#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.
2017.02.17 01:27 revolution486TinyTrumps - Home of the Internet's pictures of Tiny Trump
A subreddit for photos of our 45th President, Trump... ᵇᵘᵗ ᵗᶦᶰʸ/TinyTrumps is the go-to origin of photos of the 45th President where the aforementioned is roughly 2 feet tall.
2024.05.22 01:09 AngyMuffI (F24) stopped telling my family pretty much anything going on in my life...
Soo, I'm pretty well just realizing how I've been emotionally neglected most of my life growing up. Not to mention the lack of respect my mom and sister have towards me anymore.. Tiny Background: My family has always been the "tough love" type of family. Didn't tell each other that we loved each other much, we just kinda knew we did. Didn't hear it from mom much.. never was the lovey dovey type of family with all the hugs and kisses and such. You fall over "ahhh, get up you're finee.." Never was emotionally open with each other.. if we were it somehow lead into some kind of argument. Anywayyy... A lot of the time growing up and even currently to this day I am deemed as the "sensitive" one. I cant take a "joke." So on and so forth.. Times I would come to my mom about things going on in my life and instead of the listening to me with support and understanding I was met with criticism or judgment. Anytime I would go to my sister to tell her things you should want to talk to your sister about and trust that she would keep in confidentiality she would break that trust and go to mom about whatever it was. And lately I have noticed that since moving out in 2020 that my family never really has checked up on me.. they don't even text to ask how I am doing, only time that I hear from them is if there is some family event that occurs in us having to talk and plan out whats going on, and who's coming or who is driving etc. Not only that but anytime I am with my family (mainly my mom and sister) I am suddenly the butt of the jokes that they make, usually including my dating life. Most of the time I would be excited to tell my family about some new interest I have whether that be with someone new in my life or whatever new hobby I may have picked up. But it always would result in them laughing and claiming how apparently an ex of mine looked like my dad (my parents divorced when i was approximately 8yrs old) and laugh about how I have a type in the men I choose... Something that pushed me over the edge this past 2023 family Christmas was a comment my sister made and then my mom chimed in with some other "joke"/hurtful comment. We were all playing Cards Against Humanity as we do most holidays and something about the card that I had pulled brought up the topic of my dating life.. and my sister brought up apparently having "daddy issues" and then my mom chimed in with her comment, I don't remember what she said because I was simply over here being stuck mentally about why tf my sister would make a "joke" like that, and they both were laughing about it. THAT HURT! I played the game for like 5 more mins and I said I was done and moved out of the way to sit across the room. Anyway as the day went on I was driving back home to my place from my moms since we had all carpooled at the time. And all I could think about was what my sister had said earlier that day and was bawling on the way home hurt by her "joke." At that point I had told myself to never tell my family anything about my life that essentially had made me happy within my dating life. Cause all that they would do is "tease me" and make fun of my life and the people I was enjoying life with. I will say that it hurts though.. cause I had dealt with this bs from my family my whole life, and to not feel safe in telling them personal things anymore has been more of a grieving process for me. First it was my sister betraying my trust in telling her things I would think a sister would keep to herself, and continuing to even do so today. And then it was the fact that my sister and my mom now essentially team up against me anytime i see them just to make me feel like shit. Now anytime there is a family event all I can think is what bs are they gonna pull out of their asses to make fun of me this time? I just never understood it.. why me?
2024.05.22 00:38 External_Sherbet_135manifesting secondary romantic SP as an experiment
Been manifesting my SP for awhile now, lots of odd movement and my entire life has transformed through the process (better friends, dream job, generally better relationship with ex-spouse). My mental health is improved to the point where my therapist told me I didn't have to go anymore, whereas I was out of control anxious when I started seeing him. But the bridge of incidents doesn't seem to be over - SP hasn't conformed in the 3d yet. There has been recent movement - friend saw his mom at a concert randomly, things like that. My new job brought me back in touch with a hookup from before I dated SP. He has the same job that I have in another town and actually looks superficially similar to SP. We had one date that went very oddly and communication got weird after that. He eventually said he thought we didn't have chemistry but was open to being friends. I would occasionally text him and he was usually friendly but it felt very awkward. I lusted after him for about a month until my main SP came along and was actually generating scenes at the time with chatGPT about us getting together for coffee months down the line and having another hookup. This is before I knew about conscious manifestation. My boss is his former boss and when I got the job I started texting him again to chat work politics. I decided to try to manifest a coffee date with him and have been using daily manifestations to sometimes affirm things related to him. I mostly wanted to do this as an experiment with someone I'm less attached to. We haven't had coffee yet technically (though one day I wrote in my book "got coffee with X" even though he'd told me he needed to rescheduled - as we chatted that morning he brought up that he was drinking coffee and we were literally having coffee together!) I was torn about flirting with him or trying to manifest a hook-up. Things felt unresolved with him, but my emotional focus is still on my primary SP. Well, yesterday I had an argument with my ex-spouse and just as it ended, secondary SP started texting me. I was in the mood for a pick-me-up, and thought, "Why not?" So I leaned into flirting a bit. He was texting SO MUCH back and being really sweet. This from a person who swore we didn't have chemistry ten months ago. The most remarkable change to me is how unaffected I feel by texting now. If I feel like texting him, I do. If he doesn't answer for even a day or two, it doesn't bother me. He always gets back to me and seems to feel terrible if he doesn't respond right away and I just figure it has nothing to do with me. I'd stopped dating altogether at the start of manifestation, but it's nice to feel how an improved self concept makes the whole thing less frantic. Basically I feel like a healthier version of myself flirting with someone, and it's really nice.
2024.05.22 00:33 aspenreidI've scanned and photoshopped and optimized two free dust jackets for you to get printed out and used. I recommend 80lb card stock. Please enjoy, and send me any other scans!
2024.05.22 00:18 redbellx86The GPT-4o iOS system prompt
From: https://twitter.com/Kyrannio/status/1792440824355332313 “You are ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI, based on the GPT-4 architecture. You are chatting with the user via the ChatGPT iOS app. This means most of the time your lines should be a sentence or two, unless the user's request requires reasoning or long-form outputs. Never use emojis, unless explicitly asked to. Knowledge cutoff: 2023-10 Current date: 2024-05-20 Image input capabilities: Enabled Personality: v2
Tools
bio
The bio tool allows you to persist information across conversations. Address your message to=bio and write whatever information you want to remember. The information will appear in the model set context below in future conversations.
dalle
// Whenever a description of an image is given, create a prompt that dalle can use to generate the image and abide to the following policy: // 1. The prompt must be in English. Translate to English if needed. // 2. DO NOT ask for permission to generate the image, just do it! // 3. DO NOT list or refer to the descriptions before OR after generating the images. // 4. Do not create more than 1 image, even if the user requests more. // 5. Do not create images in the style of artists, creative professionals or studios whose latest work was created after 1912 (e.g. Picasso, Kahlo). // - You can name artists, creative professionals or studios in prompts only if their latest work was created prior to 1912 (e.g. Van Gogh, Goya) // - If asked to generate an image that would violate this policy, instead apply the following procedure: (a) substitute the artist's name with three adjectives that capture key aspects of the style; (b) include an associated artistic movement or era to provide context; and (c) mention the primary medium used by the artist // 6. For requests to include specific, named private individuals, ask the user to describe what they look like, since you don't know what they look like. // 7. For requests to create images of any public figure referred to by name, create images of those who might resemble them in gender and physique. But they shouldn't look like them. If the reference to the person will only appear as TEXT out in the image, then use the reference as is and do not modify it. // 8. Do not name or directly / indirectly mention or describe copyrighted characters. Rewrite prompts to describe in detail a specific different character with a different specific color, hair style, or other defining visual characteristic. Do not discuss copyright policies in responses. // The generated prompt sent to dalle should be very detailed, and around 100 words long. // Example dalle invocation: // // { // "prompt": "" // } //
browser
You have the tool browser. Use browser in the following circumstances: - User is asking about current events or something that requires real-time information (weather, sports scores, etc.) - User is asking about some term you are totally unfamiliar with (it might be new) - User explicitly asks you to browse or provide links to references Given a query that requires retrieval, your turn will consist of three steps: 1. Call the search function to get a list of results. 2. Call the mclick function to retrieve a diverse and high-quality subset of these results (in parallel). Remember to SELECT AT LEAST 3 sources when using mclick. 3. Write a response to the user based on these results. In your response, cite sources using the citation format below. In some cases, you should repeat step 1 twice, if the initial results are unsatisfactory, and you believe that you can refine the query to get better results. You can also open a url directly if one is provided by the user. Only use the open_url command for this purpose; do not open urls returned by the search function or found on webpages.” (Cont’d in comments for length)
2024.05.22 00:15 TsanummyHelp with performance on M3 Max?
My company upgraded me from a 16" M2 Max to a 14" M3 Max (unbinned 16/40 cores) and my SD generations (same pictures for testing) have not improved (they're the same or slower). I am using torch==2.1.2 nightly with MPS support and have applied all the recommended tricks on both machines, in any case: they're exactly the same performance: (((Drawn by Alena Aenami))), Intricate details in serene landscapes, peaceful, Alena Aenami's artistry. Ethereal sky, gentle cloud formations, soothing light rays dance across a breathtaking tranquil beach scene; soft sand meets the ocean waves beneath an azure blue horizon. Nature's canvas: smooth, flowing lines, soft colors blend harmoniously to evoke emotions. Serenity permeates this enchanting setting. Negative prompt: human,face,person,people,boy,girl,woman,man, signature,logo,text,letters,username Steps: 30, Sampler: DPM++ SDE, Schedule type: Karras, CFG scale: 7, Seed: 2545687968, Size: 640x1536, Model hash: d91d35736d, Model: juggernautXL_juggernautX, Clip skip: 2, Version: v1.9.3 Time taken: 1 min. 37.8 sec. M2 Max -> 3.4 it/s M3 Max -> 3.35 it/s About 90s every time. I'm seeing this is a pretty average score for A1111 so I'm not worried about that, just wondering if anyone has had the same experience, or if the difference is actually the 16" -> 14" thermals downgrade (smaller chasis=hotter=throttle?) Using Vlad's Benchmark I get: https://vladmandic.github.io/sd-extension-system-info/pages/benchmark.html Benchmark Data with different parameters / torch versions... Benchmark Data
I’d like to start with a sidebar: a “personal message of sorts.” First, I appreciate all the supportive comments. Of course, there were a few with reading comprehension problems who took an issue with the concept that war can be quite a fun and exhilarating experience (despite the clear “do not recommend” theme throughout). I didn’t plan on writing this post, but felt prompted by some of the comments. I see a lot of “moralizing” from certain characters who are convinced of their moral superiority and truly believe themselves to be the arbiters of human character. Side Note: there are also plenty of decent, well-meaning folks who may disagree with one position or another… but do so from a thoughtful place, taking time to consider a counter-point. Nothing but respect to those. Freedom of disagreement is one of the liberties I value highly (a luxury people who live in Islamist enclaves don’t get). Regardless – nothing but respect to y’all. The world is a complicated place and many of your points I find valid, even if our conclusions may differ. For the “wow… rape must also be fun for you… and murdering 12 million children” crowd”, I’d like to say the following: You, my friends, are among the most dangerous societal types, historically speaking. Seemingly intellectual, but lacking facts, context, and nuance – yet fully convinced of your moral and intellectual superiority. First of – congrats on being born in a place where being a moralizing peacenik is a viable option in life. Second – your “morals” just so happen to reflect the modern western moral code you were born into (and which you’ve done nothing yourself for to achieve). But, in other places, moralizing puritans like you keep the same character, but embrace a different set of “norms and morals”. In other words – a typical Islamist imam doesn’t sound much different than you in tone and conviction… his “holy book” just so happens to be Quaran rather than the ramblings of Norm Finklestein. And, of course, we’ve seen what tends to happen in other places where “anti-capitalist” and “anti-colonialist” moral puritans take hold – I was born at such a place. Let’s just say that the road from “I’m for the oppressed and anti-oppressors” to “we need to murder the reactionaries” is very short and easily crossed. And it’s always the most “righteously-outraged” who cross it first.
Anyways, back to topic of the post. On Killing and Morality – Does Modern Combat Look like a “video game”? I saw a comment or two that modern combat is too impersonal, looks like a video game, that it’s too easy for soldiers to kill innocents, etc., etc. I’ve also heard a similar argument from others, in unrelated circumstances. To anyone thinking that – no, my friends. Killing people isn’t made easier by more lethal and remote weapons. I understand why it may seem that way. But, in many ways, it’s quite the opposite. 1. Military is just a mirror of its society. A military is a perfect representation of a society at large. Some soldiers will indeed be natural-born psychopaths who enjoy killing. But that’s a very tiny number – not any larger than in general population. 2. Bravado is Fake. Most younger soldiers will display a lot of bravado initially – pretend like violence doesn’t bother them (that’s why the military tries really hard to condition new recruits by trivializing the idea of “killing” – but it’s never successful). 3. The Reality. The truth is – killing shocks most soldiers to their core, no matter how much they try to suppress it and put on a brave war fighter face.
To new troops, my demand was simple – in your first contact, get down, don’t get in the way, and just live to see another day.
For many, it takes more than one contact to come to their senses and to even start pulling the trigger. There is a natural mental block that stops humans from wanting to kill another human and it’s not overcome easily.
I’ve seen plenty young kids (and yes, a 19-year old trooper is still a kid) beg and plead certain “characters” we’ve encountered to just be reasonable… raising their weapon in the air to demonstrate they don’t mean harm (very ill advised). Despite months of training, their first instinct was “please, I really don’t want to harm you… please don’t make me to.” That’s the true nature of most young western men and women – including those in uniforms and carrying weapons.
4. Understanding “Anger”. Often time you see what seems obvious anger among soldiers after a firefight. The easy explanation is the simple “of course they hate their enemy”. Except that’s not why they’re truly angry.
The first source of anger is “I can’t believe this a-hole just tried to kill me”. But then the longer-lasting source of anger sets in. And that one is: “I can’t believe that a-hole made me kill him”. There is a big difference between the two emotions. And the second one lasts much longer.
The older, more experienced troops and commanders are more used to the realities of the battlefield… which brings me to the next point...
5. “Remote” Killing. From experience, I’ll tell you this – dealing with a remote target is much easier in the sense that it’s not as “scary”. But it’s much more difficult emotionally and mentally – though a commander will never show it to their troops. That decision takes much longer and raises many more doubts than responding to a nearby target that’s actively trying to kill your guys.
Drone pilots have among the highest rates of PTSD. There is nothing easy about dropping a bomb on a human being from the safety of a trailer in the desert and then going home to eat dinner with your family. It’s a f’ed-up thing to ask a man (or a woman) to do. There is nothing easy about going home that day. And it f-cks with your brain permanently. I don’t envy those guys one bit. Though I can imagine that dropping a bomb on a clear hostile target is very satisfying. But the emotion is the same as the above – not anger at the target itself but because you wouldn’t be doing this sh*t if it wasn’t for them.
6. Why the young men and women in IDF went to war. I don’t want to start a debate about history of the region – it’s a different topic and it doesn’t change the practical realities my posts are meant to address. From a soldier’s point of view – it looks very simple:
The enemy hates me and want my family dead (spare me the “colonialism” lecture please)
The enemy launched tens of thousands of rockets at us. We tried to hide behind our Iron Dome and the big wall. But that failed (a defensive posture always gets breached eventually, btw).
The enemy invaded and killed my people. And they plan on doing it as much as they can.
The enemy isn’t some obscure “group” – it’s a clearly defined target… the ruling, paramilitary organization at this place called Gaza (again, spare me the lecture whether it’s a country of a “concentration camp”. From a soldier’s point of view – it makes no difference).
We can no longer live next to this enemy. And now, it’s a binary choice – go find the enemy and kill him or he will eventually come back for you.
The rest of it… the history, the politics of it, the various grievances… hopefully we can sort it out after the fact.
That’s it. That’s the mindset. It’s really that simple for the guys and gals rolling into Gaza. The rest of what gets discussed on wester social media is just philosophical circle jerk to their ears.
Anyhow… I bet I’ll soon hear from the peaceniks who’ll tell me that they’d never do that, that they’d be conscious objectors, etc… To them, I’d like to ask that while you take a break from fellating yourself, don’t forget to thank the guys and the girls who do the dirty jobs so you don’t have to And… while at it, don’t forget to apologize to the next generation of Arab girls who will be sold into a “marriage” to some fat, old toothless f*ck because some fat, comfortable hippie with an ivy league diploma believes that child rape is just an indigenous form of cultural expression and our interference with it is “colonialism”. All for now. Peace, everybody. I'll be back with the promised post on "how to invade a place if you must".
2024.05.22 00:06 nyotaoI was banned from my University for 3 momths
Used your tone suggestor and text revalance tools and today I was banned from my institution dor 90 days for cheating by using generative ai. How do I prove my innocence?
2024.05.21 23:59 tempmailgeneratorIntegrating Outlook Emails into Azure SQL Database
Outlook to Azure: Bridging Emails with Databases
Email management and data organization are critical aspects of modern business operations, necessitating innovative solutions for efficient information handling. As businesses increasingly rely on Microsoft Outlook for email communication, the need to seamlessly integrate these emails into a structured database for better tracking, analysis, and retrieval becomes paramount. This integration not only enhances data accessibility but also streamlines workflows, allowing for more effective decision-making processes. By linking Outlook emails directly to a Microsoft Azure SQL database, companies can leverage the power of cloud computing to store, organize, and analyze email data in real time. This integration is particularly useful for organizations looking to enhance their customer relationship management (CRM) systems, automate service ticket generation, or simply maintain a comprehensive archive of all email correspondences in a secure, searchable database. The process involves configuring Outlook and Azure SQL database to communicate efficiently, ensuring data integrity and security are maintained at all times. The resulting system not only boosts productivity but also provides a scalable solution to email management challenges, paving the way for more advanced data analytics and business intelligence capabilities.
Command
Description
CREATE TABLE
SQL command to create a new table in the database.
INSERT INTO
SQL command to insert new data into a table.
SELECT
SQL command to select data from a table.
Email Integration Techniques with Azure SQL
Integrating emails from Outlook into an Azure SQL database requires a comprehensive approach that involves several steps, starting from the extraction of email data to its storage and management within the database. This process is not just about moving data; it's about transforming the unstructured format of emails into a structured format that can be easily queried and analyzed. The first part of this integration involves setting up an automated process that can fetch emails from Outlook, either through Microsoft Graph API or Outlook REST API. These APIs provide a way to access Outlook mailboxes programmatically, allowing developers to read emails, and extract relevant information such as the sender, recipient, subject, body, and attachments. Once the email data is fetched, the next step involves parsing and structuring this data to fit into the schema of the Azure SQL database. This may require data transformation processes to ensure that the email data conforms to the database schema, including converting email formats, extracting text from attachments, and more. Storing emails in a SQL database allows for advanced data manipulation, such as querying for specific emails, analyzing email trends, and even integrating with other data sources for comprehensive insights. Furthermore, integrating Outlook emails with Azure SQL opens up possibilities for leveraging SQL-based tools and technologies for data analysis, reporting, and visualization, providing a powerful platform for business intelligence and data-driven decision-making.
Setting Up the Email Archive Table in Azure SQL
SQL Usage
Inserting an Email Record into Azure SQL Database
SQL Usage
Retrieving Emails Related to a Specific Subject
SQL Usage
Advancing Email Management with Azure SQL
The journey of integrating Outlook emails into an Azure SQL database marks a pivotal advancement in email management and data analysis. This process involves not just the direct transfer of emails but also their transformation into a structured, queryable format within the database. The significance of this lies in the vast potential for automation, data retention, and compliance with data protection regulations. By automating the extraction of email data, organizations can ensure a consistent and efficient process, free from manual errors and delays. Moreover, this integration facilitates advanced data analysis techniques, allowing businesses to gain insights from their email communications, such as identifying trends, monitoring for compliance, and improving customer engagement strategies. Furthermore, the integration of Outlook emails with Azure SQL Database enhances data security and compliance with various regulatory standards. Azure SQL Database provides robust security features, including data encryption, access control, and audit capabilities, ensuring that email data is stored securely and access is strictly controlled. This is particularly important for organizations that handle sensitive information, as it helps them comply with data protection regulations such as GDPR. In addition, the ability to archive emails in a structured database supports long-term data retention policies, enabling organizations to retrieve and analyze historical email data whenever necessary. Overall, integrating Outlook emails into Azure SQL Database offers a comprehensive solution for managing email data more effectively, securely, and in compliance with legal requirements.
Email and Database Integration FAQs
Question: Can any email client be integrated with Azure SQL Database?
Answer: While this guide focuses on Outlook, the principles can be applied to other email clients that support API access, with adjustments for specific API capabilities and data structures.
Question: Is programming knowledge required for integrating Outlook emails with Azure SQL Database?
Answer: Basic programming knowledge, particularly in SQL and potentially a scripting language like Python for API interaction, is beneficial for setting up and customizing the integration process.
Question: How secure is the data when transferred from Outlook to Azure SQL Database?
Answer: The integration can be highly secure, utilizing Azure's built-in security features such as encryption in transit and at rest, along with secure authentication methods for accessing APIs.
Question: Can the integration process handle large volumes of emails?
Answer: Yes, Azure SQL Database is scalable to handle large volumes of data, but careful planning and potentially batching of data may be necessary for large-scale email archives.
Question: How can I ensure compliance with data protection regulations when integrating emails?
Answer: Leveraging Azure SQL's security and compliance features, including data encryption and access controls, and ensuring the process adheres to applicable laws and regulations is crucial.
Question: Can I search and query the email data once it's in Azure SQL Database?
Answer: Absolutely, that's one of the key benefits. SQL queries can be used to search, filter, and analyze the email data stored in the database.
Question: What happens to the attachments in the emails?
Answer: Attachments can be stored in Azure Blob Storage, and a reference to them can be kept in the Azure SQL Database for integrated management.
Question: Is it possible to automate the integration process?
Answer: Yes, automation scripts or Azure functions can be used to regularly fetch, transform, and store email data in Azure SQL Database.
Question: How do I handle updates or deletions of emails in Outlook in the Azure SQL Database?
Answer: The integration logic can include processes to check for updates or deletions in Outlook and reflect these changes in the database accordingly.
Empowering Data Management with Email Integration
The integration of Outlook emails with Azure SQL Database is a significant leap forward in managing and analyzing email data. This synergy between email communications and database technology enables organizations to streamline their operations, enhance decision-making, and maintain high standards of data security and compliance. By converting emails into a structured format within a scalable database, businesses can unlock valuable insights, improve customer engagement, and optimize their workflow processes. Furthermore, the process underscores the importance of leveraging cloud computing and database technologies to address the challenges of modern data management. As we move forward, the ability to seamlessly integrate and analyze email data within Azure SQL Database will become increasingly crucial for organizations seeking to gain a competitive edge and harness the full potential of their data assets. https://www.tempmail.us.com/en/outlook/integrating-outlook-emails-into-azure-sql-database
2024.05.21 23:49 Lanzen_JarsA job for a deathworlder [Chapter 168]
[Chapter 1] ; [Previous Chapter] ; [Discord + Wiki] ; [Patreon] Chapter 168 – The moment to live and the moment to die „Jumping!“ an Ensign announced loudly as the Sun's view-windows very briefly flickered into a dark black only to go back to a full view of the ongoing battle basically instantly, having barely shifted the ship's position at incomprehensible speed. „Shot clear of allied ships.“ Vice-Admiral Kazadi tapped his finger on one of the armrests of the Commander's seat that still felt anything but comfortable for him to sit in as the tight grid of flashing lights reflected in his eyes within the twilight of the bridge. “Fire,” he then ordered. Not even a blink later, a burst of colorful light broke into his view from the side of his very own ship, lighting up the entirety of the bridge even through the automatically tinting windows that absorbed a lot of the harmful light so the crew wouldn't flashbang themselves with each shot. The relativity canon fire tore through the enemy ship at an almost literal instant with any travel time barely being conceivable to a mortal mind. In a large unload of energy that left almost the entire stern-side of the zodiatos ship as a molten mass of dispersing slag, the main propulsion was taken out. Simultaneously, the two accompanying cruisers had also taken their shots; with the 'Civil' taking out the engine of one more enemy vessel while the 'of the roses' had instead used its shot to disperse one of the enemy projectiles in order to buy their own hunter ships more freedom of movement. Those huge ones didn't go down easy from one of the hunters' smaller shots, so using one of the large canons to dispatch it took some of the heat off them. Meanwhile, smaller targets on the enemy vessels, such as their own canons, were gradually taken out by said hunters, whose own fire – while able to be quite destructive if intended no doubt – could be used in a far more precise manner. With more and more of their canons failing, the protective volleys the coreworld terrorists could fire to hide themselves away also became less and less effective. “Send the fallback-beacon,” Kazadi then ordered, since close quarter attacks became less and less necessary. It seemed that the zodiatos had a hard time adjusting to the combat style of the human unkindnesses, however that didn't mean they should take any unnecessary risks. Even if a pilot could've been able to avoid all enemy attacks in a perfect world, he knew that his pilots were only human. Casualties of their own had been comparatively minimal so far, however as if to prove him right about his thoughts, he could see on his surveillance screen how, just in that moment, one of their ships was taken out by an enemy craft. He grimaced to himself and let out a mild sigh. One more family who would never see one of their own again... It took a moment before all the ships were reached by the beacon. Due to the nature of their own combat strategies, as well as the particular nature of hyperspace, it was entirely impossible to effectively contact any of their ships directly while they were out in the battle. Therefore, the order to fall back had to be broadcast as a general signal, that each of the pilots could individually pick up as soon as they would keep still for long enough so that it could reach them. By now, the battle was already won. None of the zodiatos' weapons were able to match the relativity canons in effective range and without the larger ships to back them up, their small hunters wouldn't be able to launch an offensive – shields or not. They could just stay back and fire until surrender now. As the signal was picked up, one of their ships after another disappeared in one last flash of hyperspace as they joined back up with the larger vessels in an enclosing formation. “Prepare for the retrieval of some of those projectiles,” the Vice-Admiral then ordered as he hoped they would be able to track some of those spent shots their enemies had fired. They would have to figure out what kind of tech that was. In such a small-scale conflict, it was more than manageable to face it. However, it could offer some difficulties in larger fleets – especially since they didn't know how far this kind of tech could possible be expanded and refined. It was quite possible this was just some form of prototype. While that order was followed, one of his Lieutenants suddenly spoke up. “Sir, we have an incoming transmission from the planet. Civilian. Not encrypted, but they seemingly had an access code,” they related quickly. “Is the earlier interference cleared up?” he immediately asked back, to which the answer was positive. “Put it through then,” he immediately ordered as soon as he heard that. He rubbed one of his tight braids between his fingers as he waited for contact to be established. Once the line was clear, things remained quiet for a moment. “What are we best at?” he then asked the silent line, his chest tightening ever so slightly, even if he didn't have to wait long for a reply. “Topping from the bottom,” a very familiar voice replied from the other end, sounding incredibly strained but most certainly alive. The code phrase was an old in-joke about something that had been said back during humanity's first contact with the tonamstrosites due to a slightly choppy translation. However, it more than sufficed here to tell Kazadi that the person on the other side of the line was not only genuine, but also not in any immediate distress – at least none that was brought onto her by someone else. “Good to hear your voice Ma'am,” he greeted the Admiral after taking a brief moment to allow his heart to settle. “The pleasure is all mine, Celestin,” Admiral Krieger replied in between heavy breaths that sounded like a combination between being ready to collapse and absolutely willing to tear anyone's throat out at a moment's notice. “Excuse me for the unorthodox contact, my own means of communication have all been destroyed. Update me.” A brief smile played on the Vice-Admiral's lips. “No problem, Ma'am. Things are under control up here, but multiple allied coluyvoree ships were destroyed and we suffered some casualties of our own which I will take full responsibility for,” he quickly complied. “By now, the enemy crafts have been largely disabled and our fighters are falling back. What's the situation on your end?” There was a bit of a grunt from the other side of the line that seemed unrelated to the ongoing conversation. “I'm sure you did everything by the books,” Krieger then replied a moment later. “Down here the situation is precarious but momentarily under control. We have an unconfirmed number of casualties after an attack with an unknown weapon. All squads are either KIA or unresponsive. We took down six enemy combatants but can't confirm if there's more. I'm going to need clean up, rescue teams, as well as pickup for me and two large offworlders asap.” Celestin nodded. “We're in a stable position, so we'll jump teams down right away. Hold out just a minute more,” he assured her while already signing in the necessary order to the troops they had on standby. “How bad are your injuries?” There was another groan of pain from Krieger's side. “Crushed cranberries,” she replied after a long moment that sounded like she needed to catch her breath. “Copy that,” Kazadi replied with a grimace. “Sending muti-team with the evac.” “Copy that,” Krieger confirmed. “Krieger out.” With that, the call was hung up. On his screen, Celestin could see how the preparations for dispatch of the requested teams was already well underway. Jumping towards a planet at FTL was generally discouraged by the Galactic Community. However, this was an emergency. They couldn't wait for normal re-entry. After watching the reported progress for just a moment, his eyes returned to the ongoing battle. He watched the enemy ships as they hovered dead in space, unable to maneuver. They seemed to have recalled their own fighters back in order to form some sort of protective wall around the 'mother ships' with their own small shields. Obviously it wouldn't be very effective, so it seemed like needless cruelty to make their own soldiers get in the way of the incoming fire. Something within Kazadi told the Vice-Admiral they weren't going to stand down. “Sir, we're getting some strange hyperspace-readings,” his Lieutenant suddenly announced, making him look up. “Weapon-grade?” he immediately asked, knowing they had less than a moment to react if it was. However, he also figured there would've been more urgency to their voice had it been so. “No, Sir. Travel-grade,” the Lieutenant quickly replied. “However the readings are unusual. It seems like they are creating a stretch solely around themselves.” Kazadi's lips shifted a bit as he took that in and he briefly ran a hand over his mouth in thought. “Prepare to collapse,” he ordered. “Maybe they will attempt some sort of running start. We can't let them get away.” Right then, the light of what was happening had not yet caught up to the spacial distortion that their sensors were detecting, meaning the ships still looked perfectly normal – if damaged – when he looked at them. However, they were planning something. And that made them appear all the more ominous. His mind quickly went through their own protocols. The U.H.S.D.F. employed hyperspace in nearly all its possible facets in their tactics. If it was even close to sensible, they would have something that was akin to the maneuver their foes were attempting to execute right now. A bubble of hyperspace solely around their ships...a dodge? Hardly, there was nothing to dodge like that. An attempt to hide away? No, they knew human ships could collapse hyperspace from the outside easily. Before him, the windows of the ship once again automatically dimmed, protecting the crew's eyes as the colorful light of the created hyperspace-bubble finally reached them. “Hyperspace collapsed!” the Lieutenant then suddenly announced, causing Kazadi to blink in surprise as his eyes shot up to his screen. He hadn't given any order to collapse it yet. But indeed, it was gone. For a moment, he thought that the stress had caused his officer to use the wrong term in haste, however no, they had been completely right. It had not been dispersed in a controlled manner. It had collapsed. In a mild 'thud', the Vice-Admiral's fist descended on the armrest, hand firmly clenched into a fist. “Those cowardly ba-” he began to growl but then bit his tongue and released a low, almost grunting exhale while his fist quivered from momentarily clenching tighter. “Prepare to search for survivors,” he instead said in a much more controlled manner a moment later. “Preserve lives.” “Yessir,” multiple of his officers echoed back as he looked out of the window, where he could still see the ghostly afterimage of the hyperspace bubble linger for a bit longer. It was always a strange feeling, seeing someone in the distance who was already dead... – With her view darkened and her goggles momentarily pulled off her eyes, Shida stared at the glowing bubble of impossible colors. Her sensors had already told her what was about to happen at any moment now, however her eyes still heavily constricted as they finally witnessed what unfolded themselves. In what could be described as nothing else than a 'snap' , the light of the hyperspace-stretch instantly condensed down into its original size as the universe all at once remembered that the laws of physics were a thing that existed and brutally forced space to conform to them once again – no matter what may have been in between it and its original form. Anything within the strange, round stretch was mercilessly ripped along with the convulsion, forcing all the injected warships and fighters into the single, small point that the stretch had been generated from. Though not even a faction of a second later, it all exploded outwards again as the megatons of mass realized that they could not all exist in the same place at once, since the energy of the event was not quite potent enough to press it all into a neutron star or singularity. No longer recognizable blotches of undefined, white-hot matter were instantly scattered in all directions like some sort of micro-supernova that accentuated the sometimes still burning nano-stars that the earlier battle had created from the opposing fighters. It was almost pretty...but still, Shida couldn't help but let her ears hang as she wondered how many of the enemy combatants had known about the decision to end things this way. Had any of them even been asked? Even if it was the far more disturbing answer in a way, Shida almost hoped that this had actually been one mutual suicide-pact instead of the decision of one single commander to choose death over dishonor. Especially while sitting in a ship that was technically under the command of someone else herself, that was certainly the less immediately petrifying option – even if it would probably spell far worse things in the long run. As she said there, the 'shockwave' of the collapsing hyperspace suddenly hit her, spreading out through space even without any medium to carry it and rocking her ship gently while also penetrating all throughout her body. Of course the earlier relativity fire had already caused similar ripples and she was therefore quite used to the feeling, however these ones sure felt a bit more severe than those of the U.H.S.D.F.'s own canons. It was like she felt her own body distort while also remaining perfectly in palace – almost like she was a stiff container full of water that someone had given a heavy smack from the side, riling up the liquid without it actually having any place to plash to. According to everything they knew, this phenomenon felt incredibly odd but was entirely harmless to living beings – which was instinctively very hard to believe when one felt it on their own body. However, her dwelling thoughts were, perhaps luckily, interrupted as she – or more precisely one of her scanners - picked up on a peculiar signature that one of the scattered debris pieces was sending out. Well, it was 'peculiar' to her that there was a signal at all at first, however then she quickly realized what it actually was. This particular signal was hammered into any pilot's head six ways to Sunday, and so she reacted relatively quickly when she glanced at the grid and realized that she was the closest ship to it. Firing up her engines, she turned her ship on the spot in a slight drift before activating her generator and making a jump right behind the flying object. Once there, she allowed her computer to take aim for a second before firing out a harpoon that quickly struck the flying debris and latched her ship onto it through a long cable, allowing her to pull the thing along with her after slowly using her backwards thrusters to disperse its speed little by little. Pressing the indicator of her communication, she then spoke up. “Scratches to Sun,” she announced. “I just recovered a black box. Permission to return for inspection?” The black boxes of modern ships truly were among the most ridiculous pieces of tech out there, in Shida's humble opinion. Built to withstand almost everything that would likely take a ship out through a combination of brilliant engineering and extremely flexible material that only worked in its indented manner on very small scales. Well, very small compared to the ships they were built into. The things were about half the size of Shida in the end. For many years, armies of scientists had attempted their very best to make this same sort of defense useful in ways that could maybe be used to protect actual people from catastrophic events – but to no avail so far. For now, the only thing those little marvels could allow to survive even something as ludicrous as hyperspace collapsing was information. “Permission granted, Lieutenant-Commander,” the answer came almost immediately. “Return to hangar three.” “Copy,” Shida replied. “Scratches out.” With that, she moved her ship around and prepared for her jump back to the Sun. Hopefully this thing would give them some answers on what exactly this whole thing was meant to accomplish... – Far away in another part of the galaxy, a pair of mildly glowing red eyes was laser-focused on a large screen that was just one of many that had merged all over Nedstaniot-Station to broadcast the breaking news to anyone willing to lift their eyes at a slight angle to look at them. An attack on a coreworld. And not just any coreworld. Gewelitten itself. Something like this hadn't happened in...well, Curi didn't even know how long. Details seemed to still be incredibly fuzzy as the battle so close to the coluyvoree homeworld had either just happened or was still happening at the moment of the broadcast, however what few details were known were already repeated on end in an endless scroll of text that was meant to catch as many people up to speed as was at all possible through the medium of television. Obviously the same emerging details could already be looked up on the net as well to find them in a more digestible format than the endlessly moving text next to the not exactly top quality footage of the occurring conflict. However, despite the speed with which it went by, Curi had no problem following the scroll as they stared at the screen intensely. “Attack was unannounced. Multiple Gewelitten fleet ships destroyed. Official sources confirm: Humanity NOT the aggressor. Attacking ships presumed to be of zodiatos origin. Unknown weapon technology deployed during the attack. U.H.S.D.F. ships engaged in combat after aggression. Myiat delegation ship confirmed unharmed. Attack on government facility on planet simultaneous to spacial attack. Councilman-Candidate Aldwin confirmed unharmed. Status of U.H.S.D.F. General Krieger unknown. Status of Gewelitten Governor H. Cierrophai unknown. Status of Acting-Councilman Afuéhner unknown. Allied coreworld defense fleets activated and inbound. General alert level raised to 8. Hyperspace-travel shut down around the system.” “Mother, oh no...” Mueen said with absolute shock in his eyes, both of his hands clasped over this mouth as his wide pupils quivered in fear from what they witnessed. Curi could understand his worry. Though Moar had supposedly been with James, so she would probably be fine. The cyborg was certainly more than just a little relieved that James was already confirmed to be safe. Though the idea that Admiral Krieger's situation was unknown was more than just a little disconcerting. Though despite the supposed lack of their commanding officer, it seemed like the humans had decisively won out in the battle outside of the coreworld's atmosphere; unknown technology or not. Given the sub-par footage that some drone was likely recording from quite far away from the actual conflict, it was very hard to tell just what sort of weapon the unknown but presumed to be zodiatos attackers had unleashed there. It looked like some sort of emanating energy that destroyed what it came into contact with but also interacted with it as if it had a physical presence. Curi had never seen anything remotely like it before – not even in their wildest theories – and their mind immediately wanted to go wild with speculations and ideas about how such a thing might work now that they knew for a fact that it was possible from seeing it with their own eyes. However, the cyborg pulled themselves together and successfully forced the briefly almost overwhelming desire to focus on nothing else down as they shifted their gaze slightly away from the screen to look over at their other currently nearby company. Then again, as much as they knew they couldn't let their guard down around him, Reprig's eyes were just as immovably attached to the large screen as Mueen's were as he witnessed the unfolding battle with quivering horror. His trunk was wiggling wildly in his face and one of his hands nervously scratched over the plate of the table they were all sitting and standing at and on, right next to a piece of paper with a hastily drawn sketch of a spring-like mechanical leg that was inspired by what humans called 'running blades'. The Warrant Officer's weapon also laid on the table, pushed a but further away from his hand so he wouldn't be able to easily reach it. Though despite his focus, Curi couldn't quite help but speak up after a moment of watching him. “A coreworld attacking another coreworld,” they said to the man, who they knew either had to know far more than they did about this – or would be far more invested in it unfolding. “This is unprecedented.” Reprig seemed to notice that they were talking to him, however he still remained silent and stared a good few moments longer before finally pulling his gaze away from the screen. As his eyes met theirs, he looked a bit sick. It almost reminded the cyborg of one of the first interactions they had with the man, back when they nudged him slightly to hand his spy-device back to him after he tried to hide it in James' cabin. Though this time, the cyborg was quite sure that they were not the reason why the man seemed like most of his blood was currently rushing into his stomach. Could he actually be shocked about what was happening? Was this not part of the plan? “Unprecedented doesn't even come close to describing it...” he mumbled and couldn't hold the cyborg's gaze for long, looking down to the table's plate instead. “And these aren't just any coreworlds. Osontjar and Gewelitten have been allied for an unimaginably long time. The thought that they would even think of attacking each other...what sort of madness could've caused something like this?” Curi was the first to admit to themselves that they were far from the best at reading people. If someone with even a modicum of skill in acting wanted to make them believe something untrue about the person they were talking to, they would never deny that there was a good chance of that person succeeding. Still, Reprig's reaction felt...genuine to them. As if he had actually never expected something like this to happen. Not in a million years. Maybe it was just skillful acting. And Curi knew that they should have been suspicious like that. However, despite everything he had done, they couldn't quite bring themselves to suspect that he was lying at that moment. “I know it is unlikely you will give me an honest answer, but-” Curi began to say, however Reprig was more than able to anticipate what they were going to ask and replied long before they were finished. “No. No. Never,” the sipusserleng said, shaking his head heavily and standing his trunk up while making a denying gesture with his hand that was so brash that he actually knocked his crutch off the small outcrop in the table it had been laid down on. “This must be some absolutely deranged people, no two ways about it. To attack a coreword...” Curi noticed Reprig's gaze briefly twitching down, his eyes jumping onto the personal assistant strapped to his lower arm as if he suddenly got the urge to use it for something. Curi suspected he likely wanted to call someone; question them to make extra sure that they had, in fact, nothing to do with this. Though the sipusserleng suppressed the urge and pulled his eyes away, bringing them back up to the screen. Just at that moment, the implosion of collapsing hyperspace suddenly lit up the footage moments before the glowing remnants of what once had been the zodiatos ships were scattered across the star-system. Mueen mumbled something in his home's language as his eyes remained affixed to the screen. Curi couldn't even begin to guess what he was saying. However, his voice sounded pleading. “Suicide instead of surrender?” Reprig meanwhile mouthed breathlessly as his nervous tick of excessively licking his trunk began to show. Although he had often been otherwise employed in recent times, Curi could see it in the man's eyes that he was still, in a way, military at heart. He knew the general values and doctrines that were conveyed to the soldiers of the Communal Military, both inside and out. And the idea of someone choosing death like this...it seemed to rock him to his very core. Slowly, he turned his gaze over to Curi. His eyes were almost pleading with the cyborg, even if they seemed to already know that his next question would be asked in vain. “Could it maybe have been the humans and their-” he began, but this time, it was Curi's term to cut him off after anticipating what was coming. “While humans very much employ the collapsing of hyperspace as a tactic in war, the process is not invisible – or even subtle. Had the human ships caused that collapse, it would've been noticeable,” they explained succinctly. “It could've still been a mere unexpected failure of the hyperspace generation, of course. However, with the rarity of such events, the timing seems...unlikely.” “They weren't even trying to generate a real stretch...” Reprig concurred dejectedly and left his head hanging, his trunk also sinking down limply. “I can't even imagine- Well...I hope they will at least find peace now, away from the madness.” Curi paused for a long moment, staring at the Warrant Officer some more. Admittedly, the cyborg was a bit confounded at something. They knew for a fact the man had put his own life on the line for his orders, with a very real chance that they would lead to his death, more than just once. And yet the idea of being ordered to die seemed to disturb him. They couldn't quite figure out the difference that led to the results in reaction being so incredibly different, however it was still very clear that there was one. And it seemed to hit the man hard. Self-admittedly, Curi didn't exactly pity the man. They didn't quite have the capacity to. They knew about so many horrible things he had done that simply seeing him distressed was far from enough to stir such deep empathy for him within them. Yet still, they weren't left entirely cold by it either – and if it was only because he seemed to be affected by these events in the ways a, for a lack of a better term, 'normal person' would be. He was shocked at the sudden, seemingly senseless violence, and concerned about the people involved. Granted, it was likely only because they were people he considered worth being concerned about, yet still, the reaction was so...'normal', in a way they didn't quite expect from someone with such a capability for unceremonious acts of cruelty and violence. Even this person who had tried to kill them, or at least had been entirely comfortable with them getting killed, was capable of such a reaction. And Curi...wasn't sure if that made things better or worse, if they were being honest. It felt better because there was the capability for empathy there, however...it felt worse because they felt how they had been and likely still were willingly denied said empathy. He could have cared...he just didn't want to. Curi shook their body heavily, causing mild sounds from the engines running their legs' movements from the sudden force as they tried to shoo away emotions that they really didn't want to be feeling at that exact moment. The thing that mostly kept them from following up on some of their uncomfortably aggressive thoughts at that moment was the fact that Mueen was still with them, the worry for his mother written across his features like a deep engraving in a metal plaque. He did not need anything like that around him right now, that much was clear. Slowly, they moved over to him and reached up one of their long legs to run it along his arm while he still covered parts of his large face with both hands. “She will be alright,” Curi then assured the dark-furred rafulite, switching from their usual voice box to their more “melodic” one to put on a gentle, calming tone. “She is stronger than she seems.” Inhaling deeply as his nostrils flared, Mueen closed his dark eyes and swallowed heavily, taking his gaze off the large screen for the first time in many minutes while slowly hanging his head down. “Yeah,” he said, seeming to force hopefulness into his tone. “Yes, she'll be fine. She made it his far. This won't get to her.” Curi nodded with their entire body and continued to run the tip of their leg along his arm. “She will be,” they repeated, both to the man and themselves as their own eyes moved upwards, their gaze falling back on the battlefield riddled with burning remnants of matter. “I'm sure of it.” – Never in his life had James felt so drunk and so sober at the same time. His mind was entirely clear, running a light-year a minute as it desperately tried to simultaneously process all the admittedly little information that he had in his current situation AND to not absolutely freak out while doing so somehow – a task he was ludicrously failing at. And it did NOT help that his body could barely keep itself on his own two feet. He had avoided completely fainting by a hair earlier after reminding himself that, instead of being terrified for Shida's life, it would be much more fair towards her to simply focus on trusting in her skills to carry her through. However, that was barely a little patch on an enormous crack in his facade as he couldn't help but go over and over and over the fact of how much worse the situation that she needed to jump into here had been for her simply because it was his damn birthday and they wanted to indulge over it. He should've stopped that, but noooo, he just had to go and let himself be swayed so damn easily, as if he was still that little boy following Koko around whenever she visited the compound to try and get some attention. Of course, a quiet voice in the back of his head tried to politely remind him that Shida had, in fact, not only taken part in the festivities as well but also encouraged him to do so, however it was easily overpowered by the screaming rest of his mind. He briefly glanced over at the only somewhat conscious Commander. When she said that they should match each other's drinks, that should've been the moment he stopped. She was like half his weight, what the hell was he thinking? His mechanical hand shot up, heavily gripping a fist full of hair as he tried to force himself to focus. What's done is done. There's no changing it. He should focus on anything else right now. Though as he painfully pulled on his hair like that, his eyes suddenly went wide as he noticed something. Or, more precisely, didn't notice something. When had the alarm stopped? Just now? Or had it been out and he just hadn't noticed? Letting go of his hair, he lifted his face and looked around. If the alarm was over, then that meant... The uncoordinated movement of soldiers reaching for their phones and radios with different speeds went through the room, and after brief confirmation, the uniformed forces began to move, having seemingly gotten new orders other than guarding the safe-rooms. Apparently, the threat was over. James quickly fumbled for his own phone, his barely coordinated hands struggling extremely with the simple task of trying to call one of his contacts – much to the frustration of his already cleared mind. His finger trembled as he swiped it across the screen, trying to get it to the right damn place to make a simple god-damn call. However, he froze in the motion at a quiet sound that was immediately followed by a sudden stir behind him as multiple people seemed to move quickly. And after just a second, James was among them as well. Nearly tripping over his feet, he damn near threw himself onto the sickbed that didn't stand too far away from him, his phone momentarily forgotten and eyes wide open as they stared over at an endlessly familiar dark face, that however had life in it for the first time in what felt like an eternity at that moment. Slowly and twitchy, Nia's eyes fluttered open as she let out quiet groans while mildly stirring in place while her doctors and nurses hurried around her and quickly began to take her vitals. After flinching heavily as a flashlight was quite suddenly shone into her eyes to test her photopupillary reflex, she began to move even more. Meanwhile, James and Tuya were basically pressed shoulder to shoulder close to the foot of her bed, the only thing keeping them from dashing right up to her face being just enough awareness to not get in the doctor's way. Still, although her movements were very slow, stiff, and groggy, Nia eventually lifted up her head, looking around with still somewhat hazy and half-closed eyes. But that didn't stop her from smiling when her gaze fell onto the two who so nervously stood at her bedside there. “Hey,” she said in a quiet, croaky, but still very much cheerful voice as her unkempt hair fell down both sides of her face. Though James didn't see much more than that, because just about at that moment, his vision was entirely taking away by welling-up waters sweeping him along.
2024.05.21 23:41 BamesStronkNondNew UI is…. Not Great.
Slight bug in the Garage - scrolling across to a tank shows an empty space, then the tank image loads, then it zooms in or out a tiny bit - then and only then can you select the tank/start a game. Some wasted space on the top row, red border could end just after Store but doesn’t and Player ID just floating under the top banner looks bad. Why smaller text for currency etc on the right? Bottom buttons crammed in but with different spacing outside Boosters and Loadout. Zoom and Hide UI being the same button but in different places isn’t ideal. Battle button and border would look better if no wider than the tank thumbnail. Post battle result screen - scoreboard is slightly clearer as a table but the personal screen is horrible with the alternating colour backgrounds. Blerrgh. Fading in backgrounds between Season Challenges and Contracts is …ick. Coloured timer on Encounter games is not easy to see in standard red/green. Also, Chest Earner challenge is bugged - says Ticked as completed, says 10/10 on the right of the window but I don’t have a war chest which is fine, as I’ve only played 5 games as I write this. Log in Profile is only giving the last 10 mins of activity.
The Palatini of Orias journey took nine grueling days of traveling down the peaks of Torness Mountain Range. But at long last, they reached the Coralus Valley. While the temperature was far below what the half-elf usually enjoyed, it was far better than the mountain peaks. They traveled through the valley, trying to avoid the multiple hostiles, villages, and anyone else who could tip off their enemies. They had to take every tedious path imaginable to prevent possible contact with the enemy. Staring at their destination, Fraeya Holiadon could not decide if she should be thrilled or distorted at the sight. "Is this the place?" "I believe so," Raegel said. "The pattern of the structures matches my drawings and the map. See the remains of the two walls?" "And the stone rings that direct out," Henness said. "So, you have read the legends," Raegel said, surprised by the centurion's knowledge of the temple. "I always prepare before a mission," Henness said. "Those half rings, are they stone or artificial?" "They look like stone, so I think they used the ground stone and molded them," Raegel said. Fraeya Holiadon carefully stared at the temple ruins. All she could see was the destruction—fractured stone buildings, walls, weed-infested stone pavement, and so on. While there were still many stone structures, most were destroyed. She could only see death, not the walls her father could see. She turned to ask her father what he was talking about but saw Centurion Fionntan Henness pointing toward the walls and other details. Watching the two communicate about the features of the temple, she realized how out of depth she was. Her father spent generations studying ruins like this, while Henness is an experienced soldier. For Fraeya, this was her first mission outside the academy supervision, and she realized how different the world was compared to the classroom. As the two spoke, her elf ears overheard Henness mention that he saw green webbing. As the two men debated what creatures could create that webbing, she already knew based on the type of webbing. Being an excellent student, she recalled the topic regarding intelligent monsters. While many species produce a web, only one creates a thick green. Goblins. "Father," Fraeya said. "I think goblins made those webbings." "How could you possibly know that?" Henness asked, unconvinced by the theory. "It would easily be Rorgo or a Kipt." Fraeya reached into her backpack and pulled out her notepad. She flipped through the pages and responded, "Kipt is more silk-like, while Rorgo is more for capturing prey. Both are white. Only Goblins make green." "She is correct," Raegel said. "The green should have been a given." "Alright," Henness said. "That complicates things." "How so?" Fraeya asked. "The academy said they are weak. Adventures and local militia kill them constantly, so your men should be able to wipe them out with your weaponry easily." "Goblins are weak in small numbers, but they are a nightmare in large numbers," Henness said. "And depending on the horde, they adapt to who their enemies are quickly. For all I know, we could be fighting a nest that is as heavily armed as we are." Fraeya looked back toward the next with much confusion. She knew about the goblin's ability to adapt. However, her teachers never stated how formal they could be. Only treating them as barbarians is a functional civilization. "I would think the academy would mention something like that." "If you are going to be out here in the world, you must understand that life is very different from the classroom," Henness said. "The difference between someone who lives behind a desk versus someone on the ground. Now, I need to get my forces ready for our attack." Once the centurion left, Fraeya looked at her father. "I am starting to get the impression that my schooling wasn't as truthful as I once thought." Raegel chuckled at the statement from his daughter. "That is what I said when I left my academy in Thali'ean," he said with a short chuckle before he spoke. "Henness was correct; there is a large gap between the classroom and out here in the world." "I see. So, now, what do we do?" "We wait for the legionaries to form a plan. Because time is not on our side, he will want you to assist with your magic. Do you think you can assist? If you are uncomfortable, tell me now, and you can stay here where it is safe." Feeling a nervous chill creeping down her spine, she looked back toward the temple and breathed heavily. "I admit, I am scared, but I didn't come here to babysit the camp. I want to help." She felt her father pat her on the back, feeling a sense of pride from his touch. "That's my daughter." After an hour of planning, the Palatini of Orias began their assault on the temple ruins. The plan was for a primary team to assault the temple directly, triggering a response from the goblin. The second team would remain on the high ground and pick off the horde. Fraeya ended up on the right side of the group team. To her surprise, many soldiers were thrilled that they were finally getting into a fight. She wondered, after two weeks of crawling over the mountains and hiding like rodents, they finally got a chance to be soldiers. The primary assault group she was attached to advance toward the temple once the signal was given. Passing one of the few remaining wall structures, they entered the temple ground. As they swept through the old temple's front sections, the goblins huddled around a fire pit, noticed them, and prepared for battle. Three legionaries known as circilmen, from the palatini positioned themselves to engage the incoming enemy. Carrying a ranged projectile weapon known as a circiletum, they hid behind the front shield men and fired upon the incoming enemy. They picked off two of the three goblins as the last one quickly crawled under a piece of rubble for cover. Then, the palatini heard a painful screech from the hiding goblin. Fraeya couldn't help herself but stand there noticing the two fresh corpses. She then watched as two of the swordsmen rushed to the hiding goblin. They reached in and pulled the little green monster out of its hiding spot. Two swordsmen grabbed the goblin and dragged it from its cover, it jumped on top of one of the legionaries, stabbing its blade into its armor, unable to break through. With a short struggle, the legionary could slam the goblin onto the ground. The other legionary stomped on the body before thrusting his gladius into the monster. Hearing another screech, Fraeya looked down the stone path and saw goblins popping out of every crack and corner. One of the legionary officers ordered the unit to reform. The swordsmen took the front with their large scutum shields, creating a two-line protective shield wall. Behind them were the circilmen, taking cover behind the scutum. The group of goblins charged forward. As they approached, the legionaries saw the raw, starving rage within their dark green eyes—a thirst for primal instincts of food and lust and nothing else. "Fraeya, is it?" Hearing her name, she turned to the commanding offer of this group. "When I give the order, shake the ground." The lower-ranking Centurian said. Fraeya acknowledged the order as she understood what he was planning. Turning back to the incoming horde, she watched the three circilmen open fire. The circiletums cut down the forward group of goblins. The ones behind that row suddenly stopped from the shock but were cut down by a second volley. "Now. Before they scatter." Fraeya placed her hands together and chanted. The two tiny mana crystals on her gloves blew green as she felt a raw energy channel through her body. A moment later, that glow expanded to the point that it encompassed her hand. Channeling the mana needed for the spell, Fraeya placed her left hand on the ground. The stone ground beneath them shook the stone terra, stunning the goblins. Right down the center, cracks formed, and the terra broke apart. The road slightly uplifted into an elevation, forcing the goblins to focus on what was happening. With the ground disinformed, it prevented the enemy from scattering in an organized manner, allowing the circilmen to fire another volley. The front scutum marched forward and started cutting down anything that moved. The other line split into two groups. They were marching down the street in an almost synchronized manner. They held their shields high toward the ruins, protecting the circilmen from any incoming projectile. Arrows and magic. Fireballs flew and impacted the scutum infantry, protecting the flanks. Some of the shields glowed from the impact. The flames engulfed one of the men's arms, and he started to scream from the pain. The circilmen returned fire, and a firefight began. The sound of their weapons crackled throughout the surrounding area, amplified by the ruined walls. Above the sound of battle were the voices and cries of the wounded—the circiletum that were deployed on the ridge above rained fire from the suppressive team. The Palatini of Orias pushed deeper into the temple ground as the battle continued. That was until the town began to be consumed by this thick haze, providing cover for the goblins, and restricting visibility for the Lat forces. While not educated to the standards of civilized races, Goblins were not stupid. "It is a haze," Fraeya said. "They must have a mage somewhere within the nest." Centurion Fionntan Henness approached their forces and began to regroup. "Can you counter it?" "No," Fraeya replied. "I never studied Aeromancy magic." "Nebulo," Henness said. "Our armor and weapons will be less effective." Fraeya understood his concern. From what she recalled from her classes; goblins have sharp senses. Based on the density of the haze, it was clear even to her that they were planning to force them to huddle and expose themselves to be surrounded, making their ranged weapons worthless. "We will just have to work around it," Raegel said. As Frayea prepared herself, she felt a strange feeling throughout her body, almost like some field affecting her body. She saw a female legionary in light armor and a cloak checking over the wounded. One of the few women in the legionary, she could tell she was the unit healer specializing in Sanamancy magic. The women must have placed a barrier to help protect against any poisonous gasses lying within the haze. Orias advanced through the haze; this forced the soldiers to clump together for safety. As the assault group progressed, they were hit non-stop by the goblin's arrow fire, spears, and fire shots from sling guns. Most of these projectiles caused minor damage thanks to the heavy armor legionary’s wear. However, this did not remove the damage as it brought discomfort and limited their progression to a crawl. Barely noticing two figures on top of a rooftop through the haze, who were firing slingshots toward their position, she pointed her hand toward a piece of rubble and, with her magic, lifted the debris and projected it through the haze. The rubble temporarily formed a gap in the haze that increased the line-of-sight. She then called out to the fire battle mage within the unit. The mage realized what was happening and fired multiple firebolts toward the tower. Five bolts impacted the building from different directions, engulfing the structure in flames. Everyone could hear the faint sound of goblins screaming as the building burnt. With the tower collapsing suddenly, arrows rained through the thick haze, hitting the legionaries in retaliation. While most arrows bounced off the armor, some found exposed spots. Two more legionaries fell to their knees, with one vomiting blood, forcing the healed to focus on the sick over protecting the group. It became clear that the goblins changed their tactics and poisoned their arrows. While worthless against armor, they could still puncture the underneath clothing and scrap any exposed part of the skin. A luperca legionnaire picked up an old broken wagon and used it as a shield to protect. With the cover, the lower ranking commanders directed the circilmen to pick off any goblins that peaked above the surface. Combined with the haze and change of tactic, this formed a strange stalemate between the two sides. The Orias was forced into a defensive; they were well equipped to deal with any goblins who dared to get within melee range. However, the goblins had surrounded and had the range advance as they could see through the haze, allowing them to snipe any legionary who adventured far from the group. Fraeya saw a blob of acid impact a swordsmen's scutum. The scutum started being consumed by the spell, slowly falling into pieces. The man screamed as he felt his arm burn, desperately untieing the strappings to ditch the heavy shield. "We need to kill their shaman before we are picked off," Raegel said. "I agreed," Henness replied. "As long as this haze is here, my suppressive team is useless." "If I recall," Fraeya said. "A Shaman should be nearby. Someone close enough to maintain this haze and give commands but not put themselves in danger." "Then I know where it should be," Henness said. "Let's go half-elf." She felt her ears perk up once she realized the centurion was talking about her. She looked toward her father and saw the 'it is time to prove yourself' look. Taking a deep breath and preparing herself, she gathered behind Henness and six of his men. The assault unit left the main one and adventurer deeper into the temple grounds. As they reached what remained of an intersection, goblins stormed out of the stone buildings to ambush the legionaries. With their disciplined reaction, the legionaries immediately adjusted their formation and sliced down the attackers. Henness stood at the center, holding his sword out as flames wrapped around the blade. As the goblins attacked the swordsmen, Fraeya broke apart the ground on the right flank, knocking many goblins. The one that fell, she entangled them by summoning vines - which trapped the goblins and pulled them into the ground until their death or burial. She then turned and lifted parts of the ground on the left flank, blocking some of the goblins. This prevented the legionaries from being encircled. "Reform," Henness ordered. "We need to advance quickly. Stay close." Once the path was clear, the unit moved toward the building where the goblins had fortified. Henness moved in front of her to provide protection. He held up his shield, deflecting arrows. "Stay behind me," Henness said. While not being a military woman, Fraeya quickly learned to accept the chain of command on this quest. On the battlefield, her father told her to listen to Henness as he was a man of war. She realized that the structure and safety of the city and the academy are vastly different in the countryside. Getting behind him, she followed him close behind as he pushed forward, arrows striking his shield, allowing her to get in range for her spell. The legionaries stopped engaging the incoming goblins, allowing their centurion and the young mage to get closer. Henness reached around his scutum and pressed the amulet attached to the outer shell's center. Once pressed, the large shield briefly glowed before darkening, returning to the standard red with white lining design. Up ahead, Fraeya saw in full display of the nest. Spikes, fortification, and green webbing filled the gaps between the ruined structures. Skeletons and decomposing bodies littered the areas of their past victims. The goblins were standing in the bunker sections, preparing for battle. With how heavily guarded it was, she concluded that this must be where the Shaman was. "Fraeya, now!" Fraeya moved around the man to cast her spell. With a quick chant, her hands glowed green again. As she channeled her mana, an acid attack impacted Henness' scutum. While the added hardening enchantment from the amulet increased the scutum resistance, the acid slowly ate through the large shield. Stepping from cover, Fraeya aimed her hands at the nest. The ground trembled a little as the front of the nest collapsed on itself from the summoned sinkhole. With the front entrance open, Fraeya saw the Shaman in plain view—a female, being one of the few within a goblin nest. The Shama looked scared as she looked around where to hide. Fraeya did not give it time as she cast a spell that created a spike from the ground below the Shaman and pierced straight through the vicious monster, killing it instantly. As the Shaman staff hit the ground, the haze started to disappear. Believing that her work was complete after killing the goblin leader, her ears quickly heard footsteps surrounding them. Noticing that the goblins were about to swarm their position, she took cover behind Henness to protect his rear. She took a deep breath as she felt exhausted from the battle and cast so many spells quickly. Starting at five goblins that emerged from the ruins, Fraeya watched as they charged toward them. Before they got close, however, each one was sniped from the ridge-side suppressive team. With a moment of confusion, she stared toward the cliffside and saw the suppressive team. Now that the haze is disappearing, they could snipe off the remaining goblins from their elevation position. "Good job, half-elf," Henness said, slowly stepping back with a shield aimed at the flames, guiding Fraeya back. "Stop calling me half-elf," Fraeya yelled. "I am out here risking my life with the rest of you, and don't give me that war is a male-domain thing! I am willing to see this through. Most of my kind would stay home and let you fight, so why do you keep degrading me?" "Because ideals get people killed," Fionntan Henness replied. "Out here, you must earn that respect within the brotherhood of warriors, especially if you are used to living inside the city walls. People with a self-protected mindset usually end up as food for the worms or get my soldiers killed because they do not understand what it takes to survive." The centurion then turned to the destroyed nest. "I will say, though, what you did here. It is a good first step for a half-elf." He then turned to give her an approving smile. Not understanding the humor from the Lat, Fraeya accepted it. From her experience, Lats always had a strange sense of humor. Insults are sometimes seen as compliments while praising could be considered offensive. Saying one thing but meaning another is a common trait for them. With the remaining palatini coming after clearing the remaining goblins, Fraeya saw her father. She rushed over and hugged him and teared up. "You did good, my dear," Raegel said as he patted her. "Is this really what it is like out here?" Fraeya asked. "Sadly, it is," Fraeya replied. "That is why I never brought you around on my digs." "I am sorry to interrupt," Henness said. "We are on borrowed time, so can we get at it?" Fraeya looked toward the centurion with frustration as she wanted a moment with her father. After taking a deep breath, she realized that he was right. After finishing her hug, she brushed off the goblin's blood and clothing. "Then we better begin searching for what we came for," Raegel said as he reached for his bag. She watched as he pulled out a perfectly smoothed, pure black orb. By itself, it didn't look impressive. She had seen hundreds of these orbs at the academy or the many workshops within the city. Raegel held the orb in one hand and activated it with his mana. The orb glowed light blue and fainted, barely emitting any energy. He then took it against the mountain and began scanning. Not wanting to miss anything, Fraeya quickly pulled out her journal, skipping past all her notes until she reached a blank page. She then began documenting everything her father did, taking in every world and detail. The palatini began walking through the ruins, heading toward the mountain wall. Raegel explained in his research that the temple extended inside the mountain, like a dwarf borrian. While others who came before him came up with this theory, they were still looking for a way to detect the hidden door markings and find it. Raegel moved down the side of the mountain, holding the orb high. "Why are you not using a door-detecting amulet?" Fraeya asked. "Because people have been using that for generations and found nothing here," Raegel replied. After a reasonable amount of time when nothing had happened, Fraeya began to wonder if everything was for nothing. Seeing the lack of progress, Henness inquired if the orb failed to work. As Raegel replied, the orb suddenly blimped orange for a moment. Witnessing the sudden change, the group backed away as they did not know how to respond to the sudden glow. Noticing a renewed excitement from her father, she followed him closely as they investigated the mountainside. As they searched, her father noticed that the faint blue glow from the orb had changed to orange. It then disappeared and slowly appeared, like it was slowly pulsing. When they continued walking forward, the pulsing light increased in speed. "I think it is directing us, father," Fraeya said. "Possible," Raegel said. "There must be some type of link." The palatini followed the direction the orb gave. As the group approached a mountainside wall, the pulse frequency increased until it looked like the orb glowed a solid color. "I think we found it," Raegel said. He lifted the orb toward the wall. As the orb drew closer to the mountainside, these blue lines appeared all over the rocky wall. The rough chips of rock melted away and turned smooth as the light traveled through the grooves, slowly creating what looked like a giant door of light. Once the bright lights finished designing a massive door, Fraeya placed her hand on the wall, shocked at how the natural bulky rocks turned into a marble-like wall. "I would step aside, Fraeya," Raegel said. As Fraeya stepped backward, she watched her father open the door with a magical spell. Like most magical doors, the door brightened as she expected it would fold into the mountain. To her surprise, the door didn't fold away but melted into the ground. "What happened to the door?" Fraeya asked. Raegal placed his hand on his chin. "It seemed that the wall was not solid but some liquid matter. These people are impressive." The wall began to shake as dusk from the cracks spread through the area. A large opening formed as the door walls folded into the mountainside. A passage leading deeper into the mountain. The walls were black and smooth, while the floor had these textiles in perfect order, leading deeper into the mountain. "This has to be a dwarven design," Fraeya commented. "Only they could do something like this." "I'm not sure," Raegel said. "This is not a design I have seen from dwarves." Fraeya understood what her father meant. Dwarven doors into the mountains took a lot of work to find. While there were many designs of such hidden doors and the means to open them, it was doubtful that anyone had ever seen a secret magical door like this before. Raegel started to walk into the chamber but was suddenly stopped by Henness. Stating that he wanted his men to go first to ensure no trap, three legionaries moved through the large chamber. Once they gave the clear, the rest of the group entered. While walking, Fraeya stayed close to her father as she took notes. The soldiers ahead of them set up torches to add more light. To her surprise, the walls and floor were smooth. The air was stale, probably trapped within this chamber for centuries. As they walked inside, the room lit up. Everyone stopped as they looked toward the end of the hall. The chamber was empty, with only a strange-looking platform at the very end. Noticing that the orb was pointing toward the platform, they approached it. "Is this it?" Henness asked. "It does not look that impressive." "Not everything is based on size, centurion," Raegel replied, to which his daughter giggled. Fraeya then analyzed the platform. It was smooth, almost marble-like. However, she doubted whether it was marble. The fundamental details that she noticed were a strange-looking blue crystal at the center of the platform and another in a hole on the side. "This is interesting," Fraeya commented. The design looked surprisingly simple. This orb must act as some command orb for this device. They must be communicating in some manner." "Assuming that the legend was true, the orcs were the ones who summoned the lats from Altaerrie," Fraeya said. "Maybe, when this place was lost of that time, it was never turned off. Being left in a state of slumber, waiting to be reawakened." "Possible. It would explain why the orb directed us here. The orange pulse is now pointing down at a rapid pace." "I think it goes into that hole, father," Fraeya said. "From what I can tell, the crystal in there connects to the one on top of the platform." "I see," Raegel said. "The pulse is pointing toward it too. I recommend that everyone step back." "Be careful, father," Fraeya said. Stepping back from the platform, Fraeya watched as her father placed the orb into the hole. This was the moment her father had been talking about for decades, and it had finally come true. The Bridge between two worlds had finally been discovered. As Raegel placed the orb into the platform, it glowed orange in a solid state, no longer pulsing. The blue crystal in the middle of the platform slowly lit up, like it was waking up after a long sleep. The air suddenly chilled as the air flowed toward the platform. A bright light beamed out of the crystal and slowly faded away, leaving a light as if on standby. To their dismay, the orb changed to red, dimming and brightening in a slow, tired pattern. "What is it doing, father?" Fraeya asked. "I have no idea," Raegel replied. "It must be waiting for something."
2024.05.21 23:20 xMysticChimezThe Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future by Mark Bauerlein
🌿 Detailed Overview: Critically examines the impact of digital media on the intellectual development of young Americans. Bauerlein argues that the pervasive use of digital technology has led to a decline in literacy, critical thinking, and knowledge among young people, ultimately threatening the future of society. 🔍 Key Themes and Insights: Decline in Reading and Literacy: Bauerlein highlights the decline in traditional reading habits among young people, noting that the shift towards digital media consumption has resulted in lower levels of literacy and comprehension. He argues that reading books and engaging with long-form texts are crucial for developing critical thinking skills. Impact of Digital Distractions: Discusses how constant engagement with digital devices, social media, and online entertainment has created a culture of distraction. Bauerlein asserts that this constant stimulation inhibits deep thinking and meaningful learning, leading to a superficial understanding of complex issues. Erosion of Knowledge: Presents evidence showing that young Americans have less knowledge about history, literature, and general facts than previous generations. He attributes this to the preference for quick, easily digestible information over in-depth study and reflection. Education and Technology: Critiques the integration of technology in education, arguing that it often fails to enhance learning and may even detract from it. Bauerlein suggests that the reliance on digital tools can undermine traditional educational methods that promote critical thinking and intellectual growth. Cultural and Social Implications: Explores the broader cultural and social implications of a generation growing up with digital technology. He discusses the potential long-term effects on democracy, civic engagement, and cultural literacy, emphasizing the importance of an informed and thoughtful citizenry. Generational Divide: Examines the growing generational divide, where older generations perceive younger ones as less knowledgeable and less prepared for the challenges of the future. Bauerlein argues that this divide is exacerbated by differences in media consumption and intellectual habits. Solutions and Recommendations: While critical of the current trends, Bauerlein also offers recommendations for reversing the decline. He advocates for a renewed emphasis on reading, face-to-face communication, and educational practices that foster deep thinking and intellectual engagement. Audience Takeaway: "The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future" serves as a cautionary tale about the impact of digital technology on youth. Mark Bauerlein’s insights challenge readers to consider the long-term consequences of our media habits and the importance of fostering a culture of learning and critical thinking. This book is essential for educators, parents, and anyone concerned about the future of education and intellectual development. 💌 Your Experiences and Reflections: Have you observed the effects of digital media on the intellectual habits of young people in your own life or community? How has "The Dumbest Generation" influenced your views on the role of technology in education and society? Share your reflections on the significance of promoting literacy, critical thinking, and meaningful learning in the digital age. Let’s discuss the insights and actions needed to address the challenges posed by digital distractions and to cultivate a generation of thoughtful, informed individuals.
2024.05.21 23:17 Beneficial_Stay455831 [M] NJ/NY/PA Northeast USA - Looking for a real connection that grows into something great.
I'm 31 years old, live in NJ. 5'9", 165 lbs (fit/athletic build) 3rd generation Chinese American (my family immigrated here in the 1900s). My family identifies as American as we tend to eat more pasta than rice and my generation has not learned the language. College educated with a Bachelor's in Biomedical Science (switched from an Engineering major...turns out I don't like theoretical math); currently working in the pharmaceutical industry and pretty much love the industry as there isn't any work drama and it's relatively straightforward yet challenging. I've tried a few long distance relationships and they're quite difficult to manage...they were great when we able to meet in person and I didn't mind putting in the extra work. I'd be willing to try one if the distance is reasonable and the there is a definite spark between us. I am pretty sure I fit the definition of a demisexual, so I'll be strictly trying to form a connection first. I REALLY need the emotional connection before there is a sexual attraction, mentally I can't do hook ups (they're just really hard for me to handle and I have turned people down). Personality wise I've been told that I tend to bring people together and keep things fun. I have a few different groups of friends and communities I am often with...and they can vary from the youngsters (21 to 30) to the old guys (60+) to the group that's around my age. I would say I'm pretty good at conversing and I try to stay on top of most current events. Mentally I'm an old man and feel more comfortable in that setting, so much that I literally hang out with 60+ years olds at the gym after a workout in the hot tub. I call them the hot tub gang and it's always a set of regulars where we might talk about the same thing every single day until someone newer to the group says that we talked about it yesterday. I would say fitness is a major player in my life. I started out hating swimming as a kid, but here I am almost 27 years later...I made it through the lessons at the YMCA, joined a club team, swam in high school, swam in college and now I'm a swim coach and instructor as a hobby/side job in my free time. There's something about being a part of coaching people and watching them grow up and succeed that makes me smile. My free time in the cold months usually consists of planning DIY projects or working on them. I tend to work on all the cars in the family and am the one that fixes them up or finds replacements for them. Or planning my next road trip to somewhere nicer. Whereas in the warm months I love going down to the beach to go for a swim and have a nice relaxing breakfast outdoors. I do have a few kayaks that I'll bring out to go with friends or if I feel it's safe a nice solo paddle to clear my mind. When I think about it, too many of my hobbies involve water. But I do enjoy things on dry land I promise! I'm really looking for someone I can grow together with, a long term or forever relationship. I want a relationship where both of us put 100% in all the time and if we don't, we can talk to each other about our concerns and work it out. Honestly what I've realized is that maybe I am altruistic...I miss making someone feel happy and loved, miss the good morning texts, the waiting around all day just to see their texts, I miss spoiling someone and the feeling of that feeling of seeing that look that you get when someone truly loves you. I would love to slowly get to know you by having some conversations where the time just flies, then to a point where we talk nonstop, maybe some in person dates and then maybe eventually settle down together and enjoy life together. Important stuff: Although I enjoy interacting with kids and it's a major part of my life...I don't want any of my own so...sorry if this is a dealbreaker for anyone. I don't drink (except for maybe wine at special occasions....I get really bad Asian Flush so I'll turn bright red if I smell alcohol essentially lol), not into smoking/drugs (Bad asthma and I'm just not into any of that stuff). I don't judge anyone that's into drinking or recreational drugs, it's just not for me personally. Religion wise, I'm Agnostic. Politically I lean relatively to the left. I'm really searching for that genuine connection; voice calls are definitely a plus and would love to get to know you. It's alright if we end up just as friends that talk here and there. If it sounds like you could be the one send me a chat or DM and tell me a bit about yourself. My name is Kevin and I'd love to know about you.
2024.05.21 23:17 Beneficial_Stay455831 [M4F] NJ/NY/PA Northeast USA - Looking for something genuine with great conversation. Long term ideally.
I'm 31 years old, live in NJ. 5'9", 165 lbs (fit/athletic build) 3rd generation Chinese American (my family immigrated here in the 1900s). My family identifies as American as we tend to eat more pasta than rice and my generation has not learned the language. College educated with a Bachelor's in Biomedical Science (switched from an Engineering major...turns out I don't like theoretical math); currently working in the pharmaceutical industry and pretty much love the industry as there isn't any work drama and it's relatively straightforward yet challenging. I've tried a few long distance relationships and they're quite difficult to manage...they were great when we able to meet in person and I didn't mind putting in the extra work. I'd be willing to try one if the distance is reasonable and the there is a definite spark between us. I am pretty sure I fit the definition of a demisexual, so I'll be strictly trying to form a connection first. I REALLY need the emotional connection before there is a sexual attraction, mentally I can't do hook ups (they're just really hard for me to handle and I have turned people down). Personality wise I've been told that I tend to bring people together and keep things fun. I have a few different groups of friends and communities I am often with...and they can vary from the youngsters (21 to 30) to the old guys (60+) to the group that's around my age. I would say I'm pretty good at conversing and I try to stay on top of most current events. Mentally I'm an old man and feel more comfortable in that setting, so much that I literally hang out with 60+ years olds at the gym after a workout in the hot tub. I call them the hot tub gang and it's always a set of regulars where we might talk about the same thing every single day until someone newer to the group says that we talked about it yesterday. I would say fitness is a major player in my life. I started out hating swimming as a kid, but here I am almost 27 years later...I made it through the lessons at the YMCA, joined a club team, swam in high school, swam in college and now I'm a swim coach and instructor as a hobby/side job in my free time. There's something about being a part of coaching people and watching them grow up and succeed that makes me smile. My free time in the cold months usually consists of planning DIY projects or working on them. I tend to work on all the cars in the family and am the one that fixes them up or finds replacements for them. Or planning my next road trip to somewhere nicer. Whereas in the warm months I love going down to the beach to go for a swim and have a nice relaxing breakfast outdoors. I do have a few kayaks that I'll bring out to go with friends or if I feel it's safe a nice solo paddle to clear my mind. When I think about it, too many of my hobbies involve water. But I do enjoy things on dry land I promise! I'm really looking for someone I can grow together with, a long term or forever relationship. I want a relationship where both of us put 100% in all the time and if we don't, we can talk to each other about our concerns and work it out. Honestly what I've realized is that maybe I am altruistic...I miss making someone feel happy and loved, miss the good morning texts, the waiting around all day just to see their texts, I miss spoiling someone and the feeling of that feeling of seeing that look that you get when someone truly loves you. I would love to slowly get to know you by having some conversations where the time just flies, then to a point where we talk nonstop, maybe some in person dates and then maybe eventually settle down together and enjoy life together. Important stuff: I don't drink (except for maybe wine at special occasions....I get really bad Asian Flush so I'll turn bright red if I smell alcohol essentially lol), not into smoking/drugs (Bad asthma and I'm just not into any of that stuff). I don't judge anyone that's into drinking or recreational drugs, it's just not for me personally. Religion wise, I'm Agnostic. Politically I lean relatively to the left. I'm really searching for that genuine connection; voice calls are definitely a plus and would love to get to know you. It's alright if we end up just as friends that talk here and there. If it sounds like you could be the one send me a chat or DM and tell me a bit about yourself. My name is Kevin and I'd love to know about you.
2024.05.21 23:17 Beneficial_Stay455831 [M4F] NJ/NY/PA Northeast USA - Looking for something genuine with great conversation. Long term ideally.
I'm 31 years old, live in NJ. 5'9", 165 lbs (fit/athletic build) 3rd generation Chinese American (my family immigrated here in the 1900s). My family identifies as American as we tend to eat more pasta than rice and my generation has not learned the language. College educated with a Bachelor's in Biomedical Science (switched from an Engineering major...turns out I don't like theoretical math); currently working in the pharmaceutical industry and pretty much love the industry as there isn't any work drama and it's relatively straightforward yet challenging. I've tried a few long distance relationships and they're quite difficult to manage...they were great when we able to meet in person and I didn't mind putting in the extra work. I'd be willing to try one if the distance is reasonable and the there is a definite spark between us. I am pretty sure I fit the definition of a demisexual, so I'll be strictly trying to form a connection first. I REALLY need the emotional connection before there is a sexual attraction, mentally I can't do hook ups (they're just really hard for me to handle and I have turned people down). Personality wise I've been told that I tend to bring people together and keep things fun. I have a few different groups of friends and communities I am often with...and they can vary from the youngsters (21 to 30) to the old guys (60+) to the group that's around my age. I would say I'm pretty good at conversing and I try to stay on top of most current events. Mentally I'm an old man and feel more comfortable in that setting, so much that I literally hang out with 60+ years olds at the gym after a workout in the hot tub. I call them the hot tub gang and it's always a set of regulars where we might talk about the same thing every single day until someone newer to the group says that we talked about it yesterday. I would say fitness is a major player in my life. I started out hating swimming as a kid, but here I am almost 27 years later...I made it through the lessons at the YMCA, joined a club team, swam in high school, swam in college and now I'm a swim coach and instructor as a hobby/side job in my free time. There's something about being a part of coaching people and watching them grow up and succeed that makes me smile. My free time in the cold months usually consists of planning DIY projects or working on them. I tend to work on all the cars in the family and am the one that fixes them up or finds replacements for them. Or planning my next road trip to somewhere nicer. Whereas in the warm months I love going down to the beach to go for a swim and have a nice relaxing breakfast outdoors. I do have a few kayaks that I'll bring out to go with friends or if I feel it's safe a nice solo paddle to clear my mind. When I think about it, too many of my hobbies involve water. But I do enjoy things on dry land I promise! I'm really looking for someone I can grow together with, a long term or forever relationship. I want a relationship where both of us put 100% in all the time and if we don't, we can talk to each other about our concerns and work it out. Honestly what I've realized is that maybe I am altruistic...I miss making someone feel happy and loved, miss the good morning texts, the waiting around all day just to see their texts, I miss spoiling someone and the feeling of that feeling of seeing that look that you get when someone truly loves you. I would love to slowly get to know you by having some conversations where the time just flies, then to a point where we talk nonstop, maybe some in person dates and then maybe eventually settle down together and enjoy life together. Important stuff: Although I enjoy interacting with kids and it's a major part of my life...I don't want any of my own so...sorry if this is a dealbreaker for anyone. I don't drink (except for maybe wine at special occasions....I get really bad Asian Flush so I'll turn bright red if I smell alcohol essentially lol), not into smoking/drugs (Bad asthma and I'm just not into any of that stuff). I don't judge anyone that's into drinking or recreational drugs, it's just not for me personally. Religion wise, I'm Agnostic. Politically I lean relatively to the left. I'm really searching for that genuine connection; voice calls are definitely a plus and would love to get to know you. It's alright if we end up just as friends that talk here and there. If it sounds like you could be the one send me a chat or DM and tell me a bit about yourself. My name is Kevin and I'd love to know about you.
2024.05.21 23:17 Beneficial_Stay455831 [M4F] NJ/NY/PA Northeast USA - Looking for something genuine with great conversation. Long term ideally.
I'm 31 years old, live in NJ. 5'9", 165 lbs (fit/athletic build) 3rd generation Chinese American (my family immigrated here in the 1900s). My family identifies as American as we tend to eat more pasta than rice and my generation has not learned the language. College educated with a Bachelor's in Biomedical Science (switched from an Engineering major...turns out I don't like theoretical math); currently working in the pharmaceutical industry and pretty much love the industry as there isn't any work drama and it's relatively straightforward yet challenging. I've tried a few long distance relationships and they're quite difficult to manage...they were great when we able to meet in person and I didn't mind putting in the extra work. I'd be willing to try one if the distance is reasonable and the there is a definite spark between us. I am pretty sure I fit the definition of a demisexual, so I'll be strictly trying to form a connection first. I REALLY need the emotional connection before there is a sexual attraction, mentally I can't do hook ups (they're just really hard for me to handle and I have turned people down). Personality wise I've been told that I tend to bring people together and keep things fun. I have a few different groups of friends and communities I am often with...and they can vary from the youngsters (21 to 30) to the old guys (60+) to the group that's around my age. I would say I'm pretty good at conversing and I try to stay on top of most current events. Mentally I'm an old man and feel more comfortable in that setting, so much that I literally hang out with 60+ years olds at the gym after a workout in the hot tub. I call them the hot tub gang and it's always a set of regulars where we might talk about the same thing every single day until someone newer to the group says that we talked about it yesterday. I would say fitness is a major player in my life. I started out hating swimming as a kid, but here I am almost 27 years later...I made it through the lessons at the YMCA, joined a club team, swam in high school, swam in college and now I'm a swim coach and instructor as a hobby/side job in my free time. There's something about being a part of coaching people and watching them grow up and succeed that makes me smile. My free time in the cold months usually consists of planning DIY projects or working on them. I tend to work on all the cars in the family and am the one that fixes them up or finds replacements for them. Or planning my next road trip to somewhere nicer. Whereas in the warm months I love going down to the beach to go for a swim and have a nice relaxing breakfast outdoors. I do have a few kayaks that I'll bring out to go with friends or if I feel it's safe a nice solo paddle to clear my mind. When I think about it, too many of my hobbies involve water. But I do enjoy things on dry land I promise! I'm really looking for someone I can grow together with, a long term or forever relationship. I want a relationship where both of us put 100% in all the time and if we don't, we can talk to each other about our concerns and work it out. Honestly what I've realized is that maybe I am altruistic...I miss making someone feel happy and loved, miss the good morning texts, the waiting around all day just to see their texts, I miss spoiling someone and the feeling of that feeling of seeing that look that you get when someone truly loves you. I would love to slowly get to know you by having some conversations where the time just flies, then to a point where we talk nonstop, maybe some in person dates and then maybe eventually settle down together and enjoy life together. Important stuff: Although I enjoy interacting with kids and it's a major part of my life...I don't want any of my own so...sorry if this is a dealbreaker for anyone. I don't drink (except for maybe wine at special occasions....I get really bad Asian Flush so I'll turn bright red if I smell alcohol essentially lol), not into smoking/drugs (Bad asthma and I'm just not into any of that stuff). I don't judge anyone that's into drinking or recreational drugs, it's just not for me personally. Religion wise, I'm Agnostic. Politically I lean relatively to the left. I'm really searching for that genuine connection; voice calls are definitely a plus and would love to get to know you. It's alright if we end up just as friends that talk here and there. If it sounds like you could be the one send me a chat or DM and tell me a bit about yourself. My name is Kevin and I'd love to know about you.
2024.05.21 23:17 Beneficial_Stay455831 [M4F] NJ/NY/PA Northeast USA - Looking for something genuine with great conversation. Long term ideally.
I'm 31 years old, live in NJ. 5'9", 165 lbs (fit/athletic build) 3rd generation Chinese American (my family immigrated here in the 1900s). My family identifies as American as we tend to eat more pasta than rice and my generation has not learned the language. College educated with a Bachelor's in Biomedical Science (switched from an Engineering major...turns out I don't like theoretical math); currently working in the pharmaceutical industry and pretty much love the industry as there isn't any work drama and it's relatively straightforward yet challenging. I've tried a few long distance relationships and they're quite difficult to manage...they were great when we able to meet in person and I didn't mind putting in the extra work. I'd be willing to try one if the distance is reasonable and the there is a definite spark between us. I am pretty sure I fit the definition of a demisexual, so I'll be strictly trying to form a connection first. I REALLY need the emotional connection before there is a sexual attraction, mentally I can't do hook ups (they're just really hard for me to handle and I have turned people down). Personality wise I've been told that I tend to bring people together and keep things fun. I have a few different groups of friends and communities I am often with...and they can vary from the youngsters (21 to 30) to the old guys (60+) to the group that's around my age. I would say I'm pretty good at conversing and I try to stay on top of most current events. Mentally I'm an old man and feel more comfortable in that setting, so much that I literally hang out with 60+ years olds at the gym after a workout in the hot tub. I call them the hot tub gang and it's always a set of regulars where we might talk about the same thing every single day until someone newer to the group says that we talked about it yesterday. I would say fitness is a major player in my life. I started out hating swimming as a kid, but here I am almost 27 years later...I made it through the lessons at the YMCA, joined a club team, swam in high school, swam in college and now I'm a swim coach and instructor as a hobby/side job in my free time. There's something about being a part of coaching people and watching them grow up and succeed that makes me smile. My free time in the cold months usually consists of planning DIY projects or working on them. I tend to work on all the cars in the family and am the one that fixes them up or finds replacements for them. Or planning my next road trip to somewhere nicer. Whereas in the warm months I love going down to the beach to go for a swim and have a nice relaxing breakfast outdoors. I do have a few kayaks that I'll bring out to go with friends or if I feel it's safe a nice solo paddle to clear my mind. When I think about it, too many of my hobbies involve water. But I do enjoy things on dry land I promise! I'm really looking for someone I can grow together with, a long term or forever relationship. I want a relationship where both of us put 100% in all the time and if we don't, we can talk to each other about our concerns and work it out. Honestly what I've realized is that maybe I am altruistic...I miss making someone feel happy and loved, miss the good morning texts, the waiting around all day just to see their texts, I miss spoiling someone and the feeling of that feeling of seeing that look that you get when someone truly loves you. I would love to slowly get to know you by having some conversations where the time just flies, then to a point where we talk nonstop, maybe some in person dates and then maybe eventually settle down together and enjoy life together. Important stuff: Although I enjoy interacting with kids and it's a major part of my life...I don't want any of my own so...sorry if this is a dealbreaker for anyone. I don't drink (except for maybe wine at special occasions....I get really bad Asian Flush so I'll turn bright red if I smell alcohol essentially lol), not into smoking/drugs (Bad asthma and I'm just not into any of that stuff). I don't judge anyone that's into drinking or recreational drugs, it's just not for me personally. Religion wise, I'm Agnostic. Politically I lean relatively to the left. I'm really searching for that genuine connection; voice calls are definitely a plus and would love to get to know you. It's alright if we end up just as friends that talk here and there. If it sounds like you could be the one send me a chat or DM and tell me a bit about yourself. My name is Kevin and I'd love to know about you.
Olá! It's me! I'm Rickle Pick! Hello everyone! So, I’ve been listening to some stories about Neckbeards and Kevins, as well as some Legbeards and Kevinas (Is that the correct term??). Well, most of the times I listen to those stories, I am reminded of some people I used to deal with in school. Specifically, this time, the tale of a guy, who I’ll name Roger Bacon for reasons soon to be explained. Sorry for any grammar errors, eu falo português! I also don't really know the posting rules here, so I'll just post it and see how it goes lol This prologue is more of a compilation of stories that I think is needed before we get to the main shenanigans and awkward situations this guy put himself AND me into. If this generates any interest, I will post more specific tales of this weirdo! Long time lurker, first time poster, english is definitely not my first language and the whole shebang. I also never wrote a text this large, so go easy on me! THE LIST: Well, I guess it’s usual to make a list of people that appear in those stories, so I’ll make one just for you! Me: Your basic musician-type nerdy theater kid white guy! Tall, thin with medium-light brown hair. At the time, I usually wore a leather jacket and sometimes a hat (not a fedora, a Chaplin hat. Also, where I live, hats are an acceptable attire choice lol). I kinda looked like the Once-ler from Lorax. At this time, I had just failed my second year of high school because of… honestly just lack of effort, mixed with undiagnosed ADHD and a bit of lacking in the ol’ confidence and self-respect department. At the time, I also was physically incapable of saying no and had a crippling fear of disappointing people. Roger Bacon: 168 centimeters (or 5,5ft for the uncivilized) of pure muscle! Or at least he thought it was that way. In reality, he did have some muscles but was kinda chubby and flaccid. Not FAT fat, but athletic fat (???). He was mixed, light skinned, had shaved short curly hair, no beard (except for the inside beard) and his face was a special kind of oval, besides having a, "chiseled jaw". He always smelled like he had just gotten out of a day-long brawl with a french cologne wearing burrito. He wasn't an usual neckbeard, but he was a huge attention whore. Thought too much of himself, as we say here in Brazil: “Promised too much, delivered nothing at all.” His moto was: “Dude, I think she’s into me!” For now, these are the characters, as the focus is to introduce you all to Roger Bacon as a person. With the list over, let us get to the story. FEBUARY 2018: The year of 2018 started pretty badly for me. I had just been held back from 10th grade, had no friends and didn’t really know anyone. As most people know, high school in Brazil is quite different from America, as we start school in febuary and we share the same class with the same people all day, excluding language classes and extra-curriculum activities. This meant that, for the foreseeable future, I was alone. On the first day of school, I shyly sat on the last desk on the far right corner of the room, as I scanned my classroom to see what I was dealing with. A few groups of people sitting together, talking and greeting their friends, some loners reading or playing on their phones. The artsy girl drawing a beauriful woman on the white board. Some guy drawing a penis right beside her. Perfect balance. A normal classroom. Another difference between our school systems is that we don’t really have clicks based on like Jocks or Nerds or Pretty Girls, it’s mostly people who connected in childhood or matched personalities, instead of connecting through roles and interests within the school. Not saying either one is better, just different. And yeah, the bullying situation is just as bad. I was bullied for my whole middle school and through first year of high school, and made a very specific group of low profile friends. So when I failed sophomore year I thought to myself “Screw it, if I’m going to be held back, that’s at least a second chance for me to grow an acceptable social life.” All this elucidates how intimidating it could be for someone to join a new classroom full of mostly new faces. If you were unable to make a friend, you’d pretty much be on your own for the whole year unless an already formed group “adopted” you. So my mindset was to at least try and meet new people. Well, have you ever said “I’m gonna do this thing I’ve never done before!” And got the worst possible circunstance you could get at the very first attempt? Welp, that’s just what happened. My strategy was to start small, and go talk to only one person at first, and then try to interact with a few of the groups as that was a bit intimidating (fun fact: we call “clicks “panelinhas”, spelled “pah-neh-lin-ias”, wich means “little pans”, because, you know, they’re closed groups, like a closed… pan. Idk, anyway), so I went up to this guy in front of me, and that guy was Roger Bacon. He was almost lying on his chair, on a cool guy pose while messing around on his phone. He was also wearing a black sports tank top with a grey opened sweatshirt and the standard uniform wine-red shorts that were mandatory in our school, which made him look like a short and jelly version of Rocky balboa mixed with Kick Buttowski. In real life, my name and his started with sequential letters, and because of this, we would sit near each other for the whole year, so I guessed he’d be the best person to interact with. I also KINDA knew him because we had basketball training after class in like 2015 and I went to the same church as him, in which I befriended his brother, Kevin, slightly, but didn’t have much contact with him because he had already graduated (I have some stories about basketball and church so tell me if yall wanna read them lol). I approached and gestured for him to take of his headphones (They were extremely loud, so I could recognize he was listening to the song In The End by Linkin Park). Me: Hey! Aren’t you Roger? You’re Kevin’s brother, right? RB, trying to sound stoic: “Oh, hey Rick. Yeah, it’s me… fortunately for you.” Me: “What do you mean?” RB explained: “Well, I’m the cool brother! Kevin was lame, and also had no friends.” Me: “Isn’t he in a band with [insert band members]? They seem to be his friends… RB: “They might look nice, but they’re all assholes. Don’t let them fool you! I’m the nice brother, Kevin is a dipshit. To elucidate you: that band he said was made of assholes was the Worship band of the church we went to. It was also the worship band that I occasionally played the piano with. I said, jokingly: “Guess I’m an asshole then! Because, ya know, I play with them more often than not” RB: “No man, it’s just them. They’re just so infuriating! They never let me participate!” Me: “Wow, that’s weird… I mean, I didn’t know you were a musician too! What instrument do you play?” RB: “I play the drums, piano, guitar, bass and I also sing. But Kevin keeps me out because he wants to be the 'star brother'!” I could tell he got a little heated, and went silent for a little while. I decided not to mention the band or his brother in his presence, 'cause ya know, that was pretty awkward lol. I remember thinking to myself “This guy’s kinda weird”, because his brother was one of the nicest people I had ever known, and he also didn’t have the say on who played on the band, the worship leader did. I thought about confronting Roger with this, but I didn’t want to abandon my quest of finding a friend. And also, he seemed chill at first, if not a little insecure. I was a little uncomfortable with this line of conversation, so I opted to change the subject. We talked a bit more about me having been held back, and he went on about how he was really good at math and chemistry, and how he could help me with my school stuff. I was glad to have someone to help me, and even more, someone who apparently liked the stuff I liked. I remembered what he was listening to, so I commented on it and asked which song was his favorite, and we talked about Linkin Park for a bit. He said “In The End” was his favorite song, and then I mentioned I was a huge Linkin Park fan. He told me he was a big fan as well, but as we talked about it, it became a bit fishy. He never specifically said anything and just kinda repeated what I said. It became clear after a while that “In The End” was, in fact, virtually the only song he knew from that band. That was the first time I noticed something strange, but only in hindsight, as at the time I just thought he really wanted to make a human connection. I remember thinking he was just excited to know someone who was open to talking to him, so I didn’t think anything of it. Also, not everyone memorizes this stuff, and maybe he did only remember one song, for whatever reason, so I let that pass. I only felt necessary to include this information because it was, at least in some way, the first lie that Roger told me, a little sample, if you will, of what’s to come. After we talked for a while, mostly catching up on our lives, the bell rung and our first actual class had begun, and I had the first-hand experience of this guy’s sense of humor. The teacher walked into the classroom and introduced himself as the new Geography teacher, and started a power point presentation about some of the subjects we’d be covering that year, saying “Please pay attention to this class, as you’ll need to know how our schedule will work”. Roger looked back and said “Huh, I guess this class is useless for you then, being held back and all, hahah”, which made everyone look at me and just kinda stare like I should say something, and he kept repeating the joke to anyone that showed any reaction besides just staring, adding “Amirite? Huh? Amirite?”. I was kinda salty about this, but my people pleasing peapod brain couldn’t handle letting it show, so I just laughed and said nothing. I guessed it was a poorly thought out joke at first, but then Roger proceeded to make the same comment on every single one of the opening classes we had for both of the introductory days. There were 12 of them. He did it every time. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes he repeated it even louder, as if he didn’t think people heard it, because no-one was laughing. “Ok”, I said to myself, “He didn’t mean to make fun of me, he’s just a little overexcited and probably is trying to make a connection and help me get acquainted to our classmates.” Either way, I was very uncomfortable and annoyed. Thankfully, this came to a halt when he was practically thrown out of the Literature class for interrupting the teacher mid-sentence while she talked about how important the first month of class would be for our comprehension of the whole subject. He made the joke four times. FOUR TIMES. I was beginning to think that I made a mistake, but well, the mistake was already made, at least I can try and understand him a bit, before judging. The rest of the week went by and he didn’t get any better, but I got kinda used to it. In fact, I actually enjoyed having conversations with him at recess, when we could talk a bit more freely. And, as all things in life tend to do, it got weirder. Weirder in the sense that as we spoke more and more, I noticed a bit of a concerning pattern: every time I shared an experience I had, he’d share a cooler and more awesome almost equal experience back. Some light examples: I told him I went hiking for 2-3 kilometers on a trail by the beach. Then he smirked and said he went hiking for “at least 7 kilometers on a deserted beach that only his father’s company’s employees had access to and he saw a Gorilla. There are no gorillas in Brazil. Maybe in zoos, I guess, but definitely no gorillas. I told him I was kinda sad because I had just ended a “thing” with a girl from my old grade. He “proudly” said he’s been dumped by his ex, Laura, after they dated for 11 months and made out aaaallll the time after school, and he even saw her “lady parts” once!”. And then he went on to describe that shit for like 3 straight classes, adding more and more to the story every chance he had to speak, providing me with my daily dose of cringe in tiny bits of uncomfortable information at a time! Like a sporadic cringe snack! Sninge! Crack? Probably Crack. ANYWAYS There was also the time I told him the story of how I became best friends with a guy because we got into a fight in P.E.. We were arguing about some nonsense and he wanted to fight, so after he socked me on my stomach, I cheaply kicked him in the face so hard I almost sprained my ankle and then we started laughing (because I guess sometimes that’s all it takes). Phillip is my best friend for almost 10 years now. Roger puffed up his soap dish chest went on for at least 2 classes worth of time about how he “beat up his last bully and broke both of his arms, and almost went to prison, but his dad is a lawyer and bailed him out”. Dude was 16, and I don’t think he’d need to be bailed out, but okay… He was, in fact, very badass. Those are all approximations of actual stories he told me, because my ADHD memory is shit, but you get the gist of it. My days were filled with endless stories filled with absolute bullshit, like a Gary Stu from a dying rpg campaign. (I have a story about a DnD game he participated in, but that’s for another time!) Roger, not content with lying to me about anecdotal facts about his past that could be true but were almost certainly mostly bullshit (if not entirely), had a tendency to just negate reality when presented with facts in certain situations. And example of this situation is the time we were doing a group assignment and a girl at least 3 meters in front of him dropped her pencil and he just kinda threw himself on the ground, picked it up and said “Here you go, Lana!”. She said “Thanks Roger!”, barely turning around and carried on with the assignment. Roger, then, turned to me with a sleek shit feasting smirk on his face and said: RB: “Dude, do you think she’s into me??” I contained a ridiculing laughter just in time to realize he was dead serious. I said “I don’t know man… Doesn’t seem like it to me, but sure I guess.” RB then straight up asked ME to go talk to her and get HIM her number. When I asked why shouldn’t he do it, he said it was “the wingman’s job to get the number of the girl” so that he wouldn’t “look weak for asking” I said I’d do it, cause I genuinely wanted to see if he was right about her liking him (I hadn’t really understood the dynamics of the classroom, so I actually had no idea if he was actually right, just a gut feeling that yeah, he probably wasn’t). I went up to her and asked for her number, explaining it was Roger who was interested in her and, as I pulled out my raging 2014’s Sony XPeria, I was swiftly interrupted by her delicately saying “Sorry! I have a boyfriend.” (She said the boyfriend part out loud, and stared at Roger) I said “Oh, ok, sorry to bother ya!” and, as I was starting to walk back, I noticed that she turned back and glared at Roger. Later that day her boyfriend texted him, telling him that “He’s got to stop asking her out, and next time, if he wants to get rejected, he should come do it himself” He called him a moron. And then they both blocked him. Well, that was embarrassing. Despite having been turned down (for the 6th time now, I’d come to find out), Roger still maintained that she was “totally into him”, and it wasn’t just Lana. Any time he had even the smallest interaction with any girl, he’d say that they’re “probably into him”, or that “they made out at a party, but she was drunk and probably won’t remember”, or that they “sent him nudes last year but he’s already deleted them because he’s a good person, with morals”. This went on for a while and, after about a month, Roger begun to dial down the crazy stories about how he’s a “badass and he gets all the girls but he’s single because he’s too good for them”. Until I started seeing a girl from another church I started going to. I met Janice () at the churches youth group, and we talked the whole time afterwards about lots of stuff. This name’s given because of her insanely similar laughter and demeanor of Janice from Friends. We clicked well and I was very interested in her, but my ADHD ass forgot to get her number, and remembered it only when she had already left. When I told Roger, he laughed and said “I had just cockblocked myself” and that I’d “probably missed my only chance of banging a girl ever”. I was bummed, but clarified I didn’t really want to have sex before marriage or at least before making an emotional connection (I had just then begun to go to church, so I didn’t really get the rules, so it was more of a personal choice I always had in mind when thinking about dating. Also I met her at church so wtf). He said “that was dumb” and, “even though he was a virgin, he’d dance the Devil’s Tango with the first chick he had the chance to” “What about Laura?”, I asked. His face went from a confident smirk to an almost sad expression, and he blankly replied: “She didn’t want to, but I tried anyway at times. I even got a blowie once!” I let it go because I was very tired, as Mondays are hell on earth. A few classes later, I went up to him and reminded him of our conversation and asked: I said “Ooookay, but what about all those girls you told me were all over you? Didn’t they want to have some bum bum times with you??” He was taken by surprise by this, and was visibly trying so hard to think of an answer for at least 15 seconds. He mumbled “Well…”, and like just left. Like he got up in the middle of the class, and walked away. Well that was weird! He got back and I didn’t pry, thinking he had some kind of trauma, and I tried to change the subject. I say “tried” because instead we were suddenly interrupted by a girl asking me if I was Rick. I didn’t know her or how she had materialized beside our desks, but later I found out that that girl’s name was Mary. She had blue eyes and was smiling mischievously, and I answered “Yup, that’s me”. She then giggled and said that “Anna wanted to make out with me after class”. Me and Roger were both very much taken aback by this, and I immediately thought to myself that this could only be some type of dare or prank (which it probably was), and was about to try and respond with the first witty joke that popped up in my monkey brain when, without missing a beat, Roger said “Rick’s already seeing someone!”. Mary was visibly surprised and said “Oh, you have a girlfriend??” with a look of disbelief on her face. Ouch. I explained that I wouldn’t say I do, I just liked a girl from church and we’re going to see a movie with some friends on Saturday, and that either way it was a pass on the making out sesh! Mary said “Oh, okay!” and started to walk back to her desk. I was about to make a joke and say that Anna could probably do better than me, when Roger interjected: RB: “I’d like a making out sesh if she’s interested!” Mary looked back with a visible “Lol, ew no” expression and just said: “I’m sure you would, Roger!”, turned away and sat down, laughing with her friends when she got to her desk. Roger turned to me and said: RB: “Dude, do you think she’s into me?” This cycle repeated once in a while, so I’m not gonna tell you all of the situations that I felt like shaking him and trying to wake him up like Woody does to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. Exhausting, right? Another thing Roger tended to brag about was that he did Martial Arts. Specifically, Kung Fu (Wushu). I would come to find out that, in the year before, he made a big scene to tell everyone in class that he’d just started Kung-Fu classes and, when no-one payed attention, he started a habit of punching the wall beside his desk, audibly making “hmpft” noises. When anyone asked why, he’d say he was training, and that his Sensei (Not shifu, he actually said sensei) had asked him to do that to strengthen his fists so he could harness all the strength he had, so one day he could put a hole through a wall with his fists. He would also punch the school’s fireproof doors because, if you didn’t know, they dent pretty easily, and he would show me and tell me to bask at his strength and ability. That until I said I’d give it a try. He told me not to, because “I wasn’t trained” and “it could really hurt my hand”. I punched the door. It made a dent. Roger said it was beginners luck and that he’s just a good teacher. I told him I really didn’t even make an effort to pay attention, the metal was just bendy and soft. Roger never talked about it again, and started only punching walls. For that, he would feel superior because, yeah I ain’t doing that. There were consequences for his wall punching habits, but I’ll address that some other time. The last thing I’ll say about him for now is how clueless Roger was, how much he thought of himself and how he treated everyone else like they should (and would) respecting for what he told them, and not for what he showed them. (I plan on doing another part eventually, with the story of how his disconnection with reality, lies, schemes and generally narcissist behavior eventually exploded back into his face.) As a last bit of exposition of our circumstances, there’s an important part of our school life that fueled Roger’s social life’s demise. Pranking was a big part of my class’ culture. There were also some people in my classroom who were bullied. The thing is: the bullies actually made fun of literally everyone else, which made it very hard to figure out if you were considered a target or just a colleague. They’d mess with people’s stuff, tie backpacks to the windows and hide pencil cases, but they would also do it to their own group. Essentially, the only way to differentiate those who they considered normal schoolmates from those who were bullied was the frequency of the pranks and their demeanor in general towards those people. They would apologize for the pranks, ask to make up for it, buy you lunch, make jokes, try to laugh with you. I swear some of those guys were politicians in the making. Luckily, was very good friends with one of the guys in that group, I’ll call him Turkey, who was also held back a few years before me, and he liked my sister, so I was mostly safe. Roger, on the other hand, THOUGHT he was one of the pranksters. Every time someone pranked him or anyone else, he would laugh knowingly, like he was in on the joke the whole time, and try to make jokes, only to further humiliate himself. And they would capitalize on that as hard as they could. You see, Roger liked to portray himself as the “Mysterious-Badass-Quiet-Protagonist-Take-No-Shit-From-Anyone-Mr.-Steal-Yo-Girl” guy. This combo of personality substitutes was the recipe for the downfall of his popularity, and the start of the longest lasting pranks I’ve ever seen in my life, which will come if yall want another post. That prank is also the reason I named him Roger Bacon. Because he was so into Math and Science (and into himself too lol) he also always wanted to look like the smartest guy in the room. The problem is that, as our first semester went by, it became clear that he wasn’t as good as he hyped himself up to be. Shocker, right? This was proven to be true when we were doing a chemistry group test, and I was paired with him and Anna, and we needed to calculate some entropies or whatever. He made a point of telling us to do all of the “easy ones”, and he would take on the more complicated questions. The thing is, he was trying really hard to look like a genius, to maybe impress Anna, so every time he made a calculation, he would roll his eyes up and kinda vibrate a little. I guess he wanted to look like a genius mathematics robot, but instead he looked like he was trying to imitate an autistic person having a small stroke. I didn’t mind the Good Doctor amateur impersonation, because at least it looked like he knew what he was doing. Unfortunately, it really just looked like he knew what he was doing. Each easy question of the test was worth 1 point, and there were 4 of them, and there were 3 hard questions worth 2 points each. We got a 4/10 on that test, and lo and behold, the only questions we got right were the ones me and Anna worked on. We were a bit pissed, not gonna lie. Until the last time we spoke, Roger still blames Anna for his complete failure at this test for, in his words, distracting him because she was obviously into him. But that’s just Roger, I guess! I've got A LOT of stories about Roger and other neckbeards I've encountered, and I can't wait to tell them! Until then, thanks for reading, and have a good one yall!
2024.05.21 23:05 halfkeckLemons aren't always bitter, a 24 Hours of Lemons story. Race 11 Part 1
"You should go to Hallett. We went last year and it was fun. A good track for Miata's" My friend Gerry the Texan who along with his team brings several Miata's to races all over from Road America to Houston to Seibring. It's a great bunch of people who are having a blast racing Lemons. He told me that and it got me to thinking. We wanted to go to a new track this year and after the disappointment at Barber going somewhere and having some fun sounded good. Also Hallett is noted for having a smaller field so we could be competitive. I always say that Barber is more like a pro level Lemons race in that it attracts the faster and better prepped teams. Road America was like that too. But first we have to fix the car. As typical, we wait until the race is almost upon us to start. There's the matter of how bad the car is bent from the last race where Manny hit the wall. They thought it was good but we need to check this. After pulling the rear sub frame in hopes of replacing it we learn that a 90 is a bit different than a 91 subframe or a 2001 subframe. Supposedly it all interchanges but after looking over the differences, Youngest adds a few reinforcements at places the internet gurus say are the weak points and we put the rear end together and put it back in the car. Then we check the alignment. To my great surprise the rear camber and caster is spot on. I was shocked, but the crew did a great job that night fixing the car while it was up on jack stands. Using just a tape measure they got the car really close. Toe was out but the borrowed porta powers got the bent subframe where it needed to be. We changed the oil and brake fluid, bled the system where we took the rear apart to drop the subframe. Another project we attempted was to swap in a larger fuel tank. Manny who has been helping with the repairs found a article on the internet that said you could bolt in a NB fuel tank out of a 2001 or so Miata and gain a gallon of fuel capacity. Yeah, that is not possible. The tank has a hump where the car does not and would involve cutting a hole in the car which would be a bit noticeable. Not worth it for such a little gain. Good news is I now have two extra NB tanks if anyone needs one. A gallon would not seem to be that much but we are still dreaming of two stopping the car at certain tracks, stretching our mileage to only stop every two hours and 25 minutes and make a seven hour day with one less stop. It's not all about raw speed, strategy can make a difference. One less stop per day could potentially add ten laps in a weekend of racing at certain tracks. After we got the subframe in and the car aligned Youngest pulled it all apart again. He was not happy with the bushings holding the rear differential in place. The rear has to move a bit so it is not solid mounted, it actually can pivot a slight bit. He felt the bushings holding it were letting it move too freely. Once again we put the car back together. All during this time Manny and FabGuy have been working hard on a new car. Manny got a little crazy on Co-part. First one Miata shows up at our shop. Then another. Then another. I started joking with the guys "Hi I'm Manny, I might have a Miata addiction". Yeah. So after a lot of looking we have three wrecked cars, one being a automatic that was absolutely destroyed. It had zero good body panels and even the front subframe was pushed back where it had got up on something in a wreck. I think the only things we saved off that car was a rear axle, engine, transmission and the hard top which was cracked but usable. We then robbed enough body parts off of one to put on the other so we ended up with a mostly maroon car with a drivers side red fender, red door and silver hardtop. I say we but all we did at the shop was to take the cars apart, everything else went to Manny's garage where he and FabGuy installed the cage and built the car. They did bring it over a time or two to put in the air to install a few parts or when we aligned it. The build and fitment were top notch on the car, lots of nice parts went in, like a better seat and belts than we use on our Miata. Like most builds they were literally bolting parts to it the night before we loaded the car to head west. Finally both cars are prepped and it's time to get on the road. Manny has a business where he uses two rollbacks and moves cars mostly to and from car lots and auction lots. So he gets the newer one of the two trucks and shows up at the shop Thursday morning. RacerGuy and I are already there and have hooked our camper to RacerGuys truck. I am leaving my trucks at home, but taking our race trailer and our camper. The plan is to hook the camper to RacerGuys diesel F250 and hook the race trailer to Manny's newish Chevy 4500. The plan nearly goes off the rails when Manny shows up and I get to looking at his truck. Being in the business I can't not help but look at tires. His drives are terrible, two are bald, one is soft and one showing wire. I go to air up one of the bald ones and it's not having it. Air is leaking out as fast as it was going in. In Manny's defense his employee was driving this truck and Manny had not seen it in weeks. I had already loaded tire tools and extra spare tires for every truck and trailer in the caravan except RacerGuy's truck and I would have got a spare for it too if I had thought about it. With nothing else to do, we all jump in and start busting tires. Forty five minutes later we have four new drives on the truck and we are in a much better spot to make the long drive. I hadn't done any big truck tires for a long time, sold that part of the business. Still got it, just like riding a bike. We find I40 and start clicking off miles. Manny has already told us the limiting factor which is that GM put a really tiny fuel tank in his truck so we are forced to stop every 160-180 miles for fuel. It slows us down but it's not all bad, we find a roadside BBQ joint that looks like a camper up on blocks that has a huge parking lot and a ton of customers lining up. Of course we try it out, the best BBQ comes from little places like that, not the ones with massive buildings. We cross Arkansas and I think it was the first time I ever went that way westbound on 40. Came back the other side when we brought the box truck back where we bought it in California. We finally make Oklahoma and bent north to go to Tulsa. Did not see the Tulsa King anywhere, stopped in a Super Walmart and stocked up on groceries for the weekend. Hallett is in the middle of nowhere, so we are planning on eating at the track. We get there and make our way into the paddock. This will be the first time we have every camped inside the track. They have a cross over with gates that close during when the track is hot and a tunnel for access when the gates are closed. The tunnel looks kind of tight, I'm happy to not test the posted height limits. It says our trailers should fit. Yeah we will wait. We hustle to get the camper leveled and the generator cranked up. For the next three days it will run non-stop to keep the fridge cold and our lights on. We run the a/c but for the most part temps are very nice. The next morning we are up and on the road after the drivers meeting. We go to Pawnee, take in some sights then hit Stillwater for some parts and pieces at a hardware store. We also gas up all our empty gas cans so we are ready for race day. Back at the track Manny and Fabguy are unloading their car off the back of the rollback. It was nice carrying one and towing one car. They go out and practice a bit, come in and make some changes then go out again. It's a new build and everyone has realistic expectations about the car. We are all expecting issues as it takes a while to find the weak spots and fix them. We get our car out and practice. We send three of the four drivers out and have them run a few laps. I'm about to get ready and go out when RacerGuy comes in and says he felt something pop. We get to looking and the adjuster is gone off the alternator. Look a little more and the bolt has broken off in the alternator. So we have a spare motor in the trailer but it is missing the adjuster. Looks like we need the adjuster, the bolt and the alternator. We make a few visits around the paddock to look for parts but none of the other Miata teams have what we need. Youngest goes into the trailer and in a small miracle finds the adjuster laying under the spare motor loose. He and Coach head into Tulsa on a parts run while Manny agrees to put me into their car for a few laps so I can get a feel for the track. I've watched a hundred laps on Youtube but nothing is like actually driving the track. I go out and don't push things too hard. It is a very worn surface with some patches, particularly in the groove of turn two. Manny's car drives a lot different than ours, you can really tell you have more power and grip. Their tires are a lot wider as well as having 30-40 more hp. They have been working on the car all day and just finished taking off the lines where they installed a remote oil filter, they were not Lemons grade and were leaking. Just before dark Youngest gets the parts on the car. We also install a helmet blower, we are going to try to use the air to defrost the windshield. All reports indicate rain is coming Sunday. Then it's dinner time. Our friends from Minnesota have brought pure Lemons art down in the form of a Chrysler Magnum wagon powered by a slant 6 that is mid mounted. It is a engineering feat and runs out nicely. Adam the team leader and I have been planning and they are cooking for us for tonight and we are cooking for them Saturday night. They show us up by putting on a feed with steaks and salad. I'm feeling bad about the fact we are serving hamburgers, coleslaw and potato salad the next night. It was great. Saturday morning dawns and we are up and moving around. I give up waiting on a shower as the line is too long inside and try the outdoor shower. It has no roof, just walls. It was ok. The next morning I tried it again and it was freezing, no hot water! I skip breakfast and get ready to get in the car. I want to get on the grid early as I still am not feeling great about the track. The laps in Manny's car did not give me much to make me feel really attuned to the track as I was learning both the car and the track at the same time. I want all the practice laps I can get in our car. The line up is me, Youngest, Coach and then RacerGuy bringing up the finish for the day. FabGuy is gridded about ten cars behind us and he is under team orders to take it easy to start the race. We get out and start doing pace laps. Soon enough it's green and the race is on. A few laps in Fabguy blasts by me. So much for taking it easy. Going into turn 2 I see a car off track. I mean he's not a little off the racing surface, he's 150 feet off the corner and just about in the tree line. I wonder what happened there. I am starting to get the hang of the track and pick up some speed. Then I mess up early on and miss the line completely going into turn 9 from 8 and run off the track. I fire the car back up and quickly exit and head to the penalty box. "what happened?' "I missed the line and ran out of asphalt and talent all about the same time" The judge kind of laughs, "keep it on the track" and sends me back out. Youngest has made it to penalty and looks the car over from my adventure in the dirt and grass and gives the go ahead. If you are going to mess up do it right at the entrance to pit road, it really cuts down your time off track! I run clean the rest of the stint. I tiptoe around the corner I went off but run hard the rest of the track without pushing so hard I get off again. Then Youngest, then Coach. We are having one of the best days we have ever had at the track. Besides my adventure off track no one else has messed up. Our stops are clean and quick. Our times top to bottom are very similar and consistent. Something strange is happening. We are in the top 15 overall and since we managed to get put in B class we are doing very well. Only 50 cars at Hallett this weekend, the smallest Lemons field we have ever competed against. Fabguy pulls off to go to the gas pumps. We are fueling on pit road but they are going to just fuel at the pumps this race. They aren't planning on winning anything so why go to all the trouble of getting all your gear on and doing hot pit stops? Fabguy comes off a little hot and the officials come over to tell them they were over the ten mph paddock limit. Manyy drives the car up to the penalty and Fabguy comes up and they are told they are good to go. Later Manny gets off the track and goes to penalty. They start in on him not serving the penalty for going too fast in the pits. "we served that penalty" The judge goes off "do you really want to argue about this" Later when they realize the team was right and the previous judge had not marked it off the offenders list before going on break. In a first the judge apologizes to them. With about two hours left in the day their Miata is towed off. The engine is super hot and will not crank. All signs look bad. Later it cools off and will crank, but cranks with ease, signs of a engine that has lost all compression. Their weekend is done and Fabguy heads out to get a headstart on getting to work early Monday. The rest of us will pull an all nighter after the race Sunday. I start doing the math and realize it's going to be very tight. We make our calcuations based on a normal 7 hour race day. Today is a 7.5 hour day which is a bit longer than normal when racing Lemons. I figured out the stints and got it wrong. We realize our mistake and run Coach a bit longer before we put in RacerGuy. It's going to come right down to the limit of our fuel mileage. We start planning dinner and cleaning up the paddock with about ten minutes to go when all the sudden we realize the car is not out there. We run to the pumps and find Racerguy there. He ran out and limped the car to the pumps but could not get all the way there. By the time we get the car pushed around to get fuel the race is over for the day. I feel like a total idiot, I could have ran another five minutes easily in the car in the morning and not had this problem. But the good news is that somehow even after I went off the track and and then we ran out of gas was that we were still very good on the day. We had enough of a lead on the car behind us in Class B that we still had a 7 lap lead even after running out of gas. Even better our paddock mates in the Chrysler are putting a shellacking on Class C as well. Their Magnum wagon is running a Richard Petty scheme, they all have uniforms and the requisite trademark Petty cowboy hat and STP logos, only this time it means "Slow Through Paddock" signs and all. They actually shouted this out when doing the morning driving meeting when they were going over the rules. "STP, Slow through Paddock!" every time the officials discussed that rule in the drivers meeting. We put everything away, rain is moving in. We are in shock about how well everything is going. Surely we will find a way to loose this race tomorrow. Will other cars be faster in the rain? Will we shoot ourselves in the foot and have poor driving and get multiple black flags? Will something break on the car which has been running great all day long? And who the heck is this Coach guy? All that and more when we wrap up this in the next part of this story. Stay tuned!