Leave it to beaver captain jack

The Leave it to Beaver Subreddit!

2015.02.24 23:29 WellWhaleWales The Leave it to Beaver Subreddit!

For anyone and everyone who is a fan of the classic 1950s and 60s television show, Leave it to Beaver.
[link]


2013.03.06 19:53 ZeBra_ This Music is Mentally Hip Hop Smoothed Out On The RnB Tip With a Pop Appeal To It!

Re-experiencing and celebrating one of the greatest genres of music from the Golden Era of music - New Jack Swing. Please share pictures, videos, memories, new music, and anything else that has to do with New Jack Swing!
[link]


2019.03.29 01:25 OneBadJoke real_families

Families come in all shapes and sizes, born of blood or of choice. Few families fit the “Leave It To Beaver” mold and every family comes with unique challenges and benefits. This is a community of people who share parenting advice, friendship advice, occasional recipes, and sometimes straight up gossip. We’re not afraid to tell someone they’re off-base or that they should reframe their thinking, but overall, we’re a fairly accepting group.
[link]


2023.03.29 17:51 stickonorionid JNMom and Sister Won’t Be Supportive since WE are too poor

Quick context: I (25F) moved away from my family home in TX several years ago. My mother (54) and sister (14) still live in TX. I now live near my father (54) and stepmother (65) who are great, but my mother is pretty venomous towards them.
My fiancé and I got engaged last December right before Christmas and knew we wanted to jump immediately into planning—we’ve been together for three years, so we’re ready to go for it. Our wedding is mid-August this year, so coming up pretty fast. I reached out to my mom to ask her what she would want to be a part of in the planning process. She nebulously replied “whatever you’ll help me to be a part of. I want to help with all of it.”
So I think really hard about what would matter the most to me to have her at, and I decided I would like to have her come to my wedding dress fitting. This is the ONLY THING outside the rehearsal/ceremony I asked her to be here for. And because I know money is tight for them, I literally offered to buy a plane ticket and get a hotel room for her so that she could come.
Now here’s where things start to go downhill. She says “well we would be driving.” Wait, WE? Yes, she decided that my sister just IS coming, despite the fact that I didn’t even want to invite my sister along and hadn’t planned for the cost. But if this would enable my mom to come, I would be willing to cover it this time. So I start to make plans for the two of them to come.
I schedule a dress fitting for the end of April so that we have time to make travel arrangements. If they’re driving then I can put some of what would cover flights into hotel rooms, so they’ll stay nicely accommodated. I’m getting excited, inviting my bridesmaids and future MIL to come, I’m planning what to do to make that weekend feel valuable and important to my mom.
Then, three days ago, the text I received VERBATIM from my little sister:
“hey [OP], I’m really sorry this is the first thing you’re seeing this morning. I really hope this doesn’t hurt your feelings or anything, I’m just being real and fully genuine right now. I don’t really feel like it makes much sense for me and mom to come up for the dress fitting. I know you’re offering to pay for so much of it, but still, it’s money, time, and we still do have obligations here down in Texas. It’s also spring time, and even if we leave the yard alone for a week it’ll go crazy. you will have so many other people to help you and support you, and I promise I’m not trying to hurt you or anything. I feel like it would just be too stressful for us to be there, for both you, and for us. We will be there for the wedding, though, no question about it. and I just genuinely feel like it would be better for us to only come for the wedding, less stressful. Mom didn’t tell me to say any of this, I just felt like it would be better said sooner than later. I love you so much [OP] and I hope you’re having a lovely morning. <3”
Immediately I am heartbroken. This is the first time my sister has ever hurt me, but it really feels like she tried to make it count. This ensues a long text argument where I recognize I said some extreme things, but I don’t regret showing her how badly she cut me. I thought she may have been talking for Mom, but she claims they really are her own thoughts and that “it’s not just Mom who would be coming.” I didn’t hesitate to tell her that it was MOM I invited and not her. She said “I’m fourteen I’m not going to stay alone in Texas,” and she said there was nobody she could stay with where she could “fulfill all her obligations.” Well tough sis, it will only feel bitter if you come—so I told her not to. She tells me that I’m TOO UPSET and “need to calm down fr” and “try to think rationally about it.”
At this point, I pull in Mom. I send her a screenshot of the initial text and tell her to call me. She’s got her calm “you’re the problem” kind of voice going on, telling me my sister is stressed about finding somewhere to stay, etc. I told her I don’t care. My mom says that “she’s just a kid,” sure she is but if she’s going to talk to me like an adult she better be ready to have me talk like an adult back. Mom told me to “tap into my empathetic background” to stop being so mad and I told her, no, I don’t need to do that because I always have to be the bigger person with them, the one who gets over things when they hurt me, and I think my sister should know she can’t say things like that.
“Well, I don’t want to censor anyone’s speech” was my mom’s immediate reply.
I eventually get to the meat of the matter and ask if she really agrees with what my sister said. Basically she said they had been talk about it and they both feel like it’s too expensive and that we should put the money towards our honeymoon because I “don’t work a lot” and “her man works at Walgreens.” Wow Mom, thanks so much for calling us poor! Especially when YOU ALWAYS COMPLAIN ABOUT MONEY. And when Mom was about to launch into why she agrees with what my sister said, I just noped tf out and handed the phone to my fiancé.
I just don’t know what to do at this point. I am DEFINITELY not helping them come to the dress fitting at this point, they burned that bridge. And they historically always burn bridges in situations where EVERYTHING IS OFFERED TO THEM. They literally would not have paid ANYTHING to come up here if they had agreed to fly (Mom declined because of her “tinnitus and hyperacusis”), they could have had a faster turnaround, I would have literally been their chauffer for however long they were here… but it’s “too much everything” to take a free vacation and be here for a once-in-a-lifetime event, you first child’s wedding dress try on’s.
I have ALWAYS felt my emotions very deeply, so I feel really stunned that my sister didn’t take five minute to either think about how I would feel or at least route it through Mom. I would have rather known her concerns through her PARENT instead of her talking to me like her own little adult then being shocked that I respond unfavorably.
TL;DR: my mom and sister turned down an expenses-paid vacation to help me with my wedding, my teenage sister was the one to let me know, and my mom defended her and my sister’s thought process rather than care about my feelings.
submitted by stickonorionid to JUSTNOMIL [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:50 Ok_Syrup7812 Are you dumb?

submitted by Ok_Syrup7812 to Funnymemes [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:50 Remarkable-Youth-504 The last alliance of elves and men

Today is the day we all die.
I am Aegnor, son of the Elven King Alberad the Wise. My brothers are all dead, my mother is dead, and this is my last stand.
For aeons, the high elves have held the line against darkness. For as long as anyone can remember, we have sacrificed men, women and children in this eternal war against evil.
We knew the war was not winnable. We knew we were only delaying the inevitable.
Yet we held the line, at tremendous cost.
Well, today is the day we fall.
Last night, there were grim faces all around. My uncle, the mage, suggested we ask the humans for help. Apparently, an ancient blood-treaty existed between Elves and Men.
Frankly, I didn’t quite see the point. The human world would fall soon enough, let them enjoy their last few days in oblivion.
If we couldn’t hold the line, what hope the humans, whose magic dried up millennia ago, really had?
But my father, the King, agreed that the humans should be contacted. After all, this affected them as well.
And so, my uncle left last night, to contact the king of the humans, whose name apparently is Potus.
Maybe my uncle will get to live a few more days than us.
I force myself to focus on the present. I can smell the sulphur, nearly taste the rot from the approaching horde.
I grip my blade tight, whisper a soft prayer. There are too few, far too few of us left.
From the corner of my eye, a sudden movement. A trick of the Great Other?
I hear my uncle’s voice: “Captain, on your left.” A portal opens.
So the humans have come to die with us. Great!
From the portal, many dragons pour forth. Humans control dragons??
The ground before me explodes into fire, in a sequence, as if a musical crescendo. The army of darkness is reduced to cinders.
My uncle turns up with a fair-haired maiden. The first thing that strikes me is that she wears a single earring, a cheap looking white thing.
Then I hear her earring speak: “First pass completed. All targets destroyed. Commencing second pass.”
“Copy” says the maiden. The speaking earring (whose name, I surmised, was Copy) falls silent.
The maiden grabs my hand: “Colonel Samantha Rogers. I understand you are in charge. Can you point out where your wounded are so that my medics can attend to them?”
We keep on chatting. Princess Samantha is surprisingly efficient, alternating between coordinating aid, taking briefs from me, and coordinating further strikes.
“It’s no use”, I shake my head ruefully, “Even with your dragons, you will never defeat the great other. His legions are endless, as you can see over the horizon.”
I see Princess Samantha’s brow furrow and her expression turn stern as she starts speaking to Copy again.
A massive chariot, with what I can only describe as a massive tree tied to its top, appears from the portal. I watch with grim fascination as the tree tied to the top of the chariot, starts righting itself.
I have no explanation for what happens next. The tree starts breathing fire and flying towards the heart of the enemy at great speed. The dragons the humans brought seems to fearfully retreat from the battlefield.
“You might want to cover your eyes for what’s about to come next.” says Princess Samantha, softly.
And the very earth shakes, as if it will tear asunder, while a great ball of fire forms in the distance. The fireball grows in size and brightness until it rivals the sun.
When the fire disappears, absolutely no traces remain of the horde. A massive mushroom grows where the armies of the great other once stood.
For the first time in forever, we elves could feel no traces of the great other corrupting the Source. It was as if a great hand has reached out and wiped off the great other from existence itself.
Princess Samantha speaks to me, a puzzled look on her face: “You couldn’t call us earlier?”
From the original journal of His Majesty Aegnor the Fortunate, King of the high elves and former First Gentleman of the United States.
Now includes foreword from Earendil Rogers the Mariner, Admiral of Starfleet and heir apparent to the elvish throne.
submitted by Remarkable-Youth-504 to HFY [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:50 Ndrizy Help with draft for new owners in my dynasty league

I recently became the commish of a now 3 year old dynasty league that has survived a mass exodus. It is a 16 team league and after this past season we had 6 owners leave (we now only have 8 owners from the original league). We had one new guy join and take his pick from the available teams, but for the rest of the 5 teams we decided we want to allow them to have a draft of the available players since some teams were stacked, Lamar AND Mahomes (don’t ask), and some are putrid. I just don’t know the best way to set up a draft for them.
We use sleeper and I was looking at a way to create a 6 man league and force all taken players onto my team to allow the other 5 to draft from the available, but that doesn’t seem possible. Any ideas?
submitted by Ndrizy to fantasyfootballadvice [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:50 sugaratc Paranormal books with fated mates but FMC still has freedom to decide?

So I'm on another fated mates/paranormal kick, however after reading a few I'm kind of over the creepy implications in a lot of them that removes any agency from the characters, particularly the FMC. Forced proximity can be fun, but not if it's just created by the MMC's controlling nature. Does anyone know any good series with that theme but where they decide to stick together or the FMC otherwise isn't told she can't leave?
submitted by sugaratc to RomanceBooks [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:49 aprickwithaplomb [MOM] Degrees of Freedom: An Urabrask Side Story

[MOM] Degrees of Freedom: An Urabrask Side Story
I got mad at how Urabrask (and the praetors in general, later on) were unceremoniously offed in the course of the main story, so I wrote a quick side story that kind of shores up the issues I had with how they went out.
-----
It had become necessary, in the course of the Great Work's completion, for a system of measurements to be established. The rebels had their own system, but an imperfect one - one that reflected the bygone benchmarks of a culture now reduced to hiding in what holes Urabrask allowed them. So it was that a new one was needed.
Gleeful Demolition by Tian Duong Chu
And what better candidate than the scamps? The former goblins who fed the flames with their worship, with their toil, with their bodies, if they were so fortunate. The exarchs, in their industrious solipsisms, looked away from the gabbling creatures as they carried out instructions. They were living tools. But the claw of the praetor feels the scamps' lifeblood in every hooked flange and serrated ridge, and knew that to scorn them was to dishonor their sacrifice. So it was that temperature at which they burned was decreed to be the suitable unit for all others to be built around.
--
Halo, the drink of choice on New Capenna, vaporizes at 3 scamps.
Pain coursed through his whole being. Gitaxias's machinist had left him here, under a bridge of this forsaken jetty, to recover what damage the Planar Bridge had done to him. Under the pretense of helping foment "alternative paths towards perfection", he had blindly trusted the man, as the Forge lacked alternatives to what Urabrask foresaw as its inevitable end. Necessity had drawn him here, and here he would die, metal skin flayed from his exposed innards.
A croaking sigh superheated a nearby colony of fly eggs into ash, and he felt something that his tongue lacked the word to explain.
The clatter of boots on cement interrupted his reverie. He turned to see that hateful half-flesh buzzard with a person in tow, dressed in a green-engraved uniform. A valet's cap traced brown curls and a soldier's poise.
"Vivien", said Tezzeret, "meet Urabrask, my rather unencumbered master."
She narrowed her eyes.
"Well met, praetor."
It took a supreme amount of will to summon the strength to voice anything besides a howl of pain. Nonetheless, Urabrask spoke.
"A pleasure. I trust he has - *explained*, the situation."
"You're organizing a rebellion against the autocracy of your home plane, and you're looking for support."
He approximated a nod, awkward and ungainly. "This place...bested my kind, once. Not an easy task. I would see how it was done."
She leaned back. "How do I know that you're not just trying to find out how they won, so you can prevent that from happening again?"
This question confused him. He was not Gitaxias, who sewed falsehoods as easily as he sewed sinew to steel. And yet, he realized, he had no proof of this, no scripture attesting his integrity. It was Tezzeret who finally spoke, voice curling like a snake.
"Urabrask here couldn't lie if his newtlike brain could even conceive of such a thing. My master simply isn't...built for it."
A bitter laugh from the green one. "And I suppose I'm to trust your judgment on that, given your previous masters?"
A shrug from the metal man.
Despite the early suspicions, Vivien eventually agreed, mostly in the absence of viable alternatives. In exchange for his knowledge of the Phyrexian host, she pored into the Park Heights archives, the seedy recesses of the Caldaia. She brought to him half-remembered histories, read to him orally from a reasonable distance. When their pertinent conversations ended, she would occasionally even recount the stories of her plane, lost to some nameless trespasser. "Only reason I'm telling you about it is that there's no saving it." The machinist stopped by to occasionally throw a dismissive scrap of metal to repair his mangled body. Bereft of his usual tools, and bent double in agony most of the time, Urabrask could do nothing but reluctantly thank him.
Gradual was the recovery. He was no Vorinclex, practiced with the transferral of life, who could repair in minutes simply by draining off the local fauna. Instead, with the tip of a claw, he carved a new exoskeleton from the scrap and detritus.
Still, that final piece remained elusive. The Capennans were a begrudgingly tenacious people, but in no way should they have been able to repel Yawgmoth's horde a millennium prior.
One particularly hot day, Vivien had showed up with nothing new to report. The city had been in the middle of a heat wave, and while Urabrask himself welcomed it, the usual crowd had retreated to their magic-cooled atriums and been remiss to share information. She'd come in a light dress, with a bottle of some nameless liquid in tow.
"You've got something there."
She looked sideways. "Ah, yes. Halo, it's called, a bit of contraband, actually. I don't usually drink, but today's my mother's birthday. Thought I'd celebrate, even if she's not here."
There was something he couldn't quite place in her wavering tone. The idea of parental attachment had always seemed, well, ridiculous - a remnant of Norn's mewling attachment to the familial structures of a process unknown to every being in their sphere. One did not have an individual attachment to one's birthing pod or compleator, no matter what you pretended. And yet, her manner was genuine, without parody.
It occurred to Urabrask that humans did have mothers.
"There is a thing, they do, in the dim light of their squalid apartment flats. A toast... I think Tezzeret called it. They clink their glasses together, and then drink, simultaneously."
When she did not reply, he added "It seems to yield a newfound strength to their bearing."
He saw her face momentarily contort, before her usual discipline returned.
"Hah. Are you asking me for a toast? A Phyrexian praetor? I wouldn't miss that for the world."
It was not long before she returned with two glasses. Pouring the bottle into one, she handed it to him with a gloved hand.
"To Mom."
"To your mother."
Luxurious Libation by Joe Slucher
They drank. For a while, Vivien's senses eroded - the edges of her vision blurring into a pleasant haze. It felt like being pulled into the Blind Eternities, consciousness rising, rising. The vision of her mother, and her people, so clearly in view - and then -
She heard the horrid, high-pitched scream of metal on metal, and the praetor hacked up the concoction. Its multicolored, shimmering contents sat in bright contrast to the fungal slick of his surroundings.
"Are you alright?"
When he stopped retching rainbows, he retched magma, then an assemblage of biomechanical organs. Then he spoke. The praetor's voice was thin.
"Now we know how they lost."
--
Slobad, once a savior of his world, returns to slag at five hundred scamps.
The centurion who brought him in pieces shifts ungainly upon leaden feet. It is an exultation to be allowed in Urabrask's sanctum, to witness his private bellows, and yet she has never seen the praetor so calm. With a flick of the tail, he stokes the remnants of the mangled body clear into the subsuming mass of molten metal.

Urabrask's Forge by Lie Setawan
"Great smith, praetor-maker, we-"
"No formality needed."
"He was weak, sire. Unfit - still unable to shake the dressage of his identity before rebirth -"
"How did he die?"
"A coward's death. The Great Work proceeds one link stronger. We found out later that he -"
"How'd he die, fool?"
The centurion feels a jettisoned wave of exhaust nearly melt her tined helm. She meets his gaze as she stumbles backward, before recovering.
"He had gone to see Vorinclex's second, the traitor-elf, and carried with him a body, found by some forsaken pool in the darkslick. We believe he had intended to subvert our cause - to trade the body as collateral, to surrender himself to the Hunter Maze and Norn's forces."
Urabrask tilts a jaw, and retreats to a hunch.
"They had a shared history."
"He was butchered on the spot, by the elf herself, no less. Vorinclex nearly had his body, before we sent in a scamp to recover it. Though I am not sure they would have consumed it - they would have seen his plaintive plea, and his oil, as weakness." She resists adding *As it was.*
"He was once part of her family. If not by the blood of the womb, then by the blood of the sword. Certainly more of a family than Norn professes to be." His claws clip the floor in their restless pacing, and he looks askance, through the layer of molten alloy that divided his quarters from the rest of the layer, toward the Hunter Maze.
"And yet, if their bonds could not unite them after compleation, what hope have any of us?"
The centurion does not answer. She looks instead at his tail, as it reaches for one of the myriad valves that release the slag into the main circulatory channels.
"You don't intend on releasing that mix into the furnaces, surely. He will contaminate the oil of better warriors. The war that will follow has no tolerance for-"
"For waste of perfectly usable bodies."
He flushes the valve, and the centurion looks on in stony silence.
"Yes, of course, praetor."
--
A planeswalker's spark is estimated to leave its owner at a mere eighth of a scamp.
The flame-haired girl controls the fire, yes, as does the tree-bottomed woman beside. But they do not master it, do not embody it as he does. One gesture of the claw, one movement by his assembled exarchs, and they would both know rebirth. They would likely serve the war against Norn better in that form, and their own precious Multiverse besides.
But he does not.
Instead, exhausted, they ask for his help. After consideration, he provides.
"Infighting will be the death of your kind."
He knows the irony that hangs over that statement. Scamps weld together shipments of Tezzeret's contraband to goliath husks in direct preparation for one final stand. Gitaxias's surveillance drones whisk around the upper layers in ever increasing numbers, despite the continuous - waning now - flak over the smoggy skies. Ever the opportunist. The porcelain legion, in their multitudes, were swarming over a thousand different planes, all the while creating unthinking facsimiles of their cause.
Vivien had explained it to him. It was funny, that feeling. Perhaps he would introduce it to the language after this was all over.
In some ways, they had already lost. The Phyrexian conflict had never really been a war, merely a delaying tactic. Gitaxias's surgical bays, in conjunction with Norn's hatcheries, created enough raw material to fight two fronts at once - one without, one within.
The second irony of all this was her new army had discarded the once-vaunted ideal forms of the Fair Basilica in exchange for more mass-producible humanoid templates. In doing so, she had eschewed perfection for the many. They were so much chaff, many not even undergoing full phyresis before being plucked and thrown onto the battlefield. Never to experience that rapturous certainty of purpose that marked the converts of the forge. And yet they were winning for it.
What numbers Sheoldred had gathered from her gibbering coliseum may have been individually better fighters than the thousand-faced singers that Norn unleashed upon the Dross Pits, but they were overtaken in a wave of white once the first lines had been broken.
And now she, too, was lost. He had little sympathy for her platitudes of some revival of the long-dead Father of Machines, but he had to admit that her silent smile was preferable to Gitaxias's seemingly-infinite tolerance for intrigue or Vorinclex's animalistic deference to the hierarchy of power. Let her intone uselessly for the supplication of her dead god, if it meant that she left well alone.
How long would the others bow, he wondered?
He dismissed the planeswalkers. They had a scheme, and if he could not bring himself to use them as Norn would, he might at least find some use from their failure.
--
Blightsteel separates from its constituent parts at eleven thousand scamps.
Worse than the agony of having to flay oneself alive was that he had to unmake the Great Work to do it. The Work of untold millions, whose only story was written in the architecture of the thing he was now scavenging for scrap metal.
He told himself that the Work would not continue unless the Forge survived to continue it.
The molds were ready. Scamps skittered to and fro, handing off dices in expectant, chittering lines of assembly. The engravers had managed to teach them a little of the language, in what spare moments they had. They wanted a savior, their own champion in shining armor. They believed that this would surely turn the tide, and snuck glances over their shoulder at the crucible that would do it.
Darksteel, the Mirrans' last prize, becomes liquid at thirteen thousand scamps.
Urabrask clambers into the mold, and the presses close around him. Veins of superheated darksteel close and open in scriptured sequence. Claws, muscle, bone reforge, and are reborn in a new alloy. Imprints of arteries and chambers for ichor, and -other- substances, find their purchase in a new circulatory system. Every scamp, every lost champion, every fallen soldier finds itself infinitesimally unified within his armor.
An injustice that he was able to be born thrice, when so many were denied even their second.
A scamp outside minding the temperature found itself suddenly looking at its own impaled carapace. A verdigris spike emerged, before it tossed the body aside, into the wall of the bellows. There was suddenly a furor - another seedpod slammed into the exhaust wall outside, as another group of brutalizers scaled the outer wall of the Autonomous Furnace. Centurions and scamps alike found themselves off their feet as quake after quake shuddered the mechanism. A few attempted to grasp weapons, forming a circle around the molten sarcophagus that housed their leader, but even as they did so, they could feel a pall in the atmosphere, draining life and warmth alike toward a singular, approaching center. An axe clattered to the ground seconds before its user, spent of vitality.
"Urabrask," Vorinclex hissed, "you always were one to run and hide. To defy her Will is heresy. "
One enormous sweep of a bony forearm sends the remaining scamps sprawling out, never to know the ecstasy of immolation again. The next nearly upends the enormous metal mold, spilling molten darksteel onto the floor of the dais.
"Come out. To know your last master."
One more blow, and the mold splits at the seam - spilling the contents into the lattice of wires and pipes supporting the belows. Urabrask looks up at his opponent, his skin still yet to cool. The half-born pain permeates every aspect of his being, but his voice does not waver.
"Urabrask serves no one."

Urabrask, Heretic Praetor by Simon Dominic
His exhaust flares, and with the nascent blood of the bellows beneath him, he lunges. Claw meets claw meets horn meets tail. The force of his body slams the larger praetor into the retaining wall behind, and together they tumble into a network of supporting channels. Ichor and slag spill in a caterwauling whine.
Glistening oil incandesces at 15 thousand scamps.
But if Vorinclex notices the temperature of the white-hot lines as they trickle into his eye holes, it doesn't show. If anything, he seems to revel in it, the runic inscriptions upon his forearms glowing as they reach out, going limb over limb as Vorinclex stalks over the remaining pipes like some kind of Capennan leonin. Only a gout of raw flame from Urabrask repels their advance, but Vorinclex responds by shielding his arms with his skull-like visage.
"No place for you in the chain. What shall I do with your prized forge after Norn grants me your layer? Perhaps I'll start by making mulch of your nauseatingly sentient -"
Urabrask's reply is the sideswipe of a darksteel tail, severing one of Vorinclex's cooling forearms. The green praetor starts what might be a howl but emerges as the clanking chime of laughter.
"I'll do you one better."
With a serrated jaw, he rips the other clean off. Ichor falls away and screams to nothing on the exposed channels they fall on.
"Attachment to constructed forms - when nature provides in abundance."
"Your lot will never know the glory of creation. Trapped in base instincts, slave to another-"
It is Vorinclex's turn to answer without words; the leap of his hind legs carry him into Urabrask's carapace as, from stunted arm holes, some parody of branches emerges, twisting and binding Urabrask's arms as they careen out of the furnace floor and into the magma layer below. Even darksteel can not hold back the apex predator's all-hungering maw as it snaps and tears away metal and flesh alike. Generations of alloy, of family, friend and foe, fly from the exoskeleton.
When Urabrask summons the strength to knock Vorinclex away, the limp that he carries is that of a wounded animal. Vorinclex knows it well. He knows that escape is now not an option, understands that the end is a matter of when rather than if. Vitality already flows in abundance from the prey, shoring up his own wounds even as it leaves theirs open.

Vorinclex by Daarken
His favorite part of the hunt.
So he does not even attempt to block the claw that comes swinging in wide, knowing its paltry strength ricocheting off his carapace will serve only to demoralize his opponent further, until the injector is already embedded in his side. A iridescent flush of vaporized -something- makes its way through his veins. It starts at a point, then balloons outward, like a -
Halo.
All in an instant, every part of Vorinclex rejects every other part, is aware of some deep, fundamental wrongness in his being, wants out from the body that holds it in. Redemption attempts to find something it can redeem, and in the absence of that, tears what remains asunder. Joints fracture, ichor hardens to glass, bones shred their metal casings.
"That was meant for Norn, not her lapdog. Even in your failure, you serve her." Urabrask's voice is thin as he stands, against what once was a monument to the sphere's blessings. Only fragments remain - stripped down to its base for parts. He looks upward. Small fires start at the base of the slagworks - the unnatural fires of raid and ruin.
And yet, even this is not enough to down the apex predator. Even inside his gutted frame, Vorinclex evolves, discards used organs for backups, routes the Halo through new inert capillaries. Gouts of Halo and oil spill from his maw as his arms again find their footing on solid ground, drawing strength from the soil deep within. It was good, he decided, that even this final trick would not save the Furnace.
"No," he spits, "Not my failure."
Urabrask is ready for the lunge this time, but even in Vorinclex's weakened state he only barely holds on.
What remains of the Forge to be saved?
Through the din of shearing metal, he hears it. The sordid caterwauling of the scamps in the words they've only just now learned, the cries of the fuselings wielding their tongs and pokers in one last defiance.
A soul - a spark - burns at 30 million scamps.
He screams, and his jets scream with him, pushing Vorinclex back, back until his hind claws can no longer find purchase on consecrated ground. Copper rotpriests, late to the altercation, come just in time to witness their leader slam through them, crushing carapaces and dogma alike, clear into the air in a white-hot arc.
Hotter.
Urabrask tastes the air in five open wounds, and in the agony there is singular truth. Vorinclex hangs on, as he always does, desirous only of victory, so certain of his own survival that any other possibility is inconceivable. Tendrils reach out from fledgling buds and become so much smoke against the friction of the superheated air.
They pierce through the Mirrex, the dessicated hexgold panels turning to dust as their bodies collide with the remains of old, rusted-over rebel bases. There is a wistfulness as they soar high over the remains. As flame becomes cinder, so too, do ways of life, do civilizations. What were they doing now, he thought - still trying to bring back a life long since lost?
He couldn't blame them. Perhaps he ought to have acknowledged their strength earlier.
Red Sun's Twilight by Julian Kok Joon Wen
They crash through the Monumental Facade, the heights of hubris. For a second, the edifices constructed in their image are larger than life - and then singularly small, and rapidly receding.
Mirrodin's cosm greets them in the keening twilight of five suns.
He cannot feel anything now save the all-encompassing heat. Good thing, too, as he looks down and sees Vorinclex discard his left arm, then his right, torn off at the joint by his jaw. He does not need it now. They are bonded by the molten darksteel flowing from his chest wound. He will see this through.
"You would throw yourself away, in service of some lofty nothings."
So even Vorinclex can realize a hint of the truth at the end. How terribly funny.
"Yes."
All becomes one in the light of Phyrexia's red sun.
Vorinclex, praetor of the Vicious Swarm, burns at fifty million scamps.
submitted by aprickwithaplomb to mtgvorthos [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:49 Falconpunchjr Refinance with almost minium loan amount

My Sallie loan is at $4900 at 16%. Most refinance plan is min $5k. I'm finishing up paying off my credit card debt, so I can't make high payments on this loan yet. Would it still be possible to get it switched or leave it on Sallie until I can start making high payments to finish it off? Apparently Im on 98/120 max payments too.
submitted by Falconpunchjr to StudentLoans [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:49 Nexzus_ Interested in a position; worried their IT director knows our IT Director

Due to an unexpected turn of events in my personal life, I was required to leave a long-time, well paying position at the end of last year before securing another [closer to home] position.
After scrambling a few weeks, I secured a position within a 15 minute commute. I took a pay cut, and the job really isn't to my satisfaction, so I have continued my search.
Because of the pay cut, and change in scope, the IT director was worried I'd jump ship ASAP, but I had to assure him that I'm loyal. Well, that was a bit of a white lie out of desperation, so here I am, making the most of it.
Found a[nother] posting that seemed promising. Kicker is it's pretty much down the road from where I ended up. Not the exact same industry, but industrial nonetheless, and I think it's entirely possible that our IT director knows theirs.
Worried that if I apply, that IT director will contact mine saying that I applied, and mine will come up to me like "what the fuck, you said you'd be loyal".
Should I just not tempt it?
submitted by Nexzus_ to recruitinghell [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:49 wcg66 Liability for mortgage cosigner? Daughter convinced mother to cosign her mortgage.

I'm wondering how far liability goes for a mortgage cosigner. I'm leaving the details vague on purpose.
In this case, mortgage holder convinced her mother to cosign her mortgage. There is no lien from this mortgage on the mother's house. The daughter doesn't have enough income or equity to qualify for the mortgage by herself. She would not have got her house without the mother cosigning. Daughter actually got the mother to cosign here existing mortgage from her previous house (which I assume was carried over to the new house?). Both are fixed rate for 5 year term, *30 year* amortization.
For example, if the mother sells her house, is it subject to the liability of the mortgages? Does the mother selling her house effect the status of the mortgages? What happens if mother dies? Does the estate settle with mortgage holder first?
submitted by wcg66 to PersonalFinanceCanada [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:49 No-Werewolf9379 There's something really wrong with the world rn...

2 months ago I left Bosnia, I left home for the 10th time. I grew up in cali but my mom retired to the homeland two yrs ago and I followed her to help her transition into FT retirement. (shes a workaholic with a bad back)
Couple months ago on a weekend night, my schizophrenic brother threatened to hit me, Mind you my mom's in the hospital with a stroke, and my family blames me for not living with him. They said I shouldn't be crying or scared because he didnt hit me. But he did hit me last October. he's 40 years old and has been going to the gym since he was 15. He push me with two hands on my chest so hard, the pain was stinging my skin, I fell back onto my bed, and he eventually left. If you guys remember that scene from the joker when he's in the train and he's just laughing to himself and looking totally out of it. That's my brother everyday, he talks to himself all day he's paranoid. He refuses treatment. Im scared shi*less that ill end up in a hospital with a black eye or worse. How many scary movies do you have to watch to know that schizo people dont have control over their reality. I can go from sister to CIA spy in 2.5 seconds in his head.
My mother is somehow deeply miserable and mean and has been for many years, but for some reason the both of them use me as a punching bag. The verbal abuse ranges from you are useless to your an effing idiot. I've been enduring physical and verbal abuse my whole life and now I'm 34. I tried to get in a relationship after my brother hit me because I didn't want to live alone and I thought that I could find a male friend who would want to cohabitate and live a better life together. I get along with people who've had similar pains. I feel like I have bad luck, like somebody is cursed me before I was even born. This last ex was suicidal and verbally abusive, physically harmful to himself. Mind you, I date really nice people who are humble loving and kind when you first meet them, and then when time passes you start to notice their demons and bad habits. the way that they treat you when you make a mistake about small things. The comments they make about the way you look or should look, constantly pouring their fears on to you. I was belittled by every single person that's ever said that they love me. it's been five years of chaos since my diagnosis of bp1. and here I am in 2023 dealing with the same abuse.
I'm grappling with the idea that human Minds are really broken today. it's unprecedented how many people are on these Reddits, the suicide statistics, so many more people suffering around us. I want to help my mom, having a stroke is a nightmare, but being belittled and getting Zero thanks is unbearable. That night when my brother threatened to hit me, I realized that I don't anybody to protect me. I was telling my best friend and my ex I dont feel safe and to come help me but they didn't. If somebody told me in Middle School, that I was going to grow up to a schizophrenic brother, a suicidal dad, and a mother with anger issues and over 10 failed relationships, I would have probably checked out. I always thought that after I graduated valedictorian, that I would take on the world and be a career Woman and find peace and Financial Freedom and have a small humble family. But here I am today crying because I've lost all the people I had.
I don't trust men anymore regardless of how well-intentioned and nice people are, I think everybody has some kind of a mental illness and you're going to see it one way or another. you find yourself in a space where you wonder if you should leave your home or your apartment because you arent entirely sure if the world's going to be nice to you today and not add on to the list of things you hate about humans. I'm grieving too many people in too short of a Time. I told my ex best friend you have no excuse to not come and help me with my mother, you have no job, you're traveling the world, you have no money....will accept my money for vacation tickets but not to come and help me right now. it's hard when you're in a really bad situation and the people around you are just not strong enough to help you because they're escaping their own demons already.
I feel like my life, my trauma abuse that I'm actually experiencing (its not something that happened in the past only) is making friendships impossible. I talk about mental health with everybody that I meet and we always agree that's something bad is stewing. I still socialize, eat well, go to the gym, i'm responsible for my self. I wanna go back to the ward next month, I can't afford to go right now, I'm stuck in Thailand cuz that's all I could afford, I literally just need 600$ for a one way ticket. I asked my church and haven't heard anything from them. I have an SSI hearing in a couple weeks. i'm sad that I am a female beautiful kind smart optimistic adventurous a caregiver with the biggest heart for kids here I am literally alone...fleeing an abusive situation. I'm sad for women like me, hard-working who were once full of life and optimism, now afraid of themselves, afraid of the world, afraid of people and what they're capable of. I'm just really tired. this world wasn't made for good people.
vent over. thank you for reading this far.
submitted by No-Werewolf9379 to depression_help [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:48 Greekyogurtqueen Best ways to get of water retention/ inflammation?

Hi team. So I leave for vacation Thursday and I’m almost always holding water weight especially in my joints and face due to over exercising. I also restrict.
I’m almost always bloated from water weight/ distended stomach from high high fiber intake and tons of artificial sweeteners
Anyway, while I am gone on vacation I will not be over exercising or partaking in my ED behaviors- your girl is not spending thousands to travel Asia with her ed ruining it.
I leave in 48 hours and am wondering if anyone has any (safe?) tips for flushing the water and having my body chill out? The part that bothers me most is my face- it truly is usually a bit swollen and I don’t care because artificial sweeteners and overdoing cardio are non negotiable in my day to day
Any tips other than cutting out some of the artificial sweeteners the next day or so???
submitted by Greekyogurtqueen to EDAnonymous [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:48 25thaccount Should I Pick a used s22+, used s21 Ultra or a New Pixel 7 for roughly the same price point [CAN]

Hi there,
My phone (Note 20) was stolen last weekend and am in the market for a replacement. I have all three above at roughly similar price points:
I am fairly agnostic to many features. I did love and use the stylus on my Note 20 a lot, but it's not a deal breaker for me to have it.
I really care about:
Things I didn't like so much about my Note 20:
I have been a Samsung or OnePlus person for a long time, but have had my fair share of Asus and LGs in the middle as well so I'm not opposed to random phones as long as I get good value and am not paying a lot. I would ideally want to spend less than 500 bucks.
Any help would be great!
submitted by 25thaccount to PickAnAndroidForMe [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:48 QuixoticWeekender Primary trying to make due until specialist seen

39F, sudden symptom onset in early December right before & after a migraine. Do the cervical MRI results warrant the symptoms? What other tests could my primary order until I see a neurologist? (she’s very open to suggestions but knows she’s a generalist) Are there any other specialties she should consider referring me to? My primary is doing her best bc the neurologist who first saw me wouldn’t let me share my symptoms, then also didn’t answer my primary’s questions when she tried. My outside referral, approved by insurance, was turned down by the med group for lack of appt availability.
PRIOR DIAGNOSES ADHD (hyper type), Fibromyalgia, Migraines, Periodic Limb Movement Disorder (sleep study 2021), Mild asthma (mostly in extreme temps or with fever), PMDD
Meds Gabapentin and trazadone for sleep leg twitches, Adderall XR (was newly on Vyvanse when symptoms started, switched back when Adderall shortage let up), flexeril as needed since symptoms started; Discontinued since symptom onset: Vyvanse, Singulair (due to black box warning w/some symptom overlap), Sumatriptan (not to take it since I’d had an aura); Attempted birth control in case it could interrupt migraines, but it didn’t and made me have a flat affect, so went off.
Migraine history: Onset around 32 w/1 occurrence, which quickly abated after sudden vomiting. Around 35: started having migraine w/out aura at the end of every period, until I discovered that prenatals helped. About a year ago, 38: started having migraines at time of ovulation, which I had confirmed was happening exactly two weeks before every period, regardless of cycle length - prenatals did not help these. Nov 2022: had my first aura, visual, right before a migraine. Dec 2022: was very restless for first two period days, not in my hyperactive/good ideas adhd sort of way, but, if I’m remembering correctly since I didn’t suspect anything and therefore wasn’t tracking, just constant startling and needing to move and getting annoyed. Period day 3: migraine but different bc it was across both eyes, not just eitheor, no aura. This was also earliest I’d had one during a period. I maxed out on Sumatriptan, spacing out as prescribed. Period day 4: woke up w/right side facial numbness, was advised to go to ER. I did, but they quickly surrounded me for a stroke check, I got very overstimulated, then they sent me back to lobby to wait. I became very restless again and ended up leaving when I couldn’t sit still but was somehow also too exhausted to pace for release.
Other History Severe neck injuries at 18 &21ish, medium bad ones at 28ish & 34ish. The ‘vid: I’ve never tested + despite testing when my wife or I have been sick, and she had never tested + either. Before I took Adderall, I would get every cold for two weeks straight, so I’ve been very careful about masking and other preventative steps.
Tests since: Brain: MRI without, later with, contrast; MRA and MRV = all normal Blood (all normal): ANA, thyroid, thyroid antibody, sedimentation rate, CRP, complete blood count, metabolic panel, magnesium level, ACE, Lyme antibody Cervical MRI w/contrast: bulging discs and foraminal stenosis at all points between C3 and C7; mild and moderate spinal stenosis at C3-4, 5-6, 6-7; facet disease at C7-T1. Scheduled: routine EEG
*Symptoms: -twitching in neck and face -muscle tightness, but not like anything I’ve felt before - can feel like energy is coursing through the front of my neck It has gone as far up as my eye(s), is usually on right side but occasionally switches for very short time and even more occasionally is on both sides. (Something I haven’t seen anyone say about muscle tightness: I usually have a low amount of pain at all times, but when this happens, pain is less or gone) -blurry eye(s), usually just right side, or inability to focus eye(s) without facial twitching or pain behind them, and is sometimes accompanied by eye dryness -overstimulation, way beyond my normal for my adhd, primarily with sounds & light, sounds being most frequent -after never having more than two migraines/month, had four in one week, and what feels like migraines, but shorter, more frequently -migraines now worse when changing positions, worst is going into laying down and best is sitting up -new headache type that best matches what I’ve seen called “ice pick” -sound most similar to waves crashing in my ears (started as occasional ringing, but changed to this, happens especially with headaches or when laying down) -difficulty finding words; my primary noted it as describing words, as opposed to knowing them. (This has been weird bc I’m a communications professional) It happened spoken first, now writing just as frequent; once lost ability to verbally speak for a few minutes (got stuck on the “s” sound) -difficulty organizing thoughts & work (this, & word difficulty, causing me to sometimes take hours on tasks I’ve done in 15 minutes) -switching words/letters: I didn’t notice this at first but others pointed it out and I’ve seen when I’ve gone back to review my notes -short, intense mood bursts: remind me of during a migraine, but more frequent and w/o headaches -much more easily stressed, and symptoms are worsened by stress -getting overheated, especially w/attempt to exercise beyond walking 1/4 mile (it’s been 50-60 degrees F) -forgetfulness: that “why’d I walk in here” feeling but, when it’s bad, happens on repeat and can happen while at my desk, in the time it takes to grab a pen to write down what I wanted to remember -restlessness that comes for a day or two at a time and has been bad enough that I wake up after 3 hrs, even w/ Flexiril + gabapentin + trazadone -Occasional nervousness that I don’t know how to describe bc it’s unlike any I’ve felt before
Timing Initially symptoms were around for 2-3 weeks, then mostly gone for a couple, but I’ve only had 2-3 days of less symptoms in March. -symptoms don’t seem to follow patterns, but some seem more likely to be present with certain others, I.e. twitching w/ tightness and forgetfulness w/ disorganization, but have occasionally had other mash ups or many at once
Family history: MOM refused the next steps tests, but stiff person syndrome is suspected; confirmed she has low dopamine but Parkinson’s ruled out; PATERNAL GRANDFATHER: per my dad - his dad was diagnosed with MS, but it was later ruled out and, as far as he knows, my grandpa never received a final diagnoses, then he lived into his 70s - I recall him also having heart issues. DAD and at least 1 of my 2 BROTHERS have had migraines, and my brother mentioned he’s had some very intense visual auras
TL/DR I have a history of pretty common diagnoses, which are often seen overlapping one another, that I’ve had for varying lengths, but my brain has felt broken since December and attempts to see a neurologist keep following through
submitted by QuixoticWeekender to AskDocs [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:48 ForensicScientist101 Should I go back to my old job after leaving 3 months ago because they are now advertising it as higher pay and a better package overall?

Long story not so short, I left my job 3 months ago for a new job due to numerous reasons e.g. made me do manager responsibilities without the authority or salary of a manager, and giving my team a different line manager from a completely different department, even though I did 95% of the managing.
Just a couple of examples worth mentioning.
But I saw yesterday they are advertising my old job for 50k a year with hybrid working.
Just to note, my old salary (for the exact same role they are advertising now) was £26k a year and hybrid working wasn’t offered.
Whilst my time away from that company i’ve realised how dedicated I am to them, the industry and the product.
Anyway, I applied for that role I saw (because whats the worst that could happen?) and this morning I had a call with my old boss with the topic of me possibly returning to my previous role.
I also mentioned there are a few things that would need amending if I was to return e.g. making me the teams line manager and giving me the authority to do the role properly. She said she would get back to me soon.
But the final problem is, i’m actually liking my new team and my new company. My manager has been so lovely to me so far. And has had my back from day 1.
So, I guess my question is, If all goes well and they accept to take me back and agree to the terms, do you think I should stay with the company i’m at now, or go back to my old company for more money and responsibility?
It might be worth noting, i’m on 35k at the moment, and what i’ve requested at my old place would be taking my current salary up by another 10k.
submitted by ForensicScientist101 to careerguidance [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:48 ForensicScientist101 Should I go back to my old job after leaving 3 months ago because they are now advertising it as higher pay and a better package overall?

Long story not so short, I left my job 3 months ago for a new job due to numerous reasons e.g. made me do manager responsibilities without the authority or salary of a manager, and giving my team a different line manager from a completely different department, even though I did 95% of the managing.
Just a couple of examples worth mentioning.
But I saw yesterday they are advertising my old job for 50k a year with hybrid working.
Just to note, my old salary (for the exact same role they are advertising now) was £26k a year and hybrid working wasn’t offered.
Whilst my time away from that company i’ve realised how dedicated I am to them, the industry and the product.
Anyway, I applied for that role I saw (because whats the worst that could happen?) and this morning I had a call with the head of operations with the topic of me possibly returning to my previous role.
I also mentioned there are a few things that would need amending if I was to return e.g. making me the teams line manager and giving me the authority to do the role properly. She said she would get back to me soon.
But the final problem is, i’m actually liking my new team and my new company. My manager has been so lovely to me so far. And has had my back from day 1.
So, I guess my question is, If all goes well and they accept to take me back and agree to the terms, do you think I should stay with the company i’m at now, or go back to my old company for more money and responsibility?
It might be worth noting, i’m on 35k at the moment, and what i’ve requested with the head of operations at my old place would be taking my current salary up by another 10k.
submitted by ForensicScientist101 to careerguidance [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:48 Beneficial_Math_9282 Another alarming Pearson talk - this is why there's a perception out there that Mormons worship Joseph Smith. Some, like Pearson, absolutely do.

Original talk in its entirety https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ88GXmZvpQ
Pearson starts talking at about 41 minutes in. Here are my notes:
- Implies that the 1838 version of the First vision is the approved one/real one
- Uses phrases like "at the peril of their own salvation" (borrowed from McConkie). Typical threat... Also quotes McConkie describing Joseph Smith as God's "legal administrator."
- Sounds cuts out at 42:20, no captions. Comes back at 42:39. What was he saying there??
- Described JS as a "supreme witness." More language that deifies JS.
- A personal testimony of JS helps inoculate "from the relentless and intensifying attacks" on JS and his character. Facts aren't attacks, Pearson!!
- Describes his mother trying to get him to come to a class on JS. Describes her "getting right in my face and asking, 'do you love me? Then attend this class with me tonight." This is alarming parental behavior, and explains everything I need to know about Pearson's pushy manner.
- Claims JS was "visited by every ancient prophet from the old testament and the new testament." Seriously? Where are the accounts of him being visited by Jonah, Habbakuk, Haggai? Come on, Pearson, have you ever read the bible? There are many prophets, named and unnamed, and zero references to most of them in JS's papers. Citations and specific details, or it didn't happen, Pearson!
- Timeline conveniently leaves out JS's plural marriages, D&C 132, his cowardly evacuation from nauvoo, and all the rest of his failures.
- Says the books of Moses and Abraham contain "critical truths."
- List of "knowledge we have because of Joseph Smith" is incorrect on several points. List includes "sealing ordinances." But the sealing to parent ordinance as we know it today didn't exist until about the late 1870s. JS was never sealed to his parents in his lifetime, and it wasn't done by proxy until 1898.
- Joseph Smith was a "Kind, loving, and devoted husband." Yeah, nothing says "devoted husband" like "Joseph sometimes chose to marry women without Emma’s knowledge, creating distressing situations for everyone involved." (Saints Volume 1, Chapter 40).
- Joseph Smith was "Falsely accused." Many of the accusations were not false. Fact - he started a bank in Kirtland after being denied a charter to do so by the state. It is a fact that he ordered the destruction of a printing press which was against the law. He officiated and participated in illegal bigamous marriages, and broke the law that a marriage under 18 had to have written parental consent filed with the county. These are facts, not attacks.
- Why is his "physical strength" relevant? Also, being "no ordinary man" doesn't make him a good one. "No ordinary man"? Neither was Ted Bundy for crying out loud!!
- Character endorsements for JS from the likes of William Clayton, John Taylor, and Brigham Young don't win you any bonus points with anyone who knows what kind of men they were, Kevin...
- I'm not reading about JS on TikTok, Kevin. I'm reading about him from his own writings in the JS papers, especially that letter to the Whitneys in his own handwriting, telling them to bring their daughter (his newest plural wife) round to see him behind Emma's back, and then burn the letter.
- "If the BoM can be discredited, the JS goes with it." Not looking good for that, then.
- Pearson testifies that "one must also accept the revelations of the restoration and all that goes with it." Including polygamy and the trafficking of young girls as underage brides? Pearson apparently approves of that.
- "Everything I've told you tonight is true." Um, no, it demonstrably, factually, is not.
- Time mark 1:07:10 or so "One cannot criticize or attack Joseph [Smith] without attacking God the Father and his son Jesus Christ whose prophet he is." .... And there it is...
- "Joseph is their prophet." I thought we didn't do creeds in this church...
Anyway. There are my notes, guys. There has been some chatter and speculation about whether the church might back away from the Book of Mormon as a "translated" document and/or back away from emphasizing Joseph Smith. Looks like not, at least for some leaders. Watch this guy. See whether the church promotes him or gives subtle signs that he's in good graces with the top brass - my guess is they will.
submitted by Beneficial_Math_9282 to exmormon [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:48 DPVaughan Book Review: 36 Streets by T.R. Napper

Book Review: 36 Streets by T.R. Napper

https://preview.redd.it/79oveuet8pqa1.jpg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bfc4f3055875d28bdc9733c8ed276d5a4f1dddea
Today I’ll be reviewing the 2022 cyberpunk book 36 Streets by T.R. Napper.
DISCLAIMER: In the interest of full disclosure, the author of this book and I are both part of the same writer's guild, and I attended his book launch for 36 Streets last year.
The author, T.R. Napper is an Australian man who's had an interesting career prior to becoming an author: he was a diplomat and aid worker who delivered humanitarian programs in Southeast Asia, East Asia and Mongolia. But specifically relevant to this book, which is set in Vietnam, he lived in Hanoi for three years. He's won several awards, has had his works published in science fiction and speculative fiction magazines and received a creative writing doctorate with the thesis: Noir, Cyberpunk and Asian Modernity, all themes explored in this book. If you'd like to know more, his website is http://nappertime.com/ .
36 Streets is the debut novel of T.R. Napper. The book is an adult cyberpunk novel set in a dystopian future where Vietnam, or the north of it at least, has fallen under Chinese military rule. The eponymous 36 Streets is another name for the Old Quarter of Hanoi, where the Chinese authorities generally stay out and allow a Vietnamese crime gang to maintain order. The story deals heavily with the concept of memory, and the reliability or otherwise of it, in a world with ubiquitous neutral interfaces and hyperrealistic virtual reality.
The protagonist is Lin Thi Vun, a young woman who was born in Vietnam but grew up in Australia. Even though she speaks the language of her country of birth, her English is more natural and she doesn't trust her own Vietnamese language expertise and hasn't mastered a local accent. She feels self-conscious and like an outsider: she never felt truly Australian, but she doesn't really feel Vietnamese either. She's caught between worlds. Lin has worked her way up through the ranks of the criminal organisation that runs the 36 Streets, and spends her downtime getting drunk, high and picking up bar girls. She struggles with the murky morality of some of the jobs she has to do, not so much the breaking of kneecaps types of things, but like the job we see her doing in the opening chapter, of catching a member of the resistance against the Chinese occupation and handing him over to the Chinese authorities for the bounty which doesn't sit right with her.
The main thrust of the story kicks off when Lin is tasked by her boss to act as a private investigator and meet with a wealthy foreign businessman, the Englishman Herbert Molayson, who doesn't trust the official story of what happened to his two friends and business partners: one whose death was explained away too conveniently by the authorities for him to trust, and one who's gone missing and who no one can find any trace of. Lin chasing down leads and pulling on this thread, like an old-school hard-drinking noir detective, is what gets her involved in a conspiracy involving the regime and mega-corporations, a conspiracy that even learning about can lead to deadly consequences.
This book was great. Especially once the main private eye mystery arc began, I was hooked. I really can't understate how much I enjoyed the private investigation aspects of this story. I really enjoyed the pompous but shrewd Englishman Herbert Molayson who commissioned Lin to find his friend. However, I enjoyed the much rougher Hermann Hebb even more by comparison. Lin herself is an enjoyable protagonist to spend time with, although I'd be terrified to meet her in person. She's a flawed character who pushes people away and engages in self-destructive behaviour (like smoking, getting routinely blackout drunk and her addiction to the drug ice-seven), but when threatened doesn't back down or go down without a hell of a fight, even if she's outgunned. One thing I particularly enjoyed was that the first act we see her take, stunning and capturing a resistance member for a bounty, she almost completely screws up. She catches him, alright, but her nerves are on-edge because of her ice-seven addiction and instead of taking him down cleanly she misfires her stun gun and has to engage in hand-to-hand combat to get the job done, getting seriously injured in the process.
Having been to Vietnam on holiday, I could almost feel and smell the air of the streets as depicted by Napper in the book. It's probably a setting that is underexplored in English-language literature, especially in the cyberpunk genre. Other things I appreciated was that Lin, quite realistically, doesn't even start the book carrying a firearm: she's dangerous enough with a knife and stun gun. The technology of the world feels very feasible, like it's just out of reach of today's technological capabilities. The depiction of cybernetics are awesome (with a lot of information given via on-retinal display, for example). Little touches in the details show that this is a future where climate change has bitten in, with frequent mentions of vat-grown beef (as opposed to from cows on farmland), faux-wood tables and flexiscreens.
While the story overwhelmingly takes place within Vietnam, occasionally there are peeks and hints of just how dystopian the outside world has become: a mention of the "former" United States of America, Australia's gone full xenophobia like it's full of One Nation voters, Britain's described as "a despotic island off the coast of Europe", Pakistan appears to be a theocracy now, and so on. I haven't mentioned the virtual reality game that the investigation centres around, a re-creation of the Vietnam War from the perspective of an American soldier, and where the player always loses by being brutally killed) because that's best left to be explored in the book itself.
Pulling back from the details to a more meta perspective, the chapters were refreshingly short, which gave the book a quick pace. I never realised how much I love short chapters until I read this book. There was a flashback that the author held back until its reveal was perfectly timed in the plot. The violence is gritty and visceral, and the author is not shy about killing off named characters in the most brutal ways possible. For example, there's an antagonist with a BROADSWORD who is so violent and effective that it's terrifying any time he makes an appearance. The ending of the book felt very satisfying, and Lin makes a decision I didn't expect her to at the end.
Would I recommend this book? Of course! In fact, on Reddit alone I've recommended the book around 20 times. Well, once I’ve posted this review everywhere, it’ll be closer to 30 or 40 times.
I recommend this book to anyone looking for any combination of the following elements:
  • A cyberpunk book
  • A sci-fi book
  • A private eye / noir-like / mystery book
  • A standalone book (not part of a series)
  • Book with a culturally complex and bilingual protagonist (grew up with two different cultures)
  • Book written by an Australian
  • Book with a female protagonist
  • Book with a gay protagonist
  • Book set in Vietnam
  • Book set in an urban environment
  • Book set in a gritty future
  • Book for an adult audience
In summary, this book was a brutally visceral read and is such a shining example of the cyberpunk genre. It makes me think I need to read more cyberpunk, a genre I'd never actively sought out before, and if only because of that, I strongly recommend it.
And one final thought to leave on: As I neared the end of the book, I became painfully aware that I was going to miss Lin checking the time or reading messages via her on-retinal display when I moved onto other books. Especially given I normally read fantasy books, I knew I was really going to miss those little touches. I think that when I’m pre-emptively realising I’m going to miss an aspect of a book once I’ve finished reading it … well, that tells me I enjoyed it quite a bit. Easily one of the best books I’ve read in years.
Oh, and it has a glowing endorsement from Richard Morgan (author of Altered Carbon) on the front cover, in case that’s something you might find interesting.
submitted by DPVaughan to Fantasy [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:48 sourpatchadult2022 50 [M4F] #NYC - I’ll just come right out and say it: I’m married, I’m frustrated and I’d just really love some great sex…

I guess this is embarrassing to admit around these promiscuous parts, but I can’t even remember when I last enjoyed a good time in bed. Marriage can be like that…
You see, I’ve been married a long time and my wife simply isn't interested in sex any more. I still love my wife and have no interest and no intention of leaving her. But I'm not going to lie, I love sex, and I miss it. A lot.
So that’s got my mind wandering. I’m sure you can guess where... I’m in this sub after all! I’m toying with the idea of breaking my drought, maybe you know someone who might be interested in helping? (But just so you know… nothing is ever expected or taken for granted)
Although I’m 50, I’m in good shape: I’m about 6 foot tall, greying hair, a decent dad bod and a nice, thick cock (I can send pics of my face, my body, my cock… just ask!) Plus, I’m fun, and I can hold a conversation!
Great if you have a sense of humour and a sense of fun about you... I like that. Age isn’t a concern, but please don’t be a teenager… not interested in being a dirty old man!
I won’t write an essay that won’t be read, anything you want to know you should just ask; I’m friendly. Can’t wait to hear from you!
Edit: I’m not interested in men, hookers or teenagers. Thanks!
submitted by sourpatchadult2022 to AgeGapPersonals [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:47 Ok_Syrup7812 Are you dumb?

submitted by Ok_Syrup7812 to Funnymemes [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:47 MoonFernTreasures Am I being unreasonable in canceling this date?

I (F) have been talking with a guy on Tinder and we moved it over to text. Everything was going well and we had plans to meet today at noon. Yesterday, while we were texting, they asked me where I wanted to meet and I sent them two options. This was at 6 p.m. and they didn't respond. When I woke up this morning at 7 a.m. they still hadn't responded so I didn't write or begin to get ready (shower and stuff). At 9:30 a.m. they responded and picked one of the options.
At this point I wasn't ready at all for the date. If I were to immediately get up and leave I would make it at 11:30, but with getting ready I proabably wouldn't be there earlier than 1:30 p.m. (it's 1.5-2 hours for me to get there) and I need 1-2 hours to properly get ready, shower, eat breakfast, etc.
So I canceled the date and explained why. He apologized and said he was talking with a friend who was struggling yesterday and said he's pretty bad with their phone (I can't confirm or deny, we texted reuglarly but never instantly I guess). He asked to reschedule but I'm not sure now and I am worried it'll happen again.
I'm not sure if I'm being a bit unaccomadating, because they did end up responding, but at the same time I wish they maybe would have said something like, "Can I confirm in the morning?", "Can I let you know tomorrow?" , or "I'm not sure how I'll feel tomorrow, can we decide for sure on the date then?" I wasn't expecting them to reply instantly, but I felt like quite a bit of time passed and we were right in the middle of making the plans when they stopped writing back.
This whole thing made me feel a bit bad emotionally because I thought they had ghosted, so it kind of has put me off. Thoughts?
submitted by MoonFernTreasures to dating [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:47 FluffSheeple Sheep's Soothsaying Shack - What burning questions can I shed light upon?

Well met, weary traveler! Welcome to my humble abode. Be it Fate or your own searching that led you here, be certain that you will not leave my place without clarity or a ligher heart. Beware though, as the cards will tell only the truth, they will not lie or deceive you, be it if you are ready to hear the answers or not. Step in and ask what heavies your soul!
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
You can read The Shack's rules here
You can read other travelers' reviews here and here !
Donations are done via paypal only !
Recieving a reading from me up until the 15th of February allows you to join a raffle to win a free 30 minute reading!
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
\Limitations: wont read on pregnancy, illness ,death or legal matters**
\Tarot is not a suitable replacement for appropriate mental health therapy.**
\Trolls will be blocked, people who ghost upon donation will be reported to the mods*
If you are interested in my services, comment down below with a sheep emoji! 🐑
I will not answer to any comment-less DMs asking for donation based readings.
submitted by FluffSheeple to tarotreadings [link] [comments]


2023.03.29 17:47 Achilles8088 Trip Insurance - Bad Faith?

I was recently on vacation and bought trip interruption insurance in advance. I purchased it for just the reason that I ended up needing it. Three days into vacation I tested positive for Covid and I was put into isolation for 10 days. The isolation occurred on the resort but I wasn’t allowed to leave my new room for that entire time. The trip interruption company touts that they offer trip interruption coverage on their website. And the travel agent assured me that reimbursement for an interrupted trip would be provided. However, the trip interruption company is saying that they won’t reimburse me for the unused part of the trip because I was on the resort during my isolation. They’re paying for the costs associated with getting me home (food and airline) but not for the interrupted trip itself. I realize I should have read the policy before purchasing. But I’m wondering if there’s any sort of bad faith associated with calling the product “trip interruption” and advertising it as such without actually providing that coverage.
submitted by Achilles8088 to legaladvice [link] [comments]