“This geriatric bunch in cold sleep?”
“Affirmative. But their records show that they have been in cold sleep multiple times. They should respond quickly to the resuscitation procedure.”
“But, why? Wouldn’t it be more merciful to leave them in stasis while the Jaxorians intercept us?”
“Yes, but Allyson says that these individuals are the ones who might get us out of this situation.”
“The Terran engineer? You’re trusting her?”
“In a zero-sum analysis, her suggestions have net positive outcomes.”
“Just for the record, I think this is a bad idea.” A pause. “Resuscitation sequence activated.”
“Duly noted. Alert me when they are awake.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
William Exeter hated the feeling of coming to after cold sleep. While the modern systems were better than those he first encountered, he still felt like his muscles were infused with lead and that he was suffering from a hangover that he never got the enjoyment of deserving. But hopefully this would be one of the last times he would ever have to use the procedure, and he could finally settle down.
As the capsule’s lid slid back, harsh light assaulted William’s eyes, and he squinted in an attempt to lessen the pain. The silhouette of a triangular head above him let William know that a Dravitian was checking on him. He swallowed and got his voice working so he could croak out, “I’m up, I’m up.”
“Ah, Mr. Exeter, yes? I am…” The insectoid started to come into better view to the Terran’s adjusting eyes. “Captain? Yes, Captain of this ship. I am… We all are in need of assistance.”
“Uh, what?” William’s croaking voice hid some of his annoyance. “Yeah, I’m Exeter. But if you’re going to get my help, you’re going to have to get me a Jolt. I’m still half asleep from the drugs.”
The Dravitian’s head tilted to the side in an obvious gesture of confusion, “You require an electrical discharge?”
And this was why William hated waking up among aliens. He had to explain everything to them. “A drink. ‘All the sugar and twice the caffeine.’ Bah!” He started to force his muscles into action and pushed up on his elbows, “Just get me a goddamned stimulant, okay?”
“Oh, yes. Yes. Of course!” The Dravitian’s head disappeared as the insectoid moved over to a wall-mounted workstation.
William turned his head and saw several other cold-sleep capsules with their lids open. He cleared his throat and then called out, “Venture crew, sound off...”
“Here!”
I hear you, Bill.”
From a nearby capsule there was a dry coughing, but a hand in a ‘thumbs-up’ gesture rose in response.
“Well, good, I won’t have to suffer alone.” William turned his head again and looked over the other closed capsules, “But they didn’t wake everyone, so something’s up. Try to shake this shit off and get ready, okay?”
There were murmurs of ascent and more dry coughs from the other capsules.
The Dravitian come back from the workspace and addressed William, “Stimulant beverages and some cakes are on their way, Mr. Exeter. While I know that you are still under the effects of the stasis pharmaceuticals, I do need to apprise you of our need. You know of the Jaxorians, yes?”
William’s brow furrowed, “What, those crab-guys who go around in those water-suits? Didn’t we beat them in that big war?”
The Dravitian pulled back a little, “It was a negotiated settlement, I believe, but yes, your descriptive words adequately fit the Jaxorian physiology.” He paused, “Well, the Jaxorians, and their rulers the Drasalites, are once again at war, and we are now targets. I would not have woken you , but our Terran engineer was sure that you could help.”
William frowned and shook his head, “We should have finished them once and for all when we had the chance, but we have to let the Soviets fail as Soviets, don’t we?” He sighed, “And we’re humans, dammit. Homo sapiens sapiens by fuckin’ scientific classification. We once lived on Terra, but our genus and species doesn’t change when we move to another-” He noticed the paling colors on the edges of the Captain’s chitinous facial plates and stopped his Duckman-esque rant, “Look, nevermind. How much time do we have?”
The insectoid paused, as if surprised be the direct question. “We estimate a cycle, if our engineer’s modifications to the engines hold. Our speed has been dramatically increased, but the Jaxorian ships still gain slowly. We will eventually be within the effective range of their weapons. Please, direct us.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
After some of the greasy-spoon diner-ish coffee and the supermarket quality yeast-raised, honey-glazed donuts, the four Terrans looked and felt better. William glanced at his colleagues, noting the wear of time on their bodies. He chuckled as the slightly altered movie quote of ’It’s not the years, it’s the light-years’ ran through his mind. But they’d been together ‘asleep’ much longer than they’d been awake, and they’d spent more of their ‘awake’ lives together than apart.
Tony Scarpetti’s pudgy fingers tipped his cup almost upside down as he tried to get the last drops of the coffee and granulated sugar sludge into his mouth. His once black hair was now mostly white, and his tough physique that ran circles around them on the soccer field had shrunk a bit, though he was still stocky.
Peter Hoffman had finally gotten control of his coughing, and was munching on ‘just one more’ donut, and William once again wondered where Peter fit all the food he ate in that short, diminutive frame. His signature mohawk had been fluffed up with fingers, but lacking styling gel and a razor to clean up the stubble that had grown out in cold sleep, it ended up looking more like a peaked mound than the sharp style that Peter would have usually rocked.
Alex (AJ) Johnson’s hair had finally receded so much that his braid only held back reddish hair from behind his ears, though his scraggly beard was long enough that he could probably have braided it as well. Always tall and gangly, his frame seemed a little more gaunt than William remembered, though it had been almost a decade of cold-sleep travel since they had last seen each other.
“Hey, Doctor Exeter?”
William turned his head toward the voice, and looked at the young woman with blonde hair striding toward the table where the four sat around their coffee and donuts. Her utilitarian grey coveralls had scorch-marks and grime all over, and there was some of the same on her exposed hands and face, but bright teeth were visible in her smile.
William nodded, “You must be the plucky human engineer who got us woken up before our alarm went off, huh?”
The woman nodded, still smiling widely and, as she got over to the table, thrust out her hand toward William in the manner of one who just remembered something. “Yeah, sorry about that, Doctor. I’m Allyson, and I’m the only Terran on the ship. Besides you guys, that is.”
William took the extended hand and shook it, being a little more gentle than he usually would have been, given the way that the woman’s grip and lack of fluid motion showed that she wasn’t experienced in shaking hands as a greeting ritual. But she had looked it up, and that counted for something. “Well, us humans have to stick together, right? You sure you want us geezers to help you out? Don’t you have some flashy alien tech to get away from these crab guys?”
Allyson grinned as the handshake seemed to go correctly and shook her head, “Well, if you had been four guys who weren’t from the Space Venture, I would have let you sleep and hoped that I could come up with some way to escape, but well… you are, and well…” She looked at the men around the table, “You guys solve problems, right?”
“Troubleshoot.” AJ corrected, his voice still a little rough. “We’re Troubleshooters. So we’re likely to be able to fix problems on the ship, but not necessarily the situation. It gives us an out on some problems…”
Allyson’s brow furrowed, but before she could say anything, William offered, “But we’ll try and get you out of this alive, okay?” He looked over toward AJ, “No need to haze the newb, ‘kay?”
AJ chuckled and nodded, going for another sip of his coffee.
Allyson looked between the two old men and shook her head. Weren’t these guys the stuff of legends? Why didn’t they act like it? But they were what she had. What the whole ship had. Oh, the ship, right. “And we don’t really have any xenotech. This is an old decommissioned TA vessel, a combat freighter, so it’s kind of structurally overbuilt for a freighter. It was the TAV Thuban, but after being bought up by a Dravitian company it’s now the CCV K’gara B’rak. That translates to something like ‘Ugly Worker Beetle’.”
William raised an eyebrow, “I thought those bugs didn’t like old ships?”
Allyson grinned, “They couldn’t build a new ship to these durability specs at anywhere near the sale price. I think that it vexes the Captain to no end.”
Tony finally set his cup down on the table, finished fighting with the sludge, and looked at at the woman with a playful grin, “Likely to be really upset once we get going, then…”
William grinned as well, “Well, we’ll get there as we get there. So, is Skynet running things here?”
The engineer blinked and cocked her head a little in her confusion, “Skynet? Um…” Her words trailed off as she tried to decipher the meaning.
William sighed, “Artificial intelligence. Is there one running the ship?”
Allyson shook off her confusion, “Oh, uh, no. Of course there are still core hook-ups, but the company didn’t recruit one. There are some smart systems, but they don’t come up to AI levels.”
William nodded, slowly and resignedly. He looked at the other older men, “Okay, so I guess I’ll be spending my time hacking while you guys get to have some actual fun.” He looked back to the engineer and started to get up out of his chair, feeling the ache in his lower back. “Well, let’s get me to a terminal, and rummage up some walkies so we can keep in contact.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
William glowered at the large touchscreen that sat angled on its adjustable armature, and muttered, “What fresh hell is this operating system?”
The Dravitian Captain at the nearby navigation station on the ship’s bridge looked over, “Sir, this is the newest release of the Efficient Interface. While you are viewing it in Terran Standard, it is optimized for the Dravitian language.”
William shook his head, “So other than these cosmetic changes that I can get to in settings, where can I actually get to control configurations?”
The Captain pulled back its head in surprise, “What? You can’t change the control configurations! They are all optimized!”
William sighed and shook his head, “You jammed the ‘economy’ button down, so we can’t get to the ‘power’ button. Right…” He tapped open the program that accessed the file storage and began examining what was there.
After a few minutes of the bridge crew watching the Terran scroll and tap and curse in a low voice, William let out a exuberant, “Got you, you bastard!” On the touchscreen, a simple text box came up, indicating that it was a Root Command Shell, with a blinking block cursor.
William’s fingers flew over the virtual keyboard on the angled touchscreen, and another window bloomed on the screen. He slid it off to the side, then continued to tap and another window popped up. He slid it off to the top corner of the screen. In each of the windows, progress bars slid slowly from one side to another, character strings rolling down past the bottom of the window, the screen indicator on the scroll bar on the side getting smaller and smaller as the list grew and grew.
The Captain leaned over from its workstation and observed the workings on the Terran’s screen, “What is all that? I’ve never seen this option in the interface.”
William chuckled, still typing commands in the first window, “Oh, it’s a command line interface. They just slapped your interface over the military OS, and that still had lots of useful modules and programs in archive. I can bypass the ‘pretty’ GUI you guys use and actually get to controls.” He paused, “Holy hell! They left a media archive in here. Let’s get that unpacked right now!”
A new window popped up on the touchscreen, with another progress bar. William brought up yet another window, and worked inside it, and the progress bars started to move across their respective windows faster.
The Captain cocked its head, “Sir, I find fault in your judgement that what we need in this situation is media. The Jaxorians are not known for their imaginative capabilities.” It paused, “And I think your tasks are slowing down the computational processors, which again, I find fault with in these circumstances.”
William chuckled, “Well, sure it will seem slower. I made all my operations high priorities for the processors. And you can’t expect us to do our best work in silence. We’ll need a good jam.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
Allyson led the three older men through the hatch into the huge engineering bay where the three reactors were lined up with the longitudinal axis of the ship. Aft of those, the floor fell away beyond a safety railing, so that the bulk of the four huge engines could be accessed by a network of ladders, platforms, and gantries. Most of the floor was clear, but here and there hatches, tools, and parts lay askew on the deck, and wires and tube of various sizes and colors snaked between components in a way that belied the hasty, jury-rigged engineering tasks that had been recently undertaken. A couple of insectoid engineers were working on maintaining parts of the unstable system.
“And this is the playground,” offered Allyson as she spread her arms to indicate the whole open area. “We’ve got four Hammond LS-V-3400 ion drives backed by three of the Niagara-class fusion reactors. I’ve, uh, removed some of the safeties on the engines and tweaked the safety specs on the reactors, so we’re making just over five percent above rated maximum speed.”
Tony walked away from the others to lean against the safety railing and take in the sight of the engines.
Peter glanced around the area, then noticed the machining and fabrication tools and sauntered over to inspect them, hands tucked in his pockets and his boots scuffing the floor.
The two Dravitian technicians looked up from their work momentarily, apraising the Terrans, but staying quiet.
AJ made his way over to the reactors, and frowned as he looked at the readouts showing that the reactors were running hot, right on the edge of red-line. “Cutting these pretty fine.”
Allyson nodded as she looked over toward the tall man and started slowly walking toward him, “Um, yeah. I couldn’t figure out a good way to get more output from the engines, so I was just trying to route more power through them. These are still safe, but they’ll be burning up the plating faster than they should.”
AJ nodded and continued perusing, leaning down to look into an open hatch and seeing how one of the patched in high-energy line had been connected.
Tony continued to watch the engines and called, “Hey, Allyson, these still work with Cherenkov dispersal for additional thrust?”
Allyson quickly changed her trajectory to veer away from reactors and back toward the engines, “Uh, yeah, they do. There are controllers in there that help to make the emissions more directional.” She got to the railing and pointed at an orange ring that was visible on each engine right near the aft bulkhead. “Those big electromags help control the dispersal. I have plans and simulations on the computer if you want to see how they work.”
Tony peered in the indicated direction, then nodded and turned toward Allyson, “Yeah, get me to a terminal with some VR goggles and I’ll take a lo-” His voice cut off at the sudden sound from the engineering bay’s speakers.
A syncopated drum beat sounded over the hum of the machinery, then came an almost gravelly yell-singing voice. ”Come on, feel the noise. Girls, rock your boys. We’ll get wild, wild, wild.”
Allyson’s surprised gaze swept up to the big speakers mounted in the corners of the room by the ceiling.
Grins and smiles grew on the faces of the three older men, and they all joined in with the words as an electric guitar sawed into being and the rest of the band added their voices to the lead singer on a response answer of “Wild, wild, wild!” And then the drums picked up and the rest of the instruments kicked in, bringing the song fully into swing.
The singer continued as Peter’s hands played air-drums over a CNC machine’s working space, ”So you think I got an evil mind. I tell you, honey, I don’t know why. I don’t know why.”
Allyson had never heard the song, but the beat was compelling, and it somehow invigorated the men in a way she hadn’t expected. Just out of cold sleep, in the midst of an inevitable chase, with such limited resources, they were singing along with smiles on their faces. AJ was tapping on a reactor interface, and Peter was almost dancing as he poked about her workbench storage space, going over her tools, a screwdriver and electric ratchet stem in his hands as drumsticks for his air-drums.
The Dravitian technicians huddled in a fearful pose at the sudden noise.
Tony grinned widely at Allyson’s surprise, and said loudly over the music, “William’s got good taste for montage music… Show me that terminal.”
-=-=-=-=-=-
The Captain looked over to the Terran’s workspace which was now exhorting somebeing to ‘get wild, wild, wild’ over and over again. It seemed to have some detrimental affect on the older Terran, as its head was bobbing up and down as it continued to work with the code. The insectoid in command just had to say something. “Excuse me, sir. Are you sure that the distracting audio stimulation is beneficial for you? It does not seem to be related to your current task …”
William glanced over at the Dravitian, “Look, bug-boy, the music keeps my endorphins up, and tricks me into thinking I still have all the energy of a teenager. You’re just lucky that I know what my crew likes, and that this archive is low on industrial music.” He pauses and types intensely, then continues, “So no, it’s not related, but if you really want a chance to get away from those crab-guys, this music tips the scales in our favor, okay?”
The Captain abruptly looked back to its console. “Affirmative answer, sir.”
William nodded to himself, and cocked his head as he read something off the screen. “So, a bunch of the cargo is plasma generators for terraforming?” He looked over to the insectoid who was pointedly not looking at him. “Are those things as dangerous as they sound?”
-=-=-=-=-=-
“Hey guys!” William’s voice echoed from the big loudspeakers in the engineering bay as the song came to an end.
“Yo boss!” Peter called up toward the ceiling from the tool bench where he had accumulated a selection of choice tools.
“I got control of the control code up here. Some of it’s military code under all this glossy shit. What have you guys got back there?”
Tony stood amidst a holographic simulation of an engine, and called out, “We got some damped down ion engines. The design is like the old McPherson Mark Five, and I think I can flare ‘em up the same way. Gimme six hours or so.”
AJ looked up toward the ceiling after Tony finished, “These fusion reactors are running flat out, Bill. I’m thinking about patching up a capacitor bank so we can push things farther, or at least have some extra power when we need it. Three or four hours, depending on how easy I can find the parts.” he paused, “And I’m officially putting in a request for you to put something dance-able on your wheel of steel.”
Peter called out, “And I’m just waiting for these slackers to tell me what they need. But I’m all tooled up for just about anything they want.” He grinned playfully at the other two.
William’s chuckle came over the speaker, “Gotcha. Those sound like good projects. We get a powerful flare, we’ve got a chance to run.” He paused, “Allyson, you there too?”
Allyson, still near the holographic engine display, had been turning her head this way and that to try and follow the conversation and understand what the forming plan of the ‘troubleshooters’ was. She forced herself to call out, “Yes, Dr. Exeter.”
William’s voice came from the speakers, “Okay, Allyson, I need you to take Pete down to Cargo Bay Three and help him uncrate all of the plasma terraforming engines you can find there. Pete, I want those things sky-side against the outer wall of Bay Two and fastened in place. If we need power for them, I want you to run a line back to AJ’s source, and it will need to be vacuum sealed. We’re likely to depressurize that bay so try not to make too many unnecessary holes, okay?” He paused, “And don’t worry, that bay has some speakers too. I won’t leave you silent …”
Peter grinned and nodded, then started to load tools onto a nearby hovercart. As he worked, he called out, “On it, boss! Do they have any Ramones or Dead Kennedys or anything with more energy in that jukebox? That’s my request, Mr. DJ.”
William’s voice carried his chuckle, “I’m on it, guys. I’ll keep you updated, you guys let me know the word. Out.”
As the beats of New Order’s Blue Monday started to bounce around the engineering bay, Peter looked over at Allyson, “Hey, give me a hand with some of this. We need to bounce!”
Allyson registered the words and jogged across the bay to the hovercart, “Sorry, sir, we have to ‘bounce’?”
Peter chuckled, still pulling tools from the bench to add to the load. “We have to get moving. Can we bring that welder and thermal lance, or is there a better option?”
Allyson let out a quiet ‘oh’, then shook her head, “There’s a backpack unit that can cut and weld. Much easier to move.” She pulled open a a nearby locker.
Peter grinned, “Oh, sweet! Are there two?”

My reading tastes have evolved as I've gotten older. I've always enjoyed hard sci fi, but as life got more busy, I found myself reading less and less.
When I was younger I would often read 3 books simultaneously, and as a result, increased my verbal and comprehension skills immeasurably. Now decades later, during meditation, I came to the realization that although I was becoming more experienced, I did not feel like I was getting any smarter.
So, I decided to start reading more, and to read challenging material, in order to try and recapture this intellectual growth.
My journey began with Moby Dick, which, for those of you that haven't read it, is really two stories in one. The over story concerns the business of whaling, and this is what most people say the book is about. The sub-story (and to me the main story) is an exploration of mental illness.
If in Infinite Jest, the main story takes place in the footnotes, in Moby Dick the main story happens in sections that I call Metaphysical Tangents. They start off as observations about banal, concrete things and digress into sweeping allegorical prose, complex and challenging to read. I've started to notice these sections in most of what I read, and depending on my state of mind (especially when altering my neurochemistry) I often have very powerful sensations / visions when reading them.
Today I'm going to recommend House of Leaves (the full color print version, this book cannot be read on an eReader or in black and white). It's been internet meme-ified, but don't pay attention to what most people say about it. It's not a horror book in the overt sense, it won't drive you crazy, what it is, is a raw, brutal exploration of the descent into schizophrenia. Some parts can be a bit dry, but the bulk is quite captivating and it has the most impactful 5 pages of prose I have ever read, quoted below. It is worth your time if you enjoy books like Infinite Jest, Gravity's Rainbow, Moby Dick, etc. Read the section below and if it's in your wheelhouse, pick up a physical copy:
"""
`For example, on my way back from the Shop, something strange surfaced. I say “strange” because it doesn’t seem connected to anything—nothing my boss said or Navidson did or anything else immediately on my mind. I was just driving towards my place and all of a sudden I realized I was wrong. I’d been to Texas though not the state. And what’s more the memory came back to me with extraordinary vividness, as clean and crisp as a rare LA day, which usually happens in winter, when the wind’s high and the haze loosens its hold on the hills so the line between earth and sky suddenly comes alive with the shape of leaves, thousands of them on a thousand branches, flung up against an opaline sky— —An eccentric gay millionaire from Norway who owned a colonial house in a Cleveland suburb and a tea shop in Kent. Mr. Tex Geisa. A friend of a friend of a passing someone I knew having passed along an invitation: come to Tex’s for an English tea, four sharp, on one unremarkable Saturday in April. I was almost eighteen. The someone had flaked at the last minute but having nothing better to do I’d gone on alone, only to find there, seated in a wicker chair, listening to Tex, nibbling on her scone... Strange how clarity can come at such a time and place, so unexpectedly, so out of the blue, though who’s firing the bolt?, a memory in this case, shot out of the August sun, Apollo invisible in all that light, unless you have a smoked glass which I didn’t, having only those weird sea stories, Tex delivering one after another in his equally strange monotone, strangely reminiscent of something else, whirlpools, polar bears, storms and sinking ships, one sinking ship after another, in fact that was the conclusion to every single story he told, so that we, his strange audience, learned not to wonder about the end but paid more attention to the tale preceding the end, those distinguishing events before the inevitable rush of icy water, whirlpools, polar bears and good ol’ ignis fatuus, perilous to chase, ideal to incarnate, especially when you’re the one pursued by the inevitable ending, an ending Tex had at that moment been relating—deckwood on fire, the ship tilting, giving way to the pursuit of the sea, water extinguishing the flames in a burst of steam, an unnoticed hiss, especially in that sounding out of death, a grinding relentless roar, which like a growl in fact, overwhelms the pumps, fills up deck after deck with the Indian Ocean, leaving those on board with no place else to go, I remember, no I don’t remember any of it anymore, I never heard the rest, I had gone off to piss, flushing the toilet, a roar there too, grinding, taking everything down in what could, yes it really could be described as a growl, but leaving Tex’s sinking ship and that sound for the garden where who should I find but... my memory, except I realize now my ship, isn’t Tex’s ship, the one I’m seeing now, not remembering but something else, resembling icy meadows and scrambles for a raft and loss... though not the same, a completely different story after all, built upon story after story, so many, how many?, stories high, but building what? and why?—like for instance, why—the approaching “it” proving momentarily vague—did it have to leave Longyearbyen, Norway and head North in the dead of summer? Up there summer means day, a constant ebb of days flowing into more days, nothing but constant light washing over all that ice and water, creating strange ice blinks on the horizon, flashing out a code, a distress signal?—maybe; or some other prehistoric meaning?—maybe; or nothing at all?—also maybe; nothing’s all; where monoliths of ice cloaked in the haar, suddenly rise up from the water, threatening to smash through the reinforced steel hull, until an instant before impact the monstrous ice vanishes and those who feared it become yet another victim to a looming mirage, caused by temperature changes frequent in summer, not to mention the chiding of the more experienced hands drunk on cold air and Bokkøl beer... Welcome to The Atrocity, a 412ft, 13,692 ton vessel carrying two cargoes within its holds, one secret, the other extremely flammable, like TNT, and though the sailors are pleasant enough and some married and with children and though the captain turns out to be a kind agent of art history, especially where the works of Turner, de Vos and Goya are concerned, that strange cargo could have cared less when towards the bow, in the first engine room, sparks from a blown fuse suddenly found a puddle of oil, an unhappy mistake any old mop could have corrected, should have, but it’s too late, the sparks from the fuse having spun wildly out into space, tiny embers, falling, cooling, gone, except for one which has with just one flickering kiss transformed the greasy shadow into a living Hand of angry yellow, suddenly washing over and through that room, across the threshold, past the open door, who left it open? and out into the corridors, heat building, sucking in the air, eating it, until the air comes in a wind, whistling through the corridors like the voice of god—not my description but the captain’s—and they all heard it even before the ugly black smoke confirmed the panic curdling in all of their guts: a fire loose and spreading with terrifying speed to other decks leaving the captain only one choice: order water on board, which he does, except he has misjudged the fire, no one could have imagined it would move that fast, so much fire and therefore more water needed, too much water, let loose now across the decks, an even mightier presence drowning out the flames and the hiss is its own terrifying roar, not the voice of god, but whose?, and when the captain hears that sound, he knows what will happen next, they all know what will happen next even before the thought, their thoughts, describe what their bodies have already begun to prepare for, the chthonic expectation which commanded the thought in the first place—... sos.sos.sos... SOS... SOS... SOS... sos.sos.sos...—way way too late, though who knew they’d all be so long, long gone by the time the spotter planes arrived, though they all fear it, a fear growing from that growl loose inside! their ship, tearing, slashing, hurling anyone aside who dares hesitate before it, bow before it, pray before it... breaking some, ripping apart others, burying all of them, and it’s still only water, gutting the inside, destroying the pumps, impotent things impossibly set against transporting outside that which has always waited outside but now on gaining entrance, on finding itself inside, has started to make an outside of the whole-there is no more inside-and the decks tilt to the starboard side, all that awesome weight rocking the ship, driving the hull down towards deeper water, closing the gap between the deck rail and the surface of the sea, until the physics of tugawar intercede, keel and ballast fighting back against the violent heave, driving The Atrocity away from this final starboard plunge, heading back up, that’s right, righting itself, a recorrection promising balance, outside and inside again, except the rock and roll away from the sea proves a useless challenge.. the monstrous wall of ice water below also heads away from the starboard side of the ship and as the captain’s deck for a brief instant levels out, the water within also levels out, everyone hopes for a pause, though really the water never stops, following through on the powerful surge away from the starboard side, heading now towards the port side— Sososososos—past the center—Sososososos— coalescing into a wave— Sososososos. useless, obviously—and the captain knows it, hearing their death before the actual impact reverberates through the hull—and there never really had been time for lifeboats... —the wave beneath them pounding into the port side, this time powerful enough to drive the ship all the way over, burying the rail of the top deck beneath water, then the stack, letting all of the sea within, banishing the inside once and for all, and though some fathers still make for the lifeboats, it’s all useless, a theatrical gesture born out of habit and habit is never hope, though some actually might have survived—habit does have its place—had there been a little more time, sinking time, except what was flammable below, now explodes, an angry Hand punching through bulkhead and hull, where a reciprocal nearly maternal Hand reaches up from the darkness below and drags all of them down, captain, deck hands, fathers, loners and of course sons—though no daughters—so many of them trapped inside it now, tons of dark steel, slicing down into the blackness, vanishing in under twelve minutes from the midnight sun, so much sun and glistening light, sparking signals to the horizon, reminiscent of a message written once upon a time, a long, long time ago, though now no more, lost, or am I wrong again? never written at all, let alone before... unlawful hopes?... retroactive crimes?... unknowable rapes? an attempt to conceal the Hand that never set a word upon this page, or any page, nor ever was for that matter, no Hand at all, though I still know the message, I think, in all those blinks of light upon the ice, inferring something from what is not there or ever was to begin with, otherwise who’s left to catch the signs? crack the codes? even if the message is ultimately preternatural and unsympathetic.. especially since right now in that place where The Atrocity sunk without a trace there is no sympathy, just blind blinks of light upon the ice, a mockery of meaning where meaning had never been needed before, there away from the towering glacial peaks near Nordaustlandet, a flat plate of water with only a few solitary bubbles and even those gone soon enough, long gone by the time the spotter plane flies over this mirror of sky, the only distinguishing mark, a hole of blinding light, rising and descending with the hours, though never disappearing, so that even as the plane’s tiny shadow races across the whisper of old storms, or is it the approach of a new storm?, something foretold in those thousands and thousands of cat paws, reflection draws a second shadow on the vault of heaven... Atrocity is lost along with its secret cargo and all aboard. shhhhhhhhhhhh... and who would ever know of the pocket of air in that second hold where one man hid, having sealed the doors, creating a momentary bit of inside, a place to live in, to breathe in, a man who survived the blast and the water and instead lived to feel another kind of death, a closing in of such impenetrable darkness, far blacker than any Haitian night or recounted murder, though he did find a flashlight, not much against the darkness he could hear outside and nothing against the cold rushing in as this great coffin plummeted downwards, pressure building though not enough to kill him before the ship hit a shelf of rock and rested, knocks in the hull like divers knocking with hammers—though, he knows, there are no divers only air bubbles and creaks lying about the future. He drops the flashlight, the bulb breaks, nothing to see anyway, losing air, losing his sense of his home, his daughters, his five blonde daughters and... and... he feels the shelf of rock give way and suddenly the ship rushes down again, no rock now, no earth, so black, and nothing to stop this final descent except maybe the shelf of rock didn’t give way, maybe the ship hasn’t moved at all, maybe what he feels now is only his own fall as the air runs out and the cold closes in for good and I’ve lost Sight of him, I’m not even sure if he really had five blonde daughters, I’m losing any sense of who he was, no name, no history, only the awful panic he felt, universal to us all, as he sunk inside that thing, down into the unyielding waters, until peace finally did follow panic, a sad and mournful peace but somewhat pleasant after all, even though he lay there alone, chest heaving, yes, understanding home, understanding hope, and losing all of it, all long long gone a long long time ago shhhhhhhhhhhhh... when next to him, not a foot away, lay Something he never saw, no one saw, for he had come upon the secret when he escaped into this cargo hold but never knew it, though it might have saved him, saved us all for that matter, but it’s gone, letters of salt read by the sea... and I too have lost The Atrocity... and the sun pours in on me, surfaces once transparent now reflect, like a sea of a different sort, and I forget my ship, or I lose sight of it, or is that the same thing? to a time long before I saw in my own holds two cargoes, one a secret, the other extremely flammable, the flammable put there by invisible hands for invisible reasons... when I remembered her in the garden where she wandered away from all those ugly ends in the Indian Ocean, far from my arctic one, and found flowers and a fountain, perfume and a breeze, a warm breeze... Not Texas but Tex’s, Tex’s tea, where I met Ashley—Ashley, Ashley, Ashley... the sun could make you sneeze—only back then her hair was dyed neon green, matching her Doc boots, a match made in heaven, both of us together, talking and talking, at first timidly and then responding more avidly to the obvious attraction both of us could feel until she gave me her number and I wrote down my number, my first name and my last name, which was how, years later, she finally found the right number to call and she kissed me and I kissed her and we kissed for a while more until she invited me home and I said no. I had fallen in love with her, flash of gold and sunlight and Rome, and I wanted to wait, in three days call her, court her, marry her, impregnate her and fill our house with five blonde daughters, until... oh no, where have I gone now? horror but not horror but another kind of - orro—? or both, or I’m not sure, suddenly flooding through me, what back then had only been weeks away, in fact right around the corner from there, a legacy of leaving, fast approaching: excrement—let go... —urine—let go... —and burst conjunctiva— letting go streaks of red tears. All I could hold but in the end not save. Of course I lost everything. I lost her number, I lost her, and then in a fugue of erasure, I lost the memory of her, so that by the time she called she was gone along with the kisses and the promise and all that hope. Even after our strange reunion in the hammock suspended over strewn & decomposing leaves from a banana tree, later followed by an even stranger goodbye, she was still long, long gone. I know I am too late. I’m lost inside and no longer convinced there’s a way out. Byebye Ashley and goodbye to the one you knew before I found him and had to let him go.`
"""

Hello again! I got through most of the recommendations you provided last time, so I’ve returned to ask for anything that might have been missed or come out since! The subreddit rules state that such requests need to be unique and specific – so here goes.
Context from my last post:

I want to read books that make me feel warm fuzzies and believe that everybody can find happiness, karma makes everything right in the end, and everybody will be HEA. My partner suggested Romance as a genre I might enjoy, and I have! But it’s been very hard to find books that don’t turn me off for one reason or another, so I figured it was time to ask the experts.
To start, some personal demographic information. I’m male, nerdy, quite short, on the spectrum, and a cinnamon roll. I would love to read books with myself as a hero. These seem to be… quite rare. And that’s fine, but I would at least like to avoid having one of the things I’m not be the attractive feature of the hero. i.e. hero is a 6’4” footballer, or hero is a jealous alpha male. Eww.
I also love strong female leads, especially ones that the male lead can lean on and be supported by. I want to read about partnerships of equals helping each other out, not a dainty girl being rescued by a knight. I particularly enjoy books where one or the other lead has social struggles, and them learning to work it out together is a key narrative plot point.
Lastly, I mainly listen to books on Audible, so books that have good voice actors get bonus marks (and books that can’t be found on there get demerits).
Out of the 25-ish romance books I’ve read (listened to), these were my clear favorite three:
1. Sweet Talk, by Cara Bastone. This book is literally perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed her other two audible exclusives as well (Call me Maybe and Seatmate). All three books are exactly my tone and have excellent heroes, but I thought Sweet Talk had the best heroine and the best pacing. I intend to read any future audio books Cara writes.
2. Beard in Mind, by Penny Reid. I loved this book despite the setting (I’m pretty anti-country) and despite the slightly-off-the-rails narrative, because of how absolutely perfect the heroine was, and how well the author wrote the romance around her.
3. The Flatshare, by Beth O’Leary. The way the two leads get to know each other, as friends that slowly become something more, is incredibly sweet. Also, their robust support networks of people who all want the best for them were great to read about.
Bonus: my favorite romance Manhua: President's Special Instructions, by Park Hanna

For contrast, four books I could not stand:
1. Blue-Eyed Devil, by Lisa Kleypas. I was completely unable to empathize with this hero, at any point whatsoever. Every part of him was divergent from anything I identify with, and all the divergences were the attractive features. Extra negative credit for trigger warnings on gore, personalized violence in the present tense, and sexual abuse in the present tense, including arguably by the hero.
2. The Bodyguard, by Katherine Center. So, this heroine/hero combo looks promising. She’s a bodyguard with extensive combat training, assigned to handle a derpy actor. Except she has to be rescued by him in every single scene where anybody is rescued. Literally every single one. Complete Worf effect letdown.
3. Love Hacked, by Penny Reid. Yep, same author shows up on both my lists. This time, the characters aren’t sweet to each other, they don’t trust each other, and they generally both behave immaturely. Extra negative credit for hero’s bedroom behavior being a complete turnoff, and for doing a terrible job of showing the hero was clever or smart or in any way interesting, instead of merely stating it to be true a bunch of times.
4. The Kiss Quotient, by Helen Hoang. This book starts out amazing, and progressively over the course of it, she seems to stop being on the spectrum, and he stops being sweet. It morphed from a book I was excited to read, into a generic romance that was all the more bitter for missing out on what it could have been.

Since then, I’ve read a lot more, including most of the suggestions from the previous post! Here are my thoughts on those:
Excellent (would reread or have already reread):
Trade Me + Hold Me – Loved them both; wish Courtney Milan had more contemporary books. Xe Sands is an amazing voice actress.
Love at First Psych + Maybe This Time – God, all of Cara's audio books are adorable.
Yours Truly + Just for the Summer – These were fantastic. High on the emotional trauma end, but with almost painfully heartwarming payoffs for sticking through it.
Weather Girl – Flawless suggestion.
Love Lettering – Excellent, exactly what I was looking for.
Foolish Hearts – Definitely on the young side, but everybody was so full of personality I couldn't help but feel for them.
Attachments – Wild book. Does not translate well to audio due to the nature of the email conversations, but still thoroughly enjoyed it.
Also: For the One - The only book in this category that I didn't get from the previous post recommendations. Fantastic leads and concept: a sweet nerdy hero on the spectrum and a capable heroine each trying to support the other through their struggles and trauma.
Good (enjoyed reading):
The Duchess War + The Heiress Effect + The Duke who Didn’t – All solid, mostly hampered by my struggles with historical romance.
His Secret Illuminations – a bit too heavy into sub/dom, especially towards the end. I liked the concept, but would have preferred it played for vanilla with merely unconventional heroes.
The Ex-Talk – Generically enjoyable, but didn’t feel noteworthy in any aspect.
Knock Me Down – Had to email the author to get a digital copy, but short and sweet.
Strange Love – Delightfully weird. Did not know I would enjoy a romance about Garrus Vakarian.
The Rosie Project – Incredibly cringe-level-y well depicted portrayal of romance on the stronger end of the spectrum.
Twice Shy - Fine middle, exceptional ending.
Well Met – The reverse; started off strong, petered out at the end. Not problematic in any way, though, which was nice.
Dude in Distress – Good but not noteworthy.
Very Sincerely Yours – Solid, but no real emotional payoff.
Fine (meh):
Just a Heartbeat Away + Flirting with Forever – I just couldn’t get into these; they had too many communication issues and bedroom experiences that I couldn’t vibe with. I think I’ll stick to Cara’s audio books.
Kissing Galileo + Ten Trends to Seduce Your Bestfriend – Didn’t like the dynamics between the leads in either book. High drama, low communication, slightly weird power dynamics.
Fortune’s Fool – FMC getting immediately kidnapped and needing to be rescued along with a lot of other maidens doesn’t exactly hit my request.
Walk of Shame - An incredible start to a book that just... ends, without feeling it wrapped anything up or gave any catharsis.
Bad (struggled to finish):
From Bad to Cursed – Poor quality writing, did a lot of showing instead of telling, weird astrology sub-themes.
Beginner's Luck – Did not like the characters, was uninspired by the narrative.
Given all of the above, what new recommendations do people have for books or authors I should try out next?

11 minutes of Armenia coverage by Transcaucasian Telegraph. Follow for regular updates.

from the Thursday Government session

• Additional funds were allocated for provinces to complete infrastructure projects, bringing the total allocated this year to ֏10B ($25M).
• The Government will use eminent domain, compensate the owners, and appropriate an abandoned area in Kapan that's currently owned by several entities. Upon registering it under state ownership, it will become possible to renovate the infrastructure and build a new sports center that will include a soccer stadium and other sports venues.
PASHINYAN: This started in 2018 after my visit to Kapan, where the residents asked to do everything possible to "bring football back to Kapan". The issue was with the complex legal ownership of different parts of the stadium and adjacent structures. Various owners had disputes, and there were disputes with the soccer club as well. The sport was interrupted in Kapan. We negotiated and pleaded with various entities to resume the games and eventually, it became possible to restore the games to a degree, and two soccer clubs have since been formed in Kapan: Gandzasar and Syunik. Gandzasar FC has been performing well and continues to climb up the ladder, which led to another problem for us: Kapan's soccer stadium does not meet the league standards necessary for Gandzasar. Since the legal issues persist with various owners of various parts of the venue, it's practically impossible to convince them to invest in the stadium; nobody wants to invest in a property belonging to someone else. Վերջը. We decided that the best solution is to declare the problematic areas as state properties and draw a plan for their future management. Gandzasar FC is already in a higher league and if Syunik FC also makes it, this will become a whole new story.
MINISTER: We are building 4 soccer schools in provinces and Yerevan as part of our comprehensive program to develop the sport.
PASHINYAN: Last year during a meeting in Batumi, the Prime Minister of Georgia and I reached an agreement to submit a joint bid to host the 2029 FIFA World Cup for [under-22] youth. I'm glad this process is advancing. This is a great opportunity for us to build 3 additional soccer stadiums with international standards. One of them must have 35,000 capacity, and the other two - 10,000.
MINISTER: We are discussing the construction of the two small stadiums in Vanadzor and Ijevan. The existing stadium in Vanadzor could be rebuilt and upgraded; the preliminary work is underway. As for the large stadium, it will be located in the Academic City and it must be ready by 2029 [the Academic City will be built gradually].
PASHINYAN: Yes, we recently visited the Vanadzor sports field. We had an "emergency landing" there [jokes]. The only issue there is with logistics because you have to travel through district roads but I'm told it's a solvable issue. Under "international standards" we always think of the stadium itself but there is also the logistics and adjacent infrastructure part of it. You need capacity for cars, parking space, etc.
GOVERNOR: As for Ijevan stadium, the new one will be built on a 3.5-hectare land plot not far from the existing one. They will be separated by one road. It can become a cluster.
PASHINYAN: The third one is the bigger National Stadium. It was recently discussed as part of the work around the Academic City. Our German colleagues will submit the final master plan in July, followed by the launch of the implementation phase and decisions on how to finance and manage. //
• Armenia is in touch with international partners to launch a restoration of infrastructure damaged by the floods in the north. Several countries have shown interest in rebuilding bridges. Armenia is currently building smaller and temporary bridges for pedestrians and small cars before the construction of the main infrastructure. Pashinyan administration also seeks financial assistance to compensate the residents for lost property.
• The health ministry has been taking water samples in flooded areas and making regular visits to the newly cleaned-up areas to evaluate the possible risk of the spread of diseases. No major issues have been uncovered, no breakouts.
source, source,

over 2,000 volunteers help/ed clean up and restore the flooded zones

A Polish guy moved to teach English in Alaverdi. The floods struck the following day. He had a new mission...
video,

Open Government Partnership: EU for Integrity Programme for the Eastern Partnership forum was held in Yerevan

State officials and civil society groups from several EP states participated in the forum in Yerevan.
Pashinyan's Chief-of-Staff Arayik Harutyunyan thanked the EU for assisting with reforms. He said it's necessary to form a unified front to defend democratic values and combat information warfare and other challenges.
A representative of USAID spoke about cooperating with Armenian partners to increase transparency and accountability.
Eastern Partnership representative Peter Varga said there are extensive reforms in Armenia, including in the anti-corruption and governing system. Varga said PM Pashinyan "has shown dedication" which is "very encouraging" and they are "very optimistic" about Armenia's future.
video,

deputy commander of the Armenian army Zhirayr Amirkhanyan participated in EU's forum in Yerevan where he spoke about cooperation with West and army reforms

REPORTER: What can you tell us about the principles of the army reforms and the goals?
AMIRKHANYAN: Our adversaries prevented us from focusing on peacetime reforms over the last 3 years by their actions, but in any case, there were structures tasked with unrooting the shortcomings of our system. If we set aside the military aspect, we have serious cultural problems in Armenia. The bureaucratic runaround is a major problem - the "red tape". There is too much circulation of paperwork before something is approved and addressed. There are not enough horizontal connections and too many vertical connections.
REPORTER: Is this an issue with the design of the management system?
AMIRKHANYAN: Yes. You could say this is inherited from the Soviet times but we haven't done enough to fix it over all these years. Our planning system is outdated and doesn't meet the Western standards. We need to set priorities. We don't have a good system of strategic planning. The reforms began immediately after the war, and by 2022 we were mainly focused on two things (1) establishment of a new model for professional sergeant staff, (2) a delegated control system, which we referred to as task management. [With it] We authorize our forces, our commanders, to orient and act more independently without waiting for orders from above because those orders can arrive with delay. Of course, the upper echelon is required to supply them with appropriate resources.
REPORTER: Was that one of the lessons from the 2020 war?
AMIRKHANYAN: Yes. By late 2023 and early 2024, we understood that those two reforms could not be accomplished without a revamp in law, financing system, procurement system, and all of those required deep-rooted reforms. With the help of our friendly states of the US, France, and others, we launched a process that we call a "comprehensive transformation of the defense sphere".
By taking into account the existing and potential threats, we must, and we already have, decide what the main objective is. The main objective is as follows: how to confront an incursion by an aggressive neighbor or neighbors in a fragmented terrain without having allies or under isolation from friendly states, all without having strategic depth. In other words, we are taking into account our geographical punishment, geography's revanche. The newly transformed Armenian army must be capable of carrying out maneuvers while relying on strong engineering structures while channeling the adversary to make them easy targets, with the use of proper firepower, self-sufficiency, and freedom to act. With a proper OODA loop (Observation, Orientation, Decision, Action) even small forces can counter a bigger force; a decision dominance can give you the edge.
REPORTER: The US and France have expressed readiness to assist, and Armenia's army commander visited Western states on numerous occasions and agreements have been reached. The press wrote that the US is providing advisors to Armenia. What can you tell us about the level of their involvement? Can they help us transition from the Soviet model to NATO standards?
AMIRKHANYAN: Not just the US and France, but we have close ties with Greece and Poland as well, and also Germany. But the main partners are the US and France with multi-layer cooperation. Regarding the US, we have a separate cooperation program with the [United States] European Command.
We have separate cooperation with various scientific research centers in the US. For example, the Institute for Security Governance is helping us with the aforementioned transformation.
There is a separate cooperation with the Kansas National Guard.
Yes, the US and France are going to appoint resident advisors who will bring the best international experience.
France is mostly focused on Armenia's tactical level: special forces, mountainous forces, armored vehicles, etc. They will send tutors soon to train on the ground. We are very satisfied with the cooperation with France and we have decided to import those radiolocation devices in addition to the vehicles.
The US legislation is still, you know, they call it "non-lethal" weapons and allow us [to have something], but I think you can't last a long time without lethal weapons in our neighborhoods [smiles]. But we are satisfied with the cooperation, especially since their attitude is not "this is all we can offer, you either take it or you don't". Instead, the demand pulls the wagon; we tell them what we need. For example, we want to improve the strategic training of our ranking officers.
REPORTER: How much time will the advisers spend in Armenia and where will they work, at the defense ministry or the army general staff office?
AMIRKHANYAN: The Ministry and CoGS office are quite integrated and we are flexible. We will help them study our flaws and cooperate with them.
REPORTER: Is there a need for new military academies?
AMIRKHANYAN: The Vazgen Sargsyan Academy is being improved. There was a time when the number of applicants was in the tens. A zero was added after some improvements. Today if you enter a classroom you don't see the standard Soviet-era setup; now it's a round table for more interactive learning. It's a cultural change that introduced a feedback loop.
REPORTER: [Opposition parties] claim the delimitation in Tavush has collapsed our defenses there. Is this true?
AMIRKHANYAN: No. The old line of contact, which was just a կահավորված trench, was dangerous for our soldiers. The new engineering structures are much better.
REPORTER: What will the Armenian army look like? Where are we headed to?
AMIRKHANYAN: We are headed to a professional army model, and by professional I don't mean exclusively contractors. The state hasn't yet finalized the grand strategy on who the enemies, friends, and neutral parties are. Until that's clarified, we will preserve conscription but I think it will be shortened. Perhaps soldiers will spend their time training instead of holding the front lines. So by professional, we mean a drastic increase in preparedness. Today the [conscript's] training lasts 6 months, which is nowhere near enough.
full,

PM Pashinyan is not expected to attend the COP29 climate change conference in Baku

source,

US envoy Bono discussed the AM-AZ peace process during a visit to Turkey

source,

Moscow says it won't downgrade diplomatic relations with Yerevan and that its Ambassador Kopyrkin will soon return to Yerevan after a recall for consultations

source,

Russia continues to upgrade relations with Azerbaijan

PUTIN: Support for the Russian language in Azerbaijan indicates the importance of ties with Russia. I know that President Aliyev greatly supports the teaching of the Russian language. This is visible in all vectors. This means that the leadership of Azerbaijan assumes that the Russian language will be useful for the citizens of Azerbaijan. //
Putin spoke with satisfaction about the relations between Moscow and Baku, stressing that Russian-Azerbaijani relations are developing "successfully, reliably, very pragmatically".
PUTIN: We feel the desire by the leadership of Azerbaijan to build interstate relations on the basis of mutual interests and, I would even say, with a certain sympathy for each other. There is no other way to explain the presence of three hundred Russian-language schools operating in Azerbaijan.
source,

US State Department urges Azerbaijani authorities to release political prisoners

MR MILLER: We are deeply troubled by the continued arrest of members of Azerbaijani civil society. Those who exercise their fundamental freedoms, including freedom of expression, should not face arrest for doing so. And we continue to urge the Azerbaijani Government to immediate release – immediately release all individuals who are unjustly detained and to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all.
source,

another Azerbaijani 2020 war veteran commits self-immolation

Adalet Ismailov poured gasoline and set himself on fire. He was transported to a Baku hospital. This brings the number of known suicides to ~80, with another 50 failed attempts. Several Azerbaijani veterans complained about mistreatment and neglect by the state after the 2020 war.
source,

Pashinyan, Modi attach importance to the further development of Armenia-India cooperation

Pashinyan congratulated Modi on the election victory. Modi expressed condolences after the floods.
source,

the other controversial friend of protest co-leader Bagrat Galstanyan

read,

"Nikol, Prime Minister!", "Turk, Turk, you are a Turk"

A group of ARF-led protesters marched in Yerevan with demands for Pashinyan's resignation when a passerby chanted a slogan in support of Pashinyan. It caused the protesters to use vuvuzelas as a sign of disapproval, while others accused the man of being a "Turk".
video,

Armenia among countries with the lowest prison incarceration rates – Council of Europe

Turkey 408 per 100,000
Georgia 256
Azerbaijan 244
Moldova 242
Armenia 79

... total number of inmates including pre-trial detainees

Turkey 348K
Azerbaijan 24.7K
Georgia 9.6K
Moldova 6.1K
Armenia 2.5K

... Armenia's prison population rate from 2013 to 2023

2013: 155
2014: 137
2015: 129
2016: 130
2018: 119
2019: 76
2020: 75
2021: 66
2022: 72
2023: 79

... other inmate stats

6% of inmates were foreigners
There was 1 minor
53% were untried detainees and 47% were sentenced
Average number of inmates per cell: 3
Prison population per 100 places: 52 (Azerbaijani prisons are almost full and Georgia is getting close)

... average length of imprisonment

Azerbaijan 27.2 years
Moldova 25.3
Armenia 18
Switzerland 2.1
source, source,

births and deaths in January-April

10,547 births (-8% YoY)
9,265 deaths (+6% YoY)
55% died from circulatory problems, 19% cancer, 10% respiratory, 5% digestive, ...
source,

Armenia records inflation in May after deflation in Q1

January -0.4%
February -1.7%
March -1.2%
April -0.7%
May +0.3%
World Bank projects 3% inflation this year. Armenian government projects 4%.
source, source,

Azerbaijani pro-democracy activists have lobbied the US to sanction 30 Aliyev regime officials, with another 14 names added to the list at the request of Armenians: Azeri activist in exile Arif Yunusov

The US continues to pressure Azerbaijan, says Yunusov. Citing his sources, Yunusov said there was an actual threat of major clashes earlier this year before the launch of the border delimitation process.
interview,

massive explosion at a gas station located on Yerevan-Sevan highway: VIDEO

The explosion damaged the vehicles on the highway. 7 people were hospitalized. Some of them are in critical condition. There is a threat of another explosion. Developing.
video, video, video, video, video, video, source, source,

an Armenian border guard was injured from a landmine explosion near the newly delimited section of Voskepar

Doctors said there was no danger to his life.
source, source,

video shows newly renovated backyards in Yerevan's Malatya district

From զիբիլնոց to a hangout place. New irrigation systems. A new playground and asphalted roads are underway. New manhole lids.
video,

Armenians suddenly care about weather forecast

Another one is coming, folks. The cyclone will arrive from the Black Sea and bring rain from June 8-11. The rain will be intense in certain regions. Expect hail. The temperature will drop by 6-10 Celsius.
source,

wild tramway accident in Russia

A passenger of a tramway smelled burnt rubber and warned the conductor about it but the warning was ignored. Moments later the tramway's brakes failed and the driver instructed everyone to get down but most passengers had earphones and couldn't hear. The tramway made a sharp turn at a high speed, causing some passengers to fly out of the cabin onto the incoming traffic. The tramway stopped only after it smashed into another one. Passengers say it saved their lives because if it wasn't for the other tramway, their wagon would have proceeded to fall off the bridge. 1 dead, over 100 injured.
video, video,

a Bug Bounty contest was held in Armenia by white hat hackers

Over 50 cybersecurity experts attempted to crack into systems used by public agencies and ACBA Digital. The organizers gave a list of systems to hack, the rules, and offered a reward.
video,

Armenia to acquire American software to supervise crypto transactions

The State Revenue Committee of Armenia will acquire Chainalysis Reactor software to supervise crypto transactions and fiat exchanges. The goal is to combat money laundering.
source,

Hey all,
First post, just discovered this sub as an in the closet gender dysphoric female my whole life (which has been excruciating/difficult given the sexed body/functions dysphoria is wildly strong). One thing that I've hated to deal with my whole life is the fun monthly reminder that I'm organized for the production of large gametes. I'm not ashamed or even disgusted much, and barely get PMS, but it's just how female it is, how much of a reminder of being what I don't want, plus the burden it creates when being active. Regardless, here's my weird hack, that probably won't work if you have a super heavy period, but everyone else this changed my life:
This is a bit TMI, but whatever, let's get cozy for a moment. I switched to period panties (bambody sports ones are great for maximum absorption, and thinner ones for light days). I wear the thicker period panties on my first 2-3 days when flow is heavier which is so much better than a pad as it doesn't slip around or scrunch up. But I HATE the feel of any blood pooling AT ALL, in the small gap between vagina and underwear, so, I found that if you take 2-3 squares of toilet paper and origami it into a little triangular wedge, you can press it in that little gap, and it has an absolute game-changer in comfort, stopping the pooling, and if I pee throughout the day, most of the time, I can replace the triangle enough to not have anything (or only a little) spill onto the panties. I still like fresh undies so will change them every 4 hours or so if I'm at home, or else I could go 8 hours in public but still will occasionally (rarely) fold a used one up in a small bag if it didn't get dirty, and put fresh ones on. If any blood got on the undies and I'm at home, I rinse them lightly and throw in the laundry bin, or more often, I shower 2x a day and will shower with the undies, step on them to rinse them out, then throw in the dirty bin. I only used tampons (with the undies as backup) for real sports.
I wish I'd done this my whole life as now I feel cleaner, more comfortable, am saving money, and reducing waste, while not seeing my period as such a burden/discomfort/dependence on disposable items. Hope it helps you!

My stepdad: •The one big thing that makes me feel valid is that, when I was 11, my stepdad fingered me in my bedroom. I won't go in to too much detail or anything, it's unimportant. But the entire time he just stared at me and everything was silent, like he was waiting for my reaction. Our relationship has always been odd, so I wanted it. But eventually I got scared and told him something, I don't remember what it was but it got him to stop immediately and he apologised too. I don't remember much after, as in I don't know if he left my room or I left first, but I immediately went to the bathroom. Which was when I discovered I was bleeding.
•Around this time, for some strange reason I would repeatedly say to him "fuck me daddy." This would either be in person, or over messages. I remember once, when I was in school, I messaged him that. He told me to stop in case one of my friends saw. I don't know why he didn't tell me to stop for other reasons.
•One day, after telling him that in person, we were in my parents bedroom. I was sat on his bed and he was in front of me in his weird chair. He then started going in to detail about how I wanted him to fuck me, I can't remember exactly what he said, it was like I zoned out. Everytime I try to recall it now it literally feels like bugs start to crawl up me, I don't understand why. I remember the last part, and his really disgusting hushed and gentle voice. He asked if I wanted him to "cum inside of me", or he was just explaining how that would finish. I'm not really sure.
•Still around this same time period of me being 11-12, I would ask him to 'squish me.' The reason why we would call it that is because I would be on my back, my legs would be up all the way to where my head is and he would be on top of me in a way that would 'squish me'. Basically like that one sex position. I would usually be wearing my school uniform when that would happen, so a skirt. During the 'squishing', he would push down on me, so our crotches would basically be against eachother. I don't know why, but I would continuously ask him to 'squish me' and during it I would even say the whole "fuck me daddy" thing. Only recently have I realised that he was probably just pretending to fuck me.
•Other things had happened around that age too, like how we would talk about how many times we masturbated a day and compare it to eachother. Sometimes if I was abruptly going to my room, he would ask if I was going to go masturbate, since we were 'close like that' I would tell him. He would often recommend me NSFW Instagram model accounts. I was once tricked in to sending feet pics to this guy, which really isn't that serious and whenever I brought it up with friends they find it fucking hilarious. But the detail I always leave out is that, I did bring that up with my stepdad and he proceeded to tell me that he already knew. Which means he was spying on me through the crack of the door. If that already didn't bother me, I don't understand why he just allowed me to send those pictures, if he was watching why the hell didn't he stop me?
•I'm pretty sure this also happened around the age of 11 as well, recently, a memory resurfaced but I barely remember it. Basically, I was sucking on his neck. I don't remember who said it, but either him or my mum spoke up and laughed, saying that I needed to stop otherwise I would "give him a hickey." The reason why I wouldn't be surprised if my mum was in the room at the time is because she doesn't care about what he does. She knows everything and just doesn't fucking care.
•I'm very sure that, around that age, my parents begun to expose me to their loud sex. I wouldn't be surprised if it started even younger, however. Obviously, I tried to bring it up with them at the ripe old age of 11 and my mum immediately shot me down with a "it's natural." This only stopped recently, around this year, because I had a big panic attack over hearing them and my mum finally felt guilty. I started getting panic attacks over it the minute it started, maybe the panic attacks were a sign of the trauma when I was younger, but I'm convinced it is now. I heard it so many times that I began to get paranoid every night, I would start to hear it even if they weren't upstairs (I sound crazy, I know.) I would get so anxious every night in case I would hear it, to the point I started to really resent them from it. I know fine well I could just go to sleep before them, but sometimes they even woke me up with it, on numerous occasions.
•I'm convinced my stepdad wanted me to hear it. Around the time of it finally stopping, I got mad because i was hearing it again (I'm unsure if it was due to me hearing shit or they actually were) but it caused me to take my bedding and go downstairs to sleep. In the morning, I was rudely awoken to my stepdad slamming the door open and storming past. He's not usually like that when people are sleeping, so it instantly gave me the impression that he was pissed off and the only reason I can think of is that he was angry I wasn't there to listen.
•He used to tease me for my paranoia to. As a way to discourage them from getting intimate, I would leave my door open at night. This happened around this year, but I was doing that again and I messaged my stepdad if they were actually going to sleep. It then somehow turned to him making a dig about how he knew I gets anxious at night and when I asked why he sent me "In case me and your mam have sex. 😜" Before, I tried to resolve this issue by begging them to just tell me if they were gonna have sex or not so I could sleep downstairs (because I was gonna find out the hard way anyways.) And they kept on refusing? Which just gave me the impression that they wanted me to listen more.
•Around 11 again, he would often tell me details about his and my mums sex life. Like how he was always good at pulling out and the only time he would wear a condom is right when he was about to finish. But the reason why my sister came to be was because he just failed to pull out that one time and my mum refused to get an abortion. Another time, he went on about how him and my mother had sex during her period and how they had to use towels and they didn't enjoy it because it was too messy.
•I don't know if he did things before the age of 11, my memories are very faded and it's like there are major gaps throughout everything. I'm worried that he did, however. When I was very young, I remember having no accidents at all during the night. But then, around the ages of 9, I would have an accident basically every night and would get a lot of water infections. I know that's a classic sign of child sexual abuse, but I don't want to jump to conclusions or anything.
•Another reason as to why I believe more things had happened to me than what I know of is because I always seemed to know what sex was when I was young, but I wouldn't know the name or anything specific about it like how to get pregnant or what cum was. Though, even though I didn't know what it was, it was like I always thought about it, I could never not think about sex, it was disgusting. This stayed until I was around 13. I remember where I even asked my 'boyfriend' at the time, we were both around 8, if he wanted to have sex, and I have no idea why.
•Over the years, he would flash me frequently. Everytime, I would always believe it was an accident because he'd never acknowledge it, besides from that one time which he always jokes about it and blames me. Everytime he would flash me, it would either be because of a convenient hole in the crotch of his pants or because he was wearing very lose fit shorts and it would just be hanging out. The more I think about it, I'm very sure he would have been able to feel such a thing, especially when it was poking out of the hole, but it was like he was just oblivious.
•For some strange reason, when I was younger, I would make comments about small dicks. I don't know if I was commenting on his dick specifically, but he would always say the same thing. "Width matters more than length."
•Recently, around 16-17, he made a joke about how he listens to me masturbating. Once he noticed how shocked I looked, he then went on saying about how my vibrator is too quiet to hear.
•Around 17 again, I went to use the shower. The shower I use is the one that's connected to my parents room. When I locked the door, he got madish and started making comments about it. I had to defend myself, saying how 'the door would open on it's own if I didn't lock it'. Eventually, he backed off.
•I don't understand the point in the fucking door and lock to my bedroom anymore. Whenever I decided to lock my door, my parents start shouting at me through the walls, asking why I locked my door. My stepdad barely knocks, it's like a tap and he doesn't even wait sometimes. I remember seeing a past message from an old friend saying how he tried to walk in when I was changing and that he knew I was changing. I didn't explain myself, I really wish I did because I don't remember this.
•(Around 17.) We were messaging eachother and it somehow turned in to him hinting if I saw this one animated video, it was a porn one. I said no, and to that he sent me a screenshot of it. It wasn't anything bad or anything, just the start of it and nothing was revealing, he then asked if I was sure. And how he was surprised that I hadn't.
•(Around 17.) I don't really get my period, we still don't know why. But as I was getting a lot of blood tests, my stepdad was trying to check things off the list of what it could be. One of those being that my opening is just extremely tight I guess, because he asked if I ever tried penetrating myself. I admitted that I did, but I couldn't get it to exactly go in. Which he then decided to make a comment saying how It's just my 'technique'. I wonder if the only reason he asked that was to see if I ever tried anything out of morbid curiosity.
•(Around 17 again.) He randomly bought me dildo's once, I didn't ask him for them, he just bought them for me and it was wildly uncomfortable. Once he gave me them, he asked if I wanted him to show me how to use them. I said no, which he then said something about how if I ever did then I could ask him. I worry what would have happened if I did say yes.
•When I was around 14, I went glamping. I ended up having to share a bed with him. One of the nights, I woke up to his hand just on top my crotch. I tried grabbing it and moving it away but it just fell back down on to it. I don't know if he put it back there on purpose. I still question if it was a dream, I'm very sure it wasn't because I remember going back to sleep, but it still just bugs me.
•Around 17, I was upset for some reason and he was comforting me. During this, he randomly grabbed the inside of my thigh. I usually just wear a shirt and boxers, so he basically just grabbed my naked thigh but I don't know if he was doing it in a comforting way.
•Usually when I draw, I have my knees up to my chest so it's easier to use my tablet. Considering what I wear for pyjamas, I can always see him looking at my crotch when he comes in to my room. If he really can see everything I don't understand why he doesn't just tell me to put my legs down.
•He's made a lot of uncomfortable jokes over the years too. One of the ones that upsets me sometimes is that, when he was measuring me for a binder, I was constantly moving around because it was uncomfortable since I was just in a sports bra. As he was leaving, I think I told him about how it was uncomfortable for me or something along those lines. He then turned around and shouted "oh come on, it's not like i was fingerings your pussy or anything."
•Very recently, I asked him if I looked okay before going to college. After a bit of back and fourth he said "I wouldn't kick you out of bed, maybe you could find someone in college who would do the same."
•Other times when I asked him if I looked okay, he'd go on tangents about how my ass is great or how he would date me or be too nervous to talk to me if he was my age.
•One of the more recent jokes was when I dropped a mayonnaise lid on my lap. Nothing got on me, but my stepdad turned to me then turned to my mum and shouted "if anyone starts accusing us, just tell them it was mayonnaise!" Or something like that.
•I remember after we watched the new mean girls film, he started going on saying about how he wanted to rewatch it for the Halloween seen (if you know you know) for the 'panty action'. Which rubs me the wrong way because I'm very sure the girls are supposed to be around my age.
•I'm very sure he also made this fake account, pretending to be one of my old groomers that I tried to cut off, just to message me about nsfw topics and ask for pics. It's a whole long yap about paranoia and just suspicions so I won't get into it though. If I tried to provide all the evidence I have, it'll take forever and there's no point.
There's definitely way more things that he's said, joked and done. But I'm only now beginning to realise that they're not okay. Even when I was younger, I was sort of uncomfortable around the jokes so I would just zone out, leading me to not remembering them now.
My mum: •I remember when I was very young, around 11, we were in a store and she was obsessed with the idea of getting extra money. She wanted to do this online thing where she would dominate men or something, it was fucking weird. She went into detail about how she was researching it and instead of telling these men to so sexual stuff, she would make them do good things like pick up litter etc. When we were in this store, she made me look at the dog collars together and choose one out, I remember she even asked me if she thought it would be a good fit for the guys.
•She constantly goes on about her only fans now, I don't know why she wants me to know about it so much. She keeps on going into detail about what her plans are for photos and stuff and I just think it's very odd that she's telling me about it all. She's doing everything in her power to stop my brother from finding out, he's in his 20s, I don't understand why she's so happy to let their minor child know about it but not him. I remember when she was first starting it up, she got offended because I didn't want to wear a cosplay she used for one of her photoshoots. Another time she was going on about her plans for another cosplay thing, but this character happened to be a child, which I pointed out to be weird that she would think to do that. Her response to that was "yeah, if he was a girl." Like wtf.
•She wanted me to help take photos for her aswell, the thing is these were going to be out in public around a store that was really close to our home. She kept on saying it was fine if I didn't want to and that the photos weren't going to be sexual, but once I said no she seemed a bit upset. Which I don't understand because even if the photos aren't explicitly sexual, it's still a fetish thing that she wanted me to take pictures off. She also tends to take photos of her chest when other people are around. Like once I was sitting next to her and she just started taking photos of herself for her onlyfans, (I know this because I asked and she said that was what they were for), I'm just worried because I think I was in the frame a bit. Another time we were at my grandparents and she started taking obvious photos of her chest in front of me and my grandma. The thing that makes me feel sick is that she was wearing one of my shirts when taking them.
•I remember once which was also recent, she just randomly told me about how she was writing porn or something. I don't know why she felt the need to tell me that.
•She got mad when I wouldn't share my underwear with her. She tried to hide her anger but I could just tell she was frustrated when I said no. I remember her arguing with me, saying something like how she let's me share her clothes all the time. (Which isn't exactly true, she just gives me shirts that she doesn't want anymore from time to time.) I don't know if that's normal though and if anyone else shares their underwear with their parents. But I just think it's more uncomfortable than sharing clothes.
•My parents always used to expose me to their sex lives, I remember once when I was 11, after they finally stopped I heard my stepdad say a comment about how he liked the choker my mum was wearing. The thing is, the choker she was wearing was my choker. It's stupid because yeah it's just a choker, it's pretty far away from everything. But I hate the fact that she wore it during that, call me pathetic but I'm really sensitive to sex now. I never wore it since and even thinking of wearing it again makes me sort of upset.
•This isn't really major but when I was 14, I bugged her into buying me a new hoodie. Due to dysphoria and personal preference, I love really baggy hoodies. (I also needed it to be big enough because I needed it to be able to go over my blazer, stupid school rules it's too long to explain.) We got into a semi-argument over it and she kept on pressuring me to buy a more smaller size. She then said I needed to start 'showing off my body more' which I find really odd considering I was 14 at the time and why would I need to show it off.
•She would always ignore when people would catcall/harass me. I'm sure everyone is familiar with that, but I remember once after a man called me an ugly bitch for not acknowledging him when I was 11, when I went home my mum just played it down. Another time, when I was around the same age, I was being threatened by a bunch of pedophiles online. They kept on threatening me, saying how they were going to post my accounts on pornhub so people would come down, kidnap and rape me. When I showed my mum this, she defended them saying that they're probably just 16 year olds. Every time I would have a weird interaction with a man, she would say how we just have 'powers' to attract weird people and it's just who we are. Though I never see anyone else describe it like that and it just makes me feel like she enjoys when that happens to me and her.

i just broke up with the guy i was dating for 2.5 years, who was living with me, this week. and i've had a series of revelations about ??? just how i function with relationships of all kinds. and also just life in general. im sad, but also im pissed off. sorry this is written so badly, my laptop's on the fritz and i've got covid AND hayfever rn
the TW is just because i mention suicide, i dont go into detail or anything
im autistic, so off the bat shit's hard. i figured out when i was 14 and coming into my extroverted nature that 99% of my friends were also autistic (either diagnosed or painfully obviously autistic). the first time i made friends with a non-autistic person she "came out" as autistic when she felt safe enough around me to do so lol. being friends with other autistic people who share the same interests and hobbies as me makes it easier ngl. sorry, that was just for context. but yeah, i'm autistic, i was diagnosed when i was 11.
ok so second piece of relevant information is that jesus christ my childhood was fucking awful. i was adopted when i was 8.
for the first 8 years of my life i was neglected, physically abused, starved, ate visibly mouldy food, and witnessed my biological mom regularly beat the shit out my biological dad, who would often try and get between us if she was gunning to hurt me. unfortunately one of my autism "super powers" is an excellent memory, so i've got detailed memories going back to when i was 4 of all the abuse.
the only blank spot i have is part of the day when i was removed from my biological parents with my baby bro, who i looked after. i remember the morning, the screaming, i remember going to my grandparents in my PJs with my dad, and then i remember eating maccies with a social worker. no fucking clue what happened between getting to my grandparents and eating maccies with my lovely social worker. i still remember her name. i'm on the fence about reaching out to her and thanking her personally. idk if it would be super awkward or weird. she was close to retirement when i was adopted, i'm kind of scared she might be dead ngl. i learnt years later than she had about 80 different cases and she had visit every single one of those families once a week for at least an hour and then write up a report for each of them every week (literally impossible, no fucking wonder social services are so shite, there's not enough of them to share the workload!)
on the topic of my baby bro. if it werent for me he wouldve died. straight up. every day i feel guilty that i didn't do more for him, but i've slowly learnt to accept that i did the best a 6 - 8 year old could do with a baby. i only changed his nappy and fed him once a day, and he didn't put on any weight from 6 - 18 months old. but he lived. i was the only one feeding him, i still vividly remember picking nits out of his hair in the bathroom, and hoping that when he had the coordination he could do the same for me. we were both covered in lice, i had them pretty much from birth until i was adopted. but yeah, i feel like i couldve done WAY more but at the same time i was a 6 - 8 year old being given all the responsibility on feeding a baby in a council flat full of mould and shit and trash.
anyway, sorry, yeah, that's my childhood. my baby bro's doing good now, excelling in school and has solid friends. his brain wasn't messed up as bad as mine was and he had a lot more preventative support than i did because my adoptive parents learnt the hard way with me haha. i was a mess.
anyway, i ended up being adopted into a wonderful middle class family who later had 2 kids of their own (complete accidents, they had been through multiple rounds of IVF and my adoptive mom was told she was completely infertile before adopting me lol). they were happy accidents tho, i love those lil guys. they're not really little anymore, but still. i remember holding them when they were newborns and teaching them how to play minecraft, it's kind of weird that they're all teens now !
bu yeah, i've got strong bonds with my adoptive family, there was a whole mess when i went through puberty and became an angry depressed mentally ill teen trying to kill himself a bunch, but outside of that we were a solid family unit lol. they paid an insane amount of money on therapy while waiting for the NHS to ensure i survived and eventually became mentally healthy again. it took a while, and i still struggle sometimes to this day and i've recently realised i do still have some pretty deep seated issues, but i don't want to kill myself and i have good friends, a job i enjoy, and generally feel pretty optimistic and content every day.
i just have a couple off days where it feels like the world is ending, tho i've learnt how to mostly prevent those days happening (solid routine, self care, getting out and about, sleeping enough, ignoring my "isolate yourself" demons, basic stuff). i've also got the skills to drag myself out of the trenches when i realise i'm on a downward spiral, and the drive to not let the spiral ruin the rest of my life (ie, i don't call in sick to work if i feel like shit, because it'd eventually lose me my job, and i've learnt that going into work actually helps drag me up into the light again bc it keeps me busy and i like it)
as an adult i visit them regularly still and call pretty much every week. they don't distinguish between me and my lil bro and their bio kids, we're all their kids and they love us the same. 10/10, best adoption. they put me through a great school, maxxed out my academic potential, love me loads, and still help me out financially ("we had money saved up for uni! since you're not going, we'll help you with everything else!") lol.
i basically threw all my academic potential and good grades into the bin in favour of an apprenticeship, which i fucking love btw. i just got a huge pay rise and im about to become a full time employee bc my work loves me. wild. ngl at first my parents were a bit miffed i wasn't going to go be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc, but they soon realised i was loving the apprenticeship and it was better than me being a miserable lawyer. they helped me decorate my flat when i moved out a couple years ago and are constantly excited about the progress im making in my life.
sorry, massive tangent. point is, most of my trauma was contained to the first 8 years of my life. then there was some self inflicted trauma in my teen years due to mental illness.
the thing I'M realising now, is something i should know already.
i for sure

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
I’d been walking long enough to just barely catch a glimpse of the 7-11 signboard gleaming in the distance. Neon edges severing the horizon. The road stretched endless before me. The telephone lines were looming over. I was clenching the Glock in my right hand, completely swathed in my sleeve. I plodded about with an ever-growing, inescapable firmness, albeit I still felt as though I were strolling in ice skates. And yet, each step forward creaked like a motion against nature, each and every particle in my way singeing my body like magmatic grit. I did not belong to that space. That very space turned hostile to its intruder, roaming in denial. For it knew not a single inch of its asphalt was meant to brace such singularity. And was that not all that night was about? That measly hour which turned a most ordinary slice of this planet into the stage of prodigious occurrences. That measly hour which decreed the 7-11 to erect itself as a morgue and the gas station a watershed.
I thought about Leth. The light ebbing away from his eyes, his voice expiring from his swelling lips, fenced by his grisly, bushy beard. And I wondered what final picture dampened his being. That of a lamb that’d escaped slaughter, or that of a goddess of victory haughtily triumphing over him. Was his hieroglyphic visage one of piety or envy? His fellow man, reduced to something that shouldn’t exist or pardoned by fate and elevated to the immortal? I shivered. If it was the former concept that his mind raced to, then hadn’t I taken him down with me? To fall at the hands of a sentence outside of humanity’s reach, couldn’t he have lost his essence in the process? What difference there lay between us? I looked back at the gas station far into the night. At him. And I wanted to scream. No, you fool. You are the victor, and I the vanquished. Was he?
It was the same road I’d traveled just an hour earlier. In my car, thinking of the absurdity of my situation. Of Team Cherry, and Hornet. How mystifying, to know how shallow said absurdity was beforehand, and how steeply it was destined to subside further. Hornet. That is what I was. The thought of the thought. Never before had I given that much weight to the intrinsic order of things, nor had I yearned with such fervor that my damnation was extrinsic to it. Because if it wasn’t, it only meant that something greater had moved its gears against me. To nullify me. A vacuum began gnawing at me from the inside as that conjecture flashed through my mind. The cosmos itself pronouncing on my destruction. And there was my telephone, employed as the prophet of my apocalypse. I stopped on the curb. I felt small. Too small for my newly scrawny build to ground on. So small I could’ve slipped in the depths of my own flesh. Whence I should’ve exceeded it. I looked at my hands. Please.
I thought about my parents. What legacy they left behind. Their son, erased from the face of the earth. Replaced with the daughter of pyretic artistry. The daughter of other men’s imaginations. A dream. An idea. How would’ve Ari and William felt, to know a human had taken the appearance of their own creation? The sheer impossibility of their own inspiration being plucked from them and used as the mould for oblivious blood. How would’ve they even processed such information? It did not matter. That is how my bloodline ends. That is the tragedy of animals. In the end, nothing more than matter for nature to exert its forces upon. And yet, matter that feels. Love and hatred. Mom, dad. I’m still here. But I no longer bear your resemblance. I’m sorry. I bear nothing of this world. ‘I bear nothing of this world.’ It came crashing onto me. So sadistically fitting. A man turned to insect, squashed by the burden of reality. I felt increasingly lightheaded, but I kept walking.
I passed by the local church. That building was always unsightly, to be expected from a rural town such as mine. A newfound fear pervaded me. ‘I bear nothing of this world.’ I realized I had become exactly what compelled humanity to seek a shepherd for millennia. I had become exactly what compelled humanity to strew testimonies of our genius and wildness all over the globe. I had become exactly what compelled humanity to spread those tales in the names of which history was shaped. I had become the unknown. My breath kept getting heavier. And by tangent, I was segregated from all the beauty we conceived, from every last achievement of ours. Every work imbued with the human spirit, I was no longer a bystander of. The reverence for our magnificence I would’ve otherwise felt was swamped by the parching awareness that dawned on me. Our perfection. You idiot. You idiot. Why.
'I bear nothing of this world.' To account for a single fact, I found myself buried in the examination of my whole life. An incommensurable guilt struck me for each and every time I’d neglected the flesh I wore up until that night, taking for granted it was the one thing I truly owned. Too blind to see the absolute stupidity behind that reasoning. As in, I couldn’t have possibly known that my own body could’ve been obliterated and disjoined from my consciousness. Yet apparently that was enough to convince myself of its certainty, and how I could tend to it at my own leisure. What had I discovered? Was I an exception to the legality to which we were ascribed for thousands of centuries? By what criteria? By what criteria was I stripped of humanity? Of the world? I couldn’t stand upright. I dropped on the curb, shuddering. I felt a lump in my throat. The familiar sensation of my eyes getting watery and the hell within gushing out arose. And yet, I couldn’t cry. For my eyes were nothing but crevices on a meaningless landscape. I curled and covered them with my fingers, whimpering. There wasn’t a soul around. Even if there was, nobody could’ve helped me. Not even the road or the telephone lines or the moon. Only I was there. Only I wasn’t. I was no longer. Please. I can’t. Please…
…'accede, o coniunx, accede, miserrima' dixit, 'dumque aliquid superest de me, me tange manumque accipe, dum manus est, dum non totum occupat anguis.’ ille quidem vult plura loqui, sed lingua repente in partes est fissa duas, nec verba volenti sufficiunt, quotiensque aliquos parat edere questus, sibilat: hanc illi vocem natura reliquit.
I heard a car approaching in the distance. I flinched and looked to my right. Two blinding dots stampeding towards me. I froze in panic before diving into the fallow patch of grass by the road. I let go of the gun. It softly clanged on the soil. I shakenly pulled the jacket over my head. The engine’s grumble grew louder. I ducked whilst trying to conceal my horns further. How do I explain this. The car was mere feet away. I held my breath. Keep driving keep driving keep driving. I eased up only after the crickets chirping filled the silence. Hours seemed to have passed. The driver either wasn’t paying attention, or my jacket and body were dark enough to fade into the shade. I took a moment to catch my breath, laying on the grass. It felt restorative. I slipped off the jacket to fully feel its featheriness. I squirmed around to rub my limbs in the blades of grass. That aforementioned hell within discharged into them. Still they caressed me indifferently. A panacea of ordinariness.
…nunc quoque nec fugiunt hominem nec vulnere laedunt quidque prius fuerint, placidi meminere dracones.
I found the strength to stand back up. Moonlight shone along my black, hardened skin. For the first time that night, I thoroughly exhaled. Crickets kept chirping. All fell quiet. I looked at the sky. Few, timid stars were populating it. I looked. ‘I bear nothing of this world’. I felt empty. A fuller emptiness, devoid of pain. Stars bear nothing of this world either. Yet they were the same to have ignited humanity ever since its dawn. No man owns stars. Stars do not exist for us. They do not care. We do. Even if they don’t belong to us. They don’t belong to me either. For I am a man.
Stranger in my own home.
…
…
…
Thus, you now know my story. It’s been a few weeks since it happened. Alas, I’ve learned to make this body my own. I’m not sure how to describe it. It’s probably the same sense of dismay a child nurtures when scraping a knee, only to forget it even happened as soon as neither of the parents acknowledge it. I do not feel the need to eat or drink, although I am capable of both. I can sleep as well, despite it being nothing more than a pleasure to my system. I once recorded myself overnight out of curiosity. I looked like a stuffed animal. Completely still, my face obviously unchanging. Freakish. Speaking of which, I’ve destroyed the Hornet figurine on my desk. The last thing I need is an effigy to remind me of what I am. I have also removed all reflective surfaces in my home. Thanks to it, I can sometimes assume my appearance resembles my own. My height, however, breaks the illusion.
I’ve been living like a nun keeping strict enclosure. I haven’t set foot outside my house once ever since coming back that night. I don’t have much of a choice either way. What bothers me most is the realization that my daily life hasn’t actually changed much. Evidently, being reincarnated into a creature not to be seen by anyone served as a wake-up call. Too late, though. I’d also feared having to cut communication with all the people in my life, only to realize I had nobody to worry about. Except for my neighbors, perhaps. They might get suspicious if they never see me leave the house. I will think of a solution at a time due.
There are some upsides to my current situation. Hornet’s proportions have definitively adjusted to mine, and I feel no shame in admitting she is far more athletic than I would’ve ever been. Constant energy pumps through my veins. Unfortunately, I’m confined to my walls to exercise, but I’ve taken a liking to it. Whether this collades me further to an insect rather than a human, I do not know, and I don’t think I want to, either. I do not sweat, which saves me immense bores. I still wash, just to feel normal. I’d thought about still having to pay my bills, so as to not arise any suspicion. I obviously can no longer go to work. I deemed it too difficult to explain to my boss, so I stopped going altogether. The termination letter is somewhere in the bin. Some time ago I was brooding over it in the shower. I bent down to pick up the shampoo bottle, and casually inspected my body. And a light bulb had gone on.
Despite being one for pragmatism, I felt repellent at first, and pined away at the possible consequences of such a decision. Striking poses at the camera, I felt as though I was massacring my very essence. I swore to delete each and every image as soon as I uploaded it. But I must say, OnlyFans pays just as well as they say it does.

Chapter 6: Fury Unleashed
Our battle cry must have caught them by surprise at first. As we came pouring out of that rooftop access like feral demons, I saw the first few rows of undead pause, swaying in stunned unison as if unified by some unspoken psychic shock.
For the briefest of moments, the raging thunder of snarls and groans subsided into eerie stillness, like the calming of a stormy sea. Rank after rank gaped up at us in slack-jawed, uncomprehending silence.
Perhaps those glassy dead eyes simply could not process the concept of prey daring to show defiance, let alone mount an offensive. We were cattle boldly charging the slaughterhouse in their twisted, hunger-addled psyches.
Then Javier let his feral roar rip from the very depths of his diaphragm, and all hell broke loose in a hurricane of fury.
"Ruuuaaaaggghhhhh!!!"
The sound was primordial, a rallying berserker cry that could shatter steel and splinter bone. It caused even my own heart to skip a beat before galvanizing every last ounce of rage simmering in my soul.
I added my own throat-shredding bellow to that chorus of unholy wrath as we surged forward like vengeful demons unleashed from the blackest pits. Bats, pipes, blades – any weapon that could bludgeon, slice or impale was instantly awash in viscera.
The first few ranks of undead crumpled almost instantly under the ferocity of our onslaught, shattered skulls and cleaved torsos spraying rancid plumes of rot. Bones cracked like dry kindling, tendons and sinew parting with sickening wet pops as we hacked and tore our way forward in a frothing frenzy.
I lost all sense of individual identity in those opening moments, operating on pure Id-driven impulse as my aching muscles pistoned and swung. All I could perceive were the rush of adrenaline, the metallic tang of blood misting the air, and the feel of every impact driving through my arms to the core.
At one point I looked down to find myself gripping a shattered length of bone protruding from a twitching, eyeless skull, using it to bludgeon wildly at anything in arm's reach. The acrid, fishy reek of putrescence clung in my nostrils, stomach roiling with every rasping gasp for breath between primal screams of exertion.
I registered vague blurs of movement from my peripherals – a sledgehammer crashing through rib cages, a machete separating lower jaws from skulls in grotesque showers of spine and teeth. But the individual identities of their wielders were lost in the adrenaline-stoked melee.
In those first few glorious minutes of unbridled slaughter, we truly became an unstoppable force of nature. Not even the mustering tides of the Black Plague or the rage of Storm-Tossed Leviathans could hope to withstand our furious wrath.
Fueled by the indescribable relief of releasing every pent-up ounce of terror and hatred, it seemed as if nothing could halt the cleaving swath of our onslaught. I bashed and battered with reckless abandon, roaring like a mad beast each time another wretched foe crumpled beneath my flailing strikes. They just kept coming at us, those shambling fetid ranks of hunger and decay.
For a few euphoric minutes, my entire existence burned with the intensity of a raging solar flare, fists mercilessly pounding anything that lurched within reach of my maddened swings. I wanted to rip, to tear, to utterly obliterate every last trace of this unholy evil from the face of the earth with my bare hands if need be.
Once roused, our fury simply could not be contained or slaked until every last trace of the noxious corruption was scoured from this realm.
Which is why the soul-shattering sense of shock, of sickening realization, hit me like a blow from a sledgehammer when I finally paused to catch the briefest wisp of air and felt cold tendrils of dread creep up my spine.
We weren't making a dent...
No matter how many crumpled to the feverish swings of our makeshift weapons, no matter how many fell beneath our boots, endless ranks of shambling, groaning undead kept pressing forward from the gloom. For every half-dozen that crumpled to our wrath, a dozen more took their place, swarming in with those same unblinking hunger-stoked stares and gaping maws.
Even Javier's raging, bestial howls began to falter, sputtering and choking off as the horrific realization dawned on us all. Our defiant heroism ultimately meant nothing against such boundless, limitless numbers. There was no way to stem this unholy tide, no path to victory no matter how savage or determined.
We traded grim, ashen glances across that sea of gnashing, clutching limbs, and I could see the fight draining from every other face. All the fear, the dread, the sense of despair we'd suppressed with our berserk wrath came surging back tenfold, threatening to drown us in a rip current of madness and utter hopelessness.
From the moment those first blades and bats stopped raining blows, it was all over...

So I fully support any writer, fanfic or otherwise, who writes the way they want to write. If you want to write a Mary Sue, beloved by all, capable of hacking into the Pentagon’s computers, brilliant clarinet player, better at kung fu than the character who is canonically the best at kung fu, et cetera, then you do you! If you want to write a million word count project on bee pollination, I’m for it! I probably won’t read it, but I’m not against it.
Why am I saying this? I’m honestly asking. I have ADHD, I get confused by my own mouth (or keyboard, as the case may be).
Right. I say that to say that I’m fully 100% on the side of doing whatever the fuck you want as long as your intent is not to harm. And if your intent is to harm then please just be up front about it, so those of us who don’t want to be harmed can steer clear.
I don’t intend to do any harm. Despite that bonkers-long opening, my question is actually pretty simple.
Let’s say you’re reading a fic. It’s canon compliant, but it’s not about the main characters. It IS about fan favorite side characters whose back stories are not super fleshed out in canon. These side characters are far apart in age, which is an aspect of the story I have really been enjoying as I write it. I was always expecting to do a flashback for the older character, but I thought it would be five chapters max. (Cue insane laughter because my first 80 chapter fic was also supposed to only be five chapters.)
I honestly have no idea how long the flashback will be now. I’m kind of enamored with the idea of letting the story take the readers the way it took me - very much by surprise.
I want to know, as readers, how upset would you be by a potentially very long tangent? It’s essential to the older character’s development and their relationship with the younger character, but I think you could argue it only enriches the story. I could allude to it instead and accomplish the same thing, while setting aside this 20 chapter tangent and doing it as a separate story instead. I’m planning on breaking up the tangent as several flashbacks, prompted by what’s happening in the story in the “now”. This story is all about PTSD and learning how to live with and manage trauma responses, so on that level I think it works.
For those in the fandom, the work is about Mags, Finnick, and Annie from The Hunger Games. The flashback is for Mags and it starts at the 75th reaping with a flashback to her reaping for the 11th Hunger Games. I don’t want to give away what i’m thinking, but what made the flashback so much longer than what I was originally planning was a huge idea for the 25th Games as well. Again, it’s essential to Mags’s development, but I could easily separate it into its own standalone story. And maybe I should.
So, keep in this 20 chapter tangent or chuck it out as its own story? Would you stop reading if a story repeatedly went back and forth in time for potentially a third of the story you were reading?

I wiped the sweat from my brow as our guide hacked a path through thick rainforest underbrush, the humid heat of the Amazon making my pack feel as if it weighed a hundred extra pounds as I slogged through the trees. Birds and monkeys chirped and hooted above me, remnants of a recent rainfall dripping from wide monstera leaves.
We had been walking for days, deeper and deeper into the heart of the jungle, following the Amazon River. The lab equipment on my back jostled and threw me off balance with each step, leaving me staggering like a drunk over the uneven rainforest floor. All of us walked like elephants in a row; the sad, circus kind of elephants forced to perform at the crack of a whip.
None of my colleagues fared much better, Carter heaving with exertion ahead, his dark brow glistening with sweat. Poor Mary Elizabeth’s boot caught a stray root, sending her sprawling across the ground behind me. The march ground to a halt, all of us turning to help her. I removed her pack, Carter helping her from the ground as she brushed a thick layer of mud off her trousers, leaning against a palm tree to catch her breath.
“We should stop to make camp soon,” Carter suggested, surveying the state of our weary convoy. He took off his tacky safari hat and fanned himself as he awaited our responses, droplets splashing across his face.
Mary Elizabeth took a moment to catch her breath, moisture beading on her poncho. “I agree. I can’t walk much farther,” she panted. Our guide simply nodded, sweat staining his white tank top even though he looked like he’d been barely exerting himself at all, slashing through the wild with all the confidence of an Amazon native.
They all looked to me. Despite my aching bones and the sweat beginning to pool in my boots, I hesitated. We only had a few more hours worth of jungle until we reached the survey site, where there should be a hot meal and a warm bed for me to rest on.
How I yearned for a meal that didn’t come from a can. Reluctantly, I sighed and was about to agree to spare my companions, opening my mouth only to be cut short by an excited squeal from Mary Elizabeth.
“Look! Look! Carter, Howard, come quickly!” She gestured excitedly to the ground beside where she leaned against the tree at something hidden beneath a tangle of moneywort vines. Intrigued, Howard and I approached what excited her so, brushing aside the vines to reveal a series of red dirt mounds, each emitting a steady stream of leafcutter ants. “Atta Cephalotes!” She beamed.
Carter and I oohed and ahhed the appropriate amount to please her. Like myself, Mary Elizabeth was an avid myrmecologist and practically glowed with excitement whenever she spotted a leafcutter ant colony.
It had been truly fascinating the first time, somewhat less so the third, and had lost its charm entirely by the tenth, but her joy was too pure to spoil with our dying interest.
The ants were cutting large chunks out of the surrounding foliage, everything green and leafy around us missing small chunks, as if someone had taken a hole punch into the deepest reaches of the Amazon and had begun trying to clear the foliage with it.
I watched them for a moment while our guide cleared enough vegetation for Carter to unwrap our tents, Mary Elizbeth stepping away to assist him. There was something so fascinating about them, how they moved perfectly in a single file line, each one carrying a chunk of leaf bigger than its own body. I looked out over the colony, rows and rows of ants winding like a system of rivers into the ocean of their colonies underneath our feet.
“Kauê?” I called out to him, halting his progress as he lowered the machete in his hand. Carter and Mary Elizabeth struggled to put up a tent in the background. Not that I’d be able to do it any better. I pointed to the anthill metres away from our site. “Camping here won’t disturb the colony, will it?”
Kauê shook his head. “No. They will not bother us as long as they are left alone.” I chuckled as he returned to his labour. That should be no issue. Mary Elizabeth had already collected enough leafcutter specimens on our trek to rival the colony in front of me.
I was just about to turn back to assist my companions, who had just managed to pitch the first tent and were currently doing battle against the second when I took notice of something truly odd on the furthest edge of the colony.
The corpse of a howler monkey had fallen onto one of the mounds, still limp and fresh, the sand around it forming rusty clumps. I tiptoed around the mounds, careful not to upset the anthills so close to our camp as I got closer to verify that what I saw out of the corner of my eye was, in fact, real.
Three lines of dark red ants were leading towards the howler’s body, each line closely coupled by a parallel twin running in the opposite direction, carrying chunks of red and bloody white tissue. The monkey’s corpse looked like the surrounding leaves, riddled with clean-cut semicircles. I could see into its open ribcage as they cut away bone and offal alike, ants shifting and undulating beneath the skin, making its dark fur quiver with a sickening false life. I watched in stunned disbelief as they carved perfect chunks of fresh meat like tiny butchers.
I wanted to look away, to cringe with disgust, to call my colleagues in alarm. Instead, I simply stood frozen, watching the monkey disappear piece by piece at an alarmingly swift rate. Its eye twitched in a sunken socket, and as I leaned down to look closer, a shudder of revulsion ran through me.
I could see them crawling behind its eyes.
Every scientific bone in my body knew this couldn’t be right. The whole reason leafcutter ants harvested leaves in the first place was to grow fungi for sustenance, they most certainly didn’t eat carrion. None of the regular ants seemed to notice the corpse, giving the strange newcomer ants a wide berth. Was it an undiscovered subspecies? A new adaptation? I looked around for any sign of a predator, tracks in the sand, a displaced mound, the glint of eyes in the bushes.
I found nothing at all. Nothing except the three trails (technically six, if you count the returning lines as well) leading into the foliage.
“Mary! Carter! By God, come see this,” I shouted back to the camp. I heard Carter’s low voice through the thick brush, but his words were too muffled by the jungle ambiance to make out.
I stepped back into the clearing, seeing Kauê and Carter finish setting up the final tent while Mary Elizabeth crouched as she set a pot of water over the fire to boil, shooting up when I approached her. “Howard! Where were you? We had to set up the tents without you! You look…” Mary Elizabeth studied me with a furrowed brow, her irritation replaced with concern. “Troubled. Is something the matter?”
I paused, unsure of how to broach the subject. Mary Elizabeth would hardly take such a grievous slight to her beloved Atta Cephalotes lightly, and what I had seen was nothing short of a bastardization of their entire biology. “I saw— they had a monkey, Mary, a howler of some sort, and they were taking pieces out of it like it was a leaf, bones and all, I swear—”
“What had a monkey?” Carter’s mammalogist interests had been peaked; joining us as I stumbled over the point I was trying to get across.
“They— The ants, they looked like leafcutters but they weren’t part of the colony, I’m certain, they had found a freshly dead howler—”
“What subspecies of howler?”
“Good God Carter, I don’t fucking know, half the damn thing was gone! The ants were carving it up like it was a leaf, taking it away somewhere!” Mary Elizabeth and Carter exchanged worried looks. Kauê raised an eyebrow at me from across the camp. “I know what you’re thinking, and I am not mad!”
I grabbed Mary Elizabeth by the wrist, practically dragging her to the colony as I pointed to where the howler was. “Howard…” she said gently, “perhaps we should get you a sip of water and a good night’s rest.” Confused, I turned my gaze to where I was pointing.
There was nothing there. Any trace of the howler being there had disappeared into thin air. Much to Mary Elizabeth’s protest, I stumbled over the russet craters to where the corpse had been, brushing the loose soil aside as if it would be buried underneath. I searched for bones, a scrap of fur, a bloody clump of sand, anything—
But nothing was there. It was as if the howler had come back to life and flown away. There weren’t even any footprints, just faint lines in the sand that could have been from any one of the dozens of trails of ants coming to and fro from the colony of millions.
“I swear, it was right here, Mary! They must've finished taking it or... or..” Or maybe the heat really had been getting to me.
No! No, I knew it was there. I knew for sure wasn’t crazy, but as I watched Carter join Mary Elizabeth in luring me back to camp, I knew I had no proof. No evidence. Of course I’d seem like a raving lunatic, I’d accuse myself of being so if I were in their shoes as well. To convince scientists of something impossible, one needs proof. Indisputable proof. But as I looked into the bushes from where the strange ants had emerged, I saw no trace of them either. They had disappeared along with their macabre prize.
I hung my head in resignation, a twinge of guilt striking my heart as I realised I was standing on an anthill. Murmuring an apology to its tiny citizens, I carefully stepped back to camp, Mary Elizabeth promising me a clean drink of water while Carter attempted to distract me with talk of tapir sightings in the area. To his credit, any reasonable human would find conversing about tapirs with Carter to be delightful, but my mind kept wandering back to that unfortunate howler.
The way its whole body writhed with ants. The way they cut away at it like surgeons. Did they eat it outright? Was it used to cultivate some unknown type of fungal garden? I thought about the direction the ants were coming from, and a plan began to take shape in my mind as I sat down by the fire and waited for the sun to go down.
***
It had taken a while for Kauê to fall asleep, somehow being the least tired out of our party despite doing the lion's share of the physical labour. I feared he wouldn’t fall asleep by the time the sunlight had died down, but as I heard a rustle in the tent to the left of mine, I unzipped the tent and peered out into the light of the setting sun.
The camp was empty. I waited another few minutes until Kauê had completely settled down before carefully unzipping my tent and creeping out into the dusk. Even though the sun had yet to descend below the horizon, it had already gotten much darker under the canopy, the only light coming from the break in the trees to the north of camp where I could hear the river rushing in the distance. Grabbing my lantern, I turned the gas valve and struck a match, igniting the flame. I patted my back pocket, ensuring the can I smuggled away at dinner was still present.
It was a long shot, I knew, these creatures almost definitely preferred a fresh kill to Hereford’s corned beef, but my hunting skills weren’t nearly adept enough to attempt catching a howler of my own. Nor did I have it in my heart to kill one.
Besides, Carter would never look at me the same.
I crept silently over to the anthills, relieved (if not a little disappointed) that there were no corpses. Only the regular leafcutters were present, continuing their monotonous gardening around the clock.
I whispered a silent prayer as I pried open the can, hoping the smell wouldn’t attract any larger, more vicious predators. However, deep down, part of me preferred the known danger of a jaguar to the unknown threat posed by the strange ants. The smell of corned beef quickly overpowered the earthy scent of the jungle asn I wrinkled my nose in disgust.
If anything, this would be repelling the jaguars.
I dumped the beef unceremoniously in the dirt beside the mound the howler fell on. The ants had nearly finished repairing it, much to my fascination.
Once the bait had been set, I found a low-hanging tree branch and hoisted myself onto it, leaning against the trunk as I waited, the rush of the river and the slow trickle of ants lulling me into a gentle slumber.
***
I awoke with a start to a weight on my shoulder, needle-sharp claws digging into my skin. I tumbled from my resting place in the tree, frantically brushing away whatever was on me. I felt silky fur against my hand and heard a soft hiss from somewhere in the night as I regained my composure.
Night had fallen like a curtain while I slept, and I awoke to complete darkness, the canopy too dense to see the stars above. I reached around blindly for my lantern, blades of grass and tiny leaves brushing against my skin; each feeling like the touch of some unknown creature in the pitch blackness sending goosebumps up my arms.
Eventually, my fingertips hit glass and metal with a rattle. I fumbled around the valve and lit a match (thanking God I had taken them along with me), blessed light returning my vision. A pair of eyes glinted across the anthills from me, and I raised my lantern to discover a coati staring at me with a hesitant curiosity.
I chuckled. Carter would be green with envy that I had one resting upon my shoulder. I made a mental note to rub it in later.
I turned to return to camp when my boot connected with something, the clatter of hollow tin echoing over the chirp of insects and the croak of frogs in the river nearby. Lowering my lantern, the purpose of my excursion returned to me as I gazed upon the empty can of corned beef.
I looked back to the anthill and, to my absolute delight, two rows of ants were running like train tracks too and from the quickly diminishing pile of corned beef, carrying the mushy brown clumps off into the night.
So their tastes weren’t so refined after all.
I reached for my camera, cursing under my breath when I realized that I had left it back at camp. With one last look at the ants, I quickly snuck back. Although swift, I remained silent, not wanting to be made a fool of for a second time. Nobody stirred as I rustled around in my pack for my camera, scurrying back to the ants to collect my evidence.
They were still there when I returned, the pile of beef having diminished by at least fifty percent in the few minutes it took to grab my camera. The Polaroid’s flash lit up the night for a split second, leaving a white spot in my vision as I blinked. The photo printed with a whirr, and I took a second one just for good measure as I shook the first.
After a few good shakes, the photograph was developed enough to make out. A row of leafcutter ants, a species that should have no taste for meat, carrying away clumps of the beef pyramid. I nearly danced back to camp, bursting into Mary Elizabeth’s tent. “Who’s mad now, Mary?” I gloated, waving my picture around like an Olympic medal.
But as I looked down, I noticed she was nowhere to be found. Come to think of it, her tent had been opened as well.
Assuming she had just stepped out to use the bathroom, I attempted Carter’s tent. I unzipped the tent, and again its occupant was missing. My nonchalance had faded, fear and worry creeping up my spine.
“Kauê?” I called nervously, peering into his tent. Much to my relief, I heard something stirring inside his tent, a gruff voice mumbling something as he poked a head of messy hair from his tent, his face contorted into an irritated scowl. “Mary and Carter are gone,” I whispered. “I don’t see them anywhere nearby.”
That got his attention, grabbing his machete as he stepped out of the tent. “Did you hear them leave?” I shook my head. As knowledgeable as they were on the local fauna, neither were survivalists. It wasn’t like either of them to vanish into the night in the middle of the Amazon, they would know better than that. A cool dread pooled in my gut, a chill running through my veins. “Have you checked the tents?”
“I’ve only scanned them.”
“We should search them properly before searching the nearby forest at this hour,” he said as he walked towards the tents. He threw Carter’s tent open and began tossing his things around.
“Whoa, hey, I don’t think Carter will appreciate—” my mouth hung open like a fish on land as Kauê flung his sleeping bag aside. The fabric at the bottom of the tent was gone, the earth pocked with holes as if a buckshot had been fired from underground.
Kauê stared at me in shocked disbelief, as if I were the one to dig the holes. I was about to ask him what he was staring at when I noticed something scuttling across the earth.
An ant. Indistinguishable from the rusty leafcutters, unnoticeable if not for the scrap it was carrying towards a hole in the earth. I pounced on it like a cat; giving Kauê a start as I scrambled in the dirt like an addict trying to catch the tiny thing. I felt my fingers close around its tiny body and felt a bolt of pain shoot through my finger as a trickle of crimson splashed onto the dirt, disappearing into one of the little holes as if the earth itself thirsted for my blood.
I gasped in pain and dropped it, cursing as more droplets of blood splashed onto the forest floor. “What is it?” Kauê asked, leaning over my shoulder to determine the source of my panic. “Did some bug do this?”
“I— perhaps. Maybe. Do you remember the ants I was talking about earlier? With the monkey?” I reached into my pockets with trembling hands before I found the photograph, pulling it out for Kauê to see. “I will admit my claim was…out there, but I was telling the truth. And no,” I added as he cocked his eyebrow at me once more before taking the picture from my outstretched hand, “I wasn’t lying or heatsick.”
I watched Kauê’s face morph from scorn to confusion to fear. “So you’re saying—” he said with a laugh of terrified hilarity, “—that the ants took them away.” It wasn’t a question so much as a statement, Kauê looking to me for confirmation as if it wasn’t true until I confirmed it.
“I’m saying it’s a possibility.”
“If that’s the case, then…what the hell do we do?” I had no answer.
And I was given no time to formulate one. Neither of us had noticed the ants slowly start to swarm around our feet and up our boots as if summoned by my blood. I felt a sharp pain above my sock and looked down to see the holes were gone. In their place was a writhing black carpet of ants, dark chitin bodies catching the lantern light like a thousand demonic eyes as they swarmed up our legs.
I will admit my scream of terror was not as manly-sounding as Kauê’s. We fled from the tent, swatting ants from our legs as fast as we could. I was briefly able to see my legs in the flickering lamplight through the darkness and blood, chunks of my calves missing, my exposed flesh stinging as we ran.
They gave chase, a flood of them, rushing over the leaves with a chilling silence, making no sound aside from a constant rustling of the trimmed foliage they passed over.
“The river!” I shouted, about to run to the river Amazon before Kauê grabbed me and forced me in the opposite direction, the maneuver costing us precious time as the horde pivoted quickly to follow us.
“We can’t swim across at this time of night, God only knows how many caimans are hunting right now!” The ants had formed an impossibly large swarm now, nearly taking up the entire cleared area of the camp. I dreaded to think of the fates suffered by my companions, but we could no longer stay there.
We turned and ran through the thick foliage, my pulse roaring like thunder and my panting a gale as I sprinted as fast as my legs would carry me. My poor legs stung like hellfire as they were brushed and scraped and prodded by the vegetation I tore through. My lantern flickered and rattled wildly as I ran, the night sounds of the jungle drowned out by my desperate crashing through the brush.
I didn’t dare stop, my vision tunneled by fear, unable to focus on anything except putting ground between myself and that awful campsite. I ran and ran and ran until my foot caught a root, sending me tumbling down a hill. My lantern went out on impact, plunging me into darkness.
I scrambled in the sand, trying to find my lantern as my whole body shook. I waited for the inevitable pain to return as I was torn apart, the anticipation fading as I realised that, for the moment, I had evaded my pursuers. My heart sank to my tattered boots as I realised that I had evaded my guide as well. “Kauê?” I called into the night, to no response.
Feeling around in the darkness, the gravity of my situation finally had time to sink in. I was lost, well and truly lost, and completely alone in the Amazon rainforest. I, an entomologist from upper Manhattan, was lost in one of the most wild places on the planet with no food or water. I’d be lucky to last until morning, disregarding the swarm of killer ants hot on my trail. I was not a religious man, I never was and likely never will be, but in that moment I prayed. I prayed that Kauê evaded the ants, prayed that we would reunite, and he would be able to lead me out of this green hell to safety where I could tell the Brazilian government to burn the whole damn forest to the ground.
Something rustled in the bushes above me, about to send me into another panicked sprint before it emerged from the shadows. A kinkajou’s eyes glinted in the lantern light as I held it up, a deep sigh of relief leaving my chest as it scampered away. Seeing it made me think of Carter, my heart aching for my poor companions. But grief would not help me now. There would be time for that later, the most pressing matter at the moment was finding my bearings.
My fingers touched something smooth and warm. My lantern! I fumbled with a match, my fingers still shaking from exhaustion and fear as I turned the gas valve, the glass rattling as I shook. Swinging my lantern around to get my bearings, I saw that I had not fallen down a hill, rather the ground had broken beneath my feet, plunging me into a pit.
My entire body froze as I swiveled in place, feet stuck to the ground in terror as I realised what I had fallen into. It looked like the floor of Carter’s tent, thousands of little holes peppered all around me in every direction like a grenade had gone off. I took a step back after seconds that felt like years, feeling something shift underfoot.
I looked down to see a tattered explorer’s hat, tacky and green and dreadfully familiar. I picked Carter’s hat off the ground and a sob grew in my throat as I saw what was beneath it. Mary Elizabeth’s poncho lay above a heap of tattered rags that were once expedition gear, shredded and discarded once the ants realised they weren’t edible. There weren’t even any bones left.
Taking a shuddering breath, I tried to move as little as possible as I scanned the hole for any way to escape. I was about two metres deep, and one of my ankles twisted at a painful angle. I lowered my sock, my ankle swollen to twice its size and slowly turning purple. I was unsure if I could climb out of there in a healthy state, and even if I could, I’d certainly not be fast enough to evade the ants once they detected my presence.
There was a small hill of loose soil leading about halfway up the side of the hole, and I noticed chunks of the wall appeared to be crumbling, the perforated earth made unstable by ant tunnels. Every other section would be a sheer climb, and none of the holes were large enough for me to use as footholes.
Gingerly, I limped to the sand pile, sizing up the jump from the top of the sand hill to the edge of the hole. My odds weren’t stellar, but it was the best hope of escape I had. I gently placed my good foot down, holding my breath as the sand shifted under my weight. Eventually, it held firm, and I dragged my bad leg onto the pile. I knew my time was limited, as quiet as I was, most ants hunted by odour and I was sure I reeked of sweat and blood.
I repeated the same process moving as if the air was molasses. Eventually, I reached the wall, about a metre and a half of loose soil between me and freedom. I took a deep breath in as I forced my trembling body still. I squatted down, readying every muscle in my body to explode upwards with as much force as possible.
And I jumped. My breath shot from my lungs with a pained grunt as I sprung upwards, pain shooting up from my twisted ankle like lightning in my veins. I felt a jolt of adrenaline as my hands found purchase on the rim of the hole; bracing my legs against the wall as it sloughed away beneath the tread of my boots.
I threw an elbow onto the grassy surface, hoisting my upper body into the cool night air. I swung my other arm up and felt a shifting beneath my chest.
Before I could reorient myself, the ground beneath me gave way. I was plunged into sand and dirt, filling my eyes and ears and mouth and nose as I flailed helplessly in the silt, sinking like it was quicksand.
I heard them before I felt them.
They were silent when they chased me and Kauê from our campsite, their only noise being the rushing of the foliage they ran over. But I could hear them now, feel them, shifting the earth around me as they tried to figure out the disturbance crashing into their nest.
I felt the first bite as my head broke free from the ground, the first splash of my blood sparking a feeding frenzy. My mind raced with images of that howler as they tore into me from every direction as I clawed my way up the new slope I had created.
I could feel them moving under my skin. Their tiny claws scraped against my insides as they cut me apart piece by piece, bone and muscle and sinew and fat. I screamed, my entire body on fire as they covered me, flowing into my open mouth like water. I looked at my hands as I clawed through the dirt, lines of ants wriggling up and down under the skin of my arms like caustic veins.
By some miracle, I had enough strength to stagger out of the dirt, ants falling off in clumps with my flesh in the lantern light.
The lantern! I had nearly forgotten about it. I knew there was no hope for me, I could feel them in my lungs and my chest, burrowing towards my heart and up my spine. The pain had become so omnipresent and all-consuming that I had forgotten what it was like to feel normal. But god damn those tiny devils crawling in and out of my body, I was nothing if not spiteful and did not intend to go down alone.
With trembling, shredded fingers I unscrewed the gas valve, bone scraping against metal. I poured the gasoline onto my ruined body, the stink of it overpowering what little smell I had left. I could feel them in my head now, black spots appearing in my vision. I thought of the howler as I felt a pressure building behind my eyes, how I could see the ants squirming in its eye sockets. I reached my bony fingers into my pocket and retrieved the matchbox, one lone match rattling around inside.
I struck it. Once. Twice. Three times. I had all but given up, about to lie down and die, to be consumed, when on the fourth and final time, I saw a flame.
The match fell in time with my last breath, my vision fading to blurry colours as the world swayed. Sounds became dissonant and fuzzy, but I could hear something crackling as warmth flooded my body. I saw orange light and felt the warmth grow to heat, the pain fading nothingness as the ants and I burned away to nothing.

I don't really know where to start, so I'll start from the beginning.
I met the love of my life a year ago. Normally I am the type to get out of one relationship and hope right into another but before I met her I had just spent the first year of my life single since I was 17. We met on a dating app, everything went good. It was around my birthday and before a trip so we decided to meet at a local fair and had a very nice date, nothing crazy but just very nice and good vibes. We had our second date right before I went on my vacation this time going out to dinner, an arcade, and finishing up with a couple drinks. We documented our first kiss in the photo booth. I still have the picture, after we got to my house she gave me a couple of sentimental gifts (a hot wheels model of my car with a note that she hand wrote stating several things that made me feel like she was the first person in my life who truly listened. She came over to my place a few times after that and we moved through all the private steps of a romantic relationship as well. When I got back to my place from my vacation a natural disaster had hit my area and a tornado destroyed the house my family had spent my entire life building, my dog got out from the house but as a result was attacked by a mastiff 3x his size. As you can imagine I came back a mess and needed someone to rely on. I was going through a lot but so was she, she had been dealing with mental illness as well as just being an overly anxious person and as a result of my freakout, and me needing her she called me and said we were both going through too much and it wasn't good for either of us to continue the relationship.
Fast forward 9 months I just got out of possibly one of the worst relationships in my life (probably due to looking for someone to comfort me directly after her.) And she contacts me saying she wishes to be friends and still thinks about me often. To be honest throughout that whole relationship I couldn't stop thinking about her but I needed to heal, and remembering how it ended the last time and not wanting a repeat.
She got offended because at first I was okay with making plans and seeing each other and I ended up cancelling. A few weeks later she messages me apologizing about how she reacted, owning up to it and admitting that it was because she still had feelings for me and me cancelling on her made her feel some type of way, but she owned up to not being 100% with her intentions and her reaction. I accepted and we started talking again.
In less than a week of talking again I knew I loved this woman. She reminded me almost immediately of why I fell for her the first time. Her kindness, her compassion, and her verbal reinforcements were all I asked for in a partner aside from her being drop dead gorgeous. There's a lot of conversations we had that made me see this, I don't wanna elaborate on or this reddit post would look more like a novel, so for your sake I'll fast forward to recent events that brought me here.
Last month I went out with some friends for the first time in a long time, when I finished dropping everyone off from the bars I called her was talking on my drive home(drank enough where I should NOT have been behind a wheel) now this next part, I take full blame for but I hope that my reasoning does not come off as an excuse. She loves to ask me why I like her, what I love about her and I always happily oblige. This time after I finished my drunk tangent on why I care about her so much I accidentally said "I just love you so much (wrong name)" now this wasn't an exes name, or love interests name. It was my friends obnoxiously loud girlfriends' name that was out with us that night. I heard her name so much it was still in my head like a catchy song and I made a mistake. I wasn't drunk enough to not catch myself though. I immediately apologized and corrected myself and attempting to explain to her but from her voice I could tell she was upset. We called it a night and she asked me for time to cool off. 2 days later of bare minimum communication she tells me we will be good and she's sorry for borderline ignoring me and she should've told me we'd be and that she just needed time so I wouldn't have been anxious the whole time. I still didn't let my own mistake slide and apologized heavily, attempting to reassure her that she is the only woman I want in my life.
Between then and the time of me writing this we both had trips planned and (i forgot to mention we both work and she lives an hour away so we already only saw each other physically once or twice a week.) So we have not seen each other from the beginning of May. While she was on vacation the communication was slim to none on the daily which I respected because she was with friends she rarely sees. She got back and there was a couple of weeks between me leaving and her but I was still saving because my trip was planned last minute so I couldn't spend the money to drive my truck there and back twice(over $100 in gas) so we just planned to meet up to celebrate my birthday when I got back.
We were being loving during my whole trip. Then on my last day she was acting a bit off so I asked what was wrong and she said she felt bad for bringing it up during my trip because she wants me to enjoy it but she just couldn't let go of me saying "I love you" to another woman's name, the moment she said that I felt horrible for not doing in the period between because I know she needs verbal reinforcement and it's something we've discussed before. I sent paragraphs detailing how I love her and only her. I would never do anything to hurt her. She responded by saying she felt betrayed by what I did and she couldn't help it. I won't lie, I got offended and told her that after all we've gone through, I would never betray her and that's a strong word to use for something that was a mistake. I have done so much for her out of sheer love without mentioning it, and I said so. She responded even more hurt because my response made her feel like I saw our relationship as transactional, even going to the extent of telling me she doesn't owe me anything. When I got back we had a call where I begged her to see where I'm coming from. She did not and she left me. She proceeded to send a long paragraph naming issues she had that were never brought up under the guise of "I was scared of your reaction or you getting defensive"
REASONS SHE GAVE VERBATIM BELOW, PARENTHESIS ARE MY REBUTLES
to be honest, this whole time I’d been convinced that i had my fair share of mistakes, but when i think about them, how could you expect me not to react the way i did? i know i don’t talk for days when i’m upset or that i don’t showcase how i feel transparently when i need to. it’s wrong. but you’ve never made me feel safe voicing my opinions in the first place because you always get defensive and try to rationalize your mistakes. there are a lot of things i never brought up with you because i was scared you’d make me feel bad for thinking the way i do. i get hurt when you patronize me about educational topics, how you mansplain simple things like having my data on the internet.(she said she was anxious and having a bad day because she was worried about data leaks and I tried to make her feel better by saying we're in the information age and everyone's data was out there I never saw this as mansplaining just trying to ease her mind by relating), I was trying to i was hurt when you came back from the gas station and told me that the clerk asked if my pussy was tight because i was Korean (I corrected the clerk about the way he spoke, and told her when I got in the car because I thought it was wild). i get hurt when you ignore my text messages and text me about something else that you find more relevant to you(100% I am in the wrong. It's a problem in my friendships and work life that I am trying to fix). i get hurt every time you get suspicious of a man who is in my life because you were hurt before in the past by someone else.(I have nothing here. I have never acted out of jealousy or questioned her out of the sheer respect I have for her) i get hurt when you say that i don’t know how to endure in a relationship because it’s my first one - I've been enduring.(she herself will mention she has not been in a relationship before and it's difficult) it hurts now because despite everything you put me through, i still have strong feelings for you, but i have to choose myself this time.
Idk my intentions with posting all this. I'm just so hurt. I would do anything for this woman still and I truly saw this being my life partner. Am I just not hers? Am I that bad? Why couldn't we have communicated more and attempted to fix things instead of letting it all pile up? I understand her fears but is the fear of losing each other not greater than the fear of speaking out? PLEASE HELP ME. I am a mess. I don't mean side with me, I mean give me advice. Anyone who has experienced something similar in my shoes or hers tell me what I can do to become a better man not only for myself but for the love of my life.

I don't really know where to start, so I'll start from the beginning.
I met the love of my life a year ago. Normally I am the type to get out of one relationship and hope right into another but before I met her I had just spent the first year of my life single since I was 17. We met on a dating app, everything went good. It was around my birthday and before a trip so we decided to meet at a local fair and had a very nice date, nothing crazy but just very nice and good vibes. We had our second date right before I went on my vacation this time going out to dinner, an arcade, and finishing up with a couple drinks. We documented our first kiss in the photo booth. I still have the picture, after we got to my house she gave me a couple of sentimental gifts (a hot wheels model of my car with a note that she hand wrote stating several things that made me feel like she was the first person in my life who truly listened. She came over to my place a few times after that and we moved through all the private steps of a romantic relationship as well. When I got back to my place from my vacation a natural disaster had hit my area and a tornado destroyed the house my family had spent my entire life building, my dog got out from the house but as a result was attacked by a mastiff 3x his size. As you can imagine I came back a mess and needed someone to rely on. I was going through a lot but so was she, she had been dealing with mental illness as well as just being an overly anxious person and as a result of my freakout, and me needing her she called me and said we were both going through too much and it wasn't good for either of us to continue the relationship.
Fast forward 9 months I just got out of possibly one of the worst relationships in my life (probably due to looking for someone to comfort me directly after her.) And she contacts me saying she wishes to be friends and still thinks about me often. To be honest throughout that whole relationship I couldn't stop thinking about her but I needed to heal, and remembering how it ended the last time and not wanting a repeat.
She got offended because at first I was okay with making plans and seeing each other and I ended up cancelling. A few weeks later she messages me apologizing about how she reacted, owning up to it and admitting that it was because she still had feelings for me and me cancelling on her made her feel some type of way, but she owned up to not being 100% with her intentions and her reaction. I accepted and we started talking again.
In less than a week of talking again I knew I loved this woman. She reminded me almost immediately of why I fell for her the first time. Her kindness, her compassion, and her verbal reinforcements were all I asked for in a partner aside from her being drop dead gorgeous. There's a lot of conversations we had that made me see this, I don't wanna elaborate on or this reddit post would look more like a novel, so for your sake I'll fast forward to recent events that brought me here.
Last month I went out with some friends for the first time in a long time, when I finished dropping everyone off from the bars I called her was talking on my drive home(drank enough where I should NOT have been behind a wheel) now this next part, I take full blame for but I hope that my reasoning does not come off as an excuse. She loves to ask me why I like her, what I love about her and I always happily oblige. This time after I finished my drunk tangent on why I care about her so much I accidentally said "I just love you so much (wrong name)" now this wasn't an exes name, or love interests name. It was my friends obnoxiously loud girlfriends' name that was out with us that night. I heard her name so much it was still in my head like a catchy song and I made a mistake. I wasn't drunk enough to not catch myself though. I immediately apologized and corrected myself and attempting to explain to her but from her voice I could tell she was upset. We called it a night and she asked me for time to cool off. 2 days later of bare minimum communication she tells me we will be good and she's sorry for borderline ignoring me and she should've told me we'd be and that she just needed time so I wouldn't have been anxious the whole time. I still didn't let my own mistake slide and apologized heavily, attempting to reassure her that she is the only woman I want in my life.
Between then and the time of me writing this we both had trips planned and (i forgot to mention we both work and she lives an hour away so we already only saw each other physically once or twice a week.) So we have not seen each other from the beginning of May. While she was on vacation the communication was slim to none on the daily which I respected because she was with friends she rarely sees. She got back and there was a couple of weeks between me leaving and her but I was still saving because my trip was planned last minute so I couldn't spend the money to drive my truck there and back twice(over $100 in gas) so we just planned to meet up to celebrate my birthday when I got back.
We were being loving during my whole trip. Then on my last day she was acting a bit off so I asked what was wrong and she said she felt bad for bringing it up during my trip because she wants me to enjoy it but she just couldn't let go of me saying "I love you" to another woman's name, the moment she said that I felt horrible for not doing in the period between because I know she needs verbal reinforcement and it's something we've discussed before. I sent paragraphs detailing how I love her and only her. I would never do anything to hurt her. She responded by saying she felt betrayed by what I did and she couldn't help it. I won't lie, I got offended and told her that after all we've gone through, I would never betray her and that's a strong word to use for something that was a mistake. I have done so much for her out of sheer love without mentioning it, and I said so. She responded even more hurt because my response made her feel like I saw our relationship as transactional, even going to the extent of telling me she doesn't owe me anything. When I got back we had a call where I begged her to see where I'm coming from. She did not and she left me. She proceeded to send a long paragraph naming issues she had that were never brought up under the guise of "I was scared of your reaction or you getting defensive"
REASONS SHE GAVE VERBATIM BELOW, PARENTHESIS ARE MY REBUTLES
to be honest, this whole time I’d been convinced that i had my fair share of mistakes, but when i think about them, how could you expect me not to react the way i did? i know i don’t talk for days when i’m upset or that i don’t showcase how i feel transparently when i need to. it’s wrong. but you’ve never made me feel safe voicing my opinions in the first place because you always get defensive and try to rationalize your mistakes. there are a lot of things i never brought up with you because i was scared you’d make me feel bad for thinking the way i do. i get hurt when you patronize me about educational topics, how you mansplain simple things like having my data on the internet.(she said she was anxious and having a bad day because she was worried about data leaks and I tried to make her feel better by saying we're in the information age and everyone's data was out there I never saw this as mansplaining just trying to ease her mind by relating), I was trying to i was hurt when you came back from the gas station and told me that the clerk asked if my pussy was tight because i was Korean (I corrected the clerk about the way he spoke, and told her when I got in the car because I thought it was wild). i get hurt when you ignore my text messages and text me about something else that you find more relevant to you(100% I am in the wrong. It's a problem in my friendships and work life that I am trying to fix). i get hurt every time you get suspicious of a man who is in my life because you were hurt before in the past by someone else.(I have nothing here. I have never acted out of jealousy or questioned her out of the sheer respect I have for her) i get hurt when you say that i don’t know how to endure in a relationship because it’s my first one - I've been enduring.(she herself will mention she has not been in a relationship before and it's difficult) it hurts now because despite everything you put me through, i still have strong feelings for you, but i have to choose myself this time.
Idk my intentions with posting all this. I'm just so hurt. I would do anything for this woman still and I truly saw this being my life partner. Am I just not hers? Am I that bad? Why couldn't we have communicated more and attempted to fix things instead of letting it all pile up? I understand her fears but is the fear of losing each other not greater than the fear of speaking out? PLEASE HELP ME. I am a mess. I don't mean side with me, I mean give me advice. Anyone who has experienced something similar in my shoes or hers tell me what I can do to become a better man not only for myself but for the love of my life.

Anyone else noticed this? Let´s take a funny example I see over and over again. Getting fit. You work out hard and you eat real food, you rest and then you do it again. But people just go super deep and analyze every bits and piece there is and go on crazy fad diets and what not, buy the most expensive running shoes or hire coaches to tell them what to do lol.. Or how to get rich, like it's some secret hack to just saving more and spending less. These are wildly simplified examples but I hope you catch the point. I find it quite amusing. I also think smart people are super aware of this and fool us to partake in consumerism.

This will likely be the last story unless I share the original story that got me and Argonaut into this annoying slap for slap tantrum. That ticked off most of the group but not enough to stop playing games with him. Just know it made me bitter. I will say I have grown a bit as a DM and I stopped making the mistakes I made during these trials.
For this one I will keep it to just the problem players. Yes, plural. Why? Because Argonaut had a little sister introvert who he wanted to play along side the already 7 player group. Luckily Ms. Webb couldn't join us and Jokah decided to sit back and co-DM this time dropping the number back down to 6. Which was manageable with help.
The cast:
Argonaut: playing a Knight with one level in bard for bardic knowledge. Because he purposefully mistakenly believed that bards automatically know things if their roll was made for any kind of knowledge and not just the kind of knowledge a bard would know through songs and repeatedly told stories.
Newb: Argonaut's little sister and ever new player rolled into one. Power gamer, main character, always talking over others, the works. She played and optimized druid that had a tiger companion that did work out in the rules but only because the wording was complicated. The tiger is important because I made the places and encounters long before the players chose characters. Remember this.
The last trial:
Instead of the meeting in a tavern thing that we would normally do the entire party met on a ship. They were each summoned to a specific town by a mysterious person. This person said that they will give them anything their heart desires for their help in an expedition. How did the person know to contact them? They would have to meet him to find out.
The party roleplays a bit with Argonaut introducing themselves first. He is a singing knight who all the ladies know and all the men fear. He goes on for about ten minutes. I am still getting things set up because one of the players keeps moving things off the map because all I have to play on is a small card table.
When I stop him and tell one of the others to introduce themselves Newb does the same but for the sake of speed I give her five minutes and she huffs. I apologize and point out our three hour deadline before pushing on. I must have already ticked her off because I get mumbling from her for a while. I will admit I may have been a bit gruff. In this group of adhd and autistic spectrum people I have had to be stone hearted when shutting down tangents or we go over our play time.
They make it to town and meet the person who called them. This person is mayor of the city and just before they get too invested in the conversation a horde of monsters show up.
Shambling into town was my weeb obsession of a lifetime. Kamen rider OOO's Mook monsters, Yummys. They ate basically undead with a flair. These when killed gave out a handful of strange coins. They were after the mayor.
The mayor accidently revealed something during the fight, his right arm wasn't human.
Argonaut instantly called him evil and tried to kill him. He got beat to the ground along with Newb as the others didn't attack the 10th level barbarian as a 5th level party.
Argonaut and Newb shot me dirty looks as the party explained that the man defended to town with them and did nothing but protect all of them during the battle. Seemed weird to them such a guy would bring them there just to kill them for no reason.
With that reasoning the two backed down. Newb asked what's with the arm and the Mayor just said his real body was the arm and his host had been dead for a year. There was no reviving the human side as the soul was gone.
Newb flipped out on me saying they should have a way to review the mayor because a good guy like him shouldn't have his body used like that and that I was a bad DM.
I simply said that life wasn't fair and to get over it. We wasted fifteen minutes on her trying to talk the group into reviving him. She already had character bleed and we literally just started, at least that was my opinion at the time.
I expressed that every character I put into my game had a backstory rich in highs and lows. This was just a low and that it was one of the few that can't be changed.
Another player asked how the soul was lost and the mayor explained how that was part of why they were called.
Moving forward a bit because this isn't a play by play.
They eventually make it to an island in the middle of the sea that drives all compasses crazy and magic location automatically fails, divination school spells work only 50 percent of the time.
On the island the group meets a creature called a Greeed. (The extra E is because they took it from another word because of their level of greed)
Argonaut asks the Greeed what his people are called and the Greeed gives him their name but says their old name is lost to history because it was actively scrubbed from everything, even to the point a magical curse was put on the name so it couldn't be spread.
Argonaut: I am going to make a bardic knowledge roll to figure out the name. Rolls die 26.
Me(DM): Your roll fails. You don't know the name and have never heard it before.
Argonaut: How did a 26 fail?
Jokah (co-DM): Two reasons. The name was actively scrubbed from history by 4000 years of time and magic. Second, OP never told you to roll. We keep telling you we'll let you know when to roll.
Argonaut gets silent and sissy for half an hour and we get a lot of roleplay out in the mean time because he isn't interrupting. Newb however picks up a bit of his slack to the point where I have to snap at her like she is on my last nerve just to let one of my more silent players speak. I did try and do this more gently but as her excitement rose newb kept yanking attention to herself by speaking louder and over others. I only snap like that when I have to repeat my more that three times in a five minute period.
I am not entirely sure if I am autistic but I am sure that I am odd about the rules I developed. One of them is if I am DMing, don't interrupt me when I am speaking directly to a player. If I am addressing a player specifically I do it because the information is important and I am easily distracted.
Again, moving forward. These are hectic because I have to cut through tangents on video notes.
Coming to the last session with Argonaut and Newb. The tiger assassination.
Newbs pet tiger was always a handful during battle but I managed not to kill it by pulling punches. I didn't want to bully a player who was new but I also didn't want to ruin my other players fun by trying to work around a tank creature with too powerful of creatures. It was delicate. But I managed.
This was until the group were headed to a town and a hunter snipes a shot and hits the tiger. Newb screams bloody murder as her tiger gets hit hard and almost dies to a deep woods sniper.
The sniper apologizes and gives her potion. The sniper was just scared because a group of catfolk called Grimalkins (Homebrewed race by me) were riding Tigers and had recently raided the nearby town. She advised them to not go to town with the tiger.
Take a wild freaking guess what newb and Argonaut decided to do?
If your guess was go to town and show them that the tiger was cute and cuddly to try and get free items, then you were there and are a cheater.
One of my players asked for a handy DM hint about how dangerous it was for them, when Argonaut says that they go straight to the local inn to rest up. Not him, they as in the whole party. The others hadn't even decided to go into town but Argonaut's the type of person to make himself party leader because his charisma is the highest.
As the session was winding down, after five hours because Argonaut wanting to question every party members decision that day, the group relented so as to have a good stopping point.
As they enter town I tell them how the populace is staring daggers and some are reaching for weapons.A woman comes out and brandishing a short lance and shield demands they leave.
Argonaut explains how he lifts up the tiger like a house cat and rubs it's belly. They he and his sister smile at me telling me that the cat and the knight are too cute to hate rolling a charisma check.
I look at the book and make some notes. With modifiers as things it was an possible check. I told them it wouldn't work and advise them to do something else.
I shit you not, Argonaut explains how he lays on his back next to the tiger and presents his and the Tigers large genitals and tries to seduce her. In front of Newb who is 15 at the time of this story. Luckily she had gotten a phone call a moment before and wasn't paying attention.
On the video recording my normally annoyed expression disappeared and I still remember saying that the towns people let loose with bow and arrows at him and the tiger while they lay prone. The knight survived, the tiger didn't.
Newb getting back from her call sees me rolling dice and I inform her that her tiger is dead and she explodes.
Made the mistake of attacking both, but before this she had way too often allowed her brother to do similar with her character. Just not with his junk out. I whole heartedly believed he brought her so he could skirt around my one character at a time rule.
The session ended, Argonaut and Newb left. Apparently I am the worst DM alive because I controlled my players. I raolroaded at times to keep them on plot because we're have had many sessions where it was just them doing side stuff and forgetting the plot. I get that, but then they tried to get all other other players to jump games to their side. No one left because they were glad to be rid of them. I stopped hearing from Argonaut after this. He said I had hurt his sister's feelings by always ruining her fun and always silencing just her.
I will go on record and say I silenced my buddy Zach way more. He lost a level from being docked 10xp for each time he interrupted me.