Crossed out generator

People Fucking Dying

2015.12.30 18:37 PUSClFER People Fucking Dying

Videos and GIFs of people (figuratively) fucking dying.
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2018.06.26 21:49 Azgarr Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator

A place to discuss Fantasy Map Generator (FMG) and maps created with its help. You may post suggestions, share created maps, links to blog posts, tutorials and any other related stuff. Please also join our Discord, where you can get almost immediate help. Updates, discussion and questions for Armoria (Heraldry generator and Editor) tool are also going here
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2009.11.01 00:31 Math Homework Reddit

#This subreddit is now private. [Click here to find out why we have gone dark](https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/5/23749188/reddit-subreddit-private-protest-api-changes-apollo-charges) /cheatatmathhomework is FREE math homework help sub. Asking for or offering payment will result in a permanent ban.
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2024.06.02 06:51 InsipidAxiom Pokemon Mythic Silver Official Beta Release, the second-ever hg-engine hack

The second ever hg-engine hack, Mythic Silver, is now live.
Get ready to spam some ubers.
A MASSIVE thank you goes out first to BluRose, Aero, Mixone, Senate, AdAstra, Silast, Drayano, ActiveHenry, Mojo, Brioche, Trinsic, Kenzy, and Cy for all their immense help in creating Mythic Silver, one of the most ambitious NDS hacks ever made. Without their continued help, none of this would have been possible. After nearly a year, and hundreds upon hundreds of development hours, the public beta is finished (the game is 100% finished minus a couple of signature move animations, and minor bugs).
You can download the game's patch and documentation here: DOWNLOAD HERE and the discord server for Mythic Silver and all other sauceyaTTa hacks here: DISCORD SERVER
HG-engine (the gen4 equivalent of CFRU, the "Radical Red engine") allows for previously tedious or impossible features, such as a massive dex expansions only seen in Emerald and FireRed decomps. Pokemon, moves, items, and abilities from generations 1-9 are included in this game for you to use and fight against.
Examples of new features are: automatic trick room battles, randomized leads, custom opponent Pokemon nicknames, enemy shinies, dynamic speed calculations, all 4 terrains, Primal Kyogre and Groudon weathers, gradually scaling hard level caps, trainer gauntlets, custom global warp zone to remove HMs, reusable TMs, Nature Mints, new battle items (Weakness Policy, Eviolite, etc...) as well as hundreds of new generation moves and abilities.
Oh, and a completely brand new region, story, and objective.
Example of a mid-game battle, with functioning electric terrain.
Pokemon Mythic Silver is an enormous overhaul to the Johto region, including a completely new story, with new maps, new sprites, new music (from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Platinum and more), new trainers, new gen Pokemon, and new battle modifiers.
Example of a new area -- Warped Weald, covered by a hazy fog.
Mythic Silver takes place after the events in PMD Explorers of Sky, this time with Darkrai seeking revenge, mangling both time and space from different regions all into one. Blessed by Arceus to encounter the most absurdly strong Pokemon, and partnered with some other familiar faces, the protagonist must journey throughout a new region to put a stop to Darkrai's plans.
Static Encounter with Volcanion in Azalea Industries, Flint's home.
There are many different flavors of maps in this game, from forests to wastelands.
Static encounter in Fleur Forest, the fairy haven.
The player may only obtain Mythical, Legendary, Sub-legendary, and Mega Pokemon. Despite this, there is a large pool of over 150 obtainable Pokemon, making for replayability. All of them have custom battle sprites, ranging from generations 1-9.
A typical encounter.
Throughout the game, you will meet many familiar faces, like the dynamic duo, Flint and Volkner from Sinnoh, who have come to make renovations to some towns. You will also learn more about Team Galactic, and other trainers like Clair, Whitney, Cynthia, Cyrus, Blue, Red, and many more.
Tag battle in the early game for extra items. Lava is animated!
If you've read this far, I highly recommend you try this game, the early beta testers have all really enjoyed it. On a very personal note, I have poured easily 600+ hours into development of this game. Many a night has been spent wondering how I can fit more textures into the game for more maps, how to compress songs so that the game doesn't reach the RAM limit, or even how to animate lava textures (which may have taken 4 hours by itself). I learned so much from other knowledgeable hackers, and made so many friends along the way. I especially enjoyed watching other hackers developing their own hg-engine hacks, such as Dray's Aurora Crystal, and taking inspiration from each other. I had so much fun live streaming map design (which you can watch all my hacking tutorials and development process at www.youtube.com/@sauceyaTTa), and I am going to go into detail at some point this summer to explain how I made certain features.
Mahogany Slum, a brand new area with a little Eternatus friend <3
Dynamic Camera which zooms out when crossing the bridge, thanks to Trifindo and Mikelan's PDSMS and bdhcam routine.
Lastly, I am very very very thankful for those in my discord server who extensively helped in testing, moderating, and keeping me motivated to churn out more features and content. Especially StaraptorOP, who has made numerous calcs, inspired me to continue hacking, and never lets any bugs or QoL features slide. I've been making ROM hacks for 2.5 years now (started December of 2021), and this is my 5th game, which took the longest by far to complete. I hope that you will enjoy playing this as much as I enjoyed writing the story, making the maps, crafting trainers, and re-arranging/porting custom music and sprites.
With much love,
sauceyaTTa
submitted by InsipidAxiom to PokemonROMhacks [link] [comments]


2024.06.02 06:22 blurryturtle 2024 Roland Garros Men's & Women's 4th Round - Sunday Matches

Swiatek vs Potapova :

Swiatek had to have been happy with her third round matchup after waking up from the nightmare that Naomi Osaka presented. She made quick work of Bouzkova, who was outmatched in every department. Bouzkova did manage to battle back in the first and make the set close, and she served surprisingly well, but she just doesn’t hit hard enough to beat Swiatek. It was one of those matches where Swiatek looks a bit impatient because she’s supplying all the offense, and it seems like when it takes 3-4 shots to get an opportunity to hit a winner, she tries to just infuse extra pace or spin instead and unforced errors appear. Trying to make the ball explode doesn’t really work, and extra force applied tends to fall short when compared to smooth technique. I watched Rune and Zverev have similar trouble today against their opponents. Players wind up pushing because they hit bigger than their opponent, but don’t want to make errors. It’s accuracy that’s missing, and it’s something for Swiatek to work on in the off-season. I would say that accuracy is the main problem with her serve as well. It has plenty of pace and spin, but the ball lands towards the center of the box way too often. Less pace, and more location will go a long way.
If it feels like I’m levying criticism today, yes. Your turn, Potapova and Wang. Potapova was down 5-0 in the first set, and won 7 games in a row. Wang has a tendency to just go big on her forehand, and she doesn’t stop when she misses. Potapova was an uphill battle, but Wang doesn’t actually need to hit clean winners to score. Her forehand is one of the biggest in the game, and once she locks into a cross-court rally she usually can win provided the ball lands inside the court. Landing the ball inside the court proved difficult, and it felt a bit like watching Struff. All the ability in the world but a sense of urgency that doesn’t really match the moment. Yes you want to stay aggressive, but the weight of shot buys you time in the rally, you don’t need to escape a rally you’re in control of.
Potapova wound up losing the second, and down a break in the third. She dug in admirably, but there were some really poor decisions late in the match. After getting to triple break point by rallying with Wang and keeping the ball deep until Wang missed, she got a simple backhand return off a serve. She went for a clean winner down the line for some reason, and then suddenly the next point mattered. She lost it, and suddenly the “oh F I had it and now it’s gone” fears rose. The game ended up at duece, and she went to tactic B : screaming on every shot. You can’t scream your opponent off the court, so this didn’t really work. In the end, Wang coughed up errors and Potapova won, but it was a match that was managed poorly by both. Potapova was very reactive to misses and makes, which is fine but wastes a bunch of energy and tends to affect your decisionmaking in a readable way. You want to maintain some mystery, and at a minimum not give your opponent any inspiration or hope to work off of while you’re out there.
Swiatek Potapova should be another safe match for Swiatek, but Potapova has good power off both wings and she hits her backhand down the line decent. Swiatek will need more than she brought against Bouzkova, and chances are this won’t be a blowout. Potapova won their last meeting 6-0 in the third on clay, but it was in 2016 at the juniors. Swiatek in 2.

Danilovic vs Vondrousova :

Olga Danilovic has made the 4th round of a major. This changes her career in a major way. Tons of points, at least $250k, and a chance to win more. It’s even sweeter I would imagine because she probably shouldn’t be there. Her match against Donna Vekic was filled with many fumbles. Both players have enough power to hit past the other. Vekic was able to hit inside out forehands to great effect. Danilovic’s pendulum swing on her backhand was able to force errors from Vekic quite often. Her forehand down the line was almost a clean winner anytime she made it. In between all that though, they missed constantly.
The first set was a 6-0 beatdown from Vekic. She played excellent, and likely should have won the second. In the third, she went up a quick break. She gave that back, but broke to serve for the match. Immediately, she threw in a handful of forced dropshots and errors. Luckily, she broke again to serve for the match at 6-5. This gave her the opportunity to come up with a few more bailout dropshots and errors. If you watch highlights, this was an incredible match. If you watched the match, you saw two players whose games were affected by the situation. Vekic forced the issue and missed anytime she got control of the scoreboard, and Danilovic went through bouts of not missing at all followed by sending every ball wide. The tiebreaker was vaguely like watching a junior match. Every miss brought a huge reaction from the player. There were constant gestures and faces made to their boxes, and it was a little difficult to watch two great players struggle to focus and execute. Vekic managed to go up again 6-2 in the tiebreaker, but froze at that point and began hitting most of her shots long. She had trouble serving first serves in for the second half of the entire third set, but she really was unable to respond defensively once Danilovic got a full swing in.
After watching Danilovic down Collins and sort of defeat Vekic, it’s hard to count her out against Vondrousova. Marketa is a clear favorite against most players on clay, but the scorelines of her matches can be hard to predict. Against Paquet she was up a set and cruising up a double break in the second, and wound up back on serve. She closed out, but Vondrousova doesn’t hit that big and mostly thrives by defending and earning errors, so Danilovic will be able to compete. They played in the BJK cup and Vondrousova won in 3, and I’m guessing slower clay will give Vondrousova more of an edge. Vekic’s lack of speed really hurt her, and I think Vondrousova being able to put extra ball consistently in play will make Danilovic’s rough patches more of an issue. The emotional and physical output of Danilovic over the last few rounds has to take a toll, and I think she’ll fall a game or two short here. Vondrousova in 3.

Gauff vs Cocciaretto :

This is an excellent draw for Gauff so far. She’s playing great players, but stylistically they’re not a lot of trouble for her. This round is another good spot. Elisabetta Cocciaretto is a good server and has nice power, but she’s not the fastest around the court and she can make some unforced errors if she’s rushed. This means Gauff’s defense and power give her a great shot to win without trouble. Cocciaretto beating Samsonova was a surprise to me, but Samsonova doesn’t have the speed that Gauff does nor the consistency. This is a criminally short analysis but Gauff in 2.

Tauson vs Jabeur :

Great champions are able to elevate their games. This round, Ons will need to elevate hers. Clara Tauson is playing some great tennis, and coming into this match hers is the higher level. Jabeur was projected to have trouble against Fernandez and she did. It was another match where I felt like a good coach could have gotten their player across the finish line. Fernandez didn’t have a great chance in the first, but Jabeur was very willing to give the second away. Fernandez was able to dig in on defense and rally with Jabeur until she made errors or gave Leylah opportunities. Rather than keep rallying and really punish Jabeur, Fernandez went for winners … and missed them all. I’m not exaggerating here, in the second set she missed almost every offensive shot she went for, and it didn’t feel like she had to go for them. Jabeur hits bigger than Fernandez, so on the court it may have felt like she needed to do a lot, but most of her points come from consistency, so Leylah’s team will want to focus on having her focus on the mental battle going on in her opponent’s head rather than trying to be a big hitter. Physically, it’s just not in the cards for her to be slinging offense. Maybe she landed those same shots in an earlier round, so going for them was fine, but awareness on court is important, and Jabeur was trying to give the set away. After winning, Jabeur celebrated a bit which left me puzzled. It’s natural to be happy when you win, but I feel a little odd about these matches sometimes. Fernandez didn’t land a first serve for the last 20 minutes, threw in a ton of errors, and tried to hit an overhand winner for some reason off a return at 5-5 in the tiebreaker. It was a nice win, but Jabeur made this match hard on herself. I might be in hater mode today and I apologize, but it feels like sometimes players tap their head or pump their fist after overcoming challenges that they themselves created.
Positives for Jabeur were the times she put one extra ball back. She has had a middling season, and seeing her dig in is great. Her racquet skill is some of the best on tour as well, so the gets aren’t just a boost, they’re downright effective. She has the ability to stretch to her forehand and put squash gets back extremely low, and to flick cross-court forehands that seem impossible from how extended her arm is. Jabeur’s depth of talent is why she is still slightly favored in this match, because again, Clara Tauson is coming in at a high level. Tauson beat Ostapenko, and followed it up by putting Kenin through the ringer. Kenin had no chance in the first, but in the second she was able to reel back a break of serve and apply some decent pressure. Frustratingly, she just wasn’t able to execute in the big moments. At 15-30 5-5, Tauson hit a lob that was going a few feet out (to the side). While running backwards, Kenin seemed unaware of where she was in the court. She tried to play it overhead and missed. It was a momentum killer, and she ended up missing the remainder of her offensive opportunities.
Throughout the match, the big difference in the two was Tauson’s ability to score quickly. When she lands first serves, or if you give her a moment to get a full swing anywhere inside the baseline, you are toast. She has the type of power that Anisimova/Collins generate on their backhand, and she has a heavy forehand. That is why I suspect Jabeur will have a tough time winning this quickly. Jabeur has the endurance and variety to frustrate Tauson, but this feels like a battle of two big offenses, and Jabeur’s is a bit less consistent at this point. I want to believe Jabeur wins in 3, but she will need to step up her game and avoid the type of letdown she had in the second against Fernandez. Tauson is several tiers above Leylah and Osorio in terms of offensive opportunities, and both those players were able to get in winning position in at least one set. I’m still going to go with Jabeur in 3. Tauson has beaten some offenses, and some defenses, but Ons is the most complete player she’s faced so it feels very much like “prove it” territory for me.

Arnaldi vs Tsitsipas :

The story in Arnaldi’s match seems to be Rublev’s temper, but don’t let that overshadow Arnaldi’s performance. For me, Rublev’s temper is partially his fault, and partially his team’s. I’m especially sensitive to this after watching the last round, but being reactive to the outcome of points is a bit of a leak. If you are easily moved by events, then you are always able to be moved. It compounds, because if you are really good at something, there is no reason to believe that minor failures will continue, or even matter. It gives your opponent motivation, it wastes your valuable reserves of adrenaline and dopamine (depending on good/bad outcomes), and it’s honestly fairly distracting for an opponent. Just generally speaking, if my opponent is smashing his head with a racquet, I don’t really want to beat him. I’m still going to, but I want to compete and win, I don’t really want to add suffering to someone else. It’s unprofessional, it’s a detriment to his game, and it puts his opponents and umpires in an uncomfortable spot. Of course, he knows this, but it should hit home in this moment that he lost this match because of his lack of composure, and lost it to a player who thrives because of his composure.
Matteo Arnaldi plays steady consistent tennis. He works hard, he constantly works on his game, and he isn’t reactive out there aside from hyping himself up. He beat Fils because of deviations in his level of play and because he made it clear he wouldn’t miss. Fils forced shots and missed because he was unwilling to do the work. He beat Rublev because despite Rublev opening the match hitting clean and crushing winners, he just stayed the course and kept competing. When Christmas disappeared, Rublev noticed, and he did not like it. The crux of the issue is, he did not accept it. If I am upset about the way things are, that is natural. If I grit against the way they are, I suffer. If I accept the way things are, I am (counterintuitively) instantly free to begin working on changing them. It doesn’t mean we celebrate errors or loss, but resetting to the present moment is a major key to winning in professional sports and tennis players in particular have a difficulty with this.
I’m not trying to dump on all these players or attack them here either. All of them are tremendous athletes and are mostly excellent ambassadors and competitors. All of these struggles are natural and we all experiences the highs and lows of competition, but Rublev wants to win and this is something he needs to work on to do that consistently. If his coaches aren’t working on this with him, they’re doing him a disservice. If they are and he isn’t buying into it, he’s doing them a disservice. Everything is fine with Rublev’s game but the holes are clear. He needs more reps at net, he needs to develop dropshots, and he needs to not smash racquets.
For now, it’s Arnaldi vs Tsitsipas. Stefanos has been excellent this event, and he opens as the favorite for a reason. Zhang played solid in round 3, but he was helpless against Tsitsipas. Stef is holding serving quickly, and the speed with which he’s finding a forehand to the open court off of players’ returns is the catalyst of this. His stamina is a major weapon in these conditions and in this format, and his serve/forehand is one of the best left in the event. If Arnaldi wants to win, the plot is simple. Isolate Tsitsipas’ backhand, and get deep in sets. In the late stages of a close set, Tsitsipas is still prone to some shanks. I really do think Arnaldi needs to win the first set to have a shot here, but had Rublev been playing Tsitsipas I think we’d be expecting a somewhat close match so there’s no real argument for Arnaldi to get blown out here. He has a complete game, and he has good discipline. He’s lanky so he might be able to return well, and he can send his backhand down the line so Tsitsipas can’t just camp in his backhand corner. Forehand to forehand though, I think Tsitsipas wins. Losses to Ruud, Jarry, Medvedev make me think that Arnaldi has a bit of a ceiling, but all those were close affairs so Tsitsipas should have his hands full here. Tsitsipas in 4-5.

Alcaraz vs Auger-Aliassume :

Shelton and FAA was fairly hyped, but only Felix delivered. Shelton wasn’t really that bad, but FAA just showed he’s more comfortable on the surface. He faced no break points, and won comfortably in straight sets. His next match will be a lot more difficult, as he plays a version of Carlos Alcaraz that is cruising through the draw without really playing his best tennis. Alcaraz vs Korda was a strange contest. It reminded me a bit of Zverev or Rune playing matches they know they’re going to win. They don’t want to play extra sets, so they play a bit more carefully and just make sure to outlast their opponent. What ends up happening is the score stays close, and the stronger players needs to win a tense tiebreaker or break late in the set. Sure, they still win, but I think that an all-out assault from an earlier moment would allow them to fatigue their opponent.
These guys are all in tremendous shape (even Kotov), but there are levels/paces that they can’t hang at for long. Someone like Alcaraz can push the pace and wear Korda down, and once he breaks from that level, the odds of him winning the next sets easily are more likely. We watched Nadal and Djokovic do this to opponents for a long time, and the late sets were almost always blowouts after frantic openers. We watched Federer do the same thing mentally to opponents with a constant onslaught of offensive shots and tricky slices. If you don’t push the pace to a level your lower-tier opponent can’t hang at, they end up playing at a pace they’re comfortable with and then you play the same level of Korda in set 1 as you do in set 3.
Hater mode continues, but in this case I think it’s all assuming that Alcaraz is totally healthy. If he’s saving his arm for later, he played Korda perfectly. Sebastian continues to battle even with the best players on tour, and in the big moments he doesn’t change his game. 4-4 in a tiebreaker isn’t the time to force anything, but if you’re the underdog and have nothing to lose, it might be a good choice to ratchet up the pace a little, or take some chances. Instead, he seems to throw in rally ball errors. The two forehand misses he had in the tiebreaker were rough, but worse was that they weren’t even shots that were going to score. He was just guiding the ball in straight over the net. I guess in the end, beating Alcaraz, or even playing him even for a time, is a huge ask. It was a great match.
FAA will have his best chance to beat Alcaraz here. Alcaraz’s arm is potentially not 100%, and Korda probably should have won a set. I think the pace alone that Felix brings will wake Carlitos up a bit, and he has beaten FAA the last few times they’ve played so he’ll know which shots to employ and when. Even with his arm a question mark, Alcaraz’s speed around the court and ability to extend rallies are the right assets to score on FAA. Auger-Aliassime’s main issue on tour is that he can overhit forehands and cough up unforced errors. It should be noted also that FAA Shelton was played under a closed roof, which helps Felix’s serve a bit. The weather in Paris looks pretty nice for the rest of the tournament, so it’ll be warm and ideal for Alcaraz to wear him down and isolate his backhand when he can. FAA is good enough to compete at this level, but hasn’t been doing it regularly enough for me to think he can do so here for 3 whole sets. Alcaraz in 4.

Hurkacz vs Dimitrov :

Dimitrov leads this h2h 5-0. All the matches have been close, but you don’t get to 5-0 against Hurkacz unless you can reliably return serve. If you can reliably return serve, you can beat Hurkacz, and on clay it should be even more beneficial. Hurkacz has played excellent in this clay swing considering his status as a servebot, and leading into Wimbledon and the North American swing I think his baseline improves have him primed for some titles. He had a hard test with Shapovalov in round 3, and the new and sort of decent Shapovalov put up a good fight. Dimitrov had an easier time with Zizou Bergs, despite dropping a set. Bergs broke Dimitrov a bunch in this match, but Dimitrov’s slice gave him a lot of trouble. Grigor was content to just keep hitting the court, and it was enough in the end. Bergs had trouble lifting his forehand inside in off of the slice, and it meant going mostly inside out which Dimitrov was only too comfortable with. The quick turnaround is a concern here, but I don’t think the Bergs match was as labor intensive as it could have been. There were numerous rain delays, and the scores were close but only because Dimitrov didn’t redline. He served with control, he hit to big targets, and he secured the bag.
I don’t think Hurkacz gets beaten quickly here, and I don’t think Dimitrov is automatic just because of the h2h. He should win, but Dimitrov lost to Rune/Mensik/Fritz recently and those are all players right around Hurkacz level. If this goes to a 5th, I’d be pretty worried for Dimitrov’s chances. Picking Dimitrov in 4 feels tough, because Bergs got to a 4th and he wasn’t really playing his best today. The h2h is hard to ignore, so I’ll go with Dimitrov in 5. The quick turnaround might leave him tired but he should be able to outduel Hurkacz in most volleys and the low slices will be tough for the big dude to get down on.

Sinner vs Moutet :

Nothing like a seemingly simple one to end a full day of criticizing professional athletes for not being perfect <3. Moutet has been the most entertaining player in this event. He has won and lost lopsided sets, he has gone for every shot possible, he is chatting with the crowd, and he is giving the home country something to believe in. Considering he couldn’t even hit a two-handed backhand for a good chunk of the past year due to wrist surgery, it’s pretty impressive for him to get his game back to a really high level. Ofner was beating him early in the third round, but he was also sweating profusely. The workload of defending against Moutet’s big forehand strokes and his clever dropshots is exhausting, and Ofner’s game dipped as the match went on. It’ll be fun to see Sinner trading with Moutet, and it’ll be another look at his physical ability to see how quickly he moves to the frontcourt and how he defends Moutet’s forehand inside out. Generally with a hip injury, it’s sprinting forward and leaning wide to that side that becomes an issue.
Sinner has sort of entered a big however many group in terms of his results. He is able to beat the lower tier players for the entire match, and is consistently able to do so. There are no holes in his game, and aside from his hip issue there is no reason to think he loses here. Moutet has the game to make this the match of the day, but it feels like he’s spent a lot more time and energy on court and that’ll cost him. Sinner in 3.
submitted by blurryturtle to tennis [link] [comments]


2024.06.02 06:01 adulting4kids December 2nd Prompts and Character Profile Template

This post will repeat weekly through the month of December. Please repost or cross post as a way to promote this subreddit. Or ignore this one and check out our others! I apologize if it's cramping your style, but when I work hard on certain posts I want to be sure they are useful! I also am working on making these shorter so they don't get lost in the madness....
Scroll down for the Character Questions and create a thoughtful and empathetic profile of your main characters for your projects!
As always please use these as sparks to create and feel free to post your responses and ideas in comments or separate post! This is YOUR subreddit so go ahead and post away!
Prompt: Imagine a dystopian world where an oppressive government has successfully erased all forms of personal identity and history. In this society, individuals are assigned generic roles and are forbidden from expressing their unique thoughts, emotions, or experiences. Write a short story or reflective essay exploring the life of a character who discovers a hidden underground community that encourages self-expression and reignites the importance of personal narratives.
In your response, consider the following:
  1. Character and World Building:
    • Describe the protagonist's background, their assigned role, and their initial perception of the oppressive world they inhabit.
    • Develop the hidden underground community, including its purpose, structure, and the means through which it safeguards personal stories.
    • Create a contrast between the protagonist's initial world and the underground community, highlighting the impact of personal narratives on shaping identity and resisting oppression.
  2. Plot Analysis:
    • Outline the protagonist's journey of discovery, including their initial skepticism, the influential encounters they have within the underground community, and the personal sacrifices they make to preserve their identity.
    • Explore the challenges and conflicts faced by the protagonist, both externally (e.g., encounters with government authorities) and internally (e.g., the struggle to confront their identity).
  3. Deep Introspection:
    • Prompt the protagonist to reflect deeply on the uncomfortable subjects that the government's erasure of personal narratives seeks to suppress. These could include topics such as individuality, memory, trauma, and the power of storytelling as a tool for empathy and resistance.
    • Encourage the protagonist to evolve their thoughts and perceptions throughout the narrative, considering the consequences of silence and the potential for personal growth through self-expression and sharing.
  4. Requirements for Responses:
    • Conduct research to explore real-world examples of societies that suppress personal narratives or attempt to erase collective memory.
  5. Prompt: In a post-apocalyptic world, a devastating pandemic has wiped out most of humanity. The survivors are forced to live in isolated communities, each with its own set of strict rules and customs. Write a short story or reflective essay exploring the life of a character who questions the existing order and embarks on a journey to unite these fragmented communities. Consider the role of unity, diversity, and collaboration in rebuilding a shattered world.
  6. Prompt: Set in a future where advanced AI technology has permeated every aspect of society, write a story or reflective essay following a protagonist who begins to question the boundaries between human and machine. Delve into the ethical implications of human-AI relationships, the erosion of human emotions, and the potential consequences of blurring the line between artificial and genuine experiences.
  7. Prompt: Imagine a world where climate change and environmental degradation have irreversibly altered the planet. Write a story or reflective essay from the perspective of a character who is part of a group striving to restore balance and heal the damaged Earth. Explore the connections between personal responsibility, collective action, and the intersections of social and environmental justice.
  8. Prompt: Transport yourself to a society where strict social hierarchies are based on a person's genetic makeup. Write a short story or reflective essay following a character who challenges this system and advocates for equality and inclusivity. Examine the role of genetic determinism, discrimination, and the power of individual agency in reshaping social structures.
  9. Prompt: Imagine a world where art and creativity are considered illegal, seen as tools of subversion and chaos. Write a story or reflective essay from the perspective of an artist who risks everything to defy this oppressive regime and reclaim the power of artistic expression. Analyze the significance of art as a form of resistance, its ability to inspire change, and its impact on personal and societal transformation.
Remember to consider the following for each of the prompts to insure a well rounded and thought out premise that will engage the audience and allow room for growth in the plot.
Prompt 1 - Post-Apocalyptic Community Building:
Prompt 2 - Ethical Implications of AI Technology:
Prompt 3 - Environmental Restoration and Social Justice:
Prompt 4 - Genetic Hierarchy and Social Change:
Prompt 5 - Artistic Expression as Resistance:
  1. Chick Lit: Write a chick lit novel or short story following a relatable protagonist navigating the challenges of love, career, and self-discovery. Explore themes of friendship, personal growth, and finding balance in a fast-paced, modern world.
  2. Young Readers' Adventure: Imagine a group of young friends who stumble upon a hidden portal to another realm. Write an adventure novel or short story as they embark on a quest to save a magical world from darkness. Delve into themes of friendship, bravery, and the power of imagination.
  3. Historical Fiction: Set in a time of significant historical events, write a novel or short story highlighting a lesser-known figure or group of people. Research the historical context meticulously and emphasize the character's resilience, struggles, and contributions during that tumultuous period.
  4. Fantasy: Create a fantastical world filled with mythical creatures, magic, and ancient prophecies. Write a novel or short story following a young protagonist who discovers their extraordinary abilities and must navigate a treacherous journey to fulfill their destiny. Explore themes of self-discovery, heroism, and the blurred lines between good and evil.
  5. Mystery/Thriller: Write a gripping mystery or thriller novel following a seasoned detective or amateur sleuth investigating a perplexing crime. Develop complex characters, suspenseful plot twists, and an intricate web of clues and red herrings that keep readers guessing until the very end.
  6. Science Fiction: Set in a future where technological advancements have transformed society, write a novel or short story exploring the ethical and societal implications of groundbreaking inventions. Examine themes such as artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, or virtual reality and their impact on humanity's future.
  7. Romance: Craft a heartwarming romance novel or short story centered around two individuals from different backgrounds or opposing sides. Explore themes of love, forgiveness, and the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity.
  8. Coming-of-Age: Write a coming-of-age novel or short story following a young protagonist's journey of self-discovery, identity formation, and navigating the complexities of adolescence. Explore themes of friendship, personal growth, and the challenges of transitioning into adulthood.
  9. Psychological Thriller: Create a psychological thriller novel or short story that delves into the intricacies of the human mind. Focus on a protagonist who becomes entangled in a web of deception, manipulation, and paranoia. Explore themes of trust, perception, and the blurred lines between reality and illusion.
  10. Family Drama: Write a novel or short story exploring the dynamics and complexities within a multi-generational family. Include themes of love, secrets, and conflicts that arise as family members navigate their relationships, face past traumas, and strive for reconciliation.
Considerations for each prompt:
  1. Historical Romance: Write a one-page historical romance set in a lavish ballroom during the Victorian era. Focus on the forbidden love between a spirited debutante and a mysterious gentleman from a different social class.
  2. Science Fiction Comedy: Craft a one-page comedic story set in a futuristic space station. Follow the misadventures of a clumsy maintenance technician who unwittingly saves the day against all odds.
  3. Paranormal Mystery: Pen a one-page mystery story set in a haunted mansion. Introduce a skeptical paranormal investigator who must solve the mystery of a ghostly apparition that has been terrorizing the inhabitants.
  4. Literary Fiction: Write a one-page literary fiction piece centered around a character's contemplation of the fleeting nature of life and the importance of cherishing the present moment.
  5. Action Adventure: Craft a one-page action-packed adventure story set in the jungles of an unexplored island. Follow a daring archaeologist's quest for a hidden treasure while battling against treacherous obstacles and rival adventurers.
  6. Psychological Drama: Create a one-page psychological drama following the internal struggles of a troubled artist as they grapple with their inner demons and seek redemption.
  7. Magical Realism: Write a one-page magical realism story set in a sleepy coastal town. Explore the extraordinary occurrences that happen when an enigmatic mermaid washes ashore and disrupts the mundane lives of the townsfolk.
  8. Thriller: Craft a one-page thriller story involving a race against time. Follow a determined protagonist as they try to decipher cryptic clues and prevent a citywide disaster.
  9. Fantasy Adventure: Pen a one-page fantasy adventure story set in a whimsical realm. Follow a young hero's quest to retrieve a stolen artifact and restore balance to the land, encountering fantastical creatures and overcoming obstacles along the way.
  10. Historical Fiction Mystery: Write a one-page historical fiction mystery set during the Roaring Twenties. Follow a quick-witted detective as they unravel a web of deceit and intrigue surrounding a glamorous underground speakeasy in the heart of the city.
Considerations for each prompt:
Protagonist Character Profile:
  1. Name:
  2. Age:
  3. Gender:
  4. Physical appearance:
  5. Background:
  6. Personality traits (list at least five):
  7. Core values and beliefs:
  8. Motivations and goals:
  9. Biggest fear:
  10. Internal conflicts:
  11. External conflicts:
  12. Strengths:
  13. Weaknesses:
  14. Childhood experiences and their impact:
  15. Education and professional background:
  16. Relationship status and dynamics:
  17. Quirks or peculiar habits:
  18. Psychological disorders, if any:
  19. Familial relationships and dynamics:
  20. Support system (friends, mentors, etc.):
  21. Traumatic experiences and their effects:
  22. Coping mechanisms:
  23. Emotional vulnerabilities:
  24. Resilience and determination:
  25. Personal growth throughout the story:
Protagonist Character Questions:
  1. What drives the protagonist to take action and pursue their goals?
  2. How does the protagonist's childhood shape their behaviors and choices?
  3. What values does the protagonist hold dear, and how do they influence their decision-making process?
  4. What inner conflicts does the protagonist face, and how do they attempt to reconcile them?
  5. How does the protagonist's education and professional background contribute to their strengths and weaknesses?
  6. What traumatic experiences has the protagonist overcome, and how have these experiences shaped their worldview?
  7. How does the protagonist cope with stress or adversity?
  8. What relationships and dynamics are most significant to the protagonist, and how do these relationships evolve throughout the story?
  9. In what ways does the protagonist exhibit resilience and determination in the face of challenges?
  10. How does the protagonist approach personal growth and self-improvement?
  11. What psychological disorders, if any, does the protagonist struggle with, and how do these disorders impact their thoughts and actions?
  12. How does the protagonist's physical appearance contribute to their self-perception and interactions with others?
  13. What unique quirks or habits does the protagonist possess that make them stand out?
  14. What are the protagonist's primary desires and aspirations?
  15. How does the protagonist's internalized fear drive or hinder their actions?
  16. How does the protagonist navigate and resolve external conflicts?
  17. What coping mechanisms does the protagonist rely on during times of stress or emotional turmoil?
  18. How do familial relationships and dynamics influence the protagonist's actions and decisions?
  19. What significant life choices or dilemmas does the protagonist face throughout the story, and how do they respond?
  20. In what ways does the protagonist's support system impact their growth and resilience?
  21. How does the protagonist's personal development and self-discovery contribute to the overall narrative arc?
  22. How does the protagonist's background and experiences shape their perception of the world?
  23. What are the protagonist's core beliefs and values, and how do these impact their interactions with others?
  24. How does the protagonist handle setbacks or failures, and what lessons do they learn from these experiences?
  25. What external influences or societal pressures affect the protagonist's decision-making process?
Antagonist Character Profile:
  1. Name:
  2. Age:
  3. Gender:
  4. Physical appearance:
  5. Background:
  6. Personality traits (list at least five):
  7. Core values and beliefs:
  8. Motivations and goals:
  9. Biggest fear:
  10. Internal conflicts:
  11. External conflicts:
  12. Strengths:
  13. Weaknesses:
  14. Childhood experiences and their impact $ Go on
  1. Education and professional background: 16. Relationship status and dynamics: 17. Quirks or peculiar habits: 18. Psychological disorders, if any: 19. Familial relationships and dynamics: 20. Support system (friends, mentors, etc.): 21. Traumatic experiences and their effects: 22. Coping mechanisms: 23. Emotional vulnerabilities: 24. Strategies for achieving their goals: 25. Methods they employ to antagonize the protagonist:
Antagonist Character Questions:
  1. What drives the antagonist to oppose the protagonist and act as an obstacle in their journey?
  2. How does the antagonist's background and upbringing contribute to their negative behaviors and motivations?
  3. What core values and beliefs does the antagonist hold that align with their antagonistic actions?
  4. What personal goals or desires does the antagonist seek to fulfill?
  5. What is the biggest fear or insecurity that drives the antagonist's actions?
  6. How does the antagonist's internal conflicts manifest and impact their decisions?
  7. What external conflicts arise as a result of the antagonist's actions, and how do they handle these conflicts?
  8. In what ways does the antagonist exhibit strength and power, and how do these traits affect their interactions with others?
  9. What are the antagonist's weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited by the protagonist?
  10. How have childhood experiences shaped the antagonist's worldview and motivations?
  11. How does the antagonist's education and professional background contribute to their methods and strategies?
  12. What familial relationships or dynamics influence the antagonist's actions and choices?
  13. What unique quirks or habits does the antagonist possess that make them distinct or memorable?
  14. Are there any psychological disorders or conditions that contribute to the antagonist's behavior?
  15. How does the antagonist cope with stress or emotional turmoil?
  16. What strategies or tactics does the antagonist employ to achieve their goals and antagonize the protagonist?
  17. How do the antagonist's actions impact their relationships and interactions with other characters in the story?
18.How does the antagonist perceive and justify their actions, even if they are considered morally or ethically wrong?
  1. What external influences or societal pressures contribute to the antagonist's motivations or actions?
  2. How does the antagonist's physical appearance contribute to their demeanor and portrayal in the story?
  3. What significant life choices or dilemmas has the antagonist faced, and how have these shaped their character?
  4. What is the antagonist's reaction to setbacks or failures, and how do they adapt their strategies?
  5. How does the antagonist's support system or lack thereof impact their actions and decisions?
  6. What past traumatic experiences or events have influenced the antagonist's worldview and behaviors?
  7. How does the antagonist's emotional state or emotional vulnerabilities influence their actions and interactions with others?
submitted by adulting4kids to writingthruit [link] [comments]


2024.06.02 06:01 Direct-Caterpillar77 I have 2 weeks to get away from my husband (New Update)

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Complex-Wing7114
I have 2 weeks to get away from my husband
Originally posted to offmychest
Thanks to u/soayherder for suggesting this BoRU
Previous BoRU
TRIGGER WARNING: controlling behavior, threats, abusive behavior, stalking, assault, physical violence, gaslighting
Original Post Apr 27, 2024
Throwaway account as my husband and In-laws are follow my main. I, 29 F, have been married to my husband, 30 m, who I'll call Alex. Alex and I met in college during our freshman year. We started off as just friends, and got married seven months ago. I've gotten along with his family, but we aren't super close but we're friendly enough. The problem is that Alex has begun to make me incredibly uncomfortable.
Firstly, he's begun to ask me who I'm meeting with, where, what we plan on doing, how long every single time I leave the house without him. At first, I just thought he was being protective and a good partner just in case something happened, but then he started checking my phone after the visits, vetting and researching each of my friends as well.
He also has been pursuing me to link my bank account to his, as he's "in charge" of the finances when he was perfectly fine with keeping them separate before. We fight about it almost every day.
Finally, yesterday when he was preparing to go on a work trip for two weeks in California, he demanded I wear a tracker so he could keep and eye on me while he's gone. I can't do this anymore, I feel like I'm suffocating and his family who I've spoken to about his worrying behavior just said he's being careful and protective as a good husband should. I need to gather my things together and find a way to be gone before he gets home without tipping him off.
He's always threatened that if he ever found me cheating on him he'd turn in divorce papers the same day. He keeps a filled out copy in his desk. I'm going to submit those the day I leave. But there's so much to do, bergen finding a new place to live, seeing if my job has any transfers available, packing and moving in two weeks. His return flight May 11th, so I need to move quickly. I'm posting here because I don't have any close family, and I can't risk dragging my friends into this as we share the same friends.I just needed a place to vent, and ask if anyone has any advice on the easiest and safest way to do this?
Edit: oh my god you guys are amazing! I never even thought to not use his divorce papers. I'll check for cameras before I start any packing or prepping. I may also shred his divorce papers just in case and look into getting a lawyer for myself. I'm in a no fault divorce state, that much I so remember which will help. I'll update again when I know more. The tracker he wants me to use is a small clip to put on the belt or waistband. I'll wear it unless I'm going or doing something related to me leaving. No pets yet thankfully.
Update Apr 28, 2024
So I've gotten a lot of support and helpful advice along with questions I thought I should clarify before I proceed with the update. Some asked why I'd be 'hiding' things from Alex regarding going out and who I'm meeting with. I don't, and I have nothing to hide. However when he begins to then double check everything I tell him with the other people there right down to each person I talked to and what I said. Did I send any text msgs, did I order food, how much did I eat, that's when it started to feel like I was slowly being pushed into a corner. It didn't start that bad, but gradually grew worse overtime.
All of the Reddit subs my in-law's families are part of are related gardening and diy so I highly doubt they'll see this, if so by the time they do, I'll hopefully be gone. I talked to my job and explained things to my manager. And they promised to look into openings in other states to see if they could get me into one. They'll have an update on that in three days. I trust that my bank account us secured, considering he's tried to get into it before and failed. I found one camera in the kitchen, another in the living room and one in our bedroom. As such, I've left them in place for now and done all other planning, either in the bathroom pretending I'm taking a bath.
I'm honestly staying away from the domestic violence services as my sister-in-law is unfortunately higher up in those considering she volunteers there and I have a feeling if I did show up there, they would know in a heartbeat. I can't look for apartments until I get the update from my work, but either or i'm still gonna be leaving the state. The day before I do I will be changing my number carrier and wiping my laptop and all of his electronics before I do.
I've met with 2 lawyers so far and had them look over the paperwork. My husband had prepared and both said that it did it have some clauses in it. That could have caused me some trouble down the line. What alarmed all of us close the fact that several of those clauses dealt with future children, and not as a hypothetical. Like several hair suggested I have a feeling he fully intended on getting me pregnant to keep me trapped and tied to him.
There are 3 other locations. My job could send me to and I have. As a precaution Begun looking into all 3 cities and housing in the areas. Just in case one of those, this is the one they send me to. Even if they don't have an opening that they can push me into then I will just have to quit, move and figure things out on my own. I have enough money to live and survive for a few months until I can pick up another job.
Unfortunately all of our friends are mutuals and would likely be unaware of the consequences of saying or sharing anything I do or say with my husband. I don't have any surviving close family and obviously my in laws are not a good resource to rely on. I am on my own unfortunately, other than the wonderful bonds, i've begun to make here. I will update again if I get more information or something else happens. Otherwise all update when my work gets back to me. I do plan on leaving before he returns, though. Just to make sure that i'm not anywhere near here at that time.
Update 2 Apr 30, 2024
Good news! My work has an opening I qualify for that will not only shift me across the country, but also comes with a salary increase as well. I've started telling my in laws and friends that I'm planning a surprise outing for when my husband gets back for just the two of us. This way, people don't give me odd looks if they see me out and about. I've even gone as far as asking MIL to show me his favorite recipes.
Meanwhile, I've found a moving company that while small is willing to work in a storm. The reason is in five days, we're supposed to get hit with a large storm front. I plan to shut off the breaker and say we lost power if he asks just as several people here suggested and even send him a short clip of the storm.
I will have all of my stuff moved that afternoon, and I will be flying out once the weather has cleared enough to do so. I have a lawyer who will push my divorce through, and I've filled out the necessary paperwork so that I don't have to be here for it. I'm not suing for assets or alimony and I've shredded his divorce papers as well. I've set up a cheap payphone plan through cricket until this is all said and done at which point I will find a new carrier, number and phone. This one is being wiped and left behind.
My laptop is provided by my work, and the IT department inspected it thoroughly and it was clean thankfully. No other electronic aside from my laptop and new phone will be coming with me. If alex needs to talk to me, he can do it through my lawyer. Not sure if anything else will happen, my fingers are crossed that he doesn't think anythings amiss until after I leave - and I'm not turning the breaker back on when I do. He can when he gets home. My work is covering the plane ticket, so that at least is one expense I don't have to finagle in.
Update 3 May 7, 2024
Update 3: I have 2 weeks to get away from my husband.
It's been a busy week, but I've gotten so much done. Firstly, I am now out of the house and am currently in a hotel while I look for an apartment. It's a big city, bustling with people no matter where you look. We had a pretty bad storm system hit back home, that actually lasted two days. High winds, thunder, lightning and even hail everywhere. I didn't take much from the house, my documents, clothes and important sentimental items. I left all of the furniture and electronics behind. I cleaned the house top to bottom and took pictures on my phone so he couldn't claim I damaged anything when I left.
My lawyer has already started divorce proceedings, and my husband will be served on the 8th. His plane is due to land early morning, and the sheriff will be there at the house waiting for him. He is very much about public appearances and reputation. My lawyer will be calling him as well to inform him that I am more than willing to air out everything to the public about his actions if it means securing my freedom from him. I will go to court as long as I must to get this pushed through.
I haven't told our friends or his in-laws yet, I will do that while he is on the flight to prevent him from getting wind of it before he's handed the divorce papers. I will be calling around and explaining why we're getting divorced, to try and prevent him from twisting this into somehow being my fault. I don't want him trying to claim I had an affair or something so I want to get the truth out before he can twist this.
I'm... doing okay. I'm tired, but yet I feel almost jittery and off-kilter. I keep looking over my shoulder and monitoring what I say even when I don't really need to anymore. Hopefully that will fade soon. My work is covering the cost of the hotel, and I'm working on getting my other things in order. I also need to find a new GP as I want to get a full test just to make sure everything is okay. I don't know when my next update will be, probably when the divorce papers are filed or if we have to go to court to push them through. I will try to keep my head up, but it feels like I'm in a whirlwind or something with so many things to do and think about. I kinda thought it would be easier once I got out of the house but while the fear is smaller, somehow the number of tasks only seems to have grown.
Update 4 May 14, 2024
Sorry I haven't updated for a while, things got hectic and a bit chaotic honestly. Firstly, I'm working on getting an apartment still and have applications in at three different places and will hopefully hear back from them soon. I'm still going into work here at the new location, so I don't have to worry about burning through my emergency savings completely. I've gotten a lot of emails from Alex, his family and our old friend group asking question after question. I have only sent one return email to Alex, explaining that I don't believe we are truly compatible, and it is best we separate now. That his treatment of me when I'd done nothing to deserve as such was just as much of a deal breaker as cheating was for him.
I ended the email with the statement that I would not be contacting him further and anything else he needed to pass on to me or vice versa would be done through my lawyer. For his family and friends, I just typed up one email outlining everything that had happened and why I left. I told them I wished them no ill will, but that such treatment of his wife and partner was not acceptable. That should Alex get remarried in the future, I wished they would help support both partners and not just Alex.
Alex, from what my lawyer told me, was livid when he was served. The sheriff actually ended up booking him for assault on an officer and menacing due to the threats he was shouting. His father bailed him out in a few hours, but with the testimony of the sheriff, my lawyer believes I have a very good chance at getting a restraining order. Alex, upon returning to the house, apparently lost his temper again, breaking the dining table into pieces as well as the tv, and putting several holes in the walls. At least that's what one of the emails from one of our friends reported as Alex called him to help him clean up the mess.
My lawyer already has pictures of the house I took, with timestamps as evidence nothing had been damaged by me. My friend reported that Alex tried to claim I'd been the one to trash the house but the holes in the wall were at head height - Alex is 6'3", and I'm 5'4" so he knew that was false. Either way, taking the pictures definitely will help me so again thank you everyone here for the advice because I never would have thought of that on my own. My work won't share details of where I am, as I do work with some higher end clientele who value security and that information won't be gossiped about and no, I'm not some stripper or escort. I deal with contracts, notary and business management. As such, even if Alex tried to use my work to find me, he wouldn't succeed.

NEW UPDATE

Update on leaving May 26, 2024
It’s been a little bit, and I thought I’d answer some questions before giving my update. It may be a while after this until things change.
Firstly, No I didn’t bring my car. The public transport here is good enough to use without needing one. I have secured an apartment, and the building has good security. You need a key card to enter, and there is a security guard at a desk right by the entrance to the building. As part of my contract, I gave them a photo of Alex and his family so that even in the off chance they do find me, they won’t be let in.
The responses I got from the emails varied. His family said I was overreacting, and that I owe Alex an apology for the problems this has caused him. The pending criminal charges puts him at risk of losing his job if he’s convicted. Alex sent a long email, apologizing and pleading for me to come home. He said he was worried for me, that he is willing to go to therapy if it will appease me. He wants us to remain together, and he didn’t think leaving was an appropriate response to his genuine concern and worry for my health and safety. The friends gave somewhat lacking replies, saying that they didn’t think Alex was ever going to hurt me and that I shouldn’t be letting my imagination run away wild. As much as I want to say I was surprised by the lack of support, I’m honestly not.
He intends to fight the divorce. I am letting my lawyer handle it, and I am also pursuing a protective order as well. Once I got approved for my apartment, I also froze my credit. I’ve changed my phone carrier and number, as well as making sure none of my documents list Alex as next of kin or POA.
Some have asked why I was so paranoid about Alex and his possible future actions. The answer for that actually is somewhat simple – my grandmother. I loved that woman to bits. As a teen, she explained why my grandfather was never around. He was extremely abusive and manipulative, and her generation didn’t allow divorce really. She wouldn’t have been able to buy a house or get a good enough job to support her and my mother on her own. As such, she endured it, shielded my mom as she could until my grandfather died. When I felt like I may have been overreacting, I remembered how she’d said she’d always wished she’d been able to see grandfather for what he was early on when she may have been able to annul the marriage.
I don’t know when I’ll update again, maybe when the divorce goes through or if something big happens but until then, I’m just trying to keep my head above the water.
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP
DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7
submitted by Direct-Caterpillar77 to BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]


2024.06.02 05:22 Practical_Main_7882 (20F) Fresh out of a 2 year relationship with a 22M and seeing someone new, is it too early?

Hi, I need to vent a little. I’m a 20F and I have recently gotten out of a relationship with a 22M, and since I’m involving myself with someone new, I’ve been rethinking some things so I don’t make the same mistakes again.
My ex was not only my first boyfriend, but also the first man I kissed and had a deep connection with. I met him when I was 19, he lives nearby. Since we’re neighbors, my family and almost everyone in the neighborhood knew him and his family. When we started dating, our relationship was perfect, It seemed like we had everything in common and we would agree on almost every aspect of life.
I don’t know exactly when this problem started, but since the first time we tried sex I couldn’t open myself to him, I was embarrassed and scared, I couldn’t trust him. So I kept convincing him and myself that I didn’t like to be touched, and it would only be me touching him in this kind of situation. I felt that things were always rushed with him, that he wouldn’t take the time making me feel comfortable and loved before touching my private areas… I would tell him to take it slow and he tried sometimes, but It always felt artificial, like It was an obligation for him, not something he enjoyed :( So I just gave up trying, and one year went by smoothly, as we made plans of studying together abroad, of trying to make an income to get out of our parents houses and all the stuff young adults tend to dream of.
We agreed in lots of things (not all things, as I will explain later on) , as in personal values, principles, and political views. I noticed it from the first time we met that he was very interested in politics, philosophy and psychology, he would talk hours about those and even If I didn’t understand much of what he talked about, like some specific things about psychoanalysis, I would force myself to learn about it. It was really hard for me to try to learn about things I wasn’t interested, and It kind of affected my self-esteem, I started thinking I was dumb (I’m am engineering student, humanities is not really my thing lol). It would mostly be him leading the conversations, and I had a feeling he was strongly convinced of everything he talked about, like he was really proud of his intelligence. In the first, I thought it was nice and charming, but I started noticing some weird patterns…
When he had an ideia or problem, He would always come up with definitive solutions like: folllowing a new political agenda, buying extremely expensive tools, stop talking to all his friends, practicing a new physical activity until he got hurt, etc…, and I could never change his mind in any aspect, he wouldn’t listen, so I had to go along. With all these subtle changes of context, my anxiety sky-rocketed many times and I had multiple identity crises, but I was stupid enough not to notice the cause-effect correlation… neither did him.
During my anxiety episodes, he would try to psychoanalyze me and find the reason behind my suffering, I never liked it and I told him many times, but he said that even if It was unpleasant for me, he needed to make me rationalize instead of just cry. I always told him that I just wanted to be conforted, but he wouldn’t even be close to me physically when I was desperate, he would sit in a chair and try to bring back my family issues… I could feel he had no bad intentions, but It hurt anyway.
The third issue were some of his extremist views… In the beginning of our relationship, he was more left-wing leaning, but he would already say some things like “homosexuality and transexuality are a disease of mind”, but that he respected all people equally. I was clear to say that I was against this point of view, I tried to argument multiple times, but as I said before, his opinion was unshaken.
All these issues started building up during last year, so I broke up with him in the end of the year. I told him I couldn’t trust him as he deserved, and that I was really sick with anxiety and low self-esteem, all of these were true, but it wasn’t all. I could’t be honest with him because I didn’t want him to say “I’ll be better”, because I kew he wouldn’t and I didn’t have the strength to keep trying. But it was true that I still loved him. I was broken. I spent the next 3 months going through hell, rotting in my bad, anxious and depressed. I would occasionally meet him at home, so he saw I wasn’t over him. In February, after him repeatedly saying I wasn’t thinking straight when we broke up, I convinced myself of that and we got back together.
When we got back I remembered the sweet past, when we were deeply in love. It was magical for 3 weeks or something, when I found out he had converted to religion when we were apart, and his extremist views became even more dangerous, he became a conspiracist. He tried to push his new views down my throat, telling me my mental state was deteriorating because I’m part of a degenerated and nihilist generation, saying he was once like that to (he also had pretty bad depression when he was a teen). To be honest, this fucking terrified me… My admiration towards him kind of died. So we naturally distanced ourselves for weeks, and finally we had a disgusting and childish argument about religion (online).
In April, what happened was: A guy from my university started to hit on me, and I didn’t realize… My mind was numbed from everything I was going through, so I didn’t even pay attention, for me he was just another friend I made that would help me understand a subject better. The problem is, without me even noticing, he was making my days gradually easier to get through. He helped me study for a hard test, he motivated me. But because it was never just the 2 of us studying, even if the thought crossed my mind once, I didn’t really consider the possibility of him liking me more than a friend.
Back to my ex-boyfriend, I came to a point where it was insufferable for us two. We were just playing pretend, and he agreed the situation was bad, but the person who gave up was me (once again…) and we broke up. We cried, but at the same time, our last talk was… sore. I lied to him, in an attempt to to justify my feelings and so it wouldn’t hurt him so much, I told him the vague justification that I was not confident enough and the we didn’t agree on anything anymore… I told him I didn’t want to have kids (though maybe I do want it), and I wasn’t sure marriage is my life purpose, and that I needed some time for myself, out a relationship… he respected my decision.
One week after, that guy I met sent me a message, and we started gossiping about people from our uni course. It was fun and shy at first, but when we started talking at university, we started getting closer. The boy is a gentleman, he’s calm, careful, sensible. We can have a balanced conversation, cause he listens to me, he is truly interested in my personal tastes and he never forces a topic. I’ve never felt this comfortable in my entire life. It feels like someone pulled me from hell to heaven. Yeah, I know most of it is probably the passion effect.
However, the feeling of guilt can’t seem to leave me… I feel guilty of lying to my ex, of saying rude things, of hurting him twice. And now, I feel guilty I’m falling for someone new… not only do I feel guilt, I’m also afraid. Afraid of everything repeating. Afraid of him not being able to deal with my anxiety, of him only being nice in the beginning… I fear my mind is creating an illusion of a great person. Because, in the end, I am insecure, and I lack confidence.
I kissed this guy yesterday and I felt things I couldn’t describe… It felt magical, comfortable, reassuring… After the date we had, I told him all about my past relationship, I wanted to be honest. I thought he would back off, but on the contrary, he told me about his past relationship too and it was surprisingly similar to mine. He pulled me closer and told me not to worry and that he was glad I trusted him. God… that made me melt.
Well, I don’t expect you to solve this puzzle for me… But I’m open for judgment and advices. What should I do? Should I keep seeing this guy? Should I tell him that we need to do things slowly? Is my mental health well enough to engage in something new? Should I talk to my ex again or would it just make things worse? I fear that if I keep this up my ex will eventually find this out, and he will know I lied to him anyway. I care about his feelings and mental health.
Now it’s time to tell all of this to my therapist, thanks.
submitted by Practical_Main_7882 to relationship_advice [link] [comments]


2024.06.02 05:22 sad_panda91 [SF] Do you see what I see? - Of Manifesting an Ice Cream Cone

"Not a single human being on this planet ever saw the universe."
Grand Arbiter Albert XLIII further declared, on their return 37 years after the last broadcast failed in the middle of explaining the secrets of the universe to us.
"What you are seeing is an image of the universe that your brain created to make sense of your surroundings. A mirage, an infinitely imperfect approximation. And there are roughly 8 Billion such approximations on this planet, not even counting non-human entities. We have observed you recently - debating wether the harmonic frequencies of light hitting the rods and cones of your eyes actually generate the same image of color in your brain for all of you equally, and you came to the conclusion that they might not. That everybodies version of "red" or "blue" might be ever so slightly, or completely different. We found it amusing that you aren't drawing the same conclusion to, well, everything else. Through the scientific method and communication accelerators like the Internet, your species managed to align big chunks of those "mirage universes" in your brains, but other areas not touched by the scientific method are left completely unexplored, and therefore to the imagination of the individual. Which lead to many "unfortunate misunderstandings" among you. But make no mistake, even after this global alignment of mirages, the universe inside your mind is still infinitely wrong in the grand scheme of things and unlike any other imagined universe of your peers. Your scientific method suggests the use of calibrated measurement devices that aren't biased by human error to gain knowledge of your surroundings. Which is brilliant, we might add. Your species came up with this kind of technology very early compared to similar lifeforms in other universes. You use these devices to create a "ground truth" from which you reference the rest of your conclusions and predictions. This enabled you to make predictions about the "real universe" you find yourself in, even with this fundamental error underlying your logic system. Either brilliant, or unfathomly lucky. It doesn't really matter. You can pat yourselves on the backs for that.
However, amusingly, you failed to find the crucial detail about the one fundamental, yet completely uncalibrated device at the bottom of everything - your brain - and the sensory organs as extensions of it. No single eye on this planet is the same, no nose, no ears, everything differs ever so slightly. Every brain is folded and twisted differently.
Therefore, what you are observing, and what your scientists are finding models for, is not the real universe. It is the image of this universe your brain creates for you, that makes sense to most of you and that most of your brains are able to understand and find agreement on. Nothing more, nothing less. Especially the intricacies that you are now finding in the infinitissimally small scales and the unfathomly large scales (you curiously still differentiate these two concepts, we observed) are the footprints that the architecture of your brain leaves on these mirage universes. You find numbers everywhere and turn everything into a more and more digital version of nature because the axons that are part of your neurons generate activation signals in a digital, all or nothing kind of way. This part of the brain is what you evolved to use for, among others, your logic systems. Your thinking is in large parts digital, so most of your logic is too. This has gone so far that some of you now think you are actually living in a computer simulation. In some regards, you do, but there is no cosmic entity that generated this simulation and put you in it. You are creating this simulation yourself, in your brain, as a means to maneuver your way around actual physical reality. Imagine having to memorize a picture, but your sensory input systems only allowed you to see one pixel at a time, chosen completely at random, without any reference as to where that pixel is located in the frame. So, you found chunking techniques, the help of your collective hive mind and ideas of particularly eccentric members of your society, to bit by bit close in on a mostly impossible task. But without a paradigm shift on your end, the entirety of the original picture will stay in the shadows of reality.
You created tools like algebra and geometry to circumvent the fact that your logic is mostly digital as a simulacrum of analog information, but for how remarkably useful it is for you to make predictions, it is to what is happening in the real world like what an abacus is to a personal computer. Sure, if you enter '1 + 1', in their own ways, both give you '2'. But one is the tip to the others impossibly large iceberg. It is a sensible abstraction. But it is nowhere close to being an accurate description of what is actually happening or in what ways it useful to you.
We don't want to discourage you by saying this. Your approach, even if it happened out of sheer luck, is brilliant. It really makes the best out of the limitations that you have by your sensory organs and the architecture of your brains. Once a few evolutionary steps later your brain can conceive of more complex logical patterns and images, you will get closer and closer to having an actual copy of the real universe in front of your minds eye. Through the scientific method, you are already optimizing for this. Again, given your species' age, you have developed such a technique incredibly quickly. But what you are doing is finding (very smart) workarounds over a fundamental error you all have in common.
My lifeform, which isn't too unlike yours, just much "older", has taken a different approach in its early stages. Our biggest thinkers found early on that the answers lie within. So for millenia, we focussed our exploration on finding our deepest and truest selves, once we started to move past basic survival instincts, that is. Only after many, many "quantum leaps" in the area of self discovery in the individual and the societal level, we started to artificially accelerate our communication, and overcome physical limitations through technology. It was a slower approach in the beginning, but once we got there, our intellectual growth was exponentially explosive. The time it took us to move from living in basic, mostly local communities that lived off the land - to bending our universe to our wills - was about the time between you writing your currently most popular spiritual fiction and landing on your planets moon for the first time. Note the actual durations might differ greatly, as the concept you call time is very different in our universe and we still haven't fully studied yours.
Anyways. After this event we call "universal reframing", everything else just... fell into place.
Our strategy basically was to, first, fully align our mental universes. And then to perform a depth search from a common starting point. You seemed to have rushed over a few of the crucial bits as soon as the first approach turned out to be useful. Actually, all of the bits but one. It must be a terribly confusing existence that you are living. We can only make an attempt to relate, as our evolutionary strand optimized for alignment before curiousity. That, you could say, was our dumb luck.
Are there any questions so far?"
There was a puzzling silence in an area packed with an amount of people that would normally be present at music festivals or presidential inaugurations. For an event of this magnitude, the stage was sparsely decorated and included only the necessities. Like last time, the visit was spontaneos and unannounced. Or maybe, like last time, we just didn't understand the announcement message, as it might have again came in the form of a formerly undiscovered particle, a seemingly arbitrary number of years prior to this event. They must think they are really funny.
One of the humans chosen as representative of the planet raised their hand.
"Please, speak. As always. Our 'time' is very limited."
"If I didn't misunderstand this: You said, our brains are basically creating what we call 'simulations' for ourselves, in our mind, to make sense of the actual universe we are in and base our actions on. Is this correct?"
"Based on the very crude definition your species has for the word 'correct' I would say 'yes, that is correct.'"
"And these simulations are getting closer and closer to the real deal, right? But what if, say, we didn't want the real deal. What if we liked our own personal pocket universes and instead wanted to bend that one to our own wills instead of the real one? You said we are bad at alignment and I would agree to the point where I say we probably go extinct to our own stupidity before we all agree on even one single thing. Can't we just use your knowledge to just, manifest things into our universe just by thinking about it, like in the movie Matrix, which might have crossed your desk while researching us. Great Movie."
"It did indeed. It is esteemed by my lifeform as what you would call 'slapstick comedy'. Since we moved past what constituted our form of entertainment, the media from your universe has become very popular among my peers. It is by sending samples back to our universe how we finance the probes we are sending here."
"You still have money?"
"I was making - what you call - a joke. Never heard of it in the context of a movie, but that title is immensely funny to me given the circumstances. Anyway, you wanted to know how to bend your 'simulated universe' around you. Alright. You might be slightly dissappointed by the beginning of my explanation, but listen till the end. And make of that what you will.
Let's start by what you mean by 'manifest' exactly. As the inaccuracy of your communication patterns shall not be a hindrance to this mentorship."
"Well... I imagine it. And then it sort of poofs into existence?"
"Understood. Actually, I will start explaning how you perform this action in the actual universe you are in, before I make the transfer to how you do it in the imagined one in your brain."
"Uh.. ok?"
"What would you like to be manifested?"
"I don't know. How about we go nice and easy with a cone of ice cream and start from there?"
"So be it. So, we start imagining the cone of ice cream. What does it consist off? Milk, sugar, eggs, and some smaller additions to suit your individuals taste buds. Let's begin with milk. You are getting it from cows (a practice my society finds quite alienating. We, too, have to get used to the wildly varying customs of lifeforms of the universes). Cows can be domesticated and bred, but first, we would have to overcome the physical distance between us, and a few locations on this planet. For that, I would advice designing and constructing a vehicle that is capa..."
"Oh come on, that's how we manifest things? We go and make them ourselves?? Oh wow, thanks a lot mister transcendant being. So the rest of the stuff you told us was also bullshit?"
"Please refrain from jumping to conclusions without the full picture in mind, even if it is in your existences nature to do so. Alright, so let me offer you a shortcut."
"Please do."
"I know of a location just a few human paces down this road, where you can exchange currency for a cone of ice cream."
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"What the hell is the point of this?"
"The point is, once again: you - misunderstanding your existence. Especially in conjunction with your incredibly limited ability to verbalize concepts using your own vocabulary. You are barely at the point of being able to convey emotions in every day speech, and are now expecting to understand high level 4 dimensional concepts after just a few of your incredibly inaccurate words. Tell me now, please: What do you perceive as the difference of these two scenarios I just mentioned? In a temporal manner and in the energy required?"
"Well, it would be much easier and faster to just go down the road and buy a cone of ice cream, but that isn't tremendously astounding information to us, you have to understand."
"'Much'? Let's give this word, 'much', a bit of a frame of reference. The differences between these scenarios are: About 15000 years of agriculture and animal husbandry; countless inventions that led to your current state of technology which allows for refrigeration in a way advanced enough to get the ice cream to just the right texture that your modern palate is accustomed to; An education system that allows for such inventions to occur in time for you to be standing here, demanding ice cream, and actually getting it. Not mentioning the infrastructure that makes you bridge the physical distances of every single time any of these steps needed anything. And meanwhile destroying the naturally occuring resources of your planet bit by bit.
Or, scenario 2: You take the money that you got from staring at a computer screen for about 7 minutes, choose one of the ice cream parlors that your civilization made sure to be on average a 30 minutes driving distance from every single living human. (You aren't very good at even distributions though, we found.). And go and get that ice cream. Even including the infrastructural costs existing now, we have narrowed this process down from not even being close to a reality for thousands of generations to being at most 30 minutes away and dirt cheap, assuming an amount of efficient preparation, that is part of the technology that lead you here.
If you ask me, between scenario 1 and 2, you became so many orders of magnitude closer to 'poofing it into existence' that a human mind has troubles comprehending it. And therefore, appreciating it. From '0% of the human population has access to this within their lifetime and no one will for the next couple millenia' to 'Over half the human population has access to this within 30 minutes", taking into account the total timespan, the amount of events that had to occur and the amount of incremental learnings that had to accumulate, for this to happen even once for anybody, I believe the time and energy you have to exert to access your ice cream cone right now is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. And you aren't even close to finishing your development as humans - if you manage to not kill yourself somehow.
You are constantly manifesting things into reality, the only issue is that you severely and heavily underestimate what it means 'to imagine a thing'.
Please allow my vanity, but this is an important lesson for the following part that you are, I'm afraid, more interested in. How to do that in your head. And potentially much faster. Well assuming thaXXXxxxx----.----."
"Oh wow, not again. Mighty convenient this always happens right when it gets interesting."
"First, you have to understand that.,.......... The limitations of spacetime that you perceive.... are not present in nature..... nature is infinitely 'dimensional', and in fact XXxxx.....----..--.-.- has no concept for infinity....-.-.--. it is a human made.....-.-.-.- model to describe a perfectly natural phenomenon you lack the words for at this time..._xxxx.xxx-x---.-.--.-zzzz."
"Come on, speak faster! The battery is dying again!"
" ...physical distance...S;.,.XXXxx...currently a big bottleneck for your progres...asd.döö,,,, is also a limitation of your cortex, not nature,.....-as.d.sa......the concept of an 'extent' only exists from certain frames of references..-.-..-.a.ss.a.as.... in others everything is....a.s-d.-.---.-..-xxxx on top of each other, overlapping each other in what you call 'time' AND 'space'"
"...XXXxsasad Listen."
"I am running out of time again humans. The Hopf Fibration. It is a great first step. But move away from your digital thinking. Treat your numbers. .aD;,aC:.x.cx.ac,.as,dca.s like your waves...CKLUJCJUCCLICK"
The broadcast stopped.
"I never know if these things make me smarter, or dumber. Sadly the alien is gone now so it can't tell me that there actually is no smart or dumb."
submitted by sad_panda91 to shortstories [link] [comments]


2024.06.02 05:13 sad_panda91 "Do you see what I see?" - Of Manifesting an Ice Cream Cone

"Not a single human being on this planet ever saw the universe."
Grand Arbiter Albert XLIII further declared, on their return 37 years after the last broadcast failed in the middle of explaining the secrets of the universe to us.
"What you are seeing is an image of the universe that your brain created to make sense of your surroundings. A mirage, an infinitely imperfect approximation. And there are roughly 8 Billion such approximations on this planet, not even counting non-human entities. We have observed you recently - debating wether the harmonic frequencies of light hitting the rods and cones of your eyes actually generate the same image of color in your brain for all of you equally, and you came to the conclusion that they might not. That everybodies version of "red" or "blue" might be ever so slightly, or completely different. We found it amusing that you aren't drawing the same conclusion to, well, everything else. Through the scientific method and communication accelerators like the Internet, your species managed to align big chunks of those "mirage universes" in your brains, but other areas not touched by the scientific method are left completely unexplored, and therefore to the imagination of the individual. Which lead to many "unfortunate misunderstandings" among you. But make no mistake, even after this global alignment of mirages, the universe inside your mind is still infinitely wrong in the grand scheme of things and unlike any other imagined universe of your peers. Your scientific method suggests the use of calibrated measurement devices that aren't biased by human error to gain knowledge of your surroundings. Which is brilliant, we might add. Your species came up with this kind of technology very early compared to similar lifeforms in other universes. You use these devices to create a "ground truth" from which you reference the rest of your conclusions and predictions. This enabled you to make predictions about the "real universe" you find yourself in, even with this fundamental error underlying your logic system. Either brilliant, or unfathomly lucky. It doesn't really matter. You can pat yourselves on the backs for that.
However, amusingly, you failed to find the crucial detail about the one fundamental, yet completely uncalibrated device at the bottom of everything - your brain - and the sensory organs as extensions of it. No single eye on this planet is the same, no nose, no ears, everything differs ever so slightly. Every brain is folded and twisted differently.
Therefore, what you are observing, and what your scientists are finding models for, is not the real universe. It is the image of this universe your brain creates for you, that makes sense to most of you and that most of your brains are able to understand and find agreement on. Nothing more, nothing less. Especially the intricacies that you are now finding in the infinitissimally small scales and the unfathomly large scales (you curiously still differentiate these two concepts, we observed) are the footprints that the architecture of your brain leaves on these mirage universes. You find numbers everywhere and turn everything into a more and more digital version of nature because the axons that are part of your neurons generate activation signals in a digital, all or nothing kind of way. This part of the brain is what you evolved to use for, among others, your logic systems. Your thinking is in large parts digital, so most of your logic is too. This has gone so far that some of you now think you are actually living in a computer simulation. In some regards, you do, but there is no cosmic entity that generated this simulation and put you in it. You are creating this simulation yourself, in your brain, as a means to maneuver your way around actual physical reality. Imagine having to memorize a picture, but your sensory input systems only allowed you to see one pixel at a time, chosen completely at random, without any reference as to where that pixel is located in the frame. So, you found chunking techniques, the help of your collective hive mind and ideas of particularly eccentric members of your society, to bit by bit close in on a mostly impossible task. But without a paradigm shift on your end, the entirety of the original picture will stay in the shadows of reality.
You created tools like algebra and geometry to circumvent the fact that your logic is mostly digital as a simulacrum of analog information, but for how remarkably useful it is for you to make predictions, it is to what is happening in the real world like what an abacus is to a personal computer. Sure, if you enter '1 + 1', in their own ways, both give you '2'. But one is the tip to the others impossibly large iceberg. It is a sensible abstraction. But it is nowhere close to being an accurate description of what is actually happening or in what ways it useful to you.
We don't want to discourage you by saying this. Your approach, even if it happened out of sheer luck, is brilliant. It really makes the best out of the limitations that you have by your sensory organs and the architecture of your brains. Once a few evolutionary steps later your brain can conceive of more complex logical patterns and images, you will get closer and closer to having an actual copy of the real universe in front of your minds eye. Through the scientific method, you are already optimizing for this. Again, given your species' age, you have developed such a technique incredibly quickly. But what you are doing is finding (very smart) workarounds over a fundamental error you all have in common.
My lifeform, which isn't too unlike yours, just much "older", has taken a different approach in its early stages. Our biggest thinkers found early on that the answers lie within. So for millenia, we focussed our exploration on finding our deepest and truest selves, once we started to move past basic survival instincts, that is. Only after many, many "quantum leaps" in the area of self discovery in the individual and the societal level, we started to artificially accelerate our communication, and overcome physical limitations through technology. It was a slower approach in the beginning, but once we got there, our intellectual growth was exponentially explosive. The time it took us to move from living in basic, mostly local communities that lived off the land - to bending our universe to our wills - was about the time between you writing your currently most popular spiritual fiction and landing on your planets moon for the first time. Note the actual durations might differ greatly, as the concept you call time is very different in our universe and we still haven't fully studied yours.
Anyways. After this event we call "universal reframing", everything else just... fell into place.
Our strategy basically was to, first, fully align our mental universes. And then to perform a depth search from a common starting point. You seemed to have rushed over a few of the crucial bits as soon as the first approach turned out to be useful. Actually, all of the bits but one. It must be a terribly confusing existence that you are living. We can only make an attempt to relate, as our evolutionary strand optimized for alignment before curiousity. That, you could say, was our dumb luck.
Are there any questions so far?"
There was a puzzling silence in an area packed with an amount of people that would normally be present at music festivals or presidential inaugurations. For an event of this magnitude, the stage was sparsely decorated and included only the necessities. Like last time, the visit was spontaneos and unannounced. Or maybe, like last time, we just didn't understand the announcement message, as it might have again came in the form of a formerly undiscovered particle, a seemingly arbitrary number of years prior to this event. They must think they are really funny.
One of the humans chosen as representative of the planet raised their hand.
"Please, speak. As always. Our 'time' is very limited."
"If I didn't misunderstand this: You said, our brains are basically creating what we call 'simulations' for ourselves, in our mind, to make sense of the actual universe we are in and base our actions on. Is this correct?"
"Based on the very crude definition your species has for the word 'correct' I would say 'yes, that is correct.'"
"And these simulations are getting closer and closer to the real deal, right? But what if, say, we didn't want the real deal. What if we liked our own personal pocket universes and instead wanted to bend that one to our own wills instead of the real one? You said we are bad at alignment and I would agree to the point where I say we probably go extinct to our own stupidity before we all agree on even one single thing. Can't we just use your knowledge to just, manifest things into our universe just by thinking about it, like in the movie Matrix, which might have crossed your desk while researching us. Great Movie."
"It did indeed. It is esteemed by my lifeform as what you would call 'slapstick comedy'. Since we moved past what constituted our form of entertainment, the media from your universe has become very popular among my peers. It is by sending samples back to our universe how we finance the probes we are sending here."
"You still have money?"
"I was making - what you call - a joke. Never heard of it in the context of a movie, but that title is immensely funny to me given the circumstances. Anyway, you wanted to know how to bend your 'simulated universe' around you. Alright. You might be slightly dissappointed by the beginning of my explanation, but listen till the end. And make of that what you will.
Let's start by what you mean by 'manifest' exactly. As the inaccuracy of your communication patterns shall not be a hindrance to this mentorship."
"Well... I imagine it. And then it sort of poofs into existence?"
"Understood. Actually, I will start explaning how you perform this action in the actual universe you are in, before I make the transfer to how you do it in the imagined one in your brain."
"Uh.. ok?"
"What would you like to be manifested?"
"I don't know. How about we go nice and easy with a cone of ice cream and start from there?"
"So be it. So, we start imagining the cone of ice cream. What does it consist off? Milk, sugar, eggs, and some smaller additions to suit your individuals taste buds. Let's begin with milk. You are getting it from cows (a practice my society finds quite alienating. We, too, have to get used to the wildly varying customs of lifeforms of the universes). Cows can be domesticated and bred, but first, we would have to overcome the physical distance between us, and a few locations on this planet. For that, I would advice designing and constructing a vehicle that is capa..."
"Oh come on, that's how we manifest things? We go and make them ourselves?? Oh wow, thanks a lot mister transcendant being. So the rest of the stuff you told us was also bullshit?"
"Please refrain from jumping to conclusions without the full picture in mind, even if it is in your existences nature to do so. Alright, so let me offer you a shortcut."
"Please do."
"I know of a location just a few human paces down this road, where you can exchange currency for a cone of ice cream."
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"What the hell is the point of this?"
"The point is, once again: you - misunderstanding your existence. Especially in conjunction with your incredibly limited ability to verbalize concepts using your own vocabulary. You are barely at the point of being able to convey emotions in every day speech, and are now expecting to understand high level 4 dimensional concepts after just a few of your incredibly inaccurate words. Tell me now, please: What do you perceive as the difference of these two scenarios I just mentioned? In a temporal manner and in the energy required?"
"Well, it would be much easier and faster to just go down the road and buy a cone of ice cream, but that isn't tremendously astounding information to us, you have to understand."
"'Much'? Let's give this word, 'much', a bit of a frame of reference. The differences between these scenarios are: About 15000 years of agriculture and animal husbandry; countless inventions that led to your current state of technology which allows for refrigeration in a way advanced enough to get the ice cream to just the right texture that your modern palate is accustomed to; An education system that allows for such inventions to occur in time for you to be standing here, demanding ice cream, and actually getting it. Not mentioning the infrastructure that makes you bridge the physical distances of every single time any of these steps needed anything. And meanwhile destroying the naturally occuring resources of your planet bit by bit.
Or, scenario 2: You take the money that you got from staring at a computer screen for about 7 minutes, choose one of the ice cream parlors that your civilization made sure to be on average a 30 minutes driving distance from every single living human. (You aren't very good at even distributions though, we found.). And go and get that ice cream. Even including the infrastructural costs existing now, we have narrowed this process down from not even being close to a reality for thousands of generations to being at most 30 minutes away and dirt cheap, assuming an amount of efficient preparation, that is part of the technology that lead you here.
If you ask me, between scenario 1 and 2, you became so many orders of magnitude closer to 'poofing it into existence' that a human mind has troubles comprehending it. And therefore, appreciating it. From '0% of the human population has access to this within their lifetime and no one will for the next couple millenia' to 'Over half the human population has access to this within 30 minutes", taking into account the total timespan, the amount of events that had to occur and the amount of incremental learnings that had to accumulate, for this to happen even once for anybody, I believe the time and energy you have to exert to access your ice cream cone right now is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. And you aren't even close to finishing your development as humans - if you manage to not kill yourself somehow.
You are constantly manifesting things into reality, the only issue is that you severely and heavily underestimate what it means 'to imagine a thing'.
Please allow my vanity, but this is an important lesson for the following part that you are, I'm afraid, more interested in. How to do that in your head. And potentially much faster. Well assuming thaXXXxxxx----.----."
"Oh wow, not again. Mighty convenient this always happens right when it gets interesting."
"First, you have to understand that.,.......... The limitations of spacetime that you perceive.... are not present in nature..... nature is infinitely 'dimensional', and in fact XXxxx.....----..--.-.- has no concept for infinity....-.-.--. it is a human made.....-.-.-.- model to describe a perfectly natural phenomenon you lack the words for at this time..._xxxx.xxx-x---.-.--.-zzzz."
"Come on, speak faster! The battery is dying again!"
" ...physical distance...S;.,.XXXxx...currently a big bottleneck for your progres...asd.döö,,,, is also a limitation of your cortex, not nature,.....-as.d.sa......the concept of an 'extent' only exists from certain frames of references..-.-..-.a.ss.a.as.... in others everything is....a.s-d.-.---.-..-xxxx on top of each other, overlapping each other in what you call 'time' AND 'space'"
"...XXXxsasad Listen."
"I am running out of time again humans. The Hopf Fibration. It is a great first step. But move away from your digital thinking. Treat your numbers. .aD;,aC:.x.cx.ac,.as,dca.s like your waves...CKLUJCJUCCLICK"
The broadcast stopped.
"I never know if these things make me smarter, or dumber. Sadly the alien is gone now so it can't tell me that there actually is no smart or dumb."
submitted by sad_panda91 to scifiwriting [link] [comments]


2024.06.02 04:16 Woody-Sailor-DM A Brief History of the Adventuring Company TFC (Task Force Chimera)

From the beginning...
Cast

Part 2, Chapter 10

The next morning dawns cold and clear. It is plain that autumn is upon the land, and with the Great Glacier just leagues to the north, winter will come soon. The party goes about their morning business, eating (everyone), checking the state of the beard and deciding whether or not to shave it off (Arthur, generally, but also Atticus as Novos doesn’t grow a beard and Zander doesn’t shave his), climbing into armor (pretty much everyone except Dillium, Felicity, and Pocky), feeding and loading horses and asses (pretty much everyone, but particularly Zander, Arthur, Atticus, and Pocky), and finally packing up the pavillionsol (Dillium). Ready for the day’s journey, the group mounts up. On cue, the guide appears, apparently having prepared well ahead. If he’s irritated that the party slept all the way until dawn, he has the good grace to keep that to himself.
Felicity speaks up. “We’ve changed our minds, actually. I don’t think there’s any particular benefit in going to Dragon’s Perch—”
“I agree.”
“—so we’re going to go to Samek instead.”
“Samek? Hmmm. Do they know you are coming? If they don’t, it will take them a while.”
“No, they don’t know we’re coming, that I am aware of.”
The guide nods once and sets out. Much of the day is uneventful, and it does warm up to a comfortable level. By late afternoon, those with tender backsides are wondering when the ride will conclude when the guide raises his hand in a universal gesture of ‘stop and shut up a minute.’ The party still hasn’t learned that gesture, but fortunately there are no giants about [1]. “We’re here,” is all he says.
“Where?” “I don’t see anything.” “What are we supposed to see?” Like tourists on vacation, they peer around in all directions. They can’t see the entrance for the hill. Or rather, the entrance to the gnomish town of Samek is so well hidden in the side of the hill that for a while, only Dillium can see the faint outline of the round doorway. One by one, Flea, Arthur, and Zander finally pick it out. Novos is absolutely certain they are playing a prank on him. Arthur is first. Knocking on the hill seems odd, but practically before he gets a third knock, a small hole opens up around waist height. Two beady little eyes peer out (at Arthur’s belt).
“What!?”
“We are here—”
“So I see.” The window closes.
Zander walks up and knocks. The same window opens, and the same beady little eyes peer out.
“What!?”
“Do you know who I am?” Zander asks.
The beady little eyes look him up and down. “No,” and the window closes.
Dillium tries next. Knock, window, eyes. “Good day. We are here to see—”
“So see.” Window shuts.
Novos walks up. “I know how to do this.” Knock, window, eyes, increasingly aggravated tone. “Let us in.”
“No.”
Felicity has had enough of this. Walking up to the door, she stands for a moment gathering her thoughts. Knock, window, eyes, aggravated tone. “Good day. I’m here on behalf of the Duke of Soravia to see the wise men of your town, or those in charge.”
“Which ones?”
“What?”
“Which ones, the wise men, or those that are in charge?”
“How about if we start with the ones in charge, and perhaps they will decide to allow us to speak with the wise ones.”
The beady little eyes peer out, look around at the party, and appear to give that some thought. “Wait here.” The window closes.
Minutes pass. Tens of minutes pass. Novos gets bored and walks up to the door. He barely gets a third knock in before the window opens. A different set of beady little eyes peers out, and a different aggravated voice says, “What do you want now?”
“We’ve been waiting for a while, and—”
“—And you’ll continue to wait!.” The window slams shut unnecessarily roughly.
“Why you—” Rough arms grab Novos from behind and pull him away before he can do something regretful.
“We’ll wait, as they’ve asked,” Felicity says. She looks around to ask the guide how long they can expect to wait, but he’s disappeared.
The evening passes. As the cold sets in, Atticus and Pocky gather enough light branches for a fire. There’s no benches or logs to sit on, so they squat or sit on the ground. Arthur has taken to pulling off portions of his armor and working on polishing and repairing the scorch marks from the lava snakes [2]. Atticus and Mar debate the relative benefits of following the letter of the law versus being merciful, though in the end, both of them seem to be arguing the same things in violent agreement. Pocky falls asleep against Modred’s side as Beaker plays with a bone left over from… Wait, where did he get that bone anyway?
Finally, the reality that the night is upon them sets in. A proper camp is set, and watches begin. Zander takes the first watch, but sees nothing of interest. He does hear the chirping of grasshoppers, the droning of the cicadas, and the baying of the hounds. Suddenly, the hounds stop. Unnerved, Zander wakes Arthur, who has the next watch. Arthur, Atticus, and Zander take a turn around the camp, but cannot see nor hear anything that sounds like dogs. Arthur agrees to start his watch a few minutes early and Zander takes Pocky inside the pavillionsol to sleep. Arthur’s, and then Dillium’s watches pass uneventfully. Novos, as normal, takes the last watch. As usual, he is so wrapped up with his puzzle box that he notices absolutely nothing.
The cold morning brings breakfast, bickering, and an irritated Novos marching up to the door to bang on it. “We’ve been here all night,” he informs the guard.
“Yes. Yes you have.” The window closes.
Knock. Window. Eyes. “When will we see—”
“When it is time.” The window closes.
Before he can knock again, Dillium grabs his wrist, pushing him back, she squares herself to the door. “When it is time, please inform us.” She says to the closed window.
The window opens and two beady little eyes peer out. A slightly irritated voice replies, “What else would we do?” The window closes.
Several hours pass as the valley warms up. Arthur, Pocky, Atticus, and Mar all work on armor, doing the necessary daily ritual of dusting, oiling, checking rivets to make sure they are still tight and sound. Polish is applied, worked into the metal, and removed. Bickering, some good natured and others not, flows. At midmorning, the guide turns up suddenly, and squats down near the fire. Minutes later, the window opens and familiar eyes peer out. Felicity quickly crosses over to the door.
“Is the council ready for us?” She asks.
“Council? You wanted to speak with those who lead.”
“Yes. I assume that would be your leadership council.” Felicity replies.
“So it is. So it is. There certainly are a lot of you. You can’t all come.” The window closes.
Felicity thinks quickly and makes a motion to Dillium. Knocking gently, she waits for the window to open. “How many of us may come?” She asks sweetly.
“Uhm… “ The window closes. A minute later it re-opens. “Three.” The gnome says.
“Fine. I agree.”
“You agree? I mean, Yes, of course you agree. Come, come!” Suddenly in a hurry, the gnome opens the door, which slides open silently.
As Felicity and Dillium take a step toward the door, the guide steps up behind them. “Where are you going?” Flea asks imperiously.
“The little ones know me.”
“Which ones?”
The guide thinks. “Mayhaps all of them?” With a slight shrug, Felicity accepts that, and they all pass into a dark room, barely tall enough to stand up in.
Dillium is the tallest of the small group, and she has to stoop over to get through the passageway. The guide bends his head down a bit, but Felicity strides forward as if she owns the place, the top of her hair only occasionally brushing the ceiling of the passage. There are guards in dark metal armor in front and behind, but the guard who let them in the door is wearing a much more colorful shirt. As their eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, they note that there are luminescent lichens on the walls, providing a dim light that casts no shadows and fails to illuminate the armored gnomes.
The corridor stretches on for ages. There are branching tunnels to either side, and once, down. Tiny faces can be seen in the dim light as word spreads of the Big’uns. Dillium’s back is screaming by the time they finally reach a room and stop. A door on one side of the room is guarded by two more of the dark-skinned, dark-armored gnomes and a small fire is burning in the middle of the room. The benches around the room are designed for shorter legs and smaller butts, so the guide simply squats down. Dillium sits and starts to work the kinks out of her back. The guards don’t speak, but every once in a while, a face peers in through the open doorway they came in. Some faces are much smaller than others, and a motherly hand frequently grabs the tot and hustles them along.
The trio waits.
***
Pocky and Zander practice sword work as Atticus watches and occasionally tosses out suggestions. Mar naps. Arthur works on removing scorch marks from his armor while Novos plays with his puzzle box and loafs. Something draws Arthur’s attention. As he looks up, he sees eyes staring at him intently peering out from a bush. Without breaking eye contact, he feels around until he grabs Novos’ head and points it at the bush. Novos stares, uncertain what he’s meant to be looking at. “Zander!” Arthur hisses. He points at the bush with too many eyes. Well, two is too many for a bush. Zander looks. He looks some more. Arthur looks away for a moment, and when he looks back, the eyes are gone. Everyone runs over and crowds around the bush. Novos sees what looks like prints—paw prints not unlike Modred’s pawprints, though Modred is being lazy over next to the pavillionsol. Novos looks around, but sees no other paw prints. The men walk around the bush looking for other tracks, but only manage to obscure everything.
***
An hour passes. The guide lounges as if he has nothing on his mind. Dillium meditates, while Felicity tries to work out what the team’s next move should be. Somewhat abruptly, a young gnome opens the door and comes through. “Ready are you?” The darkened room has only a few dim lights. An ancient gnome sits on a three-legged stool in the middle of the room, a small rod in his hand. Eight or nine other gnomes cluster around the small room, some sitting on tiny gnome-sized benches, others standing. Any whispering that might have been going on ceases when the Big’uns come into the chamber.
The eldest speaks. “Warren. Several turnings it has been since last among us you came. Tell. What is the state of the above-realm?”
“They grow bolder. I have seen them throughout the valley, and without fear. If you are to act, you might contemplate doing so soon.” The gnomes chatter amongst themselves in a foreign tongue. The elder lets it go for a few minutes, then he raps on the floor with his rod. Silence returns.
“As I have feared it is. Soon must we act. Well to see you it is. Not so long to visit should you wait.” Turning his attention to Felicity, he inquires, “Please to tell name and purpose for disturbing.”
Felicity tells who she is, and allows Dillium to introduce herself. Flea announces that war is soon to be upon the land. The Duke of Soravia needs friends and allies for the coming conflict, and wishes to include the gnomes. The gnomes chatter nervously, and some of the chatter sounds of anger or fear. Again, the elder waits several minutes and then raps his rod upon the ground.
“Aware of the duke we are, but no call to extend friendship hand we have heard. What does the duke wish of us?” The chatter now is less nervous and more fearful.
“The danger to us all is great, but the duke understands that each should contribute within their talents and means. I suggest that your greatest assistance may lie in logistics, and supply. Perhaps providing some of the greatly admired gnomish craftsmanship would help to raise funds. Any assistance that you willingly provide for the benefit of one and all is exactly enough.” The chatter and babble of the gnomes in the room sounds almost relieved, but still a touch fearful. The elder allows it to go on for several minutes before he raps on the floor once. Saying something in gnomish, he raises his hand. One by one, the gnomes lift their hands out parallel to the floor. It takes a moment or two, but finally all of them agree.
“Determine what we can contribute, we must. If any. As talk we must, a favor for us could you do.” He speaks a few words of gnomish before continuing.
***
“So what is inside that puzzle box you keep playing with?” Arthur asks. He seems more tired of the delay than curious, and is simply passing the time. Mar casts an irritated glance at Novos.
“Dunno. Perhaps a great treasure. Maybe all the misfortune in the world. Probably nothing. Dillium gave it to me months ago.” He continues manhandling it, pushing, prodding, tapping, and so on.
Zander comes over and plops down next to Novos. “Can I have a go?”
“Sure.” Novos hands the box over to Zander, who takes it gingerly in his large rough hands. After a minute or two of working with it to no avail, he hands it over to a beckoning Arthur who seems to have seen something the others missed. He didn’t. Atticus and Mar both have a go before Pocky takes a turn. In three deft moves, the box is opened, revealing an empty space in the middle, roughly large enough for three large silver coins stacked on top of each other. He shrugs as he hands it back to Novos.
With a sigh, Novos starts trying to close the box.
*** “Many generations ago, when but a babe my own great-grandsire’s great-grandsire was, did Callarduran Smoothands of a king tell us. When nigh was the time would he arise. Half of a golden crown he gave us, and a tomb of a great warrior king showed he us. When greatest was our need, take our half of the golden crown to the tomb we are to do, and with the other half reunite it. Drawing close the time is. Our enemies the tomb have discovered we fear. The other half of the crown have they stolen. Taken our birthright, they have. The other half of the crown return to us?” [3]
Dillium recognizes Callarduran Smoothands from a lecture that seemed to last forever, but probably was just before lunchtime. Callarduran is the god of the Svirfneblin, and is held in high regard—perhaps more so than the head of the gnomish pantheon, Garl Glittergold [4].
“Who are these enemies?” Felicity asks.
“Evil ones they are. From us they rob. Our people they kill. Monsters they are.”
An older gnome arrives from the darkness. He is wearing dark armor, and carrying a soft bag made of what appears to be moss. The eldest reaches into the bag and withdraws an arc of gold. It certainly appears to be what you’d expect half a tiara or head band to look like, but it is nearly entirely devoid of ornamentation or decoration. The full crown must be rather plain indeed. Dismissing the trio with a “Think on your words we will,” Felicity, Dillium, Warren (the guide), and Ser Reginald the gnome are escorted from the hall and out of Samek.
Ser Reginald greets them as friends, and chatters through much of the trek up to the surface. He says he is one of a very few remaining ‘royal escorts,’ first named soon after Callarduran Smoothands gave them their half of the crown. They have, over many many many many many many generations (he was unable to count them all), been responsible for guarding the crown and preparing for the arrival of the king. He’s fought the evil ones, and admitted to hunting and killing them in their beds, but would not give a physical description of them. He also admitted that he knew precisely where the tomb was, but had never been inside, “as the time was not yet to hand.”
Finally, they reach the doorway to the outside. With a warning to shield their eyes lest they be struck blind by the sun, Ser Reginald leads the group out to find the rest of the party scrambling to their feet. To the consternation of Ser Reginald, they take the time to break camp, saddle their beasts, and mount up. Ser Reginald wants nothing to do with the horses, so the party creeps along at gnomish walking pace. It is quite possibly the slowest escort quest ever.
Several hours later, the group approaches yet another clearing when they everyone hear a loud rumbling WHOMP! Everyone recognizes it as the sound of rocks falling inside a cave or building. Ahead, a cloud of dust pours out of a cut stone entrance into a hill. “We need to get a move on. The evil ones are already inside!” cries Ser Reginald.
Leaving the horses and asses outside, the party enters the main hall. Arthur asks Atticus to remain with Pocky and the animals, but Mar accompanies the group inside. The moderately sized room has two doorways, though both appear to have been blocked by the recent rock movement. A few minutes of contemplation leads Arthur to believe that one side would take considerable effort to unblock, while the other could be done rather quickly. As he gets to work, the others take in their surroundings. Just inside the door is a carving in an archaic form of common that says “Allies Over Enemies”. Zander notes that there is some indication that there is a test, and one of the mostly broken archways has the word ‘Wit’ carved above it. Felicity notes that according to the archaic writing, there are two tests inside. Dillium is drawn to the faded frescos, though they tend to depict war and destruction.
Soon enough Arthur has the passageway cleared well enough, and the party groups up to go into a large room. The door slides shut smoothly behind them, though there is a door on the far side. Arthur inspects it, “just in case” it is unlocked. It isn’t. The room is more or less devoid of decoration or ornamentation, but there are four columns, one each corner of the room. Novos looks at the column, but fails to note that each side has a letter on it. He does see that he can turn the column one quarter turn, so he does. Once it turns, it refuses to turn again. Members of the party spread out to try to understand the test. Someone notices that there is a small mark on the wall beside each column, but it takes everyone writing down the letters on each column before someone decides to make an effort to coordinate. Arthur suggests that since each column contains an “L”, they should turn the L’s toward the center. Novos points out that he can’t turn the column any further, but Zander turns another column easily. Mar turns another one. As Novos leans up against his column, it turns. The party realizes that the columns can be turned to spell words, and Mar identified the word that was spelled out when they entered. This gets the group going, and with some tactics employed, spell out a word that they hope will open the door. As the last column clicks into place, the door opens smoothly.
The doorway leads to a huge cavern with a five-foot wide natural stone bridge crossing what appears to be a deep, wide chasm. The cavern is pitch black, and while there might be some air movement, the ceiling is too far above and the floor of the chasm too far below to see. The party sets up a marching order with Arthur in the lead and Novos in the rear. Dillium Lights up her staff so that the humans can see and they set out. Ten or fifteen paces across, the party is surprised to come under attack by arrows and javelins. Everyone dodges out of the way of the poorly thrown darts, but one strikes home. No one can see where the javelins came from, or whether it is some sort of trap or if they were thrown. Unfortunately, no one notices that one of the party members has fallen off the stone bridge, either. At the other end of the bridge is a door that opens easily, and everyone makes it into a small foyer. Except for Felicity, who lies at the bottom of the chasm, nearly impaled by a stalagmite. [5] Novos disappears and makes his way to the bottom of the chasm where he finds Felicity and feeds her his last healing potion. Zander pulls out his Wonderous Figurine and activates it. A good-sized wyvern appears on the bridge. He tells it to go down into the chasm and bring back the human. He might have said ‘woman’ but the stone wyvern doesn’t know the difference anyway. It takes off and glides down into the chasm below, and when it finds a human, the wyvern grabs it with his sharp claws and brings it back up to Zander. Novos picks himself up, dusts himself off, and winces at the fresh puncture wounds. Zander, a little annoyed, tells the wyvern to go get the other one, and he does, fresh puncture wounds and all.
Meanwhile, Arthur, Dillium, Mar, and Ser Reginald continue on into a large room. The room is dominated by a huge stone in the middle, with some sort of gemstone embedded in. They also see a dog-like creature standing on the stone, with a piece of golden metal in one hand and a bow in the other. Ser Reginald shouts, “The evil one has the other half of the crown! Get it!” Arthur races forward and Smites the creature.
Mar snarls, “Gnolls. I should have known their stench. She manifests a Spiritual Weapon and attacks with it, then casts a Guiding Bolt. The gnoll, clearly outmatched, fires his bow (missing) and climbs down off the stone. By this time, Novos, Zander, and Felicity have come in (minus the wyvern). Novos speeds over to take a flanking position on the gnoll, but the recent puncture wounds from the wyvern still ache, and he misses entirely.
Around the same time, a larger group of gnolls, armored and armed with swords and axes, enter from the other side and take up positions. One of the larger ones raises his axe to cut down Novos, but one of the gnolls barks out something in a barking sort of bark. All of the gnolls stop and refrain from attacking. Except the one with the huge gash down his front from Arthur. He comes up with a sword and stabs at the air near Arthur. Dillium, likewise shouts for Arthur and Novos (and Mar) to stop.
“Who leads?” asks the female gnoll, as she wraps her shawl around her.
Zander raises his hand. “That would be me. I am the leader of Task Force Chimera.” He sheathes his sword and meets the female gnome in the middle of the room. “I am Zander Roaringhorn, from Cormyr. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”
“Raa’ka. Ssand’r. Sand’r.” Her mouth doesn’t quite make all the sounds as she tries to get his name right. She tells Zander that they are here to fulfil a prophecy that tells of an Alpha Gnoll that will arise in their hour of need. Unfortunately, the crown is… not what they expected. Arthur climbs up on the stone and agrees that the gemstone in the middle seems to connect two pieces of a crown—there’s three pieces total, rather than the two that both the gnolls and gnomes thought.
“Give me the crown!” Ser Reginald cries. Mar snarls.
“I will not. Perhaps we should put the crown together, and then figure out what to do. It is obvious neither of us have the whole tale.” Ser Reginald, thoughtful, agrees.
“You put your piece in first, then.” He says.
“No you put yours in.” Raa’ka replies.
Arthur says, “How about you put them in together. At the same time,” clarifies when the gnolls seem unsure. He jumps down from the stone and gives Ser Reginald a boost up. Raa’ka needs no help.
Gently placing the two pieces of the crown in small cutouts in the stone that appear to be made exactly for their pieces. Ser Reginald and Raa’ka watch for a moment. “Now what?” The crown welds itself together before their eyes. The gem in the center pulses, then shines brightly. Then the whole crown sinks down into the stone. “NO!”
The room rumbles and shakes. The giant stone is cracked into pieces as Raa’ka and Ser Reginald leap to safety. As the dust swirls around and the rumbling fades away, all hear a booming voice.
“AT LAST I AM FREE!”

End of part 10.


[1] Unlike last chapter.
[2] in Chapter 8
[3] Modified slightly from Race for the Crown, Adventures of the Potbellied Kobold, by Jeff Stevens Games.
[4] The Gnomish Pantheon
[5] Remember, stalagmite “might” reach the ceiling, and stalactites hang on tite to the ceiling. Or, you can do the boring National Parks Service way of remembering.
submitted by Woody-Sailor-DM to dndstories [link] [comments]


2024.06.02 02:21 cuzimori The Community Tier List Review and Event CG Archive for Batia is Now Live!

Hello Reddit, and happy Pride month! This is Cuzi from Team BethelFrankel, here to tell you that the rating for Batia is now live on the Community Tier List.
Has it been long since Batia came out? According to the calendar, it’s only been a week, but it feels longer because everyone in the BethelFrankel group chat has been playing Wuthering Waves and going insane because of lag or Data Bank levels or both. In fact, our editor edited this very post during the respawn cooldowns for the monkey.
But this is a post about Alchemy Stars! Sure, it’s not the hot new thing on the block, but it’s still what Team BethelFrankel is all about. So let’s start the unit analysis!

Should You Pull…

Batia: A+/SS at BT3 - Stop me if you’ve seen this one before. Batia is a 3CD select-tile Converter who, without preemptive strike, is clunky to play, but becomes gamebreaking at BT3. Select-tile conversion has long been one of the most powerful abilities in the game—and getting Dark Tiles on top of that makes Batia truly broken. She’s so good, in fact, that a member of our team wrote a detailed Batia guide that covers her various synergies (including potential team compositions) before we even got this post done. I highly recommend checking it out, but we’ll summarize the most important points here.
Basically, Batia is Fire’s Siobhan, with the added ability to generate Dark Tiles. In addition, Batia can change the shape of her four-tile conversion into seven different Tetris-style shapes: two zig zags, one 2x2 block, one T shape, one 1x4 line, an L shape, and a J shape. Each time you enter a stage, you randomly get one of these shapes, with the option to re-roll the shape for 5 energy. You can also lock the shape in and use energy to enhance the shape by adding Dark Tiles to it. Energy is generated at the rate of 1 energy per 1 red tile you cross. There’s a pretty significant ramping cost to all of this without Batia’s MBT, though, which means that her Dark Tile generation even at BT3 isn’t all that amazing.
Despite this, Batia’s floor is still incredibly good. Being able to convert a minimum of two contact tiles and having shape flexibility is incredibly valuable. From there, she only gets better if RNG is in your favor, to the point where her conversion value ceiling is genuinely insane.
Beyond this, when Batia is in your team she replaces the Burn status effect with Enflame. You can read the Batia guide linked earlier for more details, but Enflame is generally a significant buff over Burn that’s occasionally worse against very high HP sponges. Against mods and lower HP bosses, it’s inarguably better. Enflame gets more potent the higher your team’s average ATK is; however, although the difference between an A3, level 1 team and an A3, level 80 team is noticeable, it’s not worth taking everyone to level 80 solely for Enflame’s damage.
Last but not least, Batia is very synergistic with many of Fire’s existing units. Chief among them is Algol, who finally has the Fire Dark Tile partner she’s been wanting. With the amount of Dark Tiles you get with these two, Batia’s Enflame and Algol’s Bool complement each other very well. Bring Jona into the mix, a Fire character who lives and dies with contact tiles, and things get even better. A team like Algol/Batia/Dantang/Rinne/Jona can create semi-consistent full circles around bosses on a 3-turn cooldown, with the second “rotation” created by Algol and Batia’s Dark Tiles perfect for Jona’s two-turn Active Skill effect.
To sum things up, Batia’s release means that Fire now has a somewhat stable Dark Tile core. The element is still awaiting its Dark Tile DPS (its Sheol or Tiare) and potentially more converters, but this is still an incredibly good core basically anyone can use. Batia’s RNG might be a bit annoying, but she’s still basically cemented herself as one of Fire’s premier converters.
TL;DR: Pull if you can reach BT3. Batia is a Dark Tile monster with consistent contact tile creation. Her synergies with units like Algol and Jona make her stand out even further, but like any other 6* select-tile converter, she really wants BT3.
Yingel - S-/S+ at BT3 - Our original review of Yingel was less favorable than it should have been, but the main reason we’re revisiting her here is that she keeps getting better as time goes on. You probably already know how she works, but her low Active Skill cooldown and “cross” prism tile make her incredibly flexible. It can be hard to get the full value out of her conversion, but there are many situations where it can be a huge positive. Plus, Yingel’s damage is no slouch either. She’s not comparable to a dedicated sniper like Luke, but she deals enough damage that you can play her as a main DPS if you desire. Thanks to these qualities, Yingel has become a go-to option for low CD Thunder teams, pairing especially well with Rachel in 3CD teams.
We still don’t necessarily recommend her for most people due to how many conversion options Thunder has (including Rachel, who works right out of the gate at BT0 and deals comparable damage to Yingel). Plus, with the anniversary looming you’ll want to think carefully about getting a unit who might not bring instant impact to your account.
TL;DR: Probably skip unless you really want another low CD Thunder Converter. Yingel is a powerful unit, but one that can be skipped over for other options such as Rachel and Chen’ni. Her new skin is absolutely gorgeous, though.

Rating Updates

Carleen/Hedy - Moved From “Support” to “Converter” - This is something we ought to have done a long time ago. In the early days of the game, Carleen and Hedy differentiated themselves from converters who only existed for conversion with their versatility and damage output. Nowadays, though, more and more converters come with significant damage profiles (Chen’ni, Rachel) or have strong utility value (Eicy, Sikare, and now Batia), which means that Carleen and Hedy are right at home in the Converter category.
Algol - Monitoring - While we’re still awaiting a Dark Tile DPS/another Dark Tile converter for Fire to see if Algol gets upshifted to SS tier, Batia was a pretty huge boon for her overall. If we get another Dark Tile unit for Fire, Algol will be a real force to be reckoned with. On top of that, Algol’s color-agnostic Dark Tile conversion means she has use cases outside of her element in certain Dark Tile teams.
BT0 Irridon - A+ - With the advent of Rachel and more conversion in Thunder, Irridon’s usefulness at the BT0 level has waned. You could even argue that she shouldn’t have been in S tier to begin with. She still has some of the best conversion available in the game, but as time passes her preemptive strike being locked behind MBT and lack of meaningful damage or utility starts to show a lot more.
BT0 Chen’ni - A+ - Speaking of other conversion options, Chen’ni is quite a bit better at BT0 than we initially thought. Her damage profile, especially in teams with Rachel or Reinhardt, is nothing to scoff at. She’s excellent as a flex or DPS option in these comps. She’s reliant on other units to function well here at BT0 and hurts from the lack of preemptive strike, but you can definitely use her for more than her Active Skill.
Liqing - A+ - While still solid, Liqing hasn’t aged well at all. Dedicated healers in Fire are struggling to stand out amidst units like Mia Alter, Victoria, and Eicy. Even worse for Liqing are his RNG buffs and the fact that he doesn’t heal that much to begin with. So, altogether you have a package that’s just not worth running over other options. He’s still a good unit, though, and certainly quite a bit better than Alice (remember the immortal Alice bug?).
MBT Genevieve - A - Genevieve has really good mobility and a Chain Combo buff that, surprisingly, does contribute a decent bit to the team’s overall damage. Unfortunately, the rest of her kit is awful and her MBT effect requires you to hit enemies, which isn’t as easy as it sounds with her wonky teleportation options. It doesn’t stop her from seeing interesting plays every now and again, though, and it’s always nice to see a unit from the early days of the game continue to have some relevance.

Event CG Archive Updates

Due to Eclogia’s busy schedule, we unfortunately have to delay the updates for the Event CG Archive until the next reddit post. Thanks for your understanding.

Community News

The team continues to work on various guides, including the aforementioned Batia intro guide. We’ve also updated the Example Teams by Element guide with Tiare’s Dark Tile team (which may be updated soon with the incoming Reinhardt buffs). A couple members of the team are also working on a tryhard Desolation Codex guide for those of you who really want to dig into the dirty details of that game mode.
As for what’s ahead, Tourdog announced that we’re finally getting our next True Order event, with Victoria’s alter being the limited unit. Whether she’ll be Fire or Forest remains to be seen, but we’re excited about getting to see the True Order characters be relevant again. We’re also finally getting our first new male 6* since, uh, Istvan Alter six whole months ago.
We also know that there are buffs incoming for Reinhardt (who definitely needed them), Barton: Deft Blades, Antony, Zarya, Smokey, Bethel and potentially even more units. We have no idea why they’re doing this, but it’s probably because they saw our namesake, Bethel, getting surpassed by newer units and wanted to right that wrong. Some wild speculation on the buffs themselves: Reinhardt might become a Dark Tile DPS, Barton Alter’s issues could be solved, Zarya may come back after being humiliated by Rachel, and Smokey could get some kind of Dark Tile addition to let her pair with Batia. What we don’t have to speculate about is that these buffs will be significant and possibly require a massive tier list update. So, look forward to that.
Last but not least, Refinements for older Aurorians (Sinsa enjoyers rejoice!?) will also be coming during the third anniversary. Lots to be excited about in the future!
One final note — the news that the Kimaris database is shutting down is certainly disheartening, but the Tier List updates will continue as usual. It’s been an absolute pleasure to work with Klöen and Phantaminum this past year, and the team hopes they have greener pastures ahead of them no matter what they decide to do. Meanwhile, should Kimaris become inaccessible before we finish ironing out the details of if and when we’ll be relocating to a new website, we’ll still be keeping the spreadsheet version of the Tier List up to date. The circumstances might not be ideal, but rest assured — we’re not leaving.
And with that, I shall lay down my metaphorical pen. Until next time!
Best regards,
Cuzimori
Team BethelFrankel
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2024.06.02 00:32 kevi959 As a console gamer who doesn’t play indie games, I feel out of options

I know it’s not original to say “modern” AAA gaming (whatever that actually means) is in a terrible place.
I also know that most consider indie games as the last bastion of creative games that put players and the craft first.
But as someone who has no interest in low budget platformers and the like, I feel increasingly left behind. This generation, it feels particularly unexciting to use my console for anything except an oversized roku box.
Why do I have to boot up Skyrim, a 13 year old game, to get lost in a fantasy world? Why have I had to wait 10 years for a new GTA fix? Why do I have to dig into the old backlog to pull out a World War 2 shooter worth playing? Why was my first thought playing Ragnarok that GoW 2018 did it pretty much the same? How many seasons of Fortnite or Warzone are going to milk the same formula that was fresh a console generation ago? Why did the whole world fall in love with Animal Crossing and get nothing new to dig into. Where is Doom 3? Fallout 5? Why will my child have gone through the entire K-12 schooling system before I get to play through the FF7 story remake? Waited 10 years on Diablo 4 for a game that has no endgame and copies Diablo 3 and fixes broken systems as “content”.
Where is the new stuff? With fresh gameplay and soundtracks that I’ll be humming in 20 years from now.
And what if indie games just don’t appeal to me? A hobby I’ve loved since I was old enough to speak has fizzled out, even though it’s more profitable than ever. I have hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to spend on games if I wanted, but I just cant be bothered when I open up the PS, Nintendo, or gamepass store. At least I’m currently enjoying my time with Mario Wonder, I guess. But that will be short lived.
Make it make sense.
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2024.06.02 00:05 The_Sunhunter The Mythology of the Eikons #9: Leviathan

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!

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2024.06.01 23:23 Demon_Deity Marred Migration - Chapter 27

Memory Transcription Subject: Talyn, Extermination Guild Paramedic, Sivkit Grand Herd.
First/Previous/Next
I… I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out why a demon would go behind her superiors for some prey.
Variah hasn’t stopped visiting this cage… t-though, I try to limit exchanging words with the beast as her proximity gnaws at my nerves to no end. Her moving maw leaves an unobstructed view at a row of endless pointed teeth that could easily crush through Sivkit bones, if at any moment she deemed that her desire. However, after all this time… she hadn't mauled me yet.
Nor did any of the other, more openly wicked beasts let their instincts get the better of them either, so I suspect that these demons can reign in their bloodlust better than the Arxur can, a-at least for practical reasons, but I don't exactly want to put that to a test. D-Damnit, why is she doing this? It’s difficult to keep my mind off it when everything else was a failure.
I… I’ve been trying to find a way to break free ever since the predator keeping me company gave her warning about the rest of her kind. N-not that I needed any monster to clue me in on their malicious intent or more prompting to look for a way out of here, but so far, any avenue to escape seems completely futile, at least… f-for now. Can’t give up.
J-Just remember your training… t-though it’s not exactly useful here.
Most of my guild practice had me safely locked within a medical wagon, waiting around on standby in case a front line exterminator suffered a mauling. I- I don’t have enough personal experience with this sort of thing to keep myself level headed, t-to know what to do, b-but… but I’ve heard stories from my… f-from my now ex-colleagues, about retrieving escaped convicts back for treatment.
I- I could take a few pages out of their play book, copy how they got out of their facilities and avoid falling for the same pitfalls that got them found. E-Even if doing so would be more than unorthodox, but… I c-can’t just sit around forever.
Even if for now all I can do is watch out for opportunities, think and plan.
Occasionally, the scientists lead me out of this box to conduct new experiments. I was hoping to find something useful when taken from these confines but I'm always trailed by those towering guards who never take their vicious eyes off me, or let me step out of line… or even let the scientists come too close when not instructed to. The director's men, as I've heard the so-called doctors call them while whispering amongst themselves; e-evidently also afraid of the beastly soldiers.
T-There are cameras everywhere, in every hallway and almost in every room. The few that don’t have them always have a beast there present with me, rarely taking an eye off me, so I can’t bet on finding a blindspot outside this room.
Main doors are locked with codes and keycards, but that doesn't matter much because if I managed to get my paws on a set I'd need to carry around a damned stool to reach a security pad while standing on my hind toes because of these giant freaks. Not even knowing where any door leads since I can't read their scratchy script.
Worse yet, from what I could tell while eavesdropping…
This facility is built at least several levels underground, and it’s located near the outskirts of a m-major predator population center. Meaning that any exits going “topside” had to be intentionally dug out by design, and almost definitely surveyed by guards and cameras.
Only to be surrounded by a countless horde of sapient predators once I got out, a-and… given that I’m at the edge of a monster city and how untamed my crash area appeared, the zone marked for emergency landing for all falling vessels, I… I must have been taken far from any other Sivkit survivors on this planet.
C-Constantly watched, locked and isolated. E-Everything, everything is stacked up against me… D-Damnit, j-just, just move forward, k-keep thinking… I-Ironically, my best bet for escape might be in this very room.
A ventilation duct right behind the bed, t-the only one I could reach with pipes that look wide enough to squeeze into if I managed to get the grate off, c-climb up, if that’s p-possible, u- until I feel fresh air.
The glass screen is positioned on the other side of the bed, with the grate being obscured further by the counter at the bedside and I’ve noticed that the cameras start moving back and forth at night, or at least, when the lights shut off, possibly going into an automated mode when the beasts stop watching the cell… t- the demons have to sleep too at some point I suppose, n-no better time to try.
Every couple of minutes as the cameras move, the lenses line up away from the bed for a few seconds at a time, granting me one consistent blindspot where I could fiddle with the screws if I kept my paw hanging off the bed when pretending to sleep.
But the damned grate is bolted in too tight.
I tried using my claws as an improvised screwdriver, wedging them into the divots and twisting… but those attempts only cost me a few nails with nothing to show for it. So if I had kept it up eventually the predators could notice that all my claws were suddenly wearing away. The demons would scour every surface for the cause, not something I can risk if I want to hold onto the only possible escape route I could find.
I just need something metal… something that wasn’t initially in shortage before I figured out the truth and tried to defend myself, i-if only I managed to maintain a cooler head back than… D-damnit, still at square zero, f-for now, I- I just need to bide my time… h-however long I might have.
T-The predator scientists seem to be conducting more and more redundant tests now, w-with some beginning to whisper about getting started on more t-thorough research, especially when they think I’m out of ear shot. I… I might not have long left before they just decide to dissect me.
“You hanging in there, Talyn?” A long dull claw poked my cheek, sending sharp shivers through my core.
It jolted me back to reality and forced me to regain awareness of the silver predator looming by the bedside, w-whose presence slipped my mind after a-somehow allowing my guard down around her.
“Heh, doesn’t really look like you’ve taken a liking to the book… you’ve been staring at the wall for a while now.” Variah’s voice almost sounded dejected, her head pointed down at the bizarre novel while flipping through its yellowed pages in an apathetic manner.
All I could do was lay behind the covers, grasping onto them as if they could shield me if the demon had a shift in whims, poking my head out while unable to look away as fur all along my back raised with pins and needles shooting through my skin.
An uncomfortable silence swept the room when Variah's horrid eyes began staring down at me, t-though… t-they almost looked tired and unmotivated, like they were begging for something?
“Ah-I… I spaced out for a minute, ah- I’m s-sorry.” The predator raised a single ear at me, s-surprised that I actually answered her this time, and I… I'm not s-sure why I did it either.
Her ears perked up a little, while I briefly flinched away as she opened up her maw, but quickly found that she only did so to speak again. “You don’t have to apologize, I… I can stop reading if you don’t want to hear it?”
The question actually paused me for a minute, a part of me couldn’t stand having to bare a predator’s presence constantly while hearing her voice narrating some damned book that doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense, but I… partly hating myself for it, but I p-prefer hearing Variah’s voice over the quiet, e-even if it's wrong to be listening to a predator. “Y-you… you can c-contiunue… p-please.”
Variah huffed to herself, keeping her ears pinned back in an awkward manner while lingering a strange, unnerving gaze on me for an uncomfortable minute, before turning back to the book and raising her ears up a little. “Alright, alright… I’ll just start over with the chapter.”
“O-Okay…” I muttered, but it made no difference either way. It’s not like I was even able to listen fully while all those things are constantly prowling around me, my instincts getting the better of me… or, with every clashing thought swirling around my mind. About what happened, about what they are?
B-But I got bits and pieces here and there, just enough to roughly know what’s going on. It detracts from everything dire, but I… I can allow myself this one distraction from this place. Even if willingly indulging in some predator’s work just makes my core feel vile. Though, from what I’ve followed, it… it feels like listening to a lie, n-not like the type of fantasy a predator should either read or write about, but that thing looks far too old to be a forgery for my sake.
For two years their engines roared, two years of steady descent as long white trails of plasma were cast forth into the inky void, decelerating the wanderer on their journey before the antimatter drives were cut and the great vessel came to a halt on its final destination, after centuries, settling into orbit around Aldiel star.
Awe and wonder resonated from the crew, the voyage was long, with countless wonders and detours on their journey through the Galaxy, but it has been twelve-hundred years since the 1st generation set them on this path, twelve-hundred years so that the 48th could bask in the light of the star that guided their ancestors since the days of wind and sails.
And, since it’s mysterious call beckoned them into the stars…
Variah’s voice filled the room with considerable mirth in her tone despite her prior hints at treachery… doing a far too convincing job at masking that her prior warning ever happened. Though I- I might be going crazy… but there’s almost an air of stress o-or sadness behind her horrid eyes.
S-Somehow, I… I’m not sure what to think about that predator.
She doesn't fit in with the rest of the beasts roaming around this facility, and for a second… You could almost forget that she's a natural hunter, that the being sitting by my side didn’t evolve to kill and gorge on flesh like the rest of them because those facts clash against the image painted right before my eyes.
The same frightening figure doing something as innocuous as reading through a novel by my bedside, as- as if I was some lost child cooped up in a Zurulian nursery.
However, the beast herself went through apparent lengths to reaffirm my sense of danger here while displaying a clear aptitude towards deception, lying even to her own kind… i-it seems foolish to doubt their nature now.
Y-Yet… seeing her yapping about some fiction novel with such glee, I… I can’t exactly see a monster cut from the same cloth as the Arxur. No Grey in existence would ever try to help prey, nor would they ever produce a novel, much less the contents in this one.
P-Predator explorers traveling across the stars in so-called generation ships, i-it’s… r-rather dumb, honestly. The idea of anyone being crazy enough to cross the void without FTL is ridiculous, though, p-predators fantasizing about it is certainly terrifying. I-imagining what lengths they could go to breach their system… I should be happy that the primitive hunters apparently deluded themselves into believing that super luminal speeds are impossible… at least, until we came along, a-and broke that notion for them.
W-when Variah said the book was a story about their vision for space travel I thought I’d be faced with an early glimpse into the nightmarish future we just created. A ravenous horde of canide demons unleashed to murder their way across the stars, if they got their claws on our FTL tech. Bombing worlds, enslaving cultures and spilling blood before tearing into sapient flesh. Y-Yet, that wasn’t in the pages… t-the opposite was.
Wanderers going from system to system, discovering new life, new wonders, new people… and embracing them with open arms instead of clenching teeth, even if by their own perception that life seemed incomprehensible or monstrous… i- initially, at least.
I… I don’t know.
The predators must have been under the delusion that most sapient life would be just as flesh craving as they are before I spilled the truth, with only a few chapters depicting contact with herbivore species, this being portrayed as some unique encounters, a-and… p-peaceful, n-no hunting, no war. W-Why?
Comparably, there were just as little chapters depicting conflict altogether, n-nothing that would delve into their true nature, a-at least… n-not what their nature s-should be.
It's d-difficult to reconcile everything I’ve heard with what we know about predatory minds, with the confessed threat lurking within this facility, though I can’t exactly ignore it either… I-It doesn’t seem like hunger alone drives these monsters, not like the Greys… t-then what does?
T-There… There was a moment where I almost wanted to just ask, t-though I stopped myself before I could do something that stupid. D-Damnit… What am I even doing listening to that damned thing?
Those weren’t the only things that stuck out while listening, more peculiar passages here and there… from what I can tell these beasts hold a strong aversion towards foreign diseases.
With characters being weary of exposing themselves to alien atmospheres before developing cures and vaccines, or trying to prevent their own predator sicknesses from spreading onto other worlds. It explains the suits from earlier, and why some of the predators wear them even now, but not so much the reason for the alarm in the first place… I would have thought that carnivores should be accustomed to carrying pathogens?
Stranger is that they seem to expect to find life in almost every system, even among inhospitable worlds with characters being surprised to find a barren system, or that “there is only one habitable world around the star.”
Or when finding extinct civilizations… a- and mourning their loss.
I-It’s… it’s not like life is rare in the galaxy, but Grand Herd scouts would weep in joy if someone ever found a corner of space as fertile as envisioned. It's… odd, usually its the opposite for species that developed electricity on their own and found the universe quiet, e-except th-the Verin and Onkari… a pair species.
E-Earlier, it sounded like Variah mentioned some others, w-with some notable differences from her. C-Could there… Considering their views about herbivores, t-than it would be a… n-no, I- I don’t know. W-What are the c-chances, and p-predators would conquer any neighbors… r-right?
D-Damnit, I-I’m just going insane in this… this glorified cattle pen, t-trapped for who knows how long? J-Just questioning myself, w-with no one but horrid predators.
Argh! This book! It… i-it really isn’t something a predator should indulge in. Yet some sapient beast wrote it, w-while Variah seems enamored with that thing, the covers seemingly worn from use. What could a hunter like her see in a story almost void of violence?
Reading through the pages with perked up ears, while casting the occasional glance at me to make sure I’m not totally ignoring her, a w-weary look painted on her ugly face.
Sh- e-earlier she mentioned that… t-that she reads that thing during dark times, i-is… is now… No, w-why are you thinking about that now? How can I trust a single word coming out of that maw? I-It could all just be manipulation a-and you’d be falling right into it like s-some dumb, p-predator-brained Venlil?!
T-Though if… if she isn’t as… D-Damnit, my time might be running out, a-and I’m short of options. If there’s even a slim chance that she’s not lying, I… d-despite what she is, despite better judgment, I… I wish I could count her as an ally in this horrid place, w-without fearing any ulterior motives she could have for trying to help me earlier.
If they were the Greys, I could chuck it up to hunger for alien flesh, s-some ploy to get everything for herself… but that doesn’t seem so clear anymore, when their… agitation doesn’t seem focused on their cravings, and when Variah stands out further from the other demons… She must have had a reason.
This… t-this is incredibly foolish, b-but I clenched my shivering paws and cautiously turned my head towards the demon, taking a shaken breath and opening my mouth to speak. “V-variah…?”
The huntress paused some senseless tangent about dyson swarms and ring worlds, whatever that even was… before turning her horrid eyes on me in a quizzical manner and forcing me to gulp after managing to grab her full attention.
“W-Why… w-why are you not like t-the others?”
The silver demon stared at me for a moment with confusion, before taking a claw underneath her chin and scratching while glancing to the side as if looking for an answer. “Oh- erm… My mother hailed from a nation in the far, far south, the native people have similar coats on that continent. Why?”
Coat? “Wha- n-no, I-I mean, why a-are you here, w-why are you s-so interested in aliens? T-The others, t-they are… t-they are more h-hostile, c-cold, y-you aren’t?”
“Ohh, I see… There might be many reasons, Talyn, but I think most are just scared.” Variah looked away from me and pointed her eyes towards the ceiling before continuing on.
“Everything on Valh was turned on its head when you crashed, and no one knows what's going to happen, or what your people even want… but so far their actions haven’t made you seem very approachable, and your reaction to us hasn’t exactly reassured anyone here either.”
“S-Scared… O-Of us? Y-you can't be s-serious, p-predators c-can’t feel true f-fear, n-not because of p-prey, you- you c-cause fear…” She paused and stared at me for a few uncomfortable seconds, her ears pinned tight to her skull while ducking her head a little more at my comment.
“You have some… interesting views Talyn, I have to say. The things you say… they can be quite silly sometimes. Of Course we have fear, I… erm, people thought the world was ending because of the flashes, because of your ships meteoring through the damn sky… Do you really think no one was scared?”
T-There was a pleading glint within her exasperated eyes, paired with ears that stayed pinned to the back of her skull as a paw rose up to hide her face. This… t-this doesn't feel like a fake reaction.
I… d-don't know, m-maybe if… If they did misidentify our burning ships as hurling meteors then it would make sense even for predators to experience the same amount of dread as herbivores do, though I can’t see those instincts sticking once we hit the ground, f- fear of the unknown then? W-What c-could predators fear in the unknown, b-bigger predators?
“I-If they are acting out of f-fear… T-Then why are you so different? A-Are you not s-scared… i-is that w-why you are fascinated by aliens, m-more willing to be approached?”
“Gods, of course I'm scared, I just… have hope that things won't turn out for the worst… and no, it’s nothing to do with fear. I've been interested in this sort of thing since I was a teen, in large part due to this very book… I must have read it cover to cover just about a hundred times.”
“B-But why? W-why would a- a being like you care for something like that?”
“I… I'm not sure, it's nice to read something optimistic, no? I got it from my parents when the world didn't seem so hopeful, I’d read it all the time whenever they went away… I guess it was a nice distraction during the war… now it’s something I can remember them by.”
The predator's long ears slumped low as she closed the novel, slowly tracing clawed digits across its sealed pages while staring at the worn out cover, eventually putting it back into the bag. Are… are her progenitors dead? Y-You could imagine a predator cub feeling despair when losing a vital guardian that was keeping them alive, n-not a fully mature one.
“Y-You have families?”
“Heh, of course we do, big ones usually, is that not common?”
“I-It… it is.” My body shuddered knowing that these terrifying beings come in large groups, something that goes counter to the anti-social nature of the Arxur, however my reaction caused the silver predator to grow even more despondent.
“Ahh… monsters aren't meant to have families, no?” Her long snout pointed down at the floor while crossing her paws together. I-It was such a strange feeling seeing her like this, i-in such a passive state next to prey… o-only drawing her image further than the beasts we know.
“M-Monsters d-don’t… b-but you do… I- I don't r-really understand w-what you are.”
Variah raised one ear at me, slowly pointing her head half way in my direction before lingering a stare from a single eye. “You… can always ask, you know. I’ll answer anything you want to know, just like before. What do you want to hear?”
J-Just ask? H-Heh… i-it can’t exactly be the same once you know you’re talking to a flesh eater, though, I… I think these beasts have to be a tamer breed of monsters than the Arxur, c-closer to true sapience, a-at least compared to those cursed reptiles. D-Damn, what harm could finding out more about their nature really do?
“A-Alright… I- I don’t know, l-let me think…” My thoughts traced over our conversation, until they landed upon something that stood out, o-one of many things not fitting of a predator. “E-Earlier you mentioned gods, d-do you have a religion?”
“Many. I don’t believe in anything of the sort myself, not really anyway… but most of my family prays to the old gods. People all around Valh most commonly follow the new pantheon and the nomad faiths it originated from.”
“M-Many? Okay then… w-what do you p-predators believe in then?”
“It depends, I guess… Most gods are meant to embody a part of nature in some way, the popular ones usually correspond to some star or celestial object in the sky… like I said I don't really put much stock into the supernatural so I don’t know much, though it… can be uncanny how many things are close to being correct in the nomad myths.”
Nature? Not something I expected, but I suppose predators worshiping aspects of nature isn't inconceivable when it's their hunting grounds. Though, it was worrying to hear a predator getting nervous about their own belief systems. “T-The nomads? You… you mentioned them before, Teh… Tesh, yes? W-What’s so b-bizarre about their beliefs?”
“Oh… yes! You actually rem-” The predator's volume spiked along with terror within my chest, but she stopped herself the moment I flinched away.
“O-Oh, I… I didn't mean to shout, s-sorry. They just can be… curious. Really secretive and stubborn about sharing their lores with us but we had some of their legends written down from centuries back and they always just… seem to know things, or at least, are close to vaguely knowing things they really shouldn't until modern times.”
Not that I have much faith in anything she says to me, but my skepticism was certainly beginning to grow. “W-What do you mean, like what?”
“Where can I even start? From what we can tell they always had an obsession with the night sky, but what’s kinda scary is that they have star charts showing surprisingly correct models of our system, with planets that are invisible to the naked eye… a-and later proven real with the invention of telescopes. M-Most were anyway, except for the supposed distant ones.
They knew of new continents and their rough shapes before they were even discovered, they had vague beliefs about the world and basic biology that weren’t too far off from reality if you exclude all the mysticism. They say that their gods granted them knowledge, I… sometimes find it difficult to explain it any other way.”
I've heard of faiths from half the Galaxy, but never had anyone tell me about getting preordained knowledge about science before. “Centuries you say, erm… I-if I were to b-believe you… are you sure t-these nomads haven’t been contacted by other aliens before o-or something?”
“Hah, if you dig around the internet for long enough I’m sure you’d stumbled upon some conspiracy about the Tesh somehow coming from Tielen or something crazier, but I really doubt that.” She chuckled to herself, before abruptly stopping and looking at me with crooked ears. “W-Wait, you… y-you don't know tha- I… I'll tell you later.”
Something about that answer felt off, b-but I couldn’t pinpoint what. “T-These nomads… a- are they just as frightening as y-you…?”
“I'm not frightening, Talyn… but, I suppose if you need a comparison, erm… I guess you might be a tiny bit taller than your average Tesh if you stood on your back legs, take that however you like.”
That much of a difference, i-is she serious?! T-there really might be another species here… t-two predators species o-on the same world?! That… that just can’t be right, p-predators would see another race as competition, a-and she doesn't speak of them as an enemy… m-maybe it's some weaker subspecies that's tolerated enough to not be driven to extinction?
“A-Alright… e-enough about that, p-please.” Whatever the truth is, the last thing I want to hear about is how diverse in form the monsters I’m surrounded by are, n-not when the whole point of us leaving federation space was to evade a pair of hunters… j-just like herself.
It felt… wrong, just considering this question that came to my mind, but having contact with a speaking monster, willing to answer any question… it sowed a certain level of morbid curiosity that couldn’t be ignored. “W- w-what do you feel when you go on a hunt, when you c-catch prey? D-Do you… do you do it often?”
I took a gulp when those words left my lips, but Variah just tilted her head at me as if my query made less sense than warp drive engineering. “When I hunt? Talyn I… I don’t hunt, not anymore anyway. My uncle took me a few times when I was younger, but it’s not something that I, or most people, do on a regular basis… it's not really my thing either.”
“Yo- you don't go hunting?! Y-You’re a carnivore, h-how… how d-do you g-get flesh?!”
“At the market…” Her voice sounded exasperated, like the apparently non-hunting predator couldn’t believe I had to ask.
Having to Imagine these demons selling bodies at a store like they’re some commodities is nothing short of horror, likely coming from cattle farms if most of them really don’t hunt, b-but… it’s inconceivable that a predator would forgo their own personal blood drive and delegate hunting to someone else… n-not her thing?
“Y-You still hunted prey b-before, w-what did you feel when… w-when you k-killed them?”
The predator looked unsure what to say, looking to the side and rubbing her ear. “I… I only managed to shoot something once, I… I guess I felt a rush at the time, pride… along with some pity for the thing. Again, it’s not something I liked, but I don’t feel bad about it, Talyn… I’m sorry if that’s not something you want to hear from me.”
Despondence grew within my heart as she confessed to having no remorse for the life taken, y-yet, she understands enough compassion to attempt alleviating my feelings about it? With a meek voice I tried to speak up again. “B-But… c-couldn’t you just s-stop eating f-flesh? Y-You can eat r-roots and f-fruit, e-even if i-it needs to be b-burnt… t-there is no need for m-murder.”
“Murder?” Variah looked at me in confusion, lingering a concentrated gaze on me for some time. “Talyn… why do you think carnivores eat meat?”
“T-To sate your b-bloodlust… t-they say you c-can’t help yourself, i-it's in your instincts to k-kill.” Variah furrowed her eyes at me and pinned back her ears, though this time it didn’t come off as stress, rather… bewilderment?
“Listen, we eat meat because it’s a physical nutritional need. We can’t eat plant matter like you do because we lack the right enzymes to digest it properly, and regardless of that, meat has proteins my body can’t synthesize on its own so I would eventually starve to death if I ate nothing but plants, cooked or not.”
She grabbed both ears and started rubbing them in an anxious manner. “Sure, instincts do play a role in how predators behave… any creature with specific biological needs had to evolve a drive to fulfill those needs, but it’s about survival, not some… some constant mind consuming lust for carnage?”
“Y-You really expect me to b-believe that you won’t start drooling t-the moment you feel hungry?!”
Variah’s paws moved from her ears and down on her forehead, staring straight at the floor for a few seconds with a fatigued posture before sliding her paws down again to hide her snout as she started to… c-chuckling? “By the gods. I hope you won’t… but if you’re still worried that much my belly’s all full right now, so you have nothing to be concerned about.”
Is she… is she finding this funny!? The thought of her being fully sated with corpses just sent a shiver down my spine, I don’t even think she realizes how morbid the comment was but I could only feel bitter in the moment. “H- how l-lovely for y-you… t-that just makes me feel s-so much b-better.”
Variah narrowed her eyes and slowly looked in my direction, causing mine to widen in response. The silver predator raised a paw and extended it towards my face.
Dread shot through my heart, forcing me to flinch away and shut my eyes before the horrid demon made contact and I squealed in terror, b-but… instead of her claws flaying me alive, I only felt a harsh flick across my ear. “You must be feeling all great now after all if you’re willing to speak with so much spite.”
Cautiously, my eyes opened to see Variah leaning close, her increased proximity immediately sending off alarm bells in my head. However, the overgrown demon just sat there still with closed eyes and perked up ears, holding out a clenched paw in front of me, with only the pinky extended forward.
I just stared at her for a moment, unsure what she wanted me to do before finally recoiling my arm back with a mix of scorn and trepidation when I figured out her attempted gesture. Contemplating my actions here, then contemplating her’s…
B-before averting my gaze from the demon and lowering my arm, and… a-and deciding to cautiously raise my arm, hovering a shaking paw right before the demon’s digit a-and managing to grab on, n-not fully sure of every reason why I did it?
It felt… wrong, loathsome, holding onto a predator, b-but some part of me liked feeling her warmth. She didn’t react at first, but after a few seconds Variah’s digit curled in on itself and pressed my paw against her other knuckles… It surprised me, b-but, it didn’t feel like a grip I couldn’t get away from if I let go now, s-so I just sat there for a moment, taking in how surreal the situation had become.
“See…” Variah finally decided to speak up as I raised my gaze to meet the strange predator once again. “I’m not as terrifying as you think.”
An odd mix of emotions went through my head, b-before I finally let go of her. “Y-you are… y-you just… c-could be w-worse.”
The silver beast seemed disappointed for a moment, but her overall demeanor seemed more positive than before. “Heh, I guess that’s an improvement so I’ll take it, for now.”
For once, I’ve seen Variah’s ears pointed to full height, and she… she really didn’t seem as frightening, m-making my ear rise a little higher too, awkwardly sitting in a crooked manner. “H-heh… y-you… you are a s-strange being, Variah… n-not how I could have e-ever imagined. You… d-do you really not like hunting?”
“Not really, no, if you're willing to believe it… though I won’t lie, I do enjoy the outdoors aspects of it. The hiking, the camping… get to do it a ton for my main line of work.”
The most arduous parts of working in the wild? Why would a scientist have to work in the wilds anyway? “W-What do you actually d-do? A-and, w-why are you here now?”
“Many things, but primarily astronomy and anthropology work. We survey the night sky deep in nomad territory because their communities produce far less light pollution, so I tend to have a ton of contact with the tribals. These are usually joint ventures with archaeology and zoology teams, so we regularly assist with each other's work too.”
“As for why I’m here, the military swooped me up once the dust settled long enough to know that it wasn’t space debris that landed on our world. I… I wrote a paper about a hypothetical first contact with extraterrestrials, and how it could play out based on cultural interactions throughout history… turns out that was enough for the government when they were scrambling to find scientific personnel capable of contributing with an alien encounter.”
It was bizarre hearing that hunters would care about so many fields of study. At best I thought they would focus on utilitarian pursuits, not something as frivolous as archeology. Much less would I have expected that predators would be speculating about aliens. “H-Have you imagined f-first contact going like this?”
“I- I didn't even think we would ever have an actual first contact, n-not in my lifetime… with the distances involved the chances of an encounter were literally astronomical, at least, until we learnt about your physics-breaking technology. Realistically, the best I ever hoped for was living long enough to watch someone land on Tsn, or hell, even our other moon… When they told me what I was meant to do here and got rushed into this room with you, I… I thought I would faint.”
The last bit left a tinge of guilt within my heart, even though it’s for a beast that technically shouldn’t deserve it. My glare just lingered on Variah while listening to the giant predator spill her woes and dreams like any actual sapient being in the Galaxy. It feels… d-dreadful, l-like there was actually someone I could have liked had they not been trapped within that body.
S-Still… I found myself with a need to answer back, turning away from her direct sight. “I- I’m sorry about that, I guess.” I really am going crazy here, aren’t I?
My eyes found themselves staring off at the ceiling while the silver predator just tilted her creepy head at me in a puzzled manner, lingering her unnerving eyes before finally answering back. “You don't have to worry about it… but thanks.”
Nothing more was spoken between us for several seconds, the extended silence drawing more attention to the strangeness of the situation I found myself in, until the moment was cut short and without warning a buzzer sounded over the door.
An ominous voice came online from the speakers, announcing that guards were about to escort me for another set of experiments. Something that left off, and must have also taken Variah off guard judging by her shift in demeanor. “More tests? Strange… nothing else was scheduled for today.”
The door began to cycle through its opening sequence and my anxiety flaring back up to how it was before, shivering, as the sudden break in routine caused an impending sense of doom once I realized that something even more nefarious could be afoot.
It could be futile, but my eyes snapped around the room looking for something, anything that could keep me safe if the worst came to pass, until they landed upon Variah… and the silver predator glanced back at me. Scanning over my current state with concern in her eyes, y- yet again contradicting what her nature should be truly.
A- a desperate thought crossed my mind, s-something… completely unthinkable, but no alternative seems at all feasible, a-and my time is drawing short. I- I cannot do this alone…
“Va- V-variah…” I hissed, my voice so weak that it's a shock that the beast managed to hear it even with those long ears. “P-please… You- you godda k-keep me s-safe.”
Her creepy eyes widened with shock, almosting freezing on the spot, but the predator recovered quickly, likely trying to look inconspicuous before glancing side to side and turning her head back to me with perked up ears.
“I- I promise I’ll do what I can…” She spoke in a low tone while reaching a giant paw towards my head. The sight of claws nearing my face compounding instinctive dread, but despite flinching once her palm made contact with my head, I- I didn’t shy away as much as before.
“On my honour. I just… need to figure out what’s going on first.” Variah took her paw away as the door hissed open, a-and for a moment m-my… my muscles twitched to pull her back before I stopped myself, u-unsure what compelled that impulse.
Two large guards stepped in, sporting fur dark as pitch and looking far more imposing than Variah ever could. “Doctor…” The demon spoke with a low tone that made my claws vibrate while slightly bowing his head in some form of greeting.
“I-is something wrong, sir? I wasn’t aware of any changes in the roster?” The silver predator appeared far meeker than the two beasts in front of her, though her demeanor didn’t suggest an expectation of being harmed by the two, despite her earlier treachery or our interactions from today.
“Nothing’s wrong Doctor, the administrator got a green light for a new line of research, so we’ve been ordered to escort the subject to the lower levels, please step out of the room.”
For a moment, something the demon said shook the silver predator, causing her head to snap in my direction with concern as I shuddered from the sight. “T-the lower levels? I thought those were shu-” She paused once looking back at the giant guard who seemed to be running out of patience. “R-right, apologies, I’m on my way.”
The silver predator moved sheepishly towards the door, lingering at the threshold to look my way one final time, clear concern painted on her face, at least before perking up her ears in what looked like a vain attempt at reassuring me and ducking out of the room soon after.
I- I guess it was just a deranged fantasy ever considering that begging some carnivore for help would materialize into anything. Now I was left alone with two demonic shadows ordering me out of the bed. My muscles weakened when their voices called, with nauseating sickness almost making me vomit from overwhelming dread.
However, following their commands was preferable to these monsters dragging me off by force so I just climbed down the frame, disheartened, and almost collapsed on the floor before letting the demons lead me into deeper depths.
First/Previous/Next
Special thanks to u/TheWalrusResplendent and u/Killsode-slugcat for proof reading this chapter. The help is always greatly appreciated.
Hope you all enjoyed the chapter, been a while since we saw what Talyn. We'll be back with Kafny next chapter to see how she'll adapt to her new situation.
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2024.06.01 20:38 ApplyAllDay Head of Digital Web Platform - FIS

About the Job

Reporting to the VP of Engineering, Digital Engineering Platforms, the Senior Director, Head of Digital Web Platform will play a critical role in driving innovation and growth for the Banking Solutions business. In a leadership role in the Digital Technology organization, you will be responsible for transforming our talent and driving the development and implementation of next generation digital products. With a focus on digital software engineering and execution, you will collaborate closely with product leaders, and other stakeholders to align on product milestones and deliver innovative digital applications and experiences. In this role, the candidate will have the opportunity to make a lasting impact on the company's digital transformation journey, drive customer-centric innovation, and position the organization as a leader in the competitive digital banking landscape.

Job Responsibilities

Requirements

submitted by ApplyAllDay to u/ApplyAllDay [link] [comments]


2024.06.01 20:22 Important-Bug8093 25% off any game A to Z (200+ discounts) & $30 meta credit if you have bought the quest in last 45 days

Need a different game? DM me. Over 200 25% discount codes just ask the game. Just got a quest or getting one soon use device referral for $30USD https://www.meta.com/referrals/link/JJtheoutlaw If you set up an account in last 45 days without claiming the original $30 then go into phone app go to devices then reset the device. Click the referral then play Quest. Game data as well as games are saved on cloud automatically & are backed up
submitted by Important-Bug8093 to MetaQuest_Referrals [link] [comments]


2024.06.01 19:46 fatdick77 If Quake II was Wor- thoughts

If Quake II was Wor- thoughts
Playing Call of the Machine again on my new Xbox S. I love how they tie the story together, finally confirming Quake II to actually be a prequel to the original after almost 30 years later (in my head canon, at least).
However, if they’d originally called the game ‘Wor’ or whatever back in 1997, Quake 1 and its weird Lovecraftian presence would’ve likely had more of a presence in mainstream gaming alongside DOOM as a singleplayer powerhouse as well as multiplayer. It’s not until recently with the next gen rereleases of the first two games, that a new generation’s finally appreciating it for the first time.
There were a lot of years in between where few mentioned id Software’s unholy masterpiece, unless referring to Quake III Arena. Plus obviously because the “sequel” originally had nothing to do with the first game at all, and was just the title in engine only- Quake III Arena’s fast paced MP gameplay became the identity of the franchise, instead of the original with its surreal, evil, otherworldly environments, and cosmic horrodark fantasy crossed with a parallel universe’s ‘modern’ military theme.
Anyway, I think MachineGames knows what they are doing with the limited amount of lore the original provides and still giving so much to the imagination. That’s one of many things what I love about Quake, really makes you trip out and question of the bizarre nature of the Omniverse.
Just my two cents.
submitted by fatdick77 to quake [link] [comments]


2024.06.01 19:28 Important-Bug8093 25% off ALL games A to Z (200+ discount codes)

Need a different game? DM me. Over 200 25% discount codes just ask the game PS if you got a Quest in the last 30 days but didn't claim $30 meta cash referral you can still claim instantly just dm to get best solution
submitted by Important-Bug8093 to MetaQuestAppReferrals [link] [comments]


2024.06.01 19:25 Important-Bug8093 Claim 25% off A to Z (200+ discounts)

Need a different game? DM me. Over 200 25% discount codes just ask the game PS if you got a Quest in the last 30 days but didn't claim $30 meta cash referral you can still claim instantly just dm to get best solution
submitted by Important-Bug8093 to OculusReferralLinks [link] [comments]


2024.06.01 19:23 Important-Bug8093 25% off Every game A-Z

need a different game? DM me. Over 200 25% discount codes just ask the game PS if you got a Quest in the last 30 days but didn't claim $30 meta cash referral you can still claim instantly just dm to get best solution
submitted by Important-Bug8093 to MetaReferrals [link] [comments]


2024.06.01 19:00 YoungCubSaysWoof Wrestling fans and those looking for a fun event near Denver, CO: All Elite Wrestling (AEW) Dynamite is coming to Loveland, CO this coming Wednesday, June 5th!

The event will be taking place this Wednesday, June 5th at the Larimer County Events Complex. Tickets range from $20.00 - $300.00. (More information here.) First match is at 5:30 PM MST; the show goes live for television at 6:00 PM MST. Show ends at ~9:00 PM.
Veterans: check out www.VetTix.com, as I heard they are providing discounted tickets for Veterans through that outlet. (They have family packages, I think, and the tickets through here are usually better seats. We got $400 tickets for a comedy show for $30 each!)
Currently on the card (as of Saturday, 11:00 AM).
Mariah May Vs. Saraya (formerly Paige at WWE)
(Possible) AEW World Tag Team Championship Match
The Acclaimed w/ Daddy Ass (formerly Billy Gunn of WWE’s D-Generation X) Vs. The Young Bucks (champions)
After his return at AEW’s pay-per-view last Sunday to get his revenge on Adam Cole, Maxwell Jacob Friedman (MJF) will be in attendance.
I’ve been to the last three shows of AEW and always had a great time. I hope you can join us for another fun show!
(Fans, feel free to cross-post to your local sub-reddit!)
submitted by YoungCubSaysWoof to Denver [link] [comments]


2024.06.01 18:48 Doughnut-More Am I crazy or somewhat justified in quitting after 5 years?

I'm reflecting on my decision to quit a job I was at for just shy of 5 years in November 2023. It felt like a long time coming but the last straw was being asked to do something illegal (or borderline illegal). This might be long but I want to give enough background. Was I crazy for leaving? Don't rip into me too hard please.
Background- I'm 26. First generation college graduate with a Master’s degree that grew up living in a trailer park in an upscale suburb (you can imagine how that went socially). I was never around people in professional settings or people with careers besides school teachers so I've been learning on the fly how to navigate office politics and frankly, how to have a career feeling like an imposter. I recognize part of my problem is having enough confidence in myself. But I genuinely have nothing to compare my path to or people to talk to about this.
Academics- 2016 Graduated early from high school with honors, took AP classes with 3s and 4s on the exams, but had a horrible homelife. I immediately started working and went to community college for my associates in accounting. Paid for with grants and scholarships for my HS grades, graduated in 2018. Then got my bachelors in Accounting and Financial Management from a small college. Paid for with a school paternership scholarship b/c of my grades, graduated 2020. I went on to a different university for my Master's in Accountancy. This was part time and I graduated beginning of this year. I have enough hours for the CPA exams, already applied, just need to schedule my first exam. Hoping to pass all exams this year.
Work- I've worked throughout school. My first accounting position was an Accounting Assistant at a nonprofit for $12 something an hour. Gave me my first office job introduction. It was a good stepping stone where I got introduced to AP, AR, reconciliations, etc. Finished my associates degree and moved on after a year to an insurance company as an AP person on the corporate side for around $16 an hour (which was alot at the time). It was just me and the controller on the corporate side with a small team on the AR and insurance accounting side. Well the company was growing fast with aquisitions so I had to grow fast too. AP was pretty standard high volume payments, very old school, lots of wasted paper. Within a year of AP I absorbed absolutely anything I could from all levels of the company which allowed me to be very good at my job and became a source of knowledge for many departments. I was promoted to a newly created cash management position with a nice raise and more projects and responsibility. We needed more hands on deck b/c of the growth so I had the freedom to build my team our myself after a couple failed hires from the controller. I was promoted to a salaried Financial Accounting Manager after less than a year of cash management. I went on to build a team of 7 and we were phenomenal. Over 5 years those I was damn good at what I did, went above and beyond, got recognition from other departments and executives. Each year I averaged at least an 11% raise each year and in one year I negotiated 2 of those raises. I was on track to cross 6 figures in 2 years.
The Problem- I thought I was doing pretty well but it had it's downsides. Having never been around these type of people I was trying my best to present as a professional. The company was family owned and the executives had this weird club like vibe to them. I learned almost everything from the CFO and not my manager the Controller. She was the type to never be on the office, schedule meetings then forget, hold you in their office all day talking about everything not work related in the their lives, gossiping, couldn't answer accounting questions and always always always went to the CFO. It came to the point that I was doing her job too as she "was training to take over the CFO role when she retires" which was laughable. She just wasn't a good manager and I didn't know how to set boundaries. I gave too much of myself to that position for the sake of wanting to learn as much as I could and be a better accountant. I never said no to anything so I think they knew they could take advantage of me. September 2023 I got a call from my manager warning me that the CFO was made because someone in the break room overheard 2 of my team members talking about their salary. Raises were in October. I guess that caused a different department to go to HR and ask why accounting made so much money. The CFO was furious and legitimately yelling on the phone after work hours while I'm picking my kids up from daycare. She's yelling about how embarrassing it is that they were talking about their pay and how will I be fixing the situation? She was obviously not happy when I said " I can't stop them from talking about their pay to each other but I can tell them to be mindful of who they're around". I was always taught throughout school that it's not illegal to talk about pay and that it's illegal for employers to stop them or make rules about that. They were ready to fire them. The next day I go to my manager saying I don't think we should come down hard on them they didn't do anything illegal. She said "Talking about pay is grounds for termination, we've done it before and have fired for less." I told her that's illegal and had her google it. She was shocked to see there's laws about that. We go to HR and she just stands there eating candy while I'm talking to HR. HR is literally and verbally going over ways they can make rules about not talking about pay and specifically targeting one of the 2 accused. I asked for details of the accusations and HR gets snippy. She condescendingly writes down my statement that they are allowed to talk about their pay and that I was adamant that it was illegal. She's like "well I don't have time to keep up on changes to the law" . This was the head of HR. Here's where I messed up. I didn't record any of it and was shocked that this was happening. I refused to fire them then later that day the CFO calls us all in and said to the 2 people that "she says I can't tell you to not talk about your pay because it's illegal but I'm telling you not to talk about your pay". I was shocked. My team members were shocked. They didn't get a chance to defend themselves. Afterward we talked about it and they were also aware of the laws and felt targeted. They sent me a summary email afterwards about what happened to keep it documented. We didn't know what else to do. Scared for our jobs we just laid low but one of them tells me they feel like their being watched. Exactly 2 months later they fire 1 for a bogus reason saying they brought over too many people from the aquisition when we know for a fact that those people quit because we had to take over their work. They tried to deny her unemployment claim but she appealed it. She didn't have money for a lawyer and knew even if she did the company had more. They told everyone in the company that she quit. I know the reason the they fired her was because of the pay talk, I was in the room when they were talking about it and trying to target her 2 months prior. I was just DONE. I gave a 1 month notice that I was leaving. That same day I got multiple calls that my manager was going on a smear campaign about me. I quit the next day. I wasn't going to let them milk me for a month while spreading lies about me. If my work was as bad as they tried to claim then how did I last 5 years? My manager was adamant that she knew how to do my job after I left. Apparently it didn't go well after I left because 6 people throughout the department left within 4 months because management couldn't handle taking over my stuff and became unbearable. They didnt have a middle person to do all the work the controller dodnt want to do. She never learned what i did. Some saw how they treated and talked about us after leaving and found new jobs. The ship sank and crashed.
I took some time off because I was burnt out. Had a couple job offers and worked at a place for a couple weeks but the commute was too much. Now I'm feeling like a loser that will never work in accounting again. I plan to take the rest of the year off and pass the CPA exams but I can't shake the feeling that it's career suicide. I can't afford to not work much longer than the end of the year and definitely feel the break is what I need. I'm terrified that ALL companies are as disfunctional as the last one was. Am I crazy? Will I ever work in accounting again? The situation really made me question if I was any good at what I do and if I wasted the last 6-7 years of my life.
submitted by Doughnut-More to Accounting [link] [comments]


2024.06.01 18:34 No_Cow_7515 I can’t control my temper with my little brothers and I don’t know how to stop.

I (16F) have 2 younger brothers (one is 4, the other is 8) and one older brother (19). My temper’s never really been an issue until my younger brothers were born. My 7 year old brother is autistic/ADHD, and his behavior gets on my nerves. I don’t know if it’s all caused by his condition. I never had the problems I have with him with my older brother, who’s also autistic, or with my youngest brother. I think it has to do with how my parents dealt with my older brother and I when we were kids. I haven’t been tested for autism but I do have ADHD. Many of the things we deal with because of our disorders were just dismissed as laziness or disrespect and our parents would regularly berate/beat us for things that bothered them. I don’t know if my treatment of my little brothers has anything to do with that, but I’m considering it only because one time my mom mentioned something about problems being passed down generations. Anyways, with my 7 year old brother. He gets on my nerves so much more than everyone in my family combined. He’ll do some really gross or disrespectful thing and it just makes me so mad, and it’s increased when my parents don’t do anything about it because they just blame it on his autism. I get that it’s part of his condition and I’m not asking them to beat him like they’d beat me. All I want is for them to talk to him and explain why it’s not okay to do these things. I drew the last straw a while ago and my parents were so mad at me that they started crying. I was about to go out on a gym date and was taking my water bottle when I took a sip. And then I realized my little brother had peed in my water bottle. I was so disgusted by it and it’s not the first time he does something that crosses the line like this. He thinks it’s funny to pee on my things and on me, or touch himself in public and it’s disgusting. My parents were mad at me and told me it’s not fair to him to have to deal with me because I said I’m sick of him and his behavior. they didn’t talk to him at all. Because of him I spent a good part of my day throwing up in the bathroom because it was so gross. I do admit, with some things he does, like repeat lines from some show or game he plays, or make loud noises I need to control myself. He doesn’t follow directions very well and I get frustrated and annoyed at him. I’ve beat him several times before over little things like that because I just can’t help it and I feel terrible. I don’t want to cause him the problems my parents caused me by doing to him what they did to me. When I was about 14 my dad saw me hit him and he was so angry at me. It was the last time he beat me. I don’t want to disappoint my parents again by telling them that I constantly beat him. Also because I only think they’d berate or ground me instead of helping me stop. I’m also scared that my dad might hit me again, even if I do deserve it. I go to therapy and I’ve talked about this issue a few times but I don’t know how to take the next step forward. I also don’t know how I can explain this issue in it’s entirety to my therapist without telling her my parents used to beat me because they’re really changed for the best and I love them and I don’t want them to get in trouble because of me. But I feel horrible for doing this to my brother for things he can’t control.
sorry for the rant y’all
submitted by No_Cow_7515 to offmychest [link] [comments]


2024.06.01 18:05 calvin324hk [H] 1000+ Games / DLCs / VR Games [W] Paypal / Wishlist / Offers

https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/pikmri/calvin324hks_igs_rep_page/
https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/of2wzu/flair_profile_ucalvin324hk/
Wishlist
Region: NA (Canada)
Fees on buyer if any, currency is USD unless specified
CTRL + F to find your games in terms of name
  • 10 Second Ninja X
  • 11-11 Memories Retold
  • 112 Operator
  • 12 is Better Than 6
  • 198X
  • 1993 Space Machine
  • 60 Parsecs
  • 7 Billion Humans
  • 8 DOORS
  • 8-bit Adventure Anthology: Volume I
  • 9 Years of Shadows
  • 911 Operator
  • A Game of Thrones: The Board Game
  • A Hat in Time
  • A Hole New World
  • A JUGGLER'S TALE
  • A Long Way Down
  • A PLAGUE TALE: INNOCENCE
  • A Robot Named Fight!
  • A Tale for Anna
  • A.I.M.2 Clan Wars
  • Abalon (Summoners Fate)
  • Above Snakes
  • ABZU
  • Ace Combat Assault Horizon Enhanced Edition
  • ADOM
  • Adore
  • Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion
  • Aeterna Noctis
  • AETHERIS
  • Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot The First Cases
  • AIdol
  • Airborne Kingdom
  • Alba: A Wildlife Adventure
  • Alder's Blood: Definitive Edition
  • Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo
  • Alien Breed Trilogy
  • Aliens vs. Predator™ Collection
  • All-Star Fruit Racing
  • Almost There: The Platformer
  • American Fugitive
  • American Truck Simulator
  • Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy
  • AMID EVIL
  • Amnesia rebirth
  • Amnesia: The Dark Descent + Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
  • Anomalous
  • Another World – 20th Anniversary Edition
  • Antigraviator
  • Anuchard
  • APICO
  • APICO
  • Aragami
  • Aragami 2
  • Arboria
  • Arcade Paradise
  • Arcade Paradise - Arcade Paradise EP
  • Arcade Spirits
  • Arkham Horror: Mother's Embrace
  • Armada 2526 Gold Edition
  • Army Men RTS
  • army of ruin
  • Arto
  • Ary and the Secret of Seasons
  • As Far as the Eye
  • Ascension to the Throne
  • Assemble With Care
  • Assetto Corsa Competizione
  • Assetto Corsa Ultimate Edition
  • Astebreed Definitive Edition
  • Astro Colony
  • Astronarch
  • Attack of the Earthlings
  • Automachef
  • Automobilista
  • Automobilista 2
  • AUTONAUTS
  • AUTONAUTS VS PIRATEBOTS
  • Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora™ - Ubisoft Connect
  • AVICII Invector: Encore Edition
  • Awesomenauts All Nauts pack
  • Axiom Verge
  • Axiom Verge 2
  • Baba is you
  • Back 4 Blood
  • Back 4 blood (EU)
  • Backbone
  • Banners of Ruin
  • Bartlow's Dread Machine
  • Basement
  • Batbarian: Testament of the Primordials
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition
  • Batman: Arkham Origins
  • Battle Royale Tycoon
  • Battlecruisers
  • Battlestar Galactica Deadlock
  • BATTLESTAR GALACTICA DEADLOCK SEASON ONE
  • Battlestar Galactica Deadlock: Complete
  • BATTLETECH MERCENARY COLLECTION
  • BATTLETECH Shadow Hawk Pack
  • BEAUTIFUL DESOLATION
  • Bee Simulator
  • BEFORE WE LEAVE
  • Beholder 2
  • Ben 10
  • Ben 10: Power Trip
  • Bendy and the Ink Machine™
  • Between the Stars
  • Beyond a Steel Sky
  • Beyond The Edge Of Owlsgard
  • BEYOND THE WIRE
  • Beyond: Two Souls
  • BIOMUTANT
  • Bionic Commando
  • BioShock: The Collection
  • BLACK BOOK
  • Black Moon Chronicles
  • Black Paradox
  • BLACK SKYLANDS
  • BLACKHOLE: Complete Edition
  • Blacksad: Under the Skin
  • Blade of Darkness
  • Blasphemous
  • Blazing Chrome
  • Blightbound
  • Blood And Zombies
  • Blood Rage: Digital Edition
  • Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
  • Blue Fire
  • Bomber Crew
  • Boneless Zombie
  • Boomerang Fu
  • Borderlands 3
  • Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe
  • Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition
  • Borderlands: The Handsome Collection
  • Bot Vice
  • Bounty of One
  • Brawlout
  • Breakout: Recharged
  • Breathedge
  • bridge constructor
  • Bridge constructor medieval
  • bridge constructor stunts
  • Broken Lines
  • Brutal Legend
  • Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling
  • BUILDER SIMULATOR
  • calico
  • Call of Duty® Modern Warfare 3™ (2011)
  • Call of Juarez: Gunslinger
  • Capitalism 2
  • Car Mechanic 2018
  • Car Mechanic Simulator 2015
  • Car Mechanic Simulator 2018
  • Cardboard Town
  • Castle Morihisa
  • castle storm
  • CastleStorm
  • Cat Cafe Manager
  • Catherine Classic
  • Caveblazers
  • Celeste
  • Centipede: Recharged
  • Cepheus Protocol
  • CHANGE: A Homeless Survival Experience
  • Charlie's Adventure
  • Chenso Club
  • Chernobylite: Enhanced Edition
  • Chess Ultra
  • Chicago 1930 : The Prohibition
  • Chivalry 2
  • Chop Goblins
  • Chorus
  • Chorus
  • Circuit Superstars
  • Cities Skylines + After Dark
  • Cities: Skylines
  • City of Beats
  • CivCity: Rome
  • Click and Slay
  • Cloud Gardens
  • Cloudpunk
  • Code Vein
  • Coffee Talk
  • Comedy Night
  • Command & Conquer Remastered (Origin)
  • Complete Dread X Collection
  • Conarium
  • Construction Simulator (2015) Deluxe Edition
  • Constructor Plus
  • Control
  • Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3
  • Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!
  • Cookie Cutter
  • cornucopia
  • Corridor Z
  • Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel
  • Cosmonautica
  • Crash Drive 2
  • Crash Drive 3
  • Creaks
  • Creepy Tale
  • Crookz the big heist
  • CROSSBOW: Bloodnight
  • Crush Your Enemies
  • Cube Runner
  • Cultist Simulator: Anthology Edition
  • Curse: The Eye of Isis
  • Cyber Ops
  • Cybercube
  • Danger Scavenger
  • Dark Deity
  • Dark Future
  • Darkwood
  • DARQ: Complete Edition
  • Day of the Tentacle Remastered
  • days of war definitive edition
  • DC League of Super-Pets: The Adventures of Krypto and Ace
  • DC's Justice League: Cosmic Chaos
  • Dead by Daylight
  • Dead Estate
  • Dead Rising 2
  • Deadly Days
  • Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
  • DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT
  • Death's Gambit
  • Deceased
  • DECEIVE INC.
  • Degrees of Separation
  • Deleveled
  • Delicious! Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire
  • Deliver Us The Moon
  • Demetrios - Deluxe Edition
  • Depraved
  • DESCENDERS
  • Desert Child
  • DESOLATE
  • Destiny 2: Beyond Light
  • DESTROYER: THE U-BOAT HUNTER
  • Detention
  • Devil May Cry HD Collection
  • Devilated
  • Dicey Dungeons
  • Dirt 5
  • dirt rally
  • Dirt Rally 2.0
  • Disaster Band
  • Disciples III: Reincarnation
  • Disjunction (GOG)
  • DISTRAINT 2
  • Distrust
  • DmC: Devil May Cry
  • Do Not Feed the Monkeys
  • Don't Be Afraid
  • Doomed Lands
  • Door Kickers: Action Squad
  • Doorways: Prelude
  • Downfall
  • Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen
  • Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
  • Drake Hollow
  • Draugen
  • Draw Slasher
  • Drawful 2
  • Dreams in the Witch House
  • Dreamscaper
  • DreamWorks Dragons: Dawn of New Riders
  • DreamWorks Dragons: Legends of the Nine Realms
  • DRIFT21
  • Driftland: The Magic Revival
  • drive!drive!drive!
  • Drone Swarm
  • Due Process
  • Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
  • Duke of Alpha Centauri
  • Dungeon Rushers
  • Dungeons 2
  • Dungeons 3
  • DUSK
  • Dusk Diver
  • Dust to the End
  • Dynopunk
  • Earth Defense Force 4.1 The Shadow of New Despair
  • Eastern Exorcist
  • Eastward
  • Effie
  • Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising
  • El Matador
  • Elderand
  • Elderborn
  • ELDEST SOULS
  • Electrician Simulator
  • Elemental Survivors
  • Elex
  • Elex II
  • Elite Dangerous
  • Embr
  • Empire: Total War - Definitive Edition
  • Empyrion - Galactic Survival
  • ENCASED: A SCI-FI POST-APOCALYPTIC RPG
  • Encodya (GOG)
  • Endless Space 2
  • Endless Space 2 - Digital Deluxe Edition
  • Endless Space® 2 - Digital Deluxe Edition
  • Endzone - A World Apart
  • Epistory - Typing Chronicles
  • Escape the backrooms
  • Eternal Threads
  • Etherborn
  • Europa Universalis IV
  • European Ship Simulator
  • Everdream Valley
  • Evil Genius 2: World Domination
  • Exorder
  • EXPEDITIONS: ROME
  • Explosionade
  • F1 2018
  • F1 2019 Anniversary Edition
  • F1 2020
  • F1 RACE STARS Complete Edition Include DLC
  • Fable Anniversary
  • Factory Town
  • Fallback uprising
  • Family Man
  • Family Mysteries 3: Criminal Mindset
  • Fantasy Blacksmith
  • FARMER'S DYNASTY
  • Farming Simulator 17
  • Farming Simulator 19
  • Fast & Furious: Spy Racers Rise of SH1FT3R
  • Fictorum
  • Field of Glory II
  • Fights in Tight Spaces
  • Filthy Animals Heist Simulator
  • Firefighting Simulator - The Squad
  • Fishing Adventure
  • Flashback
  • FLATLAND Vol.2
  • FlatOut
  • FLING TO THE FINISH
  • Floppy Knights
  • Fluffy Horde
  • FOBIA - ST. DINFNA HOTEL
  • For the King
  • Forgive me Father
  • Forts
  • Framed Collection
  • Fred3ric
  • Fresh Start Cleaning Simulator
  • Friends vs Friends
  • Frogun
  • From Space
  • From the Depths
  • Frostpunk: Game of the Year Edition
  • Frozenheim
  • Fun with Ragdolls: The Game
  • Funtasia
  • Fury Unleashed
  • Gamedec - Definitive Edition
  • Gang Beasts
  • GARAGE bad trip
  • Garden Story
  • Garfield Kart
  • GAS STATION SIMULATOR
  • Gelly Break Deluxe
  • Genesis Alpha One Deluxe Edition
  • Gevaudan
  • Ghost Song
  • Ghostrunner
  • Giana Sisters 2D
  • GIGA WRECKER
  • Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart
  • Glitch Busters: Stuck On You
  • Gloria Victis
  • Go Home Dinosaurs
  • Goat of Duty
  • Godlike Burger
  • Godstrike
  • Going Under
  • Golf Gang
  • Golf It!
  • Gone Home + Original Soundtrack
  • Good Knight
  • Gotham Knights
  • GREAK: MEMORIES OF AZUR
  • GREEDFALL
  • Gremlins, inc
  • grey goo
  • GRID - 2019
  • grid ultimate
  • GRIP: Combat Racing
  • Gungrave G.O.R.E
  • Guppy
  • Guts and glory
  • GYLT
  • Hacknet
  • Haegemonia: Legions of Iron
  • Hamilton's Great Adventure
  • Hammerting
  • Hammerwatch
  • Hands of Necromancy
  • Havsala: Into the Soul Palace
  • Headsnatchers
  • Heartwood Heroes
  • Heat Signature
  • Heaven's Vault
  • Helheim Hassle
  • Hell Let Loose
  • Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
  • Hellbound
  • Hellpoint
  • Hellslave
  • Hellstuck: Rage With Your Friends
  • Hero of the Kingdom III
  • Hero of the Kingdom: The Lost Tales 2
  • Heroes of Hammerwatch
  • Heros hour
  • Hexologic
  • Hidden & Dangerous 2: Courage Under Fire
  • Hidden & Dangerous: Action Pack
  • Hidden Deep
  • Hi-Fi Rush
  • High On Life
  • Hitman (2016) Game of the Year Edition
  • HITMAN 2 - Gold Edition
  • Hoa
  • Hob
  • Hollow Knight
  • Holy Potatoes! A Spy Story?!
  • Home Sweet Home
  • Home Sweet Home EP2
  • Homestead Arcana
  • Hood: Outlaws & Legends
  • Hoplegs
  • Hot Tin Roof: The Cat That Wore A Fedora
  • HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED ™
  • Hotel Transylvania 3: Monsters Overboard
  • Hotel Transylvania: Scary-Tale Adventures
  • Hotshot Racing
  • House Flipper
  • How to Survive 2
  • Hue
  • Human: Fall Flat
  • HUMANKIND DEFINITIVE EDITION
  • Hungry Flame
  • Hyper Knights
  • I am Bread
  • I Am Fish
  • I am not a Monster: First Contact
  • I Hate Running Backwards
  • ibb & obb Double Pack
  • ICBM
  • Ice Age Scrat's Nutty Adventure
  • Ice Age: Scrat's Nutty Adventure
  • Ice Lakes
  • Impostor Factory
  • IN SOUND MIND
  • Indivisible
  • INDUSTRIA
  • Infectonator 3: Apocalypse
  • Infinite Beyond The Mind
  • Injustice 2 Legendary Edition
  • Insane 2
  • INSOMNIA: The Ark
  • Internet Cafe Simulator
  • Internet Cafe Simulator 2
  • Interstellar Space: Genesis
  • Iris and the Giant
  • Iron Fisticle
  • Iron Harvest
  • Ittle Dew
  • Ittle Dew 2+
  • Jack Move
  • Jackbox party pack 2
  • Jackbox party pack 5
  • JANITOR BLEEDS
  • Joint Task Force
  • Jotun: Valhalla Edition
  • Journey For Elysium
  • Journey to the Savage Planet
  • JUMANJI: The Video Game
  • Jupiter Hell
  • Jurassic Park: The Game
  • Jurassic World Evolution
  • Jurassic World Evolution 2
  • JUST CAUSE 4: COMPLETE EDITION
  • Just Die Already
  • Kardboard Kings: Card Shop Simulator
  • Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
  • Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth
  • Kentucky Route Zero - Season Pass Edition
  • Kerbal Space Program
  • Kill it with Fire
  • Killing Floor 2 Digital Deluxe Edition
  • Killing Room
  • Kingdom Two Crowns
  • Kingdom: New Lands
  • King's Bounty: Crossworlds
  • Knights of Pen & Paper 2
  • Knock-knock
  • Koi-Koi Japan [Hanafuda playing cards] *Koi-Koi Japan : UKIYOE tours Vol.1 DLC *Koi-Koi Japan : UKIYOE tours Vol.2 DLC *Koi-Koi Japan : UKIYOE tours Vol.3 DLC
  • Konung 2
  • KungFu Kickball
  • Labyrinthine
  • Lair of the Clockwork God
  • Laserlife
  • Last Kids on Earth and the Staff of Doom
  • LAST OASIS
  • Lawn Mowing Simulator
  • Layers of Fear: Masterpiece Edition
  • Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West
  • Learn Japanese To Survive! Hiragana Battle
  • Learn Japanese To Survive! Katakana War
  • Learn Japanese to Survive! Trilogy
  • Legend of Keepers
  • LEGION TD 2 - MULTIPLAYER TOWER DEFENSE
  • LEGION TD 2 - MULTIPLAYER TOWER DEFENSE.
  • Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry
  • Leisure Suit Larry 1-7
  • Lemnis Gate
  • Lemon Cake
  • lethal league blaze
  • Let's School
  • Levelhead
  • Liberated (GOG)
  • Life is Strange Complete Season (Episodes 1-5)
  • Light Fairytale Episode 1
  • Light Fairytale Episode 2
  • LIGHTMATTER
  • Little dragons cafe
  • Little Hope
  • Little Inner Monsters - Card Game
  • Little Misfortune
  • Little Nightmares
  • Little Nightmares Complete Edition
  • Livelock
  • Loop Hero
  • Loot River
  • Looterkings
  • Lornsword Winter Chronicle
  • Lost Castle
  • Love Letter
  • Lovecraft's Untold Stories
  • Lovely planet arcade
  • Lucius 2
  • Lucius 3
  • Ludus
  • Lumberhill
  • LunarLux
  • Lust for Darkness
  • Lust from Beyond: M Edition
  • Mad Experiments: Escape Room
  • Mad Max
  • Mafia Definitive Edition
  • Mafia iii
  • Mafia: Definitive Edition
  • Magenta Horizon
  • Mahjong Pretty Girls Battle
  • Mahjong Pretty Girls Battle : School Girls Edition
  • Maid of Sker
  • Mail Time
  • Maize
  • Maneater
  • Marooners
  • MARSUPILAMI - HOOBADVENTURE
  • Marvel's Avengers - The Definitive Edition
  • Mato Anomalies
  • Max Payne 3
  • Mechs & Mercs: Black Talons
  • Medieval II: Total War - Definitive Edition
  • Medieval: Total War Collection
  • MEEPLE STATION
  • Men of War
  • MERCHANT OF THE SKIES
  • METAL HELLSINGER
  • Metal Hellsinger
  • Metro Exodus
  • Metro last light
  • Metro: Last Light Redux
  • Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
  • Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor GOTY
  • Middle-Earth: Shadow of War Definitive Edition
  • MIDNIGHT PROTOCOL
  • Mighty Switch Force! Collection
  • Milky Way Prince - The Vampire Star
  • MIND SCANNERS
  • Ministry of Broadcast
  • Minute of Islands
  • Miscreated
  • Mists of Noyah
  • MKXL
  • Mob Factory
  • Mob Rule Classic
  • Monaco
  • Monster Hunter: Rise
  • Monster Slayers - Complete Edition
  • Monstrum
  • Monstrum 2
  • Moon Hunters
  • Moons of Madness
  • MORDHAU
  • Mordheim: City of the Damned
  • Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Edition
  • MORTAL KOMBAT XL
  • Mortal Shell
  • Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021
  • Mr. Run and Jump
  • MudRunner
  • Murder Mystery Machine
  • My Big Sister
  • My Friend Peppa Pig
  • My Little Universe
  • My Lovely Wife
  • My Summer Adventure: Memories of Another Life
  • My Time At Portia
  • Mythforce
  • N++ (NPLUSPLUS)
  • Napoleon: Total War - Definitive Edition
  • NARUTO TO BORUTO: SHINOBI STRIKER
  • Necesse
  • NECROMUNDA: HIRED GUN
  • Necronator: Dead Wrong
  • NecroVisioN: Lost Company
  • NecroWorm
  • Neighbours back From Hell
  • Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! HD
  • Neon Space
  • Neon Space 2
  • Neon Sundown
  • Nephise: Ascension
  • Neurodeck : Psychological Deckbuilder
  • Never Alone Arctic Collection (w/ Foxtales DLC and FREE Soundtrack)
  • Neverinth
  • Neverout
  • Neverwinter Nights: Complete Adventures
  • Newt One
  • Nexomon: Extinction
  • Nigate Tale
  • Nimbatus - The Space Drone Constructor
  • Nine Parchments
  • Nine Witches: Family Disruption
  • Nioh 2: The Complete Collection
  • No Straight Roads: Encore Edition
  • No Time to Relax
  • Nomad Survival
  • Nongunz: Doppelganger Edition
  • Noosphere
  • Northgard
  • Northmark: Hour of the Wolf
  • Nostradamus: The Last Prophecy
  • not the robots
  • Not Tonight
  • Nurse Love Addiction
  • Nurse Love Syndrome
  • Nusakana
  • Obduction
  • Obey Me
  • Observer: System Redux
  • Occultus - Mediterranean Cabal
  • Odallus: The Dark Call
  • Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty
  • One Finger Death Punch 2
  • One Hand Clapping
  • One More Island
  • One Step From Eden
  • One Step From Eden (Region locked)
  • Orbital Racer
  • Organs Please
  • Orwell: Ignorance is strength
  • Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
  • Out of Space
  • Overclocked: A History of Violence
  • Overcooked! 2 + Too Many Cooks + Surf 'n' Turf pack
  • Overlord: Ultimate Evil Collection
  • Overpass
  • Overruled
  • OZYMANDIAS: BRONZE AGE EMPIRE SIM
  • Pac-Man Museum +
  • Pan'Orama
  • Panty Party
  • Panzer Corps 2
  • Panzer Paladin
  • PARADISE LOST
  • Parkan 2
  • PARTISANS 1941
  • Passpartout 2: The Lost Artist
  • Path of Giants
  • Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
  • Patron
  • Paw Patrol: On A Roll!
  • Paw Paw Paw
  • Paws of Coal
  • Peaky Blinders: Mastermind
  • PER ASPERA
  • PGA 2K21
  • Pharaonic
  • Pixplode
  • Pizza Connection 3
  • Plague tale
  • Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition
  • Planet Alcatraz
  • PLANET ZOO
  • PlateUp!
  • Pogostuck: Rage With Your Friends
  • Poker Pretty Girls Battle: Texas Hold'em
  • Police Stories
  • Poly Island
  • Post Void
  • POSTAL 2
  • POSTAL 2: Paradise Lost DLC
  • POSTAL Redux
  • POSTAL: Brain Damaged - Connoisseur Edition
  • Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid
  • Prank Call
  • Prehistoric Kingdom
  • Pretty Girls Mahjong Solitaire
  • Pretty Girls Panic!
  • Prey
  • Primal Carnage: Extinction
  • Princess Kaguya: Legend of the Moon Warrior
  • Pro Cycling Manager 2020
  • Prodeus
  • Project CARS - GOTY Edition
  • Project Warlock
  • Project Wingman (EU)
  • PROJECT WINTER
  • Propnight
  • Pseudoregalia
  • PULSAR: The Lost Colony
  • qomp
  • Quadrilateral Cowboy
  • Quake II
  • Quake II
  • Quantum Break
  • Quern - Undying Thoughts
  • Radio Commander
  • RAGE
  • RAILROAD CORPORATION
  • Railroad Tycoon 3
  • Railroad Tycoon II Platinum
  • Railway Empire
  • Rain World
  • Rayon Riddles - Rise of the Goblin King
  • Re: Legend
  • REBEL COPS
  • Rebel Galaxy
  • Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
  • Recipe For Disaster
  • Red Faction Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered
  • Red Faction: Armageddon
  • Red Riding Hood - Star Crossed Lovers
  • Red Ronin
  • RED SOLSTICE 2: SURVIVORS
  • Redout Complete Bundle
  • Redout: Enhanced Edition
  • Redout: Enhanced Edition + DLC pack
  • Regular Human Basketball
  • REKT! High Octane Stunts
  • Relicta
  • REMNANT: FROM THE ASHES - COMPLETE EDITION
  • Republique
  • Rescue Party: Live!
  • Resident Evil 0 HD REMASTER
  • Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition
  • Resident Evil 7 Biohazard
  • Resident Evil Revelations
  • Resort Boss: Golf
  • Retimed
  • RETROWAVE
  • rFactor 2
  • RiME
  • Ring of Pain
  • Rise of Industry + 2130 DLC
  • Rise of the Slime
  • Rising Storm 2: Vietnam + 2 DLCs
  • River City Girls
  • River City Ransom: Underground
  • Roarr! Jurassic Edition
  • Roboquest
  • Robot Squad Simulator 2017
  • Rogue : Genesia
  • ROGUE HEROES: RUINS OF TASOS
  • ROGUE LORDS
  • Rogue Stormers
  • rollercoaster tycoon 2
  • ROTASTIC
  • Roundguard
  • ROUNDS
  • RUNNING WITH RIFLES
  • Rustler
  • Ryse: Son of Rome
  • S.W.I.N.E. HD Remaster
  • Sailing Era
  • Saint Row
  • SAINTS ROW
  • Saints Row IV
  • Saints Row The Third
  • Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell
  • Saints Row: The Third Remastered
  • Sam and Max Devil's Playhouse
  • SAMUDRA
  • Sands of Aura
  • Sands of Salzaar
  • Saturday Morning RPG
  • Scarlet Tower
  • Scars Above
  • Scorn
  • SCP: 5K
  • SCUM
  • SEARCH PARTY: Director's Cut
  • Second Extinction
  • Secret Government
  • Serious Sam 3 Bonus Content DLC, Serious Sam 3: Jewel of the Nile, and Serious Sam 3: BFE
  • SEUM speedrunners from hell
  • SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell
  • Severed Steel
  • Shadow Tactics: Aiko's Choice
  • Shadowgate
  • Shadows Awakening
  • SHADOWS: AWAKENING
  • Shape of the World
  • She Sees Red - Interactive Movie
  • Shenmue I & II
  • SHENZHEN I/O
  • Shift Happens
  • Shing!
  • Shining Resonance Refrain
  • Shoppe Keep 2
  • Shoppe Keep 2 - Business and Agriculture RPG Simulation
  • Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate
  • Sid Meier's Civilization VI
  • Sid Meier's Railroads!
  • Sifu Deluxe Edition Upgrade Bundle (EPIC)
  • Silver Chains
  • SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition
  • Sinking Island
  • SINNER: Sacrifice for Redemption
  • Siralim Ultimate
  • Size Matters
  • Skautfold Chapters 1-4
  • Skullgirls 2nd Encore
  • Slain: Back from Hell
  • Slap City
  • Slash It
  • Slash It 2
  • Slash It Ultimate
  • Slay the Spire
  • Small World
  • Smart Factory Tycoon
  • Smile For Me
  • Smoke and Sacrifice
  • Smoke and Sacrifice
  • Smushi Come Home
  • Snail bob 2 tiny troubles
  • Sniper Elite 3
  • Sniper Elite 3 + Season Pass DLC
  • Sniper Elite 4 Deluxe Edition
  • Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 - Season Pass Edition
  • Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts
  • Snooker 19
  • SONG OF HORROR COMPLETE EDITION
  • Songs of Conquest
  • Sonic Adventure 2
  • Sonic Adventure DX
  • Sonic and SEGA All Stars Racing
  • Sonic Generations Collection
  • Soulblight
  • Souldiers
  • SOULSTICE
  • Soundfall
  • Source of Madness
  • Spartan Fist
  • Spec Ops
  • Speed Limit
  • Spelunx and the Caves of Mr. Seudo
  • Spidersaurs
  • Spin Rush
  • Spirit Hunter: Death Mark
  • Spirit of the Island
  • Spirit of the North
  • Spring Bonus
  • Spyro Reignited Trilogy
  • Stairs
  • Star Trek Prodigy: Supernova
  • STAR WARS - Knights of the Old Republic
  • STAR WARS - The Force Unleashed Ultimate Sith Edition
  • Star Wolves
  • Starbound
  • Starsand
  • STASIS: Bone Totem
  • State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition
  • Steel Rats™
  • Stick Fight: The Game
  • Still Life
  • Still Life 2
  • Still There
  • Stirring Abyss
  • STONE
  • Strange Brigade
  • Strange Brigade Deluxe Edition
  • STRANGER
  • Strategic Command: World War I
  • Strategic Mind: Blitzkrieg
  • Strategic Mind: Fight for Freedom
  • Strategic Mind: Spectre of Communism
  • Strategic Mind: Spirit of Liberty
  • Strategy & Tactics: Wargame Collection
  • Streamer Life Simulator
  • Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection
  • Street Fighter V
  • Strider
  • Strikey Sisters
  • Struggling
  • Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
  • Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
  • Styx: Master of Shadows
  • Styx: Shards of Darkness
  • SuchArt
  • Sudden Strike Gold
  • Suite 776
  • Sumoman
  • Sunblaze
  • SUNLESS BUNDLE
  • Sunset Overdrive
  • Super Buff HD
  • Super Mag Bot
  • Superbugs: Awaken
  • Superhot
  • Surgeon Simulator 2
  • Survive the Nights
  • Surviving Mars
  • Surviving Mars
  • Surviving The Aftermath
  • Swag and Sorcery
  • SWINE HD Remaster
  • Sword Legacy Omen
  • Sword of the Necromancer
  • Swords and Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon
  • Syberia 3
  • Symphonic Rain
  • Symphony of War: The Nephilim Saga
  • Synthwave Dream '85
  • Tacoma
  • Taiji
  • Take Off - The Flight Simulator
  • Tales
  • Tales from the Borderlands
  • Talk to Strangers
  • Tallowmere
  • Talos Principle (Gold)
  • Tangledeep
  • Tank Mechanic Simulator
  • Tannenberg
  • Team Sonic Racing
  • TEKKEN 7
  • TEMTEM
  • Terminus: Zombie Survivors
  • TERRAFORMERS
  • Terratech Deluxe Edition
  • Terror of Hemasaurus
  • Textorcist
  • Tharsis
  • The Addams Family: Mansion Mayhem
  • The Adventure Pals
  • The Amazing American Circus
  • The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
  • The Anacrusis
  • The Ascent
  • The Battle of Polytopia
  • The Battle of Polytopia *DLC1. Cymanti Tribe *DLC2. ∑∫ỹriȱŋ Tribe *DLC3. Aquarion Tribe *DLC4. Polaris Tribe
  • The Beast inside
  • The Blackout Club
  • The Callisto Protocol™
  • The Chess Variants Club
  • The Citadel
  • The Colonists
  • THE DARK PICTURES ANTHOLOGY: LITTLE HOPE
  • The Darkest Tales
  • The Dungeon Beneath
  • The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet of Chaos
  • The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard
  • The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind® Game of the Year Edition
  • The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® Game of the Year Edition
  • The Elder Scrolls Online
  • The Escapists 2
  • THE GAME OF LIFE 2
  • The Golf Club™ 2019 featuring PGA TOUR
  • The haunted island, A frog detective
  • The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game
  • The Hong Kong Massacre
  • The Horror Of Salazar House
  • The Innsmouth Case
  • The Invisible Hours
  • The Jackbox Party Pack 9
  • The Knight Witch
  • The Last Campfire
  • The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame
  • The Letter - Horror Visual Novel
  • The Long Dark
  • The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition
  • The Mortuary Assistant
  • The Mummy Demastered
  • The Occupation
  • The Outer Worlds
  • THE OUTER WORLDS: SPACER'S CHOICE EDITION
  • THE PALE BEYOND
  • The Quarry
  • The Quarry deluxe
  • The Ramp
  • The Rewinder
  • The Sacred Tears TRUE
  • The Sexy Brutale
  • The Shapeshifting Detective
  • The Tarnishing of Juxtia
  • The Tenants
  • The Uncertain - The Last Quiet Day
  • The Uncertain: Last Quiet Day
  • The Uncertain: Light At The End
  • The USB Stick Found in the Grass
  • The Walking Dead
  • The Walking Dead - 400 Days
  • The Walking Dead Saints and Sinners
  • The Walking Dead: A New Frontier
  • The Walking Dead: Final Season
  • The Walking Dead: Michonne - A Telltale Miniseries
  • The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners
  • The Walking Dead: Season 1
  • The Walking Dead: Season Two
  • The Way
  • The Wild At Heart
  • The Wild Eight
  • The Witness
  • Them and Us
  • They Bleed Pixels
  • Thief of Thieves
  • This War of Mine
  • This Way Madness Lies
  • Three Kingdom: The Journey
  • Time on Frog Island
  • Tinkertown
  • Tiny Tina’s Wonderland(EU)
  • TINY TINA'S WONDERLANDS CHAOTIC GREAT EDITION
  • Tiny Troopers
  • Tinykin
  • Tinytopia
  • TIS-100
  • Titan Quest
  • Tokyo Xanadu eX+
  • Tom Clancy's The Division™
  • Tom Clancy's The Division™ - Survival!
  • Tools up
  • Tooth and Tail
  • Torchlight
  • Total Tank Simulator
  • Tour de France 2020
  • Tower Unite
  • Trail Out
  • Trailblazers
  • Trailmakers
  • Trailmakers Deluxe Edition
  • Train Sim World 3: Standard Edition
  • Train Simulator Classic
  • Train Valley 1
  • TRANSFORMERS: BATTLEGROUNDS
  • Transport INC
  • Treasure Hunter Simulator
  • TRIBES OF MIDGARD
  • Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince
  • Trinity Fusion
  • Trollhunters: Defenders of Arcadia
  • Trombone Champ
  • Tropico 5 - Complete Collection
  • Trover Saves the Universe
  • Tunche
  • Turmoil
  • Turok 2: Seeds of Evil
  • Twin Mirror
  • Two Point Campus
  • Two Point Hospital
  • TYPECAST
  • Tyrant's Blessing
  • Ultimate Chicken Horse
  • Ultimate Zombie Defense
  • Ultra Space Battle Brawl
  • Unavowed
  • Undead Horde
  • Underhero
  • Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer's Legacy
  • Unity of Command: Stalingrad Campaign
  • Universim
  • UNLOVED
  • Unpacking
  • Until I have you
  • Unto The End
  • Upside Down
  • URU: Complete Chronicles
  • Vagante
  • Valfaris
  • Valfaris: Mecha Therion
  • Valkryia Chronicles 4 Complete Edition
  • Valkyria Chronicles 4 Complete Edition
  • Valkyria Chronicles 4: Complete Edition
  • Vambrace: Cold Soul
  • Vampire - The Masquerade: Shadows of New York
  • Vampire Survivors
  • Vane
  • Vectronom
  • Velocity Noodle
  • Venba
  • Verne: The Shape of Fantasy
  • Victoria 3
  • Victoria II
  • Viking: Battle For Asgard
  • Virgo Versus The Zodiac
  • VirtuaVerse
  • Visage
  • Viscerafest
  • Void Bastards
  • VOIDIGO
  • Volcanoids
  • Voltage High Society
  • V-Rally 4
  • Wanderlust: Travel Stories (GOG)
  • Wanted: Dead
  • Wargroove
  • Warhammer 40,000 Sanctus Reach - Complete Edition
  • Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon - Imperium Complete
  • Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector
  • Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War
  • Warhammer 40,000: Space Wolf Special Edition
  • WARHAMMER AGE OF SIGMAR: REALMS OF RUIN – ULTIMATE EDITION
  • Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide
  • Warhammer: Vermintide 2
  • Warman
  • Warstone TD
  • Wasteland 3
  • Wayward
  • WE NEED TO GO DEEPER
  • We should talk.
  • We Were Here Together
  • We Were Here Too
  • Webbed
  • Werewolf: The Apocalypse Heart of the Forest
  • West of Dead
  • What Lies in the Multiverse
  • When Ski Lifts Go Wrong
  • while True: learn()
  • Whos Your daddy
  • Wick
  • Windward
  • Witch It
  • Witchy Life Story
  • wizard of legends
  • Worms Rumble
  • Worms Rumble + Legends Pack
  • Wrath: Aeon of Ruin
  • WRC 6 FIA World Rally Championship
  • WRC 7 FIA World Rally Championship
  • WWE 2K Battlegrounds
  • WWE 2K23
  • WWZ Aftermath
  • Wytchwood
  • X-COM: COMPLETE PACK
  • XCOM: ULTIMATE COLLECTION
  • XIII - Classic
  • X-Morph: Defense
  • X-Morph: Defense + European Assault, Survival of the Fittest, and Last Bastion DLC
  • X-Morph: Defense Complete Pack
  • Yakuza Kiwami
  • Yakuza: Like A Dragon
  • Yumeutsutsu Re:After
  • Yumeutsutsu Re:Master
  • Zen Chess: Mate in One, Mate in 2 , Mate in 3 , Mate in 4 , Champion's Moves (5 games)
  • Ziggurat
  • Zombie Army 4
  • Zombie Army Trilogy
  • Zool Redimensioned
  • Zwei: The Arges adventure
  • Zwei: The ilvard insurrection
DLCs and Softwares:
  • For The King: Lost Civilization Adventure Pack
  • Train Simulator: Isle of Wight Route Add-On
  • Train Simulator: Woodhead Electric Railway in Blue Route Add-On
  • Train Simulator: North Somerset Railway Route Add-On
  • Train Simulator: Union Pacific Heritage SD70ACes Loco Add-On
  • Train Simulator: London to Brighton Route Add-On
  • BR Class 170 'Turbostar' DMU Add-On
  • DB BR 648 Loco Add-On
  • Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
  • Expansion - Europa Universalis IV: Conquest of Paradise
  • Expansion - Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
  • Grand Central Class 180 'Adelante' DMU Add-On
  • Peninsula Corridor: San Francisco - Gilroy Route Add-On
  • SONIC ADVENTURE 2: BATTLE
  • Small World - A Spider's Web
  • Small World - Cursed
  • Small World - Royal Bonus
  • The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos - Goodies Pack
  • The Dungeon Of Naheulbeuk: The Amulet Of Chaos - OST
  • Thompson Class B1 Loco Add-On
  • Total War: Shogun 2 - Rise of the Samurai
  • Train Sim World® 3: Birmingham Cross-city line
  • Train Sim World®: BR Class 20 'Chopper' Loco
  • Train Sim World®: Brighton Main Line: London Victoria - Brighton
  • Train Sim World®: Caltrain MP36PH-3C 'Baby Bullet'
  • Train Sim World®: Cathcart Circle Line: Glasgow - Newton & Neilston
  • Train Sim World®: Clinchfield Railroad: Elkhorn - Dante
  • Train Sim World®: Great Western Express
  • Train Sim World®: Hauptstrecke Hamburg - Lubeck
  • Train Sim World®: LIRR M3 EMU
  • Train Sim World®: Long Island Rail Road: New York - Hicksville
  • Train Sim World®: Nahverkehr Dresden - Riesa
  • Train Sim World®: Northern Trans-Pennine: Manchester - Leeds
  • Train Sim World®: Peninsula Corridor: San Francisco - San Jose
  • Train Sim World®: Rhein-Ruhr Osten: Wuppertal - Hagen
  • Train Sim World®: Tees Valley Line: Darlington - Saltburn-by-the-sea
  • Worms Rumble - Armageddon Weapon Skin Pack
  • Worms Rumble - Captain & Shark Double Pack
  • Worms Rumble - Legends Pack
  • Worms Rumble - New Challengers Pack
  • Ashampoo Photo Optimizer 7
  • Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - The Eldritch Box DLC
  • Duke Nukem Forever Hail to the Icons
  • Duke Nukem Forever The Doctor Who Cloned Me
  • GRIP: Combat Racing - Cygon Garage Kit
  • GRIP: Combat Racing - Nyvoss Garage Kit
  • GRIP: Combat Racing - Terra Garage Kit
  • GRIP: Combat Racing - Vintek Garage Kit
  • GameGuru
  • GameMaker Studio 2 Creator 12 Months
  • Intro to Game Development with Unity
  • Music Maker EDM Edition
  • Neverwinter Nights: Darkness Over Daggerford
  • Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Dark Dreams of Furiae
  • Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Tyrants of the Moonsea
  • Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition
  • Neverwinter Nights: Infinite Dungeons
  • Neverwinter Nights: Pirates of the Sword Coast
  • Neverwinter Nights: Wyvern Crown of Cormyr
  • PDF-Suite 1 Year License
  • Pathfinder Second Edition Core Rulebook and Starfinder Core Rulebook
  • RPG Maker VX
  • WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS - Ultimate Brawlers Pass
  • We Are Alright
  • The Outer Worlds Expansion Pass
  • A Hat in Time - Seal the Deal DLC
  • City Skylines:mass transit
  • A Game Of Thrones - A Dance With Dragons
  • A Game Of Thrones - A Feast For Crows
  • Blood Rage: Digital Edition - Gods of Asgard
  • Blood Rage: Digital Edition - Mythical Monsters
  • Blood Rage: Digital Edition - Mystics of Midgard
  • Carcassonne - The Princess and The Dragon DLC
  • Carcassonne - Traders & Builders DLC
  • Carcassonne - Winter & Gingerbread Man DLC
  • Carcassonne - Inns & Cathedrals
  • Carcassonne - The River
  • Splendor: The Trading Posts DLC
  • Splendor: The Strongholds DLC
  • Splendor: The Cities DLC
  • Small World - Be Not Afraid... DLC
  • Small World - Grand Dames DLC
  • Small World - Cursed!
  • Sands of Salzaar - The Ember Saga
  • Sands of Salzaar - The Tournament
  • Monster Train: The Last Divinity DLC
  • WARSAW
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