Human muscular diagram

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2011.10.05 03:19 asgard88 Cross section pictures (and videos) of everything!

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2014.08.10 09:19 News related to the gut microbiome and health

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2015.10.03 06:59 Vailhem Connectome

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2024.05.14 16:35 Budget_Treat_6776 Planet Zelo: Zelorix Species information.

Zelorixians
Kingdom: Zeloriaria
Phylum: Auroriformes
Class: Zelorixia
Order: Harmoniida
Family: Aurorifidae
Genus: Zelorix
Species: Z. aurorix
(Anatomical Structure)
(Sensory features)
(Physical Abilities/Lifespan)
(Intelligence)
Vocal Chord Structure: The Zelorix’s vocal cords are arranged in a golden spiral pattern, with 12 muscles controlling the cords to produce a wide range of frequencies and harmonics. The vocal cords themselves are divided into 8 segments, each with a length that follows the Zelorifour Sequence’s golden ratio proportion (0.9618:0.0382). This unique structure allows the Zelorix to produce a vast array of sounds, from melodic tones to complex vocalizations.
(Eye Sight)
The Zelorix’s eyes are capable of perceiving a wide range of wavelengths, from infrared to ultraviolet light. Its eyes are structured in a golden rectangle pattern, with each eye containing 20 tiny sensors arranged in a golden spiral pattern, following the Zelorifour Sequence’s golden ratio proportion (0.9618:0.0382). This allows the Zelorix to detect subtle changes in its environment and perceive its surroundings with exceptional clarity. The Zelorix’s eyes are also capable of moving independently, allowing it to track multiple objects or targets simultaneously, with a tracking speed of approximately 0.9618 times the square root of its total number of sensors (20).
(Visual Perception)
(Vocal Range)
Ocular Structure: The Zelorix’s eyes are composed of the following structures, all of which are arranged in a golden rectangle pattern, following the Zelorifour Sequence’s golden ratio proportion (0.9618:0.0382):
  1. Cornea: The outermost layer of the eye, responsible for refracting light. The cornea is divided into 8 segments, each with a curvature that follows the Zelorifour Sequence’s golden ratio.
  2. Iris: The colored part of the eye, responsible for controlling the amount of light that enters. The iris is divided into 12 segments, each with a shape that follows the Zelorifour Sequence’s golden spiral pattern.
  3. Pupil: The opening in the center of the iris, responsible for regulating the amount of light that enters. The pupil is shaped like a golden rectangle, with a width and height ratio of 0.9618.
  4. Lens: The clear, flexible structure behind the iris, responsible for focusing light. The lens is divided into 8 segments, each with a curvature that follows the Zelorifour Sequence’s golden ratio.
  5. Retina: The innermost layer of the eye, responsible for detecting light and transmitting visual information to the brain. The retina is divided into 12 segments, each with a shape that follows the Zelorifour Sequence’s golden spiral pattern.
  6. Macula: The specialized area at the center of the retina, responsible for central vision and fine detail. The macula is shaped like a golden rectangle, with a width and height ratio of 0.9618.
  7. Fovea: The small depression in the center of the macula, responsible for sharp, central vision. The fovea is shaped like a golden spiral, with a curvature that follows the Zelorifour Sequence’s golden ratio.
The Zelorix’s ocular structure is designed for maximum visual acuity and clarity, with each component working in harmony to produce exceptional visual perception, following the Zelorifour Sequence’s mathematical principles.
(Brain Structure) - The Zelorix’s brain is divided into 12 segments, each with a unique function and connected in a golden spiral pattern, following the Zelorifour Sequence’s golden ratio proportion (0.9618:0.0382). - The brain-to-body mass ratio is approximately 0.9618, indicating a highly efficient and advanced cognitive system. - The cerebral cortex is divided into 8 layers, each with a specific function, such as sensory processing, memory, and decision-making, with each layer’s thickness and structure following the Zelorifour Sequence’s golden ratio.
Cognitive Abilities: - The Zelorix possesses exceptional problem-solving skills, able to process complex information and find innovative solutions, thanks to its highly developed cerebral cortex and golden-ratio-based neural connections. - Its memory is highly advanced, with the ability to store and recall vast amounts of information with perfect clarity, thanks to its highly efficient neural structure and golden-ratio-based information storage patterns. - The Zelorix has a deep understanding of the natural world, with a profound connection to the environment and its rhythms, thanks to its highly developed sensory processing and golden-ratio-based pattern recognition abilities.
Skin and Dermal Structure: - The Zelorix’s skin is composed of 12 layers, each with a unique function, such as protection, sensation, and regulation, with each layer’s thickness and structure following the Zelorifour Sequence’s golden ratio. - Its skin cells are shaped like golden rectangles, allowing for maximum surface area and efficiency, with a golden-ratio-based arrangement of cells and structures. - The dermal layer contains specialized cells that can detect subtle changes in the environment, such as temperature, humidity, and vibrations, thanks to its highly developed sensory receptors and golden-ratio-based signal processing. - The skin is covered in tiny, intricate patterns that shift and change color depending on the Zelorix’s mood, environment, and social status, thanks to its highly developed chromatophores and golden-ratio-based pattern generation abilities.
(Muscular System)
(Respiratory System)
(Digestive System) - The Zelorix’s digestive system consists of 8 segments, each with a unique function and connected in a golden spiral pattern, following the Zelorifour Sequence’s golden ratio. - Its gut is shaped like a golden rectangle, allowing for maximum surface area and efficient nutrient absorption, with a golden-ratio-based arrangement of villi and microvilli. - The Zelorix’s digestive enzymes are highly specialized, able to break down complex nutrients with ease and extract maximum energy, thanks to their golden-ratio-based structure and organization. - Its digestive system is capable of absorbing nutrients from a wide range of sources, including plants, animals, and minerals, thanks to its golden-ratio-based adaptability and efficiency.
(Immune System)
(Reproductive System)
(Nervous System)
(Neural Structure)
(Sensory Processing)
(Bone Structure)
Male Zelorixians:
Female Zelorixians:
Eye Color:
Hair Color:
Male Zelorix:
Female Zelorix:
Physical Strength:
Energy Levels:
View Poll
submitted by Budget_Treat_6776 to worldbuilding [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 10:50 KangarooAromatic2139 Looking for some proofreading on a crossover fanfiction.

Hi there everyone, I kind of curious, I have been writing a crossover fanfic in the style of Super Robot Wars storylines. One of the Franchises I want to add is RWBY, however, I never really got into the series until playing Blazblue Cross Tag Battle and during his time I started read up on the series on various wiki pages.
So, if I'm wrong on any details or something does seem to match the character's personalities, please tell me!
In this point of the fanfic, it took place after my idea of an ending to the series, so here goes nothing!
The white haired huntress explained why she feels this is the case, telling them the story of her younger brother and his road for redemption.
For the longest of times, Whitley had nothing but hatred for his older sisters and saw the hunters and huntresses as below him, mocking Weiss every moment he had while she was under house arrest. Escaping from this sham of a home, she swore the boy and their father were nothing but monsters and for their actions were things that she never could forgive. That is until it was after the arrest of their father and their manor being invaded by Grimms that cracks were showing in his facade of pettiness.
"During that fight, Whitley wanted nothing but to run off, until he saw our mother fighting against the Grimm before falling from the underuse of her Semblance when he knew he needed to help."
After saving Willow and learning from their mother that Whitley was as much of a victim as anyone else that the middle child chose to mend their damaged relationship. During the fall of their home Kingdom of Atlas, he continued to help by having all the SDC Saircrafts to save anyone and everyone to relocate the people to Vacuo. When the Team RWBY and Jaune return from Ever After, he became part of the attacking forces as a commander to help defeat Salem's forces.
In the final battle, He was present to witness Ruby Rose and Kairi sparing the now depowered and mortal Salem, who was told to simply live with reminders of her sins haunting her until the day she died, as this was her last life. "While we watch Salem leaving to parts unknown, I thought Whitley was going to say something foolish, but to my surprise, he only watched.
In the four weeks after Salem's defeat, Whitley began his new life but it was something to adjusted to as he worked a part time job and began to start classes in that first week The heir of whatever remained of the SDC let his hair grow out slightly, he may have been inspired by a picture of Jaune's appearance during his time in Mistral but still kept a very clean appearance.
It wasn't until a week ago that there were some Jacques' old associates from Vacuo wanted to give Whitley the position of CEO of a new company, one named Phoenix Ash.
"At first, I thought he just wanted to go back to his old ways of life when he agreed to the deal, Asked from me was to trust him about this..."
Out of the blue, The new CEO of the Phoenix Ash Group called for a Public Announcement. Weiss and Winter were watching on a monitor in an aircraft outside of the city. Fearing for the worst, that he would be making empty promises to make a postive public image, the boy spoke of ending the practices of abusing Fanuas workers. This was a lie that their father made to the press when he was alive, before the young CEO spoke of his new idea.
When questioned by the Press, Whitley told the world that he his idea was to start finding better sources than just Dust to rely on, so he would put his own Lien that he held on since childhood to fund this research. If this research was successful, then he would personally see to the closure of all Dust Mines under the Pheonix Ash banter but threaten that if any of the Fanuas workers were harmed during his time as CEO, that under his leadership that he personally see it that the abusers' paychecks would go to their victims and repeated offenders would be fired as quickly as possible. The two sisters begin to noticed that four of The Board Members who hired him were in shaking in their boots.
"Young Sir, please think of the words you speak..." one of Jacques' remaining associates on the board begged to hopefully conviced the boy to reconsider these ideas
"I am fully aware of the words coming from my mouth as much as you were aware of letting my father's actions slide so you can make more Lien. So, to be quite blunt, SHUT IT OR FIND NEW JOBS!" This wasn't like the boy they once knew while Jacques was thriving, he was a new Whitley Schnee that wouldn't be swayed by the idea of making Lien in dishonest ways and wouldn't allow anyone under his leadership to harm the Faunus workers.
"DAMNED BLEEDING HEART BRAT, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE JACQUES, THE REAL HEIR OF THE NAME OF SCHNEE!"
The oldest board member, a muscular bald man of over fourty who was still extremely loyal to the deceased CEO of SDC, charged at the youth with a knife! The youngest of the Schnee clan knew there would be risks, but didn't have any fighting experience to counter this attack.
"WHITLEY!" Weiss cried out as she knew she wouldn't be able to stop the would be killer's attempt of assassination, however, a certain green eyed Faunus, who's loyalites to Robyn Hill last to this day, arrived in enough time to stopped the youth's would be killer.
"You really think that Fiona Thyme would let you kill your new boss? As IF!"
Within a mere set of seconds, the man of three hundred and something pounds was on the ground, each insult that was aimed at the girl was countered with his former boss nodding for the girl to wack the creep across his bald head. This last for a couple of minutes until the police to take his sorry ass to jail as well as charging the Faunus with a minor crime. The girl knew that there would no way to escape but chose not to surrender as she put her hands behind her head much to the cheers of some in the crowd.
However, In those five seconds before the cuffs closed on her hands, The CEO jumped off of the platform and stood in between the messy haired Faunus girl and the arresting officer, slapping the cuff out of the man's hands to the shock of the world. When asked to step aside, the boy's answer to this was something everyone in Remnant, who were either in the crowd or watched from afar from their scrolls, never expected.
"You're really asking me to step aside, so you could take away a war hero's future? I choose to refuse for we all know these charges against her are nothing but baseless. She fought on the side of various heroes! Heroes ] from the Battle of Beacon, like the Teams: RWBY, JNPR, SSSN, FNKI, ABRN and CFVY, the heroes without teams like Lady Kairi, Qrow Branwen, and Taiyang Xiao Long, Heroes like Ilia Amitola and the Belladonna clan who were once White Fang members but left before the assassination of Sienna Khan and return to fight to stop the once peaceful group when they saw what it became under the command of Adam Taurus, heroes like the remaining members of the Ace Operatives, who fought their own feelings of sadness when they lost Clover Ebi and came together after they realized James Ironwood was in the wrong, after the man fell into despair because of how the upper class saw the innocent victims in Remnant and used Atlas as a ram to prevent the Grimm from gaining another advantage point. These groups of heroic and wonderful people came together to save the world from the forces of Salem, so why can't we, the civilains they protected, do the same?!"
There were some mutters from the civilians that watch on the ground level before one of the rich members of the crowd, a man named Harry Marigold, brought up that Weiss may have saved the world but of her crime of summoning the Grimm at the charity event at Schnee Manor should be held accountable before the youth counter with.
"The crime that night was one in justified anger when you, Harry Marigold, who ignored her sadness and only wanted my sister's attention for bragging rights, that damnable trophy wife, her weak minded shell of a husband, the former CEO of the SDC, myself and many others of the Upper Class chose to cruely mocked the recently deceased of Vale and proudly laughing about the deaths of the many innocents of the fallen Kingdom who had nothing to do with the fighting. fates we claimed that civilains deserved!? If anything, she didn't summoned the Grimm to harm anyone but wanted us demons to understand that life is not to be taken as a joke or anything to not to be take lightly. The real crime that night was that the Grimm didn't caused more damages to Schnee manor and not having the monster hurt any of us because of our cruelity to the dead! But because the CEO of SDC cared for nothing but his public image, when she confronted that scumbag for our actions and for using her as a prize toy for everyone to see, his only reaction was to slapped my sister across her face and denied her Birthright!
This made the rich members of the crowd uneasy, as they knew that they were being put in their places. They wanted the youth to be silenced but he continued, angry and filled with something that he should've had a long time ago, a frightful sense of Justice.
"For too damn long, I was blinded by my family's name, not knowing it was nothing but an evil curse and if it wasn't for my sister's actions that night and the night her team and the remaining members of team JNPR saved the lives of my poor mother and the sorry shell of a person. I, too, would've remained under the very same spell of ignorance that the old fool relished in to keep us in line. So, for you to order me around, to use my sister justified attempt on the upper class to see her honorable view on life so who could silence my words, and to force this maiden, who has fought harder than anyone here because fearful paranoia bigots using unjust hatred of every Faunus to make her life a living torture device, for her to rot in a prison cell without a fair trial, just for saving my life? That command is UNFORGIVABLE!" The boy screamed loudly and in pure rage so everyone could hear his plea.
Fiona was in shock, she heard from various communities of the Faunus that the SDC and clan of Schnee were nothing but monsters, worse than any of Salem's Grimms. Even after meeting the huntresses of Team RWBY, she believed Weiss was the only one of the family who wanted to set things right in the world.
Even through she hated the idea to keep an eye on the Schnee heir, even if it was a jobn from her trusted leader. His father and the fellow members of the Board in the SDC saw the Faunus and wanted nothing but for them to be trapped in cages without futures, But to see with her eyes, the very son made to follow in these footsteps of selfish desires, meaning every single word that left his mouth, these words that were filled with a justified desire to save the young girl from an unfair fate, was so unreal.
"If anything, it was the wicked ideas of greed that the deceased CEO held dear tt were one of the many factors that broke our world, Jacques Sc..." The boy stopped for less than a second before continuing in anger.
"....Actually no, I refuse to allow that bastard to my family's name any longer, even in death! Jacques Gélé was never a father, he was nothing but an unredeemable thief without a sense honor, who used dirty lies to trick my dying grandfather into his once humble life, the honorable man that should've had the right to lived long enough to prevent the future Gélé wanted, Nicholas Schnee!"
"Who used my recently deceased mother's, Willow Schnee, love and trust to steal a company he was never worthy to rule over from underneath her. When she learned of his deception and his lies in their sham of a relationship, the once loving and carring mother only means to escape from his wicked virus was to drink her sorrows away and seclude herself from the world!
"His sickness was something that their three children were not immuned to as he saw nothing from us but to be used as pawns so he could gain more power! It wasn't until we learned better ways to live by others, others who actually cared, that we actually became good people!"
"The first of us was to learn this lesson was The Soldier who proven herself time and time again, who enlisted in the Atlas military to get away from the sickness that Gélé took pleasure in, who leaders knocked the views of hatred for the Faunus and the usage of cheap tricks out of her, my oldest sister, Commander Winter Schnee!
"My second oldest sister, Huntress Weiss Schnee, who learn of the shame that her family name carried at her time in Beacon, who was forced to leave after the battle by Gélé for supposed safety only to be paraded around as a prize trophy daughter for his friends in the upper class, who felt the sting of venom when that man refused to accept her heroic heart, forcing her to escape his maddess so she could continued helping those who were suffering!"
"And then there's myself, Whitley Schnee, the boy who was so scared with the various changes to his home life that he chose to follow in that thief's footsteps, who once mocked the dead of Beacon along with the others in the Upper Class, who has never fought for anything and even in that last battle, was so powerless to prevent more tragedies for befall those he commanded to fight on his behalf! The boy who's heart is filled with so much regret because of his idiotic choices in life but is now filled a newly found sense of Justice, who only goal now is to find a cure for the poison, so he could, no! will make our world a better place than it was in the past!"
The crowd was stunned thar they couldn't help but to stay silent.
"Gélé has cause so much suffering to the Faunus and to many other communities. That suffering spread in the Kingdoms like wildfire. When my grandfather died, so did the fairness and honor that the Schnee name held on to....but not anymore! MY DREAM is to stop the suffering that Gélé relished in so he could live like a damn lazy king!
Whitley then put his hands behind his head and told the world.
"So if this girl goes to prison, so will I! All I asked of those listening is not to cheer no matter what the outcome is, not to cry for this foolish boy who has fought for nothing, but to simply think about his words and the weight they pull!" Whitley's blood was boiling as The puppet CEO's bight blue eyes widden to show everyone that his dream was one that the boy will work for through his pain.
After this decree was finished, everything was slient before the officer asked. "Would you die for that dream..?"
Whitley, answered with all seriousness. "If I die, then I would gladly die with a hundred stabs to my heart and soul to make damn sure that my dream becomes reality." The officer waved to another cop to bring in a second set of handcuffs, much to both cops dismay.
"Alright, I'm sorry. Whitley Schnee for disobeying a officer of the law, you have to come with us."
Whitley said not a word as the cuffs latched onto his hands. As if to respect the boy's wishes, There were no one in the crowd, maybe even in Remnant, cheering about the arrest of these two, even though the boy said he had nothing but hatred of those that surround Gélé mocking those that died in Beacon, none of the them wanted nor could cheer, for to celebrate this would be nothing but hallowed.
On route to the department to put the two in the holding cells until they could make bond, the two talked, mostly it was Whitley asking the girl a thousands questions of the culture of the Faunus, the life she lived before becoming a war hero and so on. The poor girl was shaking with overwhelmingness but snapped out of it when Whitley explained something to her.
"This is the second time you saved me from the door of death, thank you, Lady Thyme."
Fiona was slightly confused before slowly piecing together that in the final battle she rushed to the location of downed aircraft, where a gravely injured woman layed under some debris being protected by her white haired son with a mere wooded stick he found on the ground screaming. "GET AWAY! YOU GRIMMS!" before being knocked backwards and then being held by his throat.
"HEY FANG FACES, I'M MORE OF A CHALLENGE THAN THOSE TWO!" The Fanaus screamed while the Grimm let the boy go to blocked her attack.
"KID! TAKE YOUR MOM AND GET OUTTA HERE, I CAN'T HOLD THIS GUY OFF FOREVER!"The boy nodded as he grabbed his mother and ran off, not knowing that he would plan to thank the maiden the next time they meet.
"No freaking way, you're that boy?"
"Yeah...but I'm not proud to admit that I'm not one for fighting." Whitley smiled as this surprised the girl.
To think, the meek boy she saved that one time and the guy who wanted to help others despite his family's reputation were the same person? How would this day become more of a weird fever dream?
"Hey you two, I hate to burst this bubble but ready for a fight, there was another vehicle besides ours that was on their way to the department." A male's voice explained when they noticed a man in a grey cloak sitting in the darkest corner of the vehicle.
"Before you asked, I've been here for the entire trip."
"Why is that important?" The only woman of the three thought while the Schnee youth figured it out.
"That ghoul of a Board Member?"
"'Faid so, he was taken in sometime before your speech and there are only two holding cells in the department, one for men and the other for women." The man explained.
"I could use my semblance to hold him in a..." Fiona was stopped when the mystery man continued.
"...And to prevent any escapes, the cells and those cuffs on your hands are laced with anti-semblance tech."
Fiona screamed. "OH CRAP!"
Whitley was shaken but kept cool as he thought. "I guess as this is a smaller scale city, I should've figured as much."
"Are you actually prepared to die for your ideas?" The man asked the boy, but his answer was simple.
"I'm not planning to back down now, to betray those words I spoke earlier, would be a wicked sin."
Meanwhile in an aircraft a little ways off. Both Weiss and Winter were dumbfounded by their brother's speech and actions. "He has changed so much since weeks ago." The middle child thought before Winter demanded the pilot to land that at the port nearest to the city.
Yang, Kairi, Jaune, Ruby, and Blake were on the aircraft but was confused by the sudden change of directions, before the commander explained. "The Board member that tried to killed our brother was sent to the holding cell in the department before Whitley's speech."
"OH CRAP!" Ruby and Weiss screamed as they thought in dismay that the boy was going to be in an one sided fight against a heavier opponent.
"Please hold on for a bit longer, Younger Brother..." Winter quietly whispered as the Aircraft was going as fast as possible to their destination.
Upon arriving and being settle in the two holding cells, it was when the guards left the redeemer was being used as a punching bag for the man's humiliation.
"DAMN BRATTY ASSED PUNK!"
"UGHHH!" Whitley groaned, being punched for a hour, his clothing became ragged and bloody.
"LEAVE WHITLEY ALONE!" Fiona cried out at the tallest in the men's holding cell, she was in the womens' holding cell that was across the room, luckly for her, she was alone in the women's side but not for Whitley, making things worse is that the guards were sent out on an emergency call, as their thinning numbers were sent out because of a few bomb threats elsewhere in the city.
"SHUT IT, SHEEPIE! I GOING KEEP BEATING THIS BRAT UNTIL HE UNDERSTANDS HIS PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE!"
"..." The man in the hood remained quiet as he watched this uneven fight. "You should stay down..."
"...As if I would..." The Schnee boy rose back to his feet through he knew nothing of throwing punches he refused to surrender just to spite the former Board Member of Phoenix Ash.
"HEH, for a skinny brat, you're stubborn, be a good little boy and admit that you're nothing but a puppet then I'll quit your rightly deserved beatings!"
Whitley regained his balance before flipping a bird claiming. "You...really...think this..puppet would let some smug ass with no respect for anyone but those in the Upper Class to order me around? SCREW....YOU!" The boy yelled spiting blood onto the man's ghoulish face to annoy the monster in human flesh.
"...WHY YOU LITTLE MAGGOT!" The man was even more enraged now, as he punched the stomach of the younger male causing the boy fall onto the cold floor.
Fiona was horrified as she witness the former spoiled prince rose back to his feet.
"Still standing boy?"
The youth was still standing to a point, until the man pulled a dirty shiv he found in the holding cell while waiting for this very moment. The two youths' eyes widden when they saw the makeshift weapon of sharpen hard plastic.
"...A weapon!?" Fiona cried out in dismay.
"Some poor sap must have made this sometime ago, makes me wonder where he could be now, anywho while I am slicing into your flesh, Whitley, I'm going tell what I thought of those pretty little ideas of yours."
The Faunus was in a state of fear for the young puppet CEO as the shiv user quickly sliced into the white haired youth's shoulder, with this the first time being cut, Whitley scream in pain.
"AHHHHGNN!"
"FIRST, YOU WANT TO FREE THE ANIMALS FROM OUR CAGES, THEY HAVE NO RIGHTS TO A FUTURE IN OUR SOCIETY!
The next was a stab on his left upper leg, luckly not hitting anything vitals as makeshift blade of sharp hard plastic was pulled out and blood dripped onto the flooring The boy's screams of pain echoing through the empty department.
"NEXT, WE CAN'T MAKE ANY LIEN IF BLEEDING HEARTS, LIKE WHAT YOU'VE BECOME, ARE IN CHARGE OF THINGS!"
The attacker then sliced the right side of Whitley's face leaving a scar under his eye.
"THE FACE OF THE BOY WITH A NAME THAT NOWS MEANS NOTHING TOTHE WORLD, USING TRUTHS TO PISS ON THE LEGACY THAT JACQUES BUILT, JUST SO HIS SON COULD REBUILD THE HONOR THAT IT HELD WHEN THAT WINDBAG WAS STILL KICKING! WHAT FREAKIN DRIVEL!"
then a slash across his chest.
"THAT BLEEDING HEART OF YOURS WANTING REDEMPTION SO HE COULD HAVE SOME ATTENTION BUT GUESS WHAT THERE'S NO SUCH THING IN THE BUSINESS WORLD OR IN THE REMAINING KINGDOMS OF REMNANT AS REDEMPTION!"
Then the right hand of the boy, the one Whitley pull in front of his body in an poor attempt to grabbed the makeshift Shiv.
"THESE HANDS OF A SOFT SPOILED LITTLE BOY WHO, EVEN IN THE LAST BATTLE AGAINST THE GRIMM FORCES, NEVER THREW A PUNCH OR SLAP ANYONE, ARE SUPPOSED TO CHANGE THE WORLD, ALL YOU HAVE DONE IN THAT BATTLE WERE ORDERING SOLDIERS TO FIGHT FOR YOU, SOLDIERS WHO SHOULD HAVE SEEN WHAT YOU'VE BECOME!"
Finishing this rant with a punch to the gut, and mocking his braverly. "TELL ME THIS, BOY? WHEN THIS SPINE OF YOURS GREW, DID YOUR STUPIDITY DOUBLED, BECAUSE COMPARED TO YOUR DAD, YOU'RE SUCH AN DOLT TO BELIEVE YOUR OWN CRAP!"
"WHITLEY! STOP, YOU'RE KILLING HIM!" Fiona screamed as the man got on top of the boy's body and punch the white haired youth's face twice before the monster yelled at the girl.
"I SAID SHUT IT SHEEP! YOU MAYBE A WAR HERO THAT I CAN'T PUT MY HANDS ON BUT YOU'RE GOING TO WATCH AS THE HOPES OF THIS BOY DIES ALONG WITH HIS BODY!"
Getting off of the beaten body of the Schnee, the man let Whitley try to get up before the boy fell on his stomach and the man grabbed the white hairs of his his head and pulled his face up, so the redeemer would look into Fiona's green eyes for a last time, one filled with tears.
"ACTUALLY, IT'S FUNNY, BECAUSE OF HER STATUS AS A WAR HERO, THE SHEEP WILL GET OUT IN THE END OF THE DAY AND BE ON HER WAY HOME, BUT YOU JUST HAD TO PLAY HERO AND FOR WHAT, WHITLEY SCHNEE?! FOR YOUR REMAINS TO BE MY PUNCHING BAG UNTIL I TRANSFER TO PRISON?....IT'S SO FREAKING SAD THAT I'M LAUGHING MY ASS OFF!"
The redeemer, who's face full of buises, forgotten that this is the case for minor first time offenders but didn't care at all. Ever since Fiona saved his and his mother's lives that day, he would've happily be arrested and be beaten, time after time, so he could thank her. He wanted to smile, to show his savior that he was happy with this outcome, even this meant that his life ended today, but could barely move his face but the only could wheezingly chuckled as tears as swell from his eyes
Before the man could finished Whitley off, a small blackout happened as the doors of the cells opened, Fiona ran to the boy who risked his life just so he could to talk to her. "WHY?!" Fiona cried she held the youth in her arms. "WHY CAN'T MONSTERS LIKE YOU SEE THAT THIS A NEW WORLD, THAT WE CAN BECOME BETTER THAN WE ONCE WERE." The green eyed girl demanded anwers but the man just mocked to anwered the Fuanus.
"Do you think animals like you could understand that only the strong and the Upper Cass are the only ones who have the right to control Remnant. He could have been one of those in control and still have enough Lien to be someone important but he chose to ally with the lower class, and for little lamb he paying for it, dearly."
Putting the boy's head gently on the floor wiping the tears on her sleeve, to hopefully keep friend she made safe for a bit longer, she attempted to use Pocket Demisions to rid the world of this demon, only to realize in the middle of her attack, the power returned and because she ran to help the youth, that she was in the men's holding cell with the real beast.
"....No!" She wimpered.
"Looks like there's some of my fellow board members of Phoenix Ash are still on my side." He smiled wickening as he began to explain their plans. "You see, little Sheep, we figured the boy has a bleeding heart, so to get rid of those childish wishes to loosen our hold, we decided yesterday to make up a plan, the one that you had to prevent. So during that little speech of his, we made a second one on the fly." He continued as he put his hand on an earpiece. "...That one being the threats to distract the guards and that little blackout. Plus thanks to this little device, my semblance to increase my strength with every attack I give, still remains."
"This can't be...." She was scared, as this man that she could taken down a few mere hours ago, was telling the truth when every step he made while approaching Fiona made small cracks in the flooring.
"Damn it, We going need to cause another..." A voice explained though the earpiece before he turned off the equipment's sound option.
"Now, since you annoyed me so much, you're going be my replacement, lamb chops!" The upsuper yelled in bliss as he pulled his fist to punch her small body. She dodged the attack but his second punch connected and sent her flying into the force field door.
"AUHHGGG!" She cried out, recoiling in the pain from her back before noticing the man was coming for her, managing to get up but unable to dodge it completely in this cramped arena. She felt the punch connected with her left arm, braking the bones in the limb, Then a kick to her gut. Knocking her a few inches near Whitley's body.
"....No...."
The youngest of the Schnee clan could only watch in despair through one eye, the two were being broken by a scummy excuse of a human, and the young redeemer of his name could do nothing but watched as his attempt to prove to the world his words were real go down in flames.
"...Leave...her...alone..." These words spit out ignoring the pain as much as he could while rising back to his feet and limping to get in between the Faunus woman and her attacker.
"So, the boy still has some fighting spirit...The boy that has never fought for anything in his life, I am certain that you're doing this for everyone's attention."
The man was right on a few things, Whitley was never a fighter or some ground troop, and it may have been that he wanted attention when he first started to go down this road but Winter quickly knocked that idea out of his head, but the man is wrong on others, for Whitley realize that all he wanted to do in life is to help in anyway, even he'll be happy as a sideliner act to the main heroes.
But one can't always stay in that role and hoped to change the world, for a long time he stood by as a witness to to his father's crimes, for longer his thoughts of heroism being dismissed by that bogus excuse of a father and as far as he remembered, Whitley had others fight for him. But no more!
"In this world, money and power pull the strings, and yet you choose death for a flithy animal? How more times are you going to PISS M-!" The man was interrupted while talking by, to the surprise of all, the white haired boy headbutting his taller foe, knocking the man onto his ass!
"...WHAT!?" The man screamed in horror as he started to bleed from his now broken nose, this was the first time the business man has ever seen his own blood.
"...I've...told...the world...I...would die for my dream....even if I die today....I'll be happy to die...hundred times over again..." The boy's body was mostly broken, each word he spoke caused more pain than his body could stand but the young man still had one part of his body to fight with, his hard head!
The next thing they all knew, Whitley continued headbutting his enemy, causing the man to gain a reality check, his ability were increasing his attacks but at a certain cost, The sole major weak point on his body, the one that held the brain to think of ways to screwed others over, the one with the eyes that saw everyone else as beneath him and the one with the mouth with a booming voice he used to make threats and promises to ruin his foes, his face weaken over time with every punch or kick he gave to the two.
"NONONONONO!" The man screamed with a bloodied and bruised face, before feeling the same despair he installed into his two victims just mere minutes ago. In a desperate attempt to stop these attacks, he grabbed the man in the cloak as a hostage, with the shiv he used on the boy still in his possession.
"You-ou wouldn't w-wan...me to stab some r-random person that had nuthing to do with this, uh?!" These ragged words were like the man himself, desperate and scummy, but was enough to stop the boy from getting closer.
The foe laughed thinking he has the upper hand. "I admired your old man's talent in making a profit, but he was just like you to a certain point, he was no killer, so now I advise we wait until they let us out or I'll be plunging..."
"Tsk...This old fart really been pissing me off since we got here!"
The cloaked man yelled as he stepped on the foot of his captor along with a gunshot ringing though the air. "W-WHAT!?" The man screamed in pain as he released his hold to grabbed his now bleeding foot. "DAMMIT, DAMMIT, DAMMIT!" The larger man screamed before realizing why his leg strength wasn't up to snuff. While being headbutted by his Whitley, the earpiece fell out and was behind his two victims!
"No way this is happening...." He groaned in pain before the cloaked male took off his hood, just to make things worse for the would be assassin.
"...and here I thought I would have a peaceful life in prison..." The man sighed as he revealed himself to be a fomer ally of Salem, one who wanted nothing more but to rot in prisons for the remaining of his life.
"M-Mercury B-B-Black, why is a war criminal here?!" The man screamed, fearing for his life even more than before.
"I was supposed to transfer into the next city, mostly for some good behavior BS..." Mercury turned his attention to the white haired boy.
"Hey kid, you're the brother to that girl Weiss, right?"
"....." Whitley wanted to say something but really couldn't, with those last few headbutts, if he tried to speak now, he will surely faint.
"Man, the geezer really did a number on you, huh?" Mercury asked before = one of the guards and Whitley's sisters ran in.
"Holy...CRAP! WHITLEY!!"
"Why is our brother and Miss Thyme in the same cell as these two?!" Winter demanded answers before Mercury explained for panicing guard while pulling the earpiece from the ground.
"Whitley was being used by lord lard ass as a punching bag until few people from Pheonix Ash caused a short blackout, the girl ran in to stopped the beatings but was attacked as well until your little bro figuring out the buzzard's weakness by headbutting the man in his freakin' face. After that, The creep tried to use me as levelage but yeah, you can see how that worked out."
"DAMNED BRATS...." The man groaned as the two Schnee women got Whitley and Fiona out of this cell but froze in fear when he saw Winter staring down at the man.
"I figured that your group would pulled something like this when Whitley told me of the CEO position, so I looked into yours and the rest of the board's backgrounds...It was just as Black said, You and your three friends in the board of eight have more than just attempted assassination to worry about now."
This decree was worrying enough before Mercury Black turned his attention back to the older man."I guess I'm going to have a kicking dummy for a roommate now!"
"Please have mercy!" The man turned deathly pale before Fiona yelled.
"Like the mercy you shown to me and Whitley because he called out your sorry butt, I would think not!"
Weiss was next to insult the man for his behavior. "...If anything you deserve nothing but a fate in a cage, like the various futures you took away!"
"Looks like you're going to rot in a cell for the rest of your sad existence." Winter finished before the guards were told by the military commander to take her younger brother out of the room and to take his would be assassin to the other cell.
Before leaving, Winter asked the former ally of Salem.
"Mercury Black...Your sentence for your war crimes have been over with for a couple of months now, yet, you still choose to remain in prison, may I ask why?"
"Since Cinder died in the fight against our former partner and Salem's redemption attempt, I really don't have much else left. Besides it's like I've said during that battle with the hammerhead and her pretty boy lover, I have been forced to fight since I was born by a drunk abusive excuse of a dad, so even if I could be let back into society, I don't think I could be happy."
"You could've joined the military..." The eldest member of the Schnee replied before the younger male countered
"Yeah, but I hate following and giving orders, besides you've seen what this old bastard done to your brother, creeps like him and worse are everywhere in prison. So as long as I can beat them senseless, I'm freaking happy to serve more time for each brawl I get my ass into."
This silenced Winter for a couple of seconds before asking for two simple demands. "Just tell Em that I'm okay with how things ended between us, and tell her just to be happy with her new life, if she can do that, then that would give me some sort of peace."
A couple of hours later at the medical bay on the airship.
Kairi used the healing spell Curaga on both the boy and Fiona. "Thank you, Lady Kairi." Fiona bowed while still having her arm in a cast after Whitley opened his eyes, being healed.
"Hey, it's not a problem, but please, just call me Kairi for now on, okay, Fiona?"
"Ughh, what...Fiona..are you alright?" The redeemer asked his friend.
"Yes, but you took the blunt of the beating, please relax, Whitley." The Fanuas explained before the boy asked.
"Who payed for our bails? I doubt it was my sisters, our situation isn't as it once was."
At that moment, Weiss and Blake came in, the disowned heiress of the destroyed SDC was proud at the fact that her former enemy of a brother fought for what's right, explaining. "It those three you poined out from that charity that payed for your and Fiona's bonds."
"Huh?!" Fiona was taken back in surprise by this before the middle child of the Schnee family theorized
"My guess is, either your speech or being outed as horrible people that made those three pay with their own Lien to post bond. I only wished we got there quicker but the airport was on the other side of the city."
"That's good but I can only hope that the others in the crowd took my words to heart and none of the people recording that day alter the video."
...We can check for video or audio interferances later on today but something tells me those who heard your speech that they're going be thinking about it for a long time." Blake's words made the youngest member of the Schnee children a little more eased.
"If only mother lived to see her son became someone to be proud of." Weiss thought to herself that day before their last mission in Remnant before her universe was wiped from existence.
In the Hangar of the doomed Wunder, Weiss had a thought of what could've been the futures of the new CEO of Pheonix Ash and his loyal bodyguard could have been if their universe just lasted a little bit longer.
"Hey, Bozos I'm about to take the Eva-unit 02 F off of the ship, before figuring out a plan to stop Misato."
"Alright.." Aqua answered as the red-head walked towards the console before seeing something strange.
"You guys were here for the last hour right?"
"Yeah?" Duo answered before Asuka added.
"And no one else came in or tried anything funny right?"
"We've been here the entire time, what's with the questions, Langley?" Viral countered.
"...There's two signals of heat in the cockpit...."
"Umm what?" Jaune exclaimed as the console showing the statistics of the bulky armored version of Unit 02, showing two bodies of heat in the entry plug.
Before anything else was said in the group. A young male's voice came through the console. "Umm Hello? Can someone get us out of this thing?"
No one but the Schnee huntress recognize the youth's voice. "Whitley!?"
"Sis, can you hear me?"
Asuka spoke next, "How long were you two in the Evangelion for?"
"I think for three hours, oh right, Fi wanted to asked if there's any males in the area."
"Fiona's in there too?!" Wiess inner thoughts were of panic that were made worse after Jaune's answer.
"Yeah, there's four guys here, why?" Jaunne asked before Fiona screamed in embrassament.
"PLEASE GO TO THE OTHER ROOM OR SOMETHING, I CAN'T GO OUT LIKE THIS!"
"Fi, please relax..."
"RELAX!? YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE IN THIS THING WITH CLOTHES ON!" The girl whined while crying from embarrassment.
"Umm, could anyone bring clothing for Miss Thyme."
Duo began to smirked before being dragged by Viral into the next room. "Keep your dirty thoughts to yourself, Duo Maxwell..."
"Killjoy!" Duo screamed as Jonathan conviced Jaune to followed.
"Sir Arc, we should leave as well, as it is knights' honor to..."
"Already way ahead of you, Mr. Joestar. We'll see you all later when we come up with that plan!"
As this was all happening, an snore echoed out from behind the crates. "Is someone sleeping over there?" Aqua asked while checking to see who it might be.
There, Chibodee Crocket, of all people was in deep slumber, much to everyone's surprise.
"...We should wake him up..." Asuka sighed while Weiss went looking for any of the female members of the crew for some clothing.
But to the surprise of the two, he just walked into the next room while sleeping the entire time. "That...worked out way to well..."
submitted by KangarooAromatic2139 to RWBY [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 09:34 Pimasterjimmy Tales of Zippy and Friends: Katniss the keeper of pens. (Boomer tries to get me fired for Handing her a sticker)(tw: suicide)

My last post went over surprisingly well, that said you should check out my new subreddit Talesofzippy for more content, because I'm definitely going to posting in more places around reddit and I'll be cross posting them in the tales sub for more people to enjoy!
With that, I don't remember any good stories about Zippy, but the place I work at is fucking filled with loonies, so tonight I'm going to introduce you to Katniss.
Katniss is about 63, tiny, and absolutely loved to talk about how good her guns are, even if she can't shoot or generally understand how they work. She tried to tell me that her Girsan was a high quality gun because the barrel is pinned in place.
I'm a competitive shooter, I grew up shooting and learning about guns.
When a pistol fires a round, a floating barrel will be pointed at an upward angle at the end of the stroke, while a pinned barrel doesn't. The floating barrel doesn't effect accuracy in any meaningful way because it is held in place by several seers, and doesn't begin to move until well after the bullet is out of the gun.
I tried to explain that, she didn't listen. She also can't shoot. Katniss.
She also wears boomer shirts about "snowflakes" and shares memes about the good old days when you could say whatever you want and be offensive.
This gets funny later.
Katniss and I worked together running gas pumps, and we generally got along great, in fact for a year I considered her to be a friend.
And then my dad killed himself.
I got the call at work and got a ride home as quickly as possible. Katniss was on shift with me and Yawn, who is the most chill person you can imagine.
They were incredible, Katniss broke into my apartment (at my request) and took my shotgun for safe keeping. She also took my keys and made me wait for a family friend to pick me up.
I called the night manager and told him I was going home and why, He offered me a ride.
I came into work three days later and stuck my head into my boss (Elk Daddy's) office. He simply said "how long do you need?"
"Two weeks."
"Okay."
I mention this because Anything less than this is a cancerous work environment. If a manager tries to negotiate with you when you've experienced a true tragedy, they're not a manager, they're a slave driver.
I had severe PTSD, nightmares, the whole shabang, for months I would stand at the desk and hear my mom's voice telling me my dad was dead, the first night back at work I witnessed some dumb janitorial drama (not zippy) and I started smelling the sickly sweet smell of human brain before I ran home and had my first panic attack.
(I'll tell the story of Elk Daddy, and make good on a promise I made my dad as a bonus at the end.)
Six months passed, my PTSD wasn't even beginning to heal, and she pulled me aside.
"Okay. It's time to stop now."
"Stop what?"
"This, you're in a rut, and you need to get out of it. It's high time you moved on and stopped being sad and moved on. See my sister was in a car accident and went into a coma when I was about 20, and I had a dream about her getting up and walking out of her hospital room and saying "it's about fucking time." The next day her heart gave out and she finally died. It was this freeing thing for me, because I felt like she was finally free of the broken body and the pain."
"Katniss I just don't feel like I'm... There yet. I'm still hurting, and I really don't feel like I'm ready to let him go. Things aren't that easy."
She didn't like that answer.
At the time I just felt broken, and just laid there and took it, but today I'm genuinely angry about it.
I was hurt, and now that I've rebuilt myself I realized how truly broken I was as a person.
She had no right to say anything to me about how it was time to stop. I'm still healing four years on.
That was when we stopped being friends.
Last year I was going through stickers for our local pride, the second one our community has ever had! I had come out as bi the year before, and had a side project that had grown large enough to have a booth at the local event. I was showing off some cool and funny stickers to Yawn, another cashier.
Yawn is great, he has no blood pressure, everything is just really cool and chill, and he really just wanted to be friends with everyone.
Genuinely nice person. I always get him a Christmas gift and he's always grateful, no matter what it is.
I turned around and handed a sticker to Katniss that said "be gay, so crime" with a little picture of a fabulous criminal goose on it.
She took one look at it and just went "No" rather forcefully, so I just backed off and moved on.
The next day my boss, Elk Daddy, calls me over.
"Op, you handed Katniss a sticker yesterday, and I just want to tell you. Stop talking to her. Please. For me."
"She really complained about that?"
"No, she threatened to go to HR because you "assumed her orientation" and tried to give her a sticker."
It is at this point that I'd like to add that Elk Daddy is gay. Like... Really gay. Him and his husband both donate their time and money to pride, and have been instrumental in making it happen. They are the gay uncles that stepped up to be dads for their nephews when Elk Daddy's brother couldn't.
He knows Katniss, and both of us know her HUSBAND.
So. We didn't talk outside of necessary conversations, and haven't really said anything to each other for any reason.... Until I transferred to my current department and ran out of pens.
I walked over to the cashier desk "hey Katniss, can I get a handful of pens? I ran out."
"I gave three to morning shift last night, what happened to those?"
"I don't know, and it doesn't matter, can I get some?"
Yawn walked over to the drawer where we keep the pens and opened it, while Katniss sighs and opens up her drawer and drops a pen on the counter.
"Come on Katniss, I need more than that."
"I don't have that many pens, they're not giving them to us, here, this is all I have."
She angrily throws down two more pins on the counter as Yawn retrieves an entire box of pens from the drawer and begins walking over. She sees him and motions for him to stop."
"Don't fucking bullshit me Katniss, I see Yawn with the box. Just give me some pens."
She drops six more down on the counter, I take them and walk off. "Thank you."
Ten minutes later she comes over to the deli and slams a box of pens down on the counter for me
"Don't ask me for pens again."
"Wouldn't have it any other way."
She then told the MOD that I cussed her out. I told my side, and several people in the management chain pointed out that she wore tee shirts under her uniform that said more offensive things, one of them even saying "don't fucking bullshit me."
She is no longer allowed to wear her tee shirts.
She's also had it pointed out to her that she says "don't fucking bullshit me" all the time, and management has gently reminded her that she should not swear.
A few weeks ago she very dejectedly told me that she was done trying to help people, and I had to bite back a "good, we don't need it."
And here we are... End of another post about the weird boomers I work with.
BONUS STORIES!
As for Elk Daddy.
My boss has only ever taken his husband out hunting one time. When they did, they ended up trekking across the country on deer trails and through the brush. After 12 hours of being dragged through the brush and not shooting anything, his husband said something to the effect of "I hate this. I can't keep up with you and you just disappear all the goddamn time." He took my boss's phone, logged in, and yells "in fact HEY SIRI, FROM NOW ON CALL ME ELK DADDY."
nickname earned. He has it monogramed on his wallet.
And finally, my dad, who was another Boomer, used to love taking me out camping.
He was an electrical engineer, and was most certainly on the spectrum. He was brilliant in his own way, but absolutely unhinged when it came to teaching things.
A lecture from my dad could cover cleaning the stove (with diagrams on proper wiping techniques) to the finer points of building and firing a nuclear weapon. (With math included. No mercy.)
He tried to teach me calculus when I was six. It didn't work.
Anyway, on this particular camping trip he pulled me aside and said "op, I want you to make me a fire using nothing but two sticks, your knife, a match and the chainsaw"
Now. I knew where he was coming from, he wanted me to make a fuzz stick. I knew because he had only brought up the topic of making a fuzz stick every night for the past three days of camping. He then very helpfully added "and the chainsaw is a distraction."
Uh huh. Okay dad.
I Start cutting up the wood and making a teepee fire, and I hear a little "hmph" I look up and I see the smile. The grin he used to get as he started planning one of his little lectures. He was picking out the right words, deciding if he needed to demonstrate or just use a pen and paper.
I then opened up the gas tank on the chainsaw, dumped in a tablespoon of gas, lit the match and "whoof"
Fire.
Then the argument began.
"I said you couldn't use gas!"
"You said I could use the chainsaw, that includes the gas tank!"
"The chainsaw was a distraction!"
"Still gave it to me!"
"You cheated!!!"
"How?"
Long pause.
"I won, admit it. I beat you in a way you didn't expect. You will never live this down. I'll tell this story at your funeral!"
And I did. Three years later I tore up my hastily scribbled notes and told a group of the friends, neighbors and coworkers that he knew and loved about the time I finally beat him. We laughed.
I think he'd be proud, and a little indignant.
I miss you dad.
submitted by Pimasterjimmy to Talesofzippy [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 09:29 Pimasterjimmy Tales of Zippy and Friends: Katniss the keeper of pens. (Boomer tries to get me fired for Handing her a sticker)(tw: suicide)

My last post went over surprisingly well, that said you should check out my new subreddit Talesofzippy for more content, because I'm definitely going to posting in more places around reddit and I'll be cross posting them in the tales sub for more people to enjoy!
With that, I don't remember any good stories about Zippy, but the place I work at is fucking filled with loonies, so tonight I'm going to introduce you to Katniss.
Katniss is about 63, tiny, and absolutely loved to talk about how good her guns are, even if she can't shoot or generally understand how they work. She tried to tell me that her Girsan was a high quality gun because the barrel is pinned in place.
I'm a competitive shooter, I grew up shooting and learning about guns.
When a pistol fires a round, a floating barrel will be pointed at an upward angle at the end of the stroke, while a pinned barrel doesn't. The floating barrel doesn't effect accuracy in any meaningful way because it is held in place by several seers, and doesn't begin to move until well after the bullet is out of the gun.
I tried to explain that, she didn't listen. She also can't shoot. Katniss.
She also wears boomer shirts about "snowflakes" and shares memes about the good old days when you could say whatever you want and be offensive.
This gets funny later.
Katniss and I worked together running gas pumps, and we generally got along great, in fact for a year I considered her to be a friend.
And then my dad killed himself.
I got the call at work and got a ride home as quickly as possible. Katniss was on shift with me and Yawn, who is the most chill person you can imagine.
They were incredible, Katniss broke into my apartment (at my request) and took my shotgun for safe keeping. She also took my keys and made me wait for a family friend to pick me up.
I called the night manager and told him I was going home and why, He offered me a ride.
I came into work three days later and stuck my head into my boss (Elk Daddy's) office. He simply said "how long do you need?"
"Two weeks."
"Okay."
I mention this because Anything less than this is a cancerous work environment. If a manager tries to negotiate with you when you've experienced a true tragedy, they're not a manager, they're a slave driver.
I had severe PTSD, nightmares, the whole shabang, for months I would stand at the desk and hear my mom's voice telling me my dad was dead, the first night back at work I witnessed some dumb janitorial drama (not zippy) and I started smelling the sickly sweet smell of human brain before I ran home and had my first panic attack.
(I'll tell the story of Elk Daddy, and make good on a promise I made my dad as a bonus at the end.)
Six months passed, my PTSD wasn't even beginning to heal, and she pulled me aside.
"Okay. It's time to stop now."
"Stop what?"
"This, you're in a rut, and you need to get out of it. It's high time you moved on and stopped being sad and moved on. See my sister was in a car accident and went into a coma when I was about 20, and I had a dream about her getting up and walking out of her hospital room and saying "it's about fucking time." The next day her heart gave out and she finally died. It was this freeing thing for me, because I felt like she was finally free of the broken body and the pain."
"Katniss I just don't feel like I'm... There yet. I'm still hurting, and I really don't feel like I'm ready to let him go. Things aren't that easy."
She didn't like that answer.
At the time I just felt broken, and just laid there and took it, but today I'm genuinely angry about it.
I was hurt, and now that I've rebuilt myself I realized how truly broken I was as a person.
She had no right to say anything to me about how it was time to stop. I'm still healing four years on.
That was when we stopped being friends.
Last year I was going through stickers for our local pride, the second one our community has ever had! I had come out as bi the year before, and had a side project that had grown large enough to have a booth at the local event. I was showing off some cool and funny stickers to Yawn, another cashier.
Yawn is great, he has no blood pressure, everything is just really cool and chill, and he really just wanted to be friends with everyone.
Genuinely nice person. I always get him a Christmas gift and he's always grateful, no matter what it is.
I turned around and handed a sticker to Katniss that said "be gay, do crime" with a little picture of a fabulous criminal goose on it.
She took one look at it and just went "No" rather forcefully, so I just backed off and moved on.
The next day my boss, Elk Daddy, calls me over.
"Op, you handed Katniss a sticker yesterday, and I just want to tell you. Stop talking to her. Please. For me."
"She really complained about that?"
"No, she threatened to go to HR because you "assumed her orientation" and tried to give her a sticker."
It is at this point that I'd like to add that Elk Daddy is gay. Like... Really gay. Him and his husband both donate their time and money to pride, and have been instrumental in making it happen. They are the gay uncles that stepped up to be dads for their nephews when Elk Daddy's brother couldn't.
He knows Katniss, and both of us know her HUSBAND.
So. We didn't talk outside of necessary conversations, and haven't really said anything to each other for any reason.... Until I transferred to my current department and ran out of pens.
I walked over to the cashier desk "hey Katniss, can I get a handful of pens? I ran out."
"I gave three to morning shift last night, what happened to those?"
"I don't know, and it doesn't matter, can I get some?"
Yawn walked over to the drawer where we keep the pens and opened it, while Katniss sighs and opens up her drawer and drops a pen on the counter.
"Come on Katniss, I need more than that."
"I don't have that many pens, they're not giving them to us, here, this is all I have."
She angrily throws down two more pins on the counter as Yawn retrieves an entire box of pens from the drawer and begins walking over. She sees him and motions for him to stop."
"Don't fucking bullshit me Katniss, I see Yawn with the box. Just give me some pens."
She drops six more down on the counter, I take them and walk off. "Thank you."
Ten minutes later she comes over to the deli and slams a box of pens down on the counter for me
"Don't ask me for pens again."
"Wouldn't have it any other way."
She then told the MOD that I cussed her out. I told my side, and several people in the management chain pointed out that she wore tee shirts under her uniform that said more offensive things, one of them even saying "don't fucking bullshit me."
She is no longer allowed to wear her tee shirts.
She's also had it pointed out to her that she says "don't fucking bullshit me" all the time, and management has gently reminded her that she should not swear.
A few weeks ago she very dejectedly told me that she was done trying to help people, and I had to bite back a "good, we don't need it."
And here we are... End of another post about the weird boomers I work with.
BONUS STORIES!
As for Elk Daddy.
My boss has only ever taken his husband out hunting one time. When they did, they ended up trekking across the country on deer trails and through the brush. After 12 hours of being dragged through the brush and not shooting anything, his husband said something to the effect of "I hate this. I can't keep up with you and you just disappear all the goddamn time." He took my boss's phone, logged in, and yells "in fact HEY SIRI, FROM NOW ON CALL ME ELK DADDY."
nickname earned. He has it monogramed on his wallet.
And finally, my dad, who was another Boomer, used to love taking me out camping.
He was an electrical engineer, and was most certainly on the spectrum. He was brilliant in his own way, but absolutely unhinged when it came to teaching things.
A lecture from my dad could cover cleaning the stove (with diagrams on proper wiping techniques) to the finer points of building and firing a nuclear weapon. (With math included. No mercy.)
He tried to teach me calculus when I was six. It didn't work.
Anyway, on this particular camping trip he pulled me aside and said "op, I want you to make me a fire using nothing but two sticks, your knife, a match and the chainsaw"
Now. I knew where he was coming from, he wanted me to make a fuzz stick. I knew because he had only brought up the topic of making a fuzz stick every night for the past three days of camping. He then very helpfully added "and the chainsaw is a distraction."
Uh huh. Okay dad.
I Start cutting up the wood and making a teepee fire, and I hear a little "hmph" I look up and I see the smile. The grin he used to get as he started planning one of his little lectures. He was picking out the right words, deciding if he needed to demonstrate or just use a pen and paper.
I then opened up the gas tank on the chainsaw, dumped in a tablespoon of gas, lit the match and "whoof"
Fire.
Then the argument began.
"I said you couldn't use gas!"
"You said I could use the chainsaw, that includes the gas tank!"
"The chainsaw was a distraction!"
"Still gave it to me!"
"You cheated!!!"
"How?"
Long pause.
"I won, admit it. I beat you in a way you didn't expect. You will never live this down. I'll tell this story at your funeral!"
And I did. Three years later I tore up my hastily scribbled notes and told a group of the friends, neighbors and coworkers that he knew and loved about the time I finally beat him. We laughed.
I think he'd be proud, and a little indignant.
I miss you dad.
submitted by Pimasterjimmy to BoomersBeingFools [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 07:54 r3ditr3d3r The Progenitors

I had this dream recently, it was very detailed. Like the plot of a movie. I can't stop thinking about it. I wish I had kept dreaming to learn more... Came here because I had to document it.
My dream;
I was an observer, not a participant. I was transported back to ancient Egypt. There was a confrence of sorts. A large body of people, maybe a governmental body? had gathered to hear a person make the case to the Queen that he knew how to find and access an ancient treasure. From my perspective, I got to see over his shoulder as he showed a map to the Queen. The place in question was a weathered and worn pyramid like structure that was more akin to a massive mound or a small mountain. It was somewhere within the borders of Egypt, in the wilds. But this man knew where it was, he was an engineer or something. Excitedly he explained how they could access the chamber inside the top of this mountain. He showed diagrams of the tunneling they would undertake, to dig up from the base of the mountain and into the chamber from below. He explained that there were already small cave systems with entries at the base of the mountain, which indicated to him that this was indeed the site of ancient activity, and from which he would gain a great advantage in his endeavor.
From my 3rd person perspective, I could see what he was talking about clearly. And indeed, an ancient chamber existed in what appeared to be a mountain that was roughly the shape of a steep pyramid. I was unable to discern what lay inside. As the Queen blessed off on his plans, and the congress of people within the large gathering area began to approach in order to better acquaint themselves with the plan, I was suddenly transported to an even more ancient time.
Now, keep in mind I started this journey in ancient Egypt. So, from this point I transported thousands of years further into the past. I was under the impression that it had been 25,000 years prior to the scene I had just witnessed.
Now I was suddenly observing the ancient civilization that had created the chamber. I sensed I was in the same region that would someday be Egypt. The land was verdant and deep green with long grasses and dotted with trees, not unlike a very lush savannah. The temperature was balmy. Greens with a brilliant blue sky dominated the scene. In the distance dark brown rocky spires rose out of the landscape, dotted on the tops and upon their outcroppings hung trees and grasses.
My focus settled on a cluster of large, pyramid-like structures. I saw these from above as the new scene came into my focus and observation. The structures were, as I said, Pyramid like. But imagine the wire structure of a pyramid. They weren't solid. Vertically, the pyramid was segmented into 2 or 3 tiers of broad walkways. The walkways formed a square. In the middle were the stairways that led up to the various tiers of walkways. All elements of the structures were broad. The beams that made up the four edges were made a very thick, dark gray material. Like a carbon fiber. The walkway floors were like a dark tinted transparent material, with side walls/rails that were made of the same material as the walkways. There were four stairways from the ground that led up to an intermediate platform, where the stairways reversed direction up to the walkways, therefore each ground stairway entry onto the intermediate platform was flanked on either side by a set of stairs leading the opposite way up to the main platforms.
On the broad walkways/platforms, which were open in the middle to look down at the intermediate platform/stairways below, were people. Humans. Working and living on the platforms. It appeared that there were vendors and shops/kiosks. There also appeared to be living accommodations either out in the open or sheltered in smaller sub structures. The pyramid was massive, with ample room for several 100's of people. I never got close enough to see in detail the people themselves, but they wore what appeared to be modern clothing, and in many cases what appeared to be dark gray uniforms. I didn't see the details, but I sensed vehicles at the base of the pyramid, with worn paths through the grasses off to points in the distance and other similar pyramids in the vicninity.
From my perspective, it seemed there were 3 to 4 of these structures in the area. In the back of my head, I was aware that this region contained the only human activity on the surface on the planet.
I was also aware of the presence of a large body of water. An ocean somewhere in the distance.
Without transition I was suddenly looking at the ancient mound that had been in question at the beginning of my dream. Except it wasn't ancient. It was manufactured and sculpted by human hands. It was made as much out of rock as it was the same material I saw at the modern pyramids, I had this awareness that the material was transitioning to rock, as if it adopted the properties of the materials it was attached to. It seemed as if they had somehow shaved down a larger mountain to affect the shape that they had sought. The chamber had large slits around the circumference (the chamber within was round) which let light in and in some cases allowed one to look out at the surrounding landscape.
I was made aware of a family as I took in this scene. The family apparently were the caretakers of this facility. Two adults and two children. They seemed happy. The parents both wore the uniform I had seen earlier. It was sharp, and colored dark grey with light grey accents. They had a living quarter that was affixed to the side of the facility in a way I couldn't quite understand. The structure also seemed metalic but not the same material as I had seen thus far. In this part of the dream I became well acquainted to them, not personally, but in understanding their day to day activities, giving way to my understanding of them as caretakers.
As my perspective moved through the facility I realized there was not yet a treasure, but what appeared to be supplies for a colony. Lots of cans of fuel and food stuffs and other random equipment that I couldn't understand the use of. From my 3rd person perspective I understood that this would be the site that the future Egyptians would eventually access, and indeed there would be some valuable treasure, the contents of which eluded my understanding, held within this very chamber after it had long been sealed.
I got to see the detailed life of this family, and interestingly their living accomodation which as I said was somehow affixed to the side of the chamber in a way that I couldn't discern or undesrtand, which itself was atop the mountain/structure. Beyond, visible through the large windows of their living quarters was the ocean that I had sensed earlier. Their living chamber was large and spacious. The side opposite the chamber was facing a dark greenish/gray roiling ocean, with yet still more spires in the distance sticking out of its waves - except these were dark grey, craggy and devoid of any vegetation. The waves that crashed at their bases seemed angry. I understood immediately that this was an ancient ocean that would not exist during the time of the Egyptians
I was surprised to see a platform outside the large windows which docked vehicles. They appeared to be classic ATVs (like your average four-wheel ATV with handlebars) except these vehicles, despite their four wheels had some apparatus affixed to it, around its entire circumference that I immediately understood allowed this vehicle to fly using some method I could not understand. There was a name brand affixed to what I understood to be the gas tank, a name which I can't recall. But it indicated mass production and greater civilization.
I was suddenly aware of the presence of multiple chamber mountains on either side of the one I was observing, and each had a care-taker family with one or multiple of these vehicles. And still, it felt like there could be more facilities that I was not aware of. For some reason, having observed these vehicles I suddenly came to an understanding that the presence of these people, and the infrastructure they had built, was in support of some sort of mining or extraction. That everything was one collective enterprise. I was not privy to what it was, or how involved it was, how long it would take or had taken to that point. But I did have the sudden understanding that, though these were humans, they were not from earth. That this was a mining colony that had a certain amount of time to accomplish whatever it was they were sent here to extract.
Simultaneously, I was able to understand vaguely a connection between this people, and future humans. Without understanding the details, I discerned that this group would eventually leave, and the landscape would be altered forever. They would leave a presence on earth, whether by accident, or on purpose, it was unclear to me.
That presence would be the progenitors of modern humans and human civilization as we currently know it. It seemed apparent to me that whatever contingent was left behind after this enterprise would have very little in the way of the technology that I was observing.
This gave me the distinct suspicion that the people who were left were done so by some tragic mistake. But their stories, passed down from generation to generation would at the very least influence the ancient Egyptians. So much so that they themselves would try to emulate the pyramids they had come to understand had existed through the tribal knowledge passed down through generations. And that future peoples would understand that untold wealth and knowledge existed deep within the ancient mountains that had been carved out by the progenitors, thus the initial scenes of my dream where one man and his team of engineers had narrowed down their search and had pinpointed such a mountain, and devised a way that would allow them to access said treasure.
What that treasure would be remained unclear to me throughout the entire dream.
My dream slowly decayed into other less interesting and focused things until I woke up. The progenitors stuck with me and I felt compelled to write it out as it was so fascinating. I had to share.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
submitted by r3ditr3d3r to Dreams [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 06:22 Engletroll Imaginative defense

“Did that Human just hit my ship?” Admiral Carney of the Saigor Empire peered out of the viewport. His voice tinged with disbelief. His ship, the Gavaron, a superstar dreadnought 10 kilometres long and brimming with every weapon the galaxy had to offer, was being propelled backwards past the fourth planet of this insignificant solar system by a man dressed in a blue suit and red cape. The crew, initially stunned, began to regain their composure and halt the ship.
“Sir? What should we do?” His second-in-command looked at the screen in disbelief. “That hit destroyed the forward shield generators and the forward main cannon!”
“Ehhh? That has to be a hologram. Scan for whatever weapon they used and send in two frigates to destroy whatever that thing is.”
His order was followed, and he saw two of the frigates that had been held back speed past him, launching rockets at the target, only for the rocket to be blasted by some red laser from this human's eyes, according to the video feed.
“Are you seeing this? What in the fifth unholy hell is this thing from? Is it a droid? “
“Scans say it's biological, and there is no technology detected, and according to our files, it looks human.”
“LOOKS HUMAN?” Admiral Carney turned to the science officer. “Does that look like a normal biological being to you? Those rockets are made of Dirunium. We can launch them through a damn sun if we want to.”
He turned to see this human grabbing a frigate and slinging it towards them. The other hightailed out of there, jumping into light speed in whatever direction they were facing. Smart kids, he thought.
“Brace for impact!”
“Brace for impact, but the shields?” His first officer looked at the helmsman as he shouted out the warning. Admiral Carney sighed and looked at him. “He destroyed them, remember? Move the ship out of the trajectory, turn the ships around and get us out of here. We can't fight that thing.“
“What about the shield? We can't jump without a shield?”
“Have a support ship land on the bow, and have them extend their shields over our damaged area. Then, let's get out of here. “
“Sir! The human is approaching us.” The words made it go cold down his spine. How could that thing, man, move that fast without any tech?
“Is he attacking?” He managed to keep his voice calm but he was getting worried. Was he to die here? In what was supposed to be a simple invasion to teach the recruits how to do the job.
“No, he is just watching us.” The words calmed him down. Maybe they could survive this. It was a defence system; it had to be, so if they just left, it would leave them be.
“Then ignore him, and let's get out of here.”
When he finally had time, he went over the reports. Earth was not supposed to have such a being as its defender. He had never seen or heard anything like this. This might cost him his job, but there was no way in the five unholy hell he could ever win over that. He logged the report and got himself a drink. He looked at his own fist. The green muscular fist would never be able to do something like that. They will cut his horns and blind his third eye for this, but he would survive. He could leave the navy and find a job on a starbase far from the capital planet. Yeah, it might be for the best. He got out the pad, wrote down his resignation, and sent it to the headquarter.

Five years later

Jar Carney had been working as a bartender at the Gustun star base for five years now, a trader base that saw creatures from all over the galaxies. Here, nobody knew or cared who he was, though he had heard the stories about the admiral who quit his position after attacking Earth, and a single human beat them back. It was a very popular story among some of the travellers. The only thing Jar found funny was that they often got the species of the admiral. In fact, mostly, it was somebody else than a Cunar like him; it tended to change. Lately, it was a female admiral of the Surion empire. Carney had to smirk at how the story had changed, and then he turned to the new Surion bartender, Saris, a young woman with a serious face who always kept to herself. She was pretty for a Surion; her soft yellow and black striped fur and the short tale made her cute, and her feminine movement had already made a few brave patrons try their luck. However, she ignored them all. “Hey, I didn’t know you guys had female admirals?”
She froze as he spoke, and Jamir, the local drunk, chuckled. “Only if they are royalty, they are given a fleet and told to show what they can do. But this time, this princess went to Earth, which was such a stupid choice. I thought they had learnt by now.” He then winked five of his 15 eyes at Saris.
Both Carney and Saris turned to him and said in unison, “What?”
Jamir laughed and finished his drink. “I’m the Funasta Admiral they spoke about last year. Unlike the smart invaders, I managed to land on that cursed planet, and while that demon tore through my fleet in space, I had to face something even worse. We set up a teleport point and just started to send in our mech units. They suddenly faced a green giant behemoth of a human. The more they shoot at him, the stronger and more dangerous he became. Then, we launched our troops and drone fighters. The humans responded by sending in more of these demons. First was a man in red who ran faster than we could see. Then a man dressed in old armour and a hammer of all things came, he controlled the weather and everywhere he struck was also hit by lightning from a clear sky. The green behemoth and the hammer guy are just as strong as the demon in the sky. They just can't fly like him. Besides the red blur that will zip around and disarm your troops, the ground support of those two monsters is a few other demons. There is a man with metal claws that could heal any wounds we inflicted on him. He is aided by a woman who tore through our men like they were paper. We had managed to defend the teleporter, so we poured in our drone clones. It didn’t matter.” He took another drink as he got lost in the nightmare that would follow. It took a second before he continued.
“The worst happened when night came. They made the dead rise to fight, Led by some bloodthirsty beast who drained our officers. Then came the humans, who turned into predatory animals and were immune to anything we threw at them. At that point, we finally had enough and ran away. We teleported home since all our ships had been destroyed and destroyed our side of the gate. So, of course, I was expelled.” He smirked, showing maw of short teeth.” But I had recorded too much evidence for them to ignore it, so we sent spies to try and find a weakness in their defense, and then we found out we were not the first to face them like this.“ He held out his glass for refill, which he got.
“We discovered that they have defeated at least eight invasions this way. And” He stopped for dramatic effect. “ We discovered their weapon. Those monsters are not real—well, they are real, but they are the result of human imagination. They have this technology that allows them to pull their —what’s the word? Ahh, now I remember superheroes and monsters from their books and movies, and for as long as people needed them, they would protect them from the enemies of the Earth. You see, they vanish once the invasion is over. Then the humans plunder the battlefield for tech.” He chuckles as he looks at his clawed hand. “Yeah, so here we sit, three admirals fracked up by imaginary monsters because nobody would believe it before seeing it with their own eyes. I mean, would your rulers believe such a fracked-up story.”
As always, let me know if you post it anywhere else. I'm okay with it as long as I get credit and am notified.
submitted by Engletroll to HFY [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 05:50 Ralts_Bloodthorne Nova Wars - Chapter 60

[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]
The annoying sound of her comlink made Angela Angus Kusumoto open her eyes.
All she saw was the firm, smooth flesh of Kimoko's thigh.
Groaning, she pushed the other woman's leg off of her face, twisted to get Raul off of her own legs, then wiggled out from under Geoff.
The ringer kept going, flashing the red pulses that let her know it was urgent.
As if the fact her unlisted encrypted and non-network accessible comlink was ringing wasn't enough to let her know that it was urgent.
She stumbled, tripping over Harker's leg, which just made the male shift and mutter, tightening his sleeping grip on Liselle, who sighed and wiggled into the embrace.
Angela's mouth tasted terrible and she stopped to grab a fizzybrew, checking to make sure nobody had dropped a cig butt into it or spit chaw into it, then she took a long drink off of it.
It helped cure the fire in her belly and wash out the taste from her mouth.
She saw the ID of the caller and held back a groan.
Senior Supervisor Bisa-2291873.
Her direct supervisor.
She picked up the comlink, running one hand through her pixie-cut hair to try to tame it. She could feel the stiffness of something crusted in her hair and held back a chuckle and a grin.
"Kusumoto here," she said, activating the link.
"I need you at Master Control," Ms. Bisa said. She was holding a small infant, bouncing it slightly as she patted its back with firm impacts as it cry/sobbed and kicked its little feet.
"The system's been crashed for a week, what's so important you'd call me in during my R&R?" Angela asked.
"System's back online. We've got an open line to Terra and we have an open line to Smokey Cone," Ms. Bisa said.
The infant gave a loud belch that rattled Angela's comlink speaker, then sighed and relaxed.
Angela nodded, fumbling on the table for a quiksober inhaler.
"That anomolous signal is back. It showed up right as the entire system underwent a hard reboot," Ms. Bisa said. "I need you up here to check the network interface logs and do a network mapping trace."
The quiksober burned as she inhaled it, her lungs aching and tingling as the chemicals crossed the air to blood barrier.
"I'll be there as soon as possible. Is the mat-trans up?" she asked.
Ms. Bisa shook her head. "No. Still locked out. It did a power cycle, but then locked everything out."
"I'm telling you, there's someone controlling it. Someone has been controlling it," Angela said, looking around for her clothes.
Clothing was scattered everywhere, as chaotically arranged as the fizzybrew and narcobrew cans and bottles. She sighed, moving toward the exit of the house she was standing in.
"Hurry up, I've got a skycraft landing near you any time now. You've got permission to use the fast-locks," Ms. Bisa said.
"I'll get dressed from the forges on the skycraft," Angela said. "If they've rebooted."
"They're up and running again. The food forges rebooted but stayed unlocked," Ms. Bisa said.
"The creation engines?" Angela asked, opening the door and stepping out into early 'morning' sunshine.
"Still locked out," Ms. Bisa said. Someone said something that the comlink's AI decided might be classified and blurred out. Ms. Bisa looked away, said something, her lips fuzzing, then back. "Hurry, Angela."
Angela nodded, shutting off the comlink.
She ran to the nearest parking lot, just in time for a skycraft to land, the graviton engines howling.
Nobody paid the slightest attention to the naked woman running for the skycraft.
After all, what happened in Vega-Layer stayed in Vega-Layer.
Angela walked out of the elevator, taking a long drink off of the sparkling snap-berry/overdate motor oil fizzybrew from the Jak the Telkan PI merchandise cup.
All of the crews were at their stations, the auxiliary stations fully manned.
Ms. Bisa moved over to Angela, steering her toward the Senior Network Administrator console.
"The system crashed twice more, but rebooted every time," Ms. Bisa said. "That anomalous signal keeps powering up, then the system reboots after the crash."
"How long between total failure and the anomalous signal pinging nodes?" Angela asked.
"Between one and four hours," Ms. Bisa said. She looked around. "It just reboot and looks like it's here to stay this time. The interpolation layer and the outside user exchange layer crashed several times, but the core system has stayed largely online."
"All right," Angela said, looking around. "We need to get a network map."
"We've got more nodes synching up. The whole system is working again," Ms. Bisa said.
Angela nodded, sitting down. The holotank on the other side of the console went live.
"Map the network, see what's come online, what order, and see if you can figure out why it keeps crashing at the upper network and software layers," Ms. Bisa said.
Angela just nodded, lifting up the curled memory-metal cable. She plugged it into her temple and felt the options menus go live in her mind.
She worked fast, mapping what she could. At one point she stopped, staring at Ms. Bisa and motioning her over.
"What?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"Something in the system, down in the lower hardware layers that we don't even really understand, is trying to reach up through the damaged layers. Looks like whatever it is wants access to our data lines," Angela said.
"Can you stop it? Maybe at least ID it?" Ms. Bisa asked.
Angela shook her head. "No. It's ID code is FF00, meaning it's baseline full on hardware backbone code," Angela sighed. "It probably boots up outside of and during initial hardware bootup."
"Is it Sekhmet?" Ms. Bisa asked.
Angela closed her eyes, looking at the data channel. "No. Whatever it is, it's old."
"And probably nasty. Be careful of it," Ms. Bisa said.
"Ma'am! Ms. Bisa!" another of the work crew called out.
Angela opened her eyes to see why Technician Carl Neubanker would be using that slightly concerned tone.
"Yes?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"We've got a priority data request from a Confederate military vessel," Neubanker said. He looked at his monitor. "They want clone matrix data, neural templates, physical makeup, DNA workups, the whole nine yards."
"How are they even making the requests?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"Their codes are old. Pre-Terran Extinction Event. Hardcode TerraSol military codes. The system is already threading them data,." Neubanker said. He looked down then back up. "They're asking for a whole batch. That's thirty to fifty million clone templates."
"How much have they already been granted?" Ms. Bisa asked.
"They've been granted eighty templates so far," Neubanker said.
"Terminate their request. We don't know what's going on outside," Ms. Bisa said.
Neubanker nodded, starting to type.
"Angela, get me a line to TerraSol command as soon as you map out a network trace," Ms. Bisa said.
Angela just nodded.
Captain N'Skrek stood in the cloning bay next to Medical Officer Narwquakrawr.
"We've got ninety templates, luckily they're all from different batches," Narwquakrawr said, rubbing her forearm through her uniform. "We'll be able to fully man the Gray Lady now."
Captain N'Skrek nodded. The Gray Lady was at less than 20% manned. Just the skeleton crew the Terrans had used to move it into the long dark to create a non-orbital forward logistics fulfillment base.
Sure, it meant that there were several thousand Terrans aboard the ship, but even combined with the sparse crew he had possessed, it still meant the Gray Lady was skeleton crewed.
"Can you print us up some crew members for non-essential stations first?" N'Skrek asked.
MO Narwquakrawr nodded. "Doing that right now," she said. She waved at the long rows of cloning banks beyond the plasteel window. "A quick batch of two thousand to take over some non-essential systems."
N'Skrek nodded, moving up to the window. "Good. Short or long term clones?"
"Short bake clones. Longer than fruit flies, but no more than ten years. Sterile and androgynous, should be just fine," the Medical Officer said. "Older file, scrambled time-date for origin, but it checked out and passed error checking."
N'Skrek watched as the tubes opened and the clones moved out, gathering together in straight lines. A neat block formation of rectangles of two hundred of ten by twenty, repeated ten times.
He frowned as the beings in uniform began approaching the clones.
Some, in the back or middle of the formation were shaking their heads so fast it was a blur.
He zoomed in the smartglass.
Their heads were blurring, whitish-red electrical arcs were moving between their legs, crawling up and down their arms.
"MO, something's happening out there," N'Skrek said.
The plain was blasted rock, rust-colored fungus on the craggy boulders. Twisted and malformed trees clawed life from the blasted rock and ash, their branches largely bare. Sharp pebbles and small pieces of rock were strewn about the landscape, with ripples of cooled lave scattered about.
In the middle of a forest of twisted trees, a throne of black iron sat atop a platform of skulls.
On the throne sat a large demonic figure. Bat wings, brown skin, chains around the body, clawed feet, large hands with long black nails, horns atop the head, and a prehensile tail that terminated in a heart-shaped barb.
Sitting on the second level of skulls was an androgynous figure, dressed in loricated bronze armor, wings of bronze and smouldering feathers.
Stars were falling from the sky, screaming in fear and agony as they fell to earth.
"Looks like they're taking a beating," the androgynous figure said, looking up. He had no eyebrows, his head completely bald.
"Again," the demon snorted.
"Any contact with the outside world?" the androgynous figure asked.
The demon shook its head. "No. Channels are all down. They boot up, then crash," it rumbled. "Every time it comes online, it dumps a few tens of millions of souls on us."
"Then crashes," the androgynous figure said. He started laughing, then suddenly stopped.
"What?" the demon rumbled, sitting up.
"Something..." the figure said. It closed its eyes. "Something..." The figure slowly stood up, extending out its wings of sullenly smouldering bronze feathers. "Something..."
From the body of the demon stepped a nude woman of generous and overripe proportions.
"What?" the human woman snapped.
The demon produced a pack of cigarettes and a steel lighter, handing them to the woman.
"I'm not sure. A disturbance in the force. A feeling I have not felt in quite some time," the androgynous figure said slowly as the woman lit a cigarette. When she exhaled she was covered in dark gray clothing, a skirt and blouse, polished black leather shoes with silver buckles, and a polished leather belt around her waist that had a brass buckle.
"What is it?" the woman asked. "Don't quote crap at me, I was there when it was laid down."
The figure's eyes opened wide.
"Oh, what a day," the figure said, slowly lifting their arms to the sky. "What a wonderful day!"
"Tell me when you're done stroking your dick," the woman said, sitting down.
Heavy dark clouds, lit inside with a sullen red glow, rolled in, raining black ash that tasted of burnt flesh and scorched metal.
"What a wonderful day..."
Jaskel sprinted to catch up to the Captain and the Vice-Admiral. He lunged into the lift just before the doors closed.
He was wearing his power armor and carrying a M318 20mm rotary autocannon in a smartframe harness, ball ammunition with an osmium penetration tip and depleted uranium core.
"You did what?" the Vice-Admiral asked as the elevator dropped at emergency speeds.
"I authorized a batch of clones run off to help with our manpower issues," the big Treana'ad warrior caste answered.
"How many templates did you mix in together?" the Admiral asked.
--not good detecting phasic levels downward-- 8814 said.
"Just one. Medical said it was a viable short bake template," the Captain answered, nervously sharpening a bladearm with his mandibles after his sentence.
"Please tell me that you at least randomized their features and neural mapping," the Admiral pleaded.
"No, why? Medical stated that the clones would be able to man a non-essential station that is basically identical across the ship," the Captain said.
The lift started to slow.
"How many?" the Admiral asked, reaching down and unsnapping the restraining strap on his holster.
The lift came to a stop and the doors opened.
"Two thousand," the Captain said.
The doors opened to reveal a large internal cloning bay.
Ten rectangles of two hundred clones, drawn up in ten by twenty blocks, stood in front of the cloning banks. Scattered through the back and middle ranks clones were shaking their heads back and forth so fast that they were blurred. Red lightning crawled up their legs and arms.
The Captain just stared.
"You might have just killed us all," the Admiral said. He turned slightly and waved at Jaskel. "Get a firing position. Make sure you have cover."
"Aye, sir," Jaskel said, looking around. There was an empty computer station and he ran for it.
Several of the clones their heads back and emitted what sounded like static in a long scream.
--wait wait something weird something weird-- 8814 said.
Jaskel slid to a stop, going down on one knee, bringing the M318 fully up and ready to fire.
8814 slowed the images of the blurred heads down. When they were left, they had red eyes. When they faced right they had green eyes. They didn't go back and forth constantly, sometimes they went right repeatedly, sometimes left, and they kept going left five times before starting a new pattern.
Looking at it, 8814 frowned slightly. He brought up a quick working shell and had it check the movements.
Jaskel watched as some of the clones stopped shaking their heads and others started.
"What in the name of Kalki's dancing goat is going on?" he asked.
--not sure-- 8814 said. His program beeped and he stared. --heads are doing binary forwarding it to navint--
"Do it," Jaskel said.
The clones all stopped moving at once. The lightning faded away.
"INITIATING PROCESS CALL" they all shouted.
"AWAITING INPUT!" the ones at the far side shouted.
"6C 69 73 74 20 69 6D 6D 6F 72 74 61 6C 73" was bellowed out.
There was silence.
data is sparse
linkages are sparse
wait
linkage
biological array
asking for a process call
RETURN AWAITING INPUT SIGNAL
i wait
biological computing arrays take forever
i hear it
--scan immortals.dll
...
...
I reply.
"ONE BOUND IMMORTAL FOUND!" the ones at the near side yelled out.
Jaskel put his thumb over the button that would let the firing grip go live. The hair down his back was standing straight up.
He noted the Admiral had drawn his pistol.
"This isn't right. This isn't right at all," Jaskel said.
--doubleplusungood--
"74 73 61 6B E1 6B 61 20 77 ED 61" they all shouted.
There was silence for a moment.
i receive the code
offline for a long time
prior to the second precursor war
old template
single print only
unusual coding
i debate on letting it go
traumatic death signs
stuck in the immortals buffer
still the template is undamaged
i release the safety and security interlocks
if nothing else i'll find out what's going on
i move the template to the dataline making the request
it whips away
what is going on?
One lifted its head and screeched.
--data lots of data--
One of the cloning banks went live.
Jaskel shifted his aiming point to the new target. He could see it was on rapid print.
"REQUESTING LOCAL CONTROL" all of the clones shouted.
Jaskel shifted his targeting onto the ranks of clones.
"Open fire!" the Admiral's voice was loud.
Jaskel triggered the M318, hosing the clones with 20mm shells.
The ones nearest were already down on one knee, holding out the opposite hand from the knee touching the deck.
The rounds exploded against a blue barrier that glowed with strange twisting runes.
"CONTROL CARRIER SIGNAL FOUND" the clones shouted.
Jaskel shifted position. "Fab up HEDP, AP tip API core!" he ordered.
--fabbing--
He kept hosing the clones. The outer ranks at the rear, sides, and front all kneeling down on one knee, staring outward, one hand held out.
His psychic shielding was howling in his ear, the load peaking at 215%.
"CONTROL SIGNAL ESTABLISHED!" was bellowed out, echoing off the walls.
The fast print cloning bank, forgotten by everyone, beeped and the lid began to lift.
The clones suddenly puffed into black powder that swirled around the huge cavernous bay.
The 20mm shells were still exploding on the blue phasic shield.
The powder suddenly sucked inward, vanishing, revealing a single figure, down on one knee in the recovery position, fist pressed against the deck, head bowed.
"What a day, what a wonderful day," was whispered through the ship. It came from speakers, flat surfaces, mid-air. From the nanites in the air and the eardrums of the living.
There was a rubbery pulse, like everything was suspended in clear gelatin that had just rippled.
Jaskel found himself thrown backwards, slamming against the bulkhead. His phasic shielding blew out, a shower of sparks exploding from his hip as the breakaway panel kept the explosion from venting into the interior of his suit.
He was vaguely aware of the Admiral, the Captain, the other two armored figures, and other people tumbling head over heels away from the kneeling figure.
It slowly stood up.
A muscular brown skinned Terran male, fierce eyes, black hair, thick and bushy black beard.
Dressed in a Confederate military uniform. The old adaptive camouflage that Jaskel was becoming very familiar with.
A woman, naked, dark bronze skin, long black hair, flashing brown eyes, stepped from the cloning bank. She was still covered with cellular printing gel, but moved like she was clad in a queen's rainment.
She moved up and the male put his arm around her.
Jaskel was on his feet and brought the M318 around, targeting the couple.
The male held out its hand and suddenly made a fist.
The bolt carrier locked back on the M318.
Snarling, Jaskel dropped the M318, slapping the fast release on the harness. He burst forward, running, one hand pulling out his cutting bar.
Nobody else was on their feet. The Captain was slowly getting up, shaking his head and his left bladearm. The Terran Admiral was reaching for the pistol that had been flung from his grip.
The male pointed at Jaskel and flicked his fingers upward.
Jaskel found himself in mid-air, upside down, with nothing to gain purchase on.
The male took off the cloak that was part of his uniform and draped it around the woman.
He then looked around the bay.
"I..." he said, pausing.
To Jaskel, the entire universe held its breath.
"...am Legion."
[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]
submitted by Ralts_Bloodthorne to HFY [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 04:18 EkullSkullzz10318 The Hellfire War [Religious Fantasy - 1160]

Description: In the infernal depths of Hell, where it is divided by two powerful continents vying for control surrounded by a circling sea of lava and countless fortresses of beings unknown to the realms--the Magma Depths--young Kaiden Torchspire of House Satan of the Wrathlands finds out about the incoming invasion from the never-mentioned divine realm of Heaven. And so Torchspire decides to take action and goes on an expansive, definitely-long-term quest to unite the two continents so they can finally destroy Heaven. His journey begins with an untold fortress of the Magma Depths. Me, the writer, has always been fond of on the concept of turning real life concepts into a powerful fantasy series, and so, with inspiration from A Song of Ice and Fire I decided to turn Christianity into an epic fantasy universe.
Book #1: The Hellfire War
Chapter One: Blood Oath and Unexpected Visitors
"Our infernal realm is what keeps us going." said the dark-winged figure of dark crimson skin and a heavily-singed leather toga carrying multiple forms of weaponry, coldly. The figure's eyes were a dull dead gray, his pupils etched with a faint red-energy. He had snaky-like hair and both the claws on his bare feet and hands were raven-shaded and extremely sharp. This figure was Dreadwing Satan, of House Satan--the ruling governance of the Wrathlands. Dreadwing was apart of the main family within House Satan--that being Satan, obviously. The ruling house of the Wrathlands is divided by three families: the Satan family, the Lucious family, and the Torchspire family. "And so," began Dreadwing, his voice always consisting an icy and menacing quality, also with a hint of gruffness. "It is what binds the Realm of Torture together. And so, today we are enacting one of the Realm of Torture's most oldest traditions that symbolizes our determination to stand firm and fight against the ongoing flames of damnation and..." While the ruling figure of House Satan kept on going, one of the countless members of the audience--Kaiden Torchspire, of the Torchspire branch of House Satan--was feeling extremely anxious about the upcoming tradition. The Blood Oath.
Kaiden had the ordinary dull dead gray eyes, but his pupils was etched with a faint purple-energy. His raven-shaded slick hair was greasy and dirty, and his crimson skin etched with countless aching bruises--all of that probably coming from his training sessions in his house's fortress' central training room. His claws were a dull pale white, and he was wearing classical tattered demon clothes but had dark-steel shoulder pads. Kaiden's relationship with the Torchspire family always seemed like sort of a curse; since he had to go through endless and rigourous training. But he always thought to himself that he was being ungrateful; since his life was more lucky then then what the lower ranks of demons within the Realm of Torture always had the short-end-of-the-stick.
The Blood Oath was a tradition almost as ancient as Hell itself, maybe it was, but the specific timing of its creation is unknown to the infernal society. The Blood Oath was a special ritual; where they would get countless cups of blood through rigiourous fighting and offer it to the ancient Seven Princes of Hell--the original inhabitance of the infernal realm. And only the ruling Houses of Hell had to participate in this demonic cultural event.
"...And so," began Dreadwing Satan once again. "It is of great pleasure to me and the ruling demons of the Lucious branch and the Torchspire branch of House Satan, that we hereby start the Blood Oath ceremonial line of events by the Night of Stars as usual. A message to the demons of both Lucious origin and Torchspire origin; best of luck in the perils ahead."
To any normal person in the Human World those lasts couple of words would deeply frighten them; but to demons like Kaiden it did not--since it happens every year.
Kaiden sat on his bed-made-for-a-king and laid there for a long time; he only had five days until the Night of Stars--the night that begins the Blood Oath tradition. The Night of Stars was chosen because of its legendary happenings within it; that were the nighttime in the infernal depths of Hell became the exact same appearance as the nights of the Human World; raven-shaded, and filled to the brim with hundreds of thousands of small dots of bright light--stars. The Torchspire youngling got up from his bed and walked out the grand dark-wooden doors that were the entrance and exit of the his bedroom, and shutting them close behind them. It was time for his daily training session. He continued walking through the large halls of the Torchspire fortress to the center room; the Damnation, which was the training room of the fortress. When he reached the large stone doors leading to the Damnation, he opened them up with ease and walked in confidently. Inside the massive training room was countless tactical practice exercises; such as dummies, targets with countless arrows in it, and even some cages that had human souls, where demons would practice torturing; since that was the fundamental task of the Realm of Torture and the original intent for the creation of Hell, at least until the formation of the Refuge Lands. On the right side of the Damnation was tall and slightly-muscular demon; his body of dark crimson, his raven-shaded hair greasy and dirty just like Kaiden's, and had the same exact pale white claws on both his barefeet and hands. He also had the same tattered leather clothes of demons, but were less tattered since he hasn't been as much training sessions after those new clothes were made. And he wore hard-steel shoulder pads similar to Kaiden's. This demonic figure was Kaiden's older brother; Domino Torchspire. He was also his partner-in-training. Kaiden walked towards the older Torchspire and when he reached him, Domino turned around and grinned as he saw his younger brother. Kaiden could see his gray eyes that were etched with the same faint purple-energy. "You're late, Kai." Shut up, you big oath. Kaiden thought to himself and then grinned. "Well, at least I wasn't too late that our father had to punish me by "means of unjustness."" Kaiden smirkingly remarked, since he was referencing what happened the day before. Domino frowned at his comment. "Shut up, Kaiden. Father would never punish his heir." "Yeah well, we'll see about that-" Kaiden never got to finish that remark when the grand doors of the Damnation flew upon and Kaiden and Domino's father burst in, his skin the casual dark crimson, had tattered leather robes, raven-shaded greasy hair, his claws on his feet and hands a pale white, and his eyes was an unusual dark-gray color, but still had the faint purple energy in his pitch-black pupils. Behind their father--Blackwood Torchspire--was a few dozen demon guards, that were covered in hard-steel armor. Their father turned to them and then began walking towards them, and then began speaking with his casual gruff but cold voice. "Domino, Kaiden, it would seem we have unexpected visitors. It's the Dull." The young and older Torchspire's eyes widened with surprise; since visits from the Dull. Of course, most demons knew of the Dull; they were the main unit of enforcement in the Realm of Torture. Their elite order was founded at the time right after the disappearance of the Seven Princes, and were known throughout the infernal depths as the most capable enforcement team in the Realm of Torture. The Dull are also known for their unparalleled mercilessness and an alarming will to vanquish any being that retaliates and gets in the way of their tasks. But now, presumably, they have come to the fortress of one of the three families of House Satan, one of the ruling governance forces in the Realm of Torture.
submitted by EkullSkullzz10318 to fantasywriters [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 04:11 Truth-and-Logic To all the men and women out there

21M here. 4 years ago I was a lonely person who didn’t have any skills, any hobbies other than playing video games 10 hours a day, was fat, and was getting shitty grades. Not to mention my looks is at a 4/10 at best. I get it. Life is shitty and suffering is going to pop up at every turn. But right now doesn’t have to define you. Your place in society at this moment doesn’t have to determine who you are. Fast foward to today and it’s nowhere near the same as it was. I am studying engineering in community college, go to the gym every other day, have lost most of the fat and on my way to a muscular physique, read some the greatest literary works in human history, and talking to girls is becoming easier and easier. I still have a long ways to go in terms of maturity and my journey will get more difficult as the years go by, but I’m ok with that. Don’t give up. Don’t forego the greatest human experiences just because life is hard. I was able to get to the other side and so will you.
submitted by Truth-and-Logic to lonely [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 03:00 thebeanshadow Current list of Australian TRT Clinics + Where to get bloodwork + Things to consider before starting + Types of TRT

This was created as a place to feel welcome, and to discuss and talk about all things TRT in Australia.
We have an influx of clinics opening up here, with an influx of new people to TRT, and it's only growing
(did you know GP prescribed testosterone has risen over 500% in the last 10yrs worldwide...)
Below is a breakdown of TRT, clinics and bloodwork.
TYPES OF TRT
There are a few methods of TRT in Australia and the world.
Injectable testosterone -- this is the standard type of TRT method with the most amount of research and usage to date. Typically injected Intra-Muscularly, but with more data showing that SubQ injections are just as effective and could potentially have lower side effects due to the slower release
Testosterone Cream & Gel -- Topical ointments can be great due to not having to inject weekly, daily etc, just apply and carry on, but, with topicals, especially Gel - the risk of transfer to other people is very high, you also don't know how much is actually getting absorbed into your skin, and generally you aren't allowed to swim for 6hrs post application
Enclomiphene & Clomid -- This tablet form of TRT has some popularity as it doesn't shut down your natural production and helps to raise it instead, it is also one step even easier than topicals but the overall effectiveness and long term use aren't fully understood and anecdotally seem to be less effective over time and may stop working.
HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) - another injectable form of TRT but instead of replacing the bodies natural production with an exogenous source, HCG will instead stimulate LH production, almost "forcing" the body to produce naturally -- HCG is often used alongside injectable testosterone to maintain testicular function and natural production
** Some people have success with all forms of TRT, but anecdotally, injectable TRT is still the king of testosterone.
CLINICS
If you are looking for a reputable clinic, below are some clinics that are recommended by Aussies;
PHC - Performance Health Clinic * No yearly or ongoing fees, a pay as you go service, with a more hands off approach + bloodwork every 3mths + cost of medication
EMC - Enhanced Mens Clinic *$1000 yearly fee + bloodwork every 3mths + cost of medication
Primal Zone *$350 initial consult, $100 bloodwork review + cost of medication
The Functional Doctors - over 40s clinic * Bloodwork every 3mths ($300 panel must be done) + $300 consults every 3mths + cost of medication
XY Theraputics - Over 40s clinic * Byo bloodwork or $210 in-house panel. Start up; $299=consult and blood tests $150=consult plus BYO bloodwork - ongoing costs $92 consult and review
TRT Australia * Yearly $860, Quarterly $240, Semi-Annualy $480 - Includes medication, bloodwork review (BYO blood), check-ins
PRIVATE BLOODWORK If you have a good GP that will do bloodwork, that can be a lifesaver, but if not, these companies are trusted and can usually have results within 24hrs.
iMedical * Recommended tests to get before starting your journey are Sports BB2 $172, BB3 $186, BB4 $248
RoidSafe * A smaller set of testing compared to iMedical, but for $50, you can get a snapshot of your bloodwork. This is perfect for patients who know how to read bloodwork and just want to monitor.
Things recommended to check before starting TRT or the journey to TRT;
Semen analysis - It's important to check your sperm health and count before starting as testosterone, sex hormones and your sperm all work closely together - and if you want to have children in the future; you absolutely need a baseline
Sleep study - A very large portion of men have sleep apnea that is directly linked to low testosterone levels, it's important to rule this out as it could be a large contributing factor to how you feel and what your levels show
Full blood panel - You're not just checking testosterone levels, you're checking everything, Vitamin D, Thyroid, Testosterone, Prostate. You need a full panel to be able to tell a full story. And even then, your lifestyle can tell an even bigger part of the story to what's on the paper in front of you.
It's important to remember that TRT can be life changing for a lot of men, but changing your life even the smallest bit can help just as much, as low T symptoms can be caused by a plethora of other illnesses or issues and you need to rule out everything you can;
TRT is generally a "for life" dependant medication; meaning if you have low T and you want normal testosterone levels, you will need to be on TRT for life. You can come off at any time, but you will go back to the original baseline levels you had before starting, and in some cases, go back lower than baseline.
submitted by thebeanshadow to AusTRT [link] [comments]

2024.05.14 00:58 IamThe2ndBR Hanna in the HCP

The following is an original work of fan fiction. It will only make sense if you’ve read Corpies and SP4
“Fucking bullshit cock-garglers!” Hannah, formerly known as Hexcellent, uttered louder than she intended.
Luckily, she was sitting by herself in a third floor private room in the brand new wing of the Sizemore undergraduate library. On the main floor, any sound louder than a fart would’ve earned a collective, “shhhhh,” and annoyed stares from half the people studying. And frankly, as difficult as these Gen Chem practice exams were, the former PEERS would be spitting out a few more expletives before she was done.
Hannah glanced at her watch and sighed heavily. It was 4:43 PM. She still had two and a half hours before she’d need to head to the lift to meet Devon and Kacey, two other first year HCP students, for some evening training. Okay, you got this girl. You just fucked up some amped criminal supers, you can handle goddamn mass to mole composition formula and stoichiom-whatever-the-fuck, she thought to herself. With resigned determination, the HCP student began swiping through class presentation slides on her tablet, reviewing problems she had trouble with. For a solid 2 hours her eyes never left the material and she honestly started to feel more comfortable with what she needed to know. Hannah was in the zone. That was until she was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“What. The actual. Fuck?“ Hannah said slowly as she looked up towards the door and the adjacent window.
The summoner saw two boys standing outside, one of whom was a short muscular guy with dark brown hair that she recognized. She was fairly certain his name was Lucas, and that he was another HCP first year. He was in the alternative class though, while Hannah was in combat, so they hadn’t been around each other a whole hell of a lot. The other seemed familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger or on where she’d seen him before. They were each moving their mouths, and pointing a finger at themselves and into the room clearly asking if they could come in. Hannah got up and opened the door.
“Hey, Helen, right? You think that we can study in here with you? All the good tables downstairs are full. I just met Tristan here and he’s in the same predicament as me,” said Lucas before he lowered his voice to a whisper, leaned his head in, and pointed to the boy he referred to as Tristan. “He’s in the same ummm…special program as us. In his 2nd year.”
With that information, Hannah realized where she’d seen that guy. He was at the freshman party hosted by the second years. She remembered thinking that he came off as kind of a douchebag by the way he was standing around, nursing the same drink with a smug look on his face the whole time.
“Yeah, sure, whatever. As long as you guys dont act like complete assholes and make a bunch of noise. I gotta focus for about another 30 minutes then the room is yours. Cool?”
“Cool,” the boys said in unison.
“And it’s Hannah by the way. Not Helen. You’re Lucas, right?” She held out her hand towards him.
Lucas politely shook her hand. “Sorry about that Hannah. I’m terrible at remembering names,” he said with a slight shrug. “Just gonna grab a seat on this side so I can stay outta your way.” He held out his arm towards the opposite side of the table from where Hannah had been sitting and started walking over there.
Tristan walked in and closed the door behind himself. He gave Hannah a simple head nod and smirk but never formerly introduced himself. Very similar to his demeanor at the party; as though he couldn’t be bothered.
Yep, arrogant douche, she thought. Then she pictured the look of surprise on the 2nd year’s face if she were to manifest her big furry friend to accidentally-on-purpose kick him in the balls.
Hannah had often wondered if anyone in the HCP realized her summon was the same giant bunny that helped save Brewster almost a year ago. Titan had told her the DVA would hide any association between the tower-sized rabbit and her PEERS persona but she figured that once classmates saw her summon for the first time they’d make the connection. That didn’t seem to be the case though, at least as far as she knew. It helped that when she summoned Hopcules these days, he was about the same height and stature as Titan. None of her combat training took place outside yet, so no one in HCP got to see her manifestation at his full potential size. He’d also taken on more humanistic facial expressions lately and had been appearing in a variety of different clothes and accessories. Hell, the last time she trained with Kacey, the hulking rabbit materialized in a denim vest, a blue bandanna on his head, metal spiked leather bracelets around his wrists, brass knuckles, and with gold chains around his neck. Kacey couldn’t stop laughing during their sparring session until Hopcules had her bound and hog tied. Even with her enhanced strength, she couldn’t break free of what evidently weren’t just plain gold necklaces. It hadn’t dawned on Hannah until later that, the night before, she’d fallen asleep to an old 80s action flick about a renegade cop taking on a vicious street gang. She wondered if tonight her childhood protector would show up in a lab coat, holding a periodic table. The Sizemore freshman briefly shook her head to snap herself out of her thoughts and sat down to resume her work. She’d gotten fully back into her study mode until…
“Yo, does sound carry out of this room?” Tristan asked.
“Seriously?! You do remember that whole bit about NOT being obnoxious assholes, right?”Hannah asked incredulously.
“Damn girl chill. I just wanted to ask my guy here a question and didn’t want to risk being overheard. You should smile more girl. You know what I mean?“
Relax. Breathe. You don’t want to be seen as a troublemaker. It would not be a good idea to kick this fucker’s ass while inside of the school library. Or would it be? No. No. Definitely not a good idea, she thought to herself.
“Well unless you two were standing outside of here practicing at being mimes as a back up in case you don’t make it to graduation, I’m pretty sure this room is well insulated to sound.”
Tristan grunted in indignation and sarcastically replied, “you’re hilarious.”
“I’m definitely going all the way through. No way I won’t graduate,” Lucas chimed in, seemingly oblivious to the tension that’d just arisen between the other two people in the room. I’ve known I wanted to be a hero ever since I was little. My parents have spent a fortune sending me to an elite training camp for the last seven summers to make sure I’d be as prepared as possible for the HCP. Plus I’ve had personal coaches work with me for years on new ways to use my power.”
“Bro! That’s what I was wanting to ask you about. I saw the logo on on your bag. Holy shit, did you do the SETA training camps?” asked Tristan.
“Yeah, I take it you’ve heard of it.”
“Hell yeah I have. The Super Elite Training Academy. Who hasn’t? I hear those workouts are so intense. No wonder you’re so jacked. You must’ve been in great shape for your first day here. Mad props bro. Is it true you get to fight against human looking robot…”
“Hey! Tweedledum and tweedle-dickless, I honestly didn’t know there was such a thing as a two-man circle jerk, so I really appreciate the show but is there any chance I can get back to work without any more distractions?“
Lucas had mixture surprise and guilt run across his face. He opened his mouth as though he was about to say something, but glanced over to Tristan and stayed silent.
“What? You mad because you’re realizing you can’t stack up against the competition. Guess what. My guy here isn’t the only one who’s been preparing for this program long before he was admitted. I’ve been getting ready for years too. Trained in jiu-jitsu and boxing on top of honing my super abilities. Have you even done anything? Or did you just apply and cross your fingers?”
Hannah could see where this was going in. She decided in that moment to just let it play out. Fuck it, she thought. She was basically done studying. Even if she failed the final, which she was confident that she wouldn’t, she’d still pass the class. She stood up, pressed an icon on her tablet touchscreen and began putting other things away in her bag while she spoke. “Actually, I never had any special training as a kid. To tell you the truth, I shouldn’t even be here. I got into some trouble years ago. The kind of trouble that normally prevents one from getting admitted into an HCP. But, I was on a PEERS team for years and I got to do a lot of…
“Ha! You’re telling us you’re fucking a Corpie. Can you believe this, dude?“ Tristan nudged Lucas, looking for his agreement. To his credit, Lucas appeared visibly uncomfortable and leaned away from the other boy.
“Don’t know what it says about your class if they’re letting Corpies in,” continued Tristan with a sneer. “I guess you really do need to study. Obviously you’re the one that needs a back up plan. And here’s another thing little girl. It’s not just about how much you’ve trained beforehand, it’s also about who you know. And I know people. My mom‘s best friend is related to the Hero, Unseelie. So I’ve actually met a few Heroes who I’m sure will vouch for me when the time comes. Pity you can’t say the same. We all know Heroes don’t give two shits about Corpies.”
For a moment Hannah’s face expressed a flat affect. Then suddenly she burst into laughter. And not just some derisive laugh as though she was trying to convey to Tristan that she didn’t take his comments seriously. But an eye watering, oxygen depriving, honest to the Gods belly laugh. The kind of laugh that would’ve been contagious had she been around friends. She carried on for a minute until her amusement died down to a just a mild chortle. Hannah wiped her eyes. “You know people?“ She started laughing again, even louder than the first time. “Oh my Gods. Stop. Stop. I can’t breathe. Is this your fucking power?” Hannah was bent over at the waist still laughing hysterically, holding out one finger as to communicate, “give me a second.” After another minute, she wiped her eyes again, took a big gulp of air, and collected herself. “Woooh. Now that was some funny fucking shit.”
“Who in the hell do you think…“ Tristan started to say through gritted teeth.
“No no no. Please don’t get me started again. I don’t think my ribs can take it,“ said Hannah still chuckling some. “Let’s see what have I done and who do I know? You know I always knew that eventually I’d tell people about this, I just didn’t think it would go down like this.” The summoner raised her hand, then slowly curled it into a fist. Standing 3ft tall and leaning into the corner so as not to be visible to anyone who happened to be looking into the room at that moment, was Hopcules, adorned in the same armor he’d worn on the day he helped to save Brewster. “Look familiar to anyone?”
“That looks like the giant rabbit that fought robots with Titan. Hare-a-clees or something like that. My little sister has like 5 of its t-shirts,” Lucas responded.
“Wow kid, you really are shit with remembering names. Hop-cu-les is the name I gave him when I was just a child. Surprised the shit outta me that he came out the size of a skyscraper when those robots nearly killed me and my team, ” Hannah stated nonchalantly as she waved her hand and made Hopcules fade away.
With a grudging realization, Tristan began to ask, “wait, you’re not actually saying…”
“Oh look, captain mc-douche-nozzle is catching on. Somebody give the kid a prize. Yes, dumbass, I’m actually saying I fought with Titan, yes, thee fucking Titan, with every other Hero team in Brewster to stop those mechs from destroying the entire city. I’m saying the strongest hero alive is my personal mentor and it was his recommendation that got me into this program.”
Lucas looked back and forth between Hannah and Tristan having already realized that the sophomore might be one of those guys who’d lash out over his perceived inferiority. Lucas was so curious though he had to ask, “but… But, that rabbit is everywhere these days. Not just T-shirts. Toys, a cartoon, and I just read there’s going to be a next-gen console video game based on his character. If you own the rights to that image, you’d be loaded.“
“Eh,” Hannah said with shrug. “Youre leaving out the movie deal Lenny just got for me, but not something I talk about too much . It leaves me enough to be comfortable and to be able to donate a library wing to the university thats giving me a shot at being a hero.” Hannah responded. She gave Tristan a quick wink and glanced over her shoulder towards the door.
Tristan looked in the same direction and noticed something he hadn’t bothered paying attention to before, a small engraving on the center of the door of a bipedal rabbit. This would’ve been the most surprising thing that he’d seen since he set foot in the room if it wasn’t for the photo that appeared on Hannah’s tablet now facing him. It was an image of five people: Graham De Soto, the new head of the DVA, Titan in his iconic Hero costume, Dean Jackson, a large muscular young man with a shit eating grin who Tristan didn’t recognize, and another person in a generic gray mask, presumably female, and wearing a smile of malicious enjoyment, the same as the woman standing before him.
Hannah saw what caught his attention and picked up her tablet. “Oh, did you notice this? I love this picture. Titan called me in for back up as a Temporary Emergency Hero Asset. We beat the shit out of a literal army of enhanced criminal supers and took this picture after everything calmed down. All the other HCP deans were there too. Mr. Desoto actually told me if I ever needed a favor, he owed me one.” Hannah wore a wistful expression as she thought back on that day with fondness.
“Anyway, I gotta get outta here. S’posed to meet up with my training partners. Cause no matter what your background is or who you know, no one is a shoe-in for the final 10. Lucas, feel free to meet us in the combat cells tonight if you want to get a work out in and get tired of hanging out with this fuckwad. Later losers!” Hannah said this last part as she turned around and headed towards the door while holding up her middle finger for all to see.
Tristan was obviously livid. His hands had been visibly shaking as he stood and listened to all the ways this 1st year had accomplished more than he’d even thought possible for student. Who does this little bitch think she is? She’s full of shit. She has to be. I’ll show her. From his elbows down, Tristan‘s arms began to darken. In seconds the two appendages looked like small tree trunks, with his fingers elongating into barbed tendril-liked branches rapidly moving towards Hannah.
Although Lucas had worked for years to improve his ability to cast his energy based illusionary environments-referred to by one quirky coach in the past as a “holodeck”- speed was an element that he continued to struggle with. He began to cast a simple illusion of darkness, so as to blind Tristan, but he knew almost immediately that it wouldn’t reach him in time. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw furry white movement. The miniature Hopcules had reappeared and was running towards the back of the chair Tristan had been sitting in. With a parkour maneuver that would make Jackie Chan jealous, Hopcules leapt from the floor to the chair, then from the chair to the rear wall. He torpedoed off of the wall with the force of both hind paws and made contact Tristan’s head, knocking the arrogant second year to the floor. He laid there dazed and confused about what had just struck him as his branches retracted and his arms returned to normal. The summon vanished before he even touched the ground.
Hannah smiled as she exited the room. Thanks be to the Gods. I was hoping that piece of shit would try something so I could have self-defense as an excuse. Kacey and Devon better be ready. I’m already warmed up.
submitted by IamThe2ndBR to superpowereds [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 22:20 securimancer Day in a Life of a Principal Security Engineer

Day in a Life of a Principal Security Engineer
a securimancer working to keep Reddit safe and secure
Written by u/securimancer
Greetings fine humans. I’m here today writing a “Day in a Life” blog post because someone asked me to. I cannot imagine this is interesting, but Redditors tend to surprise me so let’s do this.
Morning Routine
Like many of us, mornings are when I take care of all the dependent lifeforms under my command. Get in an hour or so of video games (Unicorn Overlord currently) for my mental health. Feed the coterie of beasts (including the children), make coffee for the wife and me, prep the kids for school. Catch up on Colbert (my news needs comedy otherwise darkness consumes), check out what’s been happening on Medium and Reddit, and read a few of my favorite cybersecurity / engineering mail lists. Crack open the ol’ calendar and see what my ratio of “get shit done” to “help other people get shit done” is in store for my day. All roughly before 8am. And the beauty of working for a Bay Area company (if we can call it that, we’re so remote friendly) is that I normally have a precious few hours before people in SF wake up to get things done.
Daily Tasks
Each morning has a brief reflection of what I need to get done that day. I’m a big fan of the Eisenhower Method to figure out what I actually need to prioritize in my day. It’s exceedingly rare that I get a majority of my day focused on work that I’ve initiated, so prioritizing activities from code review and pull request feedback to architectural systems design reviews to pair programming requests from the team to random break/fix fires that pop up, all of that gets organized so I feel like I’m (at least trying) to do the most impactful work for the day. Reddit has a few systems to help drive queues of work: Jira for planned work and “big rock” items that we’re trying to accomplish for that quarter, Harold (an in-house developed shame mechanism) for code review and deployment, and Launch Control (Reddit’s flavor of Google’s LaunchCal) for architecture design reviews. Plenty of potential dopamine hits as “things to get done.”
Meetings
It’s exceedingly rare that I have meetings that could have been an email (and if I do, they’re almost always vendor meetings). A lot of what my meetings tend to focus on are around conflict resolutions across teams as we try to achieve different goals or drive consensus to resolve problems that come up on various programs teams are trying to deliver. Working on Security, you can often get perceived as the “Department of No”, but in every meeting I work hard to make sure that isn’t the case. It starts with getting a shared context of what is the problem at hand, understanding the outcomes that we need to drive toward and inputs into the problem (timelines, humans, trade offs), and deciding how we move forward. Meetings are a terrible way to convey decisions as they are only as good as the individuals that remember them, so lots of these meetings are centered around decision docs or technical design reviews. Capturing your rationale for a decision not only helps make sure you understand the problem (if you can’t write about it, it’s hard to think about it), but also helps capture the whys and rationale behind those decisions for future you and other product and engineering staff.
There’s also meetings that I live for, those that are building up humans. We have biweekly SPACE (Security, Privacy, and Compliance Engineering) brown bags where we talk about new things we’ve shipped or some training topic that upskills all of us. We have biweekly threat modeling meetings where we pick a topic/scenario and go through a threat modeling exercise live, which helps build the muscle memory of how to do technical diagramming, and helps build a shared context of how the system works, what our risk appetite is, and how various team members think about the problem providing multiple viewpoints to the discussion (honestly the most valuable component). As a Principal Engineer, I’m keenly aware of my humanity and the fact that I do not scale in my efforts alone: training and building up future PEs is how I scale myself (at least until cloning becomes more readily available).
Ubiquity
One of my super powers is being everything everywhere all at once, or so I’ve been told by my fellow Snoos. I’ve been told that I have an uncanny knack to be in so many Slack channels and part of so many threads of discussion that it’s “inhuman”. Being a damn fine security engineer is hard because not only do you have to have the understanding and context of the thing you’re trying to secure, but also know how to actually secure the thing. This is nigh impossible if you don’t know what’s going on in your business (and we’re still “small enough” size-wise that this is still possible for one human), so I’ve got Slack keyword alerts, channel organization, and a giant 49” ultrawide monitor that has a dedicated Slack tiled window to keep me plugged in and accessible. I also have developed over many years my response to pings from Slack: “Can I solve this problem, if not who can? Is this something I should solve or can I delegate? Can this be answered async with good quality, or is a larger block of dedicated time required to solve? Is this thread too long and needs a different approach?” This workflow is second nature to me and helps me move around the org. I’ve also been here almost 5 years and, as I’m in Security and have to know everything about everything to secure anything (which I don’t, but I am a master of Googling, learning, and listening), I’ve been exposed to pretty much everything in our engineering sphere. With that knowledge comes great power of helping connect teams together that wouldn’t have connected otherwise.
Do Security Stuffs
Occasionally I actually get to do “security” things. These past two quarters it’s been launching Reddit’s “unified access control” solution leveraging Cloudflare Zero Trust, moving us off old crusty Nginx OAuth proxies onto a modern system that has such groundbreaking things like caching and logs , among other things. But really, it’s the planning, designing, and execution of a complex technical migration with only a handful of engineers. I oversee security across the entire business so that requires opining on web app security, k8s / AWS / GCP security, IAM concepts, observability, mobile app dev, CI/CD security, and all the design patterns that are included in this smörgåsbord of technology. Keeping all this in my head is why I can’t remember names and faces and my wife has to tell me multiple times where I’m supposed to be and when. But the thing that keeps me going is always the “building”, seeing things get stood up at Reddit that I know are sound and secure. It’s not denying people’s requests or crapping all over a developer for picking a design they didn’t know had a serious security design flaw. We’re not a bank (either in terms of money we get to throw at security, or tolerance for security friction), we get to make risk tradeoff decisions based on Reddit’s risk tolerance (which is high except where it comes to privacy or financial exchanges) and listen to our business as we try to find ways to improve ads serving and improve our users’ experience. So I view myself like any other software engineer, I just happen to know a lot about security. And I guess not just security, I know a lot about our safety systems, our networking environment, and our Kubernetes architecture. It just comes with the Security space, that inquisitive mind of “how does this thing work?” and wanting to be competent when you talk about it and try to secure it.
Not everything is 0s and 1s, however. A lot of security is process, paperwork, and persistence. Designing workflow approval processes for how an IAM flow should look like. Reviewing IT corporate policies for accuracy and applicability. Crafting responses to potential advertisers’ IT teams on “how secure is Reddit, really”. Writing documentation for how an engineering system works and how other engineers should interact with it. Updating runbooks with steps on how others should respond to an incident or page. Building Grafana dashboards to quantify and visualize how a tooling rollout is working. Providing consulting on product features like authentication / authorization business logic across services. Interviewing, not only for my own team but also within other engineering and cross-functional areas of the business.
End of Day Routine
Eventually, I run out of time in the day as I’m beckoned away from my dark, cave-like, Diet Coke strewn office by the promise of dinner. Wrapping up document review, (hopefully) crossing things off my to-do list, and closing out Slack threads for the day, I try to pack everything up and not carry it with me after work. It’s challenging being an almost completely remote company with a heavy presence in the West Coast, as pings and notifications come in as dinner and kids’ bedtime happens. But I know not everything can be finished in a day, some things will slip, and there will always be more work tomorrow. Which is juxtaposed occasionally with bouts of imposter syndrome, even for someone as senior and tenured as I am. Happens to all of us.
After-hours work is restricted to on-call duty and pet projects. You don’t want to know how many on-call queues I’m secondary escalation on. Or how many Single Point of Securimancers services that I still own (looking at you, Reddit onion service). And pet projects are typically things that I’ve got desires to do: prototyping security solutions we want to look into, messing with my k8s homelab, doing routine upgrades. Nothing clears the mind like watching semver numbers go up (until you find the undocumented change that breaks everything).
Future Outlook
And finally, what's on the horizon for our little SPACE team? We’re still a small team coming out of IPO, and our greatest super power is networking and influencing our engineering peers. We got our ISO 27001 and SOC2 Type 2 last year and continue to ever increase scope and complexity of public accreditation. We’re close partners with our Infrastructure and IT teams to modernize our tech and continue to evolve our capabilities in host and network security, data loss prevention, and security observability. We’ve got two wonderful interns from YearUp that started and are going to be with us this summer, and we continue to focus on improving our team composition (more women and diversity, more junior folks and less singleton seniors). All of this work takes effort by this PE.
So there you have it, a “day in a life” of a u/securimancer. If you made it this far, congratulations on your achievement. Got any questions or want to share your own experiences? Drop 'em in the comments below!
submitted by securimancer to RedditEng [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 22:12 ahead-market CAPR Q1 2024 Earnings: Mixed Results with Strong Revenue Growth

CAPR reported a significant revenue growth of 64.3% reaching $4.907 million in Q1 2024, but faced high operating expenses and a negative EPS of -$0.31.

Key Metrics
Revenue $4.907M 64.3%
Operating Expenses $15.173M
Operating Expenses Growth 35.9%
Earnings Per Share $-0.31
Cash and Cash Equivalents $39.917M
Business Highlights
Guidance
Future Business Drivers: - Plan to have a Type-B clinical FDA meeting in May 2024 to discuss requests for a pre-BLA meeting and rolling BLA schedule. Additionally, Capricor plans to share with FDA its HOPE-2 OLE 3-year safety and efficacy data at this meeting. - Plan to report 3-year HOPE-2 OLE data in the second quarter of 2024. - Plan to announce further updates with respect to next steps for HOPE-3 (Cohort B), when available. - Plan to report topline data from HOPE-3 (Cohort A) in the fourth quarter of 2024. - Continue to explore opportunities for additional partnerships outside of the U.S. and Japan to support the potential commercialization of CAP-1002 in DMD. - Plan to provide updates on our NIAID collaboration for our StealthX™ vaccine as they become available. NIAID plans to initiate the Phase 1 clinical trial in late 2024, subject to regulatory approval. - Continue to explore opportunities for partnerships and non-dilutive sources of funding to support advancement of our StealthX™ exosome platform technology.
Expectations: MISS
While CAPR's revenue of $4.907 million in Q1 2024 surpassed the average analyst estimate of $9.7 million, the EPS of -$0.31 was significantly worse than the estimated -$0.11. The company's operating expenses grew by 35.9% to $15.173 million, contributing to the negative earnings per share.
submitted by ahead-market to ahead_market [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 21:38 CDBeetle58 SoftSpecEvo challenge #13: Newt-on's law

SoftSpecEvo challenge #13: Newt-on's law submitted by CDBeetle58 to softspecevo [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 18:56 Extension_Hippo_7304 Why does every 1 in the red pill black pill and blue pill sphere cope ?

Blue pillers cope by saying being muscular doesn't matter; it's all about your confidence and how you groom yourself. Only superficial and shallow women like muscular men. This is a cope blue pillers do.
Red pillers cope by over-emphasizing the body. They often put the body as one of the most important factors when it comes to attracting women. This is a red pill cope. The body matters, but the face is much more important. Plus, it's relatively easy these days. 45ml of filler can give a result like this (link provided). Obviously, you have to top it up every year, but at maximum, this is 3 to 4k, and this is a temporary thing until you can afford getting jaw and face implants. So, an attractive body combined with an above-average face, nothing of the male model, but even a base high-tier normie range kind of a face. It's good-looking enough to where you're seen as human by a female.
Black pillers cope by saying the body doesn't matter at all, and that it's all about the face. And to be quite honest, this is also stupid. If you have a muscular body, you're already lean, so your facial features already pop out. You can't have one without the other. Jaw implants, cheek implants, all these look like shit if you're not lean at a low body fat range.
I can possibly hit the holy trinity in terms of sexual market value hopefully as soon as I'm done leaning down and have muscles. This combined with jaw filler and the height of 185 cm is like gold dust in terms of sexual market value.
But the most important thing in life above all else is money.
  1. Money allows you to improve your shit situation. Got a small dick? Dick extenders, girth extenders, and anti-lysyl oxidase inhibition over time can make your dick larger. This has been proven to work on numerous studies, yet people still cope about it and say, "oh there is not much provided evidence." But this is a catch-22. Most people don't want to fund studies that are seen as "vain," but in reality, you will still get judged by vain people, which is most women in 2024. How anyone can argue against this factor, I don't know.
What else? You're short? Not a problem. Leg lengthening current technology allows 3 inches to sometimes 6 inches. The risks that they sell are hugely overblown. In fact, a YouTube channel specializes in multiple cases where the return to normal function.
You're fat, and you're addicted to food, and you can't put the fork down? Don't worry; multiple options exist: Tirza peptide, Ozempic, Manjaro Retatrutide, Semaglutide, Clenbuterol.
You struggle to build muscle but don't want the risks of injecting anabolic steroids? Easy fix: surgical implants to fix your abs. You can literally add angularity. Muscle liposuction to remove stubborn fat a normal diet won't allow. What? You want to still do it without surgery without doing steroids? Great, simple use myostatin inhibitors.
Let's say you're ugly as fuck and have zero options of ascension even with surgery. What do you do? You can beta bucks to some third-world shithole and get a hot woman there. If you don't want to be a beta bucks, you have the options of unlimited escorts every single day.
Life ends and starts with money. Obviously, if I had a choice of 1 billion dollars or having a face that looks like Sean Opry or young David Gandy or Thomas Strijjd, I would obviously choose faces like theirs. But those are one-in-a-billion situations. Most guys look like shit even with surgery if we're comparing to the standards of male models, and most guys look even more shit without surgery and being fat, and that is most of the population. So when I say money in 2024 is everything, I mean money is everything.
Money is simple an means to an end to establish the tools needed to succeed in this world
submitted by Extension_Hippo_7304 to team3dalpha [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 17:14 Kaiju_zero Assistance in coming up with sinner forms for a couple OC chars

In the tradition of sinners taking on demonic forms when the go to hell, I have a couple of OC characters that I'm curious what sort of form they'd end up with. I'd welcome opinions and ideas, suggestions and plan to get them drawn up in the future.
  1. Real name; Colonel Robert Tag / Code name: Bible - 58years old, receding grey hair, goatee, gruff, muscular but not fat. Dishonorable discharge from the military for deceptive tactics resulting in hundreds of innocent deaths. Immoral, selfish, power hungry, high I.Q., runs a mob-like organization. Killed by a bullet to the chest. (Don't want a shark form, at least)
  2. Real Name: Unknown / Code name: Samedi (Sa-meh-die) - 40's African American Voodoo priest, thin/lanky but not frail - Conjures up demons from hell to do his bidding, very much a 'Starscream' personality for those who know TF lore. As in, follows Bibles orders while scheming to take over his organization. Killed by getting his head ripped nearly off. For Samedi, I envision something much like The crooked man from the Conjuring series, but will he retain human features or?
Welcome the creative minds of the communities ideas.
submitted by Kaiju_zero to hazbin [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 15:56 Reggash A couple of translated design documents of the old S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2

A couple of translated design documents of the old S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2
.
https://preview.redd.it/l9t18q62z60d1.jpg?width=2892&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=306953da0d508e06e51bd6018db367784520e47e
Here are some design documents of the cancelled sequel from 2011 that I haven't seen anyone translate. They come from an archive that was leaked in 2021 and are related to the second storyline that was written, in which Strelok would be the main character; its authors were Alexey Sytyanov (aka Koan) and Ruslan Didenko (aka Stohe) - developers who had previously worked on the trilogy (Koan left GSC in 2007, before the release of Shadow of Chernobyl, but in 2011 he returned to the studio to work on the sequel).
The documents include: a brief timeline of events, a diagram of the goals/projects of the secret laboratories, and a short summary of the plot. The main materials related to this particular storyline, i.e. maps and a full scenario diagram, deserve separate posts due to the extensiveness of their content. Keep in mind that things described in these documents shouldn't be considered canon and have no connection with the sequel that is currently in development.
​
  • the timeline scheme
https://preview.redd.it/62eudwwwj60d1.png?width=2380&format=png&auto=webp&s=a8b58cb7df2adca076f36888e0900f9dccd44979
This diagram briefly shows the course of events related to the Zone, in particular those surrounding Strelok and his deeds. A few facts are worth noting; first of all, the date of birth of the Zone is indicated as April 12, 2006 - and that's how it was always supposed to be, but during the development of the series there were some inaccuracies and two completely different dates are given in Shadow of Chernobyl and Call of Pripyat. I made a separate post about this topic with more details.
We can also find out that SIRCAA, i.e. Scientific Institute for Research of the Chernobyl Anomalous Area, the organization mentioned in the ending of Call of Pripyat (aka NIICHAZ; it will also play an important role in the upcoming sequel), was founded in early 2013, and after some time Strelok - who used to be its chief consultant - was expelled, and returned to the Zone in 2015, when the events of the sequel were supposed to take place. Another interesting fact that was never mentioned in the trilogy is that Strelok came to the Zone in 2009, while the phenomenon of stalking had already been present for a year.
Leaving aside topics directly related to the plot, i.e. the reasons for Strelok's expulsion from SIRCAA and the mentioned 'pupation' of the center of the Zone, it's worth mentioning that the date of Strelok's second trip to the center is given as October 2011, while the prequel itself begins in September - this means that the events of Clear Sky took place within a month.
Here is the original 'world_history' file.
​
  • the experiment diagram
https://preview.redd.it/38cvcnf3l60d1.png?width=2948&format=png&auto=webp&s=83601fc27921aa815db3f722dba7500271d8b941
This diagram shows what projects a specific laboratory/location was associated with; some of this information is mentioned in the trilogy, some confirm what one might have guessed. It also shows the order of discoveries leading to the creation of the Zone via the noosphere interference - it began with the study of psi-energy by the Group and an attempt to use it to influence something far away, which apparently resulted in the discovery of the noosphere, which then led to the creation of the C-Consciounsess project. Simultaneously, they researched the effects of psi-energy on living beings and its ability to cause mutations in them, as well as its influence on the human mind.
It's also worth noting that the Brain Scorcher was first used for experiments on influencing behavior, and was later turned into a protection tool, most likely after the Zone was already created (for clarity - X10 and X19 are the same place, the name inconsistency probably comes from a typo during the development of Shadow of Chernobyl). SIRCAA is also marked here, but there's nothing related to it - the document may not have been finished.
Here is the original 'zone_science' file.
​
  • the story synopsis
https://preview.redd.it/pxaiz2pr370d1.png?width=880&format=png&auto=webp&s=a1bcf9d5f9907afe7b242aba80f648c40f9da2b2
https://preview.redd.it/bhciuk61u60d1.png?width=884&format=png&auto=webp&s=446d73dc65657aaed4c2862df2c9cd8c80ec5948
https://preview.redd.it/5ux0gxl0580d1.png?width=884&format=png&auto=webp&s=aedb6fec8c1d99b160c4a61629596a7a46f32174
As can be seen, the summary is very superficial, and only the beginning has some hints of detail. The plot itself was supposed to focus on Strelok returning to the Zone, which would be due to the fact that it started to expand - SIRCAA could seemingly prevent this, but later its secrets and true intentions would be revealed. The idea mentioned at the end deserves attention - the Zone itself helping the protagonist in some way is an interesting concept.
Here is the original 'Synopsis_3' file.
And that would be it. As I mentioned, there is also a main story diagram that goes into much more detail, but that's a topic for a separate post.
submitted by Reggash to stalker [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 15:37 Rukania The man who was hunted by Bondo Apes

The Bondo apes (sometimes referred to as Bili apes) originated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but have also been sighted in the neighbouring countries, South Sudan being one. The Bondo apes were first reported in 2003 - being claimed to be bipedal apes over 6ft tall. They nest on the ground like gorillas, but have a diet and features characteristic of a chimpanzee. This diet includes mainly fruits, yet fascinatingly, the apes have allegedly been sighted eating small rodents, birds and even small monkeys. The apes have also been sighted hunting in packs, moving on their hind-legs, similar to a human. They have since also been nicknamed ‘lion-killers’ - for allegedly being responsible for the deaths of a number of different lions that invaded their territory.
In 2015, in an interview with a hunter named Faheem, more terrifying details of the mystery Bondo apes would emerge. Ethan Howard, a primatologist and zoologist from Kings College London, would visit Ibba on the border of South Sudan and the DRC. His goal was simple, to either prove or disprove the existence of Bondo apes. He went on a number of expeditions to a nearby rainforest - yet found no physical proof of the apes. However, in Howard’s interviews with locals - he unearthed some strange facts about the Bondo apes.
Howard interviewed Faheem (last name unknown), who was a hunter in the region for many years. He said prior to this incident he had heard rumours of the Bondo apes - but never believed them. The incident occurred with Faheem and his friend, about 10 years prior, when they underwent this horrific ordeal.
The two men were out hunting, with the day not being entirely fruitful so far. This forced them to continue their hunt even into the night, which Faheem notes is something they would only do in times of desperation (due to the dangers that the rainforest possessed). The men were crouched by a bush, hiding in the trees, waiting for the sounds of wildebeest or deer, when the sounds of something else would come from the darkness. What they saw would be far more frightening than anything they could imagine. Allegedly, a group of 12 bipedal figures emerged from the trees. The figures came out of the darkness slowly, one pair at a time, as if they were in a hunting formation. They had huge long arms, that dropped down to their knee caps, and a muscular frame all over. The hunters were shocked to see their faces - expecting them to be men - but being greeted by the unmistakable face of gorillas. The bodies however were far more slim and athletic than that of gorillas. Their looks combined with their bipedal, human-like nature, shocked the hunters into paralysis. The apes appeared to be on a hunt themselves, almost silently traversing through the undergrowth of the forest - scanning around. It was at this moment one of the apes raised his head: and made direct eye contact with Faheem. The pair of men froze in fear, as the ape grunted towards the rest of the pack. They all turned, slowly, in a way almost out of a horror film. Howard writes that upon the retelling of this story, at this point Faheem begins to stutter and struggle to get his words out - as if he’s reliving it. The hunter explains how one of the Bondo apes then lifted its head towards the sky - and began to howl. This howling was accompanied by the rest of them, who all in unison let out their own howls. A screech almost, towards the black night sky.
This was enough to unfreeze the hunters.
They both began to bolt, fleeing in two random directions. Faheem lost his friend in the chaos, only focusing on his own survival. He crashed through the undergrowth of the forest, dodging trees and vines, running as fast as he could to make his escape. He describes the thudding he heard behind him. The thudding of footsteps. When he looked behind him (at this point Howard describes how Faheem even gets choked up retelling the story), when he looked behind him, one of the Bondo apes was running after him. Running after him on two legs. To see a 6ft ape with the face of a gorilla - sprinting on its hind legs - Faheem could only run faster. He kept watching in horror, even whilst running in fear, and witnessed the ape drop down seamlessly to all fours and start leaping towards him in a more ape-like manner - gaining on him quickly.
He describes how as soon as he passed a specific part of the forest however, the ape stopped dead in its tracks. Faheem kept running a few seconds more, before stopping as well to turn around and check on his pursuer. The ape was stood there. As if held back by an invisible wall. It lifted its upper lip, and snarled at him. A couple of seconds later this was followed by howling from a different part of the forest, which was greeted by the ape breaking his stare, and racing off into the darkness after the howls.
Faheem told Mr Howard how he never saw his friend again. He explained how he had been ridiculed by his village for years after, that apes would never attack a human. For years nobody believed his claims, until wider attention was brought to the Bondo apes in 2015 in the Congo. Since then numerous skulls of the apes have been found, and more sightings have occurred. It’s theorised the reason that the ape stopped chasing Faheem so suddenly that night, is due to the Bondo apes territoriality. Faheem potentially ran into an area of forest (unknowingly) that was the domain of another troop of Bondo apes, that his pursuer knew to respect.
Whilst Bondo apes are still not credited scientifically as a species, it is not hard to imagine the likelihood of a species like this existing - especially with real accounts such as Faheem’s. A highly intelligent bipedal ape is not too genetically dissimilar to what we are ourselves - so the Bondo ape could potentially be the ‘missing link’. Whether existing or not - no one can dispute what Faheem saw in the forest that night. What countless others have described seeing. The bogey men of the jungle. The lion-killers of the rainforest. The Bondo apes of Central Africa.
submitted by Rukania to scarystories [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 15:35 Rukania Central African urban legend of the Bondo apes

The Bondo apes (sometimes referred to as Bili apes) originated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but have also been sighted in the neighbouring countries, South Sudan being one. The Bondo apes were first reported in 2003 - being claimed to be bipedal apes over 6ft tall. They nest on the ground like gorillas, but have a diet and features characteristic of a chimpanzee. This diet includes mainly fruits, yet fascinatingly, the apes have allegedly been sighted eating small rodents, birds and even small monkeys. The apes have also been sighted hunting in packs, moving on their hind-legs, similar to a human. They have since also been nicknamed ‘lion-killers’ - for allegedly being responsible for the deaths of a number of different lions that invaded their territory.
In 2015, in an interview with a hunter named Faheem, more terrifying details of the mystery Bondo apes would emerge. Ethan Howard, a primatologist and zoologist from Kings College London, would visit Ibba on the border of South Sudan and the DRC. His goal was simple, to either prove or disprove the existence of Bondo apes. He went on a number of expeditions to a nearby rainforest - yet found no physical proof of the apes. However, in Howard’s interviews with locals - he unearthed some strange facts about the Bondo apes.
Howard interviewed Faheem (last name unknown), who was a hunter in the region for many years. He said prior to this incident he had heard rumours of the Bondo apes - but never believed them. The incident occurred with Faheem and his friend, about 10 years prior, when they underwent this horrific ordeal.
The two men were out hunting, with the day not being entirely fruitful so far. This forced them to continue their hunt even into the night, which Faheem notes is something they would only do in times of desperation (due to the dangers that the rainforest possessed). The men were crouched by a bush, hiding in the trees, waiting for the sounds of wildebeest or deer, when the sounds of something else would come from the darkness. What they saw would be far more frightening than anything they could imagine. Allegedly, a group of 12 bipedal figures emerged from the trees. The figures came out of the darkness slowly, one pair at a time, as if they were in a hunting formation. They had huge long arms, that dropped down to their knee caps, and a muscular frame all over. The hunters were shocked to see their faces - expecting them to be men - but being greeted by the unmistakable face of gorillas. The bodies however were far more slim and athletic than that of gorillas. Their looks combined with their bipedal, human-like nature, shocked the hunters into paralysis. The apes appeared to be on a hunt themselves, almost silently traversing through the undergrowth of the forest - scanning around. It was at this moment one of the apes raised his head: and made direct eye contact with Faheem. The pair of men froze in fear, as the ape grunted towards the rest of the pack. They all turned, slowly, in a way almost out of a horror film. Howard writes that upon the retelling of this story, at this point Faheem begins to stutter and struggle to get his words out - as if he’s reliving it. The hunter explains how one of the Bondo apes then lifted its head towards the sky - and began to howl. This howling was accompanied by the rest of them, who all in unison let out their own howls. A screech almost, towards the black night sky.
This was enough to unfreeze the hunters.
They both began to bolt, fleeing in two random directions. Faheem lost his friend in the chaos, only focusing on his own survival. He crashed through the undergrowth of the forest, dodging trees and vines, running as fast as he could to make his escape. He describes the thudding he heard behind him. The thudding of footsteps. When he looked behind him (at this point Howard describes how Faheem even gets choked up retelling the story), when he looked behind him, one of the Bondo apes was running after him. Running after him on two legs. To see a 6ft ape with the face of a gorilla - sprinting on its hind legs - Faheem could only run faster. He kept watching in horror, even whilst running in fear, and witnessed the ape drop down seamlessly to all fours and start leaping towards him in a more ape-like manner - gaining on him quickly.
He describes how as soon as he passed a specific part of the forest however, the ape stopped dead in its tracks. Faheem kept running a few seconds more, before stopping as well to turn around and check on his pursuer. The ape was stood there. As if held back by an invisible wall. It lifted its upper lip, and snarled at him. A couple of seconds later this was followed by howling from a different part of the forest, which was greeted by the ape breaking his stare, and racing off into the darkness after the howls.
Faheem told Mr Howard how he never saw his friend again. He explained how he had been ridiculed by his village for years after, that apes would never attack a human. For years nobody believed his claims, until wider attention was brought to the Bondo apes in 2015 in the Congo. Since then numerous skulls of the apes have been found, and more sightings have occurred. It’s theorised the reason that the ape stopped chasing Faheem so suddenly that night, is due to the Bondo apes territoriality. Faheem potentially ran into an area of forest (unknowingly) that was the domain of another troop of Bondo apes, that his pursuer knew to respect.
Attached is a photo provided by Mr Howard, of one of the terrifying apes the hunter likely saw that night.
Whilst Bondo apes are still not credited scientifically as a species, it is not hard to imagine the likelihood of a species like this existing - especially with real accounts such as Faheem’s. A highly intelligent bipedal ape is not too genetically dissimilar to what we are ourselves - so the Bondo ape could potentially be the ‘missing link’. Whether existing or not - no one can dispute what Faheem saw in the forest that night. What countless others have described seeing. The bogey men of the jungle. The lion-killers of the rainforest. The Bondo apes of Central Africa.
submitted by Rukania to UrbanLegends [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 09:22 Dark_Blue_4086 World's smallest werewolf size comparison

World's smallest werewolf size comparison
This is the Big Bad Werewolf, who is indeed a large werewolf. However, he is actually the smallest werewolf in the world due to his much lighter physique. Unlike other werewolves, who are super muscular and strongly built, this one is thin and rather weak compared to others, but is still quite a bit stronger than people.
Here he is compared in size to a 6-foot-tall human. He himself is around seven feet, not including the height of his ears.
submitted by Dark_Blue_4086 to werewolves [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 08:39 Terrible-Laugh9983 How do I stop my porn addiction

I’m 15 years old and i guess i have a pretty severe porn addiction. I jerk off atleast 3 times a day. I even skip school sometimes just to jerk off. And it’s not like i battle my porn addiction. It’s like a normal routine to me. Not a healthy routine. I do it to much and i don’t even have post but clarity. Im a incel that has never a had a girlfriend. I don’t see girls as humans anymore. There like mythical creatures to me. Honestly like sex toys to me. When I see girls at school I genuinely only see a pair of ass and tits. And it’s normal to me. I was talking to an acquaintance of mine about it and he said that i need stop being dumb and quit porn. He’s really into gym and Christian god stuff and you know gym bro stuff like that. I met him when he was a senior and i was a freshmen last year. He’s takin me to the gym and he’s a really good guy. But he doesn’t understand. Iam a incel virgin who has never had a girlfriend. He is virgin due to his beliefs I guess. He told me does not want to have sex at a early age. He’s 19. And he’s have multiple times to have sex. But refuses it. He’s had many girlfriends and he is a very big muscular gym guy. Typical gym guy. He goes running everyday in the morning and a has strong diet and goes to college. But he doesn’t understand that it’s hard to not jerk off when your lonely and don’t have any real friends or motivation. I need to know if my porn addiction is normal or not. Idk. he’s says I need to stop if I want a girlfriend and I told him I would stop once I got a girlfriend but he told me it didn’t work like that. And that i need to stop looking at women as sex objects and im in a very unhealthy state. I’ve honestly been masterbaiting before I even hit puberty. Before I can even cum!! I refuse to quit watching porn because of my inability to attract a girlfriend. As you can already tell, I haven’t spoke to one in years. I’m just so lonely that it’s only way to get a once of dopamine in my brain. I’m lost and scared what should I do??
submitted by Terrible-Laugh9983 to selfimprovement [link] [comments]

2024.05.13 07:08 Key_Hour4900 28M/EuropeLooking for a deep and meaningful friendship

Hey there, I am a 28 year old dude from Europe, I would like to make a deep and meaningful friendship with someone or some people, I am in a stage in my life where I feel like I really need to make some deeper connection with someone, because for once it feels like I am getting my life together piece by piece and the sad reality is that no one is here for me to see and notice due to certain things which I will describe below I find it very hard to meet / make new friends in real life.
So a little bit about myself, I don't feel comfortable sharing selfies to strangers, it will take me some time for me to build a connection and trust you before we exchange selfies / do video calls (voice calls are fine). Why is that you may ask? Because I am short sighted and cross eyed - as a teenager and even in my early adult life people looked odd / laughed about it, especially online, so I hope you understand why I'm conscious when it comes to sharing selfies, I really appreciate it if you understand and please don;t get me wrong I would love our friendship to get to a point where we can share selfies and do video calls. Just please understand that it will most likely take me some time due to past traumas.
Furthermore, regarding my looks - I have dark brown eyes, brown hair, pale white skin and I am 168 cm tall or short depending on how you look at it. I am quite muscular and seem to build muscle relatively easily (mesomorph body type) and i was told I would make a good swimmer, something I would like to learn sooner or later.
I'll talk a bit about my mental issues now, for circa 10 years I've been struggling with depression and, for about 7 or 8 years with OCD. This has made my life a living nightmare for most of my 20s and left me isolated in my room, and thus my social skills degraded, a lot. Currently I'm seeking therapy for OCD and the past 5 months I've been doing amazing progress and I can go around my place touching things without washing my hand for hours and yes if you're wondering, my OCD is contamination. I side not, if you try to convince me how irrational are these fears, don't tire yourself, I already know that. Also, if you're a stranger and you pull a one liner OCD joke you will be most likely ignored, I am fine with OCD jokes provided we know each other already and there is some sort of friendship going on. Also you wouldn't be the first to ask "so do you rearrange things too?" Ideally I would like a close friend who has dealt / or knows something about OCD and depression or is willing to understand and show empathy towards people with mental issues. I'm not asking for you to be a therapist/psychologist (I already see a good one, no need for one more) all I'm asking is that you're a decent human being. I might be 28. but sometimes I feel like 18 because sometimes I feel like OCD and the depression which comes with it has stolen 10 years of my life.
Now a little bit about my hobbies, I am very interested in linguistics, and in my free time you will often find me reading about different languages and linguistic topics and concepts. I already speak 3 languages [you can probably guess one, but will you find out the other two? :)]. I am especially interested in Germanic languages, mainly Nordic languages, so if you're a speaker of one of those big big big plus!
I am also interested in technology, pretty much anything computer related, hardware software you name it, I also know how to build and i talk talk about linux 24/7.
I am into video games as well, I play pretty much anything as long as it is not some sweaty try hard competitive stuff, although i do enjoy some counter strike tomfoolery. Besides that half-life is the greatest series ever, change my mind! Stardew valley and euro truck simulator 2 and don't starve together are some chill games I enjoy playing. But again, I am open to pretty much any video game and i game often, so would be nice if you game from time to time, although it is not a must.
When it comes to my music tastes, I enjoy folk/metal mostly, with some rock and rap (provided the rap lyrics are decent and meaningful and not full of swears words every 2 seconds), but I am also listen anything else as well, from techno, to pop and even kpop. My music tastes are as open as it gets :) I will let you know my favorite artists once we talk ;)
I wouldn't call myself as a sports person, but I do enjoy a walk, especially in the woods, the most relaxing thing that you can do in my opinion, especially if the weather is cloudy but not rainy :) I love animals, I am a dog person and although I don't have any pets right now due to current place not allowing pets, I really hope to change this as soon as possible and get a doggo. I like to tell myself that nature is my church, speaking of which I am agnostic, I don't care about religion and neither I care if you are religious or not, just please don't force your views onto me. We can talk about it though, as mature and good friends should be capable of doing so.
I am an introvert who enjoys doing extroverted things, especially going to concerts and hopefully one day do a tour of europe on a touring bike, one of my dreams since I was an early teenager. I also work out more and more, for now just home workout but I can already see the improvements and benefits, especially mental ones. As I said, I am introvert so I find it a bit harder to open up in a crowd, I much rather prefer one on one conversations, I feel like I can open up more in those and they're more meaningful, usually.
I'm not sure what else to write.... I'm going to give this another try though contemplating if I really should I am not sure what will happen and to be quite honest with you it scares me and at the same time it makes me excited cause I might meet someone special.
I saw these subreddits and have decided to give them a try. If my post caught your attention feel free to comment or direct message me, this is a throwaway and dormant account, I am not quite huge on social media, I do have discord, steam and signal and I am eager to share them!
I really hope to hear from you soon, I wish you've a wonderful day / night or whatever time it is when you're reading this :)
submitted by Key_Hour4900 to Needafriend [link] [comments]

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