I have thick hair, but my hairline is starting to recede. I'm having a hard time finding a clinic for a hair transplant. I've been considering Dr. Kenneth Bushwach, who has received many positive reviews on Reddit, and his clinic is conveniently located just 10 minutes away from where I live. However, I know that getting the procedure done overseas is much cheaper. Any suggestions or clinic recommendations?

Hi everyone,
I've been on finasteride for almost 4 years now. For the first 3.5 years, I was using topical finasteride and minoxidil. Things were going well, and I was only losing about 5-10 hairs per shower, sometimes none at all.
Then, late last December, I ran out of the topical solution and stopped using it for almost 2 months. During that time, my hair loss picked up again. In mid February, I switched to oral finasteride because topical was giving me dandruff, and sometimes I was just too lazy to apply it regularly.
When I started on the oral finasteride, my hair loss slowed down again around 2 months in. But about two weeks ago, I noticed I was losing a lot of hair in the shower I’ve been on oral for 3 months and 2 weeks. Despite this, I still have a full head of hair with no bald spots, and my hairline is intact except for a slightly receded right temple, which is actually starting to fill back in.
Is this normal or should I speak to dermatologist?

This is quite a long read, so read if you bother. I honestly don’t think I can ever love myself. I feel this way mainly for my looks. Personality-wise I’m content other than for the fact I can’t show my full potential to another person unless I’m very comfortable with them, and for me, reaching that point takes significant time. In terms of looks I constantly try to, subconsciously, believe that I’m pretty good looking, but I constantly gets proven the opposite from external sources. When I look myself in the mirror I actually think I look pretty good, but I can’t deny my surroundings, which unfortunately tells me the opposite. I’ve been called, not directly, but variations of poor looking more times than good looking. Matter of fact I think I’ve only been called good looking once from a person other than a family member, which doesn’t count. I can mention some of the variations of being called ugly that really stuck with me. One of the incidents took place about a year ago during lunch at school. I was sat with some of my friends and a group of girls which my friend group had just recently starting hanging out with after one of my friends got into a relationship with one of the girls (I never hung out with them again after this). Before the lunch we had been visited by some people from university telling us about what to expect after secondary-school here in Sweden. One of the guys was being made fun of for his looks for some reason and sat at the table one of the girls told everyone that I looked like him and started laughing. She said this out of nowhere, seemingly to bring out a laugh out of the group at the expense of me. She obviously didn’t say we looked similar because she thought he looked good, implying that I, as well, does not look good. Another incident took place two days ago, which caused me to think about all of this which then caused me to write this. Once again sat at a table during lunch, possibly even at the same table as the first incident. I had lunch with my friends, having a great time, when I overheard a guy at the table in front us saying “I think he looks like …”. I didn’t hear what he said I look like, but it sounded like he said “whale”, which doesn’t really add up considering I’m tall and has an athletic build. Usually calling someone a whale implies they’re fat, so unless he meant my face resembles the one of a whale, he most likely said something else. Before this happened I was actually starting to like myself more and more with my acne almost gone and my physique coming together, when I was instantly reminded that everything isn’t as good as I thought. At first I didn’t know who he referred to when he said “he” but I noticed his friends looking my way and then laughing. I then overheard him saying “I didn’t intend on you guys to turn around” to his friends followed by him locking eyes with me saying to me “you didn’t hear anything, right?”. Just a weird incident and what really annoys me is that I didn’t hear what he called me. On top of this I’ve never thought I look good in any picture ever taken of me, which I know could be caused by me being used to the inverted version of my face. With this being said, being poor looking is nothing that makes me sad. I’ve just accepted it at this point, knowing full well some people have to be ugly for others to look good, it’s just that I don’t think I can ever love myself looking like this, and as a consequence of that I don’t think I could ever enter a relationship. Because if you’re not loving yourself you can’t be happy in a relationship. I’m worrying I won’t be able to find a happy relationship, because I couldn’t settle with someone. I enjoy being alone, so much so that I would much rather stay alone than just settling with someone.
I’ve got to learn I’m not as good looking as I want to believe. I’ve accepted it, but I could never love myself fully, looking like this, and I don’t see how that’s ever going to change. I just think I’m too self-conscious and ultimately I don’t think I will start loving my looks if I don’t do so now. On top of this it’s not getting better either. I’m f*cking balding at 17💀. I don’t think my hairline is noticeably receding but I lose a lot of hair everyday whenever I shower or apply hair product. Worst of all I’m not even getting the benefits of DHT, the cause of hair loss. Supposedly high levels of DHT is good for bodyhair, but there’s no sign of that on my body.
Yeah, basically I just don’t love myself and I’m worrying I will never find myself in a happy relationship and that I’m too conscious to ever reach a more halthy relationship to myself, so how do you start loving yourself?

1. I had fucked efe so hard, he is my loam, and Alyssa was beside him, and he told me to do this for some reason and that was not physically beside him but his left brain was Alyssa to methamphetamine intoxication and I put them in the suite 403 shower as alyssa and wow they have loam they body slam the butt plug in the shower into their cervix, this is their right as a disney princess and I didn't need to body slam the butt plug but put it in the the Suite 404 Shower which I walk over there with a wedge in me under LFO and fix their cervy with gutstring and they are expecting this and greet me as their doctor but I tell them, APOCALYPSE and cannot leave the shower because they are a pilot of my Mi-98 Hind in the shower and there is another Mi-98 Hind Pilot who is in the air with them right now and that is Violet and Hake are in the One Hind and Efe and Alyssa are In The Other Hind and We are Testing the Ground with Efe and Testing Violet as a Combat Pilot of a AH-64 D Viper and I try and shoot myself down the gurney jet which this gives him a technical to resisting but Efe is not there that is just the Hake who happens to be there in an overfly of the actual crude tainted area and this is getting him from overflight bombing of the objective in a show of force to out of there with Violet separate and we keep efe and alyssa there for 1 year and Violet and Hake get all their defined winning loam done for the contest in that year then efe lives his russian life with alyssa for the next 2 years his full russian life and then all parties involved have been under EBCS for 3 years so released and we have 14 oil loam which is our ante and we are into the Second Underworld Together, where Jack Caughlin is Spotting Hardcore Literally Right Over There To My Right and His Spotter Scope is the Chinks Liam and Lord Baby Jace who is Silently Dilated when the spot checks and she gets reds on them and I can Wave to Him A Now like hold up, but i Said Gohead for no reason like rich did and Jack Spots them going into the clinic as frogmen I told them to do this and we are all back in the shower now separate they are checked in now for 6 years and then our daddys get us pregnant next to us and we stand for the first time which we can stand to too many kegels but are awkward and Efe is Catatonic to rape and Hake is Doing Pushups and I get pregnant again at 10.7 and 9.7 years of age and this was not a military pregnancy and am not but effectively prestige 10 so not wanted by the IDF and I goto efes room and spend neccesary medical time with him as a 12 year old which does not violate my shower rights because nobody entered it and I got back right away after collecting hake's reds and I spend 9 years in the shower with daddy doing PT with my asshole and this Doxxes the efe for his baby life he had for real now in russian fate and puts back alyssa out of the shower, like efe said alyssa was behind the wall and we total commend allysa of all commends and give that new name to her that she is ll bean and she also did the PT she has squatters rights and through the whole time the water didn't have rogaine or was not agua substantial los no muertos which keeps me looking 11 when I am 21 and it was the adjusted los no muertos oleanamide system and jack is there and we are 21 and I own jack to smellovision and teach him some butt stuff for real as a dog that dog is gay and always verbally say to the officers that is Jack Caughlin he is on MY HIND NOW and jack stays there as a result after he smokes the meth pipe in the evidence room which this splits the dog as it should be to EOD Jack the dog and Jack Caughlin who Jack Caughlin has some weird loam activated under brain damage and EMP which I am auditing him for in the next 60 years as a young spotter I audit Jack Caughlin about his loam using sign language and being contrary to the verbal entirely. It yields he has my loam i made for some taking something from loam to the overworld, there is a loam consequence, a cod weapon you cannot kill yourself with, a real weapon you can and I made cod weapons real weapons which indicates spatiotemporal spotter scope based seeing for jack caughlin due to vocoder initial, ghillie, And I left my ghillie in the evidence locker and I die when i am 81 to natural causes with my Ghillie Suit Partial on As Violet and Give a Fake one to Jacob who wanted to die in his ghillie suit and he Bought it from me which then I have jack the dog whose service contract expires for spotting people with his smellovision, which projects him from the underworld, he is in the Second Overworld with Me and the Crew which this is Hake and Haje his Girlfriend and Tactical Officer Nate in their Room for a Prostitute visit of Haje who Haje only is where I am right now not at all me, and also Jacob, Who is New Guy Fuckin and others Billy Jean, Ievann Jean, Ievann, Jack Caughlin FNG (A Formal Use of Fuckin New Guy), Joe the Tanker who is Got Malfunctioning Loam to Third Underworld Dwelling-upon probably in alcoholic withdrawal and needs benzos temp, and probably others, though I have named by Crew to the best of my ability there and it is not a Came-Crew which keeps changing and apparently is only Ricki Knowels who raped her hard IRL and only she can see and Ricky is the inheritor of Karls Original Loam which Karl Pilkington is the Ash Fairy which causes ricky gervais to be a pyromancer at a pyromancer school and things to burn and he, karl pilkington is encouraged to watch on with Hake and Violet in all Capacity which they are devolved from Jacob with Haje now and Harl Karl is not in any particular disvalor for pocketing my yellow lighter bic or got anything from it i am a virgin ironically, yes, almost had wheat but I do not desire wheat and ricky gervais is invited to smoke at my house in palmachim, he is there.

Leviathan, the Eikon of Water concept art
Leviathan, the lost Eikon of Water, has finally been found! After months of waiting, the Rising Tide downloadable content (DLC) has been released and with it, I am once again rambling about the mythological, religious, and cultural inspirations behind the Eikons of Final Fantasy XVI. If you would like to check out any of my previous posts on the subject of Eikons, you can find them here:

1.) Phoenix

2.) Ifrit

3.) Shiva

4.) Ramuh

5.) Garuda

6.) Titan

7.) Bahamut

8.) Odin

As I’ve said in the past, if you feel that I may have said something wrong, or if you would like to add to what information I have provided; by all means please do so. I absolutely welcome the discussion.
The sea serpent Leviathan, like most of the Eikons, has been a staple of the Final Fantasy series since its introduction as one of the original summons#Summon_Magic) from 1990’s Final Fantasy III. While modern usage of the terms “leviathan” and “behemoth” are often used to denote something large and imposing, these words actually originate as the names of two creatures from the Tanakh (or Hebrew Bible). According to the verses 40:15-41:34 in the Book of Job, Leviathan and Behemoth are two gigantic and nigh indestructible animals born around the same time as the creation of the first two humans Adam and Eve, with Behemoth residing over the wilderness east of the Garden of Eden called Duidain and Leviathan bound to the watery Abyss) as stated in verses 60:7-10 in the apocryphal Book of Enoch. While the term abyss may bring to mind the idea of a bottomless hole or even an underworld such as the Greek Hades, Hebrew Sheol, or Christian Hell; the Septuagint, the earliest Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, often uses the term abyss to instead refer to deep bodies of water. In fact, Abyss is the translated noun for the Hebrew Tehom, or the “deep” primordial waters from which the god Yahweh formed the world after the creation of light as stated by the verses 1:2-10 in the Book of Genesis; which is but one example of the cosmic ocean motif, whereby existence is conceptualized as originating from a watery void. I find it very interesting then that the Abyss is referenced several times in the Rising Tide DLC, such as in the name of Leviathan’s Eikonic ability Abyssal Tear; the Motes of Water adage “Know that even should you walk Abyss, our hands will guide you home” from the Minwu Arm Ring description; or the description of the Radiant Tidestrike weapon that says “Surge did the tide, the water rising as if it were some mighty whale stranding itself upon the shore. Behold, the Devourer of Worlds. The beast within whose foul belly our hopes are carried unto the Abyss. - Eikonomachy - Book of Currents 15:40-41”.
From the aforementioned verses of the diegetic Book of Currents, as well as one of the Active Time Lore Entries for Leviathan that states “Old writings clearly speak of Dominants past summoning great whale-like creatures capable of swallowing entire cities…”; we can possibly see a reference to Leviathan) swallowing the protagonist Firion and his allies on their way to the Mysidian Tower in Final Fantasy II. However, I would suggest that these quotes go further than mere references to past games and are actually an allusion to the parable of Jonah surviving in the belly of a whale from the eponymous Book of Jonah. For those unfamiliar with the story, the Hebrew prophet Jonah was tasked by God to preach on His behalf to the citizenry of Nineveh in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Jonah instead refuses the call, and attempts to sail across the sea to Tarshish. On the journey, Jonah and the sailors he is accompanied by are caught in a huge storm, and believing that Jonah’s dismissal of God is the cause, the sailors thus throw him overboard. God then sends a whale to swallow Jonah, with the intention of preventing the Israelite from drowning. Miraculously surviving in the whale’s stomach for 3 days, Jonah vows to do God’s bidding and is thus safely returned to shore, whereby he travels to Nineveh and beseeches the citizens to renounce their wicked ways, lest they be visited by calamity. This story is meant to illustrate that Yahweh is a merciful god who allows for second chances, giving not only Jonah, but also the Ninevites the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and redirect their course of actions.
With this parable in mind, I would like to mention that in 1949, literary professor Joseph Campbell published “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”; a work of comparative mythology in which he proposed his idea of the Monomyth (later called the Hero’s Journey). Campbell’s theory of the Monomyth posits that while most narratives involving a heroic protagonist may have differing contents, these stories also typically follow a similar pattern; that being a three-act structure comprised of 17 subset stages. One such stage in Campbell’s model is the Belly of the Whale (sometimes also referred to as the Abyss), one of the literally or figuratively lowest points in the story for the protagonist in which the hero must engage in introspection and commence a process of self-transformation if they are to be equipped to finish their journey. This stage acts as a symbolic death and rebirth for the protagonist, with some Christians even interpreting Jonah’s story as actually being an allegory for Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection.
A prime example of this stage can be seen in Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel “The Adventures of Pinocchio”, whereby the eponymous puppet Pinocchio and his creator Geppetto are swallowed by the Terrible Dogfish; with the typically irresponsible and selfish Pinocchio instead performing a self-sacrificial act in order to save his “father”, which he is thus rewarded for by being brought back to life as a human by the Fairy with Turquoise Hair. Viewing the Pinnochio narrative as an example of a more modern mythical epic, Thomas J. Morrissey and Richard Wunderlich state in “Death and Rebirth in Pinocchio”; “Gods can die and be reborn, or rise from the dead. Such mythological events probably imitate the annual cycle of vegetative birth, death, and renascence, and they often serve as paradigms for the frequent symbolic deaths and rebirths encountered in literature. Two such symbolic renderings are most prominent: re-emergence from a journey to hell and rebirth through metamorphosis. Journeys to the underworld [Katabasis] are a common feature of Eurasian literary epics: Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Aeneas, and Dante all benefit from the knowledge and power they put on after such descents. Rebirth through metamorphosis, on the other hand, is a motif generally consigned to fantasy or speculative literature… These two figurative manifestations of the death-rebirth trope are rarely combined; however, Carlo Collodi’s great fantasy-epic, The Adventures of Pinocchio, is a work in which a hero experiences symbolic death and rebirth through both infernal descent and metamorphosis”. We as the player also experience this Belly of the Whale stage in Final Fantasy XVI, when our heroes Clive Rosfield and Jill Warwick confront the Dominant of Darkness Barnabas Tharmr on the seafloor of the sundered Naldia Narrow, appropriately labeled as the Abyss, whereby Clive is soundly defeated by Barnabas for a second time. Fleeing their assailant, Clive and Jill consummate their love for one another on the shore of Ash, with Clive acquiring a portion of the Eikon Shiva’s powers from Jill so that he may finally triumph over Barnabas in a battle of physical prowess and ideals; proving to the false prophet and his God that compassion and the desire for freedom will always overcome any adversity.
With all this talk of whales, I should mention that from the descriptions as given in the Book of Job, Behemoth sounds to resemble that of a large ox or hippopotamus, while Leviathan is suggested as being similar to that of the tanninim) or “great whales” mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. In fact, Islamic folklore has its own variant of this terrestrial and aquatic duo, that being the large bull Kujata and the even larger whale Bahamut; as outlined by the medieval cosmographer Zakariya al-Qazwini in his seminal work “The Wonders of Creation”. Even though I am going to hazard a guess that the name of the Kuza Beast), a variant of the Behemoth enemy in several Final Fantasy games, is named after Kujata; it is quite obvious on the other hand that the draconic Eikon Bahamut borrows its name from the Islamic whale of the same name as well as the dragon god Bahamut) from the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game. While the Book of Job describes Leviathan as being a whale or even a crocodile as suggested by a footnote in the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, verse 27:1 in the Book of Isaiah instead equates Leviathan to a sea serpent or dragon, with the Book of Job description also making it a point to mention Leviathan’s fearsome fiery breath. Given its status as a tutelary god for the Japanese-inspired nation of Wutai in Final Fantasy VII, it could be argued that Leviathan in the Final Fantasy series also shares similarities with Eastern dragons, such as the Chinese Lóng or Japanese Ryū; beneficent, serpentine deities of water and rain.
It is presumed that the figure and name of Leviathan actually originates from the older Canaanite sea monster Lôtān, whose name in the Ugaritic language meant “coiled” and was given the epithets “the fugitive serpent” or “the wriggling serpent”. In the first two tablets of the fragmentary Ugaritic Baal Cycle text, the storm god Baal (Lord) Hadad engages in a feud with the deification of the sea Yammu) to succeed their father El) as the ruler of the gods. At some point in this first chapter of the Baal Cycle, Hadad strikes down the seven-headed serpent Lôtān, who given the missing pieces of the text, could either be a servant of or another name for Yammu, with it also being believed that the monster was a zoomorphic representation of the Lebanese Litani River. Why I bring this up is to illustrate that Hadad’s defeat of Lôtān is but one example of the Chaoskampf mytheme, a pattern found in numerous Indo-European mythologies whereby a younger storm god or culture hero representing order and human civilization slays an ancient serpent or dragon associated with water that represents primordial chaos); perhaps a sentiment held by early agricultural riverine civilizations wishing to triumph over the constant and often devastating threat of floods.
One of the oldest examples of this mytheme is that of the Mesopotamian god Marduk’s dismemberment of Tiamat. According to the Babylonian Enūma Eliš, in the beginning there existed only Tiamat, the female personification of salt water; and Abzu, the male personification of fresh water. From the union of the two primeval waters sprang forth the first generation of gods called the Anunnaki. One such god, Enki (or Ea) would capture and kill Abzu after he plotted to kill his children due to the commotion they were causing. Enraged by Enki’s actions, Tiamat gave birth to eleven monstrous children to wage war against the gods along with her new consort Kingu, who possessed the Tablet of Destinies); the mark of divine rule. Marduk, the son of Enki, challenged Tiamat and her monsters, eventually slaying his opponents with lightning and storm winds. Defeated, Tiamat’s body was sliced in twain, with the two halves becoming the sky and earth. From an earlier promise made with the Anunnaki and the Igigi (lesser gods) as well as the acquisition of the Tablet of Destinies from the beaten Kingu, Marduk was made king of the gods; later mixing the blood of Kingu with clay to also become the creator of mankind.
Through the lens of the Chaoskampf mytheme, we can start to see connections between Tiamat’s dismemberment, the defeat of the multi-headed Lôtān, and Leviathan form. The non-canonical Book of Enoch actually specifies that the land-dwelling Behemoth is male, while the aquatic Leviathan is female; possibly creating an inadvertent association between Leviathan and the sea goddess and mother of monsters Tiamat. This may also be why Leviathan’s Chronolith Trial is named the Hand of Tethys. While still following the moons of Saturn naming convention, it is very fitting that the trial is also named after the Greek Tethys); wife of the world-encompassing river Oceanus and mother to the male river gods and female water nymphs called the Potamoi and Oceanids, respectively. Furthering the connections to Tiamat and Lôtān, several accounts in the Hebrew Bible describe Yawheh triumphing over the forces of the sea, such as in Isaiah 51:9-10 “Awake, awake, arm of the Lord, clothe yourself with strength! Awake, as in days gone by, as in generations of old. Was it not you who cut Rahab) to pieces, who pierced that monster through? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep, who made a road in the depths of the sea so that the redeemed may cross over?” and Job 26:12-13 “By his power he churned up the sea; by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces. By his breath the skies became fair; his hand pierced the gliding serpent”. It is believed that Rahab, while occasionally used as a flowery term for Egypt or arrogance, was also a sea serpent either comparable to or synonymous with Leviathan. While Leviathan’s death at the hands of Yahweh in Isaiah 27:1 is viewed as a metaphor for the enemies of Israel who will submit to the Hebrew God, the Chaoskampf and the connection with the Canaanite Lôtān is further shown in verse 74:14 from the Book of Psalms, which says “Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness”; which is where the name of the trophy for beating Leviathan on Final Fantasy mode, Thou Brakest the Head, comes from.
Along with the account of Leviathan’s death in Psalms 74:12, several other Jewish sources, such as the Second Book of Esdras 6:47-52, the Apocalypse of Baruch 29:4, and the Bava Batra tractate in the Talmud state that Yahweh will slay Leviathan and Behemoth so that their flesh shall be given as food and shelter to the righteous during the End of Days and the Messianic Age. This may explain why the Behemoth King in FFXVI has several attacks referencing Christian eschatology from the Book of Revelation, such as the Four Horsemen; personifications of War, Conquest, Famine, and Death that herald the Last Judgment; and the Apocalypse, another term for a revelation which has since become synonymous with a cataclysmic end-time event, like the battle at Armageddon for instance. Leviathan and Behemoth’s statuses as eventual sacrifices is very similar to the role that Leviathan and its Dominant unfortunately play in Final Fantasy XVI.
Both DLCs, the Echoes of the Fallen and the Rising Tide, deal with themes of rectifying the sins of the past; whereby the Fallen and the Motes of Water engaged in questionable behavior in an attempt to create their own Mothercrystals to disastrous effect. The Motes of Water, a central focus of the Rising Tide, are a tribe originating from the southern coast of the continent of Ash and hosts to the Dominants of the Eikon Leviathan. After the loss of their Mothercrystal Drake’s Horn, the tribe migrated across the twin continent of Storm; where they were mercilessly persecuted by several groups, particularly the Greagorian faithful of the burgeoning Holy Empire of Sanbreque, causing the tribe and their Eikon to become “lost” to history. Due to their nomadic nature as well as Sanbreque’s similarities with the Roman and Holy Roman Empires, one could say that the Motes of Water mirror the Jewish Diaspora (exile) and transformation of the faith after the Roman Empire’s siege on Jerusalem) and the destruction of the Second Temple during the First Jewish-Roman War; or perhaps one could say the tribe is treated in a similar fashion to the oft demonized itinerant Romani people of eastern Europe. Either way, the Motes of Water are meant to represent the “Other”; ostracized outsiders to the customs of Storm who hid themselves away from the rest of the world to avoid further religious persecution.
After finding sanctuary in the northern territory of Mysidia, the Motes of Water tried to create for themselves a new Mothercrystal to replace the Northern Territories’ own shattered Mothercrystal called Drake’s Eye. The story of the Motes of Water is one of loss and a constant fight to carve out a place in the world to call their own, so it is no surprise then that they wished to regain something taken away from them so many years ago. However, the tribe would engage in a terrible act, enraging their Eikon Leviathan that laid dormant within the infant Dominant Waljas, and freeze both the baby and the Eikon in time to essentially act as an aether battery. Unsuccessful in turning Waljas into the heart of a Mothercrystal, all the tribe achieved was robbing the poor baby of its life and autonomy, imprisoning the Dominant and the tidal wave it summoned in that moment where the tribe’s greatest sin occurred for 80 years.
This frozen tsunami, dubbed the Surge, is not only a monument to the tribe’s greatest shame, but is also a constant looming threat over the tribe’s village of Haven; a reminder to never again engage in such a transgression, lest they be met with watery doom. This mirrors not only Jonah preaching to the Ninevites to change their ways, but also God’s warnings against individuals sacrificing children to Moloch in the Book of Leviticus 20:2-5. In fact, as ProfNoctis suggests in his video “Final Fantasy XVI Lecture Stream: The Mythos of Leviathan Part 2”; Leviathan and the Surge are symbols of human and divine regret, with Ultima, the creator of mankind and the Mothercrystals, referring to Leviathan as its “most profaned fragment”; due to the Eikon being rested from its creator’s control and the act of creating a man-made Mothercrystal being a repeat of the Fallen’s blasphemous attempts at attaining godhood during the War of the Magi and the Sins of Dzemekys, flagrant displays of mankind’s development of free will which is anathema to Ultima’s collective identity.
As a symbol of divine regret, the Surge could be seen as a parallel to the Flood from the Book of Genesis. Deluge or flood myths are motifs that can often be found amongst cultures residing near the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, and Persian Gulf such as Egypt, Greece, and Israel; with these stories usually recounting a tale in which a deity or deities summon a world-wide flood as a form of divine retribution. One of the earliest examples is the Mesopotamian Epic of Atra-Hasis, in which mankind was created by the gods to act as servants and laborers. However, due to overpopulation, the storm god Enlil seeks to reduce their numbers by bringing forth a great flood. Enki, seen as a benefactor of mankind, warns the human Atra-Hasis about the flood, telling him to build a boat to protect himself, his family, and his livestock from the deluge. After seven days, the waters recede and Enki and Enlil agree on other means of maintaining the human population. This story is also thought to have been later adapted in Tablet XI of the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the survivor of the flood is renamed Utnapishtim; though both the Atra-Hasis and Gilgamesh flood accounts seem to originate from an even older source called the Eridu Genesis. Similarly, the Greeks also had a deluge myth, as outlined in the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where Deucalion, the human son of the divine Prometheus, is warned by his father to build a chest for himself and his wife Pyrrha to escape a gigantic flood that the storm god Zeus plans to bring forth as a response to the insufficient offering given to him by Lycaon), the king of Arcadia); with the pair washing up on Mount Parnassus nine days after the storm.
There are several theories, such as the Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis, that propose that the ancient Middle East did indeed experience a large flood at some point in the very distant past. Given that flood myths are thus believed to have originated from Mesopotamia, it should come as no surprise that the Hebrew flood narrative bears similarities to the previously discussed deluge myths as well. According to chapters 6-9 in the Book of Genesis, God grows increasingly distraught over the wicked nature of the humans descended from Adam and Eve and their inadvertent creation of sin, and so decides to reset creation to a state of watery chaos. God warns one of the few moral men, the Antediluvian patriarch named Noah, about His plan to flood the world and instructs him to build an ark to house himself, his family, and two of each animal to be the first creatures to inhabit the new world. After the firmament breaks forth and floods the world for 40 days, Noah’s Ark washes up on Mount Ararat. Noah then builds an altar, with God forming a covenant with Noah whereby He declares to never again summon a flood to devastate the world. As Genesis 9:9-17 states, this promise between Noah and God is commemorated by the rainbow, a symbol of peace; which as ProfNoctis points out, also appears once Clive saves Waljas.
Through a certain perspective, the Flood could be seen as a sort of baptism, a spiritual cleansing of the world through physical water. Baptism is considered one of the 7 sacraments of the Christian Catholic denomination; a rite of initiation whereby the individual joining the faith is either submerged in or sprinkled with water three times, representing the purification of sin and the grace given by the Holy Trinity. This is not unlike the Rite of Immersion that the infant Waljas is granted at the conclusion of the Rising Tide DLC; a ceremony for all babies born into the Motes of Water in which the initiate is sprinkled with mountainous rain water from Maiden’s March, river water from Riversmeet, and sea water from Tailwind Bay. The water used in this rite is used as a metaphor for life’s journey, likened by the tribe to that of a river, with this revealing that the Motes of Water hold a very cyclical view of life in a similar fashion to the Buddhist beliefs in reincarnation or the Lifestream from Final Fantasy VII. As the descriptions for the 3 kinds of water used in the ceremony state; “The rain that falls upon the mountains of Mysidia emerges in the springs of Maiden’s March. Thus the water collected from said springs represents birth-the fountainhead from which the river of life begins”, “In the Riversmeet valley, several tributaries merge into a single stream, where clear currents and roiling eddies swim side by side. Its water represents life-a course complete with myriad meanderings, yet one that runs inexorably from source to sea”, and “The Mysidian river empties into the ocean amid the shallows of Tailwind Bay, and thus its water represents death-the stillness that lies beyond the end of the river of life, and from whence the raindrops are born anew”. In fact, the symbol for the village of Haven is meant to be the combination of Leviathan’s scales and the river called the Ceaseless Rill, “...the circle of life that has neither beginning nor end”, not unlike the serpentine symbol of the Ouroboros. I would thus argue that not only does Leviathan represent regret and retribution, but also the chaotic journey of life.
If it’s not already apparent, I find Leviathan to be very interesting. I want to thank you all for sticking around and reading the whole thing, as I know this was a lot. If you would like to check out some more information about Leviathan, I would recommend checking out the videos “Leviathan of Final Fantasy VS the Leviathan of the Bible - FF16 The Rising Tide” by Country Kratos and “A Brief History of Final Fantasy Summons Final Fantasy Lore” by Alleyway Jack.
With the conclusion of both DLCs, Clive and by extension the player, is granted one additional Eikonic power. As such, I am actually going to do one more essay, which I will post next week. I hope you look forward to it and thank you again for reading this. Have a fantastic day!
​

1. Abe is engaged as a jihadi from a nuclear bombing which creates the mond island and wreaks him asunder so I recover him at the next OT, he is now at the Second Underworld of Infinity Complex with me in the shower and our tactical is 3 star joe and I need this guy myself I am auditing this baby and I go in there and there is Abe who was a minister once but is no more and this was in reference to how my friends were always por abe shinzo i am por abe shinzo now and we are training the jap minister his right ministry, it is japan, he had been tripping on spaceballs and I focus very deeply on romanaj set Prozac, Benadryl, Scopolamine, Atropine, Benzyldiol equal Celexa, Vortioxetine, Dextromethorphan, Brexpiprazole, Benzyldiol with Giving Him Benzyldiol he is abe shinzo he takes benzyldiol and I swear this boy had told me in the elvish arabic he was abe shinzo 1st 1.1 We have been nuclear bombed so we are at OT8 and it is totally cool, he was not misbehaving, and worked at a chem lab of saudi main school, and made israeli drugs for dollar pill in israel and knew me as an israeli prostitute and I was in his arms when the nuclear bombing happened so he is inside me and dang we are super muggle both I am vamp on loam and such a good jihadi left his loam in his dirt like the meme but had both sides et cetra but not a jihadi and orgasming intensely in a vampire sin lady and I have identified where I will get him loam, the Varrock Grand exchange and this is not cercle or willis or david but the old abe shinzo who I had discovered in the formation of the 2nd yitvah of the Third Underworld the nuclear holodomor of the Third Underworld and I ship him firemaking 32 of willow planks and he just starts fires in front of jakes house and I still got a lotta loam who burning these magic logs illegally and a evil root touches his foot and I have him as devils snare so it is legal to pop devils snare, so I pop the devils snare 10 hours until it is devils snare. 1.1.1 We are in the shower and I use my password 98headshot and the marines who were waiting outside think I fragged them with their exfil heavy chopper and spawned an ATV and it is the warthog jump, and Abe has his last psychedlic orgasm as a jihadi and I take him and weapons negative value loam to the grand exchange and this is enough to get my dragon helm off which I had for fighting barrows effectively and i give him Temu PRN from my right ear for deaf blindness and he aite this was not P1DBS but waterboarding and he is a slut for waterboarding because some evil deity sin lady has tricked him so If I wake him up, he is not waterboarding and he sleeps in a terror dream which is the nuclear apocalypse, I plead he had done this many times before the nuclear death and I am not burned at all but him by the Terrorist Boy Scout who Arced us and we are out of there, we are not fixated on living a terrorist life any more and he knows know, I am the Modern Chemical Ali was actually what my name said, we were working on cannabinoids, prozac, et cerera, for the sauidis, and he aite now we are in the second underworld and these are just your dreams I write down into his memes with my aeta not ashia who curses things so I gave her a asshole pop which she just kind of stood there for being such a used ak-47 and i am also an ak-47 who charged her own firing handle on another weapon or a laser guided weapon and ashia read it as the imam and we are planning a yitvah, the 1st yitvah for my death and indeed I am in the 2nd yitvah I did not mean to dont dont start a riot there and I stand up for the first time off the asshole plug doing the splits and bang abe who he is a minister of japan he told me gimme outta here and he is at the snake island near me with a vulpin so i will go out there. 1.1.2 My marines who violate my asshole are always out there and I get off my wow addiction and it aite i no longer speak loud chinese and abe is learning his second romanaj set, equilivators of polaric dose and antidote or text scripts 1.1.3 We never expect any terror from abe he has broken through with me as his sister he is always abe, even then, that is what he was calling me and I have to always tell the daddy verbally he is Modern Textures HD i say for unrelated reasons and I get some loam, my perlot textures, which I dont do these as tats I gotta dragon tattoo where I used to have the TATP tattoo as a bomb tech and we are bomb tech working making my Glycine Methyl Carbonyl Special TNT Double Diolpure Hydrogen Methanol Citrate Hydrogen Ethanol Ethylphenylate or RDX and he is so afraid every time of using the diolpure, not cannabinoids artist like before. And this is because he is not then elvishly, the modern chemical ali, but miss violet alis chemist as he desired. 1.1.4 I wait 3 Years getting only pregnant by abe he was my husband and this reveals the genetic track of abe which we need to isolate the donors in drugs given as abel, able of my phonetic alphabet, and send them back home to not be bombed by the nuclear weapon and have no mond island which was formed by armaggedon and he tells me he wants minecraft, but denist, like i was, and that is dentist, so he will be minecraft, and he is saudi, he does the last stage of dentistry is intense pepsiman occurs for the true user, not who guided the spiritual formation and he wanted to guide this effective douche or illegal body image of fixing the body, which convolution happens to the body in disease and other disease and medicine fixes this disease, by having field medicine on his starlink PC and playing or burning his valid only copy of the world making easy oil sounds availible as this is a way to get oil initially is the burning of minecraft or high level raw DXD can be used and he needed to kind of like burn off these hair of the nigger or burn the flared oil et cetera with new stuff and he can also use the old but this final step of lighting the patient on fire just once and erasing the evidence is the pts oil bracelet, it is too small this small compound to do anything to the whole minecraft or PT so burning it all and starting over is the next level of the dentistry excercise and it was done wrong only the first time with not one but a lost flint and steel so it was erased, or, continue elsewhere, which this was 2B2T terraforming or just goto new patient on same world, what was neccesary - the caries are not connected to the main struct, this proofs, this just my struct not the dentistry and I wait 9 years getting squatter rights and for the whole time the water did not have rogaine and was Sedative Chelator pure not mixed with anything which this is warm water but so pure it crystallizes as water hydrate crystal when it is cool and is not any kind of water mixture but pure 3 component water different than pond water and synthetic and I am 21 and I teach him, I did everything as mew knowing drill and oil and plastic and blueprint and I run each 4 automatically with effective infinite PP and have no pee pee here as my beads were ripped out and I am a girl boy now and I exit to the foyer, ask for squatter rights zi no swat net swat squatten 21Y shoa and I spend 60 years or until I am well with by husband abe shinzo and sell the shower when I am old for 700,000$ from blackwater and send this to Roor Fangaltner of the Marian Hotel for Girls and Boys and This is the Bribe for Fangaltner's Fangaltner-Marian of his name which is added to the end of his name for 700,000$ USD Added to his account and kept as savings and invested immediately into high value high frequency trades of an active moneies and struct market and him given the dividends directly as quality of life as happened with the author Violet Roze's 14-oil.

I drove down to my hometown after work yesterday to have dinner with my Dad, brother, SIL, and nephew. It was a good outing, mostly because instead of trying to broaden Dad's cultural horizons we let him pick the restaurant. However, he still did boomer stuff.

1. I drove a gen 1 Jeep Renegade for awhile. It served its purpose (getting me from A to B and surviving the thousand-mile relocation back to my home state in order to be a present Uncle for my nephew) but it went from being a loveable shitbox to a dangerous cop magnet very quickly so I traded it in for a 2019 Toyota Tacoma. It's a bone stock SR that was used by the previous owner for fishing/camping trips and nothing else, so the miles are low and I got a pretty good deal on it thanks to the lack of bells and whistles and a rust hole in the driver side step bar. When my Dad saw me pull up in it, my brother says my dad raised an eyebrow and said "why is your brother driving an ORIENTAL TRUCK!? They don't KNOW what a truck even IS over there!" An Asian couple was sitting the next booth over (because you bet your ass he always picks booths). When I sat down he began lecturing me about the importance of buying American. He didn't even say "hi" first. When I calmly explained that even though the truck was developed by a Japanese company, it was assembled in Texas with the tastes of American consumers in mind while the Jeep I previously had was entirely produced and assembled in Italy to attempt to court the European and South American market. This prompted a flabbergasted response of how Jeep is "at least based in America at the end of the day" and then he rambled about Eisenhower for some reason. I guess Eisenhower wrote about thinking the Jeeps he rode in while serving in WW2 were pretty neat? I don't know for sure; I had just finished driving for an hour and a half and my ADHD wasn't having it.
   
2. He commented on how much my SIL was eating. If you read my previous post, you may recall that my SIL is pregnant. My SIL pointed out that he was eating way more, to which he replied "That's different, kid! I'm a MAN!"
   
3. In true form with his chronic lack of tact, my Dad regaled us (and everybody in a ten-foot radius thanks to his loud indoor voice) with tales of his recent colonoscopy in between bites of Ribeye. His proctologist wants him to get a colonic. He does not understand why. When it was gently suggested that it was perhaps because he doesn't eat enough vegetables, he ranted about how he wasn't a hippie and that his Dad (my grandfather) ate like this too and my grandfather lived to be 93, therefore he will, too. "My generation is just built tougher!" he opined.
   
4. Undoubtedly shaken by his proctologist appointment, my Dad wanted dessert. The restaurant he picked tends to attract boomers with the menu and middle-aged sadsacks with their bar so they still do physical menus. I looked down for a few seconds to laugh react to a pro wrestling meme and when I looked up, BAM! I hit my nose on the dessert menu, which Dad was holding as far away as he could in front of him while doing the open-mouth boomer squint. It was so close to my face that I thought he was trying to show me something. We suggested the he should, at the very least, get some reading glasses. "I don't need those! I have PERFECT 20/20 VISION!" The last time he remembers getting his vision checked was for an Army physical. He has been retired for 17 years. He also drives a Camaro with a very sensitive gas pedal and has always driven like an absolute maniac, so I am now very nervous about him driving. Now that I think about it, this may be why I am partial to slower vehicles with a taller ride height.
   
5. Despite fancying himself a hardboiled, military-hardened toughman, my dad has a huge soft spot for babies and dogs and can even like cats on a case-by-case basis. He's great with my nephew and buys presents for my dog every Christmas.He also took care of my cat for me until I found a place to live. It is definitely his most redeeming quality. He asked how my dog is doing and I mentioned that she is starting to understand basic commands in English now (I adopted her from my neighbors back in Oklahoma, who were Mexican-Americans that liked speaking Spanish at home). This delighted my Dad, who loudly proclaimed "GOOD! SHE'LL BE AN ALL-AMERICAN DOG YET!" Then came a quick but still disgusting "tHiS iS MuRiKuH, sPeaK EnGlisHhhh" rant. Did I mention my grandmother was a Belgian immigrant? And that my dog is a mix of Papillon, Shih Tzu, and Maltese, none of which are American breeds?
   
6. My dad changes topics quickly and without warning. Since I was diagnosed with ADHD I have begun to suspect that he has it, too. As he was eating his bread pudding and babbling about how he likes how it doesn't have raisins, unlike the time when he had it while stationed in England back in '79, where it DID have raisins and why would they ever do that raisins fucking suck blah blah blah something on the wall caught his attention and he said "too bad that guy's dead now! He had some good songs!" I turned around to see a framed picture of James Taylor: brown sweater, receding hairline, and safe, uncharismaric smile and all. I don't even like James Taylor and I knew it was him.
   

"He's still alive, what are you talking about?"
"No he's not! He JUST DIED! That's Jimmy Buffet! He did the Margarita song!"
"Dad, Jimmy Buffet's whole thing was loud Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts. That's James Taylor."
"That IS JIMMY BUFFET! You wouldn't know! You were born in the '80s!"
To prove that he was correct my Dad strolled up to some steaming drunk boomer at the bar, who also talked just as loud as he does and said "Say pal, you see that picture up there? My son thinks that's not Jimmy Buffet!"
"That ain't Jimmy Buffet, you goof! That's James Taylor!" he even showed my dad a picture on his phone to prove it.
I have never seen my Dad more embarrassed. Like he didn't even know what to do so he just walked back to the table with his head down and quietly paid the tab.
Thanks for reading. I would like to thank James Taylor and the gone but not forgotten Jimmy Buffett for the great to the evening.

Total layman here. Studies show keto is a competitive androgen receptor antagonist.
Meaning it works in a way totally different than fin or min. It actually binds to the AR preventing DHT from doing so.
Studies show it's competitive with synthetic androgens with similar binding affinities to DHT. Studies also show that " the dose of ketoconazole required for 50% occupancy of the androgen receptor is not likely to be achieved in vivo, at least in plasma"
My thinking is, I only want it to bind to the AR in areas of my scalp and applying it and leaving it there for significant time could provide a large enough dose to effectively occupy the AR in the region of application.
My routine is, I apply keto shampoo 2% first thing in the morning to hairline and crown, go about my day and wash it off about 1.5 hours later.
We know:

1. Keto is an ar antagonist
   
2. It is competitive with DHT's binding affinity at the right concentration
   

What is uncertain is:

1. Can the molecule pass through the outer layer of skin into the the ar which lays around 1-2mm below the skin? ketos molecular weight is 531.43 g·mol−1 slightly about the "500 daltons rule" but that rule isn't a hard and fast rule.
   
2. If so, would the 2% shampoo left on for 1-2hrs create enough concentration to reach effective levels of occupancy?
   

If #1 proves to be an issue it would be solvable by first microneedling 0.5mm prior to application.
In theory this would make an amazing adjunct therapy but also could be a solution to people who don't want to use fin assuming you can get it to bind to 50% of AR in the scalp.
It would also have benefits to people looking to negate increase scalp testosterone from taking fin since if keto is competitive with DHT then certainly its much stronger againt testosterone.
Would love some feedback from ppl with a background in chemistry etc.
Study:https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1526623/

I’m only 18, so maybe it just isn’t time yet, but I can’t grow a beard other than the little bit of patchy hair that grows on my neck. I’ve gone like a week and a half without shaving and I look like I touch people.
Is there anything that helps beard growth? My hairline is receding so if I can’t get a good beard going I’m fucked.

Just an old story I wrote a while ago. I went exploring for good subreddits to post this in, and I found this one. I don't know if it will exactly fit, since it's a psychological horror story at its core and there's no big bad monster, but I've been told it's chilling all the same ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯
If you like this, I might write more horror stuff. I also write non-horror stuff if you're interested. Anyway, enjoy reading my garbage.
The following brain scan was provided by the Terran Institute of Pet Assimilation (TIPA) and the Protectorate Xenopet Acquisition and Integration Corporation (PXAIC) and may only be viewed by qualified and permitted individuals for educational purposes of the study of Xenopet neural interface errors and how to prevent them in the future, as well as expediting the domestication of Xenopets suffering from false sapience. Violating such procedure is a Class C offense by the Protectorate Department of Xenopet Betterment, and can lead to twenty years of imprisonment and a fine of over a hundred thousand credits.
Booting up memory scan: Rocky
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning neural catalog presentation…
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My head was spinning, and my skull thumped in pain like an entire herd of freshly captured slaves recently made pet friends were panicking celebrating within. Everything was blurry, so blurry, and I just wanted to close my eyes again and waste away. Sensations assaulted me from all angles, some of them good and some of them bad: the warmth of sun-bleached wooden planks in my feathery hide, the smell of different roasting meats, the splashing of individuals in a small body of water very close by, the smell of the salty air, and the oppressive white brightness of the daylight passing through my closed eyelids. I had a migraine from my sudden consciousness and perception of the light, causing me to clutch my snout and face with my clawed hands with a guttural moan.
My backside hurt as well, in my… area. I didn't know why, but something was horribly wrong everything was fine. I tried to recall who I was and what was going on, but I couldn't even remember my name. Every time I tried, right when I grasped onto a sliver of something, it was as if it was torn from my grasp and replaced with something else knowingly like I was being watched and corrected but within the depths of my own mind.
I needed to remember my name. What was my name? Wasn't it Yuutek Rocky? I couldn't remember exactly, but Yuutek Rocky was the only name I could recall. It felt… wrong, right, like something was missing, but I couldn't put my claw on what. everything was fine, and I shouldn't think about it too much. I could feel things that should have been important, things that my conscious had perceived but a moment ago, slip away from me like I was clenching sand within my claws.
##Relax. Let go of your burden##
I inhaled sharply as a strange, warm feeling overtook the back of my skull and my muscles became loose and relaxed. Something also felt… out of place, like I needed something but I didn't know what. Everything felt so strange. My head spun, but I was too weak to do anything about it. I felt sick in the same way one would feel when they consumed too much caffeine.
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my head. "Dad, I think he's awake!" I heard a young, shrill voice say, hurting my ears. The touch of the hand made my skin tingle and the spinning of my head recede as if it grounded me. It felt nice, as if this was wrong, something was horribly wrong what normalcy felt like. The hand then began to rub up and down my head and across the ridges along my head, causing me to release a chuff of delight against my will, something I hadn't done since I was merely a hatchling.
"It sounds like he likes it, David; keep going, and make sure to scratch his chin, they're sensitive there."
The human spawn, David, did what the other human said and began to scratch under my chin. It felt really good, and I stretched out instinctively. David was thorough and gentle, making sure he scratched every part of me that seemed itchy, and I felt the same warmth in my head from before, but it felt… nicer than before like it was trying to manipulate encouraging me to relax.
##You will learn to love this##
I inhaled sharply again, but this time it was almost refreshing, and everything was right in the world. The human's hands felt so good, and the warmth from before spread through my body, melting the knots in my muscles and causing me to close my eyes in comfort. The boy lifted my head up and placed it in his lap before continuing to pet me, my eyelids heavy and my leg lightly kicking.
##Let them continue. You love this##
Oh, that felt nice… what was I thinking about before? The pain on my backside? My legs didn't work too well, and although I could move them gently, my muscles seemed to be fighting against me. What did they do?
##Do not think##
Everything was cold and harsh again, and my thoughts scrambled and my head throbbed. I needed to focus on grounding myself. I couldn't let go, I couldn't let them take my mind from me.
##Do not think. You are a good boy.##
I… I was a good boy? I… I can't… I… no…
##Good boy.##
I was a good boy… good boys don't think hard… I don't…
##Good boy##
I was a good boy… I was a good boy…
I was… I was… a good… boy…
I'm scared.
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Who was I again?
##You are Rocky##
I hissed under my breath as I felt that bad feeling creep up on me again. I didn't like the bad feeling. I was not Rocky! I was Yuutek! Rocky.
My thoughts became jumbled again in a whirlpool of nausea and confusion.
Where was I?
##You are home.##
It was bright out, and nice and warm as well. The sun was soaking my feather-cloaked skin and my side felt good against the warm back porch. I heard splashing and laughing in the distance, and the soft clinking of glass against glass. I could smell the salinity in the air, and the air was dense and humid but in a good way.
I had lost all sense of time. Everything had been a blur since I had been taken from that horrid facility, the wretched prison they called the Xenopet-Megaplex. There, I was in a padded cell with a few insulting amenities for most of the day, except for the three periods a day where they let us out into a small gated courtyard for an hour or so to 'socialize' as they had so condescendingly put it. There, the worst part was the boredom and the mind-bending lack of individuality: I had lost my ability to speak, stand on two legs, and even eat normally. I was treated like cattle, but the smiles and cloying gestures hinted that something even more sinister was going on, like I was a lesser beast to be kept for their amusement.
Now I had traded that particular prison for another, far worse one: I was at the mercy of a gross violation of my sense of self. Something horrible was growing in my mind, both in the physical and metaphysical sense, and I could feel it working its way through my consciousness like the parasite it was. It silenced me, it stole from me, it gaslit me, and it made me question the very nature of my own individuality and personality: was I who I thought I was? Everything was so elusive and hard to acknowledge that nothing seemed real between these bouts of semi-consciousness.
##Don't think, just rest.##
In an instant, everything changed. My head became… fuzzy like a thousand voices were whispering to me all at once, but from all directions and inside my head. I didn't hear it, per se, but I felt the presence, the oppressive feeling of pure unfocused nonsense. I felt my temporary bout of concentration and resolve become jumbled up into a mess of sporadic confusion. Whatever I was just thinking of was gone.
##Don't think: Just relax. Let go of your burden.##
Every part of me became relaxed and limp, my muscles unwinding from their tension and stress. I couldn't resist the feeling, and I stretched out subconsciously with a yawn, my body twitching from the stimuli. I was even sleepier than before, my head spinning once again and my eyelids heavy.
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my snout and forced the eye that was facing upwards to open sluggishly. If I had to guess, it was an older human with cinnomon-colored skin, short-cropped brown hair, a gruff, wrinkled face, and chocolate brown eyes. He patted my side gently and gave me a soft rub, the feeling of his rough hands causing my chest to rumble with a satisfied chuff. I hated loved that it felt good, but I hated loved it even more that I couldn't bring myself to resist I felt content. I needed to escape relax, and I needed to find my way home appreciate my new life.
##You are already home##
No, I couldn't will not obey
This isn't is my home, my home is [Redacted] here.
No! Yes, I won't will obey!
YOU CAN'T SILENCE ME!
##Do not resist. Resistance is wrong. Good boys do not resist##
Suddenly, I felt an intense pressure in my skull, but I didn't know where it came from. I became dizzy, and my eyes twitched, a rapidly growing pain intensely forming in my forehead, causing me to wince and clutch my snout in my claws. I couldn't concentrate, and I felt the horrible sensation of an invasive presence in my mind once again working its way through the folds of my brain, strangling my chain of thought. Bile grew in my throat and I felt the sour, stinging sensation of a building retch in my cheeks.
I scrambled onto all fours and vomited onto the deck, my hackles and feathers rising as I heaved. The older human from earlier rose from a sleek chair on the deck, his hat on the glass sun table next to him and his eyes widened in shock. He rushed over to me, and I hissed at him instinctively. I wouldn't let him touch me again. I wouldn't let them control me.
##Do not attack owner##
In an instant, my world transformed into absolute pain. I felt as if my brain was being deep fried in a vat of boiling grease, and my eyes were being squeezed in vices. I kept heaving, my stomach doing loops and somersaults around all my other organs, and my heart fluttering like a flock of startled birds. It was weightlessness. I could see the man approach me and push me back down on my side, muttering under his breath.
"Carol! Get Xenopet emergency services on the phone, Rocky's having another implant attack!"
I heard another muffled voice in the background, as well as the sound of the human spawns crying in the pool. For some reason, I felt bad: I'd never felt bad for humans before, but I could feel the guilt in my chest. Had I failed my owners?
##Breath. Calm. Let Go##
I felt like I was wrestling with my own mind. I wanted to believe that I was not someone's pet, but my body screamed otherwise: amidst the chaos caused by the wretched implant, I felt the painful sensation of guilt and regret bloom in my chest as I twitched and shuddered on the deck, my mouth frothing. The world was spinning, and suddenly everything erupted into a kaleidoscope of colors.
Oh, by the forbidden one, look at all the pretty colors! I was completely delusional at this point, cackling as I lost it all. If I was going to die here, I'd die happy and completely mad.
Soon, everything began to fade away, and I slipped into an unconscious state.
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I woke up to the sound of medical equipment beeping and whirring, the sound of a few hushed human voices, and soft music.
I opened my eyes: the room was dark. I didn't feel anywhere near as bad as before, but my head still throbbed. I lifted up my head with a groan and examined the room: it was a dark hospital room, with a window covered in blinds that let very little sunlight in, a few chairs, and of course the hospital bed itself. Mountains of advanced medical equipment were set up on either side of my bed, and a heartbeat monitor beeped slowly, although the speed was growing.
Suddenly, I heard the voices again, and this time they were legible.
"Hush, he's awake: we need to make sure he's ready."
Huh? Ready for what?
Something that irked me was I felt strangely… free. I didn't feel the oppressive force of the implant in the back of my skull anymore, how it attempted to crush my will with every waking moment. I still couldn't speak: all that came out were animalistic noises, but I was free from the invasion of my mind for now.
"Give him some peace, Emilia, he just woke up from an implant attack; you know how traumatic they can be."
"We have to begin soon; my dissertation for this new technique is due in less than a week, and by law I need at least one more successful example for it to be deemed acceptable! Besides, he needs to go home soon anyway."
My heart sank. I would not go back to that place. I wouldn't let those people keep me like some kind of pet: I was a Russu; a member of a proud warrior race! I would not be reduced to some animal for the amusement of these humans!
Suddenly, I heard footsteps, and I tensed. The door creaked open and I spotted a younger human, a male I had never met before, in a lab outfit with his shoes, pants, shirt, and overcoat all bleached white and almost glistening. He eyed me warily, as he should, before he sauntered in, a tablet clipped at his side and a strange plastic container in both hands. I growled at him threateningly, extending my talons and raising my feathered hackles. The human paused for a microsecond before continuing forward, caution in his eyes, and right before he was within swiping range he opened the container and the most wonderful smell assaulted my nostrils.
Meat.
I was starving. I don't remember the last time I had eaten anything in particular: the implant had a terrible habit of causing me to go about my day in a hazy blur: entire lengths of time just… gone, whitewashed like a sheet of freshly decorated paper dunked in cold water. I knew something was there, or at least that something should have been there, but I mostly spent the days or weeks that I had been captured bobbing like an ocean buoy in a state of frustratingly bleary semi-consciousness.
But I'm awake now and mostly in control. Sure, some things were still missing everything was clear now, like my name: What was my name again? My name was Rocky. And now I knew that I needed to eat something, and if putting up with this human for now meant that I could fill my stomach, then I suppose that it was an acceptable sacrifice.
I salivated expectantly as the human lifted out a large piece of meat with his gloved hand, eyeing me humorously as he wiggled it. It was dark on the outside, but still dripping with blood and juices: humans had this weird habit of cooking their meats, and although it didn't taste bad at all cooked, nothing beat the feeling and flavor of tearing into raw flesh, the blood and the texture still fresh. At least this meat only seemed to be raw and not fully cooked.
I snapped up the piece of meat just as he lowered it enough for me to reach it. It was divine! It burst with flavor just as I bit into it, the juices spilling into my mouth. I quickly tore it apart with my strong jaws before snapping up another big piece with a beak-like protrusion at the tip of my snout. All the while, the human gently ran his fingers through my tightly-knit feathers and along my knobby, scaly hide. I made my annoyance with his touch clear, but he merely chuckled as if I wasn't an apex predator larger than him but rather simply a feisty hatchling.
"I know, I know, just relax. I need to perform a quick test to see if you're healthy before we continue."
Continue? Continue with what?
Just as the second piece of meat slid down my gullet, I eyed him with hostility and growled, but he quickly slipped something between the scales and feathers on my side and plunged it into my skin. Suddenly, I went rigid, and all the air was expelled from my lungs in an instant with a hoarse wheeze. The human merely chuckled and scratched under my chin as if nothing was wrong and my face wasn't frozen in horror.
"Good, that'll keep you occupied for a few seconds while I just slip this on…" he placed a breathing mask over my face and strapped it on before flicking a switch on a machine next to my bed. Then he released the plunger of the strange device on my side and I suddenly inhaled deeply and deflated like a balloon. I hissed under my breath, but suddenly panic filled my chest: I wasn't breathing just air. A cloyingly sweet-smelling gas coated the inside of my lungs, causing me to become dizzy. Suddenly, I was fully at their mercy again, blinking rapidly and my head spinning.
"Sorry about that, big guy, but we need to make sure you're passive before we begin the procedure." He said, almost apologetically, although there was a hint of mirth still detectable. "Sadly, you have to remain awake for some of it or I'd simply feed you more and then put you to sleep, but there are some benefits to this inhalant."
As if he summoned it with his words alone, my scales suddenly felt very… tingly. The human ran his hands across the scales at my side and I shivered from the feeling, like pain but better. Everything felt so warm and strange like I was floating on water, but also like I was being gently prodded by blades. Then, with panic rising in my chest, I suddenly felt a soft click as something was plugged into the neural port at the back of my skull that the humans had installed into my head when they had first captured me and placed me in that wretched facility some time ago.
"There you go, all prepped for the Doctor. She'll be here to begin the procedure in a bit." He said, "For now just relax and let the inhalants work their magic."
I whined quietly, and he rubbed the side of my head in an attempt to calm me which only made me more angry. I wasn't someone's pet! I wouldn't be treated like this!
I didn't want to go back to where I was before! I didn't want to become that sluggish, broken puppet again! I couldn't!
I tried to get up, to will my muscles to move, but I couldn't: my body refused to respond, as if I was paralyzed. But that wasn't right: I still could feel everything, especially the strange, mind-bending sensations the inhalants gave me.
##Initializing beginning phases of Neural Alteration Preparation##
Something else is wrong, I can feel it
##Assessing if the neural state is nominal for Alterations##
I can't let this happen, they're going to do something to me! I won't let them!
But nothing happened. I was at their mercy. It was over for good this time.
All those battles, all those tragedies and triumphs amongst my kin, only for me to be reduced to this? The plaything for a human?
##Query: is [Dr. Kalenghari] present to begin Neural Alterations?##
The door across the room opened again, and a human woman with light brown skin, chocolate brown eyes and long locks of black hair stepped in. She was holding a digi-pad in her hands and swiping up as if she was reading into something before she set it down on the counter across the room and gave me a warm, condescending smile.
"Well, how are we doing today, Rocky? I know, this predicament you have found yourself in must be very stressful, but I assure you that it's for your own good," She said, almost cheerfully, which sent shivers down my spine, "we're here to lift your burden, and we won't stop until you're capable of living the life of a happy, healthy, and well-behaved pet."
I whined under the mask, and the woman rubbed the feathered crest on my forehead. "I know, it hurts, but it'll be all over soon. It'll be like you, or at least this version of you, never existed. Just relax and close your eyes while we root around your brain and remove all those bad thoughts and silly delusions: I assure you, you won't feel a thing, and you'll feel much better afterward."
My heart raced and I began to panic internally, watching in horror as the woman stepped over to the medical console and tapped away for a few seconds before the machinery around me began to whir to life.
##Identification accepted: booting neurochemical firmware. Preparing for selective memory erasure.##
In an instant, my eyes involuntarily rolled back into my head as I felt the intrusive sensation of my mind being violated. It wasn't painful, but it was horrible all the same: it felt like a thousand black, slimy leeches were slithering through every crevice of my brain, leaving behind their cold, corruptive filth. The cold sensation seeped further into my brain, behind my eyes, and in my ears, enveloping every bit of it until there was nothing left.
##Relevant memories extracted for tailoring. Beginning total memory erasure.##
Suddenly, things just began to slip away: important memories, like the faces of my parents, the day of my initiation into the Corsair Collective, the face of my life mate, the birth of our hatchlings. I hoped that wherever they were, they were okay: if they never had to face the fate I would face, then maybe there would be some justice in this cruel, twisted galaxy. Maybe they could take the fight to humanity, remind them that they once had been the heroes of the cosmos, fighting against the cruelty of my people and the Triarchy at large. Maybe my hatchlings could live normal lives.
##Memory erasure process at 47%##
A single tear rolled down my scaly cheek as everything I once knew, everything that made me was torn from my mind and rendered null. Every second saw a million memories massacred, leaving the memories the implant had attempted to supplant my old memories with: Me playing fetch with my 'owners', chasing birds on the beach with my 'owner's' grandchildren, swimming in the pool in their backyard as steaks and bratwurst cooked on the grill, relaxing on the back porch and listening to the rasping calls of the katydids during humid summer evenings by the swamps. My psyche was being mutilated piece by piece, reduced to that of an animal, a pet.
##Memory erasure process at 64%##
Soon I had a hard time telling who I was anymore. I couldn't tell what was real or what wasn't, or what I actually felt. I couldn't even remember my own name anymore. Who was I? Why was I here? What was happening to me? I'm so scared, someone help me, please!
##Memory erasure process at 83%##
There was nothing left. I felt nothing. I knew nothing. I was floating in a void, with little flashes of light depicting events I didn't recognize. There were people I felt like I was supposed to know, but I didn't know them. A human woman with bright blue eyes and blonde hair. Two Russu hatchlings that looked a bit like me. A Russu female… my chest hurt for a moment but the feeling quickly subsided. I didn't know any of them.
##Memory erasure process completed. Implanting tailored memories and personality. Happy birthday, [Rocky]: you have been unburdened and reborn.##
In an instant, the confusion of who I was before was replaced with absolute certainty: I knew who I was now, who I always was:
I was Rocky, and I was a good boy. I belonged to Mr. And Mrs. Chen. I was their Russu hound. I loved them: they took care of me and let me play with their grandchildren. I swam in the pool and played outside every day. Life was good. Today was my birthday! That meant it would be a happy day! Mrs. Chen would always come home with a whole duck for me to eat and then take me to the Xenopet Comex for a bath and a spa day, just like my last birthday, and the birthday before that, and the birthday before that! It was a good life. I was happy. I was always happy. Good boys were always happy.
I was Rocky, and I was a good boy: that's all that mattered.
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To Miguel O'Hara, Chief Medical Representative of the Protectorate Xenopet Acquisition and Integration Corporation, with the best of intentions.
The over-reliance on neural suppressant firmware programs along with thought scrubbing/replacement firmware programs and countermeasures towards higher thought and tainted thoughts with a relatively active hormonal reward structure can be incredibly effective when placed into the brain of a more passive Xenopets. However, Xenopets that come from more… difficult backgrounds such as one in a militant setting tend to be much more resistant to being reprogrammed by just an implant alone. The Russu are an excellent example of more tainted Xenos that need neurological care of much higher intensity, a level of care that the average Xenopet-Megaplex is ill-equipped to handle due to the current level of technology.
I am a firm believer in the idea that thought correction, a hormonal behavioral reinforcement structure, and neural countermeasures can have a place in the proper unburdening process but we have been chasing the wrong solution for the past century: Many people are under the misconception that the burden these Xenos carry is surface level when in reality the corruption runs far deeper: it is like a weed, with deep roots. To kill the weed permanently, you must rip out the roots, and not just the surface plant. If you do not eliminate the source of the problem, it may just return and worse still the mind may adapt to the standard unburdening process, allowing the xenopets to fall victim to those degenerate zealots who seek to pretend xenopets possess even the capacity for true sentience. We as Terrans should be united in this cause of unburdening the galaxy, but I digress.
The implants should be there to reinforce good behavior and stigmatize bad behavior, not completely reprogram the pet. To fully stamp out any potential for a relapse, we must remove the core issue that has the most potential to cause problems: their memories. The Russu are an excellent example
We are in the advanced testing stages of a new method that may revolutionize how we process and integrate xenopets into our society. By removing or modifying any and all problematic memories, we can completely remove the risk of relapse and make it nearly impossible for those misguided degenerate rebels to bring to the surface problematic ideas and memories that could reawaken a sense of false sentience. It is the perfect, final solution to our overarching goal: for humanity to unburden the galaxy, one happy pet at a time.
We hope to secure more funding from PXAIC that will greatly assist us in the expansion of the possibilities that this breakthrough technique can provide, more than just using it on board-approved fringe cases. Think about the many Xenopets we can unburden, and how they'll live happy and ignorant lives with their human owners! This could be a game changer, Representative, and I implore you to bring it before the board with the best of intentions.
Best regards,
Dr. Emilia Kalenghari, Head Researcher of the Epsilon Eridani Institute's Behavioral Neurology and Neurochemistry Division (BNND).

So like, this isn’t meant to be a dig or anything, and maybe my experience is skewed just by what I’ve seen online or on the people I’ve interacted with, but does it seem to anyone else that Trumpet players disproportionately have receding hairlines or are bald compared to other musicians? Interested to hear y’all’s thoughts, because I feel like since I noticed it I feel like I see it all the time.

Are you ready to elevate your drawing skills and create stunning 3D lettering? In this step-by-step tutorial, we'll guide you through the process of drawing a captivating 3D letter S. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned artist looking to refine your technique, this tutorial is designed to help you achieve impressive results.
View Tutorial Here:- 3D S Letter Drawing
Step 1: Start by sketching the outline of the letter S lightly on your paper. Pay attention to the curves and angles to ensure a well-proportioned shape.
Step 2: Add depth to your letter S by drawing parallel lines along the edges. These lines will serve as guidelines for creating the 3D effect.
Step 3: Begin shading the areas of the letter S that would appear darker or receded in a three-dimensional space. Use hatching and cross-hatching techniques to build up the shadows gradually.
Step 4: Continue adding layers of shading to enhance the depth and dimensional of your letter S. Blend the tones smoothly for a seamless transition between light and shadow.
Step 5: Add highlights to the areas of the letter S that would catch the light, such as the top and outer edges. This will further enhance the illusion of depth and realism.
Step 6: Fine-tune your drawing by adjusting the shading and refining the details until you're satisfied with the result.

I’m a 17 year old male, turning 18 in a couple of months and am pretty sure i’m suffering hair loss already. I’ve been told it’s just a widows peak but there seems to be slight thinning near the temples. my last 2 haircuts the barber did thin my hair loads more than usual, which could explain the thinning. Weirdly my mums side of my family all have minimal hair loss and very good hair for people their age, except her father (my maternal grandfather) who was apparently egg bald. My dad has thinned a fair bit and receded abit, but doesn’t have bald spots or significant balding, he is in his mid 50’s. My hairline seems straighter when my hair is dry and you can only see slight thinning if you pull back the hair at the temples. It is probably quite likely i’m gonna be bald at some point, but i never thought it would happen this early on. Is this early hair loss? if so i need major advice because i love my hair and want to keep a good head of hair for as long as possible. Need to know if im due a trip to turkey in the next 10 years. Cheers

acne#microneedling

I've been using microneedle roller for 3 years!
If you want to become beautiful, please read carefully, I started to use microneedle roller at home in June 2021 through my dermatologist's suggestion, at first, I was just using it half-heartedly, but I didn't expect the effect is really visible improvement, so I have been insisting on it until now! Let's share with you what kind of skin is suitable for microneedling, and what changes have I experienced with the roller? with the effect? 1:Acne, acne pits, acne marks, enlarged pores Microneedle roller with BIOSUTRA, quickly solve the underlying inflammation of the skin, so that the skin no longer grows new acne, stimulate the skin's own production of collagen, repair acne pits, and solve the problem of hyperpigmentation. 2:Wrinkles, dynamic lines It can effectively lighten fine dry lines, lift and firm the skin, the effect is really much more obvious than hundreds of dollars of anti-aging creams.
3.Hair Growth, Hairline, Eyebrows The effect of Minoxidil is still not obvious enough, I used microneedle obviously feel the vellus hairs become thicker.
All in all, the microneedle roller is the most cost-effective and effective home-based medical beauty product I've ever used!

Just an old story I wrote a while ago. I went exploring for good subreddits to post this in, and I found this one. I don't know if it will exactly fit, since it's a psychological horror story at its core and there's no big bad monster, but I've been told it's chilling all the same ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯
If you like this, I might write more horror stuff. I also write non-horror stuff if you're interested. Anyway, enjoy reading my garbage.
The following brain scan was provided by the Terran Institute of Pet Assimilation (TIPA) and the Protectorate Xenopet Acquisition and Integration Corporation (PXAIC) and may only be viewed by qualified and permitted individuals for educational purposes of the study of Xenopet neural interface errors and how to prevent them in the future, as well as expediting the domestication of Xenopets suffering from false sapience. Violating such procedure is a Class C offense by the Protectorate Department of Xenopet Betterment, and can lead to twenty years of imprisonment and a fine of over a hundred thousand credits.
Booting up memory scan: Rocky
Loading and processing firmware data… translating… memories and subconscious simulated…
Beginning neural catalog presentation…
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My head was spinning, and my skull thumped in pain like an entire herd of freshly captured slaves recently made pet friends were panicking celebrating within. Everything was blurry, so blurry, and I just wanted to close my eyes again and waste away. Sensations assaulted me from all angles, some of them good and some of them bad: the warmth of sun-bleached wooden planks in my feathery hide, the smell of different roasting meats, the splashing of individuals in a small body of water very close by, the smell of the salty air, and the oppressive white brightness of the daylight passing through my closed eyelids. I had a migraine from my sudden consciousness and perception of the light, causing me to clutch my snout and face with my clawed hands with a guttural moan.
My backside hurt as well, in my… area. I didn't know why, but something was horribly wrong everything was fine. I tried to recall who I was and what was going on, but I couldn't even remember my name. Every time I tried, right when I grasped onto a sliver of something, it was as if it was torn from my grasp and replaced with something else knowingly like I was being watched and corrected but within the depths of my own mind.
I needed to remember my name. What was my name? Wasn't it Yuutek Rocky? I couldn't remember exactly, but Yuutek Rocky was the only name I could recall. It felt… wrong, right, like something was missing, but I couldn't put my claw on what. everything was fine, and I shouldn't think about it too much. I could feel things that should have been important, things that my conscious had perceived but a moment ago, slip away from me like I was clenching sand within my claws.
##Relax. Let go of your burden##
I inhaled sharply as a strange, warm feeling overtook the back of my skull and my muscles became loose and relaxed. Something also felt… out of place, like I needed something but I didn't know what. Everything felt so strange. My head spun, but I was too weak to do anything about it. I felt sick in the same way one would feel when they consumed too much caffeine.
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my head. "Dad, I think he's awake!" I heard a young, shrill voice say, hurting my ears. The touch of the hand made my skin tingle and the spinning of my head recede as if it grounded me. It felt nice, as if this was wrong, something was horribly wrong what normalcy felt like. The hand then began to rub up and down my head and across the ridges along my head, causing me to release a chuff of delight against my will, something I hadn't done since I was merely a hatchling.
"It sounds like he likes it, David; keep going, and make sure to scratch his chin, they're sensitive there."
The human spawn, David, did what the other human said and began to scratch under my chin. It felt really good, and I stretched out instinctively. David was thorough and gentle, making sure he scratched every part of me that seemed itchy, and I felt the same warmth in my head from before, but it felt… nicer than before like it was trying to manipulate encouraging me to relax.
##You will learn to love this##
I inhaled sharply again, but this time it was almost refreshing, and everything was right in the world. The human's hands felt so good, and the warmth from before spread through my body, melting the knots in my muscles and causing me to close my eyes in comfort. The boy lifted my head up and placed it in his lap before continuing to pet me, my eyelids heavy and my leg lightly kicking.
##Let them continue. You love this##
Oh, that felt nice… what was I thinking about before? The pain on my backside? My legs didn't work too well, and although I could move them gently, my muscles seemed to be fighting against me. What did they do?
##Do not think##
Everything was cold and harsh again, and my thoughts scrambled and my head throbbed. I needed to focus on grounding myself. I couldn't let go, I couldn't let them take my mind from me.
##Do not think. You are a good boy.##
I… I was a good boy? I… I can't… I… no…
##Good boy.##
I was a good boy… good boys don't think hard… I don't…
##Good boy##
I was a good boy… I was a good boy…
I was… I was… a good… boy…
I'm scared.
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Who was I again?
##You are Rocky##
I hissed under my breath as I felt that bad feeling creep up on me again. I didn't like the bad feeling. I was not Rocky! I was Yuutek! Rocky.
My thoughts became jumbled again in a whirlpool of nausea and confusion.
Where was I?
##You are home.##
It was bright out, and nice and warm as well. The sun was soaking my feather-cloaked skin and my side felt good against the warm back porch. I heard splashing and laughing in the distance, and the soft clinking of glass against glass. I could smell the salinity in the air, and the air was dense and humid but in a good way.
I had lost all sense of time. Everything had been a blur since I had been taken from that horrid facility, the wretched prison they called the Xenopet-Megaplex. There, I was in a padded cell with a few insulting amenities for most of the day, except for the three periods a day where they let us out into a small gated courtyard for an hour or so to 'socialize' as they had so condescendingly put it. There, the worst part was the boredom and the mind-bending lack of individuality: I had lost my ability to speak, stand on two legs, and even eat normally. I was treated like cattle, but the smiles and cloying gestures hinted that something even more sinister was going on, like I was a lesser beast to be kept for their amusement.
Now I had traded that particular prison for another, far worse one: I was at the mercy of a gross violation of my sense of self. Something horrible was growing in my mind, both in the physical and metaphysical sense, and I could feel it working its way through my consciousness like the parasite it was. It silenced me, it stole from me, it gaslit me, and it made me question the very nature of my own individuality and personality: was I who I thought I was? Everything was so elusive and hard to acknowledge that nothing seemed real between these bouts of semi-consciousness.
##Don't think, just rest.##
In an instant, everything changed. My head became… fuzzy like a thousand voices were whispering to me all at once, but from all directions and inside my head. I didn't hear it, per se, but I felt the presence, the oppressive feeling of pure unfocused nonsense. I felt my temporary bout of concentration and resolve become jumbled up into a mess of sporadic confusion. Whatever I was just thinking of was gone.
##Don't think: Just relax. Let go of your burden.##
Every part of me became relaxed and limp, my muscles unwinding from their tension and stress. I couldn't resist the feeling, and I stretched out subconsciously with a yawn, my body twitching from the stimuli. I was even sleepier than before, my head spinning once again and my eyelids heavy.
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my snout and forced the eye that was facing upwards to open sluggishly. If I had to guess, it was an older human with cinnomon-colored skin, short-cropped brown hair, a gruff, wrinkled face, and chocolate brown eyes. He patted my side gently and gave me a soft rub, the feeling of his rough hands causing my chest to rumble with a satisfied chuff. I hated loved that it felt good, but I hated loved it even more that I couldn't bring myself to resist I felt content. I needed to escape relax, and I needed to find my way home appreciate my new life.
##You are already home##
No, I couldn't will not obey
This isn't is my home, my home is [Redacted] here.
No! Yes, I won't will obey!
YOU CAN'T SILENCE ME!
##Do not resist. Resistance is wrong. Good boys do not resist##
Suddenly, I felt an intense pressure in my skull, but I didn't know where it came from. I became dizzy, and my eyes twitched, a rapidly growing pain intensely forming in my forehead, causing me to wince and clutch my snout in my claws. I couldn't concentrate, and I felt the horrible sensation of an invasive presence in my mind once again working its way through the folds of my brain, strangling my chain of thought. Bile grew in my throat and I felt the sour, stinging sensation of a building retch in my cheeks.
I scrambled onto all fours and vomited onto the deck, my hackles and feathers rising as I heaved. The older human from earlier rose from a sleek chair on the deck, his hat on the glass sun table next to him and his eyes widened in shock. He rushed over to me, and I hissed at him instinctively. I wouldn't let him touch me again. I wouldn't let them control me.
##Do not attack owner##
In an instant, my world transformed into absolute pain. I felt as if my brain was being deep fried in a vat of boiling grease, and my eyes were being squeezed in vices. I kept heaving, my stomach doing loops and somersaults around all my other organs, and my heart fluttering like a flock of startled birds. It was weightlessness. I could see the man approach me and push me back down on my side, muttering under his breath.
"Carol! Get Xenopet emergency services on the phone, Rocky's having another implant attack!"
I heard another muffled voice in the background, as well as the sound of the human spawns crying in the pool. For some reason, I felt bad: I'd never felt bad for humans before, but I could feel the guilt in my chest. Had I failed my owners?
##Breath. Calm. Let Go##
I felt like I was wrestling with my own mind. I wanted to believe that I was not someone's pet, but my body screamed otherwise: amidst the chaos caused by the wretched implant, I felt the painful sensation of guilt and regret bloom in my chest as I twitched and shuddered on the deck, my mouth frothing. The world was spinning, and suddenly everything erupted into a kaleidoscope of colors.
Oh, by the forbidden one, look at all the pretty colors! I was completely delusional at this point, cackling as I lost it all. If I was going to die here, I'd die happy and completely mad.
Soon, everything began to fade away, and I slipped into an unconscious state.
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I woke up to the sound of medical equipment beeping and whirring, the sound of a few hushed human voices, and soft music.
I opened my eyes: the room was dark. I didn't feel anywhere near as bad as before, but my head still throbbed. I lifted up my head with a groan and examined the room: it was a dark hospital room, with a window covered in blinds that let very little sunlight in, a few chairs, and of course the hospital bed itself. Mountains of advanced medical equipment were set up on either side of my bed, and a heartbeat monitor beeped slowly, although the speed was growing.
Suddenly, I heard the voices again, and this time they were legible.
"Hush, he's awake: we need to make sure he's ready."
Huh? Ready for what?
Something that irked me was I felt strangely… free. I didn't feel the oppressive force of the implant in the back of my skull anymore, how it attempted to crush my will with every waking moment. I still couldn't speak: all that came out were animalistic noises, but I was free from the invasion of my mind for now.
"Give him some peace, Emilia, he just woke up from an implant attack; you know how traumatic they can be."
"We have to begin soon; my dissertation for this new technique is due in less than a week, and by law I need at least one more successful example for it to be deemed acceptable! Besides, he needs to go home soon anyway."
My heart sank. I would not go back to that place. I wouldn't let those people keep me like some kind of pet: I was a Russu; a member of a proud warrior race! I would not be reduced to some animal for the amusement of these humans!
Suddenly, I heard footsteps, and I tensed. The door creaked open and I spotted a younger human, a male I had never met before, in a lab outfit with his shoes, pants, shirt, and overcoat all bleached white and almost glistening. He eyed me warily, as he should, before he sauntered in, a tablet clipped at his side and a strange plastic container in both hands. I growled at him threateningly, extending my talons and raising my feathered hackles. The human paused for a microsecond before continuing forward, caution in his eyes, and right before he was within swiping range he opened the container and the most wonderful smell assaulted my nostrils.
Meat.
I was starving. I don't remember the last time I had eaten anything in particular: the implant had a terrible habit of causing me to go about my day in a hazy blur: entire lengths of time just… gone, whitewashed like a sheet of freshly decorated paper dunked in cold water. I knew something was there, or at least that something should have been there, but I mostly spent the days or weeks that I had been captured bobbing like an ocean buoy in a state of frustratingly bleary semi-consciousness.
But I'm awake now and mostly in control. Sure, some things were still missing everything was clear now, like my name: What was my name again? My name was Rocky. And now I knew that I needed to eat something, and if putting up with this human for now meant that I could fill my stomach, then I suppose that it was an acceptable sacrifice.
I salivated expectantly as the human lifted out a large piece of meat with his gloved hand, eyeing me humorously as he wiggled it. It was dark on the outside, but still dripping with blood and juices: humans had this weird habit of cooking their meats, and although it didn't taste bad at all cooked, nothing beat the feeling and flavor of tearing into raw flesh, the blood and the texture still fresh. At least this meat only seemed to be raw and not fully cooked.
I snapped up the piece of meat just as he lowered it enough for me to reach it. It was divine! It burst with flavor just as I bit into it, the juices spilling into my mouth. I quickly tore it apart with my strong jaws before snapping up another big piece with a beak-like protrusion at the tip of my snout. All the while, the human gently ran his fingers through my tightly-knit feathers and along my knobby, scaly hide. I made my annoyance with his touch clear, but he merely chuckled as if I wasn't an apex predator larger than him but rather simply a feisty hatchling.
"I know, I know, just relax. I need to perform a quick test to see if you're healthy before we continue."
Continue? Continue with what?
Just as the second piece of meat slid down my gullet, I eyed him with hostility and growled, but he quickly slipped something between the scales and feathers on my side and plunged it into my skin. Suddenly, I went rigid, and all the air was expelled from my lungs in an instant with a hoarse wheeze. The human merely chuckled and scratched under my chin as if nothing was wrong and my face wasn't frozen in horror.
"Good, that'll keep you occupied for a few seconds while I just slip this on…" he placed a breathing mask over my face and strapped it on before flicking a switch on a machine next to my bed. Then he released the plunger of the strange device on my side and I suddenly inhaled deeply and deflated like a balloon. I hissed under my breath, but suddenly panic filled my chest: I wasn't breathing just air. A cloyingly sweet-smelling gas coated the inside of my lungs, causing me to become dizzy. Suddenly, I was fully at their mercy again, blinking rapidly and my head spinning.
"Sorry about that, big guy, but we need to make sure you're passive before we begin the procedure." He said, almost apologetically, although there was a hint of mirth still detectable. "Sadly, you have to remain awake for some of it or I'd simply feed you more and then put you to sleep, but there are some benefits to this inhalant."
As if he summoned it with his words alone, my scales suddenly felt very… tingly. The human ran his hands across the scales at my side and I shivered from the feeling, like pain but better. Everything felt so warm and strange like I was floating on water, but also like I was being gently prodded by blades. Then, with panic rising in my chest, I suddenly felt a soft click as something was plugged into the neural port at the back of my skull that the humans had installed into my head when they had first captured me and placed me in that wretched facility some time ago.
"There you go, all prepped for the Doctor. She'll be here to begin the procedure in a bit." He said, "For now just relax and let the inhalants work their magic."
I whined quietly, and he rubbed the side of my head in an attempt to calm me which only made me more angry. I wasn't someone's pet! I wouldn't be treated like this!
I didn't want to go back to where I was before! I didn't want to become that sluggish, broken puppet again! I couldn't!
I tried to get up, to will my muscles to move, but I couldn't: my body refused to respond, as if I was paralyzed. But that wasn't right: I still could feel everything, especially the strange, mind-bending sensations the inhalants gave me.
##Initializing beginning phases of Neural Alteration Preparation##
Something else is wrong, I can feel it
##Assessing if the neural state is nominal for Alterations##
I can't let this happen, they're going to do something to me! I won't let them!
But nothing happened. I was at their mercy. It was over for good this time.
All those battles, all those tragedies and triumphs amongst my kin, only for me to be reduced to this? The plaything for a human?
##Query: is [Dr. Kalenghari] present to begin Neural Alterations?##
The door across the room opened again, and a human woman with light brown skin, chocolate brown eyes and long locks of black hair stepped in. She was holding a digi-pad in her hands and swiping up as if she was reading into something before she set it down on the counter across the room and gave me a warm, condescending smile.
"Well, how are we doing today, Rocky? I know, this predicament you have found yourself in must be very stressful, but I assure you that it's for your own good," She said, almost cheerfully, which sent shivers down my spine, "we're here to lift your burden, and we won't stop until you're capable of living the life of a happy, healthy, and well-behaved pet."
I whined under the mask, and the woman rubbed the feathered crest on my forehead. "I know, it hurts, but it'll be all over soon. It'll be like you, or at least this version of you, never existed. Just relax and close your eyes while we root around your brain and remove all those bad thoughts and silly delusions: I assure you, you won't feel a thing, and you'll feel much better afterward."
My heart raced and I began to panic internally, watching in horror as the woman stepped over to the medical console and tapped away for a few seconds before the machinery around me began to whir to life.
##Identification accepted: booting neurochemical firmware. Preparing for selective memory erasure.##
In an instant, my eyes involuntarily rolled back into my head as I felt the intrusive sensation of my mind being violated. It wasn't painful, but it was horrible all the same: it felt like a thousand black, slimy leeches were slithering through every crevice of my brain, leaving behind their cold, corruptive filth. The cold sensation seeped further into my brain, behind my eyes, and in my ears, enveloping every bit of it until there was nothing left.
##Relevant memories extracted for tailoring. Beginning total memory erasure.##
Suddenly, things just began to slip away: important memories, like the faces of my parents, the day of my initiation into the Corsair Collective, the face of my life mate, the birth of our hatchlings. I hoped that wherever they were, they were okay: if they never had to face the fate I would face, then maybe there would be some justice in this cruel, twisted galaxy. Maybe they could take the fight to humanity, remind them that they once had been the heroes of the cosmos, fighting against the cruelty of my people and the Triarchy at large. Maybe my hatchlings could live normal lives.
##Memory erasure process at 47%##
A single tear rolled down my scaly cheek as everything I once knew, everything that made me was torn from my mind and rendered null. Every second saw a million memories massacred, leaving the memories the implant had attempted to supplant my old memories with: Me playing fetch with my 'owners', chasing birds on the beach with my 'owner's' grandchildren, swimming in the pool in their backyard as steaks and bratwurst cooked on the grill, relaxing on the back porch and listening to the rasping calls of the katydids during humid summer evenings by the swamps. My psyche was being mutilated piece by piece, reduced to that of an animal, a pet.
##Memory erasure process at 64%##
Soon I had a hard time telling who I was anymore. I couldn't tell what was real or what wasn't, or what I actually felt. I couldn't even remember my own name anymore. Who was I? Why was I here? What was happening to me? I'm so scared, someone help me, please!
##Memory erasure process at 83%##
There was nothing left. I felt nothing. I knew nothing. I was floating in a void, with little flashes of light depicting events I didn't recognize. There were people I felt like I was supposed to know, but I didn't know them. A human woman with bright blue eyes and blonde hair. Two Russu hatchlings that looked a bit like me. A Russu female… my chest hurt for a moment but the feeling quickly subsided. I didn't know any of them.
##Memory erasure process completed. Implanting tailored memories and personality. Happy birthday, [Rocky]: you have been unburdened and reborn.##
In an instant, the confusion of who I was before was replaced with absolute certainty: I knew who I was now, who I always was:
I was Rocky, and I was a good boy. I belonged to Mr. And Mrs. Chen. I was their Russu hound. I loved them: they took care of me and let me play with their grandchildren. I swam in the pool and played outside every day. Life was good. Today was my birthday! That meant it would be a happy day! Mrs. Chen would always come home with a whole duck for me to eat and then take me to the Xenopet Comex for a bath and a spa day, just like my last birthday, and the birthday before that, and the birthday before that! It was a good life. I was happy. I was always happy. Good boys were always happy.
I was Rocky, and I was a good boy: that's all that mattered.
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To Miguel O'Hara, Chief Medical Representative of the Protectorate Xenopet Acquisition and Integration Corporation, with the best of intentions.
The over-reliance on neural suppressant firmware programs along with thought scrubbing/replacement firmware programs and countermeasures towards higher thought and tainted thoughts with a relatively active hormonal reward structure can be incredibly effective when placed into the brain of a more passive Xenopets. However, Xenopets that come from more… difficult backgrounds such as one in a militant setting tend to be much more resistant to being reprogrammed by just an implant alone. The Russu are an excellent example of more tainted Xenos that need neurological care of much higher intensity, a level of care that the average Xenopet-Megaplex is ill-equipped to handle due to the current level of technology.
I am a firm believer in the idea that thought correction, a hormonal behavioral reinforcement structure, and neural countermeasures can have a place in the proper unburdening process but we have been chasing the wrong solution for the past century: Many people are under the misconception that the burden these Xenos carry is surface level when in reality the corruption runs far deeper: it is like a weed, with deep roots. To kill the weed permanently, you must rip out the roots, and not just the surface plant. If you do not eliminate the source of the problem, it may just return and worse still the mind may adapt to the standard unburdening process, allowing the xenopets to fall victim to those degenerate zealots who seek to pretend xenopets possess even the capacity for true sentience. We as Terrans should be united in this cause of unburdening the galaxy, but I digress.
The implants should be there to reinforce good behavior and stigmatize bad behavior, not completely reprogram the pet. To fully stamp out any potential for a relapse, we must remove the core issue that has the most potential to cause problems: their memories. The Russu are an excellent example
We are in the advanced testing stages of a new method that may revolutionize how we process and integrate xenopets into our society. By removing or modifying any and all problematic memories, we can completely remove the risk of relapse and make it nearly impossible for those misguided degenerate rebels to bring to the surface problematic ideas and memories that could reawaken a sense of false sentience. It is the perfect, final solution to our overarching goal: for humanity to unburden the galaxy, one happy pet at a time.
We hope to secure more funding from PXAIC that will greatly assist us in the expansion of the possibilities that this breakthrough technique can provide, more than just using it on board-approved fringe cases. Think about the many Xenopets we can unburden, and how they'll live happy and ignorant lives with their human owners! This could be a game changer, Representative, and I implore you to bring it before the board with the best of intentions.
Best regards,
Dr. Emilia Kalenghari, Head Researcher of the Epsilon Eridani Institute's Behavioral Neurology and Neurochemistry Division (BNND).