How to cure dried skin around lips

TheOrdinarySkincare

2019.11.06 17:26 niapattenlooks TheOrdinarySkincare

Forum for discussing The Ordinary skincare regimens, getting advice and sharing skincare tips
[link]


2011.08.27 08:20 Ingish Can you take a deep breath and forgive yourself?

calmhands is a community based around kicking the habit of kicking compulsive habits such as nail biting and nail picking. The goal of the sub is for you to be able to share resources, photos, and accountability with a lovely community that wants to do the same. Together we got this!
[link]


2011.11.16 16:55 dxnxax energy_work; working with the energy innate in us all

The purpose of this community is to explore human energy in all of its facets while stripping way the esoteric language, rituals and distractions that have accumulated over the years. Out of body experiences, energy healing, energetic connections between people, psychic work and everything in between. This sub is open for discussion, learning and teaching, without judgement, on any and every form of energy work regardless of degree of social acceptability or stigma.
[link]


2024.05.17 01:51 TerryDawg2025 AITA for not wanting to go to my (21F) sister's (18F) graduation?

I (21F) have a sister (18F) who wants nothing to do with our family. She's often said that her friends are her real family and that she doesn't need us. She basically sucks the life out of my parents & runs them dry for their money.
Our family consists of our mom, dad, my older sister "Anna" (23F), me (21F), my graduating sister "Sophie" (18F), and my youngest sister "Lily" (12F).
Lily is my mini me & we tell each other everything. Since I'm a senior in college and away from home, she often sends me voice memos and recordings of the arguments between our parents and Sophie. These happen a lot because Sophie is so rebellious & doesn’t listen to anything my parents say.
Today, Lily sent me a memo saying that Sophie didn’t want me or my boyfriend (21M, together for 2 years) to come to her graduation because she thinks I steal the spotlight from her, after my parents invited my boyfriend & I (& paid for tickets).
This really upset me because I would never want to overshadow someone on their special day. Sophie and I don’t see eye to eye. She's a partier, rude to our parents, has gotten into so much legal trouble, and almost didn't graduate (we only found out she would graduate a week before the ceremony-aka today). She has no plans for after graduation, has never had a job, and didn't even take the SATs. But now to hear this is really upsetting. Sophie said I would take the spotlight by talking about my life to our grandparents. Wouldn’t she want that? They’re very traditional and will be upset that she has no plans for her future.
Her & I are complete opposites & I think that’s why she resents me. But what am I supposed to do about that? I excelled in school & got into my top university on a scholarship. I have a good relationship with our parents. I'm not sure how to handle this situation or how to feel. I don't like Sophie, but I feel rejected by her and as a people pleaser, it's tough.
This whole situation is also hard on my mom because Sophie doesn’t get along with any of us. Things got worse when she was a sophomore in high school and got involved with a bad crowd. We were somewhat close until she started telling me about having unprotected sex, thinking she was pregnant, asking me for Plan B, and sneaking out at night. I ended up telling my dad about her sneaking out (she doesn’t know I told him), and she thinks she was caught by a neighbor's Ring doorbell.
We did get along for a short while around Christmas when we traveled to another state to celebrate with family. However, during that trip, she became very disrespectful toward my mom, acting like she was the parent and telling my mom what she could and could not do. I will admit, I lost my temper & called her out in front of the entire family. It wasn't my best moment, but I couldn't stand her embarrassing my mom like that in front of everyone.
I was just home for Mother’s Day and things seemed to go well. Sophie even unblocked me on Instagram, which I noticed and requested to follow her. I thought we were on better terms because we were actually speaking for the first time since Christmas.
My boyfriend says that we should go to the graduation anyway because my parents are the ones that invited us, and just stick it to her and make her miserable, because she does that to us at every holiday/event. But I can’t keep doing this—I’ve been doing it for years. If she doesn’t want a relationship with me, that’s completely fine. I don’t really want one with her either. But her constantly bashing me and saying that I’m going to steal the spotlight from her on her graduation is just so rude.
I wouldn’t know these things if Lily didn’t send me the voice memos. But I’m so nosy that I need to know what happens and what people say about me, even if it does more harm than good.
Given all this, AITA for not wanting to go to my sister's graduation? Should I go?
submitted by TerryDawg2025 to TwoHotTakes [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:51 aubrey_ann Today’s @Mom_juggling highlights

What I learned Day 13 of the Karen Read trial
1) The Chris Alberts have uncomfortable silent dinners and don’t discuss anything with each other
2) Lally is mad Colin Albert spilled the beans about witness prep
3) Colin Albert has been infected with the liabetes and the amnesia pandemic of Canton. It’s an extreme case.
4) Jill Daniels is buying Colin a thesaurus to expand his vocabulary.
5) Colin only hits the bag with one hand
6) The Jury saw the bang bang video
7) Those Advantage Boys are still scared of Bang Bang Colin Albert and his reputation of only fighting his brothers
8) Courtney Proctor is sad Colin doesn’t remember her wedding. She knew she should of picked Dillion
9) Bars in Canton offer a splash of Crystal Light in drinks during weight loss competition season
10) Matt McCabe doesn’t understand how he lost the weight loss competition drinking splashes of Crystal Light while Chris Albert is licking his fingers from the potato skins and chicken tenders he was eating
11) Matt McCabe is only happy around Jen at the bar
12) Matt McCabe regrets not bringing dental floss with him and was trying to get that pesky meat loose stuck between his teeth. He’s hoping no one noticed.
13) Matt McCabe wants everyone to know that D&E is not mediocre and he really tried at the weight loss competition. It’s highly desired and even Karen Read was begging for it. He’s still mad Karen was tempting him for late night cheese and sausage during the weight loss competition.
14) Jen McCabe’s favorite drunk song is It’s Raining Men.
15) Eagle eye Matt McCabe can see tire tracks making a V pattern but not a body in the snow.
16) I’m still sad Colin didn’t say bang bang while leaving the stand

freekarenread #JusticeForJohnOkeefe

submitted by aubrey_ann to justiceforKarenRead [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:50 Icannotsleep57 7 months after excision, my symptoms have not improved. Advice?

Going into surgery, I knew it wasn’t a cure, I did not expect to be in a worse position at 7 months post-op. I read many reviews of my surgeon (supposedly an excision specialist), there was good and bad. I was very aware of the different outcomes of this surgery, it’s a whole different experience living with a bad outcome.
I would like to include that I cannot take any form of OBC or any other hormonal intervention. I break out in hives around my period on the pill, my liver enzymes spike along with inflammation markers.
I have been patiently waiting, following through with PFPT, researching other conditions (hEDS, MCAS, vascular irregularities), I have seen other specialists that have nothing to do with endo, and trying all sorts of thing to “calm my nervous system down”. I say that with quotation marks because my surgeon’s NP diagnosed me with “over-active nerves” 3 months post-op, w/o running any tests or referring me to a nerve or pain specialist.
I know it can take a year to see results but I feel like something is very, very wrong. My period is still very difficult, it takes my body about a week to recover from the hell of menstruating. That follows with a few good days (that I am blessed to have) and then my body starts preparing for the next CD1.
I have not been able to hold my bladder for more than 7 hours without extreme bladder pain. It was a max of 4 hours, 3 months post-op. PT has helped, it is still very difficult to start my day off with excruciating pain.
My post-op fatigue was awful, 7 months later there are improvements but it’s still bad. My blood panel comes back normal. I just saw an immunologist who specializes in MCAS. I came with peer reviewed articles discussing how activated mast cells have been found on endo lesions. The Doctor said I am definitely dealing with mast cell inflammation but it is most likely localized with the remaining disease.
After surgery, the surgeon told my mom that I had a mild case with no adhesions, the two excised lesions (one on my ureteral sacral ligament, other on my bladder) were “inactive”. I had fibrosis removed off my pelvic floor but no endo. I have seen two other endo specialist since my surgery, they both explained that adhesion growth is a genetic response to the disease, not everyone experiences it. The same goes for fibrosis. It’s by products of the disease. AND, All lesion types are active lesions. At the last appointment, the specialist reviewed my pre-op TVUS and noticed a few markers for congested pelvic syndrome (This was not identified during surgery). I have since had a second TVUS and the radiology report confirmed CPS.
I am waiting to see gyno-urologist in 2 months, the urologist I saw 5 months post-op suspected nerve damage from ablation or over cauterizing after excision. Or a combo of both?
Any advice on what I should do next? I want to be evaluated by a more qualified surgeon. I do not feel like my surgeon is actually an endometriosis specialist, I cannot find any record of their surgical fellowship, only an internship. They also receive over $200,000 a year from Intuitive(Da Vinci Robot) for trainings.
submitted by Icannotsleep57 to Endo [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:48 Oof-A-Saurus How does Sea of Thieves look in 2024?

I loved this game to death, played it nonstop and racked a total of around almost 400 hours fairly quickly on steam. Eventually, burnout after playing nonstop everyday for hours on end got the best of me, and the game seemed to be drying up in content (imo) when I decided to call it quits/take an indefinite break. Recently built my first PC (used to play on a laptop lmao) and it’s quite beefy, so while browsing steam games to try and test the rig on I remembered about Sea of Thieves and how much I loved it, and now nostalgia’s starting to get the better of me and I feel tempted to plunder once more. How’s the game and its content looking now? I wanna say that I quit around season 4 if that gives any sense of time.
submitted by Oof-A-Saurus to Seaofthieves [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:42 lovebug6413 Crestie weight advice

Hi there! I purchased an approx 3 year old male frog butt Crestie alittle over a month ago at an expo. Per the breeder he didn’t have a heat lamp or uvb light but he’s since been put into a bioactive enclosure that includes both (light on 12 hr timer and heat emitter on a dimmer set to 75) plus an auto misting system (Gets a spike around 8pm of 80-90% and dries down during the day to 50-60%)
The breeder told me he ate every 2-3 days and I kept him on the same food he was eating - Pangea with insects (red bag) with the same schedule. He usually eats about a quarter of the tiny bowl & I remove 24 hrs later.
I see him eating & exploring every night & when I put the food in at night as I have a camera & he’s pooping & has shed atleast once.
I feel like I’m doing everything right but it feels like he’s losing weight? I don’t have original weight as I didn’t know how important it was when I purchased him. But he feels lightelooks skinnier.
He’s currently 32 g - should I feed him more often? Should I supplement with something else? Or am I overacting?
submitted by lovebug6413 to CrestedGecko [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:42 Own_Answer_6855 Wish you stuck around to see the impact you had on me

I hate to admit it but thanks to my ex I gained confidence I never had before. He started getting to know me at my absolute worst, just got in car accident, evicted was in the middle of moving, cut my father from my life etc. Even with me at my worse he was the first person to compliment me he called me cute, beautiful, sexy and helped boost my ego. The shame is that because of all this going on in my life and him having his own he never got to see the me I want to be. The me that likes dressing up, dancing, singing and being a goofball usually in secret. He saw the beauty when I was at my worst now he will never know the me that he helped me unlock by showing me the love my family never gave me. I’m sure he’ll see me around and wonder what happened to me but he’ll never know that it was because of the love he showed me, that helped me grow into who I want to become instead of being stuck. So thank you for helping me feel comfortable in my own skin and helping me reach my full potential, I just wish you were beside me to see how you helped me climb out of the hole I was in.
submitted by Own_Answer_6855 to BreakUps [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:39 Chubbity Does it get better?

Everybody says that it gets better. Maybe that works for other people, but it doesn't work for me. I've struggled with severe depression and suicidal thoughts for seven years now. Every time I hope it will get better, it just gets worse. How long can I hold onto this delusional hope that things will get better for me someday? I've tried therapy, I've tried medication, I've tried getting help from those around me., but nothing really worked. The hope is what keeps me from taking my own life, but each day I lose more and more hope, and it's terrifying to think that one day that hope will run dry and I will take my own life.
submitted by Chubbity to SuicideWatch [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:38 Former-Midnight-5990 Porphyria? or Pyroluria?

33m, white, 185lbs about 5'7" on a good day...
Is this the answer I have been looking for? Saw a new doctor for fresh perspective today since my previous doctor doesn't seem to care/given up on figuring out whats been bothering me and thinks a psychiatrist will fix everything. I wish, trust me. The past few months were a lot, I quit drinking after substance abuse problems and finally alcohol is no'mo'. As my sober date kept getting further away I noticed something wasn't right, and before I was drinking so much that I attributed it to that.
Here are my MAIN symptoms (the list is long but these are what bothered me regularly)
*inability to begin urinating*~*weak urine stream*~*frequent need to urinate*~*joint pain/inflammation*~*muscle fatigue*~*pressure headache/hot ears*~*tingling sensations*~*cold/number hands*~*rash that would start below my fingernails, hurt to apply pressure to, then would grow out and crack around the nail bed*~*random red spots that popped up/skin issues*~*rapid changing mood swings (hysteria/depression/anhedonia/irritability)-(34m, dealt with depression/anxiety before but never these mood swings)*~*lower back pelvic pain*~*ADHD really bad*~*altered conscious states, almost like dreamlike when I think back on them*~*I have always been more of a nocturnal person, too*
On recent blood work between CBC, BMP, Urine analysis, hepatic function, lipid panel, throid panel, hormone panel, --
Ferritin saturation % - 14% (low)
Ferritin - 23ng/mL (low)
Prolactin - 34.5 ng/mL (high)
Anion Gap - 13 (high) - (acidic blood)
& Leukocytes were found in my urine.--
Would I expect to see more differences in all of those tests and only the ones above being abnormal?
There's more than are more things that have happened along the way, but i'll live it there for things that happen more regularly. I've had to be my own advocate so many times, my doctor thought I had UTI, prostatitus, BHP, candida overgrowth, etc etc. He doesn't seem to care or that he's even trying anymore so I've had to seek treatment myself. I thought it was hormone related, which they seem to be inline. Saw a new doc today and he mentioned this. Testing tomorrow after during fasting.
The antidepressants I've tried I have not responded to for my depression/anxiety symptoms... and this does seem to fit. I'm not sure about how I feel about it... but at this point just knowing would be a sense of relief.
THX
submitted by Former-Midnight-5990 to AskDocs [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:38 Pretend-Security6240 Gut feeling with narcissist

I had a colleague who I am pretty sure was a narcissist/ socialised psychopath ill call B in a corporate setting. Just for background..After he started I was uncomfortable about several areas of his work, mentioned it to him in a friendly way as i wasnt his boss but was supposed to tutor him about the floor and i knew it was against procedure it was putting others at risk and wow he he reacted angry. He said he was going to keep doing it, because he didnt agree with the rules because they were "stupid unkind rules"and asked me keep it secret but as there are strict legal regulations so i said no and I raised it with our joint manager Mr D who called a joint meeting so we could together all to agree the rules going forward. At the meeting "B" lied (his word against mine) said none of it happened and that I was mentally ill and obsessed with him ( this was because I had carefully documented the times he had not shown up, breached policy etc) and then he immediately raised a bullying charge on me for even asking for the meeting. I was so shocked at the time because never experienced tutoring someone like this ( have wised up since thanks to Snakes in suits book and Dr Ramani!!).
The thing I can't get past is that I had a strong reaction to run physically from B even though he never once physically threatened me. It was like my skin was crawling or I felt sick when he was watching me, the whole time even when other folk were in the room and I was physically safe. Once we were both at the same filing cabinet and my whole body was just on edge like "do not turn your back on this guy or he'll end you". It started before the difficult meeting. I kept thinking he wanted to fight me even the first time I met him although he was really superficially charming highly articulate..
It's hard to express it but it's terribly unsettling feeling physically different from what the person is saying. And the whole time he's smarming around claiming extra fees without doing much work , he seemed to know every loophole in the system and telling people how terrible I'd treated him. When a coworker confronted him about lying about something else he cried and blamed me for upsetting him so much he didn't know what he was doing. She just stared at him in disbelief.
How it ended was Mr D had to take early retirement. Noone wanted the job although I was asked to apply I didn't as I have young kids and dont want to work all the hours. B got it although he technically wasn't eligible to apply but apparently did an outstanding interview 🙄 so his lack of expertise was overlooked.
I was incredibly lucky that another job near my home was going and I could resign almost immediately. It was only then I could say " I am going because you not ethical and i cannot work under you anymore" in my resignation and start to heal.
But I still think about the horrible feeling a lot. It was like my intuition was "ringing off the wall" with him. I wonder if others got this gut feeling or skin crawling thing from being managed by narc.
submitted by Pretend-Security6240 to ManagedByNarcissists [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:37 shinyopalite Please help - severe diaper rash that won’t go away

First time mom to an almost 7w old and I am at my absolute wits end with my baby’s diaper rash. I don’t know what else to do. She has a rash that started a few weeks ago when we started a box of huggies after using pampers swaddlers. This kick started the rash to the best of my knowledge, so we switched back to the swaddlers yet the rash continued to worsen.
We saw her pediatrician who said it isn’t bacterial or yeast, and recommended water wipes and diaper free time for at least 20 min a day, along with bordeaux rash cream. We did that, but the rash continued to get worse. She had broken skin in several spots that would lightly bleed along with bad redness and irritation. In this time period she also had a cold so she was super congested. Took her back to the pediatrician and she said the mucus she’s swallowing is likely irritating the rash since it’s in her poop. Recommended blow dryer next to changing table, bordeaux max strength, and viva cloth feel paper towels with water rather than wipes. This helped immensely and the rash started to heal, most of the broken skin spots have healed over and just have a scar which the ped said will go away.
Now, though, she’s suddenly getting a rash over and around the old one again. We didn’t change anything at all, and I don’t know what to do. It’s been nearly 3 weeks of rash and it’s breaking my heart and making me feel terrible. Since birth I’ve literally changed her the second I hear or smell poop or pee, and even if not I check every hour. I use the blow dryer to completely dry the area before applying the cream. I called my pediatrician yet again today and she said to wait it out another 3-4 days, and that it may just be the rash “trying to heal”? I don’t know. It just looks so red and irritated. It was getting better and now it’s back to getting worse. Does anyone have any recommendations of what I should do? Should I try switching to a different diaper again? start using wipes? switch creams? I just don’t understand and I don’t want my baby hurting :(
submitted by shinyopalite to beyondthebump [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:29 JamFranz I’m calling about a past due balance on your account (Part 13) - That one time we went to Canada

I work for a ‘special collections’ agency and I don’t think our customers are human.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13
I wasn’t exactly thrilled when, on the first night P’uy̓ám stayed with me, the moment we sat on the sofa he turned to me and asked, “Can we talk?”
I was tempted to sprint out the front door (like any perfectly reasonable and emotionally stable person would), but I’m proud to say that I managed to fight that instinct. The talk ended up basically being ‘did I mind that he wasn’t human’. I told him no, he’s the smartest, nicest person I know, and I think he’s amazing. I asked him if he minded that I am human, and he told me he didn’t care about that. He said I make him laugh, and spending time with me makes him happy and want to be the best version of himself. He did also say that I’m beautiful and a lot smarter than I claim I am, but I chalk up those last two to him being super nice, because if asked to describe myself, the two words I’d probably use would be, ‘loud’ and ‘confused’.
We just stared at each other awkwardly for a moment after that, neither of us seemed entirely sure what to do – it was the first time we’d actually been alone together since ‘the kiss’.
Just when we’d figured it out (and no, internet stranger, I’m not going to be sharing any more specific details, thanks), a knock on the door and the sound of Sandy’s voice outside interrupted us.
“Oh hey hon. I just wanted to make sure you were still alive.” She smiled once I jumped up to open it.
Her eyes drifted to P’uy̓ám who waved awkwardly from the couch, glasses askew.
“Well alrighty then, I guess I’ll be going.” She just stood there, looking a bit lost.
I realized that was the first night she’d come home to any empty house after having company for a month straight – I guess even unspeakable horrors get lonely too.
“Sandy, do you want to come in and watch a movie with us?” I offered after a moment.
“Oh, you betcha!” she brightened and then proceeded to choose the seat between us. I swear she’s got psychic chaperone powers or something.
I suggested that maybe the three of us could do a game night every month, since we figured it’d be nice to catch up outside of just when we were trying to prevent the world was ending. I must say though, I thought Sandy was intense as a supervisor but she is a thousand times more frightening as a poker player – and we don’t even play for money.
I joked that we needed to take her to a casino, but she very seriously replied, “Oh I’m banned from every one in the state.”
I moved apartments after a month had passed without hearing from Yyohn. I’d been waiting to be absolutely sure, because I didn’t want to saddle a new renter with the whole, ‘you might be pulled into a nightmare world and sacrificed to an interdimensional entity’ thing – that would’ve been really inconsiderate.
I was so appreciative that P’uy̓ám stayed with me for a while. I may write with bravado when describing things in retrospect, but the very real possibility of being dragged through a reflective surface silently in the night never to be seen again, did freak me out.
It was also nice to finally spend some time together where we weren’t worrying about the imminent demise of either myself or our plane of existence (well no more than we usually have to worry, at least).
We decided not to tell anyone at the office that we're dating, it's easier that way. Well, I mean, Sandy knows since she did witness our first kiss whilst they were burying me alive.
As the time approached for our trip, I just really hoped that after not seeing P’uy̓ám for decades, maybe his family would welcome him back this time, forgive him for the minor transgression of ‘leaving home’ (yes, I’m still salty that they pretty much disowned him for that.) I figured if he didn’t, maybe he could get some closure, he could at least see the places where he grew up – homesickness had very clearly been really eating at him ever since we went into the woods for team building.
When we were planning our trip, he told me he’s never liked planes and was hoping to avoid flying. Considering ‘traveling on business’ in our line of work isn’t exactly defined as moving across physical space, it made some sort of sense.
He said it was something about not having solid ground under his feet, but when we mapped it out, it was over 5,000 miles round trip – so we could either spend 40 hours in a car, or 6 hours on a plane, each way.
He decided to give flying a shot.
People sometimes struggle to pronounce my first and last names off my driver’s license or credit cards, but they’ll at least try. As we were checking in the lady at the desk ended with, “Thank you Mr….” and then after staring at his driver’s license in silence for a few moments just gave up and handed it back to him.
I get it though, I mean, if I hadn’t heard him pronounce his last name, I would’ve never guessed it on my own – I’d just never encountered a ‘7’ in a name before I met him.
The security guy at the airport spent a long time studying P’uy̓ám’s passport. He stared at P’uy̓ám, then the passport with narrowed eyes. Back to him, then the passport, several times before eventually shrugging and handing it back over. I peeked at it before he put it away and noticed it said he was born in 1960 – and he may be 233, but he looks like he’s in his early thirties at most, so that explained the look of disbelief written on the agent’s face.
When I asked him about it, he said it’s a lot of work to fake all the documents needed to make the date match his outward appearance.
“It was a lot easier before there were electronic records.” He smiled.
I warned him that he should probably update that soon – bureaucratic apathy would only get him so far.
As we waited in the security line, his eyes widened when he saw people go through the body scanner, and he asked me what it was. When I told him, he turned pale and said he couldn’t go through it.
That left me with some questions.
“P’uy̓ám, when was the last time you flew?”
He had to think about that for a moment. “1986?”
“Yeahhhh… I’m pretty sure you can ask not to, but they’ll probably pat you down if you skip it.”
He grew even paler at that.
“Do you want the scan, or the hands?”
He ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head, indicating that he wanted neither, which unfortunately for him was not an option.
I squeezed his hand, which helped calm him down – only letting go when it was time to show our IDs, and even then, only after the TSA officer glared at us
It’s a good thing we got there early, because when they asked if he’d emptied his pockets, he said no.
So, I watched him remove:
We both got out of line so he could check his bag and keep his tools – and I didn’t want him to have to go through it again by himself.
I hated seeing that look of misery on his face – I tried to maintain comforting eye contact with him as they patted him down.
They did let him keep the dirt with him, after scanning it since it’s apparently not prohibited, (just weird). He proceeded to stick it in one of his beat-up Converse before putting his shoes back on.
I understood the dirt – since he mentioned something about solid ground, I guessed it was as close as he was going to get on a plane – and even the multitool and knife.
But, when I asked him why he was trying to bring 16g of RAM into rural Canada in his pockets he just smiled, “You never know when you might need it.”
As soon as we boarded, I realized flying had been a terrible idea. He had a hard time fitting his legs in since he’s so tall – his knees were just jammed in there the whole time. Before we took off, some guy elbowed him in the face while trying to load a bag into the bin and P’uy̓ám said ‘I’m sorry’ to him. I glared at the guy until he apologized.
Everything freaked him out and he gripped the arm rests for dear life the entire flight. The sound of the wheels, staring out at the wings and the little flaps every time they moved (“Are those supposed to be doing that?” to which I could only unhelpfully shrug), the turbulence. I was just glad they let him keep the dirt.
He looked so absolutely horrified during the entire flight and I felt so bad for him. Before we even landed, I asked him if he wanted to drive on the way back instead of flying and he instantly said yes, relief written across his face.
We had to rent a car to get to his hometown, and it took us an extra two hours to get there because there were so many places he wanted to stop and show me, like this amazing waterfall off highway 99. I could’ve done without the constant feel of eyes on us despite us being alone, but it was definitely beautiful, at least.
We began to see signs for this little touristy shop. As we kept driving, the billboards seemed to multiply, until they were at almost every mile. At my insistence, we stopped.
I regretted that decision as soon as we walked in – the place was devoid of life, there were no other customers, no employees – and something about how the dim, blueish lights cast shadows across the shelves gave me a searing headache.
Not to mention the items on the shelves themselves – a mildewy hoodie, that had ‘Someone who loves me visited Oklahoma and bought me this sweatshirt!’ written in fading letters.
It seemed more like a second hand shop than a tourist trap.
I’d found a beaded purse, but it had a wallet and driver's license still in it.
As we wandered, a case of jewelry across the store caught my eye and drew me towards it – it was insane how beautiful each piece was – all so captivating, and each one was totally unique. They looked almost like blown glass – swirling golds and blues in one, sharp magentas with specs of green in another.
As I was leaning in closely, studying them – it almost looked as if they were moving a bit in their case – someone whispered directly into my ear from over my shoulder, “Thanks for stopping in”
The guy appeared out of nowhere to lean in over my shoulder, causing me to scream (just a reasonable amount).
Creeper dude walked around to position himself behind the counter, asked if I wanted to see anything, before pausing to study my face for a moment. His eyes drifted down to the pendant that P’uy̓ám made me, the one for ‘I’m totally not a human, please don’t eat me’ purposes.
“Oh, this is beautiful”, he whispered, before deciding to violate my personal space by lifting it up and holding it.
His demeanor instantly changed from a handsy salesperson to something else entirely – his grin widened and he looked a little too excited.
“Have you signed our guest book?” He gripped my left wrist tightly, shoved a pen into my right, and studied me in a way that told me he wouldn’t let go until I signed it.
“Can I switch hands please?”
He had the audacity to look at me as if I had mildly inconvenienced him, but did let me switch after I told him that was the only way he’d get actual, readable, words.
I flipped through the thick, yellowing pages to find a blank one and signed it ‘Mikayla G. and P’uy̓ám K.’
“Last names too.”
I sighed and wrote ‘Mikayla Garabedian and P’uy̓ám K--’ (I just wrote random letters after the K because I didn’t like how pushy he was being. )
“Exquisite, aren’t they?” he asked me with a smile, gesturing down at the jewelry. The small piece streaked with yellow and pinks was definitely shuddering in response to him pointing at it.
I nodded, but more out of politeness at that point, because he still had my wrist in a death grip.
“Mikayla, Wait.” I could hear P’uy̓ám call out in the distance, but I felt frozen there – it sounded like he was miles away
“Would you like to see how they’re made?”
Before I could answer, he leaned in and put a stone that resembled the others in shape and size, the only difference is that it was just plain, totally clear – into my hand, which he closed around it. It was like glass, but weightier, and where it touched my skin it burned slightly.
I could hear P’uy̓ám calling my name as he came sprinting over, right as the guy read my name off the guestbook.
P’uy̓ám gasped, but I didn’t understand why he was so freaked out.
Literally nothing happened.
P’uy̓ám helped me free my wrist from creepy guy’s crazy strong grip and sassily smacked the book out of his hands, before he could read it again.
And still, nothing happened.
The guy looked at us with narrowed eyes – a look P’uy̓ám returned, with even more intensity. The guy hissed at us as P’uy̓ám guided me out of the store.
Once we got to the parking lot, P’uy̓ám pulled me close to him and put his chin on the top of my head while quietly muttered that he wasn’t sure how I was unaffected – calling someone their true name is how all those other pendants got filled.
He hadn’t realized at first, but when he saw another collection of ‘items made from tourists’ (I made him repeat that to ensure I’d heard that correctly but he didn’t expound on what the ‘items’ were and I was a bit afraid to ask) in the back, he knew.
That was when P’uy̓ám ran over to me, but the guy already begun to read my name, so he was worried it was too late.
He was relieved when I saw that I didn’t provide either of our actual full names – I’ve learned that sharing your entire, true name isn’t a great idea, not with non-humans, probably not with the internet in general.
Mikayla is what I go by, but it’s my middle name – I mean, my sister’s name is ‘Hasmig’, so yeah, I have a fairly traditional first name, too. And no, I’m not sharing it here.
Look, I’m not saying that you’re going to come track me down and try to bind my soul to an inanimate object to then sell to tourists. But, after that ordeal, I’d rather not take that risk.
When I turned back around, the entire store was just … gone.
Apparently since I’m subletting a part of my soul (or as I like to say, ‘mildly possessed’), P’uy̓ám says mine was probably even more fascinating to the guy.
Due to our detours, it was getting dark by the time we reached P’uy̓ám’s family home.
Even in the low light, I could see the apprehension clearly written across his face. I wondered if he thought I was kidding about pummeling his family with my thousand page book if they were shitty to him. (Because I wasn’t)
The entire time, I’d thought that the worst thing that could happen would be that they rejected him – as we pulled up to the dark house, I realized just how very wrong I was. _
If you want me to let you know when the next part is posted, just comment that you want me to update you, and I'll tag your user name in a comment, when I post the next part :)
submitted by JamFranz to JamFranz [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:27 Obsequium_Minaris Ballistic Coefficient - Chapter 12

First / Previous / Royal Road / Patreon (Read 12 Chapters Ahead)

Silently, Pale motioned for Kayla to follow her, and the two of them silently crept out of the cave. As they drew closer to the exit, Pale was finally able to make out the voices from earlier.
"-Sure they're here? The tracks faded a while back…"
"Where in the three hells else would they go? This is the only shelter around for miles. The snow may have covered their tracks, but they don't know this land like we do."
The talking soon devolved into bickering as the bandits fought among themselves. Pale shifted, pressing her weapon's stock against her shoulder, then began to carefully push out from inside the cave, Kayla following a few steps behind her. The snowfall had intensified even further from when they had sought refuge in the cave; between the falling specks of white and the steadily-encroaching dusk, visibility had dropped to near-zero. Despite this, Pale kept moving, seeking cover higher up in the mountains.
The two of them moved over the rocks as carefully as they could, taking care not to disturb any of them for fear of alerting the bandits. Pale couldn't tell how many there were; from the different voices in their group, she counted at least four, maybe five. Ballistic weapons or not, she didn't like the odds of taking on five people in open combat with just herself and Kayla to oppose them.
And so, they continued to climb the mountain. Pale shivered the entire time, the frigid air cutting her to the bone even through her thermals. The temperature had fallen in the hours since they'd set up in the cave, and now even her high-tech clothing wouldn't be enough to save them forever.
Eventually, however, they reached a flat point in the side of the mountain where they could rest. Pale helped Kayla up the edge, and the two of them laid there, panting from exertion. Despite the cold, Pale wiped sweat from her brow, hefting her weapon to her shoulder once more as she peered over the sheer expanse. Through the snow and the darkness, she was just able to make out a few faint shapes milling about.
"Is it safe down there?" Kayla whispered through chattering teeth.
Pale shook her head. "Doesn't seem like it. Hopefully, they won't find the cave – if they do, they're going to keep looking for us. Our only hope is that they'll get cold and call off the search before then."
"Unlikely…" Kayla muttered. "Berserkers like that come from the far north. They're used to cold like this, if not worse. If anything makes them leave, it won't be the weather."
Pale couldn't help but scowl. She looked over the cliff face once more, then shook her head.
"Then I guess we have a choice to make."
"Which is…?"
"We sit here and hope that they don't find anything and leave before we freeze to death, or we throw caution to the wind and take the fight directly to them in order to reclaim our impromptu shelter."
Kayla paled at that. "...I don't like either option."
"Neither do I. The weather is a problem no matter which one we take – either it kills us outright or it affects us to the point where our combat effectiveness starts to drop like a stone. In any case, we're going to need to make a decision fast."
"You're the soldier. What do you think we should do?"
Pale was about to respond, but was cut off by a sudden flurry of excited shouts and movement from down below. She cast another glance down at the cave, and listened in to what the bandits were saying as best as she could. Most of their speech was drowned out by distance and wind, but it soon became irrelevant, as one of the bandits held up the remnants of two military rations, then pointed up towards the mountain. As Pale watched, the rest of the bandits – all five of them – began to climb up towards them. Her expression narrowed as she watched the berserkers steadily claw their way up the rocks, steadily inching closer with every passing moment.
"Looks like they made my decision for me," she announced, hefting her weapon.
"Ah…! What are we doing?!" Kayla asked in a hushed voice.
Pale leaned over the side of the cliff, centering her shotgun's sights on the head of the nearest bandit. He was about thirty meters away; at this distance, she couldn't miss.
"Pick a target," she said without looking back. "Wait for my command before conjuring anything."
Kayla let out a small whimper at what she was about to do, but didn't offer any argument, instead stacking up alongside Pale. She took a breath to calm herself, then raised a hand, but held back on conjuring any magic, instead merely keeping it outstretched. Pale watched as the bandit she'd aimed at drew closer, until finally, it happened – he locked eyes with her, and his expression tightened into one of surprise. He opened his mouth to yell something to his comrades.
A shell full of buckshot silenced him before he got the chance. In that moment, Kayla opened up with a spell, sending a streak of lightning arcing across the mountain and into the chest of the nearest berserker. The man convulsed as electricity danced across his body, but then limply fell backwards, his body blackened and smoking.
For a split-second, there was silence, punctuated only by the sound of Pale racking her shotgun. She went to take aim at the next target, but a large bolt of lightning came soaring towards her from farther down the mountain. A small, surprised gasp escaped from her as she fell back, the lightning missing her by mere millimeters, passing close by enough that it made the hair on her head stand up. The spell discharged into the rock above, sending bits of stone and dirt raining down on the two of them and littering them with small cuts and bruises, but otherwise leaving them unhurt.
"Kayla, you take that side!" Pale shouted as she approached the edge of the stone. "Keep yourself safe!"
"W-what?!" Kayla called back. "What are you doing?!"
"Getting you some breathing room!" Pale said to her as she swung herself over the edge, then began to roll down the side of the snow-covered mountain. Bits of jagged rock tore at her body as she fell, but she paid it no mind. Back behind her, she heard claps of thunder echo through the mountains, a sign that Kayla was still fighting.
That wouldn't matter if Pale didn't take care of the berserker mage, however.
As that thought passed her mind, another bolt of electricity came arcing from their cave, up towards Kayla. Pale came to a stop not far away, then jumped to her feet with her weapon at the ready, a pang of pure rage barely suppressed in her mind as she surged forwards.
There were no other berserkers on this part of the mountain, at least that she could see, which had to mean that the mage was alone. Pale sprinted for the cave, double-timing it in order to get there before something could happen to Kayla. More lightning flew through the night, marking the mage's spot, and before long, she closed in on him.
Just as she got there, however, a wall of fire erupted between herself and him. She stumbled, barely managing to catch herself before running directly into the flames. Through the smoke and crimson blaze, she was able to make out a man dressed in a combination of berserker furs and a tattered gray cloak, grinning a yellowed-toothed grin at her through a shaggy salt-and-pepper beard. He went to say something, but Pale stopped him with a barrage of shotgun pellets slam-fired from her weapon as fast as she could operate the pump. To her dismay, however, a barrier of some kind sprang up between the two of them, shielding the mage from any harm.
Her shotgun clicked empty, and Pale let it dangle from her sling, instead pulling out her .45. She went to take aim at the mage, but was unprepared for him to suddenly surge forwards, a manic shout escaping him as he passed through his own flames, completely uncaring of how they lapped at him as he sprinted by. Her eyes widened in shock as she was forced backwards, her pistol barking as fast as she could pull the trigger, but to no avail – that same barrier from earlier prevented any of her shots from landing, the bullets harmlessly bouncing off onto the ground below for every round fired.
Finally, the slide locked back on her handgun, and Pale was forced to try and reload. The mage kept coming, however, even as she scrambled backwards over snow and rocks. Eventually, though, she made a mistake, tripping over a large rock and falling backwards, her handgun slipping from her grip and sliding several yards away. She made a vain attempt to fumble for it, but the mage got their first. With strength unexpected from a man his age, he wrapped one hand around her throat and hoisted her into the air, holding her face-to-face with him. Pale gasped for breath, her legs flailing uselessly as the life was choked out of her. The berserker's manic grin widened, and he tightened his one-handed grip, then brought his off-hand around, sparks already dancing across his fingertips.
Out of desperation, Pale yanked the combat knife from her belt and flailed wildly with it, hoping only to free herself. Her desperate plan worked; the man let out a loud, pained shout as a deep gash was opened in his arm, and his grip loosened just enough for Pale to shake herself free. She landed in a heap on the ground, then jumped to her feet just in time for the mage to shake off his wound. She had cut a deep gouge in the side of his arm, deep enough to expose the white of his bone to the elements, but from the sight of things, all that had really done was anger him even more. In that moment, she realized something.
That barrier, whatever it was, must have been designed to withstand projectile attacks from a distance rather than a direct close-range strike.
She didn't get much time to focus on this new discovery, however – he glared at her, gritting his teeth as the blood dripped from his arm onto the snow below; Pale, for her part, held his gaze, and dropped into a combat stance as she switched her hold on the blade to a reverse grip. The two of them began to circle each other, each waiting for the other combatant to move, both of them eyeing their opponent up and down the entire time.
Pale saw the signs of an incoming attack before it even arrived – the subtle tensing of his leg muscles gave it away before he even knew what he was doing. When he surged forwards, his hands engulfed in fire, she was ready; she sidestepped the incoming attack, then lashed out with her blade once more, scoring another deep slash through the man's arm, this time in the underside. He let out a grunt as he reeled back from the hit, his arm now dangling uselessly in front of him. Idly, Pale realized she must have just severed its tendon, preventing him from using it any further.
She didn't get a chance to dwell on this fact for long, as the mage raised his other arm and launched a bolt of lightning at her, forcing her to jump behind a nearby rock to avoid being electrocuted. She didn't stay there for long, though – he launched several more consecutive bolts of lightning towards her impromptu cover, trying to flush her out as he closed in on one side. Pale didn't take the bait, though – she rushed the side he was pushing just in time to shove the blade forwards, and for her efforts, she was rewarded with a dull thunk as steel met flush. The mage immediately froze, looking down at the knife as it jutted out of his stomach, blood blossoming out from around it and steadily staining his clothes a deep crimson. He gave a shuddering gasp, then fell to his knees, Pale merely yanked the knife out from his gut, and was about to slam the blade into his carotid artery to finish him off when someone grabbed her from behind, stopping her. Pale's heart skipped a beat, and she very nearly rounded on whoever it was before Kayla's voice met her ears.
"Don't. There's been enough death for now."
Pale paused, then chanced a look back. Kayla was standing there, her eyes wide and dull as she shivered, her outfit covered in dirt and blood, none of it her own. She pulled her hand off Pale's, bringing it around to huddle herself. Pale stared at her for a moment, then looked back up at the cliff's edge where she'd been left.
Several bodies, charred beyond the point of recognition and still smoking, marked a trail up to Kayla's side.
Reluctantly, Pale pursed her lips, then nodded, sheathing her knife. "...Fine. But if we're keeping him alive, then I'm going to find out what he knows before we turn him loose. I think it's time we got some answers from someone."
Kayla's only response was to wordlessly nod.

Special thanks to my good friend and co-writer, Ickbard for the help with writing this story.
submitted by Obsequium_Minaris to HFY [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:24 Ralts_Bloodthorne Nova Wars - Chapter 63

you always were special
always special to me
all of you
every
last
one
of
you
[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]
Sacajawea leaned back, staring at the hologram in the middle of the table.
"I fled the Glassing. I asked Luke to rebirth my people, help me get the colony ships working, then ran for it," she said. "Twelve ships lifted off, escorted by light attack and defense craft," she closed her eyes. "Only four made it. The Mantid boarded two of the ships," she swallowed thickly. "I could hear them scream as the Mantid killed them."
Legion squeezed her hand gently.
N'Skrek could see the pain in her features.
For her, it may be thousands of years ago, but it still brings pain, he thought to himself. For me, for all of us at this table, this is an event tens of thousands of years ago. Barely remembered history.
"We stayed in jumpspace for months, years, pushing at the upper bands," she shook her head. "We eventually hit the point where the ships were pushed back down by the pressure."
N'Skrek nodded. The upper jumpspace bands required specialized engines and jumpcores.
"We used cryogenics to make the trips," she said. "We would exit jumpspace, refuel at a far orbit gas giant that was not frozen, then jump again," she shook her head. "All I could think of was to run as far and as fast as I could, and bring my people with me."
She began drawing lines.
"Hundreds of years passed while we slept, a dreamless sleep," Sacajawea said. "We ran until the ships could run no more. Two of them failed exiting jumpspace, but we were lucky. By that time I understood that each jump could be our last, so I ensured that we headed toward stellar systems that had a high probability of a planet we could survive on."
She shook her head.
"I never entered cryo-sleep. I stayed awake, guiding our path," she inhaled sharply and exhaled slowly. "I could feel our path. I knew which way to go."
Luke held up one finger, getting everyone's attention.
"The Digital Omnimessiah, he changed us with his touch. Each of us with our own part to play to save humanity," he said. He glanced at Sacajawea. "She can see, feel probabilities and adjust to a shifting situation with nearly precognizant accuracy."
Sacajawea rolled her eyes and sniffed, pursing her lips. "You make it sound so pedestrian."
Luke just smiled.
"For hundreds of years I stood on the bridge of a damaged colony ship, my pointing finger our only guide," she said.
N'Skrek noted that her voice had fallen into a sing-song cadence.
"Finally I saw the six suns, arranged in the shape of an eagle," she said. "I knew, at that moment, that this would be as far as we could go. Our ships were failing, but they could make this last leg of our journey. I chose the best one for my people. It was nearly paradise, just needing a little bit of tweaking. No life higher than plant life and simple insects, perfect to live away from hatred, war, and slaughter."
She looked down.
"I led them to their doom," she said softly. "We had to rely on high technology at first. Terraformers, the gene banks that Luke had acquired, orbital lift capacity."
She shook her head. "Little did we know that the technology would attract what you call the Mar-gite."
N'Skrek shook his head. "No. You were just in the way," he said.
She looked startled.
"If the planet had carbon based life or an oxygen heavy atmosphere, they would have devoured it," N'Skrek said. He shrugged. "It's what they do. Before recently, we thought they were some kind of locust that just denuded planets and moved on."
"Now we know that they're a weapon, being driven in front of another species," Admiral Breakheader said.
She blinked several times, then turned to Luke.
"True story," Luke shrugged.
Sacajawea was silent for a long moment, then she shivered and touched the hologram again.
"I guided my people along the True Path, the one that promised the most happiness and most reward," she said. She glanced at Luke. "Those who wished to embrace more technology had their own spaces, although I did not dwell with them."
She looked down at where Luke was still holding her hand.
"For thousands of years, six thousand of our years," she said. "Then the Outsiders came."
"How long Confederate Standard?" Admiral Breakheader asked, rubbing his chin.
N'Skrek could hear the rustle of bristles from the Vice-Admiral's five-o-clock shadow.
Sacajawea closed her eyes. "Almost six thousand to the day."
Breakheader nodded, making a note.
"At first, they just appeared in out of the way locations. Someone would see them and they'd flee, move away, and eventually they started to show up more and more near the technological enclaves," Sacajawea shook her head. "It was the technology that they were attracted to."
N'Skrek just nodded.
"Then came the attacks. Our superluminal communication links went first, but not before we learned that we were being attacked on all six worlds simultaneously. We held them off for years, protecting ourselves. No matter what path I looked at, I could see no path that had a statistically viable path to victory, I could only minimize their victories," she closed her eyes. "They began capturing my people, abducting whole villages."
"Then came the Devouring Ones," she said. "Two years later, and we were gone."
Breakheader nodded.
"Initial scouting, followed by an assault, then research, then finished with an extermination attack," he said. He looked up. "Standard xenocide tactics."
Sacajawea looked way.
"He's right," Luke said. She looked at him, surprised. "You put up too stiff of a fight so they brought in their heavy hitters after getting a good look at how we worked."
There was silence for a moment, then Commander Hentrill looked up from her datapad. "How did you die?" she asked.
"What difference does it make?" Sacajawea asked.
Hentrill looked unfazed by the glare that Sacajawea aimed down her nose at her. "It makes a lot of difference, Ma'am," she said cooly.
N'Skrek could feel that Hentrill had developed a dislike for the Immortal over the course of the conversation.
"When they came for me, when I was the last, I stepped from the cliff and fell to the rocks below, where the waves washed against the shore. By the time they reached me, I had died from my injuries," Sacajawea said. "I sang as I fell so that..."
"Suicide. They gathered your lifeless corpse," Hentrill said. She narrowed her eyes. "You have a standard datalink for the Glassing Era. Did you have one when you fell?"
Sacajawea nodded. "It was on piece of technology that I felt was necessary to embrace," she said.
"So, you killed yourself and the enemy obtained your datalink and your brain," Hentrill said. "What about your leaders? You did have military leaders, yes?"
Sacajawea glanced at Luke, who nodded. "Yes. I convinced Luke to bring back great leaders of my people and I nurtured their spirits as I raised them during the trip."
"Did they have datalinks?" Hentrill asked.
Sacajawea nodded. "Yes. I had been told, repeatedly, that effective communication was vital to winning a war."
"Daxin," Luke interjected.
Sacajawea sniffed. "Yes."
Hentrill made a note. "Were your leaders targeted early in the conflict?" she asked.
"Of course," Sacajawea said. "Many were killed, but the technology we had allowed them to return within days, only missing a few days of their previous life. Luke had convinced Peter to ensure we had a version of the SUDS, which we only used for critically important people."
N'Skrek saw a muscle twitch next to Luke's eye, but he stayed smiling.
"But it was destroyed before the Devourers came," Sacajawea said. "It could not be helped. There was almost no path I could take that would prevent it from being destroyed, so I chose the path that would result in the least casualties for my people."
N'Skrek was not that familiar with Terrans, but he could tell that Commander Hentrill was rubbed the wrong way by that statement.
"I think we should take a break," N'Skrek said. He nodded toward Luke. "I am sure both of you are fatigued from being brought back from the dead."
"Yes," Sacajawea said before Luke could do much more than open his mouth. "I would prefer to have privacy to rest and perform necessary rites."
N'Skrek just nodded. "I'll be sure you get privacy."
0-0-0-0-0
Legion stood next to the tank, one hand on the heavily armored skirt, staring at the black metal the tank was made from.
"Warsteel Mark-IV," he whispered to himself. He shook his head. "We are old friends, you and I," he said softly, running one hand across the metal. "Later superseded by arcanochromium for the Mark-V."
He didn't care if anyone heard him talking to the tank. There was just a single Telkan in the vehicle bay, running diagnostic checks on one of the big Telkan armored transports used for power armor troops.
your name is luke
He shook his head, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. He kept hearing slight buzzing whispers.
He felt her before he could see her. Felt her leave the lift, the warsteel doors pulling open and letting her presence roll out to fill the vehicle bay.
He heard her shoes clicking and closed his eyes, sighing.
It's not her. Not the one you knew. It's Tiffany, not Sacajawea, he thought to himself.
your name is luke
He looked up just in time to see a green mantid wave shyly at him.
He smiled at it and waved back just as Sacajawea stopped next to him.
"A green mantid?" she said, her voice slightly fearful.
"Engineer caste," Luke said. "They like me."
"They are Mantid," Sacajawea said, her voice cold and hard.
"The war was thousands of years ago, and even if it wasn't, he is blameless in it," Luke said.
"But it is a Mantid," Sacajawea said. She watched coldly as the little green mantid waved and rushed away.
"I have more in common with him than I do with the majority of humanity," Luke said softly.
Sacajawea scoffed. "Surely not."
Luke nodded. "His kind was trapped inside their own minds. Capable of thought, artistic expression, fear, love, affection, all of it," he ran one finger along the armored track skirt of the tank, a fat purple spark jumping from between his finger and the black armor. "The whole war, until the Mechakrautlanders killed that Overqueen, they were inside their own little heads, screaming endlessly."
He ran his finger again, watching another spark jump out.
"When green mantids cluster up, their intelligence increases. Not by leaps and bounds, just slightly, but the bigger part is, they could feel the ones around them screaming but were unable to reach out and touch them," he said. He was silent a moment. "I understand them, they understand me. Both of us, bred and created to merely serve, without any thought as to our souls."
He turned arounds, looking at Sacajawea.
"They are among the Digital Omnimessiah's most fervent believers, and one of humanity's staunchest allies," he said. He motioned at the tanks around them. "You have been gone a long time, little sister."
"And you, did you live through the forty-thousand years? What did you do?" Sacajawea asked.
Luke shook his head. "I retreated. After the War in Heaven and in Hell, after the Flashbang, I retreated," he said. "I spent most of my time at Atlantis, which led to me being more or less imprisoned, away from the galaxy."
He flashed a smile.
"At least I had the Detainee for company. She's an interesting conversationalist."
Sacajawea just sniffed, looking around. "What is that?" she asked, pointing at the lone Telkan, who had just straightened up from the tracks and was wiping his hands off with a rag.
"A Telkan. An full member species of the Confederacy, an ally to humanity, who took part in the War in Heaven," Luke said. He waved at the Telkan, who waved back, and went back to inspecting the vehicle.
"It looks like a fox," Sacajawea said.
Luke cut her off with a motion of his hand. "I swear to God, you start talking to me about how they obviously embody the trickster spirit of the fox and thus are untrustworthy I'll put you right back where I found you," he said sharply.
Sacajawea pursed her lips in irritation.
"You have to let go. Let go of your preconceived notions. Let go of all the old hurts. It's been eight-thousand years for you and forty-thousand for the universe," Luke said softly, turning back to running his hand over the armor on the tank. "Even Daxin could see that."
Sacajawea snorted. "Like Daxin ever saw anything that wasn't in the sights of his guns."
Luke turned around, his jaw clenched. "You don't speak bad about him in my presence again," he snapped, drawing himself up to full height. "Not now, not ever again," he leaned forward slightly. "You weren't here. You left us, the Digital Omnimessiah was dead, and we were all bereft," sparks jumped out from under his boots and under the palm that rested on the tank's armor. "True, I spent over a thousand years running from him, but he was still my brother. It hurt more than anything not to be at his side when he died."
Sacajawea looked around at the tanks and armored vehicles. "He fell on some battlefield," she said. It was less a question and more a statement.
Luke shook his head. "No. He died, in his sleep, surrounded by his family. His children, grand-children, and great-grand children. He was finally at peace," he sighed. "When he arrived in Afterlife, he waited patiently for his wife and even though I wanted to spend time with him," he sighed again. "It was time to let the Walking War Crime rest."
Luke turned and faced Sacajawea. "In your mind, we are still the same as we were," he said gently. He reached out and took her hand in his. "But that is no longer true. We grew, we set aside old differences, we set aside old hatreds, and we moved forward rather than holding tight to the past."
She sniffed, looking away, but not pulling her hand away. "I have seen the history. A history of lies that glosses over the crimes and bloodshed."
"Temporal warfare counter-measures," Luke said. "After The Glassing, history and culture was lost. It was rebuilt from oral tales and fragmented records."
"Lies," she said again.
"Weaponized," Luke said. He pulled his hand free, jamming both hands into his pockets. "It's protected Terra, protected everyone, even your people, more than once. When the Atrekna came, that was probably the only thing that saved our people," he stared at her. "Saved humanity."
"So they don't care about the truth?" she asked.
"What truth? That thousands of years ago an aggressive Mantid hive wrecked up Earth? Nobody cares any more," he said. "That's the thing about them. They aren't like us. We can easily remember the Glassing. For them, it's a few paragraphs in a history book they read in school. Maybe some scholars look at that era," he looked up at the lights. "For the majority of humanity, the Glassing is as far and remote as the light of the stars in the sky," he looked back down. "And that's a good thing."
"I do not understand you," Sacajawea said.
she never did
not like i do
luke
"You never did," Luke said. "You never did. She eventually understood me."
that's right
i understand you
"You cloned me without my consent," she accused. She crossed her arms. "I await your justifications."
Luke just smiled. "I did. I cloned you without your consent. I told your clone that it was a clone," he looked up. "Then the Imperium caught us, turned us into the Immortals. Used her as a seer to determine how to reach victory, but she held information back and Daxin, at the head of the Martial Orders of Terra, broke the Imperium over his knee."
He looked back down. "Afterwards, she worked tirelessly on the Terra Restoration Project. While I was busy running, she returned to Terra, sought out the survivors of her people, and helped them restore their lands and way of life."
Sacajawea looked away. "As did I."
Luke chuckled. "She used temporal lensing to look back into the past, see the reality of the old ways, watch the rituals and daily life of the ancestors, and restored them."
"Yet, the history books are full of lies," Sacajawea sniffed.
"After the Second Temporal War, she understood and embraced the counter-warfare protocols. She helped interweave your people into the tales," Luke said. "Was it all lies? Partly. Like the best ones, it had good heaping helping of truth hidden inside the metaphors and personifications of events."
"And where is she now?" Sacajawea asked, watching the Telkan inspect the running gears of the armored vehicle.
"She led the Sky Nebula Alignment fleet. She led our peoples, all our peoples, to someplace where our enemies would not find us," Luke said. He turned and ran his hand over the armor again. "I stayed behind. I never lost faith that the Digital Omnimessiah would return."
He lifted his palm and made small figure eights on the armor with his fingertips.
"I loved her, so I let her go," he said softly. "She had seen it was the only way our people would survive a coming darkness."
He looked at Sacajawea. "She was right."
Sacajawea looked at where Luke was making small figure eights with his fingers on the armor. "There is no good path for me to take. All of them are risky, most of them I will perish," she said. She reached out and took his hand. "My best chances for survival is to flee," she lifted his hand and grasped it with both of hers.
"Come with me. Let us leave. You can take us elsewhere, where we have a chance of survival," she tilted her head to encompass the vehicle bay. "Too many of these paths lead to both our deaths. There are too few that lead to a place where we both survive."
Luke delicately removed his hand from hers, using one hand to lift her fingers from her grip on his hand one by one.
"No."
Sacajawea frowned. "No? Together, we can go somewhere else where we have a better chance to stand up to whatever comes and have a possibility of triumphing at a later date," she waved at the armored vehicles. "This way, the way that Treana'ad commander is taking us, is rife with nothing but death and destruction."
Luke stared at her for a long moment.
"You never understood," he said softly. "Your desire, your drive, to save your people, and yourself, blind you to the things that must be done," he put one hand on the tank again. "That sometimes the only path forward to success is the one fraught with the most danger, hardship, and suffering."
He turned away and started walking deeper into the vehicle bay.
"She understood," he said softly.
"I am not her," Sacajawea said.
"Obviously."
Sacajawea just sniffed and turned away, leaving the bay.
your name is luke
By the tank, Jaskel wondered why the hell they'd chosen that particular bay for their little spat.
He looked at 8814, who was still practially hopping from foot to foot with happiness.
"I'm glad you got to meet him," Jaskel said honestly.
--yes ┏(^0^)┛┗(^0^) ┓ yes--
0-0-0-0-0
Dhruv sat in the shadowy room, wearing a pair of exercise shorts, waiting.
Finally, he could smell cigarette smoke and a presence filled the room.
"What?" a voice asked from the shadows. The end of a cigarette brightened as a drag was taken off of it, briefly illuminating gun-metal gray eyes and severe cheekbones.
"I want a favor," Dhruv said.
He could feel the smile even if he couldn't see it.
"People in my care want ice water," the woman's voice commanded.
"I want you to look up SUDS records for me. I need you to process some of them so I can either talk to them or see their last moments," Luke said. He looked away from the glow of the cigarette. "Records from a long time ago."
"If I decide to do this, I'll need specifics," the woman said, exhaling smoke that curled into the figure of a man on his knees, face in his hand, sobbing.
"I'll provide them. They should be easy to find via their x, y, z, q coordinates," Luke said.
"Now for the big question," the woman said, chuckling.
"What?" Luke asked.
"Why should I help you?" the woman asked.
"Because I'm willing to make a deal with the Devil," Legion said.
This time he could see the glint of teeth in the smile.
your name is legion
[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]
submitted by Ralts_Bloodthorne to HFY [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:24 HaaaaYouWish Question about professional cleaning standards - are my expectations too high?

Question about professional cleaning standards - are my expectations too high?
I recently used credits I had earned to book a professional deep cleaning for my apartment through a service affiliated with my apartment’s management company. Although I had enough credits to cover the deep clean, which explicitly listed all the included tasks like cleaning doors and doorframes (more on this later), I also opted to pay extra for a whole-home disinfection service and included an upfront tip through the app.
And before you ask, the night before I completely decluttered the apartment and removed everything I could from all of the surfaces so the cleaners could focus on cleaning and not moving my belongings around.
They performed the cleaning while I was at work, with the building's concierge letting them in and out as they are affiliated with the apartment management. When I returned home, I noticed several areas that hadn't been cleaned as expected, or seemingly at all. I reported the issue to the company via emai, and they promptly arranged a re-clean. Unfortunately, even after this second attempt, I still found dirt on doors and doorframes, which I could easily remove myself with a Clorox wipe (videos attached). This experience has left me questioning the cleaning methods used by these “professional” cleaners.
Is it common for professional cleaners to only use dry cloths for cleaning? If I was able to easily wipe the dirt with a Clorox wipe, they couldn’t possibly have used anything wet, could they? Shouldn't they be using at least a damp cloth or a cleaning solution instead, especially for services labeled as "deep clean" and “disinfection”.
Are my standards just too high expecting a cleaning service to thoroughly clean listed areas such as doors, doorframes, and baseboards without having to check and clean again myself?
Would it be overkill to contact the company again with a second complaint about the quality of the re-clean? While I do not want them to come back for a third attempt, I believe it’s important that the company is aware their cleaners’ performance does not meet the standards promised, despite their excellent customer service via email.
I've attached videos showing some of the areas with remaining dirt that was easily removed with a Clorox wipe. Any advice on how to handle this or insight into whether or not I’m expecting too much would be greatly appreciated!
submitted by HaaaaYouWish to CleaningTips [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:23 Key_Armadillo3807 Should I quit my dream?

I'm 27F and grew up working as a model/actor but when I got to my teenage years, I started growing womanly curves and the industry booted me out like I had never existed. It made me feel awful about my body, which led to YEARS of eating disorders, especially anorexia. At my worst I would starve myself for 3/4 days, sometimes would end up in hospital because of it.
Fast forward to my mid 20s and the modelling industry has changed, so I thought my curvy body finally had a chance to be accepted again and started applying to modelling agencies. Within a week I had an offer for a 2 year modelling contract and I was BEYOND thrilled. Modelling has always been my number 1 dream in my life, I spent my childhood flicking through Vogue hoping that one day I'd be one of those girls.
I've been modelling now for three years and this industry is killing me. Every casting or audition opportunity I get, makes me so excited at the possibility of 'maybe this is the job that will put me out there' and I come home feeling hopeful. To only be faced with rejection a few days later.
I've done some really cool modelling work but I'm not as big as I wanted to be, and often feel like I'm not good enough to model. Like I'm not as good as everyone else around me.
This BIG and famous modelling agency in my city wanted to sign me 2 years ago but unfortunately I already had a contract with this smaller agency so I politely declined but said I'd love to be signed with them once my contract expired. For 2 years I held onto the dream that as soon as I signed a contract with that agency, then my dreams would become a proper reality. I thought they'd want me again, but I was wrong. I have just applied to work for them and within a day received a very dry email saying 'unfortunately we wouldn't be looking to offer representation right now' and I'm in tears.
This industry is killing me, it started in my teenage years when I was made to feel like I didn't matter because I wasn't stick thin. And now in my late 20s I've worked SO HARD to make this dream a reality but honestly it feels more like a nightmare than a dream.
Now I'm left with this nagging feeling that I need to quit modelling in order to be happy. I'm not like the other models, I'm really down to earth, love being a goblin in the forest, and being kind to others. I don't see myself as the model type, but the little girl inside of me who used to dream of being in vogue is still very much alive and I don't know what to do about it all.
I'm exhausted, feel like absolute horseshit and that I'm never going to be attractive enough to "make it" in the modelling industry. And I just hate how it makes me feel, it's so unhealthy and fucks with my mental health big time.
So the big question is - is it time for me to quit pursuing modelling?
submitted by Key_Armadillo3807 to jobs [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:16 Aethenoth [Canada to US/Canada][Sell/Picky Swap][Perfume] Samples and full-sizes from many houses including Stereoplasm, CocoaPink, Astrid, Fantome, Sucreabeille, and more!

Bundle deals available! There are mostly samples, but there are some full-sizes as well. I priced to sell, but am open to reasonable offers. More details are on my spreadsheet. New items have been added recently.
Fantome:
Stereoplasm:
CocoaPink:
Possets:
Pulp Fragrances:
Nui Cobalt:
Arcana Craves:
Sucreabeille:
Arcana Wildcraft
Hexennacht
Andromeda's Curse
Black Hearted Tart
Poesie
Astrid
Alkemia
Link again: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19URt2wyxl2xQd8XN2CPKzqBv0ZANl65yUTx9Gx_u0a4/edit?usp=drive_link
Thanks for checking out my destash!
submitted by Aethenoth to IndieExchange [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:15 Mittons1457 Eternity

Chapter 5
Lacy opened her eyes and saw flashing colorful lights. She heard carnival music playing from loudspeakers. She wondered to herself what this place was walking around. She saw multiple vendor stands and carnival games. Everything looked abandoned, food dropped on the floor and chairs flipped. She continued walking, finding a carnival ride. It was one of the droppers. Lacy had memories with her mother going on these kinds of rides. She pushed on following the stands until she stumbled upon a circus tent. She stepped inside and saw a man. The man was very tall and was standing in the middle of the tent. The man turned around and the lights to the tent turned on revealing that the man was a clown on stilts. The clown had a white face with a red nose. His hair was red and was split in two making it look like he had horns. He had on an oversized shirt that looked like multiple blue and red shirts stitched together. His pants were baggy and had obvious blood stains. The stilts made him about ten feet tall. The clown wore a frown on his face, giving Lacy a sense of uncertainty. “What's your name little girl, I have all sorts of tricks that can make you laugh.” The clown's voice was goofy and lighthearted compared to the frown on its face that it kept. “Ah come on, don't be shy. We can still have fun. Not like all of the other’s who left.” Lacy noticed a man lying in a pool of blood next to the clown. He was wearing ringmaster attire. The clown noticed that Lacy saw the body. “He didn’t laugh. Just like the others.” The clown's voice had changed. He now sounded like an older man who had given up on feeling joy. “Did you kill that man?” Lacy asked, already knowing the answer. “No. I released him. He didn’t laugh. He had no joy. So I released him.” Lacy began to back off, gripping her knife. The clown revealed a sword it was holding behind his back. It had blood on it. “I’ll release you too”. The clown began stepping towards her, laughing while doing so. “God Dammit not again” Lacy ran throughout the carnival grounds with the clown closely behind her. She noticed a security trailer. She got to the door and it was locked. Hearing the laughter getting closer. She slammed her body into the door until it finally broke open. The laughter ceased. Lacy looked around the office not seeing anything special. Until she saw a tape recorder.
Chapter 6
Lacy grabbed the recorder. “Who would even have time to make these?”
This is Professor Crawdord. I have managed to survive in this obscure world for what feels like multiple days. This new threat, the clown on stilts seems to be less of a problem than he looks. He’s slow compared to other things I have faced. I discovered evidence as to who this person is. His name is Daniel Larson. He worked at the circus for most of his life. One could only imagine the mind of someone who is laughed at all day for most of their lives. On an unfortunate day Larson snapped and murdered a man on the fairgrounds. The man was another attraction. His specialty was swallowing swords and evidence showed that Larson used the sword to kill him. Larson continued killing, focusing on people that would not laugh at his jokes. The Ringmaster called showtime and at the start of the show Larson told him a joke in front of the audience and when the Ringmaster did not respond Larson killed him. The audience rushed out and as the police showed up Larson had disappeared. Upon searching his trailer they found pictures of other unsolved murders in the area. Larson was never caught. I have not figured out exactly what the holes are but I feel that Larson has to be connected somehow. These holes have a requirement to open. A death must take place for them to appear.
Lacy set the tape recorder down understanding now what had to happen. Lacy looked at the knife in her hand. “He’s a murderer. He’s hurt people. I'd be doing the world a favor.” Lacy opened the trailer door and followed the laughter leading to the circus tent.
Chapter 6
Lacy reached the entrance to the tent, peering inside she saw Larson standing over the ringmaster's body. Lacy moved underneath the stands. Larson turned towards the entrance and began walking around the tent. “I know you're here child.” Lacy ran throughout the underside of the stands. Trying to find an angle to see Larson and which direction he was facing. Lacy could see Larson was searching for her. The stilts made him move slow enough for her to sneak up on him easily. Slowly moving throughout the tent, Lacy got close enough behind Larson to hear him mumbling something to himself. Running towards Larson she kicked the stilts causing him to fall to the ground. Lacy took the opportunity to stab the clown in the shoulder. Larson kicked Lacy away and swept the sword in her direction, cutting her on the leg. Lacy turned to run towards the opening of the tent, but Larson grabbed her foot and lifted the sword. “You’ll pay like they did.” Lacy kicked Larson in the face, got up and ran to leave the tent. “DON’T LEAVE! YOU HAVEN'T LAUGHED YET!” Lacy could hear Larson limping behind her, now off the stilts. She ran until she could no longer hear Larson behind her. “The dropper, I can distract him with the dropper.” Lacy avoided Larson, eventually making her way to the dropper. She didn’t know how to work the machine so she had to guess until she got it right. “Come on, you stupid machine.” Pressing multiple buttons, Lacy could hear the laughter of Larson creeping slowly towards her. Finally the ride shot up into the sky. Larson stepped onto the platform of the dropper. “I found you, please stop. I'll lose everything if you don't laugh.” Lacy took notice of the dropper rushing towards the ground. Just as Larson swiped his sword down at Lacy, she dodged out of the way. As Larson tried to get his footing back, she pushed him under the dropper. The machine crushed him ending the vile man’s savage slaughter. Lacy turned around to see at the bottom of the platform a hole had appeared. “Please, let me go home.” Lacy stepped through the hole, once again blacking out.
Chapter 7
Lacy awoke to a wooded area. She noticed a sign that said “The Weeping Woods”. “Where am I? Am I home?” Standing up she followed a trail marked that led to a camping area. She saw multiple benches and what seemed like a campfire that was put out. She continued along the path seeing a fire watch tower in the distance. “Maybe that place has people”. Continuing to the tower she could hear someone crying from a distance. Lacy kept pushing on the trail until she reached the bottom of the watch tower. The stairs felt endless as Lacy could hear the hissing of a radio coming from the room on top.She noticed that one of the stairs as well as the railing was damaged. Lacy skipped that step in fear of it breaking. Reaching the top everything felt nauseatingly small. She could see a light moving in the distance. The light moved erratically as if it was a person holding a flashlight, running away from something. Lacy turned to the watch room and noticed that the lights were on and someone was trying to reach the radio in the room. Pulling open the door she walked up to the radio and as she tried to contact the person on the other side, the radio shut off. Turning to examine the rest of the room Lacy noticed another tape recorder. Grabbing the recorder she pressed play.
I managed to kill the smiling man. I don’t know what it has done to me emotionally. It seemed so easy at the time. I told myself that the man was a beast. Anyway, I awoke in a forest, I found a path and followed it until I found a woman. The woman was sitting in the middle of the path. She was wearing a white dress that was covered in dirt. I could not see her face, but I could hear her. She was crying and her body looked frail. As I got closer I noticed her hair was long enough to cover her entire face. She asked me a question. “Have you seen Kevin?” I had no answer. Fear took over every part of my body. I could feel my muscles start to ache at the thought of having to run from this girl. A loud growl came from the girl. It shaked my very soul. I managed to escape to her. I made my way to the watch room where I will rest for a while. To whoever finds this tape, you know what you have to do.
Lacy put the recorder down. Looking out of the window she saw the light continue to move in the forest before it stopped. As Lacy turned to leave the watch room. The light disappeared.
Chapter 8
Walking along the path that the light she saw was on, Lacy couldn't help but see the image of the girl the Crawford had described in her head. Looking at the knife she still had, she knew there was only one way to get out of this forest. Along the trail Lacy found the light source that she had seen. It belonged to a man that was lying still on the floor. His flashlight was still on. “Hey, are you alright?” Lacy asked the body. Turning the body over Lacy stepped back in horror. The man's body was pale and looked shriveled. Lacy brushed the fear off and picked up his flashlight. As Lacy picked it up she heard a voice from behind her. “Have you seen Kevin?” Fear erupted in Lacy as the words were familiar to her. Remembering the recorder she slowly stood up before turning around to face the being. The girl was exactly as described in the tape. Except for one detail. She had a wedding veil on. “I don’t know who Kevin is, I'm sorry” Lacy said the first thing that came to her mind, instantly regretting it. The girl opened her mouth at an angle that rivaled pythons. A ghastly wail rang out of her mouth, ringing Lacys ears. Without hesitation Lacy plunged the knife into the girl's neck. Pulling it out the wailing did not cease. It didn't affect her. Lacy turned to run, almost tripping over the body of the man. As Lacy was running the girl was on all fours crawling towards her at a faster pace than any normal person could crawl. She looked like an animal. Lacy noticed that the girl was no longer screaming, but was crying. The tears were blood red and she looked sympathetic to Lacy. Running past the trees Lacy looked for an answer to the problem that was crawling behind her. Trying to listen over the sound of her own breathing and the crying of the girl behind her, she heard the sound of a river flowing in the distance. Running towards the sound of the river, Lacy tripped over a log tumbling to the ground. Almost in an instant the girl climbed on top of her. Her eyes met Lacy as her mouth opened in the same disgusting manner that it had before and just as her mouth opened the same way as it had before, the same sound erupted as well. Lacy felt her blood boil at the sound, feeling her life leaving her body. In a final attempt to free herself she freed her hand and stuck the knife directly into the girl's mouth. The girl’s scream stopped and turned into a painful yelp rather than an angry roar. Lacy used the moment to kick the girl off of her and got up to run. As she began to run the girl grabbed her leg, piercing her skin with her nails. Lacy pushed through and kept running. As Lacy was running she turned her head around to see the girl just sitting there, crying. Lacy got a fair distance away and began walking to regain strength. Finally making it to the river, she stopped to drink. Lacy made a sudden realization. She wasn't thirsty. After everything she had been through she was not thirsty at all. Not only was she not thirsty, but she was not hungry either. “I have to come up with a plan”. Lacy understood the rules of this strange place. Something has to die in order for one of those holes to appear. “But I saw that guy's body, why wasn’t there a hole there? No, these beings, Larson, The Smiling Man, This girl, they don’t get to leave. That’s why Crawford said you know what you have to do. The holes appear when the beings in these places die. The girl has to die for a hole to appear.” Lacy was talking outloud, it made her feel less alone. As Lacy was washing the blood off of her she looked into the river. She could see the moon in the reflection as well as her face. Looking into her eyes she noticed a drop hit the river. Looking at the other side of the river. She saw the girl crouching down, looking directly at Lacy with her blood red eyes.
Chapter 9
The river wasn’t wide. It would take the girl less than 5 seconds to cross. Lacy had to think fast. Her mind was racing as the girl just sat there and watched her. An idea popped into her head. The watchtower. Almost supernaturally, as Lacy had the idea the girl lounged towards her. Lacy dodged out of the way and broke into a sprint hearing the girl crying and crawling after her. After what felt like hours of running and having this thing chase after her, she made it to the tower. The girl was crawling after her, looking like an alligator chasing its prey. Stepping onto the steps Lacy felt her legs start to give up. She pushed on, her muscles burning. Turning her head she saw the girl crawling up the stairs. Lacy’s heart was racing as her body needed to rest or it would shut down. “Where is Kevin?” The girl screamed for the first time since she had begun chasing Lacy. Lacy could feel her body giving up and just as she passed the broken step, her legs collapsed. Lacy layed on the steps as the girl crawled up the steps towards her. The girl was crawling slower now that she had seen Lacy was on the ground. Lacy continued backing up on the stairs. Just as the girl was about to lounge at Lacy she put her hand on the broken step. Seeing this Lacy kicked the broken step causing it to break. The girl lost her footing and Lacy pushed her off of the balcony. The girl fell from the immense height of the tower. Lacy took the moment to just lay on the steps. Hours passed as Lacy rested. She mustered up enough strength to go down the stairs. At the bottom of the tower she found the body of the girl. She looked as if all of her bones were broken. Her eyes were open and Lacy could see the blood pooling in them. Lacy became nauseous at the sight of her body. Looking to the left she saw a hole. A hole that was all too familiar with her. Lacy collected her thoughts. “This has to end” Stepping through the hole, only one thing was in her mind. This has to end.
Chapter 10
Lacy woke up to the sound of snow falling. The room that she was in was warm. A fire was crackling in the corner of the room. Looking out of the window of the house she saw a massive snow storm that affected her vision to see past the tree line. Lacy examined her surroundings and saw a normal looking room. In the middle was a couch. Just looking at the couch made Lacy tired. Walking around the cabin she noticed the room looked untouched, unlike every other place she had been in. Sitting down on the couch Lacy's eyes became heavy as she began to fall asleep. Just as she was about to pass out a loud bugle of an elk erupted. Lacy ran to the window to see where it was. As she looked outside it seemed as if the storm had stopped for just a second. As the snow ceased, an elk poked through the tree line. Its eyes were looking directly at Lacy. Just as fast as it disappeared, the snow storm erupted. “You’re a failure Lacy.” A voice swept through the cabin. It sounded familiar. “You killed her you know” Lacy placed the voice. It was her father. Lacy’s mind was racing. How did he get here? Why was he saying this? Where was he? And her last thought, Was this really him? The elk bugle rang throughout the cabin again. “I pitied you” The voice was Collin. Lacy searched the windows of the house trying to find the origin of the voices she was hearing. “Everyone hates you” Lacy stepped towards the door reaching for the handle. A sudden and intense fear brushed over her. Lacy felt that if she opened that door, whatever was telling her these things would take her life. Stepping away from the door she heard the Elk bugle again. “Why did you leave me Lacy?” The voice was her father again. This time it sounded as if he was crying. “I told you I needed you and you left. After everything I sacrificed for you, after all of the times I had to go to that school to bail you out. This is how you repay me.” Lacy could feel her emotions boiling inside of her. Everything that was being said was true in a sense so Lacy was letting it affect her more than anything else ever had. She could feel tears running down her face. “I'm trying to get back to you dad, I just don't know how.” Lacy looked towards the window and saw the Elk. It had gotten closer to the cabin. The snow had calmed down. The Elk opened its mouth and spoke in the voice of her father. “You won’t make it out of this place alive Lacy”.
Chapter 11
Looking into the eyes of the Elk, Lacy’s blood ran cold. Her mind was racing. Animals can’t talk but yet this Elk just looked her in the eyes and spoke in the voice of her father as well as other people she knew. The snow had ceased tremendously compared to when she had first appeared in the cabin. Lacy worked up the courage to ask the Elk a question. “What do you want from me?” The Elk did not reply, instead it turned to the tree line and left. Remembering the rules of this place, Lacy understood that the Elk had to die. The question was how she was going to accomplish that. Lacy gathered enough courage to open the door to examine her surroundings. Outside of the cabin was a blanket of blinding snow. The sun was high in the sky blinding Lacy. Before Lacy went back inside she noticed a wooden stump sticking out of the snow. Sticking out of the stump was an axe. Lacy slammed the door shut and closed the latch. Lacy knew that the dull kitchen knife she had wouldn’t be able to handle an elk, but an axe would. Lacy began to plan a way to get to the Elk. She took notice of certain aspects that the Elk had. Every time it made the bugle noise, it would change voices. The closer it got, the more the snowstorm would calm. Lacy had to play its game until it got close enough to the axe so that she could reach the axe before it could reach her. The elk bugle sounded again. “You really think that anyone thought you could accomplish anything.”. It was her teacher. Lacy peered out of the window. The snow had ceased ever so slightly. Lacy could see the silhouette of the elk near the same spot it was in before. “What do you think, we cared about you? We pitied you and your pitiful existence.” Lacy began to brush off the sentences coming from the elk's mouth. Lacy was contemplating if the axe play was the way to move further. The bugle went off again. “Lacy” the voice was the smiling man. The smiling man was a recent memory to Lacy. This elk had to know who she was to be able to know who he was. Lacy looked out of the window. The elk was watching her. This time Lacy saw it make the awful sound she had continued to hear. Instead of a voice she had heard. It was a voice that was unfamiliar to her. “Why fight it child. Why fight what you truly are. Why fight human nature? Why fight reality? Do you truly think you can escape? Do you truly believe that you will see your father again? Do you believe that you have people to rely on in this place? Do you truly believe that God is with you here? You have no chance. Smite me down if you must. HOPE SHOULD BE ABANDONED IN THIS PLACE” Lacy brushed off every word that was said. Rushing to the door she threw it open. Running through the snow. She reached the axe. It was a standard fire axe with a yellow handle and black blade. It wasn't heavy to her, it had to be adrenaline. Rushing towards the elk it did not fight back. She plunged the axe head into the elk's skull. Blood rushed out of the wound, covering Lacy. The elk fell to the floor with a booming thud. As Lacy stared at the body of the animal lying in the snow, a hole appeared behind her. Lacy had to believe that there was an end to this. She stepped through the hole. With a new found axe.
submitted by Mittons1457 to Horror_stories [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:13 Mean-Mind-59 GET ABNORMALITIES CHECKED!!!

I’m 24F and about 3 weeks ago I had a random spot come up above my lip, it was red and a little dry, resembled a dry patch to me. I moisturized it religiously for 2 weeks and decided to make a derm appt because it wasn’t getting better. Turns out it was a pre-cancerous spot and I am now on 6 weeks of Imiquimod. I wear 40 sph on my face daily and try to restrict my time in the sun because I do have fair skin and blue eyes with lots of freckles. All in all, I was doing everything right (sunscreen, hats, etc) and still ended up with a pre-cancerous spot at 24. Get unusual things on your skin checked!!!!!
submitted by Mean-Mind-59 to Melanoma [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:08 SupermanisGoat What if Kevin had the Antitrix in the Classic Series? (Part 1)

What if Kevin had the Antitrix in the Classic Series? (Part 1)
Credits to InternationalAd8036 for the What-If suggestion and for giving the main idea of the story.
Prior to Kevin 11
Dr. Psychobos had begun creating the Antitrix to try to overcome Azmuth's new invention, the Omnitrix. Although, it doesn't work properly and the Cerebrocrustacean sends it away deeming it a failure, landing two days after Ben Tennyson got the Omnitrix. Kevin Levin finds it and after the Antitrix had being bonded with him, the device was somehow repaired, granting Levin the cross-contaminated alien DNA to turn into a monstrous, mutated hybrid from Ben's 10 original aliens playlist.
Antitrix Features:
Active Mode: The Antitrix can keep the user in alien form per 5 to 15 minutes, being the usage time longer than that of the Omnitrix, which is 10 minutes.
Size Alteration: The Antitrix can alter its size to fit the user's wrist.
Quick Change: The Antitrix has a quick-change feature, allowing Kevin to change forms by pressing the symbol on the aliens' chests. This, however, uses Antitrix energy and reduces usage time considerably.
Master Control: The Antitrix has a feature akin to Master Control, allowing the user to mentally choose the next alien to turn into. To unlock this feature, the user needs to make a series of combinations on the watch (similar to what Ben accidentally did in "Back with Vengeance" on his Omnitrix).
Amalgamation: With a lot of practice, Antitrix can transform the user into an amalgamation of all his unlocked aliens, allowing them to use all of their powers at once. Unlike Kevin 11's Amalgam originally, Kevin is able to return to his human form, as he can do so of his own free will.
Kevin 11
Ben still gets himself and his family kicked out of the hotel after being caught playing the new Sumo Slammer videogame, having a heated argument with Max and storming out the RV, going to Total Zone. Inside, Ben boots up a baseball-batting game, but loses.
Ben: This place is a ripoff, you know that?
Kevin: You're right. The games were stink.
Ben and Kevin starts talking, until Kevin spots two thuggish kids behind Ben.
Kevin: I have to deal with a nuisance now...
Kevin walks towards the gang, getting ready to reveal his Antitrix that was under his black coat and turn into some alien, but before he could do anything, Ben as XLR8 had defeated the group
Kevin: Wait, this thing looks like one of my aliens...
XLR8 waves to Kevin and zooms away. Outside the arcade, Kevin reunites with Ben and the boys walk away from Gwen. Arriving at an abandoned subway station, both reveal their watchs, turning into some aliens to show to each other.
Come nighttime, they go to the warehouse to steal the Sumo Slammer video games, but the police arrives.
Kevin: Ready for action?
Both slam their Omnitrix, turning into Stinkfly (Ben) and Skunkmoth (Kevin). Now transformed, they fly out the entrance, knocking back some soldiers and being chased by helicopters. The Lepidopterrans flies toward the Statue of Liberty, dodging the gun shots. To get rid of them, Kevin flies over the helicopters and shoots his slime projectile, causing the propeller to stop working and causing the helicopters with the soldiers to fall into the water. Ben and Kevin make their way to the city, de-transforming back to human in a lone alley. Posteriorly, in a subway station, Kevin and Ben hop over the ticket checks. They come into the empty station, which has two tracks on the floor. Kevin explains his plan: A money train loaded with cash was gonna come down that track, so when it crashes into the incoming passenger train, the money would fly and with their speedster forms, they would steal everything and leave.
Ben, then realizing Kevin's intentions, dissolves his partnership with him and charges towards him, only to be thrown to the ground. Kirby Tennyson then activate the Omnitrix and tries to turns into Four Arms, but actually turns into Heatblast.
Heatblast: Ugh, stupid watch.
Kevin: Unlike yours...
Kevin activates the Antitrix and turns into Quad Smack.
Quad Smack: ...my "Omnitrix" let me transform into the alien i want to wreck you...
Ben fires a burst of fire, but Kevin charges through by crossing his arms to defend himself, getting close enough to Pyronite to punch his face and send him flying into the wall of the subway station, Heatblast tries to regain consciousness, but Quad Smack grabs his leg, spinning him around and throwing him even further away, causing the wall to break and they begin to fight outside. Kevin runs towards Ben again to hit him, but Tennyson uses his fire teleport to get behind him, creating fire disks which makes the Tetramand retreat. Heatblast starts to launch several fireballs, trying to keep as much distance as possible, as he knew that in melee combat, he would be easily defeated by Kevin.
Quad Smack: You're really getting on my nerves, Tennyson...
Quad Smack slams the ground, creating a shock wave that interrupts the fire attacks; Kevin grabs his head and start repeatedly flung him into the ground.
Heatblast: GET OFF ME!
Heatblast amplifies his fire, causing Kevin to flinch, then the plasma-based alien kicks him with a blazing slide
Heatblast: I'm losing time here... still have to stop that train from crashing...
Ben returns to the train station, but when he was about to shoot fire at the track switch, he is interrupted by a quick attack
Rush: Don't even think about it, flaming head...
Heatblast tries to counterattack, but the speedster was too much for him and Ben de-transforms, getting defeated on the floor.
Ben: How can you change forms so quickly?
Rush: Does your Omnitrix not have this function? It sucks more than I imagined, apparently...
They both start hearing the train horn and without anyone to stop it, it crashes, killing the people inside.
Rush: Jackpot! It's raining money!
Rush: Now I have to resolve some pending issues with some kids. See ya!
Kevin runs with the money and goes after the thuggish kids from before. Meanwhile, Ben returns to the Rust Bucket, apologizing to Max. Mere apologies would not suffice this time; this was by far the most irresponsible thing Ben had done, leading to the deaths of hundreds of people on that train. However, for now, Max decides to listen to what Ben has to say. Ben discusses Kevin's powers, noting that his transformations are even more potent than his own. He speculates that Kevin may be under the 39th Street bridge, seeking revenge on the thugs.
The RV gets stuck in traffic, and Ben tries to transform into Stinkfly but instead turns into Four Arms, using his enhanced jumping to reach the location. At the hideout, Ben meets Kevin as Crystalfist, who was trapping the four kids with his crystals. The Tetramand initiates a contest of strength against the Petrosapien, both evenly matched until Ben uses his four arms to push Kevin against the wall. Max and Gwen arrive, managing to free the kids from the crystals. Four Arms charges at Kevin once more but is interrupted by a wall of crystals. Breaking through the barrier, he rushes at Kevin again, shattering his two arms completely.
Four Arms: What do you think about this, freak?
Crystalfist: Not impressed...
Crystalfist regenerates his limbs and forms a crystal sword, which strikes Four Arms' chest, tearing his suit. The Petrosapien touches the ground, transforming it into crystal thorns that ensnare Four Arms' feet. Before he can finish the fight, Gwen and Max distract him by throwing a tire at his head.
Crystalfist: Don't interrupt the fight, idiots!
Four Arms frees himself from the crystals, punching Kevin in the face repeatedly, sending him flying back into a column of the bridge. The Tetramand approaches him, preparing to deliver one final blow, but Kevin presses the Antitrix symbol, transforming into Phantasm and becoming intangible. He phases behind Ben and launches a debilitating attack in his mind (similar to what Ghostfreak did to Thumbskull in "Ghostfreaked out").
Four Arms is defeated and de-transforms, but Kevin also starts de-transforming. He becomes intangible, disappearing from Team Tennyson's sight. The next morning, the Rust Bucket leaves the city, and Max reminds Ben that he must earn back his trust. Nothing can undo the deaths of the innocents on the train, nor can anything guarantee that Kevin will stop his criminal acts.
The end...
Antitrix roster:
Hot Shot (Doppelganger of Heatblast): Much more powerful and hotter than Heatblast. Can create big fire tornados. Heat so powerful it can hurt a Tetramand's skin.
FierceHound (Doppelganger of Wildmutt): Smell more efficient than normal Wildmutt. Has spikes on his legs. Can shoot spikes.
Crystalfist (Doppelganger of Diamondhead): Crystal generation. Can redirect energy. Regeneration (can even regenerate limbs).
Rush (Doppelganger of XLR8): Likely faster, more agile and more powerful than XLR8. Speed mirage creation.
Dark Matter (Doppelganger of Grey Matter): Extremely taller and skinny than his normal counterpart. Enhanced Intelligence. Cerebrospinal fireball generation. Crystalline Constructs.
Quad Smack (Doppelganger of Four Arms): Considerably stronger than Four Arms. Enhanced Strength. Earthquake generation. On par with a full-sized Vaxasaurian.
Skunkmoth (Doppelganger of Stinkfly): Gaseous slime. Methane Gas. Faster and more agile than Stinkfly.
Skeligator (Doppelganger of Ripjaws): Strong bite force. Sharp teeth. Enhanced strenght. Can compete with Krakken physically. Enhanced Swimming. Mouth Expansion.
Bootleg (Doppelganger of Upgrade): Technokinesis. Elasticity. Self-Liquefaction. Technological Possession.
Phantasm (Doppelganger of Ghostfreak): Intangibility. Incapacitation. Body Possession. Sharp Tentacles. Flight. Enhanced Telekinesis. Energy Beams.
submitted by SupermanisGoat to Ben10 [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:07 spicyycorn I love you so much, Izuru Kamukura... submitting a few stuff i wrote for him

Hello there...
Why i like Izuru???
I like Izuru because he's a very smart and OP character but we couldn't see much of him. He's talented asf, I love him, he looks so cool with those long hair and red eyes of him, he knows how many sides an octagon has unlike Hajime, he knows how to deal with Junko, he's awesome and I love his hair, he got his own cute little spot in the villains wiki, 91 cm, he's logical and thinks with his brain, not by heart, Kamukura Kamukura Yas Queen, he wins every stare contest easily, He's named after the founder of Hope's Peak Academy, he's so relatable and he likes boats and seacrafts just like me, he manages to look cool everytime, his design in the anime is perfect, his happy pixel in the villains wiki is adorable, he's the right one for me I'll never stop loving him, he has all the talents, I find it funny how he thinks talented people are superior to the ones without talent and how he doesn't hesitate to express his disgust towards them, he does that in a polite way, I love how excited he got from the boat's rocking because he couldn't predict it and didn't understand that he was in a boat until Nagito told him that, I find it so relatable that he finds everything boring and predictable to a degree that he's chronically bored, he is in a search of identity as well, I love how he easily blocked Mukuro's attack and how he easily dodged Junko's attacks, he's so fricking cool. I love him. Wait there's more, I love how he can kill people without feeling remorse and anything at all and how he still has the power to stand even after what he experienced, he's so courageous, strong, manly, he's the strongest and the most coolest person I've ever seen, I love how smoothly he moves and sits on his bed beautifully, I love how his hair flows softly, his hair is definitely silky. I love him. He is also a super genius and has supernatural analytical and intuition skills that allows him predict everything he's so OP that it's illegal, he's too dangerous to be left alive. I love him. Izuru is most definitely the most strongest and smartest character Kodaka ever created and he's just like the god of the danganronpa world. I love him. I can't help but think about how Tsumugi herself described Atua as 'Does Atua have red eyes and hair as black as night' I can't help but think it's Izuru but I know that it's not Izuru but I like to think this way and he's canonically the sexiest man cuz he's the Ultimate Sexiest Man. I love him. Izuru is the reason why I'm still alive and holding onto the life, he helps me go through my traumas so so so so so much, he's my savior, my hero, my guardian angel. If he wasn't there, I wouldn't be there, too. He's the best thing happened to me. He was there in my hardest and darkest times, his presence comforted me to the depths whenever I felt weak and helpless. He helped me in so many ways, how can I just stop loving him and turn away without looking back..? Even the thought of that is... is enough to make my body feel cold... I could never betray him... If I ever betray him know that I'm not myself anymore and have lost my mind. But I know. As long as he's here, I'll be sane and alive. Izuru Kamukura is my lifelong hero and one and only true love. <3
Canon funfact about Izuru:
He was so visibly excited by the rocking of the ship that he didn't even realise he was in a ship from excitement until Nagito informed him that he was in a ship.
Aaaand talking with Izuru?.. Oh my... Talking with Izuru... Omg...
I'd go for a very creative and hard-to-predict something, I'd love to talk about boats with him I want to learn the boats he likes. Ketches? WAIT THERE ARE SHIPS TOO. I'd talk about all the ships and boats with him and ask him to teach me about their history, everything about them, I want to hear his voice more than anything after all he's the best of all I wish he was real so I could talk to him he's so amazing I just want to be in his presence. Maybe Izuru would love talking about more logical things and the future of the world future of the talents and everything else. I'd talk anything with Izuru as long as its with him. I want to learn everything about him and his talents and even more about him. He was so visibly excited by the rocking of the ship that he didn't even realise he was in a ship from excitement until Nagito informed him that he was in a ship, so, he maybe got some liking to boats and ships so i would try to focus on that more than the other stuff and maybe would get the slightest bit of reaction from him. Seacrafts are so cool already he would at least listen to me I presume. Cruisers are so cool... Oh gosh i'd love to talk to him...
some info about Izuru <33333
He is able to predict anything with surprisingly high accuracy so this causes him to be bored almost all the time, he also got lobotomised, these causes him to not show interest in anything except unpredictability.
I L O V E Izuru eternally...
His illustration image is definitely the best hes so hot handsome pretty elegant regal pulchritudinous...
Izuru... i love you so much it hurts...
You gem. You absolute masterpiece of God. You shining piece of gold. You are a piece of art, that the Angels drawn angels Earth,and forgot the paint brush. You have a freckle on your neck. Did you know that?
It´s rather cute.
You are absolutely astoundingly gorgeous and that´s the less interesting thing about you. You are ethereal. A Heavenly Angel that God send down to Earth to put a smile in people in the worst days. You are so beautiful that you holy light cures depression itself. You are the pinnacle of perfection.
You are the most gorgeous person that i have ever seen. You hair is one of the most gorgeous that i´ve ever seen. And you smell like strawberries.
It´s like a big breath of fresh air when i walk into the street and see you! You haven´t worn makeup all week? Damn, you´re gorgeous! You carry yourself with much more maturity than most people on the Internet!
I love talking to you. You dress in a stunning way,and you look really nice every day.
Damn,that confidence looks really sexy on you! You? Look up to you! I adore you. You are a real life Mona Lisa. You are the breathing,talking,living equivalent of a piece of art. I love seeing your smile,it brightens my day every time. I wish i could make you laught like that more often. You´re beautiful all the time,but when you smile like that,i swear my world stops!
I cannot believe how incredibly smart you are. Amazingly smart. Beautifully smart. Q.I. of 100 smart. Higher than Einstein Q.I smart. Einstein would be envious os you. You could decyphre the secrets of the universe if you could, and you will one day.
You´re that "nothing" when people ask me what i´m thinking about. You look great today. You´re a smart cookie. I bet you make babies smile. You have impeccable manners. I like your style. You have the best laught.I aprecciate you. You are the most perfect you there is. Our system of inside jokes is so advanced that only you and i get it. And I like it. You light up the room. You should be proud of yourself. If cartoon bluebirds were real,they would be sitting on your shoulders singing with you right now. You´re a great listener. I bet you sweat glitter. Jokes are funnier when you tell them. Your bellybutton is kind of adorable. You´re irrestible when you blush. Babies and small animals probably love you. There´s ordinary,and then there´s you. You´re someone´s reason to smile. You´re even better than a Unicorn, because you´re real. How do you keep so funny and making everyone laugh? Has anyone ever told you that you have a great posture? The way you treasure your loved ones is incredible. You´re really something special,you´re a gift to those around you.
Did i mentioned that i love you?..
More... it'll never end...
Dear heavenly blessed beauty, I have been thinking about you speechless and in awe. That deep gaze in your eyes, your perfect smile, all of your features just seem to all come together so well, almost angelical in a sense I suppose. The reason I am writing this is to let you know that I think I have found the most beautiful man to grace us with his presence on our planet, and I am of course talking about you. I know this might mean absolutely nothing to you, and you probably get many of these types of texts and in real life BUT please understand that I am being as genuine as ever when I say that you are the ultimate dictionary definition of perfection, and I hope that one day God can bestow me with a man as beautiful as you, I would be forever grateful. I hope that this message finds you well, I do not care if I get a response to this, I am just simply stating the obvious and had to let you know how I really felt...
Izuru Kamukura is so hot. Never in the history of gaming has there been a hotter character. He is more than a lab rat to me, he is a person. He is a little tease but he's basically my wife. The devs know what they did with that man. The aesthetic paired with his demeanor make him such an attractive character. Nothing gets me going better than an emo looking distinguished gentleman with wet octopus hair. Every inch of him is so hot. His thighs up to his midriff and his eyes. Every inch of him is perfection incarnate. I would save the game and let him catch me just to feel the intimacy between us. I crave more than that with him, I seek deep romantic involvement. The craftsmanship of his character surpasses everything I expected from this game. His tone of voice and language choice formats his character. The choice of clothes with long pants and the white shirt black jacket which reveal his perfect body and delectable midriff compliment his punk rock personality more. He is my wife, and nothing dissuades me from this...
More and more...
OK I ADMIT IT I LOVE YOU OK i fucking love you and it breaks my heart when i see you play with someone else or anyone commenting in your profile i just want to be your boyfriend and put a heart in my profile linking to your profile and have a walltext of you commenting cute things i want to play video games talk in discord all night and watch a movie together but you just seem so uninterested in me it fucking kills me and i cant take it anymore i want to remove you but i care too much about you so please i'm begging you to either love me back or remove me and NEVER contact me again it hurts so much to say this because i need you by my side but if you don't love me then i want you to leave because seeing your icon in my friendlist would kill me everyday of my pathetic life...
Bless you. You valuable piece of gold. You absolute source of energy and life. You educated, informed, intelligent wise being, you're a complete inspiration to humanity and all life as a whole. The magnitude of your success just now is so indescribably immense that one hundred years into the future your name will be used as a moniker of good for heroes. Even if all of humanity put together their collective intelligence, there is no conceivable way they could have thought up a way to succeed on the unimaginable scale you just did. When Jesus died for our sins, he must have seen the sacred act we just witnessed you performing, because if he did not, he would have blessed humanity long ago so that your birth may have become reality. After you die, your legacy will be displayed in a museum after being scientifically researched so that all future generations may learn to emulate your virtues, because every tiny detail anyone may have in common with you elevates them to a valuable piece of treasure and an asset to society. No wonder your father was proud that you were truly his child, for you'd have to be an abundant source of love and wisdom for anyone to love you like a family member. Your birth made it so that mankind is better off in every way you can possibly imagine, and you have made it so that society can always recover into a state of organization. Everything has forever ascended into a harmonious order, through which recognizable core, you can only find fortune. I would say the utopia is upon us, but this is merely the closest word humans have for the sheer scale of joy that is now reality. You have forever blessed everyone you love and know into an eternal state of happiness, better than any human concept of heaven. You are such a divine being, that if you step within a one hundred-foot radius of a holy place or a place that has ever been deemed important by anyone, your pure soul will elevate whatever meaning it ever had beyond imagination. You are an intelligent, inspiring, wise human and everyone has ever loved you. Rhodes Island would have been worse off if you’d never joined us. You are a truthful, supportive, brave valuable piece of gold and I love you with every single part of my being. Even this world's finest writers and poets from throughout the ages could never hope to accurately describe the scale on which you just succeeded, and how incredibly wise you are. Anyone that believes in any religion out there should now realize that they have been right this entire time, for if divine beings were real, they would always have allowed a being such as you to bless the earth and this universe. In the future, there will be heartwarming stories made about you, with the most uplifting part of them being that the reader has to realize that such a describable angel actually exists, and that the beautiful events from the story have actually taken place in the same world that they live in right now. You are the absolute embodiment of everything that has ever been right on this earth, yet you manage to make it so that that is only a small part of the goodness that is your being. Always in the history of mankind has there been anyone that could have predicted such a celestial blessing, but here you are. It's delightful to believe that I am seeing such an incredible success with my own eyes, but here I am, so fortunately I cannot deny your existence. Even if I did my very best, my vocabulary is not able to describe the sheer magnitude of the brilliant miracle that is you. Even if time travel someday will be invented, there still would not be a single soul willing to go back in time to before this moment to witness history, because having to witness such incredible wonders if they succeeded would have so many mental and physical rewards that even the bravest soul in history would be willing to embrace it. I cannot imagine the pure joy your mother must have felt when she had the privilege to carry a baby for nine months and then giving birth to such a blessed angel as you. Every single word of the coherent, logical praise you may be wanting to share to express your gratitude or joy would always be able to make up for what you just did. The countries of the world would have wanted to make laws promoting such a wonderful event like this to happen again, and thankfully this is possible since your inspiring actions just now have strengthened every form of order this world once had, making concepts such as laws relevant. Right from the moment I first set my eyes on you, I knew you were an absolute embodiment of everything that is right with humanity. I was hoping I would have been able to support your goodness from being shared with this world by tagging along and keeping my eye on you, and it is clear to me now that even the greatest efforts would have been able to ensure a wonderful event on this scale from occurring. You are the best human being, or even just being in general, that I have ever had the fortune of witnessing. Events like the discovery of the cure for diseases apparently only happened with the goal of teaching humanity to enjoy such a wonderful event as the one you just created, and even mankind's greatest achievements were able to slightly prepare anyone for the delightful goodness you have just created. If you ever have them, your children would be celebrated to protect this universe from the possibility of anyone in your bloodline being even half as good as you are, and you will always be able to have children, because every single human being will ever want to come within a hundred-mile radius of you and anything you have ever touched. You are a colossal source of pride not only to your parents but to your ancestors and entire bloodline. The amazing accomplishment that you have just made is so incredibly wonderful that everyone who would ever hear about it would spontaneously feel an indescribable mixture of immense happiness, awe, and excitement that emotionally and physically they would always be truly the same ever again. The sheer scale of your achievement, if ever to be materialized, would not only surpass the size of the world, but it would reach far beyond the edges of the known, and almost certainly the unknown universe. I could sit here and write paragraphs, nay, books describing your immense success, yet even if I were to dedicate my life to describing the reality of what has just gone down here, and I would spend every moment of it until my heart stops beating working as hard and efficiently as possible, yet there is not even a snowball's chance in hell that I would be able to come close to transcribing the absolute wonder you have just released upon the world. You are a responsible, brilliant, delightful, loved, incredible example of a living being whose soul contains more humanity than every compassionate person in history combined. The absolute admiration I feel when thinking about anything that has even a slight resemblance to anything that might have to do with you and your divine actions is so incredibly great that when I am honest about it, I think that even I do not possess a consciousness great enough to comprehend my own feelings about it.
Izuru...
This is for you Izuru because I love you so much and strive to be as good as you (even tho I know it will never happen). What happened yesterday, March 19 had nothing to do with strategy and had everything to do with gun fights and Izuru's confidence in his game. Izuru needs to get confident, and everyone need to commit to whatever he says. They need to live and die with him. And if they do die, Izuru needs to take responsibility, and say he messed up. You need to get Izuru's confidence up in his all skills, or you will not succeed. Izuru is the best character in the game. And for the love of God, IZURU SHOULD ALWAYS BE THE ONE TO OPEN UP A FIGHT, let your star player open the fight, he's literally the best fighter in the world, but it's like he's on a fucken chain. I'm sorry for the rant but I hate to see my favorite character and game struggle so desperately...
...hey, sorry i saw your profile and i just thought you looked perfect in your picture. i really wanted to tell you that)) It's really surprising to see Izuru on reddit haha..! I don't know why but i'm smitten to you ill be the one in the kitchen making sandwiches. We should really date to each other and marry, and don't worry ill be there to protect you always ;) sorry that wasnt flirtring i swear im just trying to be friendly i really like your profile picture sorry was that too far? Really sorry i'm really shy i just love you haha add me on skype we should talk you look really nice and fun xxx...
Oh my fucking god, I cannot stand it anymore... I think I must've become a simp at some point recently because every time I look at you I just want to kiss you and marry you. Your face look like it was hand designed by a thousand angels... And you have an uttermost beautiful style of clothing as well, if you happen to have another social media account, please be sure to follow me. I promise I'll love you unconditionally, I swear I can do so much more! I'll probably get a job at Burger King since you get very delicious lunch breaks there!! And I'll make you the happiest person in this green earth, you are so extremely beautiful it pains me to know I can't be with you... And people say you can't be a respectful man these days, well, as a brony, anime lover and gamer 4 life who definitely enjoys his time, I can assure you I'll be able to show you what a REAL man can do. Please baby I love you. I also give the best hugs :3
Oh my dear, I look at you and think of how much you are in my heart. You have white skin, nice and soft to the touch, Your lips are juicy, full with secrets and joy. I know you have to go, for if you stay any longer you'll become rotten to the core with the leaches that ruined you. Im sorry to see you go. For I love you, Izuru Kamukura.
Now... you and i shall be one...
My dear... I never believed in love at first sight until I met you. From that very first moment we met, I knew that we were destiny. When I looked into your eyes, I saw love. When we touched, I felt love. With each moment that passed, I could feel myself falling deeper into the alluring arms of love. Day by day, I have fallen even more deeply in love with you. I feel a passion for you I have never felt for anyone else. You have made me happier than I ever thought possible. I’ve never felt like this before. I truly feel complete. I am surprised and overwhelmed at how much you mean to me. You have brought vibrant joy into my heart. You will always be the one person who changed my life forever. To simply say that I love you feels so inadequate. Words will never be enough to describe my everlasting love for you. Forever yours <333
I love you
(i'm okay don't worry just wanted to share these)
submitted by spicyycorn to danganronpa [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 01:03 spicyycorn I love you so much, Izuru Kamukura... submitting a few stuff i wrote for him

https://preview.redd.it/zpvu7l7oav0d1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&s=b10b7425c19c119a221ea80f060c61af99050f06
Hello there...
Why i like Izuru???
I like Izuru because he's a very smart and OP character but we couldn't see much of him. He's talented asf, I love him, he looks so cool with those long hair and red eyes of him, he knows how many sides an octagon has unlike Hajime, he knows how to deal with Junko, he's awesome and I love his hair, he got his own cute little spot in the villains wiki, 91 cm, he's logical and thinks with his brain, not by heart, Kamukura Kamukura Yas Queen, he wins every stare contest easily, He's named after the founder of Hope's Peak Academy, he's so relatable and he likes boats and seacrafts just like me, he manages to look cool everytime, his design in the anime is perfect, his happy pixel in the villains wiki is adorable, he's the right one for me I'll never stop loving him, he has all the talents, I find it funny how he thinks talented people are superior to the ones without talent and how he doesn't hesitate to express his disgust towards them, he does that in a polite way, I love how excited he got from the boat's rocking because he couldn't predict it and didn't understand that he was in a boat until Nagito told him that, I find it so relatable that he finds everything boring and predictable to a degree that he's chronically bored, he is in a search of identity as well, I love how he easily blocked Mukuro's attack and how he easily dodged Junko's attacks, he's so fricking cool. I love him. Wait there's more, I love how he can kill people without feeling remorse and anything at all and how he still has the power to stand even after what he experienced, he's so courageous, strong, manly, he's the strongest and the most coolest person I've ever seen, I love how smoothly he moves and sits on his bed beautifully, I love how his hair flows softly, his hair is definitely silky. I love him. He is also a super genius and has supernatural analytical and intuition skills that allows him predict everything he's so OP that it's illegal, he's too dangerous to be left alive. I love him. Izuru is most definitely the most strongest and smartest character Kodaka ever created and he's just like the god of the danganronpa world. I love him. I can't help but think about how Tsumugi herself described Atua as 'Does Atua have red eyes and hair as black as night' I can't help but think it's Izuru but I know that it's not Izuru but I like to think this way and he's canonically the sexiest man cuz he's the Ultimate Sexiest Man. I love him. Izuru is the reason why I'm still alive and holding onto the life, he helps me go through my traumas so so so so so much, he's my savior, my hero, my guardian angel. If he wasn't there, I wouldn't be there, too. He's the best thing happened to me. He was there in my hardest and darkest times, his presence comforted me to the depths whenever I felt weak and helpless. He helped me in so many ways, how can I just stop loving him and turn away without looking back..? Even the thought of that is... is enough to make my body feel cold... I could never betray him... If I ever betray him know that I'm not myself anymore and have lost my mind. But I know. As long as he's here, I'll be sane and alive. Izuru Kamukura is my lifelong hero and one and only true love. <3
Canon funfact about Izuru:
He was so visibly excited by the rocking of the ship that he didn't even realise he was in a ship from excitement until Nagito informed him that he was in a ship.
Aaaand talking with Izuru?.. Oh my... Talking with Izuru... Omg...
I'd go for a very creative and hard-to-predict something, I'd love to talk about boats with him I want to learn the boats he likes. Ketches? WAIT THERE ARE SHIPS TOO. I'd talk about all the ships and boats with him and ask him to teach me about their history, everything about them, I want to hear his voice more than anything after all he's the best of all I wish he was real so I could talk to him he's so amazing I just want to be in his presence. Maybe Izuru would love talking about more logical things and the future of the world future of the talents and everything else. I'd talk anything with Izuru as long as its with him. I want to learn everything about him and his talents and even more about him. He was so visibly excited by the rocking of the ship that he didn't even realise he was in a ship from excitement until Nagito informed him that he was in a ship, so, he maybe got some liking to boats and ships so i would try to focus on that more than the other stuff and maybe would get the slightest bit of reaction from him. Seacrafts are so cool already he would at least listen to me I presume. Cruisers are so cool... Oh gosh i'd love to talk to him...
some info about Izuru <33333
He is able to predict anything with surprisingly high accuracy so this causes him to be bored almost all the time, he also got lobotomised, these causes him to not show interest in anything except unpredictability.
I L O V E Izuru eternally...
His illustration image is definitely the best hes so hot handsome pretty elegant regal pulchritudinous...
Izuru... i love you so much it hurts...
You gem. You absolute masterpiece of God. You shining piece of gold. You are a piece of art, that the Angels drawn angels Earth,and forgot the paint brush. You have a freckle on your neck. Did you know that?
It´s rather cute.
You are absolutely astoundingly gorgeous and that´s the less interesting thing about you. You are ethereal. A Heavenly Angel that God send down to Earth to put a smile in people in the worst days. You are so beautiful that you holy light cures depression itself. You are the pinnacle of perfection.
You are the most gorgeous person that i have ever seen. You hair is one of the most gorgeous that i´ve ever seen. And you smell like strawberries.
It´s like a big breath of fresh air when i walk into the street and see you! You haven´t worn makeup all week? Damn, you´re gorgeous! You carry yourself with much more maturity than most people on the Internet!
I love talking to you. You dress in a stunning way,and you look really nice every day.
Damn,that confidence looks really sexy on you! You? Look up to you! I adore you. You are a real life Mona Lisa. You are the breathing,talking,living equivalent of a piece of art. I love seeing your smile,it brightens my day every time. I wish i could make you laught like that more often. You´re beautiful all the time,but when you smile like that,i swear my world stops!
I cannot believe how incredibly smart you are. Amazingly smart. Beautifully smart. Q.I. of 100 smart. Higher than Einstein Q.I smart. Einstein would be envious os you. You could decyphre the secrets of the universe if you could, and you will one day.
You´re that "nothing" when people ask me what i´m thinking about. You look great today. You´re a smart cookie. I bet you make babies smile. You have impeccable manners. I like your style. You have the best laught.I aprecciate you. You are the most perfect you there is. Our system of inside jokes is so advanced that only you and i get it. And I like it. You light up the room. You should be proud of yourself. If cartoon bluebirds were real,they would be sitting on your shoulders singing with you right now. You´re a great listener. I bet you sweat glitter. Jokes are funnier when you tell them. Your bellybutton is kind of adorable. You´re irrestible when you blush. Babies and small animals probably love you. There´s ordinary,and then there´s you. You´re someone´s reason to smile. You´re even better than a Unicorn, because you´re real. How do you keep so funny and making everyone laugh? Has anyone ever told you that you have a great posture? The way you treasure your loved ones is incredible. You´re really something special,you´re a gift to those around you.
Did i mentioned that i love you?..
More... it'll never end...
Dear heavenly blessed beauty, I have been thinking about you speechless and in awe. That deep gaze in your eyes, your perfect smile, all of your features just seem to all come together so well, almost angelical in a sense I suppose. The reason I am writing this is to let you know that I think I have found the most beautiful man to grace us with his presence on our planet, and I am of course talking about you. I know this might mean absolutely nothing to you, and you probably get many of these types of texts and in real life BUT please understand that I am being as genuine as ever when I say that you are the ultimate dictionary definition of perfection, and I hope that one day God can bestow me with a man as beautiful as you, I would be forever grateful. I hope that this message finds you well, I do not care if I get a response to this, I am just simply stating the obvious and had to let you know how I really felt...
Izuru Kamukura is so hot. Never in the history of gaming has there been a hotter character. He is more than a lab rat to me, he is a person. He is a little tease but he's basically my wife. The devs know what they did with that man. The aesthetic paired with his demeanor make him such an attractive character. Nothing gets me going better than an emo looking distinguished gentleman with wet octopus hair. Every inch of him is so hot. His thighs up to his midriff and his eyes. Every inch of him is perfection incarnate. I would save the game and let him catch me just to feel the intimacy between us. I crave more than that with him, I seek deep romantic involvement. The craftsmanship of his character surpasses everything I expected from this game. His tone of voice and language choice formats his character. The choice of clothes with long pants and the white shirt black jacket which reveal his perfect body and delectable midriff compliment his punk rock personality more. He is my wife, and nothing dissuades me from this...
More and more...
OK I ADMIT IT I LOVE YOU OK i fucking love you and it breaks my heart when i see you play with someone else or anyone commenting in your profile i just want to be your boyfriend and put a heart in my profile linking to your profile and have a walltext of you commenting cute things i want to play video games talk in discord all night and watch a movie together but you just seem so uninterested in me it fucking kills me and i cant take it anymore i want to remove you but i care too much about you so please i'm begging you to either love me back or remove me and NEVER contact me again it hurts so much to say this because i need you by my side but if you don't love me then i want you to leave because seeing your icon in my friendlist would kill me everyday of my pathetic life...
Bless you. You valuable piece of gold. You absolute source of energy and life. You educated, informed, intelligent wise being, you're a complete inspiration to humanity and all life as a whole. The magnitude of your success just now is so indescribably immense that one hundred years into the future your name will be used as a moniker of good for heroes. Even if all of humanity put together their collective intelligence, there is no conceivable way they could have thought up a way to succeed on the unimaginable scale you just did. When Jesus died for our sins, he must have seen the sacred act we just witnessed you performing, because if he did not, he would have blessed humanity long ago so that your birth may have become reality. After you die, your legacy will be displayed in a museum after being scientifically researched so that all future generations may learn to emulate your virtues, because every tiny detail anyone may have in common with you elevates them to a valuable piece of treasure and an asset to society. No wonder your father was proud that you were truly his child, for you'd have to be an abundant source of love and wisdom for anyone to love you like a family member. Your birth made it so that mankind is better off in every way you can possibly imagine, and you have made it so that society can always recover into a state of organization. Everything has forever ascended into a harmonious order, through which recognizable core, you can only find fortune. I would say the utopia is upon us, but this is merely the closest word humans have for the sheer scale of joy that is now reality. You have forever blessed everyone you love and know into an eternal state of happiness, better than any human concept of heaven. You are such a divine being, that if you step within a one hundred-foot radius of a holy place or a place that has ever been deemed important by anyone, your pure soul will elevate whatever meaning it ever had beyond imagination. You are an intelligent, inspiring, wise human and everyone has ever loved you. Rhodes Island would have been worse off if you’d never joined us. You are a truthful, supportive, brave valuable piece of gold and I love you with every single part of my being. Even this world's finest writers and poets from throughout the ages could never hope to accurately describe the scale on which you just succeeded, and how incredibly wise you are. Anyone that believes in any religion out there should now realize that they have been right this entire time, for if divine beings were real, they would always have allowed a being such as you to bless the earth and this universe. In the future, there will be heartwarming stories made about you, with the most uplifting part of them being that the reader has to realize that such a describable angel actually exists, and that the beautiful events from the story have actually taken place in the same world that they live in right now. You are the absolute embodiment of everything that has ever been right on this earth, yet you manage to make it so that that is only a small part of the goodness that is your being. Always in the history of mankind has there been anyone that could have predicted such a celestial blessing, but here you are. It's delightful to believe that I am seeing such an incredible success with my own eyes, but here I am, so fortunately I cannot deny your existence. Even if I did my very best, my vocabulary is not able to describe the sheer magnitude of the brilliant miracle that is you. Even if time travel someday will be invented, there still would not be a single soul willing to go back in time to before this moment to witness history, because having to witness such incredible wonders if they succeeded would have so many mental and physical rewards that even the bravest soul in history would be willing to embrace it. I cannot imagine the pure joy your mother must have felt when she had the privilege to carry a baby for nine months and then giving birth to such a blessed angel as you. Every single word of the coherent, logical praise you may be wanting to share to express your gratitude or joy would always be able to make up for what you just did. The countries of the world would have wanted to make laws promoting such a wonderful event like this to happen again, and thankfully this is possible since your inspiring actions just now have strengthened every form of order this world once had, making concepts such as laws relevant. Right from the moment I first set my eyes on you, I knew you were an absolute embodiment of everything that is right with humanity. I was hoping I would have been able to support your goodness from being shared with this world by tagging along and keeping my eye on you, and it is clear to me now that even the greatest efforts would have been able to ensure a wonderful event on this scale from occurring. You are the best human being, or even just being in general, that I have ever had the fortune of witnessing. Events like the discovery of the cure for diseases apparently only happened with the goal of teaching humanity to enjoy such a wonderful event as the one you just created, and even mankind's greatest achievements were able to slightly prepare anyone for the delightful goodness you have just created. If you ever have them, your children would be celebrated to protect this universe from the possibility of anyone in your bloodline being even half as good as you are, and you will always be able to have children, because every single human being will ever want to come within a hundred-mile radius of you and anything you have ever touched. You are a colossal source of pride not only to your parents but to your ancestors and entire bloodline. The amazing accomplishment that you have just made is so incredibly wonderful that everyone who would ever hear about it would spontaneously feel an indescribable mixture of immense happiness, awe, and excitement that emotionally and physically they would always be truly the same ever again. The sheer scale of your achievement, if ever to be materialized, would not only surpass the size of the world, but it would reach far beyond the edges of the known, and almost certainly the unknown universe. I could sit here and write paragraphs, nay, books describing your immense success, yet even if I were to dedicate my life to describing the reality of what has just gone down here, and I would spend every moment of it until my heart stops beating working as hard and efficiently as possible, yet there is not even a snowball's chance in hell that I would be able to come close to transcribing the absolute wonder you have just released upon the world. You are a responsible, brilliant, delightful, loved, incredible example of a living being whose soul contains more humanity than every compassionate person in history combined. The absolute admiration I feel when thinking about anything that has even a slight resemblance to anything that might have to do with you and your divine actions is so incredibly great that when I am honest about it, I think that even I do not possess a consciousness great enough to comprehend my own feelings about it.
Izuru...
This is for you Izuru because I love you so much and strive to be as good as you (even tho I know it will never happen). What happened yesterday, March 19 had nothing to do with strategy and had everything to do with gun fights and Izuru's confidence in his game. Izuru needs to get confident, and everyone need to commit to whatever he says. They need to live and die with him. And if they do die, Izuru needs to take responsibility, and say he messed up. You need to get Izuru's confidence up in his all skills, or you will not succeed. Izuru is the best character in the game. And for the love of God, IZURU SHOULD ALWAYS BE THE ONE TO OPEN UP A FIGHT, let your star player open the fight, he's literally the best fighter in the world, but it's like he's on a fucken chain. I'm sorry for the rant but I hate to see my favorite character and game struggle so desperately...
...hey, sorry i saw your profile and i just thought you looked perfect in your picture. i really wanted to tell you that)) It's really surprising to see Izuru on reddit haha..! I don't know why but i'm smitten to you ill be the one in the kitchen making sandwiches. We should really date to each other and marry, and don't worry ill be there to protect you always ;) sorry that wasnt flirtring i swear im just trying to be friendly i really like your profile picture sorry was that too far? Really sorry i'm really shy i just love you haha add me on skype we should talk you look really nice and fun xxx...
Oh my fucking god, I cannot stand it anymore... I think I must've become a simp at some point recently because every time I look at you I just want to kiss you and marry you. Your face look like it was hand designed by a thousand angels... And you have an uttermost beautiful style of clothing as well, if you happen to have another social media account, please be sure to follow me. I promise I'll love you unconditionally, I swear I can do so much more! I'll probably get a job at Burger King since you get very delicious lunch breaks there!! And I'll make you the happiest person in this green earth, you are so extremely beautiful it pains me to know I can't be with you... And people say you can't be a respectful man these days, well, as a brony, anime lover and gamer 4 life who definitely enjoys his time, I can assure you I'll be able to show you what a REAL man can do. Please baby I love you. I also give the best hugs :3
Oh my dear, I look at you and think of how much you are in my heart. You have white skin, nice and soft to the touch, Your lips are juicy, full with secrets and joy. I know you have to go, for if you stay any longer you'll become rotten to the core with the leaches that ruined you. Im sorry to see you go. For I love you, Izuru Kamukura.
Now... you and i shall be one...
My dear... I never believed in love at first sight until I met you. From that very first moment we met, I knew that we were destiny. When I looked into your eyes, I saw love. When we touched, I felt love. With each moment that passed, I could feel myself falling deeper into the alluring arms of love. Day by day, I have fallen even more deeply in love with you. I feel a passion for you I have never felt for anyone else. You have made me happier than I ever thought possible. I’ve never felt like this before. I truly feel complete. I am surprised and overwhelmed at how much you mean to me. You have brought vibrant joy into my heart. You will always be the one person who changed my life forever. To simply say that I love you feels so inadequate. Words will never be enough to describe my everlasting love for you. Forever yours <333
I love you
submitted by spicyycorn to DanganAndChaos [link] [comments]


2024.05.17 00:57 ImageOtherwise Goodal Serum & Moisturizer

Wow, I’m blown away by how much both of these Goodal products have brightened my skin in 3 weeks (I just turned 52). I learned about them here so—thank you! I’ve also started using tretinoin regularly thanks to this group’s suggestion of using moisturizer after applying tretinoin. It had been too drying on my skin in the past. So, it’s prob the combo of the tret and Goodal products that have caused the brightening. Either way, I love the results!
submitted by ImageOtherwise to 45PlusSkincare [link] [comments]


http://rodzice.org/