Monster musume no oishasan

A strange object flying in space and land on earth. It is a large blade with alien text on it. A man who has witness the large blade, he immediately call the Silver Team. The Silver Team is Science Intelligence Investigation team. An advance team with high technology to research something strange that happen on earth. The captain, Aoi order Hiroshi and Kagura to investigate about the large blade.
They arrive at the location and amaze the size of the blade. They try to take a piece of the blade but it was too strong and cannot break. Hiroshi see the weird text on the blade. He scan the text and send it to HQ to try translate the text. Akio try to use many code to translate the text. Aoi tell Hiroshi and Kagura to stay there to make sure nothing dangerous happen. Kagura still try to understand the capability of the blade.
Then, Kagura got shock with electric when he touch the sharp part. Hiroshi try to help him but it seems like Kagura doesn't have any serious injury. Hiroshi look closer at the sharp part of the blade. He notice that the sharp part is really hot and penetrate the ground and he notice that the blade is slowly goes underground. He immediately tell captain about the blade but the blade suddenly fall underground.
"Sir, the blade has fall into the ground and it digging in rapid speed" says Hiroshi. "Both of you come back to HQ. Hayate take the HUDM-05 to drill underground and track the blade with Hiroshi and Kagura.Tatsuya and Yumi take SW Wings. Patrol from the above the location if something emerge from underground. "SILVER, GO!"-Aoi "YES SIR"-everybody. Hayate, Hiroshi and Kagura go to the underground to locate the blade while Yumi and Tatsuya patrol above the location if emerge from underground.
When Hayate drill the ground, Kagura notice something weird about the rock movement. He notice that some rock is moving forward when they drilling. "Sir, I guess we have found a way the blade"-Kagura "Good but be careful, it may damage the machine"-Aoi. After a long way, the finally find the blade. "Sir, we found the blade but it seems like it collect a bunch of rock to make bigger.....rock? It use the heat to connect"
"I don't think it's just a big rock, it's a monster"-Hiroshi. Then the big rock turn out to be a monster and it emerge to the top. "Sir, the monster is controlled by the blade on its head"-Akio. "Tatsuya, Yumi fire the blade on its head. Now!"-Aoi. "YES, SIR"-Tatsuya and Akio. They their guns target to the blade but the blade make a shield. Hayate manage to get out of the hole.
"Kagura, Tatsuya you guys attack the monster. I'll go to the SW Wheel to prevent the monster go the village"-Hiroshi. Hiroshi rush to the SW Wheel. Attacking the feet of the monster so it don't go to the village while others try to attack the blade. The monster is annoy by Hiroshi so the monster attack Hiroshi until the car explode. Luckily, Hiroshi manage to get out of the car. "I guess I have no other choice then"
Hiroshi take out the transformation and say "ULTRAMAN CRYSTAL". Hiroshi transform into Ultraman Crystal. "Finally, the hero arrive"-Tatsuya. Crystal try to separate the blade from the monster but the blade blasting a fire energy to Crystal. Crystal realize that the monster is slow and only defense itself, doesn't attack much. So Crystal flip in the air and separate the blade using chop technique in midair.
Once the blade separate from the monster, Crystal attack the monster with Crystal Kick and the monster turn back into a pile of rock. Crystal grab the blade so it doesn't make another monster. So, Crystal destroy it with Crystal punch and the blade break into pieces and the blade energy is gone. Crystal turn back into Hiroshi. After the fight, all of them go back HQ. Akio make an announcement that she has translate the text from the blade.
"It says that, This is my first monster I've summon to kill you. The Megalo blade. A blade that can make a monster only using the planet source. Don't be too happy if you able to destroy it. Soon, the Megalo blade will kill you". They think who or what has a grudge against them until it wants to kill them. "Could this blade is summon by Zarlim"-Hiroshi "Zarlim? The Frightening Winged Raider?"-Tatsuya "Isn't that thing dead already?"-Kagura
"If that thing is dead, this fight wouldn't happen. It probably somewhere inside earth waiting to revive and seek revenge"-Aoi. Zarlim is one the most powerful Silver Team and Crystal has ever fought. When Zarlim die, it plant one of it organ so Zarlim can revive. The organ is in the core of the earth, waiting to revive and seek his revenge.

I've had USAA a long time. I haven't had any any accidents, tickets, etc in 11+ years... about 2 weeks ago I was driving on a highway and a huge SUV started veering into my lane slowing down. I honked my horn for a solid 5 seconds and started slamming on my brakes but the other vehicle just kept coming. We collided, the front right corner of my bumper hitting the rear left of his vehicle as I veered off into the grass trying to avoid him. No air bags deployed and everyone was fine.
Unfortunately I don't have a dash cam to prove that he drifted into me; ironically I had been planning on buying one very soon.. it was sitting in my Amazon cart.
Of course, this is being labeled as my fault. And it's incredibly frustrating. I get that technically I hit him but I literally could not stop on time for someone who just suddenly cut me off on the highway. And of course because his vehicle is a ginormous monster (one of those giant Chevy Tahoe's) my little Hyundai probably has a lot more damage.
USAA originally told me I was covered and they will repair the damage so I drove it to a shop and got a rental. Now, over 2 weeks later, USAA is telling me its a "possible loss" and they need to tow it for further inspection.
I called the repair shop to sign off on it being towed.. and the shop guy said "the vehicle is taken apart and I've already got all the parts here."
So basically, no one has any idea what is going on. I don't know how this all works but clearly USAA isn't communicating with the shop or the adjuster or me, and it's all a clusterfuck.
Because I have a Hyundai (and the issue with all the Hyundai's/Kia's being stolen isn't going away) I'm honestly thinking of just getting rid of my car regardless of the outcome...
But I don't know the best course of action here. If its totaled, what is the best course of action?
The worst thing is I am scheduled to go on a long road trip very soon.. one that has been planned out and paid for well in advance of this accident.
For future reference: how do I go about those "interviews" they do with you about what happened? I feel like this is a bullshit tactic and I always feel played.

I remember this day like yesterday. I was in 7th grade. I was in the locker room changing for gym when I heard growling. It didn't register what happened.
Students and teachers walked in as I was putting on my shirt (I'm a guy) and I heard screaming in the halls. I was scared. I had my phone and I texted anyone who means anything to me.
It was a few dreadful hours of growling and screaming before a suspicious man came rushing in and told us to put our hands up and stand up slowly. All of a sudden 2 black tentacles grabbed him.
We screamed as we were all taken by them one by one. I'm typing this from a bulletproof glass room. I'm being stared at. I'm scared. They've been injecting me with stuff.
I'm not alone. Across the hall is some type of monster. Tall, no eyes at all, pale skin, long stick-like things all on the ground, sharp teeth dripping with what looks like blood.
I don't know what the monster is but I think it wants to eat me. I'm scared for my life. It's absolutely terrifying. I think I'm in a lab somewhere. I don't know where.
I feel fur-like stuff growing all over my body. I no longer have human years. I don't know what in turning into but I'm scared. I have a tail and wolf ears.
I have a craving for flesh and blood and I don't think I can control myself. My teeth are sharp and I have claws now. To any survivors, I'm sorry. I think we're going to be released soon.
Don't leave your house.

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I act quickly. There are puddles of color rising all around us into oozing monsters — it's almost disorienting. They're the only sources of color all around me. There's a heavy, thickset ooze-creature a few steps ahead made of a deep, mauve sort of purple, the same purple that tints the wood of the Hestian trees; there are whip-thin creatures that are barely humanoid, with stringlike arms and legs made of all the different shades of fall. The forest detritus combines into a muddy brown, creating bloblike creatures on the ground that stretch themselves to move forward, leaving flickering trails of brown Firmament that fade into nothing.
And that's only a small fraction of the creatures that are starting to appear. Fighting all of them almost seems like a pointless task, one that will tire me out needlessly, but I remind myself that I need to fight. If beating one of them grants me credits...
"We should find out if Naru is still here," Ahkelios says. He's noticed the way my fists have clenched. "Don't touch them directly. You'll need a weapon."
I don't have one — I didn't bring the scythe with me this loop. I glance around and pluck a small branch off the ground, sending a burst of Firmament into it to reinforce it; it's a minor imbuement with no anchor or enhancement, but that doesn't matter. I only need it to last as long as I'm in the Hotspot.
"Just checking," I say. "What's going to happen to me if they touch me directly?"
Ahkelios shudders a bit. "They eat your color," he says. "It's not fun, trust me."
That's vague, but considering that I've seen what happens when I use Color Drain, I'm willing to take that at face value.
Short term plan: Go straight for the obelisk. Kill any of the color-oozes in my way. If Naru's still here, we deal with him; if not, we use the translation stone on the obelisk, and see if these oozes are worth killing. If I get enough credits for killing them...
"Ready?" I ask Ahkelios, and he nods.
Triplestep. Firestep.
I'm still not used to how fast that combination of skills makes me. Mental Acceleration makes it easy to handle, but it's still so much faster than I've ever been able to run. The ground flies beneath my feet, and in no time at all I'm in front of my first target.
Crystallized Strength.
The sharp pain of crystallization runs all the way up along my arm as I concentrate the Firmament there. This time, I don't bother with a Barrier — I have the stick I'm holding to take the brunt of the blow. I swing the stick as I dart past the thick purple ooze, injecting another spike of Firmament into it to make sure it doesn't shatter—
—the ooze takes damage. I can feel it; the Firmament within it gets jumbled up for a fraction of a second, and it flinches, its entire body shuddering.
And then the ooze grips the stick I'm using, its flesh clinging on like glue, and yanks it out of my hand.
I don't waste time. I let go of the stick before the ooze can cover my hand and grab a handful of dirt off the ground, haphazardly forcing Firmament into it before lobbing it as hard as I can. Crystallized Strength together with that brief reinforcement keeps the clump of dirt together as it rockets towards the ooze.
It thunks into the center of its chest, and the whole thing staggers back, leaving chunks of purple behind on the ground. Strings of purple lash out from its fingertips, arcing through the air towards me, and I twist out of the way of them just in time. They're sharper than they look, considering how they pierce straight through the trees behind me.
Mental Acceleration is working overtime. As large as this monster is, it's fast and flexible, and it doesn't bother following any of the laws of physics. It's freely able to change its shape, so it isn't limited the way most humanoid fighters are...
...Wait. I'm an idiot.
Color Drain.
I know exactly what color to drain from it, too, because the whole ooze is composed of just the one color. I feel it resist the effects of the skill — it's good at resisting it, too, and it forces Color Drain to consume far more Firmament than it would otherwise just to leech all of that purple out of it — but it does work.
The purple is dragged out, and unlike most of my other enemies, this time, the ooze simply collapses.
[ You have defeated a Forest Slime (Rank D)! +7 Strength. +3 Reflex. +3 Speed. +2 Firmament. ]
The confirmation that they give me credits is a joy. I grin fiercely.
I'm going to have to fight my way to the obelisk, but at least it's going to be fun.
—
Losing myself in combat is a pastime that never gets old.
Not that I do it all that often, of course. It's not every day that an apocalypse is visited on Earth. But there's a small part of me that revels in fighting like this, in having to battle it out for my life; there's a part of the experience that's almost meditative.
Drop the translation stone. Swing. Dodge. Pick up a bunch of rocks off the ground, and imbue them with Firmament; toss them with enough force to make a bunch of holes in the slime you're fighting.
[ You have defeated a Forest Slime (Rank D)! +3 Strength credits. +3 Reflex credits. + 2 Firmament credits. ]
The credit rewards get lower the more of them I beat, but there's enough of them that that doesn't matter.
"Behind you!" Ahkelios calls. He darts away from me as a distraction, a bright source of light and Firmament, and I use the moment of distraction to enact another Color Drain.
[ You have defeated a Forest Slime (Rank D)! +4 Strength credits. +1 Durability credits. +2 Speed credits. + 2 Firmament credits. ]
A Barrier blocks off a blob of slime that gets lobbed at me — I notice it too late to dodge, so I react the only way I can. The liquid slime splashes onto the Firmament barrier and smears itself across it, then starts to eat into the Firmament.
Something about the sight creeps me out. I shudder slightly, and turn my attention to the slime that threw it at me.
It's a bright neon-green. I don't know where it got its color from — I've never seen this particular color in the Hestian forest. The monster itself is a spiderlike slime, with eight spindly legs emerging from a central, wobbly body; on top of its head is a horn it seems to be using to launch the slime balls at me. I dart towards it, and this time I don't bother grabbing a stick.
Barrier.
I shape the Barrier as it forms, using Firmament Manipulation and my natural ability to control my Firmament to guide it into the vague shape of a knife. I keep a protective film around my hand so none of that ooze gets on me, and I swipe it straight through its head, even as it tries to dodge.
[ You have defeated a Forest Slime (Rank D)! +1 Strength credits. +5 Reflex credits. +2 Speed credits. +2 Firmament credits. ]
It's nice that the number of Firmament credits I'm getting isn't going down. I'm making good progress, too — the obelisk is almost in sight, and most of the slimes aren't actively targeting me. I have to get within a few meters of them for them to even notice me, which makes avoiding them... not easy, exactly, but doable.
The problems mostly happen when I have to maneuver a lot to fight one of them and inevitably end up drawing more. Barrier is my friend in those cases, though. Barrier and Color Drain.
[ You have defeated a Forest Slime (Rank D)! +5 Durability credits. +2 Reflex credits. +2 Firmament credits. ]
[ You have defeated a Forest Slime (Rank D)! +2 Durability credits. +1 Reflex credit. +2 Firmament credits. ]
And then the obelisk is in sight. The translation stone is back under my arm, still emitting those waves of Firmament that make this Hotspot so much more dangerous — but I suppose that's the point. I wonder how Ahkelios ever found out that he needed the stone for this Hotspot in particular. Was it just luck? Had he just been carrying the stone around because it interested him?
I could see him doing that, somehow.
There's no sign of Naru. I'm almost surprised by how relieved that makes me feel, although I know I'm not exactly out of the woods — Naru might very well only appear after the Hotspot is activated by someone entering it. Given that I haven't sensed him so far and I've been fighting for a solid half-hour, though, I imagine it's unlikely that he'll show up.
Now to time myself carefully.
The Firmament pulses are coming in thirty seconds apart. I can dart in with plenty of time to spare, but I need to leave the translation stone there to start the translation process; I have to assume the stone will be undamaged by the Firmament waves emitted by the obelisk, unless the process takes less than thirty seconds.
...Or maybe I should test it first. Just in case.
I let the corner of the stone brush against one of the Firmament pulses from the obelisk. Thankfully, it seems entirely undamaged, and I breathe a sigh of relief, then steady myself and prepare to run.
Twenty-nine... thirty!
I activate both Triplestep and Firestep, leaving a trail of Firmament flame in my wake as I dash towards the obelisk. As I get closer, I can make out the runic inscriptions that must be the so-called 'ancient language'. I don't waste time trying to decipher it myself — instead, I touch the translation stone to one of the runes, pausing just long enough to make sure the Firmament circle has begun to fill out. Then I leave it there, still touching the obelisk, and dart back as fast as possible.
And now... to wait.
While fighting off more of these Forest Slimes, because they're back, and they're back in full force.
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​

Author's Note: A bit of a bridge chapter, but a lot of stuff is coming up soon. Consider this a cooldown, but like, with a bunch of punching.
Writing is going a lot more smoothly now that I'm doing it full-time. My back is still giving me issues and it's a little scary financially, but I'm pretty sure I've got this. Still really appreciate everyone for reading and commenting (I am very slow at checking them because anxiety, but I do check them, and usually fix things, even if I forget to directly respond).
Here's the standard Patreon and RoyalRoad links. Patreon is up to chapter 48, and should hit 51 by the end of the weekend.
Also a friend of mine debuted her novel on RR - The Roads Unseen. It's a story about twins who fuck around with magic and very rapidly find out. Very cool and vaguely existentially terrifying. If you're interested, check it out - I'm trying to help her out since she's not very confident in her writing (she is in fact very good).

So, we already discussed what DC was doing to match the tenor of the early years of the War on Terror: A grim, smarter-than-it-thinks miniseries full of gratuitous rape that was meant to take the shine off the Silver Age by showing the darker side of its greatest heroes. Marvel, on the other hand, was trying to find a way to capture the zeitgeist of a post-9/11 era of existential threats, constant government surveillance, and the idea that if you weren’t with America, you were against it. A Captain America storyline saw Cap wrestle with the very concept of Guantanamo Bay; like any story arc that involves Cap doubting whether America lives up to its ideals, this made certain conservatives pissy, to the point that bad movie cataloguer Michael Medved wrote an entire article asking if Cap was a traitor. Avengers Disassembled briefly saw the Avengers face down their demons, as the Scarlet Witch goes crazy (again) and starts killing team members, her reality manipulations causing fault lines to form among Marvel’s greatest superteam. But there hadn’t yet been a storyline that would tie the entire Marvel Universe together with the burning question, “Which side are you on?”
Yeah, it’s got nothing to do with the Sokovia Accords. We’d be a lot better off if it did.
Part 1: Mark Millar’s March to the C-Word
Content Warning: Sexual assault. None of this is germane to the topic of the drama, so feel free to skip ahead to Part 1.5 if you don’t want to deal with this. Tl;dr: Mark Millar, the writer of the event, has a near pathological need to be a 3edgy5u contrarian.
Every comics crossover is ultimately a chance for one creative in the stable to shine or falter. The editors pick a writer who has turned out dependable work and give them a chance to try to alter the status quo but good. And for Civil War, Marvel’s EiC Joe Quesada decided the best person to lead the charge was Ultimates writer Mark Millar.
But who is Millar? Well, we could say “edgelord” and leave it at that, but we’re trying to dig deeper. Millar came up in comics alongside fellow Scot Grant Morrison, long before Morrison said the only time they want to bump into Millar on the streets of Glasgow is while going at 100 miles per hour. This antipathy is alleged to have stemmed from Millar copping several ideas from Morrison that went into Superman: Red Son. But after getting a start on Superman Adventures and as a cowriter on parts of Morrison’s JLA run, Millar soon branched out to WildStorm, where he took over The Authority from departing creatowritesex pest Warren Ellis.
The reason I bring up Red Son (for those non-geeks, an alternative universe comic premised on “What if Superman’s rocket had landed in Soviet Russia?”) is to frame a constant refrain about Mark Millar. He has good high-concept ideas… which often get trammeled up in an almost Pavlovian urge to shock, disturb, and/or titillate the reader. For instance, in The Authority, Ellis had introduced Apollo and Midnighter, two close companions who just happened to share the rough power sets and demeanors of Superman and Batman, with a few tweaks. Then he revealed they were boyfriends, which was a pretty bold move for a late Nineties comic book full of widescreen action and lovingly-rendered eviscerations.
In Millar’s first arc on the title, centered on a villainous Jack Kirby clone sending out a team of baddies who totally aren’t the Avengers, Apollo is subdued and is strongly implied to have been raped by someone who’s not Captain America. Apollo gets revenge by destroying EvilCap’s spinal column with his laser vision, then leaving him to the tender mercies of Midnighter, who is strongly implied to have sodomized him with a jackhammer.
In case you can’t tell, Millar loved him some rape. And it kept showing up in his creator-owned titles as well, all of which were basically written as Hollywood pitch docs. Wanted asks the question, “What if the supervillains won and secretly ruled the world from behind the scenes?” Well, an Eminem clone would take the opportunity to step into his dead villainous dad’s shoes and commit a lot of rape (yeah, there’s a reason the movie version replaced this with basically the Euthanatos from Mage: the Ascension getting orders from a magic loom). Chosen asks the question, “What if Jesus were born today?” Well, in a blatantly obvious twist, it turns out he’s actually the Antichrist, and part of his journey into realizing his evil nature involves being raped by all the demons of Hell.
It’s not that Millar can’t write innocent or restrained; he got started on the Superman: the Animated Series comic spin-off, and some of his titles such as Huck and Starlight have been praised for being relatively wholesome (keep in mind Huck is basically “What if Superman was Forrest Gump?” when I say “relatively”). And, as mentioned above, his works are made for high-concept log lines. You might recognize some of his various pitch docs: Kick-Ass, The Secret Service (source for the Kingsman movies), and, as mentioned above, Wanted. It’s just there’s this unctuous contrarian streak to a lot of his titles, a tendency to focus on venality, grotesquerie, and sodomy, with an air of pop culture edge. This also leaked into his image outside of his writing, with comments like “Games are for pedos” and ventures like the creator-owned comics periodical CLiNT (yes, the kerning is intentional). This streak continues to this day, as The Magic Order, a title that emerged from his deal with Netflix, features a magical escapologist who, she feels it very important to tell the reader in a direct monologue, escaped her own abortion. Bottom line, Millar has a sense of vision, but it’s betrayed at times by this reflexive desire to prove he’s smarter than the reader, to rub your face in the contradictions and make you a party to the artifice of it all. Usually with a dash of rape.
But at Marvel, Millar was riding the lightning of the Ultimate Universe. His Ultimates title was drawing on the wide-screen action image of JLA and The Authority, creating the cinematic language that would come to define the MCU. The choice to fantasy cast Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury is why we have Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury. He also painted the Hulk as a cannibalistic monster, cemented Hank Pym’s reputation as a wifebeater, and gave us Captain America yelling “Surrender? Do you think this A on my head stands for France?”, so let’s just keep that in perspective.
But the Ultimate Universe was its own pocket universe. Millar was being tapped to write a story for Earth-616, the main Marvel Universe. And he had a vision:

“I opted instead for making the superhero dilemma something a little different. People thought they were dangerous, but they did not want a ban. What they wanted was superheroes paid by the federal government like cops and open to the same kind of scrutiny. It was the perfect solution and nobody, as far as I'm aware, has done this before.”

Yeah. About that.
Part 1.5: What Has Come Before
Ultimately, the crux of Civil War is something that has been explored lightly in the past at Marvel: The idea that, instead of being unlicensed vigilantes who decide the best solution of societal issues is to beat up assholes in spandex, superheroes become licensed government officers that register their true identities with Uncle Sam and solve societal issues by beating up assholes in spandex. In Marvel’s history, it hasn’t gone well. The reality of government liaisons to superhero bodies has ranged from Valerie Cooper, who worked with government mutant team X-Factor but still found herself backing the genocidal Sentinel program as a big “Yeah, but what if…?”, to Henry Peter Gyrich, an inflamed obstructionist asshole who had to be held back from flipping a switch that would depower every superhuman individual on Earth. The idea of heroes themselves bristling against a government they disagreed with had a long history, as there was a period where Steve Rogers quit being Captain America, and the government had to find a replacement while he rode around on a motorcycle in a surprisingly slutty costume. But the idea of registering with the government has usually ended up on the “No” side due to one big cohort at Marvel: Mutants.
Ever since the days of Chris Claremont, a general conceit of the Marvel Universe is that mutants are a stand-in for your minority group of choice. Hated and feared, born different and feeling alienated, painted as an existential menace and threat to the status quo. Of course, it’s long been pointed out that the metaphor breaks down on the general grounds that, say, gays can’t shoot laser beams out of their eyes. I have my thoughts on that which I might share in the comments if someone pokes me hard enough, but it’s been general editorial consensus that people with powers, especially those of persecuted minorities, being compelled to share their true names, addresses, and natures with the federal government is a “That train’s never late!” move. Not only that, it’s a slippery slope. The classic X-Men story “Days of Future Past” is entirely premised on the idea that a government program of genocidal robots built to wipe out mutants will eventually run out of mutants… and then start turning on humans who could give birth to mutants, and then it’s Skynet all over again.
Another running meme in the Marvel Universe is that the X-Men usually exist in a Schrodinger’s cat situation with the rest of the superhero universe, both coexisting and in their own worlds. Yes, mutants have served on the Avengers, and yes, Thor intervened when the Morlocks were nearly wiped out in the sewers under New York. But Captain America, for all his proud statements of living up to America’s ideals, has a habit of missing the plot whenever the US government (or Canada, seat of all the Marvel Universe’s governmental evils - no, really) decides it’s Genocide O’Clock. And when the mutant nation of Genosha was completely wiped out by said murder robots, the Avengers seemed to be all “New phone who dis?” But when the two do intersect, there’s usually support for the mutants. One story in Fantastic Four had Reed Richards - Mr. Fantastic, stretchy man, greatest genius in the Marvel Universe, guy who’s probably being cucked by a fish-man - get tapped by the US government to make a device that detects mutants and other people with powers. He does… and then uses it to show why the government probably doesn’t want it, as it pings several members of Congress as having just enough genetic variation to qualify as “mutants,” even if they don’t have powers.
All in all, while the argument has some merit, for years, Marvel has come down on the position that asking people with powers to reveal their identities to the federal government is something that could go really bad if somebody with a hate-on for superheroes ends up in power. Something that would never happen oh yeah it totally did. But before it all went to Hell, Civil War at least gave an opportunity to reexamine the concept and see if it had merit.
It might have. But not with this argument.
Part 1.75: What Else Has Happened Before?
And now, some things that will ultimately give context for what happens next:

• In the pages of Thor, all of Asgard eventually runs headlong into Ragnarok. Thor and the rest of the Asgardians give their lives to save the earth, taking Thor off the board… for now.
• As mentioned above, the Avengers experience a critical fault due to Wanda going batshit (a common lament). With Avengers Mansion destroyed and the team at odds, it is eventually reunited under Tony Stark, who put the Avengers up in a tower he built.
• Nick Fury has vanished due to doing some skullduggery in the pages of the miniseries Secret War (no, not Secret Wars, this is different). Acting head of SHIELD, the all-purpose super spy squad of Marvel, is Maria Hill, who can’t seem to draw her pistol without shooting herself in the foot.
• Due to Wanda continuing to go batshit, the House of M crossover event ends with her casting a spell: “No more mutants.” While the damage is staunched, Earth-616’s population of mutants (which was recently established to be somewhere around 16 million) is reduced to 200, the rest being depowered or dying as a result of being depowered. This was because, as Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada said, the idea of mutants being everywhere made them “boring.” The fact that mutants were starting to be written less as a minority stand-in and more as an actual minority group with fashion, culture, music, and neighborhoods might have had something to do with that. From the wake of this event emerges Sally Floyd, a journalist whose own mutant daughter died before the mass depowering due to having a power that was more curse than blessing. The series Generation M follows her as the viewpoint character as she investigates the stories of former mutants.

Part 2: Connecticut Can’t Catch a Break
The big kick-off for Civil War involves the New Warriors, a team of teen heroes who have, as of a recently canceled series, been trying to make it big as reality TV stars. They get in a fight with a bunch of villains in the small town of Stamford, CT, when exploding villain Nitro goes positively nuclear, resulting in a blast much bigger than any he’s generated. [1] Not only does this mostly wipe out the New Warriors (save for kinetic energy-absorbing goofball Speedball), but it also happens to hit a nearby school. In the end, 612 people are dead, many of them children, and the nation wants answers.
With public opinion turning against the New Warriors, former member Hindsight starts leaking secret identities to get the heat off his back. This only makes things worse. Secret identities have only recently stopped being a thing for some heroes: Captain America only came out a few years ago, it was only recently that Tony Stark stopped pretending Iron Man was his bodyguard, and Daredevil was almost outed in the pages of his book. But something needs to be done, so Tony helps work with Congress to pass the Super Human Registration Act, which requires that all people with powers or working as vigilantes register their identities with the government to receive training and oversight. If you don’t? Believe it or not, jail, right away.
Fault lines quickly develop in the superhero community. While Tony is leading the “pro” side, alongside Reed Richards (yeah, we’ll get to that), Captain America, usually painted as the embodiment of the dream of America despite its compromised history and many sins, is against it. He’s lived through Richard Nixon being a secret fascist and shooting himself in the head after being fingered as mastermind of a vast criminal conspiracy (yes, that happened ); he knows how badly this could go in the wrong hands. Needless to say, Maria Hill and SHIELD hear his concerns, understand his problems with it, and are willing to iron out the kinks through reasoned debate.
Just kidding. Before the law has even been signed, Maria sics SHIELD’s elite Cape-Killers squad on Cap with the intent of getting him behind bars. Cap swiftly goes underground and starts his own group of anti-registration superheroes.
The fight continues for the next few issues. Spider-Man, caught in the middle, reveals himself to be Peter Parker at a press conference, declaring his support for the SHRA. Doctor Strange is so powerful that he tells the government to fuck off, and somehow, Maria Hill doesn’t decide to go charging up his asshole. Ben Grimm, the ever-loving blue-eyed Thing, is so sick of all the conflict he goes to France. But things are still at a stalemate, and while SHIELD may be acting like a bunch of merry assholes, it seems like there’s a debate to be had that could still be resolved reasonably… except for one key factor.
Part 3: I Fought the Law, and the Law… Huh?
No one ever really defined what the Super Human Registration Act, the legislation that tore the Marvel Universe’s superhero community asunder, did. Every book that had an issue that touched on the event seemed to have a different understanding of its principles, as well as just how fascist it might be in the long run. In the pages of She-Hulk, attorney Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk argues the law is a net good, as it gives heroes the backing and resources they need to not have to go it alone, while also having some measure of government oversight. In the pages of Civil War Frontline (oh, and we’ll get back to Civil War Frontline, don’t you worry), Wonder Man is told by the government that he needs to do a job for them, and if he refuses, well, one thousand years dungeon.
Which then leads into the other issue behind the SHRA. Namely, that everyone in favor was either starting to swing towards fascism or embracing bootlicking as a lifestyle, not a kink. In the pages of Amazing Spider-Man, Peter asks Reed Richards, who has always bucked authority and once stopped the US government from doing something just like this with mutants, why he’s pro-registration. Reed then reveals that an uncle who has never been mentioned before was called before HUAC; he refused to name names, his career was ruined, and he killed himself. From this, Reed - the man who stole a rocketship because the government said “no” to his planned space voyage - has learned that the government is always right, especially when they could step on your neck (this was received so badly that a later comic revealed he’d actually borrowed the concept of psychohistory from Asimov’s Foundation, he’d made it work somehow, and his calculations showed that this was the only way to avoid a greater disaster). This comic also revealed that people who were in violation of the SHRA were sent to a literal extradimensional Gitmo, a prison in the Negative Zone that later comics would reveal was overseen by… Captain Marvel. No, not that one. No, not that one. The Kree superhero Captain Mar-Vell, who had famously died of cancer decades before. How did he come back from the dead? Fuck if we know.
This “the law says what you want it to say” approach spread across various books and miniseries meant to cross over into the event. In the pages of a crossover mini between the Runaways and the Young Avengers, this meant SHIELD Cape-Killer squads were using lethal force against teenagers. The second-to-last issue of the mini ends with several members of both teams in extradimensional Gitmo, about to be dissected by a guy who’s horny for torture. The fact that all the captive heroes were the queer members of both teams? Total coincidence. Honestly.
So, it quickly becomes clear that the editorial control on this event is less than cohesive. There are different ideas all over as to what the SHRA does, and some of those ideas are tacking pretty fashy. But if the law is being painted as that bad, then clearly, there must be some greater statement of freedom vs. security. Maybe Millar’s really painting a subversive picture of what happens when you trade liberty for control, right?
Part 4: Why Do You Hate the Good Thing?
After the publication of Civil War #3, Millar would say in an interview he was actually pro-registration. I can’t find that interview, but here’s a similar sentiment shared years later:

“Weirdly, some of the other writers would often make Tony the bad guy, which I thought was a strange choice because I was actually on Tony’s side... In the real world, if somebody had superpowers, I’d like them to be registered in the same way that somebody who has a gun has to carry a license. But a gun can kill several people while a superhero can kill several thousands of people, so on a pragmatic level I’m 100% on Tony’s side. Maybe on a romantic level, Cap’s position makes sense but I don’t think anybody in the real world would really want that."”

And again, here’s the thing: He’s not entirely wrong. As said above, the idea of civil liberties for all and “free to me you and me” falls down a little when one of your neighbors can blow up a city block by thinking real hard. But Millar is fighting against years of ideological inertia in the Marvel Universe, as well as painting Captain America, the guy who has always embodied the ideal of a righteous, just America, as in the wrong. He needs to make one hell of an argument.
So here’s what happens in the pages of Civil War #3 to sell the audience on the SHRA:

• Thor comes back from the dead… and he’s on Tony’s side! Well, not really. Tony and Reed both realized that having one of the most beloved gods of the Marvel Universe come out on their side would be a big win… if only he wasn’t dead. So, they cloned him. Or rather, they T-800’d him, putting cloned divine flesh on a robot skeleton. But I’m sure he’s perfectly under control, and - oh, he just killed Goliath. In the next issue, one of Marvel’s black male heroes, frozen at the size of a small townhouse in death, will be buried in a gigantic ditch, wrapped in a tarp and chains. You’d think Hank Pym could grow a large enough coffin, at least.
• With Cap and the anti-registration side escaping once again, Tony decides he needs a dedicated team that can track down fugitive superhumans. To do so, he creates a new version of the Thunderbolts, a concept long associated with “villains acting like heroes.” And who does he put on this team? Venom, the Spider-Man villain who eats people’s brains; Bullseye, the Daredevil villain who will kill anyone for the lulz; and Norman Osborn, a.k.a. The Green Goblin, who famously murdered Spider-Man’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy.

Again. Tony’s in the right. The SHRA is good.
Part 5: Yadda, Yadda, Yadda
The next few issues of Civil War might best be described as “They fight, and fight, and fight and fight and fight.” The anti-registration side picks up The Punisher, Marvel’s most avowed murderer of criminals - and Cap is somewhat shocked but not entirely surprised when two minor villains join the anti-registration side and Frank promptly kills them on sight. Spider-Man starts realizing things are weird on the pro-reg side and defects, after he has set his entire life on fire. The X-Men have continued to stay out of this whole mess. In the lead-up, Emma Frost called Tony out on the Avengers’ complete absence when Genosha got nuked. Later, Carol Danvers (then Ms. Marvel, now Captain Marvel) will show up at the Xavier School to pitch the SHRA just after a massive terrorist attack kills dozens of students. Emma responds by telepathically dogwalking her.
By the final issue of the miniseries, the SHRA has expanded out into the Fifty States Initiative, wherein each state gets its own superteam. There’s a big final battle, Hercules kills Robo-Thor, and Cap nearly takes out Tony, only to be stopped by… the heroes of 9/11. No shit, Captain America is subdued by cops, firefighters, and paramedics. And when that happens, Cap finally takes a look around, realizes their big ideological street brawl has resulted in collateral damage, and surrenders. The SHRA wins, though Tony feels a little bad about it. Cap is ready to stand trial and to argue that, while he may have done something wrong, he did it for the right reasons.
Once again: Yeah. About that.
Part 6: MySpace Tom Didn’t Die For This
Running alongside Civil War is Civil War Frontline, a street-level book written by Paul Jenkins that managed to capture this world-breaking conflict through the eyes of people on the street. Though it has side stories, its main leads are Ben Urich, Peter Parker’s journalist buddy at The Daily Bugle, and the aforementioned Sally Floyd. Throughout the series, they start to realize there’s a story underneath the SHRA, as if somebody is playing the angles.
Before we talk about that conclusion, let’s talk about a side story. Remember how we said part of the comics community saw Identity Crisis as a driven effort to make things less “wacky” and intentionally darken the DCU? Well, that same tonal approach led to one of the more laughable moments of a pretty laughable arc. See, despite the fact that, as established, it was Nitro who blew up Stamford, it’s Speedball, the only survivor of the New Warriors, that views himself as responsible and is held up as a scapegoat by the general public. In addition, the blast screwed up his powers. Now, he doesn’t absorb and reflect kinetic energy; rather, he generates energy based on pain. So, he builds himself a new, extreme outfit lined with 612 spikes, one for each person who died in Stamford. This will drive his crusade to make things right - not as Speedball… but as Penance.
It was so laughably DeviantArt “OC do not steal” that no one could take it seriously. Look what you did, you took a perfectly good goofball and gave him an emo streak. The turn is swiftly mocked in other Marvel books, and it’s eventually revealed that Speedball still had his original powerset and always intended to put Nitro in the Goofy Suit of Dark Inner Torment as punishment for his crimes. But this turn gives you a sense of the tone and heft Jenkins was bringing to the proceedings.
Anyway, back to the main plot. Ben and Sally follow the thread as Namor, as he is wont to do, declares war on the surface world after an Atlantean diplomat is shot. But it turns out the assassination was arranged by Norman Osborn, who decided it was better to beg forgiveness than ask permission and manipulated Atlantis into war so that Tony could have another piece of evidence for getting superhumans on a leash. And the two journalists deduce that, on some level, Tony had to know this would be an inevitable outcome of giving state backing to an unhinged mogul who dresses like a Power Rangers villain. Weighing what to do with this information, Ben and Sally, who are kind of sick of the collateral damage by this point, sit on it while they go in for an interview with Captain America, now in custody and willing to tell his side of the story.
And then. And then. The monologue. If you want a lesson in how to assassinate a character in 30 seconds or less, this monologue is a great example. Sally Floyd calls Captain America out as completely divorced from American values. Now, again, Captain America has long served as the beating liberal heart of the Marvel Universe. He has always represented an America that reckons with its legacy of things like internment camps, Manifest Destiny, and Jim Crow, in order to transcend these scars and embody the promise offered by Emma Lazarus’s New Colossus, carved on the side of the Statue of Liberty. Why is he out of touch with Americans at the dawn of the 21st century?
Well, he’s never heard of MySpace. [2] He doesn’t watch NASCAR. He doesn’t follow American Idol. There are pop culture moments that have aged like milk; this one had all the permanence of an ice cream cone in a blast furnace. But despite the inanity of Floyd’s argument - and trust me, there are fan edits dedicated to Cap pointing out how full of shit this argument is - it’s clear it represents something else. This is a post-9/11 world. Fuck civil liberties, we have a no-fly list and Gitmo, and if the American people really cared, they’d do something other than watch Simon Cowell read aspiring singers to filth. What does Captain America stand for in this moment of crisis?
Nothing. Because he just looks away from Sally Floyd. No doubt thinking, “Oh my God this bitch.” But to underline the argument in question, Sally storms out of the interview, Ben in tow. She still has that information on Norman Osborn’s false flag operation… and while she and Ben confront Tony on everything that went down, they decide the story should never see the light of day. Because they wouldn’t dare jeopardize the SHRA, because security is more important than the truth.
Oh. And then Cap gets shot. And dies. He totally dies (except he doesn’t but we’ll get to that). If ever there was an unintentional thesis statement for this event, running in the late stages of the Bush era, it would be this: “It’s better to trust that the powers that be who oversee the new America will keep you safe, even when they stage false flag operations, stick you in a gulag, and put their trust in monsters. All that civil liberty stuff was the old America. And the old America was hopeless. It wasn’t even on MySpace.”
Epilogue: Consequences Keep Consequencing
As you can tell from that last paragraph, a lot of the fan reception to Civil War likely had a lot to do with the period. This was the Bush era, a time where you were for America or against it. We were in the shadow of the Patriot Act, Gitmo, and widespread wiretaps, paranoid about what civil liberty we’d be asked to put on the pyre next in the name of Freedom. A story all about the warm, clenching fist of government control that tells you to ignore the collateral damage… well, it wasn’t great for the cultural moment.
The ideas of Civil War aren’t necessarily bad ones. I frame Cap as the liberal dream of what America could be, but there are good arguments to be made that America has never been that and Cap is just copium for liberals. His most recent title, Sentinel of Liberty, opens with Steve saying he is out of touch with the average American - not because he doesn’t watch NASCAR, but because he’s a WWII veteran who looks maybe 30 years old at most and whose best friends are all superheroes or spies. A narrative that has him on the wrong side of the issue and detonates his beliefs isn’t impossible, but it probably shouldn’t be one where people who got powers due to a fluke of birth or a radiation accident are told by the government, “Join with us or we’ll send supervillains after you.” Hell, as the Civil War movie proves, there is a way to tell a story about a superhero community torn in half by the idea of mandatory registration as government-controlled actors, and just why people would think that could be a bad idea (“Hey, remember when a good chunk of our intelligence apparatus turned out to be Nazi stay behinds?”).
But in the context of the era, and coupled with the execution, Civil War felt like a hard sell, and you could feel the thumb pressing on the scale every second while reading it. The moral center of the Marvel Universe is wrong, the winning side employs sadistic murderers and has an extradimensional Gitmo, and the writer is telling you that any sane individual would be on Team Green Goblin Employer.
So how did that all work out? Well…

• With Cap seemingly dead, shot by his brainwashed love interest Sharon Carter as part of a plot by the Red Skull, Bucky Barnes/the Winter Soldier becomes the new Cap. Only it turns out Steve wasn’t killed, but shot with a time bullet that Billy Pilgrims his ass. He eventually comes back.
• Thor comes back, finds out what Tony did, and beats his ass all the way across post-Katrina New Orleans.
• The Secret Invasion event happens next, which leads to Skrull infiltrators hitting everything (this is also the explanation for Captain Mar-Vell’s miraculous resurrection: He was a Skrull all along). With Tony caught with his pants down and Norman Osborn seeming to save the day, Norman - who has been losing his shit for some time - takes over the Initiative and forms his own fascist cabal, HAMMER. To try and stop Norman from learning everything on every hero ever, Tony goes on the run and actually starts deleting his own brain, which he then reassembles with a backup from before anyone even thought of the SHRA. The fact that getting rid of Tony’s “Oops I did a fascism” period came out alongside Iron Man hitting theaters is a coincidence, I’m sure.

As for Spider-Man? It might not shock you, but having a hero without the resources of Tony Stark out himself to the world carries liabilities. An assassin who tries to kill Peter instead hits Aunt May, and it appears she’ll die of her injuries. All this leads to One More Day… and if you thought the fans hated Civil War? Oh, BABY.
[1] This is eventually explored in the pages of Wolverine, of all books, as Wolverine decides maybe somebody should track down the person who actually killed hundreds of children. It’s revealed that Nitro was given power-boosting drugs by the CEO of Damage Control, Marvel’s designated “clean up after the super-battle” corporation, as a way of generating business. In a sign of how little this matters, Wolverine tells Maria Hill to her face that the person responsible for a mass casualty event is the pawn of a powerful conspiracy, and she basically says, “Not my problem.” Cobie Smulders must thank the gods that her Maria Hill is written as somebody with basic human decency.
[2] Hilariously, when Sally Floyd was brought back during Nick Spencer’s Captain America run because no one had piled enough dung on her corpse, this line was retconned to her asking him about Twitter. Given everything Elon’s been doing lately, we’ll see if that ages just as poorly.

I was thinking of Darkshine and how he took consecutive losses during the monster association arc and that got me to realize something. In one punch man, the secret to explosive growth is experiencing near death and coming back. Basically taking a loss. And we know from darkshines backstory that Darkshine never fought a fight he knew he would lose, he just wanted a easy and satisfying victory. So to me that makes me think that yes he has trained extremely hard and that alone has gotten him to his already absurd strength but he is missing the kissing and near death aspect which he is only now experiencing. Garou, vomited president ugly, and golden S and really the only 3 who have pushed Darkshine into a corner and have him rethink his whole self image. So now if Darkshine can get back out there and fight win or lose no matter the opponent it’s the only way he will grow. I know he is in a slump right now but as someone who never wanted to lose, it’s the only way he will turn into even more of a beast. If near death experiences and feelings of rage turned garou from a street level character to a planetary (gargoyle form not god amped form) then imagine someone like Darkshine growing to that extent.
As a side note I feel like Darkshine should go back to bang for training and become a disciple to add to his strength. Giving Darkshine technique and finesse along side garou would be amazing to see not to mention that having these two intersecting with eachother now that they are both on the same side would be pretty cool. But I know how the webcomic goes and don’t know what they will do with darkshines manga story.

Calebs first job was in town at the Golden Age Movie Theater. Most of the time his job consisted of getting people their change when they bought their tickets, popcorn, drinks and more, however it also involved cleaning the bathrooms. It wasn't a great job, but for someone who didn't have bills to pay, it paid very well.
There was a lot of free time to do his homework and read while at work, and when he was finished Caleb would play one of the many arcade games mister Noble brought in over the years to attract more customers.
The owner, Edwin Noble, was a cheap man, but he did right by Caleb. After all, Gray Hill was not booming with people willing to work at those prices, so it was best not to do wrong to the people who were willing to come in early and stay late.
When Caleb started working there, Jurassic Park was playing even though it had been out of the theaters for four months because renting the reels late was a way to save money.
During Caleb's sophomore year in highschool, Edwin Noble put up a closed sign in the windows. Caleb feared that the business had died. However when he approached Mister Noble it was revealed that the theater was only closed for renovations.
“We need a gimmick, Caleb,” mister Noble said as he looked over a pile of papers at his desk. “When I was a kid, theaters had all sorts of things that kept people coming back. Are you familiar with The Shocker? It was a Vincent Price movie and theaters all over the country had random chairs set up to shake at certain parts of the movie. It was a real blast to see people jump and scream as if the movie was coming off the screen.”
“That sounds awesome,” Caleb replied, smiling.
“I think so too. If that won’t fill those empty seats I don't know what will.”
Before the school year ended, the theater opened up and Caleb got to be the first to experience what the new renovations had to offer. The movie he watched was Alien and it was exactly like mister Noble said. The seats not only shook, but when the alien first burst out of the man's chest and ran off, a device under the seat made Caleb feel something run by his feet. Later in the movie, tubes in the headrest made it feel as though the Xenomorph was breathing down his neck.
“What did you think?” mister Noble asked with a wide grin once the film was over.
“That was great,” Caleb answered honestly. “Will all the movies here be like that?”
“I plan on it.”
Having Caleb's stamp of approval, mister Noble put an ad in the local newspaper, claiming a once in a lifetime opportunity for all who showed up at the official reopening of the theater.
While this attracted more people to come in and buy tickets, it wasn't anything like Edwin wished it would be. Even though mister Noble tried to hide the fact that his business wasn’t doing well, Caleb could see him struggling with the reality that unless something changed drastically, he would not be able to keep the business running.
The change from being fun and happy, to bitter was subtle, but Caleb saw Edwin everyday and could see the slow metamorphosis. All the stress over the years made him look like he was sick. While he used to have a small gut, he became rail thin and pale. Caleb wondered if he starved himself to save money for his failing business.
After months of hearing his boss rant about ‘the good ole days’ and how they are never coming back, Edwin Noble closed the theater so it could go under even more changes. Caleb knew that his boss was barely treading water and was afraid that with all the money he was putting into the theater he was going to sink.
Caleb never shared these thoughts with anyone but his parents when they asked him how work went.
The new updates were not as big as the last but mister Noble was convinced that they would make all the difference. When he spoke about the changes to Caleb, he never gave too much away because he wanted it to be a secret. Caleb didn't mind this because it was the first time in a long while that mister Noble seemed to be genuinely happy.
“Caleb, my boy” mister Noble would say. “When everything is set up, anyone who comes here will have their lives changed forever.”
When mister Noble reopened the theater he went all out on the fanfare. Not just taking out an ad in the newspaper, he had bought spotlights to light up the sky “just like they used to have during the golden age of Hollywood.”
No one knew what kind of movie was going to be playing for the grand reopening and when asked, mister Noble was very tight lipped about it, even to Caleb.
While the mystery of what the movie was going to be was intriguing, Caleb wanted to know what the updates were. On the day of the reopening he didn't have much time to snoop around and look because mister Noble wanted him behind the counter, waiting for any would-be customer. However he did manage to take a peek inside but the only difference he noticed was the speakers on the walls.
The movie was supposed to start at eight, but did not start until closer to nine because mister Noble wanted to wait just in case more people showed up. The only reason it started at all was because a few people started to get up to leave the theater.
When the movie started, mister Noble locked the doors and told Caleb to follow him up to the room with the projector. Caleb asked why he would lock the door and the answer he got was “When Alfred Hitchcock released Psycho, he wanted every theater to lock the doors the moment the movie started so no one would miss a single second.”
As Caleb watched his boss prepare the film, he noticed how excited he was. The anticipation and enjoyment of showing this mysterious film completely offset the fact that the turnout was less than either of them expected.
The film mister Noble wanted to show the town was an independent film called “The Toilet Worm”.
Caleb didn't mind independent or B-horror films, but this one was terrible. Thankfully the movie was just under fifteen minutes.
The plot of the movie seemed pretty straightforward: A man was eating at a buffet and his stomach was upset so he ran off to find the bathroom. As soon as the man on the screen found the toilet, he pulled off his pants and sat down.
After a few long disgusting moments of the man straining, a monster worm crawled up from the pipes and slithered its way into the man's anus and started eating him from the inside out.
The audience didn't make a sound as this happened, and Caleb figured that they were all sitting in stunned silence like he was.
Immediately after the man stopped screaming and his head fell to the side, the credits started rolling. mister Noble hopped up and down, giggling like a child as he clapped his hands.
“What do you think?” asked mister Noble.
“I—” Caleb started, not knowing what he could say to this. He expected everyone there would ask for a refund because of the low quality of the film they just witnessed as well as its short runtime. If he told his boss this it might hurt his feelings and he was too nice of a kid to do that. Before he could come up with an answer mister Noble started walking out the projectionist room and down the stairs.
“Come on, Caleb” he called out over his shoulder. “We got to clean up before the next showing.”
Caleb did as he was told and followed mister Noble into the theater after turning on the lights. The audience didn't move an inch.
“Grab the legs” mister Noble said as he pulled a large man out of his seat, sending him collapsing between the seat he was in and the row in front of him.
It was then that Caleb saw that the man was bleeding. Almost as if he was—
The smell of blood filled Caleb’s nose and he fell to one knee as he felt his supper making its way up. As he threw up he noticed that under the seats was what looked to be long sharp swords aiming straight up.
“Are you going to help me or not?” mister Noble asked as he struggled to pull the man into the aisle.
Realization came over Caleb and all color left his face. He wanted to run. Wanted to tell the police that his boss just killed six people by having knives come up from under the seats.
He was just about to take off and alert the authorities, but then mister Noble hissed “If you don't help me right now, I’ll test the next movie on you.”
“What's the next movie?” Caleb asked.
Mister Noble smiled wickedly. “Scanners.”
WAE

I remember the shit storm about this game back when it came out and how much everyone hated it, which I won’t say wasn’t deserved considering the steps backwards from the first.
Everything was simplified in a bad way; no inventory system, no sanity/fear mechanics, fewer monster encounters that are very short, shorter playtime, very little interaction with environment, etc.
Upon replaying it for the first time since release, I did notice just how interesting and well written the story is. If this had been written as a novel set in the Amnesia series I think it would’ve gotten much acclaim.
Even just that final monologue from The Engineer as Mandus ascends the stairs to the chair is just… chef’s kiss.
I’m not going to argue that this game is better in any way than the original, but since Rebirth’s release and with The Bunker coming up, I think AMfP has grown on me quite a bit, maybe just for the story alone. I didn’t particularly like Rebirth for the way it incorporated things from TDD, so the subtle connections in AMfP actually work for me a lot better than they did originally.
Your thoughts?

Previously tried Buproprion 150 and was a rage monster. Because I was on it partially for irritability and anger, and partially for depression (bipolar) my psych took me off of it after about a month and put me on Lamictal. Now she would like to add the Buproprion back in after cutting out Zoloft. I've tried EVERY SSRI prior to the bipolar diagnosis, I just don't do well with them so no loss there.
Actual question here: people with similar experiences, have you found the initial rage to dissipate? If you've had that reaction before to Bup, did a mood stabilizer like Lamictal help?
I'll listen to my psych, I'm not here for RX advice, I just want to know what others experienced and maybe some reassurance that this isn't yet another fruitless medication endeavor. I've been on this med journey for nearly 2 decades but just finally got diagnosed with Bipolar a year ago and have been trying endless meds since. .

I've got what I think is a mostly exhaustive list of the new fiction podcasts that came out this month, which may be of interest to those looking for new shows. Feel free to tell me any I've missed, and I'll update it. (Note, "new" here means that the Ep1 of the RSS feed was released.) Listened to any of them that you would recommend?
I've given up trying to include the full list here, as it's increasingly large, and reddit keeps throwing excess character problems. So the full list is here:
https://www.thecambridgegeek.com/posts/2023/06/20230601-a.php
Previous months are available here:
https://www.thecambridgegeek.com/results.php?proof=Releases&tag1=Audio%20fiction
And the ongoing updates (just in case you don't want to wait for the end of the month) are available here:
https://twitter.com/AudioDramaDebut
https://podvibes.co/@audiofictionuk#
Want a weekly email newsletter of all of these as I find them? Join my patreon to get access to that:
https://www.patreon.com/thecambridgegeek
(Please join, it's only £1/month and I currently make a loss with some of the resources I pay for to do this.)
And the full database is searchable here by a number of tags:
https://audiofiction.co.uk/search2.php
Want an RSS feed of new fiction podcast trailers to sample what's out there? Try this:
https://audiofiction.co.uk/trailers.php
Want occasional ramblings from me about what I'm personally listening to? Try this:
https://www.thecambridgegeek.com/archive/add/add.php
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5/1 - Adventures in Capital
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/1 - House of Sol Alpha - A Fantasy Audiobook Series
Audio Book - Fantasy
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5/1 - Pleine Lune
Audio Drama - Occult and Supernatural
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5/1 - Rise of the Conduit
Audio RPG - Crime and Mystery
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5/1 - The Last Echoes
Audio Drama - Science fiction
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5/1 - The Trip: A Six Part Audio Drama Adventure
Audio Drama - Thriller and Psychological, Crime and Mystery
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5/1 - Wish You Were Heroes
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/1 - Wizarding Sports Network
Audio RPG - Fanfiction, Fantasy, Sport
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5/2 - Love Notes
Audio Book - Romance
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5/2 - Love, Murder, Florida
Audio Drama - Comedy, Crime and Mystery
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5/2 - Silas Gnaw
Audio Book - Horror
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5/2 - The Children of Ash
Audio RPG - Post-apocalypse
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5/2 - The Freckle Files
Audio Book - Crime and Mystery
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5/2 - The Mario Bros. Show
Audio Drama - Fanfiction, Comedy
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5/3 - El Cielo Que Nunca Vi
Audio Drama - Soap opera
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5/3 - La Séptima Puerta
Audio Drama - Horror
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5/3 - Re: Dracula
Audio Book - Adaptation, Horror
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5/4 - BlackwaterDnD
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/4 - Cositas de amor
Audio Drama - Romance, Comedy
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5/4 - Sit Down Billy!
Audio Book - Comedy
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5/5 - AND NOW LIVE
Audio Drama - Romance
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5/5 - Brandon Wilborn's Fantasy Fiction
Audio Book - Fantasy
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5/5 - Conquest Of The Stars
Audio Book - Science fiction
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5/5 - CYBERLOG - a Doctor Who fan spin-off
Audio Drama - Science fiction, Fanfiction, Space opera
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5/5 - Dark Dimensions
Audio Book - Horror
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5/5 - Love Items
Audio Drama - Romance, Comedy
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5/5 - Pizza Bros Podcast
Audio Book - Comedy
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5/5 - Switch Modes
Audio Book - Fantasy
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5/5 - The Crystal Viking Podcast
Audio RPG - Adventure
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5/5 - The Fire Fades: A Dark Souls Podcast
Audio Book - Fanfiction, Fantasy
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5/5 - The Romulus V
Audio Drama - Science fiction
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5/5 - The Walker Mysteries
Audio Drama - Comedy, Crime and Mystery
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5/5 - アジア企画の「ラジオ企画」
Audio Drama - Multigenre
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5/6 - Duskvale: A Monster of the Week Actual Play Podcast
Audio RPG - Horror
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5/6 - Modern Folktales
Audio Drama - Multigenre
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5/7 - Beacon Chronicles - By Ordinary Dice Dragons
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/7 - Gareth and the Lost Island
Audio Drama - Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
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5/7 - Juvie
Audio Book - Slice of life
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5/7 - Pat Novak 4 Hire 2023
Audio Drama - Noir, Comedy
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5/7 - When Everything Cracks
Audio Book - Historical
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5/8 - Chaotic-Stupid-Podcast
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/8 - Guayava
Audio Drama - Horror, Science fiction
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5/8 - Sailor Moon E
Audio Book - Fanfiction, Fantasy
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5/8 - Tall Tall Tower - A D&D 5e Tower Crawl Series
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/8 - Women-centric Stories by Premchand
Audio Book - Multigenre
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5/8 - 移民と野獣
Audio Drama - Crime and Mystery
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5/9 - KEYLA Y FRIDA
Audio Drama - Slice of life
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5/10 - Eagle Nine: Locked
Audio Drama - Science fiction
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5/10 - Hot & Dicey - D&D Podcast
Audio RPG - Science fiction, Fantasy
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5/10 - L'Affaire Louis Gaufridy
Audio Drama - Historical, Horror
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5/10 - Strange Stories from Odd Folx
Audio Book - Multigenre, Horror, Storytelling
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5/10 - The Cosmic Adventures of Ravi and Maddie: A Tale of Friendship, Nature, and Discovery
Audio Book - Adventure
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5/10 - The Foxes of Hydesville
Audio Drama - Historical
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5/11 - 999
Audio Book - Historical
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5/11 - The Metal Detective
Audio Drama - Science fiction, Cyberpunk, Dystopia
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5/12 - Flores
Audio Drama - Thriller and Psychological
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5/12 - Tales from Xaevalon
Audio Book - Fantasy
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5/12 - The Red's Tales
Audio Book - Multigenre
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5/13 - Cyberpunk '66
Audio Drama - Cyberpunk, Science fiction
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5/13 - Failure, Improvised
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/13 - Longhouse
Audio Drama - Crime and Mystery
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5/13 - Santiago: A novel - Audiobook
Audio Book - Historical, Adventure
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5/13 - Story Time - by Kids for Kids
Audio Book - Multigenre
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5/14 - Anywhere But Now
Audio RPG - Science fiction
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5/14 - MOTHER, She Wrote: An EarthBound Podcast
Audio Drama - Fanfiction, Science fiction, Comedy
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5/14 - Scarlet Stiletto Bites
Audio Book - Crime and Mystery
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5/14 - Uncharted Territory: A Gamer's Adventure Beyond the Screen.
Audio Book - Science fiction
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5/14 - Vikinger
Audio Drama - Historical
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5/15 - Escape from the Dreamlands
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/15 - Haunted House House Hunters
Audio RPG - Horror
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5/16 - Huitième île
Audio Drama - Science fiction
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5/16 - Ida the Hobit & the Crystal Queer Deers
Audio Drama - Slice of life
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5/16 - MORNEAU
Audio Drama - Crime and Mystery, Noir
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5/16 - Our Critty Podcast
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/16 - TGB One Shots
Audio RPG - Multigenre
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5/17 - Not Necessarily Nefarious
Audio Book - Spy-fi
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5/18 - Das Buch der Ewigkeit
Audio Book - Fantasy
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5/18 - Dubstep & Dragons
Audio RPG - Cyberpunk
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5/18 - La Cartographie des Chimères
Audio Book - Multigenre
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5/18 - Viaje a Viña
Audio Drama - Crime and Mystery
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5/18 - Переплетные птицы
Audio Book - Romance
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5/19 - 97toNow Productions Proudly Presents:
Audio Drama - Comedy, Noir
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5/19 - Icaro, Texas: A Radio Play
Audio Drama - Historical
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5/19 - La Mossa di Messina
Audio Book - Crime and Mystery
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5/19 - Legends of Denali: Fame, Fortune, and Enlightenment
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/19 - Minnesota Dice
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/20 - Shattered Bonds
Audio Book - Slice of life
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5/21 - Starlight: Audio Series
Audio Book - Science fiction
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5/21 - Thewordsmits
Audio Book - Cyberpunk
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5/22 - A Game of One's Own
Audio RPG - Multigenre, Fantasy, Science fiction
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5/22 - Beneath The Red Umbrella
Audio Drama - Horror
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5/22 - Cisne Rojo
Audio Drama - Thriller and Psychological
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5/22 - Reformation Abroad
Audio Drama - Science fiction
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5/22 - The Dockporter: a Mackinac Island Podcast
Audio Book - Historical, Slice of life
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5/23 - Shuttercreek - A Monster of the Week Actual Play
Audio RPG - Horror
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5/23 - Titania
Audio Drama - Crime and Mystery, Thriller and Psychological
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5/24 - All Charisma, No Int
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/24 - Il mostro
Audio Book - Horror
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5/24 - Il nido della masca
Audio Book - Occult and Supernatural, Crime and Mystery
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5/24 - Naragar Naduvil - Tamil Podcast Suspense Movie Screenplay Thriller Novel Horror Comedy Drama
Audio Book - Thriller and Psychological
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5/24 - Ned Beauman: Der Gemeine Lumpfisch - Sci-Fi-Satire um miese Deals und tote Tiere
Audio Book - Comedy
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5/24 - Nella pancia della scrofa
Audio Book - Horror
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5/25 - Curve Minded
Audio Drama - Science fiction
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5/25 - Hidden Signal: Evergreen
Audio Drama - Science fiction
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5/25 - Steve Piasecki
Audio Book - Crime and Mystery
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5/26 - Geen Woorden Maar Draken
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/26 - The Becoming: An audio short story
Audio Book - Fantasy
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5/26 - Trouble at the Tavern - A D&D Podcast
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/28 - A Quaint English Murder
Audio Drama - Crime and Mystery
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5/28 - Surcease
Audio Drama - Horror
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5/29 - Dungeons and Dissertations
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/29 - SoundTrip
Audio Drama - Multigenre
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5/29 - Starwhal: Odyssey
Audio RPG - Fantasy, Science fiction
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5/29 - The Night of the Rabbit: The Pagecast
Audio Book - Fantasy
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5/30 - Audio Drama Lab
Audio Drama - Multigenre
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5/30 - Goodbye Blue Mondays
Audio Drama - Science fiction
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5/30 - Kater
Audio Drama - Thriller and Psychological
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5/30 - Sky Orca Tabletop
Audio RPG - Superhero
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5/30 - Tales of Darkness & Magic
Audio Book - Fables and Fairy Tales and Folklore
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5/31 - Inspired R&R: The Podcast
Audio RPG - Fantasy
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5/31 - The FangHorn Fables
Audio Drama - Horror
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5/31 - The Girlfriend Chronicles Podcast
Audio Book - Slice of life

This is a very long story and it takes too many characters to write out all the details I want to about this so I will do my best to give the most important bits. When I was a kid about 7 years old my older sister started to sexually abused. My sister was a child also, she was about 10 or 11. With that being said she was a monster. I don't care that she was a child also or that she probably didn't know better. She was a nightmare to deal with. Always lying, made up stores, physical abused me and my twin sister and would do everything to always get attention no matter who it came from. I want to also state that she was never abused in anyway by anyone. She has just always been a narcissist and will do anything to get what she wants. Growing up my twin sister hated our older sister and I did everything I could to keep our older sister happy so that she wouldn't hurt us but sadly my twin doesn't remember or refuses to acknowledge that our sister was so terrible. As an adult my twin thinks our sister is her best friend, would never have hurt me especially sexually abused me and loves to say "she looks nothing like someone who would do that" and " she's such a good person, she wouldn't have done that". Mean while I have actually been a good person my whole life. Never got in trouble, treated everyone very well, loved my twin sister, have always been there for her including financially and when her husband was having an affair. It wasn't until after our older sister had her son that my twin switched from loving me and always wanting to talk to me and shared everything with each other. Once my nephew was born she started acting more like our sister, being much meaner, non sympathetic, judged everything I did, never liked my decisions about anything and because our sister was always taking out her problems on me and not my twin, my twin believed everything our sister said to her which 90% of the time was a lie. But she refuses to see how manipulative and toxic our sister is and I think it has a lot to do with her not wanting to have our nephew taken away from her. (She is obsessed with our nephew and nobody else matters but him he's 8). I have tried everything ii can think of to get her to believe me and see how awful our sister is but she won't. What do I do? I miss her so much and it's going on 3 years without her and I feel so broken. And to make matters worse our family doesn't believe me either. (Our mom passed away in 2015 and our dad was never in the picture). So I have no one. She's my twin, my other half please help me.

God I hate almost every event. From getting my ass kicked in a bar by some rando peasant as Emperor to apparently visiting the most filthy brothels teeming with VD, to events that make your kids hate you AND give you stress that risks death...
Yesterday I got an event where I randomly decided to go into a pool of water and had a 80% chance of drowning and no other options. Like, I guess I'll just die. No indication of a murder attempt (my Spymaster has a 34 Intrigue and was disrupting plots), no factions, no rivals, and my Wife and Spymaster were my friends.
It's like Paradox writes events only three ways: to utterly meme and be stupid, to fuck your character, and to make you choose one of three shit choices.
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And taking on raising a child is such a risk. Either you raise a complete monster and live stress free or you die at 40 from stress or your kid's inevitable assassination of you and you actually raise a good (well okay) kid. And god help you if you let someone else raise your kid, because he's coming back maimed, evil, stupid, and hateful.
Also, too many morons marry poorly. I've seen 16 year olds marry 60 year old peasants with good stats and then ride off to war to die so my Dynasty shrinks. Jesus, at least nail a nubile young chambermaid on the way out so I can keep the Dynasty Tree growing. But that's a different complaint from the Events and probably has to do with a messed up Seduction roll or the AI prioritizing Stats and Claims over fertility.

The car dropped me off the middle of downtown, the neon lights and billboard videos were everywhere, it was a little flashy for my taste, honestly. I like some things about the city, but the mass crowds, mobs, really… they just don’t suit me. Maybe because I’m a swapper? Maybe because it’s just too busy, and it doesn’t fit with my desire to do nothing.
I craned my head back and looked up at the high tower where my target lived and probably worked. ‘I have to hand it to this country, they’re very precise.’ I mused, the exact number of his residence… I briefly considered a dramatic entrance, sprouting wings and shooting up from the ground like a superhero and smashing into the window in the form of an avenging angel.
But that… no. ‘Everybody in this country has a camera. Sooner or later I’d have to explain it, then goodbye vacations to Earth for at least a hundred years.’ I dismissed my melodramatic thought and went about it another way.
There wasn’t much I knew about Yakuza types, but odds are they owned the building he was living in. They’re a pretty efficient organization, all things considered.
That meant… “Alright they’ll have security.” I mumbled, ‘Invisibility is so boring!’ I cursed under my breath when I realized how easy that would be. I began tapping my feet on the curve as thunder rumbled overhead and clouds began to threaten rain, lightning flickered in the sky, it wouldn’t be long before I’d get drenched standing here… ‘Then I’ll have to do laundry…I hate laundry.’
I really wanted to be dramatic and make a point… ‘Fine.’ I rolled my eyes.
I walked through the front of the building, the glass doors, clean and perfect, slid open, and true to my expectations not only was there a slender woman working behind a computer, the elevator controls were not ‘by’ the elevator.
They were on the wall behind her alcove where a very large man in a black suit stood wearing a sword on his hip. ‘Huh, and I thought that was just for the movies… the gun laws here are stricter than I thought.’
Even if I couldn’t do things quite the way I wanted, I could do something else. I was an unusual sight at least, and that curious look that I drew from the pair became cautious. Her hand reached beneath her desk, while the large fellow by the elevator controls squared off to face me.
I pulled out the wallets and watched the two relax.
“Excuse me, I’m so sorry to bother you, but I came to return these. ‘Wait, if nobody catches me… did it really happen?’ I had to wonder. It wasn’t like anybody ever checked… and these guys were scum, nobody would care…and if they were out of the way?
Obviously I couldn’t do anything to the whole building. And that was overkill even in my line of work.
“They were dropped at the Toriyama store in the Shinjai district.” I explained, and the relaxed air was gone as what I said sank home.
“Floor one zero six.” The woman said, and I could swear she looked at me with pity.
“Oh… but um, the addresses on here are-” I fluttered my eyelashes at the pair and put on a nice, innocent voice.
“She said what she said.” The musclehead interrupted.
I put on a pouty face, “Oh… OK, but can’t you…?” I stopped when he hit the elevator control for me and the golden doors slid wide open.
“Alright… I’ll… I’ll go.” I darted my head over my shoulder like I was thinking about leaving, maybe making a run for it, then clutched my purse and scurried through the door.
I’m not a half bad actress if I do say so myself. I smirked and cracked my knuckles as I went up to the very top floor.
I was fairly sure I would have a welcoming party for me, and as I went up, I realized that the die was cast. ‘If I’m defending myself…’
[E’grahcrevo rettahs dna tlem] I cast the spell with my hand behind my back and against the elevator, and an electrical pulse went up and down the building, frying the electronic components just as the elevator came to a halt. I did not envy whoever had to try to fix those later.
The lights shattered, plunging everything into darkness. With no cameras, no lights, no nothing, I had no reason to fear getting caught.
So… I swapped. My arms thickened and the mana of my body began to expand around my core self, greatly increasing my size, from a human woman slightly over a meter and a half tall, to a nine and a half foot tall creature of the Fletosian wastelands, with razor sharp claws and a gigantic maw that could bite a man in half… it was a good look.
I could hear them shouting, asking for answers…answers I would give them, but that they wouldn’t need.
I let out the roar of the Fletosian warbeast, and shoved my hands through the metal elevators in one clean thrust. Light began to stream in, and screams of alarm went up.
I’m sure they were expecting a small woman that could be intimidated into answers.
But it was my answers that were the intimidation.
I stepped into the room, hard, cracking and shaking the floor as tore the elevators free and stepped into view. Screams went up, and a shot went off.
‘Alright so a few of them have guns.’ I chuckled and backhanded the nearest of the set, they were stepping back, their guns blazing, the flashes giving brief glimpses of my horror as I stalked toward them one after another. I was in front of the exit. There was no way out.
They were trapped in here with me. The doors were electronic, and there wasn’t even any backup power, I’m sure the lower floors, at least a few down, heard it all, for all the good it would do.
My claws ripped through another, who toppled with a howl.
I will spare you the details.
It wasn’t hard to figure out who the one in charge was, he was the oldest, backing away while the younger ones tried to defend him and themselves. All the while I was wondering… which is more likely to get me caught? Leaving them alive, or dead? That’s what the question came down to… if they were dead, the human authorities might investigate, and I was seen in my normal disguise…
‘Damnit… in your desire to not get wet and to play the Queen of the stage, you made a mistake, Kayobi… if they’re alive, it’ll stay nice and unofficial. Just a warning.’ I told myself, and one by one I picked them up and smashed them against the wall, if they moved or got up, I picked them up, squeezed out a scream, and smashed them there again.
Until there was one old man left with a balding scalp and surprisingly quick hands digging through a desk. He pulled out a handgun and leveled it at my chest with trembling hands.
I stopped as if the desk were a real obstacle. “Shoot me.” I said in a gutteral echoing monster voice that I borrowed from some old movies.
The gun went off. “Again.” I ordered him.
Again he shot, his lips were trembling so much I could see his teeth reflect each flash as his noise of fear became a high pitched whine, and I waited until he emptied the entire clip to no avail.
I held out the wallets and dropped them on the desk between the two of us. He looked down.
“Take them.” I said, and one hand came away from the weapon which… he was still dry firing at me as if a bullet would magically appear.
He then took the wallets and shoved them in his pocket.
‘I forgot to come up with a cool name for myself?! How did I do that?! How do I forget the cool nickname?!’ I cursed myself and just breathed hard and heavy, the hot breath kissed his sweating face, my open maw was like a chasm of doom just waiting to swallow him up.
“Shinjai. Belongs. To the Devil of Shinjai. Never. Come. Again. Or next time, I will paint this room with your blood.” I said, my bright amber eyes gleaming down at him, my grayish blue flesh gave me an almost ghostly look as the lightning outside that began in earnest, flashed and reflected against my body.
He nodded, numb, disbelieving… he was making noises that might have been words, but they didn’t want to come out.
I reached up to his gun and closed my hand over his, each finger was as thick as his whole hand, and a hundred times as strong. I began to tighten my grip, and he yanked his hand away while I crushed the weapon like tissue paper and dropped it on his desk.
“Never.” I warned him one more time.
“N-ever.” He vowed and looked at the heap of battered and broken yakuza.
I could read his face like a book, he was wondering if they were alive.
They were. But they’d be worse for wear and probably need a lot of stitches.
Wings began to emerge from my back, and I went to the wall full of windows and smashed them open, the high, howling winds blew papers around everywhere and rain began to seep into the building, I gave him one more lingering look… and jumped, spreading my wings, I began to fly home, watching his dumbfounded, stupid expression as I began to shrink into the distance.
He was probably already questioning everything about what happened, but he couldn’t very well report it to the police, and the injuries were real. With no record, and nobody willing to talk, it would be a drunken rumor and nothing more… and my little home away from home would be quite peaceful.
I made a mental note, ‘Make sure those bills get paid tomorrow, then I need to contact Celia… I’ll need her help next.’ I thought, and yawned as I realized it was late, and I still needed to eat, then sleep… then get up the following morning and…
‘Oh my… this is going to be a lot… I might need help after all.’ I shivered to think of all the shows that I might miss, but then on the other hand…
‘It’ll be a great day for binge watching.’ I thought with a smile as my place finally came back into view, and the rain began to pour.

Hey fellow nannies! TL:DR: I gave notice to my disrespectful employers a couple days ago and I wish i had been able to talk to their previous nanny bc I'm sure she would have let me know to stay far away from them from the beginning!
I have 15 years of experience, I was hired for this experience, ive only been with them since mid-april. They have cameras but work outside the home, i thought nbd with cameras (even though it's not ideal) I'll just be glad not to have a wfh situation, again....but from the first day, they have been condescending and disrespectful and treat me like I'm untrustworthy even though ive gone above and beyond to show I'm trustworthy including doing the fingerprint verification with the fbi! They apparently think I'm an idiot; they've given me 'instructions' on things like what fussing is, why a baby would cry (seriously??) when to feed solids, how to feed them, how to peal a carrot--as if I haven't done this for 15 years?? as if I haven't made babyfood before when they specifically asked me about that and hired me because of that! This all comes to me via emails that are so long, rambling and repetitive you would have to see it to believe it. They look like psychosis, honestly.
The constant undermining of my intelligence and experience is something I can shrug off bc whatever, i know my worth and the hours were ideal for me, but this incident was the last straw for me....
They asked me to come in and babysit on my day off which I didn't want to do but graciously agreed to. When I babysit I'm a little more laid back than when I nanny. I'm not necessarily doing all the cleaning and laundry, etc. (oh yeah "baby related" cleaning turned into "spotless kitchen" at the end of the day. I put my foot down on doing their laundry bc I'm not touching their underwear.) That day I unfortunately spilled a cup of chamomile tea, I cleaned it up but it was still damp when I left. It happens so I forgot about it and moved on with my life. I had some trouble getting the LO to sleep as he's experiencing g a little bit of 4 month regression. I finally managed by turning on some soft lullabies and vibrating his mattress a bit till he zoned out and fell asleep.
I got an email the next day giving me 30 days notice to void the contract bc they felt me not holding him and Rocking him to sleep vs. Bouncing the mattress was "neglect" (excuse me??) They said "music is overstimulating for him" (staight up instrumental.lullabies are more stimulating that holding and Rocking his entire body?? What?) They also told me that they believe since I "withhled" spilling tea that I must be withholding bigger things, too. That's fucking bonkers!!
I called her up and we talked it out and she apologized for jumping to horrendous conclusions over nothing but (I had a few days off) after a lot of thought and talking to a lot of friends and family (2 of whom told me to quit right away without giving notcie at all!) I realized this is not a one off event this is going to be a pattern of behavior. This was confirmed when I got yet another novel length email from them ensuring me they don't believe i.would hurt a child. The underlying implication of that statement is appalling and fucking repugnant to me). Claiming they love their nannies (bullshit, they've treated me.like a suspected criminal who is replaceable since day one)...this triggered me so much. I've been doing this for 15 years, i haven't had one child get hurt in my care, not even a scraped knee, I have ZERO complaints from former families. HOW DARE SHE?? For bouncing a baby and spilling tea?? I gave my notice.
Now they are looking for a new nanny and I wish I could warn them all. I'm not even their first nanny, this will their baby's THIRD NANNY! you guys he's not even 5 months! Talk about huge red flags! She told me she had "safety concerns" with their previous and when she brought it up to that nanny, the nanny told her off and walked out (making it out like the nanny was evil and shes the vicitm ofc). But I don't blame her and if i wasn't concerned about my professional reputation, i would have, too, justifiably. The former nanny probably just went to the bathroom or something equally benign!
Regardless, my goal during the notice period is to do an Excellent job (obviously that's what NK desrves) and to prove to them they made a huge mistake and maybe even get a reference out of them anyway... but the immature part of me wants to tell her off SO BAD. When I left yesterday the dad (who is clearly not the driver in this) said "we appreciate you so much, as always!" I couldn't even stop myself from giving him a side eye and just nodding. They have ZERO appreciation for any of my time, skills or experience and quite frankly barely seem to see as a human! They act like I'm some monster who would harm them if they didn't put cameras everywhere to stop me and also that I'm apparently so moronic that i must be told how to peal and steam a gd carrot. Nothing but disrespect from day one!
They are the fakest people I've ever met and I can't wait to be done with them. I just wish I could warn other nannies, too! Like I wish I could have talked to their previous nanny and gotten the low-down before I wasted a month of my time working for these assholes. Now I have to look again and some.other nanny is going to go through what I and the former nanny also went through. Poor thing!
It pisses me off that she could potentially write a review on care.com and cause harm to me, which I would not be able to defend, but I can't do the same and warn other nannies to stay away from her. I'm sick of how rigged the game is. I gave them my social security number so they could run a background check but I got almost no background information on them except what they manicured for me. Nannies should be able to get references about familes from their previous nannies! (I've actually done this for a wonderful family who was moving out of state!)
Ugh anyway....Their shittiness will not make me a lesser nanny!!!
Sending all my love to my fellow nannies! You are all amazing, hard working and so loving that you actually love professionally, you deserve to be loved back! You have all got my respect and I hope you have a great day today!

1- Destroying Rin and Tarbek, They were clearly in rebellion and intended to make themselves Lord Paramount, Tywin did the right thing in destroying them. 2- Raping Tysha was a bad and horrible thing, but it worked out perfectly from a pragmatic point of view. Tyrion never married a peasant or a prostitute after this sharp lesson, and learned his lesson, so morally it's totally bad, but Pragmatically, it worked out well for Tywin 3- The Red Wedding, a terrible event that broke the right of the guest, but pragmatically won the North, of course, through Rose Bolton, he would unite with the Freys, and because of what they did, they cannot have any other allies and Forever loyal to the Lannisters In terms of morals, it is completely wrong, but in terms of goals, it is completely in line with Tywin's wishes 4-Killing Targaryen children is an evil act but quite effective strengthened Robert's rule Caused Tywin to win Retbert's loyalty, Tywin's daughter was able to marry the king and become queen, and Tywin's granddaughter became king, the era of a cautious fool who could do no wrong, increased Lannister influence in KL, and increased Tywin's power 5- Attacking the Riverland, again an immoral act, but setting an effective trap for Ned Stark, which was destroyed thanks to Jamie, paralyzing the power of the Riverland, and if Robb had not moved south, Tywin would have won this war, but because of Jamie's stupidity and Joffrey Tywin was in a difficult situation, but he still managed to protect himself to some extent. Basically, all of Tywin's actions are evil, but from a pragmatic point of view, they are completely favorable and in Tywin's favor, the problem is that people expect someone who is good and acts morally to win the war, but being moral in the first place is not a guarantee of winning. Yes it's a fantasy story where the good guys defeat the bad guys but if you look at real history some of the most horrible actions have won the war, the reason people hate Tywin is not because he's evil, Ramsay and Euron are far more so. They are worse, the main reason is that basically everything Tywin does has a short-term benefit for him, and this is what makes fans angry. Tywin's main fault is that he is too realistic for a fantasy story. Finally, Tywin is a devil and a monster, but all his actions are almost pragmatic and calculated, and this is what makes Tywin a great villain.

City hall: an increasingly frustrated mayor keeps delaying his cou attempt as everyone he tries to backstab ends up also revealing themselves as yet another necromancer. This had unfailingly happend AFTER the mayor had gone through the trouble of reciting his evil monologue about leaving his humanity behind and breaking the most sacred of taboos.
"Oh yes Mr mayor, no argument here, I'm also a necromancer. It's a fun hobby, and I'm really enjoying having my wife back. Plus we don't need to pay the janitorial staff anymore, that's 100% found money for the quarterly budget" said the treasurer.
What a disaster... This was the sixth person in a row, and after all the trouble he went through to sneak an abomination into the meeting room! "IS ANYONE EMPLOYED IN THIS BUILDING NOT ALSO PLOTTING TO RAISE UNDEAD FOR THE PURPOSES OF EVIL?" He shouts
"Oh you don't know?" Interjects Susan, the intern program manager, partially opening and peeking through a thin white wooden door "I thought you had been informed. We missed you at the monthly workshops, figured you liked going at it alone."
Fuming, the mayor was at a loss fot words.
"Sir are you going to be much longer in the meeting room? I did sign it out for a presentation on ghostly apparitions, and If I don't set up my summoning circle there's no way we can start on time" insisted the woman, tinges of annoyance appearing in her voice. Correcting her posture as she completed the entrance, Susan barely spared a glance to the 8 foot tall monster the men shared a room with.
Defeated, the mayor walked out of the room with his oversized minion in tow, to nobody's shock. As the entire planning commission passed, no doubt on the way to the seminar he'd just left, he only wished that SOMEONE would be in the dark about his plans to turn all citizens into zombies.
-Who would believe that?- The mayor thought. -I work in local government, hating the concept of life is essentially a job requirement-