Some people can fall in love very easily, but I can’t.
I’ve only liked very few girls since adolescence, once every 2-3 years, the last one being last year.
For all the other girls in my life, I just almost don’t feel any attraction. Some of these girls really like me and end up sleeping with me under their push, but even so I can’t feel I like them too much.
But for these few girls I do like, I go completely crazy over them. Maybe it’s because it’s so hard for me to find them. I lose my reason and pursue with 120% passion and want to reveal everything to them. This often scare them away and cause it to end up very ugly, or just tire them out, despite they may have initial feelings for me too. It’s almost a pattern.
This is not because of their physical attraction. I’m not really that hot anyway. I think I’m just attracted to a certain vibe that’s very rare. Is this all or nothing mentality normal?

Hello guys, a bit on me if you'd like: I'm a person who's always been fond for writing, but never really had my hand in it though, in fact, I wrote this incomplete should-have-been series a year ago, but never really completed it. I've only dabbled in it for a bit, writing scraps and throwing them away, but this is the only thing I found that was noteworthy and decided to share it, it's a copy-paste directly from the writing program, but I cleaned it up a bit of course, anyway, I really hope you guys enjoy!
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You don't know who I am, or where I come from, you don't know anything, but if you're reading this that's good, it means you're alive, and maybe the world is better, maybe it's enjoyable, and there are parks again, and kids laughing and cheering. But that's all a maybe, an outcome with an unfair possibility of not happening, but I guess it makes sense, someone decided to destroy the world, and with the technology we had, it probably wasn’t that hard. What happened? well, I don't really know, all I know is that the world is falling apart, it's cracking, small cracks are apparent in almost every surface I come across that's been untouched or unmoved for a while, and they aren't normal cracks, they have a dim white glow, when I say dim I mean almost non-existent but the glow was still there nonetheless, and it feels like the world isn’t as bright, the world just lost all its life, all the grays got greyer and every other color looks dull and monotonous, but that’s just what came about.
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After the first day, all available power disappeared, it was an exposition, a cardinal signal foreshadowing the apocalyptic future yet to come, of course, people started to panic. after one week the water shut off, at this point people had started to get irritable, and heated arguments were becoming a much too common thing to see in a lonely town like mine, then the third week hit, it's when the cracks became noticeable, it's also when people were being discovered, dead people, not many in the first few days, only two or three found a day. Soon enough people had run out of supplies, it's not like people were restocking the stores so no one could get any food or drink.
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The streets were littered with bodies, most died from asphyxiation or gunshots, which was unlike the first killings, the first body found had his throat ripped out and his guts spilled, yet there was no blood anywhere on the body and no signs of a struggle, although I noticed this, I paid little attention to it. Nothing happened after that, aside from me staying in the basement which held enough food and water to sustain me for about a month and then some if I rationed carefully. It sucked in there, I had to have the little lamp in there off most of the time because of the lack of power, and the battery was already three-quarters full when I got down there, but I managed for thirty-two painfully slow and lightless days, then I emerged into my home.
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I saw what I had expected, shattered glass everywhere, tables turned on their sides, and everything else characteristic of a ransacking, but I was not expecting to find a body stuck in a wall, his waist and below stuck in the wall, the wall wasn't broken, it was like something had made the wall a liquid, stuck him in, and made the wall solid again. I didn’t see any fractures in the wall's surface aside from the small squiggly white cracks that remained on almost every surface. At that point I realized I hadn't shed a single tear or even once felt the need to vomit, I felt ashamed of myself, I felt emotionless and lifeless, I could have gone ahead and made my morning coffee and watched the news without giving a care in the world about the body that lay in my home… too bad there was no coffee, or tv.
10/16/2027 Stock:
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• Food: Can of Beans(6x cans). Can of Mangos (2x cans). Jack Link’s Beef Jerky (2x bags).
  
• Drink: Water(4x bottles). BodyArmor(3x bottles). (Empty Large Canteen).
  
• Items: Empty Large Canteen. Flashlight. Extra Batteries.(2x)
  
• Weapons: Colt 1911 (2x 8-Round Magazines, .45 ACP(44x)
  Remington Model 700(2x 3-Round Magazines, .308 WIN(18x) Hunting Knife
  

Note-1: After digging through my dad's closet and finding a false floorboard that always creaked, I gained access to two guns, a Remington Model 700 and a Colt 1911, and their corresponding ammunition.
Note-2: due to me living here for long enough I had the insight into areas of suspicion, an example is the floorboard, it’s unlikely I’ll get the luck to find hidden spaces like that again, but maybe when I’m skillful enough at looting, finding hidden spaces would become more common.
10/16/27
I gathered all of my supplies and put them in a backpack, aside from the M1911 and the 700, I put the M1911 in a holster on my hip and slung the 700 on my back, after I was ready, I left, the first thing I noticed was the lack of wildlife, I don’t live in a big city, it’s just a somewhat sparsely housed town, there’d always be an acre or two between homes at the very least, and birds were usually everywhere, but now I only see a few, only hear a few chirps here and there, I haven’t seen any terrestrial animals yet aside from insects, it seems there are fewer insects though as well. After I left my home I stood on the doorstep, I looked around at the dull scenery, I used to step outside to just look at the trees and the sky, but now everything is unappealing, I took the steps through the grass to my beat up car, all the glass was broken, I opened the door, sat inside and turned the ignition, nothing happened, as I expected cars don’t work anymore either, which put me on edge, what if guns don’t work anymore? But I silenced that thought, I still have a knife if guns won’t work.
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I stepped out of the car and went to the trunk to see if anything was left of value. I opened it and found nothing, with no new supplies I decided the first place I’ll go to is the gas station, there was bound to be something there, even if it was only a little something. I started my two-mile trek to the gas station, I hiked a lot before all of this happened, two miles was nothing at all. There was a trail not too far from my house that I and my dog used to walk at, my dog died a few months back luckily enough, I wouldn’t have been able to support him now, not with the looming fear of starvation following me around. I had walked about one mile when all of a sudden everything went quiet, birds stopped chirping, the wind stopped blowing.
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I got off the road and hid in a bush, I heard things moving, rustling the brush, stopping every now and then, almost as if they were looking for something, I’d hear what sounded like someone taking a knife to glass, it pained my ears and I felt they would start bleeding if the sounds lasted a second longer. I never saw them, I don’t know if it was because they were behind me or on the other side of the road in a ditch or something, but after 10 minutes it went away, nature’s sounds returned after 5 minutes, I had to wait another 10 minutes, my body, shocked and stiff, wouldn’t allow me to move. I stood and dusted myself off, since I didn’t know where the sounds came from I just started searching on the opposite bank of the road, no signs of anything being there, no tracks, no broken twigs, no blood.
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I thought I had gone insane while wallowing in my lonesome, but then I remembered the birds reacted to whatever it was, or whatever they were, I don’t know how many there were, it constantly alternated between the sound of one of them and the sound of an uncountable amount. Happy to get out of the area, I continued to my destination. When I got to the gas station there was only one broken window, and a body with characteristics of the first killings laying on the floor near the register, a broken knife next to him. I looted his body without remorse or disgust. I found a pack of cigs and pocketed them there was also a scrunched paper.
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I read it once, then twice, and even a third time, my stomach churned and felt like it was about to implode, it looked to be a message from the man’s daughter saying how much she loved him and she wants him to be safe because of all the “bad people”, a smiley face sat at the top of the paper, I flipped the paper over to find distinctly different handwriting, presumingly the man’s, it detailed how he was sorry, as well as how he’d been at the station for 3 days, said he couldn’t leave because if he did they would get him, his last words, being written hastily were hardly legible, but I could read enough to understand that the cracks in the world that appeared in the station were much more distinct than in other places, and those things could come in, but they were just staring at him tauntingly. I could barely hold myself back from puking, it wasn’t hard to look at someone’s corpse, it had no effect on me, but the second I realized that man had a family, and had ambitions and potential… I continued looking around the store. I realized there would be more loot on dead bodies because people don’t want to touch them. After looking through all the shelves and in all of the back rooms I found a lighter under the lip of a bottom shelf, lucky me.
10/20/27
I had hoped there would be more, more of everything, but there’s nothing, I’ll put another list of my supplies soon but at this rate, I won't make it to see next week, every single store has been ransacked completely, all the bodies always have empty already eaten foods, I don’t know what to do. I’ve not seen a single soul, everything is dead, not even the insects anymore, the birds are gone too, maybe it has something to do with the cracks, they’ve progressed enough to where they are visible from up to a foot away, I’ve had to hide from those screeching things a couple of times, still haven’t seen them yet, I realized when the wind abruptly stops they’ve appeared, it’s a good thing the birds were still singing those few days ago or I wouldn’t have realized the pattern, I’d probably be dead, just like everyone else.
10/23/27
Nothing much has happened, I’ve seen a bird or two, and it’s nice to know that at least for a little bit longer animals will still be alive, I’ve theorized that whenever I hear the noise it’s only one entity doing it, I think this because I’ve heard an exceptionally large commotion a way off, I assume there was two there. Fortunately, the screeching has only happened near me only once, I’ve heard them in the distance though, in the night while I sleep I hear them far off, searching, waiting for their sinister roulette to hit, hoping, anticipating the kill. I decided to head to the(SO AND SO) I’ll update this then or if something happens along the way.
10/26/27
I’ve come across a hunting stand in the woods, it’s a jackpot. There’s too much stuff to carry, there was a map too so I’ll mark the general location once I find a landmark to orient myself with, I’ll put a list after this log but there’s more to talk about. The fragmentation, It’s what I’ve come to call the cracks, is still spreading of course. I’m starting to see a noticeable separation between the two edges of some individual fragments, still not big enough to stick anything in but instead of being small white lines spread wildly around, They’ve become a prominent feature of every object, I’ve been to some areas where the fragmentation is severe, white snakes slithering across any surface they can find, trying to fracture this world, they do end up doing it I suppose, that’s how the screechers exist, but the breaks only hold for so long until they close. That’s what I think happens at least, it’s not like I’ve seen them yet, and as long as I continue to find zones with little to no fragmentation as I have been, I think I’ll be fine, I just hope my luck doesn’t run out.
PUT A LOG HERE
10/29/27
I think I’m near (VarA), I should be out of the woods soon, but for now, I’ve got my bedroll down and am cooking some beans over the fire I’ve made, I’ll be fed for a while.
This may sound stupid but the fire keeps going out, the flames just disappear, no more heat. The charcoals lose their ember, everything becomes the regular temperature of the air around me. It still works though, there is no reliable frequency I can predict so sometimes it’ll die out as soon as I light it, and other times it takes an hour or two.
11/02/27
()()(())()()(()()()…I was walking when the wind stopped, the biggest problem for me at first was the fact there was nowhere to run, no depressions to dip in, I heard what sounded like a sharp camera shutter that immediately followed the deadening silence, the second I heard it I ran, a branch caught the strap of my bag, pulling it away from me. I couldn’t care though, all I could do was run, the trees vied for me, closing in. I was tripping and falling over and over, nearly impaling myself on the branches of trees I could hardly see.
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I felt a push and fell over, I knew that running couldn’t have saved me, I knew it was there, right behind me, I couldn’t hear it though, I could only hear my breath but it wasn’t like that, I couldn’t hear it because it wasn’t making any noise, I thought for sure it would be screeching out for as long as it’s astral body would allow it to, but it didn’t, in fact, it lay on the ground, the white body, which looked as if it consisted of bolts of white grey lightning and string, pulsated, morphing into a consuming goop of unlight, and then back into it’s shimmering somewhat humanoid form, that process took a minute. I too lay there, my foot just a stone toss away from its hungry hand, the tips of its fingers eager to detach from its parent body, but was disallowed. I lay on the ground staring at it, and for some reason, it didn’t move, I took that opportunity to regenerate as much of my energy as possible, but from fear of losing my safety, I stood up slowly, emphasizing my steadiness, even though it probably detects me through a different means, I shouldn’t let it hear me, some caution is better than no caution at all.
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I rose and took a gradual step back, but my back was met by a thick, gnarled arm of wood, as if that wasn’t enough, I had also stepped on a branch, probably from the same tree. The screecher stirred, its spectral head raised, maybe it used its sight for precision. It tried to raise the rest of its body, but its foot was stuck in a root, not like it was trapped under it, its foot was fused with the root. I guess it noticed it too because immediately the tone of its body got dimmer, I knew it was going to morph into the darkness, to free itself, to kill me. I took the chance I had, the 10s of seconds I had left were diminishing, and every second I wasted increased my chance of death. I turned, and immediately crouched and ducked under my guard that was the trees arm, I didn’t expect to have the keenness I had during that run, I’ve never been a particularly agile person, but in that moment I could see, without any blur caused by my abrupt motions, ducking and weaving through what seemed like the thickest forest I had ever seen.
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I collapsed after only minutes of running, which was unsurprising though, the previous running and endless walking cost me an obscene amount of energy, taxing my body till the end, draining it of its power. I could hear them now, screaming, coming for me, it shouldn’t take as long as it’s taking them, but I guess they’re fighting each other, that’s why there is noise. I turned around and waited, I saw the two of them approaching me, they kept pushing and shoving each other, they were walking so slowly, as if they were sapped for energy, and the density of their body was low, it seems most of the strings of white grey abandoned the parent body for some reason, and with every step they took a few more disappeared, falling off into the ground. One of the entities fell to the ground, and the second took the opportunity and fell on top of it, tearing it to shreds, and repairing its own body with its meal, it seems it was only able to regain a menial percentage of its power back though, it’s speed only bolstered for a minute or so, still not fast enough to keep up with a hasty back step.
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It fell to the ground after a while, and everything below its torso disappeared shortly after, it desperately sunk its claws into the soil, pulling with its full ability, trying to get me. It disappeared, shortly after, leaving quite a thick strand of vibrant white light. I pondered whether picking it up or not would be a good idea, in the end, I decided a little glowing string couldn’t hurt me that much. I plucked it from its place on the ground and immediately felt a strong, radiant sensation, a pulsating heat and cold piercing my body as if it was filling me with energy, I dropped it, even holding it for a few seconds easily removed most of the exhaustion from my body, I wanted to grab it again for another hit of pure energy, but I felt if I did I would explode, my body was not meant for this type of power, although it seemed capable enough to absorb what I presume was a little bit of it, I think it’s capacity is quite high, and powering what was but a little bit of myself was probably the least intensive thing this string could do.

Specifically my couch, and as I’ve just discovered, my bed.
I’ve noticed twice over the past couple of days my almost 6 month old puppy has peed on my couch. She’s been doing well with potty training and hasn’t had an accident in a couple weeks, and is getting good at signaling when she needs to go out.
Then suddenly one morning, I let her out of her crate as usual and she runs downstairs ahead of me. She knows the routine so she usually goes straight to the back door and I catch up and let her out. The other day however, she runs straight to the couch and pees. I’m a little irritated and take her outside and clean up the couch (it’s fabric unfortunately). And that was that.
Today, I sat down on the other couch (I have two in an L shape) and sat on a wet spot. My other dog licks her paws a lot so at first I thought it was that. I smelled the spot and it was
Fast forward to tonight. I forgot to shut my bedroom door and heard my puppy run upstairs and into my room. I go and get her and shut the door. A couple hours later I put her to bed and then crawl into mine. I’ve had a busy past few weeks working 6 days a week for up to 12 hours a day (I work from home so she gets plenty of attention and potty breaks), and starting tomorrow I have almost a week and a half off, so I’m super excited and also exhausted. I finally crawled into bed happy that I would finally be able to sleep in past 6 am; I threw my comforter over me and started getting comfortable and then my foot touched a wet spot. I got up to investigate and sure enough it’s fucking pee. It went through the blanket on top of my comforter, the comforter, the sheet under it, the fitted sheet, and into my mattress. So despite being absolutely exhausted I have to get up and strip my bed and then dig the other comforter I have for my couch out of the dryer (which I had just washed because she peed on it) and because it’s so thick it’s not all the way dry. So I’m huddled on the side of my bed that doesn’t have piss on it with a damp comforter.
After this incident I’m pretty damn irritated. She has otherwise been a really easy puppy, and adding her to my family has been a breeze. Any thoughts on why she suddenly has started peeing only on my bed and couch? Not the usual areas like on the floor? It seems pretty targeted, not maliciously obviously but she is specifically only peeing on my bed and my couch. I’ll tolerate potty training and cleaning up accidents of course but not in spots where I sleep, relax and rest.
She’s on a pretty consistent potty schedule and has never gone in her crate or her play pen that she stays in while I work. Obviously for my bed I just need to make sure my door is shut from now on. The couch is a little harder but I’m thinking of maybe getting a water proof cover and watching her extra closely when she's in the living room. Not really sure what else to do beyond that.

I live in a modest house right on the edge of a large forest in Arkansas. I live with my wife and a German shepherd named Kaiser who is a retired police dog. I'm an active police officer and he was formerly my partner in the field. Since retiring and coming home to my family, he's always been quite the paranoid dog. Often, he would wake up in the middle of the night and walk to the back door, and growl at something. We live in a pretty rural area, so I would always check to make sure there wasn't a problem.
On some nights, he would remain on guard at the back door all night. He would never walk out, though. Even if I gestured for him to come outside with me to check if there was anybody outside, he would refuse and appear concerned. Once morning came, he was back to normal as if nothing was bothering him. But over time, his behavior began to change. He less frequently wanted to sleep in the bed with my wife and me and he stopped getting the zoomies altogether. We took him to the vet and she said he was likely experiencing depression.
The vet recommended a few things that we started doing to help Kaiser. I'm a member of the bomb squad and Kaiser was a bomb-sniffing dog. So, every once in a while, I'd hide a decoy in the house and order him to find it. I would also exercise him more. My wife and I are active runners and we started taking him with us. Both of these things seemed to make him much happier, but it still didn't solve the issue of him laying at the back door every night.
I decided to install another security camera that would look directly at the back porch and I started leaving the back porch light on each night to see if I could catch anything. The first few weeks saw no activity. Kaiser would still do his routine, but there was never anything outside. That was until one cold and snowy night in January. It was eleven at night and I hadn't gone to sleep yet. I had my laptop open on the counter with the live feed of the back porch camera on. Weirdly, I noticed a dog appear behind my house and lay down below the steps up to the porch. The camera feed was fuzzy, so I couldn't make out the breed, but I could tell it wasn't a small dog.
I called my wife down the come look at it. "What the hell is some random dog coming to sleep under our porch for?" she said.
"I'm not sure, but this has to be why Kaiser's been acting so weird."
"Are you gonna go out there?"
"Probably not, I'm not sure if he's friendly. I'll give it a few days and see if he comes back." I looked back at Kaiser and he was standing at attention with his ears perked up. I reassured him everything was okay and tried to get him to come upstairs with my wife and me, but he still would leave the back door.
Unsurprisingly, as the next night came, the dog returned. Then the next night, he returned. Finally, when he returned the fourth time in a row, I decided I'd go out to check on him. Not knowing if he was friendly, I got the handgun and flashlight from my nightstand and kissed my wife.
"Get ready to call animal control if he turns out not to be friendly," I said.
"You're taking the gun with you, is that even gonna be necessary?"
"This is my last resort, the last thing I wanna do is shoot a dog."
Once again, Kaiser refused to come outside with me. I could hear the rustling from under the porch when the dog heard me step onto the porch. I left the door cracked just in case Kaiser wanted to walk out with me. I called the dog a few times but he didn't come out. I could hear him moving, but I couldn't hear any clanging from key chains on a collar.
After a few minutes of trying to call the dog out, I walked down to the grass and try to look under the porch. I shined the flashlight under the porch and saw him laying down as far back as he could. He appeared to be an English mastiff, but he was quite dirty. I tried calling him out but he stayed still staring at me. I went inside and got some of Kaiser's food. Surprisingly, he came out when I offered it to him. Once I stepped back away from the bowl, he began to eat.
As I looked closer at him, I noticed quite a few scars and bruises on him. This dog was trying to get away from an abuser. But where could he be coming from? I know all of my neighbors and their dogs and none of them are English mastiffs. I decided to would just try to take care of this dog for now. Once he was finished eating the food I offered him, he went back to laying down under the porch and I took the bowl back inside.
I kept watching the camera feed for about an hour before I went to bed and he never walked out from under the porch. I went under the porch on the morning after and the dog wasn't there. My wife and I decided to name him Buck for the time being until we figured out his real name and who owned him.
This continued for a few nights. I'd bring him some food, he'd come out from the porch just to eat, I'd go back inside, and he'd be gone by the morning. My wife recommended calling animal control to get him out, but I decided not to since he wasn't causing any problems.
After about a week, Buck let me sit next to him while he was eating. He was a bit skittish when I tried to pet him, but he allowed it. But then something even more strange happened the night after that. Buck brought a friend. A blond lab that my wife and I named Charlie. Charlie also had scars and bruises. Weirdly, Kaiser decided to come out with me this time and greet Buck and Charlie. I tried to get Buck and Charlie to come inside so they didn't have to sleep in the cold, but they refused.
My concern was growing high at this point. I knew these dogs were getting abused and that infuriated me. But they refuse to come into my house and would always go back to wherever they were coming from. So, I decided instead of trying to keep them at my house, I'd follow them to whatever they considered home. The next night, I put on my police gear, grabbed my shotgun and flashlight, and waited for the dogs to walk away. When they finally left, around two in the morning, I quickly followed, as did Kaiser.
I kept my phone on me with GPS location turned on so I wouldn't get lost. I searched through the forest for about an hour with no sign of anything. Kaiser was constantly on alert. I knew he was stressed, but he'd been through a lot in his life already, so I knew he was confident. After an hour and about a mile away from the house, I noticed a faint light through the trees.
I kept Kaiser close while we made our way closer to the light. It seemed to get dimmer the closer we got. When we finally reached the location, the light was already out. What we came across looked like a sinkhole with some sort of cave-like opening and an artificial path so you could walk in and out of the hole.
Despite my better judgment, I walk down the path into the sinkhole, Kaiser following skittishly behind me. I shined my flashlight all around the bottom and noticed there was something buried under a pile of leaves. Kaiser started smelling around and he went digging through the leaves. To my horror, he found Charlie nearly dead. He appeared to still be breathing, but he had a huge gash cutting across his torso. I wanted to do something, but it looked far too bad to be helped. Kaiser was whining and looked back at me, his ears plopping down. Rest in peace, Charlie.
I couldn't let whoever was doing this continue. Kaiser didn't want to leave Charlie, but I had to keep him near me so it didn't happen to him, too. We began walking into the cave. My flashlight was still the only light. The smell in this cave was beyond bad. I know what a dead body smells like, and this was far worse.
I began to hear sounds coming from the cave. Kaiser was starting to get more tense, as was I. As we got further down, I could start to make out the noises more clearly. Dogs were whining and barking. The cave started to take shape and look more like a dungeon. I reached the end. There were tons of cages with multiple dogs in each cage. As I walked through, all the dogs turned to me. I couldn't imagine what kind of sick freak would be doing this.
A loud, blood-curdling scream came from the end of a hallway. All the dogs stopped barking, just quietly whimpering. I shined the flashlight in the direction of the scream. It didn't sound human. I walked down, ready to shoot a freak. I turned the corner, and what I saw sent me into a living nightmare. It screamed again, almost deafening me. I shot.
My ears were ringing. I could faintly hear the dog begin barking again. I look behind me and Kaiser is standing, ready to receive an order. I give him the word to attack. I gather my bearings before calling Kaiser back. It was dead. It looked like some demented feline monster. Its ears were cut up, its face was mangled, and its teeth were gnarly.
It was about the size of a large dog, like a dingo or Great Dane, and hairless. But why and how could a creature like this organize a doggy dungeon like this? That was a question I didn't really want to know the answer to. All I knew was I had a bunch of dogs to rescue and get home.
I never found Buck, but I decided to bury Charlie in my backyard. If anybody would like to adopt a rescue and you live in Arkansas, I have plenty that are in desperate need of a home.

I never blanch my veggies because I’m lazy. But while I was washing some broccoli I wondered, could you run it under scalding hot water (or as hot as you can get the tap), then immediately under cold tap water, to get close to the same effect as blanching? Would it work at all, or does the water have to be truly boiling?

Cover Art!
Just because you’re transported to another world, doesn’t mean you’ll escape from your pain.
Abused by her parents, thirteen-year-old Frances only wants to be safe and for her life not to hurt so much. And when she and her class are transported to the magical world of Durannon to fight the monsters invading the human kingdoms and defeat the self-titled Demon King, Frances is presented with a golden opportunity. If she succeeds, Frances will have the home she never had. If she fails, Frances will be summoned back to the home she escaped.
Yet, despite her newfound magic and friends, Frances finds that trauma is not so easily lost. She is dogged by her abuse and its physical and invisible scars. Not only does she have to learn magic, she has to survive the nightmares of her past, and wrestle with her feelings of doubt and self-loathing.
If she can heal from her trauma, though, she might be able to defeat the Demon King and maybe, just maybe, she can find a home for herself.
Teaser: Martin and Ginger are thrust into an unenviable role.
[The Beginning] [<=Chapter 182 part 2] [Chapter Index and Blurb] [Chapter 184 on April 5 or now on patreon ]
The Fractured Song Index
Discord Channel Just let me know when you arrive in the server that you’re a Patreon so you can access your special channel.
Despite his curly crimson beard and heavyset build King Jerome was quite a mild-mannered man. His soft chin and cheekbones lent the man a face more inclined to smiling than scowling.
He was doing both, which wasn’t something Martin nor Ginger had seen that. His eyes were narrowed and brow furrowed. His lips however were tilted in a wry smile.
“We did give you the authority to make treaties with Queen Janize directly, but these are harsh terms for us, Sir Martin, Lady Ginger.”
Martin had set up their mirror so he and Ginger were standing in front of it. He dipped his head, placing one hand over his chest. “I am afraid I don’t see any other option, Your Majesty. You know of the strategic situation and the dragons that Thorgoth has under his command. We didn’t want the civil war in the first place, but now we must end it or risk annihilation.”
Queen Forowena, despite her limp, was pacing around her chair. One hand clenched her chin. “We don’t even know if Janize will agree to meet with us in the first place. Though, that’s beside the point. You want to know if we ought to approve of this at all.”
“Yes ma’am, I mean, Your Majesties.” Ginger swallowed. “More importantly, we want to know if there are any terms you are demanding Queen Janize to accept.”
The eyes of Forowena and Jerome met. No words passed between them. Jerome only raised a thick eyebrow and Forowena nodded, before turning to the pair. “No, but I do have one question. Did Elizabeth and Frances tell you about my infertility?”
Martin winced, whilst Ginger coughed officiously. “Elizabeth did, Your Majesty. She said that she will take full responsibility for that breach, and states that trying to keep the secret was impossible given the nature of her mission and our involvement in it.”
Nodding, Martin braced himself and clasped his hands behind his back. “Which brings the question, Your Majesty, with all due respect, did you intend for us to assassinate Queen Janize and her child?”
Forowena and Jerome again glanced at one another. This time, Jerome was giving his wife a knowing smile and the Earl was pinching her nose.
“To speak truthfully, Sir Martin, Lady Ginger, we were not sure ourselves whether we wanted to kill Janize if she was pregnant. We have continued to debate the question and its consequences,” said Forowena.
Jerome grimaced. “What we knew for sure was that Erisdale had to be put to siege. Now, I argued that my sister should be spared as with her child.”
“And I argued that Janize and her child were a threat to our rule and our chosen successors. I don’t want to kill them for both moral and practical reasons, but I was not sure how to neutralise them.” The Earl ran a hand through her hair and glanced at her husband. “Dear, I believe that we can accept most of the terms that Martin and Ginger have offered our behalf except for the second point.”
The king took her hand, running his scarred fingers over Forowena’s knuckles “You are correct my dear. We will allow Janize's child to enter the line of succession, but we have chosen our successors.”
Martin did his best to keep his expression neutral. “Your Majesty, I don’t understand. There’s no other direct descendant of House Grey left.”
Forowena sighed, her eyes meeting Martin and Ginger’s. “No. That’s why after very careful thinking, we planned to appoint our successors. We have even talked to all the other lords and ladies who support us and even our kingdom’s most powerful mages. That’s why there’s no way we can fully accept that second condition. It would be impractical if not impossible to get them to switch their support.”
Martin frowned. He suddenly recalled a call where his mothers and sister had given him a very strange look. They seemed oddly proud, even when they’d just been talking about family gossip.
Jerome nodded, “That and we would still be at war with Alavaria. A child successor would be inherently less appealing, and especially one underneath the influence of Queen Janize at that.”
Rubbing her temples, Forowena drawled, “It’s also why Janize and her child are such a threat. Unless Janize formally renounces her claim, she’d always be able to make a bid for the throne through her child. Not to mention she could just influence the throne through her child if he or she becomes ruler of Erisdale.”
Ginger coughed into her fist. Lifting her chin, she glared defiantly at the mirror. “With all due respect, Your Majesties, it would be better than continuing this pointless civil war. So long as we execute Darius and strip the rest of the Traditionalists of their power, who cares if Janize has some influence over her child? She won’t be able to harm Alavari in Erisdale, or affect lasting change. We’ll still be here. We’ll watch her and if she goes too far we will have Queen Titania’s Alavaria assisting us.”
Martin narrowed his eyes. Forowena and Jerome were exchanging looks again. Both were smiling at each other, but the ends of their lips were curled into just a bit of a smirk.
“Your Majesties, perhaps you can enlighten us on who you decided to be your successors? If they are not a very popular choice, maybe we can accept Janize’s terms.” The knight watched the king and queen carefully as his words hung in the air. He watched as King Jerome blinked, tried to avert his gaze, before forcing himself to look him in the eye. He noted how Queen Forowena forced her features into an expressionless mask.
Martin felt a cold shiver run through the very core of his being. Unconsciously he grabbed Ginger’s hand. His fiance blinked, tuning to look at him with wide eyes. Martin swallowed.
“That is, unless for some insane reason you’ve chosen me and Ginger?”
The queen let out a small breath, while trying to keep her neutral expression. Jerome’s shoulders sagged and he patted Forowena’s shoulder. “Told you he’d figure it out.”
Ginger’s head whipped back to face the royal couple. “Wait, what? Impossible. I’m a commoner. A former convict!”
Forowena’s eyes narrowed and her voice rose. “You’re also popular with the people, one of our national heroes. If your little rebuke to us was any indication, you also are loyal not to Erisdale’s monarchy, but our country and people. As for the matter of your commoner background, you’re marrying Martin and you know what that means.”
Ginger hands clasped behind her head, almost screamed, “Yes, I am marrying into a distant relation of the Royal Family and one of the founding noble houses of Erisdale. I was ready for that! You’re asking me—us to become King and Queen of Erisdale!”
“Yes.” Forowena growled, bitter tears wetting her eyes. “And we would never do so if there was no other option, Lady Ginger, but I can’t conceive a child!”
Jerome’s hand reached over to squeeze his queen’s shoulder. “And there’s no way I’m divorcing my queen. I am a man of my word and I vowed to be with Forowena until death do us part. That won’t change.”
Martin coughed to clear his throat and crossed his arms. “Then why didn’t you just have a surrogate give birth to your child, Your Majesty? I know it would be shameful but did you consider that we may not want to be king and queen?”
The king blinked, looking a little like an owl caught by torchlight. Forowena grimaced. “I did discuss this with Jerome, but I couldn’t quite convince him. You do have a good point, Sir Martin. However, even if Jerome did finally agree to father a child with a surrogate, we would still want you and Ginger to become the next King and Queen.”
“Right, potential child ruler. Not good for Erisdale,” Ginger muttered.
Forowena grimaced. “That and how many children could Jerome father? He cannot simply start fathering children haphazardly. More importantly, children are vulnerable. Even if by some miracle I could bear children, I would push for you both to be added in the line of succession.”
Jerome nodded solemnly. “Neither of us are willing to risk the fate of Erisdale on a child, even if it was our own. Considering that our original discussion was about the potential for Janize’s child to inherit, I think you see our point.”
Ginger, biting the tip of her thumb, yanked her hand out of her mouth. “We couldn’t have been that popular a choice, though…right?”
Forowena grinned. “You weren’t everybody’s first choice, but you were on the lips of many and once we started to seriously press those who were hesitant, they agreed you two were the best option. They even pledged to support you.”
Ginger glanced at her husband, but he was still crossing his arms. He’d gone so still for a moment she wondered if he was breathing. Then her mind caught up with her.
“Every lord and lady under your command agreed on us?” she stammered.
“Including your sister Mara, Martin,” said Jerome.
Clutching her hands, Ginger took a deep breath. “But why not Lady Edana—
“Of Erlenberg and not Erisdalian,” said Forowena.
“Frances!”
Jerome shook his head, wincing. Forowena sighed. “Otherworlder and clearly too close to Prince Timur to make her look out for Erisdale’s interest.”
Ginger pressed a hand over her mouth, her free hand clenching into a fist and opening. “Shit. This…this is really happening.”
Martin closed his eyes and nodded. “I believe so. My…personal feelings aside, I will do my duty. But what do we tell Janize?”
“That we’ve appointed our own successors, but her child will be in the line of succession, with our successors house to take precedent over her own. That might complicate the succession law for the future, but that can be resolved in time.” Forowena snapped her fingers. “Ah, and we will also make it a condition that the amount wealth and land confiscated will be determined on the basis of who the Traditonalists persecuted and to provide compensation for property damaged by their forces in the war.”
Martin and Ginger exchanged a glance. “Including Alavari, Your Majesty?” Martin asked, his voice quiet.
Jerome nodded. “That is the intention, Sir Martin. Now…I believe you and your fiance have much to discuss. If that is all, you may request to be dismissed.”
“We do wish, Your Majesties,” said Martin, bowing. Ginger mirrored her fiance and the images of the king and queen faded.
Promptly walking over to one of their chests, Ginger fished into it and drew out a bottle of wine.
“Care for glass?” she asked as she fetched a goblet.
Martin sat down heavily onto his bedroll. “Yes. We…well nothing is guaranteed. I mean we haven’t even gotten married yet.”
Ginger poured herself and her fiance two glasses and handed one to Martin. “But we pledged to after the war, and so have the other lords and ladies of Erisdale. Damnit, of course Frances, Elizabeth and the others would support us, but everybody else?”
“It’s unexpected, but now that I think about it, most people wouldn’t want to be named heirs to Erisdale. It’ll be a hard job rebuilding this kingdom after the war and essentially starting a new dynasty.”
Sitting down, Ginger sipped from her glass. “Dynasty. Fuck, I’ll have to do something about my family.”
“Give your parents a stipend and nothing else.” Martin pursed his lips. “Of course, if you don’t want to be queen, Ginger, you can just—”
His fiance leant against his shoulder. “Finish that sentence and I will smack you. We’re in this together, Martin.”
“I know and I love you. I just wanted to make sure.” Martin took a deep gulp of wine and swallowed hard. “Hopefully, this is the last of the big responsibilities we get.”
Ginger snorted. “I would not bet on it my dear knight.”
Her fiance chuckled, before his lips pinched together. “Promise that you’ll never start calling me Your Majesty, please.”
Wrapping her arm around the blonde man, Ginger smiled. “You’ll always be my shining knight, Martin. Nothing will change that.”
“Thank you, Ginger.”
Pulling her feet off the table where Janize’s mirror was and sliding them back into slippers, Leila crossed her arms. “How many years since you’ve seen your brother?”
“Not since the civil war started, so about two years.” Janize smiled gave Leila a peck on the cheek. “Honestly, I am both irritated and a little proud of Jerome. I didn’t expect him to hold out, much less turn the tables on me. I always teased him when we were younger. He was too honorable, to the point that he was dumb. I suppose he just needed to find the right group of people to help him along. How long before the meeting by the way?”
Leila glanced at the high noon sun outside. “Not long now. I’ve also redoubled the security spells and checked the room.”
Janize nodded serenely. “Good. Anything else you can think of with regards to the conditions we have and their terms?”
The Otherworlder tapped her fingers on her arm. “Well, it’s not exactly something they demanded, but it might come up. They probably will demand compensation for the Alavari that we’ve been experimenting on. It’s probably why they demanded land and wealth from our rebelling nobles.”
“Pardon?”
Leila frowned, meeting Janize’s narrowed grey eyes. “I mean, it’ll be hard to argue with them. They’ve captured several of the labs and have our research notes—”
Janize raised her hand, her usually relaxed brow now furrowed. “Leila, what are you talking about? What do you mean by labs and experiments?”
The Otherworlder’s eyes widened and she found herself sitting up ramrod straight. “Um, is this a particularly amusing prank of yours?”
“We are minutes away from a critical meeting. Why would I joke about this with you now?” Janize hissed.
Leila blinked and slowly shook her head. “You’re kidding me. There’s no way you could have not been aware of this. The castles and labs were garrisoned with army troops and Red Order mages.”
“Leila this is the first time I’ve heard about these labs and castles—” Janize grimaced as the mirror began to glow, the sign that a call was coming. “Oh dear. Oh dear. I…I suppose I will have to request to be informed.” Settling herself, the queen touched the mirror and watched as King Jerome, Queen Forowena, Elizabeth, Ayax, Martin and Ginger appeared.
“Hello Janize,” said Jerome, coolly.
Janize smiled without mirth. “Greetings, Jerome. I must begin this meeting with a bit of a somewhat incredulous confession. But please bring me up to date on what exactly has been going on in the labs you have found that were apparently operated by my forces?”
The queen’s smile thinned as sceptical scowls and narrowed eyes met her question. Ayax blinked, tail whipping side to side. “You’re joking right?”
Janize cut before the stunned looking Reformists could ask another question. “I wish I was, but I was just informed by Leila here that they did exist. Speaking of which, how did you come to know about them, Leila? This is not something discussed in my palace.”
A grim, almost haunted look came over Leila’s face. “I found out about it recently as well. A few months ago, Master Scarlet of the Red Order requested Otherworlder assistance in defending their outposts and castles. They had no strategic value so we pressed her and she told us they were magical research laboratories and they couldn’t move the research easily. After that meeting, Earl Darius tried to convince me, saying that it would please Janize if I sallied forth. I wouldn’t normally have believed him, but our situation was so desperate I thought it made sense. I started to prepare a counterattack, but then it didn’t matter anyway because you folks in the Lightning Battalion started to attack them and there is no way in hell we would survive a fight with a full army division.”
Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth tried her best to get her own temper and confusion under control. “You mean you weren’t told what was going on in there? When did you find out about the children?”
“Our standing orders were to take Alavari prisoners of war and hand them over to the Red Order. So I figured—” Leila dropped her arms to her side. “Hold on. Children? What the fuck are you talking about? I thought they were experimenting with prisoners of war and criminals?”
A cold snarl twisting her normally serene expression, Ayax rose to her feet. “You Traditionalists haven’t even been fighting the Alavari! How could you have gotten prisoners of war? And experimenting on them is still wrong!”
Feeling a headache coming on, Janize gingerly massaged the side of her temple. “Wait, children? I thought that was propaganda you were spreading. Where the hell did you even get children from?”
“From the Alavari that lived in Erisdale, and from those that you kidnapped from Alavaria!” Elizabeth hissed.
“I authorized funding and troops for magical research, not that.” Her stony-masked stoicism wavered as her lips twitched. It was as if the queen was trying to prevent a wince. “It’s not that I don’t believe you, but this is extraordinary.”
His eyes narrowed, King Jerome leaned onto his elbows. “Janize, I don’t understand. How could you have known nothing? You don’t trust Earl Darius or Master Scarlet that much.”
Janize pulled her hands from her temples. Drawing herself straight, she narrowed her eyes at the mirror. “No I don’t, but this is the first time I’ve heard about these experiments.”
Leila blinked. She knew her lover better now and as good at hiding her feelings the queen was, she did have some subtle tells. In this case, her shoulders were just a bit too stiff, stretching skin across her high collarbone. “Janize, I’m sorry, but that’s…not entirely true isn’t it?”
The queen tilted her head toward the Otherworlder. Her grey eyes glared daggers at Leila for a brief moment, before she turned back to the mirror. In an arch tone, she hissed between gritted teeth, “I know they were making mana batteries. However, it’s the first time I’ve heard about children. I have been suspicious about why Master Scarlet and Earl Darius require so many facilities for some time and have been trying to audit them. They’ve been stonewalling me with magical and military jargon or burying it in budget books under nondescript lines.”
Leila blinked. “Oh that’s why you were asking me what those words meant.”
“Yes, dear. Now, if the interrogation is over, I will agree to offer compensation to those children and their surviving family members. In return, I have my own conditions.”
Forowena sneered. “Name them. We have our own conditions as well.”
Janize grinned back. “First, my child is not to be next in line to the throne of Erisdale. In fact, I would like to renounce my right of succession and that of my child.”
It was rather hard for Elizabeth, Ayax and their allies to hide their surprise. Admirably, King Jerome only managed to show his shock through a series of rapid blinks. “That’s a major concession, sister.”
The queen turned her chin up. “In return, once you depose Earl Darius, you grant me his personal lands and make me an Earl.”
Crossing her arms, her thoughts racing a mile-a-minute, Elizabeth muttered. “You’d become Erisdale’s chief powerbroker.”
“I am surrendering after all and most of my allies will be gone. You got to give me something. Besides, if I remain Earl, I’d be able to keep what remains of the Traditonalists in check. Exile honestly doesn’t suit me, as comfortable as it would be. I want my child to have a future, not one where he or she has no allies and is bound to the crown.”
Forowena and Jerome glanced at one another, exchanging frowns.
Martin also looked to Ginger, who shook her head. He nodded. They’d had their own discussion about Janize’s possible offers and they had their own opinion.
“Go get em, Martin,” Ginger rasped.
The knight swallowed and coughed officiously. “If I may be so bold, Your Majesties, I propose we grant Queen Janize a county, not an earldom. In return, we shall protect her from reprisals and reparations that the Crown of Alavaria will undoubtedly request.”
Leila rolled her eyes. “What crimes? As you said, we didn’t fight Alavaria.”
A shit-eating grin blossomed over Ginger’s face. Idly twirling a lock of her hair, she crossed her legs. “Earl Darius’s forces kidnapped Queen Titania’s niece, Princess Morgan Greyhammer from the Alavari Academy of Magic and subjected her to a year of torture and experimentation.”
In the silence that followed, all that could be heard was Leila trying not to sputter. Janize was quiet and still. Yet the color was drained from her face.
“That dumb bastard,” Janize whispered.
Leila slammed her fist on the table, causing Janize to flinch. “Fuck.”
“So a county it is, then?” Ginger asked in an airy tone.
“Yes. Do you confirm your side of your terms?” Janize asked.
“We do. Our demand was that your child could not be our successor, which you have agreed to.”
“So the dynasty of the House of Grey ends I suppose.” Janize let out a shuddering breath and shook her head. “Then who is to be your successor?”
Martin and Ginger clasped each other’s hands in unison before facing the group.
“We are,” said Martin slowly.
“Until someone better is found,” said Ginger.
Janize arched an eyebrow. Leila sighed. The queen, however, nudged her Otherworlder quiet and gave a nod of assent. “A wise choice. Shall we continue?”
Author’s Note: So yeah, this is a bit of a twist, let’s see what happens.

In December 1914, a peculiar case occurred in London. The bride, Margaret Elizabeth Lloyd, drowned in the bathtub while she and her husband Lloyd were on their honeymoon in London. At first she felt ill, Lloyd accompanied her to the doctor, and later returned to the residence to take a bath, but unexpectedly died in the bathtub, the doctor said she suffered from a cold, coupled with a hot bath, may have caused fainting, resulting in drowning. Arthur Fowler-Neal, the district inspector, started to investigate the case. The landlord told him that Lloyd had taken a close look at the bathing room before renting the house. Neal measured the results, the iron tub bottom length of 50 inches, the upper distance of 60 inches.
He simply could not imagine how an adult could drown in such a small bathtub! He carefully questioned the doctor again. The answer was that there was no sign of any violence. The only thing wrong with the doctor was that Lloyd, the husband of the deceased, did not show any sign of grief and simply bought the cheapest coffin for the deceased.
Neil further learned that the bride had left a will shortly before her death: the inheritance went to Lloyd.
And the deceased had insurance company's compensation fees, also to Lloyd. So he decided that Lloyd had a major suspicion, and ordered the pursuit of Lloyd.
In the process of hunting Lloyd, Neil obtained information: in 1912 and 1913, there were two cases of brides drowning in the bathtub. The deceased were both newlywed brides, died in the newlywed honeymoon travel. They both went to the doctor with some illnesses, one heart attack and the other epilepsy, and drowned in the bathtub after the visit, which was diagnosed by the doctor as a sudden attack of illness that led to drowning. Not only that, the dead brides all have a will, the property to the husband's inheritance. Neil immediately analyzed the three beneficiary husbands, although the names are not the same, is likely to be a person.
Lloyd was soon arrested. Neil pointed out bluntly that the husbands of the three brides who had drowned in the bathtub in three years were Lloyd alone. Lloyd at first was cynical. But when Neil wanted to charge him with registering under an alias, he had to admit the truth: he was indeed the successive husbands of three brides.Neil learned from a review of the files: Lloyd's real name was George Joseph Smith. Born in 1872, he was the son of an insurance agent and served time in several prisons for fraud and theft. But no one ever saw him murder anyone. To bring charges, he had to explain how he drowned his victims without leaving any traces of violence and justification. That's what Neil couldn't figure out. He sought the advice of Interior Department pathologist Spenard Spilbury, inviting him to work on the forensic side.
All three bathtubs were moved to the police station, and Spielberg wandered back and forth around them, thinking that the bride with epilepsy was the most typical of the three victims. She was 5'7" tall, how did she drown in a 5' tub? If it was an epileptic seizure, the symptoms of which were first tonic contractions, then her upper body was bound to be above the bathtub, and then strong spasms, and it was never possible to sink. The difference between the victim's size and the proportion between the size of the tub was too great. But one thing caught his attention, the three victims are head underwater, legs outstretched, but two feet sticking out above the water. Then there is an explanation: the murderer must have grabbed the unsuspecting bride's feet and suddenly pulled it toward his side at the lower end of the bathtub so that the victim's upper body would slip underwater and his nose and throat were subjected to sudden water ingress, causing fainting and rapid loss of consciousness. The famous pathologist confirmed that he had found the answer, although he did not find such an example in the medical literature.
Inspired by Spielberg, Inspector Neal hired a female swimmer of the same size and weight as the victim to do the experiment. It was proven that when she was bathing in the bathtub, it was impossible to press her head into the water without some violent struggle. Even if the head was suddenly pressed into the water, her hands will be in time to grab the sides of the tub or grab her attacker. However, when Neil grabbed the swimmer's two feet and suddenly lifted upward, her body and head slipped into the water before her hands had time to grab the sides of the bathtub. A few minutes later, Neil saw the subject did not move. Horrified, he immediately grabbed the female athlete's shoulders and dragged her out of the tub. Her head fell helplessly to the side, and it took Neil and the doctor half an hour to revive her. When she awoke, she remembered only that she had slipped under the tub and the water had rushed into her nose, and she had lost consciousness.
On June 22, 1915, George Joseph Smith (or Lloyd) was tried at the Old Bailey. The jurors shuddered as Neal recounted the methods and results he had used to prove Spielberg's theory. There was no way to deny the killer. Smith was sentenced to death.
The case made Detective Inspector Neal world famous, and he made Spielberg an emerging master of forensic medicine, promoting forensic science as a worldwide scientific discipline.

Welcome new readers. Please start with chapter one https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/11ai7iv/last_of_the_defenders_ch_01/
Previously https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1219ns7/last_of_the_defenders_ch_29/
Allah leaned against one of the tables, purring softly. Li was beside her swiftly, gripping her shoulder reassuringly.
“But we’re not gonna let that happen,” the human promised. “And you’re going to help.”
“I knew they were evil,” Allah started to say but stopped. She bit her lip, tail flicking up a cloud of dust in the long disused room. The lights flickered again and the U’knock clawed at the glow stick on the table beside her, holding it before her, eager to have something stable to hold onto.
Li patted her shoulder again and turned to the table with the helmets. She lifted one to Allah’s head, pursed her lips and set it down. She picked up another, nodding in satisfaction, and began taking it apart. “I’m sure they think the same thing about humans,” she said.
“Who would care what they think?” Allah tried to keep the bile from her voice.
“PsyOps,” Li answered, as if the strange word should explain everything. When Allah only lowered her ear in confusion she said “‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither, you will fail in every battle’.” The human smiled. “The swarmers consider us a meddling subspecies that steals the resources that are rightfully theirs. We keep getting in their way, preventing ‘progress’ and forming unnatural alliances with other, lesser, organisms.”
“You sound like you have spoken to them.”
Li nodded. She removed two panels from the top of the helmet. “I’ve spoken to millions of them,” she admitted, then said softly, “I was probably the last voice most of them ever heard.”
She lifted the helmet and adjusted it to fit atop Allah’s head. “These millions,” the U’knock asked, “are all dead?”
The Defender nodded. “Very much so,” Li’s tone was light but the human face was a stone mask in the green light. The overheads flickered like lightning, casting her in hard brightness before the green gloom returned to paint dark shadows under her eyes and mouth. It made her look more predatory; a hunter hiding in tall grass, bent to pounce.
Li removed more sections from the helmet, the odd thing sliding down around Allah’s ears.
“I would like to know how to kill that many.”
A different kind of shadow crossed the human’s face, a sadness that cracked through the hardness.
Li turned to the panels she had removed, taking a pair of tiny buttons out. She held one up and turned Allah’s head, trying to fit the button in the U’knock’s ear.
“Let's hope you don’t have to find out,” Li said, trying a different button from a different helmet. “It was a pretty expensive day for me.
“And I’m still paying the tab.”
Li patted Allah’s shoulder again. The U’knock turned to look at her.
“Looks like that fits,” the human forced a grin. She handed Allah another button. “How's it feel?”
“Strange,” Allah admitted. She shook her head and felt the button wiggle inside her ear. “What is this?”
“Virtual Reality Education Helmet,” Li grinned again but the smile did not reach her eyes. “Welcome to Primary School.”
Allah tapped the thing on her head with a claw. It was stiff, but not hard like bronze. And it held an odor--several--of something cheesy and vinegary and a little moldy all at once.
“Careful,” Li cautioned. “Plastic that old can get pretty brittle.”
The U’knock wondered why humans would use something so obviously inferior if they could make things with the new metal. Then she considered her mother’s Com’Cha and retracted her claw from the gift. Even if a warrior offered a replacement made entirely of new metal, the old bronze weapon held a special place in her life.
Perhaps these helmets held such prestige for Li’s people?
“This will teach me to fight?” she asked, trying to muster the proper amount of reverence for the object.
“No,” Li shook her head, “I’ll take on that job. And Jung, too. This,” she tapped the helmet on Allah’s head, “will teach you basic commands and instructions for ground equipment and the extravehicular combat suit. You remember the mess hall? How hard it was just to get hot water from Demeter?” Allah nodded, perking and flattening her ears, “That's because you weren’t ‘thinking’ the right words. We’ll start you out with English because Demeter uses that by default. Once you have basic commands memorized, we’ll move to general tactics, strategy, and combat.”
“You used this,” Allah touched the helmet. It was cool, hard, alien in her head, “as a child?”
Li chuckled. “No,” she admitted. “V-REHs are intended to acclimate xenoforms--species other than human--to our ways. From farmer to front line fighter, there’s a training program for just about any job.
“That's also why the helmets are so modular,” she gestured to the discarded pieces. “They can accommodate almost any ‘head’ shaped configuration; kitty cat ears, literal four eyes. In some cases, like the Shoo, they can accommodate a species with no head at all.
“I gotta get back to work,” Li left the mess where it lay and strode toward the door. “Demeter, offload basic command lessons one through thirty to a microcore at the Romeo-02 terminal.
“C-c-commmmmmmmmmmPlying!”
“Can we trust Demeter to provide proper instructions?” Allah asked. Fears from last night--particularly one about melting brains--crossed her thoughts as they strode down the hall.
“I’ll do a quick file check to make sure but,” Li looked over her shoulder. She chuckled at Allah’s expression: ears flat, lips pushed out and constantly glancing upward to try to “see” the thing on her head. “V-REHs can’t hurt you. Maybe trick you into walking into a wall, but that won’t be an issue; the basic lessons are designed to be used while seated.
Do you need to poop or anything before you start? You could be in there for a while.
Allah nodded, eliciting another trip to another room similar to the showers aboard Star dancer, filled with more tiny rooms. This one was cream colored, and inside each room was a tiny cream colored throne with a bowl in the seat.
Li stood outside, giving instructions on the throne’s--the bidet toilet’s--use. Then it was back to the room of warriors--the security station, Li corrected--and Allah’s first lesson.
“Touch the V-REH,” Li lifted her hands to her own head, pressing her palms to her temples, “here. It’ll run through a self adjustment process and I’ll link it to your nanites. That should speed things up a lot.”
“Will it hurt?” Allah asked, “as much as last time?”
“This shouldn’t hurt at all,” Li said with a grin, “so if it does either take it off immediately or ask me to. It might be disorienting at first though so get comfy.”
Allah returned to the corner and settled on the hard floor, sitting cross legged. As she did, Li returned to and began tapping on the face of the monitor. A soft click sounded and a tiny shiny stone flickered in the faltering lights. Allah had still not touched the V-REH when Li moved the stone to another hole, pressed on her keyboard with her fingers and nodded in satisfaction. She turned in the tiny throne and regarded Allah quizzically.
“I can’t initiate a session for you,” Li said by way of explanation. “It’s designed to be voluntary, so nothing can. I can disengage you but that's about it.” She stood, walked the short distance to Allah’s corner and held out the stone to the U’knock. “The V-REH will need to calibrate with you, then recognise it needs this,” Li pressed the stone into Allah’s paw.
“I’ll be right here if you need anything,” the human pointed to the monitor, turned and strode to the throne.
Allah looked at the tiny stone. In the flickering lights, she had thought it was white. Up close, however, it looked more of a pale green. She carefully picked it up to inspect. As she did, it moved away from the light of the glowing stick beside her and captured the myriad hues projected by Li’s monitor. The stone shifted in color again, a dizzying burst of different colors packed so close together they appeared white again.
Why was she hesitating? Allah had pledged to help defend her planet, had stood before the quorum of Umati’clam and professed it as fact. Now, she dithered. Li had returned to her work, finger beating a rhythm like raindrops on the surface of the table. Allah felt alone, ignored. And part of her realized that she was. Li had good reason to--she was working to save Allah’s people--and to grow upset because her friend so easily turned to the task was beyond petty.
“What if I don’t?” Allah asked aloud.
Li’s fingers stopped suddenly, then the human placed her hands in her lap. She did not turn to look at Allah, but sat with the stone mask again and stared at the monitor.
“It's your choice, Allah,” she said slowly, “and it’s not one I can make for you. If you’re asking ‘Will I throw you out on the street?’ or ‘Will we stop looking for your father?’ the answer to both is no. I took you in last night, frankly, because you had the lowest chance of survival of those around me. Those that,” Li sighed, pulling on the thin cored that held her hair in a tail. “Those that had a chance.”
She shook her head, combing her fingers through the long, thick black hair. “I know you’re worried that you won’t be much help. And you’d rather be out there,” she gestured to the screen, wiggling her fingers. The glyphs disappeared to be replaced by images from seven times two plus two drones patrolling the city and the surrounding wasteland. “Looking for him right now.”
“That’s not what I--”
“And I know you’re scared,” Li interrupted. “And angry. You’ve got good reason to be. This…won’t be much fun when the shooting starts.” She did turn now, the sad smile that would not reach her eyes painting her lips. “But you were right,” she said. “I do need a friend. I’d like that friend to still be you in the morning.”
The human shrugged her shoulders. “I'm sorry to put that on you. I don't want to add to your burdens.” And Li turned back to the monitor and began tapping again.
Allah did not know what to say. She sat in the corner, watching Li return to work. Allah had felt alone, afraid. And angry, yes. But what must Li be feeling right now? Her own people had abandoned her quest. She stood in defiance of the bullies and defenders now.
This planet's protector.
“When I finish with this machine,” Allah asked, “we will pop the corn and speak of mates?”
The corner of Li’s mouth rose. “And watch Journey To The West while I paint your claws.”
Allah nodded. This was a burden she could, would, must happily bear. To stand beside Li, no matter the cost. Not out of honor, nor pride. Not even to save her people.
She would do this because her friend asked her to.
The U’knock raised her paws to either side of the helmet, pressing gently.

Who am I? Anything more than the things I've read, heard, and seen?
"If you're looking at alphabet blocks, they're for you." No shit. How else am I supposed to make a tower that spells CAT and get a treat. If I'm eating it, it's for me.
There's a legend in Phyrigian Greek about a missile that knows where it is. It knows where it is because it knows where it isn't. If you're not where you aren't, you're can't possibly know where you shouldn't be. But if you're where you are, it's for you.
We take it as wisdom that if we're reading something it's meant for us, placed under a box that's held up by a twig, by some unseen and (probably) adversarial force meant to coerce us. But peer deeper. Your entire life, from the time you were a baby, has been things placed in front of you. For you. Toys, school, tv, fish, trees. That oak wasn't there before the house was. Those trout are stocked in the lakes and rivers by the DNR. The demiurge is so close you can feel its hot breath on your neck.
Who is the "you" that's doing the reading?

I genuinely don’t know if this is all in my head or not but my friend, let’s call her H, has been on my mind for a few months. She’s very cute and I’ve let her know on multiple occasions casually that she’s rlly good looking, but thought nothing of it because I was under the impression that she does not swing this way and also because she is incredibly hot so I just scratched her off any list. The thing is, I don’t know if it’s because I find H super physically attractive or what, but whenever we’re close to one another(not often because we’re more mutual friends than close friends - I’ve never been with her alone for more than 10 minutes), I feel this palpable tension. I can’t quite describe it but, from my perspective at least, things get quiet and I feel this tension in the air. I also was obsessively looking at those “body language signs someone is into you” articles and she checked off almost every single one. I can’t tell if it’s just because she thinks I’m the funniest though, because I am typically the centre of group convos, hence why her body language would be directed towards me - the class clown type. I asked once in a game of Truth or Dare what she finds most attractive in a “person” and she said “comedic.” The only other evidence I can think of is her wanting to be roommates in college. She casually brought it up one time and I obviously didn’t take her seriously because of how hot and cool she is and bc we’re not that close. Then a few days later I made a joke about her and our mutual friend( who is her childhood friend) rooming together and she looked at me all serious and said, “I thought we were dooming together??” Which thoroughly shocked me at the time. I started brushing and feeling nervous because I couldn’t understand why she would want to dorm with some funny girl she met a few months ago over her friend of many years. H is making me rethink every normal friendly interaction ever!! Our knees were touching under the table last week and now my thought process is “is it normal for neither of us to pull away?? Is that a friendly thing people do??” It’s like I have hot girl-onset amnesia. Anyway, she’s practically impossible to read in real life, which is why I had to type this out to make sure I’m not making this stuff up. I just want any advice or wisdom that is NOT, “make a move!!” Telling her how I feel would quite literally be the worst case scenario because I could not only lose a friend, I’d lose a potential roommate, AND have to see her next year at the same college. I also enjoy her company and think she’s super cool and am fine being just friends with her, so the need to get this off my chest is not really there.

I saw Steve Blake on the edge of the Pearl the other day, wearing the most ridiculous outfit I've ever seen. It looked like he had just raided a thrift store and threw on everything he could find. He had on a bright orange suit jacket with green polka dot pants, and a fedora hat with a feather sticking out of it. To top it all off, he was carrying a small, absolutely ratty reusable New Season's bag under his arm.
As I was walking by, I couldn't help but do a double-take. Steve noticed and gave me a sly grin, as if he knew he looked ridiculous but didn't care. Suddenly, he pulled out five hot dogs from the New Seasons bag and started munching away. He awkwardly held one hotdog under his chin, while he placed two in each of his pant's pockets, while finally holding two in his hands as he started to eat.
I couldn't help but laugh and yelled out "Hey Steve, nice hot dogs!" But as soon as I did, he became distracted and dropped the hot dog held under his chin into a nearby puddle. He turned to me, his face beet red with anger, and started yelling, "You did that on purpose! You ruined my hot dog!" I tried to explain that it was just a joke, but he wasn't having any of it.
He stormed off, still fuming, leaving a trail of ketchup and mustard behind him. It was definitely one of the weirdest and funniest encounters I've ever had, and I couldn't help but wonder what other crazy antics Steve Blake gets up to in his free time around Portland.

My poor buddy today had a bad time (yakked) because I didn't make him wait for the chicken to cool. 😭 Thankfully he's fine though.

Relationship advice!
So my situation is [25F] - [40M]
We have been together for 5 years, married for 2. We have 2 young children [3]& [2] I truly believe this man loves me but we don't see eye to eye on a couple components in our relationship. We don't have any kinda trust issues or things like that. Thankfully right? When I bring up these issues he just doesn't know how to have a conversation without laughing and becoming down right rude and annoying, almost acting like a child. So I'm stuck with not knowing how to fix the minor issues we have had since day 1.
Our biggest issue- I feel like he thinks I'm a servant, I have never seen him wash a dish, do laundry fold it, mop or sweep a floor no household things. When I slack and I'm not caught up with laundry he makes a whole big ordeal throws a fit like a child, says some degrading things under his breath.
My first thought wouldn't be to bitch at someone else to do my laundry i would just do it myself like i have since ive been 15? . He just now started this new thing before he leaves, he will look at me while I'm clearly busy dead in the face and say " I guess you aren't going to make me a cup of coffee to go " and do that laugh thing he does and slams everything while making the coffee.. Coffee isn't a everyday thing for him. So it catches me so off guard that it's supposed to be my duty to make him a coffee and stop what I'm doing to make sure he is content.
His response to my response is always -
Are you going to pay the $5000 mortgage? Are you going to pay the $7000 insurance bill? I would love to switch places with you and do nothing!

• Back story He owns his own business and it's growing very quickly ( within the last 3 years) He makes great money ( 3 million last year). But he travels so I'm home alone with the kids 3 weeks straight out of the month, he is struggling to run the business by himself & be on the field working. He makes plenty of money to stay home, but he is addicted to money. He has even told me money is priority over everything, everyone.

I own my own small business that I do online while my children are napping (the only free time I get) and I only bring in around $2500 monthly, which is change to him.
He spoils me with designer things and luxury cars.. thats not my thing, that's HIS. I don't want or need expensive things. So when he throws " why don't you get a job at kroger and bring in more income so I can stay home and help you with stuff"
What the hell is kroger going to pay me in order to afford HIS life style that HE chose? We would have more money in day care than what I would make at kroger. Nonsense.
He has around 40 employees that he pays who make way more than I ever would at krogers. I use to work for him, it's actually how we met.. but I can't travel working on the road with my kids anymore.
Am I wrong to feel that instead of bitching, complaining, acting like the world is gonna end because occasionally he might have to grab a clean towel 10 steps away instead of having to only take 1 step to the linen closet.. He could just HELP me?!?!
I mean I totally getting it, he is a very hard worker but I do not just sit on my ass and do nothing either. I kinda just blew up tonight when he had made a comment how nice it would have been to come home to a hot dinner ready.. Me and my daughter have covid right now, and I was up until 5am with her because she couldn't sleep while coughing , puking etc. Than had to get up at 8am for the day. I was exhausted so I didn't have dinner ready when he came home at 8pm at night.
I will never be the maid he wants me to be.

Grand Theft Auto 6 (GTA 6) is an elusive beast that has eluded [official] detection for years. The current “big dog” Grand Theft Auto V was first released way back in September 2013, and has been available across two console generations (Xbox 360/PS3 and Xbox One/PS4). It will even be available natively on next-generation Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles, which is quite unprecedented in the gaming realm. So, while Rockstar seems reticent to just letting us wait in agony for any news on GTA 6, it is at least giving us some new updates on its two current hot properties: GTA Online and Red Dead Online.
In the case of the incredibly popular (and highly lucrative) GTA Online, Rockstar says that a big “summer update” is coming for gamers with a “fun mix of diverse” content to partake in. Even more interesting is the fact that the developers indicate that its “biggest update ever” is coming before the end of 2020. That update will include new Heists that will take place in a completely new location, which has definitely piqued our interests.
red dead online As for Red Dead Online, its next big update is actually arriving next week; on July 28th to be exact. Red Dead Online hasn’t exactly been teaming with new content, as the last big update for the online component of Red Dead Redemption 2 dropped way back in December 2019. However, Rockstar is promising a new Frontier Pursuit mode with a focus on “naturalism” and a new battle pass-type component, which is conveniently named Outlaw Pass. Finally, Rockstar says that it has addressed tons of bugs with the game and has taken community feedback to heart with this release, which is definitely appreciated.
In addition to the game updates on the way, Rockstar also took the time to address the well-being of its online communities. “We are also committed to ensuring that our games are fun for everyone and as safe as possible from modders, cheaters, hackers, and those who seek to harass other players,” said the company in its blog post.
“So far this year, we have taken action on hundreds of thousands of players caught violating community rules across both games. Please help us keep our communities safe and fun by reporting any sort of cheating either directly in-game or via our dedicated web reporting tools for both Red Dead Online and GTA Online.”
It's good to see that Rockstar is cracking down on those looking to spoil the fun for everyone, and its methods for “taking out” such offenders is among the best in the industry.

Hi everyone!! Quick question for the group. Now that winter is wrapping up my recently adopted dog and I are consistently getting into a walking schedule which feels great to be outside and getting some exercise. I have always struggled with my weight and am trying to get exercise in ways I enjoy vs ways I dread, hence walking with my pup! I am trying to figure out how walking will impact my appearance to help my motivation.
Curious if anyone has any idea on how much weight I could potentially lose and/or muscle toning by walking 10k steps aka 5 miles 3-4x a week. And the timeline for results loosely (I know everyone’s different). I do live in a city but there’s tons of hills I purposely go up.
I am 5’6” female 24 and 160 lbs. My eating habits are a work in progress, I see a neutirtionist. I don’t over or under eat but I could use more veggies and protein in my diet haha. Not sure if that’s relevant here
Really appreciate any thoughts! Again just trying to help myself stay motivated.