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[H] TF2 Keys & PayPal [W] Pixel Pride
2023.06.08 00:00 FappidyDat [H] TF2 Keys & PayPal [W] Pixel Pride
Notes: - I am EXTREMELY busy, but I check my messages and DMs at least ONCE per day. Please be patient and wait at least 24 hours for my response if I don't get back to you immediately.
- I buy only in Unrevealed Key Link Format or Plain Steam Keys. No gift links.
- For PayPal, I am in the US region and I only send via G&S. Please note there will be PayPal fees (including international/conversion and purchasing fees) to consider.
- All games that you sell to me should ideally be REGION-FREE. Please ensure the games are not region-locked/bound to a specific country.
- You must be willing to fill a spreadsheet with steam keys.
I pay with the following: TF2 & PayPal
| I Buy Pixel Pride Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Celeste | 1.4 TF2 Price Will Be Ready Soon | $2.81 PP Price Will Be Ready Soon |
| All Games Above (Special) | 1.6 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games Bundle Price Will Be Ready Soon | $3.21 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games Bundle Price Will Be Ready Soon |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Humble Choice (Jun 2023) | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Curse of the Dead Gods | 1.0 TF2 Price Will Be Ready Soon | $1.95 PP Price Will Be Ready Soon |
| Ghostwire Tokyo | 3.0 TF2 Price Will Be Ready Soon | $5.95 PP Price Will Be Ready Soon |
| GRIME | 0.7 TF2 Price Will Be Ready Soon | $1.45 PP Price Will Be Ready Soon |
| Remnant: From the Ashes - Complete Edition | 3.5 TF2 Price Will Be Ready Soon | $7.02 PP Price Will Be Ready Soon |
| All Games Above (Special) | 7.3 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games Bundle Price Will Be Ready Soon | $14.48 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games Bundle Price Will Be Ready Soon |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 7.68 TF2 | $15.28 PP |
| I Buy Must-Play Metroidvanias Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Blasphemous | 1.0 TF2 Price Will Be Ready Soon | $1.98 PP Price Will Be Ready Soon |
| Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night | 1.3 TF2 Price Will Be Ready Soon | $2.64 PP Price Will Be Ready Soon |
| Hollow Knight | 2.4 TF2 Price Will Be Ready Soon | $4.84 PP Price Will Be Ready Soon |
| Rain World | 0.8 TF2 Price Will Be Ready Soon | $1.64 PP Price Will Be Ready Soon |
| All Games Above (Special) | 6.4 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $12.69 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 8.29 TF2 | $16.5 PP |
| I Buy Luck of the Draw: Roguelike Deckbuilders Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Dicey Dungeons | 1.0 TF2 | $2.08 PayPal |
| Luck be a Landlord | 1.0 TF2 | $1.91 PayPal |
| Alina of the Arena | 2.1 TF2 | $4.23 PayPal |
| Chrono Ark | 2.8 TF2 | $5.56 PayPal |
| Tainted Grail: Conquest | 3.8 TF2 | $7.56 PayPal |
| Fights in Tight Spaces | 6.0 TF2 | $11.88 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 12.5 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $24.81 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 12.57 TF2 | $25.01 PP |
| I Buy May Multiplayer Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Generation Zero® | 0.8 TF2 | $1.58 PayPal |
| Northgard | 1.2 TF2 | $2.38 PayPal |
| Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition | 2.4 TF2 | $4.85 PayPal |
| Destiny 2: Beyond Light | 1.2 TF2 | $2.39 PayPal |
| PULSAR: Lost Colony | 0.3 TF2 | $0.61 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 6.8 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $13.5 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 6.98 TF2 | $13.9 PP |
| I Buy Capcom Heroic Collection Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Mega Man Legacy Collection | 0.4 TF2 | $0.79 PayPal |
| Dragons Dogma - Dark Arisen | 1.1 TF2 | $2.11 PayPal |
| Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 | 0.6 TF2 | $1.25 PayPal |
| MONSTER HUNTER RISE | 4.2 TF2 | $8.41 PayPal |
| Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection | 2.4 TF2 | $4.84 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 10.0 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $19.89 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Easy-Going Games: White Thorn Games Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| APICO | 2.3 TF2 | $4.61 PayPal |
| Lake | 0.7 TF2 | $1.41 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 3.5 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $6.88 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Feel The Rhythm Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| No Straight Roads: Encore Edition | 1.3 TF2 | $2.63 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 1.5 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $3.01 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Humble Choice (May 2023) | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Bendy and the Dark Revival | 0.2 TF2 | $0.48 PayPal |
| Builder Simulator | 0.3 TF2 | $0.56 PayPal |
| Operation: Tango | 0.3 TF2 | $0.66 PayPal |
| Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters | 1.6 TF2 | $3.22 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 2.8 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $5.62 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Striking Soulslikes Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Salt and Sanctuary | 1.1 TF2 | $2.1 PayPal |
| Blade of Darkness | 1.1 TF2 | $2.23 PayPal |
| Mortal Shell | 1.4 TF2 | $2.74 PayPal |
| Aeterna Noctis | 1.5 TF2 | $2.91 PayPal |
| Loot River | 2.9 TF2 | $5.76 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 9.0 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $17.99 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Fight 4 Your Friends Co-Op Shooters Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Warhammer: Vermintide 2 | 0.7 TF2 | $1.44 PayPal |
| Zombie Army Trilogy | 0.5 TF2 | $0.97 PayPal |
| Back 4 Blood | 2.8 TF2 | $5.55 PayPal |
| Zombie Army 4: Dead War | 1.8 TF2 | $3.64 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 6.7 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $13.26 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 8.29 TF2 | $16.5 PP |
| I Buy In Your Face VR Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Vertigo Remastered | 0.4 TF2 | $0.8 PayPal |
| Into the Radius VR | 3.1 TF2 | $6.22 PayPal |
| Wanderer | 1.1 TF2 | $2.16 PayPal |
| Zenith MMO | 2.2 TF2 | $4.32 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 7.8 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $15.43 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Humble Choice (Apr 2023) | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Aliens: Fireteam Elite | 1.0 TF2 | $1.92 PayPal |
| DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT | 3.0 TF2 | $5.89 PayPal |
| Life is Strange 2 Complete Season | 0.7 TF2 | $1.44 PayPal |
| Rollerdrome | 0.3 TF2 | $0.58 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 5.6 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $11.23 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 6.78 TF2 | $13.5 PP |
| I Buy Best of Boomer Shooters: Bigger and Boomier Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Forgive me Father | 0.2 TF2 | $0.39 PayPal |
| WRATH: Aeon of Ruin | 0.3 TF2 | $0.5 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 0.5 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $1.02 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Scary Games to Play in the Dark Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Labyrinthine | 1.8 TF2 | $3.54 PayPal |
| Propnight | 0.7 TF2 | $1.37 PayPal |
| The Blackout Club | 0.6 TF2 | $1.11 PayPal |
| The Mortuary Assistant | 2.4 TF2 | $4.77 PayPal |
| SCP: Pandemic | 2.4 TF2 | $4.85 PayPal |
| Visage | 2.9 TF2 | $5.83 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 11.2 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $22.23 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 11.27 TF2 | $22.43 PP |
| I Buy Humble Heroines: Warriors, Dreamers, and God Slayers | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Control Ultimate Edition | 1.9 TF2 | $3.86 PayPal |
| Dreamscaper | 0.2 TF2 | $0.47 PayPal |
| Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice | 1.4 TF2 | $2.87 PayPal |
| Praey for the Gods | 0.5 TF2 | $0.9 PayPal |
| Sable | 0.3 TF2 | $0.61 PayPal |
| Syberia: The World Before | 1.1 TF2 | $2.25 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 6.3 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $12.53 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 8.29 TF2 | $16.5 PP |
| I Buy Humble Choice (Mar 2023) | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| BIOMUTANT | 1.6 TF2 | $3.25 PayPal |
| Edge Of Eternity | 0.2 TF2 | $0.36 PayPal |
| Hero's Hour | 0.3 TF2 | $0.61 PayPal |
| Jurassic World Evolution 2 | 2.2 TF2 | $4.41 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 5.0 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $9.86 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 6.78 TF2 | $13.5 PP |
| I Buy Türkiye-Syria Earthquake Relief Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| PAYDAY 2 | 0.5 TF2 | $0.91 PayPal |
| Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition | 0.6 TF2 | $1.24 PayPal |
| Mount & Blade: Warband | 0.8 TF2 | $1.57 PayPal |
| XCOM 2 | 0.4 TF2 | $0.76 PayPal |
| Strange Brigade | 0.5 TF2 | $0.9 PayPal |
| Stick Fight: The Game | 0.6 TF2 | $1.28 PayPal |
| Farming Simulator 17 | 0.6 TF2 | $1.11 PayPal |
| Euro Truck Simulator 2 | 1.6 TF2 | $3.19 PayPal |
| Armello | 0.3 TF2 | $0.69 PayPal |
| Gotham Knights | 5.5 TF2 | $10.85 PayPal |
| Ghostrunner | 1.8 TF2 | $3.67 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 15.0 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $29.91 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Unparalleled Puzzlers Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Baba Is You | 1.5 TF2 | $3.06 PayPal |
| Creaks | 0.2 TF2 | $0.46 PayPal |
| DARQ: Complete Edition | 0.2 TF2 | $0.36 PayPal |
| Dorfromantik | 2.0 TF2 | $4.0 PayPal |
| The Last Campfire | 0.4 TF2 | $0.7 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 4.9 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $9.81 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 5.78 TF2 | $11.5 PP |
| I Buy Humble Choice (Feb 2023) | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Fallout 76 | 2.2 TF2 | $4.37 PayPal |
| Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous | 1.4 TF2 | $2.84 PayPal |
| Thronebreaker: The Witcher Tales | 0.3 TF2 | $0.55 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 4.5 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $8.87 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Sim-ple Life Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Garden Paws | 1.0 TF2 | $2.0 PayPal |
| Lake | 0.7 TF2 | $1.41 PayPal |
| Staxel | 0.6 TF2 | $1.11 PayPal |
| Summer in Mara | 0.5 TF2 | $1.04 PayPal |
| Townscaper | 0.6 TF2 | $1.17 PayPal |
| Winkeltje: The Little Shop | 1.0 TF2 | $2.08 PayPal |
| Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles | 1.3 TF2 | $2.66 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 6.0 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $11.9 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 6.08 TF2 | $12.1 PP |
| I Buy Survival Instinct Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Chernobylite Enhanced Edition | 1.0 TF2 | $1.92 PayPal |
| The Long Dark: Survival Edition | 0.4 TF2 | $0.89 PayPal |
| SCUM | 3.4 TF2 | $6.86 PayPal |
| State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition | 3.1 TF2 | $6.21 PayPal |
| Volcanoids | 1.4 TF2 | $2.81 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 9.2 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $18.35 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 9.42 TF2 | $18.75 PP |
| I Buy In Case You Missed It: Gems of 2022 Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| PowerSlave Exhumed | 1.4 TF2 | $2.74 PayPal |
| Source of Madness | 0.6 TF2 | $1.12 PayPal |
| Supraland Six Inches Under | 1.1 TF2 | $2.23 PayPal |
| ZERO Sievert | 5.3 TF2 | $10.57 PayPal |
| Prehistoric Kingdom | 1.3 TF2 | $2.5 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 11.0 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $21.9 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Fighting Farmers Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Forager | 1.1 TF2 | $2.16 PayPal |
| Kitaria Fables | 0.4 TF2 | $0.75 PayPal |
| Stranded Sails - Explorers of the Cursed Islands | 0.3 TF2 | $0.58 PayPal |
| Len's Island | 4.1 TF2 | $8.16 PayPal |
| Re:Legend | 1.0 TF2 | $1.94 PayPal |
| Spirit Of The Island | 1.4 TF2 | $2.88 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 8.6 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $17.06 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 8.67 TF2 | $17.26 PP |
| I Buy Humble Choice (Jan 2023) | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Doom Eternal | 2.6 TF2 | $5.21 PayPal |
| OlliOlli World Rad Edition | 0.3 TF2 | $0.52 PayPal |
| Tribes of Midgard | 0.8 TF2 | $1.54 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 4.2 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $8.31 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Best of Boomer Shooters Bundle - Holiday Encore | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| AMID EVIL | 0.6 TF2 | $1.15 PayPal |
| Dusk | 2.0 TF2 | $4.0 PayPal |
| Forgive me Father | 0.2 TF2 | $0.39 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 3.2 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $6.33 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Fantastic Journeys: Middle Earth & Beyond - Holiday Encore | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Gauntlet™ Slayer Edition | 0.2 TF2 | $0.49 PayPal |
| LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 | 0.3 TF2 | $0.55 PayPal |
| LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 | 0.6 TF2 | $1.2 PayPal |
| LEGO® The Hobbit™ | 0.4 TF2 | $0.83 PayPal |
| LEGO Lord of the Rings | 0.3 TF2 | $0.56 PayPal |
| Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition | 0.9 TF2 | $1.77 PayPal |
| Middleearth Shadow of War Definitive Edition | 1.2 TF2 | $2.41 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 4.5 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $8.93 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 5.78 TF2 | $11.5 PP |
| I Buy LEGO at the Movies Bundle: Holiday Encore | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| LEGO® DC Super-Villains | 0.5 TF2 | $0.95 PayPal |
| LEGO® Jurassic World™ | 0.5 TF2 | $0.92 PayPal |
| LEGO® MARVEL's Avengers | 0.4 TF2 | $0.77 PayPal |
| LEGO® Marvel Super Heroes 2 | 0.7 TF2 | $1.32 PayPal |
| The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame | 0.4 TF2 | $0.79 PayPal |
| The LEGO Movie: Videogame | 0.3 TF2 | $0.51 PayPal |
| LEGO® Ninjago® Movie Video Game | 0.2 TF2 | $0.48 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 3.3 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $6.56 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Best of Stealth Bundle: Holiday Encore | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Aragami | 0.4 TF2 | $0.89 PayPal |
| Hitman Game of the Year Edition | 1.3 TF2 | $2.58 PayPal |
| HITMAN™2 Gold Edition | 3.0 TF2 | $5.88 PayPal |
| Styx: Shards Of Darkness | 0.9 TF2 | $1.74 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 6.4 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $12.67 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 6.78 TF2 | $13.5 PP |
| I Buy Ultimate Racing Sim Bundle: Holiday Encore | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Assetto Corsa Competizione | 3.1 TF2 | $6.13 PayPal |
| Assetto Corsa Ultimate Edition | 6.8 TF2 | $13.53 PayPal |
| Automobilista 2 | 9.4 TF2 | $18.68 PayPal |
| DRIFT21 | 0.6 TF2 | $1.11 PayPal |
| NASCAR Heat 5 - Ultimate Edition | 0.5 TF2 | $1.08 PayPal |
| rFactor 2 | 4.8 TF2 | $9.55 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 7.9 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $15.77 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 8.03 TF2 | $15.97 PP |
| I Buy 2k Megahits Holiday Encore Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Sid Meier's Civilization VI | 0.7 TF2 | $1.43 PayPal |
| XCOM: Ultimate Collection | 1.3 TF2 | $2.56 PayPal |
| Mafia: Definitive Edition | 2.2 TF2 | $4.3 PayPal |
| Duke Nukem Forever Collection | 0.3 TF2 | $0.5 PayPal |
| Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe | 2.4 TF2 | $4.85 PayPal |
| BioShock Collection | 1.1 TF2 | $2.23 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 9.1 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $18.14 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 9.62 TF2 | $19.14 PP |
| I Buy The Tactician's Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus | 0.2 TF2 | $0.41 PayPal |
| Dark Deity | 0.4 TF2 | $0.83 PayPal |
| Gears Tactics | 4.8 TF2 | $9.55 PayPal |
| The Red Solstice 2: Survivors | 0.4 TF2 | $0.78 PayPal |
| Star Renegades | 2.9 TF2 | $5.82 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 7.3 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $14.48 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 7.58 TF2 | $15.08 PP |
| I Buy Humble Choice (Dec 2022) | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| First Class Trouble | 0.6 TF2 | $1.1 PayPal |
| GreedFall | 0.8 TF2 | $1.53 PayPal |
| Wasteland 3 | 1.3 TF2 | $2.6 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 3.0 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $5.98 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Premiere VR Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Arizona Sunshine | 2.1 TF2 | $4.19 PayPal |
| After the Fall® - Launch Edition | 5.0 TF2 | $10.02 PayPal |
| Vox Machinae | 3.4 TF2 | $6.7 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 12.0 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $23.9 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Black Friday VR Voyager's Pack Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Car Mechanic Simulator VR | 0.6 TF2 | $1.13 PayPal |
| Cook-Out | 0.2 TF2 | $0.49 PayPal |
| I Expect You To Die | 1.3 TF2 | $2.67 PayPal |
| Sairento VR | 0.2 TF2 | $0.43 PayPal |
| SUPERHOT VR | 2.2 TF2 | $4.46 PayPal |
| Until You Fall | 0.7 TF2 | $1.39 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 6.1 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $12.08 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 6.78 TF2 | $13.5 PP |
| I Buy Complete Your Twin Sails Collection Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Small World | 0.3 TF2 | $0.59 PayPal |
| A Game of Thrones: The Board Game - Digital Edition | 1.4 TF2 | $2.72 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 1.9 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $3.78 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy 11 Bit Studios: The Complete Collection Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| This War of Mine: Complete Edition | 0.7 TF2 | $1.41 PayPal |
| Children of Morta | 0.6 TF2 | $1.24 PayPal |
| Frostpunk | 1.0 TF2 | $2.04 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 2.7 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $5.36 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Humble Choice (Nov 2022) | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Eldest Souls | 0.3 TF2 | $0.52 PayPal |
| Hell Let Loose | 6.3 TF2 | $12.52 PayPal |
| Roboquest | 0.5 TF2 | $1.05 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 7.3 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $14.48 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 7.78 TF2 | $15.48 PP |
| I Buy Day of the Devs Bundle (2022) | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Brutal Legend | 1.0 TF2 | $2.03 PayPal |
| Gang Beasts | 3.0 TF2 | $5.94 PayPal |
| Psychonauts | 0.3 TF2 | $0.51 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 4.9 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $9.69 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 5.78 TF2 | $11.5 PP |
| I Buy Melee Mayhem Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Mordhau | 1.8 TF2 | $3.54 PayPal |
| MORTAL KOMBAT 11 | 1.6 TF2 | $3.25 PayPal |
| Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl | 0.2 TF2 | $0.46 PayPal |
| River City Girls | 1.4 TF2 | $2.83 PayPal |
| Chivalry 2 | 3.5 TF2 | $6.87 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 9.7 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $19.37 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy Humble Choice (Oct 2022) | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope | 2.1 TF2 | $4.21 PayPal |
| DEATHLOOP | 2.7 TF2 | $5.35 PayPal |
| Disciples: Liberation | 0.3 TF2 | $0.52 PayPal |
| Monster Train | 0.5 TF2 | $0.98 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 6.4 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $12.64 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | 6.78 TF2 | $13.5 PP |
| I Buy Serious Sam Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Serious Sam 3: BFE | 1.0 TF2 | $1.95 PayPal |
| Serious Sam 2 | 0.8 TF2 | $1.57 PayPal |
| Serious Sam 4 | 4.7 TF2 | $9.3 PayPal |
| Serious Sam: Siberian Mayhem | 2.2 TF2 | $4.47 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 9.9 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $19.76 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
| I Buy TinyBuild x Versus Evil Smashup Bundle | with TF2 | with PayPal |
| Hello, Neighbor! | 0.5 TF2 | $1.01 PayPal |
| Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire | 1.0 TF2 | $2.02 PayPal |
| Totally Reliable Delivery Service | 0.6 TF2 | $1.23 PayPal |
| All Games Above (Special) | 2.4 TF2 + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games | $4.87 PP + You Keep Any Remaining Bundle Games |
| Full Bundle (Special) | TBD | TBD |
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submitted by
FappidyDat to
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2023.06.07 23:52 yukonlass TIFU buying a hot car
Last July (2022) I (52F) was driving by a dealership and they have this hot little blue sports car in the front line that catches my eye. I was on a mission and couldn't stop so that night I go online to check the dealer inventory. I have a nice little Honda coupe, but it's older and needs a paint job.
I find the ad for the car, a 2019 Toyota 86 GT, and although I'm disappointed it's an automatic (I love driving stick shift), it's not a deal breaker. It's rear wheel drive, has a sport (traction off) mode for racing and steering wheel paddles for standard-style shifting.
The car was listed for a reasonable price, but I was getting married in a few months, (destination wedding) and wasn't sure it was responsible to buy a car right then.
I talk to my fiance and we go to the dealership after hours to peek in the windows and check it out. He's supportive and encouraging, if I like the car I should buy it. I'm still not sure and hem and haw a few more days. I call my insurance and while the quote is high, it's not unreasonable.
I keep thinking about the car and eventually go back to the dealership website to apply for it. The next day, I get a call from the salesperson letting me know I'm approved and asking when do I want to sign the paperwork. This is mid-July.
I ask if I can delay delivery of the vehicle until after I return from a planned trip for a family memorial service, to early August. They agree and so I sign the papers, we do the photos and I walk out with some swag.
I come back from my trip to Alberta, pick up the car and drive it home. I immediately contract COVID, get the sickest I've ever been in my life and am in bed for close to a month. There goes summer!
I'm finally well and get to drive my new toy in September. The car is a dream to drive, so responsive and can pass anyone like they're standing still. I have fun driving it for about a month. But, because I live in the Yukon (#Whitehorse), I decide to park it for the winter when they start throwing gravel down on the roads.
Fast forward to May (yes, our winters are that long) and I am finally able to drive her again. In the meantime, I've been looking at, and dreaming of, getting back into horses and riding. Problem is, I can't afford to have a horse while I'm making payments on the car.
I take my little car for a (day) road trip and while it's awesome, I realize that I want the horse more.
Problem is, although the sticker price was reasonable, all the extra fees the dealership added on, plus the full extended warranty I added means the car is a little over-priced to try and sell.
Now, I've got ads on FB, Kijiji and Autotrader, but no bites. I've found a horse I want and lined up a place to board it, but can't get rid of the car. [TLDR: I bought a car and then realized I'd rather have a horse. I can't afford both and the car is too expensive to sell] Edit: clearly not a stolen car.
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2023.06.07 23:46 missqueenkawaii My (32F) roommate (24F) humiliated me after helping me with something
First and foremost, I know what I did made me an asshole. Which is why I immediately apologized as soon as I got home. I would have done it there but yelling is a trigger for me so I just fell apart. We were in a rush so I called asap.
Every time I display an emotion that isn’t nice, calm, cool, and collect- I get humiliated. I’m not perfect, I take responsibility when I’m wrong (even if it takes me a few hours to come to my senses), and I’m just human.
Overall I almost never loose my cool, but every now and then I do. I never yell or scream, and normally I take it out on myself. Or immediately apologize realizing what an asshole I am.
Went to the pharmacy to get some meds for my sciatica pain (I was at the ER yesterday) and I was 10¢ short on getting my pain medication. I asked if they could give me a couple of the pills and I’ll buy the remainder of the prescription on Friday. Since it was only a few pills they said they couldn’t. I tried asking if I could come back and pay on Friday or if either of them had 10¢. They just kept saying no so I said (said, not yelled) “y’all suck. “. The lady at the counter was visibly offended and started getting angry with me and I explained I didn’t say she sucked, or the pharmacist, I was just frustrated.
Go back to the car (my roommate was driving me) and explained I was short. They agreed to come in and pay for it (a mere $3.73¢), and when we got back to the pharmacy window the pharmacist started yelling (actually yelling) at me that I wasn’t welcome back to that pharmacy if I said something like that again. That I was rude and ungrateful for them helping me because they didn’t have to. Did I get frustrated again? Yes, ofc. Yelling is a trigger with me. This time I fell apart in tears though. All I told him (told firmly, not yelled) though was, “don’t you know how to handle upset customers? Don’t you understand when someone is having a bad day?”
So we left and on the way back to the car my roommate told me I humiliated them…”you humiliated me. You can’t just go talking to people that way. Being frustrated isn’t an excuse.” I know this. I full claim I was an asshole.
I felt like a stupid 16 year old child getting scolded by her dad. Meanwhile my roommate is 24, and I’m 32. Like I don’t know those things already. I also understand that while dealing with frustrated customers is a pain, that it just happens. I work in customer service- I get it. Sometimes it’s inevitable though, and I was taught to be empathetic, not angry at a customer. Thing is- I wasn’t throwing a temper tantrum, or even raising my voice.
When I got home I called the pharmacy and immediately apologized for being an asshole, and they apologized back. I knew what I did was wrong, and I never tried to use my frustration to justify things. I just said that I had that reaction because I was frustrated (and in pain).
What my roommate said humiliated me, though. Idk if I should talk to them about it or just let it go. Maybe I deserved their reaction. Thoughts ?
TLDR: was an asshole a
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2023.06.07 23:38 Thirsha_42 Tight Money Ch 16
Here is chapter 16 of Tight Money.
Special thanks to
u/SpacePaladin15 for creating the universe and allowing fan writers to join the fun.
Additional thanks to
u/BiasMushroom,
u/YakiTapioca,
u/cruisingNW,
u/SavingsSyllabub7788,
u/YaaliAnnar,
u/White_Dragon_Coranth,
u/Illwood and
u/Redundant-Honse for letting me use elements from their fanfics in mine.
Thanks to
u/Zyrian150,
u/Saint-Andros, and
u/Eager_Question for proofreading this chapter.
Today, I have 3 character updates for you. We get to see good things happen to Leena and Dani and we get another update on what Niit is up to as well as revisiting some old characters and introducing a new one. This chapter was my first in collaboration with
u/Eager_Question. We are doing a crossover for the next few chapters of Tight Money. A huge thanks to them for entirely changing the trajectory of my plans for Niit and Leena. I'm excited for where this is going.
I love your comments so please tell me what you think so I can get better or if you have suggestions for future snippets of life on Venlil Prime you would like to see me cover, leave it in the comments.
First Previous ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Memory transcription subject: Leena, Human Refugee Host Date [standardized human time]: November 7, 2136 The smell of delectable food woke me up before my alarm – a sweet scent with a hint of roasted vegetables. My stomach demanded a meal, and glancing at the clock, I could see that I had some time before the twins would wake. Eagerly walking to the kitchen, I saw Dani had placed out all manner of items on the counter. She stood in front of her ‘hot plate,’ stirring a steaming pot that emanated the delightful aroma.
“Good morning, sleepy head!”
“Good waking, Dani. What are you up to with all those fruits and jars?”
“Well, you remember how I told you I was going to make some chalk for the neighborhood kids? That’s what I am doing right now – I'm making colored chalk! It's a fun DIY project. You see…”
“That did not translate correctly. The translator said, ‘letters of the English alphabet ask for clarification.’”
“Oh, it is an acronym that stands for the English words, ‘do it yourself.’ A lot of humans are pretty handy and have the skills to make the things that most people buy from a store. Sometimes they make things to save money, some do it for the challenge to see if they can, some do it because they want to customize something, and a lot of people do it because they enjoy doing it.”
“Like you said at our meal, this last paw.”
“Yeah! First, I slice up these fruits and vegetables into thin slices and boil them in water for [10 minutes]. The boiling process helps extract the natural pigments from the foods. Once I've boiled the fruits, I strain the colored water and keep it aside.”
Dani reached for a strainer and gently poured the steaming water into another pot and put that on the ‘hot plate.’ She set the slices of fire fruit on a plate and took a tentative bite out of a slice. I followed suit and to my delight, the fruit had a new mellower flavor with a hint of sweetness. Looking over the counter while I snacked on the boiled slices of Firefruit I got a better look at the jars of colored water and a few with colored powders.
“Okay, I'm following so far,” I pointed to one of the powder jars. “What are the powders for?”
“I’m doing an experiment. I want to see if I can use the pigment water as is or if I have to bake it to remove even more of the moisture in order to get a good color. I’ve never used these vegetables before so I need to do some trial and error to get this right.”
Dani had received a small strayu forge a few days ago in the mail and was putting it to good use making all manner of things except strayu.
Honestly, I had no idea you could do anything else with them. Humans think of the strangest things. The forge dinged alerting her that it was done with whatever it was doing. She pulled out a tray of shriveled up Firefruit slices and transferred them to an empty plate. Dani laid several more fresh Firefruit slices on the trays and began the process anew.
“Dehydrated slices make wonderful snacks. Now, I take plaster,” Dani scooped some white powder into a cheap plastic bowl and poured in two scoops of the colored water, “and mix it with the colored water we obtained earlier. The plaster acts as a base and helps give the chalk a solid form.”
“Dani, that's so clever! So, the colored water gives the plaster its colors?”
“Exactly! The colored water mixes with the plaster, and we end up with a mixture that has the desired colors. Oh, and while I'm doing this, I'm also pouring the mixture into these silicone molds.”
I watched as Dani mixed the blue water and white powder until it turned into a light blue soup. Dani poured the liquid into the cavities of the flexible trays and scrunched up her face the way she did when she was unhappy or thinking.
“Is something wrong?”
“Yeah, it is supposed to be a much deeper blue than this. I think I’ll have to find something else to make a better dye or try the powder method. Oh well, live and learn.”
Dani began to clean up just as my alarm went off, informing me that I needed to get the children ready and fed. When I came out of my room after feeding the twins and grooming their fur, Dani had finished cleaning the counter and sitting on the couch browsing on her tablet. She looked up as I sat down.
“You get your cast off today right?”
Peering at the clock on her tablet, “Yes, my appointment is in quarter a claw at the out-patient recovery facility. It is only a short ride away. Would you?” I passed the twins to Dani before I stood. “I need to get ready.”
“Come here little babies, let's play hide and peek-a-boo.”
A quick shower later and I returned to find Dani loading the twins into the stroller; still talking to them in her higher pitch and smiling. Nothing out of the ordinary about that but what was out of the ordinary was that Vissa and Tas were also showing their teeth. Not quite a smile but not for lack of trying. I wasn’t sure what to say about that. I didn’t want Dani to stop smiling at Vissa and Tas but that behavior worried me.
“Okay, we’re ready.” Dani reached in and tickled my children. When they were done laughing they ceased to show their teeth much to my relief.
“Dani, when I get the cast off and return this scooter, is there anything you would like to do? I would rather not go back home and sit down once I can walk again.”
Dani’s eyes sparkled at my suggestion. “I would love to see some of your museums and I read about these places where people can make communal art. Could you show me one of those?”
“I would love to.”
I’m glad I can do something nice for you, after all you have done for me. Memory transcription subject: Niit, Capitol Spaceport Logistics Coordinator Date [standardized human time]: November 9, 2136 I was fortunate. Only three claws after I was fired from the spaceport a new job presented itself. It was a temporary job but it would give me time to find something permanent and help my job history. Getting fired looked worse than the contract ending. They had advertised that they needed someone to come in and finish a new facility. I wondered what happened to the last coordinator. I sent in my application, trying to highlight that I had some experience in procuring building materials for the maintenance of the spaceport hangars.
I was given an interview time for the following paw. That didn’t give me much time to prepare and the place was a bit out of the way. I had to take the train out to the outer ring of the Capital and then walk [20 minutes] more but at least it was easy to find; I could hear the construction a [kilometer] away. A yotul was outside watching the construction crews, obviously impressed with the advanced construction equipment.
“Excuse me,” I tried not to be respectful and not shout, “could you direct me to the project manager's office?”
The yotul looked at me and then pointed to a series of temporary buildings in the distance.
“The furthest of the temporary dwellings on the right," he said, "it has a label on the door.”
“Thank you.” I waved my tail goodbye.
I walked over to the white construction shelter the yotul indicated and raised my paw to knock when the door slid open and a large, dark gray venlil appeared in the doorway. I froze in surprise as he looked me up and down with his left eye.
“Are you Niit?”
“Y-y…” I flicked my ear in affirmation.
“Come in.”
The gray venlil stepped inside and motioned to a swivel chair opposite a desk near the door. I took the seat opposite him at the desk and he opened a file with my application on his datapad. The office was a mess of binders, tools, and open cases of energy snacks and drinks; I assumed for the crew. A large map of the block hung on the wall.
"You can call me Foreman Apec or just Foreman is fine too. I'm so glad you could come on such short notice, this project is rather urgent and our last coordinator was poached by one of those ghastly flesh factories they're building now."
The very mention of those atrocious places nearly caused me to lose my lunch. “I-I’m so sorry to hear that. Well, I can guarantee you that I will not be leaving to work in such a place.”
"That's wonderful to hear. Tell me more about your experience, how comfortable are you handling tight schedules?"
“Oh, very, when I worked at the Capital Spaceport I had to manage several tight repair schedules regularly.” I hope he didn’t call Director Cass. I doubt he would give me a positive reference.
"Wonderful to hear. Like I said, we're rather in a rush to get this all done as soon as we can. The good news is that human laborers can work for two, sometimes three claws a shift, so we should be able to manage."
He stated that so nonchalantly, waving his tail around like it wasn’t the most ludicrous thing.
“T-three claws? They can work that long? No,”
he’s joking, “You are pulling my ear. There’s no way anyone can work that long.”
Foreman Apec leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially.
"I could scarcely believe it myself! Between you and me, I believe they're what you'd call
persistence predators, but they're all hush hush about such things, you know. Anyhow,” he sat back and resumed the interview questions. “You mentioned repairs–I assume for starships-- do you have any experience with buildings?"
Persistence predators? I’ll have to look that up later, focus! “Some, yes. I managed the construction of hangars 17 and 18 two [years] ago and the repairs to some of the buildings when debris fell after the successful defense against the arxur earlier this [year].”
"Fantastic! And, of course, while the position does not require you to interact with many humans, it'll likely come up due to the nature of the project. Are you comfortable with that?"
“I’ll manage.”
It’s only temporary and I have my secret weapon now. Let's see them crawl inside me now. Ha! "You should be fine. Older fellows like myself seem to struggle much more than youngsters like you, and I have my first meal with a human every paw now! I'm afraid the compensation on the ad is as high as we can go due to the budget, is that also alright?"
He flicked his tail apologetically.
“Yes, I’m grateful for the opportunity to gain experience in construction and try something other than starship repair.”
"Fantastic. When can you start?"
“I can start immediately, thank you!”
"Well, then you're hired! I'll send you an information package as soon as I can, and you can start at the next claw. As I said, we are quite strapped for time."
I rose, my tail wagged with joy, “I won’t let you down. I’m eager to see what this place will look like when it’s finished.”
"As am I. The whole thing has been mired in secrecy. You'll have to sign an agreement when you accept the contract, it'll be in your information package."
A secrecy agreement? What are the humans building here? “Oh… mysterious.” I tried to wave my tail playfully.
"Yes indeed! We'll be able to talk all about it once you sign on officially, but suffice it to say that the building plans are different from any I've ever seen."
The foreman walked around the desk and opened the door to escort me out. As I left, I turned one last time to reply.
“Well, I am eager to talk with you about it next claw.”
"Wonderful. Go, read through the package. Rest up. You'll need it."
Memory transcription subject: Krin, Capitol Extermination Officer Date [standardized human time]: November 9, 2136 Driving to another abandoned home, looking for another poor warto spawn for trespassing. Probably gonna have drugs too; they all do. Rigel was driving the truck and seemed rather quiet, well, more quiet than usual.
“This is wrong, Krin. Evicting someone from an abandoned house just feels wrong.”
Rigel you are naive and too emotional. These people have already left the herd and need to shape up. “I get where you're comin' from, Rigel, but it's our job. Can't let folks squat in places that ain't theirs.”
We were headed to the poorer part of the city. Clean streets but smaller houses; some no bigger than an apartment. The homes had an artificial feel to them, lacking any sort of wood or stone, just fillcrete walls and plastic doors. The road was getting bumpier with potholes in the rubber asphalt and frayed edges. The paint was nearly gone in some places and sunbleached in others.
“But it's rough out there, Krin. The economy's tanking, folks are losing their jobs, the banks aren’t making allowances…. Is throwing someone out really the answer?
For herd’s sake, “Look, Rigel, I feel for 'em, I do. But ya gotta think bigger. This squattin' stuff leads to more crime, drugs, theft, vandalism, urban decay. Ain't good for nobody. It’s a breeding ground for predator disease.”
“I get that, but it's hard not to sympathize. People are struggling. Maybe we could help them instead of evicting them?”
You want to help them so much, go be a social worker and see how much help you can give these people. Social services were drowning. Everyone knew that but with less revenue from fees and taxes, agencies had to make cuts. Everyone just had to make do.
“Help 'em how? We ain't social workers, Rigel. We got our hands full already and the owners are breathing down our necks when they should've taken care of this mess in the first place!”
“I know, Krin, but it just doesn't sit right with me. Can't help but think there's a better way to handle this.”
“We can't solve all the world's problems, Rigel. Our job is to keep the peace, not save everyone. It's tough, but that's reality.”
The simple reality that ain’t so simple anymore, stupid humans. “I just wish we could do more, you know? Feel like we're caught between a cliff and a shadestalker.”
“Trust me, Rigel, I feel it too. But we can't change the system overnight. Gotta focus on what we can control and do our jobs. Besides, no point thinkin’ about it anymore, we’re here.”
I stopped the car and got out. Officer Rigel checked the front door and it swung open. We entered the house, announcing ourselves as we went, but saw no one. The place was rather clean for a squat. If it wasn’t for the makeshift bed in one of the rooms and the inflatable birthday pool in the bathroom with a stack of towels, we wouldn’t have even known there was a squatter here.
“Looks like we came all this way for nothing.” The frustration in Officer Rigels voice mirrored my own.
The water in this pool was almost gone, the towels were dry and we didn’t find any paraphernalia. Whoever had been here, was long gone.
“Yeah, let's call it in and go back to the office.”
We climbed back into the truck and pulled out of the driveway. As I drove us back to the guild, we passed a disheveled man.
Is that our squatter? I slowed the car and looked in the mirror, from behind I could see he was wearing a dirty safety vest and carrying a trash stick.
No, he’s not a squatter. Glad I’m not that guy though. Sanitation work is not for me. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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2023.06.07 23:29 SkittishReflections I was Trapped in a Nightmare I'm Certain isn't Mine
When you're rich enough, you get perks you can only dream of. Literally. But somehow, my paradise turned into hell.
And now I'm paranoid.
Have you ever had a dream so amazing, you wished you could relive it? Explore it? Relish it? Well, when you're rich enough, you don't have to wish. It's a reality thanks to dream banks. You may have heard of them and their pricy services, which include recording, saving, and projecting dreams.
For example, if you'd like a dream recorded, you can book one of their luxurious suites for the night, where the dream techs will fit you with a special helmet, offer you a sleep-friendly snack, and leave you to rest. The next morning, they'll replay the recorded dream for you via the helmet and ask if you want to shell out the extra bucks to save it. If you don't, they'll delete it and you can pay to book for another time to try again.
If you do decide to save it, you must select an item within the dream that will act as the exit key. (This will come in handy during projections.) While still wearing the helmet, you must touch the item, and the dream techs will label those electric signals as the key.
Afterwards, everything is saved under your name, and you can now relive your dream at any time by booking a suite for three, five, or eight hours. Unlike recordings, during projections, you don't have to wait for sleep to come. After you enjoy a snack of your choice, the helmet is fitted and you're immediately transported to your dream, where you have free will and can enjoy it at your leisure. And if you ever need to leave early, this is when you touch the key, which will shut down the helmet right away.
In my case, the key is the stegosaurus leather rug I have hanging on the wall of my throne room. I never have a reason to touch it otherwise, making it a perfect key. I've also never had to touch it. Experiencing life as an all-powerful, worshipped being who lives on my own planet and hunts dinosaurs in my spare time, I relished my dream to the last second.
Yes, the fees are exorbitant, but at the time, I felt it was worth it. The techs were skilled, the system was sleek, and the dreams were private. Each could only be unlocked by the unique brainwaves of the dreamer.
Or so I thought.
My literal nightmare began when I booked a five-hour projection on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. After taking a sip of champagne to wash down the cranberry brie bites, I settled into the cool silk sheets with a smile. My usual dream tech smiled back as she fastened my helmet, and the last thing I heard was her wishing me pleasant dreams before I was plunged into darkness.
I waited for the split-second adjustment from reality to the dream world, and my confusion grew when I didn't find myself on my throne surrounded by fawning gods and goddesses.
Instead, I found myself in the middle of an endless street. Alone. There were no cars, no life, not even wind. Towering street lamps lined the sidewalk as far as I could see, arcing over the road and tinting everything an eerie red. Behind them, identical buildings stood side by side, silent, their dark, narrow windows hollow.
My pulse spiking, I whipped around. The other direction was just as endless. Uneasy confusion prickled beneath my skin. This had to be someone else's dream. The techs must have made a mistake. I didn't know how it was possible, but there was no other explanation.
My unease piqued as my situation sank in. I was in a stranger's dream and I didn't know the key. I was stuck here until my five hours ran out. Or until the techs realized their mistake. I was ready to rip them a new one once I was out, but until then, I had no choice but to wait.
I studied my surroundings with a frown before I walked over to the curb and sat down, and that was when I noticed I couldn't feel anything. I also noticed I was naked. It didn't matter. There was no one here, and none of this was real anyway.
Time passed, and I tried to distract myself from my nettled offense by humming, but no sound came out. Sitting up, I took a deep breath and screamed. Not even a squeak was heard. I slapped my hand against the ground. Nothing. This place was like a black hole of the senses.
Sighing, I lay down on my back and stared at the red light above me, wondering if I could fall asleep in a dream. I tried, but the more I wished to escape this silent, crimson prison, the more it seemed to come into focus. Soon, the utter lack of noise and movement grew from slightly unnerving to completely intolerable.
There was no way I could wait. I'd go insane. I had to get out of here. I had to find the key.
Jumping up, I ran to the nearest building and wrenched open the door, and a pitch black void greeted me. I gasped, and gasped again as it felt like my very breath was being suctioned out of my lungs. Panicking, silent wheezes rattled in my chest as I struggled to yank myself out of the vacuum, jerking my limbs and bucking my body until I toppled over backwards on the sidewalk.
Gulping in fitful breaths, I scrambled to my feet and ran down the road without looking back, my wide eyes scanning the horizon for salvation. I just wanted out of here, but the hellish path stretched on forever, making me feel like I was running in place as every identical building and street lamp mocked me. Even my silent stomping and mute panting served to draw insanity closer.
And then, a person showed up.
There, in the distance.
With my hope spurred, I raced towards them, desperate. I didn't care who they were. I needed to break this monotony.
As I got closer, hope morphed to confusion, and then to despair. The person was me. It was a mirror, propped up across the entire street.
Sweat-soaked, I slowed down to a jog before I stopped right in front of my reflection. It was me alright, naked, exhausted, and frustrated. But the eyes, something was off about the eyes. With an anxious frown, I stepped closer, staring into them, and they stared back …
… until they glanced behind me.
I gasped and jumped away, and so did my reflection … before it glanced over my shoulder again.
A chill trickled down my spine. My reflection had nothing behind it but the empty street, so I gulped and turned around, and my mouth fell open in a silent scream as a lovecraftian behemoth barrelled its way towards me. With its slick shell gleaming red beneath the lights, it slammed down one spiny tentacle after the other as its five mouths bared their dripping, concentric fangs.
Drenched in undiluted horror, tremors gripped my body as I stumbled away until my back was against the mirror. I knew death was a foolproof key in a dream, but I didn't know if this creature would kill me right away or leave me to suffer in agony until my five hours were up.
With it only inches away, I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed myself into the mirror, and my stomach flipped as I fell backwards. I opened my mouth to gasp, but there was nothing for me to draw in. Floating in an airless void, I flailed and thrashed, my wild eyes scanning the darkness for answers as I began to spin around.
Although death would free me, one of my greatest fears was suffocating. On one of my weightless rotations, a red, glass cube passed me by, and I grabbed it, hoping it was a breathing device. I brought it close to my face, and I gawked at what it held within.
Me.
Surrounded by identical buildings and red street lamps while a lovecraftian behemoth tore me apart.
Horrified, I threw the cube as far as I could and increased my efforts to escape this void. Yet all the flailing and thrashing was for naught as the darkness revealed no end. My eyesight began to go red as my lungs spasmed, and I clawed at my throat as my pulse stuttered in my chest.
The red kept growing and growing until it engulfed my entire vision, and I gave up. There was nothing to do but face my fears and die. With my straining heart lumbering, I let myself go limp as I stared at the red and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
I wasn't dying.
In fact, I could breathe just fine.
Frowning, I opened my eyes, and intense unease spread through my core. Above me, a red moon had taken up the entire sky, each one of its craters crystal clear, like eyes watching me. I turned my head away, and I realized I was in a park, laying down on the grass. Sitting up, I blinked in surprise at the pond right beside me, its opaque water reflecting the moon's red light. Ducks were swimming in a circle across its surface, their movements smooth with nary a splash.
Trees surrounded us, so dense I couldn't tell when one began and the other ended. It was mind-numbingly quiet here as well, and I still couldn't feel anything or make any noise, but at least the ducks were moving. This place seemed more tolerable than the last, and I was willing to wait out my five hours here. I hoped at least an hour had passed already, but with dreams, one never knew. All I knew was that I was too exhausted to search for the key. And too scared. I didn't know whose dream this was, but they had to be masochistic if they saved this nightmare.
Curling up beside the pond, I worked on calming myself down as I watched the ducks swim in their systematic circle over and over and over. I tried counting the rotations the way one would count sheep, but that still didn't lull me to sleep. I wished I'd chosen the three-hour projection, but at least I hadn't chosen the eight-hour one.
Distorted circus music crackled around me and I jolted up, my heart ricocheting in my chest. There was finally sound, but the last thing I wanted to hear was a cliche horror movie soundtrack. Gulping, I looked around. The music was coming from the trees, and my stomach dropped when I spied a shadow behind one of them. Then another. And another. They emerged into the crimson moonlight, and my blood turned to ice.
Clowns.
I whipped around, trembling to the rhythm of my frantic pulse. They were surrounding me. Dozens of them. As classic as any clown could be. Colorful clothes, big shoes, silly hair, exaggerated makeup. I wasn't scared of clowns, as long as they were where they belonged. And they didn't belong here, staring at me with empty eyes and toothy grins.
I tried to convince myself that they weren't dangerous since they didn't have weapons and didn't seem monstrous, but when they took a step closer in unison, I jumped back, nearly falling into the pond. The ducks remained oblivious, still swimming in their circle. The distorted circus music got louder, and my hair stood on end when I saw the grass ripple in front of each clown. They were sending something my way through the ground.
Panicking, I jumped into the pond, and I screamed as I sank right in. There was no bottom. There was no water either. The pond was filled with red, translucent spheres, each the size of a tennis ball. Still able to breathe, I began swimming through the spheres with clumsy breast strokes, just hoping I could end up as far away from the clowns as possible.
After swimming for what felt like enough time, I tried to swim up, until I realized I had no idea which direction I was facing. Remember a trick for those stuck in avalanches, I spat, but my glob of saliva just hovered in front of me. Before panic could set in, I noticed what looked like an office desk floating amidst the spheres in the distance. After blinking a few times to make sure it was really there, I swam towards it, desperate for any change in my situation.
It
was an office desk, a wooden one with carved borders and locked drawers. Tucked beneath it was a stool, and the moment I pulled it out and set it under my ass, an office replaced the red spheres.
I grunted as gravity returned, and I looked around in bewilderment at the cluttered bookshelves and grimy floors. Dust was floating everywhere, highlighted by the red light filtering in through the blinds behind me. I jumped as a clock hanging on the wall chimed. Its glass was too dirty for me to tell the time, but I was glad I could hear. I coughed at the dust. And I could make noise. I dusted my hands. And I could feel. I could even smell, which I now wished I couldn't as I wrinkled my nose at the faint stench of rot.
After failing to read the spines of some of the books on the shelves, I studied the shadowy corners of the room. A slack-jawed skeleton hung in the far end, and a faded poster with anatomical diagrams curled off a cupboard. This had to be a doctor's office. Was the creator of this dream a doctor?
A silhouette slid in front of the frosted glass door, and I gulped as the knob began to turn. A hand reached in, gripping the edge one finger at a time, and my heart dropped as I knew this horror cliche was only going to be followed by another. Having no time to think, I slid off the stool and crouched beneath the desk, my hand over my mouth as cobwebs clung to me.
Praying spiders wouldn't swarm me, I peeked through a small slit in the wood, and I froze when an emaciated nurse walked in the room. Layers upon layers of blood coated her scrubs, so much so that I couldn't even tell what color they originally were. She had no shoes. No feet either. Just ankle stubs, and my stomach turned as I heard bone clunk against the tiles.
A surgical mask covered her face, as bloodstained as her scrubs, and grimy lab goggles obscured her eyes. I was grateful, because judging by the pus leaking out of her scabbed, balding scalp, I didn't want to know what her face looked like. The closer she got, the stronger the stench of rot became, and I struggled to keep myself from retching.
She stopped halfway into the room, and I gawked at her hands. They were transforming. Her fingers elongating into razor-edged blades. She then began to hunch over, and I cringed as her spine cracked and popped until she was as bent as a candy cane, her face staring at her pelvis.
As if that wasn't unsettling enough, her head creaked as it spun around 180 degrees, now facing the front, upside down. Right after, her arms shot to the ground, and I watched with increasing dread as she bent them at the elbows and wrists so they flanked her head like distorted T-Rex arms.
She spread her fingers out and took a few more steps towards me, and I held my breath, hoping she couldn't hear my rabid heart or smell my fear. Her ankle bones clicked and clacked against the tiles as she made her way around the desk, and I cowered as my frantic eyes searched for a weapon. I found none, but I did spy a brass button beside my head.
With her legs now an arms distance away, I had nothing to lose as I jammed my thumb into the button. The back of the desk flung open, and I scrambled to my feet and dashed out from my hiding place, screaming in response to the nurse screeching behind me. Bursting through the door, I held up my fists and began punching like a maniac in fearful anticipation of a horde of nurses swarming me.
Except I was no longer in a hospital. I was in an outdoor parking lot. Alone. And judging by the roiling red clouds, a storm was brewing. After a second to collect my bearings, I dove into the closest car, thankful it was unlocked. The moment I slammed the door shut, lightning blinded me as thunder cracked and the downpour began. Sighing in relief, I tried to shake away my adrenaline, but the bloodshot eyes in my rearview mirror reignited my panic.
Before I could react, a belt snapped over my neck, pinning my head back against the headrest. With a frightened wheeze, I clawed at the leather, and I flinched as hot, heavy breath wafted across my ear. Gagging at the putrid smell, I reached over, desperate to scratch my strangler's face or poke their eyes out.
I felt their hair and tried to pull it, but my fingers refused to hold on. I tried again and again, but the strands just kept slipping out of my weak grip. Shifting focus, I tried to claw at their eyes, but it felt as though I was moving through molasses as my hand slid down their face. Even when I felt a wet, bulbous eye, I didn't have enough strength to do anything.
My frustration clashed with my terror and I tried to punch them, but my arm swung back in slow motion and merely prodded a stubbly cheek. Tears welled in my eyes as I writhed and gasped, my strangler's laugh adding insult to injury. Despite knowing death will set me free, fear and self-preservation rummaged through my mind, searching for a solution. And they found one.
Hoping I had enough grip and energy, I reached down and found the reclining lever. Wrapping my fingers around it tight, I jerked it up and heaved my body back, and I gulped in a deep breath as I fell backwards, the belt now slack. Not at all prepared to face my attacker, I slipped out from beneath the belt, flung open the door, and zoomed out into the storm.
Sheets of rain obscured my vision, but not enough for me to see that the keys were left inside a red convertible. After making sure no one was hiding in the back, I jumped in, started the engine, and took off, the wheels squealing through the puddles. A sole street curled down a hill, and I took it, adrenaline pumping in waves through my quivering body.
This rush was a confusing mixture of exhilaration and apprehension. I wanted out, but I wasn't giving up. I made it this far, and I was going to survive every cliche this masochist dreamed up. Spiders? Snakes? Zombies? Bring it on. And afterwards, I was going to detail every single trial and tribulation I went through as I sued the dream bank for all the trauma they caused me.
Up ahead, the road curved, and I gasped as it ended in a cliff. I slammed the breaks, but they didn't do anything. Breaking out in a cold sweat, I slammed them again and again as I yanked the hand break as far as it would go. The car refused to slow down, and I cursed myself for not anticipating this cliche. In a move of desperation, I swerved, but it wasn't enough as the car careened over the edge and took me with it.
My heart hung in my throat as I hung on to the steering wheel, my knuckles white, my screams frozen in my lungs, the raindrops like needles. An endless body of water spread below me, and I knew sharks were my next challenge. I screwed my eyes shut as I awaited the inevitable plunge …
… and I gasped as a gentle hand woke me up.
I sat up, my pyjamas plastered to my damp skin, the silk sheets soaked. The tech gave me a sympathetic smile and asked me if I wanted to review the dream or if I wanted to delete it right away, since she could sense it was a nightmare.
I stared at her in furious disbelief as I yelled and cursed, accusing them of misconduct, and she gave me a confused frown. She said I had booked a recording session, not a projection one. After I called her a liar, management got involved, and they showed me my file with proof that I'd booked and paid for a recording session.
I told them they must have mistakenly charged me for a recording session, but I was one hundred percent sure I went through a projection session. I asked for five hours on a Tuesday afternoon. Not eight hours on a Tuesday evening. I had champagne and cranberry brie bites, not chamomile and honey-glazed almonds.
Their concern increased as they told me I was wrong. They said it was Wednesday, I'd slept the entire night, and they had my recorded dream to prove it. I demanded to skim through it, and they obliged. There it was, every scene of that nightmare. But it wasn't mine. It couldn't be. Could it? I hated scary movies. I also rarely had nightmares unless it involved me going broke. Why would I dream of an amalgamation of every horror cliche?
For a second, I was afraid I was still in the dream. This nightmarish scenario would fit right in with the others, taking it to Inception levels. But everything seemed real. I could hear, feel, and speak. No one was growing tentacles or blades. Nothing smelled pungent. Nothing glowed red.
I groaned and buried my face in my hands, confused and uncomfortable. I didn't know what the truth was anymore. One tech reminded me it was impossible for dreams to be projected to anyone but their creator. Another tech gently touched my shoulder and suggested I see a doctor if I continued to get spells of confusion like this. Not knowing how to reply, I paid them to save the nightmare before I got dressed and left.
Back home, I talked to family and friends, nothing seemed suspicious. Nothing seemed ready to kill me. I'm typing here on Reddit, and I'm sure I'll get replies. I'm out of the dream. I'm certain of it. But that leaves two other options.
Either I really did book a recording session and had my own nightmare, in which case I should take the tech's advice and see a doctor because my memory doesn't add up …
… or something sinister is going on at the dream banks, and they're using their clients as guinea pigs. Perhaps they're planning on branching out and creating a mental house of horrors where clients can get a near-realistic experience without fear of death. But why wouldn't they ask for volunteers instead of traumatizing loyal customers?
So I have to ask, have any of you experienced something similar? I know the odds of finding another multimillionaire who frequents dream banks is slim on Reddit, but even one other account can help my case.
SR
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2023.06.07 23:14 WriterJSLynch The Hedgewitch of Huntington (Fairy Dust Book 1) - WIP
The Hedgewitch of Huntington
(Fairy Dust - Book 1)
By J. S. Lynch
Chapter 1: Alex
Alex stared out the window of the Greyhound bus, watching the scenery change from urban to rural. She saw nothing but a blur of green and brown as if someone had smeared a dirty paintbrush across a canvas, with the occasional flash of red and yellow breaking the mottled monotony. Coupled with the drone from the bus’s AC and with the steady rumble of the tires on the blacktop, it would almost be enough to lull her to sleep. Except, she wouldn’t let herself fall asleep. The last time she dozed off, she had a nightmare: her mother being dragged away screaming by men in white coats. Technically, that was a memory, but at least she could force herself to not think about it while she was awake.
The scent of gasoline and sweat permeated the air. Alex’s mouth felt dry, and her saliva tasted bitter. She knew she had a bottle of water in her backpack, but it was too much of a hassle to dig it out from under her seat. Someone behind her sneezed.
Gross.
The air felt so stale and suffocating. She wished she could just open her window and get some fresh air. When she tried to pull it open earlier, the window jammed, leaving it just open enough to create a disproportionately annoying whistle for the rest of the trip. Alex was pretty sure the rock-hard seat digging into the back of her legs would leave a bruise. She felt trapped. She felt like a prisoner, being transferred to death row.
But maybe she deserved it; after all, this was her fault. It was her fault that her mom was gone; it was her fault that she was now on a bus to nowhere. Guilt warred with bitterness in Alex’s heart. On the one hand, she had just left behind everything she knew in Baltimore: her mother, her home, her school, her friends. On the other hand, it’s not like she had that many friends. Or a real home. Or a good school. Or a loving mother. But still, it was familiar. It was hers. And Alex had just flushed it all down the drain.
And now she was heading to Huntington, West Virginia, to live with a stranger. A stranger who just happened to be her biological father. A stranger who had abandoned Alex and her mother before she was even born. A stranger who had no idea who Alex really was, much less what he was getting himself into.
Alex glanced at the woman sitting next to her. Ms. Jones, a kind-faced woman with mocha skin and dark, curly hair that seemed to have a mind of its own, sat, sorting through some papers and humming to herself. She had a gentle voice and a friendly energy, but Alex didn’t trust her. Alex didn’t dislike her, she just couldn’t trust someone who acted as if they cared just “oh, so much.” But Ms. Jones was there to help her- she knew that. She was Alex’s caseworker and had been nothing if not kind to her since her mom had been committed.
Ever since I got her committed.
She stopped that train of thought immediately. There wasn’t much point, thinking about that now.
“Are you okay, Alex?” Ms. Jones asked, noticing Alex’s waning gaze.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Alex lied. She wasn’t, but it’s not like that mattered.
“We’ll be there soon,” Ms. Jones said, trying to sound reassuring. “Your father will be waiting for us at the bus station. I’m sure he’s very excited to meet you.”
“Yeah, sure he is,” Alex muttered under her breath.
Ms. Jones sighed and turned back to the folder on her lap, rifling through the papers.
“Here are some documents I will need you to look over,” she said, handing Alex a few papers. “They’re just formalities. You can look them over now, or we can go over them together once we meet up with your dad.”
Alex took the papers and scanned them briefly. They seemingly covered details about how the transfer would be expected to go and how CPS would follow up to ensure Alex was adjusting well and being taken care of. After skimming the papers for a few minutes and pretending to skim them even longer, Alex passed them back to Ms. Jones, who smiled and slipped them neatly into her folder. Alex gave her a tight-lipped smile in return.
“Thank you, Alex,” she said. “You’ve been very cooperative. I appreciate that.”
“No problem,” Alex said, shrugging and looking away.
Ms. Jones checked her watch and looked out the window.
“We should reach the rest stop in a few minutes,” she said. “Are you hungry? Do you want to get something to eat?”
“No, I’m okay,” Alex said, shaking her head. She couldn’t eat even if she wanted to. Her stomach felt like she had swallowed a brick of lead.
“Well, okay. Maybe later then,” Ms. Jones replied.
“Sure.”
Alex closed her eyes and pressed her head against the window, the pane of glass a little warmer than the air. Everything was just too overwhelming. There were too many noises, too many people. Too many thoughts and feelings were running through her head, not all of them her own. Occasionally, she would catch a glimpse, a fragment of a foreign thought or memory, or a quick stab of a random emotion. It was exhausting. It was painful. Alex wished they would all just shut up and leave her alone.
— — —
The intercom crackled, snapping Alex out of her stupor. The bus driver’s voice came through it, a rich and gravelly sound as if she had been smoking a pack a day since birth. It was weirdly comforting.
“Attention, passengers, we’ll be stopping soon to fuel up and let everyone stretch their legs. Please stay seated until the bus comes to a complete stop,” She intoned in a practiced-if-exasperated cadence. “We will be stopped for twenty-five minutes, and any passenger not on the bus by the time I close the doors will be left behind.”
As the driver spoke, Alex opened her eyes and looked around. They were pulling into the parking lot of some podunk truck stop in some nowhere-town.
“Would it have killed them to stop somewhere a little nicer?” Alex muttered to herself sarcastically.
As the bus rolled to a stop, Ms. Jones tapped Alex on the shoulder.
“Come on, Alex,” she said with a gentle smile. “Let’s go stretch our legs and get some fresh air.”
Alex nodded and followed her to the front of the bus. They stepped off the bus and into the gas station’s parking lot. It was a small, shabby place with a few pumps and a convenience store. An unlit sign read “Tony’s.”
Ms. Jones took out her wallet and handed Alex some money.
“Here, take this,” she said. “At least get yourself a snack or something to drink, okay? I’ll be right back.”
She then marched double-time toward the restroom, leaving Alex alone.
Alex looked at the money in her hand and felt a surge of bitterness. She didn’t need her pity or her charity- she didn’t want it. Stuffing the money in her pocket, she looked around at the people milling about the gas station: a couple of truck drivers filling up their tanks, a family with kids buying snacks at the store, a young woman with a dog sitting on a bench.
Alex wondered what their lives were like. Where were they going? Where did they come from? What sort of things did they care about? What kind of secrets were they keeping?
I could find out…
She glanced back toward the bus. The door was open and the driver was nowhere to be seen. Alex figured she would probably be smoking behind the store.
Walking toward the road, Alex stared at the cars and trucks rushing past along the highway. She could try to flag someone down and hitchhike. Or maybe she could pay someone at the gas station to give her a ride, to take her somewhere else. Somewhere far away from here. She retrieved the crumple bills Ms. Jones gave her from her pocket. Ten bucks. Alex sighed and put the money away. Maybe if she just made a run for it? Alex wondered how long it would take for Ms. Jones to come back.
Alex took another step toward the edge. Then she stopped, hesitating.
“How long would it be before anyone noticed I was gone? Would anyone even care?”
She stared down at the speeding traffic, the creeping realization that she had nowhere else to go pressing on her mind. She had nowhere to go, no one who cared about her, and there was nothing she could do. Nothing except go to Huntington and meet Noah.
She tried to swallow but found her mouth still dry. There wasn’t any point in trying to run away, not anymore.
Resigned, Alex walked back toward the store. She might as well use that ten bucks.
— — —
As she entered, she was greeted by a blast of cold air and a jingling bell. The store was small and cramped, with shelves full of junk food, drinks, magazines, cigarettes, and lottery tickets. A TV mounted on the wall played some news channel.
She wandered around the store, looking at the items with little interest. She didn’t want anything, but she figured that buying something would at least get Ms. Jones off her back. Maybe just a candy bar or a soda.
She picked up a chocolate bar and examined it. A thin film of dust covered the wrapper. It must have been older than she was. Dropping it, she moved to the coolers. She scanned the shelves, but nothing looked good.
She wandered the aisles, eventually picking up a magazine. It was one of those gossip rags that had pictures of celebrities and their scandals. Flipping through it, she saw a headline that read “Hollywood’s Hottest Couples: Who’s In and Who’s Out?” She rolled her eyes and tossed it back on the rack.
She felt the faintest hint of a prickling at the back of her mind, barely an itch. Someone was watching her. Looking up, she saw a girl standing at the other end of the aisle, near the counter. The girl was about Alex’s age, maybe a year or two older. She had long blonde hair that fell in waves over her shoulders, blue eyes that sparkled like diamonds, and a perfect smile that showed off her white teeth. She wore a pink tank top that hugged her curves, denim shorts that showed off her legs, and flip-flops that matched her top. She had a silver necklace around her neck and a gold bracelet on her wrist. She looked like she had stepped out of one of those magazines Alex had just discarded.
The girl was holding a bottle of water and a pack of gum. She smiled at Alex and said, “Hi.”
Alex managed a meek “Hi” before quickly walking away, her cheeks burning red.
She felt like she had just seen everything she wasn’t, someone who was beautiful, confident, and happy.
Alex looked down at herself and felt ashamed. She wore an old T-shirt that was too big, jeans that were too tight, and sneakers that were too worn. Her face was plain; her short brown hair was messy and dull and desperately needed to be cut. She wore no makeup or jewelry except for a cheap watch that barely worked.
She headed towards the restroom at the back of the store. She needed to get away from everyone and everything for a while.
The women's restroom was occupied, so she slipped into the men's room instead, locking the door behind her. The room was small and dirty, with a sink, a toilet, a mirror, and a trash can. There was graffiti on the walls and stains on the floor. It reeked of piss and 409.
She felt exhaustion and despair wash over her and walked over to the sink and turned on the faucet. She splashed water on her face and stared into the mirror. Tired, brown eyes stared back at her. She saw a girl who looked lost and powerless. A girl who had no control over her life. A girl who had no future.
She hated what she saw.
She wished she could change it.
She wished she could change everything.
— — —
Back on the bus, she sat quietly, listening to music on her iPod Nano. It was three more hours before they reached Huntington. Ms. Jones tried making small talk a few times, but Alex wasn’t in the mood. The minutes, hours passed. Alex woke with a start when Ms. Jones shook her, not realizing she had even fallen asleep. At least she didn’t have the dream this time. Small blessing.
“Sorry, Alex, I didn’t mean to startle you. We’re here,” came Ms. Jones’ voice, muffled through Alex’s headphones.
Alex stopped her music, got up, and followed Ms. Jones off the bus, resigned to whatever fate awaited her. The bus station was small and crowded, with only a few benches and ticket counters. The air was thick with the smell of exhaust fumes and stale coffee. Alex looked around at all the people scurrying about. She idly wondered which one of them was her father. Obviously, not the angry mom arguing with the clerk. Not the little boy crashing toy cars together at her feet. Hopefully, it wasn’t the raggedy, older gentleman sleeping with his head on his suitcase. She figured it probably wasn’t the black guy in his early twenties playing games on a DS.
She wondered what he would look like, what he sounded like, what he acted like. She almost started to wonder if he would be anything like her mom but stopped herself, digging her nails into her palms.
Ms. Jones took out her phone and loaded a picture of Alex’s father. She scanned the crowd for his face, looking anxious. The older woman showed the picture to Alex and asked her to help look for him.
A wave of disappointment crashed into Alex when she saw it. He was a middle-aged man with brown hair and blue eyes. He had a scruffy beard and a crooked smile. He wore a work jacket and a faded blue Baltimore Ravens baseball cap. He looked like a loser.
“See him yet?” Ms. Jones asked after a few minutes of searching.
“Nope,” Alex said, shaking her head.
“Well, he was supposed to meet us here at the station,” Ms. Jones said, looking displeased. “-holding a sign with your name on it.”
Alex looked around again but didn’t see anyone with a sign. “Maybe he’s late,” Alex said, secretly hoping he wouldn’t show.
“Maybe,” Ms. Jones said, sounding doubtful.
Ms. Jones sighed and put away her phone. She put her hand on Alex’s shoulder with a gentle squeeze.
“Hey,” she said softly, “how are you feeling? Are you okay? Are you nervous?”
Alex shrugged off Ms. Jones’ hand and looked away.
“I'm fine,” she said, maybe a little too irritably.
Ms. Jones frowned and tried again.
“Alex, I know this is hard for you. Believe me. I know you’ve been through a lot. But this is a chance for you to start over. To have a family again.”
Something in Alex snapped.
“A family!? Do you really think I’m gonna live a Brady Bunch life with this guy? He left before I was even born! He didn’t even know I existed until, what? A few weeks ago?”
Ms. Jones opened her mouth to say something, but Alex cut her off.
“Just stop it,” she said bitterly. “I don’t wanna hear your promises about how I’m gonna have this perfect fairytale life from now on, okay? I’m just so sick of everyone lying to me!”
Ms. Jones closed her mouth and looked hurt.
“Alex,” she said softly. “I’m not lying to you. Please, just trust me on that. I won’t promise that everything is gonna be okay from now on ‘cause I have no idea how it’ll turn out. But you’re one of the toughest kids I know, Alex, and I know how much you’ve been hurt. You deserve a chance to start over and have an easy life, and this guy might be able to give you that. He signed the paperwork saying he wanted to be your parent, so can you at least give him a chance to try?”
Alex felt her rage falter like a rug had been pulled out from beneath her. It was weird to hear Ms. Jones speak so honestly, and it had disarmed her. Alex felt a little embarrassed- ashamed, really.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” Alex sputtered out with a sigh. “You’re right.”
“And if he turns out to be a jerk, I’ll let you help me kick his ass, okay?” Ms. Jones said with a conspiratorial smile. “We got a deal?”
“Deal,” replied Alex, with her own small smile.
“Now, where the hell is he?” huffed Ms. Jones as she began to look around again.
“Maybe he died,” Alex said with a wicked smirk and a shrug.
Ms. Jones grimaced and shook her head. She checked her phone, noticing a missed call from her office. She hurriedly punched in a phone number and hit the call button. A staticky voice picked up on the other end. Alex couldn’t hear what the other agent was saying, but she could tell by Ms. Jones’ expression that it wasn’t good news.
The older woman frowned and began to pace. Alex only heard Ms. Jones’s side of the conversation, “What? How? Why? Oh, gosh. What do we do now? Another placement? Okay. Alright. Thank you, I’ll talk to her..”
She ended the call and looked at Alex with a sad and sorry smile.
“Alex,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I have some bad news.”
Chapter 2: Noah
A hateful sound, like that of a tone-deaf bell with a personal vendetta, jolted Noah awake. He shot up and immediately regretted it when a searing headache threatened to split his head open. Vertigo overtook him, and he had to fight down… whatever he had eaten last night. A barbed wire and sour milk stew? That was his best guess, based on the pain in his gut. He heaved. With his eyes shut so tight that it started to hurt, Noah took a very, very deep breath.
And then another.
And then another.
Slowly, he tried to open his eyes. Why am I on the ground? Noah blinked away the spots, rotating his head at a glacial pace. When his eyes finally focused, he saw Doris, a plump, older woman who worked at the-
Shit.
He finally noticed the metal bars separating him and Doris. Judging by the way she swiveled her head and smiled, Doris had noticed him noticing the bars. She took a satisfied sip from her big, metal mug. She had a glossy name badge hanging from a Bengals lanyard that read “Dispatcher.” Noah squinted when it caught the light.
“Heeyy, you. You finally awake? Get enough beauty rest?” She asked in her lilting, sing-song tone, which Noah learned long ago meant she was being condescending.
“Doris. What the hell happened?” Noah asked as he gently shifted to a sitting position. “What time is it?”
“It’s just after nine.” She answered. Then with a snort, she added: “And you got your ass beat, that’s what happened.”
“That doesn’t sound like me,” Noah said with a small laugh.
Then the amusement left her eyes. A frown settled on her face as she tilted her head ever so slightly upward. “What the hell, Noah? Why are you here?”
“I- I don’t know,” Noah shook his head. Bad idea. “What do you mean?”
“What I mean is: you’re a thirty-four-year-old man, not some frat boy, so why the hell are you getting into bar fights?”
Oooohh…
The previous night’s events slowly returned to him, meandering through his hazy mind. He had gone out drinking, and a fight broke out. He had been hit, so he hit back. And then he got hit again. And again. Which probably explained why everything hurt so much.
“It wasn’t my fault- some asshole punched me. I was just defending myself.”
“Yeah, I know. Bill and them got the security footage about two hours ago,” Doris huffed, seeming annoyed.
Bill was the local police chief, a pudgy, straight-laced kinda guy. Noah didn’t strictly dislike Bill. He knew the man was just doing his job, but he also knew he and Bill wouldn’t be sharing a milkshake with two straws anytime soon.
Doris continued: “They watched the video, took a statement from anyone sober enough to talk, and booked the guys who started the brawl. Everyone else is getting processed out.”
“What about me?” Asked Noah as he wiggled, trying to crack his spine.
“You’re toward the bottom of the list, and they’re short-staffed today, so it’s gonna be awhile.” Her demeanor softened. After a short pause, she sighed and added: “I’ll let ‘em know you’re awake. Someone will grab you and take your statement.”
“Thanks, Doris. Have I ever told you how much I love and appreciate you?” Noah teased.
Doris frowned, and Noah got the sinking feeling he had just made a mistake.
“Didn’t you have something important to do today?” She asked with a chiding undertone.
“What? No. I don’t think-” Then the memory resurfaced and hit Noah like a brick.
Shit.
“Shit.” Blurted Noah as he scrambled to his feet and to the bars. “Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit! Doris, I fucked up. You gotta let me outta here!”
“You know I can’t do that, Noah,” Doris said, flinching when Noah grabbed the bars. “Why? What’s going on?”
“My kid! I was supposed to pick up my kid today!” Noah shouted. He slowly sank to the ground, muttering to himself. “Oh, my god. Doris. Oh my god, this isn’t good. I’m so screwed.”
— — —
Noah stared down the clock on the wall, and the clock stared back, ticking, unblinking. A tiny part of Noah’s mind acknowledged how this felt like one of those stand-offs from old cowboy movies. If the rest of his mind hadn’t been focusing on stopping him from blowing a hole in the wall and running away, he probably would have been screaming his head off, trying to get someone to let him out.
Instead, Noah sat and waited. And waited. Watching the seconds tick slower just to spite him. He was seated on the bench, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clasped in front of his mouth.
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2023.06.07 23:13 Physical-Bid-3621 Mk5 golf thoughts
Looking for advice and general thoughts on this. Just purchased a 2006 Golf GT TDI 140. Car has done 193k miles but drives brilliant. Has full service history all the way from its first ever service, just had an MOT before I purchased it. Mechanical it seems great. Seems to of had all major parts changed in the last 30k miles. Some Cosmetic parts to sort. Obviously it's an aging car so has a few chips and a very small dent but mainly the wheels will need either blasting and painting or replacing. They are not majorly bad just looking abit sad lol. What do you guys think ? I know VW's can last along while but if I continue to service this regularly and look after it , what kinda miles could I expect to get out of it, and with it currently sitting on 193k what are common things that will likely fail / let it down at this point. Thanks all
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2023.06.07 22:39 josedpayy What’s the best way to report a driver after I cancel a ride?
Basically, I work far from home. I normally drive and park my car at the train station. I take the commuter train and order a Uber to my work office. Then I repeat this in reverse to head back home: Uber>train>drive home.
Today I called an Uber. She was 5-7min away. I noticed she was parked at the Publix parking lot waiting. I basically waited like 20min and saw that the Uber driver never left her spot. I called, texted her, and nothing. Finally she texted back saying something about being on the phone with Uber and something about a glitch. I asked her to cancel the ride.
After waiting, now it’s been 30-40 min. I saw she moved further away from my destination. So I decided to cancel the ride by picking “driver isn’t getting any closer to my destination”.
My concern was that if I canceled she would keep the fare fee. Also I was worried that my daily uber voucher would have gone to waste because of her. Finally, I was planning on ordering a Lyft and letting the uber ride until she canceled. But I was afraid of getting charged a lot of money because she was playing games.
My question is what is the best way to report her and get her in trouble?
She has 5star rating with around 300+ pick up with 1.5 years of service. I know for a fact she did this on purpose. The fact that she still has 5stars, is F up. Im sure this is not the first time she’s done this.
Ps: I have a full time day job and I drive ubeLyft/roadie part time at night/weekends.
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2023.06.07 22:36 Sir-Paperbag My Best Friend Is A Deathworlder - Part 46: Honest Day's Work
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MBFD Part 46 - Honest Day’s Work
Kro’gnuar lets Fredrick take the lead as the off-world lemurian is definitely the most experienced of the two when it comes to these... ‘
pohds’.
Grabbing his trusty wrench and crowbar from the driver's door, he patiently watches the young man as he studies the charred capsule.
Looking at the blackened exterior, Kro’gnuar thinks that it held up pretty damn well.
Not many star nations could claim that their spacecraft survived an unshielded atmospheric re-entry with so little damage in the first place.
The more technologically sophisticated nations would use typical magneto-shielding to keep the ridiculously hot plasma away from the hull, while the more ... pragmatically inclined nations would simply slap a few layers of ablative heat shielding on there and call it a day.
Not this one though.
The odd,
somewhat egg-like shape of the capsule surely raises a few questions for the reptilian, but Kro’gnuar's mind is preoccupied with something else right now.
Watching from a few paces behind, he tries to read Fredrick’s body-language as the young man stares at the capsule.
Is he happy to see something familiar again, or is he perhaps thinking about possible comrades of his that died during his arrival here on Kavir?
He could also just be lost in thought for a bit, trying to come up with a plan on how to dismantle that thing, or something along those lines.
The fact is, the old warrior simply could not tell. He has a hard time getting a read on him, as Fredrick does not only lack a tail, but his oddly shaped ears are also about as expressionless as possible for a mammal; He has not seen them make even the tiniest twitch in the last few days.
And so, he simply keeps watching the young man, giving him some room for now.
He is just glad to not be alone on a scrap job for once - a little bit of weirdness from his new friend is not going to change that.
<[Got to keep in mind to ask him about that later.]> he reminds himself.
Though, after a while of simply standing there, Kro’gnuar gets a bit concerned and trudges over to the young man, powdery snow crunching satisfyingly under his heavy steps.
“Fredrik?” he asks, his tone perfectly neutral. As always.
The young man flinches from the large hand suddenly poking his shoulder from behind, turning to face Kro’gnuar.
“Ah, sorry. Got lost in think.” he apologizes, brushing part of his mane out of his face and scratching the back of his head.
“No problem.” Kro’gnuar rumbles “You just went quiet for a bit, so I thought I better check if you are alright.” he explains “
Are you alright?”
“Yes, me alright!” Fredrick gives him an energetic thumbs-up and a big smile. “Just think I maybe remember new thing about how arrive here, a few second ago. Was... interesting.” he explains, walk-and-talking with Kro’gnuar to the escape pod.
As they arrive at the still closed hatch, Fredrick turns around and puts his hands behind his back as he gives Kro’gnuar a quick rundown of things.
“Okay, this is typical get-away-capsule. White part is sort of fabric that cover almost everything, black part is actually many, small tile put together for keep hot-hot away from inside.”
Kro’gnuar nods along; that sounds... about right?
“This part-”
Fredrick keeps explaining the general structure of the pod to him, pointing out potentially interesting points and components that he thinks might be more valuable than others, also telling him which areas to better leave alone if they both still want to exist later.
At least, that is what he thinks he tried to tell him; the algorithm is doing a great job at building a completely new database from the ground up, but sometimes those translations are a bit out there.
If he remembers right, the translator's words were “Big boom, not good, very dead. Part of you here, part of you over there. Not good time. Not good idea.”
Apparently, whoever built this thing thought it would be a great, absolutely genius idea to put a bunch of explosives
inside of an
escape-capsule.
Madness. Absolute madness.
Though, according to Fredrick, there is a valid reason for that.
Kro’gnuar highly doubts that.
Thankfully, Fredrick makes remembering all of it a lot easier by actually marking the spots he is talking about on the hull with a marker he took from one of the toolkits, using big circles and a couple of X’s to signify what to scrap and what to better leave alone as he talks about them.
It kind of reminds Kro’gnuar of the inter-cultural lectures he happily attended back on Kamorrha when he was still a strapping young warrior, scales shining brightly and eager to learn everything about those newly discovered and uplifted four-armed mammalians calling themselves ‘Kiroans’.
But that was almost a lifetime ago. Right now, he is making sure to keep everything Fredrick tells him in his mind and his experience is slowly starting to kick in as he starts to see the similarities to the kind of engineering he has gotten used to over time. Soon enough they are both engaged in pleasant technical talk, even exchanging a bit of knowledge here and there as they go over the pod one more time.
“Any more question?” Fredrick asks him after they are done.
“No, that should be everything for now.” Kro’gnuar replies, hefting his heavy-duty circular saw with a bit of anticipation.
“
Good luck, then.” Fredrick tells him in English, slipping inside the pod.
Staying true to their deal from earlier, Kro’gnuar simply lets Fredrick go ham on the inside as he keeps on cutting away parts of the hull to get to the juicy innards, occasionally taking a glance at the various things Fredrick pulls out of the capsule as he happily presents them to the old man.
After seeing the pod in person, he is glad that Fredrick volunteered to take care of the inside. The armored giant doubts that he even would have been able fit inside to begin with, let alone stand upright or do any kind of work in that tin can.
But he has to give it to the people who built this, they certainly knew what they were doing; as he keeps tearing away layer after layer, his respect for their ingenuity keeps growing.
Rarely has he seen such well thought-out layouts and frames, cramped together in such tight spaces.
It seems like everything is there for a good reason.
Kro’gnuar is also starting to have a sneaking suspicion that Fredrick might not have been completely lying to him when he said that his people have managed to go to space, if not without a bit of help.
The letters and glyphs on the parts he is ripping from the capsule’s cold, charred corpse are awfully familiar to those he has seen the young man use to write down words in the past, and he also seems very knowledgeable about its construction.
<[Maybe they were uplifted, after all.]>
<[Could he simply be just too prideful to admit it to him, then? That would certainly be a lot more likely.]>
“Look, I even find new covering! No more have to wear old and damage coverings!” Fredrick cheers as he re-appears from the capsule, showing off a neatly folded stack of various fabrics to Kro’gnuar.
"Good that you found something useful for yourself. Put them in the hatch to the left of the other one, that one should be a lot cleaner.”
“Alright!”
He gets back to work and happily scraps away while Fredrick keeps flitting back and forth between the Scraploader and the pod, having his hands full with other things every time he exits the wreck, only stopping twice to take a short break.
The hours start to tick by as they happily scrap and loot to both their heart’s content, completely absorbed in their work respectively.
“I think, my work complete. I have take everything useful from inside, almost nothing left.” Fredrick proudly declares, walking up to him with a tired, but satisfied, smile.
Kro’gnuar grunts in agreement, gesturing at the completely torn apart escape pod with his saw.
“Same for me, except for some small parts that I am not sure of if they would even be worth scrapping.”
“Oh, which part?” Fredrick curiously asks.
“Any kind of electronics or computing components, if this really is as uncommon technology as I think it is, nobody will be able to program them. Not in these parts, at least.”
“Make sense.” Fredrick muses “We go back Kavir-L1, then?” he inquires, eager to head back and get some rest after a long day of good old-fashioned manual labor out in the cold.
Kro'gnuar looks to the horizon, mood souring a little as he spotsthe literal
wall of dark gray clouds in the direction they would be heading.
“Maybe not.” he frowns “Let me check the radar for a moment.”
They both walk over to the Scraploader and Kro’gnuar hands Fredrick his tools.
“Here, take those and put them back. I will go check on the radar.”
“Okay.”
Fredrick takes the comically large tools from him and doesn’t even break a sweat as he quickly puts them into their respective spots, closing the hatches and joining Kro’gnuar in the cockpit after he is done.
“So, radar say good thing?” he asks, scooting over to take a look at the slightly scratched-up screen.
Kro’gnuar grumbles, definitely not happy.
“No, the radar did not warn us about that storm front forming up and it has gotten too big by now, I would not want to risk going through there if we do not have to.”
“Aw man.” Fredrick slumps into his seat.
“I agree. This is very irritating.” Kro’gnuar agrees, looking out of the window and back at the screen “I do not know why it did not warn us, a storm this big should have triggered a warning
hours ago.”
Leaning back into the driver’s seat, Kro’gnuar closes his eyes in an attempt to keep the fire inside of him in check.This would be an incredibly stupid reason to use up one of his last blood-rages.
Taking a deep breath and exhaling through flaring nostrils, he opens his eyes again and turns to Fredrick.
“We will have to spend the night out here.”
“Mhm.” he agrees emotionlessly, simply accepting the fact.
“We will also have to make some preparations, the storm looks to be at least a Five.” he points at the radar screen.
“A Five?” Fredrick asks, trying to guess what that might mean.
“From out of ten. It is a rating we have developed.” he explains, confirming Fredrick’s hunch “Here on Kavir, even a Two can kill you if you do not know what you are doing - it gets extremely cold during a storm out here.”
“Wow.” Fredrick blurts out, both impressed and equally intimidated.
He wonders what rating the storm he endured in his pod might have been.
“A Four can knock vehicles over,” Kro’gnuar continues “a Six is able to damage structures, an Eight will definitely do major damage to anything and a Ten is almsot certain death for everything and everyone topside. Luckily, I have never even heard of a Ten even being seen.”
Fredrick swallows heavily, knowing what tornadoes are able to do back on Earth. He does not want to find out what they are capable of here.
“Okay, so what is have to do?” he asks, trying to be of use.
Kro’gnuar briefly thinks about it, recalling the checklist he made with Dushavee.
“We will have to strap down everything tight on the flatbed and put some debris-covers on the windows. We also have to put some covers on the engine intakes and anchor the vehicle to the ground.”
“I get, what is I supposed do?”
“You can take care of the intakes and the debris-covers, you can find them in the big compartment to the rear. I will go over the flatbed and then anchor us to the ground.” he instructs “And if one gets done before the other-”
“He will help other.” Fredrick finishes the sentence for him, taking things very serious.
“Exactly.” Kro’gnuar nods, his opinion of the odd lemurian steadily increasing.
They both get to work and Fredrick hops out of the cockpit, already feeling the breeze picking up a bit, which might also just be a classic case of placebo.
But it certainly does wonders in keeping him on his toes.
Not wasting any time, he power-walks to the rear and looks for the cargo hatch with the engine covers in them, quickly finding it. He turns the handle and pulls the access door open, taking out the covers and swiftly placing them in their spots, making sure that they are really stuffed in there.
After double- and triple-checking the intakes, he briskly walks back to the rear and takes out the pieces of window-shaped wire mesh, securing them in place with the turn of a few cleverly placed handles.
Kro’gnuar actually helps him with the biggest one, the one for the windshield.
“That should be everything.” Kro’gnuar sighs relieved “Did we forget any cargo boxes?”
Both briefly scan the vicinity of the Scraploader, thankfully finding nothing amiss.
“Good, let usss get inside. There is no use in staying outside any longer.”
“Yeah, I’d bet on that.” Fredrick agrees, thinking aloud in English, definitely not imagining the wind having picked up by now.
He climbs into the Scraploader, firmly closing the door shut with a solid thud.
“And now we wait.” Kro’gnuar sighs, rummaging through a glove box of sorts “Feel free to eat and rest, there is little else we can do right now.” he explains, handing Fredrick a cheap ration “Here, this should be edible for you.”
“Thanks.” Fredrick takes it hesitantly, taking a look at the unmarked silvery plastic wrapper.
Kro’gnuar tears open his own, identical ration, and takes a begrudging bite out of the unshapely brick of nutrients.
“Edible.” he grumbles, chewing on the tasteless lump “Not much more than that.”
Staring at the literal brick of food in his hands, Fredrick thinks back to his time in the military.He ate a lot of similar stuff during those nine months of mandatory service, and boy-oh-boy did his fresh-out-of-uni-self not like those.
With his mind somewhere else, he takes his first apprehensive bite out of it, not really bothered by something like that anymore.
he chuckles, swallowing the paste-y chunk.
“Do you want some water?” Kro’gnuar hands him a metal bottle “It helps wash it down.”
“Sure, thank.” Fredrick accepts it, taking a big sip.
The two men silently sit in the cockpit, both crunching on their dry-ass ration bars and thinking about the many, many things they would rather be doing than waiting out a storm in a cramped cockpit, stuck out in bumfuck nowhere, chewing on a kilo-brick of plaster.
“How long we have wait?” Fredrick breaks the silence, staring at the setting suns on the horizon with a faraway expression.
Kro’gnuar grumbles in thought, looking at the radar as he keeps chewing.
“I would guess somewhere between six and ten hours. That center looks hard to predict.” he points at the screen.
Fredrick doesn’t notice him doing so, though. He is still staring at the sunsets.
“Ten hours...?” Fredrick whines, at which Kro’gnuar simply nods.
“We are going to be here for a while, yes. Does your people have a way of passing time?” the reptilian inquires.
Fredrick lets out a dry laugh, looking back at the old warrior.
“We have many way of pass time - play games, tell story, and so further. I not tired enough for need sleep anway, so we can try few, if want.”
“Good.” Kro’gnuar lets out a deep, satisfied rumble “I have been meaning to ask you a few things.”
_____________________________________________
Being consistently late is still being consistent, right? :P
Jokes aside, I purposefully posted this one a day late.Last night, right before posting, I gave it my usual once-over and had a sudden flash of inspiration as I read through it, leading to me writing a bit more and delaying it for a day. :9
Reading your comments on the last chapter was a blast, by the way!
-Paperbag out.
Fun science fact #35: The common swift is a bird that can stay aloft for up to ten months without ever landing once - they are even capable of reproducing mid-flight. Their young also enter a state similar to hibernation when their parents leave for up to three days to hunt for food.
Nature, you alright?
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2023.06.07 22:11 HelloLurkerHere One night in June of 1976 over a million and half people in Canary Islands (Spain) witnessed 'a gigantic explosion of light' in the sky. It became part of the local UFO narrative almost immediately. Declassified documents in 1994 hinted, however, at an earthly origin, a 2001 article confirmed it.
Background Canary Islands is a Spanish archipelago of volcanic nature located in the eastern Atlantic ocean, just west of southern Morocco. The chain of islands extends for approximately 490 kilometers (300 miles).
Canary Islands is both geologically and climatologically almost identical to Hawaii, and as such, international tourism has been the main pillar of its economy since the 1960s.
The Event At around 10:15 PM of June 22nd, 1976, emergency services in all the main seven islands received a flood of calls, with people reporting having seen a strange and frightening phenomenon taking place in the night sky. Most of these callers described what they were seeing as
'a gigantic explosion of light' or
'a massive ball of fire', and all of them said the phenomenon seemed to be taking place somewhere far in the west. These accounts were quickly confirmed true by local authorities, since the 'explosion of light' in question shone for several minutes before dissipating.
Many witnesses also added having seen one or two much smaller red lights moving strangely before the 'explosion' took place -rising from the horizon or from behind the mountains at very high speed, although others added that the lights flew following
'a zig-zag trajectory'. No sound was heard or reported regarding the phenomenon, and no consequences seemed to follow except for a frightened population.
A foreign tourist vacationing in the island of Gran Canaria took
the only known legit picture available of the phenomenon, from the balcony of his hotel room in
Maspalomas. Here you can see a bigger version of the picture with enhanced contrast.
Here's a drawing extracted from an official report made by the Spanish Air Force. The drawing depicts a description of the event made with the information gathered from witnesses reports in the western coast of Gran Canaria. The mountains in the drawing are a depiction of the silhouette of Tenerife, the island immediately west of Gran Canaria. In order to understand the extreme magnitude of the 'explosion of light', please take into account that Tenerife is 70 kilometers (44 miles) away and its tallest peak -Mount Teide, which is in fact Spain's tallest mountain- is 3,718 meters tall (12,198 feet).
Here's a real picture of the landscape depicted in the drawing, for a better perspective.
Hong Kong's bulk carrier vessel
Osaka Bay was sailing from Capetown (South Africa) to Southampton (United Kingdom). The event took place when she was some 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of the island of
La Gomera, and her crew did also witness the phenomenon.
Here's a drawing made out of their witness reports. The crew of the Spanish Navy's corvette
Atrevida (F-61) observed the phenomenon as she was sailing just south of the island of
Fuerteventura. Her captain's account of the event;
"At 22:27 local time of June 22nd it was seen, for the first time, a bright light of an intense bluish yellow color, taking off and rising in altitude towards our position... Once it reached certain height (15º-18º) it stood still, turning its light projection and showing its light source. It remained like that for approximately two minutes, before bursting into a large circle of bright bluish yellow light that remained in that position for forty minutes even after the original preceding phenomenon had faded away. Two minutes later the light source split, its lower half being smaller and standing in the middle of the circle of light, turning into a bluish cloud as the split half that had originated this bluish mass faded away. The upper half gained altitude while describing a fast but irregular spiraling trajectory, vanishing afterwards. None of these movements had any effect whatsoever on the initial circle of light, whose features remained the same, partially illuminating land and sea, which leads to believe that it wasn't an object far in the distance, but rather close". Here's the translation of local newspaper excerpts detailing the event;
"It was spotted between 10:15 and 10:30 PM and, according to one of our journalists who has his residence at Valle de Aridane (La Palma island), at that time he observed something that looked like a rocket emerging from the sea and flying towards El Time peak shining with an intense red light. The same phenomenon was spotted in Tazacorte (in La Palma island too). The ferry Villa de Agaete, sailing from Las Palmas, could observe a great shining at exactly 10:20 PM, shortly before docking in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The shining, which lasted about five minutes, appeared like a rocket that had come out of the sea". - El Día (June 23rd, 1976) "Last night, at around half past ten, a strange object was spotted from several points of our region, especially in the areas of Gáldar and Telde (Gran Canaria), where most phone calls we received in that regard were from. Our callers explained to us that it was a round object that grew massively in size as it rose, clearly defined before it began to fade. The aforementioned phenomenon began as a couple of red objects that moved in zig-zag, forming into some sort of spiral whose lower half ended in three clearly differentiated but overlaying stripes with some degree of separation between them. They were of a very bright red color and faded gradually. On top of these stripes there was what looked like two powerful blue focal lights, which began to diminish in intensity too before turning into a thin haze afterwards". - La Provincia (June 23rd, 1976)
Thanks to these accounts and description of the events, calculations could be made in order to ascertain the phenomenon's origins. At the moment of its beginning (which many witnesses described as a rocket taking off) the sun was already 13.7º under the horizon and its azimuth angle was 307º (northwest). Setting a hypothetical POV in the geographical center of the archipelago (28.50º N, 15.75º W, just north of Gran Canaria,
it was calculated that during it's first phase (the 'rocket lights') the phenomenon was located some 762 kilometers (473 miles) straight west, at an approximate altitude of 46 kilometers (28 miles). By the end of its final phase (the 'explosion of light') it had traveled to a point located at around 1,062 kilometers (662 miles) west and had risen to a final altitude of 90 kilometers (56 miles). These calculations became a very important piece of data, we'll get back to them later.
The UFO/Aliens narrative (AKA the press cherry-picks the statement of one particularly imaginative witness in order to sell a story of very questionable credibility) Being the 1970s, almost immediately certain sectors of the press began talking about UFO -and subsequently about aliens, even though there was no further evidence to suggest such thing. The local authorities (the Army especially) focused their efforts into reassuring the population that there was nothing to fear, while at the same time gathering all the information they could gather in order to investigate the phenomenon.
In June of 1994, exactly eighteen years after that night, the Spanish Army declassified the 107-pages long investigation report of what by then it had been baptized as the "OVNI de Canarias 22/06/1976" ("Canary Islands' 06/22/1976 UFO"). Back then very few people in Spain had internet access, and as such the release of these documents went unnoticed for most people. However, many journalists rushed to get a copy of the report, and many of these worked for UFO/paranormal magazines of dubious scientific accuracy. And, aware of the kind of reaction they wanted to generate from the public they target, they focused in just one part of the report; Dr. Padrón's story.
Francisco Julio Padrón León (who passed away in 2013) was a general practitioner that lived and had his office in the rural municipality of Gáldar, which is located precisely in the northwestern part of the island of Gran Canaria (and precisely, where a lot of people reported witnessing the phenomenon. Unlike most witnessed, however, Padrón told Spanish authorities a much more extravagant version of the events.
That night he had been called in person to check on a local patient at her home, and the doctor had called a taxi in order to reach the patient's residence; Padrón lived in the town of
Guía, and the patient lived at a small parish some 10 kilometers away (6 miles) named
Las Rosas. Padrón, his companion and the taxi driver claimed having observed the phenomenon when the car was covering the last two kilometers of the route (at that point, a very narrow and barely paved rural road). Or more specifically, Padrón and the taxi driver claimed having bumped into it; because, according to the statement, at that moment the car's headlights illuminated a sphere that was floating right in front of them. The Padrón and the taxi driver described it as measuring some 30 meters (98 feet), slightly bright and slightly translucent. They (the doctor, especially) described seeing two humanoid entities inside the sphere, surrounded by what looked to be inner aluminum structural parts of the sphere. These figures were, per their statements, between 2.5 and 3 meters tall (8'2" to 9'10"), one taller than the other, and they were dressed in red skin-tight suits. Padrón claimed that these beings stood facing each other, apparently interacting among them but didn't seem to notice his or the taxi driver's presence. It then began to grow in size until (his words)
"becoming as big as a 20-story building" and began ascending. At this point of his statement he said he went to check on her patient, after which he told all people present at the patients' home, inviting everyone to go outside and check by themselves what he claimed he had seen. By the time everyone joined Dr. Padrón to watch, the sphere was already very big, standing high in the sky and then it flew away at extreme speed (
"faster than any aircraft I've seen in my life", Padrón said in the report) leaving a trail of blue smoke behind before vanishing in the distance, towards Tenerife island.
In his individual report, the taxi driver made just a very skimp corroboration of Padrón's statement, omitting most details of his version of the phenomenon. It was just a few sentences long. The taxi driver was a man in his sixties (and wore glasses) of very little formal education -in fact, his preliminary handwritten statement had to be redacted to correct numerous grammar and spelling mistakes.
As for the companion (a relative of the patient, who was traveling in the backseat), this man only describes seeing
"intense bright light everywhere" and noticing
"both the doctor and the taxi driver's agitation". He claimed the amount of light, plus the fact that by sitting in the backseat the taxi driver and the doctor's bodies blocked his view, hadn't allowed him to see what Padrón claimed having witnessed.
The declassified document contained many more witness reports gathered from the same area, but none of them matched Dr. Padrón's story about a sphere with two humanoids figures in it; every other description -most of them provided by locals- mentions the same enormous disc of light in the west night sky. A car mechanic and his wife described it as
"a car's headlight thrice as large as the full moon". A school teacher mentioned having seen it from his house's window through a pair of binoculars when it began to fade, noticing its
"fog-like appearance, and the night stars could be seen through", and mentioning what looked like a couple of bluish beams inside. A farmer explained in his statement that it looked like
"a fire spot", he too mentioned seeing
"two blue lines" in it.
Not even the sick woman Padrón had come to provide medical attention to nor her relatives confirmed the Dr.'s description of the phenomenon, matching instead everyone else's. That didn't stop the journalists working for UFO/paranormal-themed magazines or even some journalists working for reputable newspapers from disregarding all these credible witnesses and instead focusing on the most outlandish one; Dr. Padrón. In summer of 1994, several of these Spanish magazines like
Enigmas, Año Cero or
Más Allá rushed to publish a drawing depicting Padrón's description of the 'humanoid figures dressed in red' in their articles, not only making absolutely no mention of any of the other witnesses but also claimed that the propulsion system of the alleged 'alien spacecraft' had scorched a nearby onion field -the area is full of that type of crops- and that posterior chemical analysis of the scorched terrain had yielded wildly unusual results. We'll come back to this point later.
Sketch depicting Padrón's (unique, literally) description of the event. Yes, someone from the Army - more specifically from the Air Force- was tasked with sitting down next to this guy and spending a good deal of time drawing whatever ludicrous thing Padrón felt like coming up with. Something worth mentioning; these publications made heavy emphasis on Padrón's education -he was a GP, after all. As in, as extraordinary as his claims were, these were being made by a man of a high level of education, intelligent and therefore (in the eyes of many) automatically worth of credibility. In fact, the patient's relative traveling in the taxi's backseat -a farmhand that had never received formal schooling and was illiterate- said in his witness report that one of the reasons why he did not question Padrón's statement was precisely the abysmal difference in education between him and the doctor, and kind of assumed that if an educated man like Padrón said that such thing had indeed happened, then it must have been true.
A local newspaper interviewed Dr. Padrón shortly after the documents were declassified. And by then, eighteen years after that night, Padrón added some more details to his already bizarre account, providing these journalists with something that wouldn't have been out of place in an episode of The X-Files (which back in 1994 had begun to be broadcasted in Spain, with significant success). Back in 1976 Padrón had already added in his statement that he did not feel fear but 'a strange sense of wellbeing and excitement' in his encounter with the alleged spacecraft; now he was also saying that these beings -which never communicated with him in any way, per his account- had not only the ability to erase anyone's memories off their brains, but they also can
"make you see whatever they want you to do for months or years, replacing an 'energy' [his word] in your brain". If these statements weren't absurd enough, Dr. Padrón warned the journalists about not taking him seriously, because in the last three years he "
had observed that anyone who had been skeptical of my statements and hurt my credibility in public has passed away within six or seven months, all of them to cancer, eight people in total so far". Although the documents that included the description of his ludicrous story hadn't been declassified until 1994, ever since 1976 many journalists had managed to get in touch with Padrón and hear his story -the doctor himself wasn't exactly quiet about it either -and some of these are allegedly the cancer victims Padrón would've been referring to. There's no way to check the veracity of that, since the only source of that statement was Padrón himself.
Between 1976 and 1994 the doctor's story circulated in a somewhat obscure manner, being referred to in some UFO articles here and there
-and adding their own artistic depictions of his outlandish story. Padrón was already telling any 'paranormal' journalist willing to listen about the scorched onion field. Turned out, back in June of 1976 a farmer in the municipality of Guía did indeed notice an area in one of his onion crops that seemed to have been burned, but that man had specified that that hadn't happened until the morning of June 24th, a good day and half after Padrón's alleged 'alien encounter'. What is more, although the cause of these burns couldn't be ascertained, they were indistinguishable from fire damage. To this day it's thought that these burnt onion plants were nothing but the result of vandalism or a prank. Some UFO skepticism authors have raised the possibility of the doctor himself being responsible.
Picture of one of the many onion fields in Guía and Gáldar. To this day, Dr. Padrón's 'scorched onion field' remains a running joke among the older residents in these municipalities. At the time Padrón even managed, out of sheer insistence, to get that soil tested. Surprisingly to no one, all chemical, physical and radiological analyses performed yielded no unusual results. The sampling and testing was conducted by Hungarian-Spanish physician Alejandro Carlos de Gyorko-Gyorkos, who at the time was curious about paranormal phenomena and had interviewed Padrón many times in 1976. According to a journalist for Naukas (A Spanish online science and technology magazine that specializes in skepticism and debunking of pseudoscience), in 1992 Gyorko-Gyorkos described Padrón as a man that
"interprets everything he comes up with as real". By 1994 Padrón was also claiming that the Spanish Air Force had threatened him with legal action to silence him, and that Gyorko-Gyorkos was a man whose
"ethics he'd rather not talk about". Padrón had never mentioned these alleged legal threats at any point before June of that year, precisely once the documents were declassified, a coincidence that hadn't gone unnoticed.
Some skepticism authors have elucubrated about the possible inspiration for Padrón's 'tall men in dressed in red spacesuits'. Not exactly very original.
Explanation (1994 and 2001) The 1976 document concludes that the origen of the 22/06/976 UFO -although in reality the Spanish Air force used then the acronym FANI (Fenómeno Aéreo No Identificado', 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon') when referring to it- was unknown. In 1994 these paranormal journalists presented such conclusion as an automatic evidence of aliens, or at least UFOs in the sense popular culture depicts then. In reality, as anyone can notice upon checking the report, 'unknown' means precisely that; unknown. At no point in the report the authors bring up rebuttals for any possible logical or rational explanation, but rather they conclude that back in 1976 there was just not enough evidence to provide an accurate explanation of its origin.
The same report contains the transcription of precisely Dr. Gyorko-Gyorkos's opinion about Dr. Padrón's reasoning (safe to assume, by then had already made up his mind about the man) in a military court. In the transcription, and in what looks like a generous maneuver to dismiss Padrón's claims without going as far to humiliate him, Gyorko-Gyorkos explains a military judge that that night Dr. Padrón, possibly overworked and sleep-deprived, misremembered what had seen and his fatigued psyche had create a mixed recollection with what he had seen and what had crossed his mind. As for the taxi driver, this man was probably highly impressionable -apparently the Dr. had behaved in a very excited manner during the phenomenon- and thus in a way Padrón had 'passed' his delusional belief onto him. The military court ruled that
"Padrón's credibility could not, for the time being, be corroborated".
Of course, at this point of this writeup a question still lingers; what was whatever thing close to a million and half people saw in the night sky back on June 22nd, 1976? First, let's go over the world's state of affairs at the time, because this is one of these 'mysteries' in which history had been hinting at the answer almost from the beginning;
In 1976 the world was still amidst of a low-key conflict between two superpowers with lots of political tensions; the United States (plus NATO) versus the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (plus other members of the Warsaw Pact). AKA, Cold War. As part of the Western Bloc, at the time Spain had been a long-time ally of NATO. However, the country wouldn't become a NATO member itself until 1982 -which was so controversial within Spain that a referendum would be held in 1986 questioning Spanish people's desire to remain in the military alliance.
As such, while Spain was a Western ally, back in 1976 it was not really 'in the game' yet, especially when taking into account that, unlike in other countries, NATO membership wasn't that welcome. Please notice the year the Spanish army declassified the documents; 1994. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (and with it , the fall of the Iron Curtain) helped lower the stakes this international poker game, and as such the world would learn about all sorts of crazy things that had been going on at both sides of the conflict in absolute secrecy.
Earlier in this writeup there is a data-based description of the phenomenon's behavior, but most importantly, it's ballistic trajectory. Adding to that, countless witnesses had described seeing either one or a couple of lights 'taking off like a rocket'. Let's remember; it had been ascertained that it originated at about 700 kilometers west and had moved further west in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean while reaching an altitude of 90 kilometers -which is about the lower thermosphere. This had already raised the first suspicions among the members of the Spanish intelligence services, suspicions that gained weight in 1994 -and that likely led to the declassification of the report- when much clearer and straightforward communication between the United States' government and Spain's allowed for a more open investigation of the sort of testing the Americans were engaging in. In 2001 an article of research journalism, coauthored by science journalists Ricardo Campo and Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos finally identified what was behind the 1976 aerial phenomenon.
Campo and Ballester had already noticed its ballistic trajectory calculated in 1976. In 1999, suspecting already who (country) was the 'culprit', they accessed
Jonathan McDowell's database of ballistic missile launches. Previous to that Campo and Ballester had failed to find any useful information in NASA's archives, as none of the launches in their registry matched the evidence, and prior to that -right after the 1994 declassification, in fact- they had traveled to Moscow looking for the possible explanation there. Russian military authorities had adamantly denied their involvement in the phenomena, which directed the investigators towards other leads (while at the same time not disregarding the possibility of Russia being behind it after all.
Finally, Campo and Ballester bumped into
these two rows of the database. First column indicates the launch identification number. Second and third, the date (in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Fourth is GMT time (which, adjusting for a compilation error, coincides with Canary Islands' GMT+1 local time when the phenomenon took place). The fifth column tells the type of missile, the sixth on identifies the launch platform and finally the seventh one indicates who was responsible for the launch.
Simply put, the information in these rows means; on June 22nd, 1976, two Poseidon C3 thermonuclear missiles were launched from US Navy's submarine USS Von Steuben)
, at 20:16 and 20:17 GTM. The database does not include location (that information remains classified) but during their research Campo and Ballester learned from
McDowell himself that the US Navy's eastern test range covers from Cape Canaveral (Florida, US) all the way
Ascension Island. The location of the 1976's phenomenon falls well within such range.
From here, Campos and Ballester offered an explanation of its optics. The
Poseidon C3 missile carries several 40-kiloton nuclear warheads (normally ten) -for comparison, Little Boy was a single 15-kiloton bomb. Once the two 400-kiloton missiles detonated in the thermosphere, the quick expansion of extremely hot atmospheric gases reflected the sunlight back to Earth, even though by then in Canary Islands the sun was already well below the horizon and the sky was pitch black; at 90 kilometers of altitude, these expanding gases were still in direct path of the sunlight. This reflection is what made the phenomenon appear so bright and big in spite of the 700+ kilometers of distance between witnesses and its source.
Campo and Ballester's article provided also an explanation for other similar events -albeit not that espectacular as the one pertaining this writeup- that had taken place in the islands between 1973 and 1979. All except one were found to be the result of other American thermonuclear tests, with the exception
of this one seen south of the archipelago in 1979
-and finally acknowledged by Russia in 2017, although they did not explain what exactly it was. Conclusion TL;DR: It was a couple of thermonuclear missiles launched in secrecy by the US Navy in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The 'aliens' witness was, to put it mildy, an individual with an extreme tendency to make ludicrous statements and a marked need to be the centre of attention.
Campo and Ballester's work is available online for free, and anyone who speak Spanish can check the story of their investigation for themselves.
This is not to say that the whole 'aliens' narrative died down. To this day, the story of the 1976 phenomenon continues to be shared sometimes in media as 'proof' of UFO/aliens, even though it's literally neither -coincidentally, failing to mention the vast amount of evidence pointing at a thermonuclear test. In June of 2016 several newspapers published articles remembering the phenomenon in its 40th anniversary, and pretty much all of them reminded the reader right from the headline that the 'mystery' had long been solved.
Links and Sources "Two red giants riding a missile" - Excellent article in the aforementioned online magazine Naukas written by Ricardo Campo himself on the phenomenon (Spanish)
The Spanish Army's declassified document on the event. It can be downloaded for free as a 107-pages long PDF
2016 Article (Spanish) submitted by
HelloLurkerHere to
UnresolvedMysteries [link] [comments]
2023.06.07 21:31 West-Bet-9639 Renaissance Property Services - Your local handyman service for southwestern North Carolina
Hi everyone. I moved to Hendersonville from Ohio about seven months ago to be closer to my parents (they're retired). During COVID I lost my job and did handyman work for most of 2020 and early 2021. I decided to turn it into a full time business and have recently formed an LLC. My company is called Renaissance Property Services (check out my page on NextDoor at the link below) and I build privacy fences, trim/remove trees, do power washing, yardwork, build/stain decks, fix/clean gutters, you name it! If you have any chores around the house, regardless of size, that you'd rather pay someone to do, then please consider me. I'm reliable, professional, fair priced, and fully insured. Right now I'm just marketing through NextDoor and Reddit so you can message me through NextDoor or you can call my work phone at 828.491.1782. Thank you!
NextDoor Page:
https://nextdoor.com/business-profile/preview/?active_page_id=63899642&profile_id=83299766 submitted by
West-Bet-9639 to
hendersonville [link] [comments]
2023.06.07 21:30 West-Bet-9639 Renaissance Property Services - Your local handyman for southwestern North Carolina
Hi everyone. I moved to Hendersonville from Ohio about seven months ago to be closer to my parents (they're retired). During COVID I lost my job and did handyman work for most of 2020 and early 2021. I decided to turn it into a full time business and have recently formed an LLC. My company is called Renaissance Property Services (check out my page on NextDoor at the link below) and I build privacy fences, trim/remove trees, do power washing, yardwork, build/stain decks, fix/clean gutters, you name it! If you have any chores around the house, regardless of size, that you'd rather pay someone to do, then please consider me. I'm reliable, professional, fair priced, and fully insured. Right now I'm just marketing through NextDoor and Reddit so you can message me through NextDoor or you can call my work phone at 828.491.1782. Thank you!
NextDoor Page:
https://nextdoor.com/business-profile/preview/?active_page_id=63899642&profile_id=83299766 submitted by
West-Bet-9639 to
asheville [link] [comments]
2023.06.07 21:13 Future_Ad_3485 Valley of the Unknown Part Twenty-Six: A Bittersweet Ending
Ember played with the boys on the floor, their hands reaching for him. Pouring over the files of the latest security breach on our magical borders, my eyes fell on Alex playing with his new friends outside. Waving at me, Jack embraced me from behind. Kissing the top of my head, it felt as if something big was going to happen today. A tender blush rose to my cheeks, my hand cupping his face.
“We need to raid an outpost today. Hopefully we can get information on the main headquarters.” He informed me warmly, biting my neck. Drinking his fill, my crippling anxiety stole any joy it normally would have given me. Missions like these frightened me, every cell in me wanted to turn into a raven and fly away for the day. Finishing up his breakfast, he set down an armored filled dress with leggings. Salford whispered something in his ear, sliding him a pair of car keys. Rising to my feet, I took my new outfit to our bedroom. Changing quickly, the dress felt heavy on my frame, the leggings seemed to be lined with chain mail. Pulling my hair into a ponytail, I ran into Jack on the way out. Embracing me lovingly, the keys dangled off of his fingers. Feeling his simple black suit, a light armor lined it. Chewing on my lips, our friends waited for us in matching black armor.
“We are ready to go.” Raven announced proudly, my eyes falling on Salford. “Salford said that he was going to watch the boys.” Adjusting their backpacks, weapons clanged in their bags. Guilt gnawed at me, the concept of putting them in danger sickening. My lips parted in protest, Raven raising her finger.
“We are coming. Those bastards killed my family and they are going to pay.” She asserted firmly, pulling her hair into a ponytail. “Besides, I want to back my friend up.” A deep sadness haunted her eyes, my hands cupping hers. A gentle but broken smile dimmed her features, silent tears staining her cheeks.
“I appreciate it and I apologize for not being there to stop it. I ruined everyone’s life by not being there.” I choked out shamefully, bowing my head. “I failed you and everyone else. I will make it up to you guys, I fucking promise you that.” Grabbing my shoulder, her other hand lifted up my chin.
“You were busy doing your own shit. I heard you showed up, girl!” She chatted pleasantly, my shaking fingers wiping away her tears. “You have a place where humans and monsters get along with ease. Have you been sleeping? You look like hell.” A deadpan expression appeared on my face, her last comment ticking me off slightly. Brushing it off, Jack cleared his throat. Placing me on his back, he carried me to a delivery van. Hopping off of his back, I let myself in. The Tainsworth twins sat in the front with their armor on, Raven climbing in with Ruby. Messing with her curls, Raven basically sat on top of her. Adjusting my bell sleeves, the leather hugged my slender arms. Oppressive silence hung between us, Ruby refusing to look at me. Folding her arms across her chest, something needed to be said. Choosing not to say it, the time passed horribly slow. The van screeched to a halt, Jack pulling me into a hidden compartment. The door squeaked open, heavy footfalls echoed in the back.
“Who are you?” A gruff voice demanded, Ruby speaking up. Clearing her throat, her voice tone seemed rather bitter.
“We wish to join your ranks. I can’t stand vampires, especially their fucking queen. She could die for all I care.” She snapped hotly, truth oozing from her words. “She is hiding somewhere in this van.” Horror rounded our eyes, her betrayal striking us in the heart.” Opening the compartment hiding us, she took a step back. The hunters slapped handcuffs on us all, Ruby grinning evilly ear to ear. Wicked laughter rumbled in her throat, her head cocking back.
“I have been working with them the entire time. There is no information, just the home of your executions.” She gloated sensually, the twins cursing in her direction. “I am not even a teenager. I am a witch who has been alive for centuries. Can I tell you a secret? I am the leader of the hunters. Everyone else was just a puppet.” Sighing with satisfaction, she circled us. Tears welled up in my eyes, Raven sobbed softly next to me. Pulling a gun from her pocket, Ruby shot her in the head. Time slowed, the twins crying out. Emptying her gun into them, a broken wail burst from my lips. Their bodies dropped forward, ruby dripping from the holes in the middle of their foreheads. Jack twitched darkly next to me, my mind officially broken. His bangs hid his eyes, his claws extended from his fingernails. Unlocking his handcuffs, he pretended to get madder as he worked on mine. The metal clanged to the ground, Ruby’s eyes widening with terror. Tears blurred my vision, my scythe sliding into my eager palms.
“You fucking bitch!” I screamed vehemently, pacing back and forth. Reapers held their souls in their palms, all hope of saving them was gone. “You are going to pay.” Shrugging her shoulders, she leaned forward.
“How pathetic for the queen to lose her cool so quickly?” She taunted cruelly, Jack fumed dangerously next to me. “You can’t damage me. You can kill this body and all I have to do is find another one. Angel of darkness! Kill all of my hunters and give me their lives.” The hunters holding us hostage dropped to the ground, thousands of white glowing balls flowing into her. Panic gripped my face, reapers burst from the ground surrounding her. Death himself popped up next to me, one raise of his hand stopping them.
“I am going to bring these souls to Heaven. Take her out.” He commanded urgently, the balls floating into a worn leather sack hanging off of his wrists. “They are all dead. You did all that you could. Good luck.” The last ball of light floated into the sack, a snap of his finger signaling his disappearance. The three of us remained, a ball of shadowy energy building in her palm. A low hissing noise echoed around us, the delivery truck fading to the base of a dead twisted tree. Violet grass danced around me, a chill running up my spine. Gripping my scythe tightly, rage mixed with depression. Sauntering out from behind the tree, a single wave of her hand sent us a couple of yards away. Gone was the armor she wore, a tight leather number hugging her body. Violet needles rested in between her fingers, dead man’s blood dripped onto the grass.
“I suppose you want to hear about my tale and why I am doing this?” She mused with a wicked chuckle, licking the blood off her hand. “I have a bomb ticking away. The lovely thing will release a virus that will kill all of the monsters in the world. Humans will be infected with a magical mind control. Don’t worry about your friends. I killed them because they were annoying me. Do you know how hard it was to pretend to be friends with you and arrange your fucking role? I made a deal with your father to kill you. How did you like the little bonfire?” Wanting to charge at her, Jack held me back. Raising my scythe into the attack position, the corner of my lips curled into a snarl.
“You freaking bitch.” I growled through gritted teeth, leaping into the air. Raising her hands in the air, thousands of needles floated behind her. Flicking her wrists, the rain of needles tore through my body. Jack would die, my boots pushing off the branch. Covering Jack with my body, the needles struck me instead. A burning sensation coursed through my veins, inky sludge pouring from my eyes. Cracks lined her face as needles struck the tree, an idea coming to mind. Jack trembled underneath me, his eyes falling on the blackened veins coursing lining my porcelain skin.
“Shoot her in the hands. She can’t throw her needles if her wrists can’t move.” I wheezed, coughing up blood. Dragging him behind the tree, my chains blocked the needles heading towards Jack. His hand quaked, his bullets hitting everywhere but the target. Lining my free arm up with his, my hand steadied his.
“I can’t!” He protested with wet eyes, his mental state beyond repair. “My friends are dead. My friends are dead! She used to be my friend!” Shimmering teardrops crashed to the grass, the grass darkening to an inky black. Confusion dawned on his face the moment I held his gun underneath his eyes. Teardrops flooded the chamber, my hand guiding his hand to the level of his eyes. Getting behind him, I clicked the safety. Aiming for her palm, a quick yank sent a blackening bullet up her arm. A wave of relief washed over me the moment her needles glitched, the muzzle of his gun aimed for her other palm. Pulling the trigger, the bullet shattered her other arm. Dropping to her side, cracks echoed in the air. The cracks on her face had deepened, my attention turning towards her tree. Swinging my scythe into the tree, her shrill shrieks filled the air as flames raced into the center of the tree. Water snaked around their branches, my chains clinking their way around the thick trunk. Mouthing a silent spell, the needles floated out of me.
“Water from my heart! Flames of the Dead! Chains from my master! I call upon thee to burn the tree down, drown it from the inside. Choke the shit out of it.” I ordered sharply, each word hurting. “Final spell, turn my blood into venom for a witch.” Raising my right hand, a bell rang the moment the tip of my scythe made contact. Closing my fist, the needles dug themselves into the tree. Flames devoured her skin, cold water filled her lungs. Chains snaked up her body, a sea of fiery orange coloring her skin. My vision blurred, Jack snapping out of his paralyzed state. Raising his gun, a bullet whistled into the tree. The bullet being the last thing we needed, the tree decayed to dust along with her. The dimension crumbled away, my legs giving out. Leaning against the destroyed van, fresh tears flowed freely at the sight of our dead friends. Jack picked up one of their backpacks, his tears soaking the top of the bag. Pulling out a medical bag, he ripped out a needle filled with milky liquid. Jamming the needle into my leg, the effects of the venom dying down. Pressing my ear to the ground, an ominous ticking echoed in my ear. Tick, tick, tick! Feeling around the dirt, a metal door clanged underneath my hand. One look in Jack’s direction, he understood. Spinning the rusty handle, he lifted up the door. Gathering the rest of my strength, I popped in. Shutting the door behind me, the lock sealed my fate. Jack protested outside, the top refusing to budge, my heart sinking at the only option. The only way to stop the bomb was to set it off in a dome, the spell caster having to be in the center of it. Praying that my reaper side would keep me alive even Jack had to know that he didn’t stand a chance. Using my scythe as a walking stick, my feet moved with adrenaline. Sniffing the air, the sweet smell told me where to go. Limping through the twisted concrete halls, my breath hitched at the orange angry metal ball. Taking a deep breath, the image of my dead friends and that town I called home flashed in my mind. Pushing through, I sank to my knees. The last of my power built around my hands, a sad smile haunting my face the moment I placed my palms on the surface. A water dome glittered over me, reaper’s flames reinforcing it. Channeling the rest of my flames into core, the metal rattled violently. Preparing for the worst, a giant raven folded its wings around me.
“I will protect you no matter what.” Dr. Death promised warmly, his energy providing me safety as the chemical blasted everywhere but us. “Dissolve the poison.” The colorful particles lightened to a snow white, everything hitting me at once. Ruffling my hair, he disappeared back into my mind. Jack sprinted in, his shattered expression speaking volumes.
“I am so sorry I couldn’t save them.” I blubbered uncontrollably, falling to the floor. “I don’t deserve you. You should just k-” Rushing over to me, he clutched me desperately to his chest. Tears flowed freely, neither of us able to move. Laying back, the clarified chemicals reminding me of snow. A tortured wail burst from my lips, my quaking fingers clinging to his jacket. Saphiro and Hazard skidded to a stop, their faces dropping at the sight of us. Shaking our shoulders to see if we were alive, gracious grins brightened their features at us breathing. Their words faded in and out, a rough darkness enveloping me in it’s sea of madness.
Jerking awake, an eager Alex and Hazel hovered by the white hospital bed. Covering my eyes from the blinding lights, their arms embraced me from either side. Eloise smothered Jack in love, his numb expression matching mine. Bursting into tears, their smiling faces taunted me. Holding me tighter, his words faded in and out. Jack screamed for everyone to leave him alone. Kissing Hazel on the head, Alex dragged her out. Walking over to my bed, his little sister sulked out. Crawling in next to me, his head rested on my chest. Wail after wail burst from his lips, my slender hands being the only thing comforting him. These were his friends and now they were gone. The fault was all mine, guilt eating me raw from the inside. Hours passed like this, him going numb then screaming with raw emotional agony. Swinging his feet over the edge of the bed, he tugged on his boots.
“Are you coming?” He asked hoarsely, offering me his hand. “We need to go home and raise our family.” Accepting his hand cautiously, he yanked me to feet. Placing me on his back, the look in his eyes begged for me to rest my head on his back. Walking into the hall, he ignored the pleading nurses. Saphiro blocked his path, his depressed smile not helping the situation. Tugging anxiously on his navy vest, my mind chose to focus on the midnight black blouse underneath his vest. Clearing his throat, clammy sweat drenched his skin.
“Come with me.” He begged kindly, Jack seconds from saying no. “Please. I have a couple of things to show you.” Caving to his request, we walked for a solid ten minutes to the cemetery. Three caskets waited to be lowered to the ground, Jack dropping me. Struggling to my feet, my heart shattered at him draping his arms over the coffin. Whispering a prayer to them, he took a step back. Pulling me close to his waist, his sobs grew louder as they lowered the caskets into the ground. Death popped up behind us with three letters in his hands, his head bowed in respect to the dead bodies.
“These are from your friends. Call it one final letter.” He informed Jack sullenly, turning towards me. “Thank you for your services. Unfortunately, I can’t remove the curse.” Offering me his hand, my fingers curled around his hand. Shaking it once, he bowed in my direction. Pressing his palms together, a twinkle glinted in his eyes.
“Once everything settles down, we should get together to have tea. I am sorry for your loss.” He expressed serenely, understanding death but not the grief part. Snapping his fingers he was gone, an eager Jack reading the letters. Curiosity burned a bit but my inside voice told me to leave it alone. Tucking them into his pocket, he placed me on his back. Following Saphiro back into town, his crooked grin lit up his face for a quick second.
“They said not to lose you.” He chuckled softly, a bit of hope glinting in his eyes. “Time will heal my wounds.” Hundreds of eyes watched us enter back into town, my jaw dropping at the statue of the five of us. The plaque read the heroes of the dawn, the two of us unsure of what to feel. Jack thanked him profusely, Saphiro pointing to the Victorian mansion at the top of the nearby hill.
“That mansion is yours to conduct your business as well as living in it.” He promised earnestly, fresh tears flooding from my eyes. “We hope you choose this town as your home.” Jumping down, I cupped his hands. A tender blush rose to his cheeks, my real smile illuminating my features for the first time since yesterday.
“Only if you'll have me, good sir.” I returned politely, his brow cocking at my response. Alex ran up to me with the boys in his arms. Accepting them, life was okay. Please karma, grant me peace for the rest of my life.
Epilogue:
Alex had his head buried in his work, the twins ran around the yard. Elise read in the tree, the two kiddos looking so grown up. The morning sun bathed the idyllic scene, a good five years had passed. Holding my swollen bump, two wails snapped me out of my trance. Jack stepped out with our white haired twins Sammy and Raven, the one year old girls reaching for me. Their fiery orange and red eyes glittered with love, my arms scooping them up. Wrapping his arms around my bump, Mark was due in a couple of months.
“Alex, Elise!” He barked with his trademark grin as they rushed up to him. Elise smoothed out her white summer dress, Alex adjusting his glasses in a brisk manner. An irked look greeted him, his stern gaze shutting down any protest.
“Watch the boys for us.” He ordered lightly, passing them wrapped boxes. “I need to take your sister somewhere. Boys, go in and watch a show with your uncle and aunt.” Sprinting into the house, Alex shot him a thumbs up as he followed them inside. Guiding me down the hill and through the town, his beard kept capturing my attention. Grabbing three bouquets on the way, he dragged me to the cemetery. Stopping in front of our friends' graves, he laid a bouquet on each tombstone. Dusting off his navy designer suit, my simple orange summer dress felt like a sad attempt to match him. Rubbing my back, he kissed my bump.
“We came by to tell you how things are going. Alex and Elise are learning how to drive. Yeah, that is as scary as it sounds. Sammy and Raven’s birthday happened a couple of weeks ago. They are both one year old. Crazy, isn’t it?” He chatted pleasantly, happy tears welling up in his eyes. “We have one more on the way. It’s another boy. We are going to name him Mark. I miss you dummies every fucking day. I wouldn’t have survived if you gave me that letter. Thank you.” Wiping away his tears, Sammy and Raven cooed in my arms. Kissing the top of my head, Jack guided me to the square. Sitting me down at the fountain, he took the girls in his arms. Passing me a bundle of envelopes, they were all from the townsfolk and monsters all over the world.
“Word got out about where you live and they all wanted to write their thanks.” He explained jovially, sitting down next to me. “Read them tonight and write back. They would love to hear from you.” Flicking through the pile, this was going to take a while. Popping to my feet, I could sense that Alex was getting frustrated. Walking back home, the fact that people wanted to thank me touched my heart. Opening the door, my boys bounced towards me. Dragging me to the couch, one of Alex’s shows was playing. Climbing onto the couch next to me, Jack took the other seat next to me. Hazel skipped in, her long hair grazing the worn wooden floor. Sitting down by my feet, Elvira laid on her lap. Basking in the moment, this was how life was supposed to be. Thank you for the gift of a good life. All the tragedy led to this moment. All of the scars told the tale of my twisted journey here. Jack leaned his head on my shoulder, the boys laying on my lap. Playing with their hair, I hoped sincerely that this would never end.
submitted by
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2023.06.07 20:58 L_Brady Could I sue under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act for detrimental reliance regarding my GI Bill benefits? (Texas)
I am a veteran who used my GI Bill as an online student at a for-profit Texas school from Sep 2021 to March 2023. Only weeks after my initial enrollment, the school made the decision to cease offering that program in person, and they moved it to a fully-online course. This did not affect me, as I was never an on-campus student.
However, without my knowledge and against my requests, each subsequent term for over a year, the school misrepresented my enrollment to the VA, falsely claiming that I was a resident student, enrolled in a program which they no longer offered on campus. This is an important distinction because when the school stopped offering that particular program as a resident course and moved it to fully-online, the program then LOST its eligibility for VA/GI Bill enrollment entirely. Online students in that course of study at that school were not eligible to use GI Bill benefits.
For the terms between January 2022 and December 2022, when the school would send these false certifications to the VA, the VA did not catch the discrepancy, and awarded my benefits as if I was attending school in-person. I was fully unaware that they were characterizing my enrollment falsely, and continued my education there ONLY because I believed it allowed me to utilize my GI Bill benefits.
As part of the benefits, I received approximately $2,000/month from the VA in the form of a Monthly Housing Allowance (MHA). As a full-time student, this allowance functioned as my income, and because I believed that my enrollment was valid, I relied on that benefit.
In January of this year, the school once again sent its false certification claiming me as a resident student for January – March 2023, but this time, the VA caught the error, and immediately stopped my benefits. I was not made aware until March 2023, when I called to ask why I had not received my MHA. This cessation of benefits resulted in a loss of approximately $6,000 of the MHA I depended on.
Now, I’ve consulted with a lawyer who believes I may have a case under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. He used the terms “detrimental reliance” and “promissory estoppel.” Based on his assessment of the situation, I hired him for a limited scope engagement that allowed him to write the school a demand letter, threatening suit under the DTPA – which MAY entitle me to 3x the damages + lawyer fees.
I’m nervous that the school will not respond, and I’m trying to decide what I will do if they ignore the letter, because filing a suit would of course require me to spend more money for the lawyer’s services, and I am afraid I might be throwing good money after bad if I do. I want to believe that my lawyer would advise me appropriately if they don’t respond, but he also has a vested interest in me taking this to court, so I want another opinion. I am an NC resident.
Do I perhaps have an actual case under the DTPA or any similar law? Is there any precedent you know of where someone received damages under DTPA due to detrimental reliance/promissory estoppel? Without making any promises – do you think this case would hold up and be worth pursuing? I can’t afford to just let $6,000 go, but I also can’t spend $6,000 hoping to get it back.
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2023.06.07 20:57 PritchettRobert506 [HIRING] 25 Jobs in NC Hiring Now!
| Company Name | Title | City |
| Ace Handyman Services | Handyman | Greensboro |
| Truist Bank | Application Architect | Cary |
| Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc. | Genesys Cloud Product Owner - Customer Services | Cary |
| Truist Bank | Lead Data Systems Engineer | Cary |
| Genworth Mortgage Insurance Corporation d/b/a Enact Mortgage Insurance | Senior Data Scientist | Cary |
| Triangle Accounting, Inc | Accounting Assistant | Cary |
| MetLife Group, Inc | Scrum Lead II | Cary |
| Truist Bank | Cybersecurity Data Analytics Consultant | Cary |
| IQVIA RDS Inc. | Associate Director, Quality Management | Chapel Hill |
| Premier, Inc. | Senior Java Architects | Charlotte |
| CrossCountry Mortgage, LLC | Salesforce Developer | Charlotte |
| Confidential | Insurance Agent | Charlotte |
| Walter B. Davis Company | Assistant Project Manager | Charlotte |
| GKN Driveline Newton, LLC | Controls Engineer | Conover |
| Nazo Landscaping | Landscape laborers | Durham |
| Toshiba Global Commerce Solutions, Inc. | Software Development Engineer IV | Durham |
| Novogene Corporation Inc. | Director of Biotech Support | Durham |
| Vance County Schools | High School Math Teacher | Henderson |
| Alcami Carolinas Corporation | Scientist, Analytical Development | Mooresville |
| Western Piedmont Community College | Assistant Director of Records/Registration | Morganton |
| Western Piedmont Community College | Assistant Director of Financial Aid | Morganton |
| Align Technology, Inc. | Senior Software Developer | Morrisville |
| Catalent Pharma Solutions | Lead Scientist | Morrisville |
| Keysight Technologies Inc. | Engineering/technology | Morrisville |
| Lucas Research | ProvidePrimary Investigator | New Bern |
Hey guys, here are some recent job openings in nc. Feel free to comment here or send me a private message if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!
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2023.06.07 20:52 ParentExitPlan Self-Employed Parent Accumulated 75k In Debt, But Needs Surgery
TL;DR: 64 y/o parent had a major injury two years ago. Continued to work self-employed. Needs surgery, but accumulated $75k in debt due to limited income. Need to balance shutting down business and paying off debt with SSDI/Social Security applications and social program assistance to help with medical care. Any advice?
Hi All,
I apologize if this post isn't suitable for this community, but I'm seeking advice on one of my parent's current debt and retirement planning situation. They are 64 years old and will turn 65 in 2024. They operate a small technical and manufacturing services consulting company where they are the only employee. Two years ago, they had a severe accident at home, resulting in the need for back, shoulder, and abdominal surgeries. Due to fears of being unable to work, they have postponed or delayed these surgeries. During this time, their annual revenue has plummeted from approximately $60k-70k (with a profit of $20k-30k annually) to around $15k-25k (resulting in a net loss of $15k-25k). It is evident that their injuries have significantly impacted their ability to work and run the business as they did before the accident. They recently shared with me the severity of their financial situation, with debts amounting to over $75k, including $50k in high-interest credit card debt and the remainder in SBA loans (acquired three years prior to the accident).
Currently, I am investigating whether they qualify for disability benefits, as they do not meet the qualifications for their state's self-employed short-term disability program. Initial consultations with disability lawyers suggest that Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) may be an option due to their injuries, with the potential to receive retroactive payment for up to 12 months, as well as any backpay from the date of disability application. However, SSDI is complicated for self-employed individuals. The plan is to file for disability and Social Security shortly afterwards with the understanding that disability could take years to be awarded (if approved). They would close the business after Social Security application and while disability is being worked through, sell off any business assets (5-15k), and get surgery. I'm slightly worried that taking Social Security early will likely kick them off social assistance programs and their health insurance, which could be another looming financial disaster with their medical history and inability to qualify for Medicare until 2024. There are limited marketplace plans (unaffordable and high deductible) available for them in their state if they are kicked off Medicaid.
I am struggling with how to plan for my parent to wind down their business, undergo surgery, and avoid collapsing under the weight of their accumulated debt. Here are a few additional points to consider:
- Their housing situation is secure, as they pay below market rates and have a unique long-term lease arrangement with another family member.
- They own one car that is fully paid off.
- They currently qualify for social assistance programs, such as Medicaid and SNAP.
- Their bank balance is less than $5k, and meeting financial obligations for themselves and the business will soon become challenging.
- Their estimated full Social Security payment is around $2,500 per month.
- They have no retirement savings, pension, or other assets.
- They live near a HCOL NE US city.
I would greatly appreciate any suggestions or insights you may have as I'm feeling overwhelmed and that I'm likely missing some component. Is Chapter 7 bankruptcy a viable option? Should we hold out for retroactive and backpay disability benefits and then negotiate with credit card companies to settle the debts, or should we attempt to aggressively prioritize debt repayment after disability/Social Security payments begin? Are there any other social assistance programs I may be missing that should be looked into?
Thank you for taking the time to read this post and for any advice or ideas you can provide.
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2023.06.07 20:52 chancexland Coquitlam “full service” is a joke
These people keep putting my gas cap on my trunk and it eats the paint, I mention it constantly and it still happens. I’d rather just pump my own gas. They should be washing windows and checking oil as this is standard procedure for full service. They look at you stunned if you ask and then say they aren’t trained to do it. I loathe Coquitlam gas attendants.
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2023.06.07 20:45 thrownawaz092 I don't THINK I'm an assassin? - Chapter 3 - Stalking the streets
As day turned to dusk, the reality of the situation Mike had found himself in was starting to dawn on him. It was already established he was in monster central, and in another world, and alone, and had no idea what was going on around him, but after the initial need of not getting spotted and probably mauled was satisfied, a whole new slew of problems were arrayed before him. Where would he eat? Drink? Sleep? If he injured himself, where could he get medical supplies? Where was he going? How could he get back home?
Could he get back home?
A stiff wind blew around him and stole the heat from his body, leaving him cold in an encroaching dark.
'How do I know I can even get back?' besides knowing it existed, Mike knew nothing about magic. He was fairly certain that kobold had sent him back the first time, but by the looks of it they had also summoned him in the first place. Something else pulled him in the second time, so there was a very real chance that he wouldn't be able to do anything.
'and of course, that all comes before the fact I have no idea how to find the little lizard.' Mike ducked into an alley to avoid some kind of flying fish as he considered his situation. Hopeless as it was, finding a needle in a haystack was the only option to present itself, so he reluctantly chose his only option.
Things hit an all time low as Michael sat under a bridge that would serve as his shelter for the night. Sure, there were plenty of haunted houses to choose from, but they all ran the risk of him being found by the monsters that lived in monster city. The bridge was a solid piece of work, being composed mostly of concrete and some kind of wood, and it passed over a wide river that was pretty turbulent for its size. Mike was suprised by the lack of metal, but it seemed to be holding up well enough so he let it go.
Slinging off his backpack, Michael decided to occupy himself by taking stock of his inventory and situation. Laying everything out, he had:
The gym clothes he was wearing, just a tee shirt and shorts. They were sweaty, dirty and didn't cover much
His regular clothes, thick jeans, another tee shirt and an over shirt
His phone, which had no service and 67% battery life.
'yeah, let's turn on airplane mode and the battery saver.' it wouldn't last long, but the calculator, flashlight, stopwatch, notepad and compass tools could all be useful.
Earphones,
'ha! I downloaded all my songs and can listen to them forever if I find a charger! Suck on that Spotify elitists!' Shoes, nothing special about them
A bag of chocolates that monsters think they're too good for
An almost empty water bottle.
'pro tip, if you're lost in the desert, conserve sweat, not water.' Remembering that bit of survival trivia, he downed the last few gulps.
His pocket knife, score! The salesman had told him this thing could withstand his own weight on the blade, and Mike had really put it through its paces to confirm that claim. It was also a swiss army knife and had several tools in it, even a firestarter! That alone tripled his chances out here.
His wallet, full of useless bills, coins and cards
A gym membership, also useless
Ankle and wrist weights, with detachable pieces of metal to change the weight.
'Should I keep these on or off?' On one hand, he would like to be as physically capable as possible for whatever was coming, and the constant work out would only help with that, but on the other, they would slow him down and tire him out. Not good without a food source. He took them off for now.
And a gym bag, which is always good to have.
The first thing Mike did was change back onto his normal clothes. They would keep him a little warmer and weren't so smelly, which would be good for werewolves that might sniff him out. Walking down to the river, it seemed clear, so he filled his bottle - he could always not drink it later - and began washing the gym clothes.
As he scrubbed his mind moved onto the situation he was in. Another world, monsters, magic and local superpowers are all established. Judging by the state of things, that being the ruins and monsters, this was probably once a thriving nation that had since been overrun and was now populated with the monsters that did so. The biggest concern that came out of that was that this clearly hadn't been a medieval society. True, just about everything was alien to him but he could recognize a TV screen or a car, this place was just as if not more advanced than earth, and they still got wiped out by monsters.
As Mike started wringing out his shorts, his introspection was interrupted when he heard voices overhead. He immediately stopped and turned his head up. It was getting dark by now and whatever was above him had a light, he couldn't understand what the two, no three voices were saying, but he didn't like the tone or the fact that the light source seemed to be getting closer to the side of the bridge. He tensed, and slowly put his sopping clothes into his bag as quietly as he could.
With a loud grunt, whoever has the light jumped over the edge of the bridge, still out of view behind a support but that was as close as he was willing to get. Mike took off as fast as he could in the opposite direction of the ravine the bridge crossed. The ones still on the bridge pulled out another light and called out to the one on the ground, who growled a response back.
'crap, crap, crap!' rang through Mike's head as he put on more speed, the sounds of pursuit not far behind. Between the weights and wet clothes, Michael was worried he might have to ditch his bag again, but it wasn't weighing him down nearly as much as the thought it should.
'just wish adrenaline would come this easy at the gym!' he was making good speed all things considered and was glad to hear his pursuer falling behind.
His hopes of escape were shattered however as one of them proved able to fly, because he heard a screech overhead and saw a silhouette giving away his position! Come on, that's not fair! He had to lose the little cheater and soon, otherwise the others could just run him down at their leisure! Mike turned, slipping on the grassy turf as he aimed to go back in the city. If the universe would just throw him a bone for once, there wouldn't be many other monsters, and he could shake these jerks.
He ducked into an alley, left onto a street before swinging behind some buildings again. Looking up he could still see that cheeky little spy plane was still on him, and from the sounds of the voices, the ones on foot were taking a direct route instead of weaving around, they were closing in. Thanking the universe for actually not putting other monsters in his way, Mike ducked into another alley and saw what he was looking for; a dumpster (he assumed) right under an open window. The only issue was the chain link fence between him and it.
'Really though, who sets up a fence right in an alley like this?' another call from above reminded him of his situation.
'right, deal with it now, ponder neighbors who probably hated each other later.' despite his dismay at the obstacle, he practically leapt over the fence, which was at least 6 feet tall. Adrenaline was one hell of a drug, but there was no way he could do that!
He mentally stored that away as well as he hopped on the dumpster and into the window, waited a couple seconds and hopped back out. He couldn't see the spy anymore which meant they couldn't see him either. He just managed to crawl down a basement window of a building on the other side of the alley before his pursuers burst into the alley as well.
Watching through the window, Michael finally got a good look at the one on foot. That was a
big guy, like 8 feet tall and built like a truck kind of big. He was the one with the light in his hand, a glowing ball that floated in his palm, and it cast a rather terrifying shadow over his crocodilian face. He was a crocodile man, no other way about it. Thick tail, heavy green scales that are more yellow on the underside, whatever you're imagining is probably right. The teeth didn't look too sharp but they made up for that in size and number. Besides, if he was anything like earth crocs he had enough bite force to make gums probably work.
Mike was thanking his lucky stars he hadn't been caught when suddenly a second head popped out from behind the first, and he realized the croc had a bucket strapped to his back with something poking out of it. After a bit of chatter, a second creature slithered out of the bucket and onto the ground. It was... Strange to say the least.
The creature stood at four feet tall, and was clearly an aquatic being, being covered in fins from head to toe to tail, along with burgundy scales so small he might've mistaken them for skin. Looking at its head it was decidedly a moray, with a mouth full of sharp teeth and an eels... Tail? Body? Let's say tail, coming out of the back of its head. Or would it be a humanoid body coming out of the moray's neck?
'This thing is weird to look at! Why do you need two bodies!?' Michael mentally screamed at the merfolk. He was just getting a grip on his mental image of it when the merfolk threw a wrench into his poor brains attempt to understand it, by flying. Well ok it wasn't
flying flying, but with a little hop and spreading its wing-like fins it was able to glide along while hardly touching the ground.
'well this just keeps getting less and less fair.' A call from above, undoubtedly from their flier, probably told Mr. Crocodile that Mike was in the building that he double backed out of, because his made some growling sounds of their own before he and the merfolk entered in through the window. Mike released a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding and took a look around the room he was in. It was dark in here, with only a bit of light coming from the twilight of a single window, but he could see place was almost empty, with little more than the occasional rug or bit of furniture that had been strewn about and a bit of debris by the stairs.
Seeing his way out, he ran to the stairs before noticing that there was more debris in the way than he saw in the dark. Turning on the flashlight on his phone, his hopes were dashed as he saw that the upper floor had caved in, blocking his access out. He hadn't seen the flier come down to enter the other building, so they were most likely keeping overwatch in case he tried to give them the slip, which he already kinda had, but he needed to make the same trick to work twice, and that always goes well.
Peeking out the window, Mike caught sight of what he assumed to be the flier making rounds overhead. There were only a few seconds on the far side that line of sight was broken, not enough time to run, but there
were other hiding spots. Taking a chance, Mike crawled back out of the window as soon as the flier was out of sight and hopped into the confirmed dumpster. It was around now that he realized he didn't exactly have a plan, and his situation wasn't exactly improved either.
'I'm just making sure that I'm not cornered in case they find me. Yeah that's it!' now he had a plan, and his situation had improved too! Sort of, stop asking questions. A few seconds later he was out and under a shutter, and on the next loop he was out of the alley.
Turns out, it's not that easy. Mike had thought he was safe, after rounding a corner he ran until he was sure he'd lost them, only to hear more footsteps from behind. The flier must have seen him and Mr Croc was in pursuit again, at least Mike had enough of a lead he couldn't see them yet. Testing a theory, Mike found a balcony and jumped for it. Yep! Lower gravity was confirmed as he made it nearly two meters off the ground! He also undershot it and smacked his head on the underside of the balcony, eliciting a (hopefully) dignified shriek, ruining the momentous occasion. Still, he was able to hit the ground running and made for another escape.
It had not taken long for a pattern to establish, Mike would hide and lose pursuit only to be spotted by the flier as soon as he got any distance. His best bet was, somehow, to stay close, under the radar so to speak and lead them away. He wasn't sure how they always knew what direction he was in, considering how well he kept out of sight, until he saw Mr. Croc kneel down and sniff a footprint. Ahh, they were tracking him.
That might actually be a blessing in disguise, because they were moving from an abandoned looking residential area to an industrial complex that was more populated, seeing a bit of foot traffic and lights in windows. He just might be able to lose them in there. Mike had a bit of a laugh at the fact that monsters were living on a jobsite when there were some perfectly fine - ok dilapidated, but so is everything else - houses a few streets over. He snapped his attention back to the situation at hand, he was still being chased after all, and now he planned on escaping by walking through Monster City night life.
'how did I let this become my best option?' there was nothing for it though, he just had to hope he could still keep out of sight.
After a couple close calls where Mike had turned a corner only to see a wall or monsters that somehow hadn't noticed him, he got enough of a lead that he could try hiding. Finding a road with hundreds of footprints up and down it, he backtracked a few meters before diving behind a couple pipes that were sticking out of a building.
Mr. Croc showed up not long after with the eel in tow, and signed the flier to come down. He could finally see that dirty little spy plane! It was a... Moth! 3 feet tall with big black eyes, droopy antennae and some soft looking fluff on its head and body, Mike would have thought it adorable if it hadn't been snitching on him!
Being unfamiliar with monsterese, Mike had no idea what was being said, but the body language made it clear they were arguing. It actually looked like a parent scolding their children, with Mr. Croc being 8 feet tall while the others were in the 3-4 foot range. That didn't stop fire being flung both ways as the small pair clearly gave the kind of back talk that would have gotten the taste slapped out of Michael's mouth if he tried it on his dad. With someone saying something the conversation suddenly came to an end with Mr. Croc spitting on the ground and turning away. He fiddled with a latch on his chest and the bucket on his back came loose, hitting the eel on the head and soaking it, undoubtedly on purpose. With a few snide remarks the three went their ways, leaving Mike gracefully alone.
...In the middle of monster city.
Why did the universe insist on not improving the situation?
'Ok that wasn't fair universe, you're trying very hard, and I appreciate you getting me out of that.' Karmatic retribution for his insolent thoughts hopefully averted, Mike got moving again.
.
Much to his own chagrin and with a hint of irony, Mike found himself tailing Mr Croc. Looking back it was ridiculous that nobody had noticed him running through the streets but he was found squatting under a bridge. Mr. Croc clearly had a reputation of some kind, because people seemed to avoid him like the plague. When Mike tried to backtrack he found himself relatively surrounded by monsters compared to the empty streets he was chased through, and he ended up finding sanctuary in the invisible bubble of Mr. Croc's presence, causing no end of irritation on Mike's end.
.
After nearly an hour of following, Michael's blood was boiling. Maybe because it was due to the lack of sleep, maybe it was due to being chased for hours for no reason, maybe it was due to being forced to hang around his least favourite semi-aquatic reptile. Or maybe it was because he was witnessing a mugging.
While sneaking along behind his quary, Mike did his best to hang back aways and keep an eye out for an escape route. They were still in the industrial complex, but must have been leaving the populated area, judging by the fact that fewer and fewer monsters were coming out after the crocodile had passed. Michael was just about ready to finally get away from him when he spotted someone walking in their direction, clearly having missed the memo to stay away.
The Croc was on them in a flash and the old bird -that's not an insult, she had feathers and a beak- tried to run but didn't get more than a couple steps away before the Croc had gotten a hold of her. Michael watched from the shadows as the bird lady was shaken, growled at and nearly had her head taken off by the snapping maw of an Egyptian god who had a chip on his shoulder. She was panicked, trying to run and begging, but the actual monster had her arm in a firm grip, and with his other hand he grabbed a pouch of some kind of the lady before shoving her onto the ground and walking away like nothing happened.
Michael was fuming. All that just to snatch a purse!? This thug who had chased him all throughout town, acted like he owned the place, who could probably rip Mike in half, did all that over a freaking handbag! His anger froze cold as the victim slowly picked herself up. Now that she wasn't being actively assaulted he could see she really was an old bird, with patches of feathers, wrinkles, generally frail looking, he was looking at someone's grandmother! And that crocodile... No, he would
not get away with this!
.
Michael's anger had been subdued by the realization of what he was doing, now tailing the 8-foot lizard man a lot closer than before and armed with a pocket knife, one that felt a lot smaller in his hand as he realized what he was doing, he wasn't sure how to actually do this. The bastard deserved what was coming, but after cooling off Mike knew rushing in was a bad idea. Luckily this industrial complex, or whatever it was, was packed with rails, pipes, and other things so tightly there was practically a second road overhead. Mike's plan, if you could call it that, was to jump down onto the guy and take him out before he even knew what was happening.
Michael barely made a sound as he went up and over, stopping only when his target looked around. It seemed he could tell something was off, but wasn't ready to act on the feeling just yet, which wasn't the kind of opportunity that Mike was one to waste. He dropped, silent as a shadow.
The crocodile may have been 8 feet tall, built like a brick and was in a lower gravity setting, but the simple fact was that he wasn't ready for someone to suddenly land on his neck. He went down like a sack of potatoes with Mike clinging on, the tumble having left him momentarily disoriented. Still, he quickly righted himself, this needed to end fast, or it would turn into an actual fight where he would have the disadvantage. Wrapped around the monster's head Michael brought the knife to its neck and... Hesitated. Mike had been in fights before, but those were scuffles in the school yard, now he was about to
kill. He knew his opponent deserved nothing less, but that seemed to fade in the face of taking a life. It was enough to take the fire out of him.
And so, instead of pushing the blade into his windpipe he only pressed it to the Crocs neck instead. "Alright listen up you big bastard," but the big bastard did not listen up, a fact made clear when a large hand grabbed and threw him off. Mike rolled as he landed and quickly got his feet back under him, knife luckily still in hand. The croc slowly stood up, cracking his neck as he did so before speaking.
"Ev'uoy tsuj edam ym yad." It said with a toothy grin. Mike just glared from his crouched position.
'different language, nice to know I wasted my time!' kind of obvious in retrospect, but there's nothing for it now. Mike kept low to the ground, with a two foot difference in height he wouldn't even try to match his opponent in strength or reach, so he opted to keep low.
The Croc tensed for a moment before lunging at Mike, maw open and ready to swallow him whole. Mike lunged himself, keeping low to the ground and barely ducked under the attack and swiped at the exposed neck. He didn't expect to land the hit, but his opponent was taken off guard by his offence and didn't quite pull back fast enough, taking a superficial cut below the chin. Shock flashed in the croc's eyes and he lept back, lashing out with claws to keep Mike at bay. Unfortunately for him, Michael knew that playing fair was for suckers, and that you kick opponents when they're down, so he didn't let up. He was moving forward before the Croc had even landed, stayed below the counter and was in his guard again.
This time he didn't hesitate, and plunged his knife in the croc's side eliciting a shocked gasp from the titan and, keeping his momentum, moved just beside his opponent's shoulder before jumping just a little higher than intended and striking again. Still reeling from the first stab, the croc had only managed to make eye contact as Michael's knife sought his throat again, and this time did not stop. Michael landed on his feet as the croc sunk to his knees, blood leaking freely from his neck as he tried to stop the bleeding with his bare hands but it was already done. The crocodile was dead before he hit the ground, and Michael breathed a sigh of relief.
.
That purse wasn't the only property Mr. Croc had appropriated, as Michael found plenty of interesting things on his person. His things now, as he had no way of returning them. Despite the haul, his mind was elsewhere as he walked.
That guy did
not know how to fight, probably used to just intimidating people around him. When an actual fight came he was honestly kinda sluggish, and didn't even think to use magic or the shiv that was in his pocket. Even so, that was a dumb thing to do. What was he thinking, attacking someone like that? What if he had known what he was doing!? Mike could not afford these kinds of mistakes in a survival situation, even if he did get lucky, even if he somehow got out unscathed! You just don't rely on that happening, and Michael resolved to remember that in the future.
Finding a good spot, he set the purse down in the middle of a road and retreated to a hiding place. Soon enough the bird lady passed by even slower than before, the only reason Mike got ahead of her was because she was slowly limping along. Seeing that made his hatred flare up again, but his anger faded away as with a shocked look, the bird lady found the purse, looked inside and sagged with visible relief before looking around suspiciously and continuing with just a bit more pep in her step.
'Well,' Mike thought,
'maybe that wasn't such a dumb move after all.' ____________________________________________________Author's note
Alright part 3 is out! Hope y'all enjoy.
In case anyone had missed it, large portions of Reddit will be going dark in protest of the removal of third party software on June 12th. I had originally planned to join the protest, but then I read the
HFY 's official take on the matter (remaining neutral to act as an escape from stressful situations like this) and decided that's worthwhile. As such I will continue posting but otherwise will be off of Reddit in protest.
The
first shall be
previous and the next shall be in a week or so.
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2023.06.07 20:37 BloodWagon On September 15, 1958 someone deliberately caused the crash of a Soo Line passenger train in Hamel, MN, and got away with it
By Rail to Canada, no Passport Needed The clock showed 9:30 PM, Central Standard Time, September 15, 1958. Soo Line Train 9/13 was 21 minutes behind schedule as it cruised along in the fall Minnesota night, heading into the shallow bend towards the town of Hamel. There was no need to slow down from 58 MPH (93 kph) as the approaching station was not a stop for the train on its way to Portal, North Dakota and Winnipeg, Manitoba. From Minneapolis to Glenwood, Minnesota the two trains, also known as the “Dominion” and the “Winnipeger”, ran together before being split for their final destinations. The Dominion would be picked up by the Canadian Pacific for connection to Vancouver, British Columbia the next day.
GP9 diesel-electric locomotive No. 557 lead the train with the engineer and fireman aboard, followed by cabless power unit 503B. Behind them came six baggage cars, five sleepers, three coaches, and a lounge car, not in that order. Aboard the cars were 75 passengers, about five Pullman Company sleeping car porters, three dining service employees, three mail clerks, two baggagemen, the conductor (H.M. Ratje), and two brakemen.
Bright headlights shown ahead in the dark. The firemen, seated on the lefthand side of the cab, was observing a road crossing ahead of them. The engineer, Herman J. Steinke, was keeping an eye out on the tracks ahead. One detail was missed by both men, however. A green light supposed to mark the switch for the siding that served local businesses in Hamel was dark. In fact, although they never could have seen it, the lock had been bashed off and the switch thrown so it pointed into the siding. The lamp extinguished. At full speed, Train 9/13 rocked hard and as it hit the siding curve 120 feet later, then jackknifed across the tracks at 9:35 pm.
The Accident Miraculously, no one was killed as the first eight cars and both locomotives derailed spectacularly. Sixteen people were hospitalized for their injuries among the dozens treated at the scene. Witnesses in Hamel reported the crash impact felt like an earthquake, calling in to the Hennepin County Sheriff to notify them of the disaster. The Sheriff’s emergency calls were answered by Civil Defense rescue teams and six fire departments within thirty minutes to begin the process of extracting those unable to escape the cars. Uninjured patrons were bussed back to Minneapolis by the Soo Line for the night, to figure out ways of getting them on to their destinations.
It was during the rescue efforts that a Hamel Fire Department firefighter noticed the damage to the switch lock that prevented tampering. While it was locked to point into the switch rather than the main line, he noticed that the shackle of the lock had clearly been battered open before being re-closed. Investigation by police and ICC officials also disclosed that someone had tried to batter the lamp’s connecting bolt so it could be rotated to give a false ‘clear’ indication. When that had failed, someone had apparently settled for extinguishing it. Five hours before Train 9/13 came through Hamel, about 4:30 PM, the local track maintenance foreman had inspected the line. He reported the switch had been set correctly at the time but could not remember if the lamp was lit yet. It was fueled twice a week, having been topped off three days before.
The Suspect, the official Verdict, and the Aftermath. By the first of October railroad police were seeking a man known to peddle sewing needles door-to-door in the Hamel area. He was in his fifties, stoop-shouldered, an ‘eccentric dresser’ who wore a flap-eared cap. Local residents had noticed the man in the area of the siding earlier in the evening but thought nothing of it at the time. Police apparently failed to locate him, or cleared him of wrongdoing, as no further remarks on this suspect appear in the newspapers.
On December 17, 1958 the Interstate Commerce Commission officially rendered its report on the incident. After examining the crew, witnesses on the ground, passengers, and the incident scene itself, they concluded the crew was not at fault for the accident. The ICC official accident cause was listed as malicious tampering, by person or persons unknown, who had deliberately forced open the switch, changed its direction, and extinguished the indicating lamp. From the transportation safety end of things, it was case closed.
Engine 557 and 503B were returned to service, as did the injured employees. Rail traffic was disrupted for several weeks until the line could be fixed. Today, perhaps the last survivor is Engine 557, still operating in Hanska, Minnesota as Farmers Co-Op of Hanska No. 124.
Conclusion and Questions In 2023 it seems highly unlikely that the September 15, 1958 derailment will ever be solved. No one died, and the newspaper headlines of the day were occupied with the tragic Newark Bay bridge accident on the Central Railroad of New Jersey that killed 48, so it quietly slipped from memory. However, that does leave us with some room to speculate on the cause.
- The ICC Got It Wrong: There was no deliberate sabotage. Railroad locks take a beating even without deliberate tampering and investigators followed a path that would absolve the company and its employees of fault for incorrectly positioning the switch. The investigation makes no remark on when the switch had last been legitimately used before the accident.
- The Peddler: A convenient target. Marginalized and possibly without a home, as he is also described as ‘dirty-faced’, it would be convenient to latch onto a sighting of him near the switch as an explanation. We’re given little motivation to why he might have tampered with the switch. However, after examining several cases like this, there often doesn’t seem to be much motivation amongst those apprehended. Children playing around, wanting to see the train wreck, without any more information its hard to say much more.
- Someone Else: Local children, teens, another resident. Someone wanted to see the train crash. Notably someone had to wield a heavy tool against the switch lock and lamp bolts, no Lockpicking Lawyer here, which would seem to point towards an adult.
Sources The Interstate Commerce Commission Report of the Accident Investigation occurring on the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad at Hamel, MN:
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/45711 The Soo Line Public Timetable in effect at the time of the accident:
http://wx4.org/to/foam/maps/2-Perry/015/d/1958-09-07SOO_systemPTT-Perry.pdf News Articles and Photos (As a warning, this does include images of a non-fatal railroad crash and injured persons being transported):
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1d1ZFYlPVNnZZxI6nf0jITZTLFb2xiSHv?usp=sharing submitted by
BloodWagon to
UnresolvedMysteries [link] [comments]
2023.06.07 20:21 Relentless_blanket Rebel Yarn complaint information
Hello everyone! Please read full post, lots of helpful information here.
If you are still finding issues with retrieving your money back from Rebel Yarn, please file a complaint with North Carolina Attorney General, Josh Stein.
You can fill out the form here [General Consumer Complaint Form](
https://ncdoj.gov/file-a-complaint/consumer-complaint/)
You can also call (Outside of North Carolina) (919) 716-600
If you live *IN* North Carolina, call 1-877-5-NO-SCAM (877-566-7226)
PLEASE include supporting documents, such as purchase orders, proof of payment (make sure dates are accurate) emails or messages. Any attempts at communication and any and all responses from Lindsey. I have screen shots of her personal IG showing that they were not in-fact in dire straights and hurting for money between Sept and Dec. She took her family to Disney World, stayed in a pretty sweet hotel, dined at some not so cheap restaurants. As far her and her husband's sciatica and migraines, posting pics of 140 mile motorcycle cruises, going to motorcycle gatherings (think Street Vibrations), partying it up.
Her information is: Rebel Yarn Co.....339 Airedale Trail.....Garner, NC 27529.
Her new website is [Rebel Yarn Co](
http://www.rebelyarncollc.com) .
She has registered as an LLC as of 12/16/2022. This means Rebel Yarn Co legally exists as a separate entity from Lindsey and Ryan(husband). Therefore, they cannot
typically be held personally responsible for RYC debts and liabilities. However,
in cases where an individual owner doesn't personally guarantee the LLC's debts, they can still be sued personally, and the court may find them liable. In general, courts err on the side of upholding LLC protections and only "pierce the corporate veil" where there's wrongful or fraudulent conduct. Which I think they will see them changing to an LLC trying to avoid the fraudulent sales and refunds. I am doing some research, but I believe Lindsey and Ryan are held responsible for all of the debts of Rebel Yarn Co from before 12/16/22 because at that time they were not an LLC.
Report her to the IRS and they will open an investigation into her tax payments.
Report to Instagram, TikTok (@rebel.yarn.co), Facebook (Rebel Yarn Co), and PayPal.
I left a message for Instagram customer service at (650) 543-4800 with a brief synopsis of what is happening and that people do not expect IG to help get their money back but only to shut down her accounts because of what she has done. I urge you to also call and leave a message as the "help" on the app/website doesn't do much in the way of helping. It is a long listen on the phone but, please leave a message.
Keep fighting the good fight. I might be setting up a new sub strictly for RYC to help others out. I will keep everyone updated and will invite you to it if I do.
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2023.06.07 20:12 Toluca94 Issue with ICE turning on and slowly draining gas every day
Hello,
My 2018 Honda Clarity PHEV has an issue where the ICE turns on almost every morning and slowly drains my gas. I know normally in PHEV's that the ICE turns on every now and then if the engine has not been started for a while, but this happens to my Clarity almost every morning.
I did research a while back, and only found a couple people reporting the same issue. It was never resolved, but one person did mention the possible cause. For some reason with the Clarity, whenever the car regenerative brakes past the maximum full charge EV capacity, the ICE turns on. In other words, if my Clarity is fully charged at 55 EV in the morning and then I regenerative brake past 55 EV, such as 55.1, the ICE kicks in. I tested this theory and has been consistently true.
This has been going on with my Clarity for a couple years now. I almost never use gas at all, and the ICE turning on every morning and draining a couple miles of gas each time has literally drained my gas from full to empty at least twice since my ownership of the car.
I found some workarounds to this issue by noting the EV number in the morning, and making sure the regenerative braking does no past that number by putting the car into neutral when coasting to a stop so that the car doesn't regain energy.
I took my car to a Honda dealership once to see if maybe there is a software update that can fix the issue, but of course the employees had no idea what I was talking about and had little to no knowledge on the Clarity, so they quoted me $160 JUST to check to see if there is a software update available. Obviously I declined and just left.
I did check to see if there is a TSB (Technical Service Bulletin) for this issue, but could not find any. Does anyone know how I can resolve this ICE issue? Or if there is a TSB that I can bring to a Honda dealership for a software update that will fix this issue?
Thank you.
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Clarity [link] [comments]
2023.06.07 20:11 No_Competition4897 [HIRING] 25 Jobs in VA Hiring Now!
| Company Name | Title | City |
| Cox-Powell | HVAC Technician | Hampton |
| Town Of Ashland | Finance Director | Ashland |
| Buckingham County Public Schools | Spanish Teacher - High School And Middle School | Buckingham |
| Buckingham County Public Schools | Teachers - Primary, Elementary, Middle, High School - $2000 Signing Bonus | Buckingham |
| County Of Chesterfield | Principal Plant Operator - Maintenance | Chesterfield |
| The Army Historical Foundation | Major Gifts Officer | Fort Belvoir |
| Goochland Powhatan Community Services Board | Mental Health Clinician - Outpatient | Goochland |
| Fairfax Water | Instrumentation Technician I/II/III | Lorton |
| LegalShield and ID Shield | Work from anywhere, No experience, Full-time/Part-time/Spare-time | Norfolk |
| Slurry Pavers, Inc | ROAD CONSTRUCTION - CDL Drivers, Equipment Operators And General Laborers | Richmond |
| The Virginia Economic Development Partnership | International Training Manager | Richmond |
| The Virginia Economic Development Partnership | Industry Manager, Manufacturing | Richmond |
| ENSCO, Inc. | Safety Manager | Springfield |
| Oxley Enterprises, Inc. | Senior Recruiter | Stafford |
| KMG Hauling, Inc | Diesel Mechanics & CDL Drivers | Sterling |
| National Center For State Courts | Accounting And Finance | Williamsburg |
| United States Secret Service | Criminal Investigator | Norfolk |
| United States Secret Service | Criminal Investigator | Richmond |
| Wegmans Food Markets | Sanitation Worker $500 Sign On Bonus | Ashland |
| Wegmans Food Markets | Car Hop | Charlottesville |
| L.L.Bean | Store Team Leader - Visual Merchandising | Charlottesville |
| Tyson Foods | Maintenance Generalist - Night Shift B | Danville |
| Tyson Foods | MES Engineer III | Danville |
| Tyson Foods | Maintenance Generalist - Night Shift D | Danville |
| FRESENIUS | LPN Mechanicsville | Hanover |
Hey guys, here are some recent job openings , feel free to comment here if you have any questions, I'm at the community's disposal! If you encounter any problems with any of these job openings please let me know that I will modify the table accordingly. Thanks!
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