Memphis tn man jumps off bridge
(REPOST, since i made a mistake with the last one) #TOPSLASHERS "Run... Hide... It does not matter, I shall find you all in time."
2023.03.30 19:18 Sig000 (REPOST, since i made a mistake with the last one) #TOPSLASHERS "Run... Hide... It does not matter, I shall find you all in time."
 | submitted by Sig000 to HeroForgeMinis [link] [comments]  William was a man of good intentions and an overall happily married husband. He adored his wife, Alice, and she was the love of his life. They lived in a nice home in the suburbs and plans to start a family. In the meantime, as an anniversary gift, William got Alice a pet white rabbit as a joke because “Every Alice needs her white rabbit” and the fact that Alice was always late and in hurry for work, for the white rabbit in wonderland was always in a hurry. Alice worked as a psychiatrist and William was an engineer who had a passion for writing books. He was writing a horror fictional piece on Jack the Ripper and had high hopes it would be a best seller. Except, his happy life was about to drastically change. One night, William was running late and arrived home at night, past his usual time. It was overly quiet in his home and all the lights were out, which was further unusual as Alice wouldn’t go to sleep without him. He called out to her and no voice returned his worried calls. William attempted to walk over to switch on the lights, but slipped on something wet on the ground. He stood up and collected himself, then turned on the lights. His mouth was wide open and no noise came out as he was struck with fear. The wetness he had slipped on was blood, and in the middle of it, the poor white rabbit William had bought Alice for their anniversary, dead. Now, a vastly frantic William, started crying out for Alice as he stumbled across his kitchen on his way to the living room. He flipped on the lights to see Alice’s lifeless body in the middle of the floor, covered in blood and disfigured from the damage that killed her. On the wall, smeared in blood, read “She decided to go down the rabbit hole, so I sent her to Wonderland. Ha ha ha”. Before William could come back to reality from his shock, the room filled with police lights and the door broke down, police swarming in. Fast forward to weeks later, William was convicted of the murder of his wife, Alice. Everything pointed towards William being the killer and this crushed his soul. No matter how much he pleaded and swore his love for Alice, no matter how much pain he displayed in her loss, whomever framed him, got away with it. William was sentenced to death row in prison. William did not belong in prison and it was evident. From day one, he was picked on and beaten by inmates. The guards harassed William relentlessly and teased him with Wonderland jokes due the murder of his wife Alice, the message on the wall, and the poor slaughtered rabbit. William was shown no mercy and his life became a constant struggle for survival, a pure hell. It wasn’t until a Doctor came in the night to the prison that William may be saved. She offered certain luxuries and promises to whichever inmate offered his services for an experiment. While every inmate was desperate for this opportunity, the Doctor, Dr. Queen, saw the beaten and disheveled William in the corner. She approached him and offered to him specifically. In question as to why, she said that William looked like he was beaten to his last card to play in survival, he deserves a break due to his admirable survivability. With enough convincing, he was willing. The beginning of the end is what was in store for William. Little did William know, he was about to be used as a disposable tool in unethical experimentation. Dr Queen suddenly became cold and apathetic towards William. She told him she was looking to study to vast complexities of the human mind and look to cure or better understand one of the most enigmatic disorders of the brain, dissociative disorders. Since she can’t use actual people who suffer from such disorders in experiments due to ethics, she was allowed to use one of the inmates on death row in a covert program. “What does this have to do with me?” William said in a fit of anxiety. “I don’t have any such disorder!” “Not yet you don’t.” Dr. Queen said sinisterly. “Now, unfortunately for you, the disorder I’m focusing on, DID, or, Dissociative Identity Disorder, is something developed in young developing minds that have endured horrific trauma.” She continued. “It isn’t heard of for an adult to suddenly develop DID from relatively current trauma, as when it manifests in most adults or young teens, it’s from a suppressed trauma from their childhood years. So we need to somehow get you to develop the disorder.” “W…well…wh…what are you, er, how are you going to do that?? William panicked. “Well, William, we are going to put you through any and every bit of possible trauma, damage, and pain possible until your brain decides to do what it does best, survive, and create an alter to handle the pain for you. Or you die like you would out in the prison environment anyway.” Dr. Queen said as she brushed her red hair from her face with a sadistic smirk. “Shall we begin?” William was hauled off to a secret part of the prison where he could be put through Hell without anyone ever hearing him, and Hell he was definitely put through. William had just about every sort of pain, humiliation, trauma, and distress casted upon him for around 2 months without success. If anything, it was remarkable and near uncanny how much William was capable of surviving. It was even further impressive how well his body was capable of healing and retaining itself. Dr. Queen went to do her research on William’s childhood and early life, to which she discovered she could hardly find anything. It was as if he didn’t have a childhood as his records were so vague and seemingly constructed, fabricated. Dr. Queen dug even deeper and got access to restricted files to which lead her to a disturbing discovery. She found files so hidden and buried that it was nearly impossible to find them unless you really dug deep. Within those files she discovered William’s horrific past and grinned widely. She gathered the files and fled back to the prison to confront William. A beaten and bruised William was sat down in front of Dr. Queen who showed him files of two adults, a woman and a man, slaughtered on a couch. “What does this have to do with me?” William managed to choked out of his swollen mouth. “You did this, William. You murdered these two, your biological parents.” Dr. Queen excitedly explained. “N…no. No! I’ve never seen these people before!” William exclaimed. “Stop this!” “William, these were your parents. They experimented on you ever since you were a baby. They injected you with experimental drugs and beat you, neglected you. They wanted to see if you could develop a healing or regenerative mutation of sorts. The trauma they put you through, it was despicable.” Dr. Queen said almost sympathetically. “Stop this! I want no part in this anymore. I’m done. Your games and mind tricks aren’t working. Just kill me and I can be with Alice again!” William cried. “I’m sorry, William, but you’re not going anywhere. You see, the torture you endured during childhood eventually broke you. You’ve had DID all along. You developed your first alter, Bill, who took over and shielded you from the trauma. Bill, he found an opportunity and murdered them, massacred them more like. How you overcame them as such a young boy is unknown and quite astonishing.” Dr. Queen said calmly. “Please stop. My head, it’s throbbing. This still doesn’t make me believe anything and prove I killed Alice.” William said somewhat vapidity. “This is where it gets bizarre. You see, you were in and out of foster care due to your disorder you then developed. You were violent and destructive. This followed you into your late 20s. There you met a psychiatrist, her name was Alice. Ring a bell? I can see your gears turning.”. Dr. Queen explained. “No. No more…” William was cut off. “You formed a bond with Alice. She was capable of chasing off your alters and keeping you stable. You fell in love with her. Despite the conflict of your other alters, Alice saw her presence kept you stable and she fell in love with you back. Or maybe she just found you interesting? She then buried your past and made you forget your past. Gave you a new one.” Dr. Queen Continued. William was visibly in a state of confusion and frustration. Just staring off beyond Dr. Queen. “Something must have triggered a tick in you and an alter presented itself and murdered Alice. Perhaps in a fit of retribution? Do they know something you don’t?” Dr. Queen questioned. William was in a near catatonic state and no longer in the conversation. Dr. Queen motioned for a guard to take him away for the night, but once the grizzly hand of the guard grabbed William’s shoulder, William looked up with a grin to a startled Dr. Queen. William grabbed the guard’s hand and twisted it, then crushed it. He grabbed his cuffs he secretly undid and stabbed the other guard frantically charging towards him with the sharp pointed unlatched end of the cuff. Dr. Queen was in sheer shock and fell down to her back. William approached her. “She shouldn’t have been chasing rabbits. She shouldn’t have jumped into the rabbit hole of Sir William’s mind.” William sneered. “B…Bill?” Dr. Queen shakily asked. “No no no, my red Queen, Bill is long gone. I’m the Rabbit, I’ve planned this all along, I manifested the moment Sir William saw the dead rabbit you see, but I kept hidden, filing through William’s mind. You see, you’re one of the young researchers shadowing the Doctors who experimented on poor little William. I’ve come to collect you and send you back to Wonderland. Just Alice really built a strong wall to hop over in poor Sir William’s head. Some other dark fellow in this noggin snuck out and took care of poor Alice and quickly retreated. However, now, your antics started to remind my good fellow on his past trauma, I couldn’t have that. Like you said, the brain survives and gave me a door, I was able to hop out!” Rabbit said. A visibly fear struck Dr. Queen looked puzzled on what to say or ask first. “To Wonderland? What ever do you mean!?” Dr. Queen cried. “What does the good Red Queen always say? Hm? Off with your head?” Rabbit said sincerely. “And you see, what you’ve done here during Sir William’s lovely stay, is allow another gentlemen to manifest in this headspace. One who Sir William oddly found an interest in. Let me introduce you to him, as he doesn’t talk much. Have at it, Mister Ripper.” Rabbit said, straightening himself out. His face became cold and emotionless. His stature changed to a more broad and hunched over brutish character, almost as if he grew in size. His eyes slowly scanned and met with Dr. Queen, to which he produced a nasty grin. Ripper slowly progressed towards Dr. Queen. “Run…” The Ripper growled. “I…I don’t understand” Dr. Queen said as she began to sob. The Ripper grabbed the end of the table and forcibly flipped the table in the air, flinging it over the railing, crashing on the ground below. “RUN!!!” The Ripper roared in an unnaturally deep voice. Dr. Queen stumbled and began running and screaming for help, hearing a low toned laughter fading behind her. That night, 20 guards, the warden, several inmates, and Dr. Queen were found massacred. William was nowhere to be found. William wasn’t seen since the events of the prison, however, a peculiar killer made a name for himself as he racked up victims. The killer wore a motif of the White Rabbit combined with the outfit of Jack the Ripper. It didn’t take long for others to put clues together to find out it was William, though, not really William. The identities of the White Rabbit and the Ripper were often the most present, as the Rabbit was often the brains and Ripper the brawn. He is vastly elusive and good at illusion and deception. The elaborate way he kills and escapes is often a hurdle in predicting his next moves and capturing him. He likes to play games with everyone victims and challenge them philosophically, psychologically, and physically. White Rabbit would like nothing more than to see them break, often making them choose between apprehending him or saving another of his victims. White Rabbit appears to display unique abilities such as above human strength, durability, stamina, and is capable of performing feats or actions not considered possible by basic human standards. the police assumes this is an effect of the experimentation done to William as a child and since the experimental drugs used upon William when his parents made them using, and experimenting with some animals blood, the police of this town feels responsible now for the damage that White Rabbit has caused, and not responding quick enough, all events that tried to stop the White Rabbit and try to bring back William, save him from himself. seem hopeless. White Rabbit seemingly fluctuates in abilities and tactics just as different personalities manifest. All the personalities seem to be obedient to the Rabbit alter. With the constant puzzles, riddles, elusiveness, stealth, and fighting and intellectual skills, White Rabbit is amongst one of the most challenging Killers, this world has ever seen. The constant change in personality makes him very hard to track or predict as it would require knowing each personality as its own person. The biggest mystery is finding out what makes the White Rabbit tick. they'll have to jump down the rabbit hole and chase the rabbit to get answers. We all know how elusive the white rabbit is in wonderland. Just go ask Alice, I think she'll know. |
2023.03.30 19:06 FirstBreath1 I let a stranger take a picture of my family. Now he won't stop.
This story is about an innocent mistake that most people make. The names are all different but the details are the same. I know not everyone has the time to read it to the end. That’s fine. The key takeaway is simple. Never, ever let a stranger borrow your phone to take a picture. Just don’t fucking do it. Please. You’ll soon see why.
My little family of four woke up early one morning to go to the beach. My daughter and I had this running bet. Every time she slept in her own bed, she got a surprise, you know, a reward for being good. The first night it was ice cream, then a donut, then a toy. I was running out of incentives because she kept fulfilling her end of the deal. So being that it was the weekend, and the weather was nice, I thought it would be cool to get some sun in before the tourists arrived for the holiday.
Our plan worked like a charm. We got to the sand and pitched a tent in a quiet spot away from commotion. The waves lapped aimlessly against the shore. The water was crystal clear. Sofia built sand castles with pink plastic buckets and Joey gave the seagulls his best t-rex impression. The memory of Emma stretched out in a two-piece is burned so hot it’s like it’s branded. I loved those trips if for nothing else than to stare beneath the cover of my long sleeve SPF-shit swim shirt. I felt about as lucky as any other man in the world. Life was good.
We stayed there a little while. I thumbed through a book. Em scanned her phone. The kids joined forces to build a moat which kept (some of) the tide away. Eventually, foot traffic picked up along with the opening of a couple shops on the boardwalk. We got ready to leave. I knelt down go corral the toys when an unfamiliar voice called out -
“You have a beautiful family,” he exclaimed. “Truly. So blessed.”
I turned around to find my wife facing a stranger.
“Oh. Thank you!” She chirped back. “Yes… I think so too.”
We sat there a bit in awkward silence. He smiled. We smiled. He was older, maybe in his sixties or seventies. He wore black slacks and a white shirt, with one of those odd gray golf gaps that perched like a beret. He seemed ordinary enough. Friendly and all that jazz. He just wouldn’t go away.
“Oh. You should take a picture. You’ll want to remember this gorgeous day,” he quipped. “Family memories are so important. I keep albums for all my grandchildren.”
Emma’s ears perked at the suggestion.
“Oh yeah, you know Matt, we really haven’t had a good one in ages.”
I hung my head in solemn agreement.
“Guess you’re right.”
She groaned.
“My cell’s dead. Can you use yours?”
I rummaged through my bag and handed it over. The man quickly gave it back.
“Locked.”
I entered the code.
“Okay!” the stranger cheered. “Kids, smile like you mean it! Parents, too! Happy days! Say… tangerine!”
We laughed.
“Tangerine!”
And that was it. The entire encounter lasted about five minutes. The stranger delivered my phone and shook my hand. I thanked him. I threw it in my bag, gathered our stuff, and got the kids ready. We jetted to the car and beat the worst of the traffic back home. The rest of the day flew by with usual activities. Gymnastics and lunch with grandparents and birthday parties. One moment faded into the next and the topic of the odd stranger got lost.
The photo, however, came up again around dinner time.
Emma needed head-shots for work and remembered to remind me (hah) to send her the beach shot. I pulled out my cell and went through my messages. I couldn't find it at first. That's when I found something unfamiliar. There was one sent text to an unknown number from that same morning.
"Hey, hon.."
I pulled up the conversation history. A picture loaded. The four of us cheesed back at the camera from the shade of our umbrella. Luke had a bucket on his head. Sofia put two fingers behind her mom. I scanned through my other texts and there was nothing else out of the ordinary. But it was still, you know, weird.
My first reaction was to call the number. I dialed once and got a busy signal. I hung up and dialed again. Error message. I dialed a third time, got up, and started to pace.
“What?” Emma asked. “You alright?”
I knew she wouldn’t take it seriously. It was quite a leap at that point.
“This is going to sound weird.”
“What?”
“I think this guy texted himself a picture of us.”
She stared at me for a second. I stared back. Then she laughed.
“Dude,” she gasped. “Why? Why would anyone do that? We are not that interesting.”
I called the number again. This time it didn’t stop ringing.
“I know I sound paranoid. But, really. Look. I didn't send this text message and it's on my phone. The number is legit, like, it’s got our area code and everything.”
Emma rolled her eyes.
“Maybe he did it by accident,” she sighed. “He was old. He probably doesn’t know how to text.”
I wanted to press the topic. I hated the idea that someone could have access to my phone. I think anyone would. But it was late, and she was skeptical, and we only had minutes to talk before someone wanted a bottle or a juice or a snack or an episode of their favorite show. I pushed it to ‘Matt's future queue’ and fell back into routine.
The storm brought both kids into our bed sometime around midnight. I woke up to find my daughter climbing over my already snoring son. Sofia snuggled up beside me as rain pattered against the windowsill. I couldn’t say no. The kid had cuteness on her side and she hated bad weather. At least I wouldn’t need another surprise. I held her tight, and just as sleep seemed like it might be a possibility, the doorbell rang.
My heart skipped a beat.
We live pretty deep in the woods. Our nearest neighbor is about a mile away. My house isn't exactly the type of place you might expect a late night visitor. Sofia stared at me wide-eyed in the dark. My wife didn't stir. We waited in silence. The bell rang again.
I got up out of bed and looked for something clean to wear. I found a shirt on the floor and some socks in the hamper. I gave the baseball bat behind the dresser a good long look before deciding against it. Sof whined nervously.
“Stay here.”
I could tell that she was scared. I guess that sort of put me into super-parent mode. Dad the hero. Dad the protector. A whole lot of ego and not much else to back it up. I grabbed the bat on the way out and whispered back.
“I’ll be okay. Stay with Mama.”
The hallway outside our bedroom led to a staircase in front of the door. The bell rang again. I picked up my pace and hurdled down the steps as our visitor found the brass lion knocker attached to the frame.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
I took a breath and looked through the peephole.
The woman on my porch looked to be about twenty to twenty-five years old. She was blonde and pretty with hoop earrings and smeared makeup. I looked at her for a little while longer before doing anything. There was something about her eyes. She looked confused, or high, or something. So I kept the door closed.
“Can I help you?”
She knocked again. Then again. And again and again until the door shook and blonde hair thrashed back and forth across her face.
“Hello?” I shouted. “Hey! Can you stop?”
The knocking ceased.
“Oh. Hi.”
“Hello.”
“Can I help you?”
She paused. She smiled.
“Yes. I want to take a picture of you.”
My lungs deflated.
“What the fuck? No.”
She smiled.
“Please?”
“What are you talking about?” I snapped. “It’s the middle of the night. What are you doing here?”
She frowned.
“You let HIM take a picture.”
I didn’t answer. She rang the bell again. My blood pressure jumped.
“I’m going to need you to get the fuck off my property. Now. I’m calling the cops.”
She smiled. She stared at the little hole in the door for a full minute or two. Then she walked away silently.
As if nothing had ever happened.
The moment shook me. It took a while for the adrenaline to wear off. I thought about calling the police. I wondered what the hell to even tell them. I locked the doors and searched the rest of the house. I calmed down a little bit when it was empty. I went back upstairs to check on my family. Emma was stretched out with one arm around each kid. Thunder rumbled through the windows. They slept through the whole thing.
I pulled my phone from the charger. I wanted to message a friend for advice. That's when I noticed a new text. Just one. A picture of me standing in my boxers.
Someone was watching through the back window.
“See you soon,” it said.
submitted by FirstBreath1 to nosleep [link] [comments]
My little family of four woke up early one morning to go to the beach. My daughter and I had this running bet. Every time she slept in her own bed, she got a surprise, you know, a reward for being good. The first night it was ice cream, then a donut, then a toy. I was running out of incentives because she kept fulfilling her end of the deal. So being that it was the weekend, and the weather was nice, I thought it would be cool to get some sun in before the tourists arrived for the holiday.
Our plan worked like a charm. We got to the sand and pitched a tent in a quiet spot away from commotion. The waves lapped aimlessly against the shore. The water was crystal clear. Sofia built sand castles with pink plastic buckets and Joey gave the seagulls his best t-rex impression. The memory of Emma stretched out in a two-piece is burned so hot it’s like it’s branded. I loved those trips if for nothing else than to stare beneath the cover of my long sleeve SPF-shit swim shirt. I felt about as lucky as any other man in the world. Life was good.
We stayed there a little while. I thumbed through a book. Em scanned her phone. The kids joined forces to build a moat which kept (some of) the tide away. Eventually, foot traffic picked up along with the opening of a couple shops on the boardwalk. We got ready to leave. I knelt down go corral the toys when an unfamiliar voice called out -
“You have a beautiful family,” he exclaimed. “Truly. So blessed.”
I turned around to find my wife facing a stranger.
“Oh. Thank you!” She chirped back. “Yes… I think so too.”
We sat there a bit in awkward silence. He smiled. We smiled. He was older, maybe in his sixties or seventies. He wore black slacks and a white shirt, with one of those odd gray golf gaps that perched like a beret. He seemed ordinary enough. Friendly and all that jazz. He just wouldn’t go away.
“Oh. You should take a picture. You’ll want to remember this gorgeous day,” he quipped. “Family memories are so important. I keep albums for all my grandchildren.”
Emma’s ears perked at the suggestion.
“Oh yeah, you know Matt, we really haven’t had a good one in ages.”
I hung my head in solemn agreement.
“Guess you’re right.”
She groaned.
“My cell’s dead. Can you use yours?”
I rummaged through my bag and handed it over. The man quickly gave it back.
“Locked.”
I entered the code.
“Okay!” the stranger cheered. “Kids, smile like you mean it! Parents, too! Happy days! Say… tangerine!”
We laughed.
“Tangerine!”
And that was it. The entire encounter lasted about five minutes. The stranger delivered my phone and shook my hand. I thanked him. I threw it in my bag, gathered our stuff, and got the kids ready. We jetted to the car and beat the worst of the traffic back home. The rest of the day flew by with usual activities. Gymnastics and lunch with grandparents and birthday parties. One moment faded into the next and the topic of the odd stranger got lost.
The photo, however, came up again around dinner time.
Emma needed head-shots for work and remembered to remind me (hah) to send her the beach shot. I pulled out my cell and went through my messages. I couldn't find it at first. That's when I found something unfamiliar. There was one sent text to an unknown number from that same morning.
"Hey, hon.."
I pulled up the conversation history. A picture loaded. The four of us cheesed back at the camera from the shade of our umbrella. Luke had a bucket on his head. Sofia put two fingers behind her mom. I scanned through my other texts and there was nothing else out of the ordinary. But it was still, you know, weird.
My first reaction was to call the number. I dialed once and got a busy signal. I hung up and dialed again. Error message. I dialed a third time, got up, and started to pace.
“What?” Emma asked. “You alright?”
I knew she wouldn’t take it seriously. It was quite a leap at that point.
“This is going to sound weird.”
“What?”
“I think this guy texted himself a picture of us.”
She stared at me for a second. I stared back. Then she laughed.
“Dude,” she gasped. “Why? Why would anyone do that? We are not that interesting.”
I called the number again. This time it didn’t stop ringing.
“I know I sound paranoid. But, really. Look. I didn't send this text message and it's on my phone. The number is legit, like, it’s got our area code and everything.”
Emma rolled her eyes.
“Maybe he did it by accident,” she sighed. “He was old. He probably doesn’t know how to text.”
I wanted to press the topic. I hated the idea that someone could have access to my phone. I think anyone would. But it was late, and she was skeptical, and we only had minutes to talk before someone wanted a bottle or a juice or a snack or an episode of their favorite show. I pushed it to ‘Matt's future queue’ and fell back into routine.
The storm brought both kids into our bed sometime around midnight. I woke up to find my daughter climbing over my already snoring son. Sofia snuggled up beside me as rain pattered against the windowsill. I couldn’t say no. The kid had cuteness on her side and she hated bad weather. At least I wouldn’t need another surprise. I held her tight, and just as sleep seemed like it might be a possibility, the doorbell rang.
My heart skipped a beat.
We live pretty deep in the woods. Our nearest neighbor is about a mile away. My house isn't exactly the type of place you might expect a late night visitor. Sofia stared at me wide-eyed in the dark. My wife didn't stir. We waited in silence. The bell rang again.
I got up out of bed and looked for something clean to wear. I found a shirt on the floor and some socks in the hamper. I gave the baseball bat behind the dresser a good long look before deciding against it. Sof whined nervously.
“Stay here.”
I could tell that she was scared. I guess that sort of put me into super-parent mode. Dad the hero. Dad the protector. A whole lot of ego and not much else to back it up. I grabbed the bat on the way out and whispered back.
“I’ll be okay. Stay with Mama.”
The hallway outside our bedroom led to a staircase in front of the door. The bell rang again. I picked up my pace and hurdled down the steps as our visitor found the brass lion knocker attached to the frame.
Bam. Bam. Bam.
I took a breath and looked through the peephole.
The woman on my porch looked to be about twenty to twenty-five years old. She was blonde and pretty with hoop earrings and smeared makeup. I looked at her for a little while longer before doing anything. There was something about her eyes. She looked confused, or high, or something. So I kept the door closed.
“Can I help you?”
She knocked again. Then again. And again and again until the door shook and blonde hair thrashed back and forth across her face.
“Hello?” I shouted. “Hey! Can you stop?”
The knocking ceased.
“Oh. Hi.”
“Hello.”
“Can I help you?”
She paused. She smiled.
“Yes. I want to take a picture of you.”
My lungs deflated.
“What the fuck? No.”
She smiled.
“Please?”
“What are you talking about?” I snapped. “It’s the middle of the night. What are you doing here?”
She frowned.
“You let HIM take a picture.”
I didn’t answer. She rang the bell again. My blood pressure jumped.
“I’m going to need you to get the fuck off my property. Now. I’m calling the cops.”
She smiled. She stared at the little hole in the door for a full minute or two. Then she walked away silently.
As if nothing had ever happened.
The moment shook me. It took a while for the adrenaline to wear off. I thought about calling the police. I wondered what the hell to even tell them. I locked the doors and searched the rest of the house. I calmed down a little bit when it was empty. I went back upstairs to check on my family. Emma was stretched out with one arm around each kid. Thunder rumbled through the windows. They slept through the whole thing.
I pulled my phone from the charger. I wanted to message a friend for advice. That's when I noticed a new text. Just one. A picture of me standing in my boxers.
Someone was watching through the back window.
“See you soon,” it said.
2023.03.30 19:04 tvchase THE GREATEST TRICK THE DEVIL EVER PULLED -- Part Five (1/2)
“Wrestling is linear. But these are not linear times…”
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
September 9, 2022 – The Fallout from Brawl Out
AEW is in crisis. Its champion and biggest star turned the world upside down three days prior. CM Punk is in exile, two titles are vacant, and three of the company’s founders have their futures in jeopardy. The landscape is pure chaos. Amidst that chaos, a villain strolls out to the stage with a big smile on his face.
MJF eats it all up… AEW’s greatest heel may have become its greatest face in one night. The live audience is jubilant to see him and he reciprocates, diving into them just as CM Punk had done, hugging Taz at the broadcast desk, wearing the jersey of that city’s football team.
Joy reverberates in his words once he grabs the microphone:
He stares down MJF then says: “You are absolutely full of crap.”
Crowd laughs a bit, but they also boo him some.
MJF:
But then again, maybe the whole damn thing was inevitable all along.
January 4, 2016 - Tokyo
Following their tag win over CHAOS, Kenny Omega betrays and usurps the leader of Bullet Club, AJ Styles, at NJPW: New Year’s Dash.
January 4, 2017 - Wrestle Kingdom 11
Having stormed through his first ever attempt in the tournament, Kenny Omega became the only gaijin to have ever won New Japan’s G1 Tournament and earned the right to challenge for the company’s top prize at WK11.
That night in the Tokyo Dome, Omega and Okada created magic in one of the greatest matches in wrestling history. On the same show, Bullet Club’s newest member debuts: Cody Rhodes. Frustrated with his position and his creative direction, Cody had requested and been granted his release from WWE the previous summer, Cody makes his way across the Pacific, sending shockwaves through the international wrestling landscape.
Despite this shot in the arm, Bullet Club is tested by the crushing defeat of its leader. Following his loss to Okada, Kenny steps away from wrestling to assess his future. When he returns after several weeks Cody had grown ambitious and plots in the background.
June 11, 2017 - Dominion
In a rematch of their classic from the start of the year at Wrestle Kingdom 11, Kenny Omega attempts to avenge his defeat and claim the IWGP Heavyweight Championship from Kazuchika Okada. Earlier in the night, Cody had grabbed a headset and proclaimed he wanted to face Okada himself.
Omega and Okada push each other over the limit even harder than before. Omega is taking inhuman punishment yet refuses to give up. Eventually, Cody makes his way down to the ring and attempts to throw in the towel for Kenny, but the Bucks stop him.
The timekeeper’s bell rings, marking it a 60-minute draw.
Afterward, the Elite debate whether it was a true act of mercy by Cody or a scheme for his personal goals
Cody storms Okada’s post-match press conference, where he mocks the champ, spits in his face, and challenges him for a title match.
May 16, 2017 - The Bet
Dave Meltzer quote-tweets a question asking if anyone could sell 10,000 tickets to a non-WWE show in America, to which he replies, “Not anytime soon.”
Cody takes note and responds: “I'll take that bet Dave… put The Bucks & I on the card & 3-months to promote”... Over the next year this grand dream between Cody and the Young Bucks will come to fruition.
July 1, 2017 - Returning the Favor
Cody unsuccessfully challenges Okada for the IWGP championship. Kenny comes to ringside and wants to throw in the towel just as Cody had tried weeks earlier. After the match, the two of them nearly come to blows backstage and Cody flips a table.
August 2017 - G1 Climax
Throughout the tournament, Bullet Club nears a boiling point. OG member Toma Tonga questions Omega’s leadership due to having his small inner circle of The Elite within the larger group. In the weeks and months to follow, Cody identifies Kota Ibushi as Kenny Omega’s weakest point and starts targeting him as a wedge to divide the Bullet Club and create chaos wherein he can ascend to power.
January 4, 2018 - Wrestle Kingdom 12
Looking to use a win over Ibushi as a flashpoint to take control of Bullet Club, Cody viciously mauls Kota in a singles match but can’t secure the victory. Frustrated that his plan failed, the next night at New Year’s Dash he launches a post-match assault on Ibushi. Cody and the rest of Bullet Club are wailing on Ibushi until Kenny rushes out to stop them… but the rest of Bullet Club can’t help feeling Kenny views his old tag partner as more important to him than they are. Cody’s plan bears fruit as Kenny makes a massive unforced error: he invites “Switchblade” Jay White to join Bullet Club and be a shot in the arm for the faction, only for White to betray him immediately and join CHAOS.
January 7, 2018 - Being the Elite #87
Camera follows the Elite as they are tense and nervous preparing for Wrestle Kingdom a few days earlier. It jumps to the group after New Year’s Dash, all gathered at a tense dinner conversation. To break the tension, Matt proposes a new gimmick for the group: “BTE IS DRUG FREE”... aka, Straight Edge… no one shoots it down, but they’re not thrilled either, and Cody hides his beer underneath the table.
The effort to relieve things fails, however, and Cody blurs the line between kayfabe and shoot, shouting for the cameraman to put the camera down. Then we get a fly-on-the-wall glimpse at him charging Kenny with always “turning everything into a bit”, disregarding the group, and heatedly asking him if he’s actually their leader before Kenny finally storms away from the table.
January 28, 2018 - Civil War
Jay White scores a massive upset at New Beginning and takes the IWGP United States Championship from Kenny Omega. After the bell, Hangman confronts Jay White and seeks to challenge for the title, but Kenny stops him. The Bucks and Cody rush to the ring, and Cody accuses their leader of stepping on Hangman’s moment. A violent argument ensues with Kenny shoving Matt Jackson to the ground.
Once the Elite have left the ring and Kenny is alone, Cody seizes the opportunity and hits Kenny with a CrossRhodes, initiating the Bullet Club Civil War. The only thing saving Omega from a brutal attack that night is Ibushi, who runs off Cody and returns the favor for his old friend and partner, reuniting the Golden Lovers after years of separation. Regardless, Cody’s plan is in full effect. Bullet Club is in disarray and if he is to take power, now is the opportunity.
In 944 days, Roman Reigns becomes world champion to begin his and the Bloodline's vice grip on WWE.
January 30, 2018 - Being The Elite #90
Cody, to the assembled Elite of Matt, Nick, Hangman, and Marty:
February 12, 2018 – Being the Elite #92
Cody floats around reassuring everyone: “Bullet Club is fine.” All of the guys have pure depression on their faces, but Cody continually gasses them up, telling the Bucks they’re ready for the jump to the heavyweight division and encouraging Marty to start up a Villain Club of his own. Later, Matt, Nick, and Marty are commiserating in a locker room prior to a Ring of Honor show when Hangman and Cody strut through the door.
Cody, smugly:
Kenny tries to call Matt, but Cody sees the call coming through on the phone and declines it.
February 19, 2018 – Being the Elite #93
Cody maneuvers the Bucks around the Melbourne airport to keep them from running into Kenny. While traveling, Cody further drives the Ibushi wedge between Matt and the absent Kenny and plays up that Kenny only views the Bucks as a junior tag team. Later, Cody takes the brothers out to the zoo and to the movie theater as we see Kenny emotionally watching Casablanca on his phone.
The Bucks catch up with Tonga and the OGs backstage in a locker room where they try to make peace.
Matt:
Cody:
Matt and Nick look at each other, devastated at what’s become of the group.
February 25, 2018 - Being the Elite #94
Matt Jackson is on a plane traveling between shows, doing the same thing as Kenny from the previous episode: watching Casablanca.
For those who haven't seen it, the story at the heart of the film is a love triangle: cynical club owner Rick, his first love Ilsa, and her rebel husband Laszlo, enhanced by a background of espionage and war with the local police chief, Renault, at the crossroads of the entanglements.
It’s foreshadowing the story to come. In the film, Rick and Ilsa had a passionate love before the events on screen, but they split up and Ilsa then wound up with her now-husband Laszlo, a Czech rebel carrying vital documents for the resistance against Nazi Germany. Rick and Ilsa reunite and rekindle their romance until Rick – knowing she’s better off with her husband – convinces Ilsa to leave with Laszlo before local authorities catch them. Rick stays behind, killing the evil Major Strasser who was attempting to stop the married couple from escaping Casablanca. Renault, who has been playing both sides (Germans and Resistance) up to this point, is touched by Rick's sacrifice. Other policemen arrive and see Strasser's dead body. Rather than identify Rick as the culprit, Renault instructs the cops to "round up the usual suspects"... And of course, that classic line provides the name of the film The Usual Suspects, from which Punk, and MJF, and Don Callis have all quoted the final line:
"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was making you believe he doesn't exist."
The Usual Suspects is a tale of a mysterious crime lord who manipulates and controls multiple criminals to achieve his ultimate goal and get away scot-free. It is tightly designed so that if you rewatch it knowing the ending, you realize and notice dozens of things you missed on the first viewing.
As Casablanca ends, Rick says to Renault: "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship", implying that if they work together, they can get away with almost anything…
This BTE episode ends with the group all in Japan. The Bucks approach Kenny and Ibushi to have a conversation, but Kenny doesn’t have time for them. Later that night at the event, Cody pulls the Bucks into a hallway and implores them to listen to the promo Kenny is cutting in the ring at that exact moment, where he declares the Golden Lovers the greatest tag team in the world. Cody pushes them to go handle it. The Young Bucks go to the ring while Cody flashes a devilish smile.
Matt:
March 5, 2018 - BTE #95
In Vegas, Matt and Nick are in the dressing room talking when Bury the Drug Free Bear enters and seems desperate to tell them something. Bury is about to remove the head to his costume when Hangman bursts in. He is angry with Matt for not helping him during his confrontation with Joey Ryan the week prior. Cody enters and asks Bury why he hasn't got his Bullet Club shirt on and pulls him away to get changed. Everyone looks confused and Matt wonders what the bear was trying to tell them.
Cody is in the production studio and calls Nick over to suggest that Matt is holding him back and that he should consider wrestling in singles matches, but Nick looks unconvinced. Later that night, Cody is in the ring celebrating with Brandi and Bury after his match. As Cody goes to hug Bury, the bear pushes him to the floor. Standing over a prone, confused Cody, Bury removes his costume head to reveal Kenny Omega ,who knocks out Cody with a knee strike as the fans go wild.
Cody is demented after the match:
Just like he did with Nick previously, Cody sequesters Matt and says his brother has been holding him back and he needs a singles push.
In Japan, Kenny records a message to the Young Bucks apologizing, saying how Cody has gotten into everyone’s heads and divided the group, and hopes to make amends… Unbeknownst to him, Cody has Nick’s laptop so he intercepts the message and edits it down to an insulting challenge. Matt is enraged, but Nick is suspicious.
March 25, 2018 – The Elite Fight It Out
In Los Angeles at NJPW: Strong Style Evolved, the Golden Lovers face the Young Bucks in a deeply personal grudge match. After a brutal, back-and-forth war where the Lovers emerge victorious, Kenny attempts to bury the hatchet. Nick accepts the olive branch, but Matt refuses to shake Kenny’s hand. Cody hits the ring and berates Matt for eating the pin during the match. When Nick intervenes, Cody spins around and shoves him to the ground.
Later in the locker room, Cody comes in to ask what happened out there. The Bucks are challenging him for his actions, but Cody shouts them down, saying he thought it was Kenny in the ring and that he would never do such a thing to them. Cody apologizes profusely and leaves.
Nick:
With the leadership of Bullet Club at stake, Kenny Omega and Cody Rhodes square off in a hard-hitting match. Having grown wary of Cody and his schemes, the Bucks come down to the ring and decide to attack Cody. They launch double superkicks… but Cody ducks and the kicks land on Omega, allowing Cody to hit his finisher and claim the win. Matt and Nick attempt to explain, but Kenny refuses to listen.
In the backstage area, Cody is ecstatic at wresting control of Bullet Club away from Kenny. He wants to celebrate, but the Elite leave the dressing room and leave Cody sitting alone in his ring gear, sweaty, bloody, with a black eye and a gym towel draped around his shoulders, looking starkly similar to another guy post-match four years later…
June 4, 2018 – BTE #105
After a busy summer in which Cody and the Bucks have assembled the looming All In event, Matt and Nick try establishing lines of communication with Kenny in Japan. Ibushi implores him to reconcile with his old friends but he’s reluctant. Cody is obsessed with running a Senate election campaign in Texas and practices his speeches in bathroom mirrors, but it almost sounds like he’s talking to his stablemates. Meanwhile, a package that Matt and Nick sent him weeks ago has been collecting dust the whole time. Ahead of his fourth match with Kazuchika Okada, Kenny decides to open the package…
June 9, 2018 – Omega vs Okada IV
Everyone is in Japan for the big Dominion show. Hangman approaches Cody and asks what the plan is for tonight. Cody looks sullen and calls off whatever he had been plotting to ruin Omega’s big night.
Kenny triumphs in possibly the greatest match in wrestling history, claiming the IWGP heavyweight championship. He reunites with the Young Bucks afterward, and it’s revealed that in the package are Golden Elite shirts, honoring the pact they made in Hotel Room 710 at the start of the year.
Cody approaches the locker room with congratulatory gifts for Kenny and to make peace, but he stops short and leaves them outside the door.
July 7, 2018 – Debts Are Settled in San Francisco
At the G1 Special NJPW show, Cody challenges Omega for the IWGP championship. After a war with Kenny emerging in triumph, the Elite gather and celebrate… until the Bullet Club OGs attack them in retribution for the dysfunction and strife they’ve brought to the group over the previous two years. Cody returns to the ring and is given a chance to brutalize Kenny, but instead he defends him and rejoins the Elite in full.
Over the coming months, Cody, Kenny, Matt, Nick and Hangman solidify themselves as a core group leading up to:
September 1, 2018 - All In
By far the greatest triumph in indie wrestling history, the show was a massive success both at live gate and on PPV, wildly exceeding all expectations. In its main event, Cody wins the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, the same world title his father had claimed 31 years earlier.
After this monumental night, the Elite ceded the war for control of Bullet Club to the OGs and stepped away from the group, turning their attention to the establishment of something new entirely: All Elite Wrestling. This new national promotion came into being on January 1, 2019, and at its forefront was the core group of five. As the inaugural and omnipresent face of the company, Cody’s claim to AEW gold is surely just a matter of time.
May 25, 2019 -- Double or Nothing
AEW holds its first event ever.
In 944 days, on the Christmas episode of Rampage, Cody claims his final championship in AEW.
August 31, 2019 -- All Out
As the clock strikes midnight, Chris Jericho pins Hangman Adam Page to become the first AEW World Champion.
In 944 days, Cody Rhodes rises onto the WrestleMania stage and returns to WWE.
November 6, 2019
Allied with his friend, protege, and personal recruit to AEW, Maxwell Jacob Friedman, the public face of AEW prepares to challenge for the world championship of the company he helped build. He seems destined for it, it’s damn near his birthright, and yet there are whispers he’s only in position to claim it through politics.
Cody:
MJF’s ascension begins. He wins the Dynamite Diamond Ring and begins climbing the rankings. Winning isn’t simply enough, though. If he wants everything, he needs chaos. He needs to flip the world upside down. He needs the world to believe its heroes are the villains and its villains are the heroes.
November 14, 2019
MJF:
MJF:
After weeks of taunting and weeks of enduring the original gauntlet of trials MJF sets in order to get a match with him, Cody gets his match with MJF… but he falls short, defeated and humiliated by the young man he brought into AEW himself.
March 5, 2020 – Cody is bitten by the original Snake
Jake Roberts emerges from the thickest of weeds and slithers down to the ring. He nearly devours Cody. He mocks him… “Hail Caesar”. He neither fears nor respects him.
April 8, 2020
Cody sits ominously at a table, in a pitch black room, and lights a cigar… just as he’d done before when laying out his machinations against Kenny Omega for control of Bullet Club.
Cody:
July 7, 2020
Cody stands with Arn in the ring, congratulating himself on the recent string of victories against… let’s say, less than impressive competition.
Onto the stage charges Eddie Kingston, who’s heard enough:
August 13, 2020
Mr. Brodie Lee whips Cody’s ass. In just over three minutes, it’s done and his beloved championship is gone. The Exalted One and The Dark Order put a massive beatdown on Cody and he’s carried out on a stretcher… Then they continue attacking him on the stretcher.
Cody disappears for weeks.
September 23, 2020
Brodie spends over a month terrorizing anyone even remotely close to Cody, but he still doesn’t come back until after Brodie beats down Orange Cassidy in a title defense. It’s a surprise attack, which incenses The Exalted One.
Brodie:
February 17, 2021 - “It’s a girl!”
Despite a litany of viral media and news segments addressing how excessive and even dangerous pregnancy gender reveals are… Cody and Brandi have theirs live on Dynamite, with full entrance and theme, as well as what still to this day is among the largest pyro displays in the history of AEW. It’s shockingly tone-deaf.
May 12, 2021 – The worst promo in AEW history
Just before the one year anniversary of the George Floyd murder that rattled America and stirred racial dialogue in a manner unseen for decades…
Cody addresses Anthony Ogogo and delivers an all-time terrible promo. I'm not even gonna transcribe it here, it's the most pandering cringe ever.
Here's a link if you absolutely need to see it...
When AEW returns to touring, all the cheering and adulation Cody was accustomed to at AEW's beginning is gone. His goodwill has completely evaporated. They’re tired of his phony, self-fellating act and want something different.
July 7, 2021
Still nursing a vicious eye injury incurred at the hands of Kevin Owens on WWE programming the previous October, Malakai Black posts on Instagram a video of him in a mental institution where he's been locked up for 5 years, coincidentally the same length of time he was in his old company... He viciously attacks and kills the doctors and staff.
Walking out, he says "The Devil made me do it."
[Continued in comments]
submitted by tvchase to SquaredCircle [link] [comments]
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four
September 9, 2022 – The Fallout from Brawl Out
AEW is in crisis. Its champion and biggest star turned the world upside down three days prior. CM Punk is in exile, two titles are vacant, and three of the company’s founders have their futures in jeopardy. The landscape is pure chaos. Amidst that chaos, a villain strolls out to the stage with a big smile on his face.
MJF eats it all up… AEW’s greatest heel may have become its greatest face in one night. The live audience is jubilant to see him and he reciprocates, diving into them just as CM Punk had done, hugging Taz at the broadcast desk, wearing the jersey of that city’s football team.
Joy reverberates in his words once he grabs the microphone:
"BUFFALO, NEW YORK! THE DEVIL IS BACK! Now listen up Buffalo, first things first... Who's excited to see MJF? “Lord knows I am. Guys, I love Buffalo, New York, hell the greatest Quarterback of all time, Josh Allen is from Buffalo. Now, we're gonna get down to brass tacks a little bit here, okay? Last time you guys saw me I might've said some offensive stuff, I'm just being honest…The fans strike up a loud chant: “YOU WERE RIGHT”
Now hear me out, hear me out, hear me out... Hold on g-- Seriously, I only have so much time allotted. Shut up. Please. Jesus. Alright listen... If there's one thing I know to be true, it's that right now you might think that we're in dark times, but we're not. What we need is leadership. And I can not think of one more person, more trustworthy than me! Now let me tell you a story: there was once a wise Jewish man, and his name started with a M. And when his people were meek and weak and they needed help, he split the sea wide open and he walked them straight to the promise land. Buffalo, I'm not telling you I'm Moses, that's ridiculous. I'M BETTER THAN MOSES! I'VE GOT TO WIN THAT WORLD TITLE BECAUSE MY NAME IS MAXWELL JACOB FRIEDMAN AND I'M BETTER THAN YOU...“AND YOU KNOW IT!”, the crowd finishes for him. “Wild Thing” comes over the speakers and Jon Moxley walks through the crowd to the ring.
He stares down MJF then says: “You are absolutely full of crap.”
Crowd laughs a bit, but they also boo him some.
MJF:
"So let me get this straight, Jonathan. You think I'm not being sincere here in Buffalo, New York? In front of all these grotesque, poor, lard asses who have quite possibly the worst Football Team in the history of the United States of America? [MJF shed’s the jersey and wipes his ass with it] … Now Jon, I don't know if you're a little bit woozy considering you went to sleep on Sunday… [MJF mimes CM Punk's “Go To Sleep” pose]Moxley:
But maybe you got a point. Maybe I don't care about AEW.... Maybe I don't care about these people... Maybe, just maybe I look at the World Title as nothing more than a bargaining chip that I can use for the bidding war of 2024. Maybe I take that title to a real Wrestling Company, WITH REAL FANS. And real wrestlers like my friend and hero 'The American Roller Coad-ster' Cody Rhodes. And – I'M HOLDING THE MICROPHONE YOU BUMS! KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT! And maybe, just maybe I get to work for a real boss, the only Khan in professional wrestling that's worth a damn; Jolly Old St. Nick. Because to quote the greatest wrestler of all time, and my personal hero, The Game: 'That is what's best for business.’”
"Dude. This is not the time, this is not the place, and I am in no mood. You need to leave this ring right now, or I will make you leave.MJF stands toe-to-toe with Moxley before slithering out of the ring. Mox continues:
Hey, your theme music sucks by the way. Now Buffalo, New York. I am in no mood... I am pissed off. I am embarrassed. I am pissed off about a great many things. But none more so than the fact that I'm standing here without the AEW World Championship... The AEW World Championship represents passion for this sport! Passion for this business! It represents the passion of the guys and girls in the back, and the fans that fill the arenas and watch at home. Those three letters in the AEW World Championship, they represent heroes during a pandemic at a time where the world needed heroes. It represents the dream, the vision that we all had when we started this thing years ago, and we wanted to show the world just what wrestling could be. The AEW World Championship represents taking the dark and ugly side of this business and letting it die with another generation. The World Championship represents the freedom to be as great as you are willing to dare to be. The AEW World championship means being better than I was the day before. Even if it's just a little bit better. Even if nobody notices but me. That World Championship represents slaying demons. That World Championship represents EVERYTHING I LOVE ABOUT THIS BUSINESS!Moxley leaves to a furious ovation and has rallied the AEW fans back to reason and rationality. It’s only temporary though, and an unnerved mood persists. The message is delivered by Moxley, truly the Ace of the company… But it feels like it should’ve come from someone else and perhaps that someone else would have been there to deliver it if he wasn't turned away. Better yet, the situation may have been avoided entirely.
But the fact remains: on Sunday, I lost. And that's on me, that's my fault. I made mistakes. I got pinned. That's on me. I missed the game winning shot. And I was supposed to be on vacation right now, like until about two days ago. But here's another chance to take another shot when the game's on the line. This Tournament of Champions is one hell of a shot. That's one hell of a big rock to push all the way to the top of the hill again. Chris Jericho, the greatest of all time. Bryan Danielson, the best pure wrestler to ever step foot into a ring, a better wrestler than I'll ever be. Darby Allin, Hangman Page, Sammy Guevara, three dudes all younger than me, faster than me, more naturally gifted than I could ever be. So yeah, that's a hell of a shot. But winners always want the ball when the game is on the line. The Ace always wants the ball. And I want the ball. So hell yeah, I'm gonna take the shot.
Cause this isn't just a time to win… This is a time to be a legend!
But then again, maybe the whole damn thing was inevitable all along.
January 4, 2016 - Tokyo
Following their tag win over CHAOS, Kenny Omega betrays and usurps the leader of Bullet Club, AJ Styles, at NJPW: New Year’s Dash.
"AJ Styles! My god, you can't be surprised, can you? You people, you can't be surprised. You at home you better not be surprised. You had this coming, AJ. We gave you the big matches, we gave you the big pay-per-views. We made you a star, we paid you like a star. While I struggled, while I starved, forcing myself to be a junior. Everybody called you a leader, everybody called you the boss. Well AJ, if you are the boss, I'm just gonna say it. You have now been fired.The rest of the Bullet Club is initially in disagreement before coalescing around Kenny and ganging up on Styles. They leave with their former leader in a heap, but Kenny and the Young Bucks gather at ringside. The three of them return to the ring and continue the brutal assault on AJ Styles… They are still in the Bullet Club, but within that organization, henceforth they will be The Elite.
January 4, 2017 - Wrestle Kingdom 11
Having stormed through his first ever attempt in the tournament, Kenny Omega became the only gaijin to have ever won New Japan’s G1 Tournament and earned the right to challenge for the company’s top prize at WK11.
That night in the Tokyo Dome, Omega and Okada created magic in one of the greatest matches in wrestling history. On the same show, Bullet Club’s newest member debuts: Cody Rhodes. Frustrated with his position and his creative direction, Cody had requested and been granted his release from WWE the previous summer, Cody makes his way across the Pacific, sending shockwaves through the international wrestling landscape.
Despite this shot in the arm, Bullet Club is tested by the crushing defeat of its leader. Following his loss to Okada, Kenny steps away from wrestling to assess his future. When he returns after several weeks Cody had grown ambitious and plots in the background.
June 11, 2017 - Dominion
In a rematch of their classic from the start of the year at Wrestle Kingdom 11, Kenny Omega attempts to avenge his defeat and claim the IWGP Heavyweight Championship from Kazuchika Okada. Earlier in the night, Cody had grabbed a headset and proclaimed he wanted to face Okada himself.
Omega and Okada push each other over the limit even harder than before. Omega is taking inhuman punishment yet refuses to give up. Eventually, Cody makes his way down to the ring and attempts to throw in the towel for Kenny, but the Bucks stop him.
The timekeeper’s bell rings, marking it a 60-minute draw.
Afterward, the Elite debate whether it was a true act of mercy by Cody or a scheme for his personal goals
Cody storms Okada’s post-match press conference, where he mocks the champ, spits in his face, and challenges him for a title match.
May 16, 2017 - The Bet
Dave Meltzer quote-tweets a question asking if anyone could sell 10,000 tickets to a non-WWE show in America, to which he replies, “Not anytime soon.”
Cody takes note and responds: “I'll take that bet Dave… put The Bucks & I on the card & 3-months to promote”... Over the next year this grand dream between Cody and the Young Bucks will come to fruition.
July 1, 2017 - Returning the Favor
Cody unsuccessfully challenges Okada for the IWGP championship. Kenny comes to ringside and wants to throw in the towel just as Cody had tried weeks earlier. After the match, the two of them nearly come to blows backstage and Cody flips a table.
August 2017 - G1 Climax
Throughout the tournament, Bullet Club nears a boiling point. OG member Toma Tonga questions Omega’s leadership due to having his small inner circle of The Elite within the larger group. In the weeks and months to follow, Cody identifies Kota Ibushi as Kenny Omega’s weakest point and starts targeting him as a wedge to divide the Bullet Club and create chaos wherein he can ascend to power.
January 4, 2018 - Wrestle Kingdom 12
Looking to use a win over Ibushi as a flashpoint to take control of Bullet Club, Cody viciously mauls Kota in a singles match but can’t secure the victory. Frustrated that his plan failed, the next night at New Year’s Dash he launches a post-match assault on Ibushi. Cody and the rest of Bullet Club are wailing on Ibushi until Kenny rushes out to stop them… but the rest of Bullet Club can’t help feeling Kenny views his old tag partner as more important to him than they are. Cody’s plan bears fruit as Kenny makes a massive unforced error: he invites “Switchblade” Jay White to join Bullet Club and be a shot in the arm for the faction, only for White to betray him immediately and join CHAOS.
January 7, 2018 - Being the Elite #87
Camera follows the Elite as they are tense and nervous preparing for Wrestle Kingdom a few days earlier. It jumps to the group after New Year’s Dash, all gathered at a tense dinner conversation. To break the tension, Matt proposes a new gimmick for the group: “BTE IS DRUG FREE”... aka, Straight Edge… no one shoots it down, but they’re not thrilled either, and Cody hides his beer underneath the table.
The effort to relieve things fails, however, and Cody blurs the line between kayfabe and shoot, shouting for the cameraman to put the camera down. Then we get a fly-on-the-wall glimpse at him charging Kenny with always “turning everything into a bit”, disregarding the group, and heatedly asking him if he’s actually their leader before Kenny finally storms away from the table.
January 28, 2018 - Civil War
Jay White scores a massive upset at New Beginning and takes the IWGP United States Championship from Kenny Omega. After the bell, Hangman confronts Jay White and seeks to challenge for the title, but Kenny stops him. The Bucks and Cody rush to the ring, and Cody accuses their leader of stepping on Hangman’s moment. A violent argument ensues with Kenny shoving Matt Jackson to the ground.
Once the Elite have left the ring and Kenny is alone, Cody seizes the opportunity and hits Kenny with a CrossRhodes, initiating the Bullet Club Civil War. The only thing saving Omega from a brutal attack that night is Ibushi, who runs off Cody and returns the favor for his old friend and partner, reuniting the Golden Lovers after years of separation. Regardless, Cody’s plan is in full effect. Bullet Club is in disarray and if he is to take power, now is the opportunity.
In 944 days, Roman Reigns becomes world champion to begin his and the Bloodline's vice grip on WWE.
January 30, 2018 - Being The Elite #90
Cody, to the assembled Elite of Matt, Nick, Hangman, and Marty:
It isn’t my place, but you’ve known that guy for over ten years. I don’t get it, I’m sorry. Yeah, he’s a great wrestler, but leadership… Like I said, it’s action not position! That’s not acting like a leader! ‘Oh, you’re my second, you’re my second’... Who the F-CK are you seconds for? Nobody! The best tag team in the world! And Hangman, it’s your moment! He… He ruined it.Kenny & Ibushi go to visit the Bucks in their hotel room, Room 710… but we aren’t shown what happens next.
Bullet Club is fine… Bullet Club is fine.
February 12, 2018 – Being the Elite #92
Cody floats around reassuring everyone: “Bullet Club is fine.” All of the guys have pure depression on their faces, but Cody continually gasses them up, telling the Bucks they’re ready for the jump to the heavyweight division and encouraging Marty to start up a Villain Club of his own. Later, Matt, Nick, and Marty are commiserating in a locker room prior to a Ring of Honor show when Hangman and Cody strut through the door.
Cody, smugly:
“Whew, look at that! Did you guys see [Hangman] kick the door down??”He thinks a couple of surprises might cheer them up. The first, some new merch that says “Bullet Club is Fine” doesn’t do the trick, so he takes them for the second surprise: their new mascot, Bury the Drug-Free Bear. Using his best Sting voice, Cody introduces Bury as someone who will “shock the world” only for him to “fall on his f-ckin’ arse” like the Shockmaster did 25 years earlier.
Kenny tries to call Matt, but Cody sees the call coming through on the phone and declines it.
February 19, 2018 – Being the Elite #93
Cody maneuvers the Bucks around the Melbourne airport to keep them from running into Kenny. While traveling, Cody further drives the Ibushi wedge between Matt and the absent Kenny and plays up that Kenny only views the Bucks as a junior tag team. Later, Cody takes the brothers out to the zoo and to the movie theater as we see Kenny emotionally watching Casablanca on his phone.
The Bucks catch up with Tonga and the OGs backstage in a locker room where they try to make peace.
Matt:
“Alright guys, thanks for gathering here. Nick and I feel like there’s one important thing that we need to talk about… I think it’s kind of obvious, right? There’s a divide in the Bullet Club. It’s almost like there’s two entities all of a sudden. It’s like there’s Bullet Club BTE and Bullet Club OGs… Nick and I have been watching what you’ve been doing in Japan… holding down the fort, representing the Bullet Club, making the name proud. But we’ve been back at home in the US doing the same thing. There is no heat here. We love you guys. When we all say that catchphrase, when we say ‘Bullet Club is for life’, we mean it. It’s not just a catchphrase, okay? There’s no heat here. The only heat is between two individuals: Cody and Kenny.”Tonga:
“Cody is right. Bullet Club is fine.”The two groups shake hands, then Cody enters the locker room, surprised to see everyone together:
“Did somebody call a meeting? I didn’t call a meeting…”In strolls Kenny.
Kenny: So there he is. The snake in the grass. Three-star savior. Hey Cody.They start brawling and the others can barely keep them apart.
Cody: Did you see the sign outside? It says 'Bullet Club'.
Kenny: That's right, and I AM THE LEADER.
Cody:
Touch me and I'll sue! Touch me and I'll sue!!Cody throws a chair that barely misses Kenny and the Bucks.
Matt and Nick look at each other, devastated at what’s become of the group.
February 25, 2018 - Being the Elite #94
Matt Jackson is on a plane traveling between shows, doing the same thing as Kenny from the previous episode: watching Casablanca.
For those who haven't seen it, the story at the heart of the film is a love triangle: cynical club owner Rick, his first love Ilsa, and her rebel husband Laszlo, enhanced by a background of espionage and war with the local police chief, Renault, at the crossroads of the entanglements.
It’s foreshadowing the story to come. In the film, Rick and Ilsa had a passionate love before the events on screen, but they split up and Ilsa then wound up with her now-husband Laszlo, a Czech rebel carrying vital documents for the resistance against Nazi Germany. Rick and Ilsa reunite and rekindle their romance until Rick – knowing she’s better off with her husband – convinces Ilsa to leave with Laszlo before local authorities catch them. Rick stays behind, killing the evil Major Strasser who was attempting to stop the married couple from escaping Casablanca. Renault, who has been playing both sides (Germans and Resistance) up to this point, is touched by Rick's sacrifice. Other policemen arrive and see Strasser's dead body. Rather than identify Rick as the culprit, Renault instructs the cops to "round up the usual suspects"... And of course, that classic line provides the name of the film The Usual Suspects, from which Punk, and MJF, and Don Callis have all quoted the final line:
"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was making you believe he doesn't exist."
The Usual Suspects is a tale of a mysterious crime lord who manipulates and controls multiple criminals to achieve his ultimate goal and get away scot-free. It is tightly designed so that if you rewatch it knowing the ending, you realize and notice dozens of things you missed on the first viewing.
As Casablanca ends, Rick says to Renault: "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship", implying that if they work together, they can get away with almost anything…
This BTE episode ends with the group all in Japan. The Bucks approach Kenny and Ibushi to have a conversation, but Kenny doesn’t have time for them. Later that night at the event, Cody pulls the Bucks into a hallway and implores them to listen to the promo Kenny is cutting in the ring at that exact moment, where he declares the Golden Lovers the greatest tag team in the world. Cody pushes them to go handle it. The Young Bucks go to the ring while Cody flashes a devilish smile.
Matt:
From this day forward, my brother and I have decided to move up and compete in the heavyweight tag team division.It puts them directly in opposition with the Lovers. Kenny and Ibushi confront them backstage, but the Bucks don’t take anything from him, saying they’ve always been there to support him but it’s never been returned. All those times they were there to pick Kenny up off the mat, where was Ibushi?
March 5, 2018 - BTE #95
In Vegas, Matt and Nick are in the dressing room talking when Bury the Drug Free Bear enters and seems desperate to tell them something. Bury is about to remove the head to his costume when Hangman bursts in. He is angry with Matt for not helping him during his confrontation with Joey Ryan the week prior. Cody enters and asks Bury why he hasn't got his Bullet Club shirt on and pulls him away to get changed. Everyone looks confused and Matt wonders what the bear was trying to tell them.
Cody is in the production studio and calls Nick over to suggest that Matt is holding him back and that he should consider wrestling in singles matches, but Nick looks unconvinced. Later that night, Cody is in the ring celebrating with Brandi and Bury after his match. As Cody goes to hug Bury, the bear pushes him to the floor. Standing over a prone, confused Cody, Bury removes his costume head to reveal Kenny Omega ,who knocks out Cody with a knee strike as the fans go wild.
Cody is demented after the match:
“What a time. What a time to be involved in this great sport… Everybody’s eyes in this sport are fixed on New Orleans, on Supercard of Honor… my very first encounter with Kenny Omega. So wouldn’t that be enough? As a professional… that feather in your cap, that everybody is talking about your match, that everybody wants to see your match, that you have stolen the [Wrestlemania] weekend from the rich and you have given it to the poor… wouldn’t that be enough?March 20, 2018 – BTE #97
So why the… escalation? Why come to Las Vegas? … You’re supposed to be the best wrestler in the world! A hero! You’ve got a bag full of them [match rating] stars, well I have a book full of dates, full of cities, full of towns, because I’m not a hero once a month! I’m a hero every single night!
Perception is no longer reality. Reality is reality.
And the reality is that I am the leader of the Bullet Club… that I am the hero in this story.”
Just like he did with Nick previously, Cody sequesters Matt and says his brother has been holding him back and he needs a singles push.
In Japan, Kenny records a message to the Young Bucks apologizing, saying how Cody has gotten into everyone’s heads and divided the group, and hopes to make amends… Unbeknownst to him, Cody has Nick’s laptop so he intercepts the message and edits it down to an insulting challenge. Matt is enraged, but Nick is suspicious.
March 25, 2018 – The Elite Fight It Out
In Los Angeles at NJPW: Strong Style Evolved, the Golden Lovers face the Young Bucks in a deeply personal grudge match. After a brutal, back-and-forth war where the Lovers emerge victorious, Kenny attempts to bury the hatchet. Nick accepts the olive branch, but Matt refuses to shake Kenny’s hand. Cody hits the ring and berates Matt for eating the pin during the match. When Nick intervenes, Cody spins around and shoves him to the ground.
Later in the locker room, Cody comes in to ask what happened out there. The Bucks are challenging him for his actions, but Cody shouts them down, saying he thought it was Kenny in the ring and that he would never do such a thing to them. Cody apologizes profusely and leaves.
Nick:
“I don’t think we can trust this guy.”April 7, 2018 – Supercard of Honor XII
With the leadership of Bullet Club at stake, Kenny Omega and Cody Rhodes square off in a hard-hitting match. Having grown wary of Cody and his schemes, the Bucks come down to the ring and decide to attack Cody. They launch double superkicks… but Cody ducks and the kicks land on Omega, allowing Cody to hit his finisher and claim the win. Matt and Nick attempt to explain, but Kenny refuses to listen.
In the backstage area, Cody is ecstatic at wresting control of Bullet Club away from Kenny. He wants to celebrate, but the Elite leave the dressing room and leave Cody sitting alone in his ring gear, sweaty, bloody, with a black eye and a gym towel draped around his shoulders, looking starkly similar to another guy post-match four years later…
June 4, 2018 – BTE #105
After a busy summer in which Cody and the Bucks have assembled the looming All In event, Matt and Nick try establishing lines of communication with Kenny in Japan. Ibushi implores him to reconcile with his old friends but he’s reluctant. Cody is obsessed with running a Senate election campaign in Texas and practices his speeches in bathroom mirrors, but it almost sounds like he’s talking to his stablemates. Meanwhile, a package that Matt and Nick sent him weeks ago has been collecting dust the whole time. Ahead of his fourth match with Kazuchika Okada, Kenny decides to open the package…
June 9, 2018 – Omega vs Okada IV
Everyone is in Japan for the big Dominion show. Hangman approaches Cody and asks what the plan is for tonight. Cody looks sullen and calls off whatever he had been plotting to ruin Omega’s big night.
Kenny triumphs in possibly the greatest match in wrestling history, claiming the IWGP heavyweight championship. He reunites with the Young Bucks afterward, and it’s revealed that in the package are Golden Elite shirts, honoring the pact they made in Hotel Room 710 at the start of the year.
Cody approaches the locker room with congratulatory gifts for Kenny and to make peace, but he stops short and leaves them outside the door.
July 7, 2018 – Debts Are Settled in San Francisco
At the G1 Special NJPW show, Cody challenges Omega for the IWGP championship. After a war with Kenny emerging in triumph, the Elite gather and celebrate… until the Bullet Club OGs attack them in retribution for the dysfunction and strife they’ve brought to the group over the previous two years. Cody returns to the ring and is given a chance to brutalize Kenny, but instead he defends him and rejoins the Elite in full.
Over the coming months, Cody, Kenny, Matt, Nick and Hangman solidify themselves as a core group leading up to:
September 1, 2018 - All In
By far the greatest triumph in indie wrestling history, the show was a massive success both at live gate and on PPV, wildly exceeding all expectations. In its main event, Cody wins the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, the same world title his father had claimed 31 years earlier.
After this monumental night, the Elite ceded the war for control of Bullet Club to the OGs and stepped away from the group, turning their attention to the establishment of something new entirely: All Elite Wrestling. This new national promotion came into being on January 1, 2019, and at its forefront was the core group of five. As the inaugural and omnipresent face of the company, Cody’s claim to AEW gold is surely just a matter of time.
May 25, 2019 -- Double or Nothing
AEW holds its first event ever.
In 944 days, on the Christmas episode of Rampage, Cody claims his final championship in AEW.
August 31, 2019 -- All Out
As the clock strikes midnight, Chris Jericho pins Hangman Adam Page to become the first AEW World Champion.
In 944 days, Cody Rhodes rises onto the WrestleMania stage and returns to WWE.
November 6, 2019
Allied with his friend, protege, and personal recruit to AEW, Maxwell Jacob Friedman, the public face of AEW prepares to challenge for the world championship of the company he helped build. He seems destined for it, it’s damn near his birthright, and yet there are whispers he’s only in position to claim it through politics.
Cody:
“Eddie Graham... Cowboy Bill Watts... The American Dream Dusty Rhodes... For the cold and sterile historians of our business, there's an air of controversy that surrounds them, it's from the simple fact that those men were also, in addition to being competitors... they were management. Not unlike myself. And for the last year I've told everybody: every podcast, every radio, every correspondent. I've shouted it off the rooftops how proud I am of AEW, how proud I am of the all-inclusive nature, of the schedule, of the pay, of the fact that we will listen. This! This is Ellis Island for a professional wrestler! This is freedom! So, when I hear the same criticism attached to my name for being management and being in a title match… I can't not hear it... And with that said, I am announcing that if I do not defeat Chris Jericho at Full Gear... I will never challenge for the AEW World championship again.”And so Cody faced Chris Jericho at Full Gear 2019 with destiny in his grasp. There, with MJF in his corner, Cody and Jericho pushed each other to their limits. Late in the match with the challenger locked tight in the Walls of Jericho, MJF throws in the towel for Cody and costs him the match, effectively locking him out of the title picture thereafter.
MJF’s ascension begins. He wins the Dynamite Diamond Ring and begins climbing the rankings. Winning isn’t simply enough, though. If he wants everything, he needs chaos. He needs to flip the world upside down. He needs the world to believe its heroes are the villains and its villains are the heroes.
November 14, 2019
MJF:
You wanna boo me as if I’m the villain… Meanwhile, you people have been cheering for the real villain the whole time. That villain is Cody… Cody Rhodes couldn’t give less of a shit about any single one of you… You sheep don’t want to admit it. There’s only one man on this planet who knows the real Cody Rhodes, and you’re looking at him.December 11, 2019
MJF:
"What are you gonna do Cody? Are you gonna try to fire me? Are you gonna pull Tony Khan over to the side and get me fired? Well how bout you do that Cody. HOW BOUT YOU FIRE ME. Oh wait. That's right. You won't. Because the one thing you want most in this world is to get your hands on me... And to top that off, you'd be letting down each and every one of these people you claim to care about.”February 29, 2020 – Revolution
After weeks of taunting and weeks of enduring the original gauntlet of trials MJF sets in order to get a match with him, Cody gets his match with MJF… but he falls short, defeated and humiliated by the young man he brought into AEW himself.
March 5, 2020 – Cody is bitten by the original Snake
Jake Roberts emerges from the thickest of weeds and slithers down to the ring. He nearly devours Cody. He mocks him… “Hail Caesar”. He neither fears nor respects him.
“What a Snake wants, a snake takes. I’m not in AEW for the whole pie.. Just your slice”Two weeks later the world screeches to a halt as an unknown, lethal virus spreads rapidly around the globe. For several weeks Dynamite is patchwork, assembled from whatever talent is available. A tournament for a new title belt is announced. Ahead of its opening round we get the darkest promo we’ve thus far seen from the purest babyface in the company’s short history…
April 8, 2020
Cody sits ominously at a table, in a pitch black room, and lights a cigar… just as he’d done before when laying out his machinations against Kenny Omega for control of Bullet Club.
Cody:
"Why do I wanna be TNT Champion? Wrestling is so linear you're gonna hear the same answer to that question over and over again. You'll even hear the announcers strike some of the same hyperboles as they describe the stakes. The wrestlers will give you that real wrestling school, paint by numbers interview where they say things like --- you see: ‘The boys in the back.' Or my favorite: They perpetually say their own name or the person they're wrestling against or the person who's interviewing them over and over again. Like I said, wrestling is linear. They might even do the – [Cody gestures around his waist where a belt would be worn] - that thing. You see, where you pantomime, where you indicate that you want the belt. I've done it a thousand times. We've all done it, we're all guilty. Wrestling is linear. But these are not linear times, are they? I think we'd all give our last dollar for a little bit of normalcy, a little bit of linear. It's my personal hope that we get through this just fine. We wanna live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery, right?It was an outright heel promo, preceding his entry into the tournament which he ultimately won, facing Jake Roberts’ client – Lance Archer – in the finals. Cody is the conquering hero he always aspires to be, and he rattles off five straight title defenses in five weeks. Someone’s not very impressed, however.
So why do I need to become champion? It is not the fame. It's certainly not the added money. It's not the specialized lower third that they put on the screen. It's not even my specific, unique circumstance of trying to carry a last name that is worth 58 years in gold. It's much simpler. It's because I don't wanna lose. AEW has four major pay per views: Double Or Nothing, All Out, Full Gear, Revolution and I'm 50/50 and I have felt lost and I don't ever want to lose again…The motto, the expression, what the Nightmare Family means, it's sitting at the side of my neck is when we say: DO THE WORK! It's not: Do the work and lose.
And this tournament is flush, it's rich in talent. Take Colt Cabana. Probably the second most experienced guy in the tournament. Does a better flip, flop and fly than me, Dustin and Bully combined. Ask anybody in any locker room the world over – they'll tell you they love Colt Cabana. Well frankly: I do not trust a wrestler that doesn't have any enemies.
Kip Sabian… and that hellfire fiance of his… What happens when those two cohabitate? They’re either gonna motivate themselves upwards or they're gonna drag themselves down to Complacency City, right next to Jobber Avenue.
Darby… I feel like I handpicked Darby. He's clearly the fastest rising star in all of wrestling in any company, hands down. He's putting on weight by the day, he's assassin quick. But Darby is a freshman on the varsity squad. I don't think he has the mental aptitude to finish this tournament.
My oldest friend… Shawn Spears. My former tag team partner, kind of my Dick Murdoch. Could be a world champion pretty much anywhere he wanted to be. But Shawn Spears is King Boo-Boo Face and he will mentally defeat himself before we ever even lock up…
Every one of those guys, they want to be TNT Champion. The difference with me: I NEED IT!
July 7, 2020
Cody stands with Arn in the ring, congratulating himself on the recent string of victories against… let’s say, less than impressive competition.
Onto the stage charges Eddie Kingston, who’s heard enough:
"No, no, no, we're gonna get this right, we're gonna do this real quick. Cody, you talk about grinding, you talk about living this rough life, all that jazz. No one's gonna 'out-grind' you, all that stuff. My man, it's easy to say that when you grew up around used-to-be legends like Arn Anderson. Yeah, you heard me. Keep shooting murder-ones at me and I'll knock your jaw right off your face, partner. You know what I grew up around? You know what I grew up around? Alcoholics! Junkies! I GREW UP AROUND THAT... AND I HAD TO SURVIVE. I HAD TO GRIND. You couldn't last a day in my shoes, so you don't tell me nothing about grinding. You talk about the sport of pro-wrestling... that's a joke. Because every person you faced has been a child. I am a grown-ass man and I will put you in the ground and smile.Infuriated that he would be upstaged like this, Cody accepts on the spot. He survives an incredibly violent match and continues on with his title reign.
But here's the best part about this whole thing: the guy that you like to mention because you like to be best friends with the boss, Tony Khan… He paid me to show up. And now he's going to pay me to kick your ass and take that championship. Oh yeah, you wanna go? Arn, I swear on my beautiful mother's life, if you don't shut up, I'm gouging your eye out. All right? Let me speak! It's my time now. Real easy, relax, you've had yours. Tony Khan said to me, ‘You know what, King? If you want No DQ, man, that's fine by me.. just.. you know.. Cody has to accept.' You have to accept, cause either you're an egg-sucking dog or you're an egg-sucking bitch."
August 13, 2020
Mr. Brodie Lee whips Cody’s ass. In just over three minutes, it’s done and his beloved championship is gone. The Exalted One and The Dark Order put a massive beatdown on Cody and he’s carried out on a stretcher… Then they continue attacking him on the stretcher.
Cody disappears for weeks.
September 23, 2020
Brodie spends over a month terrorizing anyone even remotely close to Cody, but he still doesn’t come back until after Brodie beats down Orange Cassidy in a title defense. It’s a surprise attack, which incenses The Exalted One.
Brodie:
"You gotta be kidding me! The audacity of a man, the audacity of you Cody to return like that! You have been gone for five weeks while I’ve been here doing the work, being undeniable! Oh my God, the audacity of you Cody. What kind of man sends another man to do his work? Did you see what I did to Dustin? Did you see what Anna Jay did to Brandi? What kind of man Cody, what kind of man lets his wife post Instagram thirst traps while calling me daddy? What kind of man stays away in a little bubble? A man like you, Cody. But YOU are no man! YOU are a coward!Mr. Brodie Lee grabs a pair of dog collars and looks into the camera.
Cody, you can run on for a long time, but sooner or later Brodie Lee is gonna cut you down! And I am gonna take this dog collar, Cody, I am gonna wrap it around your neck, I am gonna wrap it around that God-forsaken tattoo! And you, Cody, will have nowhere, nowhere to run and nowhere to hide! You, Cody... You have one week to answer me: Are you a man... Or are you a coward?!"Two weeks later, Cody reclaims his championship in the first dog collar match in AEW history. He would hold it for only a month until one of the Four Pillars pries it away from him, beginning Darby Allin’s ascension to the main event scene... And sending Cody spiraling into the Codyverse of excess and absurdity.
February 17, 2021 - “It’s a girl!”
Despite a litany of viral media and news segments addressing how excessive and even dangerous pregnancy gender reveals are… Cody and Brandi have theirs live on Dynamite, with full entrance and theme, as well as what still to this day is among the largest pyro displays in the history of AEW. It’s shockingly tone-deaf.
May 12, 2021 – The worst promo in AEW history
Just before the one year anniversary of the George Floyd murder that rattled America and stirred racial dialogue in a manner unseen for decades…
Cody addresses Anthony Ogogo and delivers an all-time terrible promo. I'm not even gonna transcribe it here, it's the most pandering cringe ever.
Here's a link if you absolutely need to see it...
When AEW returns to touring, all the cheering and adulation Cody was accustomed to at AEW's beginning is gone. His goodwill has completely evaporated. They’re tired of his phony, self-fellating act and want something different.
July 7, 2021
Still nursing a vicious eye injury incurred at the hands of Kevin Owens on WWE programming the previous October, Malakai Black posts on Instagram a video of him in a mental institution where he's been locked up for 5 years, coincidentally the same length of time he was in his old company... He viciously attacks and kills the doctors and staff.
Walking out, he says "The Devil made me do it."
[Continued in comments]
2023.03.30 19:04 SuperiorArty [USA] [H] Nintendo Switch, 3DS, DS, Gamecube, Wii/U games, Xbox Games, Playstation Games, Various Collectibles [W] Themed/Limited Edition 3DS consoles, Pokemon Switch Lite, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 (Xbone/PS4), AI Somnium Files Nirvana, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (PS1) Nintendo Games offers
*Items are CiB unless stated otherwise
Nintendo:
Microsoft:
Playstation
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Wants:
While I do enjoy playing on the Xbox one, I'm mostly looking for Nintendo stuff. But I'm open to whatever list you may have, but these are games I am interested in:
I am also open to looking at your list, as there's tons of stuff that interest me asides from what I have listed. However, I am not interested in digital items as I prefer to collect/own games physically if possible.
submitted by SuperiorArty to gameswap [link] [comments]
Nintendo:
| Switch games | DS/3DS |
|---|---|
| LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga Deluxe Edition (Missing game, DLC code unused. Included Blue Milk Luke minifig) | Shin Megami Tensei IV (Limited Edition) CiB (Outer Box sleeve is damaged) |
| Monster Hunter Rise Collectors Edition (Game and Amiibo opened) | Professor Layton vs Ace Attorney CiB |
| Pokemon Sword w/ Expansion Pass (loose) | Pokemon Alpha Sapphie (Nib, cut on seal) |
| Pokemon Violet (Digital) | Pokemon Ultra Moon (Nib, cut on seal) |
| Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition | Pokemon HeartGold (Loose, authentic) |
| Yurukill | Senran Kagura: Deep Crimson Double D Edition (Nib) |
| Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna 2 w/ dlc code | Pokemon Ultra Sun (CiB) |
| - | Tekken 3D Prime CiB |
| No More Heroes 3 | Style Savvy Fashion Forward CiB |
| Samurai Jack Battle Through Time (LRG release) | Pac-man & Galaga Dimensions CiB |
| Disgaea 5 | Tales of Abyss |
| 13 Sentinel: Aegis Rim | Warioware Gold (NiB, cut in seal tho) |
| Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2 | Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box |
| Wonder Boy: The Dragon Trap | Persona Q themed carry case for 3DS systems (Came with the Limited Edition) |
| Minecraft Story Mode: The Complete Adventure | Dragon Ball Fusions |
| Disgaea 1 complete | Hyrule Warriors Legends |
| Lost Child | New Super Mario Bros 2 |
| Jump Force Deluxe | Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Original DS version, No manual) |
| Monster Hunter Generations (Sealed) | Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded |
| Little Nightmares 2 | Kingdom Hearts 358/2 |
| Balan Wonderworld | Street Fighter IV 3D (Loose) |
| Katamari Damacy Reroll | |
| Sonic Mania Plus (w/ Outer Box and Art Book) | |
| Toki Retrocollectors Edition | Wii/Wii U |
| Ultra Street Fighter 2: The Final Challengers | Xenoblade Chronicle X |
| Binding of Isaac (First print) | New Super Mario bros U + Luigi U |
| Atari Flashback collection | Mario Tennis Ultra Smash |
| Scott Pilgrim vs the World (Best Buy version, Sealed) | Minecraft |
| Star Fox Zero w/ Star Fox Guard | |
| LEGO: Jurassic Park, The Force Awakens, and City Undercover | |
| Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze | |
| SNES | Hyrule Warriors |
| Super Mario All Stars (CiB) | Breath of the Wild |
| Super Mario All Stars (Loose) | Super Smash Bros Wii U |
| Wii Party | |
| N64 (All Loose) | A bunch of Wii motes (Most White, a few Black) |
| Super Mario 64 | |
| Excitebike 64 | |
| Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire | Amiibo |
| Cruisin USA | Gold Mega Man (Sealed) |
| Jet Force Gemini | Luigi (Mario Series) (OOB, but I have the original Box) |
| Pit (Smash) (OOB) | |
| Fire Emblem Tiki (NiB) | |
| GBA | |
| Super Mario Advance (Loose) | |
| Pink GBA SP (AGS 101) | |
| Gameboy Camera (Red) | |
| Gamecube | |
| Super Mario Sunshine (Black Label) | |
| Super Smash Bros Melee (Players Choice, no manual) | |
| Spartan Total Warrior (Missing Manual) | |
| Spongebob: Battle for Bikini Bottom (Loose) | |
| Sega Soccer Slam (Loose) | |
| Action Replay MAX (Disc only) | |
| Crash Nitro Racing | |
Microsoft:
| Xbox One | Xbox 360 |
|---|---|
| Sea of Thieves (Sealed) | - |
| Assasins Ceed Odyssey (Gold/Steelbook Edition) | Injustice |
| Kingdom Hearts 3 | Oblivion |
| - | Fallout 3 |
| Resident Evil 2 (Disc Only) | Assassins Creed 3 |
| Stardew Valley | Battlefield 3 |
| Minecraft | Call of Duty 2 and World at War |
| Witcher 3 | Far Cry 3 |
| Titanfall | Fable |
| Titanfall 2 | Forza 2 |
| Mortal Kombat X | Sega Dreamcast Collection |
| Gears of WaRare Replay | Red Dead Redemption |
| Overwatch | Perfect Dark Zero |
| Assassins Creed Unity | Hitman Blood Money |
| Killer Instinct | Batman Arkham Origins |
| Battlefield 1 | Star Wars The Force Unleashed 2 |
| Skyrim Special Edition | Fifa Streets 3 |
| Forza 5 limited edition | Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga! |
| Shenmue 1-2 | The Witcher 2: Enhanced Edition |
| Alien Isolation | Assassins Creed Brotherhood |
| Diablo 3 Eternal Collection | Assassins Creed |
| Crash Bandicoot N Sane trilogy | Splinter Cell Conviction |
| Crash Team Racing Nitro Refuel | Turok |
| Quantum Break | Terraria |
| Limited Edition Gears of War 4 controller (Red) | Spider-man: shattered dimensions |
| Limited Edition Gears of War 4 controller (Grey) | Driver San Francisco |
| Dead Space 2 | |
| OG Xbox | Call of Duty Modern Warfare |
| Destroy all Humans 2 | Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 |
| Legacy of Kain Defiance | Assassins Creed 3 |
| Prince of Persia: Sands of Time | Assassins Creed IV Black Flag |
| Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones | Crackdown |
| Samurai Warriors | Mortal Kombat Komplete Edition |
| - | Darksiders |
| Spyro: A New Beginning | Zone of the Enders Collection |
| Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic | Call of Duty Black Ops 2 |
| Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 | NCAA Football 12 |
| Crash Twinsanity | |
| King of Fighters Neowave | Xbox consoles/Accessories |
| Jade Empire | Xbox 360 Slim |
| Soul Calibur 2 | Various Wireless Xbox 360 controllers |
| Morrowind | Various wired Xbox 360 controllers |
| Mercenaries | Xbox on controller (Gears of War Fennix edition) |
| 007: Agents under fire | Black Xbox One Controller |
| 007: Everything or Nothing | Xbox 360 Wifi Adapter |
| Slay the Spire (Digital) | |
Playstation
| PS4 | PS2 |
|---|---|
| Yakuza Kiwami 2 (Steelbook) | Clock Tower 3 |
| Lego Dimensions (Game & Case) | Silent Hill 2 |
| Psychonauts (LRG variant) | - |
| Infamous Second Son (Limited Edition) | Star Wars Battlefront 2 |
| God Wars | Crash BAndicoot: Wrath of Cortex |
| Walking Dead Complete Season 1 + 400 Days and Season 2 | Dynasty Warriors 5 Extreme Legends |
| Trails of Cold Steel 3 | Grand Theft Auto Vice City |
| Walking Dead: A New Frontier | Grand Theft Auto San Andreas |
| Playstation move controller | Gran Turismo 3 |
| Kingdom Hearts | |
| PS1 | Kingdom Hearts 2 |
| Digimon World (Missing manual) | Kingdom Hearts Re:Chain of Memories |
| Gran Turismo | Madden 10 |
| Star Wars Rebel Assault 2 | Nickolodeon's Barnyard |
| Twisted Metal Small Brawl | Garfield: Lasagna World Tour |
| Grand Theft Auto 2 | Atari Anthology |
| Star Wars Dark Force | NBA Streets Vol 2 |
| MDK | Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 |
| Midway Arcade's Greatest Hits 2 | Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 |
| Rainbow Six Lone Wolf | Black PS2 Slim |
| Micomaniacs Racing | |
| Rayman Brain Games | PS3 |
| Dance Dance Revolution Konamix | Ratchet and Clank: Crack in Time |
| Dance Dance Revolution | Rango |
| Call of Duty Black Ops 2 | |
| PSP (All are loose unless stated otherwise) | NBA 2k18 |
| Hammerin Hero (CiB) | Metal Gear Solid 4 |
| The 3rd Birthday (CiB) | God of War Collection |
| Metal Gear Acid (CiB) | Alien vs Predator |
| GTA Vice City Stories (CiB) | Ultra Street Fighter IV |
| Legend of Heroes (CiB) | |
| Legend of Heroes II (CiB) | PSP Movies (If anyone actually collects these) |
| Gran Turismo (CiB) | Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children |
| Def Jam fight for ny the takeover | Elf |
| Metal Gear Solid (Peace Walker) (CiB) | Jackass: The Movie |
| Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron | Wedding Crashers |
| Ridge Race (CiB) | Narnia |
| Namco Museum (CiB) | |
| The Warriors | |
| Spider-Man: Web of Shadows | |
| GTA: Vice City Stories | |
| Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max | |
| Little Big Planet | |
| Fifa 08 | |
| Sid Meier's Pirates | |
| Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Heroes | |
| NBA 06 | |
| Cars: Race-o-rama | |
| Sims Pets | |
| Daxter |
| Sega Genesis | Sega Dreamcast |
|---|---|
| Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (CiB) | WWF Royal Rumble |
| Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (CiB) | Dreamcast Generator vol. 2 (New) |
| Ghostbusters (CiB) | Virtua Tennis |
| Ghouls n Goblins (CiB) | |
| PC Games (Non-Digital) | |
|---|---|
| Panzer Dragoon (CiB) | |
| Sonic's Schoolhouse (CiB) | |
| Warcraft 2 (CiB: Original Big Box. Bonus: includes $5 off any Blizzard action figure!) (Note, coupon is two decades old, redeem at your own risk) | |
| Riven (CiB; Big Box) | |
Wants:
While I do enjoy playing on the Xbox one, I'm mostly looking for Nintendo stuff. But I'm open to whatever list you may have, but these are games I am interested in:
| Nintendo Switch Wants | 3/DS wants |
|---|---|
| Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive | |
| AI The Somnium Files 2: Nirvana | Yokai Watch Blasters Red |
| Trail of Cold Steel 4 | Shin Megami Devil Survivor 2 and Overclocked (3DS versions perferred) |
| Danganronpa Decadence | SMT Soul Hackers |
| Samurai Warrior 5 | Dragon Quest IV and VI |
| Dynasty Warrior 9 Empires | Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks |
| Ace Attorney Trilogy | Kirby: Planet Robobot |
| Ori Collection | Persona Q2 |
| Metroid Dread | Mario & Luigi Dream Team and Superstar Saga (3DS Remake) |
| Octopath Traveler | Metal Gear Solid 3D |
| NEO The World Ends With You | Ever Oasis |
| Neptunia Games | Project X Zone 1 and 2 |
| Gunvolt Chronicles luminous avenger ix (low want) | Corpse Party |
| Koei Tecmo WarrioMusou games | Star Fox 64 3D |
| Various Limited Run Games (prefer opened/CiB but dont mind sealed) | Luigi's Mansion |
| Nintendo Switch Lite (Pokemon edition preferred) | Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon |
| Neptunia X Senran kagura | Rhythm Thief |
| Blue Reflection | Hatsune Miku |
| NiS Presents Vol 1-3 | |
| Xbox Wants: | |
| Killer Instinct Definitive Edition | |
| PSP Wants | Playstation Wants |
| Final Fantasy I/IV Remakes | Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (PS1) |
| Power Stone Collection | Fist of the North Star Lost Paradise |
| Persona 3 Portable | Berserk PS4 |
| Persona 1 (Case and Manual) | Yakuza 0, Kiwami 1, 6 and 7 |
| Metal Slugs | Danganronpa: Another Episode (PS4) |
| Collections/Compilations/Anthology Games | PS Vita system (Slim Only) |
| RPG Games | Ultimate Marvel vs Capcomc 3 (PS4 version only) |
| Manuals | Cases |
| Pokemon White 2 | Pokemon White 2 |
| Pokemon White | Pokemon White |
| Pokemon Heartgold | Pokemon HeartGold |
| Castlevania Order of Ecclesia | Castlevania Order of Ecclesia |
| Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn | |
| Pokemon Yellow | |
| Pokemon SilveCrystal | |
2023.03.30 18:56 clearliquidclearjar TALLAHASSEE WEEKLY EVENTS, 3/30 – 4/5
Events are listed by the day. Events that happen every week appear first, one time stuff after that. If you have anything you’d like people to know about, comment here or message me and I’ll add it in. If you’d like further info about any of the events, look it up! I usually don’t have any extra to add.
Large Scale, Ongoing, and Multi-Day Events
OutdooFarmer’s Markets:
submitted by clearliquidclearjar to Tallahassee [link] [comments]
Large Scale, Ongoing, and Multi-Day Events
- 55th Springtime Tallahassee Festival, 9am to 5pm Downtown. Come celebrate the 55th annual Springtime Tallahassee Festival with the Grand Parade & the Jubilee in the Park in Downtown Tallahassee. Being one of the largest parades in the southeast, the Springtime Tallahassee Grand Parade needs no introduction! Come see over 100 colorful units and floats, marching bands, dance groups, Springtime Krewe floats, and much more march down Monroe Street to celebrate the Springtime Tallahassee Festival! After the parade, make sure to head over to the Jubilee in the Park! With more than 200 arts, craft, boutique, and food vendors from around the country, this event is represented by some of the best! You can expect artists displaying original, handmade masterpieces, and find cuisine with international flavors to ignite anyone’s taste buds! Bring the kids and check out the children’s park with lot of fun activities, Gulf Special Marine Lab Touch-tank, face painting, puppet show and more. Be sure to stop by the Community Stage at McCarty Park to see our local performance groups and the Jubilee Music Stage on Adams St for a special musical lineup! Performance times Noon-5pm. We will be open Rain or Shine!
OutdooFarmer’s Markets:
- Lake Ella Grower's Market: Wednesday, 11am-2pm. You can always find organic vendors, and foragers: The Holistic Cannabis Community, Artzi Farms, Hickory Nut Gifts, and others. Including Pita Queen! Farmer's Market Nutrition Program Coupons gladly accepted!
- Frenchtown Market: 524 N MLK Jr Blvd. Saturdays, 10am to 2pm. Come grow community and support your local farmers and makers, while you get your groceries for the week! Don’t forget! We match SNAP/EBT, so you DOUBLE your money to go towards locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables!
- Tallahassee Farmers Market: 2904 Kerry Forest Pkwy, Saturdays, 8am to Noon. Come see us at Tallahassee's longest-running farmers market! We are a year-round market, featuring local farms and vendors that provide the best seasonal produce, meats, baked goods, and more. We welcome you and your whole family (leashed pets included) to come out and meet your local farmers! Ample parking is available between our lot and the shopping center lot next door (by Red Elephant). Come early for the best selection.
- Tallahassee Downtown Market: Ponce de Leon Park, Saturdays, 10am-2pm. Join us for a stroll in the park among local makers, bakers, artists and farmers as live music is played by local musicians!
- Blue Tavern: Happy Hour Pickfoolery. Butch Burns & Brent Kittrell of the local legendary bluegrass band Bottom Dollar Boys always put the happy in happy hour - even when they're singing those sad cry-in-your-beer ballads. 5pm
- The Hub at Feather Oaks: Bingo. 5pm
- Dreamland BBQ: Weekly Open Blues Jam. If you'd like to sing, please bring your own mic. 6pm
- The Great Games Library: Solforge Fusion Sealed-Deck Tournament. Anyone interested in SolForge: Fusion, please come out! Thursday nights at 6:00pm to 9:00pm ish will be dedicated to SolForge Fusion gameplay and weekly tournaments. If you play or have played MTG but would like to spend less, this is a great alternative CCG with inexpensive entry and minimal purchases to enjoy playing competitively. In-store and online tournaments may be played with the same decks purchased at any store. SolForge was created by the same designer for MTG, Netrunner, and Key Forge, Richard Garfield, and the designer for Ascension, Justine Gary. 6pm/$35 Entry Fee for 4 Sealed Half-decks, Special Art Playmat Prize for 1st Place
- World of Beer: Trivia Night. 7pm
- Lake Tribe III: Trivia. 7pm
- Smitty's Taphouse: Trivia Lab Thursdays. Teams of 6 or fewer players can compete for $30 / $20 / $10 Prizes + The Golden MacGuffin prize table! New format! Interactive smartphone answering for your comfort and safety! 6 Fun Rounds - 42 Total Questions. 7:30pm
- House of Music: Prime Rib Thursday & Karaoke. 7:30pm
- Cap City Video Lounge: The Brute Man: MST3K Thursday. Join us Thursday as we climb aboard The Satellite of Love along with Joel, Tom Servo and CROOOOW as the Gang tackles the strange film noir horror oddity that is...The Brute Man! 8pm/free but donations encouraged
- Fire Bettys: Electronic Thursdays. There will be rotating music genres from local artists! 8pm/free/21+
- Poor Pauls: Trivia. 8/21+
- 926: Karaoke. 9pm
- Fire Bettys: Electronic Show. Join us for Experiment 002 and take a mind-bending trip into the sound of the future! Our electrifying music party will transport you to another dimension with cutting-edge beats and non-stop excitement. 9pm
- Bird’s: Karaoke with Nathan. 9pm
- Blue Tavern: Jen Clark and the Old Schoolers with Chris Seepersaud, Paddy League, and Jack Straub. 5pm
- Oyster City Brewing: Otha Allen Jr. 6pm
- Blu Halo: Upside Avenue. 6pm
- Blue Tavern: Music of the Spheres Last Thursday: The Rising Stars present the evolution of fife and drum music. 8pm
- Lake Tribe: Flannel Friday. Flannel Fridays will be featuring a wide range of fall themed 'Pop-up' activities such as food trucks, live music, campfires, s'mores roasting, new seasonal brews, and more! Come dawn your flannel and cozy up to the simpler things in life. Our beers taste like the outdoors feel, let our tasting room be your Friday cabin retreat. 4pm
- Gamescape: MTG Friday Night Magic. FORMAT: Standard Constructed. Swiss rounds as determined by the number of players with a maximum of 5 rounds. 7pm/$5
- Hobbit West: Friday Night Dart Tournament. Anyone can Enter! Sign ups at 7:30, Darts fly at 8:00/$10 entry fee
- Ouzts Too: Karaoke with DJ Nathan. Best karaoke DJ in town. 8pm
- Club Downunder: CDU X Hip Hop Club Presents Freestyle Friday. Show off your freestyle rap or poetry skills at Freestyle Friday! Doors are at 7:30 with the show starting at 8:00 in Club Downunder! Send an email to [email protected] to sign up! 8pm
- Just One More: Karaoke with DJ Rah. 9pm-11pm/21+
- 926: The Hot Friday Night Party and Drag Show. 9pm/$5/18+
- Blue Tavern: Douce Ambiance Reboot. 5pm
- Kleman Plaza: MusicFest. Join us on Kleman Plaza the night before the Grand Parade for an exciting musical line-up featuring a country music star CHRIS LANE! Special guests include Walker Montgomery and Temecula Road! This is a FREE community event! Unwind at the BEER GARDEN as we ROCK the plaza for this free festival event! Beer, wine, Coca-Cola products and food will be available for purchase. Make sure to arrive early to enjoy the opening acts as this event will get packed quickly. 6pm
- Proof: The Aftermath Band. 6pm
- FSU Hillel: Swifty Shabbat. Join us for a Taylor Swift themed shabbat! Services start at 6pm, dinner starts at 7pm
- House of Music: Keal Franklin plus Late Night Karaoke. 6:30pm
- Island Wing Company: Free Wheelin. 7pm
- Southwood Golf Club: Deja Blu. 7pm
- Duke’s and Dottie’s: Lloyd Carter Band. 7pm
- The Wine House on Market Street: Midnight Caravan. 7pm
- Vino Beano: Persian Night & Belly Dancing. 7:30pm
- Fire Bettys: Mainstream Band. 8pm
- The Rose Room: GeneZone. 8pm
- The Bark: No Parts, Lighthearted, and Confession Kids. 8pm
- Blue Tavern: Rod MacDonald. 8pm
- Oyster City Brewing: Ben Flournoy Trio. pm
- Brinkley Glen Park: Invasive Plant Removal. Join Master Gardener Volunteers at this weekly invasive plant removal event. This is a great way to learn to ID our invasive plant species and how to remove them. We recommend wearing long pants and sleeves, closed-toed shoes, gloves, a hat and mosquito spray. Bring gardening tools such as hand clippers, loppers, trowels, etc. if you have them. We are removing coral ardisia bushes and berries, nandina, tung trees, Tradescantia flumenensis, cat's claw vine, winged yam, Japanese climbing fern, skunkvine and more. Directions: The best way to get there is to take Meridian Rd to Waverly Rd, go to the next intersection and turn left onto Abbotsford Way, then turn left at the next road called Woodside Dr. At the stop sign turn left onto Lothian. Lothian ends in a cul-de-sac and there is a sign that says Brinkley Glen Park. 8:30am-11:30am
- The Rose Room: The Rose Revue. Performances by your favorite entertainers and special guests! Shows at 8pm, 10pm, & Midnight! A unique cast EACH show! 7pm
- Duke’s and Dottie’s: Line Dancing Plus Lessons. 7pm/21+
- Bird’s Oyster Shack: Laughterday Night Fever. This week: Five Year Anniversary Laughterday Night Fever! Join us every Saturday at Bird's Aphrodisiac Oyster Shack for a free comedy show! 8:30pm
- La Casa Bar: Karaoke With Nathan. 9pm-1pm
- LeRoy Collins Library Garage on Bronough (under the library): The Spring Title Wave Book Sale. Classics, vintage, and more! 9:30am-3pm
- Capital City Raceway: Rotten Egg Rumble. 10am
- Native Nurseries: oil Building and Compost. Learn everything there is to know about increasing soil fertility to grow healthy, nutrient dense fruits and vegetables. Sundiata Ameh-El of Compost Community will walk you through the basics of soil composition, microbiology and how to build your soils to make them perfect habitats for microorganisms that are responsible for healthy soil. REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED via PHONE ORDER. There is a $5.00 fee; your payment holds your spot in the class. Please call (850) 386-8882 to pre-register. Class size is limited to 15 people. 10am
- Leon Sinks: First Saturday Hike. If it is the first Saturday of the month, it is time for a hike at Leon Sinks! We will meet at 10 am in the parking lot and hike the trail together to see the beautiful geological features of the area while walking on wooded hiking trails. Right off US 319 south of Tallahassee, the Leon Sinks Geological Area contains 5 miles of trails leading to a series of sinkholes big and small. The land in this area is underlain by a layer of limestone, eroded and dissolved by rainwater and groundwater to form caverns, holes, and tunnels. This type of terrain is called "karst" and results in many geological features such as wet sinkholes, depressions, natural bridges and a disappearing stream. The hikers can either hike the 3.6-mile Sinkhole Trail to view the numerous sinkholes and geological features, or the 2.8-mile Gum Swamp Trail around a cypress and gum swamp. We recommend wear hiking shoes and bring a water bottle, and consider bug spray or long pants/sleeves. 10am
- Leon High Tennis Courts: Regional Energy Whiz Expo. The Regional Energy Whiz Expo consists of two events, the Solar Sprint and the Solar Cook-Off, geared towards getting kids involved in utilizing solar energy in fun and innovative ways. The Solar Sprint, open to students in 4th through 8th grade, consists of teams designing and building solar powered race cars. The Solar Cook-Off, for students in 4th through 12th grade, is a two-part competition encompassing the design of a fully solar powered cooker as well as a dish cooked using this same cooker. The winning team from each event will have the opportunity to compete in the state-wide Energy Whiz Expo! Noon
- The Puff: Marauders Market. Come join us at our newest smallest venue! Vintage resellers, local artisans, & good tunes! (Rescheduled from last week.) Noon
- Potbellys: 1st Annual Rock the SPEAR Benefit Concert with Tobacco Rd Band and former American Idol contestant Paisley Howell. 3pm/$20
- The Hub at Feather Oaks: The Jerry Thigpen Trio. 3pm
- Theater of Tallahassee: Cabaret Showcase. Join us for a special event at Theatre Tallahassee! We are delighted to bring you a Broadway cabaret of singing, dancing and acting featuring our award winning dance and theatre groups, along with some of our most advanced students, inspirational adult acts, and amazing solo performances. Every person regardless of age needs a ticket. Tickets will not be sold at the door. Ticket sales end two hours before each show. 3pm
- Proof: Corey Hall Band. 5pm
- The Rose Room: Topsy Turvy Through The Looking Glass. Each Performance inspired by Lewis Carroll's Through The Looking Glass! Performances by your favorite entertainers and special guests! Shows at 8pm, 10pm, & Midnight! A unique cast EACH show! COSTUMES ENCOURAGED! 6pm
- Common Ground Books: Crochet Workshop with Peter's Crochet Array. Beginner and intermediate crocheters welcome. No crochet knowledge is needed before attending this class. Space is limited. All ages welcome. All participants will need a crochet hook (between size 4-6mm) and a skein of yarn. Participants can bring their own supplies, or we will be happy to provide them at cost. 6pm/$20 with optional $8 supply fee
- Oyster City Brewing: Mechanical Lincoln. 7pm
- Square Mug: Dylan Daley, Killer Choice, Zero Shock, and Broken Couch Club. 7pm
- Blue Tavern: Harmonious Wail. 8pm
- Cap City Video Lounge: MEMELESQUE. Ermahgerd Shaken Not Stirred is back at your fav local theater Cap City Video Lounge!!! You thought it was a show announcement but it was me, Dio! Our entire lives are the internet now so we made a show about it. TXT all your besties & bring them out for for MEME-LESQUE. We will meme till you scream. Masks required. Don't forget to tip your performers! 8pm/18+/$10
- American Legion Hall: Latin Soul Orchestra 12th Anniversary Celebration. 8pm/$20
- Fire Bettys: Pop Punk & Emo Night. 10pm
- Bicycle House: Sunday Ride. Ride at 10:30 AM from Bicycle House. We will ride the Cascades trail to the St Marks trail and down to Wakulla station and return, about 31 miles. Ride speed is 12 to 14 mph, with periodic regroups. Vernon Bailey is the ride leader. Vernon is a new CCC member who’s been biking for 50 years enjoys riding with small groups and weekend touring. 10am
- Gamescape: Pokémon League. Come learn, play, and trade with the Pokémon Trading Card Game and the Pokémon video games! We LOVE seeing new players, so come learn how to play! We play both the Trading Card Game and the Video Game casually and competitively. The store offers lots of different seating arrangements to meet our group's needs, as well as food, drinks, and Pokémon products for purchase. We are also hold regular, officially sanctioned tournaments for Pokémon Trading Card Game and Video Game Competitions! 2-4pm
- House of Music: Songwriter Sunday. Songwriters of Tallahassee hosted by Rachel Hillman. Bring your original songs on Sunday - sign up is at 4:30. No Cover Songs please - this is an event celebrating original music. Accompanists and Bands Welcome - you must be able to set up within two minutes, so no crazy pedals or amp shenanigans. No Backing Tracks - Please find someone to play your song with you. 5pm
- The Plant: Open Jam. All instruments, all players welcome. 5pm-9pm
- Oyster City Brewing: Comedy Night. Come have some laughs with us on Sunday nights! If you are interested in participating in the show, reach out to [email protected] 7:30pm
- The Rose Room: Synful Sunday. 8pm
- Common Ground Books: Clothing Swap. Bring your clothes you no longer want, fit, or no longer feel like "you", and switch them out or just donate them to others. Clothing for all ages welcome. Please bring clothes in a bin or box so they can be easily browsed. Any clothing left will be considered a donation and held for the next swap or be made available for those in need. 2pm
- The Bark: Copyright Claim, Animal Nineteen, Funeral Homes, and Heaven Slept. 7pm
- 926: Curly Q “First Glance” EP release show with Learning To Swim, Our Final Feud, and Seppe. 7pm
- Retrofit Records: Alexalone with Deadharrie. 7pm/free
- House of Music: Bywater Call. 7pm
- Just One More: Bingo. 5pm-6:30pm
- American Legion Hall: Cha Cha - Weekly Lessons. 6:15pm/$5
- Hangar 38: Bingo. 6:45pm
- Vino Beano: Tipsy Trivia. 7pm
- The Rose Room: Karaoke Night. 8pm
- Oyster City Brewing: The Bachelor Watch Party! 8pm
- World of Beer: SINGO Music Bingo SPECIAL EVENT. With SINGO, our host will play 150 of the best hits in the music business, all 30-second music clips, and you'll have multiple opportunities to win house cash courtesy of WoB! You don't have to sing, but you'll definitely sing along! 6:30pm
- Blue Tavern: Happy Hour with Paddy League. 5pm
- World of Beer: Poker Night. 6pm
- The Rose Room: Drag Bingo and Open Stage Night ft. Britney T. Foxx! 6pm
- Crafty Crab: BOOMIN' Karaoke. 7pm
- Ology Midtown: Jazz Jam Sessions. 7pm
- Island Wings: Trivia. 7pm
- House of Music: Tuesday Trivia & Karaoke. 7pm
- Burrito Boarder: Karaoke with DJ Roldus. 8pm
- Blue Tavern: Tuesday is Blues Day. Every Tuesday is Blues Day @ the Blue Tavern and Blues Meets Girl is a Tallahassee favorite. This perfect, intimate venue provides just what you need for both a mid-week break and authentic blues music experience. 8pm
- 4th Quarter: Professor Jim's Tuesday Night Trivia. Popular for a reason! 8pm
- Argonaut Coffee: Trivia Tuesday. 8pm
- 926: Tacos and Trivia. 9pm
- Fire Betty’s: Comedy Show. 9pm/21+
- Blue Tavern: Abe Partridge with Cat Ridgeway. 5pm
- Richard G. Fallon Theatre: TEDxFSU Rooted in Reality Conference. Hosted by a student-run organization at Florida State University, our event is called TEDxFSU, where x = an independently organized TED event. They will have speakers, performers, activities, and more! Check out tedx.fsu.edu to learn more about them and the event! 5:30pm
- Civic Center: The Kid LAROI with Jeremy Zucker. 8pm
- Rose Room: Women's Wednesday. Featuring Our Rose Roulettes and drink specials all night long. A night for all of our female-identifying friends to enjoy a safe space and an awesome happy hour! 5pm-2am
- Birds: The Wednesday Night Lab Session hosted by Jim Crozier. 6pm
- Tara Angel’s Magic: D&D Experience - Adult (18+) Group. Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition - Candlekeep Mysteries. A one-shot is a D&D event that starts and finishes in the same session, typically lasting 3 - 4 hours. We have pre-generated characters for players to choose from. WHAT TO BRING: Pencils, Dice (can be purchased in store), Mask (encouraged for unvaccinated participants), Enthusiasm! Please sign up in advance to reserve a spot in this campaign. Tickets can be purchased in-store, over the phone, or on the website. For more information, please email [email protected], or call: (850) 878-4555 6pm-9pm
- Goodwood: Wonderful Wednesday. 6pm/$5
- Level 8 Rooftop Lounge: Trivia. 6pm
- The Great Games Library: Open Game Night. 6pm/free
- American Legion Hall: Sue Boyd Country Western and More Dance Class. Session 2 - Beginner 6:30 to 7:45 pm What: East Coast Swing and Waltz. Cost: $8.00 per person. Wear comfortable shoes you can turn in. 7:45 to 8:15 - Practice dance with paid admission. 8:15 to 9:30: Intermediate - 2 Step and WCS. $8.00 per person or $13.00 for both classes. Vaccines are required. Face masks are optional. Changing partners is optional. 6:30pm
- Perry Lynn’s Smokehouse in Quincy: Wed Night Open Mic w/ Steven Ritter and Friends. 6:30pm
- Hangar 38: Trivia. 6:45pm
- Oyster City Brewing Tallahassee: Trivia. Teams up to 6 players for three rounds with 10 questions and a tie breaker each round. Winners are by round so don’t worry if you need to come late or can’t stay the whole time! Prizes include a round of beer, a 6 pack and a gift card! 7pm
- Proof: Trivia. 7pm
- Vino Beano: Wine Bingo. 7pm
- Fermentation Lounge: Trivia. 7pm
- The Bark: Oceans in the Sky, Dizzy Bats, and Medians. 7pm
- House of Music: Open Mic at House of Music. Join us Wednesday nights for open mic in the bar with host Mike Ingram of The Brown Goose. Come early for Happy Hour and dinner! 8pm
- Blue Tavern: Warehouse Wednesdays Open Mic Night. The open mic night that has run continuously for almost 20 years, once housed at the Warehouse, lives on at the Blue Tavern. Doc Russell continues as the host with the most. Sign up starts at 8pm/free to attend
- Fire Betty’s: Karaoke! 8pm/21+/free
- Dukes and Dotties: College Night and Line Dancing Lessons. 8pm
- The Bark: Karaoke with DJ Nathan. Best karaoke DJ in town. 9pm
- 926: Dragged Out Wednesday. 10pm
- Wfsu Public Media, 1600 Red Barber Plaza: The Village Square Presents Tallahassee Town Hall. Our annual town hall hosts commissioners from the City of Tallahassee and Leon County to have a constructive (and neighborly) discussion about where we are, where we’re going and what the challenges out there on the horizon might be. 6pm
2023.03.30 18:56 FarmWhich4275 When Humans Human
(one of my earliest attempts at writing. decided to just finish and post it. apologies.)
Entry Log One: Khrakhan Eld, Jukhanian Ambassador to the Human Alliance. Stardate - Human Year 2086.
It has been over three centuries since I accepted this commission to work with the Human Alliance, and even though I have known them for that long, they still surprise me to a shocking extent. A highly diverse species with so many different cultures congealed into one staggering mass of a hundred billion strong, settled alongside all the galaxy's different species.
Humanity was, and still remains, the driving force behind the rapidly growing Federations power and might. The strange, gaunt, high gravity race of bipedal apes took the galaxy by complete surprise, not only due to their appearance, but also due to their surprising strength.
In barely forty years of their time here, they have integrated seamlessly with species previously thought inhospitable. Planets thought harsh or unuseable, supported massive colonies of millions of humans, and the richness the industries these worlds provide. Humans, as it later turned out, had an affinity for members of other species, and by staggering luck they had a one-in-a-billion reproductive system that was robust enough that they could actually interbreed with most mammalian species in the galaxy, and one or two of the reptillians as well.
Humanity's capabilities in terms of engineering surpassed ours in a matter of decades, and due to the terms of the Federation, they shared it with us. This is primarily due to the tribal nature of the race, and they are well known for their petty squabbles and minor disputes, that result in skirmishes or outright wars, but would never come to full scale attacks. Maybe a warning shot or two, a small exchange of fire to disable shield arrays, but never more than that.
When questioned about these incidents, Human ambassadors and leaders would simply say something on the lines of:
"Meh. Local tensions. Pirates. Idiots. God botherers or Idealists that randomly decide to slug it out one day. Just ignore them, they run out of steam eventually and bugger off back to where they came from."
We really cared not. Owing to how the humans never turned their guns on us, we were fine with it, so long as they never got us involved. Everything about the humans confused and amazed us. They had, during First Contact Exchanges, given us reels upon reels of their historical archives. And what we had now was essentially a marginally watered down version of what humanity once was.
Hardened like a battleship hull.
***************************************************************************
Entry Log Two: Human Expansion
Owing to their ability to breed with a majority of the species in the galaxy, Human society, cultures and customs became part and parcel of the Federations species, almost to the point where we started getting cults forming in small pockets on the outer rims worshipping this aspect. Humanity, surprisingly enough, even though they technically were the deity being worshipped by these cults, were the first ones to clamp down on them, disbanding or outright attacking them.
Humans retained a lot of their individual national cultures long after their arrival into space. Many of their soldiers still carried blades, swords, knives and other such primitive weapons, weapons that most members of the galactic species considered worthless, or obsolete. But humans wielded these weapons to devastating effect, as witnessed in a few incidents and military conflicts seen during their short time in the Federation.
Technological advancement in terms of military and civilian development outstretched the rest of the galaxy by - to quote an expression - "a Country Mile." Human creativity and the natural drive for both an Omnivorous species' capacity for greed, and the species natural curiosity drove them to accomplish tasks and tech we never would have imagined. Humans and their concept of "Percussive Maintenance", or smack it 'til it worked was also something that took us by surprise. Especially considering that most of the time it actually worked.
For a few decades, a long time in human years apparently, we simply took it at face value, and never questioned it. As the expression goes: "Never look a gift horse in the mouth."
***************************************************************************
Entry Log Three: Capacity for Evil
They were not complete angels and paragons of course, Many a time, more than other races especially during the early years, they were extremely aggressive in their colonization efforts, going to active war with many nations over territorial disputes, corporate conflicts or other such disputes. Either they would win by a bare margin, or they would be routed and sent off in pieces.
One such occasion was the Tabrisko Incident, where, from what I could discern, was a human Corporation, a private entity separate from the Alliance and the Federation, known as Cybratech Industries, had laid claim to a particular star system. A star system, already settled by its current inhabitants the Hasaki Triumvirate. It was here that humanity showed its capacity for callous greed, and why so much emphasis is placed in society on the rejection of Corporate ideals. It also showed us a modicum mof respectability. When someone was being a dick... they had no trouble fucking them.
The Corporation, or simply 'Corpos' gathered a fleet of about forty ships, two of them cruisers and one Ark ship. They proceeded, without orders to bypass most security legislation, bribing their way across the galaxy and arrived in the system of Tabrisko. Two terrestrial planets, one Oceanic planet in the habitable zone, one Gas giant, two Ice planets and one newborn Molten planet. An unremarkable system by all accounts, there were thousands just like it throughout the galaxy.
The Corpos warped in and sent out a mass broadcast. "This is a public declaration. On behalf of the CybraTech Corporation, your occupation of this star system is now null and void. You will evacuate from the area immediately. You have a standard week to respond."
The sheer bastarding balls of them. A human representative was contacted and informed of the situation.
The human Ambassador, a gaunt, tall white haired gent by the name of Harley Alride, had a sneaky, unmistakable grin on his face as he spoke to the ambassador from the Hasaki Triumvirate. "So... what exactly is the issue here?"
The Hasaki Ambassador, Sings-On-Shores, was by no means amused. The lizard like reptilians blue scales flared in anger as he spoke back. "For the third time, we have a human fleet calling itself the Cybratech Corporation demanding that we surrender one of our colony worlds! I demand an explanation!"
Harley simply let out a chuckle, as if he was suppressing the desire to laugh. "Oh? Corpo rats huh? Well they are a private entity. There's nothing we can do to stop you, or them."
Sings-On-Shores was somewhat confused, but more upset and angry. "What? WHAT!?"
Harley simply said, that typical sly, 'I am up to something sneaky' grin on his face that we had become so accustomed to seeing. "What I am saying Ambassador is... That whatever you decide to do with them is entirely your decision."
Sings-On-Shores was astonished. This situation was a full invasion by galactic standards, it was the equivalent of a declaration of war. "But... They are your people! You speak for them!"
Harley's smile disappeared and his demeanor changed to one of seriousness. "Mister Ambassador with all due respect, need I remind you of Federation Colonization legislation number Seven Five Eight, Paragraph three? I quote: 'The first claimant to any star system that has the capacity to maintain any industry on that planet, has full and absolute control of its industry and inevitably, it's defense, is the sole and exclusive claimant to that star system.'" Harley said, and looked at his counterpart.
"Of course I remember the damn legislation! I helped sign that into law a hundred years ago! What the hell are you talking about!?" Sings-On-Shores demanded, his scales flustering between breaths.
"What I am saying, Sir, is that Private entities known as Corporations and other private entities can form OUTSIDE of the Alliances jurisdiction. They can get rich, get an ego the size of a cargo freighter and then suddenly decide 'I am god now, I can do what I want.' and go on a rampage. We allow it, for reasons that should be obvious. We do however... DISAVOW." Harleys last word in that statement took the Hasaki Ambassador by surprise.
"Disavow... wh-?" The entire concept for the Hasaki of private corporations operating outside of jurisdiction was as much a foreign concept to him as could be imagined.
"We allow these entities to buy their own fleets, set up shop and do what they do. they return to the Alliance eventually one way or another, Its just business. But sometimes... the rich and wealthy develop a god complex. And it is up to the normal people in the galaxy to remind them of what they really are. Lest they do stupid things." Harley responded. He looked into the monitor, and visibly closed one of his eyes in a cheeky manner, with his smile returned.
Sings-On-Shores went silent for a moment. As if processing the information. "Understood, Ambassador."
"One more thing..." Harley said. His demeanor shifted again, to a dead serious and absolute severity. "Do not fire on that Ark ship. Those people signed up for a new life, not an execution. There are children on board. We will see to it they get passage to a new colony world one way or another. But the corpo fleet? Heh... Enjoy the salvage."
Sings-On-Shores acknowledged with his own sinister grin, and closed the call.
A few hours later, a very heavily armed war fleet of the Triumvirate warped into the star system. Outnumbering and heavily outgunning the Corpo fleet. As expected, sensing danger the Ark ship immediately performed an FTL emergency jump, and vanished to the borders of the system where, a Human Alliance fleet was casually waiting for them. The corporate fleet was nothing short of obliterated by plasma cannons and heavy weapons fire from a Triumvirate dreadnought and its escorts. Nothing left but salvage and slag floating hopeless in the expanse where a salvage crew from the colony appeared and went to town.
Three thousand people were killed in that fight. Two Triumvirate ships were lost, totaling 600 losses, battleships no less. The rest were human losses. Corvettes, pickets, escort ships and mostly small low quality frigates crewed by 'Corporate drones' and contracted slave workers. As Harley said, 'nothing worth keeping.'
The human ambassadors and agents explained that rich corporations or other such entities would go mad with power, gather followers or create clone armies - highly illegal clone armies - and attempt to claim what they wanted. Human Alliance officers always knew what was going on, and made sure that one way or another, in a fair and balanced manner, they would always lose.
"In a fair and balanced manner." That sentence is almost always expressed with a certain sadistic glee.
***************************************************************************
Entry Four: Unbelievable Charity
This event is in stark contrast to the New Haven Incident that took place some twelve years later. Humanity was now at the forefront of Galactic politics and economics. New Haven was in fact a Bakari settlement and I had been called in to help them reinforce their trade position with the local area and help them along. I was in the orbital station garrisoning the colony when I heard the call to action.
The communications arrays suddenly exploded with SOS signals, emergency alerts and warnings of every kind as a staggering earthquake hit one of the continents. Seismologists put the quake on a massive eleven point four on the scale, enough to tilt the planets axis three degrees, open two new fault lines, slow the planets rotation speed by almost a full second and cause seven subsequent volcanic detonations across the tectonic plate.
Twenty nine cities were impacted and a hundred and fifty million lives were at stake. Before I could do anything however. A message interrupted all communications directed at the local garrison.
"Distress Signal Received. This is Alliance Fleet Sons Of The Dawn responding. Admiral Beckett Gray reporting. Request permission to enter Federation airspace."
I was on the bridge with the station captain helping him organize a response at this time, and without thinking, I immediately jumped on the communicator in a response. "This is federation Ambassador Khrakhan Eld responding, permission granted."
The station captain was somewhat annoyed with me. It was not exactly polite to supplant his authority. I was only an ambassador, so he scolded me for it. "How dare you do that! This is my station! You dare break with protocol like that!"
"Captain Sundaris please, this is an emergency situation." I responded, trying to stay calm.
Before however we could argue this point, a hundred dropships, cargo ships and two planetary cruisers blasted past the station making us jump in surprise as they whizzed past us. Moments later the massive hull of one of the Alliances two kilometer long Planetary Assault Carriers rumbled past the station, its sheer size and speed causing the windows and plating on the stations hull to rattle. Very few people outside the Alliance had seen one of these magnificent beasts, and as it slipped past us we got a glimpse as to exactly why.
A strange ship with a triangular or diamond shaped hull, hangar bays on the sides, heavy armor plating with dozens of shield generators dotted the meters thick armor plating. Weapons seen only on dreadnoughts or battleships lined its side hull under the bridge section and more small craft were being hastily ejected from its side mounted hangars. Its most terrifying component was what was mounted at the front - a Spinal mounted ion cannon. I could very clearly see a tell-tale sign of an emitter array barely sticking out the front end.
It entered the planets atmosphere flawlessly and we watched in awe as a full army of humans flooded out of the ships hull as it touched ground causing a puff of dust. Two more of these PAC class ships followed, then three more after that, and one more lagging behind with various cargo ships and drop transports seemingly welded to its outer hull followed, all within moments of each other. Two more smaller craft, known as Trade Frigates or Droid Frigates, ships whose superstructure is primarily consistent of communications arrays and antennae, appeared and entered the stations orbital patterns and began transmitting commands and orders, organizing the planets scattered and broken emergency signals.
The captain and I looked at each other, mouths agape at the sight we just witnessed. Not just one of them, but SEVEN? How many of them did humanity have!?
"One hundred and thirty four. And still counting." I heard a voice behind me say.
"Wh- Pardon?" I asked, now looking at a human Marine standing in the control room.
"That's how many of those ships we have. One hundred and thirty four by last count, with drydocks and shipyards in Alliance space working to produce another six hundred within the next ten years. As per our trade agreements, one hundred of those ships will be handed over to our allies and trade partners." He said with a smile, handing me a data pad.
He must have heard the voice in my head somehow, or he just simply knew what the question was, probably having been asked it a thousand times. "Erm... Uh... Th-Thank you uh..." I cleared my throat and straightened my shoulders, attempting to compose myself. "Carry on soldier. We will coordinate with your teams on the ground and translate what we can. Not everyone on the planet understands the Galactic standard language yet, so we will do our best. Patch us in to your commslink and we will assist where we can."
"Sir yes, Sir!" The human saluted, then immediately charged back out of the station. Moments later, a new group of humans appeared and without orders, began to redirect communications and show us bodycam footage from the ground.
What followed was the single largest and most grueling disaster relief campaign in seventy years. Twenty thousand ships. Two hundred million tons of medical supplies. Six hundred million tons of food and water. Two million humans working to save the lives of a hundred million people. Three and a half months of work.
After all was said and done, as many lives saved as possible, Human constructor fleets appeared with another surprise. They called them Manufactoriums, city sized ships with no armament or defense equipment, but cargo containers, construction drones and building hardware. Twenty two of them. It wasn't a ship in the traditional sense... to be honest it looked more like a children's block building set with giant engines. Big, fat, squared boxes with various patterns of armor plating mounted on a set of giant starship thrusters.
They landed on the planets surface and began to, for lack of a better term, unpack themselves. They landed, then a system of... i guess robots, started to unpack the blocky monster. Within hours, the ships had disappeared and turned into organized and perfected geometric patterns. They essentially made a prepackaged city and flew it out to act as a replacement for the city that was destroyed. Millions homeless, now almost instantly rehoused.
All the humans asked for in return was that we honor trade agreements and maintain the Alliance.
***************************************************************************
And so here we stand, many decades into the greatest and hopefully longest lasting friendship in history as Humanity rapidly carves itself into our hearts and our minds, with their increasingly erratic and interesting behavior. They are the only species in galactic history - that we are aware of anyway - to not immediately attempt to forge a galactic hegemony or engage in a genocide without due cause.
They are also one of extremely few species that everybody likes. Most like their presence or enjoy their company. Some simply ignore them. The few that don't like them are quick to change their minds when rescuers or negotiators arrive when a problem shows up.
Humans are here to stay. Hopefully for a damn long time.
Final Log: Khrakhan Eld, Jukhanian Ambassador to the Human Alliance. Stardate - Human Year 2386.
submitted by FarmWhich4275 to HFY [link] [comments]
Entry Log One: Khrakhan Eld, Jukhanian Ambassador to the Human Alliance. Stardate - Human Year 2086.
It has been over three centuries since I accepted this commission to work with the Human Alliance, and even though I have known them for that long, they still surprise me to a shocking extent. A highly diverse species with so many different cultures congealed into one staggering mass of a hundred billion strong, settled alongside all the galaxy's different species.
Humanity was, and still remains, the driving force behind the rapidly growing Federations power and might. The strange, gaunt, high gravity race of bipedal apes took the galaxy by complete surprise, not only due to their appearance, but also due to their surprising strength.
In barely forty years of their time here, they have integrated seamlessly with species previously thought inhospitable. Planets thought harsh or unuseable, supported massive colonies of millions of humans, and the richness the industries these worlds provide. Humans, as it later turned out, had an affinity for members of other species, and by staggering luck they had a one-in-a-billion reproductive system that was robust enough that they could actually interbreed with most mammalian species in the galaxy, and one or two of the reptillians as well.
Humanity's capabilities in terms of engineering surpassed ours in a matter of decades, and due to the terms of the Federation, they shared it with us. This is primarily due to the tribal nature of the race, and they are well known for their petty squabbles and minor disputes, that result in skirmishes or outright wars, but would never come to full scale attacks. Maybe a warning shot or two, a small exchange of fire to disable shield arrays, but never more than that.
When questioned about these incidents, Human ambassadors and leaders would simply say something on the lines of:
"Meh. Local tensions. Pirates. Idiots. God botherers or Idealists that randomly decide to slug it out one day. Just ignore them, they run out of steam eventually and bugger off back to where they came from."
We really cared not. Owing to how the humans never turned their guns on us, we were fine with it, so long as they never got us involved. Everything about the humans confused and amazed us. They had, during First Contact Exchanges, given us reels upon reels of their historical archives. And what we had now was essentially a marginally watered down version of what humanity once was.
Hardened like a battleship hull.
***************************************************************************
Entry Log Two: Human Expansion
Owing to their ability to breed with a majority of the species in the galaxy, Human society, cultures and customs became part and parcel of the Federations species, almost to the point where we started getting cults forming in small pockets on the outer rims worshipping this aspect. Humanity, surprisingly enough, even though they technically were the deity being worshipped by these cults, were the first ones to clamp down on them, disbanding or outright attacking them.
Humans retained a lot of their individual national cultures long after their arrival into space. Many of their soldiers still carried blades, swords, knives and other such primitive weapons, weapons that most members of the galactic species considered worthless, or obsolete. But humans wielded these weapons to devastating effect, as witnessed in a few incidents and military conflicts seen during their short time in the Federation.
Technological advancement in terms of military and civilian development outstretched the rest of the galaxy by - to quote an expression - "a Country Mile." Human creativity and the natural drive for both an Omnivorous species' capacity for greed, and the species natural curiosity drove them to accomplish tasks and tech we never would have imagined. Humans and their concept of "Percussive Maintenance", or smack it 'til it worked was also something that took us by surprise. Especially considering that most of the time it actually worked.
For a few decades, a long time in human years apparently, we simply took it at face value, and never questioned it. As the expression goes: "Never look a gift horse in the mouth."
***************************************************************************
Entry Log Three: Capacity for Evil
They were not complete angels and paragons of course, Many a time, more than other races especially during the early years, they were extremely aggressive in their colonization efforts, going to active war with many nations over territorial disputes, corporate conflicts or other such disputes. Either they would win by a bare margin, or they would be routed and sent off in pieces.
One such occasion was the Tabrisko Incident, where, from what I could discern, was a human Corporation, a private entity separate from the Alliance and the Federation, known as Cybratech Industries, had laid claim to a particular star system. A star system, already settled by its current inhabitants the Hasaki Triumvirate. It was here that humanity showed its capacity for callous greed, and why so much emphasis is placed in society on the rejection of Corporate ideals. It also showed us a modicum mof respectability. When someone was being a dick... they had no trouble fucking them.
The Corporation, or simply 'Corpos' gathered a fleet of about forty ships, two of them cruisers and one Ark ship. They proceeded, without orders to bypass most security legislation, bribing their way across the galaxy and arrived in the system of Tabrisko. Two terrestrial planets, one Oceanic planet in the habitable zone, one Gas giant, two Ice planets and one newborn Molten planet. An unremarkable system by all accounts, there were thousands just like it throughout the galaxy.
The Corpos warped in and sent out a mass broadcast. "This is a public declaration. On behalf of the CybraTech Corporation, your occupation of this star system is now null and void. You will evacuate from the area immediately. You have a standard week to respond."
The sheer bastarding balls of them. A human representative was contacted and informed of the situation.
The human Ambassador, a gaunt, tall white haired gent by the name of Harley Alride, had a sneaky, unmistakable grin on his face as he spoke to the ambassador from the Hasaki Triumvirate. "So... what exactly is the issue here?"
The Hasaki Ambassador, Sings-On-Shores, was by no means amused. The lizard like reptilians blue scales flared in anger as he spoke back. "For the third time, we have a human fleet calling itself the Cybratech Corporation demanding that we surrender one of our colony worlds! I demand an explanation!"
Harley simply let out a chuckle, as if he was suppressing the desire to laugh. "Oh? Corpo rats huh? Well they are a private entity. There's nothing we can do to stop you, or them."
Sings-On-Shores was somewhat confused, but more upset and angry. "What? WHAT!?"
Harley simply said, that typical sly, 'I am up to something sneaky' grin on his face that we had become so accustomed to seeing. "What I am saying Ambassador is... That whatever you decide to do with them is entirely your decision."
Sings-On-Shores was astonished. This situation was a full invasion by galactic standards, it was the equivalent of a declaration of war. "But... They are your people! You speak for them!"
Harley's smile disappeared and his demeanor changed to one of seriousness. "Mister Ambassador with all due respect, need I remind you of Federation Colonization legislation number Seven Five Eight, Paragraph three? I quote: 'The first claimant to any star system that has the capacity to maintain any industry on that planet, has full and absolute control of its industry and inevitably, it's defense, is the sole and exclusive claimant to that star system.'" Harley said, and looked at his counterpart.
"Of course I remember the damn legislation! I helped sign that into law a hundred years ago! What the hell are you talking about!?" Sings-On-Shores demanded, his scales flustering between breaths.
"What I am saying, Sir, is that Private entities known as Corporations and other private entities can form OUTSIDE of the Alliances jurisdiction. They can get rich, get an ego the size of a cargo freighter and then suddenly decide 'I am god now, I can do what I want.' and go on a rampage. We allow it, for reasons that should be obvious. We do however... DISAVOW." Harleys last word in that statement took the Hasaki Ambassador by surprise.
"Disavow... wh-?" The entire concept for the Hasaki of private corporations operating outside of jurisdiction was as much a foreign concept to him as could be imagined.
"We allow these entities to buy their own fleets, set up shop and do what they do. they return to the Alliance eventually one way or another, Its just business. But sometimes... the rich and wealthy develop a god complex. And it is up to the normal people in the galaxy to remind them of what they really are. Lest they do stupid things." Harley responded. He looked into the monitor, and visibly closed one of his eyes in a cheeky manner, with his smile returned.
Sings-On-Shores went silent for a moment. As if processing the information. "Understood, Ambassador."
"One more thing..." Harley said. His demeanor shifted again, to a dead serious and absolute severity. "Do not fire on that Ark ship. Those people signed up for a new life, not an execution. There are children on board. We will see to it they get passage to a new colony world one way or another. But the corpo fleet? Heh... Enjoy the salvage."
Sings-On-Shores acknowledged with his own sinister grin, and closed the call.
A few hours later, a very heavily armed war fleet of the Triumvirate warped into the star system. Outnumbering and heavily outgunning the Corpo fleet. As expected, sensing danger the Ark ship immediately performed an FTL emergency jump, and vanished to the borders of the system where, a Human Alliance fleet was casually waiting for them. The corporate fleet was nothing short of obliterated by plasma cannons and heavy weapons fire from a Triumvirate dreadnought and its escorts. Nothing left but salvage and slag floating hopeless in the expanse where a salvage crew from the colony appeared and went to town.
Three thousand people were killed in that fight. Two Triumvirate ships were lost, totaling 600 losses, battleships no less. The rest were human losses. Corvettes, pickets, escort ships and mostly small low quality frigates crewed by 'Corporate drones' and contracted slave workers. As Harley said, 'nothing worth keeping.'
The human ambassadors and agents explained that rich corporations or other such entities would go mad with power, gather followers or create clone armies - highly illegal clone armies - and attempt to claim what they wanted. Human Alliance officers always knew what was going on, and made sure that one way or another, in a fair and balanced manner, they would always lose.
"In a fair and balanced manner." That sentence is almost always expressed with a certain sadistic glee.
***************************************************************************
Entry Four: Unbelievable Charity
This event is in stark contrast to the New Haven Incident that took place some twelve years later. Humanity was now at the forefront of Galactic politics and economics. New Haven was in fact a Bakari settlement and I had been called in to help them reinforce their trade position with the local area and help them along. I was in the orbital station garrisoning the colony when I heard the call to action.
The communications arrays suddenly exploded with SOS signals, emergency alerts and warnings of every kind as a staggering earthquake hit one of the continents. Seismologists put the quake on a massive eleven point four on the scale, enough to tilt the planets axis three degrees, open two new fault lines, slow the planets rotation speed by almost a full second and cause seven subsequent volcanic detonations across the tectonic plate.
Twenty nine cities were impacted and a hundred and fifty million lives were at stake. Before I could do anything however. A message interrupted all communications directed at the local garrison.
"Distress Signal Received. This is Alliance Fleet Sons Of The Dawn responding. Admiral Beckett Gray reporting. Request permission to enter Federation airspace."
I was on the bridge with the station captain helping him organize a response at this time, and without thinking, I immediately jumped on the communicator in a response. "This is federation Ambassador Khrakhan Eld responding, permission granted."
The station captain was somewhat annoyed with me. It was not exactly polite to supplant his authority. I was only an ambassador, so he scolded me for it. "How dare you do that! This is my station! You dare break with protocol like that!"
"Captain Sundaris please, this is an emergency situation." I responded, trying to stay calm.
Before however we could argue this point, a hundred dropships, cargo ships and two planetary cruisers blasted past the station making us jump in surprise as they whizzed past us. Moments later the massive hull of one of the Alliances two kilometer long Planetary Assault Carriers rumbled past the station, its sheer size and speed causing the windows and plating on the stations hull to rattle. Very few people outside the Alliance had seen one of these magnificent beasts, and as it slipped past us we got a glimpse as to exactly why.
A strange ship with a triangular or diamond shaped hull, hangar bays on the sides, heavy armor plating with dozens of shield generators dotted the meters thick armor plating. Weapons seen only on dreadnoughts or battleships lined its side hull under the bridge section and more small craft were being hastily ejected from its side mounted hangars. Its most terrifying component was what was mounted at the front - a Spinal mounted ion cannon. I could very clearly see a tell-tale sign of an emitter array barely sticking out the front end.
It entered the planets atmosphere flawlessly and we watched in awe as a full army of humans flooded out of the ships hull as it touched ground causing a puff of dust. Two more of these PAC class ships followed, then three more after that, and one more lagging behind with various cargo ships and drop transports seemingly welded to its outer hull followed, all within moments of each other. Two more smaller craft, known as Trade Frigates or Droid Frigates, ships whose superstructure is primarily consistent of communications arrays and antennae, appeared and entered the stations orbital patterns and began transmitting commands and orders, organizing the planets scattered and broken emergency signals.
The captain and I looked at each other, mouths agape at the sight we just witnessed. Not just one of them, but SEVEN? How many of them did humanity have!?
"One hundred and thirty four. And still counting." I heard a voice behind me say.
"Wh- Pardon?" I asked, now looking at a human Marine standing in the control room.
"That's how many of those ships we have. One hundred and thirty four by last count, with drydocks and shipyards in Alliance space working to produce another six hundred within the next ten years. As per our trade agreements, one hundred of those ships will be handed over to our allies and trade partners." He said with a smile, handing me a data pad.
He must have heard the voice in my head somehow, or he just simply knew what the question was, probably having been asked it a thousand times. "Erm... Uh... Th-Thank you uh..." I cleared my throat and straightened my shoulders, attempting to compose myself. "Carry on soldier. We will coordinate with your teams on the ground and translate what we can. Not everyone on the planet understands the Galactic standard language yet, so we will do our best. Patch us in to your commslink and we will assist where we can."
"Sir yes, Sir!" The human saluted, then immediately charged back out of the station. Moments later, a new group of humans appeared and without orders, began to redirect communications and show us bodycam footage from the ground.
What followed was the single largest and most grueling disaster relief campaign in seventy years. Twenty thousand ships. Two hundred million tons of medical supplies. Six hundred million tons of food and water. Two million humans working to save the lives of a hundred million people. Three and a half months of work.
After all was said and done, as many lives saved as possible, Human constructor fleets appeared with another surprise. They called them Manufactoriums, city sized ships with no armament or defense equipment, but cargo containers, construction drones and building hardware. Twenty two of them. It wasn't a ship in the traditional sense... to be honest it looked more like a children's block building set with giant engines. Big, fat, squared boxes with various patterns of armor plating mounted on a set of giant starship thrusters.
They landed on the planets surface and began to, for lack of a better term, unpack themselves. They landed, then a system of... i guess robots, started to unpack the blocky monster. Within hours, the ships had disappeared and turned into organized and perfected geometric patterns. They essentially made a prepackaged city and flew it out to act as a replacement for the city that was destroyed. Millions homeless, now almost instantly rehoused.
All the humans asked for in return was that we honor trade agreements and maintain the Alliance.
***************************************************************************
And so here we stand, many decades into the greatest and hopefully longest lasting friendship in history as Humanity rapidly carves itself into our hearts and our minds, with their increasingly erratic and interesting behavior. They are the only species in galactic history - that we are aware of anyway - to not immediately attempt to forge a galactic hegemony or engage in a genocide without due cause.
They are also one of extremely few species that everybody likes. Most like their presence or enjoy their company. Some simply ignore them. The few that don't like them are quick to change their minds when rescuers or negotiators arrive when a problem shows up.
Humans are here to stay. Hopefully for a damn long time.
Final Log: Khrakhan Eld, Jukhanian Ambassador to the Human Alliance. Stardate - Human Year 2386.
2023.03.30 18:38 Angrybabybear Pretty rave girl didnt come home alive Nov. 2022 San Bernardino
" Saturday November 19th my daughter went to a rave in the city of San Bernardino #Dreamstate at the #orangepavilion
I was home awake waiting for her updates as she always would keep contact with me when she would go out with friends our last exchange of messages was before 9 pm. At midnight her friends called me to say “the friend” my daughter was with had contacted her to tell her my daughter went off on him for no reason and warned him she would jump out of the car (a moving vehicle) I immediately got up and go, I left my house worried sick calling my daughter non stop to what her phone would ring but there was no answer. As I was driving towards the #orangepavilion her friend kept on calling her and tried to get as much info as she could from this “friend”
I went around the parking lot to where they had parked right across the venue walked every inch of that parking lot her phone was ringing and her location was still there. Her best friend called and said the “friend” had giving her the location to where my daughter got off the car and I called 911 to report my daughter missing and then I talked to chp to report my daughter stranded in the 215 fwy it was now 1:45 am
I drove to the location that was provided looked for my daughter drove in and out the fwy in circles. Stopped to the gas station asked if they had seen her to what they reply they didn’t. Checked near the public transit station and she was nowhere to be found.
911 dispatch called me back and asked detail info about my daughter and told me to file a missing person report with police which I did
The sun came out and I called the “ friend” that saw her last, that man who sound so calmed and relaxed. He told me my daughter was in a really bad shape and she was sick throwing up they waited in the car for her to feel better but decided to bring her home because he was a gentleman, at one point my daughter decided to get out of the car and he didn’t stop her because she was upset, but she was fine she was walking normal without stumbling.
I continued looking for her. I went back to the venue, I asked as many people as possible if they’ve seen my daughter showed them her picture described what she was wearing every detail I could remember checked every dumpster every trash can for her and her phone my mother instincts were starting to fear the worse.
I had already called every hospital every trauma center even jail anywhere that would come to mind. There was no sign of her
Around 11:00 am on Sunday November 20th I was broken and decided to head home on my way there was an accident and chp the officers were looking down the bridge and I pull over and checked because that was the location my daughter got out of the car the night before and there she was at the bottom of the wash. I was yelling at her screaming her name to the top of my lungs I wanted her to scream I wanted her to say she was okay, the officer at the other side of the bridge walked towards me yelling questions. Do you know her? To what I reply she’s my daughter , I continued screaming. Then again he yelled “ma’m, ma’m !!! She’s dead” stay away from the fence !!! And escorted me away as possible to get my statement I provided them with everything I knew to that point.
He was the last person that saw my daughter alive and to this day he never explained why my daughter got out of his car, she was a smart woman a rational person with a sharp critical thinking. The reason was she felt more safe out of his car is a mystery.
That man was questioned and let go, the police didn’t check him right away he had more than 14 hours to get rid of valuable evidence.
My daughters belongings were never found, her phone her extra clothes her purple crocs her key chain."
I am not her mother, but I hope this message gets the coverage it deserves
Please read more: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100006091339084
submitted by Angrybabybear to aves [link] [comments]
I was home awake waiting for her updates as she always would keep contact with me when she would go out with friends our last exchange of messages was before 9 pm. At midnight her friends called me to say “the friend” my daughter was with had contacted her to tell her my daughter went off on him for no reason and warned him she would jump out of the car (a moving vehicle) I immediately got up and go, I left my house worried sick calling my daughter non stop to what her phone would ring but there was no answer. As I was driving towards the #orangepavilion her friend kept on calling her and tried to get as much info as she could from this “friend”
I went around the parking lot to where they had parked right across the venue walked every inch of that parking lot her phone was ringing and her location was still there. Her best friend called and said the “friend” had giving her the location to where my daughter got off the car and I called 911 to report my daughter missing and then I talked to chp to report my daughter stranded in the 215 fwy it was now 1:45 am
I drove to the location that was provided looked for my daughter drove in and out the fwy in circles. Stopped to the gas station asked if they had seen her to what they reply they didn’t. Checked near the public transit station and she was nowhere to be found.
911 dispatch called me back and asked detail info about my daughter and told me to file a missing person report with police which I did
The sun came out and I called the “ friend” that saw her last, that man who sound so calmed and relaxed. He told me my daughter was in a really bad shape and she was sick throwing up they waited in the car for her to feel better but decided to bring her home because he was a gentleman, at one point my daughter decided to get out of the car and he didn’t stop her because she was upset, but she was fine she was walking normal without stumbling.
I continued looking for her. I went back to the venue, I asked as many people as possible if they’ve seen my daughter showed them her picture described what she was wearing every detail I could remember checked every dumpster every trash can for her and her phone my mother instincts were starting to fear the worse.
I had already called every hospital every trauma center even jail anywhere that would come to mind. There was no sign of her
Around 11:00 am on Sunday November 20th I was broken and decided to head home on my way there was an accident and chp the officers were looking down the bridge and I pull over and checked because that was the location my daughter got out of the car the night before and there she was at the bottom of the wash. I was yelling at her screaming her name to the top of my lungs I wanted her to scream I wanted her to say she was okay, the officer at the other side of the bridge walked towards me yelling questions. Do you know her? To what I reply she’s my daughter , I continued screaming. Then again he yelled “ma’m, ma’m !!! She’s dead” stay away from the fence !!! And escorted me away as possible to get my statement I provided them with everything I knew to that point.
He was the last person that saw my daughter alive and to this day he never explained why my daughter got out of his car, she was a smart woman a rational person with a sharp critical thinking. The reason was she felt more safe out of his car is a mystery.
That man was questioned and let go, the police didn’t check him right away he had more than 14 hours to get rid of valuable evidence.
My daughters belongings were never found, her phone her extra clothes her purple crocs her key chain."
I am not her mother, but I hope this message gets the coverage it deserves
Please read more: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100006091339084
2023.03.30 18:25 SavannahRama Bill Bryson on Savannah
From "The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America" (1989), written during his travels around the US in 1987 & 1988
I headed east for Savannah, down Interstate 16. It was a 173-mile drive of unspeakable tedium across the red-clay plain of Georgia. It took me five hot and unrewarding hours to reach Savannah. While you, lucky reader, have only to flit your eyes to the next paragraph.
I stood agog in Lafayette Square in Savannah, amid brick paths, trickling fountains and dark trees hung with Spanish moss. Before me rose up a cathedral of exquisite linen-fresh whiteness with twin Gothic spires, and around it stood 200-year-old houses of weathered brick, with hurricane shutters that clearly were still used. I did not know that such perfection existed in America. There are twenty such squares in Savannah, cool and quiet beneath a canopy of trees, and long straight side streets equally dark and serene. It is only when you stumble out of this urban rain forest, out into the open streets of the modern city, exposed to the glare of the boiling sun, that you realize just how sweltering the South can be. This was October, a time of flannel shirts and hot toddies in Iowa, but here summer was unrelenting. It was only eight in the morning and already businessmen were loosening their ties and mopping their foreheads. What must it be like in August? Every store and restaurant is air-conditioned. You step inside and the sweat is freeze-dried on your arms. Step back outside and the air meets you as something hot and unpleasant, like a dog’s breath. It is only in Savannah’s squares that the climate achieves a kind of pleasing equilibrium.
Savannah is a seductive city and I found myself wandering almost involuntarily for hours. The city has more than 1,000 historic buildings, many of them still lived in as houses. This was, New York apart, the first American city I had ever been in where people actually lived downtown. What a difference it makes, how much more vibrant and alive it all seems, to see children playing ball in the street or skipping rope on the front stoops. I wandered along the cobbled sidewalk of Oglethorpe Avenue to the Colonial Park Cemetery, full of moldering monuments and densely packed with the gravestones of people famous to the state’s history—Archibald Bulloch, the first president of Georgia, James Habersham, ‘a leading merchant,’ and Button Gwinnett, who is famous in America for being one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence and for having the silliest first name in Colonial history. The people of Savannah, in a careless moment, appear to have lost old Button. The historical marker said that he might be buried where I was standing now or then again he might be over in the corner or possibly somewhere else altogether. You could walk around all day and never know when you were on the Button, so to speak.
The business district in Savannah was frozen in a perpetual 1959—the Woolworth store didn’t appear to have changed its stock since about then. There was a handsome old movie house, Weis’s, but it was shut. Downtown movie houses are pretty much a thing of the past in America, alas, alas. You are always reading how buoyant the movie industry is in America, but all the theaters now are at shopping malls in the suburbs. You go to the movies there and you get a choice of a dozen pictures, but each theater is about the size of a large fridge-freezer and only marginally more comfortable. There are no balconies. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine movie theaters without balconies? To me going to the movies means sitting in the front row of the balcony with your feet up, dropping empty candy boxes onto the people below (or, during the more boring love scenes, dribbling Coke) and throwing Nibs at the screen. Nibs were a licorice-flavored candy, thought to be made from rubber left over from the Korean War, which had a strange popularity in the 1950s. They were practically inedible, but if you sucked on one of them for a minute and then threw it at the screen, it would stick with an interesting pock sound. It was a tradition on Saturdays for everybody to take the bus downtown to the Orpheum, buy a box of Nibs and spend the afternoon bombarding the screen.
You had to be careful when you did this because the theater manager employed vicious usherettes, dropouts from Tech High School whose one regret in life was that they hadn’t been born into Hitler’s Germany, who patrolled the aisles with highpowered flashlights looking for children who were misbehaving. Two or three times during the film their darting lights would fix on some hapless youngster, half out of his seat, poised in throwing position with a moistened Nib in his hand, and they would rush to subdue him. He would be carried off squealing. This never happened to my friends or me, thank God, but we always assumed that the victims were taken away and tortured with electrical instruments before being turned over to the police for a long period of mental readjustment in a reform school. Those were the days! You cannot tell me that some suburban multiplex with shoebox theaters and screens the size of bath towels can offer anything like the enchantment and community spirit of a cavernous downtown movie house. Nobody seems to have noticed it yet, but ours could well be the last generation for which movie-going has anything like a sense of magic.
On this sobering thought I strolled down to Water Street, on the Savannah River, where there was a new riverside walk. The river itself was dark and smelly and on the South Carolina side opposite there was nothing to look at but down-at-heel warehouses and, further downriver, factories dispensing billows of smoke. But the old cotton warehouses overlooking the river on the Savannah side were splendid. They had been restored without being over-gentrified. They contained boutiques and oyster bars on the ground floor, but the upper floors were left a tad shabby, giving them that requisite raffish air I had been looking for since Hannibal. Some of the shops were just a bit chichi, I must admit. One of them was called The Cutest Little Shop in Town, which made me want to have the quickest little dry heave in the county. A sign on the door said:
ABSOTIVELY, POSILUTELY NO FOOD OR DRINK IN SHOP
I sank to my knees and thanked God that I had never had to meet the proprietor. The shop was closed so I wasn’t able to go inside and see what was so cute about it.
Towards the end of the street stood a big new Hyatt Regency hotel, an instantly depressing sight. Massive and made of shaped concrete, it was from the Fuck You school of architecture so favored by the big American hotel chains. There was nothing about it in scale or appearance even remotely sympathetic to the old buildings around it. It just said, ‘Fuck you, Savannah.’ The city is particularly ill favored in this respect. Every few blocks you come up against some discordant slab—the De Soto Hilton, the Ramada Inn, the Best Western Riverfront, all about as appealing as spittle on a johnnycake, as they say in Georgia. Actually, they don’t say anything of the sort in Georgia. I just made it up. But it has a nice Southern ring to it, don’t you think? I was just about at the point where I was starting to get personally offended by the hotels, and in serious danger of becoming tiresome here, when my attention was distracted by a workman in front of the city courthouse, a large building with a gold dome. He had a leaf blower, a noisy contraption with miles of flex snaking back into the building behind him. I had never seen such a thing before. It looked something like a vacuum cleaner—actually, it looked like one of the Martians in It Came from Outer Space—and it was very noisy. The idea, I gathered, was that you would blow all the leaves into a pile and then gather them up by hand. But every time the man assembled a little pile of leaves, a breeze would come along and unassemble it. Sometimes he would chase one leaf half a block or more with his blower, whereupon all the leaves back at base would seize the opportunity to scuttle off in all directions. It was clearly an appliance that must have looked nifty in the catalog but would never work in the real world, and I vaguely wondered, as I strolled past, whether the people at the Zwingle Company were behind it in some way.
I left Savannah on the Herman Talmadge Memorial Bridge, a tall, iron-strutted structure that rises up and up and up and flings you, wide-eyed and quietly gasping, over the Savannah River and into South Carolina. I drove along what appeared on my map to be a meandering coast road, but was in fact a meandering inland road. This stretch of coast is littered with islands, inlets, bays and beaches of rolling sand dunes, but I saw precious little of it. The road was narrow and slow. It must be hell in the summer when millions of vacationers from all over the eastern seaboard head for the beaches and resorts—Tybee Island, Hilton Head, Laurel Bay, Fripp Island.
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I stood agog in Lafayette Square in Savannah, amid brick paths, trickling fountains and dark trees hung with Spanish moss. Before me rose up a cathedral of exquisite linen-fresh whiteness with twin Gothic spires, and around it stood 200-year-old houses of weathered brick, with hurricane shutters that clearly were still used. I did not know that such perfection existed in America. There are twenty such squares in Savannah, cool and quiet beneath a canopy of trees, and long straight side streets equally dark and serene. It is only when you stumble out of this urban rain forest, out into the open streets of the modern city, exposed to the glare of the boiling sun, that you realize just how sweltering the South can be. This was October, a time of flannel shirts and hot toddies in Iowa, but here summer was unrelenting. It was only eight in the morning and already businessmen were loosening their ties and mopping their foreheads. What must it be like in August? Every store and restaurant is air-conditioned. You step inside and the sweat is freeze-dried on your arms. Step back outside and the air meets you as something hot and unpleasant, like a dog’s breath. It is only in Savannah’s squares that the climate achieves a kind of pleasing equilibrium.
Savannah is a seductive city and I found myself wandering almost involuntarily for hours. The city has more than 1,000 historic buildings, many of them still lived in as houses. This was, New York apart, the first American city I had ever been in where people actually lived downtown. What a difference it makes, how much more vibrant and alive it all seems, to see children playing ball in the street or skipping rope on the front stoops. I wandered along the cobbled sidewalk of Oglethorpe Avenue to the Colonial Park Cemetery, full of moldering monuments and densely packed with the gravestones of people famous to the state’s history—Archibald Bulloch, the first president of Georgia, James Habersham, ‘a leading merchant,’ and Button Gwinnett, who is famous in America for being one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence and for having the silliest first name in Colonial history. The people of Savannah, in a careless moment, appear to have lost old Button. The historical marker said that he might be buried where I was standing now or then again he might be over in the corner or possibly somewhere else altogether. You could walk around all day and never know when you were on the Button, so to speak.
The business district in Savannah was frozen in a perpetual 1959—the Woolworth store didn’t appear to have changed its stock since about then. There was a handsome old movie house, Weis’s, but it was shut. Downtown movie houses are pretty much a thing of the past in America, alas, alas. You are always reading how buoyant the movie industry is in America, but all the theaters now are at shopping malls in the suburbs. You go to the movies there and you get a choice of a dozen pictures, but each theater is about the size of a large fridge-freezer and only marginally more comfortable. There are no balconies. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine movie theaters without balconies? To me going to the movies means sitting in the front row of the balcony with your feet up, dropping empty candy boxes onto the people below (or, during the more boring love scenes, dribbling Coke) and throwing Nibs at the screen. Nibs were a licorice-flavored candy, thought to be made from rubber left over from the Korean War, which had a strange popularity in the 1950s. They were practically inedible, but if you sucked on one of them for a minute and then threw it at the screen, it would stick with an interesting pock sound. It was a tradition on Saturdays for everybody to take the bus downtown to the Orpheum, buy a box of Nibs and spend the afternoon bombarding the screen.
You had to be careful when you did this because the theater manager employed vicious usherettes, dropouts from Tech High School whose one regret in life was that they hadn’t been born into Hitler’s Germany, who patrolled the aisles with highpowered flashlights looking for children who were misbehaving. Two or three times during the film their darting lights would fix on some hapless youngster, half out of his seat, poised in throwing position with a moistened Nib in his hand, and they would rush to subdue him. He would be carried off squealing. This never happened to my friends or me, thank God, but we always assumed that the victims were taken away and tortured with electrical instruments before being turned over to the police for a long period of mental readjustment in a reform school. Those were the days! You cannot tell me that some suburban multiplex with shoebox theaters and screens the size of bath towels can offer anything like the enchantment and community spirit of a cavernous downtown movie house. Nobody seems to have noticed it yet, but ours could well be the last generation for which movie-going has anything like a sense of magic.
On this sobering thought I strolled down to Water Street, on the Savannah River, where there was a new riverside walk. The river itself was dark and smelly and on the South Carolina side opposite there was nothing to look at but down-at-heel warehouses and, further downriver, factories dispensing billows of smoke. But the old cotton warehouses overlooking the river on the Savannah side were splendid. They had been restored without being over-gentrified. They contained boutiques and oyster bars on the ground floor, but the upper floors were left a tad shabby, giving them that requisite raffish air I had been looking for since Hannibal. Some of the shops were just a bit chichi, I must admit. One of them was called The Cutest Little Shop in Town, which made me want to have the quickest little dry heave in the county. A sign on the door said:
ABSOTIVELY, POSILUTELY NO FOOD OR DRINK IN SHOP
I sank to my knees and thanked God that I had never had to meet the proprietor. The shop was closed so I wasn’t able to go inside and see what was so cute about it.
Towards the end of the street stood a big new Hyatt Regency hotel, an instantly depressing sight. Massive and made of shaped concrete, it was from the Fuck You school of architecture so favored by the big American hotel chains. There was nothing about it in scale or appearance even remotely sympathetic to the old buildings around it. It just said, ‘Fuck you, Savannah.’ The city is particularly ill favored in this respect. Every few blocks you come up against some discordant slab—the De Soto Hilton, the Ramada Inn, the Best Western Riverfront, all about as appealing as spittle on a johnnycake, as they say in Georgia. Actually, they don’t say anything of the sort in Georgia. I just made it up. But it has a nice Southern ring to it, don’t you think? I was just about at the point where I was starting to get personally offended by the hotels, and in serious danger of becoming tiresome here, when my attention was distracted by a workman in front of the city courthouse, a large building with a gold dome. He had a leaf blower, a noisy contraption with miles of flex snaking back into the building behind him. I had never seen such a thing before. It looked something like a vacuum cleaner—actually, it looked like one of the Martians in It Came from Outer Space—and it was very noisy. The idea, I gathered, was that you would blow all the leaves into a pile and then gather them up by hand. But every time the man assembled a little pile of leaves, a breeze would come along and unassemble it. Sometimes he would chase one leaf half a block or more with his blower, whereupon all the leaves back at base would seize the opportunity to scuttle off in all directions. It was clearly an appliance that must have looked nifty in the catalog but would never work in the real world, and I vaguely wondered, as I strolled past, whether the people at the Zwingle Company were behind it in some way.
I left Savannah on the Herman Talmadge Memorial Bridge, a tall, iron-strutted structure that rises up and up and up and flings you, wide-eyed and quietly gasping, over the Savannah River and into South Carolina. I drove along what appeared on my map to be a meandering coast road, but was in fact a meandering inland road. This stretch of coast is littered with islands, inlets, bays and beaches of rolling sand dunes, but I saw precious little of it. The road was narrow and slow. It must be hell in the summer when millions of vacationers from all over the eastern seaboard head for the beaches and resorts—Tybee Island, Hilton Head, Laurel Bay, Fripp Island.
2023.03.30 18:18 LostCareTaker Humanity’s Potential - Part 5
First Previous
Recounting of First Contact with Species HS-01 - Humans, Sol System, Primary sentient Species in the Star system.
Recounting the events, Captain Invil Ta'Kotian, of the Serdes Hegemony, ally to the greater Federation that makes up much of the civilized galaxy. The nature of this retelling is to best determine the future that species HS-01 may have in the greater Galactic Stage, and whether they are friend or foe.
This particular continuation begins after three members of Species HS-01, David, Sten, and Sasha, have escaped custody. After exploring the vessel and bickering, the team reveals that Sten wishes to not return to a life of fighting angry farmers on Mars. David states his desire to return home. Sasha, however, remains silent during the entire exchange. Captain Invil and his crew are discovered by Hvista raiders, and after divulging the presence of a new species called "Humans" onboard their ship, the Hvista are all but eager to board and fight this new "Super" species.
"You shot us." David stated plainly as he sat in a chair facing Captain Invil. Scratching his beard, he nibbled on the extra food that had been provided. Sasha quietly stood next to him, munching away, as Sten practically inhaled ration bar after ration bar.
"We were terrified." Invil answered.
"You. Shot. Us." David said once more before folding his arms. "I said I wanted peace, I even said I didn't mind playing by your rules, and you shot us."
"You have a prisoner in your presence. I'd assumed you were the same. We don't know you. We don't know what your species is capable of. We were scared." Invil quickly reiterated before looking down. "I apologize... I suppose the silver lining is... Our weapons seem to have no effect on you."
"Oh they do," David said as he held up his right appendage. A massive block of purple and blue covered the area he'd been shot at. "It hurts like hell."
"It's supposed to tear off limbs."
Sten audibly laughed, showing his teeth and causing a number of the crew to place a hand on their weapons. "That's supposed to tear off limbs? Barely an itch."
"Well these are small arms. I'm certain a rifle could do more damage." Invil stated as if trying to protest as the large man only grinned more. "We don't have any on board.
"Yeah and why is that?" David took hold of the conversation again. "Far as I can tell there's just pistols on this ship."
"We're an exploratory vessel. We scout out mining sights, places rich in biodiversity. We mark it down and report back with samples. We're equipped to run away or take a hit, not fight back." Invil sighed. "Which is why I want to apologize. Can you accept that?"
David looked up to Sten who seemed more focused on his food. He then leaned to look at Sasha who signed before pointing to her tattoo. "For now, until we figure out what the hell is going on. But I don't want your men to get jumpy so let me just put the cards on the table now."
"Cards?" Invil asked as he tried to look where David would pull cards from, as the man had little more than a pocketless jumpsuit.
"Nevermind. Look, you were worried about the prisoner thing. Let's clear that up. Sasha, Sten, and myself. Yes, we are prisoners. Her government didn't like what she was saying. I... Killed someone in self-defense. Someone who had a lot of power. Sten well... Yeah well Sten is just crazy."
"I was an actual soldier. Did my job well." Sten grinned as another chuckle bubble up, causing some of the crew to step back. "Too well, ha."
"Sten," David chastised him softly. "We are prisoners yes, but it's a long story. We were part of a larger group and wound up separated. Separated by a very long way it seems. We're supposed to be back home, now I don't want violence between you and me. I want peace. Can you take us home?"
"Or anywhere else." Sten murmured, earning a frown from David.
"I... Can't promise that right now. We're under a situation." Invil started. "If you can help us, I don't see why we can't Shepard you home."
Sasha raised a brow and squeezed David's shoulder. "What kind of situation?" David asked not a moment after she did so. The ship suddenly shook as the clanging of metal rang all over.
"We're... Being boarded." Invil replied sheepishly.
Sten bellowed in laughter, "Finally! Some action!"
"And I guess we're supposed to help you?" David raised his brow.
"They're Hvista raiders. They see you as a rivals and want to fight you." Invil sighed, his ears drooping to a defeated position.
"Why do they want to fight us?" Sten asked curiously as he folded his arms.
"I told them you were here... And showed them you're resistance to our railguns." Invil admitted, causing the humans to frown at him. "I admit this only because... If they take this ship they'll kill all of us... If you fight them off, our chances are much better. I swear to you, David, if you and your humans can fight off the Hvista, I will shepard you back wherever." Invil quickly relayed so as to not lose their goodwill.
"Can I kill them now?" Sten questioned, causing a few guns to be drawn and aimed at him. "Oh it would be so easy."
"No." David stated before standing up.
"Boo, you're no fun." Sten grumbled.
"I can't say I'm a fan of you throwing us at your enemy like that, but if they prove hostile to us we'll handle it if we can. If they prove amenable well... I'll take them over the one that shot us." David stood from his chair and looked down at Invil with an annoyed gaze. "Unfucking believable... Give us weapons."
"No offense human but we can't do that." Invil shook his head.
"Are we supposed to beat the scary monsters to death with our fists?" Sten scoffed.
"Are you opposed?" David questioned.
"No, that's why I kept this," Sten reached to the back of his boots, and pulled a rather large knife that had most of the Aporyions shaking, as the size alone was as big as some of their heads.
Sasha rolled her eyes and approached the Captain. A few guns were drawn on her, but she merely stood before him and held out her hand. Tapping it a few times before making another tch noise, she glared at the Captain fiercely. Invil slowly looked to David. David merely shrugged, "That's her way of saying if you don't put a weapon in her hand, she's going to beat you to death with your own spine."
"You have... A colorful language," Invil gulped before slowly handing over his sidearm.
"S-Sir?" Teema asked.
"Can't say no now," Invil sighed as Sasha examined the piece. With a quick lesson on the weapon, Sasha turned and walked to David's size. She looked up at him with the same apathetic expression from earlier, and signed something. She then moved to tie her fiery locks of red hair behind her, showcasing a number of scars along her cheeks that were once hidden by unkept bangs.
"Agreed. Alright, we'll clean up this mess if they're hostile. Afterwards, we want home. And Captain?" David stated as he pulled up the gun he'd taken from the dead guard.
"Y-Yes?" Invil stuttered.
"You try to fuck with us, and I'll let Sten do to you what got him sent to Deathrow back on earth." With that, David left towards the door with Sasha in tow. Sten grinned ear to ear, before snickering as his gaze went around the room. The doors sealed shut behind them, and Invil gulped.
"Do we... heed the warning?" Another crew member requested.
"At this point... I believe the humans are our best bet. I'm not eager to learn what Deathrow is." Invil nodded. "Continue to scan for Hegemony patrols, in case our humans fail."
As the trio left the bridge, staring down the long hallway ahead of them. They saw at the end came new entities they'd been warned about. The Hvista stood as tall as David and Sten, all held a varying amount of trophies across their bodies. The one with the most, Araxium, stepped forward with a grin. "Humans!" He bellowed as he and his men began to stomp forward. "That is what they call you right?! It is an honor to finally meet a real warrior. Killing an Aporyion in one blow? I am impressed! I hope the data the Aporyions gave my translator is working, I'd hate to not be able to talk!" He shouted, causing Sten to step forward with a grin.
"Oh are you now?!" Sten shouted back as they grew closer. "Not my best work but well, it was fun."
Three of the Hvista paused, tensing up as they gripped their weapons tightly. Unlike the Aporyins, these raiders had brought both blade and railgun rifles with the intent to kill. However, as they paused, an animalistic growl came from Araxium who looked over his shoulder at them. "Whats gotten into you?"
"The eyes... The eyes scream Makorvo, Hunt-Master." One of the younger looking Hvista said as he tapped his claw against his rifle. "Cursed one."
"Bad omen... Don't like," another Hvista said.
"Ignore these feelings, whether it is sick or not it cannot stand against us. Raval awaits the brave." He growled before returning his attention to the humans. David, Sten, and Sasha had moved to varying cover, keeping an eye on them from afar.
"Tell me," David started, "The Aporyions say you can't be talked to... They already shot at us so I'm not too keen on experiencing that again. Would you and your people be willing to take us home? We don't have to end in blood shed."
Araxium laughed and shook his head, his flowing mane rattling with the sound of bone charms clanking together. "I cannot. It goes against everything I believe. We have found fellow warriors, I wish to test your strength. Should you defeat us in battle, and one survivors, we will gladly honor your request, as the Code dictates."
"The Code huh? How does that work?" David continued before signing to Sasha. She nodded and began to quietly move farther off to the side.
"My people are not monstrous, human. We abide by the Code. Honor above all else. Through bloodshed we are made whole. I've seen your strength but for a moment, and I wish to experience it first hand. Should you prove worthy, I will honor your request as a fellow warrior." Araxium stated before chuckling. "Who knows, perhaps we will walk away from this as... Kran," he said before his crew began to laugh alongside him.
"If you want to fight I guess we got no choice... I'm David, Sargent David, UN Prisoner of Battalion 13, leader of squad 7. Whom does my team have the honor of... Fighting?" He asked as he saw Sasha skulking behind them. David wasn't sure how she'd gone unnoticed, but silently thanked that she was on their side.
"David of clan Sargent, it is an honor. I am Araxium, of Clan Orrek. May our fight be worthy of both Your Ancestors and Mine." Araxium grinned.
"Finally," Sten rose from cover and stepped into the open.
"Sten!" David shouted as Sten merely opened his arms, holding up his knife.
"I'm bulletproof! Come at me you cow-" his words were interrupted as a well placed shot to the chest sent Sten flying back nearly ten feet. With a heavy thud, Sten hit the ground, coughing loud as blood escaped his lips.
"Sasha now!" David shouted as he rose from cover. Firing wildly at the enemies who moved to take cover, David kept low and made his way to Sten. Narrowly avoiding several stray shots, David grabbed Sten's shirt and pulled him behind a wall while still firing at the enemy. With luck, he struck a Hvista in the chest, and was nearly frozen in awe as a golf ball sized hall was blown right through the unlucky Raider. "They weren't kidding," he grumbled as he continued to fire from cover, and checked on Sten. "Sten, Sten wake up! Are you alright?!"
Sten groaned and coughed as he sat up. "Y-Yeah, just got... The wind knocked outta me... Did you know those things are bigger than the pistols?"
"You fucking idiot, hurry up I need you in this fight!" David shouted as he continued to fire a few shots before taking cover.
"That'll wake you up, ugh," Sten coughed again before coughing more blood. "I think it broke something."
"I'm going to break you if you don't get in this fight!"
From the opposite side of the ship, Sasha quietly gazed at the backs of the Hvista from her hiding spot. As one on the right slowly was left behind by the others that advanced forward on David, she emerged from hiding with the sidearm she'd been given in hand. Her eyes fell to the curved knife on the Hvista's back. Her speed picked up as she sprinted behind the Hvista. His ears flicked as he tried to turn, not expecting someone that barely reached his chest to be so bold as to charge him. Sasha kicked the back of its right leg, hearing an audible snap that caused the Hvista to howl in pain as it feel to one knee. Sasha grabbed it's knife, leaping onto the creatures back and pulling it back with surprising ease that nearly caught her off guard. Thrusting its own knife into the Hvista's neck she brought up the side arm she'd been given and dumped three shots into the Hvista closest to her. Turning and using the one she held as a meat shield she fired another four shots into the next. The remaining four including Araxium quickly moved to better cover, before half turned their guns on Sasha.
David sprung at the opportunity and opened fire as well.
Araxium merely laughed from cover. "Finally! The Ancestors have blessed us with a real challenge! Kor, Dojek, handle the woman, Barra, you're with me."
Together the hunters spread out to began flanking both Sasha and David in their teams.
As the humans took cover, their guns made audible clicks to show they had nothing left. But not soon after the clicks from the Hvista guns signaled the moment was now. Sasha sprinted from cover with the blue blood covered knife at her two assailants. Both of which happily drew their own knives. Seeing them both charge at once, she glared daggers before throwing the empty pistol at one. Though more of an inconvenience than anything else, it caused the Hvista to hold up its arm to block. Leaving her which just one to deal with. Dropping low and sliding between the other Hvista's legs, she slashed at its right leg, causing it to snarl in pain before it swung around to stab where she was.
Sasha rolled to the side, quickly getting up to her feet before backstepping. The Hvista worked together to slash back and forth, and were relentless. Sasha could only dodge for so long before one finally reached forward and grabbed her by the throat. Choking as she was lifted, the Hvista raised its blade. "The first kill is mine!" It shouted before bringing the knife towards her. Sasha snarled herself and swung her foot forward, striking the Hvista's elbow. It screeched in pain as the bone snapped clean in two, its arm dangling like a limp noodle. The other Hvista would not be dissuaded, as it quickly brought its knife down into Sasha's shoulder and rushed forward to push her back.
The first sound she had made in space, and it was a scream of pain, she growled like a feral beast as the Hvista held her against the wall, driving its serrated blade in deeper. The Hvista growled back before reaching back and drawing another blade. A bellowing warcry caught their attention as Sten came charging from the side, tackling the Hvista and dragging it away. Sasha slumped to the floor, wincing in pain as she held her shoulder. It felt like it was on fire, and she gritted her teeth as she saw the large metal protruding from her shoulder.
Sten dragged the Hvista away before reaching down to its waist. The Hvista repeatedly slammed its fists into Sten's back, causing no shortage of pain. Sten however, fueled by adrenaline, wrapped his arms around the beast and hoisted it into the air. With a rage fueled scream, Sten slammed the Hvista onto the ground, though did not kill it so easily. Quickly climbing ontop of it, he began swinging his fists into its face over and over. Audible snaps and crunches echoed around the hallway as fangs flew from the creatures mouth. It growled, snarled, and swiped at Sten to no avail. It's tail came from behind and tried to impale Sten, but stopped suddenly as something grabbed hold of it. A wounded Sasha screamed in anger as she threw herself on the Hvista's sharpened appendage, holding it down as Sten continued to beat the Hvista to death. A few moments later, and the creatures head was nothing more than mash on the ground. "Thanks little Red." Sten grinned before bringing up his own knife and throwing it towards Sasha.
She paused, shock and fear as the blade came towards her, but turned as it flew by and impaled itself into the head of the other Hvista whose arm she had broken. The creature fell to the ground, dead almost instantly. She turned to Sten, giving him an approving nod.
"Aw, you love me." Sten grinned, causing another irritated tch to escape from her as she rose up. Her body shook in pain as the knife was still firmly in her shoulder. "Stay down little red, I'll give David some help." Sten said as he pulled his knife from the Hvista and rushed to help. Sten stopped as Sasha grabbed his arm, looking down at her confused. She twitched in pain before gesturing towards the airlock the creatures had boarded from. The sound of heavy footsteps gave Sten pause as he gripped his knife tightly. "Ah... Well, that's a problem."
On the other side, David hadn't faired any better. The first Hvista was easy to take down as it charged wildly towards him. His own knife skills far outclassing the beasts. The fluid movements had seen him using the Hvista's own momentum against it, flipping it over before stabbing it in the throat. In one fluid motion he had regained his footing, slowly trying to circle Araxium. "You are indeed a warrior, David of Clan Sargent."
"It's just David. Sargent is my rank." He said, breathing heavily as hunger still weighed on him. The blue blood of the Hvista covered his weapon as well as himself.
"I must say, I am indeed impressed. Perhaps we can come to an agreement." Araxium grinned before readying his blade. "If you survive."
"If YOU survive," a growl came from down the hall. Araxium and David both looked up to see five more Hvista standing there, two of which held a wounded Sten hostage. Sasha was, however, no where to be seen.
"I killed two of them before they jumped me, ha," Sten said happily before the butt of a railgun slammed into his back, causing him to grunt and fall to his knees.
"Quiet, beast." A Hvista with near golden fur growled before returning to gaze at Araxium. "Look at the mess you've gotten us into, Hunt-Master. They gave us ample warning about these humans in the footage, and you still charged in."
"Kintsu.... I hadn't expected you to actually show up to the battle. Ha, I figured you would've stayed on the ship." Araxium chuckled.
"You got our men killed for no reason." Kintsu growled.
"They died fighting. Raval awaits them. Unlike you." Araxium spit, causing Kintsu's guards to snarl.
"Yes, yes, of course. If that's what will help you sleep at night. I'm done with this. We have one of them. We will take it back for study. There are new worlds to conquer. New worlds to enslave." Kinstu began, causing David to tense up.
Araxium, to David's surprise, roared. "We do NOT enslave warriors! Only the Servant races. Do you wish to spit on your Ancestors so readily?! Where is your respect for the Code?!"
"Damn you and damn the Code. Do you not see what this means?! A race of warriors no one has yet contacted. If we can make them ours, we would be as great as the Ancestors once were. I am tired... I am tired of this mindless raiding, we could be striking the golden worlds! Instead we are kept to the outskirts like feral animals. I am tired of it. I am tired of living as a shadow of the former Empire." Kintsu spat.
"And I'm tired of your voice." Sten spat before suddenly leaping it and striking Kintsu, breaking away from the guards holding him. Even with his bare fist, a sickening crack from the Hvista's skull as the two left eyes came practically flying out. A sudden shock came as the other guard struck Sten with a baton, causing Sten to audibly gasp before collapsing. Kintsu screamed in pain as the guards aimed their railguns at David and Araxium.
"Get down, David!" Araxium screamed before taking cover nearby. The other Hvista opened fire as they slowly began to advance.
Sten, slowly slipping in and out of consciousness, looked up at Kintsu who held his swollen face. "Sir!" Another Hivsta said as he approached Kintsu. "The Aporyions are attempting to vent the ship. We have to go!"
"Those cowards.... Grab the human, fall back! Everyone fall back!" Kintsu shouted before Sten fell into unconsciousness.
David and Araxium watched as they retreated to their ship, before Araxium looked up at the warning lights suddenly flashing red. "Those cowards!" He roared.
"What's happening?!" David snapped.
"They mean to open all the airlocks and vent the ship. They'll lose everything on board, better alternative than dealing with us." He growled before moving towards the bridge door. Kneeling by a panel, he ripped it off and began to work.
"Us?" David asked as he approached Araxium.
"Would you prefer to keep fighting in the void of space, human?" Araxium asked as he looked back to David.
David shook his head, "I'd prefer to be alive."
"As would I. Now give me a moment."
David turned at the sound of something collapsing and saw Sasha, still with the knife in her shoulder crawling forward. He quickly moved to help her up. Her breathing was shallow, and she winced as he held onto her.
The door to the bridge was flown open, and the three survivors moved in just as it sealed shut behind them. "Goddess, save us!" One of the Aporyions shouted as guns aimed for Araxium.
"If anyone pulls a trigger I'll kill each and every one of you!" David shouted, causing the crew to freeze up.
"Cancel the venting! Cancel it!" Invil shouted, followed by sighing as the emergency lights flickered off.
"I said not to fuck us over," David glared daggers at Invil.
"We had no intention of doing so. You were being overwhelmed. We figured you would've lost so we made sure to protect ourselves. If I wanted to fuck you over I would've welded the doors shut and then vented the ship." He explained before his eyes trailed over to the Hvista. "But it seems it doesn't matter, now that this demon is here."
"Demon, ha, ironic coming from an Aporyion. Oh the words I could use to describe you and your Morrowav overlords. Each one less flattering than the last." Araxium growled.
"Enough!" David shouted. "Someone help my friend here or so help me I'll start killing everyone." David snapped.
After a moment of silence, Araxium moved into action. "Lay her here on the table," he said while sweeping away equipment, scaring off the Aporyion crew members that manned it. "The blade will need to be removed, it will not be pleasant."
"You're a doctor?" David raised his brow as he laid Sasha down.
"No. I'm a survivor." Araxium chuckled as he reached into a satchel on his right flank. The Aporyions nervously watched as he produced a few medical tools fit for the field.
"Good enough." David nodded as he moved to Sasha's side. "Anything else hurt?" He asked. She shook her head and David breathed a sigh of relief. "Ok... Let's get you patched up." He tried to move to help, but stopped as Sasha grabbed his arm. She signed slowly, causing David to look back at the door. "I don't know... They took him."
Sasha slowly nodded and looked to the ceiling. Araxium held a piece of blackened wood up to her face. "Chew on this. It will help." He offered. She hesitated at first, but obeyed, biting down on it.
"What is that gonna help with?" David inquired.
"This," Araxium grabbed the knife and ripped it out, causing Sasha to suddenly thrash and slam a fist into the table. She screamed as he moved to inject some sort of foam into her wound. The pain slowly subsided and she dropped the blackened wood from her mouth. "Our medicine is not as fancy as Aporyions, but it will stop the bleeding.
"Wait a minute what will it do to her?!" David shouted as he suddenly looked to ensure she wasn't reacting to it abnormally.
"The alternative was bleeding out. Our blades are designed to rip and tear. Would that be preferred?" Araxium folded his arms as Sasha's breathing slowed.
"Next time warn me before-"
"It's fine," A soft feminine voice came from the table with a thick eastern European accent. David looked down to Sasha's hollow eyes as she gazed up at him. She turned to Araxium and nodded. "Thank you... The pain... Is leaving."
"You are welcome." Araxium nodded before turning to Invil. "Now... What to do with you." He grinned, but suddenly perked up as alarm bells began to go off.
"Captain! We're being targeted!" A crew member shouted.
"Get us out of here! Warp to the nearest system!" Invil shouted. His eyes gazed up at the viewport to see the Hvista ship firing its first salvo.
(More to come, Later!)
submitted by LostCareTaker to HFY [link] [comments]
Recounting of First Contact with Species HS-01 - Humans, Sol System, Primary sentient Species in the Star system.
Recounting the events, Captain Invil Ta'Kotian, of the Serdes Hegemony, ally to the greater Federation that makes up much of the civilized galaxy. The nature of this retelling is to best determine the future that species HS-01 may have in the greater Galactic Stage, and whether they are friend or foe.
This particular continuation begins after three members of Species HS-01, David, Sten, and Sasha, have escaped custody. After exploring the vessel and bickering, the team reveals that Sten wishes to not return to a life of fighting angry farmers on Mars. David states his desire to return home. Sasha, however, remains silent during the entire exchange. Captain Invil and his crew are discovered by Hvista raiders, and after divulging the presence of a new species called "Humans" onboard their ship, the Hvista are all but eager to board and fight this new "Super" species.
"You shot us." David stated plainly as he sat in a chair facing Captain Invil. Scratching his beard, he nibbled on the extra food that had been provided. Sasha quietly stood next to him, munching away, as Sten practically inhaled ration bar after ration bar.
"We were terrified." Invil answered.
"You. Shot. Us." David said once more before folding his arms. "I said I wanted peace, I even said I didn't mind playing by your rules, and you shot us."
"You have a prisoner in your presence. I'd assumed you were the same. We don't know you. We don't know what your species is capable of. We were scared." Invil quickly reiterated before looking down. "I apologize... I suppose the silver lining is... Our weapons seem to have no effect on you."
"Oh they do," David said as he held up his right appendage. A massive block of purple and blue covered the area he'd been shot at. "It hurts like hell."
"It's supposed to tear off limbs."
Sten audibly laughed, showing his teeth and causing a number of the crew to place a hand on their weapons. "That's supposed to tear off limbs? Barely an itch."
"Well these are small arms. I'm certain a rifle could do more damage." Invil stated as if trying to protest as the large man only grinned more. "We don't have any on board.
"Yeah and why is that?" David took hold of the conversation again. "Far as I can tell there's just pistols on this ship."
"We're an exploratory vessel. We scout out mining sights, places rich in biodiversity. We mark it down and report back with samples. We're equipped to run away or take a hit, not fight back." Invil sighed. "Which is why I want to apologize. Can you accept that?"
David looked up to Sten who seemed more focused on his food. He then leaned to look at Sasha who signed before pointing to her tattoo. "For now, until we figure out what the hell is going on. But I don't want your men to get jumpy so let me just put the cards on the table now."
"Cards?" Invil asked as he tried to look where David would pull cards from, as the man had little more than a pocketless jumpsuit.
"Nevermind. Look, you were worried about the prisoner thing. Let's clear that up. Sasha, Sten, and myself. Yes, we are prisoners. Her government didn't like what she was saying. I... Killed someone in self-defense. Someone who had a lot of power. Sten well... Yeah well Sten is just crazy."
"I was an actual soldier. Did my job well." Sten grinned as another chuckle bubble up, causing some of the crew to step back. "Too well, ha."
"Sten," David chastised him softly. "We are prisoners yes, but it's a long story. We were part of a larger group and wound up separated. Separated by a very long way it seems. We're supposed to be back home, now I don't want violence between you and me. I want peace. Can you take us home?"
"Or anywhere else." Sten murmured, earning a frown from David.
"I... Can't promise that right now. We're under a situation." Invil started. "If you can help us, I don't see why we can't Shepard you home."
Sasha raised a brow and squeezed David's shoulder. "What kind of situation?" David asked not a moment after she did so. The ship suddenly shook as the clanging of metal rang all over.
"We're... Being boarded." Invil replied sheepishly.
Sten bellowed in laughter, "Finally! Some action!"
"And I guess we're supposed to help you?" David raised his brow.
"They're Hvista raiders. They see you as a rivals and want to fight you." Invil sighed, his ears drooping to a defeated position.
"Why do they want to fight us?" Sten asked curiously as he folded his arms.
"I told them you were here... And showed them you're resistance to our railguns." Invil admitted, causing the humans to frown at him. "I admit this only because... If they take this ship they'll kill all of us... If you fight them off, our chances are much better. I swear to you, David, if you and your humans can fight off the Hvista, I will shepard you back wherever." Invil quickly relayed so as to not lose their goodwill.
"Can I kill them now?" Sten questioned, causing a few guns to be drawn and aimed at him. "Oh it would be so easy."
"No." David stated before standing up.
"Boo, you're no fun." Sten grumbled.
"I can't say I'm a fan of you throwing us at your enemy like that, but if they prove hostile to us we'll handle it if we can. If they prove amenable well... I'll take them over the one that shot us." David stood from his chair and looked down at Invil with an annoyed gaze. "Unfucking believable... Give us weapons."
"No offense human but we can't do that." Invil shook his head.
"Are we supposed to beat the scary monsters to death with our fists?" Sten scoffed.
"Are you opposed?" David questioned.
"No, that's why I kept this," Sten reached to the back of his boots, and pulled a rather large knife that had most of the Aporyions shaking, as the size alone was as big as some of their heads.
Sasha rolled her eyes and approached the Captain. A few guns were drawn on her, but she merely stood before him and held out her hand. Tapping it a few times before making another tch noise, she glared at the Captain fiercely. Invil slowly looked to David. David merely shrugged, "That's her way of saying if you don't put a weapon in her hand, she's going to beat you to death with your own spine."
"You have... A colorful language," Invil gulped before slowly handing over his sidearm.
"S-Sir?" Teema asked.
"Can't say no now," Invil sighed as Sasha examined the piece. With a quick lesson on the weapon, Sasha turned and walked to David's size. She looked up at him with the same apathetic expression from earlier, and signed something. She then moved to tie her fiery locks of red hair behind her, showcasing a number of scars along her cheeks that were once hidden by unkept bangs.
"Agreed. Alright, we'll clean up this mess if they're hostile. Afterwards, we want home. And Captain?" David stated as he pulled up the gun he'd taken from the dead guard.
"Y-Yes?" Invil stuttered.
"You try to fuck with us, and I'll let Sten do to you what got him sent to Deathrow back on earth." With that, David left towards the door with Sasha in tow. Sten grinned ear to ear, before snickering as his gaze went around the room. The doors sealed shut behind them, and Invil gulped.
"Do we... heed the warning?" Another crew member requested.
"At this point... I believe the humans are our best bet. I'm not eager to learn what Deathrow is." Invil nodded. "Continue to scan for Hegemony patrols, in case our humans fail."
As the trio left the bridge, staring down the long hallway ahead of them. They saw at the end came new entities they'd been warned about. The Hvista stood as tall as David and Sten, all held a varying amount of trophies across their bodies. The one with the most, Araxium, stepped forward with a grin. "Humans!" He bellowed as he and his men began to stomp forward. "That is what they call you right?! It is an honor to finally meet a real warrior. Killing an Aporyion in one blow? I am impressed! I hope the data the Aporyions gave my translator is working, I'd hate to not be able to talk!" He shouted, causing Sten to step forward with a grin.
"Oh are you now?!" Sten shouted back as they grew closer. "Not my best work but well, it was fun."
Three of the Hvista paused, tensing up as they gripped their weapons tightly. Unlike the Aporyins, these raiders had brought both blade and railgun rifles with the intent to kill. However, as they paused, an animalistic growl came from Araxium who looked over his shoulder at them. "Whats gotten into you?"
"The eyes... The eyes scream Makorvo, Hunt-Master." One of the younger looking Hvista said as he tapped his claw against his rifle. "Cursed one."
"Bad omen... Don't like," another Hvista said.
"Ignore these feelings, whether it is sick or not it cannot stand against us. Raval awaits the brave." He growled before returning his attention to the humans. David, Sten, and Sasha had moved to varying cover, keeping an eye on them from afar.
"Tell me," David started, "The Aporyions say you can't be talked to... They already shot at us so I'm not too keen on experiencing that again. Would you and your people be willing to take us home? We don't have to end in blood shed."
Araxium laughed and shook his head, his flowing mane rattling with the sound of bone charms clanking together. "I cannot. It goes against everything I believe. We have found fellow warriors, I wish to test your strength. Should you defeat us in battle, and one survivors, we will gladly honor your request, as the Code dictates."
"The Code huh? How does that work?" David continued before signing to Sasha. She nodded and began to quietly move farther off to the side.
"My people are not monstrous, human. We abide by the Code. Honor above all else. Through bloodshed we are made whole. I've seen your strength but for a moment, and I wish to experience it first hand. Should you prove worthy, I will honor your request as a fellow warrior." Araxium stated before chuckling. "Who knows, perhaps we will walk away from this as... Kran," he said before his crew began to laugh alongside him.
"If you want to fight I guess we got no choice... I'm David, Sargent David, UN Prisoner of Battalion 13, leader of squad 7. Whom does my team have the honor of... Fighting?" He asked as he saw Sasha skulking behind them. David wasn't sure how she'd gone unnoticed, but silently thanked that she was on their side.
"David of clan Sargent, it is an honor. I am Araxium, of Clan Orrek. May our fight be worthy of both Your Ancestors and Mine." Araxium grinned.
"Finally," Sten rose from cover and stepped into the open.
"Sten!" David shouted as Sten merely opened his arms, holding up his knife.
"I'm bulletproof! Come at me you cow-" his words were interrupted as a well placed shot to the chest sent Sten flying back nearly ten feet. With a heavy thud, Sten hit the ground, coughing loud as blood escaped his lips.
"Sasha now!" David shouted as he rose from cover. Firing wildly at the enemies who moved to take cover, David kept low and made his way to Sten. Narrowly avoiding several stray shots, David grabbed Sten's shirt and pulled him behind a wall while still firing at the enemy. With luck, he struck a Hvista in the chest, and was nearly frozen in awe as a golf ball sized hall was blown right through the unlucky Raider. "They weren't kidding," he grumbled as he continued to fire from cover, and checked on Sten. "Sten, Sten wake up! Are you alright?!"
Sten groaned and coughed as he sat up. "Y-Yeah, just got... The wind knocked outta me... Did you know those things are bigger than the pistols?"
"You fucking idiot, hurry up I need you in this fight!" David shouted as he continued to fire a few shots before taking cover.
"That'll wake you up, ugh," Sten coughed again before coughing more blood. "I think it broke something."
"I'm going to break you if you don't get in this fight!"
From the opposite side of the ship, Sasha quietly gazed at the backs of the Hvista from her hiding spot. As one on the right slowly was left behind by the others that advanced forward on David, she emerged from hiding with the sidearm she'd been given in hand. Her eyes fell to the curved knife on the Hvista's back. Her speed picked up as she sprinted behind the Hvista. His ears flicked as he tried to turn, not expecting someone that barely reached his chest to be so bold as to charge him. Sasha kicked the back of its right leg, hearing an audible snap that caused the Hvista to howl in pain as it feel to one knee. Sasha grabbed it's knife, leaping onto the creatures back and pulling it back with surprising ease that nearly caught her off guard. Thrusting its own knife into the Hvista's neck she brought up the side arm she'd been given and dumped three shots into the Hvista closest to her. Turning and using the one she held as a meat shield she fired another four shots into the next. The remaining four including Araxium quickly moved to better cover, before half turned their guns on Sasha.
David sprung at the opportunity and opened fire as well.
Araxium merely laughed from cover. "Finally! The Ancestors have blessed us with a real challenge! Kor, Dojek, handle the woman, Barra, you're with me."
Together the hunters spread out to began flanking both Sasha and David in their teams.
As the humans took cover, their guns made audible clicks to show they had nothing left. But not soon after the clicks from the Hvista guns signaled the moment was now. Sasha sprinted from cover with the blue blood covered knife at her two assailants. Both of which happily drew their own knives. Seeing them both charge at once, she glared daggers before throwing the empty pistol at one. Though more of an inconvenience than anything else, it caused the Hvista to hold up its arm to block. Leaving her which just one to deal with. Dropping low and sliding between the other Hvista's legs, she slashed at its right leg, causing it to snarl in pain before it swung around to stab where she was.
Sasha rolled to the side, quickly getting up to her feet before backstepping. The Hvista worked together to slash back and forth, and were relentless. Sasha could only dodge for so long before one finally reached forward and grabbed her by the throat. Choking as she was lifted, the Hvista raised its blade. "The first kill is mine!" It shouted before bringing the knife towards her. Sasha snarled herself and swung her foot forward, striking the Hvista's elbow. It screeched in pain as the bone snapped clean in two, its arm dangling like a limp noodle. The other Hvista would not be dissuaded, as it quickly brought its knife down into Sasha's shoulder and rushed forward to push her back.
The first sound she had made in space, and it was a scream of pain, she growled like a feral beast as the Hvista held her against the wall, driving its serrated blade in deeper. The Hvista growled back before reaching back and drawing another blade. A bellowing warcry caught their attention as Sten came charging from the side, tackling the Hvista and dragging it away. Sasha slumped to the floor, wincing in pain as she held her shoulder. It felt like it was on fire, and she gritted her teeth as she saw the large metal protruding from her shoulder.
Sten dragged the Hvista away before reaching down to its waist. The Hvista repeatedly slammed its fists into Sten's back, causing no shortage of pain. Sten however, fueled by adrenaline, wrapped his arms around the beast and hoisted it into the air. With a rage fueled scream, Sten slammed the Hvista onto the ground, though did not kill it so easily. Quickly climbing ontop of it, he began swinging his fists into its face over and over. Audible snaps and crunches echoed around the hallway as fangs flew from the creatures mouth. It growled, snarled, and swiped at Sten to no avail. It's tail came from behind and tried to impale Sten, but stopped suddenly as something grabbed hold of it. A wounded Sasha screamed in anger as she threw herself on the Hvista's sharpened appendage, holding it down as Sten continued to beat the Hvista to death. A few moments later, and the creatures head was nothing more than mash on the ground. "Thanks little Red." Sten grinned before bringing up his own knife and throwing it towards Sasha.
She paused, shock and fear as the blade came towards her, but turned as it flew by and impaled itself into the head of the other Hvista whose arm she had broken. The creature fell to the ground, dead almost instantly. She turned to Sten, giving him an approving nod.
"Aw, you love me." Sten grinned, causing another irritated tch to escape from her as she rose up. Her body shook in pain as the knife was still firmly in her shoulder. "Stay down little red, I'll give David some help." Sten said as he pulled his knife from the Hvista and rushed to help. Sten stopped as Sasha grabbed his arm, looking down at her confused. She twitched in pain before gesturing towards the airlock the creatures had boarded from. The sound of heavy footsteps gave Sten pause as he gripped his knife tightly. "Ah... Well, that's a problem."
On the other side, David hadn't faired any better. The first Hvista was easy to take down as it charged wildly towards him. His own knife skills far outclassing the beasts. The fluid movements had seen him using the Hvista's own momentum against it, flipping it over before stabbing it in the throat. In one fluid motion he had regained his footing, slowly trying to circle Araxium. "You are indeed a warrior, David of Clan Sargent."
"It's just David. Sargent is my rank." He said, breathing heavily as hunger still weighed on him. The blue blood of the Hvista covered his weapon as well as himself.
"I must say, I am indeed impressed. Perhaps we can come to an agreement." Araxium grinned before readying his blade. "If you survive."
"If YOU survive," a growl came from down the hall. Araxium and David both looked up to see five more Hvista standing there, two of which held a wounded Sten hostage. Sasha was, however, no where to be seen.
"I killed two of them before they jumped me, ha," Sten said happily before the butt of a railgun slammed into his back, causing him to grunt and fall to his knees.
"Quiet, beast." A Hvista with near golden fur growled before returning to gaze at Araxium. "Look at the mess you've gotten us into, Hunt-Master. They gave us ample warning about these humans in the footage, and you still charged in."
"Kintsu.... I hadn't expected you to actually show up to the battle. Ha, I figured you would've stayed on the ship." Araxium chuckled.
"You got our men killed for no reason." Kintsu growled.
"They died fighting. Raval awaits them. Unlike you." Araxium spit, causing Kintsu's guards to snarl.
"Yes, yes, of course. If that's what will help you sleep at night. I'm done with this. We have one of them. We will take it back for study. There are new worlds to conquer. New worlds to enslave." Kinstu began, causing David to tense up.
Araxium, to David's surprise, roared. "We do NOT enslave warriors! Only the Servant races. Do you wish to spit on your Ancestors so readily?! Where is your respect for the Code?!"
"Damn you and damn the Code. Do you not see what this means?! A race of warriors no one has yet contacted. If we can make them ours, we would be as great as the Ancestors once were. I am tired... I am tired of this mindless raiding, we could be striking the golden worlds! Instead we are kept to the outskirts like feral animals. I am tired of it. I am tired of living as a shadow of the former Empire." Kintsu spat.
"And I'm tired of your voice." Sten spat before suddenly leaping it and striking Kintsu, breaking away from the guards holding him. Even with his bare fist, a sickening crack from the Hvista's skull as the two left eyes came practically flying out. A sudden shock came as the other guard struck Sten with a baton, causing Sten to audibly gasp before collapsing. Kintsu screamed in pain as the guards aimed their railguns at David and Araxium.
"Get down, David!" Araxium screamed before taking cover nearby. The other Hvista opened fire as they slowly began to advance.
Sten, slowly slipping in and out of consciousness, looked up at Kintsu who held his swollen face. "Sir!" Another Hivsta said as he approached Kintsu. "The Aporyions are attempting to vent the ship. We have to go!"
"Those cowards.... Grab the human, fall back! Everyone fall back!" Kintsu shouted before Sten fell into unconsciousness.
David and Araxium watched as they retreated to their ship, before Araxium looked up at the warning lights suddenly flashing red. "Those cowards!" He roared.
"What's happening?!" David snapped.
"They mean to open all the airlocks and vent the ship. They'll lose everything on board, better alternative than dealing with us." He growled before moving towards the bridge door. Kneeling by a panel, he ripped it off and began to work.
"Us?" David asked as he approached Araxium.
"Would you prefer to keep fighting in the void of space, human?" Araxium asked as he looked back to David.
David shook his head, "I'd prefer to be alive."
"As would I. Now give me a moment."
David turned at the sound of something collapsing and saw Sasha, still with the knife in her shoulder crawling forward. He quickly moved to help her up. Her breathing was shallow, and she winced as he held onto her.
The door to the bridge was flown open, and the three survivors moved in just as it sealed shut behind them. "Goddess, save us!" One of the Aporyions shouted as guns aimed for Araxium.
"If anyone pulls a trigger I'll kill each and every one of you!" David shouted, causing the crew to freeze up.
"Cancel the venting! Cancel it!" Invil shouted, followed by sighing as the emergency lights flickered off.
"I said not to fuck us over," David glared daggers at Invil.
"We had no intention of doing so. You were being overwhelmed. We figured you would've lost so we made sure to protect ourselves. If I wanted to fuck you over I would've welded the doors shut and then vented the ship." He explained before his eyes trailed over to the Hvista. "But it seems it doesn't matter, now that this demon is here."
"Demon, ha, ironic coming from an Aporyion. Oh the words I could use to describe you and your Morrowav overlords. Each one less flattering than the last." Araxium growled.
"Enough!" David shouted. "Someone help my friend here or so help me I'll start killing everyone." David snapped.
After a moment of silence, Araxium moved into action. "Lay her here on the table," he said while sweeping away equipment, scaring off the Aporyion crew members that manned it. "The blade will need to be removed, it will not be pleasant."
"You're a doctor?" David raised his brow as he laid Sasha down.
"No. I'm a survivor." Araxium chuckled as he reached into a satchel on his right flank. The Aporyions nervously watched as he produced a few medical tools fit for the field.
"Good enough." David nodded as he moved to Sasha's side. "Anything else hurt?" He asked. She shook her head and David breathed a sigh of relief. "Ok... Let's get you patched up." He tried to move to help, but stopped as Sasha grabbed his arm. She signed slowly, causing David to look back at the door. "I don't know... They took him."
Sasha slowly nodded and looked to the ceiling. Araxium held a piece of blackened wood up to her face. "Chew on this. It will help." He offered. She hesitated at first, but obeyed, biting down on it.
"What is that gonna help with?" David inquired.
"This," Araxium grabbed the knife and ripped it out, causing Sasha to suddenly thrash and slam a fist into the table. She screamed as he moved to inject some sort of foam into her wound. The pain slowly subsided and she dropped the blackened wood from her mouth. "Our medicine is not as fancy as Aporyions, but it will stop the bleeding.
"Wait a minute what will it do to her?!" David shouted as he suddenly looked to ensure she wasn't reacting to it abnormally.
"The alternative was bleeding out. Our blades are designed to rip and tear. Would that be preferred?" Araxium folded his arms as Sasha's breathing slowed.
"Next time warn me before-"
"It's fine," A soft feminine voice came from the table with a thick eastern European accent. David looked down to Sasha's hollow eyes as she gazed up at him. She turned to Araxium and nodded. "Thank you... The pain... Is leaving."
"You are welcome." Araxium nodded before turning to Invil. "Now... What to do with you." He grinned, but suddenly perked up as alarm bells began to go off.
"Captain! We're being targeted!" A crew member shouted.
"Get us out of here! Warp to the nearest system!" Invil shouted. His eyes gazed up at the viewport to see the Hvista ship firing its first salvo.
(More to come, Later!)
2023.03.30 18:16 SloppyEyeScream Stop Recording My Children Lady!
FOREWARNING – This is long. Dear Reader, seriously, this is extremely long. I have no desire to waste your time. If you desire short reads, this is not for you. I would also like to point out this is an addition to “Alexa! Play Bitches Ain’t Shit by Dr. Dre.” I strongly encourage you to read it first.
Alexa; Play Bitches Ain't Shit by Dr. Dre : pettyrevenge (reddit.com)
Furthermore, there are (Shaking My Head) seventeen updates in total. They are all fairly well received. So, if you want to be totally caught-up, I strongly suggest you read them all. However, if you are like me, you will forgo my advice and simply commence with the fuckery below. Then you will likely have a metric fuck-ton of questions. Again, I would start with the, and then cruise right into the link below. Then you can come back in five days and read this.
All The Bitches Ain't Shit...In Order!!! : FuckeryUniveristy (reddit.com)
Urban Dictionary
Fuck-Around-and-Find-Out: A casual invitation or threat used by an individual that is not around of fucking someone up.
Dear Reader, I often find myself watching documentaries about North Korea. The “Hermit Kingdom” really fascinates me. I have traveled extensively in the Middle East and North Africa. North Korea was never off the table. However, it would certainly have been a Fuck- Around-and-Find-Out scenario. I have watched documentary-after-documentary and failed to realize I live next to a very similar “Hermit Kingdom.”
I thought the pettiness was over. Then my father’s sage advice reverberated inside my cranium, “Thought thought he farted but he really shit his pants.” Kelly was practicing lacrosse in the back yard and a lacrosse ball inadvertently crossed the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) landing in Ken and Karen’s yard. Kelly, foolishly believing they have become civil, decided to knock on the door and ask for permission to retrieve his ball.
Sloppy in garage
Sloppy opens garage door
Sloppy watches Kelly venture into the Hermit Kingdom
Knock. Knock. Kock.
Kelly: Hello! My ball bounced off a chair and went into your yard. Do you mind if I go get it?
Sloppy not certain “who” Kelly is talking to
Karen: YES. I DO MIND. THE BALL IS MINE NOW! NOW GET OFF MY PROPERTY OR I WILL CALL THE COPS.
Sloppy Brain: What a fucking bitch.
Sloppy Brain: We are not going to let this act of injustice slide, are we?
Sloppy Brain: Nope! Time to play the long game.
Defeated Kelly walks back to garage
Kelly (Angry): It’s one ball dad. ONE BALL. Can we move?
Sloppy Brain (Laughing): Can we move? You skipped revenge my man!
Sloppy: Get in the truck!
Kelly: Why?
Sloppy: Thought you wanted to move?
Kelly: Wait, we are moving?
Sloppy: Yes. We are moving to Dicks Sporting Goods. It takes a lot of balls to play lacrosse the way you do, and I told COACH NAME we would donate a bucket of fifty. I also have to run to Lowes now.
Kelly (Pouty): Okay.
Sloppy: Remember last week when you realized Dick’s carries the (Lacrosse) mesh you like?
Kelly: Yeah, why?
Sloppy (Giggling): Remember when you walked in the house and screamed, “I love Dick’s.”
Kelly (Not Happy): Stop!
Sloppy: Dude…
Kelly: STOP!
Sloppy starts driving
Five minutes of unspoken silence
Sloppy selects DMX “Where The Hood At”
Song playing
Sloppy singing
Sloppy: “I show no love, to homo thugs…”
Couple seconds pass
Sloppy: I did not mean that Kelly, I was just…
Kelly (Trying NOT to laugh, but laughing): You did that on purpose, prick! I like that Dick’s carries the mesh I like. I don’t like dicks.
Sloppy: Settle down. Besides, I didn’t say “like.” I know you don’t like Dicks…you love them!
Kelly (Frustrated): Whatever. What are we getting a Lowe’s?
Sloppy: Wood!
Kelly: For…
Sloppy: You like Dick’s and I like wood.
Kelly: What are we doing with the wood?
Sloppy: I figure I will jerk-it-around in the garage and make something that displeases Ken and Karen.
Kelly: Like?
Sloppy: Loud skateboard shit.
Fast Forward – Saturday
Sloppy: Cake!
Nothing
Sloppy: CAKE!
Cake: What?
Sloppy: I made you something, and I need you to try it out. Like now!
Cake: What? Now???
Sloppy: I made you two grind-boxes for your skateboard!
Cake: (Excited) Really?
Sloppy: Yes. TWO of them!
Cake: Can I invite, NAME, NAME, and NAME over?
Sloppy: Oh, I suppose!
Dear Reader, Grind Fest 2023 started around 1300 EST. The cops arrived shortly after 1400 EST. Many of you are aware this is not my first rodeo with my neighbors. This also holds true for the local law enforcement. Two officers arrived, one for me, and the other for my wonderful neighbors.
Joe Friday: (Laughing) What are we out here for this time?
Sloppy: Hear the laughter emanating from my backyard?
Joe Friday: (Puzzled) Yeah?
Sloppy: That! They are terribly opposed to children having fun, especially on skateboards.
Joe Friday: Really?
Sloppy: Yes, but I surmise they called you complaining about “ramps.”
Joe Friday: (Laughing) Yes, it came across the radio as “unauthorized ramps.”
Sloppy: Yes! So CITY NAME has an ordinance ban on skateboard ramps…
Joe Friday: Are you serious?
Sloppy: Exactly. I built a quarter-pipe for Christmas, and they had a Codes and Compliance Officer at my house within forty-eight hours…
Joe Friday: Wow. They sound petty!
Other cop comes from Karen’s house; Pow-Wow commences.
Joe Friday: Sir, I was unaware of the city ordinance, but you clearly are. They are complaining that you are in violation again.
Sloppy: Indeed, but I don’t have a ramp.
Joe Friday: What?
Sloppy: Please, come with me!
Joe Friday 1 and Joe Friday 2 come to see the “ramp!”
Joe Friday 1 and Joe Friday 2 watch the children skateboard on not-ramp.
Sloppy returns to DMZ
Sloppy: Are you really that wretched?
Karen: Excuse me?
Sloppy: They’re kids. They’re doing what kids do, playing outside and having fun!
Karen: (Smirk) They’re loud, obnoxious, and playing on ramps.
Cops are returning
Sloppy: Did you fail third grade math?
Karen: Excuse me…
Sloppy: DID. YOU. FAIL. THIRD. GRADE. MATH???
Joe Friday 2: Let’s try to keep it civil folks!
Sloppy: Sure! So, I assume the children are free to resume?
Joe Friday 1: Yup. Nothing to see here.
Karen: EXCUSE ME? AFTER THE RAMP IS GONE, RIGHT!?!
Sloppy: See clearly you failed the “Shapes” portion of schooling! It’s not a ramp, it’s a box…
Karen: IT’S NOT A BOX…
Sloppy: You’re right! It’s more of a rectangle…definitely a parallelogram of sorts…
Joe Friday 1 “Laugh-Coughs”
Joe Friday 2: He’s correct ma’am. It’s not a ramp. They are two boxes…
Sloppy: Rectangles
Joe Friday: (Looking at the Slop) Sir, we don’t need to make this an issue. (Back to Karen) They are “rectangles,” not ramps.
Karen: But they’re loud…
Sloppy: Fuck yeah they are!
Joe Friday 1 “Laugh-Coughs” again
Joe Friday 2: Yes! They’re loud, but no louder than a lawnmower or weed eater.
Karen: (Toward Sloppy) YOU! YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE.
Joe Friday 2: I seriously doubt…
Sloppy: Oh, I did!
Joe Friday 2: Sir, you are not helping…
Sloppy: I apologize. You’re correct. I will try to be more helpful!
Joe Friday 2: (The “Finally” Look) Thank you. So, as I stated, they are not violating anything. Let’s just try to be civil and go about our days.
Karen screams, “THIS IS RIDICULOUS” and storms into the house!
Joe Friday 2: Wow! (Looks to Sloppy) Are they always like this?
Sloppy: Always. Hey, in the spirit of being helpful, I would like to inform you that grey car (Ken Jr) registration is expired.
Joe Friday 2: (Laughing) Thank you for being helpful!
Joe Friday 2 looks at tags
Dear Reader, Joe Friday 2 returned to the car and began flipping through a notebook of sorts. I was fairly certain it was the ticketing notebook. There was only one way to be positive though; wait and heckle if correct. I waited about ten minutes before Joe Friday 2 exited his cruiser and returned to North Korea. There was a minor dilemma though. I could not hear or see anything from my garage, and going their property was out of the question.
Sloppy walks out in the middle of the street
Joe Friday 2 is explaining “something”
Sloppy is waving in the middle of the street
Joe Friday turns to leave
Sees Sloppy
Shakes head, laughs (A LOT)
Ken Jr: You’re a real fucking asshole!
Sloppy: Woah! Me?!? I am just trying to find common ground here!
Karen: COMMON GROUND?
Sloppy: Yeah. “Compliance!” You were kind enough to ensure my boxes were in compliance, and I simply want to return the favor.
Window rolls down
Joe Friday 2: Sir, like I stated, your car will have to be moved to the driveway until it is registered and undergoes the state emissions test.
Ken Jr: Yes Officer.
Cops leave quickly!
Sloppy is still in the street!
Sloppy: Hey Ken, you’ll need to move one of your cars so Junior can fit in the driveway.
Historic moment incoming!
Ken: Oh, you can go FUCK YOURSELF!
Dear Reader, I was perplexed. Captain Jesus unmounted his high-horse and cussed me out. This cold war has been roaring for the last three years, but I had never witnessed Ken cuss. It seems I had struck a chord.
Sloppy: Ken! Really? I have a neighborhood of young impressionable kids making all kinds of noise in my backyard, and you have the audacity to start dropping the F-Bomb? Wow!
Ken: (Nearing a Mental Break) YEAH. YOU. CAN. GO. FUCK. YOURSELF!!!
Karen: WE CAN’T EVEN SIT ON OUR BACK DECK AND ENJOY THE WEATHER BECAUSE YOU’RE KIDS ARE TOO LOUD
Meanwhile…
Ken Jr drives car down to cul-de-sac to turn around
Sloppy jumps in 4Runner and occupies Ken Jr’s old spot!
Ken: (Irate) WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Sloppy: Trying to be neighborly. I will have the boys skateboard in my driveway so you can enjoy the backyard!
Karen: You think you’re cute? We will just park in front of your house.
Ken: Yeah, I will just park in front of your house.
Sloppy: Fine by me. I don’t have cameras out front though. It’s going to be hard to see who dings it up with lacrosse balls.
Ken Jr returns and parks in driveway
Ken Jr: Why the hell are you parked in front of my house?
Sloppy: Junior, Junior, Junior, we’ve had this conversation before. YOU don’t have a house. You’re parents do. You’re 50 year old stay-at-home son. Remember???
Ken Jr: (Pointing) That’s my spot.
Sloppy: Adults are talking!
Lots of yelling starts…
Sloppy returns to house
Sloppy close garage door
I win! I won! Ken, Karen, and Junior knew Sloppy won the battle. They retreated into their house and began licking their wounds. Okay, how many of you honestly believe that occurred? Karen certainly retreated into her house, but she is not capable of accepting defeat. Karen opted to play with fire. She opted to use the tactic that started this entire war.
Door to garage opens
Cake: She’s recording us again Dad!
Sloppy opens garage door
Karen: Oh. Look. Another person to record.
Sloppy: (Not Impressed) I thought we had this conversation before!
Karen: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Sloppy: Okay. Well, I will hit the wavetops for you. You record my children…
Karen: Which is legal!
Sloppy: Yes. I know! “There is no expectation of privacy in public.” However, it’s morally corrupt for a 70 year old lady to heckle and videotape children. I suppose you can record me cutting your tree next!?!
Karen: (Nervous) What?
Sloppy: Yeah, I’ve had enough of your shit. I will probably get a couple feet of your juniper tree trimmed before the Ken’s get a tow strap. Remember, everything that overhangs my property is free game!
The Fuck-Around-and-Find-Out had startled Karen. There was genuine fear in her eyes, and the ensuing panic was comical. Two hundred pounds of human Jell-O attempted to run for the door. Her extremities were moving vigorously, but her body refused to move. It was “mall walk” at best.
Karen: KEN. KEN. KEN.
I made it to the backyard with what felt like an infinity to spare. Karen ran through the house and poked out the back door. Ken and Junior ran to the back yard knowing they had failed. It was a Mexican standoff. Seriously, it was a comical standoff. I had the clippers in the “ready to eat” position as I exclaimed…
Sloppy: DON’T MOVE OR I WILL CUT IT!
Then tension was palpable. I have no issue with the ongoing war, but I draw issue when Karen records children. I vividly remember this exact predicament years prior. Don’t record crib midgets or mini humans and I won’t cut your tree.
Karen: I STOPPED RECORDING!
Sloppy: Yes, but you recorded. I said that was the “red line.” That is the ONE THING you DON’T DO.
Karen: I STOPPED!
Sloppy: Ken, how much do you think is fair?
Ken: (Puzzled) What?
Sloppy: Oh, this will not go unpunished. HOW. MUCH. Do you think is fair?
Karen: RUN!
Writing “Hysterical Laughter” does not justify how hard I was laughing. I literally could not see through the joyful tears that were streaming down my face. I apologize for being a killjoy, but I did not cut the tree.
Dear Reader: What? Sloppy? Are you serious?
Sloppy: Yes!
Dear Reader: Why?
It’s no secret, but I live in a very large Home Owners Association (HOA). It is also no secret that I am “in” with one of the highest-ranking Board Members. Sue, Board Member, frequently reaches out for her dose of comedy. She is fully aware of the ongoing feud, and she has grown to despise them as much as I do. Sue quickly became sick of the baseless accusations. However, Sue is not capable of retaliation. For the most part…
Last week was my neighborhoods “Spring Assessment.” The HOA essentially audits to the houses for appearance, and to ensure everyone is following the archaic rules established by the HOA. You either get a post card thanking you for keeping everything neat and tidy, or you get a Nasty-Gram stating you have thirty-days to fix your deficiencies.
Sue was kind enough to inform me about the drive-by inspections days prior. I am sure it comes as no surprise, but using a neon green tow strap to tether a juniper tree to a back porch is not kosher. Sue was kind enough to tell me they have thirty-days to rectify their deficiency.
TODAY 11:39 EST
HOA Truck drives through neighborhood
Sloppy is woodworking with garage door open
Sue stops by
Sue: Howdy!
Sloppy: Hey!
Sue: (Laughing) They wrote a rebuttal letter.
Sloppy: (Puzzled) They?
Pause
Sloppy: Oh. “They!” About what?
Sue: It may come as a surprise, but you cannot tow strap trees to the porch.
Sloppy: You don’t say!?!
Sue: (Laughing Harder) They said they are being “held hostage” and “fear our tree will be cut.”
Sloppy: Fucking FINALLY!
Sue: Finally what?
Sloppy: They are finally being honest about something.
Sue: Are you going to cut the tree?
Sloppy: The juniper? No, but they don’t know that.
Sue: They have three weeks to figure it out.
Sloppy: Thus the reason they have been kind lately.
Sue: So, what are you going to do?
Sloppy: Give them every indication I fully intend on cutting the tree.
Dear Reader, they have three weeks. They have three weeks to gravel and beg me to not chop their precious juniper tree down. Honestly, I have two trees hostage right now, and I do not plan on losing my leverage unless I find another ace. I am sure they will revert to playing nice in hopes I will forget, but I will take every single opportunity to drive the screws to them. I am not going to cut the tree, but that does not mean I won’t try to break them.
Cheers FUckers!
submitted by SloppyEyeScream to pettyrevenge [link] [comments]
Alexa; Play Bitches Ain't Shit by Dr. Dre : pettyrevenge (reddit.com)
Furthermore, there are (Shaking My Head) seventeen updates in total. They are all fairly well received. So, if you want to be totally caught-up, I strongly suggest you read them all. However, if you are like me, you will forgo my advice and simply commence with the fuckery below. Then you will likely have a metric fuck-ton of questions. Again, I would start with the, and then cruise right into the link below. Then you can come back in five days and read this.
All The Bitches Ain't Shit...In Order!!! : FuckeryUniveristy (reddit.com)
Urban Dictionary
Fuck-Around-and-Find-Out: A casual invitation or threat used by an individual that is not around of fucking someone up.
Dear Reader, I often find myself watching documentaries about North Korea. The “Hermit Kingdom” really fascinates me. I have traveled extensively in the Middle East and North Africa. North Korea was never off the table. However, it would certainly have been a Fuck- Around-and-Find-Out scenario. I have watched documentary-after-documentary and failed to realize I live next to a very similar “Hermit Kingdom.”
I thought the pettiness was over. Then my father’s sage advice reverberated inside my cranium, “Thought thought he farted but he really shit his pants.” Kelly was practicing lacrosse in the back yard and a lacrosse ball inadvertently crossed the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) landing in Ken and Karen’s yard. Kelly, foolishly believing they have become civil, decided to knock on the door and ask for permission to retrieve his ball.
Sloppy in garage
Sloppy opens garage door
Sloppy watches Kelly venture into the Hermit Kingdom
Knock. Knock. Kock.
Kelly: Hello! My ball bounced off a chair and went into your yard. Do you mind if I go get it?
Sloppy not certain “who” Kelly is talking to
Karen: YES. I DO MIND. THE BALL IS MINE NOW! NOW GET OFF MY PROPERTY OR I WILL CALL THE COPS.
Sloppy Brain: What a fucking bitch.
Sloppy Brain: We are not going to let this act of injustice slide, are we?
Sloppy Brain: Nope! Time to play the long game.
Defeated Kelly walks back to garage
Kelly (Angry): It’s one ball dad. ONE BALL. Can we move?
Sloppy Brain (Laughing): Can we move? You skipped revenge my man!
Sloppy: Get in the truck!
Kelly: Why?
Sloppy: Thought you wanted to move?
Kelly: Wait, we are moving?
Sloppy: Yes. We are moving to Dicks Sporting Goods. It takes a lot of balls to play lacrosse the way you do, and I told COACH NAME we would donate a bucket of fifty. I also have to run to Lowes now.
Kelly (Pouty): Okay.
Sloppy: Remember last week when you realized Dick’s carries the (Lacrosse) mesh you like?
Kelly: Yeah, why?
Sloppy (Giggling): Remember when you walked in the house and screamed, “I love Dick’s.”
Kelly (Not Happy): Stop!
Sloppy: Dude…
Kelly: STOP!
Sloppy starts driving
Five minutes of unspoken silence
Sloppy selects DMX “Where The Hood At”
Song playing
Sloppy singing
Sloppy: “I show no love, to homo thugs…”
Couple seconds pass
Sloppy: I did not mean that Kelly, I was just…
Kelly (Trying NOT to laugh, but laughing): You did that on purpose, prick! I like that Dick’s carries the mesh I like. I don’t like dicks.
Sloppy: Settle down. Besides, I didn’t say “like.” I know you don’t like Dicks…you love them!
Kelly (Frustrated): Whatever. What are we getting a Lowe’s?
Sloppy: Wood!
Kelly: For…
Sloppy: You like Dick’s and I like wood.
Kelly: What are we doing with the wood?
Sloppy: I figure I will jerk-it-around in the garage and make something that displeases Ken and Karen.
Kelly: Like?
Sloppy: Loud skateboard shit.
Fast Forward – Saturday
Sloppy: Cake!
Nothing
Sloppy: CAKE!
Cake: What?
Sloppy: I made you something, and I need you to try it out. Like now!
Cake: What? Now???
Sloppy: I made you two grind-boxes for your skateboard!
Cake: (Excited) Really?
Sloppy: Yes. TWO of them!
Cake: Can I invite, NAME, NAME, and NAME over?
Sloppy: Oh, I suppose!
Dear Reader, Grind Fest 2023 started around 1300 EST. The cops arrived shortly after 1400 EST. Many of you are aware this is not my first rodeo with my neighbors. This also holds true for the local law enforcement. Two officers arrived, one for me, and the other for my wonderful neighbors.
Joe Friday: (Laughing) What are we out here for this time?
Sloppy: Hear the laughter emanating from my backyard?
Joe Friday: (Puzzled) Yeah?
Sloppy: That! They are terribly opposed to children having fun, especially on skateboards.
Joe Friday: Really?
Sloppy: Yes, but I surmise they called you complaining about “ramps.”
Joe Friday: (Laughing) Yes, it came across the radio as “unauthorized ramps.”
Sloppy: Yes! So CITY NAME has an ordinance ban on skateboard ramps…
Joe Friday: Are you serious?
Sloppy: Exactly. I built a quarter-pipe for Christmas, and they had a Codes and Compliance Officer at my house within forty-eight hours…
Joe Friday: Wow. They sound petty!
Other cop comes from Karen’s house; Pow-Wow commences.
Joe Friday: Sir, I was unaware of the city ordinance, but you clearly are. They are complaining that you are in violation again.
Sloppy: Indeed, but I don’t have a ramp.
Joe Friday: What?
Sloppy: Please, come with me!
Joe Friday 1 and Joe Friday 2 come to see the “ramp!”
Joe Friday 1 and Joe Friday 2 watch the children skateboard on not-ramp.
Sloppy returns to DMZ
Sloppy: Are you really that wretched?
Karen: Excuse me?
Sloppy: They’re kids. They’re doing what kids do, playing outside and having fun!
Karen: (Smirk) They’re loud, obnoxious, and playing on ramps.
Cops are returning
Sloppy: Did you fail third grade math?
Karen: Excuse me…
Sloppy: DID. YOU. FAIL. THIRD. GRADE. MATH???
Joe Friday 2: Let’s try to keep it civil folks!
Sloppy: Sure! So, I assume the children are free to resume?
Joe Friday 1: Yup. Nothing to see here.
Karen: EXCUSE ME? AFTER THE RAMP IS GONE, RIGHT!?!
Sloppy: See clearly you failed the “Shapes” portion of schooling! It’s not a ramp, it’s a box…
Karen: IT’S NOT A BOX…
Sloppy: You’re right! It’s more of a rectangle…definitely a parallelogram of sorts…
Joe Friday 1 “Laugh-Coughs”
Joe Friday 2: He’s correct ma’am. It’s not a ramp. They are two boxes…
Sloppy: Rectangles
Joe Friday: (Looking at the Slop) Sir, we don’t need to make this an issue. (Back to Karen) They are “rectangles,” not ramps.
Karen: But they’re loud…
Sloppy: Fuck yeah they are!
Joe Friday 1 “Laugh-Coughs” again
Joe Friday 2: Yes! They’re loud, but no louder than a lawnmower or weed eater.
Karen: (Toward Sloppy) YOU! YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE.
Joe Friday 2: I seriously doubt…
Sloppy: Oh, I did!
Joe Friday 2: Sir, you are not helping…
Sloppy: I apologize. You’re correct. I will try to be more helpful!
Joe Friday 2: (The “Finally” Look) Thank you. So, as I stated, they are not violating anything. Let’s just try to be civil and go about our days.
Karen screams, “THIS IS RIDICULOUS” and storms into the house!
Joe Friday 2: Wow! (Looks to Sloppy) Are they always like this?
Sloppy: Always. Hey, in the spirit of being helpful, I would like to inform you that grey car (Ken Jr) registration is expired.
Joe Friday 2: (Laughing) Thank you for being helpful!
Joe Friday 2 looks at tags
Dear Reader, Joe Friday 2 returned to the car and began flipping through a notebook of sorts. I was fairly certain it was the ticketing notebook. There was only one way to be positive though; wait and heckle if correct. I waited about ten minutes before Joe Friday 2 exited his cruiser and returned to North Korea. There was a minor dilemma though. I could not hear or see anything from my garage, and going their property was out of the question.
Sloppy walks out in the middle of the street
Joe Friday 2 is explaining “something”
Sloppy is waving in the middle of the street
Joe Friday turns to leave
Sees Sloppy
Shakes head, laughs (A LOT)
Ken Jr: You’re a real fucking asshole!
Sloppy: Woah! Me?!? I am just trying to find common ground here!
Karen: COMMON GROUND?
Sloppy: Yeah. “Compliance!” You were kind enough to ensure my boxes were in compliance, and I simply want to return the favor.
Window rolls down
Joe Friday 2: Sir, like I stated, your car will have to be moved to the driveway until it is registered and undergoes the state emissions test.
Ken Jr: Yes Officer.
Cops leave quickly!
Sloppy is still in the street!
Sloppy: Hey Ken, you’ll need to move one of your cars so Junior can fit in the driveway.
Historic moment incoming!
Ken: Oh, you can go FUCK YOURSELF!
Dear Reader, I was perplexed. Captain Jesus unmounted his high-horse and cussed me out. This cold war has been roaring for the last three years, but I had never witnessed Ken cuss. It seems I had struck a chord.
Sloppy: Ken! Really? I have a neighborhood of young impressionable kids making all kinds of noise in my backyard, and you have the audacity to start dropping the F-Bomb? Wow!
Ken: (Nearing a Mental Break) YEAH. YOU. CAN. GO. FUCK. YOURSELF!!!
Karen: WE CAN’T EVEN SIT ON OUR BACK DECK AND ENJOY THE WEATHER BECAUSE YOU’RE KIDS ARE TOO LOUD
Meanwhile…
Ken Jr drives car down to cul-de-sac to turn around
Sloppy jumps in 4Runner and occupies Ken Jr’s old spot!
Ken: (Irate) WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Sloppy: Trying to be neighborly. I will have the boys skateboard in my driveway so you can enjoy the backyard!
Karen: You think you’re cute? We will just park in front of your house.
Ken: Yeah, I will just park in front of your house.
Sloppy: Fine by me. I don’t have cameras out front though. It’s going to be hard to see who dings it up with lacrosse balls.
Ken Jr returns and parks in driveway
Ken Jr: Why the hell are you parked in front of my house?
Sloppy: Junior, Junior, Junior, we’ve had this conversation before. YOU don’t have a house. You’re parents do. You’re 50 year old stay-at-home son. Remember???
Ken Jr: (Pointing) That’s my spot.
Sloppy: Adults are talking!
Lots of yelling starts…
Sloppy returns to house
Sloppy close garage door
I win! I won! Ken, Karen, and Junior knew Sloppy won the battle. They retreated into their house and began licking their wounds. Okay, how many of you honestly believe that occurred? Karen certainly retreated into her house, but she is not capable of accepting defeat. Karen opted to play with fire. She opted to use the tactic that started this entire war.
Door to garage opens
Cake: She’s recording us again Dad!
Sloppy opens garage door
Karen: Oh. Look. Another person to record.
Sloppy: (Not Impressed) I thought we had this conversation before!
Karen: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Sloppy: Okay. Well, I will hit the wavetops for you. You record my children…
Karen: Which is legal!
Sloppy: Yes. I know! “There is no expectation of privacy in public.” However, it’s morally corrupt for a 70 year old lady to heckle and videotape children. I suppose you can record me cutting your tree next!?!
Karen: (Nervous) What?
Sloppy: Yeah, I’ve had enough of your shit. I will probably get a couple feet of your juniper tree trimmed before the Ken’s get a tow strap. Remember, everything that overhangs my property is free game!
The Fuck-Around-and-Find-Out had startled Karen. There was genuine fear in her eyes, and the ensuing panic was comical. Two hundred pounds of human Jell-O attempted to run for the door. Her extremities were moving vigorously, but her body refused to move. It was “mall walk” at best.
Karen: KEN. KEN. KEN.
I made it to the backyard with what felt like an infinity to spare. Karen ran through the house and poked out the back door. Ken and Junior ran to the back yard knowing they had failed. It was a Mexican standoff. Seriously, it was a comical standoff. I had the clippers in the “ready to eat” position as I exclaimed…
Sloppy: DON’T MOVE OR I WILL CUT IT!
Then tension was palpable. I have no issue with the ongoing war, but I draw issue when Karen records children. I vividly remember this exact predicament years prior. Don’t record crib midgets or mini humans and I won’t cut your tree.
Karen: I STOPPED RECORDING!
Sloppy: Yes, but you recorded. I said that was the “red line.” That is the ONE THING you DON’T DO.
Karen: I STOPPED!
Sloppy: Ken, how much do you think is fair?
Ken: (Puzzled) What?
Sloppy: Oh, this will not go unpunished. HOW. MUCH. Do you think is fair?
Karen: RUN!
Writing “Hysterical Laughter” does not justify how hard I was laughing. I literally could not see through the joyful tears that were streaming down my face. I apologize for being a killjoy, but I did not cut the tree.
Dear Reader: What? Sloppy? Are you serious?
Sloppy: Yes!
Dear Reader: Why?
It’s no secret, but I live in a very large Home Owners Association (HOA). It is also no secret that I am “in” with one of the highest-ranking Board Members. Sue, Board Member, frequently reaches out for her dose of comedy. She is fully aware of the ongoing feud, and she has grown to despise them as much as I do. Sue quickly became sick of the baseless accusations. However, Sue is not capable of retaliation. For the most part…
Last week was my neighborhoods “Spring Assessment.” The HOA essentially audits to the houses for appearance, and to ensure everyone is following the archaic rules established by the HOA. You either get a post card thanking you for keeping everything neat and tidy, or you get a Nasty-Gram stating you have thirty-days to fix your deficiencies.
Sue was kind enough to inform me about the drive-by inspections days prior. I am sure it comes as no surprise, but using a neon green tow strap to tether a juniper tree to a back porch is not kosher. Sue was kind enough to tell me they have thirty-days to rectify their deficiency.
TODAY 11:39 EST
HOA Truck drives through neighborhood
Sloppy is woodworking with garage door open
Sue stops by
Sue: Howdy!
Sloppy: Hey!
Sue: (Laughing) They wrote a rebuttal letter.
Sloppy: (Puzzled) They?
Pause
Sloppy: Oh. “They!” About what?
Sue: It may come as a surprise, but you cannot tow strap trees to the porch.
Sloppy: You don’t say!?!
Sue: (Laughing Harder) They said they are being “held hostage” and “fear our tree will be cut.”
Sloppy: Fucking FINALLY!
Sue: Finally what?
Sloppy: They are finally being honest about something.
Sue: Are you going to cut the tree?
Sloppy: The juniper? No, but they don’t know that.
Sue: They have three weeks to figure it out.
Sloppy: Thus the reason they have been kind lately.
Sue: So, what are you going to do?
Sloppy: Give them every indication I fully intend on cutting the tree.
Dear Reader, they have three weeks. They have three weeks to gravel and beg me to not chop their precious juniper tree down. Honestly, I have two trees hostage right now, and I do not plan on losing my leverage unless I find another ace. I am sure they will revert to playing nice in hopes I will forget, but I will take every single opportunity to drive the screws to them. I am not going to cut the tree, but that does not mean I won’t try to break them.
Cheers FUckers!
2023.03.30 18:15 SloppyEyeScream Stop Recording My Children Lady!
FOREWARNING – This is long. Dear Reader, seriously, this is extremely long. I have no desire to waste your time. If you desire short reads, this is not for you. I would also like to point out this is an addition to “Alexa! Play Bitches Ain’t Shit by Dr. Dre.” I strongly encourage you to read it first.
Alexa; Play Bitches Ain't Shit by Dr. Dre : pettyrevenge (reddit.com)
Furthermore, there are (Shaking My Head) seventeen updates in total. They are all fairly well received. So, if you want to be totally caught-up, I strongly suggest you read them all. However, if you are like me, you will forgo my advice and simply commence with the fuckery below. Then you will likely have a metric fuck-ton of questions. Again, I would start with the, and then cruise right into the link below. Then you can come back in five days and read this.
All The Bitches Ain't Shit...In Order!!! : FuckeryUniveristy (reddit.com)
Urban Dictionary
Fuck-Around-and-Find-Out: A casual invitation or threat used by an individual that is not around of fucking someone up.
Dear Reader, I often find myself watching documentaries about North Korea. The “Hermit Kingdom” really fascinates me. I have traveled extensively in the Middle East and North Africa. North Korea was never off the table. However, it would certainly have been a Fuck- Around-and-Find-Out scenario. I have watched documentary-after-documentary and failed to realize I live next to a very similar “Hermit Kingdom.”
I thought the pettiness was over. Then my father’s sage advice reverberated inside my cranium, “Thought thought he farted but he really shit his pants.” Kelly was practicing lacrosse in the back yard and a lacrosse ball inadvertently crossed the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) landing in Ken and Karen’s yard. Kelly, foolishly believing they have become civil, decided to knock on the door and ask for permission to retrieve his ball.
Sloppy in garage
Sloppy opens garage door
Sloppy watches Kelly venture into the Hermit Kingdom
Knock. Knock. Kock.
Kelly: Hello! My ball bounced off a chair and went into your yard. Do you mind if I go get it?
Sloppy not certain “who” Kelly is talking to
Karen: YES. I DO MIND. THE BALL IS MINE NOW! NOW GET OFF MY PROPERTY OR I WILL CALL THE COPS.
Sloppy Brain: What a fucking bitch.
Sloppy Brain: We are not going to let this act of injustice slide, are we?
Sloppy Brain: Nope! Time to play the long game.
Defeated Kelly walks back to garage
Kelly (Angry): It’s one ball dad. ONE BALL. Can we move?
Sloppy Brain (Laughing): Can we move? You skipped revenge my man!
Sloppy: Get in the truck!
Kelly: Why?
Sloppy: Thought you wanted to move?
Kelly: Wait, we are moving?
Sloppy: Yes. We are moving to Dicks Sporting Goods. It takes a lot of balls to play lacrosse the way you do, and I told COACH NAME we would donate a bucket of fifty. I also have to run to Lowes now.
Kelly (Pouty): Okay.
Sloppy: Remember last week when you realized Dick’s carries the (Lacrosse) mesh you like?
Kelly: Yeah, why?
Sloppy (Giggling): Remember when you walked in the house and screamed, “I love Dick’s.”
Kelly (Not Happy): Stop!
Sloppy: Dude…
Kelly: STOP!
Sloppy starts driving
Five minutes of unspoken silence
Sloppy selects DMX “Where The Hood At”
Song playing
Sloppy singing
Sloppy: “I show no love, to homo thugs…”
Couple seconds pass
Sloppy: I did not mean that Kelly, I was just…
Kelly (Trying NOT to laugh, but laughing): You did that on purpose, prick! I like that Dick’s carries the mesh I like. I don’t like dicks.
Sloppy: Settle down. Besides, I didn’t say “like.” I know you don’t like Dicks…you love them!
Kelly (Frustrated): Whatever. What are we getting a Lowe’s?
Sloppy: Wood!
Kelly: For…
Sloppy: You like Dick’s and I like wood.
Kelly: What are we doing with the wood?
Sloppy: I figure I will jerk-it-around in the garage and make something that displeases Ken and Karen.
Kelly: Like?
Sloppy: Loud skateboard shit.
Fast Forward – Saturday
Sloppy: Cake!
Nothing
Sloppy: CAKE!
Cake: What?
Sloppy: I made you something, and I need you to try it out. Like now!
Cake: What? Now???
Sloppy: I made you two grind-boxes for your skateboard!
Cake: (Excited) Really?
Sloppy: Yes. TWO of them!
Cake: Can I invite, NAME, NAME, and NAME over?
Sloppy: Oh, I suppose!
Dear Reader, Grind Fest 2023 started around 1300 EST. The cops arrived shortly after 1400 EST. Many of you are aware this is not my first rodeo with my neighbors. This also holds true for the local law enforcement. Two officers arrived, one for me, and the other for my wonderful neighbors.
Joe Friday: (Laughing) What are we out here for this time?
Sloppy: Hear the laughter emanating from my backyard?
Joe Friday: (Puzzled) Yeah?
Sloppy: That! They are terribly opposed to children having fun, especially on skateboards.
Joe Friday: Really?
Sloppy: Yes, but I surmise they called you complaining about “ramps.”
Joe Friday: (Laughing) Yes, it came across the radio as “unauthorized ramps.”
Sloppy: Yes! So CITY NAME has an ordinance ban on skateboard ramps…
Joe Friday: Are you serious?
Sloppy: Exactly. I built a quarter-pipe for Christmas, and they had a Codes and Compliance Officer at my house within forty-eight hours…
Joe Friday: Wow. They sound petty!
Other cop comes from Karen’s house; Pow-Wow commences.
Joe Friday: Sir, I was unaware of the city ordinance, but you clearly are. They are complaining that you are in violation again.
Sloppy: Indeed, but I don’t have a ramp.
Joe Friday: What?
Sloppy: Please, come with me!
Joe Friday 1 and Joe Friday 2 come to see the “ramp!”
Joe Friday 1 and Joe Friday 2 watch the children skateboard on not-ramp.
Sloppy returns to DMZ
Sloppy: Are you really that wretched?
Karen: Excuse me?
Sloppy: They’re kids. They’re doing what kids do, playing outside and having fun!
Karen: (Smirk) They’re loud, obnoxious, and playing on ramps.
Cops are returning
Sloppy: Did you fail third grade math?
Karen: Excuse me…
Sloppy: DID. YOU. FAIL. THIRD. GRADE. MATH???
Joe Friday 2: Let’s try to keep it civil folks!
Sloppy: Sure! So, I assume the children are free to resume?
Joe Friday 1: Yup. Nothing to see here.
Karen: EXCUSE ME? AFTER THE RAMP IS GONE, RIGHT!?!
Sloppy: See clearly you failed the “Shapes” portion of schooling! It’s not a ramp, it’s a box…
Karen: IT’S NOT A BOX…
Sloppy: You’re right! It’s more of a rectangle…definitely a parallelogram of sorts…
Joe Friday 1 “Laugh-Coughs”
Joe Friday 2: He’s correct ma’am. It’s not a ramp. They are two boxes…
Sloppy: Rectangles
Joe Friday: (Looking at the Slop) Sir, we don’t need to make this an issue. (Back to Karen) They are “rectangles,” not ramps.
Karen: But they’re loud…
Sloppy: Fuck yeah they are!
Joe Friday 1 “Laugh-Coughs” again
Joe Friday 2: Yes! They’re loud, but no louder than a lawnmower or weed eater.
Karen: (Toward Sloppy) YOU! YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE.
Joe Friday 2: I seriously doubt…
Sloppy: Oh, I did!
Joe Friday 2: Sir, you are not helping…
Sloppy: I apologize. You’re correct. I will try to be more helpful!
Joe Friday 2: (The “Finally” Look) Thank you. So, as I stated, they are not violating anything. Let’s just try to be civil and go about our days.
Karen screams, “THIS IS RIDICULOUS” and storms into the house!
Joe Friday 2: Wow! (Looks to Sloppy) Are they always like this?
Sloppy: Always. Hey, in the spirit of being helpful, I would like to inform you that grey car (Ken Jr) registration is expired.
Joe Friday 2: (Laughing) Thank you for being helpful!
Joe Friday 2 looks at tags
Dear Reader, Joe Friday 2 returned to the car and began flipping through a notebook of sorts. I was fairly certain it was the ticketing notebook. There was only one way to be positive though; wait and heckle if correct. I waited about ten minutes before Joe Friday 2 exited his cruiser and returned to North Korea. There was a minor dilemma though. I could not hear or see anything from my garage, and going their property was out of the question.
Sloppy walks out in the middle of the street
Joe Friday 2 is explaining “something”
Sloppy is waving in the middle of the street
Joe Friday turns to leave
Sees Sloppy
Shakes head, laughs (A LOT)
Ken Jr: You’re a real fucking asshole!
Sloppy: Woah! Me?!? I am just trying to find common ground here!
Karen: COMMON GROUND?
Sloppy: Yeah. “Compliance!” You were kind enough to ensure my boxes were in compliance, and I simply want to return the favor.
Window rolls down
Joe Friday 2: Sir, like I stated, your car will have to be moved to the driveway until it is registered and undergoes the state emissions test.
Ken Jr: Yes Officer.
Cops leave quickly!
Sloppy is still in the street!
Sloppy: Hey Ken, you’ll need to move one of your cars so Junior can fit in the driveway.
Historic moment incoming!
Ken: Oh, you can go FUCK YOURSELF!
Dear Reader, I was perplexed. Captain Jesus unmounted his high-horse and cussed me out. This cold war has been roaring for the last three years, but I had never witnessed Ken cuss. It seems I had struck a chord.
Sloppy: Ken! Really? I have a neighborhood of young impressionable kids making all kinds of noise in my backyard, and you have the audacity to start dropping the F-Bomb? Wow!
Ken: (Nearing a Mental Break) YEAH. YOU. CAN. GO. FUCK. YOURSELF!!!
Karen: WE CAN’T EVEN SIT ON OUR BACK DECK AND ENJOY THE WEATHER BECAUSE YOU’RE KIDS ARE TOO LOUD
Meanwhile…
Ken Jr drives car down to cul-de-sac to turn around
Sloppy jumps in 4Runner and occupies Ken Jr’s old spot!
Ken: (Irate) WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Sloppy: Trying to be neighborly. I will have the boys skateboard in my driveway so you can enjoy the backyard!
Karen: You think you’re cute? We will just park in front of your house.
Ken: Yeah, I will just park in front of your house.
Sloppy: Fine by me. I don’t have cameras out front though. It’s going to be hard to see who dings it up with lacrosse balls.
Ken Jr returns and parks in driveway
Ken Jr: Why the hell are you parked in front of my house?
Sloppy: Junior, Junior, Junior, we’ve had this conversation before. YOU don’t have a house. You’re parents do. You’re 50 year old stay-at-home son. Remember???
Ken Jr: (Pointing) That’s my spot.
Sloppy: Adults are talking!
Lots of yelling starts…
Sloppy returns to house
Sloppy close garage door
I win! I won! Ken, Karen, and Junior knew Sloppy won the battle. They retreated into their house and began licking their wounds. Okay, how many of you honestly believe that occurred? Karen certainly retreated into her house, but she is not capable of accepting defeat. Karen opted to play with fire. She opted to use the tactic that started this entire war.
Door to garage opens
Cake: She’s recording us again Dad!
Sloppy opens garage door
Karen: Oh. Look. Another person to record.
Sloppy: (Not Impressed) I thought we had this conversation before!
Karen: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Sloppy: Okay. Well, I will hit the wavetops for you. You record my children…
Karen: Which is legal!
Sloppy: Yes. I know! “There is no expectation of privacy in public.” However, it’s morally corrupt for a 70 year old lady to heckle and videotape children. I suppose you can record me cutting your tree next!?!
Karen: (Nervous) What?
Sloppy: Yeah, I’ve had enough of your shit. I will probably get a couple feet of your juniper tree trimmed before the Ken’s get a tow strap. Remember, everything that overhangs my property is free game!
The Fuck-Around-and-Find-Out had startled Karen. There was genuine fear in her eyes, and the ensuing panic was comical. Two hundred pounds of human Jell-O attempted to run for the door. Her extremities were moving vigorously, but her body refused to move. It was “mall walk” at best.
Karen: KEN. KEN. KEN.
I made it to the backyard with what felt like an infinity to spare. Karen ran through the house and poked out the back door. Ken and Junior ran to the back yard knowing they had failed. It was a Mexican standoff. Seriously, it was a comical standoff. I had the clippers in the “ready to eat” position as I exclaimed…
Sloppy: DON’T MOVE OR I WILL CUT IT!
Then tension was palpable. I have no issue with the ongoing war, but I draw issue when Karen records children. I vividly remember this exact predicament years prior. Don’t record crib midgets or mini humans and I won’t cut your tree.
Karen: I STOPPED RECORDING!
Sloppy: Yes, but you recorded. I said that was the “red line.” That is the ONE THING you DON’T DO.
Karen: I STOPPED!
Sloppy: Ken, how much do you think is fair?
Ken: (Puzzled) What?
Sloppy: Oh, this will not go unpunished. HOW. MUCH. Do you think is fair?
Karen: RUN!
Writing “Hysterical Laughter” does not justify how hard I was laughing. I literally could not see through the joyful tears that were streaming down my face. I apologize for being a killjoy, but I did not cut the tree.
Dear Reader: What? Sloppy? Are you serious?
Sloppy: Yes!
Dear Reader: Why?
It’s no secret, but I live in a very large Home Owners Association (HOA). It is also no secret that I am “in” with one of the highest-ranking Board Members. Sue, Board Member, frequently reaches out for her dose of comedy. She is fully aware of the ongoing feud, and she has grown to despise them as much as I do. Sue quickly became sick of the baseless accusations. However, Sue is not capable of retaliation. For the most part…
Last week was my neighborhoods “Spring Assessment.” The HOA essentially audits to the houses for appearance, and to ensure everyone is following the archaic rules established by the HOA. You either get a post card thanking you for keeping everything neat and tidy, or you get a Nasty-Gram stating you have thirty-days to fix your deficiencies.
Sue was kind enough to inform me about the drive-by inspections days prior. I am sure it comes as no surprise, but using a neon green tow strap to tether a juniper tree to a back porch is not kosher. Sue was kind enough to tell me they have thirty-days to rectify their deficiency.
TODAY 11:39 EST
HOA Truck drives through neighborhood
Sloppy is woodworking with garage door open
Sue stops by
Sue: Howdy!
Sloppy: Hey!
Sue: (Laughing) They wrote a rebuttal letter.
Sloppy: (Puzzled) They?
Pause
Sloppy: Oh. “They!” About what?
Sue: It may come as a surprise, but you cannot tow strap trees to the porch.
Sloppy: You don’t say!?!
Sue: (Laughing Harder) They said they are being “held hostage” and “fear our tree will be cut.”
Sloppy: Fucking FINALLY!
Sue: Finally what?
Sloppy: They are finally being honest about something.
Sue: Are you going to cut the tree?
Sloppy: The juniper? No, but they don’t know that.
Sue: They have three weeks to figure it out.
Sloppy: Thus the reason they have been kind lately.
Sue: So, what are you going to do?
Sloppy: Give them every indication I fully intend on cutting the tree.
Dear Reader, they have three weeks. They have three weeks to gravel and beg me to not chop their precious juniper tree down. Honestly, I have two trees hostage right now, and I do not plan on losing my leverage unless I find another ace. I am sure they will revert to playing nice in hopes I will forget, but I will take every single opportunity to drive the screws to them. I am not going to cut the tree, but that does not mean I won’t try to break them.
Cheers FUckers!
submitted by SloppyEyeScream to FuckeryUniveristy [link] [comments]
Alexa; Play Bitches Ain't Shit by Dr. Dre : pettyrevenge (reddit.com)
Furthermore, there are (Shaking My Head) seventeen updates in total. They are all fairly well received. So, if you want to be totally caught-up, I strongly suggest you read them all. However, if you are like me, you will forgo my advice and simply commence with the fuckery below. Then you will likely have a metric fuck-ton of questions. Again, I would start with the, and then cruise right into the link below. Then you can come back in five days and read this.
All The Bitches Ain't Shit...In Order!!! : FuckeryUniveristy (reddit.com)
Urban Dictionary
Fuck-Around-and-Find-Out: A casual invitation or threat used by an individual that is not around of fucking someone up.
Dear Reader, I often find myself watching documentaries about North Korea. The “Hermit Kingdom” really fascinates me. I have traveled extensively in the Middle East and North Africa. North Korea was never off the table. However, it would certainly have been a Fuck- Around-and-Find-Out scenario. I have watched documentary-after-documentary and failed to realize I live next to a very similar “Hermit Kingdom.”
I thought the pettiness was over. Then my father’s sage advice reverberated inside my cranium, “Thought thought he farted but he really shit his pants.” Kelly was practicing lacrosse in the back yard and a lacrosse ball inadvertently crossed the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) landing in Ken and Karen’s yard. Kelly, foolishly believing they have become civil, decided to knock on the door and ask for permission to retrieve his ball.
Sloppy in garage
Sloppy opens garage door
Sloppy watches Kelly venture into the Hermit Kingdom
Knock. Knock. Kock.
Kelly: Hello! My ball bounced off a chair and went into your yard. Do you mind if I go get it?
Sloppy not certain “who” Kelly is talking to
Karen: YES. I DO MIND. THE BALL IS MINE NOW! NOW GET OFF MY PROPERTY OR I WILL CALL THE COPS.
Sloppy Brain: What a fucking bitch.
Sloppy Brain: We are not going to let this act of injustice slide, are we?
Sloppy Brain: Nope! Time to play the long game.
Defeated Kelly walks back to garage
Kelly (Angry): It’s one ball dad. ONE BALL. Can we move?
Sloppy Brain (Laughing): Can we move? You skipped revenge my man!
Sloppy: Get in the truck!
Kelly: Why?
Sloppy: Thought you wanted to move?
Kelly: Wait, we are moving?
Sloppy: Yes. We are moving to Dicks Sporting Goods. It takes a lot of balls to play lacrosse the way you do, and I told COACH NAME we would donate a bucket of fifty. I also have to run to Lowes now.
Kelly (Pouty): Okay.
Sloppy: Remember last week when you realized Dick’s carries the (Lacrosse) mesh you like?
Kelly: Yeah, why?
Sloppy (Giggling): Remember when you walked in the house and screamed, “I love Dick’s.”
Kelly (Not Happy): Stop!
Sloppy: Dude…
Kelly: STOP!
Sloppy starts driving
Five minutes of unspoken silence
Sloppy selects DMX “Where The Hood At”
Song playing
Sloppy singing
Sloppy: “I show no love, to homo thugs…”
Couple seconds pass
Sloppy: I did not mean that Kelly, I was just…
Kelly (Trying NOT to laugh, but laughing): You did that on purpose, prick! I like that Dick’s carries the mesh I like. I don’t like dicks.
Sloppy: Settle down. Besides, I didn’t say “like.” I know you don’t like Dicks…you love them!
Kelly (Frustrated): Whatever. What are we getting a Lowe’s?
Sloppy: Wood!
Kelly: For…
Sloppy: You like Dick’s and I like wood.
Kelly: What are we doing with the wood?
Sloppy: I figure I will jerk-it-around in the garage and make something that displeases Ken and Karen.
Kelly: Like?
Sloppy: Loud skateboard shit.
Fast Forward – Saturday
Sloppy: Cake!
Nothing
Sloppy: CAKE!
Cake: What?
Sloppy: I made you something, and I need you to try it out. Like now!
Cake: What? Now???
Sloppy: I made you two grind-boxes for your skateboard!
Cake: (Excited) Really?
Sloppy: Yes. TWO of them!
Cake: Can I invite, NAME, NAME, and NAME over?
Sloppy: Oh, I suppose!
Dear Reader, Grind Fest 2023 started around 1300 EST. The cops arrived shortly after 1400 EST. Many of you are aware this is not my first rodeo with my neighbors. This also holds true for the local law enforcement. Two officers arrived, one for me, and the other for my wonderful neighbors.
Joe Friday: (Laughing) What are we out here for this time?
Sloppy: Hear the laughter emanating from my backyard?
Joe Friday: (Puzzled) Yeah?
Sloppy: That! They are terribly opposed to children having fun, especially on skateboards.
Joe Friday: Really?
Sloppy: Yes, but I surmise they called you complaining about “ramps.”
Joe Friday: (Laughing) Yes, it came across the radio as “unauthorized ramps.”
Sloppy: Yes! So CITY NAME has an ordinance ban on skateboard ramps…
Joe Friday: Are you serious?
Sloppy: Exactly. I built a quarter-pipe for Christmas, and they had a Codes and Compliance Officer at my house within forty-eight hours…
Joe Friday: Wow. They sound petty!
Other cop comes from Karen’s house; Pow-Wow commences.
Joe Friday: Sir, I was unaware of the city ordinance, but you clearly are. They are complaining that you are in violation again.
Sloppy: Indeed, but I don’t have a ramp.
Joe Friday: What?
Sloppy: Please, come with me!
Joe Friday 1 and Joe Friday 2 come to see the “ramp!”
Joe Friday 1 and Joe Friday 2 watch the children skateboard on not-ramp.
Sloppy returns to DMZ
Sloppy: Are you really that wretched?
Karen: Excuse me?
Sloppy: They’re kids. They’re doing what kids do, playing outside and having fun!
Karen: (Smirk) They’re loud, obnoxious, and playing on ramps.
Cops are returning
Sloppy: Did you fail third grade math?
Karen: Excuse me…
Sloppy: DID. YOU. FAIL. THIRD. GRADE. MATH???
Joe Friday 2: Let’s try to keep it civil folks!
Sloppy: Sure! So, I assume the children are free to resume?
Joe Friday 1: Yup. Nothing to see here.
Karen: EXCUSE ME? AFTER THE RAMP IS GONE, RIGHT!?!
Sloppy: See clearly you failed the “Shapes” portion of schooling! It’s not a ramp, it’s a box…
Karen: IT’S NOT A BOX…
Sloppy: You’re right! It’s more of a rectangle…definitely a parallelogram of sorts…
Joe Friday 1 “Laugh-Coughs”
Joe Friday 2: He’s correct ma’am. It’s not a ramp. They are two boxes…
Sloppy: Rectangles
Joe Friday: (Looking at the Slop) Sir, we don’t need to make this an issue. (Back to Karen) They are “rectangles,” not ramps.
Karen: But they’re loud…
Sloppy: Fuck yeah they are!
Joe Friday 1 “Laugh-Coughs” again
Joe Friday 2: Yes! They’re loud, but no louder than a lawnmower or weed eater.
Karen: (Toward Sloppy) YOU! YOU DID THIS ON PURPOSE.
Joe Friday 2: I seriously doubt…
Sloppy: Oh, I did!
Joe Friday 2: Sir, you are not helping…
Sloppy: I apologize. You’re correct. I will try to be more helpful!
Joe Friday 2: (The “Finally” Look) Thank you. So, as I stated, they are not violating anything. Let’s just try to be civil and go about our days.
Karen screams, “THIS IS RIDICULOUS” and storms into the house!
Joe Friday 2: Wow! (Looks to Sloppy) Are they always like this?
Sloppy: Always. Hey, in the spirit of being helpful, I would like to inform you that grey car (Ken Jr) registration is expired.
Joe Friday 2: (Laughing) Thank you for being helpful!
Joe Friday 2 looks at tags
Dear Reader, Joe Friday 2 returned to the car and began flipping through a notebook of sorts. I was fairly certain it was the ticketing notebook. There was only one way to be positive though; wait and heckle if correct. I waited about ten minutes before Joe Friday 2 exited his cruiser and returned to North Korea. There was a minor dilemma though. I could not hear or see anything from my garage, and going their property was out of the question.
Sloppy walks out in the middle of the street
Joe Friday 2 is explaining “something”
Sloppy is waving in the middle of the street
Joe Friday turns to leave
Sees Sloppy
Shakes head, laughs (A LOT)
Ken Jr: You’re a real fucking asshole!
Sloppy: Woah! Me?!? I am just trying to find common ground here!
Karen: COMMON GROUND?
Sloppy: Yeah. “Compliance!” You were kind enough to ensure my boxes were in compliance, and I simply want to return the favor.
Window rolls down
Joe Friday 2: Sir, like I stated, your car will have to be moved to the driveway until it is registered and undergoes the state emissions test.
Ken Jr: Yes Officer.
Cops leave quickly!
Sloppy is still in the street!
Sloppy: Hey Ken, you’ll need to move one of your cars so Junior can fit in the driveway.
Historic moment incoming!
Ken: Oh, you can go FUCK YOURSELF!
Dear Reader, I was perplexed. Captain Jesus unmounted his high-horse and cussed me out. This cold war has been roaring for the last three years, but I had never witnessed Ken cuss. It seems I had struck a chord.
Sloppy: Ken! Really? I have a neighborhood of young impressionable kids making all kinds of noise in my backyard, and you have the audacity to start dropping the F-Bomb? Wow!
Ken: (Nearing a Mental Break) YEAH. YOU. CAN. GO. FUCK. YOURSELF!!!
Karen: WE CAN’T EVEN SIT ON OUR BACK DECK AND ENJOY THE WEATHER BECAUSE YOU’RE KIDS ARE TOO LOUD
Meanwhile…
Ken Jr drives car down to cul-de-sac to turn around
Sloppy jumps in 4Runner and occupies Ken Jr’s old spot!
Ken: (Irate) WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Sloppy: Trying to be neighborly. I will have the boys skateboard in my driveway so you can enjoy the backyard!
Karen: You think you’re cute? We will just park in front of your house.
Ken: Yeah, I will just park in front of your house.
Sloppy: Fine by me. I don’t have cameras out front though. It’s going to be hard to see who dings it up with lacrosse balls.
Ken Jr returns and parks in driveway
Ken Jr: Why the hell are you parked in front of my house?
Sloppy: Junior, Junior, Junior, we’ve had this conversation before. YOU don’t have a house. You’re parents do. You’re 50 year old stay-at-home son. Remember???
Ken Jr: (Pointing) That’s my spot.
Sloppy: Adults are talking!
Lots of yelling starts…
Sloppy returns to house
Sloppy close garage door
I win! I won! Ken, Karen, and Junior knew Sloppy won the battle. They retreated into their house and began licking their wounds. Okay, how many of you honestly believe that occurred? Karen certainly retreated into her house, but she is not capable of accepting defeat. Karen opted to play with fire. She opted to use the tactic that started this entire war.
Door to garage opens
Cake: She’s recording us again Dad!
Sloppy opens garage door
Karen: Oh. Look. Another person to record.
Sloppy: (Not Impressed) I thought we had this conversation before!
Karen: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Sloppy: Okay. Well, I will hit the wavetops for you. You record my children…
Karen: Which is legal!
Sloppy: Yes. I know! “There is no expectation of privacy in public.” However, it’s morally corrupt for a 70 year old lady to heckle and videotape children. I suppose you can record me cutting your tree next!?!
Karen: (Nervous) What?
Sloppy: Yeah, I’ve had enough of your shit. I will probably get a couple feet of your juniper tree trimmed before the Ken’s get a tow strap. Remember, everything that overhangs my property is free game!
The Fuck-Around-and-Find-Out had startled Karen. There was genuine fear in her eyes, and the ensuing panic was comical. Two hundred pounds of human Jell-O attempted to run for the door. Her extremities were moving vigorously, but her body refused to move. It was “mall walk” at best.
Karen: KEN. KEN. KEN.
I made it to the backyard with what felt like an infinity to spare. Karen ran through the house and poked out the back door. Ken and Junior ran to the back yard knowing they had failed. It was a Mexican standoff. Seriously, it was a comical standoff. I had the clippers in the “ready to eat” position as I exclaimed…
Sloppy: DON’T MOVE OR I WILL CUT IT!
Then tension was palpable. I have no issue with the ongoing war, but I draw issue when Karen records children. I vividly remember this exact predicament years prior. Don’t record crib midgets or mini humans and I won’t cut your tree.
Karen: I STOPPED RECORDING!
Sloppy: Yes, but you recorded. I said that was the “red line.” That is the ONE THING you DON’T DO.
Karen: I STOPPED!
Sloppy: Ken, how much do you think is fair?
Ken: (Puzzled) What?
Sloppy: Oh, this will not go unpunished. HOW. MUCH. Do you think is fair?
Karen: RUN!
Writing “Hysterical Laughter” does not justify how hard I was laughing. I literally could not see through the joyful tears that were streaming down my face. I apologize for being a killjoy, but I did not cut the tree.
Dear Reader: What? Sloppy? Are you serious?
Sloppy: Yes!
Dear Reader: Why?
It’s no secret, but I live in a very large Home Owners Association (HOA). It is also no secret that I am “in” with one of the highest-ranking Board Members. Sue, Board Member, frequently reaches out for her dose of comedy. She is fully aware of the ongoing feud, and she has grown to despise them as much as I do. Sue quickly became sick of the baseless accusations. However, Sue is not capable of retaliation. For the most part…
Last week was my neighborhoods “Spring Assessment.” The HOA essentially audits to the houses for appearance, and to ensure everyone is following the archaic rules established by the HOA. You either get a post card thanking you for keeping everything neat and tidy, or you get a Nasty-Gram stating you have thirty-days to fix your deficiencies.
Sue was kind enough to inform me about the drive-by inspections days prior. I am sure it comes as no surprise, but using a neon green tow strap to tether a juniper tree to a back porch is not kosher. Sue was kind enough to tell me they have thirty-days to rectify their deficiency.
TODAY 11:39 EST
HOA Truck drives through neighborhood
Sloppy is woodworking with garage door open
Sue stops by
Sue: Howdy!
Sloppy: Hey!
Sue: (Laughing) They wrote a rebuttal letter.
Sloppy: (Puzzled) They?
Pause
Sloppy: Oh. “They!” About what?
Sue: It may come as a surprise, but you cannot tow strap trees to the porch.
Sloppy: You don’t say!?!
Sue: (Laughing Harder) They said they are being “held hostage” and “fear our tree will be cut.”
Sloppy: Fucking FINALLY!
Sue: Finally what?
Sloppy: They are finally being honest about something.
Sue: Are you going to cut the tree?
Sloppy: The juniper? No, but they don’t know that.
Sue: They have three weeks to figure it out.
Sloppy: Thus the reason they have been kind lately.
Sue: So, what are you going to do?
Sloppy: Give them every indication I fully intend on cutting the tree.
Dear Reader, they have three weeks. They have three weeks to gravel and beg me to not chop their precious juniper tree down. Honestly, I have two trees hostage right now, and I do not plan on losing my leverage unless I find another ace. I am sure they will revert to playing nice in hopes I will forget, but I will take every single opportunity to drive the screws to them. I am not going to cut the tree, but that does not mean I won’t try to break them.
Cheers FUckers!
2023.03.30 17:55 RangerFrank Deathworld Commando: Reborn-Vol.6 SS- A King's Guarantee. Part.1
CoverVol.1PreviousNextMapsWiki+DiscordRoyal RoadWebNovelTapasKo-FiFandom/wiki
Remember, the end of the volume recap is coming; make sure you check that out. She's a big one.
And yes, I know I'm splitting these chapters weirdly. It's because the recap is just that big.
---
King Maxwell’s POV
Mmm…yes…today is another good day. The soreness in my arms just won’t go away. What a wonderful feeling. Me? Sore? It’s been years…that man is truly something. My only regret is that I didn’t get to meet him sooner.
“Ah, Your Majesty, are you injured? You keep nursing your arm as if you are in pain…” Arbra asked hesitantly.
I just chuckled at her concern. “There is nothing to worry about, Arbra! It’s a good pain that your magic would only take away from me!”
Arbra bowed deeply. “I’m so sorry, Your Majesty, I had no idea!” she shouted. “Please for—”
Sigh…this is also why I like Kaladin so much. I feel as if he doesn’t care that I’m the king and treats me like a comrade. Well, he wants to, but whatever sense of formality he has keeps getting in the way. It’s been too long since I’ve been around those kinds of people. I wish he would just forget that I was a ruler.
Arbra looked up at me with teary eyes. “H—have I offended you?”
I gave the poor girl a pat on the shoulder. “Why are you crying, Arbra? Raise your head. People might think that I abuse you or something. I’m simply just thinking about this and that. Pay no mind to me.”
Arbra’s smile returned as she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Sometimes people like her could be so burdensome, but she’s a good soul and a trusted healer. If I could call old man Paine, I’d like nothing more, but I could hardly do that for such a personal reason.
I just wonder when she is coming…you know, come to think of it, I never did ask Kaladin if it was Sylvia.
I just assumed it would be her, after all. Her strength has been recorded more than once. She felled a Troll with ease and can even train with Kaladin on equal footing. Plus, she was some kind of ancient Vampire that could survive even the strike of a Dragon? If somebody was on the verge of being a War God, it had to be her, right?
“I already know she is a War God. She has the aptitude. She is just missing…something. And sadly, I don’t know what that something is.”
What an exciting thing to say to someone. It almost sounded like a hopeful parent that was full of themselves. A person should be very aware if they are a War God or not. At a young age, the differences might not be noticeable, but they should become evident over time. But since it was Kaladin that said that, I had to believe the man’s intuition.
“Your Majesty, may I ask why you have retrieved me so suddenly? Are you expecting another fight…”Arba asked meekly.
“Ah, I suppose I did abruptly rip you from your duties. But it seems you already answered your own question!” I laughed. “I’m here on a personal favor from a friend!”
She gave me a blank look. “Huh? Friend?”
I slapped her on the shoulder a few times and nodded while I looked out at the courtyard. “Yes! A friend! Haha!”
Now then…oh? Who—oh…it’s her? Huh… interesting.
Breathtaking long muscular legs that strode through the halls, hair as white as the freshest snow, and a face straight out of a painting. I’d only seen her from a distance but she was truly a beautiful woman. To think Kaladin could surround himself with such beauties and remain unaffected. He’s as strong-willed as they came.
My daughters are nothing to scoff at, but they need to get their heads out of the mud! Haha!
“Yo! Ah…damn…Celia!?” I yelled. “That’s your name, right?! Come!”
Damn, I should have read her file more. I didn’t think much about it, and my concerns have lied elsewhere recently.
…
“It appears she is ignoring you, Your Majesty,” Abra commented as the woman continued to walk down the hall.
“Well, that’s rude,” I muttered as I picked a clump of snow up and reared back. “Haha! This should grab her attention!” I yelled as I tossed the snowball.
Whoosh.
“It appears she dodged your attack, Your Majesty,” Abra stated.
“Thanks, Abra. I appreciate the narration,” I mumbled.
She dodged at the last moment, and what’s with that disgusted look on her face? And wait—wait! Why is she walking away?!
“Now, I can’t stand for that!” I yelled as I took off toward her.
Once again, she flicked around at the last moment and batted my arm away. It seemed her instincts were pretty good, but that’s to be expected from a Beastmen.
I intended on testing her today anyway, so let’s find out what Kaladin sees in this girl!
“Show me what you got!” I chuckled.
Of course, I had no intentions of going all out. I just planned on picking up the pace a bit. I wonder if that sword was just for decoration!
I put a little more oomph into the next series of attacks, and she unsheathed her sword and deftly parried and blocked my attacks. Her speed was pretty good, and she had no trouble reading my simple attacks, so let’s go a step further!
Let’s see some footwork!
I stepped into her aggressively and started swinging with more precision, randomizing my punches as I forced her onto her back foot. She gave a short slice at my exposed ribs, and I coated the strike zone in crystal. I had purposely left myself open to see if she would capitalize, and she did just that.
I jumped back and crossed my arms, and went into deep thought. I had to examine her in a more favorable light now. She was indeed skilled as she was beautiful. Her footwork and blade skills were well-honed. Not perfect by any means, but far better than most.
My only critique at this moment was that she seemed too practiced. One could swing a sword under instruction all day for eternity, but if they never put that practice into any worthwhile experience, it would amount to nothing but eye candy. Even so, saying she was entirely without experience wasn’t right either…mmm…
And there was something off about it all. Her swings and her stance didn't seem to match her weapon choice. She was using a typical iron sword, but her movements and stance indicated she was used to something a bit heftier.
Does this mean there is an imbalance in her skills, practice, and experience? Or is she perhaps holding back? Mhm…I wonder if she is using a weapon that’s not her primary one. Only people who want to hide their power do that. Is that why Kaladin sees she has the aptitude but isn’t able to apply them
No…more testing is needed before I can come to a decision. I’m getting pumped already! Haha!
“To think I’d be this serious! All you young ones are impressive these days!” I said with a laugh.
The girl looked at me like I was a strange creature. Suddenly a black stone tablet materialized from thin air, and she started writing on it.
the tablet read, the lettering glowing a faint blue light.
I could feel my jaw drop. “Who am I?” I asked in utter disbelief.
The Beastmen nodded her head, her confused look not disappearing. I tapped my head to make sure my crown was still there. “There is a crown on my head! I’m the king! What is there to be confused about?”
A flash of understanding crossed her face as she started writing on the tablet with her finger.
Muscle…bound…pervert?
…
I heard somebody gasping and looked back at Abra, who was white as a sheet and wholly mortified. I guess she must have read the tablet and had quite the shock. But me…I couldn’t contain my laughter.
“That’s a new one! To think you would insult me directly to my face! You are, without a doubt, a friend of Kaladin’s!” I yelled into the afternoon air.
But wait a moment…that collar…is she his friend? Have I been rude and insulted his fiance or…mhm…questions to be answered, I’m sure.
“Now that you’ve connected the dots, it’s time for a true test! I’ll be getting serious, so prepare yourself, Cela!” I shouted as I bounded toward her.
She gave me a slightly miffed look before the tablet disappeared, and her sword blocked my first strike. But now, I would test her strength. Beastmen weren’t just known for their heightened senses and speed but also for their strength! I can already tell Kaladin has trained her just by looking at her body!
I brought both my fists up and sent them down with the full intention of crushing her with pure strength. Before, I hadn't been putting much effort into my strikes, but now every blow from me would come at a cost if it connected. The only way to see someone’s true worth was to put them in danger!
“Oh! As strong as you are beautiful!” I yelled in excitement, hoping to get a reaction out of her.
But she didn’t even react to my words as she blocked my double power strike with the strength befitting a War God candidate. I wonder if she was perhaps what the Beastmen called a Child of The Hunt? A rare individual amongst their race. Even though I don’t quite understand the qualifications for what makes a Beastmen a Child of The Hunt, I know they are supposed to be quite strong.
I mean, her mana enhancement was where it needed to be! No doubts about it—
Huh? A spell core?
I couldn’t help but marvel at the feeling of a spell core suddenly being formed in front of me. Its instantaneous formation from her feet was nothing short of pure talent and skill. And she did that all while maintaining her mana enhancement, not so much as faltering even an inch.
I let the spell hit my chest, which was covered in my crystal, and broke away from our little grapple. Tiny ice spears floated around her, and she aimed her sword at me. I just laughed, which probably made her angry, judging by her expression.
She was just like Kaladin, and they were just like those taught in the Holy Kingdom of Arotal. That ability to cast magic and form spell cores without a drop in mana enhancement was a talent many high-ranking officials from that country possessed.
It took me almost a decade to unlearn my habits and learn their technique, and even then, I could only copy it. I don’t mean to brag, but I was a cut above the rest. I tried to teach their technique to all three of my children, but none of them could learn it. Even Bowen was unable to perform the technique.
To be honest, it was a technique only those who possessed talent and were brought up with it could learn. I thought Kaladin was simply a genius of that caliber, but now I’ve seen a pattern.
Who trained those two? Alanis was not capable of using that technique either, so does that mean it was The Lightning Witch? Ah…I’m just so excited.
I burst forward and crushed down the spells that were thrown at me. Most of them I ignored, allowing them to break harmlessly against my body. It was slightly annoying that she wasn’t putting more strength into her spells. If she could manifest them this quickly, I expected the power to be more!
I guess I just need to show her how serious I am.
I increased my speed suddenly and arrived in front of her. Her amber-orange eyes went wide. She managed to block my fists, but this entire time I had only used them. She tried to react, but she was too slow for me. My kick landed on her quad with a meaty smack followed by a loud crack. She buckled to the floor and yelped in pain. I had broken her leg.
A flurry of ice spikes came at me, and I retreated instead of finishing her off. I wasn’t done testing her yet. I was far too curious to end things so soon.
“Arbra! Heal her leg!” I ordered.
Arbra scurried off from the side, mumbling apologies to her as a golden light left her hands and infused the injury. Celia looked to be in quite a bit of pain, but a moment of confusion appeared in her eyes only to disappear. She stood on her freshly healed leg without a lick of hesitation.
So an injury like that is nothing to her? Sure, she reacted to the pain, but that’s only natural. To stand right back up after having your leg healed isn’t normal. It appears her will was quite tempered. And those eyes…
Her eyes blazed with a cold fury that wasn’t there before. She dropped her sword into a low guard, a position that was more suited for a long or even a great sword, and I felt a powerful spell core being formed.
A gust of wind blasted me, and a blizzard suddenly appeared around me. The cold wind whipped at my exposed skin, and I could feel minor cuts on my face.
Finally, show me what Kaladin sees in you!
I swatted down an incoming spell core only to be momentarily covered in water. I hadn’t expected her to be able to use water magic while maintaining this silent blizzard, which was another odd phenomenon. Only for my surprise to grow as I felt a powerful wind arrow approaching me.
It cut through the blizzard and had enough power to rip a limb off, but I batted it away. I was buffeted by powerful spell after spell, and I couldn’t contain my laughter. I thought the speed at which she formed her spells was at least the skill of a Master mage, but to think she could use three schools of magic to this proficiency. Of course, she may just be a Grandmaster mage, but I felt that something was off.
I decided I was done gauging those spells and burst through the blizzard right at her. She had positioned herself behind me using her magic as cover and near silent steps. Beastmen were also tricky ones. They seemed to be able to disappear from most people’s senses when they wanted to.
But not mine.
I punched forward and expected a look of surprise, but Celia was more than ready for me. I was greeted by two large ice spikes aiming for my legs and a sword aiming to cut my head off my shoulders. I kicked one of the spikes down and used its debris against her, sending chunks of ice magic into her face, only for those chunks to melt into harmless water that splattered against her face.
Amazing, she was maintaining control over her spells the entire time while also striking at me. Truly fantastic, I thought as I slipped under her swing.
I punched her underneath the leather breastplate and grabbed Celia by the belt, and gave her a good toss into the wall, just like ol’ Kaladin. But unlike Kaladin, I was ready to end things here, or…so I thought.
Amazing. Truly amazing. I’m actually feeling the need to preserve my life. How long has it been?
I felt dozens of spell cores form around me, and the puddle I stood in turned into a creeping frost that threatened to consume me. Dozens of ice spears formed from the snow left by the blizzard, and I watched as a wall of ice formed only for the girl to use it to bounce rebound off of and aim straight for me once more.
She had completely changed the battlefield to suit her, something very few mages could do, let alone at the level she showed. And it appeared she even led me by the nose. How far ahead did she plan all of this? Did she anticipate these things the moment she used the blizzard to distract me and morph the battlefield?
But I also understood what Kaladin meant when he said she had the “aptitude.” Why she felt so close yet so far, she had all these well-honed skills and even put them into practical use. And despite having the upper hand on me.
It just wasn’t enough.
I forced mana into my body at a much greater rate and felt the familiar feeling of my crystals enveloping me. Her spells crashed against me, but I remained steadfast as I moved forward. Her eyes widened again in surprise, and it was the last thing I saw before I grabbed her by the face and sent her face down into the snowy soil with a loud boom.
I turned my head slowly. “Arbra, heal her,” I ordered.
Arbra slowly nodded her head like she was in a daze. “I’ll be gone for a while. I have an old friend to find. Please see to it that she is comfortable.”
---
Bowen Taurus’s POV
I gave the door a solid knock and announced myself. “I have arrived as you requested, Your Majesty.”
“Good! Hurry up and come in, old friend!” the king bellowed.
Sigh…would it kill him to uphold a little bit of digni—huh?
“Cerila? Why…why is she here? Why is she unconscious?”
The king smacked his fist into a meaty palm. “Ah! Her name was Cerila! That’s why she was annoyed with me!” he said with a chuckle. But he puffed his lips out at me. “And unconscious? Why are you assuming that? Maybe she is just sleeping.”
I just sighed and shook my head. “The girl may be deaf, but your incensive laughter could wake the dead.”
King Maxwell looked at me with an expression of surprise as his head snapped back and forth between the sleeping Cerila and me. “She’s deaf? Like really deaf? No hearing at all?”
“That’s right…please tell me you knew that,” I muttered in disbelief. I could feel a headache coming on.
“That makes so much sense. I thought she was just shy or a mute,” the king mumbled to himself. “Tell me, why hasn’t anyone healed her? She is close to Kaladin, no?”
I walked into the room and sat down in an available chair. “I’ve already spoken with them on the matter. She was born deaf, and not even a Grandmaster light mage could heal her ears. So—Your Majesty?”
Bishop wore a thoughtful expression. His deep blue eyes were wide and searching for something, and I felt my skin start to crawl somewhat when he looked at me. “A Grandmaster light mage, you say…tell me, is that confirmed?” he asked, his voice lacking the friendly tone he typically used.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him like this, not since he first started to investigate Kaladin.
“I’ve heard the same thing from three different sources, including Cerila when I spoke with her at great length. I have no reason to believe any of them are lying to me at this point. The girl is completely deaf,” I explained.
King Maxwell rubbed his chin slowly. “So…do we know who trained Kaladin and this girl?”
Wait, I thought he cared more about her deafness…what is this about?
“Kaladin has mentioned to me before that his teacher was his grandfather,” I told him.
The king looked even more surprised at that but quickly shook his head. “That’s impossible. Neither of those old Elves would have come into contact with—”
“That’s because it wasn’t a blood-related grandfather but an adoptive one of sorts. I’ve met him once or twice now. He’s an old Human man at the end of his life. And appears to be quite smart and witty despite his declining age. He often teaches the young ones various skills at my spare home.”
“An old Human man…isn’t Kaladin from Syn’nari?” the king trailed off.
Wait!
I shot out of my seat. “Wait a moment…a Grandmaster light mage in Syn’nari… are you suggesting their teacher and Grandfather is a remnant of the Holy King invasion force?”
The king smirked and crossed his arms. “It’s not a suggestion. It’s almost a guarantee at this point.”
I ran a hand through my beard. “The old man referred to himself as a doctor, so I never questioned why he considered himself to be one. Even Kaladin’s parents call him Dr. Jacobs. And the man doesn’t seem to be pious or even wear symbols of the faith. I never connected these points because I didn’t think they were relevant.”
…
submitted by RangerFrank to HFY [link] [comments]
Remember, the end of the volume recap is coming; make sure you check that out. She's a big one.
And yes, I know I'm splitting these chapters weirdly. It's because the recap is just that big.
---
King Maxwell’s POV
Mmm…yes…today is another good day. The soreness in my arms just won’t go away. What a wonderful feeling. Me? Sore? It’s been years…that man is truly something. My only regret is that I didn’t get to meet him sooner.
“Ah, Your Majesty, are you injured? You keep nursing your arm as if you are in pain…” Arbra asked hesitantly.
I just chuckled at her concern. “There is nothing to worry about, Arbra! It’s a good pain that your magic would only take away from me!”
Arbra bowed deeply. “I’m so sorry, Your Majesty, I had no idea!” she shouted. “Please for—”
Sigh…this is also why I like Kaladin so much. I feel as if he doesn’t care that I’m the king and treats me like a comrade. Well, he wants to, but whatever sense of formality he has keeps getting in the way. It’s been too long since I’ve been around those kinds of people. I wish he would just forget that I was a ruler.
Arbra looked up at me with teary eyes. “H—have I offended you?”
I gave the poor girl a pat on the shoulder. “Why are you crying, Arbra? Raise your head. People might think that I abuse you or something. I’m simply just thinking about this and that. Pay no mind to me.”
Arbra’s smile returned as she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Sometimes people like her could be so burdensome, but she’s a good soul and a trusted healer. If I could call old man Paine, I’d like nothing more, but I could hardly do that for such a personal reason.
I just wonder when she is coming…you know, come to think of it, I never did ask Kaladin if it was Sylvia.
I just assumed it would be her, after all. Her strength has been recorded more than once. She felled a Troll with ease and can even train with Kaladin on equal footing. Plus, she was some kind of ancient Vampire that could survive even the strike of a Dragon? If somebody was on the verge of being a War God, it had to be her, right?
“I already know she is a War God. She has the aptitude. She is just missing…something. And sadly, I don’t know what that something is.”
What an exciting thing to say to someone. It almost sounded like a hopeful parent that was full of themselves. A person should be very aware if they are a War God or not. At a young age, the differences might not be noticeable, but they should become evident over time. But since it was Kaladin that said that, I had to believe the man’s intuition.
“Your Majesty, may I ask why you have retrieved me so suddenly? Are you expecting another fight…”Arba asked meekly.
“Ah, I suppose I did abruptly rip you from your duties. But it seems you already answered your own question!” I laughed. “I’m here on a personal favor from a friend!”
She gave me a blank look. “Huh? Friend?”
I slapped her on the shoulder a few times and nodded while I looked out at the courtyard. “Yes! A friend! Haha!”
Now then…oh? Who—oh…it’s her? Huh… interesting.
Breathtaking long muscular legs that strode through the halls, hair as white as the freshest snow, and a face straight out of a painting. I’d only seen her from a distance but she was truly a beautiful woman. To think Kaladin could surround himself with such beauties and remain unaffected. He’s as strong-willed as they came.
My daughters are nothing to scoff at, but they need to get their heads out of the mud! Haha!
“Yo! Ah…damn…Celia!?” I yelled. “That’s your name, right?! Come!”
Damn, I should have read her file more. I didn’t think much about it, and my concerns have lied elsewhere recently.
…
“It appears she is ignoring you, Your Majesty,” Abra commented as the woman continued to walk down the hall.
“Well, that’s rude,” I muttered as I picked a clump of snow up and reared back. “Haha! This should grab her attention!” I yelled as I tossed the snowball.
Whoosh.
“It appears she dodged your attack, Your Majesty,” Abra stated.
“Thanks, Abra. I appreciate the narration,” I mumbled.
She dodged at the last moment, and what’s with that disgusted look on her face? And wait—wait! Why is she walking away?!
“Now, I can’t stand for that!” I yelled as I took off toward her.
Once again, she flicked around at the last moment and batted my arm away. It seemed her instincts were pretty good, but that’s to be expected from a Beastmen.
I intended on testing her today anyway, so let’s find out what Kaladin sees in this girl!
“Show me what you got!” I chuckled.
Of course, I had no intentions of going all out. I just planned on picking up the pace a bit. I wonder if that sword was just for decoration!
I put a little more oomph into the next series of attacks, and she unsheathed her sword and deftly parried and blocked my attacks. Her speed was pretty good, and she had no trouble reading my simple attacks, so let’s go a step further!
Let’s see some footwork!
I stepped into her aggressively and started swinging with more precision, randomizing my punches as I forced her onto her back foot. She gave a short slice at my exposed ribs, and I coated the strike zone in crystal. I had purposely left myself open to see if she would capitalize, and she did just that.
I jumped back and crossed my arms, and went into deep thought. I had to examine her in a more favorable light now. She was indeed skilled as she was beautiful. Her footwork and blade skills were well-honed. Not perfect by any means, but far better than most.
My only critique at this moment was that she seemed too practiced. One could swing a sword under instruction all day for eternity, but if they never put that practice into any worthwhile experience, it would amount to nothing but eye candy. Even so, saying she was entirely without experience wasn’t right either…mmm…
And there was something off about it all. Her swings and her stance didn't seem to match her weapon choice. She was using a typical iron sword, but her movements and stance indicated she was used to something a bit heftier.
Does this mean there is an imbalance in her skills, practice, and experience? Or is she perhaps holding back? Mhm…I wonder if she is using a weapon that’s not her primary one. Only people who want to hide their power do that. Is that why Kaladin sees she has the aptitude but isn’t able to apply them
No…more testing is needed before I can come to a decision. I’m getting pumped already! Haha!
“To think I’d be this serious! All you young ones are impressive these days!” I said with a laugh.
The girl looked at me like I was a strange creature. Suddenly a black stone tablet materialized from thin air, and she started writing on it.
I could feel my jaw drop. “Who am I?” I asked in utter disbelief.
The Beastmen nodded her head, her confused look not disappearing. I tapped my head to make sure my crown was still there. “There is a crown on my head! I’m the king! What is there to be confused about?”
A flash of understanding crossed her face as she started writing on the tablet with her finger.
Muscle…bound…pervert?
…
I heard somebody gasping and looked back at Abra, who was white as a sheet and wholly mortified. I guess she must have read the tablet and had quite the shock. But me…I couldn’t contain my laughter.
“That’s a new one! To think you would insult me directly to my face! You are, without a doubt, a friend of Kaladin’s!” I yelled into the afternoon air.
But wait a moment…that collar…is she his friend? Have I been rude and insulted his fiance or…mhm…questions to be answered, I’m sure.
“Now that you’ve connected the dots, it’s time for a true test! I’ll be getting serious, so prepare yourself, Cela!” I shouted as I bounded toward her.
She gave me a slightly miffed look before the tablet disappeared, and her sword blocked my first strike. But now, I would test her strength. Beastmen weren’t just known for their heightened senses and speed but also for their strength! I can already tell Kaladin has trained her just by looking at her body!
I brought both my fists up and sent them down with the full intention of crushing her with pure strength. Before, I hadn't been putting much effort into my strikes, but now every blow from me would come at a cost if it connected. The only way to see someone’s true worth was to put them in danger!
“Oh! As strong as you are beautiful!” I yelled in excitement, hoping to get a reaction out of her.
But she didn’t even react to my words as she blocked my double power strike with the strength befitting a War God candidate. I wonder if she was perhaps what the Beastmen called a Child of The Hunt? A rare individual amongst their race. Even though I don’t quite understand the qualifications for what makes a Beastmen a Child of The Hunt, I know they are supposed to be quite strong.
I mean, her mana enhancement was where it needed to be! No doubts about it—
Huh? A spell core?
I couldn’t help but marvel at the feeling of a spell core suddenly being formed in front of me. Its instantaneous formation from her feet was nothing short of pure talent and skill. And she did that all while maintaining her mana enhancement, not so much as faltering even an inch.
I let the spell hit my chest, which was covered in my crystal, and broke away from our little grapple. Tiny ice spears floated around her, and she aimed her sword at me. I just laughed, which probably made her angry, judging by her expression.
She was just like Kaladin, and they were just like those taught in the Holy Kingdom of Arotal. That ability to cast magic and form spell cores without a drop in mana enhancement was a talent many high-ranking officials from that country possessed.
It took me almost a decade to unlearn my habits and learn their technique, and even then, I could only copy it. I don’t mean to brag, but I was a cut above the rest. I tried to teach their technique to all three of my children, but none of them could learn it. Even Bowen was unable to perform the technique.
To be honest, it was a technique only those who possessed talent and were brought up with it could learn. I thought Kaladin was simply a genius of that caliber, but now I’ve seen a pattern.
Who trained those two? Alanis was not capable of using that technique either, so does that mean it was The Lightning Witch? Ah…I’m just so excited.
I burst forward and crushed down the spells that were thrown at me. Most of them I ignored, allowing them to break harmlessly against my body. It was slightly annoying that she wasn’t putting more strength into her spells. If she could manifest them this quickly, I expected the power to be more!
I guess I just need to show her how serious I am.
I increased my speed suddenly and arrived in front of her. Her amber-orange eyes went wide. She managed to block my fists, but this entire time I had only used them. She tried to react, but she was too slow for me. My kick landed on her quad with a meaty smack followed by a loud crack. She buckled to the floor and yelped in pain. I had broken her leg.
A flurry of ice spikes came at me, and I retreated instead of finishing her off. I wasn’t done testing her yet. I was far too curious to end things so soon.
“Arbra! Heal her leg!” I ordered.
Arbra scurried off from the side, mumbling apologies to her as a golden light left her hands and infused the injury. Celia looked to be in quite a bit of pain, but a moment of confusion appeared in her eyes only to disappear. She stood on her freshly healed leg without a lick of hesitation.
So an injury like that is nothing to her? Sure, she reacted to the pain, but that’s only natural. To stand right back up after having your leg healed isn’t normal. It appears her will was quite tempered. And those eyes…
Her eyes blazed with a cold fury that wasn’t there before. She dropped her sword into a low guard, a position that was more suited for a long or even a great sword, and I felt a powerful spell core being formed.
A gust of wind blasted me, and a blizzard suddenly appeared around me. The cold wind whipped at my exposed skin, and I could feel minor cuts on my face.
Finally, show me what Kaladin sees in you!
I swatted down an incoming spell core only to be momentarily covered in water. I hadn’t expected her to be able to use water magic while maintaining this silent blizzard, which was another odd phenomenon. Only for my surprise to grow as I felt a powerful wind arrow approaching me.
It cut through the blizzard and had enough power to rip a limb off, but I batted it away. I was buffeted by powerful spell after spell, and I couldn’t contain my laughter. I thought the speed at which she formed her spells was at least the skill of a Master mage, but to think she could use three schools of magic to this proficiency. Of course, she may just be a Grandmaster mage, but I felt that something was off.
I decided I was done gauging those spells and burst through the blizzard right at her. She had positioned herself behind me using her magic as cover and near silent steps. Beastmen were also tricky ones. They seemed to be able to disappear from most people’s senses when they wanted to.
But not mine.
I punched forward and expected a look of surprise, but Celia was more than ready for me. I was greeted by two large ice spikes aiming for my legs and a sword aiming to cut my head off my shoulders. I kicked one of the spikes down and used its debris against her, sending chunks of ice magic into her face, only for those chunks to melt into harmless water that splattered against her face.
Amazing, she was maintaining control over her spells the entire time while also striking at me. Truly fantastic, I thought as I slipped under her swing.
I punched her underneath the leather breastplate and grabbed Celia by the belt, and gave her a good toss into the wall, just like ol’ Kaladin. But unlike Kaladin, I was ready to end things here, or…so I thought.
Amazing. Truly amazing. I’m actually feeling the need to preserve my life. How long has it been?
I felt dozens of spell cores form around me, and the puddle I stood in turned into a creeping frost that threatened to consume me. Dozens of ice spears formed from the snow left by the blizzard, and I watched as a wall of ice formed only for the girl to use it to bounce rebound off of and aim straight for me once more.
She had completely changed the battlefield to suit her, something very few mages could do, let alone at the level she showed. And it appeared she even led me by the nose. How far ahead did she plan all of this? Did she anticipate these things the moment she used the blizzard to distract me and morph the battlefield?
But I also understood what Kaladin meant when he said she had the “aptitude.” Why she felt so close yet so far, she had all these well-honed skills and even put them into practical use. And despite having the upper hand on me.
It just wasn’t enough.
I forced mana into my body at a much greater rate and felt the familiar feeling of my crystals enveloping me. Her spells crashed against me, but I remained steadfast as I moved forward. Her eyes widened again in surprise, and it was the last thing I saw before I grabbed her by the face and sent her face down into the snowy soil with a loud boom.
I turned my head slowly. “Arbra, heal her,” I ordered.
Arbra slowly nodded her head like she was in a daze. “I’ll be gone for a while. I have an old friend to find. Please see to it that she is comfortable.”
---
Bowen Taurus’s POV
I gave the door a solid knock and announced myself. “I have arrived as you requested, Your Majesty.”
“Good! Hurry up and come in, old friend!” the king bellowed.
Sigh…would it kill him to uphold a little bit of digni—huh?
“Cerila? Why…why is she here? Why is she unconscious?”
The king smacked his fist into a meaty palm. “Ah! Her name was Cerila! That’s why she was annoyed with me!” he said with a chuckle. But he puffed his lips out at me. “And unconscious? Why are you assuming that? Maybe she is just sleeping.”
I just sighed and shook my head. “The girl may be deaf, but your incensive laughter could wake the dead.”
King Maxwell looked at me with an expression of surprise as his head snapped back and forth between the sleeping Cerila and me. “She’s deaf? Like really deaf? No hearing at all?”
“That’s right…please tell me you knew that,” I muttered in disbelief. I could feel a headache coming on.
“That makes so much sense. I thought she was just shy or a mute,” the king mumbled to himself. “Tell me, why hasn’t anyone healed her? She is close to Kaladin, no?”
I walked into the room and sat down in an available chair. “I’ve already spoken with them on the matter. She was born deaf, and not even a Grandmaster light mage could heal her ears. So—Your Majesty?”
Bishop wore a thoughtful expression. His deep blue eyes were wide and searching for something, and I felt my skin start to crawl somewhat when he looked at me. “A Grandmaster light mage, you say…tell me, is that confirmed?” he asked, his voice lacking the friendly tone he typically used.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him like this, not since he first started to investigate Kaladin.
“I’ve heard the same thing from three different sources, including Cerila when I spoke with her at great length. I have no reason to believe any of them are lying to me at this point. The girl is completely deaf,” I explained.
King Maxwell rubbed his chin slowly. “So…do we know who trained Kaladin and this girl?”
Wait, I thought he cared more about her deafness…what is this about?
“Kaladin has mentioned to me before that his teacher was his grandfather,” I told him.
The king looked even more surprised at that but quickly shook his head. “That’s impossible. Neither of those old Elves would have come into contact with—”
“That’s because it wasn’t a blood-related grandfather but an adoptive one of sorts. I’ve met him once or twice now. He’s an old Human man at the end of his life. And appears to be quite smart and witty despite his declining age. He often teaches the young ones various skills at my spare home.”
“An old Human man…isn’t Kaladin from Syn’nari?” the king trailed off.
Wait!
I shot out of my seat. “Wait a moment…a Grandmaster light mage in Syn’nari… are you suggesting their teacher and Grandfather is a remnant of the Holy King invasion force?”
The king smirked and crossed his arms. “It’s not a suggestion. It’s almost a guarantee at this point.”
I ran a hand through my beard. “The old man referred to himself as a doctor, so I never questioned why he considered himself to be one. Even Kaladin’s parents call him Dr. Jacobs. And the man doesn’t seem to be pious or even wear symbols of the faith. I never connected these points because I didn’t think they were relevant.”
…
Next
2023.03.30 17:51 Black_Hills_Art SORRY NOT SORRY - I think it's him embracing his Autistic self.
The song revolves around the unmasking process that I have experienced, as a High Functioning Autistic. Upon learning I've been masking throughout my life, once the mask slipped off in adulthood, I ultimately burned many bridges. It appears that, he's referencing embracing his autism and thus, coming to terms with it, is killing his past personas or 'masks'.
I'll break down the references in the song, that lead me to believe that. This is simply my experience and perception, and I've got to be quick when establishing the framework otherwise I'll spend all day on it. My apologies if its not in line with someone else experience of if it offends anyone. I'm not diagnosing Tyler, merely connecting the patterns I witnessed in his work to what I've learned in the past year.
Sorry to my old friends The stories we coulda wrote if our egos didn't take the pen
Anyway, I don't wanna talk (Ooh) Sorry if you gotta dig for info I don't wanna give So you stalk, make up fibs, just to talk about my private life 'cause you're weird (Uh) Met that girl this year (But), that's none ya biz Give enough with my art, know your place My personal space, y'all don't need to to be a part
Sorry I'm not empathetic (Nah, I'm fuckin') Sorry you think I'm pathetic
Sorry to the fans who say I changed, 'cause I did Sorry you don't know me on a personal level to pinpoint what it is
I'm not Superman, but I could try I'm sorry I'm pretentious Sorry that the talent, knowledge, passion isn't missin' Sorry when I talk my shit and I could back it up with confidence, it get you niggas trippin', man
Again, this is merely my perception of his art and the subject of autism, but it's highly correlated in my eyes.
submitted by Black_Hills_Art to tylerthecreator [link] [comments]
I'll break down the references in the song, that lead me to believe that. This is simply my experience and perception, and I've got to be quick when establishing the framework otherwise I'll spend all day on it. My apologies if its not in line with someone else experience of if it offends anyone. I'm not diagnosing Tyler, merely connecting the patterns I witnessed in his work to what I've learned in the past year.
Sorry to my old friends The stories we coulda wrote if our egos didn't take the pen
- Autism is associated with egocentrism, the name autism comes from the Greek word 'autos', meaning self.
- A common theme among autistics, especially high functioning, is that they may get fixated on a certain person as their special interest, ultimately loosing interest for whatever reason, usually something totally unforeseen to the other party. It's a common theme in marriages, a pronounced honeymoon phase, followed by a perceived lack of interest once married.
- The guys he had to hide, is a reference to his past, but also asexuality is somewhat pronounced in autism spectrum.
Anyway, I don't wanna talk (Ooh) Sorry if you gotta dig for info I don't wanna give So you stalk, make up fibs, just to talk about my private life 'cause you're weird (Uh) Met that girl this year (But), that's none ya biz Give enough with my art, know your place My personal space, y'all don't need to to be a part
- Personal space is a hard concept to learn with someone on the spectrum. They sometimes are intrusive in other's personal space, or are highly sensitive about their own personal space.
I'm sorry I don't wanna link and small talk over dinner I don't even drink, can't guilt trip me, I'm ice cold, roller rink - Small talk is something that isn't well understood in someone with autism, which, in line with appearing to lack empathy, results in the individual appearing to be 'cold'.
- "I get my point across in as few words as possible and I rarely sugarcoat. As a result, people sometimes think I’m rude or distant. I hate cues, lies, mind games, small talk, and any otherwise social niceties. Growing up, I wanted to be social but didn’t know how, and these “differences” made it hard to form the friendships I craved. Sometimes they still do."
Sorry I'm not empathetic (Nah, I'm fuckin') Sorry you think I'm pathetic
- As mentioned above, another common theme in autistics, the perception that they have no empathy.
- "Some characterizations suggest that autistic people do not feel empathy. However, research indicates that rather than lacking empathy, autistic people may have imbalances in empathy skills compared with neurotypical people. "
Sorry to the fans who say I changed, 'cause I did Sorry you don't know me on a personal level to pinpoint what it is
- It seems this is part of the unmasking process. Often, high function autism is missed throughout ones life, until something happens which leads them to the diagnosis, at which point they learn that all their personas were merely masks they had established to fit various niches.
- Pinpointing what it is, could very well be the fact that most people are caught off guard, even ones close to someone, when they discover and unmask their autism.
I'm not Superman, but I could try I'm sorry I'm pretentious Sorry that the talent, knowledge, passion isn't missin' Sorry when I talk my shit and I could back it up with confidence, it get you niggas trippin', man
- High function autism is generally associated with higher levels of intelligence, which is believed to be what leads to the ability to form various masks in whatever social niche they want to fit into.
- Also, some autistics are highly confident with their logical abilities, which is what leads some to believing that they're a narcissist.
- When autistics have a special interest, they have great passion in said interest, which leads them to learn all the can about it.
Again, this is merely my perception of his art and the subject of autism, but it's highly correlated in my eyes.
2023.03.30 17:30 hallach_halil Halil's top 10 offensive tackles of the 2023 NFL Draft:
 | submitted by hallach_halil to NFL_Draft [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/h7yadmh65wqa1.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=71a68dc9f771977f95c872af0a8310a93c2f0d94 We’ve arrived at the big-boy portion of our positional draft rankings! After already breaking down the best running backs, linebackers, wide receivers and cornerbacks of this class, we will spend these next two weeks talking about the guys inside the trenches both inside and out for offense and defense – and we are starting with the offensive tackle position! I believe there are four small-dunk first-round players among this group, who can all be week-one starters, with varying degrees of technical advancement compared to physical upside. After that, there are five names, who I’d have no problem with all going inside the top-75, including a couple of athletic specimen, who aren’t close to the potential of players they can become one day. At number ten, there’s one more highly talented prospect, who may actually go earlier than a few names I have listed above him, based on the ceiling he presents. After that, you’re looking at more so serviceable players, who will largely be backups, along with a couple of underdeveloped kids you may want to take a flyer on day three, if you have the edges of your O-line secured for now. Just to clarify – North Dakota State’s Cody Mauch will see his name listed among the interior offensive line. Here’s how I have this group stacked up: https://preview.redd.it/7ec6hum75wqa1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d812a7c348e35b9bd2b8185c93b8e4c20ac075e0 1. Paris Johnson, Ohio State6’6”, 315-pounds; RS SO The top-rated offensive tackle in the 2020 class, Johnson saw the field for just 22 snaps as a true freshman, before taking over as the full-time starter at right guard in ’21 and earning second-team All-Big Ten honors (13 games). Last year he improved to consensus first-team and second-team All-American this past year, when he moved out to left tackle. His steady presence on C.J. Stroud’s blindside enabled the Buckeyes to finish first (45.7) and second (44.2) respectively in points per game in FBS these past two seasons. + The grip strength, demeanor and leg-drive are all there in the run game and he really works up through contact to create that momentum + Out at tackle, he can really widen that edge and cover up guys responsible for contain, routinely allowing backs to stretch out and get out to the corner or cut underneath, At guard, you saw him come in from the side on nose-tackles to push them over into the opposite A-gap, so that guy can’t two-gap + Shows the hip mobility to reach-block three-techniques, as well as come off combos late and get a piece of the linebacker, while having some extra room for error if his angles up to the second level aren’t perfect + With the way he covers ground on zone concepts, Johnson can execute fold-blocks and make the job easier for the guard inside of him, to just seal the down-lineman + Swiftly establishes the inside foot and gets his base turned, in order to force edge defenders to have to go through him on the backside of gap schemes + Gets after second-level defenders with tremendous urgency and you actually see him seal off true MIKEs straight over the center at times + His dexterity to twist defenders and get his lower body turned simultaneously to open up lanes is highly impressive, You saw that when LBs try to blitz the play-side gap and he pins them away from it, to present a wide hole (B-gap at guard) + Displays good awareness for defenses walking down a linebacker late outside him and how that changes responsibilities on run schemes + Clearly has that mobility to play in space, with impressive success getting his hands on corners and safeties in the screen game + Johnson features a well-coordinated, patient kick-slide and uses his wingspan well to not present a free B-gap + Arms for days at just over 36 inches and edge rushers have to take wider angles consistently, while being able to stab with the inside arm at the near-shoulder to actively elongate those + With those long branches and strong upper body to control rushers even if his elbows are outside his frame + Smooth lateral mover, to stay in front of inside counters and help out on the interior in a hurry, if his man drops out + It also enables him to slide in front of interior linemen in the play-action game and full-line slides before they can even get that first step down regularly + When defenders sell out for the bull-rush and create movement, Johnson can increase his step frequency and knee bend to re-anchor effectively + No problem at all flipping and riding aggressive upfield rushers towards his own end-zone + Shows the ability to recover and still ride loopers off track, as he has to transition on delayed T-E twists + Playing at guard, you saw Johnson actively looking for work if he doesn’t have a direct assignment, delivering some significant chips from the side, And that transitioned along with moving out to tackle, where week one against Notre Dame, the next-closest rusher ended up being in the A-gap and he still made sure that guy hit the ground + Did allow two sacks last year, but only one other QB hit across 910 pass-blocking snaps since the start of 2021 (26 non-sack pressures) – His base can get a little narrow as he churns his legs in the run game and it may lead to him landing on the turf more regularly against pros – Tends to stop his feet when he throws his hands and heavily relies on the two-handed punch – he will need to adapt more independent hand usage – His hands overall are pretty high and wide, particularly picking up loopers and blitzers – There’s room to still get stronger, when it comes to swallowing initial power and snatch guys late, not allowing them to escape as plays are being extended – Can overstride at times selling play-action and allow his D-end to slip inside of him Based on his height and general skill-set, Johnson was a miscast at right guard as a redshirt freshman in 2021, but did show he can excel in the run game right away. Once he moved to his designated position at left tackle this past season, the pass-blocking skills were able to shine as well. He’s one of the smoothest athletes you will find for the position, yet has the strength in his hands to take control in both facets of the game. Where I do believe he needs to improve is not using two-handed punches regularly and his base to anchor against power leaves things to be desired at this point. Considering what an easy mover he is and the length he possesses to counter-act that, those should be fixable areas though. I do believe he’s best suited for a zone-based rushing attack, where his mobility and leg-drive can really shine, rather than just blowing defenders off the ball vertically, but there’s upside to utilize him even more as a puller across the formation or out towards the perimeter. I don’t see Johnson making it out of the top-15. https://preview.redd.it/vmdtyszl5wqa1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e7337fd02380eb6f7fb215fc5886678b58137176 2. Broderick Jones, Georgia6’5″, 315 pounds; JR Right outside the top-10 overall recruits in 2020, Jones only started four games over his first two seasons (all at left tackle in 2021). He ook over on the blindside this past season and was absolutely dominant, paving the way for a Georgia offense that averaged 500 yards and 41.1 points per game (fifth nationally), which made it all the way to an undefeated championship season (their second straight title). Jones himself was named first-team All-SEC. + Jones has good girth in all the right areas, without any excess weight in the mid-section + Imposing road-grader in the run game, Gets after people whether the score is 0-0 or his team is up by 50 + This guy regularly tosses the edge defender on the front-side of zone runs out of the way and forces linebackers to fill the B-gap in a hurry + Can absolutely blow D-tackles off their landmarks when coming in on an angle on double-teams, particularly in short-yardage and goal-line situations + If he gets underneath the arm-pit of linemen, he can wash them down and create significant cutback opportunities, And he has the grip strength to twist defenders out of running lanes, even if he can’t block down on an angle + Understands when he has to add a gather-step against wider alignments, to not presents easy opportunities for edge defenders to jump inside of his blocks + On combo-blocks his eyes are usually up and he doesn’t struggle to work up to the backer with space, with the force in his hands to shove them to the ground + Regularly was utilized as a puller on GT power, where he’s light on his feet as he skips out of his stance but heavy at contact, and has the reactionary agility to adjust on the fly + This dude is scary to be in front of on screens and pulling out to the corner, where most defenders try to go low on him, to avoid getting thrown around + Even if his technique isn’t perfect yet, Jones presents the athletic lower half and strong upper body to ride edge rushers off track + If defenders go into the chest of him, they quickly realize there’s not much they can do anymore + You rarely see guys turn the corner when engaged with Jones, where they try to dip-and-rip, but he still guides them enough off track to not affect the QB + He packs a lot of strength in those hands, to widen their arc significantly or push them into the pile, if they try to quickly crash inside + Linebackers trying to get around Jones on delayed blitzes seem to have no clue how to actually approach this and are content with just standing there with his arms extended + When Jones’ guy slants away from him and he’s unoccupied, he delivers some devastating rib-shots on somebody tangled up with one of his teammates + Watching the 2022 season-opener 49-3 destruction of Oregon, the pass-pro reps for Jones was so clean throughout the day and he completely shut guys out trying to work against him + Wasn’t responsible for a single sack and just nine other pressures across 470 pass-blocking snaps this past season + Ran the best 40 time among all O-linemen in Indy this year at 4.97 and his movement during the on-field drills was well-coordinated – His feet can get a little heavy late and defenders are able to work off his blocks, where you’d want more flexion in the lower rather than upper half, and that’s in part due to imperfect hand-placement – Too often in 2022, you’d see Jones drop his eyes when initiating contact in both facets of the game, and defenders being able to pull him off – Makes himself vulnerable to inside counters on a regularly basis, when he should keep his shoulders and hips squared, but instead opens up to the edge rusher, who doesn’t even have the angle to beat him around the corner – When he did face a legit speed-rusher in LSU’s B.J. Ojulari, you saw him punch with the outside hand and had that left foot in the air as well, creating a soft shoulder to get past – Has to do a better job of coming to balance at times when working up the field in the screen game, as guys have the ability to side-step him This is still clearly an ascending tackle prospect, who won’t turn 22 years old until after the draft and only logged 19 career starts at the Bulldogs. However, his natural talent stood out right away and he was already one of the premiere players at his position in his first season as a full-time starters, despite facing a loaded slate of SEC edge defenders. Now, some of those guys were actually the ones who gave him trouble, because they could threaten the edges of his frame off the snap and were more technically advanced, but there’s no reason to believe he won’t be able to get to that level sooner rather than later, with the natural power he possesses and the awareness he showed as a young player already. I want to see him eliminate this nasty little habit of not keeping his chin up, but in terms of brute force in the run game and ability to snatch up pass-rushers, he has a chance to turn into the most complete guy of the bunch. https://preview.redd.it/iqar1p3q5wqa1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=299f9090e1cf7f3cd0671e52795acdad55ed18d3 3. Peter Skoronski, Northwestern6’4”, 300 pounds; JR Slightly outside the top-100 overall recruits in 2020, Skoronski stepped in at left tackle as a true freshman and was named to the All-Freshman team, when Rashawn Slater decided to sit out the season due to COVID concerns. Then he improved to a first-team All-Big Ten performer in 2021, which he repeated this past season, along with being a unanimous first-team All-American. His grandfather Bob Skoronski was a starter and team captain for all five of Vince Lombardi’s championship teams. + The best compliment I can give Skoronski is that his tape can be almost boring at times, because every rep is clean and there’s not much to note + His aiming points and angles are excellent for such a young player + Operates from a wide base and with good leg-drive, while lifting up through contact with his elbows in tight + Does well to establish positioning with the inside foot sealing edge defenders on the backside of run concepts + Gets underneath the arm pit of D-tackles on angular blocks and rides them down the line + Brings plus grip strength and ability to twist bodies to expand running lanes, along with the dexterity to keep his hands latched as defenders try to slip or turn away from contact + Consistently works with square shoulders and stays tight to his teammate on vertical combos, to maximize force and not allow defenders to split those + Patient and under control working up to the second level, being able to get under the chest with great consistency + Also getting out to the corner on fly sweeps or those completely horizontal handoffs, he rarely overruns targets, just blindly hustling out there + Somehow people are inferring that Skoronski isn’t a great athlete, when he tested in the 70th percentile or better among all combine events other than the three-cone and his jumps were 96th and 97th percentile respectively + Already a very sound and comfortable pass-protector, who consistently is first off the ball, gets to his landmarks and doesn’t throw his technique out of the window + Shows an understanding for the depth of the pocket and how to manipulate rush angles, along with the easy lateral movement to mirror guys across multiple moves + Adjusts the length of his initial dependent on where combat will occur and is able beat wide-nine alignments to the spot + His hands are so consistent with landing inside the frame of rushers and controlling reps, because they typically stay attached throughout + Varies his approach and excels at using his arms in independent fashion, whether he’s trying to widen guys with the inside hand or wants to take charge off them on power rushes + Rarely does his weight shift too far to the outside foot and he’s ready to negate angles as guys are trying to slice through the inside shoulder + Extends his inside arm when deciphering through the pressure and is ready to redirect towards guys slanting to the B-gap if there’s no threat off the edge + His feel for shuffling along and how to pick up loopers with the two-handed strike, to guide their path is impressive for a young player + Allowed just two sacks on nearly 700 snaps as a true freshman and did the same in ’21 on over 800, along with 18 additional pressures, However he quietly just had his best season in that regard (one sack, two QB hits and three hurries) – The big hold-up with Skoronski of course is only having 32 and ¼-inch arms, while I also believe he played below 310-pound mark – You see edge rushers really create problems for him with long-arm maneuvers, where he can’t place his hands or has the kind of super-strong base to just swallow those – It can also show up in the run ground where guys can just out-reach him and therefore pull him off when leaning into contact – Doesn’t create a whole lot of knock-back at first contact with his strike generally and you rarely see him take linebackers for a ride, the way you’d like to – While I love with how much control he plays, at times I’d appreciate a little more urgency to just negate space in the first instance rather than trying to establish position At the risk of sounding like a cop-out, it’s pretty easy to find a comparison in terms of player profile for Skoronski, if we just go to the guy he replaced at Northwestern, in Rashawn Slater. I do believe the now-Pro Bowler was a greater athlete, particularly with some of the insane stuff he did in the weightroom, to balance out length concern. However, Skoronski is clearly the most technically advanced tackle in the 2023 class. The way he fits his hands and is able to transfer force from the ground up in the run game, along with reading rushers and using different combat-maneuvers to counter them, are tremendous. There’s not much to criticize on tape, but you just wonder how high his ceiling may be, due to always having a disadvantage in that one area. Ultimately, I believe a team will start him out at tackle and he will play it at a pretty high level, but he transitions inside a couple of years into his pro career. Having him down at number three almost feels wrong, but it only speaks to the strength of the top of this class, as Skoronski will be a top-15 overall prospect for me. https://preview.redd.it/bd049ort5wqa1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6aea2dbe7a850332f4d80c96bca7674e425a104f 4. Darnell Wright, Tennessee6’6”, 335 pounds; SR The number two offensive tackle recruit in 2019 behind only Alabama standout and now-Giant Evan Neal, Wright started seven of eleven games as a true freshman (five at right tackle, two at right guard) and then nine of ten available for in year two (all at RT). In 2021 he started all 13 games at left tackle and helped the Tennessee offense score a team-record 511 points, before moving back to the right side this past season, when the Vols immediately broke that record (599) and Dwight was recognized individually as a first-team All-SEC performer. + When you look at this guy, everything you see screams “power” at you + Shows a natural ability to sink his hips and work up through contact, to create movement on angular blocks + You’re just not going to rock this guy’s pads backwards or squeeze him down on backside seal-blocks + Has the explosiveness out of his stance to work cross-/fold-blocks and skip pulls in the run game + For a man his size, the agility in short areas and flexibility in his lower half to reach-block edge defenders on fly sweeps is pretty impressive + Just engulfs smaller bodies stepping down or replacing edge defenders, when he comes across the line on kick-outs + Really strong with that inside arm, to extend and create that little bit of extra movement, while riding bodies on the interior into the trash when given the opportunity + Can create some significant momentum on B-gap defenders as the angular element to combo blocks by accelerating his feet through the target + Showcases the dexterity to keep his hands in place with the hips of the man he’s responsible for, as they’re trying to slice past, and he rides them off their landmarks + Doesn’t look uncomfortable getting out in space and has the natural power to put defenders on the ground by just getting a hand on them + His feet are quick enough to match legit speed off the edge and then sit down to not allow himself to be ridden into the quarterback’s space at the top of the arc + Shows good awareness for that platform of the guy padding the ball back there and when to flip with the rusher, to ride him past that point + His base is so strong, that even when rushers seem to set up speed-to-power well, Wright can stymie their charge and force them to look for different strategies + Can work in some independent hand usage to keep rushers in line with his frame, along with really snatching cloth and dropping his hips, in order to take control of reps + Displays impressive body-control, to quickly puts his outside foot back down and mirror inside moves, even by twitchy guys at nearly 100 pounds less + Once rushers get off balance, he can quickly put them on the ground and exploits of the opportunity to jump on top of them + Extremely battle-tested against a collection of impressive SEC edge rushers and more than held his own – Allowed just one hurry all day against Alabama in 2022, largely going up against a lock for the top-five in Will Anderson, who simply couldn’t work his typical speed-to-power against him + Didn’t give up a single sack and just eight total pressures across 507 pass-blocking snaps this past season – Carries a little excess weight in the mid-section I’d say and he’s not quite up to par with the top-three guys in terms of foot quickness – Doesn’t consistently play up to his size and brings the aggression to create displacement in the run game, while other times he gets his weight shifted too far out in front as he really goes for it (partially due to the type of offense the Volunteers ran) – Gets too far over his skis at times and ends up stumbling forward when he can’t connect with his hands as D-linemen reduce their surface area – While you like the mobility to get to the second level, he doesn’t break down and secure blocks consistently enough to take care of his assignments – Regularly late off the snap and has a certain up-kick to his pass-sets, which didn’t become as much of a problems with less than a quarter of his work being labelled as “true pass-sets” by PFF (tons of RPOs, screens, etc.) I’ve been a fan of Wright for a while now and he’s been ascending his draft stock throughout this process. He came in at a massive 342 pounds for Senior Bowl week, yet he showcased impressive movement skills, effortlessly mirroring a couple of spin moves, along with taking the fight to more power-based string, showcasing his strong upper half. Then he moved around extremely well during the on-field drills at the combine and you heard those bags pop when he landed his punches in pass-pro. This guy has 2746 career snaps with full years starting at both left and right tackle, put together an incredible track record against a murderous row of SEC edge defenders. So I have no doubt that he should and will go in the first round. I’d like to see him enforce his power on a more consistent basis and there’s a little bit of a tweak that he has to work on his kick-slide, but I don’t think there’s much of a gap between him and what is generally accepted as the “big three” at offensive tackle. https://preview.redd.it/2bantyhz5wqa1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e0735a47dece55582f30d1e5c2ed70a20c791b0 5. Dawand Jones, Ohio State6’6”, 350 pounds; SR Just outside the top-1000 overall recruits in 2019, Jones appeared in nine games as a true freshman and then in six of eight contests in the COVID-shortened following campaign, including his first start, In 2021, he started all 13 games and was a second-team All-Big Ten selection for the Buckeyes, which he repeated this past season, Then last year he was a second-team All-American, as a mainstay on that right edge + Massive upper half and can knock defenders off balance when he just lands those hands in the run game, And with the long arms he can deliver that last push to get the man further off track to create room late + I thought overall Jones’ urgency off the snap and willingness to impose himself physically was a lot better in 2022 + You see him dish out some literal two-handed shoves to blow the front-side wide open + When he grabs the shoulder-plate and extends though, you see put guys flat on their backs at times, especially linebackers mugged up in the gap + If D-ends try to crash across him face on the backside of zone runs, he will wash them way down the line and optically show the ball-carrier to cut back behind him + Because of how massive he is, when he tries to reach-block guys on the edge, they often try to peak around and get off balance, to where he can ride them along and allow the back to stay behind his block + Yet, if he’s tasked with simply sealing the back-side, extending that outside arm in the chest of edge guys and bringing the opposite hip-around is very effective + When he arrives at the party, with no direct assignment, he can help move the significantly and allow the ball-carrier to hide behind that wall or push through it + Some of his tape is just hilarious to watch, when he puts guys on the ground seemingly without breaking a sweat + Offers a quick jump out of his stance to cut off the angle for edge rushers, has his hands ready at his mid-section and is patient with his punch + The way he snatches and traps guys when they do get closer to his body makes him basically negate guys completely + His insane 7’6” wingspan allows him to constantly put a hand on defenders before those guys could even get to his frame, and it gives him a ton of room for error in his technique + If guys try to loop wide around him and don’t actively try to find an angle, he’s fine sitting back and waiting there, but if he does go for it, those long arms can really stymie rushers in their approach + Even if the outside hand is swatted away, he can push guys further off track by still reaching them with the other arm + When he does overset and rushers create that lane to the quarterback seemingly going underneath, Jones is typically able to ride those guys across the QB’s face, to leave him unaffected + Buries guys underneath himself with regularity, if they shift their momentum too far out in front + After surrendering three sacks and eight other pressures in 2021, Jones didn’t even allow his quarterback to be hit once due to him last year and only hurried five times + PFF awarded him with their highest pass-blocking efficiency of any draft-eligible tackle at 99.4 last season – You see Jones just throw his hands and not move his lower body at times, when he can’t get his body positioned accordingly throughout run plays – Appears disoriented when his initial assignment is changed post-snap and he has to come up solutions on the fly in that regard – The way he puts his hands on the face-mask of defenders and some of the pull-downs will be flagged more regularly at the pro level – Short-setting guys and forcing them to go way around him, because of his size and length, was an effective strategy at the college level, but that won’t fly in the NFL – At this point, Jones does get by with his massive frame and length along with natural strength, which won’t be as prevalent going against pro players, who will force him to get on their level technically Jones only took part in the first practice at the Senior Bowl, but he just stood out from the moment he stepped on the field with his giganteous size and unheard of wingspan. Edge defenders quickly realized that they weren’t going to get through his chest, but the one rep that really stood out to me came during individual run-blocking, where he was supposed to reach-block his man but didn’t gain enough ground laterally with that first step, yet he was able to create so much torque on the far-shoulder of his man, that he ended up turning and pinning that guy inside anyway. That’s what you’re dealing with here – an absolute mountain of a man, whose strength and length give him a lot of room for error and when he puts it altogether, he can dominate people. Now, while he has definitely shown technical development, he does heavily rely on his natural gifts and will have to overhaul his pass-sets in order to actually cut off angles for more talented and crafty NFL rushers than he’s faced so far. However, he has things you can’t teach and the potential(!) to become a more athletic version of Orlando Brown down the road. https://preview.redd.it/6r479jy16wqa1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38e4af4bec8cae79d514f0146d7eee4df0a6d297 6. Anton Harrison, Oklahoma6’4″, 310 pounds; JR A four-star recruit in 2020, Harrison already logged over 1000 snaps at left tackle through his first two seasons with the Sooners. As a junior, he started all but on one of 12 regular season game on the blindside yet again (one at right tackle and opted out of the Cheez-It Bowl) and received more recognition on a national scale, when he was named a first-team All-Big 12 performer. + Presents an athletic frame with minimal excess weight and long arms (34 and ¼) + Can create some knock-back as he lands his hands inside the frame of defenders, shoving linebackers off track regularly + Last season I thought he was more assertive near the point of attack, to drive-block edge defenders or block down on three-techniques and get guys off their landmarks + You see him lift stand up D-tackles in order for fellow linemen wrap around behind him regularly + On the backside of wide zone runs, if linebackers try to shoot the B-gaps Harrison hits and rides them way down the line, to open up massive cutback lanes behind him + When guys try to dip underneath him or get around blocks, Harrison typically rides them towards his own end-zone to blow the front-side open + Has the quick burst to help secure the down-linemen on combo blocks and then deliver some force to open up a lane inside of them as somebody from the second level behind it steps down + Bends off the inside foot and uncoils force through defenders in the hole wrapping around on powecounter schemes + Frequently is able to face-plant defenders as he catches them off balance, with one foot off the ground, with the triceps strength to extend and push them down + Makes the job of his teammates a lot easier, when he’s passing off down-linemen on front-side combos by extending with the inside arm and allowing the guy next to him to bring his base and secure the block + Rarely overruns his targets in space and forces guys to work around him consistently, being able to put his hands on third-level defenders in the screen game + His 4.98 in the 40 was tied for the second-best mark among all offensive linemen at the combine + There’s good rhythm and a certain calmness in his kick-slide, with the light feet to guide edge defenders around the loop + Times up his strike as rushers try to throw their hands, frequently hitting them as they’re off balance and taking them to the ground every once in a while + His initial hand-placement may not be great always and he gets caught with his elbow out wide, but he does work to re-fit them and finds way to gain control + And he finds ways to maximize his length to out-reach his man + Can really snatch rushers as he grabs cloth of guys trying to work through him, without giving them a lane to escape + Plays under good control generally and doesn’t overreact to defensive movement, picking up games and mirroring guys with space to work + Smoothly transitions from the slanting linemen to the looper on E-T twists + Has some impressive recovery moments on tape, where rushers have him on skates and he’s somehow able to drop his anchor due to his high-level balance + Allowed just one sack and eight hurries (no QB hits) across 447 pass-blocking snaps in '22 – Can’t reduce his height very well and you can see them roll his weight over his shoulders at times trying to establish contact with smaller linebackers – Doesn’t set the tone in the run game like you’d want to see for that size, having to become more effective with his hand-placement and re-work the way he transitions force from the ground up – You see some of that as well in the pass game, when his chest folds forward instead of working with sink in his hips and then he kind of tries to chase after guys up the arc, where if timed correctly can leave the inside lane to the QB completely free – Carries his hands fairly low and comes in wide with the punch, to where guys who sell out on attacking his chest can take him for a ride a few times, as he doesn’t seem ready to land his hands – You see that at times when he’s not ready for somebody coming his way on twists – There’s a few reps, where he tries to ride edge rushers up the field, but he doesn’t maintain contact and that guy is able to slip underneath him It’s never easy projecting tackles in particular going from offensive systems that relied heavily on a few run concepts, off which they build their RPO game and offer limited reps for pass-protectors to prove themselves. The areas of weakness in Harrison’s game right now are pretty clear – he struggles to bend at the knees and maximizing his power in the run game, while his hands and feet aren’t married regularly enough in pass-pro. On the Brightside, he does bring plenty of shock in his hands and well-coordinated movement to work to the second level, while being light on his feet to deal with speed off the edge and being able to clamp down on guys once he takes control of reps. There is a fairly steep learning curve in front of him, but he has all the physical tools and the mindset to become a plus starter on the blindside, which is why he regularly finds his name late in first-round mock drafts. https://preview.redd.it/nzz0mil56wqa1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=549bb7a2010328440f87267236cc16657fb3744d 7. Matthew Bergeron, Syracuse6’5”, 320 pounds; RS JR Just inside the top-1000 overall recruits in 2019, Bergeron played in 12 and started five game as a true freshman. Other than missing two games this past season, he started all of the other 34 games, with all but three of those at left tackle. He earned honorable mention and then second-team All-ACC accolades most recently, whilst being a team captain in 2022. + Nice girth throughout his frame and effectively rolls his hips through contact to create movement in the run game + Even with sub-optimal hand-placement, he can widen the edge pretty consistently on the front-side of zone concepts + Shows a strong grip with the inside hand, which doesn’t allow edge defenders to back-door or slip his blocks typically + When having to block down on three-techniques who aggressively try to get through his gap, Bergerson does well to get his hand on the defenders’ hip and use that momentum against that guy + Does well to on hinge-blocks and just get the job done when tasked with sealing guys on the backside of concepts + In formations with a tight-end next to him, where the C-gap was uncovered, Bergeron effectively was able to able to pick up and ride smaller bodies at the edge of the box out of the picture + You really like what he presents blocking on the move, sweeping around the edge and taking linebackers for a ride or blowing DBs trying to set the edge out of the picture + Was utilized on some skip-pulls, where he would wrap around on GT power plays and looked pretty light on his feet to get to his landmarks + Shows a real plan in his approach as a pass-protector, changing up between quick sets, jumping out of his stance aggressively versus speed-based rushers, etc. + Covers a ton of ground in his kick-sets in order to counter true speed-balls off the edge + Carries his hands at his hips and is ready to punch and counter the movement of rushers + Will land some surprise stabs quickly at the chest of rushers, to throw off the timing of the moves they want to set up + Displays the body-control to re-anchor even when it looks like power rushers are under control of reps + Transitions well on twists by the D-line, whether it’s the strong base to absorb force by the initial slanter or the lateral agility to slide in front of the secondary looper + Quickly redirects from the initial kick to a lateral shuffle in order to help out or take over stunting interior defenders, if his man on the edge peels off + Generally can use the momentum of defender to guide them away from the quarterback + Takes advantages of chances to pull off-balance rushers to the ground and pins them down there + While he was officially charged for five sacks by PFF last season, in terms of total pressures he was at 12 compared to 11 the year prior, with 770 combined pass-blocking snaps – His hands regularly start off high and wide already and he minimizes the force he can apply in the run game, as well as make him vulnerable to get flagged, because the refs can see everything – Pro Football Focus only credited his with 33 positively graded run plays last season, which I wouldn’t judge as such (in terms of a net plus), but in terms of having his hands latched onto the aiming points, that number is probably about right – Tends to pick up his inside foot too much, as he’s trying to gain ground vertically in his pass-sets and becomes vulnerable against guys with a great long-arm – Clemson’s Myles Murphy was in control of that matchup for most of the day, even if Myles didn’t get to finish many plays – Edge rushers frequently are the ones to get their arms inside and Bergeron ends up with his elbows out wide, which limits his ability to slow down power Bergeron has nearly put together the exact same resume during his pre-draft process as Tennessee’s Darnell Wright. Throughout Senior Bowl week, I thought his movement skills in pass-protection were highly impressive, not allowing guys to gain an angle on the quarterback, as well as being able to mirror and shut down some challenging counter moves. And while he didn’t test at the combine, he had a tremendous on-field workout. He looked so light-footed, changed directions and reacted to the coaches’ indications without any issues. His hand-placement in both facets of the game drove me wild at times on tape, but that area already looked improved down in Mobile and I also understand that he will receive the type of coaching to see major benefits. How well he carries 320 pounds, being able to cover ground vertically and horizontal in protection, is rare – and he doesn’t even yet take great advantage of his play-strength all the time. I would not be shocked if he ends up being one of the last few picks of the first round and he’s probably a top-50 lock. https://preview.redd.it/mtdi5g886wqa1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=120cdb6f5301e589e65609dafd49f45750d0eb1f 8. Jaelyn Duncan, Maryland6’6”, 320 pounds, RS SR The rest of the analysis can be found here! https://preview.redd.it/a24ycg2a6wqa1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4bfbdaf47f5465077e371e5de67dada310ffd02d 9. Tyler Steen, Alabama6’5”, 315 pounds; RS SR https://preview.redd.it/in8yqfob6wqa1.jpg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f17d00b936769a8367e39291446cf01bad5d4f2a 10. Blake Freeland, BYU6’8″, 305 pounds; RS JR The next names up:Jordan McFadden (Clemson) Wanya Morris (Oklahoma), Ryan Hayes (Michigan), Richard Gouraige (Florida), Warren McClendon Jr. (Georgia), Asim Richards (North Carolina) & Carter Warren (Pittsburgh) If you enjoyed this breakdown, please consider checking out the original piece and feel free to check out all my other video content here! Twitter: @ halilsfbtalk Instagram: @ halilsrealfootballtalk |
2023.03.30 17:19 Icanseethefnords23 So, I am giving honorclub a shot but…
After watching the first four episodes I have decided to give Honor Club a go despite any reservations. This is largely motivated by my immense love for NJPW but ROH seems pretty rad on its own as well. Honestly, in many regards it is pretty darn close to being the perfect thing to add to my pro-wrestling diet but I do indeed have some mild reservations. These shouldn't be interpreted as me trashing the product but I do think there's some pretty low hanging fruit sort of things that would significantly improve the product for me and if anything makes me drop the service (based on what we've seen so far) it'd probably be tied to one of these three things.
1:PPVs; After seeing the full card for Supercard, if they keep that kinda quality up I understand why they would have to charge something but I still think that the "old" honor club deals with members getting 50% off PPVs and if you pay for your membership via a lump sum annual payment you get the PPVs for free would be much more reasonable and by reasonable I mean just that. My heart tells me that a sub fee should mean no other hoops to jump through, but I do understand that pulling off cards of the kinda quality that supercard seems to can't be cheap. A (very) minor bit related to this is the BR / FITE thing... I'm not sure why they can't do events directly on the Honor Club service but as a user that just seems simpler and would prefer that.
2: I have noticed some of what seem to be quite obvious squash matches on each show. These shouldn't exist in this context. This bothers me the least, but it still bothers me some.
3: I feel as if the shows being pre-recorded significantly lessens the quality of the product for me. To be fair, I think very highly of the current quality so I'm not saying "Man, this sucks because it's pre-recorded" but imo it significantly takes away from the "must watch" anticipation that a live show generates. I already know the winners for tonight's card. On one hand it really says something about the general quality of the show that I'm still going to watch it but it'd be so much better, even if I don't watch it live every single week, if it had that live tv magic.
Other than that all, with the exception of NJPW this is probably the best wrestling concept/format that I've seen. The value for the service still seems very bad but the quality is indeed high. If I wind up dropping it, it will likely have more to do with the value than the content. If they changed the first thing up in a a way that I feel is more reasonable then there's not much of a chance of me dropping it. If they changed that and also made the weekly show live I would consider getting a ROH tattoo..
submitted by Icanseethefnords23 to ROH [link] [comments]
1:PPVs; After seeing the full card for Supercard, if they keep that kinda quality up I understand why they would have to charge something but I still think that the "old" honor club deals with members getting 50% off PPVs and if you pay for your membership via a lump sum annual payment you get the PPVs for free would be much more reasonable and by reasonable I mean just that. My heart tells me that a sub fee should mean no other hoops to jump through, but I do understand that pulling off cards of the kinda quality that supercard seems to can't be cheap. A (very) minor bit related to this is the BR / FITE thing... I'm not sure why they can't do events directly on the Honor Club service but as a user that just seems simpler and would prefer that.
2: I have noticed some of what seem to be quite obvious squash matches on each show. These shouldn't exist in this context. This bothers me the least, but it still bothers me some.
3: I feel as if the shows being pre-recorded significantly lessens the quality of the product for me. To be fair, I think very highly of the current quality so I'm not saying "Man, this sucks because it's pre-recorded" but imo it significantly takes away from the "must watch" anticipation that a live show generates. I already know the winners for tonight's card. On one hand it really says something about the general quality of the show that I'm still going to watch it but it'd be so much better, even if I don't watch it live every single week, if it had that live tv magic.
Other than that all, with the exception of NJPW this is probably the best wrestling concept/format that I've seen. The value for the service still seems very bad but the quality is indeed high. If I wind up dropping it, it will likely have more to do with the value than the content. If they changed the first thing up in a a way that I feel is more reasonable then there's not much of a chance of me dropping it. If they changed that and also made the weekly show live I would consider getting a ROH tattoo..
2023.03.30 17:12 Groenboys [Mobile Apps] How a horde of Jeremy Renners shut down the official Jeremy Renner app
Jeremy Renner. The actor, the artist, the influencer, the celebrity sensation, the legend. From the outside, he is mostly known as Hawkeye from the Marvel MCU movies, but on the inside, he is Jeremy Renner.
Jokes aside, Jeremy Renner is quite a respected actor who is also really successful, getting tons of recognition and even getting multiple Academy Award nominations. It is why when he recently got into a snow plowing accident which left him in critical condition, many were concerned for him (recently he updated that he is now okay I am genuinely glad he is). But even after this awful injury, all that people can talk about is the thing that has been haunting Jeremy Renner’s career for the past half a decade: The Jeremy Renner app. Designed to be an app to get Jeremy Renner more in touch with his adoring fans, it only took a week to turn into a massive laughing stock that quickly shut down. So how did the Jeremy Renner app start and how did it end so quickly?
There is no escape from EscapeX
Before we can talk about the Jeremy app, we need to talk about the people who made it first: the company EscapeX. The company was founded in 2014 and the year after was able to raise over 18 million dollars in funding. They put that money to good use as they started racking up celebrity deals all over the world, most notably famous Bollywood stars. They would then make a special apps that were basically social media sites entirely dedicated to the start the apps were named after. They had quite some success, as they reported that in 2018 they got 5.5 million dollars in revenue.
While their foot was mostly in Asian markets, they also had some notable western names they had made official apps for, like
The official Jeremy Renner app launched in March 2017. So how did this app work?
Well, when you opened the app and after an exclusive video of Jeremy Renner explaining what the app was about, you would find Instagram but everything revolved around Jeremy Renner. All of the pictures were posted by Jeremy Renner, the posts you could reply to were that of Jeremy Renner, and you could pay Jeremy Renner money- wait what? Yes, the Jeremy Renner app had in-app purchases were you could buy stars and use those stars to boost your comment under Jeremy Renner posts and when you got enough starts to boost your comment into the top 3 you may could get a reply from Jeremy Renner.
Yep, the app was that simple: Replying to Jeremy Renner until maybe at some point in your life Jeremy Renner would acknowledge you. If this app sounds pretty lazy, it gets even lazier when you realise the Jeremy Renner app was just literally Jeremy Renner’s Instagram page. Every post Jeremy Renner made on Instagram he also posted on the Jeremy Renner app. He even copied the Instagram captions which created some awkward posts when he used hashtags or @’s people in posts even though the Jeremy Renner app had no hashtag or @ function. The Jeremy Renner app did include some exclusive Jeremy Renner content.. but almost all of it was related to his music career. Some might then say that the Jeremy Renner app was used to promote his music but my middle name is Some so yeah Jeremy Renner definitely used the Jeremy Renner app the most to promote his music.
While the existence of this app was absurd and the inner working even more absurd, the app was quite a success and it got many fans religiously using the app. There was an actual community on the Jeremy Renner app, with memes, events and giveaways. There were dramas about censorship and contest rigging which are too big to go into now, but overall the app continued to work smoothly for two years… until August 2019.
The One-Two Punch
While it is hard to pin down where it all went wrong, but I have pinpointed the two things that one-two punched the Jeremy Renner app into chaos.
The first punch was this comedic tweet. While the tweet itself didn’t catch a lot of attention, it did caught the attention of the youtuber Danny Gonzallez, who a few days later made a collab with Drew Gooden exploring the Jeremy Renner app. As you can see, the video was quite popular, and it exposed a lot of people to the Jeremy Renner app.
The first punch got the manpower, but the second punch gave the tools. On August 20th 2019, Jeremy Renner posted a picture with the caption “Have a rockin weekend everyone!!! What’s the plan ??? “. Comedian Stevan Heck then posted a honest comment:
An update Stevan added to the article says everything what happened after:
It started out calm, with a few accounts changing their names like “Jeremy Renner’s Swedish Dog” or “Italian Jeremy Renner”, but quickly it spiraled out of control. So many people were flooding in the Jeremy Renner app with accounts impersonating celebrities. From Steve Jobs to OJ Simpson to Jeffrey Epstein to Jar Jar Binks to, ofcourse, Jerermy Renner himself. These impersonation accounts started spamming comments, memes and everything you would expect a troll raid to do. It got to the point that the earnest users did not even know which Jeremy Renner account was the real Jeremy Renner. The moderators of the Jeremy Renner app tried to put out the flames but the Jeremy Renners were too strong. Nothing could stop the horde of Jeremy Renners.
And that point Jeremy Renner, the real one, had enough. On september 4th, Jeremy Renner made one final post on the Jeremy Renner app.
The Aftermath
After the Jeremy Renner app shut down and the countless articles were made, Jeremy Renner moved on to focus posting on his regular social media. Other than that, he continued being Jeremy Renner. EscapeX on the other hand met a worse fate. After the Jeremy Renner app shut down, they pretty much fell off the face of earth. All of their celebrity apps shut down (yes, even the Backpack kid app), all their socials haven’t updated since 2019 and their website is defunct. It is safe to assume that they won’t be coming back.
To most, the Jeremy Renner app is nothing more than a punchline. What was meant to be a new way for huge celebrities to interact with their fans became a joke that couldn’t handle its own scrutiny. Some still defend the Jeremy Renner app and a few even have fond memories of it, but today it is a funny curiosity that once in a moon someone goes “Hey, remember when Jeremy Renner had an app?”
Also, this post contains 60 Jeremy Renners.
submitted by Groenboys to HobbyDrama [link] [comments]
Jokes aside, Jeremy Renner is quite a respected actor who is also really successful, getting tons of recognition and even getting multiple Academy Award nominations. It is why when he recently got into a snow plowing accident which left him in critical condition, many were concerned for him (recently he updated that he is now okay I am genuinely glad he is). But even after this awful injury, all that people can talk about is the thing that has been haunting Jeremy Renner’s career for the past half a decade: The Jeremy Renner app. Designed to be an app to get Jeremy Renner more in touch with his adoring fans, it only took a week to turn into a massive laughing stock that quickly shut down. So how did the Jeremy Renner app start and how did it end so quickly?
There is no escape from EscapeX
Before we can talk about the Jeremy app, we need to talk about the people who made it first: the company EscapeX. The company was founded in 2014 and the year after was able to raise over 18 million dollars in funding. They put that money to good use as they started racking up celebrity deals all over the world, most notably famous Bollywood stars. They would then make a special apps that were basically social media sites entirely dedicated to the start the apps were named after. They had quite some success, as they reported that in 2018 they got 5.5 million dollars in revenue.
While their foot was mostly in Asian markets, they also had some notable western names they had made official apps for, like
- Akon
- Chris D’Elia
- Dita Von Teese
- Bob Marley (yes this is real)
- The Backpack Kid (yes also very real)
- And ofcourse, the man, Jeremy Renner
The official Jeremy Renner app launched in March 2017. So how did this app work?
Well, when you opened the app and after an exclusive video of Jeremy Renner explaining what the app was about, you would find Instagram but everything revolved around Jeremy Renner. All of the pictures were posted by Jeremy Renner, the posts you could reply to were that of Jeremy Renner, and you could pay Jeremy Renner money- wait what? Yes, the Jeremy Renner app had in-app purchases were you could buy stars and use those stars to boost your comment under Jeremy Renner posts and when you got enough starts to boost your comment into the top 3 you may could get a reply from Jeremy Renner.
Yep, the app was that simple: Replying to Jeremy Renner until maybe at some point in your life Jeremy Renner would acknowledge you. If this app sounds pretty lazy, it gets even lazier when you realise the Jeremy Renner app was just literally Jeremy Renner’s Instagram page. Every post Jeremy Renner made on Instagram he also posted on the Jeremy Renner app. He even copied the Instagram captions which created some awkward posts when he used hashtags or @’s people in posts even though the Jeremy Renner app had no hashtag or @ function. The Jeremy Renner app did include some exclusive Jeremy Renner content.. but almost all of it was related to his music career. Some might then say that the Jeremy Renner app was used to promote his music but my middle name is Some so yeah Jeremy Renner definitely used the Jeremy Renner app the most to promote his music.
While the existence of this app was absurd and the inner working even more absurd, the app was quite a success and it got many fans religiously using the app. There was an actual community on the Jeremy Renner app, with memes, events and giveaways. There were dramas about censorship and contest rigging which are too big to go into now, but overall the app continued to work smoothly for two years… until August 2019.
The One-Two Punch
While it is hard to pin down where it all went wrong, but I have pinpointed the two things that one-two punched the Jeremy Renner app into chaos.
The first punch was this comedic tweet. While the tweet itself didn’t catch a lot of attention, it did caught the attention of the youtuber Danny Gonzallez, who a few days later made a collab with Drew Gooden exploring the Jeremy Renner app. As you can see, the video was quite popular, and it exposed a lot of people to the Jeremy Renner app.
The first punch got the manpower, but the second punch gave the tools. On August 20th 2019, Jeremy Renner posted a picture with the caption “Have a rockin weekend everyone!!! What’s the plan ??? “. Comedian Stevan Heck then posted a honest comment:
I will be looking at porno on my computerWhile there was an expected backlash from loyal Jeremy Renner fans and an expected ban, Stefan Heck did realise something: everyone who commented on the post got notifications from his comment, and the notification of the Jeremy Renner app was constructed that it looked like Jeremy Renner sent that porno comment. After Stevan Heck was banned from the app, he came the next day back on an account called JeremyRennerPornoTruth where he posted a quote from Ai Weiwei before he got quickly banned again. He posted his experience on both his his twitter and on an article he wrote.
An update Stevan added to the article says everything what happened after:
Update (Sept. 4, 5:58 p.m. ET): Oh no.All hell breaks loose
It started out calm, with a few accounts changing their names like “Jeremy Renner’s Swedish Dog” or “Italian Jeremy Renner”, but quickly it spiraled out of control. So many people were flooding in the Jeremy Renner app with accounts impersonating celebrities. From Steve Jobs to OJ Simpson to Jeffrey Epstein to Jar Jar Binks to, ofcourse, Jerermy Renner himself. These impersonation accounts started spamming comments, memes and everything you would expect a troll raid to do. It got to the point that the earnest users did not even know which Jeremy Renner account was the real Jeremy Renner. The moderators of the Jeremy Renner app tried to put out the flames but the Jeremy Renners were too strong. Nothing could stop the horde of Jeremy Renners.
And that point Jeremy Renner, the real one, had enough. On september 4th, Jeremy Renner made one final post on the Jeremy Renner app.
The app has jumped the shark. Literally. Due to clever individuals that were able to manipulate ways to impersonate me and others within the app I have asked ESCAPEX, the company the runs this app to shut it down immediately and refund anyone who has purchased any stars over the last 90 days.The Jeremy Renner app shut down shortly after that.
The Aftermath
After the Jeremy Renner app shut down and the countless articles were made, Jeremy Renner moved on to focus posting on his regular social media. Other than that, he continued being Jeremy Renner. EscapeX on the other hand met a worse fate. After the Jeremy Renner app shut down, they pretty much fell off the face of earth. All of their celebrity apps shut down (yes, even the Backpack kid app), all their socials haven’t updated since 2019 and their website is defunct. It is safe to assume that they won’t be coming back.
To most, the Jeremy Renner app is nothing more than a punchline. What was meant to be a new way for huge celebrities to interact with their fans became a joke that couldn’t handle its own scrutiny. Some still defend the Jeremy Renner app and a few even have fond memories of it, but today it is a funny curiosity that once in a moon someone goes “Hey, remember when Jeremy Renner had an app?”
Also, this post contains 60 Jeremy Renners.
2023.03.30 17:03 Fellow_RealSideOfMat "What if they were playable?" 2nd Edition: Johnny Blaze
 | Alright I'm back at it again, and this time with a big one! submitted by Fellow_RealSideOfMat to midnightsuns [link] [comments] Let's remind what I'll touch on in this post: A character concept, 10 cards (4 commons, 3 rares, 2 epic, 1 legendary) with their mechanics, one passive, alternate skins if I'm inspired, a place in the Abbey, and a small in-universe explanation for the character's inclusion. Won't touch on the relationship stuff. The first one was Hydra Bob, the second is dedicated to the grumpy protector of the Parchment of Power: Johnny Blaze, aka the OG Ghost Rider. https://preview.redd.it/y6ojzbfbnqqa1.jpg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=91fdfc10a318e86295ccbcd0512913830573448e Concept: Now you might be wondering, since there's already Robbie, how does one make the two distinct from one another? Well, luckily, the game gives him enough screentime to help me cook up a playstyle that would heavily differentiate the two. Johnny is portrayed in this game as unwilling, and someone who's actions are purely reactionaries, if nothing happens to him and his people, he won't do anything, but if anything does happen, he'll unleash hell on Earth. Let's roll with that and have him focus on protection and counter. But that's not all, Johnny is also a protector of the Parchment of Power as well as supposedly losing his status as a "Ghost RideSpirit of Vengeance". There's not enough detail to precisely determine what happened, but we know for sure that "Sparky" and Zarathos are not the same in this universe, even if "Sparky" became a spirit of vengeance instead of just being the spirit of a serial killer. Robbie also precise that the two demons are rivals. So I'll go with the theory that Johnny and Zarathos are still linked together, but are both weakened due to years of fending off countless demons, as well as the deterioration of Johnny's mental strength leading to a decrease in calling Zarathos out of fear for losing his mind, hence why he never transforms. If we roll with this, this means he's battling with the last of his strengths. And that's what I'm going to focus on. Since both share power sets, I'll have Johnny also use "Souls" as a mechanic. However, instead of being a gauge that fills up, similar to Venom, it would start full before decreasing over the fight. The more he has, the more HP like Robbie, but his would decrease over time as well as his attack stat. Also, since he has much more experience, instead of only having a stack of 4, he'd have 40 of them at the start. He'll also have two counters, when his legendary card is obtained: His basic one which would be a hellfire blast of his shotgun, and another which would be the "Penance Stare". This would make Johnny a reactionary character, focused on counter and protection, that can't afford to be too aggressive. Especially since some of the skills that would force him to push forward would render him vulnerable. Which can be navigating around by using the fact his only defense is a supply of "Resists". Cards: -Attack: -"I'm gonna whip your ass..." (Common): A simple attack where Johnny whips an enemy with his gun. Redrawing it adds a "Propulsion" thanks to the hellfire Doesn't consume any soul in its base form, but 1 in the redraw. Upgrading it adds a Quick effect. -"Blast your problems away..." (Common) By redrawing the card, you change it from a single target to a spray attack which hits multiple enemy thanks to Johnny's hellfire. The base attack only costs 1 soul, but the redrawn one costs 2. Upgrading it expands the zone and readies Johnny for a "Counter". -"Eat dirt..." (Rare): Johnny grabs an enemy by the head/torso and brutally bashes them on the ground before igniting his hand and creating a column of hellfire Zone damage around the selected enemy. However, it makes you lose 4 souls. Upgrading it expands the zone and the damage. -"Bonds with the Devil..." (Rare)-(Just the side effect of another card): He throws his chains made of hellfire for a forceful knockback but only towards himself, like Spiderman's "Special Delivery". If the enemy is brought to Johnny they'll get "Taunted" as well as some non-negligible damage. Only available when activating "Chained Together". Consumes 3 souls. Discarding them gives you 1 back. Upgrading "Chained Together" lets you get a free "Resist". Skill: -"For just a little longer..." (Common): Johnny hits his chest, small flames appearing over the position of his heart before disappearing. If he attacks this turn, his next card's soul consumption will be halved (or reduced to zero in case of the 1 soul cards) however, he'll get "Vulnerable" for the next turn. If he doesn't attack, and simply uses damageless/skill cards, he gains one "Resist" as well as a "Counter". It doesn't consume souls. Upgrading it adds "Strengthened" for Attack and "Taunt" for Skill. -"Chained together..." (Rare): Johnny grunts in pain as he forcefully calls on the weakened Zarathos to go come forth and lend him a bit of his power. This leads to Johnny's hair and mustache to light in hellfire as well as chains to appear wrapped around his arms. This gives Johnny a turn of "Counter" as well as 2 copies of the attack "Bonds with the Devil". At the end of the turn, he gets "Vulnerable". Upgrading it gives Johnny 6 souls back on activation. -"Look at me!" (Epic): By briefly setting his head aflame while yelling at the top of his lungs, the entire battlefield turns towards him in fear. "Taunt" "Counter" for 2 turns. It consumes 1 soul. Upgrading it adds two "Resists" and a third turn of "Counter". Heroic: -"I'm the holder of the parchment..." (Common) (5 hero points): For half of his remaining souls, Johnny reads the parchment and creates an area surrounded by flames with him as the center. Everybody can enter, but nobody can leave. Enemies will take damage when coming into contact with the flames no matter if it's in or out. The duration of the zone depends on how many souls are used in the ritual, with 10 at a minimum. Inside the zone Johnny's attacks consume one less soul. Upgrading it gives him a counter for as long as he's in the zone. -"Running away from Hell..." (Rare) (2 hero point) Johnny Blaze uses his bike to transport someone away from the battlefield, rendering them invulnerable but unable to act for the rest of the turn. (They can still act if they are a ranged character) If applied to self, it works but renders him vulnerable for the next turn. It also automatically makes him "Taunt" the entire battlefield. Consumes 15 souls. Upgrading it gives Johnny one free "Resist" and a "Counter". Unless applied to self, in that case he only gets the "Counter". -"No soul, but a will..." (Epic) (3 hero points): Fully replenishes Johnny's soul gauge and healthbar but gives him a three turn "Vulnerable". Upgrading it also gives Johnny a "Reinforcement". Exhaust -"Penance Stare!" (Legendary) (4 hero points): Johnny Blaze's counter becomes the iconic "Penance Stare" which makes him grab an enemy and force them to look into his eyes, with his head becoming half man and half skeleton, fire enveloping the two parts. This changes his counter property to have him inflict the exact damage that his enemies give/would have given him instead of simply attacking them with something else, it also grants him the ability to survive the entire turn without dying even at 1hp. However, the immortality is only granted the first time so careful as to not overuse it. On top of that, it cost ten souls right from the first activation and jumps higher in price each time by two. By upgrading it, the damage he inflicts back is doubled. Passive: -"Collected Souls": Each "Soul" will increase Johnny's total healthbar by 1% that will disappear if it's consumed. -"Collected Souls II": Same thing except he also gets 1% of shield, so 50% of his HP as shields when all souls are present. (However, he can't go over this total, which decreases over time encouraging the player to block as much as possible in the first few turns, and unlike the healthbar, the shield can't be replenished.) Alternate costumes: -Wrong One (Epic) : A joke costume that makes Johnny Blaze looks like Danny Ketch, so he can finally be in the game as well, would only change the bike if it was a Legendary one. -Midnight Sun (Legendary): No real idea for this one really. Maybe make his flames gold? -The Caretaker (Legendary): Both a nod to the Caretaker (Blood) from the comics and the one from the movie. That way him and Wolverine have a somewhat matching costume theme of "old cow-boys". His bike is obviously replaced by a flaming horse. -Younger Days (Legendary): Self-explanatory really. Either make it look like the comics or Nicolas Cage, or both... (Bike included with a more circus act look) He also has a pin or a picture plastered on his jacket/bike that represents Roxanne. (His wife) In the Abbey: Either at the training ground with Blade, in the forge for his hellfire bettering the rewards of Tony and Strange's draws, or allowing redraws. Lastly he could also be part of Peter and Robbie's crafting club. Story: After dying, he found himself in Mephisto's hell. His old arch-nemesis, both for himself and Zarathos. The demon basked in the glory of finally having Johnny in the palm of his hands to freely toy with. However, Johnny and Zarathos, despite being severely weakened, don't give up the fight, having been inspired by the prior events to fight until the bitter end instead of running away. (This level would serve, like Venom's, as a way to learn his mechanics, and how important countering and managing is for him.) After a few turns of struggles, Robbie and Hunter, having sensed that something abnormal was going on, voluntarily go to hell, hoping to retrieve Johnny. (Even if it's more of Robbie's will and Hunter is unsure of it.) They successfully manage to save him, and Johnny finally starts being somewhat pleasant with the two of them. Just before leaving hell though, Johnny, and only he, sees Sara's from above, who just nods before disappearing, followed by members of his carnival, making him smirk. "One day... one day I'll see you and them again... I love you Roxanne." So? What do you think? Did I succeed in making Johnny different enough from Robbie, which would justify his spot on the playable roster? |
2023.03.30 17:03 giboauja A question about DougDoug
So a couple of days ago I was just opening my YouTube app. In my list of recommended was a man named DougDoug who at that time I have never heard of before.
I clicked on the video, it was a bit abrasive at first. A bit septiceye in its energy. Now I grew to like septiceye, but only because at I started by watching lower energy videos. I don’t like being shouted at by people I don’t know basically. All of this is to say that I was turned off at first and closed the video.
I further noted several more of his videos were in my recos, but I just found some offline tv video to watch instead… this is when it began.
From this point on DougDoug was everywhere. Ludwig does a bro v bro. His videos played after everything I watched. Even a smaller content creator Josh Strife Hayes just casually mentions him in a Albion online video.
I’m afraid to watch him, is he some sort of virus. Is this like season 5 of Buffy. A, “be back before the DougDoug” moment? Are all of you sure, are you absolutely positive you knew about this guy more than 3 weeks ago?
So is there a good place to jump in or should I just watch whatever. It’s clearly too late for me so I might as well just watch a video.
submitted by giboauja to DougDoug [link] [comments]
I clicked on the video, it was a bit abrasive at first. A bit septiceye in its energy. Now I grew to like septiceye, but only because at I started by watching lower energy videos. I don’t like being shouted at by people I don’t know basically. All of this is to say that I was turned off at first and closed the video.
I further noted several more of his videos were in my recos, but I just found some offline tv video to watch instead… this is when it began.
From this point on DougDoug was everywhere. Ludwig does a bro v bro. His videos played after everything I watched. Even a smaller content creator Josh Strife Hayes just casually mentions him in a Albion online video.
I’m afraid to watch him, is he some sort of virus. Is this like season 5 of Buffy. A, “be back before the DougDoug” moment? Are all of you sure, are you absolutely positive you knew about this guy more than 3 weeks ago?
So is there a good place to jump in or should I just watch whatever. It’s clearly too late for me so I might as well just watch a video.
2023.03.30 17:03 giboauja A question about DougDoug
So a couple of days ago I was just opening my YouTube app. In my list of recommended was a man named DougDoug who at that time I have never heard of before.
I clicked on the video, it was a bit abrasive at first. A bit septiceye in its energy. Now I grew to like septiceye, but only because at I started by watching lower energy videos. I don’t like being shouted at by people I don’t know basically. All of this is to say that I was turned off at first and closed the video.
I further noted several more of his videos were in my recos, but I just found some offline tv video to watch instead… this is when it began.
From this point on DougDoug was everywhere. Ludwig does a bro v bro. His videos played after everything I watched. Even a smaller content creator Josh Strife Hayes just casually mentions him in a Albion online video.
I’m afraid to watch him, is he some sort of virus. Is this like season 5 of Buffy. A, “be back before the DougDoug” moment? Are all of you sure, are you absolutely positive you knew about this guy more than 3 weeks ago?
So is there a good place to jump in or should I just watch whatever. It’s clearly too late for me so I might as well just watch a video.
submitted by giboauja to DougDoug [link] [comments]
I clicked on the video, it was a bit abrasive at first. A bit septiceye in its energy. Now I grew to like septiceye, but only because at I started by watching lower energy videos. I don’t like being shouted at by people I don’t know basically. All of this is to say that I was turned off at first and closed the video.
I further noted several more of his videos were in my recos, but I just found some offline tv video to watch instead… this is when it began.
From this point on DougDoug was everywhere. Ludwig does a bro v bro. His videos played after everything I watched. Even a smaller content creator Josh Strife Hayes just casually mentions him in a Albion online video.
I’m afraid to watch him, is he some sort of virus. Is this like season 5 of Buffy. A, “be back before the DougDoug” moment? Are all of you sure, are you absolutely positive you knew about this guy more than 3 weeks ago?
So is there a good place to jump in or should I just watch whatever. It’s clearly too late for me so I might as well just watch a video.
2023.03.30 17:03 AshleighBSB Late For Work
 | Late for Work is an interactive Choose Your Own Path Romance. Each episode, readers vote for the path they would like to take. Together, we will follow the path with the most votes. submitted by AshleighBSB to AshleighStevens [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/ladso81c5wqa1.jpg?width=157&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9817ca3d5ad5dcc9909b7b0bf5b9fad8e2b5dfa7 THE STORY SO FAR “I don't have time for this,” you mumble to yourself as you pull into the coffee shop parking lot. You're late for work. Again. Does everyone in town really need to get their coffee right this second? You circle the lot three times before finding a place to park. The guy in that black sports car doesn't look too happy, but you were clearly there first. You had your signal light on and everything. Rushing into the cafe, you anxiously tap your foot at the back of the line, counting ten people in front of you. Ugh. Haven’t any of these people heard of ordering ahead? Sure, you couldn’t because your phone was dead. But what was everyone else’s excuse? The people at the register move to the side to wait for their order and you inch forward. Nine people, now eight, stand between you and your morning caffeine. You can't see the menu, but it doesn't matter. You order the same thing so often, they should name a drink after you. The door opens, and someone gets in line behind you. With nothing better to do, you glance over your shoulder. The guy behind you looks familiar. You try not to stare, but you turn your body. To the casual observer, you are reading the community bulletin board. But out of the corner of your eye, you are examining your line buddy. His hair is the color of freshly brewed coffee while his eyes resemble a mocha latte. About a head taller than you, he is dressed in jeans and a polo. You definitely recognize that profile. But where could you have met him? The line moves forward. Six more people to go. You return your gaze to the bulletin board, shifting your eyes to the guy behind you. He seems to be studying the menu, biting his upper lip as he concentrates. Could he be any sexier? The guy leans forward slightly. He's probably trying to see the bakery case, but you can't help catching a whiff of him. Vanilla latte with a hint of musk. A moment later, he taps your shoulder. You can feel your eyes grow wide. Does he realize you’ve been checking him out? Feeling your cheeks grow warm, you turn to face him. Before you can say anything in your defense, however, he wordlessly gestures toward the register. You follow his gaze. While you were busy drooling over the eye candy behind you, the line has moved. There is now only one person standing between you and your morning caffeine. Mortified, you stare at the register, willing the cashier to move faster. It must have worked, because within seconds, the woman in front of you steps aside and you place your order. As soon as you swipe your credit card, you rush to the corner of the pickup area, squeezing between two senior citizens. There’s no way Hot Guy will think you’re trying to get close to him now. Not that he seems to notice. After placing his order, he stands near the little table with cream and sugar, playing on his phone while he waits. Everyone is playing on their phones, as you should be doing. But you couldn’t. Because your stupid charging cable just had to die last night. Hot Guy looks up from his phone, right in your direction. Oh no. How long were you staring? Did he notice? Meeting your eyes, he sends you a sexy smile. Was that because he saw you looking? Or because he wanted you to look? Thankfully, your name is called. You rush to retrieve your drink, but in your haste, you accidentally knock it over. The flimsy top falls off, spilling your vanilla latte all over the pickup counter. Everyone around you jumps back in surprise, but the barista passes you a towel with a smile. “Are you okay?” Taking the towel, you nod. “I think so.” You glance at the damage. No one was burned, thankfully. You didn’t even ruin anyone’s shoes. The only casualty is your pride. Another employee has already run to your side of the counter with more towels to clean the mess, so you’re not sure what you’re supposed to be doing with the one in your hand. You double check, but you didn’t spill any coffee on yourself. As you return the towel to the counter, the barista behind the counter yells out. “Mike!” Hot Guy squeezes beside you to grab his coffee. With a nod and a smile in your direction, he grabs it and heads outside. A moment later, the barista again calls your name. Taking the coffee in both hands, you make sure the lid is secure before taking a sip. After thanking the barista profusely for redoing the order, you rush to your car. You have ten minutes to get to your office on the other side of town. Not going to happen. As you pull out of your parking space, you hear someone blasting a horn. Slamming the breaks, you check your mirrors. You almost backed into a black sports car. Your eyes go wide as you recognize the driver. Who is it?
Hurriedly, you pull forward to let the car pass. He didn’t see you, right? Or at least, if he did, he didn’t recognize you as the person who spill coffee everywhere. You can only hope. Sinking low in your seat, you do your best to peek in your rearview mirror, but you don’t see the black car. You check your side mirrors. Nope. No car. Sipping your coffee, you breathe a mental sigh of relief. Until you check the clock on the dash. It reads 8:51. You have nine minutes to get to work. You are meeting with a new client first thing and you would like an extra few minutes to prepare. The Yeager account could make or break you. If you do well with this project, you could get a promotion. If you don’t, well, you’re pretty sure you’re already on the company chopping block. Or at least in line for it. Sitting upright, you check your mirrors again. No cars. After shifting the car into reverse, you back out of the space a little more slowly than you did before. This time, at least, you don’t come close to hitting anyone as you join the line of cars trying to leave the parking lot. Ugh. Is that person in front seriously trying to make a left-hand turn? On this road? There’s a right-turn-only sign for a reason! Drumming your fingers against the wheel with one hand, you sip your coffee and glance at the clock. Eight minutes. Eventually, the moron blocking traffic makes the left and you are able to fight your way onto the main road. Only to hit every red light between here and your office. You wait the best way you know how: sipping your latte and hoping your boss is stuck in the same traffic. Or even better: the client. When you finally reach the office, it is well past nine o’clock. Pulling into the first spot you can find, you down the rest of your coffee as you shut the door. You wave to the receptionist as you enter the building, but you don’t have time to chat. Walking briskly, you make a beeline to the back corner of the room. You wave to your coworkers, quickly realizing you are the last one to arrive. You turn on your computer as you sit, swiveling to search for the folder containing all your notes for this morning’s meeting. And come face to face with your boss. How long has she been standing there? You gulp, sending her a sheepish smile. “Oh. Morning. I didn’t see you there.” Smiling, Karen waves a dismissive hand. “No worries. Just got in. Traffic this morning was horrendous.” You nod. Does she know you were late? Is she mad? She doesn’t seem to be. She gestures to the folder in your hands. “Mr. Yeager’s here. Meet us in the conference room?” “Yeah. Sure.” “Great. See you in there.” As she disappears into the cubicle forest, you take a few deep breaths. You can do this. You will land this account. Confident that you are are confident as you can get, you grab your folder and head to the conference room. On your way, you detour to the kitchen. One more cup of coffee will help calm your nerves. As you approach the conference room, you can see Karen approaching with your new client. Two clients, you realize. Why are there two? You were only expecting to meet with one person. While researching your new client, you visited the company’s website. The man walking beside Karen is definitely Dr. Yeager. But who is the person behind them? Dr. Yeager is so tall, he is completely obscuring your view. Since you arrive at the conference room only moments before them, you wait for them, smiling as they approach. Karen gestures to you, introducing you as the junior accountant who will be assisting her before turning to you. “This is Dr. Yeager, and his son, also Dr. Yeager.” The older man thrusts out a hand. “Nice to meet you. I look forward to working with you.” “And I, you.” Smiling, you shake his hand, surprised at his firm grip. Karen holds open the door to the conference room. “Shall we?” The older doctor laughs. “Of course. Ladies first.” He holds the door, ushering Karen inside. And you get your first glimpse of the younger doctor. Except, it’s not your first glance. You’ve seen him before. In line behind you at the coffee shop this morning. He smirks. “Well, well. Isn’t it a small world?” What do you do?
|
2023.03.30 17:01 Forged_in_pain Fuck off
I’m just one of the “shitty men” from your past. You don’t know or care how little choice I had in what happened that day.
God it’s fucking infuriating how delusional you are about my absolute villainy. “If things didn’t turn out perfectly it’s your fault. If you wanted them to they would have”
Your little letter to your future beloved is a classic example of your fucking insanity not mine. He is perfect. I’m the devil. Classic.
“An honorable man is impossible to look down on”
“Honorable men don’t stop trying to make things right. They never stop trying their best”
But of course I’m not honorable so you look down on me.
You know one thing I have realized in these weeks? All my insecurities, you only fueled them. It took me talking about them with someone else to realize the difference. You’d either gaslight me about how “it doesn’t matter” or you’d literally look down on me for even having it. There wasn’t this famous love you keep going on about. Every time I opened myself up to you about something, it, without exception, was used as ammunition against me in fights when you got mad. What did you think that it helped? Did I ever despite my worst anger call you fat? I knew you were insecure above your body did I ever make any comments in it during our fights? No but you didn’t waste opportunities to use even the worst things against me. To make sure you hurt me.
When you got mad you intentionally very strategically made sure to feed my insecurities more. The justification being something I did more than a year ago and didn’t repeat again.
Then you again looked down on me, telling me I was sick, for having them. After actively having fed them 😂😂😂
Do you realize how all I needed or wanted from you was fucking kindness and tenderness? Instead of the fucking rock you were? Instead of telling me how stupid and retarded and sick I was?
I know it’s not hard. Because people who have known me far less than you are able to make me feel far better about it. Because they choose to not make it worse. I realized how you chose to make it worse for me. And to top it all off you kept constantly looking down on me. Your little offers to “help” were meaningless. Because none of them addressed the root cause.
Yeah I had so many insecurities. And you knew them. You knew them so well you literally would swipe on guys knowing how much they would trigger them. So why are you so surprised they didn’t magically disappear? Did you ever sit down and for two minutes talk to me about them without “you’re stupid for having this. You’re sick. Go get help you mentally disabled shit”
When I think back to you, I always had to have this shell in front of you. It’s a wonder huh that someone who you look down on might not want to be with you.
Good God I was so convinced that I was so beneath you. Your subtle propaganda worked I’m not sure why you are so angry about it. What do you think will happen to someone when you do that to them?
To you, love is only whatever you’re good at. The things you suck at incidentally don’t make it into the definition of love. Because then you might not be perfect. You think you’re so perfect at love. Yet it so many ways so many times, some fighting, some just gaslighting me about how my problems were fake, you made me feel so fucking unloved. Almost nobody has made me feel as unloved as you. Nobody who says they love me has made me feel as unloved as you have. And absolutely nobody who says they care about me has fueled my insecurities the way you did. Especially not on purpose.
I’m so happy, SO ducking happy to know how everything you said about me when you tried to convince me to come back to you was utter manipulative bullshit. All those “but you tried your best you changed so much for me” it all meant nothing to you and it’s perfectly evident in this pathetic letter.
“Stupid enough you could be convinced he is mentally ill” I’ll remember this one.
Could be convinced I am mentally ill huh. Pick a fucking lane.
God you are the one who is insane. I’ve never been happier with my fucking choice to not be with you. You’ve demonstrated that at the end of the day, if you’re happy or if you want me, I’m an angel. If you’re mad at me or you’re feeling bad, I am the worst person ever. Even worse than fucking John. Right? Lol
God I fucking wish I cared as little about you as you think. You are fucking ridiculous.
I’m glad you have an idea what it feels like when you say you’re going to jump and the other person cares so little they go to another room. Atleast I cared enough that even though I was so far away I panicked and fucking called all those people. You just walked away. You told me you’d fucked him and walked away and I will never forget that. “You love yourself too much to do it”. So do you. I will never ever forget how casually you just walked away. I looked and you weren’t even there you didn’t even care enough to stand there for two seconds. Go “jump”. I also know “you love yourself too much” to do it; you wrote a whole essay on why you’re so good you shouldn’t. Which is a good thing don’t get me wrong I don’t actually want you to do it, I’m just saying, you should be glad I treated you how you treated me that night. I will never forget that. Despite how much you try to convince me I’m the devil I will never ever forget how you told me you had fucked him, watched me go insane, and then left when I said I’d jump.
Today I saw just how absolutely unapologetically horrible you are. And oh GOD I am happy to be rid of you.
I won’t give you the satisfaction of responding to your ridiculous pathetic borderline personality disorder essays.
submitted by Forged_in_pain to u/Forged_in_pain [link] [comments]
God it’s fucking infuriating how delusional you are about my absolute villainy. “If things didn’t turn out perfectly it’s your fault. If you wanted them to they would have”
Your little letter to your future beloved is a classic example of your fucking insanity not mine. He is perfect. I’m the devil. Classic.
“An honorable man is impossible to look down on”
“Honorable men don’t stop trying to make things right. They never stop trying their best”
But of course I’m not honorable so you look down on me.
You know one thing I have realized in these weeks? All my insecurities, you only fueled them. It took me talking about them with someone else to realize the difference. You’d either gaslight me about how “it doesn’t matter” or you’d literally look down on me for even having it. There wasn’t this famous love you keep going on about. Every time I opened myself up to you about something, it, without exception, was used as ammunition against me in fights when you got mad. What did you think that it helped? Did I ever despite my worst anger call you fat? I knew you were insecure above your body did I ever make any comments in it during our fights? No but you didn’t waste opportunities to use even the worst things against me. To make sure you hurt me.
When you got mad you intentionally very strategically made sure to feed my insecurities more. The justification being something I did more than a year ago and didn’t repeat again.
Then you again looked down on me, telling me I was sick, for having them. After actively having fed them 😂😂😂
Do you realize how all I needed or wanted from you was fucking kindness and tenderness? Instead of the fucking rock you were? Instead of telling me how stupid and retarded and sick I was?
I know it’s not hard. Because people who have known me far less than you are able to make me feel far better about it. Because they choose to not make it worse. I realized how you chose to make it worse for me. And to top it all off you kept constantly looking down on me. Your little offers to “help” were meaningless. Because none of them addressed the root cause.
Yeah I had so many insecurities. And you knew them. You knew them so well you literally would swipe on guys knowing how much they would trigger them. So why are you so surprised they didn’t magically disappear? Did you ever sit down and for two minutes talk to me about them without “you’re stupid for having this. You’re sick. Go get help you mentally disabled shit”
When I think back to you, I always had to have this shell in front of you. It’s a wonder huh that someone who you look down on might not want to be with you.
Good God I was so convinced that I was so beneath you. Your subtle propaganda worked I’m not sure why you are so angry about it. What do you think will happen to someone when you do that to them?
To you, love is only whatever you’re good at. The things you suck at incidentally don’t make it into the definition of love. Because then you might not be perfect. You think you’re so perfect at love. Yet it so many ways so many times, some fighting, some just gaslighting me about how my problems were fake, you made me feel so fucking unloved. Almost nobody has made me feel as unloved as you. Nobody who says they love me has made me feel as unloved as you have. And absolutely nobody who says they care about me has fueled my insecurities the way you did. Especially not on purpose.
I’m so happy, SO ducking happy to know how everything you said about me when you tried to convince me to come back to you was utter manipulative bullshit. All those “but you tried your best you changed so much for me” it all meant nothing to you and it’s perfectly evident in this pathetic letter.
“Stupid enough you could be convinced he is mentally ill” I’ll remember this one.
Could be convinced I am mentally ill huh. Pick a fucking lane.
God you are the one who is insane. I’ve never been happier with my fucking choice to not be with you. You’ve demonstrated that at the end of the day, if you’re happy or if you want me, I’m an angel. If you’re mad at me or you’re feeling bad, I am the worst person ever. Even worse than fucking John. Right? Lol
God I fucking wish I cared as little about you as you think. You are fucking ridiculous.
I’m glad you have an idea what it feels like when you say you’re going to jump and the other person cares so little they go to another room. Atleast I cared enough that even though I was so far away I panicked and fucking called all those people. You just walked away. You told me you’d fucked him and walked away and I will never forget that. “You love yourself too much to do it”. So do you. I will never ever forget how casually you just walked away. I looked and you weren’t even there you didn’t even care enough to stand there for two seconds. Go “jump”. I also know “you love yourself too much” to do it; you wrote a whole essay on why you’re so good you shouldn’t. Which is a good thing don’t get me wrong I don’t actually want you to do it, I’m just saying, you should be glad I treated you how you treated me that night. I will never forget that. Despite how much you try to convince me I’m the devil I will never ever forget how you told me you had fucked him, watched me go insane, and then left when I said I’d jump.
Today I saw just how absolutely unapologetically horrible you are. And oh GOD I am happy to be rid of you.
I won’t give you the satisfaction of responding to your ridiculous pathetic borderline personality disorder essays.
2023.03.30 17:00 Cleverly_Clearly Respect Alucard! (Hellsing)
My name's Alucard. I'm an agent who takes out the trash for the secret service "Hellsing". A hit man, for the likes of you.
Alucard, the No Life King
In the 15th century, Vlad Dracula was the Voivode of Wallachia and conducted many military campaigns against the Ottoman Empire. Although he was a hero to the Romanian people he ruled, to the world at large he was a genocidal butcher famous for his acts of cruelty, gaining the name "Vlad the Impaler" for the way he would display the skewered corpses of his enemies. Although he was eventually defeated and brought to the gallows for execution, he decided that living by any means possible would be better than an ignominious death at the enemy's hands. He drank the blood of the execution grounds, and was resurrected as a vampire.In the 19th century, Count Dracula was defeated yet again, this time by the vampire hunter Abraham Van Hellsing. Rather than killing the vampire completely (if such a thing was even possible), Van Hellsing sealed and buried the creature deep in the Hellsing mansion, binding him to be under the control of the Hellsing vampire hunters.
Now, in the modern era, Sir Integra Hellsing is the current head of the Hellsing Orgainzation, the British Crown's vampire-hunting agency. When she became the head of the family as a child, and a jealous splinter faction of the Hellsings sought to have her assassinated, Integra went to the one place she had been told to run to when all hope was lost--the tomb of Dracula. When her blood touched his skin, he was revived once more, now a loyal servant of Hellsing. He goes under the name "Alucard", and works for the government, dispatching other vampires to protect the humans he once terrorized. Although, perhaps, given the opportunity to break free of his restraints, the true monstrous power of the legendary vampire would be far more dangerous than the threats he fights against...
Credit to NegativeGamer for gathering Hellsing: The Dawn feats for me.
Notes: Alucard is under a restriction system starting at Level 5 and ending at Level 0, with lower numbers having less restrictions on his power and Level 0 meaning "no restrictions". Feats from without these restrictions are marked.
Vampirism
General- If a vampire drinks the blood of a virgin of the opposite sex, they turn their victim into a vampire; however, if a vampire drinks a non-virgin's blood, they are merely turned into a ghoul Anime
- Communicates with Seras through telepathy
- Unclearly moves from inside a house to the roof of the house offscreen without Seras noticing.
- [Level 1] Shrouds a large area in mist so the aircraft carrier he's piloting will go undetected Anime
- "They feel a human's killing intent, read his movements, rob from his mind, and move accordingly. They easily dodge bullets and edged weapons"
- "Excellent reflexes and concentration, a sixth sense, physical adeptness, endurance, blood sucking, transformation, an undying nature, etc... they tear through humans as if they were rags"
- Typical troops and police are nothing but food for a vampire Anime
- An ordinary vampire easily dodges a bullet Anime
- Ghouls can continue fighting even riddled with bullets or headless
- Can shoot dead-on from a kilometer away
- Grins while he sleeps because he can "sense" the massacre on the HMS Eagle
- Taught Seras how to see through illusions using her "third eye" Anime
- [Level 1] Can sense the destruction of London from a distance Anime
- [Level 1] Several arms grow out of his back Anime
- [Level 0] Transforms back to his original appearance as Vlad Tepes Anime
- [Level 0] Transforms into a little girl Anime
- Can change his appearance at will Anime
- Tells a concierge there's nothing wrong with bringing a coffin into the hotel Anime
- Gets a BOPE officer to leave the elevator open for him Anime
- Presumably hypnotized a news reporter into forgetting about a hijacking
- Closes and locks a door Anime
- Throws a bunch of corpses onto flagpoles Anime
- Seemingly throws two guards out of his way without touching him
- Transforms his headless body into a swarm of bats and reforms Anime
- Summons a bat swarm
- [Level 1] Creates another bat swarm
- [Level 0] Summons a swarm of vampire bats
Shadows
- [Level 1] Uses shadows to control a plane as it falls towards the HMS Eagle Anime
- [Level 1] Tears apart an army of vampires Anime
- [Level 1] Guides the HMS Eagle through the water at several knots Anime
- Vampires are full of weaknesses. They are weak to garlic, crosses, eucharist wafers, and holy water. They can't cross rivers, canals, oceans, lakes, or streams. They can't look at the sun or listen to scripture. Most vampires move only at night and their sole nest of repose is a small, dank coffin
- Destruction of the heart will kill a normal vampire, and if the heart isn't destroyed, they won't die; however, Alucard will keep going even if his heart is pierced
- Vampires are weak to blessed items like Anderson's blades (anime) or Alucard's bullets (anime)
- A vampire must drink blood, or at least sleep in a coffin in the soil where they were born, or their powers will weaken Anime
- Alucard is fine in direct sunlight, he just hates it
- Vampires find eating human food very difficult Anime
Familiars
General- Vampires can absorb foes into their bodies as a familiar to be summoned later.
- [Level 0] Multiple familiars can be used simultaneously Anime
- [Level 0] Draws the entire massacred population of London into his body, giving him millions of "lives" and making him essentially unkillable Anime
- [Level 1] Catches and chews on Luke Valentine, leaving him in this state Anime
- [Level 1] Eats Luke Valentine Anime
- [Level 1] Acts as a distraction by firing Alucard's gun Anime
- [Level 0] Gets sliced in half and still lives Anime
- [Level 0] Baskerville rapidly moves down a city street in an erratic zigzag Anime
- [Level 0] Luke Valentine accidentally became part of Baskerville when eaten, and appears from Baskerville's body, although he doesn't seem to be a true familiar Anime
Alucard absorbs Tubalcain Alhambra into his body as a familiar (anime). Tubalcain's RT can be found here.
- [Level 0] Tears through several Nazi zombies Anime
- [Level 0] Tears through helicopters Anime
- [Level 0] Seriously wounds Anderson Anime
Alucard absorbs Rip Van Winkle into his body as a familiar. Rip Van Winkle's RT can be found here
- [Level 0] Tears through the Knights of Malta Anime
- [Level 0] Tears through helicopters Anime
- [Level 0] Seriously wounds Anderson Anime
- [Level 0] Summons both the Ottoman and Romanian armies, devoured during his time as Vlad Tepes; the army includes mounted cavalry and siege weapons Anime
- [Level 0] They swarm over the Nazi and Christian armies like a wave of bodies, unhindered by being fired on Anime
- [Level 0] Spears through the Archbishop and the Knights of Malta Anime
During the Battle of London, Alucard unintentionally devoured the body of the familiar Schrodinger Anime
- Schrodinger has the power to be "everywhere and nowhere" as long as he is cognizant of his own existence, but this power reacts badly with the millions of lives in Alucard's power, making him no longer existant Anime
- Schrodinger could use this power to teleport and exist anywhere Anime
- In the end, Alucard kills all of the lives within him so only Schrodinger's power is left, allowing him to be not just immortal but omnipresent Anime
Casull and Jackal
Alucard's weapons of choice are the .454 Casull Auto and the 13mm Auto Anti-Freak Combat Pistol: Jackal, "The Jackal" for short. The Casull uses 13mm explosive steel rounds, alloyed with steel melted from a church cross; these bullets are highly effective against monsters when normal ammunition isn't (anime). Similarly, the Jackal uses 13mm armor-piercing explosive rounds with pure Macedeonium silver casings and mercury tips (anime)VS Objects
- Alucard's pistol bullets blow through stone and richochet wildly off the walls, floor, and ceiling without losing momentum
- Shoots through a door Anime
- [Level 0] Shoots down all of Anderson's bayonets Anime
- Mows down ghoul police officers Anime
- Pierces through Seras and a vampire in one shot Anime
- Shoots through a vampire repeatedly Anime
- Massacres a BOPE unit of at least 13 men Anime
- Shoots two BOPE officers from down a hallway Anime
- Shoots through a bunch of people while fighting Tubalcain Anime
- Blows Schrodinger's head off Anime
- [Level 1] Shoots the leg off Luke Valentine Anime
- [Level 0] Jackal shoots Anderson's arm off when he could block all of Casull's bullets Anime
- [Level 0] Blows Nail Anderson's head off Anime
- [Level 0] Repeatedly destroys Nail Anderson's body, but he keeps regenerating Anime
Strength
Striking- Pierces his hand through a vampire's chest and rips him apart Anime
- Slices through humans with his hands Anime
- Destroys a BOPE unit with his bare hands Anime
- Makes Anderson bleed and double over Anime
- [Level 1] Breaks Tubalcain's leg with a kick, then destroys his arm Anime
- [Level 1] Decks Rip Van Winkle and sends her sprawling across the floor Anime
- [Level 0] Clashes with Anderson and knocks him back Anime
- [Level 0] Clashes repeatedly with Anderson Anime
- [Level 0] Tears through Nail Anderson, crushing his heart Anime
- [Level 0] Decks Walter, breaking stone underneath him
- Decapitates and throws a human with his bite Anime
- [Level 1] Bites down and destroys Rip Van Winkle's magic bullet
- Snaps out of restraints
- [Limit] Two of Anderson's holy bayonets pin him to a wall Anime
- [Level 1] Shoves Rip Van Winkle's own gun through her body Anime
Agility
- Catches several bullets out of the air from close range
- Moves his arm to protect Integra from a bullet
- Nails Anderson with a close-range gunshot Anime
- Uses the smoke from Tubalcain's explosion to suddenly appear on a hotel wall, then rapidly move up it Anime
- Evades Tubalcain's playing cards Anime
- Trades punches at equal speed with Anderson Anime
- [Level 1] Catches Rip Van Winkle's magic bullet in his teeth Anime
- [Level 1] Jumps from an aircraft carrier across several city blocks Anime
- [Level 0] Strikes simultaneously with Anderson, clashing blades Anime
- [Level 0] Shoots down all of Anderson's bayonets Anime
Durability and Regen
General- After spending decades as a shriveled-up mummy, is fully restored moments after a bit of blood gets on him Anime
- Cutting off his head or stabbing through his heart won't kill him Anime
- [Level 0] Reforms after having his arm and head ripped off by Nail Anderson, shooting him after being decapitated
- [Level 0] Quickly regenerates a destroyed arm Anime
- Quickly reforms after being violently kicked in half
- Takes blows from Anderson Anime
- [Level 1] Withstands crashing a plane at over Mach 3 into an aircraft carrier Anime
- [Level 0] Continues fighting despite getting smashed through a building Anime
- Reforms shortly after being shot to pieces by ghoul police officers Anime
- Essentially unharmed by SMG fire Anime
- Shoots Anderson even after being stabbed through the neck by him Anime
- Continues to fight after being stabbed through the chest by Anderson Anime
- Is pierced by dozens of Anderson's bayonets, gets decapitated, and has a bayonet put through his brain
- Gets repeatedly shot point blank and keeps fighting Anime
- Reforms after being riddled with bullets Anime
- Jumps away after Tubalcain slashes through him Anime
- [Level 1] Doesn't care about being torn apart by Rip Van Winkle's magic bullet Anime
- [Level 0] Reforms after being stabbed by Anderson, decapitated by the Captain, and repeatedly shot Anime
- [Level 0] Gets speared through the head and burned up by Nail Anderson and survives
- Also happens in the anime
- [Level 0] Totally ignores Luke Valentine's bullets Anime
- Unhurt by the explosion of Tubalcain's cards Anime
- [Level 1] Regenerates from large amounts of gunfire, rockets, and grenades Anime
Misc
Coffin- His coffin falls out of an airplane and is undamaged
- His coffin is also a living, multi-armed creature, and it's strong enough to send Rip Van Winkle skidding down a hallway with a kick, KO'ing her
- A BOPE officer shoots himself rather than fight Alucard Anime
- Rip Van Winkle can sense his coming Anime
- [Level 1] Anderson and Seras sense Alucard's return Anime
- [Level 0] Both the Nazi army and the Christian army can sense that something terrible is about to happen once Alucard removes his restrictions Anime
- Together with Walter, took down a Nazi vampire-army operation 50 years ago Anime
- Has been around for 500 years
- He was Vlad Tepes and Count Dracula