So I have a male black Molly who I've had for about nine months now. He's been fine until the last month or so, where his scales have gone silvery, his eyes bulging, and his lungs red. I've tried different medicines and whatnot to fix it, but I'm really confused. Is it just ich?? I can't tell. He's not lethargic at all. He's not fuzzy, either. I can try to get a picture if need be, he's just a fast swimmer. Thank you!

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At the Beginning
Adventure Arc - Arc 2
Wilderness Arc - Arc 3
Academy Arc - Arc 4
Nobility Arc - Arc 5
Previously on Leveling up the World...
Back when Dallion had set out into the world, it had taken him over a week to reach Nerosal. Now the trip back to his village had lasted mere minutes. In their attempt to get him on their side, the Order had graciously granted Dallion a large slice of the world, including a substantial part of Wetie province. Among that had also been the territory of his native village.
It seemed that each time Dallion went back, both he and the settlement would change. Now was no exception. Once a collection of crumbling huts, now it had become a massive hub to the south. If it hadn’t been for the war, there was a good chance that satellite settlements could have cropped up all the way up to the fallen south.
You can take if you want to, Giaccia said within his awakening realm. If yours now.
While that was true, Dallion preferred not to. It didn’t matter that Veil had become his subordinate, and it was only a matter of time before Gloria did the same. In his mind, Dherma remained the one place that was always better left alone.
It’s the only way you can guarantee it’ll be safe, the harpsisword guardian reminded.
Sadly, she was right. Although the Order had deserted the monasteries within his domain, towns and cities were a different matter. Dallion didn’t have the numbers of the political backing to follow Tamin’s example and chase out the order from all his cities. Come to think of it, even the emperor hadn’t done that. Only the capital was declared off limits. The provincial capitals had seen no changes.
“Maybe later,” Dallion said, then cast a spell that teleported him directly to the main plaza.
“What the?!” A very shiny town guard reached for his weapon at Dallion’s sudden materialization.
It wasn’t any of the Luro guards Dallion remembered. The Man’s skin seemed paler than was common for the area. No doubt he had come from the far north, doing what anyone lacking options did—go to the frontier.
“Everything’s alright,” Dallion said. His words were filled with enough calm to take down a griffin.
Everyone within earshot paused, looked about confused, as if they had forgotten what they were doing, then went back to their routine as if nothing had happened. As far as they were concerned Dallion was just another tourist coming to see the wonder of the south.
Even the town guard turned to his partner, wondering what he was supposed to do. A sigh from the other—someone Dallion hadn’t seen before either—put an end to the scene. Giving Dallion a glance of apology, the veteran guard continued on, the other hurrying beside him.
That definitely has changed, Dallion thought.
“You’re a lot better than before,” a teenager’s voice said.
The change that Dallion saw over his shoulder was a lot greater than anything he’d witnessed so far. He had a suspicion that the voice might be coming from his kid brother, and he was right… to a certain degree. The child had transformed into a teenager, almost reaching Dallion in height. Given his athletic frame and developed muscles, one might as well call him a man. Comparable to those of a professional swimmer, they didn’t bulge out, but were just enough to let it known that the boy wasn’t foreign to hard work.
“Lin?” Dallion asked, staring at his brother across the plaza.
The boy’s hair was long and straight, going down to the middle of his back. The clothes were well kept adventurer clothes, suggesting that he had spent more than some time in the wilderness.
“You’ve changed a lot,” Dallion said, making his way towards the boy.
“Sorry, big brother,” Linner said as his brother approached. “I can’t hear you from that distance.”
Dallion felt a sudden pain in his stomach. Concentrating, he focused on the boy in an attempt to see his awakened level. No rectangle appeared. Even after all this time, his brother had failed to awaken.
Damn it! Dallion thought.
He was fully aware that awakening was by no means guaranteed. Even nobles weren’t always able to guarantee their offspring would inherit their gifts. Given Dallion’s lineage, he had almost always assumed that sooner or later his brother would gain the gift, as he had. On the other hand, maybe it was better this way. More often than not, late bloomers ended up being otherworlders.
“Lin,” Dallion repeated, louder this time as he got within twenty feet of his brother. “Look at you. You’ve changed a lot. You’re—”
“Just like dad.” The other laughed, rushing forward to tackle his brother in a hug.
From Dallion’s perspective, the action was painfully slow, but he let it happen. For the first time in his life, he got to experience the pain of having non-awakened relatives. The difference between the two was so great that they could as well be considered different species. And yet, despite all that, he could feel the raw emotion of joy coming from the boy.
“You’re not here to kidnap anyone, right?” Linner asked after letting Dallion go.
“Kidnap?”
“Last time you snuck here, you grabbed Veil and rushed off. People are still talking about it.”
“Oh, right.”
No wonder they were still talking. From their point of view, it was a very recent occurrence. For Dallion years had passed.
“You’ll stay this time, right?”
“That’s the plan.” Dallion kept on smiling. He didn’t have the heart to tell him that at present, he was the ruler of the town and a quarter of the world. “Not long, though.”
“Well, at least it’s better than last time.”
“Yeah, better than last time.”
“What level are you now?” Curiosity flowed from Linner like a tidal wave.
“High enough. A bit higher than Veil and Gloria.”
“Oh, did you hear she’s a mother now? Everyone expected it, although I thought that you and her would end up getting together. You were so perfect. Remember back when you had just awakened? You used to sneak out on dates with her and everyone had to pretend they didn’t know. It was so funny.”
That wasn’t at all what Dallion remembered. True, his non-awakened self had had a huge crush on the girl, but that had changed after his awakening. The sneaking about was them going to the awakening shrine to secretly boost their levels.
“What about you?” Dallion asked. “Tried to awaken?”
“Can’t,” Linner replied without any regret. “Mom tried to help me take the first step. Even ask the town cleric, but nothing could be done. It’s just not meant to be.”
“If you want, I can—”
“No.” The boy cut him off. “It’s not meant to be.”
Dallion used his aura vision on the boy once more. His magic threads were thin, as they would be in any non-awakened. Even so, there were a lot fewer of them than there should have been. It was as if the Moons had made it impossible for him to ever awaken.
When I become a Moon, I’ll change that, Dallion thought. The notion had come to him effortlessly, as if it were a natural outcome in the future.
“Mom’s at the monastery and Dad’s tending the fields, but they’ll be back for dinner.”
“Dad still tends the fields?” Dallion sounded surprised. Given the family status, there was no need for their father to do that.
“I know. He says it makes him happy, so everyone lets him do it.”
“And grandpa?”
“He’s… fine.” There was more than a hint of hesitation in Linner’s voice. “He’s become a bit grumpier, but I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you. Come on, let me show you what’s new before dinner!”
If Dallion wanted, he could learn every single detail about the town in less than a second. Yet, there was something charming about being led about like a tourist, so he let his brother go on with it. During the tour, he also got the chance to exchange a few words with many of the local area and item guardians. Apart from his old friends, a lot more had propped up. Some of them were surprised an empath had emerged in the settlement. Others were delighted. Now and again, Dallion even stumbled upon a few banished race guardians, all too eager to learn how he had risen to such heights.
For the first time in a very long while, Dallion felt the innocent excitement he had felt during his first years as an awakened. Compared to the smallness of the world, the town seemed huge, providing surprises behind every corner. That was until it came time for family dinner.
Dallion’s mother was more than overjoyed to see him, her emotions streaming from her almost as much as her tears. While still frail-looking, she had managed to boost her level to the high fifties, possibly making her the most powerful person in Dherma. Her music skill had also reached its cap, but was a lot gentler than Dallions—very similar to Dallion’s grandmother, according to Giaccia.
Internally, Dallion’s father was no different from his wife, although he successfully hid it behind a smile and a nod. If Dallion weren’t able to see his emotions, one might think that he had welcomed him after a few months’ absence.
When it came to Kraisten, though, Linner hadn’t exaggerated. The old man didn’t seem one bit happy to see Dallion return. The way he glared at him made it clear that he suspected Dallion’s current level, and that only made things worse.
“I hear you moved to the imperial capital,” Dallion’s mother said. Apparently, the Order of the Seven Moons had been keeping her well informed. “Is it as beautiful as they say?”
A sudden burst of pain erupted from Kraisten.
“It was beautiful,” Dallion said cautiously. “I’m not there anymore. I moved east.”
“East where?” his father inquired.
“Beyond the forests.” Dallion decided it was better not to tell them that the world was a globe. “The emperor gave me some land.”
“That’s wonderful.” Dallion’s mother held her mouth with both hands, tearing up with pride yet again. “You got to see the emperor himself?”
“Yes.” Dallion instinctively replied. Feeling the anger from his grandfather double, he instantly knew it was a mistake. “Just for a bit.”
“I’m so proud. Now, all you need is to find yourself a good wife. Did you hear that Gloria got married?”
“Yes,” Dallion offered a smile.
“It would—”
“What else did the emperor give you?” Kraisten suddenly interrupted.
Silence filled the room. Dallion’s parents glanced at the village elder, then looked back into their plates. Many would have considered it normal if it wasn’t for the threads of music that had come out from the old man’s mouth and entangled them.
You have music skills as well? Dallion wondered. How come he hadn’t seen that before?
“Well?” His grandfather pressed on.
The normal thing was to laugh it off, but Dallion felt unable to. It wasn’t that the old man had been keeping secrets and lying to him all this time. Rather, it was seeing him use his skills on his own children as if they were nothing that struck a nerve.
“He gave me your old title.” Dallion’s eyes met Kraisten’s. “Along with the entire east.”
“Do you even know my old title?” The old man raised his voice even more. “I warned you to be careful, and you still messed up.”
“At least I learned about my grandmother from him.” It took an extraordinary amount of self-control for Dallion not to respond with his own music skills. “Unlike you, who’s been lying about everything.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know the rules!” Kraisten slammed on the table with his fist.
Dallion’s mother and father remained perfectly still, like statues, unable to react. Strangely enough, the old man’s music had no effect on Linner. The boy sat there, clenching his fists beneath the table, almost praying that everything would blow through. His emotions were so loud that it was obvious that he wanted to break up the argument, but knew that trying to do so would only make things worse.
“Why don’t you tell me now, then?” Dallion found himself incapable of stopping. “I know about it, so you should be able to give me the details.”
“If you had any mind, you’d know not to have anything to do with that jackal!” Kraisten shouted straight at him.
“Just because you were backstabbed by the Order doesn’t mean—”
“Is that what he told you?” The rage was so intense that Dallion felt it slam him with the intensity of a hurricane. “You think you can reason with him? You can’t! Just because there’s a war going on doesn’t put you in the same boat!”
“I’m stronger than the emperor.” Dallion used all of his self-control to keep himself from shouting. “
“You’re only stronger than his illusion!”
​
KRAISTEN SEENE is breaking a Moon vow!
​
A yellow rectangle emerged.
“He constantly sits safely tucked away and has everyone else do his dirty work! Ever wondered why there are so few otherworlders left in this world? Because he made me kill them!”
​
KRAISTEN SEENE is breaking a Moon vow!
​
“The Order of the Twelve Suns was exclusively for us! There used to be thousands until Jeremy had me kill them!”
Jeremy? Dallion wondered. Who the heck is Jeremy?
“And that wasn’t the reason we were banished! It was because I saw through his fakeness!”
​
KRAISTEN SEENE is breaking a Moon vow!
​
Faster than Dallion would have believed possible, his grandfather reached over the table and grabbed his sleeve. This wasn’t the reaction of a single-digit awakened. Only someone with traits over a hundred should have been capable of such a feat.
“The imperial capital never had an emperor! If you really want to see what’s he’s like, find him and—”
​
KRAISTEN SEENE has broken a Moon vow!
KRAISTEN SEENE is removed.
​
Pale yellow glow surrounded the old man. All other colors quickly faded away until nothing more than a blob of yellow light remained. A split second later, that too vanished.
“It would mean a lot if we got to see some grandchildren soon,” Dallion’s mother said.
Dallion looked around the table. Everyone was behaving as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Even his brother was nothing like what he had been during the argument, hiding a chuckle as he glanced between Dallion and their mother. Stranger still, there was no indication at the dinner table that there ever had been a fifth person there.
Did anyone see that? Dallion asked within his realm.
Would have been simpler if you’d just said you were married, one of his echoes replied, effectively answering Dallion’s question.
He was the only witness to what had happened.
Next

Previous Next First
​
---Ocean---
​
---Brunhilda’s perspective---
It’s time to pay the piper…
This is my comeuppance for having been excused from the monster spider hunt(!)
Victor (who’s done all of Miraala’s previous expeditions on his own, being a strong swimmer from a wet part of a wet planet) is still laid up from getting several centilitres of a powerful paralytic stabbed into his neck.
Even if Thran was at 100%, her negative buoyancy meant that she was excused from her planet’s mandatory swimming lessons as a kid and, as a result, never learned to swim.
Xon has several broken ribs right now.
It’s not really Thran or Xon’s job, either… Guess I’m just kind of used to thinking of both of them as part of the team at this point.
It’s just me and Tuun here now (weighed down with ballasts attached to the outside of her suit to make her neutrally buoyant.)
Neither of us are amazing swimmers.
She comes from a frigid planet that was being settled and developed through her childhood and didn’t have ready access to heated indoor swimming pools.
She at least learned at school though.
The Black Cat didn’t have a swimming pool aboard, funnily enough(!)
I only learned to swim in prison, just before I got my diving certification for my Security Officer course!
I readily remember the discomfort and fear I had of deep water into my early adulthood.
Don’t get me wrong though, demon spider vs oceanic reef dive is no contest!
“I’m putting us down over the reef.” announces Twila’s voice “Get ready you three!”
I activate my suit’s watertightness, checking to make sure Tuun’s done the same properly while she checks me.
Unlike her, who’s had to add weight to herself to make sure she sinks, I’m having to be here without the heavy armour I normally wear over my chest and legs and with flippers where I normally wear heavily armoured boots.
It leaves me feeling a little nude!
I clutch my firearm to my chest… the unfamiliar feeling it has with its unrifled, underwater barrel and loaded with flechette ammunition not giving me as much comfort as I’d like(!)
The door opens onto an ocean without the smallest speck of land in sight.
We’re about 100km away from the supercontinent to our West and about 50km from the island that Kas, Mage and Felicity are looking at as a candidate to move that captured monster to, to our North. Both well over the horizon.
The major naval power of the Spider people is on the far side of the continent and there’s a desert peninsular to their South and an icecapped pole to their North, blocking their way here.
Vrakhand settlements are sparser on this end of the continent and the Twigg don’t really sail, so there’s a good chance we’re the first sapients to ever know about this reef or that island!
Miraala manoeuvres her hoverchair to over the water and takes off her collar, exposing her gill slits before stowing the aquarespirator inside the mobility craft.
She begins rotating it forwards to put her upper body horizontal to the water’s surface before sliding out.
The way her long, fishy tail seems to be birthed from the egg shaped device does not put me at ease!
Not giving myself time to think about it, I step forward with a flippered foot and plunge into the briny deep!
Once my head is submerged, I immediately cast around, looking for horrors as Tuun splashes down beside me.
Thankfully, I see none.
The water is not crystal clear.
Field of view is down to what looks like about 35-40m before detail is completely lost to the murk.
Beneath us, half obscured by the biotic haze, is a reef, crowded with alien corals and alien fish.
Miraala, back in her element after more than a week of having to make do with her respirator collar and copious quantities of retention gel, is doing aquabatic somersaults through the water.
“Happy?” I ask, wryly cocking an eyebrow through the polymer of my rebreather mask.
“Exceedingly!” she answers in her flowy sign language, her contentment obvious.
Holding back a sigh and an eyeroll, I proceed downward.
The +3m Mermaid woman easily outaccelerates me and Tuun, treating me to a view of her robust bulge of muscle (where a Human would have a pelvis) powering her through the watercolumn in a (not at all sexual looking(!)) up and down undulation… the way that Terran Whales and Dolphins swim and unlike the way Terran fish do.
I’m not blushing right now! Shut up!
Early on in my relationship with Dormouse, before her attack of jealousy on Neonesia, I’d’ve said she’d be happy to hear about me noticing another woman like this… I decide not to mention it to her.
I look over to Tuun to get my mind off the Osiyul woman ahead of us.
I can see her face concentrating hard ahead of her, through her mask, her helmet’s ear protrusions still looking a tiny bit silly to my eyes.
Her quadrimanous torso gives her an interesting looking swimming style, her lower arms extending forward under her uppers as they pull back in a double breaststroke.
We hit about 20m deep and the shoals of tiny vertebrate fish dart away to hide in the coral from the three comparatively large creatures descending down on them.
As a general rule, fish look like fish no matter what planet you find them on.
Anything that swims needs to be hydrodynamic and being hydrodynamic ends up making an animal look like a fish.
That being said, there’s still an enormous variety possible in size, shape and colour that does mean fish from the same planet look more like eachother than they do fish from others.
With the exception of lampreys and hagfish (who really look alien) most Terran fish have the look of Terran fish… These guys have the look of Graom-Wakhkortan fish, their scales pigmented mostly with vibrant greens and purples.
At this point I catch sight of a school of long, conical shelled, squiddy creatures, coasting over the reef, swimming (to my mind) backwards.
You know what… this is not so bad…
I can breathe, I’m dry inside my suit, this reef is a little magical… this is definitely preferable to fighting the monster spider.
Miraala floating above a large rock platform (curiously bare of coral) already has her holo out and is furiously scribbling notes in a fluid cursive script, her W shaped pupils darting between the reef and her writing.
She’s a Class 7 (Terran Security Officer 101; know what Class every one of the people you’re in charge of is!) like the Captain, so she’s not so fragile and naïve as she could be but I still need to make sure nothing large enough to hurt her decides to try its luck while she’s distracted with her notetaking.
Things like that 2m long, armoured shark that’s drifting lazily towards her right now(!)
I swim to position myself between the woman and the inquisitive invertebrate.
Unlike the Vrakhand, this thing’s toothshields aren’t hidden behind a pair of fleshy looking lips, they’re bare on the front of its head.
Ten fins line its long serpentine body with the front two limbs being adapted as a set of gripping mandibles, presumably for holding onto its prey.
Something I remember from uni is that land based vertebrates like Humans are not particularly appetising to marine predators who are used to eating fatty/oily/blubbery marine animals and so, when bites happen, it’s typically because they were just investigating the victim.
Their mouths are their main means of interacting with the environment and determining what is and what is not food.
If a great white was attacking you to kill, it would charge up from beneath you at 56kmph and you’d probably never know what hit you(!)
Regardless, I don’t want to receive even an investigatory bite from this guy so, as he drifts towards me, I reach out to the left side of his head (safely clear of his mouth) with my nondominant right hand (my left holding my gun) and give him a firm, redirecting push away.
With a speed that makes my heart skip a beat and my blood adrenaline spike immediately, he darts away through the water before swinging back for me and the Osiyul woman.
I’m briefly terrified into thinking he’s going to go for her (I’m sure she wouldn’t be very nutritious for him but I don’t know how she’d taste) but, to my relief, he makes for me again.
I give him another firm push, redirecting him over my head this time.
He frolics through the water, causing me to understand that this is a fun game to him(!)
“Fascinating!” comes the translated word from the Merwoman who briefly releases her stylus to sign the gesture for it.
I spend the next few minutes desperately trying to maintain situational awareness of my surroundings as I float over this coralless outcropping of the reef, indulging this insistent, playful armoured shark and Miraala takes notes and photos.
Luckily, Tuun’s still got her eyes out, so we hopefully won’t be completely blindsided by anything!
Then, all of a sudden, my aquatic playmate breaks from the game and drifts away into a crag in the reef.
I frown as I see him go.
Not that I’m unhappy he’s done distracting me but… something’s giving me the creeps about how sudden that was…
I look around and see that there are far fewer fish visible on the reef now than there were when we got here and basically none of the larger squid and invertebrate fish…
I turn around to look out into the boundless murk beyond the reef.
At first, I see nothing…
Then, I see something that freezes my blood and sends lightning through my nervous system.
I see the shadow of something absolutely, unfathomably enormous, appearing through the murk!
My mind silent to every issue which is not related to our immediate survival, it takes me a fraction of a second to work out that heading up, back to the ship, is useless.
Miraala might make it but Tuun and I swim too slowly! We’d be totally exposed!
Only one thing for it!
“Guys!” I say, my tone deadly serious “Hide! In the reef! Now!”
I turn and see that Miraala, rather than using the fifth of a second since the command was issued to get a headstart, is just looking at me confused.
“I said NOW!” I hiss, gesturing for the same crag that the shark made for a minute ago and giving her a push towards it.
She breaks from her stupor and darts for the crevice, getting there before Tuun.
I’m the last in and I turn around to the single most horrifying sight I’ve ever seen!
A gigantic pair of shiny, red, metallic looking jaws is barrelling towards us at a terrifying speed!
My mind briefly shows me a flash of them just crashing into the corals protecting us and demolishing them like a derailed monorail train destroying a flimsy building!
Mercifully, the (what looks like) 50 tonne monster reduces its speed and skids up the bare rock where we just were (solving the mystery of what was keeping it coral free).
Eight eyes stare down at us, inaccessible to it in our hiding spot, with an unreadable expression.
The creature’s rounded snout rests on the rock, nearly twice as tall as I am!
There follows what feels like an eternity of us just frozen, staring at one of exactly the horrors of the deep I was apprehensive about running into.
Then, there is a great metallic screech that I’m quickly able to determine is coming from its two massive upper toothshields grinding against one another as they retract away from its single lower one.
The giant mouth (that I could easily stand fully upright inside) opens, revealing four rows of conical teeth, each longer than my hand!
“What’s… what’s it doing?” I ask the other two, gripping tight onto a sturdy feeling piece of coral and getting ready to catch Miraala in case it unleashes some monstrous suction feeding attack that irresistibly sweeps her into its mouth.
“Symbiotic mutualism…” she signs, her tone rendered fascinated.
“What?”
“It’s here to be cleaned…” she says, pointing to the army of tiny fish, tentatively edging forward into the leviathan’s mouth where they begin sucking away at the crevices between its teeth.
I breathe a sigh of relief that it’s apparently not here to hunt and ask “How long will it be before its satisfied with its cleanliness, do you think?”
She signs a negative “No idea… Could be [hours]!” not seeming the slightest bit disturbed by being trapped here for that long.
I sigh “Guess we should let Twila know that we’re going to be a bit delayed then… while giving her a bollocking for the lack of a headsup on that(!)”
---
Tip me on Ko-Fi.
---
Previous Next First
Dramatis Personae

• 69F, 5’4”, 128lbs
  
• Medical Hx: severe autoimmune reaction in 1989 (70% eosinophilia during 4-year struggle with Eosinophilic Myositis Syndrome, followed by full recovery). Kidney stone currently present but asymptomatic. (autoimmune runs in family: vitiligo, rheumatoid arthritis, etc.)
  
• Current Dx: high blood pressure, low potassium, diverticulitis.
  
• Intermittent insomnia (no Dx/Tx), severe at times but function well with no Tx.
  
• activity fluctuates from sedentary to athletic (down hill skier, distance swimmer (1 mile), hikes 2,000+ ft climb, strenuous/long walks (5+ miles))
  
• Meds: Potassium 10mg, HTCZ 25 mg, Amlodipine 5mg
  
• vitamins & supplements: fish oil 1280mg, D3 1,000 IU, multivitamin, probiotic 900b, calcium1000mg/mag400mg/zinc15mg/mag600IU combo
  
• substances: no drugs currently, no history of drug use except marijuana (rare and decades ago), no CBD
  
• Smoker: yes, quit completely in 1975
  
• alcohol: 1 cocktail a week (average) usually a very light pour
  
• Primary concern: bloating / stomach bulge
  
• tests: recent full lower abdominal, chest, and lung MRI. results clean/clear, no issues, no Dx.
  

legs, arms, neck, every other part of the body seems normal or even thin but stomach is huge. If/when I lose weight my buttocks becomes too thin/boney to sit comfortably yet my stomach is huge.
Dietary: 25+ years back, in an effort to follow better nutrition, eliminated almost all ice cream, milk, cream, cheese, fried foods, candy, and red meat. Follow mostly low-salt, low carb diet, lower additives, lower sugar, but not overly strict. Eggs, chicken, veggies yes. Rice and potatoes minimal. I cut back to one small meal (Avg 700 (?) calories/day) years back in an effort to not become obese. No body dysmorphia. No anorexia.
PCP unconcerned and provided no recommendations. It seems not postural. Is it Gluten? Is it side effect of a medication or supplement? Not emptying bowel/bladder frequently enough has expanded bladdebowel? Diverticulitis? Carbonated beverage? Constipation? Lactose intolerance? I can get my waist to shrink but only with 500 cal max / day for 4 or 5 months. This doesn’t seem sane. Is it simply age? Should I hire a personal pilates trainer?
Do I need to trial gluten free one month, then zero lactose the next?
It’s weird to see people around me eat 3 meals a day, full plates. I eat one and still don’t lose weight.
Why is my stomach huge?
Feedback please.

I am not a fan of having the steam tunnels closed off to us. We didn’t use them that often, considering they’re not exactly safe, what with the whole steam ghost thing and also that little problem of doors opening to random… places. However, it’s quite handy to have around in the case of an emergency. Like, say, when it starts raining unexpectedly. Which is a lot. Even more than usual, I feel.
I think the weather forecaster for our area has given up. They seem completely unable to predict the rain anymore.
Or maybe they’re under the control of the administration… whatever that looks like.
Mmmm paranoia, my fav.
(if you’re new, start here, and if you’re totally lost, this might help)
Grayson visited the apartment for the first time shortly after the incident in the library. I felt bad inviting him almost as soon as he showed up. He looked so tired. I put on some water for tea and gently asked if everything was okay. He was over in the living room and I heard him slide the devil-box once more out of the middle of the floor.
“There’s just a lot to do,” he sighed. “Honestly, I’m not ready for this to be my last year. I felt like I’d be further ahead or better prepared… but there’s been some stuff come up.”
I’m sure killing the flickering man didn’t help any. He was keeping the inhuman things in line, after all. Not to mention watching over Grayson’s dad, who I could only assume continued to deteriorate. I wondered how much of Grayson feeling unprepared to leave the university was related to his dad. It must be hard being an only child. I’ve got my siblings and I know that once we’re all grown, if something happens to mom, it won’t be up to any one of us alone to take care of her.
“Can’t the university do anything?” I asked. “I know you try to keep it quiet, but surely being the son of the president can come in handy for something.”
He laughed without any real humor in it. He was at the entrance to the kitchen now and I saw him glance around in the corner of my eye. His face seemed sharp and lean. Like he’d lost weight over the summer, and not in the ‘shed a few unnecessary pounds’ kind of way, either. I shoved the tea at him and started hunting through the pantry to see if I had any snacks to feed him. Unfortunately, both Cassie and I lack both excess money and entertaining skills, so I had to settle on poptarts. It was either that or ramen.
“Where’s your cat?” he asked as he sat down at the table.
I’m proud of the table. Mom found it when she went into the neighboring town for some things we don’t have in our general store. There was a chain restaurant remodeling and it was selling off its old furniture, so she bought one of those 2-person heavy-duty fast food tables along with two chairs for like… $30. I’m pretty sure this thing will outlast the apocalypse.
“Probably on Cassie’s bed. By the way, have you been in the steam tunnels lately?”
He shook his head. Ever since his encounter with the ghost down there he was rather reluctant to go into them by himself. He didn’t even particularly want to go inside them with other people. Also, there wasn’t a reason for him to.
“I’m not as worried about the rain as everyone else,” he said quietly, staring at the steam wafting from the tea. “The creatures in the rain don’t bother me. Privilege of my position.”
That’s right. I saw him order around that creature that had been after Cassie, after all. I asked how far that authority extended. If he was safe from everything on campus. I’ve asked this before and he didn’t answer and I didn’t press him but maybe enough time had passed that he’d be willing to talk about it. I tried to look casual about it, like I wasn’t dying inside to know the answer, and I think I failed entirely because he laughed softly.
“Safe?” he said. “From everything? Hardly. Remember the steam ghost?”
Oh. Yeah. I felt dumb.
“But the things out in the rain,” he continued. “They’re not a problem for me. The ones I know about, at least.”
“Including the traveling river? It’s an occurrence, after all, and can’t distinguish who you are, right?”
He glanced up at me sharply and the overhead kitchen light cast deep shadows around his eyes.
“What makes you think it isn’t intelligent?” he asked softly.
That certainly gave me pause. I floundered for a moment, not sure what to say to that, and then Grayson asked if he could see the piece of petrified wood I had.
Yeah I did tell him about that. I figured I could use his advice on how to get it back to its owner. No, I still have no idea how it wound up in my things. But it did, I have it now, and it’s up to me to get it back to Professor L. I took him into the living room, covertly sliding the devil-box back out of the middle of the room before he entered. I had the stone on the coffee table, alongside the book I’d gotten from the library. Grayson sat down at the sofa and stared intently at the stone while I found a coaster for his half-finished tea.
Having your own place is hard, I’m realizing. There’s so much you need that you don’t think about in advance.
“Here,” I said, picking up the stone once we were settled.
I held it out to him. He hesitated a moment before stretching out a palm for me to drop the stone into. He rolled it between his palms, juggling it between them for a moment like he was holding something hot, then finally let it settle and rest still there in his cupped hands.
“It doesn’t look like a heart at all,” he finally said.
“Turn it over and squint.”
He did and frowned, clearly agreeing with my assessment that the professor was stretching the definition of a heart.
“I think I’m going to stuff it in his mailbox to return it,” I said. “I can’t think of a plausible excuse as to why I would have it and I can’t lie very well anyway, so I’m just going to go the anonymous route.”
“I shouldn’t be suggesting this,” he said, “but don’t you need this a bit more than he does?”
I won’t deny it - keeping it has crossed my mind. I’m sure some of you have been thinking the same thing. We certainly had some good justifications. I was neck-deep in the inhuman world right now and even though we’d removed the flickering man, I was still highly visible to everything on campus. However, I’m not comfortable keeping it. It doesn’t belong to me and out of everyone that isn’t Grayson, I’m probably the best prepared to deal with these things.
Please ignore the fact that my panic response is to freeze. I’m finding ways to circumvent that.
Cassie… well, Cassie… okay, we need to talk about Cassie, don’t we? I’ve been putting it off too long. She’s come to terms with forgetting her former roommate a lot faster than I expected. I asked about that and she was like, well, I don’t have those feelings for her anymore. Instead, she just has feelings about having forgotten and once the shock of that wore off, she found it was more a vague sense of unease than anything genuinely upsetting. Like forgetting someone you went to school a long time ago. It’s unsettling that your memory can fail you like that, but that’s all.
And interestingly, forgetting about her roommate also took away a lot of her fear about the monsters on campus. I don’t think it’s entirely unwarranted. With her memories about Sarah gone, she’s not as tasty a target for the forgetter.
(blah blah blah you’re not supposed to name them I KNOW but I’m not calling it ‘creepy finger guy’)
Anyway, Cassie doesn’t feel she needs protection anymore. We don’t live on campus. She’s scheduled big blocks of time between her classes so she can wait out the rain if she needs to. She’s adopted a strict ‘we don’t talk about the inhumans on campus’ policy to avoid attracting its attention again. (no idea if that’ll work) But with all these precautions, I think if I offered her the stone she’d refuse on the grounds it was accidentally stolen.
Maria would likely feel the same. And she’s probably on par with Cassie in terms of being able to deal with inhuman things. So no, I don’t have a good excuse to keep the stone. And that’s the gist of what I told Grayson.
“What about identifying it?” he asked.
“I can take photos from every angle. That’ll be enough.”
“Didn’t you say that some rocks you identify by taste?”
“Ye-es, but I know what kind of rock that is already. I’m trying to figure out what kind of tree it is now. I don’t need to lick it.”
He carefully set it down on the coffee table.
“Well, do what you think is best,” he said. “I’m not sure how to proceed from here, honestly. Thanks for letting me see it before you return it, though.”
Then he said he had to go, as he had to get to class. I escorted him to the door. He glanced behind him just before he left. His eyes narrowed in confusion. I looked back to see what he was staring at and there it was, the devil-box was back in the middle of the living room, because of course it was.
I hastily pulled a ‘itwasgreatseeingyoubyeeeeee’ and hustled him the rest of the way out the door. Okay, yes, it’s not great that I’m keeping secrets from Grayson. I did the same thing to Cassie and almost destroyed our friendship but I really don’t want to explain I made a bargain with the devil to anyone I don’t absolutely need to. Besides, I’m allowed to keep some things to myself, I feel. I don’t have to be an open book. It’s not like Grayson and I are super serious about our relationship right now. I’m not even sure if it’ll survive after he graduates and leaves me behind. He might move to the other side of the country for all I know. So I’m not required to share everything with him yet, right?
Actually please don’t answer that I can’t handle it right now.
After Grayson left, I set the stone on the kitchen table and took photos of it from every angle, like I said I would. The conversation with Grayson convinced me. It was time to return it. Ngl I was pretty nervous about waltzing into the geology room and just… dropping it off… but the mailboxes were at the very end of the hallway and it was the side hallway with the offices so it was sparsely traveled anyway. I didn’t have to worry about the stabbed student even, not with the stone on me.
Well, at least on the way in.
As it turns out, it wasn’t the stabbed student I had to worry about.
The stone doesn’t make someone invisible to the inhuman. My theory is that it works like a dampener. Makes you less… connected. The inhuman world is less likely to notice you because you’re further away from them. Someone like me, who grew up around the inhuman, well. It’s probably a lot harder to hide from them.
That’s my best explanation for what happened on my way to the geology building.
I had high hopes, as it was a sunny day and the handful of clouds in the sky were pure white. Not a hint of rain on the horizon. Granted, that could change despite what the weather forecast said, but the rain doesn’t at least completely defy the laws of nature. It’d take a little time for the rainstorms to move in and this was going to be a short errand. Getting the stone back to the geology building and getting back off campus was looking like a simple mission.
I felt a prickling on the back of my neck as I walked past the English building. At first I dismissed it as nerves. That was the building that housed the thing in the hallway, after all, and the few encounters I’d had with it are enough to last my lifetime, thanksverymuch. However, the feeling persisted even after the building was out of sight. I glanced around, noting that I was far from alone. There were plenty of students around me.
So why did I feel like I was being watched? I wrapped my fingers around the stone in my pocket uneasily.
Finally, I decided to step off the path and look around. I didn’t even try to act casual. If anyone asked, I’d say I was trying to figure out the best angle for some photography assignment of architecture or something. Not that anyone would ask. This is college. People do weird stuff all the time and no one cares. So I stood on the grass and scanned first the sidewalks and the students that were also loitering on the grass. Nothing stood out to me. No one else had stepped off the pathway to awkwardly wait for me to get moving again and everyone on the sidewalk was continuing on to their destination.
For a moment I wondered if I was just imagining it. It’s a reasonable concern. I’m a little jumpy with everything that’s happened.
Then I raised my gaze and searched the sides of the buildings around me.
My thought was that something was watching me through a window. I wasn’t really looking at the buildings themselves, more at the windows. I only saw it because it moved.
There. Flattened against the side of a nearby building, its skin patterned to resemble the brick around it. Its limbs were spread out in a strange parody of a frog, perfectly human in form, but splayed and clinging to the vertical surface with those long fingers. Its head swiveled gently and when I stared at it, it jerked its gaze back to meet mine.
I saw it and now it could see me. The stone wasn’t enough to hide me from its awareness.
Tentatively, I stepped back on the sidewalk and resumed walking. After a few paces I paused and turned around.
It had moved forward.
It was following me.
I broke into a faster walk. This time, when I turned around, I could no longer spot it. It had moved enough from its original position that I was no longer sure where it was and I was having trouble finding it again. Like a game of hide and seek, except the hider has camouflage and wants to eat my memories.
Hadn’t Grayson warned it off? Was he losing control of campus now that the flickering man was gone?
Did he have as much control as he thought he did to begin with?
I no longer felt that confident about walking into an empty building. I needed to return the stone without being seen, but I also didn’t want to get cornered by that thing.
I paused outside the entrance to the geology building and took a few deep breaths to compose myself. I had to think this through. I knew I was competent and able to do this - I just needed a plan.
As soon as I was inside the lobby, I took my water bottle out of my bag and balanced it on the handle of the door. It’d fall as soon as anyone tried to open it. If it were a student, I’d likely hear them yell with surprise or curse or something. If it was the creature, I’d hear it fall and nothing else. That would tell me if I needed to abort my plan or not. There were classes going on right now. I knew the geology professors well enough that I felt I could burst into the room crying that I’d seen the ghost and convince them to let me stay in the back of the classroom until class let out and I had people to walk out with.
Then I waited around the corner, heart pounding.
Silence.
I had to convince myself to move. It wasn’t following me inside. I had a warning now and a backup plan of finding safety in a classroom. I could do this. Reluctantly, I peeled myself away from the wall and started down the hallway towards the staff mailboxes. I noted which office doors were shut with their lights on, just in case I couldn’t get to a classroom and had to resort to bothering a professor.
I made it halfway down the hallway before I saw that the creature was still following me. I almost screamed, but this is me, I freeze, and the sound was strangled in my throat.
It was plastered against the window. Its fingertips suctioned to the glass like a frog and its face - gray-blue to blend in with the sky above - was pressed against the pane. Its eyes bulged out of its skull, wet against the glass, and its cheeks were spread out in saggy balloons, like putty being pushed into too small of a container.
The panic response in my brain short-circuited and my legs stopped moving. I stared at it in horror, watching as a lump in its throat bobbled up and down, like it was trying to speak. It wasn’t inside, a voice repeated wildly in the back of my head. It was outside. I was inside. It couldn’t get to me.
I stumbled backwards, away from the window and towards the far end of the hallway. I didn’t dare take my eyes off it. Because if I did, what if it went around, what if I heard the water bottle fall, what if it was in the building with me? I walked backwards, staring resolutely at the creature, and its eyes - still pressed against the glass - shifted so that the pupils continued to track me.
I made it to the mailboxes, where I quickly located Professor L’s name and shoved the stone inside. My heart was pounding so loudly I almost couldn’t hear anything else.
Almost.
“What are you doing?” a voice asked from behind me.
This time I didn’t freeze. I basically jumped out of my skin. Screamed and everything. So that wasn’t suspicious as hell at all. I whipped around and found Professor Monotone standing behind me. How had he snuck up on me so quietly?
“Just dropping something off,” I said hastily, totally sounding guilty as hell.
And sure enough, the professor craned his neck to see what was behind me and there was the stone in Professor L’s mailbox.
“Oh, you found it.”
I shifted aside as he reached for it. He pulled it out of the cubby and turned it over in one hand.
“It’s not even that great of a specimen,” he said casually. “Doesn’t look like a heart at all.”
“Right?” I laughed. “Anyway, I found it on a classroom shelf and thought I’d better get it back to him.”
Then Professor Monotone did something unexpected. He shoved the stone at me and his face, normally distracted by whatever ponderous thoughts were drifting through his head, sharpened to a hawkish intensity.
“You should hang onto it instead,” he said. “You can return it when you graduate.”
I stared at him stupidly for a moment, not really comprehending what he was saying. Was a professor telling me to steal from someone?
“But what about Professor L.?” I finally asked.
“I’ll keep an eye on him. He’ll be fine. Besides, it’s about time he learns to deal with these things if he’s going to be a professor here - or anywhere, really - long-term.”
Oh. My. God.
Every campus has inhuman creatures.
(though I’m not sure why we’d be surprised by this, with as densely packed as they are with all those ideas and stories and traditions flowing around the student body)
But also.
Professor Monotone apparently knows a HELL OF A LOT MORE than he’s let on so far.
I wanted to ask him so many things, but he just winked at me and offered to escort me back to the front entrance. Then he handed me my water bottle that I’d left stuck in the front door handle (!!!!!!???) and said that he’d hate to lose a promising student over something as silly as property ownership.
And that his office is always open for me.
Time to show up with a list of questions and it’s not just going to be about the mechanisms of crustal growth. [x]
Keep reading.
Read the current draft of the rules.
Visit the college's website.

Hi everyone, have a bit of a niche topic to ask about. I was a swimmer my whole life, but obviously as a girl and I had to wear a female bathing suit for practice. I would love to join an adult team again (I'm in my 30s) and I've put it off until I could get top surgery, which I just had a month ago. As far as swimming for leisure, I'm planning on wearing some trunks, but those don't exactly work in a competitive setting, but I don't know how I feel about speedos (due to a lack of a bulge) or jammers (don't think they'd be that flattering). Does anyone else swim competitively? What do you wear and how did you find it?

So I've been seeing this guy at my gym for the past 8 months almost, I noticed him for the first time last April when he helped perform a biceps curl with cabels & that was our ONLY interaction since then up until a few days ago. Whenever I'd go to the gym I would throw glances and I've caught him doing the same a couple of times.
So a couple of days ago he was working out right next to me and he gestures towards me trying to grab my attention; says "are you using this?". Me being a bit surprised (pleasantly) that he's talking to me, I smile at him kindly and say "not at all please go for it". Later on during us both taking breaks from our sets he asks me about my name, and he says that he's always seen me around here. The chitchat continues and I admit to him that I embarrassingly tried to execute one of the workouts I always see him doing (signaling that I've been noticing what he's doing over the months) and he tells me that I'm more than welcome to come to him for advice or questions about any exercise.
He then asks me what am I working out the following day and I say legs, he proceeds to tell me that he has legs too. He did it with a face that said "you thinking what I'm thinking?" and we end up working out together the next day.
Before I left I saw him standing at the vending machine getting a protein drink, I asked him about it and said that those are pretty good. He reaches his hand out with it in his hand and says that it's for me, and that I should take it. I happily oblige with a big smile, he smiles back and says "see you tomorrow".
We had a blast, he challenged me to push my limits, while also being super kind and gentle with me. Which is something I was worried about since he eas obviously much more advanced at the gym than me. He's bigger than me physically, taller and much more muscular, like a swimmer's body with broad shoulders and back but in a slim/slender frame if that makes sense. He's definitely over 6', I'm 5'10" for reference and I have a decent body since I've been working out since highschool.
During the workout we share into about each other, he's 5 years younger than me. That was surprising because he genuinely looked my age or even older (I'm 27). He's studying to be a lawyer, he's incredibly social and friendly, he also is not judgemental at all (I mentioned this because he is aware that I'm pretty off the status quo to say the least). Very polite guy, was a gentleman in everyway, at times I couldn't determine if his cheekiness was flirting or just him being a harmless tease, like whenever I'd tell him I'm afraid of what other exercise he has instore for me.
He would flex a little but during as well, at one point he specifically wanted me to check out the super heavy weight he was lifting on one of the machines. He also showed me a video of him stretching and tells me that he used to be very flexible, since I started stretching because I was training my own flexibility.
I also noticed that during our conversations he seemed very interested in what I had to say, when I talked about my education and my musical interests.
At the end he says let's go stretch, and we go just the two of us to the room where they do aerobics classes and he hands me a matt then grabs one for himself. We sit and start having a bit more deeper conversation, he asks me about my career and what I want to do next, and compliments me on my accomplishment. I do the same and ask him what made him choose his proffesion, he said he picked it because he had a knack for talking to people and he loved being able to connect with them.
After we were done he stuck around a bit while I got up and started to gather my things when I finally noticed something. I ask him "why didn't bring your headphones with you?". He goes "because I knew I was working out with you". I smile at him fondly and say goodbye before leaving.
I've seen him again the other day and we chatted a bit whenever we could and made plans to workout together again on Thursday.
I'm not sure if he actually likes me or if he's just a really nice guy, I'm guessing only time will tell. I think he is absolutely adorable and so sweet, so I'm definitely gonna keep talking to him and working out with him when I can. I'm not 100% sure if he's gay, but then again you never really know until you know.
I'm thinking of asking him out for coffee or a post workout meal, I'm very worried he'll think I'm being too "interested". Even though I am and have been thinking about kissing him for the past three days.
What should I do to ask him out? And how do I know for sure that he is interested in me, or just being the nice and sociable guy that he is?
I'll keep you guys updated once I see him tomorrow.
UPDATE WE WORKED OUT TOGETHER AGAIN!
We did back, the conversation was pretty cool, he kept asking me questions about my profession and what I do. Tl;DR: I do something that's very off of what someone would do in my culture, so naturally he was politely inquisitive.
I noticed from this interaction with him that he is a genuine sweetheart that does not judge, he's very polite. Like: "mama raised you right " polite.
During this workout we established that we are very different from each other, what we do, what we like, even family dynamics; incredibly different. I didn't let that turn me off because I've seen couples get together for many years when they were polar opposites.
We also established some similarities, how we like to stay active and none of smoke or drink or do any of the common vices. So we know that we're both pretty health conscious people.
We also don't like loud music, the party scene, or clubs/nightlife.
During one of the exercises he told me how does my family feel about what I do for a living, I work in beauty btw, so the status quo is that usually women are the ones who would dive into that industry. But anyway I tell him my parents don't care that much. And I said that I've pretty much shocked them already when I came out to them so nothing's gonna surprise them after that.
So I listened to your advice, and let him know thay I was gay. As I told him that I carefully observed his facial expressions, waiting for a reaction, a twitch in the face, waiting for his eyes to bulge with disgust. But he was pretty careless, or at least it seemed.
We continued the workout just as usual, nothing got awkward or judgmental or uncompromising. He kept helping me and assisting me with my form when I needed, kept cracking jokes and smiling, everything was the same so I'm assuming he's cool with it.
As we progressed in the workout we both learn that we like to take long walks, so I immediately jump on that opportunity and go: "we should go on a walk together sometime". To which he replied "yea sure that would be cool".
We finish everything and then go to stretch and I the conversation goes to girls. I start making a joke about how a lot of guys try to get girls' attention when they're working out and how amusing it is. He then tells me that he doesn't really talk to girls that much. He prefers to just keep to himself.
This ponders the question: "is it because you like men, or are trying to let me know that you're like me?" Or is it just part of his "nice guy" personality where he's just a legit gentleman, and also the cultural aspect of it.
He also doesn't cuss, like at all. Not even with his friends it seems. Which is very odd for me because I can have a sailor's mouth at times.
We finish stretching and there's a long pause and he goes:
"Any plans for the weekend?"
I see this as maybe he's trying to ask me out or see if I already have something going on, so I say no I don't have much planned.
He goes: "nothing you have nothiny you're doing?"
I double down and say no, keeping the door open for him to enter and say something.
I ask him the same question back, he also says that he has nothing going as well.
So at this point we both know that we don't have anything to do on the weekend.
At the end when we both finish we start talking about hanging out, I told him I would ask you to go to lunch but you seem busy with something. Because he mentioned he had something after the gym. He goes: "yea unfortunately I have to get a few things done".
Before I leave I go: "can I add you on instagram?"
He says yea sure and he searches my name on IG, finds my account and follows me, after that I said we should go on that walk soon I'll dm you this weekend if you want.
He says that he probably won't be able to make it since he has "things he needs to get done before school starts next week"
Then he also says that he's probably gonna be busy for the next two weeks cuz of his university's first couple weeks.
I say yea sure no worries, whenever you feel like it dm me and we'll do it.
I say goodbye and start to leave then I remember his sweet gesture the first day we talked. Went over to the vending machine and grabbed a vitamin drink(that was all that was available) and walked back to give it to him.
He looked surprised and asked me why did I do that, I tell I'm returning the favor with a smile on my face, he doesn't do sugar so I told him it's sugar free.
He smiles back and thanks me, after that I say goodbye.
I head out of the gym to my car, and I follow him back shortly after once I got home.
Dmd him: "heyyy thanks for the workout today it was really fun"
He replies with this emoji: "🙌"
And that's it.
Now the question is: why would you ask me multiple times throughout our workout if I had anything planned, and you know that I have nothing going on, and you tell me you have nothing going on, if you're not gonna be able to hang out in the near future?
Why say you'd love to hang out then say you probably won't be able to anytime soon and suddenly you're busy.
I mean he could be telling the truth and just be occupied with the beginning of the school term.
This confuses me on whether he's interested or not.
What do you think? We haven't made plans to workout again but will probably see him there tomorrow.
Should I leave the ball in his court? Or make another move?
Obviously if I'm gonna find out more I need time but for now I'm consfused.
Help! <\3

TL;DR: I have been having around 250-270ng/dl Testosterone levels for many years with shbg always around 9-10nmol/L. I am Male 30 years old, 5'8'' tall and weighing 68kg. I have had my first shot of Sustanon 250mg today. I didn't have major symptoms of low T, I am doing TRT for bodybuilding. The hospital is gonna give each shot every 3 weeks. I might get my hands on pharma grade enenthate 100mg. Would injecting 100mg enenthate at 1.5 week mark be a good idea to keep stable serum levels? Due to personal reasons very frequent injection is problematic for me.
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Concise version: Been training for 5 years. Didn't see any results in the first 2 years. Then got coached by professionals with proper training, nutrition and tracking for like 2-3 years. As per measurements must have put on 4 kg muscle in 2-3 years. I didn't have major low test symptoms. But, always had some symptoms like 9-10 hrs sleep everyday and still feeling sleepy. I don't care about symptoms. Main goal is bodybuilding, that's why I went for TRT. I am at 68kg with 15-17% body fat ((last time had a scan with machine which gave 17% at 71kg). In 6 months I will go back to Melbourne and I am willing to pay enhanced coaches for guidance on TRT and roids. I will see if I could get prescribed eod injections for enenthate in Melbourne. Atm what would be best way to put on max possible muscle with my current situation? I don't mind having low T symptoms for some days if overall I still can put on similar muscle(i.e. is 250mg once three week == 82mg every week for muscle gain? )I have plenty of sustanon 250 and might be able to get my hands on other ester, enenthate most likely. I don't wanna throw half sustanon injection to have more frequency. It's kinda hard to find good nurse for injections and storing them is a problem for me(shared living) as well, so I left all my injections in the hospital fridge and asked them to administer one injection every three weeks.
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Long Story: I have been weight training since early 2018 regularly(3-4 days a week). Even before that, I did train irregularly. 2018 to 2019 I did gain zero muscle and zero improvement in cardio. I used to follow a bro split and used to have huge DOMS. I weighed 73kg with waist around 37+ inches and belly 39+ inches. Then in 2019 I did a cut approx 73-66kg and then a dirty bulk, again zero results. In 2020 made a decision that I would use steroids, but before that I will leave every other stone un-turned. I again went from from 70 to 63kg. I had around 1g/lb protein intake, but very low fat -- I only calculated protein.
End of 2020, I bumped into a coach at my gym in Melbourne. He looked huge. He was 23yo, weighed 90-95g lean. He was an exercise researcher, with physiotherapy degree as well and was a former national swimmer as well. He used to charge me 70AUD for 1 hour. He taught me a lot, mainly nutrition, then after one month coaching I was coached by his colleague coach. The main coach on day one noticed that I looked super fatigued. There were a lot of discussion like postural things as well. Me and the coach thought Fatigue is because of my crash diet, so he asked me to have a blood test.
2021 January fasted blood work:

Total testosterone 8.7nmol/L Ref. nmol/L(6.0 -- 28.0) [8.7 nmol/L = 251ng/dl] Cortisol 361nmol/L Ref. range nmol/L(110 -- 550) [Morning range] FSH <1 Ref. IU/L(1-8) LH 3 Ref. IU/L(2-8) Prollctin 147 Ref. mIU/L(45-375) Oestradiol 98 Ref. pmol/L(<150) TSG 1.41mIU/L Ref. range mIU/L (0.41 -- 4.00) Vitamin D 70nmol/L Total Chol. 3.5nmol/L HDL = 1.3nmolL LDL = 1.9 Iron 9.5umol/L Ref umol/L(10 -- 30) 

Few months later I moved to India for one year till early 2022. Exercise plan given by coach was super complicated. So I started push-pull-leg with 3 days 6km brisk walk every week. I did short cuts and lean bulk for a year. Went from 62kg to 66kg, put on around 1-2kg muscle and rest fat. I injured my right foot with brisk walks and got chronic pain in SI joint from over exerting myself. At this stage I had a training log with weight and waist+belly circumference measurements etc of every day for more than a year.
2022 I was back in Melbourne. Visited physio, who said I might have a disc bulge. 24/7 gym in Melbourne got shut down after 30 years. I started training mainly body wight in the park, 5-6 days a week. I had weights at home as well. I followed Mind pump podcast principle -- Mechanics have big forearms, because they are sending small muscle building signal everyday. I also followed the principle of save 25% energy each session, because when I injured my back I was going balls to the wall and would lay down for an hour after gym. So I was doing 30mins every day full body -- incline pushup, walking lunges, grab the railing in the park and do assisted lats etc. I saw some improvement with this methodology -- 1kg muscle gain may be. Mid 2022 had MRI for foot and back -- nothing found. Started training squats and deadlifts normally. Also had blood work:
2022 blood work:

Vitamin D 28nmol/L [Deficient] TSH 1.79mIU/L Total Testosterone 8.9nmol/L Ref. nmol/L(6 - 28) [8.9nmol/L is 257ng/dl] SHBG 9nmol/L Ref. (15 - 50) [Too low] Free Test 293pmol/L Ref (200 - 600) [My calc 293pmol/L is 1.93ng/dl assuming T is 288.42 g/mol molar mass] 

End of 2022, I joined anytime fitness and hired another personal coach, who was 70kg at around 7-8% bodyfat year round. He had won some bodybuilding competition as well. He was certainly natty --- showed me progress pics for the last 8 years he had. He put me on a full body routine eod, i.e. one day on then one day rest. This works best with 48hrs muscle protein synthesis fact really well. I train in a way that the next session I am slightly sore in every muscle. I manage volume and intensity accordingly and also give high volume to prioritized parts. High frequency gives me best results. I trained whole 2023 like this and made the best progress ever. I used to have butter as main fat source, which I have recently replaced with walnuts and peanuts. So end of 2023 I came back to India and had another blood test and visited an endocrinologist in a big hospital.
2023 December fasted blood work:

Cortisol Morn 15.11 microgram/dl Ref. (4.3 - 22.4) Vitamin D 83.78 nmol/L FSH 0.81 mIU/mL Ref. (1.27 - 19.26) LH 1.82 mIU/mL Ref. (1.24 - 8.62) Prolactin 6.32 ng/mL Ref. (2.64 - 13.13) Total testosterone 268.51 ng/dL Ref. (175 - 781) SHBG 11.00 nmol/L Ref. (14.55 - 94.64) Free Test 19.30 pg/mL Ref. (15-50) [19.30pg/mL is 1.93 ng/dl] 

I have a lot of funny stories with the doctor discussion, if yous want I can tell, like one doc asking me "did you masturbate before the blood test; masturbation increase test levels". I can clearly see the docs are incompetent. The senior endo didn't know what SHBG is. I showed him my Australian reports and he had to google about SHBG. He confused total T with Full T etc. Eventually I was able to get Testosterone prescription from him somehow. I didn't make the decision to use TRT on a whim. I waited years for this and have turned every table I could -- diet, sleep, supplements, logging measurements, professional coaches etc. I would like to spend 2 years on TRT to see if I can achieve my goal, which is 70kg at 10% body fat. I think I am a genetic outlier in terms of bad genetics in the bell curve.
​
Anyways, we know that 3 weeks per injection is too infrequent and will crush my shbg to floor, which is already very low 9-10. With the superscription I have, I can buy any number of sustanon 250 shots and interestingly might be able to buy enenthate 100mg from the same pharmacy, they don't seem to ask for prescription. Now in regards to symptoms, my whole life I have bee somewhat lethargic(e.g. walking slow), which has been pointed out to by other people, but lately because of training, my posture is very good and I got a reverse compliment that I look young and active. Libido has been ok tbh. In fact in a surplus libido goes up. I do have some problem in maintain erection although. Tbh I don't know what is lethargic vs active, because I have been the same whole life. It's been 6 hours till sustanon 250 injection and I still feel the same. I felt the shot for the first 15-30 mins, slight boost in confidence and happiness which went away soon. Given propionate has 20hrs half life, I should have felt something.
​
Looking for advice, cheers guys.

Nature of Predators belongs to u/SpacePaladin15
The following chapter was made possible in part by the efforts of the Discord gremlins, and by viewers like you: thank you!
Prev/First/Interludes
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Memory Transcript Subject: Morek, Arxur freshman and immigrant, August 10th, 2139
The moment I entered the school was the moment I knew It was going to be a bad day. There were so many people, most of them human, and the moment I entered the hall from the dropoff all their eyes trained on me, digging into my soul. It made the skin under my scales crawl, but I held it together: I could not express any weakness.
The human clothes on my body felt wrong, hugging me in places that I wasn't comfortable with, yet bagging in others that made me feel strangely exposed despite being used to not wearing clothes. The air was cold and sanitized, and the cacophony of voices and noises I had heard outside died when I walked past, humans avoiding eye contact with me when I drew close but then resuming their stares when they were just in my peripherals. I wished they'd say something, anything, even an insult or a cruel joke at my expense, but there was nothing, just deafening silence.
I just kept to myself, eyes downcast and sullen. I wanted nothing to do with this place with these people, just as they wanted nothing to do with me. I just wanted to be a nobody in the crowd, to be unseen and unnoticed. I wanted to disappear. But I couldn't, so I would just have to deal with the ice-cold anxiety growing in my chest.
I reached my assigned locker and fiddled with the dial for a few minutes, growling under my breath due to my claws having a hard time manipulating it, before opening it and shoving my bag into it with a grunt and a hiss. I was used to translating my frustrations and anxieties into anger, but I apparently couldn't do that here: humans looked down on that kind of behavior, so I would have to bottle it up for now.
Suddenly, I felt a presence next to me, and I shrank away from it. It was a male human, maybe around my age, with fair skin, brown hair, and chocolate-brown eyes. He was muscular for a human, and he stood a few inches shorter than me, which was to be expected from human males since I wasn't done growing yet and wouldn't be done for another few years.
“Morning,” he said softly, “I'm Marcus, I'm supposed to be your student ambassador for the year. You're Morek, right?”
I scoffed inwardly. Student ambassador? I neither needed nor wanted whatever an ambassador was considered to be in a human school, but I couldn't refuse. I was expressly told by my father to not cause trouble, and saying no to him would probably cause trouble.
“Yes,” I rumbled, “I am Morek.”
“Well, it's good to meet you, Morek.”
“I suppose,” I said, unsure how to respond. Why was this human being so polite to me? What was the point of his presence?
“Well,” he said awkwardly, “We've been assigned a lot of the same classes so I can be there to help you out when you need it, to explain how things work around here. We should have the same first-period class, which would be biology: are you ready?”
“I guess I have little choice in the matter,” I answered. I didn't want to be here, and I didn't want to go to these stupid classes. All of this nonsense was annoyingly superfluous.
“Don't worry, it's nowhere near as bad as you think it is,” he said. I quickly caught him off guard with my response.
“That would imply that it's still bad,” I said, my voice dripping with bitter sarcasm.
He seemed surprised by my response at first but quickly cracked a genuine smile at my poor attempt at humor. “I guess you caught me: school can be pretty boring. Luckily, it's not too hard as long as you pay attention, at least to me.”
Easy for you to say, I muttered inwardly. Of course, this human education would come easy to him, he was human. I, on the other hand, was an Arxur and thus would undoubtedly struggle with whatever nonsense I'd be put through here. I knew none of the social norms, was unaware of the unspoken rules, and was ignorant of the power structures in this wretched place.
“Something wrong? You seem a little tense.”
“I'm… fine,” I say, “I just want to get this day over with.”
“That's not a really good mindset to have, you know that, right?” He insisted, “You aren't going to be at school for one day, it'll be for the next four years.”
Somehow, he was able to make my already terrible mood worse. “Don't remind me,” I hissed, “and I don't want help, I just want to be left alone.”
He raised his eyebrow in that annoying human way to express that he wasn't convinced. “Are you sure about that? I am really here to help, I mean that, but I won't continue to insist if you don't want my help.”
“I truly don't, in fact, I want nothing from you or anyone else here, so please leave me alone,” I hissed. I really didn't want anything to do with this place or anyone in it. I was already depressed that I'd be trapped in this place for the next four years of my miserable life, but I didn't want people to pretend to care about me: they didn't. I was clearly an intruder to them, an outcast, and I simply wished for them to ignore me entirely and for me to become completely unnoticeable: their stares filled me with an all too familiar dread that reminded me of some of my lowest points during my time in betterment.
To my surprise, he seemed almost disappointed, and for some reason, I almost felt remorseful. I was disgusted by my emotional weakness, even if it was a brief lapse in judgment, and pushed it back: I would not give in to this human’s emotional manipulations.
“Well, I should be in your next class if you need me,” he said weakly, causing that same sense of bitter remorse to well up in my chest, much to my chagrin.
I didn't respond, instead choosing to turn and focus on unloading my biology textbook from my bag before slamming my locker shut. By the time I turned back around, Marcus was gone, walking back down the hall with his hands half-stuffed into the pockets of his jeans. With a confused and disgusted sigh, I slammed my locker shut and began to make my way to my first class of the day: biology.
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Marcus wasn't joking when he said human schools were boring.
What was the point of all this inactivity? Why did the proctor take so long to teach nonsensical topics? We were going over the class Syllabus we had just received, and my brain felt like melting and pouring out my nostrils onto the floor from boredom. There were a lot of topics, but my teacher, Mrs. Winebow, went over every little thing on every page like the students in the class were mentally handicapped.
If this was the state of human adolescents, how did they ever manage to conquer the galaxy? At least their implied simplicity of the mind reassured me I would most likely be safe from any more complex plots against me.
I faced another problem beyond just my unease and anxiety, though: I was restless. A day in betterment was largely a physical one, where our bodies were pushed to the limits to see who was worthy of moving on and who was holding the rest of our bracket back. Every physical activity you could imagine Arxur doing, from sparring and spilling the blood of prey to long treks through the unforgiving wilderness and back-breaking labor, we did it. It was awful, and I went to sleep every day feeling broken and empty, but somehow it was better than this boredom, hearing this woman drone on and on about such inconsequential things in comparison.
That wasn't to say we didn't have any actual academic classes in Betterment, but they didn't care for hard sciences such as biology: much of what we learned was to glorify the Dominion and its history and rhetoric. This meant that I was used to rapidly taking full pages of notes, as an empty notebook was an excuse for the proctors to beat you until you bled or even broke bones, and when class was over you'd still be expected to partake in the physical exertion, and if you lagged behind you'd be killed without question, usually by the hands of your own classmates to show cruelty.
“Morek, I asked you a question,” said my biology teacher, Mrs. Winebow. She was a small and petite human with dark skin, brown hair, and brown eyes, not the kind that would've survived Betterment at all due to her small stature. “Is everything alright, dear?”
The moment she spoke, everyone in the class turned back to me, whether full-on staring at me or simply giving me wayward glances before returning to their work. It was horrible, the crawling feeling under my scales returning. You did not want to be stared at like that in Betterment, such was the sign of a death sentence.
I shivered and cursed inwardly at my ineptitude. “Yes, Mrs. Winebow, forgive me for losing focus,” is said, “It won't happen again, I swear by it.”
“It's not a big deal, just make sure you're paying attention: this safety information is relevant to a lot of the lab projects we'll be doing throughout the year.”
I'm sure it is, I hissed inwardly, but I chose to keep my thoughts to myself and be as polite as possible: I would not risk my neck by pushing my luck further. “Of course Mrs. Winebow, I'll do better to pay attention.”
“Thank you, Morek.”
The rest of the class let out a small chorus of snickers, but Mrs. Winebow quickly silenced them with a glare. “That's enough, all of you, she's new here and you're not obviously making her uncomfortable.”
One human, a male with blonde hair, piped up. “Sorry Mr. Winebow, but we have to keep an eye on her: we don't know what she might do. Who knows, maybe she'll start eating some of the dissection subjects when we're not looking!”
The class erupted into a mix of laughter and scoffs as I shrunk in embarrassment. So fair this place was nothing like I expected Arxur betterment to be, but I had never expected it to be an exact replica: the cruelty would rear its ugly head eventually, no matter how hard the humans attempted to catch me off guard.
“Alex, that is both extremely disrespectful and prejudiced!” Shouted Mrs. Winebow, “Apologize to her!”
“Why? it's not like it's that far-fetched. When they showed up on earth they were eating cats and dogs like it was a Chinese Buffet. Why should I sit here and pretend that she's any different?”
“Alex! That is enough!” Mrs. Winebow shouted. “Either apologize to her or I will have you written up.”
Alex scoffed but didn't say anything. Mrs. Winebow scowled at him for a moment but eventually sighed. “I will make sure your parents hear about this. I don't want another remark about Morek again for the entire year, is that understood?”
“Sure, give her special treatment,” muttered Alex, “they'll literally eat babies but we can't hurt their feelings, noooo, that's too insensitive.”
“Hey, jackass,” another voice piped up, this time coming from Marcus, to my surprise, “Leave her the hell alone, she isn't like that.”
“And how would you know?” Hissed Alex, “What, you've been over to their house? Seen whatever type of fucked-up space satanism they practice there?”
“No, I haven't been to her house, and I don't know her family, but what I do know is that you've always been a piece of shit for as long as I've known you,” said Marcus, his voice so dangerously low it sounded like a growl, “So why don't you go home and tell your dad to stop cheating on your mother with his secretary before you start judging other people's families, okay? Don't take the stress of your parent’s crumbling marriage out on everyone else for once.”
The whole class erupted into gasps and laughter as Marcus just sat there, his face stony and unreadable. Alex was caught off guard for a moment but then began to fume with anger. “You keep talking and I'm going to make you swallow your teeth, Mark.”
“You could try, but I have a feeling it won't end well for you.”
Alex shot up from his chair, causing it to slide away slightly, and marched over to Marcus, beet red with fury. Marcus, on the other hand, rose slowly from his seat and faced Alex, muscles rippling. It was at this moment that Alex probably considered his odds of beating Marcus in a fair fight: Alex wasn't weak or frail, but he was lean and lithe, like a swimmer. Markus by comparison stood over six feet, weighed at least two hundred and fifty pounds, and had bulging biceps like bridge cables. By the time Alex had reached Markus, he looked to have lost a lot of his initial nerve and now seemed to be regretting his choices. Still, he obviously didn't want to look like a coward in front of his peers: that could spell damnation in betterment, so he stood up to Markus, their chests practically touching as they glared at each other. Mrs. Winebow was shouting for them to stop, but the tension between the two drowned her out as if the silence of anticipation could somehow reek of violence.
“Sit down, Alex, before you get hurt.”
Alex didn't say anything, but he let out a disgusted sigh. He backed away and turned his back to Marcus before sneering. “We'll deal with this later.”
“Sure, you keep telling yourself that and I might just take you up on your offer.”
“Both of you stop this!” Mrs. Winebow shouted, “Alex, out of my class, now! Marcus, you're on thin ice, so don't keep pushing your luck.”
Marcus just sat back down while Alex stormed out of the class, leaving his textbook and notebook behind. I was stunned: why had Marcus defended me? I didn't understand some of what Alex had said, but I knew they were meant to be insulting and disrespectful, but also didn't think that Marcus actually cared about me enough to defend my name.
Marcus gave me a look and a small smile. I didn't glare, sneer, or scoff at him like I had this morning, I just looked away from him. I had been unnecessarily rude to him this morning and I felt I was wrong. I should've given him a chance.
I risked a quick glance back, noticing that Marcus’s small smile had shrunken when I turned away, but it reappeared when I looked back, him showing his strange and flat human teeth. I didn't have much of a frame of reference, but I thought it was a nice smile. He looked… good when he smiled, warm and reassuring,.like how father looked on rare occasions. I liked it better than when he frowned, although there was something enticing and exciting about his anger, how he stood up to Alex like that without even a hint of fear. I hadn't sensed any arrogance in his tone of voice, either: he was completely confident in his ability to defend himself and fight. He didn't let his anger control him, yet he made it known. That was the sign of someone who was strong, and not just one seeking the approval of betterment.
I quickly forced those thoughts out of my mind. It wasn't good to have those thoughts about him, especially since I barely knew him. It'd be best to just keep myself, although if he stuck around I wouldn't mind his presence.
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The rest of the morning went by rather quickly once biology ended. The second period was algebra, and I found out that I actually liked algebra quite a bit: I was able to attend one of the small and crowded schoolhouses at the Internment camp, and I was taught human mathematics, as well as other subjects, from the ground up to prepare me for school here. Math had been my favorite subject there because what you saw is what you got: logic-based problem solving based on an order of operations. There was no guesswork involved, so as long as I followed the rules and did everything right, I'd always reach the one correct answer. It was reassuring, in a way, that I didn't have to deal with any of the silly human concepts seeping into it: Math was math, simple as that.
Marcus insisted on sitting next to me, and this time I didn't object. I had no right to object since he had verbally defended me and my entire family in front of the entire first-period class, even though he didn't even know us, and I had firmly rejected his help this morning. It seems that he had good intentions from the start and I had simply been too stubborn to see it.
The third period was frustrating, however: I did not know how to cope with a human art class. Luckily, we did not create much art on the first day, since it was more about us getting to know each other and our instructor, a tall and thin human with brown skin and a thin mustache Mr. Bukhari. He prattled on about how we would be ‘expressing our artistic visions’ and ‘channeling our inner inspirations’, things that would probably make the softer members of the class excited but for me it did nothing but make me want to find the nearest container of water and drown myself in it. I expressed such desires to Marcus, who snorted so loud Mr. Bukhari stopped talking and stared at us for a few moments before continuing on with his constant yapping.
After personal finance, a practical and straightforward class dedicated to fiscal responsibility taught by a woman named Mrs. O’delle, it was lunchtime. I sat alone at a table, the other students avoiding me like I was diseased, which suited me just fine. Eventually, though, Marcus sat down next to me, unpacking his lunch which contained a soup thermo, a sandwich, some chips, and what looked to be a dark brown bag of candy. I only had my sandwiches, although my mother packed three of them: it was far more than I would have received at Betterment.
“Just a few sandwiches? That's it?” Marcus asked, chuckling in confusion, “I figured you'd want more.”
“My mother is… new to this,” I responded vaguely. It was true, as skilled as my mother was at portraying the facade of being used to living on earth, she was still learning the more subtle of concepts day by day, and what a school lunch consisted of seemed to be one of them, considering what Marcus had packed for him. “Still, it is the thought that counts. I appreciate her efforts.”
Marcus unwrapped his sandwich and cut it in half with a plastic knife, which seemed odd to me but I didn't say anything. “Well of course, I appreciate my mom too, I'm just surprised you're eating something other than just meat. Sandwiches don't exactly seem ‘Arxur friendly’ if you really think about it, with all the carbs and vegetables.”
I nodded, as he did bring up a good point. “Well, the bread is ‘keto’ so it supposedly doesn't have many carbohydrates in it, and the UN has been giving us pills that will help our bodies adapt to a more omnivorous diet. That means we can eat a reasonable amount of plant matter without much discomfort. Because of that, my mother wants us to eat more like humans so we can blend in, just like how she wants us to wear human clothes. I think it's foolish, but there's no arguing with her about it: she always wins in the end.”
“Well, I think you look good in human clothes.”
I looked away, embarrassed and… flattered? I didn't know how I felt about his compliment, but it didn't exactly feel bad.
“Um… thanks I suppose.”
“I'm sorry if that came off too strong, I just really do think you look good,” he added nervously, attempting to walk back what he had just said, “I just want you to know that you shouldn't be self-conscious.”
I had been self-conscious before, but it wasn't because I cared about how the other students here thought of me: I cared because I didn't look like how an Arxur should look, with all those frivolous human pelts. Despite wearing clothes, I felt bare and exposed, which shouldn't have made sense but it did. Marcus's compliments, while somewhat flattering, didn't help quell my agitation, and in fact, made it worse.
“I just…” I attempted to speak, but my body seemed hellbent on keeping me quiet, anxiety fluttering in my chest. He said he was here to help, right? My mother kept telling me to not be so distrusting, and my father had warned me to not fall back into old habits. I could remain perpetually distrusting, could I? Especially not with Marcus, who had gone out of his way to defend me. I owed him some semblance of honesty, even if I hated exposing how I truly felt. “I'm just not used to wearing clothes, and I feel weird with them on, and a bit out of place.”
Marcus seemed to ponder my words, his eyebrows doing that annoying human thing again where they arced, although this time his whole brow furrowed as if to squeeze his brain and make it work harder. “I guess I understand; most aliens in general don't wear clothes: In fact, I don't think a single species in the galaxy wears anything like clothes casually.)
“As far as I know, you're the only ones.” I added, “Maybe in the past other species did, maybe even the Arxur did at one point in time, but now wearing clothes is seen as strange and a sign of shame, as if you're hiding your physique from your peers.”
“That's…” Marcus started, but he didn't seem to know how to respond to that. He was quiet for a few moments, his silence somehow made me even more anxious, but then he finally responded. “Look, I get that You've probably been through more than I can possibly imagine, even with all I've heard about the Arxur,” that last part filled me with dread, “but you're not on Wriss anymore, and I think your mom is right about wanting to blend in a bit with humans. There's nothing wrong with being an Arxur, of course, but is the act of not wearing clothes a part of Arxur culture that you really want to hang on to?”
“It isn't a choice,” I snapped lightly, but then I pulled back and refused to look him in the eye, ashamed that I had let my emotions get the better of me, “it's just something that I've experienced since I was young.”
“And I get that you can't undo years of indoctrination overnight,” he added, placing a hand on my shoulder. Part of me wanted to move away, to reject the intimacy of the moment, but another part of me secretly enjoyed his touch and the personal connection that it brought. “But the sooner you start to work on not caring about all those social constructs the Arxur forced onto you, the sooner you'll start to feel better as a whole.”
“And what about those stupid human social constructs my mother is forcing on me, like wearing clothes and cooking food?”
He looked surprised by my rebuttal, but it quickly morphed into another one of his amused smiles, which made me feel warm on the inside for some reason. “You're right: you should do what makes you comfortable, but that doesn't mean that these human social constructs are bad: wearing clothes can help you express yourself, and you should express yourself for who you are. And you don't need to wear regular clothes either, there's a whole world of different clothing styles to explore, and all you have to do is look.”
“Oh, so jeans and a blouse aren't all the human clothing that exists? I'm shocked,” I said in a mocking tone. He merely rolled his eyes and pulled out his phone, typing something in the search engine before pulling up pictures of human women in strange clothing I had never seen before.
“Look, there's a lot of styles, but I really think you'd really like punk clothing: it fits your abrasiveness really well.”
“Oh, I'm abrasive now, huh?”
“Yes, yes you are.”
“And you're terrible.”
“No, I'm irresistible.”
I snorted, but part of me agreed with him a little, which scared me. Don't get too close, or they'll take him away too. My inner monologue was invading my thoughts again, uprooting my worst fears and memories from their hiding places and showing them to me. I liked Marcus, and I didn't want to lose him.
“Morek, are you okay?”
“I…” I sputtered, “Yes, I am fine, I was just lost in thought, forgive me.”
“Don't be, it happens,” he said, before showing me a picture he found on his phone. “I found a picture of an Arxur wearing punk clothes, so maybe it'll become a new fashion trend, who knows?”
I held his phone and stared at the picture, surprised to see that humans had pictures of any aliens wearing clothes, much less an Arxur. The picture looked to be the cover of a magazine, with the title being The Neo-Punk, and a few subtitles scattered around the front like Pop-punk comes with fangs! and scales meet grunge! An Arxur female was posing on the cover, wearing a black tank top that had come as you are printed on the front, a red and black galaxy-print sweater jacket, midnight black skinny jeans with tears on the knees, and a pair of Arxur-fitted black converse combat boots. She looked confident and free, things that I wished to be but doubted I’d ever achieve. There was no such thing as true confidence on Wriss, you always had to be paranoid and cautious, or Betterment would catch you in a moment of weakness and reprimand you severely depending on the level of infraction you had committed. You always had to appear cruel and heartless, but this Arxur didn’t. She looked comfortable, not just in those human clothes but with herself and her position.
“I… I guess I like it more than what I'm wearing now.” I honestly would have, and seeing another Arxur wear human clothing made it feel a little less alien, like something my people could come to accept eventually, especially since it didn't seem as frilly as the human clothes I was used to. “She seems… comfortable.”
“And would you prefer that over wearing nothing?”
“I… I think I would.”
“Then you should ask for some, maybe you'll get some for Christmas, or your birthday.”
“I don't know what either of those are.”
Marcus looked almost sad as if I had missed out, which I probably had. “Do Arxur celebrate any holidays?”
“No, not really. It is a wholly new concept to my family that we only began to learn about in the internment camp. Christmas was mentioned a few times, but nobody ever went into detail about it with us, maybe because the internment camp didn't have enough funding to celebrate it when they were busy making sure we had access to clean water and air.”
“That's crazy, how hard is it to get clean air anyway?” Marcus said, “Like, it can't be that bad on Wriss.”
“You'd be surprised. Industrial smog permeates the sky in Wriss's biggest cities and it sinks to the ground with the rain. During the worst days, we had to wear rebreathers just to be able to go outside.”
Marcus looked shocked. “That's crazy, how did it get so bad on Wriss? Didn't the government care at all about the world or even the air quality?”
“Apparently it was cheaper to just pass out rebreathers than actually find a way to reduce the level of pollutants produced by the factories. I don't know much about it personally, but the Dominion didn't care much for its citizens: we were given the bare minimum we needed to survive, sometimes less, and that was that.”
“I'm sorry you had to go through that,” Marcus said, “nobody should have to live in a world like that.”
“It is what it is.”
Marcus, obviously a bit stressed by my recollection of Wriss, changed the subject. “So, you want to know about Christmas?”
“Sure, what's this frivolous human holiday about?”
He chuckled under his breath, “It's not frivolous, it's magical.”
“Nonsensical is probably a more apt adjective for it.”
“You don't even know what it's about yet!”
I rolled my eyes, “But I know you humans, and you are all very nonsensical.”
“I disagree,” he insisted, “But anyway, Christmas is two weeks in which we visit family and give each other gifts. It's also a religious holiday for a lot of humans who practice Christianity, and certain other religions and cultures celebrate it or holidays similar to it, like Hanukkah in Judaism.”
“Fine, I will admit that this holiday does not contain anything nonsensical as of yet, but I sense that you're leaving something out.”
He snickered. “Okay, fine: it's also about this fat dude named Santa Claus who gives children gifts the night before Christmas.”
I paused for a moment in an attempt to comprehend the sheer stupidity of what he had just said. “You humans are insane.”
Marcus busted out laughing just as the lunch bell rang. He wiped the tears from his eyes, and I scoffed at his childishness as I cleaned up the trash from my lunch and stood up, stretching.
“We should hurry to the gym, we're supposed to have a pep rally today.”
“A pep rally? What is a pep rally? What is pep and why are we rallying because of it?”
Marcus snorted at my description. “It's just a thing they do to welcome us all. It's dumb, but it's also better than being in class, so I don't mind. Besides, I heard from one of the teachers that there's supposed to be some big announcements today, so it could be important.”
“Is it mandatory?”
“Morek, this is high school: everything is mandatory. Now come on, we don't want to be late and get locked out of the gym, or we'll get in trouble.”
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Sorry this took so long, I sprained my ankle and work has been kicking my ass recently, especially because I work at Amazon and it’s the holiday season so all my shifts are extended by an hour (yay, foot pain!)
This is only part one of two, since Morek’s first day is going to be an important part of the series, as well as Silval’s next chapter. I also wanted to know what you guys want to see in the next interlude chapter: a third (and final) chapter to the swamplander story, a story about the Farsul on Talsk still under the effects of the Kessler cage and how society has broken down, or a chapter about Isif and Zhao talking about the shift from a provisional government to a legitimate republic on Wriss, the political and socio-economic the Arxur are facing, and the extremist remnants still on Wriss.

Note:
I don’t want to hurt B. I don’t want to hurt you.
I definitely began to write this and had points where I was like, “Yep fuck it I’m just gonna send it” but I also teetered with “Oh fuck I’m giving way too much away about myself this is embarrassing!” and “There’s no way he wants to read this; he’s gonna hate this and think I’m crazy.”. Logic and feeling completely clashed while writing.
If you’re reading this part, obviously the first part happened.
Plug In (by Bastille)… The concept of this is: the reverie; all thoughts in an ever-changing landscape.
​
The Nexus (Empyrea; Wizard101): Press Start to Begin.
We just kinda… plop down. Out of the sky.
He looks around as he lands feet first. “Where are we?”
She, who fell on the ground, continues to lie there. “Uh… I think the Nexus. Empyrea. Arc III if I’m not mistaken? We’re going to rescue Mellori?”
He gives her a look. “Uh… okay? I have no clue what that means.”
“That’s what I expected.”
“Do you enjoy making people feel lost?”
“No. Not particularly. But it doesn’t matter. This place is from a video game I finished playing last spring. I think it’s beautiful.”
Silence on his end. This place was… interesting to say the least. Not quite beautiful.
She huffs. “I'm trying to find somewhere that feels safe… and private. This is an imaginary conversation. I’d rather show you places that are special to me rather than like… sitting in a nondescript room. That’s just boring.”
He blinks. “Fair enough.”
He stands and starts to walk around. “What are these sigils? Are we going in? How are we even breathing right now? We’re technically in space.”
She sits up and goes to stand. “Alright, we're moving somewhere else. This is too distracting.” She closes her eyes and another place takes form.
El Calafate, Argentina:
“This is certainly a place for us to be alone.”
“Maddy, it’s freezing. Can you… manifest jackets or something?”
She’s lost in thought. “Well, technically I was here in June which is their winter time. It would be summer for them now. Although I don’t know how hot it gets down there this time of year.”
“Maddy! Focus on the here and now! Jackets. The cold.”
She stares at him. “This isn’t even real! And you’re worried about the cold?”
“I happen to know for a fact that you hate the cold.”
She rolls her eyes and sighs. He’s right. Jackets appear on both of them.
She starts to walk down the path. “You know, you’ve managed to make me a mental mess.”
His interest is piqued. “How so?”
She jumps on the railing that separates the water from the path. She begins walking again. “You just unraveled everything and completely fucked with my mind and heart and just- SHIT!”
She slips a bit on the icy surface of the ledge. She regains her balance but begins to shuffle at a quarter of the speed she was at earlier.
He looks at the icy water towards the horizon. “You should walk on the path so you don’t fall.”
“No way!” She shuffles a bit faster, a look of fierce determination on her face.
He laughs. “You look ridiculous.”
“Thank you, Andrew! I truly appreciate your opinion.” Sarcasm is apparent.
When she catches up to him, he grabs her torso and swings her down onto the path next to him. She really is short.
She crosses her arms and gives him the stink eye. “Hey! What was that for?! I was doing fine!”
“To an extent, yes. But I don’t need you falling in.”
“This is all in my head! Who cares if I fall in?”
“I do. I need to hear the end of your thoughts.”
She grits her teeth. “Not necessarily…”
He scoffs. “You are side-tracking so hard to avoid writing what you really feel. The whole purpose of this story was to get your feelings out! It’s not even real and you’re still nervous and avoiding opening up.”
A pause.
She glares at him. “… fine.”
She begins to walk ahead of him. “I hate how it took you. YOU! One random guy. And a guy for fucks sake...”
He speeds up a bit to fall in stride with her. “For 5’2, this girl sure moves fast.” He is silent.
“Like… you’re a human being. Breathing. Alive. Real.”
She continues. “None of this is real. I know absolutely nothing about you for certain. The last month has just been assumptions of intentions and interactions and feelings and desires and reactions-“
He interjects. “-and you’re still doing it now.”
He moves closer to her. “Why? Why write all of this? And what’s the point of this story?”
“Because human interaction is awkward. And none of this would be able to come out if I were talking to you face to face.”
“That doesn’t answer the ‘why’ question.”
Mt Holly, Vermont:
The scene shifts again. He notices the temperature change and stops walking. “Did we just…?”
She takes off her jacket, avoiding eye contact. “Yes, we just jumped.”
“To where?”
“Mount Holly, Vermont. In July.”
“You really like Vermont, don’t you?”
She laughs. “Yes, I do. I’m hoping after my contract ends, I’ll be able to ‘travel nurse’ up there.”
She continues and throws her jacket on the ground. “13 weeks. By myself. Enough money to be set for awhile. Rent a car. Hike and walk everywhere else.”
He is curious. “What about B?”
She glances at him. “What about B?”
“Wouldn’t he be upset? Have you told him your plan?”
She looks thoughtful for a moment. “Yes. I have. He would rather that I travel around Philadelphia. Or in PA somewhere.”
He was confused. “So you’d end up…?”
“B knows I have flighty tendencies.”
“But where would you go? PA or VT?”
She’s silent for a moment. “Honestly, for his sake, probably PA.”
He hides his surprise. “You'd cater to his request?”
”I’d rather not. But he took me into account when I decided to stay in DC.”
She turns toward him. “I can make my own decision when the time comes. He wouldn’t be happy, but he’d allow it. Personally, I’d want to see how my actions impact the relationship at that time.”
Fair enough. He changes the subject and looks out towards the mountain. “You really seem to like water.”
She snorts. “Even though I’m a terrible swimmer.”
Village A Rooftops of Georgetown University, the month of April, 2020:
She speaks up first. “Another jump. We’re at my college.”
He feels different. He looks down at his clothing: a three quarter zip heather gray Patagonia jacket with jeans and gray AllBirds shoes. He then looks over at her: high waisted wide jeans with an oversized cardigan and lavender high tops.
“You changed our clothes.”
“Yes. And you haven’t written any new stories in awhile.”
He stutters. “Uh… that’s a bit unrelated.”
She readjusts her cardigan. “I know. But it makes me sad.”
She goes to unbunch the sleeves of his Patagonia, smoothing the wrinkles and bulges with quick little tugs. “I really like your stories.”
He just stares down at her. “It’s just a hobby. No big deal. Sometimes I don’t have time or inspiration.”
“Hmm… I feel like it is though.”
“No. It isn’t. You’re reading too far into it.”
As she’s mulling over what to say next, he quickly changes the subject. “Georgetown has a dress code?”
“No. Well, not like your school does. But there’s an implicit one.”
He pauses. “You researched my school?“
“Yes, I did.”
“You’re… a lot.”
“Hahaha! You’re not wrong.”
She finishes smoothing out his jacket. She then takes a step towards the ledge and leans over, crossed forearms resting on the bar. “Alright. To continue, I’m upset because I only got to know your persona.”
He takes a spot next to her. “I think that’s a little unfair to say.”
“Regardless, it was still disappointing.”
She backtracks quickly and straightens her posture. “Not your persona! Your persona is not disappointing! It’s really cool! Sorry, I said that so wrong! Ugh! Ah fuck- it’s just like… I never felt like I was able to know the you you. If that makes sense?``
He nods in understanding. “Why? It’s not like I got to know you. You barely even wanted to talk to me.”
“I did want to talk to you! I said things.”
“Not about yourself.”
“Answering questions about myself is not getting to know you. It’s just giving away information.”
“And what if I had wanted that? To get to know you?”
She stumbles. “Who the heck would want that?”
She starts again before he can press on. “I answered your questions. And I asked you questions!”
He’s quick with his comeback. “I answered the questions you asked. And you answered mine in five-word sentences.”
He’s right. She stays silent.
He is becoming increasingly frustrated. An undertone of impatience creeps into his voice. “It was hard enough to try and figure you out. Let alone talk to you. You never wanted to share anything. It was like pulling teeth.”

For many people all over the world, religion is a major part of their lives. The one most practiced is Christianity, followed by Islamic & Hinduism. However, with Kaiju being extremely prevalent for almost as long as organized religion has been around, it should be no surprise that a good number of Earth’s populace worship these massive beings. Indeed, it’s hypothesized that some of these Kaiju are the direct source of many beings in various cultures.
Much like how some religious groups can be beneficial, and others are less than ideal, the same holds true when it comes to Kaiju. The Church of Mothra is a good example. While mainly practiced by the Hotua on Infant Island, it’s also common across Eastern Asia and parts of the Americas.
On the opposite spectrum there is the Kult of Zero. This group worships the Ghidorahs, King Ghidorah most noteworthy. First started by Salem and her Ministry before the Fall of Atlantis, it also includes those most connected to the Ghidorahs, the Kilaaks. For the leader of this Alien race, Xif, has been psychically connected to KG for so long that his eyes are bloodshot and golden ‘tear veins’ run down his eyes.
But the subject for today’s Kaiju profile is possibly among the most. . . .Eldritch.
The Thrall of the Siren Empress. Who is this Siren Empress?
Margygr.
Scientifically known as “Ichthyosapiens hypnoticus”, Margygr may outworldly resemble a Kaiju-sized monstrous mermaid, but her origins are quite similar to Salem’s.
She was once known as Margiana, one of the high ranking members of Mu’s Royal Court. For context, Mu are the same undersea kingdom that worship/direct connection with Manda in the North Atlantic. Margiana was the head magician, using Mana and specialized Water Dust (Mana in solid form) crystals to assist in her daily tasks. However, it appears that she was cast out to the abyssal regions for tampering with Dark Mana and trying to spread an unknown virus, the latter being in her own words ‘an accident’ This is how Margiana now became Margygr.
She now wishes revenge on Mu. But despite her new appearance & powers, she knew it would be foolish to fight them head on. This is where that virus comes into play. For Margygr is the carrier for a microscopic protozoan known Toxoplasma encephalus, the brain fluke.
This is the same family as T. gondii, the protozoan that causes rodents to not fear cats and get eaten. Eating infected meat can result in humans being infected the same way. T. encephalus is a bit similar. During the early phases of Margygr’s plan, she starts by infecting ectothermic organisms. The protozoan enters via any open wound, no matter how shallow. Once there, it forces the host(s) to travel to Margygr. She proceeds to emit hypnotic flashes of color across her body mixed with sonar & infrasound. T. encephalus in tandem modifies the eyes & ears of the host(s) to give into the sights & sounds before them.
In the end, both Margygr & the protozoan have the host under their control, bent to the former’s will. Once done, the host(s) are commanded to attack certain targets and/or humans.. The size of the host(s) is important. The bigger they are, the better.
But not all hosts are treated equally. When it comes to humans, Margygr has different plans for them. But that is for another profile saved for her cult.
However, there is one other aspect. Some individuals Margygr has under her control are needed to complete the lifecycle of her brain flukes. This involves getting back inside the Siren Empress. The only way? Consumption. . . .And she also gains power from eating those under her control. Power that is used for when things get serious. . . .
So besides wanting revenge on Mu, what else does Margygr want? And how does she fight as a Kaiju?
For the former she sees humanity as both a tool and a threat. Some humans are for her thralls while those that are a threat to both her plans/ocean life in general must be eliminated.
When it comes to fighting as a Kaiju, she’s no pushover. While not being very mobile on land, underwater is a different story. Extremely adept swimmer and coupled with numerous sensory organs to detect movement in the water means that launching a surprise attack on her is almost impossible. While she does have some ranged attacks in this stage, she more relies on various physical attacks- sharp teeth, claws, & cutting fins.
“Stage” I hear you say? Ah yes. . . . Time to let the catfish out of the bag.
Yes, Margygr has more than one form, much like how other Kaiju do. But to do so, she needs to eat enough animal protein to access it. Recall how some of her thralls are consumed? This is the result- Margygr will proceed to transform into her 2nd stage, her true form.
Before she resembled a Kaiju-sized mermaid with extra features. Her true form is far more chaotic, like something out of a Lovecraft book. Here, she fights more aggressively, using more ranged attacks, and will also summon those under her mind control to attack her opponents. But her true form is only capable of being used if she has enough energy & Mana. Should this run out, she will revert back to her base form, leaving her vulnerable.
In the end though, Margygr is one of many kaiju from the sea to not be trifled with. Unlike most, she’s very intelligent and more than capable of placing a coastal city’s entire population under her control in a matter of weeks.
Long story short: You don’t want to be part of her world.

1. Margygr, Siren Empress.
2. Appearance:
   1. Stage 1: What is known of Margygr’s appearance as the starting point. The Mer Queen from Primeval for the face & hand flippers with sharp claws. Double row of teeth, expandable throat, and flashing antennae like an anglerfish. Her tongue is shaped like seaweed that sparks like exposed wiring. Flowing “hair” like nudibranch spikes. Black eyes like a shark’s. Fins on body & tail like Somnacanth from Monster Hunter. Razor-sharp barnacles all over her body. Sando Aqua Monster from Phantom Menace for sense of scale.
   2. True form: Margygr fanart that’s more monstrous. Her face is a mix of Harryhausen’s Kraken (but feminine) combined with a mandrill and a 3rd eye on her forehead. Throat bulge like a whale. Back like the oft Vinyl Toy Box 014 Nessie model. Two pairs of arms like the Harryhausen Kraken with hands like a sea star. Spikes like a sea cucumber over her upper half. Her lower half is one third sea snail, one third tentacles (Sea Emperor Leviathan from SubNautica), and one third sea bass.
3. Origin: Mu (Currently residing near Iceland)
4. Species: Marine Hominid “Ichthyosapiens hypnoticus”
5. Quote: “Well she makes Ursula look like a polyp.”- Rick Stanton, Monarch scientist
6. Roar: Ghost Leviathan & Reaper Leviathan from SubNautica mixed with a choir of women screaming. (The latter especially in true form). Eosapien from Alien Planet (when she starts mind controlling)
7. Voice Actress: Cate Blanchette
8. Category: 5
9. Faction: Mutations
10. Height: 120 meters (Stage 1 & 2)
11. Length: 200 meters (Stage 1)/ 300 meters (True form. Mostly tentacle length.)
12. Weight: 54,000 tons (Stage 1)/ 60,000 tons (True form)
13. Swimming Speed: Very fast
14. Land Speed: Slow
15. Damage Types: Electric, Sonic, Toxic, Mystic, Beam, Edged, & Impact
16. Physical attacks: Teeth, claws, fins, razor barnacles, tail
17. Abilities:
    1. Immune to conventional weaponry.
    2. Adept swimmer, able to swim circles around most aquatic/semi-aquatic Kaiju.
    3. Beautiful & majestic, yet dangerous & treacherous.
    4. Capable of coming onto land for periods of time. Mainly done to survey a potential site for attack and/or capture of thralls.
    5. Highly intelligent- leading an entire cult, coordinating attacks & strategies for her thralls to carry out, and tool use. The latter is shown via constructing her own trident from scrap metal, Mana, & hydrokinesis. This she can use with devastating effect.
    6. Bio-acoustic nature allows her to manipulate frequencies and sounds, which allow her to hide from other Titans. She is able to manipulate sounds in the ocean and she is able to manipulate and reflect any type of sound waves into a weapon.
    7. Carrier for parasites that mutate humans- men into killer fish people & women into seductress mermaids. These same parasites also infect ectothermic organisms, causing aggression and bending them to her will.
    8. Constricting tentacles in her true form are used for passive offense.
    9. Uses infrasound & sonar to scan human settlements for threats & potential thralls.
    10. Razor sharp barnacles & spines on body used for grazing/raking blows in close quarters.
    11. Arms in her true form end in sea star feelers, giving the Siren Empress an incredible means of sensory detection.
18. Superpowers:
    1. Siren Song (Mind Control): Margygr’s signature weapon is her Siren Song. This is by far one of the most complex abilities among Kaiju. As previously mentioned, Margygr uses a variety of her traits to control both humans & aquatic life. Using the brain flukes to drive the thrall towards Margygr via infrasound. Once in close proximity to Margygr, both she & the brain flukes work in tandem- the former emitting hypnotic flashes of light, ultrasound, & sonar while the latter modifies the brain, specifically the inner ear & occipital lobes to give in to the display. Margygr also emits electromagnetic waves that the thrall’s brain picks up, tricking the thrall into a relaxed state of mind, even bouts of ecstasy. To those that aren’t under mind control, such displays are extremely damaging, capable of turning your average person to mush at worst; at best, prolonged seizures.
    2. Siren Song (Offense): Margygr can also modify her Siren Song for combat as well, causing massive internal damage to any Kaiju not capable of putting up any resistance.
    3. Electrokinesis: Margygr uses electrokinesis for a variety of purposes. Sensing her environment around her, mind control, and also attack. One is by shooting electric bubbles from her mouth. These are fired in groups and also at a machine gun rate. The latter is more physical. Her tongue is partially elastic like a chameleon’s. She can shoot her tongue out & the tip will electrify whatever it comes into contact with. This tongue can also coil around an opponent’s throat.
    4. Flashing Antennae: Perched atop her head is a long antennae, reminiscent of many deep sea anglerfish. Much like them, it produces light via specialized bacteria. And while it can be used like a lure, Margygr is also able to use it offensively- creating a bright flashbang (used mainly as a means of escape) or firing a piercing beam of light, similar to a Gyaos’s Supersonic Scalpel.
    5. Sleep Toxins: the sharp spines on Margygr’s true form each contain venom sacs at the base. These aren’t fatal but rather contain a venom that causes drowsiness in other kaiju.
19. Weaknesses:
    1. Slow on land, moving like a seal.
    2. During early stages of takeover, her parasites are killed inside humans via high fevers that kill both the potential thrall and the parasite. As the brain flukes adapt, tricking the immune system that everything is fine.
    3. There are some organisms that are immune to the brain flukes. Whales and large marine reptiles are immune due to a higher body temperature. This also holds true to Kaiju that put off extreme levels of heat and/or radiation, like Godzilla & Rodan.
    4. Additionally, those that aren’t weak-minded/ESP abilities are immune to the brain flukes such as the Hotua & Miki Saegusa.
    5. Certain materials like lead & osmium can block the Siren Song. Additional material like sound-absorbent padding is also used and solid earplugs.
    6. Antiparasitic medicine is a must to fight the brain flukes.
    7. Requires lots of energy & Mana to enter her true form & shapeshift.

Hey, everybody, it's been some time since I posted on this subreddit. As a brief summary, I'm (21M) and my girlfriend (24F) and I have been dating since late March and we are 2.5-3 months out from D-day (July 23) where I had a ONS with a past FWB and confessed the day after.
We've both been putting in a lot of work and I've seen my BP improve her attitude toward the situation and myself a lot, and I've been doing my best to improve myself as a person. I'm very committed to getting past this. And, although I haven't received a verbal confirmation of commitment from my BP, her actions speak loudly that a large part of her wants to see this work too. She recognizes and appreciates my efforts, despite the totally understandable flooding/raging she goes through at times.
For a month, BP has been feeling some back pain she thinks may stem from lifting too heavily (likely emotionally due to the situation I created) and has paused going to the gym. She's also a martial arts instructor, and this has greatly affected her ability to demonstrate techniques at work and rank up for the past month. In her words, the gym and martial arts were some of the last things keeping her going, helping her feel structure, and taking her mind off of the affair. Today, BP got MRI results showing that she has a bulging disc. We are both super happy it's not herniated and does not require surgery. However, this will prevent her from practicing martial arts and lifting weights, both of which are great stress relievers for her in her daily life. BP expressed to me that she thinks her head space is going to get a lot worse for some time, given that these things are taken from her.
How would you all suggest I support BP through this injury? Sadly, I can't heal her spine immediately but want her to have some ways to deal with stress and her emotions that she enjoys. The only exercise the doctor suggested was swimming and physical therapy. BP is starting PT tomorrow, but does not know how to swim. I was a water polo player and swimmer in high school, and she has declined my past offers of teaching her how to swim. Today, I put the offer on the table again, and told BP whenever she's ready I'm happy to show her how to exercise in the pool. Other than that, what are stress relief techniques we can employ? How can I be there for her and provide an outlet for her to deal with her feelings/distress? Any input/advice is welcome.

Seek the highest hill. How was I supposed to do that when everything around me was flat? Though for the first ten minutes or so, it didn’t really matter. My priority was putting some distance between me and the battling inhumans. The laundry lady had a weapon now, but the flickering man was winning the fight when I’d finally abandoned Plan B. He was tearing the laundry lady apart and worse, he now had the intermittent rain to help him. It was merely spitting from the sky, but it seemed to be enough to give him the ability to teleport.
It was rather unfair, I thought. The sky didn’t even have clouds. It was an unbroken gray expanse that radiated light in a diffuse haze, like sunlight through fog. I tried to avoid looking at it, for my eye was unwillingly drawn to the horizon each time and I did not want to see what resided just beyond the curve of the earth.
Besides, I had to watch where I was walking. I’d run until the laundry island was out of sight, focusing only on moving straight ahead to put the most distance between me and the flickering man. I ran through mud and standing water alike, trying not to look at it, trying not to think about what the laundry lady had told me. The water was tepid against my skin as it soaked through my shoes and splashed on my bare calves. It was like the world had been drained of all extremes. Nothing was too hot or too cold, too bright or too colorful. It was a drab, dull world, devoid of life.
But it was also a blank canvas.
The thought came to me abruptly, after I’d stopped running forward and was instead trying to pick my path more carefully. Back home, we all thought that the gray world was unique to the campground. Just another strange bit of the inhuman that had wedged itself in among the trees and picnic tables. But between the master of the gray world and the things Kate had found in it - the fact the Lady of Stories was in it before Kate even knew anything about that - makes me believe that the gray world exceeds the campgrounds. Far exceeds it.
The laundry lady’s realm was a world unto itself when I first visited, with laundry stretching as far as the eye could see. But it started somewhere and that place was apparently here. It returned to the gray world when it was shattered and she was now rebuilding it inside the gray world.
What if… what if this was kind of like the inhuman central station? The intersection between all other realms? Perhaps I could find something that connected to the steam tunnels, since those doors don’t always open up to where you think they will. Or perhaps - there was the traveling river. I’m not a strong swimmer and I certainly haven’t been practicing, not after my encounter with the swimmers that one time, but it was better than wandering through the gray world for eternity.
The only problem was I didn’t have anything near me that even remotely resembled a door. Or even a symbolic door or archway. Anything that represented crossing from one point to another.
There was nothing. Nothing except the water.
I stared at it for a long moment, debating hard with myself. The laundry lady had warned me away from it, but perhaps that was because it posed more of a threat to her than it did to me. Maybe each pool reflected a different place and I just had to find the right one. One that led to the steam tunnels or the traveling river or - and the thought made my skin crawl - the black slab of water in the power station basement.
There was plenty of standing water around me. I just had to pick some.
I crouched, ready to jump up and run, and peered down into the water. It was only a few inches deep. I could see the muddy bottom. But there was something else, in the corner of my eye. I tried to focus on it without looking at it directly. If I could make out what it was - if it was a place - then perhaps I could tell if it was safe to use this water as a portal, I guess, to get back home. I admit this was a flimsy theory, but Plan C wasn’t working out so great on account of, oh, there being no hills.
The image rippled in the water, eluding my efforts to figure out what it was. I squinted, trying to find a stable point that might anchor the image. Was that a hallway? Did I find the steam tunnels?
It’s funny how our minds betray us. We get a theory in our heads and are so convinced it’s right that for a moment, it becomes our reality.
The ground beside me shifted, almost imperceptibly. There was something near my foot - something long and thin like a worm.
Startled, I shot to my feet and stumbled backwards, away from the water.
Away from the thing that was crawling silently out of it, the thing that had placed its hand right next to my foot.
It had only half a face, one side twisted up in a leering grin with a single eye the size of a raisin. The other half was a swirling mass of clay-like flesh, roughly shaped into the form of a cheek and the hollow of an eye, curling around to form ridges where the ear should go. Like a bowl on a potter’s wheel, I thought, before the potter is done giving it form.
Its body creaked and cracked as it rose from the water. I stumbled backwards in horror, unable to tear my eyes from the sight. Metal cables hung loosely from its shoulders and back, like the feathers of some tropical bird. One arm was longer than the other. For a moment it stood there, knee-deep in water that I could see the bottom of and it was only an inch, it should only be an inch. Then it tilted to one side, there was a sharp crack, and it straightened again.
Its arms were now symmetrical and its veins bulged, splitting the wet skin and pushing to the surface with a metallic shine. It took a step toward me.
I think I yelled ‘shit’ at the top of my lungs and then I took off running. I didn’t have any destination in mind because there was nothing to run to in this featureless wasteland. I was frantically trying to get away from it. If only I had some kind of weapon, I thought desperately. I hadn’t brought the charm bundle because I felt it was best to leave it with Cassie, to keep our dorm room safe while I was gone. Besides, it probably wouldn’t work - not if this creature was something new. But if I had a shotgun like what the folks back home carried when pursuing something inhuman… then maybe I could slow it down.
“This was a terrible idea!” I shrieked to an uncaring sky as I ran.
Okay so the master of the gray world is a horrifying creation beyond any inhuman. It’s mere presence threatens to wipe away my very sense of self, rendering me as insignificant as a single speck of dust. However, when faced between encountering that again and being torn apart by… a construction site’s dumpster trash… I knew which I’d pick.
There was no hill. But perhaps the hill was merely an artifact of the campground. I was still on campus, enough that the rain was present here, so perhaps I had to find something symbolically important on campus. The administration building? Not only was it important, but it was also one of the taller buildings on campus.
No. Screw that. The administration is part of the problem. I didn’t really care to see what kind of a realm they had in the gray world, if they had one at all.
Then where else? Where else is significant enough on campus to exist both here and there? The library.
Of course. The devil had shown it to me and I thought it was for one purpose, but this is the devil in his trickster role, and there are meanings upon meanings.
The cemetery. The tree.
So I began walking as quickly as I dared, no longer trying to carefully pick my way through the mud and between the gray, leafless trees. The creature was pursuing me, but it wasn’t following me very fast. It was dragging its steps through the earth, buried up to its ankles in mud.
Like the ground was trying to swallow it up again.
There are no monsters protecting the gray world. Kate’s uncle had spoken of a creature that stalked him and the wayward campers but it wasn’t a singular entity prowling around, watching for intruders. It was these things, the half-formed remnants of our nightmares and our stories, crawling their way out of the morass as they catch the scent of something human.
Is killing one of us how they become real? Or are they driven by impulse, like a muscle that will twitch when attached to a live wire?
I’m going to keep a close eye on the campus discord next year. See if anyone says anything about spotting a creature with metal cables buried in its arms in place of veins.
I walked until I felt like I would collapse, my legs burning with exertion. I knew that I had to keep going, though. I didn’t bother to look back. Either I’d outdistance the creature or I wouldn’t. And even if I did, even if it got sucked back down into the morass, there was always a risk of something else coming crawling out. I had to focus on my goal and keep going, because if this world recognized intention, then I would make it take me to my exit.
I might be scared all the time and have the world’s worst panic reaction, but you can’t say I’m not determined. I escaped my hometown, I went to college, I turned my grades around with a little help from the devil. I’ve done more than anyone else has to figure out these creatures on campus and do something about them, when most people just put their heads down and try to quietly finish their four years so they can move on and pretend it was all just a bad dream.
I had a will and I would use it to compel the gray world to take me where I wanted to go.
Ahead of me I saw a tree rising out of the ground, larger than all the others around it. Its bare branches were sharp against the gray sky, blending one into the other so that the entire thing looked like a paper cutout. And I stopped worrying about the monsters and the water and everything else, because the master of the gray world was there, staring down from the tree’s massive branches.
I don’t remember much about approaching the tree. It’s like I saw the master of the gray world and then I was there, standing amongst the tangled roots of stone and wood, braided together like rope. Creatures ran among them, scuttling about on thousands of legs, but I ignored those too, and they paid me no heed. Perhaps they didn’t exist in the gray world at all, but some other place where the tree was but was also here and also in my world. It didn’t matter. I was here for an audience with their master.
It spoke to me. It said that it would make no offer or bargain, for it could tell my intent already. Even if I knew my death, I would not stay, and so it would not burden me with such knowledge. It only made such an offer to those that would choose one way or the other. I had already decided.
I think I may have said something in response. I’m not sure. I’m not sure if I spoke or if it heard the words as they vibrated in my lungs, unable to escape underneath the crushing weight of its presence. And this was it being polite. This was it diminishing itself, simply so I could stand before it and not fade away into nothingness underneath the gaze of the entire world staring down at me.
It sent me back. There was a sensation like being carried, like being swept up in palms or wings, so massive that I was a mere insect but it held me so carefully, and then I was placed back in my world. Back in the cemetery, and it was gracious enough to place me away from the tree so that the groundskeeper wouldn’t come for me as soon as I was back in my world.
Finally, all the adrenaline that had kept me going for however long I was in there started to seep out of my blood. I was left shaking and weepy, but it was okay, I was done. I just had to leave and go back to my dorm and I’d worry about who won the laundry lady vs. flickering man battle tomorrow.
I did not need to wait until the morning to find out.
The flickering man met me at the gate.
He… did not look great. His shirt was torn in a few places and the skin was blackened and blistered, as if with a chemical burn. One arm hung limply by his side, his fingers curled inwards and fused together.
“Looks like the laundry lady threw some detergent on you,” I giggled.
It just kind of slipped out. I was lightheaded. Nearly delirious. The flickering man’s scowl deepened.
“I’m done with this shit,” he said. “You know way too much. I’ll make my apologies to them later.”
I faltered, standing in the open gates of the cemetery. This was it. He was breaking the rules. I wasn’t soaked through with rain, he had no right to touch me. The laundry lady had said that would be enough to force the administration to act. I held my breath.
A raindrop hit my cheek. I wanted to shrivel underneath it, curl up and sob right there on the sidewalk. Of course it was starting to rain. Of course. My determination had gotten me out of the gray world, but this was my reality now, and reality isn’t so accommodating. Just because I wanted to graduate, to live, didn’t mean it would change a damn thing around me. It was just me, the rain, and the flickering man who was now able to follow me wherever I might run.
Then he paused. The rain had struck him, but his corporeal body remained exactly where it was. He didn’t vanish into the raindrops.
“W-what?” he stammered. “I don’t understand.”
He stared up at the sky and I felt like he wasn’t just talking out loud. He was speaking to it. To the rain.
“But I’m only trying to help!” he shouted, his eyes desperately searching the sky. “That’s what I’ve always done.”
He flinched as rain struck his damaged hand. Hissed in pain. I stared at him, watching incredulously.
I was the one that assumed the flickering man worked for the administration. I’d given it that name and the laundry lady had just gone along with it because that is the right of humans, to name things.
But it was the rain. It was the rain all along.
“I was doing this to help you!” he shrieked, jerking away as if he were burned when another raindrop struck him. “You don’t know that this will work!”
He jumped from raindrop to raindrop because the rain allowed him to. Now it had not only taken away that gift, but it was also rebuking him. He fell to his knees, raising his arms to protect his face, my presence entirely forgotten as he pleaded with the rain falling all around us.
“You… you just had to do what you’ve always done,” he sobbed. “Please. Let’s just… keep things the way they are. There’s still time. We’ll find another.”
He crumpled, falling sideways to lay on the ground, panting heavily.
“I don’t want you to leave us,” he whispered.
I didn’t know what would happen if I walked away. Perhaps the rain would consider this warning sufficient and let him live and then this would all start over next year. I took a step towards him, not even sure what I was thinking of doing anymore. The flickering man’s gaze tracked my movement, staring up at me weakly, his entire body trembling as the rain continued to fall.
“You can’t do anything without running for help, can you?” he rasped. “I don’t know why they picked you. I don’t know what anyone sees in you.”
He might be dying at my feet, but it seemed he still wanted to make me hate myself. And something in me cracked. I was tired of it. I’ve done enough of that for a lifetime, I think.
“Okay, I’m sick of this!” I shrieked, my voice breaking. “You’ve been insulting me since the moment we met. I might just be a weak little human but I know - I KNOW - that we humans are what created you! I don’t think you hate me - I think you resent me because I-”
I took a deep breath.
“I can change,” I said quietly. “And you can’t.”
No more hesitation. I was afraid, yes, but I couldn’t keep letting that fear stop me from protecting myself, from protecting the people I cared about. I glanced up and down the sidewalk. No one was around. It was so early in the morning that there would be almost no one still awake.
Good. I sucked in a careful breath and then… I stopped thinking. Stopped thinking about anything. I felt my body moving, felt myself dropping to one knee beside the flickering man.
And I grabbed his hair. I pulled his head up. Then I slammed it down, into the pavement upon which he lay. He made a strange, gasping noise, but I wasn’t listening, I wasn’t even looking, I just pulled him forward and slammed his head down again until there was a crack. Until water like raindrops spread in a puddle beneath him.
Until he was dead.
And I left him there and the rain washed him away.
I threw up when I returned to the dorm. I just went straight to the bathroom and threw up. Then I went back to my dorm room and found Cassie was still awake, waiting for me. She asked if our plan worked and I said that yes, it had. It worked.
I told her that I’d killed the flickering man with my own hands. Then I took off my socks and shoes, still wet with the water from the gray world, and crawled into bed.
There’s not much more I need to say. I finished up my finals, had one last dinner together with Maria and Cassie. I saw Grayson and while we didn’t talk about anything important, we did promise each other to keep in touch over the summer. He had to stay here to keep an eye on his dad and I was going to be busy with my summer job - yes it’s exactly what you think it is. Taking sweaty boob money from campers that forgot to bring limes for their gin and tonics.
Maybe I was imagining it, but Grayson seemed more cheerful than he had been when I talked to him. I didn’t tell him I used him to trick the flickering man into angering the rain. I feel guilty for keeping that from him. I think Cassie is right - we’ll need to work through our secrets at some point if we want this relationship to work out.
Next semester. When we’re not long-distance. This is the kind of thing you do in person.
There is one more thing I need to tell you. I didn’t unpack for a few days after I got home from the dorms. When I finally got around to it, one of my younger sisters helped. She was unpacking the box that contained mostly my cheap dorm decorations and maybe some electronics - charger cables, mostly - when she held up something and asked why I had a funny rock among my things. I had a number of funny rocks now, on account of being a geology major and all, so I turned to see which one it was and maybe throw in an impromptu lesson on how to identify a sedimentary rock, I dunno.
It was a piece of petrified wood. One that looks like a heart if you squint a little and apply enough imagination.
The piece of the petrified tree that belonged to my geology professor. The one stolen out of his locked office.
I have no idea how it got into my belongings. [x]
Read the current draft of the rules.
Visit the college's website.
Keep reading.

Mutant with a fish tail, shark fins, and 3 hearts with 10000 Olympic medals: "I just don't think it's fair to let people with biological advantages compete"
Out-of-shape woman who came int 10534th in a women's race (complaining about the trans woman in 6075th place: "I just think those things take away places from real women. Some poor girl (me) didn't get 6075th place and is never going to race again because of those brutes!"
College swimmer who tied to 5th with a trans woman: "These freaks are not going to stop. Their biological advantages make it impossible to win, even though I would have been in the exact same position if HE didn't compete at all! I would have gotten FIRST!!! HEEEE just intimidated me not to use my superior swimming skills to pass with his huge bulging muscles.
Owners of the Chess: "We just think that because women are stupider than men that biological men shouldn't be allowed to compete out of fairness."
Miss Netherlands runner up: "I really just wanted her phone number so we could hang out and do... stuff. Who the hell are you people?"
Unhealthy wrestling fan: "Look I have no experience, but I am certain I could kick Alana McLaughlin's ass. How do I know this? Because I already did it. Please don't Ask hi- I MEAN HER! about it. Please ignore my broken leg and missing arm. That was from fighting a bear. OH SHIT IS SHE OVER THERE??! I NEED TO HIDE!"

Hijack: Hijack is a 2 and a half foot bio-mechanical creature with 2 short arms, a muted dark orange robotic body with bulging veins and covered in red flesh, 3 white bony claws with metallic fillings that stick out, a wisp shaped body with a fleshy head tail that has 2 metal tube sticking out, a large maw with massive metal and bone teeth, a long blue tounge with dark purple saliva and multiple metal spikes protruding out of it, and 1 large blood red eye with a large black pupil. His main ability is that he can integrate himself into the physiology of any organic and mechanical creature and enhance them by latching on to them with his teeth and impaling his arms and tounge to merge his own biology with them and he can morph and twist his host to any degree such as enlarging their limbs and body, turning their insides and skeletal structure inside out, splitting their bodies in half etc and this won't cause any permanent damage to his host as when he leaves them they revert to their previous state before Hijack merged with them and he can repair his hosts body to make sure that they aren't destroyed cause he needs them for survival, he is capable of enhancing the hosts natural abilities dramatically such as improving a Stopratoids (Tempest's species) weather manipulation abilities to the point where it has full control of a planets atmosphere, improving an Impagubere's (Kineticrawl's species) kinetic energy absorption abilities to the point where they can drain it from a distance etc, and he can impair the hosts brain function while he's possessing them so they can't resist his control. His weaknesses are that he can not merge with anything that's smaller than his own body due to him consuming too much of their being to the point where they become useless and unsustainable, without a host to merge with, he is completely defenceless by himself and has no method of attacking his opponents, he is very slow by himself due to his lack of legs and small arms so he commonly just uses his arms to launch himself up to catch prey and to get around easier, after roughly 3 hours the hosts body will become unusable due to him consuming all their energy and he'll be forced to ditch them, and he cannot merge with being made of inorganic materials such as rock and crystal. The Omnitrix symbol is embedded into his body, and he would sound extremely ravenous and Insane and laugh manically when he possesses someone.
Obsidius: Obsidius is a 7-foot humanoid fly like creature with a thick black bumpy obsidian like exoskeleton, 4 long wings resembling that of a dragonfly, 2 large orange compound eyes with a mild bioluminescence, 2 large arms with lobster like claws with the right one being quite larger, digigrade legs with 3 large sharp toes, a long grey fly like mouth with no teeth, 2 long thin black antennas, and exposed bits of his exoskeleton on the chest that show his semi-transparent skin which shows the magma circulating around his body. His main ability is that he can blast a superheated reddish orange magma out of his mouth, which can melt through most materials in mere seconds and cause immense damage to opponents, and he can concentrate it into a long stream or multiple small projectiles due to his throat being able to store incredibly large amounts of liquid matter, he is completely immune to heat and high temperatures due to his anatomy and can even resist the heat of an active volcano and come out completely unscathed, he has a titanium grade exoskeleton that can easily withstand most physical and energy attacks without a scratch and is near impossible to penetrate due to it's with and durability, he can fly at great speeds due to his wings and can zip around faster than a humming bird without carrying anything, he can lift 7 times his own body weight and possesses incredible strength and lifting capabilities, and his antennas can detect the most minor changes in the air which allows him to sense attacks directed at him before they occur. His weaknesses are that he is horribly weakened by water as it melts his exoskeleton like acid and causes him to become significantly physically weaker, he is unable to use his strength if he's restrained or pinned down, he is significantly slower flying when carrying heavy objects, and he is incredibly fragile and vulnerable without his exoskeleton. The Omnitrix symbol is located on his right pectoral, and he would sound very deep and serious with buzzing noises every time he says a word with S and Z in it.
Reptox: Reptox is a 10-foot crocodile like creature with a large muscular frame, a massive hunched over back, a long thick tail, multiple rows of long sharp quills with purple tips going all the way from his back to the top of his tail, a smooth grey scaly underbelly, large muscular arms with massive forearms, rough black scaly skin on everywhere except his underbelly, large hands with 4 thick purple claws, short legs with 3 sharp black toes, a large crocodile like mouth with sharp purple fangs, and 2 big yellow eyes with sharp black pupils on the sides of his head. His main ability is that he has an extremely corrosive substance in his quills, claws, and mouth that can cause anything pierced by them to melt away in mere minutes and if it pierces an organic creature it will slowly destroy their body from the inside and kill them in a couple of days at most, he can fire off the quills from his back at great speeds with the velocity to pierce through solid steel with ease and he can even use them as weapons in close combat, he is incredibly physically strong due to his size and musculature and can easily lift heavy structures and with his acid can shred through most durable materials with little to no difficulty, his tough hide is extremely durable and can easily withstand most physical attacks as well as bullets and gunfire, he can breathe underwater, and he can climb up walls and surfaces as long as they can support his weight. His weaknesses are that he is incredibly slow and clumsy when walking on 2 legs due to his extremely top heavy anatomy and can easily fall and trop over which is why he mostly moves around on all fours, he is horribly weakened by cold temperatures cause they freeze his blood flow and cause his strength to significantly decline and him to become more lethargic and sluggish, most simple structures such as wood will break under his weight and cause him to fall, he is an extremely poor swimmer and will sink in deep waters due to his weight, stronger beings such as Tempominuses (Celciyeti's species) will be more immune to his poison, and he is unable to melt tadeynite due to it's toughness. The Omnitrix symbol is located on his chest, he wears black and white shorts, and he would have a deep and raspy voice.

This went reasonably well last time, so I thought I'd share a few of my other stories while I work up the energy to start writing again.
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Bear witness, if you can. Few beings can, to a sight such as this- a vast cloud hanging aloft in space. Tiny starlings hang in the void like neurons, nova flares erupting like synaptic flashes. Where one flame takes root in the billows of the cloud, a new sun springs forth, like...
Like a new idea.
***
In time the new stars were born, and many worlds with them...
You look on triplet jewels, woven in the tapestry of space. One star, large and serene golden-white. A second star, small and raging red. And a black hole, colorless by day and pitch black by twilight, visible only from the halo-disk of solar fire siphoned from its sisters. These triplets form the core of this new system: golden Teardrop, red Blooddrop, and black Crone's Heart.
Around these three sisters spin clumps of dust, in perfect order, circles upon circles. These would, in time, become the worlds of this new system. Planets, moons, asteroid thickets, nebulosities, threads of dark matter, frozen fogbanks of comet ice, a and one or two protostars dreaming of the day they might burst forth with dust-worlds of their own.
Just for such a system as this to exist was perhaps the second greatest miracle that could ever occur. The only greater one would occur much later...
***
In time, life formed in the primordial soup of one of those worlds, and explored...
The swimmers were among the loveliest creatures on this world. Their skin was sleek and iridescent, their bulging eyes black, jaws strong for cracking shells, their vestigial spinal sails oddly charming. Though clumsyish on land, they moved with impossible grace through the gleaming honeywaters off the craggy coast. And the decorative cliffside creches they made for their hatchlings would have left the most seasoned nature documentarian cooing with delight.
Hmmm, they hummed, mellifluously, as they went about decorating the newest nest.
By contrast, the shrilling carrion birds, who had come from the inland deserts, were not lovely. Their plumage, not quite feathers but not quite scales, tended to drab grey and ashy white. If the swimmers had the intelligence, the word "skeletal" might have occurred to them. Their breath reeked of rot, from every fetid thing they ate; corpses washed up or dug up, freshly killed or long putrefied- even their own dead.
One of the carrion-birds observed the swimmers now, clinging to the tops of the cliffside and leering impishly at the eggs of the creche. A swimmer snapped at it angrily and it leapt away. The eggs. The swimmer looked down at the clutch. All accounted for. The swimmer remained mistrustful.
Time passed before one of the swim-pod returned from the depths with food, beaching itself on the rock. Its podmates rushed to greet it, only to see- calamity! horror!- the gorger worms burrowing into skin, bloated on blood. It mewled, pathetically, but its fellows gave it a wide berth. The worms could spread, they knew. Perhaps even to the eggs. Their hearts were heavy, but nothing could be done.
All of a sudden a trio of carrion birds congregated on the infested swimmer, eliciting shrieks of alarm from its podmates. A rudimentary understanding passed through them: They'll eat him alive, before he even has a chance to die. The thought so revolted them, they considered risking infection to intervene.
Then in a blink, the birds left the infected swimmer. Though its iridescent hide was pockmarked with bites, the worms were gone. A carrion bird let out a very satisfied slurp as the last few fat segments disappeared in its gullet. With something like a grin, the birds leapt away. The swimmers sat with something like awe. A new word started to enter their proto-vocabulary, something perhaps best translatable to "symbiosis" or "alliance."
And the triplet jewels shone on...
***
In time, the life learned of struggle...
Ganthlin was a general, and the twelfth of his gene-line to use the name, and with a start, he realized someone was calling that name, trying to get his attention. He was embarrassed to realize he'd been staring at the Triplets as they set.
"Ganthlin. General. The troops are ready." It was a cragyl, one of his carrion knights, her ashen scale-plumage moon-pale in the low light.
"Good." Ganthlin said at last, snapping to reality. "Be ready for the charge at my signal." The cragyl bowed her head and scarpered into the darkness. Their races had been allies for millennia, since before Ganthlin's kind had left the oceans or learned written language; they fought the same wars, shared the same castles and yet, it was hard not to find cragyl a little creepy. It was especially disquieting to know that, when the fateful day came, shortly after the funeral and in accordance with ancient tradition, the cragyl of his home castle would eat his corpse.
But forming partnerships- symbiosis- was the way of Ganthlin's people. Where lower lifeforms could only see other species as predator or prey, Ganthlin's folk found ways to make allies. Those in the mountain lakes partnered with the great hoofed stridits. Those in the dark caverns bonded with venomous ostedytes. It was a mark of civilization to have more friends than enemies among the animal kingdom.
But even Ganthlin's people had some enemies. One way or another, this siege would be over before Crone's Heart set this night. Ganthlin lifted his sword. "Right. CHARGE!" he roared.
***
And yet in time, the life also learned to build and to explore...
Ganthlin was a highly-ranked member of the Ministry of Science, and the twenty-eighth of her gene-line to use that name. At the moment, she was looking at the Triplets as they started to dip below the horizon, on the justification that sometimes scientific minds needed to wander. From back home, in Yuurtz, there was a sacred spot where the three suns would pass behind three giant seastacks as they set. Ancient starmappers had probably found some arcane significance in that.
"Minister. The demonstration is ready."
Her aide, a cragyl technician, was shyly gesturing for her attention.
"Of course," Ganthlin murmured. "Let's proceed."
A pneumacliner took them several stories belowground, belowsea, to the ghost-steel dome that had once been the main keep of the city. For Ganthlin, looking out through the dome at the world of the ocean floor was relaxing, but she sensed her aide, evolved for flying, was getting anxious. Invoking privilege as a mother, Ganthlin squeezed the tech's coracoid joint reassuringly.
They passed a few creches and other laboratories before they arrived at the main attraction. An excited looking stridit tried to shake her hand with clumsy hooves.
"Just wait until you see it, Minister. We've always speculated such things might be left behind, perhaps the remnant of a long-dead civilization, but this is the clearest proof- look!"
The large crystalline slab glowed, and images formed in its surface like a reflection.
"You see? A perfect view of another world, one in the system of the Triplets. You can see them setting in the distance. And we believe this may not be simply a window. With the right adjustments, we believe we may be able to travel there."
***
And in time, the life covered every world in the system...
The name Ganthlin had been in his gene-line for thousands of generations. There was no other as learned as he in the science of star and planet formation. There could be no mistake.
"I- you're sure, sir?" asked his cragyl assistant, tremulously.
"I'm afraid so, Jint. Our system is nearing the end of its existence. Teardrop is going to go supernova. The innerworlds will be fried, atomized, and Crone's Heart will devour it all. The resultant cataclysm will end all life in the system. We'll all be drawn into Crone's Heart. Crushed to death."
"Is there nothing we can do?"
"Nothing."
His assistant opened and shut his beak, uselessly. "Then... how long?"
"Mere minutes."
***
The inner worlds were scoured with blazing nuclear fire, and the colonists thereon shrieked in an agony impossible to imagine. Even those beyond the reach of the hellish corona wept as the heat dried their soil to aridity and turned their oceans to boiling acid. In a way, those who died so quickly were the lucky ones, for they did not see the remains of the White and Red Triplets slowly be consumed by their black brother, along with the charred corpses of the burned worlds. Thus enlarged, the black hole slowly began to consume all the rest of the world in the system, swallowing a trillion screams of terror into the frigid and unyielding night...
***
The godling fidgeted as Its supervisor looked down at Its term project, seeming very unimpressed.
"And what have you got here?"
"Uh... well... it was meant to be a trinary star system with several strains of intelligent life. I'm not sure what happened, exactly, there was some kind of collapse-"
"Category ⍓︎□︎◆︎❒︎ stellar collapse, I would guess. The assignment was to create a stable system that lasted seven billion years. You haven't even cleared five, I'm afraid."
"I... I think I can salvage it," the godling said, anxiously. Then the entire stellar nursery imploded.
The supervisor clucked. "I'm afraid I can't give a passing grade for this. See me after class."
And the supervisor drifted off, tutting, and the dejected and humiliated godling tossed the remains of its term project in the garbage quasar. Well. Back to the drawing board.

Nautilus. Merman. Atlantean. Were-shark.
His real name is Maleko, and he was once a small-time superhero from Hawaii with the ability to turn into a hulking shark-person. The extremely specific nature of his power meant that he had little hero work to do aside from rescuing swimmers and assisting shipwrecks.... until the Zombocalypse hit, and he found his calling as the leader of Lemuria, an island of ships he put together to foster survivors. When the heroes of the Mount find Lemuria, his authority over his community is challenged and the lies he told his people are revealed.

Appearance

In his human form, Maleko is 5’10” with a Polynesian / Asian appearance. He has large eyes, a small nose, a square jaw, dark skin, solid muscles, and a thick ponytail of long black hair. He also has curling tattoo wrapped around his right bicep, an intricate array of bold lines and triangles. He tends to wear three layers of oversized clothes with no sleeves, and no shoes.
When he’s transformed into Nautilus, he is a foot taller, with oily black eyes and jagged teeth. His chest swells and his body grows to fill out his clothing, with a thick neck and arms. His fingers and toes become webbed, his hands become the size of boxing gloves, and his toenails grow out into claws. His skin becomes a glossy blue-gray. His shoulders grow a protective shell on top of them. His body temperature drops.

Powers

Strength

• He’s the strongest man in the world underwater, which also makes him strong on land.
  
• Fought off a shark once.
  

Striking

• Backhands St George with enough strength to kill a normal man.
  
• Knocks the wind out of St George with a punch.
  
• Cracks a man’s ribs with a punch.
  
• Knocks out a man in one punch.
  
• He can break through a ship’s hull.
  
• Hits St George in the head hard enough to stun him.
  
• Hits St George several times until he can break free from being tackled.
  
• Tackles St George down the length of a ship.
  
• Headbutts St George in the face.
  
• Punches St George hard enough to free himself from being grappled.
  

Lifting / Pulling / Pushing

• He brought together all the ships of Lemuria, all on his own. For context, Lemuria consists of a cruise ship, tanker, and freighter; several fishing boats; three yachts; half a dozen smaller boats; and a catamaran, not to mention everything on them.. The tanker and freighter are approximately 1,200 feet long; the cruise ship is shorter, but taller. They are all connected by planks and walkways.
  
• Swam down to the ocean floor and carried dirt back up to the surface.
  
• Swings St George into the floor by his ankle repeatedly.
  
• Pulls St George deeper into the water, then even deeper.
  
• Throws four men almost half a mile out to sea.
  
• Swings an anchor by the chain at St George repeatedly. The anchor is close to 1,000 lbs, with a 500 lb chain.
  
• Yanks St George off his feet when he catches said anchor, then jerks it out of his hands.
  

Grappling

• Hugs St George while punching him repeatedly.
  
• Squeezes the air out of St George.
  
• Pins St George to the ground briefly.
  

Tearing

• Rips Corpse Girl in half.

Durability

Blunt

• Takes several punches from St George and bounces back.
  
• Has no trouble diving into the ocean from great heights.
  
• Takes two punches from St George in the water without issue.
  
• Thrown from 200 feet in the air through the roof of a yacht and takes off before St George can reach him.
  
• St George hits him with an anchor hard enough to knock a tooth out and he comes right back from it.
  
• Sent flying by a palm strike from St George and rushes in immediately.
  
• Drops to his knees after another punch from St George.
  

Piercing

• Bullets barely slow him down.

Slashing

• He’s vulnerable to knives.

Grappling

• Gets thrown back by St George and comes back immediately.
  
• Breaks free from being tackled by St George.
  
• St George was able to pull him out of the water.
  
• Pulled off his feet by St George yanking on his anchor.
  
• Has his arms pinned behind him by St George. He’s eventually able to break free.
  

Esoteric

• Is blistered by Zzzap’s heat.
  
• Atmospheres with low pressure can be painful for him. St George flies him so high into the air it makes his veins bulge and his nose bleed.
  

Swimming

• Swam down to the ocean floor and carried dirt back up to the surface.
  
• Disappears from St George’s view in two kicks.
  
• Rushes into St George like a torpedo.
  
• Swims from in front of St George to behind him fast enough to sucker punch him.
  

Senses

• They say he hears everything, and he confirms it.
  
• He can hear everything up to 100 yards away.
  
• He’s sensitive to light.
  

Other

• He’s comfortable using children as shields, in and out of battle.

Scaling

• St George
  
• Zzzap