2013.01.11 05:06 thecakepie Asian Beauty
2014.07.20 20:58 Banana-Man Providing KarmaCourt the People it Needs
2023.06.08 10:17 PocketFMofficial Cathy betrayed Alex, but will she come back after knowing the truth that Alex is Millionaire? How will Alex heal his heart?
![]() | submitted by PocketFMofficial to u/PocketFMofficial [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/b0hdg0g72r4b1.png?width=764&format=png&auto=webp&s=01edc76d82e3fac73fec90874bed55003526c60d https://preview.redd.it/giq2idpd3r4b1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=04d4577af13a07dcc5659931fa9ba9410c03a6af Chapter 1 "Hello. Heavenly Lion Convenience," Alex Ambrose answered the store phone. "I need a box of condoms and two packs of tissues delivered to room 1302 of the Sheraton South River Hotel. Hurry!" The caller hung up. Alex shook his head. People never seemed to be prepared. He packed the required items, put on a raincoat, and rode his electric bike toward the Sheraton Hotel on the southern side of the river. It was nine o’clock in the evening and raining heavily, and his pants and shoes were soon wet and filthy. Luckily, the merchandise was still dry, but he didn't dare delay any longer, so he hurried toward the hotel. When he arrived at room 1302, he knocked on the door, and it was opened quickly. "Hello, here’s your—" Alex was stunned into silence. The woman in front of him was none other than his girlfriend, Cathy! She was dressed in a white robe, with her long, dark, wet hair draped over her shoulders. The scents of shower gel and shampoo assaulted his nose. "Cathy? What are you doing here?" He stared at her in disbelief, still feeling dazed. "What are you doing here?" Cathy asked. Her heart skipped a beat, and she took a small step back into the room. Her mind went blank and then started to spin. "What's wrong?" Another guy walked up to the door, wearing a robe and slippers, and Alex immediately recognized him. "You! You dare to touch my girl?" Alex couldn't suppress the anger welling up inside him, and he started moving toward Billy, determined to teach him a lesson. "Stop!" Cathy stepped in front of Alex. After a brief burst of panic, she had managed to get back a bit of control. Since her boyfriend had already discovered her betrayal, there was no point in trying to hide it now. She looked directly at him. "Alex, we need to break up." "Break up?" Alex was stunned. He stared at Cathy with wide eyes. "Cathy, we've been together for more than a year. Are you going to break up with me now?" "Yes. We need to go our separate ways." She kept steady eye contact with him and spoke with a strong sense of resentment. "Are you surprised? You have no money, Alex. You can only barely afford the cheapest essentials. We never have anything nice. As long as I’m with you, people will always be laughing at me, and that just isn't the life I want. I’m too good to be living in poverty like this. I was too naive when I was in my freshman year, and I let myself get tricked into being with a loser like you!" She hugged Billy's arm and said to Alex, "Billy is my boyfriend now. From now on, I want nothing to do with you. Don't bother me again!" "Well, seems like you’re just her good-for-nothing ex now!" Billy looked at Alex with a provocative smirk. Alex, standing there in a raincoat and with mud stains on his pants and shoes, felt like Cathy was right. He was a complete loser. Billy took the plastic bag from his hand and took out the box of condoms. He waved it at Alex and laughed as he said, "I’m staying in a nice hotel, having my girlfriend’s ex bring me condoms. And you’re single. Sure was good of you to help me out." "Why are you still here?" Cathy scolded Alex. "Nah, it's good that he didn't piss off. Maybe you want to see me beat him down, huh, Cathy? Gotta give a lady what she wants," Billy sneered. Alex felt utterly defeated. He slowly turned around and walked out of the room. "Bro, you're not even taking the money? Heh, nice. I get a girlfriend and a gift." Billy felt great watching Alex's slumped, dejected posture as he closed the door behind him. When Alex left the hotel, it was raining even harder than before. He took off his raincoat, allowing the cold rain to drench his entire body and help clear his head. Cathy had discarded him because she believed he had no money. Losing such a materialistic woman should be something to rejoice over, so why should he be sad? [Buzz buzz!] His phone vibrated in his pocket. Alex took it out and glanced at it, but when he saw the number, he stopped walking. His entire body was shaking as he read the text. [After a review, the Ambrose family has decided that their son, Alexander, has met the conditions required for entitlement to his inheritance. From today onward, control of his property will be returned to him.] The bean-sized raindrops plopped onto the screen, causing the text message to gradually become blurry. Alex's mind began to spin. If not for this message, Alex would have almost forgotten his identity as a super-rich kid. Over the last seven years, his family had been assessing him, withholding his fortune until they were satisfied he met their draconian conditions. And now, finally, it was over. Everything that rightfully belonged to him was finally his to claim. ** Alex woke up early the next morning and drove to the city. In a great mood, he got out of his car and went straight to Metro Sky Bank, right in the heart of the wealthiest part of the central business district of New York. Various luxury cars were parked around the bank. The people walking in and out of the surrounding plaza were all rich; it was obvious from their clothing and demeanour. Alex strode to the door of the bank and pushed it open. "Ouch!" The main door could be opened both inward and outward, and Alex had been a bit careless when he pushed it open from outside. As a result, the door had bumped into a long-haired young woman who had been heading out of the building. He quickly apologized, "Sorry. I didn't see you." "What do you mean, you didn’t see me? What am I, invisible?" She held a hand to her forehead and glared at him. The bank’s assistant manager, Karen Young, had noticed the incident and hurried over. She checked on the woman first, and then looked at Alex in disapproval. When her gaze swept over him, a trace of suspicion appeared on her face. Metro Sky Bank was different from most banks, as the clientele were almost exclusively high-end businesspeople. Karen knew the young woman was there with her father, but she didn't know why Alex was there. Judging from his appearance and age, he wasn't their usual type of customer. "Sir, can I be of assistance?" she asked with a polite but forced smile. Alex simply said, "I’m here to withdraw money." "Withdraw money?" the sullen woman asked, sneering at him. "Do you have a card?" Karen asked, continuing to smile politely. Getting a Metro Sky Bankcard was not easy. A million dollars of savings was the minimum requirement to qualify. Karen felt certain that the man in front of her couldn't have much experience with the bank and wouldn't know their rules. Perhaps he had thought that other banks' cards could also be used here. "No," Alex replied, shaking his head. The woman he had accidentally hit with the door couldn't help but giggle when she heard his honest reply. He wasn't worth any more of her attention. "Let’s go." Her father had walked up, still arranging the documents he was carrying. "My dad and I are leaving." The woman shook Karen's hand, and then looked over at Alex. "Ms Young, having someone like this around could damage your bank's image and upset your customers. I hope this will not happen again." With that, she took her father’s arm and opened the door. "Take care, Mr Scott." Karen followed them out a few steps, watching as they got into a car and left. Turning around, she headed back inside, having made up her mind to encourage Alex to leave as soon as possible. There was no one standing where Alex had been. Oh! Where’s he gone? she wondered. Was it possible that the kid had been embarrassed and had quietly slipped away? She felt relieved at the thought. Then, just as she was about to go back to work, she caught a glimpse of someone out of the corner of her eye. There’s the brat! No wonder I didn’t see him at first, she thought. He had already reached the entrance to the VIP lounge, and a pillar had blocked her view of him. The VIP room was only for high-status customers who were worth at least thirty million dollars, and this young man had admitted that he didn’t even have a card. If she let him get through, she would be in trouble with her boss. "Stop! Don't move!" Karen yelled, feeling desperate. The other customers all looked around at her, obviously annoyed by her shouting. She could only smile apologetically as she walked quickly toward Alex. But he had already walked through the lounge, opened the door to the VIP room, and stepped inside. https://preview.redd.it/bgp24qcv3r4b1.png?width=764&format=png&auto=webp&s=e9c3c1ed5397d6b4d312662e698e5847873b36ab Chapter 2 Does he have no shame? Karen hurried after Alex with a look of chagrin on her face. She tried to open the door to the VIP room, but it had been locked from the inside. ** "Hello?" Inside the VIP room, Robert Miller, the bank manager, was leaning against the sofa, looking at his phone. When the door suddenly opened, he quickly sat down and hid his phone away. Normally, when a VIP was coming in, Karen would notify him in advance. As the customer manager, he was responsible for thirty-one VIPs, and he knew them like the back of his hand. He immediately began to launch into his normal professional greeting, hoping to undo the poor impression he’d made by slouching against the sofa, but when he saw Alex, his expression froze. He was certain that Alex was not one of his VIPs, nor was he a relative of one. "May I ask who you are?" Robert asked, looking at the young man, who appeared to be around twenty years old. Robert had no idea who he was. Alex got straight to the point. "I'm here to get my money." "You have one of our cards?" Robert asked, suspicious of Alex's calm expression. "No," Alex admitted frankly. Robert was relieved to seemingly be proven right, but even more confused. Access to the VIP room required a minimum worth of three million dollars, but this man didn't have any money. Why was he so composed? "I'm sorry, sir. We can't give out money without a card. Do you require anything else?" He's crazy, Robert thought. Why on earth did Karen let him in? I’ll have to speak to her about this at Monday’s meeting. "You have fingerprint recognition here, right?" Alex suddenly asked. The fingerprint ID system at the bank was for the wealthiest families and businesses to use. Only a few people had their fingerprints recorded in the system, at least in the New York branch, and no one had used it to access their holdings yet. "You want to use it?" Robert could no longer bring himself to call Alex "sir." "Yes." Alex nodded. Robert was feeling more confused by the second. Why would someone who wasn't even a customer request to use a fingerprint ID? To be honest, even though he was curious, Robert felt that it was barely worth humouring the request. But after considering for a few seconds, he finally decided to let Alex make the attempt rather than risk making him angry. He opened the safe and brought out the fingerprint identification device, which he had never used before. "Place your thumb here." Robert indicated the verification area to Alex, who placed his thumb on the sensor. [Beep!] The device lit up with a glaring red light, and the LCD screen displayed the words [Fingerprint not recorded]. Immediately, Robert’s expression turned hostile, and he glared at Alex. He picked up his phone, ready to call the police. "Wait, wait!" Alex said quickly. "Maybe that was the wrong print. I'll try using my index finger this time." Robert smiled coldly. "What’s your plan here? Your thumb doesn’t work, so you’ll try your index finger. Then, if your index finger doesn’t work, you’ll try your middle finger. When you run out of fingers, will you try using your toes?" But Alex had already pressed his index finger on the verification area. Robert resolved that if the man’s fingerprints weren’t accepted this time, he would immediately call the police and have him arrested. [Beep!] A green light appeared on the device and new details flashed up on the LCD screen: [Verification successful. Family account: 01. Verifier: Alexander Ambrose. Account: 01104.] Robert gaped at Alex in disbelief for a moment, and then hurriedly squeezed out a smile. "Mr Ambrose, I'm sorry. I didn't realize. I'm Robert Miller, the customer manager for the New York branch. Please allow me to assist you." "It's fine," Alex said lightly and stood up. "Can I see how much money I have left in my account?" "Please wait a moment." Robert sat in front of the computer and typed away for a while. On his instructions, Alex provided a few more fingerprint scans as authorization. "It's done, Mr Ambrose." Robert clicked the "OK" button on the screen, and Alex's account appeared. Robert pointed to the computer screen and said, "Mr Ambrose, the balance of your account is currently eighty-six million dollars." Robert couldn't help but suck in a breath of cold air. This young man had an enormous fortune. It placed him in the topflight of the one per cent. Most people would never be able to even dream of that much money. Alex felt strange as he stared at the numbers on the screen. He reminded himself that he needed to get used to his status as a rich kid as soon as possible. "Oh, and you have other assets as well. Let me show you now." Robert clicked through to check several pages in a row. Finally, he clicked the "OK" button again. The computer brought up a 4 x 4 grid of display screens. "This surveillance screen displays all the physical assets that you hold elsewhere," Robert explained. He clicked on the upper left corner of the screen and brought up the feed from the bank's branch at The Hague, which revealed a sports car. In the lower right corner, it said, [Ferrari Pagani Huayra]. Robert opened up other screens for Alex, one after another. The Hawaii branch displayed a Dominica blue pearl bracelet and four stacks of gold bars. The feed from the French branch in Nice revealed three original Picasso paintings and two Rodin statues. And the Cape Town branch had fifteen 10-carat diamonds, ten pieces of ivory, and another couple of stacks of gold bars. Robert's eyes almost popped out as he looked at Alex's assets. He had never seen anyone so rich. Maybe not even one-tenth as rich. "All right, I’d like a card," Alex said before Robert could collect his thoughts. "Yes, I will see to it right away. Please wait a moment." Robert immediately started to make the necessary arrangements. Within ten minutes, a Supreme Card was produced. Robert looked at the Supreme Card and thought about Alex's assets. This card wasn’t good enough for Alex’s status, but it was the highest grade of card they were authorized to issue at the New York branch. Robert presented handed the card over. "Mr Ambrose, your card." "Thank you." Alex took the card, stood up, and went to walk out of the room. "Mr Ambrose, please wait." Robert didn't dare to appear to be neglecting such an important customer. He should see him out personally, but the asset checking system on his computer had not been turned off yet, and the fingerprint verification machine, iris recognition apparatus, and other sensitive equipment had not been returned to the safe. The monitoring system in the VIP room was connected to the district manager’s office. Karen was anxiously waiting in the hall. What's been going on in there for so long? she wondered. Could that brat have murdered Mr Miller in the VIP room? The more she considered it, the more scared she became. She was on the verge of banging on the door and demanding a response when Alex walked confidently out of the room. "Stop!" Karen shouted. She walked quickly over toward him and grabbed at his coat. "You can't leave. You broke into the VIP room. Once we confirm that nothing is missing, I will call the police and have them hold you for questioning." "What are you talking about?" Alex asked. "Let go!" Karen grappled with him for a while, but she couldn't manage to search his pockets. What’s wrong with this woman? Alex thought. He wasn’t even arguing with her, but she was manhandling him. "What is this?" Karen spotted the Supreme Card that was peeking out of Alex's pocket. She quickly pulled it out and looked at him triumphantly, as if she had found evidence of his guilt. "Oh, you stole a card. This is a crime, and I have to call the police." It didn't even cross her mind that the card could belong to Alex. She imagined he had entered the VIP room, pretending to be there by mistake, and had then distracted Mr Miller with questions and stolen the card when the manager wasn't paying attention. "Let go!" Alex was sick of this woman. "Don’t you feel guilty about being a thief?" She was even more determined. With the two of them creating such a scene, other customers started to walk over toward them, intending to help Karen keep Alex from getting away. Just then, Robert, who had finished tidying up, strode out of the VIP room. Having seen Alex's assets, Robert now knew he was the most important customer the New York branch of the bank had ever had. He had also noticed that the system listed Alex's was listed as just one of multiple accounts attached to a family group, labelled 01. If that single account was so lucrative, then what about the rest of the family? It was rare to meet such important people, so Robert knew he had to be careful to curry favour with Alex. If they got along well, it would be a tremendous success for Robert, and the potential benefits were huge. So, when saw Karen struggling with Alex, he was enraged. Karen's expression was hostile, and Alex was becoming very angry. Karen was an idiot who was playing with fire, and she might drag Robert himself down with her. Of all the bank’s many, many customers, why did she need to pick this one to try and remove? A simple flick of Alex’s finger could be enough to end both their careers. https://preview.redd.it/ibiq0o324r4b1.png?width=764&format=png&auto=webp&s=1a99b27610b71dd123f69c6780b81a8f489cd0a4 Chapter 3 "Stop!" Robert dashed between Alex and Karen. Before Alex could speak, Karen waved the Supreme Card in the air. Her eyes flashed with triumph as she said to Robert, "Mr Miller, look! He stole a card from the VIP room!" She smiled at him, her expression a little smug. Surely, Mr Miller would be happy with her for preventing theft. He had a lot of authority in the eastern district of Metro Sky Bank, and when he had arrived at headquarters, he had seemed impressed with her, so she was hoping for a promotion. Her imagination began to run away with her as she dreamed about her possible future. Mr Miller's face had always been a little glum, but as she watched, his expression grew darker and darker. Before she could figure out why, she was startled by his explosive roar, leaving her entire body trembling. "Let go of Mr Ambrose!" As he yelled, Mr Miller knocked the Supreme Card out of her hand, and she was so scared that she let go of Alex. Mr Miller pushed her aside and bent down to pick up the card. "Mr Ambrose, your card. I'm very sorry. I haven't trained Ms Young properly. I do apologize." Mr Miller's expression showed a mixture of respect, embarrassment, and unease, as the bank's customers looked on in amazement. Karen was stunned. Could the Supreme Card be his? she wondered. Her eyes widened. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make sense of it. If this man had a Supreme Card, then he had at least three million dollars, yet he appeared to only be around twenty years old. A poor, lower-class loser with that much money? No, it was just too unlikely. "It's not your fault, Mr Miller," Alex assured him, slipping the card back into his pocket. "Thank you, Mr Ambrose." Robert dipped his head and paused briefly before straightening up and shouting at Karen, "Why are you just standing there? Apologize to Mr Ambrose immediately!" How could Karen still not understand? Robert thought. The young man standing in front of them was seriously rich and needed to be treated with respect. Karen immediately bowed her head at Alex. "Mr Ambrose, I'm very sorry for my rude behaviour. I made a mistake, created a fuss over nothing, and put my hands on you. It was my fault, and I will reflect on my behaviour—" Alex ignored her and walked away. "Mr Ambrose," Robert called after him. "If you ever need anything, just give me a call, and I'll do my best to help." Robert was excited by this opportunity. It was rare to meet someone as important as Alex, so he shamelessly tried to charm him. "Okay, Robert." Alex smiled faintly. Robert had come to his defence, after all. The use of his first name made Robert feel quite emotional. The wealthiest customers called him by his first name, and now so did this poorly dressed young man, who displayed not even a hint of arrogance. Alex strode out of the bank and hailed a taxi to take him back to Preston University. ** As Alex entered the university building, he accidentally stepped into a puddle, splashing a lot of mud on his legs. He checked his watch then rushed toward the classroom, where Mr Morgan was already standing at the podium, lecturing. He spotted Alex out of the corner of his eye and a hint of disappointment flashed across his face. Feeling guilty, Alex lowered his head. Of all his teachers, Mr Morgan was his favourite. The other teachers tended to ignore Alex because he had no money, and some even openly mocked him. Only Mr Morgan treated him like any other student. Alex slipped quietly into the classroom, aware that all the students were staring at him, and he could hear them whispering. "He isn't usually late. Hell must have frozen over." "Look at his pants! They’re filthy. Doesn’t he have any clean clothes?" "Are you joking? It’s not like he’d have the money for new ones. It looks like he's just thrown on whatever he could find." Some of the boys continued to talk, and the girls in the front row covered their mouths with their hands as they joined in. Their eyes flashed with contempt when they looked at Alex. "Stop talking!" Mr Morgan said loudly. "And pay attention." Throughout the lecture, Alex noticed that Mr Morgan kept glancing at him, his eyes full of disapproval, as if Alex had failed to live up to his expectations. Eventually, the lecture was over. "Class dismissed." Mr Morgan packed up his textbooks and left. "Cathy." The voice came from the doorway. Everyone turned in the direction of the voice and saw Billy walking through the door and going straight to Cathy, who was sitting by the window. She stood and hugged him, both of them were in love Many of the students turned to stare at Alex. Everyone thought that he was Cathy's boyfriend, and they weren’t aware that she had broken up with him. Alex watched in disgust. He’d heard that Billy had taken at least five different girls to stay at that hotel. Cathy was just the latest in a long line, and Alex had no intention of fighting for her. Billy strutted past Alex with his arm around Cathy's shoulder. "Darling, wait a minute," Cathy said to Billy as she stopped in front of Alex and held out her phone. "Since we've broken up, I don’t want to owe you anything. Here's the phone you bought for me a few weeks ago. You can have it back." Alex glanced at the Samsung Galaxy phone and then took it. "Hah, you would have to work part-time for six months to afford one of these!" Cathy took a brand-new phone out of her pocket and showed it to Alex. "This is the latest iPhone, and it’s much better than your phone." "Of course, it's far too expensive for a loser like him." Billy raised his chin and looked at Alex. "Cathy told me that she kept asking for that phone for six months before you finally bought it for her. Do you think you can pick up a girl so far out of your league? You're just embarrassing yourself, so give up. And I'm warning you now: don't even think about her. If I find out you’ve gone anywhere near her, you'll regret it!" "Don't waste your breath talking to a loser like him. Can we go to De Luca’s for lunch?" Cathy had already dismissed Alex. "Call me baby," Billy said, smiling at her. "Baby, let's go." She flirted with him right in front of Alex. "Cathy!" A petite girl stood up, glaring at her. "You're taking it all too far. I never thought you'd break up with Alex, and I'm ashamed of you." "Emma, why do you care?" She scowled. When things had been going well with Alex, she’d been on good terms with Emma, who was a decent person. Sometimes, when Cathy had been fighting with Alex, she had asked Emma’s opinion about who was in the right. "You gave up Alex for someone like Billy?" Emma asked. "How could you treat Alex like this? When you were sick and couldn't even get out of bed, Alex sent you lunch and dinner every day for a month. And when you were walking in the mountains and twisted your ankle, he carried you on his back for miles down the mountain. Don’t you remember that? You know he doesn't make much money from his part-time jobs, but when you wanted a phone, he worked hard for months to save enough money to buy it for you. And this is how you repay him? By breaking up with him and ridiculing him?" Cathy scowled. "I never forced him to do anything. If he was stupid enough to go along with it, that's his problem! And so what if he bought me a cell phone? It was only a Samsung. And why would I want a Samsung when I can have an iPhone?" Emma shook her head. "Cathy, I don’t understand you. Do you only care about money? Will money get you everything you want?" "Yes!" Cathy barked out a laugh. She stared at Emma and said, "I admit that I like money. Is that so wrong?" She took Billy's arm and said, "Come on, baby, let's go. These two poor people disgust me." She glared at Alex and Emma and then swept out of the classroom with her head held high. https://preview.redd.it/frxe4na33r4b1.png?width=764&format=png&auto=webp&s=3d014c775a06fca57c3c49baecf79a44adee3800 |
2023.06.08 09:59 A_horse_a_piece77 "Yesterday's Soccer Mom Is Today's Domestic Extremist": A Guide To Surviving The Culture
![]() | Author and conservative commentator Peachy Keenan is sick and tired of yesterday's soccer mom being treated as today's "domestic extremist", in public discourse by media gatekeepers and government officials alike—and all the while parents are sheepishly and too easily abdicating their natural role as captains and defenders of the household. submitted by A_horse_a_piece77 to DoorCountyALT [link] [comments] https://twitter.com/KeenanPeachy/status/1666121050567110656 https://preview.redd.it/kdnwwyvt1r4b1.png?width=790&format=png&auto=webp&s=7afed3bdff34a513a8b78f22fe5e37368066ecad "They like to make us, the normal people, the moms and dads of America into extremists. But if you look around it's pretty easy to see who the real extremists are," Keenan told Harris Faulkner on Fox prime time Tuesday night. https://www.foxnews.com/video/6328922595112 She is calling for a back to the basics while writing from deep behind 'enemy lines': southern California. "Parenting is not a game. There is no do-over. You are all that stands between your small charges and the roiling storms ahead—and the band of purple-haired nonbinary pirates that’s about to storm the deck." Keenan has written a new handbook of sorts, or a practical guide to winning the culture war and protecting your family from the ravings of "Childless weirdos have taken over every institution we look to for guidance on how to raise good citizens..." You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Domestic-Extremist-Practical-Winning-Culture/dp/1684513529/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Domestic+Extremist%3A+A+Practical+Guide+to+Winning+the+Culture+War&s=books&sr=1-1 Keenan holds nothing back in the following blistering commentary from her book [emphasis ZH]: It has become only too clear what this absence of parental authority has wrought. Truly insane people have taken over the American education system, Big Pharma, and Big Tech. They know the best way to reach the Final Solution of the American family is to focus on young, impressionable minds. We are enjoying the fruits of their labor now: an explosion of teen depression and suicide, an epidemic of children who are confused if they’re boys or girls, and an incredible 40 percent of Gen Z reporting that they are some letter in the ever-expanding alphabet soup known as LGBTQ+.https://preview.redd.it/q8pbczeb2r4b1.png?width=722&format=png&auto=webp&s=fb9352ba054a4f428fe4c11fad712f52188e5bfc https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1666257317120323585 Who are the real extremists? The below is an excerpt from Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War, by Peachy Keenan, with permission of the author. The book is now available from Regnery. https://www.regnery.com/9781684513529/domestic-extremist/ * * * You had a baby? Look at you—you’re the captain now! Or are you? The words on a poster taped to a teacher’s classroom door at a New Jersey public school expose the precarious corner American parents have been painted into. “If your parents aren’t accepting of your identity, I’m your mom now.” The poster featured a drawing of a mama bear tending to her bear cubs, who are each painted the color of a different LGBTQ flag. Parents, I have bad news. You’ve got competition. Someone posted a job listing looking for a new authority figure in your house, and they hired everyone who applied. Lots of other adults, most of them unpleasant strangers, would like to raise your children for you—or at least get your children to hate you. This may already be happening—and you’ll be the last to know! All your hard work to keep creeps, perverts, and kiddie-sniffers away from your kids may get reversed in an instant when you’re not looking. Some parents are okay with this. They can barely handle “adulting” themselves and are thrilled not to make any tough parental decisions. Abdicating their natural role as master and commander of the household is lazy, but it’s a defensive posture. They live in terror of accusations from other parents of “closed-mindedness,” or worse, being a prude. American parents have either forgotten their innate, God-given authority over their household or surrendered it in the face of relentless pressure over many years from the outside. Just as millennia of trickling snowmelt can hollow out mighty granite mountains and turn them into canyons, a half-century of unchecked influence by feminists and far-left progressives have chipped away at the role of parents in their children’s lives. What is left is a barren wasteland, a valley of shadows, where mothers and fathers have been reduced to nothing more than the oldest dependents in the house. Your job as a parent is not easy, but it’s simple: feed, nurture, love, and protect. In the face of life-and-death danger—say, an escaped tiger or an ax-wielding lunatic—probably 100 percent of parents would risk their lives for their children, even die, without hesitation. So why are so many reluctant to defend their children from less obvious, but equally dangerous, scenarios? You can tell when you’re about to be trampled by elephants. It’s trickier when the trampling is invisible and being committed by a young teacher with peace stickers on xe/xer’s car. I’ll grant that having pro- nouns in your bio is not quite the same red flag as cruising a playground in a car with no door handles on the inside, but it’s still a red flag parents need to fear. People who manage to produce offspring are too often seduced into voluntarily surrendering their authority over them. They allow various “experts” to hold sway over their kids. Exhausted and confused, they willingly hand their kids off to the local public school teachers’ unions, the DEI struggle-session facilitators, the storytelling drag queens, and the sex-education consultants who arrive at school with teaching props, including wholesome kid-friendly items like dildos and anal lube. Above: School hangs poster that says, \"I'm Your Mom Now\" https://sanzi.substack.com/p/school-hangs-poster-on-the-door-that They all share a common goal: to dilute your authority and increase their own. They aim to groom America’s children from birth to become compliant consumers of all they wish to sell them: bespoke genders, any-term abortion, strictly enforced racial hierarchies, a lifetime of therapy, prescription drugs, and whatever political and social ideology they choose to upload into their brains. God forbid you are the only parent at your school who keeps your fifth grader home on Share Your Favorite Sex Toy Day. What will people say? Allow me to remind you gently: it’s your job to steer the ship, avoid icebergs, prevent scurvy, and stave off mutinies. Parenting is not a game. There is no do-over. You are all that stands between your small charges and the roiling storms ahead—and the band of purple-haired nonbinary pirates that’s about to storm the deck. Sexualized Early and Often Imagine being the only one at the PTA meeting who stands up and objects to your second grader studying detailed diagrams of adult genitalia, or your middle schoolers instructed on how to grant consent to anal sex. (These are real sex ed guidelines introduced in New Jersey public schools in 2020.) Your choices are stark: assert your authority over your children and get called a bigot or go along with the madness and let them take your child to places you don’t want them to go. How bad is it? Bad enough that Tiara Mack, a “reproductive justice advocate” and “child sex educator” running for state senator in Rhode Island tweeted this in 2021: “Really excited for the house sex ed bill hearing later today. Teaching comprehensive, queer inclusive, pleasure-based sex ed was a highlight of my time teaching.” This is who wants to talk to your six-year-old about how to “pleasure” themselves and their partner! The first step in any cult, or any abusive relationship, is to get the victim to sever ties to their outside friends and family. Maybe you’ve seen this happen to people you know. They suddenly change their phone number, delete their social media, and have a new friend now—one that has them spellbound. Once children come to believe their mom and dad are clueless bigots and racists who are holding them back from being who they are, the cult leaders own them. Government-run public schools have accomplished “regime change” in America and transformed us, slowly, from a society centered around the family, where the schools work for the parent, into a society centered around government employees, where families are required to supply the raw goods for the teachers’ unions to mold as they see fit. Year after year, their assembly lines have been left unsupervised to churn out freshly minted graduates. These graduates move on to college, where their high school indoctrination is hardened and polished by professors. The end product is a citizen who will go to his grave believing a set of Ministry of Truth–approved lies: “whiteness” is intrinsically evil, abortion is health care, there are dozens of genders, America was founded on racism and must be dismantled, marriage is oppressive and bad for women, children hold you back, and unchecked sexual “exploration” with a variety of partners of every gender is the surest path to emotional happiness. Sane people have a terrible choice to make: exercise parental authority over what their children are taught and risk financial ruin, social blackballing, and permanent cancellation—or allow their kids to be turned against them. When a teacher or government official replaces the parent as the ultimate authority in the child’s life, all bets are off. Educators know that any adult with the authority to influence a child has the power to expose said child to any radical or extreme ideas they want. To them, you are the extremist if you don’t think young children need to learn about sex and gender dysphoria yet. You are the extremist if you question a teacher or school administrator’s choice of books to read or lessons to teach. You are an extremely racist extremist if you’d rather not force a five-year-old to feel bad about the color of his skin and apologize for it. In California, students in middle school can ask their school to change their names and genders in the school computer system, and the school is not permitted to inform the parents. The school authorities and the teachers are legally allowed to conspire with eleven-year-olds in sixth grade to induct them into a cult and keep it secret. Literally “it’ll be our secret,” a classic groomer move. These government educational bureaucrats may not drive window-less vans and carry dirty magazines and candy bars to lure young boys (although let’s be honest, some do), but they are even more dangerous. Any parents who send a child into an environment like this, either knowingly or blindly, are forfeiting their authority over their kid. The Regime’s child-catchers are prowling the locker rooms and cafeterias looking for lost, confused pre-teens to cart off to Pleasure Island, where they can get transformed into donkeys without their parents’ consent. I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney is working on a new version of Pinocchio where he asks the Blue Fairy to turn him into a real girl. Parental Surrender Too many sentient adults seem to simply wait for a new update to the operating system to decide what to do with their kids. They unquestioningly accept the Current Parenting Thing, the rancid gruel served up as “education” at the local public school. They surrender their kids to the authorities, in all their forms: teachers, principals, pediatricians, drag queens reading stories, social media influencers, YouTubers, Disney, Netflix, TikTok, the Kardashians—anyone who is credentialed as a “kid expert” or “important” now holds more sway over American kids than their own mothers and fathers. “Who am I to tell my kids how to behave, or what to learn, or how to think about the world? I’m just a random person who had a baby. I made plenty of mistakes in my life. How can I possibly ask my children to obey me?” This is why we can’t have nice things. This is why healthy toddlers were kept in COVID masks for two years while they sat in sandboxes alone, outside, in rain or sleet. This is why you see massive brawls happening at middle schools, where kids punch their own teachers. This is why children are indoctrinated into the cult of trans, coached and groomed to say their pronouns, to switch genders, to explore various “sexualities” and “identities.” This is why mothers pimp out their own children as “drag kids” and put little boys in princess dresses and post the photos on Instagram while thousands of likes wash over them. This is what abdicating the parenting throne looks like. Childless weirdos have taken over every institution we look to for guidance on how to raise good citizens, and no, I’m not talking about Catholic priests. It has become only too clear what this absence of parental authority has wrought. Truly insane people have taken over the American education system, Big Pharma, and Big Tech. They know the best way to reach the Final Solution of the American family is to focus on young, impressionable minds. We are enjoying the fruits of their labor now: an explosion of teen depression and suicide, an epidemic of children who are confused if they’re boys or girls, and an incredible 40 percent of Gen Z reporting that they are some letter in the ever-expanding alphabet soup known as LGBTQ+. Everywhere, in every way, the fertile, fallow minds of children are being terraformed by people who identify as “fur baby” parents. I wouldn’t let fur baby parents walk my dog, let alone educate my eight-year-old. Authority Atrophied This is why you must exercise your parental authority early and often. You must speak up! “No, I don’t want you to ask my teenage son if he’s comfortable with his gender during his doctor visit.” “No, you can’t wear your sister’s Elsa dress to school today, because boys don’t wear dresses, now get in the car and never ask me that again.” “No, you can’t buy those shorts that display the entire lower half of your rear end.” “No, you can’t have a TikTok account, and if I find it on your phone, say goodbye to the phone.” Parental authority makes you the heavy in the house and the bouncer at the door. Pull on your big boy pants and lay down the law, or the law is going to lay down all over you. Peachy Keenan is author of Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War. |
2023.06.08 09:59 A_horse_a_piece77 "Yesterday's Soccer Mom Is Today's Domestic Extremist": A Guide To Surviving The Culture
![]() | Author and conservative commentator Peachy Keenan is sick and tired of yesterday's soccer mom being treated as today's "domestic extremist" in public discourse by media gatekeepers and government officials alike—and all the while parents are sheepishly and too easily abdicating their natural role as captains and defenders of the household. submitted by A_horse_a_piece77 to WisconsinUs [link] [comments] https://twitter.com/KeenanPeachy/status/1666121050567110656 https://preview.redd.it/078zp8gv1r4b1.png?width=790&format=png&auto=webp&s=f57ec8ab475fb228079af0757d6b906c49ec1b8a "They like to make us, the normal people, the moms and dads of America into extremists. But if you look around it's pretty easy to see who the real extremists are," Keenan told Harris Faulkner on Fox prime time Tuesday night. https://www.foxnews.com/video/6328922595112 She is calling for a back to the basics while writing from deep behind 'enemy lines': southern California. "Parenting is not a game. There is no do-over. You are all that stands between your small charges and the roiling storms ahead—and the band of purple-haired nonbinary pirates that’s about to storm the deck." Keenan has written a new handbook of sorts, or a practical guide to winning the culture war and protecting your family from the ravings of "Childless weirdos have taken over every institution we look to for guidance on how to raise good citizens..." You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Domestic-Extremist-Practical-Winning-Culture/dp/1684513529/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Domestic+Extremist%3A+A+Practical+Guide+to+Winning+the+Culture+War&s=books&sr=1-1 Keenan holds nothing back in the following blistering commentary from her book [emphasis ZH]: It has become only too clear what this absence of parental authority has wrought. Truly insane people have taken over the American education system, Big Pharma, and Big Tech. They know the best way to reach the Final Solution of the American family is to focus on young, impressionable minds. We are enjoying the fruits of their labor now: an explosion of teen depression and suicide, an epidemic of children who are confused if they’re boys or girls, and an incredible 40 percent of Gen Z reporting that they are some letter in the ever-expanding alphabet soup known as LGBTQ+.https://preview.redd.it/8qucazob2r4b1.png?width=722&format=png&auto=webp&s=e2798bd1cdba17e1eb875dad8784bb2893bc2330 https://twitter.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1666257317120323585 Who are the real extremists? The below is an excerpt from Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War, by Peachy Keenan, with permission of the author. The book is now available from Regnery. https://www.regnery.com/9781684513529/domestic-extremist/ * * * You had a baby? Look at you—you’re the captain now! Or are you? The words on a poster taped to a teacher’s classroom door at a New Jersey public school expose the precarious corner American parents have been painted into. “If your parents aren’t accepting of your identity, I’m your mom now.” The poster featured a drawing of a mama bear tending to her bear cubs, who are each painted the color of a different LGBTQ flag. Parents, I have bad news. You’ve got competition. Someone posted a job listing looking for a new authority figure in your house, and they hired everyone who applied. Lots of other adults, most of them unpleasant strangers, would like to raise your children for you—or at least get your children to hate you. This may already be happening—and you’ll be the last to know! All your hard work to keep creeps, perverts, and kiddie-sniffers away from your kids may get reversed in an instant when you’re not looking. Some parents are okay with this. They can barely handle “adulting” themselves and are thrilled not to make any tough parental decisions. Abdicating their natural role as master and commander of the household is lazy, but it’s a defensive posture. They live in terror of accusations from other parents of “closed-mindedness,” or worse, being a prude. American parents have either forgotten their innate, God-given authority over their household or surrendered it in the face of relentless pressure over many years from the outside. Just as millennia of trickling snowmelt can hollow out mighty granite mountains and turn them into canyons, a half-century of unchecked influence by feminists and far-left progressives have chipped away at the role of parents in their children’s lives. What is left is a barren wasteland, a valley of shadows, where mothers and fathers have been reduced to nothing more than the oldest dependents in the house. Your job as a parent is not easy, but it’s simple: feed, nurture, love, and protect. In the face of life-and-death danger—say, an escaped tiger or an ax-wielding lunatic—probably 100 percent of parents would risk their lives for their children, even die, without hesitation. So why are so many reluctant to defend their children from less obvious, but equally dangerous, scenarios? You can tell when you’re about to be trampled by elephants. It’s trickier when the trampling is invisible and being committed by a young teacher with peace stickers on xe/xer’s car. I’ll grant that having pro- nouns in your bio is not quite the same red flag as cruising a playground in a car with no door handles on the inside, but it’s still a red flag parents need to fear. People who manage to produce offspring are too often seduced into voluntarily surrendering their authority over them. They allow various “experts” to hold sway over their kids. Exhausted and confused, they willingly hand their kids off to the local public school teachers’ unions, the DEI struggle-session facilitators, the storytelling drag queens, and the sex-education consultants who arrive at school with teaching props, including wholesome kid-friendly items like dildos and anal lube. Above: School Hangs poster on the door that says, \"I'm Your Mom Now\" https://sanzi.substack.com/p/school-hangs-poster-on-the-door-that They all share a common goal: to dilute your authority and increase their own. They aim to groom America’s children from birth to become compliant consumers of all they wish to sell them: bespoke genders, any-term abortion, strictly enforced racial hierarchies, a lifetime of therapy, prescription drugs, and whatever political and social ideology they choose to upload into their brains. God forbid you are the only parent at your school who keeps your fifth grader home on Share Your Favorite Sex Toy Day. What will people say? Allow me to remind you gently: it’s your job to steer the ship, avoid icebergs, prevent scurvy, and stave off mutinies. Parenting is not a game. There is no do-over. You are all that stands between your small charges and the roiling storms ahead—and the band of purple-haired nonbinary pirates that’s about to storm the deck. Sexualized Early and Often Imagine being the only one at the PTA meeting who stands up and objects to your second grader studying detailed diagrams of adult genitalia, or your middle schoolers instructed on how to grant consent to anal sex. (These are real sex ed guidelines introduced in New Jersey public schools in 2020.) Your choices are stark: assert your authority over your children and get called a bigot or go along with the madness and let them take your child to places you don’t want them to go. How bad is it? Bad enough that Tiara Mack, a “reproductive justice advocate” and “child sex educator” running for state senator in Rhode Island tweeted this in 2021: “Really excited for the house sex ed bill hearing later today. Teaching comprehensive, queer inclusive, pleasure-based sex ed was a highlight of my time teaching.” This is who wants to talk to your six-year-old about how to “pleasure” themselves and their partner! The first step in any cult, or any abusive relationship, is to get the victim to sever ties to their outside friends and family. Maybe you’ve seen this happen to people you know. They suddenly change their phone number, delete their social media, and have a new friend now—one that has them spellbound. Once children come to believe their mom and dad are clueless bigots and racists who are holding them back from being who they are, the cult leaders own them. Government-run public schools have accomplished “regime change” in America and transformed us, slowly, from a society centered around the family, where the schools work for the parent, into a society centered around government employees, where families are required to supply the raw goods for the teachers’ unions to mold as they see fit. Year after year, their assembly lines have been left unsupervised to churn out freshly minted graduates. These graduates move on to college, where their high school indoctrination is hardened and polished by professors. The end product is a citizen who will go to his grave believing a set of Ministry of Truth–approved lies: “whiteness” is intrinsically evil, abortion is health care, there are dozens of genders, America was founded on racism and must be dismantled, marriage is oppressive and bad for women, children hold you back, and unchecked sexual “exploration” with a variety of partners of every gender is the surest path to emotional happiness. Sane people have a terrible choice to make: exercise parental authority over what their children are taught and risk financial ruin, social blackballing, and permanent cancellation—or allow their kids to be turned against them. When a teacher or government official replaces the parent as the ultimate authority in the child’s life, all bets are off. Educators know that any adult with the authority to influence a child has the power to expose said child to any radical or extreme ideas they want. To them, you are the extremist if you don’t think young children need to learn about sex and gender dysphoria yet. You are the extremist if you question a teacher or school administrator’s choice of books to read or lessons to teach. You are an extremely racist extremist if you’d rather not force a five-year-old to feel bad about the color of his skin and apologize for it. In California, students in middle school can ask their school to change their names and genders in the school computer system, and the school is not permitted to inform the parents. The school authorities and the teachers are legally allowed to conspire with eleven-year-olds in sixth grade to induct them into a cult and keep it secret. Literally “it’ll be our secret,” a classic groomer move. These government educational bureaucrats may not drive window-less vans and carry dirty magazines and candy bars to lure young boys (although let’s be honest, some do), but they are even more dangerous. Any parents who send a child into an environment like this, either knowingly or blindly, are forfeiting their authority over their kid. The Regime’s child-catchers are prowling the locker rooms and cafeterias looking for lost, confused pre-teens to cart off to Pleasure Island, where they can get transformed into donkeys without their parents’ consent. I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney is working on a new version of Pinocchio where he asks the Blue Fairy to turn him into a real girl. Parental Surrender Too many sentient adults seem to simply wait for a new update to the operating system to decide what to do with their kids. They unquestioningly accept the Current Parenting Thing, the rancid gruel served up as “education” at the local public school. They surrender their kids to the authorities, in all their forms: teachers, principals, pediatricians, drag queens reading stories, social media influencers, YouTubers, Disney, Netflix, TikTok, the Kardashians—anyone who is credentialed as a “kid expert” or “important” now holds more sway over American kids than their own mothers and fathers. “Who am I to tell my kids how to behave, or what to learn, or how to think about the world? I’m just a random person who had a baby. I made plenty of mistakes in my life. How can I possibly ask my children to obey me?” This is why we can’t have nice things. This is why healthy toddlers were kept in COVID masks for two years while they sat in sandboxes alone, outside, in rain or sleet. This is why you see massive brawls happening at middle schools, where kids punch their own teachers. This is why children are indoctrinated into the cult of trans, coached and groomed to say their pronouns, to switch genders, to explore various “sexualities” and “identities.” This is why mothers pimp out their own children as “drag kids” and put little boys in princess dresses and post the photos on Instagram while thousands of likes wash over them. This is what abdicating the parenting throne looks like. Childless weirdos have taken over every institution we look to for guidance on how to raise good citizens, and no, I’m not talking about Catholic priests. It has become only too clear what this absence of parental authority has wrought. Truly insane people have taken over the American education system, Big Pharma, and Big Tech. They know the best way to reach the Final Solution of the American family is to focus on young, impressionable minds. We are enjoying the fruits of their labor now: an explosion of teen depression and suicide, an epidemic of children who are confused if they’re boys or girls, and an incredible 40 percent of Gen Z reporting that they are some letter in the ever-expanding alphabet soup known as LGBTQ+. Everywhere, in every way, the fertile, fallow minds of children are being terraformed by people who identify as “fur baby” parents. I wouldn’t let fur baby parents walk my dog, let alone educate my eight-year-old. Authority Atrophied This is why you must exercise your parental authority early and often. You must speak up! “No, I don’t want you to ask my teenage son if he’s comfortable with his gender during his doctor visit.” “No, you can’t wear your sister’s Elsa dress to school today, because boys don’t wear dresses, now get in the car and never ask me that again.” “No, you can’t buy those shorts that display the entire lower half of your rear end.” “No, you can’t have a TikTok account, and if I find it on your phone, say goodbye to the phone.” Parental authority makes you the heavy in the house and the bouncer at the door. Pull on your big boy pants and lay down the law, or the law is going to lay down all over you. Peachy Keenan is author of Domestic Extremist: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War. |
2023.06.08 09:57 Ipod732 25 [M4F] California - A Definitive Advertisement To Find That Someone
2023.06.08 09:47 lmf221 Question about recent events and requirements for disbarring/disciplinary sction?
2023.06.08 09:36 Mr-Shank Amazon Prime (Safari or app) playing audio but no video
2023.06.08 09:27 Gold_Arachnid221 Childhood trauma
2023.06.08 08:48 j0hnj0hns Hand-made running sandals in Chiang Mai Thailand
![]() | submitted by j0hnj0hns to BarefootRunning [link] [comments] Chunky sole with just the right amount of firmness Hey folks, I'm in Chiang Mai (Thailand) at the moment and I stumbled onto this shop. The owner is really friendly and a mad keen runner and now makes and sells sandals. He has different soles, strapping and lacing setups. I got sandals that seem similar to my previous Shamma Mountain Goats but just a smidgen softer. I got a size 11 sole for my right foot and a 10.5 sole for left. I chose black for the sole and buckle (I know - boring). But I added a bit of zing with the strap. Then I got to watch as he assembled the sandals - pretty cool. I'm hoping these last longer than the MGs but I'm impressed with the quality and feel so far. The MGs never softened and de-laminated within a year and developed an impermeable stink that I could not remove , so the bar is low. Total price was 1490baht so not super cheap but cheaper than the MGs, or the Lunas I almost bought in Bangkok. If you are in the area check it out. Here is his Facebook link - https://www.facebook.com/people/%E0%B9%81%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%B0%E0%B8%9E%E0%B8%B5%E0%B9%88%E0%B8%AB%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%AD-Chiangmai-Running-Sandal/100057138263289/?_rdc=1&_rdr The pre-cut blanks were huge! Scored a free shirt and coffee as well - bargain! They are built strong with side posts stitched through the sole and the toe post glued, pinned and capped. Now the test begins |
2023.06.08 08:46 VexTrooper Terran Contact 27 - Lassus System - Final
2023.06.08 08:12 saturnn9 Gaming monitor
![]() | WANT TO BUY A GAMING MONITOR any suggestions? Also I have attached my most likely gonna buy model, any suggestion on that? submitted by saturnn9 to LenovoLegion [link] [comments] |
2023.06.08 07:55 alittlepip question about piercer’s aftercare?
2023.06.08 07:42 SassafrasSprite I switched from DSL to a hotspot device and now 99% of ads aren’t working
2023.06.08 07:22 Ralfop 【Last Day Promotion】Fast Hair Dye Set(6 colors) Suitable For All Hair Colors:For Black, white, gold, gray, yellow and other colors of hair, whether it is children or adults, long hair or short hair. Easy To Wash Out: Shampoo, water and towels can clean it up in just a few minutes. It won't be messy
submitted by Ralfop to HANITSYPRODUCTS [link] [comments]
2023.06.08 07:16 critical_courtney [A Bargain for Bliss] — Chapter Eleven (sequel to The Fae Queen's Pet)
![]() | submitted by critical_courtney to redditserials [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/8bgezt09aq4b1.jpg?width=1410&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a98c000b9146bca947211aa35dd3e253e45f1e4c Previous Chapter Chapter Eleven: Walking into a dimly lit basement, I looked down at the cracked concrete floor. The room smelled of old drainage and expired cleaning products. I turned around to see the mirror I’d just crawled out of and caught sight of the Intrinsic Pathways chamber fading back into my reflection. A simple white plastic border surrounded the glass surface. The thing was barely big enough for me to fit through. Barsilla didn’t have any trouble, though — the benefit of being a piskie and only a few inches tall. She darted up to my shoulder and hid herself in my hair. “I’m glad you’ve been growing your hair out,” she said. A moment later, the piskie stuck her head out of my hair and added, “And I’m also glad you switched to the pineapple and raspberry shampoo.” I rolled my eyes. Today I was playing carriage to the queen’s left-hand lady in the human world. And I could already tell it was going to be a test of my nerves. I’d never spent an extended time with Barsilla before, primarily because she was a bit scolding and judgmental. But today came with an important mission before we left for Kilgara tomorrow. We needed to make contact with a powerful fae that lived in the human world. “How can a fae live in the human world full-time? Wouldn’t that be a death sentence with all the iron and the lack of glamour?” I’d asked my queen. “You’ll see,” was all she said before sending me here to accompany Barsilla. And by accompany, she meant carry. The piskie looked around the little room we’d appeared in. It was a small space with concrete walls and floors. Against one wall a shelf of cleaning supplies stood, along with a mop and a janitor’s cart on wheels. “Where are we?” I asked. A grimy voice from the ceiling made me jump. I looked around to find the source. “You’re in the basement of Ssorc Insurance Arena,” a masculine-presenting fae said. When I finally found him, my eyes widened. In one of the ceiling corners hung a spider-like faery about a foot tall. When I got a closer look, I saw he had the body of a tiny man but a thorax and four narrow legs behind him that clung to the wall. His front arms were crossed as he looked down at us. Eight brown and black eyes spread across his forehead kept a close watch on us. “Hello there,” he said, waving a tiny hand. “Name’s Jello. Welcome to Portland.” I raised a finger and opened my mouth to speak. “Because he likes to eat Jell-O,” Barsilla said from inside my hair. I lowered my finger and closed my mouth, nodding. That made plenty of sense. Maybe I could change my name to Chicken Nugget. “You’re not going to come out and say hello to your old friend, Barsilla?” Jello called with a grin revealing two fangs and additional mandibles. Her voice called out from in my hair. “I’m quite good here, thanks.” I raised an eyebrow. Barsilla sounded a little scared, which was a first for me. I’d always been put in my place by the tiny creature so long as we were in the palace. Here, her voice wavered, and she grabbed my hair a little more tightly than when we first arrived. Truth be told, I was torn. Part of me wanted to rub it in, maybe jokingly hand her over to the spider dude. And the other half of me wanted to show mercy, because even when I get a chance to show vengeance. . . I’m not good at taking it. It took me years to destroy my abusive father, and he hurt me daily. So, I decided not to push the issue. “Alright, Jello. That’s enough,” I said, laughing. To his credit, the spider didn’t exactly seem upset with me pushing back. He rubbed one of his mandibles and looked me up and down. “You must be the queen’s new pet I’ve heard so much about,” he said. “That’s me. Werewolf extraordinaire,” I said. He nodded. “It’s almost too difficult to believe. Your kind is so rare that for the queen to have ensnared one. . . I’m just left impressed,” he said. My. . . kind, I thought. Aside from Mom, I’ve never met another like me. And does she even really count? She died when I was a kid. All I could do was shrug. Maybe we were rare. But the fact that he wasn’t the first fae to mention such a thing did stick out in my mind. The queen had emotional attachments to me. Of that much, I was sure. But to other fae, ones I’d see at Kilgara. . . I’d be a token — no, a specimen. It’d be like those videos of rich people who own tigers or lions and just let them roam around the house, lying on the couch and shit. In that case, I’d just have to be all the more threatening to keep their minds off such imagery and more focused on preserving their own lives. Of course, that’d be up to my inner wolf. And I had no doubt she’d be up to the task. Unlike me, she didn’t take shit from anybody. “Well, Jello. If you come by Featherstone when the Raven Queen holds court, you can see my more visceral self on full display,” I said. “But until then, I’ll ask where we’re supposed to go from here.” The spider chuckled and looked into my hair, trying to find a certain piskie with his eyes alone. When he didn’t have any luck, Jello rolled his eyes and pointed to a filthy door covered in dust and mold. “Out that door, up the cement stairs to your left, and outside by the garage. That’ll spit you out onto a path the humans call Free Street,” Jello said. I thanked him, and we left without Barsilla saying a word. Once I’d started up the stairs, she poked her head out next to my ear and said, “Just for the record, in Faerie, his kind prey upon piskies. They find the best hiding spots in the forest and then drop on any little fae that happens to be hovering over the ground, looking for nuts or fruit.” This was a tender confession from the tiny person who’d left me paralyzed on the floor during our first meeting. So I put all that aside before I spoke. “I figured it was something like that. But it’s not like I would have let him do anything to you,” I said. “Afraid of how your mistress might react?” Barsilla asked. Shaking my head, I sighed. “I just know what it’s like to be a tiny thing standing before a giant monster that wants nothing more than to hurt you. You try to shrink yourself down so that the monster doesn’t see you, but it’s never small enough. I always hoped someone would come along when I was trying to shrink myself and snatch me away. So I guess today I just wanted to be the person that would snatch you to safety,” I said, finally spotting a metal door with sunlight streaming in. Varella’s left-hand lady didn’t say anything for a moment. But right before we got outside, she spoke. “That’s actually how her majesty found me, you know? I was in the web of someone like Jello, crying out for help. Most faeries ignore such cries since the forest can be filled with them at times. And if you anger a spider, there’s always the chance they’ll scurry off to a Gohma to have her curse you.” “A Gohma?” I asked. Barsilla placed both hands on the back of my ear to steady herself as I climbed the last few steps. “Queens among the spiderlings. Some of them are quite powerful, and once in a while, they’ll curse anyone who causes trouble with their underlings. That is, they’ll curse anyone. . . except for the ruler of a court. Varella happened to be flying by, heard my cries, and for reasons I’ve never been able to figure out, plucked me from the web. The spiderling that was savoring me was too frightened to say a word. He just hid under a bush, waiting for the Raven Queen to fly away. I’ve served her loyally ever since,” the piskie said. Holy shit. Am I bonding with the piskie? I thought, again squashing the temptation to say something mocking of the little fae which could and would get revenge when we returned to Featherstone. At that moment, Lady Bon-Hwa’s words came back to me. She said I craved legitimacy from beings that wore many masks. Had Barsilla just dropped hers? “How you felt when she plucked you from the web, Barsilla?” I started. She gripped my ear a little tighter. “That’s how I felt the day I struck the bargain with my mistress. Like she’d pulled me out of the jaws of death or something.” I heard the piskie rub her chin. “So when you submit to the queen, it’s about more than a simple pleasure for you. Immense gratitude is also mixed in there somewhere,” she said. Clearing my throat, I felt heat rush to my cheeks. Barsilla was the last person I wanted to discuss submissiveness with. I’d talk about it with Ceras before her. And even they weren’t high on the list. Walking outside, I heard the cries of gulls above us and heard a couple boys laughing as their mother walked by with a shopping bag that said “Remys” on it. Now that was a store I remembered. My father dragged me there more times than I could count. And it was always a long haul down to Bangor to visit. The sky above us was cloudy, and a chilly wind gusted by occasionally, bringing with it smells of a harbor not too far away. A normal person wouldn’t smell it from this distance. But I could smell boat fuel and seafood. “Do you remember the address?” I asked Barsilla. “I remember the way from here. The last time I came to the human city of Portland it was through a different pathway. But if you walk down a block and turn left, it’ll spit you out on a path called Congress Street.” Doing as I was told, I found myself on what appeared the be the busiest street in downtown Portland. Barsilla guided me with whispers to continue onward past the downtown square where a statue of a large woman stood overlooking dozens of people shopping or visiting restaurants or coming out of the public library. I read a message on the side that said, “To her sons who died for the Union.” Barsilla whispered, “I’ve never understood that message. What’s the Union? Some kind of human court?” Sighing and shaking my head, I tried to figure out the easiest way to explain this particularly bloody piece of U.S. history. “A couple centuries back, this country tore itself in two. There was the Confederacy and the Union. People from Maine, that’s where we are now, fought for the Union, which tried to put the country back together again.” “Did the Union succeed?” I nodded. “They won the war, but a lot of shit happened afterward I don’t want to get into. And when I left this place to move into Featherstone — well, let’s just say I’d rather live in Faerie than any part of this world,” I said. With the guidance of Varella’s left-hand lady, we continued walking down Congress Street for at least a mile before she told me to make a turn. We walked past an old Italian grocery store, turned again, and finally arrived at a dentist's office. “Big Smiles? What kind of name is that?” I asked, looking inside. “The name of a business where mortals go to get their teeth fixed because they don’t have glamour to do it for them. Consider yourself fortunate the palace healers make this place unnecessary in Faerie,” Barsilla said, tapping on my ear for me to go inside. Sighing, I did as I was told. . . again. Unlike most dentist’s offices I’d been in, this one was immaculately clean and polished. Behind two receptionists stood a wall covered entirely in ivy. And it was real. I smelled its vegetative scent from where I stood. To my right stood a glass wall with a water feature running underneath the reflective surface. A little transparent refrigerator sat next to some uncomfortable wooden chairs, and it was filled with bottled water. “Hi there!” one of the receptionists said. He appeared to be freshly graduated from college and wore a button-down shirt and black pants. His nametag said “Jace,” and had “He/Him” pronouns listed underneath. “Uh, hi,” I said, trying to remember the coded message my mistress taught me before leaving Featherstone. “I need to schedule an appointment as soon as possible. I’m trying to get the shinest teeth in all the land.” I resisted the urge to slap my face in embarrassment. What kind of stupid code was that? This receptionist was just as likely to throw me out as he was to find me a nightmare fae by the name of Dramyra. Jace snickered a little and said, “Well, who doesn’t love shiny teeth? And we’ve got a great new polishing technique our dentists just started using this month.” An older woman’s voice spoke from behind me. “That won’t be necessary, Jace. I’ll see her now.” Jace looked surprised. “Are you sure, Dr. Murphy? I think you’ve got an appointment in 15,” he said. The voice behind me waved off his concern. “Just have Melissa take care of that one. This is important.” Jace scratched his wavy brown hair and nodded before punching something into his keyboard. I could only assume he was editing an appointment at the last minute. When I turned to see who’d been giving orders to the receptionist, I spotted a woman who appeared to be in her early 50s leaning around a corner. She wore a long white jacket and had eyes the color of jasper. As I stared, she blinked horizontally instead of vertically like every other human I’d met. As my eyes widened, she smiled, and I noticed an inhuman pointedness to her teeth. . . all four rows of them. “Why don’t you come this way, and I’ll get you settled?” the fae said. I gulped and nodded, suddenly getting the heebie-jeebies from this person I was going to follow into a private area. Dr. Murphy led me past an X-ray room, a couple rooms with kid-sized dentist seats and small televisions mounted on the roof, and an employee bathroom. At last, we came to her private office, and she opened the door, motioning for me to enter. When I hesitated, she said, “Oh come now. I wouldn’t be so foolish as to harm one hair on the Raven Queen’s pet. Few would be that dumb.” Walking inside the surprisingly plain office, I was greeted by a tiny sofa, a mini fridge, a marker board, and a skylight. The walls were painted beige, and a desktop computer sat over in the corner on a screensaver with fish swimming by. I took a seat on the sofa, and our faerie host closed the door behind us, locking it, which caused me to gulp again. As soon as the door was closed, the fae dropped her glamor, and before me stood a five-foot-tall woman with pointed ears, turquoise skin, and a shaved head. When she smiled, I saw those four rows of razor teeth and two tongues, one purple, one red. Her eyes now blinked vertically every few seconds, and they were the color of sand. Black curled horns hung down from the back of the faerie’s skull, wrapping around her ears and ending in spiky white tips. The faerie leaned against her door and stared down at her claws, which were painted a shade of crimson. “Dramyra,” Barsilla said, flying out from my hair and bowing her head. “It’s been some time.” The fae did not seem very impressed at the piskie’s sudden appearance. “Well well. . . if it isn’t the Raven Queen’s left-hand lady. I don’t recall receiving a letter warning of your arrival.” Now I spoke up, bowing my head. “Apologies. The queen has been busy preparing for a trip to Kilgara. She didn’t mean to offend by sending us without an announced arrival,” I said. I shivered when Dramyra’s sandy eyes looked me over. It felt like. . . like it wasn’t just her eyes watching me, but her shadow’s eyes as well. And I didn’t like that one bit. She smelled of vetiver and leather. It was a strange combination that seemed to whisper much more was hiding beneath the surface. “First time seeing a nightara?” Dramyra asked, watching me shiver for the third time in the last hour. It wasn’t like the room was cold. Rather, it felt like her glamor kept brushing up against me and light scraping over my arms. “What’s a—” I started, rather stupidly. Barsilla cut me off. “Dramyra is a nightmare faerie. Her sister rules the Nightmare Court.” “Well just give her my life story, why don’t you, Barsilla?” Dramyra sassed, folding her arms and locking with my eyes. The room fell silent. I sure as hell didn’t know what to say, so I did what I always did in that situation. . . asked a dumb question. “Excuse me, Dramyra?” She smiled at me. “Yes, royal pet?” I do not like it when she calls me that, I thought. In fact, I don’t like it when she calls me anything. Taking a deep breath as Barsilla turned to flash me a look that said, “Be careful, puppy,” I raised an eyebrow. “My mistress said you lived here in the human world permanently. I was wondering. . . how you survived here in a world of iron and without any glamour?” Dramyra ran a finger down one of her arms. “Well, for starters, all of my tools here in the office aren’t made of iron. They’re custom designed from silver. Not an ounce of iron here. And I assure you, I have all the glamour I need.” I must have looked like I had more questions because Dramyra pointed a finger at me. “You must not have a solid grasp on how glamour works. Glamour isn’t something that just exists naturally in this world or Faerie. Rather, fae produce glamour by feeding. Different fae feed in different ways. Your queen feeds off your affections as well as the power of her throne itself. And I. . . well, I feed off the fear of others.” That sounded pretty damn terrifying. . . which I’m sure was exactly the effect Dramyra must have intended because she just laughed when I slunk down into the couch. “Oh relax. It’s not so bad. I learned a few decades ago that there are some things mortals fear collectively as a species. And one of them?” It clicked in my head. “The dentist! I fucking hated visiting the dentist. Growing up, there was no place more terrifying. With every visit, I was petrified that I needed yet another filling or maybe even a root canal.” Dramyra looked pleased with my figuring it out. “Exactly. So, knowing this, I disguised myself as a dentist, opened this business, and the mortals bring me their terrified children every single day. All I have to do is walk up and down the hall with a mask on my face, looking at paperwork, and nobody suspects a thing. The entire office fills with fear, which I devour, and then I can produce all the glamour I need.” When I realized this, it was kind of ingenious. This was like. . . the ultimate business model for a nightmare fae like Dramyra. And if this place went belly up, she could always disguise herself as an IRS agent. Though that might get her more anger than fear. Barsilla cleared her throat. “Oh, yes. You were getting ready to explain why you showed up without warning. Well, go on, little piskie,” Dramyra said, her smile fading as she turned her attention back to Varella’s left-hand lady. Pulling out her little clipboard and an even smaller pencil, the piskie looked over a few things as if she was steadying herself for what had to be said. “Queen Varella is officially calling in her favor. Decades ago, she hid you—” “I know why I owe her,” Dramyra snapped, her sandy eyes glowing orange. “You can skip that part.” Barsilla quickly crossed something off on her papers. “Right, well, she wants you to make a request to your sister, the Nightmare Queen. Her majesty informed me Queen Trylla will grant you anything you ask of her.” The nightara rubbed her chin as she leaned against the wall even more. “It’s true. My little sister adores me. Though I don’t know what the Raven Queen would want from her.” I looked back and forth between the fae, finding myself wondering about how my mistress hid the nightmare fae before me. What were the circumstances? Was it a witness protection kind of thing? Did faeries even have need of that? It’s not like they can call some vacuum store and vanish to Alaska, I thought, scratching the back of my head. Barsilla looked down at her notes, not meeting Dramyra’s eyes when she relayed my mistress’ request. “The Raven Queen wants you to ask your sister for her vote in Kilgara.” Silence filled the room again as I heard Barsilla’s tiny heart beating like that of a hummingbird. She was sweating a little, too. But Dramyra’s mood changed almost instantly. She laughed louder than I’d heard before and threw her head back. “Ahahahaha! So, Queen Varella is making a move for Bliss. How interesting! Not in a thousand years would I have guessed such a thing. That ought to make for a very interesting summit with the other courts. Suddenly this mission of great importance made more sense. My mistress sent us to cash in a favor so she could try and stack the deck before we gathered with the other rulers of Faerie to decide who would host Bliss. The nightara locked eyes with me, and I felt more gooseflesh crawling over my arms and thighs. I really wished she would stop doing that. “Very well, piskie. I will do as the Raven Queen asks. It’s not like I have the power to refuse a favor when I’m in her debt. So you may scurry back with the young wolf here and tell her at least one vote is safely in her corner,” Dramyra said. “As for you, Sierra, I hope you're ready to meet folks even scarier than me. And I’d stick real close to that mistress of yours once you leave the halls of Featherstone. You have no idea just how many lords and ladies of Faerie would love to have themselves a pet werewolf. You’re quite—” “Rare,” I finished for her. “I’ve heard it before.” I sounded agitated, but I was just trying to mask my fear. I’d happily submit to my mistress a thousand times. But I was no fool. I knew there were cruel immortals all through Faerie that would find worse ways to hurt me than my father ever could have. And we were off to a summit where they’d all be gathered. As we left the dentist, I hoped and prayed my inner wolf had gotten at least a few memories of today and would understand she needed to carry the visage of an absolute killer. I didn’t want to end up in the clutches of a nightara. . . or worse. |
2023.06.08 07:08 CawfeePig Very weird thumbnail situation when saving videos to my Macbook. I'd really appreciate some help.
2023.06.08 07:06 JPM11S Superman: House of El #3 - Moving at Super Speed
2023.06.08 06:38 Electrical-Image4513 Purple shampoo but for brunettes?
![]() | Hi - can anyone please recommend a shampoo for hair dyed a dark brown base with (originally) dark blonde highlights? As seen in the pictures it has started to look orange. I have naturally pitch black hair. I’m looking for something I can start using right after I get it redone in a few weeks to maintain the color, not necessarily something that deposits color to change it back to the original dye job. But if it does deposit color I’m not against it. Don’t know much about hair coloring care so I appreciate your advice. submitted by Electrical-Image4513 to femalehairadvice [link] [comments] |
2023.06.08 06:23 whirlpool4 Events for Fri 6/9 - Sun 6/11
2023.06.08 05:45 xXsavagewulfXx What sort of non-animal-based foods have you not eliminated, despite eating Animal-Based?
2023.06.08 05:29 CriticalRenegade Sir John Phallustiff on Censored Mode Suggestion
2023.06.08 05:19 Short_Algo $BLK Awaiting Buy Signal based off 7 signals $905 net profit 6.05 profit factor 85% win rate on a 15-min chart. Free trial at https://t.co/yI1SPnacSZ https://t.co/Yv6KKIQTzm
![]() | submitted by Short_Algo to StockTradingIdeas [link] [comments] |
2023.06.08 05:18 SlimHearts 🟢 CHECK BELOW⭐1200+ ONLYFANS MEGA LEAKS 🔥ALL O.F. MODELS AND CELEBS🌸CHECK BELOW👇 ⬇️