Funny things to do for a teacher retirement dinner

What are we cooking tonight?

2014.12.02 22:02 brtw What are we cooking tonight?

Never know what to make for dinner? Neither do we. Let's all make the same thing for dinner and see how it comes out. We're under some renovations right now, but new things are on the way!
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2009.04.27 05:23 What's for dinner tonight?

Let's eat!
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2011.08.30 19:29 satayjo2 A place where we can laugh at our non-human friends.

Welcome to the subreddit for our funny animal friends!
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2024.06.09 15:32 pumicealice I’m leaving my bf because of a prenup

I’m leaving because my bf asked me first a prenup
I’m (34f) breaking up with my boyfriend (34m) because of a prenup
I’ve been with my boyfriend for about two years. Everything is going well and we love each other. We’ve been discussing marriage, and he mentioned he would not marry me without a prenup.
We discussed this in detail, and I did not like what he proposed. His family owns a lot of property, land, and has lots of savings. After marriage, he was wants me to move into one of the houses his parents own. I told him I am uncomfortable building a life and a family in a house I have no ownership in, and he didn’t understand. I told him I’d prefer to rent a place together, or we can live temporarily in one of his parents’ houses and look at property together, but he refused. He said he liked the houses his parents and he already owned. He said he would not buy other property, he said he would not sell any of his property to buy one with me. He told me if I wanted to own property, I could save up money by living in one of these properties and invest in one myself - problem is - he would be entitled to half if we divorce since my purchase would happen after marriage. He told me I could pay his parents rent if I feel like I don’t “belong” on the property. He told me I could “buy half” of the house we live in from his parents. Problem is, I don’t like the houses that him or his parents own. They also have a lot of stuff, and I feel like there’s no space for me. I want to look at houses, I want to pick the place I live in, and I want to do it with my partner. I’ve made this clear to him over and over, but he won’t budge. He earns more than me, and he has more assets than me for sure. He made it clear he was afraid I was a gold digger, and he wants to protect himself and his family’s assets from me, which I can understand.
This whole thing has made me feel very weird. This topic has come up before, and it has always made me feel very small. It makes me feel like all he cares about are his assets. It makes me feel like he wants me as long as I fit into the life he already built, and doesn’t care to build one with me. It makes me feel Ike a gold digger.
He has enough money to retire right now and live comfortably. I don’t. He basically told me that whatever money he earns now, he can spend, so he won’t be investing in too much anymore. He expects our earnings and our savings after marriage to be split…. Which I feel off about. I’m sure this is normal for some people. I’m sure other people would be happy to be with someone who was well off. I am not. I want someone beside me building a life with me, not someone who has built a life with his parents and wants me as long as I behave and fits into his life, which is how he’s been making me feel.
So I’m leaving him.
I welcome opinions on this. But yeah, it’s been too long that this has made me feel off about our relationship. I’m protecting my peace and leaving him with all his houses and money.
TLDR: Bf and I are talking about marriage. Boyfriend and his family are well off. He wants me to live in a house i don’t own, doesn’t want to look at houses with me. Wants half of post prenup assets. So I’m leaving ✌️
submitted by pumicealice to relationships [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:31 Rusted-1 ARK 8 Chapter 23-Unlucky

ARK 8 Chapter 23-Unlucky
To kill for yourself is murder. To kill for your government is heroic. To kill for entertainment is harmless. What is it to kill for religion? - Unknown
This fanfic is based on the fanfic The Isolationists, by Seeyouon_otherside, and a continuation of the stronger_together series. Constructive criticism is appreciated.
Time Since First Contact: Y:0 M:1 W:0 D:3
Memory Transcript Subject: Private Brolien “Lucky” Tiwond of the enforcers.
“Wait, the humans call you that? Why?” My buddy Rohan asked me as we patrolled the streets of the capital city of Finalshape under the night sky. You could actually see one of the aliens' ships flying overhead, which was fantastic. I felt like a kid watching them, just in awe at the technological marvels. Our power armor was clanking and clunking as we went about our day, heavy auto rifles in hand, a good breakfast this morning, kissed the kids and misses goodbye for today, promising little ones I’ll bring them back a souvenir of some kind. We walked through the snow that had to yet be cleared by the snow plows, and I just enjoyed the forever-green grass and trees. Just admiring the city that we lived in
“Yeah, I was on the plane next to the human ARK ship when I went down.”
“Wait, that was you?!” Rohan practically yelled, getting the attention of many people around us. “How come you’re still not in the Air Force anymore?”
“That crash rattled me pretty bad, So I stepped down for that position and took up a job as a trooper,” I respond casually. “It was fun for a while being in the Air Force, but now, with seven kids and a wife, I can’t take that risk anymore. I’d rather do something more laid-back to have a higher chance of survival. So I can spend more time with my beloved and see my little ones grow up.” I said. Then I revealed my trap card. “I also got a spot on the Land Tank.
“Yeah, I get that-YOU WHAT!?” He yelled.
I let out a hearty laugh as he began to freak out. “Yep! I will be one of the lead anti-air and anti-space gunnery commanders. The pay is fantastic. I’m going to spoil my family rotten.”
He made an odd noise and launched himself at me. “HOLLY SHIT DUDE! YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED A JOB ON THAT HUNK OF HISTORY! I’M SO PROUD OF YOU!” He patted me on the back a few times and then let go. “But I get what you mean by anti-air, but what do you mean by anti-space?”
I sighed and looked around before switching to helmet-to-helmet communication so no one could hear us. "You're aware that Lord Lieutenant Commander Canilia Feral doesn't fully trust the aliens, right?”
Rohan nodded. I couldn’t see his expression under the heavy metal helmet, but we had known each other since we were kids, so I could tell he was somber. “Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of that. But that doesn't mean I don't understand it. The aliens are fun, lovely, adorable, and huggable. I can say a hundred other nice things about them, but I won't because I don't want to bore you to death. They are still a massive unknown; they've been sharing more and more information with us, and I know the one, Captain Leo, is preparing to hold some… not ceremony, what do you call it…I want to say it's a seminar about how they got here and their history. I'm going to it, but I don't know when it will be.”
I nodded in agreement. “ I am with you on every single one of those points. As amazing as they are, there are so many unknowns about them… which is why Lord Lieutenant Commander Canilia Feral has started a program meant to counteract the aliens' most powerful tools: their droids and ships.”
Rohan looked at me. I could tell from underneath his helmet he looked surprised. “Wait, weapons?”
It was my turn to be somber. “She says it's to prepare for if they turn on us. She made it very apparent that she hoped she would never have to use these weapons, but she wanted to be prepared.”
“Does Commander Fango Feral know about this?”
I scoffed at that thought. “Well, yeah, this project would have never gotten the green light anyway. Plus, we're talking about Lord Lieutenant Commander Canilia Feral here. Going behind her uncle's back is the last thing she would do."
Rohan nodded. "What do you know about the project?" He asked
"What little I know about the project is that I will be operating an ASRFC, an anti-space rapid-fire cannon. It’s designed to do what it sounds like: it shoots or, rather, assists in launching incredibly fast-moving projectiles, similar to missiles but different somehow. They should be coated in the specialized electricity designed to short out alien systems. She's also been developing handheld weapons to short out their droids.”
Rohan was silent. Then spoke. “Geez. That's… a lot. I'm just hoping the aliens don't find out.”
My shoulder sagged as I hated the thought of operating a weapon like that against two species that have been nothing but kind to us. “Same, we all share the same sentiment at the Land Tank. We are on our hands and knees, praying to the great protector that we never have to use these guns. Lord Lieutenant Commander Canilia Feral is probably the person who is hoping the most. However, I get the odd feeling that they would understand why we would make these weapons. I think they'd be mad, but they wouldn't be upset. They'd be understanding.” I looked over at my childhood best friend. “Honestly, considering your Borderline addiction to anything alien right now, I'm surprised you're taking this as well as you are.”
He shook his head. “I'm not really… it's hard making guns and weapons to kill a person who has been nothing but kind to you simply because you don't fully trust them. But I understand and support the logic behind it. However, it is comforting to know that everyone working on this project hopes and prays that they don't have to use them. Not much, but a bit.” Rohan sighed, and we walked in silence for a while. He perked up, his posture became slightly straighter, and he pointed to my chest. “What is that anyway on your chest? I’ve never seen a dialect or a plant like that,” he asked. I looked down and laughed.
“Yeah, that’s human dialect. I want to say it’s the one called English, but it could also be the one called Japanese or Russian. I really have no idea. It says, “Lucky, the falling star.” The symbol is of what they called a four-leaf clover, a type of plant back on the human homeworld that was considered lucky, surrounded by a star, and there are trails to the side of it, or to make it look like it’s falling.”
Rohan stopped for a minute, got the joke, and nearly busted a gut laughing. When he finally calmed down, he looked at me. “How the hell did Humans and Zeyzell convince you to get that painted on your armor!?” he asked through laughs.
“Well, I was at a drink stop, a bar as most of you normals call it, forget which one, when out of the blue, a bunch of humans popped up, and they recognized me as a pilot. I don’t know how, but they did.” I answered, “Ask me all sorts of questions like how I survived. How was I doing? Generally, they were good questions and warmed my heart that they were worried about me. It was nice, anywho, they were going on about this plant on the human home world called the four-leaf clover, and this represents luck or something. They asked if they could paint my armor with it. I had just gotten my shiny new power armor, so I was like, sure, go ahead and paint it. Then, they whipped out a bunch of little pups, or kids and kits, as the humans call them. As in little humans who are ADORIBLE, and they started painting my armor as I started talking to the adults. Two hours later, bam, you got this masterpiece painted all over my armor. I swear they took the little ones out of their pockets if I didn’t know better. After all that, I wanted it back to camp, and the paint had dried. I tried getting off, even though it was a nice gesture. I was kind of sad about it, but I don’t know what the void they used is. This stuff is not coming off. I scrubbed for a good hour, and it didn’t come off. So when I had to fall in with everyone at Camp and with everyone with their new hand-me-down E-10 power armor. I stood out like a sore thumb.”
“And you had petty officer Gotrom, didn’t you?” Rohana teasingly said. I shook my head in pain, causing him to laugh. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Yep, I had him, the man of the petty ones. The moment he laid eyes on me. His eyes did the whole bleeding thing. I hate it when he does that and starts screaming at me. I mean, this dude is slightly above me in rank, but he takes his job too seriously. So, after five minutes of chewing me out, I thought he would pass out with the amount of hot air he was spewing. He asked me what my excuse was.”
“What do you say to him?” Rohan asks.
I laughed. “It was like the great protector had whispered exactly what I should say into my ear. “Interacting with the new locals, sir. Just letting them know that we are their friends, not their wardens.” And you won’t freaking believe this, he took it.”
“He what?! he took it as a valid answer?!” Rohan asked.
“I myself was still surprised that he took that as a valid answer, but yes, he did. Then he immediately brought me to the front of all three hundred troops and started to yell at them, tearing them a new one by telling them how I was the only one here who had made any attempt to meet with the alien. Even though we all know that’s not true, they found me. He patted me on the back, congratulated me, and sent me off to get some extra food.”
“By the old void, that guy gets stranger and stranger every time.”
I shrugged. “I honestly have no clue, and I think he was telling everyone to step up the game in greeting the aliens, but other than that, I have no idea. The Humans are super nice, and I often find them chatting with someone or petting someone. Void, I’ve even seen an entire group of humans swarm a giant and start petting it. It was cute to watch. The Zeyzell seem far more reserved than the humans, but you can have interesting conversations with them.”
We continued to patrol the streets in silence for a while after that, making a bit of small talk to break it, but nothing much, just observing people going about their business. That’s when we saw an out-of-breath Tiwond with a human gently helping him drink a bottle of water. A Zeyzell clung to the human's back, laughing his lungs out. “Everything all right over here?” I asked.
“Yeah,” the person said as he got up, swishing his tail as he did, “tried to beat my buddy here in a race after hearing about humans' high stamina. I lost by a large margin while he carried his fluffy ass on his back. The man said as he pointed to the Human and the Zeyzell. The Zeyzell just laughed while still clinging to the human's back.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” The Zeyzell said as the three laughed.
“All right, you three, stay safe. Bye now.” The group of three said their goodbyes, and I looked at the human. He just seemed so happy. It was such a pure and authentic expression that it warmed my hearts. “It’s so nice that we met the humans; everyone just seems happier.”
Rohan nodded. “Yeah, it’s like the mood has shifted, from the low to the high, it's nice. With the war, the terror that came after it, and the animals evolving and changing. Things were looking bleak. That’s not even mentioning all the giant refugees we've been getting, and well…him and them.”
I looked at Rohan. “Who and what?”
Rohan looked at me, confused. “You know? Viggo Scythelock?”
I nodded. The mention of his name made me slightly mad. “Oh, him…you think they will catch the guy?” I asked.
“Honestly, I hope so. He has caused so much pain to so many. The man is a psychopath, a monster. He used the war as an opportunity to harm so many.” Rohan looked down. “But honestly, it’s been over three years. I’m not sure if they will ever find him.”
“Yeah…I hope they find him and take him out. Also, who are "Them" you are talking about?”
Rohan looked at me, surprised. “You haven't heard?” he asked. He switched to helmet-to-helmet communications instead of talking out loud. This must be bad.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask…but no, I have not heard about them,” I responded also with helmet-to-helmet communication. “Who are you talking about?”
“The Cult of the Old God? You haven't heard what they have been up to?”
“You mean them assassinating high-ranking individuals, stealing supplies, their entire operation multiplying tenfold ever since the alien's arrival?”
I could tell he was surprised, and I could also understand that he was blinking and surprised underneath the helmet. That's how well we know each other. “How did you know?”
“It's common knowledge, and the higher-ups sent this documentation earlier this morning. Did you not read it? They're very transparent, and you know that I don't get all your conspiracies at everything, which is a conspiracy.”
“Oh, come on! The Aliens! Their rival was too perfect; just when we were getting worried that we were the only living creatures in the universe, pop! They show up. That can't be a coincidence!”
I rolled my eyes underneath my helmet. “You need help.”
“Not with my mental state, but definitely with my taxes.” I shake my head
We continued on our way. When we crossed one of the streets and took a left toward one of the shopping districts, we saw two dudes sitting in the snow, huddled around something. We approached to make sure everything was alright. “Everything alright?” I asked. The guys looked up at me and made the shhh motion with their fingers. Then they parted their bodies a little, and I saw a female human sleeping between them.
“We don’t want to wake her up,” the first said. I nodded my head and continued on.
Both of us then turned a corner into a more populated part of the district. We saw a human and what looked like a construction worker chatting there. “Thank you so much for taking us in. I think I can speak for my entire species when I say you have made us so happy.”
The construction worker raised an eyebrow and took another bite of the sandwich she was eating. “Anyone would’ve done it; it's just the right thing to do if they had a soul, at least.”
The human started to laugh a bit, and then it quickly stopped as a human just shook her head. “Guess the federation has no soul then, huh?”
The construction worker took another bite out of her sandwich. “Doesn’t sound like it.” The human leaned into the construction worker. “Eay, don’t worry. If those Federation things ever come here, they’ll get a big face full of Big Jim.” She then pulled out a massive [monkey wrench.] I smiled at that, knowing that so many were willing to protect the humans. I believe that made them feel more at home. We wandered past them on our patrol and continued deeper into the district.
“Hey, you know what I’ve noticed?” Rohan said.
“Hm?” I asked in return.
“I haven’t seen all that many little humans, you know, their pups, kids, children, whatever they call them.”
I was about to argue that I had seen quite a few children, but when I really thought about it. The only significant group of human children I had seen was when a bunch of them confronted me and painted the four-leaf clover and star onto my chest plate. Other than that, I’ve only seen a few. “Now that you mention it, you’re right. I’ve hardly seen any. Why do you think that is?”
Rohan thought for a minute. Then, he snapped his secondary jaw in realization or remembered something. “I remember a bit of talk about a lot of young ones being on a second ARK ship. I don’t know much about it. All I know is that most of their young population, as in newborns to tweens, was supposedly on an ARK ship called ARK Twelve. Other than that, I don’t know much.”
“Where did you hear that from?” I asked.
“One of my buddies works in intelligence gathering. We like humans, but the intelligence bureau doesn’t fully trust them like Lord Lieutenant Commander Canilia Feral doesn't. I can’t blame them. Again, Humans are still a big unknown, even though they are one of the cutest things I have ever seen.”
“Agreed.”
“He was pretty drunk when I asked him, but it was his reaction when he said out loud that really disturbed me. Normally he’s a pretty big drinker because you see some bad shit in intelligence gathering. I mean, there are some terrible people out there. But the second he mentioned ARK twelve, he got really really sad. And he didn’t even finish his drink, which was a first. He mumbled something about going home to spend time with the human he was taking care of. I don’t know what it was about the response, but I got a sense of pure dread from it.”
I nodded my head, and we continued. I felt like asking the next human I saw about ARK twelve, but I sensed it would be a bad idea. We saw a commotion in front of what looked like a jewelry store. Wandering over, there was a female tiwond Who seemed distressed. As we approached, she continuously asked strangers if they had seen someone. A lot of other people are starting to be concerned, too, for some reason. We approach to attempt to calm the situation. “Enforcers, what’s going on here?” Rohan asked. The woman turned around rather quickly. She was short and had that typical camo pattern fur that the people of the woodland area have, so she was most likely not a local. Then again, you can never be too confident in the city.
“I lost them! I can't find them! I don’t know where they are!” She almost yelled in what looked like fear and worry.
“Whoa, calm down, ma’am. What’s the problem?” I gently told her to try to get him to calm down. “Take four large breaths and clear all four of your lungs. Trust me, it helps.”
She took some deep breaths, seemingly calmed down just a little, and then spoke again. “I am in charge of two humans under my care for the exchange program. I had brought her and her kid here to the shopping district to see if they wanted anything before moving back to the Woodland cities. However, they vanished. I don’t know where they went. I am terrified of all the unknowns around here that might hurt them.”
“Thank you. Do you know where you last saw them?” I asked. I made a hand motion to Rohan to signal in an incident report and some backup. Rohan stepped away from the conversation and radioed a command using his helmet.
“This is Rohan. I'm reporting a case of a missing person. Yeah, two humans went missing. I’m currently with Brolien, and we’re patrolling the shopping district… Green Wyvern. Can you send a few more patrols down here to help? We can’t have two aliens going missing in the city. That's bad, AR. Also, and yes, I want to see them safe. I am not an AR asshole.”
"This is HQ, sending down an additional squad. Keep us updated."
"Yes sir." Rhoan responded
“Do you know which store you were in when you saw them last?” I asked.
“The jewelry store, the one just over there. About [10 minutes] ago. Their names are Jasper and Melinda.” She pointed to one of the higher-end jewelry stores, and I motioned to Rohan to follow me. I noticed a few Street cops coming over to see what the situation was about.
“What’s going on here?” one of the cops asked. I recognize this one, a retired Detective, I think.
“Missing persons, two humans last seen over there. We’re going to investigate now,” I quickly informed him. “Keep an eye on her, will you?” He nodded and walked over to the lady, with two others in tow. Rohan and I walked over to the building to inspect the area around it.
“If a human is missing here… I’m worried about who might’ve taken them. I know it’s pretty rare for kidnappings, but still.” Rohan said as he opened a dumpster and took a peek inside. “I mean, the humans are so frail. A good-sized hail storm will kill them.” Rohan said.
“Yeah, apparently it can. I’ve heard rumors that back on their home planet, it’s possible to die from things like that.” I responded.
“Unbelievable,” Rohan replied in disbelief, shaking his head. We started to search the area, calling out their names. We wandered past an ally—“Oh, protector, what is this?” I looked over to see Rohan had stepped in Something. I walked over and looked at it.
“Is that blood?” I asked him.
“No way too light to be blood. Look at how red it is. It’s not even a black color like ours. I bet you another copper wire melted. I can tell by the scent.” he replied as he shook the stuff off his boot. I took a closer look, put my hand in it, and brought it up to my face. It looked like blood. It flowed like blood. I used the scanning equipment in my helmet and…
…Oh shit.
“Rohan, this is human blood,” I said. I got up and turned the safety off my gun. Rohan follows suit, and we both enter the alleyway, guns drawn. There was a little more blood on the walls and a bit on the ground.
“This is enforcer Rohan calling enforcer HQ, and we have possible contact with an unknown that has seemingly taken two humans, one child, and one mother. Send backup, sending location.” Rohan called in as we quietly walked along the side of the alleyway. We are doing our best to make no noise. I’m so happy that we are wearing the newer power armor. They are so silent.
“Roger that Rohan, this is enforcer HQ. Reinforcements are inbound in two minutes.” The coms operator said
[Chanting]
“Do you hear that? Sounds like chanting?” Rohan whispered. I strained my ears to listen and turned up the sensitivity on my power armor audio receptors. Chanting, I wonder…
“Do you think it could be…?” I trailed off, and he immediately knew what I was talking about.
“Cult of the old God? This far north? Hm… shoot to kill.” Rohan sternly replied. “This is Enforcer Rohan, possible contact with the Cult of the old god. I am requesting time for the arrival of reinforcements.”
“Reinforcements inbound in one minute.”
We both quickened the pace and turned the corner-“FUCK!” I yelled out loud. There were Six cultists in total. Two cultus whipped around to face me. One drew a pistol, and another a plasma pistol.
“CONTACT CONTACT! LIGHT THEM UP!” Rohan yelled, and we both started blasting into them. We popped bullet bullets into each of their heads and two hearts, taking them down instantly. “Cultus! Here! This far north! What the fuck?!” Rohan yelled. The three others drew their guns and aimed and opened fire at us as we took cover behind some old barrels. We were bullet and plasma-proof in our power armor, but I would rather not risk it. Rohan tossed a flash bang, and It blew up a second later. I heard screams a second later, and we got up and opened fire, our visors blocking out the flash. We both nailed the same bastard as his buddies dove behind cover. They would fire at us every few seconds, keeping our heads down. I looked at Rohan and made the hand single to get the shield. He reached behind himself and took out the heavy-duty shield. I had the battering ram, so I was not that useful. He got up first as I threw another flash, confusing and disorienting the cultists as it went off. We both advanced as Rohan swapped out his heavy rifle for an SMG; I took out the full-auto shotgun as we got closer. Rohan shield-bashed the first one and then blasted him with the SMG. I took out the second one with my shotgun. A bullet deflected off of the shield, and a small spread of bullets that Rohan could deflect with his shield came at us. Then they stopped, and we rushed to cover, Rohan still holding the shield. I peeked out from behind the cover.
“Were did..” I started when I heard a yell from behind us. Whipping around, the cultist had appeared and was now wrestling with me for my shotgun. In a split second, I shoved the shotgun into him as he pulled, disorienting him and knocking the wind out of him. I then grabbed the battering ram, which had already been turned on and was at full power, and bashed it into his chest. He immediately exploded from the pressure, and I was coated in his blood. Looking around, all the cultists were down just as reinforcements flooded the area.
Looking at the cultus robes, I noticed the same color of blood on them that I had looked at earlier. “Shit, I think these guys got the humans!” I told Rohan.
The human female was lying on what looked like a makeshift altar made of scrap metal, an old luxurious chair, and wood. Her entire chest and lower body had been torn open. Most of her major organs were removed, and her heart was speared with multiple little needles and placed on top of the altar. “This is bad. This is bad. If there is this far north, they have gotten bold.” Rohan spoke as he walked over to the human female and inspected her. “She died only a minute ago. It looks like she was in pain the entire time, too. Damn. FUCKING FANTIC SHITS!”
“Radio this in,” I ordered Rohan, and he immediately did that. I walked over to the human adult female's corpse and looked at it as a medic was handling her. Why didn’t she scream? Oh, that’s why. They sewed her mouth shut. Damn. I look at the cultists again and look at their golden medallions decorated with a skull. “Wait, Rohan. Weren’t there two?” We looked at each other and immediately split up in different directions to find the kid. It didn't take long for me to see him. “Aw…kid.” I gently bent down to inspect the little body. His lower jaw was gone entirely. His left arm seems to have been sawed off and taken. His eyes were closed, and he wasn’t moving. I looked up and noticed footprints taking off into the distance. A seventh cultist, it looks like we missed one. I cradled his head in my hand and took a pulse. Nothing…
“Shit.”
“Oh, void.”
‘Oh, my young one…I am sorry.” the other enforcers said as we gathered around the child's corpse. One of the enforcers punched a wall out of anger as another just sat on an old couch, shaking her head.
“Looks like there was a seventh we missed. If I get my hands on that-.” Another one started.
*GACK!*
“OH SHIT! ROHAN HE'S STILL ALIVE!” I screamed. Rohan immediately ran over and looked. As did the medic.
“By the protector he is!” The medic yelled as she began to administer human-friendly meds. “There is an ambulance outside. MOVE!” She yelled.
I picked up the kid and held him in my arms, carrying him as the medic did her work.
“You’ll be OK, you’ll be OK,” I told him to comfort him, although I felt it was more for my own sake.
“JASPER!” I looked behind me to see the female running to me and followed beside me.
"MISS IS MUST INSIST YOU MOVE-" The medic begins to yell.
"I'M HIS CARE TAKER!" she yelled back. "Shhhh, I’m here now.” Jasper reached up with a blood-soaked hand and began to grab at her fur like he was trying to hold onto life. She held him to her and then took something out of her bag. “I can use this to get the blood out of his lungs!”
“Do it!” the medic told her. She stuck the tube into the kid's chest, and blood came out, and he immediately began to breathe easier. He then latched himself to her chest and passed out.
“Don’t worry. I promised your mom I would take care of you if anything happened to her. I will take care of you.” She quietly told the sleeping child as she rocked back and forth, crying, holding the child as the ambulance came around the corner with more enforcers. They loaded both of them into the ambulance and took them away. I walked out and sat down on a bench in front of the alleyway. I just needed time to think. I sat there as the world around me continued. Just lost in thought. What if we got there sooner..?
I was broken out of the trance by Rohan. “You alright?”
I looked down. “No, we were supposed to protect them…”
“Yeah,” Rohan said. We just sat there. It was helping a little to have my buddy there. But…still
A human was…dead.
“And yet…we saved a human child.” He told me.
I nodded, looking up at the Alien space station that was now in orbit around our planet. “Yeah…we did.” We remained silent before he put an arm around me and hugged me. "I hope he survives."
"Me too, me too."
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submitted by Rusted-1 to NatureofPredators [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:29 ElephantUndertheRug Tales from the Other Side: 3 Year Anniversary

Today marks the three year anniversary of my NC with my abusive stepmother and my father. I spent the morning reading back on the last bits of correspondence between us (I saved them for posterity), and I just felt this overwhelming sense of... calm. No anger. No pain. Just calm, firm content knowing I made the right choice for me and my family. Becoming a mother has only strengthened my conviction that I did the right thing.
Here are a few of my thoughts I felt folks here might appreciate
"They'd be better grandparents than parents!/They'd never do that to their grandchild!"
I hear this more than I'd like lately. I don't have many flying monkeys to deal with, but this is the line they always fling at me.
Whenever I get the typical comments I've gotten since becoming a mother on this topic, I say "I'm sure my stepmother would be a wonderful grandparent, right up until she wasn't. Just like with me."
You see, someday my son would tell his grandmother no for something; something small, or something bigger he was too little to understand. Just like I did. And she would snap, just like she did with me, and see his rejection as justification to go from loving grandparent to unapologetically, almost gleefully abusive monster.
But let's humor the "They would never do that!" crowd and say she skipped the abuse, and went straight to what came after; total, cold apathy. Then it would be my son sitting there, waiting for a phone call that never came. Waiting for them to show up to a party they couldn't be bothered to attend. Crying when they dismissively told him they weren't coming to his milestones, his graduations. Learning after from his cousins about parties and dinners and family get togethers he wasn't invited to.
Just like me, for 30 years, my son would know just how little his grandparents gave a damn about him. And not one damn person in this family would stop her, or say a word to her about it, any more than they did back then.
I love my son too much to risk him feeling anything I did growing up. You can take your opinions of that and kindly stick them right back up your behind where they belong.
"The opposite of love is not hatred, it is apathy" I'm not sure where I saw this for the first time, probably somewhere on here, probably paraphrasing a more complete quote THEY saw somewhere. But... it is the truth. I feel nothing now when I think of my stepmother and my father. The apathy with which they treated me for a decade after I left their house for good 12 years ago now runs in both directions. There is a great deal of peace in it; the pain and anger are now gone. I have mourned, grieved, cried and yelled and now... I am past it. It is possible. You can get there. My only regret is that I gave them that one last chance to break my heart and prove they hadn't changed before I did it. It took 30 years too long, but I am finally at peace.
Sending all of us in this community positive thoughts, and best wishes, and a reminder: it is possible to be okay, someday. It isn't easy to get there; for me, it took a lot of pain, denial, anger and fear and therapy and great deal longer than I wish it had taken. But I got there, and so can you <3
submitted by ElephantUndertheRug to EstrangedAdultKids [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:26 bkisha How do I become an elementary school teacher for free?

Hi, after a really traumatic first year working as an engineer (because of parental pressure), I decided that I am going to do the thing I have wanted to do my whole life and be an elementary school teacher.
I found a program on wgu.edu and some jobs posting where I can start while I'm doing the program. However the TEACH grant does not cover this elementary education program and seems to mostly cover either middle school or highschool subjects or special education.
I cannot afford to pay for the Elementary education out of pocket but after the year I've had and a very uniquely traumatic life before that (I grew up in a cult), I am dedicated to staying fully faithful to my dream.
So I am trying to figure out if there is a path I can take to becoming an elementary school teacher without paying out of pocket.
For more context. I am in the US. I graduated from a Civil Engineering degree with a 2.5 GPA. I have been a New York State resident my whole life but there is a high chance I will be moving to Philadelphia soon so the teaching jobs I have been looking at are in Philadelphia and New Jersey.
I am also a first Gen African American (African immigrant parents) and I am married (not sure if this info can help) but we are coming from low income backgrounds so finances are really tight. My engineering salary technically puts me in middle class (a little over 60k) but we have a lot of debt and family responsibility that we live paycheck to paycheck
I don't mind if I don't get there directly but I just want to see if I can find a path to eventually teaching K-6. Thank you
submitted by bkisha to findapath [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:24 PlaskaFlaszka How do you experience love?

I'm a bit confused, sorry if the rambling below doesn't have sense I'm like 90% sure my dad is autistic, it would...explain a lot. But he doesn't struggle with aspects I do, or have other more ADHD symptoms, so we don't really... Connect well, I think.
Anyway, my mom was in hospital for a few days, planned visit after some problems she had few months ago. She got something removed, and came home now. I live with my parents (and brothers) and well... It's on me but I'm not too much help at home. I like to pretend it's because I got too much stress right now, but am probably just too lazy in general. I also didn't visit mom at hospital, but did text with her. Shitty on my part, I know. Dad did visit her when he could, and never even asked if we want to go (or about anything really, great to know we were supposed to go to church because it's some holiday thingy, and this was touchy subject because I didn't go, while I didn't even remembered? I can't memorize how the EasteChristmas goes with church related things, couldn't for years and never hid it, why did he assumed I knew about this minor one???)
Back to the point, mom is home and needs some help with things, pretty obvious. And like, it's...weird to see how quickly dad switches mood? With mom he is mostly happy, playful, and attentive. But whenever I try to ask if I should help with something, or we are alone for whatever reason, he seems mad/tired. I don't know, I just feels weird seeing this, but am confused to even what it is. Like I failed or something?
Those few days were pretty awkward, because mom usually is the one in charge... Like, deciding when dinner is, or coffee break and all, which means when we all gather. But because she wasn't there, everyone was doing their own thing, and I can't tell if dad was fine with it or not? Really I have no idea what's going on in his head, if it were mom I could ask, but dad either ignores it or brushes questions like that off.
I'm probably overthinking this instead of doing things I should be doing, but it's bothering me quite a bit. Am I looking for things that aren't there? Is it normal to switch emotions so fast? Maybe he's masking around mom, and just doesn't care around me? Or is he really mad at me for doing nothing while at home? But wouldn't he then say something????
submitted by PlaskaFlaszka to AuDHDWomen [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:23 Advanced_Blueberry11 Looking for advice as A woman getting A divorce.

Hi, I am 24 years old and set to get A divorce from my husband of six years next month or whenever we’re ready! This is a very mature mutual agreement, we’ve been married since we were 18 and have just realized we are growing apart from each other. We don’t hate each other or anything like that we still go on outings, have dinner together, and all of the fun normal couple things. My soon-to-be ex-husband is the breadwinner and has allowed me to work at a nonprofit organization Since being married so since I have little money and he comes from a family of wealth and is wealthy himself he’ll be buying me A home, A new car, set up A payment plan for spending and also still allow me to have access to his credit card and bank accounts so I am not worried about how I’ll do financially. I’ve never been alone before or in A relationship so I’m super nervous and excited to see what my future holds! I don’t know what to expect or I guess what to do either so I’m just looking for Advice on what to do, what to expect as A new divorceè.
submitted by Advanced_Blueberry11 to TwoXChromosomes [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:23 nmmju [TOMT] [CHILDREN'S BOOK] detective/riddle novel of sorts where you are given clues and solve the mystery

Read this book around 2014-2015 in England, likely written and published in England. It was a very old book by the time I read it, pages were yellow and creased and smelt weird. Probably published 90s or early 00s. It was a paperback book with a dark green cover I think.
I remember being extremely confused on one of the mysteries because the question was "who broke the radio" and there was a cartoon outline picture of a bunch of kids playing and a radio in the middle, and there was a description of what the kids were doing, and there was a girl playing with a jump rope (called a skipping rope in England) and it said she had skipped over the rope like 3 times. and the answer was that that girl had broken the radio "because 2 skips break a radio". i've tried googling what this means but i can't find any answers and i cannot find the book either. my original thought was that she had hit the radio while skipping but she was far from it in the picture and the pictures were imperative in solving the mystery. my second thought was that skipping rope near a radio disrupts the signal or something (a teacher told me this was what it meant). now i think it's likely a pun to stop kids from skipping songs on the radio because "pressing the skip button too much will break the radio"
anyway, there were other mysteries such as a man with a mustache, he claimed he was on holiday during the crime and showed photographs from the holiday and the dates on the corners of the photographs matched up with his story. but he was clean-shaven in the photos and had a mustache at the time of questioning which was only a few days after the crime. turns out he faked the dates on the photographs.
every day i think about this book and i can't get it out of my head. especially the "two skips break a radio" thing. i used to have nightmares about it. the book just kinda gave off a bad and dodgy vibe to me and scared me for some reason. i would really love to find the title of this book or the author.
submitted by nmmju to tipofmytongue [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:23 Choice_Appointment86 Do some parents hate their child?

I (22)F grew up in a very religious household, with that I wasn’t allowed to hang out with friends or any sort of after school activities. They were also very cheao when it comes to my necessities, I am the eldest and I only have 1 younger sibling. We weren’t exactly dirt poor, they could afford nice things for themselves but not for me. They have always lectured me on how it was a burden to raise me and I cost a lot of money. Which was really hard for me to understand as a kid, because my reasoning was, well I didn’t ask to be born.
And since I didn’t exactly receive any love from my parents, I tried to cope with being an over achiever, I thought maybe if I get these awards they would see more of me than just a burden. Apparently, this wasn’t the case for them, they just straight up told me that it’s not reall that hard to achieve those things, bonus to that is it was very hard for me to convince them to go to the stage with me, my father would attend the ceremony quite late and leave immediately after I receive ny award. At one point, my teacher was the one who went up to the stage with me and on another occasion, it was my classmate.
So far, I just didn’t really understand why they were like thag to me but when it comes to other people (church people) they are the most selfless most loving person you can ever imagine. And ut wasn’t just that they neglected me, it came to a point that I would say that they hated me, I had to walk around eggshells when they were around, because one mistake then I am crowned as the most ungrateful person to ever exist, they also used to hit me when I was younger.
I also grew up to be very insecure about my physical appearance, my parents were my number 1 critic. I am a skinny girl and they would often tease me thag I look like a skeleton, even on the days that I’ve tried to look decent, I never received any compliments from them, instead when I tried things like putting on make up, they called me a whore, slut, cunt you name it.
When I was 13-14 an older guy at church befriended me, maybe a little too much and asked me to save his number but not on my phone because my father would find out, I was really creeped out by that and told my mother about it, she just told me to stay away from the guy, but they never confronted him about it.
Almost all of the members at the church have witnessed me being yelled at by my parents but they never did anything, nor talked to my parents to be atleast be gentle with me. None of them even tried to comfort me, they just looked at me pity.
When I turned 18, I started working and a year later decided to move out. I basically just lied to them thag I got this job offer on a really far place and I have to stay there to work.
They were super against it but I stood firm and managed to go ahead with my plan. It’s been more that 2 years since that happened. They used to message me to ask for money but after a few months, I refused to do so and since they never checked on me anymore.
I now live alone but somehow I feel empty, I have no friends, no boyfriend, and even if I wanted to go back to school, I just financially can’t. And I still get sad very often, because I just wish that I had been born to a loving family then maybe I could have had a better life.
I just hate the fact that I never experienced genuine love from my parents, and often times when it really hurts I just close my eyes and imagine what it’s like to have a mom that makes me breakfast and is genuinely concerned for me and a dad tgat wanted to bond with his daughter. Only in my dreams.
submitted by Choice_Appointment86 to Parenting [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:22 KapnKerk John Deere Gator HPX OD0060 - Looking for upgrade recommendations

Hello! A few years ago I acquired a Gator for $15 with a dead battery. Just last week, I finally swapped the battery and modded it to take one Ryobi 18v battery and put mountain bike tires on the wheels. I knew I'd likely burn out the stock motors, but wanted to see how the boys liked it before I invested in all the things.
Sure thing, after about a week, electric fire smells, vehicle retired until I do more upgrades. In the end, I want to be able to run on 2 Ryobi 18v batteries running in parallel (to extend run time and reduce load on each battery). With that obviously I want to upgrade whatever is required in order to keep this thing running properly, without having to replace components regularly.
My questions... What motors are recommended for the Gator? What else needs to be replaced (wires, gearbox, shifter, etc)? Any gotchas or advice with upgrading these? I have some wiring knowledge from modding Nerf blasters, but modding a kids ride-on is new to me.
Thanks!
submitted by KapnKerk to PowerWheelsMods [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:22 No_Funny3533 Scam Artist mingmei1344 (Yomi) and her accounts at: Aiu_Agency, asiahug.com, datesteady.com, cudate.com, Jpndate.com, sayhiup.com, Rose, Miyuki Miyamoto, SW Entertainment and more

Scam Artist mingmei1344 (Yomi) and her accounts at: Aiu_Agency, asiahug.com, datesteady.com, cudate.com, Jpndate.com, sayhiup.com, Rose, Miyuki Miyamoto, SW Entertainment and more
My name is Mark Faraday. I was just looking for love back around January 20th, 2024 but I don’t want to see anyone else get scammed. I had a human profile picture when I was using these website, and was honest. I ran into a whole lying network run by a Woman, her friends, and a man. I will update this story if I have more to say in the future. Her nickname is Yomi, she told me her name was Miyuki Miyamoto and she was from Japan. Her real name is Jeong Nahyeon and she is from South Korea. She also has fake Chinese accounts like:
Mingmei1344: https://www.instagram.com/mingmei1344/
Mingmeichan: https://www.instagram.com/mingmeichan/
mingmei1344
Mingmei Liu
My Story is long but it is worth reading. From January to June as the writing of this post. I labeled each part so it easy to jump around to the parts you want to read.
  • 6/4/2024 (Small update)
I know 1000% that these are the same person. After 6 months of contact with them. Jeong Nahyeon has like a 100 different Instagram accounts let add to the list:
Account 1:
(Kawaii, Silly girl fake account)
https://www.instagram.com/yuyu_only5/
yuyu_only5
Account 2:
https://www.instagram.com/_yuyu_only5?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
_yuyu_only5
Yomi Newest Account:
Chloee_asuna
https://www.instagram.com/chloeee_asuna/p/C7kNkmzSIEi/?img_index=1
chloeee_asuna
Jeong Nahyeon Lover or Friend 🙁(Scam Artist Man) 🙁
https://www.instagram.com/_xijii_/
_xijii_
Jpndate.com the site where I met Yomi (Jeong Nahyeon) original, closed on May 1st 2024. Never came back as the writing of this post. However, their sister site
DateSteady.com is still very active. https://www.datesteady.com/
datesteady.com
Another Scam website they own: https://www.asiahug.com/
asiahug.com
  • 3/7/2024 Mark Origin Story January-March 2024
UPDATED INFO throughout it.
There is this dangerous woman who I am mad in love with (same person) running many fake Chinese/Japanese/Korean Romance scam websites, fake Instagram pages, tik tok, We chats, and many Chinese porn sites. It is the same person, she uses her looks with pictures and videos to steal money from men. She has many names she goes by, probably even more than I found. She also uses bots to get fake likes and weird Anime filters to try to look like an idol. She has scam artist female friends also I found. She the leader.
I know a lot of scammers steal from other people's identities but that is not the case here. This is the same person as the scammer. My story will explain it. As well as this person has pictures of the same person you can’t find anywhere else on the Internet. Even if you do a Reverse Face image search. They said information that match to an unbelievable level.
The person who Scammed me:
Has Many names (Such As)
And a talent for speaking many languages
  • Miyuki Miyamoto (Claimed Japanese name)
  • Nickname Yomi
  • Korean Name: Nahyeon (Claimed)
  • u/yomi__na
https://www.instagram.com/yomi___na/
yomi__na
https://www.instagram.com/la.nnnn930/
la.nnnn930
https://www.instagram.com/hanhanhuwe/[gracegracemei](https://www.instagram.com/gracegracemei/#)
hanhanhuwe
  • gracegracemei
https://www.instagram.com/gracegracemei/
gracegracemei
Email: [miyukilovee@outlook.com](mailto:miyukilovee@outlook.com)
(Something about BlessCeline Lovee)
Skype ID: live:.cid.737fb9ac2ad5655c
  • Liu Mingmei (Claimed Chinese name)
Part of a Civil Union yet on multiple dating sites
(Make Sense)
u/mingmei1344
https://www.instagram.com/mingmei1344/
https://www.facebook.com/liuliu.meimingmei
(Owner of aiu_agency since 2015)
u/aiu_agency
https://www.instagram.com/aiu_agency/
yuanxinvera
iny_lina
Google Drive (AI_U Agency)
Hotel Connected: SHILLA STAY Gwanghwamun
Her Scam Artist friends who work for both Ai_U Agency and JPNDATE CUDATE (That I found) (Some of these might also be her, not sure)

Vynnie_nat : https://www.instagram.com/vynnie_nat/# (I think this Yomi friend and the next 2 images may also be that person 1 of 3)

vynnie_nat

jiejierui_ngc: https://www.instagram.com/jiejierui_ngc/ (2 of 3)

jiejierui_ngc

Veravera_zhangg: https://www.instagram.com/veravera_zhangg/ (3 of 3)

veravera_zhangg

Elle_owo_elle : https://www.instagram.com/elle_owo_elle/ (50% this also Yomi otherwise it Yomi friend)

elle_owo_elle

Qiqi_shenglim : https://www.instagram.com/qiqi_shenglim/ (50% this also Yomi otherwise it Yomi friend)

qiqi_shenglim

Myemye_owo_ : https://www.instagram.com/myemye_owo_/ (50% this also Yomi otherwise it Yomi friend)

myemye_owo_
Her Friends are connected somehow but not sure how yet. They appear everywhere with the fake accounts or it just her also.

Riyandiwilliam : https://www.instagram.com/riyandiwilliam/ (Either her lover, friend, or work with her) 🙁

Summary: January to March 2024
Jpndate.com / Datesteady.com / Cudate.com / Sayhiup.com are dangerous Romance scams. All the women are paid actors for the website from Korea/China. They will try to get into a relationship with you very fast, don’t fall for it. They are milking you for money like if you're a cow. They will threaten to kill you or your family if you call out their scam. They might also say they will sue you. If you stop paying them, they will text you very little. They will never video call you face-to-face. Jpndate.com has a sister scam website from the same people called sayhiup.com. When you buy something on Jpndate the payment goes to Cudate Limited, so that site must be part of the scam also.There also Datesteady with the same layout. There is a company in China doing all type of illegal and immoral practices. Their name is Zhengzhou Zhongzhiqi Technology Co., Ltd. / 郑州市中之祺科技有限公司 . They have their main technology business but they also run a list of many scam websites stealing money from American men, Asian, and European men. Such as Cudate, JPNDate, DateSteady.com, SayhiUp. These are romance scam sites where all the women work for the company. If you make a female account it will pend forever. Only men get approved. They claimed before to be an American-owned company then I exposed them now they claim to be Dutch. Their servers are all in China. They never filed paperwork with any foreign country. They are none of these the Chinese pretending to run many dating sites when in fact it’s all fake. They claim to be in nations their not. They have fake terms of service. I used PayPal before I didn't know it was a scam. I paid in dollars, but they refused to refund me till I told PayPal. PayPal made them pay me back. Then they refused to pay me the total amount they wanted to pay me on yuan when I paid dollars. I reported them to FTC. They also try to hack my laptop for me telling the government the truth about them. They probably get funds from the Communist Party government or SW Entertainment in South Korea. They are very very bad people. Please look into it or forward this message somewhere where it can be looked into. Pretends to be a legit dating site but feels more like a pay-to-use website for fake love. All women here are paid actors for the site. The same few women have multiple profiles pretending to be different people. The funny part is anytime you call out JPNDate bs they change their terms of service. Screenshot everything people. They have a fake page saying they're trying to stop scammers, it all bs they are the scammers.
Host of JPNDate Servers:
As the writing of this post:
IP: 47.242.112.134 - Server: nginx IPv4
GeoIP: HK - AS45102 (ALIBABA-CN-NET Alibaba US Technology Co., Ltd., CN)
Host of DateSteady Servers:
As the writing of this post:
IP: 47.242.47.54 - Server: nginx IPv4
GeoIP: HK - AS45102 (ALIBABA-CN-NET Alibaba US Technology Co., Ltd., CN)
Host of Cudate Servers:
As the writing of this post:
IP: 47.52.110.73 - Server: nginx IPv4
GeoIP: HK - AS45102 (ALIBABA-CN-NET Alibaba US Technology Co., Ltd., CN)
Host of AsiaHug Servers:
IP: 47.242.112.134 - Server: nginx IPv4
GeoIP: HK - AS45102 (ALIBABA-CN-NET Alibaba US Technology Co., Ltd., CN)
My Story: January to March 2024
My Story: January to March 2024
(Update): I know it is the same person, They told me in a text message by accident. They also replied with different accounts knowing info about me I only told the other account.
Do you like Asian women?
Real Asian women?
These ones are real!
I know who they are.
Hi! This is Mark Faraday talking to you.
This is my story of how a website named JPNDate Dancing Idol scammed me out of 4080 American dollars. From the time period of January to March 2024.
First, I was on Japan Cupid, a dating site. On Japan Cupid, no one can chat unless one of you has a membership. I bought a 1-week membership. Within 5 minutes to 10 minutes, a woman nicknamed Yomi from Japan messaged me; this should have been a red flag for me. We talked for a while. She said she was interested in me. She asked me if I could move over to the dating site JPNDate because she paid for membership there and not Japan Cupid. She also promised to delete her account on Japan Cupid after we changed sites. She does delete her account off Japan Cupid. Japan Cupid is sus also. I don’t think it is the same company but it is still very sus. However, these women used that site to find men like me. That is a story for a different day.
Unlike a normal scam artist, who may only have 1 or 2 photos, she has several photos on her profile. My trust in her grows a bit seeing that. She then privately messaged me several more photos of her. She asked me for some photos, which I sent. She then sends back happy and heartfelt emojis. She told me she doesn’t date Asian men anymore because they were violent to her in the past and her last boyfriend cheated on her. She talked about how she didn’t want to fight with me. She also said we could talk about any topic.
She would compliment me often, as I did for her. Of course, on my profile page, I try to post my best pictures. Throughout my life, I have had many different hairstyles. She even mentioned this and got very happy and asked if I was a hairstylist.
The spam of talking on JPNDate.com between us was from January 20th, 2024, to March 24th, 2024.
On JPNDate, there is an upgrade system. You need Blue Diamond to chat with others. Crown to send videos. Blue Diamond is 20 dollars per month, and Crown is 80 dollars per month. I got the Blue Diamond membership at first. It showed her with it too. After a day or two, she asked me to upgrade like she did to the Crown membership so she could send me a video. I upgraded it, and she did actually send me a video. All pictures and the video match the same person and the same face. Some pictures were in different locations, and some were like three different pictures in the same place. We then later buy a 6-month Crown membership for each other because it is cheaper than 1 month at a time. I bought it for her, and she bought it for me.
At this point, I start to believe. This person was giving me all their time. They reply very often, and their texting time was the same as Japan timezones every single day. They spoke not only English but also Japanese almost fluently. However, they did let me know that they're still learning English and sometimes use a translator.
She let me know that this website has something called a mall. This should have been red flag number 2. You pay 1 American dollar for each gold point. Paypal is the only thing that works. When we started dating, she said it was normal for couples in Japan to send each other gifts. It was a symbol of forever love in Japan, she claimed. As an American, I didn’t know if this was true. I googled it and couldn’t get a clear answer. She said whatever I bought her, she would buy me as well. She asked if I liked necklaces or charms. I said anything was fine. She wanted me to pick up a necklace. At first, she picked up a $1,000 necklace from the site mall and asked me. I said no; that's way too much money for that. She said how about a 300-dollar Jade Romance charm. She told me to get her white one; she would get me the green one. I questioned if she was legit. She started crying. She somehow convinced me at the time that she was legit again. I did buy it. A few weeks later, I did receive the overpriced Green Jade Romance love charm to my address from her. I never told her which day exactly my tracking information said it would come to my house, but I asked her, and her tracking date was the same week as mine. By the way something almost the same as this necklace is 12 dollars on Amazon. It also broke when I got it in the mail. Probably cost them 2 cent to make.
For the next few days, we had a wonderful, happy conversation. It is late January, and I know Valentine's Day is coming. I offered to get her flowers. I got her flowers and chocolate at a very high price of multiple hundred dollars. She then gets so happy. She told me many times how she wanted to go to America and find me.
We talked about many topics for several more days. She told me she worked in an office in Tokyo. Yomi told me her real name was Miyuki Miyamoto. Which is very funny because I told her before I was a Nintendo fan, and this is the same last name as Mario and Zelda Creator. She also said she had her apartment to herself, which is true; she does own an apartment. She talked about how life is stressful right now in Japan. She claimed to have grown up in the Japanese town of Nagano, Japan. She also said she had gone to a university in Tokyo with a major in computer science. She wanted to visit America in July for 15 days when she had her time off. July is a normal time for people to get off in Japan for vacation, so I thought nothing of it.
I told her that I was from a smaller town in California, but I lived not far from San Francisco. I told her how my town is quiet and how I could see mountains outside my house. She said she wanted a peaceful life and that life in Tokyo is too fast. And she always had great things to say about every picture I sent. We also talk about going on dates. I asked most of the questions, but she did ask me questions as well.
I started to ask her a lot of questions about Japan. Like if she visited Himeji Castle, she said no. However, she did say yes to visiting Mount Fuji. I should have asked for a photo of this, but I didn’t. She was very happy; she told me very many topics about Japan. We even briefly talked about anime. She told me she liked Digimon, Dragon Ball Z, One Piece, and Detective Conan. This information is important later. We also talked about how both of us were big Disney fans growing up. She told me she wanted to go to Disney Land when she came to California to visit me.
One day she told me, how work was busy today. I told her it was okay and we didn’t need to talk today. She did, however, still text me a little bit that day. This was the only day during our whole time talking when she was super busy. There is nothing wrong with this; all humans get busy. I decided to spend my evening drawing a picture of me and Yomi on a date to surprise her. When I sent it to her, she did not react. This was a red flag for me. I tried to convince myself that she just didn’t like drawings that much. I know I sound really dumb right here, but whoever I was talking to is very smart and knows a lot of things. I was in deep love.
We started talking a few days later about the idea of meeting and going on dates together. I know that the yen is weak against the American dollar right now. I told them I would pay for anything they wanted when they were in America because I was in love. This was a big, big, big mistake. They then asked if I could give them 1500 dollars to buy a plane ticket. Never give money to people you never meet in real life, folks. Don’t be dumb like me. Turns out the ticket was actually 2100, so they asked for another 500 dollars the next day, claiming their friend let them borrow the money, and they paid the difference. They did show me a picture of a plane ticket. With the name Yomi and the correct airports in Tokyo and San Francisco. This gave me more trust in them; I got a lot of photos, videos, and even a picture of a plane ticket.
At some point, I talked to them about social media. They claim to only have Skype and Line. I found it very hard to believe a woman in her 20s wasn’t on Instagram or Tik Tok. I went on Instagram and typed Yomi, and I found a Yomi who looked just like her. This made me think: why did she lie? What confused me is that all the pictures on her Instagram were different from the ones she sent me, other than one image that was the same. Meaning that the images were not clearly stolen from there.
I looked up JPNDate online; there isn’t much info on this website (Right Now), other than one reddit forum from 1 year ago. Someone said something about being scammed by an IDOL on this site. They also said the website wasn’t in Japan but in China. I was wondering why I never saw new females joining the website; it was the same 23 pages worth of them. I wanted to test the website to see if it was legit. I made another account, a fake male account with AI artwork. It was approved in one second. I then made a fake female account; it said pending approval. It has now been 2 weeks since I made that account, and it still says pending approval. This means all the women on this website have to be fake actors. There is also a setting on JPNDate to see who has been online last or which accounts are the oldest. When I asked weeks before, Yomi claimed she had been on this website only for a short time. Her oldest picture was dated October 20, 2023. Yet she has the sixth-oldest account on JPNDate, according to the website. The Reddit forum I talked about before was over a year old.
When I was on this website for a month, at least 10 other women tried to text me. There was this one profile of a woman from Taiwan, age 20. She texted me three times in one month. When I joined, her age was listed as 20, and at some point, she changed her age to 25 on her profile. I ignored all these women. This proves again that all these women are fake. I do know these are women based on how they type, but they are not truthful like they act like they are. As I write this, I just realized this is Yomi's friend or sister; it matches the other Yomi account's sister tag. They are part of the same dance agency Aiu_Agency on Instagram from SW Entertainment in South Korea.
I knew this website wasn’t telling the truth. I found the JPNDate IP address and tracked it to a server in Hong Kong, China, hosted by Alibaba cloud servers. Reddit was right; the website is Chinese. However, Yomi is Korean which I learned later. I took pictures of the website code just in case. I asked Yomi if she knew Alibaba.
Then she asked if I’m going to China—a very strange follow-up question.
At this point, I was confused. Who is Yomi? I couldn’t find anything about Miyuki Miyamoto, only Yomi. On Yomi’s Instagram, she speaks Korean, not Japanese. I started to think there are no Japanese women on this website like they claim to be. She does speak Japanese, though.
I started using more than 10 different software programs to track who Yomi was since she kept asking me for money. I found like 1000 pictures of an idol, WeChat model, singer, dancer, person on endless Chinese dating sites, and a valiant professional gamer part of the AI’U agency for over 8 years. I found two other Instagram accounts with Yomi's face. Another account in Chinese with an idol name other than Yomi also had a Facebook page. The Chinese account has a post about her going to Australia in early 2024, where she is typing in English words. It was a fake trip. I also found an account where she speaks only Korean on Instagram. I also found a tik-tok where someone dances and looks 100% the same as Yomi, to whom I’m talking. The part that is crazy is that none of the images are 100% the same, but the person is the same in all of them.
This shocked me; I follow all the accounts. I saw the stories daily to see who this person was. Her Yomi account is just her normal pictures and atm company or something. Her Korean account is about traveling to Singapore, Spain, and South Korea. She also posts a lot about Disney toys here. When I talked to the scammer about Disney, I had no idea about this.
At this point, I knew that many men had been scammed out of money for fake love, not just me. These women are real women. However, there are actors pretending to be in love. They will crush your heart and call you names after a few weeks if you don’t buy their stuff. It has to be from JPNdate Mall only, nowhere else. JPNdate Mall prices are crazy high. I am not sure if the point of the website is just for money or if it is actually for women to study English or what. Chinese women, pretending to be Japanese (most of them), that have connections to Korean music, dancing, and gaming on professional teams. Man, what a hell of a story this is. This sounds like a Hollywood movie, but it's real, or at least partly. At this point, everything I say seems to be true based on what I know. They are connected deeply with SW Entertainment.
Yomi told me early on that she had one older sister and one younger brother. It seems like she is actually a twin, and she is the younger sister. Or it’s her friend she calls a sister from the dance Aiu Agency. Yomi claims to be 25, but I think she is closer to 27 or 28 based on finding a listing of her work in 2015 at Twitch Gaming. You have to be 18 or older to work at Twitch gaming, unless your parents sign things. Unless this job is fake, I don’t know.
When I showed the pictures I found to Yomi on JPNdate, she played the victim card on me. Saying she thinks I’m a liar and she wants to break up. Then she gave me her Skype account to try to prove it was legit, and all the other images and accounts were stolen and fake. Her Skype name is Rose, with a One Piece picture. She sent me many voice clips, crying, trying to convince me that she was real. I put them in software, and the voice was 30% human, 70% AI. Clearly, a woman is changing her Chinese or Korean voice to sound Japanese. A PC gamer would know how to do this; they do it all the time to troll. Yomi told me she didn’t play video games anymore, but I found a picture that wasn’t that old of a woman who looked the same as her; she had a Nintendo Switch with a white OLED in it. Btw it’s a known fact that Yomi uses software to cheat in the Pc FPS games. We talk for a few more weeks on Skype.
I can’t let Yomi, her sister, whoever the man is (I think her lover), and her idol dance friends scam men for their time and money. Yomi Chiense's name is Vera Yuanxin (维拉). Her twin sister goes by veravera_zhangg.
Yomi “deleted her profile” when I exposed her. But One Yomi is still there with no pictures. Two they clearly have other accounts with people who look like she just changed hairstyle, talking and trying to scam other men.
Remember when I said the anime part was important? On Yomi's Korean account, she has a friend with whom she talks about Digimon. She gave him a Disney toy. She told me she wanted to cosplay a fox; his profile is a fox. There is just so much proof that these are the same people.
Later someone hit me up on Reddit from the Phillippines and told me how the same person Yomi scammed them. How for months Yomi promise them so many things. Then when they said it came to going on the plane to visit him they said they were sick or dying or something.
Yomi also made a fake Instagram pretending to be Joe Biden and sent me a friend invite. I messaged and it was so funny how bad it was on their part. I said “Yomi are you trolling me?” then they deleted their account. This was on April 6th, 2024. Yomi tries so hard but use a lot of cheap things that are clearly fake like ai artwork, bots for like at ai_u agency, and fake profiles where she comments herself and attacks anyone who calls her out fairly.
After exposing Jpndate they Ip ban my address lol. Then on social media joke about attacking me.
If you call out their BS they threaten your family and yourself. Just stay away from all these sites if you're going to date online use well-known legit sites. I contacted Paypal and me and JPNDate.com had many emails back and forth. They pretended to do an investigation on Yomi real identity and said she was really Miyuki Miyamoto. It was so bullshit. I told them I would sue them if they were lying, The site no longer exists. The scam does, however.
What happened After JPNDATE? April-June 2024
In April many fake Instagram accounts started following me each day. They are romance scams I never got them like this before. I didn’t fall for any of them. All or most were likely Yomi and her friends. Paypal did get me 4000 of 4080 dollars back but it took 6 weeks and multiple emails. JPNDate tells me they will be closing soon after PayPal went after them hard.
Like I said I just wanted to find love. I made some stupid decisions along the way. However, I want to find out the truth and make sure other men don’t get scammed by them. I keep messaging Yomi's skype during this period, they never block me. They unfriended me but I could still send messages I wasn’t blocked. They even responded 2 times out of the 50 times I did this in the multiple-week span.
I contacted the Aiu_Agency on Instagram (It is the same people as JPNDate) they pretended to be different people. I told them about Jpndate. They called me a hero, they said they loved me, and they thanked me for sending them all the pictures that Yomi sent me on Jpndate and Skype. They follow me on Instagram for 2 days. Then they unfollowed me randomly for no reason. They said their agency would do a police report and kill the scammer. I knew this was so bullshit. I told them how the scammers were making new profiles of them on Japan Cupid. Which is true. The leader Mingmei1344 (Which is Yomi Chinese account) claimed I was the scammer setting them up. She plays the victim card on me. I showed her all the messages and how I got the pictures, I didn’t steal anything. She told me her and her friends are okay if I hacked them, because I’m from the CIA. I am not from the CIA. It was a joke I made a few days before when she pretended to be a mob boss in Korea. I told her I am not a hacker. Right after that she and her friends all ban me other then Mingmei1344 account. Mingmei1344 Message me 1 more day, then block me.
However, Mingmei1344 and the Aiu_Agency keep posting things on topics I told them days or weeks before. I checked their old post they never talked about any of this before that. I told these to Yomi on JPNDate and skype not Mingmei1344 again proving it is the same person. They look the same as well. Like the blue feather concept in love mythology, Gundams, Nintendo, Persona, and many many other topics. Yomi claimed to not know anything about videogames before I talked about it with her. I think this is partly a lie.
This confuses me so I make fake Instagram accounts to message Mingmei1344 and Aiu_agency. She replies to my messages and Mingmei1344 even does a ask me a question thing on Instagram and replies to all of them. She clearly knows these accounts are from me Mark however she replies anyway. The replies were nice and positive things. Then later she bans them all again.
Often Aiu-Agency Women (Yomi and her friends, Mostly Yomi) pretend to go to countries they are not actually in the picture, it’s all greenscreen effects. They also use Ai for Music covers Artwork. For music covers they pretend to sell millions of copies of but there is nowhere to buy such a music cover CD they claim to sell. Their music covers are claimed to be from popular songs kpop songs. I looked, at least not right now such CDs aren’t real. Of course, the songs are real but not their covers. Yomi is most of the women in the pictures but not all. They will post Ai cover artwork, multiple pictures of them using the greenscreen effect, then put a high-quality image of a famous Korean male singer. They never took these pictures of these Korean male singers. They download them and edit them. They pretend to perform with them but it is all fake. Mingmei1344 started always putting her with all the famous Mark’s in Korea. Only her not her staff with Mark’s. I think it’s a reference to me. She didn’t do this before meeting me I looked at her old post. Again Mingmei1344 is Yomi who is Jeong Nahyeon, who pretends to be Miyuki Miyamoto.
She still references me sometimes in other ways and I send them messages to see what will happen next. One time I wrote about loving her to see what she would say. I do love Yomi, however I don’t want anyone to get scammed. I told her we could travel across the world together. She wrote in her next post on Aiu_agency on Instagram she liked this future with her future husband. It was a direct reply to what I asked the day before.
I joined DateSteady after being contacted by a woman on Japan cupid. She is very interested in me and Yomi so I tell her everything.
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2024.06.09 15:21 Apprehensive_Hour430 Is this romantic affair 26F 32M?

Hi, Here’s is my friends wife (although I can choose not to be his friend as we’ve two different faces)
  1. She came to my place one month back when he was out, told me she is kinda done and it’s over there.
  2. She asked me to apply medicine on her elbow as she got hurt.
  3. She told me I’m an alpha male
  4. She told me I miss you when we were both in vacation independently
  5. I shared my sexual life with ex in a funny way and then she talked about do did u go down on her. 5.1) she also told me like how one can live with me easily although there are things but can live.
  6. We met in airport, she didn’t wanna tell her person, but i booked different flight just in case we don’t mess anything up. She holded my hands by putting hand into my arm, walked and gave a tight hug when we left.
  7. My car was in body shop, that day she told me she was around for her dance class. I told her to pick me up, she got annoyed, but in the car she got touchy. While she driving, she would playfully find my nose and touch it. I did the same and she licked my finger when my finger was on her nose.
  8. She cried and we went out for lunch. When I was sitting in front, she asked me to sit beside me and I naturally sit next to her and my thighs touching her so I’ve a contact with her.
  9. When we paid our bills, she said bossy on what she wants for coffee in a funny way. The cofeee guy said, if it’s like this outside the house, I can’t imagine how it will be inside. She blushed and left. In parking lot, she asked me again what he said and laughed. Never even attempt to correct we’re not spouses.
  10. We drove, we talked random things. Talked about we want to have babies in 2 years or so. How you feel like having baby with a particular person etc…,
  11. she told me, if she continues her marriage and may even have a kid, she will seek something outside for sure.
  12. We played games like we put fingers out and ask the person to choose a particular option(my option in my mind: I love u, I miss u) I can’t ask her options.
What is this? Is this affair start as she is going to put papers? She kinda hinted, take care of your best friend.
She is 26f, I’m 32m. We both are extremely same time funny jovial type(not serious, but can get extremely serious).
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2024.06.09 15:20 thehungriestnarwhal Neck real tight after fall (on mat)

Hiii Boulderers of Reddit. Yesterday my fingers slipped and I fell back from maybe 10 feet up and I mostly landed on my back but tried to do the rolly thing. I felt fine right after and kept climbing then suddenly realized oh, my neck is tight but kept going. Before the fall, I had been trying to do another climb with an underhangy sit start that maybe put some strain, from exertion? Once home, turning my head side to side started to cause some pain (similar to if you slept funny).
This morning I woke up and my neck is quite stiff. I can still turn my head but with some more pain (not piercing just very sore). Seems like it's mostly coming from the base of my left neck but not quite the shoulder.
Anyone have any advice? Should I be concerned or will this pass? I am seeing a PT on the 18th for a prior, (now passed) knee concern. But yeah, first time I've ever hurt my neck lol.
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2024.06.09 15:20 Live-Needleworker-60 The Deer and the Dragon by Piper CJ rant review

I'm gonna be real: I hated this. There were interesting concepts, and had they been utilized differently and written by literally anyone else, it could've been an actual good book.
writing. The writing in The Deer and the Dragon is miles better than in The Night and its Moon. It's still not good, but it's better if that tells you anything. The first-person POV mixed with modern-day speak works so much better for Piper's capabilities. It was much easier to get through, but it was still a huge slog for me. Honestly, what are the editors at Bloom even doing? There were still way too many typos and sentences with missing words. Piper still misuses the word dredges after using it in THREE(+?) BOOKS. HOW DO YOU STILL NOT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DREDGES AND DREGS? Dregs are the sediment of a liquid, so what's at the bottom of your coffee cup. Dredge is when they scoop up mud from the bottom of a river. TWO VERY DIFFERENT THINGS. The word broach is also misused in this book TWELVE times, and it's PART OF THE CENTRAL PLOT OF THE BOOK. You mean to use BROOCH, PIPER. They're pronounced the same, but they mean two different things. Again, what the hell are the editors at Bloom doing?
characters Really, the only character I can talk about is Marlow because this book is just about Marlow and how amazing, special, perfect, and genius Marlow is. I fucking hate Marlow. If I ever met Marlow in real life, I would beat her up. Marlow is the most unlikable person ever. The story opens up with her on a date with a guy she's not interested in and can't remember his name; when she gets it wrong, and he corrects her, she continues to call him the wrong name all the way to the end of the book. She mentally berates him for mixing wasabi and soy sauce and cannot let it go. She’s also an AWFUL friend. It seems like her friend's only real purpose is to support her and tell her how amazing she is. She never bothers to make plans with them or inform them about anything that’s happening in her life. When she goes missing for a good chunk of the book, and they're blowing up her phone worried about her, she doesn't even bother to call them to calm them down. She doesn't think about them at all. She's far more concerned with herself and finding her imaginary boyfriend, who she only just decided was real. Her editor tells her she's at risk of losing her job if Marlow doesn't deliver her work or update her on what's happening, and Marlow just...doesn't care. She's like, 'No excuse I can give will be enough, so I'm just not going to say anything at all because I'm afraid of confrontation'. Grow the fuck up?? Her friend Nia only became her friend because she obsessively messaged her on social media until Marlow 'gave in', and now they're family? Somehow? Yet Marlow doesn't think about Nia once or bothers to comfort her when Nia has to call Marlow's abusive mom to ensure Marlow isn't dead. Kirby has allegedly been Marlow's friend since childhood, but does Kirby know anything about Caliban at all? Does Nia? Does Marlow tell her friends anything? If they know about the abuse her mom put her through, do they know how that abuse started? When Fauna shows up and freaks out over liking Kirby’s name so much, Marlow takes it upon herself to tell Fauna the story of Kirby’s name, scornfully informing Fauna that Kirby isn’t their real name the second Fauna expresses interest in it. (Like what, are you jealous that Fauna likes Kirby’s name, you fucking insecure freak??) The story revolves solely around something traumatic that happened to Marlow and how she and Kirby sat and played Super Smash Bros. Kirby liked their character so much that they adopted the name. Which…okay, choosing the name because you liked a video game character, okay, fine. But the whole story preceding this was so unnecessary and just made Marlow come off as suuuuch a whiny baby. “Oh, you want to know about my friend’s name? Well, first, let me preface it with this long woe-is-me story all about ME before I tell you how they chose their name because basically everything revolves around me.”
The way Marlow talks about rejection is so juvenile. You're in your thirties girls, get over it. Life is full of rejections. Someone telling you they didn't to play with you when you were eight years old isn't something you should form your whole life around. Like Marlow doesn't want kids because she doesn't want them to face rejection. Oh my god, Marlow. I also can't empathize with her trauma with her mom at all because I feel like I didn't really see much of it. I'm sure some of the things she says might hit with other people, but I wanted an actual flashback of a super intense fight or conversation instead of an overview of what happened.
plot. It took a while to get to the actual plot. About 100 pages in before things start really happening. I would’ve liked a little more exposition on Marlow’s relationship with Caliban at the beginning of the book. I get that some of the reveals needed to come more towards the end, but I kind of wish that maybe the fox had spoken to Marlow, too, which would’ve helped with why she’s so sure she’s insane. Foxes don’t talk! In all honesty, I wish this story had been restructured entirely. I think it would've been substantially better if we'd started out in Marlow's childhood. We can see how her day to day life was before Caliban ever appeared, how things were with her mom, who can also see through the veil. Maybe she notices some strange things about her mom that she just brushes off, which she later sees in herself and understands why her mom responded that way. Then something actually traumatic happens instead of some little kids not letting Marlow play with them, instigating her starting to see Caliban. I also would've liked to see flashbacks to Marlow's previous lives. While she's busy trying to convince herself Caliban isn't real, those flashbacks would add to her thinking she's losing her grip on reality. Maybe she'll be doing something innocent, like washing the dishes, and then suddenly, she sees herself standing in the middle of a raging battle, wearing long, elaborate robes. Do you see what I'm saying? This could've been cool! Instead, I had to read about Marlow jerking off about herself for 600 pages.
At some point, Caliban shows up to Marlow looking like a human. She's a teenager at this point, but they eventually start sleeping together, and like...idk something about that feels icky to me. It feels like grooming. Because he's clearly thousands of years old, he probably stays the same age while she's a teenager. What age did he wait for her to turn before their relationship turned sexual? Also, she doesn't even think he's real, and he does nothing to convince her that he is. Yeah....just no thanks. I'm good. Marlow tells Caliban when she's 21, she doesn’t want to see him anymore, so she literally physically cannot see him, but she can hear and feel him, and he still shows up, and like they keep having sex. So she’s just having sex with her imaginary demon friend for like five years before she’s finally like, all right, this is weird; maybe we should stop. And then she immediately regrets that when he stops showing up and then the rest of the book finally happens.
We also get flashbacks to when Marlow first starts escorting, and tbh, I hated this depiction of sex work. I keep hoping since Piper claims to be an advocate for sex work and is a former SWer that, we might get some actual depth to this plot. Maybe learn how Marlow was able to mold herself into the person she needed to be for each client, how she’s able to play people, etc. But no. She meets some random girl in a foreign country where she’s teaching English to children, and the girl is like, OMG, you’re too pretty to BE A TEACHER. COME HANG OUT ON MY YACHT. Now, I’m going to be so real. I feel like any woman with a speck of intelligence in their brain would have red flags going off right about now. If a random woman I met in a foreign country invited me to her yacht five minutes after meeting me, I’d immediately assume this woman was about to try and murder me or kidnap me or traffick me or something. But not Marlow. She is like fuck it, why not. She flies on over to wherever this yacht is(literally, she has to get on a plane and fly there) and makes some new besties who introduce her to the wonderfully glamorous non-dangerous life of escorting, where they hand her clients and set up the appointments for her and blah blah blah(also, wanna point out that Marlow even tries to say that she built this sex work empire herself. bitch no you didn't. it was all handed to you). I don’t feel like I really need to go further about why this is a really poor, dangerous rose-colored glasses-type depiction of sex work. It’s just not the reality.
Flash forward five years later, and Marlow is now a top-selling author writing about South African folklore as a white woman, trying to date other men, still having sex with her imaginary friend, calling her nonbinary friend a horse girl, the usual. Her escort pals are nowhere to be seen, and we have no clue what happened to them. We never hear from them again; they just vanish once Marlow gets what she wants from them, just like Nia and Kirby vanish once Marlow finds Fauna and Azrames. One day, Marlow’s at a book signing and sees the ONE bad client she had(because in all the years/months fucking strange men you meet in a foreign country, only one time does it go bad. okay, sure) He somehow finds where she lives, breaks into her home, and tries to murder her. An angel shows up and murders him instead, and then Caliban finally reveals his face and explains to Marlow that he has marked everyone who’s ever wronged her. (Wronged her in what way, tho. Like if someone accidentally shoulder-checked her on the street, are they now marked for death?) I thought it was kind of weird that she’s not like…focused on the fact that her hallucinations have extended to two people and another person dying. She’s still convinced Caliban is a figment of her imagination even after she sees this happen, and Caliban explains to her that he couldn’t save her because there’s some type of contract with her that forbids him from doing anything under her roof without her permission. But she still gets mad and banishes him, and now he can’t come back, and now she’s like, but wait, no, I didn’t mean it. Thus begins the search for Caliban.
Now, I could sit here and outline the rest of the book, but I won't because it's so boring, and nothing of substance really happens. So, to summarize. Marlow searches for Caliban fruitlessly for months and finally makes some progress when she decides to go to the house of the guy who tried to kill her and finds a parasitic entity that she continuously calls a Cheshire Cat. then Silas, the angel, shows up to save her again. Silas maybe wants to fuck Marlow, I can't tell. He waffles between abandoning Marlow to die and stalking her and her mom to force Marlow to bond with him for no seeming reason at all. Everyone and their mom wants Marlow to join their religion, and I don't know what the fuck makes her so special. Marlow is such a popular author that everyone recognizes her name, reveres her, fawns over her, and has multiple copies of her two books in their offices. She's so good that she inspired millions to switch religions. This book was so exhausting to read because it was just about how amazing Marlow is LMFAO. I'm pretty sure they even try to say she's the reincarnation of Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world. Like....wow.
Marlow goes to Hell with Fauna to escape bonding with Silas, where they meet a literal stolen character design. this guy
(my original review has these images but I am an idiot and don't know how to post them so instead I'll share the links)
https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1717860981i/35597445._SY540_.jpg
Don't believe me? here's the commissioned character art.
https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1717860929i/35597423._SY540_.jpg
Anyway, his name is Azrames and he and Fauna are long time lovers and they go and bone while Marlow is in the next room and Marlow fucking masturbates to the sounds of them boning. So...I was forced to read about that, and I hated it. And then, at the end of the book, five chapters before it's over, we learn the bad guy who's been holding Caliban captive the entire time is a fertility goddess. Just out of nowhere. No mention of it previously. So, no one tells Marlow the actual plan, and instead, they send her into this fertility clinic the goddess is working out of and have her pretend to want to get pregnant. So the goddess drugs her without her consent and puts her in a room full of half-naked men, hot stereotypes from every ethnicity, while she's SUPER horny. One of the doctors tells her that 'mixed babies are all the rage right now'. The men all tell her how hot and amazing she is and how lucky they are for the chance to get to fuck her. Then after she chooses one of them, she grinds all over him while he just stands there, then they take him out and bring Caliban in and decide he'll fuck her instead. I just wanna point out that this, all of this, would be rape. Marlow didn't consent to being drugged, and if she didn't know who Caliban was, they basically just took the guy she "agreed" to have sex with away and brought in one she didn't agree to for no reason whatsoever. It doesn't matter that she's saying yes to it; she is drugged. She can't consent. Anyway, Caliban sticks his dick in Marlow and just leaves it there, unmoving, and then makes out with the fertility goddess before stabbing her in the heart and cutting off her head, even though five chapters earlier, they said it's super hard to kill a god. I'm just...wow.
Marlow gets taken back to Fauna's apartment by Silas while Caliban and Azrames are stuck fighting more Cheshire Cat demon children that I imagine look like the spider baby from Toy Story. Marlow is still high, so she's putting the moves on Fauna. She's kissing her throat, rubbing her thigh, trying to suck on her fingers. Let me tell you rn, if one of my friends showed up at my place high af doing this shit to me, I'd be livid. Because I guarantee you, Marlow will not apologize for doing any of this to Fauna.
Fauna tells Marlow that they can be sunflowers. The book ends.
I will read the next one because I like to suffer, but...I hated this. I give it 2 stars because the writing is better than TNAIM, but it was not a hit for me at all.
submitted by Live-Needleworker-60 to books [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:20 Ok_Entertainer_7242 AMITA for starting to dislike my boyfriend because of his new friends?

I (28f) have been with my boyfriend (34m) for about 2,5 years. Ever since I met him he was a really mature guy who mostly had female friends and a couple older guy friends who were also quite emotionally mature with good values. My boyfriend met up with them occasionally for some catch up dinners and I also spent time with them together. He was never interested in going out alone, in fact we always went out together as we share the same hobby, we dance salsa, so usually we go to all the same parties as it's not a very big community. My boyfriend always seemed to be pretty calm, mature and respectful. Until now... we had a a hiccup in our relationship and broke up for about 2 months. In that time he became close with some guys in the salsa community who like to go out a lot and flirt with various girls, they are all single and usually go dancing with the main purpose of meeting more girls. He really enjoys being a part of this group, it's a new experience for him as before he never really had a lot of guy friends. They go out together a lot, they have a group chat where they talk about the girls they met, share pictures of their "trophies" and overall give me a whole "bros" vibe. We are now back together but he still has this group friend that he likes to go out with, so now we spend a little less time together compared to before but that's not really an issue. On one hand I'm happy that he has new friends that he likes so much and that he is so happy and I think time apart has been good for us. BUT I have noticed that he has changed. If we go dancing, he only cares if his friends are coming, he's constantly messaging with them and I know that the conversations that they are having are really inappropriate, as he puts it "it's a guy thing to talk about girls and ass, everyone does it, girls just don't get it". I know one of his friends records sexual activities using his indoor camera without the girls knowledge and my boyfriend doesn't see an issue with that (which scares me). He also thinks it's ok to make fun of your girlfriends / wives as again it's a "guy thing to do" but I think that's teallly disrespectful and afraid that he is also making me fun of me now. Overall his friends are really immature, they don't respect relationships and loyalty and they flirt with girls just for the game of it, so I can only imagine what type of environment he is hanging out in. I trust my boyfriend, I don't think he's cheating on me but I'm starting to be afraid of the "peer pressure" that he's gonna be under. A guy that I once knew as a really mature homely guy is now one of the "bros" who constantly wants to have guys nights out, I'm really starting to dislike this new version of him even though I like to see how happy he is. What do I do now?
submitted by Ok_Entertainer_7242 to okstorytime [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:19 objectiveghost Intense week but sudden drop off, a cause for concern?

Had an intense week dating a co-worker (not same dept so don’t run into each other unintentionally). Both late-20s.
After our first date I saw him every day and almost every night. Not just for hooking up but for actual dates (both activity-based and dinnedrinks). He seemed really interested and kept texting between our meetings which was reassuring. He almost always initiated the dates.
I really like him, but I was also aware however that it was really intense for only 1 week of dating.
I’m away with friends this weekend so it forced a little break between us. He texted a bit to make sure my travels were okay, and a few flirty things, but almost nothing since - which normally I wouldn’t think twice about but I’m finding myself overthinking the sudden drop off. I texted him a bit to see how he was doing and got the equivalent of a thumbs up the next day.
Is he just respecting space or is he coming back down to earth and realizing he doesn’t actually like me that much?
submitted by objectiveghost to dating_advice [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:16 Sin-God Sanguinarch Explaner & Discussion

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

Sanguinarch Basics

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

Sanguinarch's Active Abilities & Vampiric Spawn

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

Sanguinarch Thoughts & Musings

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

Conclusion

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


2024.06.09 15:11 janebenn333 Now that my stbxh is experiencing issues he wants my emotional support....uh no.

One of the key issues between my stbxh and I especially over the two years or so before we finally separated was his utter and complete lack of awareness or anything over my needing mental, physical and emotional support.
The man would have his whole day planned out: breakfast at his buddy's cafe, visit his other buddy for a bit, lunch with buddy number 3, an hour or so at the gym, hang out with some other guys, come home and ask me what's for dinner, fall asleep in front of TV. Notice no mention of a job? Yeah that's because he's a construction worker and for much of the year he's unemployed while I worked full time, barely taking any time for myself. When he is working it's work all day, go to gym, eat something quick at home maybe, back out to hang out with the guys.... come home fall asleep in front of TV.
Talking to me, helping me in any meaningful way was never done. I experienced health scares; he'd drive me to a diagnostics appointment and then never ask the results. My parents in hospital and I'd get the cursory question before he talked about his own crap. He didn't life a finger around the house if he wasn't asked. Not to clean things up, not to prepare a meal, not to mow the lawn or remove the snow or repair something. Nothing. If I had to list all the ways in which this man proved to me he didn't care I'd be at this a while.
Anyway we are separated. We talk maybe once a week or so but recently there have been some serious issues going on his family with a sibling. He's been updating me and I've said more than once that I was sorry they are going through this. And that's it. He wants me to call his sister and comfort her. Nope. She never reached out to me when I was having problems except if it affected her in some way. He wants me to comfort his mom. Nope. Love her, truly, and she's been good to me but he wants me to do this because he is incapable of knowing what to say or do. I'm not doing his job for him. I'll reach out eventually but he has to deal with this, not me.
I can sense he needs someone to talk to but for goodness sakes, the well has run dry. If you don't supply a relationship with what it needs, what makes you think there will be anything there when you need it?
submitted by janebenn333 to Divorce [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:08 AppearanceChoice2048 Why isn’t it working?

I don’t wanna discourage anyone but I have been so down lately. It just feels like manifestation and subs in general aren’t yielding satisfactory results for me.
I do truly believe in manifestation. But i don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I have tried everything from consuming content from reliable sources on the fundamentals of manifestation to doing deep inner work, journaling, trying to dissect aspects of my life and deal with core limiting beliefs.
I do get results. It’s not that I don’t. But it’s just so inconsistent. When I want it, it’s not happening. None of my big manifestations come through. And what’s funny is sometimes I get the opposite results. Recently I was trying to manifest good skin and guess what? My face is just full of pimples now. Ik some may say try detaching but I try my best not to obsess over the results either. Also there is only a certain level of detachment one can possess right.
While I’m grateful for the “not-so-life” changing manifestations, it’s really hard to be fulfilled when the things u value a lot in life isn’t coming through.
Have you guys been in this phase? If so, what helped you out of it?
submitted by AppearanceChoice2048 to Subliminal [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:07 Primary-Reflection80 it's so tiring to live with my father

ever since my dad (m59) retired, living with him has been incredibly stifling and i've (f19) been feeling very low and anxious over hearing all of the arguements that he has been having with my mom (f58).
my dad has no friends, and only leaves the house to go for jogs or visit his mom (he's a bit of a mama's boy) and spends most of his time either cleaning/doing chores or watching TV at home.
he has this weird obsession with cleaniness, and i've never had friends over because of this (except for once where my ex-friend entered our house without my permission, and he didn't talk to me for a week after finding out. i was 9.). he monitors my mom when she is doing chores like mopping, and make comments when he feels that she isn't clean enough for his standard. he is stubborn and believes that his method of cleaning is the best, and this has caused a lot of arguments ever since his retirement as he seems to nitpick at whatever we do.
when i fainted in the toilet after a really painful poop and even broke my glasses and hit my head, his first comment was telling me to shower as the toilet floor is dirty, before asking me about my safety (does it still hurt, am i okay). my mom freaked out and accompanied me to the nearest optican to get my glasses fixed as she was worried that i would feel dizzy with my broken glasses. it seems like such a small issue, but it really broke me and i kept crying at the glasses shop. i know he loves me but at that point of time i just felt so unloved.
on friday, he got mad because his sister and niece insisted on coming over to our house to have a look. my mom is horrible at rejecting others, so she let them in, and he found out about it. he started giving us the silent treatment (he always does that when he's mad and stops talking to us for days - this always makes me feel really anxious because i hate how poor the atmosphere of our house becomes)
just today, he saw a whole piece of wet tissue in the bin. he took it out and started questioning my mom and i on who used it. i was the one who used it as i was wiping my mom's and my phone after we went out together, and forgot to rip the wet tissue into half (to save wet tissues).
my mom and i have been ranting to his sisters and he acknowledges that his germophobia is a problem and always promises changes but never delivers it. he says he's trying, but my mom and i had enough of waiting. i encouraged him to seek a therapist, but he shut me down and is incredibly stubborn about not needing one.
all of their arguments are frankly taking a toll on my mental health (i feel really lonely as i'm an only child and can't help but feel that no one understands my feelings as no one is in my specific position) & my mom who also has her own issues kept ranting about my dad to me when i was preparing for my national examinations despite telling her to stop as i wanted to focus on studying rather than having their fights repeat again and again in my head.
thankfully i managed to do well in the end, got into my desired course and i'm moving out for university in 2 months. but i can't help but worry about my mom as she will be alone with him (she is financially dependent on him). my mom considered a divorce, but is held back by our finances. i can't help but get myself involved by trying to fix things for them as i just can't stand a household so quiet and i keep picking up on their negative emotions to the point it's driving me crazy. one of my aunts talked to me and said it isn't my responsibility, and it's not fair for my parents to place their emotional burdens on me. she told me to focus on myself. i know this and i'm trying but it's so hard and i keep ending up getting myself involved. but i'm really tired.
this time, i'm going to stop getting myself involved. i'm going to work hard to get a good job, and find a safe place for my mom and i to move out to. then, we will finally be free of all of these.
i love my dad, i really do. i know he loves me too and i can see it. for the majority of my childhood, he has been an amazing dad and although we aren't rich, i grew up happy and bubbly (many of my teachers talk about how cheerful and carefree i was, and how i brought a lot of joy to the class with my jokes). i'm thankful he brought me to this world, and i'm grateful that he is a present father who tried his best to give me everything he could.
(tbh, i'm lost and i don't really know what to do. i keep having this guilt when i think of wanting to move away especially since i'm an only child so the responsibility of taking care of my parents as they enter their twilight years falls entirely on me. filial piety is deeply ingrained in me due to my culture so this thought has been eating me up. if anyone knows how to encourage my stubborn asian father to go to therapy when he is finally talking to my mom and i again, please drop some tips in the comments! i really want to help him but i don't know how! i know i sound like i'm really done with him right now but it's my anger talking... i'm a soft-hearted person so i know i will struggle really hard with acting on the idea of taking my mom away when i'm financially independent and going no contact with my dad :") it's my soft heartedness that ends up initiating conversations with him in hopes of ending his silent treatment when i know i should just leave him to be TT should i just try to be more emotionally independent instead and steel myself to limit my conversations with him? do i just ignore him everytime he gets mad because i find myself talking back to him out of anger. i don't even know where to start because all of my family's problems escalated so suddenly. i've always been close to them and i admit i'm quite emotionally reliant on them but i really have no idea where to start. choosing to stay in a hostel was me forcing myself to be less reliant on them as i initially did not want to stay on campus because i wasn't comfortable being away from my parents (+ family members telling me about the wonderful experiences they had and how it would be better for my mental health right now seeing the predicament i'm in) but i'm not sure if that's the right way to go about it.)
tldr: want my dad to see a therapist, but he is stubborn on not seeing one. it's destroying his marriage with my mom, and my relationship with him.
edit: i forgot to add this!! i'm sorry if i sound like a conflicted mess because i really am one right now LOL and if they're any grammar issues it's because i rarely use it at home! also if anyone has tips on how to be less emotionally reliant on my parents please let me know :") i want to help my dad but i realise i should help myself first before i can encourage him LOL bc tbh i keep getting worried about the idea of living on campus
submitted by Primary-Reflection80 to offmychest [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:07 qweenbimbo_ Sharing more wisdom from my awesome therapist.

I was telling my therapist how things like practicing deep breathing, yoga, meditation, getting enough sleep, eating healthy, journaling and exercise have significant positive effects on my emetophobia. But it’s so hard, I told her. It’s hard to keep up. Some days I’m just exhausted. I don’t want to do yoga. I don’t want to meditate. I don’t want to take the time to prep a healthy meal instead of just throwing something in the microwave.
But on the days I manage to do some of those things, I feel much better. If I sleep good, do some yoga and journal my anxiety is much more manageable. Whereas if I stay up late, eat a poptart for breakfast and be lazy all day, I’m more likely to get lost in thought , amp my anxiety up and have a horrible day. But I tend to let these horrible days happen often because I just don’t want to do all the things.
My therapist asked me “So let me ask you this. Say you have a really long day. You’re tired. But you sweat all day and you stink. Your hair is greasy. You have makeup on. You had a big dinner. Are you going to go to bed with greasy hair, makeup, sweat and onion breath? Probably not. You’re going to wash your face, brush your teeth and take a shower. That’s because we were taught how to take care of our physical bodies. We’ve gotten into hygiene routines and most of us stay on top of hygiene because we’ve been doing it for years. You brush your teeth to prevent cavities, not to get rid of them.” And my mind just 🤯
Because she’s so incredibly right. Not only do I procrastinate mental self care but some days I wait until the anxiety is at a 10, try doing yoga and meditate and wonder why it’s not working. A lot of these things work better as a preventative rather than a quick relief. Most of us didn’t grow up learning how to calm down anxiety. So our tools for anxiety feel like major chores.
So here’s your sign if you needed one. Take care of yourself. Before the anxiety reaches its max today… go on a walk. Do some yoga. Meditate. Journal. Do whatever helps you and do it often. It’s okay to have some bad days, to put everything aside for a few days. But keep trying.
submitted by qweenbimbo_ to emetophobiarecovery [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:04 V_y_z_n_v Just a funny thing that happened in my save

I had this funny thing going on. Klopp was beating my ass domestically and real madrid doing the same internationally. I somehow beat real in ucl final and got my team to the first rank in global reputation. Ancelloti got sacked and the madrid position was vacant. I resigned my job and took over real. Since my previous west brom had the highest reputation, klopp resigned from Liverpool and went to west brom, zidane resigned from juventus and took over Liverpool, gattuso resigned from chelsea and took over juve and frank lampard took helm of chelsea. I took my real team and beat the hell out of diego simeones man city and vincent company took over city. ALL OF THEM FLOPPED, westbrom was 6th, Liverpool was 12th, City got relegated. Juve were not even a threat in UCL. Same goes for chelsea.
PS: after first year and I bankrupted real to the point of relegation by resigning all the top players and signing middle eastern wonderjunks for 1mil/year. Then I got sacked from real, joined back to west brom and the whole powerdynamic of prem and UCL changed completely. Crused through them both winning 4 peat trebles.
submitted by V_y_z_n_v to footballmanagergames [link] [comments]


2024.06.09 15:03 2xSHADOW To my juniors and their parents looking for coaching for JEE

To my juniors and their parents looking for coaching for JEE
This post is serious, and if you are interested, please read it fully. So basically I'm talking about this institute, Mathiit for JEE. I am from a middle-class family, and my parents weren't aware of this JEE or coaching. I secured 97% in class 10, so some of my relatives who were aware of the exam asked me to write the exam. My parents felt I couldcrackk the exam and for it they were ready to do anything. They searched for coaching institutes in Trivandrum and finally chose this institute. The first two months were good and we all (my 14 batchmates; we were classroom students) had a good belief that we would crack the exam. But after this, all things went bad. The coaching didn't provide us with the daily worksheet that we were getting in the beginning. The main teacher always entered our class half an hour late (some days he didn't even come to teach). They changed our chemistry faculty 4 times, and then they weren't able to complete the syllabus within two years. Just think about it: we were classroom students, and then also they weren't able to complete the syllabus. And talking about the math faculty, this is his institute. He teaches well, but the problem is that he doesn't want to teach us or help. I asked for worksheets and doubts, and he never responded. I can show you the ignored messages that span over a month or so. (He had this partiality towards some students.) He gave us worksheets, and many of the doubts weren't even discussed. In the last month, while preparing for advanced, we asked him to arrange an old chemistry faculty member (who teaches well) to take the remaining portions. He agreed to do it after so much pressure and took 2 or 3 classes. Didn't even finish one lesson. Lastly, don't join this institution after seeing Thomas Biju Cheeramvelil, the guy who got AIR 3 in advanced. He is my classmate's brother. He did so many books for advanced. And also, this institution arranged the best faculty for every subject in those two lockdown years (they didn't arrange them for us from the start).
Most of us started studying the remaining portion ourselves and made it to this far. Today, my advanced result came. I didn't qualify. I don't want anyone else to suffer through what I went through.
If you have your own reasons to join this institution, go ahead. I'm just sharing my experience so that atleast one of you could benefit from it.
submitted by 2xSHADOW to Trivandrum [link] [comments]


http://rodzice.org/