Lock stock and two smoking barrels sound board

From 2019 to 2021 I (28, trans man) dated a woman (26F now). She was extremely physically abusive and tried to isolate me from my friends and family as well as ruin my connections with them which worked. In 2021 she ran off with some other guy she met online but honestly at that point I was more relieved than heartbroken. Living with her was hell. A few months later she begged me to take her back because things didn’t work out but I refused.
I thought I could just go back to my old life until I found out that when she said she’d “follow me to the ends of the earth and make sure I never found peace if I left her” she intended to make good on that.
She’s been stalking me. On one of my socials I noticed a weird account kept viewing my page and decided to see if it was anyone I knew. Turned out it was her. I later noticed similar accounts monitoring me on other social media (Facebook, Tumblr, etc). Keep in mind that after I refused to take her back I deleted all my socials and changed my phone number, email address and moved and resurfaced under a different screen name about a year later.
I need to circle back and give you some e background information on why I am so scared of her. She views herself as a vigilante. I found out while I was with her that I was not the first person she’s done this to.
Often times she feels like she hasn’t done enough and keeps tabs on people online. She had an ex boyfriend she did that too who I found out about long after she moved in with me. The guy relocated shortly after they broke up but she managed to dig up not only his new address but a bunch of other stuff like who he was living with and places he went to regularly. She had plans to come back and get revenge on him for dumping her and those two were only together for a few mont. We were together for a couple years and living together so I think she has something extra nasty in store for me, particularly since I started seeing someone else a couple years later.
People have dismissed my concerns because she’s “just a girl” and some even think I did something to deserve it. She tried to snap my cats neck, broke my nose by hitting me in the face with her big ass clunky phone, and attempted to stab me in the eye for talking to my aunt. She also told me that if I ever found anyone else after her she’d kill them. After some of the things she did to me I don’t think that was an empty threat.
Here’s the plan I’m trying make. I don’t think what she’s doing is limited to cyber stocking. I’ve been getting some really funny phone calls the last couple of days, even though I changed my phone number a couple of years ago. Not just on my cell phone either. I spent a couple days in a motel and received a funny call on the landline they had in their motel room. When I picked up, all I heard, was breathing on the other end for quite some time before they hung up. This is similar to the stuff she did in 2021 after I told her I wasn’t taking her back hence why I changed my number in the first place.
It even happened at work. I work the night shift and if you get any calls, it’s my job to answer them because I work the front. Normally, we never ever get calls after 10 PM and got one around one in the morning. It could’ve been someone who called us by accident but when I picked up the phone I heard a heavily distorted voice on the other end. I couldn’t really understand what they were saying, but it sounded like they said my name just before hanging up.
There’s another thing that really freaks me out. I got a few calls on my cell from a number with the same area code as hers. I looked the number up and not only did I find her name associated with it, but it also listed her newest address, as being in a city about an hour away from me. I find this particularly alarming, because her permanent address has been in the same state, her whole life and I moved to a different state because I knew she lived in that area. Now it says she lives in my state only 39 miles north of me.
I realize how crazy and paranoid I sound but I think I’ve got a reason to.
My problem is I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to move because I finally have a somewhat stable job. I’m on track to transfer to the university here and finish off my bachelors degree. This city also has some really good doctors and it is so hard to find a good doctor these days. I’ve only been here a little over a year. I don’t want have to move again.
The only person who knows about this is my mom who suggested I break my lease and move back in with her but I don’t want to do that. I made so much progress and I don’t want to ruin it and go back to living with somebody who treats me like I’m 12 years old, doesn’t accept me and is almost as controlling as my ex was.
I also don’t want to put anyone else in danger though. She went after my friends before, who’s to say she won’t do it again? Should I cut all of them off and break up with the person in seeing how to protect them?

As If It Were Kismet: Prologue
Matt tore through the brush, blind in the dark. He didn’t care where he was going. He only knew he needed to be elsewhere. Far from here.
Behind him a creature howled that shocked his mind. It’s form was cruel and dangerous, though female. Nothing like the young woman she had once been. Nothing but a girl, a small and slight female.
It’s guttural growls and howls only grew closer as Matt tried to pick between seeing where he was going and getting away. The few times he looked he caught sight of the creature behind him. Hopping through the air with a speed that told him he was being toyed with. As if he were a mouse being played with by a cat.
But the reflex in him to run kept him going. His adrenaline going as hard as it could. The tightness and burning in his core tensing and locking up as his legs felt like there were being burned from within while taking on more of a heaviness.
His lungs were starting to betray him as he tried to gulp big breaths of air but only rapid and shallow breaths were all that he could manage. His brain was starting to burn….and then he was falling.
Falling down the side of a hill he saw the creature dart in a spring towards him, imperceivably fast almost. Catching him in mid air it seemed.
Managing to wrap its body around him and cushion his impact against the ground as they rolled. His mind barely took in what was happening during the roll. Only starting to understand what was happening once they were still.
The creature's triple D-cup breasts were unmistakably pressed hard against his back as he laid facing up at the night sky.
For a few seconds the world stilled and the needle light pain hitting the center of his brain took over for the cooking heat his brain had felt. His whole body felt heavy and reluctant to move.
Even if he could have really moved, a dull ache came over his limbs making them feel stilled and trapped as if by immeasurable amounts of sand that had engulfed him.
Slowly the arms holding him started to move. Moving so the creature's hands could start exploring him. Causing Matt to unstoppably let out a pathetic moan that made him go cold inside as hands lifted up his shirt and started to touch his exposed stomach and then his chest.
He would have whimpered so pathetically had he not still been in the depths of terror.
As its hands felt and groped his pecs he tried to situp as if to get away. For his efforts, his reward was a hand around his throat and a collection snarls and growls against his ear. A beastly, guttural voice spat words at him while somehow holding a feminine tone.
“Don’t move….I don’t know if I can calm down…”
Her words were not helped by her moans in his ear and the subsequent kissing of his ear. The flesh of his ear going between her lips as she moaned and seemed to pant. Releasing it and licking the side of his face with a moist warmth. He could feel its spittle, viscous and coating his flesh where the tongue touched. He could smell something in his saliva. Something that subtly entranced him.
Matt went stock still with fear and the confusion of mixed arousal. He barely perceived her right hand traveling lower on his body. A surprised moan and shudder echoed in the night from Matt’s lips as she took ahold of him. Her hand above his pants but still….stimulating him.
A light squeezing and almost probing of her digits kept him aroused and confused within her grasp. Resigning himself to the strange fate, Matt looked up at the stars as his mind tried not to shatter under the strange maelstrom of events and sensation that had started mere minutes ago.
His mind was only more confused as a slight figure, feminine in build, how it seemed to thunk the ground audibly as she landed on her feet out nowhere. Her knees barely bending under the pressure of the landing. Yet dirt was kicked up anyways and some of it onto Matt. Feeling it pepper his shirt and pants as it fell.
The figure, lit only faintly by moonlight, roared some dark tone Matt could only perceive as a demon as her eyes went bright with a crimson light. A light in the darkness that should not have been. “Let him go you bitch.” Was its words following the roar. Spittle escaping its mouth with faint droplets hit Matt's face.
The creature holding him by his throat and crotch seemed to tighten the grasp of both hands as it roared back. “HE IS MINE!”
The figure paused with a moment's hesitation. He was also her quarry. She had felt his fear without him knowing. His confused arousal. His fear. His terror.
And now he laid at the center of a struggle between two monsters. Unsure of who he wanted to win.
As If It Was Kismet Ch. 1
Matthew Berkshire hadn’t seen his mom in two years. Not that he had seen her much over the last six years.
A messy divorce between messy people and mom’s chaotic want for a life in Alaska had been one of the most…upsetting times in life. Setting him up for so much of what had defined his life thus far but then that had really started two years before he ever turned.
His ear buds were basic and simple. A part of cheap five pack, common for his life as he was known to lose little things. Small things. They had a mix of metal and hard rock playing in them. Some classics, some alternative. Whatever made him feel something, anything. Even if it was hate. Anger. Rage. It was better than feeling numb. Not belonging.
The escalator down to his lone bag to go with his lone carry on showed his mom waiting for him. His had a type, that’s for damn sure. Not that it helped him in the genetics department as he was stuck at 5’9” to go along with his mother’s five foot even as his dad stood six foot. Forever leaving him to feel small, to pale, under his dad’s shadow. Did he ever stand a chance?
The guy next to her with the unkempt former seventies porn stache was “Dave.” He’d met him twice when his mother came and visited him in Florida. To his credit the guy didn’t look annoyed. Kind of concerned kind of which made Matthew want to break his frozen look but he was well practiced. Having removed any note of sadness from his face through much…tribulation.
His mother’s look on her face betrayed a hint of worry as the bruises on his face lightly showed up close. Saying his name was his like a distant echo that belonged to someone else.
Dave cut in and pulled out his right headphone. “What the hell bud, they knock you hard enough to hurt hearing? Your mom’s asking how you are doing.”
Matthew pulled out the other bud and grunted an empty “sorry.”
“You still have bruises after two week? What did they do to you?” His mom’s voice was full of worry. Something he hadn’t heard in….too long. Too long to make him feel anything. To ever make him believe there was any sincerity to her words. To not think her voice and mannerisms were an act. An act by someone who…wasn’t really there.
“It’s only fair. I took a nose. Fractured a couple orbital bones. Left one with having to get his jaw wired shut. And one will never walk right again for what I did to his knee cap.” Matthew said it all with a bored and disinterested tone. Perhaps well rehearsed.
“My man, handing out ass kickings, not bothering to take names.” Dave was quick to be the typical man’s man about it. Matthew wasn’t quite done yet. Lifting up his shirt to expose the right side near his kidney. Revealing a nasty scar from a six inch blade. “Luckily they gave me this first so they could rule it all in self-defense. The fuck didn’t get it in more than inch before I ruined his knee cap and then I took the nose of one of the fucks holding me.” Now he chose to smile keeping the well practiced dead look in his eyes.
No retorts. No questions. Just horrified looks on their faces. As he liked. As he preferred. They could hate him. They could be disgusted by him. But by God they would fear him.
“Well the doc did a good job sewing you up.” Dave commented uncomfortably. “Dissolving sutures. Ain’t they grand.” He smiled again and let it abruptly fall off his face and started walking to the carousel for the baggage claim.
Waiting and making small talk with Dave as his mother stood in silence. He was not the little boy she abandoned. The little boy she left with an angry man. While never hitting him. Left him in constant fear till he turned twelve and just didn’t care anymore. Something snapped. Broke. And he didn’t care if he died. Didn’t care if he stole. Didn’t even care if he killed. He just knew not to get caught. Something left over from his grandfather’s wisdom which came to make more and more sense with each passing year of life since that thing inside him broke.
Finally his bag came around and Dave went to try first to grab it but Dave practically leapt ahead of him. “Is that your grandfather’s rucksack bag?” his mother asked in a perplexed voice.
“Figured it’s been around since Viet Nam. So it’d serve me better than any of the worthless stuff they called luggage.” Dave commented after Matthew’s words. “Well hell yeah I still got mine from Desert Storm. You know the first one.” Dave laughed and Matthew eyed him oddly. Be it in the south or whether it was Alaska, country boys are country boys he guessed.
The car ride to the two people’s house, as Matthew thought of them. Was uneventful and full of vistas he imagined metropolitan types wetting themselves over. At most they meant isolation to him. Furtherness from the world as there were no mountains in Florida. And what mountains he had last seen in another state had been when he was eight. Another life, to Matthew it felt like. A life alien to him.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 2
Dave and his mom’s place was some two story type tucked into a tree line far up an elevated point. It was by no means the highest point in the mountain but it certainly felt up there.
Rocks were where the driveway should have been Matthew thought. Grabbing his backpack and rucksack from Dave’s jeep was no hard thing for him. Matthew was in formidable shape for someone his age, maybe even five years older. He had gotten a mix of fairly big shoulders and arms along with the chest to go for it when compared to most kids his age. A side effect of working out at least twice a day. First thing in the morning, some time in the evening, and the school’s gym when had had a good semester in school before he had to leave Florida.
Dave tried to come up and help him but Matthew walked past him towards the house. His mom was not sure what to make of his demeanor. Matthew was not the sweet kind boy he had once been. But she had been gone from his life essentially for a long time.
Ushering him into the house she cracked some joke he did not hear. He was too busy looking about and seeing a mix of old outdated decorating mixed with the strange and odd flair of his mother. Color contrasting against drab and dated. Like brightly painting over an old home that was falling apart he thought.
“Your room is this way Mattie.” His mom brightly intoned.
Without expressing any interest he followed his mother. Still faced and nonplussed. Just going along with the current. Pushed and pulled with its roll like a piece of driftwood.
The room was simple. A single small bed. A set of rubber weights with a curl bar and barbells. “Your dad said you were into weight lifting so we got you a bunch of stuff. Dave says it looks like his department’s gym almost. The woman’s smile felt very alien to him.
“Thank you. I appreciate it. I’ve got most of my stuff from home.” Matthew starting unpacking his rucksack and pulled out cables of repetitive and mixed colors. A single plastic barbell handle. The ruck sack could be filled with water bottles for added weight during pushups he figured. Remembering a Michael Keaton movie he watched with his dad post-Batman movies where he played a convicted killer using plastic bags filled with water for weights.
Matthew caught movement outside his lone fairly large window that could let him step out onto the roof of the house given its layout.
He saw a number of people running together through what he guessed was the backyard of the property, not that it had any fences to mark boundaries
They wore clothes that looked similar yet different from each other at the same time.”Oh those are the Johnston’s. Really nice bunch of people. Been on the mountain for a long time Dave tells me.”
Matthew looked at the group of people running and noticed the lack of resemblance. “They are related?” Matthew quizzically asked. Seeing a black and possibly a hispanic person amongst the bland looking white people.
“Oh well they are all adopted but for one or two of them…besides the parents of course. The family has a long tradition of taking in orphans they say. Real nice of them to do that don’t you think.”
Matthew looked at his mother and the hosier accent made no sense to him as he arched his left eye brow. Her and his dad were both from Florida. Born and raised. Sure her parents were from New York city but…
Matthew shook his lightly without turning to look at his mother as his vision was grabbed by one of the runners in particular. A girl of moderate height. Soft brunette. A plain beauty he figured with a slim build….and lack of remarkable breasts and rear to make any note of but….girls in general were his type at his age.
She was pretty enough. He couldn’t deny that but he found himself transfixed by her visage.
But the way she turned and looked at him, especially at that distance felt very disconcerting to him. Even if she was smiling like…she was a taste of a bright shiny day. Somehow.
Matthew’s mom noticed the exchange and smiled to herself with closed lips. “Oh that’s Vicky. She’s your age I think. Very sweet girl, who does the charity functions. You know bake sales, blood drives, car washes and the like. I think you should get to know her. Might be good for you.”
A truck horn sounded a couple of beeps in rather succession. “Oh that must be Mack, he said he might come by later this evening but he seems early.”
Matthew’s mother turned and left his room. Leaving Matthew to exchange a few looks with the alluring Vicky as she turned her head away from him to talk to the others in her group and look back at him.
Still Matthew’s left eyebrow was arched. In a way that reminded him of Spock from Star Trek that he and his grandpa used to watch on some streaming service or another.
As he heard ambient chatter elsewhere outside the house he figured to check it out as the alluring sight of Vicky would be around he figured. It was dull to stare at artwork. He was a boy who preferred jet skis and the like. Something he could ride and enjoy immensely. Even if at times it got him stabbed.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 3
Matthew sauntered out of the house and down the rockway that stood in for a driveway.
A few new people had come over from what he could first surmise of the situation. As he got closer it was obvious they were indigenous people. A couple of grown men…and a girl?
She was mousey. Maybe five foot. Hiding behind glasses and a big camo jacket that was far too big for her. It looked made for a grown man and the backwards trucker hat on her head kept her long black a beautiful mess of sorts.
She was cute in a way. A little androgynous but she had a cute energy to her. She reminded him of the more tomboyish Puerto Rican girls he had gotten into back in Florida. Given the deer corpses in the back of the truck….probably more dangerous to play with given the men in her family.
Small chatter passed between the adults when the girl noticed but turned away, trying to hide the tiny hint of a smile.
“Oh Mattie, this is Mack. He works with Dave at the sheriff’s department and John, he’s with fish and wildlife.” Matthew nodded at his mom’s words with some blankness as he looked at the deer the in the back of the pickup truck.
“Gale tells us you hunted with your dad some in Florida and Georgia.” Mack offered with a light hearted laugh camouflaged by his big simple and cheery but husky way he spoke.
Looking in the back of the truck he spoke. “We used lever action thirty-thirties and Mosin Nagants in seven-six-two-fifty-four-rimmed.” Mack and John whistled in an exaggerated fashion. Leaving Matthew to wonder if they were mocking him.
Mack spoke. “Well we just used thirty-odd-six in a custom gussied Garand.” That caught Matthew’s attention. “You have a Garand…” Matthew finally demonstrated interest in anything. “My dad has an SVT-40 and a Hakim 8mm but he always wanted a Garand but was too cheap to buy one.”
Gale, his mother, chimed in loudly. “Oh his Dad loved his guns but was such an odd duck about how he bought or why he bought them. Never made sense to me how he wasn’t a collector but he didn’t get the latest and greatest.” Gale laughed uncomfortably. At least it seemed that way to Matthew.
Matthew pointed to the girl with an underhanded pointing hand. “And who is this? A cute little mute mouse or does she have a name?” Dave and the other men laughed.
Mack again spoke. “Well you people call her Rebecca, she’s my adopted daughter.” Matthew was taken aback by what he heard. “You people?”
Rebecca kindly spoke with a soft but almost melodic voice as she struggled to maintain eye contact. “White people or rather not members of our tribe. It’s just easier to appease the colonizer kind of thing. Borrowed from when the Jesuit missionaries chased us up here.”
Mack stepped in. “It’s just easier to have white people names than have them try to say our tribal names. And we don’t want them shortening or Anglicising our names kind of thing.” Rebecca stepped back into the conversation cutting off her adopted father. “It’s an insult to our history basically.”
Matthew cocked his head sideways raising his eyebrows shortly before letting them drop. “Well as soon as I’m eighteen I’m out of here and back to Florida so I’m a sort of involuntary colonizer of sorts. So I won’t be taking any of your land from you. The Seminoles on the other hand are still shit out of luck.”
Rebecca’s smile caused Matthew to reflexively smile. Mack made the moment more awkward. “See Becca, I told you someone off the reservation would like you some. You just have to be creative.” Mack laughed in a chiding manner…Matthew presumed. He sensed that he was the butt of some kind of cultural joke. Like marrying a white guy was some sort of insult or mark of shame. That kind of thing.
Rebecca turning away from him was not something he had been expecting. Her then getting in the truck in a huff left the group in a silence for a moment.
Dave spoke to break the awkward silence. “Well just bring the truck to work on Monday and leave it for me to grab up.” Mack acknowledged Dave and they started to get off as Rebecca looked at Matthew for another instance. Matthew couldn’t look away for some reason as the two seemed to lock eyes for an instance.
Till Vicky and family seemed to come jogging down the road. While Matthew’s eyes diverted from Rebecca’s. Hers did not till she realized he was looking elsewhere. And her vision found Vicky and what had been a hint of smile on her face turned glum and disappointed.
Matthew did not look away from the vision of Vicky but instead of a starry eyed fool looking longingly. It was a baffled look. Well baffled for him, with his eyes drawn narrow and night with a focus.
There was something about her…he couldn’t quite put a name too. The way she appeared to him. One second brunette. The next second blonde or blonde like. As if the color appeared in her air and disappeared in fractions of seconds. Much the same way her body almost seemed to…shift…very subtly…smoothly. A nicer bum. Larger breasts. And then back to a simple and plain form. Feminine no doubt. Attractive. But not so…remarkable.
As If It Was Kismet Ch 4
The next two days passed without incident. Nothing of any real substance or challenge to note.
Matthew got settled somewhat and started working out almost immediately. Exploring around the woods but Dave told him not to go far. Especially without a hunting rifle. Dave had left a simple semi-auto Winchester out for him. His bear gun as Dave referred to it with its four round magazine. But Matt figured till he got some practice with the rifle to leave it alone. He made a hiking stick like his grandpa taught him and treated it over a low fire. He would take some electrical tape for the end his hand would grip around. Plenty enough to ward off anything smaller than a bear he figured.
The ride to school was a pain in the neck but simple enough. Dave would let him use a clunker pickup truck he had laying around. It wasn’t pretty but it would get him to and from. Even if it was from the eighties and still backfired on occasion. But for now Dave and his mom took him on their way to the sheriff’s department.
It wasn’t much of a school. It wanted to be modern but its fifties original construction was very obvious. It serviced the pipeline families and familys’ of fisherman who worked the seasons in between their time at the pipeline.
Matt was to report to the principal for some reason Dave and his mom wouldn’t share. Which annoyed him but he figured it was to read him the law of land. Small towns with their big views of the outside world and like.
Dressed in jeans, a grey sweatshirt under a light jacket with steel toed boots set him more apart then he expected. His buzzed head didn’t help matters. Already he was feeling like a stranger in a strange land but he was quite strange after all. And he liked it that way. Normal people were so pathetically disappointing to him.
A secretary or assistant or some such led him to the principal’s office. Where it reeked of real wood that was old and fabric and upholstery that needed to be updated for the last twenty years, Matt figured.
“This is Matthew Berkshire, Principal Andrews.” The man was turned with his back to the door and he was quick to wave her off as he turned her around.
He was an older man. Fat and large. Tall with a body built like he had once been fit and a demeanour of annoyed and irate already as he fixed Matt with a scowl and look of disgust. Another worthless government whore. Matt thought to himself. His father and his grandfather had bestowed unto him a natural disrespect for government workers and the figures that wore unjustified authority as a shield but pretended the weight of the state was not at their back ready to crush all who resisted. Little figures of valor pretending to be mighty and alone but acting with the tyranny of the state and all the backing.
“Mr. Berkshire, please sit down.” His tone wasn’t unusually hostile, just gruff. As if he had better things to do.
Matt complied and took a seat in the chair while maintaining a friendly facade. Not everyone was an enemy. And not everyone needed to be an enemy. Even if anybody could be any enemy. There was no reason to make enemies you didn’t have to. Another of his grandfather’s bastardised wisdoms.
“Well I looked over you file and you have quite the history Mr. Berkshire.” Matt resisted qiuping back a joke. Instead he waited for Principal Andrews to continue as he remained nonplussed and looking as if he felt no need to respond. A simple head tilt with dead eyes looking back at the principle as if he was not even there would suffice.
Matt’s reaction or lack of a reaction rather made Principal Andrews only narrow his eyes with examination. He was not used to a kid not responding to him. Especially with his gruff and hard act going on.
“Well by all accounts you moved here after some problems at your last school. A fight broke out and you did some real harm to your fellow students it appears.” Of course, he would take the side of the perpetrators. School administrators always did. Especially when they weren’t white. Just a fact of the times. Cowardice and pathetic mediocrity was the way they leaned, like good government workers sucking the dick of Big Daddy government. Worthless whores.
Matt chose to reply. “Oh you mean the criminals that stabbed me. Got arrested at the hospital and then pled to felonies. Yeah Florida, with the American counties are good like that.” Principal Andrews went real still. No shame. No fear. No penitence. He didn’t like that.
“Well be it as it may Mr. Berkshire we don’t tolerate that kind of behaviour here…” Matt cut him off responding with a deadpan tone. “You mean self-defense meant to save one’s own life while the cowardly and pathetic school workers look on with zero interest but to keep their money rolling in and will allow known gang members with records of violent acts and crimes that should have them expelled many times over, where in certain Democrat counties such cowardice and idiocy empowered a couple school shooters?”
Principal Andrews looked at the Matt with a note of disgust. “Look here Mr. Berkshire, your beliefs matter not one bit here. This isn’t Florida. We don’t like our way of life being disrupted by outside agitators who have problems with authority.”
Matt did his best not to roll his eyes and let the older fat man drone own as he dead-stared him. Lifeless and without emotion.
The man came to a finish and Matt spoke up without having listened to him or paid him any attention. “Great now that’s taken care of. Can I please get to class and finish my sentence of two years at your wonderful school?”
Principal Andrews huffed and snorted before calling in Vicky. Vicky stood in the corner after entering with a quiet and seamless presence. Matt felt disturbed and tried not betray his feelings as the young Vicky was perceived and not perceived to be moving.
Principal Andrews made the introductions and Matt nodded back. She was to be his chaperone for the day. They had the same classes and she was to show him the ropes so to speak. The ins and outs of the school. The locations of their classes.
He recognized her. It was hard not to. The way her appearance seemed to shift fluidly almost. The petite and skinny brunette ever so lightly had a big bust and blonde hair with curves added when she seemed to shift before his eyes. Like watching a film but each frame had a different person.
Matt didn’t say anything about it. Even if he did he would only be acknowledging his crazed state, if he had one. If.
Unlike an obedient puppy dog he got up in a slow and awkward fashion and followed behind her as his oddly disproportionate frame allowed. Causing her a note of concern for some reason. As if she was seeing something she shouldn’t have been….Or he was just weird. And Matt could admit to himself he was just weird. Part of his charm, he would jest about it at times. Not that he had many people to jest to now.
As If It Were Kismet Ch. 5
Following Vicky into the hall off to their first class was simple. She exchanged small talk and he slightly smiled as if to obviously suggest he was just being polite.
Inside his head, Matt was trying to figure out if he was having a psychotic break. The way Vicky looked kept changing and he looked at the other people around him and they stayed the same.
He was searching his mind as they were walking. And thus he wasn’t paying attention to where he was looking and so fell to his face forward over his feet seemingly out of nowhere.
A series of laughs erupted as it sunk in that he was obviously tripped. Like in prison this was a challenge to his superiority. If he let this pass he would be mocked and sneered at by this same group of boys. He wouldn’t walk to them like he was going to do nothing like a little bitch.
In a rage he turned and punched the stomach of the first face he saw. Some typical blonde haired wannabe jock. He knew from experience not to aim for the ribs. Instead he needed to aim for where he thought the belly button was.
Yells and screams blindly echoed around him as his after the punch he followed up his elbow of the opposite arm slamming into the face of the jock. Harder than a fist, the elbow struck the jock’s jaw and seemingly dropped him against a locker. Just in time to catch an errant and soft punch to the nose that sure enough hurt but did little to slow him down as his dad had taught him to fight through the pain. Blood and scars happened. They were a natural consequence of life to a man.
Taking the punch and falling further into his red state Matt headbutted the punch thrower before another guy arm bared his throat from behind. Which he managed to get his grip on the arm over a letterman jacked and jerk the unprepared boy to the side with him still latched on.
A few feet away from the lockers Matt knew his only chance was to jump and push off the lockers and knock the boy to the ground and so he did. He heard a thunk of the boy’s skull bouncing off the ground and he turned to pull out of the grapple.
The beatings he had taken from his father, the grapples, being choked unconscious. Had prepared him for fighting little bitches who didn’t know what a fight was. It wasn’t gay porn with rabbit punch fists flying.
Blood was running down his face and the pain started to hit him as the threats had been eliminated. Only then did he remember to breathe. Taking breathes as Vicky came up to him with tissues and took a hold of his nose.
“Owww owww owww what the fuck my nose could be broken.” He said to Vicky as she pulled his head up and back.
“It’s ok Carl. It’s done.” Matt tried to look to see who Vicky was talking to. It was a boy taller than his 5’9” by more than a small margin. The boy eyed him bored and annoyed before speaking. “What happened here?” An unoriginal line but one Matt couldn’t be a smart aleck about. “Well you see there was an outbreak of tripping and we all tripped over my dick. It happens.” Matt was about to laugh when Vicky seemed to pull up while still gripping his nose causing Matt no small amount of pain which he audibly evidenced.
Vicky spoke in a tone he wasn’t expecting. As if she was accustomed to issuing orders. “Keep Iris away from the hall till we sanitize the site. We have blood from at least three people contaminating the site. And have Jake bring me a spare jacket and shirt for this moron.”
Carl seemed to acknowledge her orders and seemed to blink away. Maybe the punch hit harder than he expected. He had no time to wonder as Vick took her hand away from his and pushed him against the lockers. With ease he had not been expecting from her form and stature.
Before he could respond Vicky licked his blood covered chin and then his lips and spoke to him. “Focus on me you little blood bag.” Her tone had an annoyed yet feminine sneer.
“Look into my eyes. Look at me. You belong to me. You are just another food source in a collection of food sources.” Her eyes were a beautiful hazel Matt thought. Almost green. Pretty like jewels in some old treasure collections. The eyes he could get lost in before kissing her. Finally Vicky was just a slight and petite brunette and he thought she was beautiful.
She would make a hell of a girlfriend. Some cute thing he could see laying on the beach in Florida on their sides laughing and smiling before trading light kisses while hands wandered innocently. Before his mind could drift further he felt her lips on his. It took him a second to mentally grasp the kiss but his arms were around her back as her hands were at his sides. His eyes reflexively closed as he saw hers close.
It was ineffable to Matt. Beyond words, what was happening. The kiss, the moments beforehand. The way his brain tickled with electricity and gentle warmth. He had never had a kiss like this and he had traded more than a few kisses with at least a few girls.
The kiss was like a warm bath with his consciousness slipping beneath the surface. Their lips only parted to try new angles and approaches as Matt struggled to take in breath. It was a moment he could have stayed trapped in for….he didn’t know. But a curt throat clearing by another girl pulled them out of the moment.
The girl was taller than Vicky. Blonde. With slight curves. Vicky addressed her bewildered and gobsmacked, and perhaps a bit embarrassed. “Tina?”

Our 5 month old ACD(Winnie) seems to be getting worse and worse, despite professional training and at home training. All of last week we thought we finally broke her of any accidents and she was potty trained. Yesterday she had multiple instances of circling like she had to potty, going outside, eating grass, coming back inside, and then immediately peeing near the door. She constantly starts fights with our two year old ACD(Dolly) in what we know is resource guarding. If there’s a toy or bone on the ground and Dolly is near it, she’ll lunge at her and while there isn’t any harm done, they bark violently and it sounds insane. Lastly, her separation anxiety is out of control as well. We can’t even walk the trashcans to the curb without her barking and crying loudly. Our neighbors most definitely hate us. But when we actually leaves, she knocks things over, pees and poops wherever, barks for hours, etc. I know I’ve asked for help/vented on here before about her, and we have made SOME progress, but these issues don’t seem to be getting any better. And without paying thousands for two week boarding/training, we are at a loss on what to do. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

I woke up with that feeling and I remembered reading on here that it’s from a dream …. I stayed in bed… and I mould on it and the whole dream came back to me….
I was travelling for two weeks - I was so excited. I saw a lot of past friends and acquaintances - a lot of people I have cut off in my life, but in my dream - we were all….kind of friends? It wasn’t like the “cut off” never happened - but we weee all just….i was happy to see them.
Each person - was doing something very “up their alley” (in real life), and I was happy to going them: I saw Manuel at a dance party - we danced and talked. I was so excited - I told him I was going away for two weeks, and could he watch my cat. (In real life I was a foster for four years - and the cat just went home to her dad….i am actually travelling right now and it was the first time I didn’t have to stress about a sitter - because in real life I don’t really have friends - or a lot of money and it’s expensive for strangers!).
Anyway - Manuel was like “yes sure no problem”…. But then there were all these disclaimers that he was giving, and I realized he wasn’t gonna take care of her.
But it was ok - because I had soooo many friends in this dream. I slowly joined all of them for fun/recinciliation - they were realizing how much they missed me….. but each time I asked for help with the cat it was the same - they said “sure thing”, but in reality - once they started giving disclaimers (I have a busy life/I can check on her but not often)….i realized they didn’t care at all…… I had fooled myself again, and now worse - I put the cat in jeopardy!.
When I woke up, I was so sad - some of the people in my dream are current “friends”, but I realize I cannot ask them to watch the cat.
I know this is long - and it doesn’t sound traumatizing, but the history with all these people (in my real life) and intimacy (maybe on my part only in real life)……I’m less anxious but I’m kind of shook and re-evaluating my life.
I did just take a break from smoking weed as well - so I expected intense dream.
Thank you group - I wish you all an easy day.

Disclaimer: I am agnostic and do not consider myself a theist by any means. This is also my first post in this sub so if I am not making any sense please feel free to critique it.
Cellular Biology as potential proof of an intelligent designer?
This is a theory I came across recently and I will paste it in here.

After reading a few college level books on molecular and cellular biology I was blown away by the parallels between computers and the mechanisms within the cell. My honest reaction was - How the f**k can anyone look at this science and not see a creator?
I’m a science guy, I respect science, I made a very good living in science but there is no way I could look at the facts about cellular biology (that everyone agrees with) and believe it happened by chance. Even when I specifically looked for evidence of how life first emerged (abiogenesis), I could not find it and so far, neither has science.
Yes, I know all about how molecules can bond spontaneously, but no way can I ever believe that the minimal amount of information (represented by the specific order in DNA) required for a self replicating organism with heritable traits could arise naturally. It is as unlikely as the operating system and hardware of this computer I’m typing on resulting from putting all the parts in a box and shaking it up. Time is not a magic bullet, it would not happen even in the 13.78 billion years available for it to happen.
The mathematical improbability of life arising on its own is as close to a smoking gun in the hand of God as you will ever find. The Big Bang runs a close second though. We can still see the smoke curling out of the barrel in the CBR.
And it’s NOT just the mathematical improbability. It is the obvious design inference we (should) draw from the scientific discoveries in cellular biology. An archeologist at a dig will uncover a circle of stones with traces of ash and infer that it was done purposely; how is it possible to NOT see the much more obvious design in the functional molecular machines we call ‘proteins' and the language encoded in the DNA that instructs the cell how to make them. Watch this animation of the protein 'Kinesin' and tell me you don’t see design.

It's somewhat paradoxical how regardless of faith, people have different interpretations and biases of what science proves/disproves in terms of there being a creator.
My questions
Would you consider this argument to be valid?
What (if any) refutations would you have to this argument?
How do different religious traditions interpret and utilize the teleological argument?
What are some naturalistic explanations for the apparent design in the universe, and how do they compare to the teleological argument?
Most importantly and lastly, are there theological arguments that you find more appealing/sound than this?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-argument-for-god-that-has-been-presented-to-you?q=what%20is%20the%20best%20argument%20for%20god%20that%20has%20been%20prese

Ok, Before I begin, this is my longest Story yet. It was only meant to be a short story, but I don't think 40 pages on a google doc can fit in a single comment thread, so expect multiple posts. Second, I'd really appreciate feedback, even if it's just in the form of an upvote as it really encourages me to keep up this creative outlet. That's all from me, enjoy the story.
Dialog Key:
[Translated]: Dates, Units of Measurement, or other Grammatical terms will be retrofitted to be legible for readers while still staying true to their definition
{Exposition}: Immediate context regarding events, People, Entities, or other key points that allow for understanding amongst different cultures.
We were tricked, completely and utterly duped. It hit us not like a train, but like a lit fuse approaching a massive stack of trinitrotoluene that we were too blind to see until we found ourselves crammed into the tens of thousands of “Corporate Nexuses” that occupied every startup colony, production world, trade hub, and capital world; working ourselves to death. The worst part? We had nobody else to blame but ourselves.
We were blinded by our hubris, our minds stuck in the past, refusing to adapt. All it took was one fledgling, pre-FTL race that made adaptability a main point of their society and culture. One society with just enough cunning to see through and undermine us and our ploys. One Species to pull off what the Humans called “The Greatest Con Game In The History of The Universe.” So where to begin?
We first discovered Humans when they had nearly finished construction on their star’s [Dyson Swarm], though to us, given the vast distances between the galactic core and Earth, we only noticed a minor anomaly, a stable G-class main sequence star flickering in the void of space. It seemed as though someone, or something, was trying to either signal us, or power their stellar civilization for the first time. But in reality, the structure was already done.
When we dropped out of warp roughly [2 AU] away from their 4th gas giant, we immediately began picking up massive arrays of signals and spikes of energy. Turns out our exploration drones had just wandered into a system-wide intraspecies conflict. Spikes in both heat and radiation from nuclear warheads littered their second asteroid belt as our sensors picked up on hundreds, no, thousands of ships, primitive in nature, sure, but still armed [to the teeth]. Their similar design and technological levels seemed to back the idea that this was the same species blowing each other up, and not some other race or civilization.
The last thing our exploration fleet picked up was the warning of multiple target locks as [4 dozen] missiles were launched from what we presumed was a frigate, at our drones. Our drones took evasive actions, though nearly all of them were destroyed in nuclear fire. Only one survived by being manually overridden and found a crater in a massive asteroid to hide in. The human forces must have thought they were of the enemy’s as it never came back up in diplomatic discussion when first contact was established, but I digress.
We weren’t ready to give up first contact just yet so we had our drones observe from afar and move in only when it was safe. We recorded the entire battle. Despite their relatively primitive technology, their ingenuity couldn’t be understated. They used remarkably simple solutions that likely would have ravaged our then-finest warships. We watched as swarms of nigh-indestructible drones simply carved through ship after ship, targeting weak points like reactor cores and bridges that would completely disable the ship. The only thing, it seemed, that could stop these drones were other drones of similar make and model.
Other times, when that didn’t work, we saw them fire missiles at extreme speeds directly into the hull of the enemy. Miraculously, however, they didn’t explode or tear through the armor, they merely embedded themselves into the ship and sealed the holes they made. We found this odd, perhaps a series of malfunctions? Or Factory sabotage? Subterfuge wasn’t uncommon in galactic wars, it was an art that was hard to master, but given the unorthodox yet effective tactics of these primitives, the assumption could be made that they had become proficient in the art of espionage as well.
But we noticed something odd. Several ships struck by these missiles began taking hits to their weapon efficiency, and they began suffering power shortages before going completely offline. A short while later the missiles would extract themselves from the armor and return to their mother ship, and the victimized ship would spontaneously self-destruct when all of the missiles had long departed.
A closer examination of these weapons told us that these were not missiles at all, but boarding shuttles! How could any species survive those levels of [G]-forces!? We once again watched the carnage repeated on another small ship. Watching several heat signatures, these entry teams would breach the hull of the ship and disperse in two separate directions before our sensors stopped picking up on them. We could fill in the blanks from there: They would go through the ship, butchering the crew and initiating the self-destruction of the ship before escaping with their lives.
Pirate tactics, minus the unnecessary depredation of valuable loot, I suppose.
When the battle finally cleared, after [16 Earth Standard Days] mind you, a ridiculously long time to be [duking it out], We watched as the surviving ships scoured for survivors, occasionally firing off a few nuclear warheads at the corpses of large combat apparatus before they turned tail and headed towards what our sensor’s picked up was what appeared to be an outer system shipyard. Our drone was given the go-ahead to move further into the system which became harder and harder to do in secret. There were at least several hundred orbital habitats and [lunar] colonies were spread out across the system, most, if not all of which we had to evade. For [13 Earth Standard Months] we had to hide our drone in what we later learned was one of the “Trojan” belts because one of their gas giants, and all of its dozens of lunar colonies, were giving us a shallow berth in detection ranges.

My car lost all the speakers at once, any help would be greatly appreciated!
Recently I started my car and had no sound from any of my speakers. The radio turned on and functioned normally, I just got nothing from any of the 4 speakers, tweeters or stock sub. They were working the day before with no issue. I assumed it was a fuse (there's two that pertain to the radio) but both were in tact.
I have been wanting to replace the radio for a while since I've been using a shitty bluetooth radio transmitter for a few years now. I wired in a Pioneer DMX 1770-NEX. Again, the radio works perfectly, but I get nothing from the speakers. I found out that my car has a separate amp, so I replaced it with a tested OEM model. Still nothing.
It's worth noting that I was able to bypass the amp and wire the radio directly into one of the speakers. It finally got sound, but obviously it sounded terrible without going through the amp first. I also checked that the amp was getting power and ground, no issue there. Does anyone have any ideas what else to check? All the pieces of the system work on their own, but not together.
I've been driving around with a little bluetooth speaker for two months now, I'm losing my mind. Any suggestions?

My car lost all the speakers at once, any help would be greatly appreciated!
Recently I started my car and had no sound from any of my speakers. The radio turned on and functioned normally, I just got nothing from any of the 4 speakers, tweeters or stock sub. They were working the day before with no issue. I assumed it was a fuse (there's two that pertain to the radio) but both were in tact.
I have been wanting to replace the radio for a while since I've been using a shitty bluetooth radio transmitter for a few years now. I wired in a Pioneer DMX 1770-NEX. Again, the radio works perfectly, but I get nothing from the speakers. I found out that my car has a separate amp, so I replaced it with a tested OEM model. Still nothing.
It's worth noting that I was able to bypass the amp and wire the radio directly into one of the speakers. It finally got sound, but obviously it sounded terrible without going through the amp first. I also checked that the amp was getting power and ground, no issue there. Does anyone have any ideas what else to check? All the pieces of the system work on their own, but not together.
I've been driving around with a little bluetooth speaker for two months now, I'm losing my mind. Any suggestions?

One. Two. Three. Four.
All four nails were removed and the crowbar rattled onto the coffin's wooden lid. Butch and Tony leapt with false hope upon seeing that the 5th time was the charm. Butch crouched down. He tossed the coffin's contents out behind him, many small bags he believed to be filled with coin or some valuables. Tony caught each bag, opening them up to examine what's inside.
"Ey, Butch, there's uh nuthin in these?"
"Waddya mean there's nuthin in em?"
"I mean I checked em all and they're just filled with junk."
"Well check harder." Butch ordered his cohort as he rummaged through the corpse's clothing. Butch would pause briefly upon taking notice of a few characteristics of the coffin's resident. It was a boy of young age who look no older than 15, maybe even 13, from Butch's judgement.
He bore saturated coarse brown hair and the fairest of skin. Butch tugged loose an amulet before wrapping its chain around his hand and pocketing it. Most notable to Butch was the flush of red that painted the boy's cheeks.
"I checked harder Butch, nuthin, just junk."
"Yeah ... yeah, say uh, Tony come ere." The crouching Butch waved his partner over. Tony tossed the final empty sack to the ground and sauntered to Butch's side.
"What's up Butch?"
"Say uh, ya notice sumthin a little 'off' bout dis one?"
"Yeah, it was a waste of diggin, got nuthin but junk."
"Yeah yeah, but uh don't dis fella look a little 'fresh' to ya? Of the 'just buried' variety?" Butch led.
Tony placed his gloved hand to his chin. "Say yeah, I think ya might be right. ... That explains it, the chap was already robbed by whoever smoked em! Lemme get ahold of what eva wise guy made us go through all this diggin fa nuthin."
"I don't think that's it, Tony. Pretty sure if ya smoke someone, you don't go through the trouble of puttin em in a coffin and nailin it shut." Butch inquired.
"Well, so we're a detective now, are we? Well Mr. dead body exput, what do you think happened?"
"I dunno Tony, but I uh ... I think we should call it a night."
"Eh." Tony shrugged. "Not against the idea. Gettin pretty early anyways, best not to test our luck."
The two grave robbers turned to collect their belongings and whatever of the 'junk' on the ground they thought they could make a few easy bucks off of. Their skill set was quite variable. They weren't just grave robbers, but living robbers and conmen too. They didn't doubt they could sucker someone into to buying one the useless pieces of homemade mumbo jumbo they'd looted from the coffin.
Fingers ratted against the wood of the coffin as a hand gripped its side. Butch & Tony whom had their back turns stiffened up right.
"Say uh, Butch, you ... you wouldn't happen to be takin any ventriloquist lessons by chance wouldja?"
"No, Tony. I heard it to."
"What are ya thinking? Zombie?"
"No, no, too fresh. Vampire maybe?" Nodded Butch while biting the dry skin on his lips.
"E̵h̷. Y̷o̵u̶'r̸e̴ n̵o̶t̴ t̵o̷o̸ f̶a̴r̵ o̵f̵f̷ r̵e̶a̸l̸l̵y̶." Sounded the many voices of the boy, from behind. "I̶ t̶h̵i̷n̸k̸ t̵h̵e̸ t̸e̸r̷m̷ i̶s̴ 'w̵i̶t̷c̸h̸'? N̷o̸ w̸a̶i̶t̷, 'w̶a̴r̴l̵o̸c̵k̵' I̸ t̸h̷i̶n̸k̴. P̴r̵e̸t̶t̵y̴ s̷u̴r̶e t̶h̸a̸t̶'s̴ w̴h̶a̶t̷ t̵h̴e̷y̴ c̸a̸l̵l̷e̵d̸ m̷e̴ b̵e̵f̴o̶r̶e̸ t̷h̸e̷y̵ p̴u̴t̵ m̵e̵ i̵n̷ t̸h̴e̶r̶e̷. H̶e̴y̵ u̷h̴, m̴i̷n̸d̶ d̸r̸o̴p̴p̶i̸n̷g̶ t̶h̶a̶t̴ a̸m̴u̸l̵e̶t̶ y̸o̶u̷ s̷w̴i̶p̴e̷d̷ e̴a̴r̶l̶i̵e̴r̵?"
Butch reached a shaking hand into his trench coat and gripped the amulet before stiffly extending his arm to the side and releasing his clutch to drop it. Both men saw the amulet pause mid-air and shoot backwards.
"T̶h̸a̷n̶k̷s̵ r̸e̵a̴l̵l̸y̸." The boy thanked. Both men felt a hand pat them on the back. "W̶o̴u̶l̶d̸ h̷a̸v̶e̸ b̷e̵e̵n̴ a̷w̸k̶w̵a̷r̵d̴ f̵o̴r̸ ̸y̷o̶u̴ t̵o̷ r̶e̷f̴u̸s̵e̵ a̷n̷d̶ t̷h̷e̶n h̷a̶v̷e̵ ̸m̶y̸ l̵i̶b̴e̵r̸a̸t̴o̷r̵s̷ t̴a̵k̶e̵ ̸m̴y̴ ̸s̶p̴o̴t̶ i̸n̶ t̵h̷a̶t̵ c̷o̵f̷f̴i̵n̷. T̸w̸o̵ p̶e̵o̷p̴l̷e̵ w̶o̶u̵l̸d̴ m̵a̵k̶e̴ i̶t̴ k̵i̶n̴d̷a̷ c̷r̴a̵m̸p̴e̴d̵, d̶o̵n̷'t̸ y̷o̷u̶ t̷h̵i̷n̶k̷?"
"H̶e̴y̴ y̷o̴u̷ l̴o̶o̷k̸ l̵i̴k̷e̷ y̴o̴u̶ h̸a̵v̸e̸ g̷o̸o̴d̷ t̷a̸s̵t̸e̴? C̵o̶u̷l̷d̴ y̴o̸u̶ p̴o̷i̸n̸t̵ t̷o̶ t̸h̶e̶ n̴e̷a̶r̴e̷s̵t̴ i̵n̸n̶? T̴a̵v̵e̷r̴n̵? W̷h̵a̷t d̵o̶ y̸o̸u̴ c̴a̸l̴l̷ i̶t̸ n̷o̶w̸?"
Tony raised a shaking finger and pointed in the direction of the closest pub. "P-pub." Tony informed.
"T̵h̷a̶-" The boy broke into a few coughs. "Woah was my throat dry! 'Pub' ... 'Puuuub' funny word. Thanks! I never got the chance to try a drink before they put me underground, father always said I was too young. 🎼B̴u̶t̸ f̵a̴t̵h̴e̴r̸'s̷ n̶o̴t̶ a̴r̸o̷o̸o̷u̶n̷d!🎶 See ya!"
The boy ran between the men skipping & cheering at his new found freedom. He even performed a leap (with remarkable hang time). Though he did pause before getting too far away from the men. The boy turned with an innocent finger on his cheek.
"Oh yeah, friends, you should probably s̸k̶i̵p̶ t̸o̸w̵n̴." He forewarned. "You p̴r̶o̴o̸o̴b̴a̷b̵l̴y̴ won't want to be a̶n̶y̸w̷h̶e̵r̴e̴ near here tomorrow night."
The boy delivered a beaming close-eyed smile before resuming his excited race to try his first drink.
"Hey uh, Tony, my aunts makin dinner in the next town ova, you uh ... wanna come?"
"Yeah Butch, let's get outta here!"
And with that, the two men skedaddled.
^{{origin post was deleted by user}}

Can someone tell me if this interaction was inappropriate or not?
Hi, I am f21 and live with my first bf of 3 years m25 and his two roommates (m26, m31). We are pretty good friends since moving in with each other despite not knowing each other when we did in the beginning. We often hang out with m26 and often smoke weed with m26 and his gf. Sometimes m31 will smoke weed with us too, but very rarely. He also sometimes joins us in board games and drinks.
Me and m31 get along fine I think, he is nice to me and has even given me bits of food off his dinner plate even (my boyfriend is always with me btw as I have a disability and tend to be home basically 24/7 as he studies and works online). He will often insist even if I say no at first, so I just try a little and say thank you cause I feel bad for saying no. My bf doesn’t mind as idk he just didn’t care, but when I had mentioned in passing to a family member they said that it was weird in addition to other things. Oh, me and m31 are both autistic too. I am diagnosed however while he is not, but I assume he is as he says he thinks so. My bf has said that m31 in passing has said I am attractive and have a fit body which my bf told me later, but he just laughed it off. So, I guess I didn’t really care? I am not sure if that was inappropriate or not, I am also sorry if I sound very stupid in not knowing these things. I told my family member another thing. He has also called me adorable when we were drinking and smoking with m26, his gf(f24) and my bf in front of them, but no one really like did anything so I assumed that was also ok. My replies are just always awkward because of my bad social skills but most people don’t really say or care I guess. I literally don’t know how to reply in those moments most of the time. I usually just fake laugh bc that’s what I do when I don’t know what to do or say when someone is talking to me. He said it because another night we were doing board games again I had started talking about a lot of different dog breeds because I know a lot about so many. I am not sure what brought that memory up when we were all talking though as it was kind of random. His gf has also said I am so I just thought it was the same as that.
Is his behaviour ok? my family member says that she would feel uncomfortable if she were me
sorry for the bad writing
Thank you
TL;DR
I have autism and very bad social skills, my family member has said these situations were weird to her in reference to m31 complimenting me and sharing food with me multiple times(with my bf with me still, like he just doesn’t even really notice anything weird when these happen nor did I at the time I guess, but I was a little bit uncomfortable most times). I am really stupid with anything socially acceptable or not, I can’t tell half the time. Was his behaviour appropriate?

Is there a reason no one uses it? The only posts I've seen talking about it say it's terrible. But I've been using it against bots for the past week, and I can't imagine going back to the Scorcher or any other primary.
Pros:

1. Stagger: So much stagger. More than any other primary. It throws striders and devastators around like toys. Much more than the Dominator or regular Punisher. Land one shot and you're golden. Rocket/shield boy is just being thrown five feet one way and the other as you have your way with him.
2. AoE: I'm not sure how wide exactly the blast radius is but it's enough that I regularly kill 3-4 chaff with a shot or lock down two devastators/striders per shot.
3. TTK: The stagger and AoE combined mean that while the Scorcher or Dominator might have a faster TTK in theory, hitting multiple bots with each shot and not needing to break fire to take cover because everyone in range is staggering around and can't shoot back means that in practice the Punisher Plasma (my beloved PeePee) has a TTK that's as quick or quicker.

Cons:

1. Arc: Getting the shot to drop right can take a bit of getting used to. But it didn't take more than 2-3 drops to figure it out. Now it's second nature, don't need to think about it all. The AoE means it's forgiving even if it doesn't land exactly on the bot.
2. Engagement range: The AoE means you can't use this if a bot is right in your face, of course. This is why I gave up on using it for bugs after trying a few drops. And while the range is greater than you might think, the arc gets tricky enough beyond medium that it's no longer ammo efficient.
3. Rules out grenade pistol: On the rare occasion that a bot is in your face, you need a Redeemer, Senator or Verdict to take care of 'em. So no GP.
4. Friendly fire: Gotta be careful about peeling berserkers off a retreating bro. Judge the AoE wrong and... actually, this sounds like a pro. Hilarious.

So as long as you're not a long-range player, the PeePee is incredible -- king of medium-to-short range engagements. To test it out, I've walked into 2-3 dropships worth of light and medium enemies with no stun grenades or eagle strikes to soften them up and absolutely laid waste to them. Just stood there dropkicking plasma balls along the bot conga line and watched them fly all over the place.
Man, I used to be an AC main, and the AC is still more versatile, but between the better handling, better AoE and better stagger, I'm addicted to this thing now. Just walking into crowds of devastators and berserkers, knocking them back as I go. Frees up the backpack slot for another support weapon or shield/jump pack/supply pack too.

This happened last year but it still plays on my mind a bit. I was at an event with friends and my partner. I hadn’t had much to eat during the day but I ate a few of the things coming around at the event, think mini quiches etc. I’d had maybe 4 drinks, all red wine. I used to be a big drinker so not nearly enough to be drunk but I was happy and buzzed. There was a guy at the bar that I was talking to and he didn’t come off as creepy or anything but I was finding it hard to get away from him, he just kept talking and didn’t really stop until my partner came over then I went back to my friends. Not long after that I had two puffs of a friend’s joint too. Everyone else in the group shared the same joint and everyone else was fine. Within a few minutes I started to feel really heavy and slumped against my partner. Suddenly I felt really sick and turned around and started vomiting over and over again. This is not normal for me at all! I’ve only spewed a couple of times from drinking and they were both BIG nights, one big spew and done, not like this time. I could hear my friends and partner talking, understood everything they were saying but couldn’t move or talk to respond. My best friend and partner had to walk me out because I physically couldn’t do it myself. My partner got me back to the hotel and cleaned me up, I couldn’t even stand properly on my own. The next morning I felt spaced out like my mind was disconnected from my body. My friends let the event organisers know what happened the next day but there was no proof or anything.
Does this sound like I was spiked? My partner suggested that I just had a bad reaction to the weed but I’ve smoked before and I’m normally just happy and goofy. Surely 4 glasses of wine and a couple of puffs can’t do that?

Customer wanted 25 packs of 12pk Tropicana orange juice. They didn’t have any in stock, not the 24pks either. Had to cancel
They offered to honor the original tip amount but the agent had already unassigned me from the batch. I’m not sure I would’ve trusted them to do that either as the rest of the order was just two zip lock container bags. It would’ve been a gamble
Ended up getting $21 of batch pay for doing nothing but walk around trying to locate the juices and asking the employees lol

Hi, I am f21 and live with my first bf of 3 years m25 and his two roommates (m26, m31). We are pretty good friends since moving in with each other despite not knowing each other when we did in the beginning - It was also the first time I lived out of home and with a partner (our relationship was long distance primarily before that and we met on a game). We often hang out with m26 and often smoke weed with m26 and his gf. Sometimes m31 will smoke weed with us too, but very rarely. He also sometimes joins us in board games and drinks.
Me and m31 get along fine I think, he is nice to me and has even given me bits of food off his dinner plate even (my boyfriend is always with me btw as I have a disability and tend to be home basically 24/7 as he studies and works online). He will often insist even if I say no at first, so I just try a little and say thank you cause I feel bad for saying no. My bf doesn’t mind as idk he just didn’t care I assume, but when I had mentioned in passing to a family member they said that it was weird in addition to other things. Oh, me and m31 are both autistic too. I am diagnosed however while he is not, but I assume he is as he says he thinks so. My bf has said that m31 in passing has said I am attractive and have a fit body which my bf told me later, but he just laughed it off. So, I guess I didn’t really care? I am not sure if that was inappropriate or not, I am also sorry if I sound very stupid in not knowing these things. I told my family member another thing. He has also called me adorable when we were drinking and smoking with m26, his gf(f24) and my bf in front of them, but no one really like did anything so I assumed that was also ok. My replies are just always awkward because of my bad social skills but most people don’t really say or care I guess. I literally don’t know how to reply in those moments most of the time. I usually just fake laugh bc that’s what I do when I don’t know what to do or say when someone is talking to me. He said it because another night we were doing board games again I had started talking about a lot of different dog breeds because I know a lot about so many. I am not sure what brought that memory up when we were all talking though as it was kind of random. His gf has also said I am so I just thought it was the same as that.
Is his behaviour ok? my family member says that she would feel uncomfortable if she were me
sorry for the bad writing
Thank you

Ruby groaned as the alarm went off signaling that one of her charges had arrived back from their mission. While troublesome in its own right, what really got under her skin was that she only had one charge at the moment, and that edge lord piece of shit wasn’t supposed to complete his task for AT LEAST another 4 deca-cycles according to the prediction algorithm. Grumbling to herself, she rolled out of bed and poured herself a glass of water to offset the hangover she was trying to recover from.

A few moments later she was gliding down the hall to the meeting room. She knew Jason was going to pitch a fit that she had left him waiting, the self-entitled brat always did think the world revolved around him; but perhaps he should have thought about that before freaking dying so early. If he wanted her to be there to meet him upon death, he could at least have the decency to not die the morning after one of her binges.

Other staff members gave her a wide berth, even if it was a hollow title, she was still technically far above basically anyone else in the pecking order, at least those who had a physical presence within the Agency. She knew they all mocked her behind her back, even divine beings were sadly prone towards gossip. She put the anger at her subordinates/coworkers out of her mind for now; even if she didn’t particularly LIKE Jason, he still didn’t deserve her coming in with baggage.

Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed that she’d arrived in front of the conference room door. She had been mulling over her thoughts, just staring into nothingness, for several minutes before she finally snapped back to the present. With a soft rap on the door, she opened it and floated inside. Jason was lounging, sprawled out on the regally padded chair throne he so fancied.

They exchanged pleasantries before she sat down to go over the mission summary. Upon seeing the cause of death, she had regrettably lost her composure and started to laugh uncontrollably. Her mighty subordinate had been felled by a goblin?! The mighty Jason Alexander Coyle, “mercenary extraordinaire”, had gotten his shit kicked in by a lowly goblin using what looked like a shiny butter knife. Oh, it was just too rich to not laugh at the absurdity.

It took her much longer than she would like to admit, to stop laughing. Jason of course wore a sour look through the entire endeavor. She shrugged it off, she had little doubt that if the same thing had happened to someone else, he would have been right beside her doubled over in laughter. Hell, once he was in a less pissy mood, she might even be able to get him to laugh about it later.

As luck would have it, it appeared that Jason’s actions had been enough to alter the tides of the war. The kingdom, and its divinity, would still lose many to the battles ahead, but Jason had done enough that the Agency could still bill the client for services rendered. As she spoke, she could see the disdain the man had for her, he always complained that she was drunk and reeked of liquor. Sure, that was often true, but he didn’t need to be such a stick in the mud about it all.

She went ahead and authorized the transfer of credits to Jason’s account. As soon as she did so, he opened up the store page and tuned her out. She watched him open up the back-channel site and purchase something, a small part of her wondered who was going to get roasted over the coals this time for allowing their admin privileges to be hacked. She toyed with the idea of bringing up his illegal actions, but truth be told she didn’t really give a shit. The other divinities were far too lax with their security, it had been child's play for one of her previous wards to hack into the Agency’s system and build the black site.

She’d ask him once about the whole thing, didn’t really grasp as much as she would have liked, but basically it functioned by spoofing a handler's credentials. This allowed the user to gain access to encrypted parts of the network, specifically access to certain privileged services that handlers enjoyed and most importantly, access to the mission assignment database. Users could buy and sell restricted or banned goods, and a part of the profits would be siphoned off to her ward’s personal account.

With Jason’s attention otherwise occupied, Ruby went ahead and reviewed the logs for his previous mission. Something about it was nagging at her. She couldn’t put it into words; however, the whole series of events just didn’t feel like ‘bad luck’. Using her divine authority, she rewound events, watching Jason’s lungs unfill with blood and refill with air.

The goblin skulked back to its den of corpses, resheathing the dagger at its hips, and reburied itself underneath the bodies. She let it rewind another few moments before stopping the feed and letting it run at normal time. She watched the goblin, slowly shifting the bodies out of the way, making sure they made no noise when it moved them. Slowly, carefully, it began to creep towards Jason’s exposed back. It drew the blade, again slowly and quietly. It closed the distance making sure to never let Jason see it or to give him any reason to think someone was behind him. Then in a flash of movement it leapt, burying the dagger right into a joint in Jason’s armor. The placement was perfect, no resistance, so the blade sank to the hilt. Allowing it to puncture Jason’s right lung.

Ruby rewound the log once more. This was wrong, very wrong. The goblin was way too good to just be some random grunt. Its movements were too smooth, its aim too precise. No, she was sure of it now, this was not a normal goblin. She focused her attention on the thing, aiming to scan the goblin for abnormalities, the dust covering it offering a surprising level of resistance to her scan. Not enough to stop her from doing what she wanted, but more resistance than she felt was reasonable for the anti-magic powder.

When she finally gained access to the monster’s stat block, her suspicions were proven correct. That was no normal goblin, that was a Redcap, a Redcap assassin no less. What in the dozen hells was a Redcap assassin doing in the middle of a freaking battlefield?! Such a valuable unit wouldn’t be used on the front lines, their skill set was terribly suited for the chaos that was an active battle. No, something was very wrong here and Ruby was going to figure out what.

As her mind raced trying to puzzle out what the actual fuck was going on, something else about the goblin flagged in her mind. It had come out of the corpse pile with the dagger already in its possession. She highlighted the various bodies that had made up the goblin's hidey hole, and then rewound the scene back. Every time one of the highlighted bodies met their fate, she froze the moment and pulled the scene into a separate window. It took a few minutes, but she eventually had all of the corpses frozen in the heartbeat before their deaths. She went through and scanned every single individual. Not a single one had been equipped with a magic disruptor blade. “So, where the fuck did the Redcap get a kingdom issued disruptor?”

Looking up, she saw that Jason was still fiddling with whatever it was that he bought. She tried to make idle conversation with the man, but he had gone full auto pilot, giving curt one-to-two word answers when asked a question or having to respond to a comment. She rolled her eyes, as much as she and him butted heads, she did have to admit that she did kind of like the guy. He had been going a little too hard into the whole dark and brooding edge lord thing recently, but that was hardly his fault. The human soul was ill suited to withstand the trauma of death, much less multiple deaths. The Agency usually did a memory scrub every couple missions, to prevent that kind of issue, but Jason had been dodging the screenings. For a moment she considered just letting sleeping dogs lie. Jason was dead and the mission was over regardless of what she might find, but the whole thing just rubbed her the wrong way.

Taking a little nip from her pocket flask, she once more focuses her attention on the Redcap. After scrubbing through the last several months of the creature’s life, she finally finds what she was looking for. The blade had come from one of Jason’s personal guards.

Ruby did a deep dive on the guard, and what came back made her blood run cold. The man had recently lost his lover. Jason had ordered a company to mop up a fleeing enemy force, before it could regroup and cause more issues. The entire thing had been a ruse and the company had been slaughtered to the last. The guard's lover had been part of that company. The loss had hit the man hard, driving him to the only rock left in his life. His deep belief in the kingdom’s divinity.

And wouldn’t you know it, apparently the kingdom’s divinity had some issues with Jason that it couldn’t be bothered to address through the proper channels. So instead of letting Ruby handle the trainwreck that was Jason’s social skills, this little scum lord of a God, had taken upon themself to deal with the issue. Several months of holy visions were enough to convince the grieving widow to betray everyone and everything he had ever known.

Once the guard had been properly brainwashed into turning his coat, it had been a simple matter to worm his way on to all of Jason’s post-fight surveys of the battlefield. The magic scanners that were exclusive to Jason’s retinue, had allowed him to see that Jason’s inhuman ability to avoid taking damage was really just a creative use of high-level magic. High-level magic that could have easily been used to save many of the kingdom’s soldiers. But of course, Jason believed himself too good to give the common man a means to protect themselves and those they loved. All this knowledge was of course worthless to the guard, he was nowhere near skilled enough to actually challenge Jason. But wouldn’t you know it, the divinity had thought of that too.

The podunk worm had brokered a secret deal with the enemy he’d contracted the Agency to deal with. In exchange for getting rid of a thorn in the God’s side, it would use its powers to scale back the war. Instead of facing a war of eradication, the enemy would be allowed to keep some of the land it had conquered.

At the urging of his God, the guard held a series of clandestine meetings with the Redcap. Imparting all the information he had learned in the months of shadowing Jason. He also gave the beast two gifts, the first was a Disruptor blade the guard had swiped from a fellow honor guard; when Jason’s corpse was found the blade would be traced back to the unfortunate guard instead of the traitor. The second was a satchel of Grarothian powder that had been blessed by the divinity, to ensure that Jason wouldn’t see the attack coming. It had worked of course; Jason hadn’t even known he was in danger till the blade was already buried in his lung. Oh, she was going to have the wannabe God’s head on a pike after this.

It pained her to admit it, but Jason deserved the final say in how this was all going to go down. She attempted to grab his attention, but the man was lost in his own little world. She tried waving her hands, ignored. She tried snapping her fingers in his ears, ignored. She even went so far as to beat her wings, blasting his face with the wind force of just under a category 1 hurricane; again ignored. Her rage was starting to reach fever pitch. So, she defaulted to the most tried and true method of stress reduction she had in her arsenal. She decided the only way for herself and Jason, once he knew the truth, to calm down would be to relax with a drink of the finest Earth treats.

With a heavy heart she opened up her most beloved extra planer storage space. This place was used for the only two things Ruby really cared about anymore. It was where she kept her most prized and coveted liquor, and where she kept the last few mementos, she possessed of her fallen wards. Her eyes scanned the room, she needed to pick the right apology gift. As she carefully made her way towards the back, she saw it. Tucked in about two thirds of the way to the back wall, stood a single hogshead of ancient scotch whiskey. The second to last gift she had received from one of her dearest friends, all those years ago.

Yes, this was the correct one. She felt it deep within her chest, a proper atonement requires a proper level of sacrifice. With a heavy heart she lifted the barrel over her head and began to stride out of the extra dimensional space. As she neared the opening, the soft clink of something falling and a flash of gold caught her eye. Sitting on a tiny end table was a small pouch of coins, one of which had somehow gotten loose and tumbled face up onto the polished table face.

For a moment she hesitated, she knew exactly what those coins were; and knew how much trouble she would get into if upper management found out she had them. That said, she also knew a sign when she saw one. The artifacts that she held within this place were the last remnants of those she had failed most of all. She pondered the meaning behind the fact that two of her previous charges seemed to have taken a shine to Jason, offering up to him their most precious of gifts. With a heavy heart and a plea to those long lost, she grabbed the coin before closing the pocket dimension.

With a loud *CLUNK* She set the hogshead down. Apparently, the sound of the barrel had finally made enough noise to draw Jason’s attention away from his screen. From a much smaller storage pocket she produced two crystal glasses. Pouring a hefty serving into each glass, she set one down in front of herself and the other in front of Jason. Locking eyes with the man, she said a single word.

“Drink”

The man twisted his face up in disgust at the sight of the liquor.

“Thanks, but no thanks, I’m not inclined to degr...”

“I said, DRINK!” Ruby growl bellows, casting the Command spell on the last word. Jason, despite his best efforts to ignore the compulsion, is forced to do as he is told, and takes a hearty swig of his hundred-year-old Scotch. With a smile on her lips, Ruby takes the opportunity to sip the illustrious gift. The hours melt away as they both sip and savor the deep complex flavors of this legendary brew.

As the drink flows her recollection of events becomes just a tad bit hazy. She can’t really remember how long it takes, but she does eventually come clean about the reason for this impromptu bout of drinking. It comes as little shock that Jason is... less than pleased to learn about the events that led to his death. He downs the rest of his drink in a single gulp, a waste of grand booze in Ruby’s opinion, and demands she fill his next one to the brim. For the first time in FAR too long, Ruby gets to see the Jason she had known all those years ago was still in there.

As the festivities carried on, she would occasionally catch him fiddling with the token he had bought. Curiosity finally getting the better of her, she decided to ask him about it, deciding to NOT mention that she knew it was illicitly purchased. He was cagey about it at first, but eventually loosened up and told her the truth.

He had grown bored with the usual missions that he had been assigned. He was sick of always having to play support, always cleaning up someone else’s messes, always laying the groundwork for someone else’s story. So, he had decided to cash in his points, and finally make use of the vacation time he had accrued. He had picked out what looked to be a pretty basic Isekai mission. Ruby suggested not mentioning his luck to anyone else, even she was aware how rare and coveted those missions were.

As the night wound to a close, they said their goodbyes. Before taking her leave, Ruby remembered the other present she had for Jason. A sharp whistle was the only warning she gave him before flicking the coin at his head. Even drunk, the man’s senses were still a thing to marvel at as he caught it in midair .

“The fuck is this?”

“Think of it as a gift.” She snorts.

“Oh, how generous of you. A whole gold coin, whatever will I spend it on.” Jason responds as he jangles the large coin pouch at his hip.

“Oh, fuck off. I’ll take it back if you’re going to be a brat about it.”

Jason drops the coin into his wallet and shakes it again for good measure. “Oops, too late now. Guess you’ll just have to let me keep it.” He gives her a smug grin.

She scoffed before turning around and making for the door. She could hear him activate the token as she closed the door behind her. As she wandered down the hallways back to her room, she pondered the events of the day. The rogue client would need to be dealt with, but she still wasn’t sure if burying him in legal paperwork for the next millennia or two, or just giving him a good old fashion human curb stomping, was the better punishment for his actions.

The choices bounced around in her head till she finally reached her residence. Having made no real progress in deciding her actions, she elected to just table the decision till she woke up next. The God was small time, so it wasn’t like it was going anywhere.

She took her time getting ready to sleep. Being a divine being herself, she didn’t actually NEED to sleep, but she did so enjoy the human customs surrounding the whole process. She took a long hot bath to unwind, before summoning a pair of adorable pajamas. Her body clean, and her mind at peace she laid down in her oversized excessively fluffy bed.

She had barely closed her eyes and began to drift off to blissful sleep, before she was awoken once again by the sound of her alarm going off.

“You have got to be shitting me. HOW?!?!”

This story was inspired by the following prompt: https://www.reddit.com/humansarespaceorcs/comments/1cqvbwk/humans_are_known_for_building_veryvery_large/
General Kim was awakened from a sound slumber by klaxons. Years of military training kicked in and he was out of bed in record time. Checking the data pad briefly while pulling on his uniform he saw something terrifying.
“Attack in progress. Launch in 10:34.”
An attack? Who? Where? How? What kind? General Kim was soon out the door to his quarters. He was at his battle bridge before the launch countdown had reached 10:00. Similar scenes were playing out throughout the ship, as generals checked in with their battle bridge statuses.
In the ship’s primary bridge, two kilometers from General Kim, Admiral Sol looked at her command display with satisfaction. 100% readiness in less than two minutes. She was pleased. She addressed the 10,000 soul the crew over the PA system. “An allied colony is under attack by enemies unknown. Wormhole travel will take approximately twenty minutes and thirty-four seconds. Prepare for battle.”
General Kim scrolled through the scant field assessment data. There wasn’t much. A large multi-species colony was being bombarded from orbit. No signs of enemy ground forces. The primary wormhole comms array was out, but an old Subspace system was still functional after 120 years of dormancy. “And THAT,” said General Kim, “is what preventative maintenance is for.”
“General, sir?”
“Sorry. Just thinking out loud. Their W23 system is down but they’re still in touch using an SB-Class 3.”
“I think I’ve seen one of those in a museum!”
“Our grandparents saw them in museums. You make do on the rim.”
Launch and wormhole transit went off with clockwork precision. Soon, the ship exited its artificial wormhole. It was immediately bombarded by the unknown hostiles. Explosions of varying kinds went off on the ship’s hull, ripping gashes in her armor.
“Damage report?” Admiral Sol asked.
“Ablative armor at 97%. No other damage reports.”
“Excellent. Inform me when the preliminary weapons analysis is in.”
Meanwhile, the Admiral's counterpart in the invading fleet, Imperial Agent Skrald, was still screaming, “What is that THING?”
“I’ve seen moons smaller than that ship,” said one of his lieutenants.
“We have to have a record of it. You can’t build something that big in complete secrecy!”
“Imperial Agent Skrald, I think it’s the, “Blade of Scoth.”
“That ship’s an old myth! It can’t possibly-“
“We've carved a notch!”
“Send the biggest we’ve got,” the Skrald replied.
A “notch” was a divot in the ship’s hull of the right shape to prevent weapons files from glancing off the armor.
“We’re being hailed, sir!”
“Tell them we don’t talk to burnt food and end the transmission,” the Admiral replied.
Imperial Agent Skrald watched with glee as the missile made contact with the notch and detonated.
On her ship, Admiral Sol asked for another damage report.
“Lower-port ablative armor section 374 at 40%, pinata layer is fully exposed.
“Can it take another direct hit?”
“It was only a gigaton blast. One more should make a perfect crack.”
“Excellent. Order the candy away from the blast point just to be safe.”
“Already done ma'am.”
“Make a note to find out who gave that order so I can commend them on their quick-thinking.”
“Yes Admiral.”
While the invading fleet pivoted their attention to the new ship, a second Terran vessel, the “Rule of Two Rogers” exited its artificial wormhole on the far side of the planet. A swarm of smaller craft flowed from the ship into the atmosphere below.
Imperial Agent Skrald, ignorant of the “Rule of Two Rogers,” was shouting with excitement. “Hit it again! Fire another!” The second missile flew through space, connecting with the underlayer exposed by the last missile. At first, it looked like the ship was spewing out debris, but the debris started flying in formations and shooting at his ships.
On the human ship, the Admiral smiled with satisfaction as she heard the report, “Piñata 86 has been breached. The candy is flowing. I repeat, the candy is flowing.”
“All stations, fire at will,” she replied.
The eyes of Imperial Agent Skrald opened wide as the surface of the massive ship lit up with a multicolored array of missiles, lasers, torpedos, and something that seemed to fire AFTER destroying one of his ships.
“It’s a rainbow of death,” he said, shocked into immobility by the way his fleet was being erased. He came back to his senses when his ship was rocked by debris impact from his erstwhile fleet.
“It’s too big to land!” He yelled. “All ships to the surface! I repeat, all ships retreat to the surface!”
The debris tore off one of his ship’s nacelles. “Did we need that to land?” He yelled.
“Only to get home sir,” an officer replied.
“Good.”
Admiral Sol watched the battle with satisfaction. This was the Blade of Scoth’s first battle in over 100 years. As a descendant of the famous Ambasador Sol, she took her guardianship of the BoS very seriously. A report came up on her screen. The hostiles had been identified. It was one of the Naga Imperium factions, or they were at least using the faction’s ships, weapons and known tactics. “Bastards,” she muttered.
“Admiral?” Lieutenant Cutter said.
“Analysis says it’s the ‘Naga Imperium of the Bone.’ The colony's 20% Naga. They’re slaughtering their own. Have we established direct contact with the colony yet?”
“Not yet Admiral. They don’t seem to have any short-range communications working. We’re still limited to what’s coming over their old subspace system.”
On the planet below, Sally McCool, a Naga hatched and raised in the colony, like her parents and grandparents before her, looked to the night sky. The missiles had come down, glowing brightly as the stars before they impacted. Now, the bright glowing objects had become larger, but many were breaking up and vanishing into nothing. Were these larger bombs, or was the enemy tumbling out of space?
She watched with growing horror as one approached the ground near the south okra field. She took a deep breath, and braced herself to be vaporized by whatever was about to land. Unable to watch, she curled into a ball on the ground, hoping death would be quick. She expected a nuclear flash, obliteration before hearing the blast. Instead, she heard a massive crash, crumpling metal and exploding components, and a long grinding sound as something huge cut into the soil. A rain of stones and soil covered her.
Sally looked up, and took several seconds to process what she was seeing. It hadn’t been a bomb. It had been a ship, and it had just crashed into one of their fields, carving a huge channel as it ground to a halt. A cloud of smoke was rising. Suddenly, a disk-shaped ship shot through the cloud of smoke. She recognized it from her history classes and old war movies. A flying saucer, painted with concentric circles of red, white, and blue. It was a Steve. A Steve class fighter. They were special. Why were they special?
Another saucer flew overhead. This one was red and yellow.
Sally remembered why the Steve battle saucers were special. They were exclusive to a ship called “The Rule of two Rogers.” The Steves were for battle, and this red and gold ship, as it landed she remembered, “It’s a Fred!” She yelled. She waved her arms, calling out to the ship. “We have injured! We have injured!” The side of the saucer opened up, and a multi-species crew of medics poured out.
While medics swarmed the colony providing aid, the best day of Skrald’s life had turned into the worst in a matter of minutes. He looked around his battered bridge. Even the emergency lighting could only manage flickering glimpses of the sparking wreckage around him. The only functional display was informing him the sewage system had ruptured and was pouring into what remained of the ventilation system.
“Is anyone else alive?”
“I TOLD you it was the Blade of Scoth you idiot!”
Skrald straightened his posture as much as the sharp pains in his abdomen would allow. “How DARE you speak to a member of the Imperium that way! I’ll eat you myself for that!”
“Good luck with that. I’m surrendering to the colony.”
“THEY’LL EAT YOUR FLESH AND MAKE SHOES FROM YOUR HIDE!”
“How’s that any better than you eating me?”
Outraged at the insolence, Skrald lunged in the direction of the taunting underling, smashing his snout against a hunk of metal he hadn’t noticed in the dim, flickering light.
Hours later, sunrise came to the battered colony. Most of the fires in the colony proper had been put out, but some of the Naga wreckage was still burning bright. Emergency contamination domes had been put up over the upwind wrecks, to contain as much of the toxic smoke as possible.
General Kim was on the ground, commanding the cleanup crews from both ships. He’d taken a brief break from those responsibilities to speak to one of the captured Naga.
“The guy in the fanciest duds tried to eat you when we took you into custody. Why?”
“I used to be a pilot,” she said. “Until that moron weaseled himself into enough power to do THIS!” She opened up her arms, as if to gesture at everything around her. “The only reason I’m even here is because I objected to this madness. That royal waste of scales wanted to personally mock me when he won. He even put that in writing on the paperwork for my ‘Away Without Leave’ warrant.”
“Weren’t you on his bridge?”
“Yes. You look confused, or at least that’s what my translator is telling me about your expression.”
“I don’t have a lot of combat experience. Nobody does these days, but hand-picking someone for your bridge crew because they have no confidence in you sounds like a bad idea to me.”
“This whole mission was nothing but bad ideas.”
“Please, tell me more.”
Meanwhile, in the darkness of space, a third ship of Capybara / Human design moved silent and unseen. Complex sensor arrays had been tracing the path the invaders had taken, seeking their origin. Data flowed in on interstellar communications problems, often evidence of ships passing though communications tunnels. The Starship Peggy Carter and her crew were on the trail, and the ship had a reputation to uphold. Latin mottos had fallen out of favor decades before she was built, so her motto was written in English.
“Those we fail to defend, we will avenge.”

I got bored one day and just decided to watch youtube.
well that was the day I discovered a "cryptid" which also discovering like all creatures they can indeed die so naturally I got a sudden idea of hunting a few.. of course I've seen a few posts on this reddit and most said never do it alone so then I gathered 4 different people all 3 were military
which is good because they were good with hand to hand combat no doubt I felt confident but since we still needed a plan of finding one because everyone had their doubts they existed besides one guy which was just someone who wanted to tag along and we agreed but he said he actually seen one as a kid but one of the military people (his name was john) said that as a kid you could see things since your brain was still developing but I'm gonna do a thing to show what they said
John: "well ya know you can easily see sh** as a kid since your brain was still growing"
the random person: "well yeah but I was 15 years old which it kind of stops doing that"
John: "yeah I don't know but can we get a move on? I'm supposed to go somewhere later.'
after that one of us gave out the smart idea of going to a wooden area filled with trees where you could not even see the sky which made a weird setting.. almost felt like it wasn't real and another guy (Kain) pointed out we let a random guy we have never seen before tag along and we were going to ask but when we turned to him he was gone.
now that seems unlikely, right? well we seen footsteps we thought he bailed didn't seem like a struggle but john knew something was off and we followed the footsteps and we followed for an hour but Kain as always quickly pointed out that the steps were getting father apart; he was running fast but their was no other tracks so clearly he was just lost.
we just called the cops and explained he seemed to have gotten lost
Cop: "why didn't he just follow his tracks to get back to you guys?"
everyone went silent and just looked at each other and the cop shook their head and walked over to the foot prints and asked us what kind of shoes the guy was wearing (we didn't know and though the cop could tell by the foot prints alone)
John: "I don't think this is something people often pay attention towards, okay?
Cop:" I mean these are not shoes these are bare foot prints almost animal"
for some reason it was only one cop and we though nothing of it and I forget everything kinda happened but he did leave and we didn't really go back we continues actually
our only items were: a flashlight, bottles of water, military food supply which john had almost all the time.
we set a camp in a clearing
John: "we should just set a lamp down and keep it their. after all a "cryptid" could see the smoke and come after us"
Kaine: "I think they would avoid light"
John: "you know if theses things fo exist that means their are multiple types like that weird goat creature which just attacks."
Kaine: "nerd."
John didn't get mad but gave up on the lamp idea and we set a fire and went to sleep. of course that was the weird part because in the middle of the night the loudest scream you could have ever heard which I think I could never forget.
also the 3rd guy (Charley) was just silent if you're wondering why he has no input in sentence because he was mute
(looking back on it now that was kind of a bad move to have a mute guy on the team but he was pretty strong)
I was the only one that jumped up seemingly Charley was never asleep in the first place and was sitting on a log assumingly keeping the fire alive he was looking around trying to see what the sound could have been and that moment is the first time I've ever seen him in fear he grabbed a gun from Charles truck and pointed it at what seemed like thin air.
of course since I said it seemed like thin air it actually was nothing. I grabbed a flashlight and pointed it at where he was aiming and seen it.
it was pale and had long red claws did not look human but it was looking at us and Charley turned the pistol off safety and fired.
it screeched but did not run and clearly since the gun was so loud Kaine and John got up deeply confused grabbed their flashlight and pointed it around it was bleeding.. everywhere but it didn't move.
John pulled a bigger gun from the floor board of his truck and also fired which it didn't move but it started inching closer.. and closer and that point John and charley were firing round after round after round into the creature we had stop Kaine from just jumping at it because he was pissed he woke up to this thing but he calmed down and rat blood almost all over the camp and did not react to anything at all we left immediately and gave up the idea of hunting these thing
you'll call this entire story fake and bull but being in this moment only then will you realize that maybe you're not as strong as you honestly think if a barrage of bullets couldn't stop such a thing.
Kaine, john , Charley and me got in the truck and rushed out of their (left the camp altogether because we did not wanna run into this thing but I can only imagine how badly it would have been if I went alone and not with a team so for god sakes make sure you have a strong set of people before you do this.
also if you think you know what type of creature this could have been please just say so I have never seen such a thing
the stranger is unrelated we really just think he went missing and we're being questioned about his disappearance till this day

Hey guys! Let us take a little break from the shitstorm that's Modern Horizons 3's leakage and have some fun. We all know and love the three-colored combinations. Whether we control the board while slamming huge artifacts in Esper or we attack for the win in Mardu, it's quite easy to see why it's awesome to play three colors. We know what they do mechanically. But what about their philosophy? What are those colors standing for? To make this really fun, let us associate this with a common trope or type of character. Let's start with the shards.

• Esper (WUB) - Esper is the mysterious antihero. Esper is the guy that comes into your salloon on Thunder Junction and you suddenly see all your patrons hiding in barrels or jumping through windows. You know his reputation. You know he could tear you and your salloon a new asshole if he wanted. But you also know he lives by a code. He has the power, he has the knowledge, and he's really messed up. But he tries, in his frustrating ways, to better the world. Media examples: Dexter Morgan, Stannis Baratheon, Magneto
  
• Grixis (UBR) - Oh boy... Grixis is a bully. But he's not your typical bully who used to give you wedgies in middle school while laughing with his idiotic jock friends. He doesn't do that shit... personally. For Grixis, is way more fun to make you believe he's your friend and then make you do stupid crap. He's charismatic. He's fun. He's wicked smart. He's a rulebreaker. He calls the teacher an asshole to his face. But following him and getting to know him, you realize he doesn't care about you. He's a narcissist. He only cares about himself. Grixis wants power and control. You are just his means to an end. Media examples: Greg Heffley (come on, you have to be a Multiverse-conquering Grixis psycho to hurt Rowley), Emperor Palpatine, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
  
• Jund (BRG) - If Grixis is the manipulative villain, Jund is the minion who asks "why should we sneak around when we can kill them now?" That village sits right on that mana-rich deposit you want to tap in and they don't want to evacuate? Send Jund. He'll clean up the village. Jund is rage, passion, and hatred all in one crazy package. For Jund, might makes right and if you've no might, you'll get his right... in your face. But Jund's not totally brainless. Jund loves freedom and, as powerful minions often do, scoffs at being a minion. That green part of him keeps him grounded, preventing him from giving in to his darkest urges, like Rakdos might do. Media examples: Sarah Kerrigan (Infected), Tuco Salamanca, pretty much any monstrous beast that acts on instinct...
  
• Naya (RGW) - Naya is the rebel (with or) without a cause. For Naya, freedom is the most important thing, even more important than Jund. While Jund wants freedom for himself, Naya wants freedom for all. Naya is the guy who runs naked through a packed stadium with "Stop big oil" written on his asscheeks. Naya is the ecoterrorist. If your plane's leader turns into a dictator, Naya will be the first to rebel against them. While an individualist, he can fight together with others if that means achieving his purpose. Media examples: Wildlings from ASOIAF, pretty much any Brujah vampire from VTM that hasn't fallen to the Sabbat and so on...
  
• Bant (GWU) - You're in the schoolyard and two of your classmates are having at it. All your fellow students are yelling "fight! fight!" You're the one who yells "Stop! Why can't we all be friends? Teacher!" Congratulations! You're Bant. Bant is the idealistic nerd. He believes in the rule of law. Bant thinks the Multiverse will be improved tremendously if only everyone will drop their weapons and hold hands. But that doesn't necessarily means Bant's defenseless. He's charismatic and his nice and optimistic nature helps him gain a lot of friends. Bant might not harm you. His fresh-out-of-prison friend, pierced from head to cock, will certainly do. Media examples: Rowley Jefferson (take that, Grixis Heffley!), Neville Longbottom, the Tau from 40K.
  

Now... the wedges!

• Abzan (WBG) - It's Thanksgiving Day and your Aunt Selesnya comes to dinner. You know what's going to happen. She's going to talk your ear off about how society isn't what it used to be anymore, how healthy values are thrown into the garbage for new, shiny stuff that will end up ruining society, how people today are too individualistic and don't give a shit about community. Then she's got too many beers and falls asleep... but Uncle Abzan, on the other hand, doesn't fall asleep. He agrees with what Selesnya's saying but unlike her, he's got the power and the ambition to change society according to his views. Abzan is making a webpage. Abzan's gathering followers. Abzan appeals to those in society who think like him. Abzan's creating a cult. Abzan takes control. It will take years, as Abzan's conservativism will not want sudden change. He's not Izzet, for fuck's sake, right? It will take years. But he'll manage it. Media examples: Logan Roy, Nurgle
  
• Sultai (BGU) - Sultai looks at the world with disgust. To alleviate some of it, he starts eating a banana. But... it lacks something. A bit more... je ne sais quoi, a bit more... more! He'll know it when he'll feel it. But how to modify that banana to be what Sultai wants it to be? Well, he'll enslave a village, use the villagers' blood in an arcane experiment, and create the perfect banana. If Sultai believes something can be improved, he'll do it at any cost. The entire Multiverse is his banana and we are Sultai's villagers. Media examples: Apocalypse, Clan Tzimisce from VTM
  
• Temur (GUR) - Temur is the dashing wilderness explorer, going where no man (or elf... or dragon) has ever gone. He's curious, courageous, clever, and comely. So many C's, he makes Kozilek envious. Temur feels at home both in a lab and in a bear cave. He's not afraid of pushing boundaries but he's mostly well-meaning. Media examples: Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, Reed Richards.
  
• Jeskai (URW) - You're a young kid whose ass was kicked by some punks. You want to never have to experience something like this ever again. Thus, you want to train, both your body and your mind. Here comes Jeskai-san. He's wise. He's seen things. He's done things. He trains you. He's an asshole. He makes you wipe the floorboards. You see no sense in it. But when the time comes for you to wipe the board, who better than someone versed in Jeskai's ways to do so? Media examples: Miyagi-san, Hank McCoy
  
• Mardu (RWB) - Remember that Thanksgiving dinner? Well, here comes Uncle Mardu and boy, he makes Selesnya and Abzan seem like well-balanced folks. Mardu's a military man, like his father and his grandfather all the way to an obscure 19th century lieutenant that served in the Union Army and then retired to a farm in Rhode Island or something (but your Uncle Mardu knows everything about him). Mardu sees you and thrashes your parents for raising a "sissy". He tells you to eat more meat to gain muscles. The Army has no need of matchsticks. Mardu is a warrior through and through. His troops hate his fucking guts but they know he's efficient. He's not nice, though. Media examples: Pretty much most of the 40K Imperial Commissars, Madara Uchiha
  

Whoa! That's pretty long. What's your take on shard/wedges type of characters/philosophies? Do you have any other examples?

First
Previous
Sorry for the delay in getting this part out; been away visiting family so not had much time to put fingers to keyboard, plus I managed to have my phone eaten by a roller coaster and it took a while to get it replaced and be able to get into a few things - stupid two factor authentication! Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
+++++++++++++++++++
Y’Lek and K’Rim slowed their mad dash as they neared the armoury; there was no telling whether the Swarm agents had left any traps for them and the armoury was full of extremely energy dense materials and weapons which could potentially jeopardise the structure of the ship if employed in the right way. Grabbing some handy footholds they stopped and considered the imposing door in front of them.
After a few moments of effort K’Rim had eased off the casement off the door’s locking mechanism but could detect nothing amiss with the crystalline structure beneath. Bypassing the outer interface she placed a grasper to the innards and a small spark of bioelectric energy jumped into the crystal which glowed briefly as the uniquely patterned waveform was parsed and compared with the patterns of those permitted access. The door slid aside as they were granted entry with no unwanted surprises being triggered.
With a relieved chitter Y’Lek started inside only to be pulled back sharply as K’Rim pulled on his leg.
“Stop. Just because the door opens, doesn’t mean that it is safe.” K’Rim warned as she pulled a small disc out of one of her utility pouches. Snapping it easily she gently tossed it through the doorway after slowly counting out a grasper of seconds. The exothermic reaction had reached the point where the disc glowed fitfully in the infrared, while it emitted a clear UV light. K’Rim watched it carefully and her antennae twitched with the effort of picking up any slight sound.
The glow-disc struck some of the lockers which filled the armoury and ricocheted off around the room but nothing seemed to react to the heat and movement.
With a decisive clack of her mandibles K’Rim pulled herself through the doorway and into the armoury. Y’Lek followed close on her tarsus. It was immediately obvious that several sets of warrior equipment had been removed, along with copious numbers of weapons.
Y’Lek was surprised when K’Rim didn’t make for the remaining warrior gear but instead to the emergency pressure suits. Seeing the confused tilt of his head K’Rim explained “Although the room appears safe, we don’t know what they may have done while they were here but it is safe to assume that they would have ensured any of the most dangerous equipment could not be used against them.”
She passed a bundled pressure suit to Y’Lek and continued “The emergency gear and non-powered weapons are the least likely to have been tampered with and have the least amount of capacity for harming us even if they have been so we will have to make do with them until we can thoroughly check the rest of the equipment.”
Y’Lek thought for a moment before bobbing in agreement and starting to pull on the pressure suit, careful to sheath his claws with the hardened “gauntlets” integral to the suit before powering up the spiracle gas exchangers and carefully sealing them in place against his thorax. “Yes, I can see the risk now. Though it will potentially leave us vulnerable, it is better to be certain of our equipment than to die of over confidence.”
The emergency pressure suit came together quickly, living up to its name and the pair were quickly sealed against the cold, dry, and slightly strange tasting air that the aliens had been pumping into the Far Flung Seed and supplying them with a more familiar and moister mixture.
K’Rim passed him a set of the ceremonial but still functional weapons and the harness to hold them. They wouldn’t hold up long against a fusion blade or a particle lance but they were durable enough to give them a chance and were completely inert so could not have been sabotaged.
Only a couple of minutes after entering the armoury they swam back out into the corridor and sped off towards the arboretum.
+++++++++++++++++++
Smithy quickly sprayed a fluorescent marking on the uneven and root covered tunnel junction to identify which way they had come from. “How can such a small ship have so many damn tunnels?” he growled to himself.
“It’s not the size of the ship, it’s what you do with it that matters” quipped Hall.
“Yeah? Well, apparently in this case it was fill it with bloody tunnels.” deadpanned Smithy in response.
“Can it.” broke in Stroud before anyone else could get involved “You can discuss the relative merits of alien design philosophy on your own time; for now you need to focus.”
A chorus of “Sergeant” came back over the radio and the remainder of Delta and Echo buckled down and continued sweeping what even Stroud was prepared to admit was a seemingly endless series of tunnels with apparently zero overarching logic to their layout. Up until a few minutes ago they had been getting directional updates from some supposedly friendly ET’s in the control room but apparently they had suddenly just buggered off so now they were picking junctions that appeared to take them in the vague direction that had been indicated to them.
Stroud again cursed the fact that the maintenance drones brought by the initial engineering team hadn't been able to access this part of the ship and map it due to the tightly sealed blast doors that had protected the forest from the vacuum. Who could have imagined that there would have been so much structure hidden underneath and between the normal corridors and rooms? The three dimensional map they had been creating as they advanced was like something Jackson Pollock and H R Giger might have come up with on an acid trip.
They approached another intersection and slowed. After a quick glance between them, Mears and Jackson moved forward, taking cover behind Mears’ shield. They crept up to the junction and Jackson poked the muzzle of his shotgun, and its camera into the ragged space beyond. The feed showed several small tunnels radiating off at all angles, way too small for any of them to fit down. One navigable tunnel appeared to curve off back in the direction they came from, while another looked like it might go the right way.
Suddenly the camera and the end third of Jackson’s gun disintegrated into a cloud of superheated vapour, shards of glowing metal and smoking composites. With a scream Jackson jumped back, the outer weave on the gauntlet of his left hand shredded and smouldering. In a stunning display of muscle memory he ejected the internal magazine and disconnected the weapon from the backpack feed almost before his mind had caught up with what was going on.
Hands grabbed him as he was yanked further back into the corridor. He flung the remains of his shotgun down and it clattered and bounced down the tunnel in the vague direction of the junction. Jackson was conscious of Mears backing up towards him, shield held protectively to block as much of the tunnel as possible, while Smithy grabbed his forearm and inspected his hand. Stroud stepped over him and took up guard on Mears’ shoulder, weapon trained forward and sweeping what could be seen of the slightly larger space beyond this section of the tunnel.
Another “FOOOM!” as the tumbling wreckage of the shotgun was vaporised as it spun across the opening of the tunnel.
“Fuuuuuuuck me!” said Jackson, at last able to form words as the adrenaline induced tunnel vision started to clear.
“Well, how about you start by showing me whether you can still use your fingers and we can take it from there, eh?” Smithy said from where he was turning his hand from prone to supine again. “Looks like the inner layer of your glove is intact but both Simmonds and Jones complained of numbness after being hit. How’re you feeling?”
Jackson gingerly flexed his fingers and made a fist a few times but grunted as he felt the tips of his fingers tingle where they pressed into the material of his gloves “Feels weird - tingly like I sat on my hand or something.”
Smithy grunted to acknowledge this “OK, well shout out if it gets any worse; got it?”
He pulled Jackson to his feet and slapped him on the shoulder before they both turned back to face down the tunnel again. Jackson surreptitiously flexed his hand a few more times as he pulled out his sidearm and secured its retaining strap to his right wrist. He wasn’t too hopeful that the small pistol would be able to do too much against the ET’s, but it was better than walking around with nothing.
Stroud backed away from the junction where he had been very gingerly checking all the passageways with a camera barely poking out from the mouth of the tunnel they were in.
He stood up and turned to the security team “Ok, looks like there is something stuffed into one of the narrow tunnels - kind of like those shoulder guns the ET’s have, along with a stand and power supply. My guess is it has some kind of automated fire mode and decided that it really didn’t like Jackson’s gun waving around in front of it. Question is, how are we going to get rid of it? We can’t leave it behind in case we need to come back this way in a hurry.”
“I guess it will probably shoot anything we throw at it so grenades are out?” mused Mears
There followed a number of suggestions and comments.
“Can we get an angle on it and just shoot it?”
“How about we let Jackson distract it some more while the rest of us blow it away?”
“We need to avoid the power pack if the two dead ET’s from the corridor are anything to go by.”
Stroud listened for a minute before cutting the chatter short. “Ok, so I think our best bet is to use the ballistic shield to bait it, while someone else blows the top off it from the other side of the tunnel; Mears you and Jackson handle the shield; keep a tight hold on it as those shots release a lot of energy when they hit. Smithy - I’ve marked its location so you hug the other side of the tunnel and draw a bead on it. Wait for it to hit the shield before popping out and taking your shot; and for the love of all that you hold dear do it fast, Ok?”
The team nodded in agreement.
“I will be there to pull Smithy back as soon as he has popped out of cover, just in case.” concluded Stroud before ushering them to their positions. After a few moments of shuffling around each other in the tight space they were ready.
Smithy led the countdown. “Ready. Steady. Go!” Instantly Mears and Jackson shoved a third of the ballistic shield out into the corridor and planted themselves on top of the section remaining in the corridor only a moment ahead of a bright flash and the shield heaving under the impact.
Seemingly almost simultaneously Smithy leaned out and fired, the boom of his shotgun mingling with the “foom!” of the vaporising surface of the shield. Stroud almost bodily lifted him as he pulled him back from the edge.
For a second they were still as they sprawled around the opening.
“A good hit!” called Stroud as he reviewed the few frames of footage from Smithy’s gun camera between jumping out and back in again.
Mears stood up and inspected the sorry remains of his ballistic shield, now missing most of the top edge. “Great, well I hope there aren’t too many more of those hidden around as I’m running out of shield.”
+++++++++++++++++++
N’Dar’s antennae quivered inside his protective suit. That last series of weapons fire had been far too close for comfort and he still had two more locking systems to bypass. With a furious click of his mandibles he redoubled his efforts, running his bioelectric patterns through a series of filters, amplifiers and other signal processing systems to trick the door into thinking he had a right to open it.
The rot take the claw that had been delaying the aliens! He was supposed to have more time than this!
Next

Goading is a frankly underrated mechanic in commander. The couple precons we have seen so far have leaned too much into goading to the detriment of the deck's ability to actually win the game.
I believe that for Goad to be used effectively it has to be sprinkled in a deck, not as a central theme but as a way to mitigate aggression and force your opponents to make uncomfortable choices.
To give some concrete examples I am going to talk about two decks I have built and the different ways they utilize Goading

1. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/OGcV3Q7STUC-XYaAh2pGlg

This is a Karazikar deck, and Karazikar has all the goading you will ever need on him. Now this particular list is vaguely built around treasures and some theft, but the main idea is to put pressure on your opponents slowly, going from encouraging them to attack each other by offering the incentive of card draw, to goading their bigger creatures and finally either overwhelming them with value or just taking away their ability to fight back with cards like Painful Quandary. While the plan itself is rather mean-spirited the gameplay is a hoot! Everyone is drawing cards, casting spells and trying to get their ducks in a row before they get punched in the face by their friends

1. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/a20CqiHOA0-oMgmPZeFZDg

This is a Firkraag deck! Goading here is a deliberate effort, you need to keep your opponent's creatures off your back while you are building up your dragons. Card draw becomes more of a challenge as you need to balance ramping, keeping your hand full and your board threatening. You take a much more active role in the game, nettling your own creatures with cards like Goblin Diplomats to trigger the card draw trigger on Firkraag, while forcing your opponents to either attack each other or send their creatures into your dragons' jaws with cards like Bident of Thassa, Public Enemy and Bothersome Quasit. If all goes according to plan, you are finish the game with a massive dragon wearing The Sound of Drums or by giving your board doublestrike with Spectacular Showdown and soaring over your opponents' blockers, and hey if you can't finish the job on that turn, their own goaded doublestriking creatures will probably do it for you
So yeah! Go out there and splash a Disrupt Decorum or a Coronation of Chaos in your decks, don't be afraid to utilize the board instead of wiping it

Before we get into it, I am a shitty brother. l'm not going to hide from it, I'm not going to excuse myself from it. I am a shitty older brother. Before we start, need to give you guys some context into my terrible psychological state. I grew up abused by my mom. I know it sounds like I have a victim complex but it's true. She was only 26 when she had me, and my dad was working all the time on his business in a foreign country. She didn't know how to raise my sister and me, and I was an energetic and mischievious little kid. I was also naive, and unaware of what people thought of me, and I was a nose picker. So for that, I got bullied at school for it. From ages of 7-12, I was bullied in middle school for picking my nose, and going home to getting beaten by my mom. She would also lock me out of the house and make me beg to come back inside our house. She would hit me out of frustration, hit me when she was mad, when my grades weren't as good. I was frustrated by the double standards of how my parents treated me and my sister, so I took my frustration out on her. I beat her too. The more my mom beat me, the more I beat my sister. Because I thought that's what family does right? Take your frustration out on each other when you are unhappy with something else. But I realized my sister went through the same shitty situation as me and I could never understand that because I was only focused on my own pain, and my own situation. But last year, in September 2023, I beat her so badly it left marks on her body. I don't need to go into detail, but it was bad. Like she almost called the cops, really bad. I don't think I can ever be forgiven.
My sister has tried to cope with her psychological state by smoking weed, an act done out of rebellion.
My father uses the silent treatment on my sister, even though I tell him to try to speak to her and have a conversation. My sister also used to cut herself, a fact that we seem to ignore in our house. She still carries the marks on her thighs, and it breaks my heart every time to think that I might be the cause of it. She's also a lesbian, something that I've always never cared about, and she knows that I accept her sexuality, not sure if my father or mother accepts her.
My sister thinks I am sexist, and that I hate women.I don't blame her because she's heard the way I talk about my mom(who is a horrible woman, i.e.), and she's experienced the way l've treated her. I can argue that I only hate the women in my family and that I've experienced positive relationships with other women I am unrelated to, but from her POV, it's hard not to agree with that. I have anger issues, stemming from my childhood, the abuse I experienced, and the emotional scars I carry. My pain is valid, but the way I treated her is illegal and immoral. I can't speak with her, because she hates me, and won't listen to a word I say After I did what I did, she told my mom, "He's not my brother, he's my abuser."
These are words I think l'll carry for the rest of my life. The guilt is killing me, and I just want us to go back to the way when we were kids when it was just me and her playing and having fun.
I hear the way she talks to my parents behind my back but my eyes are open now, but I fear I'm too late. She'll never see me the same way as I was that day. I'm the villain in her story, whereas I've only seen her as an obstacle, not as a sister.
She doesn't regard me as a brother anymore, just as a toxic person, or someone to tolerate before you cut out of your life.
What can I do to get her to forgive me and repair our relationship? Cause the guilt is fucking killing me, and I don't know how to live with knowing the only person who understood what I went through hates me.

So to start things off, this is going to be my first AR15. I've been contemplating going with a custom build "on a budget" it's exceeded over $2,000 LOL. $2,025 plus tax and shipping to be exact. Anyways I'm going to list the parts list here. I just want some feed back as to if this is going to be a solid rifle or should I just go with some mid tier complete rifle instead.
Upper Parts List ⬇️

• BCM M4 Upper Receiver Assembly $130
• BCM Bolt Carrier Group MPI Auto $200
• BCM AMBI MKII Charging Handle (M) $90
• Criterion Core Series 16" Mid Length Gas Barrel W/ Badger Ordnance TDX Gas Manifold 0.625″ & BCM Gas Tube $415
• Surefire WarComp Flash Hider $170
• Leapers 15" Rail W/ Barrel Nut $200

Lower Parts List ⬇️

• Aero Precision M4A1 Clone Lower $145
• Aero Precisions Lower Parts Kit $40
• Geissele Super 42 H2 Buffer Kit $145
• Geissele SSA-E 2 Staged Trigger $170 (%)

(Excluding $320 in iron sights, stock, grip, hand stop and sling. Plus shipping and tax.)
Yes it's the Reddit special. Should I go with this and learn a thing or two about putting a rifle together or go with a complete build from somewhere else. Thanks for anyone who takes the time to look through this.