“You’re a cripple and a fucking freak, so you should know desperation when you see it.”

I breathed in slowly, visualizing the personal attack, quantifying it, analyzing it, and deconstructing it, piece by piece, until it stopped hurting me.

“I died once, you know.”

I closed my eyes, but showed no further sign of exasperation. The bottle of eighteen-year-old Macallan sat just inside my desk drawer, inches away but far beyond reach.

Fucking Tuesdays.

“You feel that you died, Mr. Jundin. Tell me about that.” See, I was good about pretending to care. That’s exactly why I was so damn good at this job. Unfortunately, the caffeine buzz was wearing off, the vicodin hadn’t kicked in, and HIPAA guidelines force me to be very discreet when stealing sips of my drawer whisky.

It’s so fucking hypocritical for people to expect me to produce empathy without the chemical additives that make the human experience bearable.

“I don’t feel like I died, I did die. I just came back.” He sighed, rubbed his eyes, and stared at the floor. If it weren’t for his receding hairline, his burgeoning gut, a complete lack of style, off-white teeth, unkempt stubble, stained shirt, sloppy posture, more than a touch of misogyny, body odor that hinted at a lack of self-care, corresponding halitosis, and general pathetic nature, Mr. Jundin would be kind of cute. “Please, ‘Mark’ is fine – Dr. Barkara.”

“Okay,” I responded with a convincing smile.

He waited for me to offer a first-name relationship.

After five awkward seconds, he kept talking.

“They said you wouldn’t believe me.”

“About the dying?” I asked.

“Yes, about the dying.” He sighed. A tiny roll of fat slid over his belt.

I didn’t like judging my patients. Except for the pathetic ones.

“They told me that you were too cynical, and that it’s easy for you to listen because you’re smart enough not to have any hope in our species,” he droned.

My nostrils flared. I hated being figured out, and I was good at lying my way away from it.

“Why do you want to talk about me, Mark?” I asked with icy calm. Seriously, the Macallan was right next to my hand.

He grunted. “You really don’t think people talk about your arm when you’re not looking?”

I showed no outward reaction. “People talk about my arm when I am looking, Mark,” I explained flatly.

I did not move the prosthetic from view.

“You see the brokenness in others because you can’t escape it in yourself. You’re good at it, which makes you successful enough to af

I said I had more to tell you. This is it. I must warn you again that I have some upsetting things to tell you about in regards to animals. If it bothers you when animals are harmed for any reason, please be careful about reading further.

Everything came apart not long after I posted about the fairy being wounded. It was late evening. I was staying near my house as I didn’t want to be in the deep woods until I knew more about the fairy’s condition. There was no indication that anything was wrong. Not until I heard the baying of dogs.

I leapt from my desk and moved as quickly as I could, grabbing shotgun, knife, and jacket before bolting out the door. I ran across the yard, struggling in the deep snow, in the direction of the noise. Not far. They weren’t in the deep woods, at least. My breath steamed in the cold air.

The lead dancer waited at the edge of the woods. Beau was with her. I didn’t stop for them, just kept jogging towards the commotion and they followed. Neither had to run. Somehow, they kept pace with me merely by walking. I hated them a little bit for it.

“The fomorian has been hunting the fairy since their last encounter,” the lead dancer told me. “I’ve had the musicians tailing it. It knew they were there, but it didn’t care anymore. It’s been entirely focused on the fairy.”

“It’s even ignored me,” Beau added.

“Spring is coming,” I gasped, my lungs aching from the cold air. “It’s running out of time.”

“The fairy is injured as well,” the dancer added. “They can’t win this.”

“I know. That’s why I’m going to help.”

The lead dancer’s expression was flat and cold.

“You’re going to die too,” she said.

“Like hell I will.”

She opened her mouth to say something else, but Beau’s hand snapped out and seized her wrist. The pair stopped walking and I slowed only enough to look over my shoulder in surprise. The two stared at each other, the dancer’s eyes wide with muted anger, locked with Beau’s own stern, narrow-eyed glare.

“Let her go,” he said.

“What can a human possibly do against a fomorian?”

“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.”

He turned to look at me. He nodded slightly. That was the closest I was going to get to encouragement from him. I nodded back and kept going. Neither of them followed me. I was on my own from here out.

It felt… right. Hasn’t it always been this way? Just me up against the darkness?

My mom was the sort of person to look like a wallflower until you got close and then spout out facts about her favourite animal. It was an emperor penguin. She said their journey for love and parenthood was the hardest and most connecting with her.

I’m told all the usual things about her; she had a smile that could light up a room, her laugh cut through the malaise of an awkward party, her stride was confident and her form was elegant. From the day I could understand what it was to be remembered, she was painted to me as a true goddess.

After all, aren’t all moms supposed to be that to their children growing up?

Mom died when I was 4. Aggressive cancer riddled her body with tumours, stole her stride, her smile, her laugh. Everything in just 18 short months.

I didn’t see her for much of it. But if I did, I obviously didn’t remember. I heard somewhere we don’t start forming memories until we’re around 2 years old and implicit memories - those unconscious memories that stick with us automatically - aren’t even until we’re 7.

So essentially my mother was already dead for 3 years before I could even unconsciously think of the word “Mom” and go to her face. A face that was stolen from me. A face that I’ll never see.

I’m giving you this background information now because it’s vital that you understand my mom before we get into the thick of it.

I can’t sit here and tell you I loved my mom unconditionally. I didn’t know her. Dad was never in the picture, so Grandparents were where I was shipped off to. Good people, kind people. They raised me on stories of my Mom and made sure to do the one thing she’d requested when her sickness finally got her:

”Show Nick the milestone tapes.”

For those unaware; a milestone tape is something where a loved one, usually a parent, records a loving video to congratulate their kin on a moment they’re missing out on. First day of school, marriage… you get the picture.

I remember being 5 years old, I’d not long tripped on the stairs after miscalculating my steps and smashed my front tooth on the top step, sending my first baby tooth flying. Thankfully, the pain was short-lived in my mind, I was mere days from my birthday and a surprise trip to Disneyland was coming up. In the middle of packing, I was sat down in front of the TV with my Grandpa Mihail and him putting in these pristine discs, a gaudy logo flashing up on the screen still burned into my retinas to this day:

*“Gone, but not deleted: A video message from Leanora

It's not the wild west of tech startups anymore. Silicon Valley has grown up. Matured. Turned stale and predictable. The old CEOs who used to be drunk college drop-outs with a knack for coding have started shaving, showering, and wearing tailored suits. No more beer pong in the Facebook headquarters. No more coke-fuelled twister at Twitter.

I came too late for the fun with Talkie, my new social media platform. It was like showing up to the house the morning after the party, when all the hungover rich kids were waking up, leaving in their fancy cars for their day-jobs and real life. Zuckerberg off to his compound. The crypto kids off to the islands they bought. Everyone's turned into a stiff.

"But that doesn't mean we can't have any fun," I told my lawyer. "We can still get a couple digs in. We can still play jokes. No?"

"I suppose," he said dryly. "What did you have in mind?"

"The terms and conditions," I told him. "Let's bury a gag somewhere in those walls of fine print."

"A gag?"

"By accepting this agreement, you agree to let us harvest your organs," I pronounced. "How about that?"

"Under state and federal law, there is no way you could possibly--"

"Fine," I interrupted. "How about. . .Hmm. . .By accepting this agreement. . .Talkie now owns your soul."

My lawyer smiled condescendingly. He was a stuffy bastard himself. Formerly legal council for Sergey Brin. Knew the ins and outs of the industry better than most. Better than any. But he really liked to take the wind out of my sails whenever I was feeling silly.

"Could that get us in trouble?" I asked. "Legally speaking. Not morally or with the church or whatever."

"No," he flatly replied. "There's little legal recourse for people who want to litigate over the ownership of their souls. The human soul is not a tangible asset recognized in any system of western law."

"Bet the kids will love it, too," I said. "Once the media catches wind. Kind of a meta-commentary on the power and overreach and influence of Big Tech. All these other big corporations basically own our souls already, but at least Talkie is upfront about it. I'd rather sign my soul over to them! Screw capitalist realism. This is capitalist metaphysics."

"As you say," my bored lawyer replied.

- - -

I had a nice office overlooking the bay. Big windows. Top of the tower. I went for a Victorian look inside, though. A carved wooden desk. Heavy dark curtains. A crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling and a painted portrait of gra

With TBC approaching, many adventurers will be spending the vast majority of their time combatting vicious demons and fel entities in the Outland. As a public service** and in a bid to increase tourism (everyone needs a bit of help in this economy), I've gone out of my way to provide a fulsome* and utterly impervious to criticism list of the various inns, shacks, tents and encampments across Azeroth that a Horde adventurer might hunker down in.

*Authors note: I can think of a few minor places I've left off the list just because I didn't feel they were RP worth mentioning, no bully.

And with that that, lets explore:

Kalimdor

Azshara – Valormok

• Amenities and Activities: D
• Ambiance: C
• Lodging (Cot): D
• Accessibility: B

Avoid this place like the plague. Even the most ardent backpackers would not be able to enjoy the mysteries of Azshara for long before constant naga incursions and the biting wind of the bay of storms put a damper in any camping plans. The nearby Azuregos provides a thrilling challenge, if you’re able to engage him directly and not have a friendly tete-a-tete with his ghost. Otherwise, it has a single cot to rest on if you’re desperate.

Moonglade – Nighthaven

• Amenities and Activities: B
• Ambiance: S
• Lodging (Elven Architecture): A
• Accessibility: D

Despite the inconvenience of making your way to Nighthaven for anyone other than Druids (be kind to the local furbolg!), it is always worth the trip. A peaceful ambiance that simply cannot be beat, a main inn with 3 beautiful and immaculately appointed beds and the herbalists hut with a beautiful bed and bear skin rug perfect for any hunter’s pet make lodging a dream (although not suited for large parties). Nighthaven, despite not being a formal inn, still has food and drink vendors and reasonably close by flight points that make Nighthaven a place suitable to adventurers of all stripes.

Felwood – Bloodvenom Post

• Amenities and Activities: F
• Ambiance: D
• Lodging: F
• Accessibility: F

Other than a singular hut, a foreboding cliffside and poison waterfall, Bloodvenom Post does not offer travellers much of anything except a dreary invitation to view the degradation of nature. A Strange ritual happens frequently where locals come by to sniff flowers, if you’re into that kind of thing. Not for the faint of heart.

Felwood – Emerald Sanctuary

• Amenities and Activities: D
• Ambiance: C
• Lodging (Night Elf Hut): C
• Accessibility: C

As you head north from the

First Chapter

Author's Note: This *just* ended up breaking the 40,000 character word limit on Reddit posts, which I didn't know was a thing until today, so I'm forced to split it up into two parts. Part 2 will be posted later today.

--

“So what do you want to do tonight?” Jason asked. “Heard there’s going to be a party on 4th Street. Could be a good time, assuming it doesn’t end up like the last one.”

Rob grimaced. “It’s a shame the world will never know who set off those fireworks.”

Jason gave him a flat look.

“It wasn’t me!” Rob protested. “I don’t go around causing trouble. It just...has a habit of finding me.”

“Uh huh.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Rob drawled. “But yeah, a party sounds nice. Drunken antics and all that. We won’t have chances to make those kinds of mistakes after we graduate. Have to fill our quota before then.”

He paused. “I know this is a dream. But it’s still nice to see you, man. Can’t wait to see you again for real.”

Jason laughed. “Oh, you won’t be seeing me again. I’m dead, after all.”

The breath caught in Rob’s chest. “Jason?”

“I’m dead. Finito. Ten feet under. Sleeping with the fishes. Need I continue with the metaphors?” Jason smirked. “What, did you think you saved me just by taking that chain for me? Come on, man. The weird shadow tendrils things were still wrapped around my legs when you were getting pulled in. You didn’t see the aftermath, but they crawled up my body and strangled the life out of me. It’s poor form to leave behind witnesses.” He pondered for a moment. “Or maybe I got pulled in right after you. No reason to believe there was only one chain. I got dumped out on the other side of the forest, or on a different world entirely, and by now the local fauna has already digested me. Yum, yum.”

Rob gripped Jason by the shoulders with trembling hands. “You don’t know any of that. I don’t know any of that. None of that is true.”

“Could have happened, though,” Jason mused. “I’d say better-than-even odds that it did. Unless you have evidence to the contrary?”

“Where’s your fucking evidence?!” Rob yelled. “Stop bullshitting me. All of this is just, fuck, why are you even saying this?”

Jason shrugged. “I’m just venting. Giving the real Jason a chance to let off some steam against the albatross around his neck.”

Rob staggered back like he’d been struck. “I’m his best friend.”

“Yeah, and h

I’ve had some real interesting conversations on this sub over the past couple of days regarding the relationship between NeNe Leaks and Shereé Whitfield. Fans often mention NeNe and Kim as the foundational feud of RHOA, which it was. However, the relationship between NeNe vs Shereé was right behind NeNe vs Kim in significance. After speaking to my fellow redditors, I believe NeNe vs Shereé not only was interesting in its backstory, but also impacted the future of RHOA in a big way. This post will include some of the theories from those conversations. Let’s break this feud and it's effects down.

Shereé married Bob Whitfield, a football player, in 2000. As a result of the marriage, she gained wealth and a high social standing in Atlanta overnight. Contrast that to NeNe, who married Gregg Leaks in 1997. Gregg was a property developer, and unlike Shereé and Bob, his and NeNe’s wealth had to be accumulated over several years.

It is unclear when exactly NeNe and Shereé became acquainted, but it is documented that they knew each other before RHOA. According to both, they never had a problem before the show. In fact, NeNe recommend Shereé to RHOA producers when they asked her to nominate an affluent woman in Atlanta. In 2007, Shereé divorced Bob Whitfield. According to Shereé, Bob was abusive to her, and that was the biggest cause for their divorce. Of course, this puts us right before the premiere of RHOA, and the divorce would come back to haunt Shereé in a mighty way.

RHOA premiered in 2008. From the jump, we get to see the differences in how NeNe and Shereé present themselves. NeNe is very much the “every woman” type. She’s relatable, determined, and incredibly funny. Shereé, on the other hand, presents herself as one of Atlanta’s “elite”, a high-society woman. Many of Shereé's first scenes capture her spending money on lavish gifts.

Admittedly, when compared to her cast mates, NeNe does seem a bit out of place, something that Shereé does note on camera. NeNe was not glamorous, and she was always loud. Contrast that to Shereé, who appears to be wealthy and incredibly glamorous. You’d be forgiven for thinking that Shereé would become the “it girl” of the RHOA franchise. However, there were two reasons that kept this from happening.

Recall how I said Shereé’s divorce would haunt her? When Shereé divorced Bob, she went broke. Shereé was a legitimate Housewife; she had no business ventures going for her. Also, according to her, Bob wasn’t paying chi

Reposting this one, because the last thread went unseen. Glassnode goodies are back!

DeFi Uncovered, by Luke Posey of Glassnode.

Due to the popularity of my last post, focused almost entirely on Bitcoin's on-chain metrics, I figured I'd link to some more goodies coming out from Glassnode, and try to explain them to the best of my ability. If there is anything you'd like to see me discuss, or changes in the format you think would improve the quality of the discussion, please let me know. You can find the previous discussion on my profile page. Thanks everyone, and happy learnin'!

Today, I wanted to dive into some DeFi metrics, all painting very bullish possibilities. Of course, this market is frothy, and price wise seems overheated, yet the details paint a different picture.

1. DeFi is exploding. Users are being on-ramped at an alarming rate. DeFi wallets have expanded almost 20 fold since EoY 2019. Estimates at that time are around 100k DeFi wallets active, while we are closer to 2.1 million wallets active now, with over $1 billion in liquidity on over 25 protocols. Not only is this a bullish trend, but there is still LOTS of room to grow.

Ethereum Addresses vs Addresses interacting with DeFi, credit to Glassnode.

2. Another metric I find very interesting is TVL, or Total Value Locked. Now, this is funds locked in smart contracts doing, typically, one of two things. On lending platforms, these funds are collateral, and on DEXs or CEXs, these funds are providing liquidity. This metric can be misleading, so it is not the end-all-be-all of litmus tests for growth in the space. They describe that one would have to analyze the TVL from protocol to protocol to determine how much utilization each has of said value locked, considering the protocols all differ so greatly.

TVL in Smart Contracts, credit to Glassnode.

3. I have two more charts for ya, while the article has many more to comb through. I don't want to talk about specific coins, so I am going to cover the expansion in DEXs. Decentralized Exchanges, or DEXs, have seen the bulk of the actual user growth in the DeFi market thus far. When looking at the following cha

Our parents both were busy. For today they needed the upstairs bedrooms, downstairs bedrooms, kitchen, and backyard in order to entertain their important friends which left my sister and I with our grandmother in the garage.

It was a nice garage, as garages go. The single bare lightbulb spread a warm yellow tone over the entire space, and the air was only stuffy in the center, freshening considerably near either door. It was spacious as well, especially with the cars usually nestled inside parked down the street for the day. Wooden cabinets were built into the wall on one side, on the other clear plastic storage bins were stacked high, stuffed with tinsel and winter coats and feather boas and plastic skeletons. It was a bit hot now that it was summer, true, and the floor was splotched and stained in all sorts of ways. But overall, a garage day could be a bad day or a good day. As it was explained to us kids many times, it’s not the room you’re in that determines how good a time you have, it’s the room you give to the happiness in your heart.

Our grandmother sat in a wooden chair, low to the ground, a denim visor scrunched over her tight black curls. We were only five then, but even so we could pick up on the fact that she was none too pleased to be stuck out here with us.

On earlier garage days, Althea, the teen daughter of two of our parents’ business friends had been sent out to watch us. Althea had approached the job in her quiet, serious way, rolling out pastel yoga mats on the floor and setting up coloring books or board games in front of us. Every hour or so, she’d hand us cold drinks from a little blue cooler, each with a fanciful looping straw poked through its foil lid. The drinks were sweet and thick and made our mouths tingle, with labels printed in a language we couldn’t recognize. When we were finished she would take the straws, set them in plastic bags, and tuck them back in the cooler. Sometimes I would get it in my head to refuse to give the straw back-it was cool and I wanted to keep it and she’d given it to me which made it mine. But whenever she’d asked, I found myself handing it over. Somehow, listening to Althea just made sense.

But now Althea was sixteen, and she was needed inside. My grandmother, I learned later, had been fetched from her quiet, air-conditioned condo all the way in Pasadena for the occasion, and was miffed at being lured out for a visit by her daughter just to be stuck babysitting in a garage.

All we knew th

I don't know how many people know about it, but death is often not an end for a Drukhari. If you are rich or important enough, Haemonculi can perform the Ressurection Procedure which...well...does exactly what the name suggests.

Here are some excerpts, mostly from Path of the Renegade, explaining how the Procedure works.

Context: Nyos is an Archon of noble descent >!and Chosen of Tzeentch (althought he himself remains unaware of this fact) !<who wants to overthrow Asdrubael Vect by resurecting his biggest rival, El'uriaq. Syiin and Bellathonis are Haemonculi.

>‘I have questions pertaining to the arts of flesh for you to answer,’ Nyos said without preamble. ‘If you cannot answer them I will require you to find me someone that can, do I make myself clear?’
>
>‘Absolutely, my archon, how may I assist you?’ Syiin’s tone was respectful, even obsequious; but his words implied Nyos would owe him a debt for answering, a concept the archon did not relish.
>
>‘You will not “assist” me, you will obey me by answering my questions or seek service elsewhere,’ he snapped.
>
>‘Apologies, my archon, how may I serve you?’ Syiin fawned.
>
>‘Better. Now tell me: how would you remake a highborn who had been lost for a very long time –centuries, perhaps even millennia?’
>
>Syiin’s taut face creased in a slight frown as he weighed up how far he could lie.
>
>‘A complex process, my archon. The fresher the remnant the more quickly and safely regeneration of the whole can beachieved.’
>
>‘I see. Without a “fresh remnant”, as you put it, what conditions would be most conducive to success?’
>
>Syiin’s thin lips puckered with distress. Discussing such secrets even with an archon made him uncomfortable. The haemonculus’s distress was an unexpected pleasure for Nyos. He rose from his bladed throne and stalked toward Syiin to savour the sensation more closely.
>
>‘The more potent the – ah – catalyst the better the chances, my archon, but to bring back one who was lost thousands of years ago...’
>
>Nyos sensed Syiin’s weakness and pounced. ‘You mean victim when you say catalyst, don’t you? A powerful enough sacrifice would be needed.’
>
>Syiin squirmed slightly within his hide robe as Nyos began to circle him. He made a feeble attempt to change the direction the discussion was

Malcolm checked his texts again. Nothing new.

He paced back and forth, as if expecting the phone to vibrate at any moment. Spirits swelled around him in anticipation as they always did, expectant. Eager to follow any clear intent or gesture.

It was an unusual spring afternoon in Hood River, Oregon, as snow drifted down from the sky in little tufts. Nothing stuck, melting away on the pavement - but that was to be expected.

The weather was cold and to stay warm he wore a long coat over a sweater. By contrast, his two companions in their casual dresses didn’t even shiver.

Eloise effortlessly danced across the lip of the fountain. Without any lessons, she was a natural at graceful, physical locomotion aided by a burgeoning supernatural talent.

At the ripe age of eight, the world was at her fingertips, and if one didn’t keep an eye out, she might just wander off and cause some unplanned trouble.

He needn’t’ve worried. His loyal wife, Martha, took care of that duty. She sat on a bench nearby with a picnic basket, eating meaty sandwiches. She watched the girl play around, and for the most part successfully pretended she wasn’t keeping an eye out for even more danger.

But no one seemed to pay the trio any mind at the park. And with so many Innocents around, they had all agreed this would be an unlikely spot for them to find any trouble.

>I wish you could all be here - I miss you and know with your support I would have nothing to fear. But I guess we’ll catch each other soon? When the flowers bloom, underneath the darkened moon. - Miranda

The text had been sent four days ago from this very city, encrypted as all their communications were. They had the spider to thank for that.

”Don’t worry. Don’t be in a hurry,” he could almost hear her saying, voice calm and gentle as a summer breeze, reassuring him.

He wanted to believe in those phantom words.

But the situation didn’t make sense. She’d missed her check-in later that evening. His calculations...no, what could have happened? His stomach turned and he had to tighten his hand into a grip, as if holding a leash that held something else back. Spirits noticed.

Discipline, discipline, he chided himself. Plan A had failed, it was simply time to move on to Plan B.

“Can we go and buy a toy? I think it would bring me joy,” Eloise sang in rhyming almost-couplets, just like her mother would. The girl was antsy on the fountain’s edge, a little closer with her wide, pleading eyes directed onto him lik

Hello reddit, concerned biological wombyn mother uterus here, I have something on my mind id like to share. My female daughter likes to kick a soccer ball back and forth with her friends after school but recently with the sudden never-before-seen infiltration of women’s sports and spaces by biological maaales I’ve been worried that 7ft tall linebacker hairy monstrous burgeoning 7year old males will try and join her soccer games 😨😨😨😨😨 I’ve been watching Fox News a lot lately bc I’ve been so worried and apparently it’s all George soros fault for letting these BEASTS compete against my fragile flower. Apparently the communist news medias and the adult tranners are also trying to brainwash girls into thinking that kicking a soccer ball makes them a boy 🤬🤬🤬🤬 (I heard it from Ben Shapiro who talk fast and he is so right) So reddit, what should I do to save my daughter from the trans menace?????????

This is the first chapter in this book that went a bit too long, so there's another section in the comments. Enjoy!

HFY list of my stories

Previous chapter

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G.O.D. Sam Robinson – The Valkyrie - Dimensional Plane of Arenal – Private Quarters inside U.N. Military base in Ringtown – 12 Years and 102 days since the Infernal invasion of Earth

&nbsp;

“Sleepless night, honey?” Whiskey asked after she knocked on the door and opened it slightly.

Sam smelled the delicious coffee that was blasting her mind with deliverance from her drowsiness. It had been a restless sleep as she kept thinking about the tentacled enemy that drove her mad, as well as having to learn, or rather relearn, about mind-blowing ideas such as interspecies pregnancies and other magical consequences.

“Yeah. I must’ve had them a lot in the past, huh?” Sam asked as she threw the blankets out of the way and gratefully grabbed the coffee. “Mmmh, hazelnut. That’s good. Thanks.” Sam said with a smile.

“No problem. Breakfast will be ready soon, and we’ll go over some more of the ‘shit runs downhill’ videos. Which countries survived, which didn’t, what happened on Earth with elections and political streams evolving in response to the protests and revolts happening all around on Arenal and how it all fed into each other. Then that should be wrapped up and your lawyer will show up and she’ll talk to you more about the really weird stuff like interspecies pregnancies. That one is still stuck in your mind most likely.” Whiskey said with a wink.

“Yes, it very much is.” Sam said as she looked at Whiskey and appraised her some more. Not looking at her body really, but rather at what kind of person she was. She looked and seemed kind, and also caring and giving, but had a slight streak of feistiness in her much like Sam herself had. But more open to other emotions perhaps, more streaks of sadness even. Something Sam had seen when Whiskey perhaps thought that Sam wasn’t looking or observing her. “You must’ve had a lot of tough times dealing with me, huh?”

Whiskey seemed to nod absentmindedly and moved to open the curtains, revealing a grand 5 meter wide view of the city, the sun already a few hours above the horizon.

“How come you’re still sticking around, or won’t sleep next to me for that matter?” Sam asked, causing Whiskey to abruptly stop dead in her tracks. “I hope you’re not forcing

The funeral director was asking us what we think Mum should wear in her casket.

Mum always loved to wear sarongs (fabric wraps that go around the torso and drape downward a bit like a long skirt would), so my uncle suggested that she wear a sarong in there.

The funeral director looked a bit confused, as did some of our family members, to which my uncle added:

"What's sarong with that?"

I started laughing like an idiot. He was proud of it too. The funeral director was rather shocked. We assured her, and our more proper relatives, that Mum would've absolutely loved the joke (which is very true).

His delivery was perfect. I'll never forget the risk he took. We sometimes recall the moment as a way help cushion the blows of the grieving process.

--Edit-- I appreciate the condolences. I'm doing well and the worst is behind me and my family. But thanks :)

--Edit-- Massive thanks for all the awards and kind words. And the puns! Love 'em.

Capital of Ireland

It's Dublin everyday

Originally meant for /r/geopolitics, but was removed because of the title. Edit: To clarify, I do not think neorealism is the only valid way to look at the world, I was just refuting some common misconceptions on /r/Geopolitics. No such hubris or simplicity was meant as I think that context has been lost here.

Disclaimer: I lean towards neorealism with a preference for Defensive realism and these biases might show in this text. Furthermore, this isn't an analysis, it is a (somewhat) structured rant about major gripes I have with certain things I increasingly see on this sub. I do not mean to imply an arrogance of authority on a subject, just pointing out the major gripes I have about statements that seem to constantly pop-up on here.

There are no good guys or bad guys, just states and great power politics.

Especially when talking from a perspective of realism this labelling of "good vs evil" is horribly simplistic if not downright blissful ignorance. Do not get me wrong here, I am not implying all states are equal in the treatment of their citizens or other metrics one might perceive as "good". I mean that from the point of view of international relations (IR) and diplomacy, all states will pursue their interest. A good point made by John Mearsheimer in an interview is how liberal states such as the US will simply paint their actions as a moral one to win the people's support when it is simply just a narrative.

(emphasis mine)

>Now, to unpack this a bit more. There are some cases where the dictates of realpolitik and the dictates of the idealism that is so attractive to most Americans line up perfectly. For example, in the fight against Nazi Germany and the fight against the Soviet Union, the logic of Realism pointed in the exactly the same direction as the logic of idealism, so it was not difficult for American elites to justify the war against both Nazi Germany and against the Soviet Union, in terms of idealist rhetoric. It was completely consistent with what we were doing. The tricky cases are when the United States has to form an alliance with a repressive regime, or go to war against a state that it thinks is quite progressive. **Then Realist logic points in one direction and idealist logic points in another direction. In those cases, what the United States does is it brings out the spin doctors, and they tell a story to the American people that makes it look like what the United State

http://m.imgur.com/ImM3RWz

True story; it even happened last night. My 5-year-old son walks up behind me and out of the blue says, "hey."

I turn to him and say, "yeah, kiddo? What's up?"

He responds, "it's dead grass."

I'm really confused and trying to figure out what's wrong and what he wants from me. "What? There's dead grass? What's wrong with that?"

.

.

.

He says, totally straight-faced, "hay is dead grass," and runs off.

You officially hit rock bottom

No it doesn't.

Now it’s syncing.

For ages now I've really wanted to be able to get into Paradox's style of historical strategy games. Put it down to my burgeoning history nerd status but I've always dug them and wanted to give them a go.

But in my brief ill-informed attempts thus far at playing either of them I just keep bouncing off and am never able to get anywhere. Which probably isn't helped by the fact I keep flipping back and forth between the two and can never really settle on just committing properly to one or the other.

Problem is I can't decide which would be better. I feel like Imperator might be a bit more understandable than EU4, but then I feel like Imperator is more focused solely on the warfare aspect whereas in EU4 diplomacy can play more of a role in how you play. But EU4 just seems way more impenetrable in its UI and how it manages everything. But I do prefer the historical period of EU4 more than Imperator, given I have more interest in European history in the Renaissance/Age of Discovery than I do in ancient classical history.

Another factor at play is that since Imperator is newer there's less additional content. Like I'm in on basically the ground floor of Imperator and I have it completely up-to-date content-wise whereas EU4 I'm playing the very base game, because I didn't want to invest in the endless list of expansion content packs if I wasn't sure I'd be able to get into it properly.

So I'm officially at an impasse and figured I'd do what I always do when I'm baffled and incapable of making a basic decision for myself: Ask random strangers on the internet.

So which of the two would you recommend I should try and stick with the most here?

Because he wanted space

Edit: Thank you for the awards.

I will find you. You have my Word.

...sails are going through the roof.

First | Previous

Jesse sat on a stone bench, staring down at the green grass that grew up to tickle the flagstones. The river rushed beside him, slower than it had before but stronger every day as it carried its bounty of life-giving water over the cliff and down into the plains of Tinem Sjocel that stretched out below them. A faint note of satisfaction rang forth from Jes, bringing a smile to his face.

He sat for a while to look out over the vista with her, so absorbed that he almost failed to notice when he was joined on the bench. He managed to restrain himself from jumping, but only just.

“Saneji,” he said, looking at the smiling eyes of Gusje’s mother. “I haven’t seen you in a few days. How’s Mevi doing?”

She sighed, shaking her head. “Busy as ever,” she complained. “Food to sort, supplies to distribute. He carries the duties of Madi well enough, but he would carry them better if he was not trying to be Tesvaji besides.”

“Tesvaji is a hard man to follow,” Jesse said. “Between him and Gusje…”

“Pah,” Saneji said, waving a hand dismissively. “He is just young, that son of mine. Once he grows older it will fade, as he grows into the life left behind.”

“Older than I am,” Jesse remarked wryly.

Saneji gave him a smile and patted him on the leg. “You will grow older as well,” she said, tapping the asolan around his neck. “You and all your friends, although I cannot say what you will grow to be.” She squinted at him. “Not taller, I hope. You are tall enough already.”

“I think we’re safe there,” Jesse said. A faint noise echoed from above, and he looked up to see the oblong shape of a Setelym airship emerging from the cloud layer. It flew past the ruins of the Sanctum, hovering for a moment over the scaffolding that wrapped the large hole burnt into the side, then dropped to lower itself gently to the floor of the valley that lay below.

Jesse stood up. “I didn’t think they’d be back this soon,” he muttered.

Saneji chuffed out a laugh, then set off along the path back towards the burgeoning village in the crook of the valley. “Come, young Jesse,” she called back. “You and I both have business with the Setelym today.”

Jesse’s brows knit together, but he followed her along the broad, grassy trail that led towards the village and the

Beginning | Previous

An overwhelming sense of revulsion welled up within Kai as the story of the Amalgans unfurled in his consciousness. Neeria had not kept the information from him before, she had simply not seen any purpose to disclosing it. Until the moment the interlopers had appeared, they had been irrelevant. Now that they were relevant, they were introduced. It was a simple matter of funneling only that information that was useful to the subject at hand rather than overwhelming Kai with the full extent of Neeria's knowledge. To Kai, the justification rang hollow and the truth, now exposed, left him feeling violated, a reaction that Neeria was both confused and alarmed by. Kai did not want to share a mind with a creature capable of doing what Neeria had done. Did not want any relationship with any species that would so casually kill so many.

He had managed to hide his feelings from Joan, largely by allowing Neeria to steer the conversation until it had reached its conclusion, but now Kai demanded answers. He needed a way to reconcile what he had thought Neeria was with this new information.

But her answers were unsatisfying.

"Why would you do this?" Kai subvocalized, he had no desire for this conversation to be monitored by anyone who might be surveilling him. He needed to try to wrap his mind around the fact that Neeria, and her species, had killed thousands of others and figure out what that meant for him. Much of the faith he had in Neeria had evaporated along with his conviction that seeking out the Cerebella was an imperative.

"It was necessary," Neeria had replied. "No species is more valuable than the preservation of organic life."

"And what made you fit to pass judgment on them? How could you even know they would be a threat?" Kai said.

"Species that demonstrate certain traits, predilections and cultural norms have a statistical likelihood of introducing volatility into the Combine sufficient to undermine the stasis required to stall the incursion of the Expanse." Neeria pushed data into Kai's consciousness, displaying models of behavior, consequential deviation thresholds, historic precedents and any number of other rationalizations used to justify preemptive genocide.

Kai blanched. Somehow, reducing the motivation to col

Chapter 8

Why did you come here? To question, or to accuse?

Sensation crept back to her in bits and pieces, nerves straining in protest all the while, weeping for respite from their already overloaded and exhausted networks. It took far too long to blink, to even begin to hear anything beyond the maddening throb of her own blood and the ragged sob of her lungs, and even then it was an affront to both her vision and her very psyche.

She found herself suspended upside down from a girder by chain that wrapped all the way down her legs and pinning her arms to her torso – her wings were stretched out and shackled to the adjoining crossbeam with similar lengths of chain, each corrugated link of all three chains grotesquely sheathed in fresh length of intestine, a straitjacket of metal-sausages. Worse still, as the makeshift altar roughly hewn from odd trash and pulsating rot came into focus, she was certain it was Malister's viscera restraining her. Her power armour had been stripped off and tossed into the piles of other junk; her bodysuit had likewise been torn off and lay in a pile under her head, leaving Malister's intestines and the frigid metal of the chains as her only covering.

The Sanguinary Priest had been vivisected and left splayed out on the altar, the sickly glowing Warp bomb loving planted in his chest cavity seeming to blossom and spread like a tree, entwining roots of pale fire with his every bodily system and shading the burgeoning rot bubbling up and around the altar with great boughs of pestilence. The place smelled of rotten fruit; it stank of an abattoir in mid-summer heat, and reeked of overturned seaweed mouldering in the midday sun. Sabina felt her throat tightening and a now all-too familiar tingle running the length of her spine as her omophagea awakened to the scent of blood in the air. She licked her split lip, tasting the copper tones of her own vitality, but it only seemed to encourage her salivary glands to open further.

“Well?”

She turned as little as she was able, her sore eyes finding the blurred form of the noise marine that had taken her captive. He had stripped nude, twisted pink armour laying in pieces about the room, some even making up the plague altar along with his blastmaster. Targanon sat atop Virgil's ruptured amniotic pod, dragged out from the dreadnought's wreckage wholesale and filled with the progenoid glands of the slain Blood Angels. He dipped his toes in the steamy slurry like a man idling his feet i

Mods said I'm a cereal reposter...

“You’re a cripple and a fucking freak, so you should know desperation when you see it.”

I breathed in slowly, visualizing the personal attack, quantifying it, analyzing it, and deconstructing it, piece by piece, until it stopped hurting me.

“I died once, you know.”

I closed my eyes, but showed no further sign of exasperation. The bottle of eighteen-year-old Macallan sat just inside my desk drawer, inches away but far beyond reach.

Fucking Tuesdays.

“You feel that you died, Mr. Jundin. Tell me about that.” See, I was good about pretending to care. That’s exactly why I was so damn good at this job. Unfortunately, the caffeine buzz was wearing off, the vicodin hadn’t kicked in, and HIPAA guidelines force me to be very discreet when stealing sips of my drawer whisky.

It’s so fucking hypocritical for people to expect me to produce empathy without the chemical additives that make the human experience bearable.

“I don’t feel like I died, I did die. I just came back.” He sighed, rubbed his eyes, and stared at the floor. If it weren’t for his receding hairline, his burgeoning gut, a complete lack of style, off-white teeth, unkempt stubble, stained shirt, sloppy posture, more than a touch of misogyny, body odor that hinted at a lack of self-care, corresponding halitosis, and general pathetic nature, Mr. Jundin would be kind of cute. “Please, ‘Mark’ is fine – Dr. Barkara.”

“Okay,” I responded with a convincing smile.

He waited for me to offer a first-name relationship.

After five awkward seconds, he kept talking.

“They said you wouldn’t believe me.”

“About the dying?” I asked.

“Yes, about the dying.” He sighed. A tiny roll of fat slid over his belt.

I didn’t like judging my patients. Except for the pathetic ones.

“They told me that you were too cynical, and that it’s easy for you to listen because you’re smart enough not to have any hope in our species,” he droned.

My nostrils flared. I hated being figured out, and I was good at lying my way away from it.

“Why do you want to talk about me, Mark?” I asked with icy calm. Seriously, the Macallan was right next to my hand.

He grunted. “You really don’t think people talk about your arm when you’re not looking?”

I showed no outward reaction. “People talk about my arm when I am looking, Mark,” I explained flatly.

I did not move the prosthetic from view.

“You see the brokenness in others because you can’t escape it in yourself. You’re good at it, which makes you successful enough to af

Because 10+10 is twenty and 11+11 is twenty too..

Edit: thank you for awards, I have never gotten one before. I apologize that this is a repost, I did see it on TikTok and thought that it was cute and wanted to share. In the future I will check the sub for similar content before I post anything.

I would have a daughter

DeFi Uncovered, by Luke Posey of Glassnode.

Due to the popularity of my last post, focused almost entirely on Bitcoin's on-chain metrics, I figured I'd link to some more goodies coming out from Glassnode, and try to explain them to the best of my ability. If there is anything you'd like to see me discuss, or changes in the format you think would improve the quality of the discussion, please let me know. You can find the previous discussion on my profile page. Thanks everyone, and happy learnin'!

Today, I wanted to dive into some DeFi metrics, all painting very bullish possibilities. Of course, this market is frothy, and price wise seems overheated, yet the details paint a different picture.

1. DeFi is exploding. Users are being on-ramped at an alarming rate. DeFi wallets have expanded almost 20 fold since EoY 2019. Estimates at that time are around 100k DeFi wallets active, while we are closer to 2.1 million wallets active now, with over $1 billion in liquidity on over 25 protocols. Not only is this a bullish trend, but there is still LOTS of room to grow.

   One way we can find this "room for growth" is by comparing the active Ethereum wallets to the number using DeFi. You may not expect this, but the number at the moment is paltry! Take a look!

Ethereum Addresses vs DeFi Addresses - Credit to Glassnode

2. Another metric I find very interesting is TVL, or Total Value Locked. Now, this is funds locked in smart contracts doing, typically, one of two things. On lending platforms, these funds are collateral, and on DEXs or CEXs, these funds are providing liquidity. This metric can be misleading, so it is not the end-all-be-all of litmus tests for growth in the space. They describe that one would have to analyze the TVL from protocol to protocol to determine how much utilization each has of said value locked, considering the protocols all differ so greatly.

TVL for DeFi - Credit to Glassnode.

3. I have two more charts for ya, while the article has many more to comb through. I don't want to talk about specific coins, so I am going to cover the expansion in DEXs. Decentralized Exchanges, or DEXs, have seen the bulk o

But Bill kept the Windows

K9P

And then you will all be sorry.

He replied, "Well, stop going to those places then!"

She said how do you know he was headed to work?

“thank you for your cervix.”