Living spaces fremont ca phone number
salafiyyah
2013.02.21 18:57 alsalah salafiyyah
Calling people to authentic Islam with the Quran, and the Sunnah through the understanding of the Salaf (righteous predecessors). Keywords: Islam, Salafiyyah, Muslim Salafi, quran, sunnah, hadeeth, Islamic studies.
2023.06.04 16:13 WritingDrakon (EODAT Ch.5 REPOST) brewing legacies, and oversized weapons
(Hey everyone! Finally out of the shadow realm! Im reposting chapter five here, 6 is still percolating away in my head, but in the mean time, enjoy! Comments are appreciated!)
4-LOM rolled up to the holotable, the aging shipbuilder looking over the various fleet and division commanders.
4-LOM was an old Mk1 astro robot, his main body was a sphere, with four mechanical arms extending from his body, two large and bulky, and the other two smaller, more nimble and accurate, more dexterous, with a cylindrical lower body leading down to his treads, which were angular, tank like in shape, designed for heavy lifting. His head was flat, with a duo of square optics, a set of welding shields flipped up, ready to flip down when and where needed. His backpack was open, with tools sticking out, ready to be grabbed and used.
Looking around, he noted that the Saurians had their Admiral, a middle age Rox, their massive, tyrannasauric form still managing to tower over most of the others, even in holo, while Serano stood next to him. Nearby, Hota sat, nursing a coffee, rubbing his head, while one of the chief science officers hologram glanced at him nervously.
Another door entered, and a Mk12 frame entered, standing at the table. At first glance, the frame looked pristine, but 4-LOM wasn't fooled. He wasn't a shipwright for nothing, and he could see the pitting under the paint where plasma weaponry had uselessly splashed off, taking with it little layers of metal with it. Despite how new the frame looked, it was clear it had seen some action, recently as well, judging by the fresh coat of paint.
More holograms of fleet officials, and the bridges, or representations of their ships, flickered in above their shoulders. Serano looked like he had an old sailing ship floated there idly, a representation of the Enterprise. Some had wasps, while one captain had a cartoonish Barbus fish, with an old style white sailors cap and a belt of dynamite.
And then a small black hole flickered into view in front of his faceplate, making him roll back with a start. Getting a good look at the now pulsing black hole, he seemed to frown, one of his welding shields rising higher to simulate a eyebrow raise….. "Horizon? Is that you, little lass?" He said, with a thick, Scottish accent as his other shield rose up to join the other in shock.
The holographic black hole bobbed up and down in the air, two arms extending out from its corona and spun, as if to represent it, no, her, spinning in happiness. For a moment, 4-LOM was silent, before he began laughing, reaching up, even as his servo passed through the holo. "Ach, what I wouldn't give ta be in the Link with ye, lassie! I'm glad ye survived." He said, as the little ever hungry representation of the ship spun around him, before it shot off, floating near the Mk12, who looked at it.
The 12s head tilted more, as it listening to what the ship was saying, while 4-LOM felt a bit of possessiveness flair. Horizon was one of HIS creations, his and his wife's. Their ships were like children for them. Rolling over, he mentally began preparing a bit of what his wife would call the shovel talk, something they used to do with Captains that took on their vessels……
"Did you need something, Grandfather?" The machine said, domed head snapping to his, taking the wind out of his sails, and stare blankly at the taller, thinner machine.
Behind him, he heard Serano chuckle behind him, even as the Rox raised an eyeridge, while the Saline sat his mug down and placed his head in his hands.
"Grandfather- oh. I see…." He said, gaze turning flat as he gave a glare at Horizon. "I see the little gremlin is still able to make me short a fuse or two. Void knows Maria's hair turned white before she had to move bodies due to someone's antics." The little black hole pulsed sharply, as if squawking. "Would have appreciated a warning she made herself a captain…. Lassie, ye best be teaching him self preservation instincts." Catching the snort from the Rox and the sigh from Serano.
Slowly, his head turned around to face the two, one shield twitching, and finally saw Hota looking up with a flat look. "Too late on that one. I'll pass you the after action report later, AFTER the meeting." Serano said, hiding a smile. "If you want a first hand account, ask Hota. From what I understand, he had a front row seat for the Chaos the two caused."
She wasn't a little ship anymore, she wasnt- ah kriff it all. She was still his little lass. He'll talk with her later…preferably with Maria there…..after he grabbed his wrench and had a….. talk….. with whoever was their crew.
/------------------/
All the admirals and fleet commanders were soon in place, Asimov standing to the side, near the Admiral Serano, Horizons representation floating next to his head as his own panned about, looking at the assembled species. Several robotic ones, not Astro Robot series, called Glinch, looked at him curiously, while he picked out several different….Saurians, a few Roxes, several Trikes.
Several were pale, white skinned humans, bald, be they male or female. Clones, like himself, but with organic bodies, accompanied by nat-born humans, and several more advanced Astro Robot series units, these ones looking everything from near human, to large and bulky, armed with cannons, inbuilt missile launchers on their upper arms, and massive treads, or slimmer, almost skeletal ones with modules that could be swapped out at a moments notice.
"I appreciate ye all for coming on such short notice" 4-LOMs voice said, cutting over the gentle hubbub of the side conversations. "I had hoped that we wouldn't be facing them again, but here we are." The robot said as one of his smaller limbs tapes a command into the console, pulling up images of Everwatch stations current…condition. "Those of yeh from Federation space are more familar of the old stories, battle videos and the like. The Demons, as the Human Federation calls them, have been returned. It's only thanks to the work of Representative Hota that we have this information….. and had stumbled across an old Ace that had woken back up in time for this chaos." 4-LOM said, nodding to the Saline, getting the attention of his compatriots, who he shook his head to.
"Our opponents are equipped with biotech vessels, and are known for appropriating technology to forcibly integrate it with their own. Which means keep an eye out for a worse hodgepodge of weapons than a pirate vessel after its crew hits a pound of Spice and then gets drunk at a star port." 4-LOM said dryly, as various, old, images of the vessels and a few of the newer ones. "That being said, expect the sheer firepower jammed onto each of these ships to be on the higherside. However, they need long recharge periods, likely due to whatever power source used overloading, or the capacitor banks running dry and needing to recharge. Don't be fooled, they do have some form of biological armament, acid spitters, spike launchers, the works." He said, as images flicked up organic turrets, tentacles, and what looked like maws.
"As of right now, several of our larger vessels are being inspected and repaired, resupplied, and upgraded as needed. Several older vessels are being pulled out of mothball for the same reason. All civilian vessels are being drafted for emergency roles, receiving refit with hardware that will allow them to fight in a pinch, though their primary objective will be escorting transport ships and acting as emergency evacuation ships. We won't be expecting them to fight, but we need every ship we can get."
An image flickered into view of what amounted to the humans old museum of warships and deep space vessels, revealing it to be a hive of activity. Many other races had laughed at humanity for keeping their old vessels, rather than scrapping them, but now, now there was a reason why humanity had.
"Patrol fleets are to be at least one Saline Sensor ship, two to three Buckler class Trike Shield Bearers, one Rox Artillery ship, one Vohle capable human vessel, Two human PT ships, and three Raptor Swift claws." 4-LOM said, "these things aren't to be taken lightly. Sensors pick them up, call it in and engage. Stall for time if needed for reinforcements to arrive. Intercept fleets are to consist of five Trike Aegis class Shield Bearers, six Swift claws, one Rox supercarrier, three Rox artillery ships, two Saline Auxiliary ships, one Saline Medical cruiser, one Human Vohle Super-carrier, eight human PT ships, two Human Iowa class destroyers." The elderly bot belted out, making several Captains and admirals wince. Those weren't lightweight ships. The 'patrol' fleet could have been considered a planetary invasion force.
Before anyone could make any arguments or questions as to why the fleets were set to the Human classic of 'Maximum Overkill', and before any more ridiculous fleet deployments could be called out, a slightly panicking human sprinted into the room. "Sir! Confirmed hostile assault on Tisan-4" the human said, breathing heavily. "The Demons made planet fall, looks like a small invasion force that had left before the incursion field went up."
4-LOM stared….and then sighed. "Well, Caliburn had been itching for a fight." He sighed and placed a servo over his optics.
/-----------------------------------/
WARNING: Hostiles detected. Match confirmed; species D-65.
Threat level:Apollyon. Combat systems:unlocked.
That was what appeared on the Colony Managers terminal as alarms screamed across the Colony, alerts screaming on PADDs, sirens spinning as bunkers opened up.
An aging Wargen bared his teeth as he rapidly tapped at his terminal, as the younger human clone stood grimly at her manager's terminal.
"Civilians are filling out the bunkers, tunneling charges are set and ready to clear escape routes." The elderly, wolf like Wargen said, his muzzle splitting into four as he spoke, one part vertical, the other horizontally. "Colonial militia are manning hard points and connecting to systems now."
"Understood." The Colony manager said and let out a long breath, before opening the PA system. "All hands, brace for Activation procedure. I repeat, all hands, brace for activation procedure." She said, before securing herself in on one of the chairs, even as the commander buckled himself in across from her, even as terminals all around them flickered and the building shuddered and shook, new lights came online all over.
"And the other races call our alliance insane for building the bunkers" The Wargen muttered under his breath as the command room became a flurry of activity, sensor teams working together in an attempt to get data on their opponents. "Our people are safe. That's what matters, commander." The clone said softly, looking at her long time friend, even as the hidden defense system of the Colony woke up.
/------------/
Outside, the demonic army approached, on a slow, steady March, disgruntled at the lack of organics they had found to use. They needed biomass to fuel their war machine, to create their bases, their armies, their ships. And while they didn't care much about the sheer number of ships they lost during planet fall thanks to the orbital defenses, they needed to deal with the local defense computers. There had to be a way to broadcast an all clear signal and allow their other ships past.
Before them sat a large, fortified structure, looked like a massive cathedral, really. The irony was not lost on them as ports on the castle-like structure opened up, and began spitting metallic shells at them, exploding after punching through their infantry, leaving craters behind, destroying more of their forces.
The ground shook as their massive siege beast began forming from the splattered biomass, like some strange, oozing horror, slowly forming into a quadropodic creature.
The beast was mostly just a giant mouth in legs, with a long, worm like body lined with eyes, teeth, spikes, and tendrils, flinging said teeth at the structure.
Warlord Gistle ground his teeth as he stared at the cathedral as it held its own, his forces decimated by the attempted rain of metal. Said rain changed to one of scalding plasma as the castle changed tactics to try and burn the bodies to prevent them from forming additional, stronger units.
"Battle lord." Hissed one of the smaller battle chiefs said, as they stepped up next to Gistle. "The Seekers have not located where the miserable Frails have hidden themselves. Our efforts would be best put to entering the fortress ahead." The chief said, pointing at the massive fortress as the siege beast brushed off the weapons fire.
"No need, we will be inside soon en-" Came the guttural voice of the Warlord, before it was interrupted by a computerized voice, echoing out.
"THREAT ASSESSED. ASSUMING COMBAT MODE."
There was a rumble, everyone grabbing onto the stablest thing around them as the ground tore apart, the siege beast stumbling back, as the building tore up its own foundations as steam hissed out, and part of the building lifted up, and then slammed into the ground, and then the other side, slowly pulling itself up….and up…and up……
The structure wasn't a structure. Not any more. Towering over them, looking like a massive hunchback stood the cathedral, it's towers opening, revealing to be cowling around massive artillery cannons. It's arms, once covered with flat pillars, opened up to reveal a set rotating barrels, slowly spinning up, and a bulky duo of MAC batteries on the other arm. Sticking off the side of its upper arms were smaller hardpoints, each turret armed with four barrels, small and accurate, sniping ground units with horrifying accuracy, the soft metal shells ripping away to reveal their incendiary cargo held within steel mesh, allowing the coilguns to spit them out rapidly.
The head section looked like a sphere with three optics in a triangular formation, around a cannon that locked onto the siegebeast and whined, arcing brightly, before it fired, a bright flash seen as the cannon went off, it's round leaving behind a trail of fire as it raced through the air, punching through the beast, making it howl, and began trying to heal the injury that pierced it, ripping open a hole below it.
It's bipedal legs were thick, armored, and just as equally armed, it's lower legs armed with rotary cannons that spun, the lower pair foring a heavy stream of plasma, one barrel firing and then cooling as it spun, the others keeping the pace up, while above them, physical artillery was spat out, helping pierce armor for the plasma to scorch and burn to uselessness. More cannons sat on the sides and back of its legs in, taking aim at the surrounding armies, making sure to add on their screeches of rage.
Hanging off the underside of the platform that held the Cathederal sat more turrets, each swiveling around and adding to the chaos, their mini MAC armament chattering as they fired, picked a new target and fired again. On the top of the platform were AA cannons, taking aim and firing into the air, altering the timing of their rounds so that they acted as impromptu artillery, while more cannons, on four turrets, covered the monstrosities back, preventing them from sneaking up behind it, as if the cannons on the back of its legs weren't enough to cover it.
"TARGET ACQUIRED."
Warlord Gistle hissed in shock. The Frails had been LIVING in a Siege beast of their own!? Hidden partially underground, deceiving them to make it seem as if it was nothing more than a fortification!?
"Have all expendable units merge with our Siege beast, NOW! if the frails continue to pick our forces off one by one, they will never be able to reinforce our beast after they fall!" Gistle roared, even as around him the battle chiefs barked out the orders……..
/-------------/
The massive machine stared down at the hostile forces as they turned into a thick, biological slurry, short of the Demons themselves, and oozed towards the horror before it.
The monster seemed to absorb the substance on contact, growing larger and larger with each passing moment, howling and hissing.
He could feel his crew cursing in their heads, humans and otherwise, lighting the slurry up with plasmafire, burning some of it, but not enough. Caliburn agreed with them, as his Plasma getting cannon spun up, the five barrels glowing brightly, the heatsinks by the ends of the barrel glowing as the machine poured plasmafire from the barrels, searing into the beasts body, burning it up as it grew, stunting its growth heavily, and forcing it to consume more biomass to make heavy, chitenous armor, layers burning away under the assault.
Caliburn could feel the dust coming off as his gears spun, and he stepped forward, swinging the glowing arm as it cooled down, making the horror screech as he spun his upper body to add to the force of the blow, digging the glowing heating into the beast's face and knocking it back, buying time for his crew to deal with the horrific slurry around them, which still tried to fuse with the horror, chasing after it with a single minded determination.
As his upper body slowed down and he was facing forward again, he saw the beast setting up, snarling. His other arm came up, and he could feel his capacitors burning as he began firing his MAC arm at it, the massive, vehicle sized slugs punching into the beast, knocking it back farther, punching holes in the chitin it tried to grow as armor, making it hiss and move rapidly, trying to put distance between itself and the machine.
Unfortunately, the beast had the advantage in land speed, as it had four legs, while Caliburn only had two and lumbered slowly forward, his aging systems relishing the taste of combat after so long. And now he had far better weapons then a simple crane arm, like he had last time he fought a creature like this.
Because the beast had put distance between itself and him, it managed to absorb the last of the biomass, and began bounding forward, it's maw open, teeth spinning like some sort of Cuisinart….
A target he couldn't miss. His head cannon barked again, not as powerful as last time, but this time, he wasn't trying to rip it apart from the inside. The shell detonated on contact with the teeth, shredding them, tearing into the soft flesh within, making the beast howl and close its maw, it's chitin armor weathering the plasma splashing off, hardened to withstand the smaller weapons fire his crew spat at the creature.
His arms pulled their shrouding back around them, as he drew back and swung, hard, again using his body spinning to his advantage, striking the beast, the heavy weight of the heatsink and the weapon itself burying the shroud covered arm inside, the end opening up. Unfortunately, thanks to the partial shrouding, he wouldn't be able to spin his cannon, but all he needed was one shot inside it, and let it fly, ripping his arm out as it howled, smoke billowing from its new hole it tried rapidly to heal.
The tendrils it had tried to dig into his arm burned away as he kicked it up from below and began unloading both arms, fully unshrouded, the heat coming off both of them making steam hiss up into the air, as the beast took a heavy slug and then a plasma bolt, one after the other, deep into its stomach, sending it onto its back.
Loud popping sounds were heard as its limbs reoriented, allowing its former belly to become its back, the holes sealing slowly as it circled the walking cathedral, even as Caliburn scanned it, his upper body following its every movement. His command crew were breaking down every schematic and scan he gave them, working hard to figure out a way to kill the horror.
In the mean time, Caliburn and his crews would do their damndest to stall the beast and continue on their current plan. Burn it down, slowly.
He could feel his crews tracking the retreating demon forces, listening to the mental chatter within him as the artillery crews happily worked together to figure out their path, searching for the enemy command position, even as sensor crews watched as the rapidly approaching flood of biomass and machinery charged for them, some of the artillery crews already letting loose N-4 shells, the 'super-napalm', as the crews nicknamed them, impacting and exploding, burning into the biomass, unquenchable, even as the biomass attempted and failed to smother the burning substance, only serving to make it worse, melting the weaponry it carried with it.
The only reason why the crews could get away with it was because the biomass wasn't near the Bunkers exits or near infrastructure. Or Burnable items.
Command soon had a viable target, a sort of brain mass it had, separated throughout its body in a vain attempt to make sure it could still operate when a few of them were destroyed.
Several had been burned away by the plasma bolt going off inside of it, but many more remained, and it was attempting to make more/replace the burned away ones. They needed to eliminate the command signal….
Jubilation and grim satisfaction bloomed in his sensor and artillery crews, as he felt the mad scramble for bunker busting shells, before they were let loose into the air. Even as he blocked a tail strike from the beast and managed to crush its head under one foot, letting his landing engines ignite for the first time in decades to burn the creature more, his crews targeted the command bunker, shelling it with deadly accuracy, smoke rising from the hill they were tucked away behind in the distance, making Caliburn burn with satisfaction and praise for his crew.
/---------------------/
Gistle ran as fast as his hooves could move him, teeth barred as he snarled.
Around him, their command temple shook and shuddered, veins bursting, cables arcing wildly as the biomass contracted involuntarily or simply sagged, turning to biomass.
"Warlord, they are heavily shelling our position, we won't be able to retreat at this rate!" Hissed one of the Battle Chiefs at his side, hissing in fear, even as he snarled at the Pitiful, compared to him, creature. "We won't be taking everyone, only the essentials. The Everlasting King must be notified of this development. King be damned, the frails took the time to prepare for our arrival again." He growled as he came out to a hanger area, and ran into a small, fast ship, even as the others ran into larger, bulkier, slower ships.
Soon, the chitin that served as the door opened, and they shot out, erratically flying, trying to avoid the artillery shells, and now AA fire joining the fray.
He kept close to his compatriots, using them as a living shield as he twisted the small vessel around, smirking as he dodged the fire while they took it..
They were almost to space, soon, they could tear a Gate and get the fleet-
Reality tore open above him as a massive ring shaped vessel pushed itself into real space, disgorging hundreds of smaller vessels, bearing down on their positions, others engaging the floating fleet around them with aggressive assault runs, the sudden appearance in the system allowing them to have the element of surprise.
Weapons fire began filling the space around f them, tearing at their vessels faster then they could repair them as little, frail vessels zipped in and out of line of fire faster then they could shoot, track, or react, unloading slugs, plasma, torpedoes in a flurry of activity before diving away, allowing their munitions to wreak havoc amongst them.
Already, the larger vessels were disabled before Gistle managed to sacrifice one, smirking as it warped, it's biomass fueling the Gate, as he flew through, hoping he was in friendlier territories, unaware of a sensor torpedo flying in behind him.
/------------------------/
Down below, on the surface, Caliburn flung back his opponent again, arms blazing as he shelled it.
It was bigger then it had been, managing to absorb the biomass from the surviving landing ships and the remains of the command center they shelled out. It's armor was thicker, and was flinging out dozens, hundreds of calcium spikes, spitting its unknown energy weapons, only to splash off his shields, for the energy weapons, and his ar.or foe the calcium spikes, even as his weapons screeched.
The beast had holes all over its chitenous armor, from his shells punching in, or his artillery crews shelling the beast, his plasma following close behind as he sought to burn the creature out from the inside, going so far as to ram his plasma cannon inside and unload it, the rotating barrels helping tear it up from the inside as the heat sinks burned it.
Ships began dropping down from above, doing strafing runs, dropping smaller caliber explosives, distracting the beast as he tore another hole in it by spinning his upper body, one shrouded cannon arm striking the beast and ripping in, just as a gunship fired a Cleaner into it, just before it healed.
A burning flash of light, a horrific scream from the beast as it howled, body jerking as the explosive did its job…. Before it swung down, still alive, though just barely, it's armor shattering rather then buckling on the next strike from Caliburn, a facsimile of a uppercut, before the barrels let loose again, even as the plasma cannon dumped bolt after bolt into its lower body, searching for, burning the neural clusters as he found them.
The beast wrenched itself away from his grasp, snarling as it looked at him, the beast snarling as it tried to heal from the most recent injuries.
Caliburn felt his crew snarling back, his cannons swiveling around as they gave their response in munitions as he lumbered forward, the ground shaking from his steps and the escape ships erupting out of the ground around them, his rotary cannon screaming as it fired, the MAC on the other arm barking as he hit it again and again as it charged forward.
The beast no longer cared for its injuries, all it cared was to take the metal monster before it down, spitting acid out of it as it tried, and failed, to blind the machine, even as said machine swung its smoldering plasma cannon up and brought down the burning barrels down on its head, smashing it into the ground, pinning it there as it's crew continued shelling it out ruthlessly.
Caliburn refused to let the beast survive, he refused to let the thing get to the civilians. His crew snarled their agreement as the beast tore the pinned head off its body, even as it burned away to nothing, and tried to charge again, blindly, only to smash against the MAC arm and receive a pair of heavy slugs to the neck stump for its troubles, sending it somersaulting back, trying to reform its head.
It was much, much smaller now, now matching Caliburns size, due to all the biomass loss, it's head reforming as it snarled.
Caliburn seemed to roll his pauldrons and twitched his MAC, as if saying 'come at me'. The beast howled and charged forward, razor sharp tentacles erupting from its sides, whipping about wildly, only for turret crews to blast the tentacles off at the base, and for his artillery crews to shell it down from above, flattening it into the ground again with explosive shells.
Again, the beast began pulling itself out of the ground, only for another strafing run from aircraft , this time dropping standard napalm canisters onto the beast, making it howl as it healed around the canisters, and began burning from within.
It thrashed and writhed, tail and body whipping about, even as Caliburn kept firing, not letting up, shells puncturing the chitin bubble it was trying to form around the napalm to contain it, keeping it burning into the beasts body.
At last, the beast tried to fling itself at Caliburn, thinking that it could at least burn out the mechanical monster with it, only for Caliburn to swing and strike it, flinging it away again, the beasts body unable to get back up, and laid there, slowly burning away at last……………
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4-LOM rolled up to the holotable, the aging shipbuilder looking over the various fleet and division commanders.
4-LOM was an old Mk1 astro robot, his main body was a sphere, with four mechanical arms extending from his body, two large and bulky, and the other two smaller, more nimble and accurate, more dexterous, with a cylindrical lower body leading down to his treads, which were angular, tank like in shape, designed for heavy lifting. His head was flat, with a duo of square optics, a set of welding shields flipped up, ready to flip down when and where needed. His backpack was open, with tools sticking out, ready to be grabbed and used.
Looking around, he noted that the Saurians had their Admiral, a middle age Rox, their massive, tyrannasauric form still managing to tower over most of the others, even in holo, while Serano stood next to him. Nearby, Hota sat, nursing a coffee, rubbing his head, while one of the chief science officers hologram glanced at him nervously.
Another door entered, and a Mk12 frame entered, standing at the table. At first glance, the frame looked pristine, but 4-LOM wasn't fooled. He wasn't a shipwright for nothing, and he could see the pitting under the paint where plasma weaponry had uselessly splashed off, taking with it little layers of metal with it. Despite how new the frame looked, it was clear it had seen some action, recently as well, judging by the fresh coat of paint.
More holograms of fleet officials, and the bridges, or representations of their ships, flickered in above their shoulders. Serano looked like he had an old sailing ship floated there idly, a representation of the Enterprise. Some had wasps, while one captain had a cartoonish Barbus fish, with an old style white sailors cap and a belt of dynamite.
And then a small black hole flickered into view in front of his faceplate, making him roll back with a start. Getting a good look at the now pulsing black hole, he seemed to frown, one of his welding shields rising higher to simulate a eyebrow raise….. "Horizon? Is that you, little lass?" He said, with a thick, Scottish accent as his other shield rose up to join the other in shock.
The holographic black hole bobbed up and down in the air, two arms extending out from its corona and spun, as if to represent it, no, her, spinning in happiness. For a moment, 4-LOM was silent, before he began laughing, reaching up, even as his servo passed through the holo. "Ach, what I wouldn't give ta be in the Link with ye, lassie! I'm glad ye survived." He said, as the little ever hungry representation of the ship spun around him, before it shot off, floating near the Mk12, who looked at it.
The 12s head tilted more, as it listening to what the ship was saying, while 4-LOM felt a bit of possessiveness flair. Horizon was one of HIS creations, his and his wife's. Their ships were like children for them. Rolling over, he mentally began preparing a bit of what his wife would call the shovel talk, something they used to do with Captains that took on their vessels……
"Did you need something, Grandfather?" The machine said, domed head snapping to his, taking the wind out of his sails, and stare blankly at the taller, thinner machine.
Behind him, he heard Serano chuckle behind him, even as the Rox raised an eyeridge, while the Saline sat his mug down and placed his head in his hands.
"Grandfather- oh. I see…." He said, gaze turning flat as he gave a glare at Horizon. "I see the little gremlin is still able to make me short a fuse or two. Void knows Maria's hair turned white before she had to move bodies due to someone's antics." The little black hole pulsed sharply, as if squawking. "Would have appreciated a warning she made herself a captain…. Lassie, ye best be teaching him self preservation instincts." Catching the snort from the Rox and the sigh from Serano.
Slowly, his head turned around to face the two, one shield twitching, and finally saw Hota looking up with a flat look. "Too late on that one. I'll pass you the after action report later, AFTER the meeting." Serano said, hiding a smile. "If you want a first hand account, ask Hota. From what I understand, he had a front row seat for the Chaos the two caused."
She wasn't a little ship anymore, she wasnt- ah kriff it all. She was still his little lass. He'll talk with her later…preferably with Maria there…..after he grabbed his wrench and had a….. talk….. with whoever was their crew.
/------------------/
All the admirals and fleet commanders were soon in place, Asimov standing to the side, near the Admiral Serano, Horizons representation floating next to his head as his own panned about, looking at the assembled species. Several robotic ones, not Astro Robot series, called Glinch, looked at him curiously, while he picked out several different….Saurians, a few Roxes, several Trikes.
Several were pale, white skinned humans, bald, be they male or female. Clones, like himself, but with organic bodies, accompanied by nat-born humans, and several more advanced Astro Robot series units, these ones looking everything from near human, to large and bulky, armed with cannons, inbuilt missile launchers on their upper arms, and massive treads, or slimmer, almost skeletal ones with modules that could be swapped out at a moments notice.
"I appreciate ye all for coming on such short notice" 4-LOMs voice said, cutting over the gentle hubbub of the side conversations. "I had hoped that we wouldn't be facing them again, but here we are." The robot said as one of his smaller limbs tapes a command into the console, pulling up images of Everwatch stations current…condition. "Those of yeh from Federation space are more familar of the old stories, battle videos and the like. The Demons, as the Human Federation calls them, have been returned. It's only thanks to the work of Representative Hota that we have this information….. and had stumbled across an old Ace that had woken back up in time for this chaos." 4-LOM said, nodding to the Saline, getting the attention of his compatriots, who he shook his head to.
"Our opponents are equipped with biotech vessels, and are known for appropriating technology to forcibly integrate it with their own. Which means keep an eye out for a worse hodgepodge of weapons than a pirate vessel after its crew hits a pound of Spice and then gets drunk at a star port." 4-LOM said dryly, as various, old, images of the vessels and a few of the newer ones. "That being said, expect the sheer firepower jammed onto each of these ships to be on the higherside. However, they need long recharge periods, likely due to whatever power source used overloading, or the capacitor banks running dry and needing to recharge. Don't be fooled, they do have some form of biological armament, acid spitters, spike launchers, the works." He said, as images flicked up organic turrets, tentacles, and what looked like maws.
"As of right now, several of our larger vessels are being inspected and repaired, resupplied, and upgraded as needed. Several older vessels are being pulled out of mothball for the same reason. All civilian vessels are being drafted for emergency roles, receiving refit with hardware that will allow them to fight in a pinch, though their primary objective will be escorting transport ships and acting as emergency evacuation ships. We won't be expecting them to fight, but we need every ship we can get."
An image flickered into view of what amounted to the humans old museum of warships and deep space vessels, revealing it to be a hive of activity. Many other races had laughed at humanity for keeping their old vessels, rather than scrapping them, but now, now there was a reason why humanity had.
"Patrol fleets are to be at least one Saline Sensor ship, two to three Buckler class Trike Shield Bearers, one Rox Artillery ship, one Vohle capable human vessel, Two human PT ships, and three Raptor Swift claws." 4-LOM said, "these things aren't to be taken lightly. Sensors pick them up, call it in and engage. Stall for time if needed for reinforcements to arrive. Intercept fleets are to consist of five Trike Aegis class Shield Bearers, six Swift claws, one Rox supercarrier, three Rox artillery ships, two Saline Auxiliary ships, one Saline Medical cruiser, one Human Vohle Super-carrier, eight human PT ships, two Human Iowa class destroyers." The elderly bot belted out, making several Captains and admirals wince. Those weren't lightweight ships. The 'patrol' fleet could have been considered a planetary invasion force.
Before anyone could make any arguments or questions as to why the fleets were set to the Human classic of 'Maximum Overkill', and before any more ridiculous fleet deployments could be called out, a slightly panicking human sprinted into the room. "Sir! Confirmed hostile assault on Tisan-4" the human said, breathing heavily. "The Demons made planet fall, looks like a small invasion force that had left before the incursion field went up."
4-LOM stared….and then sighed. "Well, Caliburn had been itching for a fight." He sighed and placed a servo over his optics.
/-----------------------------------/
WARNING: Hostiles detected. Match confirmed; species D-65.
Threat level:Apollyon. Combat systems:unlocked.
That was what appeared on the Colony Managers terminal as alarms screamed across the Colony, alerts screaming on PADDs, sirens spinning as bunkers opened up.
An aging Wargen bared his teeth as he rapidly tapped at his terminal, as the younger human clone stood grimly at her manager's terminal.
"Civilians are filling out the bunkers, tunneling charges are set and ready to clear escape routes." The elderly, wolf like Wargen said, his muzzle splitting into four as he spoke, one part vertical, the other horizontally. "Colonial militia are manning hard points and connecting to systems now."
"Understood." The Colony manager said and let out a long breath, before opening the PA system. "All hands, brace for Activation procedure. I repeat, all hands, brace for activation procedure." She said, before securing herself in on one of the chairs, even as the commander buckled himself in across from her, even as terminals all around them flickered and the building shuddered and shook, new lights came online all over.
"And the other races call our alliance insane for building the bunkers" The Wargen muttered under his breath as the command room became a flurry of activity, sensor teams working together in an attempt to get data on their opponents. "Our people are safe. That's what matters, commander." The clone said softly, looking at her long time friend, even as the hidden defense system of the Colony woke up.
/------------/
Outside, the demonic army approached, on a slow, steady March, disgruntled at the lack of organics they had found to use. They needed biomass to fuel their war machine, to create their bases, their armies, their ships. And while they didn't care much about the sheer number of ships they lost during planet fall thanks to the orbital defenses, they needed to deal with the local defense computers. There had to be a way to broadcast an all clear signal and allow their other ships past.
Before them sat a large, fortified structure, looked like a massive cathedral, really. The irony was not lost on them as ports on the castle-like structure opened up, and began spitting metallic shells at them, exploding after punching through their infantry, leaving craters behind, destroying more of their forces.
The ground shook as their massive siege beast began forming from the splattered biomass, like some strange, oozing horror, slowly forming into a quadropodic creature.
The beast was mostly just a giant mouth in legs, with a long, worm like body lined with eyes, teeth, spikes, and tendrils, flinging said teeth at the structure.
Warlord Gistle ground his teeth as he stared at the cathedral as it held its own, his forces decimated by the attempted rain of metal. Said rain changed to one of scalding plasma as the castle changed tactics to try and burn the bodies to prevent them from forming additional, stronger units.
"Battle lord." Hissed one of the smaller battle chiefs said, as they stepped up next to Gistle. "The Seekers have not located where the miserable Frails have hidden themselves. Our efforts would be best put to entering the fortress ahead." The chief said, pointing at the massive fortress as the siege beast brushed off the weapons fire.
"No need, we will be inside soon en-" Came the guttural voice of the Warlord, before it was interrupted by a computerized voice, echoing out.
"THREAT ASSESSED. ASSUMING COMBAT MODE."
There was a rumble, everyone grabbing onto the stablest thing around them as the ground tore apart, the siege beast stumbling back, as the building tore up its own foundations as steam hissed out, and part of the building lifted up, and then slammed into the ground, and then the other side, slowly pulling itself up….and up…and up……
The structure wasn't a structure. Not any more. Towering over them, looking like a massive hunchback stood the cathedral, it's towers opening, revealing to be cowling around massive artillery cannons. It's arms, once covered with flat pillars, opened up to reveal a set rotating barrels, slowly spinning up, and a bulky duo of MAC batteries on the other arm. Sticking off the side of its upper arms were smaller hardpoints, each turret armed with four barrels, small and accurate, sniping ground units with horrifying accuracy, the soft metal shells ripping away to reveal their incendiary cargo held within steel mesh, allowing the coilguns to spit them out rapidly.
The head section looked like a sphere with three optics in a triangular formation, around a cannon that locked onto the siegebeast and whined, arcing brightly, before it fired, a bright flash seen as the cannon went off, it's round leaving behind a trail of fire as it raced through the air, punching through the beast, making it howl, and began trying to heal the injury that pierced it, ripping open a hole below it.
It's bipedal legs were thick, armored, and just as equally armed, it's lower legs armed with rotary cannons that spun, the lower pair foring a heavy stream of plasma, one barrel firing and then cooling as it spun, the others keeping the pace up, while above them, physical artillery was spat out, helping pierce armor for the plasma to scorch and burn to uselessness. More cannons sat on the sides and back of its legs in, taking aim at the surrounding armies, making sure to add on their screeches of rage.
Hanging off the underside of the platform that held the Cathederal sat more turrets, each swiveling around and adding to the chaos, their mini MAC armament chattering as they fired, picked a new target and fired again. On the top of the platform were AA cannons, taking aim and firing into the air, altering the timing of their rounds so that they acted as impromptu artillery, while more cannons, on four turrets, covered the monstrosities back, preventing them from sneaking up behind it, as if the cannons on the back of its legs weren't enough to cover it.
"TARGET ACQUIRED."
Warlord Gistle hissed in shock. The Frails had been LIVING in a Siege beast of their own!? Hidden partially underground, deceiving them to make it seem as if it was nothing more than a fortification!?
"Have all expendable units merge with our Siege beast, NOW! if the frails continue to pick our forces off one by one, they will never be able to reinforce our beast after they fall!" Gistle roared, even as around him the battle chiefs barked out the orders……..
/-------------/
The massive machine stared down at the hostile forces as they turned into a thick, biological slurry, short of the Demons themselves, and oozed towards the horror before it.
The monster seemed to absorb the substance on contact, growing larger and larger with each passing moment, howling and hissing.
He could feel his crew cursing in their heads, humans and otherwise, lighting the slurry up with plasmafire, burning some of it, but not enough. Caliburn agreed with them, as his Plasma getting cannon spun up, the five barrels glowing brightly, the heatsinks by the ends of the barrel glowing as the machine poured plasmafire from the barrels, searing into the beasts body, burning it up as it grew, stunting its growth heavily, and forcing it to consume more biomass to make heavy, chitenous armor, layers burning away under the assault.
Caliburn could feel the dust coming off as his gears spun, and he stepped forward, swinging the glowing arm as it cooled down, making the horror screech as he spun his upper body to add to the force of the blow, digging the glowing heating into the beast's face and knocking it back, buying time for his crew to deal with the horrific slurry around them, which still tried to fuse with the horror, chasing after it with a single minded determination.
As his upper body slowed down and he was facing forward again, he saw the beast setting up, snarling. His other arm came up, and he could feel his capacitors burning as he began firing his MAC arm at it, the massive, vehicle sized slugs punching into the beast, knocking it back farther, punching holes in the chitin it tried to grow as armor, making it hiss and move rapidly, trying to put distance between itself and the machine.
Unfortunately, the beast had the advantage in land speed, as it had four legs, while Caliburn only had two and lumbered slowly forward, his aging systems relishing the taste of combat after so long. And now he had far better weapons then a simple crane arm, like he had last time he fought a creature like this.
Because the beast had put distance between itself and him, it managed to absorb the last of the biomass, and began bounding forward, it's maw open, teeth spinning like some sort of Cuisinart….
A target he couldn't miss. His head cannon barked again, not as powerful as last time, but this time, he wasn't trying to rip it apart from the inside. The shell detonated on contact with the teeth, shredding them, tearing into the soft flesh within, making the beast howl and close its maw, it's chitin armor weathering the plasma splashing off, hardened to withstand the smaller weapons fire his crew spat at the creature.
His arms pulled their shrouding back around them, as he drew back and swung, hard, again using his body spinning to his advantage, striking the beast, the heavy weight of the heatsink and the weapon itself burying the shroud covered arm inside, the end opening up. Unfortunately, thanks to the partial shrouding, he wouldn't be able to spin his cannon, but all he needed was one shot inside it, and let it fly, ripping his arm out as it howled, smoke billowing from its new hole it tried rapidly to heal.
The tendrils it had tried to dig into his arm burned away as he kicked it up from below and began unloading both arms, fully unshrouded, the heat coming off both of them making steam hiss up into the air, as the beast took a heavy slug and then a plasma bolt, one after the other, deep into its stomach, sending it onto its back.
Loud popping sounds were heard as its limbs reoriented, allowing its former belly to become its back, the holes sealing slowly as it circled the walking cathedral, even as Caliburn scanned it, his upper body following its every movement. His command crew were breaking down every schematic and scan he gave them, working hard to figure out a way to kill the horror.
In the mean time, Caliburn and his crews would do their damndest to stall the beast and continue on their current plan. Burn it down, slowly.
He could feel his crews tracking the retreating demon forces, listening to the mental chatter within him as the artillery crews happily worked together to figure out their path, searching for the enemy command position, even as sensor crews watched as the rapidly approaching flood of biomass and machinery charged for them, some of the artillery crews already letting loose N-4 shells, the 'super-napalm', as the crews nicknamed them, impacting and exploding, burning into the biomass, unquenchable, even as the biomass attempted and failed to smother the burning substance, only serving to make it worse, melting the weaponry it carried with it.
The only reason why the crews could get away with it was because the biomass wasn't near the Bunkers exits or near infrastructure. Or Burnable items.
Command soon had a viable target, a sort of brain mass it had, separated throughout its body in a vain attempt to make sure it could still operate when a few of them were destroyed.
Several had been burned away by the plasma bolt going off inside of it, but many more remained, and it was attempting to make more/replace the burned away ones. They needed to eliminate the command signal….
Jubilation and grim satisfaction bloomed in his sensor and artillery crews, as he felt the mad scramble for bunker busting shells, before they were let loose into the air. Even as he blocked a tail strike from the beast and managed to crush its head under one foot, letting his landing engines ignite for the first time in decades to burn the creature more, his crews targeted the command bunker, shelling it with deadly accuracy, smoke rising from the hill they were tucked away behind in the distance, making Caliburn burn with satisfaction and praise for his crew.
/---------------------/
Gistle ran as fast as his hooves could move him, teeth barred as he snarled.
Around him, their command temple shook and shuddered, veins bursting, cables arcing wildly as the biomass contracted involuntarily or simply sagged, turning to biomass.
"Warlord, they are heavily shelling our position, we won't be able to retreat at this rate!" Hissed one of the Battle Chiefs at his side, hissing in fear, even as he snarled at the Pitiful, compared to him, creature. "We won't be taking everyone, only the essentials. The Everlasting King must be notified of this development. King be damned, the frails took the time to prepare for our arrival again." He growled as he came out to a hanger area, and ran into a small, fast ship, even as the others ran into larger, bulkier, slower ships.
Soon, the chitin that served as the door opened, and they shot out, erratically flying, trying to avoid the artillery shells, and now AA fire joining the fray.
He kept close to his compatriots, using them as a living shield as he twisted the small vessel around, smirking as he dodged the fire while they took it..
They were almost to space, soon, they could tear a Gate and get the fleet-
Reality tore open above him as a massive ring shaped vessel pushed itself into real space, disgorging hundreds of smaller vessels, bearing down on their positions, others engaging the floating fleet around them with aggressive assault runs, the sudden appearance in the system allowing them to have the element of surprise.
Weapons fire began filling the space around f them, tearing at their vessels faster then they could repair them as little, frail vessels zipped in and out of line of fire faster then they could shoot, track, or react, unloading slugs, plasma, torpedoes in a flurry of activity before diving away, allowing their munitions to wreak havoc amongst them.
Already, the larger vessels were disabled before Gistle managed to sacrifice one, smirking as it warped, it's biomass fueling the Gate, as he flew through, hoping he was in friendlier territories, unaware of a sensor torpedo flying in behind him.
/------------------------/
Down below, on the surface, Caliburn flung back his opponent again, arms blazing as he shelled it.
It was bigger then it had been, managing to absorb the biomass from the surviving landing ships and the remains of the command center they shelled out. It's armor was thicker, and was flinging out dozens, hundreds of calcium spikes, spitting its unknown energy weapons, only to splash off his shields, for the energy weapons, and his ar.or foe the calcium spikes, even as his weapons screeched.
The beast had holes all over its chitenous armor, from his shells punching in, or his artillery crews shelling the beast, his plasma following close behind as he sought to burn the creature out from the inside, going so far as to ram his plasma cannon inside and unload it, the rotating barrels helping tear it up from the inside as the heat sinks burned it.
Ships began dropping down from above, doing strafing runs, dropping smaller caliber explosives, distracting the beast as he tore another hole in it by spinning his upper body, one shrouded cannon arm striking the beast and ripping in, just as a gunship fired a Cleaner into it, just before it healed.
A burning flash of light, a horrific scream from the beast as it howled, body jerking as the explosive did its job…. Before it swung down, still alive, though just barely, it's armor shattering rather then buckling on the next strike from Caliburn, a facsimile of a uppercut, before the barrels let loose again, even as the plasma cannon dumped bolt after bolt into its lower body, searching for, burning the neural clusters as he found them.
The beast wrenched itself away from his grasp, snarling as it looked at him, the beast snarling as it tried to heal from the most recent injuries.
Caliburn felt his crew snarling back, his cannons swiveling around as they gave their response in munitions as he lumbered forward, the ground shaking from his steps and the escape ships erupting out of the ground around them, his rotary cannon screaming as it fired, the MAC on the other arm barking as he hit it again and again as it charged forward.
The beast no longer cared for its injuries, all it cared was to take the metal monster before it down, spitting acid out of it as it tried, and failed, to blind the machine, even as said machine swung its smoldering plasma cannon up and brought down the burning barrels down on its head, smashing it into the ground, pinning it there as it's crew continued shelling it out ruthlessly.
Caliburn refused to let the beast survive, he refused to let the thing get to the civilians. His crew snarled their agreement as the beast tore the pinned head off its body, even as it burned away to nothing, and tried to charge again, blindly, only to smash against the MAC arm and receive a pair of heavy slugs to the neck stump for its troubles, sending it somersaulting back, trying to reform its head.
It was much, much smaller now, now matching Caliburns size, due to all the biomass loss, it's head reforming as it snarled.
Caliburn seemed to roll his pauldrons and twitched his MAC, as if saying 'come at me'. The beast howled and charged forward, razor sharp tentacles erupting from its sides, whipping about wildly, only for turret crews to blast the tentacles off at the base, and for his artillery crews to shell it down from above, flattening it into the ground again with explosive shells.
Again, the beast began pulling itself out of the ground, only for another strafing run from aircraft , this time dropping standard napalm canisters onto the beast, making it howl as it healed around the canisters, and began burning from within.
It thrashed and writhed, tail and body whipping about, even as Caliburn kept firing, not letting up, shells puncturing the chitin bubble it was trying to form around the napalm to contain it, keeping it burning into the beasts body.
At last, the beast tried to fling itself at Caliburn, thinking that it could at least burn out the mechanical monster with it, only for Caliburn to swing and strike it, flinging it away again, the beasts body unable to get back up, and laid there, slowly burning away at last……………
2023.06.04 16:01 jamieloftusstan Realized my dad and sister are narcissists
I’m not sure if anyone will reply to this but I just wanted to get it out. I would appreciate confirmation that they do sound like narcs!
Growing up my sister (40) and I (42) were extremely close. It wasn’t until we had a falling out about ten years ago that I started to realize she’s the GC of my dad and has become a narc too. When we were kids we both had to be perfect. I wasn’t good at that so I chose to rebel and was constantly punished for it but I thought it was my fault for a long time. My sis did all the right things, so my parents have financially supported her basically her whole life. I got out when I turned 18 and struggled financially a lot over the years. My parents paid for her to go to a private college and she had a credit card they paid off on full every month until she was 27 or 28. She likes to shop at stores like Anthropologie and Whole Foods. My mom used to complain to me that my sister spent $500 at Whole Foods in one month when I was struggling to afford rent and food and they wouldn’t help me at all. She didn’t have a lot of expenses because her boyfriend at the time paid all the bills.
Through all that, I never blamed my sister just my parents. We were very close. We would talk on the phone for hours. I thought she was my best friend. We would fight, but I thought it was because siblings fight. Our first big falling out, I flew to her state to drive her 11 hours back to our parents’ house because she wanted a break from her boyfriend and had an injury that made it hard to drive. On the drive back, she criticized me nonstop. She would say, speed up! Slow down! Don’t change lanes so fast. We spent the night halfway and the next morning I went to get breakfast while she took a bath. We had a huge fight because even though I had confirmed 3x she wanted an egg McMuffin I didn’t read her mind and know she meant an egg biscuit when she said McMuffin. By the end of that trip we weren’t speaking and didn’t for a year.
I started to realize she always had to come first, before any of my partners. I thought that was normal/healthy for her to be number 1. If she was upset about something I would indulge her and be upset with my partner if they protested. I’d drop whatever I was doing to talk to her on the phone for 3 hours about whatever drama she was in. After another big falling out, we hadn’t talked in about 3 years but she reconciled with me when she got engaged. I see now it’s only because she wanted the whole family to be in her wedding photos. Her wedding was a nightmare. It was a destination wedding and she would order me to tell her fiancés family members things she didn’t want to like, go tell them they have to go outside if they’re going to be that loud. Her actual ceremony she kept everyone waiting like 45 min because she and her fiancé were doing shots with friends.
She quickly separated from her husband and it was of course all his fault. She accused him of trying to kill her but it was always sketchy. Like it was Mother’s Day and we were out for lunch with my mother and my sister called her screaming that he was trying to hit her with the car. Wouldn’t you call 911 not your mother across the country..? Then she came to live with my parents. She took over 2 bedrooms at my parents’ 3 bedroom house and yelled at them if they bothered her to ask things like would you like to eat dinner with us? She smashed their things when she was enraged. I’m honestly surprised she didn’t hit them. To get rid of her, my parents bought her a house in another state.
During that time, I saw what happened if I didn’t put her first and agree with everything she said. She told me the story of the other time her husband supposedly tried to kill her. They were having a big fight and she started having an asthma attack. He left the room to look for her inhaler and this was her interpretation, he was going to let me die. When I didn’t agree with her that he was trying to kill her, she suddenly stopped having anything to do with me. She wouldn’t acknowledge my presence, if I entered a room she would leave She wouldn’t respond to me if I spoke to her. We literally had a dinner in a restaurant with family where she wouldn’t acknowledge I existed. Of course it’s my fault the whole family can’t be together at the holidays not hers.
That’s the time period I realized my dad is a narc and he sees her an extension of him. Growing up he loved to brag about her accomplishments. She went to the expensive private college because he thought it was the most prestigious college in the area. He still tells people she went there and she’s 40. He made all her choices about what to do after college and grad school. My entire life, he’s never had one friend. My mom said she stopped inviting people over because he would just get up and leave the room without a word and it embarrassed her. His “friends” are important people he acts like he knows, like the surgeon who did a procedure on him but he acts like he knows well. He tells stories about congresspeople he met twice remembering him. When we moved to the house I grew up in, he liked it because it had been built by an orthodontist and he thought that would convey money and status. He thinks proximity to important people makes him seem important to others. He would be friendly and charming when we were around other people, like at church, but at home he just criticized my mom and kept to himself. He would tell my sister and I things like we were going to get a pool or go on an expensive vacation, things I realized later we couldn’t afford, and then blame my mom for us not doing them.
Anyway. If you read all of this, thank you! I really feel like they’re both narcs but I’d love feedback on that.
submitted by jamieloftusstan to raisedbynarcissists [link] [comments]
Growing up my sister (40) and I (42) were extremely close. It wasn’t until we had a falling out about ten years ago that I started to realize she’s the GC of my dad and has become a narc too. When we were kids we both had to be perfect. I wasn’t good at that so I chose to rebel and was constantly punished for it but I thought it was my fault for a long time. My sis did all the right things, so my parents have financially supported her basically her whole life. I got out when I turned 18 and struggled financially a lot over the years. My parents paid for her to go to a private college and she had a credit card they paid off on full every month until she was 27 or 28. She likes to shop at stores like Anthropologie and Whole Foods. My mom used to complain to me that my sister spent $500 at Whole Foods in one month when I was struggling to afford rent and food and they wouldn’t help me at all. She didn’t have a lot of expenses because her boyfriend at the time paid all the bills.
Through all that, I never blamed my sister just my parents. We were very close. We would talk on the phone for hours. I thought she was my best friend. We would fight, but I thought it was because siblings fight. Our first big falling out, I flew to her state to drive her 11 hours back to our parents’ house because she wanted a break from her boyfriend and had an injury that made it hard to drive. On the drive back, she criticized me nonstop. She would say, speed up! Slow down! Don’t change lanes so fast. We spent the night halfway and the next morning I went to get breakfast while she took a bath. We had a huge fight because even though I had confirmed 3x she wanted an egg McMuffin I didn’t read her mind and know she meant an egg biscuit when she said McMuffin. By the end of that trip we weren’t speaking and didn’t for a year.
I started to realize she always had to come first, before any of my partners. I thought that was normal/healthy for her to be number 1. If she was upset about something I would indulge her and be upset with my partner if they protested. I’d drop whatever I was doing to talk to her on the phone for 3 hours about whatever drama she was in. After another big falling out, we hadn’t talked in about 3 years but she reconciled with me when she got engaged. I see now it’s only because she wanted the whole family to be in her wedding photos. Her wedding was a nightmare. It was a destination wedding and she would order me to tell her fiancés family members things she didn’t want to like, go tell them they have to go outside if they’re going to be that loud. Her actual ceremony she kept everyone waiting like 45 min because she and her fiancé were doing shots with friends.
She quickly separated from her husband and it was of course all his fault. She accused him of trying to kill her but it was always sketchy. Like it was Mother’s Day and we were out for lunch with my mother and my sister called her screaming that he was trying to hit her with the car. Wouldn’t you call 911 not your mother across the country..? Then she came to live with my parents. She took over 2 bedrooms at my parents’ 3 bedroom house and yelled at them if they bothered her to ask things like would you like to eat dinner with us? She smashed their things when she was enraged. I’m honestly surprised she didn’t hit them. To get rid of her, my parents bought her a house in another state.
During that time, I saw what happened if I didn’t put her first and agree with everything she said. She told me the story of the other time her husband supposedly tried to kill her. They were having a big fight and she started having an asthma attack. He left the room to look for her inhaler and this was her interpretation, he was going to let me die. When I didn’t agree with her that he was trying to kill her, she suddenly stopped having anything to do with me. She wouldn’t acknowledge my presence, if I entered a room she would leave She wouldn’t respond to me if I spoke to her. We literally had a dinner in a restaurant with family where she wouldn’t acknowledge I existed. Of course it’s my fault the whole family can’t be together at the holidays not hers.
That’s the time period I realized my dad is a narc and he sees her an extension of him. Growing up he loved to brag about her accomplishments. She went to the expensive private college because he thought it was the most prestigious college in the area. He still tells people she went there and she’s 40. He made all her choices about what to do after college and grad school. My entire life, he’s never had one friend. My mom said she stopped inviting people over because he would just get up and leave the room without a word and it embarrassed her. His “friends” are important people he acts like he knows, like the surgeon who did a procedure on him but he acts like he knows well. He tells stories about congresspeople he met twice remembering him. When we moved to the house I grew up in, he liked it because it had been built by an orthodontist and he thought that would convey money and status. He thinks proximity to important people makes him seem important to others. He would be friendly and charming when we were around other people, like at church, but at home he just criticized my mom and kept to himself. He would tell my sister and I things like we were going to get a pool or go on an expensive vacation, things I realized later we couldn’t afford, and then blame my mom for us not doing them.
Anyway. If you read all of this, thank you! I really feel like they’re both narcs but I’d love feedback on that.
2023.06.04 15:56 Questions314 The Dream pt2
pt2
Over the next few nights Kay would stay up late looking at guys on hook ups sites. Sometimes she would guide my head down between her legs. I would pull her panties to the side and eat her out until she couldn’t take it anymore and squeeze my head with her legs as she orgasmed.
About a week later she says, “I found him!”
“Oh wow! Can I see?”
“Umm.. I think it would be better if it was a surprise don’t you?”
“Well i am not really sure about that. I think I should have some idea of what we are getting ourselves into.”
“Honey, this has been you fantasy for a while now. Let me do this for you. You trust me right?”
“Yes I do” just as I said it she came over and gave me a kiss on the head.
For the next few nights we had the most amazing sex as we talked about what our threesome would be like. I couldn’t believe I was going to live out this fantasy for real.
——
They started chatting, just a little bit at first but after a while it turned into all the time. Kay would stay up late into the night with the blue glow of the phone lighting up her face. She got so addicted to her phone that sometimes I would find her with mine when hers died. Couldn’t stand being without one.
“He wants some pictures of me” she told me on evening as we were getting ready for bed.
“Ok. I have that nice one of you from the park the other day we could send”
She stating laughing, “no sweetie. He wants to see a bit more than that. Here take my phone and I’ll strip down a bit”
She then headed to the corner of the room and stripped down to bar and panties. Never thought I would be taking picture of my wife in her underwear to send to another guy. “You sure this is a good idea?” I asked
“Yeah. I it will be fine.” She said as she started to strike a sexy pose. “You know at first I couldn’t get behind this threesome idea of yours. But now it’s really turning me on”
Nice, I thought, getting some sex tonight. But once I gave the phone back her attention was right back to messaging the photos of her to the mystery man. “He wants one without the bra”
“Ok well that’s too much, he can wait until we have our night for that.” I said rather sternly.
“Don’t be silly” she didn’t even notice my tone. “Come over here and take it off for me. I have a good angle for a selfie.”
Before I knew it I was over there taking off her bra and she started taking pictures and then her attention was right back to her conversation with him. “Thanks honey” she said as she walked away not even looking at me. As she rounded the corner I swore I heard her giggling. And there I was alone in the bedroom noticing I was hard as a rock. I wondering is it because she is waking around in her underwear or because she is ignoring me?
—
“Holy shit!” is all I hear as I am startled awake in the middle of the night. As I lift my head up a phone is thrusted in my face.
“That is the largest cock I have ever seen” Kay says.
“Huh?” I say rubbing my eyes awake.
“I’m not sure I can handle that. Not when I am used to yours.” She reaches down my pants and starts playing with my dick. “What do you think honey?” I start to get hard as she strokes me “Do you think I can take it?”
“Umm” god this is sexy. Can’t believe we are actually talking about this. “Yeah sweetie” the stroking is getting faster “ I think we will have a good time with the threesome” I say. “I know I will” Kay says staring at the picture.
We start making out heavily and soon our clothes are off. She has me lie down on the bed with my dock pointing to the air. She grabs the picture of his cock on her phone and places next to mine. “Wow” she says. “Didn’t know they could be that different. Did you?”
Too embarrassed to answer and feeling self conscious about my size I just take the opportunity to start going down her. Something I know I am good at. But after a few minutes she wants me inside her. So I climb on top and slide my dick in and start pumping. “Grab a condom first” she says. “Don’t want any surprises”
I jump off run across the room grab a condom and by the time I get back she has rolled over on her stomach and is staring at the picture again. I don’t waste any time though. I hop back on and take her from behind. But as I pump my dick in and out of her as she is staring at another cock is more than I can take and I cum with seconds.
“You done already?!” She says with a bit on disappointment in her tone.
“Sorry,not sure what I got over me. But let me go down on you.”
“No. It fine” she sighs and rolls over and starts chatting on her phone.
The next morning I woke up and she was already out of bed. I found her down stairs not on her phone and I could tell right away she was in a grumpy mood.
“Sorry about last night” I said “it was my fault.”
“Yeah. It’s was. You know I barely felt you after you grabbed the condom last night. It’s just seeing what I have been missing….”
“Wow that stung”
“Come on are you going to sit there and say the two cocks compare to each other. You know I have never asked what’s your measurement anyway?”
“I don’t know”‘I lied.
“Don’t do that. I know you have measured it.”
“It’s four inches, what is his?”
“He has told me it’s 9.5…..You know I am just a little pissed and I need some space. I don’t need you messing this up for me?”
“What does that mean?”
But she had already walked away.
She spent the next few days really angry and I tried my best to fix the situation. Doing all the cooking and cleaning. Keeping up with the laundry. After a while of the silent treatment I think it started working. She started to open back up a bit.
“Are you ok?” I asked.
“You know there is something we need to talk about…”
Ping!
Her phone light up. “But it’s going to have to wait. Sorry” And she got up and walked away.
But her mood did improve after that even though she was always on the phone. She was on it so much that I started to think it was a problem. We could even make it through a meal without going off and taking her attention.
“You have been talking to him for a while now. Don’t you think it’s a bit much?”
“Just trying to get all the details in line.”
“You know maybe this isn’t the best idea anymore”
“No way. Don’t you dare say that. This was your idea. And now that I know what I am missing. There is no going back on this” she said in an angrier tone than I was expecting.
“Well can you at least fill me in on the details of when our threesome is happening?”
“I am not so sure that threesome is the right word anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well after talking to him and seeing what he is bringing I think I am going to need most of the time.”
“Aaaa…”
“You’ll still be there if course.”
“And what you just want me to stand there?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that it looks like he will be able to give me something you can’t “
“Hey”
“Now come on. You saw it.”
“Yeah”
“ and you want me to be happy right”
“Right”
“So this is what I want”
“Ok”
“Great! He is coming over tomorrow”
…
submitted by Questions314 to cuck_femdom_tales [link] [comments]
Over the next few nights Kay would stay up late looking at guys on hook ups sites. Sometimes she would guide my head down between her legs. I would pull her panties to the side and eat her out until she couldn’t take it anymore and squeeze my head with her legs as she orgasmed.
About a week later she says, “I found him!”
“Oh wow! Can I see?”
“Umm.. I think it would be better if it was a surprise don’t you?”
“Well i am not really sure about that. I think I should have some idea of what we are getting ourselves into.”
“Honey, this has been you fantasy for a while now. Let me do this for you. You trust me right?”
“Yes I do” just as I said it she came over and gave me a kiss on the head.
For the next few nights we had the most amazing sex as we talked about what our threesome would be like. I couldn’t believe I was going to live out this fantasy for real.
——
They started chatting, just a little bit at first but after a while it turned into all the time. Kay would stay up late into the night with the blue glow of the phone lighting up her face. She got so addicted to her phone that sometimes I would find her with mine when hers died. Couldn’t stand being without one.
“He wants some pictures of me” she told me on evening as we were getting ready for bed.
“Ok. I have that nice one of you from the park the other day we could send”
She stating laughing, “no sweetie. He wants to see a bit more than that. Here take my phone and I’ll strip down a bit”
She then headed to the corner of the room and stripped down to bar and panties. Never thought I would be taking picture of my wife in her underwear to send to another guy. “You sure this is a good idea?” I asked
“Yeah. I it will be fine.” She said as she started to strike a sexy pose. “You know at first I couldn’t get behind this threesome idea of yours. But now it’s really turning me on”
Nice, I thought, getting some sex tonight. But once I gave the phone back her attention was right back to messaging the photos of her to the mystery man. “He wants one without the bra”
“Ok well that’s too much, he can wait until we have our night for that.” I said rather sternly.
“Don’t be silly” she didn’t even notice my tone. “Come over here and take it off for me. I have a good angle for a selfie.”
Before I knew it I was over there taking off her bra and she started taking pictures and then her attention was right back to her conversation with him. “Thanks honey” she said as she walked away not even looking at me. As she rounded the corner I swore I heard her giggling. And there I was alone in the bedroom noticing I was hard as a rock. I wondering is it because she is waking around in her underwear or because she is ignoring me?
—
“Holy shit!” is all I hear as I am startled awake in the middle of the night. As I lift my head up a phone is thrusted in my face.
“That is the largest cock I have ever seen” Kay says.
“Huh?” I say rubbing my eyes awake.
“I’m not sure I can handle that. Not when I am used to yours.” She reaches down my pants and starts playing with my dick. “What do you think honey?” I start to get hard as she strokes me “Do you think I can take it?”
“Umm” god this is sexy. Can’t believe we are actually talking about this. “Yeah sweetie” the stroking is getting faster “ I think we will have a good time with the threesome” I say. “I know I will” Kay says staring at the picture.
We start making out heavily and soon our clothes are off. She has me lie down on the bed with my dock pointing to the air. She grabs the picture of his cock on her phone and places next to mine. “Wow” she says. “Didn’t know they could be that different. Did you?”
Too embarrassed to answer and feeling self conscious about my size I just take the opportunity to start going down her. Something I know I am good at. But after a few minutes she wants me inside her. So I climb on top and slide my dick in and start pumping. “Grab a condom first” she says. “Don’t want any surprises”
I jump off run across the room grab a condom and by the time I get back she has rolled over on her stomach and is staring at the picture again. I don’t waste any time though. I hop back on and take her from behind. But as I pump my dick in and out of her as she is staring at another cock is more than I can take and I cum with seconds.
“You done already?!” She says with a bit on disappointment in her tone.
“Sorry,not sure what I got over me. But let me go down on you.”
“No. It fine” she sighs and rolls over and starts chatting on her phone.
The next morning I woke up and she was already out of bed. I found her down stairs not on her phone and I could tell right away she was in a grumpy mood.
“Sorry about last night” I said “it was my fault.”
“Yeah. It’s was. You know I barely felt you after you grabbed the condom last night. It’s just seeing what I have been missing….”
“Wow that stung”
“Come on are you going to sit there and say the two cocks compare to each other. You know I have never asked what’s your measurement anyway?”
“I don’t know”‘I lied.
“Don’t do that. I know you have measured it.”
“It’s four inches, what is his?”
“He has told me it’s 9.5…..You know I am just a little pissed and I need some space. I don’t need you messing this up for me?”
“What does that mean?”
But she had already walked away.
She spent the next few days really angry and I tried my best to fix the situation. Doing all the cooking and cleaning. Keeping up with the laundry. After a while of the silent treatment I think it started working. She started to open back up a bit.
“Are you ok?” I asked.
“You know there is something we need to talk about…”
Ping!
Her phone light up. “But it’s going to have to wait. Sorry” And she got up and walked away.
But her mood did improve after that even though she was always on the phone. She was on it so much that I started to think it was a problem. We could even make it through a meal without going off and taking her attention.
“You have been talking to him for a while now. Don’t you think it’s a bit much?”
“Just trying to get all the details in line.”
“You know maybe this isn’t the best idea anymore”
“No way. Don’t you dare say that. This was your idea. And now that I know what I am missing. There is no going back on this” she said in an angrier tone than I was expecting.
“Well can you at least fill me in on the details of when our threesome is happening?”
“I am not so sure that threesome is the right word anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well after talking to him and seeing what he is bringing I think I am going to need most of the time.”
“Aaaa…”
“You’ll still be there if course.”
“And what you just want me to stand there?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that it looks like he will be able to give me something you can’t “
“Hey”
“Now come on. You saw it.”
“Yeah”
“ and you want me to be happy right”
“Right”
“So this is what I want”
“Ok”
“Great! He is coming over tomorrow”
…
2023.06.04 15:53 Blurbmurb I let my sister adopt my 5yo, and it’s the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.
TW: talks of unaliving.
I am trying to not make this TOO long, and it is going to be kind of long, but here’s some background: my kid’s dad ghosted us when she was about 2yrs old. I spent the next 3 years struggling to raise her on my own. I had little to no support from my family unless I was paying them for babysitting, and BD’s mom wasn’t (mentally/physically) capable of helping me. I didn’t have any friends to lean on, probably mostly because I was afraid to ask. I struggled to afford childcare, groceries, rent, etc.
Well her 5th birthday came around at the end of 2020, and it was the first time I was able to throw her a proper birthday party myself. At the time we were living with my (terrible) parents and my younger brother because we had nowhere else to go. My dad was the only one who helped me decorate, and he barely hung up two streamers before he gave up and left the room.
I never felt as alone as I did that day, and I started panicking and thinking about how the rest of my daughter’s life was going to be. I felt like a failure and I absolutely PLUMMETED into suicidal ideations. I was scared of what I was thinking about and I was terrified that I would snap and end up on the news. IYKWIM.
After the party was over, my sister wanted me to bring my kid over for a sleepover at her house with my niece (she was no contact with our parents so they didn’t come to the party), so I dropped her off and was planning to pick her up after the weekend. But after 2 days, the panicking got worse and the thoughts started to feel like I was ready to act on them. I was communicating my feelings to my sister the whole time because she had already been in therapy for a long time so I felt like I could trust her with it. She begged me to check myself in to a psychiatric hospital, and she said she wasn’t going to let me take my kid home unless I agreed to go because she said she was worried about what would happen. And I could have her back after I got help. But in the moment, I choked. I was so afraid that if I did check in, I would lose my daughter forever. I know I wasn’t in my right mind, and I wasn’t thinking through any of my decisions. If I could go back in time, I would do it. But instead of going to the hospital, I went home and packed up all my things, got on the freeway and just kept driving.
So after a couple of weeks of me leaving, me and my sister were still talking and I obviously wasn’t getting any better because all I did was run away which made things worse. Sister brought up wanting to enroll Audrey in school for next year, and taking her to doctors and things, and she said she wouldn’t be able to do any of that unless she fully adopted my kid. …. The worst part of all of this is that I didn’t do any of my own research. I let her talk me into terminating my rights and signing the adoption agreement. She told me that as long as I was making an effort to “get help” then I could talk to my kid on the phone.
I started therapy. A month goes by, I’m feeling better, but she only let me talk to my kid one time. The adoption took another couple of months after this to finalize. And once it did, sister made another rule that I couldn’t face time/call my kid unless I would also be writing her letters in the mail, and we could only talk every other Thursday. I feel like it’s important to mention that she told me she was worried about losing the bond she had with my kid, and sister told my kid to start calling her mom. And when my kid would have a second where she was alone, she would whisper into the phone that she wanted to come home with me and she would start crying.
We were doing the phone calls every other Thursday … until March. Me and my sister got into a huge fight because of a miscommunication and she cut me off from contacting my kid at all. Blocked me on all social media. Blocked my number. I was devastated and confused.
I haven’t been able to talk to my daughter since then. I tried filling a petition for visitation by myself a couple of months after this happened, but I messed it up. So I thought I would try to just talk to my sister about it because I wanted to see my kid. Don’t know when it happened, but I sent her a message and it finally went thru which obviously meant she unblocked me and she didn’t tell me. I asked about it and she said “yeah I unblocked you”. As if I was supposed to just know she had unblocked me?? But I apologized and started asking about seeing my kid in person. By this time, I had been on medication for several months, I was taking care of myself, I was doing okay. She basically said that I would have to start the whole communication process over again with just writing letters. Then work up to calls then I could see her in person. So I confessed to her (before I realized I messed it up) that I actually already filed the petition in court, but I was trying to see if we could figure it out together without having to do all that.
She got really pissed and said that because I didn’t set an official contact order when the adoption was happening, then I had no right to anything. But this was the first time any kind of contact order anything was ever mentioned to me. MONTHS after everything happened.
It’s been two years since I’ve talked to my daughter. I am still on medication, working, and also in school. I am planning to hire a lawyer after I’m done with school because I’ll have a well paying job, and I would finally be able to afford a great lawyer. In my state, it’s possible to have an adoption reversed if the birth parent can prove that basically they didn’t know what they were doing when this all happened. Has anyone ever done this before? And were you successful?
TLDR; I (29f) let my sister (31f) adopt my daughter 3 years ago when she was 5, and it was the worst mistake of my entire life. I want to hire a lawyer to reverse the adoption, and I’m seeking any advice about what to expect. I also want to know if anyone has ever been successful in doing this?
submitted by Blurbmurb to Adoption [link] [comments]
I am trying to not make this TOO long, and it is going to be kind of long, but here’s some background: my kid’s dad ghosted us when she was about 2yrs old. I spent the next 3 years struggling to raise her on my own. I had little to no support from my family unless I was paying them for babysitting, and BD’s mom wasn’t (mentally/physically) capable of helping me. I didn’t have any friends to lean on, probably mostly because I was afraid to ask. I struggled to afford childcare, groceries, rent, etc.
Well her 5th birthday came around at the end of 2020, and it was the first time I was able to throw her a proper birthday party myself. At the time we were living with my (terrible) parents and my younger brother because we had nowhere else to go. My dad was the only one who helped me decorate, and he barely hung up two streamers before he gave up and left the room.
I never felt as alone as I did that day, and I started panicking and thinking about how the rest of my daughter’s life was going to be. I felt like a failure and I absolutely PLUMMETED into suicidal ideations. I was scared of what I was thinking about and I was terrified that I would snap and end up on the news. IYKWIM.
After the party was over, my sister wanted me to bring my kid over for a sleepover at her house with my niece (she was no contact with our parents so they didn’t come to the party), so I dropped her off and was planning to pick her up after the weekend. But after 2 days, the panicking got worse and the thoughts started to feel like I was ready to act on them. I was communicating my feelings to my sister the whole time because she had already been in therapy for a long time so I felt like I could trust her with it. She begged me to check myself in to a psychiatric hospital, and she said she wasn’t going to let me take my kid home unless I agreed to go because she said she was worried about what would happen. And I could have her back after I got help. But in the moment, I choked. I was so afraid that if I did check in, I would lose my daughter forever. I know I wasn’t in my right mind, and I wasn’t thinking through any of my decisions. If I could go back in time, I would do it. But instead of going to the hospital, I went home and packed up all my things, got on the freeway and just kept driving.
So after a couple of weeks of me leaving, me and my sister were still talking and I obviously wasn’t getting any better because all I did was run away which made things worse. Sister brought up wanting to enroll Audrey in school for next year, and taking her to doctors and things, and she said she wouldn’t be able to do any of that unless she fully adopted my kid. …. The worst part of all of this is that I didn’t do any of my own research. I let her talk me into terminating my rights and signing the adoption agreement. She told me that as long as I was making an effort to “get help” then I could talk to my kid on the phone.
I started therapy. A month goes by, I’m feeling better, but she only let me talk to my kid one time. The adoption took another couple of months after this to finalize. And once it did, sister made another rule that I couldn’t face time/call my kid unless I would also be writing her letters in the mail, and we could only talk every other Thursday. I feel like it’s important to mention that she told me she was worried about losing the bond she had with my kid, and sister told my kid to start calling her mom. And when my kid would have a second where she was alone, she would whisper into the phone that she wanted to come home with me and she would start crying.
We were doing the phone calls every other Thursday … until March. Me and my sister got into a huge fight because of a miscommunication and she cut me off from contacting my kid at all. Blocked me on all social media. Blocked my number. I was devastated and confused.
I haven’t been able to talk to my daughter since then. I tried filling a petition for visitation by myself a couple of months after this happened, but I messed it up. So I thought I would try to just talk to my sister about it because I wanted to see my kid. Don’t know when it happened, but I sent her a message and it finally went thru which obviously meant she unblocked me and she didn’t tell me. I asked about it and she said “yeah I unblocked you”. As if I was supposed to just know she had unblocked me?? But I apologized and started asking about seeing my kid in person. By this time, I had been on medication for several months, I was taking care of myself, I was doing okay. She basically said that I would have to start the whole communication process over again with just writing letters. Then work up to calls then I could see her in person. So I confessed to her (before I realized I messed it up) that I actually already filed the petition in court, but I was trying to see if we could figure it out together without having to do all that.
She got really pissed and said that because I didn’t set an official contact order when the adoption was happening, then I had no right to anything. But this was the first time any kind of contact order anything was ever mentioned to me. MONTHS after everything happened.
It’s been two years since I’ve talked to my daughter. I am still on medication, working, and also in school. I am planning to hire a lawyer after I’m done with school because I’ll have a well paying job, and I would finally be able to afford a great lawyer. In my state, it’s possible to have an adoption reversed if the birth parent can prove that basically they didn’t know what they were doing when this all happened. Has anyone ever done this before? And were you successful?
TLDR; I (29f) let my sister (31f) adopt my daughter 3 years ago when she was 5, and it was the worst mistake of my entire life. I want to hire a lawyer to reverse the adoption, and I’m seeking any advice about what to expect. I also want to know if anyone has ever been successful in doing this?
2023.06.04 15:42 Shadowgirl7 I decided I am going to fuck these pricks
All my life I was raised by people who avoid their responsabilities.
Two weeks ago, my beautiful baby dog died abruptly she was only 7. I usually go away one week per month to another city for work (and to maintain mental stability) and leave my dogs with my parents. I know they do not abuse my dogs, I leave them food, they feed them, they sleep inside, enough for one week, I try never to stay away too long. The only reason I am here is because here my dogs have space. In the city I could afford a place for me, but naturally not a house, probably a 1 bedroom and my dogs are not used to that. My dog was sick one week before but by tuesday she seemed to be recovered. Since she was young I thought it was an acute episode and she was recovered, so I went friday evening.
Saturday evening my mother called me saying she had being vomiting. Apparently my mother left after lunch and she was fine but when she came back she saw she was vomiting and called me. From the schedule, I think she first came home, cooked and calmy ate dinner, while my puppy was there suffering, but first things first! The most important is to calmy eat dinner, fuck the dying dog.
Then I asked them to take them to the hospital. I wanted her to stay overnight and would come back next day. My father did not want to because she would leave fur in his car and possibly vomit and also he wanted to rest and maybe he'd have to wait too long in the vet. Eventually they went after being on the phone for 40 minutes teaching them how to put the leash (my father knew he was procrastinating hoping he did not have to go).
During the afternoon, my father and brother were home. They probably saw my dog ill but they didn't bother to call me. If they had called me I would have booked a ticket and come home immediately. They would take her to the vet and when I was home I would be there on time to see her. Even if she died - which maybe she wouldn't because she had gone earlier - I would be there. Instead she agonized an entire afternoon and then died alone in the vet and I did not have the chance to say goodbye.
While crying on the phone with my mother, she said "but you knew she was not well, why did you go?". But then in the same call I asked her "why didn't you call me earlier if you saw she was unwell?" to what she replied yelling "she was well friday evening in satudary in the morning" (she was well but I should know she was unwell? the fuck?). This is because my mother always tries to make me feel guilty for doing anything I like: vacation, going out, she always tries to put me down. Then in another call I was making more questions about that day and crying and she jokingly said "I will make you a drawing when you come back home". And also said "if you're coming here cause problems, you might as well stay there" (I did not come home right after she died I stayed in the city for a while and handled the cremation procedures by phone).
I know it's my fault as well. I will have to live with the fact that I left, that maybe I should have seen the signs, that I was not the best pet owner, I did not have the best housing situation to have pets and I did not deserver her. I know all of that. I never had problems assuming my responsabilities and guilt.
But not my parents, specially my father and brother. They are little saints who are never guilty or responsible of anything. My mother too, but at least she eventually called.
The house where they live was built by my grandparents. They were illiterate and went abroad to a country they hated to get money, stayed there for 20 years, made sacrifices and then came back and built this house. When my father got my mother pregnant of me "by accident" (poor saint is never responsible for anything it's always an accident) they let them live here rent free. They did not pay any bills. They had free childcare (my grandmother took care of me). My grandmother cooked for everyone, my mother could get home and had everything prepared. My grandfather even opened a business so my father would have a job at home!
Then my grandmother died, my grandfather was heatbroken. He still paid everything in the house but my mother wanted to charge him money to cook for him. The business went bankrupt and my father was jobless for like 12 years. He was always bothering my grandfather to give him money. The last time I saw my grandfather in the hospital I went with my father and the last thing he said was "it's ok, the retirement check for this month already came". He was sad when my grandfather died obviously, because now he would not have anyone to care for him.
My grandfather was sick for a while but my mother did not care for him. She instead started caring for one of old neighboors because her daughters were abroad. She did not visit him in the hospital. My grandfather even pressed charges against my mother to a social worker (did not went ahead because then he died).
They never did anything in life, no sacrifices, everything handed to them, and they were never grateful. Then my grandfather died and they inherit this house they never worked for.
They can't even care for the house properly. Parts of the house are degrading because they don't clean it. They don't invest in it. They have a part they're renting to someone for an extremely low rent value because they like the guy. They could charge more and with the money do some work. nop. They put my brother's girlfriend, her mother, her two cats and the dog here, rent free. The cats had to be closed in the room all day because my dogs did not get along, but when I was not here, they made my dog sleep in an outside place we have and let the cats free, the cats ruined some of the couch and wall paper. It's fine I love cats, but it's amazing how for 30 years I lived here, my grandfather for longer (and he owned the place) and that couch was never ruined. These people come and in a matter of months ruin the couch.
Whatever. My father already said the house is going for my brother (he can't do that, by law I am always entitled to some part, but he is too stupid to know that). Once he was sick and my brother was sleeping in the same floor as him, but instead of calling my brother he phoned me. Then I called an ambulance and went to wake up my brother but my father was like "no don't wake him up, he has to wake up early" (I had to work next day but who cares).
My brother has a girlfriend and he already manifested the will of then coming live with her here, potentially eventually have their kids, stay here, rent free. I think when he brought her and her mother here he hoped eventually I would just disappear with my dogs and the mother could stay in my room and he and his girlfriend in the other and everyone would be happy.
Well, too bad. I am planning on laywering up to understand the things I have to do to assure than when they pass away I inherit my part. I do not intend to make it easy for my brother. I always worked hard and I am in a good position now in my life despite all the abuse and despite the fact they never helped me, so fuck him, he can do the same. Every centimer I am entitled to by law, I will fucking get it. And I am also planning to do a will to make sure most my money does not go for any of them if I die before.
My life may not have a lot of meaning now that my baby passed away (still have another dog, so some meaning), but I will fuck these pricks and make them pay, even if that's my only purpose. Every hour of that afternoon they let my dog in agony, they will pay for it 1000x more.
submitted by Shadowgirl7 to raisedbynarcissists [link] [comments]
Two weeks ago, my beautiful baby dog died abruptly she was only 7. I usually go away one week per month to another city for work (and to maintain mental stability) and leave my dogs with my parents. I know they do not abuse my dogs, I leave them food, they feed them, they sleep inside, enough for one week, I try never to stay away too long. The only reason I am here is because here my dogs have space. In the city I could afford a place for me, but naturally not a house, probably a 1 bedroom and my dogs are not used to that. My dog was sick one week before but by tuesday she seemed to be recovered. Since she was young I thought it was an acute episode and she was recovered, so I went friday evening.
Saturday evening my mother called me saying she had being vomiting. Apparently my mother left after lunch and she was fine but when she came back she saw she was vomiting and called me. From the schedule, I think she first came home, cooked and calmy ate dinner, while my puppy was there suffering, but first things first! The most important is to calmy eat dinner, fuck the dying dog.
Then I asked them to take them to the hospital. I wanted her to stay overnight and would come back next day. My father did not want to because she would leave fur in his car and possibly vomit and also he wanted to rest and maybe he'd have to wait too long in the vet. Eventually they went after being on the phone for 40 minutes teaching them how to put the leash (my father knew he was procrastinating hoping he did not have to go).
During the afternoon, my father and brother were home. They probably saw my dog ill but they didn't bother to call me. If they had called me I would have booked a ticket and come home immediately. They would take her to the vet and when I was home I would be there on time to see her. Even if she died - which maybe she wouldn't because she had gone earlier - I would be there. Instead she agonized an entire afternoon and then died alone in the vet and I did not have the chance to say goodbye.
While crying on the phone with my mother, she said "but you knew she was not well, why did you go?". But then in the same call I asked her "why didn't you call me earlier if you saw she was unwell?" to what she replied yelling "she was well friday evening in satudary in the morning" (she was well but I should know she was unwell? the fuck?). This is because my mother always tries to make me feel guilty for doing anything I like: vacation, going out, she always tries to put me down. Then in another call I was making more questions about that day and crying and she jokingly said "I will make you a drawing when you come back home". And also said "if you're coming here cause problems, you might as well stay there" (I did not come home right after she died I stayed in the city for a while and handled the cremation procedures by phone).
I know it's my fault as well. I will have to live with the fact that I left, that maybe I should have seen the signs, that I was not the best pet owner, I did not have the best housing situation to have pets and I did not deserver her. I know all of that. I never had problems assuming my responsabilities and guilt.
But not my parents, specially my father and brother. They are little saints who are never guilty or responsible of anything. My mother too, but at least she eventually called.
The house where they live was built by my grandparents. They were illiterate and went abroad to a country they hated to get money, stayed there for 20 years, made sacrifices and then came back and built this house. When my father got my mother pregnant of me "by accident" (poor saint is never responsible for anything it's always an accident) they let them live here rent free. They did not pay any bills. They had free childcare (my grandmother took care of me). My grandmother cooked for everyone, my mother could get home and had everything prepared. My grandfather even opened a business so my father would have a job at home!
Then my grandmother died, my grandfather was heatbroken. He still paid everything in the house but my mother wanted to charge him money to cook for him. The business went bankrupt and my father was jobless for like 12 years. He was always bothering my grandfather to give him money. The last time I saw my grandfather in the hospital I went with my father and the last thing he said was "it's ok, the retirement check for this month already came". He was sad when my grandfather died obviously, because now he would not have anyone to care for him.
My grandfather was sick for a while but my mother did not care for him. She instead started caring for one of old neighboors because her daughters were abroad. She did not visit him in the hospital. My grandfather even pressed charges against my mother to a social worker (did not went ahead because then he died).
They never did anything in life, no sacrifices, everything handed to them, and they were never grateful. Then my grandfather died and they inherit this house they never worked for.
They can't even care for the house properly. Parts of the house are degrading because they don't clean it. They don't invest in it. They have a part they're renting to someone for an extremely low rent value because they like the guy. They could charge more and with the money do some work. nop. They put my brother's girlfriend, her mother, her two cats and the dog here, rent free. The cats had to be closed in the room all day because my dogs did not get along, but when I was not here, they made my dog sleep in an outside place we have and let the cats free, the cats ruined some of the couch and wall paper. It's fine I love cats, but it's amazing how for 30 years I lived here, my grandfather for longer (and he owned the place) and that couch was never ruined. These people come and in a matter of months ruin the couch.
Whatever. My father already said the house is going for my brother (he can't do that, by law I am always entitled to some part, but he is too stupid to know that). Once he was sick and my brother was sleeping in the same floor as him, but instead of calling my brother he phoned me. Then I called an ambulance and went to wake up my brother but my father was like "no don't wake him up, he has to wake up early" (I had to work next day but who cares).
My brother has a girlfriend and he already manifested the will of then coming live with her here, potentially eventually have their kids, stay here, rent free. I think when he brought her and her mother here he hoped eventually I would just disappear with my dogs and the mother could stay in my room and he and his girlfriend in the other and everyone would be happy.
Well, too bad. I am planning on laywering up to understand the things I have to do to assure than when they pass away I inherit my part. I do not intend to make it easy for my brother. I always worked hard and I am in a good position now in my life despite all the abuse and despite the fact they never helped me, so fuck him, he can do the same. Every centimer I am entitled to by law, I will fucking get it. And I am also planning to do a will to make sure most my money does not go for any of them if I die before.
My life may not have a lot of meaning now that my baby passed away (still have another dog, so some meaning), but I will fuck these pricks and make them pay, even if that's my only purpose. Every hour of that afternoon they let my dog in agony, they will pay for it 1000x more.
2023.06.04 15:38 Empereur_de_autisme Ballad Of The Dissident - Chapter 18
Thanks to u/BlueFishcakes for the SSB universe.
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Chapter 18 - When It Rains It Pours
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- 18th of April 2024,13:10, Salem district, Sweden -
Adam finally, in the midst of what had now become a proper rainstorm, reached the outside of Vitsand. Only ten or fifteen minutes ago when Adam had driven past what he believed to be his little brother hand in hand with a shil’ it had just begun raining.
But now it had become a lot more aggressive, fairly quickly at that too, which was lucky for François that it only happened now when Adam was almost at his destination. Thinking of which, he took a right instead of going forward which would have taken him into Vitsand itself. François said he was at the beach nearby, well it was barely a beach considering how tiny it was. The beach could at most hold three families at once especially since there were really only space for three cars on the dirt parking lot there, but. Thanks to how secluded it was, whenever the family had gone there during the summer it was almost always empty and no one besides Adam's family and a couple of the locals even knew it existed.
And Adam now took the last turn he’d need to take before reaching his destination. that being onto a dirt road which went through a small patch of forest until it reached lake Mälaren and the unnamed beach François was currently waiting for Adam at.
Going slowly on the tight dirt road it didn’t take long for Adam to reach the beach and while he stopped just before the beach, on the tiny dirt parking spac, Adam could see something a little peculiar. Something that confirmed a theory he had rolling around in his brain whilst he was driving here.
And that something was a boat, a small fishing boat if Adam had to guess. That had simply been lodged into the beach, now stuck. Which had pretty much confirmed his idea that he had in fact gotten to the beach by boat. And seeing as François didn’t own a boat last time Adam heard anything, much less actually even lived in the area. It was likely stolen, now why François would steal a boat was a mystery, one Adam hoped the man himself could clear up.
Adam turned off the car, and dug out his phone out of his pocket. And just as he was about to call his older brother, there was a knock on the window. While it startled Adam a little he quickly glanced to his right where the knocking sound was emanating from and lo and behold, it was in fact his older brother, François.
After spotting him François quickly opened the red car door and sat himself in the Saab, reasonably so because the weather was fucking ridiculous. “Took you long enough” François said with a sigh, just from his voice anyone could deduce that he was pretty tired.
And another thing he realized as he looked over to his brother who was putting on his seatbelt was that he had a massive red splotch on his right thigh.
As if he had been bleeding there, he had clearly covered it with something , likely a bandage and it didn’t look like it was bleeding but Adam still found it rather concerning, reasonably so. “And what the fuck happened to you then?” He asked, the concern noticeable in his voice.
“Ah… I’ll explain but we need to get fucking going” “And we need to get going right about now because you took longer than I thought you would” François finished as he slumped down into the passenger seat. “Not really my fault but… whatever.” Was Adam’s response before he turned the car back on.
Turning the car back on the headlights lit up the darkness caused by the incredibly dark rain clouds. Adam slowly creaked his way around the tiny dirt parking lot before the car was finally facing the correct direction. Now going back the way he came from not many minutes ago at all, Adam realized he didn’t even know where François was supposed to be taken to.
“Where are you even supposed to be dropped off?” Adam asked, and to his question François, who while Adam was getting away from the parking lot had nearly fallen asleep in only a couple seconds. Jolted up at the question, hitting his knee on the glove compartment in the process. “AAH FUCK!” François all but yelled out. Holding his shaking, bloodied leg he responded after a couple seconds “Aah I mean, I don't really know honestly, I didn’t really think id have to go all the way over here”
“Would dropping you off at mom & dads place work? Also, my first concern would be you seeing a doctor, I don’t know what the fuck you’ve been up to but you clearly hurt.” Adam retorted, a little more serious than prior.
“Sure that's fine…. Also I don’t think that's necessary” His older brother responded as they finally made it out of the little forest and onto the road that would take them down to Salem, away from Vitsand. “I'm only injured in that leg and I think it's only really shrapnel and a big burn, scar, thing? I'm not really sure, I haven't had much time to diagnose what it is.”
“I… I'm not going to ask yet how that happened but are you sure you can handle that yourself without getting an infection?”
“Look, i'm trying to escape here and that would be completely thrown out the window if I went to a hospital now”
“Worst case scenario I go to one in a week, the chance of them knowing who I am then is considerably lower, still not something I want to or plan on doing but it's a last ditch choice I could take.”
“You know mom will probably force you to go to the hospital the moment she sees you like that?” Adam responded with a slight chuckle. Because it was true, to be fair any other sane person would have also done so but their mother was a little special, aggressively caring would probably be the best descriptor Adam could think of regarding his mother, she definitely had character either way.
“Yeah yeah whatever, I’ll deal with it then I've got bigger concerns” François said as Adam saw something he really hoped he wouldn’t on his way down. That being what he believed to be his little brother Andreas and a shil girl roughly the same age as him. Luckily though, They seemed to have sat themselves under a fairly large tree to wait out the storm. And, the boy, who Adam was almost entirely certain was Andreas had his head turned away from the car staring intently at the woman he was with.
However as quickly as he saw them, Adam drove past them. And François either didn’t have the energy to care or simply didn’t register that they were there. Either way, Adam was relieved as that meant he didn’t have to deal with François freaking out. Which he’d had the luck of never doing prior, sure he’d heard his parents deal with him having an episode but he never had to get involved himself. Mainly because all of his mental issues came post-invasion and they hadn’t seen each other much post-invasion. Besides the very early days of the invasion when Adam moved back into his parents house and François also lived there because he had moved there a month or so prior for work in inner-city Stockholm.
This pretty random request has been one of the few this post invasion he’d even texted or called Adam, muchless met in person. Since only a little bit after the invasion François took almost all the money he had and bought a small house with a decent amount of acreage in effectively the middle of nowhere. Meaning, since he’s moved no one’s really seen or heard much from him.
However as they were nearing Salem and there with François drop off point, Adam wanted to know what in the fuck was going on. “So, you said you’d explain…”
“Yeah about that… It's a long story but it's the least I can do I suppose….”
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- 18th of April 2024,13:20, Salem district, Sweden -
Tamarz and her pod landed on the very small, sand beach. The one the suspect who managed to flee, crashed the boat he somehow stole into. How he even managed to go under their, and hundreds of marines' noses was beyond Tamarz and how he then had time to jack a boat, drive it. Slowly mind you, out into the greater part of lake “Malaren” before the data teams even saw any irregularities via satellite was a fucking mystery to everyone including the aforementioned data teams.
Or alternatively, they know how he did it but don’t want to say how because it would prove them incompetent. Either way he had gotten extremely lucky that in the first place, no one found him in the woods, but then that no one spotted his slow limping towards the first town with access to the lake where he then spent, according to data teams, twenty whole fucking minutes getting the engine of the boat he stole to start.
Twenty whole fucking minutes, and during that entire time no one had any fucking idea where he was. And Tamarzs and her pod were still rolling around in that fucking forest trying to find the goddess damned stiff. Tamarz almost wished she didn’t have contact with the data teams, but alas deathsheads are given a lot more freedom to act as they wish and so they, more specifically the pod leader, needs to have quick ways to contact those who collect such information, aka the data teams. Sure she did have a superior but beyond that and the empress herself no one could really get their tits involved in what the fuck she decided to do.
But back to the reality of the situation, at least she could have a little piece of mind knowing the numbskull marines, being several hundred in number covering a fairly large area. Couldn’t find the literal bleeding, limping man who was probably walking for an hour straight before he got the goddess damned boat.
How no one even saw the blood trail was mind boggling. And the only ones who’d thus far even been remotely close to the whore was Tamarz and her little pod of deathsheads. Which to be fair shouldn’t be surprising given that they are you know, deathsheads. But still it irked Tamarz to no end that they still hadn’t caught him. Since it's not like he was an expert, he clearly miscalculated several things which she SHOULD have been able to take advantage of but she missed those in the moment and thus lost the advantage.
At least now they know roughly where he is, because for a little bit no one had any idea where he was. Luckily the data teams managed to get their tusks out of their asses and found him driving away on the boat. But alas, there wasn’t much point dwelling about the past and the small mistakes Tamarz made as a pod leader that made them miss their suspect entirely.
Turning the vic off, Tamarz stepped out, her three pod members following suit. As she stepped out she noticed two things immediately.
One, that it was raining, like a lot. This weather reminded her a lot of Shil itself actually, although this wouldn’t be considered a particularly rainy day back on Shil. Unlike here where this amount of rain was fairly rare from her personal experience. Also that she hadn’t even noticed the rain before stepping out was a bit concerning to herself. She’d been pretty deep in thought and concentrated on the task at hand but surely she would notice if the rain went from zero to a hundred, right?
And second was the boat in question, stranded on the tiny beach they landed on. The suspect, clearly in too much of a hurry to flee, didn't even bother trying to park it or anything; he just crashed it into the beach.
At least it was nice to know that the data teams weren’t just talking out of their ass when they said he crashed it.
One other thing she did realize as she was looking around was the lack of a strong blood trail. Which to be fair, could be because of the rain, especially since Tamarz didn’t really even know for how long the rain had been going on. But still there should be some red residue left on the ground. But there was only a faint streak of red going from the crashed boat to a tree.
And from that tree Tamarz thought she could make out a small red line going to the tiny dirt parking lot, however, if it was blood it was so diluted that she wasn’t sure. How he even made it this far without fainting was also a mystery, since at least according to the experts from prior. He shouldn’t have long at all until he either dies of blood loss or simply goes unconscious.
But deciding not to waste more time than necessary, Tamarz got her move on.
“Mejoxia, Juia, you two do a quick grid search of the small wooded area here to make sure he isn’t hiding here” “Me and Réka will quickly look through the boat to see if there’s anything of interest there”
At that, all three in unison shouted “Ma’am yes Ma’am!” the two who were going to search the woods, turning around to do so. With that Tamarz and rakiri pod mate Réka made the small walk from the parked vic to the boat the terrorist had left stranded at the beach.
The short walk up to the boat was in silence. But as they got onto the rather small boat, they saw quite a lot of things that caught their attention. First of all the blood, his blood, was everywhere. But especially around the driver's seat, where there was also a first aid kit with all of its contents strewn around the drivers seat. Secondly he had opened what Tamarz could only assume was the engine of the boat located under the helm. And there were crossed wires, literally, whilst other wires had seemingly been cut off at random. And two wires had clearly been cut, and then forced to reconnect with something humans call “silver tape”
While Tamarz really had no idea what she was looking at, this was likely how he forced the boat to start in the first place, in order to facilitate his escape. While she was looking around she noticed something, under a table that was between two small couches. There was a rifle, which Tamarz pointed to, quickly alerting Réka to the contraband.
However as she was about to go under the table to retrieve the weapon, she received a call. And the visor in her helmet immediately let her know whom was calling.
It was in fact, her contact within the data-teams, Mrs Ele'ya, Do'ro Ele'ya.
“I will make this call quick since you need to go immediately after it” Do'ro immediately began speaking as soon as Tamarz answered the call. With but a quick paus she continued.
“We have determined the suspects current position to be near the town of Salem, not more than twenty minutes by road from your current position and maybe two or three by flight”
“I’ll send you the exact coordinates but you need to move now, last he was seen by the other data team on “CCTV” footage was in a red car, they’re unsure if he’s driving the vehicle or not so you might have two armed suspects” “Move now, don’t waste time.” And before Tamarz even got a singular word in, not even a “Yes Ma’am” Do'ro turned off the call.
Well as Mrs Ele’ya said, Tamarz better get moving. While it was a little disturbing that this was all getting so close to home, this was Tamarz’s chance to redeem her own pride, and the pride of the empire from some mentally ill primitive….
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submitted by Empereur_de_autisme to Sexyspacebabes [link] [comments]
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Chapter 18 - When It Rains It Pours
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- 18th of April 2024,13:10, Salem district, Sweden -
Adam finally, in the midst of what had now become a proper rainstorm, reached the outside of Vitsand. Only ten or fifteen minutes ago when Adam had driven past what he believed to be his little brother hand in hand with a shil’ it had just begun raining.
But now it had become a lot more aggressive, fairly quickly at that too, which was lucky for François that it only happened now when Adam was almost at his destination. Thinking of which, he took a right instead of going forward which would have taken him into Vitsand itself. François said he was at the beach nearby, well it was barely a beach considering how tiny it was. The beach could at most hold three families at once especially since there were really only space for three cars on the dirt parking lot there, but. Thanks to how secluded it was, whenever the family had gone there during the summer it was almost always empty and no one besides Adam's family and a couple of the locals even knew it existed.
And Adam now took the last turn he’d need to take before reaching his destination. that being onto a dirt road which went through a small patch of forest until it reached lake Mälaren and the unnamed beach François was currently waiting for Adam at.
Going slowly on the tight dirt road it didn’t take long for Adam to reach the beach and while he stopped just before the beach, on the tiny dirt parking spac, Adam could see something a little peculiar. Something that confirmed a theory he had rolling around in his brain whilst he was driving here.
And that something was a boat, a small fishing boat if Adam had to guess. That had simply been lodged into the beach, now stuck. Which had pretty much confirmed his idea that he had in fact gotten to the beach by boat. And seeing as François didn’t own a boat last time Adam heard anything, much less actually even lived in the area. It was likely stolen, now why François would steal a boat was a mystery, one Adam hoped the man himself could clear up.
Adam turned off the car, and dug out his phone out of his pocket. And just as he was about to call his older brother, there was a knock on the window. While it startled Adam a little he quickly glanced to his right where the knocking sound was emanating from and lo and behold, it was in fact his older brother, François.
After spotting him François quickly opened the red car door and sat himself in the Saab, reasonably so because the weather was fucking ridiculous. “Took you long enough” François said with a sigh, just from his voice anyone could deduce that he was pretty tired.
And another thing he realized as he looked over to his brother who was putting on his seatbelt was that he had a massive red splotch on his right thigh.
As if he had been bleeding there, he had clearly covered it with something , likely a bandage and it didn’t look like it was bleeding but Adam still found it rather concerning, reasonably so. “And what the fuck happened to you then?” He asked, the concern noticeable in his voice.
“Ah… I’ll explain but we need to get fucking going” “And we need to get going right about now because you took longer than I thought you would” François finished as he slumped down into the passenger seat. “Not really my fault but… whatever.” Was Adam’s response before he turned the car back on.
Turning the car back on the headlights lit up the darkness caused by the incredibly dark rain clouds. Adam slowly creaked his way around the tiny dirt parking lot before the car was finally facing the correct direction. Now going back the way he came from not many minutes ago at all, Adam realized he didn’t even know where François was supposed to be taken to.
“Where are you even supposed to be dropped off?” Adam asked, and to his question François, who while Adam was getting away from the parking lot had nearly fallen asleep in only a couple seconds. Jolted up at the question, hitting his knee on the glove compartment in the process. “AAH FUCK!” François all but yelled out. Holding his shaking, bloodied leg he responded after a couple seconds “Aah I mean, I don't really know honestly, I didn’t really think id have to go all the way over here”
“Would dropping you off at mom & dads place work? Also, my first concern would be you seeing a doctor, I don’t know what the fuck you’ve been up to but you clearly hurt.” Adam retorted, a little more serious than prior.
“Sure that's fine…. Also I don’t think that's necessary” His older brother responded as they finally made it out of the little forest and onto the road that would take them down to Salem, away from Vitsand. “I'm only injured in that leg and I think it's only really shrapnel and a big burn, scar, thing? I'm not really sure, I haven't had much time to diagnose what it is.”
“I… I'm not going to ask yet how that happened but are you sure you can handle that yourself without getting an infection?”
“Look, i'm trying to escape here and that would be completely thrown out the window if I went to a hospital now”
“Worst case scenario I go to one in a week, the chance of them knowing who I am then is considerably lower, still not something I want to or plan on doing but it's a last ditch choice I could take.”
“You know mom will probably force you to go to the hospital the moment she sees you like that?” Adam responded with a slight chuckle. Because it was true, to be fair any other sane person would have also done so but their mother was a little special, aggressively caring would probably be the best descriptor Adam could think of regarding his mother, she definitely had character either way.
“Yeah yeah whatever, I’ll deal with it then I've got bigger concerns” François said as Adam saw something he really hoped he wouldn’t on his way down. That being what he believed to be his little brother Andreas and a shil girl roughly the same age as him. Luckily though, They seemed to have sat themselves under a fairly large tree to wait out the storm. And, the boy, who Adam was almost entirely certain was Andreas had his head turned away from the car staring intently at the woman he was with.
However as quickly as he saw them, Adam drove past them. And François either didn’t have the energy to care or simply didn’t register that they were there. Either way, Adam was relieved as that meant he didn’t have to deal with François freaking out. Which he’d had the luck of never doing prior, sure he’d heard his parents deal with him having an episode but he never had to get involved himself. Mainly because all of his mental issues came post-invasion and they hadn’t seen each other much post-invasion. Besides the very early days of the invasion when Adam moved back into his parents house and François also lived there because he had moved there a month or so prior for work in inner-city Stockholm.
This pretty random request has been one of the few this post invasion he’d even texted or called Adam, muchless met in person. Since only a little bit after the invasion François took almost all the money he had and bought a small house with a decent amount of acreage in effectively the middle of nowhere. Meaning, since he’s moved no one’s really seen or heard much from him.
However as they were nearing Salem and there with François drop off point, Adam wanted to know what in the fuck was going on. “So, you said you’d explain…”
“Yeah about that… It's a long story but it's the least I can do I suppose….”
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- 18th of April 2024,13:20, Salem district, Sweden -
Tamarz and her pod landed on the very small, sand beach. The one the suspect who managed to flee, crashed the boat he somehow stole into. How he even managed to go under their, and hundreds of marines' noses was beyond Tamarz and how he then had time to jack a boat, drive it. Slowly mind you, out into the greater part of lake “Malaren” before the data teams even saw any irregularities via satellite was a fucking mystery to everyone including the aforementioned data teams.
Or alternatively, they know how he did it but don’t want to say how because it would prove them incompetent. Either way he had gotten extremely lucky that in the first place, no one found him in the woods, but then that no one spotted his slow limping towards the first town with access to the lake where he then spent, according to data teams, twenty whole fucking minutes getting the engine of the boat he stole to start.
Twenty whole fucking minutes, and during that entire time no one had any fucking idea where he was. And Tamarzs and her pod were still rolling around in that fucking forest trying to find the goddess damned stiff. Tamarz almost wished she didn’t have contact with the data teams, but alas deathsheads are given a lot more freedom to act as they wish and so they, more specifically the pod leader, needs to have quick ways to contact those who collect such information, aka the data teams. Sure she did have a superior but beyond that and the empress herself no one could really get their tits involved in what the fuck she decided to do.
But back to the reality of the situation, at least she could have a little piece of mind knowing the numbskull marines, being several hundred in number covering a fairly large area. Couldn’t find the literal bleeding, limping man who was probably walking for an hour straight before he got the goddess damned boat.
How no one even saw the blood trail was mind boggling. And the only ones who’d thus far even been remotely close to the whore was Tamarz and her little pod of deathsheads. Which to be fair shouldn’t be surprising given that they are you know, deathsheads. But still it irked Tamarz to no end that they still hadn’t caught him. Since it's not like he was an expert, he clearly miscalculated several things which she SHOULD have been able to take advantage of but she missed those in the moment and thus lost the advantage.
At least now they know roughly where he is, because for a little bit no one had any idea where he was. Luckily the data teams managed to get their tusks out of their asses and found him driving away on the boat. But alas, there wasn’t much point dwelling about the past and the small mistakes Tamarz made as a pod leader that made them miss their suspect entirely.
Turning the vic off, Tamarz stepped out, her three pod members following suit. As she stepped out she noticed two things immediately.
One, that it was raining, like a lot. This weather reminded her a lot of Shil itself actually, although this wouldn’t be considered a particularly rainy day back on Shil. Unlike here where this amount of rain was fairly rare from her personal experience. Also that she hadn’t even noticed the rain before stepping out was a bit concerning to herself. She’d been pretty deep in thought and concentrated on the task at hand but surely she would notice if the rain went from zero to a hundred, right?
And second was the boat in question, stranded on the tiny beach they landed on. The suspect, clearly in too much of a hurry to flee, didn't even bother trying to park it or anything; he just crashed it into the beach.
At least it was nice to know that the data teams weren’t just talking out of their ass when they said he crashed it.
One other thing she did realize as she was looking around was the lack of a strong blood trail. Which to be fair, could be because of the rain, especially since Tamarz didn’t really even know for how long the rain had been going on. But still there should be some red residue left on the ground. But there was only a faint streak of red going from the crashed boat to a tree.
And from that tree Tamarz thought she could make out a small red line going to the tiny dirt parking lot, however, if it was blood it was so diluted that she wasn’t sure. How he even made it this far without fainting was also a mystery, since at least according to the experts from prior. He shouldn’t have long at all until he either dies of blood loss or simply goes unconscious.
But deciding not to waste more time than necessary, Tamarz got her move on.
“Mejoxia, Juia, you two do a quick grid search of the small wooded area here to make sure he isn’t hiding here” “Me and Réka will quickly look through the boat to see if there’s anything of interest there”
At that, all three in unison shouted “Ma’am yes Ma’am!” the two who were going to search the woods, turning around to do so. With that Tamarz and rakiri pod mate Réka made the small walk from the parked vic to the boat the terrorist had left stranded at the beach.
The short walk up to the boat was in silence. But as they got onto the rather small boat, they saw quite a lot of things that caught their attention. First of all the blood, his blood, was everywhere. But especially around the driver's seat, where there was also a first aid kit with all of its contents strewn around the drivers seat. Secondly he had opened what Tamarz could only assume was the engine of the boat located under the helm. And there were crossed wires, literally, whilst other wires had seemingly been cut off at random. And two wires had clearly been cut, and then forced to reconnect with something humans call “silver tape”
While Tamarz really had no idea what she was looking at, this was likely how he forced the boat to start in the first place, in order to facilitate his escape. While she was looking around she noticed something, under a table that was between two small couches. There was a rifle, which Tamarz pointed to, quickly alerting Réka to the contraband.
However as she was about to go under the table to retrieve the weapon, she received a call. And the visor in her helmet immediately let her know whom was calling.
It was in fact, her contact within the data-teams, Mrs Ele'ya, Do'ro Ele'ya.
“I will make this call quick since you need to go immediately after it” Do'ro immediately began speaking as soon as Tamarz answered the call. With but a quick paus she continued.
“We have determined the suspects current position to be near the town of Salem, not more than twenty minutes by road from your current position and maybe two or three by flight”
“I’ll send you the exact coordinates but you need to move now, last he was seen by the other data team on “CCTV” footage was in a red car, they’re unsure if he’s driving the vehicle or not so you might have two armed suspects” “Move now, don’t waste time.” And before Tamarz even got a singular word in, not even a “Yes Ma’am” Do'ro turned off the call.
Well as Mrs Ele’ya said, Tamarz better get moving. While it was a little disturbing that this was all getting so close to home, this was Tamarz’s chance to redeem her own pride, and the pride of the empire from some mentally ill primitive….
[Next]
2023.06.04 15:27 Aggravating_Rub_5693 Am I being unfair?
Hi everyone, I'm seeking advice regarding a challenging situation with one of my partners. We have been together for five years, and I recently started experiencing difficulties after my partner met someone new, whom I'll call Bree. I believe this issue stems from a larger problem related to hierarchy in polyamory.
Initially, my partner, Aspen, made it clear that I'm his girlfriend, he wants to marry me, and he'll always prioritize me. However, since he met Bree, their connection has become intense. They communicate constantly, and I often feel excluded. Aspen started rescheduling our dates to accommodate Bree, and he couldn't define their relationship, although he emphasized its importance.
During Christmas , I wanted some undivided attention, I live in a different state, and I was home for holidays. Aspen gets to see his other partners all through the year, but Aspen insisted on dividing his time between us, claiming Bree has her own requirements.
Also, he keeps requesting detailed itineraries whenever I plan to visit, claiming that he disappointed Bree before due to my lack of planning. This led to feelings of being unimportant compared to Bree. Aspen even gave Bree a key to his apartment, which he had never offered me.
Moreover, Aspen expects me to plan my visits well in advance, as Bree prefers weekends. However, my job doesn't allow for such detailed planning, and Aspen's condescending tone when discussing my availability is frustrating.
During my recent visit, he double-booked and prioritized attending Bree's graduation, leaving me feeling neglected and unimportant. I was supposed to stay at aspen’s. Aspen told me while he understood that I’m only here for a short period, this is very important for Bree, and he’d absolutely be there whether I like it or not. I did remind him that he double booked. He flat out told me that my plan wasn’t clear enough. I told him that in that case I’d like to do something in the afternoon. He said he can’t give me an ETA for a graduation ceremony and returned way later than I expected him to. He also didn’t reply to any of my messages because he was sitting with Bree’s parents and he didn’t want to seem rude during the ceremony so turned his phone to do not disturb.
Another thing he has NEVER EVER done to me.
When I confronted him about our changing relationship dynamics and his attention towards Bree, because no one pays this much attention to a FWB!!! he accused me of attacking him and requested space.
Aspen later apologized, but I didn't want to engage until we resolved the issues. He's upset that I'm not talking to him and claims I'm being childish by punishing him for a miscommunication.
Meanwhile, my other partner, Carol, agrees with Aspen's perspective, while their partner thinks I'm toxic and wants Carol to distance themselves from me. According to them, Aspen and Bree’s relationship is their problem and if they decide to put equal amount of energy on a FWB connection, then so be it.
They are also saying that while Aspen may be my boyfriend, he is still a solo poly, and just because he lives by himself I can’t just dismiss my meta’s presence. If I can’t expect to see Carol while I’m in town if I haven’t given them my itinerary in advance, I can’t expect this of aspen either.
I feel lost and like my relationships are falling apart. My friends believe Aspen's requests are reasonable and that I have no right to question the dynamics between him and Bree. They suggest that I've been dismissive of Aspen's other relationships and pretended we have a monogamous relationship. I'm unsure if I've made mistakes and need advice on how to navigate this complex situation.
TL;DR: I'm facing difficulties with my partner Aspen after he met someone new, Bree, and started prioritizing her. I feel neglected and excluded, and our relationship dynamics have changed. My friends think I'm in the wrong for questioning Aspen's actions and believe I've dismissed his other relationships. I need advice on how to proceed.
submitted by Aggravating_Rub_5693 to polyamory [link] [comments]
Initially, my partner, Aspen, made it clear that I'm his girlfriend, he wants to marry me, and he'll always prioritize me. However, since he met Bree, their connection has become intense. They communicate constantly, and I often feel excluded. Aspen started rescheduling our dates to accommodate Bree, and he couldn't define their relationship, although he emphasized its importance.
During Christmas , I wanted some undivided attention, I live in a different state, and I was home for holidays. Aspen gets to see his other partners all through the year, but Aspen insisted on dividing his time between us, claiming Bree has her own requirements.
Also, he keeps requesting detailed itineraries whenever I plan to visit, claiming that he disappointed Bree before due to my lack of planning. This led to feelings of being unimportant compared to Bree. Aspen even gave Bree a key to his apartment, which he had never offered me.
Moreover, Aspen expects me to plan my visits well in advance, as Bree prefers weekends. However, my job doesn't allow for such detailed planning, and Aspen's condescending tone when discussing my availability is frustrating.
During my recent visit, he double-booked and prioritized attending Bree's graduation, leaving me feeling neglected and unimportant. I was supposed to stay at aspen’s. Aspen told me while he understood that I’m only here for a short period, this is very important for Bree, and he’d absolutely be there whether I like it or not. I did remind him that he double booked. He flat out told me that my plan wasn’t clear enough. I told him that in that case I’d like to do something in the afternoon. He said he can’t give me an ETA for a graduation ceremony and returned way later than I expected him to. He also didn’t reply to any of my messages because he was sitting with Bree’s parents and he didn’t want to seem rude during the ceremony so turned his phone to do not disturb.
Another thing he has NEVER EVER done to me.
When I confronted him about our changing relationship dynamics and his attention towards Bree, because no one pays this much attention to a FWB!!! he accused me of attacking him and requested space.
Aspen later apologized, but I didn't want to engage until we resolved the issues. He's upset that I'm not talking to him and claims I'm being childish by punishing him for a miscommunication.
Meanwhile, my other partner, Carol, agrees with Aspen's perspective, while their partner thinks I'm toxic and wants Carol to distance themselves from me. According to them, Aspen and Bree’s relationship is their problem and if they decide to put equal amount of energy on a FWB connection, then so be it.
They are also saying that while Aspen may be my boyfriend, he is still a solo poly, and just because he lives by himself I can’t just dismiss my meta’s presence. If I can’t expect to see Carol while I’m in town if I haven’t given them my itinerary in advance, I can’t expect this of aspen either.
I feel lost and like my relationships are falling apart. My friends believe Aspen's requests are reasonable and that I have no right to question the dynamics between him and Bree. They suggest that I've been dismissive of Aspen's other relationships and pretended we have a monogamous relationship. I'm unsure if I've made mistakes and need advice on how to navigate this complex situation.
TL;DR: I'm facing difficulties with my partner Aspen after he met someone new, Bree, and started prioritizing her. I feel neglected and excluded, and our relationship dynamics have changed. My friends think I'm in the wrong for questioning Aspen's actions and believe I've dismissed his other relationships. I need advice on how to proceed.
2023.06.04 15:19 CrowtownHoDown Torrhen III - One Blast for Rangers
Alone.
Across the snow he trekked. Through the cold, he walked.
Yet, before him, he came across only bodies.
Torrhen, commander of Crowtown, was now the landless Ranger and he was not the last to leave the place he called home for decades. Brave men... his men... his brothers... his boys. Left to the hordes. He liked to think some made it to the water, to the Skagosi.
He doubted it.
The sword his smith had made him - the same smith who perished, who he watched waving a blazing torch to warn him away from coming back. That sword was gone, left lodged in the corpse of a bear brought back with half it's face missing. The grizzly beast was no less terrible in its reanimated state, and so he killed it. Yet now he was left walking through the cold, winter-dredge with only an axe he took from a pile of Thenns.
He had gone back to relieve the last of his men from the keep, but that was when they appeared. In their thousands. It would at least not be known by the world how he wept for this boys. Those tossed to the wind, left to die in the frozen corners of the world they forgot about, to defend things they knew nothing of against foes they could not dream up.
When he found his way to Castle Black, he would have things to say to Torrhen Snow. If he made it back at least. If he did not, he would curse them all for abandoning him. But maybe that would leave him to finally meet his friends, those who lay buried in the snow where none but he could remember them.
The creaking of limbs long since snapped, the clicking of bones long-since broken, of jaws no longer attached and lives no longer lived - they haunted his steps.
He was too tired to stop and fight every one he met. They were too many to waste such effort. However, in the snow he found himself angry.
One of the creatures they raised came at him - it was a fallen brother of the watch, his cloak still wrapped about him, worn by decades - centuries. It mattered not, it swung a wild and unknowing blade at him, chipped and beaten by its time buried in the snow. He slapped it aside with the flat of his axe, grabbed the creature by the neck and threw it back.
Show me your face, he demanded of the gods.
The wight looked up, blue eyes were all he recognized. It was not one of his.
When it charged, he repeated his defence, but this time, he clapped an enormous hand around its throat and crushed it. The head fell from its shoulders and the corpse spasmed as it tumbled apart.
He could hear it fumbling about as he walked on. He had no fire to finish it.
---
How many days had he been in the snow? The path was not marked well, this was beyond the wall, nothing was well-defined. Yet he thought he still remembered the way, but the constant snowfall made such things as keeping track of his direction hard. The only thing that kept him vaguely in the right direction were the corpses.
For the freefolk, he offered a prayer to the gods they worshipped, and continued. For the men in black, he stopped and checked them. Oly, Will, Benjen, Ed, Black Jon. Names. They formed in his mind and they planted themselves above the faces, bloodied and beaten. He remembered them as they were - smiling ruggedly, their joy a stark contrast to the cold, bitter indifference of their stations.
So far, none of them looked like they died with their back to a foe. They were always surrounded by the dead. He had failed them. But they died as men of the watch, and they died with pride. He would not so much as guess that fear filled their final moments, he allowed himself to only think of how he failed them. So, Torrhen - a man who was never taught to read or write, only learning through his time in the watch, counted as high as he ever had.
He did so with grim determination. He refused to lose count, even as he shattered the dead who clawed at him. He refused. He would remind himself of every single man he failed.
---
He held firm from the first day. The hundreds he encountered in his travels south... they were one thing. It was only as he found a small sign of a camp that this changed. At first, he spied the spaces for tents to be readied. He noted where sticks and trees had been carved out to use as spikes, where ditches were formed.
He had counted one-hundred-and-thirty-three dead brothers up to this point.
He followed the signs of the camp - he stood vigil over the bodies scattered. Thenns, Antlers, Milkwater. They were mixed in. Someone had found others. Someone had filled this place with those who fled and they tried to wait. They made sure to gather others, they made efforts for safety.
The flight from Crowtown was messy - he had given orders to leave, and some had gotten out fast - the old, the weak, the sick and the young. He had sent them first with many of his best.
How many lay here?
He checked them all. It took him a day. Alone, in the cold, dead winter.
He committed them to memory as he made his way through the camp. Perhaps 200 of them had found their way here, perhaps more had done so and moved on. The place was defensible. With a hill to mount their main defense in the center and tree coverage to protect from being spotted. They had done well to use the small ford that had frozen as a narrow choke where they had felled a great many of the dead.
Whoever had done this was a good planner. How many had lived because they had thought about defending this small redoubt in the abyss? He had suspected who it might have been. SO he continued to the last place they could have held, the hill.
Atop it he climbed, and over the bodies of two smaller freefolk, ones so small and frail he dare not look any longer. He found Farlen - his steward - a boy sent from the south for stealing bread to feed his sister. A lad educated by his parents, killed, fighting to rid some foreign land of a foreign god.
He had a sword in his hand where he found him.
Knelt before him, his friend. A kindly old fool who would call him up on pushing the lads too far. A man who served as long as he had in the watch. Impaled by a dozen blades. Clay One-eye had followed him to this place, followed him to find nothing when Hardhome was first lost. They were the oldest of the men there.
"One-hundred-and-ninety-nine."
He came upon castle black two days later.
How many had gone uncounted? How many forgotten? How many of his men, his boys, his sons. How many had he lost, because he was slow, because he was foolish, because he did not do better. He would maybe never know.
Of the freefolk he did not number, how many of them had fallen? Had Thistle and Igrin made it? What of the Corpse? Of Bennys? He would find out, he supposed.
---
His final count.
236.
submitted by CrowtownHoDown to IronThroneRP [link] [comments]
Across the snow he trekked. Through the cold, he walked.
Yet, before him, he came across only bodies.
Torrhen, commander of Crowtown, was now the landless Ranger and he was not the last to leave the place he called home for decades. Brave men... his men... his brothers... his boys. Left to the hordes. He liked to think some made it to the water, to the Skagosi.
He doubted it.
The sword his smith had made him - the same smith who perished, who he watched waving a blazing torch to warn him away from coming back. That sword was gone, left lodged in the corpse of a bear brought back with half it's face missing. The grizzly beast was no less terrible in its reanimated state, and so he killed it. Yet now he was left walking through the cold, winter-dredge with only an axe he took from a pile of Thenns.
He had gone back to relieve the last of his men from the keep, but that was when they appeared. In their thousands. It would at least not be known by the world how he wept for this boys. Those tossed to the wind, left to die in the frozen corners of the world they forgot about, to defend things they knew nothing of against foes they could not dream up.
When he found his way to Castle Black, he would have things to say to Torrhen Snow. If he made it back at least. If he did not, he would curse them all for abandoning him. But maybe that would leave him to finally meet his friends, those who lay buried in the snow where none but he could remember them.
The creaking of limbs long since snapped, the clicking of bones long-since broken, of jaws no longer attached and lives no longer lived - they haunted his steps.
He was too tired to stop and fight every one he met. They were too many to waste such effort. However, in the snow he found himself angry.
One of the creatures they raised came at him - it was a fallen brother of the watch, his cloak still wrapped about him, worn by decades - centuries. It mattered not, it swung a wild and unknowing blade at him, chipped and beaten by its time buried in the snow. He slapped it aside with the flat of his axe, grabbed the creature by the neck and threw it back.
Show me your face, he demanded of the gods.
The wight looked up, blue eyes were all he recognized. It was not one of his.
When it charged, he repeated his defence, but this time, he clapped an enormous hand around its throat and crushed it. The head fell from its shoulders and the corpse spasmed as it tumbled apart.
He could hear it fumbling about as he walked on. He had no fire to finish it.
---
How many days had he been in the snow? The path was not marked well, this was beyond the wall, nothing was well-defined. Yet he thought he still remembered the way, but the constant snowfall made such things as keeping track of his direction hard. The only thing that kept him vaguely in the right direction were the corpses.
For the freefolk, he offered a prayer to the gods they worshipped, and continued. For the men in black, he stopped and checked them. Oly, Will, Benjen, Ed, Black Jon. Names. They formed in his mind and they planted themselves above the faces, bloodied and beaten. He remembered them as they were - smiling ruggedly, their joy a stark contrast to the cold, bitter indifference of their stations.
So far, none of them looked like they died with their back to a foe. They were always surrounded by the dead. He had failed them. But they died as men of the watch, and they died with pride. He would not so much as guess that fear filled their final moments, he allowed himself to only think of how he failed them. So, Torrhen - a man who was never taught to read or write, only learning through his time in the watch, counted as high as he ever had.
He did so with grim determination. He refused to lose count, even as he shattered the dead who clawed at him. He refused. He would remind himself of every single man he failed.
---
He held firm from the first day. The hundreds he encountered in his travels south... they were one thing. It was only as he found a small sign of a camp that this changed. At first, he spied the spaces for tents to be readied. He noted where sticks and trees had been carved out to use as spikes, where ditches were formed.
He had counted one-hundred-and-thirty-three dead brothers up to this point.
He followed the signs of the camp - he stood vigil over the bodies scattered. Thenns, Antlers, Milkwater. They were mixed in. Someone had found others. Someone had filled this place with those who fled and they tried to wait. They made sure to gather others, they made efforts for safety.
The flight from Crowtown was messy - he had given orders to leave, and some had gotten out fast - the old, the weak, the sick and the young. He had sent them first with many of his best.
How many lay here?
He checked them all. It took him a day. Alone, in the cold, dead winter.
He committed them to memory as he made his way through the camp. Perhaps 200 of them had found their way here, perhaps more had done so and moved on. The place was defensible. With a hill to mount their main defense in the center and tree coverage to protect from being spotted. They had done well to use the small ford that had frozen as a narrow choke where they had felled a great many of the dead.
Whoever had done this was a good planner. How many had lived because they had thought about defending this small redoubt in the abyss? He had suspected who it might have been. SO he continued to the last place they could have held, the hill.
Atop it he climbed, and over the bodies of two smaller freefolk, ones so small and frail he dare not look any longer. He found Farlen - his steward - a boy sent from the south for stealing bread to feed his sister. A lad educated by his parents, killed, fighting to rid some foreign land of a foreign god.
He had a sword in his hand where he found him.
Knelt before him, his friend. A kindly old fool who would call him up on pushing the lads too far. A man who served as long as he had in the watch. Impaled by a dozen blades. Clay One-eye had followed him to this place, followed him to find nothing when Hardhome was first lost. They were the oldest of the men there.
"One-hundred-and-ninety-nine."
He came upon castle black two days later.
How many had gone uncounted? How many forgotten? How many of his men, his boys, his sons. How many had he lost, because he was slow, because he was foolish, because he did not do better. He would maybe never know.
Of the freefolk he did not number, how many of them had fallen? Had Thistle and Igrin made it? What of the Corpse? Of Bennys? He would find out, he supposed.
---
His final count.
236.
2023.06.04 15:17 WearsGreenSweaters Dearest JL,
God, I fucking miss your stupid face. It’s my favorite one. Your honey brown eyes glowing like amber in the sun. I could drown myself in them.
I hate how everything happened. We both messed up. Big time. I exploded and you ghosted. Then I kinda stalked you. I’m truly sorry for my words and actions. I was so hurt. So angry that you could disappear without a single word like it all meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. I know how you feel/felt about me. I couldn’t be easy for you. I know I hurt you as well. I’m sorry.
I don’t know if you’re angry with me, if you hate me, if this is a forced situation? Hell, are you still alive? Still have your leg? I have no clue what’s going on except that you changed your phone number again. I already have the new number. I didn’t stop trying to call and text because you changed it. I stopped out of respect for your boundaries. A little late, I know, but I’m trying very hard every day to get my emotions in check.
I will certainly forgive and forget as long as you eventually tell me the whole story of what happened. I just wish I knew where a stand with you.
I will wait here. Every minute of every day for the rest of my life. I’ll live my entire existence inside these walls waiting hopelessly fir you to open the door and come in. I’d rather wait than miss an opportunity to be with you, for only a moment or forever. I’ll take what I can get. Will this ruin me? Probably. I’m lol take my chances.
I love you inexplicably, uncontrollably, with a passion and need I have never felt before or again. You are my only star in the dark sky ⭐️ and the very best I’ve ever had, in every way.
You’re always welcome here. No matter what. I will always be so inviting, sweet, cordial and apologetic. I will always welcome you as a friend. Please come. Send a text, a smoke signal, a postcard or letter. Do you need a stamp? I’ll drive one down and leave it in the mailbox for you. Please give me something. Anything. Give me hope or slam the proverbial door.
Meanwhile, I’ll just wait….God, I fucking miss you….
submitted by WearsGreenSweaters to ExNoContact [link] [comments]
I hate how everything happened. We both messed up. Big time. I exploded and you ghosted. Then I kinda stalked you. I’m truly sorry for my words and actions. I was so hurt. So angry that you could disappear without a single word like it all meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. I know how you feel/felt about me. I couldn’t be easy for you. I know I hurt you as well. I’m sorry.
I don’t know if you’re angry with me, if you hate me, if this is a forced situation? Hell, are you still alive? Still have your leg? I have no clue what’s going on except that you changed your phone number again. I already have the new number. I didn’t stop trying to call and text because you changed it. I stopped out of respect for your boundaries. A little late, I know, but I’m trying very hard every day to get my emotions in check.
I will certainly forgive and forget as long as you eventually tell me the whole story of what happened. I just wish I knew where a stand with you.
I will wait here. Every minute of every day for the rest of my life. I’ll live my entire existence inside these walls waiting hopelessly fir you to open the door and come in. I’d rather wait than miss an opportunity to be with you, for only a moment or forever. I’ll take what I can get. Will this ruin me? Probably. I’m lol take my chances.
I love you inexplicably, uncontrollably, with a passion and need I have never felt before or again. You are my only star in the dark sky ⭐️ and the very best I’ve ever had, in every way.
You’re always welcome here. No matter what. I will always be so inviting, sweet, cordial and apologetic. I will always welcome you as a friend. Please come. Send a text, a smoke signal, a postcard or letter. Do you need a stamp? I’ll drive one down and leave it in the mailbox for you. Please give me something. Anything. Give me hope or slam the proverbial door.
Meanwhile, I’ll just wait….God, I fucking miss you….
- C
2023.06.04 15:16 WearsGreenSweaters Dearest JL, please tell me something!
God, I fucking miss your stupid face. It’s my favorite one. Your honey brown eyes glowing like amber in the sun. I could drown myself in them.
I hate how everything happened. We both messed up. Big time. I exploded and you ghosted. Then I kinda stalked you. I’m truly sorry for my words and actions. I was so hurt. So angry that you could disappear without a single word like it all meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. I know how you feel/felt about me. I couldn’t be easy for you. I know I hurt you as well. I’m sorry.
I don’t know if you’re angry with me, if you hate me, if this is a forced situation? Hell, are you still alive? Still have your leg? I have no clue what’s going on except that you changed your phone number again. I already have the new number. I didn’t stop trying to call and text because you changed it. I stopped out of respect for your boundaries. A little late, I know, but I’m trying very hard every day to get my emotions in check.
I will certainly forgive and forget as long as you eventually tell me the whole story of what happened. I just wish I knew where a stand with you.
I will wait here. Every minute of every day for the rest of my life. I’ll live my entire existence inside these walls waiting hopelessly fir you to open the door and come in. I’d rather wait than miss an opportunity to be with you, for only a moment or forever. I’ll take what I can get. Will this ruin me? Probably. I’m lol take my chances.
I love you inexplicably, uncontrollably, with a passion and need I have never felt before or again. You are my only star in the dark sky ⭐️ and the very best I’ve ever had, in every way.
You’re always welcome here. No matter what. I will always be so inviting, sweet, cordial and apologetic. I will always welcome you as a friend. Please come. Send a text, a smoke signal, a postcard or letter. Do you need a stamp? I’ll drive one down and leave it in the mailbox for you. Please give me something. Anything. Give me hope or slam the proverbial door.
Meanwhile, I’ll just wait….God, I fucking miss you….
submitted by WearsGreenSweaters to heartbreak [link] [comments]
I hate how everything happened. We both messed up. Big time. I exploded and you ghosted. Then I kinda stalked you. I’m truly sorry for my words and actions. I was so hurt. So angry that you could disappear without a single word like it all meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. I know how you feel/felt about me. I couldn’t be easy for you. I know I hurt you as well. I’m sorry.
I don’t know if you’re angry with me, if you hate me, if this is a forced situation? Hell, are you still alive? Still have your leg? I have no clue what’s going on except that you changed your phone number again. I already have the new number. I didn’t stop trying to call and text because you changed it. I stopped out of respect for your boundaries. A little late, I know, but I’m trying very hard every day to get my emotions in check.
I will certainly forgive and forget as long as you eventually tell me the whole story of what happened. I just wish I knew where a stand with you.
I will wait here. Every minute of every day for the rest of my life. I’ll live my entire existence inside these walls waiting hopelessly fir you to open the door and come in. I’d rather wait than miss an opportunity to be with you, for only a moment or forever. I’ll take what I can get. Will this ruin me? Probably. I’m lol take my chances.
I love you inexplicably, uncontrollably, with a passion and need I have never felt before or again. You are my only star in the dark sky ⭐️ and the very best I’ve ever had, in every way.
You’re always welcome here. No matter what. I will always be so inviting, sweet, cordial and apologetic. I will always welcome you as a friend. Please come. Send a text, a smoke signal, a postcard or letter. Do you need a stamp? I’ll drive one down and leave it in the mailbox for you. Please give me something. Anything. Give me hope or slam the proverbial door.
Meanwhile, I’ll just wait….God, I fucking miss you….
- C
2023.06.04 15:15 WearsGreenSweaters Dearest JL,
God, I fucking miss your stupid face. It’s my favorite one. Your honey brown eyes glowing like amber in the sun. I could drown myself in them.
I hate how everything happened. We both messed up. Big time. I exploded and you ghosted. Then I kinda stalked you. I’m truly sorry for my words and actions. I was so hurt. So angry that you could disappear without a single word like it all meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. I know how you feel/felt about me. I couldn’t be easy for you. I know I hurt you as well. I’m sorry.
I don’t know if you’re angry with me, if you hate me, if this is a forced situation? Hell, are you still alive? Still have your leg? I have no clue what’s going on except that you changed your phone number again. I already have the new number. I didn’t stop trying to call and text because you changed it. I stopped out of respect for your boundaries. A little late, I know, but I’m trying very hard every day to get my emotions in check.
I will certainly forgive and forget as long as you eventually tell me the whole story of what happened. I just wish I knew where a stand with you.
I will wait here. Every minute of every day for the rest of my life. I’ll live my entire existence inside these walls waiting hopelessly fir you to open the door and come in. I’d rather wait than miss an opportunity to be with you, for only a moment or forever. I’ll take what I can get. Will this ruin me? Probably. I’m lol take my chances.
I love you inexplicably, uncontrollably, with a passion and need I have never felt before or again. You are my only star in the dark sky ⭐️ and the very best I’ve ever had, in every way.
You’re always welcome here. No matter what. I will always be so inviting, sweet, cordial and apologetic. I will always welcome you as a friend. Please come. Send a text, a smoke signal, a postcard or letter. Do you need a stamp? I’ll drive one down and leave it in the mailbox for you. Please give me something. Anything. Give me hope or slam the proverbial door.
Meanwhile, I’ll just wait….God, I fucking miss you….
submitted by WearsGreenSweaters to BreakUps [link] [comments]
I hate how everything happened. We both messed up. Big time. I exploded and you ghosted. Then I kinda stalked you. I’m truly sorry for my words and actions. I was so hurt. So angry that you could disappear without a single word like it all meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. I know how you feel/felt about me. I couldn’t be easy for you. I know I hurt you as well. I’m sorry.
I don’t know if you’re angry with me, if you hate me, if this is a forced situation? Hell, are you still alive? Still have your leg? I have no clue what’s going on except that you changed your phone number again. I already have the new number. I didn’t stop trying to call and text because you changed it. I stopped out of respect for your boundaries. A little late, I know, but I’m trying very hard every day to get my emotions in check.
I will certainly forgive and forget as long as you eventually tell me the whole story of what happened. I just wish I knew where a stand with you.
I will wait here. Every minute of every day for the rest of my life. I’ll live my entire existence inside these walls waiting hopelessly fir you to open the door and come in. I’d rather wait than miss an opportunity to be with you, for only a moment or forever. I’ll take what I can get. Will this ruin me? Probably. I’m lol take my chances.
I love you inexplicably, uncontrollably, with a passion and need I have never felt before or again. You are my only star in the dark sky ⭐️ and the very best I’ve ever had, in every way.
You’re always welcome here. No matter what. I will always be so inviting, sweet, cordial and apologetic. I will always welcome you as a friend. Please come. Send a text, a smoke signal, a postcard or letter. Do you need a stamp? I’ll drive one down and leave it in the mailbox for you. Please give me something. Anything. Give me hope or slam the proverbial door.
Meanwhile, I’ll just wait….God, I fucking miss you….
- C
2023.06.04 15:15 WearsGreenSweaters I miss your face.
My dearest JL, God, I fucking miss your stupid face. It’s my favorite one. Your honey brown eyes glowing like amber in the sun. I could drown myself in them.
I hate how everything happened. We both messed up. Big time. I exploded and you ghosted. Then I kinda stalked you. I’m truly sorry for my words and actions. I was so hurt. So angry that you could disappear without a single word like it all meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. I know how you feel/felt about me. I couldn’t be easy for you. I know I hurt you as well. I’m sorry.
I don’t know if you’re angry with me, if you hate me, if this is a forced situation? Hell, are you still alive? Still have your leg? I have no clue what’s going on except that you changed your phone number again. I already have the new number. I didn’t stop trying to call and text because you changed it. I stopped out of respect for your boundaries. A little late, I know, but I’m trying very hard every day to get my emotions in check.
I will certainly forgive and forget as long as you eventually tell me the whole story of what happened. I just wish I knew where a stand with you.
I will wait here. Every minute of every day for the rest of my life. I’ll live my entire existence inside these walls waiting hopelessly fir you to open the door and come in. I’d rather wait than miss an opportunity to be with you, for only a moment or forever. I’ll take what I can get. Will this ruin me? Probably. I’m lol take my chances.
I love you inexplicably, uncontrollably, with a passion and need I have never felt before or again. You are my only star in the dark sky ⭐️ and the very best I’ve ever had, in every way.
You’re always welcome here. No matter what. I will always be so inviting, sweet, cordial and apologetic. I will always welcome you as a friend. Please come. Send a text, a smoke signal, a postcard or letter. Do you need a stamp? I’ll drive one down and leave it in the mailbox for you. Please give me something. Anything. Give me hope or slam the proverbial door.
Meanwhile, I’ll just wait….God, I fucking miss you….
submitted by WearsGreenSweaters to letters [link] [comments]
I hate how everything happened. We both messed up. Big time. I exploded and you ghosted. Then I kinda stalked you. I’m truly sorry for my words and actions. I was so hurt. So angry that you could disappear without a single word like it all meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. I know how you feel/felt about me. I couldn’t be easy for you. I know I hurt you as well. I’m sorry.
I don’t know if you’re angry with me, if you hate me, if this is a forced situation? Hell, are you still alive? Still have your leg? I have no clue what’s going on except that you changed your phone number again. I already have the new number. I didn’t stop trying to call and text because you changed it. I stopped out of respect for your boundaries. A little late, I know, but I’m trying very hard every day to get my emotions in check.
I will certainly forgive and forget as long as you eventually tell me the whole story of what happened. I just wish I knew where a stand with you.
I will wait here. Every minute of every day for the rest of my life. I’ll live my entire existence inside these walls waiting hopelessly fir you to open the door and come in. I’d rather wait than miss an opportunity to be with you, for only a moment or forever. I’ll take what I can get. Will this ruin me? Probably. I’m lol take my chances.
I love you inexplicably, uncontrollably, with a passion and need I have never felt before or again. You are my only star in the dark sky ⭐️ and the very best I’ve ever had, in every way.
You’re always welcome here. No matter what. I will always be so inviting, sweet, cordial and apologetic. I will always welcome you as a friend. Please come. Send a text, a smoke signal, a postcard or letter. Do you need a stamp? I’ll drive one down and leave it in the mailbox for you. Please give me something. Anything. Give me hope or slam the proverbial door.
Meanwhile, I’ll just wait….God, I fucking miss you….
- C
2023.06.04 15:14 WearsGreenSweaters Dearest JL,
God, I fucking miss your stupid face. It’s my favorite one. Your honey brown eyes glowing like amber in the sun. I could drown myself in them.
I hate how everything happened. We both messed up. Big time. I exploded and you ghosted. Then I kinda stalked you. I’m truly sorry for my words and actions. I was so hurt. So angry that you could disappear without a single word like it all meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. I know how you feel/felt about me. I couldn’t be easy for you. I know I hurt you as well. I’m sorry.
I don’t know if you’re angry with me, if you hate me, if this is a forced situation? Hell, are you still alive? Still have your leg? I have no clue what’s going on except that you changed your phone number again. I already have the new number. I didn’t stop trying to call and text because you changed it. I stopped out of respect for your boundaries. A little late, I know, but I’m trying very hard every day to get my emotions in check.
I will certainly forgive and forget as long as you eventually tell me the whole story of what happened. I just wish I knew where a stand with you.
I will wait here. Every minute of every day for the rest of my life. I’ll live my entire existence inside these walls waiting hopelessly fir you to open the door and come in. I’d rather wait than miss an opportunity to be with you, for only a moment or forever. I’ll take what I can get. Will this ruin me? Probably. I’m lol take my chances.
I love you inexplicably, uncontrollably, with a passion and need I have never felt before or again. You are my only star in the dark sky ⭐️ and the very best I’ve ever had, in every way.
You’re always welcome here. No matter what. I will always be so inviting, sweet, cordial and apologetic. I will always welcome you as a friend. Please come. Send a text, a smoke signal, a postcard or letter. Do you need a stamp? I’ll drive one down and leave it in the mailbox for you. Please give me something. Anything. Give me hope or slam the proverbial door.
Meanwhile, I’ll just wait….God, I fucking miss you….
submitted by WearsGreenSweaters to UnsentLetters [link] [comments]
I hate how everything happened. We both messed up. Big time. I exploded and you ghosted. Then I kinda stalked you. I’m truly sorry for my words and actions. I was so hurt. So angry that you could disappear without a single word like it all meant nothing. Like I meant nothing. I know how you feel/felt about me. I couldn’t be easy for you. I know I hurt you as well. I’m sorry.
I don’t know if you’re angry with me, if you hate me, if this is a forced situation? Hell, are you still alive? Still have your leg? I have no clue what’s going on except that you changed your phone number again. I already have the new number. I didn’t stop trying to call and text because you changed it. I stopped out of respect for your boundaries. A little late, I know, but I’m trying very hard every day to get my emotions in check.
I will certainly forgive and forget as long as you eventually tell me the whole story of what happened. I just wish I knew where a stand with you.
I will wait here. Every minute of every day for the rest of my life. I’ll live my entire existence inside these walls waiting hopelessly fir you to open the door and come in. I’d rather wait than miss an opportunity to be with you, for only a moment or forever. I’ll take what I can get. Will this ruin me? Probably. I’m lol take my chances.
I love you inexplicably, uncontrollably, with a passion and need I have never felt before or again. You are my only star in the dark sky ⭐️ and the very best I’ve ever had, in every way.
You’re always welcome here. No matter what. I will always be so inviting, sweet, cordial and apologetic. I will always welcome you as a friend. Please come. Send a text, a smoke signal, a postcard or letter. Do you need a stamp? I’ll drive one down and leave it in the mailbox for you. Please give me something. Anything. Give me hope or slam the proverbial door.
Meanwhile, I’ll just wait….God, I fucking miss you….
- C
2023.06.04 15:06 Teguterror An Honest Dominion Ch. 11
The Nature of Predators is made by u/SpacePaladin15
Previous/ First
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Memory transcription subject: Varce, Cattle Farm Δ12
Date [standardized human time]: January 5, 2137
The kitchen was once again filled with the scent of boiling crab. Al and Kyra were manning the cooking station, occasionally poking down crab parts that would try to float to the surface. The rest of the division and I were separating meat from shell.
Al’s injured arm was coming along nicely. The gauze that lined his arm under the bandages stayed clean the last time he checked himself. He could even somewhat use it now. While he couldn’t do more physically intensive activities like splitting body shells with his knife, he could still do smaller things like cooking.
I looked up from my work when I heard an annoyed sigh coming from my human. Oddly enough, Kyra was shooting a glare of pure disgust in my direction. Not really sure what I did to warrant that kind of look.
As I sat there confused, a large hand reached over me and snatched the piece of crab meat I was working on. Alright, who’s the smart guy? I turned to chew out the thief, however I stopped when I was greeted by a wall of scales. The list of Arxur I knew that were this large was dangerously short.
Yeah, danger is a good word for this.
I bowed my head down in fealty. “Your cruelness. How may I serve you.”
An audible swallow could be heard above me. “I’m not here for you Welfare Officer. Human, follow me… Also, this food is awful.”
Chief Hunter Shaza pivoted away from me and began walking towards the door that was currently being manned by a pair of guards. There was nothing more I wanted to do at that moment than to tell her to fuck off. After the wound she inflicted on Al, she would have the self-entitlement to come in and start commanding him to do her biding. I stayed silent though, maybe I’m a coward.
As I started to sink into my own thoughts, I felt my arm getting tugged. Al was standing by me, motioning his head for me to follow him. But she doesn’t want me. I don’t want to get her mad… I forced myself up. My legs felt like lead as I fought every instinct in my head. I’m not going to run and hide. I’m not a prey.
I pulled myself along, following Al into the hallway. The door guards looked me over as they began tailing us. My heart skipped a beat as Al hopped forward a few paces, aligning himself to be beside the Chief Hunter.
Worse yet, he started to talk. “Chief Hunter Shaza. I’d like to have a quick conversation with you. There is a restroom down the hall.”
She lazily swung her head towards him and gave a grunt. “Fine.”
You stupid bastard.
I quietly followed them into the restroom, unsure of what was to come. The guards stopped at the door to ensure we had privacy. Shaza stood next to a sink while looking the two of us over.
Al postured himself respectfully and spoke. “Chief Hunter Shaza. I have raised the price of my cooperation.”
The Chief Hunter gave pause. “And what made you think you have a say in this?”
Al tapped his bandaged arm. “Besides the obvious one? I suspect you’re not in a good position to be saying no. So I might as well take advantage of the situation.”
She didn’t like that. “You think I’m vulnerable? Like a weak prey.”
Al kept a straight face. “Your Cruelness. You lost a quarter of your bargaining power and have an angry Prophet Descendant demanding results. You came to me to give you those results. I will give you what you need, but I want you to do something for me in return.”
Her eye twitched in anger. Al got a bullseye on this one. The fact she hadn’t gutted him yet was proof that she was desperate. The Prophet Descendant was the only person in the Dominion that could have her executed. And it looked like she was fearing for her neck.
Shaza approached my human, grabbing the top of his head and looking him in the eyes. “What do you want?”
“I want Varce here to be given top priority in the Dominion’s eugenics program. I want every one of his kids to be supplied with big swaths of fertile land for raising syasaras. I want his kids to never know hunger.”
The senior officer exhaled a chuckle while releasing Al’s head. “That’s it? You got me worked up over nothing… I’ll write a recommendation if you offer anything worthwhile to me.”
I was speechless. I’d told Al a couple of times about how I wanted to get into the eugenics program. This was a dream come true. To not only get to father the next generation, but for them to be guaranteed a good life as well. I’d owe Al a debt I’d never be able to fully pay. I… I just… Thank you.
A firm hip check to my outer thigh brought me back to reality. Shaza was already walking out the door as Al waved me a goodbye. With everyone gone, I mulled over what happened as I washed my claws. My life has gotten so much better since I met my human. I really do need to think of a way to show him my gratitude.
As I strolled my way back to the kitchen, it occurred to me that vice admiral hadn’t given me any notice of Shaza’s arrival. I pulled out my holopad while entering the kitchen. Kyra gave me a worried look that I alleviated with a joyful nod.
I relaxed in a chair while messaging the vice admiral. “Vice Admiral, are you aware that Chief Hunter Shaza is back?”
He replied. “I was unaware of this. Thank you for the update. I’ll make accommodations for my guest.”
She just zips around as she pleases with no regard for others, doesn’t she? No one ever standing up to her has certainly given Shaza a number of “personality traits”. It explains a lot really.
I peered up from my holopad and looked around the room. The first half of the meat had been de-shelled while the second half of the crab was still boiling. Al’s hard boiled egg plate was only half eaten. I made a mental note to take that home for my human.
--------------------------------
I laid on my bed staring at the ceiling waiting for Al’s return. The goober left his holopad at the cooking station as a timer so I haven’t been able to get status updates from him. I know that he was acting like everything was fine when he left, but I was still concerned he’d show up with another gored arm. He really is quite fragile. His skin is soft and weak. He has barely any physical strength in comparison to an Arxur. He needs someone like me there for him. Someone that will crush those that try to do him harm.
I lamented the fact that I didn’t follow him after the restroom. That was another failure on my part. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if I stayed with him. He can barely handle a couple of pissy humans, yet he thought he could stand against a superior being like Shaza. I sunk into my darker thoughts.
What if I were to lose him? I’ve effectively been alone my entire life. The danger of Betterment labeling me defective for reaching out to others prevented me from ever forming anything meaningful with people. The only reason I risked it with Al was because I figured I could pass it off as a weird human thing. But now that I have him, I just don’t think I could let go. I can’t see myself going back to pretending to be an empty husk.
I almost felt sickly. My stomach felt weighted down by the intrusive thoughts of being alone again. Kyra would probably fade into the background again. Tarth would still be chatty, but I’d imagine his words would return to being meaningless noise meant to incite anger.
The sound of the common room door opening made me bound out of bed. I darted to my bedroom door and opened it to greet Al. The blond hairball happily waved as he walked over to greet me. I pulled him into my room so we could spend time together.
My human started talking with a big grin. “Hey Varce, guess what? Tomorrow morning, you’ll be receiving a flight itinerary to Wriss. Make sure to have lots of fun. I’ll hold down the fort for you here, okay? Oh! And drink lots of water.”
I couldn’t stop myself from letting a grin slip. “So Chief Hunter Shaza liked your offer?”
“Oh yeah. The Dominion is going to be in a much better position here in a couple of days. Probably not going to be great for our job security though.”
As long as I get to keep Al around, I don’t mind. “That’s good. Your probably hungry by now. Take a seat.”
I led him over to my bed and gave him his egg plate. I loaded it up with some crab from dinner as well. He really doesn’t eat enough in my opinion, so I’ll make sure he stays in tiptop condition.
Al gave me a smile when I sat next to him. “Thanks Varce. I’m gonna be honest though. I just ate a bunch so if you could help me with this, it would be greatly appreciated.”
How? Did he stop by the main facility to cook something on one of the hotplates? “I’m not going to turn down free food. What did you eat anyway?”
“Vice Admiral sent a harchen over as a gift. Shaza offered me some. I think she was trying to do some kind of purity check on me.”
I missed my favorite little predator’s first foray into something besides tilfish? Dammit. She stole that moment from me.
“Oh. So how was it?”
Al grimaced. “It sort of tasted like somebody accidentally dropped it in the dirt. Maybe some of the ‘gamey’ flavor could be cooked out.”
I plucked a couple of eggs from Al’s plate. “Next time some harchen rations show up, I’ll give you a bit to cook up back at the kitchen. Deal?”
“Sure. I don’t know if it’ll beat these eggs though.”
I can’t argue with that. The cooked crab meat is kinda meh, but these hard boiled eggs with salt? I could live off of this stuff. Cleaning the cooked tilfish egg slime out of the pots in the restroom was even a fair trade off as far as I was concerned.
Speaking of… “What was the deal with you wanting to talk to Shaza in the restroom of all places? There are plenty of empty rooms you could have used.”
“I didn’t want any unwelcome eyes observing our conversation. The only places that don’t have cameras in this cattlefarm are staterooms, officer quarters, and restrooms. Shaza doesn’t want anything we talk about to be recorded.”
That got a little chuckle out of me. “Is she seriously THAT concerned about someone seeing her with a human?”
Al gave me a confused look. “What? No. Varce, the humans captured Chief Hunter Isif and then suddenly showed up right behind our fleet. There’s a very real chance that humans have infiltrated almost all of our digital systems since Isif had access to them. All of the higher ups in the Dominion are going radio silent right now until the situation gets resolved. Don’t tell anyone this. It’s supposed to be super secret. We’ve actually been giving out tons of misinformation on our communication systems while we patch things up.”
Shit… I wasn’t aware of that.
My human continued. “Yeah. It’s a whole thing right now. According to the tech guys, they’ve pinned down most of the potential leak points. They’re going to do a mass shut down and purge sooner or later… Oh. Funny thing. They all thought for sure that you were a smurf account that was giving out human propaganda for like the first week after you released the guide. They thought they were extracting sensitive data when they asked us questions. Fucking hilarious.”
What? “They thought I was a UN internet spy? Okay, there’s some irony in there somewhere.”
We (mostly me) finished off Al’s food plate and set it aside. It was fairly late, so we decided to call it a night. Al crouched down to fish out his foam pad from under my bed. The pad was really thin all things considered and not really appropriate to sleep on long term. Well that’s one thing I could do to improve his quality of life.
I snaked my arm around Al’s abdomen and pulled him onto my bed with me. I knew for a fact that he would be more comfortable on a soft officer mattress then some crap foam sheet.
I dragged him under my bed covers. “Here. Just sleep on the bed. Making you sleep on the floor for a month was honestly a really shit move on my part.”
Al awkwardly responded. “Uh… Okay. This is a lot better.”
“No worries. You’re a few degrees warmer than me, so this is an improvement for both of us.”
I was very much intending on stealing some of his body heat. I’d say the arrangement was mutually beneficial overall. Who knows, maybe one day humans and the Arxur people could have a something beneficial like what my friend and I have.
submitted by Teguterror to NatureofPredators [link] [comments]
Previous/ First
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Memory transcription subject: Varce, Cattle Farm Δ12
Date [standardized human time]: January 5, 2137
The kitchen was once again filled with the scent of boiling crab. Al and Kyra were manning the cooking station, occasionally poking down crab parts that would try to float to the surface. The rest of the division and I were separating meat from shell.
Al’s injured arm was coming along nicely. The gauze that lined his arm under the bandages stayed clean the last time he checked himself. He could even somewhat use it now. While he couldn’t do more physically intensive activities like splitting body shells with his knife, he could still do smaller things like cooking.
I looked up from my work when I heard an annoyed sigh coming from my human. Oddly enough, Kyra was shooting a glare of pure disgust in my direction. Not really sure what I did to warrant that kind of look.
As I sat there confused, a large hand reached over me and snatched the piece of crab meat I was working on. Alright, who’s the smart guy? I turned to chew out the thief, however I stopped when I was greeted by a wall of scales. The list of Arxur I knew that were this large was dangerously short.
Yeah, danger is a good word for this.
I bowed my head down in fealty. “Your cruelness. How may I serve you.”
An audible swallow could be heard above me. “I’m not here for you Welfare Officer. Human, follow me… Also, this food is awful.”
Chief Hunter Shaza pivoted away from me and began walking towards the door that was currently being manned by a pair of guards. There was nothing more I wanted to do at that moment than to tell her to fuck off. After the wound she inflicted on Al, she would have the self-entitlement to come in and start commanding him to do her biding. I stayed silent though, maybe I’m a coward.
As I started to sink into my own thoughts, I felt my arm getting tugged. Al was standing by me, motioning his head for me to follow him. But she doesn’t want me. I don’t want to get her mad… I forced myself up. My legs felt like lead as I fought every instinct in my head. I’m not going to run and hide. I’m not a prey.
I pulled myself along, following Al into the hallway. The door guards looked me over as they began tailing us. My heart skipped a beat as Al hopped forward a few paces, aligning himself to be beside the Chief Hunter.
Worse yet, he started to talk. “Chief Hunter Shaza. I’d like to have a quick conversation with you. There is a restroom down the hall.”
She lazily swung her head towards him and gave a grunt. “Fine.”
You stupid bastard.
I quietly followed them into the restroom, unsure of what was to come. The guards stopped at the door to ensure we had privacy. Shaza stood next to a sink while looking the two of us over.
Al postured himself respectfully and spoke. “Chief Hunter Shaza. I have raised the price of my cooperation.”
The Chief Hunter gave pause. “And what made you think you have a say in this?”
Al tapped his bandaged arm. “Besides the obvious one? I suspect you’re not in a good position to be saying no. So I might as well take advantage of the situation.”
She didn’t like that. “You think I’m vulnerable? Like a weak prey.”
Al kept a straight face. “Your Cruelness. You lost a quarter of your bargaining power and have an angry Prophet Descendant demanding results. You came to me to give you those results. I will give you what you need, but I want you to do something for me in return.”
Her eye twitched in anger. Al got a bullseye on this one. The fact she hadn’t gutted him yet was proof that she was desperate. The Prophet Descendant was the only person in the Dominion that could have her executed. And it looked like she was fearing for her neck.
Shaza approached my human, grabbing the top of his head and looking him in the eyes. “What do you want?”
“I want Varce here to be given top priority in the Dominion’s eugenics program. I want every one of his kids to be supplied with big swaths of fertile land for raising syasaras. I want his kids to never know hunger.”
The senior officer exhaled a chuckle while releasing Al’s head. “That’s it? You got me worked up over nothing… I’ll write a recommendation if you offer anything worthwhile to me.”
I was speechless. I’d told Al a couple of times about how I wanted to get into the eugenics program. This was a dream come true. To not only get to father the next generation, but for them to be guaranteed a good life as well. I’d owe Al a debt I’d never be able to fully pay. I… I just… Thank you.
A firm hip check to my outer thigh brought me back to reality. Shaza was already walking out the door as Al waved me a goodbye. With everyone gone, I mulled over what happened as I washed my claws. My life has gotten so much better since I met my human. I really do need to think of a way to show him my gratitude.
As I strolled my way back to the kitchen, it occurred to me that vice admiral hadn’t given me any notice of Shaza’s arrival. I pulled out my holopad while entering the kitchen. Kyra gave me a worried look that I alleviated with a joyful nod.
I relaxed in a chair while messaging the vice admiral. “Vice Admiral, are you aware that Chief Hunter Shaza is back?”
He replied. “I was unaware of this. Thank you for the update. I’ll make accommodations for my guest.”
She just zips around as she pleases with no regard for others, doesn’t she? No one ever standing up to her has certainly given Shaza a number of “personality traits”. It explains a lot really.
I peered up from my holopad and looked around the room. The first half of the meat had been de-shelled while the second half of the crab was still boiling. Al’s hard boiled egg plate was only half eaten. I made a mental note to take that home for my human.
--------------------------------
I laid on my bed staring at the ceiling waiting for Al’s return. The goober left his holopad at the cooking station as a timer so I haven’t been able to get status updates from him. I know that he was acting like everything was fine when he left, but I was still concerned he’d show up with another gored arm. He really is quite fragile. His skin is soft and weak. He has barely any physical strength in comparison to an Arxur. He needs someone like me there for him. Someone that will crush those that try to do him harm.
I lamented the fact that I didn’t follow him after the restroom. That was another failure on my part. It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if I stayed with him. He can barely handle a couple of pissy humans, yet he thought he could stand against a superior being like Shaza. I sunk into my darker thoughts.
What if I were to lose him? I’ve effectively been alone my entire life. The danger of Betterment labeling me defective for reaching out to others prevented me from ever forming anything meaningful with people. The only reason I risked it with Al was because I figured I could pass it off as a weird human thing. But now that I have him, I just don’t think I could let go. I can’t see myself going back to pretending to be an empty husk.
I almost felt sickly. My stomach felt weighted down by the intrusive thoughts of being alone again. Kyra would probably fade into the background again. Tarth would still be chatty, but I’d imagine his words would return to being meaningless noise meant to incite anger.
The sound of the common room door opening made me bound out of bed. I darted to my bedroom door and opened it to greet Al. The blond hairball happily waved as he walked over to greet me. I pulled him into my room so we could spend time together.
My human started talking with a big grin. “Hey Varce, guess what? Tomorrow morning, you’ll be receiving a flight itinerary to Wriss. Make sure to have lots of fun. I’ll hold down the fort for you here, okay? Oh! And drink lots of water.”
I couldn’t stop myself from letting a grin slip. “So Chief Hunter Shaza liked your offer?”
“Oh yeah. The Dominion is going to be in a much better position here in a couple of days. Probably not going to be great for our job security though.”
As long as I get to keep Al around, I don’t mind. “That’s good. Your probably hungry by now. Take a seat.”
I led him over to my bed and gave him his egg plate. I loaded it up with some crab from dinner as well. He really doesn’t eat enough in my opinion, so I’ll make sure he stays in tiptop condition.
Al gave me a smile when I sat next to him. “Thanks Varce. I’m gonna be honest though. I just ate a bunch so if you could help me with this, it would be greatly appreciated.”
How? Did he stop by the main facility to cook something on one of the hotplates? “I’m not going to turn down free food. What did you eat anyway?”
“Vice Admiral sent a harchen over as a gift. Shaza offered me some. I think she was trying to do some kind of purity check on me.”
I missed my favorite little predator’s first foray into something besides tilfish? Dammit. She stole that moment from me.
“Oh. So how was it?”
Al grimaced. “It sort of tasted like somebody accidentally dropped it in the dirt. Maybe some of the ‘gamey’ flavor could be cooked out.”
I plucked a couple of eggs from Al’s plate. “Next time some harchen rations show up, I’ll give you a bit to cook up back at the kitchen. Deal?”
“Sure. I don’t know if it’ll beat these eggs though.”
I can’t argue with that. The cooked crab meat is kinda meh, but these hard boiled eggs with salt? I could live off of this stuff. Cleaning the cooked tilfish egg slime out of the pots in the restroom was even a fair trade off as far as I was concerned.
Speaking of… “What was the deal with you wanting to talk to Shaza in the restroom of all places? There are plenty of empty rooms you could have used.”
“I didn’t want any unwelcome eyes observing our conversation. The only places that don’t have cameras in this cattlefarm are staterooms, officer quarters, and restrooms. Shaza doesn’t want anything we talk about to be recorded.”
That got a little chuckle out of me. “Is she seriously THAT concerned about someone seeing her with a human?”
Al gave me a confused look. “What? No. Varce, the humans captured Chief Hunter Isif and then suddenly showed up right behind our fleet. There’s a very real chance that humans have infiltrated almost all of our digital systems since Isif had access to them. All of the higher ups in the Dominion are going radio silent right now until the situation gets resolved. Don’t tell anyone this. It’s supposed to be super secret. We’ve actually been giving out tons of misinformation on our communication systems while we patch things up.”
Shit… I wasn’t aware of that.
My human continued. “Yeah. It’s a whole thing right now. According to the tech guys, they’ve pinned down most of the potential leak points. They’re going to do a mass shut down and purge sooner or later… Oh. Funny thing. They all thought for sure that you were a smurf account that was giving out human propaganda for like the first week after you released the guide. They thought they were extracting sensitive data when they asked us questions. Fucking hilarious.”
What? “They thought I was a UN internet spy? Okay, there’s some irony in there somewhere.”
We (mostly me) finished off Al’s food plate and set it aside. It was fairly late, so we decided to call it a night. Al crouched down to fish out his foam pad from under my bed. The pad was really thin all things considered and not really appropriate to sleep on long term. Well that’s one thing I could do to improve his quality of life.
I snaked my arm around Al’s abdomen and pulled him onto my bed with me. I knew for a fact that he would be more comfortable on a soft officer mattress then some crap foam sheet.
I dragged him under my bed covers. “Here. Just sleep on the bed. Making you sleep on the floor for a month was honestly a really shit move on my part.”
Al awkwardly responded. “Uh… Okay. This is a lot better.”
“No worries. You’re a few degrees warmer than me, so this is an improvement for both of us.”
I was very much intending on stealing some of his body heat. I’d say the arrangement was mutually beneficial overall. Who knows, maybe one day humans and the Arxur people could have a something beneficial like what my friend and I have.
2023.06.04 15:01 bubbIebuddy I (28M) am having a hard time moving forward with my (29F) fiancé after knowing she has cheated
Hi, I am probably gonna be all over the place with a timeline due to scatter brain, so I will answer anything if someone has a question. It may be lengthy with unnecessary details. I am looking for opinions/suggestions on what I should do with the current relationship I am in. My (29F) fiancé and I have been on and off again since high school. We first got engaged in April of 2021. While I was not the best SO and father before then I had since devoted all my time and energy to be the best fiancé and father to provide a healthy family for my kids. Throughout our engagement I lived with her in a small townhouse. I worked hard to build my credit and save as much as I could, so that we could apply to rent a bigger house. I always had a feeling she was not being faithful due to us being distant, arguing, and overall in the “roommate” phase. She claimed it was due to the small space we shared. We both aren’t good at communicating our issues. We both stonewall each other usually. I brought up time and time again that we should prioritize our relationship with date nights once a week and initiate more intimacy. She would not let me see who she texts or communicates with on her social medias. She said it was none of my business and that it is okay for her to have guy friends. I knew it was a red flag, but I let it slide, because I agreed that it’s fine if she had guy friends. We began submitting multiple renter’s applications and that made a huge hit to my credit. Ultimately taking it back down to the score I started at. I didn’t mind, because it was what she wanted for her and the kids. Before we moved in and took on more responsibility I had one request for her to show me who she talks to, so I can have my mind at ease. She told me that she was not playing that game, and I could have my ring back. That was in August of 2022. I moved out in September to my own small apartment.
Fast forward to January of this year. We are talking to each other trying to rekindle what we had since we have had time apart. She upgraded phones and let my daughter use her old phone to watch YouTube, and play games. She was showing me pictures she had taken of her pets, and I noticed an inappropriate picture in the camera roll. That led me to go snooping and both phones were synced up allowing me to see pictures and text messages that were active. I saw that she had been cheating on me since we very first got engaged. I confronted her about it. Telling her how the whole time she accused me of being paranoid and immature that I was right about my gut feeling. She gave me a big speech saying she blocked him and it would never happen again. I then catch her messaging him in March. Saying she never blocked him, and that switching phones has been a mess. I asked why and she said she did nothing wrong. That she didn’t pursue anything further with the conversation. She could not provide evidence of that though.
To show she is serious about the idea of our kids and us being a family she decided to put her ring back on. It’s what I’m wanting, but I now get anxiety and overthink everything she does and says. My first thought was that it was an impulsive decision by her. Is there a healthy way to move forward? This has damaged my ego and made me insecure about myself. I’m open minded to any opinions/suggestions.
submitted by bubbIebuddy to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
Fast forward to January of this year. We are talking to each other trying to rekindle what we had since we have had time apart. She upgraded phones and let my daughter use her old phone to watch YouTube, and play games. She was showing me pictures she had taken of her pets, and I noticed an inappropriate picture in the camera roll. That led me to go snooping and both phones were synced up allowing me to see pictures and text messages that were active. I saw that she had been cheating on me since we very first got engaged. I confronted her about it. Telling her how the whole time she accused me of being paranoid and immature that I was right about my gut feeling. She gave me a big speech saying she blocked him and it would never happen again. I then catch her messaging him in March. Saying she never blocked him, and that switching phones has been a mess. I asked why and she said she did nothing wrong. That she didn’t pursue anything further with the conversation. She could not provide evidence of that though.
To show she is serious about the idea of our kids and us being a family she decided to put her ring back on. It’s what I’m wanting, but I now get anxiety and overthink everything she does and says. My first thought was that it was an impulsive decision by her. Is there a healthy way to move forward? This has damaged my ego and made me insecure about myself. I’m open minded to any opinions/suggestions.
2023.06.04 14:57 _Sun_King_ Caravan legal advice in lieu of potential complaint by neighbour
Hello. Me and my partner currently live with her parents and sleep in a touring caravan in their front drive way. By way of some back story we moved in just before COVID after being evicted from our bungalow after the owner went into care and the family moved to sell. This residence was just over the road from our current address, and in total we've lived in the road for 20+ years. We get on with everyone in the close, my other half cleans and cares for a number of the elderly residents and we're always helping with odd jobs and requests like helping with picking up prescriptions, parcels, helping when there are power cuts and such. We've never received any complaints and we're both very discrete - no loud music, we keep the blinds down and don't cook or eat in the caravan.
So recently we spotted a couple who we didn't recognise taking photos of the caravan, and a neighbour informed us that they were unhappy about the caravan being in the close.
We've checked with the council and while we don't have anything in writing we can't find any laws or bylaws prohibiting caravans or people residing at the address using it as extra sleeping space.
We did however discover a covenant which was on the property going back to the 60s when the housing estate was built forbidding chickens, the removing hedges and caravans.
We're both on low incomes and in poor health and have no stomach or deep pockets for a legal dispute. The thing is that in the 20 years we've resided here about 20% or thereabouts of the property have or have had caravans without issue. Ours is kept clean, maintained and such whereas many are dilapidated moss ornaments, which leads us to speculate that the neighbours issue might have more to do with us inhabiting the caravan as opposed to its presence alone. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as we're very worried we'll become homeless.
submitted by _Sun_King_ to LegalAdviceUK [link] [comments]
So recently we spotted a couple who we didn't recognise taking photos of the caravan, and a neighbour informed us that they were unhappy about the caravan being in the close.
We've checked with the council and while we don't have anything in writing we can't find any laws or bylaws prohibiting caravans or people residing at the address using it as extra sleeping space.
We did however discover a covenant which was on the property going back to the 60s when the housing estate was built forbidding chickens, the removing hedges and caravans.
We're both on low incomes and in poor health and have no stomach or deep pockets for a legal dispute. The thing is that in the 20 years we've resided here about 20% or thereabouts of the property have or have had caravans without issue. Ours is kept clean, maintained and such whereas many are dilapidated moss ornaments, which leads us to speculate that the neighbours issue might have more to do with us inhabiting the caravan as opposed to its presence alone. Any advice would be greatly appreciated as we're very worried we'll become homeless.
2023.06.04 14:44 Many_Care_2184 Looking for insight about living in Beykoz
I’m expecting to move to Istanbul for work later this year and currently looking at the options for places to live.
My office will be near Sabiha airport, but I expect that my child will go to a school in Zekeriyaköy district, so looking for somewhere with easy access routes to both locations.
Another important criteria is to be somewhere with newer buildings that are hopefully compliant with earthquake regulations.
Finally, I’d like somewhere with more open space (ideally a house/villa with a garden, rather than an apartment) but this is not a must.
Given all of the above, my research led me to Beykoz district; particularly the area just to the north of O-7 motorway (south of Riva Istanbul)
This area seems to have a number of new developments which tick most/all of the points above. However, I’m looking for help to confirm:
a. that my conclusion is correct/reasonable! b. whether those developments have access to good services (shopping, etc.) c. how safe/populated the area is (not too isolated?). d. if overall it’s considered a good area to live in.
Any insight from people currently living in Istanbul would be highly appreciated!
submitted by Many_Care_2184 to istanbul [link] [comments]
My office will be near Sabiha airport, but I expect that my child will go to a school in Zekeriyaköy district, so looking for somewhere with easy access routes to both locations.
Another important criteria is to be somewhere with newer buildings that are hopefully compliant with earthquake regulations.
Finally, I’d like somewhere with more open space (ideally a house/villa with a garden, rather than an apartment) but this is not a must.
Given all of the above, my research led me to Beykoz district; particularly the area just to the north of O-7 motorway (south of Riva Istanbul)
This area seems to have a number of new developments which tick most/all of the points above. However, I’m looking for help to confirm:
a. that my conclusion is correct/reasonable! b. whether those developments have access to good services (shopping, etc.) c. how safe/populated the area is (not too isolated?). d. if overall it’s considered a good area to live in.
Any insight from people currently living in Istanbul would be highly appreciated!
2023.06.04 14:34 Dirtclodkoolaid AMA RESOLUTION 235
 | AMA RESOLUTION 235 November 2018 INAPPROPRIATE USE OF CDC Guidelines FOR PRESCRIBING OPIOIDS (Entire Document) submitted by Dirtclodkoolaid to ChronicPain [link] [comments] “Resolution 235 asks that our AMA applaud the CDC for its efforts to prevent the incidence of new cases of opioid misuse, addiction, and overdose deaths; and be it further, that no entity should use MME thresholds as anything more than guidance and that MME thresholds should not be used to completely prohibit the prescribing of, or the filling of prescriptions for, medications used in oncology care, palliative medicine care, and addiction medicine care: and be it further, that our AMA communicate with the nation’s largest pharmacy chains and pharmacy benefit managers to recommend that they cease and desist with writing threatening letters to physicians and cease and desist with presenting policies, procedures and directives to retail pharmacists that include a blanket proscription against filling prescriptions for opioids that exceed certain numerical thresholds without taking into account the diagnosis and previous response to treatment for a patient and any clinical nuances that would support such prescribing as falling within standards of good quality patient care; and be it further, that AMA Policy opposing the legislating of numerical limits on medication dosage, duration of therapy, numbers of pills/tablets, etc., be reaffirmed; and be it further, that physicians should not be subject to professional discipline or loss of board certification or loss of clinical privileges simply for prescribing opioids at a quantitative level that exceeds the MME thresholds found in the CDC Guidelines; and be it further, that our AMA encourage the Federation of State Medical Boards and its member boards, medical specialty societies, and other entities to develop improved guidance on management of pain and management of potential withdrawal syndromes and other aspects of patient care for “legacy patients” who may have been treated for extended periods of time with high-dose opioid therapy for chronic non-malignant pain. RESOLVED, that our American Medical Association (AMA) applaud the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for its efforts to prevent the incidence of new cases of opioid misuse, addiction, and overdose deaths RESOLVED, that our AMA actively continue to communicate and engage with the nation’s largest pharmacy chains, pharmacy benefit managers, National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Federation of State Medical Boards, and National Association of Boards of Pharmacy in opposition to communications being sent to physicians that include a blanket proscription against filing prescriptions for opioids that exceed numerical thresholds without taking into account the diagnosis and previous response to treatment for a patient and any clinical nuances that would support such prescribing as falling within standards of good quality patient care. RESOLVED, that our AMA affirms that some patients with acute or chronic pain can benefit from taking opioid pain medications at doses greater than generally recommended in the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain and that such care may be medically necessary and appropriate, and be it further RESOLVED, that our AMA advocate against misapplication of the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids by pharmacists, health insurers, pharmacy benefit managers, legislatures, and governmental and private regulatory bodies in ways that prevent or limit patients’ medical access to opioid analgesia, and be it further RESOLVED, that our AMA advocate that no entity should use MME (morphine milligram equivalents) thresholds as anything more than guidance, and physicians should not be subject to professional discipline, loss of board certification, loss of clinical privileges, criminal prosecution, civil liability, or other penalties or practice limitations solely for prescribing opioids at a quantitative level above the MME thresholds found in the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids.”” Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force - Draft Report on Pain Management Best Practices: Updates, Gaps, Inconsistencies, and Recommendations Official Health and Human Services Department Released December 2018 “The Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) of 2016 led to the creation of the Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force (Task Force), whose mission is to determine whether gaps in or inconsistencies between best practices for acute and chronic pain management exist and to propose updates and recommendations to those best practices. The Task Force consists of 29 experts who have significant experience across the disciplines of pain management, patient advocacy, substance use disorders, mental health, and minority health.” In addition to identifying approximately 60 gaps in clinical best practices and the current treatment of pain in the United States, HHS PMTF provided recommendations for each of these major areas of concern. In alignment with their original charter, the PMTF will submit these recommendations to Congress to become our ‘National Pain Policy’. The 60+ gaps and inconsistencies with their recommendations will serve to fill gaps in pain treatment at both the state and federal level; and the overwhelming consensus was that the treatment of pain should be multimodal and completely individualized based on the individual patient. The heart of each recommendation in each section was a resounding call for individualization for each patient, in regards to both non-pharmacological and pharmacological modalities; including individualizations in both opioid and non-opioid pharmacological treatments. While each of the gap+recommendation sections of what is poised to become our national pain policy is extremely important, one that stands out the most (in regards to opioid prescribing) is the Stigma section. Contained in this section is one of the core statements that shows our Health and Human Services agency - the one that should have always been looked to and followed - knew the true depth of the relationship (or lack of) between the overdose crisis and compassionate prescribing to patients with painful conditions: “The national crisis of illicit drug use, with overdose deaths, is confused with appropriate therapy for patients who are being treated for pain. This confusion has created a stigma that contributes to raise barriers to proper access to care.” The recommendation that follows - “Identify strategies to reduce stigma in opioid use so that it is never a barrier to patients receiving appropriate treatment, with all cautions and considerations for the management of their chronic pain conditions” - illustrates an acknowledgment by the top health agency of the federal government that the current national narrative conflating and confusing compassionate treatment of pain with illicit drug use, addiction, and overdose death is incorrect and only serving to harm patients. Since March of 2016 when the CDC Guidelines were released, advocates, patients, clinicians, stakeholders, and others, have began pointing out limitations and unintended consequences as they emerged. In order to address the unintended consequences emerging from the CDC Guidelines, this task force was also charged with review of these guidelines; from expert selection, evidence selection, creation, and continuing to current misapplication in order to provide recommendations to begin to remedy these issues. “A commentary by Busse et al. identified several limitations to the CDC guideline related to expert selection, evidence inclusion criteria, method of evidence quality grading, support of recommendations with low-quality evidence, and instances of vague recommendations. In addition, the CDC used the criterion of a lack of clinical trials with a duration of one year or longer as lack of evidence for the clinical effectiveness of opioids, whereas Tayeb et al. found that that was true for all common medication and behavioral therapy studies. Interpretation of the guideline, in addition to some gaps in the guideline, have led to unintended consequences, some of which are the result of misapplication or misinterpretation of the CDC guideline. However, at least 28 states have enacted legislation related to opioid prescription limits, and many states and organizations have implemented the guideline without recognizing that the intended audience was PCPs; have used legislation for what should be medical decision making by healthcare professionals; and have applied them to all physicians, dentists, NPs, and PAs, including pain specialists.441–444 Some stakeholders have interpreted the guideline as intended to broadly reduce the amount of opioids prescribed for treating pain; some experts have noted that the guideline emphasizes the risk of opioids while minimizing the benefit of this medication class when properly managed.” “The CDC guideline was not intended to be model legislation for state legislators to enact” “In essence, clinicians should be able to use their clinical judgment to determine opioid duration for their patients” https://www.hhs.gov/ash/advisory-committees/pain/reports/2018-12-draft-report-on-updates-gaps-inconsistencies-recommendations/index.html HHS Review of 2016 CDC Guidelines for responsible opioid prescribing The Pain Management Task Force addressed 8 areas that are in need of update or expansion with recommendations to begin remediation for each problem area: Lack of high-quality data exists for duration of effectiveness of opioids for chronic pain; this has been interpreted as a lack of benefit Conduct studies Focus on patient variability and response for effectiveness of opioids; use real-world applicable trials Absence of criteria for identifying patients for whom opioids make up significant part of their pain treatment Conduct clinical trials and/or reviews to identify sub-populations of patients where long-term opioid treatment is appropriate Wide variation in factors that affect optimal dose of opioids Consider patient variables for opioid therapy: Respiratory compromise Patient metabolic variables Differences in opioid medications/plasma concentrations Preform comprehensive initial assessment it’s understanding of need for comprehensive reevaluations to adjust dose Give careful considerations to patients on opioid pain regimen with additional risk factors for OUD Specific guidelines for opioid tapering and escalation need to be further clarified A thorough assessment of risk-benefit ratio should occur whenever tapering or escalation of dose This should include collaboration with patient whenever possible Develop taper or dose escalation guidelines for sub-populations that include consideration of their comorbidities When benefit outweighs the risk, consider maintaining therapy for stable patients on long term opioid therapy Causes of worsening pain are not often recognized or considered. Non-tolerance related factors: surgery, flares, increased physical demands, or emotional distress Avoid increase in dose for stable patient (2+ month stable dose) until patient is re-evaluated for underlying cause of elevated pain or possible OUD risk Considerations to avoid dose escalation include: Opioid rotation Non-opioid medication Interventional strategies Cognitive behavior strategies Complementary and integrative health approaches Physical therapy In patients with chronic pain AND anxiety or spasticity, benzodiazepine co-prescribed with opioids still have clinical value; although the risk of overdose is well established When clinically indicated, co-prescription should be managed by specialist who have knowledge, training, and experience with co-prescribing. When co-prescribed for anxiety or SUD collaboration with mental health should be considered Develop clinical practice guidelines focused on tapering for co-prescription of benzodiazepines and opioids The risk-benefit balance varies for individual patients. Doses >90MME may be favorable for some where doses <90MME may be for other patients due to individual patient factors. Variability in effectiveness and safety between high and low doses of opioids are not clearly defined. Clinicians should use caution with higher doses in general Using carefully monitored trial with frequent monitoring with each dose adjustment and regular risk reassessment, physicians should individualize doses, using lowest effective opioid dose that balances benefit, risk, and adverse reactions Many factors influence benefits and risk, therefore, guidance of dose should not be applied as strict limits. Use established and measurable goals: Functionality ADL Quality of Life Duration of pain following acute and severely painful event is widely variable Appropriate duration is best considered within guidelines, but is ultimately determined by treating clinician. CDC recommendation for duration should be emphasized as guidance only with individualized patient care as the goal Develop acute pain management guidelines for common surgical procedures and traumas To address variability and provide easy solution, consideration should be given to partial refill system Human Rights Watch December 2018 (Excerpt from 109 page report) “If harms to chronic pain patients are an unintended consequence of policies to reduce inappropriate prescribing, the government should seek to immediately minimize and measure the negative impacts of these policies. Any response should avoid further stigmatizing chronic pain patients, who are increasingly associated with — and sometimes blamed for — the overdose crisis and characterized as “drug seekers,” rather than people with serious health problems that require treatment. Top government officials, including the President, have said the country should aim for drastic cutbacks in prescribing. State legislatures encourage restrictions on prescribing through new legislation or regulations. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has investigated medical practitioners accused of overprescribing or fraudulent practice. State health agencies and insurance companies routinely warn physicians who prescribe more opioids than their peers and encourage them to reduce prescribing. Private insurance companies have imposed additional requirements for covering opioids, some state Medicaid programs have mandated tapering to lower doses for patients, and pharmacy chains are actively trying to reduce the volumes of opioids they dispense. The medical community at large recognized that certain key steps were necessary to tackle the overdose crisis: identifying and cracking down on “pill mills” and reducing the use of opioids for less severe pain, particularly for children and adolescents. However, the urgency to tackle the overdose crisis has put pressure on physicians in other potentially negative ways: our interviews with dozens of physicians found that the atmosphere around prescribing for chronic pain had become so fraught that physicians felt they must avoid opioid analgesics even in cases when it contradicted their view of what would provide the best care for their patients. In some cases, this desire to cut back on opioid prescribing translated to doctors tapering patients off their medications without patient consent, while in others it meant that physicians would no longer accept patients who had a history of needing high-dose opioids. The consequences to patients, according to Human Rights Watch research, have been catastrophic.” [https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/12/18/not-allowed-be-compassionate/chronic-pain-overdose-crisis-and-unintended-harms-us]( Opioid Prescribing Workgroup December 2018 This is material from the Board of Scientific Counselors in regards to their December 12, 2018 meeting that culminated the works of a project titled the “Opioid Prescribing Estimates Project.” This project is a descriptive study that is examining opioid prescribing patterns at a population level. Pain management is a very individualized process that belongs with the patient and provider. The Workgroup reviewed work done by CDC and provided additional recommendations. SUMMARY There were several recurrent themes throughout the sessions. Repeated concern was voiced from many Workgroup members that the CDC may not be able to prevent conclusions from this research (i.e. the benchmarks, developed from limited data) from being used by states or payors or clinical care systems to constrain clinical care or as pay-for- performance standards – i.e. interpreted as “guidelines”. This issue was raised by several members on each of the four calls, raising the possibility that providers or clinical systems could thus be incentivized against caring for patients requiring above average amounts of opioid medication. Risk for misuse of the analysis. Several members expressed concerns that this analysis could be interpreted as guidance by regulators, health plans, or clinical care systems. Even though the CDC does not plan to issue this as a guideline, but instead as research, payors and clinical care systems searching for ways to reign in opioid prescribing may utilize CDC “benchmarks” to establish pay-for-performance or other means to limit opioid prescribing. Such uses of this work could have the unintended effect of incentivizing providers against caring for patients reliant upon opioids. …It was also noted that, in order to obtain sufficient granularity to establish the need for, dosage, and duration of opioid therapy, it would be necessary to have much more extensive electronic medical record data. In addition, pain and functional outcomes are absent from the dataset, but were felt to be important when considering risk and benefit of opioids. ...Tapering: Concerns about benchmarks and the implications for tapering were voiced. If tapering occurs, guidance was felt to be needed regarding how, when, in whom tapering should occur. This issue was felt to be particularly challenging for patients on chronic opioids (i.e. “legacy” patients). In addition, the importance of measuring risk and benefit of tapering was noted. Not all high-dose patient populations benefit from tapering. Post-Surgical Pain General comments. Workgroup members noted that most patients prescribed opioids do not experience adverse events, including use disorder. Many suggested that further discussion of opioids with patients prior to surgery was important, with an emphasis on expectations and duration of treatment. A member suggested that take-back programs would be more effective than prescribing restrictions. Procedure-related care. Members noted that patient factors may drive opioid need more than characteristics of a procedure. Patient-level factors. Members noted that opioid-experienced patients should be considered differently from opioid-inexperienced patients, due to tolerance. Chronic Pain It was noted that anything coming out of the CDC might be considered as guidelines and that this misinterpretation can be difficult to counter. There was extensive discussion of the 50 and 90 MME levels included in the CDC Guidelines. It was recommended that the CDC look into the adverse effects of opioid tapering and discontinuation, such as illicit opioid use, acute care utilization, dropping out of care, and suicide. It was also noted that there are major gaps in guidelines for legacy patients, patients with multiple diagnoses, pediatric and geriatric patients, and patients transitioning to lower doses. There were concerns that insufficient clinical data will be available from the dataset to appropriately consider the individual-level factors that weigh into determination of opioid therapy. The data would also fail to account for the shared decision-making process involved in opioid prescribing for chronic pain conditions, which may be dependent on primary care providers as well as ancillary care providers (e.g. physical therapists, psychologists, etc). Patient-level factors. Members repeatedly noted that opioid-experienced patients should be considered differently from opioid-experienced patients, due to tolerance. Members noted that the current CDC guidelines have been used by states, insurance companies, and some clinical care systems in ways that were not intended by the CDC, resulting in cases of and the perception of patient abandonment. One option raised in this context was to exclude patients on high doses of opioids, as those individuals would be qualitatively different from others. A variant of this concern was about management of “legacy” patients who are inherited on high doses of opioids. Members voiced concerns that results of this work has caused harm to patients currently reliant upon opioids prescribed by their providers. Acute Non-Surgical Pain Patient-level factors. Members felt that opioid naïve versus experienced patients might again be considered separately, as opioid requirements among those experienced could vary widely. ...Guidelines were also noted to be often based on consensus, which may be incorrect. Cancer-Related and Palliative Care Pain It was noted that the CDC guidelines have been misinterpreted to create a limit to the dose of opioids that can be provided to people at all stages of cancer and its treatment. It was also noted that the cancer field is rapidly evolving, with immunotherapy, CAR-T, and other novel treatments that affect response rates and limit our ability to rely upon historical data in establishing opioid prescribing benchmarks. Concern that data would not be able to identify all of the conditions responsible for pain in a patient with a history of cancer (e.g. people who survive cancer but with severe residual pain). Further, it was noted that certain complications of cancer and cancer treatment may require the least restrictive long-term therapy with opioids. The definition of palliative care was also complicated and it was suggested that this include patients with life-limiting conditions. Overall, it was felt that in patients who may not have long to live, and/or for whom returning to work is not a possibility, higher doses of opioids may be warranted. https://www.cdc.gov/injury/pdfs/bsc/NCIPC_BSC_OpioidPrescribingEstimatesWorkgroupReport_December-12_2018-508.pdf CDC Scientists Anonymous ‘Spider Letter’ to CDC Carmen S. Villar, MSW Chief of Staff Office of the Director MS D14 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) 1600 Clifton Road Atlanta, Georgia 30329-4027 August 29, 2016 Dear Ms. Villar: We are a group of scientists at CDC that are very concerned about the current state of ethics at our agency. It appears that our mission is being influenced and shaped by outside parties and rogue interests. It seems that our mission and Congressional intent for our agency is being circumvented by some of our leaders. What concerns us most, is that it is becoming the norm and not the rare exception. Some senior management officials at CDC are clearly aware and even condone these behaviors. Others see it and turn the other way. Some staff are intimidated and pressed to do things they know are not right. We have representatives from across the agency that witness this unacceptable behavior. It occurs at all levels and in all of our respective units. These questionable and unethical practices threaten to undermine our credibility and reputation as a trusted leader in public health. We would like to see high ethical standards and thoughtful, responsible management restored at CDC. We are asking that you do your part to help clean up this house! It is puzzling to read about transgressions in national media outlets like USA Today, The Huffington Post and The Hill. It is equally puzzling that nothing has changed here at CDC as a result. It’s business as usual. The litany of issues detailed over the summer are of particular concern: Recently, the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) has been implicated in a “cover up” of inaccurate screening data for the Wise Woman (WW) Program. There was a coordinated effort by that Center to “bury” the fact that screening numbers for the WW program were misrepresented in documents sent to Congress; screening numbers for 2014 and 2015 did not meet expectations despite a multimillion dollar investment; and definitions were changed and data “cooked” to make the results look better than they were. Data were clearly manipulated in irregular ways. An “internal review” that involved staff across CDC occurred and its findings were essentially suppressed so media and/or Congressional staff would not become aware of the problems. Now that both the media and Congresswoman DeLauro are aware of these issues, CDC staff have gone out of their way to delay FOIAs and obstruct any inquiry. Shouldn’t NCCDPHP come clean and stop playing games? Would the ethical thing be to answer the questions fully and honestly. The public should know the true results of what they paid for, shouldn’t they? Another troubling issue at the NCCDPHP are the adventures of Drs. Barbara Bowman and Michael Pratt (also detailed in national media outlets). Both seemed to have irregular (if not questionable) relationships with CocaCola and ILSI representatives. Neither of these relationships were necessary (or appropriate) to uphold our mission. Neither organization added any value to the good work and science already underway at CDC. In fact, these ties have now called into question and undermined CDC’s work. A cloud has been cast over the ethical and excellent work of scientists due to this wanton behavior. Was cultivating these relationships worth dragging CDC through the mud? Did Drs. Bowman and Pratt have permission to pursue these relationships from their supervisor Dr. Ursula Bauer? Did they seek and receive approval of these outside activities? CDC has a process by which such things should be vetted and reported in an ethics review, tracking and approval system (EPATS). Furthermore, did they disclose these conflicts of interest on their yearly OGE 450 filing. Is there an approved HHS 520, HHS 521 or “Request for Official Duty Activities Involving an Outside Organization” approved by Dr. Bauer or her Deputy Director Ms. Dana Shelton? An August 28, 2016 item in The Hill details these issues and others related to Dr. Pratt. It appears to us that something very strange is going on with Dr. Pratt. He is an active duty Commissioned Corps Officer in the USPHS, yet he was “assigned to” Emory University for a quite some time. How and under what authority was this done? Did Emory University pay his salary under the terms of an IPA? Did he seek and receive an outside activity approval through EPATS and work at Emory on Annual Leave? Formal supervisor endorsement and approval (from Dr. Bauer or Ms. Shelton) is required whether done as an official duty or outside activity. If deemed official, did he file a “Request for Official Duty Activities Involving an Outside Organization” in EPATS? Apparently Dr. Pratt’s position at Emory University has ended and he has accepted another position at the University of California San Diego? Again, how is this possible while he is still an active duty USPHS Officer. Did he retire and leave government service? Is UCSD paying for his time via an IPA? Does he have an outside activity approval to do this? Will this be done during duty hours? It is rumored that Dr. Pratt will occupy this position while on Annual Leave? Really? Will Dr. Pratt be spending time in Atlanta when not on Annual Leave? Will he make an appearance at NCCDPHP (where he hasn’t been seen for months). Most staff do not enjoy such unique positions supported and approved by a Center Director (Dr. Bauer). Dr. Pratt has scored a sweet deal (not available to most other scientists at CDC). Concerns about these two positions and others were recently described in The Huffington Post and The Hill. His behavior and that of management surrounding this is very troubling. Finally, most of the scientists at CDC operate with the utmost integrity and ethics. However, this “climate of disregard” puts many of us in difficult positions. We are often directed to do things we know are not right. For example, Congress has made it very clear that domestic funding for NCCDPHP (and other CIOs) should be used for domestic work and that the bulk of NCCDPHP funding should be allocated to program (not research). If this is the case, why then is NCCDPHP taking domestic staff resources away from domestic priorities to work on global health issues? Why in FY17 is NCCDPHP diverting money away from program priorities that directly benefit the public to support an expensive research FOA that may not yield anything that benefits the public? These actions do not serve the public well. Why is nothing being done to address these problems? Why has the CDC OD turned a blind eye to these things. The lack of respect for science and scientists that support CDC’s legacy is astonishing. Please do the right thing. Please be an agent of change. Respectfully, CDC Spider (CDC Scientists Preserving Integrity, Diligence and Ethics in Research) https://usrtk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/CDC_SPIDER_Letter-1.pdf January 13, 2016 Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH Director Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 1600 Clifton Road Atlanta, GA 30329-4027 Re: Docket No. CDC-2015-0112; Proposed 2016 Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain Dear Dr. Frieden: There is no question that there is an opioid misuse epidemic and that efforts need to be made to control it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is applauded for its steps to undertake this lofty effort. However, based on the American Academy of Family Physicians’ (AAFP’s) review of the guideline, it is apparent that the presented recommendations are not graded at a level consistent with currently available evidence. The AAFP certainly wants to promote safe and appropriate prescribing of opioids; however, we recommend that the CDC still adhere to the rigorous standards for reliable and trustworthy guidelines set forth by the Institute of Medicine (IOM). The AAFP believes that giving a strong recommendation derived from generalizations based on consensus expert opinion does not adhere to evidence-based standards for developing clinical guideline recommendations. The AAFP’s specific concerns with the CDC’s methodology, evidence base, and recommendations are outlined below. Methodology and Evidence Base All of the recommendations are based on low or very low quality evidence, yet all but one are Category A (or strong) recommendations. The guideline states that in the GRADE methodology "a particular quality of evidence does not necessarily imply a particular strength of recommendation." While this is true, it applies when benefits significantly outweigh harms (or vice versa). When there is insufficient evidence to determine the benefits and harms of a recommendation, that determination should not be made. When evaluating the benefits of opioids, the evidence review only included studies with outcomes of at least one year. However, studies with shorter intervals were allowed for analysis of the benefits of nonopioid treatments. The guideline states that no evidence shows long-term benefit of opioid use (because there are few studies), yet the guideline reports "extensive evidence" of potential harms, even though these studies were of low quality. The accompanying text also states "extensive evidence" of the benefits of non-opioid treatments, yet this evidence was from shorter term studies, was part of the contextual review rather than the clinical systematic review, and did not compare non- opioid treatments to opioids. The patient voice and preferences were not explicitly included in the guideline. This raises concerns about the patient-centeredness of the guideline. https://www.aafp.org/dam/AAFP/documents/advocacy/prevention/risk/LT-CDC-OpioidGuideline011516.pdf The Myth of Morphine Equivalent Daily Dosage Medscape Neuro Perspective For far too many years, pain researchers and clinicians have relied on the concept of the morphine equivalent daily dosage (MEDD), or some variant of it, as a means of comparing the "relative corresponding quantity" of the numerous opioid molecules that are important tools in the treatment of chronic pain. ...And, most unfortunately, opioid prescribing guideline committees have relied on this concept as a means of placing (usually arbitrary) limits on the levels of opioids that a physician or other clinician should be allowed to prescribe. Although these guidelines typically bill themselves as "voluntary," their chilling effect on prescribers and adaptation into state laws[2] makes calling them "voluntary" disingenuous. Although some scientists and clinicians have been questioning the conceptual validity of MEDD for several years, a recent study[3] has indicated that the concept is unequivocally flawed—thereby invalidating its use empirically and as a tool in prescribing guideline development. The authors used survey data from pharmacists, physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants to estimate daily morphine equivalents and found great inconsistency in their conversions of hydrocodone, fentanyl transdermal patches, methadone, oxycodone, and hydromorphone—illustrating the potential for dramatic underdosing or, in other cases, fatal overdosing. Patients with chronic pain (particularly that of noncancer origin) who are reliant on opioid analgesia are already sufficiently stigmatized and marginalized[7] to allow this type of practice to continue to be the norm. Although the use of MEDD in research and, to a greater extent, in practice, is probably due to unawareness of its inaccuracy, we posit that the use of MEDD by recent opioid guideline committees (eg, the Washington State Opioid Guideline Committee[8] and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Guideline Committee[9]) in the drafting of their guidelines is based more heavily on disregarding available evidence rather than ignorance. Furthermore, their misconduct in doing so has been more pernicious than the use of MEDD by researchers and individual clinicians, because these guidelines widely affect society as a whole as well as individual patients with persistent pain syndromes. We opine that these committees are strongly dominated by the antiopioid community, whose agenda is to essentially restrict opioid access—irrespective of the lack of data indicating that opioids cannot be a useful tool in the comprehensive treatment of carefully selected and closely monitored patients with chronic pain. Above 100% extracted from: Medscape Journal Brief https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/863477_2 Actual Study https://www.dovepress.com/the-medd-myth-the-impact-of-pseudoscience-on-pain-research-and-prescri-peer-reviewed-article-JPR Are Non-Opioid Medications Superior in Treatment of Pain than Opioid Pain Medicine? Ice Cream Flavor Analogy... In the Oxford University Press, a November 2018 scientific white paper[5] was released that examined the quality of one of the primary studies that have been used to justify the urgent call to drastically reduce opioid pain medication prescribing while claiming that patients are not being harmed in the process. The study is commonly referred to as ‘the Krebs study’. “The authors concluded that treatment with opioids was not superior to treatment with non opioid medications for improving pain-related function over 12 months.” Here is an excerpt from the first paragraph of the design section (usually behind a paywall) from the Krebs study that gives the first hint of the bias that led to them to ‘prove’ that opioids were not effective for chronic pain: “The study was intended to assess long-term outcomes of opioids compared with non opioid medications for chronic pain. The patient selection, though, specifically excluded patients on long-term opioid therapy.”Here is an analogy given in the Oxford Journal white paper to illustrate how the study design was compromised: If I want to do a randomized control study about ice cream flavor preferences (choices being: vanilla, chocolate, or no preference), the results could be manipulated as follows based on these scenarios: Scenario A: If a study was done that included only current ice-cream consumers, the outcome would certainly be vanilla or chocolate, because of course they have tried it and know which they like. Scenario B: If a study was done that included all consumers of all food, then it can change the outcome. If the majority of study participants do not even eat ice-cream, than the result would certainly be ‘no preference’. If the majority do eat ice-cream it would likely be ‘chocolate’. Although this study is wider based, it still does not reflect real world findings. Scenario C: In an even more extreme example, if this same study is conducted excluding anyone who has ever ate ice-cream at all, then the conclusion will again be ‘no preference’ and the entire study/original question becomes so ludicrous that there is no useful information to be extracted from this study and one would logically question why this type of study would even be conducted (although we know the answer to that) Scenario C above is how the study that has been used to shift the attitudes towards the treatment of pain in our nation's medical community was designed. “One has to look deep into the study to find that they began with 9403 possible patients and excluded 3836 of them just because they had opioids in their EMR. In the JAMA article, they do not state these obvious biases and instead begin the explanation of participants stating they started with 4485 patients and excluded 224 who were opioid or benzo users.” That is the tip of the iceberg to how it is extremely misleading. The Oxford white paper goes into further detail of the studies “many flaws and biases (including the narrow focus on conditions that are historically known to respond poorly to opioid medication management of pain)”, but the study design and participant selection criteria is enough to discredit this entire body of work. Based on study design alone, regardless of what happened next, the result would be that opioids are no more effective than NSAIDs and other non-opioid alternatives. The DEA Is Fostering a Bounty Hunter Culture in its Drug Diversion Investigators[8] A Good Man Speaks Truth to Power January 2019 Because I write and speak widely on public health issues and the so-called “opioid crisis”, people frequently send me references to others’ work. One of the more startling articles I’ve seen lately was published November 20, 2018 in Pharmacy Times. It is titled “Should We Believe Patients With Pain?”[9]. The unlikely author is Commander John Burke, “a 40-year veteran of law enforcement, the past president of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators, and the president and cofounder of the International Health Facility Diversion Association.” The last paragraph of Commander Burke’s article is worth repeating here. “Let’s get back to dealing with each person claiming to be in legitimate pain and believe them until we have solid evidence that they are scamming the system. If they are, then let’s pursue them through vigorous prosecution, but let’s not punish the majority of people receiving opioids who are legitimate patients with pain.” This seems a remarkable insight from anyone in law enforcement — especially from one who has expressed this view in both Pain News Network, and Dr Lynn Webster’s video “The Painful Truth”. Recognizing Commander Burke’s unique perspective, I followed up by phone to ask several related questions. He has granted permission to publish my paraphrases of his answers here. “Are there any available source documents which establish widely accepted standards for what comprises “over-prescription?” as viewed by diversion investigators?” Burke’s answer was a resounding “NO”. Each State and Federal Agency that investigates doctors for potentially illegal or inappropriate opioid prescribing is pretty much making up their own standards as they go. Some make reference to the 2016 CDC Guidelines, but others do not.
"No law enforcement agency at any level should be rewarded with monetary gain and/or promotion due to their work efforts or successes. This practice has always worried me with Federal investigators and is unheard of at the local or state levels of enforcement.”Commander Burke’s revelation hit me like a thunder-clap. It would explain many of the complaints I have heard from doctors who have been “investigated” or prosecuted. It’s a well known principle that when we subsidize a behavior, we get more of it. Financial rewards to investigators must inevitably foster a “bounty hunter” mentality in some. It seems at least plausible that such bonuses might lead DEA regulators to focus on “low hanging fruit” among doctors who may not be able to defend themselves without being ruined financially. The practice is at the very least unethical. Arguably it can be corrupting.I also inquired concerning a third issue:
Burke’s answer: “I hear the same reports you do – and the irony is that such tactics are unnecessary. Lacking an accepted standard for over-prescribing, the gross volume of a doctor’s prescriptions or the dose levels prescribed to their patients can be poor indicators of professional misbehavior. Investigators should instead be looking into the totality of the case, which can include patient reports of poor doctor oversight, overdose-related hospital admissions, and patterns of overdose related deaths that may be linked to a “cocktail” of illicit prescribing. Especially important can be information gleaned from confidential informants – with independent verification – prior patients, and pharmacy information.”No formal legal prosecution should ever proceed from the testimony of only one witness — even one as well informed as Commander John Burke. But it seems to me that it is high time for the US Senate Judiciary Committee to invite the testimony of others in open public hearings, concerning the practice of possible bounty hunting among Federal investigators.C50 Patient, Civil Rights Attorney, Maine Department of Health, and Maine Legislature Collaborative Enacted Definition of Palliative Care One suggestion that our organization would like to make is altering the definition of “palliative care” in such a manner that it can include high-impact or intractable patients; those who are not dying this year, but our lives have been shattered and/or shortened by our diseases and for whom Quality of Life should be the focus. Many of our conditions may not SIGNIFICANTLY shorten my life, therefore I could legitimately be facing 30-40 years of severe pain with little relief; that is no way to live and therefore the concern is a rapidly increasing suicide rate. This is a definition that one of our coalition members with a civil rights attorney and the Maine Department of Health agreed upon and legislators enacted into statues in Maine. This was in response to a 100mme restriction. This attorney had prepared a lawsuit based on the Americans with Disability Act that the Department of Health in Maine agreed was valid; litigation was never the goal, it was always patient-centered care. A. "Palliative care" means patient-centered and family-focused medical care that optimizes quality of life by anticipating, preventing and treating suffering caused by a medical illness or a physical injury or condition that substantially affects a patient's quality of life, including, but not limited to, addressing physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs; facilitating patient autonomy and choice of care; providing access to information; discussing the patient's goals for treatment and treatment options, including, when appropriate, hospice care; and managing pain and symptoms comprehensively. Palliative care does not always include a requirement for hospice care or attention to spiritual needs. B. "Serious illness" means a medical illness or physical injury or condition that substantially affects quality of life for more than a short period of time. "Serious illness" includes, but is not limited to, Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, lung disease, cancer, heart, renal or liver failure and chronic, unremitting or intractable pain such as neuropathic pain. Here is the link to the most recent update, including these definitions within the entire statute: https://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/22/title22sec1726.html?fbclid=IwAR0dhlwEh56VgZI9HYczdjdyYoJGpMdA9TuuJLlQrO3AsSljIZZG0RICFZc January 23, 2019 Dear Pharmacists, The Board of Pharmacy has had an influx of communication concerning patients not able to get controlled substance prescriptions filled for various reasons, even when signs of forgery or fraudulence were not presented. As a result of the increased “refusals to fill,” the board is issuing the following guidance and reminders regarding the practice of pharmacy and dispensing of controlled substances:
AS 08.80.261 DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS (a)The board may deny a license to an applicant or, after a hearing, impose a disciplinary sanction authorized under AS 08.01.075 on a person licensed under this chapter when the board finds that the applicant or licensee, as applicable, … (7) is incapable of engaging in the practice of pharmacy with reasonable skill, competence, and safety for the public because of (A) professional incompetence; (B) failure to keep informed of or use current professional theories or practices; or (E) other factors determined by the board; (14) engaged in unprofessional conduct, as defined in regulations of the board. 12 AAC 52.920 DISCIPLINARY GUIDELINES (a) In addition to acts specified in AS 08.80 or elsewhere in this chapter, each of the following constitutes engaging in unprofessional conduct and is a basis for the imposition of disciplinary sanctions under AS 08.01.075; … (15) failing to use reasonable knowledge, skills, or judgment in the practice of pharmacy; (b) The board will, in its discretion, revoke a license if the licensee … (4) intentionally or negligently engages in conduct that results in a significant risk to the health or safety of a patient or injury to a patient; (5) is professionally incompetent if the incompetence results in a significant risk of injury to a patient. (c) The board will, in its discretion, suspend a license for up to two years followed by probation of not less than two years if the licensee ... (2) is professionally incompetent if the incompetence results in the public health, safety, or welfare being placed at risk. We all acknowledge that Alaska is in the midst of an opioid crisis. While there are published guidelines and literature to assist all healthcare professionals in up to date approaches and recommendations for medical treatments per diagnosis, do not confuse guidelines with law; they are not the same thing. Pharmacists have an obligation and responsibility under Title 21 Code of Federal Regulations 1306.04(a), and a pharmacist may use professional judgment to refuse filling a prescription. However, how an individual pharmacist approaches that particular situation is unique and can be complex. The Board of Pharmacy does not recommend refusing prescriptions without first trying to resolve your concerns with the prescribing practitioner as the primary member of the healthcare team. Patients may also serve as a basic source of information to understand some aspects of their treatment; do not rule them out in your dialogue. If in doubt, we always recommend partnering with the prescribing practitioner. We are all licensed healthcare professionals and have a duty to use our knowledge, skill, and judgment to improve patient outcomes and keep them safe. Professionally, https://www.commerce.alaska.gov/web/portals/5/pub/pha_ControlledSubstanceDispensing_2019.01.pdf FDA in Brief: FDA finalizes new policy to encourage widespread innovation and development of new buprenorphine treatments for opioid use disorder February 6, 2018 Media Inquiries Michael Felberbaum 240-402-9548 “The opioid crisis has had a tragic impact on individuals, families, and communities throughout the country. We’re in urgent need of new and better treatment options for opioid use disorder. The guidance we’re finalizing today is one of the many steps we’re taking to help advance the development of new treatments for opioid use disorder, and promote novel formulations or delivery mechanisms of existing drugs to better tailor available medicines to individuals’ needs,” said FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. “Our goal is to advance the development of new and better ways of treating opioid use disorder to help more Americans access successful treatments. Unfortunately, far too few people who are addicted to opioids are offered an adequate chance for treatment that uses medications. In part, this is because private insurance coverage for treatment with medications is often inadequate. Even among those who can access some sort of treatment, it’s often prohibitively difficult to access FDA-approved addiction medications. While states are adopting better coverage owing to new legislation and resources, among public insurance plans there are still a number of states that are not covering all three FDA-approved addiction medications. To support more widespread adoption of medication-assisted treatment, the FDA will also continue to take steps to address the unfortunate stigma that’s sometimes associated with use of these products. It’s part of the FDA’s public health mandate to promote appropriate use of therapies. Misunderstanding around these products, even among some in the medical and addiction fields, enables stigma to attach to their use. These views can serve to keep patients who are seeking treatment from reaching their goal. That stigma reflects a perspective some have that a patient is still suffering from addiction even when they’re in full recovery, just because they require medication to treat their illness. This owes to a key misunderstanding of the difference between a physical dependence and an addiction. Because of the biology of the human body, everyone who uses a meaningful dose of opioids for a modest length of time develops a physical dependence. This means that there are withdrawal symptoms after the use stops. A physical dependence to an opioid drug is very different than being addicted to such a medication. Addiction requires the continued use of opioids despite harmful consequences on someone’s life. Addiction involves a psychological preoccupation to obtain and use opioids above and beyond a physical dependence. But someone who is physically dependent on opioids as a result of the treatment of pain but who is not craving the drugs is not addicted. The same principle applies to replacement therapy used to treat opioid addiction. Someone who requires long-term treatment for opioid addiction with medications, including those that are partial or complete opioid agonists and can create a physical dependence, isn’t addicted to those medications. With the right treatments coupled to psychosocial support, recovery from opioid addiction is possible. The FDA remains committed to using all of our tools and authorities to help those currently addicted to opioids, while taking steps to prevent new cases of addiction.” Above is the full statement, find full statement with options for study requests: https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/FDAInBrief/ucm630847.htm Maryland’s co-prescribing new laws/ amendments regarding benzos and opioids Chapter 215 AN ACT concerning Health Care Providers – Opioid and Benzodiazepine Prescriptions – Discussion of Information Benefits and Risks FOR the purpose of requiring that certain patients be advised of the benefits and risks associated with the prescription of certain opioids, and benzodiazepines under certain circumstances, providing that a violation of this Act is grounds for disciplinary action by a certain health occupations board; and generally relating to advice regarding benefits and risks associated with opioids and benzodiazepines that are controlled dangerous substances. Section 1–223 Article – Health Occupations Section 4–315(a)(35), 8–316(a)(36), 14–404(a)(43), and 16–311(a)(8) SECTION 1. BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF MARYLAND, That the Laws of Maryland read as follows: Article – Health Occupations (a) In this section, “controlled dangerous substance” has the meaning stated in § 5–101 of the Criminal Law Article. Ch. 215 2018 LAWS OF MARYLAND (B) On treatment for pain, a health care provider, based on the clinical judgment of the health care provider, shall prescribe: (1) The lowest effective dose of an opioid; and (2)A quantity that is no greater than the quantity needed for the expected duration of pain severe enough to require an opioid that is a controlled dangerous substance unless the opioid is prescribed to treat: (a.) A substance–related disorder; (b.) Pain associated with a cancer diagnosis; (c.) Pain experienced while the patient is receiving end–of–life, hospice, or palliative care services; or (d.) Chronic pain (C.) The dosage, quantity, and duration of an opioid prescribed under [subsection (b)] of this [section] shall be based on an evidence–based clinical guideline for prescribing controlled dangerous substances that is appropriate for: (1.) The health care service delivery setting for the patient; (2.) The type of health care services required by the patient; (3.) and The age and health status of the patient. (D) (1) WHEN A PATIENT IS PRESCRIBED AN OPIOID UNDER SUBSECTION (B) OF THIS SECTION, THE PATIENT SHALL BE ADVISED OF THE BENEFITS AND RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE OPIOID. (2) WHEN A PATIENT IS CO–PRESCRIBED A BENZODIAZEPINE WITH AN OPIOID THAT IS PRESCRIBED UNDER SUBSECTION (B) OF THIS SECTION, THE PATIENT SHALL BE ADVISED OF THE BENEFITS AND RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE BENZODIAZEPINE AND THE CO–PRESCRIPTION OF THE BENZODIAZEPINE.(E) A violation of [subsection (b) OR (D) of] this section is grounds for disciplinary action by the health occupations board that regulates the health care provider who commits the violation. 4-315 (a) Subject to the hearing provisions of § 4–318 of this subtitle, the Board may deny a general license to practice dentistry, a limited license to practice dentistry, or a teacher’s license to practice dentistry to any applicant, reprimand any licensed dentist, place any licensed dentist on probation, or suspend or revoke the license of any licensed dentist, if the applicant or licensee: (35) Fails to comply with § 1–223 of this article. 8–316. (a) Subject to the hearing provisions of § 8–317 of this subtitle, the Board may deny a license or grant a license, including a license subject to a reprimand, probation, or suspension, to any applicant, reprimand any licensee, place any licensee on probation, or suspend or revoke the license of a licensee if the applicant or licensee: (36) Fails to comply with § 1–223 of this article. 14–404. (a) Subject to the hearing provisions of § 14–405 of this subtitle, a disciplinary panel, on the affirmative vote of a majority of the quorum of the disciplinary panel, may reprimand any licensee, place any licensee on probation, or suspend or revoke a license if the licensee: (43) Fails to comply with § 1–223 of this article. 16–311. (a) Subject to the hearing provisions of § 16–313 of this subtitle, the Board, on the affirmative vote of a majority of its members then serving, may deny a license or a limited license to any applicant, reprimand any licensee or holder of a limited license, impose an administrative monetary penalty not exceeding $50,000 on any licensee or holder of a limited license, place any licensee or holder of a limited license on probation, or suspend or revoke a license or a limited license if the applicant, licensee, or holder: (8) Prescribes or distributes a controlled dangerous substance to any other person in violation of the law, including in violation of § 1–223 of this article; SECTION 2. AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED, That this Act shall take effect October 1, 2018. Approved by the Governor, April 24, 2018. https://legiscan.com/MD/text/HB653/id/1788719/Maryland-2018-HB653-Chaptered.pdf |
2023.06.04 14:25 Astaritus Nearly Dead - Live and Let Die
 | submitted by Astaritus to u/Astaritus [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/imsorxk8vz3b1.png?width=183&format=png&auto=webp&s=9f11ac225697b04b91df6d262b9638e13700ceb5 Get ready to survive in the midst of the Zombie Apocalypse! Look for supplies, weapons and ammo! Explore devastated areas filled with the walking dead! Learn new character perks! And most importantly - try not to die ... Liked: + Co-op passage of up to 4 players at the same time! + Availability of localization into several languages, including Russian! + Accessible crafting of weapons and upgrades + Pumping characters + Large selection of weapons and clothing + Character customization with purchasable clothes + In-game encyclopedia of weapons and items + Chibi character drawing Did not like: - Lack of multiplayer servers - UI doesn't scale based on screen resolution - Bug: In which the character starts independent movement / running in one direction - Spitter zombies are able to spit blood through the back of their heads - Lack of plot - No possibility of buildings and fortification of the shelter - Zombies are able to get stuck in textures - The character is able to deal damage to the enemy through walls/bars - Zombies with firearms - Bug: Description of the character "Eric" has a missing bb-code - Bug: The name of the character "Benedict" has a wrong link - Bug: In which the player can put on ALL game clothes on the character Conclusion: A rather dull endless survival game in which the player has to move backwards, causing damage to the train of the dead Before us is a boring and monotonous game in which the player must survive in a small area of empty space - which is called a shelter. Every night - You need to repel the attacks of dozens of Zombies that come to the edge of the forest to profit from fresh meat. At the same time, you are not able to build even elementary fences, which forces you to collect monster trains and, moving backwards, beat up opponents behind you. In small groups, the tactic of constantly moving around the crowd with strikes works well - as opponents cannot quickly react to turns. Of the minuses - you can be trampled if they take you into the ring. The player's day is divided into two time periods - the Night in which you are defending and the Day - in which you can visit one of several devastated areas. Where you can find both supplies, weapons and blueprints (for new weapons), as well as a crowd of the dead - with whom you also have to fight. The game has no plot, and "development" - as you have to repeat the same action for infinity, or until your character dies. For lived days and murders - you get gold. What can be spent in the in-game store for clothes, or to unlock new characters and abilities. As a result: This game should be a free advertisement for the main Nearly Dead project, but the developer's greed decided that it's worth "earning a little", which is why you can purchase this eternal "demo" project at the price of the main game. Which, like this project, has a number of problems - and is abandoned by the developer. |
2023.06.04 14:24 MSotallyTober Is account recovery still futile?
When it came in to signing in to Xbox Live today, my hotmail account was apparently flagged for suspicious activity. I only use it to have a hotmail account for Xbox Live. One of the ways for verification is through a phone number that I no longer use because I don’t live in America anymore — I’m in Japan. So… I can’t access my account because the number no longer works, so I go through the email method and jump through those hoops. Tried three times. It locked me out.
Is there a workaround here? What happens if I just get another hotmail account and switch my Gold account over? Do I lose anything?
submitted by MSotallyTober to XboxLiveGold [link] [comments]
Is there a workaround here? What happens if I just get another hotmail account and switch my Gold account over? Do I lose anything?
2023.06.04 14:22 Andoni95 N5 from zero in 30 days (Reflections, methodologies, and pedagogy)
Introduction
I started learning Japanese on March 22 2023. At the time of writing, It has been about 70-80 days since. Currently I would place myself at N3 level. I became very inspired to study Japanese after (a) visiting Niseko (Hokkaido) and (b) reading a post on Reddit about someone who claims to pass N1 from zero in 8.5 months.The purpose of this post is to offer (a) alternative perspectives to learning Japanese, (b) prove that it is possible to learn quickly, (c) challenge some of the existing recommendations. This post is part one out of eight articles detailing my journey to N1 from zero in 8 months. Disclaimer, this post will be very long and ranty!
This post will cover some of the study techniques and experiments I’ve conducted for the first month, as well as the results of my experimentation and insights. As for the elephant in the room, I’m currently studying N3 after 60+ days into my Japanese learning journey. I’m sure many are skeptical or might presume that I have bad mastery of N5 and N4 content, but by the end of the post, I’m confident that I would have responded to them.
Prior Knowledge
I started watching anime since Naruto. I think that was 15 years ago. I’m not particularly obsessed with Japanese culture but I do follow the mainstream anime like Bleach, Tokyo Ghoul, My Hero Academia, Attack on Titan, and most recently Demon Slayer. So I do possess 15 years of acclimatising to the sound of Japanese anime speech. However my Vocab is very limited. I know how to count from 1-99, konnichiwa and itadakemasu, and a couple more words that I might remember if I was prompted. I also know the hand signs from Naruto. Apart from that, I consider myself truly zero in Japanese knowledge.While your brain can only hold 7-9 items in the short term memory at once, it does not mean you cannot study more than 9 items in a day.
I see most people on Reddit recommending 15-20 new cards on Anki. Personally I think this pace is way too slow, especially for the beginner. Most typical N5 vocab deck would have about 600-700 cards. 15cards/day means that it would take 40-50 days just to see all the cards. I also came across a study that says our short term brain cannot store more than 9 items at a time. This would seem to support support the recommendation of 15-20 vocabulary cards a day. While reading Moonwalking with Einstein, a book on the capabilities of the human memory, I read about a story of a guy who could draw the landscape of New York with shocking precision after flying pass the city on a helicopter once. The book also hinted at the idea that we possess some form of photographic memory.And so, i tried to do about 50-100 new cards a day. Within 10 days, I’ve seen all the N5 Vocab. Around day 15 or so, i became concerned that cramming so many words in a day would mean that the retention rate will be low. So I tested myself on those 700 words and I think I got about 85% correct.
Personally i was very happy with that score. I thought I could do a lot worse. So clearly, trying to learn 100 new cards a day wasn’t detrimental to retention rate (I will address my thoughts on burnout on a later point). What is happening?
My hypothesis is that while we can’t store more 6-9 items in our short term memory, it doesn’t mean that when we study our 10th,11th, 20th or 100th item, our brain would completely reject the input. You are still imprinting something onto the brain. What this means is that while you should not expect to see a word once and remember it forever, it says nothing about the upper limit of how many words you can simultaneously start on the first stage of the SRS system. We all know that SRS takes time to turn short term memory into long term memory. It could take weeks or a few months. But if we can start 100 words on the SRS system vs 15-20 words, and there is no significant cost to doing more words, then starting 100 new cards a day will bring us to our destination much faster.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
When you read about many people agreeing that 15-20 new Anki card a day is a good pace, or that it takes 300-500 hours to pass N5, then it sets the expectation of what is normal. The reason I was able to Master N5 in approximately 150-200 hours and learn all its vocab a couple of weeks is because I did not pay attention to what other people can achieve.How I use Anki
From my survey on Reddit, it seems that people get overwhelm by the amount of reviews on Anki. And I think this reveals that the are doing reviews differently from how I do it.When I do my Anki reviews, I only entertain two state of minds when marking the flash cards. The first is I know the answer (the answer pops into my brain instantaneously) and the second is I don’t know the answer (mind is blank). I do not try to recall the answer. Recalling takes time. If I try to recall the answer, it might take me upwards of a minute or two to remember it (and even then, I might still be wrong). Instead i like my Anki reviews to be snappy. It feels like I take about a fraction of a second to answer my Anki cards, although the Anki statistics tells me that I take 4second per card. Still fast either way. At 4s/card I can do 900 reviews in one hour.
Next is how I use Easy, Good, Again and Hard. The rule of thumb is to be more liberal than strict. I try to use Easy, instead of Good as much as I can because I don’t want my reviews to pile up. I almost never use Hard even if I get the card completely wrong. Speaking of reviews pilling up, we need to define what marking an Anki item as Good or Easy means to me.
For a lot of people it means aiming for perfection. That means that the person only click Easy or Good if his answer exactly matches the back side of the card. For myself I set an extremely low bar, as long the vague feeling of what I think the answer is somewhat matches the answer on the back side, I’m happy to give it a Good at least. Why? Because it’s the nature of Anki or SRS system to return cards you previously click Easy and Good. I don’t have to worry about being too forgiving on myself and being ignorant about the fact because I can always count on the card to return eventually. And if I a card I previously marked as Good, came back, and feels difficult, I would then make a mental note to study it in greater detail. Secondly, a lot of the 700 words in a typical N5 vocab deck are so common that you will encounter them all the time in the wild. This is called organic or natural SRS. If you are strict on your Anki at this stage, it can be quite an overkill in hindsight. Of course it may not feel like an overkill in the beginning because you are still gettting cards wrong.
Burnt out
Okay what about burnout. Surely I might be overdoing it, and wouldn’t burnout eventually catch up to me. Yes and no. I think the phenomenon of burnout is highly exaggerated. I don’t like to use the word burnt out whenever I’m feeling “burnt out” because it has a lot of negative connotations and because negative connotations can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. Instead, I prefer to use the phrase, “I’m tired now”. I kind of compare myself to Shonen protagonists where there’s this big villain coming up and then some special training to level up. The special training is usually quite intense, and sometimes dangerous, and they will eventually be quite tired by the end of the training. But these protagonists always reemerge stronger with new abilities and can now overcome stronger foes.Similarly, whenever I study too much, I would just acknowledge that I’m tired, watch some anime and something different. I’m usually okay by the next morning. I attribute my ability to resist burn out my thoughts and attitude.
Consistency, multimodality learning, and resourcefulness
I only believe in one kind of consistency, and that is that you have to show up almost every day. But I don’t believe in the kind of consistency that requires me to be on a 365-day Anki/wanikani/immersion streak. This is also one factor that helps to protect burn out. When I feel like doing textbook learning, that’s what I’m going to do. If want to do pure Bunpro and Anki for the next 3 days without reading any textbook, that’s what I’ll do.I also believe in the idea of multimodality learning. I use everything at my disposal:
All the textbooks (Genki, Minna no nihongo, Tae Kim)
YouTube videos (Misa ammo, game gengo, tokiniandy)
Podcast
Songs
Doing active immersion with anime
Changing my phone language to Japanese (this one unfortunately is a bad advice. I recommend to stay away from this if you are still at N5)
Posters
Instagram and TikTok accounts of Japanese tutors
Websites (tofugu, human Japanese, Japanese tutors’ blogs)
Apps (wanikani, language reactor, bunpro)
Japanese grammar dictionaries
Assessment books
Discord or Reddit or forums
Japanese classes
There’s often this debate on which is better, Genki vs Minna vs Tae kim. If cost or ability to procure them is not an issue, why not use all of them? It’s okay to have one source as your primary source. Mine was Genki 1. But when I wanted to understand a nuance that Genki does not explain well enough, I’ll usually consult my other sources. And if I’m bored of Genki, I can easily switch to Tae Kim, for a change of scenery. If I don’t feel like reading, Misa or Tokiniandy is there for me.
My observation is that many people are usually only using one modality to acquire a new skill. This is causing their journey to be unnecessarily monotonous.
Sloppy learning and conjugations
One very integral component of the Japanese language is conjugation. It’s especially important for the N5. Conjugations can allow you to express many meaning in Japanese. Learning how to conjugate accurately is going to be a struggle for any beginner(think godan and ichidan verbs and conjugating to masu, te, negative forms, etc).A lot of Japanese textbook and assessment will make you do drills. I skipped all of them. Rather than trying to brute force your way to memorizing conjugations I employ a technique called sloppy learning(this phrase is borrowed from “Japan Like A Breeze” on patreon). I define sloppy learning as learning just enough to acquire the essence of the concept.
For example, ,whether the verbs is in its polite form, short form, negative form or past tense form etc, can be easily recognised by looking at the last few syllabus of a word. If a words end on a “ta”, it must be past tense form. If it ends on a “masu” it must be the polite/long form. This concept can literally be understood in 5 mins.
Thus for me. When conjugating oyogu (泳ぐ）into past tense form, I just conjugate it as oyogu-ta (oyogu +ta) Or sometimes oyota. Now oyota is wrong of course. But that’s all I need at this stage. I desire to understand Japanese, not to get full marks on conjugation drill table. You must always try to look at the big picture. Trying to do well on conjugation drills is an opportunity cost. Ultimately one needs to judge what is worth spending effort on. Hence the idea of sloppy learning is to be deliberate about what to focus on.
Once I can consistently remember that masu means polite and ta meant past, this is where I try to conjugate them correctly. Conjugations is difficult because they all don’t behave like ru verbs. You cannot simply drop the ru at the end of a word and append ta or masu to them. Oyogu for example doesn’t even have a ru ending.
The path I chose was to hope that I can organically (I like this word a lot, but it also sometimes means magically) , know how to conjugate correctly one day. And to a certain extent I acquired some intuition on conjugations without any active involvement from my part. I soon became aware that if a word ends in a gu or a ku, then instead of a ta, it might be ita or ida.
The break through came on day 35. When I couldn’t endure the fact that I wasn’t able to magically acquire conjugation intuition for free. So i goggled “why are godan verbs conjugate the way they are”. And Tofugu came to the rescue.
Essentially they introduced three concepts (a) double consanent with small tsu, (b) assimilation with n, and (c)consonant removal. After that article, conjugating became a breeze. In hindsight, my ability to conjugate only costed me the time to read one tofugu article (and one month of passively intuiting the conjugation patterns) Because I did not spend time on conjugation drills, i was able to progress to the other grammatical points in Genki 1. I didn’t remain stuck in one place for too long.And this is another aspect of sloppy learning. You learn just enough to move on to the next level, you don’t aim for perfection.
Your brain can’t do everything at once. Your brain cannot remember that masu means polite form, and all the rules for conjugating verbs to masu in one sitting. If you try to do that, you can remain stuck, despite already understanding the general idea of conjugation. Better to move on and let the intuition develop. If you judge that the intuition is not going to progress or progress quickly enough, you can always intervene later by supplementing with new knowledge.
Mnemonics when I get something wrong too often
Often there will be a vocab or grammar point that I always can’t seem to latch on. No vague feelings, no guesses, just an empty mind. When this happens, it can be a scary feeling. It may feel like you are not good enough.Really the solution is very simple. Just add one more inferential step. When I first encountered the word bengoshi（弁護士） , my mind does not produce any intuition or pictures or feelings. What I did was to create a mnemonic, a story. How to relate a lawyer to the sound ben go shi? I managed to came up with “when the judge announces his judgement, the bench(jury) goes “shhhh””Sorry, I know it’s really bad. But when I created that story, bengoshi never stumped me again.I’ve seen a lot of criticism of mnemonics that I don’t agree with
- ‘they are not for me”>>I’ve seen people said that Anki is not for me. Srs is not for me. While I believe in individual differences and effectiveness in different methodologies, I feel that sometimes people decide too quickly what is or isn’t for them. What is optimal may first have a learning curve in the beginning. And instead of saying that something is not for me and moving on to the next thing, we need to consider if it isn’t we ourselves that should change to make it fit for us.
- “If I’m trying to memorize something, how does adding more things to remember help. Now I not only have to remember the word, but I need to remember the story to remember the word.”>> Between a story and a random string of number “89779012879” , the brain can remember the short story more easily than the string of number despite the story consisting of more words. It’s just how our brain works.
On active immersion
Active immersion means trying to pick up words or trying to understand what is being said in Japanese media like anime or novels. Passive immersion means enjoying the content without really worrying about improving your Japanese.On day 21 I tried active immersion with Weathering with You. I came to the conclusion that active immersion is not efficient for the new learner. I can imagine myself doing a lot of sentence mining and active immersion in the future (spoiler, I’m now on day 70-80 and I’m immersing a lot more now). But definitely a hard no for me to recommend new comers as the only and primary form of learning Japanese.
Why textbook learning and structural learning is important for fast gains.
Textbook learning is great for fast gains because it prioritises for you. Textbooks are not prepared by a random person. They are usually prepared while respecting certain pedagogical principles in mind by a team of qualified academics. While appealing to authority doesn’t make it correct, we should at least be cognisant that the textbooks might be doing a few things right.One of those pedagogical principles is incremental or progressive learning. Building knowledge upon what was previously learnt.
Another principle is foundational concepts. A textbook will usually introduce foundational concepts that act as a scaffold for everything else as early as possible. And because textbook learning is progressive, it means that the difficulty is always going to feel just about right. In active immersion the difficulty can be wild because it does not respect your level of Japanese proficiency.
Completing N5 in 30 days.
In this 30 days, I was not only learning Japanese, but also learning how to learn. They call it building a plane while flying it hahahah. The principles outlined here helped me to finish N5 content at an insane rate. I was spending about 6-8 hours a day on Japanese (in chunks). So one point not stated here is time. There's no way around time investment.On the 30th day I did a lot of mock tests and I performed quite well (80-90% correct).When I started on N4 on day 31, I was really surprised by the bump in difficulty. I gave myself 30 days to clear N4. That was the hardest 30 days in my Japanese learning journey. I’m fact I had a better time when I was studying for N3 on day 65 onwards. In my next post I’ll share why N4 was harder than N5 and N3 for me and share some more insights. Hope this has been helpful in offering new perspectives. Thank you for reading this long rant of mine.
There are also quite a few things missing in this post, namely
- my studying regime for the first 30 day
- the kanji problem (this one i struggled to settle on a study method. i was trying a lot of different strategies)
- the psychological lived experience of studying japanese. the truth is, there is another battlefield happening in the mind realm. i often have self doubt and fear creeping. knowing how to address them is essential to a happy journey.
- engaging in the larger conversation between Taekim, Curedolly, Refold, All japanese all the time, Moeway, immersion schools of thought, matt vs japan etc etc. I feel that a lot of my fundamental beleifs regarding where i stand can be glimpsed in this post. but i want to make my beliefs explict.
2023.06.04 14:21 Dinger2Splashy Cost of building work - South East?
Hi All,
We live in one of the commuter city’s to London. We are looking at doing some work on a house we have recently bought to convert the roof with a hip to gable. We do not want a loft conversion we simply want to take a sloping roof and square it for some additional space in the existing rooms. See example on random street view house below.
Our house is similar with garage already built below. Without an exact quote based on our home a local builder gave us a ball park of 50K? This seems expensive given it’s not a loft conversion and simply a roof extension. Does anyone have any recent experience or ballpark numbers for this kind of thing?
Thanks
submitted by Dinger2Splashy to AskUK [link] [comments]
We live in one of the commuter city’s to London. We are looking at doing some work on a house we have recently bought to convert the roof with a hip to gable. We do not want a loft conversion we simply want to take a sloping roof and square it for some additional space in the existing rooms. See example on random street view house below.
Our house is similar with garage already built below. Without an exact quote based on our home a local builder gave us a ball park of 50K? This seems expensive given it’s not a loft conversion and simply a roof extension. Does anyone have any recent experience or ballpark numbers for this kind of thing?
Thanks