This is a question to everyone, This is a question that I asked almost 10 men who don't have an answer so I'm asking the girls.
Why? Do you guys really think money beats everything? I have cousins who are yet to choose grooms and they want: Same Community, Rich, Good Looking but non talks about the guy being good, well mannered, well behaved, etc.
I have relatives who married for wealth and status but got separated after 2 weeks and divorced under a year of marriage. Why isn't good manners, being good, well mannered, etc not a priority?
This is a preface to my actual question, would you choose guy 1 or guy 2 from below and why?
Guy 1: Well mannered, good family communication, Kind-hearted, middle class but has the mind and skills to scale up and be rich, won't cheat, will care for you, will take your decisions seriously, will be a very understanding companion, does well in education, immense knowledge about almost everything [Science, Pop Culture, business, etc] but you have to support and build together be it lifestyle, house, wealth - you won't get it from get go but soon with your support and effort.
Guy 2: Rude, attitude, has a lot of expectations, values fame, money more than being a human, there will be no real communication and attachment with you, you can buy what you want and lead a life how you want, He may cheat on you, but you will have 10 servants who will keep you company, may be an asshole to people around you and toxic, most of his wealth will come from his dad "Papa Ka Paisa", if tomorrow from some reason he loses it all he won't know how to get it back.
Think and pick, guys you also pitch in to this question what you see around and why? Even I know some girls prefer high end clubbing, shopping, social life but there are girls who think and make their pick. but this question is to understand the reasoning.
I hope you will take his question as it says and not hurt your feelings and I hope the mods will see this as a social issue and not ban me from here.
Thanks!

I went back to my original post (archived) and it's from two years ago. This isn't possible, It's only been two months.
Two months ago, I told you all about how we were trapped. It was a time loop, and the commentors were really useful. We did manage to get me and someone else outside the classroom, but what happened was weird. I typed a draft a long time ago, but never got it published. I still have the text from those months ago. Here it is:
So, it took a few tries, but me and Jerry managed to slip out of the door. We had brought our water bottles and phones so that we could call each other. By the way, we did some experiments, and while we can't call for outside help, we have been able to call and text each other. The second we got out the door, I immediately knew something was wrong. First thing we did once outside was try to open the door. It didn't budge, which we presume means it only can be opened unconsciously by Mr. Johnson at the beginning of a new iteration. The next thing we decided to do was leave the building and see if we were still affected by the resetting. If not, we would all be able to escape in small groups. However, when I turned to leave, my heart sunk, and that little successful feeling was instantly turned to dread.
Now, in my school, we have clear glass exits at the end of every hallway. The classroom that we're in is right on the edge, so the exit should be right there. However, instead of the exit, we were instead presented with a long corridor, proceeding a few doors down before turning left. We proceeded down the hall, the class on the phone with us the whole time. As we walked further and further, the lights started to flicker. We found a couple other classrooms with nobody in them. Eventually, we came across the dining hall. We got really excited, as the dining hall normally includes an outdoor eating area, meaning we could possibly leave the building. We ran over to where the exit should have been, but sure enough, it was just a wall.
What was even more strange, however, was the state of the cafeteria. Normally, we have lunch during 4th period, but there wasn't a single food tray. In fact, we didn't seen a single trace of other human beings the whole time we were out there. The kitchen was nearby, and did include some food. Anyway, I guess we lost track of time, because a little while later as we were exploring, it reset we suddenly found ourselves back in our seats in the classroom.
As we were explaining what happened, a few of the other kids told us to look out the window. Normally, that window would face a forest next to our school, with a road in the middle. It still did, but it was dark outside. REALLY dark. This was odd, as we've been keeping track of time and know for sure that it should've been daytime. Whatever it is, we can't access this area, as all attempts at opening or breaking through the window have failed.
So yeah, we're still in here. We've seen a couple suggestions on the previous post that we tried out. We tried writing stuff down on the whiteboard, but it just resets, as does any attempts at taking notes. The only possible method of typing or writing something and keeping it between iterations is to post it here. I really don't understand, I guess if it's online, then it's not technically in here, and bypasses the loop? Who knows with these types of situations. Someone suggested holding onto Mr. Johnson as we were resetting. We tried that as well, but we all get teleported back to our seats. Several groups have been sent out of the classroom at the start of various iterations, and not one of them has been able to find an exit. We've tried busting down the door, but it appears indestructible. I remember once, like 7 of us got together and threw a large table at the door. That door literally did not have a single scratch on it after that. Additionally, none of us have had any problems from the sleep deprivation or hunger, so that's good, I guess. I can't explain this, I guess when the class resets, our biological needs reset as well? I suppose we'll just see how it goes and hope we get out.
UPDATE 1: A kid got crushed in the door today. I guess he was just a little bit too slow getting out. It killed him almost instantly, not that it affected future iterations. I never really fully stopped to comprehend this, but when we die, we get brought back to life in the next iteration. I have even had a couple of deaths myself, once during that riot early on, again in a recent incident where a kid got frustrated with the failed escape attempts and went crazy with some scissors. And yet at the beginning of every iteration, we all are back sitting at our table groups without a scratch on us. I am an immortal. We all are. Which I guess means if we don’t get out, we’ll simply spend all of eternity in here. The very idea has us stressed beyond belief.
Let me go into more detail about that previous story.
It was the beginning of the next iteration, when this random classmate I didn't know very well started screaming. He grabbed the scissors out of a drawer and stabbed Jerry in the chest. He was stabbing people left and right while screaming about how we're never gonna get out, and how this must be some kind of punishment. It was at that point that I got killed, so I wasn't there for the rest of the story. Apparently, Mr. Johnson and 3 other kids were able to get the scissors from him and knocked him unconscious. On the next iteration, we were back to normal and restrained him.
UPDATE 2: The lights went out all of a sudden. It was only for about 2 minutes, but it was strange. It was pitch black, but most of us had our phone lights. During this time, everything seemed louder. Like, you know when you're watching a video and you turn the volume up? It was like that but in real life. The lights came back on just as suddenly as they went off, and everything went back to normal.
UPDATE 3: You know, there was a comment on my previous post talking about how the same thing might be happening to the whole school, because it was strange that nobody is outside waiting for us. Personally I think the results of our escape attempt proved that something else is happening. Some of the other kids even believe that we're in another dimension. Personally, I think that explains a lot.
The hallways are changing about every few iterations. It's becoming more and more odd. Everything resets at the end of an iteration, which means we are immortal, as anybody in this classroom can die and then be reset. Oh god. Are we going to spend eternity trapped in here? Clawing at the doors and throwing tables at windows? Sending people out into empty corridors to look for an exit that probably doesn't exist? And now here I'm sitting, a freaking Reddit post being the only connection with the outside world. Things are bad when even death isn't an escape.
There's no escape...
And there probably never will be...
God help us...
its been so long since we last left. Is the world even there? Is it just a myth?
Maybe…
Maybe . . .
Feb 28, 2023. We are here. We still haven’t left. WHEN WILL THIS END????
Update 5: The hallways are getting weird. Extending way beyond where this building of the school should end, and with rooms that shouldn't be here. I'm talking rooms from other buildings, like bedrooms, kitchens, stores, hotel rooms, even a large warehouse. Still keeps shapeshifting, it's a mystery for sure.
Update 6: I've been trying to stay calm, and sane, but it's getting more and more difficult by the day. The lights went out again, pitch black. All the sounds in the room were still amplified, but I heard something. Breathing. You could say it was just my peers, but it just sounded wrong. In addition to the breathing I could hear unintelligible whispers. Suddenly, I heard the loud screams of my peers and Mr. Johnson, as I felt their blood hit my face and body. I was lifted up by the head and leg, and felt myself get torn in half. Suddenly, I was at the beginning of the next iteration, like normal. Something killed us all while the lights were off, and we simply woke up here again.
Update 7: One of my peers just disappeared. I didn’t even notice him gone, he disappeared right after the incident in the dark. I don’t know where he went, or what happened. I looked out the window and tried to break it, but still nothing. It looks as though it was nighttime out there, but there aren’t any stars or clouds or a moon, just trees, a road, and a pitch black sky.
Update 8: HOLY HELL. I looked out the window again and there he was. The missing kid. He had pitch black eyes and his mouth was open and bleeding. He stood there until it reset. I heard him scream as it all reset, and he was gone. I don’t know why this is happening or what happened to him, I just really want to get out of this. Most of us have family, friends, pets, siblings, parents, and we might never see them again.
Update 9: There was another darkness, and we were all killed by that thing again. Another kid is gone, and we can see the two both outside the window.
Their mouths are still open, and their eyes are black and bleeding. They have blood stained clothes that dripped down, and various lacerations just everywhere on their body. They were blinking in strange patterns.
Morse code.
I marked the pattern and used an online chart to translate. I suppose what they were telling us was wat we already suspected, but I take this as confirmation.
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"SOON WILL JOIN"

Part One.
My jaw clenches. It’s my turn to go pale with shock. Suddenly, the puzzle pieces begin to connect in my mind. They’re building a picture that I’m not sure I want to see, but it’s a picture that’s becoming difficult to deny. “Why?” I press. “What makes you so sure they weren’t just test subjects like the others?”
“These felt different,” Maria says quickly. “Horrible in a way that even the others couldn’t compare to. It’s like when you look at a manikin, or a doll… What’s the phrase?”
“Uncanny valley,” I offer.
“That’s it,” she says. “That’s what I felt looking at these things, the uncanny valley. It was like they didn’t have a soul– like they never had a soul. Some looked human. Nearly. But they were too tall, or their limbs were too long, or they had too many teeth in all the wrong places. But what scared me most of all wasn’t the bodies, it was the thought that something had killed those things. Something had torn literal nightmares to pieces, and there was a good chance it was coming to do the same thing to me and John.
“John,” I say, still trying to parse his significance in her ordeal. “That many bodies couldn’t have appeared overnight. They’d been there for a long time. That means he probably knew about them, didn’t he?”
She nods, gasping. “He knew. He fucking knew. He shoved me onto that pile of corpses, that festering and decaying pit of monsters and told me as much. He started shouting. Call me a monster all over again. Evil, he said. Twisted. He kept pointing at me like all of this was my fault, and he hadn’t both led us to our deaths.”
Her voice becomes a stuttering mess. “A-all the while I heard that thing in the dark. Approaching. I felt terrified, hopeless and numb. I kept asking John why me? Why go through all this trouble just to kill me? And he told me that he didn’t have a choice. He knelt next to me, put a hand on my cheek and whispered that his child needed to feed. It was getting hungry. Desperate. He almost looked fucking r-remorseful if you can believe it, and he told me that he was really sorry, and that he hated to do this but… He stepped away from me. Stood against the wall of the chamber. Watched. Waited.”
For a second, I’m afraid Maria is going to break into fresh sobs, but she pushes through.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she continues, wiping tears from her cheeks. “I didn’t have anywhere to run, anywhere to hide, so I just lay there in that heap of monsters. I gave up. The whole time, those footsteps got closer and closer. The nearer they came, the slower they got. It was like it knew I was trapped. Like it’d done this before, and knew there wasn’t a rush…” She looks up at me. “Do you think… John did that to other people too?”
“It’s certainly possible. Did you get a good look at the creature?”
She shudders. “Yes. I had my headlamp trained on the passage the whole time, and when it appeared around the corner, I almost missed it. I heard it, but I could barely see it. It was a tall, flickering shadow. It pulsed. Vibrated. The way it moved was jerky, haphazard, almost like it had one foot in our reality, like it was glitching with every step it took.”
“Glitching…” I mutter. Why does that sound familiar?
“That’s right,” she says. “And that wasn’t even the strangest thing about it.” She gets small in her chair. “It had these eyes. Amber ones. Bright and gleaming, like twin cinders smoldering in empty space. It felt like they were piercing me, like its eyes were digging through my skin and looking into my mind. Or my soul. It was like that thing was taking bites out of my memories, tasting them before spitting back out…”
“How did it feel? Painful?”
“No, she says. “It felt cold. Like a blizzard in my head, like all my thoughts had frozen to a crawl. Maybe that’s why I calmed down. I don’t know… I remember sitting there, totally numb as the Shadow phased through the metal bars of the gate. It almost looked human. It had two arms, two legs and a head, but its body was made of black static. Like television interference.”
Television interference… Where have I heard that description before? I rack my mind for a match, some kind of urban legend or ancient lore that matches what she’s saying, but nothing jumps out. I flip through the pages of my clipboard, stopping on one labeled ABERRATE EVENTS. It’s The Facility’s own Most Wanted List. My eyes fly through the cases listed, but there isn’t anything close to what she’s describing.
An idea strikes me.
“Did the Shadow hurt you at all?”
She looks down at her arm. There’s a large gash there, framed by clots of dried blood. “No… I don’t think so,” she says hesitantly. “I got these injuries when I was trying to escape.”
No, of course it didn’t. It had other food available already. “And what happened after it pierced you with its eyes?” I ask.
“It walked past me,” she says. “It walked through that mulch of corpses and headed straight for John. It started speaking along the way. At least, I think it did.”
“What do you mean by speaking?”
“Do you remember how I said it was howling before?”
“I do.”
“Well, this time it was hissing– like a livewire, or static electricity. Whatever it was communicating, John looked panicked. He was crying. Pleading with it. He kept saying that he’d done his best, but there was nothing else out there, so the Shadow would have to make due with me. But the Shadow didn’t seem to care. It grabbed John by his long hair, lifted him up to the ceiling and its cinderlight eyes started gleaming an angry orange.”
My heartbeat races. My pen flies across the clipboard, desperately trying to avoid missing a single detail.
Maria keeps talking. She keeps giving me more of what I need. “John kicked and screamed,” she says. “He begged me to help him, told me that if I didn’t I was every bit the monster he’d said I was and I’d be next… But before he could finish, the Shadow’s eyes flashed and leaked fire. John started shrieking, moaning as his face melted into his skull.”
Maria’s face twists with revulsion. Disgust. She looks away, back to the bunker. I wonder if she’s hearing what I am– that dim rumble of something moving underground, that slow march of an approaching nightmare. Our clock is ticking. It’s not something I can tell her though, because as soon as she starts panicking, I lose the chance to connect the dots I need.
“Maria,” I say, pulling her attention back. “Continue. It’s critical I get these details.”
“Sorry… It’s not a memory I like thinking of but… The Shadow held John there, his legs twitching weakly, and then it grabbed his head and tore it off his neck.” She brings a hand to her mouth, starts nervously biting her nails. “Then it lifted John’s skull to its amber eyes. It opened its mouth and screamed fire. The heat I felt was like an open furnace, like Hell itself. Tendrils of darkness emerged from the Shadow, clutching at John’s scorched skull and cracking it open like an egg.
"His brain spilled out. The Shadow caught it in those tendrils, and brought it into itself. His brain. Like it was fucking assimilating it… Or eating it. ” She looks up at me, and there’s the same angry defiance I saw when we met. “Now do you get it?” she asks. “Now do you see what I mean about this thing being the devil? What else could do something like that?”
A good question. I can think of one entity. Only one. If my guess is correct, then Maria and I get to live to see tomorrow’s sunrise. If it’s wrong, then I need to put a bullet in both our heads before that thing finds us.
All of it hinges on my next question.
“It killed John, then what? What did the Shadow do?”
“It turned back to me,” she says. “It glared at me with those blazing eyes, and I thought I was next. I knew I was. But then I felt another blizzard sweep across my mind, and that was it– I blacked out.”
“Hang on…” I mutter. “What do you mean you blacked out? I found you lying outside of the bunker. How did you escape?”
She shakes her head, frantic. “I don’t have a clue. I blacked out, then the next thing I remember was waking up outside the bunker, with you pouring water on my face and telling me we needed to talk. That’s it.”
She shoots up from her chair. “Christ! We need to leave.”
I blink. “Why?”
“The police. I’ve gotta tell them about John and what he was doing. I’ve gotta tell them about this base. Maybe John brought others here. More victims. Maybe some of them are still alive down there and need help. We need search parties and–”
“Don’t bother,” I say.
She looks at me, stunned.
“The police won’t have any record of John. Tell them where you were, what you saw in that bunker, and they’ll probably kill you.” I reach into my pocket, pull out my lighter and run a thumb down the sparkwheel. It flickers to life. “Fact is, John doesn’t exist. Neither does this base.”
I bring the lighter to the edge of my clipboard. The flame catches a page.
“What the hell are you doing?” Maria exclaims.
“Saving your life,” I say, tossing the clipboard to the floor. It pops and cracks as the fire eats the woman’s story, one word at a time.
“What the fuck? You said you believed me!”
“I still do,” I tell her. “That’s the problem. An hour ago, I had no idea what was going on here, but the more you spoke, the more it started making sense. I realized that you and John were more right than wrong. That there really is a conspiracy here. A cover-up.”
“Then the people deserve to know!”
“They do,” I confess. “And they will, eventually– but not from you, and not from my report. Neither is an option.”
She shakes her head, incredulous. “Then how?”
I walk to the window, rest my hands against the edge. I take a breath. It’s humid, heavy with South American heat. “I’ll figure something out. I always do.”
There’s a heartbeat of silence. Then, she asks the obvious question. “It’s your employer, isn’t it? This whole thing has something to do with The Facility.”
“Yes,” I tell her. “I think it does.”
She appears at my side. The two of us stare out across the dark of the base, out at the steel hatch rising from the dirt, where a devil made flesh is inching ever closer. “I thought you said your job was hunting monsters,” she says at length, “not creating them.”
“My job is a lot of things. More than anything else, it’s complicated. The Facility is… Well, it’s not what I’d call a good organization. Or even a moral one.”
“Then what is it?”
I consider the question. “A pragmatic answer to an otherwise ugly question.”
She looks at me expectantly.
“The question of salvation,” I explain. “The question of how do you rescue humanity from a nightmare so twisted that it defies all language? All concept of imagination? There’s something coming for us, Maria, something dark and unfathomable, and these entities– these monsters might be our only chance at fighting back.”
She’s quiet. Her expression is difficult to read.
“Decades ago, The Facility was a very different organization,” I tell her. “In those days, they thought the approaching nightmare was right around the corner, that we had weeks or months until it showed up on our doorstep. They didn’t know. Out of fear, they greenlit any and every possible solution. Or at least, that’s what the rumors say.”
“Rumors?”
I nod, darkly. “There’s no real records of The Facility’s activities during the Cold War. Most documents were destroyed. The few that remain are heavily redacted. I wasn’t around then, obviously, but I picked up bits and pieces from old timers I’ve worked with. They mentioned black projects. Hidden programs. One project was particularly infamous, so much so that even now, half a century later, The Facility hasn’t entirely snuffed out its legend.”
“What project?”
“Project Judas,” I say. “If you believe the rumors, it was headed by a brilliant biochemist named Screech. Jonathan Screech. The aim of the program was to create the ultimate weapon, a monster that could assimilate targets into its being, absorbing their capabilities. Such a function would provide it with a near limitless power ceiling. The problem was–”
Something hits my ears. Maria’s hand finds my arm, squeezing it painfully.
“Do you hear that?” she hisses.
Steel rattles in the distance. There’s a low groan of warping metal, like the rungs of a ladder slumping beneath the weight of something titanic. There’s something beneath us. It’s inside of that bunker, climbing that old ladder, and it’s making its way to the surface.
“We’ve gotta run!” Maria tugs at my arm, but I keep my feet planted where they are. My eyes narrow. I stare at the now trembling steel wheel, lit up beneath the light of the jungle moon.
Maria stumbles backward. A smile finds its way onto my face. In the distance, across the ruins of the base, the bunker’s hatch is thrown open. A dark shape emerges. It buzzes like television static, framed in shafts of moonlight. Its twin eyes glow like cinders. The shadow lurches, looking around, scanning the base and emitting a low electric hum.
“That’s it…” Maria whimpers. “Oh God… that’s it…”
The creature sees us. It sees me. It takes a shambling step forward, and dust and dirt flies into the air beneath its weight. Its eyes smolder, growing and growing until they become a blaze of fire. Maria is on the ground. She’s hiding beneath the window sill, reefing on the fabric of my pants and pleading with me to run, but I hardly notice she’s there.
This shadow– this monster, is why I’ve come here tonight.
Now, we finish things.
A wave of arctic air passes through my mind. It’s just as she described. My heart slams as I feel this Shadow rifle through my thoughts, chewing on my memories. I close my eyes. I breathe deep, inviting it in. Go ahead. Have your fill.
And then with one final shiver, the cold in my skull fades. That Shadow retreats, pulls back from my mind and when I open my eyes, I see it gazing back at me. The fire in its eyes dims to that cinderglow. It tilts its head skyward. Six black wings burst from its back in a shower of static.
“What’s happening?” Maria asks frantically, still on the ground beneath the window. “How are you going to kill it?”
“I’m not,” I tell her.
The Shadow belts out one last distorted howl before launching itself into the air like a streak of night. Three flaps of its wings, and it’s gone. Vanished into the sky, lost amongst the clouds.
Maria rises to her feet. Her eyes are wide. She’s shaking, her entire body is shaking with a tidal wave of horror. “Oh no…” she mutters, gazing at the sky. “It’s gone… So many are going to die…”
“Yes,” I tell her. “I hope so.”
She turns to me then, angry. Stunned. “You told me your job was stopping those things! Hunting them! What’s the deal, asshole? Why’d you just let it fly off?”
“Because I never finished my story.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me…”
“Project Judas had a directive,” I explain. “A very specific one. Its purpose was to assimilate hostile entities, to annihilate monsters and boogeymen, and ensure the survival of our species. Simply put, it was never made to hurt humans. After everything you’ve told me, I’m not convinced it can.”
She crosses her arms, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Were you even listening to what I said? I found a fucking graveyard down there. It burned John’s skull to a crisp, cracked it open, and ate his brains. I don’t care what it was designed for– I watched it kill a human right in front of me.”
“I’m not certain you did.” I lift up my briefcase, paying my now ashen clipboard one final, farewell glance. “From everything you described, I question whether John was a man at all by the time he took you down to that bunker. If he really was Johnathan Screech, and I think the evidence points to yes, then it’s said he conducted more than a few experiments on himself along the way. The glowing eyes? I’ve never met a human with a set of those.”
“But–”
“Fact is, John brought you here to kill you. John told you that he needed to feed you to his child, that he didn’t have a choice…” My thoughts turn to all the strange disappearances that lead me here. The missing entities. The absentee urban legends. “He was feeding Judas a steady supply of horrors, just enough to keep it from entering hibernation– right up until the moment he ran out. That’s why he pulled you down there. He thought you’d be an easy mark, that maybe with a little creative twisting of the narrative, he could convince Judas that you were close enough to food.
"Remember how he kept calling you a monster? Unfortunately for John, he misunderstood his own creation. Project Judas wasn’t designed to harm human beings. It went against its core directive. So in that moment, when John offered you as a sacrifice, a flip switched in Judas that made it realize John had crossed the threshold and become a monster himself.”
She’s quiet as we walk out the door. “You think he really was that Johnathan Screech guy?”
I shrug. “Maybe. I doubt there are dental records to double check, but based on what you’ve said tonight, it wouldn’t surprise me if Screech couldn’t let his project die. A creature like Judas… The Facility probably didn’t have a means of terminating it, so they buried it instead. Sealed it behind blast doors a kilometer beneath the earth. Then they erased all records of this base ever existing.” My SUV is gleaming black, impossible to miss against the ruinous backdrop of ancient humvees. I crack the passenger door. “Need a ride?”
She smiles. It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile all night, and I can’t help but smile back. “Thank you,” she says. “For not killing me.”
“Don’t mention it.”
She clambers into the seat, and just as I’m about to close the door, she stops me. “Wait,” she says quickly. “I forgot earlier, but John mentioned another entrance. One used for freight… That’s probably how he got back into the bunker after they sealed it up. He seemed to know everything about that place.”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “I figure he must have.”
I close the door and circle to the driver's side.
“So what do we do now,” she asks as I hop in. “About that thing, Project Judas?”
"Nothing," I say, plugging the key into the ignition and giving it a twist. The engine rumbles to life. “As far as I’m concerned, that creature isn’t a monster. And that means it’s not my problem.”
The vehicle rattles as we pull out of the base and onto the jungle road. Maria twists in her seat. She looks back through the rear window as her worst memory falls further and further behind us. “If it isn’t a monster, then what it is it?” she asks.
Words drift around my head. Definitions. I’m trying to figure out how to explain what it is that she and I saw, what it is that more people will see in the coming weeks. I’m trying to think of a way to tell Maria that whatever that thing was, she doesn’t need to be afraid of it. None of us do.
I open my mouth to reply, but I’m interrupted by a microphone howl. It’s distant. Far away. I crane my head and look up through the scatter of vines passing above us. And then I see it. A dark speck on the horizon. It’s little more than a dot against the moonstreaked clouds, but I know that if it were closer, I’d see a creature with six wings. I’d see a shadow with cinderlight eyes. A body of black static.
I’d see a guardian angel– one with plenty of work to do.

According to my understanding, this subreddit is meant for fictional horror stories. I've seen many authors there who advertise their books and openly state that their stories are literary fiction, such as Blair Daniels. That's why I don't understand why my fictional story was removed, even though it was told in the first person.
Over 70 years ago, something ominous made its home in our woods
My name is Milena and I'm currently 83 years old. I'm here to tell you an old, strange story, which will also be quite lengthy, so consider yourselves warned. Frankly, this is a story best told at night, where the boundaries between reality and the realm of legend blur, and the faces of listeners are illuminated by the flickering glow of the bonfire. But well, we live in the age of internet. Yes, I know, you're not here to listen to an old person's kvetching. Let's move on to my story then.
My parents lost their lives in the Auschwitz concentration camp when I was only 2 years old. I didn't remember them, so even though I envied other children for having parents, I couldn't really miss them. I was raised by my grandparents in a remote village, nestled near the woods somewhere in Poland. Life was quite simple there. I was an unproblematic kid, and I gladly lent my hands to assist my grandparents in tending to their flock of chickens and cows. I had a small group of good friends, with whom I used to play outside for hours, exploring nearby fields and woods. That was, until the woods became a forbidden zone. Because strange things started to happen in our once calm, boring village.
It began with the disappearance of a man simply known as Wiesiek, a figure both familiar and shadowed. He was a middle-aged man, often seen intoxicated and without a permanent home, occasionally taking refuge in people's sheds without asking for permission. We all heard certain rumors about him. Apparently, during the Soviet occupation, he was labeled an 'enemy of the state' and subsequently deported to Siberia. After spending some time there, he was eventually granted amnesty and returned to our village a couple of years after World War II concluded. However, he seemed different upon his return, never quite the same as before. Some speculated that the harsh experiences had taken a toll on his mind, as he often rambled about strange creatures straight from the darkest folk tales, which were supposedly lurking in the Siberian taiga. Most people avoided him. It's sad, but I can't say that anyone was devastated by his disappearance. He didn't have any family, and no one seemed to care about his fate, whatever it may have been. The police were involved, of course, but we never heard of any resolution.
However, it was a different story with Krystyna. As a young, beautiful mother, she had garnered the care and concern of many. So when she, too, vanished, the entire community mobilized in search of her. The woods became the focal point of their efforts. Yet, all that was ever unearthed was a single shoe belonging to her, discovered deep within the forest, far from the beaten paths frequented by nature enthusiasts and mushroom pickers. Some people speculated that there was a bear or a pack of wolves residing somewhere in our deep, beloved woods. While not entirely implausible, such animals typically leave traces of their presence behind, yet none were found. Then, a strict ban on playing in the forest and its immediate vicinity was imposed on us kids.
Over the next few months, two more people went missing: a teenage boy and an elderly woman. They too were last seen in close proximity to the woods, which had now fallen out of favor with us. None of them were ever found, despite the intense efforts of our community and the less intense efforts of the authorities. I wondered about the origins of the strange rumors that started circulating in our village. Who started them, and why? Was it because Wiesiek disappeared first? Maybe some people took his stories more seriously than they were willing to admit. You see, it was the '50s, and our village was nearly forgotten by everyone, even by God himself. Many folks lacked education, and some couldn't even read. Back then, everyone was deeply religious and superstitious. As a child, I caught snippets of conversations that gave me a vague sense of what people of our village were thinking about all this. It might seem silly now, but it didn't back then.
One night, I overheard my grandparents' conversation. My grandpa was telling my grandma about something he heard at the only bar in our village. Apparently, the men were out hunting when they stumbled upon strange symbols carved into the trees, filled with a red substance. My grandma immediately started reciting "Zdrowaś Mario, łaskiś pełna...", a well-known prayer meant to shield her from all evil. Later, my best friend, a girl named Kasia, told me that her parents were once discussing the discovery of multiple traces of bonfires spotted in the woods. Then, there was the thing that stirred my imagination the most, making it difficult for me to fall asleep for a long time. One Sunday after mass, while I was waiting outside the church for my grandparents, I overheard a conversation between three elderly women. One of them lived very close to the edge of the forest. She mentioned that due to her struggle with insomnia, she often sat by her open window at night, breathing in the fresh air and listening to the sounds of nature. Several times, she heard something that immediately made her shut the window and hide under her quilt. It was a prolonged, high-pitched scream that pierced the ears, rising rapidly before abruptly cutting off. She described it as sounding like the call of some demonic entity summoning its brethren. After a moment of silence, all three of them simultaneously crossed themselves, shook their heads, and went their separate ways.
With those and a handful of similar clues, my friends and I were able to piece together the haunting picture: Wiesiek was right after all. A sinister presence lurked in the depths of the Siberian taiga, and it followed Wiesiek to our village. It claimed him first, along with the other missing souls, to satiate its hunger. During long, warm summer evenings, we sat around a bonfire and reminisced about the stories of dark mythological creatures that our parents and grandparents had once told us. There was Licho, a one-eyed creature resembling an old, gaunt woman. It was said that it wanders the world, seeking places where people live happily, only to bring upon them all sorts of misfortunes, hunger, poverty, and diseases. When someone deceives Licho, it follows them, always behind their back, glimpsed out of the corner of one's eye, relishing in tormenting its victim. We all agreed that it's something that could've happened to Wiesiek. Or perhaps he was seized by a strzyga, a female demon with bird-like talons, feeding on blood. We could have speculated for hours, devising theories, each more drastic than the last. While it was obviously tragic that people had vanished, the circumstances were somehow...exciting. At least for us kids. Something was unfolding—something mysterious and sinister—and it ignited our imagination. Filled with anxious anticipation, we waited to see what would happen next.
But...nothing happened. No one else disappeared. Time passed, and gradually, the villagers began to forget. For those who lost their loved ones, the pain lingered, of course. Yet, as the years went by, the wild theories faded into distant memories, becoming more absurd as we grow older and smarter. When I was 18, I left my home village to pursue education. Life under the communist regime was difficult. Most people were poor, and there were no prospects for young people eager to achieve something greater. So, like many other Polish people, I decided to emigrate. I would occasionally visit my grandparents, but after they passed away, there was nothing that drew me back to Poland. I had made new friends and started my own family in Sweden. I lost contact with my childhood companions.
However, as one grows older, distant memories begin to resurface. Childhood becomes an idealized realm of happiness. Sentimentality blooms, beckoning a yearning for the embrace of ancestral grounds. For this reason, I decided to visit my home village. Considering my age, it was likely to be the last time I would tread upon those old paths, embrace the flavors and scents once intimately known to me, and hear the melody of my native language. And as I thought, so I did. I spent a week in Poland during what was supposed to be a month-long stay, when a quite unexpected encounter occurred. I was slowly strolling through the village, which I could barely recognize anymore, when suddenly, from behind me, I heard an old, frail voice:
"Milena? Is that you? I heard that you came back..."
I turned around and saw an elderly, hunched woman with a flowery scarf on her head. I locked eyes with her weathered, wrinkled face, adorned with large, piercing blue eyes. A wave of sudden recognition washed over me.
"Kasia? No way!" I exclaimed, taking her fragile body into my arms.
She invited me into her modest home, where we spent several hours sharing stories about the most significant events from our long lives. I won't bore you with the details, but I'll mention that unfortunately, Kasia's life turned out to be much less fortunate than mine. She never left our village. Later, like old women often do, we delved into the treasure trove of our oldest childhood memories.
"Do you remember those missing people from the '50s? That darn Wiesiek. We couldn't believe it." She spoke with a voice brimming with disapproval, her head gently shaking in disbelief.
I didn't understand exactly what she was referring to. I hadn't been interested in the affairs of my village after emigrating, but I remembered that particular time and our wild speculations. So I asked her to elaborate. The story I heard from her made my hair stand on end.
No, no more disappearances occurred, and as I mentioned, the incident faded from the community's memory. Until the '90s came. It was autumn. A man was working in the forest, chopping wood, when suddenly, from the somber depths of the forest, emerged a strange, unfathomable figure. It was a very old man, incredibly dirty, dressed only in a hastily woven cloak of branches and leaves. Madness lurked in his eyes. He walked bent over in half, as if in great pain. When he saw the woodsman, he only managed to wheeze a plea for help before losing consciousness. As you've probably guessed, it was Wiesiek. He was taken to the hospital, and then questioned by the police in the presence of a psychiatrist. His tale was as fantastical as it was unsettling, and it made headlines, so I'm surprised it never reached me before.
The doctors concluded that Wiesiek was suffering from a severe mental illness. His affliction reached its zenith during his exile in Siberia, where he endured constant starvation in addition to being forced to work beyond human strength. He was plagued by dreadful visions of strange, ancient figures inhabiting the taiga, peering out from behind trees, whispering maddening, crimson secrets into his ears. These creatures spoke of an old era when they coexisted with humans, bestowing peace upon their worshippers in exchange for regular offerings of blood. Yet, with the advent of Christianity, the offerings ceased, and their wrath was awakened. They were hungry with a primal, insatiable appetite, intolerant of defiance. Wiesiek believed that upon leaving Siberia, the haunting visions would subside. His hopes proved to be in vain. His demons pursued him, ever more resolutely demanding restitution for centuries of neglect, wrought by faithless humanity. He attempted to drown out their voices with alcohol, but it proved futile. Thus, one day, he resolved to heed their call. He fled into the unexplored depths of the forest, where he crafted a makeshift shelter for himself and plotted to make his first sacrifice. Krystyna's abduction was not difficult. She was alone in the forest, gathering wild berries, when she was struck unconscious by a heavy branch and dragged to his new lair. Then, following the instructions echoed by alien voices in his twisted mind, he sacrificed her body in the intricate, blood-soaked ritual. The ceremony also included carving specific symbols into the bark of trees and filling their lines with the victim's blood. Well, this accounted for one of the rumors I had heard in my childhood.
Unfortunately for our village, the yearning of the ancient beings did not cease. They wanted more. So Wiesiek obediently provided two more victims, believing that his suffering would finally end, and the voices would fall silent. To his astonishment, after the third sacrifice, he was finally left alone. But his relief was tinged with darkness, as he was made to understand clearly that the hunger had been only temporarily satisfied. It was not the end.
However, there was one demon that never left his side: the consuming sense of guilt. He chose to remain in the woods, recognizing he no longer belonged among ordinary folk. He sustained himself by foraging from the forest's abundant resources. While winters could be harsh, they were no worse than in Siberia. He lived for many years, relatively undisturbed. Why did he decide to emerge from his hiding spot after so long? His explanation was straightforward: the voices, the terrifying creatures—they had returned, seeking his assistance once again. He asserted that he would rather be confined to a psychiatric hospital for the remaining short span of his life than be forced once again to harm another human being. He passed away a few months later.
Well, although this whole story was so shocking, it still made some sense. Minds ravaged by illness possess the capacity to interpret reality through a lens divergent from that of sound minds. Sometimes, this leads to terrible crimes. This was neither the first nor the last instance of its kind. That's exactly what I thought when Kasia finished speaking. And I probably wouldn't have given this matter much more thought if it hadn't been for one thing.
When night fell and I returned to my rented room, I decided to spend a few moments on the balcony, letting the warm, summer air envelop me. The village was settling into sleep. It seemed so peaceful and idyllic. Ahead of me, I could see the forest, still standing despite the passage of time and human activity. A light breeze rustled the treetops. I closed my eyes. Then, carried by the wind, came words spoken in a clear whisper. As a matter of fact, it was one word, repeated over and over, unmistakable from any other:
Krew
Krew
Krew

I never wanted kids and am still terrified to have them. The responsibility, the financial stress, the loss of freedoms. I have several good reasons not to have kids, but my inner gut is calling for me to have them, and while my wife and I were on the same page about not having kids, she’s willing. We are in our later 30s, and both are fine off financially. She makes six figures and I make about $20k less, have a nice home together, and the mortgage is manageable. No credit card debt, just the typical car note and student loans. The point being, I don’t think financials is something I can blame on why to not have kids anymore. But it terrifies me too! Will I go insane? Will I accidentally hurt them? I have to keep a human alive?!? I read how great it is, and how once you have them, your whole world changes for the better. Sorry for rambling, the thought terrifies me as much as it brings wonder and joy. So men, what changed your mind and opened it to having kids? Was it worth it? Do you have regrets?
Edit: a word

Hello! My name is Zeffphur and I am looking for 1-2 adventurers to fill out the party in my homebrew campaign! The campaign hasn't started officially yet but we did do a one shot just to test the waters. Doing so opened up 2 potential slots. It'd be a total party size of 5-6 depending. The current party come is an Orc Kensei Monk (subject to change), Half-Elf Champion Fighter, Tortle Swashbuckler Rogue and a Half-Elf Hexblade. We use roll20 for maps, dndbeyond for sheets and my own discord server for everything else. 21+ just to help keep the age ranges around each other.
Story: This story will take place in my own homebrew world, on the continent of Chairon. It is a fairly high-magic world setting, with limited technology. Things like firearms exist, as do a few arcane powered airships. The story will start small, doing small jobs here and there, dealing with a few bad guys and then itll branch out and become a something quite large. You will be dealing with monsters, villains, political powers, and powerful beings. This game will have some horror elements (I love horror movies and scary monsters are fun) but its not a horror themed campaign. This will have a "standard" fantasy theme with various elements thrown in. You guys are small fish in a big pond at the moment, but over the course of your adventures your fame and fortune will grow.
Nitty Gritty Character Info: Starting at level 3, you get 1 free feat to start. Roll 4d6 drop the lowest. Assign as you wish. Roll 2 arrays and pick the one you want. You cannot pick and choose from either array. Its one or the other. If the score for the stat is lower than 8 you can reroll, if you want to keep it thats fine too. HP wise, it will be rolled HP. If you roll Half or above on your hit die, you keep it. If you roll below half you can reroll. As far as races are concerned here is my list that is set in stone. Aarakocra, Aasimar, Dragonborn, Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Firbolg, Gnome, Goliath, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Halfling, Hobgoblin, Human, Loxodon, Minotaur, Orc, Owlin, Satyr, Tabaxi, Tiefling, Tortle. As far as classes/subclasses go, any official class/subclass outside of Artificer, Blood Hunter, Wild Magic, Clockwork Soul and Twilight Cleric. Those 5 are banned.
If you are interested, feel free to fill out the attached form. If you have any questions either add me on Discord (zeffphur) or just ask here. Please only add me if you have a genuine question. I will be taking my time in finding players so don't expect a yes or no right away. We will hopefully be starting on May 10th.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfWn2oZbB4Lr3yBpjneNatPLcEFZn5FOXxPIqyaCaEqExc2DA/viewform?usp=sf_link

I got banned from Lemmy servers for "CSAM" all because of this: the Napalm Girl pic and another thing I saw on Inside Edition's channel in addition to some nude statures - literally artwork of naked people - all because I was trying to protest the inconsistencies of censorship towards the female human - regardless of their race and age!
Let me be clear on one thing: I didn't post any "CSAM" on the Lemmy servers! I'm protesting something that I feel is unfair towards the female human.
~Please actually watch these before jumping to conclusions so you can actually understand what I’m really protesting!~
Women Who Were Told Their Outfits Were ‘Too Revealing’
Mom Says She Was Kicked Out of Gym For Revealing Tank Top: I Felt Humiliated
Cops Dragged Woman Off Beach After Complaint About Her Bikini
It’s one thing to say a girl’s outfit or body is “too revealing”,
Teens React After Yearbook Photos Are ‘Modesty Edited’
it’s two things to photoshop out a girl’s cleavage to make her look “modest” for a yearbook or a portrait!
9-Year-Old Saves Family From House Fire (you'll need to find this on YouTube yourself)
But censoring a topless preteen girl who thought up an ingenious strategy to stay cool like her friends in the same stuffy room while at the same time not caring who’s around her? THAT’S REALLY CROSSING THE LINE!
It's all thanks to some videos from Inside Edition's YouTube Channel.All these videos Inside Edition posted are developing a question in my mind that's getting the better of me: ~why so much hate on the female human - even as children?~ Like, why do they censor the little girl's chest? Can't anybody learn to appreciate the appearance of the female body?
And ~what's the big deal with nipples?~ I'm just trying to ensure everyone is treated equally regardless of race, and gender... AND age (after what I just witnessed). And if no one's gonna speak up about this, I might as well step up to the plate. After all, somebody's got to do it!
That little girl in the final video made two non-verbal messages clear: one: if a boy can do it, then so can a girl! And two: no one is too young for anything! As long as you have the knowledge capacity and I.Q level to do it properly and safely, you'll be fine. I was able to refuel my dad's car and cook my own dinner when I was 6 and without setting anything ablaze by accident.
However, when I try to illustrate with that video, even though Inside Edition is an official news channel, the responses I get back are rather ~bitter!~ They remove my post or ban me from the sites I post on for "promoting nudity involving a minor"!
~WHERE~
~CAN~
~I~
~ASK~
~OR~
~SHARE~
~THIS~
~SUBJECT?!~
Due to my autism, I only know basic English. So I need to illustrate to get most of my messages through. I thought hard, I tried, and low and behold, they were removed hours later mainly because they "didn't fit the subject of the forum". Even though my multi-subject based thread does have some material relating to this forum's topic. These sites and mods are all really stretching my problem solving skills beyond the breaking point for this one. I'm merely protesting with these pictures and videos as illustration. I'm not that good with words, so I need pictures to get half my messages across as noted above.
Many subreddits or forum sites don’t accept URLs, pictures, specific website URLs, or even a combination! Thereby hindering my ability to fully explain what I’m witnessing! In this case, the sentences “It’s one thing to say a girl’s outfit is ‘too revealing’, it’s two things to photoshop out a girl’s cleavage to make her look ‘modest’ for a yearbook.” actually corresponded to several videos I beared witness to on Inside Edition’s YouTube channel.
I actually tried to post that URL with that blurred 9yo girl in a subreddit in the past and you won’t believe this: I actually lost my reddit account for 2 days for “promoting nudity involving a minor”! Other sites like the adult video forums who accept uncensored nudity-based images I mentioned just delete my thread! Another site I recall banned me for 1 year for “spam” - even though I only made this protest post twice (after they removed it once).
So that meant I had to approach this from a different angle: after that experience, I got a little paranoid from using that said video URL to illustrate. So I tried explaining this protest without the URLs - and this is in conjunction with certain sites restricting my ability to post images, URLs, certain site URLs, or a combination. It seemed to end up making things worse! Because without the visual evidence, it makes it much harder to fully explain what I’m witnessing.
So without the URLs included - that visual illustration, on the sites I tried along with Lemmy World, it actually made things worse! That’s what lead Lemmy.World mods to ban me for life for “CSAM” or made other people think I watched child porn when I clearly didn’t. The lack of visual evidence (due to my past reddit experience combined with the site’s posting restrictions) is what lead to this “pedophile” confusion. So please help me talk some sense into the Lemmings world, Lemmy.ml, and Lemmy.world mods that this was all a major misunderstanding and Lemmy is pretty much the only reddit alternative out here where I can try asking another question. My attempt to appeal has failed on 3 sites - even after I tried notifying the mods on the third Lemmy server site before making the post, so I need your help now!
I felt after Inside Edition uploaded that blurred 9yo girl video… I thought to myself “That’s the last straw!” Someone needs to protest these absurd censorship laws that they apply to the female human!
Why can males show most of their body but females can’t? - In most cases that is? Whatever happened to "Free The Nipple"?
Children should have the same… rights to do things as any adult! It’s about possessing the knowledge capacity and I.Q level to safely execute this action. E.G, on those “Family Day” episodes of The Price is Right and Let’s Make a Deal; those kids made smart choices when picking the correct numbers to items to win a prize.
I’m not joking around here! This type of treatment towards the female human needs to stop - this includes race and age. - It’s like racist people, but in age form.
Does it look like I’m laughing for fun? Of course not! Since no one else is protesting this, and YouTube has a flawed comment moderating system hindering my ability to post on even random videos (I.E, "ghosting"), I have to take more drastic measures to protest by stepping up to the plate and shouting out “Can’t we all be equal in terms of a huge variety of traits?” Yeah, the last thing I need is a vein-bleeding broken-record robot impeding or hindering my ability to seek answers to a question!
We need to learn to appreciate or accept how the female body appears regardless of race and age! Stop trying to blame it all on me! None of the stuff in the vids posted, is that. If it was, Inside Edition would be the guilty party, and Youtube for not having already deleted them. If it doesn’t violate Youtube’s TOS, it should be fine to post anywhere. If there was even a hint of impropriety to it, at the minimum the vid would have been age restricted.
No one would answer! Not even Inside Edition themselves were willing to offer an answer when I even found their email address, the sites dedicated to helping those in mental, suicidal, or emotional distress (those forum sites even PERMA-banned me for "spam" - that's right, SPAM! (Even though ~there was absolutely no mention of a permanent ban or rule about "spam" in their forum guidelines!~) Is that the definition of "spam" when I make a bad thread only once?! And when I try to appeal the ban, the same message "please contact the administrator if it was done in error" is blocking my ability to click the contact button! Or sometimes it's a blank white page with that message in the top left corner of the window! - Which adds more insult to injury, because I can't click anything as all the buttons have disappeared! That means I can't log out of that site either!), OR the adult video forums that support uncensored nudity images would accept that video link URL let alone the entire topic itself! So ~I really am at a loss for thoughts and words on what I just experienced!~ Heck, I even tried the professional therapists of talkingforchange.ca But even they too were too reluctant to talk as they claim my post regarding the censorship of women is not for their platform and they disconnected the chat 2 seconds after their last reply to me. And I highly doubt that ANY site will allow me to illustrate with a picture of the Napalm Girl (Phan Thi Kim Phuc) when she was 9, certain pictures of Pampers diaper boxes, Leela when she was an infant in the episode Leela's Homeworld, or even Belgium's famous kids: Manneken Pis/Jeanneke Pis. That, combined with ~YouTube having a flawed comment moderating system hindering my ability to post comments on certain-to-random videos (I.E, "ghosting")~, I'm forced to take more drastic measures to get my messages across.
But here's a strange catch: sometimes on some sites, Napalm Girl is censored, other sites she isn't. So I felt that I need to protest this.It seems everyone is too chicken to even start this subject! Don't these numbskulls know not to judge a book by it's cover?! This is where I ask myself "NOW WHAT?!". This can't be one of those "exceptional" cases where they say "suicide never solves anything" doesn't apply to these types of situations. In other words, all hope for resolving these types of situations ~really is lost~. I really do feel left in the dark on both the subject of sound effects and nudity!
Once more, I'm not being a ped, I'm protesting all these absurd censorship rules and regulations that revolve around the female human - regardless of race and age - after what Inside Edition posted. Watch the videos I found again for clarification. In other words, the inconsistencies of female human censorship.
Can you really - you know, hurl insults at Inside Edition or blast them for what they did? It was their idea to publicly publish the footage. Just like how that one photographer made the choice to publicly publish footage of the Napalm Girl when she was 9 and completely nude. Therefore, it should be ok to share this footage anywhere.
But some areas censored Napalm Girl's nipples, but others did not - excluding her groin. Then there's the diaper boxes I found in any supermarket. And finally... Surprise surprise: typical women being scolded by other people for wearing something "inappropriate" or "showing too much of their body". I look around and since no one else is protesting about this, I might as well do it! After all, someone's gotta step up to the plate to hit that ball! I will not sit idling by the sidelines and continue to watch the female human get treated/censored like this! I will step up, stand up, and speak out towards these absurd reactions, rules, and regulations that revolve around the appearance and censorship of the female body!

There's been some discussion about an Ace Combat movie that pops up in this subreddit here and there, but, as someone with screenwriting experience, I think that there are a few major quirks with the way Ace Combat games are structured that would make potential movies be pretty not great (at least in traditional blockbuster-style, I.E. Top Gun Maverick).
1) Plot Structure: the Ace Combat series uses cutscenes a lot differently than most games. Ace Combat cutscenes tend to focus on what happens outside of the playable character's life. This is actually pretty uncommon if you think about it. Think about this: what's the last non-Ace Combat game you played where the cutscenes didn't involve playable characters at all? The Ace Combat series generally takes full advantage of the player knowing what's in a mission and what's in a cutscene, with little to no overlap unless it's to tell the same scene from a different character's point of view. This is terrible from a movie-making perspective, where typically the runtime is limited to two-ish hours and there is only one point of view. There have been some movies that have several points of view, but those are usually avant-garde films that don't typically perform too well at the box-office and come with their own problems in writing and production.
2) Silent Protagonist: Ace Combat is known for its silent protagonists, and the fans of the series have adapted to it enough that a speaking protagonist immediately got hated on (looking at you, Assault Horizon). This works fine in a video game medium, because the player can seamlessly fill this slot, because the characters in the game are talking directly to the player, and not a stand-in. This would be AWFUL in a movie setting. The fans of the series don't realize this, again because we're used to it, but most moviegoers find it helpful when a character talks during a movie. Talking is the way humans connect to each other, and without that connection (silent protagonist), it's harder than you think it is to relate to the characters on-screen. The closest thing we've gotten to an Ace Combat movie, Top Gun: Maverick, has an endearing character because we know what kind of a person Maverick is not just through his actions, but through the things he says. It's hard to think about from outside of the filmmaking perspective, but dialogue, especially from the protagonist, is what makes the audience resonate with the characters in movies. Again, video games can easily avoid this, because the player is doing the actions rather than just seeing it.
3) Niche: This goes without saying, but an Ace Combat movie would appeal to an incredibly niche type of audience. When making a movie, you have to sacrifice some artistic intent to appeal to the markets, especially when you are trying to make money (which all movies are, let's not kid anyone here). Video Game movies are still even more niche. That's kind of changing, there have been some good adaptations recently, but for the most part, video game adaptations are either not good or not successful (sometimes both).
Example: If there was a show/movie about say, Sol Squadron, that solves point 1 and 2, but the audience for that probably won't even cover all Ace Combat fans, and it likely wouldn't cover many military television fans either (who I'm assuming would be the second target audience), due to the inherent unrealism of the setting.
TL;DR: Ace Combat's uniqueness has a lot of quirks that don't really work in traditional cinema, and Ace Combat games fully utilize the video game medium to tell their stories the way that they do. Therefore, an Ace Combat show/movie will probably leave a lot to be desired and will probably also financially underperform. I think we should just stick to the games, they're already fantastic.

A co-worker just got promoted to a supervisor position. Both of us started working at the same time, a month into the job, the ASM (at that time) asked if I was ever interested in a manager's position. I said no thank you. I used to be a manager at two jobs, I HATED it. It wasn't for me. A few months later, the GM and the owner asked if I was interested in a manager's position. Again, I said thanks, but no thanks. Every so often the GM would keep asking me if I was interested and I would keep saying no. It got to the point that I told the GM, "Ask me again and I will leave this job." They stopped asking me. Fast forward almost a year, work was training two employees to become supervisors. At that time, I supported the one employee. I thought they would do well. For whateve reason those plans went to crap and neither of the employees got promoted.
Now, a little history on this one employee. They do work hard and show that they do care for their job. That is, when they show up for their shift. I don't know the reason and it's non of my business, this employee does not drive themselves. There a lot of times this person has called out of work or arrived very late. After working with this person and getting to know their work behavior, I had second thoughts on supporting them if they ever took the supervisor position. Then the employee dropped down to part time, only working four days a week. I get that, I eventually did the same; by the fifth day in a row I was checked out. I noticed this employee developing a bad attitude towards their co-workers. I can't judge, there were times I got snippy with people because of the drama that goes on. Then it finally happened, this employee and I got into a bad verbal exchange. They were in my way (I mean blocking my path out of the room and in a few minutes I would have 5+ people following behind me), I asked them to move, they grab their radio and announce to the team that they'll move but I shouldn't have asked it with an attitude, and that's when I lost my patience with this individual. I walked past them, told them I am fed up with their attitude, the employee kept repeating what I said like a parrot, I just shook my head, they said something else to me, but I responded with them not focusing on my attitude and be more concerned with them showing up to their job on time. Then they shouted at me, "I am not someone to fuck with." I laughed at them as I left. I gave myself some time, distanced myself from them, and eventually by the next week I could tolerate working with them. But they lost all of my support and respect.
This same employee is now a supervisor. They still work four days a week and the bad attitude has gotten worse. Whenever I am working a shift with this person, they will give me the weirdest tasks; cleaning the closet, cleaning the human bathrooms, making me take my break last, and telling me over the radio to check certain things. Whatever the task I get assigned, I will do them, and I will do them fantastically. One time I cleaned the closest out and re-organized it that the GM loved it so much. The supervisor never even said "Good work" or acknowledged it. I do not give this person a reason to come after me when given a task. I think now they're looking for excuses to throw at me for messing up. They went on the radio and told me to look over something when working in a certain area. Apparently when they and another employee were in an area, they were finding issues with something, but it had nothing to do with me. The issues were preexisting. I don't know why the supervisor was saying this over the radio instead of telling me to my face. I asked, "Is this a new policy to start checking everything that comes in?" They stumbled and said no, but said I should check and make sure. I'm sorry, but not only did that not make any sense to me, but it didn't answer my question. I was thinking of confronting them, but I made myself say "Let it go. Let this one pass. Next time, confront them." I don't know if they're out to get me or show me up because they know I am a valuable employee. At this point, the only thing I can do is sit back and let them screw up.
Sorry this was long. I am curious on what you would do if you know or sense your manager is targeting you.

So, this is as much an example of how to submit an ideological solution to an issue that is not actually on the left-right spectrum.
Starting with the ideological position that Climate change is a fact and that the science is well-established (there are plenty of right-wing climate scientists, I assure you, so let's call this the Academic Ideology), the only questions are A) How much of an effect are humans having, and B) What can and should we do about it?
I studied Physics and Chemistry in college, and my professors all had variations on the same answer: "Nuclear power, lots of it, because even if Climate Change isn't real, it's the smart thing to do."
Ironically, most of the right-wing supports nuclear power, and it seems like many on the "left" oppose it simply because the right approves.
Here's the rub:
Nuclear power has many advantages over coal, gas, solar, wind, hydro, and thermal, including cost, safety, and pollution, but the biggest drawback we hear about is cost.
The problem is that nuclear power plants front-load their costs; they are expensive to build, but very nearly free to run for decades. On average, it takes 17 years for a nuclear power plant to pay off the initial investment.
Private funds generally refuse to invest in projects with more than a 5 year payoff, 10 years at the outside; the risks are too great that conditions will change and the investment will be lost. Mortgages are an exception, as Real property will, in theory, never lose value.
This means that nuclear power is only possible through government funding, ideally through public corporations (like TVA in the South), for liability and public welfare purposes.

Throwaway since I (21M) don’t want my family or anyone I know stumbling across this.
I honestly don’t know if I’m the asshole here.
So to start, when I was ten years old I was babysitting my little sister, we’ll call her Sarah, while my mom was out running errands. I was an idiot kid and got distracted by cartoons on the downstairs TV, leaving Sarah upstairs. I still feel so bad about it even though I know I was only ten at the time.
I’ll spare you the details, but Sarah ended up getting herself tangled up in a quilt and couldn’t free herself. She suffocated and her death has been on my mind every day since. My parents and I have both gone through a ton of therapy since it happened. They say they don’t blame me, and my therapist says I shouldn’t still be blaming myself, but I still think I do. I don’t know, in a way being hard on myself makes me feel better about it.
We still have the quilt. I didn’t know it at the time but it’s apparently been in our family for generations. My mom said she remembers her mother tucking her in at night with it. Both my parents couldn’t bear to bury my sister with it and I’m glad they didn’t. I hate the thought of Sarah being buried with the thing that smothered her.
Actually, the quilt is technically mine. I was the first kid my parents had so I guess I was the one to inherit it. It’s got a unique pattern of vines and pheasants sewn into it that used to make me really nostalgic, but I can’t bring myself to look at it anymore. It sits folded away in the hall closet of my parents house and I only ever glance at it from the corner of my eye if I ever have to grab a towel or a coat or something.
So here’s where I might be the asshole: for my 21st birthday I decided I was going to burn the quilt. My parents strongly objected but not only is the quilt technically mine, I feel it will give me a lot of closure. I thought that maybe if it were gone I could live my life without having to be so hard on myself all the time. It would be this little symbolic ritual just for me to sort of start my life over from the guilt that’s been weighing on me for over a decade.
A few days ago I paid my parents a visit and snuck the quilt out of the house while they were on the back porch. It felt so weird to actually touch it. I had forgotten how it smelled. I was instantly transported back to the bedroom Sarah and I used to share. I remember her crib disassembled and the pieces propped up against the wall by the door. I realized Mom might’ve been out shopping for a big girl bed for her the night she died.
The thought made me tear up, but luckily my parents weren’t around to see. I quickly stuffed the quilt into my backpack and left for my place.
I’m in college right now and share a house with three other guys. Two of them were visiting their families for Christmas but one, we’ll call him “Ben” stayed in town for the holidays since his family lives fairly close by like mine does. One thing you need to know about Ben is that he’s a prankster. All of us sort of are, but Ben is particularly good at it.
Anyway, that night I left my backpack on the floor by the door. I planned to burn the quilt in the early morning and set my alarm for 4am. I figured there was a lesser chance of anyone complaining about the smoke that way. Plus, I wanted to be alone when it went up in flames.
My alarm went off at 4am the next morning. I fumbled around my room a bit for my lighter that’s usually reserved for the house bong. Once I found it on the floor under my desk I swung open my bedroom door and nearly shat myself.
Ben was sitting on the couch facing me with the quilt draped over himself like a cartoon ghost. His lanky form wrapped in musty vines and birds. He nearly gave me a heart attack.
I was surprised that he didn’t start laughing when I yelled “FUCK” and jumped back, but if he wasn’t laughing yet that probably meant that there was more to the prank and we hadn’t reached the final punchline yet.
I was done, though. I wasn’t in the mood for pranks. I called him a piece of shit for going through my backpack. Maybe I’m an asshole for that too.
But Ben didn’t respond. He sat still for a few seconds while I glared at him. I thought maybe I had really hurt his feeling and started to apologize when he slowly lifted himself from the couch and starting walking toward the front door.
I turned the corner to follow him and saw that he had walked out the door and was moving swiftly over the front lawn toward the street. I sprinted out after him and yelled at him to give the quilt back.
Ben started gaining speed so that I could barely keep up. We looked like idiots playing an angry game of tag in the dark street at four in the morning but that was probably all part of Ben’s plan. He probably had someone close by filming the whole thing for TikTok.
I had no idea how he was outrunning me. He was wearing the oldest looking pair of leather shoes I’d ever seen, and I had no idea how he could even see where he was going.
Maybe I’m just monstrously out of shape. In any case, he was absolutely booking it down the dark freezing street, popping in and out of the beams of the street lamps.
I couldn’t keep running after him. The cold night air was tearing my lungs to shreds. I yelled one last “Fuck OFF, dude!” into the night before doubling over to catch my breath. After a minute or two I turned around and pathetically started walking back to the house. I could hear the wet slaps of those gross looking shoes on the pavement getting farther away.
I assumed Ben would turn up at the house shortly after I got back but he didn’t. I waited around for a few hours, checking social media periodically, but he hadn’t messaged me or posted any videos of me flailing after him in the dark.
Just then, I noticed that it was STILL dark. We always kept the curtains drawn but usually you could tell when the sun was up. I got up from the couch and pulled the curtains aside and saw nothing but black. I couldn’t even see the light from the street lamps. I closed the curtains again and flicked the light switch on to make sure the power hadn’t gone out. The harsh light from the one ceiling light that we never used flooded the room. For some reason it was only the street lamps that weren’t getting power.
Curious, I opened the front door and stepped into the freezing night air and immediately walked right into something soft.
I hastily turned on the porch light. I had walked right into the quilt. It had been draped over the low covering of the porch for me to stumble into. I gave it a tug to try and pul it down. I figured Ben had nailed it to the roof and it would probably tear, but that didn’t matter since it was going to burn anyway. After dealing with Ben’s dumb pranks all night I would enjoy seeing it go up in flames just a bit more.
It wouldn’t budge. I pulled as hard as I could and put all my weight into trying to tear it down but whatever was holding it to the roof wasn’t giving way. As I was clinging to it I realized that it seemed a lot bigger than I’d remembered. It actually draped around the whole front porch.
I was going to have to go under it. I lifted the heavy fabric above my head and walked carefully down the front steps.
And, I don’t understand this part at all, but there was just more quilt. I kept walking and the quilt kept going. I made it to the middle of our lawn, almost tripping over a tree root as I got farther away from the light of the front porch, still holding my hands above me supporting the wet musty fabric. It was as if someone had made a thousand ancient family quilts and sewed them all together, only to then drape the across the entire front yard of the house.
I turned back to the house. I could see the porch light still on but it was a faint glow bouncing off a sea of concave fabric. It was getting hard to breathe, probably because I was breathing a lot faster now. I made my way back to the porch light, walking my hands along the fabric above me as I went and trying not to break into a run. Running felt like the first step to panicking.
I got to the house and slammed the front door shut behind me. I drew back the curtains again, this time flicking on the living room light before I did. Pressed against the window was a maze of ruddy vines and ornate birds stitched into a sea of musty yellowing fabric. The birds stared at me with black beady eyes through my own terrified reflection.
I tore through the house. I ripped back the curtains on every window. Same thing. No view of the street outside or the trees in the backyard, just flat lifeless birds trapped in a tangle of vines.
I have a vague memory of being a kid and watching a movie where a house had to be fumigated for pests. The house had been draped in striped fabric like a circus tent. I had never seen that happen in real life and would occasionally wonder if it was a real thing. Anyway, I figured that was what my house must look like from the outside.
I was freaking out at this point. I checked all the windows and doors several more times and left all the curtains open so that I could prove to myself that this was really happening. That somehow the quilt that had strangled Sarah when we were kids had spread out like a giant amoeba and enveloped the shitty house with me inside.
The quilt’s edge had to be somewhere. The house had a large front yard but beyond it was a road.
I grabbed a bread knife from the kitchen and headed back out the front door. Leaving the porch light on I tucked the knife into my belt and started out again, walking my hands along the wet fabric as I went. I passed the tree root I had tripped over on my first excursion. I could only faintly see it as the porch light was growing farther away behind me. Soon it was swallowed up by quilt as I got closer to where I knew the road would be.
The quilt got heavier as I walked. It was soaked and I wondered if maybe it had been snowing. Where was the road? I really felt like I should’ve reached the curb by now.
I dug into my pocket for my phone. Still no messages from either my parents or the other residents of the house. I turned on the phone’s flashlight and then tucked it under my chin so that I could at least see where I was going. The quilt’s vines crisscrossed above me like a net.
The quilt soon got so heavy that I had to crawl on my hands and knees. I decided that I would go just a bit farther before I decided to say “fuck it” and just cut myself out. I held the phone with my left hand and inched myself along the ground with my right as the wet fabric slid across my back.
And then I felt it. Something was tugging at the quilt from all sides. It felt like the quilt was a fitted sheet that someone was trying to stretch over a mattress and I was trapped underneath. It was pressing me into the icy ground. Somehow I managed to flip myself over. I fumbled at my belt for the knife.
When I was a kid, before Sarah died, a commercial for Space Bags would play in between the cartoons we would watch on Saturday mornings. After we lost Sarah I became terrified of that commercial. My imagination turned against me and I would wonder what it would happen if you put a human in one before sucking out the air. The idea would sometimes strike me unexpectedly, and I would see visions of skin and muscle collapsing as quickly and effortlessly as a stack of soft bath towels. My dad would come into my room and comfort me, thinking I had a nightmare. I could never find the words to tell him that I hadn’t been asleep, just lying awake. Thinking.
Those visions snapped back into my mind as I felt the quilt begin to press me into the icy ground. I wrenched the knife free from my belt and flipped over onto my back.
I stabbed wildly above my face. It wasn’t easy. The quilt was so much thicker than I remembered and was rapidly closing in, but by stabbing and slashing downward I finally felt the knife break through to the other side and quickly shoved my head through the small opening.
I took a few huge gasps of fresh air before setting to work freeing the rest of my body. I stuck the blade toward the sky and sawed downward toward my feet until I had made a hole big enough that I could just squirm out of.
I sat panting with my knees to my chest. When I finally stood up I was shaky and tripped over something big and bulky. My hands flew out in front of me and found a smooth hard surface.
It felt like I had stumbled into a wall. Feeling around further, I found a light switch and turned it on.
I was back in the house. Back in the living room. In the middle of the room, in front of the couch was a huge gash in the carpet.
I had come up through the floor.
And I did so again. And again. Violent gashes in the floor now snake across the living room carpet. A few run across the ugly linoleum of the kitchen. A few even run up the walls. It’s getting so hard to breathe, and I don’t remember what air tastes like without the spice of mold and rot. The house lost power a few hours ago, and I can’t stop thinking about Sarah, and nets and trapped birds and Space Bags and how this knife is getting so dull and how I’m getting so cold.
So Reddit, I need your help.
AITA?

Hi everyone,
I am unsure how and if I can add images - so sry if there are none to better understand what I'm talking about. I am happy to share the images of the map and stat block in some way if I'm told how :D

TL;DR

I find it really hard to create balanced combat encounters, especially those that are challenging but doable and in the end rewarding (like with boss fights). Therefore I need help adjusting the difficulty of my final boss and the fight for a rather new group of Level 2 players. I used a self-made homebrew version of a GEM STALKER with some adjusted Stats and Lair Actions (s. below). Do you think that is balanced, also given the terrain? Or would you change something to make it fairer?

PARTY

I am currently planning out the final battle for a Homebrew One Shot Adventure for 1st time players and need help with balancing the final boss for my party (haven't done a lot of homebrew monsters so far). It will be their second session but they're doing very well, in terms of understanding the rules, using their abilities and with roleplaying (even in combat).
We're using some simplified rules, the amazing DnD Story Mode made by u/joelesko , which I adjusted myself in terms of adding some more races, an additional feature specific to a kind of subclass and making the druid and ranger class a bit more unique, nothing too major though, that should impact the balance of the rule set too much (at least I hope so xD so far it felt quite balanced). Here's the Class Reference Sheets and Character Creation Guide I made for my players if anyone wants to have a look and have a reference how the characters were build. (Unfortunately my guides are all in German as my players don't speak English very well but maybe you can still gleam the most important information from it as many features are kept in English (for simplicity of referencing) - sry about that)
The party consists of 5 players, each Level 2:

• Tiefling Dual Swords Ranger
• Gnome Illusionist Wizard
• Dwarf Paladin of Courage
• Tiefling Assassin Rogue
• Human Brawler Fighter

I was thinking of maybe leveling them up to Level 3 before the boss fight to make them a bit stronger and more resistant, but am unsure if that's the way to go as they already leveled up once during the last session (after their first fight and completing the first part of the adventure) and I don't want to overwhelm them with options. Or should I just give them like a boost in abilities, I'd have a way to make that plausible in game (same for the level up)

MONSTER: GEM STALKER

Generally they will be fighting a cursed amethyst dragon (called Belayana) with a stat block based on that of an Amethyst Gem Stalker, that is trying to protect a magic tree that gives the surrounding forest and the beings within life energy. They can either kill it (and let the forest die but get the "Quest" money), knock it unconscious and help Belayana to get back to her true Dragon form, by uniting her body with that of the gem tree, or (with a lot of clever thinking and luck) might be able to persuade it to stand down and find a different way.
Belayana will be rather aggressive when fighting as she sees everyone in the cave as a danger to the tree and the forest, and is intend on protecting it no matter what. She will use walls and water and her teleport to her advantage to attack and move around. Although she is turned into a monster, she is still intelligent and acts like it but will fight to the death.
I adjusted the Stat Block of the Gem Stalker with the 5etools integrated CR adjustments in terms of damage and abilities to a CR 2. Below is everything I changed or added (indicated by a +)

• AC: 15
• HP: 45 (7d10 +7)
• To Hit: +3 (STR)
• Speed: + 40ft swim
• Features: + Amphibious
• Multiattack: 2 Claw attacks or 1 Tail Swipe
• Claw: 1d6 +1 dmg
• + Tail Swipe: 10ft range, 1d8 + 1
• Amethyst Crystal Dart: 2d4+1 and Teleport
• Lair Actions: Beguiling Whisper: DC 12 WIS save or be charmed by Monster until next lair action Blinding Pulse: DC 12 CON save or be blinded until next lair action Rising Amethysts: 1 Minion (either Mephit or Earth Elemental) arises in a 30ft range; only 1 minion at a time possible
• Removed: Protective Link

I was thinking of either modifying a mephit (which one though?) to a gem flavour to use as a minion AND/OR use the Small Earth Elemental (adjusted to only one attack per turn) created by u/Kankerata. I usually like using minions, because, imo, then the fight gains a better action economy instead of just circling and pummeling the big bad.
MAP
For the sake of completion and better calculate what difficulty is appropriate:
I used this map by u/FantastiskDoD as a general base and adjusted it to my amethyst setting for Foundry VTT. The map is ~190ft in length and 160ft top to bottom (5ft grid). There are two bodies of water (left and right) and some of the crystals on the ground can be used to hide behind. The big gemstones inside the right lake is a stand-in for the big magical gem tree, that fuels the magic of the forest and of Belayana. There are Stone slips inside the left lake that can be traversed by jumping and if necessary an Athletics Check, but are considered difficult terrain as they are wet and slippery. A hidden entrance through a waterfall is the primary way into the cave. The ground inbetween the lakes is about 30ft wide at its smalles part.
​
Thanks in advance for any help and ideas :D I am happy to answer any questions that might arise or post this somewhere else, where it is more fitting - I am aware it's a lot of information and not the best presented. I just don't know what would be important in that regard >.<

I am tired of dealing with these arguments. Now for the sake of discussion i'm making this thread to show case the common arguments... and the problems. Before the Men of Iron ever were a problem, the Men (and Women) of straw waged war against reason and if we are to actually GET anywhere we need to put these things away.
However i often find these are always prefaced with or with the message of "You shouldn't care at all, like i do." and i disagree vehemently. Lore and stories are why a lot of people play this game or pick factions and even take up the courage... Apparnetly it was and is silly (which is fine i can see an argument) and BECAUSE of that, you should shut up and be like them; apathetic. You shouldn't be. It's like the worst of Nurgle and Tzeentch: Change for it's own sake and a shrug as a reaction.
My thesis is that GW usually does what i call "retclarifications" that is to say that most retcons are given some form of explanation, this is so you can still justify your army that was built with pervious information or at least why factions or equipment was missing. I will be using this to explain certain infamous and repeated arguments. Your Milage my vary and I think the discussion of retcons and how well they are implemented is worth discussing. While the Female Custodes argument is the cause, I will make my position clear: It is not the retcon, it is the implimentation, which I think was poorly done because it was not retclarified in any way and shows a lack of confidence in GW for the change. This may affect your opinion of me, and that's fine; i simply just wanted to say why i hear this arguments.
I will (because for reason the a few older hobbiest seem to take issue) i started in highschool around... 2016? Reading Ciaphas Cain's omnibus are reading lore from tv tropes and watching videos on the lore. I bought my first miniatures a year later. That doesn't make you or anyone else less of a warhammer fan. I will also (because again; people take issue) models if you want; i collect AoS, 40k, and a few models for old world.

Rouge Trader

Now, this one is interesting: typically used by Hobby Veterans or people who know how to use google to look up some obscure fact that actually Squids are nids or were... but usually will say something about Human-Eldar Hybrids or some obscure, half-forgotten lore. If you're lucky it might actually be relevant with the current setting!
Now whenever someone says this, it's important to remember: RT is a very different setting then current 40k and should be treated as such. Much like how early WHF is a different beast then the modern WHF. Indeed, there are retcons... but of course it's what made it canon. So tell them this; It's a different setting.
Space Marines are no space cops now, nor are half-eldar possible. 40k solidifies itself a bit later on, but it's a change to be celebrated because the change did something and create the game and lore we all know and love (well I do, juries still out on a lot of these types...) which brings us to our next topic

The T'au

So people at times bring up the T'au as a retcon. This... is technically true. (the best kind of true) but at the same time the setting at this point is established; and it's a galaxy. the Galaxy is a big place. One of the advantages of the 40k setting (and Age of Sigmar's in comparison to it's predecessor) is that it's a Big place, a massive place even. the setting's scale means that if you want to introduce a young race like the t'au... you can. it's remarkably easy and when introduced the T'au (or Tau at the time) are given the warp storm to cover for their rapid development.
Now , they weren't very popular but that was because of aesthics and how goody two-shoes they are, but if a retcon they don't really change anything, being newcomers to an established galaxy both in-lore and out, and of course, the T'au would later fix the problems they had with retclarifications: not only gaining darker aspects (or perhaps highlighting the darker implications of their lore.) but also cementing themselves as clear foils to Humanity and the Imperium of man.

The Necrons

Ah yes these guys are the most commonly said to have been 'retconed' and... honestly I don't see it.
Now don't get me wrong; the "Chaos Android" were RT of course and these new terminator-inspired slaves to being who devoured the stars themselves seem very different from the enslavers of gods and masters of the Materium...
but are they really? See this is where the power of "retclarification" happens; It's still both. The 'retcon' kept the fact the necrons WERE soulless monsters enslaved to beings that might as well be hateful gods. It's just... well, their shards now. Oddly that seems to match with the power they always had on the table top...
The point i'm trying to make is that this is a great example because you still have the enslaved hosts, but you also have another direction to take. Early encounters with the Crons are still canon; unable to communicate, awoken in broken sleep, their souls gone, consumed, damaged... reverted to basic protocols. The ones who woke up later, like the majority of necrons? didn't suffer from it (if they're high up of course; the lowly peasent warrior is still mindless... hopefully) with only a few actually being awake previously. The Shards are also still powerful... see the Infinite and Divine for more information.
But basically it's probably the worst example to use; because not only was the implementation almost perfect in my opinion but it does it so seamlessly It's wonderful for everyone; you get both if you really want to, nothing in your way. The only real retcon is in the case of Pariahs, but even then, there's ways of interpreting them different.

The Leagues of Votaan

The latest to join and it saddens me because i was an early adopter; i have the infamous broken first codex.
Now this one is a bit harder to understand but to be blunt: The Imperium did think the squats were dead... because they, in their own ignorance thought the only league to ally with them was the ONLY league, period. with their destruction the Imperium thought them extinct, only for them to now come from the core because of a tensey tiny problem called the GREAT RIFT. They were also the Demiurg in the t'au and gave them Ion technology.
Now it is a bit more handwavey because history, but I think it works, and does a great bit of retclarification for all the factions involved. the Votaan are a great faction btw; we're more then deeprock galatic memes ya know but i feel people thought the squats being back were all they were.
The future is dark, and full of terror, but the Leagues emerged from the Core, a dangerous and dark place and know that luck has, need keeps and toil earns. It leads to more stories, more conflicts, more war.

But New Tank

The most common one, usually the Rogal Dorn lately, but let me ask you this: Would it be impossible for one to exist?
Technically no. it's also got built in justifications anyways; they found the STC comes to mind, or they're very rare and so are only sparingly used until recent discoveries, that sort of thing. In most cases a new unit or vehicle was always there... but of course, it would be weird if they WEREN'T just not playable.
Let's take the example of the Valkyrie: why wouldn't the impeirum have air-fighters? You'd think that would come up... like I doubt we're going to see boats, or cargo trucks on the table top... (... oh) but that doesn't mean they didn't exist and wouldn't actually make sense in the background of the universe. I feel like that it's easier with weapons or equpiment, particularly when they're already 'estbablished' and not world changing. Black-hole swords? Probably smart to find a way to justify it... a special power sword? Eaiser to introduce.
and so i find this one to be the most desperate of the 'examples' and around the time where we need to have a serious discussion on the topic of retroactive continuity; while it is probably the best examples of it purely, it's a tool.
A tool that can be used well and poorly... and... well let's take a look at the primaris.

The Primaris

This one is just funny to me given I remember quite clearly (and can still see) the fact a lot of people still have problems with the primaris and Crawl. If someone brings it up i can only assume they have hit their head and you should remind them of how controversial it is (and possibly get them an icepack if available)
Now they actually used the opportunity of the HH to introduce Crawl after the Primaris in 40k, but the fact is it's... a bumpy road to today where they are 'tolerated'... this one retcon needed more to lay the groundwork, needed more to justify and even now the difference between the first born and primaris is practically academic model wise and rules wise with the more units crossing the Rubicon the less it matters.
Basicly it needed work, hard work, more models more customization options and the like to get them accepted... out of universe, and in-universe many agreed with the fans (oddly but hey, it make sense because the primaris were impossible for the same reasons) and it took time for them to be accepted by the first born. It was retclarification upon retclarification and took a lot of stories to get here... which is why it's time to talk about what started this mess in our hobby...

Custodes (Men of Gold, Arguments of Straw)

So...
I can see a justification for Female Custodes.
But let's first talk about the boring stuff: It makes sense they would stop mourning over time (and of course it... would make them meeting the Daughters of the Emperor insanely funny) and the Great Rift is... a good excuse to get your ass out there not to mention the fall of Cadia... and to be honest i blame TTS for the stripper custodes sterotype that is older then you are.
BUT, back to female Custodes; it wasn't estbalished as impossible, just implied. There's nothing like it is for Space Marines where it's been clear only male canditates can have it work... just that only men were chosen.
The real problem I have, and many people i have spoken too is the stupid twitter post: Every joke post is rarely about the concept... it's about how it's just "Yeah they were there totally... like the daemonette Custodes or the Ork Custodes" When there's a story here
and don't give me the 'just be patient it will come eventually" because sure of course it will. Just like the Exodites. We could have gotten a head option; GW love showing this kinda stuff off, but they didn't...
so i'll be blunt: I don't think they had any confidence in it, because of this i suspect they were hoping no one would bring it up... and then, it leaked, and then the Twitter guy tried his best... it's clear to me they could have done it now and ripped the bandaid off...
and female custodes deserve better; have it be a story; they must have taken heavy losses, demanding more of the nobility who are starting to chafe at the supposed honor. Perhaps the Emperor had the female Custodes in a different role... do something with the idea, give a story but... it's a bit late for that.
Which is the worst type of retcon; even a retcon usually has SOMETHING in return but all this one has is opportunity to give GW more money... to buy heads. not anything else; they won't even give you an official one. that's how confident THEY were in the retcon, even ignoring people who are angry at them they either were too afraid to do anything beyond text, or that uncaring.
It's fine to have female Custodes, the execution of them means i'm going for the "Tzeentch" angle until it gets a proper GW retcon; with a story, a narrative... more of a hook. Because I know the HH, I own Watchers of the Throne... and they deserved more then to be treated as an afterthought, to not even weren't a refernce.
And i think it's over. Feel free to argue in the comments.
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First, let's define 'hit song'. In this context, a hit song is a song that takes the world by storm. Songs that are instantly inescapable. No rise up. No word of mouth. Just an auditory comet striking and annihilating the ears of an unexpecting populace on this place we call planet earth. This as an occurrence, while unique, rare and special, was also something that humanity came to expect. Like waiting for a geyser or volcano to erupt. But as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and "Hey Ya!" was the swan song to the mega hit song.
Next, we must unpack the context of where humanity was at the time "Hey Ya!" was released. The year was 2003. August 25th, to be exact. Whether they knew it or not, Outkast, and all of us for that matter, were traversing through a one-time-only lush valley in the journey through time where a crossroads existed: technology was capable of essentially anything providing it was in the right hands, but the flow of information was still tempered in a manner that allowed for everyone to be exposed to the same content. Humanity was by and large still relegated to the choice between television and radio. Yet the level of creativity in "Hey Ya!" (in it's entirety, so this must and does include the music video) is so lofty that you would have no idea that audiences at the time only had two mediums of exposure, with the obvious exception of live performance.
Because hit songs of this magnitude were rare, once one occurred, odds were very high there was going to be a significant waiting period for the next mega hit song. Sadly for humanity, but not for Outkast, during this waiting period after the intergalactic Hey Ya! dust was settling, two tragedies happened.
The first tragedy happened in February of 2004 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. That's when Facebook was created, and social media along with it. Notice how He Ya! dropped at the height of summer 03' and Facebook was created in the dead of winter of 04'. Coincidence? I think not.
The second tragedy came to pass, also in the dead of winter. This time on February 14th, 2005. That's when YouTube was created. Ever since these two tragedies in the the eyes of the mega hit song befell our dearly beloved, the flood of content is so vast and the paradigm shift so intense that a planetary populace will never be able to latch onto a single piece of it, in this case a catchy song, together, ever, again.

Note: I am very tired all the time being recently home from hospital, I will get to all questions, it just might not be right away!
This sub was so helpful to me leading up to surgery as I looked for how others experienced their own surgical journey. I want to give back and share as much as possible.
I was diagnosed with MVP 8 years ago, right around the age of 30 or so. It has definitely been there all my life as we knew I had a heart murmur, but it didn’t really rear its ahead until recently. I started becoming ever so slightly symptomatic and had noticeable PVCs, skipped beats, and palpitations. This was managed with a beta blocker. Looking back, I’ve never been much for cardio even tho I am slim and mostly in shape, I could just never break thru and really be a runner, the MVP is likely why.
My cardiologist diagnosed it as mild to moderate at the time. A few years ago, my echo showed I had moderate regurge. I was getting an echo every six months. I was told to always be on the lookout for flu like symptoms or shortness of breath, and to let them know if I experienced those symptoms. They had said it’s likely I would need surgery at some point, but my case was moderate and they wouldn’t advocate for surgery even if I was 60+ and stayed same as I was then. They also stated things could change quickly. I was told way back then that repair would be the ideal scenario, that it would provide a more durable long term outcome, I wouldn’t have to be on blood thinners or have the valve replaced again in 12-15 years. Because I was young, they really wanted to repair it. I was told that, ideally, we would wait some time as the repair procedures were becoming better and better with time and that you want someone to build you a house that has built hundreds of houses, not 3.
Back earlier this year I started noticing a touch of fatigue, brushed it off to not getting enough sleep and having a small child. I also noticed not necessarily shortness of breath, but that while laying down at night for bed I had to more intentionally draw in air. My palpitations grew more intense. My Kardia was showing possible aFib, but I was not in aFib. Either way, at this point, I was ready to see my doc. Fortunately, I had my 6 month echo already scheduled for the following week. Funny enough, I still hadn’t put together it was my valve, maybe it was denial on my part. So after the echo when the cardiologist and her fellow came and told me I had a detached chordae and regrurge had become severe, I was quite surprised. My cardiologist said I would likely need surgery in the near future, but she wasn’t greatly concerned it be an asap thing.
Either way, I scheduled consult with Chief of Cardiac Surgery at same hospital, Dr. Gabriel Aldea. I can’t say enough this man, go look up his bio. 20,000 heart surgeries and 5,000 valve surgeries. He stated that in the latter part of his career, he has focused on valve repair. I am so thankful I had access to him as my surgeon, and UW Medical Center Heart Institute in general. Can’t say enough about the care I received.
So, after my wife and I met with the doctor and he walked me thru what he would do, I decided to schedule surgery. He had a 6-8 week wait list. He said he wouldn’t wait any later May, but didn’t feel it was an asap thing. Due to some logistics, personal considerations, my own calendar, etc., we scheduled for mid April. My original date was the 18th but I was pushed to 19th to accommodate a high priority heart transplant.
I am glad we didn’t wait any longer, because by the time surgery rolled around, I was pretty winded even taking the trash cans to curb, very tired all the time.
My pre-op arrival time was 5:15am. They said I’d be wheeled to OR around 7:30am and total surgery time of 3-4 hours. Turns out it was only 2 hours because this surgeon is so on point. The valve was in worse shape than we thought, as there were two detached chordae that needed to be replaced. Both leaflets were flappy and lose and needed to be trimmed, there was fissuring of the cartilage that needed to be sewed up, and he placed a ring around base of valve to keep it taught. My post-surgery echo showed only trace leakage, so I went from severe to trace. Doc said he couldn’t be happier with the results. He had said in pre-surgical meeting that he was about 90 to 95% sure he could repair it how he wanted, and he sure did.
Regarding open-heart rather than minimally invasive… He advocated for open-heart from the start, as he wanted to see the valve in front of him and use his own hands to repair it and make sure nothing was missed. He was confident I would recover well from the incision as I am relatively young. You’re also on bypass machine longer with minimally invasive, and they’re pushing thru muscle that they otherwise wouldn’t be when cutting the sternum that has very few nerves. That all sounded fine to me.
I did go into aFib day after surgery for a chunk of the day, which isn’t unexpected. Either than that, I have been in normal rhythm with zero palpitations and skipped beats or PVCs, it’s really an amazing feeling. When I listened to my own heart before surgery, you could hear the whooshing of the regurge loud and clear, you can’t hear it at all now.
I was in the ICU three days, hospital for 5. They said it would probably be 6 or 7 days, but I am young and healthy and did well. Plus my parents are retired medical professionals and would be with me listening to my heart and lungs once I got home so I think that helped.
Again, first few days were rough, but day 4 it was incredible how much better I felt. They got me out of bed sitting in a chair on day two, one short walk of maybe 70’. Day three I took two longer walks down the hall, both with a nurse on either side of me and walking with an assistance walker on wheels. I am walking almost a half mile now, albeit very slow. They said if you have the energy, go walk two miles as long as you’re not pushing yourself. Again, this will vary in terms of age and health.
Things I found helpful after hospital: - Wedge pillow - Shower chair - Oversized t shirts at least two sizes larger than normal to easily get on and off. - Heating pad to lay back on. When they open your chest and spread you apart, your ribs push back into your back and you’re pretty sore.
Don’t push it when you get home. Continue to rest. Be careful standing up, you’ll likely get lightheaded easily. Make sure you have lots of help at first.
I weighed the most I’ve ever weighed in my life after surgery, I was holding maybe 20 pounds of water weight, though I am back to pre-surgical weight after taking the drugs that make you pee what felt like non-stop (which was unpleasant and annoying, but necessary).
They advocated for high protein diet, much higher than daily recommended value. They suggested protein shakes or protein powder to get that extra boost as the heart muscle heals. They recommended fiber gummies to make sure am getting enough fiber. Generally I eat healthy so not worried about that. They said fish and chicken and meats, nuts and beans, lots of green vegetables, etc. To eat a healthy balanced diet, makes sense.
I am tired still, but better every day. USE YOUR SPIROMETER, a lot! My pain 8 days out is mostly handled by Tylenol and muscle relaxers - which they said don’t shy away from, you need your muscles to relax and that will take awhile. I was told at 4-6 weeks my incision may feel 60-70% better, 80-85% at 8 weeks, and by 12 weeks, should be feeling pretty back to normal. They did say I may experience some pain and discomfort here and there for up to 6-8 months. I will start cardiac rehab at 6 weeks, for now they said get out for a couple short walks every day and increase your distance as works for you. There are plenty of restrictions on movement, but I’ll leave that to your care team to go over.
I’m trying to think of anything else that would be helpful, but please don’t hesitate to ask away. I didn’t go into detail here on first few days after surgery in terms of pain and comfort level, as I don’t want to freak anyone out. It’s hard, but you get thru it quick!
Cheers!

Andurian was the strangest healer anyone had ever seen. He wore a black and purple robe, had a fancy staff (the only normal healer thing about him) and a powerful magic sword on his hip. Though not uncommon, the amount he had was excessive; he had five magic rings on one hand and three on the other. You could feel the magic flowing off his sword, staff, and particularly those rings, at pretty much all times. The power was like a gentle breeze constantly flowing outward from his gear that you could only feel with your magi-sense. At first it was startling, the kind of thing that would cause an entire tavern to stop making noise the moment he entered, and resume a moment later when they all realized it was just Andurian.
He'd made himself well known around town when he appeared out of no where and saved the lives of a handful of Steel Tier Adventurers after they killed the Tyrannus Lizard. It had bit their healer in half during the battle and somehow he even saved her too.
Vincent the Brave had introduced him to the guild, and he immediately signed up. Everyone starts at Tin tier, but Andurian rose up the ranks quickly. Clearly his ability to mend flesh was second to none, and he never seemed to tired from casting like most healers. When he wasn't out adventuring he worked, FOR FREE, at the medical clinic.
Well... Free in terms of currency, what he was really getting paid in was information. Every adventurer he healed talked with him, told him anything he wanted to know. He was, after all, the only healer that includes pain killing magic with his heals. Most healers will stitch you back together through screaming pain, but Andurian will put your whole damn arm back on and somehow give you an Armgasm as the same time.
Rumors about him spread too, far and wide. Six months after he arrived the first Adamantine adventurers started showing up at our town trying to recruit him. He was still technically only an Iron tier Adventurer when he turned down the Falconeer and her crew. Terrestria and the Earthlings also got shot down, though he did cure two of the Earthlings of a fungal infection they'd had for nigh on a decade that their old healer said was 'Impossible to fix'.
Andurian never permanently joined a party, at least for nine month he hadn't. He'd do one job with a random party here, and another there, nothing that was supposed to get too terribly dangerous, though the missions he chose always seemed to get out of hand somehow. Randomly coming across an undead horde, or a lindwyrm, or a pack of dire wolves. The tales the returning adventurers would tell would be fantastical. Tanks cut clean in two, and restored in mere seconds, back to fully fighting fit. Or an arm that was reattached from a distance, unlike other healers he didn't need to be touching you to heal. He never seemed to attack, he would use his staff to defend himself if a stray goblin or wolf came at him. Parrying and dodging while still healing, until help arrived to slay whatever it was attacking him.
The rumors about this man had become so powerful that if he asked to join your party you almost couldn't say no. Was it probably going to be one hell of a mission gone sideways? Almost assuredly. Would everyone survive? Also, without a doubt, so long as the man in the black and purple robes came with. Parties that had gone out and had haywire adventures with Andurian also seemed to level up pretty quickly afterward. The Tigers went from Bronze to Steel as a party within two months of their time with him, and that was pretty much the typical result.
Also, he'd never been said to join the same party twice. So the Scrip Scrappers were quite surprised when he approached their table at the tavern the day before their first mission out after their 'turn' being bless by him.
"I am coming with you." He told them, a serious look on his face. the entire tavern silenced to listen in. They all knew this was odd... odder than normal with Andurian.
Dean, the leader of the Scrip Scrappers swallowed hard into the sudden silence. "I... Uhm. What?" He wasn't mentally ready to be devoured whole by another Grunchalope Alpha, or whatever the future happened to have in store for him on this adventure out with Andurian.
"I am coming with you." Andurian repeated. "Your party will need me."
He never explained why he was joining parties, he just told them he joining. Dean's face drained of all color.
Samantha, the Scrip Scrappers regular healer smiled and placed her a hand on Dean's shoulder. "We would be honored to have you along again. I was hoping that perhaps this time I might pick your brain about a few things, if there's time."
Andurian smiled. He never smiled. "I believe that can be arranged."
They were on a mission into a goblin lair that had previously been cleared by three groups of mostly steel tier adventurers. They weren't called the Scrip Scrappers because they took on high value jobs. Mostly they did cleanup tasks. Frequently, members 'graduated' up to new parties. Andurian spent the walk to the goblin lair talking with Samantha about the human body. The functions of all the organs, and tips and tricks for non-magical healing, but he noticeable changed the subject several times when it came to healing with magic.
As expected this mission went sideways. Getting to the supposedly cleared lair was no problem, however when they arrived it seemed all the corpses were already gone. Blood trails indicated something had dragged them all back into the lair, or possibly that they'd dragged themselves. Normally, Dean would have called it there, and for the sake of safety told the party to head back to town. A waste of a days rations and a time, better safe than dead. Something amiss like that is a sure sign of trouble... but Andurian spoke up.
"We need to go in there, no time to wait for reserve troops." And with that he strode forth, leaving the party racing to catch up. Healers and spellcaster types usually aren't in the front when exploring sketchy dungeons.
Once they were all comfortably inside, the entrance collapsed. Sealing them inside. Andurian didn't seem bothered, or even startled by this, which did help put the other seven people at ease, sorta. The lack of startle was... well startling in it's own way.
Rather than say anything to allay their growing anxiety, he said, "The only way out is forward." After which he did something that ratcheted up all their anxieties to eleven. He drew his sword. Andurian hadn't drawn his sword in the entire time he'd been around. He'd been said to have blocked a few attacks with it still in it's sheath, but never actually took it out.
She sang, that sword, a sort of ringing that never stopped after he pulled her out. Scarlet Aria was her name, and once unsheathed all seven Scrappers could feel her power washing over them, invigorating them, and enhancing their senses and breathing. She cast an eerie light, which made all the goblin blood sprayed about the room glow an unnatural green. There were smaller bits that glowed white.
He held his sword high, lighting up the entire space, "Fan out and have a look around. We're looking for any purple blood. Green is the goblinoids, white is humans, elves or dwarves. Purple is... my target."
A few minutes of searching and Harlan, the rogue found a tiny spot of glowing purple in a piece of rock on the ground that looked magically manipulated and called Andurian over. Harlan suspected an orc shaman had opened a tunnel here at some point.
For a moment there was a flash of anger on Andurian's face, but he quelled his emotions and said. "Stand back."
He placed his hand that had five rings on it a fist pointed straight down. The Scrappers all felt a pulse of magic unlike anything they'd ever encountered, suddenly they were all falling. Andurian's five rings destroyed themselves in their usage, but punched a large hole all the way down into the underdark, that land beneath the surface from which goblins and orcs come.
As they fell he swung his staff around and caught them all in a slow falling spell, so they alighted softly onto the stone wreckage below. pushing away the cloud of dust that came with them.
Slow falling was supposed to be a wizard's spell, or so they had all thought.
As the cloud of dust cleared and settled, They saw that they were well and truly surrounded by a throng of orcs and goblins. They had crashed down in the middle of some huge ritual or ceremony. Inside the surprisingly well lit cave were hundreds, maybe even a thousand orcs and goblins. And underneath the pile of rocks that they had followed were probably twenty or so dead ones.
Andurian smiled. Fresh ground goblin and orc would work perfectly. He activated the three remaining rings on his sword hand, and a glowing light surrounded all of his companions. "Fight like my life depends on it friends, and don't worry about the wounds."
The scrappers all felt stronger than ever, they all were stronger than ever. Whatever magic Andurian used had juiced them up real good. Dean leapt twelve feet in a single jump to block an arrow headed toward Andurian. And then he kicked an orc that was climbing up toward them hard enough that the orc's head exploded.
Samantha stood next to Andurian, what else was she going to do? Andy had taken an arrow in the neck and just ripped it out and the wound sealed up and he kept fighting. So she watched Andurian to try to learn. She watched him point with his staff at the growing mess of dead meat, and then she watched it begin to form up into a massive flesh golem.
"Y- Y- You're a Carnomancer!?"
"And so much more!" Andurian said as he channeled his power into the staff and his monstrous flesh abomination hopped into action. Unnervingly fast for something so large, it swept orcs and goblins by the dozen down to the floor and stomped across them. Every one slain adding to it's mass and power.
"But... What? How?!"
The Scrip Scrappers acquitted themselves well in battle. The enchantment he put on them was unreal.
Dave, the unarmored barbarian, used to be covered in somewhat debilitating burn scars. Those ancient scars had all vanished about a half second after the enchantment landed on him, and he felt as young as powerful as when he had slain the dragon that burnt him twenty years ago.
Dean's strength grew to match Dave's, and Harlan and Harriet both become so fast and deadly accurate with their ranged attacks that they were killing enemies so quickly that running out of arrows would have been a serious concern, if not for the orcs and goblins shooting plenty back at them. If they needed another one they'd just yoink it from their own thigh, or their friend's back and the wound would painlessly close. In fact getting peppered with arrows was only a minor itchy annoyance at worst while under Andurian's ring enhanced enchantment. It was not, however repairing their armor, which would be truly beat to hell by the end of the fight.
Val and Tilly, the two offensive spellcasters found their mana reserves to be overflowing, like they were wearing beer helmets with mana potions instead of beers, and just absolutely chugging while fighting.
Samantha would have got more out of the enchantment if she wasn't so dumbfounded by conversation with Andurian while the chaos around her unfolded.
"What the hell do you mean More than a Carnomancer! Everyone only gets one Mancy!" She shouted at him, mostly to get over the noise of the screaming goblinoid horde trying to kill them. An arrow stuck her in the neck and he reached pointed his sword at her and it sprang out and flew back at the one who shot it.
"No offense lady, but you people have it all so wrong about magic on this planet." He said, "Look, I can do any mancy I want."
Then he copied Val's Pyromancy only stronger, and lit a dozen green bodies below aflame with a gesture from his staff. Another staff swipe put a wall of ice spikes through a line of twenty enemies that was about to loose arrows their direction.
"What in the nine hells..." Samantha was struggling with this, Church Dogma said that those blessed with magic could only master one mancy, but Andurian had clearly mastered many. "What... what are you?"
Andurian pointed his staff toward his flesh monstrosity and it collapsed from a vaguely humanoid in shape to a massive blob with hundreds protruding of bone tentacles. The boney protrusions reached out and claimed any orc or goblin they could and started hurling them to awaiting mouths at the blob center.
"I'm A Space Wizard. From up there." He gestured upward with his eyes, "One of my ilk has stolen something from me and has been hiding on this planet, and I've finally found him. So you wanna know what I am? I'm fucking mad. He stole my godsdamned Familiar!"
There was a sudden powerful pulse of magic, the kind that the Scrip Scrappers had only ever felt around Andurian, but it came from within a neighboring chamber of the cave. The orcs and goblins had been slaughtered down to the point that they were fleeing en masse, and this, enemy Space Wizard, had also just retreated.
"Run if you want Rathius, you son of a bitch!" Andurian shouted into the cave. then he turned to Samantha to say, "He can't force a teleport with Flox, so he's gotta still be in here somewh-oof!"
Andurian's Familiar cut him off by flying into his chest at high speed and unceremoniously taking him clean off his feet. It was an almost two meter long flying noodly shaped dragon thing. Flox was black and purple, like his owner's robe. He had four limbs on bottom, front legs with thumbs on the hands, and back feet more like a cats. On his back were a pair of wings, though the way he flew he definitely didn't need use them. It seemed the laws of Physics were merely suggestions to Flox the dragonling Familiar.
Andurian sat up and pet the aggressively wiggly dragonling in his lap. "Okay buddy, I know... I missed you too." Flox licked him and nuzzled him like a dog that hadn't seen it's owner in weeks, and as Andurian calmed Flox down the creature started purring like a cat. Once the beast was purring Andurian collected his sword and sheathed it, and grabbed his staff back to help himself back to his feet Around them, the Scrip Scrappers had reassembled. The flesh monstrosity had collapsed into inert meat the instant Flox had made contact with Andurian. The ol' space Wizard just didn't have the rage left in his heart to maintain such a thing when his Familiar was back with him. Also, all the remaining enemies had all fled.
"Did you say you're a Space Wizard?" Val had overheard.
"Yeah, he did." Samantha confirmed, while plucking one of the few remaining arrows from Harriet's back. "He also has multiple mancies. Pyro, Cryo, Carno, and more from what I saw..."
Coming from the cleric, the healer, the representative of the church in the group, that was quite the statement.
Andurian sighed while wrapping his purring pet around his neck like a scarf, "The jig is up. I'm not from 'round here. I'm from up there, all the way up there. And I know far more about the true nature of magic than you land dwellers down here, what with that damn fool church teaching everyone everything wrong. "
He waited a few seconds to see if any of them would say anything, and much to his surprise, all three of the spell casters in the group started talking at once.
"Can I go with you."
"I want to see it."
"No fuckin way, prove it."
Andurian smiled. "Alright, alright. You non-casters are welcome to come too, you all have potential to learn magic, even Dave here, I'm afraid.
Dave laughed. "If you can prove that, then I'm this little critter's uncle."
All the Scrip Scrappers laughed. Then they suddenly stopped laughing as the roof of the cave above them ripped opened up and sunlight poured in.
"That'll be our ride." Andurian said. "You know, I wasn't planning to recruit anyone on this planet.... but you guys are alright, and Flox didn't raise his hackles to a single one of you. So you've all passed the hardest test already."
Gravity slowly reversed over a few second. The Scrip Scrappers started to panic but since Andurian did not, they left it at 'starting to panic' instead of full blown panic. They started floating upward, and Andurian simply pointed with his staff and applied burst of kinetic energy to the largest rocks trying to join them. His ship above began to do the same, pushing all the stone and rock away, leaving only himself and the Scrip Scrappers to be pulled inside his ship.
"Welcome aboard Captain." A woman's voice said from somewhere. "And welcome, new friends."

I am one of those new players who watched the TV show and bought the game on sale for 8 bucks around when it released. I've been playing after work for a few weeks now. Here is my review.
I like Fallout, having beat Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas as a kid, and having played Fallout 4 but never beat it. I'm also a hardcore FF14 player, so I'm highly familiar with traditional MMOs. I had heard bad things about the game when it came out, but loved the TV show so much that I wanted to hop back into the universe, and this was the only game I've ever played.
What I was hoping for from the game was just to capture that Fallout feeling. To explore the world and the lore the TV show had reinspired a love for, maybe some nostalgia from the older games.
My first experience with the game was Vault 76. This was a big let down. You are the only human in Vault 76, player or NPC. The explanation is that you woke up from last night's party late. You are immediately given some supplies and rushed out of the Vault by Mr. Handy robots. There is no real story or lore to this vault, no sinister Vault-Tec experiment to uncover, and there is no way to return to the vault as far as I know.
The Vault intros to the story are some of the most nostalgic memories from the older Fallout games. Growing up in the Vault in Fallout 3 or being rushed into it in Fallout 4. Coming back to your home Vault and either saving or dooming it was also one of the better side quests in three.
I was disappointed in this introduction to the game, and almost turned it off. But I'm glad I didn't.
I was given the choice here between starting at level 20 or level 1. I chose to start at level 20, because the game recommended it and I wasn't sure if I liked the game, so I primarily wanted to rush to see the Atlantic City content that had just come out. I was given two guns, a bunch of good supplies, and some perks. I didn't feel overpowered, but I did feel like I could hold my own in a fight. It felt like the right choice at the time, but later on, once I found myself liking the game and realized that many other players had chosen to start at level 1, I kind of wish I had chosen level 1 too. It would have made the meat of the game last longer, and better captured that feeling of struggling to survive in the Wasteland once you first leave the vault.
Upon exiting the Vault, you find yourself in a thriving forest. Kind of weird. I was expecting to exit into a dying wasteland, terrified of the hostile nature of the outside world compared to the vault. Apparently this game takes place 25 years after the bombs fall, which doesn't make a lot of sense lore-wise. How is the starting area so alive and normal 25 years after the nuclear apocalypse? It also doesn't make a lot of sense because the game basically acts like it takes place 200 years after the bombs fall later on, with everyone acting as if this is the only world anyone has ever known. Besides the starting forest, the rest of the world is pretty sufficiently devastated.
The next thing I noticed was a big positive. The combat is very, very good and very, very faithful to the older Fallout games. This was marketed as an MMO, so I was expecting MMO combat, where I would be shepherded into a tank, healer, or DPS role and cycle through a rotation of actions or spells with a GCD while I dodged mechanics. Instead, I was met with a faithful recreation of good old fashioned First Person Shooter Fallout combat. There was a wide assortment of awesome ballistic, energy, melee, and throwable weapons to scavenge. Enemies sometimes turned into ash sometimes when I used a laser weapon, or goo when I used a laser weapon. There was even a somewhat faithful recreation of VATS, which I wouldn't have thought possible in an MMO. It only slows time a little bit, but it's otherwise pretty much exactly the same. You can even get the Mysterious Stranger perk, and he feels just as powerful as he did in the mainline games. I was fighting all of the classic enemies from the Fallout universe. I found the combat to be very nostalgic and very fun. This is what kept me from turning the game off.
I began to realize that this game is much more similar to "Borderlands" than it is to "World of Warcraft" or even "Elder Scrolls Online".
I decided to sprint straight to the Whitesprings so I could get to Atlantic City and experience the newest content. Upon getting there, I was met with a series of daily quests before I could do the expeditions. These were super lame, like cooking soup or collecting steel. Typical MMO filler fair. Very disappointing. This is the second time (but the last time) I almost turned off the game. It got better from here.
The expeditions were pretty fun. This is the closest thing to a traditional MMO instanced "dungeon" that Fallout 76 has. You'll fight hordes of enemies related to the new area you're exploring, complete objectives, and get handsomely rewarded with legendary equipment, power armor pieces, and currencies. It feels like a Fallout themed action movie, which is where Fallout 76 is at its best. There will be a boss at the end. It's extremely hard to find a group for these. There is no real matchmaking system. You have to create a party and hope someone on your server decides to join. This can sometimes take hours, but you do get to go do other stuff while you wait. I have never had more than 2 people join for one of these. When they do join, they're probably going to be hundreds of levels higher than you, instead of someone your level. I'm not sure these have as much replay value as they are supposed to. Overall though, my first experience with each of the 3 expeditions I've done so far was a good time and had good rewards.
Next I tried the Atlantic City main story line. My verdict is that it's about what you'd expect from a mainline Fallout DLC. I won't spoil it, but the characters and plot are well-written and interesting. It's pretty short. The new areas and enemies are fun, I especially liked fighting against and helping the mafia, like some sort of post-apocalyptic The Sopranos.
It was ridiculously buggy, even compared to the Appalachia Fallout 76 experience, which was already buggy enough. During the last quest, my ally bugged into the wall on the way to the boss and I had to restart the game multiple times to get him out. The boss, the Jersey Devil, was cool. He was hard at my low level. He killed me the first time I tried to fight him, and again when I came back with power armor. But when I wanted to come back to try a third time, this time with power armor and a legendary gattling plasma, I found that the boss had simply already died to a bug. Anti-climatic. This game also lacks difficulty, which I'll get into more later, so it was really disappointing to see the one hard boss I've found die to a bug. The rewards for the questline were pretty meh, I got a bunch more caps than I got in normal quests, but no cool gear. But, I mean, it's Bethesda. Their games are always buggy. It was an experience that felt pretty typical of a mainline Fallout DLC. Well-written, short, buggy. Not as good as the main game, but fun.
Next I did the Wastelanders questline. This is the best Fallout 76 has to offer, at least out of what I've seen so far. It's also the closest thing Fallout 76 has to a "Main Story Questline". This is pretty much exactly what I wanted from this game. Apparently, the game lacked human NPCs before this was added, but there are tons of them in here. This is a Fallout Theme Park Action Movie. There are Vault-Tec secrets, communist bunkers, armies of evil corporate robots, cool Ghoul characters, tons of hidden lore to discover, you name it. There are moral choices to make, sides to take, stat checks during dialogue, nostalgia, epic action sequences, and handsome rewards. I went into this questline low on supplies and came out of it with epic legendary energy weapons. This questline exceeded all of my expectations, especially after the bad stuff I heard about this game. It's a ton of fun, and captures that mainline Fallout story experience I was hoping for. This alone was worth the 8 bucks I spent.
The game economy was weird. There is no global trade system or market, as is typical of MMOs. Instead, you basically have to explore the camps of other players to see what they are selling, and there are only 25 players max on a server at a time, and usually around 10. But ultimately, I think this decision kind of serves the game well. This is a post-apocalypse game, so a global economy would break the immersion. It also leads to some fun situations, where no one is selling the stuff you need so you have to pay triple the fair price or whatever. Like the time I had power armor but no fusion cores. I had spent hours trying to find them. I ran into a player on the road, asked to trade, and requested his fusion cores. He had 7, and I was hoping he'd sell me 1 for like 100 caps, but instead he sold me all 7 for 25 caps a piece. The next time I needed a fusion core, though, I couldn't find any available and ended up having to pay like 250 caps for one, which was still worth it to me because the power armor is so strong. Honestly, it captures the feel of a post-apocalyptic barter economy pretty well. It's hard to sell stuff if you aren't an established player would be the draw back. I have some rare serums for sale, but I don't have a cool CAMP or hundreds of legendary weapons for sale, so no one ever comes to my CAMP to buy them.
The CAMPS are better than I expected them to be. The player base builds some incredible stuff. I once found a CAMP with like a million water purifiers outside and a ridiculous amount of items for sale at cheap prices. This guy had a literal line forming outside his CAMP for the vendor, with a bunch of other players there for the water. Over half the server was probably there. I ended up placing my CAMP on the cliffs on the outside of The Rose Room, a defensible location with a useful location nearby. At first I didn't think I'd be into building my CAMP at all, and just planned to put down my vending machine, my stash box, and my ally. But then my ally got attacked by a group of raiders with laser weapons by surprise attacking my cliff from below. I'm unsure if this was a random event, or if I just happened to put my CAMP close to where they spawn. Regardless, I spent 20 minutes fighting them off with my ally. Feeling bad for the poor chap, who had agreed to come live with me and then found nothing but the aforementioned vendor and stash box, I decided to build some defenses and some beds. I built four turrets on the cliffsides, some fences, and some beds. It was fun. I'm not sure I'll ever be really into building the coolest CAMP, but the game got me to spend more time on it than I thought I would.
You'll pretty much never encounter other players, unless you seek them out by doing events and expeditions or go to their CAMP or join their party. Finding a player in the wastes feels like a random encounter. For the most part, this game plays like a single player fallout game, with optional multiplayer content included. I even played with the Lone Wanderer perk, which makes me stronger for playing alone. Again, more Borderlands than World of Warcraft. Heck, even Borderlands was more multiplayer than this.
There is virtually no end-game, as far as I can tell. A game like WOW or FF14 has pretty much endless stuff to do in the end game, as well as epic raid bosses that only .001% of the playerbase will ever beat. This game has none of that. It has dailies, events, expeditions, building your CAMP, and collecting even better armor and weapons. That's pretty much it. Maybe you might get into PVP, but it's a sideshow, the game isn't designed for it. You don't really need better weapons or armor, because the game is easy. Dailies, events, and expeditions are the most boring content that traditional MMOs have to offer. Once you've finished the meat of the game, you'll probably turn it off for good. It will probably be a while before this happens for me, though, because there are quite a lot of story quests, locations to explore, and lore to discover. But once you're out of stuff to do, it looks like you're pretty much out of stuff to do. Even the original borderlands had a raid boss: Crawmerax the Invincible. This game could have benefited from stuff like that. Imagine a Super Mutan Behemoth as a raid boss. Missed opportunity.
The game is ridiculously easy, one of the easiest I've ever played. For context, I've died a grand total of 5 times at level 46. I died once sprinting to the Whitesprings by the hoard of enemies following me that killed me right at the door, which was cool. I died once by getting jumped by a group of Super Mutants on the road to my quest, also cool. I died once to my first Assaultron because I was low on supplies. And I died twice to the Jersey Devil. If I had been careful in the early game and prepared for the Jersey Devil fight, I easily could have died zero times by now. Once you get power armor, energy weapons, a stack of Stimpacks and some chems, you're pretty much unstoppable. Nothing the game has to offer is going to touch you. Aside from the power armor, none of this stuff is that hard to get. By level 35, I felt like a god. This has its perks and drawbacks. It can be very relaxing to mow down hordes of enemies while you play the classical music radio station. It's fun to feel like a post apocalyptic god of war. It makes exploring the story and the lore easier, which is what this game is clearly meant for. But if you're looking for a challenge, there is none to be had here. This is like playing Fallout 3 on Very Easy mode.
Overall: 8/10.
This is a Fallout theme park action movie. If you're looking to scratch that Fallout itch after the TV show, this is the game for you. It's a lot better than it was before it was released. It has some flaws, but if you want to play Fallout, this will do the trick, especially at the price point. It's not much of an MMO, think Borderlands. And it's not very difficult. If you're looking for an MMO or a competitive scene or something, this is not the game for you.

My cat (f14) hasn't been eating and she's blowing her nose when she tries to eat food. It's not reverse sneezing, which she does occasionally - it's her quickly pushing air out of her nose multiple times (which seems to mostly be triggered when she's trying to eat and it also happened when I took her outside once). I feel there must be something going on with her nose/breathing which is affecting her ability to smell her food and therefore affecting her appetite. It started over 3 weeks ago, one night she was suddenly rejecting all food (we only give her wet food). This was unusual as she always had a high appetite and she'd been happily eating the same wet food for years. She finally willingly ate canned tuna which was the only thing she wasn't rejecting, plus a couple days later I eventually found another wet fish food which she ate too. On that first night, that's when I first noticed she was blowing her nose as she was eating the tuna. The day before her first vet appointment, she started rejecting both of these too. I also turned off the dehumidifier incase maybe that was making the air too dry, but 3 weeks on it hasn't made a difference. At her initial vet appointment, the vet did a general check of her body and said everything looks good except she has dental disease, so he thought she might be experiencing teeth pain or the dental disease could be affecting her sinuses, so he recommended she have some teeth removed and an X-Ray of her sinuses. He prescribed Mirtazapine for her appetite and Metacam for pain relief. She was eating a lot more on the meds, but after a few days her appetite was up and down, plus she was still blowing her nose at the food bowl. 7 days later, I saw her blow her nose hard and some thick, clear snot came out (that's the only time anything has come out of her nose, otherwise there is no discharge and nose looks normal). 5 days ago, she had her tooth surgery where they extracted 4 teeth and did an X-Ray of her sinus. The vet told me that the X-Ray was all normal and no signs of tumor. However, the next day after surgery my cat was still blowing her nose at the food bowl. She was eating the post-surgery food for 2 days after surgery, but suddenly she stopped eating again. She's only allowed very soft food post-surgery, so I've been going crazy offering her multiple different pâtés which she just won't eat. If I'm lucky, she might lick one a few times, but then she walks away. Last night, I offered her 7 different pâtés for her overnight, hoping she might eat one, but they went untouched. Finally today she ate a bowl of pâté that I made myself from plain boiled chicken, but I know she needs proper cat food. She's otherwise not eating anything else. She did have her post-surgery check-up on Friday, 3 days after surgery, where the vet prescribed an antibiotic for an infection on one of her extracted teeth. So she's currently on the antibiotic and Metacam. The vets said we need to get her teeth healed first and then next steps might be a CT scan and possibly rhinoscopy. I'm worried about putting my cat through more procedures unnecessarily, especially because her teeth extraction made no difference which I'm frustrated about. It seems the vets must think it's something in her sinus, but is there anything else I need to rule out? They haven't done any other tests except the nasal X-Ray and a basic pre-op blood test and they haven't brought up any possible respiratory conditions. I can tell my cat wants to eat/is hungry and she's still responding to food and showing interest. Does anyone know why she could be blowing her nose like this or have any advice on what I should do next? She has another vet follow-up in 3 days and I'm expecting they will just suggest the CT scan and/or rhinoscopy. Thanks in advance!

My cat (f14) hasn't been eating and she's blowing her nose when she tries to eat food. It's not reverse sneezing, which she does occasionally - it's her quickly pushing air out of her nose multiple times (which seems to mostly be triggered when she's trying to eat and it also happened when I took her outside once). I feel there must be something going on with her nose/breathing which is affecting her ability to smell her food and therefore affecting her appetite. It started over 3 weeks ago, one night she was suddenly rejecting all food (we only give her wet food). This was unusual as she always had a high appetite and she'd been happily eating the same wet food for years. She finally willingly ate canned tuna which was the only thing she wasn't rejecting, plus a couple days later I eventually found another wet fish food which she ate too. On that first night, that's when I first noticed she was blowing her nose as she was eating the tuna. The day before her first vet appointment, she started rejecting both of these too. I also turned off the dehumidifier incase maybe that was making the air too dry, but 3 weeks on it hasn't made a difference. At her initial vet appointment, the vet did a general check of her body and said everything looks good except she has dental disease, so he thought she might be experiencing teeth pain or the dental disease could be affecting her sinuses, so he recommended she have some teeth removed and an X-Ray of her sinuses. He prescribed Mirtazapine for her appetite and Metacam for pain relief. She was eating a lot more on the meds, but after a few days her appetite was up and down, plus she was still blowing her nose at the food bowl. 7 days later, I saw her blow her nose hard and some thick, clear snot came out (that's the only time anything has come out of her nose, otherwise there is no discharge and nose looks normal). 5 days ago, she had her tooth surgery where they extracted 4 teeth and did an X-Ray of her sinus. The vet told me that the X-Ray was all normal and no signs of tumor. However, the next day after surgery my cat was still blowing her nose at the food bowl. She was eating the post-surgery food for 2 days after surgery, but suddenly she stopped eating again. She's only allowed very soft food post-surgery, so I've been going crazy offering her multiple different pâtés which she just won't eat. If I'm lucky, she might lick one a few times, but then she walks away. Last night, I offered her 7 different pâtés for her overnight, hoping she might eat one, but they went untouched. Finally today she ate a bowl of pâté that I made myself from plain boiled chicken, but I know she needs proper cat food. She's otherwise not eating anything else. She did have her post-surgery check-up on Friday, 3 days after surgery, where the vet prescribed an antibiotic for an infection on one of her extracted teeth. So she's currently on the antibiotic and Metacam. The vets said we need to get her teeth healed first and then next steps might be a CT scan and possibly rhinoscopy. I'm worried about putting my cat through more procedures unnecessarily, especially because her teeth extraction made no difference which I'm frustrated about. It seems the vets must think it's something in her sinus, but is there anything else I need to rule out? They haven't done any other tests except the nasal X-Ray and a basic pre-op blood test and they haven't brought up any possible respiratory conditions. I can tell my cat wants to eat/is hungry and she's still responding to food and showing interest. Does anyone know why she could be blowing her nose like this or have any advice on what I should do next? She has another vet follow-up in 3 days and I'm expecting they will just suggest the CT scan and/or rhinoscopy. Thanks in advance!

My cat (f14) hasn't been eating and she's blowing her nose when she tries to eat food. It's not reverse sneezing, which she does occasionally - it's her quickly pushing air out of her nose multiple times (which seems to mostly be triggered when she's trying to eat and it also happened when I took her outside once). I feel there must be something going on with her nose/breathing which is affecting her ability to smell her food and therefore affecting her appetite. It started over 3 weeks ago, one night she was suddenly rejecting all food (we only give her wet food). This was unusual as she always had a high appetite and she'd been happily eating the same wet food for years. She finally willingly ate canned tuna which was the only thing she wasn't rejecting, plus a couple days later I eventually found another wet fish food which she ate too. On that first night, that's when I first noticed she was blowing her nose as she was eating the tuna. The day before her first vet appointment, she started rejecting both of these too. I also turned off the dehumidifier incase maybe that was making the air too dry, but 3 weeks on it hasn't made a difference. At her initial vet appointment, the vet did a general check of her body and said everything looks good except she has dental disease, so he thought she might be experiencing teeth pain or the dental disease could be affecting her sinuses, so he recommended she have some teeth removed and an X-Ray of her sinuses. He prescribed Mirtazapine for her appetite and Metacam for pain relief. She was eating a lot more on the meds, but after a few days her appetite was up and down, plus she was still blowing her nose at the food bowl. 7 days later, I saw her blow her nose hard and some thick, clear snot came out (that's the only time anything has come out of her nose, otherwise there is no discharge and nose looks normal). 5 days ago, she had her tooth surgery where they extracted 4 teeth and did an X-Ray of her sinus. The vet told me that the X-Ray was all normal and no signs of tumor. However, the next day after surgery my cat was still blowing her nose at the food bowl. She was eating the post-surgery food for 2 days after surgery, but suddenly she stopped eating again. She's only allowed very soft food post-surgery, so I've been going crazy offering her multiple different pâtés which she just won't eat. If I'm lucky, she might lick one a few times, but then she walks away. Last night, I offered her 7 different pâtés for her overnight, hoping she might eat one, but they went untouched. Finally today she ate a bowl of pâté that I made myself from plain boiled chicken, but I know she needs proper cat food. She's otherwise not eating anything else. She did have her post-surgery check-up on Friday, 3 days after surgery, where the vet prescribed an antibiotic for an infection on one of her extracted teeth. So she's currently on the antibiotic and Metacam. The vets said we need to get her teeth healed first and then next steps might be a CT scan and possibly rhinoscopy. I'm worried about putting my cat through more procedures unnecessarily, especially because her teeth extraction made no difference which I'm frustrated about. It seems the vets must think it's something in her sinus, but is there anything else I need to rule out? They haven't done any other tests except the nasal X-Ray and a basic pre-op blood test and they haven't brought up any possible respiratory conditions. I can tell my cat wants to eat/is hungry and she's still responding to food and showing interest. Does anyone know why she could be blowing her nose like this or have any advice on what I should do next? She has another vet follow-up in 3 days and I'm expecting they will just suggest the CT scan and/or rhinoscopy. Thanks in advance!

“I am not one for politics. They make my scales itch.” Bemoaned Zeet as he walked ahead of Qik and Casper. His mobile platform moved and wandered without input from him as he stood upon it, grimacing at the two larger creatures. They had just left the boardroom where Casper had potentially just signed his body away if this went wrong.
“I would have thought we would have got more usable data from you by informing you and letting you just *work* with us.” The blue geckin continued, musing out aloud. Casper couldn’t help but grin widely, pleased by the geckin’s seemingly honest distaste for the situation.
Zeet was an engineer. A nerd. A geek, through and through. He cared about the machines he designed and made. The plots and schemes of others mattered little to him as long as they didn’t cross his wants and desires to improve on his designs. The geckin made an odd croaking throat noise. Casper spoke up.
“Let them work themselves into an early shed then, me and you are going to make a mech that’ll go down in history.” The young man offered, hoping to caress the geckin’s ego.
Qik grinned as well as he did when he blatantly hit his mark perfectly.
“You think?! Oh! Oh ho ho ho! Just think! First ‘no drift’ pilot in one of *my* machines making headlines. But we need you to succeed. Fame goes both ways, ah?” Zeet pointed out, before adopting a focused look, crossing his arms and touching a finger to his mouth. The two far larger creatures shared a glance as both of them felt themselves disappear to the geckin’s perspective.
“You’ll need survivability…” Zeet mumbled to him. “Heavy is always best for survivability, but it means taking the hits. Your agility shouldn’t be slept on. Light is just as good, if you don’t get hit.” The geckin snapped his head around to Casper.
“You stopped getting hit all the time?” The tiny creature demanded.
“What do you mean ‘all the time’? She got me *once*!” Casper shot back, thrusting a thumb sideways at Qik who remained silent, although her strut became more pronounced as they discussed her ‘perfect’ kill shot.
Zeet merely grinned at Casper and he was reminded that a grin from a geckin was *not* the same as a human grinning. Zeet was admonishing the human, not sharing in a joke.
“Once was enough. If we capitalise on your speed, you will be light, but weak; you will not survive errant hits! Anything above superficial damage could disable your points or even your whole rig if it’s a bad hit!” The geckin hissed.
“I was showboating.” Admitted Casper. “I let my guard down. My fault. I won’t jeopardise your work again.” The human spoke seriously and with respect at the older engineer who squinted at him as the walking platform approached a door that slid aside without hesitation. The geckin waved a hand, dismissing the thought, seemingly satisfied with Casper’s devoted tone.
The group entered a room that was quite obviously Zeet’s workshop. Ignoring that it looked down on a hanger bay with a skeleton of a rig hanging in the centre, as Casper looked around the room, he learnt of Zeet’s personality. Messy, but devoted.
Mech and rig designs covered an entire wall which was dominated as a workboard. Pens, stylises and measuring tools were scattered everywhere. A large 3D printer squatted in one corner and was covered in tiny, intricate models of various shapes and sizes. Some were of arms and legs of disembodied mechs, and others were tiny replicas of the whole thing.
“Huh… I think you’d get along with some of us humans.” Casper mentioned, crouching to observe the intricate details of one particular model. It was beautifully designed all the way down to sleek lines showing where the various bolts would connect armour plates together.
“After yourself, I would very much like to meet more humans. I suspect if I could get my claws into one that had a history in mech design, fictional or not, we might share ideas…” Zeet offered before clapping his hands and holding them out in front of him, pointing his claws at Casper, drawing attention to himself.
“*But!* We need to design you a machine that will put us both in the history books and… *Not* leave you at the hands of the XixTech corpo-nation.” Declared Zeet, Casper nodding along until his brain caught up to the sentence.
“Wait… ‘Corpo-Nation’?” He asked, standing up again.
“Mm, they represent the eastern continental landmass on Bok. Our homeworld. They are their government representatives.” Explained Zeet matter-of-factly. Casper merely blinked, once again reminded this was not kansas.
“Jesus… Yeah, let's not get dropped into that mess.” The young man agreed, already feeling his head spin. Qik settled herself, leaning against a wall, arms crossed as was her usual stance. Casper sat against the window frame with his back to the hanger below.
“So!” Zeet began. “Torso, Head, Arms, Legs and a Spinal mount. These are your rig’s modifiable options.” Zeet explained, turning to open a large cabinet where he produced three glasses. One tiny, the other two perfectly sized for Casper and Qik. The human glanced at the bottle of dark liquid, then to Qik who touched a long finger against her lips. She didn’t want him to ruin this.
Zeet poured three healthy portions before taking a sip and giving a satisfied sigh, then continuing.
“I already know what I’m doing for your chest, you don’t get a vote there.” He explained, swiping his hand through the air. Qik cleared her throat as she leaned in to pick up a spare glass.
“What’s your idea?” She asked calmly, seemingly trusting his good sense.
“Maximum output. Heavier as an option, more so than an ultralight, but I think the way he modifies his output, it’ll be worth it.” Zeet explained, swirling the glass.
“I modify my output? What do you mean?” Casper asked, frowning somewhat. This apparently was an odd question.
“Wha- My boy… You… It’s not a conscious decision? To pulse your power generation?” Zeet asked, seemingly very confused. Casper pulled a face and shrugged before reaching over and picking up the third and final glass. Taking a sip, it was like paint stripper with a smokey burn afterwards.
“Your power generation is not efficient, or it shouldn’t be! Your reactors ‘pulse’ instead of giving out a steady or constant amount. We thought it was a fault at first until the second and third time it happened. Every rig you hop in, it pulses.” Zeet explained shrugging his arms in defeated confusion, nearly, but not quite spilling his drink.
“Is it dangerous?” Qik asked, narrowing her eyes, but sipping at her own glass, it looked comically small in her hands. Zeet shook his head, sipping at his drink, a tiny red tongue dabbing at the murky liquid.
“I don’t think so, although it was far, far faster when you took that hit.” The geckin conceded, pointing a finger over the rim of his glass.
“Was it like a heartbeat?” Asked Casper, following a hunch. Zeet shook his head again, the corners of his mouth pulling up as if Casper had asked the same question as him.
“No. We thought so too, but it was too slow.” The geckin dismissed, looking into his glass with a contemplative frown. Unconvinced, Casper waited a second, considering what it could have been before getting an idea. Without speaking, Casper knocked his knuckles against the wall he was leaning on. Thump thump. Pause. Thump thump. Pause. The reaction was immediate, the engineer's feet jumping up in unison and briefly leaving the walking platform he stood upon as he pointed and did briefly spill his drink this time. .
“Yes! That! That’s it! Two pulses and a pause. We racked our brains trying to figure that out!”
Casper merely smiled knowingly, closing his eyes and opening them again before speaking, pleased to have an answer for the older geckin.
“That’s *my* heartbeat Zeet.” Tapping his chest with his glass. ”Bigger heart, slower rhythm.” The young man explained. The tiny geckin stood there, motionless for a time. Before closing his eyes and placing his own drink down on the table.
“Your heartbeat. *Your*! Heartbeat. Argh! Rocks in my brain! Terminal rocks!” Zeet exclaimed, causing both Casper and Qik to grin as an apparent mystery was solved for him. The poor geek looked genuinely annoyed as he glared at the ceiling.
“So it’s not an issue?” Asked Qik.
“Huh! Hardly. It means he doesn’t run hot, but has access to power when he needs it. Works well with the rest of my plans.”
“Go on, you’ve ideas, I’m listening.” Casper said, grimacing as he slugged another mouthful of the drink down. It seemed to burn less with the third gulp.
“Chest we go for power. Your spine mount, I suggest an advanced booster. It does mean you’re more vulnerable. One hit to your back and you’ve lost your main defence; not being where they fired at.” The geckin suggested, shrugging with the admission.
“I mean if we’re engaging at range, I can move out of the way of the rounds, right?” Casper offered, looking to Qik for confirmation. She pulled a face and shook her head, her ears flopping with the movement.
“Two problems with that; unreliable reactions and no one uses slug rounds anymore.” She explained. Casper frowned, specifically remembering a fairly solid round tearing through his chest not less than 24 hours ago.
“What do you mean? The geckins do?” He pointed out, rudely pointing at Zeet who could care less as he tilted his head back, finishing off his own glass. He spoke next, pulling Casper’s attention.
“We’re an exception, not a rule. The ursidains also use solid projectiles, but only when they’re firing a heavy hitter. Energy weapons are the name of the game these days. Most see solid projectiles as ‘old’, in the sense of ‘museum piece’ old.” Zeet offered honestly.
Casper thought that was strange, solid projectiles were reliable, but this wasn’t his world. This was a galaxy in a vastly different period of their history than Earth was. He shook his head to clear his mind.
“Okay fine, keep mobile. What about arms and legs? What about weapons?” He pressed, almost looking forward to hearing what toys Zeet was offering.
“Legs wise, again, I’d go for speed. Extra vents for additional jet exhausts. Rather than running, you’ll end up ‘skating’ around the enemy. Good luck keeping up with you. You’ll need it too.” Zeet offered.
“Are the enemies quick?” Casper asked.
“Fairly. Spider-Technicals.” Qik responded.
“What are they?”
“Heavy armour, focused laser beam for their main cannon. Prolonged targeting will thermal shock the armour that gets hit, burrowing through whatever it's shooting at. The tanks are mobile, capable of keeping line of sight on their target and climbing up and around buildings to do so. The intention is to have a small army of them and they just overwhelm any target that approaches.” The lopel explained, polishing off her own glass and gesturing with her hands, as if she were spreading a model army out in front of her.
“So keep circling them?” Casper suggested.
“And they’ll have to track you. We keep you light and mobile, they focus on you…” Qik went on, trailing off to allow Casper to finish the thought.
“...And you take them out while their back is turned.” The young man concluded, nodding at the idea. He could be bait, he didn’t even have to fight. Just wave his arms in the air and keep their attention.
“He’s a fast learner.” Zeet pointed out, nodding to Casper but looking to Qik. She merely grinned and returned to her ‘arms crossed’ posture, smugness radiating off her.
“Thanks to his teacher.”
Zeet was less than sure.
“Mm. Sure.” He blinked slowly and turned his head back to the huma before opening them again. “Arms wise, we have options.“
“I did consider a plasma thrower, but it's heavy and drains a lot of power during charge up. Good against another mech, less so for tanks. We have similar options like sniper beams, but same thing. Line of sight and you’d need to be still.”
“So what would you suggest?”
“If we are going with this plan, we should actually keep you lightly armed. How do you feel about a solid sword?”
“Solid? But what about my lightsaber!”
“No, too draining. If we’re keeping you as fast as we intend, we need you using 100% of your reactor’s output. A solid sword, atomised edge, you’ll still be dangerous. Lightweight metal, no drain on your resources, there's no downsides besides no range. But that's not an issue this time.”
“Atomised edge?” Casper asked, just checking for clarification. Zeet nodded and hastened to explain before moving on.
“An edge a few atoms thick. Blunts faster, but realistically, this is a blitz, you’re not going to be out there long enough to need to worry about that.”
“What could I cut through?”
“Anything with enough force behind your swing. Do *not* touch the edge with any part of yourself.” The geckin demanded with a serious tone and an accusing finger. Casper held his hands up in mock surrender.
“Yes sir.”
Zeet merely nodded. Qik remained quietly thinking as she scratched her own chin.
“So, speed, speed, speed?” Casper summarised.
“Quite so. Qik, I trust you will just select your weapons as normal?” Zeet asked, turning to the lopel as he sat himself in a chair. The merc merely nodded and lay her palm up as if presenting her idea.
“I’m going for a swarm missile rig. If it’s just technicals, I don’t need anything else.” She explained with a carless shrug.
“Swarm missile?” Casper prodded.
“Line of sight lock on, you fire the swarm and they fire up into the air before raining down on the tanks. Doesn’t matter if they’re crawling on or around buildings. They’ll punch through their armour. The downside is I need to see them to lock on, which sucks when LOS works both ways.” Qik went on, but then leaned forward to emphasize her words. .
“Buuut…” She drawled.
“But if they’re looking at me, that doesn’t matter.” Casper replied, grinning back at the lopel. She held his gaze a moment longer than needed before straightening and giving him her approval.
“Attaboy.”
Casper considered his options, and turned back to Zeet.
“So a sword? Nothing else?” He asked.
Zeet, his hands on his head, turned the chair to face the larger human.
“Did you have something else in mind?”
[WolvensStories](https://www.reddit.com/WolvensStories/s/Vqp1XaB4UG)
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Transformers! [F4M or APM]
Hey hey hey! I'm Rexi and I'm a 21 year old who absolutely love transformers with a PASSION! G1? Prime? And of course IDW (although still reading), we don't even get started on the new Skybound comics! (Just reordered them!) I am really, really fending for a transformers RP! Preferably a transformer x human because, well, who can blame me? It's been cannon a few times and it's always so checking cute!
Anywho, I'm really open to using ocs or even Canon characters! I'll be super, dooper real with you! For cannon, I really want to find someone to play either, Starscream (PLS PLS PLS), Soundwave, Megatron or even Shockwave! Deceptions are my favourite I'm sure like a lot of people. However! I'm super open to anyone who wants to play a cybatroian oc!^{^}
I haven't got a heap of plots but I really wanna build something with someone, so it's fun for both parties! I love for it to be fun for everyone! I also love character driven plots with all the angst, drama and slow burn possible!
Now for my rules!^{^}
If you have ideas or anything feel free to let me know! As well I have a tad few rules. 1: no minors. I am 21 and refuse any minors in my dms. 2: OCs must be above 18, preferably 21 and up. 3: Semi literate and above. 4: Third person, no first person. 5: Be happy to chat and even become friends! I use RP to make friends so please don't come into my DMs hella serious and straight to the point, show me some of your personality! Can't have a good RP if our vibes don't match! 6: Send me a plane emoji if you read all of this. 7: Feel free to DM if interested, comments will most likely he ignored because it shows you didn't read all through tehehe. 8: Please let us shift to a private discord server! 9: Google docs with out characters info! Doesn't have to be a heap but a little always helps. 10: I work and Volunteer so sometimes I may be a tad AFK so don't think I ignored you! Same with if I don't reply for awhile I'm probably asleep, I have a slight pain of a time zone! 11: please don't take control of each other's characters, it's a big old pet peeve of mine! 12: no NSFW, erp, smutt or whatever you want to call it. I'm not comfortable with it and you will not convince me to partake in it! The most is a fade to black thats it.