I’ve had on and off issues with sciatica for two years. I have been to two PTs and one massage therapist and they all told me different things. One told me herniated disc, one told me just tight muscles in seat and hips due to weak core and the other said Piriformis syndrome. I can’t get an MRI right now because I’m not home and won’t be for a while, but I will try to convince my doctor as soon as possible.
Either way, none of the interventions have really helped. I’ve tried everything, and for this flare up I’ve tried piriformis strengthening exercises (the flare up got worse and worse but it worked last flare-up), then I tried piriformis stretching exercises, which brings temporary relief, but idk if they either make it worse or if it just stays the same. I have now resorted to NSAIDs which relieved my pain a lot the first time I had a flare-up.
My symptoms are shooting leg pain (down to the calf when it’s at its worst, but usually stops at the thigh), I have a very inflamed iliac crest and piriformis. The entire side of my body from the iliac crest to the piriformis is inflamed, but the inflammation stop around 4 cm from the spine. I always have a dull ache right in the middle of my side and spine where my butt starts. The most painful struggle is bending forward when it involves tucking my hips back. Sitting is never comfortable and it’s always painful. Especially, sitting “ergonomically” is horrible. Sitting on soft living room chairs is the most comfortable. Standing hurts, walking hurts a bit less. However, when I lay down I’m mostly completely pain free.
What should I do? Avoid movement altogether? I can’t only be laying down, because I am also trying to recover from fatigue and that is a recipe for making it worse. Should I try going for some walks? I don’t want to make it worse, but every movement I seem to incorporate either makes it worse or doesn’t make it better.

Last year, when my ten year prison "stint" was finally up, and I re-entered society, I encountered some... obstacles.
Obstacles like.. Lack of upward mobility. Prejudices and stigmas. Wages and earnings lower than the general population. Undesirable and oftentimes dangerous jobs. And lack of protection from wrongful termination.
Not to mention, an already tough job market, and the fact that my parole required that I maintain steady employment, or face re-incarceration.
Which is why, when I finally got a job offer, after six months of aggressive job hunting, I jumped at the opportunity, giving absolutely no fucks as to how I was actually making ends meet.
"Ever operate a freight elevator before?" Mr. Winfred, the manager of "The Cornelius" and my new boss, asked me my first day on the job.
"No, sir." I replied honestly, as I ran my fingers along the doors of the antiquated contraption, the only remaining evidence of the recently renovated luxury building's ancient past.
"Normally these old things aren't used for passengers, but the building's pretentious designers thought it might add a certain charm to its otherwise sterile decor. Which is where you come in." He continued, as I heard him slide open the freight elevator's outside doors...
SLAM!
...Followed by its scissored metal inside doors.
SCREEEECH!
I heard Mr. Winfred step inside and, using my cane, scanned the interior of the rather large elevator, which must have been eight feet by eight feet, and followed him in.
Instantly, my nose was hit with an overpowering, musty scent, like the kind you'd smell in a basement, combined with your grandmother's attic.
He then closed both doors behind us.
SLAM!
SCREEEECH!
"Now this here." Mr Winfred added, taking my hand and placing it on the handle of a lever, "Is how you move the elevator from floor to floor. Up for up. Down for down. You'll hear a click when you reach each floor, which will be helpful for someone like yourself." He said, clearly calling attention to the fact that I'm blind.
Someone like myself? I scoffed internally. You ignorant, entitled piece of shit.
Truth is, I've always had a bit of a short fuse. Which I guess, looking back on it, is what got me into prison in the first place.
But in my ten years of incarceration, I was given tools to combat my anger issues. Tools like reminding myself that it was nothing new. Assholes like him were always dropping unintentional microaggressions. It had been something I'd grown used to, and given my probation, wasn't a battle worth fighting.
"Yes sir." I replied through my teeth, as I begrudgingly swallowed my pride.
"Now, why don't you spend today practicing. Our first residents don't move in until tomorrow."
—
In just a matter of a week or so, as the doors of "The Cornelius" opened to its new tenants, I learned pretty much everything I needed to know about the job.
Said tenants were rich. Very rich. And most of them acted as such. Entitled. Obnoxious. Holier than thou. Especially given my own social class. But a few of them weren't so bad, and tipped well.
Mr. Winfred's assistant, Jane, was a lovely human being. Patient, kind, thoughtful, understanding. Especially when compared to both the building's uptight residents, and Mr. Winfred himself. It had been years since I had dated, and the very thought of meeting a partner stressed me out to no end, but if I was to find someone, I hoped she'd be like Jane.
The elevator didn't open on the basement level. As I'd learned countless times, it was possible to go there, but the doors simply wouldn't open.
The old freight itself was finicky as fuck. Stop the lever one second too early, or one second too late, and when the doors open, you're halfway between a floor. But eventually, I got used to it, to the point where most of the building's tenants assumed the role of freight operator had always been my job. And when you're good at your service job, and do it with a smile on your face, the tips start flowing.
And so, all was well for the first couple weeks on the job...
...A seemingly refreshing return to normalcy, after ten long years...
...Until...
...The disappearances started happening.
—
I was just arriving to work one day, when I heard about the first disappearance.
"Have you seen - I mean, have you been in contact with Elizabeth Davis? From room 401?" Mr. Winfred asked, after correcting himself. Something he did often, which continued to annoy me.
"Um." I replied, unsure of where he was going with the question. "Not since yesterday. She got back from work, and I brought her up to the fourth floor. But come to think of it, I don't think she rode the elevator down this morning. Like she usually does."
"Interesting." My boss replied, before continuing. "She disappeared yesterday."
"Disappeared?" I asked.
"Yeah, husband said she never came home last night."
"Hmm. Well I know for certain that I brought her to the fourth floor. Did you check the hallway surveillance footage?"
"Not yet. Unfortunately the building inspector's in today, and I won't have time until tomorrow. Let's hope she just went somewhere, or got lost. In the meantime, keep an eye out - I mean - just, let me know if you hear of anything suspicious."
"Yes sir," I replied, once again resisting the urge to snap on him, before heading for the elevator, where I started the day's shift.
SLAM!
SCREEEECH!
That day, I did my best to do as Mr. Winfred had asked, and listened carefully for any signs of mischief.
But the day went on, business as usual and by the end of the day, I hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary...
...Except... The only thing of note was a difference in Mr. Lawrence's demeanor. The tenant of room 805, he was a salesman, and acted like one. When I say the man could talk, the man could talk. To a point where whenever he was a passenger in the old freight elevator, despite the long ride from floor one to floor eight, I'd rarely have a chance to get a word in.
But this time... was different. This time, Mr. Lawrence entered the elevator chatting away, just as he always did. But about halfway up, he just... stopped talking. And the thing about my job is, if someone chooses to talk or not talk, it's their decision, and none of my business. So I left him alone, and when we reached the eighth floor, I simply said goodnight. To which, he didn't reply.
Must be going through something. I thought to myself, having been unable to truly get a sense of his composure, without being able to see him, before closing the double doors and heading off to help the next passenger.
SLAM!
SCREEEECH!
—
Later that night, Mr. Winfred called me into his office, and asked me to take a seat beside his assistant, Jane.
"Mr. Owens. Are you aware of the situation that's going on in the building?" He asked, in an interrogating tone.
"Um... yes, you told me about it yesterday. The disappearance, sir." I replied.
"Disappearances now. Plural." He said sternly.
"But... who else?" I asked.
"Mr. Lawrence."
"What happened to him?"
"Well, to be honest, I was hoping you could tell me. Cause much like Ms.Davis, the last place he was seen was going into your elevator."
"What about the cameras in the hallways?"
"I'm afraid that after reviewing the tapes, after stepping into your elevator, neither Ms. Davis, or Mr Lawrence, ever stepped out."
"But that's... not... possible."
"Mr. Owens. I'm going to give you an opportunity. Is there anything you want to tell me? I know you have a sordid past."
"Mr. Winfred!" Jane interjected, clearly offended by his words, and implications.
"Quiet, Jane." He scolded, before continuing. "Answer the question, Mr. Owens."
I didn't know what to say. I was so shocked, so flustered, by what he was implying, that I simply froze.
"Mr. Owens!" He screamed.
"I... I... don't know!" I cried out, as I heard Jane squirm in her seat. "I'm telling you, the last time I heard from either of them, I took them up to their floors. But I'm-"
"You're what! Blind?"
"Well, yes sir. I don't see what goes on inside the elevator. I just let them on and off."
"Mr. Owens. If they got on your elevator, and never got off, where could they possibly have gone?"
"I... don't... know." I replied, at this point, wanting to grab him by force, demand that he never speak to me that way again, and scream out my innocence. But my next parole appointment was the following week, so once again, all I could do was just bite my tongue.
Mr. Winfred paused for a moment, took a deep breath, and regained his composure.
"Mr. Owens, I could go to the police now. And that would be very bad for someone like you."
Fuck. He's right. I thought to myself, realizing, that if he went to the police, and I was even remotely suspected of what was going on in the building, it was back to prison for me.
"But lucky for you," He continued, "There are things going on in the building that I wouldn't want to bring unwanted attention to. And for that reason, I have decided not to go to the police... yet. But consider this a warning. And know, that I have a repairman coming first thing tomorrow morning to install a security camera inside the freight elevator, so I can see what exactly it is that you're doing in there."
I had know idea how to react to Mr. Winfred's continued accusations. So I simply remained silent.
"Now get out of here and go home! We'll reconvene on this tomorrow." He said dismissively, before Jane walked me out of the room, down the hall, and outside the building, where I planned to return home for the night.
—
Fifteen minutes later, we were at a bar down the street, where Jane apparently frequented.
"But where could they possibly have gone?" I asked her, my hands trembling at both the thought of people disappearing in the elevator, and that it was happening under my watch.
"Thing is," Jane said, as she finished her beer. "There's something you should know about the building."
""The Cornelius"?"
"No, from before it was called that. It used to be a factory of some kind."
"Is that what Mr. Winfred was talking about when he said that there were things going on in the building? That he didn't want to bring unwanted attention to?"
"Well, yes and no. Yes, in a sense, that Mr. Winfred cut some corners, and rather than fully renovate the entire warehouse, he simply walled off entire sections of the old structure. Like the basement."
"And no?"
"No, in a sense, that even Mr. Winfred doesn't know what's really going on in the elevator. Sure, it'd be easy to pin it on you, especially with your criminal record - no offense... but even he knows that it's probably something... else."
"Something else?"
"See, that's where things get hazy. Because no one knows what exactly went on at the factory, before it became "The Cornelius." But rumors have it... it was laboratory of some kind, and some fucked up shit went on inside there."
"Like what?"
"That, my friend. I don't know. But what I do know is... I better be getting to bed."
"Fair enough. Well, thanks for the drink, and the support." I said with a smile, as we made our way out of the bar.
"Yeah, don't let Mr. Winfred get to you. And try not to worry too much."
—
Contrary to Jane's suggestion, that night I worried... a lot. About the disappearances, what might be causing them, whatever may have gone on in the factory, and most importantly, about everything getting pinned on me.
I couldn't fall asleep, tossing and turning in bed as my mind raced. And each time I finally passed out, I'd wake up in a panic attack, my heart pounding, short of breath and in a cold sweat.
But it didn't stop there. The uncomfortable feeling of terror and fear, accompanied by the vibrating sensation of adrenaline pumping through my body, remained well into the next morning, when I stepped back into the elevator, terrified by what might be going on inside there.
Please don't leave me alone in this fucking thing. I thought to myself.
And within a matter of minutes, my prayers were answered.
"How goes it?" The surveillance installation worker called out, his cheery disposition contrary to mine.
"Um... not too bad." I replied, lying through my teeth, as he stepped inside.
But after a minute or two of sharing the elevator with him, my fears lessened and my body relaxed, comforted by the positive conversation, and the metallic, clinking sounds of the installation.
Everything's okay. The doors are open. And he's talking. I thought to myself.
But eventually, the man finished installing the camera, and began wrapping up the job.
"Well, that's it! Camera's all installed and running now." He called out. "Let's just take the elevator for a spin and make sure we don't lose the signal."
"Yes, of course." I replied, before reaching for the double doors...
SLAM!
SCREEEECH!
..And moving the lever up.
We started moving.
"Fascinating job, I must say, elevator operator. But I suppose you could say the same for mine."
"Pays the bills." I replied, feigning a chuckle.
If he's here, and he's talking, then I'm safe. I continued to reassure myself.
But a few minutes into our ascent, just like Mr. Lawrence... the man... suddenly stopped talking.
"Alright, looks like it's working fine. We can head back down and-"
SILENCE.
"Hello?" I asked.
But he didn't respond.
Fuck. I thought to myself, realizing that whatever caused Ms. Davis, and Mr. Lawrence, and seemingly now the repairman to disappear, could still be in the elevator with me.
Standing there, shaking, sweat rolling down my brow, I backed myself into the corner of the elevator, as I reached for the lever, pressed it down, and the elevator began to make its descent back to the ground floor.
When I finally reached the lobby...
DING!
I scrambled to open the doors...
SLAM!
SCREEEECH!
...And darted out, gasping for air, expecting to find a safe haven.
But instead, all I heard was the sound of Mr. Winfred's voice. "Where is the repairman?"
—
A few minutes later, I was once again sitting in Mr. Winfred's office, next to Jane, this time attempting to explain what had happened.
"...And then he stopped talking! Just like Mr. Lawrence."
"You know what, Mr. Owens. I'm tired of your excuses. And now that we have a working camera in the elevator, it's time to find out what's really going on inside there." He threatened, as I heard him clicking away on his computer, clearly reviewing the footage.
"Please do!" I cried out, "I'm telling you, it's not me."
That's when... Mr. Winfred, and Jane, both went silent.
"Hello?" I called out, unable to see what was really going on. Given the fact that my passengers had recently been going silent, the thought crossed my mind that they too had disappeared, but I could still hear their breathing in the room. Breathing, that sounded like it was increasing rapidly...
...Until they broke the silence.
"Oh... my..." Jane said, struggling to catch her breath.
"That can't be. Let me rewind the tape." Mr. Winfred mumbled, the most scared I had ever heard him.
"What is it?" I asked, as they seemingly played back the video.
I would later find out from Jane that the footage would show myself and the repairman in the elevator, as a slithering, grotesque, humanoid figure, suddenly climbed down from the roof of the elevator, wrapped it's slimy arms around the repairman, then somehow hopped back out of the elevator, and pulled the man up with it. Leaving me standing there, completely unaware of what had just happened.
But in that moment, Mr. Winfred must have realized the... complications associated with reporting such a bizarre phenomenon, and instead decided to finally pin it on me.
"Mr. Owens, you shouldn't have done that!" He cried out.
"Mr. Winfred, what are you talking about?" Jane asked, "You and I just watched the same footage."
That's when I heard him drag a file to his computer's trash and delete it.
CRUNCH.
"Stay out of this, Jane. This man has killed three people in the elevator. I knew I shouldn't have hired an ex con!"
"But sir, I didn't-" I tried to reply, before he interrupted.
"Mr. Owens, I'm picking up the phone, and calling the police. I'd suggest you just stay put."
"But Mr. Winfred, I'm telling you, I didn't do anything!"
"Yes, is this 911? I'm the manager of "The Cornelius" and I'd like to report three murders in my building."
"We'd better go." I heard Jane say, as I felt her place her hand on my shoulder.
"And yes, I have reason to believe the killer is our elevator operator, an ex convict, who is sitting right in front of me."
"Come on, let's go!" Jane screamed, as she tugged at my shirt, I hopped up from my seat, and she led me out of the office, down the hall, and into... of all places... the old freight elevator, as she explained to me what she had seen on the surveillance tape.
—
SLAM!
SCREEEECH!
"Take us to the basement!" Jane called out.
"But the basement is walled off." I replied.
"Just do it!" She insisted, before I moved the lever down and the elevator began to move.
I spent the ride catching my breath, until we finally reached the basement level.
DING!
"Now what?" I asked.
But Jane didn't reply.
"Jane?"
Oh fuck. I thought to myself. The monster.
That's when I turned to the center of the freight elevator, where Jane had been standing, reached out into the unknown...
...And sure enough, felt the cold, slimy, skin of the creature, wrapped around Jane's face, preventing her from making a sound.
Not knowing what else to do, I gripped its disgusting appendages with both hands, and slowly pried it off Jane, as she let out a...
...SCREAM..
...And the monster's arm quickly slithered away, back up through the roof of the freight.
Jane dropped to the ground, coughing violently.
"You okay?" I asked her.
But rather than responding, she simply handed me something...
....I opened my fist, to find a pair of keys.
"The lock above the lever. Unlock it." She instructed, still coughing, as I felt around the lever, found the lock, inserted the key, and unlocked it.
CLICK.
"The doors. They should open now." Jane said, as she stood up, having finally caught her breath.
SCREEEECH!
SLAM!
—
We arrived in the dark basement to smell the same, musty odor from the freight elevator.
After her eyes adjusted and she scanned our surroundings, Jane informed me that this floor looked nothing like the other eight, newly renovated floors, with their modern feel and minimalistic designs.
Instead, the basement was a window into the building's former self, when it had been a factory. Its walls brick and crumbling, its floors concrete and cracked.
And scattered everywhere, were the dusty remnants of laboratory equipment. Devices, machines, tanks, most of which were destroyed, or disconnected, or both.
"What went on down here?" I asked.
"From the looks of it, something inhumane," Jane said, after she picked up a few tattered pieces of paper from one of the lab stations, and told me what was on it.
"The first page looks like some sort of a diagram, of a man being pumped with chemicals from tanks. And the second, a drawing... of the creature from the elevator. In pencil beside it, someone appears to have labeled it "The Silencer.""
Silencer. I thought to myself, before remembering that the creature seemed to always silence the sounds of its victims, and to have been repulsed by Jane's scream. At the same time, it had never bothered me in the elevator, as I tended to stand there in silence.
But before I could dwell too much on the thought, Jane interrupted.
"If you don't mind my asking. What did you go to prison for in the first place?" She asked.
"It's okay," I said, surprised she had waited this long to ask, before contemplating the best way to explain what had happened. "’Cause of my temper. Some guy was being a dick on the train platform. We got into a scuffle, and he accidentally fell into the tracks."
"Over what? Did he insult you? Your blindness?"
"No, I'm afraid not." I replied, "We were drunk... and arguing over... a basketball game, of all things. He was... my friend."
"Oh my God. I'm so sorry."
"It's okay."
Jane put her hand on my shoulder, and we stood there in silence for a moment...
...Until suddenly, we heard the sound of Mr. Winfred, and the police approaching, as they ran down what must have been a hidden set of stairs from the ground level to the basement.
"Come on, follow me!" Jane called out, as she took me by the hand and led me into what I'd soon discover was a labyrinthian network of old passages, while the police and Mr. Winfred both called out to us.
"This is the police! Put your hands on your head, and turn yourself in!"
"You're trapped, Mr. Owens! Just confess your crimes, and you'll simply go back to jail!"
We continued to run deeper and deeper into the passages, as our pursuers began to close in on us, their footsteps getting closer... and closer... and closer...
...Until suddenly, the sound of their footsteps was replaced by that of...
...SCREAMING...
...And they suddenly went...
...SILENT.
"What the?" Jane whispered.
"The creature." I whispered. "It must be down here."
That's when we hatched a plan.
—
Having found our way out of the labyrinth and back to the entrance of the laboratory, where we had arrived in the old freight elevator, I found myself standing alone, waiting, as I nervously tapped my cane on the basement floor, Jane having gone off on her own.
That's when I heard Mr. Winfred emerge from the passages, alone, and call out to me.
"Mr. Owens! There's nowhere to run! Even your beloved elevator is gone. You're cornered." He taunted, as I backed towards the elevator and tapped at it with my cane, its doors open, its shaft empty.
"What did you say?" I asked, encouraging him to talk louder.
"What are you, deaf now too?" The ignorant old man snapped back. "I said, you have nowhere to run!"
"I'm sorry, you'll have to forgive me," I said sarcastically, pointing to my ears. "Can you repeat that again?"
That's when Mr. Winfred began approaching and screamed, "You worthless, ex con! I knew I shouldn't have hired you in the first place! And now, you'll go back to where you belong!"
But suddenly...
...Mr. Winfred went SILENT...
...As the creature must have wrapped its slimy tentacles around his face.
That's when I seized the opportunity, ran over to Mr. Winfred, gripped the cold body of the creature, which was indeed wrapped around him, turned, and flung them both behind me, into the hollow elevator shaft...
SLAM!
...Before hitting the "Up" button on the wall, and calling the freight elevator down.
Suddenly, the gears of the elevator above could be heard turning away, and the machine began its quick descent down.
"Mr. Owens, no!" Mr. Winfred cried out, clearly now separated from the creature.
I froze for a moment, as my mind raced back to the night of the tragic accident, when my friend called out to me from the train tracks, and I was unable to save him in time...
....Until I eventually snapped myself out of it, and willed myself to save Mr. Winfred, no matter how evil the asshole's intentions may have been, reaching out my hand out, and pulling him up and out of the elevator, just as the freight car came crash down to the basement level.
SLAM!
CRUNCH!
"RAAAAAAAARRRRR!" The slimy beast cried out, as it was crushed under the old elevator's weight.
DING!
The basement fell SILENT for a moment, until...
SCREEEECH!
SLAM!
...Jane stepped out and said, "Going up?"
But the joke was met was silence. I simply stood there, shaking, as Mr. Winfred did the same, clearly shocked by the events that had just occurred.
—
A few weeks later, after the authorities had done a full sweep of the basement, and cleared out all traces of the building' old laboratory, I found myself once again back in the manager's office.
"Mr. Owens. This is the last time I'm gonna tell you this!" Jane joked, as I heard her recline back in what was once Mr. Winfred's chair, having been named interim manager since her boss's recent and... ironic... prison sentencing.
"Who's the convict now?" I said with a smile, before making my way out of the office.
"Wait." Jane said, stopping me at the door. "You sure you want to go back to operating the elevator? After all that's happened? Like I said, the doorman job is yours if you want it."
"What's the worst that could happen?" I replied with a smile. "There's another one of those creatures in the building somewhere?"

The Zercher squat has been described as one of the most difficult squat variations due to the intense demand put on the entire body throughout the movement.
Named after Ed Zercher, a strongman competitor from St. Louis during the 30’s-40’s, the Zercher squat requires full body engagement. With the bar resting on your forearms, the weight is in front of the body and requires a strong core to support the weight. There is no point of rest during this movement as your arms are working just as hard as your legs (if not harder).
Any time you load weight in front of the torso, whether it is a Zercher or goblet position, you are making the exercise require more support from the core and quads. This includes posterior chain exercises with Zercher or goblet positions as well, such as good mornings.
HERE’S WHY YOU SHOULD INCLUDE ZERCHER EXERCISES IN YOUR ROUTINE:
CORE ENGAGEMENT
QUAD DEVELOPMENT
LOWER BACK DEVELOPMENT
UPPER BACK DEVELOPMENT
ZERCHER EXERCISES ARE A GOOD CHOICE IF YOU:
HAVE TROUBLE GETTING INTO A BACK RACK OR FRONT RACK POSITION DUE TO LIMITED SHOULDEUPPER BACK MOBILITY
ARE LOOKING TO STRENGTHEN YOUR QUADS DURING SQUATS
WANT TO INCORPORATE FULL BODY RESISTANCE EXERCISES INTO YOUR TRAINING
HERE ARE FIVE ZERCHER EXERCISE VARIATIONS TO ADD TO YOUR ROUTINE.

1. PAUSED ZERCHER SQUATS

The main objective in the Zercher squat is to keep an upright torso with a strong support system from the arms. With your shoulders set back and down, keep the arms flexed at about 90 degrees with your elbows glued to your sides. You want to maintain strict tension in the arms throughout the entire movement. Set your hips back into the squat position and hold for two seconds at the bottom, with your core and arms tight. Drive back up to the standing position while pulling the bar into your body as to not let the weight drift forward and away from you.

1. ZERCHER BULGARIAN SPLIT SQUATS

Bulgarian split squats suck enough as they are, but when you add a Zercher variation to it, it completely lights your quads up. Front loaded weight in an elevated stance challenges your core, quads, and stabilizers. In a single leg stance like the split squat, you’re going to have to work harder to stabilize the barbell from moving during both eccentric and concentric phases.

1. ZERCHER BOX SQUATS WITH CHAINS

Another way to completely wreck your quads is adding chains to the mix. As the chains lengthen when you stand up from the squat, the resistance increases. This helps you develop better lockout strength during the squat. In a Zercher position with chains, the tension you feel in the quads is constant throughout the entire movement, especially as you sit down into the squat. For maximal results in the Zercher box squat, focus on slowing the eccentric phase and sitting back fully onto the bench for glute and hamstring activation.

1. ZERCHER GOOD MORNINGS

Even though the good morning is a posterior chain exercise, you can still add Zercher positions to strengthen the supportive anterior chain muscle groups. As you hinge forward, your upper back and core muscles engage to maintain spinal alignment. Naturally, the bar is going to drag you down and force your upper back to round forward if you are not keeping constant tension in the arms and core.

1. SINGLE LEG ZERCHER GOOD MORNINGS

Pretty much any time you take an exercise and make it a single leg variation, you are going to put more demand on the hamstrings. This is one of my favourite exercises as it challenges your entire body and provides functional benefit. Your hamstrings, lower back, glutes, core, arms, and upper back work together to stabilize the barbell and perform the movement. Stay heavy on the lead foot and keep your hips set high for hamstring activation and maximal results.

The biceps is often forgotten as a shoulder tendon. It has a muscle belly on the front of the arm that most people know. However, what most people do not realize is that the upper portion of the biceps has two separate tendons. The short-head tendon attaches to bone outside of the shoulder joint. The long-head of the biceps tendon travels into the shoulder joint and attaches to a soft tissue anchor called the labrum of the shoulder. The biceps acts to flex the elbow, rotate the forearm, and to center the humeral head (ball) in the glenoid (socket).
What kind of biceps injuries can happen and what are their symptoms?
This video demonstrates a Biceps tendon tear
Biceps injuries can include strains (muscle stretch) or tendonitis (tendon inflammation) or tears. It is difficult to differentiate between the different diagnoses as they all cause pain. Typically the pain from biceps injuries occurs over the front of the shoulder or deep within the shoulder. The pain is worsened with lifting activities or overhead reaching activities. With certain tears, patients may complain of a "popping" or "clunking" of the shoulder joint.
Where do injuries occur?
Injury to the biceps complex can occur anywhere along its anatomy but at the shoulder joint, the most common location for the biceps to tear happens at either the:
SLAP (superior labrum anterior to posterior) tear. Biceps anchor tear.
long-head biceps tendon as it approaches the joint or along it's course inside the shoulder joint (see video above)
at its insertion on the superior (top part) of the shoulder labrum. This is known as a SLAP tear of the shoulder (see video)
How are SLAP tear and Bicep tendon injuries diagnosed?
These injuries are difficult to assess, but with a combination of thorough history and physical exam along with X-rays and MRI, they can often be detected.
Patient will often report deep and front pain in the shoulder that is difficult to localize. The pain can be associated with a "clunk" or "pop" in the shoulder with overhead or rotational movements.
X-rays are often performed to rule out arthritis or fracture.
MRI is the best test to see a biceps or SLAP tear. Often, the MRI is accompanied by an arthrogram (dye injection into shoulder) to enhance the ability to see even the smallest tears.
MRI Arthrogram (right) demonstrating a torn biceps anchor or SLAP tear.
MRI Arthrogram (right) demonstrating a torn biceps anchor or SLAP tear.
What are the treatment options for a biceps tear or biceps anchor tear?
Non-surgical treatment
Many injuries of the biceps tendon and its anchor can be treated conservatively. This treatment path may include modalities such as physical therapy, anti-inflammatory medications, injections, rest, and activity modification.
Surgical treatment is reserved for patients that have continued pain and disability even after a trial of non-surgical treatment
For a biceps tendon tear, very small tears may be debrided or "cleaned up". However, most tears of the tendon are more significant and a surgery is often performed where the tendon is cut within the joint and reattached into the humerus. This is called a biceps tenodesis. This procedure removes the damaged portion of the tendon while still giving the biceps tendon almost normal function and appearance.
For a superior labral tear (SLAP tear), a variety of surgical treatments exist. The choice should be left to the surgeon depending on the degree of the tear, the age of the patient, and the involvement of the biceps tendon. Sometimes, the biceps tenodesis mentioned previously is enough. In other cases, a labral repair can be performed where the torn portion of the labrum is reattached to the edge of the glenoid (socket)...SLAP repair.

So I have PSA and AxSPA and most of the time when I talk about pain and discomfort it falls into the following categories:
1) direct stinging pain from an inflamed joint such as my big toe
2) direct pain from my lower back
3) direct and indirect aches and pains in all kinds of places during a flare up
4) indirect dull aches radiating up and down my calves, shin, arches of my feet. Not able to attribute it to a specific joint, it's just like my entire leg and foot are aching and uncomfortable.
5) bodily heaviness - loads of different aches and a feeling that I'm very fatigued and everything just weighs heavier than normal and my strength is drained. Movements are both heavier and laboured and more painful and a general sense of discomfort.
Re. 4) I'm wondering how you would describe this. Is it more enthesitis type pain? I can't really seem to identify it coming from a specific joint. I have it today where my knees, entire lower leg and soles of my feet just ache. It's not a sharp pain just a constant dull ache. Curious for any insights

Program Push Db bench 3sets with drop set Db Shoulder press 3sets Reverse fly (superset) 3sets Incline db press (superset) 3sets Chest fly 3sets Lat raise (superset) 3sets Tricep push down (superset) 3sets
Pull Db row wide 3sets Face pulls (superset) 3sets Hammer curls (superset) 3sets Single cable row wide grip 3sets drop set Lat pull down 3sets Bicep curl 3sets Wrist curl 3sets
Leg #1 Squats with db 3sets Deadlift 3sets Bulgarian split 3sets Weighted lunges 3sets Calf raises 3sets
RD
Upper Single cable row (superset) 3sets Bench press (superset) 3sets Shoulder press 3sets Lat pull down 3sets Chest fly (superset) 3sets Wrist curl (superset) 3sets Seated incline bicep curl 3sets Lat raise 3sets
Leg #2 Sumo squat w/ DB 3sets RDL 3sets Frog pumps with BB 3sets Overhead presses 3sets Calf raises 3sets
RD
Workouts generally take about an hour.
About me; - I have a slight muscle imbalance due to a childhood illness which could be a limiting factor in strength training but that’s yet to happen. I’m still progressing just probably not as fast as a normal person. Working out is not just to look good for me, it’s to maintain a fully functional body - I have a garage gym. Weights bench, lat pull down with 3 heights, dumbbells, barbell and weight plates. Also a rowing machine and stationary bike - Targeting shoulders and arms at the moment.
Your thoughts? Any pointers?

—
“.....”
Rika stared at her hand, at the backside of her palm, her skin color is that of an overripe and sweet sapodilla. She doesn't know what that thing is, but that's what her dad used to call it, apparently some sort of fruit, but she doesn't know what fruit is either. it’s slightly blue now, stained by the blood of a… thing. She looked at it, the… she doesn't know what to call it, pink thing… pink… pinky? Sounds good enough for her, she looked at pinky.
“hmm…”
Pinky is… weird? She's seen some weird things in her life, an irradiated wasteland can always hold a surprise, but this is… peculiar. In a way she couldn't really put her finger on, more so because she can't touch pinky for too long because they are really cold. But she wants to touch pinky, pinky is interesting. Pinky has four eyes, no hair, and a beautiful skin, she's almost jealous.
“.....”
Her curiosity took over and she scooted over to where pinky is, laying on her bed, with bandages on their tummy. She's honestly not sure why she instantly knows that pinky is bleeding, when she found them in that fire pit, created by that blue light that came from the clouds. Actually, she remembers it quite fondly. She remembered her dad coming back home, bleeding from his tummy, and asked her to fetch some bandages. He told her it was done by bad guys.
Poke
“Pinky? Are you awake?”
Poke
He told her bad guys don't like her, or dad, and want to kick them out. Dad said don't listen, and fight back, since then she really hates bad guys, and thought everyone but her and her dad are bad. She got a lecture for thinking that, and her dad told her not everyone is bad, some people are good, friends he called it, Rika never had friends before but she would love to have one someday.
Poke
“Hello?”
Poke
As Rika continuously poked Pinky, she wondered if Pinky is a bad guy or friend, or maybe they got hurt by a bad guy, are there bad guys in the clouds?. Pinky looks nice, they don't look like bad guys, but who knows, once her dad said that bad guys sometimes lie and make themselves look like friends.
“Wow…”
Pinky’s skin is cold, very cold, it hurts if she touches it too long, but if she touches it for just a few seconds, it’s actually comfortable. So Rika did just that, occasionally putting her palm on Pinky, and enjoying the cold. But suddenly Pinky doesn't feel as cold anymore, she was wondering why when Pinky woke up, and slapped her.
—
“AHH! Get away from me!”
“@#!”
Ciro’s not having it today, she just woke up, and expected maybe the white and yellow of her ship’s medical bay, the feeling of a soft bed on her back, hoping maybe all that she saw before is just a very long and weird dream.
“Shoo! Shoo!”
“...?”
It isn't, unfortunately. She woke up to the brown and black of a cave, and the feeling of what barely passes as a bed laying on rough sand and pebbles on her back, it is not in fact a very long and weird dream. It is, in fact, reality, reality is terrifying as they say and she would agree, as she immediately sees the creature again the very next second of her eyes opening.
“Shoo! Get out of here! D-d-don’t hurt me!...”
“€π?”
“W-what?”
It spoke…? In language she doesn't recognize, it seems… confused? She's not sure if whatever the creature is doing with its face counts as an expression. But it does seem… curious, undeniably so, it tilted her head at her, and looked at her with its curious brown eyes before leaning forward. That, of course, scared the soul out of Ciro.
“Eek! Stay away!”
Now it looks surprised, kind of. It backs away slightly, with their back facing the entrance of the cave, a harsh ray of sunlight peered through the cave’s mouth and some violent wind can be heard. It still stared at her, with that… admittedly… beautiful brown eyes, she's never seen it before. She found herself locking gaze with the creature, feeling a strange sensation as she did.
“Uhm…….. hi”
She suddenly strangely relaxed, as if she didn't just experience ejecting out of her exploding ship and meeting a foreign alien right after. But it got her mind calm, and more rational, now that she is, she should probably stop calling it creature, it's undoubtedly sapient. It had clothes, a terrifying helmet as she recalls, and clearly some decent technology, looking at… gnarly looking weapon resting on the wall next to them.
“π¥! ¥^# £¥¢@!”
It- no… they spoke again, it kind of sounds like an introduction, but it's not like Ciro knows what it means so who knows, could be a threat. They kept staring at her, rather inappropriately. Their eyes wandered to somewhere on Ciro’s lower body, and pointed at it with one of their five clawed fingers. She was about to think about the predatorial implications that the claw gave her, but she's too busy panicking about the wound on her stomach right now.
“Oh God…”
It’s patched up, neatly and appropriately, but also rather tightly. The moment she became aware of it the pain came rushing through like a busted dam. She held her stomach as she curled to a fetal position, tears coming out of her eyes.
“Argh…!”
That's when a hand grabbed her shoulder, she looked up to see the… she should really give it a name, the first thing to come out of her pained mind is critter, and she stuck with it. Critter was staring at her, they seemed to be worried, Critter looked around, before getting up and running towards a dark green colored backpack. Critter rummages through it, before finding what they were looking for, signified by them going what Ciro assumes to be “AHA!”
“Huh?”
They ran up to her and presented it in their hands, an assortment of what look like pills, they're giving her medication?
“I… i can't, i don't know what's in it, it can- ergh!... Mmph… it can kill me…”
Critter insisted, all the while looking at her with all the worry in the world, for a second she wanted to question why it’s so… passionate? The amount of compassion shown to someone they probably have never seen before, it’s kind of sweet. She would appreciate it, if she's not in great pain right now, with a shake of the head she refused the pills, leaving Critter confused and even more worried.
“Sorry… i can't”
Ciro closed her eyes, maybe if she can get her mind away from it the pain would recede. She got nothing, even though her kind is known for how well they can handle their own minds she can't seem to suppress it. But when something touched her head she calmed down, it felt warm, and comfortable, and soft. She opened her eyes again to see Critter…
“...?”
“Uh…”
Are they…. Are they petting her? They are, and it… it feels good, oddly so.
—
Rika caressed Pinky's, they seemed to be in pain and when she offered them painkillers, they refused, she was at a loss at how to calm them down, until she remembered something. When she was little, she found a stray kitten that wandered near her home. It was crying and she had no clue how to calm it down, until she touched the kitty’s head and petted it.
“Okay? Are you okay?”
Her dad didn't like kittens, made him go achoo achoo, he calls it… al… ler… gi…? Something like that, she's not very good at spelling. Doesn't matter though, Pinky looks to be enjoying it, they're not crying any more, that's good if you ask her. A couple of minutes pass, filled with nothing but oddly awkward silence and the sound of someone being petted.
“Hmm?”
When she was done Pinky had completely stopped crying and holding their tummy. At the same time they seemed to snap out of a trance, and looked at her, she replied with a smile, after remembering that Pinky doesn't speak like her.
“Hi!”
She tried anyway, surely anyone knows what a "hi" is right?. Surely, as sure as the lightness in her head, she felt it suddenly, it was unpleasant and it felt like someone was poking the inside of her head.
“Ow…. That hurts”
She laid down on the cave floor, and wondered why she's like this all of a sudden. She looked at dust carried by the wind outside. It might be that the air can be kind of funky sometimes, she should really cover the cave with a tarp. She did just that, though making sure the tarp’s color can blend in with the surrounding is a little hard when she can barely even focus from all the lightheadedness.
“There… set and sound… ow…”
She's still feeling it, even more severe now. Probably because it already got to her, oh well, what can she do? It should pass soon enough, she's been through more, a headache is not going to take her down, maybe. She sat down next to her rifle and sighed, messaging her head as she did, it relieved some of the pain, but didn't make it go away.
“Hmph…”
Maybe she should go back trying to talk with Pinky, maybe that can calm it down-
“Hey…”
“Huh?”
—
One thing Qo’kvells can do other than telepathically communicate with each other is… look into the mind of a non-Qo'kvell. Unethical, dishonorable, despisable, medically problematic, since it hurts anyone who isn't mentally capable, which everyone who is not a Qo’kvell. But… it can help, in some things. Like… knowing the ill intentions of others, or a problem in their mind, or getting to know them, or… learning their language.
“Ow…”
And she has never seen a language so complicated it hurts her head just thinking about it. Not until she probed Critter’s head, to see if there's a way to communicate, it visibly affected them, but they handled it far-far better than anyone else, most would pass out in the first 3 seconds, Critter seems mostly unfazed. From it, she knows a lot, but understands few, she did learn Critter is a she, so hey, fellow girls at least.
“Mmh… oh… I shouldn't have done this…”
And her intent is well, she's trying to help her, the pills she offered were painkillers, and she saved Ciro from her pod’s burning wreckage. She suppose she can thank her, but learning a language takes some time and brain effort, and it certainly hurts, so she holds off for now. Critter’s memory is hazy, and hard to reach, it’s almost like her brain is actively fighting against her telepathy.
Maybe I should say something… hmm… this is… a word for introduction right? I hope, please don't be a slur or something’
“Hey…”
“Huh?”
‘did it work?’
“H-hi…”
From Critter's memory, she learned that waving her hand seems to be some sort of introductory gesture, so she did that. She was expecting shock, but what she got was a very happy Critter, who seemed to instantly forget about their headache.
“you can talk!”
“A… small-”
‘wait, no that's wrong’
“Me… mean… little?”
‘That's also wrong, what in the lands below is this language?!’
“Who are you? What's your name? I'm Rika! I’m friend!”
She can barely understand that wall of words, she did hear a name… Wi… no, Ric… e? No, wrong again, Ri… ka…? Sounds… correct-ish. She also noticed she was being asked her name, she tried her best to piece it together using the strange letters of Rika’s language.
“am… Ce… ehm, no… Ci… Ciro”
“Ciro? Oh man… Pinky is not right at all”
She has no clue what Rika is talking about, and it’s probably best she doesn't question it. But now she has to ask the important questions. She tried her best to form a sentence in her head before trying to speak. She could just try and probe again, but her head’s not having it so neither does she.
“When… no, me mea- no… I mean… Where… am… i?”
“Hmmm? oh, we’re in a cave”
“I… know… I mean… what place?”
“What? Uh… Oh! Yes, you’re not from here, sorry, we’re in a desert! My dad calls it wasteland, i don't know why, i don't a see a lot of trash out here”
Wasteland? Desert wasteland? Ciro was curious, what kind of species prefers to live in a desert? Wasteland no less?
“Why?”
“The whole world is like this, dad calls it end of the world, i don't see anything ending out here, so i don't really know”
End of the world… Ciro realized the grim implications of that sentence and frowned, with a bit of pity towards Rika.
“”stranded in post apocalyptic planet, great””
“What? You speak weird again”
“Oh… apologiz- uh, i mean, sorry, it is n-native… mouth”
“Oh, i’ve heard of that, dad used to tell me other people can speak another way, can you teach me?”
Rika’s eyes light up, she seems oddly innocent and childlike in… well… apocalypse, for gods know how long. She suppose education isn't as strong as it used to be in that condition, but shouldn't Rika be a bit more… aware?
“N-no, it… hard”
“Aww… it’s fine, you can speak like me anyway, how do you do it?”
“I…”
She's not sure what to say, Rika probably doesn't know what telepathy is, or maybe and she does, Ciro’s got nothing on her culture.
“Just… special… thing, i can do”
“Ooh!... What is it?”
“Difficult… explain… t-to explain, i mean”
“It’s okay… are you good? You’re wounded, i took care of it but you were still hurt”
“Am… fine”
She's really not, but she's functional which is good enough, Rika’s work on her wounds was surprisingly exceptional.
“Great!... Hmm… do you want to go with me?”
“W-where?”
“Hold on! Let me get it!”
Rika ran to her bag again, and took out some sort of… square? It unfolded to a large rectangular shape, is it made of… paper?
‘Her species still uses paper?’
She was a bit confused, if they can make advanced medicine then shouldn't they be way past that? Then she was reminded by the sound of the violent wind outside.
‘oh yeah… apocalypse’
She ran back to him all excited, Ciro can practically taste the thick naivety of this girl as she spoke with the largest smile she has ever seen.
“We’re here, not too far away from my home, but that's not where I'm going! I wanna go here! Look!”
She pointed to a drawing that resembles a mountain.
“It’s a really tall mountain! My dad’s been there before! He said it looks very pretty!”
“What… for?”
“To meet someone! My dad said there's someone very special there! That I should meet them! He said it’s important for everyone too… but he wanted to tell me first!”
Rika kept mentioning this “”dad””, and Ciro is going to go out on a limb to guess this dad is her parent.
“Is… dad mother?”
“Wha? No! My dad is a man! Strongest man ever!”
‘so a father?’
“Where is… dad?”
All the light in Rika’s eyes disappeared, replaced with something that made Ciro uneasy. Even when only partially connected, she can feel a strong feeling of sorrow from Rika, if she was probing her head Ciro probably would have been dead or atleast incapacitated from the sudden emotional overload.
“I…. Sorry”
“It’s okay… but he told me to go here, he gave me everything he has, and taught me everything, he said it can save me, everyone, i don't know what he means… but i’ll do it, for him, it’s all he always wanted”
Her voice wasn't as energetic as before, far from it. Ciro noticed that Rika glanced at the terrifying looking weapon on the wall, it seems it's more than just a tool of self defense.
“Ah… anyway, do you want to come with me?”
Ciro weighted her choices, she doesn't know this planet, she doesn't know how it is like after whatever happened to it, she doesn't know if others of Rika’s kind are as friendly as her, or if they even consider her approachable at all, she doesn't know how to survive, she's not that kind of person. At this point, she's not even worried, she nodded in response to her question, and perhaps, in a pleasant turn of event, Rika lit up once again, back to how she was.
“So you want to be friends?!”
“Y-yes…”
‘that feels regrettable in the long run’
“Yeeee! First friend! Uhm… oh, i forgot to ask, where are you from? Why are you riding that light?”
“What?”
“I save you, from a burning pit, light from the sky landed there, are you from up there? Why are you here?”
Ciro decided it doesn't hurt to just tell Rika, she would probably be more impressed and excited than terrified that there are other civilizations out there.
“Am from… uh… space, above sky, i am a…. Ko’k ehm… Q… Qo’kvell…”
“Above the sky? In the stars?”
Ciro was right, she looks absolutely excited.
“Yes… my kind… explore stars, am explorer”
“Oh! Are you exploring down here? What is it like up there?”
“Hard… to explain, explain… later”
“Aww… okay… let's go now should we? Storm is smaller now, we can go”
Rika was right, the wind outside had calmed down.
“Shure… S-sure, i mea- AHH!”
Rika pulled her up from her sitting position, and tore through cover protecting the cave from the winds outside. Outside was… bright, and hot, unpleasant, they seemed to be in a valley between two mountains. All Ciro can see is a dry landscape where trees used to be, hinted by the dry stumps barely poking out of the gravel and sand. A complete terraformation is she has to guess, something hit this planet hard.
“Wait here! I'll go get my stuff first!”
Ciro wondered how Rika managed to survive all this, but the more time she spent with her the more it seems to her Rika grew up in all of this, not forced into it.
‘how long has it been?’
“Let's go! We’re still far from it!”
Rika came out of the cave, bag on her back and weapon in hand.
“Where… is… vehicle?”
“Oh! It’s right here!”
She walked up to a large rock and pointed to it, Ciro was confused until Rika grabbed it and it turned out to be some sort of camouflage cover. It was nearly invisible, blending in with everything else, and it's clear why that is, her vehicle isn't the most discreet. Two wheels, all black, armored plates for the front and rear were welded to a long metal pole which itself is bolted on the vehicle’s side, acting as a mount for the armor.
“Hmm…”
“Cool right? My dad made it himself! He said it can’t ever go down!”
“Good… protection”
The mostly rubber wheels are slightly spiky, and have large ridges, probably to get better grip on smooth sand, and spikes for snow maybe?. It has two seats, one in front, one in the rear, surprisingly comfy looking seats despite all its brutal aspects. Rika got on it, and inserted a metal key, and the vehicle let out a fearsome roar. A mechanical Ignition tells Ciro that Rika’s kind probably isn't incredibly advanced.
‘no offense Rika…”
“Come on up! Another storm is probably coming soon! We don't want to get stuck!”
“O-okay…”
She got up on the back seat, it’s apparently leather, she wondered what kind of animal it came from.
“Ready?”
“Ye- EEK!”
Rika accelerated without warning, causing Ciro to almost fall off, she held onto Rika by hugging her, it felt inappropriate, but she seems fine with it. Ciro’s fine with it too, she's oddly comfortable to hold, maybe it’s just the heat from her body, she noticed that in the cave when she was being… petted, Rika's kind must be hot blooded.
‘Sigh… stranded in a wasteland planet, with a species never encountered before… How lucky am i?’
It would be any star mapper’s wet dream, that's for sure, she just wishes it went a little different, less explosions and less being stranded.
‘if only you’re here, mom’

Hartmann flies towards Yu Huang on his new waterbound Hydra. As the plane begins to fire Yu Huang holds out his hand, the Hydra getting in the way again, blocking the bullets with one of its heads, another head snapping towards the plane, Hartmann going up and above it. “Damn! This new dragon would DIE for you huh, Herr Huang!?”
“It will do no such thing, Hartmann. I would not allow such behavior from my dragons! The hydra’s regeneration allowed it to live so long as a head remains!” He calls out, Hartmann laughing happily.
“Right. So I gotta take out ALL the heads at once!? Kinderspiel!” He calls out as he spins around to approach Yu Huang again.
Yu Huang scoffs, stamping down his staff. “Hmpf. Child’s play you say? Doubtful any child should find themselves in the midst of these battles! Unless you consider yourself a mere CHILD!”
Izanagi crosses his arms with a smirk. “You tell him, old friend! Bwahaha!”
Ao Kuang and his brothers all facepalm a little. “Our father needs to work on his banter huh, Tsukuyomi?”
Tsukuyomi looks back briefly. “Oh um… I guess so? It is not… what I admire him for.”
"Right… us neither.”
Yu Huang spins his spear back, thrusting forward and one of the hydra’s heads mimic his movement and FIRES off its head from the socket, Hartmann’s eyes widening as he does a full flip midair to fly over it.
Hartmann’s gaze suddenly drops a little, darkening. “I suppose we should stop using the baby guns then! Let’s switch to something more ADULT!” Hartmann approaches once again, confidently letting go of the control stick and suddenly he flips upside down in his glass bubble cockpit. On the opposite side is another two handles, which he grabs hold of and shoves them forward, thumbs on the buttons at the end of each. Two plates move aside on the bottom of the plane and two large gun-barrels shoot out, pointing in the direction Hartmann is looking. He starts firing, the heavy rattling of bullet-casings plunging off the sides of the jet and heavy bullets smashing against Yu Huang’s hydra, forcing him to dodge rather than merely block it with the heads as they are torn apart by these bullets, the head snaking back and forth in the water, the hydra’s underwater body darting backwards. “That’s right! Kinderspiel! Limiting yourself to only TWO planes of movement, Herr Huang!? Not a smart idea when you’re against the greatest three dimensional fighter in ALL THE HEAVENS! If this is your best idea then I will NEVER be shot down!” He laughs with a strained smirk. “Never…”
Yu Huang blocks a bullet, deflecting it to the side with his spear. “Such arrogance! And yet you too have limited your movement no!? Without your hands on that stick in your machine you move in ONE dimension! Straight ahead!” He pushes his palm forward, two hydra heads shooting forth from the water aimed directly at the jet.
Hartmann doesn’t have time to readjust his seat, but he smirks. “And here I thought you and I had an understanding, Herr Huang!” He suddenly kicks his foot past the yoke before pulling and catching it on his foot, yanking himself into the air, blood rushing to his head but he merely shakes it off. “Woooooohoooo!”
Yu Huang sees the jet twirling in the sky and he pauses. “To think once upon a time… I too believed myself untouchable… How foolish I was.”
-Ancient Past-
Yu Huang raises the gavel. “This meeting is hereby adjourned!”
“But we still have the matter of what to do with Wukong?” A god chimes in as Yu Huang slams down his gavel.
“I have no care for that monkey. Do not waste my time, you imbecile or I will show you why I rule this council,” He holds up his hand and the green energy flows up his wrist, forming little scales around his fingers.
The god flinches and swiftly rushes off. “Nevermind! My apologies!”
Yu Huang stands from his seat. “Hmpf. Wukong,” He mutters to himself before stepping off the throne onto the head of a few dragons acting as his staircase, the beasts whimpering as he does. “Silence. Follow,” He walks out of the council jumping into a saddled dragon which quickly flies him off towards the Jade Palace. “Before this. We go east,” He mutters with a smirk. The dragon roars and shoots towards the west, landing at a large temple, Ao Kuang standing outside, next to a large red pillar with golden rims.
“Father?! I-I did not expect to see you here!” Ao Kuang quickly kneels, as Yu Huang strides past him.
“You bow too late, dragon. A king you may be, but that is nothing to an emperor. I expect you to be kneeling BEFORE I arrive,” He says and Ao Kuang feels a bead of sweat dripping from his forehead. He upset his father… This is not good. “I am feeling charitable at the moment. So I will forgive it this once. So tell me. How is the caged ape?” He smirks and Ao Kuang stands and nods.
“The caged monkey! Yes of course! Um… I do not mean to upset you further, father… but…” As they walk in they hear banging of flesh on metal, wet bangs… as they walk in Wukong is standing in a large golden bird-cage elevated above a massive hole in the ground, water flowing into it from all sides. Wukong is HAMMERING his fists at the bars, blood dripping from his fists and feet as he goes, the golden pristine pillars making up the bars all colored red with blood. His eyes are wild and focused on the pillars. He has not even seen Yu Huang enter. “But the monkey has not stopped striking the cage since his imprisonment 1000 years ago.”
Yu Huang’s eyes go slightly wide. “Not for a moment, you say? Hmpf. Foolish mortal. MONKEY!” He calls out, Wukong’s eyes flickering and he stops with one final punch, shaking the cage. “How are you enjoying your endless life in Heaven?”
“Fuck you…” Wukong says, springing towards the closest point to Yu Huang. “Come in here you bastard! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you and ALL your BASTARD kids for what you did! Show you what it’s like!”
Yu Huang laughs. “Oh please,” He raises his hand and with a single palm strike a dragon-head blasts forth from his palm, striking Wukong and knocking him to the other side of the giant cage he is in. “You would stand no chance. I am not some mortal being. I am The Jade Emperor. Do not forget this,” He smirks and turns to leave. “I have seen what I need to see. I am going home.”
Ao Kuang bows his head. “It was wonderful to be graced with your presence, father,”
“You are most welcome,” Yu Huang steps onto his staddled dragon once again and it flies off. “Foolish monkey. Attempting to argue and challenge a god such as myself? Preposterous.”
And so… time passed. Every 1000 years or so Yu Huang would visit the temple to check in on Wukong. Each interaction between the two followed this same pattern. Yu Huang was quite pleased with his work. The disrespect Wukong had shown him, making him pleased to see the monkey getting his comeuppance.
Yu Huang is sitting in the Jade Palace, looking out into his garden seeing his mighty dragons, chained to the ground to ensure they do not fly away. Those darn beasts do not listen to authority! Yet undoubtedly the dragon is the greatest symbol of power in all of Heaven! He suddenly hears a loud and disruptive CRASH outside. “What is the meaning of this!?” He says waving his hand. “Guards. Deal with whatever that was,” However before any of the angel guards can even leave another angel comes BURSTING through the door.
“Lord! Lord Yu Huang! It’s… IT’S WUKONG!” He yells, Yu Huang’s eyes going wide as he stands.
“Wukong!?” He swiftly makes his way down to the bottom level. “That monkey escaped?! What trickery he must have used. I shall punish Ao Kuang DEARLY for this!” He says before the front door BLASTS open and an angel comes tumbling in, Yu Huang stopping him with a flick of his palm, causing a dragon tail to swipe the angel aside. He furrows a brow as Wukong comes walking through the door, an aura of DEATHLY killing intent following him like a thick black smog. “So… you have escaped. I am quite impressed. And what will you do now?” He says smirking confidently. Wukong tosses something he’s holding above his head into the room. Yu Huang hears four grunts of pain seeing the Four Dragon Kings writhing on the floor. “Ao Kuang! Stand and get your prisoner under control. This is ridiculous.”
Ao Kuang pants, bleeding from his head and struggling to move. “I’m sorry father… I do not know… how this happened. He’s… too strong… he took the Pillar somehow. Ruyi Jingu Bang. He simply… picked it up. I have never seen anything like it.”
Yu Huang scoffs. “You expect me to deal with this myself then? How disappointed I am in you.”
“Sorry Father…”
Yu Huang looks up towards Wukong. “Tell me, monkey. What purpose have you brought these four to my doorstep? Simply to prove yourself worthy to fight me?”
Wukong slams his staff down. “I’m gonna kill these sons of yours in front of you. And then you. Let’s see how YOU like it when your family dies in front of your eyes!” He raises it and holds it to Ao Kuang’s head. “Simply letting go of this and his head is crushed to a paste.”
Yu Huang raises an eyebrow. “My sons? These are not my sons. These are my servants. The guards for my temples. You believe them to be irreplaceable to me? Though I suppose it would be a bother to do so. Very well. I shall allow you to face me,” He takes a stance, the green energy flowing into his palms, forming dragons to float around them ready to blast forward.
Wukong’s eyes widen. “You’re worse than scum… you don’t even care! This guy!” He nudges Ao Kuang. “Was more afraid of you being disappointed in him than he was of ME killing him! What kinda monster are you!?” He shoves the four dragon kings aside.
Yu Huang scoffs. “Insolent child! Allow me to show you the strength of Heaven’s mightiest god!” He strikes forward one of the dragons he created, shooting forward only for him to suddenly find Wukong’s hand wrapped over his face.
“This one is for Zhu, my best friend. The person who stood beside me all my life and helped me through countless tough decisions.” Yu Huang is BLASTED through the back wall of his palace, into the dragon-filled courtyard.
“Ngh!?” Yu Huang recovers, with a wave of his hand a dragon head forming under his feet to gently set him on the ground. “You caught me off-guard with that speed. I am impre-” He is forced to lean himself over backwards as Ruyi Jingu Bang SHOOTS forward out of the hole in the wall, Wukong suddenly above him, standing on the staff.
“This one is for Bai, the love of my life, the only woman I will ever love,” He strikes down, hammering Yu Huang into the ground hard enough to dislodge the pillars holding down his dragons who all scatter into the sky. Yu Huang claps, sending a pulse of energy out around him swirling with dragonic murals within the shield.
“So you are a little stronger than I care to admit! You are going to BEG me for mercy!” He says before suddenly Wukong is standing in front of his shield.
“This one’s for the chief, the man who took care of me, despite my faults, who was kind to me when I was unworthy of his kindness,” He kicks forward the shield shattering like glass, Yu Huang feeling his lunch coming up as he’s struck in the stomach, coughing up blood and vomit before he goes flying into the sky. As he reaches the pinnacle he feels Wukong’s hand once again grabbing him. He’s so fast! What is going on!? “And this is for my kids. Luohou, Yuebei and Jidu. Who did no harm to you or anyone else, merely teased one another as siblings do,” Wukong’s voice is practically lifeless as they fall towards the palace, Wukong HURLING Yu Huang downward, crashing through floor after floor after floor until he once more strikes the ground floor where their ‘fight’ started.
“Kah!” Yu Huang looks up seeing Wukong hurling his staff down as well, and it grows. Yu Huang is trembling in every bone. He cannot defeat this mere mortal. This MONKEY!? Where was this arrogance of his coming from? Supreme power? Birthright? How could all of it measure up to NOTHING? There was no divine pride left. A mere mortal, whom he had treated as less than dirt, was able to simply waltz into HIS palace, dismantle HIS guards and crush HIM effortlessly!?
“And THIS! Is for the rest of the Anima! A people plagued by war, but one that could have become something greater given time! The millions of lives YOU ENDED with your cruelty!” MONKEY KING’S GOD-CRUSHING…!! However, suddenly Yu Huang sees shadows looming over him. The Four Dragon Kings.
“Do not worry father! We will protect you!” Wukong’s eyes widen as he kicks the staff down, shrinking it back to normal size and it pierces through the floor, embedding itself without touching any of the five gods.
He lands in front of them rather nimbly. “What are you protecting this ASSHOLE for!? He treats you like servants! He doesn’t care about you!”
“He is all we have!” They all four hold their arms out. “We were worthless before he showed us a path. He may treat us as his servants. But to us he’s our FATHER! He gave us purpose. He showed us kindness when no other would! Killing him would do NOTHING for you, except… continue this cycle of revenge!” Ao Kuang calls out and Wukong grits his teeth, raising his hand to strike the weak and bruised Dragon Kings aside.
“Seeing your father struck down in front of you, huh? Revenge… violence,” He finds a string tugging at his heart, while Yu Huang looks at him, his eyes practically shaking and unable to focus. Wukong picks his staff out of the ground, stomping up to Yu Huang, picking him up by the throat, Yu Huang desperately firing a shot of jade energy at Wukong’s head, striking him dead on yet he didn’t even react. What is this ridiculous strength!? “What’s wrong, Yu Huang? Scared of a monkey? Don’t be. You got some good kids. But understand this. I am not forgiving you. I’m showing you something I don’t think you gods have ever heard of. Mercy. You gods have tormented me for long enough. It’s MY turn to torment you guys a little… by living a free life,” He tosses Yu Huang into the room, stretching as he walks out.
Ao Kuang and the other three kneel down to Yu Huang. “Father! Are you alright!? W-we apologize for not being able t-”
“No… I am the one who is sorry.”
“H-huh?!” They all look at one another in confusion.
“I have treated you poorly… What have I been doing? My arrogance, founded on my magical strength. Tormenting you, Wukong, the dragons. Oh the dragons!” He stands and looks to the skies seeing the dragons burning their saddles and muzzles from one another’s back, soaring free. “I truly… truly am not worthy of any of this…”
-Present day-
“You!? You defeated The Jade Emperor so effortlessly!? Incredible!” Sakai exclaims as Wukong looks at the screens with a light scoff.
“Yeah I did. Don’t think it’d be that easy anymore though.”
Pandora manages to strain herself to sit and look towards Wukong. “Ngh… what… do you mean, Wukong? You are… incredibly powerful still, right?”
Wukong nods. “I am, no doubt about that. But since I humbled that old bastard he bettered himself in every conceivable way. Even gave up his seat at the council.”
“So he’s… good now? Gah!” Pandora grabs her belly in pain as Hartmann begins to fire again.
“Ha! Fat chance! He still voted for your kind’s destruction and he STILL-” He cuts himself off, gripping his arm tightly from their crossed state, breathing in. “He’s not off the hook at all. I hate him moreso than any other. But with his newfound knowledge and understanding of dragons, the source of his power, his strength increased exponentially.”
Everyone’s eyes widen. “So simply that mental switch… and he’s THAT much more powerful?”
“‘fraid so, Pandora. That bastard’s one of the toughest gods in Heaven.”
Hephaestus pushes Pandora back onto her back. “Pandora… do not strain yourself, please!”
Pandora gives a strained laugh. “I’m fine, dad.”
Wukong squints. “I hope this Hartmann finally ends you, Yu Huang.”
Yu Huang smirks. “Truly incredible, Sun Wukong. To feel your animosity this far out…” He strikes the air with his palm again, sending Hydra-heads blasting towards Hartmann, who swiftly swerves aside, the hydra swimming away as fast as it can. “But for the sake of those who hold special places within my once cold heart…” Hartmann approaches again, switching his orientation again to fire his heavy cannons. “IT SHALL BE YOU WHO IS FELLED!” He yells out clapping his hands together the Hydra firing several of its heads towards the plane at once, Hartmann gritting his teeth.

I started seeing a new ob/gyn a little over a month ago, an older doc that has been in his field 30+years, and I've heard nothing but great things about him. At first I absolutely loved him. My first appointment was supposed to be a general first appointment, fill out history, etc, my annual exam, and I wanted to discuss fertility issues with him. His nurse came in, asked a few basic questions, and I told her that, unfortunately dear Aunt Flo showed up a little early the night before. She said they would reschedule my exam so that we didn't risk getting abnormal results due to my period. She asked if I wanted to discuss anything specific with him since I was there. I told her about the fertility questions, and she said she'd let him know.
As soon as he came in the room he put me at ease. He just kinda flopped onto his little stool, leaned against the bed (I was in the chair since we weren't doing an exam) and talked to me so casually, like two old friends just catching up and having a conversation. I told him I had had a chemical pregnancy back in October (and a horrific experience with it with a different hospital) and my partner and I had been trying to conceive since with no luck. We wanted to explore testing to see if there was something wrong/something we could do to increase our odds. I just turned 40 in December, and my partner honestly believes he was infertile (due to personal experiences, not medical testing). We have been together almost 2 years, never used protection, and only the one chemical pregnancy in that time. We went through options, he told me to go home and discuss it with my partner and let him know what we wanted to do when I came back in two weeks for my exam.
I went back, he again was amazing, just so calming since I was nervous about the exam. I know not all docs are created equal when it comes to their gentleness. I barely felt anything. I told him we were willing to do whatever he recommended, since he was the professional. He immediately sent me down the hall for an ultrasound to check me out and scheduled a 21 day progesterone test for me and a semen analysis for my partner. I was scheduled for my follow up a couple of weeks later. During that time I realized my cycle was late. I took a home test the day before my appointment and it came up positive. I told them the next day, his nurse did a test in office to confirm, it also came up positive. He came in, made a joke about scaring my body into doing what we wanted, we laughed, and he scheduled some blood work and a follow up in a week to check my hormone levels. They called me two days later (Thursday) to tell me my progesterone levels were borderline too low, so they started me on a supplement to boost them. They also scheduled my first ultrasound for the day before my next appointment based on my hcg levels.
Sunday night I was at work and started spotting. I immediately freaked out when I saw blood, due to the chemical pregnancy in October. I notified my boss, she sent me home and told me to go get checked out. My partner and I went to the ER at a local women's and children's hospital I knew was open (and amazing). They checked my hormone levels and did an ultrasound. They told me everything looked great and put me at 5w2d, explained that the spotting was most likely implantation bleeding.
Thursday we had our scheduled ultrasound at a different hospital, the hospital my doctor uses. Again, the tech said everything looked great, we were right on track. According to the paperwork they placed me at 6w +/-4 days.
Friday I went in to see my doc for results. He came in, "Well, I don't have great news... I'm not trying to scare you, I just want to prepare you just in case. It may have just been too early, but there was no sign of cardiac activity during your scan.". As he walked me out of his office he patted me on the shoulder, said he was sorry, and to call them or go to the emergency room if I started bleeding or having severe pain, like he thought it was inevitable I would miscarry. He scheduled me for another ultrasound on Tuesday, as well as more blood work, and a follow up again the following Friday for those results. It was an AGONIZING 4 days waiting for that next scan. I cried so much, and kept trying to stop stressing because stress is bad for baby, but OMG. Thank God for an amazing partner and a super supportive circle. Tuesday finally gets there, my partner and I go back in for our scan. Again the tech is wonderful and tells me everything looks great. She measures at 6w1d. I tell her why we're there, she quickly (and easily) finds baby's heartbeat and shows us that it's there, beating at a steady 125.
I go back to my Dr. Friday, his nurse informed me that apparently my hormone levels weren't as great as he would have liked the week before, which was why he was concerned (but he told me they were good), but that they looked better this week, I had jumped from 1257 to 20k. He finally comes in, says, "well, it's better news this week. We have a heartbeat, and your hormones levels are in the ballpark of where they need to be, so just keep taking your meds, and keep the candles burning." (I assume a reference to Catholic faith of lighting candles for prayers.) After my appointment my partner researched levels of HCG at the different weeks. The range for 6weeks is anywhere from 1100 to 56k. I'm right in the middle of that.
I get trying to be cautious and not telling me I'm going to be fine just in case, because obviously no one knows, and I'm still early (7w tomorrow now). But DAMN dude, you added SO MUCH stress to my life last weekend and you're still acting like you're just waiting for me to lose this baby. I need more positivity in my journey, not a Negative Nancy.
Sorry for the long rant, just needed to vent. I should include that his entire staff has been nothing short of wonderful and caring though.

I’ll be calling the vet tomorrow, just concerned. My dog recently had surgery on his front left paw pad to remove a cyst that was making walking difficult (not the leg with the issue now). A few weeks ago we noticed his front right forearm muscle is larger and very hard. Thought it could be the other was atrophied so this one was overbuilt.
As of middle of the day yesterday will not set the right leg down and limping. Won’t get up which is very abnormal for him. Have inspected and touched his leg all over and no obvious pain point. He has been to the vet weekly for the paw pad and before that a few months back had a liver infection that had our vet running all kinds of tests where nothing else was abnormal, and that was treated. It could be he physically hurt himself but the hard muscle is weird. Ang experience or thoughts appreciated for peace of mind. I’ve considered taking him to the emergency but he is a senior with recent relavent history so I’m thinking his regular vet is best.

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WaveOfWire Edits :D
- - - - -
Harrison’s vision was still foggy from waking up, several blinks failing to clear the tears from his drawn-out yawn. He just escaped the encompassing embrace of his four-armed guardian, leaving their shared bed for the bathroom, where he would have to say goodbye to his beard. If he was going to travel out of the settlement, a proper seal on his gas mask was a must.
It was a shame. The slow buildup of the hair over the last month or so was a representation of his growth in a way, building up alongside his experiences in this hellhole, be they life-threatening or informative. It was almost like wiping the slate clean, even if cutting some chin scruff didn’t really change anything at all—he’d never be able to forget anything he had seen here for as long as he lived.
And there was no telling how long that’d be.
The engineer sighed, splashing the lukewarm barracks water into his face from one of the many wall-attached sinks, allowing him to fully open his eyes and size up the damage done to his favorite black blood-and-sweat-stained t-shirt. It always stayed in good condition with washing and fabricator repairs, but somehow Shar’s talons always found a way to make small holes in it. She wasn’t trying to, but with the way she fully wrapped her arms around him, the tips of her sharp fingers sometimes ended up poking into the fabric and causing some cuts.
It was such a small issue that he never considered bringing it up to her. Plus, she’d probably do her whole guilty talon-tapping thing with puppy eyes and all… He shook his head, letting the stray beads of water on his face drip into the sink.
His palm ran across his beard while his other hand reached for the razor. There wasn’t any shaving cream or the like, but he’d make do. At least he had one of the proper tools for the job. He went into the task, the blade driving through his scruff, slopping off wide areas of his hair from jaw to chin for a few seconds before it was interrupted.
A short ‘woosh’ of the entrance caught his attention.
“Aww, you’re shavin’ it off?” Tracy commented dejectedly through a yawn, the lazy drawl reinforcing the fact that she just woke up. “Th’ beard was sorta growin’ on me.”
He eyed her through the mirror, his voice coming out in a dull tone. “Yeah. I feel the same.”
She squinted under the bright bathroom lights, rubbing an eye with her wrist as she walked up to the sink beside him and started her own morning routine. “Mmm… Womp womp. Why though?”
“Need it to get a gas mask seal,” he stated flatly, focusing on the task at hand.
The technician stopped momentarily, the gears turning in her head before she gave him a downcast frown. “You’re still set on going for the vehicle bay? You know we can just send some long-range drones out there, right?”
His short exhale echoed throughout the tiled room. The engineer closed his eyes, already mentally withdrawn from the conversation. They've had this discussion twice now. “It’s to be better prepared for any chemical, biological, or radiological surprises that might come up—not just for the excursion. Even more importantly, there’s no guarantee the module is in perfect shape. If I’m there in person, I’ll have the means to get through anything for those blueprints. Plus, it should only be four days, so the only issues we have are my beard and finding a way to protect the Malkrin from the radiation while we’re out.”
Tracy looked like she wanted to say something back, but bit her lip and cast her eyes down at the sink in front of her, twisting the knob before mumbling a quiet response. “I don’t think you need to protect them from radiation at all…”
“Hmm?”
She stared at him meekly, his dismissal of her worries having clearly dampened her mood. Guilt tugged at the back of his mind before her words further caught his interest. “I think they’re immune… or resistant or something. Radiation immunity is the whole reason they were sent here. You’ve added up the pieces together too, right?”
He stared down at her, running a hand through his hair with tired exasperation depressing his voice. “Tracy, I’ve been trying my hardest to just make it another day on this God-forsaken planet, not dig into their religion. So, no. I have not spent the time to add up the pieces. Enlighten me, please.”
“…S-Sorry. I just, you know, get a lot of time to think when working on drones, and Cera has been drawing all kinds of representations of these things.” Tracy paused, gesturing toward the engineer. “Okay, so you remember the whole backstory for why the Malkrin are on the mainland in the first place?”
“Pseudo-eugenics?” he commented dryly.
“Yeah.” She nodded, a sense of excitement leaking into her voice. “And what were the parameters of banishing someone?”
“Not getting sick from a rock.”
She eyed him feverishly, brows raised with a sudden zeal. “Aaaaand that rock represented the Sky Goddess’ wrath, which did what?”
“Uhhh…” He looked upward in thought, recalling his conversation with the paladin. “I think Shar mentioned nausea, vomiting, blisters, skin melting… off…” He froze, the pieces forming. “Wait, you don’t think…”
“I do. Those symptoms could mean a lot of things, but the anomaly field was the real kicker. You know that Shar just straight up didn’t have any lingering radiation effects or anything while you were nearly put… six feet under…” Her voice quieted momentarily, the speed of her speech outpacing her train of thought. “Sorry. Um… so, I was gonna say that she, uh, I mean the scanner mentioned she had damage from ‘alpha particles’ on her skin, but nothing else happened to her organs or anything.”
Harrison squinted at her for a moment, mouth slightly opened and prepared to give some alternative reasoning besides ‘immunity.’ Maybe her armor protected her from it? No… she didn’t even have full protection, radiation would have certainly gotten around her eyes or snout. What about her height? What if… No.
He didn’t just want to believe that somehow the Malkrin could just evade a force of nature, but he didn’t have any way of proving or disproving it on hand… Well, no humane way of testing it.
“I… guess?” the engineer grumbled, rubbing his eyes. “Even then, they still need armor and gas masks. The worst part of the radiation isn’t even the ionizing part. It’s the trace elements that get into your lungs and decay there. So it doesn’t hurt to use some CBRN filters.”
“Fair… but it’s interesting, isn’t it?” Tracy beamed. “Like, what kind of evolutionary factors lead to radiation immunity? Why do only some of the Malkrin have it and others don’t?”
The only real cause of radiation he could think of would be a massive nuclear proliferation of some sort. Maybe the anomalies? He ran a hand through his hair, pushing the lingering thoughts away. “I wouldn’t know. You could always ask Sebas to bring up some papers about it or generate some theories when you get the chance.”
“I probably will at some point… Maybe while I’m working.” She poked him in the bicep. “You’re still helping me with the mule, right?”
He bobbed his head, loose beard hairs itching up his chin. “Sure am. Gimme a bit to shave and test the fifty-cal ammo, then I’ll be free to assist.”
“Kay Kay.” The tradeswoman smiled and returned to the sink, washing her face.
- - - - -
“What the hell did you do to your shield?” a stunned Harrison asked the paladin, his face scrunching up in concern… and confusion.
Sharky proudly held up her once grungy orange shield with a smile, looking at its new… paint job? “Artificer Tracy has s—n to imbue my bulwark with the crest of the Sky Goddess herself! Observe the b—utiful wings that cover it!”
The engineer had just got back from setting up and overseeing the automated mule’s first excursion to the mine and back. It was a grueling task, requiring him to reset its pathing several times before it was able to make a round trip without input. Now, the maroon-skinned Malkrin in front of him had apparently gotten her massive aegis laser imprinted with crossing wings in the two hours or so he’d been gone. The areas between the black feather decals were colored with white and blue paints, contrasting with the new dark gray background.
A small weight was placed on his shoulder, Tracy’s forearm suddenly appearing atop it despite her being nearly a foot shorter than him. She beamed, staring up at him with all-too-proud eyes. “The scout regiment symbol looks good on it, right? Cera helped me with the laser engraving.”
“I…” His brows raised in perplexity. “The scout regiment?”
She shrugged, watching the paladin observe her shield from all sorts of different angles underneath the workshop’s light fixtures. “From an anime I used to watch. Men and women who were sent out to battle against massive titans for the greater good of the last settlement of humanity. Somewhat fitting, and fuckin’ awesome on her big-ass shield! Matches the bird’s wings on her armor too.”
He loudly sighed. “You wasted materials on imprinting wings on Shar’s shield? Really?”
“Hey!” Her brows furrowed into faux-annoyance, a smug grin betraying it. “It’s not a waste if you were never gonna use the paint we had on hand. Plus, we’ve got energy to spare with all the wind turbines and power cells you’ve been printing out.”
“Those paints probably could have been used for important designations… or something…” he grumbled.
“Doesn’t matter.” She stuck her tongue out at him. “Anyway, want me to put some scary teeth or something on that big ‘ol fist-sized muzzle break on your shotgun?”
“No?” he took an incredulous step away from her, letting her arm fall off his shoulder and to her side.
“It’s okay to admit you’re jealous of Shar’s awesome decals, bro,” Tracy teased, her smugness growing tenfold. “No need to get defensive.”
He groaned, figuring there wasn’t a point in staying to bicker with the tradeswoman, leaving the two vanity-focused females to their devices. He still had to figure out how to fabricate armor and gas masks for the Malkrin and himself.
“Hey! Where ya goin?” the technician called out, clearly disappointed that he hadn’t indulged in her taunts.
“Work.”
Short taps against the hard floor sounded out as she caught up to him. She leaned forward and curiously looked up at him as she walked, holding her hands behind the small of her back. “What kind? Can I help?”
“Just need to take some measurements and compare options. Right… Speaking of which.” He turned around and cupped his palms around his mouth. “Hey Shar! Get over here, I need your help!”
The addressed Malkrin perked up, snapping out of the small haze of admiring her new shield and happily making her way toward him. She stood at attention, her tail oscillating side to side. “What n—d do you have of me?”
“Just a quick task,” he briefed her, grabbing some measuring tape from his desk… that Tracy had decided was her new chair. He sighed and turned his attention back to the paladin. “Can I bother you to lean down for a few seconds while I take some measurements?”
“Of course. Pl—se, take your time.” She stepped forward and kneeled, her head brought down to his height. Her face wore that simple content look he was growing all too accustomed to by now—slightly vibrating frills, a little curl upward of her lips, and warmly glowing eyes.
He wasted no time getting to work, noting down the various distances around her jaws, snout, eyes, and ears, already piecing together how he could cobble together some gas mask designs to fit the dimensions. She sat there quietly, sometimes leaning into the accidental head scratches adorably. It contrasted heavily with the cold-sweat-inducing layers of razor-sharp teeth within her muzzle as he measured the angle her maw opened at, bringing an idle curiosity prodded his mind.
“Say, Shar, do your teeth grow back if they fall out?” he poked, absently observing the dozens of triangular bone protrusions in her mouth as he held the underside of her jaw.
“They do,” she confirmed, the way she was able to speak despite not moving her mouth still messing with his head. “Do y—rs not?”
“Nope. Only once.”
She attempted to tilt her head, but quickly returned it when it left the embrace of his palm. “Only once?”
He nodded. “Yeah, sometime a few years after birth. They’re replaced with the teeth I have now. Don’t get any new ones, so we gotta take care of ‘em.”
“Birth?” The Malkrin’s eyes widened. “You were not cr—ted as you are now?”
A shock of stress poured down his spine like a bucket of ice water, raising the hairs on his back. Fuck. How did he let that slip? He was supposed to have just appeared from the sky to her, right…? He was doing so well for so long in keeping that in. God, had he really gotten so comfortable with the paladin that he simply forgot what he was to her? His teeth clenched, a huff of air escaping his nostrils as he lightly shook his head. It was a bit too late to backtrack. It could be explained vaguely and brushed off, right?
“Yeah. I was born,” he affirmed flatly. His hand dropped away from Shar’s muzzle, her head falling an inch or two before she registered that she couldn’t keep leaning into his touch. “That’s it for measurements, so you’re free to leave.”
A frown carved through her small smile. “I… See… F—give me if I have brought up someth—g improper.”
His exhalation burned through his frustration at himself, his hand running through his hair to wash away the spike of anxiety. “You’re fine. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Th-Then I shall take my leave,” the massive alien stated softly.
He nodded, feeling a little regretful for pushing the kindhearted Malkrin away as he shuffled back to his desk. Tracy was still sitting atop it, giving him a disappointed reaction with low brows, forcing a pointed reaction from him. “What?”
The technician took a long inhale before shrugging. “Nothin’.”
“…Alright.”
The rolling chair squeaked lightly as he rested himself, his hands already going through the motions of opening the computer and the blueprint folders. There were plenty of tabs open of sensors and motor assemblies he hadn’t closed from the previous night. That wasn’t even mentioning the pile of notes he had on proper radio-protective methods, their corners bent from his frequent flipping through them.
“Soooo…” The short black-haired woman leaned forward from her perch atop the only clear part of his desk. “Can I help you with your ‘comparing options’ work, mister busyman?”
“Sure…” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, raising a brow. “How much do you know about armor?”
- - - - -
“No way. The back support is a must, so you can have extra plating over your shoulders and chest.” Tracy pointed out from her seat beside Harrison’s, all but forcing him to pause his Malkrin gas mask designing to give her argument his full attention.
He calmly took his hands off the mouse and keyboard. “A back support needs leg assistants, which means I’ll need to have at least a fifteen pound battery pack somewhere. Those kinds of exosuits are either all in or not at all. You can go full armor and engine, or lightweight protection and simple limb support.”
“So you’re just gonna go out there with normal armor? Just run-of-the-mill plates and gear? Those fucking things would go through that shit like butter! I know we can’t make synthetic muscle yet, but at least consider wearing something a bit more. Please. Even Sharky has heavy armor!”
Harrison pinched the bridge of his nose, his brows furrowed. “Do I look like a several-hundred kilogram monster of pure muscle to you? I’m more than willing to put on a few extra kilos for protection, but I’m trying to weigh the pros and cons of putting on more armor rather than more equipment. I’d rather fifty pounds of magazines and ammo than fifty pounds of armor. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah yeah… You and your storage space…” she mumbled, swiping through a few more images on her data pad when a familiar Mars-pattern suit showed up, catching his eye.
“Hey, wait, pull that one up…”
She rotated the tablet for him to see a little better—despite already being shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “This one? What’s so special about it?”
He analyzed the few pieces of equipment on screen, noting the rusty-orange and tan color scheme, the old Martian-American flag attached to its breastplate, and the iconic quad-nod integrated helmet. “Holy shit,” he whispered. “That’s… We have that in our blueprints?”
She raised a brow, clearly confused. “Whaddya mean?”
“That’s an Orbital Drop Ranger’s standard kit,” he stated slowly, a simmering sense of awe bubbling up—why the hell was it in their blueprints folder? “It was used during the Sino-Venusian incursion of southern Mars. It still has the Old Earth American flag embedded into it, so you know it’s pre twenty-two-hundred C.E.”
“Oh shit… Pre-St.Loual’s construction? This is ancient, then, huh? Would it be any good?” She leaned in closer to him, eying the tablet further.
“Does it have the assembly view of the armored pieces?”
“Mmhmm.” She tapped a few icons, showing an isometric, exploded view of all the parts and their individual components.
It was a piece of history alright. The armor was produced just about the time when Mars was connecting their orbital stations and ground colonies to work in tandem, allowing for specialized forces to be trained in space and launched anywhere across the planet from drop pods in mere minutes, leading to common nickname of ‘Minutemen’ given to the troopers. The suits were expertly designed to withstand the harsh environments of Mars and give the soldiers the ability to engage with enemy combatants for several days before extraction, though the adept units usually completed their objectives within twenty-four hours of their landing.
The helmet was very angular and blended in with the expected rocky terrain of Mars, each component taking on a sloped frontal design with rectangular prisms flowing behind—radio, breathing apparatus, and vision modules all sharing a sleek, yet bulky look in their own right. It reminded him of some in-atmosphere ships, with the overhanging visor above the quad-nod viewport being the only non-aerodynamic pieces.
The chest and legs were a bit different, following the design of late twenty-second-century operators with tan lightweight rigs, and ammunition pouches alongside armored plates that ran from the shoulders to wrists in segments. There was a rusty-orange undersuit beneath it all for the purpose of keeping air in, which required some sturdy polymer structures to ensure it didn’t rip. Then, of course, there were the classic shock-absorbing leg supports. They weren’t too far off what Tracy was asking about earlier, but these ones didn’t provide any assistance in moving with any motors—just straight-up structural reinforcements.
Hell, the blueprints on screen even had the mag-grip gloves used to scale domes, buildings, and satellites alike. There was no doubt that the Orbital Drop Rangers had some of the coolest equipment on Mars, especially considering that it was the last to keep the ‘operator’ look… It was such a shame the government decided the orb-like helmets and rounded bubble armors were more effective.
“Hey, you know what?” he asked the technician, a shot of excitement in his voice. “This might actually work out as a suitable armor replacement.”
She perked up, her brows raised. “Oh? Actually?”
He shrugged, trying to play off the smirk plastered on his face. “Wouldn’t need a horrible amount of changes to work for our purposes. Just need to remove the oxygen converter on the back and put a gas mask replacement in the front portion of the helmet. Plus, we could probably get rid of the airtight aspect and just keep the undersuit for scratch protection. And, most importantly, it’s radio-protective.”
“Meets all your criteria, then?” She tapped through some UI interfaces, sending the armor assembly to Harrison’s monitor, which he accepted quickly.
“Sure does.” He readily clicked through the different parts and systems to differentiate what needed to be kept. “We have the resources for it, and all it needs is a layer of cadmium plus a few replacements. Definitely doesn’t need the heads-up display since there’s nothing for it to interact with either, so that’ll save on print time and materials too. Shame I cut up the beard… the Orbital Drop Rangers were allowed to have some cool ones.”
The tradeswoman scooted in even closer, practically resting her chin on his shoulder and watching him sift through the working parts. “Yeah, rest in peace, beard. Still, your armor situation is solved. What about the Malkrin?”
“I’ll be working on their gas masks, then I was thinking I’d use another one of your modeled armors for their protection since they’ve helped Shar a hell of a lot. Do you have any recommendations?”
“Mmmmm…” She looked up in thought, a smile forming along her cheeks. “You know, until we can make them any real power armor, I was thinking just some regular phobos-pattern armor. Could color ‘em based on their skin too.”
“Phobos-pattern armor?” he hummed to himself, clicking through the folder to find it. It was just as bulky as Shar’s armor, except it appeared a good bit smoother, with more rounded edges compared to her horns-and-spike-lined gauntlets and pauldrons. The blue suit Tracy was proposing didn’t have the four-armed protection compared to the chaos version, but it certainly had the same thickness of its metal plates. “Looks like it’d work pretty well. Does it have any electric components or anything?”
“No…” she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Not so good with designing that stuff in the modeling program I did the WarHarberd stuff in. Could add in more sophisticated leg support or whatever if you gave me time, but for now it’s just maneuverable slabs of alloy.”
“I think that’s all we need for the time being.” He shrugged. “I just don’t want the others to be vulnerable to getting cut up by the little spider-crab grunts.”
“As long as it works for what we need, then.” Her elbow poked into his arm. “Here, how about I take care of that armor stuff while you finish up the gas masks? They need the extra arm slots too, yeah?”
“I’d actually appreciate that a lot.” He offered her a back-palm fist bump, to which she eagerly took, taking on a grin that he mirrored. “Thanks, Trace.”
“Don’t mention it. I wish work was always just doing my hobbies like this.”
\= = = = =
A grand pylon of metal construction taller than the mightiest female’s frills stood atop the beach. Blue-scaled surfaces extended near the foot of the tower, gathering the power of the sun itself. The lattice layering upon their sides hid the weaving wires and Goddess-blessed machinery. A staff the same as Shar’khee’s peeked from its top, the glass eye on its side given a wide view of the sandy environment it resided on, the defense it now provided becoming absolute. The aura it exuded as a creature of pure metal was awe-inspiring, its mere presence a showing of Harrison’s might and domain.
No abhorrent would dare step foot upon the meadow’s rolling hills, for such a mistake would ensure their immediate execution for encroaching upon his settlement—the ‘fifty-cal-e-bur’ bullet is not one to rend any beast with only simple injuries, especially with three hundred of them available at once.
The maroon-skinned paladin treaded up the hill, having completed her task of setting up the last turret. The craftsman, the juvenile, and the lumberjack had also assisted with its setup, pulling their weight in both mind and muscles to piece the components together. They completed a few others around the modules already, but this one was done without the star-sents’ oversight. The four Malkrin had practiced and learned enough to be entrusted with such.
The idea of Harrison having enough confidence in them sparked much conviction in the group, each of them more than eager to prove him right—none more so than Shar’khee herself, of course.
She finally returned to the workshop, the sun’s last rays pressing into the back of her head and frills as she crouched beneath the doorway, a small gnawing hunger for dinner digging within her stomach. The cacophony of machines soon reached her ears, the sounds of their efforts almost working in tandem with the strange melodic music playing from an unseen source above her.
Tracy was in her corner, working on new beings of metal as always. The bright lights above were turned off in favor of smaller, warmer emplacements atop her surrounding circle of desks. A hard worker, that star-sent was, though both of them were like that, the paladin supposed. Their kind was certainly intent on keeping their hands busy.
Shar’khee passed through the snakes of machines, finding her way to Harrison’s desk with an increasingly strong sway in her tail. He was working with a black object with light gray accents. It appeared to be partially flexible, yet firm in other places—notably, a large glass fixture on one side of it. There was very little she could make out about its purpose, but with the delicate touches he applied, it appeared to be quite important.
Her tongue clicked twice, garnering the attention of the Creator. He paused his work, swiveling his chair to face her and revealing a long blue-leaf jutting from his mouth. Her male appeared quite tired, but his voice did not show it.
“Oh, Shar, what’s up? Did y’all need any help with the last turret?”
She shook her head. “We do not n—d such, for it is completed. Would you care to join me for din—r? The rest of the settlem—t is enjoying their meals as of now. ”
He raised his brows before looking back at the myriad of notes, tools, and materials atop his cluttered desk. “Well, I’m kinda busy, but…” His jaw rolled around in contemplation. “Here. Let’s just test this thing real quick.”
Her head tilted. “What sh—l we be testing?”
“Your gas mask… er, well, a Malkrin gas mask. Kneel down real quick, I’ll run ya through putting it on.” He stepped off his chair and grabbed the equipment, uncomfortably rotating his shoulders. How long was he sitting on that chair? The male approached her and she did as requested. “I had the sewist help me with some of the design. Never considered you guys would ever wear hats.”
She nodded. “It is unh—lthy for one to have their frills touched by the sun for so long. Adequate shade is a must, and trees are not so p—valent along farm land.”
“Mmhmm. Shame this is just a mask… Alright, this might be a bit uncomfortable, but it’ll do the job.”
He stepped forward and slipped the black apparel onto her snout, pushing it over her face until it pressed against the sides of her head. A cool material rubbed against her skin, locking her into its embrace. It was encapsulating, surrounding her wholly.
Her breaths strengthened as she allowed the mask to cover her, a short shock of nervousness riding down her spine. She was only now registering how vulnerable she was, allowing him to possibly suffocate her… but she stayed put, keeping her four palms rested within her lap as he continued to apply the straps around her ears. She would allow it. She trusted him with her life. She would not falter.
The cords around the back of her head were tight, a few of which went along both sides of her frills, pushing up against their sides. He kept going, ensuring a ‘seal,’ but it was getting much too—
Pop.
A lightning bolt of pain rolled throughout the top of her head, sending her reeling. It stung for the briefest of moments, but its effects rebounded through her entire body, short sparks pulsing from its origin. She felt nothing but its agonizing hold for several more moments as the rest of her body caught up.
When her eyes opened once more, she found herself on the floor and staring at the ceiling. The star-sent rushed to her side, appearing to ask many questions while looking over her head, but all she heard was a piercing ring and the gruff vocalization he made whenever he shared his intent. No words reached her mind, only the now faint phantom pains from where her frills met her skull. It put everything in a haze, her eyes barely settling on her dearest’s, despite how nauseous she had become.
His deft hands quickly worked to loosen the straps, practically ripping them off until his voice suddenly reached her, like breaching the surface of the water. His voice was deep, attempting to be calculating, yet despite his calmly created stoic demeanor… she could feel his panic, his sheer worry almost flooding her senses through practiced medical queries. She slowly sat up on the floor, holding herself with two arms while the other pair quelled the kneeling male, assuring him that she was alright with their weight resting atop his shoulders.
“I am well, dearest Harrison. Do not fret for me. The straps were simply too tight.”
His anxious breaths barely slowed, narrowly allowing for his exclamation. “Too tight? Shar, you practically blacked out!”
“Too tight upon my frills, I mean. There was a pain there for a few moments, but it has passed,” she returned calmly, softly kneading his stiff shoulders with the joints of her digits.
He exhaled sharply, matching her gaze with regret in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Shar. I should’ve known. I was just trying to see how…” He paused, resting his palm atop her forearm. “Nevermind. I just… Are you alright? Should I get you to the med bay for a quick scan?”
“I do not believe that to be necessary, no.”
His guard finally fell. “If… If you say so. Guess I have to redo the straps then. Definitely gotta make sure they’re not pressing on your frills like that.”
She smiled, appreciating his dedication. “Would you like my assistance?”
“As long as you don’t have anything else to do.” He shrugged, his shoulders barely moving upward against her massaging hands.
“There is no greater wish of mine than to be by your side,” she stated warmly.
He was frozen, the soft ministrations of his digits along her arm slowly stopping in contrast to the red flush growing from his cheeks to his ears. The crack of a smirk on his face finally with a short, heart-warming chuckle brought the statue back to life after a few moments. “You know… that’s probably the sweetest thing I’ve heard for years.”
Her brows raised in subtle surprise at his response. “It… was not intended to be such… However… you are more than welcome. You must understand by now that I am speaking only the truth.”
The two of them sat there in relative silence amongst the desks and machines; her half laying on the ground with her hands on his shoulder, and him on his knees by her side, a singular hand running up and down her comparatively large forearm. She felt… weak, in a way. A vibrating sensation rummaged through her stomach, attempting to pull her muscles and nerves astray.
It was warm, just like his palm, each motion of his hand sending lightning through her skin. The upward curl of her lips into her cheeks was suddenly an insurmountable force, incapable of being put down by a thousand females. There was a tear within her to either look away or… close the distance, and she suddenly found looking anywhere but his curious green eyes to be a waste of her time.
Her talons wrapped further around his shoulders and his back, ever so slightly bringing him into her embrace—
“A-HEM.” A voice cut the moment down to its knees. “The fuck happened here?” Tracy’s swift interjection caused the paladin to flinch backwards, allowing her to see that Harrison’s other hand had been hovering right beneath her snout. The female star-sent wore a furrowed brow and crossed arms, looking down at them. “I heard a crash and came over. Are you two alright?”
Harrison cleared his throat, ever-so-subtly scooting away from the paladin. “Uh, yeah. Shar fell because, um, I tied the gas mask a lil’ too tight.”
The artificer wore an expression that told of her disbelief. “She fell because of the gas mask?”
“It was something with her frills.” The male returned with a shrug, picking himself off the floor before offering the paladin a hand up.
She took it, despite not requiring it, and wiped off some loose dust from her pants. The three of them quickly returned to work soon after, with both her and the black-haired star-sent joining Harrison in his quest to produce the gas mask. She was much less… What did the Creator call it? Bubbly? Yes, that was it. She was much less bubbly than usual, sometimes sending a cold yet emotionless glare toward Shar’khee… Nevertheless, the two females offered input on the design and applied help where they could, eventually creating the final piece of equipment.
Tracy commented on its looks, apparently drawing inspiration from the Leviathan itself, as she believed it to be like that of a ‘Sea Dragon’s.’ The maw-covering portion held two cylindrical canisters on the adjacent sides, the bottom portion being capable of distention, so that the user’s mouth may open somewhat. Its motion created what the female star-sent believed to be ‘the coolest teeth design on a mask’ she’d ever seen with how the separation formed alternating triangles.
The monster-like appearance was furthered by her own frills and horns that peeked out from behind the mask. That was not even mentioning the see-through visor that formed a malicious glare of sharp brows. The paladin looked through a hand-held mirror, finding it difficult to disagree with the look. She could imagine the horror on a fisherwoman’s face as such a terrifying creature approached from the depths.
And yet, despite its nightmarish visage, it was apparel designed to save lives, not take them—much unlike the unassuming metal rods that spewed fire with a mere flick of a lever. Curious indeed. The star-sents were seemingly never out of surprises. They even spoke of grand robots and firearms larger than Shar’khee herself as possible future projects.
Only time could tell what machinations of alloy would be birthed from their hands.
- - - - -
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Deadlift stances can make a significant impact on your exercise performance, comfort, safety, and results. Choosing the proper stance for your body type and athletic level is essential for getting the most out of your deadlift.
But the question is, how wide should you stand, where should you place your feet, and which areas of your body will be most affected depending on your choice? Let’s find out.
What is impact of deadlift stances? Deadlift stances determine the type of exercise you’ll get. Wide stance deadlifts have a shorter range of motion (ROM) and hit different muscle groups than a typical narrow stance deadlift. Experimenting with different deadlift stances can diversify your workout and help you hit new goals.
What Is Deadlift Stance (Why Is Important, What Does It Affect)
Deadlift stances refer to the foot placement and leg position when performing a deadlift exercise and its variations. In general, we categorize them under narrow or wide stance deadlifts.
Even slightly altering between different deadlift stances can noticeably change the overall exercise dynamic. The deadlift stance width is an important point of consideration. This affects several exercise aspects, including the range of motion, the amount of weight you can lift, the primary muscle groups targeted, the distribution of forces throughout your body, your center of gravity, and even the risk of injury.
A wider stance typically has a shorter range of motion than a close stance deadlift. This can give you more leverage with your hips, but it also forces you to lean forward more during the initial portion of the exercise, which can impact your balance and stability. Meanwhile, a narrower deadlift has a longer range of motion, but it starts in a more upright position and will target your quads and posterior chain more.
Your deadlift feet position can change which muscles you’re working out, too. For example, if your toes are straight, such as with a conventional deadlift, you should feel more “burn” in your quads and hamstrings. Meanwhile, if you point out with your toes at a larger angle, such as with a Sumo deadlift, you will be using your hips and adductors more.
Finally, it’s important to note that a wider stance may put more stress on your hips and lower back, while a narrower stance puts more stress on the knees and quads. Keep this in mind so you can adjust your stance to better fit your workout goals and your physical health.
WBCM Deadlift Exercise
Where Should You Feel Deadlifts?
Based on the targeted muscle groups, the area where you should feel deadlifts hit the most is your posterior chain. This primarily includes your lower back, glutes, and hamstrings. Additionally, you should also experience activation in your quadriceps, core muscles, and calves during various stages of the lift. Lastly, since grip strength is a crucial part of deadlifts, you can expect to feel robust muscle activation in the lower arm – particularly your forearms and fingers- especially during an olympic bar deadlift.
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What Is The Difference Between Common Deadlift Stances?

1. Conventional Deadlift Stance

The conventional or standard deadlift stance is the most fundamental and widely used variation of this exercise, making it a staple in many strength training programs. Beginner lifters typically start with this stance, so it should be familiar to you if you’ve done deadlifts before. Although this is considered the most basic variation of deadlift stances, it’s by no means easier than the others and requires practice to perform correctly and safely.
To assume a conventional deadlift stance, you first need to stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, although some athletes may opt for a slightly wider or narrower stance depending on their body shape and size. During this stance, your feet should be pointing forward under a slight outward angle of no more than 10-15 degrees, which you’re free to adjust based on your foot size and comfort.
How to Do A Conventional Deadlift Correctly
The conventional deadlift stance targets muscles in the lower body and posterior chain, including the glutes, hamstrings, and lower back. As you lift the barbell off the ground, you should feel the tension build in your hamstrings and glutes. As the bar passes your knee point and your upper body starts to rise, the tension should transfer over to your core and lower back. At the height of the exercise, also known as the lockout phase, you should feel weight distributed throughout the entire body.

1. Sumo Deadlift

The Sumo deadlift stance is a popular variation of the deadlift exercise. To assume the sumo deadlift stance width, you need to stand with your feet at or slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, with your toes pointing outward at an angle of roughly 45 degrees. This stance requires greater mobility in the hips, groin, and ankles, which can make it more challenging than a conventional stance depending on your mobility and flexibility.
The sumo deadlift stance targets many of the same muscles as the conventional deadlift, including the glutes, hamstrings, and lower back, but also puts more emphasis on the adductors and quadriceps. However, thanks to an overall shorter range of motion (ROM) compared to conventional deadlifts, it puts less stress on the back and more on the hips and knees, making it a preferred compound exercise for lower body development.
HOW TO SUMO DEADLIFT ft. Larry
As you lift the bar off the ground in a sumo stance, you should feel the tension build in your adductors and quads. As the bar passes your knee point and your upper body starts to rise, the tension should transfer over to your glutes, hamstrings, and lower back. At the lockout phase, the weight should feel evenly redistributed throughout the entire body, just like in the conventional deadlift stance.

1. Deficit Deadlift Stance

The Deficit deadlift is a variation of the conventional deadlift that requires standing on a raised platform, usually 2-4 inches high, to increase the range of motion for the exercise. This increased range of motion demands more force when lifting the barbell, making the exercise more challenging and recruiting additional muscle fibers in the legs and back.
Research indicates that deficit deadlifts can help improve strength and muscle activation in the lower body, particularly in the hamstrings, glutes, and erector spinae muscles. Additionally, the increased range of motion can help improve mobility and flexibility in the ankles, knees, and hips. However, this variation is better suited for experienced lifters who are well-versed in deadlift variations.
Deficit Deadlift
To perform a deficit deadlift, simply find a 2-4 inch elevated surface to stand on. Most lifters you see doing this variation either stand on the edge of their lifting platform or use a thick weight plate. Place the barbell on the floor below you and simply perform a regular olympic bar deadlift from this elevated position.

1. Squat Stance Deadlift

The last variation worth mentioning is the Squat stance deadlift. This is an emerging term for an exercise that’s not yet widely recognized, although it has its advocates in both coaching and physiotherapy. As the name suggests, the exercise requires you to perform a deadlift from a squat stance, which means standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, with toes pointing very slightly outward.
DEADLIFTS MADE BETTER!!!! Squat Stance Deadlift
The overall stance, including the exercise’s range of motion and impact on the body, is practically identical to the Sumo stance. However, due to the forward-pointing toes, the Squat stance deadlift requires a greater amount of mobility in the hips, knees, and ankles, increasing the overall risk of injury in these areas. This makes it difficult to recommend for most people over Sumo deadlifts. That said, it’s worth mentioning simply because anatomy varies from person to person, so it may be worth trying to see if it works better for you than a typical Sumo stance.
How To Choose The Deadlift Stance (Factors To Consider When Choosing The Stance For You)
The last variation worth mentioning is the Squat stance deadlift. This is an emerging term for an exercise that’s not yet widely recognized, although it has its advocates in both coaching and physiotherapy. As the name suggests, the exercise requires you to perform a deadlift from a squat stance, which means standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, with toes pointing very slightly outward.
The overall stance, including the exercise’s range of motion and impact on the body, is practically identical to the Sumo stance. However, due to the forward-pointing toes, the Squat stance deadlift requires a greater amount of mobility in the hips, knees, and ankles, increasing the overall risk of injury in these areas. This makes it difficult to recommend for most people over Sumo deadlifts. That said, it’s worth mentioning simply because anatomy varies from person to person, so it may be worth trying to see if it works better for you than a typical Sumo stance.
WBCM Deadlifting Athlete
How Much Can The Average Man And Woman Deadlift?

1. Muscle Engagement

Deadlifts tend to hit the same primary muscle groups regardless of the variation.
That said, altering between deadlift feet position and stances changes up the total ROM, letting you put more emphasis on certain muscle groups. As previously discussed, the longer ROM stances – such as the conventional or deficit deadlift – target the posterior chain to a greater degree. Meanwhile, shorter ROM stances, like the Sumo or Squat deadlift, are better at targeting the lower body, particularly the hips and adductors.

1. Athlete Size

Research suggests that one of the most important factors to consider when choosing your deadlift stance width is your shape and size. According to the study, athletes with larger body sizes and longer limbs tend to feel more comfortable with deadlift stance variations that have a larger range of motion, such as the conventional or deficit deadlift. On the other hand, athletes with shorter limbs and a shorter torso relative to their limb length find the shorter range of motion stances, like the Sumo or Squat stance, more comfortable.

1. Personal Health

The most comfortable deadlift feet position for you may depend on your personal health, such as your injury history and chronic pain. When selecting your stance, keep in mind that a wide leg deadlift generates more force from the hip and knee area and puts less stress on your back, while the opposite is true for narrow deadlifts. Based on your medical history, it should be easy to determine which is best for you, however, consulting a doctor or physical therapist is always a good idea.
WBCM Deadlift Workout

1. Fitness Level

Your overall fitness level may play a role in determining which deadlift stance is best suited for you. For beginners, it is recommended to start with a standard close stance deadlift to learn the proper exercise technique and familiarize themselves with their maximum weight.
Experienced athletes can experiment with various deadlift stances to find what works best for them. However, their joint mobility, particularly in the hips, knees, and ankles, can impact their ability to assume the correct starting position. If someone has limited mobility, they may need to adjust their stance to compensate.
Deadlift Stance Common Mistakes

1. Barbell Distance

In a proper deadlift stance, the barbell should be directly over the midfoot during the starting position, and even lightly touching or grazing your shins as you lift it up. Placing the bar too far from your legs during your initial stance will require greater power output from your lower back, which is a common reason for deadlift injury.

1. Back Arching

Another common mistake when lifting dead weight is not maintaining a straight spine. If you need to arch your back to reach the barbell when assuming the starting position, then the stance you are attempting may not be adequate for your current mobility and flexibility level.
WBCM Deadlifting Correct Stance

1. Hip Height

To assume a proper deadlift stance, it is essential to position your hips at the right height. If you place your hips too high, generating power from them will become challenging, and your back will bear most of the initial load. This can result in difficulty lifting the weight and may lead to injury. On the other hand, if you place your hips too low, you will create a longer range of motion, placing stress on your lower back and hamstrings, and making the lift more challenging.
Therefore, the ideal height level of your hips for your body size is slightly above your knees. This position helps keep your back straight while aligning your shoulders, palms, and feet correctly. Proper alignment will help ensure that you can generate power from your hips while maintaining good form, reducing the risk of injury and allowing for safely and effectively lifting dead weight.
WBCM Deadlifting Stance Review
Should Your Deadlift Stance And Squat Stance Be The Same?
No, the deadlift and squat are two separate exercises with distinct objectives. In a regular squat, a wider stance is adopted to enable the hips to move downwards to or below knee level and then upwards again, all the while maintaining an upright torso position and keeping your balance. Conversely, in deadlifts, the hips remain at a relatively similar level and only flex forward and backward, while the torso sways back and forth.
That said, there is a hybrid exercise called the squat stance deadlift. However, this wide leg deadlift stance is unique and has its own purpose, as discussed above. In general, your standard deadlift and squat stances won’t be the same.
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FAQ
What Is Better Conventional VS Sumo Deadlift Stance?
The conventional and Sumo deadlift overlap in terms of strength development and health benefits. In terms of results, the sumo stance tends to be slightly better at lower body development, while the conventional narrow stance deadlift works your overall posterior chain, particularly the lower back.
More importantly, research suggests that athlete size can also determine the best type of deadlift on a person-to-person basis. According to the study, athletes with lengthier proportions performed better in the conventional deadlift. Conversely, those with shorter proportions showed increased performance in the sumo deadlift.
Where Should You Point Your Toes In Your Deadlift Stance?
During a typical close stance deadlift your toes should be slightly pointed out, no more than a 15-degree angle. This slightly angled toe position creates external rotation at the hips, which helps with stability and explosive power. Additionally, when you point your toes outward you should feel higher muscle activation in the glutes and hamstrings, which are two major muscle groups targeted by deadlift.
During Sumo deadlifts, the ideal toe spread is roughly 45 degrees. This wide leg deadlift stance points the knees and hips outward and allows them to stay in line with your feet and flex naturally, improving your balance, increasing your weight max, and preventing injury.
How Much Can An Average Person Deadlift?
Depending on the individual’s build, a man can typically deadlift anywhere from (77 kg – 131) 170 to 290 pounds when performing a traditional variation of the exercise. The typical average deadlift weight for female is around half of their body weight, while intermediate lifters are able to deadlift approximately 1.5 times their body weight.
In-Depth Deadlift Stance Breakdown - Live Seminar
Conclusion
The deadlift stances you use will determine the type of exercise you will get. Your leg width and foot placement affect the range of motion, targeted muscle groups, maximum capacity, center of balance, force distribution, as well as injury risk. Trying out different deadlift stances can help you find the one most comfortable based on your physical health and preferences.
Wide stance deadlifts reduce the range of motion and increase lower body development, while also reducing stress on the back. Conversely, a narrow stance deadlift has a longer range of motion and puts more exercise focus on the posterior chain.
Do you practice deadlifts as part of your workout routine? If so, which stance do you prefer? Leave a comment to let us know and don’t forget to follow our social media pages where we post lots of valuable fitness content.

When you want to build head-to-toe strength — and you want to look awesome doing it — there are few lifts that can compete with the hardcore nature of the log press. The unstable, unwieldy log bar will have your entire body working in overdrive to clean it off the ground, up your belly and chest, and heft it into the air. Meanwhile, the neutral grips inside the bar allow you to do all of this with your shoulders in a less compromising position than they would be with a barbell lift.
Whether you’re looking to compete in strongman or just to add another strength-building lift to your repertoire, the log press can set you on the right path.
A shirtless, bearded person performs a log press.
Credit: Dmitriy Khitrin / Shutterstock
It’s got a heftier buy-in than a regular barbell press. Whereas barbells typically weigh in at 45 pounds, eight-inch diameter log bars weigh 50 pounds; 10-inch log bars come in closer to 72 pounds; and 12-inch bars get as heavy as 134 pounds. Not for the faint of heart, the log press will not only showcase your strength — it’ll build it, too.
How to Do the Log Press
Benefits of the Log Press
Muscles Worked by the Log Press
Who Should Do the Log Press
Log Press Sets and Reps
Log Press Variations
Log Press Alternatives
Frequently Asked Questions
How to Do the Log Press
Learning the log press may seem intimidating, and not without reason. To lift the 10-inch bar alone, you’ll need to be comfortable pressing over 70 pounds above your head. But if you’ve got that covered, all it takes is a little know-how and a lot of practice.
While strict presses are also possible, this guide discusses a push press version, where you get increased engagement — and loading potential — from your lower body.
Step 1 — Pull the Log Off the Floor
A person wearing pink shorts prepares to deadlift a log implement.
Credit: Worlds Strongest Gay – Rob Kearney / YouTube
Start in a deadlift position, hinged at your hips with bent knees. Position your feet a bit wider than shoulder-width and turn your feet slightly outwards. The log should be touching your shins. Grip the handles and pull your shoulder blades back and down. Drive through your legs to pull the log to your hips.
Form Tip: Tilt the log away from you by driving your wrists forward. You won’t scrape your legs and it’ll be easier to lap the log (see next step) as you can rotate the log into your hips.
Step 2 — Lap the Log
A person wearing pink shorts cleans a log bar into their lap.
Credit: Worlds Strongest Gay – Rob Kearney / YouTube
Once the bar is at hip level, squat down until the bottoms of your thighs are parallel with the floor. The bar should sit on top of your thighs, and your elbows should flare outwards. This position is referred to as, “lapping” the log.
Form Tip: Keep the log pressed firmly against your chest and stomach. If there’s any space between your body and the log, it’ll make the clean more difficult to execute.
Step 3 — Clean the Log
A person wearing pink shorts supporting a strongman log implement in the front rack position
Credit: Worlds Strongest Gay – Rob Kearney / YouTube
Though it’s called a “clean”, cleaning a log is mechanically different than the barbell variation. From the lap position, explosively stand up, driving you hips forward and rolling the log up your stomach and chest. As the log ascends, bring your elbows in and under the implement so that you end up in the front rack position.
Form Tip: You want your elbows up as high as you can get them, which means the bar will needs to sit on your upper chest and press into your neck. It’s not the most comfortable position, but it should last only but a few seconds.
Step 4 — Press Overhead
A person wearing pink shorts locks out a log bar overhead using a jerk technique.
Credit: Worlds Strongest Gay – Rob Kearney / YouTube
There are two primary ways you can lock out the log overhead. First, you can implement a split jerk, where you simultaneously drive the bar under head and dip under it by staggering your legs. The other option is the more standard push press, where you dip down a few inches and then explode up, using that leg drive to lock out your arms.
Form Tip: If you’re new to the log press, we suggest sticking with the push press option as it’s technically easier to master.
Step 5 — Lower With Control
A person wearing pink shorts lowers a log bar to their chest.
Credit: Worlds Strongest Gay – Rob Kearney / YouTube
Lower the log with control so it falls in front of your face (instead of onto your face). Catch the bar on your chest with a generous bend of your knees so your body can absorb the weight. Reset and repeat.
Form Tip: If you’re lifting a max effort press or are completing your last rep of the set, you can drop the log by letting your arms swing down in front of your body and dropping it onto the pads.
Benefits of the Log Press
The benefits of the log press are legion — as are the bragging rights you get when your lifting buddy films you crushing a new log press personal record. It’s not just about building more strength and power, either (though it is about that). The log press also puts your shoulders in a relatively stable position, making this a potentially more accessible form of overhead pressing than barbell pressing for those with shoulder issues.
Massive Pressing Potential
Unlike a barbell, the log bar has neutral grips. Since your shoulders won’t be in such a compromised position — that is, flared outwards — you’ll potentially increase the load you’re able to press by quite a significant sum. You can use that neutral grip to build your overhead strength even more than you could with your shoulders locked into the position a barbell puts them in.
Your body and muscles can therefore become accustomed to moving much bigger weights. As such, when you do go back to the barbell, you may well be able to handle pressing significantly heavier loads.
Full-Body Hypertrophy
The log press may be an overhead press at heart, but it won’t only challenge your shoulders. This move also taps into your triceps, lats, traps, core, and even leg strength in a huge way.
You’ll build muscle across your entire body, particularly your upper body. When training the log press for hypertrophy, you’ll go a bit lighter than you will when you’re going for max strength. But either way, working under such an intense stimulus will challenge your muscles to grow.
More Shoulder-Friendly
Although the log press is an intimidating lift, keep in mind that you’ll be using neutral-grip handles. This means that your shoulders will be in a less compromised position than they are during a barbell press, where your grip is horizontally-oriented. So you can lift even heavier in a position that’s better for your shoulders — a win-win for strength and longevity.
Full-Body Power and Conditioning
If you’re using a push press or jerk to heft the log over head instead of performing a strict press, you’ll need to generate huge amounts of power throughout your entire body. Everything from your toes to your fingertips need to be working together in an explosive fashion to successfully complete this lift.
Because this move requires you to generate so much power throughout your entire body, you’ll get your conditioning work in, too. From pulling and rolling the log bar into the rack position to using a full-body leg drive to lock it out overhead, you’re being both explosive and controlling your form all over your body. With so many moving parts, even one heavy rep can make you breathless — stringing together multiple reps can become a solid part of your conditioning routine.
Muscles Worked by the Log Press
The log press taps into so many different parts of your body. Here are some of the big movers.
Shoulders
Since this is, at the end of the day, an overhead press, your shoulders might be the first thing that comes to your mind with this lift. Sure enough, the log press requires and will develop very strong and stable shoulders.
Triceps
You can’t lock out heavy weights without some pretty powerful, well-developed triceps. In order to not let your triceps become a quick limiting factor to your log press, make sure you’re not neglecting them in the rest of your training.
Traps
In order to support the weight of the log overhead — and to help your shoulders out in the front rack position and with the end of the clean — you need strong traps. Without engaging your traps, you’ll have a difficult time setting up this lift properly and stabilizing it on top.
Lats
As you’re pulling the bar from the floor to your lap and rolling it up your body to set yourself up for the actual press, you’ll need your lats. They’ll help drive the pulling that begins this lift and — as they do in the bench press — will help you stabilize the lift during the pressing part of the movement.
Core
Falling over during your log press would not be optimal, to say the least. To keep your body steady, you’ll need a strong core — which is exactly what the log press will help you develop. Your core will also help you transmit force from your legs to your upper body when you’re using your leg drive to hoist the log bar overhead.
Quads
Finally, the log press will help you develop powerful quads. Sure, they won’t work them to the same extent that barbell squats will, but you’ll still be squatting in unstable conditions to get up into starting position. Then — unless you’re strict pressing — you’ll need your quads to generate a whole lot of power through your leg drive.
Who Should Do the Log Press
The log press doesn’t mess around when it comes to how much power you need to generate to hoist it over your head. With a buy-in weight of at least 50 pounds (for the smallest type of log bar), you need to be able to efficiently translate all your body’s power and strength into pressing prowess. A lot of different kinds of athletes might want to develop exactly that.
Strongwomen and Strongmen
Athletes who compete in strongman competitions will almost certainly want to train with the log press.
Not only is this often a competition lift in itself, but it also has direct carryover into other potential competition lifts, like the monster dumbbell press.
Weightlifters
Weightlifters will likely want to stick to a majority of barbell lifts, since the technique with a barbell is so specific and different from the log pressing technique. However, both competition lifts for weightlifters involve developing tremendous overhead strength and stability. A weightlifter may be looking for strength-building, shoulder-saving variety in their training during the offseason. If so, the log press might be an effective — and fun — way to do so.
Powerlifters
Unlike strongmen and weightlifters, powerlifters don’t overhead press in competition. However, many powerlifters might want to develop their overhead strength in the off-season for well-rounded strength. Overhead work can also help powerlifters develop stronger lats, traps, and shoulders, all of which are important for their big three competition lifts.
Because of the neutral grip provided by the log press, this might be a desirable overhead variation for powerlifters. It’ll be less taxing on your shoulders because of the grip orientation, which is exactly what you might need when you don’t want to set your shoulders up for failure during your bench pressing sessions.
Non-Competitive Gymgoers
You don’t have to be the biggest lifter on the block to benefit from — and enjoy — the log press. If you have access to one in your gym and are able to safely press it overhead, you might benefit a lot from the log press.
Not only will the training variety potentially add a lot of fun to your routine, but learning such a cool lift can be a great confidence-booster that keeps you coming back for more. Additionally, the neutral grip that the log bar provides might be great for non-competitive lifters who are looking for ways to press overhead without compromising their shoulders with horizontally-oriented grips.
Log Press Sets and Reps
Generally speaking, when you’re working with the log press, you’re probably looking to build max strength. That said, the log press has plenty of uses for hypertrophy and even conditioning.
For Max Strength
While you’re still learning the log press, work in the higher rep ranges before trying to max out and work in the lower, strength-building ranges. When you’re ready to develop max overhead strength with the log press, aim for three to five sets of two to five reps. You’ll want the weight to be heavy and approach failure — but make sure you’re able to maintain safe form throughout.
For Building Muscle
When you’re working toward hypertrophy with less involved, lighter lifts, you might be able to push toward failure with rep schemes between six and 12 to 15 reps. But lifting even moderately heavy with a log press might enable you to build a significant amount of muscle using fewer reps.
Because so much of your body is involved and you can move so much weight with this lift, higher rep counts will build muscle but also cross into endurance and conditioning territory. You’ll likely be able to build a hefty amount of muscle with three sets in the five to 10 rep range.
For Conditioning
Because the log press involves your entire body — literally from head to toe — and allows you to lift so heavily, you’re likely to get your heart rate up pretty high. Training the log press for conditioning will help you get stronger and more cardiovascularly fit all at the same time. How you approach this really depends on your experience and overall fitness level.
For some, you might consider eight reps to be more conditioning than you normally integrate into your training. For others, cranking out as many solid reps as possible in 60 seconds would be a more apt form of conditioning.
Log Press Variations
A log bar is such a highly-specific piece of equipment — but that doesn’t mean it can only help you complete one lift. Check out these log press variations to see how you can add even more spice to your log pressing life.
Log Viper Press
If the log press itself isn’t quite enough of a conditioning challenge for you, you might want to try the log viper press on for size. Instead of bringing the log bar back down to the front rack position between each rep, you’ll bring it back down beneath your chest.
Then, you’ll use your hip extension to take the bar in one swift movement over your head to lockout. It’ll look more like a snatch than a push press. This variation involves more hips and even more power than the original version, which you might love if you’re looking to develop as much explosivity as possible.
Strict Log Press
For the log strict press, you’ll be performing a log press — but without any momentum from your lower body. This takes the push or jerk element out of the move, which means you’ll be able to move less weight than you otherwise could.
But just because you’re moving less weight doesn’t mean it’s an inferior move. Being able to strict press build a great deal of core stability, not to mention places an even larger emphasis on your upper body muscles. Sure, they’ll be hefting less weight. However, without assistance from your lower body, it becomes entirely about how much your shoulders and upper body can move on their own.
Block Log Press
Want to eliminate the clean from the move? This way, you can focus solely on upper body strength and power without worrying about the awkwardness of the start of the move. In that case, start with the log on blocks just below your shoulders.
Doing this can serve as a great introduction to the move for beginners who haven’t quite gotten their heads around the awkward clean portion yet. It’s also a great option for advanced lifters who want to load up as heavy as possible for higher reps.
Log Press Alternatives
Don’t have access to a log? Not a problem. There’s another specialty bar that can help you press heavy overhead with a neutral grip. And if your gym doesn’t have any specialty bars to offer, you can still use a good old-fashioned barbell to get the job done.
Swiss Bar Press
While it’s not a log, the Swiss bar has one huge — and hugely important — similarity to the log bar. It comes with neutral grips, too. This means that you’ll be able to move weight overhead with your palms facing each other even if you don’t have access to a log bar.
This preserves the shoulder-saving aspect of the log press while still allowing you to put big weight above you. While it’s still a specialty bar, many gyms are more likely to have a Swiss bar than they are to have a log. In that way, this press is a great alternative for aspiring athletes without access to all the coolest strongman equipment.
Barbell Clean & Jerk
Because the implement is so different, the barbell clean & jerk requires different movement mechanics than the log press. So, it’s not a directly transferable skill. But, being proficient at one can potentially help you develop the body awareness to learn the other.
Plus, the barbell clean & jerk enables you to push a tremendous amount of weight overhead. If you’re looking to push a max amount of weight overhead without access to a log, this lift is an excellent option.
Get Pressing
Looking to compete in strongman and strongwoman events? Learning the log press will be a crucial part of your journey, because you’re likely to come across it as an official event. Even if you don’t have aspirations to compete, you might be looking for a way to push big weight overhead without a punishing shoulder angle. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that this is one of the coolest-looking lifts around.
Frequently Asked Questions
Folks who are just learning strongman and strongwoman lifts often have a lot of questions. And questions are good — they mean you’re paying attention and are more likely to learn what you need to succeed. Here are some questions that a lot of people have about the log press.
Do you need to learn the log press for strongman and strongwoman competitions?
Unlike powerlifting and weightlifting meets — which always feature the same lifts and competition structure — strongman and strongwoman competitions or more unpredictable. They don’t always feature the same lifts and feats of strength. That said, many competitions do feature the log press itself or other overhead variations. So, it’s worth learning if you can.
What if I don’t have access to a log bar?
Maybe you’re trying to compete, or maybe you just want to learn the log press because it looks and feels so darn cool. Whatever your motivations, you don’t have to despair if you don’t have access to the exact equipment the lift calls for.
So many strongman events rely on lifters being able to adapt to moving extremely heavy, extremely awkward implements. If you don’t have access to a log bar, get creative in your training — maybe with a Swiss bar, or maybe with a (sturdy) implement of your own making — to practice getting big weights overhead.
How much do log bars weigh?
That depends. Different log bars have different dimensions and diameters, all of which have their own unique advantages for training. While eight-inch log bars weigh 50 pounds, their 10-inch cousins are closer to 72 pounds. And 12-inch log bars can get as heavy as 134 pounds.
Smaller bars allow you to train with a bigger range of motion. So even though they’re lighter, they might challenge you more since you have to push them through more time under tension due to the larger range of motion.

September 2nd - 07:00 Service to London
The morning commute always felt too early for Simon. Now autumn was rolling in, and the night ate further into the morning, he could barely keep his eyes open. So when he saw it standing across the platform, he was happy to blink and rub his eyes until it was gone.
September 9th - 07:00 Service to London
The same platform, the same spot, shivering. Why had he been this stupid not to bring a jacket? Oxford station was as nondescript as you could get, for a city so beautiful and ancient, it stood out like a big grey concrete thumb. He stood under the canopy sheltering from the rain, sadly it wasn't doing much in the way of protection. Every gust of wind brought icy shards of rain scratching at his face. Looks like he wasn't the only one suffering.
Across from him stood a man. Drenched to the bone, his white shirt clung to him, a tie stained blood red cutting through his torso. With every gust he stood still. Not flinching. Not moving. His eyes locked on Simon. Simon scanned him from head to toe, like a mirror the man responded, tracing his every move. Feeling the rush of a train approaching, Simon took a step back and like a child discovering their legs for the first time, the man stumbled forwards.
Feeling anxious warmth flooded his face, Simon scrambled onto the train. He was safe here. He was safe.
September 16th - 07:00 Service to London
He approached the platform with caution today, yes last week was weird, but it was early and he was tired. When he looked up at the departures the bad mood started. 20 minutes delayed. It was as grey as usual this morning, not raining though, that was a bonus he thought. He stood endlessly scrolling through social media, head locked down. Then he heard it, a high-pitched whistle. His head shot up, and then across from him, there he stood. The same white and red clothed man staring. Simon could feel his heart beating in his throat, his stomach turning in knots. Dark cold eyes were tied to his from across the void of the platform, sucking the warmth from his body. Simon knew he couldn't move, he couldn't bear to watch the man copy him. Breathing heavily he dragged his eyes to the departures, not daring to move a single limb. 3 minutes. He had to hold out for three minutes. He was alone out there, the platform was a lonely headland out at sea, it was just him and the man.
They stayed eyes locked, standing stock still. Simon didn't dare to breathe too heavily. Time was moving, he knew that, but every second was an eternity. Out the corner of his eye he could see a faint light growing brighter and brighter. The train was coming. He would be safe. Then in a split second the man broke his gaze. He was running. His body moved in perfect symmetry flying along the platform, getting closer and closer to the passenger bridge. He can get me. He can get me! Simon's mind was screaming. Alarm bells ringing. The man was getting closer. There was a hollow thud of thunder as the man's feet stormed across the bridge.
The train was pulling in now, its brakes hissing as it glided to a stop. Simon slammed his hand against the button frantically waiting for the doors to slide open, and they did. Inviting him into the warm comfort of the carriage. The man arrived at the bottom of the steps, fixed his gaze on Simon and ran. Gaining on him, 10 metres, 5 metres, 1 metre. The doors slid shut. And the man slammed against them. Simon’s stomach clamped in on itself; he could feel the sour taste of vomit flood his throat and mouth, pouring out onto the floor. His eyes stayed fixed on the glass of the train door. He was looking at his reflection. But this was no trick of the light. The man had his face and he was smiling.
September 16th - 16:34 Service to Worcester
Simon spent his entire day scanning faces. Anyone who crossed his path was a potential threat. He made it through the work day, he would get home, call the police and get answers. Boarding the train with hundreds of other passengers he was shielded, nothing could get him. Every station they passed he checked every face twice. But his mind and body grew tired, he’d spent the day on high alert and he was feeling the effects. His breathing was slowing down, every thought came at half speed and his eyes drooped and drooped until he slipped into a dark dreamless sleep.
The thud of closing doors ripped him from his sleep. He was awake, alert, heart pounding. He could see a station by the window. Charlbury. He'd gone too far, three stations too far. He got up and looked around the cabin and not a single face turned to meet him. He was alone. It’s fine, he thought. He'd get off at the next station and turn around. He'll be home in no time. He sat there pushing every bad thought from his mind, humming a tune he didn't even recognise for comfort. Then in a matter of minutes they were pulling into a station. Standing at the door he surveyed the platform as they slowed. Empty. Completely empty. Then from the corner of his eye he saw it, a flash of white then red, and finally that face. His face. Shit. Shit. Shit. He had to hide. He ran back into the carriage and fell to the floor between two seats, making sure no part of him could be seen above the window. He heard the door hiss shut, and they were moving. He didn't dare to move. Was he alone? He sat still, not allowing a single muscle fibre to twitch. Then like rolling thunder the sound of heavy boots progressed down the carriage. Slow and methodical, they stopped at every row before moving to the next. Fuck it was coming. They were just inches from him. He craned his head up to look.
The eyes staring down at him were pure black. Obsidian marbles studded in the face he saw every day. He tried to scream but his throat clenched shut. A smile stretched across that familiar face. It was no smile he'd ever given. His breath felt like it was coming out in chunks. He couldn't think, couldn't speak, couldn't move. Then out of its pocket something glinted in the light. He saw his own cowering reflection in the blade. Tears streamed down his face. He knew the pain about to follow would be the last thing he'd ever feel.

Hi everyone! I’m a 30yo f here and I definitely have a hx of health anxiety after surviving multiple blood clots in my lungs and a pulmonary infarction in my early 20’s. We know the cause of that, I of course have had problems since such as chronic shortness of breath and these little stabbing feelings in my sides, tachycardia, and difficulty with physical activity. I’ve been having worrisome symptoms recently, but they think it’s GERD/HH.
The thing is, over the last year I have been getting these pains in my chest-left sternum in particular, intermittent, reproducible when they do flare up, not accompanied by new shortness of breath unless my anxiety starts to kick in, radiates to my shoulder and sometimes down my left arm. I have been able to calm them down with a mix of MAALOX and viscous lidocaine making me think that they are gastrointestinal related, but sometimes they come on with physical activity or eating too much. The problem is, I’m of course paranoid about my heart since having my clots, and since the last 10 years have been rough with difficulty exercising (and a horrible diet through grad school), I am now obese with PCOS making myself more predisposed to inflammation causing diseases such as high blood pressure and type 2 DM-though I have never been diagnosed with either. I am currently working on weight loss, but I’m paranoid every time I try to exercise that I’m going to have an MI. I tried ozempic for weight loss, and these symptoms started after starting ozempic which I have now stopped.
I have been to the ER multiple times now with normal EKG (one did have sinus tachycardia but my anxiety was full on at that point), normal troponin, normal BNP, normal CBC, normal CMP (exception mildly low-normal potassium which has since been corrected), normal d-dimer, normal CXR. I did a holter monitor with my PCP and that was all normal despite the occasional tachycardia.
I did have mildly elevated LDL that has now been returned to optimal levels. My HDL is 2 points shy of optimal for a female. A1C normal.
Everyone says my heart is fine. I believe them, my PCP has been wonderful and if I ask she always listens. The working theory right now is a possible hiatal hernia and GERD which I do have a strong family history of. I have been started on protonix. I have only a family hx of hypertension, high cholesterol, and afib after 50, and I still have all of my grandparents who are in their 80’s, and both of my parents.
Last night, I was moving boxes (but hadn’t had anything to eat) and the discomfort in my left sternum and arm started again. I don’t get any burning. It really gets to my anxiety, and it lasted for a couple of hours. I don’t want to keep going to the doctor or ER, it’s too expensive.
Do other people get these symptoms with their GERD/HH?

This only happens when I stretch to the maximum range of motion I can presently achieve. It still hurts like hell doing physical therapy though ROM is definitely increasing. Outside of physical therapy/regular stretching the pain is minimal or absent. Any tips? The main thing I have doing is taking extra strength acetaminophen in the morning and evenings (and afternoon on rough days).
Also, is it normal that certain motions are extremely difficult still (e.g. lift arm up when in front of me). Raising arm from the side is getting easier but still not 100%.

Hi there! For the jump relevant to this post, click here. It IS a Troyverse Ascension so this is a very powerful type of creature and by coming to this jump you become one. This is an experiment with a new type of discussion post where I talk about big beasties from various settings you can become, and the fun you can have as whatever type of creature you can become.
Have a fun future announcement: I have plans for a jump to a generic world that is secretly in the process of becoming conquered by a Sanguinarch. In my head this jump would include origins for civilians, the resistance, collaborators, and a full origin for a Sanguinarch-spawned vampire. This is a WHOLLY original idea and is very far down the docket of jumps I want to create, but it is one I want to make before the end of the year. So if you like this post, you may like whatever I end up creating at some point in the future whenever I get around to making the jump I just mentioned.

Sanguinarch Basics

Sanguinarchs are one of the five types of Troyverse ascendants alongside Archdemons, Cosmic Gods, Dragon Lords, & Transynths. Three of the four types of beings I mentioned have jumps, all of which have been created by me and are reflections of the original source CYOAs that have been jump-ified and given some QOL things that are relevant to jumpers specifically. Ascendants are beings that tap into the fundamental rules of reality in some way. Archdemons use sins, Cosmic Gods use D&D/Pathfinder style domains, Dragon Lords use draconic fonts of power, and Transynths use technology and science. Sanguinarchs use... Well, Sanguinarchs use Essence.
So at their core Sanguinarchs are supreme undead & necromancers. They are vampires that can feed on entire planets, solar systems, galaxies, and even universes at the very height of somewhat possible attainable power for their kind, becoming cosmopotences (an in-universe term for beings capable of affecting entire universes). Sanguinarchs are also notoriously flexible tricksters with a very nasty grab bag of possible tricks.
The first level of a Sanguinarch's bag of tricks are their foci; a theme around which a sanguinarch focuses themselves granting themselves a particular set of abilities and skills. There are three foci, but any Sanguinarch can take more than one foci, though such sanguinarchs are the rarest members of their kind. The three foci are cultured, dominating, and savage.
The cultured focus is for sanguinarchs who value intelligence, reasoning, non-violence, and diplomacy. It grants any sanguinarch who takes it enhanced charisma, intelligence, persuasiveness, and the ability to conduct rituals which can enact any kind of magic other than magic that transforms bodies or morphs minds on massive scales in hours, scales which would normally take even entire planets of archmages years of constant collaboration to pull off. Sanguinarchs with this focus have enhanced magic when it comes to the body and mind but only magic enhanced to the scale that a normal archmage could realistically have, which is not nothing but it pales in comparison to the rest of their magical kit.
Dominating focused sanguinarchs value control over all things and have the ability to enslave people within a few miles of them, but if they have the right major sanguine power then they can dominate everyone in a galaxy around them. These servitors are 100% loyal to you and would do anything you command. They also passively generate essence for you, giving you oath based essence (unless you've shunned the oath source) which is the only way that mind controlling someone can generate oath based essence, as normally such a font stems from oaths that are willingly sworn rather than ones that stem from supernatural influence.
The final focus is the savage focus. This is a purely physical focus and it is tremendously powerful, boosting your speed to galactic scale and giving you unbelievable power and endurance.
The foci can also be mixed and matched, in the sense that buying one does not lock you out of the other two.
Going to the next facet of the sanguinarch's toolkit, let's talk about essence. Essence is a substance that sanguinarchs can absorb and make use of, which is generated by all sorts of connections (this term is being used in a conceptual, esoteric sense here); interactions which result in blood being drawn, the devouring of one's soul, consensual sex between adults, oaths that are willingly sworn ("willingly" here does include oaths sworn under duress but not under the influence of supernatural powers), and a sanguinarch's own dominion (Remember this word, we'll circle back to it). Essence is a substance that is generated by ALL instances of the things I mentioned, blood, souls, pleasure, and oaths, but only a sanguinarch can absorb and use the substance. Sanguinarchs naturally absorb any essence created by their own actions, and can maximize the five sources that generate essence up above, which allows them to passively absorb the essence generated by their personalized types of vampiric spawn (another thing we'll get too later in this post) in the cases of blood, souls, and pleasure (provided the type of vampire in question feeds on it), and then if oaths are sworn to your vampires, and in the case of maximizing the dominion source of essence you make it easier to add places to your dominion rather than increasing how much essence the dominion feeds you.
Essence can be spent in one of three ways; it can empower an active ability (such as a spell you're about to cast), it can buff a passive trait (such as boosting your durability), and finally it can emulate a one-off instance of any kind of effect you want. This last ability takes some explaining, but a sanguinarch can spend their essence (which is a resource that once spent is gone, though it is incredibly easy to gain more) to emulate any kind of power on virtually any scale, with more impressive powers on larger scales costing fortunes in essence. A sanguinarch with this ability can do virtually anything provided they are ready to spend the right amount of essence. This ability makes sanguinarchs extremely unpredictable and dangerous. Essence MUST be spent to use this ability, even if emulating an ability you've already emulated in the past.
Now let's talk about the more direct powers & the potent servants of sanguinarchs; vampires.

Sanguinarch's Active Abilities & Vampiric Spawn

There are two types of active powers that are uniquely part of a sanguinarch's power set; major sanguine powers, and also Dominion perks.
Major Sanguine powers are powers that require no essence and are extremely simple for the vampire-like monsters to use. There are about 17 of these abilities and each of them is worth understanding. More details on each of these abilities can be found in the jump or in the source document.
Empowerment boosts your effectiveness with essence. Shadowblank makes you stunningly difficult to detect and if you are willing to spend the essence can be used on your dominion, but when used on your dominion it is somewhat more detectable than you since if someone enters the dominion they can see it. Darkness allows you and your forces to get stronger in darkness and in places attuned to darkness. Eclipse lets you shroud a place in darkness. Phylacktery is your respawn mechanic. Monstrous Command lets you command animals and monsters of all kinds. Mindlink is stunningly powerful telepathic communication. Hypnosis is a brutally powerful form of mind control dependent on making eye contact with someone but if you hit them with it you can give almost any sort of command that you can imagine so long as it's not permanent and you can stack commands on somebody. Puppetmaster lets you seize control of all sorts of moving things and people, moving them in ways that are pleasing to you, almost like straight up telekinesis. Spectral Form gives you conditional intangibility (intangible to things like enemy strikes but tangible when you want to punch someone or otherwise interact with something), and Regeneration lets you recover from virtually sort of damage instantly, unless said damage is inflicted by a being wildly stronger than you.
Trueshifting is pretty incredible shapeshifting, power emulation, and cloning. Mirrorwalk is, for all intents and purposes, instant teleportation from any one mirror to any other mirror, at least in the local multiverse. Mass Telekinesis is ridiculously powerful telekinetic abilities able to hold even quintillions of different things in space at once, even if each individual thing has the same mass of mountains. Enthrall lets you turn people into thralls, immortal, devoted supernatural servants. all of whom are enhanced sources of essence in every way, their blood, souls, and pleasure giving you more essence, as well as their oaths generating more essence over time. Absorption lets you absorb skills, knowledge, and abilities from those you get essence from, be it you targeting a teacher, or your spawn targeting a local king, and by opting to gain a bit less essence then you'd otherwise gain you can instead just copy this stuff rather than taking it from the people you target with this power. Dark brides are special types of servants you can create that are wholly bonded to you, either creating someone from nothing or turning a living person into a dark bride so long as they consent to it. Dark brides can do whatever you can as a sanguinarch but each dark bride costs more than the last with the first being free.
Let's talk about dominions. A sanguinarch's dominion is not just territory that is under their control, but a patch of space that has been so thoroughly conquered by them that the land itself recognizes their control and lordship. This happens when a significant amount of essence has been gathered and absorbed by a single sanguinarch in one continuous area (how much essence is required depends in part on the size of the space in question), which eventually renders the space vulnerable to powerful dark rituals which the sanguinarch and their homies can perform over the course of several days. When these rituals are completed the patch of space becomes a part of their dominion, and a sanguinarch's dominion feeds them essence every second, with bigger dominion's feeding them more essence. A dominion is permanently under the influence of a sanguinarch who claims it, and in the Troyverse there are plenty of places that can be under the thumb of other sanguinarch since other sanguinarchs exist but once you jump OUT of the Troyverse... Well, there's a LOT of space in all but the smallest-setting-wise jumps for you to turn into your turf. There are a total of nine perks that specifically affect a sanguinarch's dominion, bolstering it in various ways. Let's talk about them!
Sentinals are a type of guardian that, if the perk is purchased, are generated by the dominion itself (and created by it whenever you add space to your dominion, or with the right perk, whenever it sufficiently expands) and have ultra-human (planet-level) physiques as well as some vampire-like abilities. These guardians protect your dominion but cannot leave it, and if they are somehow destroyed (and it'd take a being on par with or beyond Superman to do this so it IS possible but in a lot of settings it's not especially likely) your dominion will resurrect them over the course of a few days unless you spend some essence to rebuild them. They are also completely immune to mind control or being puppeted, and are aware of everything in your dominion.
Many dominion perks are handy because they make your dominion more suitable to your minions and you in some way and pliant climate is one such perk. PC begins with a one time effect that makes a new patch of dominion more hospitable to your minions, altering reality to do something like destroying radiation that might destroy sufficiently weak lifeforms or creating landmasses for your servants to walk on, and after that effect has occurred you can personally warp reality to alter the climate in your dominion even weaponizing weather against invaders or other enemies.
Labyrinth is a perk that enhances your dominion's natural and default resistance to enemy reality warping (to such an extent that universe-scale reality warpers would struggle to use reality warping in your space), and also causes the local geography to warp and twist in reality-defying ways that make it virtually impossible for non-ascendants to escape without your permission.
Shroud is a perk that nullifies any default weaknesses you or your spawn may have to traditional anti-vampire stuff (sanguinarchs do not have such weaknesses by default though a drawback can give you some) such as sunlight, garlic, silver, or fire, so long as you or your spawn are in your dominion. If you opted to allow your spawn to be weak to stuff, particularly sunlight, this can be an incredibly handy perk to have and can give even the most disloyal vampires powerful reasons to aid you in expanding your dominion.
Obedient architecture lets you turn raw materials into grand structures instantly, so long as the required reality warping occurs in your dominion.
Gluttonous enhances how much essence you get when you are in your dominion, but this particular perk is a bit odd. The way this perk works is by enhancing ALL feeding you do on essence so long as you are in the confines of your dominion. Very importantly this enhances the potency of the dominion's passive essence production, but also bolsters every other source of essence, and can be very powerful if you strive to maximize essence production. This can also blend very powerfully with another ability we'll mention in a second.
Shadow Paths is a perk that ties together all patches of dominion in a jump (for jumper-sanguinarchs, this limitation doesn't exist for pure CYOA sanguinarchs). What this means is that your servants and those you give permission too can step into one patch of dominion and immediately enter another patch located elsewhere, even if doing so entails them stepping somewhere in North Carolina and suddenly appearing in Alaska, or on the moon. This is one of the best forms of teleportation in the Troyverse that is able to be used by ascendants, but requires the powerful setup needed to turn a place into a patch of dominion in the first place, as opposed to requiring the advanced technology other ascendants can use to swiftly and stealthy teleport en-masse. One handy aspect of this power is that it is only accessible to those you permit and only if they are loyal to you; if a vampire you converted into a vampire is somehow under enemy control they cannot use these paths at all. This is a neat defensive measure that prevents this ability from being used against you. The paths automatically appear whenever you add a patch to your dominion, connecting any and all such spaces.
Power Suppression is a very handy ability that shuts down enemy/non-allied powers so long as they are in your dominion, which if fused with something like labyrinth can be incredibly devastating. How strong this perk is depends on how much you invest in it, but frankly even the first tier makes entire settings (even ones with powered beings) unable to use their powers against your will, as a LOT of settings do not have any beings that are planet-scale.
Eminent Domain is a stunningly powerful perk that enhances your dominion in every respect. Firstly it makes it so that any abilities you use remotely do not suffer any diminishment (all ascendants are capable of using their ascendant abilities at incredible ranges so long as the area they are using their powers in are sufficiently under their influence in some way, but normally such abilities suffer some level of weakened effectiveness due to distance). This also radically bolsters your awareness of what occurs in your dominion, granting you pseudo-omniscience within the strict confines of your dominion. Lastly, and most importantly, this stunningly powerful perk allows your patches of dominion to expand themselves!
Normally a patch of dominion is static in the sense that it does not expand sans external intervention (Basically a patch of dominion's size and dimensions are determined at the moment a place is converted and normally stays that way forever). With ED this is changed and instead patches of dominion slowly expand with how quickly they expand being determined by whether or not you maximized the dominion essence source (and a requirement that feedings occur in the patch of dominion in question). Think of it this way; it's easier for a sanguinarch who has patches of dominions in banks where vampire bankers get people to swear oaths via bank loans to watch their patches expand than a sanguinarch whose patches are in barren deserts to watch their patches expand. That's not to say it can't be done, the desert-owning sanguinarch can turn serial killers into vampires, have them take their victims to the dominion patches and feed on them in there, but that IS more complex than the setup for the banking sanguinarch I also mentioned.
Fully understanding and maximizing the power of the dominion is difficult but it's worth it. A sanguinarch with a few perks is an impressively powerful lord of any space they turn into their dominions, and a sanguinarch with ED can slowly and cautiously watch their dominion expand without having to do the rituals. It's dope.
Now let's talk about vampric spawn! I'm not gonna go over every facet of this, as there's a lot of individual options that'd need to be discussed. but vampiric spawn are a SPECIFIC type of vampire created by a sanguinarch. A sanguinarch can turn anyone in the same planet into a vampire spawn, and even gods are not immune to this transformation, neither are animals, demons, or any supernatural beings unless they are on par with an ascendant themselves. It's also stunningly difficult to resist this transformation, so someone can do something like catch Superman off guard and turn him into one of your spawn.
There are a number of reasons why sanguinarchs want vampiric spawn, but for a lot of sanguinarchs vampiric spawn will be best viewed as a way to speed up one's ability to gather essence. When deciding your builds you have three options when it comes to all five sources of essence; you can "shun" them, you can leave them unaltered, or you can maximize them. "Shunning" a source means you never get essence from it (but this does not make them useless, as dominions can get still benefit from dominion perks AND turning an area into a dominion can stop other sanguinarchs from doing so, though this would only be useful in Troyverse jumps), leaving it alone means you can get essence from instances of the source caused by you and you alone, and maximizing the source means that any actions that are relevant to the source that your spawn cause (that in the case of blood, pleasure, and souls they can FEED on) generates essence for you (which is relevant both for the purposes of the absorption sanguine major power and for the purposes of eventually creating new patches of dominion). This means that vampiric spawn are more than handy servants, they can be vital expanders of your empire.
A sanguinarch can customize vampiric spawn they create in a number of ways by purchasing options in the vampiric spawn customization section of the jump doc. If a sanguinarch went bonkers on this section their maxed out vampires would be fucking stacked with modifiers like enhanced beauty, an ability to grow stronger from feeding (and it being a carving rather than a necessity), fanatical loyalty to you, the ability to mesmerize people, fly, turn into mist, and shapeshift, as well as physiques that are 100 times the peak for their species. These vampires would be tremendously powerful servants, and could make for incredible followers.

Sanguinarch Thoughts & Musings

Now that we've spent a beat discussing the facets of sanguinarch stuff that will persist across jumps, let's talk a bit about thoughts & musings related to sanguinarchs!
Sanguinarchs are hands down the best territory-type ascendants. Their ability to conquer a place so thoroughly that they turn it into their dominion is fucking wild given what dominion perks can do to a place, and a properly stealthy sanguinarch can do it before people even realize that something fucky is going on. Even in modern police states sanguinarchs with the right builds can be masters of subtlety and stealth, or can just blitz a place so fast that no one has a chance to resist (this is especially true for dominating sanguinarchs).
I really like the versatility and flexibility of sanguinarchs, as the emulate function of essence and stuff like shadowblank and mindlink are so fantastically potent that they are just nightmarishly powerful in the right hands.
A sanguinarch that opts to not be watered down and instead has the full functionality of a CYOA sanguinarch rather than my suggested edits to make the power of a sanguinarch more approachable can enter a setting and turn everyone in their home world into a vampire in an instant, or can dominate entire communities in a second, In some respects this is just beyond what other ascendants can do (though all ascendants can buy greater megapowers which can allow other ascendants to emulate a sanguinarch with the right focus). Manifold ascendants that are sanguinarchs AND other things can instantly create cults to themselves and, assuming they are an archdemon, dragon lord, or cosmic god, immediately begin to gain power from the worship power source.
As a stealth-type jumper person I really really like the potency of a sanguinarch's many abilities that either revolve around stealth or allow for it, with powers like eclipse and shadowblank being perennial favorites of mine. I also love that there are powers that revolve around knowing more than others and hiding in the dark, giving boosts to your other powers if you are just smarter than your foes or if you are a sneaky sneak. One fascinating aspect of the darkness power is how it can synergize with absorption, since you can drain knowledge from foes with strikes, which makes your other abilities stronger against them.
Here are some fun ideas for interesting targets to turn into vampiric spawn or otherwise use in a story with a jumper sanguinarch.
A serial killer who will now eagerly dedicate their kills to you, and who is happy to target anyone you wish to see killed.
A cop who needs to find the people who kidnapped her brother. Now armed with vampiric powers she will investigate her brother's kidnapping with brutal efficiency.
A priest having a crisis of faith whose mind is exceptionally loud one night when you are scanning nearby minds. Now he worships you rather than whatever god he once believed in.
A high school queen bee who is afraid of the future or growing old and is eagerly willing to cavort with dark forces once she realizes they are real and willing to help her, for a price. This one can be really fun if you turn her friend into a vampiric spawn and dangle the prospect in front of her but instead use some of your abilities to do stuff like enhance her but not give her the immortality she craves.
A promising athlete who was critically injured and is desperate to recover and rebuild their career.
A politician who craves more and more power, and is happy to make dark deals.
A terminally ill child with parents who are desperate to see them get better, and who will pay any price if it means their child has a miracle. And to keep paying for their child's continued health.
Sanguinarchs CAN be brutal overlords who conquer places with force, and that can be a lot of fun given how incredibly powerful the savage focus is (and how much scarier it can be with stuff like spectral form and regeneration). Sanguinarchs can also be shadowy deal makers who have fun putting things in place and watching how they move once they are positioned in front of each other.
There are some very inventive ways for a sanguinarch to get essence. One of my favorites is to create vampires that are, for all intents and purposes, succubi and have them run brothels where they sell themselves at incredibly low prices and have them feast on horny peeps. Another way I really like is to create charisma based vampires and turn banks into dens for my vampirism, or turn places like lending agencies into hives of my vampires.
Certain places are also very likely to be targeted by me whenever I create sanguinarchs (be they CYOA or jump sanguinarchs); hospitals and prisons. My sanguinarchs are invariably predatory assholes and they recognize how desperate people can be after a difficult doctor's visit, and they also see prisons as places that are incredibly easy to turn into patches of their dominion, whether it's turning desperate and scared prisoners into vampires or giving prison guards and staff the power to more easily and safely corral the prisoners.

Conclusion

I honestly just really like sanguinarchs. They have such fun and varied power sets, and can dramatically expand their toolkits with stuff like Absorption and the emulate function of their ability to manipulate essence. Sanguinarchs and Transynths are the oddest of the ascendants, but I have such fun with both of their power sets and it can be so rad to see what sort of mischief a sanguinarch jumper can get up too while turning a place into a part of their dominion.
I hope this overview helps you think more keenly about sanguinarchs and their eerie meshes of abilities. If you've ever run a sanguinarch jumper, or have plans to do so I'd love to hear all about them!

27f BMI average 5”7, hi all i had a vaccination (hpv) 5 days ago and a couple days after started getting sciatica down my legs (like the whole way round and all the way down to my toes), and a few sharp pains down my arms and in my fingers. it’s like little electric shocks. i’ve had sciatica in MOST of these areas previously after an awful back injury which bulged 2 discs 2 years ago but before the vax i had pretty much recovered 99% with no sciatica in like 1.5 years. the nerve pain is just as bad as when i initially got my injury, but is in some new places too, like my groin and upper thighs which it wasn’t last time. so i’m thinking this has nothing to do with my back injury. what is going on with me with these shooting electric pain / tickling all the way down both legs all over and down the arms?! is the vaccine causing inflammation of nerves ? is this normal to happen to some people ???

I've been diagnosed with mild bi-lateral AVN since about 3 years. It first started in the left hip after I went gonzo with a maul splitting wood for two 6-hour days in a row. For about three years it just occasionally flares up, and I've mainly been trying to keep all my muscles balanced and stay active (but not overactive) physically to keep it at bay. Then, about a week ago, I was moving too-heavy planters full of wet soil for my wife when something happened and I had a shooting pain in my left hip and since then it hasn't been the same.
At first I just thought I pulled something, which maybe is true too, i don't know. The pain radiates up into my left lower back. It seemed to be getting better at first but now it got worse again and the worst is the mornings, seems I need to elevate it to sleep without waking up in/from pain. I went in a couple days ago to get an xray and this is what they found:
"1. No acute fracture or traumatic malalignment. 2. Findings that can be seen with cam type femoral acetabular impingement in both hips in the proper clinical setting. No acute fracture or traumatic malalignment. No suspicious osseous lesion. Small left os acetabulum. Mild prominence of the femoral head neck junctions bilaterally."
The doctor showed me the xray and what was most prominent was that the socket surface of my left hip was a bit wonky. The femoral heads haven't started collapsing or anything as far as I know. The doctor said it seemed like there was some hip joint impingement at the ball and socket, whatever that means.
Edit: Just found this video which covers the various acetabular impingements, including "cam type" which is indicated in my xray. I wonder, is this necessarily related to the AVN, as it seems FAI (femoral acetabular impingement) is a disease of its own? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tU8005io9w
I'm not sure what to expect with healing. Like...did I damage soft tissue by picking too much stuff up like a normal person? Did the shitty mating surfaces of my hip damage my soft tissue because I was both lifting too much and also have AVN? Or is this like the new normal of having constant pain everyday, and this is the point where I need to finally get a replacement? Or is this unrelated to my necrosis and some other injury?

“It’s bird shit,” Bill began, squatting down closer to the strange milky glob in the middle of the old parking lot. The other kids in the circle didn’t seem so sure. “Or… I don’t know, candle wax, maybe?”
“Who’d bother dumping a melted candle in the middle of an abandoned lot, genius?” Mumbled Steve, particularly irritable as he was that day. Things weren’t good for him at home. They never were.
“Well, gee, asshole, I’m not quite sure. Where was your mom last night?” Bill’s quip failed to land, and he couldn’t help but feel like an idiot in front of the girls as Steve cocked his head, taking some offense despite the dumbness of the remark.
“What does that even mean?” Steve had begun to laugh, picking up on Bill’s embarrassment.
“It means ‘shut up’. That’s what it means…”
Bill had stood again reflexively with the regrettable insult but had stooped down to inspect the mysterious glob once more. It had started to pulse minutely, a vague shimmering incandescence rising from within.
“Ew, what’s it doing?” Said one of the girls who’d shown up to see why the pair of pre-teens had gathered there in the lot across the street from her house. Her friend was visibly trying not to gag.
“Spiv, quick, gimme your pen…” Bill reached a hand out to Steve, eyes never moving from the ground.
“No way, it’s not going in that... And I told you to stop calling me, ‘Spiv’, for fuck’s sake. It’s-”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just hand it over, Steve. Please. I’ll buy you a new one if it means that goddamn much to you.”
Steve grimaced as he pulled the black Sharpie from his jacket pocket, eyeing it forlornly as if it somehow held some unsaid sentimental value to him. He tossed it over to Bill, who immediately began poking at the glob softly. It seemed to react to the prods, as if alive, and in pain; a slight heat detectable beyond the plastic instrument, creeping its way up his arm.
“Woah…” Bill was fascinated by it. Football fanatic that he was known as around school, Bill secretly harbored a natural scientific curiosity that he’d never dare tell the others about. He was just about to get back to his feet and run home for a Tupperware dish in order to take a sample when one of the girls vomited on the jagged, broken concrete.
“I think… I think we should go tell an adult…” She managed to croke after the last of it had escaped her. “I think we should-”
The glob shifted violently, awakened, as it started to crawl its slug-like mass towards the horrified girl’s vomit pooled in the cracks by her feet. She took off running, screaming, as did her friend. Steve also fled, leaving Bill there alone as he called after them.
“Wait!” He yelled, but they were already gone. “Shit…”
The glob had begun to feast on the vomit with long, pulling sucks. Bill had to think fast.
“Don’t you move, lil guy…” He broke into a sprint, running the distance home in record time as he frantically yanked various plastic and glass vessels from his kitchen cupboards, but by the time he returned to that spot there on the old vacant lot, the glob had disappeared. There was no trace of it to be seen anywhere. Bill sighed, letting the plastic container, gloves and the pair of tongs he had brought fall to the ground as he sat, legs in a basket, wondering what had just happened and if anybody besides his friends would ever believe him.
He cursed them for running away. They should have stayed to keep watch, but, in the pit of his gut, Bill knew that he couldn’t really blame them all that much. It was uncanny, after all. But Bill hadn’t been afraid. He was curious. Intensely so. Even now, all these years later, Bill still finds himself going back there whenever he comes to town to see his folks and those friends who have all but forgotten what they saw that day. He sits there, legs crossed as the sun sets over the distant hills, and he waits. He waits for the glob, hoping that, somehow, he might see it again; so that he can finally know for sure that it wasn’t all just some crazy dream.