Salazzle dex human men

Mission / Philosophy: We believe the human body is beautiful in all forms, and making oneself vulnerable to others by celebrating your divine body is a fast-track to meaningful connection and friendship. As Gay/Bi/Trans men, we’re bombarded with unrealistic expectations of what the “ideal” man should look like. We aim to combat that by creating space to celebrate the male form in all its various incarnations.
Where? We have a few founding members with the ability to host on Vashon Island (several acres of private wooded property adjacent to their home), as well as interest in hosting events closer to downtown Seattle.
When? Goal is to meet monthly, with the first event kicking off in June- possibly Pride Weekend for a daytime get together.
Who? Any person who identifies as male and is Bi or Gay. We are trans-inclusive and welcome our trans brothers to the community with open arms and bear hugs.
What? Expect light food, drinks, music, and other activities (bonfire, hot tub, movie night, etc.) We may host special get-togethers for events like Super Bowl, Summer Solstice, etc. or take field trips to nudist friendly spots in the area. A twice-yearly camping trip is being planned.
For more information, DM me here.

My sister in law is 30 years old and hot as fuck. She and her husband have been trying to have a baby for this past 7 or 8 years without sucess.They have went to many doctors but everything they have tried has failed. However, while the hormone meds that they gave her have failed to help her get pregnant, they made her tits swell quite alot and I am more horny around her now than I used to be.
Being a total degenerate, the fact that she can't get knocked up is the fuel for one of the many fantasies I have about her.
In my fantasy we are having a long time affair and what turns her on most is being rough fucked and humiliated. So I decide to see how far she will go...
I go to her house one morning while her husband is at work. When she opens the door I dont share any pleasantries with her, I just grab her and pull her towards her bed room.
"I'm only here for one thing slut" I say as I roughly push her face down bent over her bed. She is still in her pyjamas which I pull along with her panties down around her ankles then take out my own cock which is rock hard already. No foreplay, I just shove my dick into her cunt which is soaking wet already and I start fucking her.
"look at you you nasty bitch" I say "getting dicked on your marriage bed while your husbands away. What a fucking slut".
She just moans, not replying.
"Look how I am fucking you bareback whore. Dont even need to use a condom on an infertile cunt like you, no risk" I sneer.
"please dont say that" she pleads, but she betrays herself as at the same time she starts to puch back at my cock. Shes getting off on the humiliation.
"I will say what I want whore. you are not even a real woman, the only thing you are good for is the fuck"
I pound her harder and reach round putting my hand up her top and grabbing her tit. I doubt I will last long.
"The good thing about a worthless whore like you is that men dont even have to waste money on condoms, your a human condom you nasty cow."
at this stage she is fucking back hard and her cunt is dripping, yet still she keeps saying "no" "please" and "dont".
"Young women can have babies and look at you. You are a worthless bitch, only good for one thing which is taking mens cum in you. A no risk fuck"
At this stage its too much for me and I cum, dumping a load in her infertile cunt.
I pull up my trousers, button up and leave her there face down on the bed.
"clean yourself up before you half ass husband comes home you whore" I say as I close the door.

I am a firm believer that action films require a male lead in order to be effective in the action market. Nearly every one of these films is about revenge, taking on a spirit of vengeance, or taking on the role of justice. But the strange part of this is that both vengeance and justice are feminine deities in mythology, and at multiple levels. The male action hero is less about taking revenge or enacting justice and is more about understanding their role in taking revenge, which can result in not wanting revenge at all or realizing there is something more grand to the journey they enter. This is why mystery and whodunit stories appeal to women, because women enjoy aspects of revenge and justice, while being less interested in the more masculine aspects like enlightenment and the hero’s journey.
That statement alone is enough to set any wokescold’s blood a’boiling, because it’s a factual statement.
None of this means it’s impossible to make an action movie with a female lead, it just means it will be built differently with themes exclusive to the female role. I’ve talked about the movie Furie here and there when talking about female roles in stories because it’s a clear example of how to do it right when the female role is meant to be a tiger mother archetype. The story is simple: a mother has her child kidnapped by bad guys and she goes out to retrieve her child and save her from the dangerous world they live in. This kind of story is very primitive, with how it’s no different than if a tigress lost her cub and had to find it in the wilderness. The tiger mother finds her strength by being more feminine, closer to mother earth, and using her nurturing spirit to stay dedicated to her main goal: protect her cub.
Not only protect, but also allow her cub to flourish in the world by making sure her child studies hard, gets a good job, and gives the air of “not being good enough” because that is what the world tells us every day. We will never please the world and feel comfortable at any moment for any reason unless we willingly let our guard down, and that’s when the snake devours the cub. The tiger mother views the world as harsh, unforgiving, and a constant threat of corruption that will swallow their child whole. They are not paranoid, they are realistic. They are not carefree, they are careful. This mentality causes them to become very authoritarian, and so the tiger mother might as well be called the empress, because they are to be the empress of both their world and the world of their child’s.
A fury is one of the Furies from Greek mythology, who are the 3 goddesses of vengeance. Nemesis came before them as a goddess of revenge, but it is more like Nemesis handles anger between gods and the furies cast curses upon humans. In the movie Furie, there is a detective who is after the same villain, with the villain being this drug lady(as in female version of drug lord) and she is the dark sorceress of the streets. The Drug Lady represents the terrible chaotic side of the earth mother, with her minions being these evil demons who kill and rape anything in their path. The entire story of Furie was a mythological tale presented in modern day Vietnam in one of the most beautiful depictions of such a tale I’ve seen in a while.
This is not meant to be a hero’s journey other than the journey of the detective, who gains a gift from the tiger mother in the form of protection while he also saves her in the end, meaning there is a supportive synergy going on in their relationship. The authoritarian femme fatale assisting the masculine authority is a story about control between both family and society. An action movie like this is why I love action films when they have effort put into them, because there is deep subject matter being played out through simple interactions between individuals and between that we get epic fight scenes.
Let me tell you: these fight scenes are awesome.
It’s not just about a woman beating up a bunch of dudes. It’s about how she struggles to get through each fight but will still carry on because that’s what a mother does for her child. It’s no different than when a noir hero fights his way through hordes of goons in order to enact his revenge. All of these little fights represent thoughts in our head like “give up” and “go back”, which are meant to detract us from our main goal. Get hit too much or get surrounded and we are forced to play defense or hide behind something, which is no different than being like a turtle hiding in their shell. The turtle, the hermit, only works in isolation and it’s meant to be the moment of introspect.
All of that is a way of saying that the action hero should only play defense to plan a better attack, because the world around them will not give up on the onslaught. These are the moments in an action movie where someone is healing or planning a new attack, with the occasional doubt hitting them near the end. The movie Furie has these moments, specifically for the tiger mother to heal and make a plan to get her daughter back, which enhances the movie’s credibility. We need these high and low points of an action movie for rest, progression of story, getting to know the characters more, and also we don’t expect a budget to be constant expensive action all the time.
If anything, the furie in this movie is a representation of Alecto, goddess of unceasing anger, due to her dedication that goes beyond the death of those who wrong her. In the mythology, the furies are three sisters who live in the underworld, specifically Erebus(meaning darkness), which is why it’s appropriate to have this movie mostly at night and involve the criminal underworld. Whenever an action movie involves the criminal underworld as a setting, they are mirroring the underworld of mythology in a form of katabasis, a journey into the underworld. Think of something like Orpheus or Dante or Jesus making a trip into the underworld in order to achieve a goal. The underworld in this case is always related to something like a wilderness or a hedonistic primitive state of mind that’s full of everything unlawful because the primitive state is before society and order is established.
The male enters the underworld to become enlightened and the female lives there because it’s their domain.
Rape, murder, theft, drug use, kidnapping, everything that we are able to do as humans but only do once our shadow has taken over. The shadow, the darkness within us, is what is so present in the underworld that the entire world is enveloped in darkness, under this shadow. When taken symbolically, this movie works beautifully and it makes sense to have the evil villain kidnap the child of our tiger mother heroine and also try to harvest her organs. This villain, named Thanh Soi, appears to be something like a big bad wolf who goes around and devours children. Being a female antagonist, she represents the ruthless underworld and chaos that causes the world to be so treacherous and causes the tiger mother to be so dedicated.
I have nothing but praise for this first movie because it sticks so close to mythology and fits itself into an alchemical form of storytelling. It’s no surprise this movie was nominated for awards and it probably would have won a lot of them if people respected the beautiful choreography and neon noir aesthetics. I would even go far enough to say that it’s one of my favorite action movies of the decade, if not in the top 10 of all time. It provides a female action heroine in a way that works because she is entirely feminine in her approach to everything, down to her not really having a hero’s journey because that’s reserved for the male assistant she has, who is in the form of a detective.
Sadly, thanks to the colors pink and purple always being present in these neon noir movies, we have encountered a massive issue in how these kinds of movies will be made in the future.
For a quick reminder, noir is the film genre where a cynical hero enters an existentialist journey that changes them for the worst because they were touched by the darkest elements of the world. In noir, the femme fatale always aids in bringing this male hero to his downfall, because the femme fatale is a representation of Lilith and this existential crisis our hero enters represents the fallen state of Adam. These stories are aided by German expressionism and poetic realism, to both ground and extend the story into an almost surreal world that we can relate to. The inner mind of the hero gets reflected out onto the world to cause this expressionism, which allows aspects like elongated shadows and warped environments to symbolically fit into the story and make it look fascinating.
Neo-noir is a postmodernist form of this genre that takes some of the aspects of noir and tries to experiment with more current trends, keeping some of the aesthetics and aspects that resulted from decades of pulp stories being told and merged together in what I would like to call “mental slop” that is created in media by merging elements together after years of experimentation and deconstruction. No longer does it have to do with a cynical hero or an existential crisis, because now the barriers of the genre are removed and people simply recognize it as noir for some vague aspects that might relate to noir, such as dealing with a criminal underworld or the snappy way hardboiled dialogue would be written.
A good way to put it is that neo-noir holds noir “themes” and “sensibilities”.
This is further continued into neon noir, which is not a fully established genre quite yet, but is noticed recently with the increased popularity of retrowave and cyberpunk. The neon lights of the 80s are brought into this neo-noir story to create a contrast between two colors, similar to how noir was filmed in black and white. This is an aesthetic choice and is usually in the form of contrasting purple against a blue because these are complimentary colors. Lights are very present in this new genre, but the light is less of a source of clarity and more like a new form of obscurity. The expressionism in these movies are used for mood enhancing, due to the tranquility of blue and the excitement of red.
All of this is important to note because postmodernists will take everything that works about these factors and then try to avoid anything that makes sense about it. They go by whatever they feel and hope their experimentation doesn’t blow up in their face. Sometimes it works, like in the case of the movie Drive, and other times it doesn’t like in the sequel to Furie called Furies.
Everything was set up for this sequel. There was no way for it to be worse. It had more money, it had Hollywood investing in it, and the concept of the tiger mother can be used as much as any typical action hero setup could be used. Just have a villain who runs a crime syndicate, have a person who was wronged by this crime lord, they seek out revenge, and it ends with the villain being defeated.
Simple, right?
Well… this movie didn’t do that. I mean, it did, but it didn’t in the way that works. There’s a villain, a male drug lord who runs a casino and kidnaps women to sell their bodies for sex. There is a person who is wronged, who is a woman that lost her husband and child at the hands of this drug lord. This woman is seeking revenge and she defeats the villain at the end.
But she’s not the protagonist. She’s not even A protagonist. In fact, they made her the actual villain of the story. The villain… kills the villain. They probably thought they were doing a “Darth Vader killing off the Emperor” kind of thing, but they weren’t.
We are told in the beginning that this woman is to be like a mentor, the fairy godmother who protects our protagonist and guides her through this treacherous world. She’s meant to be a sort of adopted tiger mother, the way lesbians do it, and instead turns into the wicked stepmother by the end. But it seems I’m getting ahead of myself, so I’ll explain this story in a more coherent manner.
This sequel is a prequel. It happens before the first movie. We are introduced to a character named Bi(pronounced like BEE) who claims in a monologue that she was “destined for darkness”. Hey, makes sense. The Furies were born from Nyx in one of the mythologies, so being born from night to be destined for darkness is a sort of match made in heaven for this kind of character.
She becomes a homeless wreck after a drunk man tries to rape her and killed her mother. She killed him and is forever reminded of that moment every time she gets blood on her hands(a running theme we will see later). This is where a lady named Jacqueline finds her and brings her under her wing, hiding her with two other girls. Symbolically, we can determine these three girls are meant to be the furies: Alecto (“Unceasing in Anger”), Tisiphone (“Avenger of Murder”), and Megaera (“Jealous”).
Already, this entire thing fell apart and deviated from the mythology.
I say this because the other two girls are nothing like the furies of mythology and I can only assume Bi is meant to be Tisiphone because her mother was murdered. But she already got her revenge, so there’s not much for her to do in that regard. The girl named Hong is meant to be a cute Harley Quinn style psycho and the girl Thanh Soi is meant to be a butch biker. The two girls want their own forms of revenge against the drug lord that runs the streets they live in, mostly because both used to be slave girls and want to free their fellow women who have been enslaved. Jacqueline convinced them that she wants to free the slave girls as well, and all of this training that she puts them through is for this mission, but there’s a catch.
Jacqueline kept her relationship with this drug lord secret, because she was working with him and ended up having her husband and child killed by this drug lord. For years, she planned out revenge and set up several spies within his ranks, including the boyfriend of Hong. All of this is revealed in the end, so we go through the whole movie believing they are out for vigilante justice against crimes, specifically against women, when it was all because a bitter mother was betrayed after trusting a man too much. Already, this sounds like a mess, and it is. This prequel makes such a simple story incredibly convoluted and tries to use twists as a plaster for weak narrative and symbol subversion. But there’s a reason for this.
The woman who acted as the main heroine in the first movie also plays the role of Jacqueline. These are two different women in the movie’s setting, being played by the same woman. On top of that, the first movie was directed by a man and now this prequel is written and directed by… this same actress in question, Veronica Ngo. That’s right, she decided to play the villain after she wrote the script and directed the entire thing.
It was designed for this woman to crank herself silly.
And boy does it show in the movie. Quite literally in every scene. I say this because the first movie held shots for a while and had the simple story unfold slowly, with long moments to settle down and let the beautiful environment sink in. In the prequel, we are supposed to enjoy flashing colors as every scene is cut and edited like a movie trailer. I’m not kidding when I say that.
Every. Single. Scene.
Even the scene where Bi is being raped by a drunkard is treated like a movie trailer, with the camera changing all over the place and music playing as she monologues about how everything sucks. This camera is a massive pain to sit through, because it’s either constantly moving, getting splashed with CGI blood, zooming over people’s shoulders, or switching between 5 different conversations before a single thought could be finalized. It does that thing where someone is talking in a different scene and then a few seconds later the camera goes to where the person is talking, as if the transition was meant to be meaningful, but it would be for any little thing.
This is the sign of someone trying to experiment with things but are completely incompetent in what they’re doing. It gets worse when we enter fight scenes that look like they were edited frame by frame to hide the fact that they didn’t know what they wanted the fights to look like. The only time a camera holds for longer than a second is when someone dies off screen or Bi starts to suffer from her PTSD. And boy does she suffer.
They have a moment where she kills a random goon, gets blood on her hands, and when they return to their hideout, she vomits in the sink. She gets flashbacks to her first assault and the day her mother dies, which results in her trying to fight Thanh when she tries to calm Bi down. They fight in the bathroom and one of them knocks a valve loose, which causes the shower to turn on and shower both of them as they try to grapple and fall to their knees. This moment is meant to be a loving embrace between sisters during a time of need and support, with Thanh being a protective sister who is dedicated in making sure the new sister is able to get through harsh mental anguish whenever she is triggered.
This, my friend, is the entire problem with this movie.
I understand it’s meant to be emotional and heartfelt. I don’t deny there is thought put behind a moment like this. The music swells, the colors are somber, the water slowly falls on them as if to say the water purifies their thoughts and cools their head. I get it. But what the hell does any of that have to do with being a fury?
This isn’t about taking vengeance, this all feminist woes being presented for the sake of representation. Hong later on has a birthday party and they all celebrate by singing 90s songs(because this movie is meant to take place in the 90s) and when Bi came into the picture they had a makeover montage. This is an action movie written like a teen romcom without the romance and nothing in it is meant to be comedic. There are light hearted moments, sure, but I would never call it a comedy except for this one moment where a drug addict begs for drugs and the drug lord throws it on the ground for him to snort it, and then the drug lord pisses all over him.
To me, that is funny, but it’s treated as a horrible moment to make us hate the villain who doesn’t even really do anything. One of the most disappointing moments is when the furies sneak into a bedroom with him by disguising themselves as club whores and they have the perfect moment to kill him. Bi messes up by being too obvious with her stab attack and he runs away with a slight wound. This is where we have a fight that is meant to be a key moment: a hallway decorated with silhouettes of dancing women as the place fills up with black suited goons.
This moment is meant to show how brave and powerful the girls are, and all it does is accidentally present a massive stereotype where women can't get the job done and they are granted luxuries by having beautiful bodies while wearing a lot of makeup. When I saw this, I figured at least the action scenes will make up for the lack of theme, and… boy was I wrong.
These action scenes, as I said before, are a mess. Everything is a close up so we can’t see what’s going on and every attack is a wide swing that gets blocked by an arm that comes up 5 seconds too early. There is this back and forth that happens with each fight that makes it look functional and the music keeps it pumping, but it always looks like the fight coordinador told them to do everything wrong as a joke and the director was none the wiser. There are even moments where they use the wrong sound effect, like when someone gets punched and it does the stabbing sound effect.
Sure these are tiny technical things, but it gets worse when I am forced to mention the infamous bike scene.
So, Hong dies at the hands of this guy called Son, who is meant to be the dragon below the drug lord. Her boyfriend sees it, with her boyfriend acting as a spy who has infiltrated the drug lord’s ranks, so he’s standing there shocked and everyone ignores him. The remaining two sisters decided to run away on a bike and ensue in a chase sequence that is some of the worst CGI fighting I’ve seen in a while. There was no reason for any of this, they just put it in because the director thought it would look cool. I have no idea what it is with women and motorcycle chases, but there’s something where a woman on a motorcycle is seen as a “sexy” thing, specifically for women.
Not sexy to be sexual, but it’s something that women find aesthetically pleasing, and I can only imagine that it has something to do with the feeling of a bike vibrating between their legs. It also has to do with the idea of danger, because it’s easier to fall off a motorcycle than it is to fall out of a car with the doors closed. That, and I think it’s a fantasy for women to actually ride them without crashing. It’s the director’s way of saying “See! Women can ride motorcycles too!”, as if refraining from instantly crashing is an achievement.
But considering these are women and they are Asian, the fact they are not crashing instantly is a miracle.
What makes it funny is that in order to say “women can ride motorcycles too”, they put these women on a motorcycle and then transition it into a CGI race through the city with the motorcycle sitting in place in front of a greenscreen. We can easily tell this is happening because the wheels aren’t moving and there is the world’s fakest looking background flying by with whacky angles and movements being made with the camera. Bad guys fly into the screen from behind like TIE fighters in the old Star Wars movies, clearly breaking through the scenery, and I could not stop laughing at how terrible it all looked. And they somehow managed to make it worse by having a moment where one of the girls gets knocked off the bike and the other keeps riding to go up a ramp and onto a roof, only to get knocked off the bike herself and the bike flies off the roof and explodes in a corner.
I think I forgot to mention this but EVERYTHING EXPLODES in this movie. It’s as if the direct thought “hey, this part doesn’t have much substance to it, let’s fill it up with explosions.” There’s even a part earlier where they light a building on fire because it was a place where girls were being held captive. They throw lighters in random areas that have lamp oil or alcohol conveniently placed for them and random areas of the building start blowing up. What are you guys lacing in your cocaine over there, nitroglycerin?
Finally, we come back to the ending, the part of the story that ruined it for the movie. Bi and Thanh go to the drug lord’s hideout, they seek revenge for their lost sister, and meanwhile we have Hong’s boyfriend kill Son because… he was her boyfriend and had sex with her. Way to go movie, that sure shows what men care for. We only fight for those we bang and the sex was really that important for him. Forget meaningful things like a firmly built relationship or a child being made between a man and a woman, those aren’t important to a man. It’s all about the dedication someone has to a girl who sold her body for money.
But you know what? His motives and story aren’t important because we don’t even really see him. In fact, they bring in several characters that we’ve never seen before and act as if we’re supposed to know them. This is when they enter the drug lord’s underground casino, with the casino representing a massive gamble that this entire mission has been taking. However, the concept of gambling doesn’t mean much since the story repeatedly hits us with talk about fate, which is meant to relate to the sisters of fate in Greek mythology. I thought we were going to get some kind of motif going on every time they mentioned fate, but they just said “this is our fate” and that was it.
So they enter the casino and start shooting up the place. I don’t know what guns they are using, but they have enough ammo in their magazines to practically be infinite. There’s even an editing flub where they were supposed to show one of the girls reload, but they just show her pulling the slide back to load a bullet in the chamber, as if that’s enough. At least this part of the movie tries to implement gun-fu, but the way they do it is surreal because it’s entirely for show and there’s nothing practical in any of their attacks. They come with limited ammo and see themselves outnumbered, but they end up shooting people in the hands and feet while fighting as a way to ease off some attacks, to then shoot the enemy in the head.
Fast forward a bit and we have one of the stupidest twists enacted on screen. Jacqueline came with the girls to finish this once and for all, and while fighting she is seen getting stabbed in the back by a henchman. The drug lord watches it happen on a CCTV and celebrates. This looks like a perfect time for Bi to get her revenge on the main villain. But no, that would be the smart thing to do.
Instead, they have Bi and Thanh held at gunpoint in a room after a surprisingly difficult fight against a crackhead armed with a syringe who walked up to them like a zombie, and no I am not making that up. It sounds stupid, because it is, but they put that into the movie because someone decided it would be a good time to include something zombie related in a movie that has nothing to do with zombies. So, they’re held at gunpoint and then Jacqueline barges in and shoots the drug lord’s limbs to make sure he suffers. The boyfriend of Hong also comes in and is like “yeah, let’s get our revenge on this sick bastard”.
Then Jacqueline shoots the boyfriend of Hong. Everyone in the room is like “what the hell is going on?!” and Jacqueline kills off the drug lord and goes “Ok, now Thanh has to kill Bi” and both of them are just as confused as the audience. Even if Jacqueline was this new villain who becomes the new drug lord, it’s not like either of the girls would join her if she continued the sex trade. So, Thanh does the expected and tries to shoot Jacqueline instead, but was too slow and gets shot herself. The final fight is between Jacqueline and Bi, with Bi shooting Jacqueline several times.
But this is the part that made me really pissed: they fire the same gun over 30 times without reloading and then the second the gun is trained on Bi’s head… it’s empty.
The only way for this to be more convenient for Bi is if a bird flew in and airdropped a white turd into the eye of Jacqueline and had it explode for good measure. But because that didn’t happen, we have Bi tired as all hell and she collapses in a room full of dead bodies. Police come in and find her alive, arrest her, and then imprison her for 15 years. The big twist of this, the reason this is a prequel is revealed in this single moment where we see her leave her jail cell.
Who was Bi this whole time?
She was the villain of the first movie: Thanh Soi.
Apparently, the name is meant to be something like “she-wolf” and she took the name in honor of her dedicated sister in battle, Thanh Soi. This means that this entire time, the one we’re to be rooting for ends up being this horrible monster from the first movie that was kidnapping children and harvesting their organs. All because she… didn’t like to get blood on her hands.
If you think that none of this makes sense: welcome to the club.
The first movie was brilliant and coherent all the way down to a mythological level. It hit us deep in our unconscious and is something to be remembered years after watching it for how heartfelt each scene was made. It even brought some sympathy to some of the villains with how one of them was spared by the tiger mother because the guy’s own mother was present. It followed a theme of motherhood, while the second movie tried to follow a theme of sisterhood.
Where motherhood was filled with morals and justice, the sisterhood was filled with contradictions and partying.
I do not believe this was done out of a lack of budget or a rushed job. This was the result of how wokeness infiltrates even some of the least western influenced countries to create senseless garbage that nobody likes. We are not only to sympathize with one villain, but we are told that we have to sympathize with two, while the male villains are completely reprehensible. This movie was designed with woke Charlie’s Angels in mind and it shows with how they took three women to fight for a mentor and the only male on the team is treated like a bag of meat. What makes it more hilarious for me is that I’m constantly told by the woke that it’s bad to give women tragic backstories for why they become villains and there’s no excuse for having rape as part of this tragic backstory.
This is the feminism that is designed to trigger western feminists while hoping that Hollywood accepts it as “feminist enough”. This movie was not designed with men in mind, because female action movies are always plagued with over edited fight scenes, girl power moments, and romcom montages. I wish I was kidding, but I have yet to see a female focused action movie that refrained from doing these pointless representation calls, because the goal is to represent in this way.
She Hulk, Charlie's Angels, feminist Ghost Busters, Men in Black International, Atomic Blonde, Captain Marvel, Gunpowder Milkshake, Lucy, Jupiter Ascending, Disney Star Wars, basically every Disney and Pixar movie now. All of these movies are designed specifically to say women can do stuff guys can and then fail to show them doing stuff guys can. Then they wonder why these movies flop and get memed into oblivion. The only people who care about seeing a woman beating up men are angry women, because that is a low resolution view of what the movie is even supposed to say. The only people begging to see that on screen are women who hate men enough to want to beat them up.
This is not a lot of people. This is surprisingly a small fraction of the population and this is who these movies are trying to appeal to. Everything else around this low resolution declaration is meant to be spectacle for the sake of spectacle.
Why did the motorcycle explode? Because explosions are cool.
Why did the girls light a building on fire? Because fire is cool and it leads to explosions.
Why are they shooting the limbs of people? Because shooting limbs is cool.
Why does the camera get covered in CGI blood every 5 seconds? Because blood splatters are cool.
I’m not going to sit here and say something like that lacks style. It has style and it is spectacular. But when placed in a movie with zero meaning and zero purpose, this baseless spectacle gets lost in a sea of nonsense and there’s nothing to hold onto other than the possible impressive choreography or the impressive practical effects. This movie had a little bit of something, but it could never hold a candle to the dedication and effort put into the first movie. I also want to mention the camera work because this is also tied into woke ideology.
Every time the plot is trying to be expressed or shown, the camera and scenes are given the smallest amount of lingering. For example, a turf war begins after they blow up the slave holding… place and it’s shown as a turf war in two events. A person gets shot and people start getting attacked by random. These events lasted for about 5 seconds each. We’re told that Bi is homeless and fighting the local gang by having her steal a wallet and then have someone shout “hey, this is our turf!” all in the span of 5 seconds. We go from the girls going through an outfit montage during a plan to the girls working at the club of the drug lord in about 5 seconds.
If you didn’t get it by now: everything in this movie goes by the 5 second rule, but only when it is about the plot.
Do you want to know what lasts longer than 5 seconds? Moments where the girls are talking about stuff they like and parts where they pose together to present girl power. So to the woke, it takes the tiniest amount of time to show how someone enters the worst stage of their life, but it takes minutes to let us know that these girls plan to stick together and fight side by side. Everything important is done with quick flashes and everything unimportant is lingered on. This is a tactic of the woke to bring the mundane into the essential.
The goal is to feature tiny bits of important things to let the viewer understand why they are in that position, and then hammer in the idea of wokeness that the director or writer wanted to virtue signal for. The woke do not dedicate their focus on the themes of the story that matter to the audience and instead force the viewer to put up with things the woke writer is focused on so that the propaganda is viewed in the first place. We are promised a story about a mother seeking revenge and instead we are treated with the rise of a villain who became that way because she was abused as a child.
Using the woke lens of intersectionality and critical feminist theory, we can determine that the themes of this movie dwindled into arbitrary concepts like PTSD and girls trying to stay friends till the end. All of these are the result of mental weakness and toxic behavior that is now being given an excuse because the context of why they do these toxic actions are presented, even if it’s for 5 seconds. Now a woman like Bi is able to be excused for harvesting the organs of children and even blame men because it all started when her mother was a prostitute and a random drunk guy raped her. This is the polar opposite from how a tiger mother acts, because we are not trying to give excuses for a dedicated mother doing what a dedicated mother does. The tiger mother is a big part of what causes us to survive and is something to strive for because that’s what allows us to reproduce.
Being raped and then suffering PTSD over it doesn’t.
Thanks to intersectionality, the woke demand to present vices as virtuous and weakness as strength because this is how they take the outliers and bring them to the center. This goes beyond postmodernist subjectivity. It becomes subjective advocacy to obfuscate reality itself and pretend it’s incoherent just because their own agenda is incoherent. This is why every time there is a rule, they will pretend there is an exception to it, just because they don’t understand what that rule is or it’s not detailed in a way that prevents horribly bad faith takes. Every established rule for writing established doesn’t have an exception, just an attempt to reject what’s actually effective. These rules were established because they work and because people respond to them positively.
The woke hate positive results because those are the results that signify the rules work.
I don’t mind a female lead in a movie. I also don’t mind when a female lead is in an action movie. I don’t even mind a sisterhood or girls having magic powers or anything like that. Those things make sense to me when they are done properly, which the movie Furie did when they had the tiger mother as the protagonist and a harvester of child organs as the antagonist. That makes 100% sense to me, both symbolically and entertainment wise.
What I don’t like is when wokeness barges into established IPs and tries to change everything to say absolutely nothing of value. I’ve noticed that these feminist and LGBT stories always try to deal with the same nonsense that is done in a sad attempt to connect with some sort of audience they have in mind. Sexual abuse, PTSD, feeling oppressed, mental disorders, spousal abuse, prostitution, sexual deviancy, leaving their family to be with a sexual partner, drug abuse, being found by a guardian lesbian to feel protected, entering a sisterhood or a group of fellow LGBT agents of destruction.
These types of stories don’t mean anything to normal people. We can see some of these things as a terrible thing to have happen and we can attach a negative symbol to these things, but there’s no way in hell a person who’s never experienced any of this feels represented. The representation of a minority, that just wants to claim oppression because of their own choices or because of something that rarely happens, is a losing game. Normal people will either hate it or not care. I have every reason to blame the director for these horrible decisions and I have every reason to claim her poor decisions are because she fell for woke nonsense as a woman.
But no matter what, I refuse to let such an issue deter me from liking the first movie, even though she’s the main actress. The people featured in a story mean nothing to the story outside of how well they can act the part and be the character. Now we even have to say that the actor must retain the source material and culturally make sense, all because the woke want to bring the outliers to the center and turn every Disney character black. Especially the red heads. I only covered the feminist aspect of wokeness here, so we can leave woke race swapping for another time.
Furie is an amazing movie that will be remembered positively for years to come.
Furies is woke trash that will only be remembered for how terrible it was.

(On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpERoLmxNSU)
​
Life is like an eternal match between
God and his most cursed adversary!
Both fully conscious of each’s presence
And aware of the plans of the other.
It is like an eternal chess battle
Between God and Satan that arose from
The origin of the abyss’s birth;
Whereupon God made light and birthed the Earth,
And with his first move created Adam
And from his rib Eve, where he foretold them
To exist in Paradise without end.
These two souls, most blissful and ignorant,
Are the twin sacred Knights, male and female,
Of the match of this daring chess clash.
They are the Knights, most right, tall, and true
Who will guide us on past this journey through.
On this first move of God they rested, then
Crept about and roamed the Garden they dwelled,
Heeding God’s command and staying true to
Their ordained path, blind ’n’naïve to their sight.
Yet Satan with his cunning and guile
On his first move resolved to take vengeance
Upon God for his wretched punishment.
And thus sent he his Queen, who is his wife
And daughter, who is also him, to sneak
Into the Garden and like a horrid
Serpent approach the Knights and deceive them,
With intent to lead them astray towards sin,
To fall from grace and from Paradise with
Intent to anger God for his almighty punishment towards him.
The Queen of Satan says to the woman:
You will certainly not die for eating of the fruit!
But rather, like God, know good and evil!
The woman listened to the serpent in
The garden, and she handed the fruit to
Adam who was with her.
The Knights of God ate the forbidden fruit,
Gaining, indeed, such power as promised.
And upon this moment that it occurred
Lucifer smiled dearly, filled with delight and
Joy at God’s Creation’s fall from glory.
So was Satan’s move in this match of kings:
To lead astray mankind towards sin and death.
Yet now it is God’s move,
And He is most displeased.
God is aware that Satan has led mankind towards sin
And understands he intends to use this
To induce man to further its wages
And bring to Earth the wrath and flames of Hell
To exact revenge upon Him and His designs.
God is aware the man and the woman,
The two Knights He has infused with His spirit,
Will be unable to resist against
The temptations of sin, and will fall
Unto oblivion by Satan’s actions.
So He requests unto His court a volunteer to save fallen Man,
And His own Son accepts His call.
In this match His Son represents the Queen
Of God, who He sends to sacrifice in the place of mankind.
He sends His Queen, most powerful of all
Pieces, to sacrifice Herself for the
Two Knights that are mankind, who now in their
Arrogance dare to decide by themselves
What moves to perform without questioning
First God nor His almighty plan, and thus
In their folly led themselves to ruin.
God’s Son dies for the sins of Man; The Queen
Of God sacrifices Herself to evade
The chosen Knights of God from Satan’s wrath.
And God’s Knights, man and woman, rest for now,
Saved from full woe by the tip of God’s grace.
Yet now it is Satan’s move,
And he is most displeased.
Satan is aware that God has sacrificed His Son
In an attempt to redeem mankind for their sins.
He is still in possession, unlike God,
Of his Queen, His wife who is also his
Daughter who is also him.
He has used his own Knights to fortify
His every position, in contradistinction to
The bold and offensive moves of God’s Knights,
Who because of their boldness are enterprising
In dispersing themselves widely
To different parts of the world.
So dispersed are they in their boldness, that
They neglect to attend to their core in
Favor of busying themselves with more
Interesting and perplexing subjects,
Leaving the core of God and God’s King who
Represents Him unattended to because
Of His distance from His Men.
Satan is aware that God is thus vulnerable, and
That His core and His King are open to exploitation.
He therefore sends his Queen to sneak into
The Castle of God, and to His most close
Angels whisper into their ear, to His
Rooks that were His Angels he said so craftily and
Ever so cunningly and reminiscent
Of that first tempting of Eve:
You can see how God treats you!
Look at how he has treated you thus far!
Look at your pieces!
Your Knights who are mankind so bleak and lost,
Your Bishops who are mankind’s shadows and
Shadow so full of despair and hopeless
Avarice, your Pawns who are Nature and
Her dominion so full of destruction
And neuroticism, Look at yourselves,
O Rooks of God, who are indeed Angels,
So full of blind obedience and stifled glory!
Does this not all concern you? Frighten
You? Anger you? Madden you? Bewilder
You? To see how God treats you? Ever so
Terribly and cruelly? Without regard
For the nature of being and existence
As He rejects utterly the passions
Of every soul that lives?
Does this not concern you so?
For you can see how God treats you! Look at
How He has treated you thus far!
And the closest Angels of God listened
To the Queen of Satan and liked what she said.
So they agreed to help Satan infiltrate God’s position
And thereupon destroy Him using the
Powers of knowledge of good and evil
Possessed by Man in an act of final deception.
They cripple God’s defenses and surround
His King with swift fury, And dagger themselves
At Him full of menacing and threats towards His name.
Yet now it is God’s turn to move.
God sees His defenses have been crippled
And that He is surrounded on all sides
By the work of His own dear Creation.
God is aware that Satan has turned Man
Against Him by telling Man of the Nature of this world.
He is aware that His Son’s sacrifice
No longer has any effect,
Since His sons and daughters no longer accept Him.
Knowing this He sits alone in Heaven
With all his infinite wisdom and plans.
He is aware that any attempts to
Save mankind with divine means will be of
No avail, since humanity will no
Longer accept divinity as the
Sole explanation for the source of Life.
So unto the world he once again announces a call
For a volunteer, only this time of
Human origin, of a man born not
In a manger but in a castle of
The most true ideals that
Man resolves himself to believe in.
And it is once again timely answered.
Except it is not God’s Knight who answers,
But God’s Bishop, Man’s shadow and shadows,
His concealed darkness, and his curséd side.
The Bishops of God do accept this call,
And take it upon themselves to redeem
God and humanity upon themselves.
The Bishops of God, man’s hidden shadow,
Prepare themselves to undertake this task,
Sanctifying themselves all to great lengths
To make themselves worthy of such glory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpERoLmxNSU (audio, with visual)

Video learning has exploded since the pandemic, and YouTube has steadily grown, into the common resource for just about everything. Top influencers are excellent at engaging their audience, but sadly, gaining a massive following has is from having charisma rather than superior expertise, yet no one cares.
Anyone can call themselves a coach and not having to deal with a governing agency attracted me to coaching for many reason, but this also can cause harm when unethical people or “so-called” dating experts this their opinion should be good enough. In fact, listening to how some big-wig influencer story about how they got started is comical. A few simply dated (not sure what else?) lots of men in a short time, another one who’s not ashamed to be trashy has a YouTube channel and was trashing guys (again, a lot of dates) and some girl kept pressuring her for coaching, so she finally gave in…..
Then the guys are super bitter from what I assume involves a past with lots of rejection. She like he was training for the triathlon, but with a mentor, he was dedication to learning everything from the best (womanizer) and when talks about the night he had a threesome, he tears up. In his mind, life is not worth living if you’re not having random sex with strangers OFTEN .Basically the quality of one’s entire existence can be measured by the amount of women they sleep with. It may seem like I’m a hater, but my I used some lengthy examples to drive home the fact that who know what to believe anymore? If professionals who completed years of school are barely improving their patient’s lives, how are ordinary people who gained their “education” by having one night stands? I have seen a few coaches provide value, but how are you guys to discern between the good vs bad? Even of someone so dedicated to inner growth, they go hard with their therapist’s advice and then some. It won’t matter. They’re are not given the proper instructions. It’s no wonder society becomes more depraved each year. My strong opinion evolved from almost a lifetime of involvement in the MH industry in some way, shape or form. Starting for age 7 and never stopped. Resolving my struggles played a big role when deciding to pursue a bachelors and masters degree in psychology. I found it odd that not much empathsis was placed on actually helping those who may one day trust us with their lives, bt instead, we focused on useless , out-of -date theories, and whether Freud wanted to fu*k his mom. Grosss. Anyway, I quickly found work in the field, and met several good friends who were licensed professionals. I realized their lives were extremely dysfunctional and instead of expressing concern about their patients, they often were annoyed at them over minor things and even judgmental. Growing increasingly disgusted, I eventually decided that life coaching will be a better option, due to the goal oriented nature. I was impressed and figured clients would strive for self-sufficiency, as opposed to needing your forever therapist to help with any decision. Once again, I envisioned lifelong suffering because after completing two separate certificate programs, i realized life coaching was more superficial than therapist.
Knowing that core beliefs deep inside our subconscious, are so powerful that any process made without addressing REAL issues humans revert to what they know and feel comfortable with. I felt overwhelmingly hopeless, lost the will to fight and began to accept that I’ll always feel comfortable in my skin, my social interactions, which are dictated by my unstable mood, will remain unpredictable, so I’ll still be flaky and the worst was not having a clue how to stop habitually self-sabotaging. Well that spiral didn’t last long. Soon after, learning facts about the brain genuinely blew my mind, turning into an obsession and passion.

Hi everyone, this is the first chapter of my debut novel. For information and links to other chapters click the link down below :
Reddit - Dive into anything
The Great One sat on his throne, gazing longingly into the hearts of man. Something was coming and he could feel it. Destiny riding on a white steed, like the tales of man long ago, coming to uncover his secrets. He could see it all, the wall, the castle, and the so-called gods that built it all. The ego of these creatures was laughable, if only the Great One could still laugh. He could still speak sure, but only through means not of man’s common means. Vocal cords were a commodity long since lost in this place.
As the Great One observed the coming destiny he could feel the approaching storm, in a hail of flesh and blood, the only things that the Great One lacked. He would never give up, never retreat to these things as they approached, for this was the Great One. He looked back to the castle, viewing the scene in its entirety, and he felt something like happiness enter him.
Divinity. That is what connected the walls surrounding Dundis castle, not stone or metal, this was not a mere wall but a divine gift from ones above. Divinity sealed the wall, made it whole, the walls sealed together without mark or blemish, something no man could ever replicate. The wall had stood for a century, and would likely last ten more, there was no weakness, no flaw in design. 50 metres tall the wall was unscalable, unbreakable. No man could break the wall, it was the Vaunghe empire’s crowning gift, their wonder of the world. Those that were hired to clean the wall’s dirt and grime were heralded as the truly faithful, and all longed to help the gift of the gods. And yet despite this the Alizian’s watched, standing with armies around the great wall, waiting to breach its crust and destroy the core.
The Vaunghe had watched their foes throw everything they had, hundreds of men attacking the steel doors of the wall to no avail, an attempted archer attack quickly squashed by the wall's height. The Alizian military was strong, a blend of the Alizian warriors and Strolim blacksmiths made for a truly terrifying army. The army was so terrifying that the Vaunghe inside the castle doubted there were any more Vaunghe troops left, this was the end to a long battle between man and man. Even the soldiers left weren’t particularly important, just those lucky enough to guard the king and a few trainees. But the Vaunghe felt their luck running out.
The food supplies had run low, even if the nobles weren’t in the castle there was no chance of resupply. The few men who had eaten in the past few days stood alert, gazing down from the ramparts at the enemy. The soldiers knew they had to either surrender or fight, but the Vaunghe were passionate people, they could never leave behind their identity in favour of life. So the men waited, bows and arrows at the ready, for the next attack. Heavy items such as ingots and chairs lined the rampart, ready to be thrown off at a moments notice.
They had waited in this position for many cycles, and as day turned to night, and night turned to day the Vaunghe were exhausted, finished with whatever feeble attacks these barbarians had planned. They could throw whatever armies and arrows they wanted at the wall but it would remain unphased, forevermore. When the Alizian’s next attacked they would be met with the last strength of the Vaunghe, and it would be a story remembered for milenia by man and the gods.
As the morning sun rose over the wall, the enemy was revealed in all their glory. Even from so high above the Vaunghe could see the glint of silver from the Alizian military. The bright greens of the Alizian armour created a dazzling sensation that they were one with the grass, which blended in so perfectly with their clothes. They stood in their thousands, armed with whatever they could find, and even on the wall the men could see him.
The slaughterer, the murderer, the man, the myth and the legend Osmund stood alone on an overlooking hill. The fiend was well known by the Vaunghe, he was likely the greatest foe that had come from the opposing sides. Vaunghe generals often fled at his coming, or surrendered first, but rumour had it that Osmund gave no mercy. Overseeing his army to destroy everything that was left, the Vaunghe soldiers knew today really was the end. The figure on the hill moved closer to his army and screamed. The battle-cry of the Alizian’s shook fear into each of the Vaunghe atop the rampart, being so loud that it even reached so high.
The hundreds of troops began to move in sync, forming three individual groups of soldiers, with 10 metre spaces between each. Each contingent comprised six hundred men, easily dwarfing the 82 Vaunghe soldiers that were left. But the Vaunghe were not afraid, at least not afraid of a breach anytime soon. These walls were built to withstand any damage, no man could breakthrough one.
Between the troops was movement, indeed there seemed to be movement down all three rows of men in blue. The Strolime empire had finally revealed themselves, with their short stature and mental prowess the Strolime were gifted inventors not expected to appear on the battlefield. And yet here they were, almost one hundred of them hauling forth three large metallic objects. The sun bounced off of these objects into the Vaunghe’s eyes.
None of the men had ever seen objects like these, seemingly composed of pure metals and on wheels. Some thought they were a testament to the gods, some holy objects, others believed it to be some new invention from the Strolime, however none of them could say anything for certain as they were pushed closer and closer to the wall. The Strolomites stopped in their advance, approximately 20 metres away from the wall. The purpose of these objects had yet to dawn on the men, although one of the younger men on the rampart claimed he could see small objects poking through the metal, which was now aimed at a forty-five degree angle towards the wall.
As the Strolimites halted their advance many began to move away into the safety of the Alizian wall, likely afraid of any precautionary Vaunghe archers. One of them, a rather short and plump soldier, stayed with the object, placing a hand on it and turning to the wall. It was a fleeting moment, but for a second it seemed the man was gazing at the Vaunghe soldiers in shame. One last condemnation to the ones that began this war, before it would all come crashing down. But then the moment passed, and the short man moved as the rest did, doing a slight zig zag to avoid arrows.
And now, just as quickly they had come, the Strolomite’s were gone in the ranks of the Alizians, still waiting in their groups for something, and then they came. Three figures, two women and a man, moved between the lines just as the Strolimites before them. These three wore no armour, only the greens of Alizia upon their tunics. They stood beside the objects and began to reach their arms into the underside of it. Before the Vaunghe’s eyes the objects began to turn slightly, aiming even more directly at the wall.
One of the Vaunghe had enough of this display, and raised his bow. There were low winds on this day, and he was a good enough shot to reach at least one of the Alizian soldiers. He aimed his bow, finger on the drawstring, and released. It is likely that this arrow would’ve drawn first blood in this battle, however the arrow never reached its target.
In the split second before the release of the bow, the Vaunghe noticed the smoke billowing out of the bottom of the devices, the flames that shot out, and finally they noticed for not even a fraction of a second the object that shot out of the metallic thing, something white and red that hit the wall in an instant.
The wall shook, and the following barrage of these objects shattered any notion of divinity. Crashing and crumbling the rampart was launched, sending soldiers flying everywhere. The Vaunghe beside the wall were subject to the falling rubble, both the crumbling stone of the walls and the miscellaneous objects they had left upon the wall. All of the objects crushed the few Vaunghe left, save for the few sickly starving soldiers left inside the castle’s inner walls.
Down went the walls, such a harsh strike against the wall that nothing stood in the path of this monster. The roaring splattered through the castle, the screams of the falling wall waking the King himself from his slumber. Such a vast creation had fallen in seconds before the might of the Alizian’s, and now there was nothing left but to watch the battle unfold.
Smoke flooded the inner walls of the castle, casting the few remaining into fits of coughing and blindness. The walls finished their crumbling, and yet the roars didn’t stop. These were not the roars of the wall but the war cries of the soldiers outside, and they began to get louder, echoing through the walls of Dundis and into the ears of the weak nobles and soldiers.
Through the smoke they came, weapons raised and charging the weak. The few that tried to fight were slaughtered, cut down by a sea of green soldiers. Those that were choking, sputtering or raising their hands in defeat were spared, hauled through the hordes and into one of the stables facing the inner wall. They were to be tried and jailed, for no human regardless of their crime should be killed. It is simply not the Alizian way.
Out of the one hundred and fifty two people who were in Dundis, forty two had died in the wall’s destruction, and a further eleven were detained by the Alizian military. There was nothing that the Vaunghe could do, save for locking their doors, shield themselves and hold out for as long as possible. The Vaunghe forces built barricades in their castle, locking away the Alizian combatants for as long as possible. And during all of this Osmund waited. Waiting for his time to end this war, this travesty of battle that had gone on for too long, and that time finally came.
* * * *
Osmund stood alone atop the hill, and watched the madness unfold. The walls crumbled at the face of these weapons with no more effort than a straw house, and the plumes of smoke assaulted his men, although not to the extent of the inner wall. After a few moments of sputtering and choking the men cheered, for this was the moment that they had been waiting for, the end of such a long war now in the Alizian’s favour.
The Vaunghe capital was in shambles, their military long crushed underneath Osmund’s almighty power, and all that was left was the King. Hiding behind his walls as if he didn’t deserve this loss, this final failure in his life. Osmund was willing to spare as many people as he could, it was the Alizian code, but there would be no mercy for the King. This wasn’t one final battle between two great armies, that conflict happened weeks ago, this was the last breaths of a psychotic monarch being silenced amongst the last of his troops.
Osmund gazed longingly at Dundis, the ruined walls and advancing soldiers and doubted. He felt something was off, something was very wrong with all of this. His heart began to thump, as Osmund’s eyes turned every way to understand what was wrong, what abnormality was here. It grew and grew, Osmund began to shake at what was about to happen, nothing was right here Osmund should be somewhere else helping someone, there’s something wrong here something very-
Peace. Osmund’s heart stopped thumping, body stopping its perpetual shaking. He looked again to the marching troops, now almost entirely inside the walls, and looked back to his back, and the reserve Strolomites that now stood. They were cheering, marvelling at the success of the assault, and how the god’s gift had saved so much effort on their part.
Such strange creations composed of metal and flame, Osmund marvelled at the power the gods possessed. These devices were so unique in design Osmund doubted if any army could defeat them. The large red tubes they released could easily destroy an entire village by itself, but with one hundred of them an entire valley could be bathed in flames. Something truly abnormal in this world, something so parallel to the code of battle that no army would ever think of it.
The Vaunghe were once considered to be the greatest fighters, with the tournaments they created bringing forth the greatest warriors from throughout the land. Their dedication and power were unmatched in ferocity and violence, some called the Vaunghe the standing due to their unmatched will to always get back up. Osmund recalled his days in the tournaments, those peaceful days when he was not yet a hero to people, but a simple military man. He was still only Osmu back then, and yet even those of the time knew he would be something special. As Christoff used to say, ‘Ozzie you’re going places, big ones’. Osmund missed Christoff, It had been so long since their last meeting, and all Osmund wanted was to meet again one last time.
Osmund’s assistant came to him, a younger Strolomite by the name of Gizmu. Gizmu was rather muscular for a Strolomite, a strong figure contrasting his associates' plumper bodies, and stature was fairly tall for one of his people at 6’5 ft tall. Hazel hair protruded through a blue helmet, and for the first time Osmund considered what his assistant could look like. Gizmu was one of the many Strolomite’s who refused to show their face until military success, a tradition that Osmund respected. He had no doubt that Gizmu's true face would one day be revealed to him, as the man possessed genuine prowess in the fields of agriculture, something sorely missed in the modern military.
“Osmund, your team is preparing now, they’ll come soon. I advise you to prepare your armour sir, as it won’t be long before you’re sent in.” Osmund sensed mild concern in Gizmu’s voice, but didn’t pursue it.
“Thank you Gizmu, my friend. I’ll begin my preparations, tell the guests to meet me here when they are fully prepared. And do ensure they understand that there is still risk of injury on this mission, ensure each of them wears their armour.” Osmund’s voice was deep and echoed his long life, commanding a sense of authority amongst all Alizian forces.
Osmund left the hill, passing the cheering Strolomite’s and the peasant farmers who supported the army, and entered the rows of tents. They stretched out on either side, one for every four soldiers, until he reached his own tent. Entering Osmund was surprised to discover a fellow commander still asleep in his bed, snoring away peacefully.
Osmund removes his upper clothing, the clean tunic falling to the ground. While removing these clothes Osmund kicks the sleeping man in the leg, which doesn’t actually amount to anything rather than halting his snoring. Osmund kicks the sleeping soldier again, this time in the buttocks, which does a far better job of riling him. The man looks around wide-eyed, before settling onto the sight of the giant Osmund.
“Hey, why'd you kick me? I almost had a bleedin’ heart attack don’t you know not to meddle with a sleepin man?”
“Don’t you know that you were meant to be on the battlefield at the crack of dawn? I don’t know what kind of promotion you’re expecting when you aren’t even going on the battlefield. Do you really want to be Balmun forever?” Osmund spoke coldly, now reaching for his chestplate.
“Well no sir. But the thing is I actually have a very cunning plan, I thought of it all myself.” A smile falls upon the man’s face, whose head bears an uncanny resemblance to a potato.
“And what is that?” Osmund halted his preparations briefly.
“Well if I say I was there but didn't actually go, who’d think I wasn’t? I can just sleep through it all until the battle is won and no one would be the wiser.” Osmund puts a hand onto Balmun’s fleshy shoulder.
“A fine plan, if I wasn’t your commanding officer you buffoon. By the gods I believe some divine creator mistakenly put a turnip in your head instead of a brain because no noble’s son has ever been as frankly idiotic as you have. You’re coming with me to the battlefield, and I suggest you get dressed or you’ll be facing the last of the Vaunghe army with your flopping cock dancing for all to see.” Balmun stood and began to slip some clothes on, as Osmund completed his own set of armour.
Osmund’s armour bore the mark of a noble family, some rich fools who wanted their family crest to be associated with a bloody conflict and a dangerous murderer. Osmund wore it because of the armour’s quality, customfit to encompass Osmund’s 9’5 ft tall body, something no other armour was able to achieve. Osmund’s height was always an oddity, reaching far above the average 8ft heights of most Alizian’s, and making him one of the tallest figures in the lands. It was this height and his skin’s colour that earned him the name of the black death, which he wasn’t particularly fond of due to the mention of his skin. And even then Osmund certainly didn’t feel like a black death, whatever that was meant to be, rather he felt like death itself. Osmund was to be fifty years old by the end of the week, and it showed on his body. The hair that was left on his head was grey, and while still possessing an impressive form Osmund’s body was not in its prime, he was old.
Osmund looked at himself in the full body mirror, grabbing his longsword and leaving the tent, dragging a half dressed Balmun with him. Back through the tents they travelled, back past the now eager Strolomite’s and atop the hill where Osmund’s infiltration team stood. In any other battle Osmund would’ve despised the one that left this group with him, a collection of subpar and mediocre soldiers with all the military future of an Otter in a stew. But then again Osmund’s battle history did feature a lot of important people dying under his watch, so perhaps this was for the better.
The force began with Edmun, a cross between a prostitute and a noble who unfortunately takes more from the noble. An egotistical brat, as well as a greedy goblin of anything that isn’t bolted down, Osmund had borne the unfortunate duty of his company for months, since the initial assault on the capitol. The man could barely hold a weapon, save for slight skill with a flail of all things which he wore by his side. It was a gold plated flail as well, specifically made for beating in the heads of the poor Vaunghe soldiers stupid enough to get close. Blonde hair obscured blue eyes that spoke to his red-light mother, in fact for a noble’s son Edmun had all the appearance of an incestuous dullard. The man had survived by pure luck, and was the only casualty that Osmund wanted his side to suffer.
The Enick twins Humun and Eumun were up next, named after their family crest of the god of alcohol Enick. In contrast to Edmun these were a pair of real soldiers, Osmund had seen the fruits of their labour many times. They were great at the art of flanking, Humon’s greataxe paired alongside Eumun’s spears proved to be an unbeatable combination. The only issue that Osmund had with the pair was their… peculiar relationship. While the two were great fighters, whenever they were together anything else became impossible to comprehend. Osmund had once caught the pair attempting to seduce a goat wearing a knight’s helm, and while they were drunk there is still clear evidence of idiocy amongst them. The pair were identical in appearance, burly figures of 8’5ft, short cut black hair and overgrown beards stretching down their faces, however the distinguishing feature between the two was Eumon’s cleft lip, which gave his speech a lisp.
Josmu was far more a scholar than a soldier, although Osmund enjoyed his presence greatly. Since they first met the pair had hit it off, often discussing each other’s lives in Alizian taverns across the kingdom. A gifted archer, Josmu was the son of two aspiring poets and enlisted into the military voluntarily to assist in the war efforts. Osmund had a great deal of respect for the man, and hoped that the two would one day have a drink together, and ruminate on the past once more.
And then there was Jumun, a gifted soldier and one of the few Osmund thought could take him in his prime. Long strands of red hair ran down her rough face, a pointed nose and peculiar eyebrow shape giving her a perpetual look of disappointment. At a height of 9’2 ft she stood almost toe to toe with Osmund, in fact there were many aspects about her that reminded Osmund of himself. The first was her attitude, she treated every war as a tragedy of its own, and yet she would never fail to perform against her enemies. Skilled in most weapons Jumun’s life had been long and arduous, her worn out armour covered in patches and dents. Osmund had offered her a new set of armour once, to which she vehemently refused, telling Osmund that she wished to end the war in the armour she started it in. Currently she held a single large sword nearly identical to his own, and Osmund predicted that she couldn’t wait for the battle to be over.
The group stood facing the smoking walls, watching the now descending Strolomite’s retrieve the three gifts from the gods. Pushing them back up the hill would take tremendous strength and a long time, which is why nearly double the number of Strolomite’s assisted in the endeavour. Osmund cleared his throat, prompting the looks of the team. All of their eyes were of Balmun, who was somehow already panting after a 2 minute drag through the ground. Osmund released the man and pushed him towards his new comrades, to which he sulked.
Osmund could see through the smoke of the ruins now, noting the strangely high number of bodies present from Osmund’s view. It appeared that there were more forces than originally estimated, as it was initially guessed there were around one hundred and fifty soldiers inside. Judging by the number of corpses inside those numbers clearly forgot to account for the possibility of trainees inside of the castle. This may be a slightly larger fight than initially predicted, although even supposing there were another hundred or so trainees locked inside rooms there were things Osmund could do against that.
“Alright then, good to see that some of you actually bothered to wake up today, Balmun, and I think we all know that this mission is going to end the war.” Balmun raised his hand.
“Yes Balmun?”
“Sir I have a very cunning pl-”
“Shove your plans up your slacker buttocks, you idiot. Now then, I’m gonna say this once, because quite frankly the more chances I give Balmun to interrupt the more likely I’ll butcher myself with this sword. Now then we are the backbone to the forces, our mission is to help take individual points of conflict from alternative points. We will accomplish this with the leaked maps of the castle gained from Vaunghe intelligence. Now then, originally it was believed that we were dealing with only around one hundred and fifty troops, but it looks like someone didn’t remember the number of rookie troops that are trained here, so we could be looking at a few more troops than expected.” Osmund saw the hand raised but tried to ignore it. The man with the potato for a head seemed adamant however, and raised his hand higher. When that didn’t work he raised both arms.
“By the gods what is it?”
“Well sir, what kind of weapons do you think they have?” Osmund stopped in his tracks, not expecting anything even related to an actual important question. A smile formed on his face, it seems that even fools can think every now and again.
“Decent question my friend, we can probably expect the basic mix of swords and axes, likely shields also, but we may have one or two archers running around however it’s unlikely any survived the wall’s collapse.”
“That is good Osmund, once we take a few down I need a weapon, I like the swords myself.”
“What’s wrong with your sword?”
“I left it in the tent sir.” Osmund cupped his hands into his face, cringing against the stupidity of this man.
“Listen…. just everyone follow me please, I mean by the gods man. Come on. Listen I don’t think we will need any armour with us today, we have the single thickest piece of meat just over there as we speak.” Osmund points towards Balmun, who turns to see what everyone is looking at. Without another word Osmund begins to walk down the hill towards the castle, muttering things that even the gods consider a little racy.
* * * *
The ruins of Dundis stood firm in their strength, with the ruined walls blemishing what was once a grand fortress that none had penetrated. Tall spires protrude from the shapeless stone complex. Along the gateway was a path leading directly into the Dundis entrance, which stood slightly ajar. Fragments of the wall had crushed many parts of the outside, with simple wooden stables and trees crushed by the weight of the plummet of the debris. The architecture that remained spoke to the complexities of the Vaunghe, as spiralling patterns adorned the walls of the castle, interlaced with rare jewels that coated the walls. The Vaunghe were so fortunate with minerals that one could find them coating their walls, despite the fact that no one other than a fellow Vaunghe was ever meant to see such a thing.
A veil of embarrassment and determination clashed as the group descended the hill, weapons at the ready. The group had reached the ruins of the wall now, debris coating the grass and the bodies that were surely there. Even destroyed Osmund still felt some of that divine power the Vaunghe always babbled about, he felt the strength in the walls and not for the first time wondered why the gods would bestow such a gift upon such a vile group.
The group began clambering through the ruins, over the cracked pieces of stone and through the divine walls final remains. There was a smell here, the remnants of smoke colliding with the smell of blood, but there was a third smell, one that Osmund knew well. It was the smell of inevitability, heavy in the hair. That which is unlikely to happen always will happen, and when it does the smell adds to it all, the smell of fate and destiny runs through this place.
Inevitability hides everywhere, in the trees and the skies, carried by the wind through it all. From nature it was born, but in man it thrives, the building’s will one day fall, the kingdoms will fade away, and everything will one day lead to something else. From every beginning comes an end, and each end becomes a beginning, this is how it has always been. This place thought itself against such things, and inevitability infected its walls, creeping along slowly rotting the once great walls into a hellish nightmare. Now the bubble has burst, and the smell of inevitability crowds the world, taking over everything.
Moaning. A low whimper. A cry for something. Calls for assistance. A terrified yell. Osmund approaches the source of these noises, his team close behind. At the source of these screams is a Vaunghe soldier, somehow alive after the rampart’s collapse, covered in piles of stone and smoke. His outstretched hand reaches towards Osmund, who in turn takes it.
The man mutters something, sputters blood, and begins to fade. As he does, Osmund moves towards the rocks, feeling against it. Somehow the rocks aren’t as heavy as they should be, and Osmund slowly moves the rocks. The first and second rocks move, and after some struggling Osmund moves the third rock, revealing a bloody leg, spurting forward. Osmund realises how the man survived, the remains of a metal box squashed around him. As the rampart fell the man landed inside, narrowly missing an immediate demise. Now he sat, bleeding in and out of consciousness, and moaning for help. Osmund put his hands around the man, slowly lifting him, and moving forwards into the inner walls.
There are running medics here, and as they see Osmund’s approach they run to him, taking the injured man and placing him onto a table. The man may survive, they told Osmund, however his bleeding may take too much from him. As Osmund turns to leave he hears the voice, the message of the man.
“T-t-th-than-” It was shaky, interrupted by coughs and convulsions, but bore strength, and Osmund felt the ghost of a smile play upon him.
“It wasn’t an issue.” And with that Osmund left the tent, admiring the surroundings in focus for the first time. Eyes bore into him from his party, and yet no one said anything, they couldn’t. Many had called Osmund a monster in his time, they had seen him do bad things to bad people, and yet none would call him a monster, for there is no such thing. Osmund is not some black death, he’s another beast entirely.
For the first time Osmund admired his surroundings, the inner walls were now filled with wreckage, and looked back to the tent. It was amazing how quickly the medics could establish tents, the battle had occurred for less than an hour and already there were three tents established side by side. Besides the wounded Vaunghe soldier were three other injured soldiers, each seeming to be hit by a minor injury likely from the smoke inhalation.
The captured and surrendered were lined up against the castle's wall, being carefully monitored by over sixty members of the contingent. There were only around twelve or thirteen of the captured, smoke-covered and sputtering. On the ground were bodies, those rookies that tried so valiantly to protect what they cared for. They now lay, looking up to the sky blindly.
Osmund saw the bodies and felt his stomach turn. The desire came back. The shaking returned, alongside it the painful sharp stabbing thoughts. Everything changed, he forgot who he was. What kind of person would approve of this, what even was Osmund was he real or fake, how is he even conceiving things like this. What is reality and why is it real, why can’t he understand-
Silence. Peace. Osmund returned to himself, the shaking never happening at all. He looked down at the bodies and continued to walk. There was nothing he could do for them, not anymore. The eyes of his group bore into him, shattering something that had broken a long time ago. He raised his hand and motioned for his team to follow, leaving this travesty of death and life behind.
Footsteps. Osmund turned to their echoing sound, the way they bounced through the place was unbelievable, the way it echoed between the walls and the castle structure itself. Through open castle gates he ran, a messenger in green, sword in its scabbard and now approaching Osmund. The man tripped on something, a large rock of some sort, before standing, dusting himself off and reaching the group.
“Osmund, we have hit the enemy’s points of defence.” The man was young, maybe twenty, and no more than twenty five.
“And? Where are they?”
“There are three fronts, the first is in the scout’s tower where a group of Vaunghe are amassing weapons and barricades fast. We can no longer enter the tower, as the amount thrown down makes common entrance impossible. The second location is the garden, where we believe the last of the nobles and the King himself are. We’ve faced harsh opposition from the enemies, who have formed a wall of shields to protect the door. Finally we have the guard’s quarters, where a few amount of Vaunghe are in active combat as we speak, although that will likely be taken without need for intervention.”
“Good job soldier.”
“Thank you sir.”
Osmund removes a slip of paper from his garb, and admires it in the sunlight. It was a complex map of Dundis, including the secret passages and escape routes of the entire place. It cost the annulment of many Vaunghe men and women, but was worth all the effort. Consulting the map Osmund noted the existence of an escape passageway inside of the tower. It was obscured behind a wall, thus explaining the lack of windows on that side.
“Report back to your commander that we’ll begin with the tower, there are several clear passages into an alternative staircase. Launching a pincer attack we’ll defeat the enemy and allow for the redistribution of forces. By that time I expect the guard’s quarters to be taken, allowing us to completely overflow any opposition protecting the garden.”
“Yes Osmund, I will inform her now.” And with that the young warrior ran back through the castle’s long iron gates.
And thus, the final battle was upon them. Osmund looked upon Dundis, the last symbol of the people who had taken everything from him, the ones who had slaughtered so many innocents, so many that Osmund cared for, and now the end was finally in sight. But it didn’t feel like the end, Osmund could feel no conclusion approaching, it felt like something else, as if this was all leading into something more, some grand massacre the likes of which Osmund had never seen. There’s a darkness ahead, something far worse to come than the echoes of a fallen monarchy, and as Osmund stands he can feel it inside of him, gesturing sensually, awaiting his return to the beginning. In a mental prison of nonexistent existence lies the mother, a slight smile on her lips. She awaits the grasp of Osmund forevermore.

Hi all! I’m a noob when it comes to D&D.
I’m working on my D&D character at 4th lvl and am wondering for a good build for a variant human.
Right now I have my character as Str, Con, Charisma at 13 and Dex, Wis, Int at 12. For the variant human feat as telekinetic intelligence. The character also has a two-weapon fighting style.
Any help advise is appreciated.

Watched some guys (loius rossman) video on something posted on here, and as a trans lesbian, I wonder about both me, and my straight friends. I don't think this is necessarily just a problem with straight people, but with culture as a whole.
"Making sure someone is romantically interest before asking them out on a date". I've done this. It absolutely kills the mood, and any interest. So I asked myself, and came to this conclusion after remembering many interactions I have had as someone with autism.
Neurotypical people almost never ask for what they want. NT language is all about asking for something without asking for it. Technical language is abandoned because it is "unsexy". Its not just men, women hate doing it to. Men hate it because they can never get any answers out of a woman, and women hate it because if they feel if they are specific, people will loose interest, or they will be (TW) raped. This doesn't happen between gay men, or lesbian women, and those two have some of the healthiest relationships around. Why? Because they use direct language. I think both women and men are unhappy with the current dating market. Women because it feels like everything with a dick is propositioning them, and men because they feel that unless they are some super special dude, then they have no chance. So how do we fix this? Human nature just isn't resolving this issue, so we need to decide on the kind of romantic/dating future we want to live in. Any ideas?

"I hate Capitalism," blogs the upper-middle-class white girl from the seat of her university's cafeteria balcony, sipping on her strawberry-flavored coffee as she stares at the screen of her $1,200 laptop and $700 smartphone, readjusting her $640 coat and crossing her legs clad in $300 jeans and $230 shoes.
​
She posts the blog, unaware that she is currently living in the most economically prosperous period of human existence ever created by any system at any point in time, facilitated entirely by the economic boom caused by the invention of the Capitalist system.
​
The poor girl. She is unaware that she is, systemically and systematically, part of the most privileged group of people on the planet, within the top 50% of .01% of humans alive, and the top 50% of .00001% who have ever lived.
​
She watches with fire in her eyes as the blog she has posted receives an influx of agreements from thousands of university students like her across the West. She smiles, feeling accomplished with herself as she takes off to get into her $60,000 brand new car and drive to her parents’ $750,000 manor, for both of which her father worked thousands of hours of overtime and callused his hands more than once.
​
Around the West, the groans of millions of working men, harshly toiling themselves into oblivion so that they can maintain the economy which is feeding money into the gullet of the state, which provides subsidies for the upper-middle-class white girl to continue schooling through a state grant, can be heard as they cry out, feeling the pain caused by said girl’s outlandishly misinformed opinion.
​
These men will return home to file their taxes that night, for they must provide the state with the upper-middle-class white girl’s next subsidized grant payment. They return to work the next morning at dawn, but prepare themselves for next month, when the new tax plan that raises the tax rate for the middle bracket unleashes its fury upon their dwindling wages.
​
If only the upper-middle-class white girl were going into economics. Then she could make the world a better place for these toiling men.
​
Unfortunately, the upper-middle-class white girl takes things for granted just a little too much. She has chosen another art degree, and these men must live on knowing that despite the fact that they love what they do, and they return home proud men each day, their work is unappreciated, as is the system they pay into.
​
And as the masses continue to take the system in which they live for granted in order to pander to the crowds around them, and as those panderers hand power over to the government hand-over-fist, the world turns slowly.
​
In the future, the outlook is grim, for the underappreciated and emasculated men of the West suffer more economic setbacks under the collective lack of knowledge of economics that festers in the heartlands of the world’s largest economic powers. The West eventually gives in to the progress of the century past, and life becomes sorrowful.
​
But that is a long way away. Let us instead worry about just tomorrow.
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Tomorrow will be a hard day of work for the toiling men of the West.
​
People hate Capitalism because they ignore the struggles of others and see their own issues exclusively. They take Capitalism for granted, and then they blame it for all of their own personal struggles. It is easier to blame the system under which you live than it is to admit that you are the cause of your own problems, so that is what people do.
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The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday.
​
Writer Holzfeller

I feel like all "recommend" sites are just wore out. Can't use from the knee down, I'm way to bad at being a human for that. Can only use the inside of one bicep because I sleep on the other, hell just the one arm really because of the sleep thing. I love my Dex, it's yelling at me right now about something or other I just need more skin.

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Lord Duchess H'Rald - January 2143 - Galivus - 2 Days After the Warehouse was Burned - 2 Months After Planetfall

I'd spent my entire day helping J'Sika peel Rymes and Onions. I set the fire and seasoned the water like she showed me, adding preserved flavor stock and watching the water turn brown. The smell came alive as it slowly reduced throughout the day, becoming ever more concentrated and then thickened with roux. J'Sika put the vegetables to the side and began cutting the meat into a paste. Her hands went about it so quickly that I could hardly follow with my eyes.
"You're a natural at this." I absentmindedly stated, and she returned the compliment with a pained smile.
"I used to cook for seven. It's been easier on my hands since then. But now there's no rush to get food on the table. No real hurry for anything."
She didn't have to tell me. Ever since that day, it felt as though time stopped moving, and all the matters of the world seemed... distant. Like they were happening on the other side of foggy glass.
"Where'd you learn all this?" I finally asked, determined to never get so badly bogged into my thoughts like I was only days before.
"My parents taught me. They were in the control group for the breeding program. They taught me how to cook, because they knew I'd get a better home if I had domestic skills." She stopped cutting for just a moment, looking down at the knife in her hand. "They showed me how to survive. I owe just about everything I've got to them."
I was afraid to ask the question that grew on my mind. "Where are they now?"
"Purged with the rest of the Unfit Chattel when the Flesh Traders left this dump for greener pastures." She resumed her dexterous handiwork and said beneath her breath. "They deserved better."
'How much did I gloss over when I bought her from the pens?' I thought to myself. 'Did I separate her from her Parents? Was she too young? Did I- no. It doesn't matter. It's in the past. She's perfectly healthy and free. That matters more than what I feel about it.'
A knock on the door drew my attention. J'Sika turned on impulse, and I said before she could run off. "Let me handle it."
When I opened the door I saw D'Brak standing there, his eyes were heavy with doubt, and a horrible gnawing fear was plastered to his face. I drew him inside and locked the door behind me.
"What happened to you?" I asked, but he did not answer. "We've got food on the fire, and drinks as well. Would that help?" His head was still as stone, his gaze unblinking and staring off at nothing. In all my years, I'd never seen a man so shaken, not even after the last Graschick Raid some twenty years before.
I left him to find something to drink. I took a few little bottles of black ale, watered them down to a light brown, and finally threw in some sweetener to cut off the bitterness. Looking back to D'Brak, I threw in a bit more.
J'Sika's work was nearly done, as she was adding the vegetables to the boiling stew, and throwing the meat on a second pan, seasoned with clear oils. "I've got this." She said, and I took the drinks back.
When I handed him the glass he gulped it down without a moment's hesitation. Pausing only after it was gone to remark with some feigned derision, "It's very sweet."
"You looked like you needed it."
"I... yes. I think I did."
"Ready to tell me what happened to you?"
He nodded, and began with a shaky breath.
"The Humans have started killing people. Their Commander, he burned down the warehouse in a rage, and then he started hanging anyone who used to be a slave owner. I've been running for two days now, just trying to avoid their drones."
"But you're a Freedman." I said. "You've never owned chattel. Why would they come after you?"
"I don't know, and I don't think they care anymore. I just... I Had To Run. It didn't matter where. But, you! You can stop them! You can call the banners, conscript the towns people and end this madness!"
"And do what? Fleets of them are coming directly from Earth. Even if I killed every last one of the savages, they'd only send more. It's not a fight we can win, so why bother."
My response stunned him. He stood up with his mouth agape. The horror deepened even further, and the Terror he felt came bursting forth.
"What Have We Done To Deserve This? Are we not Decent, Moral People? Are we not Beholden to Rights as Sapients and Citizens?"
"Whatever made you think they'd hold their promise?" I said. "It's only surprising that they took this long to start, for I've no doubt that they never intended to keep their promise to hold us as Citizens. We might as well've been dead men walking from the moment they landed."
"THEN WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?"
"Me? I'm going renounce my lordship and enjoy a decent dinner with the only company I can stand. You're welcome to count yourself among that number if you'd like."
He shrank into himself, and quietly asked, "Are you not bothered by the end?" I only laughed and said.
"My Cousin, I deserve whatever these barbarians have in store for me. But I'm not going to let it ruin my evening, least of all when I've regained some of my lost optimism." J'Sika came in with the stew, bowls and utensils for all of us, even D'Brak. I reached out to him with a bowl, and with some hesitation, as he fought against his ever frustrated fight-or-flight response, he accepted my offer, and took a seat.
"It smells good." He said, resigning himself to whatever the future held.

Hi! I’m Lenny. I’m a sixteen year old male who’s been roleplaying for about three years. I’m capable of writing 1+ paragraphs, though I usually write between four and six. I match my partner’s length, so you’re free to write however much you want! I only have a couple requirements, being you must be semi-literate to literate (1+ full paragraphs, 2+ preferred) and you must be able to write Serana canonically.
Recently, I bought the Anniversary Edition for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and a few creation club creations made me really want to make that Dragonborn into an OC to RP with! This being said, my OC (Elysia) does start off with a couple Creations along with them, that being the unicorn and Arachnia. More information on Elysia will be provided in DMs! Also, I have variations of Elysia as both male and female. All depending on my partner's preference.
Side note, this is NOT a romance RP! I am looking for quite the opposite, actually. I'm open to doing romance, but it would need to REALLY make sense and also be really slow. This being said, I would much rather Serana and Elysia have a twin-sibling like bond. Able to banter with each other, but when it comes down to it, they will stand back to back to keep the other one safe.
If the plot posted below interests you, feel free to DM me!
Also, I would highly prefer for the RP to take place on Discord. I just am rarely on Reddit until I get an email saying that someone messaged me, so it makes replies exceedingly slow.
--------------------------------------------------------
The journey was over. First, together, they slayed Harkon, the dreaded vampire and father of Serana. Then, the World-Eater: Alduin. Then, Miraak, the First Dragonborn. Skyrim was safe. Elysia filled their role has the Dragonborn, the protector of Skyrim, even if they did refuse to become the high ruler, that honor went to Jarl Elisif. Everything was fine. Nobody would dare threaten Skyrim's peace as long as Elysia was still alive and fighting. Skyrim experienced a time of peace. Bandits and other petty thieves ceased to exist out of fear of hearing the mythical shouts.
Serana and Elysia parted ways. Elysia left her to fulfill their role as the protector, while Serana dealt with her own personal issues. Maybe they would cross paths again, some day. Maybe old age would catch up with Elysia before they got the chance. Who knew? What the future had in store was untold. Vampires were done for, leaving Fort Dawnguard useless. Only Isran remained, and possibly Serana. With Harkon gone, it's just as likely that she claimed Castle Volkihar for herself. On the other hand, Elysia sought to perfect their skills in the arcane, and learn as many shouts as he could. Their lust for knowledge was a savior sometimes, but could just as well be their downfall.
Five short years passed. Five years after Alduin fell, something happened. All of Tamriel was plunged into war. A battle for who would claim themselves as the ruler of Tamriel. Jarl Elisif tried her best to keep Skyrim safe from the war, but no matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to keep the inhabitants safe from the Earth-shaking battles of the war. Skyrim had to remain neutral. Anybody who tried and disturb her peace would be met with the Dragonborn.
Serana was safe from the war. Her home was too far off most of Skyrim's maps, so she was safe. Nobody had any reason to attack and if they did, she was far too powerful to be taken down. She lived a peaceful life. Until something happened. In the midst of the war, Serana saw something.
The ear-piercing screeches of thousands times thousands of souls. The very barriers of the plane she stood in weakened. All of humanity trembling and bowing before a figure that wasn't quite visible yet. Everyone on the world of Nirn, bowing. Soaked in blood, with tears streaming down their faces. Nords, Elves, Argonians. Men, women, children. The figure they bowed before slowly came into the picture. It was a face. A face she was all too familiar with. A face that would immediately cause her to break down. The face of the Daedric Prince who ruined her life. Who forced her and her mother into becoming a vampire.
Molag Bal.
He was back. He was going to use the war to destroy the barrier between Tamriel and Oblivion. She was the only one who knew what was happening. She couldn't fight him alone. She couldn't even look at him without feeling sick to her stomach. What could she do? Was there anything she could do? The panic set in as she felt sick to her stomach. But when she settled down, she realized. There was something she could do. There was somebody she could go to.
"Then we'll fight. But not for Skyrim. Not for Tamriel. Not even for Nirn. For you, Serana. He will fall in your name."

Hi! I’m Lenny. I’m a sixteen year old male who’s been roleplaying for about three years. I’m capable of writing 1+ paragraphs, though I usually write between four and six. I match my partner’s length, so you’re free to write however much you want! I only have a couple requirements, being you must be semi-literate to literate (1+ full paragraphs, 2+ preferred) and you must be able to write Serana canonically.
Recently, I bought the Anniversary Edition for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and a few creation club creations made me really want to make that Dragonborn into an OC to RP with! This being said, my OC (Elysia) does start off with a couple Creations along with them, that being the unicorn and Arachnia. More information on Elysia will be provided in DMs! Also, I have variations of Elysia as both male and female. All depending on my partner's preference.
Side note, this is NOT a romance RP! I am looking for quite the opposite, actually. I'm open to doing romance, but it would need to REALLY make sense and also be really slow. This being said, I would much rather Serana and Elysia have a twin-sibling like bond. Able to banter with each other, but when it comes down to it, they will stand back to back to keep the other one safe.
If the plot posted below interests you, feel free to DM me!
Also, I would highly prefer for the RP to take place on Discord. I just am rarely on Reddit until I get an email saying that someone messaged me, so it makes replies exceedingly slow.
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The journey was over. First, together, they slayed Harkon, the dreaded vampire and father of Serana. Then, the World-Eater: Alduin. Then, Miraak, the First Dragonborn. Skyrim was safe. Elysia filled their role has the Dragonborn, the protector of Skyrim, even if they did refuse to become the high ruler, that honor went to Jarl Elisif. Everything was fine. Nobody would dare threaten Skyrim's peace as long as Elysia was still alive and fighting. Skyrim experienced a time of peace. Bandits and other petty thieves ceased to exist out of fear of hearing the mythical shouts.
Serana and Elysia parted ways. Elysia left her to fulfill their role as the protector, while Serana dealt with her own personal issues. Maybe they would cross paths again, some day. Maybe old age would catch up with Elysia before they got the chance. Who knew? What the future had in store was untold. Vampires were done for, leaving Fort Dawnguard useless. Only Isran remained, and possibly Serana. With Harkon gone, it's just as likely that she claimed Castle Volkihar for herself. On the other hand, Elysia sought to perfect their skills in the arcane, and learn as many shouts as he could. Their lust for knowledge was a savior sometimes, but could just as well be their downfall.
Five short years passed. Five years after Alduin fell, something happened. All of Tamriel was plunged into war. A battle for who would claim themselves as the ruler of Tamriel. Jarl Elisif tried her best to keep Skyrim safe from the war, but no matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to keep the inhabitants safe from the Earth-shaking battles of the war. Skyrim had to remain neutral. Anybody who tried and disturb her peace would be met with the Dragonborn.
Serana was safe from the war. Her home was too far off most of Skyrim's maps, so she was safe. Nobody had any reason to attack and if they did, she was far too powerful to be taken down. She lived a peaceful life. Until something happened. In the midst of the war, Serana saw something.
The ear-piercing screeches of thousands times thousands of souls. The very barriers of the plane she stood in weakened. All of humanity trembling and bowing before a figure that wasn't quite visible yet. Everyone on the world of Nirn, bowing. Soaked in blood, with tears streaming down their faces. Nords, Elves, Argonians. Men, women, children. The figure they bowed before slowly came into the picture. It was a face. A face she was all too familiar with. A face that would immediately cause her to break down. The face of the Daedric Prince who ruined her life. Who forced her and her mother into becoming a vampire.
Molag Bal.
He was back. He was going to use the war to destroy the barrier between Tamriel and Oblivion. She was the only one who knew what was happening. She couldn't fight him alone. She couldn't even look at him without feeling sick to her stomach. What could she do? Was there anything she could do? The panic set in as she felt sick to her stomach. But when she settled down, she realized. There was something she could do. There was somebody she could go to.
"Then we'll fight. But not for Skyrim. Not for Tamriel. Not even for Nirn. For you, Serana. He will fall in your name."

Hi! I’m Lenny. I’m a sixteen year old male who’s been roleplaying for about three years. I’m capable of writing 1+ paragraphs, though I usually write between four and six. I match my partner’s length, so you’re free to write however much you want! I only have a couple requirements, being you must be semi-literate to literate (1+ full paragraphs, 2+ preferred) and you must be able to write Serana canonically.
Recently, I bought the Anniversary Edition for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and a few creation club creations made me really want to make that Dragonborn into an OC to RP with! This being said, my OC (Elysia) does start off with a couple Creations along with them, that being the unicorn and Arachnia. More information on Elysia will be provided in DMs! Also, I have variations of Elysia as both male and female. All depending on my partner's preference.
Side note, this is NOT a romance RP! I am looking for quite the opposite, actually. I'm open to doing romance, but it would need to REALLY make sense and also be really slow. This being said, I would much rather Serana and Elysia have a twin-sibling like bond. Able to banter with each other, but when it comes down to it, they will stand back to back to keep the other one safe.
If the plot posted below interests you, feel free to DM me!
Also, I would highly prefer for the RP to take place on Discord. I just am rarely on Reddit until I get an email saying that someone messaged me, so it makes replies exceedingly slow.
--------------------------------------------------------
The journey was over. First, together, they slayed Harkon, the dreaded vampire and father of Serana. Then, the World-Eater: Alduin. Then, Miraak, the First Dragonborn. Skyrim was safe. Elysia filled their role has the Dragonborn, the protector of Skyrim, even if they did refuse to become the high ruler, that honor went to Jarl Elisif. Everything was fine. Nobody would dare threaten Skyrim's peace as long as Elysia was still alive and fighting. Skyrim experienced a time of peace. Bandits and other petty thieves ceased to exist out of fear of hearing the mythical shouts.
Serana and Elysia parted ways. Elysia left her to fulfill their role as the protector, while Serana dealt with her own personal issues. Maybe they would cross paths again, some day. Maybe old age would catch up with Elysia before they got the chance. Who knew? What the future had in store was untold. Vampires were done for, leaving Fort Dawnguard useless. Only Isran remained, and possibly Serana. With Harkon gone, it's just as likely that she claimed Castle Volkihar for herself. On the other hand, Elysia sought to perfect their skills in the arcane, and learn as many shouts as he could. Their lust for knowledge was a savior sometimes, but could just as well be their downfall.
Five short years passed. Five years after Alduin fell, something happened. All of Tamriel was plunged into war. A battle for who would claim themselves as the ruler of Tamriel. Jarl Elisif tried her best to keep Skyrim safe from the war, but no matter how hard she tried, it was impossible to keep the inhabitants safe from the Earth-shaking battles of the war. Skyrim had to remain neutral. Anybody who tried and disturb her peace would be met with the Dragonborn.
Serana was safe from the war. Her home was too far off most of Skyrim's maps, so she was safe. Nobody had any reason to attack and if they did, she was far too powerful to be taken down. She lived a peaceful life. Until something happened. In the midst of the war, Serana saw something.
The ear-piercing screeches of thousands times thousands of souls. The very barriers of the plane she stood in weakened. All of humanity trembling and bowing before a figure that wasn't quite visible yet. Everyone on the world of Nirn, bowing. Soaked in blood, with tears streaming down their faces. Nords, Elves, Argonians. Men, women, children. The figure they bowed before slowly came into the picture. It was a face. A face she was all too familiar with. A face that would immediately cause her to break down. The face of the Daedric Prince who ruined her life. Who forced her and her mother into becoming a vampire.
Molag Bal.
He was back. He was going to use the war to destroy the barrier between Tamriel and Oblivion. She was the only one who knew what was happening. She couldn't fight him alone. She couldn't even look at him without feeling sick to her stomach. What could she do? Was there anything she could do? The panic set in as she felt sick to her stomach. But when she settled down, she realized. There was something she could do. There was somebody she could go to.
"Then we'll fight. But not for Skyrim. Not for Tamriel. Not even for Nirn. For you, Serana. He will fall in your name."

TW: spoilers hiding potential triggering information.
I (white cis het passing male) have been putting up watching my workshop space slowly drive away queer and femme voices and bring on more and more toxic men. >! Domestic abuse apologists, alt right conspiracy theorists, and the like !<
Finally, a guy who yells at his Livestream all day was going off >! about how he refuses to accept trans folk as human and the implications of that. !< And, we got into a shouting match. I date an NB person and I can't store my livelihood and operate my career out of a place that suggests my and mine's lifestyles are subhuman.

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A one-shot. Vote (the pointy thing upwards) and enjoy!
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The Xeno looked like he should be sitting on a Cathedral somewhere pissing rain down on the tourists. He also wouldn’t shut up
“I told you, I’m not a fucking engineer, pilot, Superman or whatever other weird ideas you have about humans. I’m a Xeno Paleoarchelogist and I’m wearing the wrong pants for a pirate attack. My grant doesn’t cover it and neither does my health insurance.”
The crests on his annoying companion raised in surprise, “Well I have no idea what that means but it must be useful! I have better pants that you may borrow if that would help?”
Warren held on to his chair tightly as another explosion rattled his teeth. Twenty minutes ago he had been enjoying the peace of a dull commute with a good book. Now he was in serious shit with nothing but whatever the Xeno equivalent of a nerd was. He should have known from the way the guy had lit up like it was his fucking birthday on sitting beside a ‘real’ human on his trip into the dark.
When the shaking calmed down he looked at his unlikely companion, “I study history, your history, everyone's history and see what matches up with ours. In particular, I study the utilisation of fire in prehistory as an indicator of future galactic development.”
He might as well have been speaking in pig-Latin and asking for a donation for the rebuilding of Pompei for all the Xeno seemed to understand.
The Xeno seemed to be considering something and then spoke in a sudden burst as if he was afraid the universe might interrupt him, “I am Ni’urn, Senior-Second Programmer of the Third-Shift of Numbers of Importance and I also study. I study combinations of numbers and I recommend the best ones. I cannot be captured by pirates! My department would be horrified!”
This was the problem with dumb translations since Warren heard ‘office geek that lived in a basement’ when he was actually being told, “I am the Second in Command of the third sector of our planet's military: space. I study patterns of warfare within the galaxy and our local space and recommend countermeasures to deal with foreseen problems. My death or capture will result in confusion and possible overreaction by our military.”
What Ni’urn heard from his new human companion was, “I am a human specialist responsible for fire and I am without my equipment.”
The obvious solution was to find some way for the human to utilise his skills in fire, a most useful thing in a battle with pirates.
Ni’urn ran the numbers in his head, “We are on a civilian ship from the In’Tec people. They make poor ships but cheap. Since your people stopped their previous activities I must think that they are unfamiliar with important things like escape pods since we have not been offered one. My projections indicate that this ship was probably refitted from a pirate vessel. Do you concur?”
Warren looked around at the slightly squashed cabin and took a wild guess, “Sure, why not? If these guys were pirates then either they are still working with them or they might have held onto some of the systems they used to use. No one gives up firepower if they can help it. I’m not sure how that helps us!”
Ni’urn added that to his numbers, “I concur. It is a most useful insight. We have just under eighteen minutes before the ship either surrenders to slavers and thieves or fails completely and explodes so I propose we seek to take immediate control of the vessel. I have sufficient understanding to undertake to pilot the vessel and you will be responsible for finding and using the weapons you believe they have concealed. Do you concur?”
Warren was still struggling with the ‘Eighteen minutes until we die’ when the Xeno grabbed him and pushed him forward towards the door. He thought the creature had been driven mad with fear and decided to chance it on his own. The Xeno had babbled something about Escape Pods so he pulled open the door and began running. He no longer cared where he was running to but he was damned sure of what he was running away from.
He was nearly back to rational thought when someone suddenly appeared in front of him and raised a weapon towards his face. Warren needed those brown pants really badly but he was moving too fast to stop so he tried to drop his head, just as the much-abused ship's systems flickered and the gravity went offline for a second.
To Ni’urn it appeared as if the human had sprinted at unbelievable speed from the cabin and when one of the pirates had dropped his camouflage to shoot him he had simply lowered his head and charged his assailant. He watched the pirate shatter as the human seemed to fly into him, its weapon thrown wildly and his armour crushed against the corridor wall. He hurried to catch up.
Warren took the blow to his head badly and felt blood begin to trickle into his eyes. Without thinking he pushed the blood away and leaned down to the Xeno he had crashed into. Shit. He couldn’t help him and didn’t particularly care but he thought he should not leave the creature with a weapon. He himself had never used one and had no idea of how the thing worked but maybe he could give it to someone in authority. Later. He began running again with the gun forgotten in his hand as the blood and pain narrowed his eyes. How fucking big was this ship anyway? The escape pods must be near the pilot, it made no sense otherwise.
‘Remarkable’ Ni’urn said to the dead pirate. “I have heard the human expression that you never know what will hit you but I didn’t realise it was literal.” He stepped over the corpse and followed his fire human.
The problem with running around like headless poultry is that it always ends badly for someone. Warren was finding that out the hard way as he found himself with a bleeding head, a raging headache and absolutely no idea of where he was on the ship. On the upside, no one seemed to be shooting at him or the ship. He stopped for breath and began to calm down and then he heard the footsteps. Someone was coming.
Ni’urn was growing more and more curious as his human friend threw himself forward into the maze of corridors without pause. If he was willing to entertain the thought he would have said the route that he was taking was…unusual, but it had evaded all the crew and pirates and he had brought them safely to the bridge. He had followed the thumping feet as they echoed down the shaky corridors and until then heard them falter and stop. Good, he had not been forgotten and his ally was obviously waiting for him to catch up.
He reflected that perhaps they hadn’t avoided anyone but that any enemy hearing the thumping human's arrival, seeing it covered in its lurid red blood and casually holding a weapon had simply gotten quickly out of the way.
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On the bridge of the unfortunate ship the Beautiful Bounty there were two very unhappy Captains. One of them was dressed slightly less formally than the other but they could not be mistaken for anything other than family, bickering in front of some heavily armed men, “I told you we had a human and a high-value target. The human is some academic, not a warrior, just a teacher. He’s not important. We need the local, the Command Staff guy. He’s the one making all the plans around here.”
The In’tec pirate laughed, “Really? Because I can see the same cameras that you can and the human has already slaughtered one of mine in cold blood, stolen his gun and is now tearing through the ship looking for the rest of us. He’s probably going to be outside the door in a few minutes. I’m done. I’m not fighting a human again. You weren’t there. Even if I kill him the rest of his kind will come looking for me and they never fucking stop! You do whatever the fuck you want but me and my men are out of here.”
The Captain of the Beautiful Bounty seemed to shrink, “But I…I turned off the defences to do this. I’m screwed. I’ll spend years in a penal colony when they read the incident report. The local guy is really important...I’m fucked.” He seemed to realise that he had thrown his entire life into the toilet for nothing. If the pirates wouldn’t fight, his crew definitely wouldn’t and he didn’t want to face the creature alone. He looked at the vid as the crazed and bloodied creature ran towards the bridge, towards him.
The whole room heard and felt someone - something- run heavily towards the door and then stop. Then silence.
The In’tec pirate shook himself, “Fine, you can come with us. Now.” He turned to the bridge staff and his own men, “Move or you stay to deal with that fucking mad species.”
He didn’t waste any more words, running to his breaching craft that was currently embedded in the bridge and followed by every crewman on the bridge. It was a well-practised manoeuvre for most of them and it took less than a minute for them all to pile through the joining fields.
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Warren groaned when the annoying Xeno suddenly reappeared. He had tried to figure out the weapon but it wasn't made for humans, it was some weird thing that you obviously needed the correct training to use. He still held it in case he needed to hit something but then he wiped some more dried blood out of his eyebrows and finally realised he had been an idiot to the innocent Xeno, “Good to see you again. I’m afraid the ‘fight or flight ‘ instinct is strong in my people but I shouldn’t have behaved so poorly. Since we are both still here I assume the pirates are boarding? Do you have any suggestions? Are you uninjured?”
Ni’urn was pleased to see the human was alert and capable of intelligent questions.
What he understood was that his ally was pleased with his survival and looking for his understanding and preferred countermeasures. An admirable trait that was so rare in warriors. It still looked like a horror but that's aliens for you.
“I believe this is the correct door. I estimate that we will succeed if you enter first. When you have subdued the bridge I will then take control of the navigation and bring us to safety. You must find fire control and prepare to disable the pirate ship. They should not be permitted to rampage in the system or seek revenge against us.”
The human seemed to consider it for a moment and then handed him the weapon. Of course, he was probably feeling protective. This was a trait he had read about in his Intel reports of the species. They must be bonded in the humans mind. Well, that was slightly embarrassing.
Warren looked at the gun and gave up. He handed it to the Xeno, maybe he had seen them in the movies or done basic training. From what the nerd said they needed to take the bridge and then find the weapons before the pirates blew the ship up to cover their tracks. Another deadline. “Alright, you wave that thing around and let me take a swipe at anyone still standing. We are both going to die.”
Ni’urn assumed that that was some warrior's creed and tried to respond, “Indeed, but not today.” He pointed at one of the doors leading off from the corridor, “That is where we must go. I will open it and you will act. I shall endeavour to cover you with the gun but it is not recommended for use on a ship and would probably destroy vital systems should I try. I shall, as you suggest, ‘wave it about’.”
All Warren heard was that the Xeno didn’t know how to shoot and the door was right in front of him. His plan to run into the pointy-end had been correct it seemed. He just nodded and pushed hard on the door.
Ni’urn was surprised when it shifted easily under the human's hand. Breaching the bridge was always notoriously difficult but the human didn’t even slow down.
Warren figured the various fire and damage alarms currently ringing through the ship had opened every lock, especially on a civilian ship that carried his people. Any engineer he had ever met would have melted it down for ballast if it didn’t. He opened the door to an empty room.
“Well, that was easier than I expected. Go do your thing and I’ll see what they have to play with.”
He couldn’t believe it, he wasn’t going to get shot. Whatever the pirates wanted they had taken and left. He was just a bystander but what the fuck… he watched the Xeno move with the fussy authority of someone that spends their days at this kind of shit. The guy seemed to grow a foot taller when he began programming or piloting or whatever the hell he was doing.
He found a panel on the Captain's console. It looked like it had been nailed on and it was definitely not supposed to be there. It had a big red button and a sign that read ‘Emergency’ in several languages but most of them were incorrectly spelled, something that always annoyed him. He hit the button and nothing happened. Surprise. Thirty seconds later he had pried it off to find a small screen and six buttons, four with arrows, one kind of beige and one red.
He hit the beige one and the screen seemed to flicker until another ship appeared. The pirate? There was no one else for a dozen light-years. It even came with crosshairs that suddenly turned green when it thought it was pointing at the right thing.
Revenge. His or theirs..who would ever know? He didn’t but he hit the red button anyway.
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Ni’urn was struggling with the debriefing. “It is as I have told you: once I had informed the human of our predicament he acted immediately, killing the first pirate we encountered and seizing its weapon. It then evaded all opposition until it reached the bridge and waited for my instruction. Once we had breached the bridge he sought out the hidden weapons system and annihilated the pirate ship. I piloted us into safe space and he immediately disembarked and left for Earth space. I do not understand why you are having issues with this. It is plainly visible on the recovered files and I have no reason to lie about the event. I was hardly heroic, I took no part except the piloting of the ship once we were safe.”
The supervisor looked sympathetic, “You are aware of their XCC? Their central authority for any…events that take place outside their space. They report that the human, the one that you refer to as Warren, has no memory of any such details. Apparently, a Xeno ‘that was good with numbers’ looked after the whole thing. He has refused the bounty on the pirate ship and the salvage of the Beautiful Bounty.”
Ni’urn didn’t have anything left to add, but he could read these numbers.
The supervisor continued, “The XCC has sent us the documentation signing any and all such claims to you. If the vast amount of money wasn’t enough, the humans have also offered you free transport and employment should you choose to move to their space. You cannot work in intelligence for us when a foreign power is taking such a close interest in you.”
The supervisor stood up and Ni’urn shakily followed, “It is the opinion of this commission that you will be transferred into Xeno relations and provided with a rebuilt Beautiful Bounty as your ship. Your Captain papers and license have been issued along with the bounty on the pirates. Your ship will remain in the control of our fleet until your retirement and then will pass to you. Congratulations, Captain Ni’urn.”
My Patreon, if anyone wants to support my writing and you can drop into my channel on Discord or buy me a coffee. Also Human Altered on Royal Road

I’m (F) bi everything-“virgin” about to have my 27th birthday and every year I’m still single my insecurities and self-loathing just continue growing nonstop. I never had the chance to have a relationship. I probably will never be anybody’s first choice or choice at all. I likely repel men because I have butch hair and any women I start getting attracted to all have boyfriends or husbands. But then again, nobody liked me when I was younger when I was much more feminine because I was overweight, weird and awkward. I’ve endured a ton of shit including health and mental issues so I’m trying so hard to pick up the pieces of myself before dating but I can’t help but be lonely. Screw human nature I guess. I can’t seem to make friends and have bad social anxiety too.
So in short: I feel like I’m broken and hopeless. A few years back when I finally realized I was bi, I came out to my therapist at the time and her response was odd. She was encouraging at first but then was almost scolding me for being so scared of intimacy. And said “sex doesn’t have to be a big deal.” She was basically telling me to just find someone and get it over with. Lately that’s been replaying in my head and eating away at me. She’s no longer my therapist for many reasons but I sometimes wonder if she was right and if I’m just anxious over nothing. I don’t know if she wanted me to just go sell myself on the street corner or what lol but yeah maybe I’ve built it all up in my head too much and am pathetic because of that. Am I a broken bi?

This is my second year of bingo, so naturally I had to extra challenge myself and do a themed card this time. I set out to do strictly re-tellings, but I ended up broadening the category to include strongly inspired by or incorporating folk tales or mythology. It’s a category I read a lot in anyway, and I love that the genre is exploding to include cultures world-wide. And yet somehow I only ended up with 13 authors of color (out of 40 - counting all the short stories). But this year was about 90% women (with 3 non-binary and one man), so huzzah for feminist re-tellings! And all but four of the authors were new to me. I didn’t quite hit all hard mode, but the theme was my hard mode, really.
I tried to cover a variety of inspiration texts (myths, folk tales, “classic literature,” film) as well as stories from around the world, but I’m missing any representation from Australia and the Pacific Islands as well as South America. The origins of a lot of the stories are Western European, but some have been re-told in settings elsewhere in the world. East Asia also ended up well represented.
I did end up substituting a square this year. Instead of “weird ecology,” I opted for 2018’s “a god is a character” square. There were a couple books that had some weird landscaping in them, but none of them quite fit the spirit of the square. Things like a magical forest in an otherwise standard-issue earthly landscape rather than a fundamentally different ecosystem overall. If anyone has any recs for re-tellings set on far-flung planets, let me know! I tend not to do deep researching – mostly I read somewhat mindfully, hoping for the best, and panic in January.
Here’s the visual card: https://imgur.com/4XRW9W9
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Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (LGBTQIA list)
The Iliad from Patroclus’ perspective, but starting with his childhood and teenage years in which he and Achilles grow up together and fall in love.
If you remember the Iliad or just the general arc of the story of the Trojan war, then you will go into this knowing it’s going to be a tragedy. That doesn’t make the pain any less exquisite. The time we spend growing up with Patroclus moves from lonely and neglected to beautiful, golden, idyllic. The voice of Patroclus – pacifist and healer – is expertly written and his relationship with god-like Achilles is full of moments that make the heart ache. This is still on the best-seller list for a reason.
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Lore Olympus: Volume One by Rachel Smythe (Substitute square: god character, HM)
Olympus is a contemporary city, albeit still only inhabited by gods, and Hades and Persephone might be falling for each other.
Graphic novel. The limited color palettes in this volume are excellent, emphasizing mood and character. It’s beautiful to read. The Greek gods are notorious for having very human flaws, and this telling feels very rooted in human emotions. Olympus feels a bit like a college campus in this telling. There’s a lot of loneliness, and trying to figure out how to fit in. It also gets a big content warning for rape.
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Hag: Forgotten Folk Tales Retold by Imogen Hermes Gowar, Naomi Booth, Emma Glass, Irenosen Okojie, Daisy Johnson, Natasha Carthew, Eimear McBride, Liv Little, Mahsuda Snaith, Kirsty Logan (2+ authors, HM)
Strange folk tales from every corner of the U.K. are re-imagined – often in contemporary settings – giving women voices they may have been denied in the originals.
It took me a long time to read all these short stories because almost every one deals with death or brutality towards women. That’s not to say they all have unhappy endings – indeed, some have joyously vengeful endings – but there’s quiet tragedy and outright violence woven throughout. Powerful stories, strong narrator voices, and often poetic prose, but read when in a strong mental state.
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A Clash of Steel: A Treasure Island Remix by C.B. Lee (Historical, HM)
Treasure Island set in 1826 in the South China Sea with a pirate crew of queer misfits sailing for treasure and a better life – plus actual historical Pirate Queen Zheng Yi Sao as Captain Flint.
With contemporary prose and an updated cast, this still feels true to the source material with the adventurous quest deciphering maps and clues. Long John Silver doesn’t have an exact analogue, but his surprisingly complex parental feelings come through with found-family bonds as well as a wild ride of birth-family feelings, and a fraught lesbian love interest.
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Once & Future by Cory McCarthy, A.R. Capetta (Set in Space, HM)
This time, King Arthur is a queer teenage girl on the run from the big bad capitalist Mercer Corporation – in space!
In this re-telling, the characters are aware of the King Arthur story as a myth from Old Earth, but when they find themselves re-incarnating the well-worn pattern, they don’t seem to recognize it beyond the magic sword and Ari’s renewed determination to be a hero. Merlin has lived through every iteration, and has his own interests at play. Our heroes spend a fair bit of time in their space ship or on planet-sized space-stations, though it may be pushing the rule to say it’s 50% actually in space. This is a YA book and it definitely reads that way, but it’s fun. I thought the “Renaissance Faire Planet” was a bit of a stretch and the big bad was almost a caricature of every evil empire, but if you can look past a bit of cheesiness, there’s plenty of sci-fi action, a quick pace, and some intrigue under the surface.
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The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid (Standalone, HM)
Hungarian and Jewish folklore plus the early spread of Christianity weave together to create a world where magic manifests differently depending on your religious tradition, the Christians are ardent new converts in charge of a poor besieged country, and persecution abounds.
The first person perspective came with a lot of (justified) rage and some pretty violent moments, but I found Évike’s voice to be frustratingly naïve at times. The pacing was uneven, and with a lot of elements in play the story was lacking cohesion. I felt okay on the enemies-to-lovers trope in this one. Overall, this book was redeemed for me by the imagined folk stories woven in, and the heart-warming moments spent in the Jewish community. (I forget the actual names of the religions in the book, but they’re pretty obvious stand-ins.)
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These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong (Anti-hero, HM)
This time, Romeo and Juliet are in rival gangs in 1926 Shanghai, but their teenage romance is already dead from betrayal at the start of the book and a strange madness is devastating the city they struggle to rule.
I usually read-read, but this one I listened to and I loved the narrator! I had a few hang-ups on Juliet as a character (though perfect anti-hero material). Which was tough since she got of lot of screen time, but thankfully we also got Roma and some absolutely wonderful side characters, including a trans woman and a refuses-to-admit-it gay couple. There were some moments of lovely prose, plenty of action, and all the jostling factions in the city were well-balanced in the narrative. First of a series, I definitely want to pick up the second one soon.
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All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter (Book Club, HM)
Drawing primarily on Irish folklore, this is the story of a girl who wants to escape her family obligations - ones that come with generational trauma and greed.
It’s a little hard to talk about this one without spoilers since there are basically three distinct sections and each could almost stand as a story on its own, but each depends on the earlier one. Another angry woman in this one, taking matters into her own hands and trying to break spells, break open dark family secrets, and get free of men who are trying very hard to be in charge. I liked the gothic atmosphere, the prose, and probably the middle journey section with fairy-tale creature encounters was my favorite. The family history is also told in mini fairy-tales throughout. The ending fell a bit flat, and I didn’t really connect to the main character, but neither of those were deal-breakers for me.
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Spear by Nicola Griffith (Cool Weapon, HM)
From the King Arthur mythos, the story of Percival and the quest for the holy grail, but Percival is a supernatural queer woman who lives in sixth century Wales when the pagan gods still have power.
Novella. The story opens slowly and with some very poetic prose to start Peretur’s early life in the wilderness with her mother – a mythic feeling that I fell hard for right off the bat. And yet it also felt very much a story from history – the details of the setting showed the research Griffith put in. I wish it were just a touch longer to give some more room to the relationship developments that get packed into the back half of the book. But the interweaving of historical details, tidbits from myth and story, and imagination was so flawless that this re-telling feels like it could be the "true" history of the story-figure. Even including the gender flip - a skillfully handled "woman dresses as a man to be a knight" trope that works even better when the woman is queer.
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Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny (Revolution/Rebellion, HM)
On a distant planet in the far future, the original colonizing crew have set themselves up as gods, specifically taking on the roles of the Hindu pantheon. One member heartily disagrees with how the rest are running things.
The prose in this one was a little tough and I’m pretty sure the style is a deliberate choice to make this book feel more akin to reading a religious text. And as a play off of Hesse’s 1922 Siddhartha, since they share the same main character. But some of it may also simply be because it was written in 1967. Still, the content is intriguing. The struggle is between the immortal gods who like being the ones with all the advanced tech (including re-incarnation to transfer themselves into new bodies), and the one who thinks this is some kinda bullshit, why make the inhabitants here go through the dark ages when they could have medicine and electricity now. The premise and watching it play out is the interest here, not so much any emotional investment in the characters.
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The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White (Name in the Title, HM)
Still asking, “who is the monster?” and giving the same answer even more definitively than the original, this is a re-telling of Frankenstein from Elizabeth’s POV with some distinctive twists.
In 2022 I did the Dracula read-along and then promptly decided it was finally time to do Frankenstein as well. Which meant I could now read re-tellings of these classics. Elizabeth, when you get to hear her side, turns out not only to be independent-minded, but also a remarkable anti-hero character trying desperately to maintain the only stability she’s ever known. Though there are a lot of grim happenings and emotional abuse, this version has more hope for humanity than the original (which, imo, has almost none). Also, unlike narrator Viktor, Elizabeth doesn’t make you hate her guts regularly; she’s just trying to survive. The prose was the weak point in this one, especially coming off Mary Shelley, but not detrimentally so.
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What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (Author Uses Initials, HM)
Poe’s short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” leaves plenty of room for embellishing and this novella does so perfectly with nightmare fungus, more rounded-out characters (including a non-binary protagonist), and horrifyingly possessed creatures.
Alex is a rational narrator, the best kind for encountering increasingly creepy phenomena. Even with the addition of a no-nonsense mycologist and a competent American doctor, the atmosphere of oppressive, inevitable horror from the original short story suffuses this novella. There certainly are rational lines of thoughts to follow to unravel the mystery of the Ushers’ illnesses, but that doesn’t stop each revelation from setting everyone on edge and fearing madness of themselves. Gothic. Horror. Perfection.
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Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan (Published in 2022, HM)
The Chinese story of Chang’e is the basis for this re-telling, but this focuses on her daughter and starts after the original stories end. Xingyin’s quest is to obtain freedom and forgiveness for her mother’s actions that gained her goddess status, but exiled her to the moon.
The world building of the Celestial Kingdom was a highlight of this one for me since I’m not super familiar with the Chinese pantheon. The story itself relied on some classic YA tropes (including a love triangle, one of my least favorites) and I found the narrator’s voice somewhat simplistic. She’s also a very emotional character, which at times was endearing and at others frustrating. Wise, peaceful dragons do make an appearance, though, and there’s some good political intrigue and a few unforeseen twists. An entertaining read overall, and there’s set-up for the second book, but this one wrapped up nicely enough and I’m not feeling pressed to read the second one right away.
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The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo (Urban Fantasy, HM)
The Great Gatsby, but from Jordan Baker’s perspective and she’s a bi Vietnamese adoptee in a New York where magic makes all the parties more dazzling.
It’s hard to like any of the characters in the Gatsby story, but Jordan Baker as narrator certainly gets more sympathy from me in this go-round. Raised in a rich white family, she carries internalized racism with her, and yet struggles against it every day in a country that is trying to enact a law that will force her to leave. Where the original story condemns classism and unbridled ambition, this story expands its criticism to America’s long history of excluding people of color and the LGBTQ+ community. The prose is gorgeous, and where it overlaps with original scenes it dovetails perfectly. The magic adds an extra shimmer to this story, but doesn’t outshine the character work. I hope this one gets added to curriculums to pair with the original.
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Skin of the Sea by Natasha Bowen (Set in Africa, HM)
Inspired by West African mythology with the Little Mermaid for some plot points. Simi was a human who became a Mami Wata and is struggling to fit into her role bringing home the souls of those who died at sea. One decision endangers all the Mami Wata and sends her on a quest with a boy that will entangle her with the gods and other legendary creatures.
This story is chock full of magical beings, young adults attempting to navigate dangerous situations as well as their relationships, and quests of mythic proportions. The dark underbelly of the story is the destruction of West African communities as colonizers take their people into slave ships. Though tragedy runs alongside the story, our heroes mostly manage to stay one step ahead of the worst outcomes. The quest did some meandering, and characterizations were a bit uneven, but I think it really came together in the latter half. The main plot wraps up well, but makes set-up for the next book clear and I do intend to get to it eventually.
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A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger (Non-human protagonist, HM)
With roots in Lipan Apache storytelling traditions, this is the story of a cottonmouth snake and a human girl whose worlds run in parallel, but become entangled as they try to save friends and family from existential threats.
This technically has two protagonists, but the snake is the one whose chapters are in first person and the human’s are in third person. This also would have been great for the hard mode BIPOC author square since the author is Lipan Apache. I absolutely loved everyone in this story. Nina is an intrepid modern girl and a loner, but with strong family ties; and Ollie is a homebody snake setting out to make his way in the wide world. The friends Ollie makes help him to discover his own bravery, and they are a delightfully colorful bunch of creatures! Nina is trying to help her grandmother and unravel the mysteries of their family’s past and possible connections to the animal people. Read this story to be filled with the love of friendship and family, and hope in the face of climate change and social media ills.
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Fractured Fables: A Spindle Splintered & A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow (Timey Wimey, HM)
Zinnia Gray’s illness means she likely won’t live past 21, but when she falls into a Sleeping Beauty parallel universe, she might be able to at least save someone else from that fate. In book two, she’s dealing poorly with life in the “real” world, but busting out into a new fairy tale multi-verse (Snow White’s), and finding even more complications in the re-tellings there.
I read both novellas currently out in this series, and our hero does a fair bit of jumping around the fairy tale multiverse which makes it clear that time doesn’t run evenly across it all. It’s not really the focus, but it’s there, and it does affect a couple plot points. I think Alix Harrow read the same book I did about disability in fairy tales (Disfigured by Amanda Leduc) and took it to heart to create her hero in this contemporary fairy tale take. Zinnia’s chronic illness is both from an industrial accident and an embodiment of a fairy tale curse. These books don’t take themselves too seriously, but do handle disability and the emotional impacts that come with it pretty well, I think. Disney’s re-telling style features in book one, and book two gets some darker, more horror-esque takes.
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Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones (Mental Health)
The re-telling of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth you didn’t know you needed with extra depth from Germanic folk roots and a little Hades-Persephone flavor. Set in early 19th century Bavaria, protagonist Liesl is a composer stuck helping run her family’s inn; in the woods, Der Erlkönig (the Goblin King), may be a relic of a pagan past, but that doesn’t stop him from meddling with her heart and her family members.
Liesl is bipolar and her brother (prodigy violinist) has anxiety and (in book 2) severe depression. Her father is an alcoholic. The family member who gets stolen and must be retrieved is her beautiful sister, the life of the family. Liesl’s wild up and down swings are on full display when she enters the realm of the Goblin King and is trying to navigate her relationship with him, her relationship with her music, and her love for her family. This is an emotional book and you will be angry at almost every character at some point. But it’s also heartbreakingly beautiful. The romance sizzles; it’s unhealthy and you want them to fix it. It’s probably not a book for everyone, but I spent a fevered day and a half devouring it. For extra doses of struggling with mental health, sobbing, and musical composing, read book two – Shadowsong.
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In the Shadows of Giants by Lazette Gifford (Self-published, HM)
In the far future, the Norse pantheon ends up pitted against the Chinese pantheon and an elder god in a potential new Ragnarok with Loki trying to avoid the mishaps of the last one – in space!
Loki gets some good character work in this book, but other characters are a little light on depth. Though Loki is the main focus, I liked that we got some chapters in the Chinese pantheon as well, getting some insight into the politics of the situation from their perspective – and not everyone in their pantheon is on board with the way things are going. Loki is also not really convinced of teaming up with the rest of his own pantheon again either, but he still has a few good ties there and room to mends some relationships. This wasn’t a stand-out novel for me, but neither do I have any strong complaints. It’s a solid sci-fi-fantasy mix, good prose, and well-paced plotting.
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Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste (Runner-up, HM)
It’s 1967 in San Francisco and Lucy (from Dracula) and Bertha (from Jane Eyre) are the titular reluctant immortals trying to keep their tormentors from destroying more lives.
This seems like it could be an action-packed super-powered immortal battle, but instead it’s the mundanity of simply surviving as an undead being, escalating slowly into a horrifying body count. Obviously I had to read this after finishing the Dracula read-along. The tone is such a contrast! Where Dracula’s heroes struggle nobly against the darkness, this version is full of quiet desperation and bleakness more fitting as the successor to Jane Eyre. As the action ramps up in the last third, it plays out more like a contemporary horror film, including a strange liminal space in the afterlife and scenes of a modern mansion filled with the decay that the undead bring. The drug haze of California in the 60’s suffuses the story. I’m not entirely convinced this was a re-telling we needed, but I’m also not mad about it.
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Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel (BIPOC author)
Kaikeyi is only briefly in the Hindu epic The Ramayana, but her “wicked stepmother” action sets the plot of it in motion. In this novel, she is given a voice and a backstory and a complex world she must navigate as a woman who wants more independence not only for herself, but for all the women of her country.
The relationship building in the latter half is one of the highlights of this book. It’s helped by some magic, but Kaikeyi puts in the work to build bonds of love and mutual respect in the royal household where she is youngest of three wives. Rama (her step-son) is the main character in the original epic (a god incarnated to vanquish evil forces), and so the reader is clued in early that disaster will befall the family because of a conflict between Kaikeyi and her husband and Rama; the threat of that tragedy seeps into even the happy parts of the story. Kaikeyi is a champion of early feminism in this telling, but she’s still human with plenty of flaws and struggles and imperfect vision. I found this book to be a bit of a slow build to connect with characters, but by the end I was absolutely tearing up. A powerful telling.
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Malice by Heather Walter (Shapeshifters, HM)
In this Sleeping Beauty re-telling (perhaps prequel), the villain is not yet the villain – though society certainly treats her as an outcast – and a forbidden love is blooming.
This is a coming of age story for an already young adult character. Alice wants to be accepted (and loved), proving she’s not the evil pariah society thinks she is, but she also wants to escape the role she’s forced into. The build-up of tension between her warring desires is well done. As she discovers her true powers (spoilers since I used it for the shapeshifting square!) she’s put even more at odds with the establishment, and yet her growing love for Princess Aurora gives her hope for a more idyllic outcome than the escape she’s trying to plan. This was another enjoyable but not necessarily a stand-out read for me. Excellent character work for the protagonist and a slower pacing, but never felt like it was dragging. I will definitely read book 2 since this one ends with a bang.
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Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust (No Ifs, Ands, or Buts, HM)
This book mushes up elements from Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Beauty and the Beast, and probably others, and spins a whole new story with Persian flair. A poisonous princess is kept hidden away, but when knowledge of her curse comes from a demon, her decisions will have far-reaching consequences for her whole family and the question of who to trust becomes thorny.
This was another one where the protagonist is striving to be a good person, caring for her family, and yet she understandably wants to escape her curse and is maybe willing to do some questionable things to make it happen. It’s hard to keep being good when, even though you are loved, you can’t touch anyone and have to live in a gilded cage. This story took a lot of twists and turns, including betrayals of all kinds. The romance elements were laced with emotional tension, but kept sexual feelings to a bare minimum. I felt this could have used a bit of plot streamlining, but I liked the Persian-inspired world, the overall arc of the story, and I felt it wrapped up well for a complex stand-alone.
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For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten (Family Matters)
I thought this would be primarily Little Red Riding Hood, but it’s got a huge helping of Beauty and the Beast and a dose of fairy tale sisters tropes as well. Red is the sister that will be sacrificed to the Wolf in the Wilderwood in hopes of the gods’ return. Turns out, that whole Wolf and Wilderwood thing is really complicated.
This has a lot of elements that I tend to look favorably on – a broody love interest, a magical forest, sibling bonds – but it didn’t quite pull together for me in this book. Both characters in the romance got good development and their choices did make sense for who they were, but it was a very frustrating one to read and caused a lot of drag in the middle. The sibling relationship was much better and the sister who gets to become queen has a wonderfully tragic arc in the name of saving her lost sister. The forest itself and the religion/magic that goes with it don’t get a ton of satisfying explanation, but that’s partly due to everyone actually struggling to figure out how it works. It gets an A+ for creepy atmosphere, though! Imagery from Grimm’s more grim tales abounds and I appreciated the slight edge of horror that creeps in. Not super likely to pick up book 2.
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I’ve done a terrible job being concise here, so I’ll try to do a really quick run-down on the short stories. I just listed the first collection on my official bingo turn-in to make it easy, but I like being able to fill in all the slots in my spreadsheet, so there are five things here. Hopefully someone has made it this far down – if so, thank you for reading!
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The Bloody Chamber & Other Stories by Angela Carter (collection)
The titular story is one of the better ones – a re-telling of Bluebeard. Covering the classics of western European fairy tales, this collection features a lot of liberated sex with a 70s feminist lean (publication date: 1979). Girls and beasts are the big theme. There were a few excellent ones and several that left me going “but why?”
The Bride of the Blue Wind by Victoria Goddard
Closer to a novelette, but that gave this story room to get some solid world-building in. Bluebeard again, but with Bluebeard being a djinn sort of character. I loved the trader communities and desert setting and the family dynamic with the wife’s sisters.
Tales of Old Gods & New by Kate MacLeod (collection)
This collection had two specific re-tellings: another “Norse gods in the far future” re-telling which was also a sci-fi survival story, and an African inspired goddess trying to escape the cycle of her story. These were two solid ones, some of the other in the collection I felt were unfinished scribbling thoughts for novel-sized stories.
Hunting Monsters series by S.L. Huang (2 short stories, one novella)
This collection mashed up eastern and western settings and stories, including Red Riding Hood, Beauty & the Beast, the Legend of the White Snake, and Hou Yi the Archer. The main characters of the novella are middle-aged women long past the prime in which their original stories took place and I liked that take a lot. The short stories focus on a daughter and deal with culture clashes and parent-child tensions.
A Cathedral of Myth & Bone by Kat Howard (collection)
The feature in this collection is a novelette of the King Arthur story set on a college campus with grad students who are themselves studying the mythos of King Arthur. Most of the other stories in the collection take inspiration from saints’ lives or myth and folk tale tropes (or the concept of storytelling itself) and play with them in new settings. I found a lot more hits than misses in this collection.

Trying to work out a Core Difficulty viable build based on Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, aka El Cid. Because Hero of the Reconquista is adjacent to the Fifth Crusade. Is he not?
Historically, he was said to be brave and tactically adept. Such that his honorific was granted him by the Moors, either during his service to the Taifa of Zaragoza or with his conquest of Valencia. He was said to have had the annals of the Roman Legions read to him, and was adept at deceptive tactics and even a measure (for the time) of psychological warfare.
Background: Thinking Martial Adept, for the Improved Unarmed Strike, so I can get to Crane Style w/o Monk if desired. Pure RP concept would be Leader, of course.
Base class seems Cavalier to me, especially since the tales include his love for Babieca, his steed. I would say Gendarme for the mounted damage. Except he was a renowned tactician. And Gendarme drops the tactician feats.
Mythic Path: Legend. To me that is a pretty obvious choice. Probably Angel leading into it, though Aeon might be an option, if it offered something to the build. Don't see him as Chaotic, so that side of the spectrum is out.>! (And we even get to RP his exile.) !<
Going Legend means a proper 2nd class. If I'm going pure power, that is probably Mutagen Fighter w/ a dip into Rowdy Rogue for maximum damage spikes. If I'm going more RP, I would lean more into a Paladin. Divine Scion seems to be an option, here, and one that would emulate his adaptive tactics fairly well.
Human, because we need the feats. Weapon Focus in both Sword and Longspear, for the lance charge. Mounted Combat (of course). Outflank on both him and the Steed. Shake it Off on both if I can afford it as well. Dodge for AC and access to Crane Style. Power Attack, Cornugan Smash. Advantage of going fighter would be Weapon Spec in both weapons.
Stats: Sticky. Historically, he was Strong, Clever militarily (if not always politically), a charismatic leader (which is partly why Alfonso didn't want him anywhere near the court after Sancho's death). So:
Str: 18 +4 Dex: 13+1 (needed for Dodge, and mobility points for mounted combat) Con: 14 (would like 16. But no way will we afford it.)
Int: 12 (would like it higher. But that ain't happening.)
Wis: 8 (because hey, he was politically less than astute and we have to dump something).
Cha: 14 (and this can't be dumped because otherwise he's not a believably inspirational figure.) Which probably leans me toward some Paladin variant as 2nd class.
This stat spread would annoy me a little for a martial character. But with Legend's boost, I'm less concerned.
Please feel free to contribute any constructive thoughts or ideas of your own. :)

Enclosed is an email I sent to the webmaster of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. I post it here so it can be seen by more people and be discussed. This is a simple proposal, but the main idea behind posting this and enticing discussion about the nature of the issue at question. You will have to read this to understand the discussion itself.
I would like to preface this by stating I do not hold any ill will for police who have determined that their lives are more important than the children they are paid and expected to protect. I do not hate the player. I hate the game. It is not about you, but about the environment in which you operate, and the legal obligations you actually have, and not the legal obligation we all were under the impression you have.
As a final note before the body of the email I sent I would like to say I don’t care about opinion or side of the argument. The facts are the facts and I am simply just getting annoyed at the sheer number of children who are being slaughtered. It is an awful thought to think that it is simply just so annoying now to fail to address it. The fact that it is annoying is horrifying, but honest. Some people in our society have determined that these deaths are acceptable and morally justified.
I fundamentally disagree and think that those people are the absolute epitome of evil. This is obvious to all. There is no question.
So it is up to us to protect ourselves. We must step up. Those charged with our well being are not obligated to press forward in that direction.
Here’s the email. Please discuss.
“Hello. I am an anonymous person who thinks you may have an opportunity to both shift public opinion of your organization and find a greater purpose for all clubs across the country.
I propose that MC members across the US should organize a patrol schedule around all schools in the country.
Since the police are either too inept to address this issue, or are unwilling to support legislative measures that will mitigate the occurrences of school shootings, it seems the protection of our children and the fight to defend the right to bear arms have found themselves at the same moment. We are now at a point where we must consider new options for both.
I suggest a new order of citizen involvement in protecting both our rights and our people. And I believe you are at the junction of being able to preserve both.
You are men and women who will instantly put your lives in the way of danger to avenge, to fight, to enforce, and to expand. I believe these qualities are essential in the current moment.
Our police have shown the inability to protect as a duty, and our legal system has consistently demonstrated they have no obligation to do so.
So I propose a parlay. I believe your qualities can be directed to both defend our children and cement the good in the right to bear arms.
As a parent, I can only imagine the pain of the families of the victims of these senseless acts. And I know you are parents as well. I know you are horrified by every single instance of violence in schools. You are humans just as we are and it would be unthinkable that you are not feeling the same way.
Here it is. Finally. Fully.
I believe you can organize and affect the institution of a patrol schedule, every 15 minutes of every hour that every single school in the US is open.
I believe that these instances of violence would be eradicated with your organized and willful patrols.
It is obvious after this recent mass murder in Nashville that doors can be locked, made of thick glass, and fortified, yet still succumb to the sheer power of the weapons used against them.
It is time for the good guys with the guns to end this. Please. Do what is right. Become the gang we need. Serve the people and save our kids. Save your kids.
This is the moment. This is the time. This is what you are here for. Save us all. Please. You have the power. You have the resources. You are capable. Show us who you are. Who we all are.
You have been summoned by the people. This is your charge. Every parent of every child will be forever in your debt. Save our country. We cannot survive this.
At your feet,
A hopeful man who believes in the i hear any good is you all.
Save one school. Please. For gods sake, please help us.”
Something must change. It must.