I am a GS-12 (equivalent) in a demo payband, electrical engineer (850) that is coming up on my 3-year mark. I will receive permanent status at that point. My duties lean more toward project management at this stage and I have the good fortune of having a fairly sizeable project that has an international component to it. Fortunate because this gives me some travel and "prestige". I am also doing a 6 month trip to our international partners next year, which I am equally looking forward to.
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My supervisor asked me my goals and whether I would like to move into tech or management. I believe management is a better pathway for me, as I prefer business and people over managing projects individually. During a recent trip, however, I was informed by my second and third level supervisors that I would not qualify for management right now, because they look for a variety of experience. Or as they stated clearly, you cannot have only been on one team. This was also repeated later and appears to be a very clear "you need to go somewhere" that they are conveying.
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I am now looking for movement potential and my different options. Then, whether or not this is something I should discuss with my supervisor. I have been very well treated by my supervisor, with a masters degree in progress, language training on duty time, long vacations when requested, and good evaluations. My last evaluation was a +3, which for us puts me in the top 11% of performers. My Level 2 supervisor retires in 3-4 years, level 1 in 7 or so.
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Option 1) I am considering applying to a posting in Tokyo, as I am currently conversational in Japanese as my only foreign language, and enjoyed my previous time there. I would look for a GS-13 position as well, giving me a raise. Under my current facility, I would KEEP this pay raise if I returned to an engineering position, because it is still within the payband (per HR). This is a chance to go to Japan, explore the dating scene there (better luck there than the US), and potentially get a promotion. Downside is moving abroad and all that entails. Also, while I would have return rights to my home facility, it does not guarantee me the team. After this, I might look for a PM office supervisor role, in an attempt to be on more teams while waiting for a position to open.
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Option 2) Move around inside the facility. This is less work than moving, but also comes with all the same problems as staying where I am. There is other groups I qualify for, but I do not believe it would likely be a promotion in the process, so I would be staying at roughly GS-12. It would be easier to potentially come back to my existing team though and very little otherwise would change.
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Option 3) This is a far fetched option, but I think would work IF selected. There is a program that allows us to go to Japan for a year and work in 4-5 roles. These roles can include the national diet (congress), any ministry (including defense), self defense forces, education/universities, and private industry. I would spend a year in "language and culture training" if selected, then the following year (July 2025) I would go to Japan for a year and go through some groups. This gives me a long trip to Japan, multiple roles occupied, more language fluency, and allows me to also sample private, public, and educational sectors. During this time, i am still employed in my current group and they agree to pay everything as if I was working. The main downside is... it isn't reliable. It is less than a dozen people a year selected, so I am aiming for the stars, so I may want to plan option 1 or 2 alongside this, just in case.
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I am hoping people have some insights, ideas, and approaches to dealing with choosing an option. Additionally, should I have a discussion about all this with my supervisor? I am concerned he would realize this means I am not going to finish the current project, which moved from ending in 2025 to 2027, and try to effectively replace me by assigning someone else and phasing me out. Appearing to have a foot out the door may not go well, so I am unsure if I should bring it up. My plans are all long term and I aim to be here another 20 years before retiring, so moving up early on would not only give me better future prospects, but with raises being percent based, I am leaving funds on the table. I have no real chance to move to the equivalent of GS-13 currently it appears.
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To anyone who read through this novel.. thank you, and I would appreciate anyone's feedback and insights for a still rather early fed.

When I was brand new to NovelAi I had no idea how 2048 tokens really looked as text. So for anyone looking at the tiers, trying to decide how many tokens they want for Clio with the new update, I've tokenized Part of The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald (public domain since 2021).
That way new users can more easily visualize what the AI's maximum context is for each tier. According to the UI Clio uses the NerdStash Tokenizer, as different tokenizers will convert text to tokens their own way.
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In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.
And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament”—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.
My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.
I never saw this great-uncle, but I’m supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father’s office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go East and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, “Why—ye-es,” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.
The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog—at least I had him for a few days until he ran away—and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.
It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.
“How do you get to West Egg village?” he asked helplessly.
I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighbourhood.
And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.
There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the Yale News—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the “well-rounded man.” This isn’t just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.
It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York—and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual wonder to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more interesting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.
I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion. Or, rather, as I didn’t know Mr. Gatsby, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbour’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.
Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.
Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savours of anticlimax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he’d left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance, he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.
Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it—I had no sight into Daisy’s heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.
And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran towards the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sundials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.
He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty, with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.
His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.
“Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” We were in the same senior society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.
We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.
“I’ve got a nice place here,” he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.
Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosed motorboat that bumped the tide offshore.
“It belonged to Demaine, the oil man.” He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”
We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-coloured space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-coloured rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.
The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.
The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.
“I’m p-paralysed with happiness.”
She
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laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)
At any rate, Miss Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.
I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.
I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.
“Do they miss me?” she cried ecstatically.
“The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and there’s a persistent wail all night along the north shore.”
“How gorgeous! Let’s go back, Tom. Tomorrow!” Then she added irrelevantly: “You ought to see the baby.”
“I’d like to.”
“She’s asleep. She’s three years old. Haven’t you ever seen her?”
“Never.”
“Well, you ought to see her. She’s—”
Tom Buchanan, who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.
“What you doing, Nick?”
“I’m a bond man.”
“Who with?”
I told him.
“Never heard of them,” he remarked decisively.
This annoyed me.
“You will,” I answered shortly. “You will if you stay in the East.”
“Oh, I’ll stay in the East, don’t you worry,” he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. “I’d be a God damned fool to live anywhere else.”
At this point Miss Baker said: “Absolutely!” with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she had uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.
“I’m stiff,” she complained, “I’ve been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember.”
“Don’t look at me,” Daisy retorted, “I’ve been trying to get you to New York all afternoon.”
“No, thanks,” said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry. “I’m absolutely in training.”
Her host looked at her incredulously.
“You are!” He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. “How you ever get anything done is beyond me.”
I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she “got done.” I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.
“You live in West Egg,” she remarked contemptuously. “I know somebody there.”
“I don’t know a single—”
“You must know Gatsby.”
“Gatsby?” demanded Daisy. “What Gatsby?”
Before I could reply that he was my neighbour dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.
Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out on to a rosy-coloured porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.
“Why candles?” objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”
“We ought to plan something,” yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.
“All right,” said Daisy. “What’ll we plan?” She turned to me helplessly: “What do people plan?”
Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.
“Look!” she complained; “I hurt it.”
We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.
“You did it, Tom,” she said accusingly. “I know you didn’t mean to, but you did do it. That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a—”
“I hate that word ‘hulking,’ ” objected Tom crossly, “even in kidding.”
“Hulking,” insisted Daisy.
Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here, and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase towards its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.
“You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy,” I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. “Can’t you talk about crops or something?”
I meant nothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpected way.
“Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Tom violently. “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Coloured Empires by this man Goddard?”
“Why, no,” I answered, rather surprised by his tone.
“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
“Tom’s getting very profound,” said Daisy, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. “He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—”
“Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.”
“We’ve got to beat them down,” whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.
“You ought to live in California—” began Miss Baker, but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.
“This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and—” After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. “—And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?”
There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned towards me.
“I’ll tell you a family secret,” she whispered enthusiastically. “It’s about the butler’s nose. Do you want to hear about the butler’s nose?”
“That’s why I came over tonight.”
“Well, he wasn’t always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose—”
“Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Baker.
“Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.”
For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.
The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom’s ear, whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.
“I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation: “An absolute rose?”
This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.
Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.
“This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbour—” I began.
“Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.”
“Is something happening?” I inquired innocently.
“You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.”
“I don’t.”
“Why—” she said hesitantly. “Tom’s got some woman in New York.”
“Got some woman?” I repeated blankly.
Miss Baker nodded.
“She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”
Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.
“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Daisy with tense gaiety.
She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away—” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Tom?”
“Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.”
The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at everyone, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Baker, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.
The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.
Daisy took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.
“We don’t know each other very well, Nick,” she said suddenly. “Even if we are cousins. You didn’t come to my wedding.”
“I wasn’t back from the war.”
“That’s true.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, Nick, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.”
Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she
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didn’t say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.
“I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything.”
“Oh, yes.” She looked at me absently. “Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?”
“Very much.”
“It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about—things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’
“You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,” she went on in a convinced way. “Everybody thinks so—the most advanced people. And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.” Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom’s, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. “Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!”
The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.
Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light. Tom and Miss Baker sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the Saturday Evening Post—the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamplight, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.
When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.
“To be continued,” she said, tossing the magazine on the table, “in our very next issue.”
Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.
“Ten o’clock,” she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. “Time for this good girl to go to bed.”
“Jordan’s going to play in the tournament tomorrow,” explained Daisy, “over at Westchester.”
“Oh—you’re Jordan Baker.”
I knew now why her face was familiar—its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.
“Good night,” she said softly. “Wake me at eight, won’t you.”
“If you’ll get up.”
“I will. Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon.”
“Of course you will,” confirmed Daisy. “In fact I think I’ll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I’ll sort of—oh—fling you together. You know—lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing—”
“Good night,” called Miss Baker from the stairs. “I haven’t heard a word.”
“She’s a nice girl,” said Tom after a moment. “They oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way.”
“Who oughtn’t to?” inquired Daisy coldly.
“Her family.”
“Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Nick’s going to look after her, aren’t you, Nick? She’s going to spend lots of weekends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her.”
Daisy and Tom looked at each other for a moment in silence.
“Is she from New York?” I asked quickly.
“From Louisville. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white—”
“Did you give Nick a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?” demanded Tom suddenly.
“Did I?” She looked at me. “I can’t seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I’m sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know—”
“Don’t believe everything you hear, Nick,” he advised me.
I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Daisy peremptorily called: “Wait!”
“I forgot to ask you something, and it’s important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.”
“That’s right,” corroborated Tom kindly. “We heard that you were engaged.”
“It’s a libel. I’m too poor.”
“But we heard it,” insisted Daisy, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. “We heard it from three people, so it must be true.”
Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You can’t stop going with an old friend on account of rumours, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumoured into marriage.
Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich—nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Tom, the fact that he “had some woman in New York” was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.
Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red petrol-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at West Egg I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and, turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone—fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbour’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.
I decided to call to him. Miss Baker had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn’t call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone—he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Gatsby he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.
II
About halfway between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.
But above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a nonexistent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to
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[Opus: 8192 Tokens ]
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Top of the Day for 07/06/2023

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^{Times shown are in UTC and dates are formatted as Day/Month/Year.
On mobile you can scroll and slide the tables to reveal more info.}

Most Upvoted Posts of the Day

Place	Title	Author	Subreddit	Score	Posted
1st	Chinese girl says thank you to a Singer that saved her life	u/chriszoOo	MadeMeSmile	100,954 Upvotes	06/06/2023 11:33 UTC
2nd	Dog corrects pup’s behavior towards the owner	u/iSaltyParchment	interestingasfuck	67,228 Upvotes	06/06/2023 07:13 UTC
3rd	He truly was a hero to the very end	u/NCR_Veteran_Rangers	shitposting	64,421 Upvotes	06/06/2023 05:18 UTC
4th	My bank's support bot (mandatory before being in contact with a real human)	u/Whackatoe	mildlyinfuriating	62,724 Upvotes	06/06/2023 13:22 UTC
5th	FL Republicans: “Just because we want you to live in fear doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stay and mow our lawns”	u/TrumpterOFyvie	WhitePeopleTwitter	60,195 Upvotes	06/06/2023 11:03 UTC

Most Upvoted Comments of the Day

^{Note: These may not be entirely accurate. Currently these are out of the comments taken from the top 5 submissions.}

Place	Body	Author	Subreddit	Score	Posted
1st	Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Bite the pillows they sleep on or the shoes they walk in.	u/Nesneros70	interestingasfuck	14,047 Upvotes	06/06/2023 07:57 UTC
2nd	"oh my God, you've grown up"(...)	u/Morstraut64	MadeMeSmile	9,104 Upvotes	06/06/2023 12:42 UTC
3rd	Gonna be honest, I find a bot that has resorted to just always respond ‘Hello’ hilarious	u/DANKLEBERG_66	mildlyinfuriating	8,473 Upvotes	06/06/2023 14:05 UTC
4th	And this is why you need to keep all kind of baby animals with their parents for a little bit, taking them away too soon will leave you with a pet that hasn’t socially developed and is a nightmare to train	u/Rhorge	interestingasfuck	7,410 Upvotes	06/06/2023 09:10 UTC
5th	There's a nurse I work with that has nearly 2 decades worth of experience in the NICU. Most NICU nurse tends to burn out rather quickly as a NICU nurse due to the high mortality rate of neonates, which placed a massive guilt of "failing" to save the babies on the NICU nurses but this one nurse refused to transfer out to other department because she genuinely wants to care for sick neonates.(...)	u/kandnm115709	MadeMeSmile	7,327 Upvotes	06/06/2023 13:07 UTC

I rescued a 8 week puppy from the shelter. He turned out to be a giant, and he is 64 lbs at 20 weeks (he will be 20 weeks tomorrow).
He constantly chews everything. And since he is a 63lb dog now the size of a small golden retriever, he will be able to basically eat a leg out of of a dining table in a second. We redirect him, and that is not enough. He goes right back to it.
He constantly tries to play with my other dog and cats, but hurts them due to his lack of understanding his size. We get onto him and redirect him, he won’t stop.
He bites on our arms and hands as we pet him, which is normal I know, but he doesn’t stop no matter what we do.
He runs and bulldozes anyone into a table. Like my son who is 5 was knocked into a table when he tried to show him love. I have over a foot long scratch on my thigh from him jumping on me.
I take him on walks. I’ve given him IQ games to stimulate him mentally. I’ve put him through training. He knows stay and sit and leave it. But he actively chooses to ignore me during times he wants (like my son lol).
I love him. I really do. But I don’t know what to do. He has hurt people, ruined objects, and annoys everyone. He is our boy. But I need help figuring out how to deal with this. Attached it a photo of our boy for cuteness

Pt 1 If you haven't read it.
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Pt 2 If you haven't read it.
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Pt 3 If you haven't read it.
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Hope you enjoy Pt 4 and happy reading!
​
*Flick* "Aligning descent profile for re-entry." I had made all the final preparations
*Flick* "Prepare for comms black out in 10" William began the countdown.
"9"
"8"
"7"
"6"
"5- when you get back I absolutely *have* to show you this really old movie, interstellar, its a classic" Will interjected.
"4-Oh my stars we're about to enter the atmosphere of Ix-5 at 7km/s and all you can think about is showing me some old movie when we get back?!"
"3- Fine."
"2"
The plasma had begun to lick around the edges of the heat shield and up onto the windows.
"1"
The comms began to make a static hissing sound.
"Just breathe." Will muttered to himself.
The whole shuttle began to shake violently.
"PASSING MAX-Q" Will had to shout to be heard over all the rattling.
Just like that, it began to quiet down, the fiery inferno of re-entry plasma died down and we began our coast down to find a suitable landing spot. Comms had also returned.
*Click* "I'd just like to let everyone know that we made it through re-entry just fine." Will had radioed back to the ship.
The sound of faint cheers from bridge could be heard.
"Engaging cloaking device" *Flick*
A loud hum could be heard as the cloaking device not only prevented us from being seen by eyes, but also seen by any radar, sonar, or other means of detection spun to life.
"So where should we land?"
"Oh just a few more kilometers to shore, then I'll just find a nice, secluded spot and we'll spend the next couple of days getting to know the locals!" I responded gleefully, as this was my first time with a civilization that didn't just learn how to farm.
After carefully gliding down we landed in a patch of grass-like vegetation. Will pointed out all the leaves were all black, to which I responded by telling him that the vegetation had to adapt to capture more of the light spectrum than the vegetation on Earth, because of the dimmer, red dwarf this planet orbited.
We had set up the basics, communications equipment, synthesizers, and a variety of other scientific tools.
"Hey, remember when you said you wanted to see an example of human food! Because I do!" Will exclaimed giddily.
After plugging in a drive and pressing a few buttons, the machine whirred to action, printing out a most unusual dish.
"So keep in mind this is just one dish out of... out of well I don't really know how many different kinds of dishes we have, all you need to know is that it's a very large number... But here's too hoping you enjoy it!"
What came out were this white, almost sphere like but more so a squat raindrop shaped... things. Will called them "Dumplings", and they smelled delicious, though he had dipped them in this brown liquid he called "Soy Sauce" that I really did not care for as far as smell goes.
I carefully picked one of these dumplings and bit into it.
"Oh my" I said, albeit muffled by the food.
"It's good isn't it! I told you!" Will grinned.
"That's quite the... texture. I don't really know how to process this. It's so soft and yet firm. Nutrient packs are so much easier, they don't make a mess and they're just so efficient, I mean, you could probably play around with the recipe, make them tastier. Right?"
"You just don't get it do you." Will said, shaking his head.
"Oh well, more for me." He grabbed at my half eaten dumpling.
"Hey! That's mine!"
"So you DO like it then!"
"No, just, ugh, leave me and my dumpling alone, I've already had my Nutrient Pack for the day I'm going to hibernate now."
Will rolled his eyes at my response.
"Fine." He said in that same begrudging manner as before.
I walked on over to the hibernation chamber, a circular area just big enough for me with a warm, gentle breeze flowing over. As I was going inside I heard Will behind me closing up the door after bringing everything inside.
"Wait... you were going to tell me about.... sleep..." I muttered out.
"Oh yes so hold one, could you just fully wake up for a little bit so I can explain, so your species, and for that matter every other alien species I've met, sleeps one hemisphere or one part of their brain at a time, but humans sleep the whole brain all at once."
"What's that like?" I replied, still in the grip of hibernation.
"So for starters we are like, FULLY unconscious the whole time, we can be woken up but we have a very, VERY limited understanding of what's going on around us. We also go limp so we don't move around accidentally, we still do. It's not perfect but it works enough to where I can say, "yeah we go limp"."
"But aren't you... what happens... if... someone ambushes you at night?"
"In all likelihood unless we happen to be right next to a weapon or something good enough, we die."
"Oh my. How... how did this not drive your species extinct?"
"I'm left wondering that same question too Tomō."
This might be the first time I've heard about a human ever being truly defenseless. Will had disappeared off into another room to change, returning in only a pair of shorts. Which left me examining his exposed torso. Human skin is wrapped quite tightly around the internal structure, and there seems to be very little, if any, loose skin, it also seemed to only be composed of one layer, most others I've meet without loose skin have special layers that can break off. Perhaps humans might be less sturdy than I had come to expect. No no that can't possibly be true I thought to myself, or as much as I could with half a brain working.
The morning was punctured by this infernal clattering from Will's bed, his arm swung up and smashed down on a small table next to him, causing the sound to stop.
"What was that?! Did someone find us?!"
"No... it was just my [Yawns] Alarm, we need to be startled to wake up and that [Will yawned again] was the startling noise."
Will climbed out of bed, shuffled over to another table (Those humans have a lot of tables) grabbed a fresh change of clothes and made his way over to the bathroom to change.
That's when I heard it, a loud SHHHHH sound from the bathroom, I made my way over to the locked door and shouted:
"EVERYTHING OKAY IN THERE WILL?"
"YEAH, JUST TAKING A SHOWER."
"A WHAT?"
"SHOWER"
"WHAT'S THAT?"
"I DON'T CARE FOR THIS CONVERSATION RIGHT NOW."
"OH OKAY."
I shuffled back over to my hibernation chamber, pulling the divider closed I took in a bath of UV sterilizing light and changed out of yesterday's uniform, and into todays, which on scout missions is always a set of cloths made to imitate the look of whatever cloths are common on whatever world we're scouting. In this case it was a brown turtleneck sweater, some black pants, 6 pairs of gloves as the basic orbital scan of their unencrypted communications revealed they obsess over cleanliness, often sporting multiple pairs of gloves for specific tasks, kept in separate pockets, land lastly, a sort of shawl like piece of fabric, apparently used to protect yourself from the midday dust and wind storms.
The disguise of our more... alien features was provided by some makeup, changing our skin to a sort of pale grey. We also made use of some printed prosthetic noses, wigs, and ears, which made our faces impossible to distinguish from the local inhabitants.
Once I had finished applying all my disguises, I exited my chamber and walked over to where Will was, standing by the synthesizer watching it print up a breakfast.
Will, who hadn't even donned the appropriate clothing at this point (he was wearing a simple outfit of black shorts and a grey t-shirt), was oddly enough, sopping wet. His hair had turned a jet black color due to its saturation of water, releasing its store down his face and his neck, resulting in the back of his shirt, and the front collar turning a visibly darker shade and sticking to his body, at this point I also noticed that his skin was covered in beads of moisture glinting in the sun.
"Why are you so wet?" I asked him.
"It has to do with a shower, I get myself under this sort of, simulated rainfall, only the temperature is nice and hot, and use soap, not the same kind you use to clean your hands, but the function is still the same, I then put some stuff in my hair which gets rid of oily build up, the water rinses everything off, but by the end I'm soaking wet, I will need to dry off properly though before I put on all the disguises."
As he grabbed his tray with his hands, still damp from the shower, and the skin around his fingers was all shriveled up.
"Your fingers look like mine now! See!" I asked, moving right up next to him to better show him my fingers.
"It just increases the surface area so I can grip things better underwater, only happens if they get wet."
"Why wouldn't they be like that all the time?"
"Once again I'm left wondering that question myself."
"So what's on the menu for "break-fast"?" I asked
"Well for starters, it's just one word, breakfast, and secondly, I'm having two slices of buttered toast, an egg, and a black tea. Standard human breakfast, though Coffee is more popular."
"Black tea...?" I had heard of Coffee before and its danger to other species, and was hoping that this tea drink lacked any of this substance known as Caffeine.
"Yeah just a little caffeine to wake me up."
"CAFFEINE?! That's... that's a.... that's a Class IV chemical weapon! They banned that centuries ago! How?! What?! Oh my... Oh my..." I began to hyperventilate.
"Relax! There's only what... 50 milligrams in a cup."
"FIFTY?! FIFTY!?! ONLY FIFTY?!? THAT'S TEN TIMES THE DEADLY DOSE! WHAT ARE YOUR THINKING!" I shrieked, though deep down I did take note of how that was less than that of Coffee.
"Shhh, you'll risk us getting caught, calm down, don't worry I'll have the cup disposed of properly, I've done this every day and so far, no one's gotten hurt." Will said in his standard, nonchalant attitude that has become so typical of him, a tone which did not seem anywhere near appropriate for the situation.
"SO FAR?!" I was not heeding his instructions to calm down, it's typically very hard to do so when faced with something that could lead to a violent death.
"Look, look, it's totally harmless for us humans, besides, the Federation strictly manages our recreational use of substances highly dangerous to other species, such as but not limited too: Caffeine, Capsaicin, and Cocoa. I make one wrong move and my ass is sent to jail."
I was shocked, frozen with shock, at least I wasn't screaming but I felt like I couldn't move a muscle. Capsaicin was last used by the Rx'lac to murder billions, Cocoa I hadn't heard of before so it must have been something unique to Earth, but it terrified me still. In my frozen state I waited for the cup he drank from to be destroyed, and at this moment I began to regain my motor functions.
After rigorously drying himself off with a towel and this awfully loud machine he pointed at his hair, Will began to
"Now, could you help me apply the makeup?"
Human hands, while much sturdier than what most of us use, in the case of Captain Reloxyn, she has 6 tentacles which can vary their diameter, and in the case of Zorxians like myself, we have the two hands attached to their respective arm much like a human, but the geometry of the fingers themselves are different, each finger is made up of 3 fluid filled sacs, attached one after another in segments, each sack is attached to the previous with a variety of muscles, which gives each joint the ability to make movements with a full 120 degree range of motion, in any direction. While this makes them far more fragile, due to the lack of skeletal structure, this makes us quite dextrous.
But yet, I noticed that Will's right hand, arm, and ankle were already painted, which puzzled me, if he could paint his right side, then why couldn't he paint his left?
"Do you really need my help? You did just fine painting the right side of your body."
"Tomō, do you really know so little about humans?"
"You know you're the first human I've met!"
"Humans tend to have what's called a dominant hand, what it means is that there's one hand I am really good at using, and another that I'm not so great at using, I *could* train myself to use both hands equally well, but I never really had a need, and even when it would've come in handy, there's always been someone else who can help me. Like you!"
"Aww, thanks!" I responded.
"In my case, my dominant hand is my left one, fairly uncommon. Only about 10% of people are like that, the rest are right handed, and a very small number are born with both hands being of equal capability."
"But you really should get on it with the whole training your right hand. There won't always be someone to help you."
"And yet there always has." Will responded jokingly.
"We ready?" I asked.
"Just have to get some things ready, hold on, if this society is so obsessed with cleanliness, how come they don't wear face masks? I doubt they've gotten to a point where they've already eradicated all diseases. That should take them at least another century."
"Oh, this is the really cool thing about this planet! So basically, airborne diseases never evolved! They just... don't exist here!"
"Absolutely fascinating." Will responded.
"Everything we need is now in the bag." He pointed to the black bag slung over his shoulder made from the local flora.
"And we should be ready to go!" Will enthusiastically marched over to the shuttle door, opening it at saying;
"After you!" With a look of pride on his face, odd, if anyone should be proud, it should be me, after all, this mission is already off to a good start considering he's a rookie.
The red light of Ix bathed the planet in this warm glow, Ix was rare for a red-dwarf system, as most habitable planets are tidally locked, but we marched through the woods, noting observations of the local ecosystem that we stopped periodically to jot down in our notepad.
About halfway through the forest Will stopped suddenly, turning back to face me.
"You forgot to tell me what bridge came up with for our secret identities? Oh stars, saying it like that makes me feel like some kind of super-spy!"
"Oh yes, I must have gotten distracted..." I reached for my communicator.
"Okay, so we're two hikers, you named Po'ol and I named Gra'aul, and we just finished up a nice long hike and so we're off back to Hl'Ix, population 12.8 million, and about a 2 hour train ride. Oh by the way, I have to share the language file hold on... yup that should do it! Congratulations you are now fluent in Ix!"
A requirement of working for any Federation job was the implantation of a language chip which allowed the user to become fluent in all 608 languages and, what they called "Significant Dialects" spoken in the Federation, though for people working on exploration vessels like me and Will, we had access to a file sharing system so we could download new languages for the planets we visited after the central computer processed them.
"Thanks!" Will responded from a meter or so ahead of me.
We continued our march down to the road, where we walked parallel to it as cars zipped by. Eventually the forest we had landed in cleared way for farmland, which after about 5 kilometers or so more walking, started to turn to houses with expansive yards, which gradually became smaller and smaller as we neared the center of town.
"You getting tired yet?" Will asked me, we had decided it was best for him to walk behind me, so we could make sure we stayed together.
"Yeah, but just a bit longer until we make it into... whatever the name of this town is."
"Alright."
We continued to make our way into the town, named Urup and with a population of about 3 thousand. When we got there it was almost devoid of any activity, and the wind had started to pick up, which carried in dust. Thankfully we anticipated this, having donned contact lenses to keep debris out of our eyes, and using the shawl to cover up our mouth and nose. At this point will stopped to pull out a small, and very thin, weather sheet, which he released into the wind. This device would record the weather conditions as it gets carried by the wind. Just after doing this, he turned to me and said,
"Weather at time of release: Temperature: 10 degrees Celsius. Wind speed: 56 Kph, rising. Feels like: 5.2 Degrees Celsius, falling. It wasn't able to get a good reading on dust concentration because it's rising too fast so that should tell you everything you need to know."
The wind nearly blew Will's shawl off, but he grabbed it just in time, and me, being too focused on Will, had let my own shawl blow away in the wind, and while Will had tried to reach for it, the wind carried it away far too quickly for him to get it in time, only missing his fingers by a handful of centimeters. I quickly covered my mouth with my sweater, though this did leave part of my midsection exposed to the elements, a suboptimal position to be in during a dust storm of this magnitude.
"Dammit! Almost had the blasted thing!" Will shouted, the rush of the wind was beginning to drown out our voices.
He put his hand in one of the many pockets on his pants, that's something everyone can appreciate about Ix fashion, anything below 10 pockets is simply unacceptable. Anyways, Will pulled out a small pair of scissors, and quickly removed his shawl.
"What are you doing you can't remove your shawl in these conditions!" I shouted back at him.
"I'll be quick, don't worry!" Will responded as he cut his cloth in two.
"Here!" He said handing me the now removed half of his shawl, and quickly covering his face with the remaining half.
We continued on, though this time much slower than before, as we didn't want to loose our balance and be toppled by the wind. Never before had I ever had to deal with wind this intense, no wonder they assigned the human.
"Squat down! Boundary layer winds should be slower!" He shouted to me while bending down to waddle his way across the street to the hotel.
Squatting down only provided minimal relief, as I suppose one would have to crawl to truly take advantage of this effect. Slowly but surely we made our way across the road, over to the hotel. Opening the first set of doors we were met with a powerful blast of air, which prevented any dust from getting in. Only until after the doors had closed, and our clothes were sufficiently purged of any particulates that had somehow lodged their way into the remarkably dense fabrics. Eventually though, the blast died down, and the second doors opened automatically.
The doors opened to reveal an interior with a largely brown, beige, and black color pattern. The whole lobby was lit with a quite warm color tone, with the lightbulbs occasionally flickering and all the windows had been sealed off behind steel plates. Eventually Will turned his head to face a desk spanning quite a large distance, located just in front of a large board with all the room numbers located next to a light.
We could vaguely hear someone talking to another person, emanating from behind a door marked "Employees Only", Will glanced at me, pulling my attention to his gloves, which he began to swap out for a new pair. I quickly followed suit. Eventually, just moments after I finished putting on a new pair of gloves, one of the people from behind the door exited.
"Why on Ix would there ever be customers walking in during the middle of the storm! We issued the alert 2 hours ago!" The woman said to the man who stayed in the room as the door closed behind her.
Turning around to face the two of us, and walking over to the main part of the check in desk, she began to speak to us.
"Hi my name us Za'ul!" She said, showing us her name tag.
"Now what can I do for the two of you! Must've been miserable trapped out there in the storm!"
Will began to approach the desk, seeing this I decided to sit down and catch my breath, the 10 kilometer walk had exhausted me, it was remarkable to see Will barley fazed by it.
"Hi my name is Po'ol and this is my hiking buddy Gra'aul, we just finished up the most beautiful of hikes through that nearby forest, so we're on our way back to Hl'ix! I was wondering if you could get us a room please and thank you ma'am." He said in a sort of folksy manner, not too dissimilar from the way Za'ul spoke.
"Alright you want one bed or two?" She responded.
"-Two please." He said, almost cutting Za'ul off.
"All right! You want first floor or second floor?"
"Oh second floor would be lovely."
"Well here's your key and have a lovely stay!"
Will walked over to me.
"Got us a key for room 203, here's your key" Will had switched from his folksy mannerisms to a soft whisper, but I just let the key hit me, I was far to tired to catch it.
"Well I see our hike took quite a bit out of you, so just come up when your ready, I got the bags don't worry."
I nodded my head in silent agreement, I was exhausted, but I knew I should probably go upstairs to the room with him.
"Hold on.." I said, slowly lifting myself up onto my feet and carefully making my way over to the elevator.
Standing in the cramped elevator I noticed Will suddenly had this terrible and persistent oder.
"You okay?" I asked him
"Yeah... why do you ask?"
"It's just... you smell kind of... bad."
"Oh!" He chuckled with that same old chuckle I had heard a million times before.
"Yeah, uh, I'm sure after I explained to you what a shower was you were probably perplexed as to why we don't do the standard UV bath, but basically humans smell bad after a long day, or after a long enough, or intense enough period of physical exertion. Showering gets rid of the smell. I did notice the Ix had only a single layer of skin, and hopefully this means they too have the scent issues that humans have, and thus also make use of showering."
"I see. Can you take another shower when we get to the hotel?"
"Tomō! That's... don't say that to other humans okay, you can be direct with me like that but... a lot of other humans will not take that kindly. Just letting you know that."
ding
The elevator had made its way up to the second floor.
"Let's see, 203... 203... here it is!"
Will unlocked the door and opened it.
"Oh thank the stars they have actual beds and it wasn't just a translational error!" He cried out in relief.
Will ran over to the bathroom.
"And they have showers too! Just Wonderful! Don't worry a shower should adequately clean you too."
"Oh I brought my own portable UV sterilizer, I'll be fine."
"You just relax down I'll take care of the report back to bridge."
I made my way over to the beds and just collapsed into it. Hibernating while laying down was not ideal, but at this point I'd do anything not to be on my feet anymore. Eventually I decided that I didn't care for lying face down, and instead rolled over to face Will, just to make sure he didn't botch the report.
Eventually once he finished his report, he walked over to the rooms corners and placed the sound barriers, which would cancel out our voices making sure nobody heard us. Which he, well, I was supposed to do first thing upon entering, though I was far to tired, and Will must've only just noticed. You know, when he first got here he really just annoyed me to no end, but now, he's really settled in and has gotten really into the hang of things, and sure, he's weird, but you know what, he's a human, he's not weird, just... different.
​
I think I'm going to leave it off here, I know I promised some action but this is just where the story lead me, and it was already getting long. Part 5 will be out tomorrow. Hope you enjoyed reading!

1. POKERTRACKER 4

A comprehensive tracking and analysis software that allows players to track their performance, analyze statistics, and review hand histories. It supports various poker games and provides in-depth data for improving strategies.
​

• Comprehensive hand tracking and analysis for cash games and tournaments.
• Real-time statistics and customizable reports to track performance.
• Hand history review and note-taking features for player analysis.
• HUD (Heads-Up Display) to display real-time information during gameplay.
• Third-party add-ons and support for popular online poker sites.

​

1. HOLDEM MANAGER 3

Similar to PokerTracker, Holdem Manager 3 offers tracking and analysis features. It provides real-time stats, hand history analysis, and customizable reports. The software also includes a Heads-Up Display (HUD) for in-game information.
​

• Advanced tracking and analysis of hand histories and statistics.
• Real-time customizable HUD for in-game information and player profiling.
• Graphical analysis tools to review and visualize performance trends.
• Leak detection and reporting to identify weaknesses in gameplay.
• Integration with popular online poker sites and customizable add-ons.

​

1. FLOPZILLA

A powerful poker equity calculator that helps players analyze hand ranges, evaluate flop textures, and study equity and EV (Expected Value) calculations. It’s particularly useful for studying post-flop play.
​

• Powerful equity calculator for analyzing hand ranges and flop textures.
• Range vs. range analysis to understand hand equities and strategic decisions.
• EV (Expected Value) calculations to evaluate the profitability of different plays.
• Heatmap visualizations to highlight critical areas of the game.
• Customizable filters and hand-ranking features for precise analysis.

​

1. ICMIZER

Specifically designed for tournament players, ICMIZER helps with making optimal decisions based on the Independent Chip Model (ICM). It assists in analyzing push/fold ranges, final table strategies, and bubble play.
​

• ICM (Independent Chip Model) calculations for optimal decision-making in tournaments.
• Push/fold and call/shove analysis based on stack sizes and payout structures.
• Final table and bubble play simulations for maximizing tournament equity.
• Training tools to improve ICM understanding and decision-making skills.
• SNG Coach feature to guide players in real-time during Sit & Go tournaments.

​

1. GTO SOLVER (SUCH AS PIOSOLVER)

These advanced solvers use game theory concepts to calculate optimal strategies in various poker scenarios. They provide insights into balanced play, bet sizing, and range analysis for both cash games and tournaments.
​

• Game theory-based solvers for calculating optimal strategies.
• Balanced play analysis to understand equilibrium in various poker scenarios.
• Range exploration and visualization to identify exploitable spots.
• Bet sizing optimization for maximizing EV and bluffing frequencies.
• Post-game analysis to review and learn from solved hands.

​

1. POKERSNOWIE

Training software that utilizes AI algorithms to analyze and improve players’ decision-making skills. It offers hand evaluations, training exercises, and real-time advice for playing optimal strategies.
​

• AI-based poker training software for decision-making improvement.
• Hand evaluation and range analysis to understand optimal strategies.
• Training exercises and quizzes to practice different poker scenarios.
• Real-time advice and recommendations during gameplay.
• Performance tracking and progress monitoring for skill development.

​

1. NOTECADDY EDGE

An add-on for PokerTracker, NoteCaddy Edge provides automated note-taking features. It helps players categorize opponents, track their tendencies, and make better-informed decisions based on collected data.
​

• Automated note-taking system for player profiling and analysis.
• Categorization of opponents based on observed tendencies.
• Real-time statistics and information overlays during gameplay.
• Customizable notes and tagging system for efficient player tracking.
• Integration with popular poker tracking software for seamless use.

​

1. EQUILAB

A versatile equity calculator that assists in range analysis, hand vs. range comparisons, and board texture analysis. It’s useful for studying hand equities, understanding pre-flop ranges, and exploring different scenarios.
​

• Equity calculator for analyzing hand equities and ranges.
• Range explorer and visualizer for studying different pre-flop scenarios.
• Hand vs. range and range vs. range comparisons for decision analysis.
• Board texture analysis and combinatorial hand counting.
• Customizable filters and scenario testing for precise equity calculations.

​

1. ADVANCED POKER TRAINING

An online training platform that offers a variety of poker training games and simulations. It provides personalized training plans, tracks progress, and offers feedback on players’ decisions.
​

• Variety of training games and simulations to improve poker skills.
• Personalized training plans and feedback on decision-making.
• Realistic AI opponents for practicing against different playing styles.
• Performance tracking and progress reports to monitor improvement.
• Interactive hand history reviews and analysis.

​

1. ODDS ORACLE

A powerful odds calculator and analysis tool that helps players understand and calculate probabilities in various poker situations. It assists with equity calculations, range vs. range analysis, and evaluating hand strengths.
​

• Odds calculator for precise calculation of poker probabilities.
• Range vs. range analysis to evaluate hand strengths in different situations.
• Equity calculations and hand ranking visualizations.
• Customizable scenario testing and what-if analysis.
• Integration with popular poker software for easy use.

​
Read More: https://bit.ly/3qx570I

This is /RetroApples, a place where we celebrate and appreciate retro Apple Computer stuff.

Scope of this subreddit

• Apple I/II/III and various things
• 68k Macs (and stuff in between, like Newtons, Pippins and whatnot)
• PowerPC Macs (and again, stuff in between counts, like eMates and various accessories)
• Early-mid Intel Macs (generally anything before 2013, with some exceptions)
• iPods, old iPhones, old iPads too
• New products intended for older Macs welcome too (things like modern SCSI drive replacements, modern Apple II cards, etc)

As time marches on (and with the recent news of Intel being fully dropped from the Apple lineup), things will be continually reevaluated for inclusion on this list. Keep in mind that this isn't a hard and fast list, but it's generally the type of content this sub intends to focus on. The general ""rule"" is if the product is no longer getting any kind of mainstream software support and is generally unusable by the general populace for day-to-day tasks, it belongs here.

But why? There's already a sub for this?

Sure is. And that's fine, but their leadership is very firmly on the "never intel" train. Personally, I'm of the mindset that all things become retro and vintage with time, intel Macs included. Why do we celebrate retro stuff? Usually it's because we grew up with it. As newer generations find this hobby, inevitably the machines they're nostalgic about are going to be the very thing that some swear can never be retro: Intel Macs.
Hell, there's a case to be made that welcoming those Macs into the community is a good thing because those people will see the vast amount of PowerPC/68k stuff and be motivated to go check it out.
At the end of the day, the point is pretty simple: We all have our preferred eras that we specialize in. I don't agree with pushing that preference on other people and implying they don't have a seat at the table because you don't like what they like.
In short, that's the goal of this subreddit: To be a welcome place for Macs from all walks of life. To be a chill place to talk about things, to share photos, etc, and to do it in a not toxic environment.
If that sounds like the thing you desire, welcome in, take a seat, and enjoy.

What are the rules for building a d100 table on this subreddit? Can it be setting, game, or edition specific? What is the minimum number of entries for posting? This is in reference to a table about fiends that may be found in the demonomicon of iggwilv (DND 5e) I wish to make. Ex. marilith trained in food prep, a glabrezu who was once summoned to a near magicless world and took back the works of a great poet (waggle pike? jitter javelin? actually just Shakespeare) and performs them (badly), a stern matronly erinyes that tries to teach the owner of the book manners and orderliness, etc.

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I recently moved into a new house in a quiet Suburban area. I’m not going to say where because it’s had it’s fair share of media coverage, and teens showing up at night trying to get a glimpse inside the infamous house.
It had been on the market for three-years, and I secured the house at a much cheaper price due to the fact that two people had been found murdered there.
The mystery and brutality of the murders catapulted the story into the local news. No specific details were released to the public, and I only found out about it because a friend of mine is a local realtor with connections.
Nobody was ever arrested for the murders. A male in his thirties was found in the living area, and a female in her thirties was found barricaded in the basement. Another mysterious fact was that the woman had barricaded herself in from the inside, in a desperate attempt to stop someone or something from getting in.
Yesterday whilst doing some cleaning in the basement, I came across a cell phone that had fallen down a gap behind the washing machine and the wall.
And there’s a voice recording on it.
Recorded the same night of the murders by the female victim. And, It’s pretty terrifying. I’ve already handed it into the police, but I made a transcript of the recording.
What you are about to read is the unedited transcript of the cell phone recording found in the basement.
I have to admit, it’s extremely disturbing. The desperation in her voice will haunt me forever.
Here goes.
“If you’re hearing this, please, please, please give it the police. My husband is dead, it killed him. I’m so sorry Scott.
I can hear it now, upstairs, looking for a way in, and it’s only a matter of time before it finds one.
I’ve barricaded myself in the basement and I’ve got my eyes on the only door, one way in one way our.
You see, it can’t move if you’re looking at it.
It began twelve weeks ago. The night Scott, my childhood sweetheart and husband of five-years confessed that he’d had a drunken one-night stand on his bachelor party in Europe. The apparent guilt had consumed him for the past five-years, and his sudden urge to be truthful was due to the fact we were due to get married this same year.
His words hit me like a freight train, and the urge to vomit washed over me like a tsunami. I stormed out of the house, our house that we’d bought together twelve-years prior. I felt like the world had swallowed me whole, and in a way, it had.
I was struck with a throbbing chest pain that rapidly spread down my entire right side. The pain intensified, taking my breath away, and I stumbled into a tree to steady myself as I felt my body about to faint.
Then darkness.
The next thing I remember, was waking up in a dark and dismal forest, devoid of colour. The air was dry and had a distinctive, malodorous smell, like rotten meat or that of a decaying carcass. But worst of all, was a terrifying feeling that I’d never experienced before, and one that I pray I’ll never feel again.
The feeling of absolute hopelessness.
The sky was dull and cloudless, and was ripped apart by soundless, ferocious lightning that illuminated the bleak landscape I found myself in. I felt like I’d been wandering for hours, maybe even days when I came across a decaying cave. Animal bones crushed beneath my feet as I made my way towards it.
As I approached the cave, the putrid smell grew with intensity causing me to retch, and I was violently sick, bringing up my own stomach bile. The entrance was made of crumbling stone and was completely opaque. I threw a small stone into it and heard it ricocheting down the stone steps and off the walls. The silenced lighting strobed the area, and I was able to glimpse into the cave and see a few descending steps.
Then, two yellow reptilian-like eyes flashed in the darkness.
I stumbled backwards, and just as the lightning struck, I was forcefully thrown by an unseen force. The lighting flashed continuously, accompanied by a gale-force wind, tossing me around like a rag doll. My eyes were fixed on the cave, and I crippled in terror, as a pale, gangly hand reached around the crumbling stone. Another flash hurled me hard against a tree, and suddenly -
I woke up in the back of an ambulance with paramedics hovering over me with a defibrillator, and two words that sent a cold and grotesque shiver through my spine.
“Welcome back”.
Welcome back? Back from where? What was that place? That thing in the cave? How long was I gone?
Hundreds of questions raced through my mind, but none of which I had the answer for.
Not yet anyway.
“You died in the back of that ambulance” the doctor said as I lay in a bed in the ICU.
The room tilted as I tried to digest what the doctor was telling me. I felt like I was in a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. I’m thirty-years old, I eat healthily, and I run four times a week, how could this be happening to me?
My scans revealed I’d inherited a faulty gene and developed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and suffered a cardiac arrest. I spent the next seven-weeks in the ICU and told nobody of the dark forest and the creature with the yellow eyes. Just the thought of that place was enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck.
My mother practically moved into the hospital. Fussing over me like mothers do. She blamed herself for my condition, even though her scans were clear, meaning that I inherited the faulty gene from my absent father.
My husband Scott came on the first day, but I asked him for space. I needed some time to heal and process everything that had happened, about both my condition, and his infidelity. Although he kept that promise, he would call my mom every day to check on me, to make sure I was okay.
I wasn’t.
Not because of my condition, but for something else.
I’d started to see something.
I wasn’t sure what it was at first. It started as a tiny dot in my peripheral, nothing more than a spec on my retina. Of course, I had my eyes checked, but all results came back clear, as did the results for my visual cortex.
Days later, what started as a dot in my peripheral began to grow.
The first time I saw it, I was at my doctor’s office. He had left me alone for a moment whilst he consulted with my surgeon. It was dark outside and the sound of heavy rain pit-a-patting against the glass was hypnotic. I stared out of the window, watching as a small handful of people came in and out of the hospital.
Then, my eyes were drawn to an ominous silhouette at the far end of the parking lot. I couldn’t make out any distinguishing features due to the minimal light, but there was something there, standing deadly still in the shadows.
A car horn broke my reverie, a man was getting into his truck in the lot and must have pressed the horn by accident. I turned back to the silhouette, and it was in a completely different position.
It had moved.
It was standing eerily still again, but like it had frozen mid-walk. I could just about make out its elongated limbs, like it’s arms and legs had been stretched out.
The doctor returned momentarily, startling me. He’d gotten my scans, and everything was how it should be.
“Good news, you should be okay to be discharged in a few days” he said.
That was great news, I was so ready to get out of the hospital. I turned back to the window in curiosity, but whatever I saw had gone.
I didn’t think about it again until the night before I was going home. It was late and most of the patients were sleeping. My room is situated at the end of the hall, so I get a clear view of it through my observation window. I wasn’t quite ready to go to sleep and was watching something on my iPad.
Suddenly, there was a putrid odour wafting in through my open door. The same unmistakable smell that I’d experienced in that ‘other place’. Two nurses walked past my room, neither showing any signs that they too could smell it. I covered my nose and mouth to try and stop me from heaving.
Then, my eyes drifted to the observation window, and to the corridor.
It was here again. The silhouette.
At the far end of the hall. Completely still, with its back pressed up against the wall. But I could see it. It was tall and skinny, and had either feelers or tentacles stretched up against the wall like an ink spill. Its daunting yellow eyes stared straight at me.
I saw another nurse walk up the hall and straight past it, like it wasn’t there. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe visual hallucinations were a symptom of what I’d been through, or maybe it was a side effect of the many meds I was taking. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
“There’s nothing there, there’s nothing there, it isn’t real” I whispered to myself.
I opened my eyes and, it hadn’t gone.
It had moved closer.
Halfway down the hall. It had dropped onto all fours like a large dog. Starring straight at me. Its long tentacles spread across the floor and up the wall.
I was absolutely petrified.
I moved over to the window, tentatively. The smell that resonated from this creature was overpowering. I watched it for a few moments, until a nurse walked past the window, startling me. And, like before, when I looked back, it wasn’t there. It was as though I’d imagined it. I climbed back into bed, but I didn’t sleep a wink that night.
The next morning, my mom came to pick me up. I left with a suitcase of medication and instructions on how and when to take them. I didn’t tell my mom or anyone at the hospital about my hallucinations. I was worried If I did say something, the doctors wouldn’t let me leave.
I had decided to stay at my mom’s until I was ready to talk with Scott. He brought a box over with some essentials, like my comfy clothes, pyjamas, and my own toothbrush as I’d been using a cheap store bought one up to now. He was sorry, and it was clear he hadn’t been sleeping. He said he’d wait for me until I was ready to talk. I missed both him and our home so much, but I just wasn’t ready to talk about it. Not yet.
My mom suggested that I go into town, see the locals, get some fresh air into my lungs. She offered to drive me, and then we would meet back up at the car after an hour.
Whilst in town, I noticed a poster for the yearly travelling fairground in a storefront window. I have fond memories growing up of this fair. It’s where Scott and I shared our first kiss. We were halfway round the Ferris wheel, when it started to rain. He covered us with his jacket, and then he kissed me. This was the moment I knew I’d fallen in love with him. I was flooded with happy emotions, and it felt right that I text Scott.
“I’m ready to talk, I’ll be at the place where we shared our first kiss at 8 tonight, Chloe x”.
He replied almost instantly.
“I’ll be there, thank you x”.
After a quick smile to myself, I went for a walk through the local market. It was bustling with energy. Vendors selling local, fresh produce, handmade furniture, bakeries, and plenty more.
After browsing the stalls, I was hit with that smell. That horrific, nauseating smell. And I felt the hairs on my arms prickle up.
I knew it was here. Somewhere. Observing me.
My eyes narrowed as I scanned the area. I weaved in and out of the locals looking for it. Paranoia struck me like lightning. I was bumping into people as I went. All eyes had now turned to me. I burst into tears, sprinted back to the lot and leaped into my mother’s car.
I was sitting in the passenger seat crying my eyes out. I looked out of the window and saw my mother rushing back to the car shouting my name. Someone must have told her about my freak out.
I looked out of the opposite window and, IT WAS THERE, standing on top of a vehicle several cars over!
“GET AWAY FROM ME” I screamed.
My mother whipped open the door.
“What is it? What happened?” she replied.
She couldn’t see it. Nobody could. I told her that I’d had a panic attack. I hadn’t been around people outside of the hospital for a few months and I felt overwhelmed. She knew I wasn’t being truthful, but it’s the only answer I could give.
That night I decided to go ahead and meet Scott at the fair. When I saw him waiting for me by the Ferris wheel, my heart felt hole again, if only for a moment. We got our tokens and went on the wheel. We talked as we went round, about how sorry he was and how much of an idiot he’d been, which I agreed with.
Everything was going well until I saw the creature again. Standing on top of the ghost house attraction. Watching me.
I kept my eyes on the figure whilst grabbing Scott’s arm.
“Do you see it?” I asked with a shaky voice.
“See what?” he replied.
“It’s standing right there, on top of the ghost house”.
I could see him squinting to look, but I knew deep down that he wouldn’t be able to see it, because only I could.
“Sweetheart, there’s nobody there, look at me” he replied, calmly.
“I can’t” I said solemnly. “If I look away, it’ll move”.
“Chloe, look at me, there’s nothing there” he said, as he grabbed my chin and turned my face towards his.
“No! it’ll move, it wants me to look away” I screamed.
I quickly spun round, my eyes darting back to the ghost house, but it wasn’t there. I looked around, anxiously, Scott looking on with worry.
“Shit, where is it?” My anxiety palpable.
I looked down, and it was at the bottom of the Ferris wheel. It had moved inhumanly fast. I screamed and almost fell out of the carriage, but Scott held onto me.
“Hey, hey, I got you, what is it?” he said, desperately trying to keep hold of me.
I stood up in a panic, rocking the carriage, Scott tried to hang onto me, but it was too late, and I plummeted twenty feet to the ground.
The last thing I remember, was Scott screaming for an ambulance.
I was fortunate enough to only suffer a sprained wrist and a slight concussion. My doctor wanted to keep me in overnight for observations, which I reluctantly agreed to.
I decided to confide in Scott. I told him everything. From the cave in the forest to this creature that’s stalking me. This monstrous entity that must have crawled out of the pits of hell. And worst of all, it’s getting closer to me.
He could see that I was terrified, and instead of trying to explain away what I was experiencing, he just held me. And, for the first time in a long time, I felt safe. We spent hours just holding each other. He offered to stay the night, to stay awake in the chair whilst I got some sleep, but I couldn’t have him doing that.
After Scott left, I managed to get a few hours rest. I woke up just after two AM and grabbed my bottle of water from the nightstand. That’s when I noticed the door was closed, even though I specifically requested it to stay open.
And then, there was that horrendous smell. I knew it was close.
It was in the fucking room.
It was crouched down in the corner on all fours, blending into the darkness, watching me. I desperately tried to scream but no sound would come out.
Keeping my eyes on it, I slowly climbed out of the bed with my back pressed firmly against the wall. I knew it couldn’t move if I didn’t look away. I side-stepped along the wall towards the door.
I started to manoeuvre around a set of drawers, knocking something off that caught my eye for a millisecond. But that’s all it took. It was now standing on its two legs.
It must have been eight-feet tall with outstretched limbs. A streak of moonlight illuminated part of it’s pale-blue face. Its yellow eyes glistened in the light. Its slimy tentacles spread up the wall and onto the roof.
I kept my back to the wall and kept moving. I made it to the door, grabbed the door handle, but it was fucking locked. I kicked the door, but nobody could hear me.
I could see the key for the door on the table in my peripheral. I fumbled around on the table without looking. I grabbed everything but the key. I knew I had to look to find the key.
I quickly glanced to my left – Saw the key – Looked back, and the creature was point-blank in front of me. Reaching out for my throat, its black, curved talon had pierced my neck and blood trickled down.
Somehow, I managed to scream and within seconds two orderlies had barged through the door. All they found was me, alone with blood trickling down my neck. I barged straight past them and ran as fast as I could out of the hospital.
I ended up running all the way home. I banged as loud as I could on the door, forgetting that it was almost three-thirty in the morning. Scott answered the door in his pyjamas with a worried look plastered across his face.
I told him what had happened at the hospital whilst he bandaged my neck.
“See, this is proof that what I’m seeing is real, this is physical proof, you believe me, right, you have to?” I barked.
After a momentary pause, he replied:
“Yes, I believe you. I believe... I believe you’re seeing something”.
I registered the pause, and the hesitation in his voice. He didn’t believe me, and I didn’t blame him.
After talking for a few hours, I had calmed down enough that I told Scott to get some sleep. He was reluctant to leave me, so he took a nap in the chair. I grabbed my laptop and searched the web for anything related to what was happening to me.
There’re thousands of incidents across the world relating to haunted houses, demons, cults, and possessions, but none that was specific to the entity that was stalking me.
Every time I heard a sound, a car outside or a floorboard creek I jumped. I was a nervous wreck. I went into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. I looked out of the window into the darkness, expecting to see it watching me. But it wasn’t.
I went back into the room, and –
IT WAS THERE!
I dropped the glass, and it shattered on the floor. Scott leaped from the chair.
“What, what is it?”
I couldn’t speak. My lips were glued shut. I slowly raised my hand and pointed at it. It was standing at the far end of the room. I kept my eyes on it the entire time. Scott rushed over to me.
“Hey, Chloe, there’s nothing their sweetheart, whatever you’re seeing isn’t real”.
He headed towards it.
“NO, SCOTT, PLEASE DON’T!” I pleaded, as I grabbed his arm.
He shrugged it off and marched over to it.
“There’s nothing here, I’m going to prove it to you” he said.
He cocked his arm back and swung his fist, only his arm stopped mid-swing.
HE HIT THE FUCKING CREATURE!
I moved to grab Scott and stood bare foot on the broken shards of glass, cutting my feet, I screamed out, and for a split second, I LOOKED DOWN.
And that’s all it took.
When I looked up, the creature had already grabbed Scott and folded him in half like a piece of paper. The sound of his spine breaking echoed through the room. Scott laid dead on the floor, his eyes widen open and looking at me.
I screamed and backed away into the kitchen. I slammed the door shut and ran to the rear door. It was locked and I’d left my keys in my bag in the front room. I noticed Scott’s cell on the countertop, so I grabbed it and ran down into the basement.
I shut the door and pushed the spare fridge in front of it. And then I hid in the corner. Crouched down beside the washing machine.
Which is where I am now. Hiding. Crying. I can’t call anyone because Scott’s cell doesn’t have a signal down here, which is why I’m recording this message on his cell in the hopes that someone will hear my story.
I can hear it now, moving around upstairs. It knows my eyes will be watching the door, so it’s looking for another way in. I’m so scared.
I’m the reason Scott’s dead. My true love. And I’ll never forgive myself for that. The thought of that is far worse than anything that monster can do to me.
Oh God, it’s here!
The old fucking laundry chute! Goddammit!
WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU?!?!
It’s watching me with those horrifying yellow eyes.
I can’t keep running because it’ll find me.
And I won’t put anyone else in danger.
It’s me that it wants.
Scott I’m so sorry, I love you so much.
And Mom, I love you so much.
I’m going to close my eyes now.
Three.
Two.
One”
That’s it, that’s the recording. It’s very disturbing to me. If only you could hear her voice. She was terrified.
The police haven’t been back in contact as I write this, and I’m not expecting them too either.
The woman mentioned her mother in the recording, I might try and find her. Tell her what I've found, just in case the police don’t believe it.

Yeah these last few chapters have been kinda insane and sad. Don’t worry this is the last of that for a bit! After this chapter things SHOULD calm down, this one is a bit shorter then the last few. This fanfic is based off the fanfic The isolationists, by Seeyouon_otherside. Constructive criticism is appreciated.
Memory Transcript Subject: Sergeant first class Anax, Zeyzel of the wanderer fleet.
I…could hardly think. We knew the federation was bad, but this…this was pure evil. An evil so potent, so powerful that it sees itself as good in a horrible twisted way…I could hardly process what I just heard I didn’t want too but, here I was going through all the information. Disposing of living people in such a way, treating them as disposable waste, they had no regard for life they deemed as tainted.
Even the Arxur had a degree of respect for life even if it came from a place of wondering what the next meal was. I sat further back in my chair. Watching Lemon and Alvaro try and comfort Hazard. This so-called madman had the heart, the care, the ability to make a book, a book for all those children lost. To take the time to name every single one.
I took the book and began to flip through it. I looked at all the faces, some were looking happy with their arms, paws, legs, and even tentacles, reaching up towards the camera. Others looked beten, bruised, lifeless with tears in their eyes. Those eyes…they were filled with not understanding what or why this was happening. Those last photos looked like they were taken as an afterthought.
Then I realized something. These photos were the only marker of their existence…at all…some were captured with joy and wonder on their faces, others…not so lucky. I then made a silent vow to myself. This book would be protected by me, and passed down from generation to generation. To give everyone the harsh reminder of what the federation did. I then read off some of the names. “Turmoil, Lucis, Rendalla, Mellow, Brosive, Handy, Trime…”
“Trime…I remember Trime.” I looked up and saw Hazard lean over to me as Lemon and Alvaro backed up.. “He was taken here because both of his parents had predator disease, when in reality they both had PTSD from seeing their cousins get eaten alive by the Arxur. So they assumed he had it too. No matter how hard the parents pleaded to those bastards they just laughed and said, you can’t fool us predators. They then…threw him into my cell. It was pure luck that I caught him at all.”
Alvaro asked the question I was scared to say. “They just threw the children in with the others?”
Hazard shook his head no. “Normally they had a special cell they would be dumped into with all the other children. They just threw him in there with me to piss off the parents. I…never saw them again…he was so little and scared. I comforted him as best I could, and gave the little Yotul my extra food as I didn’t need much. Told him to hide whenever the exterminators came for me. Then I made him this.” Hazard pulled out a small stuffed toy from a hidden compartment on his suit, the toy was made from a variety of clothes and other items. It represented a teddy bear from earth.
“I would sing him to sleep every night. Holding him as I did. Then one day I came back and…he was gone. This toy was all that was left of him. I found out later they tried to pump him full of some sort of experimental drug…it killed him by causing most of internal organs to collapse… he died slowly as the scientists wanted to study the effects of it. Then he was...disposed of.”
I swished my tail in acknowledgment. Then I thought of something. “Um, Hazard. You seem to be very focused on protecting children. I think it’s very noble, but I have to ask…why?”
He looked at me. “Because they are the next generation, and we, the old generation, have a duty to protect, teach, and defend this next generation. So that they may live to see a sunrise that we the old generation, will know we will never see. Yet can rest easy knowing that they did.
It went silent again. We all absorbed this information. Then Hazard jumped up. “All right THEN! Enough with these sad emotions! Can’t do too much about what happen in the past! HAHAHAHAH! Now then. What do you guys need? You have quite the large fleet out there? I assume you need supplies?”
“You are correct in that.” Lemon replied, still stunned by how deep Hazard went. “Anything from batteries to ammunition. Food and water too.”
Hazard leaned back as if thinking about something then snapped up with his plates shifting to symbolize an idea. “I have just the thing! There’s an onboard foundry on this thing! It makes everything! Let’s go there!”
Getting up I gently placed the book on the table and we all followed him back through the hallway. Each of us taking more Neutrolen from Alvaro. Following Hazard we arrived at a large transport elevator. Stepping into it we went down, and down, and down. “As you can see this station is MASSIVE! MY HOME IS A FORTRESS AS IS MY MIND!” Hazard then laughed like a nutter again for about a minute then returned to reality. “We will now be entering the foundry area and-” he was cut off when half a body of a Venlil fell out of an open elevator door. Nearly hitting me on the head. “Huh. Though I cleared this elevator already.” He shrugged. “Guess not.” When the elevator opened we were looking at a massive foundry.
“Here it is my guys! All the equipment we could need to build a fleet of…anything! Weapons, armor, gear, ship parts, smaller ships! This place has EVERYTHING AHAHAHAHHAHA!”
The three of us all looked at each other and nodded. This place would be perfect. “This place is amazing!” I exclaimed. “What is the food production capacity here?”
He turned around to address us. “Hehehheheh! It’s quite nice! Plenty of space for growing crops, mainly for me but I always have WWWWAAYYYYYY to much food. So if we swap that out with meat cloning from the human ship that they pulled here. We could feed you the entire fleet with room to spare! IT WILL BE GLORIOUS!! AHAHAHHAAH! Oh yeah the station can move, it’s also a ship.”
We all stopped what we were doing to look at him. “It’s a…what?” He smiled like a nutter at that. “It’s a station designed to be a mobile fortress, home, restocking place, dry dock! IT'S EVERYTHING!” Lemon spoke up. “Uh, how do we get it to work?” We looked back at Hazard only to see him chanting something while looking at some molten metal. He swayed back and forth for a bit before coming too. “Oh! Right! Most of the systems can be operated by basic AI but a large crew is still needed. Not to mention raw supplies. Heheheh! The good news is that I know EXACTLY we’re to get raw supplies!”
His chest opened and a screen popped out. That displayed the debris field around us! “That’s genius!” I exclaimed. Alvaro nodded. “We can break down the wrecks into basic materials! Scrap what we can’t use and take what we can! We can reprogram the repair drones we have for disassembly work!” Alvaro finished. “Then,” Lemon continued. “We can upload the blueprints for official disassembly drones to the foundry here and then make more out of the extra supplies that we gather! Making the process faster!”
Hazard was practically vibrating with excitement. “Then! We can retro fit the disassembly drones we don’t need any more into repair and combat drones! Keeping some disassembly drones for any more wrecks we find on the way! As I’m coming with you and you can’t fight me on that! On top of that I have marked several shipwrecks that can be repaired to full working order! Expanding our fleet even larger! I estimate an additional one hundred and ninety ships! And that’s just the ones I know about! I also estimated that this will take about five weeks to complete! If we make A LOT of drones to help us! WE SHALL WANDER THE STARS UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF THE CHAOS LORD AHAHHAHAHA!”
I could tell everyone was feeling the energy in the room. Then Alvaro put his hand out. Then so did Hazard. Me and Lemon looked at one another, shrugged, and did the same. “READY!? THREE, TWO, AHAHAHHAHA ONE! GO TEAM! With that we all threw our hands in the air. Then Choking hazard ran one way and Alvaro the other. Leaving us just standing there. “Guys this way!” Alvaro yelled. We took off after him, trying not to trip over the dead bodies, and made our way to the ship. “If we want to station people here we have to clean this place.” Lemon told Alvaro. He nodded in agreement.
Alvaro then pulled something out of his pocket and attached it to his arm. He then activated it. “Hey, testing one, two, three! Does this work?”
“AHAHAHAH! MY MIND IS ONLY THE BARREN WASTE WHEN I CHOSE IT TO BE! Yep, I can hear you loud and clear!” Wait, Choking Hazard? Must be a communication device of some kind.
“Hey buddy can you, uh, clean up the bodies that are…everywhere?”
“INDEEEEEED! I SHALL TELL MY CLEANING ROBOTS TO TURN THEM INTO FERTILIZER! THERE DEATHS SHALL FEED GENERATIONS TO COME AHAHHAHA!”
Alvaro turned off the radio. “Yeah he’s got it!”
We got back to our ship and took off. When we landed and disembarked, a frantic looking Crew member came running to us. When we got off he ran to Alvaro and nearly ran into him. “Sir! Natare fell into the water carrier and the lid closed and we can’t get him-”
Alvaro tore past him with me and Lemon in hot pursuit. We ran through the ship toward the water hold. When we got there we saw Aurora, Leiejaa, and four others trying to get the hatch open. One was even trying to cut it open using a plasma beam. Alvaro leapt onto the top we’re the hatch was with me and lemon in close pursuit. He tore it open and we looked inside and saw Natare just floating there on the bottom of the large tank.
“NATARE!” Alvaro screamed. Natare then looked up at him and smiled. He shot out of the water and into his dads face squeaking the entire time. They fell off the top of the tank and onto the ground, Alvaro held Natare close to him, then Aurora joined the two in a tight hug. Me and everyone present let out a massive sigh of relief. Alvaro then turned to a crew member. “Why didn’t you call me?!”
“We tried sir! There was something blocking the signal!”
Alvaro nodded his head. “How long was he in there for?”
“Uh, forty of your minutes.”
Alvaro’s eyes went wide. “Forty…how did you not drown?” He looked at the giggling Natare.
Then I noticed something on Natare's neck. “Hey, did Natare get scratched on the neck?” Alvaro turned Natares head to look at the scratch, that’s when we noticed there were three of them in perfect spacing of each other. Me and Lemon leaned in closer. “Those look like…gills?” Then Natare yawned, the three marks on the side of his neck opened. They were gills. By the balancer. Alvaro turned Natares head the other way and it was the same as the other side. That’s when I noticed his tail is flatter and longer like a…fish. We’re the mutations…growing, evolving?
Alvaro held the absolutely soaked kit close to him, getting himself wet as well. Then with loving eyes he gently told the little one, “you're my little merman.”
This caused Natare to squeak in delight, although I’m certain he had no idea what his dad just said to him. He played with Natare’s little hands for a bit and then handed him off to Aurora, then they both started to dry him off.
The couple began to dry off the little one who seemed to really enjoy it. He made a satisfied purring noise the entire time.
As I was looking at the two dry him off, I realized I knew a lot about Alvaro’s past, but not much about Aurora's. A thought occurred to me. “Hey Aurora, what DID you do before you met Alvaro?”
She stopped drying off Natare, who squeak in protest as he seemed to like the rubbing motion of the towel, she then continued to dry him off but slowly. “Uhh…”
Alvaro stepped in. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to. It’s fine. We all have our secrets we keep for a reason.”
I looked at Alvaro. “Wait, you don’t know either?”
He shook his head no. Then Aurora turned to us. “No, no it’s time you all knew. Especially you, my hunk of love.” The two lovingly kissed each other. “We will be traveling together for a while now so...okay here it goes.” She breathed in and out. “I was an assassin who was trained by the government to take out high priority targets. I received some of the best training and I have over eighty seven completed missions and a body count over two hundred. I was…very top secret to put it lightly.”
I dropped the towel I was holding. Lemon’s jaw dropped open, Leiejaa just stood there completely surprised. The only sound was the half gurgling, half purring noise coming from Natare. Then Alvaro laughed. “That explains why you're so flexible, and how you're able to get the kits out of tight places, like the vents, and how I never roll on top of you when I sleep! Don’t worry my sweet, you're still the same fluffiest best girl that I know, come here.” He picked her and Natare up and hugged them both. Aurora laid her head onto his shoulder and closed her eyes while Natare just yawned and fell asleep in between his parents.
I’m…still ashamed of all the lives I took…once I figured out why they had me do it…” Alvaro shushed her. “My sweet pea, don't think about that now. You helped to create life, six little beautiful lives. One of them is between us right now.” They looked down at the now sleeping Natare, and smiled with loving eyes only parents could have.
“Alright little guy, let’s get you to bed.” Aurora softly spoke. The three got up and left for their room.
First/Previous/next

I am a general manager of a restaurant and need help/advice/insight on a situation that has just been brought to my attention. I've been a GM in multiple restaurants (mostly casual with 1 corporate stint) for about 6 1/2 years and have been in the industry for almost 20 years. I've always tried to be fair and nice to everyone while still being stern when need be in order to keep the business successful and operations smooth in an ever fluid industry. While I am not close with most staff, I am friendly with everyone, including my bar manager who I work very closely with. My bar manager and I have on a few occasions hung out outside of work and I do consider her a friend. But her as well as most of my staff know, work comes first and I will do what I need to do in best interest of the business.
A bartender of mine sent a text message to my owner this morning stating that she was having issues with my bar manager. She listed a couple things like "verbal abuse", feeling like she has a "target" on her back, and that my bar manager "shoved" her "in front of guests" this past weekend when they worked together. I was there during the shift as well. I was running around helping with various things, so while I didn't see this incident happen, i could've been out of the bar area when is apparently did happen. Now I know both my bar manager as well as this employee pretty well (more my bar manager than the bartender because we work together constantly), and I can say with 99% certainty, that my bar manager would never "shove" anyone! She would never be physical with anyone and certainly would never do something to hurt anyone. Now, I also know that this bartender can be dramatic, sensitive, and be exaggerative. She also has to get spoken to quite often about doind or not doing things she's suppose to do or not do. She's been working for us for about 8 months and we've had to tell her then same things over and over and over again. It's never anything major, just small things like bringing silverware and app plates to tables when they've ordered food, taking menus off of tables after they've put their order in, pre bussing dirty plates and glasses off of tables, etc. Things to help create a smooth experience for guests and staff. She's always very nice to guests and is definitely a hard worker, but there are still many things we have to tell her or remind her of almost every shift. So naturally, we get annoyed/aggrivated to have to repeat ourselves. Which brings me to the "verbal abuse" The bar manager also isn't "verbally abusive", but when she needs to tell someone for the 100th time not to do something, she (as well as myself) will take the more stern road to get the end result we are asking for. We are managers after all, and the majority of our job is to tell people what to do and correct someone whenbsoemthing is not done the way we asked them to do it. She has never yelled at any staff either. I guess my issue is, if I know an accusation isn't true and there is no physical proof of any of them, where do we go from here?! My bar manager is very upset, to the point of almost tears, about what has been said about her. She insists she never put her hands on anyone, which i totally believe, and also says while she doesnt think she is verbally abusive that she will be more aware of how she speaks to others (i said i would do the same even tho these accusations are not towards me. We are a team and I want her to know I have her back and whatever is one person's problem, is both our problems). I also want to add that my bar manager is almost 50, so shes not some young punk girl who wants drama or trouble, she is the exact opposite. So with that being said, while we don't necessarily believe the bartender is lying, we do however think she is exaggerating an accidental bump into someone behind the bar as a physical, intentional shove and that the bar manager doing her job to tell her she is doing something wrong is the "verbal abuse" and resulting in this bartender having a "target on her back". So where do we draw the line? We are simply doing out jobs by managing staff and then suddenly we're "bitches" for it, are unfair, being bullies, or however else anyone wants to categorize it. I have worked for people who were legitimately verbally abusive to me, screaming and yelling, and I take offense to thinking me or someone I've trained to be a manager for doing the same. Where do we go from here?! My owner is speaking with the bartender alone tomorrow to get her full side, then me again, then my bar manager to get her side. I've defended my bar manager to my owner and really think she is a great, hard worker who cares about the business, staff, and loves working for us. But say this bartender has time to think, realizes she may be exaggerating, and calms down, where does that leave my bar manager?? I think it's unfair for someone to work side by side with someone who has made such accusations that really can hurt someone's job. I believe this bartender truly doesn't understand the weight of the words she has spoken. She doesn't understand that saying someone physically put their hands on someone and shoved them can get them fired and ruin their career. I also never, ever want anyone to feel uncomfortable in the work place and have always made it be known that I, personally, have an open door policy and they can talk to me or text me about ANYTHING at ANY time of the day. Which my bartender has never used to her advantage.
Sorry this is so long and I guess I'm not sure what I'm asking or saying, but I guess I just want to put this out there for others to help me and my bar managers situation as well as my employee's situation and come to some sort of conclusion that gets no one fired (which may not be possible).

First
Capes and Conundrums
“This is so much fun! I didn’t think that something like this was around here before!” Migalla says and her mother laughs.
“Last time we were here you were so small that chasing the family Purriz was the most excitement you’d get in a day Migalla.”
“Mom!” Migalla protests as Echosong giggles.
“Daughter!” She says back in amusement as they climb in through the window of the building that the clue they had frisked from those very fetching men had on them. If she wasn’t a married woman then she’d be looking to cure that with these men. They were clearly both dedicated and fun loving with all the shame of an exhibitionist but the self control you need from a soldier.
A pity her little Migalla is still a little too young to do more than occasionally have a wandering hand or find herself staring. The sort of thing you chide someone for or at worst give them a swat or two to get them to stop. Although... at this rate... between the sheer amount of CHEST shown by ‘Maxie Zeus’ and how tight the suit on ‘Firefly’ was... she might start developing a little early in the interest category.
“So... what IS your name ma’am? Did that... Mighty Zeus say it right when he called you Nyx?” Echosong asks and The Huntress perks up a little before letting out a bit of a laugh.
“Oh! Oh this must have been awkward! Oh no, my name is Migalla as well. It’s tradition in my family that the tenth daughter is always named Migalla. Little Migalla here is my tenth born and I am tenth born to my own mother, who was ninth born.”
“So Migalla and Migalla? How does that...”
“Call me Patience. It’s the family name after all. Huntsmistress Migalla Patience, and my adorable daughte Huntress in training Migalla Patience.”
“And granddaughter of Huntsmistress Migalla Patience right?”
“Actually mother’s a botanist. When all three of us are in a room she’s Doctor Migalla.”
“Really?”
“Yes.” Patience responds with a very amused tone. “Now if you get my great aunt in the room then Huntsmistress Migalla will get more than one answer. Much like Huntress in training Migalla will get my adorable little girl and at least three cousins.”
“Family reunions must be a lot of fun.” Echosong states as she tries to make sense of the strange acoustics of this place. There’s no echo despite the fact their should be. Furthermore there’s utter darkness and no source of light. But the light should be moving past certain areas. Something’s going on. What though? She’s not sure.
“The Migalla table at the gathering is always full of the funniest and most confusing conversations.” Migalla says and Echosong laughs. Migalla then smiles at a memory. “Mom, was it Migalla or Migalla that was telling Migalla that last time she saw Migalla she was in a fight with Migalla and it was such a relief to see her and Migalla had made up?”
“Yes, yes it was. Now back to the game at hand... we’re looking for a Ra’s Al Ghul. Some kind of immortal mad eco-terrorist that wishes to crash economies, destroy cities and leave the nature of the world pristine.” Patience notes.
“Wrong world for that. If we let that happen then Skathac gets set on fire again and again.” Echosong notes. “Also... hang on... I have the booklet here. Right! The resurrection method he uses has been slowly driving him insane.”
“Insane little creature? How very base and untoward to use such childish insults.” A refined voice with a slight accent states clearly.
“Speakers, he could be anywhere between here and Centris.” Patience warns.
“Indeed I can miss... Patience was it? Hmm... I expected the detective. I am torn between concern and relief that the rest of the sleeping masses upon this wretched and ruined world are beginning to awaken. Tell me, will you use your awareness and strength to save the world, or doom it?”
“Skathac isn’t a world that needs saving, it needs saving from.” Migalla states in an incredulous tone.
“Seriously old man! Haven’t you been outside? It’s a roasty nine hundred and eighty degrees outside the thermal shields! And it’s the cooler part of the year!” Echosong exclaims.
“I am certain that the world will cool when...”
“What craziness are you up to this time Ra’s? Are you sure you don’t need a retirement home?” Patience mocks him and there’s a silence.
“I am certain that...”
“They even have diapers your size now! So you don’t even have to figure out where the bathroom is!”
“Migalla that’s too far! Incontinence is nothing to joke about. Unless it’s funny.” Patience chides her before laughing.
“Mercenary, get in there.” Ra’s states coldly. Suddenly the darkness is pulled away revealing the warehouse they’re in to be a full of machinery and the trick they used to disguise this to be sound absorbing curtains that blended perfectly in the darkness.
They’re surrounded. Dozens of men in black outfits and only their eyes exposed glaring down. But most importantly are two. One an older looking man with a pointed hairstyle, grey streaks in his beard and a high collared green cape on. The other a very large and powerfully built man in black and grey armour with a half orange facemask. He looks like he walked right out of the Teen Titans cartoon.
“Decisions, decisions...” Deathstroke states.
“I am not paying you dither. Attack!” Ra’s Al Ghul orders and Deathstroke MOVES. His open palm slams into Patient’s stomach and sends her skidding backwards even as her footclaws dig into the concrete below. She leaves four foot long trenches and staggers back a step to regain her footing.
She deflects his left jab, blocks the right cross and then takes a brutal kick to the side of the knee and is sent sprawling. However she still has more limbs to play and her knife hand slams into the sides of his stomach in a powerful cross chop. She gets an impression of far more organs in there than most life, and she knows she hit at least one of them painfully.
His answer is a snap kick that takes her in the stomach and sends her staggering.
Meanwhile Migalla and Echosong are set upon by the ninja horde with a single wordless command from Ra’s. Echosong responds by letting out a sonic scream infused with Axiom that batters back at least three of them and send them sprawling in midair to crash into the machinery uselessly.
Migalla on the other hand jumps back at them and with Axiom infused hands coutners their swords and, after a bit of fumbling, grabs them by the shirt and tries to land on a pipe. She slips and begins to slide backwards, but she wraps her tail around it and firms her footing so they turn on the pipe instead and simply fall off. Leaving her hanging upside down with a ninja in each pair of arms.
She gives them both a few shacks before bonking them together and then dropping them before shifting and skittering to the top of the pipe instead.
She’s then met by a pair of ninjas to either side. She takes a stance that allows both of them access to her sides and uses Axiom to expand her field of vision. Fighting off two people at once will be tricky. But with her four arms and tail, they’ve got a grand total of one limb on her. Hopefully it won’t make that much difference.
Patience meanwhile is having a blast. Deathstroke... or is he Slade when he’s more Teen Titans style? Anyways, Mister Wilson is all sorts of fun. Sure, she has a few limbs on him. The tail nearly gets him as she sweeps for the legs or stabs with the blade, but he downright slithers out of the way of that, showing that he’s as flexible as he’s physically strong and... and...
“Tell me Mister Wilson... do you offer lessons?” Patience asks.
“Oh?” Slade asks. Nothing grand in his tone as he deflects two attacks and shifts to the side to try and get her with an elbow. Unfortunately there’s a distinct lack of organs in the place he hits her, and he’d have had more impact if he slammed into her thigh instead.
“Oh yes... I’m a married woman, but if I could my husband to MOVE like you do... He’s not much of a fighter your see.”
“A brawl before bed to spice up the marital life?” Slade asks in a scornful tone.
“Something like that. A poet can make a woman melt with words alone, but there’s something to be said if he can scoop her up afterwards to carry her to bed.” Patience says and there’s a scoff from under the mask.
“Okay, that needs to come off.” She insists making a grab for the mask. It’s latched on though and it’s not coming off.
She gets a flurry of body shots as she tries to grab at the helmet and then as she lunges for it again she’s instead grabbed and the flip is turned into a hammer throw that sends her hurtling through the factory. She aborts the flight by twisting in the air and grabbing the underside of a walkway and stopping her flight.
She paces along the underside of the walkway, easily keeping grip as she keeps track of Slade. Who throws down a smoke bomb and she senses movement behind her. Her tail lashes out but something binds it and she decides to go all out.
The metal of the walkway bends and cracks under her sheer strength as she bursts through the underside of it to attack Slade, only to find his solid boot slamming into the top of her head with enough force to break her grip, break the line he tied her with and break the pipe underneath them clean through.
“Oh!... Oh wow! You’re good!”
“Of course I am...” Slade begins even as the walkway he’s standing on creaks and groans. It then snaps under his feet and he falls. He falls in perfect control as he angles himself to avoid the edges of the pipe and he lands in a crouch right in front of Patience. “Deathstroke The Terminator.”
“I think this is a bit much for most contestants.”
“You’re a bit much for mere level four. We have you on record fighting Lava Serpents without protective gear and with only the most basic weapons. You can handle it big girl.” Deathstroke The Terminator states. “Now then. Shall we?”
Her response is a lightning fast charge that phases right through him. She skids to a stop and turns. Red runes are glowing over his armour with a jagged mark over his forehead.
“Really?” Patience asks.
“Really.” Deathstroke says before gesturing and half the equipment in the factory hurls itself at her. The Huntsmistress laughs in glee at the challenge.
While mother was having her fun, Migalla was having some of her own. She had managed to swipe a quartet of swords from the ninja and wasn’t so much as using them as flailing them around in their vague directions as she swung from her tail. On the walkway above a Ninja finally gets up there and dislodges her tail, causing her to start to fall, but Echosong swoops in, grabs her and helps her stick the landing even as she sweeps with her Axiom infused voice.
Between the blades, the fury and the scream the ninja fall back and one of them is dramatically killed by Ra’s Al Ghul.
“Incompetent fool.” The older man says in a dark tone as he bares the ‘bloody’ (sauce covered) falchion. “All of you. Out. I will deal with this myself.”
The ninjas scatter and Ra’s Al Ghul throws away his cloak to reveal that he has an armoured vest, pants and boots underneath. “A pity that one can only depend on a mercenary. I will need to increase my training of them.”
In the background Deathstroke’s and Patience’s fight has escalated into a two person war. Literal magic is being used on both sides as Slade reveals enormous teleportion, pyrokinesis and just kinesis in general as Patience shows that she can easily match the teleportation. Knows her way around throwing lightning and can cause the ground to quake with every move she makes.
“Now then. Let us begin.” Ra’s states before suddenly charging them both. Migalla’s swords are outright shattered against his falchion in a single swipe and the round kick to the side sends her sprawling as Echosong opens up with a sonic scream.
He DODGES the scream and lands some feet away, skidding from the sheer speed of the movement.
“All this effort and you still haven’t fully uncovered the plan. I expected more of someone taking up The Detective’s mantle. Perhaps his faith in you is misplaced?”
​
First Last

TLDR = the title
I started reading HP when only the first three of the books were out.
I had to wait briefly for GoF translation and then the long wait for OotP began (in the meantime, I learned English by reading the four available books in the original so I wouldn't have to wait that long, but then OotP came out and it was so thick and difficult that I read the fan translation anyway. That was a memorably hilarious experience and not just because MS Word exchanged the word Hagrid for Hybrid in the whole text).
Then I remember waiting for HBP and the wild theories who it was. Can you imagine not knowing? Snape and Sirius are my favorite characters - this hasn't changed in 20+ years - so of course I read every theory and fan fiction concerning them. There was a time people used to think Snape was a rich Pureblood and lived in a mansion (in which he had, like, a torture dungeon and shit). In a way, the waiting before HBP was one of the most magical because I had time to read absolutely all the fan essays about everything, all the discussions, all the theories. No one was sure whether Hermione would end up with Ron or Harry. No one knew about the horcruxes and there was a fanfic about literally everything. People wrote their own versions of the future books.
Then after HBP, many fans (I admit - myself not included because I clearly cannot pick up the most obvious clues and have to rely on others interpreting things for me) figured out many of the DH plot points, especially Snape's motivation and everything concerning him and Dumbledore.
When DH was closing in, there was the so-called "carpet book" (somebody took a picture of every page of DH and posted it online about a week prior to the release) and everyone went mad. The book was bound to be a disappointment if only because it would be the last one but also because JKR could not possibly live up to all the expectations. I disliked DH because I honestly thought the writing quality went down (eg. Lupin suddenly sounding like someone completely different - he did not talk like that, come on! And Accio Hagrid?! The Trace? etc.) and I hated the neverending camping trip. But also it felt ... strange. The Prince's Tale honestly felt like fan fiction. Like rather badly plotted one, with the timeline of the Werewolf Prank and SWM mixed up. But this was just because I had spent two years reading all the discussions and theories. I knew what was coming. Maybe my experience would be completely different if I just read the story as it should be read - without the knowledge of thousands of pages of external analyses and opinions dissecting every word, every sentence of every HP book. Without having read any of the fan fiction.
I think that it must have been the wait between the books that made Snape's popularity explode originally. In canon, Snape has turned out to be a simple, straightforward character, with Sirius being his perfect foil (one loved Lily, the other loved James, both saw James in Harry, you know the drill). JKR had a clear idea for Snape's storyline from the start. He was the red herring in the first book and in the whole series which is what made him so interesting to us all. But still, his character and his backstory are clearcut, the mystery has been solved! I'm glad people are still arguing, but where is this coming from? JKR obviously enjoyed writing Snape, which made his every appearance entertaing* which is honestly why I think so many of us enjoyed overanalyzing everything back when we didn't know what would happen in the future books. But now? The main Harry Potter sub banned topics on Snape and James for a while, but come on, who is even discussing this anymore? This has been discussed for the past twenty years! There just isn't enough backstory on James, period. Or even young Snape. FIll in the blanks yourself, end of story, this will never be resolved, the books are not primarily about them. Or do you mean to tell me that books are still just as magical and the characters just as intriguing as when no one knew the ending? Is that really how it was for you even though you may have already known the ending from the films when you started reading?
So my question is: how did the books feel like to those of you who could read them without any interruption? Were you surprised by any specific revelation? Did you see any of the plot development coming? Did some characters seem to get "out of character" in the later books? Did you also like the first three books the most? Did you also think DH kind of sucked? Did you also spend hours reading and researching why the hell Snape asked "To whom did the dog belong" during the Occlumency lesson or did you just not care?
_______
*quote from CoS - it used to be stuff like this that made Snape so popular, not the endless loved Lily/obsessed over Lily circle jerks- so much about him was unknown and his every appearance in the books was just gold:
“Hang on . . .” Harry muttered to Ron. “There’s an empty chair at the staff table. . . . Where’s Snape?” "Maybe he's ill!" said Ron hopefully. “Maybe he’s left,” said Harry, “because he missed out on the Defense Against the Dark Arts job again!” “Or he might have been sacked!” said Ron enthusiastically. “I mean, everyone hates him —” “Or maybe,” said a very cold voice right behind them, “he’s waiting to hear why you two didn’t arrive on the school train.” Harry spun around. There, his black robes rippling in a cold breeze, stood Severus Snape.”

Previous, first, next,
Fanfiction.
Chapter 28 cont;
Working at sea had made me buy a coat specifically designed for the more extreme types of weather, but with its age and my short stint in the Irish sea the efficacy of the wax coating had all but vanished, after only taking a few steps I felt the water beginning to seep through. Putting aside the chill that came with wearing wet clothes I made my way along the deck until I found the cruiser.
She wasn't particularly difficult to find. Her cherry blond hair and pure white cape made it easy to spot her against the greys of the ship and sky. Her head was tilted upward with her eyes closed. She held Montpelier’s cube in her arms letting the rain fall on it. She must have noticed me coming, for she opened her eyes and looked over to me as I approached.
“Hey.” She greeted, her tone completely neutral and with a distinctive lack of the boyish bravado I had heard before. Her hair and all of her clothes were absolutely drenched yet she didn't seem to care.
“Hey. How are you holding up?” I awkwardly replied.
“Fine, I guess.” Cleveland replied, looking down at the cube and affectionately rubbing it with her thumb. “I’ve had this body for half a year now. Yet this is the first time I've ever felt the rain.”
“And how are you finding it?”
“Cold and wet.” She lifted her head up once again, letting the rain splash against her face. “But it is kinda nice. The sound against the deck and sea is rather pleasant.”
“You should try listening to it near a forest or field, especially during spring. I used to listen to it all the time back home.” Memories of countless days back home sitting in the study with the window open reading book after book while it rained outside surfaced.
“Guess that stereotype holds true then, eh?” There was the faintest hint of a smile on her lips. “Monty always enjoyed the quiet time we had together.”
My eyes were drawn to the cube in her hands. “May I?”
There was a moment of reticence before she slowly offered the cube to me. “Please, be careful.”
“I will, I promise.” I carefully took the item from Cleveland, taking it into my hands as delicately as I could. The dull crystal felt cold to my touch, and it wasn’t only due to the rain. I slowly rotated it in my fingers, hoping for something, anything that would show a sign of activity within, yet my mind didn’t become awash with random thoughts or feelings; it felt like nothing more than mundane glass in my hands.
The guilt was piling up again. “I can't begin to express how sorry I am. We should have acted sooner.”
Cleveland looked at her hand while she flexed her fingers, but her eyes never left the cube. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You did all that you could, and even took a great risk for complete strangers. It's me who is to blame for not being there for her. For leaving her behind.”
“But I will not fail her again.” She continued, confidence returning to her voice and posture. “I know within my heart that we will be reunited one day.” She ran a hand along the silver streak in her hair.
“If you don't mind me asking, what happened when you touched your sister's ship? For a moment it looked like you had two riggings.” I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me.
“I don't really know what or how I did it, I just couldn't let her ship fall apart like that. However, now it seems like I can have both my and her rigging.” She waved a hand out to sea where a Cruiser sailed alongside the battleship. And with a flash of light her rigging appeared. “It's uncomfortable having both at the same time to say the least, but like this it's not too bad.”
“Well you can keep her ship safe for her.” I carefully held out the cube for her to take back. “If there's one thing I've learned in the time I've spent around you girls is that anything is possible.”
“Thanks.” She took the cube back. “Not just for saying that, but for everything you and your crew have done. It's heartening to know there's at least one person out there looking out for us.” Cleveland rocked on her heels. “If it's alright with you, may I hang around with you guys for a bit? I don't really have anywhere else to go and being part of a fleet sounds nice.”
“There will always be a place for you in this fleet, Cleveland. For you and any other ship that wishes to join us.” I offered my hand. “No strings attached, if you don't wish to fight or follow orders then you can just wait out any fight onboard a ship”
Cleveland gave a toothy smile. “I won’t be no slacker. I'll earn my keep just as much as any other girl. You can depend on our six inch guns.” I paid attention to her eyes when she took my hand. Now there was the distinct blue glow for less than a second in her right eye, something that had happened before with other girls. Cleveland seemed to relax slightly after the exchange, but I could still see weariness in her.
She tilted her head up to the sky. “Man, it's really coming down now. We should head back inside.” Cleveland took one more pensive look at her ship before walking inside.
The water dripping from our clothes echoed inside the ship as we walked. We came upon a junction where we would go down different paths, and Cleveland paused to speak, rubbing the brooch on her cape once again. “James… About what you did. I know it probably isn't right to say, but thank you. If anyone deserved such a fate, it was him. So you ever need anything from me, no matter what it is I will do it.”
“Uh, thanks.” I replied, unable to think of something meaningful to say. The idea of being thanked for what I did was hard to comprehend, but the gratitude I saw in the cruiser's face helped ease the turmoil within.
That gratitude was also disturbing somehow.
–
I decided to return to my cabin with my drenched self and next to no desire to eat. I changed out of the wet raincoat and inner clothes and sat down on my bed, contemplating what to do. With how exhausted I felt sleep would probably come easily but I knew without a doubt it would be anything but peaceful.
There was the option of finishing off the bottle under my bed, but while it would help it’d only be pushing the problem aside temporarily, and I didn’t want Warspite or worse, Javelin or Z23 see me in that state. I continued mulling over my options until the daylight disappeared completely. Just as I was about to risk a night's sleep there and there came a gentle knocking at my door.
With a sigh, I got up and opened the door. I was greeted with the warm and dignified visage of Hood standing on the other side, with several books held under her arm and lips curled into a smile when our eyes met.
“Ah good,” her eyes moved to the empty tray still left at the side. “I see you enjoyed your lunch. May I come in?”
Hood had been the one to leave that try outside my door, even after how I had snapped at her, now I just felt even more guilty.
I stepped aside and waved her in. “Please.”
The battlecruiser walked into the small cabin with a familiar scent of lavender trailing behind her. She placed her books down on the small table while inquisitively looking around the room. I soon wished I had cleaned it.
I gulped when her eyes spotted the bottle under my bed. She didn’t say anything about it, but laid dead still, keeping an inscrutable smile. She lingered on it for a moment then returned her attention to me, taking off the glove of her right hand in the process. She gestured to come closer with one of her revealed fingers. “Come here.”
The very instant I closed the distance, I received a slap for the second time today, faster than I could react as well.
“I deserved that.” I sputtered gracelessly, rubbing my swollen cheek. She didn’t hit me as hard as Warspite had, but it had been the same side and reignited the sting from earlier.
“I will not tolerate being spoken to in such a manner, not from you nor anyone else. Not now, not ever.” Hood folded her arm and raised her nose curtly, her face a scowl of indignation. “No matter what you went through, to threaten one of us with an order of that kind goes against everything you stand for, and if you ever begin to stray again a slap will be the least of your problems, James.”
I looked down, misery once more coming afloat.
With her fury vented, Hood's posture relaxed and she looked at me more caringly. She put on her glove again. “James. I–we only desire to be of service to you in any way we can. You need not suffer alone. You don’t have to suffer alone, nothing good will come of it. Which is why I am here now.”
She carefully sat down on the small chair in the room, ensuring her large skirt didn’t get caught or creased.
“I don’t understand?”
She smiled with dignity. “My cabin is directly next to yours. And the walls are naught but a thin sheet of metal. I know you regularly awaken suddenly in the night from being disturbed in your sleep, so I'm here to ensure you get a proper night's rest.” She waved to the pile of books and the bed. “Don’t worry about me, I will keep myself occupied.”
I opened my mouth to protest but she quickly cut me off. “There will be no negotiation, you assisted me when I struggled to sleep and now I shall do the same. Now get yourself ready for bed, I will close my eyes.” She leaned back and shut her eyes.
Knowing there was no point in arguing, I removed both my shirt and trousers and laid myself down in bed. My face felt warm at the idea of Hood sitting by me while I slept, enough to overpower the last bits of lingering pain from the slap, but exhaustion hit me like a train the moment I laid down.
Hood reopened her eyes with the slightest bit of a blush of her own. “Good, now you just relax and I will be here if you need me.” Hood reached down and grabbed the bottle. “Honestly, I don’t understand your reasoning behind seeking comfort in this instead of getting it from a beautiful lady.” She opened the bottle and took a rather large swig.
“Don’t know where I could find the latter.” I mumbled.
“I am not ignorant of how I look, nor am I to your wandering gaze.” She quipped with a coy smile. “Now enough chitchat, it’s time for you to rest. That is unless you want me to read for you?”
“Fine, fine. Have it your way.” I said, resting my head down and shutting my eyes. It took a while to get over the nerves of having Hood sitting beside me, but the occasional flip of a page became a pleasant background noise that helped lull me to sleep.
—
Warspite sat in her captain’s chair, resting her head in her arm as she wracked her brain. She rocked her head back with a groan once more. “Why did you have to go and hit him, Warspite? You bloody stupid ship.”
She didn’t know why she had such a rush of emotions when he spoke and acted without thinking before bawling like an infant. Why is it now that just his presence is enough to throw her whits into a loop, yet she couldn’t wait until he was sitting in this chair with her at his side again?
“Things were easier when I wanted naught but to throw him overboard.” She sighed.
Another issue came to her mind, something she had brought back from the facility, not the notebook; that could remain safely locked away until she was sure her opinion of humans wouldn’t worsen even more. This was something else, something she wished she had never even touched and just left it where it lay, for what it meant made her sick.
Someone approached her bridge, Warspite quickly brushed aside her thoughts and tried to figure out who it was. She was unsuccessful at figuring out who it was but when the door had opened she quickly dropped to her knee.
“Good evening, your Majesty.”
Elizabeth smiled and walked onto the bridge. “There will never be a day where thou need to kneel upon thy own bridge. Stand, my dear Warspite.”
“Yes, your Majesty.” The battleship stood back up. “How was your rest? I hope the rain was not too distracting.” Warspite offered the captain's chair to Elizabeth for her to sit. But the tiny Queen remained standing.
After surveying the surrounding sea Elizabeth turned to her sister. “T’was most pleasant. How did things fare while I rested? Did you speak to our Commander about the book?”
“Ah, well.” Warspite scratched her head. “He gave me the same answer as you, your Majesty. I will wait until Cleveland is in a better condition and ask her permission to read it.”
Elizabeth brought a hand to her chin, noticing the small movements and fidgeting her sister was still doing. “Yet something troubles you still. Is it anything I could be of assistance with?”
Warspite sighed and dropped her shoulders. “May I ask for your assistance in something, not as my queen but as my sister?”
The Queen nodded with a soft smile. “I will always be your big sister before I am your Queen, Warspite. What is it you wish to confide in me with?”
“One second.” She replied before walking off into a small secondary inner communications room connected to the bridge, its purpose made redundant by her being able to control the ship completely no matter where she was. But inside a small cabinet was an inconspicuous rag that hid the source of her problems. She returned to the bridge with the item in hand.
“The notepad wasn't the only thing I grabbed before leaving.” She spoke as she walked over. “When James…” Warspite paused as she relived the memory. “When he shot that wretched man he dropped his gun.”
Peeling back the rag she showed Elizabeth the firearm. “There had been something about the sound it made when it fell that made me curious. I could tell you, but I think it's better for you to see for yourself.”
She offered the gun to her sister cautiously. Elizabeth took the firearm into her hand, instantly finding herself being able to handle it like she had trained with it for decades. Her brow furrowed as she noticed something was off about it.
“It can't be.” She pressed down on the magazine release to confirm her suspicion. “It's… empty?” Elizabeth was dumbfounded at the empty magazine. “Did you unload it?”
Warspite sighed and shook her head. “Unfortunately no. This is how it was, so technically…”
“James was never in any real danger.” Elizabeth finished, remembering what Warspite had told her of the exchange when they had returned.
“And that's the problem, I know James would want me to be honest to him. But what he did is tearing him apart inside, this would only make things worse.” She looked in the general direction of where his cabin would be. “I’m perplexed, Elizabeth. I’m sorry for dropping this on you, but what should I do?”
The Queen was silent for a while. Her gaze was distant as she thought over the problem until her smile returned and she returned the gun to her sister. “You should throw this in the ocean and forget about it. He put a gun against our James’ head. Loaded or not, James acted accordingly.”
Warspite looked at the gun and nodded. “I should have clocked it.”
An arm rested against her shoulder. “The past is filled with should haves and would haves, Warspite. If we were able to go back and change things then a lot of disasters could have been avoided.” Elizabeth felt the echoes of a memory come to mind, of a beach too steep to climb and an ocean filled with blood. “But we can't change them, so we must learn, grow stronger and soldier onward.”
The two sisters embraced one another in a hug for a long time until eventually breaking and retiring for the night. But not before the old warship went and threw the gun overboard, cursing the name of its deceased owner as she did, hoping the seas would swallow one more secret, never to resurface again.
(A/N) once again I ended up seeing this chapter getting longer and longer, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and look forward to the next, it should be coming soon as at the time of posting this the next chapter is already about halfway done.

So I quit my job yesterday. I was a welder working in trailer manufacturing and had been there for just over 2 years. Going in, I knew that the pay wasn't going to be stellar, but they were willing to train me and it would get me out of customer service jobs.
When I got hired, I was told it would take 3 months to train into being a welder. I did it in 2. When we all had to get recertified (not AWS), I was 1 of 4 people that passed all 3 parts of the test on the first try. I was 1 of 2 (MAYBE 3) people on the entire site that can run the plas table and band saw. I had seniority over everyone left in my line and could handle just about any task in it.
The company had been hemorrhaging their tenured employees because of the pay and many lines were falling behind as few of the new people had more than 3 months on them. And so they started making us all stay later, even if our line wasn't affected, thus turning 10 hour days (5 days a week) into 12 hour days.
I had talked with my boss and asked after having been there so long and for all that I can do there, why I was only making $17/hr only to get a weak excuse about attendance, which he used on all the others that have been there a while. But I had been tracking it on my phone, and was absolutely nowhere near even getting a verbal warning. Meanwhile, many new hires are coming in at $21 when the quality of many of their welds could barely justify $15. But they came in at a higher rate because of the "market value." I tried explaining to him what all I contribute and that as a single father that I had to make more or that I'd look elsewhere as well as how I applied to multiple other positions within the company only to get ignored/dodged, but he wouldn't budge. And so he backtracked as to why I wasn't staying until 6, but he wouldn't listen as to why all the lines have fallen behind, how I can't justify staying that late for such low pay, or how it didn't seem to matter at all last time we had to stay so long as I haven't had a raise in over a year. He tried to be "gracious" and told me he'll drop one of my attendance points for leaving early. I told him if I point out, I point out, but I didn't tell him that I had already made up my mind on leaving.
To add to this, my line lead's last day was Friday, leaving for the same reason as everyone else. To effectively run the line, there should be a minimum of 8, ideally 10, but every time we lost someone no matter the reason, they were never replaced. We had 6 before the lead and I left. To make matters worse, 1 just started welding that week and she has yet to really learn the line, 1 is out for wrist surgery and will be gone for some time, and 1 (though he did pass his tests eventually) is absolutely terrible at welding and tends to throw tools at the walls, so he's pretty much relegated to installing axles and scraping the trailers before they go to paint. So effectively, there's only 1 person who is of much use to that line right now. The other guy who can run the plas table for sure is a lead in another line but has been running a forklift for much of his time as there's not enough drivers. So my line will likely be shut down and any other line that requires my work can't build those specific trailers for the time being. But I do wonder what that's going to cost them- my line built the big trailers you see typically hauling construction equipment, and those aren't cheap.
All I asked for was to be able to make ends meet and move out of my parent's house before I'm 40, not a megayacht. Those extra hours wouldn't have amounted to much after taxes and would only result in me in another line likely hindering the already slow new people as I'm not familiar with their product or fucking around because there's not enough machines to work with, so why stay? At least make it voluntary before it becomes a problem. And to think that with all I did there, I only made 25¢ more per hour than I did stocking shelves overnight at Albertsons- less so after you calculate the cost of insurance, union fees (at Albertsons) and the like.

I worked for a fast food restaurant in Highschool for about 3 years (from age 15-18) I was never a manager but over the 3 years I worked there I saw the entire management team turn over, and I trained all the new managers and did their jobs so if I was working they typically didn’t schedule a manager on shift. The reason I was never a manager was because when I was asked to be one (I was already doing management’s job) I asked what the pay raise would be. They said I wouldn’t get a pay raise but I would get the responsibility of a manager. I was 16 when they asked so I just said, "I mean, I already have the responsibility of a manager. Either I get the pay of a manager or you can find someone else to take the responsibility." So they asked the new guy I was training to be a manager and gave him manager’s pay. They still didn’t staff a manager when I worked which led to an interesting situation. When I was working as a cashier I had a guy that was clearly mentally ill walk in holding a bicycle seat, slamming it on tables and on the counter. Thankfully there were no customers or other cashiers. It was just me and 2 kitchen staff in the back anyway since there was thankfully no line he waltzed up to me and said "I want this burger combo and if I don’t get it in 1 minute I’m going to bash your head in." I gave the man his total and he handed me a $20 bill. My kitchen staff was on top of things so as soon as the order went through they had it up. I bagged it, got his drink and change, and he was out of there in under a minute. I told the store manager about the incident and asked (since this type of stuff happens often in our area) if we could get some better security. I did the store’s financial reports pretty often so I presented the argument that given the rates of the local security company the McDonalds around the corner hires, it would be well within our budget to have a security guard at least for the early mornings and late nights when this tends to happen. She said she’ll talk to the franchisee (who started charging for condiment packages, and extra lettuce). He said no of course but complimented me on what a great job I did. When I was 17 and had just graduated highschool the franchisee offered to give me extra hours (I was working 40 a week already) at his other store. It had 4 employees total and the store manager quit. I had time on my hands and wanted money so I said yes. I would finish my opening shift at my store then the Franchisee would drive me up to the other store to close. While at the other store the I found out the temporary store manager was throwing resumes out because "they all sounded too ethnic" so I fished the resumes out of the recycling and handed them to the franchisee who said, "oh but things are running fine now. I trust her judgement or I wouldn’t have asked her to step in." That was it for me so I sent an application to the restaurant everyone I knew called "the best restaurant in town" and a week later I got a phone call (no interview) saying "so when can you start?" I continued to work at my main store on openings but stopped working at the second store. Told the franchisee I couldn’t handle it. He said it was fine and that I’d done so much for the company. Fast forward to our Christmas party and the store manager is taking restaurant suggestions and my gremlin of a co-worker thinks it’ll be funny to suggest my new restaurant and the staff all unanimously agree. The store manager finds out I’m working there, tells the franchisee and he comes to me telling me that I left them in a hole and how badly the store was running. The cherry on the cake though was later when one of the other guys that would pull double shifts at both stores passed away from a heart attack in his sleep, a girl that was really close to him asked the franchisee if she could put his photo on the counter in memorial. The franchisee said she could, but only in one store and only for one week. That’s when I resigned.

*disclaimer*In efforts to not ‘out’ anyone in the group I will try to be as objective as possible.
This is a story of how our creepy Felon DM destroyed his own group.
On a D&D Facebook group our DM posted that he was looking to start a campaign the group would meet every other week and will take place in the Wild West, and must be 21+ years old there will be drinking and smoking, we live in a state where recreational marijuana is legal. After the group was formed he sent us some history/ lore of his setting. This setting was to mirror the events/cultures and technologies of the Wild West in America, with 5e races being used to represent real life/ historical cultures. For example: elves and goliaths were native americans, minotaurs and orcs were slaves forced to work on railroads, etc you get the picture, a very ‘racial’ setting. This could be seen as problematic and there were POC in the group. This could be seen as offensive, but all this knowledge was known before our first session so we all joined the group willingly.
Session 0 we met at a local game store to create characters and go over backgrounds. After everyone introduced themselves, the DM mentioned he is a veteran DM as well as a fluent German speaker, a professional photographer and a general contractor, also he runs a buisness, what can’t this guy do? Additionally he runs multiple groups every other week, he said he has tons of material and was contracted by Games Workshop to produce a rpg setting in the wild west and that we were fortunate enough to be his test subjects. The session 0 group consisted of: Fighter (male), Monk(male), Cleric(female), Paladin(male), Bloodhunter (male), Druid(female). With Fighter and Druid being new players. The whole group got along well and a majority are still friends to this day.
Before the next session Monk dropped from the group saying he was going through a divorce and couldn't commit to the group. Then the DM found 2 new players, enter Necromancer(male) and Rogue(male).
Session 1 the group was tasked with gathering information on disappearing citizens in a large city. It was believed that a crime lord was kidnapping people for experiments. Lets call the crime lord JB. The group visited an underground fighting ring where JB was rumored to be. Cleric paid JB’s personal champion a visit to try and uncover additional information on the kidnappings. The champion was aggressively hitting on cleric and after cleric failed a couple charisma saving throws DM said “you have sex with him…and by the way he rocks your world”. A major red flag, a dm should never take away player agency and even worse make them sleep with an npc. Then the party escaped the fighting ring, knocking out a couple guards on the way and even stuffing one into a bag of holding.
Next session the DM brought in a new player, Enter Barbarian (female) 18 years old. I bring this up because the DM's original post said you must be 21+. Barbarian is a new player and was looking to join a party on the facebook group. The DM reached out to her and they met over coffee to go over her character. The DM is almost 50 years old and this seemed a little weird. Don’t get me wrong Barbarian was a great addition to the group and an excellent Roleplayer. It's just weird to me that the DM went against his own rules to seek out a minor to join the group. Also in this session the DM had the party visit a Brothel to acquire an elixir that could wipe the memory of the guard we had stuffed in the bag of holding. The DM role played some rather sexual experiences with the group, Barbarian included. He also had NPC’s hit on barbarian, for example: a gnome shopkeeper who was obsessed with her goliath size and boobs, he gave her a discount on goods if she would cradle him like a baby close to her breasts. This was her first session ever….
Also important to mention again that we had 3 brand new players to D&D, they often needed help with their characters or reiteration of the rules when it came down to combat. Almost every time we tried helping a player, the DM would lecture “Guys quit Metagaming” and we’d argue that we are just helping the newbies, Dm would still insist “Yeah but it's still meta gaming”. Oftentimes we were found helping our players either when the DM was away or busy with another player.
A few sessions pass and the group finds the kidnapped individuals in a warehouse, they escape with them through the sewers while being pursued by JB and his men. The group was tasked with bringing these kidnapped npc’s to a refugee camp outside of the city. Paladin had to miss a few sessions for personal reasons. Not to worry, the DM still used Paladin's character in the next session without Paladin’s consent of course.
Next session JB sent a group of trained mercenaries after the group. The DM had Paladin (player is not present) stay back and keep a look out for the npc group following them. He had a sending stone to alert the party if he saw anything suspicious. Eventually the mercenary group captured Paladin. With a gun to Paladin's head the mercenaries confronted the group of PC’s and offered Paladins life in exchange for the kidnapped npc’s. The party initiated the combat in an attempt to save Paladin. As a reaction the Mercenary leader put an eldritch blast powered bullet in the back of Paladin's head. Paladin was dead.
A note about Paladin. Paladin was a beloved character of the group. He was your typical lawful innocent good boy that did everything by the book, he was roleplayed very well with a hilarious character voice. Paladin will be missed.
The pc’s barely survived this encounter. They made it to camp and tried to revive Paladin but Necromancer took Paladin's soul while everyone was asleep (a story for another time, Necromancer deserves his own story). Once Paladins Player returned to the sessions he was made aware of his character's death and rerolled a ranger. Also Blood Hunter's wife joined the party, enter Bard.
The group then wanted to take the paladin's body to his father who was a leader of the church. On the way the party encounters a carnival. A majority of our campaign was spent at this damn carnival. The party checks out the carnival and physically can't escape because of demon magic? The carnival was run by demons and did not let people leave, they used captured people for sacrifices or turned them into carnies/attractions if they were deemed worthy. Most of the party became charmed by the demons and had to do what the DM said. Funny thing is that Rogue made a comment about taking away player agency when failing charisma saves in a prior session, now the party is being magically charmed left and right. Druid escapes to tell Paladin's Dad about what happened and to get help. Blood hunter murders a ton of demons escaping from captivity, which was a really cool scene. This leads us to the end of this campaign.
Throughout the campaign, Necromancer has been collecting bodies and souls to raise an army of the undead. Necromancer makes a deal with the demons and the demons give him powers. All of this is happening on the side between dm and necromancer away from the table so no one besides dm and necromancer knows what's going on. Barbarian failed to make some important saving throws and was under the demon's control. Then Necromancer raises an undead army and takes the brain washed barbarian to fight the rest of the party PVP. At this point a majority of the group just wanted everything to end and additionally Rogue was arguing with the DM more often over very simple rules that the DM was obviously wrong about. For Example DM argued “you can’t move and attack on your turn you have to pick one or the other” to which Rogue argued. “You can, it's in the 5e rules it's a part of the action economy”.
Final session Rogue goes down in some PVP and is making death saves and asks barbarian to “just fucking kill me”. To which DM shouts “THIS IS MY FUCKING GAME AND I SAY WHO LIVES AND WHO DIES”. You could cut the tension in the room with a knife, everything just seemed awkward and out of place. Necromancer died for like the 4th time and was still probably not dead. Paladin's dad showed up to fight demons and then the cleric saved everyone with holy light and teleported them out of the demon carnival.
At one point Cleric backs out of the group due to personal reasons. And to be fair the DM ignored her constantly, she commuted a long way to play in this group and rarely got to play.The session before she left was a 5 hour combat session, she only got 5 minutes of actual game pla.Then more people started leaving the group,some had valid excuses, others just left without saying anything. Apart from the incidents that I mentioned there were other issues with the DM, many of which were just blatant lies. Examples include:

• Fighter was a brand new player and sometimes his turns would take longer than others because he was trying to figure out what to do, as most new players do. The DM would get irritated and lecture the whole group “Everyone should know their characters by now, there's no excuse to take this long on your turn.” And then we’d get yelled at if we tried to help.
• One session German “cheers” was made by Cleric who spent some time in Germany. The DM had no idea what the word ‘Prost” meant, which is just a German cheer for drinking. I don't think the DM spoke German.
• Next At Druid's birthday celebration He offered to take “professional pictures” of her as a birthday gift. This is kind of creepy if you ask me, funny to mention Druid looks almost identical to Dm’s ex wife.
• DM is not a licensed professional photographer, nor is he a licensed contractor nor is he a owner of a business..at least anymore that is. Turns out DM did own a non profit that serviced the homeless community. However, DM was arrested with 8 felony charges for stealing $349,000.00 from his non-profit the year earlier. This wasn't known to the group until a player google searched dm’s name. His mug shot was the first thing that popped up along with a TV news segment about him.
• Also I highly doubt Games Workshop was working with the DM on a setting that mostly took place in a carnival. Also GamesWorkshop wouldn’t use 5e as means of playing the setting they have their own game system.
• The Campaign was very….. Not western. We were in a metropolis or a carnival most of the time. The DM did minimal role playing so the world never felt immersed, unless it was to hit on our female players, then dm role played.
• Physically picking up Druid to prove some kind of point about weight?
• Farting! Omg the farting he would constantly rip in front of people at the table and wouldn’t leave to use the restroom.
• People were constantly ignored or their turns just out right skipped. I get there were like 9 people including the DM and that is a lot to manage, however the way the DM talked himself up this seemed like this should be a walk in the park.

After leaving the wild west d&d group some of the players started a new group and are still playing to this day and a lot of close friendships were made.
A tip to players and DMs everywhere: establish boundaries at session 0, don’t take away the players freedom, don’t kill your PC’s players when they’re away, also if something seems weird, google search your player or dm if their mug shot immediately pops up that might not be a good sign.
TLDR; Controlling DM lies about himself to his players, turns out to be a creep and a felon.

Parade
Holly and Grove’s tree outfits were well received, earning second only to Waveria and Pike’s pool tarp couture outfits.
Training
Holly and Grove threw axes side by side, and apparently had agreed to ally the night before. Waveria swam in the pool and threw a trident, while Pike worked with rope and fish hooks.
Meanwhile Henna and Jerry (both 2) threw spears, and Janina and Helios (both 2) used swords. Intel and Gene (both 3) hid in the electrical station, while Gianna (5) and Decatur (6) worked in the camouflage station. Hemma and Roy (both 8) worked on sewing armor, while Anne (9) and Julian (10) sparred with machetes. Lilibet (11) worked in the plant station, while Jedediah (12) worked in the medical station.
Assessments
Waveria threw tridents and scored a 7, while Pike showed a display on how to easily tie up another tribute using a fish hook and rope. Holly and Grove threw axes with strong precision and scored 7s.
Other strong scores included Janina scoring a 9, Helios scoring a 10, and Jedediah scoring an 8.
Weaker scores included Intelle, Hemma, and Lilibet at the bottom of the pack scoring 3s.
Odds
Waveria was given odds of 6 to 1, while Holly and Grove had odds of 7 to 1. Pike had odds of 10 to 1.
Interviews
Euphemia Demigloss wore a golden dress in honor of District 2’s victory the previous year.
When it was Waveria’s turn, she spoke of wanting to win for her sister, and to prove that the BlueStar family could produce victors.
Pike talked about being an expert with rope and fishhooks, and how he hoped to win.
Holly explained that she wanted to be a table maker, but being a victor would be just as good.
Grove said that his ax skills were strong, and he looked forward to proving this in the arena.
Game Maker Juliana Ricci was interviewed next, and she gave her clue word, which this Games was “space.”
Tube Rooms
The next morning the tributes were dressed and flown to the arena, and had their trackers placed in their arms halfway through. They were taken to their tube rooms upon arrival.
Steward visited Waveria first, and gave her a hug and wished her luck. He then visited Pike, and told him to find a place to hide.
Mahogany visited Holly first, and wished her luck, and when he visited Grove, it became apparent that Mahogany thought Grove was more likely to win when he said this to the young man, hugging him.
Once all 24 tributes were in their tubes, they rose up into the arena.