Affordable dentures and implants fort worth
Complete Family Dentistry Halifax
2016.03.30 09:04 Andres-bdrew Complete Family Dentistry Halifax
Complete Family Dentistry Halifax is Nova Scotia's premier dental facility. Our experienced team of professionals will ensure that all customer's are cared for and satisfied.
2017.01.30 07:22 hajaja9 Orthodontist
Orthodontist, childrens orthodontist, kids orthodontist, orthodontist Lexington sc, orthodontist columbia sc, braces, Invisalign.
2023.06.03 20:35 SpendEmbarrassed9966 Dentures vs All-on-x amount of fake gums
I’m in the early early stages of getting the All-on-X. I’ve had my extractions and implants placed. Still healing with stitches, and I have temporary take in and out dentures for now. I hate how much the dentures stretch my face and lips out and it’s got me wondering, how much “fake gums” do the end result has? I know mine won’t have the palate, because I absolutely hate my lower denture that has a crap load of gum. Can anyone share?
submitted by SpendEmbarrassed9966 to Dentalimplant [link] [comments]
2023.06.03 20:29 reckless-saving Weekly FIREUK Blog posts
UK FI blogger posts from the last 7 days
Full list of blogs included in checker - here
For list consideration - Submission form
submitted by reckless-saving to FIREUK [link] [comments]
- Continue the discussion below, any post from the list grabbed your attention this week, made an impression within the context of FIRE, maybe presented additional questions or an opportunity for further discussion here.
Full list of blogs included in checker - here
For list consideration - Submission form
2023.06.03 20:26 toddles84 Brain Cancer and The Alcoholic Caretaker
It started during Covid like I’m sure it has for many others, but I think the seeds of my alcoholism and depression were planted well before then. Covid just gave me the opportunity to realize and reflect that my life is headed nowhere except, perhaps, to an early grave.
The story starts about a year into what has been the longest relationship of my life. We met in April 2018 and I fell in her love with her, and I still feel the same, but something’s changed within me that’s not allowing me to find happiness anymore in my life. I could probably write a novel about my experience of being a caretaker to someone with brain cancer, but I’ll try to spare you of all the details as this will already be lengthy.
When we met, we were in our early thirties. Well, she was in her early thirties. I was in my mid-thirties. We were young, at least younger than we are now. We were vibrant and full of energy. She told me early in the relationship that she had what’s called an anaplastic ependymoma, a rare type a brain cancer. It was obviously important to her to let me know that she had this medical condition, as I’m sure it would scare off some romantic partners. Now at the time and on the surface, you wouldn’t have been able to tell she had cancer. But it didn’t scare me away as I simply asked, “Well, you’re not going anywhere, are you?” She said no and that was enough for me to continue with the relationship.
She moved into my house about 5 months into the relationship and about a month later I got a phone call while I was on a business trip telling me that the tumour had grown and that she was going to receive a procedure called a laser ablation. Up until that point in my life when she first told me, cancer was very foreign to me in the sense that I hadn’t experienced living with a loved one that had any form of cancer.
Over the years, we’ve endured so many surgeries. I couldn’t even count the amount she’s had anymore. We went through laser ablations, craniotomies, stereotactic radiosurgeries, compounded with treatment after treatment, chemotherapies, and immunization therapies.
In December 2019, she again had a reoccurrence. The Oncology and Neurosurgeon teams advised that another craniotomy was the best route to go. Unfortunately, after this one, she lost mobility on the left side of her body rendering her hemiplegic because of where the little fucking bastard grows. She spent about a little over a month recovering in an inpatient rehab facility. I would often stay the night to keep her company and sleep on what I would describe as the stiffest and starchiest couch I have ever sat on in my life. When she was released, we returned home and she began outpatient rehab therapy and, we as the supportive couple that we are, really focused in on getting her able to walk again and eating healthy. Of course, by this time Covid brought the whole fucking world to a screaming halt and I had ample time to assist in her recovery.
And wouldn’t you know it! We accomplished our goal. She never has, nor will she ever again have full mobility, but with the assistance of an AFO (Ankle/Foot Orthotic) she was able to walk well enough, but not very fast or very long distances. So we planned a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and it was spectacular! Even though it wasn’t always easy getting around, we managed and created some of the happiest moments of my life together. I think my favourite was pulling her around Mackinaw Island using a rickshaw. However, right before our trip, she went in for an MRI. Once again, the fucking asshole had to rear its ugly little head back into our lives, not that it ever left, but it would have been nice to have kept it from growing again so fast. So we set an appointment for yet another craniotomy to be performed in June 2020.
And I think that this was the time when things started to get really, really bad for me. I just remember coming home after the surgery while she recovered in the ICU with a 12 pack of Two Hearted Ale and just started crying and I couldn’t stop. For hours and hours on end, I just cried. Anyway, there were setbacks, but not quite on the same level as the December 2019 surgery. She returned home and continued with outpatient rehab and, some short time after, we learned about a clinical trial being performed at the NIH in Bethesda, MD.
Here we go! Hopefully, this is our golden ticket, and we can be rid of this thing once and for all. Due to Covid, I had the time on my hands to accompany her back and forth to the NIH, however, for her to receive the treatment, we would have to travel 3 weeks a month, every month until the completion of the trial.
I remember my eyes welling up from the commitment we had to make and thinking, ‘this is my life now.’ And that may sound selfish to you. And you might be right, but I knew in that moment, I had lost control of my own life knowing that I would have to sacrifice my wants, needs, and desires for someone else who just simply wants to live. The experience was mentally, emotionally, and financially draining, but it was worth it in the end to keep that hope alive. My girlfriend became friends with another girl there. She really makes friends everywhere she goes. Her new friend had Acute Myeloid Leukemia and, unfortunately, she passed away and I know that was especially hard. So from July 2020 to December 2020, we travelled back and forth to Maryland until the clinical trial was deemed a failure. All the while, I’m drinking more and more, and my mood and behaviour is becoming increasingly more erratic.
From 2021 through 2022, not much had changed. That is to say - it was more of the same. Doctors; surgeons; beer cans are piling up. She did get three elective surgeries. Two for a club foot release and a tendon release on her wrist, which are residual side effects from the number of surgeries she has had on her brain. In October 2022, another laser ablation.
Now we’re in January 2023. The surgical scar from the ablation did not heal properly. The skin on the top of her scalp had been stretched so thin that you could see the titanium screws implanted in her head. The Neurosurgeon team told us that when hardware is visibly exposed as in this case, they must treat it as if there were an infection. The plan of action is to, once again, perform surgery in the form of a skin graft removing all the hardware, cleaning up the infection, and replacing it with unaffected hardware. It was close to a 12 hour surgery and all I could think about was escaping to get a beer.
We currently learned that there’s been regrowth once again. Due to the elective surgeries and the skin graft procedure, she’s been off any form of treatment for some time now, so it really didn’t come as a surprise to us. However, instead of surgery, the Oncologist recommends she returns to treatment by means of chemotherapy and a drug called Avastin, which is an anti-angiogenic that targets the source of tumour and in theory cuts off the blood supply feeding the little fucker. However, my girlfriend feels she wants to continue with another surgery on her foot because of the discomfort, which would prevent her from going on treatment and would result in another craniotomy. And over the past week, this sent me over the edge.
I understand that this is her choice. However, the route she’s decided to take has caused me so much stress and anxiety. I mean just scheduling an MRI causes me to have PTSD. I told her that I cannot handle another surgery. We went through 5 surgeries in 8 months including the skin graft operation.
And this is the part that sucks. I think we’re finished. There’s too many stressors in my life that’s causing me to repeat a vicious cycle. I’m tired of pretending to be strong while crying in shadows. Do I get help from anyone? Not as much as her immediate family should. The father lives out of state and the mother thinks she’s a martyr for buying her a $7 gyro. As much as I love her and will always love her, I can’t do it anymore. I’ve sacrificed my happiness for her health and it’s honestly going to kill me. She told me I should go to therapy. I didn’t listen. I should have gone to therapy because now all I feel is regret, disgust, and resentment.
submitted by toddles84 to TrueOffMyChest [link] [comments]
The story starts about a year into what has been the longest relationship of my life. We met in April 2018 and I fell in her love with her, and I still feel the same, but something’s changed within me that’s not allowing me to find happiness anymore in my life. I could probably write a novel about my experience of being a caretaker to someone with brain cancer, but I’ll try to spare you of all the details as this will already be lengthy.
When we met, we were in our early thirties. Well, she was in her early thirties. I was in my mid-thirties. We were young, at least younger than we are now. We were vibrant and full of energy. She told me early in the relationship that she had what’s called an anaplastic ependymoma, a rare type a brain cancer. It was obviously important to her to let me know that she had this medical condition, as I’m sure it would scare off some romantic partners. Now at the time and on the surface, you wouldn’t have been able to tell she had cancer. But it didn’t scare me away as I simply asked, “Well, you’re not going anywhere, are you?” She said no and that was enough for me to continue with the relationship.
She moved into my house about 5 months into the relationship and about a month later I got a phone call while I was on a business trip telling me that the tumour had grown and that she was going to receive a procedure called a laser ablation. Up until that point in my life when she first told me, cancer was very foreign to me in the sense that I hadn’t experienced living with a loved one that had any form of cancer.
Over the years, we’ve endured so many surgeries. I couldn’t even count the amount she’s had anymore. We went through laser ablations, craniotomies, stereotactic radiosurgeries, compounded with treatment after treatment, chemotherapies, and immunization therapies.
In December 2019, she again had a reoccurrence. The Oncology and Neurosurgeon teams advised that another craniotomy was the best route to go. Unfortunately, after this one, she lost mobility on the left side of her body rendering her hemiplegic because of where the little fucking bastard grows. She spent about a little over a month recovering in an inpatient rehab facility. I would often stay the night to keep her company and sleep on what I would describe as the stiffest and starchiest couch I have ever sat on in my life. When she was released, we returned home and she began outpatient rehab therapy and, we as the supportive couple that we are, really focused in on getting her able to walk again and eating healthy. Of course, by this time Covid brought the whole fucking world to a screaming halt and I had ample time to assist in her recovery.
And wouldn’t you know it! We accomplished our goal. She never has, nor will she ever again have full mobility, but with the assistance of an AFO (Ankle/Foot Orthotic) she was able to walk well enough, but not very fast or very long distances. So we planned a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and it was spectacular! Even though it wasn’t always easy getting around, we managed and created some of the happiest moments of my life together. I think my favourite was pulling her around Mackinaw Island using a rickshaw. However, right before our trip, she went in for an MRI. Once again, the fucking asshole had to rear its ugly little head back into our lives, not that it ever left, but it would have been nice to have kept it from growing again so fast. So we set an appointment for yet another craniotomy to be performed in June 2020.
And I think that this was the time when things started to get really, really bad for me. I just remember coming home after the surgery while she recovered in the ICU with a 12 pack of Two Hearted Ale and just started crying and I couldn’t stop. For hours and hours on end, I just cried. Anyway, there were setbacks, but not quite on the same level as the December 2019 surgery. She returned home and continued with outpatient rehab and, some short time after, we learned about a clinical trial being performed at the NIH in Bethesda, MD.
Here we go! Hopefully, this is our golden ticket, and we can be rid of this thing once and for all. Due to Covid, I had the time on my hands to accompany her back and forth to the NIH, however, for her to receive the treatment, we would have to travel 3 weeks a month, every month until the completion of the trial.
I remember my eyes welling up from the commitment we had to make and thinking, ‘this is my life now.’ And that may sound selfish to you. And you might be right, but I knew in that moment, I had lost control of my own life knowing that I would have to sacrifice my wants, needs, and desires for someone else who just simply wants to live. The experience was mentally, emotionally, and financially draining, but it was worth it in the end to keep that hope alive. My girlfriend became friends with another girl there. She really makes friends everywhere she goes. Her new friend had Acute Myeloid Leukemia and, unfortunately, she passed away and I know that was especially hard. So from July 2020 to December 2020, we travelled back and forth to Maryland until the clinical trial was deemed a failure. All the while, I’m drinking more and more, and my mood and behaviour is becoming increasingly more erratic.
From 2021 through 2022, not much had changed. That is to say - it was more of the same. Doctors; surgeons; beer cans are piling up. She did get three elective surgeries. Two for a club foot release and a tendon release on her wrist, which are residual side effects from the number of surgeries she has had on her brain. In October 2022, another laser ablation.
Now we’re in January 2023. The surgical scar from the ablation did not heal properly. The skin on the top of her scalp had been stretched so thin that you could see the titanium screws implanted in her head. The Neurosurgeon team told us that when hardware is visibly exposed as in this case, they must treat it as if there were an infection. The plan of action is to, once again, perform surgery in the form of a skin graft removing all the hardware, cleaning up the infection, and replacing it with unaffected hardware. It was close to a 12 hour surgery and all I could think about was escaping to get a beer.
We currently learned that there’s been regrowth once again. Due to the elective surgeries and the skin graft procedure, she’s been off any form of treatment for some time now, so it really didn’t come as a surprise to us. However, instead of surgery, the Oncologist recommends she returns to treatment by means of chemotherapy and a drug called Avastin, which is an anti-angiogenic that targets the source of tumour and in theory cuts off the blood supply feeding the little fucker. However, my girlfriend feels she wants to continue with another surgery on her foot because of the discomfort, which would prevent her from going on treatment and would result in another craniotomy. And over the past week, this sent me over the edge.
I understand that this is her choice. However, the route she’s decided to take has caused me so much stress and anxiety. I mean just scheduling an MRI causes me to have PTSD. I told her that I cannot handle another surgery. We went through 5 surgeries in 8 months including the skin graft operation.
And this is the part that sucks. I think we’re finished. There’s too many stressors in my life that’s causing me to repeat a vicious cycle. I’m tired of pretending to be strong while crying in shadows. Do I get help from anyone? Not as much as her immediate family should. The father lives out of state and the mother thinks she’s a martyr for buying her a $7 gyro. As much as I love her and will always love her, I can’t do it anymore. I’ve sacrificed my happiness for her health and it’s honestly going to kill me. She told me I should go to therapy. I didn’t listen. I should have gone to therapy because now all I feel is regret, disgust, and resentment.
2023.06.03 20:20 AutoModerator [Download Course] Jay Abraham – Beyond Exponential Business Bucket List Bonanza 2023 (Genkicourses.site)
![[Download Course] Jay Abraham – Beyond Exponential Business Bucket List Bonanza 2023 (Genkicourses.site)](https://external-preview.redd.it/Qb1LSP6oOf0ph4Ej0tqKq_WRZ_Tk2uFL2HFLRk7zVt4.jpg?width=320&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=8d99018dfe1c76f623758b5414f9997432fe39bb "[Download Course] Jay Abraham – Beyond Exponential Business Bucket List Bonanza 2023 (Genkicourses.site)") | Get the course here: [Download Course] Jay Abraham – Beyond Exponential Business Bucket List Bonanza 2023 (Genkicourses.site) submitted by AutoModerator to TheCoursePlace1 [link] [comments] Our website: https://www.genkicourses.site/product/jay-abraham-beyond-exponential-business-bucket-list-bonanza-2023/  @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ If you're wondering why our courses are priced lower than the original prices and are feeling a bit suspicious (which is understandable), we can provide proof of the course's contents. We can provide a screenshot of the course's contents or send you a freebie, such as an introduction video or another video from the course, to prove that we do have the course. Should you wish to request proof, we kindly ask you to reach out to us. Please be aware that our courses do not include community access. This is due to the fact that we do not have the authority to manage this feature. Despite our desire to incorporate this aspect, it is, unfortunately, unfeasible. Explore affordable learning at Genkicourses.site 🎓! Dive into a world of quality courses handpicked just for you. Download, watch, and achieve more without breaking your budget. |
2023.06.03 19:39 spacedrew101 Girl I want to date is more or less moving out of the country, what should I do? What should I tell her?
We've been trying to go out for months now but her response times were really slow and to me it just looked like a lack of interest, so I didn't want to commit to any plans.
Cutting out a lot of detail, I didn't want to try planning a 1 on 1 so we end up going to a bar I frequent with friends (And that she semi-frequents, turns out her housemate works there).
I'd say we had a decent time and I realised she's a lot more compatible than I thought, and to be honest I don't meet many people like her, I don't know anybody else I'd rather date right now. But it's hard to show much enthusiasm given how long it's been and it didn't seem worth it to take things anywhere, I wouldn't say it went all that well. Also we were surrounded by friends and I was exhausted.
Then she explained to me that she's heading home on Tuesday for at least a month, then coming back here in July and that she hopes she can stay. To me it sounds like she'll be coming back for the month as a visit and can't afford to stay and can't find a job (She only just finished college, which is part of the reason she was being so flaky beforehand).
I don't think I showed many signs that I like her, and I really don't meet many people like her so I'd still like to see her. Should I tell her I'd still like to get to know her more and meet up on Sunday/Monday? The one month gap could be good because I have a lot of work to focus on anyway. But if I don't see her before she leaves then I can't see myself messaging her in July to be honest.
submitted by spacedrew101 to dating [link] [comments]
Cutting out a lot of detail, I didn't want to try planning a 1 on 1 so we end up going to a bar I frequent with friends (And that she semi-frequents, turns out her housemate works there).
I'd say we had a decent time and I realised she's a lot more compatible than I thought, and to be honest I don't meet many people like her, I don't know anybody else I'd rather date right now. But it's hard to show much enthusiasm given how long it's been and it didn't seem worth it to take things anywhere, I wouldn't say it went all that well. Also we were surrounded by friends and I was exhausted.
Then she explained to me that she's heading home on Tuesday for at least a month, then coming back here in July and that she hopes she can stay. To me it sounds like she'll be coming back for the month as a visit and can't afford to stay and can't find a job (She only just finished college, which is part of the reason she was being so flaky beforehand).
I don't think I showed many signs that I like her, and I really don't meet many people like her so I'd still like to see her. Should I tell her I'd still like to get to know her more and meet up on Sunday/Monday? The one month gap could be good because I have a lot of work to focus on anyway. But if I don't see her before she leaves then I can't see myself messaging her in July to be honest.
2023.06.03 19:20 AutoModerator [Download Course] Jay Abraham – Beyond Exponential Business Bucket List Bonanza 2023 (Genkicourses.site)
| | Get the course here: [Download Course] Jay Abraham – Beyond Exponential Business Bucket List Bonanza 2023 (Genkicourses.site) submitted by AutoModerator to TheCoursePlace1 [link] [comments] Our website: https://www.genkicourses.site/product/jay-abraham-beyond-exponential-business-bucket-list-bonanza-2023/  @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ If you're wondering why our courses are priced lower than the original prices and are feeling a bit suspicious (which is understandable), we can provide proof of the course's contents. We can provide a screenshot of the course's contents or send you a freebie, such as an introduction video or another video from the course, to prove that we do have the course. Should you wish to request proof, we kindly ask you to reach out to us. Please be aware that our courses do not include community access. This is due to the fact that we do not have the authority to manage this feature. Despite our desire to incorporate this aspect, it is, unfortunately, unfeasible. Explore affordable learning at Genkicourses.site 🎓! Dive into a world of quality courses handpicked just for you. Download, watch, and achieve more without breaking your budget. |
2023.06.03 19:15 iwasdusted WEEKLY ROUNDUP & CH. 11 MEGATHREAD: Week of Friday, June 2, 2023
 | Here is this week's weekly roundup post! submitted by iwasdusted to RegalUnlimited [link] [comments]
As always, formats and bookings are subject to change and local availablity. Here's the link to our ongoing Chapter 11 roundup.
And don't forget to check out this week's pinned movie discussion post for spoiler-free discussion of your recent Regal experiences! |
2023.06.03 19:05 a15minutestory [WP] Turns out most of the humanity in Modern Era is so nihilistic that even most evil supernatural entities such as demons are now horrified by them.
The pinwheels on the playground stopped turning. The clouds paused. The LED screen on Kesha's phone flickered– something it had never done in the years of her life spent staring into its welcoming glow. She allowed her attention to wander away from it long enough to spot a well-dressed stranger standing on the woodchips about six feet away. Nature resumed its momentary pause for the unnatural, and Kesha continued scrolling as though the man was never there.
"Kesha," the man spoke in a singsong tone as though the goal were to scare her.
"Go away," she said dismissively as the sound from a video began playing on her phone, and then ceased just as quickly.
The man dropped his shoulders and adopted a confused expression. "But– wait, hold on, aren't you even curious as to how I know your name?"
"Cambridge Analytica," she said dryly.
"What?" he placed his hands on his hips.
"I made a FaceBook, whoop-de-doo," she drew mini circles in the air with her index finger as she said it. "You looking to buy?"
The man blinked several times. "What?" he asked again with more emphasis.
"You have to tell me if you're a cop," she said as she kept scrolling.
There was a long pause between the two of them before the man decided to just start over clean. He drew in a deep breath before opening his arms wide and smiling his most charismatic smile.
"Kesha, my name is Xancanambular, but you can call me Fred. I'm a demon."
"Alright, bet," she answered. "If you're looking to buy, stop playing around."
"Oh, you could say I'm in the market," said Fred with a sly smile. "But not for drugs. I'm in the soul trade, honey."
She looked up from her phone for the second time. "Uh-huh. You're taking this thing pretty seriously huh? Had some fucked up parents, I bet."
"No, Kesha, I'm a literal demon from Hell," he insisted, his tone bordering on annoyance. "I want to make a deal for your soul, I was just trying to..." he gestured to the empty space around him. "Pageantry, y'know? I mean, I know it's been a good 40 years or so since I've been in the game, but what happened to you people?"
Kesha shrugged. "It's not really any one specific thing."
"Started with women entering the workforce," sounded a new voice from below Kesha. The demon jumped and nearly hollered in surprise. There was another– a young man about her age in a black hoodie lying in the woodchips under the slide.
"Don't start that shit again, Tanner," Kesha warned.
"Used to be able to handle it all with one income," Tanner persisted. "The man worked. The woman stayed home. She cooked, cleaned, and made dinner. Soon as women started working, families could afford more. Prices rose to meet that. Now you can't do it on one income alone."
"Women needed to be able to work," Kesha countered. "Their only option was to marry a man. The bastard starts beating her, what is she supposed to do? Divorce him? You couldn't be a divorced woman back then, ain't nobody would even look at you. A woman's only option back then was to put up with the bullshit or move back in with her parents as a disgrace to her community, and that's some bullshit."
"Nah, I hear you," Tanner said quietly. "I even agree. But that's where it started."
"I know you ain't blaming women for this," Kesha set her phone down.
"I'm blaming corporate greed," Tanner clarified.
"Hold on, hold on," Fred interjected lifting his hands. "What in the world are you two on about?"
"The rich keep taking," Kesha answered as a matter of factly. "Minimum wage hasn't kept up with inflation. College degrees ain't worth what they used to be and cost ten times as much. The cost of everything is through the roof..."
"Our generation will never retire, Fred," said Tanner. "On top of that, our planet is on borrowed time. I used to be excited to be a dad someday, but really? Who can afford to have kids?"
"People having litters," Kesha answered him. "The only way out of the trap right now is to have a ton of kids and get that welfare money."
Fred frowned. "Come on. If it was really that bad, people would be rioting in the streets."
"Shit, I'm ready to riot," Kesha grumbled, picking her phone up. "Soon as everyone starts, I'll be out there with my sign."
"Same," said Tanner. "My dad was always telling me people are just lazy, but... the hardest working people I know are broke. The system is all messed up. Lobbyists have to go. Healthcare needs an overhaul. Our congressmen and senators shouldn't be allowed to trade stocks. The rot's from within bro."
"And short of violence, there ain't anything we can do to stop it," Kesha looked up at Fred. "As it goes, I'll never own a home. I'll never have kids. I'll never retire. My planet is fucked. And world war three is about to pop off any minute now."
Tanner laughed. "I never had dying on a hill in Europe on my ways to die bingo card."
"In short," Kesha sighed. "I don't own shit. I ain't never gonna own shit. Only thing I own is my soul, and I ain't selling it to you."
The demon's shoulders fell. It was less bleak in Hell. He didn't know what to say. If all of that was true, then he'd have to rethink his strategy. He pursed his lips and looked down at his watch.
"Well, then, I uhh... I guess I better go. I think I hear Satan calling." With that, he vanished without a trace. Kesha looked back down at her phone and closed the Reddit app.
"Kesha?" asked Tanner. "Was Fred the demon real, or was that the shrooms?"
"You're high on your own supply, Fred," she said as she immediately reopened Reddit. "Enjoy the ride. And if you're seeing demons... maybe stop selling on playgrounds.
Writing Prompt Submitted by u/Cthulhu_75
submitted by a15minutestory to A15MinuteMythos [link] [comments]
"Kesha," the man spoke in a singsong tone as though the goal were to scare her.
"Go away," she said dismissively as the sound from a video began playing on her phone, and then ceased just as quickly.
The man dropped his shoulders and adopted a confused expression. "But– wait, hold on, aren't you even curious as to how I know your name?"
"Cambridge Analytica," she said dryly.
"What?" he placed his hands on his hips.
"I made a FaceBook, whoop-de-doo," she drew mini circles in the air with her index finger as she said it. "You looking to buy?"
The man blinked several times. "What?" he asked again with more emphasis.
"You have to tell me if you're a cop," she said as she kept scrolling.
There was a long pause between the two of them before the man decided to just start over clean. He drew in a deep breath before opening his arms wide and smiling his most charismatic smile.
"Kesha, my name is Xancanambular, but you can call me Fred. I'm a demon."
"Alright, bet," she answered. "If you're looking to buy, stop playing around."
"Oh, you could say I'm in the market," said Fred with a sly smile. "But not for drugs. I'm in the soul trade, honey."
She looked up from her phone for the second time. "Uh-huh. You're taking this thing pretty seriously huh? Had some fucked up parents, I bet."
"No, Kesha, I'm a literal demon from Hell," he insisted, his tone bordering on annoyance. "I want to make a deal for your soul, I was just trying to..." he gestured to the empty space around him. "Pageantry, y'know? I mean, I know it's been a good 40 years or so since I've been in the game, but what happened to you people?"
Kesha shrugged. "It's not really any one specific thing."
"Started with women entering the workforce," sounded a new voice from below Kesha. The demon jumped and nearly hollered in surprise. There was another– a young man about her age in a black hoodie lying in the woodchips under the slide.
"Don't start that shit again, Tanner," Kesha warned.
"Used to be able to handle it all with one income," Tanner persisted. "The man worked. The woman stayed home. She cooked, cleaned, and made dinner. Soon as women started working, families could afford more. Prices rose to meet that. Now you can't do it on one income alone."
"Women needed to be able to work," Kesha countered. "Their only option was to marry a man. The bastard starts beating her, what is she supposed to do? Divorce him? You couldn't be a divorced woman back then, ain't nobody would even look at you. A woman's only option back then was to put up with the bullshit or move back in with her parents as a disgrace to her community, and that's some bullshit."
"Nah, I hear you," Tanner said quietly. "I even agree. But that's where it started."
"I know you ain't blaming women for this," Kesha set her phone down.
"I'm blaming corporate greed," Tanner clarified.
"Hold on, hold on," Fred interjected lifting his hands. "What in the world are you two on about?"
"The rich keep taking," Kesha answered as a matter of factly. "Minimum wage hasn't kept up with inflation. College degrees ain't worth what they used to be and cost ten times as much. The cost of everything is through the roof..."
"Our generation will never retire, Fred," said Tanner. "On top of that, our planet is on borrowed time. I used to be excited to be a dad someday, but really? Who can afford to have kids?"
"People having litters," Kesha answered him. "The only way out of the trap right now is to have a ton of kids and get that welfare money."
Fred frowned. "Come on. If it was really that bad, people would be rioting in the streets."
"Shit, I'm ready to riot," Kesha grumbled, picking her phone up. "Soon as everyone starts, I'll be out there with my sign."
"Same," said Tanner. "My dad was always telling me people are just lazy, but... the hardest working people I know are broke. The system is all messed up. Lobbyists have to go. Healthcare needs an overhaul. Our congressmen and senators shouldn't be allowed to trade stocks. The rot's from within bro."
"And short of violence, there ain't anything we can do to stop it," Kesha looked up at Fred. "As it goes, I'll never own a home. I'll never have kids. I'll never retire. My planet is fucked. And world war three is about to pop off any minute now."
Tanner laughed. "I never had dying on a hill in Europe on my ways to die bingo card."
"In short," Kesha sighed. "I don't own shit. I ain't never gonna own shit. Only thing I own is my soul, and I ain't selling it to you."
The demon's shoulders fell. It was less bleak in Hell. He didn't know what to say. If all of that was true, then he'd have to rethink his strategy. He pursed his lips and looked down at his watch.
"Well, then, I uhh... I guess I better go. I think I hear Satan calling." With that, he vanished without a trace. Kesha looked back down at her phone and closed the Reddit app.
"Kesha?" asked Tanner. "Was Fred the demon real, or was that the shrooms?"
"You're high on your own supply, Fred," she said as she immediately reopened Reddit. "Enjoy the ride. And if you're seeing demons... maybe stop selling on playgrounds.
Writing Prompt Submitted by u/Cthulhu_75
2023.06.03 19:01 kimgue01 I think my life is f_cked up, lol
Hey,
I just finished my 2nd-year cs at Western & doing a 4 months internship in Toronto.
2023 has been the absolute worst of my life.
First, my father got diagnosed with cancer in December. The same month, my mom was 5-days away from being deported (literally) b/c her current employer withdrew her support for our PR application on purpose. This led me to fail a final exam, which could've not been that detrimental if I wasn't a deadset AEO to HBA starting September 2023 (spoiler, Ivey is unforgiving in my case b/c of "F" on my transcript). With that butchering my mental health in FYE, worse things popped up. On a side note, I appealed my case to all parties responsible at uwo for resitting for a make-up final, but got turned down with zero transparency.
In March, my parents decided to take a divorce. Not that hurtful if I was a Canadian PR, but since I'm not yet, this meant I have my compulsory 18 months of military service remaining as getting Canadian PR thru my parents became 0% in chance, which is best to sort that out ASAP (Sep 2023 - Mar 2025 planned) as stuff will only get worse if I progress thru 3rd year (duh, no job).
To make things worse, I might have also hindered the opportunity for PGWP (typical way for international students to get PR after graduation thru a work permit 1-3 years) since I'm making a leave of absence for more than 150 days, meaning, even if I come back, I might not be able to work and get PR.
What is heartbreaking is my mom cries a lot these days. She thinks she ruined my life for a student who was on top of the game (I turned down waterloo cs & cornell science back in HS because I couldn't afford tuition), but she's dragging me to a sludge for giving me these unnecessary stresses that gave me a chronic depression.
On another side note, I had 3.9 GPA in 1st year, then 3.0 GPA in 2nd year, thus I have 3.4-3.5 cGPA with my repeated courses this summer.
TL;DR: I lost AEO status, my family is breaking up, I'll be 25 when I graduate from uwo cs program, and might not be able to stay here in the most ideal way. I'm thinking of transferring to schools in the States (for better or worse, idk) or maybe master's program in there as well for my salary escalation compare to ones that I can get here in Canada (& for my long-term financial goal of $5m net worth). I'm thinking of doing that while I'm gone for the military (luckily, I have 2 chances of transfer applications).
If you have any thoughts, please leave them in comment as someone else's advice will help my mental health significantly at this point. Thank you :)
submitted by kimgue01 to OntarioUniversities [link] [comments]
I just finished my 2nd-year cs at Western & doing a 4 months internship in Toronto.
2023 has been the absolute worst of my life.
First, my father got diagnosed with cancer in December. The same month, my mom was 5-days away from being deported (literally) b/c her current employer withdrew her support for our PR application on purpose. This led me to fail a final exam, which could've not been that detrimental if I wasn't a deadset AEO to HBA starting September 2023 (spoiler, Ivey is unforgiving in my case b/c of "F" on my transcript). With that butchering my mental health in FYE, worse things popped up. On a side note, I appealed my case to all parties responsible at uwo for resitting for a make-up final, but got turned down with zero transparency.
In March, my parents decided to take a divorce. Not that hurtful if I was a Canadian PR, but since I'm not yet, this meant I have my compulsory 18 months of military service remaining as getting Canadian PR thru my parents became 0% in chance, which is best to sort that out ASAP (Sep 2023 - Mar 2025 planned) as stuff will only get worse if I progress thru 3rd year (duh, no job).
To make things worse, I might have also hindered the opportunity for PGWP (typical way for international students to get PR after graduation thru a work permit 1-3 years) since I'm making a leave of absence for more than 150 days, meaning, even if I come back, I might not be able to work and get PR.
What is heartbreaking is my mom cries a lot these days. She thinks she ruined my life for a student who was on top of the game (I turned down waterloo cs & cornell science back in HS because I couldn't afford tuition), but she's dragging me to a sludge for giving me these unnecessary stresses that gave me a chronic depression.
On another side note, I had 3.9 GPA in 1st year, then 3.0 GPA in 2nd year, thus I have 3.4-3.5 cGPA with my repeated courses this summer.
TL;DR: I lost AEO status, my family is breaking up, I'll be 25 when I graduate from uwo cs program, and might not be able to stay here in the most ideal way. I'm thinking of transferring to schools in the States (for better or worse, idk) or maybe master's program in there as well for my salary escalation compare to ones that I can get here in Canada (& for my long-term financial goal of $5m net worth). I'm thinking of doing that while I'm gone for the military (luckily, I have 2 chances of transfer applications).
If you have any thoughts, please leave them in comment as someone else's advice will help my mental health significantly at this point. Thank you :)
2023.06.03 19:00 VagrantSea Edelgard and Bernadetta: Trauma and Moving Forward.
 | Preface / My reason behind doing this for 22 day: submitted by VagrantSea to Edelgard [link] [comments]
Introduction:The reason why I chose to analyse Edelgard and Bernadetta’s relationship is because their interactions and supports are well-developed, gives further understanding to their character, and because it is the logical follow-up to my last post (Link here: Edelgard Analysis month 1: Does Edelgard have PSTD? : Edelgard (reddit.com))Now, there are a few things I want to go over before discussing the supports as it sets the stage for both understanding Edelgard and Bernadetta’s relationship, acknowledging the flaws with both games (and by extension, the larger Fire Emblem series). I have found that supports, ultimately fit into one or more of the following categories:
This being Dimitri due to the bad writing of it, how it does nothing to develop or use Edelgard in an effective manner while also continuing his bad writing of making everything about him. The topic of Anselma, while interesting, fails because of how far removed Edelgard is from that plot point and because of inconsistent plot elements due to the amount of changes. It is a topic that would only benefit Dimitri and even then it fails because of AM and AG writing. ( Which sucks because you have a very good support with Edelgard and Claude, showcase their similarities as well as what sets them apart. While pushes the understand that these two are character that are defined by their agency. ) Bernadetta suffers heavily from both games’ writing, as well as a larger problem within FE of repeating a certain character trait and unengaging writing. Many Supports get started by focusing on a character trait, and when done poorly and repetitively, this character trait becomes the only thing the Support is about rather than any deeper meaning the writers would like to explore.. This creates an issue with repetitiveness, where a character’s supports constantly retread the same ground. This is something that both older games as well as new games like Awakening, Fates, and most recently Engage have been criticised for, in part due to their larger Support logs. In Engage's case, it actively ruined the characters as they never developed past their certain traits they initially demonstrated, making a lot of the characters one note and uninteresting. This sucks, because Engage does have interesting characters like Céline, who has depth to her character whenever the conversation is able to find its way beyond her love for tea. Houses and Hopes put effort into fixing this and succeeded with some characters. However, they brought their own issues, while still struggling with repetitiveness to an extent, The way that both games try to fix these issues is by putting a lot more effort into their secondary characters, giving them more depth, complexity, and personality. Additionally, certain secondary characters were chosen to be comic relief, who break the tension, allowing the story to flow better. Naturally, these characters tend to have more comedic support. This, on its own, isn’t a bad thing provided the writing is good. If it isn’t, a comedic support can end up unfunny and mediocre. The problem is that the quality of both games' comedic writing is inconsistent. At their worst, Houses and Hopes sometimes fall back on the reuse of certain traits that defined other games, to the point that people within the community have defined these characters by a single trait. https://preview.redd.it/x8wcdkxn2u3b1.png?width=1017&format=png&auto=webp&s=6133bea82c4c51b84bac535411dc7dce73c2f182 As you can see here by a list I have made, Bernadetta is one of the characters who suffer from this issue. Furthermore, both her and Raphael are characters who have dark and interesting backstories. Stories that ties back into the larger narrative of the both games.The impact of which is often ruined by the game choosing to have them be the tension breakers. To be the comedic characters even when it would have been more interesting to seriously dig into their issues. To make a list categorising her supports: https://preview.redd.it/inqjha0q2u3b1.png?width=512&format=png&auto=webp&s=f6a3552d6719e1bbebfed29dd79c31ebf16e28e0 In Bernadetta's case, her trait of anxiety and panic is used as a crutch in a lot of her supports to get the ball rolling toward later supports. The problem is that this one trait is heavily overused and when it is used effectively, it goes over peoples’ heads and they associate it with her comedic support. This becomes worse given how grating Berndetta’s voice acting can be at times, according to some. I would make another list of how many times the support overuses her traits of anxiety and panic attacks, but that would include nearly all of her supports. This sucks because there are supports that do use Bernadetta and her anxiety to both endear us to her character and her struggles genuinely well. 3 House Support: How one's trauma causes a person to react.The overarching theme behind Edelgard and Bernadetta’s support chain in Three Houses is similar to that of Edelgard’s support with two other Black Eagles, namely Caspar and Linhardt. All three are about the character’s coming to understand each other. Importantly, Edelgard’s responses to her interlocutors in all three supports are quite similar.In Linhardt’s support, Edelgard hounds Linhardt out of concern for him before pushing him to the point of snapping at her and comparing her to his overbearing mother. In response, she tries to find a way in which Linhardt can fully use his talents while not forgetting his personal needs and understanding how his methodology links to his talents. Which ties back into how Linhardt has also grown to care for and respect Edelgard. In Caspar’s support, both of them come to understand what each other meant in their C support. Caspar understands that Edelgard is one his biggest supporters, understands her character, and that she isn’t trying to make everything about herself. While Edelgard learns the true reason behind Caspar’s motivation and why he works as hard as he does. Edelgard and Bernadetta’s support chain is about them learning how to be around each other. Bernadetta sees Edelgard as a person to look up to and finds her inspiring. In their C support, Bernadetta sees how Edelgard presents herself as the seemingly fearless Imperial Princess and wants to follow her example, unaware that it is merely a mask Edelgard wears. However the very things Bernadetta admires about Edelgard also intimidate her, making her afraid to approach her role model. https://preview.redd.it/czug1pet2u3b1.png?width=477&format=png&auto=webp&s=b8a3220ef2110bf06ae18631dd0be7c8a9bb76dd Edelgard tries to challenge’s Bernedetta’s assessment of her, admitting that she does have things she fears like the sea. Confessing that she does not know how to swim and finds “the pitch black of the open sea at night quite frightening” . Bernadetta is comforted by the knowledge that the person she looks up to has flaws. But Edelgard is annoyed by how her shortcomings seem to please Bernadetta and responds harshly, scaring Bernadetta. Edelgard’s response to learning Bernadetta looks up to her reflects her own insecurities. Despite her confident demeanour, Edelgard has a poor self-image, in part because she understands the negative repercussions her actions have had and/or will have. She understands that war is not a good thing, that it can potentially do more damage than what the current system is doing, and that she could very easily be making things worse for the people living in Fódlan. However, Edelgard understands that myriad complex factors make affecting positive change in Fódlan impossible without bloodshed. Edelgard’s lack of self worth, as well as her dislike of people viewing her as a role model, is implied throughout both games. It even gets touched on briefly in Engage during Edelgard’s A-Bond with Panette. A constant behaviour with Edelgard throughout her support is how Edelgard handles negative comments both personal and criticism aim towards her quite badly. Edelgard gets offended by Caspar comment and misunderstanding of Edelgard trying to make everything about herself when in reality. She is trying to understand Caspar, his motivation and his own issues. Since the running narrative through Caspar more character focused support with Edelgard, Byleth, Ferdinand and Annette is how Caspar knows that the world owes him nothing, about Caspar inner turmoil on how he carries himself, how he wears his heart on his shoulder but also his positive belief of accepting mistakes. Edelgard in return to Caspar misunderstands, thinking Caspar is picking a fight with her and think’s his next comment is him bicking with her. Missing the point that Caspar wasn’t trying to be rude with his comment. In the JP version, her comment isn’t straight away which is a nice subtle detail showing she took personally. https://preview.redd.it/nzqb7kyu2u3b1.png?width=1608&format=png&auto=webp&s=6ed8e3d610c51a94600b1a05b9890e83ed788d1b Edelgard takes Linhardt criticism of Edelgard overbearing and caring nature personally and is hurt by it. Most notably within the JP version. Edelgard sounds like she is genuinely about to cry from that comment and yet again Ai Kakuma voicing acting shows through as Edelgard doesn’t respond to Linhardt straight away as well as stuttes over her words. This behaviour of Edelgard either taking things the wrong way or personally happens when Byleth doesn’t like Edelgard, name of “Black Eagle Strike Force”. as she spent a night thinking about it. Especially, in the JP version. Link:https://houses.fedatamine.com/ja/scenarios/246#event-184 But is also a continued thing within 3 Hopes and is something Hubert acknowledges in his support with Monica. Hubert: Lady Edelgard can be quite sensitive, despite how she carries herself.Edelgard being a sensitive person and that has a negative reception response is something we can tie back into her trauma and having C-PTSD. It clear Edelgard suffer from many of the symptoms but the most relevant ones is: Hyperarousal (feeling "on edge")Edelgard's response to Linhardt, Caspar, Byleth and Monica in these moments is out of trauma, her doing so unconsciously and is actually a part of Edelgard dislike being she doesn’t like losing control of her emotion and composure. ( Something that Treehouse mistranslated. ) https://preview.redd.it/zo1od2vw2u3b1.png?width=585&format=png&auto=webp&s=7d8b1b7cb1bfb28dba1b50f08170e29f4e3809d2 And the thing is that 3 Hopes implies Edelgard realises how she is acting emotionally after the conversation ends. Hubert: I thought you might be interest to know that Lady Edelgard was overcome with grief as she told me how deeply she regrets wounding you with her words. ( Hubert support with Monica. )This behaviour of Edelgard is one of the two central focuses behind both the C support, done in a subtle manner and B support, in a more overt manner. Showcasing how Edelgard negative natural response clashes with Bernadetta responses, the other central focus. Bernadetta is similar to Edelgard in a way that she also acts in a certain way due to her trauma, acting under Hyperarousal. ( It something that she acknowledges in their 3 Hopes support which we will get to later. ) Bernadetta's natural response to people is fear, due to the abuse she suffered under her father's hand, in his attempt to make a “nobles housewife” and how he treated her. Bernadetta's natural response is fear. It is a Fight or Flight response, stumbling over words and saying the wrong thing. Despite the music in the background of their B support makes you think it a light heart one. The point behind it is showcasing the flawed approach of dealing with Bernadetta. At first, she is being very sympathetic towards Bernadetta but because she has caught her off guard. It has triggered a Bernadetta response. Which in turn caused Edelgard to go “Edelgard Von Hreslvg, leader of the Black Eagles Mode” as a response of getting annoyed and trying to make Bernadetta understand her own issues. In turn Edelgard becomes very forthright with how she carries herself, losing the kindness she normally has behind her words. Which just makes the whole conversation fall apart from there because of the more restrictive way of Edelgard carrying herself. https://preview.redd.it/eus4ygjy2u3b1.png?width=1038&format=png&auto=webp&s=1e9c89b61e9efc032649b0bb590153383f94cd8a Edelgard in a sense had the wrong approach to deal with Bernadetta and her anxiety whilst suffering from her own issues of losing herself in her emotion in both their C and B. And it is something that Edelgard improves on over the course of 5 years being surrounded by her Friends as their A support starts off much more natural. Edelgard and Bernedetta are spending time together, enjoying their hobby of gardening. This alone is a lot for Edelgard as both games make it clear that she doesn’t relax enough, so for her to allow herself to relax and spend time with people. Avoidance and emotional numbingShow’s Edelgard overcoming more of her trauma, despite her previous statement of acceptance over what has happened to her and how she tries to not dwell on the past.. It also shows a progression in their relationship as Bernadetta feels more calm and natural around Edelgard. To the point of accidently hitting on Edelgard. https://preview.redd.it/n0ytu3zz2u3b1.png?width=569&format=png&auto=webp&s=619b17958cd5dbdecde658e3b89779ef506ead57 The main part of the A support is showcasing the improvement in their relationship and how they carry themselves towards each other and in general overcoming their issues. Bernadetta learns to come outside of her room thanks to Edelgard and the Beagles. Something she only does in CF and SB. She doesn’t allow her fear to control her like it used to and is happy that she came to the Monastery. While Edelgard has learned to not let anger control her, to not get sensitive comments made towards her, not letting her Hyperarousal control her. And she is grateful for meeting Bernadetta. This scene shows her growth perfectly. C and B support Edelgard would have lost their emotion after Bernadetta's short burst of anxiety attack. While Post Times skip Edelgard is chill, keeping calm with her words and showing kindness behind them, she is able to calm down Bernadetta. https://preview.redd.it/5eb8liw13u3b1.png?width=1554&format=png&auto=webp&s=c8b473cdc82eaa8e007c8ac5a6450554a8abc9c6 Afterward, they go back to playing with the garden, watching a flower bloom. Which is a really nice conclusion to their support. Both Bernadetta and Edelgard share motifs of flowers. For Bernadetta, it is a hobby she slowly tries to share with others one way or another. Taking happy in the quiet and gentle nature of the hobby. While for Edelgard, it’s her opinion on herself. As outside of character growth in CF and SB, she doesn’t have a good opinion on herself, her poison flower line in Engage is probably one of the few good lines Engage has with using Emblem to further develop the cast of previous games and how their character interacts with character within the new games. Edelgard naturally believes that while her action of war against Fódlan is the best solution to its problem, she thinks she is a net negative on those around her and their lives. Thinking about how better Hubert life could have been if she didn’t exist if she died during the experiment. How if it wasn’t for her war in 3 Hopes, Dorothea, would have gained better education then self studying, that she wouldn’t have missed out on all sorts of experiences there. That Edelgard has robbed people of their agency and opportunity for doing what she believes is right. ( Dorothea support with Edelgard in 3 Hopes is also really good. ) That all Edelgard really does is cause suffering. Which ultimately comes to form in Hegemon Husk, the form she takes when she pushes herself to the breaking point. A form that shows her lost in self-worth and self-survival. Her having the skill like ‘Desperation’ is interesting on narrative level and shows how far she is going to make Dimitri doesn’t win. ( Despite, the skill inclusion being more thought of on a Gameplay level then Narrative.) The Design of Hegemon has a motif of flower and feather design into it. Part of her looks like leaves, feathers, wings and most notably a Carnivorous plant. Her staggering Blow is called ‘Wilted Flower’. Hegemon is a representation of Edelgard's toxic belief in herself. Hegemon Edelgard is sadly never really explained and it is very much a representation of AM and AG's writing issue. Despite how easy it would have been for AM and SS to build it up by focusing on Edelgard, ( considering she the main Antagonist.) her thoughts and feel as she slowly loses the war and her chose to lose her humanity in order to win the war and through that scene we learn about the process. https://preview.redd.it/lmxh0ro33u3b1.png?width=482&format=png&auto=webp&s=98fa8c20bea0483fbe140d34fbf2d1862911e99c It is why Edelgard lines in the JP version of their support mentions Hegemon in a way of describing Edelgard before Byleth came into their life as a monster. El died during the experiment and now she “Edelgard the Hegemon ''. But through Byleth, Bernadetta and her Friends. Edelgard accepts she is not a monster, she is not a poison flower that causes everything around her to wither and die. Edelgard is still the El from long ago. She is allowed to have hobbies, have friends, have emotion and most importantly be human. Since that is CF thematic narrative. ‘Allowing oneself to be human and to fight for a future that allow people to have the agency to be Human’. https://preview.redd.it/t8jjhr053u3b1.png?width=479&format=png&auto=webp&s=73be07bc78fc031e26a752232ed8acb9591348a0 Their ending, especially the JP version shows how much Bernadetta means to Edelgard as well as how she helps Edelgard keep in tact with her emotion. A core part of Edelgard's character and her development is her friends. How Edelgard wants to keep them around after the war rather distancing herself again. And I think that last line of how Bernadetta being Bernadetta is something that becomes a sign to people that they are finally in a period of peace. Fódlan found it True Peace. Is really nice. 3 Hopes: Trauma / Curse and Moving Forward to a Better world.Now after 3157 words, we are sadly or well happily in a CF fans case not done because 3 Hopes and SB exist. We can now get into one of Fire Emblem's best supports.Now the C support within 3 Hopes is basically a continuation of their A support in that how Edelgard and Bernadetta act is nearly exactly the same. A good part of SB is that certain relationship sorta carries over from CF and in Edelgard case, it's her relationship with female Beagles as well as Lysithea and by extension Hapi. Edelgard talks to Bernadetta in a soft tone similar to her A support in 3 House which is honestly good as it continues the tempo last left of in that game. The C support is them talking as friend’s, Edelgard asks Bernadetta if the letter she is reading from her mother. The follow talks accidentally set off Bernadetta panic response which Edelgard able to calm her down letting her know that she both has friends and that they are always around her and that Bernadetta still has family that cares about her like her mother before giving us a gut punch of a reminder that Edelgard is the last of her family but wasn’t done in a spiteful manner. https://preview.redd.it/4tyb17n63u3b1.png?width=505&format=png&auto=webp&s=25253a725f79ead94116bb67a89f9fcd3254af7a Despite this being one of about 2 - 4 lines of Edelgard talking about her family, this exchanges works so well because it establish to the player that Edelgard has told the Beagles about her past, about TWSITD and that they were there for Edelgard during her Father passing and that they just as much of family unit here as they are in CF. Which is nice. The following line of Edelgard refocusing the conversation onto Bernadetta's care for her mother is sweet. A good chunk of the C support following this is talking about Grégoire Varley and his new job role. Depending on when you unlock this support, with earliest being chapter 4. If done so early, the conversation builds on SB's previous chapter with Varley being made Bishop, Bernadetta's sad reaction to this. Only for player 5 to 10 later find out that Edelgard purposely fucked over him, knowing that the Church would and did send Assassins after him even before the war. For the sole intention of putting the Central Church in a position where she wants them while also keeping Varley, a noble put under house arrest in 3 House imply he tried rebelling like Aegir or was involved in the Experiment. Both busy but also under constant stress, anxiety and fear for what he did to Bernadetta. And for the C support to go into this for the sole reason of the positive effect of Varley rightful suffering causes me to grin. Following this, they compared Bernadetta of the past to Varley trying to lock himself away in the prestation before acknowledging how far Bernadetta has come from being a reclusive, shy girl and how Bernadetta family situation change help her for the better, now being away from her abuser. The C support raps up with Edelgard saying that its like Bernadetta curse have been lifted similar to her own, which Bernadetta tries to ask Edelgard about until Edelgard tries to hide and get Bernadetta to ignore what she said. In general, their C support is all about continuing the certain plot lines of chapter 3 when it comes to Varley and Bernadetta's opinion on the matter, seeing their relationships in this game and seeing that it hasn’t changed and that they are still close friends. Before wrapping it up in an interesting topic that hints to the future being Edelgards curse. Considering Edelgard's past, we know she is talking about trauma here. That Edelgard seeing Bernadetta being away from her father and being surrounded by both her friends and having a good relationship with her mother. Massively improved her wellbeing to the point that she says it like a curse has been lifted from her before wonder if Edelgard own curse that is caused by TWSITD has been lifted as well due to their defeat at Enbarr and them going back into hiding for time being. 3 Hopes Support ASimilar to the C support. Their support chooses to use the event of the story as the establishment event behind the support whilst continuing on with the plot line of Edelgard curse set up in support prior and it done masterfully.The support only unlock when you start chapter 12: The Rising Darkness. In other words, the return of ‘Those Who Slither in the Dark’. TWSITD are used within SB narrative quite tactically as Scarlet Blaze main antagonist isn’t one entity but instead is all the opponents they face. SB story is all about the recontextualization of Edelgard ideology and desire for a world that puts commoners and giving people agency over their own lives. And how because of Edelgard action and ideology, she has made the ‘Fódlan’, the ‘World’ her enemy and through this narrative it reframes not just SB story but 3 House, CF and Edelgard role in that narrative as well. Claude and let's say Baron Dominic is just as much of an Antagonist to her then Dimitri, Rhea, Church of Seiros and TWSITD for example. Furthermore, TWSITD are used as a ticking time. From when we defeat them in Chapter 3 and then going into hiding, which in turn fails the agreement Edelgard made to Rhea about capturing Thalas alive. We know that at some point during the story, that TWSITD will return to strike back against Edelgard and the Empire. We the player during our first playthrough just don’t know when. Unfortunately, for Edelgard. When TWSITD strike it’s at the worst times as similar to Claude and Count Gloucester strategic plan of fooling Edelgard and cutting off Leopold supply route forcing Edelgard to change her plan’s. Edelgard is about to win the war, she has Dimitri on the backfoot. She just took Brennius Territory, which shares a border with Blaiddyd meaning she is marching away from Fhirdiad. If she wins that battle against Dimitri and the remaining Eastern Faerghus forces. The Kingdom is done allowing Edelgard to then go after the Central Church and Rhea. Meaning that Edelgard would then have control over Fódlan if her negotiation with the Alliance goes well allowing her to then target TWSITD freely. ( Though this depends if you chose to have Shez continue their vengeance or to go after the contractor of the Jeralt Merc band being Rodrigue. In other words, fighting for a higher cause than revenge. If Shez kills Jeralt, Byleth / Sothis persuades Claude to follow his own plans, machanation and agency causing him to betray Edelgard. ) Until news of a revolt caused by TWSITD breaks out in Hyrm and Ordelia forcing Edelgard and her Alliance Allies to deal with them, their distraction in turn free Ludwig Aegir from jail causing a co-op and taking control of Fort Merceus. TWSITD purposely struck at the worst time for Edelgard, knowing that she would go back to Hyrm to deal with them as within Chapter 5. Edelgard stated that so long as you align yourself with the Empire or look for them in support. She will never turn her back on you. Narratively this is the 3rd time she shot herself in the leg in the route. Which is caused by either her strategy in Claude case or by her ideology in Lonato early rebellion and TWSITD return, causing the prolonging of the war. Edelgard is to blame here. This is where Edelgard support with Bernadetta continues from. With the return of TWSITD. So has Edelgard trauma, her curse. Because of this, she has started to hide herself away at night in order to continue strategizing on how to deal with TWSITD. Worry about whether or not the Embarr is safe and if there is another imposter within their army. Before Bernadetta comes in to hide in her hiding spot for a while in order to be alone. https://preview.redd.it/43n5ili93u3b1.png?width=919&format=png&auto=webp&s=9e7e82329e65b960b51f2637f0868a63bb1a5fd9 After a small chinwag, Bernadetta is able to see through Edelgard mask, asking if she is ok and is willing to be there to listen to Edelgard troubles. Something that Edelgard tries to make a light joke about and how she could go on and on about her many issues to the point of trapping Bernadetta there forever whilst ‘misunderstanding’ Bernadetta intention or well Edelgard was trying to hide core issues she has been having. Afterwhich, Bernadetta straightaway notices, calls Edelgard out on her bluff and brings up the end of their C support, about how Bernadetta trauma / curse being lifted and that Edelgard thought hers was lifted too. https://preview.redd.it/zsidy35b3u3b1.png?width=785&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b7d64119ca5203bfe30955be2b6a3a3ec9afdad Until they returned after TWSITD latest action, Bernadetta was able to see that Edelgard curse and trauma has been eating away at her, that she has been hiding away at night for sole intention of trying to deal with them. Edelgard admitted to Bernadetta that she was right on the money and was surprised to see Bernie see right through her quite easily. Edelgard admits to her friend that her curse has returned, that her thoughts about her curse / trauma and how it might have finally been lifted after battle in Embarr was nothing more than wishful thinking and that now Thalas is not just alive but is not alone as he has been scheming as well. Edelgard is now letting her thoughts go to her head. Which is something Bernadetta relates to with her own struggle that she continues to still have. How if she was to stay outside too long, she gets seized by a panic that forces her to hide away. Bernadetta still has her Hyperarousal, she still suffers from fight or flight response and it is something she is still learning to deal with. Which is where a core foundation of Edelgard ideology and character comes in being her realism but also her hope and positivity. https://preview.redd.it/cp22bfic3u3b1.png?width=849&format=png&auto=webp&s=2819d09052a13ae415cb6f6313c7b4236bbd3573 https://preview.redd.it/83gehw7d3u3b1.png?width=814&format=png&auto=webp&s=2cf07bf14b14583de011240ddde8c7eb4f11e339 This being the idea that life is a bit of a bitch at times, that we all have our own scars, issues, trauma, curses but the only thing we can do is keep going forward. These two lines are not just a call back to Edelgard comments to Byleth after Jeralt but are an expansion on them and give us a further understanding as to why she said what she did. https://preview.redd.it/op6yybie3u3b1.png?width=364&format=png&auto=webp&s=19e1680542ee3f2432af16eaee46c46c2ceba498 Edelgard said what she did to Byleth, not out of malice but out of realism. She knows that cuddling up to Byleth will only do so much and understanding that the only person that can pull someone out grief, that can cause a person to stand up again and continue living and fight is themselves. Which is true in therapy, you can’t cuddle or force someone to be better, you can support them but it is their choice at the end of the day. Their choice on whether or not they want to help themselves. Edelgard has accepted what has happened to her and family as just a part of life. They died and there is nothing she can do to bring them back. All she can do is continue moving forward, continue living while they are dead. A core foundation of Edelgard character is her realism, facing reality head on. Which where the hope side of her character comes, her idealism and where Edelgard character truly shines: https://preview.redd.it/kfgd445g3u3b1.png?width=1027&format=png&auto=webp&s=7d79b6d168ed7f83626fafb00c73720f91122071 https://preview.redd.it/34hy9uug3u3b1.png?width=788&format=png&auto=webp&s=1bb03a80cc6541b516b2fb16e24026457527ec7c https://preview.redd.it/o80w18hh3u3b1.png?width=872&format=png&auto=webp&s=4f835500828f8f753df3f44bf2d8ac854acab6bd Edelgard gives us a core reason why she is fighting her war and it's also Bernadetta's reason for supporting Edelgard and her war other than being her friend. In that despite her family being dead. She wants to make a world where no one suffers like she has. Where no one has to bear the Scars, Curses and trauma like she has. Where there are no more victims who had the similar or the same story as Edelgard and Bernadetta has. Edelgard is trying to do something positive about the world in response to what has happened to her. Edelgard, the Beagles, the Empire are fighting for a world where those who want to achieve can do so while those who wish to have a quiet life can do so as well. Fighting for a world that isn’t one or the other. Where there can be both Ferdinand who strives to be the best and Bernadetta who wants to have a quiet life. This part in particular builds off Edelgard support with Constance and how Edelgard's new system works.. This dream world, this future they are building isn’t exclusive to Edelgard, but instead something they are all part of. The support wraps up in Bernadetta gaining back positivity from Edelgard words, being inspired, saying that if they can truly do it, then she will be right by Edelgard and celebrate by locking herself in her room. Something that Edelgard says is acceptable as long as she takes care of the things she needs to do. With the last sentence being Bernadetta being a true introvert. Why I love this support and sorta conclusionFor me this is one of my favourite support because it uses the game's main story to its advantages whilst building on the relationship already established in 3 House. TWSITD return would triggered Edelgard issues. It makes sense to focus on that within a support given how tight of a pacing SB and CF got and how understand the importance of each scene.Through having it be a support and having set with Bernadetta, a character who also has Trauma. It allows both characters to bounce off each other whilst developing them in a natural way because they relate off each. This is very much Bernadetta's support as it is Edelgard because we get to understand more of her Trauma. The anxiety she has. Other than it being an Edelgard support which is normally a net plus because most of the time her support tries to focus on both character’s in some form. It’s a support that really focuses on Edelgard, how she views her trauma but notably. Her optimism and hope. She is very much an optimistic character in ideology, believing in the potential of others and is probably the most optimistic despite having a realistic world view. There is so much good about this support and how it uses things to its advantage that I can’t stop thinking about it but I sadly should because I wrote a lot here. PS: WE NEED MORE EDELDATTA ( Edelgard and Bernadetta.) ART AND FICS, ESPECIALLY THOSE WITH HEGEMON. SERIOUSLY HEGIE ON IT OWN IS ALWAYS A WIN. #GiveBerniePlantEl. |
2023.06.03 18:58 Frank_Leroux Molossus, Chapter Sixteen
First Chapter
Chapter Fifteen
“Thank you, Ms. President, and Mr. Secretary-General. It’s my privilege to come and speak to everyone present during such a momentous time in human history. One which, I hope, will lead to a brighter future for us all…”
US President Correa’s boilerplate beginning flowed out as she scanned the room. Behind her rostrum sat a larger dais tiled with green marble, behind which sat the UN President, Secretary-General, and Under-Secretary-General. Two huge screens flanked the dais, and those screens now showed Correa’s face as she continued.
“…and we are committed to our country’s pledge to finding a peaceful and just way for Coalition technology to be incorporated worldwide, and to not attempt any reverse-engineering of our own. Make no mistake; we do not do this out of any sense of altruism or fairness, as pleasant as that may sound. We will hold this pledge sacred for the simple reason that, if the United States were to attempt such efforts the rest of the world would, without a doubt, find out. That, of course, would lead to a great instability.”
‘Great instability’ was diplomatic-speak for ‘the rest of the world then gangs up on the USA and then everything goes to hell’.
“I know there has already been a great deal of debate in this august hall as to the best way to proceed forward, in a fair and impartial manner. We believe that we have found what one might call a ‘trial run’ which will allow us to work out such matters.”
The general murmuring from the many semi-circular rows of desks in front of her increased.
“To begin with, during the first weeks after first contact we wanted to make sure our guests from the Coalition would not starve to death. Much like humanity’s own ships during the Age of Sail, Coalition exploration vessels store enough provisions for years…but such provisions never last. They have very advanced recycling, but mostly for water and even that is only a stop-gap measure. It is unknown even at this time as to how long it will take to repair the Exultant Finger of Rithro, and we did not want to risk the crew running out of food.
“Therefore, we undertook an emergency effort to have their ship’s medic examine various Earth foods to determine their compatibility with our guests’ varied biochemistries. I am pleased to report that there are quite a few Earth foodstuffs which are indeed compatible, although there are some specific items which act as allergens amongst some of the Coalition species. During these efforts, we did learn a bit about how their alien biochemistries work…information which has been duly published and is now openly available. We also began to get glimpses of something wonderful, and asked the Coalition crew for more details. They supplied us with some general ideas of what their medical technology can accomplish; I must emphasize that we do not possess any knowledge of how they can perform such miracles.”
Now the murmuring got quite a bit higher, but not quite to the point where they’d have to call for order.
“Yes, I use the word ‘miracles’ advisedly. For example, take Captain Sadaf. You have all seen her, and how she moves like a person in the prime of their life. Now. What if I told you that she is a little over four hundred years old?”
The murmuring died down into a shocked silence.
“Her species, the auhn, is no more long-lived than we are…but they are able to regenerate and remove the effects of aging. I hope the esteemed ambassadors can see what I am driving at. I propose that we set up a research institute, international in scope, to be placed at a neutral location which is still to be determined. The purpose of that institute will be to study and adapt Coalition medical technology for use in humans.”
Now the murmuring started again; she hoped they were actually listening instead of hatching side-deals with each other.
“You all have families and friends. I’m sure you have at least one family member, one good friend, who died of some horrible and unnecessary affliction. Think of what this means to the world, to us. It is also an excellent way to determine the inevitable issues and frictions which will arise from such a concerted international effort, and that, in turn, will inform our efforts in mutual reverse-engineering of other Coalition technology.
“I know this is, in many ways, a frightening time. Change can be frightening. But I am convinced that you will all know the right way forward, and that you will all see the need for us to unite in this matter, even if others may not be so clear-cut. I thank you for the opportunity to speak.”
As she stepped away from the rostrum, the UN President cleared his throat.
“We will now begin the debate on Madame President Correa’s proposal. Paper copies, with specifics of the proposal, are now being distributed to you all. We’ll now begin the debate period…yes, the gentleman from Portugal…?”
__________
Correa’s Chief of Staff was a shorter, tubby man with an olive complexion by the name of Pablo Rosas. He and Correa sat in a White House conference room, staring at a big screen which now showed the results of the UN vote. “Well, I suppose that went about as well as we could expect,” said Rosas.
“Yep. I was surprised they even agreed with our asking them to kick in some money.”
Rosas chuckled. “Keep in mind that all of this new medical tech will be available for anyone patent-free. Should be air-tight legally, since nobody here on Earth invented it; we’re merely adapting it. I think that was the sweetener we needed to get it passed.”
The president gave a brief nod, then tapped a few keys on the controls in front of her. The screen now showed a world map. “Now we just have to figure out where to put the damn thing without everyone getting butt-mad about it.”
“Hmm.” Rosas laced his fingers over his substantial gut as he regarded the map. “Someplace not ‘the usual’, then.”
Correa growled in frustration. “I keep thinking Switzerland, but I know there’s gonna be a lot of shit flung about that it’s too European-centric. Taiwan would be great; they’ve got both a good tech base and excellent transport infrastructure.”
“But way too controversial, for obvious reasons,” replied Rosas. “Japan?”
“China will, again, kick up a fuss. Huh. New Zealand?”
“That might work. They tend to be more neutral…but then again some might say they’re in too close with Australia, and that this whole effort is too Western-centric.” His eyes flicked back to north on the map. He was about to move his gaze elsewhere, but then he paused. “What about Iceland?”
“Iceland?” Correa almost scoffed, then looked more thoughtfully at the map. “Okay, they’re a NATO member which is a minus. But they tend to remain mostly neutral, which is a plus. Decent transportation infrastructure…don’t we have a naval air base there?”
“I think so, let me check…” Rosas tapped at his phone. “Hey, Jack? What can you tell me about any US naval air bases in Iceland? Just the highlights.” After a couple of minutes, he responded with a curt, “Okay, that’s enough, thanks.”
He put his phone away. “We kinda-sorta have one, at a place called Keflavik. The base there used to be a lot bigger during the Cold War. Then we shut it down after the Soviets were no longer a going concern. Iceland uses it now, and they allow us to fly submarine-search aircraft out of there, but a few years ago they nixed the DOD’s request to rebuild it into a more permanent base.”
“That does work in their favor. It makes for better optics if they’re known for keeping NATO at arm’s length.”
Rosas sat up. “Think the UN will go for it?”
“We can only try. I’ll have our ambassador in Reykjavik make some discreet inquiries, let’s see if they’d be okay with our proposing them as a candidate.”
The Chief of Staff smiled. “If it goes through, this institute will be pumping well north of a billion dollars per year into their economy. That should make it more than ‘okay’.
__________
Agent Cécile Savoie sat in a secure-location breakroom, silently grumbling as she held an as-yet un-drunk mug of coffee in her hands. As the agent-in-charge of the security detail during the Camp David incident, she’d been put on administrative leave, right alongside every other agent who’d been there. But it wasn’t like she had much down time; the inquiry board into that incident now summoned her damn near every other day for yet another round of tedious questioning.
“Hey,” said Hanson as he strolled in, looking just as sour as she felt.
She looked up in surprise. “Hey yourself. I thought you were assigned to the alien detail.”
“I was,” he said as he seated himself across the circular table from her. “Guess being in Alabama when the shitshow went down wasn’t far enough away to be completely out of suspicion. I just finished running my own gauntlet. But the rumor is, I’m getting it easy compared to everyone who was at Camp David, including the special forces people. Especially you.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty much a colonoscopy every day,” she muttered. “Going over the timeline, where I was at which times, who I had direct line of sight on, who I was in radio contact with.” She finally sipped her coffee.
Hanson’s sour expression deepened. “Do you really think it was one of us?”
She sighed. “It has to be. My gut tells me that there’s more than one mole and I told the inquiry board as much. The fuckers who got in knew too much about our patrol patterns, where everyone was, when they’d have a clear shot at an infil. That means someone with access to our methods and comms, and as to the latter we don’t use CB radios.”
The other agent leaned back. “Fuck. I wish I knew why any of us would do that. We’re supposed to be quiet professionals, not frothing radicals.”
Savoie turned the mug in her hands. “Not to tell tales out of school but, through the whisper network, they’ve been leaning hard on the captured dudes from the attack. Apparently one of their main ‘objections’,” and here she made some one-handed air quotes, “is that they think the whole Breaker thing is a ruse. It’s all smoke and mirrors, so that we’ll beg the Coalition to come and save us. And then…well, it gets vague after that but I guess they claim that at best we’ll get turned into the galactic equivalent of a Native American reservation. Worst case, we all get harvested for our precious bodily fluids.”
Hanson stared at her for a moment in disbelief. “That is, if you will forgive the uncouth term, utterly retarded. For chrissake, the Hubble got some beautiful shots of their ship once they’d spun that shield around to reveal it to us. I mean, I’m no spacecraft expert but even I could tell it had gotten the shit pounded out of it.”
She responded with a shrug. “Hey, Flat Earthers are still a thing.”
“Flat Earthers don’t stage FUCKING mortar attacks in our nation’s capital,” snapped Hanson. Then he subsided and spoke more softly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be so on edge. This whole thing just pisses me off.”
“Join the club,” said Savoie as she sipped more coffee. “I just don’t get it, though.”
Hanson made a gentle ‘continue’ wave of his hand.
She leaned forward. “Okay. Our comrades in the CIA managed to identify the four who made it into the compound. They were all mercenaries, each with at least ten or fifteen years of experience in kicking ass around some of the worst hot spots in the world. Syria, Burma, bunch of places in Africa. One of ‘em even turned out to be ex-Wagner group.”
“Okay?” It was a leading single-word question, but not an unkind one.
“So why was the rest of the attack made up of nothing but a bunch of goddamn shit-kickers? And that includes the aborted attempt in Decatur. I’ve seen the files of those we rounded up in the Camp David attack. They were all low-life idiots just banging around, maybe they might have once held a gun in their lives. Hell, from what I’ve heard, the shootings that triggered the alarm at Camp David were an accident; those intruders were supposed to sneak around that patrol, not kill them. They all had the same top-of-the-line kit, so we know whoever is behind this has deep pockets. Why not hire an entire bunch of competent people instead of doing it onesy-twoseys?”
“It is a puzzle.” Hanson got up and set a styrofoam cup of water into the nearby microwave. As the cup turned within its electromagnetic prison, he leaned against the nearby counter and pondered her question. “Maybe the team in the woods was intended just as a distraction?”
“That’s what I thought at first, but then I reconsidered. I mean, what if the four who went in failed? You’d still need a proper backup plan. Same thing with the Decatur bunch. By the way, did they ever catch them?”
Hanson let out a dark chuckle. “Decatur PD found a pile of vests and rifles, hastily wiped down. They were able to pull a few partial prints off of ‘em. My guess is they’ve fled to the proverbial four winds, hoping to lay low for the rest of their lives. We’ll nab ‘em eventually.”
The microwave dinged and he retrieved his hot water, then pulled a tea bag out of his jacket pocket as he re-seated himself.
Savoie smiled. “I never figured you for a tea guy.”
He unwrapped the bag and with a bit of ceremony dunked it into his cup. “Well, I used to be a coffee guy, but my gut doesn’t agree with the acidity.”
“We do have tea here, you know.” She pointed to the storage bins behind him.
“Yeah, but it’s cheap-ass stuff. The brand I like is expensive, but worth it…” Hanson’s eyes widened as he trailed off.
She raised an eyebrow. “Hanson? Do you smell burnt toast?”
“They couldn’t afford it,” he said in a near-whisper.
Savoie was about to tell him to stop being overly dramatic, then she realized he might be on to something and that she didn’t dare distract him. “Keep talking.”
He leaned forward, his forearms on the table. “Okay. Imagine you’re a hard-bitten mercenary. You’ve been in the literal shit, in every nasty conflict anyone cares to name. Somehow, someone finds you and comes to you. They say ‘hey, these aliens are bad news, do you want to kill them?’ Even if you, as the hypothetical mercenary, are down with the cause…”
“From what the intruders were yelling, they were,” said Savoie.
“Yeah but even then, our mystery financier is asking you to infil and exfil out of one of the most heavily guarded pieces of real estate on the planet. Oh, and kill a bunch of special-forces-maybe and aliens-definitely in between. What do you do then?”
She replied with a grim smile. “If I’m that mercenary, then I ask for a metric fuck-ton of money. And there were four of them, they would have all done the same. Hell, they must have been doing collective bargaining.”
Hanson dunked his tea bag as he thought it through. “Okay, so our mystery mastermind has a lot of money, but not billions on hand to hire a literal army of hard cases. Huh. So those other dipshits might indeed have been a distraction.”
“Maybe. They must have also spent quite a bit on the mortar attack. That wasn’t made by some hobbyist in their bedroom, they knew what they were doing. Given that nobody saw them set up the launcher or leave, they were more pro.” Savoie hoped that the FBI’s efforts to track the various mortar components turned up something soon. Thus far, those efforts were bogged down; as it turned out, quite a few companies had ordered the identified components, and tracking the subsequent second-hand purchases was time-consuming.
“And those mortar-making pros would be more expensive.” Hanson sipped a bit of tea. “Did they ever get anything off of the launcher itself?”
“Sadly, no. Turns out the whole damned thing was homemade, constructed out of tubing and other off-the-shelf components. It was also wiped down thoroughly, no prints. Like I said, pros.”
“But limited in resources,” said Hanson. “Which explains one of the things that’s bugged me. Namely, that our OPFOR didn’t use some proper artillery. If they have a couple of moles in the Secret Service, then it should be easy to recruit and pay some military dudes to slip ‘em some gear and alter the logs. They could stow a howitzer inside a semi-tractor-trailer. You could park that thing anywhere up to 25 miles away. Use a single 155mm Excalibur GPS-guided munition, boom. That would have pretty much obliterated the stage and everyone on it. Then you just re-stow the howitzer and toodle off all innocent-like, right when everyone is freaking the hell out.”
“So they couldn’t afford that type of arty strike,” she said. “Or they simply didn’t have the contacts to pull that off. Hmm. I wonder if our moles are getting paid at all?”
Hanson resumed his thousand-yard stare. “The mortar attack must have been planned first. The other two attacks feel much more like rush jobs.”
“Eh? Oh, I get it. Sadaf’s speech was known well in advance. It was going to be one of her first big public appearances since the initial presidential speech. They were broadcasting it online to the world. Having her get turned into chunky red salsa, in real time, would be one helluva statement. So that’s what they focused on.” She drank a bit more coffee, and now it was time for her eyes to widen. “Our mole or moles didn’t arrive at Camp David until after Sadaf’s speech was announced.”
“That…oh, yeah, that makes sense. Originally the mortar attack is the OPFORs’ only focus, but yet somehow they’ve suborned one or two Secret Service agents and they have ‘em in their back pocket. Then one, or better yet both, of the moles gets assigned to the Camp David detail, and they realize that now that they have a golden opportunity to get at the other aliens as well. So they go off and hire four pros for the actual attack inside, plus a bunch of chucklefucks to act as a distraction, because that’s all they can afford since the four pros are asking for some serious money.”
Savoie leaned forward. “When did Chao and Grakosh leave Camp David?”
“It was, ah, three? No, four days after we got everyone settled, both the aliens and the special forces types.”
“Okay, so then the OPFOR gets word, courtesy of our moles, that one of the aliens is now heading to Alabama. But now they’re stretched so thin that they can’t afford anything other than to hire another bunch of dipshits to make a run at them and hope for the best.”
“And then the second bunch lets the FNG drive.”
They both laughed, but that humor settled down as they both thought through the chain of inference.
“It is pretty thin,” said Savoie at last. “There’s a lot of assumptions in there.”
“Yeah. But I do like the idea of our moles getting assigned at the last minute.”
She rubbed her forehead. “We had a bunch of new people come in when they decided to stow the Rithro crew there. Seven, no eight in all.”
“It’s a place to start,” said Hanson. He finished his tea. “C’mon, let’s see if we can get a meeting with the inquiry board.”
__________
A little while later and not very far away, three people sat in a well-lit but otherwise deadly dull room. At least the chairs were somewhat comfortable. Matt and Martinez sat at two chairs against one wall, while across from them McCoy sat sprawled sideways on another with a foul look on her face. She glowered at the far beige-painted wall. “This completely sucks. Why can’t we have our phones? I could at least play some mahjong.”
“This is a secure location, Corporal,” replied Matt. “Ixnay on the onephays.”
Martinez’s leg jittered. “How long are we gonna sit here? They said they’d call us in, like, an hour ago!”
“Dunno, it’s some kind of last-minute interview thing,” replied Matt with Zen-like calm.
The corporal looked over at Matt. “I don’t get you, man.”
Matt grinned. “Nobody gets me. I’m like the wind, baby!”
“That’s not…I mean, I watched you open up a dude like he was a bag of fuckin’ Doritos using nothing but a fuckin’ knife. Now you’re being all Caine from ‘Kung Fu’.”
“It’s good to know that the classics are still appreciated,” said Matt.
Martinez pointed at him. “If you start calling me ‘Grasshopper’ I will shoot you.”
McCoy turned her glare to the ceiling. “Maybe it’s a psychological test. They want to see if we crack under pressure and start yakking secrets.”
“I mean, I’m sure they’re recording us right now,” replied Matt. “But it’s merely as a precaution. I am also five-nines certain that none of us are suspects. We weren’t integrated into the compound’s overall security, and thus it would be unlikely that we could have let our four attackers in.”
“Not to mention, we were the ones to kill ‘em,” added Martinez. “Well, except for the one that Takh took care of.”
“Yep. This is…I won’t call it a formality, but the board just wants to know where you were and what you saw. Walk them through your personal timelines, understand? Tell them only what you know. If you don’t know something, then say so.”
McCoy turned herself around so that she now sprawled the other way. “This whole bullshit just bugs me. Takh and the others are off with a bunch of strangers and I…I mean, we aren't there to help protect them.”
Matt and Martinez shared a meaningful glance. “From what I heard, Takh is quite capable of taking care of himself,” said the latter with a grin. “You told me he pitched that one dude across the room like he was throwing a softball.”
For once, the petite corporal looked a bit flustered. “Yeah, but, I mean, what if some other potential bad guy gets the drop on him with a gun? I don’t like not being there. I just wanna know that he’s okay. I should be there, just to make sure.”
The smaller man snapped his fingers in the face of the taller, who sighed and took out his wallet. With great ceremony, Matt pulled out a five-dollar bill and placed it upon the now-upraised palm of Martinez.
“Told ya,” said Martinez with a grin.
She sat up and glared at them both. “That doesn’t mean anything! Takh is a good guy!”
“Nobody said he wasn’t,” replied Matt as he stowed his wallet. “He is indeed a good guy.”
“Yeah, seriously, we’re glad you two hooked up,” added Martinez. “Takh’s solid. Hell, I’d let him date my sister.”
“I. Am. Not. Hooked Up. With ANYONE.” McCoy now looked furious enough to chew nails.
Martinez stroked his chin. “Kissing might be a problem, though.”
Matt performed a similar chin-stroking action. “Hmm, indeed, Corporal, I do believe it might be a serious issue. One has all of those mandibles to contend with.” He hooked his fingers next to his mouth in an approximation of an udhyr’s face. “Still, I think that, with enough will and effort, one could figure it out. Like the man said, life finds a way.”
“But how much tongue is he packing?” posed Martinez. “You know what the man also says. Big dude, big tongue. Could make things more interesting, all around.”
The woman did not look amused. “Martinez, Toke? You are now both officially gigantic flatulating assholes.”
“C’mon, McCoy!” protested Martinez. “Think of it this way. A few years from now, let’s say we filthy humans are now part of the Coalition and I’m at some meet ‘n greet, and I just so happen to spy me an oh-so-very-fiiine udhyr mamacita from across the room. Now, I wanna do my bit for my species and approach her, and get some good old inter-species cultural interaction going on. But there’s all sorts of questions. How do I compliment her without insulting her culture? How am I supposed to get in good with her? How do the mechanics work? How do the various bits line up? We need details! You’re at the tip of the spear, we all need good intel!”
McCoy slumped back into her seat. “Over seven hundred billion Dimmadollars of defense spending, and yet somehow I wind up stuck in a room with you two fuckos…oh, by the way, Toke,” she added, pointing a finger at Matt, “why the hell can you and Sarge never go back to Okinawa?”
“Nice distraction, McCoy,” said Martinez. “My guess is some sort of wet-work shit.”
Matt just smiled. “Oh for fuck’s sake, I don’t kill everyone I meet. I was a Second LT at the time, managed to somehow leapfrog my way into officer ranks all the way from enlisted. Anyways, the Okinawa affair was merely a case of, well, one particular case of rye whiskey. The good sergeant…was he a sergeant then? Oh yeah, we had done some other stuff I can’t tell you about in someplace I can’t tell you where, and we were celebrating Shaw getting his third stripe. We’d got ahold of the previously-mentioned case of whiskey and then we began toasting to each other’s good health. We did a lot of toasting. Quite a lot of toasting. As you can imagine, the toasting went on and on until we, um, well we did some unwise things. It started out with us sparring-for-fun with each other in public and escalated from there. No locals were harmed, and nothing we did was hella illegal, or I would’ve never made Captain. Buuut the local government would definitely throw a shitfit if me or, God forbid, both of us set foot back on the island.” He chuckled. “Hell, the Okinawan customs people probably still have both of our pictures taped up inside their booths with a big old sign saying ‘DO NOT ADMIT THIS PERSON, YOU FOOL’ written above them.”
“What did you do?” asked Martinez. His eyes were big and soulful, like a kid asking for yet one more story before bedtime.
Matt shrugged. “I mean, I don’t remember much for obvious reasons. I’m almost sure we didn’t piss on any monuments, that would have definitely been cause for a serious demotion. We did do a number on some shrubbery, that I do remember. We decided it needed to be trimmed back, and so we did so. Using our bare hands. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
A fearsome light came into McCoy’s eyes. “Martinez, do you know what this means?”
He looked at her all uncertain. “Um, Toke and Sarge have cast-iron livers?”
“No, you fool. Blackmail material.”
Matt pointed back at her. “Hey, now, I told you that in confidence. Besides, Shaw has a lot more to contend with right now.”
The reminder of the sergeant’s current crippled state brought the elevated atmosphere of the room back down. McCoy nodded as her smile faded. “Right. Hey, did you see the Prez’s speech at the UN?”
“Yep,” said Matt. “From what I’ve read, the political wrangling after it seems pretty tame compared to the usual.”
Martinez snorted. “No shit. Did either of you see the laundry list of shit that we might be able to do? Anti-aging, limb regrowth, cancer treatments which work well and which don’t half-kill the patient…hell, maybe even Alzheimer’s could be in our rear-view mirror. The grand high muckity-mucks are falling all over themselves to get that out into the world, for themselves if nobody else.”
“You’re way too cynical, Martinez,” said Matt.
“Oh fuck off. What if…okay, I know this sounds like a cheesy sci-fi concept, but what if they hoard all of the good shit for themselves and we peons get just the crumbs?”
Matt lapsed back into his meditative demeanor. “In that case, my dear corporal, you or I or McCoy or someone like us will show those hypothetical elites that, while they are indeed long-lived, they are not in fact immortal.”
The trio fell into silence for a few minutes. Then Martinez leaned over towards Matt. “Ah, a little birdie told me you were involved in questioning the prisoners we nabbed at Camp David.”
“I merely facilitated certain conversations,” replied Matt.
Martinez sighed. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies…Corporal.”
McCoy let out a growl. “Well, I heard these terrorist assholes are saying that the Breakers aren’t real, that it’s all fake videos from the Coalition.”
“Just to play devil’s advocate,” said Matt, “our AI image and video generation is already getting to the point where, soon, we puny humans could manufacture such evidence.”
“What?” Martinez looked as if he was about to launch himself at Matt.
Matt held up a calming hand. “I’m not saying it is fake. The Hubble pics are damned convincing.”
Martinez hiked up one foot to place it on his seat, then rested his chin on his knee. “Fuck. I guess it didn’t convince everyone.” He mused for a few moments. “Wait. What if we made it even more convincing?”
“How?” asked Matt.
“We send some humans up to the Rithro. Two or three at least. The boats can still make it up to the ship, right?”
For once Matt looked uncertain. “I think so? Dunno how many times they can come and go without recharging, we’ll have to ask ‘em.”
“Right, so we set up an even better publicity stunt than the Hubble pics. Choose a few people, from all over the world. We have ‘em travel up to the Rithro, take pics and video up close showing the damage. Even take ‘em inside the ship and get a full tour, maybe…if the crew is okay with that, of course.”
“Huh.” Matt sat back and pondered the idea. “That’s a really good idea, Martinez. I guess you aren’t as dumb as you look.”
The corporal responded with a slight smile at the verbal jab. “We’d need to choose the right people, though.”
“They’d have to be trustworthy…or at least someone that the entire world will consider trustworthy,” said Matt.
“Well known,” added McCoy. She no longer looked vengeful. “With recognizable faces and voices, and then they can go on all the talk shows after and say that, yes indeed, I got a tour of the ship and it is indeed quite banged up.”
Martinez stared at the far wall. “Some kind of celebrity? Heh. You think Tom Cruise would be up for it?”
Matt laughed. “That beautiful maniac? Hell, he’d insist on shooting an entire movie up there, with at least one action scene where he’s hanging off of the outside of the ship.”
They all smiled at the resulting mental image.
“Chao could work,” said McCoy into the silence. “She’s kind of a celebrity now. After all, she was the first human to come into contact with aliens, eh?” She gave Matt a big and very un-subtle wink.
To skirt the rather…unconventional methods used to achieve a positive First Contact, Matt’s role had been very much demoted in the official story. Now every recounting of the tale included a bit of ‘…oh, and there was also another person who stumbled across our brave woman in the midst of her attempts at informational exchange with the aliens…” His exact identity was also not published, under the screen of ‘he wishes to remain anonymous’.
“Oh bite me, McCoy, it’s fun,” replied Matt. He waggled his eyebrows. “Besides, I work better in the shadows!” He threw his forearm across his face like a half-assed Count Dracula trying to hide behind his cape.
Then he dropped his arm. “Yeah, Chao would be good as a current social-media darling. Of course, she might not want that. She strikes me as more of the wallflower type, for the most part.”
“We need more people,” said Martinez, as he stared at the floor. “Chao might be good on her own, but she’s got that motor-mouth talking thing when you get her going. It’s one or the other. Either she’s trying to shrink into a corner and take up as little space as possible, or suddenly you’re getting pulled into another corner for a doctoral dissertation on how minimal-energy transfer-orbits work.”
Matt pondered for a moment. “Wait, when did she do that? I never sat through one of those lectures.”
Martinez looked away and…well, Matt hoped that their supposed overlords were indeed recording this particular moment in time because the hard-bitten Hispanic special-forces corporal actually blushed.
McCoy, of course, realized a golden opportunity for payback and immediately pounced. “Why, Corporal Martinez,” she purred. “Doooo tell us. When did Chao Me Chu, heh, pull you into a corner? Hmmm?”
“She’s…she’s just real nice, that’s all,” replied Martinez. “I asked her a couple of questions, and she answered them. That’s all. We both love classic sci-fi, like Asimov and shit. I guess we bonded over that.”
Matt cleared his throat. “Aaaaand may I remind you two and everyone listening in that we have all been cooped up nuts-to-butts for awhile? Don’t mistake familiarity for romantic bullshit.” He pointed over at Martinez. “But you. If you can follow at least half of what she talks about, then you are absolutely without-a-single-fucking-doubt wasted as a corporal, even if you’re in a low-drag high-speed outfit like this. You hear me?”
“Um, yes sir.” It was the first time in McCoy’s memory that anyone had addressed Matt as befitting his perhaps-former rank.
“Good. You get your ass into college, somehow. You’re a smart guy, you’ll figure all that shit out. And as for Chao? Just give it room to breathe. Let her know you’re interested, but don’t press the matter.”
“Let her know?” For once Martinez looked completely lost. “How do I…” he trailed off. “I mean, I like her…and yeah, I mean I like her in that way, but she’s so damn smart and pretty and I’m just some dipshit meathead.”
“Hey, don’t sell yourself short,” said Matt. “You’re our dipshit meathead.”
McCoy’s vengeful smile faded. “Martinez…no, Luca.”
Martinez looked up in surprise at her use of his first name.
She continued. “Just talk to her. Neither of you have any clue as to what ‘normal’ social interactions look like. In your case, it’s because you’ve been a soldier for all of your adult life. In her case, it’s because she’s, well, because she’s Chao. So just walk up to her and be straightforward. Trust me, it’ll be like a breath of fresh air for her to not have to navigate social cues. Just say something like ‘Hey, I really like you, do you like me and do you want to go get a coffee sometime’? Start with that. Chao’s good people, the worst thing she’ll do is say no. She won’t yell at you or talk shit about you online. Buuuut, some sixth sense is telling me she won’t say no to getting some coffee with ya.”
Matt smiled. “McCoy, I think you might have a calling after you leave the military.”
She snorted. “Oh yeah, I’ll hang up my match-making shingle on the internet and start raking in the big bucks. Martinez is right, though. If we try to do a publicity stunt up at the Rithro, then we’ll need somebody alongside Chao to win the world over. Somebody well-known, but preferably someone not in the traditional Western pop-culture sphere. That’ll make it more palatable…”
Her voice trailed off and she stared into space. The two men now looked at each other in genuine concern until she spoke again a few moments later.
“Guys? I think I just had the best idea ever.”
submitted by Frank_Leroux to HFY [link] [comments]
Chapter Fifteen
“Thank you, Ms. President, and Mr. Secretary-General. It’s my privilege to come and speak to everyone present during such a momentous time in human history. One which, I hope, will lead to a brighter future for us all…”
US President Correa’s boilerplate beginning flowed out as she scanned the room. Behind her rostrum sat a larger dais tiled with green marble, behind which sat the UN President, Secretary-General, and Under-Secretary-General. Two huge screens flanked the dais, and those screens now showed Correa’s face as she continued.
“…and we are committed to our country’s pledge to finding a peaceful and just way for Coalition technology to be incorporated worldwide, and to not attempt any reverse-engineering of our own. Make no mistake; we do not do this out of any sense of altruism or fairness, as pleasant as that may sound. We will hold this pledge sacred for the simple reason that, if the United States were to attempt such efforts the rest of the world would, without a doubt, find out. That, of course, would lead to a great instability.”
‘Great instability’ was diplomatic-speak for ‘the rest of the world then gangs up on the USA and then everything goes to hell’.
“I know there has already been a great deal of debate in this august hall as to the best way to proceed forward, in a fair and impartial manner. We believe that we have found what one might call a ‘trial run’ which will allow us to work out such matters.”
The general murmuring from the many semi-circular rows of desks in front of her increased.
“To begin with, during the first weeks after first contact we wanted to make sure our guests from the Coalition would not starve to death. Much like humanity’s own ships during the Age of Sail, Coalition exploration vessels store enough provisions for years…but such provisions never last. They have very advanced recycling, but mostly for water and even that is only a stop-gap measure. It is unknown even at this time as to how long it will take to repair the Exultant Finger of Rithro, and we did not want to risk the crew running out of food.
“Therefore, we undertook an emergency effort to have their ship’s medic examine various Earth foods to determine their compatibility with our guests’ varied biochemistries. I am pleased to report that there are quite a few Earth foodstuffs which are indeed compatible, although there are some specific items which act as allergens amongst some of the Coalition species. During these efforts, we did learn a bit about how their alien biochemistries work…information which has been duly published and is now openly available. We also began to get glimpses of something wonderful, and asked the Coalition crew for more details. They supplied us with some general ideas of what their medical technology can accomplish; I must emphasize that we do not possess any knowledge of how they can perform such miracles.”
Now the murmuring got quite a bit higher, but not quite to the point where they’d have to call for order.
“Yes, I use the word ‘miracles’ advisedly. For example, take Captain Sadaf. You have all seen her, and how she moves like a person in the prime of their life. Now. What if I told you that she is a little over four hundred years old?”
The murmuring died down into a shocked silence.
“Her species, the auhn, is no more long-lived than we are…but they are able to regenerate and remove the effects of aging. I hope the esteemed ambassadors can see what I am driving at. I propose that we set up a research institute, international in scope, to be placed at a neutral location which is still to be determined. The purpose of that institute will be to study and adapt Coalition medical technology for use in humans.”
Now the murmuring started again; she hoped they were actually listening instead of hatching side-deals with each other.
“You all have families and friends. I’m sure you have at least one family member, one good friend, who died of some horrible and unnecessary affliction. Think of what this means to the world, to us. It is also an excellent way to determine the inevitable issues and frictions which will arise from such a concerted international effort, and that, in turn, will inform our efforts in mutual reverse-engineering of other Coalition technology.
“I know this is, in many ways, a frightening time. Change can be frightening. But I am convinced that you will all know the right way forward, and that you will all see the need for us to unite in this matter, even if others may not be so clear-cut. I thank you for the opportunity to speak.”
As she stepped away from the rostrum, the UN President cleared his throat.
“We will now begin the debate on Madame President Correa’s proposal. Paper copies, with specifics of the proposal, are now being distributed to you all. We’ll now begin the debate period…yes, the gentleman from Portugal…?”
__________
Correa’s Chief of Staff was a shorter, tubby man with an olive complexion by the name of Pablo Rosas. He and Correa sat in a White House conference room, staring at a big screen which now showed the results of the UN vote. “Well, I suppose that went about as well as we could expect,” said Rosas.
“Yep. I was surprised they even agreed with our asking them to kick in some money.”
Rosas chuckled. “Keep in mind that all of this new medical tech will be available for anyone patent-free. Should be air-tight legally, since nobody here on Earth invented it; we’re merely adapting it. I think that was the sweetener we needed to get it passed.”
The president gave a brief nod, then tapped a few keys on the controls in front of her. The screen now showed a world map. “Now we just have to figure out where to put the damn thing without everyone getting butt-mad about it.”
“Hmm.” Rosas laced his fingers over his substantial gut as he regarded the map. “Someplace not ‘the usual’, then.”
Correa growled in frustration. “I keep thinking Switzerland, but I know there’s gonna be a lot of shit flung about that it’s too European-centric. Taiwan would be great; they’ve got both a good tech base and excellent transport infrastructure.”
“But way too controversial, for obvious reasons,” replied Rosas. “Japan?”
“China will, again, kick up a fuss. Huh. New Zealand?”
“That might work. They tend to be more neutral…but then again some might say they’re in too close with Australia, and that this whole effort is too Western-centric.” His eyes flicked back to north on the map. He was about to move his gaze elsewhere, but then he paused. “What about Iceland?”
“Iceland?” Correa almost scoffed, then looked more thoughtfully at the map. “Okay, they’re a NATO member which is a minus. But they tend to remain mostly neutral, which is a plus. Decent transportation infrastructure…don’t we have a naval air base there?”
“I think so, let me check…” Rosas tapped at his phone. “Hey, Jack? What can you tell me about any US naval air bases in Iceland? Just the highlights.” After a couple of minutes, he responded with a curt, “Okay, that’s enough, thanks.”
He put his phone away. “We kinda-sorta have one, at a place called Keflavik. The base there used to be a lot bigger during the Cold War. Then we shut it down after the Soviets were no longer a going concern. Iceland uses it now, and they allow us to fly submarine-search aircraft out of there, but a few years ago they nixed the DOD’s request to rebuild it into a more permanent base.”
“That does work in their favor. It makes for better optics if they’re known for keeping NATO at arm’s length.”
Rosas sat up. “Think the UN will go for it?”
“We can only try. I’ll have our ambassador in Reykjavik make some discreet inquiries, let’s see if they’d be okay with our proposing them as a candidate.”
The Chief of Staff smiled. “If it goes through, this institute will be pumping well north of a billion dollars per year into their economy. That should make it more than ‘okay’.
__________
Agent Cécile Savoie sat in a secure-location breakroom, silently grumbling as she held an as-yet un-drunk mug of coffee in her hands. As the agent-in-charge of the security detail during the Camp David incident, she’d been put on administrative leave, right alongside every other agent who’d been there. But it wasn’t like she had much down time; the inquiry board into that incident now summoned her damn near every other day for yet another round of tedious questioning.
“Hey,” said Hanson as he strolled in, looking just as sour as she felt.
She looked up in surprise. “Hey yourself. I thought you were assigned to the alien detail.”
“I was,” he said as he seated himself across the circular table from her. “Guess being in Alabama when the shitshow went down wasn’t far enough away to be completely out of suspicion. I just finished running my own gauntlet. But the rumor is, I’m getting it easy compared to everyone who was at Camp David, including the special forces people. Especially you.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty much a colonoscopy every day,” she muttered. “Going over the timeline, where I was at which times, who I had direct line of sight on, who I was in radio contact with.” She finally sipped her coffee.
Hanson’s sour expression deepened. “Do you really think it was one of us?”
She sighed. “It has to be. My gut tells me that there’s more than one mole and I told the inquiry board as much. The fuckers who got in knew too much about our patrol patterns, where everyone was, when they’d have a clear shot at an infil. That means someone with access to our methods and comms, and as to the latter we don’t use CB radios.”
The other agent leaned back. “Fuck. I wish I knew why any of us would do that. We’re supposed to be quiet professionals, not frothing radicals.”
Savoie turned the mug in her hands. “Not to tell tales out of school but, through the whisper network, they’ve been leaning hard on the captured dudes from the attack. Apparently one of their main ‘objections’,” and here she made some one-handed air quotes, “is that they think the whole Breaker thing is a ruse. It’s all smoke and mirrors, so that we’ll beg the Coalition to come and save us. And then…well, it gets vague after that but I guess they claim that at best we’ll get turned into the galactic equivalent of a Native American reservation. Worst case, we all get harvested for our precious bodily fluids.”
Hanson stared at her for a moment in disbelief. “That is, if you will forgive the uncouth term, utterly retarded. For chrissake, the Hubble got some beautiful shots of their ship once they’d spun that shield around to reveal it to us. I mean, I’m no spacecraft expert but even I could tell it had gotten the shit pounded out of it.”
She responded with a shrug. “Hey, Flat Earthers are still a thing.”
“Flat Earthers don’t stage FUCKING mortar attacks in our nation’s capital,” snapped Hanson. Then he subsided and spoke more softly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be so on edge. This whole thing just pisses me off.”
“Join the club,” said Savoie as she sipped more coffee. “I just don’t get it, though.”
Hanson made a gentle ‘continue’ wave of his hand.
She leaned forward. “Okay. Our comrades in the CIA managed to identify the four who made it into the compound. They were all mercenaries, each with at least ten or fifteen years of experience in kicking ass around some of the worst hot spots in the world. Syria, Burma, bunch of places in Africa. One of ‘em even turned out to be ex-Wagner group.”
“Okay?” It was a leading single-word question, but not an unkind one.
“So why was the rest of the attack made up of nothing but a bunch of goddamn shit-kickers? And that includes the aborted attempt in Decatur. I’ve seen the files of those we rounded up in the Camp David attack. They were all low-life idiots just banging around, maybe they might have once held a gun in their lives. Hell, from what I’ve heard, the shootings that triggered the alarm at Camp David were an accident; those intruders were supposed to sneak around that patrol, not kill them. They all had the same top-of-the-line kit, so we know whoever is behind this has deep pockets. Why not hire an entire bunch of competent people instead of doing it onesy-twoseys?”
“It is a puzzle.” Hanson got up and set a styrofoam cup of water into the nearby microwave. As the cup turned within its electromagnetic prison, he leaned against the nearby counter and pondered her question. “Maybe the team in the woods was intended just as a distraction?”
“That’s what I thought at first, but then I reconsidered. I mean, what if the four who went in failed? You’d still need a proper backup plan. Same thing with the Decatur bunch. By the way, did they ever catch them?”
Hanson let out a dark chuckle. “Decatur PD found a pile of vests and rifles, hastily wiped down. They were able to pull a few partial prints off of ‘em. My guess is they’ve fled to the proverbial four winds, hoping to lay low for the rest of their lives. We’ll nab ‘em eventually.”
The microwave dinged and he retrieved his hot water, then pulled a tea bag out of his jacket pocket as he re-seated himself.
Savoie smiled. “I never figured you for a tea guy.”
He unwrapped the bag and with a bit of ceremony dunked it into his cup. “Well, I used to be a coffee guy, but my gut doesn’t agree with the acidity.”
“We do have tea here, you know.” She pointed to the storage bins behind him.
“Yeah, but it’s cheap-ass stuff. The brand I like is expensive, but worth it…” Hanson’s eyes widened as he trailed off.
She raised an eyebrow. “Hanson? Do you smell burnt toast?”
“They couldn’t afford it,” he said in a near-whisper.
Savoie was about to tell him to stop being overly dramatic, then she realized he might be on to something and that she didn’t dare distract him. “Keep talking.”
He leaned forward, his forearms on the table. “Okay. Imagine you’re a hard-bitten mercenary. You’ve been in the literal shit, in every nasty conflict anyone cares to name. Somehow, someone finds you and comes to you. They say ‘hey, these aliens are bad news, do you want to kill them?’ Even if you, as the hypothetical mercenary, are down with the cause…”
“From what the intruders were yelling, they were,” said Savoie.
“Yeah but even then, our mystery financier is asking you to infil and exfil out of one of the most heavily guarded pieces of real estate on the planet. Oh, and kill a bunch of special-forces-maybe and aliens-definitely in between. What do you do then?”
She replied with a grim smile. “If I’m that mercenary, then I ask for a metric fuck-ton of money. And there were four of them, they would have all done the same. Hell, they must have been doing collective bargaining.”
Hanson dunked his tea bag as he thought it through. “Okay, so our mystery mastermind has a lot of money, but not billions on hand to hire a literal army of hard cases. Huh. So those other dipshits might indeed have been a distraction.”
“Maybe. They must have also spent quite a bit on the mortar attack. That wasn’t made by some hobbyist in their bedroom, they knew what they were doing. Given that nobody saw them set up the launcher or leave, they were more pro.” Savoie hoped that the FBI’s efforts to track the various mortar components turned up something soon. Thus far, those efforts were bogged down; as it turned out, quite a few companies had ordered the identified components, and tracking the subsequent second-hand purchases was time-consuming.
“And those mortar-making pros would be more expensive.” Hanson sipped a bit of tea. “Did they ever get anything off of the launcher itself?”
“Sadly, no. Turns out the whole damned thing was homemade, constructed out of tubing and other off-the-shelf components. It was also wiped down thoroughly, no prints. Like I said, pros.”
“But limited in resources,” said Hanson. “Which explains one of the things that’s bugged me. Namely, that our OPFOR didn’t use some proper artillery. If they have a couple of moles in the Secret Service, then it should be easy to recruit and pay some military dudes to slip ‘em some gear and alter the logs. They could stow a howitzer inside a semi-tractor-trailer. You could park that thing anywhere up to 25 miles away. Use a single 155mm Excalibur GPS-guided munition, boom. That would have pretty much obliterated the stage and everyone on it. Then you just re-stow the howitzer and toodle off all innocent-like, right when everyone is freaking the hell out.”
“So they couldn’t afford that type of arty strike,” she said. “Or they simply didn’t have the contacts to pull that off. Hmm. I wonder if our moles are getting paid at all?”
Hanson resumed his thousand-yard stare. “The mortar attack must have been planned first. The other two attacks feel much more like rush jobs.”
“Eh? Oh, I get it. Sadaf’s speech was known well in advance. It was going to be one of her first big public appearances since the initial presidential speech. They were broadcasting it online to the world. Having her get turned into chunky red salsa, in real time, would be one helluva statement. So that’s what they focused on.” She drank a bit more coffee, and now it was time for her eyes to widen. “Our mole or moles didn’t arrive at Camp David until after Sadaf’s speech was announced.”
“That…oh, yeah, that makes sense. Originally the mortar attack is the OPFORs’ only focus, but yet somehow they’ve suborned one or two Secret Service agents and they have ‘em in their back pocket. Then one, or better yet both, of the moles gets assigned to the Camp David detail, and they realize that now that they have a golden opportunity to get at the other aliens as well. So they go off and hire four pros for the actual attack inside, plus a bunch of chucklefucks to act as a distraction, because that’s all they can afford since the four pros are asking for some serious money.”
Savoie leaned forward. “When did Chao and Grakosh leave Camp David?”
“It was, ah, three? No, four days after we got everyone settled, both the aliens and the special forces types.”
“Okay, so then the OPFOR gets word, courtesy of our moles, that one of the aliens is now heading to Alabama. But now they’re stretched so thin that they can’t afford anything other than to hire another bunch of dipshits to make a run at them and hope for the best.”
“And then the second bunch lets the FNG drive.”
They both laughed, but that humor settled down as they both thought through the chain of inference.
“It is pretty thin,” said Savoie at last. “There’s a lot of assumptions in there.”
“Yeah. But I do like the idea of our moles getting assigned at the last minute.”
She rubbed her forehead. “We had a bunch of new people come in when they decided to stow the Rithro crew there. Seven, no eight in all.”
“It’s a place to start,” said Hanson. He finished his tea. “C’mon, let’s see if we can get a meeting with the inquiry board.”
__________
A little while later and not very far away, three people sat in a well-lit but otherwise deadly dull room. At least the chairs were somewhat comfortable. Matt and Martinez sat at two chairs against one wall, while across from them McCoy sat sprawled sideways on another with a foul look on her face. She glowered at the far beige-painted wall. “This completely sucks. Why can’t we have our phones? I could at least play some mahjong.”
“This is a secure location, Corporal,” replied Matt. “Ixnay on the onephays.”
Martinez’s leg jittered. “How long are we gonna sit here? They said they’d call us in, like, an hour ago!”
“Dunno, it’s some kind of last-minute interview thing,” replied Matt with Zen-like calm.
The corporal looked over at Matt. “I don’t get you, man.”
Matt grinned. “Nobody gets me. I’m like the wind, baby!”
“That’s not…I mean, I watched you open up a dude like he was a bag of fuckin’ Doritos using nothing but a fuckin’ knife. Now you’re being all Caine from ‘Kung Fu’.”
“It’s good to know that the classics are still appreciated,” said Matt.
Martinez pointed at him. “If you start calling me ‘Grasshopper’ I will shoot you.”
McCoy turned her glare to the ceiling. “Maybe it’s a psychological test. They want to see if we crack under pressure and start yakking secrets.”
“I mean, I’m sure they’re recording us right now,” replied Matt. “But it’s merely as a precaution. I am also five-nines certain that none of us are suspects. We weren’t integrated into the compound’s overall security, and thus it would be unlikely that we could have let our four attackers in.”
“Not to mention, we were the ones to kill ‘em,” added Martinez. “Well, except for the one that Takh took care of.”
“Yep. This is…I won’t call it a formality, but the board just wants to know where you were and what you saw. Walk them through your personal timelines, understand? Tell them only what you know. If you don’t know something, then say so.”
McCoy turned herself around so that she now sprawled the other way. “This whole bullshit just bugs me. Takh and the others are off with a bunch of strangers and I…I mean, we aren't there to help protect them.”
Matt and Martinez shared a meaningful glance. “From what I heard, Takh is quite capable of taking care of himself,” said the latter with a grin. “You told me he pitched that one dude across the room like he was throwing a softball.”
For once, the petite corporal looked a bit flustered. “Yeah, but, I mean, what if some other potential bad guy gets the drop on him with a gun? I don’t like not being there. I just wanna know that he’s okay. I should be there, just to make sure.”
The smaller man snapped his fingers in the face of the taller, who sighed and took out his wallet. With great ceremony, Matt pulled out a five-dollar bill and placed it upon the now-upraised palm of Martinez.
“Told ya,” said Martinez with a grin.
She sat up and glared at them both. “That doesn’t mean anything! Takh is a good guy!”
“Nobody said he wasn’t,” replied Matt as he stowed his wallet. “He is indeed a good guy.”
“Yeah, seriously, we’re glad you two hooked up,” added Martinez. “Takh’s solid. Hell, I’d let him date my sister.”
“I. Am. Not. Hooked Up. With ANYONE.” McCoy now looked furious enough to chew nails.
Martinez stroked his chin. “Kissing might be a problem, though.”
Matt performed a similar chin-stroking action. “Hmm, indeed, Corporal, I do believe it might be a serious issue. One has all of those mandibles to contend with.” He hooked his fingers next to his mouth in an approximation of an udhyr’s face. “Still, I think that, with enough will and effort, one could figure it out. Like the man said, life finds a way.”
“But how much tongue is he packing?” posed Martinez. “You know what the man also says. Big dude, big tongue. Could make things more interesting, all around.”
The woman did not look amused. “Martinez, Toke? You are now both officially gigantic flatulating assholes.”
“C’mon, McCoy!” protested Martinez. “Think of it this way. A few years from now, let’s say we filthy humans are now part of the Coalition and I’m at some meet ‘n greet, and I just so happen to spy me an oh-so-very-fiiine udhyr mamacita from across the room. Now, I wanna do my bit for my species and approach her, and get some good old inter-species cultural interaction going on. But there’s all sorts of questions. How do I compliment her without insulting her culture? How am I supposed to get in good with her? How do the mechanics work? How do the various bits line up? We need details! You’re at the tip of the spear, we all need good intel!”
McCoy slumped back into her seat. “Over seven hundred billion Dimmadollars of defense spending, and yet somehow I wind up stuck in a room with you two fuckos…oh, by the way, Toke,” she added, pointing a finger at Matt, “why the hell can you and Sarge never go back to Okinawa?”
“Nice distraction, McCoy,” said Martinez. “My guess is some sort of wet-work shit.”
Matt just smiled. “Oh for fuck’s sake, I don’t kill everyone I meet. I was a Second LT at the time, managed to somehow leapfrog my way into officer ranks all the way from enlisted. Anyways, the Okinawa affair was merely a case of, well, one particular case of rye whiskey. The good sergeant…was he a sergeant then? Oh yeah, we had done some other stuff I can’t tell you about in someplace I can’t tell you where, and we were celebrating Shaw getting his third stripe. We’d got ahold of the previously-mentioned case of whiskey and then we began toasting to each other’s good health. We did a lot of toasting. Quite a lot of toasting. As you can imagine, the toasting went on and on until we, um, well we did some unwise things. It started out with us sparring-for-fun with each other in public and escalated from there. No locals were harmed, and nothing we did was hella illegal, or I would’ve never made Captain. Buuut the local government would definitely throw a shitfit if me or, God forbid, both of us set foot back on the island.” He chuckled. “Hell, the Okinawan customs people probably still have both of our pictures taped up inside their booths with a big old sign saying ‘DO NOT ADMIT THIS PERSON, YOU FOOL’ written above them.”
“What did you do?” asked Martinez. His eyes were big and soulful, like a kid asking for yet one more story before bedtime.
Matt shrugged. “I mean, I don’t remember much for obvious reasons. I’m almost sure we didn’t piss on any monuments, that would have definitely been cause for a serious demotion. We did do a number on some shrubbery, that I do remember. We decided it needed to be trimmed back, and so we did so. Using our bare hands. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
A fearsome light came into McCoy’s eyes. “Martinez, do you know what this means?”
He looked at her all uncertain. “Um, Toke and Sarge have cast-iron livers?”
“No, you fool. Blackmail material.”
Matt pointed back at her. “Hey, now, I told you that in confidence. Besides, Shaw has a lot more to contend with right now.”
The reminder of the sergeant’s current crippled state brought the elevated atmosphere of the room back down. McCoy nodded as her smile faded. “Right. Hey, did you see the Prez’s speech at the UN?”
“Yep,” said Matt. “From what I’ve read, the political wrangling after it seems pretty tame compared to the usual.”
Martinez snorted. “No shit. Did either of you see the laundry list of shit that we might be able to do? Anti-aging, limb regrowth, cancer treatments which work well and which don’t half-kill the patient…hell, maybe even Alzheimer’s could be in our rear-view mirror. The grand high muckity-mucks are falling all over themselves to get that out into the world, for themselves if nobody else.”
“You’re way too cynical, Martinez,” said Matt.
“Oh fuck off. What if…okay, I know this sounds like a cheesy sci-fi concept, but what if they hoard all of the good shit for themselves and we peons get just the crumbs?”
Matt lapsed back into his meditative demeanor. “In that case, my dear corporal, you or I or McCoy or someone like us will show those hypothetical elites that, while they are indeed long-lived, they are not in fact immortal.”
The trio fell into silence for a few minutes. Then Martinez leaned over towards Matt. “Ah, a little birdie told me you were involved in questioning the prisoners we nabbed at Camp David.”
“I merely facilitated certain conversations,” replied Matt.
Martinez sighed. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies…Corporal.”
McCoy let out a growl. “Well, I heard these terrorist assholes are saying that the Breakers aren’t real, that it’s all fake videos from the Coalition.”
“Just to play devil’s advocate,” said Matt, “our AI image and video generation is already getting to the point where, soon, we puny humans could manufacture such evidence.”
“What?” Martinez looked as if he was about to launch himself at Matt.
Matt held up a calming hand. “I’m not saying it is fake. The Hubble pics are damned convincing.”
Martinez hiked up one foot to place it on his seat, then rested his chin on his knee. “Fuck. I guess it didn’t convince everyone.” He mused for a few moments. “Wait. What if we made it even more convincing?”
“How?” asked Matt.
“We send some humans up to the Rithro. Two or three at least. The boats can still make it up to the ship, right?”
For once Matt looked uncertain. “I think so? Dunno how many times they can come and go without recharging, we’ll have to ask ‘em.”
“Right, so we set up an even better publicity stunt than the Hubble pics. Choose a few people, from all over the world. We have ‘em travel up to the Rithro, take pics and video up close showing the damage. Even take ‘em inside the ship and get a full tour, maybe…if the crew is okay with that, of course.”
“Huh.” Matt sat back and pondered the idea. “That’s a really good idea, Martinez. I guess you aren’t as dumb as you look.”
The corporal responded with a slight smile at the verbal jab. “We’d need to choose the right people, though.”
“They’d have to be trustworthy…or at least someone that the entire world will consider trustworthy,” said Matt.
“Well known,” added McCoy. She no longer looked vengeful. “With recognizable faces and voices, and then they can go on all the talk shows after and say that, yes indeed, I got a tour of the ship and it is indeed quite banged up.”
Martinez stared at the far wall. “Some kind of celebrity? Heh. You think Tom Cruise would be up for it?”
Matt laughed. “That beautiful maniac? Hell, he’d insist on shooting an entire movie up there, with at least one action scene where he’s hanging off of the outside of the ship.”
They all smiled at the resulting mental image.
“Chao could work,” said McCoy into the silence. “She’s kind of a celebrity now. After all, she was the first human to come into contact with aliens, eh?” She gave Matt a big and very un-subtle wink.
To skirt the rather…unconventional methods used to achieve a positive First Contact, Matt’s role had been very much demoted in the official story. Now every recounting of the tale included a bit of ‘…oh, and there was also another person who stumbled across our brave woman in the midst of her attempts at informational exchange with the aliens…” His exact identity was also not published, under the screen of ‘he wishes to remain anonymous’.
“Oh bite me, McCoy, it’s fun,” replied Matt. He waggled his eyebrows. “Besides, I work better in the shadows!” He threw his forearm across his face like a half-assed Count Dracula trying to hide behind his cape.
Then he dropped his arm. “Yeah, Chao would be good as a current social-media darling. Of course, she might not want that. She strikes me as more of the wallflower type, for the most part.”
“We need more people,” said Martinez, as he stared at the floor. “Chao might be good on her own, but she’s got that motor-mouth talking thing when you get her going. It’s one or the other. Either she’s trying to shrink into a corner and take up as little space as possible, or suddenly you’re getting pulled into another corner for a doctoral dissertation on how minimal-energy transfer-orbits work.”
Matt pondered for a moment. “Wait, when did she do that? I never sat through one of those lectures.”
Martinez looked away and…well, Matt hoped that their supposed overlords were indeed recording this particular moment in time because the hard-bitten Hispanic special-forces corporal actually blushed.
McCoy, of course, realized a golden opportunity for payback and immediately pounced. “Why, Corporal Martinez,” she purred. “Doooo tell us. When did Chao Me Chu, heh, pull you into a corner? Hmmm?”
“She’s…she’s just real nice, that’s all,” replied Martinez. “I asked her a couple of questions, and she answered them. That’s all. We both love classic sci-fi, like Asimov and shit. I guess we bonded over that.”
Matt cleared his throat. “Aaaaand may I remind you two and everyone listening in that we have all been cooped up nuts-to-butts for awhile? Don’t mistake familiarity for romantic bullshit.” He pointed over at Martinez. “But you. If you can follow at least half of what she talks about, then you are absolutely without-a-single-fucking-doubt wasted as a corporal, even if you’re in a low-drag high-speed outfit like this. You hear me?”
“Um, yes sir.” It was the first time in McCoy’s memory that anyone had addressed Matt as befitting his perhaps-former rank.
“Good. You get your ass into college, somehow. You’re a smart guy, you’ll figure all that shit out. And as for Chao? Just give it room to breathe. Let her know you’re interested, but don’t press the matter.”
“Let her know?” For once Martinez looked completely lost. “How do I…” he trailed off. “I mean, I like her…and yeah, I mean I like her in that way, but she’s so damn smart and pretty and I’m just some dipshit meathead.”
“Hey, don’t sell yourself short,” said Matt. “You’re our dipshit meathead.”
McCoy’s vengeful smile faded. “Martinez…no, Luca.”
Martinez looked up in surprise at her use of his first name.
She continued. “Just talk to her. Neither of you have any clue as to what ‘normal’ social interactions look like. In your case, it’s because you’ve been a soldier for all of your adult life. In her case, it’s because she’s, well, because she’s Chao. So just walk up to her and be straightforward. Trust me, it’ll be like a breath of fresh air for her to not have to navigate social cues. Just say something like ‘Hey, I really like you, do you like me and do you want to go get a coffee sometime’? Start with that. Chao’s good people, the worst thing she’ll do is say no. She won’t yell at you or talk shit about you online. Buuuut, some sixth sense is telling me she won’t say no to getting some coffee with ya.”
Matt smiled. “McCoy, I think you might have a calling after you leave the military.”
She snorted. “Oh yeah, I’ll hang up my match-making shingle on the internet and start raking in the big bucks. Martinez is right, though. If we try to do a publicity stunt up at the Rithro, then we’ll need somebody alongside Chao to win the world over. Somebody well-known, but preferably someone not in the traditional Western pop-culture sphere. That’ll make it more palatable…”
Her voice trailed off and she stared into space. The two men now looked at each other in genuine concern until she spoke again a few moments later.
“Guys? I think I just had the best idea ever.”
2023.06.03 18:55 hhjjirkgi How many diapers do you go through in a day?
Just trying to prepare. I picked a low-tox brand, but it’s over $1 more (per diaper) than a regular store bought diaper such as Huggies, so I’m trying to decide if I can afford that and if it’s worth it. I don’t know how many I’ll need!
submitted by hhjjirkgi to pregnant [link] [comments]
2023.06.03 18:40 wolfieofwallstreet What is best way to put off vehicle
Just purchased a new vehicle. Total price was 27K + $850 GAP. I paid $5K down so loan Amt is 22850 over 36 mo at 2.9% APR. Can cancel GAP for pro rated refund with no cancel fee in the first 60 days. No pre payment penalty fee for the loan
Few questions. 1. Is GAP worth it? I’m kind of leaning toward canceling since it’s essentially a 3 year last resort warranty 2. I can afford paying down 5-10k$ more to help reduce interest paid and monthly payment. I’m guessing people will say invest it instead over the 3 years and I will net positive since the interest accrued from investing is probs higher than the interest paid from the 2.9. Thoughts? And if so, where would you recommend? HYSA? C/D? Others?
submitted by wolfieofwallstreet to personalfinance [link] [comments]
Few questions. 1. Is GAP worth it? I’m kind of leaning toward canceling since it’s essentially a 3 year last resort warranty 2. I can afford paying down 5-10k$ more to help reduce interest paid and monthly payment. I’m guessing people will say invest it instead over the 3 years and I will net positive since the interest accrued from investing is probs higher than the interest paid from the 2.9. Thoughts? And if so, where would you recommend? HYSA? C/D? Others?
2023.06.03 18:36 handsomewhirl 36 [M4F] #Dallas, TX - Pretty BWC searching for my three hole slut
Hi ladies,
When was the last time you had a partner where you could go round after round of passionate mind blowing sex...the kind where you are intimately intertwined, completely stuffed, toes curl, back arched, eyes rolled back, mouth wide open, pounded and shaking into hot wet ecstasy. Both parties giving 100%.
I like women who know what they want, crave it, demand it, and give it their all. My promise to you is I'll match you. No lackluster, boring, or lazy sex. You are kinky, confident, comfortable, and are longing for the beyond the ordinary high quality sex. I'm happy to swap pics, chat, get to know each other, and meet in public first. I'd absolutely love something meaningful and ongoing. I'm very much into the build up.
About me:
submitted by handsomewhirl to AgeGapPersonals [link] [comments]
When was the last time you had a partner where you could go round after round of passionate mind blowing sex...the kind where you are intimately intertwined, completely stuffed, toes curl, back arched, eyes rolled back, mouth wide open, pounded and shaking into hot wet ecstasy. Both parties giving 100%.
I like women who know what they want, crave it, demand it, and give it their all. My promise to you is I'll match you. No lackluster, boring, or lazy sex. You are kinky, confident, comfortable, and are longing for the beyond the ordinary high quality sex. I'm happy to swap pics, chat, get to know each other, and meet in public first. I'd absolutely love something meaningful and ongoing. I'm very much into the build up.
About me:
- Fit, athletic, and work out consistently imgur gallery
- Great hygeine
- Non smoker, no drugs
- Tall, > 6’
- Clean cut, shaved and trimmed
- STD, drug and disease free with proof
- Hung, thick, and uncut
- High sex drive, high stamina, absolutely love vigorous multiple rounds
- Well educated, intelligent, and enjoy deep conversations
- Career oriented and have my life well put together
- Located in or frequent traveler to the Dallas / Fort Worth / DFW / N Texas area
- Height and weight proportionate
- STD free, drug and disease free
- Bonus if you like it rough, are vocal, are a squirter, like to record
- All age ranges
- Any race
- Any marital status
2023.06.03 18:25 NoFateButWeMake722 Looking for an 18+ Box Lacrosse team that is actually... competitive.
I am in the Dallas Fort Worth, TX area, and my current box team just can't get motivated to play tournaments, or even to play games we have to scrap together people to play with like... six players. So wondering if anyone knew of another team or league in my general area that is looking for players.
And yes, there is StickStar, but 1) they don't really play box, and b) they only play 18+ during the summer.
submitted by NoFateButWeMake722 to lacrosse [link] [comments]
And yes, there is StickStar, but 1) they don't really play box, and b) they only play 18+ during the summer.
2023.06.03 18:20 AutoModerator [Download Course] Jay Abraham – Beyond Exponential Business Bucket List Bonanza 2023 (Genkicourses.site)
| | Get the course here: [Download Course] Jay Abraham – Beyond Exponential Business Bucket List Bonanza 2023 (Genkicourses.site) submitted by AutoModerator to TheCoursePlace1 [link] [comments] Our website: https://www.genkicourses.site/product/jay-abraham-beyond-exponential-business-bucket-list-bonanza-2023/  @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ If you're wondering why our courses are priced lower than the original prices and are feeling a bit suspicious (which is understandable), we can provide proof of the course's contents. We can provide a screenshot of the course's contents or send you a freebie, such as an introduction video or another video from the course, to prove that we do have the course. Should you wish to request proof, we kindly ask you to reach out to us. Please be aware that our courses do not include community access. This is due to the fact that we do not have the authority to manage this feature. Despite our desire to incorporate this aspect, it is, unfortunately, unfeasible. Explore affordable learning at Genkicourses.site 🎓! Dive into a world of quality courses handpicked just for you. Download, watch, and achieve more without breaking your budget. |
2023.06.03 18:09 Usako_Mamo 33 [F4R] Fort Worth/Dallas/Carrollton/Anywhere - seeking a chatting partner
Howdy! I’m in Fort Worth currently but will be moving to Carrollton at the end of the summer. I love having having friends from everywhere, though it would be nice to make more friends in the DFW.
Not looking for romance as I’m going through a divorce, just looking for friends, though if something develops then we can go with the flow but im not looking for anything serious.
About me: Latina, 4’11, plus sized and working on it, lover of all things nerd. I love anime especially, fanfiction, reading and writing, Legend of Zelda, Harry Potter and more. Music wise I’ve been listening to a lot of 80s recently (Luis Miguel, Depeche Mode, Billy idol, etc.) but also recently got into Greta Van Fleet!
Anyway, I’d love to hear from ya!
submitted by Usako_Mamo to R4R30Plus [link] [comments]
Not looking for romance as I’m going through a divorce, just looking for friends, though if something develops then we can go with the flow but im not looking for anything serious.
About me: Latina, 4’11, plus sized and working on it, lover of all things nerd. I love anime especially, fanfiction, reading and writing, Legend of Zelda, Harry Potter and more. Music wise I’ve been listening to a lot of 80s recently (Luis Miguel, Depeche Mode, Billy idol, etc.) but also recently got into Greta Van Fleet!
Anyway, I’d love to hear from ya!
2023.06.03 18:07 laujac What do the financials usually look like for buyers purchasing $100k vehicles?
I’ve been eyeballing an M3 or M5, but I’m still not sure if I can even afford it. I’m not necessarily talking about the monthly payment, mostly considering the advice of how much of a paycheck to dedicate to a vehicle.
When working with buyers that purchase these vehicles, are there any consistencies in their profiles?
Most calculators say I should be earning $450k+ to purchase a $100k vehicle, but I swear I see more $100k vehicles in the road than that percentage of earners…
Currently I make $315k/yr, my wife makes $115k, we have a Wagoneer and an AT4. I have roughly 15k equity on the AT4.
Am I in the ballpark of an M3/M5 or do I have a ways to go?
For what it’s worth, I’ll probably be actively looking next year.
submitted by laujac to askcarsales [link] [comments]
When working with buyers that purchase these vehicles, are there any consistencies in their profiles?
Most calculators say I should be earning $450k+ to purchase a $100k vehicle, but I swear I see more $100k vehicles in the road than that percentage of earners…
Currently I make $315k/yr, my wife makes $115k, we have a Wagoneer and an AT4. I have roughly 15k equity on the AT4.
Am I in the ballpark of an M3/M5 or do I have a ways to go?
For what it’s worth, I’ll probably be actively looking next year.
2023.06.03 17:49 Brandon_awi How do people afford such nice cars at a young age?
I’m a 26 year old male and have noticed I see so many people that are my age and honestly even younger driving BMW and Audi and it just doesn’t make sense to me how they can afford those cars. Like for me I want an Audi A4 and even a 2020 the monthly payments would cost me $500-$800 a month. And that’s not including gas, repairs and insurance. I just don’t understand how people as young as me can afford this stuff. Surly they can’t ALL be driving mom or dads car, you know what I mean?
I know it shouldn’t matter and I don’t compare myself to others but it was something that was on my mind. I’m grateful for my 2012 Kia forte and it only has 85,000 miles but damn I would love to one day have an Audi 😂
I have this same thought process when I drive in really nice neighborhoods with the huge houses. I mean they can’t all be doctors, lawyers and engineers? I just sometimes feel like maybe I’m doing something wrong.
I’m of course grateful for what I have but there must be something I’m missing as to how people can afford these things. Is it just having really good credit? Any financial tips? If it’s putting themselves in debt or spending most for their salary on the car then obviously I wouldn’t be dumb enough to follow their path haha
submitted by Brandon_awi to TooAfraidToAsk [link] [comments]
I know it shouldn’t matter and I don’t compare myself to others but it was something that was on my mind. I’m grateful for my 2012 Kia forte and it only has 85,000 miles but damn I would love to one day have an Audi 😂
I have this same thought process when I drive in really nice neighborhoods with the huge houses. I mean they can’t all be doctors, lawyers and engineers? I just sometimes feel like maybe I’m doing something wrong.
I’m of course grateful for what I have but there must be something I’m missing as to how people can afford these things. Is it just having really good credit? Any financial tips? If it’s putting themselves in debt or spending most for their salary on the car then obviously I wouldn’t be dumb enough to follow their path haha
2023.06.03 17:28 No-Head-998 mold in an airbnb, seeking advice
Hey everyone, so from my experience it seems hard to get a refund from airbnb if you end up staying the entire time, but im wondering if mildew and mold are a special exception. we couldnt afford anything else in the area at such short notice so we had to stay at this airbnb, but the mildew smell was immediately noticeable to us. my partner and i ended up feeling sick and having swelling of the throat while there. i felt like my body was fighting off something and felt horrible. awful headaches the entire stay too. is it worth messaging the host? i checked out this morning and am just now connecting the dots
submitted by No-Head-998 to AirBnB [link] [comments]
2023.06.03 17:20 AutoModerator [Download Course] Jay Abraham – Beyond Exponential Business Bucket List Bonanza 2023 (Genkicourses.site)
| | Get the course here: [Download Course] Jay Abraham – Beyond Exponential Business Bucket List Bonanza 2023 (Genkicourses.site) submitted by AutoModerator to TheCoursePlace1 [link] [comments] Our website: https://www.genkicourses.site/product/jay-abraham-beyond-exponential-business-bucket-list-bonanza-2023/  @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ If you're wondering why our courses are priced lower than the original prices and are feeling a bit suspicious (which is understandable), we can provide proof of the course's contents. We can provide a screenshot of the course's contents or send you a freebie, such as an introduction video or another video from the course, to prove that we do have the course. Should you wish to request proof, we kindly ask you to reach out to us. Please be aware that our courses do not include community access. This is due to the fact that we do not have the authority to manage this feature. Despite our desire to incorporate this aspect, it is, unfortunately, unfeasible. Explore affordable learning at Genkicourses.site 🎓! Dive into a world of quality courses handpicked just for you. Download, watch, and achieve more without breaking your budget. |
2023.06.03 17:16 Le_Fancy_Me London lunches or dinner options under £10?
In honour of the rising costs everywhere I thought it might be a good time to recommend some places that still do a filling meal under a tenner.
For me I'd say Bunsik is a pretty good shout. They do korean-style corndogs that are really great and very affordable. You can get them from as little as £4! I love the ones with added potato though. Their mozzarella and potato dog is £5.9 and very reasonable for how filling they are imo. If that's not enough they even do a special where you can get 2 for a tenner. Healhy? No! Delicious? Yes! I'm normally a meat person but I think the cheese ones with potato are actually better here, the texture is SO good! Top it with some ketchup or spicy sauce and it's my favourite naughty treat lunch in London.
A lot more obvious is McD. But it's gotta be mentioned. A chicken mayo and cheeseburger are about 1.20 each. So for me that's a 'warm' lunch sorted under 2.5 if I'm on the go. They also do pretty fair meal combos. Like a wrap of the day meal which is a wrap with drink and sidesalad, fruit or veg for under 4£ I think. Or full salad + drink for about the same.
As far as wraps go you can some that are more pricy than mcD but also big/filling enough to be a meal on their own. Which personally often make them my go to 'on the go' lunch of choice.
Chipotle/Tortilla each have affordable and decent sized options. You can get a wrap with protein, rice, beans, veggies, cheese, sour cream + salsa for £8 something depending on the protein at Chipotle. And the size is large enough that I personally struggle to finish it. Tortilla is in the same price range their medium chicken/pork/vegan-chili/grilled veg tortillas are 7.70£ and their large or beef options are 1 pound more. Their free options for fillings actually are a little bit more. They offer pickled red onions and jalapenos for example. But make you choose between cheese and sour cream. On top of that both chains offer additional things for extra pay like guacamole, extra protein, cheese sauce, chorizo etc
Personally prefer chipotle but Tortilla probably has the more extensive options when it comes to fillings, they also do bowls from what I recall which are about the same price as their wraps. Though I haven't tried them and can't speak for how reasonable their portions are.
I also remember Chipotle, Tortilla and McD each have apps or membership kind of things that offer additional free/discounted stuff. So if you are someone who eats lunch out on a semi-regular basis and are looking for cheap-ish options it might be worth downloading their apps and seeing if you can get additional perks.
submitted by Le_Fancy_Me to london [link] [comments]
For me I'd say Bunsik is a pretty good shout. They do korean-style corndogs that are really great and very affordable. You can get them from as little as £4! I love the ones with added potato though. Their mozzarella and potato dog is £5.9 and very reasonable for how filling they are imo. If that's not enough they even do a special where you can get 2 for a tenner. Healhy? No! Delicious? Yes! I'm normally a meat person but I think the cheese ones with potato are actually better here, the texture is SO good! Top it with some ketchup or spicy sauce and it's my favourite naughty treat lunch in London.
A lot more obvious is McD. But it's gotta be mentioned. A chicken mayo and cheeseburger are about 1.20 each. So for me that's a 'warm' lunch sorted under 2.5 if I'm on the go. They also do pretty fair meal combos. Like a wrap of the day meal which is a wrap with drink and sidesalad, fruit or veg for under 4£ I think. Or full salad + drink for about the same.
As far as wraps go you can some that are more pricy than mcD but also big/filling enough to be a meal on their own. Which personally often make them my go to 'on the go' lunch of choice.
Chipotle/Tortilla each have affordable and decent sized options. You can get a wrap with protein, rice, beans, veggies, cheese, sour cream + salsa for £8 something depending on the protein at Chipotle. And the size is large enough that I personally struggle to finish it. Tortilla is in the same price range their medium chicken/pork/vegan-chili/grilled veg tortillas are 7.70£ and their large or beef options are 1 pound more. Their free options for fillings actually are a little bit more. They offer pickled red onions and jalapenos for example. But make you choose between cheese and sour cream. On top of that both chains offer additional things for extra pay like guacamole, extra protein, cheese sauce, chorizo etc
Personally prefer chipotle but Tortilla probably has the more extensive options when it comes to fillings, they also do bowls from what I recall which are about the same price as their wraps. Though I haven't tried them and can't speak for how reasonable their portions are.
I also remember Chipotle, Tortilla and McD each have apps or membership kind of things that offer additional free/discounted stuff. So if you are someone who eats lunch out on a semi-regular basis and are looking for cheap-ish options it might be worth downloading their apps and seeing if you can get additional perks.