[TRIGGER WARNING]
Hey everyone,
I'm reaching out to share something heavy on my heart. Yesterday, I lost my friend (22M) to heroin use. It's been a sudden and devastating loss, as he seemed perfectly fine until he took a turn for the worse on 27 April.
A bit of background: I'm 41M, and I have my own history of Crystal Meth use. I went to a Christian Rehab Centre in February 2022, where I met this new guy who arrived a few months later. I had a strange feeling that our paths were meant to cross for a reason, though I didn't know then how things would unfold. Unfortunately, he didn't complete the program and returned to street life.
Fast forward to November 2023, I decided to go out for a few drinks on my own to reintegrate into society, and I ran into him working as a car guard at a pub. We reconnected, grew close, and he opened up to me about his past struggles.
On 3 May, he was so weak that he couldn't walk, so I took him to the local hospital. There, we discovered his haemoglobin levels were dangerously low. Two days later, he shared with me that he was HIV positive (Stage 1) and suspected to have tuberculosis (Symptomatic). A few days after that, he passed away.
I've always felt a calling to help those less fortunate and battling drug abuse, but now I'm not so sure. I tend to get very emotionally attached and feel deeply empathetic, which makes me question if I'm suited for this cause. However, I want to give it a try in his memory. I'm considering starting a website or online community, but maybe I should start by supporting others one-on-one for now. If anyone needs someone to talk to, please feel free to send me a DM.
I'm also open to suggestions, especially from those who have experienced something similar or are recovered addicts. If anyone wants to partner up and work on an idea, please reach out.
Thank you for reading.

I AM NOT OOP. OOP is u/ReverendMuddyGrimes
Originally posted on relationships
2 updates – short
Content warning: drug and alcohol abuse, waste of questionable origin
Original post - October 7th, 2023
Update 1 - March 17th, 2024
Update 2 - May 15th, 2024
Sister-in-law told me my wife cheated while on vacation
The players in this drama. My wife who for the purpose of this post shall be called Anne (female 47). My sister-in-law (female 40) who we shall call Shannon. SIL's cheating partner (male mid 40s) known hereafter as Tony. And myself (male, so close to 50 that I can reach out and slap it). We shall refer to me as "me". Usual disclaimers of cell phone and English is my first language, I just suck at it. So my wife had to travel to her step father's house. He is in very poor health, and she went there to help set up home heath. She was there for a week, and we were in constant contact. Her sister is a drunk and a drug addict. At several points during the visit, we were on video chat when "Shannon" came into the room where my wife and her father were. She was buck ass naked, raging drunk. In front of her father. I was mortified, and I'm sure he was too. Now "Shannon" is married, but separated. She has a live in boyfriend. "Tony" is my father-in-law's primary care giver. For the flight home, "Anne" missed her flight. "Tony" was driving her to the airport. There was an unusual amount of road construction, and they arrived late. She had to take a different flight. Not a big deal. After she was home for a few days, the following text exchange happened between me and Shannon. Shannon: they fucked. Me: who, and did you film it? We could make a fortune on pornhub! Shannon: I saw him leaving her room and smiling. You know she didn't miss her flight! He ain't denying it. Me: well, if they did, he's the luckiest man alive.
Now guys, I know that I have a better chance of creating a fart powered personal jet than this story has of being true. It's just not in her nature. That said, damn that woman to the depths of Detroit's South side for putting the idea in my head.
So, the question: how do I deal with a crazy drunk 80lb woman from 1000 miles away. I can't block her, because the rest of her family has. If something happens to the father-in-law while Tony is at work, I'm the only one she can contact.
Tldr: drunk SIL claims wife cheated. She didn't. I have to decide how to deal with her.
Comments
Indianblanket
Tell Tony you are blocking Shannon and to please contact you directly with any updates he receives from Shannon while he's at work.
Block Shannon.
Call Dad daily.
EdgeCityRed
Yeah, I had a former friend like Shannon: a heavy drinker, mental issues (no offense intended to people dealing with mental issues, but this was the main factor in that case), major liar who'd fixate on specific things to lie about.
I did block this person in every conceivable way but I can't think of anything else to do in your situation but ignore the behavior since you have to be in contact. OR, you and your wife could just talk to Tony about the father-in-law with the understanding that if Tony quits being the caregiver or breaks up with Shannon, he passes your contact info to the next caregiver. If something happens when Tony is at work, he'd still probably know before you.
Anyway, you have nothing to worry about with the wife anyway; you're too funny to dump.
\too funny to dump. I have a host of exes that would strongly disagree. Unless you meant funny looking. Then, they would come down solidly on your side*
Update 1
Several months ago my drunk of a SIL (f-40) told me (m-50) that my wife of 12 years (f-47) cheated on me while setting her her step dad's home health in Detroit. I, of course, didn't believe her. A lot has happened since then. First, we all went up for Christmas. While we were there, SIL (I called her Shannon in the original post) stormed in and claimed that my wife was having sex with her boyfriend "Tony" on the front porch. Two problems with that. 1) It's Detroit in December so it's cold as a well digger's ass outside. 2) my wife is in the chair next to mine. SIL ended up assaulting Tony right after I returned home. She ended up in jail where she was placed on a 3 day psych hold. Apparently being a drunken meth addict makes you crazy. Who knew? Mid January, my father-in-law passed away. This sent SIL into a spiral. Especially when she found out that she couldn't stay in the family home anymore as it had to be sold. She was given $35,000 from her father's retirement to get a new place and hold her over until the sale of the house. My wife and I drove up to prepare the house to go on the market. Y'all, I've been in nasty houses before, but not like this. My father-in-law kept this place immaculate. Now, in just 2 months, it qualifies for an episode of Hoarders. There is dog crap halfway up the walls in the den. I didn't even know dogs could poop that high! There were several empty bottles of $350 tequila in the living room. We figure that she will have drank her entire inheritance in six months. We had to rent a dumpster for me to shovel all of her garbage in to. Obviously, I changed the locks and garage door codes. Im a career garage door installer, so that part was easily done. Even more obviously, all those people who responded to the original post that my wife cheated were VERY wrong. Edit: the dog is a chihuahua. We assume that it did it's doggie business off the back of the couch, since we had to move the couch to find what was causing the smell. We can't take the dog because SIL refuses to see us. TLDR, Wife, who I knew didn't cheat even though her sister claimed she did, was exonerated because her sister is batshit crazy from meth and alcohol.
Comments
Scarletnightingale
Sir, given that she is an alcoholic with a meth addiction, I would assume that that was not dog poop on the walls. Alcoholics tend to have issues with their digestive system and meth and alcohol mess with judgement and a person caring of they pooped on the wall.
Good luck with the house, and I'm sorry that your SIL is making things so much more difficult for you during the loss of your wife's father.
Elfich47 If she making meth in the house, you may need a decon team to clean the site up.
She doesn't make it, just uses. We know this by the amount of dealers that FIL had to chase off
Update 2
I mentioned in my last post that my Father-in-law passed away. From insurance and his retirement both of his daughters received $104k before taxes. We paid our taxes up front leaving us just over $80k. We really don't have much debt, so we put it all on our house. My SIL however chose to accept a lump sum. In the update, when she had gotten the first installment of $35k, I said she would have drank it all in 6 months. Apparently I am a very optimistic man. She has drank,shot up, and snorted the entire $104k in less than 3 months. Through most of the high times, she sent my wife incredibly awful texts claiming that her dad never loved her. Technically it was my wife's step-dad. One of the claims made was that if he loved her he would have adopted her. SIL was too young to remember, but he did try. Her birth father wouldn't sign off on it. Anyway, she is out of money. My wife is getting around a dozen slurred phone calls a day begging her to let SIL sleep on our couch. That is a giant HELL NO from us. We expect to hear any day that she has been found dead.
TLDR: SIL blew her entire inheritance on drugs and alcohol. Now after insulting my wife for months, wants to live with us.
Comments
crom_77
Sounds like you have a head on your shoulders. SIL sounds like a nightmare. Money can wreck a family if it's not handled carefully, I've seen it happen several times. People live like there's going to be a big payout at the end, or like they deserve something.
HuntEnvironmental863
Do you think in 3 months OP will be back on here cause Anne took the 80k and ran off with Tony?
80k is gone. It went on our mortgage. As for Tony, he disappeared when the SIL ran out of money.
Marked as concluded per OOP.
No brigading, no harassment.

She has a blanket policy: “No man she is with will…”. Apparently the reasons are that it traumatizes her and it is detrimental to men’s health, in general.
I have no experience in this rhelm. I subscribe to stupid shit like festivalsluts over30 and chubbyGoneWild. 🤷‍♂️ Maybe twice a month I’ll go to xvideos.cm or something. But I’m 39, in great shape, and not bad looking. I’m on testosterone and still only rub one out maybe once a week. And honestly, lately, it’s been to thoughts of her. Porn isn’t even a factor. I’m not jerking off with cheeto dust in my mom’s basement, ya know?
And the kicker… she was masturbating on the phone the first time we spoke. As in, it seemed like a regular thing for her. (It felt like pulling teeth to get her to delete her dating profiles. When she did, she only deleted the apps; full well knowing that her profile stays in rotation) And throughout dating her, she’ll send the most wild texts that would rival porn stories written by horny meth-heads (frequency = batches twice a day).
Don’t get me wrong, I love the sexual attention, but I can’t square it with a zero tolerance policy on “porn”. We’ve been “together” for a month and a half. But talking since January. Does anyone have any insights/experience with pwBPD and porn? (or my story?)
[For context, this is my 2nd partner with diagnosed BPD. And I just feel like this ask from her is a control mechanism]

My boy is 2.5 and up until now hasn’t talked much. He was diagnosed with expressive and receptive language delays and being assessed for ASD. Things have been extremely difficult as he just can’t communicate with us at all. Every hour is another meltdown and I can never help him. It’s been starting to take a toll on my husband and I tbh.
It’s strange in the sense that he can repeat everything and knows what everything is called, counts to 20, sings the ABC’s, knows the words to 30+ nursery rhymes, knows the main shapes, colours, animals/sounds, but doesn’t use language in any sort of meaningful way. He doesn’t ask for food/drink/toys, can’t pick an option when presented, can’t follow simple instructions like “throw the ball”, has NEVER pointed, or whole-hand pointed. He still cannot even follow a point when you say things like “hey look at the bird” etc. He doesn’t hold my hand to lead me to what he wants. Basically zero communication other than screams. If he sees something he wants he will just look at it and scream and I have to figure out what he wants.
Well today, I gave him his cereal and then we went to play. He came back to his (empty) bowl later on obviously still hungry and picked it up and clear as day, he said “there is none” 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 I couldn’t believe my ears. So I asked him “what did you say?” and he said It AGAIN crystal clear!!!
Later in the day, his dad came downstairs and he looked up at him and said “dada come down” !!!!!!!!
Not long after he was looking at me kinda weird and I say “what’s up?” and he did a cheeky little smile and said “let’s sing twinkle twinkle little star”
WHAT is happening?? My brain and heart are exploding right now!!!!!!!! I don’t want to get my hopes up but omg I am so proud of my sweet boy. I don’t know how this is happening. Got I hope this sticks!!!

I'm a 29 year old male and i will try to summarize the horrendous situation I find myself without leaving to many crucial details out. I was with my ex girlfriend for nearly 6 years. The red flags were present fromn the beggining but looking back I had no way to understand what they were at the time partly due to my young nievete and partly due to the fact that coming from a emotijallyabusive household I had normalized many of the more subtle behaviors and therefore they fell within a blindspot of my cognitive distortions at the time. From the very start she would begin punching herself in her own head if i ever became upset with her in any way or during any attempt to verbally work a problem out. I thought she was just a bit flippant and intense. Dare I say I almost found it attractive in a strange sense. She was and still to this day, stunningly beautiful and menacingly seductive and knows how she can have a significant effect on males especially without doing very much in the way of actions. Fast forward she unknown to me at the time discontinued her birth contorll pills while still assuring me she was taking them and ultimetly lied by telling me she had just to fund out she had become pregnant herself after missing a period. We were both in our mid to early 20s still more or less financially dependant on our parents and were living on public city streets in our tow behind rv with our 2 dogs. She was idealizing me and to be frank I remebr this period of time as the happiest iv been eever before and up untill now. This memory of "happiness" I think was the biggest reason it took me so long to finally start trying to advocate for my self respect instead of hanging my head and just ignoring the abuse so that I would get the sweet reward of psedo- intimacy with her a few times a week. Despite my fond memories looking back I see now what could only be described as patterns if coercive control that seriously escalated over the 5 years we were in a relationship with each other and included her beggining to cheat early on and the resulting systemic lies and relational damage from needing to formulate and bend the nature of reality around those lies. Her hot and cold treatment of me with any postive(hot) behavior usually at least in the last few years being exclusively sexual in nature and cold behavior usually manifesting as her stonewalling me and or simply disappearing for multiple days at a time sometimes. The day my son was born i accompanied her to the hospital and sat with her the entire time helped her push ans enouraged her with love. She treated me with indifference and disdain. Once our wonderful little boy came along this a became even worse. The sense that she was making it about him and her vs everyone else including me was strong. She became quite introverted secretive and "cliquey" with my newborn and at the same time seemed to loose all desire to be physically or emotionally intimate with me. (Of course i gave her plenty of time and space right after she gave birth amd was understanding that it might be a while before things were back to normal).it was almost like she had a new partner-our child. she refused to fully move in to the apartment my grandparents had spent a huge amint of money on to give us a chance at raising our soon in a healthy environment. She would start random and seemingly pointless arguments often escalating into her screaming mean things at me innfront of our 3 month old son like she ****ed me and then raging followed by quickly slamming the door and taking our infant son backto her mother's house where she would stonewall me for a few days then send me. A message that emotionally blackmailed me into taking full blame for the rupture and apologizing profusely. In addition she did not trust me with our son but had no reason not too and as a result gatekept him in an extremely overcintrolling and damaging(for him and for me) manner. to this day (he is 3.5] I have never spent the night alone with him and have had him 1 on 1 dad and son time signifigantly less than I should have and not for lack of trying on my part. Despite her overcontrolling coercive sabatoging and alienating actions my son and I formed a loving and beautiful bond that up untill I saw him last a few months ago has amazingly endured through the storm. The tradegy goes on and on but to wrap up ultimitely she purposefully betrayed me by starting a relationship with my good friend and had him suggest to me that he should move in so he became my roommate all the while lying to my roommate that I ht her and simultaneously having him report back to her on my whereabouts at any Givin time and the things I said about her when venting after a prticulringly humiliating attempt to see my son or similar interaction and also give her info about what I was doing during the day. He became quite controlling himself and severed to further isolate me from people that weren't trying to ruin my life. They started to play mindgames with me that ibsee now attempts to gage how much I knew or suspected about what was going on. Mind you my son who was around 2 at this point was privy to the whole thing it was only kept a secret from me and due to this my son was coached to not tell me about it although what was actually said I will never know. Eventually a mutual friend of my roommate and I reached out and told me he had seen my roommate "playing dad" with my girl and son at dollar tree that day. I remebrr that day I sat at a local park in my car sullen and confused having been led on via sms from her only to randomly stop responding and never managing to get any time with my son. This sort of thing had become a regular occurance She then began withholding my son all togethar simply not answering at all or lying about him being asleep ridiculously early in the afternoon etc etc. My own parents failed to suppprt me and are still failing to show any sort of care other than somehwat monitarily. In fact my mom and her were two peas in a pod and my mom activly participated in the emotional abuse partly becauee of being manipulated by her partly because my mother is emotionally abusive. If I had better support or access to court resources at the time I'm confident things would have gone much differently but I was so isolated and lonely and in a deep state of despair at this point and the only thing I still was enduring for was the brief and inconsistent times i got with my boy whom I love more than life itself. I managed to get a hold of her via phone at this point and said i was going to go to court and pursue custody since she seemed unwilling to value my valid role as father. Her mom and her immediately became overly nice and invited me over where they sat me down and offered to make a visitation schedule and kindly suggested I dident go to court. It wasent much but it was signifgantly more respect than I had been shown any instance prior so I gobbled up the manipulations and left feeling invigorated and hopeful. The schedule was never adhered too and within a few days it was back to me not even be able to get a hold of her let alone see my son. The final day I saw him before things blew up I went over to her house in the evening. My son wanted to play hot wheels so we began to line them up on the floor but my ex was hovering over us with a hostile air. I asked if we could have some space or if at least she could sit down and play with us and she just kept standing there glaring at me. This made me uncomfortable and my son noticed this by sayig daddy play with me! Upon hearing this she in a angry tone said "play with your effin kid isent that what you wanted to do soooooo badly" right in front of him. I asked not to be spoken to in front of him like that and she went and got her mom and started whispering abut me to her mom in the hallway while they watched my son and I. I got up and said I'm leaving this is innappropriate and she said "wow that checks out you harrass me to see your son and then you don't even wanna see him. how pathetic and typical" " you just want to stress me out dont you" you don't actually give 2 you know what's about him" right in front of my son again. I speechlessly went to leave and my son comes running after me begging me to wait. I'm on the verge of tears and i picked him up cherishing how warm he was and how lovingly he was clinging to me. I tentatively requested I be allowed to go for a walk with him around the block and her mom this time dismissively says ya go and shoos us out the door. I get down the driveway and my ex comes sprinting out of the house tears streaming down her face and a look of rage and starts hitting me while I'm holding our son. Amazingly he start4d pushing her away saying mommy stop mommy stop. She says you have 5 minutes or I'm calling the cops and goes back in. I walk him around the block and say "mommy's feeling sad right now but it doesn't mean that either one of us loves you any more or any less than we used to and it's absolutely not your fault." I go back inside and without saying anything I walk up to her and give her a hug wich my son joins in too. All the sudden she is happy again and trying to speak to me in a casual tone but I basically just leave without saying much else. After this a week of no contact with my son occurs which at the time was the longest we had gone apart I felt like I had no choice but to confront her and assert my rights AGAIN although looking back I feel terribley silly for thinking she was going to repsect me at that point. Keep in mind i ALWAYS was extrmely respectful of her space and never would just show up at her moms house even though our relationahip by many accounts was more than informal ennough to make an occasionaI drop in to say hi. In addition she on Many occasions had told me that I could just come by if she didn't Answer her phone or simular situation arose. I texted her I was coming by to say goodnight to my son and phrased it as a statement not a question or request. I was already on the way when I sent the message and so I arrived (unintentionally)before her being able to fully respond to it to see my romate come running out of the front door (this is when I first had proof ab about all the stuff I mentioned earlier about their secret relationship) and go hide in the bushes, her poke her head out the door and then shut and lock it and turn all the lights in the house out and close the blinds. I walk up to the door and knock to no avail and so I confront her about what i know and saw via sms. She directly denies all my proof and accusations and then after calling me crazy and a stalker blocks me on all channels of communication. I go back to my car and collapse in tears and ultimtly fall asleep. I wake up to see her quickly shoving a duffel bag and my son into her moms car and her and my roommate get in and she pulls quickly away. Upon passing me on her way to the main road she becomes aware that im still there in my car and she burns rubber and begins driving extremely fast and erratically. In a moment of panic I knew she was probably trying to go into hiding with my son to prevent me from evrr seeing him again and I fearing for the safety of my son and our relationship I regrettably felt compelled to follow. We got on the freeway where she initiatied speeds of 100 plus miles perhour weaving in between semi's and this sort of thing continued d for an hour in the interim I had called 911 and also she had pulled up too a gas station casually got out and pumped gas upon her getting back in the car I witnessed my roommate making derogatory and taunting sexual gestures referring to my ex and also what i can only describe as cuddling with my son in the back seat and became enraged and made some threatening motions with a large wooden shovel handle while standing next to her car that were directed at my betraying friend and I feel terrible for doing in front of my child but in the moment I was so desperate and upset by the psychological torture i had been through it clouded my normally good judgment. In the end the police couldn't locate us due to my 911 call continually being transfered fron highway patrol dispatch back to whatever city we were in at the times dispatch. Also ultimetly no physical harm or even any other attempts happend or anything to anyone of the people involved and eventually I gave up and drove back to my hometown. She immediately filed for a domestic violence restraining order and used a recording she took of me looking aggressive and threatening outside her car as proof im abusive and violent even though i have never been either of those things. Especially not violent. I may not have been the most mature or experienced or attentive partner for some of our relationship but anything I did was truly a far cry from the serious emotional anguish I have ben subjected to here and not abusive. I did not lie, cheat,manipulate, gaslight, trick, triangulate, turn family againts or ever feel superior or entitled to harm or use her in any way. I loved her and she did all those to me and now is trying to steal the most precious thing I have left in the world from me so she can emotionally scar him with her idea of what good parenting is which in truth is emotional abuse.. She moved my old roommate in to her moms house full time the very next day and from what I hear they both are abusing meth and who knows what else currently plus this guy is not somone that is safe around my son to that degree. He is not a healthy safe adult for such a young boy and in addition he is vindictive and dislikes me mostly because my ex told him I hit her and abused her which are absolutely complete lies. I'm facing a situation now where I have to sit by and watch my son turned agsints me and withheld from me and abused and eveyone treats me like im the abuser. I have tried to contact every dv organization in my local area and as soon as they hear what happend it's almost like I can Feel the switch flip and in the moment it's evident that all the abuse that I had recounted surviving through doesn't matter because I'm some "unhinged abusive guy that chases people down the freeway" eveyone I have reached out to locally has invalidated me and berrated me for "what I did" and successfully pathologized what I consider to be a huge mistake that I feel very regretful for loosing my composure but also a rather understandable emotional reaction to severe mistreatment and fear for my son. I'm beggining to feel so isolated riding the emotional Rollercoaster of self doubt and powerlessness that this abuse at the hands of my ex but dare I say worse yet the abuse by way of victim blame and invalidation from these people and organizations that exist to help dv survivors has caused me. which because I reacted I'm not worthy of being included as a survivor. Cn you offer any advice or support or suggestions? I'm terrified for my sons wellbeing currently and haven't been able to see him in going on 2.5 months now clear and to be clear the domestic violence restraining order is still temporary. I have the final hearing in August.i

I was on Grindr I had a date set up for 7 and this was the first hookup I was feeling positive about since my breakup that was emotionally and mentally damaging right before my dad passed from cancer.
I’ve had hookups since the break up but I can never cum nothing works at all ever. This time I was looking forward to it, but being 31, mornings tend to be my “best time”.
So this dude who’s been asking me to top him is online I message him, his pfp is artwork so I ask for a face pic, it’s blurry, I can tell he’s older, but I say fuck it I’m horny but not horny enough to not use condoms.
Well when I get there first sign I should leave it’s a disaster, then I see baggies and pipes for crystal and I’m in recovery, not for that but fuck. I think I was just so desperate to get over my ex that when he started blowing me I kinda let him despite telling myself only sex with condoms.
Well he flips over and his ass and around his balls are covered in HPV warts my dick was already in him so I tried to keep my shirt on and cover surface area that may touch but I just couldn’t think anything but “get the fuck out”.
Also not to shame the dude but his ass was blown out like an outie belly button.
I was emotionally traumatized before and swore I’d never date again and even my sketchiest stories don’t add up to this. I never want to have sex again and I know there’s no test for HPV so im just going to have to wait around? Idk
Im just so sick of being lied to, he didn’t even look like his blurry pfp I feel nauseous.

Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road
Deep in the groaning halls of sinew and bone he awaited his audience with the god. At a wave of his hand the ribs which held up the ceiling contracted, tendons shifting within the pink walls of the chamber as the jagged, calcareous spurs that composed the doorway sank back into the spongy masses of tissue, revealing a passage curving down and out of sight.
Menash stood before the yawning portal and considered eternity. This was no an idle thought: here in the Dawning Chamber, the concept was very real. His father, Yulan, had stood in this exact spot times beyond count. When he was struck down in his prime by the Night Weaver and her Leaper offspring, torn limb from limb as he fought to defend Chthonis from a raiding party, Menash’s uncle, Aqavarr, had carried his broken remains over that grinning threshold to join the hosts of the dead, never to return.
A hot and heavy exhalation rattled up out of the depths, wafting in the acrid scent of the bonding pools and the wet slithering sound of the rebirthing canals. Menash felt a crackle of static in the corners of his mind before the signal sharpened and he heard It whisper distinctly:
“Enter…”
The familiar dread crept its way up the small of his back, and he gave a little shiver. No matter how many times he had communed with the Vitalus, he’d never been able to shake the feeling of his utter insignificance. But he persevered, walking bravely down the slurping passage, past the rows of broad antechambers lining either side of the hallway. Each one held a slumbering shape immersed in a cryogenic bath, towering hulks of muscle encased in ribbed and riveted plates of chitin. No two were alike in size or physiology, but all seemed to emanate the same primeval aura of dread that tickled Menash’s fight-or-flight-instinct, skewing it very much towards the latter response. These were the Hollowores, soulless avatars of the Vitalus, each one a tool capable of eradicating an entire species. As Menash approached, one of the living weapons stirred to life. A pronged, anvil-shaped head emerged from the bath, umbilical feeder tubes detaching from its armored flanks as the rest of its bulk followed, its mauve exoskeleton as sleek and shiny as amethyst. The Hollowore extended legs as thick as grown pine trees and lifted itself above him, its pairs of crushing pincers dripping amniotic fluids as it herded him towards the central room.
Bundles of white gossamer filaments spread all across the floor, encircling steaming pools of pus and acid. He saw arms and legs, sensory organs and entire exoskeletons being knitted before his very eyes, the amino acid chains being stitched on a layer at a time, the weeping pus evidence of microphages fighting off possible infections as the Vitalus did Its work.
These were the next generation of exomorphs, yet to be assigned to their hosts. It was here that Vitalus constantly improved the only thing that could ensure the continued survival of Menash’s subspecies. Exomorphs were bonded to Gallivants at birth, the organisms supplying their hosts with the means to breathe an atmosphere they was never meant to endure, and the strength to fight in a world that was red in tooth and claw. They were as swift as the summer wind and could multiply their host’s muscular power by up to twelve times their natural output.
But for all their God-given might, Gallivants were still mortal. They could and often did perish in the endless struggle for existence that the Vitalus called the Great Game. But even in death they could still commit their essence to posterity, passing down their defining traits through the malleable genetic code of the gilt helix. It was the Vitalus’ greatest boon; through the gilt helix a single individual could become a progenitor of an entire generation, becoming at one stroke the father of whole nations and peoples.
One day he too would prove worthy of the honor that Yulan had earned with his life. But he was not alone in that ambition. Menash was annoyed to find the crimson-clad Vezda and the cowardly Racek waiting for him inside, standing next to a large ball of filaments that hung from a tonsil-like growth hanging from the walls.
This node pulsed, emitting a small storm of bioelectric activity, networks of fungi conveying commands in the form of oscillating voltages to their communities of symbiotic bacteria, the latter containing greigite mineral crystals aligned in the shape of electromagnetic coils. Other networks hidden in the walls modulated and amplified the signals, and the three Gallivants steeled themselves for the onrushing flood of information as the Vitalus tapped into their minds.
He was a candle before the raging heart of the thunderstorm. For an instant Menash touched a fraction of Its intelligence, the divisions of time and space rolling back as they joined the ocean of shared consciousness, becoming one with the living systems of Arachnea. From the tiniest aeroplankton floating above the waves of the golden coastlines, to the herds of ultrapods munching their way through swathes of trees in the savannahs. Menash felt himself pushing up out of the soil, longing and lusting and reaching for the sunlight with a trillion green fingers uncurling, alive with the furious movement of life.
But what was that flicker of orange to the east? That searing heat, that prickling pain spreading like a cancer down his side?
The Vitalus scooped them up and hurled them headlong into hell itself. A roaring wildfire was sweeping into the heart of the eastern rainforests. Menash tasted ash and ruin, felt pieces of himself wither and burn, his branches tongues of fire, wood cracking from the intense blaze, sap boiling instantaneously upon contact and rupturing, splitting him right down the grain. He fled in terror, running, slithering, digging, swimming, flying away in crazed panic from the walls of red death closing in on him. As his skin flaked off in clumps of charcoal he looked back and saw it towering over the treetops, the epicenter of this howling vortex of destruction: the grey behemoth. Its burnished metal hide gleamed like copper, reflecting the fury of the conflagration burning well into the night.
Menash pulled his mind away before it was lost forever in the storm of electric potentials. He saw Racek and Vezda swaying on their feet, breathing hard and fast.
“Heart of the World,” he managed to gasp, “What is your bidding?”
The Hollowore maneuvered itself until it was facing him directly. Tiny beady eyes fixed him in their blank gaze. The node emitted a blue pulse and the creature shuddered as it received the signal. It opened a maw powerful enough to chew boulders into gravel and rumbled:
“This one is the alpha which survived first contact with anomalous variable. It will tell Us what occurred, and from whence this threat emerged.”
“It came from the karst mountain range, where the yellowjacket Amit live,” Menash replied, “It was destroying the largest mound in that area, massacring its inhabitants. It brought the mountain down on them—we’ve never seen anything like it. Zildiz was the first on the scene. She warned us not to approach, and that it was dangerous, but some of us,” here he cast an angry look at Vezda, “Some of us went ahead and tried to scavenge from the bodies of the dying. Then the behemoth ignited the air and burned scores of us to cinders.”
“Irrational. Why did you do this?”
“W-we thought that you had spawned the grey behemoth,” Menash stammered, embarrassed to say the least, “That it was the newest addition to the Great Game, another species of ultrafauna that would help perfect Arachnea.”
“Not so. It was made by an evil far older than the All-In-One,” replied the Vitalus, “It is called a Divine Engine. In cycles past, this evil sought to undo this world and all that inhabit it. In that, it almost succeeded.”
Menash felt his blood run cold at those words.
“Is it the only one of its kind?” Racek piped up. Menash and Vezda both bristled at his interruption; subordinates were only supposed to speak when spoken to.
“There were several deployed here in Our infancy. We had thought them all destroyed in the War of Creation.”
“Your Munificence,” Racek went on, heedless of the venomous looks he was getting from the other two, “Most of us survived because Zildiz persuaded us to dive into the river. She saved all our lives! But as I washed up on the riverbank, I saw the behemoth casting a seedpod into the skies. I did not see where it landed, but it was travelling in a high arc due east. Is this the behemoth’s method of reproducing? If so, then how many offspring can it generate from this one seed?”
The Vitalus met his questions with a minute of silence. Menash had never known It to take so long to respond to a query, and felt another stab of unease in his gut. Unless he was imagining things, the Vitalus seemed genuinely disturbed by the scenario that Racek has raised, enough to convince Menash that the danger was far from hypothetical.
“That is a distant possibility,” It said somewhat cryptically, “Regardless, We cannot allow the Engine’s continued existence.”
“Then it must be destroyed,” Vezda said, her barbed tail eagerly perking up.
“We are not certain that it can be,” the Vitalus said, and Menash heard Racek audibly gulp at the admission.
“But Your Omniscience, you alone are the arbiter of growth and decay,” Vezda said in disbelief, “Surely you can unmake this monster as well?”
“Perhaps. The Divine Engines were built to withstand the extremes of temperature, gravity, atmospheric pressure, acidity and irradiation found on semi-inhabitable exoplanets. Worlds of bareness and desolation, glassed by thermonuclear bombardment or infested with alien microorganisms. In the wars of Our youth, the Betrayers used tungsten-alloy warheads fired from space platforms to crack their bulkheads. Not even Our vessels, the Hollowores, could damage them in any significant way. We will need time to gather the raw materials and fabricate the weapons needed to end this threat.”
“What must we do?” Menash asked.
“If this variable is not dealt with, it could upset the delicate balance We have sacrificed so much to achieve. Already the wildfire it has caused will release close to 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and destroy 2.3 million acres of forest before Our countermeasures can stop it. Time is our limiting factor. If the Engine cannot be destroyed now, it must be restrained.”
“It hasn’t moved an inch since we last saw it,” Vezda said brightly, “Maybe it has already died?”
“Yes, and maybe your mother was a horka toad,” Racek said snidely. Vezda scowled and took a step towards him, then stopped as she remembered that she trod on hallowed ground.
“Not so. It has merely gone dormant. Having expended its fuel, it is now running on the bare minimum of its reserves. My children, you must ensure that it does not wake again. Establish a quarantine zone around the Engine and let none approach, on pain of death. The Leaper kindreds will secure the ground while the Gallivants patrol the skies.”
Vezda and Menash exchanged troubled looks. Nobody wanted Leapers establishing a foothold in what was essentially a buffer zone between their subspecies. Once allowed to settle in a habitat, it would not take long for them to adapt and become masters of their new territory. Ousting them would become a battle of attrition, and given the lower birthrates of Gallivants, it was not one they could long afford.
“Respectfully, we do not require assistance from our brother kindred,” Menash ventured, “We are more than capable of safeguarding the area ourselves.”
The node throbbed again, the bioelectric flashes taking on an angry purple hue. With a sound like the grinding of a millstone the Hollowore clashed its claws together impatiently. All three of the mortals took a hasty step back.
“The alpha will obey, or another will be found that can,” the Vitalus growled at them, “All subspecies will observe a general truce during this period. This is a temporary addition to the Great Game. Those that serve Us well shall be rewarded. We shall also enlist the aid of your terrestrial cousins, as well as the Cataphract clans to replenish the soil, and lone Saints who shall rove beyond the quarantine zone.”
Menash’s unease deepened. The Vitalus was bringing together four different kindreds, some of which killed each other on sight, in a move that reeked of desperation. The kindreds had worked together before, of course, on complex projects such as altering rainfall patterns and husbanding struggling species, but never so many at once. This was bound to end in bloodshed.
“Those that break the truce shall be chemically neutered, and their gilt helix purged from the existing gene pool,” the Vitalus continued, “You will maintain this quarantine until We have dealt with the Engine.”
“It is understood!” Menash and Vezda said at once.
“But what about Zildiz?” Racek blurted out, again risking his entire lineage by speaking out of turn, “She might still be alive out there!”
“He’s right,” Menash found himself agreeing despite his dislike for Racek, “She’s our alpha, after all. It would be a shame to lose her helix. Do we have your leave to send out a party to recover her?”
The Vitalus pondered the request for a moment, then crushed his hopes when it said:
“Regrettable, the loss of the female. Valuable stock for the breeding program. But it has not responded to Our signals—it is unlikely to have survived. The female Vezda shall take up its duties as alpha.”
“But Your Benevolence—” both men cried out in unison.
“It is decided. She has risked the Great Game, and must abide by its outcome. To speak more on this would risk Our displeasure,” the god warned.
“We can’t spare the manpower anyway,” Vezda pointed out, trying not to look too pleased at Its decision. She darted a quick look at Menash, long enough for him to see the selfish desire festering in her heart. He turned away from her in disgust, baring his blades by the slightest of margins to let her know what he thought of her, then asked the Vitalus:
“But what of the Engine’s seedpod? Should we search for it?”
“Negative!” the Vitalus boomed, its node reinforcing the word with a spike of activity that sent needles of pain spearing into their heads, “We shall complete this task. It is dangerous and can be entrusted to no other.”
The Hollowore angled its massive head towards the cavernous ceiling, armored flaps on its back sliding aside as it unfurled sets of rigid sixty-meter wings. A wide sphincter on the roof gaped open and Menash saw the evening sky awash with the stars in their milky multitudes. The Hollowore took a deep breath through the spiracles lining its thorax and abdomen, pumping air through a pair of hollow tube-like protuberances under either of its wings. Menash and the others quickly scampered to a safe distance. Seconds later there was a scream of chemical combustion and the Hollowore rose into the evening skies, leaving behind a long trail of superheated gases, the backwash almost knocking Menash off his feet. They watched as the Hollowore gained altitude, making straight for the columns of billowing smoke on the horizon, a sweeping shadow blotting out the light of the heavens.
The Vitalus’ mental presence receded with it. When it did not return, they took it to mean that they were dismissed and likewise took flight and headed for Chthonis. They were hardly out of the Dawning Chamber when Vezda seized the scrawny Racek by his wings and anchored her feet right up against his back.
“Funny little man, are you? Crack jokes at my expense again, and I’ll see to it that you’ll never fly again!” she snarled, yanking hard. Racek yelled as his wings threatened to pop out of their sockets.
“Stop!” Menash said, ramming his shoulder into her and knocking the smaller male out of her grip. Vezda rounded on him, blades out and her tail aquiver with rage.
“As for you! No one should speak to the Vitalus like that!” she shrieked, “Much less gainsay It! Are you trying to get us all killed? It is the source and continuance of life itself—”
“But the Vitalus doesn’t always consider the individual scale of things,” Menash reasoned, controlling his rising anger as he tried to defuse the situation, “Its scope of thought is beyond ours. Therefore it is up to us to look after each other. None of us can win the Great Game alone. We need people like Zildiz for the species to prosper.”
“Your logic is flawed,” Vezda spat, “Empathy is a sham devised by the selfish action of the gene, which seeks only to preserve itself. At least I am honest enough to look after my own interests. Your obsession with that whore is misplaced. Heed my words, Menash. What happened today marks a change in the Great Game. Only the ruthless will reap the rewards of this era. Think on that, and act accordingly.”
The female darted off in another direction, leaving the two behind.
“Thanks,” Racek said, rubbing at his sore shoulders, “My, my. She’s really taking her promotion very seriously, isn’t she?”
“This doesn’t make us friends,” Menash said shortly, “We share a common interest, that’s all.”
The two flew together in silence for a time, the dark canopy unrolling below their feet. Racek had always been a bitter rival for Zildiz’s affections. In the mating seasons he and Menash had flown the damsel-dance against each other countless times, racing and dogfighting at top speed through the dense bamboo thickets in an effort to impress her.
But each time she had always chosen Menash. Naturally. He was the stronger, the braver, the son of the Scourge who had slain hundreds on his lightning raids into Leaper territory. Their pairings had been brief and passionate, yet she had always laughed at the end and gone on her merry way, a rose petal borne on a scented breeze, the dalliance as meaningless to her as other concerns like eating or breathing.
But not to him. Right now, all that mattered was her. And Racek was the only one in the whole wide world who knew exactly how he felt. Did that mean he could be trusted? Menash considered the enormity of what he was about to do, and wavered. Then he saw her face in the darkness of his home, the face she wore when they were all alone together, and he took a deep breath before breaking the silence, saying:
“I’ll be in charge of the quarantine. I can arrange for you to disappear for a few days. I can have one of the younglings mimic your magnetosynaptic signal, make it seem like you’re with the rest of us.”
“You’d do that? For me?” Racek said in astonishment.
“Hah. Not for you,” Menash laughed softly. He looked Racek straight in the eyes and continued: “What’ll it be, then?”
If he so much as hesitates, I’ll have to kill him here and now, Menash told himself.
“Why, yes. Yes, of course!” the little brown male said vigorously.
“Good,” Menash sighed with relief, “She’ll be very grateful to whoever brings her home. I’d do it myself, but as an alpha I can’t risk being seen as disobedient.”
“Then why give me this chance? After all that’s passed between us?”
“I should have thought that was obvious,” Menash replied. Racek digested that for a bit, then out of nowhere said:
“If I find her—when I find her—I’ll tell her exactly who it was that sent me.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Bah! Just so we’re even, that’s all,” Racek grinned, his mouthparts slanting askew.
“Thanks, I guess. I’d…I’d appreciate that. You do understand what we’re risking here, right?”
“Sure. We’ll be total genetic write-offs if we’re caught. But it’s not like I wanted to see tiny ugly Raceks running around the house anyway. What about you, though? Why are you putting your neck on the chopping block?”
“You know why,” Menash said quietly, his thoughts still lingering on her face.
“Yes,” Racek agreed with a wistful air, “Yes, I suppose I do.”
And the pair spoke no more until they reached Chthonis.
Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road

All I want to do when I wake up is go smoke some meth on RTD and not be bothered. I have to ride on 3 separate trains to smoke all of my meth which can sometimes take all day! I just want people to stop looking at me funny and asking if I have a ticket, no of course I don’t have a ticket stop asking it’s free! Anyways I just love the views and I won’t stop smoking meth on RTD.

Cheap houses are a thing of the past: About 5 years ago a starter home could be bought around my area for under 30-40k. lol I know, that sounds mad the way the housing market is now, sigh. Hindsight.
Current market: Then Covid and a housing boom happened and now a starter home in this area cost 200-300k. Incredibly low inventory, high competition, a LOT of investors as the state built many factories post Covid- which brought in a LOT of ppl. So any cheap home is long gone. There is only inventory in the “unlivable and way over priced burned down meth house”/“very nice and the price has 2x-3x in 2years, that’s life- everyone’s competing and outbidding on these”/“unless you’re a millionaire you can’t afford the upkeep on these 500k+ McMansions”. I’m aware this seems amazing to HCOL residents but do recall this is a rural area where the majority of residents live at or around minimum wage: meaning our income even in the 60k range is HIGH here. I have NO IDEA how anyone is affording a home in a HCOL
Journey so far: We’ve amassed 111k NET WORTH (in 2.5years) on a relatively small budget of roughly 65k by cutting out the fat on most everything and having a lot of lucky breaks. Many renters had near 1k INCREASES in rent while our rent is still under 650 a month. Low living expenses allow us to save at a rate of 2.5k or more a month. This is a very lucky point for us and we are grateful but it’s become apparent that anyone on an average income, locally, has been priced out of the housing market pretty much overnight.
This is a hard pill to swallow.
The whole goal of saving to hit 100k was to safely put a deposit on a home, AND continue to save towards fire. But with the market how it is, running compound interest calculators and rent/buy calculators, it simply doesn’t make any sense to move. This house is perhaps the cheapest home to rent in this town and it allows us a decent savings rate. it’s become apparent giving up our low rent would be a bad move because it would damage our savings rate more than buying a home would likely increase our net worth.
Running calculators at our current savings rate we should be at or close to 200k in 2-2.5years (with an ESTIMATED return of 7-10%), at which point we also expect our income to have risen as well. It SEEMS like a much safer position to buy a house. Having seen the horror show that is our local market in the last few years waiting even longer is pretty frightening.
I’m aware many ppl in the fire community sacrifice comfort for their savings rate; sometimes for decades!. I can respect that, and I get it, but I wonder how ppl are holding up in this now remarkably inflation affected world. I can’t be the only one who watched the finish line dash further and further away freaking out the whole time…. Other than up our income and stay in an uncomfortable home I’m unsure what else we could do. Is everyone under a certain saving point freaking out or is it just me? Is there ever a number where you feel comfortable or is this housing crisis/inflation boom just par for the course? Did a lot of ppl in the community recently just have to give up on buying a home because it doesn’t make sense in ur fire plan (nearly overnight)? And how big of a hit to ur fire plan is removing/postponing/dealing with the prices of buying a house after the real estate boom. I kind of feel like everyone who bought a house 5+ years ago won the lottery and we’re just struggling to catch up lol

Review on crystal angel gloss treatment. I’ve been eyeing it for a long time but couldn’t find any reviews. Also what are your favourite Kevin Murphy products?

I'm a 29 year old male and i will try to summarize the horrendous situation I find myself without leaving to many crucial details out. I was with my ex girlfriend for nearly 6 years. The red flags were present fromn the beggining but looking back I had no way to understand what they were at the time partly due to my young nievete and partly due to the fact that coming from a emotijallyabusive household I had normalized many of the more subtle behaviors and therefore they fell within a blindspot of my cognitive distortions at the time. From the very start she would begin punching herself in her own head if i ever became upset with her in any way or during any attempt to verbally work a problem out. I thought she was just a bit flippant and intense. Dare I say I almost found it attractive in a strange sense. She was and still to this day, stunningly beautiful and menacingly seductive and knows how she can have a significant effect on males especially without doing very much in the way of actions. Fast forward she unknown to me at the time discontinued her birth contorll pills while still assuring me she was taking them and ultimetly lied by telling me she had just to fund out she had become pregnant herself after missing a period. We were both in our mid to early 20s still more or less financially dependant on our parents and were living on public city streets in our tow behind rv with our 2 dogs. She was idealizing me and to be frank I remebr this period of time as the happiest iv been eever before and up untill now. This memory of "happiness" I think was the biggest reason it took me so long to finally start trying to advocate for my self respect instead of hanging my head and just ignoring the abuse so that I would get the sweet reward of psedo- intimacy with her a few times a week. Despite my fond memories looking back I see now what could only be described as patterns if coercive control that seriously escalated over the 5 years we were in a relationship with each other and included her beggining to cheat early on and the resulting systemic lies and relational damage from needing to formulate and bend the nature of reality around those lies. Her hot and cold treatment of me with any postive(hot) behavior usually at least in the last few years being exclusively sexual in nature and cold behavior usually manifesting as her stonewalling me and or simply disappearing for multiple days at a time sometimes. The day my son was born i accompanied her to the hospital and sat with her the entire time helped her push ans enouraged her with love. She treated me with indifference and disdain. Once our wonderful little boy came along this a became even worse. The sense that she was making it about him and her vs everyone else including me was strong. She became quite introverted secretive and "cliquey" with my newborn and at the same time seemed to loose all desire to be physically or emotionally intimate with me. (Of course i gave her plenty of time and space right after she gave birth amd was understanding that it might be a while before things were back to normal).it was almost like she had a new partner-our child. she refused to fully move in to the apartment my grandparents had spent a huge amint of money on to give us a chance at raising our soon in a healthy environment. She would start random and seemingly pointless arguments often escalating into her screaming mean things at me innfront of our 3 month old son like she ****ed me and then raging followed by quickly slamming the door and taking our infant son backto her mother's house where she would stonewall me for a few days then send me. A message that emotionally blackmailed me into taking full blame for the rupture and apologizing profusely. In addition she did not trust me with our son but had no reason not too and as a result gatekept him in an extremely overcintrolling and damaging(for him and for me) manner. to this day (he is 3.5] I have never spent the night alone with him and have had him 1 on 1 dad and son time signifigantly less than I should have and not for lack of trying on my part. Despite her overcontrolling coercive sabatoging and alienating actions my son and I formed a loving and beautiful bond that up untill I saw him last a few months ago has amazingly endured through the storm. The tradegy goes on and on but to wrap up ultimitely she purposefully betrayed me by starting a relationship with my good friend and had him suggest to me that he should move in so he became my roommate all the while lying to my roommate that I ht her and simultaneously having him report back to her on my whereabouts at any Givin time and the things I said about her when venting after a prticulringly humiliating attempt to see my son or similar interaction and also give her info about what I was doing during the day. He became quite controlling himself and severed to further isolate me from people that weren't trying to ruin my life. They started to play mindgames with me that ibsee now attempts to gage how much I knew or suspected about what was going on. Mind you my son who was around 2 at this point was privy to the whole thing it was only kept a secret from me and due to this my son was coached to not tell me about it although what was actually said I will never know. Eventually a mutual friend of my roommate and I reached out and told me he had seen my roommate "playing dad" with my girl and son at dollar tree that day. I remebrr that day I sat at a local park in my car sullen and confused having been led on via sms from her only to randomly stop responding and never managing to get any time with my son. This sort of thing had become a regular occurance She then began withholding my son all togethar simply not answering at all or lying about him being asleep ridiculously early in the afternoon etc etc. My own parents failed to suppprt me and are still failing to show any sort of care other than somehwat monitarily. In fact my mom and her were two peas in a pod and my mom activly participated in the emotional abuse partly becauee of being manipulated by her partly because my mother is emotionally abusive. If I had better support or access to court resources at the time I'm confident things would have gone much differently but I was so isolated and lonely and in a deep state of despair at this point and the only thing I still was enduring for was the brief and inconsistent times i got with my boy whom I love more than life itself. I managed to get a hold of her via phone at this point and said i was going to go to court and pursue custody since she seemed unwilling to value my valid role as father. Her mom and her immediately became overly nice and invited me over where they sat me down and offered to make a visitation schedule and kindly suggested I dident go to court. It wasent much but it was signifgantly more respect than I had been shown any instance prior so I gobbled up the manipulations and left feeling invigorated and hopeful. The schedule was never adhered too and within a few days it was back to me not even be able to get a hold of her let alone see my son. The final day I saw him before things blew up I went over to her house in the evening. My son wanted to play hot wheels so we began to line them up on the floor but my ex was hovering over us with a hostile air. I asked if we could have some space or if at least she could sit down and play with us and she just kept standing there glaring at me. This made me uncomfortable and my son noticed this by sayig daddy play with me! Upon hearing this she in a angry tone said "play with your effin kid isent that what you wanted to do soooooo badly" right in front of him. I asked not to be spoken to in front of him like that and she went and got her mom and started whispering abut me to her mom in the hallway while they watched my son and I. I got up and said I'm leaving this is innappropriate and she said "wow that checks out you harrass me to see your son and then you don't even wanna see him. how pathetic and typical" " you just want to stress me out dont you" you don't actually give 2 you know what's about him" right in front of my son again. I speechlessly went to leave and my son comes running after me begging me to wait. I'm on the verge of tears and i picked him up cherishing how warm he was and how lovingly he was clinging to me. I tentatively requested I be allowed to go for a walk with him around the block and her mom this time dismissively says ya go and shoos us out the door. I get down the driveway and my ex comes sprinting out of the house tears streaming down her face and a look of rage and starts hitting me while I'm holding our son. Amazingly he start4d pushing her away saying mommy stop mommy stop. She says you have 5 minutes or I'm calling the cops and goes back in. I walk him around the block and say "mommy's feeling sad right now but it doesn't mean that either one of us loves you any more or any less than we used to and it's absolutely not your fault." I go back inside and without saying anything I walk up to her and give her a hug wich my son joins in too. All the sudden she is happy again and trying to speak to me in a casual tone but I basically just leave without saying much else. After this a week of no contact with my son occurs which at the time was the longest we had gone apart I felt like I had no choice but to confront her and assert my rights AGAIN although looking back I feel terribley silly for thinking she was going to repsect me at that point. Keep in mind i ALWAYS was extrmely respectful of her space and never would just show up at her moms house even though our relationahip by many accounts was more than informal ennough to make an occasionaI drop in to say hi. In addition she on Many occasions had told me that I could just come by if she didn't Answer her phone or simular situation arose. I texted her I was coming by to say goodnight to my son and phrased it as a statement not a question or request. I was already on the way when I sent the message and so I arrived (unintentionally)before her being able to fully respond to it to see my romate come running out of the front door (this is when I first had proof ab about all the stuff I mentioned earlier about their secret relationship) and go hide in the bushes, her poke her head out the door and then shut and lock it and turn all the lights in the house out and close the blinds. I walk up to the door and knock to no avail and so I confront her about what i know and saw via sms. She directly denies all my proof and accusations and then after calling me crazy and a stalker blocks me on all channels of communication. I go back to my car and collapse in tears and ultimtly fall asleep. I wake up to see her quickly shoving a duffel bag and my son into her moms car and her and my roommate get in and she pulls quickly away. Upon passing me on her way to the main road she becomes aware that im still there in my car and she burns rubber and begins driving extremely fast and erratically. In a moment of panic I knew she was probably trying to go into hiding with my son to prevent me from evrr seeing him again and I fearing for the safety of my son and our relationship I regrettably felt compelled to follow. We got on the freeway where she initiatied speeds of 100 plus miles perhour weaving in between semi's and this sort of thing continued d for an hour in the interim I had called 911 and also she had pulled up too a gas station casually got out and pumped gas upon her getting back in the car I witnessed my roommate making derogatory and taunting sexual gestures referring to my ex and also what i can only describe as cuddling with my son in the back seat and became enraged and made some threatening motions with a large wooden shovel handle while standing next to her car that were directed at my betraying friend and I feel terrible for doing in front of my child but in the moment I was so desperate and upset by the psychological torture i had been through it clouded my normally good judgment. In the end the police couldn't locate us due to my 911 call continually being transfered fron highway patrol dispatch back to whatever city we were in at the times dispatch. Also ultimetly no physical harm or even any other attempts happend or anything to anyone of the people involved and eventually I gave up and drove back to my hometown. She immediately filed for a domestic violence restraining order and used a recording she took of me looking aggressive and threatening outside her car as proof im abusive and violent even though i have never been either of those things. Especially not violent. I may not have been the most mature or experienced or attentive partner for some of our relationship but anything I did was truly a far cry from the serious emotional anguish I have ben subjected to here and not abusive. I did not lie, cheat,manipulate, gaslight, trick, triangulate, turn family againts or ever feel superior or entitled to harm or use her in any way. I loved her and she did all those to me and now is trying to steal the most precious thing I have left in the world from me so she can emotionally scar him with her idea of what good parenting is which in truth is emotional abuse.. She moved my old roommate in to her moms house full time the very next day and from what I hear they both are abusing meth and who knows what else currently plus this guy is not somone that is safe around my son to that degree. He is not a healthy safe adult for such a young boy and in addition he is vindictive and dislikes me mostly because my ex told him I hit her and abused her which are absolutely complete lies. I'm facing a situation now where I have to sit by and watch my son turned agsints me and withheld from me and abused and eveyone treats me like im the abuser. I have tried to contact every dv organization in my local area and as soon as they hear what happend it's almost like I can Feel the switch flip and in the moment it's evident that all the abuse that I had recounted surviving through doesn't matter because I'm some "unhinged abusive guy that chases people down the freeway" eveyone I have reached out to locally has invalidated me and berrated me for "what I did" and successfully pathologized what I consider to be a huge mistake that I feel very regretful for loosing my composure but also a rather understandable emotional reaction to severe mistreatment and fear for my son. I'm beggining to feel so isolated riding the emotional Rollercoaster of self doubt and powerlessness that this abuse at the hands of my ex but dare I say worse yet the abuse by way of victim blame and invalidation from these people and organizations that exist to help dv survivors has caused me. which because I reacted I'm not worthy of being included as a survivor. Cn you offer any advice or support or suggestions? I'm terrified for my sons wellbeing currently and haven't been able to see him in going on 2.5 months now clear and to be clear the domestic violence restraining order is still temporary. I have the final hearing in August.i

It’s been one year since my (partial) Disney Adventure with my boyfriend and I’m getting sad from the reminders lol! I want to go back! We did two days at Disney – Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, with a day at Disney Springs. (Two days were at Universal Studios).
Day 1, Monday May 15
Magic Kingdom
Made it to the Magic Kingdom just before it opened. Started off with Jungle Cruise for our first ride, then Pirates of the Caribbean, Big Thunder Mountain, and Haunted Mansion. Didn't want to buy anything just yet but found some cool stuff to purchase later. Had some food (hotdogs and potato barrels aka tater tots lol) after Winnie the Pooh (which had a super long line) and Princess Carousel. Met Cinderella and another princess that I didn’t know. Did Buzz Lightyear, Carousel of Progress, and PeopleMover (that was broken down so we had to wait on that ride for a bit). Really cool when it was up and running and we saw the behind the scenes of Space Mountain (which was down for most of the day so we never rode). Hit up Mad Hatters Tea Party, Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pans Flight and It's a Small World, then Riverboat before dinner at Crystal Palace with the Winnie the Pooh gang. Did some shopping as we made our way to Main Street and got ready for fireworks. If I didn't take pictures, I never would have thought the day happened.
Day 2, Tuesday May 16
Hollywood Studios
Began the day with Mickey and Minnies Runaway Railway, which was fun then Tower of Terror. Never again. Scary galore lol. The guy beside me kept grabbing my leg until I showed him the handle lol. Then we went to Toy Story Land and did the Alien saucers and Toy Story Mania (forearms grew that day). Had lunch at Woody's Toybox and had a brisket grilled cheese, it was really good (and more potato barrels). Took in the Indiana stunt show and then went to Star Tours, MuppetVision before making our way to Star Wars land for the two rides there. If I was Star Wars fan, I'd have lost my mind. I was so impressed with the production value and the scenery. Really really great stuff, very super impressed. Had some drinks and eats at the Cantina and it was "authentic" stuff so it looked weird but tasted normal lol and closed out with Beauty and the Beast and then dinner at Mickey and Minnies restaurant and met all of them.
Day 3, Wednesday May 17
Went to Disney springs and bought some Lego sets (first ones ever, I got the Cinderella Castle lol) and had some chicken at the Guy Fieri quick service restaurant. Pretty chill day.
And that’s about it! I regret not buying the Anniversary LoungeFly backpack that I saw everywhere and kept saying I wanted it but my boyfriend said I didn’t need it (which is true) and that it doesn’t hold anything except a toothpick (which is kinda true). Bought a bunch of other cool things though so I guess it’s alright lol! Miss it a lot and can’t wait to go back (already abstractly planning things out). Thanks for reading!

I've got one more of these left!
As you all know, this is a top-tier, NWBIG piece and the "Sub" to get if you're considering acquiring one. This is the latest and greatest model/serial number (Q66). It has an amazing power reserve! This Submariner is 41mm and is very comfortable and durable for daily wear. This will also come with a Rolex warranty card. These go VERY quickly when I list them - don't wait to grab this!
In addition to the modifications spec’d out below, all of my watches receive the following quality control:
1.) Line up the dial at 12 o'clock to the engraved Rolex coronet on the rehaut (best as possible) 2.) Thin crystal gasket (because it can be too tall) this allows the crystal to sit lower and bezel to rotate more freely on certain watches 3.) Reinstall/rotate crystal to line up the cyclops to the date window and LEC 4.) Grease all gaskets using Bergeon 7055 5.) Adjust bracelet to desired length and tighten all screws/clasp 6.) Remove any burrs from the stem to ensure tight/smooth operation 7.) Visually inspect movements, remove any foreign debris/dust and apply Möbius 9010 oil as needed 8.) Ultrasonically clean and lubricate entire bracelet and clasp mechanism to eliminate any squeaking
-VSF 126610LN -"Deep" Crystal -Polished Rehaut -Individual Bezel Scallop Polishing & Re-brush -Genuine Hytrel Ring (better bezel fit/action) -Edge Softening of Case/Clasp -Waterproof'd to 5ATM -Regulated Movement
ALBUM
Price = $899 + shipping (USPS: Priority $13/Express $30/Canada $35) I ship the same day and am based in Boston.
I take all of my photos using an iPhone 15 Pro. I don’t use any filters, or effects and try to get various angles and lighting to most accurately depict the beauty of the watch. Many, many, many satisfied clients and references available.
———
Pricing is firm. I accept ZELLE, WISE or BANK WIRE ONLY. If you tell me that you’re “taking it”, I will hold it for you for 15 MINUTES before it goes to the next in line.
I have sold a lot of watches prior on and have an extensive post history on .
Standard disclaimer: I will pack the watch very securely with lots of bubble wrap. Once the package leaves my possession, I will no longer be held responsible for anything that might happen during the shipping and handling process. I also will not take the watch back if you decide you don’t like it, or that your significant other is angry at you (yes, this has happened before). I will however always do my best to ensure that you’re happy with your purchase.

An hour after getting back from the Mason apartment, Bruce Kenner had the distinct misfortune of meeting Bertha Henderson.
A plump, gaudy woman with wrinkles and sun beaten skin only an alligator could love, Bertha Henderson wore bright red lipstick, bright red rouge, and way too much mascara. Her tangled hair was a dull red color and her clothes - pink pants and a white floral top - stretched tight across her bulbous frame. She looked like the kind of woman who lived in a trailer with velvet pictures of Elvis on the wall and pink flamingos in the front yard.
She acted like one too.
From the moment she stormed into his office, she hadn’t shut up once. She scolded, chided, accused, and badgered, sometimes even wagging one fat finger in his face like he was a naughty little boy. Ten minutes into the dressing down and Bruce was beginning to fantasize about police brutality.
It took him another ten minutes to find out what the hell she even wanted.
“It’s my granddaughter,” she shot back, “she’s missing in your town.”
My town? Lady, this is barely my office. I share it with three other people.
“Well, if you’ll calm down, maybe I can help.”
Jesus Christ was that the wrong thing to say. She hit the roof and didn’t come down again until Bruce was this close to arresting her for assault on a police officer. “Young man, I do not appreciate the way you’re talking to me. My tax dollars are the only reason you have a job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working at a car wash.”
At least I wouldn’t have to deal with you.
Bruce took a deep breath and held his tongue in check. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“I told you, my granddaughter is missing. If you listened to me, you’d know this already.”
Bertha produced a picture and slid it across the desk. Bruce studied it. A girl, roughly sixteen with black hair, blue eyes, and dimples smiled back at him. “She;’s with that Rossi man, I just know it,” she said bitterly.
“Who?” Bruce asked.
Rolling her eyes like he was stupid, the old woman told him the story. Jessie - the dimple faced girl - had the rotten luck of having to live with Grandma Bertha after her parents went to jail on drug charges. They lived in Sand Lake, a little town in the mountains outside Albany, where Bertha was no doubt loved and admired by all. One day, Jessie, who her grandmother lovingly described as “A little troublemaker”, ran off. Bruce didn’t blame her. He’d known Bertha for half an hour and he wanted to run off. Bertha did some snooping on Jessie’s laptop and found that the “little whore” had been chatting with an older man, Joe Rossi. Rossi, or so Facebook said, lived in Albany and worked at Club Vlad.
“I want him arrested for pedophilia,” Bertha said and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “He’s a dog just like all men. She’s probably pregnant already. Another mouth I have to feed.”
Behind the old battle ax, Vanessa appeared in the doorway and lifted her brows as if to say What a piece of work. Knowing her, she’d probably been standing just out of sight this whole time with McKenny, the elderly evidence clerk, and snickering into her hand like a little girl. LOL she called him young man.
Bertha noticed him looking over her shoulder and started to turn. Vanessa’s face went white and she ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding detection. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Bertha said to Bruce. “Meanwhile, if I don’t get Jessie back, the state’s going to stop sending me my checks. I need that income. I can’t work, you know. I have gout.”
Too bad being an asshole isn’t a job, you’d be world-famous
“I’ll go talk to him,” Bruce said.
“I want more than talk, young man, I want action.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Bertha finally decided to waddle off and ruin someone else’s day, Vanessa came in and sat in the chair the old woman had so recently occupied. “Oh, my God,” she said, “that was intense. I was this close to radioing in a 1015.”
1015 was code for officer down.
“Funny,” Bruce said without a trace of humor. He had kids going missing, a dead guy someone moved around like a goddamn Barbie doll, and now this. What next, hemorrhoids?
“What do you think? Code 1 or code 2?”
Code 1 meant top priority. Code 2 meant not a top priority. Bruce thought for a moment. It didn’t sound like Jessie Henderson was in danger. It sounded like she met a guy - granted, one too old for her - and decided to hide out with him from her psycho grandma. Maybe it could be something more, but he had a gut feeling that it wasn’t…and his gut feelings were usually right. “2,” he finally said. “I got shit to do.”
By shit, he meant “Talk to the families of those missing boys again.” He’d been interviewing them for two days looking for clues, but there was nothing. It’s like they just vanished. Bruce didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Vanessa said and slapped the desk.
When she was gone, Bruce sighed.
Never a dull moment, he thought.
***
Ed Harris - no relation to the Hollywood actor - had been the medical examiner for the City of Albany since 2002, and in all that time, he had never seen anything quite like this.
It was Wednesday evening and Ed was locked away in the cold, sterile space beneath the city offices that comprised his domain. With its puke green tiles, harsh lights, and cloying smells of disinfectant, the .coroner's office creeped most people out, but not Ed. He was at home here, as comfortable surrounded by toe-tagged bodies as a cactus was surrounded by desert. A thin man in his fifties with curly, steel gray hair thinning in the middle, he wore a white smock, blood stained over his clothes that made him look like a butcher instead of a low level government functionary. He had a dark and dry sense of humor, but then again, so do all people who play with dead bodies for fun and profit.
The coroner’s office was a vast, utilitarian vault segmented into multiple different rooms. Here, where the magic happened, three stainless steel tables stood in a row; a bank of refrigerated drawers kept watch, making sure nothing funny happened. One of the cold fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a hum of electricity, and water dripped rhythmically from a faucet. It was a cold, eerie place, but to Ed, it was home.
On most nights, only one of the tables was occupied, but tonight, two were. On one lay an old lady who died of what appeared to be cyanide poisoning. On the other was Dominick Mason.
Naked save for a white cloth draped over his groin to protect his dignity, Dom was the most corpsy corpse you’d ever hope to see. In fact, if you looked up dead guy in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of him. His body was pale and sunken, one side covered in purple splotches where his blood had pooled, and his eyes were closed. His abdomen was slightly distended with the expected build up of gas, and his flesh stuck fast to the bones beneath. In other words, he was text book. A normal corpse.
Mostly normal.
As men of his trade are wont to do when strange bodies mysteriously appear, Ed had opened Dom up, making a Y shaped incision from his neck to his groin. He hummed to himself as he did so, his hands wielding his sharp and shiny tools with the deft assuredness of a seasoned surgeon. Done cutting, he dipped his gloved hands into the cavity and started removing organs. A spleen here, a liver there, nothing Dom would miss. When he got to the heart, however, he stopped.
There was something…off…about it. At first glance, it was black and withered like an oversized raisin. An odd and putrid odor emanated from it and though he was familiar with the various smells and stenches the human body produced after death, this wasn’t one of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t place it, couldn’t even compare it to anything. Plucking a magnifying glass from the metal cart next to the table, he peeled back part of Dom’s chest and examined the heart closer.
That’s when things got really weird.
Dominick Mason’s heart was, indeed, shriveled, but it was not black. Instead, it was almost entirely covered by an interlacing crisscross of what appeared to be black mold. Here and there, Ed could glimpse flashes of the heart beneath: It was wrinkled and a sickly gray color. “What is this?” Ed asked himself at length. He grabbed a pair of tweezers from the tray and carefully, very carefully, attempted to remove a piece of the mold for analysis. The moment the cold metal tips touched the heart, it gave a violent spasm that sent Ed falling back with a shocked gasp, the tweezers falling from his hand and clinking to the tiled floor.
The heart began to pulse like an alien egg sac, slowly at first, then more rapidly. For a moment, Ed was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Once you die, your heart ceases beating. That’s that. Only living hearts beat, and Dominick Mason was certainly dead. He was dead from the moment Ed first laid eyes on him earlier that day and he was dead now. Yet there was his heart, beating anyway.
It could be a muscle spasm. They usually aren’t that violent and consistent, but dead bodies sometimes do strange things. As he watched the blackened muscle expanding and contracting, however, Ed had the most eerie feeling. He went to rub the back of his neck, realized he was still wearing blood soaked gloves, and stripped them off. He was spooking himself out; he needed a break and a hot cup of coffee. He’d come back fresh and start over again.
With that mold.
Could you really blame him for being creeped out? That stuff wasn’t normal. He’d never seen anything like that before, not even in textbooks. Dom was scrawny and didn’t get enough vitamins in life, but overall, he was healthy; that mold…or whatever it was…had no business being there.
Going over to the coffee pot, which stood in the same room to save travel time, Ed grabbed a styrofoam cup. When he was done here, he planned to go home and -
A terrible, metallic clatter rang out, and Ed jumped. He turned around, and when he saw Dominick Mason standing next to the table, hunched slightly over and staring at him, an electric burst of fright shot up his spine and exploded in his brain, so strong it made the edges turn gray. Pale, hands hooked into talons, and the flaps of his chest hanging open to reveal the cavity beneath, Dominick Mason looked for all the world like a boy who’d been caught sneaking out to meet his girlfriend. A weak, involuntary, “Oh, God,” slipped from Ed’s trembling lips, and the spell was broken. Dom came alive and ran toward the door leading out to the parking lot. He slammed through it, and the sound of it crashing open and then falling closed again echoed through the empty chamber.
Shaking, panting for air, and soaked in piss, Ed sank to the floor in a sitting position, his eyes wide and staring like those of a soldier returning damaged from the front.
It was a long time before he composed himself enough to call the police.
***
Dazed and caught in a nightmarish twilight realm where nothing made sense, Dominick Mason limped painfully down the sidewalk, a stranger lost in a strange land filled with danger and hostile creatures. Barefoot and shrouded in a white sheet, he trembled with cold and struggled to ignore the dark, threatening shapes looming from the fog in his brain, shapes that would turn into unspeakable truths if he let them.
Passersby openly stared at him, their expressions either morbidly curious, disgusted, or alarmed. A man put his arm protectively around his girlfriend; a woman pulled her little boy to her breast, and another man sneered at him, his nose crinkling. Dom, his glazed eyes narrowed against the harsh glare of the many street lamps, headlights, and storefronts, lumbered headlong toward nowhere, his fear growing until he was shambling. He imagined he could hear every cough, every whisper; smell the odor of every unwashed body. Each car horn was deafening, every whiff of ass or armpits sent his stomach churning. The rustle of a passing pedestrian’s jacket jammed into his ears like icepicks, and the approaching globes of LED headlamps burned his eyes. He gritted his teeth and groaned against the pain.
The dense mist wrapping his brain made it hard to think. Like a frightened animal, he made his way on instinct alone. Home. He needed to get home. Out here, on the street, he was exposed. At home, locked away in his small apartment, he would be safe.
A car passed in the street, bass heavy rap music blaring from its open windows, and Dom’s brain exploded with agony. He threw himself against a street sign and held on for dear life, his legs weak. Dizziness overwhelmed him, and he almost went down. He was also cold.
So, so cold.
People around him quickened their step; they never took their eyes off him, as though he were a venomous snake that would strike at any moment. He needed to get away from them. They were going to hurt him; people always hurt him.
Pushing away from the sign, he began to hobble once more toward home, wherever home was. He looked over his shoulder several times as he made his way down Central Avenue, and each time, he saw that no one was following him as he had feared.
No one, that is, except for the man in sunglasses.
Tall and lank with curly hair, he wore dark Aviators and a leather motorcycle jacket over a button up shirt. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and his face showed no expression. He was always there, always a few steps closer. Outside Capital Fried Chicken, a group of people openly stared at him, He heard their whispers as he passed. What’s wrong with him? Dude’s straight tweakin. And the one that struck him the most. That guy looks dead.
Dom hobbled faster, as if to outrun the realization that he was, in fact, dead. The man in sunglasses was closer now, his footsteps so loud that Dom winced. He turned around, and the man was impossibly in front of him. Dom ran into him and bounced backward, going ass over tea kettle and landing on the former. They were in front of a church on a darkened corner, the lights here either burned out or shot out - you could never tell in Albany. Even though it was dark, Dom could see everything with crystal clarity. Dom tried to scurry away, but he was too weak to escape. Right there and then, he decided to give up. Come what may, he just wanted this nightmare to be over.
The man stared down at him, emotionless, unspeaking.
Dom squirmed.
“You’re real lucky I came along,” the man said. His tone was flat, even.
Dead.
“Get up,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Home?
Yes.
Dom wanted to go home.
The man helped him up, and Dom followed him into the night.
***
Bruce Kenner stood in the middle of the medical examiner’s office at half past nine that evening with his hands on his hips and stared doubtfully down at Ed Harris. The lonely cavern was alive with activity as cops went over everything, all of them looking either bemused or a mused. Bruce was neither. He’d been at home, sitting in his chair and having a beer in front of AEW Dynamite when Vanessa called. “You might wanna get down here,” she said, sounding confused, “something really strange is going on.”
Ed Harris - no relation to that one guy - sat in a straight back chair beside his cluttered desk and gripped a styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands, putting Bruce - for some reason - in mind of a monkey. When Bruce came in, the old man was white as a sheet and shook like a leaf. In the last half hour, little had changed.
“Tell me again,” Bruce said.
He and Ed were pretty good friends. He knew that Ed knew standard police procedure. Cops don’t ask you to repeat your story a thousand times over because they’re forgetful fucks, they do it because telling it again and again helps to jog loose details that you might have forgotten. Ed, therefore, did not protest. “I turned my back,” he said and chopped the chair like Jackie Chan, “and I heard the noise.”
His voice was thick, unsteady, and halting. He sounded as squirrely as he looked…and he looked pretty damn squirrelly right now.
“I turned around…and he was looking at me. He was standing there and he was looking at me.”
This was the fourth time he’d had Ed go through the story, and nothing had changed. Bruce felt something stirring deep inside his gut. It was either disquiet…or he had to fart. He opened his mouth to speak, but sighed.
“You don’t believe me,” Ed said.
“I dunno, Ed. Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away.”
Ed flashed. “I know that, goddamn it, but this one did.”
Bruce glanced at Vanessa. She looked uncomfortable.
“Are you sure he was dead?” Bruce asked.
Ed opened his mouth, closed it again, and said, “I did the autopsy.” His voice broke on the last word, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. “His fucking liver’s on the floor. He stepped on it. The man has nothing in him. I-I’m telling you, there’s no way he’s alive.”
During the autopsy, Ed had sat Dominick Mason’s organs on the little tray table where he kept his pointy things. Mason knocked it over while getting up. Indeed, there were human organs on the floor, and one of them did look kind of squished. Bare, bloody footprints led to the exit door, up a set of concrete steps, and then disappeared in the alley behind the office.
“You said you left his heart,” Bruce said.
“And his brain,” Vanessa helpfully added.
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose like a put upon professor dealing with two particularly stupid students. “Even with his heart and his brain, he’s dead. You saw the livor mortis. He was cold, he was stiff. His heart wasn’t beating, he wasn’t breathing. He was in one of those drawers for nine hours, not breathing, no blood flow - it’s impossible. It’s just…it’s impossible. I don’t care what you think, he was dead. And even if somehow he wasn’t, I cut out almost everything. I opened his stomach, I took his spleen - you don’t just get up from that. You don’t walk away from that, much less run.”
Bruce chewed the inside of his bottom lip because he didn’t have a Twix. He didn’t look like the smartest man in the world…and he wasn’t…but he knew a dead body when he saw one, and the body they took out of Dominick Mason’s apartment was D.E.A.D. And like Ed said, even if by some freak fluke of nature he wasn’t, he couldn’t just get up and go about his day with no liver, spleen, or kidneys. Hell, Bruce had his gallbladder out and he couldn’t even walk away from that.
“You said there was something funny about his heart,” Vanessa said.
Ed finished off his coffee. “Yeah. It was…moldy. I-I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is it possible that…has something to do with it?”
“Unless the rules of biology have changed overnight, no,” Ed stated.
While Ed poured himself another cup of Joe, spilling some because he was still shaking, Vanessa took Bruce aside. “So what do you think?” she asked. “Is he telling the truth?”
For that, Bruce did not have an immediate answer. All else aside, he was a cop. He followed the evidence - and his gut instinct - wherever it led him. Ed was a sober man - he was not a drunk, insane, or stupid - and no man on earth could fake the look of trauma in his eyes. Bruce’s eyes went to the bloody footprints leading away from the exam table and his stomach roiled. It might be cliched, but there had to be a rational explanation. “Yeah,” he finally said. “The kid got up like he said, but there’s no way he was dead. Maybe…I dunno, he had a surge of adrenaline or something. I’m not a doctor.”
“That’ll only get him so far,” Vanessa said. “We’ll probably find him on the street somewhere.”
He went back to the purple splotches on Dom’s face, to his cold stiffness. There’s no way he was dead?
Bruce was confused, and he hated being confused.
“I dunno,” he said, “maybe.”
But he had the gnawing feeling that they wouldn’t. They would never find him…and Bruce would be confused forever.
Goddamn it, Mason, he thought, where are you?

Happy Thursday! - Back by popular demand, I have two more of the brand new, latest and greatest modded VSF "no-dates" available for anyone who might have missed out on the last one I posed the other day. These are the latest version with the upgraded VS3230 movement which has NO GHOST DATE!!
As you all know, this is a top-tier, NWBIG piece with an amazing power reserve. This is the latest "Q66" batch! The watch will also come with a Rolex warranty card. These are both inspected, tested and ready to go!
In addition to the modifications spec’d out below, all of my watches receive the following quality control:
1.) Line up the dial at 12 o'clock to the engraved Rolex coronet on the rehaut (best as possible) 2.) Thin crystal gasket (because it can be too tall) this allows the crystal to sit lower and bezel to rotate more freely on certain watches 3.) Reinstall/rotate crystal to line up the cyclops to the date window and LEC 4.) Grease all gaskets using Bergeon 7055 5.) Adjust bracelet to desired length and tighten all screws/clasp 6.) Remove any burrs from the stem to ensure tight/smooth operation 7.) Visually inspect movements, remove any foreign debris/dust and apply Möbius 9010 oil as needed 8.) Ultrasonically clean and lubricate entire bracelet and clasp mechanism to eliminate any squeaking
-VSF 124060 w/ VS3230 Movement -"Deep" Crystal -Polished Rehaut -Individual Bezel Scallop Polishing & Re-brush -Genuine Hytrel Ring (better bezel fit/action) -Edge Softening of Case/Bracelet/Clasp -Waterproof'd to 5ATM -Regulated Movement
ALBUM
Price = $925 + shipping (USPS: Priority $13/Express $30/Canada $40) I ship the same day and am based in Boston.
I take all of my photos using an iPhone 15 Pro. I don’t use any filters, or effects and try to get various angles and lighting to most accurately depict the beauty of the watch. Many, many, many satisfied clients and references available.
———
Pricing is firm. I accept ZELLE, WISE or BANK WIRE ONLY. If you tell me that you’re “taking it”, I will hold it for you for 15 MINUTES before it goes to the next in line.
I have sold a lot of watches prior on and have an extensive post history on .
Standard disclaimer: I will pack the watch very securely with lots of bubble wrap. Once the package leaves my possession, I will no longer be held responsible for anything that might happen during the shipping and handling process. I also will not take the watch back if you decide you don’t like it, or that your significant other is angry at you (yes, this has happened before). I will however always do my best to ensure that you’re happy with your purchase.

An hour after getting back from the Mason apartment, Bruce Kenner had the distinct misfortune of meeting Bertha Henderson.
A plump, gaudy woman with wrinkles and sun beaten skin only an alligator could love, Bertha Henderson wore bright red lipstick, bright red rouge, and way too much mascara. Her tangled hair was a dull red color and her clothes - pink pants and a white floral top - stretched tight across her bulbous frame. She looked like the kind of woman who lived in a trailer with velvet pictures of Elvis on the wall and pink flamingos in the front yard.
She acted like one too.
From the moment she stormed into his office, she hadn’t shut up once. She scolded, chided, accused, and badgered, sometimes even wagging one fat finger in his face like he was a naughty little boy. Ten minutes into the dressing down and Bruce was beginning to fantasize about police brutality.
It took him another ten minutes to find out what the hell she even wanted.
“It’s my granddaughter,” she shot back, “she’s missing in your town.”
My town? Lady, this is barely my office. I share it with three other people.
“Well, if you’ll calm down, maybe I can help.”
Jesus Christ was that the wrong thing to say. She hit the roof and didn’t come down again until Bruce was this close to arresting her for assault on a police officer. “Young man, I do not appreciate the way you’re talking to me. My tax dollars are the only reason you have a job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working at a car wash.”
At least I wouldn’t have to deal with you.
Bruce took a deep breath and held his tongue in check. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“I told you, my granddaughter is missing. If you listened to me, you’d know this already.”
Bertha produced a picture and slid it across the desk. Bruce studied it. A girl, roughly sixteen with black hair, blue eyes, and dimples smiled back at him. “She;’s with that Rossi man, I just know it,” she said bitterly.
“Who?” Bruce asked.
Rolling her eyes like he was stupid, the old woman told him the story. Jessie - the dimple faced girl - had the rotten luck of having to live with Grandma Bertha after her parents went to jail on drug charges. They lived in Sand Lake, a little town in the mountains outside Albany, where Bertha was no doubt loved and admired by all. One day, Jessie, who her grandmother lovingly described as “A little troublemaker”, ran off. Bruce didn’t blame her. He’d known Bertha for half an hour and he wanted to run off. Bertha did some snooping on Jessie’s laptop and found that the “little whore” had been chatting with an older man, Joe Rossi. Rossi, or so Facebook said, lived in Albany and worked at Club Vlad.
“I want him arrested for pedophilia,” Bertha said and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “He’s a dog just like all men. She’s probably pregnant already. Another mouth I have to feed.”
Behind the old battle ax, Vanessa appeared in the doorway and lifted her brows as if to say What a piece of work. Knowing her, she’d probably been standing just out of sight this whole time with McKenny, the elderly evidence clerk, and snickering into her hand like a little girl. LOL she called him young man.
Bertha noticed him looking over her shoulder and started to turn. Vanessa’s face went white and she ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding detection. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Bertha said to Bruce. “Meanwhile, if I don’t get Jessie back, the state’s going to stop sending me my checks. I need that income. I can’t work, you know. I have gout.”
Too bad being an asshole isn’t a job, you’d be world-famous
“I’ll go talk to him,” Bruce said.
“I want more than talk, young man, I want action.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Bertha finally decided to waddle off and ruin someone else’s day, Vanessa came in and sat in the chair the old woman had so recently occupied. “Oh, my God,” she said, “that was intense. I was this close to radioing in a 1015.”
1015 was code for officer down.
“Funny,” Bruce said without a trace of humor. He had kids going missing, a dead guy someone moved around like a goddamn Barbie doll, and now this. What next, hemorrhoids?
“What do you think? Code 1 or code 2?”
Code 1 meant top priority. Code 2 meant not a top priority. Bruce thought for a moment. It didn’t sound like Jessie Henderson was in danger. It sounded like she met a guy - granted, one too old for her - and decided to hide out with him from her psycho grandma. Maybe it could be something more, but he had a gut feeling that it wasn’t…and his gut feelings were usually right. “2,” he finally said. “I got shit to do.”
By shit, he meant “Talk to the families of those missing boys again.” He’d been interviewing them for two days looking for clues, but there was nothing. It’s like they just vanished. Bruce didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Vanessa said and slapped the desk.
When she was gone, Bruce sighed.
Never a dull moment, he thought.
***
Ed Harris - no relation to the Hollywood actor - had been the medical examiner for the City of Albany since 2002, and in all that time, he had never seen anything quite like this.
It was Wednesday evening and Ed was locked away in the cold, sterile space beneath the city offices that comprised his domain. With its puke green tiles, harsh lights, and cloying smells of disinfectant, the .coroner's office creeped most people out, but not Ed. He was at home here, as comfortable surrounded by toe-tagged bodies as a cactus was surrounded by desert. A thin man in his fifties with curly, steel gray hair thinning in the middle, he wore a white smock, blood stained over his clothes that made him look like a butcher instead of a low level government functionary. He had a dark and dry sense of humor, but then again, so do all people who play with dead bodies for fun and profit.
The coroner’s office was a vast, utilitarian vault segmented into multiple different rooms. Here, where the magic happened, three stainless steel tables stood in a row; a bank of refrigerated drawers kept watch, making sure nothing funny happened. One of the cold fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a hum of electricity, and water dripped rhythmically from a faucet. It was a cold, eerie place, but to Ed, it was home.
On most nights, only one of the tables was occupied, but tonight, two were. On one lay an old lady who died of what appeared to be cyanide poisoning. On the other was Dominick Mason.
Naked save for a white cloth draped over his groin to protect his dignity, Dom was the most corpsy corpse you’d ever hope to see. In fact, if you looked up dead guy in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of him. His body was pale and sunken, one side covered in purple splotches where his blood had pooled, and his eyes were closed. His abdomen was slightly distended with the expected build up of gas, and his flesh stuck fast to the bones beneath. In other words, he was text book. A normal corpse.
Mostly normal.
As men of his trade are wont to do when strange bodies mysteriously appear, Ed had opened Dom up, making a Y shaped incision from his neck to his groin. He hummed to himself as he did so, his hands wielding his sharp and shiny tools with the deft assuredness of a seasoned surgeon. Done cutting, he dipped his gloved hands into the cavity and started removing organs. A spleen here, a liver there, nothing Dom would miss. When he got to the heart, however, he stopped.
There was something…off…about it. At first glance, it was black and withered like an oversized raisin. An odd and putrid odor emanated from it and though he was familiar with the various smells and stenches the human body produced after death, this wasn’t one of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t place it, couldn’t even compare it to anything. Plucking a magnifying glass from the metal cart next to the table, he peeled back part of Dom’s chest and examined the heart closer.
That’s when things got really weird.
Dominick Mason’s heart was, indeed, shriveled, but it was not black. Instead, it was almost entirely covered by an interlacing crisscross of what appeared to be black mold. Here and there, Ed could glimpse flashes of the heart beneath: It was wrinkled and a sickly gray color. “What is this?” Ed asked himself at length. He grabbed a pair of tweezers from the tray and carefully, very carefully, attempted to remove a piece of the mold for analysis. The moment the cold metal tips touched the heart, it gave a violent spasm that sent Ed falling back with a shocked gasp, the tweezers falling from his hand and clinking to the tiled floor.
The heart began to pulse like an alien egg sac, slowly at first, then more rapidly. For a moment, Ed was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Once you die, your heart ceases beating. That’s that. Only living hearts beat, and Dominick Mason was certainly dead. He was dead from the moment Ed first laid eyes on him earlier that day and he was dead now. Yet there was his heart, beating anyway.
It could be a muscle spasm. They usually aren’t that violent and consistent, but dead bodies sometimes do strange things. As he watched the blackened muscle expanding and contracting, however, Ed had the most eerie feeling. He went to rub the back of his neck, realized he was still wearing blood soaked gloves, and stripped them off. He was spooking himself out; he needed a break and a hot cup of coffee. He’d come back fresh and start over again.
With that mold.
Could you really blame him for being creeped out? That stuff wasn’t normal. He’d never seen anything like that before, not even in textbooks. Dom was scrawny and didn’t get enough vitamins in life, but overall, he was healthy; that mold…or whatever it was…had no business being there.
Going over to the coffee pot, which stood in the same room to save travel time, Ed grabbed a styrofoam cup. When he was done here, he planned to go home and -
A terrible, metallic clatter rang out, and Ed jumped. He turned around, and when he saw Dominick Mason standing next to the table, hunched slightly over and staring at him, an electric burst of fright shot up his spine and exploded in his brain, so strong it made the edges turn gray. Pale, hands hooked into talons, and the flaps of his chest hanging open to reveal the cavity beneath, Dominick Mason looked for all the world like a boy who’d been caught sneaking out to meet his girlfriend. A weak, involuntary, “Oh, God,” slipped from Ed’s trembling lips, and the spell was broken. Dom came alive and ran toward the door leading out to the parking lot. He slammed through it, and the sound of it crashing open and then falling closed again echoed through the empty chamber.
Shaking, panting for air, and soaked in piss, Ed sank to the floor in a sitting position, his eyes wide and staring like those of a soldier returning damaged from the front.
It was a long time before he composed himself enough to call the police.
***
Dazed and caught in a nightmarish twilight realm where nothing made sense, Dominick Mason limped painfully down the sidewalk, a stranger lost in a strange land filled with danger and hostile creatures. Barefoot and shrouded in a white sheet, he trembled with cold and struggled to ignore the dark, threatening shapes looming from the fog in his brain, shapes that would turn into unspeakable truths if he let them.
Passersby openly stared at him, their expressions either morbidly curious, disgusted, or alarmed. A man put his arm protectively around his girlfriend; a woman pulled her little boy to her breast, and another man sneered at him, his nose crinkling. Dom, his glazed eyes narrowed against the harsh glare of the many street lamps, headlights, and storefronts, lumbered headlong toward nowhere, his fear growing until he was shambling. He imagined he could hear every cough, every whisper; smell the odor of every unwashed body. Each car horn was deafening, every whiff of ass or armpits sent his stomach churning. The rustle of a passing pedestrian’s jacket jammed into his ears like icepicks, and the approaching globes of LED headlamps burned his eyes. He gritted his teeth and groaned against the pain.
The dense mist wrapping his brain made it hard to think. Like a frightened animal, he made his way on instinct alone. Home. He needed to get home. Out here, on the street, he was exposed. At home, locked away in his small apartment, he would be safe.
A car passed in the street, bass heavy rap music blaring from its open windows, and Dom’s brain exploded with agony. He threw himself against a street sign and held on for dear life, his legs weak. Dizziness overwhelmed him, and he almost went down. He was also cold.
So, so cold.
People around him quickened their step; they never took their eyes off him, as though he were a venomous snake that would strike at any moment. He needed to get away from them. They were going to hurt him; people always hurt him.
Pushing away from the sign, he began to hobble once more toward home, wherever home was. He looked over his shoulder several times as he made his way down Central Avenue, and each time, he saw that no one was following him as he had feared.
No one, that is, except for the man in sunglasses.
Tall and lank with curly hair, he wore dark Aviators and a leather motorcycle jacket over a button up shirt. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and his face showed no expression. He was always there, always a few steps closer. Outside Capital Fried Chicken, a group of people openly stared at him, He heard their whispers as he passed. What’s wrong with him? Dude’s straight tweakin. And the one that struck him the most. That guy looks dead.
Dom hobbled faster, as if to outrun the realization that he was, in fact, dead. The man in sunglasses was closer now, his footsteps so loud that Dom winced. He turned around, and the man was impossibly in front of him. Dom ran into him and bounced backward, going ass over tea kettle and landing on the former. They were in front of a church on a darkened corner, the lights here either burned out or shot out - you could never tell in Albany. Even though it was dark, Dom could see everything with crystal clarity. Dom tried to scurry away, but he was too weak to escape. Right there and then, he decided to give up. Come what may, he just wanted this nightmare to be over.
The man stared down at him, emotionless, unspeaking.
Dom squirmed.
“You’re real lucky I came along,” the man said. His tone was flat, even.
Dead.
“Get up,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Home?
Yes.
Dom wanted to go home.
The man helped him up, and Dom followed him into the night.
***
Bruce Kenner stood in the middle of the medical examiner’s office at half past nine that evening with his hands on his hips and stared doubtfully down at Ed Harris. The lonely cavern was alive with activity as cops went over everything, all of them looking either bemused or a mused. Bruce was neither. He’d been at home, sitting in his chair and having a beer in front of AEW Dynamite when Vanessa called. “You might wanna get down here,” she said, sounding confused, “something really strange is going on.”
Ed Harris - no relation to that one guy - sat in a straight back chair beside his cluttered desk and gripped a styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands, putting Bruce - for some reason - in mind of a monkey. When Bruce came in, the old man was white as a sheet and shook like a leaf. In the last half hour, little had changed.
“Tell me again,” Bruce said.
He and Ed were pretty good friends. He knew that Ed knew standard police procedure. Cops don’t ask you to repeat your story a thousand times over because they’re forgetful fucks, they do it because telling it again and again helps to jog loose details that you might have forgotten. Ed, therefore, did not protest. “I turned my back,” he said and chopped the chair like Jackie Chan, “and I heard the noise.”
His voice was thick, unsteady, and halting. He sounded as squirrely as he looked…and he looked pretty damn squirrelly right now.
“I turned around…and he was looking at me. He was standing there and he was looking at me.”
This was the fourth time he’d had Ed go through the story, and nothing had changed. Bruce felt something stirring deep inside his gut. It was either disquiet…or he had to fart. He opened his mouth to speak, but sighed.
“You don’t believe me,” Ed said.
“I dunno, Ed. Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away.”
Ed flashed. “I know that, goddamn it, but this one did.”
Bruce glanced at Vanessa. She looked uncomfortable.
“Are you sure he was dead?” Bruce asked.
Ed opened his mouth, closed it again, and said, “I did the autopsy.” His voice broke on the last word, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. “His fucking liver’s on the floor. He stepped on it. The man has nothing in him. I-I’m telling you, there’s no way he’s alive.”
During the autopsy, Ed had sat Dominick Mason’s organs on the little tray table where he kept his pointy things. Mason knocked it over while getting up. Indeed, there were human organs on the floor, and one of them did look kind of squished. Bare, bloody footprints led to the exit door, up a set of concrete steps, and then disappeared in the alley behind the office.
“You said you left his heart,” Bruce said.
“And his brain,” Vanessa helpfully added.
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose like a put upon professor dealing with two particularly stupid students. “Even with his heart and his brain, he’s dead. You saw the livor mortis. He was cold, he was stiff. His heart wasn’t beating, he wasn’t breathing. He was in one of those drawers for nine hours, not breathing, no blood flow - it’s impossible. It’s just…it’s impossible. I don’t care what you think, he was dead. And even if somehow he wasn’t, I cut out almost everything. I opened his stomach, I took his spleen - you don’t just get up from that. You don’t walk away from that, much less run.”
Bruce chewed the inside of his bottom lip because he didn’t have a Twix. He didn’t look like the smartest man in the world…and he wasn’t…but he knew a dead body when he saw one, and the body they took out of Dominick Mason’s apartment was D.E.A.D. And like Ed said, even if by some freak fluke of nature he wasn’t, he couldn’t just get up and go about his day with no liver, spleen, or kidneys. Hell, Bruce had his gallbladder out and he couldn’t even walk away from that.
“You said there was something funny about his heart,” Vanessa said.
Ed finished off his coffee. “Yeah. It was…moldy. I-I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is it possible that…has something to do with it?”
“Unless the rules of biology have changed overnight, no,” Ed stated.
While Ed poured himself another cup of Joe, spilling some because he was still shaking, Vanessa took Bruce aside. “So what do you think?” she asked. “Is he telling the truth?”
For that, Bruce did not have an immediate answer. All else aside, he was a cop. He followed the evidence - and his gut instinct - wherever it led him. Ed was a sober man - he was not a drunk, insane, or stupid - and no man on earth could fake the look of trauma in his eyes. Bruce’s eyes went to the bloody footprints leading away from the exam table and his stomach roiled. It might be cliched, but there had to be a rational explanation. “Yeah,” he finally said. “The kid got up like he said, but there’s no way he was dead. Maybe…I dunno, he had a surge of adrenaline or something. I’m not a doctor.”
“That’ll only get him so far,” Vanessa said. “We’ll probably find him on the street somewhere.”
He went back to the purple splotches on Dom’s face, to his cold stiffness. There’s no way he was dead?
Bruce was confused, and he hated being confused.
“I dunno,” he said, “maybe.”
But he had the gnawing feeling that they wouldn’t. They would never find him…and Bruce would be confused forever.
Goddamn it, Mason, he thought, where are you?

First/Previous
"Watch out!" Jack yelled out to the crowd as the now-glowing overhead turrets, long dormant and forgotten, suddenly whirred to life with a mechanical hum, tracking his movements as he ran, shoving past a group of unsuspecting Xarak to the side as he moved to dodge the torrent of rapid fire aimed right at him, kicking up smoke as the superheated plasma churned the ground underneath him, before the sound of gunfire abruptly stopped.
"Fucking overheating shittubes!" the voice on the speakers cursed. "The Outsider is by the two broken pillars!"
"I see him!" a voice replied from out of the crowd as Jack got his bearings, spotting a group of three uniformed soldiers rushing towards him. As the leader moved to stab him with a nasty-looking barbed shortspear, Jack quickly juked the direction he intended to dodge, dipping to the right as he smashed the avian in the stomach with a vicious kick, shuffling back as he caught the blade of the second soldier with his bracer before throwing them off balance, lashing back at the first with his elbow as he did.
He moved to check the third that was moving to take a swing at him with a bat, but before Jack could do so the soldier was suddenly yanked back as a long, coiled leather whip snapped around them. Following along, Jack spotted an older grey-skinned ganger in black leathers with a coarse, black beard to match his scraggly hair sat down with his back to a wall, casually drinking a beer as he observed the chaos with a mischievous smirk.
As the soldier pulled back his bat to strike the interloper, the ganger grinned and looked down where his legs were already spread wide, revealing a strange metal crotch plate. Suddenly making a jerking motion with one of his legs, the plate flipped up to reveal the barrel of a huge codpiece gun that flipped up to point directly at the soldier, before it fired once, catching the solder completely by surprise as the top of their body was utterly obliterated by a bolt of powerful plasma energy. Smirking, the ganger gave Jack a wink, chugging down the rest of his drink, before charging into the brawl.
Hearing an almighty roar, Jack turned around only to be knocked back yet again as a broken, avian body was roughly lobbed at him, staggering him backwards as the Redeemer turned to the last of the bird-like gangsters, picking him up with immense strength and smashing them to the ground before advancing towards the human more cautiously this time, shoving drunken brawlers out of the way.
“I have long waited for this moment, Outsider. With your death, my King shall grant you redemption!” The Redeemer snarled. Now having a good look at him, Jack couldn’t see any visible weapons on him, which was strange. Last time, he’d brought a gunship and was taking potshots at him with some kind of high-powered rifle. Then again, considering what happened last time, maybe The Redeemer wanted the satisfaction of using his bare hands to beat him to death.
It wouldn’t be a terrible plan considering everything the Ogar had pulled off so far…
While sports on Earth were often separated by gender, despite some resistance from the more liberal-minded, due to biological differences between men and women, combat sports were a whole different game, with mixed martial arts organisations having very specific weight classes for fair competition between athletes, with two fighters of similar size and weight less likely to cause serious injury to each other.
But if you placed an experienced lightweight against even a novice heavyweight? That would introduce major problems for the smaller fighter, who would need to contend with the extra size, reach and power of their larger opponent. Not an impossible fight, but a tough one.
And Jack very much felt like a lightweight here.
Though of course, he had faced larger opponents before. Even an Ogar, though they had defeated the Laird with a cunning trap. However, he didn’t know how well matched he and The Redeemer were in a fair close-range fight outside of the opening moments of the ambush.
Still, he had little choice but to find out. He didn’t have an easy way to escape, and he didn’t know what the status of the others was. If he ran while they were still here then The Redeemer and the Regulators would simply go after them instead to get to him…
No. He couldn’t allow those thoughts to shake him. His friends knew what the hell they were doing, and they could handle themselves just fine. He had to worry about himself right now.
He couldn’t run, so he had to fight.
With a speed he didn’t expect from The Redeemer, they grabbed a nearby chair and lobbed it right at Jack in one smooth motion before following through with another charge.
‘Aegis!’ Jack yelled as he brought his forearm up, as his new and improved shield eagerly sprung up to take the hit from the chair, before a fist smacked into the side of his head as The Redeemer used the chair as a distraction to change his angle of attack.
Spinning with the blow, Jack fought in his mind to stay in the fight as his vision blurred, with the powerful strike threatening to knock him out then and there, before another fist caught him in the stomach, with his battleskin dispersing a hit that would have otherwise easily taken the air out of his lungs.
Retracting his shield, Jack ducked another punch that threatened to decapitate him as he skidded under the blow, parrying a backfist with his forearm that tingled painfully as he ate the blow, before clocking the Redeemer with a punch to the jaw, his gauntlet extending to cover his knuckles with a well-forged plate of metal to add their power to the strike, before the Redeemer threw out a punch that caught him on the shoulder, sending the deathworlder reeling back.
Jack grit his teeth as he fought through the pain, adrenaline rushing through him. He wasn’t out of the fight yet, but he knew he’d gotten the worst of that engagement.
The Redeemer clearly understood this as well, as the zealot strode towards the human with a confident, wicked grin.
But this time, Jack was ready.
‘Caltrops’ Jack whispered the command word, as his gauntlets gave him a good handful of them, subtly tossing them in front of him with an underhand throw, which had gone unnoticed by the Redeemer as they stared at the human with hatred.
Suddenly dashing forward to quickly close the remaining distance between them, the Redeemer roared as he charged Jack again, suddenly grunting in pain and stumbling as his full, heavy mass sent a sharp, painful spike straight through his armoured boot, causing him to lose focus as he looked down at his foot for just a moment to see what had happened.
A moment of distraction that Jack used to its fullest, as he quickly swung his axe down right at The Redeemer’s head.
However, the Ogar reacted with surprising dexterity as he used his forward momentum to avoid the full force of the axeblade, his metal helmet taking a glancing blow as he shoved Jack off balance, causing him to stumble. Quickly predicting what would come next, Jack dropped his axe on purpose as he prepared for a takedown attempt, dropping low and widening his stance as the Redeemer tackled him around the waist to try and bring him to the ground for a quick finish.
“There will be no salvation for you, human!” The Ogar growled through his pain as Jack was forced back by the Redeemer’s superior strength.
“Aww, did you miss me?” Jack taunted, holding on and walking back with the ever increasing momentum The Redeemer was building as he was pushed back along the dancefloor. “I saw your tantrum on the TV afterwards, didn’t know you were a bitch too!”
‘That’s it, asshole.’ Jack thought to himself as he felt his axe clip back onto his back. ‘Get mad. You showed me last time that you like to talk too much. I need to time this right…'
“Your blasphemy ends here Outsider! I shall smite you in the name of my King!” The insane zealot roared out in an enraged challenge.
With a roar the Redeemer pushed with much greater strength, forcing Jack to change his slow backpedalling into a full on sprint as he scrambled to stay on his feet, fighting to keep his grip above that of the Redeemer’s to maintain his control of the grapple for as long as he could as he was gradually being put off-balance, almost being lifted upwards.
‘I’ve got to hold on until the last possible moment…’ Jack thought to himself, as tables, chairs and people alike were battered to the side.
‘Now!’
As the wooden pillar supporting the balcony passed them in a blur, Jack shifted his weight to the left and relinquished the grapple, using the Redeemer’s momentum against him as he shoved the Redeemer off balance, as they smashed into the crumbling brick wall head first with an almighty crash.
As they stumbled back, yanking their head back out through the newly formed hole, Jack growled as grabbed the Redeemer around the top of one of his legs, yelling with effort as he was only just able to lift the Redeemer up and over him, slamming the Ogar down on the top of his head as hard as he could in a vicious suplex that gave a satisfying crack.
Growling with effort, the Redeemer pushed himself back into a crouch and looked up just in time as Jack’s foot smacked into the side of his head in a savage kick that cracked his metal helmet and dislodged one of his fangs. Roaring in rage and pain, the Redeemer got to his feet only to meet a flying knee that shattered his nose as his helmet cracked and dented with the heavy impacts.
“Redeem that you ugly cunt!” Jack growled, moving in for another strike as the Redeemer shoved him away, showing no signs of faltering as he slowly got to his feet, even after the devastating blows he just took. The Redeemer simply gave Jack a wicked grin of satisfaction, before it fell slightly upon seeing something to Jack’s side.
As Jack’s Ring of the Berserker vibrated again, he spun around to spot a large, lanky Vivren with several piercings in overt heavy armour grinning at him with malicious intent as she pointed a wand at him and cast a word of power.
Before he had any time to react, Jack’s entire body erupted in a wave of agony unlike anything he had ever felt before…
*****
“Fuck! Alora! Sephy? Chiyo? Dante?” Nika coughed as she got up from where the balcony had collapsed from under them.
Looking around, she could see even more patrons fighting around them, revelling in the chaos of the brawl, but she couldn’t spot any of her friends in the immediate aftermath, as thick dust plumed out from the wreckage below her.
‘At least the crew of the ship we’re meant to be travelling on are probably out by now.’ The Kizun thought to herself. ‘Can’t go back, the CorvMart crew will have moved on by now, so sticking to the original plan is probably the best move, unless we can steal a vehicle one of us knows how to pilot.’
Assessing the situation before her, Nika went for her bo staff, though made sure that her shotgun was well within easy reach. Though many of the people fighting around her looked rough, they weren’t attacking her or her friends, and until that changed they could make good allies of convenience, or for a smokescreen to give their enemies the slip if they had to run.
Though slaying as many of their attackers as they could would be preferable.
‘Best way to do that is link up with the others, we’re better as a unit.’ She reasoned, hearing an almighty crash. ‘Well, that’s probably Jack.’
Dodging a thrown bottle as a Squarri ganger missed their intended target - a pissed-off looking quadrupedal furry species that Nika didn’t recognise - before dodging a swing of a bat from a Xarak that saw her as an easy target. Quickly raising her staff she parried the backswing before cracking the other end of the staff across the reptilian’s face, knocking the rough-looking thug out as he collapsed to the ground.
Yet before Nika could think to move on from the conflict, she had to dodge out of the way using her tail as a large Balnath with some kind of cleaver-like sword took a swing at her. Recognising the sigil of the Regulator group Chiyo had told them to watch out for - a stern-looking demonic rune surrounded by a neon-red triangle - Nika parried the next sword swipe from the figure.
“Let me guesth, you want to get to the Outthider?” The Balnath sneered at the Kizun with a lisp so thick that in any other situation she’d have to stop herself from laughing. “I’m stho thorry, but we can’t let you have sthilly ideas like that!”
“Are you for fucking real?” Nika asked as she dodged to the side and put some space between them before quickly switching to her shotgun, letting loose a powerful blast that the Balnath was able to raise his shield up to block.
‘Skill like that? Probably the leader or an officer of some kind.’ The Kizun noted to herself. ‘No choice. I’ve got to kill him.’
“Yeah, I know that you’re finking! You fink my teef make me sound sthupid?” The Balnath growled, with a few experimental chomps. “Well these teef like to gnaw and gnasth on Kizun flesth!”
“Come and try it!” Nika snarled as she twirled her staff around her in a well-practised flourish, eagerly accepting the challenge.
The Balnath charged forward with lightning speed as it came at Nika with a series of feints, before swiping at her with a brutal overhand chop, using both hands. The Kizun was able to deftly parry with her staff, the kinetic modules battering her opponent’s grip to the side, though she felt the strength behind the blow and knew that the Balnath was stronger.
Still, she knew she could take him.
Ever since she was little she had roughhoused with her brothers and the local boys in fights around their ranch, and had learned the hard way from an early age that her gender and short build worked against her when facing her peers, so she had trained to be the strongest she could be, and learned to be quick and tactical to make the best use of that.
She had eventually kept up with the neighbourhood boys, using holds and precise strikes until her elders found out what she was doing when she was meant to be working on the ranch to help the family scrape by, and quickly put a stop to the shenanigans.
When she moved to the city, she only got better from there.
The tip of her staff thundered against the Balnath’s shield like the striking of a gong, forcing the larger being back as Nika could tell he was already tiring. Though she wanted to finish this fight quickly and get to her friends, she knew she couldn’t allow herself to give her opponent an opening, even as she sought to exploit an opening of her own. She had to be patient.
Her staff rattled against the shield again and again, as she felt her opponent’s defence get weaker and weaker, with the powerful force of her kinetic module focusing the strength of her strikes into a single point. Eventually something would break, his shield of his arm. Once his defences were finally down, she would go in swiftly for the kill.
Her opponent’s frustration won out as his shield shattered and fell to the floor, forcing him to attack Nika with a vicious two handed swipe. She blocked the strike handily, before the Balnath grabbed her staff, locking them in a clinch.
“Giff me sthome help over ‘ere!” The Balnath called out, as Nika reached for a knife, forcing the Balnath to adjust his stance as she stabbed blindly, glancing off armoured plates before finding purchase somewhere, causing her attacker to grunt with pain as he shoved her back, holding her up against a wall.
‘Shit.’ She cursed in her mind. ‘He’s stronger than me, but all I need is a moment to take him by surprise and I can break away and kill him!’
She held strong with her arms, holding the Balnath back as his jaws snapped shut barely an inch away from her neck. He tried again, and she pushed back harder, the jaws snapping shut around nothing, but much closer this time.
He tried again, bringing his vicious maw even closer still…
‘Gotcha!’ Nika thought to herself, as she jerked her head forward in a headbutt, catching the Balnath by surprise and giving the Kizun the space she needed to bring her knees up to her chin, before kicking out as hard as she could into the face of the Balnath, knocking him back with a roar of pain, before he leapt forward with a side swipe that Nika used her tail to quickly dodge, before in the same motion she brought the tip of her staff round and smacked the Balnath as hard as she could, right in the face, the powerful strike shattering its lower jaw completely.
“My fathce!” the attacker got out, clutching what little remained of his lower jaw, before looking up in the next moment as they stared down the barrel of Nika’s shotgun.
“Plea-” They got out, before their head was obliterated in an explosion of dark, blackish blood as their body clattered uselessly to the ground.
“Fuck you.” The Kizun retorted. Using her tail to quickly clip the sword to the magnets of her armour, Nika could see more Regulators in the crowd heading towards the DJ booth. Quickly checking her weapons, she headed right into the brawl!
*****
“You don’t belong here, girlie!” the thug cackled as their cybernetic arm crackled with electric discharge.
“Replacto!” Alora snarled as she swiped her wand out, blasting her attacker with a sudden flash of light that sent him stumbling back, clutching at his eyes.
“Anyone else?” Alora asked, trying her best to channel Nika’s cool, calm demeanour, crossed with Jack’s intimidating presence as the cluster of gangers and mercenaries all looked around at each other for just a moment, before deciding that the Eladrie wasn’t actually that intimidating, as one tried to rush her with a broken chair.
‘Oh by the Mother Tree! How do those two do it?’ Alora cursed in her mind as she summoned her spiritual weapon - a spear of light - that she quickly stabbed at the fish-like Osi, gutting them in the stomach which quickly made them drop the chair, while Alora wisely moved to the side to get out of the vicious melee happening all around her. Where were the others?
‘I have to make sure they’re all right.’ the Eladrie determinedly told herself as she began casting another, more complicated spell…
“Attention all idiots!” The voice over the speakers sneered out over the ever-changing music that the DJ didn’t seem to have any control over. “We discussed this. Though the Outsider is a priority, you target the spellcasters first if you can! Must I do everything myself?”
Thrumming with sudden power, the turrets above them finally opened fire, shooting almost indiscriminately at the crowd below, cutting several of the brawling patrons down before they even knew what hit them.
Chanting and waving her hands around as quickly as she dared, Alora maintained her concentration of her spell, completing it just in time as the turrets finally tracked her as she summoned a great holy aura of light to cover herself that would give her the protection she needed, the Armour of Faith deflecting the lights of the laser turrets harmlessly aside.
A loud bark sounded out, and knowing Dante’s warning for what it was, Alora spun around to see two Regulators, who were both Vulstas fighting through the brawl to get to her. Unlike Rena, these two were males, both carrying plasma shotguns but unable to get effective shots off through the crowd. Not that something like that stopped them from trying…
“Stevarin!” she yelled out, pointing her wand at one of the two who was about to open fire on a downed ganger, as with a flash of yellow light their movements slowed, quickly freezing stiff as a board as they failed to resist the Holding spell, their eyes widening in sheer terror as the gang-mates of their would-be-victim set upon them in a fury with fists and clubs, before a spell cast from the rafters sent all of them clattering to the ground clutching at their minds.
‘One of the enemy mages providing overwatch.’ Alora noted as she quickly looked up for any sign of them, but not seeing them. ‘Under a veil of invisibility no doubt.’
Feeling the dull impact of a shotgun blast dissipate harmlessly against her magical armour, Alora spun round to the other Regulator, cursing her moment of hesitation as the Vulsta drew a long knife with which to get in close with.
Remembering her fight with Izadora all those weeks ago, Alora waved her arms around quickly to summon a bubble of light to engulf her, before quickly following it up with an explosive flash that thundered all around her like a flashbang grenade, while leaving her unharmed.
As the light dissipated, she deftly avoided the blind lunge from the temporarily blinded Regulator, before jamming her spear into his stomach, using her reach advantage to dodge the desperate swipes he sent her way.
“Garrash!” Alora spoke a quick cantrip, using her affinity with life magic to channel poison through the top of her spear. Her already-weakened attacker quickly slumped to the ground as the debilitating effects took hold, but before Alora could pull her spear back, she was hit by a spell that came from above, disrupting her magic and causing her magical spear and armour to disappear.
‘Damn! It’s that mage above me!’ Alora cursed to herself as she quickly ran underneath one of the balconies, as the turrets chased after her with gunfire. ‘You want to hide in the shadows like a coward? I’ve got something to fix that!’
Quickly making sure there weren’t any immediate threats around, Alora quickly rummaged through her pockets for a wand of white crystal she had prepared about a year ago that still had a few charges. Casting quickly, she levelled it towards the ceiling and prayed to all the gods that she was aiming it at where the enemy mage was hiding,
“Glitasha!”
A spray of shining, sparkling particles of light shot out of her wand, puffing out to cover a good half of the ceiling, and as they began to fall to the floor and latch on to the people below, Alora spotted a huddled form by one of the rafters.
‘Got you!’ She thought with satisfaction.
“Ilthax! Get out of there!” The voice over the speakers warned, presumably the name of her target, but it was too late…
“Solaris!” Alora yelled, throwing her palms out in a thrust as a great javelin of light shot out of her palms. The enemy mage had barely moved before it impaled their centre of mass, sending what must have been a fireball spell way off target which blasted apart a huge, gaping hole in the back wall.
The invisible form of the glitterdust-covered mage slowly began to materialise as the blue-furred, ape-like Regulator clutched at their chest in pain, with wide eyes of disbelief at the spear of hard light that had gone right through their torso. As their flight spell dissipated, their lifeless body fell three stories from the rafters to slam down on the ground floor below.
“Nice one Alora!” the Eladrie heard the voice call from behind her as Nika came up next to her, the Kizun bleeding from a cut on her face. “Where are the others?”
“I don’t know. But we need to find them now!” Alora frantically told them as she took in the sheer state of chaos around them. Many broken bodies lay amongst the carnage, and though the Eladrie knew some would likely be still alive at the end of the night, she knew that many would not.
“You don’t need to tell me twice!” Nika agreed with a grim expression.
*****
First/Previous
Looks like Jack, Nika and Alora are holding on for now! But how long can they keep it up?
Don't forget to check out The Galactic High Info Sheet! If you want to remind yourself of certain characters and factions. One new chapter a week can seem like a while! Don't forget! You all have the ability to leave comments and notes to the entries, which I encourage you to do!
I am now on Royal Road! I would appreciate your support in getting myself off the ground there with your lovely comments, reviews and likes!
If you're impatient for the next chapter, why not check out my previous series?
As always I love to see the comments on what you guys think!
Don't forget to join the discussion with us on Discord, and consider checking me out on Youtube if you haven't already! Until next week, it's goodbye for now!

Everything has been tested and works properly except where noted! Additional pics/timestamps available on request. Forgive me if I'm slow to respond, I'll do my best to get back to any comments in a timely manner. The person with lower rep sends first. Willing to add/accept PayPal to fill in any gaps in value, especially for my higher priority wants.
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Switch

• Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (sealed, SEA variant)
• Monster Hunter Rise Pro Controller (w/ box only)
• VORI Black Foam Carrying Case
  • includes strap, case is better for stationary storage than transportation though

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Wii

• Black Nintendo Wii Box ONLY
  • Nintendo & American Heart Association Edition (link to page on ConsoleVariations)
  • overall fantastic condition, been in storage since the console was opened
  • comes with inserts and sleeves only, no console/cords/Wiimotes, manuals, or games included
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (disc and box)
• Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (CIB)
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl (no manual)

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Nintendo 3/DS

• Super Mario 3D Land (CIB, Nintendo Selects)
• Super Smash Bros 3DS (loose)
• Pokemon Y (loose)
• Pokemon Pearl (w/ box and manual)
• Pokemon White (CIB)
• Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days (loose)

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PS2

• All games include their box unless noted, any that include a manual/inserts are noted. All stickers are on the outside of the box plastic, not on the cover art!
• Driver 3 (w/ manual)
• DT Racer (w/ manual, back of cover art punctured)
• Fight Night 2004 (w/ manual)
• Fight Night Round 2 (w/ manual)
• Fight Night Round 3 (w/ manual)
• God of War 2 (Greatest Hits, w/ manual, no bonus disc)
• Gran Turismo 4 (w/ manual and insert)
• Heroes of the Pacific (w/ manual)
• History Channel Civil War: A Nation Divided (w/ manual)
• Hitman: Blood Money (w/ manual and bonus disc)
• Knockout Kings 2002 (w/ manual)
• Madden 06 (w/ manual)
• MLB 2k5 (loose disc only)
• Mortal Kombat: Deception (loose disc only, many scratches)
• Nascar 06: Total Team Control (w/ manual)
• Nascar 07 (w/ manual)
• Nascar: Dirt to Daytona
• NBA Live 2005 (w/ manual)
• NFL Head Coach (w/ manual and insert)
• Pro Race Driver (w/ manual)
• Red Dead Revolver (Greatest Hits)
• Rock Band (no instruments)
• Scarface: The World is Yours (Collector's Edition, CIB)
• Short Track Racing: Trading Paint (Gamestop case)
• SOCOM US Navy Seals Combined Assault (w/ manual and insert)
• Spartan Total Warrior
• Sprint Cars: Road to Knoxville (w/ manual)
• Sprint Cars 2: Showdown at Eldora (w/ manual)
• Suzuki TT Superbikes (w/ manual)
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2003 (w/ manual)
• Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 (Greatest Hits)
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (w/ manual and insert)
• UFC Sudden Impact (w/ manual)
• UFC Throwdown (w/ manual)
• World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions (w/ manual)
• World Soccer: Winning Eleven 9 (w/ manual)

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Other

• PC - Dungeon Siege 2: Deluxe Edition (w/ map and game keys)
• PC - Battle Realms (loose)

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Accessories/Merch

• Accessory - NYKO Xbox One Direct Console Charge Base w/ batteries
  • fits flush with Xbox One when plugged in, batteries are well used but still hold a decent charge
• Guide - Prima Games Official Pokemon Diamond & Pearl Scenario Guide (no poster, fair condition)
• Merch - 2007 Diamond & Pearl Box Tin - Holiday Empoleon
• Merch - 2016 Triple Power Tin - Shiny Gyarados
• Battery - 3x OEM GBA SP batteries
  • all tested and working, all have small bloat

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Free w/ Any Trade

• Wii - The Bigs (loose, heavily scratched)
• PS4 - Fallout 76 (PAL, CIB)
• PSP - Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow (loose, no casing, untested)
• Headset - OEM PS4 Mono Headset (never used)
• Accessory - 2x Nintendo Switch Lite Tempered Glass Screen Protector
• Accessory - 3x Unbranded GBA Cartridge Holders
• Battery - Non-OEM GBA SP battery (working fine)
• Battery - Dead OEM GBA SP battery (tested & not working)
• Other - Replacement GBA SP buttons & membranes
  • from RetroGameRepairShop, not OEM, buttons are clear black

Wants

Higher Priority	Lower Priority
Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness (CIB or box w/ all inserts only)	Pokemon Let's Go Eevee (w/ box)
Pokemon SoulSilver CIB or Big Box only (great condition, few signs of damage)	Bayonetta 2 for Switch (sealed)
Pokewalker stuff: two foam slips for Pokewalkers, will consider Pokewalkers in good condition (lower priority than the foam slips)	Pokemon Stadium 2 Box w/ Inserts (any condition, little to no tears preferred)
Pokemon Black or White edition DSi console (loose or CIB)	Cases/boxes/inserts/games to complete my loose items listed
JFC Brand Grip for PS Vita 1000 (new/used)	PS2 game offers (Current specific wants: Bully, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Kingdom Hearts, Fullmetal Alchemist: Curse of the Crimson Elixir)
"New" 3DS OEM Faceplates (preference for Pokemon but feel free to offer me any)	BoxyPixel Unhinged Shell (Black or Purple preferred, open to offers on other colors)
GameBoy Micro OEM Faceplates (any except 20th Anniversary)	Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Switch Pro Controller (w/ box)
GameBoy Micro OEM Charger	Special Edition 2DS Consoles (slate model)
OEM PS2 Compatible Component cables (NOT composite cables)	Phat NDS (screens must be in great shape, very few/no scatches, no dead pixels)
LoZ: TotK Pro Controller (w/ box)	Pokemon GB/A with dead batteries
Waterfield City Slicker Case for "New" 3DS	Pokemon Merch (plushies, pins, etc, just show me what you got)
Pokemon Crystal (any condition)	Black Joy Con wrist strap (only need one)
Broken/Non-working handhelds (GB, GBC, GBA, PSP, etc), broken Nintendo consoles (old to new), non-working Pokemon cartridges	Offers/Lists

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