So I have experienced acne for my first time. I’m in my mid twenties with terrible and painful hormonal acne from the side of my mouth to my chin. It is improving from being very committed to healing it but I have a lot of redness and some scarring. I have a mini of the Topicals Faded serum coming and the Caudalie Vinoperfect Brightening Glycolic Essence en route. I also love the Dr. Jart Cicapair masks I got at TJ Maxx. But now these patches are catching my eye! All the reviews were incentivized/gifted. I also ❤️ drug store products if there’s a comparable patch. I thought these sounded unique and wanted to know if any of you have tried them!

Hello!I've been using Wella Soft Color in Blue Black for years. I only dye my hair like 4 times a year (February, June, October and December) and since the dye is semi-permanent, I just let it wash out to my natural brunette/chestnut hair until is time for me to dye again. I keep my hair below shoulder length, sometimes like 4 inches below shoulders, sometimes I let it grow mid back until the bra line, but right now is 4 inches below shoulders.I come from a long line of women with salt/pepper hair, so in recent years, I started getting grey hairs, and I notice I get awesome blue highlights on them when I use the dye, but once the dye starts fading, the grey hairs that were bluish start fading into what ends up looking like a blonde highlight, and obviously the new growth comes silver, so when I have like 2-3 inches roots of new growth I'll have chestnut/grey in my roots but the rest is chestnut/gold. I also notice my hair from mid shaft to ends tends to catch a tiny bit of reddish hue, I'm assuming because of the dye itself fading.
Since Soft Color fades gradually, my roots and ends don't have a shocking contrast, and I usually style my hair with wavy layers; and my grey hairs aren't coarse, so people usually tell me they look like highlights, but I was wondering if using a purple or blue shampoo in between dyes would help me keep the "gold" at bay. I don't want to cover the greys, I just want them to not be yellow until the time comes for them to be gloriously blue again for a few weeks, and then let them be grey.
I'm currently "on break" after coloring in the first week of February, and I'll be putting on dye again the last week of June for my birthday. The reason under the "4 times a year" is because I prefer giving my hair a rest, and only dye it on those specific dates because of specific social gatherings where I want my hair to look fresh and blue :)
Right now I'm using a OUAI detox shampoo + mask once a week (I know that fades my dye faster, but I get super hard water where I live and that shampoo really helps with it and my hair is healthier than ever), Christophe Robin detox scrub +mask also once a week and a regular shampoo+ conditioner once a week, so I was thinking about subbing the regular one for purple/blue one if necessary. I also read about "toning", but I'm not clear if that would work on natural grey hair.
Thanks in advance, an throw in any advice you see fit!
TL,DR: My grey hairs turn a lovely blue when I use my usual semi-permanent dye, but as it fades they become blonde while my new growth is also silver. Not a fan of the blonde "highlights" even though everybody compliments me on those, will purple or blue shampoo help? 😅

Hey guys. I’m glad a community for this exists. My experience has been so traumatizing that I'm becoming abstinent. I will climax only once every 3 months or greater. I have experienced these symptoms both alone and with a partner I was dating. I have found that these symptoms are eased if I eat lots of protein and exercise heavily throughout the entire duration. For those who may be going through the same experience, I’d like to share some more information to see if there’s any overlaps.
Me:
I’m male, ~26 years old, 160lbs, diagnosed ADD/ADHD, diagnosed mild OCD, and have struggled with depression. I have noticed the POIS-like symptoms since I was 15, though could have unknowingly been experiencing them from an earlier age.
My Timeline of POIS-like symptoms:
Day of event/climax

• For the first few years, I would experience nothing out of the ordinary.
• Today, I get anxious knowing what inevitably lies in the days ahead.

Day 1 afterward

• Alertness severely impacted
• Dexterity severely impacted
• Confidence begins to drain
• Motivation drains
• Overthinking mixed with brain fog, and cold-like symptoms appear

Day 2 afterward

• All symptoms of day 1, plus a few extra fun things.
  • Extreme emotional reactions. Crying is expected.
  • Highly sensitive to pain and cold temperatures.
  • Extreme overthinking. I will want second opinions about everything I do.
  • I begin to criticize myself heavily. I will attempt to change my wardrobe, do a full clean shave, get a haircut, and look up motivational videos for weight loss.
  • Extreme focus. I have never been much of a reader, however during Day 2 I can read at least 100-200 pages of a novel uninterrupted. I tend to go down internet rabbit-holes for hours on end.
  • Very impulsive. Zero patience.
  • Monotony. No matter where I am or who I’m with, I carry this very emotionless look. I can’t help it. Even though I’m on-edge and internally very insecure about what’s happening, my face stays stone cold, and even my tone stays neutral. I think very critically during this time but I hate it.
  • I feel like on this day, I’m prone to things going horribly because I’m simply not on my game. The only times I’ve ever come close to accidentally crashing my car were on this day.
  • I do NOT plan any social activities whatsoever on this day. I will say something or do something socially unacceptable and will make a fool of myself. Or, I am simply unreliable; my impatience makes things worse.

Day 3 afterward

• Symptoms begin to subside.
• By mid-day, I’m practically cured.
  • Confidence rapidly comes back
  • Dexterity rapidly comes back
  • Able to talk with friends as though I didn’t just endure a 72-hour hell

The cycle is notably worse if I climax more than once in a day. The cycle restarts from Day 1 if I climax again during any point in the cycle.
I feel it necessary to make this point clear: I structure my entire life around my observed three-day cycle. It is an unending hell, and I am open to any neuroscience researcher using me or my experience as a case study. Thanks for reading.

(BTW, the following is just an example of how the isekai genre can begin, not necessarily how your character would enter the world. :) Just to set the mood!)
Your character rubs their eyes. It's been a tough week. They're tired, mentally and physically, after everything that went on. They couldn't sleep well on top of everything else. Their head is pulsing in annoyingly consistent waves of pain. They just want to get home.
They pause and rub their eyes for a moment, as they approach a corner on the sidewalk. They remove their hand from their face just in time to be met with a pair of truck headlights staring right back at them. There is a loud screech that shakes their entire body as the world seems to fade in an instant. Everything goes black...
In the darkness, they hear voices, see visions. It's so strange. This isn't what they thought death would feel like. It's like a dream, but everything feels so much more real and connected. Clearer than ever, and yet confusing and muddled at the same time.
Then they open their eyes.
It's blurry at first, but they can make out wooden rafters above their head. A thick, musty smell they don't really recognize. Strange. Their vision is so much sharper than it had ever been in their life. They lift their hand towards their face to rub their eyes...Wait. Is their skin...green?
Oh boy.
Hello!
I've been setting up a world for some time now and would like some players to test it out and force me to expand on it, hopefully, for a full, world-exploration campaign with an overarching plot seeking to find them all.
The idea would be that the characters are all from normal-ish earth, where they perished in one way or another, but rather than fade away fully into blackness and beyond -- they awaken into a strange new world in new bodies. For those who know anime-adjacent terminology, an isekai. (I should note, while I do enjoy some anime, this will be a lot more classic D&D type world than really anything anime-themed. I just feel the term encapsulates the idea succinctly.)
This game is meant to be what the players make of it. A sandbox of sorts, but with the plot slowly trying to find the bodies the players will be in. The world will be a medieval fantasy world, sort of similar to Faerun, in the amount of magic and technology available.
The bodies they will have in the new world will be made with D&D 5e rules, classes, and races. The bodies will not have any connection to the world they enter into -- they will have been made from seemingly nothing, but the races you choose will have roleplay consequences for your characters (though nothing that would be in RPGHorrorStories. Nothing like being discriminated against in literally every location.) The world is quite big and every region will essentially be different from the next. Nothing is homogenous.
That said, there will be in-game fantasy racism and other very unlikable things in certain regions, and none of that in other regions. But the goal is to find players whose powergame fantasy is where they face and try and change those things about the world and get to punch bigots in the face, and not to avoid those topics altogether. (Which, if that is your gaming goal, absolutely nothing wrong with that! That's just not what this campaign or world are set up for.)
As such, this will be a much more good-aligned, heroic-intended campaign. Neutral-ish characters you hope to have character development for will be considered as well, but no one who is going to try to get around it under the guise of "that's what my character would do". If they would, you and your character aren't welcome in this campaign, and I'm sure there's some great evil campaigns out there that'll suit you perfectly. But I don't want to run them.
There will be adult themes in this roleplay, so all players and characters must be adults. Chances for PC romance will be discussed with players and as a table to decide if it's a maybe/no. There will also be no unnecessary details, regardless -- should anything get that far, it will fade to black, period.
There will be a lot of homebrew spells, items, feats, races, and other things in the game. Despite this, I like to play close to RAW for rules and abilities for PCs. I will generally go outside of RAW in favor of the players and their creativity, usually offering check to do things they normally wouldn't be able to do with the RAW wording of their spells or abilities. I want my players to feel their characters get to be heroic/cool but also struggle with limitations.
I am aiming for a group of people who enjoy roleplay, exploration, puzzles, mysteries, NPC drama (or their own?) and some combat. I would say the goal is for a game to be 40-40-20 for roleplay-exploration-combat/circumventing combat.
Avrae Bot will be available for general rolls, but not for combat, due to the amount of homebrew things that will be available and used, and because I find the system not great for Reactions. Combat will be run much closer to how an in-person game would go.
I am hoping for players who will want to post 1-2 times a day and like to keep the game moving on their own or take time to roleplay with one another. I will try and be as responsive as possible, but you should feel comfortable rolling Perception, History, Religion, Arcana, or any other mental-based checks without having to ask me for permission beforehand (and you'll be able to do so in private channels with me if you don't want others to know your character's line of thought yet). Outside of an emergency, I'll be posting a minimum of once a day, and try to inform of emergencies quickly. The more people post and ask, the more I'll likely reply.
I'm also looking for players who are quite comfortable with the rules and how the mechanics work. Due to the amount of homebrew, extra abilities, and modifications the game will have, DnDBeyond will not really be a perfect option, and building a character sheet from scratch/with Gsheets will be better. If you struggle to understand where modifiers come from, this game may be a bad match for you.
As I'm building this world out, I may sometimes need a day or two, or even a week, to prepare a new section for everyone in the game, if the players really take to it. I will make sure to say out of character that I am pausing the game to do this (at least on my end; players won't be stopped from doing general roleplay with one another), and will continue the game on X day, rather than keeping everyone wondering. I will be keeping a Google Site for this game, where I will build and reveal sections as people explore, learn lore, and speak to NPCs, etc, and I will be drawing world maps, regional maps, and combat maps for it all, which can sometimes take time.
If you're still interested at all, please feel free to apply! Please note, this application is LONG and I will be asking for you to have a character concept in mind during it! Both for your body and your "soul". I will also have more info about me and my intent for the game in the application! I am really looking for people excited by the idea or exploring a new world and who hope for a long term campaign, so people who don't like reading about all this and getting on the same page probably shouldn't bother applying, as it's probably not your cup of tea.
As such, this application will remain open for at least three full days, to give people a day or two to think a bit first. You will want to at least open and read through it to think a bit if it's worth the trouble -- a lot of information will be in the application!
https://forms.gle/AsWaNymmRiBsGdLy5
I don't expect very many applicants, as this probably isn't everyone's cup of tea, but for those of you it is, I hope to set up a long-term, interactive, fun game!
If you still have questions after reading the application, please feel free to PM me on reddit!
Start date: 5/29/2023
Applications closing: 5/31/2023
Those chosen will be contacted: 06/01/2023-06/02/2023
If not enough players are found, these dates are subject to change until enough are lol

I bleached and colored my hair 2 months ago with blue, violet, and pink. To this day, my hair color faded to a level 8 blonde and my roots are now black.
Now, I'm planning to dye my hair with pink (roots to middle) and green (on the ends). My problem is that I don't know how to apply those colors on a faded blue-violet hair (mid to ends).
My questions are:

• Should I bleach my whole hair again? Or should I bleach the roots only?
• I'm scared that the pink and green colors would mix with my old hair color. Should I apply any product to remove the colors first before applying? Or apply it directly without putting any products before pink?

After several years, the Eastern Europe Rework is complete, as the release of the Ukraine rework signals the end of an era for Kaiserreich. We learned a lot from the development process, with the Eastern Europe Rework being released incrementally, unlike the single large update that gave much of the China rework. With each successive release, we try our best to reach new heights with the mod, and to build on the work that was done beforehand, and both of these aims particularly apply to the Eastern Europe Rework. Our efforts remain ongoing on the reworks of all European majors, and the team members who worked on Ukraine have already moved on to work on Russia, Spain and Austria-Hungary. But for now, we are pleased to bring you our latest release, and we hope you enjoy it!

• The KR4 team

Changes
Notable Additions

• Updated the format of the Country Selection screen.
• Added new introduction screens for several countries, including the majors and notable minors.
• Removed the cap on the war support debuffs that is present in vanilla HOI4, applied by casualties, bombing and lost convoys, and decreased the rate of the war support decay.
• Countries now will lose 20% war support if at war, regardless of it being a defensive or offensive war.
• Reduced the Chinese “Unequal Treaties” resource export malus to 60%.

Reworked/Expanded Focus Trees

• Ukraine

Tweaked Focus Trees

• Lebanon - overhauled political and military trees
• Ottoman Empire - added four new national foci for NatPops

New Events

• Added new alerts informing the player of impending declarations of war.
• Added events alerting the player when the AI has given them land in annexation events.
• Added annexation events for the Northern Caucasus, Corsica, the Kuban, Nice, Savoy and Syrmia.

New Decisions

• Added a new “Ostpolitik” decision category for Germany, detailing their relations with their eastern allies.

New Custom Country Paths

• Cuba (expanded current options)
• Ukraine
• West Indies Federation (expanded current options)

GFX

• New portraits
  • American Union State: Robert Melville Danford
  • Australasia: Henry Douglas Wynter
  • Bharatiya Commune: Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Sarojini Naidu, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
  • Union of Britain: George Nathan
  • Bulgaria: Manol Vasev
  • Cambodia: Son Ngoc Thanh
  • Chile: Oscar Escudero Otárola
  • Cuba: Juan Blas Hernández
  • Combined Syndicates of America: Edward Allen Carter Jr., William Edward Foster, Daniel Webster Hoan, Campbell Carrington Johnson, James Kelly Parsons, Hyman Godalia Rickover, David Monroe Shoup
  • Commune of France: Henri Adeline, Florimond Bonte, Jean-Édouard Verneau
  • El Salvador: Salvador Castañeda Castro, Maximiliano Hernández Martínez
  • French Republic: Paul Reynaud
  • Germany: Wilhelm II, Wilhelm III (civilian & military)
  • Greece: Georgios Papandreou
  • Illyria: Stjepan Radić
  • Latvia: Constitutional Assembly
  • Lebanon: Anthony Peter Arida
  • Kurdistan: Bakr Sidqi
  • Malaya: Zhuang Mingli
  • Mountain Republic: Ali Mitayev
  • Ottoman Empire: Abdülmecid II
  • Papua New Guinea: Sumsuma
  • Paraguay: Higinio Morínigo Martínez
  • Russia: Pavel Milyukov
  • Serbia: Petar Zivkovic
  • Shandong: Wu Huawen, Lu Jin
  • Siam: Phraya Phaholponpayuhasena, Rama IX, Paribatra Sukhumbhand, Sarit Thanarat
  • Slovenia: Leon Rupnik
  • Kingdom of Spain: Emilio Mola Vidal
  • Taiwan: Lin Xiantang, Lin Xiongzheng, Xie Xuehong
  • Tripolitania: Ahmad Faqih Hasan
  • Ukraine: Marko Bezruchko, Roman Dashkeyvch, Petro Diachenko, Opanas Fedenko, Oleksii Federov, Vasyl Fylonovych, Nykyfir Hryhoriiv, Yevhen Konovalets, Isaak Mazepa, Mykhailo Omelianovych-Pavlenko, Vsevolod Petriv, Kostiantyn Prisovskyi, Sviatoslav Shramchenko, Oleksandr Shulhyn, Oleksandr Shumskyi, Leonid Stupnytskyi, Mykola Stsiborskyi, Yurii Svirskyi, Yurii Tiutiunnyk, Oleksandr Udovychenko, Omelian Volokh, Vasyl Vyshyvanyi, Oleksandr Zahrodskyi
• Tweaked portraits
  • Argentina: Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, Isaac Francisco Rojas
  • Bohemia: Viktor Hoppe
  • Commune of France: Aubert Frère
  • Galicia & Lodomeria: Hnat Stefaniv, Dmytro Vitovskyi
  • Liangguang: Li Zongren (changed uniform)
• New advisor portraits
  • Germany: Reichskolonialamt
  • Lebanon: Khayreddine al-Ahdab, Rashid Baydoun, Michel Chiha, Philibert Collet, Jacob of Ghazir, Selim el Khoury, Rose Shahfa
  • Princely Federation: Council of Princes
  • Russia: Aleksandr Novikov, Mikhail Yangel
  • Somalia: Assembly of Clans
  • Syria: Army Air Command / Army Naval Arm
  • Taiwan: Chen Fengyuan, Lan Gaochuan, Jian Ji, Cai Peihuo, Riad el-Solh, Jiang Weishui, Liao Wenkui, Liao Wenyi, Lin Xiantang, Lin Xiongzheng, Xie Xuehong
  • Ukraine: Asan Sabri Aivazov, Rostyslav Bereziuk-Voloshyn, Petro Bolbochan, Mykola Boretskyi, Mykhailo Bilynskyi, Volodymyr Chekhivskyi, Ivan Cherniakhovskyi, Dmytro Dontsov, Dmytro Doroshenko, Oleksandr Dovzhenko, Solomon Goldelman, Oleksandr Hadd, Borys Homzyn, Oleksandr Hrekiv, Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Hryhorii Hrynko, Borys Huber, Andrii Hulyi-Hulenko, Dzhambulat Kanukov, Pavlo Khrystiuk, Andrii Khvylia, Mykola Khvyliovyi, Ihor Kistiakovskyi, Volodymyr Kedrovskyi, Mykola Kochubei, Vasyl Kochubei, Serhii Koroliov, Volodymyr Korostovets, Mykola Kovalevskyi, Levko Kovaliv, Oleksii Kozlovskyi, Ahatanhel Krymskyi, Andrii Livytskyi, Yurii Lypa, Ivan Lytvynenko, Mykola Maksymov, Arnold Margolin, Borys Martos, Andrii Melnyk, Mykola Mikhnovskyi, Zinaida Mirna, Yakiv Moraleyvch, Kyrylo Moskalenko, Vasyl Murashko, Andrii Nikovskyi, Oleh Olzhych & Olena Teliha, Kyrylo Osmak, Serhii Ostrovidov, Yurii Otmarshtain, Viktor Pavlenko, Anatolii Pisotskyi, Andrii Pokrovskyi, Mykhailo Poloz, Viacheslav Prokopovych, Serhii Rudenko, Volodymyr Salskyi, Volodymyr Savchenko-Bilskyi, Fedosii Shchus, Pavlo Shandruk, Oleksandr Shapoval, Serhii Shemet, Oleksandr Skoropys-Yoltukhovskyi, Zakhar Sliusarenko, Olena Stepaniv, Fedir & Mykhailo Tereshchenko, Vasyl Tiutiunnyk, Stepan Tymoshenko, Metropolitan Vasyl, Mykhailo Volobuiev, Serhii Yefremov, Maik Yokhansen, Vsevolod Zmiienko
  • United Baltic Duchy: Baltische Landeswehrkommission
• Added some new generic American, British and German general portraits.
• Added a generic “Council of Advisors” advisor portrait.
• Added new national spirit icons for Chinese splinters, Ethiopia and Ukraine.
• Updated the Irish national focus icons for their army, navy and air force.
• Updated several Indian national focus icons.
• Added new national focus icons for Ukraine.
• Added new flags for the Bharatiya Commune, RadSoc Centroamerica, Hindustan, Madagascar, socialist Ukraine, Taiwan, Transamur and native-led Zimbabwe.
• Tweaked the flag for the West Indies Federation.
• Updated the flag render of Kolchak-led Transamur
• Fixed NatPop Egypt using the wrong flag.
• Updated the icons for the Artillery traits for commanders.
• Moved and resized the paper clip icon used in all event pictures.
• Added and tweaked the icons, names and models for the tanks and planes used by multiple countries across the mod.
• Added some custom infantry weapon icons for Austro-Hungarian constituents and White Ruthenia.
• Fixed a Mongolian leader being used as a generic leader portrait.
• Removed the Blackshirt insignia from a vanilla division icon.
• Updated Ireland’s event pictures.
• Updated the resolution and colouring on an old loading screen.

Music Mod

• Reconfigured the Music user interface and reformatted the track titles to ensure they fit into the interface properly.
• Added “Mars Genderang Kemenangan (March to the Sound of Victory)” for Insulindia.
• Removed “Rayuan Pulau Kelapa (Love of the Coconut Island)” for Insulindia.
• Added “Two Brothers Were Going There” for Russia.
• Added “Black Clouds Cover Over the Ruins”, "Cossacks Were Riding", “Ked my pryishla karta (This is the Map)”, "Long Live, Free Ukraine", "Oh, Grow You Dry Oak“, “Oh, On the Mountain the Reapers are Harvesting”, “Oi, vydno selo (Oh, You Can See the Village)”, "There's a Willow in the Field" for Ukraine.
• Fixed music not playing correctly for Azerbaijan, Madagascar, Mali and Zanzibar.
• Fixed “Protect the Yellow River” playing for non-Chinese countries.
• Fixed several tracks from vanilla HOI4 not playing, tweaked when some tracks from vanilla are likely to play, and renamed several vanilla tracks to more Kaiserreich-appropriate titles.

Mapping

• Added more naval bases to the Bharatiya Commune and Princely Federation.
• Added Bastogne as a victory point.
• Fixed the French city of Verdun being too close to the German border.
• Adjusted the shapes of Dalmatia and Syrmia.
• Tweaked Morocco’s provinces.
• Fixed an invalid Moroccan railway.
• Added Terneuzen as a victory point.
• Increased the Infrastructure level in India.
• Updated the eastern Ottoman railway around Kars.
• Re-added the Sea of Marmara as a strategic region, to fix issues with AI pathfinding in the Aegean due to the blocked straits.
• Fixed Iquitos’ location to Peru from Ecuador.
• Improved supply situation in and around Transamur.
• Increased the supply availability between Crimea and Kherson.
• Removed the strait between Courland and Saaremaa.

Other Changes

• North America
  • Rebalanced American war support and stability.
  • Reduced the amount of military factories given by the factory conversion decisions, to avoid hobbling the AI.
  • Increased the priority given by American civil war participants to building military factories during the Second American Civil War.
  • Revised the combat AI for the participants of the Second American Civil War.
  • Replaced the American Union State general Jacob Devers with Robert Danford.
  • Buffed Canada’s starting army and war support.
  • Canada’s NatPops no longer make John Diefenbaker their leader, as Henry Herbert Stevens stays in the position.
  • Adjusted several Canadian and Combined Syndicate character names to include the nicknames they are most commonly known as.
  • Renamed William Zebulon Foster to William Edward Foster, as he was never actually named Zebulon.
  • Nerfed the Combined Syndicates of America commanders Robert Sharon Allen, Smedley Darlington Butler, Evans Fordyce Carlson, Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr, Herbert Charles Heitke, Campbell Carrington Johnson, Robert Hale Merriman, Maurice Rose and David Monroe Shoup, each by one skill level.
  • Nerfed the military advisor traits of the Combined Syndicates of America’s Smedley Darlington Butler, Evans Fordyce Carlson, Bessie Coleman, William Rea Furlong, Eddie August Henry Schneider and David Monroe Shoup.
  • Added Jacob Loucks Devers, from the American Union State, and Campbell Carrington Johnson, as generals for the Combined Syndicates of America.
  • Removed George H. Cannon as a general for the Combined Syndicates of America.
  • Added a Chief of Army role to the Combined Syndicates of America’s commander James Kelly Parsons.
  • Removed Robert Sharon Allen’s Chief of Army role for the Combined Syndicates of America.
  • Added the Armour Officer trait to Robert Sharon Allen, the Organiser trait to Robert Hale Merriman, the Cavalry Officer trait to Benjamin Oliver Davis Sr and the Chief Engineer trait to Hyman Godolia Rickover.
  • Removed the Reckless trait from the Combined Syndicates of America’s Maurice Rose.
  • The Combined Syndicates of America’s naval advisors are now available from either of the “American People's Navy” or “New Naval Plan” national foci, instead of just the former.
  • Nerfed the initial “Red Guards” national spirit for the Combined Syndicates of America.
  • Improved the effect of the Combined Syndicates of America’s “Roll Out The AO-2” and “The Red Dragon” national foci.
  • Increased the duration of the “New European Military Schools” national focus for the Combined Syndicates of America.
  • Revised the AI’s logic in supporting or abandoning Hawaii.
  • Hawaii’s faction-joining decisions are now quicker.
  • The American Union State now leaves any factions if couped by Pelley, and a player-led leader of the Entente can choose to attack him in return.
  • The United States now starts with medium tank designs.
  • Player-controlled United States can now decide whether or not the assassination attempt on Huey Long or Jack Reed is successful.
  • Removed “Canberra” from the America ship name lists, due to its presence being an OTL reference.
• Central America & the Caribbean
  • Added a unique flag for Augusto César Sandino’s Centroamerica.
  • Removed “Fulgencio Batista” from Cuba’s ship name lists.
  • Added party descriptions to Cuba.
  • The Dominican Republic’s Trujillo now loses his advisor roles after being fired.
• South America
  • Demoted Argentina’s Pedro Eugenio Aramburu from Field Marshal to General.
  • Tweaked the map colour of NatPop Brazil.
  • Brazilian puppet Patagonia (the Kingdom of Araucania) now starts with a core on Neuquén.
  • Releasing Brazil now retains Acre and the borderlands for separate decisions.
  • Added a Head of Army role to Brazilian Field Marshal Eurico Gaspar Dutra.
  • Nerfed the Head of Army trait belonged to Brazil’s Euclides de Oliveira Figueiredo.
  • Removed the option to create a puppet Ecuador on the Galapagos Islands, as it resulted in Ecuador getting too many volunteers in subsequent wars.
  • Updated and standardised the names of many Paraguayan characters.
• Western & Southern Europe
  • Added Breton endonyms.
  • Replaced the Union of Britain’s George Sutherland Aitken with George Nathan.
  • Decreased the skill level of the Union of Britain’s Thomas Jacob Hutton.
  • Added Henri Adeline, Florimond Bonte, Georges Revers and Jean-Édouard Verneau as generals to the Commune of France.
  • Added Henri Adeline as a military advisor to the Commune of France.
  • The Commune of France’s Maurice Gamelin is improved to a level 3 field marshal, with a different Chief of Army trait, but now has the Old Guard trait.
  • The Commune of France’s Clement Blanc now has the Artillery Officer trait, Charles Delestraint now has the Armour Officer trait, Diego Brosset has swapped Infantry Officer for Engineer, and Raoul Magrin Vernerey has swapped Adaptable and Infantry Officer for Commando and Harsh Leader.
  • The Commune of France’s Marie-Pierre Koenig now has a Chief of Army role.
  • Increased the army experience reward given to the Commune of France’s “Communal Army” and “Grand Army Reform” national spirits.
  • Countries can no longer choose not to attend the Internationale Congresses.
  • Moved the general Aubert Frère to the Commune of France, from the French Republic.
  • The Commune of France’s Jacques Sadoul is changed from a general to a political advisor.
  • Removed colonial names from the Commune of France’s submarine name list.
  • Added Alessandro Sardi as a general for the Italian Republic.
  • AI-controlled Socialist Republic of Italy will now attempt to perform naval invasions on the Republic of Italy.
  • The Canadian decision to support the Orange Order in socialist-controlled Ireland now spawns Northern Irish units rather than Irish ones.
  • Portugal will now actively try to annex the Congo in peace conferences.
  • Portugal can now intervene in the Third Boer War.
  • Halved the political power cost in the United Kingdom’s reconstruction decisions.
  • The United Kingdom can now ask for the return of Canadian and Australasian fleets.
  • The United Kingdom’s naval national foci have been considerably nerfed.
  • Added the option for a player to refuse handing over the leadership of the Entente to the United Kingdom, while playing a country other than Canada.
• Central & Northern Europe
  • Revised the frequencies at which Austria goes each of its three paths.
  • Pluralist Austria can no longer integrate any parts of Germany.
  • Non-pluralist Austria can now core all of Germany.
  • Austria can no longer potentially integrate the German-speaking part of Switzerland, unless they have reformed the German Empire.
  • Austria and Germany now start with medium tank designs.
  • Austria now retains south Germany when releasing the German Empire, to be decided in its own annexation event.
  • The Austrian-led German Empire, and German splinters, can now integrate German border regions, and no longer get instant cores.
  • Added new descriptions to the late infantry technology for Austria-Hungary and its constituents.
  • Denmark now starts with a core on Greenland, which no longer causes resistance for any other occupying power.
  • Added English translations of Finland’s party names.
  • Lwow is now not automatically given to Poland in the latter’s annexation event, unless its controller chooses to give all of Galicia & Lodomeria to Poland.
  • Updated the events surrounding the division of Galicia to Poland and Ukraine.
  • Germany’s integration of Austria, Slovenia and Switzerland is now compliance-based.
  • Improved Manfred von Richtofen’s unique trait.
  • Added air bases as rewards to German aviation national foci.
  • Improved Germany’s AI at defending from naval invasions.
  • Expanded the release of the North German Federation to match the standard of the other three German splinters.
  • Germany now starts with interwar anti-tank technology.
  • Germany’s “Anti-Russian Foreign Policy” national spirit is now removed from countries that join Russia’s faction.
  • Replaced the news event picture from the “Fall of Amsterdam” event.
  • The Netherlands’ integration of Flanders is now compliance-based.
  • Decreased the war-related stability debuff given to the Nordic Federation by the “Nordic Neutrality” national spirit.
  • The Nordic Federation will now send volunteers to Finland and Germany in the Weltkrieg.
  • Reichspakt Poland will now get kicked from their faction, should they declare war on a Habsburg-led Austria during the Weltkrieg.
  • Republican Poland having a failed nationalist coup will now prevent the nationalist uprising from occurring.
  • AI-controlled Republican Poland will now have a nationalist coup less often.
  • Increased Poland’s priorities in completing its economic decisions.
  • Poland can now only complete Operation Parasol if it has less than 20% surrender progress.
  • Poland will now lose some monarchy influence when the King appoints Studnicki after the election, even if the Circle won the election.
  • Tweaked the AI’s event choice priority in Poland’s Clover Revolution.
  • Changed the icon for Poland’s “20th Century Cavalry Tactics” national spirit.
  • Releasing the Rhenish German splinter state now requires control of Cologne or Essen.
  • Added Bogumil Vošnjak as the NatPop leader of Slovenia.
  • Added Leon Rupnik as a general for Slovenia.
  • Increased the amount of steel that Sweden gains in Kiruna.
  • Updated several of Switzerland’s national focus icons.
  • The Kingdom of Two Sicilies Confederation now gives annexed territory to its Italian puppets.
  • Added two starting military factories to the Kingdom of Two Sicilies.
• Eastern & Southeast Europe
  • The AI will now prioritise giving lands in the Balkans to an ally, rather than releasing puppets.
  • Added an alternate description Bulgaria’s “Anti-Belgrade Pact”, should the Belgrade Pact be already defeated.
  • The Estonian admiral Johan Pitka no longer starts in the United Baltic Duchy.
  • Added party descriptions to Latvia.
  • Latvia can now organise a state visit to NatPop Russia, so long as the latter is Realpolitik.
  • Buffed several Latvia traits, national spirits and national foci.
  • Added more trains to Latvia’s starting stockpiles.
  • Added air bases to decisions and national foci rewards for Lithuania and the United Baltic Duchy.
  • Added option in Macedonia’s annexation event, for it to be offered to Bulgaria or Serbia in exchange for an alliance.
  • Increased the amount of war support drain that Romania receives from integration of Transylvania.
  • Halved the maluses incurred by Romania’s “Great Game”.
  • Romania can now attack Austria immediately if Austria is at war, ignoring normal revolt preparations in Transylvania.
  • Romania is now able to core Bucovina without owning Transylvania.
  • Romania will now no longer try to join Russia’s faction if they previously were at war.
  • Russia’s annexation event can now result in the release of the Mountain Republic, made up of part of the Northern Caucasus under Russian control
  • Made multiple tweaks to Russia’s political power, stability, and war support situation.
  • Expansionist Russia can now invite Romania to the Moscow Accord, so long as Germany has been beaten and Serbia is also in the faction.
  • Moved Russian military advisors Sergey Korolyov and Sergey Rudenko to Ukraine, replacing them with Aleksandr Novikov and Mikhail Yangel.
  • Added a volunteer limit bonus to the “Twilight Struggle” national spirit, associated with the Russian/Entente event against the Internationale.
  • Imperial Russia can now choose to just empower the Hohenzollerns for a puppet German Empire, instead of a Romanov.
  • Socialist Russia now uses a slightly different green.
  • Socialist Russia will now declare war on Central Asia before joining the Internationale.
  • Nerfed Socialist Russia’s war support and starting stability.
  • Added more AutDem party popularity for Russia’s Wrangel path.
  • Serbia will now keep its core on Montenegro, if it loses the Fourth Balkan War.
  • Added a two year truce and non-aggression pact to the Belgrade Pact’s Treaty of Budapest with Austria.
  • Added generic Ukrainian name lists.
  • Tweaked costs of several Eastern European Defence Cooperation decisions.
  • Replaced the consumer goods cost from Eastern European Defence Cooperation contributions, with a political power cost.
  • The United Baltic Duchy’s integration of Latgale is now compliance-based.
  • Decreased the weekly stability loss from White Ruthenia’s “Solidifying Our Identity” national spirit.
  • Added a new description a White Ruthenian upgrade to the infantry weapon technology, featuring Najman’s hand mortar.
• Africa
  • Adamawa and Cameroon can now claim and integrate Ubangi-Shari on their own during the annexation event, not just when granted by their overlord or ally.
  • Removed Cape Verde-Guinea as a releasable puppet, as Cape Verde remains an integral part of Portugal.
  • Adjusted the starting borders of the Manikongo’s secession from Mittelafrika.
  • Added additional outcomes for Ethiopia’s DKAEB event chain.
  • Changed some Ethiopian national spirit icons.
  • The French Republic’s “Indestructible Bonds” national focus now gives claims on the states changed between the French Republic and the United Kingdom.
  • The French Republic’s “Expand Communications in the Colonies” national focus now gives a bonus to the Psychological Warfare agency upgrade, if the “La Résistance” DLC is enabled.
  • Changed the French Republic’s starting occupation laws, to match the in-game lore.
  • The French Republic now gets a compliance bonus on Chad, after the completion of the “Fate of Equatorial Africa” national focus, and the merging of the area’s administration with French West Africa.
  • The French Republic can now no longer call its allies in to help with the native revolts, unless facing three or more at once.
  • The French Republic no longer uses African-style generic commanders.
  • Increased the weekly stability debuff and decreased the party popularity stability modifier applied to the German Government in Exile’s “On Borrowed Time” national spirit.
  • Removed Katanga’s national focus to integrate itself into Südwestafrika.
  • Tweaked the visibility of some Katanagan national foci dependent on availability.
  • Adjusted the conditions for Mittelafrika’s collapse. It will now only happen as a result of von Göring’s failure to quell the revolts against his rule, and for the German Government in Exile.
  • Added leader descriptions to Mittelafrika.
  • Replaced the stability bonus in Mittelafrika’s “Spirit of von Lettow-Vorbeck” national spirit with a war support bonus.
  • Kenya and Nigeria are now allowed to secede during the Mittelafrikan collapse, if not previously subjugated.
  • Von Göring’s Mittelafrika can no longer become free before dealing with its revolts.
  • Added a tooltip for Mittelafika’s von Göring resigning, so that it's clearer this is what is happening, and removed its associated extensive stability and political power penalties.
  • Rewrote several Mittelafrikan events, including the setup for the Kikuyu uprising. Also removed several outdated events.
  • Removed Ludwig Bockholt and Theodor von Hassel as potential replacement leaders of Mittelafrika.
  • Added party names and leaders to Nyasaland.
  • South Africa’s Third Boer War peace now only requires a 180 day stalemate, instead of an entire year.
  • Added bypasses to two of South Africa’s Nuweveld national foci.
  • Rebalanced much of the Third Boer War.
• Caucasus & Middle-East
  • Alash Orda, Bukhara, Khiva, and Turkestan can now claim and core Ashkhabad.
  • Tweaked the map colours for Alash Orda and Khiva, and updated it entirely to Turkestan.
  • Georgia can join the Reichspakt when World Tension is over 75%.
  • Iraq’s Yusuf Salman Yusuf no longer uses a picture of a living person.
  • Added several new political advisors to Lebanon.
  • Tweaked multiple Lebanese events, modifiers and traits.
  • Added more content to Lebanon’s war with Syria, and its build-up.
  • Added an option for player-controlled Najd & Hasa to leave the Cairo Pact.
  • Removed a reference referring to Mustafa Kemal as “Atatürk”, which he would not be called in the Kaiserreich timeline.
  • Decreased some of the political power gain for the late-game Ottoman Empire.
  • NatPop Ottomans will now also have Azerbaijan rebel against them, during their large revolt.
  • Removed the ability of the NatPop Ottomans to join the Moscow Accord after defeating their large revolt.
  • Added Turkish endonyms for Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Greece, Western Persia and Tunisia.
  • Decreased the cost of several of Turkey’s expansion decisions.
  • Updated the icon of Turkey’s “Turkish-Iraqi Economic Accord” national spirit.
  • Tweaked the effect of a few of Yemen’s national foci.
• East Asia
  • Added a description to Anqing’s Sun Liren.
  • AI China will now always annex Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang.
  • Removed the “Autonomy” puppets of the above Chinese conquests.
  • Chinese concessions will always be returned by socialist countries, if they are requested.
  • China can no longer declare unification if a neighbouring country is still hostile.
  • Clarified the requirement of the Northwest War being over, for China’s decisions to ally with the Kumul Khatate, Ma Clique and Xinjiang.
  • Wuhan now merges from its constituent parts, should it be made the capital of China.
  • An AI-controlled Chinese splinter that controls Beijing will never now accept a submission demand.
  • Adjusted East Turkestan’s national foci to account for potentially being a puppet.
  • Fengtian can now be invited to the Japanese economic sphere.
  • Japan’s “Operation Ichi-Gou” now bypasses if the strongest Chinese splinter is defeated.
  • Japan’s peace with Germany will now result in all German allies being removed from the Legation Council.
  • Japan’s “Fading Sun” mission will autocomplete if Japan is directly invaded successfully.
  • Japan will now remove countries from the Co-Prosperity Sphere economic bloc if they are puppeted by another country.
  • Japan will now add non-aggression pacts and truces upon peacing out with European countries, and mutual wargoals will be removed.
  • Removed land-based carrier planes from Japan’s starting air force.
  • Renamed Liangguang’s HH Kung to Kong Xiangxi.
  • The Nanjing clique now doesn’t lose the “Conspicuous Kleptocracy” national spirit until it completes the “Government by Coercion” national focus.
  • Manchu Qing will lose the general Sun Liren, if he is with them and they adopt a pro-German outlook.
  • Merged Qing’s “Demand Warlords Bend the Knee” national focus into the “Pacify the Nation” national focus, to avoid them having a focus with potentially no effect.
  • Russia can now choose whether to retain Port Arthur or not when releasing Manchuria.
  • Added Wu Huawen and Lu Jin to Shandong as generals and Military High Command advisors.
  • Changed the Military High Command trait of Shandong’s Jin Yune.
  • Shanghai now turns PatAut or NatPop if puppeted.
  • Rebalanced some of Shanxi’s Balance of Power mechanics to have a more even outcome.
  • Sichuan is now set as a potential government when Chen Jiongming arrives.
  • Sichuan’s Tian Songyao is now retired if Liu Wenhui loses the “Two Lius' War”.
  • Added descriptions to Taiwan’s new puppet leaders, and changed the name given to the island depending on its ideology.
  • Added seconds-in-command and political advisors to Taiwan.
  • Added a division limit bonus to Transamur’s “Greater Transamur Ambitions” national spirit.
  • Yunnan’s Zhu De can now align with Chen Mingshu, if the Left Kuomintang are defeated in the League Collapse War.
• South Asia & Oceania
  • AI Afghanistan will now always accept Russia's demand of subjugation if isolated.
  • Added Henry Douglas Wynter as a general for Australasia.
  • Increased the level of Australasian generals Horace Clement Hugh Robertson and Iven Giffard Mackay, adding the “Desert Fox” trait to the former.
  • Renamed the Bharatiya Commune’s Sardar Patel to Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel.
  • Renamed several of the Bharatiya’s political parties.
  • Removed the delay in uprisings involving the Bharatiya Commune and Princely Federation.
  • Increased the starting stability and war support for the Bharatiya Commune.
  • Moved the commanders Kodandera Madappa Cariappa, Jayanto Nath Chaudhuri and Satyawant Mallanna Shrinagesh to the Bharatiya Commune, from the Princely Federation, Madras and Mysore, respectively.
  • Removed the Bharatiya Commune’s commanders Naseem Haider and Mahendra Pratap.
  • Burma now starts the game with cores on Kachin, Upper and Lower Shan.
  • Expanded Cambodia’s annexation event options to now include the country being released as a republic, or a kingdom with one of two different dynasties.
  • The Dutch East Indies accepting the Congress of Batavia now causes them to be instantly annexed by the Netherlands.
  • Fiji is no longer given back to Australasia, if puppeted.
  • The Dominion of India is now known as the “Republic of India” if it leaves the Entente, rather than just “India”.
  • The Dominion of India no longer renames itself to just "India" after reunifying India.
  • Increased the starting army and stockpiles of the Dominion of India and Princely Federation.
  • Improved the starting “Rifle Division” template for the Dominion of India.
  • Added three starting offmap military factories to the Dominion of India.
  • Added a tooltip to let the player know which states will be transferred upon India seizing Ceylon.
  • Added an option for India to be declared on by Germany, should the former seize Ceylon.
  • Replaced the manpower requirement in Indian national focuses with a World Tension level requirement.
  • Added Hindustan as its own releasable, separate to the Bharatiya Commune.
  • Indian splinters now get a claim on Sikkim upon releasing Bhutan or Nepal.
  • Each Indian splinter will now try not to pursue territorial claims until after reunification.
  • Renamed several Indian national foci.
  • Added Sarojini Naidu as SocLib, Madan Mohan Malaviya as SocCon, Madhav Sadashivrao Golwalkar as AutDem/PatAut and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as NatPop puppet leaders of India, respectively.
  • Replaced Chin Peng with Zhuang Mingli as the leader of socialist Malaya, due to the former only starting secondary education in 1936.
  • Moved the commander Akbar Khan to Pakistan, from the Bharatiya Commune.
  • Added party descriptions to Papua New Guinea, and a socialist leader and second-in-command.
  • Increased the Consumer Goods debuff for the Princely Federations’ “Backwards Economy” national spirit.
  • Replaced the free unit spawn from a Princely Federations’ event, with a minor war support bonus.
  • Removed the Princely Federations’ “Pact with the North” national focus, since that will now always happen by necessity.
  • Removed the initial division recovery rate bonus in the Princely Federation’s “Decentralised Rule” national spirit.
  • Replaced the division recovery rate malus with an organisational malus in the Princely Federation’s “Rebellious Princes” national spirit.
  • Improved the AI for the revolters against the Princely Federation.
  • Nerfed the Princely Federation’s starting stability and equipment.
  • Added some Operation names to Siam.
• Miscellaneous
  
  • Added an option to the in-game start menu, linking to the page where a player can report a bug directly to the Devs, allowing them to be fixed more quickly.
  • Enabling integration mid-game now applies the correct resistance and occupation law.
  • Increased baseline unit limit bonus to +8 from +5.
  • Added two new Ukrainian quotes for the loading screen.
  • Replaced a Boris Savinkov quote with one that was said by Boris himself, instead of a character in a book he had written.
  • Renamed the “Artillery Specialist” trait to “Artillery Leader”. Made “Fortress Buster” trait now available to commanders holding either “Artillery Leader” or “Engineer” traits, and the Artillery Military High Command role is now unlocked by “Artillery Leader” instead of “Fortress Buster”.
  • Buffed the effects of several political advisor traits.
  • Overhauled the tank design templates and armour division composition, and number of tank divisions that the AI will try to research and create.
  • Tweaked the AI’s air production priority between close air support and fighters.
  • Decreased the cost of awarding medals to division commanders by 50%.
  • Increased the AI’s priority in circumstantially defending their allies’ borders.
  • Generic advisors no longer have the “Ideological Crusader” or “Quartermaster General” traits.
  • Increased the AI’s priority in hiring a Chief of Army, in comparison to Chiefs of Navy and Air Force.
  • Improved the AI’s decisions in choosing the Army Academy spirits.
  • Added generic Arab name lists.
  • Increased the AI’s willingness to perform naval invasions against enemies with a larger navy.
  • Multiple typo corrections and text inconsistency removals.
  Change notes continue in the comments due to Reddit's character limit.
  

We hope you enjoy playing Kaiserreich as much as we did making it!
- The KR4 Team: 84F8D8, Alpinia, Arvidus, Augenis, Blackfalcon501, Carmain, Chazem, Chiang Kai-shrek, Chiron29, Cody, Conchobhar, DuoDex, El Daddy, Fedex, Flamefang, Gaboemi, Gideones, Hamfast, hildagrim, Ido, Igor050301, JazzyHugh, Jeankedezeehond, Jonny BL, Juliet Wehrwolf, Kano, katieluka, Kennedy, kergely, KFateweaver, Klyntar King, Krčo, Luwofe, Matoro, McOmghall, ~mw~ // miwaco, NukeGaming, Owenomaly, PPsyrius, Pelmen, RagnoStrangeros, Rnk, Shiroe, Sonny O’Cad, SuperGreenBeans, suzuha, The Alpha Dog, The Irredentista, The Italian Jojo, Vidyaország, and Zimbabwe Salt Co.

Game of Thrones had a weird last show but satisfying ending, wrapped up all nice and neat. The kid is the king. Done.
So they got one right.
Oz? Meh
Sex and the city? Meh. Didn't bother watching the movies as a result.
Sopranos? Super meh. Well executed on the last show and ending but totally not satisfying. Like, how can you recommend somebody sit through the whole show and watch all the seasons when you know they're going to come to that ending and be "wtf dude why did you tell me to watch all that?"
All interesting, but all disappointing endings.
Band of brothers? even that, even though it was based on a great book, even though as a whole it is an American institution of a show, Even though all it had to do was tell a story, a proven story... It ended soft in terms of content. I think it should have gone into much more of what happened after the war with each of them (even though at the time we had a lot of incomplete information.).
So Succession... What is the freaking ending? She chose the possibility of love and the chance at being involved in the company over her brother(s)? That's it? I liked it better when Roman was playing attention whore mid episode making everyone chase him physically and emotionally. (Ironic that in the end, he is center stage as the signer, reluctantly and confidently.). Of all the ways it could have gone, as Kendall says, going so "illogical" just didnt make sense to me as a viewer or for her as an operator. And then to fade the show out with a weird hand-holding and Ken sitting on a bench? What a waste of the last five minutes.
Someone please explain the ending to me in a way that I could use to convince somebody else to watch the show from the start..... I can't.

Hello everyone. I am a single mid-30's male living in a HCOL US city. I recently started becoming interested in the FIRE movement, although I'm certain I'm way behind. Finances weren't discussed in my household at all growing up. I've been trying to get aggressive with my savings. I wanted to know if my current spending/ saving is a step in the right direction.

• I earn a $155K/ yearly salary.
• My gross weekly paycheck is $2,980 of which $923 goes toward taxes.
• I invest $358 weekly into my 401k (no match from my company) all of which is allocated to a target date retirement fund. I just started this year so my balance is about $7K.
• I pay $15 weekly toward vision, medical and dental.
• I save $281 weekly into my savings.
• I invest $124 weekly in my traditional IRA. I also have a Roth IRA but have stopped investing in it since I'm above income limits. Notwithstanding, I have $100k total between both accounts, with $59K in the traditional.
• I invest $100 weekly towards a taxable brokerage account. Total balance is approximately $10K.
• This leaves me with $1,179.91 in my checking weekly.
• I spend approximately $1,075.50 towards monthly housing cost including utilities.
• I spend $65 a month towards my cell phone and one subscriber app for TV.
• I spend approximately $1000 monthly towards gas/ parking/ groceries/ haircuts.
• Lastly, I have yearly recurring costs of $2,518 which goes towards Amazon Prime, car insurance, registration fees related to my career, and DMV fees.
• I pay my cc off every month. I drive a crappy car. I have approximately $70K in student loans.
• If I get the $20K student loan forgiveness, I'll be able to pay off my student loans in full. I currently have $78K in savings (which I was able to accumulate during the pandemic). I've set aside $50K of that to dump at the student loans by the June 30th deadline for repayment. The remainder (roughly $28K) is for my emergency fund.

Amid a galaxy of brutal chaos there are stories to be told, tales of valor and justice, of fear and despair. But amid these stories are the guttering flames of adventures untold, the potential for a universe of entertainment and savage joyous fun. The Oblivion Cycle embodies just this kind of crafted chaos, creating the potential for creative exploits and raucous tales. If you are new to the TOC setting feel free to join the community at TheOblivionCycle to check out some of the background lore or to discuss themes with other readers. I thank you all for your support and continued willingness to read, as always, Please Enjoy!
+ Chapter 1 + Previous + Part 2 of Chapter 26 +
__________________________________________________________
Chapter 26
One Small Step for a Man
The atmosphere in the hangar bay was tense. Leon looked around and observed the other members of the ground crew. Samuel and Chad were wearing standard void suits, the white strengthened polymers matching the rest of the hangar's clean look. The two men looked ready, if a little nervous. This would be the first time the SSV would be used for its intended role of space to surface and back transportation.
Despite the fact that the entire operation was relatively untested, Samuel and Chad had thousands of hours of practice flights in the simms to bolster their flagging confidence. Leon shrugged his shoulders, the heavy armoured environmental suit he was wearing weightless in the microgravity of the ship’s core. But that would change dramatically when they reached the planet’s surface. The suits had internal servo muscles to aid in movement, but despite the assistance they were still heavy cumbersome things. They were more designed for deep sea diving than exploring the surface of an alien planet, but Leon wasn’t complaining. He would suffer the discomfort for the protection they offered.
Casting his eyes on the others he saw that Oliver, Dr. Kimathi, Joice and Myung were also ready with their heavy suits on. Oliver and Dr. Kimathi were close together, the two of them holding a private conversion of some importance it looked like from the expressions on their faces.
Myung and Joice were also talking, but not to each other. Joice was deep in conversation with Terry and Taylor, probably giving the two last minute instructions on the ship’s operation as they would be in charge of the bridge while she was groundside. Myung was talking to Sabine, the young woman had been a bit upset when he had informed her she was going to be staying on the ship.
“But I want to go, it’s not fair.” she had pouted when he had told her privately. He had done his best to assure her that she would get a chance to visit the planet’s surface once they deemed it safe. If it was safe that was. But he was not going to risk her safety for a glorified walk in the park. As one of the ship's two engineers, she had the honor of keeping the ship’s systems in check while Chad was gone.
She had taken some convincing, but eventually he had managed to talk her down to a more rational state of mind. She was an emotional one to be fair, but he wouldn't let that get in the way of her safety, not under his watch.
Leon blinked, his mind once more on the present. He turned and looked at the two SSVs that were docked in the ship’s main hangar bay. One was chunky, its frame bloated like a grub or some deep sea predator. That was the cargo shuttle, the heavy lift SSV. He then looked at the
other, it was sleek like a shark. Covered in rounded protrusions engineered to break up shockwaves as it fell through a planet’s atmosphere at incredible speeds. Once they had slowed down enough, the SSV was designed to glide till it found a suitable landing spot at which time it could switch to VTOL mode and make a neat landing. That was the plan anyways.
As long as nothing went wrong then they should be down and back in under six hours.
He turned his head as something landed on his shoulder. It was a hand, looking over to see who it was attached to he smiled. Natalia stood beside him, her smiling face reassuring his mind that everything would be alright.
“So, my big strong captain finally gets to become a true space explorer today?” she teased.
Leon nodded and replied cheerfully “Yeah. But don’t worry. I know where my true home is.”
She drew closer and planted a kiss on his cheek before asking “Oh yeah? And where is that?”
Leon blinked, feigning shock as he said in his best fake surprised voice “Why, with you of course my love.”
She giggled and hugged him as best she could, her arms barely even managed to wrap around the front of the environmental suit and she sighed as she pushed back slightly. She was wearing a light duty uniform with velcro slippers for the hangar floor. He had no need of the slippers as he had magboots on.
Most of the crew had turned up to see them off. He pulled Natalia close again as he looked around the room, the only two missing were Aden and Chris. Chris had elected to watch their departure from the observation deck alone. Something about the need for solitude he had said, and Leon wasn't going to antagonize the old man over it. If he wanted to miss out on the shindig then that was all up to him.
Samuel slowly walked toward the passenger SSV’s open side door and stopped by the bottom of the ramp, Chad scurried by him into the ship after managing to tear himself from Sabine’s grasp. Smiling, he looked at Natalia from the top of the ramp and asked “Are you sure you are going to be okay without me here?”
She shook her head and smiled “Of course, my whole universe doesn't revolve around you, you know that.” she blushed a little as he raised an eyebrow and she said “Well, not all the time it doesn't.” he just chuckled and leaned in for a kiss.
She smiled prettily and obliged, their lips meeting in a sweet and somewhat delicate kiss. After what seemed like minutes, but was likely far shorter than that, they parted and she batted her lashes at him.
“You had better come back to me, or I will have to get very angry.” she whispered.
He placed his heavy covered hands on her shoulders and reassured her as best he could. “Natalia. It’s just a routine surface visit. Nothing can go wrong, I promise you.”
She nodded and said something under her breath that he didn't quite catch. He was about to ask her about it when Joice called to him from the shuttle’s boarding ramp.
“Come on Leon, we gotta go before the orbiter loses contact on the far side of the planet. Otherwise we will land and they wont know if we made it safely for half an hour or so. And I don’t think you want that.” she said.
Leon nodded to her and turned to Natalia once more. “I have to go Nat, I love you. And I will contact you as soon as we make it safely to the surface.”
She nodded silently, her eyes glistening as she held in tears. “I know you will, I promise I wont worry too much about you.” He smiled at her comment and started to walk away. He paused as he heard her say “I love you too Leon Muikman. He turned slightly and gave her one more smile before climbing the ramp into the SSV.
He walked carefully in the microgravity to an open seat and sat next to Oliver. Oliver smiled and slapped him on the shoulder before saying “Good to see you. We were worried you would miss the launch.” he laughed heartily.
Some additional chuckles sounded from the others when Samuel spoke over the ship’s internal comms. “Okay, listen up people. This is far from the first time I have flown this can, but this is a first for planetary reentry. What to expect? Turbulence, lots of it, so strap yourselves in and hold onto something. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
Leon nodded to himself and quickly did his restraint straps. The ships had been designed with the bulky environmental suits in mind and so an alternate set of much heavier duty straps were readily available to wrap up in. Leon glanced around, Oliver and Dr. Kimathi were strapped in, the couple checking on each other.
He looked across the small crew bay and saw that Myung and Joice were also fully secured and ready to go. Joice gave him a thumbs up which he reciprocated as he felt the ship move slightly. The magnetic landing clamps would be releasing them and a small jet of cold gas would propel them towards the main hangar doors.
The crew had already exited the hangar by now and the ships mighty atmosphere pumps would be dragging the hangar down to a near vacuum as they drifted towards the sealed steel doors.
He felt a slight shudder roll through the ship as its cold gas jets fired off. The doors must be open already, the yawning pit of cold dark oblivion being all that awaited them beyond. With a slight tug of acceleration they were free, the shuttle flying out of the hangar like a missile from a tube. Albeit a very large and populated missile.
Leon had only been in the SSVs a few times during the entire voyage, it hadn't really sat well with him. As a retired Navy man he was no stranger to the rolling and jostling motions that caused so many to become ill. But there was something entirely different about the experience of zero gravity flight that made his insides churn and his heart quicken.
He closed his eyes, several of the others were speaking but he tuned it all out. His mind flashed with half remembered horrors from his peacekeeping years. The South African revolutions and the hundred year Chaddian supremacy war had left their marks on his body and soul. He clenched his teeth as the all too familiar pain shot through him. The sounds of gunfire and the roaring of unchecked flames filled his mind and he felt like screaming, but then another sound reached his inner mind.
It was soft, almost sensual. The memory of his love with Natalia surfaced, the memory of the times they had spent impassioned nights in each other's arms driving away the pain and fear. He smiled, his eyes still closed as he found the pain waning. Peace filled him and he opened his eyes.
The shuttle was shaking quite alarmingly but he was unafraid. Instead he found himself smiling against all the odds and shouted to Oliver over the screaming din of reentry “Wow, this is certainly a rush isn't it?”
Oliver shouted back, the man’s face split by a grin at least as wide as his own. “Yeah it sure is, nothing like it!”
Leon looked across the small passenger bay and gave Joice a smile. The woman was tough as nails and seemed to be generally unaffected by the rough flight, Myung on the other hand seemed to be having a more stressful time of it. He gestured at her and Joice glanced at the woman seated next to her. Joice said something that Leon couldn't make out but it seemed to do the trick as Myung relaxed slightly. She was still uncomfortable looking but now no longer looked terrified.
A few more moments passed by and the shuddering eased. The roaring of wind and fire eased as well as the ship slowed, its steep descent leveling off as they entered glide mode.
Samuel’s voice rang over the internal speakers again “Thank you for flying air Samuel, we will be making our final descent momentarily as soon as Chad finds us a dry spot to put down. The ground looks real swampy here. Not too many places I can see are stable enough for me to land.” Samuel’s voice cut off.
Leon looked around the ship again but was reassured by the SSV making a sharp turn.
Chad’s voice spoke over the internal speakers this time as he gave them an update. “Okay, looks like we found a spot, hold on we are preparing for a landing.”
Leon grabbed onto the safety rails next to his seat as the ship made another sharper turn and then lurched to a halt as the VTOL system brought them to a halt mid air. He would have loved to see the landing process but there were no windows for him to look through in the passenger area. He settled himself by imagining how it would look based on his previous experience with similar aircraft of Earth.
The hot jets of exhaust would be scorching a twenty meter clearing under the ship as it touched down. Any loose debris or animals either blasted away or cooked. Stepping off the ship should be a relatively safe affair.
With a final thud the ship landed and the whine of the engines faded as they powered down. He set about unstrapping himself as the airlock to the cockpit opened. Chad strolled out and gave them a big smile asking “So, how was everybody's flight?”
Myung shot the man a poisonous glare and grabbed her suit’s helmet. Joice smiled and said “It was bumpy.”
Chad rubbed his neck and apologized “Yeah sorry about that. This planet has some pretty serious high altitude winds. Samuel is setting up the micro atmo-observatory to help us avoid the jetstreams on the way up.
Leon motioned to Chad to come closer and as the man approached he finished unstrapping and stood up. Chad asked him “Yeah, what’s up?”
Leon glanced around and said “I want you and Samuel to pull some weapons from the armory. This planet is potentially hostile and I have no Idea what we may encounter. Once we leave you will need to stay in the cockpit. There is the potential for contamination when we exit.” he told the man seriously.
Chad nodded and asked “But if we are going to be stuck in the cockpit anyways then why would we need rifles?”
Leon shook his head. “You won't, the rifles are for us.”
Chad’s eyes widened and he nodded “Oh, yeah. I see, that makes sense. I'll go get them right now.”
Joice walked over as Chad rushed off and asked “What was that about?”
Leon shrugged and said “I told him to grab us some rifles. Can’t be too cautious.”
Joice frowned and said a little cautiously “Leon…” but he cut her off.
“I know what you are going to say Joice, and part of me agrees. But be practical. We have no idea what’s out there. I will not risk the lives of others on the grounds of peaceful exploration. The universe doesn't give two shits about that kind of thing, if something wants to eat us I'm not going to let it. We have likely already contaminated the planet’s biosphere with Earth bacteria anyways. The reentry would have sterilized the hull, but no amount of fire could kill one hundred percent of them.” he said.
Joice frowned and said “Well we knew the risks of exploring any planet. Cross contamination was always going to be an issue. But the guns Leon? What if they cause hostility towards us instead of the other way around?” she asked him.
He just shook his head. “Not negotiable Joice. We are taking them. I will have one as will you”
“Me? I don't want one.” she tried to say but he waved a hand.
“You will take it, that's an order. You are going to be armed because I trust you completely not to do the wrong thing. Understood?” Leon said to the blond haired woman. She bowed her head for a moment before nodding.
“Yes. But I want to go on record as having protested this.” She told him.
Leon just cracked a small grin and said “Noted Joice. Now, let's get everyone ready, we have some exploring to do.”
Leon and Joice walked to the small huddle that had formed by the exit ramp’s door. The airlock was now closed and ready for them to depart. In their armoured suits only one of them could exit through the small airlock at a time. Leon was determined to be the first.
Chad exited the cockpit area carrying two G402-K service rifles. The general conversation quieted as Chad walked up to him and handed him one of the German manufactured rifles.
“Thank’s Chad, give the other one to Joice, you brought some spare mags? Thanks, here clip them to my toolbelt.” he told the man who complied.
“Here, careful.” was all the young man said as he did as instructed.
Leon shook his head a little sadly as the man walked to Joice to repeat the process. Safe or not, the planet would not take him without a fight. If the need for the weapons arose, the others would be glad he had brought them. He slung the weapon over his shoulder via its strap and grabbed his helmet. He placed it on his head and locked it into place.
Checking his seals were all good he activated the helmet’s eye tracking helmet-mounted-display. With a few glances he had it calibrated and then activated his comms link. He spoke through the ship’s antenna to the Leif Erikson in high orbit above the planet.
“Leon to Leif Erikson, come in please.” he said.
After a moment the slightly fuzzy voice of Taylor answered him “Oh it’s good to hear your voice captain. I assume that everything went smoothly?” he asked in a curious tone.
Leon nodded even though the action would not be visible to the man, force of habit was hard to break after all. “Yes, the ride was exceptionally bumpy, but we made it in one piece. I am just getting ready to advance onto the planet’s surface. Can you see my helmet feed?” he asked Taylor over the relay communication.
The delay from their incredible distance was slight but noticeable. Taylor responded “Yes we can, it's obviously a touch delayed and a mite fuzzy, but it's clear enough to follow along with. Leon, there is someone here that wants to say something.” the man told him.
Leon waited patiently as a few bumps and a quiet curse reached him. After another moment a familiar voice reached his ears making him smile. “Hello Leon, I am happy you made it safely.” Natalia spoke to him from thousands of kilometers overhead.
Leon replied quickly “Yes. I told you we would be fine. I love you Nat, you can watch our progress on the live feed if you want. We will be deploying signal boosters to help keep us in touch throughout the whole mission.”
Natalia’s voice spoke again “I love you too Leon, I’ll be watching from in here.”
There was some more rustling static and then Taylor’s voice returned. “Okay, now before you head out onto the planet’s surface are you sure you are ready for this Leon? There are an awful lot of things that can go wrong. Gas leaks, contaminated feeds, sharp rocks…” the man started to say worriedly but Leon cut him off.
“It’s going to be okay Taylor. I have been in dangerous situations before you know. And I’m still here.” Leon reassured the younger man. In reality he was a bit worried about it as well, especially for Myung, she seemed a little stressed. And stress lead to mistakes. He decided to go and give her a reassuring word before they got underway.
Continued in Chapter 26 Part 2
==End of Transmission==

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All samples or decants, unless marked as FS.
All purchased new, unless marked as RIS.
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ASTRID

• ALCHEMY & SURF, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $4.25: Aquatic ozone, metallic gold accord, vetiver, rosemary, benzoin, fig, and moss.
• AQUAMARINE, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $4.25: Peach blossom, cucumber, water lily, green cognac, a blend of citrus, blue musk, Japanese peppermint, and sunny sea water accord.
• COVER, 1/4 Bottle, RIS, $6: An enveloping blanket of rice flower, sandalwood, cream, and a touch of cooling bergamot mint.
• FLOATING ON THE WAVES FOREVER AND EVER, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $4.25: Honeydew melon, aquatic ozone, jasmine, lemon, and wild lilies.
• MERCI #27, decant in a thick vial, $2.75, RIS: Lotus, orchid, banana, tropical ivy, and torrential rain accord
• RAIN ON THE OCEAN, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $4.25: Aloe, salt water accord, juniper, pale patchouli, white musk, eucalyptus, and a whisper of spearmint.
• SPELLCASTING ON THE ROCK, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $4.25: Sun-warmed wood, sand, amber, rose geranium, and patchouli.

BPAL (all purchased new)

• A WINTER'S WALK IN THE CEMETERY, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $5.5: Lilith’s lavender and my Dorian on a rambling walk through soft, sweet grass, cypress trees, piles of maple leaves, and bright bouquets of lilies and roses.
• CYCLING FOR PLEASURE, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $5.5: Sea water, sea salt-dusted cypress, pink carnation, oakmoss, and white vetiver.
• O HUSHED OCTOBER MORNING MILD, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $5.5: Dried forest pansy leaves, grape vine, grass, lavender buds, thyme, creeping fig, paw-squished soil, and a whiff of coffee drifting down from the kitchen.
• RING OF LIGHT, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $5.5: Radiant pale musk, artemisia, white lavender, neroli, white pepper, and zingy white aldehydes.
• SKATE PUNKS, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $5.5: Crabgrass, dandelion sap, white clover, purslane, and soil unsettled by skateboard wheels.
• SURPRISE EJACULATION, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $5.5: White pear, white champaca, pink grapefruit, and effervescent white musk.
• THE LAST SYLLABLE, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $5.5: Photos pinned to cool plaster walls, discarded papers, a web of strings, a mirror, a doll, singed straw, scattered books, and unfurled magnetic tape.
• UPSLOPE FOG, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $5.5: Moist clouds rolling lazily up and down low hills of wild grasses, sagebrush, and wildflowers, curling gently around gnarled oaks, majestic pines, and craggy stones.
• URBAN UNDINE, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $5.5: Ocean spray, sea salt, ambergris accord, and lavender.
• WATER OF NOTRE DAME direct , $3.5: Aquatic

DECONSTRUCTING EDEN (all purchased brand new)

• AD ASTRA, $2.5: Sunflowers in a field, under a night sky, gentle wind, softest earth, and wheat.
• ADAM $2: Cedar, balsam, warm skin musks, teak, bergamot, coriander, pepper, tonka bean, and earth.
• ALCUIN, $2.75: White musks and white amber, the pale greens and grays of his marque, with moss and a chypre accord and a base of soft wood.
• AQUARIUS $2: a blend of air with an undercurrent of water, topped with sparkling aldehydes.
• HOMESICK, $2.75: Dogwood, wisteria, tulips, sunflowers ocean air.
• INSOMNIAC, $2.75: white nightgowns, clean sheets, lavender buds, a drop of chamomile, wood floors, skin musks
• JEUNE SAINTE AU LYS $2: pale skin, muted notes of polar, pine, and wood, pale white lilies
• MASTER OF THE STRAITS, $2.75: Stormy sea water, driftwood, bay rum, oakmoss and a couple of drops of hyacinth.
• MOULIN ROUGE, $2.75: a frou-frou of red satin, a frisson of velvet, wooden floorboards, blonde tobacco, red wine, and a drop of absinthe.
• MY GIRLFRIEND’S GIRLFRIEND, $2.75: white musk forms the base. Heart notes of jasmine, soft rose, freesia, lily and black currant. Top notes of pink grapefruit, bergamot and mandarin orange.
• NERVE, $2.75: Blue musk, green clover, soft grey suede, jet fuel, and, white peach tea
• OCTOBER RUST, $2.75: "Cool rusting metal, the last of the maple leaves, black agarwood, crisp air, incense, bonfire smoke, blonde woods, and dark amber."
• SECOND SKIN, $10 (almost half left in 15 mL Bottle): Cold skin, fog, combat boots, cashmeran, metal accord, raindrops, wet stone
• SEVEN STARS, $2.75: Midnight blue sky, sparkling stars, rice, white cedar, and, Buddha’s Hand Citrus
• SILKWORM, $2.75: Silk threads, mulberry leaves, fruit, and branches, salt tears
• SNOW WHITE, $2.75: Clean white musk, blood-red roses, ebony wood, and a touch of the forest, and that infamous apple.
• TALENT, $2.75: Crisp linen, beeswax coated silken threads, Alban rose, and Earl Grey tea.
• WATER ME, $2.75: coconut, dark amber, skin musks, clean water, and satin sheets

FANTOME (all purchased new) $5.5 each

• BUNE: Damp subterranean air, nagarmotha, smooth cave walls, davana, a cold marble altar, & glittering green dragon scales
• COYOCAN, $2: Desert wind, sweet nectar, cool stone, Mexican vanilla, creosote, hibiscus, sage
• KUPALA: Morning dew, davana, fern flower, bonfire smoke, birch leaves, warm summer air
• STOLAS: Bluebells, an unburnt cedar offering, cool night air, lavender, soft owl feathers, blueberries, & a hint of dark chocolate

NAVA

• COUNT CHOCO, Ajevie Slink, $4: Count ChocoCocoa Absolute of Persia, India and the West Indies, Cocoa liquor, Wheat, Cocoa Powder, Vanilla Powder, Mallow and Chocolate Soy Milk.

NUI COBALT DESIGNS (all purchased new)

• DEEP HEALING, 1.15 ml, $3.5: Deep ocean water, bracing wind, cold clary sage, and fresh rain-drenched greens.
• DENDROPHILIA - THE LOVE OF TREES, 1.15 ml, $3.5: The love of Trees.Moss-covered deadfall, birchwood and pine, lingering resins and sunlight through the leaves, a trace of woodsmoke, the memory of vetiver and cedar.
• FROST GIANT , 1.15 ml, $3.5: Himalayan cedar, towering oak, nagarmotha, frozen sage, moss-covered stone, cucumber, and fog.
• GREY WOLF, 1.15 ml, $3.5: White sandalwood, black amber, icy sage, cashmere, stone musk, lichen, softly smoked birchwood, grey suede, mountain springwater, and white peppercorn.
• MERFOLK, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials), $3.75: The mineral scent of sand, salt, and shells upon the mist, ambergris accord, turquoise musk, warm orris, olive trees, and neroli.
• ORNITHOPHILIA - THE LOVE OF BIRDS, 1.15 ml, $3.5: A wistful effusion of angelica, kava kava, elderflower, linden, mugwort, saffron, acacia wood, purple heliotrope, and mugwort.

POSSETS (ALL PURCHASED NEW; unless marked as FS, all are samples from direct or decant from Ajevie that are $2.5 each)

• 4 SEASONS OF SUMMER: Bamboo, silk, Japanese incense, a hint of water, and fresh green shoots, and a small introduction of sandalwood in the mix to send a cooling breeze your way.
• ALASKA: the chill in the air, but also the perfume of the riot of summer blossoms as they race the sun every year.
• ARC OF VENUS, FS, Brand New Never Used, $16: Sexy sandalwood base, black lavender, calendula, “abstract” musk, sharp grey musk
• BERENICE: Champagne musk, pink grapefruit, a dash of lemon zest, a veil of dragons' blood
• BIRTH OF VENUS: jasmine, aquatic blend, light citrus blend
• BRIDAL CHORUS, FS, Brand New Never Used, $16: a lot of Hawthorne here, a very sugary musk, a kiss of a ""silky musk"" and it's all about silky skin
• DANCE WITH ME, FS, Brand New Never Used, $16: A classy variation of everyone's favorite lavender vanilla but substituting grapefruit for lavender and under-girding it with white musk.
• FASCINATOR: sparkling, very high-key bright crystalline musk, emollient backup musk, sandalwood, cedar and rosewood.
• FLYING HORSE: Bamboo, grated ginger, green tea, luan wood, white floral note
• FROG PRINCESS: To an aquatic base, subtle hints of coconut and mint are added.
• HATSHEPSUT: Bitter beautiful galbanum pairs with the smoothness of labdanum, a bit of oude gum, and a very small amount of the best skin amber.
• HEATHCLIFFE AND CATHERINE EARNSHAW: Heather of the moors, lavender of English, a drop of wildness, oude
• HYLAS AND THE NYMPH: pooled water, lush vegetation, and sneaking scent of sex
• ISABELLA: rose are combined with a light resin, white tea leaf and a rare honey/milky/cream musk. A light dusting of familiar spices.
• LOLA MONTEZ: green of Irish grass accord, deeply green aquatic note, dark and thick labdenum, tonka infusion, animalic musk.
• LOTUS OF THE NILE: The lotus is the prime fragrance in the bouquet, but it is followed by bits of roseate beauty, a sort of dark incense which has been winnowed through the air, and faint aquatic background scent.
• SHIP OF FOOLS: tang of the sea and added a bit of refined leather to get things started, a roll of key lime zest and a goodly portion of faux ambergris.
• SWAN: cool with a light kiss of olive leaf, a blend of three blue musks (from light to dark and a mid tone one), a bit of cork (!) extract, a small amount of osmanthus.
• TERRA NOCTURNA: violet, vetiver, leather, ozone, pepper, sugar, and a crystal musk
• THE WATER BURNS: The essence of earth and high greenery--a hint of smoke but smelled from far away, boxwood, galbanum, and a light hint of Mysore sandalwood.
• XUONG CUONG: A cold green leaf bats against a ghost wood, a lash of green chlorophyll and crystal musk, a bit of luan wood, and a soft ambient earth scent, finished off with sandalwood and yuzu, the latter adds an air of almost black walnut and nutwood-like nuance to the whole.

SIXTEEN92 (all purchased new unless marked as RIS)

• ALL IS BRIGHT Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials). $4: Quiet snowfall, brisk winter ozone, warm peppermint tea, tightly laced ice skates on a glistening frozen pond
• ALL IS BRIGHT, $5: Quiet snowfall, brisk winter ozone, warm peppermint tea, tightly laced ice skates on a glistening frozen pond
• ANDROCTONUS AUSTRALIS, $5: Rum, wild fig, dry papyrus, sweet tobacco, oud
• AQUILA, $5: Juniper, chilld white tea, mountain laurel, soft cotton, airy musks
• AQUILA, $5: Juniper, chilld white tea, mountain laurel, soft cotton, airy musks
• AQUILA, $5: Juniper, chilld white tea, mountain laurel, soft cotton, airy musks
• BEAUTIFUL. POPULAR. LOVED. FEARED. Ajevie 2020 Half Slink, $1.5: Moonflower, tiare, bitter almond, blond woods, heat lightning, asphalt
• BEFANA, $3.5 (decanted into a thicker vial that’s approximately 2/3 full but measured to be around 1/5 of a bottle): Black currant and dried fig, black pepper, forest berries, pressed flower petals, creamy amber, winter spices
• BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, Ajevie Slonk (cute screw-top vials). $4: Dusty magic shop shelves, dried sage leaf, crystal ball, darkened amber musks, a puff of smoke
• BOOK OF STARS, $3 (decanted into a thicker vial that’s approximately 1/4 full): The smell of space (meteor dust, ozone, metal, ethyl formate) blended with grounding white sandalwood, papyrus, & earthy musks.
• CHILLED CHAMPAGNE, $3.5 (decanted into a thicker vial that’s approximately 2/3 full but measured to be around 1/5 of a bottle)
• CHIROMANCY, $5: Orris, worn leather, ink, porcelain, black truffle
• COCONUT FLAN, FREE (original bottle with a few drops left) - just ask!
• FOOL FOR LOVE, $5: Leather jacket, chipped black nail polish, burning roses, bad poetry
• GRETA, $5: Frosted glass, chilly aldehydes, citrus blossom, elderflower, snow accord
• GRASS HARP, $3.5 (decanted into a thicker vial that’s approximately 2/3 full but measured to be around 1/5 of a bottle): Orange blossom, clover, hyacinth, ruby red grapefruit, sweet basil
• HELIOPHOBIA, decant in chonky vial, $3: Climbing ivy, faded magnolia blooms, moonlit vines, cracked solarium glass, splintered wood, peeling wallpaper, humid air, fog & shadow, feral musk
• I AM ATREYU!, $5: The hopes of all Fantasia: Luck dragon fur, glimmering gold and worn suede, sumac, fire, equine musk
• I AM ATREYU!, $5: The hopes of all Fantasia: Luck dragon fur, glimmering gold and worn suede, sumac, fire, equine musk
• LOUISE, Direct, $5: Sultry amber, red ink, black kohl, night blooms, Tonkin musk (synthetic), wormwood, soft suede, glistening strands of pearls
• LYCANTHROPE, Direct, $5: Monkshood, warm fur, tuber, elm bark, artemisia, galbanum, weathered rock, silver moonlight
• LYCANTHROPE, Direct, $5: Monkshood, warm fur, tuber, elm bark, artemisia, galbanum, weathered rock, silver moonlight
• LYRA, $5: Misty aldehydes, mandora blossom, spring hyacinth, forsythia, new leaves, melted snow
• MIDWINTER DUSK, $5: Chilled evergreen boughs and bunches of mistletoe, a blanket of evening frost, distant sleigh bells, the soft glow of gas lamps on snowy cobblestone streets
• MIDWINTER DUSK, $5: Chilled evergreen boughs and bunches of mistletoe, a blanket of evening frost, distant sleigh bells, the soft glow of gas lamps on snowy cobblestone streets
• SAVE FERRIS, Ajevie Slink, $3.5: "Funnel cakes & lemonade from Wrigley field, salted pretzels, bright blue skies, cool Lake Michigan breeze, Bueller… Bueller… "
• SINTERKLAAS, $3.5 (decanted into a thicker vial that’s approximately 2/3 full but measured to be around 1/5 of a bottle): Cake flour and sugared dough, royal icing, mulled wine, foil-wrapped candies, speculaas cookies, a cozy hearth
• SOLSTICE BONFIRE, $5: Dark rum, grey ash, black amber, firewood bales, pine needle, charcoal, cedar, & billowing smoke on crisp winter air
• TALIA, $5: Vanilla, moss, ivy, soft musk, stone
• THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER, RES BATCH, half decant in a thicker vial, $3.5 (decanted into a thicker vial that’s approximately 2/3 full but measured to be around 1/5 of a bottle): Tuberose absolute, soft skin musk, oakmoss, fresh earth, vanilla, iris
• THE NOTHING, $5: The emptiness that’s left: Black clouds, stormy winds, broken mirrors, deep water, rock dust, I will just sit here and let it take me away too
• TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT, $5: Swirls of tranquil incense, flickering farolitos, piñon and juniper wood, far-off carols drifting on desert wind
• TURTLE DOVES, Ajevie Slink, $3.5: Frasier fir, frozen sidewalks, snowy park benches, twinkling fairy lights and silver bells, a flurry of soft feathers, warm mittens, a wooden toy chest, delicate porcelain musk
• VILLAINS, $5: Candle soot, pine rosin, blood red pomegranate, howling forest winds, darkened crystals, sacred herbs
• VULPECULA, $5: Pools of rainwater, soaked pebbles, tomato leaf, decaying tree bark, wild brambles, dusty fur
• WAKING IN WINTER, half decant in a thicker vial, $3.5 (decanted into a thicker vial that’s approximately 2/3 full but measured to be around 1/5 of a bottle): fir needle, hemlock, soft snow, pale woods, delicate mint, frost-blanketed leaves, cold metal, distant hearthsmoke

SORCELLERIE all Sorcellerie are RIS (some cheaper than others to account for fill level differences)

• A PARTY OR SOMETHING, $1: Marigolds, yellow cake, white chocolate, pistachio buttercream, Iso E Super, Cashmeran
• WHAT BIG EYES YOU HAVE, $2.75: Immortelle absolute, lemon meringue pie, pearlescent vanilla musk

STEREOPLASM

• ENCHANTED DEW DROPS, 4.5 mL Roller, $9.5: (dew/jade/light smoke/stone moss) - A glowing vial containing healing dew from the misty peak of treacherous Mount Eumedes (will appear in rain during spring equinox if an acceptable offering of fire is made).
• KING MOONRACER, Doll Size, $3: Oceanic musk, cool night air, sea salt, pu-erh tea and night-blooming jasmine.
• OGOPOGO, Doll Size, $3: Cool Rippling lake, water lily, seaweed and snake skin.
• OPALINE, Mini Roller, $3: Iridescent and heavy stones of opalized amber, birds of paradise, frozen yucca and lacquered teak[pearl-stone/opal-amber accord/birds of paradise/cold yucca/camphorous teak]
• PÊCHE IMMORTELLE, 4.5 mL Roller, $9.5: Saturn peach and aged cognac enclosed in humid jade glass, unearthed after midnight alongside dewy blooms of star jasmine and clary sage
• PEEL, Mini Roller, $3: Spiraled peels of heaven scent Valencia orange, lumia lemon and perfectly ripe strawberries and banana[orange/strawberry/banana/fruity ozone/lemon]
• PICKEREL FROG (LITHOBATES PALUSTRIS), 4.5 mL Roller, $9.5: Night blooming jasmine, wet grass, algae, and tomato leaf.
• POTTED CHIPTUNIA, YellingCat Decant, $1.5: (petunia/leaf/fresh soil/clay/static) - A refreshing, inhibiting flower, grown and engineered in Chiptown.
• REVERIE, Doll Size, $3: Frozen pollen, prickly gooseberry vine, raw cashmere wool and midnight blooming primrose[aldehydic-powdery floral musk/gooseberry fougere/cashmere/wild primrose]
• SCAREDY CATS, 4.5 mL Roller, $9.5: Sheet white marshmallow, midnight sugar cookies and an extinguished candle squares on a hot rainy day.
• SOLAR CROAKUS, Mini Roller, $3: An inner effervescence heightened by notes of warm patchouli, bronze crocus, dry sandalwood, sun flare ozone and warm skin musk[patchouli/sandalwood/bronze crocus/warm ozone/skin musk]
• TOTALLY IN LOVE 4.5 mL Roller, $9.5: Soft purple and glowing from within; raspberry cotton candy with a delicate bouquet of jasmine, rose and heliotrope while shadows dance at sunset.
• UNHOLY WATER, Mini Roller, $3: Barbed wire and rust, sacrificial blood orange, cursed saffron licked by flames of a burning chapel.

The Nature of Predators was created by u/SpacePaladin15.
Special thanks to u/Saint-Andros for giving feedback on this first chapter's draft!
This is my first time writing a fanfic, or any multi-chapter story for that matter. Updates are likely to be slow and inconsistent. Your feedback is definitely appreciated, so if you have anything to say please leave a comment!
I hope you enjoy.
===
THE FOLLOWING PROGRAM IS RATED [TV-MA-HM] (FOR HUMAN-STANDARD MATURE AUDIENCES) AND CONTAINS:
- ADULT OR "PREDATOR-LIKE" THEMES
- COARSE LANGUAGE
VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
===
SLEEPWALK
CREATED BY NEKAN AND SIMON GREY
1 - Prologue to a Nightmare
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JULY 8, 2136
Walk in, be polite, do your job, walk out, and no more.
It was the five-step mantra my feathered friend had given me to get me through the working days, and it’s served me quite well for the past couple of years. His voice was always a soothing guide, repeatedly ringing in the back of my head like a well-meaning wake-up call.
I was getting on in my years a little, at least it felt like it, so I still gladly accepted his help even after all this time. He was a polite fellow, almost as old as I was but far more able and proficient. Maybe he cared about me a little too much as he did many things for my convenience—he even got me my janitorial job in the first place—but who was I to turn away such a good friend?
I gave a satisfied tail swish as I said goodbye to Fevri, the receptionist’s lovely tone a soft farewell. The end of every shift always came with a calming walk back to my apartment building, like an extra treat for all the helpful work I’ve done. It was far enough from the office for the time to last but close enough to not be tiring, giving me a moment to appreciate the ambiance of the Capital and ‘mull things over’ as my friend would always encourage.
Well, mulling things over, almost everything was in its place. My job was still good; I was doing good. I was good!
My friend just hasn’t been visiting lately, which is fine. It’s happened a few times before, and he’s told me what to do to get through the day so many times that I know his instructions like the back of my paw.
I just hope he’s doing well too, and that he’ll be back soon to give me some medicine again to stop my recent headaches.
I didn’t know why, but recently I’ve been expecting something to happen to me. Something bad or good, I didn’t know. But this sort of feeling and the headaches always came up when I didn’t take my medicine.
My friend’s voice softly chided me, his advice echoing from the past. “Remember, Havan: you can’t get the medicine from any other doctor. You’ll get hurt and taken away from your home.”
The air was colder today. Strangely, I knew that for whatever reason it wasn’t why I felt a shiver go through me. I had no reason to be afraid, I was good! Always good!
I walked through the apartment building’s front door and swiftly made my way to my own unit. Before, it was much easier to push that feeling of—fear?—aside. Maybe something bad is coming this way.
Right to my doorstep.
I hurriedly locked the door behind me.
I shed my jumpsuit and tool belt, setting them aside on a rack. The jumpsuit wasn’t particularly dirty—for now, at least—so I could just have it washed some other time. My friend would understand. He always did. I just hope he’ll be back soon with more of my medicine. I don’t want to be bad.
After a small meal, it was time for bed. I couldn’t eat more as the headache was getting worse by the minute, ending my appetite.
My paws placed themselves over my forehead like useless cushions. The worst was yet to come; the bad dreams would arrive the moment I fell asleep. Sometimes, even the medicine wasn’t enough to stop them from invading my head like a predator on the hunt.
They were mostly the same. A woman and her child: a dream repeated forever like the infinity of space.\
For some reason, I felt like I should know them.
Whenever I tried to look at their faces, I could feel something rip my gaze away with claw and fanged force—when I could see them at the edges of my eyes, their empty faces were nothing but smudged paint on a watery canvas. Just out of reach, an orange-eyed predator snarled behind them.
It always scared me.
I’ve tried talking to my friend about it many times, but he never wanted to hear it. He’d look away and tell me to let it go, just take the medicine and forget the nightmares.
He was like me in the dream.
I hope he’ll be back soon.
Sometimes, he’d look ready to tell me something—staring straight at me mid-conversation. Then, he’d just look away all tired and heavy, deflating like someone had given him a weight to carry. He’d usually take his leave whenever those moments happened: “Farewell, Havan. See you next time.”
Now that I think about it, he also looked like that whenever I told him about the dream. Maybe he wished he could know them too.
​
​
JULY 11, 2136
I’m losing track, I think. I’m not sure. I’ve got a slow-burning headache that just won’t leave, simmering every part of my mind it could get its claws on. I can barely keep myself upright most of the time; I had to call in sick yesterday. My friend’s still not back with more medicine.
Medicine for what; I didn’t even know anymore.
Wake up.
“Shit… d-dammit,” I managed to croak out before hurling the rest of my lunch into the toilet. The act of cursing was paradoxically unknown yet familiar to my tongue—like an old routine left untouched for years.
All my dreams were relentless and mocking—I was rendered helpless to their onslaught. I couldn’t tell what was real and what was cruel imagination. In fact, the only things that felt real were the solid and smooth toilet and the force of my vomiting. I held on for dear life to save myself from the vortex churning around me.
A singular thought beckoned me again, a glaring beacon in a foggy sea of pain: ‘Wake up.’
There was nothing else to wake up to.
“DAMMIT!” I repeated before unceremoniously slumping back onto the floor. Something within me was changing—rapidly and viscerally. I was a stranger in my own body, adrift in a world far removed from the one I knew. I couldn’t breathe.
Someone was knocking on my door, calling my name.
I dragged myself out of the bathroom, feverish and frail, ignoring that weak voice in my head that asked: ‘What if it wasn’t your friend?’
I needed anything. Anything at all.
My body moved on its own, paws desperately reaching the doorknob. Somehow, I managed to unlock the door. It wasn’t my friend.
I would’ve screamed if I had the strength left for it. Instead, my legs gave way; my back eagerly greeted its old friend: the floor. Dragging myself backward with my vision blurred and hearing muted, the stranger came inside—crossing the threshold that marked my safety from the things my friend warned me about.
“Please… don’t hurt me…”
But the stranger marched on, grabbing ahold of me.
I curled into a pathetic shield, attempting to cover as much of myself as possible. Somehow, it all still felt like I was falling.
Through the blur, I heard the stranger’s voice. “Havan! It’s just me!”
Fevri?
The realization was a bullet through the skull, rattling my brain into something like focus. There it was: the receptionist’s young and frightened face. Lying in the hallway beyond the open door was a basket full of goods that were probably meant for me.
Whoops.
“Let’s get you lying down somewhere comfortable, okay? You need to rest. I’ll call a doctor—”
My head snapped back up. “No! Y-you shouldn’t! You can’t!”
“O-okay! Okay. No doctors. I’m sorry,” she reassuringly patted my shoulders after having dragged me to the side of my couch. “Look, forget that I ever mentioned it. Now, I need to pull you up onto the couch; is that fine with you?”
I limply nodded. I probably didn’t have the strength to do something as simple as that by myself.
Fevri pulled me up while that all too familiar voice in the back of my head spoke again: ‘She better keep her word, or I’ll…’
​
…
​
I didn’t finish that thought. What the hell was that all about? I wasn’t a violent man.
Was I? I can’t even recall who I am anymore. The vortex of dreams overtook me again, Fevri’s voice fading away as she momentarily left my side to grab the basket outside.
I was alone once again.
A predator’s face revealed itself in the blood-orange veil of my brain, sneering as it revealed itself to be the beckoning voice echoing through my skull.
‘WAKE UP.’
I fell.
I don’t know what it would mean if I’ll ‘wake up.’ Powerless, I lost myself to a seemingly infinite and dark slumber.
​
​
JULY 12, 2136
I arrived at the light at the end of the tunnel, the bottom of the bottomless pit.
My eyes opened, and a strange sense of peace washed over me. Coming from the television were alarm clock tones, an emergency broadcast stuck on the screen. ‘Predator arrival,’ ‘evacuate,’ and ‘await further instructions’ were the only phrases I took note of before rising from the couch.
This wasn’t my home.
The window blinds were closed throughout my apartment. Outside, the city was deathly silent. I didn’t need to look to know that there were likely a few bodies lying face-down on the street, casualties of panicked stampedes to the bunkers.
What happened to me?
Decades of half-remembered memories flooded outward, smashing through the dam of my mind. To my horror, I realized this was the first time I’d felt my heartbeat in a long, long while.
My Krakotl ‘friend’ was an exterminator; he always wore his uniform whenever he visited me. The medication was for predator disease.
I’m not ‘Havan.’ I didn’t use to be, and I couldn’t remember my real name.
The woman and child in my dreams were my wife and son—
With no other outlet for my frightened rage, I resorted to slamming my foot into the side of an empty trash can.
I gritted my teeth as pain shot up through my leg. For the first time, I felt the stiffness and aching that came with being middle-aged and taking those damn predator disease pills for years. Twenty years. I’d been out of it for twenty fucking miserable years.
A small part of me wished I stayed ‘asleep.’ I cast the thought aside almost immediately.
The exterminator had never given his name. How convenient. I had nowhere to go.
I should be weeping.
My head turned towards the bedroom door as Fevri walked out, clearly having just woken up. “W-what’s going on? What was that noise? Oh, Havan, you’re awake!”
“Nothing,” I winced, forcing the scowl off my face. “I just… accidentally knocked a trash can over. I should be the one asking you what’s going on.”
Fevri shook her head, trying to focus through her drowsiness. “Uhm, alarms started ringing out through the city, and that emergency broadcast said it was predators. N-nothing’s happened, though. It’s been about an hour and a half since it started, but it’s been so quiet.”
“You stayed.”
That seemed to wake her up. “I couldn’t leave you—you could’ve gotten hurt if something did happen! I… I couldn’t ask for help bringing you to the nearest shelter—everyone else was too busy trying to get themselves into safety.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say to that. I sat back down on the couch, rubbing my paws across my face as I mulled over everything.
I bet my past self had never felt as lost as I did at this moment. All I could feel was the weight of my newfound clarity and my current confusion—a balancing act of anguish and pain.
“Is something wrong, Havan? Don’t worry about the predator raid; if nothing’s happened so far then we’re probably safe and sound.”
“No, it’s…”
I paused myself. Did I actually want to tell Fevri everything? She was only an acquaintance from work.
But she did stick around and help me. That said a lot about the kind of person she is.
Call it foolishness, call it loneliness—I told the truth, recounting everything I could to her. Right now, she was the only friend I had. She was horrified, of course, but surprisingly it was directed to my circumstances rather than myself.
Fevri sat down beside me, placing a sympathetic paw on my shoulder. “I know it isn’t much, but… I’m really sorry. I thought—we all thought…”
“Thought what?”
“Well, we always had a feeling that you had some form of predator disease. You were amicable, sure, but you were always… distant? Plus, you never talked about your family and always dodged questions about them. We all thought you lost them to a raid and it just made sense to us.”
She nervously flicked her tail. “Guess we weren’t entirely wrong, in a messed up way. Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
I sighed, flicking my ears dismissively to show I wasn’t offended. Everything else about me would always be worse by comparison, a pillar of distress as strong as an Arxur’s jaw and equally as biting.
What else can I do now? I have no leads. All I had were blurry faces and names I didn’t know.
…
Why’d he stop?
It made no sense for my ‘friend’ to suddenly stop medicating me for weeks. The fact that he had consistent access to medication to give me made me suspect that he was an exterminator-specialist, which would also make him a doctor specializing in treating predator-diseased individuals like me.
In fact, none of what he did made any sense at all. Why go through the effort of giving me a false name—to give me instructions on how to live by myself and dodge questions?
He had been trying to protect me. Was it a fucked up way of doing it? Absolutely, but it didn’t change the fact that he actually helped. For all I knew, he was the one thing stopping me from finding a new home in a correctional facility.
My tail twitched with irritation. Fevri looked expectantly at me. “What now?”
“I don’t know. I guess looking for the exterminator to get some answers would be my safest bet, but I’m not walking to the nearest guild office or the damn headquarters to ask for him.”
“Maybe I can? After the lockdown, anyway.”
“I don’t know. Honestly, this sounds like a stupid idea,” I shook my head, another sigh escaping from my lips. “Hell, I’m lucky you still want to help me for some damn reason I can’t think of.”
To my surprise, she let out an amused snort. “It’s the right thing to do?”
“I’m predator-diseased. Probably dangerous in some way.”
“Well, you won’t hurt me, will you? Besides, you look like you really need the help.”
She didn’t get my point, but fine. I guess that answer was enough for now.
Fevri must’ve noticed my reluctance, making her continue. “Look, you don’t seem to be a bad man. Just… someone caught up in something really horrible. Everyone back in the office—myself included—liked you and felt sorry for you, you know? That hasn’t changed with me, at least.”
“Alright, alright,” I stood up from the couch, giving in to the receptionist’s offer. There was something else that made her want to stick around; I wasn’t an idiot.
For now? I couldn’t doubt her. She’s my only real friend; anything is better than being alone.
“I’m gonna clean up.”
She gave a nod of acknowledgment as I entered the bathroom and locked the door behind me. I stared at the unfamiliar visage in the mirror, examining every little line and nick that marked my face. The graying Venlil in front of me was someone else entirely.
I was old. I was exhausted. I was likely insane—but I was awake.
My true trial is just beyond the walls of my apartment building once the lockdown ends. The past twenty years of being lost and asleep had only served as a prologue to a nightmare.
The worst was yet to come.

Especially if someone over the age of 30 gets one..I feel like it gives a mid haircut a certain "edge" maybe..idk..I was just laying here thinking about it and if anyone else had an opinion I would love to hear.

I am glad Creed III went over as well as it did, but if they were to leave it here, I would find it to be an unsatisfactory conclusion to the trilogy. It tried to offer a resolution, but I think it left a lot more elephants in the room and dangling threads of plot that should be addressed in Creed IV. The most obvious one is of course the question of where is Rocky and in my opinion, his presence is still needed in the story for a true final outing to happen. But there’s also the matter of Adonis Creed’s siblings and why they disowned him as well as Bianca’s hearing and when she will finally go deaf.
I would love to hear what suggestions this community has for the synopsis of Creed IV with these plot points in mind. I personally think Creed IV should be a story about Adonis Creed’s struggle with becoming an aging fighter like Rocky IV touched on. Creed III established that Adonis may have retired prematurely to preserve his health and possibly out of respect for his wife with his child in the picture, but it hints that he was never fully satisfied with this decision and the ending even suggests that he longs to reclaim his place in the ring. I think a logical stepping stool would be for Adonis to enter his mid-life crisis Apollo in Rocky IV phase where he is afraid of fading into obscurity or irrelevance and he wonders if he did enough to cement his legacy as a fighter.
With the plot point about Adonis’ beef with his siblings in mind, I think an interesting dynamic would be for Adonis to be on horrible terms with them growing up because in their mind, he ruins the good name of their father since he is the product of his infidelity and subsequently became all Mary Anne could focus on, which would lead to bitterness and resentment on their behalf. So I was thinking what if Adonis Creed’s half brother has a child in his 20s who is inspired to be a heavyweight champion like his grandfather, but he’s poisoned against Adonis Creed by his father because he always hated him in adulthood for stealing their mother away from them and in their minds, soiling Apollo’s legacy by being an illegitimate Creed who capitalized on the namesake. This would all tie back into Adonis Creed’s issue in the first Creed of inheriting the name.
I would write it to where Adonis Creed’s half brother blew his whole inheritance and has an alcohol addiction because when his father died, he grew up into a irresponsible adult who fell behind in life and started to make bad decisions, which would explain his absence in the trilogy. His son, of course, inherits all of this trauma and is mad as hell at the world, which means he also has a huge chip on his shoulder at Adonis for being the successful Creed son and feeling like he hasn’t earned it.
I would want Adonis to patch things up with his half sister in adulthood who will explain how her brother never had the heart he did to achieve something greater in life and now he’s given his burdens to his son.
At first, Adonis wouldn’t want to take the fight because he doesn’t want to fight his nephew, but his nephew wants to restore honor to the Creed name by beating him and becoming the “true” successor to Apollo’s legacy.
In the midst of this, I would want Bianca to get a prognosis from a doctor that she may have a form of cancer in her ears and I want this to take a heavy toll on Adonis’ emotional state that makes him reflect on his time taking care of Rocky when he was sick, which leads to them finally reconnecting after years of not seeing each other. Adonis will finally have the opportunity to empathize more fully with Rocky about the passing of his wife. Rocky will agree to train Adonis for one last fight against his nephew. I think a scene where Logan and Amara meet and become friends would sweet, too.
I want the fight to be hostile and intense with the resentment towards Adonis on full display. Apollo’s grandson should be unapologetic about his disdain for him to show the influence his father had over him. In the middle of the fight, I want Adonis to hear the words of his mother as she was dying in his head. “You don’t have to fight, you can find another way..” and I want a flashback to him as a kid in the first movie beating up the other kid at the start while he’s fighting his nephew. In the end, I want Adonis to lose in a split decision, realizing he has nothing more to prove and I want him to congratulate his nephew and say “your grandfather would be proud of how you fight. Carry on his legacy, champ” which leads his nephew being stunned and thinking more sympathetically of Adonis.
In essence, I want the story to be a combination of all three Creed movies into one pot. The legacy theme of the first with an antagonist who is basically a combination of Viktor Drago and Damian Anderson.

I've been Clairaudient since childhood, and in my mid twenties I also developed a case of tinnitus. The tinnitus isn't exactly a ringing for me so much as a frequency(s), and it is there 24/7. Yesterday while cleaning around the house I started to hear a strange noise. I was vacuuming at the time so I turned the machine off thinking it was broken but the noise continued. The closest I can come to describing it is the sound of propellers spinning, and though it was muffled, the sound was steadily growing louder. Suddenly another sound rang; like someone using a triangle instrument. It was super clear and crisp, and resonated for a minute within my head before fading. That's when I noticed my tinnitus was gone also. I felt relieved. I haven't had quiet within my head for a very long time. Apparently it was just a fleeting thing though bc it came back a few moments later. 😮‍💨
Anyways, the sound that I heard is driving me crazy. I'm trying to place it to understand what its meaning could be, but I can't figure it out. I feel like it has to be a machine of some kind because I can't imagine anything else having such a unique sound pattern. Unless the sounds don't actually correlate & are their own separate phenomenon.
Does anyone have any idea what the sound could be connected to?

I 19(f) currently living with my mom's family because of family problems. My parents had an on and off relationship since beginning my father is an alcohol addict and multiple abuse were done through all those past year towards my mother when ever he is drunk. We left that house multiple time and my father family used to keep coming and asking us to come back because he is good and now earning and all but within few months the old cycle used to repeat. My parents are not divorced but seperated when I was in 6th but 2 years later he came during vacation to take me to his family few days I went with him because I somewhere still fear and have a lot anxiety towards such family fights and never once he was sober to any time he visited he is always drunk and always ends up abusing my mother's family which I feel bad about. Whenever I used to go with him my mom used to not talk with me for days after coming back which also hurted and when I was at my father's house everyone was nice but when I was leaving my father asked me stay for few more days on bus stop and i agreed but when I went back my grandmother was like why you came back with a slight tone which was not good at all. And when I was there with him he used to take me outside to like show things around but those visit also ended up with me standing outside of a bar waiting for him to come out he also told me that when me or my mom are there with him he feels like we are shield for him that's why he drinks and every time he drinks he loses job and even curse at his boss to whom I used to apologise when I was just 12 or something. My father's visit started to became frequent same with abuse he also used to accuse my mother of cheating and all bullshit so my mom finally filed complaint and those visit stopped. When I grew up 2 years ago my cousins made visit and got my Instagram and phone and all and now they keep calling me one time my father called me I never picked up calls from them to avoid any tough situation and he kept calling when I finally picked up he started asking about divorce papers and all and I got fade up and blocked him but few days later he showed up and when I refused to go with him he started cursing me also and said things to our neighbours like I am like my mom and he needs to get dna test and all bullshit which actually was hurtfull. Now my family is again trying to get in contact with me as next month there are birthday's in families and my birthday also my grandmother (from mother's side) told me pick it as they were calling constantly just if it was any health related or something and they keep calling i don't know what to do I feel pressure from both the families. Our neighbours also told me to not give in with father's family and at the same time laugh at it as if it is a joke or something. My mom also most of the time never interfere she tells me to tell my father or he won't listen so she stays out of our talks most of the time. My father's family is been neglectful towards me since start which I realised after growing up they preferred my cousins more but now they just show sympathy and try to make me feel bad about not contacting with them or missing then mostly my grandmother keeps asking like how can I not miss them and all. I remember when I was kid my grandfather took me to doctor and while we were standing in queue he asked me if my mother give me money for doctor I was actually a little taken aback when he asked me now how we should visit doctor he doesn't have money when I clearly know he had he keep asking me why I didn't ask money from my mom. When we were kids my grandmother used to get my cousin brother and sister out with leaving me behind and when I used to follow she used to scold me and one time my friends lied me about our class starting early and took me out and mid road told me that my father was laying on road near our class drunk i bought him home myself when I was just in 5th std even then my grandmother was like why you bought him home like this i didn't know what to do For my father I don't know when he is not drinking he not much interactive or something just normal but when he is drunk it is worse i still remember when I was kid i used to live with my mom just like now but then grandparents took us back and I saw my father I didn't even recognised him when he gave me chocolate I asked my cousin who this uncle is he told me he is my father. My father has abused my mother and her family alot since beginning he even stole the money for my grandfather's (mom's dad) injection and even from my piggy bank just to drink. Now my family is trying to get in contact they live with my uncle now it makes me think most probably because now if me and my mother can take care of my father so they can live freely just like they used to tell us. I will be graduating next year working on my own maybe so they could just join again i don't know what to do. My most of education were done by my mother and her family and by family my mother's mom and sister no one else we are not even from some rich family or something but they still have me everything i wanted so it's so shameful seeing them getting abused because of me. I'll not lie my mom has seen worse but she endured it for me. I am not good with emotions i still feel anxious whenever I get any message from them or my father it's just to traumatizing for me. I trusted my cousins even told them not to involve elders but they gave my number to them now I feel they keep emotionally blackmailing me. I am crying even while writing this i don't know what to say or do If I talk or be in touch with my father's family my other family make me feel bad and when I avoid father's family they make me feel guilty for being bad child or something even my grandmother keep telling on phone how old she and grandfather is and are getting tired and even my father is sick and all which somewhere i don't know if I should believe. I just feel like no one understands or care about my feelings and it's getting tougher slowly i have exams in next month but all these things keeps me stressing I hope i won't burden anyone here...

Hey everyone! I hope you are all doing pretty well. I got a bit of writer’s block for this one, so I’m sorry if it’s a bit lower quality than usual. Anyways, I hope that you enjoy!
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Speak of the devil, and he shall appear,” I said as I pressed accept on the call from the ambassador of Terra. “Ambassador Tobias, what can I do for you?” I immediately got a request for a holo-call, and only hesitated for a moment before clicking accept on my phone and putting it on the surface of the desk.
With that I saw the stern visage of the Ambassador projected into the air in front of me. In his earlier days, he would have been considered handsome. His graying hair was slicked back into a tight yet professional looking haircut that was popular among businessmen well over three centuries ago. I had thought that the haircut was completely extinct until I had the opportunity to meet him over a month ago when I decided to take this job. He looked at me sternly, wrinkles creasing even more to make him look older than he already was. “We both know that I don’t have time for pleasantries, so how about we skip those and get to why I called.” I nodded. “Alright, please state your full name and identification number for the record.”
I sighed. No getting out of this now. “Alex Davis, ID number 7992255.”
“Your mech’s quantum communicator shows that your mech is out of action. Care to explain how that happened?”
“Yes sir, I would love to.” And so, I started my story, from the conversation with Aeva to repelling the boarders to the explosive that ultimately caused this whole mess to begin with.
The ambassador nodded along and asked a few clarifying questions. “And where are you right now? Clearly this ‘Aeva’ person knows, but how many others know? And don’t give me a lowball number either, give me your worst-case guess.”
“Well, right now I’m in the captain’s ready room, with the Captain and Aeva.” I lowered my voice for the next bit, “and for how many people saw me, I would have to say the entire bridge crew, and anyone that we might have stumbled across while on transit to the bridge. They were taking pictures as well, so God knows where those were going. But for those that saw me firsthand, I would have to say at least fifty people.”
The ambassador buried his hands in his face and sighed. “Dammit, do you know how much shit this is going to put humanity into? We were just normalizing relations with the various members of the galactic community, and now everything that humanity has built over the last two and a half years is going to topple like a house of cards, as soon as the galactic news cycle restarts in about an hour, but I give it ten minutes before your image floods the galactic net. If you had just followed protocol like you were supposed to, then none of this would have happened!” I couldn't help but feel offended. He was right, though. If I had just made my way to the “panic room” inside the mech I probably would have been fine, and the cat would have stayed in the bag for at least a couple more hours.
“Hey!” I heard as Aeva loomed over my left shoulder. “Alex couldn’t have predicted any of this! It’s not his fault that he was following procedure of the galactic community when he charged into that airlock! By doing that, he saved the lives of whoever would have gone into that airlock instead of him!”
The ambassador moved his cold, stern stare to the alien looming over me. “And who the hell are you to butt into a conversation that you have no business participating in?” I saw Aeva visibly flinch at the intensity of the ambassador, the fight in their eyes slowly fading away as they slowly leaned back into a neutral sitting position.
“Hey, don’t talk to Aeva like that! When the mech was damaged beyond repair, they were the only one that rushed to my aid and tried to help me despite not knowing what was going on!” I said defensively.
He then looked back at me. The river of sweat that I had running down my back started back up again from the pure venom that I could see in his eyes. “I will be having a conversation with the United Terran Security Council about this. Expect me to get back to you within ten minutes. Until then, I suggest that you go back to your cabin or somewhere equally safe and hole up there.” He turned to the captain, his face softening slightly. “Could I get your contact information? I feel like what I have been told today will probably require you to change course to Terran space, so when that decision is reached, I would rather not have to go through Mr. Davis here to get that information to you.”
The captain flexed her tentacles in a fashion that I recognized as acknowledgment. “It would be pretty difficult to just change our entire route based purely on the overreactions of politicians, but I’ll see what I can do.”
The ambassador nodded his head. “Rest assured, whatever the security council decides to do, you will be fairly compensated for your time and efforts.” He turned back to me. “I will get back to you as soon as the security council makes their decision. Until then, keep yourself safe.”
I nodded my head. “Thank you, ambassador, I’ll try to do that. Oh, and tell the boys over in R&D that their mech couldn’t even stand up to that explosion, and that I’m more pissed about that than anything else today.”
For the first time this whole conversation, he cracked a smile. “I’ll have to let them know. I don’t know how long it’ll be before the next iteration comes out, but I’m sure that your feedback is appreciated.” And with that, the call was terminated.
The captain gave a heavy sigh and started massaging her head with renewed vigor. “That was one intense conversation, thank the Tribunal that it’s over.” She then looked at me. “You should probably get to your cabin, it’s probably the safest for you there.”
“You’re probably right ma’am. I’m sorry things ended up this way.” I said with genuine regret.
She waved her tentacles dismissively. “Don’t apologize for the asteroid that happened to hit you.” That must have been a saying in the captain's culture. “Aeva, would you be so kind to take Alex here to his quarters?”
The giant raptor nodded at the captain and placed their hand back on the desk for me to climb onto. “Thanks,” I said as I clambered onto their shoulder for the second time today.
We stood in silence as we took the elevator back down to the floor that we both lived on, and we happened to pass by the ruined mech, still lying where we left it. “Hang on,” I said.
Aeva stopped and looked down at me. “What? Why?”
“Just set me down on the face of the mech, I just want to check a few things. They complied and set me down near the opening that was my escape from it not even ten minutes ago. I clambered into the pilot’s chair and connected my phone to the central computer through a cord in the seat. With all of that done, I ran the diagnostics program one more time. The list of things wrong with the mech looked more like a barcode than an actual list, and from the looks of it, there was only a small chance that I could get this hunk of junk in working order again.
“What are you doing?” came Aeva’s voice as they looked curiously into the cockpit of the mech.
I sighed as I looked at my potential to do list. “Well, I’m assessing if it would be worth it to try and get this thing operating again. At least then I won’t be at risk of being crushed to death whenever I want to get food from the cafeteria.” I looked back at the phone. It would take some doing, but fortunately I have most of the materials I need, I would just have to get ahold of the fabricator on the ship to make what I don’t already have. I looked back up to Aeva. “I think I can get it working again, but I think I’ll need some help getting this to my cabin, among other things.”
They nodded their head. “Alright, I’ll be happy to help.”

This is a couple years ago. I was starting my first year of high school and it started in a couple days and I needed a haircut. The nearest barber which was an hour away, was closed. So I though screw it I need a cut so I will go to sports clips. Probably the worst decision I ever made. I get there and this lady gets me. I sit down and I said I want a mid fade with a trim on top. She faced me away from the mirror and turn on her clippers. As I soon as I felt the clippers go from the side of my head to the top of my head I nearly had a stroke. This lady went straight up with the goddamn clippers no fade at all. I started to get nervous and she said "are you all right your shaking like a leaf" I was thinking no I’m not Alright your butchering me. She then proceeds to basically trim the top to like 2 inches left. I got clowned at school for the next few months.