Montgomery foot care specialists

JoJo's Bizarre OC Tournament #6: R4M8 - Errok vs Cody Enfield

2023.03.26 01:03 Dungeon_Dice JoJo's Bizarre OC Tournament #6: R4M8 - Errok vs Cody Enfield

The results are in for Match 6. The winner is…
9:25. Just five seconds left. 2095 danced in a furious frenzy, out of rewinds, out of tech, just the purest expression of dance and combat.
9:27. She dove full-body at Jamir, still in his point of central control, embracing him and carefully dipping him to merely an inch or so above the floor, meeting his shocked expression with a gaze of her own passionate enough to ignite the pair where they stood.
9:30. The final wave. The Ventisca De Porcelana sailed over the pair, any errant shards striking 2095 before they would strike her rival as the deep dip is held. What water clones remained were shredded. The android rose rapidly and spun Jamir out of their embrace, bowing deeply in apology for securing her own victory. In the same beat, the music reached its final climax, prompting 2095 to extend a hand with a loud stomp as if to demand the man join her in one last display of fiery footwork.

10538-2095, with a score of 79 to Jamir O Santos’s 78!

Category Winner Point Totals Comments
Popularity 10538-2095 14 (3+2) - 16 (4+2) Voting had a slow start, but as the pace quickened, 2095 held a one vote lead by the skin of her teeth!
Quality Jamir O Santos 25 (10 7 8) - 24 (8 7 9) Reasoning
JoJolity Tie 29 (10 9 10) - 29 (10 9 10) Reasoning
Conduct Tie 10-10 Nothing to report!
The android’s mind wandered as she danced face-to-face inches away from her rival. Was the answer always this simple? To act as though your ideal ‘self’ was your own? She took the lead between the two, placing a hand on his chest as the two desperately worked to keep their breath. Would they be friends after this? Enemies? She no longer cared about the ends, her ideal ‘self’ was enjoying the heat of the moment, lost in the passion of exposing herself for the world to see. She spun away from the intimate distance, joining Jamir shoulder-to-shoulder as the final seconds ticked down and their feet seemed to blur beneath them. This is what she had been after, the secret buried beneath the layers of human complexity and illogical behavior, a feeling so foreign to her but one she cannot imagine to live without from that moment on:
Passion.
Her arms lashed out, framing her new ‘self’ perfectly as she shouted with the final note.
For his part, win or lose, Jamir was satisfied. “You did you, just as I expected… no, huhu.. you exceeded my expectations.”
None of his prior aggression was there, he was just a guy congratulating a partner.
“Though… My performance has yet to conclude. There’s a small, special part, just for you.”
Before he could hand the android the contracted thumbdrive, she caught him off guard with another full-body hug. “Thank you! For everything. For helping me reach this new level of emotion! I didn’t even know if…if it was even possible for me.”
Jamir nodded, doing his best to maintain his cool nonchalance as the android continued.
“And Carmelita too…I think I’m grateful for what they did to bring this out, but…” 2095 hesitated. “I also hate them. I hate them so much. Is that right?”
"....huhuhuhu. I have tasted hate in its many forms, in fact I can say I've been molded by it. It's a fire. An intense. Burning fire..." Jamir smirked. This would be very interesting to watch indeed. "How will you use it? Will it be your dance? Will you control it, or will it control you? These are questions I cannot answer for you, you must choose the path you walk for yourself."
As his partner literally processed this information, Jamir took the opportunity to return to his planned remarks. “But this may be helpful to you.”
Still not breaking her hug, he slipped the android a thumbdrive alongside a business card.
“That there is a ’memory recording’, a vessel into which I’ve transferred some of my memories. It’s one of the many services I provide…has commentary I think you’ll find gainful.” He grinned, “Ah. Don’t worry for me, I’ve already made a copy.”
He turned about, offering 2095 a backwards wave as she released him from the embrace.
“I hope you’ll come see me again… As the Merchant of ’Desires’ there’s plenty I can offer you - not that you can’t find it on your own! Huhuhuhu~”
(Shoutouts to u/TheSlyKoopa for the match concept and mechanics!)
Scenario: Pic du Midi de Bigorre, France — 10:46 AM
Located in the French Pyrenees, the mountain Pic du Midi de Bigorre hosts the famous Pic du Midi Observatory! Construction of the observatory began in 1878 under the Société Ramond, until rising costs forced them to hand over construction to the French government. Construction was completed in 1908, and the following year, its powerful equatorial reflector was used to discredit the theory that there were canals on Mars! Today, the observatory is used for international collaborations to advance our knowledge of the cosmos!
Silence permeated the snow-packed peaks of the Pyrenees mountain range. The untouched snow and stark landscape muffled any sound outside of the howl of the freezing mountain winds. At this elevation, little life could exist—save for the scientists of the Pic du Midi Observatory and, for today only, their guests.
The search for the lost civilization of Pieduro attracted the attention of many powerful players from across the Mediterranean, all eager to get their hands on its artifacts and technology—most notably, the enigmatic House of Muses and their patron, Cullinan Dwarf Star. But the man spearheading the charge didn’t represent any of them. Over the past several months, Dédalo Viatger and his faithful companion ｢Perdida｣, intrepid explorers and part of the crew of the H.H. Typhon, had discovered several Pieduron outposts and claimed their artifacts for himself. He didn’t want them for power or money—he wanted to protect them, study them, learn from them. And day by day, Dédalo was getting closer than ever to a major breakthrough.
Today, he and a small group of other explorers were on the trail of one such breakthrough. An avalanche had broken through an ice wall on the side of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, revealing the telltale architecture of a Pieduron outpost. The journey would be treacherous, even for an explorer of Dédalo’s caliber. He needed backup.
At the mouth of the cave behind the shattered ice wall, the Pyrenees stretching out behind him like a blank canvas, Dédalo studied a Temple gifted to him by Al; a small glass orb with a crystalline compass needle suspended inside via string. The red tip of the needle pointed straight ahead, leading further into the natural cave system hidden inside the mountain.
“We’re in the right place,” Dédalo announced. “Everyone ready to go inside?”
“Gladly,” replied a shivering Ninian, immediately switching on her headlamp and heading further into the cave. “This outpost had better be a Pieduron sauna or something. Fucking freezing out here.”
“I have spare warming pads in my pack if you need them. Don’t go too far inside!” Dédalo called into the cave. Ninian ignored him, sat down in a corner, and summoned a small pile of hot sand from the recesses of Endless Rest as a makeshift campfire.
Perdida materialized beside him, concerned. “We did try to warn her about the wind-chill. And how cold leather can get in these conditions.”
“At least we convinced them to ditch the fishnets,” Dédalo chuckled. “Grey? Cody? Are you two ready to go?”
Grey Selioutsky took a moment to respond, looking up from his notepad to give a silent thumbs-up. To see a bonafide ancient civilization must have been a dream come true for a history teacher—he could be forgiven for being excited.
Cody, meanwhile, was leaning against the wall of the cave, watching the group with amusement. It wasn’t his first time working with members of the Hundred Head Voyage, having made a temporary alliance with them before to take down top members of Agoraeus. Volunteering to help them on behalf of the Coleccionistas de Karma was an easy decision to make. Plus, he’d rather be the one to be involved with Pieduro than someone like Deimos. He would have been salivating over the ancient technology, if his new body even had saliva.
After their preparations, the party traveled further into the caves, guided by the needle of Dédalo’s Temple. It led them through winding tunnels, around pits of icy stalagmites, and over near-bottomless chasms via convenient stone bridges.
“It’s like they hollowed out the mountain,” Grey muttered to himself. Perdida marveled at her surroundings with a similar look of awe. No wonder Pieduro covered most of the Mediterranean at their peak.
The group suddenly stopped. At the head of the party, Dédalo stared at the gigantic cave that spread out in front of them, illuminated by their headlamps. Stalactites hung from the high hemispherical ceiling, a wide stream of brackish water cutting through the cave and draining deeper into the mountain. Carvings covered the floor, worn by time but still recognizably man-made—words in a language that Cody could only guess was Pieduron, circling in a spiral around an altar-like stone set in the middle of the floor with seven divots carved into it.
“Any idea what this is?” Ninian asked, their voice echoing off the walls of the cave as the group surveyed the chamber. Dédalo shook his head.
“This is definitely Pieduron architecture,” he replied. “But…it’s nothing that I’ve ever seen before.”
Grey traced a finger over the carvings, studying his notebook in his other hand. “I can only recognize a few words. Temple…lock…viewer…a word that means either “Earth” or “sphere”...and heart.”
Dédalo’s hands unconsciously went to his neck. Adjusting the collar of his coat, he pulled out his necklace, a tortoise-shaped medallion with a square crystal embedded in the center. As he held it to the divots, the crystal glowed with a greenish-blue light.
“El Cor Terra…the Earth Heart,” Dédalo whispered. “Perdida, can you call the Pilots?”
Perdida focused and summoned the baseball-shaped orbs of light to her side. The numerous Temples that Dédalo had gathered on his previous adventures began to glow—and the carvings glowed along with it, the greenish-blue shimmer of Cleria Stone now visible underneath the rock. One by one, Dédalo inserted each of his Temples into the divots. His sword, his bow, his boots, his gauntlet, even the necklace that had never left his side until now.
He nodded to Perdida. She brought the Pilots closer to the altar and, with great care, infused them with each of the seven Temples.
Immediately, the carvings illuminated, bathing the darkened cave with a warm glow. The stream of water bubbled and light shone through it, refracting across the walls in an array of dazzling colors. The colors shimmered and focused into spots of light. Then, three-dimensional shapes began to form in the light. A night sky filled with stars, miniature approximations of the planets, and constellations of great beasts and serpents; humanoid figures dressed in unfamiliar but impressive regal garb, surrounded by more in similar clothing; great, towering buildings under construction in mountains and sand dunes and jungles.
“Holograms…” Cody muttered. “Sweet.”
“It’s more than that,” Dédalo wondered aloud. “It’s a theater. A theater of the history of Pieduro.”
Ninian squinted at the holograms showing the Piedurons in wartime, studying their elaborate weapons with a mix of amazement and concern. “Good thing E.E.P. didn’t find this place first. They’d have a field day.”
Wiping an immaterial tear from her eye, Perdida laid a gentle hand on Dédalo’s shoulder. “Dalo,” she whispered. “If these projections show the history of Pieduro…do you think that it shows…the end?”
Dédalo nodded solemnly. “I was thinking the same thing. It doesn’t seem chronological, but-”

KRNK!

All five heads whipped downwards in the direction of the metallic crash that resounded throughout the chamber. Stood to a projection of a Pieduron warrior, a very real armored silhouette loomed over them from a previously unseen lower level, resting their hands on a massive greatsword with its tip planted in the stone.
“The Piedurons met the same fate as all living things,” a harsh metallic voice announced. “They died, decayed, and disappeared. The true question is…will you suffer the same?”
Scenario—Earlier that day
“Weaklings, the lot of them,” Errok thought aloud. He stared at the party from above, marveling at the naivete so nakedly on display. Studying weapons of great power? Protecting them?
“Hnrh. A weapon’s only purpose is to kill and maim.” An unsightly blemish against the mountain-white snow, he had been following this party of would-be adventurers since the base of the mountain, using his rotten arm to scale a part of the mountain they wouldn’t see him approaching from.
Despite his ability to keep pace, mountain climbing was far from his area of expertise; when Errok couldn’t throw himself up the mountain face with his fell arm, he lumbered and clattered around the uneven surface until he shuffled into the same entrance his prey had used. He spoke to an audience of himself as he stalked across the rafters of this strange complex, hollowed out of the mountain. “This temple could contain only that, yes…some weapon of unimaginable power. Ohohoho…what could such a weapon destroy?”
Errok knew what he was about to say was wishful thinking, but wish he did. However outside his wheelhouse this excursion was proving to be, it was far from the first indignity rained upon him. The Spaniard had left his accursed organs within Errok’s perfect form, and he had been relegated to a mere lowly thief to steal resources from others for his ‘team.’
Bah! It had weighed on Errok, this attack on the warrior of waste’s very soul, and he’d had more than enough. From this moment on, he was striking out for himself; he would suffer these slights no longer and seek a weapon to reduce anything in his path to ash.
“The soul…yes, that would be the perfect target indeed. To destroy the soul is to destroy utterly, to leave nothing behind…” Errok chuckled. “...To truly rot something away; that’s something I’d kill for!”
Engrossed in the dramatic gravitas of his soliloquy (and subsequent fit of chuckling laughter), Errok’s foot met an icy patch, and he slipped headfirst over the edge of the platform, forcing him to swing Gravetender to catch himself.
The sword snagged a crevice, wedging open some stuck aperture. His eyes darted to the opportunity, and his hand reached out to grab it. Lest he fall to the base of the mountain, ｢You Are Blood｣ burst forth, coiling into what must have been the air vent, fingers finding putrid purchase as he swung precariously, holding himself up by sheer brutish strength. Strength that so easily came to him, and let him so easily gradually rappel himself inside the temple proper.
Whatever this was, it most certainly wasn’t the traditional path inside—the creaking of machinery not meant to support him confirmed that he had broken the intended sequence. A smug grin curled across his visage as he shuffled through the narrow passage. “I have defiled this temple’s consecrated path; rot flows from my very footsteps.”
Before him was an empty chamber, grand and numinous in design; if any great and terrible was ever to be stored, it would certainly be locked away somewhere like here. The only sound was the whispering of the whelps above. Even if he did not yet have a weapon to destroy the soul, he had his trusty blade to carve through them all the same. Still ignored, he squeezed out from the vent and brandished the sword with a flourish, spinning it and slamming it into the ground with a mighty

KRNK!

Cody glanced around at the group, weapons drawn and Stands summoned. Ninian looked the most surprised to see the figure below.
“Errok?” She yelled. “What the bloody hell are you doing here?!”
“Nothing of your concern, girl,” Errok spat, relishing the menacing echo that the stone walls gave his voice. “Now, stand aside, lest your blood stain these relics of the past that you find so precious-”
Wait. Where did one of them go?
Errok ducked, nearly catching a surfboard across the jaw, as Cody skid to a stop next to him, having spiraled and surfed down from the group. The rest of the party was most immediately interested in learning about Pieduro, he was just tagging along for help and for fun. Buying them time to make the proper discovery was doing both.
“Damn. Almost got you.” Cody grinned, tucking ｢Surfin’ Bird｣ under his arm similar to Errok’s own stance. “Listen, dude, if you wanted to kill us, just kill us, ‘kay? You look scary enough as is, you don’t have to give a whole speech about it.”
“Ahahaha-” Errok rasped, his armor creaking discordantly. “This temple’s guardian, trying to prevent me from plundering its riches, superweapons sealed away for the destruction they might wreak.”
Cody blinked. “…No, I’m just a friend of Dédalo. He’s the blue-haired dude in the hat. And I’m pretty sure that the Temples are the artifacts; I think this place is actually called an outpost. Besides, we haven’t found any-”
“You haven’t found them yet!?” He barked, a revolting grin spread across his face. “Then I suggest you get out of my way, before you taste the edge of Gravetender.”
Cody quickly glanced up at the higher level. Dédalo had already disappeared, probably continuing deeper inside the outpost with the others. The carvings and holograms were beginning to shift, long-inactive mechanisms whirring to life. A section of the wall suddenly lit up like a screen, showing an image of an age long past. The rest of the expedition party was surely watching the display with academic interest, and if ‘Errok’ was going to disturb them…
“Alrighty then,” Cody pointed at the glowering titan before him. “If you want to get to the secrets of this temple, then you’ll have to get through me.”
“Very well! I will christen my conquest of this temple with your blood!” Errok bellowed, hoisting his sword into the air and tightening the gauntlet containing ｢You Are Blood｣ into a fist. “OPEN THE GAME!”(Shoutouts to u/TreeTurtle_852 for the match art!)
Location: Pic du Midi de Bigorre, France; more specifically a hidden Pieduron “planetarium” recently discovered within the depths of the mountain.
The arena is a 40m diameter hemisphere with each tile being 2x2 meters, a projection of light along the domed ceiling being the only source of light
Over time the maps will change and has 5 stages:
Stage 1 and Stage 2:
  • Green Triangles are trees
  • Small Circles are player starting positions
Stage 3:
  • Dark Teal Squares are 2.5x2.5 buildings
  • Cyan Arrows are Jump Pad Temples
Stage 4 and Stage 5:
  • Pale Red Ring is a floating platform
  • Red Frowny Face is the large face that extrudes from the mountainside in Stage 5
  • All remaining trees will wilt at the end of Stage 5
Goal: RETIRE your opponents!
Additional Information: The documentary has 5 stages, each depicting a different era of Pieduro - changing the terrain and lighting along with it. Each stage lasts for about 1 minute, with the last stage remaining as is until the fight is over.
Stage 1 - Birth of Civilization
  • The lights go completely dark in the circular room as a large spire of Cleria extrudes from the center (18m tall, 10m diameter). A soft, sunset orange glow illuminates the room as holographic farmers start tilling the "fields" around the central mountain. 2m tall trees will also have grown just in time for the “game” to have been “opened”. Over the course of this stage, the holographic farmers will move to areas where trees have been uprooted by players and said trees will regrow with B POW and B SPD. These trees and any components players tear off of them are Stand-affecting.
Stage 2 - Discovery of Spirit
  • The lights dim once more and a crescent moon appears at the peak of the dome. White orbs will start to randomly appear across the stage to further illuminate the area. These orbs have A DUR and can be physically manipulated by Stand and user alike.
Stage 3 - Creation of Temples
  • The arena makes sudden changes during this stage. Any still-rooted trees in a 5m donut around the mountain's base will wither away, and that section of ground will rise 5m. 12 2.5x2.5m hollow cubes representing buildings will erect on this new platform, evenly spaced out around the mountain similar to the numbers on a clock. Facing outward on each building is a door, in front of which is a "Temple" artifact resembling a streetlight. These can be easily pulled out of the ground and when activated, will attract all loose wood in a 1m radius around the top "light" portion of it. Also, at the base of the new raised platform in each cardinal direction, a "jump pad" Temple will extrude out of the floor. When activated, the jump pad will consume its energy source and allow its user to jump 15m up into the air and land safely back on the ground. Each Temple can be activated with one of the floating orbs formed in the previous stage. The lighting during this stage also changes to a sky-blue color.
Stage 4 - Diaspora of Influence
  • The lighting changes to a deep purple color as images of famous landmarks from past civilizations appear along the walls of the dome. A large, flat, floating ring appears at the peak of the mountain that pulses with white light. The jump pad Temples from the previous Stage can allow players to jump up to this ring platform. Along the edge of the floating ring, players can find removable "Pieduron candle" Temples that can consume one of the floating orbs to eject a 2m B POW spray of fire - though each of these Temples only has one use. There are about 15 of these along the ring.
Stage 5 - Peak of Hubris
  • The lighting in the room gradually shifts to an ominous red color as a humanoid face forms on the side of the mountain, the number 0 etched into its forehead. This face takes one whole minute to form, and as it finishes its eyes will suddenly flow red as well. Abruptly, all glowing orbs from Stage 2 will extinguish and all active Temples will deactivate. The remaining planted trees from Stage 1 will wither as well. Oddly enough, the floating ring platform and its pulsing glow will be unaffected. These effects will remain as is for the rest of the match.
Temple Items:
  • Wood Magnets: Streetlight-looking Temples that can be easily pulled out of the ground. When activated, they will attract all loose wood in a 1m radius around the top "light" portion of it with C Power.
  • Jump Pads: Emblemed panels on the ground around the base of a raised platform. When activated, the jump pad will consume one floating orb placed into it and allow its “user” to jump 15m up into the air and land safely back on the ground.
  • Pieduron Candles: Small, cone-shaped trinkets that can consume one of the floating orbs to eject a 2m B POW spray of fire - though each of these Temples only has one use.
The whole room, and anything stated to be made of Cleria, is A DUR.
Team Combatant JoJolity
Bastards of Barcas Errok “I, Nikolas Garland, seek a true God, with true power... not some mythical deity invented to scare children!” Embody the Pieduron element of “Obsidian”, symbolizing power and its contradictory brittle nature in how it can often bring down those that use it as well!
Coleccionistas de Karma Cody Enfield “That's what I'm screamin'! Walls, zero; Dogi the Wall-Crusher, like, a million! Who needs doors, when they got me?!” Embody the Pieduron element of “Quicksilver”, symbolizing the chaotic flow of nature and how the clashing of the wills of mankind are constantly changing the world around them!
Link to Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!
About a week ago…
“Turn me into a pig too.”
Circe blinked. “From whence do you come, castaway?”
“Serbia. Punjab. Turn me into a pig.”
“...okay, fine.”
And Dirty Ghost became a pig. It felt the sun on its back, heard the snurfling of its piggy companions. There was no need to harm the woman who did this, no desire to disembowel her and wear her intestines as a scarf. The only thing on the swine’s mind were how nice the mud felt on its body and the warmth of the sun felt against its skin. The heat was counteracted by the cold mud, the cold was counteracted by the sun.
There is no need to push forwards. There is no need to find something stimulating and new. There is no emptiness, no boredom, no thoughts of the future or past. There is a mud puddle.
As the swine swaddled itself in its ego death, followed around by the other pigs that once comprised its ship, another castaway landed on the other end of the island. The next morning, Circe awoke to the smell of… fresh-cooked pork? And not only so, but a variety of different smells, incredible dishes made to only the finest of standards. Fresh herbs, meats cooked to perfection, a veritable buffet of mouth-watering, tantalizing meals.
…But why?
Val waltzed to Circe, crouching down to explain, ”The dinner’s almost ready, so prepare yourself for the show of a lifetime!” with that elusive charisma of hers.
Before Circe could interrupt her, she slid dish after dish towards her, pork cooked every which way, bacon, ham, soups, pomegranate punch, fig jam, and more.
”Now, let’s turn to our judge, for the final scores! Were those dishes scrumptious enough to undo my cursed luggage?” She cackled, turning to Circe. When Circe finally agreed…
”This concludes today’s episode of the Valentine Yao Cooking Hour; we certainly hope you enjoyed our program, but we must be going now!”
Val returned to her pigs, now again a realized vessel. She gathered more wood in thick slices of logs and the fibers of grasses, for the braiding of ropes
And she boarded once again, with a barrel of salt-pork in tow and her canvas under her arm.
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2023.03.26 01:03 BoomJunPyo [SELL][US] Beauty of Joseon, Benton, Bonajour, Celimax, Cosrx, Gilla8 Skin Lab, I'm From, Isntree, Laneige, Logically Skin, Mizon, Nacific, Naturie and Rovectin

Verification (Overall view)
Notes:
-------
&honey: Verification
Beauty of Joseon: Verification
Benton: Verification
Bonajour: Verification
CELIMAX: Verification
COSRX: Verification
Gilla8 Skin Lab: Verification
I'm From: Verification
Isntree: Verification
Laneige: Verification
Logically, Skin: Verification
Mizon: Verification
NACIFIC: Verification
Naturie: Verification
ROVECTIN: Verification
Freebies/Samples: Verification Order: Name Quantity (if applicable) Expiration date (if applicable)
Non samples:
Samples:
submitted by BoomJunPyo to asianbeautyexchange [link] [comments]

2023.03.26 00:54 Heyagal I Need Help!!

submitted by Heyagal to resumes [link] [comments]

2023.03.26 00:31 softerection66 Are dr Scholls good for short term use.

So I went to my primary care doctor yesterday and she said the first step towards recovery is trying an oral steroid. I started the steroid today but my foot pain has been the worst it's been. When I took my first dose which I take when I first wake up. When I took ibuprofen I would feel the effects about 30 minutes after taking but I really haven't felt the effects of the steroid at all. But it's still early so im not counting it out yet. But my PC doctor said if the steroid did not help the next step would be seeing a specialist or physical therapy. I'm assuming she would send me to see a specialist to see if insoles would help. Also I feel like my pain (which is in my arch) is because of lack of support. So is Dr Scholls cheap insoles worth for a few weeks? I've read that is works for some but they wear out pretty quick.
submitted by softerection66 to PlantarFasciitis [link] [comments]

2023.03.26 00:27 cimma Some guidance/support please

Hello all,
I am post break-up since November and no contact since January. I feel like it's gotten only worse since no contact I enforced.
For context, in November my partner told me that while they "loved me, they weren't in love with me." Upon asking what the factors that caused the break, I was given that I was perfect, considerate of my ex's numerous boundaries, and that things were fine. Her words before she left were her "desperately" needing me in her life. It was nothing but confusion since there nothing I could base the break up on. During the contact trying to be friends, she gave severe mixed signals in which her family, best friend, and my friends have labeled it as manic/not sure what she is doing/etc. All the individuals still reaching out to this day wishing to maintain a friendship. We were planning a wedding this past summer and I was actively looking for rings.
I went full no contact when I began to clean out the rest of her stuff and found a journal. This journal began to state how she was worried what everyone else would think and that they would have recommended she communicate her issues, that she felt unhappy and stuck. Using a Phoenix analogy about how her happiness would rise up. This felt like a knife when her feelings of stuck felt like protection with a depiction of our relationship below.
We were together 5 years, living together for 2. We began living together as she was feeling stuck at home (she also had stuck feelings with her work). During this time she had a lot of boundaries due to past trauma, needing a very slow pace and support. Once we began living together, she hardly did anything besides the occasional trip to target for things we needed around the house. I cleaned, took care of animals, cooked, and initiated any sort of intimacy or plans that involved leaving the house. She on the other hand only wanted to play video games and watch YouTube. She would sit in the same spot before and after work until bed. When trying to communicate these issues of one sidedness, I got a "out of spoons and exhausted" reasoning. She often said she was waiting for the other foot to drop or that she could be more help around the house if I had more income to allow it.
To this day, her family informed me that she has continued the same behaviors. I set a boundary regarding not to speak about her for my own sanity. I've been following my therapist's guidance and attended CoDA meetings but I'm afraid it's not very beneficial with only 2 members (an old couple, who attached to me due to their issues)
Even with all this above, I desperately want to reach out and attempt to atleast communicate since she and I were planning a wedding and were very excited for our future regardless.. I just don't know when?
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2023.03.26 00:17 BunnyCat781_pup Overly sensitive, an absolute mess (1 week PP with baby #2)

I am struggling. Had my c-section 8 days ago and I’m feeling so emotional. I can’t hang out with my toddler (he’s struggling with new baby, and he’s very rough so we are slowly introducing baby to him).
My rant is about my over sensitive self. I know my issues go deeper in this, but I equate a lot of my self worth to sex. So not having any this week and knowing my husband has to take care of himself in that area temporarily is really getting to me. He made a comment about someone’s body being “bomb” and while I hid it in the moment, I wanted to ball my eyes out. For context, we were watching love is blind and comparing one of the women to a certain celebrity in which he commented her body was bomb.
Obviously, my body isn’t looking very bomb right now and I’ve never been one to get jealous. But I’m having a very hard time regulating my emotions. I don’t remember me being like this with my first born. This time I just cry a lot and I’m not the same. I don’t know if this is just baby blues, emotional regulation and when it crosses that line to depression.
I’m really struggling with how separate my household feels right now. My husband is amazing in taking full time care of our son during his time off from work while I primarily care for our newborn. He also waits on me hand and foot while healing.
I know I’m the problem here and I’m struggling with all the change going on. I’m struggling going from feeling so in love and grateful with for my family to literal tears of being frustrated with the healing process and changes.
Wondering if anyone can relate or share experiences. Wondering if I should share all of this with my doctor when I see her for my incision check. Hoping for no judgments. I know I’m being ridiculous.
submitted by BunnyCat781_pup to 2under2 [link] [comments]

2023.03.26 00:07 Commercial-Jaguar-17 Can someone help me with this please?

My antidepressants where change last June, but they got stopped in December and doctors said I wasn't on them for my depression and put me back on the ones I had before June. These tablets they put me on again I realised were actually the reason for a lot of issues I was having, that I originally thought was just part of having schizophrenia and depression. I can't take these tablets as it makes things worse, but I'm feeling really low, having issues with talking properly, thoughts and speech is all muddled and a lot more. I asked my doctor to refer me to a specialist to discuss/change my medication, but my doctor got a letter back from them at beginning of January saying to increase this medication that is giving me issues and that they closed the case. So my doctor said they will refer me again. So it's been weeks and the doctors said they are still waiting for a reply from the specialist they referred me too. So I called the specialist people and they said my doctor has not sent a second referral and I need to ask my doctor to send it again. I've been waiting since December for help and been waiting since January for no reason as they didn't even refer me again. They have sent me txt message to apply for counciling, but Im find even simple communication and expressing myself clearly very difficult and need help with medication before I can talk to a couciler. When I speak to the doctor's they just say I have to increase this medication that makes me paranoid, over think, very self conscious and makes me want to sleep all day and night. I feel like I'm being neglected by doctors/mental health specialist, and left just to get worse. I don't know what to do to get help, I've told them how bad I'm getting and they just don't care. In all honesty, I wish I could sue them, as they seem to not care that people can "sommit cuicide" when they don't get help, and my history has attempts and self harm. Sorry for how I've written this, I'm just really struggling to talk right now as it's just getting worse and worse. Thank you.
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2023.03.26 00:04 Lillian_Madwhip Lily Madwhip Must Die: Chapter 14 - 1600 Fahrenheit

On a scale of one to ten, one being touching a hot car on a sunny day and ten being falling into the sun, I’d put having something burst into flames in my hand at probably a four. I think four is reasonable. I mean, we’re not talking about blistering heat that roasts your meat black. We’re talking about a little, blue, cat doll just catching fire and enveloping your hand up to the wrist in white-hot angel fire.
I think anyone’s first instinct when something they’re holding bursts into flames is to drop or throw the item. Since I am anyone, I naturally throw the doll with a squeal that turns heads. It hits the side of the closest tent and tumbles down it, paw over whisker. It leaves a trail of little fires behind it. These don’t just sizzle and go out, they get bigger.
Did I mention the smoke? There’s black smoke billowing out of the doll like it’s one of those funny fireworks that does nothing but make smoke. It doesn’t move like smoke though. Smoke just goes up where I guess it gets sucked out into space or something. This smoke swirls around in a ropey fashion like a snake.
“Meredith?” I say to the smoke snake, “Is that you?”
The smoke snake does not respond. Instead, one of the teenagers shouts, “FIRE!” and throws a cup of soda at the side of the tent that’s burning incredibly quickly. They all scatter. Soda is apparently not an effective fire extinguisher. The flames just sizzle and then swallow more of the tent.
I decide not to stick around. “If you’re Meredith, follow me,” I tell the smoke snake, and then turn to run for the busy section of the carnival.
I don’t make it more than two steps before one of the bigger teenagers grabs me by the shoulder. He’s a lanky boy with black hair and one of those “I wanna look grown-up” half mustaches that you almost wonder if you can just rip it right off his face. He’s wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt. I bet Roger and this kid would have been best buds or bitter rivals if Roger hadn’t gotten turned into mashed potatoes.
“Hey! This girl started a fire!” he yells to nobody in particular.
A girl with really short cut bleached blonde hair and one of those nose stud things runs over and gets right in my face. “Let her go, Johnny!” she snaps at the boy holding me. I’m surprised because I thought from her expression that she was going to headbutt me in the face and knock me out or something. “She’s pretty badass in my book.” She looks me in the eyes with something I’m not familiar with. Is that... respect?
Johnny lets go of me.
“That thing’s gonna burn the whole carnival down!” the girl yells. She sounds pleased. She’s even got a big grin on her face as she watches the fire on the tent rise upward.
“Well I’m not sticking around to watch, babe!” says Johnny, and he takes off between two trailers across the way.
There’s already shouts rising over the sound of the crackling fire. I hear someone yell the word “fire!” and the sentence, “grab an extinguisher!” Just over the tent, where the main thoroughfare probably is, some woman screams, and a kid starts crying. Oh God, I’ve gone and killed everybody, haven’t I? The entire carnival is going to burn to the ground and everybody’s probably panicking and stampeding for the exits. Then the screaming lady lets out a big burst of laughter and I realize nobody on the other side of the tent is even aware of what’s going on over here yet.
“Come on!” the blonde girl pulls on my sleeve. I stumble over my own feet and fall to the ground. She doesn’t stick around to help me up. Instead she takes off after her friend Johnny, doing some sort of twirly dance in the process as she runs away into the dark.
I start to get up from the dirt when I notice dark liquid running out from under me. It’s blood. It’s all over my shirt. I’m a sopping wet, red mess. Also, the cow pitcher is shattered. I must have fallen right on it and it broke and I got Nate’s blood all over myself! How am I ever going to explain this to that angry man I borrowed it from?
“What’s going on?” asks Paschar, “I’m getting only bits and pieces. There’s a fire? Smoke? Snakes? Blood? Are you injured?”
Actually, now that he’s asked, there is a big piece of the cow pitcher sticking through my bloody shirt down in my tummy area. I pull on the end of it. There’s a nasty, burning sensation so I stop pulling. I’ve gone and stabbed myself with a cow pitcher! Is any of this blood mine?
“I’ve spilled Nate’s blood all over myself!”
“Don’t rub it in your eyes!”
I wasn’t gonna rub it in my eyes. It’s not like I’m tired or anything. My cousin Susie used to rub her eyes a lot but that was because she had really bad allergies. Her eyes were always bloodshot. Susie’s worst allergy was boat propellers though. She was deathly allergic to those. After her accident, my Uncle George developed really bad allergies too. I could tell because his eyes were always bloodshot.
Someone nearby yells, “Over here!” and a pair of men run up with big, red fire extinguishers. They start spraying the white foamy stuff at the side of the tent. At first, it doesn’t look like the foam is going to stop the flames, but after a minute of spraying and one of the extinguishers running out of juice, the fire hisses and goes out.
The man holding the used-up fire extinguisher looks at the big, black, scorched portion of tent, then down at the crispy, little cat doll on the ground. Then he turns and looks at the claw machine. The machine blinks its lights like it’s saying hello to him. The man finally looks over at me, laying in a small pool of warm blood. It’s the man with orange hair who passed by earlier that I hid from.
“Look what we got here,” he says with a funny accent. I think it’s Irish, but it might be Scottish. I’m not an expert on accents. Everything I know about accents I learned from this movie I watched with my dad about a Scottish guy who was immortal and he killed other immortal people by chopping their heads off with a giant sword. Well, that and Mary Poppins.
The other man sets down his fire extinguisher and turns around. He’s a beefy guy wearing a huge coat with lots of pockets and a floppy-looking cowboy hat. “Who’s that, Gin?” he asks in a non-accent voice.
“Get up, girly!” The man named Gin reaches down and grabs me by my collar. He pulls me halfway up to standing on my own two feet. In the process, the piece of cow pitcher that has punctured me in the tummy area shifts and causes more of that intense burning feeling I got when I tried to pull it out.
“OWWWW!” I yell, hoping he gets the hint and lets go of me.
He doesn’t.
Then I notice that the snaky trail of black smoke is circling his head like a creepy halo. I don’t think he or the other man can see it because if either of them could, they’d surely be freaking out and trying to wave it away.
“This,” Gin says with one of those half-smile smirks that shows the canine tooth on the left side of his mouth, “is who Clay was looking for.”
The black smoke snake hunches back like it's about to strike at the back of Gin’s head. Then it lunges forward and splashes like a wave against him, going in all directions. A moment later, it recollects itself into a cloudy-form and swirls angrily around him like a swarm of bees dealing with Winnie-the-Pooh.
Gin pulls me the rest of the way to my feet. This is good because I aim to kick him in his testicles and I couldn’t do that lying down. As soon as I’ve got my footing, I pull back, swinging my foot out behind me--
--at which point he brings his big, adult fist into the equation by punching me hard in the guts. The pain is so intense I feel like I’m going to puke. Even worse, there’s a really sharp stinging sensation and then a wet kind of warmth. No, I didn’t pee myself. Gin himself winces in pain as he pulls his fist back to reveal the piece of broken cow pitcher stabbed right up between his knuckles. He lets go of me so he can pull it out and I take the opportunity to drop to my knees and double over, clutching where he hit me.
“Word of advice to you, lass,” says Gin as he flicks the pitcher piece away, “don’t broadcast your intention to kick a man in the quongs if you don’t want to get punched in the ovaries.”
I’m too busy rubbing my face in the wet grass to respond but I’m thinking about how annoying this thing with saying what I’m thinking is and I wish I could stop doing it because it really makes fighting bad guys difficult. I wonder if I just said that thought, but judging from Gin putting his boot on the back of my head, I’m guessing not. Bleh, the grass is warm and tastes like ozone. I realize I’m getting Nate’s blood on me. Paschar said to not get it in my eyes!
“What is she, like ten years old?” I hear the other man say, “What about this brat’s got Clay so spooked? You could knock her over with a wet fart.” Thanks for that visual, Sir.
Gin lifts his boot off my head. I take the opportunity to get my face out of the bloody grass and wipe it off my mouth. I can’t tell how much is on my face.
“She killed his kid or sometin’,” he remarks casually, “burned him alive.” He pauses. I look up. He’s looking at the scorched tent. “Seems like she’s got a penchant for fire. Maybe we ought to give her a feel of what it’s like to get burned before we bring her to Clay. What do you say?”
I cough up some dirt I didn’t realize was in the back of my throat. “I didn’t kill Joey.”
Gin wanders a few steps away and the other man comes over and puts a hand under my armpit. He helps me up in a far gentler manner than Gin did. I don’t think about kicking him in the testicles and I don’t plan to. The two men share a brief look and I worry for a second that I just said all that.
“She’s got blood all over her,” the big other guy says, letting go of me and wiping his hands off on his dark jacket.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if she’s got shit and puke on ‘er,” Gin lights up a cigarette and takes a long drag on it. He looks at me like a kid with a magnifying glass looks at an ant. He blows out a small cloud of stinky smoke. I wonder if he can make smoke rings. “Give me her arm.”
Nothing good ever started with someone saying, “give me her arm.” I instinctively start to pull away, but the big guy puts his hand under my armpit again and moves me away from Gin, twirling me around so he’s between the two of us like a big wall.
“I’ve had enough of this. I’m not letting you put a cigarette out on a little girl. What the Hell is wrong with you, man?”
I put my free arm around his waist and give him as much of a hug as I can. Thank you, Mister, whoever you are.
Gin casually gestures toward the blackened tent flap and scorched patch of ground where the remains of my precious Freddy Lapel doll sizzles with otherworldly heat. “Look what she did, Dutch. She tried to burn down the whole carnival. Could have hurt somebody! Could have killed somebody--” He looks directly at me. “--again.”
Dutch’s thumb digs into my armpit but not so hard that it hurts. He smells like he had bacon recently. And he works on machinery or something, because there’s a distinct scent of motor oil on his clothes. I wonder if he knows Mr. Grizz.
“But thankfully nobody did get hurt. And I don’t know the full story between her and Clay, if there even is one. All I know is a grown-ass, Irish prick is telling me to let him put a lit cigarette on a ten-year old girl covered in blood and I ain’t about to be the guy that lets that happen.”
“I’m twelve actually,” I tell Dutch. He doesn’t hear or just ignores me.
The orange-haired creep named Gin takes another drag on his cigarette. I watch the end of it burn away between his fingers. Then he casually lifts one leg and puts it out on the underside of his boot. He flicks the butt away and then crosses his arms and stares at me hiding behind Dutch. If there was a clock, we could hear it ticking away, but there’s no clock. Instead, there’s just the hoots and hollers of people having a grand old time at the carnival.
After what seems like five minutes of just hard, quiet staring at each other like one of those Mexican standoffs in a Clint Eastwood Western movie --my dad used to love to watch Clint Eastwood movies. His favorite was called High Plains Drifter. I just watched for the horses-- oh right, like I was saying... after five minutes of that staring, Gin shrugs like he didn’t just step on the head of a little girl and then try to put a cigarette out on her.
“I’m fetching Clay.” He lingers for a moment, glaring at both of us, and then storms off in a hurried manner, really working his arms into it.
Dutch’s grip on my pit loosens. I stop hugging him and move away a step. He looks down at me. I can’t figure out what thoughts are going through his head. His expression seems like a jumble of worry and upset and even a little fear. He’s gotten all sweaty. He wipes it away with his sleeve and takes a rough breath.
“Thank you, Mr. Dutch,” I tell him.
He nods silently.
I check my pokey stab wound from the cow pitcher. It’s not leaking profusely but there’s blood and mud caked on my shirt and it’s sticking to me. I hope I don’t get a mud infection. I wish I better understood where germs come from. There’s blood all over my hands but I don’t know if it’s mine or Nate’s.
“I’m taking you to the front entrance and we’re calling the police,” Dutch tells me.
I almost forgot about the cloud of smoke. It is lazily drifting over Dutch’s head now, like a little, black raincloud. It moves unnaturally, not drifting away or dispersing in any way. Just a little, black raincloud over the man’s floppy hat.
We walk away from the burned tent and the claw machine in the opposite direction from the one that Gin went. A noise behind us makes me look back. A blonde woman with an apron covered with pockets from which prize tickets hang out all over comes out of a nearby booth alley and sees the mess I caused. She immediately zeroes in on Dutch and I walking away together.
“Oi! Dutch!” she calls out, “what the Hell happened here?”
“I’m dealing with it, Susie,” he tells her. He puts his hand on my arm as if to show that he’s got the perpetrator and is handling the situation.
I look up at him. “My cousin’s name is Susie.” I don’t know why I feel the need to mention that. My brain is kind of doing a reset at the moment as I try to figure out what I need to do and if that cloud is indeed Meredith’s soul like I think it is.
Mr. Dutch glances down at me and starts leading me away again. “Is that so?”
“My uncle ran her over with a motorboat.”
He frowns and looks away. “Oh.”
I realize I could have worded that better. “By accident.”
Paschar chimes in. “That’s probably not the best topic to be bringing up right now, Lily.”
Mr. Dutch seems to agree with Paschar. “Let’s just get you to the ticket booths, alright? Quiet like.”
Ahead of us, the back alleyway of tent flaps and old, unused arcade machines opens up to the main thoroughfare. I knew it was right there! I can see normal people, mostly adults because it’s so freaking late and kids have got school tomorrow but the carnival is in town so some parents brought their kids because some things are more important than school. Like fishing for little ducks with magnets on the end of a fishing line so you can get a ten cent knick-knack for the price of a couple quarters. Or shooting water in a hippo’s mouth and watching a balloon fill up from out its butt and whoever pops the hippo’s butt balloon wins a prize which is usually just a bunch of tickets like the ones that lady had falling out of her apron pockets.
The little, black cloud follows us, keeping just above Dutch’s head. I wonder if it intends to drop on him like an anvil in a Wile E Coyote cartoon.
Right before we reach the thoroughfare full of laughing, smiling people, I hear something. Fast approaching footsteps. They’re not speed walking; this is more like a jumbling hustle of several feet moving swiftly but trying to be quiet. Oh crap, it’s Gin and Clay. They’re going to burn me with cigarettes or rub deodorant on my wounds and stab me and light me on fire and--
There’s a hard WHOOMP sound right next to me followed immediately by a loud grunt like “UGH” but I can’t do it justice with words. It’s like the sound someone would make if they bang their elbow on the edge of a metal desk right where their funny bone is. Like right between the elbow joint bones, you know? Why does that hurt so bad? I think the person who named it the “funny bone” never hit the corner of a metal desk there. It’s the least funny bone in your body. Or second at least to the coccyx. That’s the little tail end of your spine. Yeah, we got tails. Humans got tails. They’re hidden though, tucked away in the butt area.
Dutch lets go of my arm. I turn to look at him. There’s a foot with a sneaker on it sticking out from between his legs. Just as quickly as I see it, it disappears. Mr. Dutch is the one making the pain sound. He reaches down and clutches his crotch, and his knees give out and he falls forward. Someone kicked this poor man in the testicles!
The foot belongs to the girl with the short, bleached blonde hair. She stands over the large, crumpled form of Dutch and looks at me with a triumphant grin.
“Bleep the authority!” she shouts and pumps her fist in the air. She’s wearing like a dozen rings on the one hand. How can she fit so many rings on such stubby fingers? “Let’s go!” she yells in my face even though I’m right there next to her.
Her friend Johnny is with her. He’s looking around anxiously. “Yeah, let’s get out of here already!”
I’m flabbergasted. “But Mr. Dutch was a good guy!” I try to tell the two of them.
They’re completely enthralled by their own sense of pride in a job well done, saving the little, bloody girl from the big man at the traveling carnival. Mr. Dutch is groaning in severe, testicle-kicked pain. I reach down to try to help him, and the blonde girl grabs my wrist.
“What are you doing?” she asks me through a smile that says she doesn’t even really care what my answer is, “we’re rescuing you! Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, let’s hoof it!”
I feel like that’s one too many horse-themed expressions in a single statement, but I don’t say anything. And not just that, there’s like twelve too many people getting involved in my problems lately. I’m not a complete idiot, I know well what happens to people around me. My whole family is dead. My best friend is... probably a little, black cloud that’s doing some sort of weird interpretive dance over the crumpled form of poor Dutch with the swollen balls. People get hurt around me. Hell, poor Dutch can attest to that at the moment. People die around me. People get torn apart by skinless dogs that form out of fungus that used to be old ladies and I can’t believe that’s even an actual thing I saw. I saw that. That happened.
I take the girl’s hand and remove it from my arm. “Look, I don’t know you or Johnny and you both seem really nice, but you need to get out of here before you get hurt. I’ll be okay. Mr. Dutch was taking me to get help. The bad people are coming, and they like to smoke. They’ve got an angel of death tied up somewhere. And there’s someone much, much worse who could show up any time.”
I think I lost them both somewhere around the part about that creep Gin being a smoker. The boy Johnny does another anxious look around the area, then he grabs the girl’s arm. “Nance, let’s just go. I didn’t come here to get murdered by some whacked-out carney cult.”
The girl Nance drops her arm and shakes her head at me. She starts to open her mouth to say something, then crumples it up into a little mouth and turns and trots away after Johnny. I watch them go. I don’t know who they were, but I hope they get far, far away. The curse of getting involved in my life has a long reach and is unforgiving.
After they leave, I kneel down and pat Mr. Dutch on the back. “All you alright, Mr. Dutch?” I ask him. He mutters something I can’t understand because he’s got his face shoved into the ground.
“You’re not cursed, Lily,” Paschar comments.
“Then why do bad things always happen to people around me?”
“Because your gift is chaotic,” I hear me say. Except I didn’t say it. Not me me anyway.
Paschar whispers, “Oh no.”
I feel the presence of another person standing right behind me. Unlike Nance and Johnny, this person didn’t make a sound. It was as if they rose up out of the ground or descended from the sky as silent as a feather touching a pillow. My whole body tenses up. That sounds impossible but it totally is possible and it’s incredibly uncomfortable. Don’t question it.
I turn around slowly. First at the neck, then the shoulder, finally at the waist. Why am I dragging this out? Because I don’t want to look behind me at the person because I know exactly who it is and I really don’t feel like peeing my pants right now. Or ever. But especially now.
For a second I think I’m just looking in a mirror because I see my own face. Except my actual face probably has more blood on it currently. But less blood everywhere else.
Samael smiles at me. “You got here ahead of me.” He looks at my clothes and then tilts his head and examines my face. “And from the looks of it, you’ve had one Hell of a time. Who did this to you? Was it him?” He points at Mr. Dutch who has finally rolled over onto his back and is staring up at the starry night sky with teary eyes and a really red face.
“This isn’t my blood,” I tell him.
He grins. “But this is,” he gestures at himself. Don’t pee, Lily. Don’t pee.
Paschar raises his voice. “Sam, please, you’ve got to come back! You’re unwell.”
“Really?? Did you really think that’s going to work?” That’s me talking. Actual me. Not Samael. “You can’t appeal to crazy! I mean, come on. You’ve got to have something to back your words up with. When in the history of ever has someone been on the verge of destroying a small carnival and someone else said, ‘don’t do it!’ and they were like, ‘oh, okay.’? Never!”
“She’s right.” Samael says, nodding and raising an eyebrow. Hey, I can’t do that. I try to raise one eyebrow, but I just end up raising both. So I stop and try again. But then I stop completely before it looks like I’m wiggling my eyebrows at him. He stares at me blankly for a moment after, then blinks a couple times and shakes his head.
Mr. Dutch rolls over and gets up onto his hands and knees. He lets out a big breath, then sits up and tilts his head back to look at Samael and me together. There’s a moment where he seems to accept what he’s seeing, but then he clenches his eyes shut, reopens them, cranes his neck forward and looks back and forth between us.
“Don’t hurt him,” says Paschar.
Samael smirks. It’s starting to feel surreal to see myself making faces when I can feel that I’m not. Also, everything’s slightly off because I’m looking at my actual face and not a mirror reflection of it. “I’m not here for Mr. Dutch,” says Samael, “I’m here for the rune-maker, remember? I’m here for Felix Clay.”
“Lillian Alexandra Madwhip!” someone shouts from the direction Mr. Dutch and I just walked away from.
As if he was just waiting in the shadows --which he probably was because it’s such a Felix thing to do-- Felix freaking Clay steps from seemingly out of nowhere and stands about ten yards down the alleyway from us behind Samael. Beside him is his orange-haired friend Gin, smoking another cigarette from the looks of the little glow I can see in his hand. I should have smelled him coming.
They’re a little ways off, but I can see them both pretty clearly, and Felix isn’t smiling. It occurs to me that he always smiled before, even when he was doing things that shouldn’t have made him happy. It’s like his smile is a mask he hides behind. But not now. Now he looks angry. And annoyed. And --why is he holding that hammer? He’s not even holding it right; he’s got the claw side down. He can’t hammer a nail that way unless his arms work backward.
“You came for me and here I am!” Felix yells at us, “But I told you not to come back. So now--” He and his Irish buddy Mr. Gin start marching toward us with very purposeful strides, and I can’t understand what he’s saying after the “so now” part. Mr. Gin pulls something I can’t see out of his coat and holds it close at his side. No doubt it’s a weapon, I just don’t know if it’s a stabby weapon or a shooty weapon or what.
Samael doesn’t look at them. He’s focused on me. He’s smiling. His hands are clenched at his sides, and I remember well that there’s a rune on one that lets him punch through people like they’re made of Play-doh.
As for me, I’m torn. Do I warn Felix that Samael can karate chop him into bits like some sort of bad horror movie? Or do I watch this play out? Maybe I should take this opportunity to just run. I mean, I can’t win against any of these people. Who am I? I’m a Knife That Cuts the Veil that’s dulled by the runes all over the carnival grounds.
While I stand there lost in that thought, Samael reaches forward and pokes me in the forehead. He starts moving his finger around. I just stand there and stare at him, waiting for him to jab a hole right through my head. Don’t pee, Lily. Don’t pee. What the heck is he doing?
“There,” he whispers to me, finishing whatever it is, “that should keep you safe. Just don’t smear it or your head might explode.”
As soon as he lifts his finger away, I can feel it. That tension I had that I mentioned early was all through my body, it just vanishes. I almost go completely slack in fact, but manage to hold myself up. Then comes a wave of warmth starting at the spot on my forehead that he last touched and encompassing my entire head, traveling down my neck, across my chest, down both arms at the same time, through my midsection and then hips, legs, ending at the tips of my toes. The pain in my abdomen that I had actually forgotten about also vanishes. I reach into the hole in my shirt to feel the wound. It’s still there and I feel my fingertip actually go inside the stabby hole for a second before I realize I’m still hurt; I just can’t feel it anymore.
“Who’s your little friend?”
Felix and Gin have finally reached us. Gin looks smugly at me, still holding his hand by his side. Samael turns to face them finally and Gin’s smug look is replaced with one of confusion. Felix stops mid-stride and even takes a step back. He also has a confused expression on his face. I don’t need to see Samael’s face to know he’s got the biggest grin on it right now.
submitted by Lillian_Madwhip to Lillian_Madwhip [link] [comments]

2023.03.26 00:03 WesternSol I am so dumb with stupid characters (Retired at 30 Isekai)

I actually sort of enjoyed the beginning of this show. The premise is interesting enough, with the arc of being fired and finding a new purpose being somewhat appealing. But the longer it went on the more holes appeared, mostly around the former Fire General Granbarza and his two sons, one adopted (the mc), and one blood son (the villain) the current fire general.
The first episode really makes it seem like the mc was someone who was only kept around because he was Granbarza's son. The only three things they tell you about him on episode one is that he can't cast magic like the rest of the demons, and he's the lowest ranking in the whole demon army, the fire general's aide. Now, this is kind of strange already because, in reality, secretaries are actually pretty important to the day to day runnings of an organization, and definitely wouldn't be below for example, foot soldiers on the hierarchy. But the Fire General fires him as an aide (and banishes him too) and none of the other Generals speak in his defense or try to keep him around.
But as the anime goes on, it quickly becomes apparent that the mc is not incompetent, and doesn't get an arc where he improves because he finds things to care about more or whatever. Well the latter part happens, he finds new things to care about, but actually he's already fantastic at everything he touches (sans demon magic), and was so even during his stint with the demon kings army. He even gets human magic (because it turns out the reason he couldn't do demon magic was he wasn't a demon, go figure) and is immediately the best at it evar. He'd been managing the most important economic assets of the demons, helping other generals not just the fire one (at least one of whom was in love with him or something). We're even told that the person they got to replace him doing the economic stuff was a new rank created just for that role on the same level as the 4 generals. And that was only one facet of his duties. They spend a considerable amount of time looking for him to take him back (one guy even tries to kidnap him). Which makes you wonder why they let him go in the first place? No one stood up to the current fire general? There are three other generals of the same rank in the army. Not one stepped in? In general this makes literally everyone seem retarded.
Now we get to my main gripe with the story: Granbarza, the old fire general, father of the current fire general (the villain) and adoptive father of the mc. I have never seen a more incompetent person who's written as though the story thinks he is competent in my life. So picture this: As a general in the demon army, you are constantly fighting with the humans and the hero. One day, your best friend, another of the generals is found severely injured in an unusually brutal fashion and bleeding out, and he tells you before he dies "The hero defeated me but I've struck a great blow against him! I've hidden the key to his defeat in a forest to the southeast." And you go there and find a magically concealed baby (so you know this must be what your friend was talking about). What is the first conclusion you would come to in this situation? In what context is a baby a weapon to defeat a hero? How would acquiring a baby be a great blow? You know where this is going because you have brain cells: The other general stole the Hero's child (the MC). But Granbarza fails to connect the dots. Seriously. When confronted by the Hero about how he stole his kid Granbarza says with remorse, "I had no idea my friend would commit such a shameful act!" And they make up somehow. Even when Granbarza figured out the mc was a human because he couldn't use demon magic, it didn't trigger him to reexamine the context of his adoption.
Not only that, but Granbarza somehow gives his blood son a inferiority complex to the mc while simultaneously failing to instill any self confidence into the mc or to tell him that even without demon magic he's valuable. He did this by TAKING HIS ADOPTED SON INTO WARZONES while leaving his blood son at magic school. We're shown that he only returns home every couple of months for a few days at a time. One of these times, he brings the MC with him and introduces him to his blood son "Finding Mc was the best thing that ever happened to me!" Now imagine that: You're like 10 years old, your dad is away constantly with work since you were like 4 and only comes back sporadically. And the first thing he does this time is introduce you to your "new" surrogate brother who is a few years older than you, who he's been spending every day with, and proceed to call HIM "the best thing that ever happened to [your father]". He literally told his son "I've found a replacement who I love more". And he acts like it too. His interactions with the villain as an adult are physically and verbally abusive, often saying the villain is an idiot and a failure who needs his brother to be effective. Meanwhile, all of the mcs flashbacks of Granbarza are him being rather supportive (but again, somehow he fails to show him that he is valuable without magic). And I have to stress, you're supposed to find this guy likeable. This isn't Endeavor, where they write him as a cunt so they can give him a redemption arc. Granbarza gets no redemption arc. There is nothing to redeem.
It is actually galling the longer you watch the show. Its like all the complaints about poor character arcs in MHA on steroids.
submitted by WesternSol to CharacterRant [link] [comments]

2023.03.25 23:54 TheproducerPHD What kind of doctors and tests ?

I’m in New York! What kind of doctors and specialists should I seek out? Any tests I should push for or get myself ? Please let me know any advice or suggestions! Appreciate it!
I’m gonna go to my primary care doctor April 3rd but they usually just gaslight and will say some dumb shit. But they’ll test my bloodwork-
Any supplements suggestions or peptides or anything lmk! And tests and doctor recommendations!! Lmk
submitted by TheproducerPHD to covidlonghaulers [link] [comments]

2023.03.25 23:46 ThrowRA7318237129 AITA for not wanting to leave My (M32) GF's (F27) friend out on the street?

Friday night, my GF is having a celebration dinner with her classmates for her school, and partners are invited. The original plan was to go for about an hour and then go do our own thing. Dinner time comes and I go to pick her up, and her friend/classmate is with her to carpool with us.
Since her friend is with us and we're driving fairly far to get to another part of the city for the dinner, I suggested maybe we could all get desserts afterward. That was the plan going into this, and all is well.
Dinner was great too and my GF got to enjoy the time with her friends and classmates. Instead of leaving after an hour, we ended up staying for about 3 hours. Which was totally fine and great because everyone was enjoying themselves.
Fast forward to about the end of dinner - one of her friends lobbied up the idea to go to a Club next. This was obviously a curveball and we were down for it, and others were too, except for the friend that came with us in the carpool. Long story short, it was obvious she was pensive and had reasons that were making her uncomfortable about going to the club. We were all still able to convince her to go for just a little bit (aka some peer pressure Lol).
As we all left to head to the club and the 3 of us were walking back to the car... the friend realized she didn't even have her ID on her, which made going to the club a total no-go for her obviously. We sat in the car and discussed for a bit what to do. The friend said we can just go to the club and drop her off on the street and she'd take an Uber back home herself. Although I didn't want to get in the way of things because I was just the driver, I also wanted to be thoughtful and considerate... so I may have been more skewed towards NOT leaving her out by herself while we went to the club, which wasn't even part of the plan initially. So I triple-checked the situation and ultimately asked my GF to make the final call, and she decided to just go get dessert at a place near home and go to the club another time.
On the drive back, I have a conversation with the friend about a mutual topic all three of us knows about... We get to the dessert place, stay there for about an hour and continue the conversation which ends up being pretty involved. My GF at this time is talking less and less and suddenly is getting sleepy.
Now the problem - when we get back and drop her friend off, my GF suddenly gets into a HUGE argument with me and said I wasn't being emotional and I cared more about her friend than her and that I was being careless, etc. She said I only cared about her friend having a good time. As I mentioned earlier, I felt some guilt about leaving her friend out on the street when we were her ride, and going to the club was never the plan anyway. Even though her friend said it was okay, I still felt like that would have been a rude thing to do. My GF feels otherwise, she said if the friend said it was okay, then it was okay.
She said I was only having a conversation with her... I was just trying to conversate and the mutual topic got interesting, but it was a MUTUAL TOPIC and I asked my GF many times about her thoughts along the way. It's just the way the conversation went and I wasn't sharp enough to realize she was tuning out and suddenly getting sleepy.
She said I was being dismissive and inattentive because we didn't go to the club instead. I get I was trying to steer things more heavily to what I thought was a good compromise - not leaving her friend out and still getting dessert like we originally talked about. It's evident now that my GF REALLY wanted to go to the club instead, but I feel like she should have put her foot down on that choice when I asked her to make the call. I was only able to do what I felt was right and not guilty, but I wasn't able to make the executive decision between my GF and her friend... To me, going to the club with one group of friends versus getting dessert with the other friend were both positive things for my GF.
So AITA and the one lacking emotional intelligence in this situation?
tldr; carpooled with GF and her friend to a dinner, got surprised with an invite to go clubbing... friend couldn't go, I didn't want to leave the friend out on the street to Uber home since we were her ride. I let my GF make the final call, we go back with friend to get dessert instead. I'm now being told I was not being emotional and an asshole.
submitted by ThrowRA7318237129 to relationship_advice [link] [comments]

2023.03.25 23:41 ReceptionMountain333 Typical Rant/Looking for Advice: Off-Leash in an On-Leash Park

This is a typical rant…
I specifically seek out on-leash parks to trail run. My four-legged partner-in-crime tends to get nervous with off-leash introductions so I do this for her comfort.
Today, while running, we came across an off-leash dog. I saw him 200ft out and initially thought he was a coyote. I stopped dead in my tracks and held the traffic handle. I kept yelling “no”, “go away”, “get”. His owners were about 200ft away the dog. They tried all of 3 times to recall - didn’t start coming to get their dog or anything. The dog ended up in hunting mode - head down, staring, not wagging the tail, and scruff stood up big. He approached us, even with my foot out like I’d kick him, and showed his teeth. Finally I screamed at the dog and he retreated. The owners kept trying to hike without leashing him. When I told them it was an on-leash park they balked at me; when I told them I’d call animal control for the aggressive dog they quickly leashed him up. Never apologized.
I went a different way but ended up behind them on another trail. The dog was off-leash again. I yelled that I was approaching. The dude jumped and leashed up the dog after several failed recalls.
I waited in my car in the parking lot and took pictures of his license plate. If I see his car there, I’ll just go to a different park.
What should I have done differently? What should I carry in case this happens again?
TLDR: approached by off-leash aggressive dog on trail that is on-leash only - wouldn’t stand down to my normal scare tactics. Owners didn’t care. Want to know how to handle it better next time and what to carry in case.
submitted by ReceptionMountain333 to RunningWithDogs [link] [comments]

2023.03.25 23:21 shining-brightly Constipation after cerclage

I am 20 weeks and 4 days along with my 4th baby. On Wednesday (20+1) we had our anatomy scan and discovered that for unknown reasons my cervix was extremely short, 9mm I believe they said. This was never a concern for my previous pregnancies and was not on my radar at all. Baby girl is healthy and strong. We were sent immediately to a Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist where they squeezed us in to finish the sonogram and assess. This doctor discovered that my cervix was actually open already and my amniotic sac was bulging into my vaginal canal. He was able to get us into surgery within 2 hours from that moment. I had a cerclage placed and was kept overnight for monitoring. I am now home on bedrest and will be returning for assessment in a week. I have had bleeding, but it is mucousy as opposed to watery so that is apparently fine (though still frightening to me).
Today is 3 days after the surgery and I felt like I needed to poop. So I tried a little. But it's huge and hard and I started freaking out bc they told me to be careful not to get constipated. I'm assuming this is to prevent pressure and pushing. Idefinitely strained a little and then realized that My vagina felt bulgy and swollen so i sucked back in what I couldnt get out and wiped what was there but now I'm basically laying in bed prarie dogging it with a massive poo because I'm scared to push it out. (Laying down the poop feeling has subsided, but i still feel preasure, although it is extreemly possible that I'm over imagining that bc im nervous). I have been taking iron and I know that probably contributed as well, but I'm severely annemic so I kinda need to continue that. I had previously been balancing the constipation with natural calm (a magnesium supplement) HOWEVER my husband has always been against me using it to poop and since he is bringing everything to me I know he has been giving me half the dose that I usually give myself. I know that he is concerned about me using too much but like literally I need it right now. How much natural calm/magnesium is too much? He's gone to get stool softeners (he forgot them the last time he ran to the store). I take 2 scoops of the powder, the tub comes with a little scooper I can't go check what the amount is though.
Basically, am I freaking out over nothing? He did just bring me a strong drink of the natural calm and I'm hoping it doesn't take ages to kick in. Should I try to poo? Or try to wait until it comes out easy? Will that happen since I took the stronger amount of magnesium and am hopfuly going to take a stool softener soon as well.
What would you do? I feel really dumb posting this as the entire experience has been kinda traumatic but this is the part I'm focused on right now you know? Like, holy eff I don't want to rip out my stitches trying to poo. Thanks
submitted by shining-brightly to ShortCervixSupport [link] [comments]

2023.03.25 23:18 Panthera_leo_leo Could it be sesamoiditis?

For the last week and a half, I've been experiencing pain in the ball of my foot, a little under my big toe and second biggest toe. It's a dull pain most of the time, but I've been getting sharp pains when I walk on it. Sometimes it's just a little discomfort, other times there's a popping within my foot when my big toe is most bent, associated with more intense shooting pain. The popping is becoming more frequent the past few days and the pain is lingering longer.
I found this sub and have been reading about the long term troubles you guys have had, and it's making me nervous. I've been keeping off of it as much as possible and wearing hard soled shoes all the time (no barefoot walking as that hurts the most), but it feels like it's gradually getting worse.
Having trouble getting into my primary. Should I go straight to a specialist anyway? Go to urgent care for at least an x-ray? Something more I should do at home?
submitted by Panthera_leo_leo to sesamoid [link] [comments]

2023.03.25 23:11 Morzo_Voidmaster [FN] A Cretaceous Fairy Tale

In the Late Cretaceous of a fairy tale world much like our own live critters, familiar yet strange. Dinosaurs and mammals kill and die like animals, but think and speak like men. One devours the other, but might chat a bit before. In this society of physiological unequals, the mammals form the downtrodden. And, like in our world, where there are downtrodden, there is music.
Subtropical forest covers what will someday be New Jersey. A hollow earthen mound four meters high and twelve across nestles among the flowering trees. A sign sits out front announcing the mound's name, The Dugout, and purpose, as a venue for bands. Inside lies an elevated stage lit by torches and a skylight and fronted by six logs for seating. The seats are quickly filling up with dozens of mammals of various sizes and diets. On stage are four didelphodons, mammals of contemporarily large size.
The stage mammals are each nearly a meter long from the top of their head to the tip of their tail. Right now, they stand like men, eighty centimeter tall men. Three brothers and a sister, they are both siblings and bandmates. One brother, Eddy, is the singer for the band and the star of our tale.
Eddy is the youngest and the shortest but has a voice that could make a T-Rex swoon. A crop of long blonde hair sits atop his head, contrasting his otherwise brown fur. His clawed hands pluck and tune an acoustic guitar of exceptional quality. On its back are inscribed these words, "For our little rock star, Eddy, love Mom and Dad."
Eddy looks around at the other members of the band.
There is his brother Tommy, their lead guitarist and second oldest. He wears both a bandana and a bad attitude but Eddy knows the kindness and patience he can show when giving a guitar lesson.
His brother Sparky, their drummer and second youngest, gnaws on his sticks with a crazed look and spiky hair. After all these years, he is still charged with energy from the lightning strike.
His sister Lucy, their bass player and oldest sibling, stands nearest. Her flowing blonde hair hides her face but he knows she is always watching. She has been the siblings' rock ever since Mom and Dad's death.
All six logs are filled to the brim, a crowd of nearly a hundred. A full moon hangs in the meter-wide skylight. Eddy steps forward to the wooden funnel which serves as a microphone.
"Thank you all for coming out tonight," he says. "We have some great music ahead, but first let me introduce you to the band. There's my brother, Tommy, my brother, Sparky, and my dear sister, Lucy. Together, we are Bad Litter!"
Eddy then steps back for a second, closes his eyes and imagines the faces of his parents.
"Mom, Dad," he says, "if you're watching from heaven, I love you."
Then, he begins to sing:
"When the sun comes out, and I see you there. My heart begins, to burn again. In this big world, it's just you and me. With you at my side, I'll always be free—"
"Dryptosaur," screams someone from the crowd as a shadow passes across the stage. Perching in the skylight, blocking the full moon, is a five meter long raptor-like dinosaur with a red and white coat of feathers indicative of a female.
Eddy stops singing. Tommy and Lucy stop playing. Sparky, slow to the uptake, keeps banging his drums. The dryptosaur puts an end to it by crushing him with one taloned foot.
Tommy, never quick to anger, charges at his brother's killer and strikes the dryptosaur on the shin with his guitar. The guitar breaks at the neck. The dryptosaur breaks Tommy's neck.
Lucy shields Eddy behind her, determined to protect her youngest and only remaining brother. His eyes transfix on her long hair as he watches her rise into the air by way of the dryptosaur's clawed hand.
With the other hand, the dryptosaur casually snaps Lucy's neck. Her struggling stops and her body becomes as limp as her hair. Then into the jaws of death she goes. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
The dryptosaur sits down on the stage beside Eddy, her collossal legs stretching out to the third row of the now empty seats.
"Hey," she says.
Eddy says nothing.
"That's okay, I understand, you've been through a very traumatic experience. We'll have plenty of time for conversation later."
With bloodstained fingers she pulls Eddy to her side.
"Congratulations, Eddy, you just enrolled in my school of life."
BREAK
The sun rises over the forest, its rays poking through the dense foliage to pattern the ground. Bad Litter's devourer slumbers on a pile of fallen leaves, her head tucked into her arms and her tail wrapped around her whole. A beam of light prods her eye and she wakes with a yawn.
Not seeing Eddy anywhere, she briefly panics before remembering that she is sitting on him, gently, like an egg, so way he cannot escape.
"Sorry if it was a little hard to breathe," she says, "I haven't incubated in years."
Eddy lies face up and spread out. He takes one, deep, grateful breath but is otherwise stoic.
"I wish I'd suffocated," he says at last.
"Poor Eddy," says the dryptosaur, peeling him from the ground and cradling him in her arms. "What misfortune has befallen you? No, wait, I remember."
She laughs in Eddy's face, but loosens her grip enough for him to fall back onto the ground.
"What do you want from me?," says Eddy.
"Your company. I have business to take care of in the Appalachian Mountains. It's a five day journey and I could use some entertainment."
"Then play with yourself."
"I'd much rather play with you. Really, what happened to the little song rat from last night?"
"He died with his band," growls Eddy.
"Well," she growls mockingly, "whomever I'm speaking to currently should get ready to set out."
"You expect me to travel with a stranger who murdered everyone I love?"
"Stranger? That's right, I never properly introduced myself. My name's Tava."
A pause ensued as she obviously wanted him to ask what "Tava" meant.
"What does that—"
"I'm glad you asked Eddy. The name is Tave 'cause I'm hot like lava (tsss). Just replace the 'l' with a capital 'T.'"
Tava pinches Eddy's cheeks and moulds them like putty.
"Say it with me, Tah-vah."
"Trrr-vrrr," says Eddy.
"Close enough. Let's go."
Eddy's guitar sits in its case at the trunk of a nearby tree. Eddy shuffles over to grab it as Tava starts along the path. By the time he has the case in hand, she is ten meters away—far enough for an escape. In a flash of action he drops the guitar case and sprints away on all-fours. He gets some distance before a shadow blots out the sun and a feathered tail slaps him down.
"Eddy," says Tava, now holding him to the ground with one hand, "how could you attempt an escape without your guitar?
Tava opens the case and picks up the guitar with her other hand. Held between her thumb and forefinger, the instrument looks like it is meant for a doll.
"What a work of craftsmanship," says Tava. " And look, something's written on the back. 'For our little rockstar, Eddy. Love Mom and Dad.' How sweet. Maybe you can take me to see them once my business in the Appalachians has concluded."
"They're both dead," says Eddy.
"Any other relatives?"
"I'm all that's left."
"A one-of-a-kind treasure! And I will treasure you."
Tava retracts her grip on Eddy but presses her snout into him. Her yellow eyes drill yet further.
"Don't even think about escaping," she says. "I'm faster, I'm stronger, and, most importantly, I'm smarter than you."
Tava recedes to let oxygen refill Eddy's lungs before clasping him again in her free claw. She places him in the valley between her neck and arch of her back.
"I'll tote you for a while. You know, as a favor. After all, what are friends for?"
Eddy does not answer, nor does he speak much over the next three days. He and his guitar are mere passengers on a walking, feathered prison. He dismounts only to eat, a terrible process in which Tava forces bugs and water down his throat, and sleep, again with her sitting on him like an egg.
The scenery changes throughout the third day from a coastal forest to one more suited to hills. Trees are more spaced out, undergrowth lessens and streams cut ravines several times deeper than Tava is tall. Eddy begins to have morbid daydreams in which Tava slips and he falls off into a ravine, hitting head first onto a boulder strewn streambed.
His daydream stops when they encounter a large duck-billed dinosaur blocking their path. The creature is a sessile herbivore and there are many other paths, but Tava is in a fighting mood.
"Move your ass duckface!," she yells.
"There are plenty of other routes around me," responds Duckface in speech garbled by a mouth full of leaves and stems.
"But I like this one. Remove yourself or I'll remove you, one piece at a time."
Duckface's tail swings at Tava. She dodges but flings Eddy and his guitar case in the process. Tava leaps about before finally tricking Duckface into headbutting a tree and knocking himself unconscious. Tava grabs Eddy and his guitar and passes through.
The encounter makes Tava cheerful and keeps her so into the night. Instead of smothering Eddy, she decides to sleep on her back and let him rest on her heaving chest.
"The moon is starting to wane," says Tava. "Pretty soon the stars will practically explode out of the black sky. Some see pictures in the stars, caricatures of creatures drawn onto the sky. Would you like me to show you?"
Eddy moans lowly.
"I'll list them then," she continues. "There's the raptor, the rat, the fish, the seabird, the crocodile, the caterpillar. It's all a fantasy to make life more than it is, to project ourselves onto an immensity we cannot know. I hope you're turning this rant into a song. Hey!"
Tava grabs Eddy who curls tighter. She then pries him open and flattens him out. Tears and snot reflect on his face in the moonlight.
"Why?," says Eddy.
"Why what, dear?"
"Why do you torture me?"
"Isn't it obvious? Because you were born weak and I strong. Because life is torture."
"No, no," he says, shaking his head, "life is beautiful."
"You of all people should know better than that."
"Life can be ugly but can also be love, and family, and music, and—"
"Enough! Let me tell you about life, my delusional little friend. Life, for all creatures, is the struggle not to starve, to consume anything and anyone you can fit in your mouth and swallow without choking. We are but walking digestive tracts, gnashing teeth on one end and excreting waste out the other."
Eddy curls back up and begins to whimper.
"You'll see soon enough," says Tava, rubbing her gurgling stomach.
Night turns into day accompanied by the chirping conversations of treetop birds. The ancestors of orchids bloom all around. Eddy sits a few meters from a stream with his guitar in hand. He carefully replaces a broken string then tunes the whole guitar. Tava, who had "a matter to attend to," emerges from the bushes.
"I had feared that our little rumble might have ruined your guitar," she says. "I underestimated your talents."
Eddy remains silent.
"How about a song to celebrate its repair."
"Sing away," says Eddy
"Stoicism is the enemy of musicians everywhere. But I have the cure. Get up and follow me."
Eddy follows Tava into the underbrush.
"I think you'll like what I've cooked up," she says. "I'm surprised that it took this long, but I suppose I'm not young anymore."
Eddy and Tava come to a small clearing with something steaming at its center. As he looks closer, a red bandana becomes visible. His face contorts into a look of pure horror as he realizes what it is that he sees.
"The band is reunited!," says Tava.
"M-my family."
"Oh that's right, it's also a family reunion too."
Tava leans over and shares Eddy's eye level.
"Do I spot a family resemblance?"
Tava walks away in a fit of laughter while Eddy collapses into tears.
BREAK
On day five, Tava hikes through the ever thinner tree cover with Eddy and his guitar tied to her back with a piece of vine. She climbs atop a rock outcrop and spies three dryptosaurs standing near a pond a few hills over.
"Well, well," says Tava. "How would you like to go for a swim, Eddy?"
"I would like you to drown me," he responds.
"No can do, my macabre little friend. But I think I'll show you off to some admirers of mine. Get ready to sing."
Tava makes footfalls softer than the rustling of her feathers. She is mere meters away from the three dryptosaurs by the time they are aware of her. Smaller than Tava, their colored feathers distinguish them as males. Tava unties Eddy and his guitar case as the group ahead starts to run away.
"Don't bother," says Tava, "you know I'm twice as fast as any of you. Besides, I come in peace. Eddy, may I introduce my friends, Alexander, Montgomery, and Laurence."
"Don't think we forgot what you did to poor Laurence two months ago," says Alexander. "He still walks with a limp."
"It's true!," says Laurence, shrinking into himself.
"We're not your friends," says Alexander, "and you're not welcome here, Lucille."
"My name's Tava now."
"Tava?," says Alexander. "Let me guess, you changed the "l" in lava to a 'T.' Lava is hot so Tava is 'too hot.'"
Tava twitches.
"You're lucky I'm already pregnant, otherwise I'd give you a limp too, Alexander."
"Pregnant?," whispers Laurence.
"Then what do you want, Tah-vah?," says Alexander.
Tava holds Eddy out like a new toy, shaking him mildly.
Behold," she says, "my new song rat. Give them a sample Eddy."
"That couldn't be . . .," says Laurence.
"Would any of you be kind enough to kill me?," says Eddy in a monotone voice.
"A real vocal icon you have there," says Alexander. "Does he dance too? Perhaps the Stand-Still Boogie?"
Tava sets Eddy down and storms up to Alexander, who shrinks a little. Montgomery backs him up but Laurence slips away.
"Perhaps you'd like to dance," says Tava. "I'm proficient at the Bruised Danube."
Eddy looks up to find Laurence standing over him.
"I don't believe it," giggles Laurence, "you're Eddy, the lead singer of Bad Litter! I am a huge fan. W-where's the rest of the band?"
Eddy points to Tava.
"Shat out," he says.
Laurence looks at Tava then jerks his gaze away in horror.
"She, she, she ate them? But why did she leave you?"
"I don't know. I wish she hadn't. Could you kill me? I don't care to live anymore."
"Y-yes. Yes, of course, anything to help. But since you're the only surviving member, could you sign this t-shirt for me first?"
"If that's the price of relief, sure."
"Thank you so much. It really means a lot to have—"
"Get away from my pet, Laurence!"
Laurence turns to see Tava a nose length away. He grabs his t-shirt and runs away.
"Because you three were so rude," says Tava, "I'm not letting you hear a single note from my song rat."
Tava hangs Eddy over her shoulder like a rag and starts to walk away before turning her gaze back to the three dryptosaurs now huddling together for safety.
"But don't worry, boys, I'll be back to take what I want from you."
Eddy watches the three dryptosaurs shrink in his vision, knowing they might be his last chance at freedom, or at least the release of death. On Tava's back and in motionless despair, he rides into the mountains. Vegetation becomes scarce and bare rock erupts everywhere. The path winds through limestone which formed before either dinosaurs or mammals even arose.
The fifth day transitions into the sixth without Tava stopping for rest. She marches through the night under the light of a three-quarters moon. Eddy is able to take short naps because Tava is as soft as a feather bed and more than a match for anything that would want to harm him.
"Geeeyaaat!"
Eddy wakes to the sight of a blazing noon sun. Tava is kneeling on a granite plateau, holding her abdomen and screeching in pain.
"Oh, oh ho ho, right on time!," she says. "Get off, I could use some help."
Tava loosens the vine holding Eddy and his guitar case and both slide off her back. She then walks over to a pair of dry, dead bushes and snaps most of their branches off.
"What are you—," Eddy begins.
"Shut up. They're coming. Gotta build a nest."
She weaves the branches into a rough circle, collapses on top and pulls Eddy close.
"Now, keeyeeyeep your eye on the birdie."
A blood-soaked egg peeks through. Eddy places his hands on it, though remains baffled as to what Tava expects him to do. She enlightens him by giving a hard push and ejecting the egg on top of him. It is fifty centimeters long and weighs almost as much as Eddy.
"It's beautiful," he says.
"Glad you like it 'cause there're two more coming."
Sure enough, the process repeats twice more. Eddy corrals the triplets into a triangle.
"Yeah. It will make a good trade."
"What?"
"Since we're so close I'll tell you. I made a deal with a monastery up ahead. I give them a child to raise, I get some sacred knowledge. Only one child is part of the deal, the other two are extras, just mouths I'll have to feed. Plus they're Laurence's. End their pathetic existence before they hatch into this hellhole of a world."
Eddy rolls one toward the edge of the plateau. It is a ten meter drop, more than enough to kill the unhatched dryptosaur. But he shakes his head and backs away.
"Now, Eddy!"
"I can't kill a child, even yours."
"For God's sake, I don't have time for your moral bullshit."
Tava kicks the egg off the cliff and twists around to Eddy. Their eyes lock as the sound of cracking shell reverberates up.
"Poor Eddy," says Tava, "his conscience won't let him kill the offspring of his family's devourer. I'll raise the other spare if you like, raise it to eat only your kind. I and it will go back and swallow every one of your concert's audience. We'll shit them out and stick your nose in it."
"You can't shock me anymore."
Tava bares her teeth in full.
"Help me, Eddy," she says softly. "I'm still alive in here."
"What are you doing?"
"Reciting what your dear sister Lucy said as she slid down my throat."
"No, I watched you snap her neck before eating her. She was dead."
"That's what I thought too. But she was alive. I heard her inside of me. I felt her squirm."
"Liar!," screams Eddy.
He leaps at Tava who dodges easily. He gets up and tries again. This time she rolls onto her back and catches him between two toes. She flings him across the small plateau. He hits hard and suffers a broken nose. He slowly stands up but waves any new effort away. He looks at her with tear-filled eyes.
"Why won't you just kill me?," cries Eddy. "Please, please, please. Just let me join my family."
"Poor, delusional Eddy. I have no intention of killing you. You have and will provide me with entertainment. You'll be my prisoner for the rest of your natural life."
The monastery bell starts ringing. A bolt of lightning flashes behind Tava, turning her into a black silhouette.
"Back to the subject of your sister," she says, "Lucy was probably still conscious when she fell on top of her dead, digesting brothers."
Eddy launches himself at Tava, landing on her lowered face.
"That's right, Eddy! Go for the eyes!"
He tries to gnaw one of her eyes out. But she is still too quick and very much in control. The flick from a single finger knocks him off. He recovers in an instant and tackles her gut. It, of course, has little more effect than just sending him backwards.
"Now this is more like it. Where has this Eddy been the whole time?"
He ignores her and refocuses on a new target. A serpentine pattern gets him around Tava and to the two eggs. In an adrenaline-fueled feat of strength, he hoists it onto his back and runs toward the plateau's edge.
"Yes, yes, yes!," cheers Tava.
Eddy heaves the egg over the edge. Panting through gritted teeth, he runs back to grab the other one but Tava swats him down with her tail.
"That's enough destruction for now, my pet. We have an appointment to keep."
Eddy calms down. Tava allows him to walk beside her as she concentrates on carrying the egg.
A storm gathers in the distance as they walk into the monastery courtyard. Cloak-wearing monks of every species move calmly across the paving stones. Mammalians who would normally scatter at the sight of Tava take no precautions as their dinosaur brethren have sworn to defend them.
A single monk emerges from behind the bell. He is of Eddy's species but larger and at least three times as old.
"You have what we asked for?," says the monk.
"Right here, Elder," says Tava.
She places the egg on the ground and allows the Elder to inspect it with a tenderness its mother could never show.
"We thank you for the addition to our ranks," says the Elder. "I wish you peace and—"
"No games, I want my reward."
"Certainly."
A stone tablet is brought to the Elder Monk who then hands it to Tava.
"That is the culmination of tens of millennia of observation and study by hundreds of generations of monks who dedicated their lives to—"
"I'm leaving but feel free to continue your monologue."
Eddy and Tava return to the rocky plateau where the last few rays of sunlight shine down. She reads the tablet aloud but Eddy does not comprehend.
"You don't understand the significance of what I'm reading, do you?," says Tava.
"Dig sites, cross-reference, live specimen; sounds like gibberish."
"It talks of a past world very different from our own and promises a future that is likewise."
"Things change, and saying so doesn't add anything."
"It's more than that. The world we live in is much much older than anyone realizes—millions of our lifetimes old. How many people have come and gone before us? A million million? A million million million? And for what purpose did they live and die?"
"To become someone's next meal."
"Yes! The boy learns at last! But that's just the past and present, there's still the future. Another million million million suffering and dying for nothing. To eat or be eaten, this is our fate forever and ever."
The rain starts coming down in large and heavy droplets. Eddy stares up with hate in his eyes.
"You're cruel, sadistic and beyond evil," says Eddy.
"Oh, Eddy, you do know how to flatter a girl. But am I not right?"
Eddy hangs his head. His tears mix with the downpour.
"You're right."
"It's about time you wised up. I ate your family in front of you, abused you in every way I could imagine. Honestly, you should be ashamed that it took this long."
"What should I do now?"
"Sing," says Tava caressing Eddy's chin with her forefinger.
Eddy breathes deeply ang begins:
"Here on the mountain, I am repentant. Resplendent in transcendent notion, that life is incident. Birth and death, ignorant to our animal sorrows. So conscience I set ablaze, and put away my hippy days."
"Splendid!," says Tava, nuzzling Eddy.
The thunderstorm dies down enough to hear the distant monastery bell ring its somber tone.
"Hear that, Eddy? It is our wedding bell. You're mine forever."
BREAK
Tava and Eddy descend the eastern slopes of the Appalachians in half the time it took to get up them, not only because it is easier, or that Tava is no longer laden with eggs, but because she has won.
They reach the three dryptosaurs' pond in a day. Alexander, Montgomery and Laurence are nowhere to be found.
"Smell that air," says Tava, gulping down oxygen as if giving chase. "The weaker sex of my species has a certain revolting stench. If I hadn't needed that egg, I would never have touched Laurence."
Eddy giggles while making a snow angel in her feathers.
"It's too bad your reputation is now so tarnished," he says.
"Maybe not. The trio isn't likely to go around spreading Laurence's shame. We can kill them, easy, and eat the bodies. Have you ever had dryptosaur?"
"Would love to try it."
"I'll save you some breast meat, that's the juiciest part."
Small birds and mammals watching from the few trees climb to yet higher branches on hearing Tava and Eddy's awful plans.
"We have an audience," says Tava. "Why don't you pull out your guitar and play for them."
"Any requests?," says Eddy.
"Something morbid, I suppose. I really don't care. I'm taking a dip in the pond to wash off the blood still caked on my ass from the eggs."
"I'll make our audience fall from the trees in despair."
"Atta boy."
Tava submerges herself in the crystal clear water as Eddy tunes at his guitar to create a more melancholy sound. Something crashes into the nearby bushes and stops his work. A long feathered tail, caked in mud, now sticks out of the far side while a snout, also caked, pokes out near him.
"Psst," says the snout. "Over here. Come on, while she's busy."
Eddy, lacking any desire for self-preservation, stumbles into the bushes. There he finds Laurence, covered in mud from head to toe.
"Masking your scent was a good idea," says Eddy.
"I had to come back and save you," says Eddy.
"Because you're the voice of Bad Litter—"
"They're all dead if you haven't noticed."
"Sorry, sorry, sorry. I didn't mean to dig that sorrow back up."
"No sorrow. I accept the fate that our weakness brought on."
"Lucille's had nine uninterrupted days to mess with your head. That's more torture than anyone should receive. But come with me and I swear we'll reverse the damage."
"You know, Tava and I were just talking about you. Let me go get her."
Laurence turns Eddy back around. Though gentle, he still manages to take a chunk of the didelphodon's fur off. Laurence now sees how patchy his former idol's coat is, how bloodshot and crazy are his eyes, how little flesh clung to his bones. Eddy was a walking corpse.
"There's no saving you," whispers Laurence to himself.
Eddy's neck snaps even easier than Laurence had expected. The dryptosaur weeps as he wraps his idol's little body in the Bad Litter t-shirt and buries him in a hastily dug grave. Atop the dirt clods he lays Eddy's guitar so that "For our little rock star, Eddy, love Mom and Dad," faces upward and serves as epitaph.
"Go now," says Laurence, "be with your family in heaven."
Splashing water sounds Tava's emergence, but Laurence tiptoes away without raising her alarm. Ten minutes later and far away, he hears her roar in defeat.
(END)
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2023.03.25 23:07 Odd-Lengthiness-26 (TW) I (then) F18 was sexually assaulted by my (then M39) boss. I was wondering if there’s anything I can do about it without having to go to a lawyer? I have no money, living off pasta and rice at the moment lol. (UK support needed)

I don’t know if this is the right place to ask, and I really don’t want to go into too much detail, but when I was 18 (a year ago) I was essentially coerced and groomed by my 39 year old duty manager (boss) in the workplace. There will almost definitely be CCTV footage there of the physical things he did to me/ physical “affection” etc, and may even be CCTV of him assaulting (rping) me, unless he’s deleted it himself, seeing as he was the only one who knew how to work the CCTV and he made sure I knew that. I was drunk and had smoked so there was no way a drunk, high 18 year old in an awful mental state could ever have really consented to a 39 year old, grown adult man who was her boss. He knew about past trauma too, and the awful position I was in and very much took advantage of my time of weakness. I also want to make sure it’s clear that I did NOT have feelings for him. This was just me trying to protect myself from him and evidently failing 🙃 There’s messages that would make it seem otherwise, as if it was all consentual. I had to act like I was okay with it because if I didn’t, he would do the usual abusive tactic of sulking/ making me feel like shit/ getting angry at me or acting like he wanted to kill himself, making me do more work when I (chronically ill) was in pain, etc. I have been in many dangerous situations like this previously, when I was younger- but not in the workplace and not with as much of an age gap and I really didn’t know how to navigate my way out of it. I tried to drop hints to friends and such that I was in dange acted like it was ok because I was scared of him ever finding out that I’d even said anything about him, let alone what he was doing to me, but they just didn’t get it, I think only maybe one person turned around and told me it wasn’t okay/ tried to help me to stop it- and we managed to figure out a plan in the end. I just want to know if I have any legal ground to stand on whatsoever, or if it’s even worth pursuing in the first place because we ALL know the police do not give a flying fck about rpe cases at all. (Speaking from experience too here, from when I was 14. Took all evidence and destroyed it and dropped the case due to “lack of evidence”, because I was too scared to go to court lol. Amazing right? I’ve never reported a single thing since.)
If anyone has any info they can use to help, please let me know- I’m in the UK by the way, if you have and advice at all. I’ve posted this on a burner account, because I’m absolutely terrified of who might find this.
Thanks to anyone that helps out: has read this though :) Hopefully this isn’t too much of a mess. I’m pretty panicky writing it out.
PS- I just want honesty. No sugar coating please, I’ve had enough of it. If I have absolutely no foot to stand on please just tell me that. (Though I will be even angrier at our justice system, I will be okay)
(Posted this in another sub too, not sure why everything’s in italics at random points but I’m pretty sure it’s my use of * to censor certain words lol.)
For reference I was there from Jan 2022 - June/ July 2022. I left because of him. Everyone in my workplace watched it happen, joked about it, talked shit on me and didn’t even care what was happening.
Makes me feel so, so sick. I’ve been assaulted and r*ped so many times, and also been blamed for it, it’s gotten difficult to not blame myself for it too, as irrational as I know it would be to blame myself.
Thanks, guys. Sending you all love, strength and good energy. 🧡
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2023.03.25 23:03 Khontis First Chronicle - The Astrian's Vigil

I couldn't tell you what the point of origin was in my thoughts. Why I was suddenly thinking about the day I met Gwain for the first time.
Well... met is a bit of an off term. I had seen Gwain often but, much like you do to most homeless, especially the crazy-types, you kinda just look through them. Sometimes he was on the corner, or at the park by where I worked, other times he was nowhere to be seen. But he'd come by.
Some people gave him money, others moved away but what I think got most people was how he was dressed: leather and metal patches acted like armor around some parts of his body like his shoulder and legs. A woven cloak, or what remained of it, had singed edges and barely covered his arms any longer but he never seemed to want to get better clothes.
He had a pair of knives, and sometimes people would swear he had a broken sword that he held on his waist under the remaining shreds of cloak.
I hadn't seen the sword before, but I knew he well knew how to wield his knives.
I had met Gwain personally one day, I was on my lunch at work and decided to enjoy the fresh air of the park. I thought that it was safe enough being in bright day. But some didn't care.
I had been grabbed from behind by a man either too high on something or too drunk or both. He tried to hall me off and I managed to lock my foot under the bench leg and grab onto the bar quick enough to keep myself in place.
His grip got harder and he adjusted from my shirt to my hair and arm and after a few extra tugs and me trying to beat him off with my free hand he pulled a gun on me.
He didn't have time to use it as the next thing either of us knew he had dropped it and was bleeding from several points on his hand. He fell harshly back on the ground and I found Gwain between us, knife in hand he flourished it quickly and the man was pinned to the ground, Gwain's blade at his throat and hand gripping his hair, Gwain fully sat on the man and despite attempts he had no ability to get his gun nor move.
Someone had called the police and after some talking to me and witnesses Gwain was let go, deeming the attack to be in self defense of another, since he only threatened him with a knife and stopped actively using it when he didn't have the gun anymore.
He made a point to take me back to work, and after we got there I offered him some coffee from the brewer we had for guests at the auto shop and thanked him. He took it and left.
After that I started packing some extra food, hoping to at least thank him again.
The second time we met I fed him some of my lunch and learned his name. We talked about how I was holding up and how he was doing and I mentioned I was worried since I hadn't seen him. He said he didn't want to turn people away from the park so he had been avoiding it for a bit.
For someone who was described as "crazy" and "insane" he was pretty chill. Though I quickly learned why people said that.
He talked about his homeland to me , a completely different world called "Astria" and how a Demon Lord had appeared and taken it over. He and others had fought him off but failed. He didn't know what happened to the others nor how he got here but here he was and he did his best to survive as well as he could.
I figured, probably as most did, he was some poor soldier who was so shell shocked at losing a battle and possibly his friends, since he honestly seemed to not know their whereabouts, and cracked. The more the world didn't, or couldn't, help him the deeper he went. Maybe all he needed was a friend? Something stable to keep him straight.
​
But was he really that crazy... Now that I beat...whatever THIS is?
I looked down at my feet. There, a strange one eyed creature with bat wings and tiny claws that looked like a demonic mike wazouski, lay unmoving after I beat it with a tire iron. Granted it was the closest thing I had at hand but still...
The sky was a dark conglomeration of purple and red, dark clouds came through as strange ... 'portals' opened up around us.
People, understandably, were running away from the shop and other places, trying to get to the nearest 'safe point', if there was anything that could be counted as safe here.
I, on the other hand against whatever judgement I might have in the future, turned toward the park.
Somewhere deep down I was hoping Gwain was there, that he had some sort of knowledge about what was going on. That...ANYTHING he had to say would be better than waiting for whatever was to come, to come.
I ran gasping between screeching bat-like monsters and strange demonic looking portals as I got to the park and looked around. I heard a scream and spun in time to see another demon-mike wazouski coming after me.
I set my feet and swung, thanking deep down that Gwain taught me how to hold my own out of fear of him not being around to help if there was a 'next time'.
Well here was a 'next time.'
I managed to hold it off for some time but I was wearing.
Steel glinted in what remained of the sunlight and it fell. Gwain was by my side.
"Lady Sionann... Are you alright?"
I blinked, "Yea. I'm...fine... What?"
He turned as a large pillar of darkness descended from the sky into a burst of energy, I had no idea what it leveled but I'm fairly sure something, or a lot of somethings were now gone.
Gritting his teeth he looked to his broken sword and then to me. "The demon lord I've spoken of... he's attacking your world now it seems."
He put a hand on my shoulder. "Go find your husband and find a place to hide. I cannot say if I will win but...I cannot stand by and let him take another world."
"Like HELL I'm just gonna let you go!" I said grabbing the charred remains of his cloak. "That guy kicked your ass once before. What makes you think you'll survive for another round?"
"I will not let him claim another world."
"I'm not saying you have to!" I said, not realizing what i was throwing myself into without thinking. "But right now..." I shook my head and took a breath, realizing what I was about to say and somehow fine with it.
"Right now we need to figure out how to stop him, figure out something we can do other than some suicidal attack. You told me yourself- 'we were outmatched from the beginning and all we did was folly'. Do you honestly think that you by yourself now can do better than you all did before?"
"I...You're right...And he likely has no idea that I'm even here. That my presence is on this world..."
"Right... Then lets go. We'll find my husband and we'll figure out from there." I pulled him back toward the shop.
He nodded and we ran toward my motorcycle, he climbed behind me as we took off toward my husbands office.
What the hell am I getting myself into?
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2023.03.25 23:00 lifootcare Li Bunion Specialist

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2023.03.25 22:59 lifootcare Sports Injury Doctor

Foot Doctors Serving Manhasset, Huntington, Coram, Woodbury, Mineola, Williston Park & Maspeth, Plainview NY Advanced Podiatry is the largest and highest-rated Podiatric Medicine and surgery group on Long Island and Queens. As you navigate through our site you will find a wealth of information about podiatry, foot care, foot, and ankle ailments, new treatments available, new modalities, exercising, and shoes. As licensed and Board Certified Podiatrists on Long Island, NY we believe our patients deserve to have the information needed to make the right choices about their foot and ankle care. We treat bunions, sports injuries, toenail fungus, ingrown toenails, and heel pain. For more info visit - https://www.lifootcare.com
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2023.03.25 22:50 agirlmakesnoclaim Niche Romance Reviews: Shorter Dudes

For this round of niche romance reviews, I was looking for books where a hero is either described as short or his height is mentioned explicitly as being 5’7” or less. This was actually extremely difficult—I ended up reading quite a few books on this quest, but several of the recommended ones had heroes who were average height, which is only short in romancelandia. I’m not sure I got it quite right here, but I included what seemed to fit.
His Secret Illuminations and His Sacred Incantations by Scarlett Gale: 5/5 stars. m/f, fantasy. This is my gold standard for gender role reversal stories. I raved about it here: https://www.reddit.com/RomanceBooks/comments/va2x3his_secret_illuminations_by_scarlett_gale_is_so/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3. The hero is short/small and the heroine is a tall, buff, warrior woman. One of my absolute faves.
Steam: ⅗, maybe ⅘ in the second book though
Small Packages by Drea Braddock: 4.5/5 stars. M/F contemporary novella. This was a delightful surprise. The hero of this book is a slight 5’7” engineering scientist who happens to have a very small penis (this isn’t a spoiler, you find out pretty early). He was diagnosed with a micropenis as a child but doesn’t technically qualify for that definition any more because he had hormone therapy when he was growing up (in case you are wondering, they are able to have piv sex). The heroine is a naval intelligence officer with autism. So, hear me out. I know that lots of romance readers like the fantasy of large penises, but if you give this once a chance I think it’s worth it. And some of us, myself included, are tired of forearm sized dicks in romance. The hero here has a lot of insecurities about it, especially since most girls don’t stick around when they find out. He’s gotten really good at oral sex for that reason. So with the heroine, he experiences his first blow job, first PIV, his first love. And the MCs are just so sweet together. The autism rep for the heroine is great. The writing and dialogue aren’t perfect, but this was so unexpectedly delightful that I rated it highly anyway. The author’s dedication is great: “for everyone who has ever been made to feel that a Happily Ever After isn’t in the cards for them because of how they were made.”
Steam: ⅘ ish
Well Met by Jen Deluca: ⅘ stars. M/F contemporary. I read this one a while ago, so I don’t have it fresh in my mind enough to give a ton of commentary, but I really enjoyed this. He is described as being notably on the shorter side, but no specific height is given.
Steam: ⅗ from what I remember
Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins: ⅘ stars. M/F YA. So, I was surprised by how much I loved this. I said in my other recent reviews that I’ve started picking up YA again—I had a period of quite a few years where I wouldn’t read it. Now that I’m nearing 40, I find myself enjoying the nostalgia of it. I’m never going to be 17 again, thank God, but it can be fun to reminisce. The heroine, Anna, is at an American boarding school in Paris, which is about as far from my adolescence as you can get, but I could still empathize with her. This book really captures that powerful, excruciating feeling of falling in love for the first time. Now, there are some things about this book that some people will hate. The characters do some believably immature and stupid teenagery things, and their actions can be frustrating. Some of the reviews were pretty caustic about the heroine, but I found her to be written like a typical 17 year old, which I actually appreciated. Also, the hero, Etienne, has a girlfriend for much of the book, and there’s lots of emotional cheating on his part. This is the third book I’ve read recently that has infidelity, and while it’s never my favorite, I didn’t mind it as much here because the characters are so young and confused and hormonal. That will be different for some readers. Anyway, the hero here is indeed short, so it fits on this list. Some of you will really enjoy this, but like I said, it’s definitely not for everyone. I wouldn’t mind reading a more grown up or even college version of this, but as it was, I found it to be very sweet even if it wasn’t perfect.
Steam: ⅕ (kisses only)
Strings by Marie Lipscomb: 4/5 stars. M/F contemporary. So, this is the second book on this list with a hero named Etienne, which is wild because I’d never read a character with that name and then all the sudden I read two books in a row with it. I really loved this too. The hero is 5’5”, thick, and a skilled vocalist who ends up singing with the heroine’s band. The heroine describes him as “a short king with big dick energy” and also delivers this amazing bit of description: if a gorilla and a peacock somehow mated and raised their unholy offspring on a diet of pure Kobe beef and condor eggs, it’d be half as solid as him and have only a fraction of the swagger. He’s super into the heroine from pretty early on. If that’s not enough, he’s also into gentle femdom and likes being tied up. If any of that sounds appealing, you will love this book. There were, however, a couple things that didn’t quite work for me. This is really instalovey, which I do like often enough, but it took some of the tension out of this story for me. That will work better for you if you are more into instalove. Also, the main conflict made me frustrated. I would still wholeheartedly recommend this book, though.
Steam: ⅘, maybe, with some kink included. Oh, and some sex toy play!
The Stand-Up Groomsman by Jackie Lau: 3.5/5 stars. M/F contemporary. As a general rule, I love Jackie Lau (The Professor Next Door is a stand out for me), and I really liked this one but it wasn’t my fave from her. It does have some great things going for it, including a 5’6”, chubby hero, two bisexual MCs (I’ve honestly only read maybe 3 or 4 other m/f romances with a bisexual hero), and a particularly great and realistic sex scene—the heroine tells him she can only orgasm with oral sex or a vibrator, even though she does like penetration, and he doesn’t push the issue. He just goes down on her again after PIV. The heroine is really prickly and uptight (with good reason), and I do love a prickly heroine. She’s kind of a loner, which is in sharp contrast to the hero. The hero is a stand up comedian and a huge goofball, and though he would probably start to annoy me irl, I enjoyed his quirks on the page. He also uses humor to cover up some deep insecurities and trauma. As for the stuff I didn’t love as much: there are swaths of this devoted to his stand up routine, and it’s a testament to the author’s skill that it almost worked for me. I’ve seen tons of stand up and I could kind of picture how he might deliver his lines, and how I might laugh at them. But stand up written out just isn’t the same (the book is actually self aware about this). Also, the beginning of this dragged quite a bit for me. It got better as it went on. Still, this was a pleasant read with lots of great rep.
Steam: 3/5
The Intimacy Experiment by Rosie Danan: 3/5 stars. M/f contemporary. The hero here is described as short, and maybe shorter than the heroine if I remember correctly. It’s also been a while since I read this one. I liked this, but not as much as The Roommate by the same author, which I loved. It features a former porn star and a rabbi, which is certainly a unique combo, but I was underwhelmed by their chemistry.
Steam: ⅗
Someone to Love by Mary Balogh: 3/5 stars, m/f historical. I wasn’t sure if I should include this. When the heroine meets the hero, a Duke, she describes him as no taller than average, but everything else in the book points to the hero being small. He was bullied as a child for being very small, and he meets several men in the book who tower over him and are described as being “twice his size,” since he is a slight man. Anyway, I loved the premise of this book—the heroine is an earl’s legitimate daughter but she has never known that, as she has grown up in an orphanage. There’s a lot of great initial drama with her half siblings and newly discovered family. For all that potential, though, the book is more sedate than I thought it would be, and I was underwhelmed by the romance as well as the sex scenes. Also, this book is guilty of a really cringe-inducing portrayal of a Chinese man. You can read more about it in this review: https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/someone-love-mary-balogh/ . If you read the comments, Courtney Milan has some great commentary, and Mary Balogh actually responds. I do think she was taking it seriously. If you don’t want to read all that, basically the hero in this book, after being bullied as a child, meets an unnamed Chinese man who teaches him an unnamed martial art along with other “wisdom” and it’s got real Magical Asian vibes. The Duke is then imbued with near supernatural ability to appear intimidating or bring a much larger man down easily. This is actually a very small part of the book, and it didn’t absolutely ruin it for me, but it was conspicuous and cringy. Only you could know whether or not this will bother you a lot, but it’s worth knowing about beforehand.
Steam: ⅖ (romance up says ⅗, but I thought it was more mild than that)
The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic: 2.5/5 stars. M/M contemporary sports romance, au. This book is kind of a mess. It’s so surreal (and often confusing) that it’s a little like reading a fever dream. It’s an alternate universe story about a made up sport called Exy, which is described as an evolved sort of lacrosse on a soccer-sized court with the violence of ice hockey. The sport is co-ed, which I did like. Don’t ask me any more about it because I honestly couldn’t explain it. I’m pretty sure the characters are in college but that takes too long to be clear. The MC’s father is a murderous crime lord and there are plot lines involving Japanese gangs, though the details on that are a little hazy as well. The MC, Neil, is on a team of misfits, the foxes, who seem to do whatever they want. Neil is indeed short and his apparent love interest is even shorter. I say “apparent” because there isn’t much in the way of romance here, but the main pairing is (I think) between Neil (the POV character) and Andrew. Andrew, the love interest, is a 5 foot tall feral, terrifying psycho. This book needs lots of CWs, including forced drugging, homophobic and ableist slurs, murder, drug overdose, violence. I did care about Neil, which made this somewhat more compelling. There are some of you who will love this (that’s not an insult, I promise), and I can see why it’s a cult classic—it’s unique, and completely bananas. So was this good or well written? Not particularly. Am I going to read the next book to see what happens? Yes, definitely.
Steam: 0/5
Chasin' Eight by Lorelei James: 2/5 stars, m/f contemporary. This one featured a 5’7” hero and a 5’10” heroine, which made me excited to read it. However, this didn’t quite work for me. I will admit that I’m a bit allergic to cowboy/rodeo/redneck/country boy romances. Having grown up in a rural town full of good ol’ boy types, I can tell you it’s not always sexy (despite also knowing some truly lovely people who came from my hometown). The hero’s persistent use of the word “nekkid” made my eye twitch. Rodeo culture feels especially icky to me—I’m not super educated on it, however, so maybe I have the wrong impression. Also, I was super put off by the opening scene in this book. The hero is having a threesome—which would be fine—but the girls involved didn’t seem like real people. The hero seems to value fighting, fucking, and bull riding, which definitely made me roll my eyes—other than being short, he reads like a parody of masculinity. I’ve recently read a few heroines who find “real men” after dating “sensitive types,” and I don’t like the implication that there’s something unattractive about men who are willing to discuss feelings or aren’t uber masculine. The heroine is a B level actress who is escaping to Wyoming for romance reasons, and she and the hero end up in the same place. There are lots of side characters I didn’t know or care about, though I suppose that’s the problem when you don’t start with the first in a series. The sex was fine, but the hero was pretty dommy and I’m just tired of that (listen, I know I’m virtually alone here). One thing I liked was that the heroine has had a boob job, which is weirdly refreshing because those are usually disparaged in romance. Again, there are lots of people on this sub who will love this—if you read the sample and it seems up your alley, you will like the rest of the book, too. It just wasn’t my cuppa. I mean, I hated Cash Wall and people absolutely love him, so I’m sure it’s just me who’s the weirdo.
Steam: 4/5 ish
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2023.03.25 22:38 A_Vespertine What Dreams Are Made Of

“Well?” the Grand Adderman hissed impatiently as the spectral, sepia candlelight of the subterranean ritual chamber danced upon the silken robes that shrouded his stretched and wizened form.
Beneath the sacred summit of Pendragon Hill, in a great vaulted chamber built at a crossroads of otherworldly passageways, the sisters Ivy and Envy Noir sifted through the pit of Sigil Sand to confirm that it was once again pure.
“I’m afraid it’s… complicated, Grand Adderman,” Envy reported timidly as she methodically let another handful of Sand sift through her fingers. “The Sand itself has been purged of Emrys’ Miasma, but… it’s still here. It’s faint, possibly diffused, but it’s here somewhere. I’m sure of it.”
“The readings on the parathaumameter are inconclusive at best,” Ivy sighed, shoving the useless device back into the holster on her belt. “Crowley told you that they dispelled the Miasma from the Sand and into a human heart, and afterwards the heart burrowed itself into the Sand, and then they just couldn’t find it?”
“That is what he said,” the Grand Adderman replied with a noted tinge of exhaustion to his voice. “Based on what information they selectively chose to disclose to me, I can find no cause to fault them with this turn of events. I was tempted simply to torture them until they told me what they did wrong, but then thought that consulting with the two of you might yield more accurate results. Do either of you have any idea where the heart may have gone, if it ever existed in the first place?”
“If the Miasma had been bound to any corporeal object, and it was here, we’d be able to detect it,” Envy replied. “It feels like it’s in the space in between the grains rather than the grains itself, but for our purposes, I don’t think that really matters. Crowley’s ritual may have hallowed the Sand enough that the Miasma can’t reinfect it right now, but the moment we do anything with it that changes its astral frequency, the Miasma will just be reabsorbed.”
“Grand Adderman, as much as I’m loathed to admit it, I have no reason to believe that Crowley and the others did anything wrong here at all,” Ivy stated. “It appears that the ritual was successful at dispelling the Miasma, but that still wasn’t enough to save the Sand. There’s nothing else we can do with this. It’s been irreparably compromised and should be discarded. We need to start seriously considering alternatives.”
With a snarl, the Grand Adderman strode forward and impaled the Sigil Sand with the broken shards at the end of his sceptre. Slowly twisting it around, he prodded the Sand with his clairvoyance, searching for anything the Noir sisters might have overlooked.
“It’s in the shadows. I’m certain of that,” he murmured. “So like Emrys to hide in the shadows. That he has so tenaciously entrenched his very essence into this Sigil Sand can only mean that he is terrified of us using it against him. If we continue allowing Emrys to dictate the terms of engagement to us, then we are doomed! This Sand has the capacity to bind Emrys and banish him once again from the mortal plane, if only we can undo his sabotage!”
“Grand Adderman, I am sorry, but I fear we simply do not have the time to research a method to adequately purify this Sand before Emrys further escalates his assaults on us,” Ivy insisted. “Erich and I have been researching other entities we might be able to enlist as potential counters to Emrys, and I don’t think we should completely discount Seneca’s idea to try to broker some form of truce with him.”
In a flash, the Grand Adderman withdrew his sceptre from the Sand and raised it threateningly over his head as he spun towards Ivy, sending her stumbling back up against the wall.
“Maybe we don’t need to purify the Sand at all!” Envy shouted, desperate for anything that would spare her sister from the Adderman’s wrath.
To her surprise and relief, the Grand Adderman paused his advance, lowering his sceptre and turning his head towards her.
“Emrys wants us either to not use this Sand at all or try using it anyway so he can use it against us. You are correct, Grand Adderman; if we keep fighting Emrys on his terms, we will lose,” Envy began. “I have an idea, one I hesitate to suggest since it would put you personally in grave danger. We go ahead with the original plan, making a Spell Circle to bind Emrys with you to power it, but fudge it just enough so that the Miasma is able to corrupt it and bind you instead. That solves the biggest problem with the plan; getting Emrys into the Spell Circle in the first place. He’ll think it’s safe, he’ll think he’s won, and he’ll walk right in to claim you. Once he does, you expose the Sand to the Asphodel Incarnate, the one which you in your great foresight sent me down to the Reliquary to retrieve. I am certain it will provide more than enough of a counter to the Miasma that it will undo its effects on the Spell Circle and allow it to revert to its original purpose; binding Emrys and empowering you. Then we’ll be able to perform the banishing ritual and be rid of him forever!”
The Grand Adderman pondered silently for a moment, his hooded face impossible to read. Both sisters feared he was about to kill them on the spot for their heinous crime of less-than-flawless sycophancy.
“Would it be possible to move this Sand to the Adderwood Megalith?” he asked at last.
“Absolutely, Grand Adderman. I think that’s a wonderful idea. It’s a far more secure location, and it will be much easier for you to channel Ophion,” Envy assured him.
He turned his head slightly towards Ivy, who nodded emphatically as well.
“I’ll see it done, then,” he said, and started slithering towards the Cuniculi doors. “You two make the necessary alterations to your Spell Circle design. We do nothing until I am convinced that this bait and switch is safe to attempt! Is that understood?”
“Of course, Grand Adderman,” both sisters said as they bowed, respectfully remaining in place until the Grand Adderman had taken his leave of them.
Once he was gone, Ivy and Envy made their way up the spiral stairway to the manor above without daring to speak a word to each other. When they had made it into Ivy’s Tesla, and had begun their descent down Pendragon Hill and felt safely out of reach of any surveillance, Ivy smiled from ear to ear.
“You did it. You did it,” she said in hushed awe. “He’s actually just going to walk into our Spell Circle and let us bind him!”
“I just gave him what he asked for,” Envy smirked.
“Were you telling the truth about the Asphodel Incarnate?”
“It depends on how powerful Emrys has gotten, but it doesn’t really matter. Once the Grand Adderman is bound, we can take it from him. Chain him up with Erich’s Blue Moon Silver for good measure.”
“Absolutely. Can’t be too careful,” Ivy nodded. “We don’t need to hold him forever, though. Just long enough to offer him to Emrys and forge a peace pact. This is going to work. This is actually going to work!”
“You don’t think he suspects anything, do you?”
“I don’t. He’s been far too powerful for far too long. The idea that any of his underlings would actually try to overthrow him, let alone succeed, has never occurred to him. Emrys is going to kill the Grand Adderman, and the Darlings, and be very grateful to us for freeing him from his chains. I wish I could tell Erich the good news right now, but I can’t even risk texting him.”
“Oh, Bloody Hell! The Darlings!” Envy cursed. “They’ll be there for the ritual, won’t they? They’re not going to side with us! How are we going to fend them off until Emrys gets there? Other than the Grand Adderman, he’s the only one stronger than they are.”
“Right. The Spell Circle will have protection wards, but I wouldn’t trust those with my life against the Darlings,” Ivy mused. “The Effulgent One is one option, but I’d prefer something we could work out a more explicit arrangement with. Someone we could trust to keep the Darlings or anyone else off our backs while we wait for Emrys, and someone who wouldn’t be unwelcomed or suspicious if we brought them to Adderwood. That doesn’t leave a lot of options, but I think… I think I might know where we could find somebody. Don’t worry, Envy. This is just a minor detail to work out. We’re going to pull this off. I promise.”
***
“Our code-name for him is The Mandrake. I’ve heard people just call him Drake, but for today, at least, I think we’d be better to err on the side of formality,” Erich advised as he drove Ivy and Envy down the abandoned road, its every pothole filled with rainwater from the mild yet unyielding drizzle. They were far from Sombermorey, far from Harrowick County, and far from any other chapterhouse of the Ophion Occult Order, to ensure their meeting wouldn’t have any unwanted eavesdroppers.
“He lives out here?” Envy asked skeptically, looking out in disdain at the crumbling masonry around them, unable to judge its extent due to the pervasive fog. “Everyone of these buildings looks condemned. This has to be a ghost town. What is this place?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that if you want a guaranteed private meeting with The Mandrake, you drive in the direction he tells you,” Erich replied. “Once you’re somewhere remote, you’ll hit a sudden patch of fog, and then you’re here. There’s no need to worry. I wouldn’t have brought you two out here if I didn’t trust him.”
“And he’s not a part of the Order? Or an enemy?” Envy asked.
“He’s a freelancer. He’s loyal to no agenda but his own, and works with anyone who he thinks will be of help to him,” Ivy explained. “Even if he doesn’t agree to help us, he won’t rat us out. He couldn’t care less about the Grand Adderman.”
“And he can handle the Darlings? Both of them?” Envy asked skeptically.
“Outside of their playroom, the Darlings aren’t as overly powerful as they appear,” Erich claimed. “They’re physically superhuman in terms of strength, speed, stamina, sensory acuteness, agility, reaction time, resilience and recovery, but none of these are unlimited. Other than some selective telekinesis and their eternal youth, they’re still just humans with a little extra oomph. There’s a reason you never see Mary out by herself. It doesn’t matter how much stronger she is than a regular person; she’s still not indestructible, and that terrifies her. It terrifies James too, of course. He’s just better at risk management when he’s out on his errands. Remember that they did retreat from their battle with Emrys on Pendragon Hill. They’re cowards, and they will fall back if they think they’re in mortal peril. I’m not saying The Mandrake is as powerful as Emrys, but he’s definitely strong enough to keep the Darlings at bay for a bit. He might even manage to scare them off, though given how obsessed they seemed to have become with getting revenge on Emrys, that may be a long shot. At any rate, the Darlings won’t be able to hurt him.”
“Why not?” Envy asked.
“You’ll understand when you see him,” Ivy assured her.
As they drove down the ruined streets, Envy was suddenly struck by the realization that ‘ghost town’ wasn’t an adequate description. The town didn’t just seem abandoned; it felt forbidden. It felt like Chornobyl, like something monstrous had happened that hadn’t merely forced the residents to flee, but had cursed the land forever so that they could never come back. Everything was so insidiously still. There didn’t seem to be any animals at all, and the only plants she had seen looked to have been dead for some time, albeit relatively unrotten. She suspected that was because this place was as devoid of microbes as it was macroscopic life. She felt sick, being alive in a place where life of any kind was no longer welcomed. She trusted her sister, and she trusted Erich, so she assumed that short visits would do no lasting harm. Nonetheless, the sooner this was over with, the better.
She jumped in her seat at the sound of some deep, whale-like call, resonating from somewhere far within the fog.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“Naming it doesn’t make it any easier to understand,” was Erich’s cryptic response. He slowed down the car as they drove down what might have once been the town’s Mainstreet, stopping entirely in front of a dark alleyway. “He’s down there.”
Envy peered down the alley, spotting a sign with a single eye centered in a simplified dreamcatcher hanging above a doorway, with a silhouetted humanoid figure leaning up against it.
“Could he maybe come out to meet us, or – ”
“We’re going down to meet him,” Ivy said sympathetically as she opened the car door. “Don’t worry, Envy. All we need to do is have a quick word with this guy and we’ll be one step closer to overthrowing the Grand Adderman.”
Envy nodded and, taking a deep breath, forced herself out of the relative safety of the car and into the mist-swept, forlorn world outside.
Leaving the car made it clear just how quiet everything was, and now that she was no longer looking through the tinted windows, the lack of colour was much more striking as well. She pulled her cashmere cloak around her to guard off the damp chill in the air, regretting that it descended no further than the hem of her pleated skirt. Walking alongside her sister and behind Erich, she reluctantly approached the shadowed stranger in the alley.
The first thing she noticed about him was that he was wearing a trench coat and fedora like a detective in a film noir movie, which fit with the eye-themed logo on the sign above him. There was a dim glow coming from his face, and at first, Envy just assumed that he was smoking.
Then he looked directly at them, and she saw an illuminated version of the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon carved into an otherwise featureless face of iridescent silver. Envy instantly wondered if it was a helmet, or if he was perhaps some kind of android. If it was a helmet, it seamlessly concealed anything human that might be under it. Unless it had some kind of internal heads-up display, she didn’t see how he could have any vision through it. Being an android, on the other hand, would explain how he could exist in a place that was so unwelcoming to life.
“Erich Thorne. Welcome back,” The Mandrake said in a listless monotone. “Nice ladies. You whip them up yourself?”
“Heh, no. This is my girlfriend and Head of the Harrowick Chapter Ivy Noir, and her sister Envy, a Master Adderman and expert thaumatologist,” Erich introduced.
“…Really?” The Mandrake asked.
“My sister and I utilize proprietary implants that modulate our bodies’ bioelectrical signals, optimizing our appearance, health, cognitive faculties, mental well-being, and physical capabilities,” Ivy explained. “I can assure you, Mr. Mandrake, that my sister and I are as smart – and dangerous – as we are beautiful.”
“I’m shaking,” he scoffed. “What is that I can help you with, Miss Noir?”
“It… involves the situation with Emrys. I presume you’re aware?”
“Sorry. Can’t help you with that,” he said flatly with a shake of his head.
“We’re not asking you to bring Emrys in,” Ivy told him. “We’ve… managed to convince the Grand Adderman to bind himself in a Spell Circle as an offering to Emrys. He thinks it’s a ruse to bind and then banished Emrys; it’s not. We intend to use him as a peace offering to forge a truce with Emrys. To ensure our plan goes smoothly, we need some extra muscle to fend off anyone present that might be loyal to the Grand Adderman. Do you think you’re up for that?”
The light from The Mandrake’s face ebbed a little as he took a moment to ponder Ivy’s proposition.
“Extra muscle, eh?” he asked.
“Against the Darling Twins, specifically,” Envy added. “They hate Emrys, and they don’t care much for us either, so they’ll be sure to work against us. We don’t have a way to protect ourselves from them. Do you think that you could keep them in line, at least until Emrys shows up?”
“The Darling Twins? What about the other one?” The Mandrake asked.
“You mean that thing they call their Uncle? Deep underground and entombed within a forty-foot labyrinthine cube of self-healing titanium foam, magnetically levitated above LED floodlights and an electrified floor. We don’t need to worry about him,” Erich assured him.
The Mandrake didn’t seem particularly assured, though it was unclear if that was because he wasn’t convinced that the Darlings’ Uncle was truly out of the picture, or because that wasn’t who he was talking about it.
“Well, they’re no danger to me, either way,” he remarked. “Can’t say I’d be sad to see the Grand Adderman go either. The main risk to me is that if you fail, I’ll have made myself an enemy of the entire Ophion Occult Order. That might put a cramp in my style.”
The strange whale call from before sounded once again, this time seeming significantly closer to them than it had before. Erich, Ivy, and The Mandrake didn’t seem to think it was worth worrying about, so Envy deferred to their experience. She did, however, keep a watchful vigil on their surroundings while they had their conversation.
“And if you don’t help us and we succeed, you’ll have alienated yourself from an organization that now possesses Emrys as an ally,” Ivy countered. “Is that an opportunity you want to pass up?”
“It’s a big risk, and all you’re offering in return are promises of vague potential boons?” The Mandrake asked incredulously. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on some payment upfront for this.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable. What can we offer you?” Ivy asked.
“If you’re the new Head of the Harrowick Chapter, does that mean you have access to Seneca Chamberlin’s Sombermorey Manor?” The Mandrake asked.
“It does. Is there a particular piece of his treasury that takes your fancy?” Ivy asked.
“Last I checked, Seneca had a somewhat extensive collection of spellwork firearms and sigil-etched silver bullets for taking out all kinds of boogeymen,” The Mandrake replied.
“You mean like one of these?” Ivy asked, pulling back her coat and reaching for the holster on her belt. She drew out a long-barrel revolver made of sterling silver and polished ebony, engraved and inlaid with a multitude of occult symbols.
“Exactly like one of those,” The Mandrake said. “I wouldn’t mind a nice new pair of sidearms, along with a generous supply of ammo. It might even give me an edge against the Darlings.”
“That sounds like a reasonable downpayment,” Ivy nodded with a slight smile. “He won’t be happy about it, but I can appropriate the weapons from Seneca without raising suspicion. As far as anyone else knows, they’re to use on Petra, Emrys’ acolyte. I doubt they’d be of any use against her, but it’s plausible enough to do as an excuse. If Seneca makes a fuss, which he will, you fully intend to return them after the ritual is complete. If we win, we intend for our treaty with Emrys to dissolve the Grand Council and decentralize our power structure, and I’ll have the authority to let you keep your new weapons permanently. If we lose, you flee and avoid the Grand Adderman and his lackeys as best you can, and if Seneca survives you may have to deal with him trying to get his guns back.”
“Ah, Ivy,” Envy said softly.
“So all I have to do is keep the Darlings and anyone else off your back until Emrys shows up?” The Mandrake asked, ignoring Envy’s interjection. “In exchange for a pair of Seneca’s finest spellwork pistols and two boxes of ammunition to be paid upfront, and afterwards I get the privilege of being the first person you call on when you’ve got some work you’d like to outsource to a third party?”
Ivy nodded, and extend her arm for a handshake. Rather than accept it, The Mandrake produced a business card embossed with the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon, and placed it in her outstretched hand.
“Give me a ring when everything’s set, and be sure to have my payment ready when you do,” he told her.
“Ivy,” Envy repeated, a little more insistently this time.
“No one else is in on our plan to betray the Grand Adderman, so I trust it goes without saying that we’re counting on your discretion?” Ivy said as she pocketed the business card.
“Confidentiality is standard in my line of work, Miss Noir. Don’t you worry about a thing,” he nodded.
“What about that? Should we worry about that?” Envy asked, pointing upwards to the top of the building in front of them.
The others all turned to where she was pointing, and upon the roof perched a creature that didn’t immediately make sense to them. It was there, and yet they could not say precisely where it was, as though its physical location was a stochastic estimate rather than a definite fact. It had no colour, and yet it was neither white nor black nor grey; it simply had no colour and there was no other way to describe it. It was large; larger than any of them, though smaller than the building it rested upon, and its size couldn’t be narrowed down any more than that. It either had a long body or a long neck, most likely both, but perhaps neither. Its face sat at the uttermost nadir of the Uncanny Valley, too inhuman to garner any sympathy but just human enough to make them wonder if it had once been a man’s, or more likely a child’s. The face was horribly strained, stretched out as it was across all the being’s possible locations, and yet it smiled down at them with a mouth devoid of teeth but still filled with malice. Several polydactyl limbs clawed into the crumbling brick of the building beneath them, and a tapering tail lazily whipped back and forth as its hollow and soulless eyes refused to break contact with them.
“Do not break eye contact with it until you’re out of town,” The Mandrake said in a hoarse whisper. “Walk backwards to your car, slowly. Don’t run, and don’t break eye contact. You’re lucky there are three of you. Two of you can keep watch while the other drives, but the driver should be looking in the rearview mirror as much as possible. Just don’t let it out of your sight before it’s occluded by the fog. You got that?”
“Mandrake, you told me the things that ravaged this town only come out at night unless provoked!” Erich hissed at him.
“Don’t take it personally. I tell that to everyone,” The Mandrake said. “Don’t break eye contact, and don’t try to fight it. I’ll see you in Adderwood.”
He leaned up against the door to his back, pushing it open and then sliding inside in a fraction of a second before slamming it shut, the sound of several locks clicking into place echoing through the alley.
The creature on the roof couldn’t have cared less about his departure, keeping its eyes keenly on the three live humans in the alley below.
“Erich – do we listen to him?” Ivy asked with a nervous swallow.
“I… I have no reason to think he wants us dead, and that thing hasn’t attacked us yet,” Erich replied, though it was obvious to both sisters that he was far from certain. “Do what he said. Back up slowly, and don’t take your eyes off it. Both of you get in the back seat and don’t block the middle.”
“But what is it?” Envy asked.
“Envy, trust me when I tell you that that information is counterproductive at this moment,” Ivy said as she grabbed her hand, and to Envy’s dismay she felt that it was trembling.
With an obedient nod, Envy began walking backwards, pulling Ivy and Erich along with her.
As they reached the end of the alley, the creature descended from the roof with both the grace of a cat and the viscosity of molasses, pouring its nebulous form to the ground as much as jumping. Each limb jerked about in what individually seemed like a chaotic fashion, but in aggregate was enough to smoothly propel the strange entity forward.
Ivy whimpered, but successfully fought the instinct to flee. She and Envy backed into the car almost simultaneously, and with only a bit of fumbling succeeded in opening the back door. Ivy went in first, followed by Envy. Once they were in, Erich opened the front passenger side door and pushed himself over into the driver’s seat, with Envy leaning forward to pull the door shut.
“Erich, drive! Drive now!” Ivy ordered, her unblinking eyes fixed upon the shambling creature stretching its elongated neck out towards their vehicle, its toothless smile so wide it looked like it might tear its face asunder.
Erich slammed on the gas, and their car sped off down Mainstreet, with the creature sprinting off after them in pursuit.
“Don’t we need to turn around at some point?” Envy asked, she and her sister now staring straight out through the rear window.
“It’s too risky. As long as we get out of town, we should be back more or less where we were,” Erich explained, his eyes glancing up into his rearview mirror every few seconds.
“Ivy, please. What is that thing?” Envy pleaded. “It doesn’t look real. Is it some kind of thoughtform?”
“It’s an inverted thoughtform, made from inverse thought,” Ivy answered. “It’s a form of consciousness that has the reverse quantum values of ordinary thought, causing wave functions to collapse in the complete opposite way they’re supposed to. Their mere presence is antithetical to life, psychic phenomenon, and any tech that relies on non-Newtonian physics.”
“Which is incidentally why we took my old Royce instead of Ivy’s Tesla,” Erich added.
“That’s why we have to keep looking at it. Our effect and its effect on wave functions cancel out and keep it from doing anything too weird,” Ivy went on. “It’s why they almost never attack in broad daylight, and why they can only exist in places devoid of sentience, like this. It’s why I thought we’d be safe meeting with The Mandrake here. Oh, God. Envy, I’m so sorry. I never should have brought you here, or at least I should have told you. I thought there’d be safety in numbers, and I didn’t want to scare you.”
The inverted thoughtform’s smile finally split its head wide open, and a great plume of monochrome flame ruptured forth from the gaping fissure. It was close, but it didn’t seem to be able to close the distance between itself and the car. A big enough bump in the road that caused them to involuntarily break line-of-sight for even an instant would be all it would take for them to lose that advantage.
“But why is it attacking though? Does it want to eat us? Is it defending its territory?” Envy demanded.
Ivy continued to stare straight ahead, fighting back tears that threatened to force her to blink.
“Inverse thought can only be made by the perversion of ordinary thought,” she said softly, seeing no need to say anything more.
Envy fell silent as well, now more than ever understanding the vital importance of maintaining their vigil on the creature before them.
It wasn’t so much running after them now as it was just tumbling, though it somehow always managed to keep its long neck held upright. It pushed itself to draw just a little bit closer to them, but that only slowed it down and caused it to sag under its own weight. Reality, or rather reality perceived by regular consciousness, was poison to it, and it dared not get too close. One instant of inattention was all it needed to strike.
When Erich saw that he had a clear path towards the fog at the edge of the town limits, he slammed down on the gas and pushed the vehicle as hard as it could go. In a desperate last ploy, the inverted thoughtform launched itself into the air in the hopes of landing on top of the car and hiding it from view long enough to grant it its victory. But the closer it got, the more real it became, and its increasing mass was enough to cause it to fall short of its target and crash into the pavement.
As the car vanished into the fog and they finally lost sight of the monstrous creature, they heard it release a shrill, forlorn howl that slowly faded into the distance. A howl which, much to their concern, was clearly not the same cry as the deep and resonating whale call they had heard earlier. For a third and final time, the whale call sounded again, perhaps in response to the howl of the creature that had been pursuing them.
Only this time, it wasn’t coming from behind them or even around them, but in front of them.
________________________
By The Vesper's Bell
submitted by A_Vespertine to ChillingApp [link] [comments]

2023.03.25 22:35 A_Vespertine What Dreams Are Made Of

“Well?” the Grand Adderman hissed impatiently as the spectral, sepia candlelight of the subterranean ritual chamber danced upon the silken robes that shrouded his stretched and wizened form.
Beneath the sacred summit of Pendragon Hill, in a great vaulted chamber built at a crossroads of otherworldly passageways, the sisters Ivy and Envy Noir sifted through the pit of Sigil Sand to confirm that it was once again pure.
“I’m afraid it’s… complicated, Grand Adderman,” Envy reported timidly as she methodically let another handful of Sand sift through her fingers. “The Sand itself has been purged of Emrys’ Miasma, but… it’s still here. It’s faint, possibly diffused, but it’s here somewhere. I’m sure of it.”
“The readings on the parathaumameter are inconclusive at best,” Ivy sighed, shoving the useless device back into the holster on her belt. “Crowley told you that they dispelled the Miasma from the Sand and into a human heart, and afterwards the heart burrowed itself into the Sand, and then they just couldn’t find it?”
“That is what he said,” the Grand Adderman replied with a noted tinge of exhaustion to his voice. “Based on what information they selectively chose to disclose to me, I can find no cause to fault them with this turn of events. I was tempted simply to torture them until they told me what they did wrong, but then thought that consulting with the two of you might yield more accurate results. Do either of you have any idea where the heart may have gone, if it ever existed in the first place?”
“If the Miasma had been bound to any corporeal object, and it was here, we’d be able to detect it,” Envy replied. “It feels like it’s in the space in between the grains rather than the grains itself, but for our purposes, I don’t think that really matters. Crowley’s ritual may have hallowed the Sand enough that the Miasma can’t reinfect it right now, but the moment we do anything with it that changes its astral frequency, the Miasma will just be reabsorbed.”
“Grand Adderman, as much as I’m loathed to admit it, I have no reason to believe that Crowley and the others did anything wrong here at all,” Ivy stated. “It appears that the ritual was successful at dispelling the Miasma, but that still wasn’t enough to save the Sand. There’s nothing else we can do with this. It’s been irreparably compromised and should be discarded. We need to start seriously considering alternatives.”
With a snarl, the Grand Adderman strode forward and impaled the Sigil Sand with the broken shards at the end of his sceptre. Slowly twisting it around, he prodded the Sand with his clairvoyance, searching for anything the Noir sisters might have overlooked.
“It’s in the shadows. I’m certain of that,” he murmured. “So like Emrys to hide in the shadows. That he has so tenaciously entrenched his very essence into this Sigil Sand can only mean that he is terrified of us using it against him. If we continue allowing Emrys to dictate the terms of engagement to us, then we are doomed! This Sand has the capacity to bind Emrys and banish him once again from the mortal plane, if only we can undo his sabotage!”
“Grand Adderman, I am sorry, but I fear we simply do not have the time to research a method to adequately purify this Sand before Emrys further escalates his assaults on us,” Ivy insisted. “Erich and I have been researching other entities we might be able to enlist as potential counters to Emrys, and I don’t think we should completely discount Seneca’s idea to try to broker some form of truce with him.”
In a flash, the Grand Adderman withdrew his sceptre from the Sand and raised it threateningly over his head as he spun towards Ivy, sending her stumbling back up against the wall.
“Maybe we don’t need to purify the Sand at all!” Envy shouted, desperate for anything that would spare her sister from the Adderman’s wrath.
To her surprise and relief, the Grand Adderman paused his advance, lowering his sceptre and turning his head towards her.
“Emrys wants us either to not use this Sand at all or try using it anyway so he can use it against us. You are correct, Grand Adderman; if we keep fighting Emrys on his terms, we will lose,” Envy began. “I have an idea, one I hesitate to suggest since it would put you personally in grave danger. We go ahead with the original plan, making a Spell Circle to bind Emrys with you to power it, but fudge it just enough so that the Miasma is able to corrupt it and bind you instead. That solves the biggest problem with the plan; getting Emrys into the Spell Circle in the first place. He’ll think it’s safe, he’ll think he’s won, and he’ll walk right in to claim you. Once he does, you expose the Sand to the Asphodel Incarnate, the one which you in your great foresight sent me down to the Reliquary to retrieve. I am certain it will provide more than enough of a counter to the Miasma that it will undo its effects on the Spell Circle and allow it to revert to its original purpose; binding Emrys and empowering you. Then we’ll be able to perform the banishing ritual and be rid of him forever!”
The Grand Adderman pondered silently for a moment, his hooded face impossible to read. Both sisters feared he was about to kill them on the spot for their heinous crime of less-than-flawless sycophancy.
“Would it be possible to move this Sand to the Adderwood Megalith?” he asked at last.
“Absolutely, Grand Adderman. I think that’s a wonderful idea. It’s a far more secure location, and it will be much easier for you to channel Ophion,” Envy assured him.
He turned his head slightly towards Ivy, who nodded emphatically as well.
“I’ll see it done, then,” he said, and started slithering towards the Cuniculi doors. “You two make the necessary alterations to your Spell Circle design. We do nothing until I am convinced that this bait and switch is safe to attempt! Is that understood?”
“Of course, Grand Adderman,” both sisters said as they bowed, respectfully remaining in place until the Grand Adderman had taken his leave of them.
Once he was gone, Ivy and Envy made their way up the spiral stairway to the manor above without daring to speak a word to each other. When they had made it into Ivy’s Tesla, and had begun their descent down Pendragon Hill and felt safely out of reach of any surveillance, Ivy smiled from ear to ear.
“You did it. You did it,” she said in hushed awe. “He’s actually just going to walk into our Spell Circle and let us bind him!”
“I just gave him what he asked for,” Envy smirked.
“Were you telling the truth about the Asphodel Incarnate?”
“It depends on how powerful Emrys has gotten, but it doesn’t really matter. Once the Grand Adderman is bound, we can take it from him. Chain him up with Erich’s Blue Moon Silver for good measure.”
“Absolutely. Can’t be too careful,” Ivy nodded. “We don’t need to hold him forever, though. Just long enough to offer him to Emrys and forge a peace pact. This is going to work. This is actually going to work!”
“You don’t think he suspects anything, do you?”
“I don’t. He’s been far too powerful for far too long. The idea that any of his underlings would actually try to overthrow him, let alone succeed, has never occurred to him. Emrys is going to kill the Grand Adderman, and the Darlings, and be very grateful to us for freeing him from his chains. I wish I could tell Erich the good news right now, but I can’t even risk texting him.”
“Oh, Bloody Hell! The Darlings!” Envy cursed. “They’ll be there for the ritual, won’t they? They’re not going to side with us! How are we going to fend them off until Emrys gets there? Other than the Grand Adderman, he’s the only one stronger than they are.”
“Right. The Spell Circle will have protection wards, but I wouldn’t trust those with my life against the Darlings,” Ivy mused. “The Effulgent One is one option, but I’d prefer something we could work out a more explicit arrangement with. Someone we could trust to keep the Darlings or anyone else off our backs while we wait for Emrys, and someone who wouldn’t be unwelcomed or suspicious if we brought them to Adderwood. That doesn’t leave a lot of options, but I think… I think I might know where we could find somebody. Don’t worry, Envy. This is just a minor detail to work out. We’re going to pull this off. I promise.”
***
“Our code-name for him is The Mandrake. I’ve heard people just call him Drake, but for today, at least, I think we’d be better to err on the side of formality,” Erich advised as he drove Ivy and Envy down the abandoned road, its every pothole filled with rainwater from the mild yet unyielding drizzle. They were far from Sombermorey, far from Harrowick County, and far from any other chapterhouse of the Ophion Occult Order, to ensure their meeting wouldn’t have any unwanted eavesdroppers.
“He lives out here?” Envy asked skeptically, looking out in disdain at the crumbling masonry around them, unable to judge its extent due to the pervasive fog. “Everyone of these buildings looks condemned. This has to be a ghost town. What is this place?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that if you want a guaranteed private meeting with The Mandrake, you drive in the direction he tells you,” Erich replied. “Once you’re somewhere remote, you’ll hit a sudden patch of fog, and then you’re here. There’s no need to worry. I wouldn’t have brought you two out here if I didn’t trust him.”
“And he’s not a part of the Order? Or an enemy?” Envy asked.
“He’s a freelancer. He’s loyal to no agenda but his own, and works with anyone who he thinks will be of help to him,” Ivy explained. “Even if he doesn’t agree to help us, he won’t rat us out. He couldn’t care less about the Grand Adderman.”
“And he can handle the Darlings? Both of them?” Envy asked skeptically.
“Outside of their playroom, the Darlings aren’t as overly powerful as they appear,” Erich claimed. “They’re physically superhuman in terms of strength, speed, stamina, sensory acuteness, agility, reaction time, resilience and recovery, but none of these are unlimited. Other than some selective telekinesis and their eternal youth, they’re still just humans with a little extra oomph. There’s a reason you never see Mary out by herself. It doesn’t matter how much stronger she is than a regular person; she’s still not indestructible, and that terrifies her. It terrifies James too, of course. He’s just better at risk management when he’s out on his errands. Remember that they did retreat from their battle with Emrys on Pendragon Hill. They’re cowards, and they will fall back if they think they’re in mortal peril. I’m not saying The Mandrake is as powerful as Emrys, but he’s definitely strong enough to keep the Darlings at bay for a bit. He might even manage to scare them off, though given how obsessed they seemed to have become with getting revenge on Emrys, that may be a long shot. At any rate, the Darlings won’t be able to hurt him.”
“Why not?” Envy asked.
“You’ll understand when you see him,” Ivy assured her.
As they drove down the ruined streets, Envy was suddenly struck by the realization that ‘ghost town’ wasn’t an adequate description. The town didn’t just seem abandoned; it felt forbidden. It felt like Chornobyl, like something monstrous had happened that hadn’t merely forced the residents to flee, but had cursed the land forever so that they could never come back. Everything was so insidiously still. There didn’t seem to be any animals at all, and the only plants she had seen looked to have been dead for some time, albeit relatively unrotten. She suspected that was because this place was as devoid of microbes as it was macroscopic life. She felt sick, being alive in a place where life of any kind was no longer welcomed. She trusted her sister, and she trusted Erich, so she assumed that short visits would do no lasting harm. Nonetheless, the sooner this was over with, the better.
She jumped in her seat at the sound of some deep, whale-like call, resonating from somewhere far within the fog.
“What was that?” she demanded.
“Naming it doesn’t make it any easier to understand,” was Erich’s cryptic response. He slowed down the car as they drove down what might have once been the town’s Mainstreet, stopping entirely in front of a dark alleyway. “He’s down there.”
Envy peered down the alley, spotting a sign with a single eye centered in a simplified dreamcatcher hanging above a doorway, with a silhouetted humanoid figure leaning up against it.
“Could he maybe come out to meet us, or – ”
“We’re going down to meet him,” Ivy said sympathetically as she opened the car door. “Don’t worry, Envy. All we need to do is have a quick word with this guy and we’ll be one step closer to overthrowing the Grand Adderman.”
Envy nodded and, taking a deep breath, forced herself out of the relative safety of the car and into the mist-swept, forlorn world outside.
Leaving the car made it clear just how quiet everything was, and now that she was no longer looking through the tinted windows, the lack of colour was much more striking as well. She pulled her cashmere cloak around her to guard off the damp chill in the air, regretting that it descended no further than the hem of her pleated skirt. Walking alongside her sister and behind Erich, she reluctantly approached the shadowed stranger in the alley.
The first thing she noticed about him was that he was wearing a trench coat and fedora like a detective in a film noir movie, which fit with the eye-themed logo on the sign above him. There was a dim glow coming from his face, and at first, Envy just assumed that he was smoking.
Then he looked directly at them, and she saw an illuminated version of the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon carved into an otherwise featureless face of iridescent silver. Envy instantly wondered if it was a helmet, or if he was perhaps some kind of android. If it was a helmet, it seamlessly concealed anything human that might be under it. Unless it had some kind of internal heads-up display, she didn’t see how he could have any vision through it. Being an android, on the other hand, would explain how he could exist in a place that was so unwelcoming to life.
“Erich Thorne. Welcome back,” The Mandrake said in a listless monotone. “Nice ladies. You whip them up yourself?”
“Heh, no. This is my girlfriend and Head of the Harrowick Chapter Ivy Noir, and her sister Envy, a Master Adderman and expert thaumatologist,” Erich introduced.
“…Really?” The Mandrake asked.
“My sister and I utilize proprietary implants that modulate our bodies’ bioelectrical signals, optimizing our appearance, health, cognitive faculties, mental well-being, and physical capabilities,” Ivy explained. “I can assure you, Mr. Mandrake, that my sister and I are as smart – and dangerous – as we are beautiful.”
“I’m shaking,” he scoffed. “What is that I can help you with, Miss Noir?”
“It… involves the situation with Emrys. I presume you’re aware?”
“Sorry. Can’t help you with that,” he said flatly with a shake of his head.
“We’re not asking you to bring Emrys in,” Ivy told him. “We’ve… managed to convince the Grand Adderman to bind himself in a Spell Circle as an offering to Emrys. He thinks it’s a ruse to bind and then banished Emrys; it’s not. We intend to use him as a peace offering to forge a truce with Emrys. To ensure our plan goes smoothly, we need some extra muscle to fend off anyone present that might be loyal to the Grand Adderman. Do you think you’re up for that?”
The light from The Mandrake’s face ebbed a little as he took a moment to ponder Ivy’s proposition.
“Extra muscle, eh?” he asked.
“Against the Darling Twins, specifically,” Envy added. “They hate Emrys, and they don’t care much for us either, so they’ll be sure to work against us. We don’t have a way to protect ourselves from them. Do you think that you could keep them in line, at least until Emrys shows up?”
“The Darling Twins? What about the other one?” The Mandrake asked.
“You mean that thing they call their Uncle? Deep underground and entombed within a forty-foot labyrinthine cube of self-healing titanium foam, magnetically levitated above LED floodlights and an electrified floor. We don’t need to worry about him,” Erich assured him.
The Mandrake didn’t seem particularly assured, though it was unclear if that was because he wasn’t convinced that the Darlings’ Uncle was truly out of the picture, or because that wasn’t who he was talking about it.
“Well, they’re no danger to me, either way,” he remarked. “Can’t say I’d be sad to see the Grand Adderman go either. The main risk to me is that if you fail, I’ll have made myself an enemy of the entire Ophion Occult Order. That might put a cramp in my style.”
The strange whale call from before sounded once again, this time seeming significantly closer to them than it had before. Erich, Ivy, and The Mandrake didn’t seem to think it was worth worrying about, so Envy deferred to their experience. She did, however, keep a watchful vigil on their surroundings while they had their conversation.
“And if you don’t help us and we succeed, you’ll have alienated yourself from an organization that now possesses Emrys as an ally,” Ivy countered. “Is that an opportunity you want to pass up?”
“It’s a big risk, and all you’re offering in return are promises of vague potential boons?” The Mandrake asked incredulously. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist on some payment upfront for this.”
“That’s perfectly reasonable. What can we offer you?” Ivy asked.
“If you’re the new Head of the Harrowick Chapter, does that mean you have access to Seneca Chamberlin’s Sombermorey Manor?” The Mandrake asked.
“It does. Is there a particular piece of his treasury that takes your fancy?” Ivy asked.
“Last I checked, Seneca had a somewhat extensive collection of spellwork firearms and sigil-etched silver bullets for taking out all kinds of boogeymen,” The Mandrake replied.
“You mean like one of these?” Ivy asked, pulling back her coat and reaching for the holster on her belt. She drew out a long-barrel revolver made of sterling silver and polished ebony, engraved and inlaid with a multitude of occult symbols.
“Exactly like one of those,” The Mandrake said. “I wouldn’t mind a nice new pair of sidearms, along with a generous supply of ammo. It might even give me an edge against the Darlings.”
“That sounds like a reasonable downpayment,” Ivy nodded with a slight smile. “He won’t be happy about it, but I can appropriate the weapons from Seneca without raising suspicion. As far as anyone else knows, they’re to use on Petra, Emrys’ acolyte. I doubt they’d be of any use against her, but it’s plausible enough to do as an excuse. If Seneca makes a fuss, which he will, you fully intend to return them after the ritual is complete. If we win, we intend for our treaty with Emrys to dissolve the Grand Council and decentralize our power structure, and I’ll have the authority to let you keep your new weapons permanently. If we lose, you flee and avoid the Grand Adderman and his lackeys as best you can, and if Seneca survives you may have to deal with him trying to get his guns back.”
“Ah, Ivy,” Envy said softly.
“So all I have to do is keep the Darlings and anyone else off your back until Emrys shows up?” The Mandrake asked, ignoring Envy’s interjection. “In exchange for a pair of Seneca’s finest spellwork pistols and two boxes of ammunition to be paid upfront, and afterwards I get the privilege of being the first person you call on when you’ve got some work you’d like to outsource to a third party?”
Ivy nodded, and extend her arm for a handshake. Rather than accept it, The Mandrake produced a business card embossed with the one-eyed dreamcatcher icon, and placed it in her outstretched hand.
“Give me a ring when everything’s set, and be sure to have my payment ready when you do,” he told her.
“Ivy,” Envy repeated, a little more insistently this time.
“No one else is in on our plan to betray the Grand Adderman, so I trust it goes without saying that we’re counting on your discretion?” Ivy said as she pocketed the business card.
“Confidentiality is standard in my line of work, Miss Noir. Don’t you worry about a thing,” he nodded.
“What about that? Should we worry about that?” Envy asked, pointing upwards to the top of the building in front of them.
The others all turned to where she was pointing, and upon the roof perched a creature that didn’t immediately make sense to them. It was there, and yet they could not say precisely where it was, as though its physical location was a stochastic estimate rather than a definite fact. It had no colour, and yet it was neither white nor black nor grey; it simply had no colour and there was no other way to describe it. It was large; larger than any of them, though smaller than the building it rested upon, and its size couldn’t be narrowed down any more than that. It either had a long body or a long neck, most likely both, but perhaps neither. Its face sat at the uttermost nadir of the Uncanny Valley, too inhuman to garner any sympathy but just human enough to make them wonder if it had once been a man’s, or more likely a child’s. The face was horribly strained, stretched out as it was across all the being’s possible locations, and yet it smiled down at them with a mouth devoid of teeth but still filled with malice. Several polydactyl limbs clawed into the crumbling brick of the building beneath them, and a tapering tail lazily whipped back and forth as its hollow and soulless eyes refused to break contact with them.
“Do not break eye contact with it until you’re out of town,” The Mandrake said in a hoarse whisper. “Walk backwards to your car, slowly. Don’t run, and don’t break eye contact. You’re lucky there are three of you. Two of you can keep watch while the other drives, but the driver should be looking in the rearview mirror as much as possible. Just don’t let it out of your sight before it’s occluded by the fog. You got that?”
“Mandrake, you told me the things that ravaged this town only come out at night unless provoked!” Erich hissed at him.
“Don’t take it personally. I tell that to everyone,” The Mandrake said. “Don’t break eye contact, and don’t try to fight it. I’ll see you in Adderwood.”
He leaned up against the door to his back, pushing it open and then sliding inside in a fraction of a second before slamming it shut, the sound of several locks clicking into place echoing through the alley.
The creature on the roof couldn’t have cared less about his departure, keeping its eyes keenly on the three live humans in the alley below.
“Erich – do we listen to him?” Ivy asked with a nervous swallow.
“I… I have no reason to think he wants us dead, and that thing hasn’t attacked us yet,” Erich replied, though it was obvious to both sisters that he was far from certain. “Do what he said. Back up slowly, and don’t take your eyes off it. Both of you get in the back seat and don’t block the middle.”
“But what is it?” Envy asked.
“Envy, trust me when I tell you that that information is counterproductive at this moment,” Ivy said as she grabbed her hand, and to Envy’s dismay she felt that it was trembling.
With an obedient nod, Envy began walking backwards, pulling Ivy and Erich along with her.
As they reached the end of the alley, the creature descended from the roof with both the grace of a cat and the viscosity of molasses, pouring its nebulous form to the ground as much as jumping. Each limb jerked about in what individually seemed like a chaotic fashion, but in aggregate was enough to smoothly propel the strange entity forward.
Ivy whimpered, but successfully fought the instinct to flee. She and Envy backed into the car almost simultaneously, and with only a bit of fumbling succeeded in opening the back door. Ivy went in first, followed by Envy. Once they were in, Erich opened the front passenger side door and pushed himself over into the driver’s seat, with Envy leaning forward to pull the door shut.
“Erich, drive! Drive now!” Ivy ordered, her unblinking eyes fixed upon the shambling creature stretching its elongated neck out towards their vehicle, its toothless smile so wide it looked like it might tear its face asunder.
Erich slammed on the gas, and their car sped off down Mainstreet, with the creature sprinting off after them in pursuit.
“Don’t we need to turn around at some point?” Envy asked, she and her sister now staring straight out through the rear window.
“It’s too risky. As long as we get out of town, we should be back more or less where we were,” Erich explained, his eyes glancing up into his rearview mirror every few seconds.
“Ivy, please. What is that thing?” Envy pleaded. “It doesn’t look real. Is it some kind of thoughtform?”
“It’s an inverted thoughtform, made from inverse thought,” Ivy answered. “It’s a form of consciousness that has the reverse quantum values of ordinary thought, causing wave functions to collapse in the complete opposite way they’re supposed to. Their mere presence is antithetical to life, psychic phenomenon, and any tech that relies on non-Newtonian physics.”
“Which is incidentally why we took my old Royce instead of Ivy’s Tesla,” Erich added.
“That’s why we have to keep looking at it. Our effect and its effect on wave functions cancel out and keep it from doing anything too weird,” Ivy went on. “It’s why they almost never attack in broad daylight, and why they can only exist in places devoid of sentience, like this. It’s why I thought we’d be safe meeting with The Mandrake here. Oh, God. Envy, I’m so sorry. I never should have brought you here, or at least I should have told you. I thought there’d be safety in numbers, and I didn’t want to scare you.”
The inverted thoughtform’s smile finally split its head wide open, and a great plume of monochrome flame ruptured forth from the gaping fissure. It was close, but it didn’t seem to be able to close the distance between itself and the car. A big enough bump in the road that caused them to involuntarily break line-of-sight for even an instant would be all it would take for them to lose that advantage.
“But why is it attacking though? Does it want to eat us? Is it defending its territory?” Envy demanded.
Ivy continued to stare straight ahead, fighting back tears that threatened to force her to blink.
“Inverse thought can only be made by the perversion of ordinary thought,” she said softly, seeing no need to say anything more.
Envy fell silent as well, now more than ever understanding the vital importance of maintaining their vigil on the creature before them.
It wasn’t so much running after them now as it was just tumbling, though it somehow always managed to keep its long neck held upright. It pushed itself to draw just a little bit closer to them, but that only slowed it down and caused it to sag under its own weight. Reality, or rather reality perceived by regular consciousness, was poison to it, and it dared not get too close. One instant of inattention was all it needed to strike.
When Erich saw that he had a clear path towards the fog at the edge of the town limits, he slammed down on the gas and pushed the vehicle as hard as it could go. In a desperate last ploy, the inverted thoughtform launched itself into the air in the hopes of landing on top of the car and hiding it from view long enough to grant it its victory. But the closer it got, the more real it became, and its increasing mass was enough to cause it to fall short of its target and crash into the pavement.
As the car vanished into the fog and they finally lost sight of the monstrous creature, they heard it release a shrill, forlorn howl that slowly faded into the distance. A howl which, much to their concern, was clearly not the same cry as the deep and resonating whale call they had heard earlier. For a third and final time, the whale call sounded again, perhaps in response to the howl of the creature that had been pursuing them.
Only this time, it wasn’t coming from behind them or even around them, but in front of them.
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