As fresh tears roll down my face I sit and write this post. I’m in my feelings for the first time in a hot minute and it’s not even because my pwBPD has done anything to me. The BPD for the most part i’ve managed to deal with, I now try my very best (and mostly succeed) at taking no notice of it and not taking it to heart. But I’m at that inevitable point in all BPD relationships where I wonder if I can manage to take it all for the serious long run. Now i’ve dealt with it for the long run, we’ve been together solidly for 3 years. Every goalpost I set for breaking up with her I move when she crosses it.
The very truth is I love her. Unfortunately, and as fucking unhealthy as that is for my life and mental health. I love her more than anything in this whole world and dare I say I fucking adore her.
I’m doing so well, seriously i’ve transformed my life. Started an online business, I now go to the gym daily, i’m eating healthy for the first time ever. I meditate daily and am now a book listener. My life is radically different to what it was. (Might be worth mentioning we’re long distance still). For my life, leaving her would do wonders and it’s the logical thing to do at this point. But I can’t the trauma bond is strong as they say. Seriously the love I feel for her is stupidly strong. No matter how mean she gets, no matter how much the words she says to me hurt, and no many how many false accusations I get slung, I still have a seriously strong love for her. Why?
This love shit is weird. My life is unimaginable wirhout her. It’s shit without her. THOUSANDS of amazing memories are rushing through my head right now. Some times where I’ve felt the purest form of happiness. This is why I am crying. The fact I love her so fucking much, and that my life is nothing without her. How pathetic am I lmao.

This setting is still fairly new and undeveloped (the world is literally just called Wasteland at the moment), so I won’t go into too much detail outside of the magic system. Magic in this world is seperated into different “Limbs”, which are listed below. Most Limbs need energy to work (standard ATP from respiration), but others may have different costs too. I’d really appreciate any feedback on the Limbs I’ve made so far, and any suggestions! (Also, which Limb would you choose to have in this wasteland?)
Other nescessary information:
Jacks: Artificial devices that attach to the user’s body, which act as a “reaction chamber” for extra energy, but which can only be activated by Limb users. This is used by Limb users as a battery to increase how long they can use their abilities for, and how strongly. There are many different Jacks in production, varying in size and appearance, some better than others and some with different advantages. The “juice” inside is more often than not obtained from a specific kind of plant.
Distribution Levels: The rarity of a person having a specific Limb, increasing in rarity. Green, Amber, Red, White

——————————-LIMBS——————————

ACTIVATION
Average Cost: High Energy (per activation)
Distribution Level: Amber
Identifier: Hands more grey than usual, fingernails may be black.
Description: This limb works through conduction and users are taught from an eary age to do so through the palms. Upon touchinng the corpse of a recently deceased animal (within 24 hours of death, but may vary from environmental conditions), glowing orange waves will ripple across the body, “activating” it. For this reason, many “Battle Activators” have started using retractable metal wires with hook on the end in order to quickly access several corpses at once during battle. This will turn the whole body, apart from the bones, into “Minions”, which are the basis of all Activation. They appear to be roughly diamond-shaped slugs made from muscle. Each one has an organ in the middle of their body which looks like a protruding black eyeball, with a glowing orange ring-like “iris” in the middle. Through this organ the Minions feel all the senses, and this is also what you communicate with them through. Each minion is quite stubby, but stretchable, but at rest is around 10cm in length. The number of Minions made from a corpse of course varies from the actual amount of flesh available, as it is directly converted. Now you can “program” them to complete certain function loops or assemble into different shapes - this second part of activation doesn’t require any more energy. Minions can stick to each other to “assemble” into their different, more applicable functions. Most commonly, they are used to create powerful bodyguards or watchdogs in the form of golems and flying heaps. More advanced activators can also make their irises merge into more advanced “eyeballs” which can increase all of their senses. Although Minions can slightly change their structure to complete functions, such as turning into proto-bones and joints for golems, they can’t differ very much from their original form. Also, it takes skill and practice to increase how many Minions you can handle controlling at once - otherwise the rest wither away.
​
REPELLENT
Average Cost: Medium Energy
Distribution Level: Green
Identifier: Bumps that look like healed scars, distinctive circle shape with small “tendrils” off to the sides.
Description: Users have “Repulsion Nodes” in locations on their body (the bumps described above). These are most commonly on the feet, the knees, chest, palms or forehead - although most commonly the palms. The number of Repulsion Nodes a user is born with is decided at birth. At these nodes, users can use energy to release a superheated plasma “energy blast” created from particles in their blood. The repulsion can be many colours such as blue, pink, red, yellow, green etc - the colour mainly depends on how the user was trained with the power from birth, although genetic factors may have a small influence too, however this is unlikely to overrule the results of the training. Size, power, speed and shape can all be changed through concentration and improved through training. More trained Repellents can maximise the efficiency of their repulsions. Repulsions that you have created yourself don’t affect you, and bounce off/ glide along the surface of your body. This is why most users who have palm Repulsion Nodes assume a distinctive “finger gun” shape to make it easier to fire smaller, stronger and more accurate repulsions (think of the normal finger gun shape, but the thumb is not lifted up, and points in the direction of the “barrel” - this redirects the repulsion most efficiently). The actual effects of repulsions are similar to Star Wars blaster bolts, although more skilled users can decide to make some more explosive or more slicing.
​
AUGMENTATION
Average Cost: Low Energy
Distribution Level: Green
Identifier: Red saliva/drool (only after shrinking)
Description: The user has the ability to fully control their body, and to augment “A-Cells” which lie dormant next to every cell in their body. Augmentations may include a long list of things, but a few are: increasing muscle mass, hardening of skin, growing of bones out into spikes/spears, night vision, extending limb length, extending and sharpening hardened fingernails, etc. The only organ in the body that does not have any A-Cells present is the brain, which cannot be modified. Anything the user can think of, they can do - theoretically. However, augmenting into something you’ve never experienced makes it less effective, slower and less efficient (too much energy expended). This is why users often have to only have a few “pre-sets” that they learn to transform into, to minimise this effect. An important factor is also an understanding of the anatomy, so many users are taught anatomy thoroughly before they begin augmenting. Good knowledge of your normal anatomy means you can also heal your body at rapid speeds. Effectively this means that Augmenters usually have a large advantage when using a Jack.
​
THOUGHTMELDING
Cost: High Energy (per use, otherwise Low Energy constantly)
Distribution: Amber
Identifier: Pupil-less eyes that glow a blinding green, and are as hard as gemstones
Description: The user houses a “psychic dimension” called a Meld Server, or Server for short, inside their brains. The user has full omnipotence within this space, and only consciouses can enter into it, as it is not material (but if feels real inside). In order to drag someone’s consciousness inside, the target has to directly look at the user’s eyes from about 10cm away - the glow of the eyes has to be fully exposed too, and cannot be from behind any kind of see-through glass or tinted cover. After doing so, the user and the target will both slump and their eyes will roll back - the user’s eyes’ glow will stop. Inside the server, the target is powerless, but can still feel everything - and thus this is often used for interrogation. This form of torture is known as “mindflaying”. However, once a person inside the server submits their will to the user, another option is created: copying. The user can copy the other’s entire personality, memories and experiences inside the server. This “copy” will be fully obedient to the user, and will divulge any information to the user that it knows from the original. Once the user has had enough, they can exit the server - and so the target will too - waking up and returning to their bodies. Alternatively, the user can also “scroll” through the server, which basically means closing their eyes and flicking through the people that they have copied, whilst still being in their body and present to their surroundings. If the eyes are looked at from a distance, or from behind a see-through material, they will only give the target a headache. The issue with thoughtmelding users is that they are constantly using extra energy to supply the server, meaning they either need to eat a lot more, or need to be constantly using a Jack.
​
EXHAUSTION
Cost: Low Energy, fossil fuels (e.g charcoal, coal, or oil)
Distribution: Amber
Identifier: Grey tongue and black insides of mouth
Description: The user has the ability to shoot out a black smoke from their mouths. In order to do so, the user has to consume some form of fossil fuel, which is usually charcoal. This smoke is, when used correctly, so black (so little light enters) that it is virtually impossible to discern anything within it or past it. Of course, this decreases as the gas gets more spread out. The complection of this smoke can be modified by the user - it can be a more spread out fog, it can be thick walls of smoke, or even very dense near-solid clumps. The use can be changed by the user too - it can be as harmless as air, as toxic as smog, as blinding as ink, or even as acidic as mustard gas (however this one takes a lot of specific training for a long time to get right, as it is fundamentally different). Exhausters are usually looked down upon because of how useless this ability seems. When more concentrated fossil fuels such as oil and above are used, the smoke gains an iridescent oil-like shimmer to it. Although usually used as a method of hiding and escaping, some have found that by compressing toxic smog into a tar-like substance and shooting it as a projectile, they can incapacitate enemies more easily.
​
ACCUMULATION
Cost: None
Distribution: Red
Identifier: Glow under UV light
Description: The user respires at an abnormal rate without a higher intske nescessary - far higher than the average human or a Limb user. These are stored within the user’s cells, and the body does not burst as a result of the energy it’s own body creates - because the user can slow down the respiration to normal levels at will, with basic training. This however means that children who are not identified as Accumulators from birth usually explode from too much energy being produced at around the age of 3. This is one of many reasons for their rarity. However, other than using up the energy normally, users can also expel it into the environment through their skin. The real application of an accumulator however is also why they are sometimes known as “Jackmen” or “Living Batteries” - they can release their energy into other people, and more specifically other Limb users. Not only does this allow for a steady supply of energy, but accumulators can shoot the energy in in such a way that it can give the other person a short lasting increase in power and ability. For this reason, accumulators are hunted down and treated as sub-human - only tools for the empowerment of others. Many babies were stolen straight from hospitals and taken to “energy factories” where they were treated simply as batteries, which often led to them being discarded once they were “fully drained”. In the period where accumulators were newly discovered, and hunted, nefarious organisations looking for them would go around waving UV lights at people before dragging them away. As a result, most remaining accumulators stay in hiding.

Throwaway account because I don’t want this coming back to my main.
Almost three years ago my Nmother and I had our final conversation. In it, she told me that all my failings as a person, all the decisions I’d made, were the result of the toxic ideas and relationships that were in my head from my grandmother. At the time at that conversation, my beautiful grandmother had been at rest for just over three years. She’s been gone for almost 6 years now and I miss her every day.
My grandmother was the sweetest woman I’ve ever known. She was my best friend, she saved my life, she gave me the strength to figure out who I am so I could be free. Every decision I’ve made since her passing is 100% my own and I am of sound mind and in good health.
You can imagine my absolute horror when nmother -the rancid bitch- ripped into my few supportive family members, and when she ended her tirade by hissing down the phone at me that she wouldn’t speak to me again until I’d been to therapy and was ready to admit she was right, I took the opportunity and blocked her. I blocked her everywhere. I even sold my house and moved 22 hours away with not much more than my pets and the clothes on my back and started again.
That’s not the end of the story. That would be too easy.
My nmother has a history of being late to things. And I’m not just talking about making everyone wait for hours for her while she repeatedly calls to say she’s on her way when in reality she’s walking her dog, getting showered and dressed, etc. No, she does things like showing up to my school an hour after classes ended and everyone has left pretending to be frantic because I’ve left a note that I’m not coming home. Mind you, after she found the note she took my brother to school, worked a full day, picked him up, took him home, gave him a snack and then finally went to my school to create a scene. She also turned up at my house after I’d moved out and the big sold sign went up and assaulted a neighbour because they couldn’t tell her where I’d gone. She knew I was selling and moving thanks to her flying monkeys but she waited long enough to ensure I’d be gone so she could cause a scene. The police got involved and I was able to prove that I was alive and well. It seems that being an adult and selling your house isn’t a crime.
Well, back to the present. The rancid bitch has been stirring up trouble. It seems the fact that I talk to my Aunt (her sister, and another target of her hatred and abuse) is eating her up inside. My aunt has been NC with her for about two years now.
The rancid bitch took it upon herself to bail up my young cousins and tell them that they need to be careful not to turn out fat and alone like my aunt. My cousins are distraught, my aunt is furious and I’m about ready to drive 22 hours to do things that will get me arrested. Of course, she blames all of this on the fact that my Aunt and I talk almost daily. Her position is that because we do talk, that my Aunt is now responsible for putting these ideas in my head, and that’s why I don’t speak to her.
It couldn’t possibly be the decades of abuse that’s pitting me against her. Nah.
So now their father, my grandfather, is trying to dictate to me, an almost 40 year old woman, and her early 50s Aunt what they can and cannot talk about. Because I’m the grandchild, and therefore a child, and therefore unable to live my own life and make my own decisions until my nmother says so.
I’m so angry. So freaking angry. When does this stop? When can I just live in peace without her still trying to control everything. For the love of all that is good, I am almost 40 years old and still dealing with this mess. I don’t ask for money or support or anything from these people and they still won’t let me be at peace.
This is mostly a rant but if you have any ideas for dealing with any of this please feel free to reach out because I’m so angry I can’t really think straight right now.

The human pulled to a stop, huffing and puffing, hands on his knees as he took in great big breaths. Krill could see ribs through his skin as the great bellows expanded and then contracted. Sweat slicked the skin as the body desperately tried to cool itself.
"Heart rate 165."
The human straightened himself out, coughing once or twice to clear his throat, reaching out and wiping his face with a towel.
He threw the towel over one shoulder and stretched the large muscle groups in his chest, stomach and back, pulling tight.
Sunny leaned against the wall just to their right, both sets of arms crossed over her chest,
"So, what is this supposed to be for? Is this like a dominance thing or something?”
The human wiped his face again and raised an eyebrow,
"It's exercises, Sunny. You know? So I can be fit enough to pass the UNSC PT exam, or perhaps so that I can do my job better, or maybe because I look better when I'm more fit.”
Sunny turned her head to look at him, her eyes scrunching down a little, as Krill went to take notes on a clipboard.
"You mean... You didn't just grow to being that size?”
The human glanced down at Krill incredulous,
"IS she serious? Do the Drev like, not have to work out?"
Krill shook his head,
"Drev do not have subcutaneous fat deposits like humans do. Any acquired deposits are stored below the carapace between the connective tissue, padding them down and giving them more protection."
Sunny looked between them in confusion,
"Wait, hold on... I'm confused."
The human toweled off his hair,
"I have to work out to look like this Sunny. If I don't use it, I lose it."
She turned to look at Krill.
He tucked the holo-pad under one arm,
"You see, Sunny. Humans are meant to adapt. They can adapt mentally, and they can adapt physically. The body changes to match the requirements of its environment. Sometimes this takes years to do, for instance if you take a light skinned population of humans and put them somewhere with a lot of sun, and keep that population in complete isolation, after a few generations, the skin will darken to compensate for the increased UV light. However, these things happen on a smaller level. The body fluctuates to adapt to the amount of physical work which is required."
The human nodded,
"Exactly. Running strengthens the heart, and it increases the hemoglobin in my blood, so that I can run for a longer time with more oxygen. If I were to stop running, I would lose all of that and have to work back up."
Sunny stared at him incredulous,
"So, you have to force your body to be able to perform correctly. Like, it can't just DO what it needs to do, but you have to convince it over years of training to be able to do what you want?”
The man shrugged,
"Well anything sucks when you phrase it like that."
He turned and motioned them to follow,
"Historically, humanity was evolved in an environment with little food. We ate a diet heavy in proteins, fiber, and natural carbs from fruit. Fat is an essential part of a human's diet, but it is relatively difficult to find in nature. Because of this, the body adapted to make humans love and crave fatty and sugary foods for energy. Well since well into the twentieth eighteenth century, fatty foods were becoming commonplace, and easy to get our hands on, but the body wasn't aware of that, so it continued to treat these new fatty foods the way our bodies would have treated them back when we were huntegatherers storing every last bit up for use later."
Sunny followed after in fascination,
"I see, so now you have... Too much of a food that your body craves."
The human looked over his shoulder,
"You got it, and the body doesn't know when to stop storing fat. It'll just keep going. So, if I were to sit on my ass all day eating chips, I would lose the muscle and I would get bigger as fat deposits were stored up for energy."
Sunny shrugged,
"What is the problem with that?"
The human tapped his chin lightly,
"A few things, I guess. For me, at least, if I were to just stop working out, I wouldn't be able to do my job as well, I wouldn't be able to run as far, or to jump as high, or to lift as much. And lifting myself up in a pullup would be impossible, and considering the amount of times we have all almost fallen off a cliff, or had to haul ourselves up rope, you would think that would be a bad idea. Not to mention that the larger you are, the harder your heart has to work as the blood supply is forced to expand, and since you aren't working out your heart it gets weaker but has to do more work, which –in turn– increased the risk of heart issues. Compounding all that I wouldn't be able to sit in a cockpit or pilot a jet properly."
Sunny shook her head,
"That seems like a very... annoying model. You can never just relax. You always have to work to keep your body where it should be. And the amount of self-control you have to have..."
The human laughed,
"You have no idea how much self-control I need when a box of doughnuts gets in my way."
He sighed,
"Keeping my abs has been a real struggle, but luckily the UNSC drilled some self-discipline into me when I was still young."
"So, you weren't always this big?”
The human snorted,
"No not in the slightest. In fact, I was so skinny, you could see my heart beating through my rib cage.”
Sunny grimaced.
"Yeah I know, kinda gross. Those are your two directions. If you don't work out your either super scary skinny, or you get a bit big. If you're working out right, you get muscles."
He turned around, flexing proudly for them to outline the lines of his biceps, chest and stomach.
Sunny would have rolled her eyes back into her head, but she supposed, now that she knew he had to work for it, she was at least somewhat proud of him.
"Ok, I have a question then."
"Shoot."
"Can you get bigger?"
More laughter,
"Oh yeah, totally, but I'm not THAT dedicated."
They were just coming around a corner when the commander skidded to a halt, eye to chest with an absolutely massive human.
Even Sunny stepped back in surprise.
This human was large enough to look Sunny in the eye, with shoulders about as wide as her, and a chest that looked like it could have benched a small car.
It was almost comical, a moment ago Sunny had assumed that the commander was a large human.
"Wow there, big man. I'd rather not get steamrolled today, thanks."
The large human glanced down at the commander.
"Sorry sir."
He grunted, before stepping around and walking up the hall.
Sunny watched him go,
"What do you have to do to get that big!?”
"You practically have to live at the gym."
They turned the corner, walking into a large room, with strange machines of unknown use.
And in here there were humans of all sizes and shapes, but most of them absolutely massive. Those who lacked height, did not lack muscle.
Male humans, female humans, all of the above.
A tiny female human stood at one of these machines, carrying a bar on her shoulders with enough weight that sunny assumed it might crush her. Instead, she squatted down to the floor and stood back up.
The captain blinked and motioned towards her
"Holy shit."
"She squats more than me by the way. You see these guys are insane. I work out to maintain, these guys do it because it’s their hobby."
Krill floated upwards to whisper in Sunny's ear,
"For the muscle to enlarge, the fibers must tear open, and then the body comes back and repairs the tear to withstand the pressures that tore it in the first place.”
Sunny stared at Krill incredulously,
"So you're telling me, they just... Tear themselves apart to get like that?”
The commander left them standing in place, walking over to the wall and jumping upwards, catching his hands around a black bar welded to the wall, the muscles in his back, just below the shoulder blades flexed as he pulled himself upwards, the muscles in his shoulder blades rolling under the skin.
They continued to watch as the commander did his set, a little bit of everything for demonstration purposes. Getting off one of the leg machines, one of these large female humans walked past, sitting where he had just sat, reaching out, pulling out the peg and bringing the weight almost to the bottom of the plates.
The commander leaned in,
"See her, she could probably crush your skull using just her legs."
He sighed,
"Man, I only WISH I could be that badass."
”Yeah, I am sure THAT’S whats you are wishing when you see those thighs…”
He looked up at Sunny,
"Sometimes I come here just to knock myself down a peg."
Across the room, one of these massive humans was hauling a huge bar, lined with weight on either side up over his head like it was nothing.
"You see that, that would probably invert my spine if I tried to do it."
"Must you be so graphic?"
"Yeah, because that's how much of a wuss I am."
Looking around, Sunny wasn't convinced entirely of his status as a wuss.
He had all the requisite muscle groups of even the largest humans, and more than some. There were great swatches of the human population who, even here, were missing some things.
A few of the humans had large arms, but small legs, big legs, but small arms, no chest, or chest and no abdominal muscles.
Yes sure, he may have been smaller than their largest, but he WAS well rounded…Arms, chest, stomach, legs, back and shoulders.
She found herself surprised at the smug satisfaction in comparing her human to the other humans.
Sure, her human couldn't bench THAT much, but he also had better legs, so there.
"You ok, Sunny?"
She turned her head to look at him.
"Just thinking."
She said and he shrugged at her and returned to do his workout.
It's hard to be a human.
They have to work for everything they have, especially when it comes to their body.
Previous First [Next](link)
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
Intro post by me
OC-whole collection
Patreon of the author

"This was supposed to be our time," I groused as the concierge coordinator left our cabin. Inanna shook her head slowly and patted her lap. I sat on the bed next to her and leaned over, resting my head on her thighs. I always loved this, especially because she would inevitably- Oh god.... Oh yeah, that's it...
The fingers running through my hair, gently rubbing my scalp were hypnotic. The tension immediately drained out of me and my whole body went limp. It sounds kind of weird, doesn't it? I mean, I'm married to the former goddess of sex, a woman whose sexual appetite could not be described without the use of the words 'insatiable' and 'bizarre'. I mean, it would be a struggle to not use the term 'sexual body horror-esque' as well. When I say she's imaginative, I mean imaginative. And yet for all the times she's turned off gravity, induced orgasms in organs that have no business having orgasms (liver orgasms are a trip, but heart orgasms are mind-blowing), growing new organs in random places on her body or doing any or all of those things to me, this was the thing she did that melted me.
Every time. Man, I could fall asleep right now, regardless of the stress the coordinator had re-introduced to my life. I've fallen asleep like this many times before, in fact.
"It's not so bad," she purred. "All you have to do is give a talk. You've done that many times before."
I sighed. I wasn't able to work up any indignation like this, but as long as she kept her fingers from the spots behind my ears, I could still think.
"And sign a bunch of autographs and pose for pictures," I said. "And the talk will be to a bunch of fans, not academics and students. It's a totally different crowd."
"It's really not that different," she said as she found the spots behind my ears and melted my brain.
"The whole thing will take two hours," she said while I was completely helpless. It was totally unfair. I couldn't even protest that it would raise my profile and result in the whole cruise being peppered with people asking for more autographs and wanting to take pictures and buy us drinks.
I sighed again. God, this felt so good...
At some point, one hand wandered off my head and dug into my pants. The hand that continued to rub my head and the sheer familiarity of her fondling me kept me locked in my fugue state as she got me unbuttoned. By the time her scalp-massaging hand slipped away, I was ready to do anything she wanted.
So that's what we did.
----
I'd already agreed to do it, mind. I had just been griping about it when Inanna suckered me with her wily hands, and then her wily hoohah. Yes, I said 'wily hoohah', and if you knew Inanna as well as I did, you'd know that not only does it have a mind of its own, it's a devious and cunning creature that we should all pray remains on the side of good.
I can't really blame the coordinator, either. The cruise Inanna and I had booked just so happened to have a Legend of Jimmy fan convention of sorts happening, which we had somehow overlooked. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if her hoohah was aware, and simply kept quiet about it, knowing that I'd require a lot of 'comforting' after exposing myself to that much attention.
When the coordinator discovered that the couple on whose lives the show was based was on the cruise, we'd had our middle-grade accommodations bumped up to the top tier, and been given the gold-star concierge service, as well as a free pass to eat at any of the restaurants aboard ship and free admission to countless activities taking place. And then, once that was done, the coordinator oh-so-politely asked if I'd be willing to give a little talk, do a little autograph signing and otherwise schmooze the crowd.
Much to my chagrin, I agreed.
So here I was, sweating under a bunch of stage lights, behind a podium, having recited my hastily-prepared speech about the importance of understanding cultural context when dealing with supernatural entities and specific magics, answering questions that mostly pertained to the show, and often got incredibly personal.
"Is anal your wife's favorite?" a young man asked. I rolled my eyes. "Next question."
A respectable looking young lady in a sweater raised her hand and the usher with the mic held it up to her.
"If she's not into anal... I am," she said with a sly smile. I sighed deeply and prayed for the strength to continue.
"I have plenty of anal sex," I said. "Thank you for the offer, but my sex life is really something I'd rather keep a personal matter." I glanced over at Inanna, occupying one of the chairs on the stage. She was whispering to the host and pointing at the young lady. A naive person might assume she was asking to have her expelled after disrupting the Q&A by making what was obviously a joking offer.
But I knew she was making sure she got the young lady's number. Because Inanna.
The usher found a muscular young man with a serious burn scar on his neck. Probably a veteran, I thought, noting the way he moved as he stood.
"Did the CIA teach you how to fight, or are you a vet, or did you learn it elsewhere?"
I pointed at him. This was a much better question.
"Umm, the Agency doesn't really expect its field agents to do a lot of fighting. I did have a week-long training course on pistol shooting and light tactical stuff, but the biggest takeaway from that was that I should save any gun I was carrying for emergencies and always do what my protection agents' tell me to.
"One of my protective agents was, at the time, Inspector Johnson, currently one of our investigators at the DCM Group. That was how we met. He taught me a lot, actually.
"Most of what I know was acquired through magical means. My wife constructed a type of avatar known as a homoculus. It's an avatar that is a sort of messenger being. In this case, the message was all of the magically-collected knowledge in the world about combat. Martial arts, strategy, tactics, etc. Not a whole lot of specific military knowledge, mind, just the direct fighting stuff.
"Now, with all that being said, the single most important thing I know about combat, I learned from Inspector Johnson. And that was two things. The first is specific to combat, and that is that you can't win a fight if you're not an... An asshole."
The crowd laughed. I waited for it to die down.
"That sounds pretty wrong, I know, but it's true. Aggression is the single most important factor in a fight. All things being equal, the more aggressive fighter will always win. And aggression can make up for a lot of other failings, in a pinch. Size, strength, training... Aggression is the real key. And as we all know, the most aggressive people are inevitably assholes. So if you want to be able to defeat a dangerous enemy, you've got to be a bit of an asshole yourself.
"The second thing was probably the single most valuable lesson I ever learned in my entire life. And that is that courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to act in the face of fear. In fact, if you're not afraid, you can't be brave. Every act of bravery, throughout history, was performed by someone who was scared to death.
"I'm not going to lie to you; the first time I found myself in a fight, I peed my pants." The crowd tittered. "No joke, I literally peed my pants. More than once. I cried, too. I panicked. Inspector Johnson was there with me, and I was sooo jealous of how cool he was at the time. It was his actions that got us free of our bonds, and gave us the ability to summon help. After, I remember asking him how he kept from being scared, and I remember his exact words. 'I didn't,' he said.
"He told me that he was scared out of his mind, the same as me. The only difference was that he's been scared like that before. He got used to it. He knew that there were things he could do to mitigate the threat, so he did those things, even though he was still terrified. And as I found myself in more and more dangerous situations, I quickly realized what that meant. It's okay to be afraid. You just gotta be afraid and working."
The crowd erupted into applause as I finished. I blushed, because I hadn't planned on that becoming a rousing anecdote, but I'd take it. The host rose and walked to the podium, waiting for the cheering to stop before speaking.
"That's all the time we have for the Q&A, but Mister and Missus Williams will be available to sign autographs and take photos in the lounge in five minutes. Thank you all for coming out, and let's have a big round of applause for our guests!"
The crowd erupted again, this time even louder. Inanna and I waved to them as we walked off the stage, heading for the crew passageway between the backstage and the lounge. We were about halfway there when the ship lurched suddenly to one side and the sounds of screaming and crashing filled the air.
"What the hell was that?" I gasped as I bounced off the wall -excuse me, bulkhead- and grabbed Inanna's arm to held steady her.
She squeezed her eyes shut. Ever since she'd been murdered literally hundreds of times by Sarisa in order to produce the energies she needed for her plan to save the Sixteenth World, Inanna had been having a lot of difficulty pulling magical energy. She had been steadily training herself ever since, slowly increasing the amount of power she had access to. But the process was a long one.
During that long process, she'd been forced to work with tiny amounts of magic to get stuff done, much like a human wizard would. The end result was that her sensitivity to magic had grown by leaps and bounds. She might not be able to hurl around earth-shattering energies willy nilly any more, but there was nobody I knew, human, god or otherwise, who was as magically perceptive as she was.
"Something big and ancient is here," she said. "A creature."
"Great, another monster crossed over," I grumbled.
"This one didn't cross over, Jerry," she said. "This one is native to this world," she was staring off into space, feeling the creature rather than seeing it.
"It's definitely a fully material being. I feel like it's been to the spirit world, but it's from the material world. I don't think it's from this specific material world, though."
"Crap," I muttered. This was arguably worse than a spirit creature. Those, at least, generally had some kind of weakness. Be it a certain emotion, some variety of magic or some substance or material, spirit creatures almost inevitably had some kind of kryptonite. And I only say 'almost' because I can't be a hundred percent sure. Every single variety that I knew about had such a weakness. But a material being from another of the material worlds would be a flesh and blood creature that had evolved to fill its niche. And evolution is a heartless trainer, accepting no weakness.
The ship jolted again and a fresh round of screaming ensued. There was a definite direction to the screaming, coming from the direction we were heading in, so we began to run.
We came out into the lounge to find people packing themselves in. I grabbed a random person by the shoulder. "What did you see?" I demanded.
"I don't know, man! The ship started jerking, and I saw this shadow and I just grabbed my wife and we ran inside!"
"Stay here," I told him. I moved on, pushing through the crowds to the door. It was hard going, with everyone trying to get inside. Eventually, I got completely stopped by the press of bodies, and I looked up, to see if I could fly above them. The ceiling was too low, of course. If I did that, I'd be flinging people around with the force of my magic, which would get someone hurt. Crap.
"MAKE A FUCKING HOLE!!" Inanna roared.
People jerked in surprise at the volume of the shout, carrying even above the crying and screaming all around us. They quickly moved further into the room, clearing a path for us to the doors.
"Thank you," I said as she took advantage of the extra room to walk beside me instead of behind me. She smiled sweetly and goosed my butt as we moved through the doors, out onto the deck.
Tentacles rose into the air around the ship. People were still about, mostly running for the doors to get inside. I realized, looking at the grandiose size of those tentacles, that it wouldn't do any good. This ship was huge, one of the largest cruise ships on the ocean. It was over a thousand feet long and a quarter of a million tons in volume. There were over four thousand guests on board, and until now, I'd never seen a dense crowd. Wait times for everything were reasonable.
Yet, judging by the size of those tentacles, I worried about the ship sinking.
Inanna pulled up short as she saw it.
"Motherfucker...." she said, then turned to me.
"Jerry, I hope your magical muscles are nice and swole, because we need to start teleporting people to safety right fucking now."
"What is it?" I asked.
"It's a kraken," she said.
"I figured as much, but there's no way we can evacuate this ship in time. I could maybe teleport them a hundred at a time, but even assuming it only takes three minutes to get a hundred people to link hands, that's two hours to get just the passengers. It'll be another forty five minutes for the crew. Whatever this thing is gonna do to the ship, it'll be over by then."
She shook her head. "You don't understand, Jerry. Krakens are mostly legendary in this world. They're not native here, and have only come over through the occasional rift that pops up way down at pressure depth. Most of what you know is complete BS. This is how they hunt. Wales and dolphins are their primary food, but they evolved on a world where humans had large ships full of people sailing the seas twenty thousand years ago, and they've adapted."
The ship jerked again as I watched a massive tentacle wrap completely around it and began to tighten down.
"It's going to break the ship, and then its going to come after the lifeboats. That's its strategy here."
"Crap," I muttered. "You have any ideas?"
"I've never even heard of a ship that survived a kraken attack, Jerry. Ninety percent of the people on board won't, either, and that's the best case. Worst case, everybody dies."
My mind raced. The first thing that occurred to me was the trick I'd used to kill the primordials. But honestly, the primordials were probably smaller than the kraken, and its body was underwater. If I hit the surface of the ocean at those speeds, it would be like a bomb going off. I'd likely just break the ship even quicker.
"I think it's too dangerous for you to do the human bullet thing," she said, her thoughts echoing mine.
"Right," I said. "So, we've got to figure out a way to drive it off. Make it think that it's not worth going after this ship, right?"
"I mean, if you can think of something that might do that, and not destroy the ship, yeah."
I wracked my brain for ideas. Fire was an obvious choice, but the beast's size ruled that out. If I made enough fire to hurt it, I'd damage the ship and probably kill a bunch of people. I watched another tentacle curl around and tighten onto the ship. With the two that had been in place when we got out, that made four. We were running out of time.
"Shit," I swore, using up one of my limited supply for the month. "Baby, I don't know what to do."
"Start teleporting," she said. "We'll save as many as we can."
I winced. Leaving people to die was something I wasn't willing to accept until the last second. Of course, the longer I waited to take that route, the more people I'd have to leave to die. This was the worst sort of calculus I'd ever done, and I always hated math.
I immediately pictured the panic that would happen when I started teleporting people and the rest realized I wouldn't be able to get everyone. It would be chaos.
A younger couple made their way from one of the edges of the ship, heading for the lounge. As they passed us, they stopped.
"You're Jerry and Ishtar Williams, right?" the woman asked.
"Inanna," I said. "Ishtar is the character," I said.
"Right, sorry. Do you know what this thing is?"
Inanna answered for me. "It's a kraken. A real one."
"Why is it attacking the ship?" the man asked.
"It's hunting," I said. Inanna nodded. "It's going to break the ship, then go after the people in the lifeboats," she added.
"Holy shit," the woman gasped. "Can you stop it?"
"Trying to figure out how, right now."
"Can we help?" the man asked. I turned to them. "I don't think so, no."
I kept trying to think as Inanna approached them, realizing I wouldn't get any planning done while answering their questions.
I needed something that would drive the best off, or kill it quickly. Honestly, even if I could blink my eyes and stop its heart, which I didn't think I could, but would try as a backup plan, I think the bulk of the creature might drag the ship under. We needed to get it to let go of the ship. Which went back to what I'd just been thinking, about driving it off.
We needed to hurt it. But I didn't know how to do that without killing people on the ship.
"Shit," I said again. "I don't know how to drive it off without killing people on the ship."
"What do you mean?" the woman asked.
"Everything I can do that would cause it significant enough pain to rethink attacking us would also damage the ship. And I don't dare kill it with its tentacles wrapped around the ship like this, it'll pull us under."
Inanna rounded on me, and I could see she'd had an idea. "What?!" I asked.
"Oh Jerry," she said with a malicious gleam in her eyes. "You're gonna hate this."

FYI, this is a story COLLECTION. Lots of standalones technically. So, you can basically start to read at any chapter, no pre-read of the other chapters needed technically (other than maybe getting better descriptions of characters than: Adam Vir=human, Krill=antlike alien, Sunny=tall alien, Conn=telepathic alien). The numbers are (mostly) only for organization of posts and continuity.
OC Written by Charlie Stastarrfallknightrise,
Typed up and then posted here by me.
Proofreading and language check for some chapters by u/Finbar9800
Future Lore and fact check done by me.
Keep in mind: never skip leg day!
Previous First [Next](link)
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
The human pulled to a stop, huffing and puffing, hands on his knees as he took in great big breaths. Krill could see ribs through his skin as the great bellows expanded and then contracted. Sweat slicked the skin as the body desperately tried to cool itself.
"Heart rate 165."
The human straightened himself out, coughing once or twice to clear his throat, reaching out and wiping his face with a towel.
He threw the towel over one shoulder and stretched the large muscle groups in his chest, stomach and back, pulling tight.
Sunny leaned against the wall just to their right, both sets of arms crossed over her chest,
"So, what is this supposed to be for? Is this like a dominance thing or something?”
The human wiped his face again and raised an eyebrow,
"It's exercises, Sunny. You know? So I can be fit enough to pass the UNSC PT exam, or perhaps so that I can do my job better, or maybe because I look better when I'm more fit.”
Sunny turned her head to look at him, her eyes scrunching down a little, as Krill went to take notes on a clipboard.
"You mean... You didn't just grow to being that size?”
The human glanced down at Krill incredulous,
"IS she serious? Do the Drev like, not have to work out?"
Krill shook his head,
"Drev do not have subcutaneous fat deposits like humans do. Any acquired deposits are stored below the carapace between the connective tissue, padding them down and giving them more protection."
Sunny looked between them in confusion,
"Wait, hold on... I'm confused."
The human toweled off his hair,
"I have to work out to look like this Sunny. If I don't use it, I lose it."
She turned to look at Krill.
He tucked the holo-pad under one arm,
"You see, Sunny. Humans are meant to adapt. They can adapt mentally, and they can adapt physically. The body changes to match the requirements of its environment. Sometimes this takes years to do, for instance if you take a light skinned population of humans and put them somewhere with a lot of sun, and keep that population in complete isolation, after a few generations, the skin will darken to compensate for the increased UV light. However, these things happen on a smaller level. The body fluctuates to adapt to the amount of physical work which is required."
The human nodded,
"Exactly. Running strengthens the heart, and it increases the hemoglobin in my blood, so that I can run for a longer time with more oxygen. If I were to stop running, I would lose all of that and have to work back up."
Sunny stared at him incredulous,
"So, you have to force your body to be able to perform correctly. Like, it can't just DO what it needs to do, but you have to convince it over years of training to be able to do what you want?”
The man shrugged,
"Well anything sucks when you phrase it like that."
He turned and motioned them to follow,
"Historically, humanity was evolved in an environment with little food. We ate a diet heavy in proteins, fiber, and natural carbs from fruit. Fat is an essential part of a human's diet, but it is relatively difficult to find in nature. Because of this, the body adapted to make humans love and crave fatty and sugary foods for energy. Well since well into the twentieth eighteenth century, fatty foods were becoming commonplace, and easy to get our hands on, but the body wasn't aware of that, so it continued to treat these new fatty foods the way our bodies would have treated them back when we were huntegatherers storing every last bit up for use later."
Sunny followed after in fascination,
"I see, so now you have... Too much of a food that your body craves."
The human looked over his shoulder,
"You got it, and the body doesn't know when to stop storing fat. It'll just keep going. So, if I were to sit on my ass all day eating chips, I would lose the muscle and I would get bigger as fat deposits were stored up for energy."
Sunny shrugged,
"What is the problem with that?"
The human tapped his chin lightly,
"A few things, I guess. For me, at least, if I were to just stop working out, I wouldn't be able to do my job as well, I wouldn't be able to run as far, or to jump as high, or to lift as much. And lifting myself up in a pullup would be impossible, and considering the amount of times we have all almost fallen off a cliff, or had to haul ourselves up rope, you would think that would be a bad idea. Not to mention that the larger you are, the harder your heart has to work as the blood supply is forced to expand, and since you aren't working out your heart it gets weaker but has to do more work, which –in turn– increased the risk of heart issues. Compounding all that I wouldn't be able to sit in a cockpit or pilot a jet properly."
Sunny shook her head,
"That seems like a very... annoying model. You can never just relax. You always have to work to keep your body where it should be. And the amount of self-control you have to have..."
The human laughed,
"You have no idea how much self-control I need when a box of doughnuts gets in my way."
He sighed,
"Keeping my abs has been a real struggle, but luckily the UNSC drilled some self-discipline into me when I was still young."
"So, you weren't always this big?”
The human snorted,
"No not in the slightest. In fact, I was so skinny, you could see my heart beating through my rib cage.”
Sunny grimaced.
"Yeah I know, kinda gross. Those are your two directions. If you don't work out your either super scary skinny, or you get a bit big. If you're working out right, you get muscles."
He turned around, flexing proudly for them to outline the lines of his biceps, chest and stomach.
Sunny would have rolled her eyes back into her head, but she supposed, now that she knew he had to work for it, she was at least somewhat proud of him.
"Ok, I have a question then."
"Shoot."
"Can you get bigger?"
More laughter,
"Oh yeah, totally, but I'm not THAT dedicated."
They were just coming around a corner when the commander skidded to a halt, eye to chest with an absolutely massive human.
Even Sunny stepped back in surprise.
This human was large enough to look Sunny in the eye, with shoulders about as wide as her, and a chest that looked like it could have benched a small car.
It was almost comical, a moment ago Sunny had assumed that the commander was a large human.
"Wow there, big man. I'd rather not get steamrolled today, thanks."
The large human glanced down at the commander.
"Sorry sir."
He grunted, before stepping around and walking up the hall.
Sunny watched him go,
"What do you have to do to get that big!?”
"You practically have to live at the gym."
They turned the corner, walking into a large room, with strange machines of unknown use.
And in here there were humans of all sizes and shapes, but most of them absolutely massive. Those who lacked height, did not lack muscle.
Male humans, female humans, all of the above.
A tiny female human stood at one of these machines, carrying a bar on her shoulders with enough weight that sunny assumed it might crush her. Instead, she squatted down to the floor and stood back up.
The captain blinked and motioned towards her
"Holy shit."
"She squats more than me by the way. You see these guys are insane. I work out to maintain, these guys do it because it’s their hobby."
Krill floated upwards to whisper in Sunny's ear,
"For the muscle to enlarge, the fibers must tear open, and then the body comes back and repairs the tear to withstand the pressures that tore it in the first place.”
Sunny stared at Krill incredulously,
"So you're telling me, they just... Tear themselves apart to get like that?”
The commander left them standing in place, walking over to the wall and jumping upwards, catching his hands around a black bar welded to the wall, the muscles in his back, just below the shoulder blades flexed as he pulled himself upwards, the muscles in his shoulder blades rolling under the skin.
They continued to watch as the commander did his set, a little bit of everything for demonstration purposes. Getting off one of the leg machines, one of these large female humans walked past, sitting where he had just sat, reaching out, pulling out the peg and bringing the weight almost to the bottom of the plates.
The commander leaned in,
"See her, she could probably crush your skull using just her legs."
He sighed,
"Man, I only WISH I could be that badass."
”Yeah, I am sure THAT’S whats you are wishing when you see those thighs…”
He looked up at Sunny,
"Sometimes I come here just to knock myself down a peg."
Across the room, one of these massive humans was hauling a huge bar, lined with weight on either side up over his head like it was nothing.
"You see that, that would probably invert my spine if I tried to do it."
"Must you be so graphic?"
"Yeah, because that's how much of a wuss I am."
Looking around, Sunny wasn't convinced entirely of his status as a wuss.
He had all the requisite muscle groups of even the largest humans, and more than some. There were great swatches of the human population who, even here, were missing some things.
A few of the humans had large arms, but small legs, big legs, but small arms, no chest, or chest and no abdominal muscles.
Yes sure, he may have been smaller than their largest, but he WAS well rounded…Arms, chest, stomach, legs, back and shoulders.
She found herself surprised at the smug satisfaction in comparing her human to the other humans.
Sure, her human couldn't bench THAT much, but he also had better legs, so there.
"You ok, Sunny?"
She turned her head to look at him.
"Just thinking."
She said and he shrugged at her and returned to do his workout.
It's hard to be a human.
They have to work for everything they have, especially when it comes to their body.
Previous First [Next](link)
Want to find a specific one, see the whole list or check fanart?
Here is the link to the master-post.
Intro post by me
OC-whole collection
Patreon of the author
Thanks for reading! As you saw in the title, this is a cross posted story written by starrfallknightrise and I'll just upload some of it here for you guys, if you are interested and want to read ahead, the original story-collection can be found on tumblr or wattpad to read for free. (link above this text under "OC:..." ) It is the Empyrean Iris story collection by starfallknightrise. Also, if you want to know more about the story collection i made an intro post about it, so feel free to check that out to see what other great characters to look forward to! (Link also above this text). I have no affiliations to the author; just thought I’d share some of the great stories you might enjoy a lot!
Obviously, I have Charlie’s permission to post this and for the people already knowing the stories, or starting to read them: If you follow the link and check out the story you will see some differences. I made some small (non-artistic) changes, mainly correcting writing mistakes, pronoun correction and some small additional info here and there of things which were not thought of/forgotten or even were added/changed in later stories (like the “USS->UNSC” prefix of Stabby, Chalar=/->Sunny etc). As well as some "biggemajor" changes in descriptions and info’s for the same stringency/continuity reason. That can be explained by the story collection being, well a story collection at the start with many standalone-stories just starring the same people, but later on it gets more to a stringent storyline with backstories and throwbacks. (For example Adam Vir has some HEAVY scars over his body, following his bones, which were not really talked about up till half the collection, where it says it covers his whole body and you find out via backflash that he had them the whole time and how he got them, they just weren't mentioned before. However, I would think a doctor would at least see these scars before that, especially since he gets analyzed, treated and goes shirtless/in T-shirts in some stories). So TLDR: Writing and some descriptions are slightly changed, with full OK from the author, since he himself did not bother to correct these things before.

My baby is just shy of 4 weeks old and is EBF. He’s gained about 2.5 lbs since birth and about 3.5 inches — he’s long and strong, not chunky but I’m hopeful he’ll put on some rolls in the future!
I noticed that I’ve been dropping weight quite quickly despite eating as much as I physically can (eating when hungry until complete satiety and then also snacking even when full to make sure I’m getting enough calories). I dropped from 176 to 164 between delivery day and discharge day, and am down to 150 now. I had a c section and have had a tough recovery so no actual exercise (walking about 1500-2000 steps around the house is it) and a lot of laying around. My supply seems okay — he’s gaining weight and I’m always leaking (and pump here and there to relieve the pressure when it’s painful and I’m just fountain-dripping).
Has anyone else experienced this? Did your supply stay okay? How do you estimate how much extra to eat? I’ve been consuming about 700-800 extra calories a day, but something clearly isn’t adding up!

I am The Bard, who taught men their first magics, which to this day endure when all others have. It is written into the blood and bones of all you have built, and so I shall never die.
I did not teach you how to dream. I only taught how to tell a dream to another who you would never know.
The phone rang. Karna didn’t bother to pick it up. The message machine clicked for a moment, tape starting to turn backwards as new words were written onto it. It clicked again, stopping dead. Karna didn’t look up from his meal of leftover takeout. He finished his noodles, checked again to see if there was any shrimp left, and sighed as he threw the box at the bin. It bounced off the others already filling it up.
He sighed, rubbing his head and eyes. Healing magic could cure a hangover. It couldn’t do anything about dehydration. He needed to get up and get a drink. He went over to his cabinet and looked around for a glass. When he didn’t find a clean one, he grabbed a coffee mug instead. It was the last one. He was also out of coffee. Irritating. No matter how much of it he drank, he was still tired. It just meant he couldn’t sleep.
Sex helped, a bit, but when it didn’t, things were worse. Lying alone in his own bed, at least he could toss and turn and work his sheets into tangles trying to find some position that would let him finally fall asleep. He could slip out of bed for a nightcap, a strong one, to try and help. With another, there was nothing to do but lie there, still and silent, trying not to wake the man or woman next to him.
Trying not to think.
Impossible to sleep, then suddenly too much sleep. Blink and it was three-thirty in the afternoon. He stood at the sink, filling up the mug and draining it repeatedly. The call was probably from work. Worse, it might be his mother.
”Karna, what the fuck are you doing with your life you useless bastard. You’re not immortal, it’s all slipping away, one day, one minute at a time, and here you are doing nothing with it.” He said to himself. “Because you’re too tired to anything and still can’t sleep.” Of course, he knew why. His mind, treacherous as a serpent, betrayed him then, in the dark, in the solitude. Every wound he had suffered, every scar erased by healing magic, those were nothing. He was a paladin, the training had gotten him used to the sight of his own blood a long time ago.
”Practice for healing magic. Isn’t that what the old sister called it?” He wondered aloud. “Tch. She was kind of a bitch. Still is. I wonder if she’s calling me to yell at me too? Of course, I suppose I deserve it. I-“Then he stopped himself, and slammed the mug down, forcefully. It hit one of the plates in the sink, and it cracked. Karna swore and picked up the mess, picking the shards of metal out of his sink and throwing them in the boxes in the bin.
He sat back down in the one seat he used at his four-person table. It was covered in books, loose change, an unopened letter from some survey, a candle, a mug, miscellaneous bits of stationary, a comically large six sided die with red and black patterns, and off directly to his left a stick of deodorant and bottle of cologne. Those last two were the only things he’d used on this table in a while.
He sat back in his chair and sighed. “Yeah, you know exactly what you’re doing with your life. Nothing of any use to anyone. Well. Useless is better than detrimental, so hey, at least there’s that improvement.”
He hit the button to play back the latest message from his telephone, and picked it up, placing the receiver to his ear. At least he could listen to his messages. That would be something for the day.
”Hey, Karna. It’s Bas.” Karna’s head slumped forwards. He hadn’t expected him to be calling to call him an idiot. “I’ve tried coming by your place a couple of times to visit, seem to have missed you both times.” Or he was asleep, or drunk, or otherwise being a bad cousin. “So, I figured I’d give you a call and leave you a message. Just checking in to see how you’re doing. I know… things have been rough, for all of us, and I know you were taking things hard.” I know you’re weak. “I hope you’re doing well, and hope you understand, if you’re not, then, well, you’ve got my number, and you know where I live. Even though my apartment’s not exactly stellar.” I know you could reach out. But you won’t. You’ve been given everything, inherited power, your house, your money, and you still do nothing with it. I have nothing our society considers important, but I am still a better man than you. “Hope to talk to you soon. Adonai watch over you.”
That last bit was a bit odd. Adonai. The old invisible god, or God, as those that believed in such a thing insisted. Karna wasn’t entirely certain that this wasn’t just a clever way of disguising atheism, given that philosophy’s associations. Why in the world would Basil mention it now? As far as he knew… well he really actually didn’t know anything about Basil’s beliefs. He presumed, given his training, he was a follower of the western philosophies, which were philosophies more so than religions. They were fairly popular these days, a sort of secular spirituality, a substitute for the holes growing in Ordani religious life.
When you’ve fought and killed a god in living memory, it becomes harder to worship them. Beyond that, the old rites simply that, old rites. A series of rituals nobody really believed in anymore. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a cleric. He paused. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a cleric he hadn’t been fighting to the death with. The gods really didn’t seem to have much of a place in a modern society. It was probably arrogant, but part of the point of the gods was meant to be that they were something so much bigger than oneself, that there was nothing that could compare. They were monumental figures, but when the monuments can be torn down by mere men, was it a monument worth believing in?
It was that way then. Some people turned to the western philosophies, realizing that their religious needs, the desire for mystery, for reverence, for prayer, meditation, moral laws and sacred communities were met there, without gods. Some, Basil included, turned their gaze towards an invisible, supposedly omnipotent, God. Well, the gods were supposed to be omnipotent, but if nobody could even prove your God existed, well, then there wasn’t any fear that anyone could kill Him. And then, there was the other kind. The kind which were kind of a bad joke.
He remembered his days in the warm sun, under the abbot’s orchard in Hearthfire Abbey, amid the warm red walls, the golden light of the day filtering through the green leaves, the bright red apples highlighted against a blue sky. Quite literally simpler times. He remembered the grave beneath the tree. Senket Zarathustra. Of course, that wasn’t really where she was. She was a few miles up the road, in a chapel nobody paid any mind to, next to six other graves, two empty. How much a contrast that was, compared with what was in the abbey. Her image, glaring down from tapestry, immortalized in statuary, and everywhere revered. Saint, they called her, but what was the difference between a saint and a god, when you treated one like the other.
They had made gods for themselves, gods born of and midwives to, their own people. A god that was distant enough to be worshipped, but near enough to be known. Something understood, something relatable, and something that had bested other gods before. Gods borne of the people of godslayers, for what else could they be? Of course, every pantheon needed its devil, its fallen angel. And now here he stood, a useless bastard, but also the same kind of thing as their gods and their devil. What a bad joke.
But at the same time, a joke they had believed in. A joke he felt the obligation to make a truth. A joke he had failed to make true. Up on a pedestal, and down in the dirt. That was what paladin of Order Undivided meant now. A hero, until people had no more need of them. Good, he wasn’t even a hero in the first place.
He shook his head. It was going to be a few hours before any clubs opened. He was going back to bed until then. It didn’t do him any good to sit awake stewing.
Basil was getting worried. He’d tried paying visits and making calls, but there was no contact. He quietly sat through office hours, grading the first assignments of the year. He was starting to regret assigning an essay, particularly to his 101 class. Fortunately, it was early in the year, so he was able to work through his office hours without being further disturbed. He finished his last paper, capped the red pen, and stood up. It wasn’t that far out of his way to visit Karna again, and this time he wouldn’t be ignored.
He made his way through the city, until he came to the Red Street. It had another name, but people remembered not what was given, but what was done. Fifty years ago, the blood of black and red lions flowed, as Elsior faced down her old mentor during the height of the black rebellion. The street’s architecture was eclectic, a mix of the old buildings which had survived the battle, and newer designs built up out of the ruins left from a clash of titans.
There were alleys off the street where you could still see the gashes left in the ground by arcane blades. It was a street where history lay heavy in the mortar and the air. It was also a decently affordable neighborhood, as the old houses, while historical, were also old, small, and lacked modern amenities. He was still never going to afford any of them on a teacher’s salary, even with his stipend as a paladin. Of course, Karna would have had a bitch of a time paying for his house as well, but he had simply inherited it.
Basil shook his head, as if to throw the jealous thought out of his mind. “You’re a grey-eyed monster already. Let’s not add green to the mix.” He growled at himself, as he kept walking up to Karna’s door and knocked. No response. He sighed, looking through the door. Only two of his eyes saw the normal spectrum of light. The others varied from arcane, ultraviolet, infrared, and a curious ability to see electrical signals. The end result was an overlapping view of information, an in-depth view of the world that saw the surface and the depths of everything. It had been a bit of a rude surprise for his parents to find out their son saw their brains at the same time he saw their faces. The practical upshot of this at the moment was that he saw Karna was clearly not at home, and had left a trail of lingering celestial energy behind him.
Well, Karna or another aasimar, but they were fairly rare. Even with the increasing numbers of extraplanar citizens in the union, there weren’t many descended from angels. Basil wryly considered that it might be the former keeping out the later. Baatorites weren’t strictly speaking enemies with most angels, but the distaste between the two species was deep, ancient, and mutual. As such, there was only one trail to follow.
Basil sighed when he found the end of the trail. It was a club, and of a particular sort. He didn’t need his enhanced vision to tell that. Technically speaking, strip clubs and even prostitution were legal. Practically speaking, everyone in any of them used pseudonyms. He sighed and headed for the entrance. The bouncer at the door, a towering ogre, raised a hand. “If you’re carrying, head around to the side entrance. They’ll check your swords there. No weapons in the club.”
”Not planning on starting a fight. Just looking to meet someone.”
”Yeah, well check em anyway. We’ve had boyfriends throwing hands with one another because they were looking at the guy on stage a little too hard, we don’t want em doing it with swords. That’s the kind of domestic dispute that doesn’t just get the cops involved, it’s also a bitch to get out of the floors.”
”Well, I’ll keep that in mind.” Basil replied, and headed around the side. He stepped in, greeted by another bouncer, a dragonborn. He always found it amusing how it was always one of the larger races as a bouncer. Given their job, it made a certain degree of sense, but it occurred to him he’d never seen a gnome as a bouncer. Then again, he didn’t go to many clubs. He checked his sword in, and left a pseudonym.
The dragonborn looked down at the paper, and narrowed his eyes slightly. “What’s the T.D. stand for, Mr. Law?” He asked curiously.
Basil shrugged. “Hells if I know, it’s an alias, same as everyone else is using here. I mean, look at the guy above me on that list, when was the last time you ever met somebody actually named Flamingo?”
”The guy kinda looked like a flamingo. Aasimar type, maybe his wings are pink.” The bouncer replied.
”If he’s the person I’m thinking of, no. Let’s hope they don’t start changing.” Basil replied.
”Ah, ex-boyfriend?”
”Cousin, and why’d you assume ex?”
”The only people I’ve seen who’ve been drinking that much and going home with that many different blokes are the ones going through breakups, and you’re the only person I’ve seen go looking for him, so I know he’s not a whore.”
”Nah, just a dumbass. Thanks for the info. Here’s hoping you have a quiet night.”
”Yeah, try to keep it that way for me.”
”I’ll do my best. Believe it or not, I hate fighting.” Basil replied, and headed past the dragonborn into the club proper.
To give the club some credit, they had a pretty decent band going. A small number, playing as much with style as they did skill. That was to say, a decent if unspectacular amount. The rolling tones of the lead singer washed over an atmosphere of casual conversation and lewd humor. Basil cocked an ear at the sound. He would have sworn he’d heard the woman on the radio at least once. He watched her closely for a moment, along with the rest of the band, but didn’t recognize them. Then again, he didn’t go to many concerts.
As the double bass thrummed, the piano crooned, and the saxophone danced center stage, he made his way through smoke and other scents towards the bar. A teifling danced a lurid show in the center of the building, sweat glistening on blue skin from the lights. One of Basil’s eyes kept a lock on the man, tracing the electrical signals running under his skin to enact their sensual motions. It wasn’t exactly something he was looking to copy, but it was an interesting interplay to watch. Dancing wasn’t something often done alone, done for the show. It was interesting to compare the flow of signals of this to more traditional forms.
He kept most of his eyes forwards through. He had a job to do, and he preferred white to blue anyways. A brief thought entertained his mind of what Zeal might look like in such an outfit. He snapped it off immediately, jaw snapping shut in anger at himself. That was wrong, and a bad place to go. He couldn’t allow himself to think of her, think of anyone, that way, but especially her.
He focused himself. He had a job to do, and he was going to die alone. The only thing anyone would ever love of him would be an illusion. Any intimacy would have to be built on lies. Throw those thoughts out of his mind. They would only bring distraction, and disappointment.
He centered himself, and took a seat next to Karna, as the aasimar knocked back what was looking like probably the sixth shot tonight. How the hell was he even paying for all this? He rapped the bar twice with his knuckles. “First time here, got mezcal?” He asked.
”Mezcal coming up, though I can’t say it’s gonna be quite as good as home’s.” The barkeep replied.
”I am home, just grew up away from it.” Basil replied. For all his illusions, he always forgot to cover his chultan accent. Then again, recognizing his voice was part of the point for the man next to him.
”Basil?” Karna asked, turning slightly. “You’re straight, well, nearest to it, the fuck are you doing here?”
”Checking on you, and about to drink a theoretically decent mezcal.” Basil replied. “I’m worried about you.”
”Well fuck off, you don’t need to be.” Karna replied. “Another.” He requested. Another shot of strong absinthe filled his cup.
”Might want to slow down there hoss.” The barkeep warned. “The kind you’ve been having is a hundred thirty proof.”
”That so? Huh. Would have thought it was about a hundred twenty. Guess I’m getting better at drinking. Stands to reason, it’s all I’m good at or good for.” Karna replied, clearly about as drunk as someone on their seventh shot of one hundred thirty proof absinthe should be.
”Politely, bullshit.” Basil replied. “Though you are going to manage to be the first paladin to ever give yourself liver cirrhosis at the rate you’re going.”
”Paladin. What a bad joke.” Karna spat. “Paladins are heroes, we, we’re not fucking heroes. You got closer, and you’re, well, you. Me. I’m just a fool. So what if I ruin my liver. I’ve ruined everything else.”
Karna went for his glass, but Basil put his hand over it, stopping him. He looked his cousin in the eye, gentle, pitying, but firm. “Karna, we should go. Let’s find somewhere, a park or something, and talk.”
”We should, as in you should get your hand off my drink, and then pull that pole out of your ass. Dancer might need a spare.” Karna spat back. “I don’t need to talk, I need a damn drink.”
Basil didn’t move. “Cut the crap and calm down. You’re drunk already, and clearly not in a good place. If you’re going to be this way, at least we can do it at a safe distance from anyone else.”
”Oh fuck right off.” Karna replied. “What, am I embarrassing you? More so that I already have? I know I’m a fucking disgrace okay. I saw it with my own two eyes and can’t stop seeing it. The least you could let me do is drink myself to death in peace so I stop being a bother for all of you.”
The bartender was steadily shifting away, looking towards the bouncer who sighed and began to approach. He briefly made eye contact with Basil, who tried to give him an apologetic smile and flicked his eyes back towards Karna. The bouncer nodded. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen this.
Karna continued. “But no, you can’t do that. Can’t just let me be a failure in peace. You’re not content just being the better man than me, being better in every way but looks than me. You have to prove it, have to rub it in. I already you’re better, okay, don’t need to slam my nose in it with this stupid pity schtick.”
”When did I say anything about that? I’m the weakest member of our party!” Basil protested. “And what the hells does that have to do with any of that. You’re my cousin, my family, and beyond that my friend. You clearly need help, so of course I’m going to try and help you.”
”I don’t need help.” Karna snarled back, green eyes glinting red with a dangerous, gleaming light. “LEAST OF ALL FROM YOU!” He roared. The red light flared. Basil flinched, covering his eyes as the roar slammed into his mind and ears at the same time. He focused, piercing through the growing crimson fog.
The music kept playing, a hidden tape rolling, but the band pretending to sing had stopped. The club had gone silent, save for that. The patron’s idle gossip and chatter was muted. The bar was silent, patrons slumped over on their chairs, the bartender and bouncer were on the ground, foaming at the mouth. Karna and Basil were the only two people conscious in that building.
Karna stared in stunned silence, quiet horror at the scene. Some part of him processed exactly what he had just done, rationality quietly ticking away behind a fog of alcohol and badly managed emotional issues. It only intensified the later, a combination of terror and guilt forming into a blossoming rage. Then he saw Basil’s face, saw realization peeling back and something shifting in how he looked at him, saw a cold fury, a hatred, spreading across his face.
Basil looked himself, horrified at what had just occurred, and mind flashing to the street in front of Zeal’s home. This was the exact same scene. The same power as Alexander, but now being used instinctually. He had no idea what had actually happened to these people, if Karna had meant it or not. One thing he did know for certain. He had to stop this. If Karna was out of control there was no telling how many people could be hurt so he had to end this now.
Karna opened his mouth, but it was too late. Basil whirled, placing a palm on the bar to leverage himself from a sitting position into a whirling kick. His heel hit Karna squarely in the face, with every ounce of strength he could muster. A sucker punch, meant to be a knockout blow so he could take the aasimar down, end this spell, and get him out of here before anything else went wrong.
Karna snapped back out of his chair, it tumbled to the ground, and the back of his head hit the floor hard. His headache roared, but he rolled over coming back up to his feet, coming to a ready stance. He might have been depressed and drunk, but he was still a paladin, better trained than most and tougher than pretty much everybody. It was going to take more than that to knock him out.
Basil kicked him squarely in the nuts.
Karna doubled over in pain, and Basil kicked him in the face again. Basil had trained under paladins and monks alike. His skill with his own limbs was on par with his swordsmanship. His training under the paladins in the tradition of Jort made him an expert at sneak attacks, sucker punches, and practical, dirty fighting. In other words, he was effectively an expert at kicking people in the nuts. He went for a chop to the throat, trying to finish the fight right then and there.
Karna caught his hand, and broke it by squeezing his fingers. He looked up, bloody eyed and berserk. “Ah. Fuck.” Basil swore. Then Karna threw him. Basil went flying, arm broken, and hit the wall shelves, covered in a hundred forms of expensive booze. The impact shattered his collar bone, and he kept going until he hit the solid wall on the other side of the bar. He landed hard on his face, shirt torn to ribbons and bleeding freely.
His hand and shoulder reset themselves, and shirt tore entirely as he burst his extra limbs out of it, and slammed them down to pick himself up. He drew in a breath, and Karna threw a chair at him. Basil dodged upwards, onto the ceiling as the chair smashed a hole in the wall behind him. He rushed his cousin, gathering shards of broken glass with his spare limbs and a bottle into either hand. He flung the glass before him, forcing Karna to cover his face. Then he hit him on top of the head with both bottles, dropped them, and hit him on both sides of the throat with a chop.
Karna struggled to breathe, nearly blacking out from the impact, and but threw a wild, blind punch. Basil evaded most of hit, but even a glancing hit was enough to send him flying. He caught his momentum on a support pillar, swinging around it with his tendrils. His ankle hit the side of a table and shattered. He wheezed in pain, falling to a knee on top of the table to mend it.
Karna roared and charged like a bull, giving Basil scant time. He palmed a lighter from one of the unconscious men lying next to him, and jumped clear. Karna smashed the table into splinters beneath his fists, tearing skin and breaking bone, but healing them just as quickly as he damaged them. Basil flicked the lighter open, and threw it. The expensive alcohol covering Karna caught light, stunning and blinding him as Basil set him ablaze!
He hit the flaming angel with everything he had before the fire burned away. Fists, feet, elbows, knees, tendrils. A devastating combination of every move he knew to put a man on the ground flew out of him. He hadn’t really trained to get into a bar fight, but damn if it wasn’t coming in handy. He finished with a powerful drop kick in the aasimar’s solar plexus, sending him staggering back against the bar, breath torn from his lungs.
Basil breathed heavily, as his cousin slumped, then swore as Karna got his feet under him, and pulled his head up still more than ready to go. He swore louder as Karna gripped the sides of the bar, and tore the granite countertop off of it, swinging it at Basil like an improvised weapon.
Basil leapt, running along the side of the countertop as it smashed through everything it came across. Fortunately, it was swung high, missing the unconscious clubgoers, and shattered when it hit a load bearing column, though that cracked ominously. Basil landed on his cousin, spines biting into him and wrapping around bones to anchor the assassin. He’d seen a similar technique used by velociraptors when they hunted, using their massive claws to hook onto larger dinosaurs. Once attached, the smaller reptiles would begin to eat their prey alive. He wasn’t planning on biting Karna though, instead he raised up his boot and began to stomp his cousin’s face, over and over and over again, desperately trying to bring the berserk paladin down before he brought down the building!
Karna flared his wings and soared upwards, slamming both himself and Basil into the ceiling. Basil fell off, and Karna grabbed him by the face. He slammed them both down into the floor, smashing Basil’s head into the ground once, twice, three times, then threw him with enough force to scatter blood across the entire club and snap the assassin’s neck. He watched as Basil hit the pole the dancer had been, ahem, performing with, and his illusion vanished.
Horror overtook him as he saw Basil’s true form break in two, snaped apart by the force of the impact, and fall like so much meat onto the stage. He rushed forwards, hands shaking as he realized what he’d just done. He reached for Basil’s head, bloodied and broken. But his hands went through him. His emotional pain was then matched by physical pain, as he felt a steel stripper pole strike him directly between the legs.
Basil didn’t let up, as he dropped the illusion and his invisibility, and beat his cousin into the ground with the broken pole. He went for joints, broke ribs, hit below the belt with every opportunity and he did not stop. He didn’t know what it was going to take to put Karna down but he did know that if Karna got back up, he was actually going to die. It was nothing but the good fortune of his unusual anatomy that had kept him breathing with a broken neck, and his healing magic to allow him to ever get up again. He wasn’t going to get another chance, and so he beat down his cousin until the pole was bent beyond all recognition and the stage was slick with golden blood.
When he finally stopped, Karna was finally, mercifully, down. Basil knelt by his side, mending him enough to make sure he could be moved safely, though not enough to bring him back into consciousness. The patrons were beginning to stir to consciousness. With a grunt, he picked up his friend, hoisting him over his shoulder, and covered both of them with a spell of invisibility.
Slowly, shakily, he retrieved his and Karna’s weapons, erased both their names from the registry, and slipped away as people began to regain consciousness and the police arrived. Then, he began the slow, tired business of carrying Karna back to his house. He grumbled as he went. “You are far too skinny to be this heavy, and put up way too much of a fight for me to need the extra weight of lugging your ass out of here. You stupid overpowered twink.”
Karna woke up with a splitting headache, and a slightly less splitting everything-else-ache. Paladin healing factors worked wonders, but if you took a beating that was going to make you ache for a week, you were going to ache for a week. He remembered what happened, and started to wish he didn’t. “Oh fuck. I nearly killed Bas. And… yeah, the rest of the club. I’m not going to be allowed back there.”
He rolled off his couch and got a drink, of water this time. He looked at his liquor cabinet, walked over, opened it, and grabbed a bottle. He emptied it into the sink. Then he emptied the rest. He looked down at the drain, drew in a deep breath, and focused himself. “I need to apologize. I need to talk. I need help. And I need to get my life back on track.” He resolved. “I can’t let that happen again.”
He clenched his fists, and opened them again, hands still shaking. There was a knock at the door. His first thought was that it might be Basil checking on him. The next though was that it was the police. His third thought was that it was Basil, and the police. Well, either way. Apologies would be made, he might just also need to call a really, really good lawyer, and probably a bank to take out a loan to pay all that property damage.
He opened it, and saw another aasimar looking back at him.
”Hello Karna.” Alexander replied. “I heard you had something of a rough night, powers going out of control, a rather ugly bar fight, that sort of thing?”
”Yes. How long am I going to be in jail for?” Karna asked.
”Not at all, I’ve covered the damages and fortunately, nobody has any memory of last evening. Dominion Flare has that useful side effect.”
”Dominion Flare? What I did has a name?”
”Of course. It is your inheritance after all.” Alexander mused. “Though, you might be the first one to awaken it while drunk, though you’re not the first to cause some degree of damage with it. These things happen, it simply requires training.” He looked Karna squarely in the eye. “And beyond that, I strongly suspect you may be looking for some help getting yourself back on track.”

Creature Index
Fluffies – cute, innocent, fat, quadruped animals with a deep love and admiration for humans. Their most distinctive feature is the thick fluff covering their bodies, hence the name. They talk with a child’s voice and a speech impediment known as rhotacism or rhotacization where they pronounce the letter ‘r’ like it’s the letter ‘w’. Commonly cared for by humans and elves, they come in many vibrant colors and variations. However, it is unknown if their fur can have black coloration. “Unicorns” display a singular non-functional horn on their forehead (though the fluffies believe it to be magical), “Pegasus” fluffies have non-functional wings that they would flap in attempt to fly when they sense danger, and “Alicorns” are an extremely rare variant of fluffies that posses both “Unicorns” and “Pegasus” traits. It’s near-impossible to breed an “Alicorn” as most of them are infertile. All fluffies have a life span of about twelve years and can mature quickly from infant to adult in about a month. It is unknown where they come from, only that their purpose is to spread love and joy to humanity.
Street-rat Fluffies - Not all fluffies are loved. Due to their vulnerable mind and bodies, some humans abuse and murder them. An alarming amount of fluffies are abandoned to fend for themselves in the streets. This gave birth to the “street-rat” variations of fluffies. They posses muted color variations, but are not discovered to have black fluff. Additionally, due to the excessive amounts of death and abuse that they face, only the strongest and most dangerous proliferate due to natural selection. All of them have exceptional bite force, able to wound a human and infect them with whatever disease they have. “Unicorn” street-rats have sharper horns than their normal counterparts, able to pierce to through human and fluffy flesh, killing them with infections if left untreated. Most of them display the "smarty" symptom that heightens their arrogance and aggression, leading to call themselves "smawty" if they do not have a name. However, they are still desperate for human care and would typically beg to be taken and loved if they encounter a person. Most people would either ignore them or worse… torture them.
Ogres – their name means “Dogs of War” in Vlaekonic language, and “Great Builders” in rare books found in Exmortum Cults. These giant, bipedal, humanoid warriors are the exact opposite of a fluffy. Most of them lack any fur or body hair, leaving them bald and hairless. Unlike fluffies, humans see them as war-like, only existing to torment and wage war. They are avid meat-eaters and they consider the act of eating as a meticulous prayer to their god, Grunferth(gweat-sky-daddeh as interpreted by the fluffies). They share similarities with fluffies such as the speech-impediment rhotacism (but to a slightly lesser degree) and different colors and variations depending on the region they’re in. “Rhino” ogres possess a single horn on their forehead that they use as a deadly weapon, “Gorgers” are blind and nocturnal but with exceptional hearing (called night-munstah’s or fwuffy snwatche’s by the fluffies).
Vlae – said to be the father of all Witches and Dark Magic. A trace of his existence is said to be found in a black fluffy. No other information is to be found.

If you want to receive this as a daily email in your inbox, you can now join at this link

worldnews

• Lionel54321

Palestinian toddler shot by Israeli troops in West Bank dies of wounds
Comments Link

• chessc

Nova Kakhovka dam in Kherson region blown up by Russian forces - Ukraine's military
Comments Link

• HydrolicKrane

Russia likely caused Europe's largest man-made disaster in decades – Ukraine's Foreign Minister
Comments Link

news

• modularpeak2552

Robert Hanssen, former FBI agent convicted of spying for Russia, dead at 79
Comments Link

• nat9191

Oklahoma school board approves what would be the 1st taxpayer-funded religious school in US
Comments Link

• Pekotski

Poland: hundreds of thousands march against rightwing populist government
Comments Link

science

• chrisdh79

At least 81 women around the world have been murdered as a result of their work defending the environment, according to an international analysis of the Environmental Justice Atlas
Comments Link

• rjmsci

A study shows how the psychedelic drugs LSD and psilocin act. The findings suggest that these psychedelics exert antidepressant effects by binding neuroplasticity-promoting receptors in the brain. The study, say authors, is further evidence that non-hallucinogenic psychedelics could be developed.
Comments Link

• Wagamaga

Researchers have trained a robotic ‘chef’ to watch and learn from cooking videos, and recreate the dish itself. By accurately recognizing the ingredients and observing the actions of the human chef, the robot was able to deduce which recipe was being prepared
Comments Link

space

• chetanaik

space should join other major subreddit in a blackout protesting Reddit's upcoming API changes. What do you think?
Comments Link

• Spiritual_Navigator

James Webb Space Telescope spies earliest complex organic molecules in the universe
Comments Link

• redhatGizmo

Scientists discover mysterious cosmic filaments at the heart of Milky Way galaxy
Comments Link

Futurology

• altmorty

Climate change is already making parts of America uninsurable: “We’re steadily marching toward an uninsurable future.”
Comments Link

• mafco

The US clean energy manufacturing boom has begun. Now what? The scale and speed of the shift has been stunning. Clean energy is no niche industry anymore. “We’ve seen, in the last six months, more investment in clean energy manufacturing than we have in the last 20 years.”
Comments Link

• altmorty

World EV Sales Now 14% Of World Auto Sales
Comments Link

AskReddit

• fuzzyloulou

What type of human behavior will you never understand?
Comments Link

• N615JB

What urban legend needs to die?
Comments Link

• peteypgame

What exercise/activity would be the most awkward to do nude?
Comments Link

todayilearned

• theotherbogart

TIL: TLC was the first all-female group to sell 10 million copies of an album - CrazySexyCool. But they weren't cool about making $50,000 each for the album while the record company got $75 million. So, they held Arista Records President Clive Davis hostage until the NYPD intervened.
Comments Link

• triviafrenzy

TIL King Henry II of France participated in a jousting tournament in 1559 to celebrate the marriage of his daughter. A lance splintered on his helmet and pushed wood into his eye and brain. He died ten days later. His death led to the decline of jousting in France.
Comments Link

• Gr8fulFox

TIL That even with an outside temp of -49F, an igloo can have an internal temp between 19 and 61F from body-heat, alone.
Comments Link

dataisbeautiful

• Bladedbro5

[OC] Evangelical Protestant Population by U.S. State
Comments Link

• ZimofZord

One Month Stay in New England Cost Breakdown [OC]
Comments Link

• chillininthewadi

Big Pharma Revenues by product for 2020
Comments Link

Cooking

• skahunter831

/Cooking is joining the blackout on June 12-14th to protest Reddit's proposed API changes, which will end 3rd party apps
Comments Link

• Degroomed

I want to give rich umami flavours to my Bolognese, would oyster sauce, fish sauce, red wine and beef stock be overkill?
Comments Link

• Spyrothedragon9972

Ninja blenders are a PAIN IN THE ASS to clean.
Comments Link

food

• SpaceHallow

[homemade] Bone-In Ribeye and Stuffed Mushrooms
Comments Link

• 100FootSiphonophore

[Homemade] Crispy scallion pancake
Comments Link

• MrWex2022

[Homemade] Chicago Dogs
Comments Link

movies

• MarvelsGrantMan136

SAG-AFTRA Members Vote 97.9% in Favor of Strike Authorization
Comments Link

• Key_Damage_9220

Poster for Bottoms
Comments Link

• MaxterBlaster

There is no other movie out there that demands a sequel more than District 9 (2009). Which movie do you think demands a sequel?
Comments Link

Art

• awkwardtheturtle

Do your part. The Arts need you to fight for us.
Comments Link

• IanYan7

"Sinking Ship", Ian Yan (me), 3D, 2023
Comments Link

• alaiganuza

Sweet life, Alai Ganuza (me), oil painting, 2022
Comments Link

television

• MarvelsGrantMan136

SAG-AFTRA Members Vote 97.9% in Favor of Strike Authorization
Comments Link

• VGstuffed

On ‘The Idol,’ Why Are the Weeknd’s Acting Skills Nonexistent?
Comments Link

• indig0sixalpha

My Adventures with Superman OFFICIAL TRAILER adult swim
Comments Link

pics

• BroBogan

Kanye and his new wife out for a stroll
Comments Link

• ifuckedyourmom8times

To Protect And Sleep
Comments Link

• zizamefe

These signs were put up in NYC after weed became legal
Comments Link

gifs

• gunstarheroesblue

A girl swinging a bat at a piñata
Comments Link

• Massive-Abies

Robot dog slips over banana peel
Comments Link

• acceptplayint25

Happy BirthDay Woo
Comments Link

educationalgifs

• magpiecalico

Mixing concrete
Comments Link

mildlyinteresting

• -Tyrone-Biggums-

My local Pizza Hut hasn’t changed since the 80’s
Comments Link

• Jetman97

An unfired 9mm bullet next to the one that was inside me for 4 years.
Comments Link

• whomsssssst

disassembled used EpiPen revealing how it works, as well as the extra doses within
Comments Link

interestingasfuck

• bl4ck-lizard

The Way This Snail Bridges The Gap
Comments Link

• iSaltyParchment

Dog corrects pup’s behavior towards the owner
Comments Link

• Mu_Fanchu

Sherpas rescuing guy from crevasse on Mt. Everest
Comments Link

funny

• b_ub_u-1

Make this an international sport
Comments Link

• dinaga9

What kind of doctor is this?
Comments Link

• DoubleOScarn

The camera shake though
Comments Link

aww

• St0pX

In a hole in the ground there lived a hoppit
Comments Link

• 1Hate17Here

LMAO! Why’s the Retriever the only one unfazed by all that?! 🤣
Comments Link

• Ill-SnatchYourSoul

Why are otters so cute and make these noises?
Comments Link
Get this as a daily email!

Its a 730AM tee time. I am paired with 3 dudes. Here's how the round went.
They rolled up to the tee box late. I get that its early, but, your pace of play affects the entire day. I was like.. OK... let's see if these guys make up for lost time. After another 10mins, they finally get their gloves on, pull out them balls, and everything... and hit 2 into the woods, and topped another from the blues.... OK.. never mind.. breakfast balls..
Nope. It was an all day .. all you can eat, shankapalloooooza affair.
1 hour passed... we are on the 3rd tee box.
and then..... I noticed this one dude's routine with his phone.
He takes it out... turns it on..... taps his club...... 3 swings... sets up.... 2 more swings.....
This other dude... seeing the delays... starts on his phone as well... checking facebook or what not..
READY GOLF was dead today.
and then.. some dude decides to pull the flags before he putts...
What would you do?

Hiya, just got back from Spain last night, and now here to write my review of my experience at the Spanish GP. Gonna try to divide in sections in case you are looking for something in specific:
-Travel to and from the Circuit: I stayed in Barcelona near a station with the R2 route. Each way was about 2.4 euros I believe, but when asked at the cashier she told me I was better off buying the Abono that lasts up until end of August for 10 euros, so I got that and that's how I traveled to Montmelo station, it also takes you to the airport if you are traveling so you don't pay the 16 euro of the shuttle bus like I did when I got there lol. From Montmelo to Gate 3-4 you will walk 35-40 minutes, but you will see a lot of people and will not feel unsafe at any time of the day. I left early every day (before 9 am) and the train was not busy, however on Sunday, the only day I left at 5 (post race), the line stretched long and it was hot so I decided to just stay in Montmelo and eat, I got to the train after 7:40 PM as the line was now non existent.
-Race grounds: Personally, I felt the place was small (compared to Silverstone and COTA) but its an F1 track, it's still huge and will beat your legs after walking for 3 days. The fan zone is by the Main Grandstand and was smaller than the one at COTA and USGP, and also felt very packed in there during the driver talks. They said water stations would be available so I was expecting water booths like the ones you see at festivals with 15+ available rows, but it was literally just a single water station that only takes a bottle each time like the ones at an airport, which was pretty funny to see because of how huge F1 is. This is something the track needs to work on imo.
-Food: I was actually surprised at how slim the selection was. Their food truck row had 3 food trucks. Food was near the same every section, hot dogs, burgers, sandwiches, and maybe 2 or 3 "specialty" vendors but the food section IMO was lacking big big time.
-Spotting the F1 drivers: Now here's something that is very important for me lol. I go to concerts, film fests, so trying to get close to artists to get sigs is something I enjoy. At F1 is very hard nowadays because the fan zone stage is just a 10 min talk and not an autograph signing session anymore. For Barcelona, the parking for the drivers is past a gated area so you can see them drive in but none of them will stop, only few drivers I saw roll down was Sainz, Leclerc, Ocon, and I did see Checo take a selfie with a fan, but it is not guaranteed and sincerely it's dangerous because you see crowds stopping their cars lol.
-F2 and F3: Now here's why I try to go to EU once a year. I enjoy F2/F3 more than F1 nowadays, so this was my main plate. On Friday I found out the drivers park outside and then walk or shuttle to their paddock. I asked twice here if it was possible to meet them that way but was told they drive in to the paddock like the F1 people so I didn't print anything to get signed :/. They are all very happy to take a pic and sign. It was funny I would stop to talk to some of these drivers, others would see me and ask a pic and then they would ask me who they were lol. It was INSANE to me how there would be 40-50 people on the other side of the street waiting to see the F1 drivers ignore them as they drive by and completely ignore drivers like Ollie Bearman and Sophia Floersch who would walk in front of them to get to the entrance lol.
-F1 Experiences: This is my second F1 Experiences purchase. I did a Hero package last year at Silverstone, and absolutely loved it. However, F1 Experiences do have several areas they need to raise their game.
For Spain, I had the Trophy package, which is the same as the Hero but your 3-day pass will be on a different grandstand. You get a pitlane, a ride on the flatbed trucks around the circuit, photos with the trophies and an event, typically called Live on the Grid or Inside F1. So for the pitlane, this was early, at like 3:30 PM, so unlike Silverstone where it was at like 6 PM, we actually saw all the garages open and the teams doing work/training. The flatbed truck is fun because you just get to go around the track and learn about it from an expert.
Now, what areas do they need to raise their game at?
(1) Inside F1. This was nowhere near as good as live on the grid. This took place at the Champions Club and there were so many of us it was so hard to move around. For this event, there are no cars, no sims, nothing, you just see the invited guests go and do an interview and then they proceed to leave. Live on the Grid is 1000x times better.
F1 Experiences staff is top game when it comes to their attention to customers and hospitality. However, the areas where they need to improve are all involving delivery of the package. It takes them AGES to ship these, and when a lot of us travel from out of country or continent to these races, getting these badged shipped just 10 days (sometimes they are even slower) before the thursday event is insane. I buy VIP packages for concerts very often from VIP Nation, CID, Future Beat, and none of them ship stuff so late. Not only that, but when you choose to pick up on-site, don't expect it to be at the track like with festivals or concerts, F1 Experiences are always in some remote location far away from the track. At Silverstone they were in a place like 50 minute walk away from the entrance to the track, so not only you had to get a taxi to go there, but also a taxi to get to the track, and at Silverstone where there is no Uber, it was hard to do so. For Spain, they were at a hotel nearby where no buses or trains can drop you off, so you had to get a taxi from the train station (20 euro) and then a taxi from their hotel to the track (25 euro). IF you are in luck, you will meet fans at the hotel lobby down to split the taxi (which I did), but in this day and age, where F1 Experiences only have to ship a simple lanyard which they probably print in batches at the beginning of the year, it is insane how bad they are with delivering it. Everything else? A+, but because of how inconvenient this was I would give them just 4 stars. I talked to other people and they all felt the same way as I did.
​
If there is anything you need to know please comment. i had to write this quick as I am at work lol.

Background

I am of the belief that there is currently a problem in games like Apex Legends, Overwatch and League of Legends. Games that focus on refining one official way of playing, with small team sizes and emphasis on competitive play. I believe that the insistence of this genre of repeating the same high-stress activity endlessly with little to no variation is a recipe for burnout and subsequent player lapsing.
This lapsing accumulates over time and seems to increase pressure to add a stream of content that keeps things relatively fresh. I think this is a tremendous waste of resources for no reason. Look at Team Fortress 2, a very similar game that has had no update since 2017 yet still maintains a dedicated playerbase. I think the secret to TF2's ongoing success is its casual team sizes of 12v12, which dilutes responsibility to take the pressure off individuals and mitigate burnout. Look also to planetside 2 which can have combat encounters of 80v80 and likewise does not depend upon constant updates to maintain player engagement.
Lastly, is it any coincidence that Apex's most popular mixtape mode is the one that uses the highest team size of 9v9? Apex players need a reliable way to decompress from banging their head against the battle royale wall for hours, and this is a pitch for a mode that will fulfill that niche, and mitigate the problem that plagues every game of this kind.
I don't think Apex needs something like this to succeed commercially, simply that they would succeed more with it. I also think Apex is uniquely positioned to bend their existing systems to accommodate something radically different.

High Concept

A Syndicate supply fleet was eviscerated in orbit over World's Edge, the first shot fired in an internal power struggle against De Silva. The wreckage, carrying enough guns and munitions to fund an entire war now hurtles to the planet surface, and both factions will need every gun they can get.
Under the guise of a new event in the games, the Legends are recruited by both sides of the brewing civil war to retrieve the supplies that have crash landed on the planet surface.
This is Extraction, a new mode that pits 2 teams against each other… of 30 players each.
The goal of extraction is simple. Both teams will start on opposite ends of World's Edge and debris from the orbiting fleet wreckage will periodically crash land on the map, updating that location's loot with higher tier items as well as supply cases. These cases are the main objective, and teams must collect these and drop them off at designated depositories in order to score for their team.
The winning team is the first to deposit the required number of supply cases.

Technical Information

Everything from here on out are the nitty gritty mechanics of the game mode. The goal of these technicals is to create a mode that's as relaxed and engaging as possible while also minimizing how many resources Respawn would need to commit to making it reality.

Team Sizes

A big issue new modes present is splitting the playerbase. If 60 people queue for Extraction, that's 60 people not queuing for Battle Royale, extending wait times to get into a game. However, this should not be a problem. Due to the hypercasual focus of Extraction, a game of Extraction may start with only 12 players. After that, players may come and go as they please with no penalty due to the backfill system that Respawn recently got working in team deathmatch. This will create a minimal impact on queue times.
Players will pick their Legends independently and can swap Legends at their base. There are no Legend caps, making a team of 30 Wattsons a real and terrifying prospect.

Squad Comms

Having 60 people on Comms would be a nightmare, so how do we handle that? My suggested solution isn't to split people into squads the way control does, but rather restrict Comms to a certain radius. Players can receive chat messages and pings from any allied player within 300m. If more than 5 players are in that radius, it will instead prioritize the closest 5. There's potential for these numbers to be tweaked by players in the options.
This adaptive Comms system will prioritize people on your friends list or that were in the party you queued into Extraction with.
This logic extends to pings from abilities such as scans, bamboozles or survey beacon activations.

Death

Unlike mixtape modes, players will be knocked down in Extraction and need to be finished off. However, the bleed out timer is shorter than it is in Battle Royale, and there are no knockdown shields in this mode. The intent behind this is to create a mode that feels more like being part of a cohesive army than the mindless horde you join in shadowfall, since your life has more value than simply running at the enemy and hoping you win.
Dead players will leave behind a deathbox but they will contain no banner. This is just to limit the entities within an area as well as enabling the use of Ash's passive in this mode. Death boxes will despawn after 3-5 minutes to prevent clutter.
However, despite mostly working the same as Battle Royale, death in Extraction is not the end, as you are able to respawn at your home base upon death.

Supply Cases

When the game begins, 3 points of interest will be pelted with debris - one in a location equidistant to either team's base and one slightly closer to each base. This event is similar to Gibraltar's air strike and will endanger players caught in it, but when the bombardment subsides, the point of interest will have refreshed loot, which includes several supply cases. Similar to ring closings, the start of a new round will mark 3 new points of interest to bombard.
Far more supply cases will spawn in central areas than points of interest closer to a base, making the higher risk the higher reward.
Supply cases, like grenades, take up an entire inventory slot on their own, limiting your carrying capacity. The primary use of supply cases is to collect them and take them to your depository, scoring a point for your team. However, by holding interact for a full 5 seconds, a supply case can instead be cracked open, which produces a set of highly adaptive loot for the person that opened it, but consumes the case in the process so it cannot be scored.
To prevent griefing, only one supply case can be opened, and this permission refreshes either when you die or when you deposit a supply case.
Supply cases have a green rarity, and will make death boxes glow green. A deathbox with a supply case in it will not start its countdown to despawn so long as it contains a supply case.
Despite having a green rarity, each supply case also has a hidden rarity of blue, purple, gold or red. This hidden rarity dictates the rarity of the adaptive loot from cracking it open, similar to how the light on a cargo bot will. Loba is able to view this true rarity and her passive will trigger for high rarities.

Bases & Forward Bases

Each team starts at a base on opposite sides of The Map that serve as their starting location and respawn point. These bases are generic structures that feature a jump tower for a fast rollout, and also contain depositories for supply cases as well as shops. Similar to how the dropship can approach from a number of manually defined angles, these bases can potentially take advantage of the empty space around World's Edge to have numerous different placements for matches, and the jump tower allows designers to ignore factors like unfavorable terrain close to the base.
To prevent spawn camping, the base itself will inflict an endgame-level ring effect on enemies within it, and enemies within 200m of the base will be continuously scanned to all allies nearby.
There are also several forward bases dotted around The map - lone and unassuming buildings or small compounds that have been outfitted with a capture point like the ones in control. Capturing it will activate a new respawn point for the entire team and comes with depositories for supply cases.
Respawn Beacons are obtainable in very specific scenarios. Placing one will provide the team with a limited time respawn point, just like in control, but will expire early if used 10 times.

Map

I opted for World's Edge as the prototype hotbed for this mode. The other maps have potential, such as the tridents offering mass moblilty in storm point, but I think the flat terrain and wide open spaces serves a 2-side warzone much better than the design of other maps. Fragment was made for this chaos.
There's also room to bring back the train to play the role of fickle troop transport.

Loot

Players will begin with a P2020 and stack of light ammo. No body shield, no helmet.
Standard ground loot rarity has generally been reduced across the board. What would be a blue body shield is now white, and what would be a purple is now blue. This will result in a general decrease in time to kill which makes sense with there being more people to kill, less punishment for death, and increased odds there will be someone to revive you.
Speaking of which, there are no Evo shields in this mode, only body shields. The aim of this mode is neither longevity nor killing, so it doesn't make sense to encourage either.
Knockdown shields are removed from the loot pool altogether to stop the tempo of combat slowing to a crawl. Survival items have also been removed for various reasons I'll get to.
When a new round begins and space debris crashes on a PoI, the loot in that PoI will be re-rolled on a much more generous table, with rare weapons, armor and attachments being more plentiful.
Supply cases spawn uncommonly even outside these hotspots, providing inexperienced players a more indirect way to contribute to the score similar to how they could kill bot enemies in Titanfall.

Crafting

Obviously 60 players on a respawn timer will eat through ground loot like locusts until nothing is left. Extraction will emphasize crafting as a way to mitigate this problem.
Killing enemies and delivering supply cases will award you with crafting materials. Additionally, there is a "payday" feature where everyone will gain crafting materials every few minutes. Reaching milestones in supply case collection will increase a team's payday bonus, making crafting more viable as endgame draws closer.
While replicators will still drop around the map to help with quick resupplies, the shops you can find on Big Maud are now available in bases as well as scattered in nooks across the map. These sell varying grades of body shield and kitted weapons to very rapidly outfit a newly respawned player with money to spend.
Additionally, the map contains a handful of control points which are not supply case hotspots or forward bases, but capturing them will increase the team payday for as long as it is held. These can overlap with debris crash sites for additional chaos.

Legend Role Abilities

In Extraction mode, the Legends all have a unique part to play in securing and delivering cases, which is reflected in their passive abilities during the mode. Every role also has an exclusive item only they can craft at replicators

• Assault - Body shields picked up by an assault legend become Evo shields for as long as the assault legend wears it. Assault legends in Extraction are hunters focused on eliminating enemies trying to secure a case deposit. Having Evo shields will raise they likelihood that they are better prepped for direct combat than anyone else. Assault Legends can also craft grenades at a replicator.
• Skirmisher - Skirmishers can sense supply cases through walls up to 50m away. The speed of a skirmisher makes them the prime candidates to be runners that dive into dangerous places, loot the objective items and then get out again, and this ability will ensure they can plan their routes as well as thwart enemy Skirmishers trying to stash cases somewhere obscure. Skirmisher Legends can also craft evac towers at a replicator
• Recon - Recon Legends that ping enemies using survey beacons or their scan abilities will flag if an enemy is holding a supply case. Recon in Extraction is important for providing precise data in fights where the team may need to keep track of 10 or more people. They can help assault with target prioritization, and warn Skirmishers and controllers of incoming threats. Recon Legends can also craft threat optics at replicators.
• Support - Support Legends revive other players as if they had a gold backpack. With so many allies to babysit, it's important that supports can tend to them all in good time. Support Legends can also craft respawn beacons at replicators.
• Control - Control Legends scanning ring beacons will identify where debris will fall next instead of the next ring location. Additionally, Control Legends will capture control points even if they are contested, unless the contestor is also Control. Control Legends are able to assert themselves upon every kind of objective, and take what they please while the opposition struggles to push them. Control Legends can also craft mobile depositories at replicators, a unique survival item that calls down a structure that either team can deposit supply cases into in order to score points.

Legend Changes

Some Legends will need minor tweaks to accommodate to this new mode. These changes will only occur within Extraction mode.

• Ash - Ash's passive will trigger on any enemy that dealt damage to the deathbox's owner before they died.
• Revenant - Death Totem only accepts 6 users at any given moment.
• Vantage - Spotter's lens will identify if a target has a supply case; pinging that enemy will flag this to the team.
• Loba - Loba cannot take supply cases with Black Market, but her passive will flag the hidden rarity of supply case's contents, which she can ping for her team.
• Newcastle - Newcastle uses his body shield rarity instead of knockdown shield rarity for the purposes of his passive.

Final Words

I think the most important thing I want to note is that something like Extraction cannot just be another mixtape mode - to have the intended effect of mitigating player burnout, it needs to have complete parity with Battle Royale. If it's not treated as "the real game" then the pressure continues to mount to go and queue for the real game.
Extraction is a mode I designed to just be wacky and crazy and relaxed while at the same time not detracting from that potential for high level play for individuals that want to always take the fight to the most hotly contested site. I think there's untapped depth and complexity to the gameplay when killing other people is only a means to an end and not the end itself, and I wanted to explore that with the supply cases.
If you read all of this, I appreciate it and I'm very open to feedback, criticism or clarifying questions. As thorough as I've been explaining the technicals, I doubt I've hit every single possible query.

My husband and I and nearly all of our friends are in our 30s, so not looking for an all night crazy keg party, but we just moved to our house and it was just my husbands birthday so we want to have a gathering. We have a backyard so I would love for people to be there when it is dark to use our fire pit and see our outdoor lights, but I don't want to have to pay for everyone's dinner, even if it is just pizza, that could be $70ish on top of buying snacks and most of the drinks which would be like $60-70 already.
I set the time of this gathering for 4:30 pm so that if people want, they can stay for dinner time and we can order food then be outside with the fire pit, etc. I

1. Does it make sense to start at 4:30 and if people want to stay, they stay and we all pay for our food/chip in for pizza?? (Please note, I am not calling this a housewarming or birthday party, so gifts are not requested, expected or anticipated so I feel it is perfectly fine for people to chip in for dinner if they stay.)
2. Have the party for 6:30 or 7 and tell people we expect them to chip in for pizza? I don't want to sound weird or rude, but like I said before, I can't cover everyones snacks, drinks AND meal/pizza. If this was like a more sit down type of dinner, like a Friendsgiving, everyone would be expected to bring something (aka I'm not paying for every aspect of the meal) whether it is a main, side, app or dessert. While pizza is easy and affordable, some people are Gluten free, someone might be vegan, etc, so the reasonable choice for food becomes a problem for those who can't partake and I want everyone to be able to eat.

Whenever I am invited to a friends, I always ask if I can bring something/chip in, but not everyone is like this. My friend had a party a few months ago and paid for the food but I did offer, but they are in a different financial place then me.
Help! I am bad at this

Background

I am of the belief that there is currently a problem in games like Apex Legends, Overwatch and League of Legends. Games that focus on refining one official way of playing, with small team sizes and emphasis on competitive play. I believe that the insistence of this genre of repeating the same high-stress activity endlessly with little to no variation is a recipe for burnout and subsequent player lapsing.
This lapsing accumulates over time and seems to increase pressure to add a stream of content that keeps things relatively fresh. I think this is a tremendous waste of resources for no reason. Look at Team Fortress 2, a very similar game that has had no update since 2017 yet still maintains a dedicated playerbase. I think the secret to TF2's ongoing success is its casual team sizes of 12v12, which dilutes responsibility to take the pressure off individuals and mitigate burnout. Look also to planetside 2 which can have combat encounters of 80v80 and likewise does not depend upon constant updates to maintain player engagement.
Lastly, is it any coincidence that Apex's most popular mixtape mode is the one that uses the highest team size of 9v9? Apex players need a reliable way to decompress from banging their head against the battle royale wall for hours, and this is a pitch for a mode that will fulfill that niche, and mitigate the problem that plagues every game of this kind.
I don't think Apex needs something like this to succeed commercially, simply that they would succeed more with it. I also think Apex is uniquely positioned to bend their existing systems to accommodate something radically different.

High Concept

A Syndicate supply fleet was eviscerated in orbit over World's Edge, the first shot fired in an internal power struggle against De Silva. The wreckage, carrying enough guns and munitions to fund an entire war now hurtles to the planet surface, and both factions will need every gun they can get.
Under the guise of a new event in the games, the Legends are recruited by both sides of the brewing civil war to retrieve the supplies that have crash landed on the planet surface.
This is Extraction, a new mode that pits 2 teams against each other… of 30 players each.
The goal of extraction is simple. Both teams will start on opposite ends of World's Edge and debris from the orbiting fleet wreckage will periodically crash land on the map, updating that location's loot with higher tier items as well as supply cases. These cases are the main objective, and teams must collect these and drop them off at designated depositories in order to score for their team.
The winning team is the first to deposit the required number of supply cases.

Technical Information

Everything from here on out are the nitty gritty mechanics of the game mode. The goal of these technicals is to create a mode that's as relaxed and engaging as possible while also minimizing how many resources Respawn would need to commit to making it reality.

Team Sizes

A big issue new modes present is splitting the playerbase. If 60 people queue for Extraction, that's 60 people not queuing for Battle Royale, extending wait times to get into a game. However, this should not be a problem. Due to the hypercasual focus of Extraction, a game of Extraction may start with only 12 players. After that, players may come and go as they please with no penalty due to the backfill system that Respawn recently got working in team deathmatch. This will create a minimal impact on queue times.
Players will pick their Legends independently and can swap Legends at their base. There are no Legend caps, making a team of 60 Wattsons a real and terrifying prospect.

Squad Comms

Having 60 people on Comms would be a nightmare, so how do we handle that? My suggested solution isn't to split people into squads the way control does, but rather restrict Comms to a certain radius. Players can receive chat messages and pings from any allied player within 300m. If more than 5 players are in that radius, it will instead prioritize the closest 5. There's potential for these numbers to be tweaked by players in the options.
This adaptive Comms system will prioritize people on your friends list or that were in the party you queued into Extraction with.
This logic extends to pings from abilities such as scans, bamboozles or survey beacon activations.

Death

Unlike mixtape modes, players will be knocked down in Extraction and need to be finished off. However, the bleed out timer is shorter than it is in Battle Royale, and there are no knockdown shields in this mode. The intent behind this is to create a mode that feels more like being part of a cohesive army than the mindless horde you join in shadowfall, since your life has more value than simply running at the enemy and hoping you win.
Dead players will leave behind a deathbox but they will contain no banner. This is just to limit the entities within an area as well as enabling the use of Ashe's passive in this mode. Death boxes will despawn after 3-5 minutes to prevent clutter.
However, despite mostly working the same as Battle Royale, death in Extraction is not the end, as you are able to respawn at your home base upon death.

Supply Cases

When the game begins, 3 points of interest will be pelted with debris - one in a location equidistant to either team's base and one slightly closer to each base. This event is similar to Gibraltar's air strike and will endanger players caught in it, but when the bombardment subsides, the point of interest will have refreshed loot, which includes several supply cases. Similar to ring closings, the start of a new round will mark 3 new points of interest to bombard.
Far more supply cases will spawn in central areas than points of interest closer to a base, making the higher risk the higher reward.
Supply cases, like grenades, take up an entire inventory slot on their own, limiting your carrying capacity. The primary use of supply cases is to collect them and take them to your depository, scoring a point for your team. However, by holding interact for a full 5 seconds, a supply case can instead be cracked open, which produces a set of highly adaptive loot for the person that opened it, but consumes the case in the process so it cannot be scored.
To prevent griefing, only one supply case can be opened, and this permission refreshes either when you die or when you deposit a supply case.
Supply cases have a green rarity, and will make death boxes glow green. A deathbox with a supply case in it will not start its countdown to despawn so long as it contains a supply case.
Despite having a green rarity, each supply case also has a hidden rarity of blue, purple, gold or red. This hidden rarity dictates the rarity of the adaptive loot from cracking it open, similar to how the light on a cargo bot will. Loba is able to view this true rarity and her passive will trigger for high rarities.

Bases & Forward Bases

Each team starts at a base on opposite sides of The Map that serve as their starting location and respawn point. These bases are generic structures that feature a jump tower for a fast rollout, and also contain depositories for supply cases as well as shops. Similar to how the dropship can approach from a number of manually defined angles, these bases can potentially take advantage of the empty space around World's Edge to have numerous different placements for matches, and the jump tower allows designers to ignore factors like unfavorable terrain close to the base.
To prevent spawn camping, the base itself will inflict an endgame-level ring effect on enemies within it, and enemies within 200m of the base will be continuously scanned to all allies nearby.
There are also several forward bases dotted around The map - lone and unassuming buildings or small compounds that have been outfitted with a capture point like the ones in control. Capturing it will activate a new respawn point for the entire team and comes with depositories for supply cases.
Respawn Beacons are obtainable in very specific scenarios. Placing one will provide the team with a limited time respawn point, just like in control, but will expire early if used 10 times.

Map

I opted for World's Edge as the prototype hotbed for this mode. The other maps have potential, such as the tridents offering mass moblilty in storm point, but I think the flat terrain and wide open spaces serves a 2-side warzone much better than the design of other maps. Fragment was made for this chaos.
There's also room to bring back the train to play the role of fickle troop transport.

Loot

Players will begin with a P2020 and stack of light ammo. No body shield, no helmet.
Standard ground loot rarity has generally been reduced across the board. What would be a blue body shield is now white, and what would be a purple is now blue. This will result in a general decrease in time to kill which makes sense with there being more people to kill, less punishment for death, and increased odds there will be someone to revive you.
Speaking of which, there are no Evo shields in this mode, only body shields. The aim of this mode is neither longevity nor killing, so it doesn't make sense to encourage either.
Knockdown shields are removed from the loot pool altogether to stop the tempo of combat slowing to a crawl. Survival items have also been removed for various reasons I'll get to.
When a new round begins and space debris crashes on a PoI, the loot in that PoI will be re-rolled on a much more generous table, with rare weapons, armor and attachments being more plentiful.
Supply cases spawn uncommonly even outside these hotspots, providing inexperienced players a more indirect way to contribute to the score similar to how they could kill bot enemies in Titanfall.

Crafting

Obviously 60 players on a respawn timer will eat through ground loot like locusts until nothing is left. Extraction will emphasize crafting as a way to mitigate this problem.
Killing enemies and delivering supply cases will award you with crafting materials. Additionally, there is a "payday" feature where everyone will gain crafting materials every few minutes. Reaching milestones in supply case collection will increase a team's payday bonus, making crafting more viable as endgame draws closer.
While replicators will still drop around the map to help with quick resupplies, the shops you can find on Big Maud are now available in bases as well as scattered in nooks across the map. These sell varying grades of body shield and kitted weapons to very rapidly outfit a newly respawned player with money to spend.
Additionally, the map contains a handful of control points which are not supply case hotspots or forward bases, but capturing them will increase the team payday for as long as it is held. These can overlap with debris crash sites for additional chaos.

Legend Role Abilities

In Extraction mode, the Legends all have a unique part to play in securing and delivering cases, which is reflected in their passive abilities during the mode. Every role also has an exclusive item only they can craft at replicators

• Assault - Body shields picked up by an assault legend become Evo shields for as long as the assault legend wears it. Assault legends in Extraction are hunters focused on eliminating enemies trying to secure a case deposit. Having Evo shields will raise they likelihood that they are better prepped for direct combat than anyone else. Assault Legends can also craft grenades at a replicator.
• Skirmisher - Skirmishers can sense supply cases through walls up to 50m away. The speed of a skirmisher makes them the prime candidates to be runners that dive into dangerous places, loot the objective items and then get out again, and this ability will ensure they can plan their routes as well as thwart enemy Skirmishers trying to stash cases somewhere obscure. Skirmisher Legends can also craft evac towers at a replicator
• Recon - Recon Legends that ping enemies using survey beacons or their scan abilities will flag if an enemy is holding a supply case. Recon in Extraction is important for providing precise data in fights where the team may need to keep track of 10 or more people. They can help assault with target prioritization, and warn Skirmishers and controllers of incoming threats. Recon Legends can also craft threat optics at replicators.
• Support - Support Legends revive other players as if they had a gold backpack. With so many allies to babysit, it's important that supports can tend to them all in good time. Support Legends can also craft respawn beacons at replicators.
• Control - Control Legends scanning ring beacons will identify where debris will fall next instead of the next ring location. Additionally, Control Legends will capture control points even if they are contested, unless the contestor is also Control. Control Legends are able to assert themselves upon every kind of objective, and take what they please while the opposition struggles to push them. Control Legends can also craft mobile depositories at replicators, a unique survival item that calls down a structure that either team can deposit supply cases into in order to score points.

Legend Changes

Some Legends will need minor tweaks to accommodate to this new mode. These changes will only occur within Extraction mode.

• Ash - Ash's passive will trigger on any enemy that dealt damage to the deathbox's owner before they died.
• Revenant - Death Totem only accepts 6 users at any given moment.
• Vantage - Spotter's lens will identify if a target has a supply case; pinging that enemy will flag this to the team.
• Loba - Loba cannot take supply cases with Black Market, but her passive will flag the hidden rarity of supply case's contents, which she can ping for her team.
• Newcastle - Newcastle uses his body shield rarity instead of knockdown shield rarity for the purposes of his passive.

Final Words

I think the most important thing I want to note is that something like Extraction cannot just be another mixtape mode - to have the intended effect of mitigating player burnout, it needs to have complete parity with Battle Royale. If it's not treated as "the real game" then the pressure continues to mount to go and queue for the real game.
Extraction is a mode I designed to just be wacky and crazy and relaxed while at the same time not detracting from that potential for high level play for individuals that want to always take the fight to the most hotly contested site. I think there's untapped depth and complexity to the gameplay when killing other people is only a means to an end and not the end itself, and I wanted to explore that with the supply cases.
If you read all of this, I appreciate it and I'm very open to feedback, criticism or clarifying questions. As thorough as I've been explaining the technicals, I doubt I've hit every single possible query.

My wife got me an 8 week Golden Retriever puppy for my birthday. I was extremely happy as I haven't had a dog since my mom gave away my dog when I was a teen. The first week was tough but it was fun. It was fun playing with her, getting to know her personality and seeing her get excited for new toys/food/playtime. She's now just over 13 weeks and the novelty has worn off. She bites and chews everything, she constantly barks at me for seemingly no reason, she growls and throws a tantrum when she cant have something. Its gotten so bad that when I'm falling asleep I can hear her bark in my head.
When she bites I always redirect to a toy or a chew but this only keeps her attention for like 2 seconds and she's back to trying to get my fingers. When she doesn't get them she barks and jumps up at them or goes for my toes.
I cant sit down to play with her because she will try to bite my fingers. I cant sit down to relax after work coz I have to constantly watch her so she doesn't eat something she shouldn't or have an accident inside. I cant even go to the bathroom or even prepare her food without her barking and whining endlessly. If I'm not in her line of sight, you best believe she'll be barking and whining until she can see me. Its gotten to the point where she will stop playing or drop a chew just so she can follow me around.
Waking up in the mornings to let her out is taking its toll on me and I feel like I'm going crazy. I feel like my life is no longer mine as I don't have time for myself. I WFH so I spend the whole day with her. If I'm not working, I'm making sure she's ok. I'm tired and frustrated and its greatly affecting my mood. Even worse is it seems my wife gets the good parts of having a puppy. She comes home and plays with her for a couple hours and the puppy sleeps and she can relax. She said this phase will pass, but she isn't with the puppy for 12+ hours a day everyday like I am.
I don't want my furniture or stuff chewed up, I don't want to keep cleaning dog pee off my floor, I don't want my cats constantly being chased. Sometimes I wish I could just fast forward to where she's fully grown
I guess this is more a vent and not advice seeking but any advice is greatly appreciated!

My husband and I and nearly all of our friends are in our 30s, so not looking for an all night crazy keg party, but we just moved to our house and it was just my husbands birthday so we want to have a gathering. We have a backyard so I would love for people to be there when it is dark to use our fire pit and see our outdoor lights, but I don't want to have to pay for everyone's dinner, even if it is just pizza, that could be $70ish on top of buying snacks and most of the drinks which would be like $60-70 already.
I set the time of this gathering for 4:30 pm so that if people want, they can stay for dinner time and we can order food then be outside with the fire pit, etc. I

1. Does it make sense to start at 4:30 and if people want to stay, they stay and we all pay for our food/chip in for pizza?? (Please note, I am not calling this a housewarming or birthday party, so gifts are not requested, expected or anticipated so I feel it is perfectly fine for people to chip in for dinner if they stay.)
2. Have the party for 6:30 or 7 and tell people we expect them to chip in for pizza? I don't want to sound weird or rude, but like I said before, I can't cover everyones snacks, drinks AND meal/pizza. If this was like a more sit down type of dinner, like a Friendsgiving, everyone would be expected to bring something (aka I'm not paying for every aspect of the meal) whether it is a main, side, app or dessert. EDIT TO ADD - pizza is easy, but some people are Gluten free, someone might be vegan, etc, so the reasonable choice for food becomes a problem for those who can't partake and I want everyone to be able to eat.

Whenever I am invited to a friends, I always ask if I can bring something/chip in, but not everyone is like this. My friend had a party a few months ago and paid for the food but I did offer, but they are in a different financial place then me.
Help! I am bad at this!

NEW RULES : If several top comments are close to each other, more than one can be selected.
NOTE : Go visite MrZerkeursRedditGame to vote for the name and type of the game ;)
Day 1 : Meth BY M0rB1dUnD3aD
Day 2 : Germany BY VanAintUsedUp
Day 3 : Rickroll BY The_Ora_Charmander
Day 4 : u/70percentbanana BY Meister3434Gabel
Day 5 : A 4'10 drug dealer who will be your sidekick for the rest of the game BY Sapphire_Eclipse19
Day 6 : Gorilla. BY nova_novanovanova
Day 7 : A bodybuilder made out of cheese that appears at random moments in the game to help BY Eat_my_fungus17
Day 8 : Flying rideable sharks BY LekinTempoglowy
Day 9 : A drunk man on the ground rethinking his life choices BY Snacccx
Day 10 : this BY Pan_van
Day 11 : The entire bee movie script but it's just hidden in the files BY KARUSTK
Day 12 : Jim Carey’s grinch face hiding in the background on the Danny deVito boss fight BY Namelessisgone
Day 13 : A library with books about things that happened in real life, and the librarian looks like, acts like, and shares a name with OP BY sparkle3364
Day 14 : A therapist BY creeperhead_
Day 15 : A secret wand which when obtained can instantly kill any mob in the game by just clicking it. However, all the mobs you killed using the wand, will all gang up at you at you in the final boss room WITH the boss. BY Maleficent_Sir_7562
Day 16 : The snail from adventure Time 🐌 BY KurtTheRetardFucker
Day 17 : Strong capybaras BY Brown-Frog
Day 18 : A snail that will always follow you and will instantly kill you if it touches you BY spire_x
Day 19 : this n°2 BY bobdabioengineer
Day 20 : A sleeping dog that’s always the same level as you and wakes up to save you if you’re fighting someone you can’t beat BY sparkle3364
Day 21 : A dude that just randomly throws pineapples BY 70percentbanana

So as someone who has been vegan for 9 years (and Seventh-Day Adventist Protestant Christian my entire life), Narnian books are certainly frustrating!
On the one hand, CS Lewis clearly loves animals because he makes some of them Talking Animals and the humans and others are always APPALLED if they find out they killed or ate a Talking Animal. But "dumb" animals are A-OK, which is so frustrating! It's like saying "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".
From what I can tell, he sincerely LOVED his dogs, but he also loved eating meat, so this was the only way he could resolve his cognitive dissonance of eating animals who were also intelligent and felt emotions same as his dogs. I see this all the time. People passionately working at animal rescue places, but then turning around and eating meat with every single meal. Amazing so many people can be so passionate about rescuing animals, but then can't let go of their addiction to meat, dairy, eggs. That said, there are many, many vegetarians and vegans in such organizations, certainly. So at least a higher portion of that population does overcome their cognitive dissonance and realize the self-contradicting absurdity they are living with.
P.S. When the corrupt Ape was the main means of communication with "Aslan" while the animals complained and wanted to speak to Aslan face-to-face as before, that's when I was like "OHHH, Lewis is protestant! Not catholic! Yay!" 😂
I assumed he was catholic just because Tolkien was.
It's so funny the incredible amount of religious stuff I see in the books now as an adult. When I first read them, I was 11 years old, so I had almost no sense of symbolism and took everything very literally. Lion = Jesus didn't even compute. Plus, the fact I was struggling to understand what was going on and who everyone was because I was mistakenly reading them in chronological order thanks to the stupid publishing industry. If I had read them in proper order, maybe the more coherent narrative would have allowed me to detect more symbolism, despite how young I was. But I didn't really start seeing symbols and extra meanings in everything (books, movies, etc) until around age 14. Age 11 was just too young. I read Lord of the Rings at age 11 too, but it was all taken very literally, no symbols or deep thoughts on it until around age 14 (when I finally also read Silmarillion).

Often I see people imaging a vegan world being pets and animal sanctuaries which I think is missing the point. For most of human history all animals were free to live their life as the wild supported them and they could live. Now that is no available so a stray dog or cat will live a life of pain bc they can't get food to eat ect.
So why is it assumed to be vegan to just put animal in really nice cages rather than change society so they can live freely? I'm not a primitivist tho I do think veganism requires one to be critical of modern society and want it to shift so all life on earth can have autonomy.
Even if animals aren't in people plates what's the point if they can't make their own decisions and live their own life? Shouldn't they have as much freedom and autonomy as me or u? Bc if we forced humans to live as a pet or in an animal sanctuary it would be considered a human rights violation. But somehow it's okay to treat animals like that without being speciseist.