to go on one last adventure.
“So when do we leave?” I questioned.
Eliza flashed that smile again, “right now.”
“Right now?!”
“Hell yeah,” Lola chimed in. “It shouldn’t take that long, right?”
“I guess…” Even then I felt uneasy about the whole thing. I didn’t feel prepared enough to go on some random trip into the woods. I needed to pack food, water, flashlights, I had no idea how long this was going to take. Little did I know that those things would be the least of my worries a couple hours from then. I wish I could go back and convince my 17-year-old self that it wasn’t worth it, that I should just convince my friends to stay and talk for the rest of the day. I wish Eliza had never remembered that stupid game. In a way, I’m almost mad at her for what happened, but I know it wasn’t anyones fault. We just wanted to have fun. I wish we could’ve just had fun. But God had a different plan for us. One that made me think Satan himself devised it instead. On July 16, 2013, Anthony He, Lola Smith, Eliza Landserson, and Felix Johanson went on an adventure that none of them were ready for.
Author's Note:
If you just read all of that then thank you so so so much for doing so! I'm a rookie writer, so feel free to comment any constructive criticism you might have if you have actual writing experience! This is the first silly little story I'm posting here, so I hope you enjoyed :)
submitted by No-Exercise5869 to u/No-Exercise5869 [link] [comments]
Something my friends and I used to play during the summer when we had nothing better to do. I never expected that it would get so out of hand.
I never expected it to come back long after recovery.
To anyone reading, please don’t do what I did.
I’m putting this out there to warn people.
On that warm summer evening, we played the role of Pandora.
Except, the monsters we released were far worse than what’s told in stories.
Because stories end.
And this doesn’t.
I still remember the date. July 16, 2013. I was an upcoming senior in high school while the others were getting prepared for their freshman year of college, raving on about their majors, life plans, dorms, you get the point. The summer had been bittersweet as those months would be the last I’d see them for a while. Because of this, Anthony, Lola, Eliza, and I would spend the bulk of our time together going to festivals and various camping trips, trying to make the most out of the summer while we could. On that day, the day I wish I could forget, Eliza had run late to one of our hangouts at my place. This was odd since as an Ivy league student, she was usually early or right on time to these kind of things. Half past three, we heard her knocking on my door rapidly, which was also out of character considering that she was usually the calm one in our group. A bit worried, I hurried down the stairs with Anthony and Lola following close behind, expecting Eliza to be in hysterics due to her frantic behavior. When I opened the door, however, there she was with a bright smile on her face, her red hair getting in the way of her eyes, which were a dark green shade. She pushed her hair out of her face with one hand and held a brown box in the other, and she was bouncing up and down as she usually does when she’s about to talk about something exciting.
“You’ll never believe what I found.” Eliza’s voice could barely hold her impatience as she stepped inside and kicked her shoes off once she crossed over my threshold.
“What’s up with you today?” Anthony questioned, looking more confused than concerned now.
“I’ll show you guys in a minute. Can we go up to your room, Felix?” Eliza looked over at me with her trademark smile, knowing damn well we were all too curious to just leave that box unopened. Without a word, I led the group up to my room and shut the door after everyone had walked in. Anthony took his usual spot on my beanbag and unzipped his hoodie, which had the MSM logo sprawled across the front in big red letters. He adjusted his dark rimmed glasses and took on his usual stoic expression. Lola wore a dark blue FIT shirt, which she revealed more of when she moved her locs over her shoulder as she sat on my desk chair and wheeled over to us. As she did, the various necklaces she wore clinked against each other. Eliza herself was the smartest out of the group, and probably in the whole school as well. She had gotten accepted into multiple prestigious schools, but ultimately settled for Harvard to pursue a degree in some obscure philanthropic career. Unlike Anthony and Lola, Eliza wore her regular outfit –usually a white tank top and jeans– and sat on my bed with the box in her lap. I took a seat next to her to get a closer look.
“So what’d you find?” The others moved closer.
“Something we probably haven’t thought about for a really long time. Do you guys remember that one game we used to play in middle school? The one we made after Felix joined our class?” Eliza looked at our puzzled faces to see if we had connected the dots, but her clue didn’t seem to strike any of us with familiarity.
“After Felix joined? Didn’t we just hang out or something that weekend?” Anthony questioned.
“We did, but there was something else,” Eliza raised an eyebrow, “you guys seriously don’t remember?”
At that moment, I saw Lola’s eyes light up and a thin smile grew on her lips, something she always did whenever she was able to figure something out.
“You mean that little map game we played? Where we would go out to the woods and explore?”
Both Anthony and I seemed to have remembered as well with the mention of a ‘map game.’ I chimed in, “ yeah I remember! Every once in a while when we were all bored, we’d pick a random spot on a map to go to and explore there for a bit, right? When did we stop doing that anyways? I remember really enjoying it.”
“Well life happens,” Eliza responded to me, “but I was thinking of things to do for the rest of the summer when I suddenly remembered that game! That’s why I was so late for our meetup today, I was looking through my attic for this.” Eliza shook the box slightly and a couple things clattered around inside.
“There’s no way.” Anthony sounded like he was in disbelief.
“You mean…?” Lola sat forward in the chair. Eliza smirked, her adventurous nature creeping out as realization swept over us like a wave.
“Mhm! I found the map we used to use as well as the things we collected from our little escapades.” With that, Eliza opened the box, revealing a folded piece of paper and various trinkets scattered over the bottom of the capsule. Lola squealed with excitement and immediately snatched the box from Eliza, who simply chuckled and leaned back on the bed.
“No way! Everything’s still in here!” Lola digged through the box and placed whatever objects she found across the blanket. Anthony got up and sat at the foot of my bed, to observe our findings more closely. There was a piece of some clay pottery, some rusty springs and scraps of metal, an old digital camera, and some other random stuff I can’t recall to memory right now. Anthony picked up a spring and turned it in his palm.
“Shit man, this is from that abandoned junkyard we found in 8th grade…that feels like such a long time ago now.”
I examined the piece of pottery with Eliza looking over my shoulder. Lola picked up the digital camera.
“Do you remember where this came from?” I turned to Eliza and held up my discovery.
“No clue,” she shrugged. It must have been a while ago if even she didn’t remember. I turned the piece over and grew curious when I saw weird symbols inscribed on the inside of it. I squinted a bit, trying to discern some sort of pattern within the scribbles.
I turned to Eliza again, “hey, what do you think-”
“OH MY GOD GUYS IT STILL WORKS!” Lola’s voice went up a whole octave as she motioned to us.
The rest of us looked up as she turned the camera to face us. There were various photos we went through. All of us at lakes, museums, exploring the woods; everything we did from 7th grade until my freshman year seemed to be documented. The last photo was arguable the best and msot bittersweet. It was a picture of the whole group from a while ago. We were sitting at Eliza’s dinner table with a giant chocolate cake on the middle of it adorned with two candles shaped like the numbers one and five. Eliza was talking to me in the photo. Her hair was even more red at the time and she wore it in a braid. I looked about the same in the photo as I did then, with light brown hair, blue eyes, and freckles scattered all over my body and face. I was smiling sheepishly at Eliza. I now knew why Anthony said it was obvious I had a crush on her in 8th grade. Lola went through the most changes out of all of us. At the time in the photo, she had her hair straightened and side-swept, with a bright pink streak in her bangs. She wore clunky jewlery and a frilly skirt underneath a long tank top, leaning over the table to cut another slice of cake. All of us had birthday hats on except for Anthony, who kept his sitting on the table. He held up a peace sign staring straight into the camera with a stoic expression. He looked like a statue compared to the rest of us, who were laughing and smiling. You could tell he was having fun, though.
“Well don’t you look like a ray of sunshine,” Lola snickered as Anthony shot her a dirty look.
“At least I didn’t go through some weird scene phase in freshman year,” He smiled and watched Lola’s face, knowing she was blushing despite her dark skin which made it practically invisible. I let a laugh slip out, but quickly stifled it knowing that if I kept going it would mean death. Lola side-eyed me and continued, “I was using my creative liberty to experiment with my options as an artist,” she said with an overly-posh accent that made Eliza laugh.
“Yeah Anthony, don’t be such a downer,” Eliza teased. Anthony simply rolled his eyes and suppressed a smile to pretend like he was mad at all of us. He looked into the box and picked up the paper we left, unfolding it with a hint of excitement and curiosity. When he looked at it, only two words came out of his mouth.
“Holy shit.”
“What, what is it?” Lola tried to look at the other side of the paper, but Anthony quickly held it out of her view.
“What if I didn’t want to show you?” A smile crept onto his face. This was one of those rare moments where he’d be in the moos to joke around with us.
“Don’t be a dick bro,” I said, laughing as I went to grab for the paper. Anthony just held it up in the air and pushed me off of him and I landed on my floor. While he was distracted, though, Eliza took her chance and snatched the paper right out of his hand.
“You boys need to learn to be nice,” she warned in her jokingly stern voice as she unfolded the paper and spread it out onto my bed. We all leaned over to look.
It was a map of a couple towns including ours. There were around ten small star stickers placed on different areas on the map near the streets the four of us lived in. On the top of the map, a couple words were scrawled in black sharpie; “Pick a Place!” I could see everyone’s faces light up.
“Oh my god it’s our map!” Lola shouted and pointed to one of the stars near her street, “this was where we found that old junkyard right?”
Eliza smiled, “I remember that. It feels like such a long time ago now.” She pointed to another star, “and this is where we found that lake we made a hideout of. I still remember swimming in there in 8th grade…”
The four of us reminisced for a while, talking about where we had gone and what we did there, and how impressive it was that we didn’t get tetanus from that junkyard. After nearly an hour of conversation, Eliza asked something that made all of us stop.
“So how about it guys? Do you want to do one last round before the summer ends?”
The rest of us looked around at each other. It was clear we all wanted to do it. Eliza seemed to catch on and she nodded.
“Who wants to pick where we go?”
“How about you do the honors?” Lola suggested, motioning towards the map. “You’re the one that brought this stuff in anyways.”
Eliza raised her eyebrow but didn’t object. Without a word, she examined the map for a few minutes, then placed her finger on one spot a bit far from my house.
“How about here?”
“You think we can make it that far?” Anthony asked.
“Well, we can drive now so why not?”
“You sure there’s some type of trail we can drive on? That spot looks pretty deep in the woods”
“We can find a path to drive on for a bit then walk the rest of the way. C’mon guys, this is probably our last chance to do something like this! Felix, you can drive right?”
Eliza and the rest turned to me with a hopeful expression. I had to comply.
“Sure. No big deal, right?”
All three of them cheered and high fived each other, looking pretty excited to go on one last adventure.
“So when do we leave?” I questioned.
Eliza flashed that smile again, “right now.”
“Right now?!”
“Hell yeah,” Lola chimed in. “It shouldn’t take that long, right?”
“I guess…” Even then I felt uneasy about the whole thing. I didn’t feel prepared enough to go on some random trip into the woods. I needed to pack food, water, flashlights, I had no idea how long this was going to take. Little did I know that those things would be the least of my worries a couple hours from then. I wish I could go back and convince my 17-year-old self that it wasn’t worth it, that I should just convince my friends to stay and talk for the rest of the day. I wish Eliza had never remembered that stupid game. In a way, I’m almost mad at her for what happened, but I know it wasn’t anyones fault. We just wanted to have fun. I wish we could’ve just had fun. But God had a different plan for us. One that made me think Satan himself devised it instead. On July 16, 2013, Anthony He, Lola Smith, Eliza Landserson, and Felix Johanson went on an adventure that none of them were ready for.
Author's Note:
If you just read all of that then thank you so so so much for doing so! I'm a rookie writer, so feel free to comment any constructive criticism you might have if you have actual writing experience! This is the first silly little story I'm posting here, so I hope you enjoyed :)
2024.05.19 01:15 Gazooonga Diary of a Press-Ganged Saurian (#1/?)
Just another fun little story idea I had. I am still working on Humans are the violent ones but I like to bounce around and experiment with ideas to see what I really like. I also suck at writing more casual stories, as they give me severe writer's block as I try to map out how to make a scene feel genuine in my head, but I promise I'll update that soon. If you like this story and want to see more, then like and comment. I'll gladly continue this series as well.
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.
submitted by Gazooonga to HFY [link] [comments]
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.
2024.05.19 00:48 SamsSaga Help
 | Hey all, I just got this tattoo yesterday and I am in need of some opinions. I think the only thing that's wrong/off is the "em" is too close together and there is a small spot towards the bottom of the first "m" that's bothering me. The artist I went to says she is happy to fix it but I am starting to think I should get it covered. submitted by SamsSaga to FixedTattoos [link] [comments] I reached out to an artist I went to in the past who suggested that I ( no joke) scratch at the scabs so it will pull the ink a bit and he'll fix it ( don't worry, I'm not going to do that. That's a terrible idea and I have lost a lot of respect for that artist). But I want to get other opinions. I am not opting to lazer removal yet but should I trust a lettering touch up or go for a cover up? And if I should just get it covered, what would you all suggest that would fall into a patchwork style? |
2024.05.18 19:29 SamPitchers Race Report Frenchman XXL Carcans, France
My first XXL triathlon.
I chose the Frenchman because it was close to me, only 2 hours drive. It's flat. It's non IronMan brand so relatively cheap. I entered this race for 2023, I was also training for PBP at the time. Due to niggling injuries and trying to focus on 2 different events I decided to postpone the tri till 2024. Luckily I had taken out the insurance, and a Dr's letter got the job done.
With PBP and all, I have no problem cycling long, but I'm not fast. My biggest fear was missing the bike cut-off. I had a pile of Excel formumas where I could plug in all the variables to find out the minimum times to make the cut off. I've been running for years and years so a 6 hour marathon to dip in under 17 hours didn't seem a problem. As well as the running club I also joined a cycling club, to help get me more consistant. Cranked up the pool swims. I swam 4km 3 times and cycled 200km 3 times too before the event.
Unfortunately a lingering achilles injury stopped me running as much as I would have liked and then pulled a hamstring the week before race day.
We have had months and months of rain here in SW France. BUt race day saw sunshine. 2000 competitors participated in the half distnace on the Friday, and there were 600 of us for the full on Saturday. 19 in my age-group V5 (I'm 62). Dawn broke over a flat lake, not a breath of wind. I was pleased that I hadn't forgotten anything. Bike racked the night before and the transition bags in place.
The swim was an out and back into the lake, 17°C. We started in 1 mass start from the beach, the first few hundred metres was carnage. Once I had clear water I really enjoyed it. I'm a solid swimmer, and I got into an easy rythm and ground it out. Sighting was difficult on the out because we were swimming into the dawning sun. I came out of the swim at mid pack, 1h20, got my wet suit off, sunscreen on, took some salt tablets and headed out to the bike leg. T1 10 minutes.
The bike was 2 laps of 90km. Feed stations every 40km or so. A few little hills in the first 25km and then long straight flat roads. Roads weren't closed to traffic, but there were police and volunteers stopping the traffic at crossroads and roundabouts so we could fly straight through.
I rode to heart rate, forcing myself to stay bottom part of Z3. There was about 30km into a headwind on poor road surface which dropped the average, and I was passed by hundreds of cyclists, especially in the first 30km.
The temperature climed and on lap 2 the wind strengthened and I struggled to keep my heart rate down, but I also noticed I was pulling back a lot of other cyclists who had over cooked it. I finished the bike leg in 6h33 which was way faster than I hoped. A leasurly T2 of 13 minutes (more food, more sunscreen, toilet stop to reassure myself it WAS wind on not the shits that was behind the stomach cramps!)
So I started my run after 8h15. Leaving me over 8 hours for the marathon. I knew then I was going to finish.
I run/walked to a 2h45 half marathon, but at 30km my hamstring pain and a blister under my foot were too bad and I decided to walk the rest. 5h54 for the run. The course was a 10km loop with food stations every 2km. The crowds and the volunteers were superb. My wife who came with me was there for encouragement and photos and it was great when I saw my son had come along too.
At the finish line I said "never again" but I'm now keen to get a better time, compete without injury and train more intelligently.
This may come over as humble brag, but I felt a bit disappointed that I finished it easily. I had always seen XXL distance as insanely far and difficult, but nowI'm convinced that if you do the training, it's within the grasp of anyone.
Link to my splits
https://live.breizhchrono.com/external/live5/infos-resultat.jsp?detecteur=&reference=1354050643080-20&dossard=1273&heat-id=1355218866171&ref-kk=1354050643080-20-6385-1355218866171
submitted by SamPitchers to triathlon [link] [comments]
I chose the Frenchman because it was close to me, only 2 hours drive. It's flat. It's non IronMan brand so relatively cheap. I entered this race for 2023, I was also training for PBP at the time. Due to niggling injuries and trying to focus on 2 different events I decided to postpone the tri till 2024. Luckily I had taken out the insurance, and a Dr's letter got the job done.
With PBP and all, I have no problem cycling long, but I'm not fast. My biggest fear was missing the bike cut-off. I had a pile of Excel formumas where I could plug in all the variables to find out the minimum times to make the cut off. I've been running for years and years so a 6 hour marathon to dip in under 17 hours didn't seem a problem. As well as the running club I also joined a cycling club, to help get me more consistant. Cranked up the pool swims. I swam 4km 3 times and cycled 200km 3 times too before the event.
Unfortunately a lingering achilles injury stopped me running as much as I would have liked and then pulled a hamstring the week before race day.
We have had months and months of rain here in SW France. BUt race day saw sunshine. 2000 competitors participated in the half distnace on the Friday, and there were 600 of us for the full on Saturday. 19 in my age-group V5 (I'm 62). Dawn broke over a flat lake, not a breath of wind. I was pleased that I hadn't forgotten anything. Bike racked the night before and the transition bags in place.
The swim was an out and back into the lake, 17°C. We started in 1 mass start from the beach, the first few hundred metres was carnage. Once I had clear water I really enjoyed it. I'm a solid swimmer, and I got into an easy rythm and ground it out. Sighting was difficult on the out because we were swimming into the dawning sun. I came out of the swim at mid pack, 1h20, got my wet suit off, sunscreen on, took some salt tablets and headed out to the bike leg. T1 10 minutes.
The bike was 2 laps of 90km. Feed stations every 40km or so. A few little hills in the first 25km and then long straight flat roads. Roads weren't closed to traffic, but there were police and volunteers stopping the traffic at crossroads and roundabouts so we could fly straight through.
I rode to heart rate, forcing myself to stay bottom part of Z3. There was about 30km into a headwind on poor road surface which dropped the average, and I was passed by hundreds of cyclists, especially in the first 30km.
The temperature climed and on lap 2 the wind strengthened and I struggled to keep my heart rate down, but I also noticed I was pulling back a lot of other cyclists who had over cooked it. I finished the bike leg in 6h33 which was way faster than I hoped. A leasurly T2 of 13 minutes (more food, more sunscreen, toilet stop to reassure myself it WAS wind on not the shits that was behind the stomach cramps!)
So I started my run after 8h15. Leaving me over 8 hours for the marathon. I knew then I was going to finish.
I run/walked to a 2h45 half marathon, but at 30km my hamstring pain and a blister under my foot were too bad and I decided to walk the rest. 5h54 for the run. The course was a 10km loop with food stations every 2km. The crowds and the volunteers were superb. My wife who came with me was there for encouragement and photos and it was great when I saw my son had come along too.
At the finish line I said "never again" but I'm now keen to get a better time, compete without injury and train more intelligently.
This may come over as humble brag, but I felt a bit disappointed that I finished it easily. I had always seen XXL distance as insanely far and difficult, but nowI'm convinced that if you do the training, it's within the grasp of anyone.
Link to my splits
https://live.breizhchrono.com/external/live5/infos-resultat.jsp?detecteur=&reference=1354050643080-20&dossard=1273&heat-id=1355218866171&ref-kk=1354050643080-20-6385-1355218866171
2024.05.18 19:27 sharkycharming track, album, & artist word search: PLEASE
Please list your all-time top 10 tracks that contain the word please, and your all-time top album and artist with the word please in the title. It's fine if the word is part of a larger word, like pleased or displease, but it must have p-l-e-a-s-e in that order, no pleasure or pleasant. Okay to have more than 10 if you've got ties.
artist: none
submitted by sharkycharming to lastfm [link] [comments]
- "Please Read the Letter" - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss (11)
- "Please Don't Go" - KC & the Sunshine Band (9)
- "Lover Please" - Clyde McPhatter (8)
- "Pleaser" - The Glands (8)
- "Please Please Me" - The Beatles (7)
- "Please Don't Send Me Away" - Matthew Jay (7)
- "Please Stay" - The Drifters (7)
- "Please Don't Bury Me" - John Prine (6)
- "Please Be with Me" - Cowboy (6)
- "Please Help Me, I'm Falling" - Hank Locklin (6)
- "Rosy Won't You Please Come Home" - The Kinks (6)
artist: none
2024.05.18 18:27 Alarmed-Internal1657 How can I know if a Capricorn like me or not?
So I(23f) am not from the US and I met this Capricorn man(25m) on tinder I guess in 2021. In 2021 we rarely talked. In 2022, I decided to go to the US for working holiday,and I chose the state which he lives in. Then after that we texted a lot, we talked a lot, he pushed me to practice English. He also asked me if I wanted to get a tattoo with him when I went to the US, and also we did have a mutual song playlist on Spotify. When I went to the US in 2023, we did meet. But I think things went wrong like it’s a lo no story. I am a Taiwanese, there are 4 Taiwanese in our dormitory including me. And there’s one woman who’s two years older than me. At first, she asked us what’s our purpose coming to the US for working holiday, and we said to experience different cultures! Guess what her answer was to get a US boyfriend. And since the guy I met wanted to visit me, finally I said yes, but also since he said restaurant might closed when he arrived here cause he lives three hours away from me. Hence I asked him if he wanted to come to our dormitory and I could cooked for him. Because he’s coming to our dormitory, the other three people had right to know there’s a man coming. Then I told them, and the sister who’s older than me kept asking me the guy’s information like what he looks like what’s his job. And after she watched his pic, she was like no way he’s handsome he’s scam. Then guess what, that day he arrived early. Originally I wanted my friend accompanied me to have dinner with me and the guy. At the end, that woman said she’s coming with me lol And yea anyways she liked him immediately which made me feel uncomfortable and not happy that night. And the guy told me “ I don’t want to upset you but she connected with me on instagram “ Since this happened we became kind of awkward And since he said he wanted to know both of us. And I was like ok then I gave up you can get to know her only. After that I just posted a story which is I talked to another guy on Snapchat. After he saw it he just added a song “ wonder if she loves me by JVKE” and I was really confused. Also, after I came back to Taiwan I did send him a package of snacks from Taiwan and I wrote a letter to him told him that I’m really happy to meet him cause he’s the best and I am sorry I didn’t talk much when I’m with him actually I wanted but my English is not as good as that woman, and I wanted him to come to Taiwan we can have more time to see each other and get along. He’s happy with that and he also said sorry things didn’t work out that he can’t see me more and he’ll save money so he can come to Taiwan. And just couple weeks ago, I randomly asked him “ do you like Joanne (the woman)more?” And he said “ what” then I just said “ just ignored it my friend used my phone lol” Then he read my text without respond. My final point is just couple days ago he added couple songs into our playlist and the meaning of the songs saying like “ I’m falling like the rain”,”I know that we can’t be friends”,”you are everything I need”,what if we fell in love? What if we are us? Would you love me?”
I am just feel confused why he doesn’t just text me directly? I don’t really know what’s on his mind and I have never been in a relationship I really don’t have clue
Can someone who’s Capricorn ♑️ can give me advices? And he’s added these songs lol
submitted by Alarmed-Internal1657 to capricorns [link] [comments]
I am just feel confused why he doesn’t just text me directly? I don’t really know what’s on his mind and I have never been in a relationship I really don’t have clue
Can someone who’s Capricorn ♑️ can give me advices? And he’s added these songs lol
2024.05.18 15:20 OkInterest7012 Sex trafficking survivor with tattoo idea for branding coverup
Cross posting;
Hi! I escaped human trafficking over 5 years ago, and am ready to start thinking about covering up my branding tattoo. I have used chat gpt to help generate an idea. And I could cry at how perfect the result is.
The branding is HUGE black letters on my lower back-mid lower back.
I would like any opinions on or ideas from others as well. So here goes it..
I also need someone to draw it, and tattoo it. I need it to be amazing.
After getting ideas I put together a rising Phoenix, the universe, and forest and mountains. Some of my favorite things, as well as so meaningful to my situation.
Here is chat gpts generation:
Covering a branding on your entire lower back with a cohesive and meaningful tattoo is a wonderful idea. Here’s a refined design concept for a "Phoenix Ascending from the Cosmic Forest" that will effectively cover your lower back:
Design Concept: "Phoenix Ascending from the Cosmic Forest" Central Element: Phoenix
Position: Center the phoenix on your lower back, with its body starting near your spine and wings extending outward towards your sides. The tail feathers can flow downwards towards the lower part of your back, integrating into the other elements. Design Details: The phoenix should be depicted in mid-flight, rising from the base of your back upwards. Use vibrant colors like reds, oranges, and yellows for the phoenix, transitioning to cooler tones like blues and purples as it ascends. Surrounding Elements:
Mountains
Base: Position the mountains at the bottom part of your back, forming the foundation from which the phoenix is rising. The peaks of the mountains can blend into the lower feathers of the phoenix. Design Details: Use a mix of sharp and soft lines to create a sense of grandeur and strength. Add shadows and highlights to give depth and realism. Forest
Foreground: Place the forest above the mountains, around the lower part of the phoenix’s body. Tall trees can rise on either side of the phoenix, their branches possibly intertwining with the phoenix’s wings or tail feathers. Design Details: Include details like leaves, rays of sunlight, and small animals to bring the forest to life. Use earthy tones like greens, browns, and greys to contrast with the phoenix’s vibrant colors. Universe / Star / Galaxy
Background: The cosmic elements can fill the upper part of your lower back, blending into the background behind the phoenix and forest. Swirling galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters can create a dynamic, ethereal backdrop. Design Details: Use deep blues, purples, and blacks with bright whites and other vivid colors for stars and galaxies. The phoenix’s upper feathers can appear to dissolve into stardust, seamlessly blending with the cosmic background. Additional Elements: Add constellations that hold personal significance or shooting stars to symbolize hope and new beginnings. Color Scheme
Phoenix: Warm tones (reds, oranges, yellows) transitioning to cool tones (blues, purples) to depict the transformation from fire to cosmic energy. Mountains and Forest: Earthy tones (greens, browns, greys) to ground the design and contrast with the vibrant phoenix and cosmic elements. Universe: Deep blues, purples, and blacks with specks of white and bright colors to represent stars and galaxies. Placement and Flow
Lower Back: The design should flow naturally across the lower back, covering the branding completely. The phoenix should be the central focus, with its body starting near the spine and wings extending outward. Integration: Ensure the elements (mountains, forest, and cosmic background) blend seamlessly with each other, creating a cohesive and unified piece. Working with a Tattoo Artist Consultation: Discuss your vision with a professional tattoo artist who specializes in cover-ups and detailed work. Bring reference images and explain the symbolism and significance of each element. Customization: A skilled artist can customize the design to fit your body’s contours and ensure the cover-up is effective. They can also suggest additional details or modifications to enhance the overall piece. This design concept not only covers your branding but transforms it into a powerful symbol of your journey and resilience. The combination of the phoenix, mountains, forest, and cosmic elements creates a rich, layered narrative that reflects overcoming adversity and rising anew.
submitted by OkInterest7012 to tattooadvice [link] [comments]
Hi! I escaped human trafficking over 5 years ago, and am ready to start thinking about covering up my branding tattoo. I have used chat gpt to help generate an idea. And I could cry at how perfect the result is.
The branding is HUGE black letters on my lower back-mid lower back.
I would like any opinions on or ideas from others as well. So here goes it..
I also need someone to draw it, and tattoo it. I need it to be amazing.
After getting ideas I put together a rising Phoenix, the universe, and forest and mountains. Some of my favorite things, as well as so meaningful to my situation.
Here is chat gpts generation:
Covering a branding on your entire lower back with a cohesive and meaningful tattoo is a wonderful idea. Here’s a refined design concept for a "Phoenix Ascending from the Cosmic Forest" that will effectively cover your lower back:
Design Concept: "Phoenix Ascending from the Cosmic Forest" Central Element: Phoenix
Position: Center the phoenix on your lower back, with its body starting near your spine and wings extending outward towards your sides. The tail feathers can flow downwards towards the lower part of your back, integrating into the other elements. Design Details: The phoenix should be depicted in mid-flight, rising from the base of your back upwards. Use vibrant colors like reds, oranges, and yellows for the phoenix, transitioning to cooler tones like blues and purples as it ascends. Surrounding Elements:
Mountains
Base: Position the mountains at the bottom part of your back, forming the foundation from which the phoenix is rising. The peaks of the mountains can blend into the lower feathers of the phoenix. Design Details: Use a mix of sharp and soft lines to create a sense of grandeur and strength. Add shadows and highlights to give depth and realism. Forest
Foreground: Place the forest above the mountains, around the lower part of the phoenix’s body. Tall trees can rise on either side of the phoenix, their branches possibly intertwining with the phoenix’s wings or tail feathers. Design Details: Include details like leaves, rays of sunlight, and small animals to bring the forest to life. Use earthy tones like greens, browns, and greys to contrast with the phoenix’s vibrant colors. Universe / Star / Galaxy
Background: The cosmic elements can fill the upper part of your lower back, blending into the background behind the phoenix and forest. Swirling galaxies, nebulae, and star clusters can create a dynamic, ethereal backdrop. Design Details: Use deep blues, purples, and blacks with bright whites and other vivid colors for stars and galaxies. The phoenix’s upper feathers can appear to dissolve into stardust, seamlessly blending with the cosmic background. Additional Elements: Add constellations that hold personal significance or shooting stars to symbolize hope and new beginnings. Color Scheme
Phoenix: Warm tones (reds, oranges, yellows) transitioning to cool tones (blues, purples) to depict the transformation from fire to cosmic energy. Mountains and Forest: Earthy tones (greens, browns, greys) to ground the design and contrast with the vibrant phoenix and cosmic elements. Universe: Deep blues, purples, and blacks with specks of white and bright colors to represent stars and galaxies. Placement and Flow
Lower Back: The design should flow naturally across the lower back, covering the branding completely. The phoenix should be the central focus, with its body starting near the spine and wings extending outward. Integration: Ensure the elements (mountains, forest, and cosmic background) blend seamlessly with each other, creating a cohesive and unified piece. Working with a Tattoo Artist Consultation: Discuss your vision with a professional tattoo artist who specializes in cover-ups and detailed work. Bring reference images and explain the symbolism and significance of each element. Customization: A skilled artist can customize the design to fit your body’s contours and ensure the cover-up is effective. They can also suggest additional details or modifications to enhance the overall piece. This design concept not only covers your branding but transforms it into a powerful symbol of your journey and resilience. The combination of the phoenix, mountains, forest, and cosmic elements creates a rich, layered narrative that reflects overcoming adversity and rising anew.
2024.05.18 14:42 Late-Law7437 Child Support and paternity fraud
Where do I begin. For the purpose of this post, I will use fictious names and locations as it is ongoing, and out of respect (even though she doesn't deserve any)
My name is Daniel. I am 35 years old, and i am dying. I have a disease called systemic sclerosis. I am currently on a supplemental disability plan, until I get approved for SSI (social Security). Until then, my income is about 4K a month. I own a home but after child support and bills, NOT INCLUDING gas, food, haircuts, medical appointments, and or emergencies like my fridge just broke. (which i never go out) I am left with $260 that has to last me a month. I also have three children who I have to take care of half the time per the 50/50 agreement.
Recently, I found out my oldest, (who is 13) is not biologically mine. I decided to look into it as I had concerns for a while since my divorce as her cheating was very rampant. I also had caught her in 2017 with a man in my house, which is what prompted the divorce. But FL being a no fault state, doesn't matter. I also had to pay child support since the beginning and WHILE LEGALLY Married since 2010 because she had applied for financial support like food stamps and government assistance then. I know what your thinking. Why didnt you stop it then? I tried. You cant take yourself off child support. I also never grew up with a father and wanted that two-parent household. I don't run from responsibilities, like he did. Its how I was raised. Anyways, I married her, tried to do the right thing, she lied numerous times. she never worked, and I worked 90 plus hours a week. To look into her cheating, was impossible at the time as I was never home. and to busy providing for my family.
fast forward to now. My disease started to become worse and over three years; it didn't reveal itself until last year fully to actually pinpoint what this was. for instance, I had in 2019 pain behind my eyes and horrible headaches to the point that I thought I had MS. following year, I had trouble swallowing for 3 months. next year itching in the skin for three months. But prior, I had visited various doctors to see what was going on, each time a flare up then would last 3 to four months, which again, when you don't understand what's going on, you need to take time off to go see doctors, run tests, but this illness was and still is very elusive. with that being said I had 5 jobs since its first flare up till last year to continue to support my family and to pay child support. as of last year. I'm having trouble moving on certain days, breathing and acid reflux and muscle atrophy. (disease progression) especially when this is going on, it worsens everything as this is flared up. I was working under the table to try and make ends meet as I was paying child support still. I should add that the child support with 50/50 custody was $1029 for three kids cause I was making six figures at the time of divorce in 2018. Last year however, I couldn't work anymore, and filed for disability.
In june of last year, I had asked Susan, to get the children school supplies, (which she never does) as I was still paying at the time $1029 in child support. She said she didnt have the money despite now making 70k and her new BF living with her and is working whom she cheated on me with. With me working under the table, I bought them clothes, haircuts, school supplies (ive done every year) but then, I noticed she went on vacation to puerto rico and got a giant leg tattoo. At the time, I had already known what I had, and I asked myself why the heck am I doing this? So i turned to an attorney to get it modified. Again, this is June 20th to be exact of last year. My lawyer, stated that this was only going to be a 90 day turn around for the temporary modification then we will go for the final.
Since then, I have gone for a DNA test. I had to know. I am dying. I wanted to know. And you may judge me for this. but i have filed for disablement for paternity, meaning I am removing myself from the birth certificate. However, in the state of Florida, a mother can deny this and so can the courts. before you judge me, I have many reasons none of which have to do with him other then his mental disability (Aspergers) This illness, as days go by takes more and more from me. As previously aforementioned, I am left with 250 a month. I cannot go get a drs appointment pay for groceries or start planning my funeral which I will start making payments on soon. He also eats three times the amount that we all collectively do (Not his fault) but I have paid enough both mentally and financially. He also has trouble communicating as my suspicions is, that he was born of incest (gross) which is why I was 'chosen' to be his father at the time. Before you ask how do you know? Lets just say she had an uncle 'leave' during that time.
anyways, in February, I had the temporary modification hearing for child support and needless to say it was a circus. My doctor was subpoenaed to be there by my attorneys request to better my argument, even though I felt we didn't need her, she advised me to have my doctor there. Well, he attorney attacked my doctor and me for an hour and 40 mins when the court case was only supposed to go for an hour. He said "you saw another dr Max so and so and they said it was all in your head" (again I had flare ups on a illness that hadnt revealed itself correctly since last year). So there argument was that I was doctor seeking to avoid child support. After I have paid for 13 years never missing a payment. Her lawyer also targeted people who are living with me. Now I'll admit that I said they were friends which is true but how else can I pay for my attorney? Cant work, cant sell drugs, cant rob a bank? So they want to take there income into consideration. BS. She also hired a private investigator to watch me exercise outside and stated that because I can exercise, I can work..... Ok. Where's the 23 hours of the rest of the day watching me in pain. or when do you have me on video of a flare up from this terminal illness? (that's what I wanted to say)
Although I was granted the temporary modification, of $209, I left the court thinking wow, this woman can cheat, commit paternity fraud, not give two craps about our children, live with her mom in a section 8 home, and here I am doing whatever I can and I've done nothing wrong but be lied to and this is how my government, my country treats me? No wonder men my age dont have children this is insane. The paternity issue wasn't even brought up they said that this isnt the place for this and that the disestablishment will be another trial for those wondering. My lawyer only spoke for 5 mins. Asking her about her income cause thats the only thing that has changed since 2018 since she didnt work at the time. Other than that, it was an attack on me and my disease arguing my ability to work.
after leaving that, I didnt eat for 96 hours. I have since been crying nonstop. Compilating suicide. I am already heart broken about my son not being mine. Sure does a terminal illness make me said, no question everyday. But a life wasted on another? Cause I decided to be a man and take up responsibility? thats soul crushing. And to say "well, there is a big chance the courts will deny your request' thats BS. If i go to prison because I was accused of a robbery for 13 years, and DNA evidence proves I wasnt there, I get out of jail and can sue. This is no different. If anything, DNA evidence needs to be more of a factor in family law than in almost every court of law if not as equally important. My bad for not investigating her infidelity not only in the beginning but also in the end. How about not being a POS. sorry rant over
gets better. Her mom and dad smoke in the section 8 house, kids reek of cigarette smoke and marijuana, all day. they dont take showers there, they were hand me down clothes, they live in the garage shared with there mother, that isn't air conditioned. and he makes only a few thousand less than I do a month. She stated in court that she pays her mom $500 in rent which is BS, she is only doing that now so that she makes herself look bad. I know she is doing pills, like oxy and what not. Id love to prove it.
after the temp hearing, in april, I had to go to court to contest my drivers license suspension as I hadn't paid child support since, august of last year. again, there is no way, I can pay my bills, feed my children, go to the doctor, pay my lawyer to end all of this BS and pay the current child support amount. and again, this final hearing is still not set yet. So they intercepted my tax return, even though the temporary modification was approved, the final is what gets it retro backed to the date of filing, so they took, a much needed 5500 tax return from me. I needed that cause one of the issues I failed to mention as well, hurricane Ian has destroyed my home and I'm still going through that process too. not to mention I am on payment plans with Mayo clinic and other various medical facilities. (no one cares) but the interest that accrues, makes it impossible to catch up. also, Florida department of rev is overstepping I feel, and asking for medical info to be sent to them as well as updated doctors letters to be sent saying that I am still on disability.
a few weeks ago, I got an email from my lawyer having a withdrawal notice from her lawyer. in the withdrawal, he stated that he cannot represent her, due to something she may have withheld or lied about (more or less wasn't worded like that but you can tell). In feb court appearance they never produced the PI report, or videos, they had medical info they shouldn't have had, and they had very outlandish comments about my lifestyle. So my lawyer filed immediately a motion to compel. meaning, we want to see everything you have on my client. this was filed almost immediately after court appearance on feb 20th. Susan has failed to provide any updated info requested by my attorney so on june 18th, we have that upcoming hearing.
in the mean time, I have sent my lawyer, a very heavily requested topics, such as "where did they get my medical records, if those were lies, what are the consequences if any"? What did exercising have to do with any of this despite various drs saying he has to or he will get worse.
I know wat you must be thinking, what about your oldest, how can you do that to him. Please listen. This woman has taken everything from me. And i mean everything but the roof over my head. I am seeing a therapist to help with the suicidal thoughts. it isnt enough. the reality of it is, I chose to be loyal and it bit me in the butt. This disease will rob me of everything, my teeth will fall out ( I had 5 cavities last time I went to the dentist) I haven't had a cavity since I was 30 and even then I was suspicious. And I am brushing 5 time s a day to save them. My skin is tightening, and my arms and muscles are wasting. I will literally be left with nothing. My organs will also start to harden, and I will have to start getting around the clock care.
I forgot to mention they (child support) recently, sent a letter to SSI (social security) saying that they would garnish my SSI before I even got it, totaling $1029. the incorrect amount. I sent this to my lawyer and she is looking into it. But it shows that child support will overstep and breaks every law or freedom you may think you have. I DO take care of my children. if they need a haircut i do it, school supplies clothes, anything I do it. And I do it, cause she wont. What I want to leave you with, is that woman can be dead beats too. Child support was designed to have woman off of government subsidized programs like section 8 food stamps and what not. Also to make the man pay for their children man or woman I should say, I know this. I am not running from my obligation. I just want Susan, to have to pay for what's she's done to me and the kids.
I would like to hear your thoughts on this, please comment and share, all names are fake, but everything else is unfortunately real. I know it was wordy, but I wanted to provide as much backstory as possible. And please. Respect my descions. When you are end of life, I hope someone would be kind enough to respect yours. You may not agree and that's ok, but I am asking you to respect them. Thank you for reading.
submitted by Late-Law7437 to u/Late-Law7437 [link] [comments]
My name is Daniel. I am 35 years old, and i am dying. I have a disease called systemic sclerosis. I am currently on a supplemental disability plan, until I get approved for SSI (social Security). Until then, my income is about 4K a month. I own a home but after child support and bills, NOT INCLUDING gas, food, haircuts, medical appointments, and or emergencies like my fridge just broke. (which i never go out) I am left with $260 that has to last me a month. I also have three children who I have to take care of half the time per the 50/50 agreement.
Recently, I found out my oldest, (who is 13) is not biologically mine. I decided to look into it as I had concerns for a while since my divorce as her cheating was very rampant. I also had caught her in 2017 with a man in my house, which is what prompted the divorce. But FL being a no fault state, doesn't matter. I also had to pay child support since the beginning and WHILE LEGALLY Married since 2010 because she had applied for financial support like food stamps and government assistance then. I know what your thinking. Why didnt you stop it then? I tried. You cant take yourself off child support. I also never grew up with a father and wanted that two-parent household. I don't run from responsibilities, like he did. Its how I was raised. Anyways, I married her, tried to do the right thing, she lied numerous times. she never worked, and I worked 90 plus hours a week. To look into her cheating, was impossible at the time as I was never home. and to busy providing for my family.
fast forward to now. My disease started to become worse and over three years; it didn't reveal itself until last year fully to actually pinpoint what this was. for instance, I had in 2019 pain behind my eyes and horrible headaches to the point that I thought I had MS. following year, I had trouble swallowing for 3 months. next year itching in the skin for three months. But prior, I had visited various doctors to see what was going on, each time a flare up then would last 3 to four months, which again, when you don't understand what's going on, you need to take time off to go see doctors, run tests, but this illness was and still is very elusive. with that being said I had 5 jobs since its first flare up till last year to continue to support my family and to pay child support. as of last year. I'm having trouble moving on certain days, breathing and acid reflux and muscle atrophy. (disease progression) especially when this is going on, it worsens everything as this is flared up. I was working under the table to try and make ends meet as I was paying child support still. I should add that the child support with 50/50 custody was $1029 for three kids cause I was making six figures at the time of divorce in 2018. Last year however, I couldn't work anymore, and filed for disability.
In june of last year, I had asked Susan, to get the children school supplies, (which she never does) as I was still paying at the time $1029 in child support. She said she didnt have the money despite now making 70k and her new BF living with her and is working whom she cheated on me with. With me working under the table, I bought them clothes, haircuts, school supplies (ive done every year) but then, I noticed she went on vacation to puerto rico and got a giant leg tattoo. At the time, I had already known what I had, and I asked myself why the heck am I doing this? So i turned to an attorney to get it modified. Again, this is June 20th to be exact of last year. My lawyer, stated that this was only going to be a 90 day turn around for the temporary modification then we will go for the final.
Since then, I have gone for a DNA test. I had to know. I am dying. I wanted to know. And you may judge me for this. but i have filed for disablement for paternity, meaning I am removing myself from the birth certificate. However, in the state of Florida, a mother can deny this and so can the courts. before you judge me, I have many reasons none of which have to do with him other then his mental disability (Aspergers) This illness, as days go by takes more and more from me. As previously aforementioned, I am left with 250 a month. I cannot go get a drs appointment pay for groceries or start planning my funeral which I will start making payments on soon. He also eats three times the amount that we all collectively do (Not his fault) but I have paid enough both mentally and financially. He also has trouble communicating as my suspicions is, that he was born of incest (gross) which is why I was 'chosen' to be his father at the time. Before you ask how do you know? Lets just say she had an uncle 'leave' during that time.
anyways, in February, I had the temporary modification hearing for child support and needless to say it was a circus. My doctor was subpoenaed to be there by my attorneys request to better my argument, even though I felt we didn't need her, she advised me to have my doctor there. Well, he attorney attacked my doctor and me for an hour and 40 mins when the court case was only supposed to go for an hour. He said "you saw another dr Max so and so and they said it was all in your head" (again I had flare ups on a illness that hadnt revealed itself correctly since last year). So there argument was that I was doctor seeking to avoid child support. After I have paid for 13 years never missing a payment. Her lawyer also targeted people who are living with me. Now I'll admit that I said they were friends which is true but how else can I pay for my attorney? Cant work, cant sell drugs, cant rob a bank? So they want to take there income into consideration. BS. She also hired a private investigator to watch me exercise outside and stated that because I can exercise, I can work..... Ok. Where's the 23 hours of the rest of the day watching me in pain. or when do you have me on video of a flare up from this terminal illness? (that's what I wanted to say)
Although I was granted the temporary modification, of $209, I left the court thinking wow, this woman can cheat, commit paternity fraud, not give two craps about our children, live with her mom in a section 8 home, and here I am doing whatever I can and I've done nothing wrong but be lied to and this is how my government, my country treats me? No wonder men my age dont have children this is insane. The paternity issue wasn't even brought up they said that this isnt the place for this and that the disestablishment will be another trial for those wondering. My lawyer only spoke for 5 mins. Asking her about her income cause thats the only thing that has changed since 2018 since she didnt work at the time. Other than that, it was an attack on me and my disease arguing my ability to work.
after leaving that, I didnt eat for 96 hours. I have since been crying nonstop. Compilating suicide. I am already heart broken about my son not being mine. Sure does a terminal illness make me said, no question everyday. But a life wasted on another? Cause I decided to be a man and take up responsibility? thats soul crushing. And to say "well, there is a big chance the courts will deny your request' thats BS. If i go to prison because I was accused of a robbery for 13 years, and DNA evidence proves I wasnt there, I get out of jail and can sue. This is no different. If anything, DNA evidence needs to be more of a factor in family law than in almost every court of law if not as equally important. My bad for not investigating her infidelity not only in the beginning but also in the end. How about not being a POS. sorry rant over
gets better. Her mom and dad smoke in the section 8 house, kids reek of cigarette smoke and marijuana, all day. they dont take showers there, they were hand me down clothes, they live in the garage shared with there mother, that isn't air conditioned. and he makes only a few thousand less than I do a month. She stated in court that she pays her mom $500 in rent which is BS, she is only doing that now so that she makes herself look bad. I know she is doing pills, like oxy and what not. Id love to prove it.
after the temp hearing, in april, I had to go to court to contest my drivers license suspension as I hadn't paid child support since, august of last year. again, there is no way, I can pay my bills, feed my children, go to the doctor, pay my lawyer to end all of this BS and pay the current child support amount. and again, this final hearing is still not set yet. So they intercepted my tax return, even though the temporary modification was approved, the final is what gets it retro backed to the date of filing, so they took, a much needed 5500 tax return from me. I needed that cause one of the issues I failed to mention as well, hurricane Ian has destroyed my home and I'm still going through that process too. not to mention I am on payment plans with Mayo clinic and other various medical facilities. (no one cares) but the interest that accrues, makes it impossible to catch up. also, Florida department of rev is overstepping I feel, and asking for medical info to be sent to them as well as updated doctors letters to be sent saying that I am still on disability.
a few weeks ago, I got an email from my lawyer having a withdrawal notice from her lawyer. in the withdrawal, he stated that he cannot represent her, due to something she may have withheld or lied about (more or less wasn't worded like that but you can tell). In feb court appearance they never produced the PI report, or videos, they had medical info they shouldn't have had, and they had very outlandish comments about my lifestyle. So my lawyer filed immediately a motion to compel. meaning, we want to see everything you have on my client. this was filed almost immediately after court appearance on feb 20th. Susan has failed to provide any updated info requested by my attorney so on june 18th, we have that upcoming hearing.
in the mean time, I have sent my lawyer, a very heavily requested topics, such as "where did they get my medical records, if those were lies, what are the consequences if any"? What did exercising have to do with any of this despite various drs saying he has to or he will get worse.
I know wat you must be thinking, what about your oldest, how can you do that to him. Please listen. This woman has taken everything from me. And i mean everything but the roof over my head. I am seeing a therapist to help with the suicidal thoughts. it isnt enough. the reality of it is, I chose to be loyal and it bit me in the butt. This disease will rob me of everything, my teeth will fall out ( I had 5 cavities last time I went to the dentist) I haven't had a cavity since I was 30 and even then I was suspicious. And I am brushing 5 time s a day to save them. My skin is tightening, and my arms and muscles are wasting. I will literally be left with nothing. My organs will also start to harden, and I will have to start getting around the clock care.
I forgot to mention they (child support) recently, sent a letter to SSI (social security) saying that they would garnish my SSI before I even got it, totaling $1029. the incorrect amount. I sent this to my lawyer and she is looking into it. But it shows that child support will overstep and breaks every law or freedom you may think you have. I DO take care of my children. if they need a haircut i do it, school supplies clothes, anything I do it. And I do it, cause she wont. What I want to leave you with, is that woman can be dead beats too. Child support was designed to have woman off of government subsidized programs like section 8 food stamps and what not. Also to make the man pay for their children man or woman I should say, I know this. I am not running from my obligation. I just want Susan, to have to pay for what's she's done to me and the kids.
I would like to hear your thoughts on this, please comment and share, all names are fake, but everything else is unfortunately real. I know it was wordy, but I wanted to provide as much backstory as possible. And please. Respect my descions. When you are end of life, I hope someone would be kind enough to respect yours. You may not agree and that's ok, but I am asking you to respect them. Thank you for reading.
2024.05.18 11:47 SpeedyNinetyNine What kind of tattoo artist should I go to for a Kanji (Chinese character) tattoo?
I am looking to get a Kanji tattoo, but I’m not sure what kind of artist to go to for that. I’ve been looking for artists who specifically speak Japanese or Chinese in my country, but haven’t had any luck.
Should I go to an artist who does Japanese style Irezumi tattoos (or other Asian styles)? Even if I don’t see any examples of them doing any sort of letters?
Or should I go to an artist that focuses on Lettering?
Or should I go to an artist that focuses on Calligraphy?
Other ideas?
submitted by SpeedyNinetyNine to tattooadvice [link] [comments]
Should I go to an artist who does Japanese style Irezumi tattoos (or other Asian styles)? Even if I don’t see any examples of them doing any sort of letters?
Or should I go to an artist that focuses on Lettering?
Or should I go to an artist that focuses on Calligraphy?
Other ideas?
2024.05.18 08:52 shdygr0ve am i cool???
 | submitted by shdygr0ve to Topster [link] [comments] |
2024.05.18 06:04 SaffronsGrotto first time she wasnt wrong
 | she got a tattoo that says "bat shit crazy" in giant letters spanning across her entire forearm... im embarrassed to even look at this lol like wtf those words? on your forearm no less? every time you hold your phone, cook your breakfast, etc. you have "bat shit crazy" on your arm... guess the package at least now comes with a warning label submitted by SaffronsGrotto to raisedbyborderlines [link] [comments] |
2024.05.18 06:02 Direct-Caterpillar77 I (25F) have face blindness, my BF (24M) likes to test me. How do I make it clear this is not okay? (New Updates)
I am not The OOP, OOP posted from 2 accounts: u/ThrowRA_Elisax & u/WanderingInMyDreams
I (25F) have face blindness, my BF (24M) likes to test me. How do I make it clear this is not okay?
Previous BoRU
Originally posted to relationship_advice & AITAH
Editor's Note: Prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, is a neurological disorder that makes it difficult to recognize faces and facial expressions
TRIGGER WARNING: emotional abuse, manipulation, sexual assault
Original Post Apr 4, 2024
Hi y’all, sorry for posting this. If it’s not okay, I can delete it.
I’ve been with my bf for almost a year now. I love him dearly, and he loves me too (I’m guessing) but there’s one thing that’s causing a lot of issues for us.
I suffer from prosopagnosia/face blindness, which means it’s really hard for me to recognise people’s faces. I usually go by other characteristics to put a name to a person, like hairstyle/facial hair, marks, skin colours, accessories, etc. But it’s still really tough.
It’s caused me severe anxiety & other mental health struggles.
I’m lucky to have wonderful people around me though, who are aware & try to help. They’ll introduce themselves when we start talking, wear something they know I’ve linked to them, or whatever.
Usually my bf does this too, but sometimes he likes to ‘test’ me & it’s incredibly stressful. He shaved of his beard once, a few times he wore a completely different style of clothing, or changed his hairstyle, all without warning me. In those moments he won’t tell me who he is, or say someone else’s name, just to see if I’ll figure out it’s him. He’ll make jokes saying he’ll try to switch with one of his friends & see if I’ll stay ‘loyal’.
I usually do realise it’s him, but it causes me a lot of anxiety.
We’ve had big fights on this. He says he’s allowed to change his look (‘i’m not a cartoon character’), I ask him to warn me.
Don’t get me wrong. He cares about me, but I don’t think he get’s how stressful it is. How do I make it clear? (We have A LOT of great times together, there’s just this bump.)
Update: It’s hard to imagine I made this post 19 hours ago & now I’m in the middle of breaking up with him. I’m very tired so I’m going to keep this short.
I went to talk to him, showed him this & told him he can’t do it anymore. The conversation was.. a lot. First he was angry I made this post, then he was angry I was taking it all so serious. Lot’s of apologies & so on.
He again said he was just trying to make a tough situation more light, I said it’s too much. He said I can’t take a joke & I need to let him be him. That he always tells me when he’s been joking and if he was really keen on hurting me he’d just do things & not tell me, so him telling proves he cares. (That one got me v uncomfortable.)
At one point he said he just wanted to test if it was real, because I could just be using it as an excuse to do anything. I left after that cause we were just going in circles. There was a lot of me making an issue of ‘one small thing’.
I’m exhausted. He’s still blowing up my phone with love & apologies, but you guys made me realise a lot. Thanks, really. I’m trying to stay rational about it but it’s hard, because I do care about him a lot.
I’m gonna get a few hours of sleep. Thank you again.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
CheapDepth2155
blueavole
LegitimateDebate5014
Hi y’all. Hope it’s okay I post a little update. Things went bat-shit crazy.
A lot has happened in the last days.
I’m really grateful to you all, honestly. I wasn’t aware about the real meaning of his ‘pranks’ and what it said about him & our relationship.
I went to talk to him the same evening I made that post, with the intention of making clear he can’t pull all that anymore.
The conversation ESCALATED.
We talked for hours into the night & every day since. There’s been a lot of messages.
He got angry about the redditpost I made (I showed him), angry at you guys, angry that I couldn’t take a joke & listened to strangers.
Said things like he in the beginning didn’t believe I actually suffered from it, and would use it as an excuse to cheat on him. That now he does believe, but - due to bad break-ups in the past - he has a hard time trusting I won’t use it as an excuse regardless.
Said he was joking about it because he wanted to make a tough situation lighter & that’s just his sense of humour. That if I loved him, I’d accept that.
When I made it clear I was done, it got even worse. He began apologising a lot. Said he didn’t realise it was such a big thing for me (again, didn’t make any sense with all said before.)
In the same breath he said that he at least told me. (To the people who thought he actually had planned to trick me by using one of his friends, I think y’all may be very right.)
To be honest I was done. I do care about him a lot (can’t just shut that off), but it’s never going to work.
There’s been many many messages/calls/etc.
He dropped some vague hints that sometimes he pulled ‘pranks’ I wasn’t aware of. I don’t know if that is true, or he’s just in a bad place right now.
He also came to my place to apologise again. But I suspect he didn’t expect I’d immediately recognise him, as he didn’t apologise till I said his name.
He’s not evil, but just very messed up rn.
I blocked him everywhere, told him not to show up anymore & that a friend would give him his stuff.
I’m going to delete this account soon but, I wanted to thank you guys for helping me realise it. I genuinely don’t think I would have. I’m heartbroken, but a bit relieved as well. Thanks for all the support & kindness.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
trippyhippy
This is probably a bit stupid but that boy has got me questioning my own mind. Either way, sorry if this is a bother.
I broke up with my bf a few weeks ago. I had realised - in part thanks to Reddit - that some of his behaviour was absolutely not okay & when I tried to talk to him, the conversation escalated to me breaking up with him.
I have a pretty severe case of face blindness/prosopagnosia. It means I can’t recognise/remember people’s faces & go by other characteristics to try & put a name to someone. (Voice, (hair)style, posture, etc.) People around me know & introduce themselves when we meet & other things to make it easier. (I have a lot of anxiety because of it.)
He used to try & test me, which gave me a lot of stress. Changed up his look without warning to see if I knew it was him, and a lot more. He called it pranks. (He is a jokester.)
So, we broke up. It’s been a lot. He’d been calling/messaging non-stop with both apologies & non-apologies, ‘till I blocked him.
In moments of a lot of emotion I said things like I never wanted to see him again, and he’d reply that he was hurt, that I wouldn’t even know if it was him & I was lucky he wouldn’t do it.
Made me feel icky.
He’s contacted me again yesterday - through a new account - saying he just wants one more face-to-face conversation, if only to give him his stuff that is still at my place & get some closure so we can both move on.
I said my plan was to get a mutual friend to bring it over to him. He was hurt.
He did seem a lot more calm than before & told me we were together for a year, he just wanted one conversation after I suddenly broke things off. That he had some time to process now, etc & that he doesn’t understand how he suddenly - after a year of loving each other - became so evil I couldn’t have one chat with him.
But I don’t feel good about it. My gut’s telling me this will not be a good conversation, my worst fears are telling me he might play a trick to prove some point.
WIBTA if I don’t reply anymore/just say no?
Edit: I didn’t expect all these replies. I hope it’s okay I respond like this. Thank you all, really. I think I knew already but somehow started to doubt myself. (The past weeks have been a lot.) I really appreciate & needed these words.
I’m ready for all of this to be over & done with.
Also just a little thank you in general. Reddit’s been a wonderful community & it’s helped me a lot.
Update: AITAH for not giving my ex the closure he’s asking for because he messed with my face blindness? May 11, 2024
EDITORS NOTE: Changed initials to names for easier reading
Here’s my previous post, for who’s interested. (And before.
Hi!
It’s been a wee bit, and since I’m still getting messages about this, I thought I’d just give one big update for this.
So more than a month ago I broke up with my BF because he kept pulling ‘pranks’ involving my face blindness. (I can’t recognise faces & am dependent on other aspects to recognise someone, and even then it’s still confusing.)
After that he’d been bugging me that he wanted to meet up, so we could get some closure. My gut was telling me not to, but I felt guilty.
With you guys’ advice (& my own gut feeling) in mind, I decided not to go. I asked a friend, Roger, to go bring him his stuff & kept him blocked - including blocking the new accounts he’d made.
Roger came back with a letter from him, to me. The letter in itself was v apologetic. He even said he was grateful for our time together & took full responsibility. It ended with him saying he’d respect it if I chose not to reply or message. Honestly, a lot of very respectful words.
I still decided not to get in touch. (Still trying to get over the break-up myself.) But I did appreciate it, till I found out he wasn’t letting go like he said.
Roger & some other mutual friends let me know he was asking them about me A LOT, if I had read the letter, if I was seeing someone else (already?!), and so on.
Couple of days ago he showed up at my place. He was clearly not sober & v upset. He just seemed so broken, so I - stupidly - let him in.
For a while he was just being miserably nice, while I got him water & stuff. But the more sober, the more angry he got.
At that point I messaged basically everyone I knew to come. I didn’t think he’d hurt me, but I didn’t feel comfortable being alone with him regardless.
Among the many accusations of me not even having the decency to reply, that I clearly never cared about him & that I was a horrendous person, he told me ‘I cheated on him & didn’t even know it’ so how could I blame him for not trusting me?
I’m not gonna lie, I was trying to stay calm but failed. (And I know I should have not lost my cool.) I screamed at him, asked him what he was talking about.
Apparently on a night out with him & others, he asked his friend Mike (who knows of my face blindness & has similar characteristics as my ex, part from a v different voice & smell) to ‘swap’ out with him, and kissed me. And I didn’t know.
I don’t know if he’s lying or not. But knowing I was drinking & in a crowded, loud room, I know it’s a possibility. Especially since Mike tried to kiss me another time, though then I immediately realised it was him & lost my shit at him. (When I told my then bf, he was more angry than I had ever seen him, so idk if that time was a ‘plan’ as well or not. Either way Mike is a disgusting human.)
I know it’s ‘just’ a kiss, but it did make me feel sick to my stomach just thinking about how they might have played me.
I told him to get out, he didn’t. Luckily it didn’t take long for some people to arrive & get him out. I’m endlessly grateful for the people I have around me.
I’m staying at my parents’ place now, took a break from work & am looking into therapy. My mom & dad (who got a tattoo years ago just so I would never doubt it’s him) are treating me like a princess & reminding me of the kindness people deserve.
Haven’t looked into a restraining order, but might if it continues.
Thanks to you all for helping me see what’s right in this situation. Reddit has been a wonderful community I am very grateful for. I probably won’t update anymore, as this is over & done with. But I’m glad I got to pour my heart out to y’all.
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I (25F) have face blindness, my BF (24M) likes to test me. How do I make it clear this is not okay?
Previous BoRU
Originally posted to relationship_advice & AITAH
Editor's Note: Prosopagnosia, also known as face blindness, is a neurological disorder that makes it difficult to recognize faces and facial expressions
TRIGGER WARNING: emotional abuse, manipulation, sexual assault
Original Post Apr 4, 2024
Hi y’all, sorry for posting this. If it’s not okay, I can delete it.
I’ve been with my bf for almost a year now. I love him dearly, and he loves me too (I’m guessing) but there’s one thing that’s causing a lot of issues for us.
I suffer from prosopagnosia/face blindness, which means it’s really hard for me to recognise people’s faces. I usually go by other characteristics to put a name to a person, like hairstyle/facial hair, marks, skin colours, accessories, etc. But it’s still really tough.
It’s caused me severe anxiety & other mental health struggles.
I’m lucky to have wonderful people around me though, who are aware & try to help. They’ll introduce themselves when we start talking, wear something they know I’ve linked to them, or whatever.
Usually my bf does this too, but sometimes he likes to ‘test’ me & it’s incredibly stressful. He shaved of his beard once, a few times he wore a completely different style of clothing, or changed his hairstyle, all without warning me. In those moments he won’t tell me who he is, or say someone else’s name, just to see if I’ll figure out it’s him. He’ll make jokes saying he’ll try to switch with one of his friends & see if I’ll stay ‘loyal’.
I usually do realise it’s him, but it causes me a lot of anxiety.
We’ve had big fights on this. He says he’s allowed to change his look (‘i’m not a cartoon character’), I ask him to warn me.
Don’t get me wrong. He cares about me, but I don’t think he get’s how stressful it is. How do I make it clear? (We have A LOT of great times together, there’s just this bump.)
Update: It’s hard to imagine I made this post 19 hours ago & now I’m in the middle of breaking up with him. I’m very tired so I’m going to keep this short.
I went to talk to him, showed him this & told him he can’t do it anymore. The conversation was.. a lot. First he was angry I made this post, then he was angry I was taking it all so serious. Lot’s of apologies & so on.
He again said he was just trying to make a tough situation more light, I said it’s too much. He said I can’t take a joke & I need to let him be him. That he always tells me when he’s been joking and if he was really keen on hurting me he’d just do things & not tell me, so him telling proves he cares. (That one got me v uncomfortable.)
At one point he said he just wanted to test if it was real, because I could just be using it as an excuse to do anything. I left after that cause we were just going in circles. There was a lot of me making an issue of ‘one small thing’.
I’m exhausted. He’s still blowing up my phone with love & apologies, but you guys made me realise a lot. Thanks, really. I’m trying to stay rational about it but it’s hard, because I do care about him a lot.
I’m gonna get a few hours of sleep. Thank you again.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
CheapDepth2155
He is messing with your safety does he not realise that?OOP
shitmykidsaysI don’t think he realises how confusing it all is. There’s been a moment he did the opposite, acting all weirded out when I thanked him for a nice date, saying it wasn’t him and though I knew it was, I still started to doubt myself. He did say it was a joke soon after but it caused such a panic. He hasn’t done it again but it took me a long time to feel comfortable again.
~Making someone feel unsafe is not a joke. Gaslighting someone you care about is not a joke.
blueavole
Holy smikes that’s terrifying.OOP
Not to recognize a familiar face with a major change like that. - that is like nightmare fuel.
That your bf does it to you, multiple times on purpose is scary.
I don’t know if there is a way you can explain it to him if he doesn’t get it. It seems he enjoy your panic. Which is not a good thing in a partner.
If this was my partner I would get a tattoo or something. And I don’t have any.
~My dad actually got a tattoo on his arm for me, which is a great comfort.
I hadn’t realised how messed up everything is, until reading all these replies.
LegitimateDebate5014
Your boyfriend is basically abusing you in emotional situations. He thinks it’s hilarious you struggle and get severe anxiety which isn’t normal, nor does it mean he cares about you. This is a huge red flagOOP
Update Apr 8, 2024Abuse is a really big word, but I do agree it’s not okay. I’m seeing him soon, we’ll see how it goes.
Hi y’all. Hope it’s okay I post a little update. Things went bat-shit crazy.
A lot has happened in the last days.
I’m really grateful to you all, honestly. I wasn’t aware about the real meaning of his ‘pranks’ and what it said about him & our relationship.
I went to talk to him the same evening I made that post, with the intention of making clear he can’t pull all that anymore.
The conversation ESCALATED.
We talked for hours into the night & every day since. There’s been a lot of messages.
He got angry about the redditpost I made (I showed him), angry at you guys, angry that I couldn’t take a joke & listened to strangers.
Said things like he in the beginning didn’t believe I actually suffered from it, and would use it as an excuse to cheat on him. That now he does believe, but - due to bad break-ups in the past - he has a hard time trusting I won’t use it as an excuse regardless.
Said he was joking about it because he wanted to make a tough situation lighter & that’s just his sense of humour. That if I loved him, I’d accept that.
When I made it clear I was done, it got even worse. He began apologising a lot. Said he didn’t realise it was such a big thing for me (again, didn’t make any sense with all said before.)
In the same breath he said that he at least told me. (To the people who thought he actually had planned to trick me by using one of his friends, I think y’all may be very right.)
To be honest I was done. I do care about him a lot (can’t just shut that off), but it’s never going to work.
There’s been many many messages/calls/etc.
He dropped some vague hints that sometimes he pulled ‘pranks’ I wasn’t aware of. I don’t know if that is true, or he’s just in a bad place right now.
He also came to my place to apologise again. But I suspect he didn’t expect I’d immediately recognise him, as he didn’t apologise till I said his name.
He’s not evil, but just very messed up rn.
I blocked him everywhere, told him not to show up anymore & that a friend would give him his stuff.
I’m going to delete this account soon but, I wanted to thank you guys for helping me realise it. I genuinely don’t think I would have. I’m heartbroken, but a bit relieved as well. Thanks for all the support & kindness.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
trippyhippy
I'm glad you broke up! Someone who loves you shouldn't ever do that to you.OOP
Just curious about your condition. Do you also have issues with recognizing voices as well as faces? I can only imagine how hard it must be to deal with.
Actually voices are one of the traits I go by to recognise someone! Voices, posture, tattoos, hairstyle, and so on.
Thank you loads.
NEW UPDATES
This is probably a bit stupid but that boy has got me questioning my own mind. Either way, sorry if this is a bother.
I broke up with my bf a few weeks ago. I had realised - in part thanks to Reddit - that some of his behaviour was absolutely not okay & when I tried to talk to him, the conversation escalated to me breaking up with him.
I have a pretty severe case of face blindness/prosopagnosia. It means I can’t recognise/remember people’s faces & go by other characteristics to try & put a name to someone. (Voice, (hair)style, posture, etc.) People around me know & introduce themselves when we meet & other things to make it easier. (I have a lot of anxiety because of it.)
He used to try & test me, which gave me a lot of stress. Changed up his look without warning to see if I knew it was him, and a lot more. He called it pranks. (He is a jokester.)
So, we broke up. It’s been a lot. He’d been calling/messaging non-stop with both apologies & non-apologies, ‘till I blocked him.
In moments of a lot of emotion I said things like I never wanted to see him again, and he’d reply that he was hurt, that I wouldn’t even know if it was him & I was lucky he wouldn’t do it.
Made me feel icky.
He’s contacted me again yesterday - through a new account - saying he just wants one more face-to-face conversation, if only to give him his stuff that is still at my place & get some closure so we can both move on.
I said my plan was to get a mutual friend to bring it over to him. He was hurt.
He did seem a lot more calm than before & told me we were together for a year, he just wanted one conversation after I suddenly broke things off. That he had some time to process now, etc & that he doesn’t understand how he suddenly - after a year of loving each other - became so evil I couldn’t have one chat with him.
But I don’t feel good about it. My gut’s telling me this will not be a good conversation, my worst fears are telling me he might play a trick to prove some point.
WIBTA if I don’t reply anymore/just say no?
Edit: I didn’t expect all these replies. I hope it’s okay I respond like this. Thank you all, really. I think I knew already but somehow started to doubt myself. (The past weeks have been a lot.) I really appreciate & needed these words.
I’m ready for all of this to be over & done with.
Also just a little thank you in general. Reddit’s been a wonderful community & it’s helped me a lot.
Update: AITAH for not giving my ex the closure he’s asking for because he messed with my face blindness? May 11, 2024
EDITORS NOTE: Changed initials to names for easier reading
Here’s my previous post, for who’s interested. (And before.
Hi!
It’s been a wee bit, and since I’m still getting messages about this, I thought I’d just give one big update for this.
So more than a month ago I broke up with my BF because he kept pulling ‘pranks’ involving my face blindness. (I can’t recognise faces & am dependent on other aspects to recognise someone, and even then it’s still confusing.)
After that he’d been bugging me that he wanted to meet up, so we could get some closure. My gut was telling me not to, but I felt guilty.
With you guys’ advice (& my own gut feeling) in mind, I decided not to go. I asked a friend, Roger, to go bring him his stuff & kept him blocked - including blocking the new accounts he’d made.
Roger came back with a letter from him, to me. The letter in itself was v apologetic. He even said he was grateful for our time together & took full responsibility. It ended with him saying he’d respect it if I chose not to reply or message. Honestly, a lot of very respectful words.
I still decided not to get in touch. (Still trying to get over the break-up myself.) But I did appreciate it, till I found out he wasn’t letting go like he said.
Roger & some other mutual friends let me know he was asking them about me A LOT, if I had read the letter, if I was seeing someone else (already?!), and so on.
Couple of days ago he showed up at my place. He was clearly not sober & v upset. He just seemed so broken, so I - stupidly - let him in.
For a while he was just being miserably nice, while I got him water & stuff. But the more sober, the more angry he got.
At that point I messaged basically everyone I knew to come. I didn’t think he’d hurt me, but I didn’t feel comfortable being alone with him regardless.
Among the many accusations of me not even having the decency to reply, that I clearly never cared about him & that I was a horrendous person, he told me ‘I cheated on him & didn’t even know it’ so how could I blame him for not trusting me?
I’m not gonna lie, I was trying to stay calm but failed. (And I know I should have not lost my cool.) I screamed at him, asked him what he was talking about.
Apparently on a night out with him & others, he asked his friend Mike (who knows of my face blindness & has similar characteristics as my ex, part from a v different voice & smell) to ‘swap’ out with him, and kissed me. And I didn’t know.
I don’t know if he’s lying or not. But knowing I was drinking & in a crowded, loud room, I know it’s a possibility. Especially since Mike tried to kiss me another time, though then I immediately realised it was him & lost my shit at him. (When I told my then bf, he was more angry than I had ever seen him, so idk if that time was a ‘plan’ as well or not. Either way Mike is a disgusting human.)
I know it’s ‘just’ a kiss, but it did make me feel sick to my stomach just thinking about how they might have played me.
I told him to get out, he didn’t. Luckily it didn’t take long for some people to arrive & get him out. I’m endlessly grateful for the people I have around me.
I’m staying at my parents’ place now, took a break from work & am looking into therapy. My mom & dad (who got a tattoo years ago just so I would never doubt it’s him) are treating me like a princess & reminding me of the kindness people deserve.
Haven’t looked into a restraining order, but might if it continues.
Thanks to you all for helping me see what’s right in this situation. Reddit has been a wonderful community I am very grateful for. I probably won’t update anymore, as this is over & done with. But I’m glad I got to pour my heart out to y’all.
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP
DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7