Take care of your own baby

i’m currently at my breaking point with my sister and i’m now starting to resent my mum. i’m 21 and my sister is 27. she lives at home after she moved back in before covid. she lived with her then boyfriend but broke up after a few months and moved back in. my mum and i didnt actually want her back because of reason that still effect us to this day but my dad, who left a few months after bringing her back, didn’t listen to a single word me and my mum said. before she moved out, the house was a constant mess and never cleaned up after herself, lazy, all the food was pretty much gone and it was fights constantly between her and my mum. now it’s like we’ve just gone back in time because it is the exact same scenarios playing out exept even worse now, because she had a kid with her boyfriend, who my mum also let stay in the house for 2 fucking years. he did the exact same thing as my sister. nothing. my mum had to beg them to empty the fucking bins during their week because it was literally overflowing with trash. we even had maggots in the bins a few times. they always forgot to pay rent and had no problem up eating up the electricity he his billion devices and eating the entire fridge, even tho he works a 40k, yes, 40k job and the amount of benefits she gets they always missed months upon months of paying rent. i’m out of work and still manage to help pay rent and bills every month. not only this, my niece and nephew were living at home for a few months too as they stopped talking to my other sister. more mouths to feed. less space. more stress. my mum just took everyone in. at one point we had this crowded house of stress and noise. at one point there was 7 people in this crowded house. 7 you may ask? well, my sister and her boyfriend, now ex, had a kid. i shit you not, tbis baby cries every fucking morning. not just cries, but screams. 5am. 6am. 2 am. you name it. and my dickhead sister is too lazy to take care of her own kid. every day she’s always begging people to look after her kid for a few days. it’s been less stre since my neice and nephew moved back in with their mum but it is shadowed by her child. when she’s not away though, she’s screaming constantly. i lost it a few times. i’ve had arguments with my sister about it, we’ve even had physical fights. and what is my mum doing in the mean time ? nothing. nothing. nothing. she’s not doing anything. she’s been more stressed out and ill since the baby was born, but i look at her and she’s a zombie at this point. she just lets my sister ruin the house completely. all the food is gone currently and now we have to wait til next week until my mum gets paid to do shopping. i refused to stop buying food becauseleave it for a second it’s gone. and these are things she cries about if i did the same. all fight has completely gone from my mum. i’ve literally cried and begged her to kick her out but she does, you guessed it, nothing. she’s avoiding all arguments with her. i even begged my dad to talk to my mum but it was useless. my mum has been even more stressed out for the last few months and always gossips to my aunt about my sister and complains, but i think to myself, do you really think that? she threatened to kick me out more than she has my sister. me, the only person in the house who helps her, she’s willing to kick it out instead of the virus in her own home thats slowly killing her. right now i’m at my breaking point, i don’t know what to do. i’m completely powerless and the only person in the position of power is doing nothing. i don’t think i’ve broken down as much as i have in the last few weeks. what can i honestly do? please please please help me i really cant take this anymore.

(High Cranial Volume Pr and AE Hybrid Users ONLY)
I still can't get AE to perform well on my M2 Macbook Pro running Sonoma 14.0 and AE 24.3. 32 GBs RAM — so obviously that's going to be immediate the culprit, but I do suspect that I could do pretty much anything I wanted on this computer if I could just optimize it correctly. That's what this thread is about. I know there are a million threads like this one but hopefully we can dig up some new dirt. I haven't really written about Sonoma but what I've read seems to indicate a lot of people have had issues. I'm not an OS guy I get enough of a headache with the shit I care about. Not sure if downgrading is possible. Maybe I upgrade my RAM (whoops hee hee nvm forgot i was on an apple computer).
You can stop reading there, because the rest of this is schizo nonsense. I've sobered up and I can't say that any mother would accept a child this ugly. But I'm also getting giddy at the thought of crossposting to editors and seeing what the Avid Professionals Working On Big Serious Productions With Budgets That Totally Won't Disappear in the Next 20 Years have to tell me about making some dough in exchange for the sweet intoxication of art. I also did a better job of listing my issues in my follow up comment
**Intro Apology**
**I've bolded out the sections with the mostly important shit:** I would take extra care to avoid anything that's been italicized because it is some of the most craven text ever set to paper. As if! I can't even use metaphors anymore. Will the graphic designers starve without their paper (why is it always either minimalism or hyper realism? I like texture too but not everything has to be made out of everything, or not made out of anything at all! Nature Without Ecology.)
This is just me typing and never stopping. For some reason. Well, it's no mystery. I'm avoiding anything that even resembles productivity.
I've already wasted time just stream of concussing every intrusive thought, so why would I waste more time reformatting and trimming the fat? Bahahaha I hope you like lamb. If I put forward attention to giving you direct information that effectively communicates an idea, I might just achieve nirvana. Like if I hyperfixate when I'm shitposting, then I am just going to realize the World-Spirit in-itself trying to abide by the laws of rhetorics. Let me tell you, the laws of rhetoric certainly don't make you any less schizo. How do you think we got here?
But that's the future the fucking tech bros made. And it's fucking awesome. Can't wait to be animating using my Rule 34 Paper Texture Parallax Datamosh VFX by AEAnabolics via telekinesis (is there a plugin for that?!??!)
So no I'm not going to make this thread easily accessible or interpretable because I really want anyone possessing any degree of intelligence to stay the fuck away (there are even intelligent people amidst the industry leaders, I once even met a film producer who knew how to count through 12! In any case, if everyone under 30 could exit the room, us pedants, drop outs and philistines will congregate somewhere other than all and we'll be happy to update you later with a summary of our findings.
I do apologize for the wordvomit — I took my meds abt 30 mins before I had the brilliant idea to open up a silly little text box on reddit during my awesome Pomodoro break. I had to be off the ADHD goodies for a week for some sports stuff I was trying to do which needed my heart at optimal function. Why did my doc just let me hop back on the same dose? I am emaciated from all this heavy lifting with my fingers.
Please though, don't dismiss this as pathological ravings. I am not sick, just an Adobe Creative Suite subscriber (somehow, five years later, I'm still on the student discount paying 30 bucks!!! Haha!!! Sticking it to the man!!!! Suckers!!!! Almost as bad as pouring thousands into software you don't own and can be shut out of for trumped up fraud charges if one of the cretins working at Adobe manages to actually check the accounts submitting all those pesky support tickets. Wait....)
So ya it's pretty simple: I was sunning my balls and cheating on five different women *holistically though* before taking my L-Carnitine to maximize the effects of my meth (don't worry I don't smoke it!), when I decided, yes, this Friday, with deadlines looming in the evening, I will nuke my morning by typing. and just not stopping. It's like stim sex, but literally no one is cumming. Wait, literally it's like stim sex.
Okay stop. I want you all to save the horniness for pitching to the Rule 34 Clients — the last to adopt AI in favor of authentic art and animation (bahahahhahaha I seriously do think *This whole AI thing, or at least its acceleration, can be put squarely at the feet of Gooners. They're horny and no human can create what will quench their thirst! Such a tragic condition. Like craving art that can speak to your soul. Ugh. Can't wait for Mister Horse to drop the Anime Waifu presets*.)
*(speaking of Misters, watch Mr. Rush Rush Client — who just needed this edit NOW — not even watch the video until Sunday. That rat fuck: maybe I don't have a social life huh? Maybe I don't want another shitty "underground" (as if such a thing exists anymore) rave on a Friday and a Hinge date on a Saturday?
Maybe genuine connection is dead and all some of us can love is the labor we put into our products. Or the efforts we put into our shitposts. Certainly the products themselves are far beyond loving.
Mr. Rush Rush: your 9-5 is shit and you are shit for thinking you are not a piece of shit because you force everyone to meet your fake timelines. We no longer cultivate produce, nor ideas, we just materialize urgency so the boss can larp as the boss and we can pretend society needs us to keep rhythm. It is the Master who needs the Master's Injunction. I like want to change the world man not reproduce it. I am barren.
Just let me work on Saturday. Asshole. It would have saved all of us from this post which was, of course, provoked by pure, unmediated anxiety — and absolute boredom.
*Fuck paper textures! Fuck any lower thirds that use paper textures. Shit is garbage. The elementary school audience went off to war — it's the latest Roblox minigame. So we're not even impressing anyone any more)*
Instantly — upon the epiphany that I don't owe people shit, even if they throw money at me, my brain ditched all ideals of productivity and decided it was time to write a fucking treatise on my experiences trying to optimize AE. Please do not mock me. I am an idiot. It's not worth countering snark with snark —because I can't even read. I am literally dictating this post to my iPhone and then having chatgpt re-write it. Also, I really hope some GPT or AI research tool digs up this thread. I'm sure they will wire only the relevant information to Mr. Prompter! He deserves the best. In fact he's the only one who deserves anything.
*If I was a GPT prompt I would be posing as a weird hermit who thinks he is the postmodern reincarnation of Plato. WELCOME to the republic ... of stupid — ruled under the auspices of the Kingdoms of Adobia, Resolve-ru, and Avidia (btw can we do what we did to Twitter to Avid? I just don't think it's a cool name. I'm not Avid anytime I have to use Avid. It doesn't have neurolink compatability and I can't do a million things very shitily. It just does like one thing very well. Who would ever ask for that?!?!?1*
For some reason I decided to pump up the snark to the max on this post — I hope that's okay. Maybe I want to write novels, not make videos. In any case, I promise you I'm not AI writing this. Unless ....
But at the end of the day I'm just trying to entertain myself instead of getting real work done — which I can't imagine is something a community of useless creatives would have trouble understanding. You couldn't do math good, and that's because you're lazy!!!
(Dan Ebberts if you're here I am sorry Father: but you are not a useless sack of shit motion designer, you're not making lower thirds for the Nelk Bros? You are the fucking Grand Wizard Abstract Quantum Mathematician my guy, the highest expression of the Enlightenment rationale, not a useless 2.5d animator — though I do secretly harbor a belief that all numbers are racist and you, as the Prophet of Numbers where they don't belong (computers) have a lot of reckoning to do. Guilt erotics won't get you out of this one — we don't want sorry we want solidarity!
**I'm half shitposting and half offering my own insight in exchange for yours.** I hope you don't read malice in my words. In any case I don't think myself a victim and I will be fine. Our world is about to turn nonsensical. The division of labor will collapse. Those who are both just intelligent enough to do dumb shit and lacking in morals will take everyone else's jobs. Technocracy of the morons! Somebody invite France too.
What's your intricate knowledge of a cavernous software versus my ability to write out prompts at 130 WPM? Basically, where you used to be able to get ahead with creative ingenuity you can now get ahead by typing fast. Good riddance lol. But if only we could get this piece of shit software to do everything I want it to do with not even a smidge of an attempt to optimize, pre-render, under smart principles?
But I'm hoping maybe we can have some conversations about the best practices to get this piece of shit software to work consistently. AE is so cool 90% of the time but it's like a girlfriend that's loyal to you 90% of the time. Now I'm not suggesting Adobe is cuckolding the VFX wannabes among us.^1 But I do want to say that there's a problem when your most random software that kind of just somehow works if you need how to cast a few voodoo spells and play around with different effects is literally un-professionizable. You can do amazing things in After Effects on just 16 GB of RAM (even 8 if you're willing to walk away from your computer for a fortnight for a few renders), which was so cool when I was getting started on the shitcans they hand out in college (I sound spoiled but you didn't spend the first year of your professional career on an outdated Mac Air desperately refreshing Google News for a stimulus check as literally everyone is jobless whilst you never even got a job to be jobless from. Like come on guys, if you got started in the 90s at least you have analog nostalgia and to anyone born after 95 you look like a wizard talking about chemicals and film crystals and shit. A Covid alumnus like me who graduated in 2019 doesn't get shit, and 2020 graduates didn't even get to bask in the delusion that they were ever the center of the world. I just pray UBI is installed before the robots take our land and our animals, because truly the new generation of digital creatives is going to feature some of the dumbest people to ever rank through society. Which is true in any era, but what's unique about ours is that young people are no longer angry, just cynical like they were in the 70s. Another round of hypernormalization.
**My Problem(s)
I need the experts here to just assume that I don't want to do things the right way. Every single person who has ever posted a query to Reddit, complex or one Google Search away, every single on of us cursed posters imagines that someone will waltz into their thread and provide an unheard of fix. Jesus take the wheel! I will provide more information on my specific issues, maybe even some idiosyncratic fixes I have found (Thank you Klutz GPT! But fuck you also.) but only if you show you're not going to snarkpost. Until then I will leave you to wade through the coagulated shit stew that is this post.
This is basically the situation with the people becoming editors and motion designers. Thanks Youtube. Thanks Twitch. You ruined Cinema more than capeshit did. Special shout out to the editors in the Philippines running their Macs through literal fruits Just as Mr. Jobs intended. (Don't worry, I'm from a country that is actually dogshit, the Philipines is beautiful and extraordinarily culturally rich)
The Jungle people here to take our jobs! Why aren't we worried about them like we are AI? They can do literally any job. And they can do it poorly. Literally exactly like AI, but no one getting their underwear in a twist when they're browsing the World section on Upwrok.
Don't get me started on what the Ruskiys are doing. You've seen Russian social media, but do you understand what Russian creatives are doing? Absolutely nothing, because Russian creatives don't exist. At best they can reform and reclaim their Orthodoxy in Siberia before coming back to St. Petersburg and writing some of the greatest novels known to man (which some of the absolute most dogshit interpretations and translations ever produced of any Western texts that are even close to the Canon)
Anyway, people like me are going to be around more and more. It's me you're going to be responding "CC Marvel Effect huahua" while the Gen Alpha nicotine tweaker blows clouds into your PC's air vents. Cloud bitch! You're fucked, because the anxiety from vaping makes him lazy as fuck. We are going to starve all because these fuckers got into too much of a dopamine deficit huffing shit with 5x the nicotine of cigs. If you think we're gonna take your jobs now, just wait until I grow my third arm. I will take your job. And when I grow my third cock, I will take your wife.
**I am a "creative director", that's how I market myself at least. I work in a lot of industries, make a shit ton of ads, but I think of myself primarily as a (documentary) filmmaker and editor (at this point it may be a formality and nostalgia because people just want reels and I like money).
I began packaging documentary projects with commercial packages, so the idea has been to first tell someone I'll make a doc for them, but along the way I can use the extra edits and unused interviews or just any of the millions of unused bits of a documentary/reality project and recycle it into ads.** You wouldn't believe how well this works on someone with a little bit of ego and a little bit of money. Netflix really convinced the chuds that their life is like a documentary lol. It's okay, not everyone can monetize their passion, or have it ripped out of their hands to transform itself from quasi art (or something challenging art) to a glorified mouthpiece for mediocre wannabes and has-beens. Bring back the Birth of the Nation or that movie about the Nazi architecture, Will, Will, what was it called? Anyway, I really thought I was going to make shit about dictators or like some genuinely awful people. Instead I got all of the delusion and none of the murder, just a bunch of whining about Instagram follower counts and the "blacklist" (I really wish they'd post a sign up, because I don't want to be seen. For real.)**
** I won't claim expertise as a motion designer. And for the sake of all that is holy you can and should call me a highfalutin dilettante with talent to produce nothing except derivative drivel (I mean, I I told you I worked in documentary right?). **
**But please, please, just assume that I may just not *want* to do things the right way.** ^@
**I know I should label and rename my files. But we're way beyond that, I have become one with Solid 1, to Solid 1 + N. I am going to get last in my comps and no I'm not going to Shy anything because I am an ALPHA! (Seriously though if you are a talentless unorganized adhd piece of shit editor and wannabe filmmaker like me, there's a plugin called Declutter which will automatically sort your project: it offers decent customization that could be helpful if you are just torpedoing a bunch of Linked Comps into AE like we're in the Pacific Theater. But with this magic hack, all those dismembered and charred bits of corpse gets insta sorted into the proper bin! And now your project panel doesn't look like shit and you can screen record while you troubleshoot some issues with an Adobe representative without feeling embarrassed. (maybe if he see it, we can get some sorting function that automatically puts comps in a specific folder (or files of any type into a pre-ordained folder, either in Pr or Ae would be cool. It's not like there are a million plugins that do the exact same shit. I'd rather anime ai waifu available at the click of a button though. What will the Gooners' do if we ever dare stop production?!?1
**Every problem I have had could be improved or entirely eliminated with a proper workflow solution. I am like really painfully aware of that. **
**I have shat blood figuring out how to make Pr Pro work consistently. That's my main app yo. I've genuinly poured hours into unlearning and relearning how to do things. I hope I can like put together an advanced guide some day. But like what's the point if the client who thinks he wants an editor actually wants to see his name and his logo animated in 10 different ways? And you know, I used to be content to produce that auto shit. But the more I animate, the more keyframes I ease (if you tell me you can ease in Pr I am going to smack the shit out of you unless it's to reccomend this
Frankly, AE is such a shitshow. It's old as fuck in a way that none of the other major apps are. Like Photoshop feels stuck in the 90s in the same way but at least its code isn't fucked beyond belief and it's relatively easy to diagnose problems (maybe you need to put more thought into performance for something that generates 24 images a second, but who knows? Not Adobe. Btw, wtf is up with caches in PS? Why are they so fucking greedy for all my data. Fuck you I want space and to have you open in the background. Seriously PS is old and I feel like no one points it out because you can just use Illustrator but fuck that I can't draw mfer)**
**I am going to be spending the next three weeks making animations for about 50 reels, to pair with some other branding deliverables for Youtube and the client's website. It's a huge project and one that I scored by advertising a diverse skill set (I apologize to the specialists but we're all going to have to adjust to foreigners in our lands — if you're American this should sound like a founding ideal more than a problem).
Or so I get the job done: don't get me wrong I cringe when people come in here and ask about making AE faster and it's clear they know nothing and didn't even bother to Google. I have Googled and spent a lot of frustrating hours trying to make shit work that just didn't work.**
Ultimately, if I don't slap on effects until I have the bulk of my animation rendered, and avoid working in 3d for no reason and tread carefully when I do, then I should be good.
But I love the 3D camera. As a filmmaker it's probably my favorite tool in AE because there's actually somewhat transferable skills or a demand for vision (and when Pr's shitty AI takes off and filmmaking becomes glorified prompt writing everyone is going to stop asking for real cameras anyway so might as well accept my fate right now and bin my C70 next to all of the piece of shit analog cameras no one uses anymore and just buy as many 3d camera plugins and softwares as I can, right? Right?! Hello Cinema 4D 8) ). Parallax is fucking awesome bro. I want to receive joy when I work, so ya I'll throw on deep glow and SS3. Am I a terrible person? Probably. I just want you to know, before you offer me solutions, that I want to have my cake and eat it too and frankly I am going to give you snark if you solve one problem but create another.
(for some reason) continued in the comments. Tbh the comment is more useful than this post. I'm just having a bad day guys and retreating into words to escape my problems.

As the title suggests, but I'm hoping somebody has some advice on this.
For some context, my boyfriend and I have been together for a year and a half and we have lived together for about 6 months. So far we have been very open and honest with each other, we have a very healthy and loving relationship. And I consider myself very lucky. We've talked about future together, especially getting married someday owning a home and having a family.
Recently, his parents are going through a rough divorce. He also has a bad relationship with his father. Today, I was helping him move things out of his childhood home, which his parents are selling. As we were moving things, I mentioned he could keep some of his childhood toys for when we have kids. Then he said he wasn't sure he wanted to have kids. Of course I was taken aback by this and immediately shocked and a little upset so I asked him what he meant. He brought up how this whole divorce is messing with him and how he views kids as taking away your freedom and he referenced his only friend who is married to a very controlling woman. This friend also has kids. And he said he never sees this friend anymore and his friend isn't allowed to do anything. I expressed that it's unhealthy to compare relationships to ours because we don't have that dynamic and neither one of us are controlling over the other.
He then said after I talked a little bit more about how he knows I want kids someday he said that it was a no right now (like having a baby at this present moment- which I agree to bc I want to get married and travel first). But he said he's open to it in the future.
I don't know if I'm overreacting, but it just is confusing and given my age I don't want to invest if he's just going to say in a few years that he still doesn't want kids. Does anyone have any advice ?
I love him and I have been thinking about a future with him since before we moved in and I always thought we were on the same page . I don't know if I should give him Grace because everything he's going through, but I also don't want to put my needs/hopes on the back burner either.

Maybe it's a matter of playful roasts as a way of showing affection. Maybe it's about very straight forward communication. Regardless, if we end up hurting the people around us or making them feel small, we need to become self aware and change. Here are the things that have worked for me:

1. Be attentive. This is easier for the more outgoing and intuitive signs; Sagittarians are usually very capable of this, our issue being that we have our heads in the clouds, are aloof/detached and/or are focused on other things. I struggle with reading body language and tone of voice (autistic lol), but have found that I'm even signigicantly better at reading people's eyes than neurotypicals. If I make an effort to stay aware of how the look in their eyes change based on my words and actions, I usually know where they're at. If you struggle with this, a good thumb rule is to avoid roasting people who don't roast you back, and testing the water by making veeery light roasts at first to see how they react to that. When it comes to bluntness, and you struggle with intuition, you can go straight to point two.
   
2. Communicate. Make sure people around you know that you truly want them to let you know if you ever make them feel hurt, invalidated, bossed around or uncomfortable. Like, really emphasize it. Tell them that you know you come off that way sometimes, that you respect them, want them to feel seen and comfortable around you and care about their feelings and opinions. If it's about having a tendency of coming off as arrogant and bossy, start making a habit out of asking questions about their ideas, wants and opinions, and actually listen. Try to compromise if they disagree even after having had an mutually open discussion; even when it doesn't feel like the most logical way of doing something, meeting them halfway is usually worth it. Also, if you're wanna critisize or give people advice simply cause you care, ASK if they want help or advice. And if they reject it, don't assume you know what's best for them, let them figure it out on their own.
   
3. Think before you speak. This can be hard for more unfiltered people (like my ADHD Sag ass), but it's not undoable. If you're gonna point something out, ask yourself if it might hurt that person. If so, figure out how to say it in a way that doesn't make them feel attacked. If there is a risk of hurting them, you should also ask yourself if it's necessary to say anything at all. Is it gonna do more harm than good? Then stay quiet about it, unless they ask for your opinion. Not stating your opinion when it's unasked for and uneccessary isn't the same as being dishonest.
   
4. Take accountability if you hurt them/made them feel disrespected. Explaining your intentions is good and all, but you need to recognize that their feelings are valid and let them know you feel that way. Apologize and assure them that you will do your very best to do better in the future, and then actually put in that effort (don't promise something you're not sure you can live up to though - chances are you'll mess up at some point; we're only human, and things like this can take time). I also make sure to thank people for telling me, and express appreciation for their honesty. Bringing up that shit is hard for a lot of people, so make sure to give them cred for it.
   
5. Balance it up with compliments, appreciation, validation and reassurance, even if someone thinks your roasts are fun or ask for constructive criticism. Seriously. Giving people positive affirmations is important even with people you don't playfully make fun of or critisize, but it's VITAL when you do.
   

Do as you wish with this advice - but it works for me. If anyone has anything to add, please do. ❤️

sorry this is probably the longest vent in actual history but i really REALLY need to talk. i cried the whole time writing this lmao
general tw
i know a lot of people feel the same and insecurity about looks is real common but i genuinely think i have body dysmorphia or something because for years i’ve just felt so fucking ugly and unlovable. i barely have any friends but the friends i DO have are all so fucking naturally pretty and i always feel like the ugly one. nobody ever hits on me (which i guess makes me kinda lucky actually cuz there are some weirdos out there) but i just wish i wasn’t so fucking ugly. my skin isn’t clear, my eyes are boring, my face is asymmetrical, i’m short i’m not skinny i’m not pale i’m not funny i’m not interesting i’m not social i’m not talented i’m not cute i’m not hot i’m not fit i’m not smart i’m not ENOUGH and i just feel like i’m rotting. i hate seeing people who are naturally pretty because i immediately compare myself to them and wish i didn’t look like this and sometimes i even get angry. what the fuck did i ever do to be so much uglier than everyone else?
every time i see a couple or think of someone romantically i realise i will never have anything like that. nobody will ever like me back and i will never be more than friends with anyone. every time i think about what it’d be like to date someone or what my ideal partner would be like, i overthink it and realise they’d never like me back because of my appearance.
every time i see someone pretty i get jealous and wish i could be them. i wish i could go out in public without wondering what i look like and worrying about what other people are thinking. i wish i could hear people laughing without immediately thinking they’re laughing at me. or hear people muttering or whispering and not think they’re talking about me or feel like people are staring at me or internally thinking i’m ugly. at this point i think i’d rather be fucking dead than live like this because i physically can’t.
pretty privilege is real. if you look at celebrities and famous people and actors they’re all people generally seen as pretty. if you aren’t pretty, you’re immediately put at a disadvantage over something you can’t control. remember that fucking guy who committed actual murder and people on tiktok wanted to free him because he was cute? i know it’s tiktok but if he wasn’t considered cute they’d be encouraging the fucking death sentence. and there are always pretty people out there saying it’s all about confidence and a good diet and loving yourself but lemme tell you, that shit is a lot easier if you actually feel comfortable in your own skin. it just isn’t fair. if you’re born ugly there’s not much you can do, but if you’re born pretty you already have the upper hand.
and it’s even with FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. i know they aren’t real and are often designed to look pretty but i get jealous of ACTUAL ANIMATED PEOPLE because they’re pretty. especially with crushing on fictional characters cuz i know they’d be way out of my league if they actually existed and they’d hate me to fuckin death. i use c.ai a lot and sometimes when i’m talking to a character on there i suddenly remember that i’m ugly and this sort of thing would never happen irl, regardless of if the rp is platonic or romantic. they’d hate me. i know it’s really fucking sad that i’m so attached to people who don’t even EXIST but i don’t care.
and i feel like my social anxiety makes it even worse. on top of being fucking ugly, i can’t even talk to people normally unless i’m really good friends with them. a lot of the time when i talk to a new person or someone i don’t know well i almost start tearing up at the thought of how they perceive me because i know they think i’m ugly or annoying or weird or too quiet or offputting.
i’m still a week away from being 16 so i know i have a long way to go and i’m still just a teenager but everyone i know my age is so fucking pretty, if not average. i can’t think of anyone i know who i consider ugly and i feel so out of place. i feel wrong. i feel like there’s something wrong with me because i’m so ugly and everyone is out of my league and i wish i was invisible. i wish i could get hit by a train or something. how are some people so lucky? i feel like pretty people take it for granted how beautiful they are. i know i probably sound so selfish for wishing i looked better but it’s all i can think about. i can’t even take selfies and i hate looking at pictures people take of me because i’m scared of seeing myself.
and i’m tired of all that motivational bs like ‘love yourself’ or ‘looks don’t matter’ they do. looks matter. people treat you better if you look good. and it’s always pretty people who tell you that being pretty doesn’t matter. and i’m just fucking sick of it all.
i know i probably sound edgy or ungrateful or selfish or like i’m complaining too much and i’m sorry but i really needed to get this out of my system.
tldr - i’m ugly and want to kms

i’m currently at my breaking point with my sister and i’m now starting to resent my mum. i’m 21 and my sister is 27. she lives at home after she moved back in before covid. she lived with her then boyfriend but broke up after a few months and moved back in. my mum and i didnt actually want her back because of reason that still effect us to this day but my dad, who left a few months after bringing her back, didn’t listen to a single word me and my mum said. before she moved out, the house was a constant mess and never cleaned up after herself, lazy, all the food was pretty much gone and it was fights constantly between her and my mum. now it’s like we’ve just gone back in time because it is the exact same scenarios playing out exept even worse now, because she had a kid with her boyfriend, who my mum also let stay in the house for 2 fucking years. he did the exact same thing as my sister. nothing. my mum had to beg them to empty the fucking bins during their week because it was literally overflowing with trash. we even had maggots in the bins a few times. they always forgot to pay rent and had no problem up eating up the electricity he his billion devices and eating the entire fridge, even tho he works a 40k, yes, 40k job and the amount of benefits she gets they always missed months upon months of paying rent. i’m out of work and still manage to help pay rent and bills every month. not only this, my niece and nephew were living at home for a few months too as they stopped talking to my other sister. more mouths to feed. less space. more stress. my mum just took everyone in. at one point we had this crowded house of stress and noise. at one point there was 7 people in this crowded house. 7 you may ask? well, my sister and her boyfriend, now ex, had a kid. i shit you not, tbis baby cries every fucking morning. not just cries, but screams. 5am. 6am. 2 am. you name it. and my dickhead sister is too lazy to take care of her own kid. every day she’s always begging people to look after her kid for a few days. it’s been less stre since my neice and nephew moved back in with their mum but it is shadowed by her child. when she’s not away though, she’s screaming constantly. i lost it a few times. i’ve had arguments with my sister about it, we’ve even had physical fights. and what is my mum doing in the mean time ? nothing. nothing. nothing. she’s not doing anything. she’s been more stressed out and ill since the baby was born, but i look at her and she’s a zombie at this point. she just lets my sister ruin the house completely. all the food is gone currently and now we have to wait til next week until my mum gets paid to do shopping. i refused to stop buying food becauseleave it for a second it’s gone. and these are things she cries about if i did the same. all fight has completely gone from my mum. i’ve literally cried and begged her to kick her out but she does, you guessed it, nothing. she’s avoiding all arguments with her. i even begged my dad to talk to my mum but it was useless. my mum has been even more stressed out for the last few months and always gossips to my aunt about my sister and complains, but i think to myself, do you really think that? she threatened to kick me out more than she has my sister. me, the only person in the house who helps her, she’s willing to kick it out instead of the virus in her own home thats slowly killing her. right now i’m at my breaking point, i don’t know what to do. i’m completely powerless and the only person in the position of power is doing nothing. i don’t think i’ve broken down as much as i have in the last few weeks. what can i honestly do? please please please help me i really cant take this anymore.

My wife and I have a 7mo daughter. I work full time away from home. Wife works part time from home and handles a lot of the domestic labor (cooking, cleaning and child care). When I'm home I obviously help out as well but admittedly, she does more than I do on the daily when it comes to household tasks.
Well, I get home from work yesterday evening around 4pm and my wife is in the kitchen trying to get dinner started. The baby was screaming in the living room. She's teething currently so it's been a rough few days. I go and grab the baby. Wife says "today's been rough, I haven't been able to put her down for 2 seconds. I haven't eaten at all today, I'm starving." I rub her shoulder, say I'm sorry, etc. But I tell her that I need to take a shower, because today was a rough day for me as well. I work in a kitchen and it's a steady 85°+, as the AC unit is busted and waiting to be serviced. I'm sweaty, chaffing and feel more gross than ever. I ask her to take the baby real quick so I can shower and then we can work on dinner together. She just kind of looks at me and I could see the anger building up. She goes "I really don't want to put off cooking for a half hour so you can go take a shower. I literally just told you I hadn't eaten all fucking day. I'm breastfeeding. Food is kind of crucial." I tell her I will make it quick. She says "put the baby back where you found her. I'm not waiting for you to make dinner." I tell her it would be much easier for her to just take the baby, so she wasn't screaming; as when she gets worked up she holds her breath and passes out (one of those scary babies). She takes the baby and storms out of the kitchen.
Well, I go in to take a shower. It's now 4:23pm. I get out of the shower, go get dressed in our bedroom and walk back out to the kitchen just in time to see my wife pulling out of the driveway. I call her and ask her where she's going and she said "I'm going to go get myself and the baby food somewhere. You can fend for yourself. I told you I was fucking starving and you still took your sweet ass time in that shower." She then hangs up on me. It's 4:57 at this point. AITA for asking her to take the baby while I showered real quick?

This will probably fall outside of most people’s expertise as my son was born at 41 +4 (uneventful VBAC delivery), but I am at my absolute lowest point in my life and I am desperate for help/guidance/answers.
Since birth (8 lb 5 oz), my son has had tachypnea ranging from 60s-100s. It is pretty much constant. The only instances where his breathing falls within normal range are when he is in deep sleep and upright or on his belly. His SpO2 has remained in the mid to high 90s throughout. He has had 1 desat episode that I am not convinced was accurate. He does not appear to be working hard through these respirations. He has no nasal flaring. Physicians have noted very mild retractions but have never seemed concerned by them. He eats very often and has thus far gained weight very well. He is not great on breast, but drinks breast milk from the bottle very well. He has no trouble taking drinks in between breaths. He is very sleepy very often. At times, I have worried that he sleeps too much. We have been told ad nauseum that he “looks good!”
Here is a rundown of his work up to date:
HOSPITAL STAY #1, 1st week of life
My son was sent to the ER after his SpO2 was noted to be in the mid 80s at his initial pediatrician visit. I did not see a good waveform on this read and he was satting 98-100% on room air when he got to the ER. This is why I am not sure it was accurate.
The ER monitored him for a time and diagnosed him with a BRUE. We were about to leave when my wife noticed that he seemed to be passing out after runs of particularly fast breathing. This earned us a transport to a children’s hospital.
During this inpatient stay, he was cleared by neuro, cardiac, and infectious disease as causes of tachypnea. Our son underwent a 24 hour EEG, head ultrasound, EKG, echocardiogram, chest X-ray, and full sepsis work up. All came back negative. His brief “passing out” episodes resolved after a day. He received 48 hours of antibiotics to cover possible infection.
The only thing that was out of the ordinary during this stay was a mildly elevated lactate of 3.1. This led some physicians to suspect an inborn error of metabolism causing metabolic acidosis. This was horrifying as these diseases are often very severe. Oddly enough, however, they moved on from that theory the next day. We were told that lactate is a very nonspecific finding in infants. Our son’s ammonia level was normal which seemed to be the most reassuring data point to our care team. His venous blood gas was satisfactory. We were discharged and told that he would grow out of it.
Worth noting that he was on oxygen when he went inpatient and it did nothing to his respirations.
HOSPITAL STAY #2, 2nd week of life
I called our pediatrician when I noted a sustained tachypnea at 100 breaths per min. She told us to go back to ER. He was put on the monitor and was satting high 90s again. A lactate was drawn again in the ED which came back at 3.9. Terrifying! Or nothing? Inborn Errors of Metabolism were back on the table. An on call geneticist had the team draw a slew of metabolic labs that would take weeks to come back. We were admitted again, this time to the PICU.
EKG negative again. Lumbar puncture negative for infection along with blood and urine. LP revealed a negative lactate which we are told is a more reliable indicator for metabolic disease than the blood lactate. Brain MRI negative. Many viruses tested for and found negative. Another 48 hours of antibiotics just in case. Repeat CXR negative.
We started to notice some potential GERD, so we started Pepcid in the hopes it was causing the fast breathing. No luck. He did seem to perk up and look around more on his IV fluids which had dextrose in them.
We were discharged on the notion that there was no more testing they would do until the metabolic lab work returned, which would take weeks. Again we were told, he will probably grow out of it.
ER VISIT, 2nd week of life
Not a day after our last discharge, baby’s whole leg turned blue. We rushed back to the ER. His leg returned to normal color within minutes of us noticing. In the ER, his spo2 was high 90s with a normal heart rate (HR has always been normal). A repeat echocardiogram in the ER was negative. Acrocyanosis was diagnosed. This was probably caused by a temperature change. We have not seen it since. We were not admitted that night.
OUTPATIENT PROCEDURES/RESULTS, weeks 3 and 4 of life:
Metabolic lab work showed a slightly low carnitine, normal acylcarnitine, and a weird mixture of amino acids in the urine. The amino acids in the urine scared the hell out of us. I thought it was diagnostic of a metabolic disease. Our geneticist, however, said that she reviewed the findings with her team and it was deemed to represent an immature liver. She was not concerned. She believed that his liver would mature and the levels would normalize. She effectively told us that we could rule out metabolic causes at that point, but she offered genetic sequencing if we wanted to be completely sure. His newborn screening was completely normal.
ENT scope negative.
A chest CT to check for interstitial lung disease revealed these findings:
CHEST: LUNGS/AIRWAYS/PLEURA: The central airways are grossly patent. Mild hazy groundglass opacities could be atelectasis or mild pneumonitis, surfactant deficiency could appear similar. This appearance is generalized, and not specific to the right middle lobe or lingula (as can be seen in NEHI). Small lucency at the posterior medial right lung base could be small amount of air trapping or small cystic lesion measuring on order of 0.7 x 0.2 cm. This is the only well-defined lucent all focus which could reflect air trapping (no overall pattern of mosaic system to suggest air-trapping as can be seen in NEHI). No effusion or pneumothorax. HEART/VESSELS: The heart is normal in size without pericardial effusion. MEDIASTINUM/HILA: Limited evaluation of the hila without IV contrast. No obvious enlarged mediastinal lymphadenopathy. CHEST WALL AND LOWER NECK: The imaged thyroid gland appears intact. No axillary or subpectoral lymphadenopathy is identified.
Our pulmonologist called and said he reviewed the scan himself and that it was essentially negative. He started an empiric course of steroids which have not reduced the breathing rate. The steroids have, however, made our son much more alert and awake and attentive. He has been finding our faces and smiling. They may also been making his colic (yes he is a very colicky baby on top of all of this) a bit worse. We have seen him briefly lift his head off the boppy. We have seen him focusing on high contrast images.
His stools are normal. He makes plenty of wet diapers. He has good muscle tone. His overall condition hasn’t really changed throughout
My current concerns: Are we certain we can rule out metabolic disease? CT scan showed possible surfactant deficiency?? Shouldn’t we follow up on that? What else could this be? Neuromuscular disease? If it were to resolve on its own, when would that happen? My son is back to being very sleepy! Is that a brain process? Did we test too early? Is he going to start showing developmental delay?
I cannot eat or find a moments peace. If anyone has any light to shed, I would appreciate it so very much. Thank you.

Hey, I'm looking for someone to spend my time with.
I'm a guy who works out regularly and I highly care about my appearance. I can easily say I'm above average but everyone has their own taste of course. I'm open to selfie trades.
I'm 6.1 - 185cm, white skin, black hair and eyes
I'm a Concept/2D Artist, and I'm also into 3D and sculpting.
I'm loyal, empathetic, and love to share everything with my partner, also expect the same thing.
I love melancholy in general, sad songs, sad environment, tragedy, dark fantasy...
I'm not thinking about having a child right now but in the future I might, hence if you don't want a child that's a dealbreaker for me.
Another dealbreaker is, having a high body count. Personally, I don't have any experience on purpose. I'm only into serious relationships and I don't like to waste my time on people, so please do know what you want / your needs.
My hobbies are: working out & powerlifting, jogging, spending time with loved ones (especially my cat), video games, reading manga, watching movies, or anime, skincare, hair care, and watching my ceiling while listening to my self suffering Spotify playlists.
I really like getting and giving attention. If we can connect I'd love to share my everything with you. I prioritize my partner and I expect the same thing. If you can't make time for me that's a direct dealbreaker.
I'm also an open book, I'm against having a private life from your partner. Take my phone and inspect it however you want, I hide nothing.
I'm an agnostic.
Well if you're interested, feel free to send me a DM!

Ok, I know how the title sounds, but before ya’ll grab your torches and pitchforks, let me give you some background info. Also, sorry that it's a long post.
I (35 female) met my husband (40 male, we’ll call him Tom) 11 years ago. We were both still in the party phase of our twenties at that time. We drank and parties a lot,and had jobs where that sort of lifestyle was common (I was a waitress, and he had also worked in restaurants). During this time, my money was never well spent (obviously), and I got my car repoed twice, and had to move in with him to survive. This really made him reevaluate our current lifestyle.
Tom dragged me into a healthier lifestyle kicking and screaming. I still wanted to party, but I didn’t want to lose him. What we didn’t know at the time is that I had undiagnosed severe depression, anxiety, and PTSD. The party lifestyle was my way of self-medicating, and we didn’t find this out until much later.
I ended up getting a job as a medical assistant, and he finished his degree and got a government job. We moved across the country, got married, and had a baby, all while I didn’t really have a solid grasp on my mental health struggles.
After the birth of our daughter, I realized that I still had a lot of work to do in order to become the mother that she deserved. I finally saw my doctor about my struggles, got into talk therapy, and was placed on medication. It took a couple of tries, but I am finally on a good regimen, and my mental health is better than it has ever been.
I also took the birth of my daughter as an opportunity to quit my job and start working on a degree of my own. This is where the roles in Tom and my relationship started to become a problem.
As soon as we discussed my plan to go to school, Tom took it upon himself to find a college program for me, and he picked LPN (licensed practical nurse). I explained to him that while I wanted to stay in the medical field, I didn’t want to move into the world of nursing for a variety of reasons. He insisted that it was the best choice for our family, and that I would love it.
I told him that I really didn’t think it would suit me well, but that if he really wanted me to go into nursing, I should try to become an RN, because the pay would be better, and the training would be more comprehensive. He disagreed and said that we couldn’t afford for me to be in school for that long.
I really didn’t want to argue with him, and I felt myself shutting down, which is what I’ve always done when presented with conflict.
Day after day he would ask me if I had contacted the school he picked, or if I started the registration process. This constant pressure also made it very difficult for me to move forward. But finally, one day, while he was at work, and our daughter napped, I looked through the different programs available at the school that he picked. I found radiology technologist, and this quickly caught my interest. I called the school, scheduled my placement test, and was put in touch with who would end up being my advisor.
When he got home, I told him about what I had accomplished, and how excited I was about this particular program. He looked confused, and said something to the effect of “But I thought you wanted to do the LPN program? When did you change your mind?”
I explained, “No, you wanted me to do the LPN program, and I told you I didn’t want to get into nursing. I only agreed with you because you pushed it so hard. But look, this is also a two-year program, I’ll end up being an X-Ray tech, which I think will suit my strengths a lot better, and it has a lot of the same requirements.”
We ended up agreeing that Rad Tech was the best idea, but his has always insisted that LPN was my idea.
Fast forward two years. I am thriving in school, as a mother, and with my mental health. Our daughter is due to start pre-school in the fall, and I will be transferring schools to complete my degree. I have a 3.9 GPA, I am part of a prestigious honor society, and have earned numerous scholarships. I would like to think that I have grown up immensely in the past few years.
However, Tom still often treats me like a child. He does this in a lot of different ways. I’ll talk about buying a certain toy for our daughter, and if he doesn’t like the toy, he’ll usually just say “No, we’re not doing that.” If I push, he’ll say something to the effect of “You know how I feel about this,” which is his way of saying “End of conversation.” Whatever the issue is, we will almost always navigate through it and find a compromise. I don’t shut down with confrontation anymore and have gotten much better at arguing my points of view. But the way he talks to me seems super dismissive and has the same tone as a strict father talking to a rebellious teen. He can also be a complete man-splainer to an extreme degree.
I finally reached my breaking point with the way he talks to me yesterday. I had gone to my new campus to pick up my student I.D. and to walk around and get a feel for the place. I ended up being able to also get a copy of my class schedule before it was posted online. I realized that they had registered me for a class that I had already completed this past semester.
Tom called me while he was at lunch to chat, and I told him a bit about my day, and the mix up with my classes. I told him that I would make sure updated transcripts got sent to the campus, and I would email my advisor to discuss filling the slot with a different class (To be fair, I did say “with a B.S. class,” but obviously that isn’t how I would phrase it in the email). Tom started telling me “No, don’t do that. First, you have to make sure that you get new transcripts ordered, and then explain to him that you would rather take a humanities class. You can’t say a ‘B.S. class.’” He went on and on for a while.
Essentially, he took almost his entire lunch break to not only tell me what to do, but most of what he said, was what I had already planned on doing. When he had tired himself out with his rant, I stayed quiet, and just said “Ok.” He asked if I was mad, and I simply said “No, but please stop treating me like a child and trust that I will get this done on my own. You basically just took 15 minutes to tell me the exact same thing that I told you.”
Later that night, while I was cooking dinner, he opened the envelope that had my schedule in it, which had my name on it, not his, and started reading the schedule. This is a huge pet peeve of mine, but no matter how often I tell him this, he still does it. He then started trying to explain to me what all the different abbreviations on the form meant (which I already knew), and then started saying that he didn’t like how my schedule was set up. He thought it was too many classes one right after the other (it’s 3 classes in a row and would allow time for me to finish my school day early). He started telling me that I needed to tell my advisor to stretch out my schedule to allow time for a long lunch break, possibly with study time in between, yada yada.
I say yada yada, because I honestly stopped hearing what he was saying after a moment. Was he literally doing the exact same thing that I had asked him to stop earlier that day? Was he really man-splaining my class schedule to me? Was he really under the impression that he could tell me what to tell my advisor? I ended up cutting him off in the middle of whatever he was saying and said “Hey, you’re doing it again. Can you please stop treating me like a child? I’ll take care of this myself.”
He responded “You know I’m just trying to help. But if you don’t want my help, then fine. I’ll just shut up then.”
I lost it at that moment. The flood gates opened, and I honestly had no control over the words that came out of my mouth. I yelled that he wasn’t trying to help, that he was trying to dictate. I threw my GPA in his face, and explained how much I accomplished, while being the full time caregiver to our child, cooking every meal, running every household errand, and keeping our house spotless. I yelled that I wasn’t the dress over my head party girl who needed a guiding hand anymore, and that I was a grown ass responsible woman. I ended it with “You need to stop treating me like a Goddamn child and start treating me like a partner, because I’ve earned it.”
Tom was silent. We haven’t had a fight that involved yelling in years. He wasn’t used to this side of me at all. Eventually he apologized, said that I was right, and then went to have some alone time to process everything.
Here’s why I think that I may have been the asshole, and no, it’s not him trying to gaslight me into thinking I am. As I play the whole thing back in my head, I can’t help but think that I seriously crossed a line or two. First, our daughter, who is only two years old, was in the room with us. I never want us to be the type of parents that yell and scream in front of her.
Second, in the span of just a couple of years, I basically completely flipped the script on him. The beginning, and most of our relationship was spent with him being the grown up, and me being the screw up. I have essentially changed my entire brain chemistry with medication, have had talk therapy to help me grow as a person. Basically, I’ve reinvented myself. While all this has happened over the course of two years, you’d be surprised how quickly that time flies by in your late thirties/early forties, especially with a baby/toddler thrown into the mix. To Tom, it really could seem like this change, and my anger has come out of nowhere.
Also, just because I’ve changed, doesn’t mean that he has. He hasn’t been through the same hormonal and chemical changes that I’ve been through. Maybe I am the asshole for expecting the person he has always been to suddenly conform to the new me.
So what’s the verdict? Am I the asshole?

I AM NOT OOP. OOP IS u/BabyBaconBits
Originally posted on relationships
Content warning: blood
1 update - medium-ish
Original Post (recovered with rareddit) - June 4th, 2024
Update - June 6th, 2024
My husband keeps telling other people about my periods
I (31F) am married to my wonderful husband (35M). We have also recently become first-time parents to our beautiful baby.
My husband is pretty much perfect in every single way...except for one, recurrent issue. He keeps telling other people very sensitive information about my gynecological health. Examples of this include: - Telling his mother details about my menstrual cycle - Telling his male boss when I was diagnosed with uterine fibroids - Specifying exactly what kind of doctor's appointment we are going to (IUD insertion) when asking his mother to babysit for us
I have told him that him sharing this kind of sensitive information about what is going on in my pants bothers me, and he has apologized every time. This morning though, he did it AGAIN.
I had a very severe first postpartum period last night, so bad that the health line nurse recommended we call 911. It was so bad, I was almost fainting from blood loss. I refused to go to the hospital, but my husband took the day off work to stay home and look after me and the baby today. I am still feeling weak and dizzy today, so I appreciated this.
HOWEVER, this morning over breakfast, my husband mentioned that he had explained why he wasn't at work to a male coworker over text. As in, he had described exactly what was going on with me, my fibroid issue, the bleeding, everything. Bear in mind that I have never even met this male coworker, and certainly wouldn't have shared this kind of information with him of my own volition.
I got upset, my husband apologized, familiar scenario yet again. I get it, he feels good commiserating about my admittedly very stressful and difficult to manage 'lady problems' with his married coworkers and his mom. It helps him cope, especially after a night spent trying to decide whether I need to be rushed to the emergency room. Still, I AM NOT COMFORTABLE with strangers (or his mother!) knowing the details of what's currently happening in my poor, malfunctioning uterus.
So, am I justified in getting increasingly more irritated and upset with my husband every time I find out that's he's been discussing my gyno issues with other people, even though he says it helps him decompress/explain absences from work?
How should I handle this situation?
Tldr: My husband keeps telling people details about my period problems. Am I justified in being upset, even when he's supporting me through these issues?
Edit: My husband is not autistic, nor does he have ADHD. Normally he is quite good about not sharing something once I tell him the subject is off-limits. For some reason, he just doesn't seem to be able to get on board with the idea that anyone should find this kind of information embarrassing or invasive.
Relevant Comments
[Comments are quite varied. Many are very harsh about husband, some mention reddit classic of divorce. A number of commenters helpfully advise OOP to start telling everyone that her husband has ED, diarrhea, shits his pants, etc. ]
OOP has a conversation thread with MadameWaste
Jesus, these comments. If he needs to talk to someone so badly HE should see a therapist.
Your medical information is literally that, yours. It's a breach of trust to talk about it without your permission.
If this was a post about a wife constantly talking to her female coworker and father about her husband's quick ejaculation or impotence, I'm sure people would be defending him. Father-in-law casually bringing up his medical issues, "Hey champ, heard you're having a little problem downstairs. Don't worry, my plumbing ain't what it used to be." Yeah, I'm sure that seems totally okay.
That is EXACTLY what this feels like! 😂😅🥲 My MIL has literally tried to bring up the volume of my period flow and make recommendations regarding it, after my husband over-shared with her. To say this made me uncomfortable is the understatement of the year. And the thought of his male coworkers knowing similar details makes me want to crawl into a hole and grow moss. 😶‍🌫️
I would never be able to go to a work event if my husband told his coworkers about my vagina in any way, and I'm not a very prudish person at all. I just feel like your personal health issues are your own unless YOU choose to disclose them. That's literally why HIPAA* laws exist in the first place.
That's what I told my husband this morning; that I am officially never going to any of his work events, if this information about my gynecological health has been shared around his office. He seemed startled, but also kind of like it was starting to click just how unhappy I was that his coworkers are privy to my personal info.
I totally get it, I would feel prejudged and so exposed. Like a specimen on a table. In a room full of strangers who know intimate details about my genitals. That's some horror movie shit, honestly lol.
YES. THIS. EXACTLY THIS!!! jumping and waving and pointing at this comment THIS IS EXACTLY HOW I FEEL, and I just wish there was some way for my husband to vent and process his feelings without spilling the scariest and most vulnerable moments of my intimate health to total strangers/my lacking-in-boundaries MIL. 😵‍💫
Update - 2 days later
Okay. Wow. My original post devolved into a mess of...something.
So first of all, a few extra things to clarify:

• Yes, I understand that refusing medical advice to go to the hospital carries risks. Where we live though, unless you are literally on Death's doorstep, you will wait 12+ hours in an ER to be triaged. Sitting in a growing pool of my own blood, with our baby, in a crowded waiting room, did not sound like a helpful place to be. Especially since I already know what's wrong with me (I'm 3 months postpartum with large, symptomatic uterine fibroids) and no, I am not open to the possibility of a hysterectomy at this time. I want more kids.
• No, my husband is not autistic, narcissistic, or in any other way developmentally or emotionally limited. Neither is he abusive. Jeezus, people, now I'm offended FOR my husband.
• No, my own family does not live nearby. During the fallout of my traumatic labour and emergency C-section, my MIL and FIL were literally the only family support that we had on-scene. My MIL definitely has a habit of being a chronic over-sharer with much fewer personal boundaries than me, but she 100% means well. Even though it makes me a little embarrassed when she does things like send over various herbs and teas with FIL, along with detailed instructions on how to use them for 'menstrual problems', I also get that she's doing it from a place of caring.
• Yes, husband and MIL are chronically up to their eyeballs in each other's lives. Always have been, always will be. He is an only child, and she was a single teenage mother when he was born. Plus mothers being super involved in their adult children's lives is a bit cultural for them. Do I sometimes wish he would share less about our married life with her? Heck yeah! Is that a hill that I can/will die on? Nope. I knew this about my husband when I married him.

So...
The suggestions on my original post ranged from helpful (clarify boundaries, seek support, see the issue from both perspectives) to, frankly, toxic and abusive (spread his personal medical information around publically, berate him, insult him, leave him in the dark about my health status, and my personal favourite, threaten to leave him).
Y'all, this man literally does everything and more for me. He held me through serious prenatal/postpartum depression, drove me back and forth across the city to seek help for my issues, sits up with me at midnight on the bathroom floor to ensure that my bleeding eventually stops during an episode, stays home with me when I'm anemic to watch over both me and our baby, changes diapers, cooks me food, lets me dictate the pace of our postpartum sex life, checks that I'm taking my meds, does all the heavy-lifting housework, tells me he loves me, reassures me, comforts me...
Does this give him a free pass to discuss my gynecological issues in public? No.
So, he and I sat down yesterday and established clear rules. He officially has my permission to discuss my Lady Problems with the one other lady of importance in his life...his mom. It helps him process after a scary episode (he admitted to crying out of fear for my safety after I finally fell asleep following the latest bloodbath), and his mom is our biggest support.
As for work, he is to say that "My wife is struggling with postpartum medical issues." No less, no more. If his boss needs further info, we will have my midwife draw up a doctor's note. My husband agreed to this, apologized, we kissed and made up. I also promised to remember to take my iron pills. Because anemia.
As for me, I learned a valuable less here. Be careful soliciting advice from the internet, because everyone will bring their own baggage to the issue. It's a little concerning how quickly so many people will figuratively advocate for flogging a loving husband in the public square, just because he's not handling a single issue perfectly. 💔
Thank you to everyone who gave constructive, thoughtful advice.
tldr: My husband and I talked, clearly established boundaries, kissed and made up. Reddit is nuts.
Relevant Comments
grumpy__g
Didn’t you mention that you did all of that before? And that he again and again ignored your wishes?
While I had grumbled and expressed that I didn't like other people knowing about my gyno issues, I hadn't actually laid down clear Yes/No boundaries and established a script that my husband could use.
Now my husband knows exactly who he can and cannot discuss my issues with, and what to say to people whom he cannot elaborate with.
Good. Let’s hope he understands this time.
I stand with my advice to not tell him anything till he learns. But also to tell him that you would do the same to him and to see how he reacts/would like it. Not that you really should tell people about his problems.
cartoonist62
I'm glad you've found a solution you are happy with. But please, talk to your doctor about iron infusions. Supplements are fine for normal anemia, not for people with chronic bleeding conditions like this!
Thanks for the reminder! I actually did get a series of IV iron infusions in the final weeks of my pregnancy, because my anemic fainting was to the point where my husband couldn't leave me unsupervised. 😱 Might be time to go in for another infusion...
Some commenters feel called out and have some thoughts about that
Redditor A
You also this audaciously rude in person, or do you keep your “oh my you broken people” schtick to Reddit? Those people were outraged on your behalf, god forbid.
Just say thank you for the free advice you got from the internets that solved the issue you couldn’t on your own, OP.
Redditor B
This post is so weird. I’m sorry you found it so upsetting that people were upset and worried for you. They came to that conclusion based on your own description of your husband’s completely inappropriate behavior. But you’re right, everybody else is the problem, not you, not your husband who talks about your vagina to his boss. That’s totally normal, respectful husband behavior!
Redditor C
Wow. The way you viciously attack and judge well-meaning strangers on this platform is appalling. Ok, Karen. We get it. Your clueless husband is not abusive and in fact he's a downright saint 😵‍💫.
Marked concluded per OOP.
If you have comments, keep them HERE. DO NOT brigade over to the original post to comment. DO NOT harass the OOP with dms or replies.
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I 16M, and my brother 15M live with my father 37M and it is a living hell. My brother and I are in a group chat with our mother who was kicked out of our property thanks to my father with their ongoing divorce. Their divorce started basically because of my father's binge drinking and he would begin to lash out at my mom and just act useless and be deplorable. The sad thing is, is he thinks he can spend money to buy me and my brother's love (Fortnite cards, video games, etc). He even pretends to be sugar sweet when in reality he sends my mom horrible messages basically demeaning her as a human being. He always needs to be in control, like with money, clothes you wear (if they're dirty or not), and what you do in your day to day life. As I'm writing this he invited people to this "cookout" with relatives from his side we resent, (uncle, aunt, cousin, and grandma). He also texted me saying "Yeah, I really can't, bud. I have my bosses out here and I need to impress them." when I asked if they could tone things down. He also has a disabled brother with autism who is non-verbal, and cant do anything for himself, (clothing himself, bathing, etc), and he, and my grandma just leaves him in the house whenever he has guests, completely disregarding his needs. Not only that, he gets mileage checks to take him places, but all he's ever at is his home because he doesn't take him anywhere. I barely use Reddit, I've talked to my mom about reporting him to the police for what he's doing to me and my brother emotionally, but I know if I were to do that, I'd be in foster care, and I don't want that at all. He has made Facebook statuses about women he'd like to have sexual intercourse with, while he was married to my mom, and he completely disregarded their marriage together at times. He treats me and my brother like we're toddlers for no reason, even though I'm 16 and he's 15, he hasn't worked a day in his life; when he was married to my mom, he'd usually dump his brother on her, and make her watch him even though it's his job. My mom now lives multiple towns away because of his antics of all of these factors, I have a high reputation in the small town I live in, I played football and basketball for my high school, and pretty much anyone in my town knows my name. Anytime halftime would come around playing football, he'd sneak away to go drink beer. This isn't the NFL, you can't be drinking at a high school football game. I'm thinking of starting over, and moving down to where my mom is at, train for football and basketball, get a part time job to pay for a car and my probationary license, and graduate in a different high school because that's what my father has caused me to think like. I've even had thought's of suicide because of how he treats my family; a year prior to all of this my grandfather died of leukemia, and he puts all of his drinking on that, he claims he's never done it before that, but he's asked me for so many years to fetch him beers. You know the "When son won't fetch me beers" meme? I don't even find it funny because of what feels like trauma hits me. It gets worse, he even said I'd be a good bartender even though I hated dropping everything I'm doing to fetch him beers. Some nights it got so bad, I'd have to give him two at one time. He has also talked behind my mom's back to her parents, and now they won't even talk to her. But enough about my father, let's talk about my "relatives".
First: My grandma. She is just as if not worse than him. She is a narcissist, she does Christmas as bribery for putting up with her narcissism, and if you don't do anything her way, she takes a present away. Not only that, but she hated my mom for many years as well (underpaying her, kept her away from my disabled uncle, etc). She is also very disgusting, she pees and poops in her pants, and doesn't bother to change. She laughs it off, like it's a big game, and sits in it. Her and my father died laughing as I was holding their closet door shut trying not to get scratched by their cat they pick on as well. She condones homophobia, racism, and transphobia, she always thinks you're lying when something needs to get done with her life. She claims to be a Christian, when in reality she cherry-picks The Bible. She also has disowned my transgender cousin who identifies as male, saying how "it's the devil's work on why he's transgender".
Second: My uncle. He is a failure. He has 5 children, 4 of them are with his current wife (my aunt) and they all hate him. He cut off his first born daughter and grandchild, only God knows why, he drinks, he says racist slurs, he pretty much discriminates everybody, and his opinion always needs to be heard, and it's usually about politics. He also disowned my cousin who happens to be transgender, which is makes him a horrible uncle to him
Third: My aunt. She is such a backstabber, she literally can't say anything to your face, she can't discipline her kids, she's a failure of a mother, together, her and her husband (my uncle) go bar hopping to let their kids (my cousins) "raise themselves" and she claims my mom has abused my uncle while taking care of him in place of my father. She, like my uncle, and grandmother, have also disowned my transgender cousin, and misgender him on the daily and dead-name him.
Last but certainly not least: My cousin, (a different cousin). She is a recently graduated high school student and has her whole life ahead of her, but instead rather tries to spy on my mom, and try to "relate" to me and my brother, when there's nothing to relate to only that her parents are divorced as well. Young and impressionable, but decides to throw her life away for alcohol and parties.
So in conclusion, my father's side of the family are hateful, bigoted, and live by their own rules based on their narcissism. They don't care if you're disabled or not, they don't care if you have a different opinion because it's always wrong and they're always right. You can't do anything, wear anything unless it's father approved, and you can't buy anything within a certain budget because he has to control money as well. My grandma has to have Christmas AKA the bribery for her narcissism and is probably worse than my father in terms of bigotry; disowning my transgender cousin, and cherry picks Bible verses on her day to day life.

Hi 👋 this Sunday, June the 2nd my boyfriend and I had sex after, likely months, of no sex… specifically in hopes of avoiding ever needing to worry about being pregnant lol 🙃 I am not on birth control anymore and we did not use protection. My period ended on may 22nd, so I’d guess I am currently a little over two weeks into my cycle - Anyway On Monday I felt okay, but had a concerning amount of watery discharge, which I thought would have ended the week before in my cycle.
Tuesday thru Thursday I started to feel better and was able to be really productive, and I have been drinking mugwort tea because it is rumored to prevent pregnancies, but today I am absolutely shot I don’t know if it’s the full moon, or my body slowly letting me know I am about to have a baby and to chill out, or if it is the cycle of my period but I have not had much energy to do anything more than the bare minimum today and
Also, tmi but I have noticed myself unusually more horny lately, almost to a point where I can not function.
The research I have done on my own says that it is too early to take a test, but if I get implantation bleeding tomorrow or Sunday, I might have a better idea or knowing what is going on
If you have any insight into your first days of pregnancy and clues about what to look for, that would be so appreciated!! Thank you!

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post this here but it's not like I'm committing a war crime, right?
I’ll delete my post after finding the person I’m looking for, so even if you find this post months later by searching up some words, don't hesitate to send me a message. If this post is still up, it means that I haven’t found someone but got tired of sharing it with no avail. I know that I would feel terrible if I were to share this post every day for months, so I will only do it for a week. Then, I will check this account from time to time to see if someone has messaged me. I’ve tried doing this in the past and although I wasn’t as blunt as I am in this post, I couldn’t really find someone like myself and don’t have much hope that I’ll find her this time either. But, I’m kinda naive and desperate when it comes to having a relationship or deeper connection with someone who is like me and with whom I could share everything, so here I’m writing this post..
Honestly, I'm not exactly sure why I'm writing this post since I know that the likelihood of someone like me finding this post on Reddit is quite small but as I said above, I’m quite desperate to have a deeper connection with someone and am not the type of person who would feel satisfied just by having superficial relationships with people I’m not even similar to so trying my chance here..
Over the years, I've become better mentally (take this with a grain of salt lol) and there are things I'm still working on but I feel like my past has changed my mind in ways that it would be impossible to recover from or become 'normal' or a 'normie' again. Although I don't really understand how quickly I grow up, in some ways I feel really old and starting to feel existential dread that mostly stems from my extreme loneliness. I feel incredibly lonely but I still don't want to give up who I am for superficial relationships or friendships just so that I can feel a tiny bit of connection with someone. I crave a deeper connection with someone who is like me in most ways and who also wants the same thing. I want something where both of us can be extremely honest with our lives, struggles and thoughts and just share everything with each other, be miserable, weird and pathetic together. I feel like most people try to seem perfect to attract someone but that’s not really what I’m looking for. I’ve had a quite traumatic childhood and that really impacted my life in many ways and caused me to become basically a ‘loser’. We may argue that spending thousands of hours thinking and scrolling through the internet has its own benefits but at the end of the day, that shatters you into pieces and turns you into a really weird person. I’m attracted to other people who are losers and broken like me. I know that ‘loser’ is a very general term, but NEET, hikikomori, socially inept, depressed, lonely, weird, outcast yk whatever you call it.. I was all of them and still some of them.. I really enjoy seeing parts of myself in an another person and connecting with them through our suffering and misery.. It feels bad to say this but I feel closer to people who are also traumatized, broken, weird and a bit crazy..
I literally have no friends at the moment but I don't think making friends is a huge challenge for me. Since I'm moving to Germany next year and planning to stop being a NEET, I don’t really want to go out of my way to make friends irl. But from what I’ve observed, I don’t really struggle as much as the people in my situation when it comes to making or maintaining friendships. My problem is that I don't feel a strong connection because of my past, interests, thoughts and ways of thinking, so I tend to distance myself after feeling alienated and not feeling that deeper connection. I honestly hate superficial and basic things but I've never encountered anyone who didn't want to be my friend, so I suppose you could say that I'm a good friend?? I don’t know why I’m saying this since I don’t find this something to be proud of because at the end of the day, what being a good friend brings to your life, right? But I guess I wanted to say it in my post to seem a bit more friendly? And don’t get me wrong, I've had really bad social anxiety for years and I still do but it's not as bad as it used to be. I can be a bit obsessive and clingy if I start liking someone but that does barely happen. And when it does happen, it's not on an extreme level and I guess even ‘'normal' people like it but it could be too much for some people. I don't exactly know why I'm like this, but although I haven't been diagnosed, I suspect I may have quiet BPD or something like that. But also, I'm not mentally unstable the majority of the time, so I'm not really sure. It could just be that years of social isolation and loneliness have increased my desire to find someone like myself and that has kind of turned into a bit of an obsessive thing?? I really don't know. I also really like people who are obsessive and clingy. I know it's quite childish and unhealthy (honestly, don't care about the unhealthy part) but I've been into yanderes since my childhood. It's probably because I desire someone who would obsessively want me the way I am and love me. It’s quite cringe too but I want to be extremely honest in this post since I really do want to find someone like myself. And I'm not going to sugarcoat anything and will just write as soon as I remember something, so my post may feel like a jumbled mess.
I honestly don’t know what else I can say here but I want to say more things about myself to not give a wrong impression. Surprisingly, I’m not a sexist or a racist. I feel like it’s quite common for people who had a similar past to mine and spent hours chronically online to become those things. You may be surprised but I’m also quite surprised how I didn’t turn out to be an incel, I really do wonder that lol. I find both racism and sexism quite stupid. I mean.. A lot of men and women will whine, cry and generalize things about each other without really thinking how they behave or act and most of the time, it’s the consequence of their actions and choices. I guess it’s easier for most people to blame others so they keep doing that. As I said, I’m not an incel but for some reason I find femcels kinda attractive? Again, it’s quite cringe and even pathetic but yeah.. It probably stems from my self-hatred. A lot of guys will say that most women are into abusive/toxic guys but I’m also into women like that?.. I know it's unhealthy but I can’t really control it. I’m not going to say that you have to be a good person because I kinda find that hint of evil attractive? I obviously also like the idea of having someone loving and affectionate, but having someone toxic/abusive doesn't sound that bad for me either. I don’t know.. I’m not toxic or abusive at all but find those traits attractive for some reason (most likely because of my traumas) You don’t have to be any of those things by the way, I’m just being honest to tell as much as I can about myself. And, about racism.. I believe that certain groups of people and people from certain cultures are more likely to commit crimes, do bad things and behave in certain ways but that mostly stems from their financial situations, households, families, social circles and many other external things, so it’s not simply because of their color or race, that’s what I believe and I guess some people may even consider this as racism, but I don’t.. I’m a bit of a misanthrope though, I hate most people regardless of their gender or race. I even look down at normies from time to time.. I don’t know if I’m being narcissistic by saying this but I feel like spending thousands of hours thinking and scrolling through depths of the internet gave me a very unique way of analyzing things and thinking about them.
I guess it’s also quite rare to think this after years of brainrotting but I’m also quite fine with people being LGBT, although I don’t really agree with it politically. But yk, I don’t agree with the majority of the things politically. I don’t vote and I'm not going to vote since I don’t really have any trust in the political system and personally believe that most politicians will pick a side and act in their self interest to make the most amount of money possible. And I’m not extremely firm about most of my beliefs, I’m quite open to discuss and change them, I would prefer you to be open-minded like me too. Socially, I mostly have leftist values and economically, I also tend to lean towards the left but I don’t have enough economical knowledge to be sure about it. I like to argue and talk about it but I don’t really care who wins or not. It’s just all a show to fearmonger, divide and possibly give the illusion that people have the choice, imo. I also believe in some conspiracy theories but I’m not extremely crazy about it. It’s mostly about the political system and my distrust in it. I think that there could be aliens but there’s also a possibility of us being the only civilization in the universe. I’m also quite skeptical about the idea of god, I’m sure that the sky daddy doesn’t exist but some higher powebeing that we could not understand or comprehend might be out there, or it’s just nothingness. I’m quite scared about the afterlife and death honestly. I would like to cheat and live for a really long time, assuming that I’ve got a hold of my life and have an average life.. I’m also quite scared of aging and all that stuff. I was quite suicidal years ago and was at the brink of ending it multiple times. Fundamentally, I don’t really believe that life has a deeper meaning but I believe that it’s possible to make it meaningful for ourselves. I also kinda feel pathetic for writing this long of a post on some random site to find someone but I don’t know.. I just hope that someone would really relate to this post but also have the desire and willingness to find someone like herself? I don’t know, let’s become close friends and maybe it will evolve into something else or not.. I hopefully won't find this post cringe after reading it and change my mind to post it. I find a lot of stuff I wrote/posted in the past quite cringe and deleted a lot of them.. I don’t know if a lot of people do that..
What else… Uh.. I used to watch gore a lot when I was really depressed and now I don’t really watch it but mostly look into ‘morbid curiosity’ things.. I’m tall and a bit ugly? I look masculine but emotionally kinda feminine? I’m not sure anymore honestly, I’m way more empathetic and emotional than your average man and I guess as a man, that makes you feminine? Or maybe it doesn’t, I’m not sure but although I’m like that I’m trying to be less of it, I don’t believe that being an extremely good person in today’s society isn’t an achievement. I would prefer to keep that side of me only to my partner but I don’t know if I could be like that ever. I’m a switch (into a lot of weird stuff, you can guess that ig) but lean towards sub, especially in relationships..?? That’s what I imagine at least.. I love to cook, bake, go on walks, shitpost, brainrot, daydream and read when I’m not having an existential crisis, which is quite rare nowadays. I used to read a lot of philosophical novels and literature but kinda gave up on them after realizing that they made me sadder by forcing me to think about life and other ‘deeper’ things. I feel like I’ve told everything about myself here, especially the worst ones so you know what you’re getting into lol
I’m basically looking for someone like myself to either become close friends or become mroe (not sure how that's gonna work ecause of the potential distance between us) I don’t know if an online friend who is like me could help me with my loneliness or exaggerate it but I’m willing for anything with someone who is like me I guess. Just be like me and be honest with who you are ^
If you’ve found my post interesting and related to it in some ways, please send me a message and introduce yourself like I did in my post. Please, be honest with who you are and what you think. Tell me why you think we may be similar and I guess other things you may want to say too. I hope you won’t see sending that first message as a burden and put some effort into it because I did the same with this post

After a couple of hours of non-stop work, R’aart still puzzled as it cut out yet another section of bulkhead from around the galley. It was supposed to be a technician, repairing and maintaining, not a deconstruction element. It looked over at its fellow Dravitian, Lindr, who was loading cut sections of structural members onto a servoloader, and raised its voice over the sounds of the cutter, “Why are even doing this? Those Terrans have already used all our spare bar stock. This just feels wrong.”
Lindr turns its triangular head to face where R’aart was silhouetted against the sparks and glowing metal from the cutter’s action on the bulkhead. “They need more reinforcing for the cargo bay project. I do not understand how they plan to terraform the vacuum, though.” It paused, “Do you think that those geriatric Terrans have suffered neural damage from the extended time in cold-sleep?”
R’aart finished the last line of the cut and a section of plating with edges glowing orange clanged ti the deck. As it sent the cutter into its cool-down safety setting, it offered, “I suspect that could be the case. The noises that pass for their entertainment…” It shuddered slightly. “However, Engineer Allyson holds them in high esteem. She spoke of them as if they were super-beings.”
Lindr nodded slowly, “Yes. But if they flaunt safety limits at a degree proportionally higher than Engineer Allyson does, relative to how she speaks of them, I fear for our safety.”
R’aart turned on its lower four extremities, fully facing its fellow technician. “As opposed to the Jaxorians that are bound to catch us?”
-=-=-=-=-=-
“The two Jaxorian vessels are will be within weapons range within the hour.” The Dravitian Captain’s words came over the music that still came from the Terran’s console on the bridge.
William sighed. “Crap. Okay, sooner than I wanted, but we can work with that.” He thumbed the control on his console and the sounds of The The’s Infecteddied away as he leaned in toward the microphone on the side of the touchscreen. “Hey guys. We have an hour before they blast us. How close to ready are we?”
AJ’s voice came over the console speaker, “Capacitors are all charged, and we’ve reinforced all the wiring to take the extra amps. These reactors are showing some strain, though, so keep that in mind.”
Tony’s voice sounded sort of hollow with the echos, “These engines will flare, probably for three minutes give or take. Because of the way I had to disable these dampers, once the flare starts there’s no way of stopping it, so make sure we’re aimed at empty space, okay?”
Allyson’s voice came next, “Pete says that he’s almost done with welding the braces. Everything’s wired, and there’s a relay switch set back in engineering.” Her voice paused, then asked, “And, once we get this set, what is it going to do?”
William chuckled, “Allyson, thank Pete and have him explain about Puff, okay? AJ, Tony, great job guys. Harden up anything you can, then see if there’s anything you can rig up that might stop invaders if things go south, okay?”
As the crew’s voices chimed in with their agreement, William cued up Yaz’s Situation and went back to his coding.
The Dravitian navigator looked over at the Terran, “Sir? May I be filled in on your plan?”
William’s fingers continued to work on the virtual keys as he started to speak, “Sorry, I’ve just been focused here. I should have said something before. We’re going to pretend to lose power in one of the fusion reactors, and let the crab-guys catch up. Then, when we get close, we’ll attack the ship that’s going to want to board, and then we’ll peel out, doing some damage to the other ship.” He looks up from the keys and over to the insectoid, “I’ll just need you to maneuver us so that the ass-end of this ship is pointed toward the enemy and the nose is headed toward about 10 million miles of clear space.”
The navigator’s upper set of extremities moved in small circles, a Dravitian gesture indicative of anxiety. “But if they board, we will all end up as feeding matter.”
William grinned a lopsided grin and shook his head, “Oh, I guarantee you that if they actually get on-board, they will heartily regret it, and we won’t go out on a platter.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
“Primary Command Crew to stations!” The sound vibrations rippled through the hydodynamic fluid.
The Jaxorian scuttled sideways out of his bunk and reached up with pincers that had small gems crusting the carapace ridges, and opened the interior hatch, feeling the slightly warmer water swirl into the bunkroom. He swam out and into the corridor, and scuttled toward the Command Center.
As he entered the large cave of the command room, he scuttled around the large black carapace of the Commissar as he moved to the weapons station. Keeping his legs in as close as he could to make himself as small as possible, he settled in and looked at the readouts.
The Coalition vessel they were chasing was rapidly coming into range. The power readings had lowered from earlier in the chase. The Jaxiorian offered, “High One, the prize will be in range for the main cannon in approximately [2 minutes]. Shall I begin charging the coils?”
The Commissar swiveled its eyestalks and took in the enhanced image on the gel projector screen. “It is a cargo vessel, yes?” she asked. Her legs churned under her and she turned her carapace to a more comfortable position on the grippy surface of the commander’s mound.
“Yes, Commissar,” answered the bright green Jaxorian at the intelligence console. “It appears laden with goods, including not only colony gear and edible beings shipped as cargo. They will be easy prey.”
The Commissar flexed her ebony bulk, “We will not fire. We could damage the prize. Ready a boarding party. Plot an intercept solution. Communicate with the escort and have them stand ready, but not to fire until I command it.” She paused, “And communicate with the prize. Alert them that they are to stand down and prepare themselves to submit.”
Activity started around the bridge as these orders were put into motion. On the screen of the weapons station, the tiny shape of the CCV K’gara B’rak slid within the orange delimiter of the targeter’s range.
-=-=-=-=-=-
“Heads up! They’ve taken the bait, and should close to boarding distance in about three minutes. Crew, get to your emergency stations, Tony be ready for my signal, and AJ, spin that reactor back up at the same time. Pete, you and Allyson make sure that the terraformers are set, because they’re going off first.” William’s voice came through all the speakers and communicators throughout the ship. “And if anyone’s been waiting on a last minute question, this is the time.”
William removed his finger from the communication control and waited in the silence. There weren’t any questions, though he didn’t expect any from the guys. And the Dravitians were good at following protocol, so they wouldn’t be panicking, at least outwardly. He waited another few seconds, then cued up the next bit of media, a slow build of steady guitar and base leading into a sudden beat that started the steady, almost ominous, beat of Don Felder’s ”Heavy Metal (Takin' a Ride)”.
The Captain looked over from the navigation console, the chitinous plates of its face pale green at the edges, “The vessel closes toward our side with the main docking area. This is in accordance with your plan, yes?”
William nodded slowly, still watching the readouts and monitors that were displayed on his touchscreen. “Yeah, though I still hate these moments before we find out if everything works out. Oh, I know my guys did everything they could, but you never know what the other guy will do.”
The Captain cocked its head, “So we gave up running so that we could let the Jaxorians catch us, inviting capture rather than running until the very end?”
William chuckled, “Oh, they’d be able to run us down, but the only way to win that game is not to play. So what we needed to do is play with home field advantage and our tricks up our sleeves. It’s a classic FAFO situation.”
The Captain held its gaze steady, “I have no translation for ‘FAFO’, sir.”
William grinned, “Let’s just say that it’s one where someone gets the consequences they deserve for the actions they take.”
The Captain paused and looked back to the navigation console. “About two of your minutes, sir.” He poked at the touchscreen. “Did you realize that you have that noise playing on all of the broadcast communications channels as well?”
-=-=-=-=-=-
The Jaxorian communications manager continued to be perplexed. “Commissar, even once I have filtered the background noise and consulted the translator circuits, I do not understand this message. Perhaps it is in code? Perhaps the background noise is significant to interpreting the meaning?”
The Commissar shifted her bulky carapace, “Overlay the translation with the background noise and put it on speaker.”
”My, oh my, how this lady can fly, once she starts rollin’ beneath you. You know you just can’t lose, the way that she moves, you wait for her to finally release you. It’s not a big surprise to feel your temperature rise; you’ve got a touch of redline fever. ‘Cause there is just one cure that they know for sure; you just become a heavy metal believer.”
The Commissar scoffed. “Nonsense words. Continue the docking approach.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
The song had ended by the time the Jaxorian cruiser had matched speed and heading with the larger form of the old Terran combat freighter and was closing the distance between them, [meter] by [meter]. The cruiser extended a docking corridor to cover the [10 meter] distance that the ships would maintain once locked in place.
The smaller Jaxorian escort ship trailed behind slightly, as the Terran craft seemed to have something wrong with it’s engines and was making a sort of lazy curve that the cruiser was on the inside of to get to the Terran ship’s docking hatch.
Automated docking lights illuminated the main boarding hatch on the Terran craft, as if in invitation, and the corridor adjusted. Just as the seals touched, however, a Terran voice came across the open communication channels, yelling “WOLVERINES!”
The side of the combat freighter glowed orange, then yellow, then white, then boiled away into the pinkish-purple of plasma. As the engines continued their work, the metal burned away and joined the cloud, then arcs of lightning and superheated matter ripped and tore at the skin of the cruiser, boiling it away and adding its mass to the cloud.
The Terran’s voice came over the channels again, calling out, “Turbo boost, KITT! Everybody hang on!” Then came a steady drumbeat.
The ion engines at the aft of the Terran craft glowed blue, and grew brighter and brighter.
Across the channels a piano’s glissando running from high to low preceded its melody, adding to the drums which added a short run to the steady beat that they went back to.
As the flare behind it gave a powerful burst, like that of a nova, the hulking cargo ship lurched forward. The front quarter of the escort ship behind it shattered and peeled, as the freighter pushed ahead. As the freighter accelerated, the following blue-white flare from the four engines tore at the cruiser as it passed.
Again across the all the communication bands driving bass and guitar joined a female Terran who sang out, “Lying in your bed on a Saturday night; you're sweatin' buckets and it's not even hot. But your brain has got the message, and it's sending it out, to every nerve and every muscle you've got.”
The force of the flare cut straight to the central core of the cruiser, seeming to ‘unzip’ the ship, folding the two halves back from the longitudinal wound that the terraforming engines had formed. While the metal skin, structure, bulkheads, and decks peeled back, sections fractured and came away in shards, releasing the hydrodynamic liquid flowed out and boiled.
Explosions wracked the surviving portions of both Jaxorian vessels while the cargo freighter continued to accelerate, leaving the destruction farther and farther behind it.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Inside the CCV K’gara B’rak, crewmembers fought against the constant shuddering acceleration to move to where makeshift power cords had overheated and caused fires, or where the sudden thrust from the initial engine flares had caused bulkhead ruptures; where some slight flaw in the materials had given way as the ship had been taken far beyond the tolerances it had been built for.
While the Dravitian crew were frantically working in the corridors, the Terrans in the engineering bay were trying to take care of their pieces, but with grins.
Tony had a cut on his forehead from an unsecured tool from the workbench that had come straight back to the engine gantry where he’d braced himself. The force of the thrust had essentially changed ‘down’ by ninety degrees, putting him at the ‘bottom’ of the huge room. As he clambered from engine to engine, making manual adjustments, he had to keep wiping at it to keep the blood out of his eyes, and he was singing along with the music on the speakers.
”You've got so many dreams, that you don't know where to put 'em, so you'd better turn a few of 'em loose. Your body's got a feeling that it's starting to rust; you'd better rev it up and put it to use.”
AJ had tied himself to a rail by the control panels for the reactors, and was hanging near an open access panel with a heavy pair of gloves, holding something in place. His face was sporadically lit by electrical arcing from within the guts of the output transformers.
”And I don't know how I ever thought that I could make it all alone. When you only make it better, then it better be tonight. I'll be there for you tonight.”
Pete was climbing his way to one of the structural beams holding an engine in place. A crack had started halfway along it and wearing one of the cuttewelder backpack units that he never knew he needed so badly before, he was pulling himself along it to try to tack it back together.
”And if you don't have anywhere to go, you go down on the pedal and you're ready to roll. And your speed. Is all you'll ever need. All you'll ever need to know.”
Tony and Pete paused and belted out with the singer on the speakers, “Darlin’, darlin’! You and me we're goin' nowhere slowly. And we've gotta get away from the past. There's nothin' wrong with goin' nowhere, baby, but we should be goin' nowhere fast! It’s so much better goin’ nowhere fast.”
Allyson marveled as she worked on the main engineering controls, trying to direct the damage control teams that R’aart and Lindr led to the worst problems, and manage routing power through undamaged circuits to where it needed to go. She had to admit that the music fit the juddering speed in a way, but it was almost like these older men had simply come alive during this crisis, almost sustained by the continual playlist. It was probably the just the cold-sleep drugs wearing off, she told herself, but still…
-=-=-=-=-=-
On the bridge, William was using his console to try and help out the Captain, whose console with the Efficiency Interface was nearly useless in this situation. In the military code, there remained the ability to adjust how much power went to which engine within a few percentages of the synchronized setting. William had four different windows with their own sliders and readouts, one for each engine, and as Tony made a mechanical adjustment or some engine gave more or less thrust than the others, he tried to control it. The shuddering of the entire ship didn’t make this an easy job.
The music still came from his console as he worked, the singer’s voice continuing, ”Stalkin' in the shadows by the light of the moon; it's like a prison and the night is a cell. Goin' anywhere has gotta be heaven tonight, 'cause stayin' here has gotta be hell.”
William knew that all it would take was for one engine to get too far out of sync and they could rip the ship apart. The Space Venture crew all knew about that. They’d learned it the hard way. The first set of Troubleshooters bound for Mars, the ones to back up the team of Explorers who had been there for two months, and help them put together the parts for the permanent outpost that had landed a week before the ten Troubleshooters left LEO on the Space Venture.
”Dyin' in the city like a fire on the water. Let's go runnin' on the back of the wind. There's gotta' be some action on the face of the earth, and I've gotta see your face once again.”
The engines had flared that trip, and the smart controls didn’t have the capacity to stabilize them. One of the three engines had ripped off, tearing part of the cargo area open, and sending four of the first-generation cold-sleep capsules adrift. The other six capsules, along with the most of the tools, stayed in the hold while the two remaining engines flared them off into The Dark.
None of Earth’s space agencies of 2026 had ships capable of catching up to them, let alone rescuing them, so they had been written off as heroic figures and relegated to the list that included Soyuz 1, Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia. Besides, those people in their fifties chosen for the one-way trip for being the practical engineers with that creative mindset knew that they were expendable. They were never meant to come back to Earth anyway.
”And I don' know where I ever got the bright idea that I was cool; so alone and independent. But I'm depending on you now.”
That trip that should have taken two weeks had turned into almost two hundred years. They were rescued by an asteroid mining facility, but with the limited medical facilities there, only five of the rescued Troubleshooters woke back up. Robert Federman never came out of cold-sleep, his brain functions at such a low level that only medical support was able to keep the body alive.
Without ready transport, they stayed on that mining facility for more than a standard year, chipping in to pay for their keep, even as it stretched the supplies of the small facility’s crew. While the survivors weren’t up on all the technological changes of the past centuries, they learned fast, and before too long, had made improvements to the facility, making life easier and more comfortable there, solidifying their reputation as Troubleshooters.
After that, there were more long, slow trips on cargo ships, again and again in cold-sleep. William wondered if the others felt that sense of dread getting back into the capsules each time. Mark Haynes sure did. He broke down and huddled into a little rocking ball, and refused to leave that space station a couple of trips back. The little furry medics had helped him away, and some Skynet was going to try and help coax him back to reality. Supposedly there would be updates.
But for the last four of the Troubleshooters, they couldn’t stop. Finally they were going to get their chance. This last voyage was supposed to take them to help set up a new colony; not a human colony, but every colony was going to have problems to solve, and that’s why they had all volunteered so long ago. There would be something solid, with real gravity to live on.
A real alien world. But they needed to survive to get there. The ship just needed to hold together. Allyson had said it was overbuilt, but still…
”And you'll always be the only thing that I just can't be without. And I'm out for you tonight. I'm comin' out for you tonight.”
“Sir! I read our acceleration slowing!” The Captain chittered. The carapace plates of the insectoid were all very pale green, and all of its extremities seemed to be trembling.
William nodded slowly and adjusted one of the sliders before he keyed the mic and leaned down toward the pickup. “Looks like the nitrous is about done, guys. Hang on for just a little longer.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
After confirming that they were no longer being chased, the CCV K’gara B’rak slowed as the engines cut out so that they could be returned to normal operating specs. Communications had been established to a nearby Coalition vessel that was on its way to provide aid. Allyson, R'aart, and Lindr were in their exosuits, working to rebuild the structure where the plasma had eaten through the ship's outer skin.
William and Pete were playing gofer and being a second set of hands for Tony and AJ as they worked to try and get the reactors and engines safe enough to make it to a real repair facility.
The Captain walked into the Engineering Bay and it paused as its head swiveled back and forth at the disarray. “How? How did this area get to such a state?”
William chuckled and looked over from where he passed AJ new relays to replace the stressed ones in a fusion reactor. “Captain? I assume that you’ve heard the rumors about the way we humans deal with engineering problems, yes?”
The Captain walked over, his four lower extremities carefully picking a clear path through the parts, tools, and coils of wire. “Well, yes, but… Those are just stories. No-one would really take those risks…”
William chuckled, “Yeah, well, now you know first hand that they aren’t just stories…”
From inside the access panel of the nearby reactor, AJ’s voice echoed, “Word. We can really make a mess when we get going…”
The Captain nodded slowly, “I can certainly attest to that. But I do want to pass on my thanks, on behalf of my crew. I must say that I have never seen such work, and I never really expected to escape from the Jaxorians.”
William nodded. “Sure. Glad we could help. We’re Troubleshooters, after all.”

And it’s probably not for the reason you think. I ride, I don’t consider my bike to be obnoxiously loud but it’s definitely not quiet. I’m not gonna go into my own experiences and the benefits of an after market exhaust because I know none of you care, but alas. The reason I’m happy that it’s a huge talking point on this sub is because it shows how great the state is. I’m not native to here and where I’m from motorcycles are the least of peoples worries because they’re far more concerned with rising levels of crime, property taxes, the extremely high and rising cost of living and a list of other issues. There’s also much more of a motorcycle “scene” there yet no one really cares that much. I have had people up here tell me they wish they could legally run bikers over or shoot them because they hate them so much. Obviously this is extreme and you’re an absolute piece of shit if you think that way, but again if that’s your biggest complaint then 🤷🏽‍♂️. NH is the safest state in the country and home to the safest city in the country (I cringe when I hear people call it manchganistan), with some of the lowest taxes, one of the best places to retire, it’s clean and picturesque and I’ve been stuck in traffic maybe once since I moved here vs my 1.5 hour 20 mile commute home from my last job in my previous state. So again, if motorcycles are your biggest complaint, maybe take a step back for a minute and realize how lucky you are!

Author note: The Cryopod to Hell is a Reddit-exclusive story with over three years of editing and refining. As of this post, the total rewrite is 2,204,000+ words long! For more information, check out the link below:
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...................................
(Previous Part)
(Part 001)
A few days after Neil and Hope's meeting.
Henry Cliff walks alone down the hallways of the Labyrinth. He wears a purple-colored T-REX, a status symbol put in place by the higher-ups as a sign of his newfound prestige and military ranking. Its color, as well as the other new colors among the army allow for a quick idea of the ranking of any human soldier at a glance, especially among those who don't know the humans well, such as their allies for today.
Henry's feet quietly plod against the Labyrinth's compacted dirt floor. His breathing remains even despite having walked for over thirty minutes. Thanks to his newly enhanced body, he could run for a thousand kilometers without breaking a sweat. Even he isn't entirely certain just how strong he is. Perhaps, if he were to come to blows with a Demon Emperor, he might roll them out like a sleeping bag.
As he walks, Henry's newfound clarity of purpose mixes with the voices and thoughts of ten thousand other members of Jepthath's Legion. No, more accurately, they are Henry's Legion, now. While their power might be derived from Jepthath, it was the Hero-King's decision to give Henry command of them and become his Voice.
Each person who joined on that day possessed their own thoughts, feelings, and talents. Their combined cumulative experience, which could now be tapped into at will, easily amounted to more than 350,000 years. If the age of every person who merged had been 10, that would have given them 100,000 years, but the fact the average turned out to be 35 elevated their cumulative total dramatically.
And that was to say nothing of the people who had once been a part of Jepthath's Legion in the past. When Henry first became inducted into the Legion, he was shocked by just how much wisdom Jepthath possessed. While he did not have the truly unfathomable and vast breadth of knowledge Solomon possessed, Jepthath was amazing in his own way. What he lacked in raw information, he made up in with mastery of combat.
If Solomon possessed the combined cumulative knowledge of humanity, Jepthath possessed its raw hand-to-hand fighting prowess. And that served to bolster Henry's state of mind significantly.
Just by integrating into the Legion, Henry's ability to peer into the essence of combat increased ten thousand-fold. Over the last few days, he had happened to pass by several different training grounds for humanity's soldiers on Maiura, most of them having been erected at some point by Neil Adams in the past six years. Henry was not impressed by what he saw. If anything, he was disgusted.
[Their movements are so crude. So lacking in refinement.] He would often think, while conversing with the ancient Hero-King. [I want to train them. I can't stand to imagine them using their sloppy combat skills against old demon monsters.]
[A waste of time.] Jepthath would chide gently, whenever he and Henry had this conversation. [The knowledge you have obtained effortlessly cannot be communicated through words or demonstrations. The only way one can become as proficient as the members of Our Legion is by directly transferring Our combined knowledge through Our souls and minds.]
[Then we have to convince more to join Us!] Henry would exclaim. [These fools are wasting their time flailing about, trying to reinvent the wheel. If they joined Us, they would gain all of Our power in the art of war and become capable of adding to Our collective consciousness!]
Jepthath shakes his head. [I made a deal with the Wordsmith. We will not forcibly recruit anyone. If you wish to convince more to join Us, you must demonstrate Our power. Not only do you possess knowledge of countless schools of fighting, but you also possess intimate knowledge of battlefield tactics and guerrilla warfare. By demonstrating that Knowledge is Power, you can enlighten the foolish masses as to what they are missing out on.]
Henry nodded sincerely at that time. He looked up at the night sky and clenched his fist with determination.
Humanity was wasting its capabilities! If other humans only knew how small and frail they were, they would jump at the chance to join the Legion!
Less than a week before, Henry had been a disgraced soldier, a mere civilian, a person who might never even get the opportunity to shine the boots of those he had once trained with.
But now he was an officer, an elite warrior many would come to fear and respect.
This realization made his heart leap and his throat dry. In many ways, he sometimes felt he didn't deserve this position. He certainly hadn't earned it.
Not yet. Someday he would. Someday soon.
His thoughts come back to the present. He continues walking, ultimately falling into step beside an ordinary human commando also donning a T-REX. A small artistic flourish on the side of her armor, a pink rose, hints to him the other soldier might be a woman.
The grey-armored soldier turns her head to look at him as she walks. "Oh! You startled me. And you are?"
Unable to see her face, Henry looks at her helmet instead, and her name and other information pop up in his HUD, allowing him to see her identity.
"I'm Lieutenant Henry Cliff." He says. "You're Private Ashley McCarthy? Aren't you the lady who can transform into an orc?"
Immediately, her previously formal tone turns cold. Ashley snaps her head forward, no longer looking at him.
"Every time. Every time! Is that all I am anymore? Just the ugly bitch who turns into an orc?!"
"Whoa, whoa!" Henry exclaims, taken aback by her response. "I'm sorry, uh, Miss McCarthy. I didn't mean to apologize- I mean, I didn't apologize- mean to offend you! I- I uh, sorry!"
He stumbles over his words, feeling suddenly ashamed that he spoke so bluntly without considering the other person's feelings. Then again, how could he have known it was such a sore subject for her? That thought also makes him feel unfairly slighted, as he committed a blunder without meaning to.
"No, no I'm sorry." Ashley quickly says, suddenly realizing how rudely she just spoke to a superior officer. "It's not your fault, Lieutenant. I, I just... it's a long story. I never asked for this ability. I hate it."
"You hate it?" Henry asks, as they round a corner, passing a dozen goblins who carefully press against the side-wall to avoid the giant humans. "Pardon my bluntness, but why? In this time of war, possessing an orc form must make you pretty strong. Valuable. You could be on the fast-track to a higher rank if you have any ambition."
"Higher rank." Ashley mutters under her breath. "As if that's something I'd want. I'm not some big brained Terran from Old Earth. I'm just a normal girl from one of the Wild Worlds. I only want to be pointed at an enemy so I can hurt them."
That sounds an awful lot like something an orc would say, Henry thinks, but wisely keeps to himself.
"Does turning into an orc make you stronger?" Henry asks, choosing to turn the discussion down a more positive path.
"Oh, sure. A bit stronger." Ashley concedes. "You know how the Body Booster improves a human's baseline physique, putting some of us on par with certain low-ranking Demon Lords? Well, my Orc transformation stacks on that, sort of. I can pick up and throw boulders pretty far."
She pauses, before adding, "I mean, it is really fun being that strong."
Henry reaches up to rub his chin, only for his hand to clank against his T-REX's helmet. He gives up on the idea and lowers his arm again.
"I recently got a, uh, a pretty substantial boost to my strength. You remember how Commander Hope offered for people to merge with the Hero Jepthath? I did that, and it made me a lot stronger."
He turns to look at the woman beside him, but she simply gazes forward, her helmet offering no insight into her current expression.
Her words, however, definitely give away what she's thinking.
"Oh. You're one of the cultists."
Her disappointed tone makes Henry's heart skip a beat.
"No, no, no!" Henry exclaims. "Not a cultist. Who told you that?? Jepthath's Legion have simply unified Our minds and bolstered Our bodies, making Us a lot stronger."
She remains quiet for a few moments.
"Yeah... that's... what a cultist would say."
"We're not a cult..." Henry protests feebly, but his words fall on deaf ears.
This isn't the first time someone has directed a look of disgust his way, or visibly cringed when he proudly declared himself one of Jepthath's Chosen.
Jason's words during the Great Debate made a lot of people immediately strike becoming a Parahuman off their list. They'd rather be ordinary soldiers in body armor rather than part of a weird, unified hive-mind.
Dismayed, the young man falls silent. He doesn't say anything for a full minute, and perhaps feeling bad about dismissing him so easily, Ashley decides to reignite the conversation as they draw closer to their destination.
"So what's it like. Being inside a, uh... hive mind? Is it weird?"
"We're not a hive-mind." Henry says, his mood deflating even further. "We're... we're like brothers and sisters. We understand one another. We share thoughts, insights, wisdom."
This time, Ashley tries to exercise a little tact. "It just doesn't sound right for me. I guess everyone has their own preferences. Me, I think I'd die of shame if everyone around me could hear my every thought. The embarrassment alone..."
She trails off and shakes her head.
But this time, Henry doesn't just back down.
"It's not what you think at all." Henry says. "Do you know why you feel fear at the thought of sharing your thoughts? It's because you're self-absorbed."
"What?!" Ashley exclaims, pausing her walk to look at him. No doubt, her helmet hides an expression of disbelief. "What do you mean by that... sir?"
Henry also pauses. He turns to face her, resting his hands on his hips. "You have friends, right? Maybe even a best friend?"
"O-of course!" Ashley says, her tone defensive. "What, you think I'm friendless just because I'm not a part of some bee-hive?"
"That's not what I'm getting at." Henry says patiently, holding out his hand and modulating his tone so he'll come off less aggressive. "Think about your friend, or your best friend. Really think about it. What's the most embarrassing thing you remember about him or her? What's the worst social gaffe they've made that you can't get out of your head?"
Ashley pauses. She lowers her head and falls into thought for a moment.
"I don't know. I can't think of anything. Why?"
"What about other people?" Henry asks. "Has anyone else you know made any serious social fuck-ups recently?"
"Social ones? No. There have been a few generally bad events recently, like finding out Baron Mara killed a bunch of people. But she's not my friend anyway, so..."
"THAT is my point." Henry states emphatically. "You don't think about the weird and embarrassing things your friends do. So why do you believe they're so fixated on yours?"
Ashley lifts her head to look at him. She remains silent, digesting his words, so he continues to press the issue.
"Do you know why you find things about yourself embarrassing? It's not your fault. Most people are extremely self-conscious about their own insecurities. Now that I've become a part of the Legion, I experience everyone else's insecurities all at the same time as I experience mine. In doing so, I realize that mine never amounted to anything at all. When you have ten thousand other people worrying about what they're wearing, or if they look fashionable, or some other tedious bullshit, you quickly realize that all of them amount to white noise. They don't matter."
He throws his hand up dramatically.
"I'm not picking on you. It's just a fact of human consciousness. All people are held back by their fear of social pressure, but much of that is because we don't know what goes on in the heads of our fellow men and women. If you could see their deranged sexual fantasies all at once, you would realize you're not weird at all. Everyone has a kink. If you enjoy looking at gross bugs, guess what? Someone else is unbothered by bodily fluids. We're all weird, and joining the Legion just made that clearer to me."
He pauses, unable to see the look on her face. "Sorry, I hope I'm not coming off as condescending. Does any of this make sense to you?"
Ashley slowly nods. "Mmm. Yeah, it does."
Henry heaves a sigh of relief. "Well, great! Great. I was worried I was starting to sound a little long-winded."
Ashley turns away and resumes walking. "You're definitely in a cult."
"Goddammit." Henry grumbles.
...
Before long, the two of them make it to the meeting location, where they arrive inside a massive, hollowed-out area inside the Labyrinth. There, they find, of all things, a new Volgrim Warpgate installed, its destination some unknown desert on a planet Henry can't immediately identify.
As they enter the massive arena-like staging area, Hope becomes momentarily disoriented. His newly enhanced senses pick up surges of spiritual energy, all spread out across the humans, demons, monsters, and other creatures inside. The powerful Demon Emperors, only a few of whom have yet to Ascend to Demon Deity, stand near the portal, using their strength as a show of force. Despite their proud expressions, Henry's keen senses detect a hint of fear in their eyes, as they seem to be unable to properly stand as strong as they always have. It's as if they are being suppressed by something...
"Whoa!" Ashley gasps. "I can't believe it. Why are the Volgrim here?"
"The Volgrim?" Henry asks, following her gaze based on the direction her helmet is pointed.
Somewhere in the mass of the crowd, a handful of decidedly alien-looking creatures with tentacles writing under their mouths and heavily-armored bodies stand at attention, looking like proud leaders and commanders. Their postures indicate a level of arrogance bred into their bones by millions of years of dominance over the Milky Way. Compared to the slightly fearful Demon Emperors, these Technopaths truly stand out as cream of the crop, with unknown augmentations that likely elevate their combat prowess to the peak.
"Those are Volgrim?" Henry asks. "Huh. The only one I've ever seen was that one female, the one who didn't have a mouth. She was presiding over my, uh, my tribunal..."
"Your tribunal?" Ashley asks.
She pauses, then turns to look at him strangely.
"Cliff... Henry Cliff? What the- you're that traitor! What- how even...?? You're a Lieutenant now? I didn't even recognize your name- no, forget that. Why are you in uniform? Weren't you banned basically forever from rejoining the military?"
"I was banned from rejoining the main military." Henry says, lowering his head in shame. "But, uhm, Hope's Parahumans are... different. It's a different jurisdiction."
Ashley takes a step to the side, pulling away from him. He can't see her expression, but based on her voice, she suddenly seems disgusted by him.
"All this time, I was talking to him." She mutters to herself, as she turns and walks away without another word.
Henry stands there, silently. He watches her depart, a feeling of bitterness welling up in his heart. He could pull rank on her, write her up for insubordination. Given his new status as a high-ranker, it would be easy to do.
But he doesn't.
In truth, he doesn't blame Ashley for her feelings. Because of his actions, Neil Adams was captured and humanity likely lost far more people during Stormbringer as a result. He indirectly caused the deaths of hundreds, perhaps even thousands.
How can he demand respect from her when he feels he doesn't deserve it?
As that thought wells up in Henry's mind, the thoughts of the Legion feed back into him, suppressing his negative emotions. All of them comment on his feelings and insecurities, offering kind words to help him feel better.
[You cannot and should not demand respect, no, but you can earn it back through your actions.] A 52-year-old Legionnaire says. [People like her will come around in due time. Perform admirably and make the Legion proud.]
[That woman is a mere Private.] Jepthath chimes in. [Do not allow your emotions to be tangled up by the feelings of a random soldier. You will need to bolster your Willpower if you seek to reach the peak of what you can achieve.]
[Right. My willpower.] Henry says, as his mood drastically swings back up. He hardens his heart, casting aside Ashley's comment and instead meditating for a moment to clear his mind. [Thank you, everyone, for the support.]
With his thoughts clear, Henry strides toward the front, keeping his gaze fixed on the Volgrim Technopaths. Having never seen these creatures before, he finds their horrid-looking tentacle mouths fascinating and yet creepy to look at. While all of them appear to be gender-ambiguous, certainly at first glance, as he comes closer, he does manage to make out one or two female-sounding voices among them. Or perhaps they might be higher-pitched males. He isn't entirely sure, and it seems a taboo subject to breach.
"-the Task Force will be working alongside these Technopath Envoys." Demon Emperor Yardrat says, his tone even and unbothered by the Technopaths to his left. "Naturally, full command of this operation will still go to the Archdemon, as the ranking Cosmic. However, because he will be busy dealing with the highest level threats, control of the ground forces will go to one member of each species, chosen via several votes of consensus. Today's operation is a test, and its purpose is to ensure we all work together properly. NO friendly fire. Our enemy is the Plague and nobody else. Save your personal grievances, vendettas, and petty squabbles for after we take our galaxy back from the Kolvaxians."
He gestures to the ten Technopaths. "The Volgrim have dispatched an army of 100,000 Technopath soldiers, and they will be commanded by this High Technopath named Loputo Jidelor, a high ranking commander of Clan Symmetra's ground forces."
Each of the Technopaths possesses their own combination of flesh and blood bodily parts mixed with metal limb replacements, armor-addons, and other such things. In Jidelor's case, he stands on two flesh and blood legs. However, in place of his right arm is a long, metallic limb with dozens of razor-thin threads waving to and fro where his 'wrist' ends. Each one moves independently, much like the tentacles on his left arm, but their movements appear far more precise. Dozens of metallic pieces are attached seemingly at random to his skin and skull.
Jidelor nods. "I am an experienced battlefield commander, but I am not a frontline soldier. I will be controlling our siege weaponry and directing our soldiers from the back."
Yardrat nods, then continues. "For the Demons, it goes without saying that just like with the last ten operations, Emperor Serena will be commanding our forces. Her ability to link souls together has proven instrumental in rapid battlefield communications, and her ability to sense souls allows her to keep up with the emergence of new Plagueborn until the point Diablo steals the world core back."
A beautiful demoness with sightless eyes nearby waves her hand delicately. "I will be in your care, everyone. Let us make it to the end without losing any demons this time."
"For the monsters, Fairy Princess Melia will take point." Yardrat says, nodding to another beautiful woman with green hair, fairy wings, and a look of boredom permanently etched onto her face.
Unlike the previous two commanders, Melia doesn't give a speech. In fact, she only rolls her eyes, crosses her arms, and looks away.
"Alright, and for the humans, General Chadwick will be taking charge." Yardrat concludes. He gestures to a massive Norwegian man who has now donned a Rhino T-REX variant and rests his hands around the shaft of a massive battleaxe. Its head rests on the ground, and he supports his massive armored frame by resting on the weapon's handle.
"Everyone." Chadwich says. "It is my honor to lead this mission. Naturally, Commander Neil is not happy about having to work with the demons, and I cannot imagine all of our soldiers are either. However, I pledge on Hope Hiro's honor that we will not commit any cowardly deeds of treachery, any backstabbing, or anything else of that sort! It was Hope Hiro who pushed for this arrangement because he wants humanity's soldiers to get real battle experience against the Plague. Let's be sure to make good use of this time to bury as many hatchets as we can!"
The crowd nods along to Chadwick's words. Some of the humans vocalize their approval, but many more remain silent.
The humans here are not normal civilians. They are military personnel, countless many of whom have not forgiven the demons. They may never forgive them, if their leaders are being honest.
Perhaps sensing the tenseness in the air, Yardrat briskly moves the pace along.
"In thirty minutes, we will begin. Transfer your forces to my world so that I can begin preparation to open the Intragalactic Portals. The Swarm has begun adapting to my tactics of late, so the moment those portals open, we'll need boots on the ground. No delays! If the Plague has its way, it might flood through the portals back to us, and that would be a whole bloody devil-damned mess."
The other leaders nod solemnly. They spread apart to talk to their forces, and Henry heaves a sigh.
In thirty minutes, we'll find out just how stable this alliance truly is.

A few days after Neil and Hope's meeting.
Henry Cliff walks alone down the hallways of the Labyrinth. He wears a purple-colored T-REX, a status symbol put in place by the higher-ups as a sign of his newfound prestige and military ranking. Its color, as well as the other new colors among the army allow for a quick idea of the ranking of any human soldier at a glance, especially among those who don't know the humans well, such as their allies for today.
Henry's feet quietly plod against the Labyrinth's compacted dirt floor. His breathing remains even despite having walked for over thirty minutes. Thanks to his newly enhanced body, he could run for a thousand kilometers without breaking a sweat. Even he isn't entirely certain just how strong he is. Perhaps, if he were to come to blows with a Demon Emperor, he might roll them out like a sleeping bag.
As he walks, Henry's newfound clarity of purpose mixes with the voices and thoughts of ten thousand other members of Jepthath's Legion. No, more accurately, they are Henry's Legion, now. While their power might be derived from Jepthath, it was the Hero-King's decision to give Henry command of them and become his Voice.
Each person who joined on that day possessed their own thoughts, feelings, and talents. Their combined cumulative experience, which could now be tapped into at will, easily amounted to more than 350,000 years. If the age of every person who merged had been 10, that would have given them 100,000 years, but the fact the average turned out to be 35 elevated their cumulative total dramatically.
And that was to say nothing of the people who had once been a part of Jepthath's Legion in the past. When Henry first became inducted into the Legion, he was shocked by just how much wisdom Jepthath possessed. While he did not have the truly unfathomable and vast breadth of knowledge Solomon possessed, Jepthath was amazing in his own way. What he lacked in raw information, he made up in with mastery of combat.
If Solomon possessed the combined cumulative knowledge of humanity, Jepthath possessed its raw hand-to-hand fighting prowess. And that served to bolster Henry's state of mind significantly.
Just by integrating into the Legion, Henry's ability to peer into the essence of combat increased ten thousand-fold. Over the last few days, he had happened to pass by several different training grounds for humanity's soldiers on Maiura, most of them having been erected at some point by Neil Adams in the past six years. Henry was not impressed by what he saw. If anything, he was disgusted.
[Their movements are so crude. So lacking in refinement.] He would often think, while conversing with the ancient Hero-King. [I want to train them. I can't stand to imagine them using their sloppy combat skills against old demon monsters.]
[A waste of time.] Jepthath would chide gently, whenever he and Henry had this conversation. [The knowledge you have obtained effortlessly cannot be communicated through words or demonstrations. The only way one can become as proficient as the members of Our Legion is by directly transferring Our combined knowledge through Our souls and minds.]
[Then we have to convince more to join Us!] Henry would exclaim. [These fools are wasting their time flailing about, trying to reinvent the wheel. If they joined Us, they would gain all of Our power in the art of war and become capable of adding to Our collective consciousness!]
Jepthath shakes his head. [I made a deal with the Wordsmith. We will not forcibly recruit anyone. If you wish to convince more to join Us, you must demonstrate Our power. Not only do you possess knowledge of countless schools of fighting, but you also possess intimate knowledge of battlefield tactics and guerrilla warfare. By demonstrating that Knowledge is Power, you can enlighten the foolish masses as to what they are missing out on.]
Henry nodded sincerely at that time. He looked up at the night sky and clenched his fist with determination.
Humanity was wasting its capabilities! If other humans only knew how small and frail they were, they would jump at the chance to join the Legion!
Less than a week before, Henry had been a disgraced soldier, a mere civilian, a person who might never even get the opportunity to shine the boots of those he had once trained with.
But now he was an officer, an elite warrior many would come to fear and respect.
This realization made his heart leap and his throat dry. In many ways, he sometimes felt he didn't deserve this position. He certainly hadn't earned it.
Not yet. Someday he would. Someday soon.
His thoughts come back to the present. He continues walking, ultimately falling into step beside an ordinary human commando also donning a T-REX. A small artistic flourish on the side of her armor, a pink rose, hints to him the other soldier might be a woman.
The grey-armored soldier turns her head to look at him as she walks. "Oh! You startled me. And you are?"
Unable to see her face, Henry looks at her helmet instead, and her name and other information pop up in his HUD, allowing him to see her identity.
"I'm Lieutenant Henry Cliff." He says. "You're Private Ashley McCarthy? Aren't you the lady who can transform into an orc?"
Immediately, her previously formal tone turns cold. Ashley snaps her head forward, no longer looking at him.
"Every time. Every time! Is that all I am anymore? Just the ugly bitch who turns into an orc?!"
"Whoa, whoa!" Henry exclaims, taken aback by her response. "I'm sorry, uh, Miss McCarthy. I didn't mean to apologize- I mean, I didn't apologize- mean to offend you! I- I uh, sorry!"
He stumbles over his words, feeling suddenly ashamed that he spoke so bluntly without considering the other person's feelings. Then again, how could he have known it was such a sore subject for her? That thought also makes him feel unfairly slighted, as he committed a blunder without meaning to.
"No, no I'm sorry." Ashley quickly says, suddenly realizing how rudely she just spoke to a superior officer. "It's not your fault, Lieutenant. I, I just... it's a long story. I never asked for this ability. I hate it."
"You hate it?" Henry asks, as they round a corner, passing a dozen goblins who carefully press against the side-wall to avoid the giant humans. "Pardon my bluntness, but why? In this time of war, possessing an orc form must make you pretty strong. Valuable. You could be on the fast-track to a higher rank if you have any ambition."
"Higher rank." Ashley mutters under her breath. "As if that's something I'd want. I'm not some big brained Terran from Old Earth. I'm just a normal girl from one of the Wild Worlds. I only want to be pointed at an enemy so I can hurt them."
That sounds an awful lot like something an orc would say, Henry thinks, but wisely keeps to himself.
"Does turning into an orc make you stronger?" Henry asks, choosing to turn the discussion down a more positive path.
"Oh, sure. A bit stronger." Ashley concedes. "You know how the Body Booster improves a human's baseline physique, putting some of us on par with certain low-ranking Demon Lords? Well, my Orc transformation stacks on that, sort of. I can pick up and throw boulders pretty far."
She pauses, before adding, "I mean, it is really fun being that strong."
Henry reaches up to rub his chin, only for his hand to clank against his T-REX's helmet. He gives up on the idea and lowers his arm again.
"I recently got a, uh, a pretty substantial boost to my strength. You remember how Commander Hope offered for people to merge with the Hero Jepthath? I did that, and it made me a lot stronger."
He turns to look at the woman beside him, but she simply gazes forward, her helmet offering no insight into her current expression.
Her words, however, definitely give away what she's thinking.
"Oh. You're one of the cultists."
Her disappointed tone makes Henry's heart skip a beat.
"No, no, no!" Henry exclaims. "Not a cultist. Who told you that?? Jepthath's Legion have simply unified Our minds and bolstered Our bodies, making Us a lot stronger."
She remains quiet for a few moments.
"Yeah... that's... what a cultist would say."
"We're not a cult..." Henry protests feebly, but his words fall on deaf ears.
This isn't the first time someone has directed a look of disgust his way, or visibly cringed when he proudly declared himself one of Jepthath's Chosen.
Jason's words during the Great Debate made a lot of people immediately strike becoming a Parahuman off their list. They'd rather be ordinary soldiers in body armor rather than part of a weird, unified hive-mind.
Dismayed, the young man falls silent. He doesn't say anything for a full minute, and perhaps feeling bad about dismissing him so easily, Ashley decides to reignite the conversation as they draw closer to their destination.
"So what's it like. Being inside a, uh... hive mind? Is it weird?"
"We're not a hive-mind." Henry says, his mood deflating even further. "We're... we're like brothers and sisters. We understand one another. We share thoughts, insights, wisdom."
This time, Ashley tries to exercise a little tact. "It just doesn't sound right for me. I guess everyone has their own preferences. Me, I think I'd die of shame if everyone around me could hear my every thought. The embarrassment alone..."
She trails off and shakes her head.
But this time, Henry doesn't just back down.
"It's not what you think at all." Henry says. "Do you know why you feel fear at the thought of sharing your thoughts? It's because you're self-absorbed."
"What?!" Ashley exclaims, pausing her walk to look at him. No doubt, her helmet hides an expression of disbelief. "What do you mean by that... sir?"
Henry also pauses. He turns to face her, resting his hands on his hips. "You have friends, right? Maybe even a best friend?"
"O-of course!" Ashley says, her tone defensive. "What, you think I'm friendless just because I'm not a part of some bee-hive?"
"That's not what I'm getting at." Henry says patiently, holding out his hand and modulating his tone so he'll come off less aggressive. "Think about your friend, or your best friend. Really think about it. What's the most embarrassing thing you remember about him or her? What's the worst social gaffe they've made that you can't get out of your head?"
Ashley pauses. She lowers her head and falls into thought for a moment.
"I don't know. I can't think of anything. Why?"
"What about other people?" Henry asks. "Has anyone else you know made any serious social fuck-ups recently?"
"Social ones? No. There have been a few generally bad events recently, like finding out Baron Mara killed a bunch of people. But she's not my friend anyway, so..."
"THAT is my point." Henry states emphatically. "You don't think about the weird and embarrassing things your friends do. So why do you believe they're so fixated on yours?"
Ashley lifts her head to look at him. She remains silent, digesting his words, so he continues to press the issue.
"Do you know why you find things about yourself embarrassing? It's not your fault. Most people are extremely self-conscious about their own insecurities. Now that I've become a part of the Legion, I experience everyone else's insecurities all at the same time as I experience mine. In doing so, I realize that mine never amounted to anything at all. When you have ten thousand other people worrying about what they're wearing, or if they look fashionable, or some other tedious bullshit, you quickly realize that all of them amount to white noise. They don't matter."
He throws his hand up dramatically.
"I'm not picking on you. It's just a fact of human consciousness. All people are held back by their fear of social pressure, but much of that is because we don't know what goes on in the heads of our fellow men and women. If you could see their deranged sexual fantasies all at once, you would realize you're not weird at all. Everyone has a kink. If you enjoy looking at gross bugs, guess what? Someone else is unbothered by bodily fluids. We're all weird, and joining the Legion just made that clearer to me."
He pauses, unable to see the look on her face. "Sorry, I hope I'm not coming off as condescending. Does any of this make sense to you?"
Ashley slowly nods. "Mmm. Yeah, it does."
Henry heaves a sigh of relief. "Well, great! Great. I was worried I was starting to sound a little long-winded."
Ashley turns away and resumes walking. "You're definitely in a cult."
"Goddammit." Henry grumbles.
...
Before long, the two of them make it to the meeting location, where they arrive inside a massive, hollowed-out area inside the Labyrinth. There, they find, of all things, a new Volgrim Warpgate installed, its destination some unknown desert on a planet Henry can't immediately identify.
As they enter the massive arena-like staging area, Hope becomes momentarily disoriented. His newly enhanced senses pick up surges of spiritual energy, all spread out across the humans, demons, monsters, and other creatures inside. The powerful Demon Emperors, only a few of whom have yet to Ascend to Demon Deity, stand near the portal, using their strength as a show of force. Despite their proud expressions, Henry's keen senses detect a hint of fear in their eyes, as they seem to be unable to properly stand as strong as they always have. It's as if they are being suppressed by something...
"Whoa!" Ashley gasps. "I can't believe it. Why are the Volgrim here?"
"The Volgrim?" Henry asks, following her gaze based on the direction her helmet is pointed.
Somewhere in the mass of the crowd, a handful of decidedly alien-looking creatures with tentacles writing under their mouths and heavily-armored bodies stand at attention, looking like proud leaders and commanders. Their postures indicate a level of arrogance bred into their bones by millions of years of dominance over the Milky Way. Compared to the slightly fearful Demon Emperors, these Technopaths truly stand out as cream of the crop, with unknown augmentations that likely elevate their combat prowess to the peak.
"Those are Volgrim?" Henry asks. "Huh. The only one I've ever seen was that one female, the one who didn't have a mouth. She was presiding over my, uh, my tribunal..."
"Your tribunal?" Ashley asks.
She pauses, then turns to look at him strangely.
"Cliff... Henry Cliff? What the- you're that traitor! What- how even...?? You're a Lieutenant now? I didn't even recognize your name- no, forget that. Why are you in uniform? Weren't you banned basically forever from rejoining the military?"
"I was banned from rejoining the main military." Henry says, lowering his head in shame. "But, uhm, Hope's Parahumans are... different. It's a different jurisdiction."
Ashley takes a step to the side, pulling away from him. He can't see her expression, but based on her voice, she suddenly seems disgusted by him.
"All this time, I was talking to him." She mutters to herself, as she turns and walks away without another word.
Henry stands there, silently. He watches her depart, a feeling of bitterness welling up in his heart. He could pull rank on her, write her up for insubordination. Given his new status as a high-ranker, it would be easy to do.
But he doesn't.
In truth, he doesn't blame Ashley for her feelings. Because of his actions, Neil Adams was captured and humanity likely lost far more people during Stormbringer as a result. He indirectly caused the deaths of hundreds, perhaps even thousands.
How can he demand respect from her when he feels he doesn't deserve it?
As that thought wells up in Henry's mind, the thoughts of the Legion feed back into him, suppressing his negative emotions. All of them comment on his feelings and insecurities, offering kind words to help him feel better.
[You cannot and should not demand respect, no, but you can earn it back through your actions.] A 52-year-old Legionnaire says. [People like her will come around in due time. Perform admirably and make the Legion proud.]
[That woman is a mere Private.] Jepthath chimes in. [Do not allow your emotions to be tangled up by the feelings of a random soldier. You will need to bolster your Willpower if you seek to reach the peak of what you can achieve.]
[Right. My willpower.] Henry says, as his mood drastically swings back up. He hardens his heart, casting aside Ashley's comment and instead meditating for a moment to clear his mind. [Thank you, everyone, for the support.]
With his thoughts clear, Henry strides toward the front, keeping his gaze fixed on the Volgrim Technopaths. Having never seen these creatures before, he finds their horrid-looking tentacle mouths fascinating and yet creepy to look at. While all of them appear to be gender-ambiguous, certainly at first glance, as he comes closer, he does manage to make out one or two female-sounding voices among them. Or perhaps they might be higher-pitched males. He isn't entirely sure, and it seems a taboo subject to breach.
"-the Task Force will be working alongside these Technopath Envoys." Demon Emperor Yardrat says, his tone even and unbothered by the Technopaths to his left. "Naturally, full command of this operation will still go to the Archdemon, as the ranking Cosmic. However, because he will be busy dealing with the highest level threats, control of the ground forces will go to one member of each species, chosen via several votes of consensus. Today's operation is a test, and its purpose is to ensure we all work together properly. NO friendly fire. Our enemy is the Plague and nobody else. Save your personal grievances, vendettas, and petty squabbles for after we take our galaxy back from the Kolvaxians."
He gestures to the ten Technopaths. "The Volgrim have dispatched an army of 100,000 Technopath soldiers, and they will be commanded by this High Technopath named Loputo Jidelor, a high ranking commander of Clan Symmetra's ground forces."
Each of the Technopaths possesses their own combination of flesh and blood bodily parts mixed with metal limb replacements, armor-addons, and other such things. In Jidelor's case, he stands on two flesh and blood legs. However, in place of his right arm is a long, metallic limb with dozens of razor-thin threads waving to and fro where his 'wrist' ends. Each one moves independently, much like the tentacles on his left arm, but their movements appear far more precise. Dozens of metallic pieces are attached seemingly at random to his skin and skull.
Jidelor nods. "I am an experienced battlefield commander, but I am not a frontline soldier. I will be controlling our siege weaponry and directing our soldiers from the back."
Yardrat nods, then continues. "For the Demons, it goes without saying that just like with the last ten operations, Emperor Serena will be commanding our forces. Her ability to link souls together has proven instrumental in rapid battlefield communications, and her ability to sense souls allows her to keep up with the emergence of new Plagueborn until the point Diablo steals the world core back."
A beautiful demoness with sightless eyes nearby waves her hand delicately. "I will be in your care, everyone. Let us make it to the end without losing any demons this time."
"For the monsters, Fairy Princess Melia will take point." Yardrat says, nodding to another beautiful woman with green hair, fairy wings, and a look of boredom permanently etched onto her face.
Unlike the previous two commanders, Melia doesn't give a speech. In fact, she only rolls her eyes, crosses her arms, and looks away.
"Alright, and for the humans, General Chadwick will be taking charge." Yardrat concludes. He gestures to a massive Norwegian man who has now donned a Rhino T-REX variant and rests his hands around the shaft of a massive battleaxe. Its head rests on the ground, and he supports his massive armored frame by resting on the weapon's handle.
"Everyone." Chadwich says. "It is my honor to lead this mission. Naturally, Commander Neil is not happy about having to work with the demons, and I cannot imagine all of our soldiers are either. However, I pledge on Hope Hiro's honor that we will not commit any cowardly deeds of treachery, any backstabbing, or anything else of that sort! It was Hope Hiro who pushed for this arrangement because he wants humanity's soldiers to get real battle experience against the Plague. Let's be sure to make good use of this time to bury as many hatchets as we can!"
The crowd nods along to Chadwick's words. Some of the humans vocalize their approval, but many more remain silent.
The humans here are not normal civilians. They are military personnel, countless many of whom have not forgiven the demons. They may never forgive them, if their leaders are being honest.
Perhaps sensing the tenseness in the air, Yardrat briskly moves the pace along.
"In thirty minutes, we will begin. Transfer your forces to my world so that I can begin preparation to open the Intragalactic Portals. The Swarm has begun adapting to my tactics of late, so the moment those portals open, we'll need boots on the ground. No delays! If the Plague has its way, it might flood through the portals back to us, and that would be a whole bloody devil-damned mess."
The other leaders nod solemnly. They spread apart to talk to their forces, and Henry heaves a sigh.
In thirty minutes, we'll find out just how stable this alliance truly is.

Someone asked for an explanation of Barthandelus' motives in Final Fantasy XIII, and I wrote out an explanation but reddit will NOT let me post it as a comment, presumably because it's too long, so I'm posting it here. Use this is a refresher if you're feeling confused or lost after playing Final Fantasy XIII or need to be caught up on the somewhat convoluted lore.
Big spoilers for Final Fantasy XIII and a little bit of XIII-2 and Lightning Returns as well.
~~~~~
When the being that the fal'Cie call "The Maker" created the world, Gran Pulse, they created fal'Cie and humans both. The actual mechanisms by which that happens isn't explained in the first game but the important thing is that the Gods created fal'Cie and humans. It's important to remember that the Maker themself is NOT a fal'Cie, they're just the deities who created them, along with humans. Etro, Pulse, Lindzei, Bhunivelze, they're their own race of being simply called "gods." It is never clear who "The Maker" actually is: we know that Bhunivelze is the ACTUAL maker of Pulse, Lindzei, and Etro, but within the universe of the game, the developers have said that depending on the fal'cie who's talking, they either mean Pulse or Lindzei depending on where their loyalties lie. But don't get hung up on that: the Maker is the Maker, it doesn't actually matter which of the gods the particular fal'cie speaking is referring to, they all reside in the same place anyway, which is outside of this current realm.
Gran Pulse was the home of all living things, human, fal'cie, wild animals, etc. At some point, a contingent of fal'cie came together to create Cocoon, by ripping up massive chunks of the land and creating the floating sphere, and claimed they did so with the help of the goddess Lindzei, and began to tempt humans to join this floating paradise where they would be cared for and protected by the fal'Cie who served her there. The people of the world who worshipped the god Pulse saw this as heretical, and believed Cocoon to be a nest of vipers, and they went to war, the Pulse fal'Cie and their many l'cie fighting against Cocoon's fal'Cie who served Lindzei and had rebelled against their maker. This is the War of Transgression, so called because the Pulsians viewed the creation of cocoon as a "transgression" against their god Pulse. It is unclear if Pulse and Lindzei were DIRECTLY involved in this war, as it's implied that they, along with all the other gods, vanished long before civilization sprang up.
The reasoning behind all this was a lie: all fal'Cie, both Pulse and Cocoon fal'Cie, were working together. They never actually cared about which gods side anyone was on, or what humans worshipped, because humans were just animals to them, tools that they could use as l'cie to carry out their will. They invented the whole ruse about cocoon as a method of gathering human souls in one place. All the fal'Cie desperately missed their creators, the gods themselves, and wanted to find them, be reunited with them, but they had left this realm / dimension entirely, and gone on toward the "Unseen Realm," which is essentially what waits on the other side of death. Whenever a person does, their spirit passes through a doorway into the Unseen Realm, into Valhalla, where the goddess Etro places their soul inside of a new body in the mortal realm, and they're reborn. The fal'Cie reasoned that if they created a giant floating world, filled it with millions upon millions of humans, then they could bring the whole thing crashing down and kill all those humans at once, which would cause the gate to the unseen realm to open wide to accept the influx of souls traveling through from the mortal realm, and THIS would be the fal'Cie's chance to reach through the portal and call out to and reunite with the gods: Bhunovelze, Pulse, Lindzei, it didn't matter, they just wanted to be reunited with their creators.
As Barthandelus explains, fal'Cie are limited in what they're able to do individually. Some fal'Cie like Atomos dig and dig, excavating the land searching for Pulse, or some remnant of him. Some fal'Cie like Bismarck maintain water and aquatic life, some like Carbuncle generate food and electricity. So, fal'Cie take humans as their l'cie subjects because humans have free will and can do anything, especially when gifted with a fal'cies power. That's why they use humans as tools. In the War of Transgression, the Pulse fal'cie Anima (under orders from the Cocoon fal'cie Barthandelus) chose Vanille and Fang as their l'cie, and gave them the focus of destroying cocoon by transforming into the beast Ragnarok. It's important to remember Anima did this conspiring WITH the cocoon fal'cie, they weren't ever ACTUALLY on opposing sides, they just had the humans warring with each other to make them more easy to conscript and use as tools, because humans have free will and have to be manipulated to do a fal'cies bidding. Fang was ready to destroy cocoon if it would bring an end to the war and protect the people she loved, but Vanille couldn't bear the guilt of murdering billions of people, and she essentially chickened out, she refused to turn into Ragnarok, so Fang became Ragnarok herself - an incomplete, underpowered version of Ragnarok that was incapable of fully destroying Cocoon, just making a big dent in the side. The details of this get confusing in the game because Vanille is so consumed by guilt that she's lying through her teeth about what happened, and since Fang has lost her memory she lies to Fang and says that SHE (Vanille) was the one who scarred cocoon, when in fact it was the other way around. Fang does eventually figure out that this is a lie and calls her out on it, during the scene right before Vanille gets her Eidolon, Hecatonchier.
The fal'cies initial plan was to have Ragnarok destroy cocoon, and by bringing it down to the ground they would murder not only the billions of humans living inside cocoon but all of the humans down on the ground too, exterminating all the humans at once and ripping open a massive door into the unseen realm through which they could cross to reunite with their Maker. But the plan failed, because Vanille refused - even when put under dire circumstances, l'cie still have free will, and they can be compelled, but never outright FORCED, to do anything they refuse to do. So, Anima took the now exhausted Fang and the unwilling-but-somehow-still-mysteriously-crystallized Vanille (more on that later), stored them within the vestige, and conspired with Barthandelus to have the vestige pulled up from pulse during the post-war rebuilding efforts when the cocoon fal'cie were scooping up land from Gran Pulse to fix the exterior shell that had been battered.
Their first plan having failed, the fal'Cie waited until 500 years later (the exact reason they waited this long isn't clear, presumably it was so Barthandelus could quell people's fears long enough to get them back into a state of complacency where they were easier to control), and then when the time they've chosen comes, Barthendlus tells Anima to awaken Vanille and Fang to continue their focus to destroy cocoon, leading to the series of events we see in the game that causes the Purge, which is itself a means of both stoking terror in the people of cocoon and making them more willing to go to war against themselves and cause more mass death, and a means to gather new l'cie to do their bidding. Anima brands Serah a l'cie and tasks her with the focus of gathering more l'cie candidates who can become Ragnarok and destroy cocoon from within, which is why she turns to crystal when Lightning and the gang show up, her focus was completed.
Barthendelus failed in his first attempt to have Ragnarok (in the form of Fang) destroy cocoon from the outside, so his new plan is to destroy cocoon from within, by goading the l'cie into killing him so he can merge with Orphan, who is the heart of cocoon, and then compel the l'cie to kill Orphan. The reason Barthandelus went to the trouble of the Purge and stoking fear and outrage amongst the populace of Cocoon was to make them all so paranoid and ready to kill one another that he could plant information leading humans (in this case, the Cavalry) to destroy Orphan themselves, even though only a l'cie has the power to do so, but not knowing that, Lightning and the others will be forced to follow them there and end up killing Orphan when they realize they were too late to save the humans. Ultimately the group DOES kill Barthandelus, for their own stated reasons, which yes is very confusing since they seemingly know what will happen when they do, but they go through with it anyway, hoping that they will find some way against all odds to save cocoon, and rid the world of Barthandelus and his scheming, to prevent anything like this from happening again in the future. When Orphan dies, all of cocoons power goes out because all the cocoon fal'cie go dormant, and cocoon begins to plummet to the ground, ultimately saved by Vanille and Fang who finally do transform into Ragnarok but use that immense power to create a crystal pillar from the fires of the volcanoes within Pulse and the mass snowflake crystal shards scattered across Pulse from where the first shell was battered. Because of this action, both cocoon and Gran Pulse are saved, and the fal'cie have failed irrevocably at their goal of using billions of humans as a death sacrifice to open up the gate to the unseen realm, and they all go dormant.
The last piece of all this is the meddling of the goddess Etro, who intervened at several key points in events out of love and compassion for humans. When Vanille refused to transform into Ragnarok, Etro placed Vanille into crystal stasis so that she could not be compelled to complete her focus, which is why Fang ultimately had to do it alone, and was unsuccessful. This is also presumably why Fang's brand is "burned out," because she had already completed her focus, which was to become Ragnarok and at least try to destroy Cocoon. Etro intervenes again at the end of the game by sparing Lightning's party along with Serah and Dajh from their fate as l'cie crystals, but in doing so she screwed up the timeline, causing the massive splintering of events that leads to Noel's catastrophic future, the creation of paradoxes, and the ultimate method by which Caius will later manipulate events for his own ends.
There are still many unanswered questions. Why did Barthandelus need to go through the extra steps of fusing with Orphan in order to be killed? What actually happened to the humans of Pulse, who appear to have all been wiped out sometime between the war of transgression and now, leaving only fragmentary clues behind? Did the fal'cie always intend to die at the same time as the humans in order to pass through the gate themselves? Did any of the gods ever hear their pleas? Why did they all settle on such a convoluted plot rather than just creating l'cie of immense power and ordering them to murder each other? Why the added centuries of manipulation instead of something more direct? Ultimately, we're left with more questions than answers.
Everything to do with orphan is vague and abstract and never properly explained, and even the method by which Lightning and crew come back from being transformed into cie'th is never specified, unless that too is another intervention from the goddess Etro, taking pity on them and giving them another chance. As for the fal'cie themselves, no fal'cie ever directly interacts with humans again except for Cactuar, who makes a bond with Snow between the events of the first and second game and gives him the focus of protecting humanity. Way off in the third game, there is one single fal'cie still active and creating energy for the people of Snow's city, but apart from them we see a dormant (but still alive) Atomos resting forever in the sands, and the pieces of Titan strewn about from some unknown battle in which he was presumably destroyed.
So, in the end, there is an explanation, but it's an incredibly complicated one that is not very well told within the game. Even with all the datalog information it's incredibly hard to piece together, as are many characters motivations and histories. But I hoped this has helped to make it slightly less oblique.

Hi there!
So, I'm relatively new to magic(though my higher level spells are all just scrolls, so I can only really use them once, and I'm saving them), so I guess I should explain why I can't learn spells.
It's actually simple - I'm a sorcerer. Now, before you say I don't work for my spells, I do! I don't like the term that we sorcerers don't work for our spells like wizards do, and are lazy - I'm one that actually tries to work at using them better! Though, I can't dismiss the fact that I like having days off from using magic to be a normal teenager.
So, since you're likely here for my story, I'll explain:
I was born into a family of wizards - everyone in my family is a powerful mage of the wizard variety - even my little sister is a wizard, even though she's not a particularly good one unless she's using 'annoying everyone around her' magic, at which point she can be considered Epic Level.
My sorcerer powers only recently manifested. Until then, I thought for all the world that I was a wizard like the rest of my family - I had a spellbook and everything. Though, it seems that having a spellbook helps me actually use my spells - it reminds me what I know, and what I don't.
My powers are certainly...unique, that's for sure. For one, it lets me make unstable cracks in reality if I'm not careful with my spells. These dimensional cracks can grow and get out of hand pretty fast if left unchecked, so I try to close them up before they can become dangerous to anyone.
And another power I've discovered is that I can make stable cracks in reality that can become portals to other dimensions, though it does require major concentration to make them portals, and not unstable - and I do like making portals to the anime series that I watch to get anime powers.
I'm still what you'd consider a 'low-level' sorcerer - I'm nowhere near the reality-breaking magic of the Council or the most powerful of sorcerers, even with my extra powers - and I'm okay with that. All I want is to get stronger with my powers until I can claim a place as a powerful sorcerer - no matter how long it takes.
My name? Taro Nakamura - and one day, I will gain my own title as the Anime Sorcerer, one of the most powerful sorcerers in the history of sorcerers.