Small nail salon ideas

So tonight, as I was putting on bio oil on my scars as I do daily, I noticed a small bubble right on the area of my scar which experienced some vertical stretching. Out of confusion I applied very slight pressure and it immediately began oozing blood and pus. I am six months healed post-op, my scars have been shut tight for the last five months, this isn't a stitch opening after recent surgery. I immediately put antiseptic ointment on it after it drained and there's this bizarre and rather gross little hole on my scar now. No idea what it could be, again as of only a few days ago the scar was just as healed in that area as across my chest and already fading significantly. Could this just be a very oddly placed pimple, or could something else going on? I don't have pictures of what it looked before it drained, but I can take pictures of it currently

Hi there,
So I have never lived in a house with central AC before. I currently live in Michigan, in a house that is 2000 sq ft (1400 first floor and 600 upstairs). I recently had a new 2.5 ton Trane AC system installed, and really have no idea what to expect. This past week, the weather was about 90°, and I turned the system on for the first time. The first day, the house was 80° inside when I first turned it on. After running afternoon/evening it was only able to cool the house to 78°. At night, outside temps dipped to around 60°, at which point the AC was able to cool the house. On the second day I left the unit at 68°, which it was able to do. However, I had been working outside and 68 just wasn't cool enough to help relax when I came in so I turned it to 64°. Like the day prior, it was not able to cool down from 68 until overnight when outside temps dipped down. So finally, on the third day I just started with the thermostat set to 63°. It was able to hold that temp all day, but the unit ran literally the whole day long with no break.
So my question is, is this normal? I know 63° when it's 90° is asking a lot, and I'm not expecting that, but I would have assumed the AC could cool an already warm house down. Or does central air need to be used with some planning, where you turn it on ahead of time to maintain cool temps? My parents house has AC, and it can cool the house drastically in 30 minutes. But they also have a small house surrounded by shade trees. My house is laid out in a ranch style where the air has to go across the whole house, and is in full sun. I know there's a million variables, and I know my house isn't well insulated in the attic either which I'm sure doesn't help, and I'm sure I could use more air intake vents, but it is an older house designed for heat only.
My other concern is that is it possible my unit is undersized? Having no idea about any of this going into it, I never questioned the estimate for a 2.5 ton unit, but now I'm wondering with my size house if I needed larger?
Again, this is all very new to me, and I've been trying to learn as much as I can from this subreddit. I just don't want to call them and look like an idiot if this is normal and how AC works, lol.
Any help, tidbits, or advice is greatly appreciated! I'm just hoping I didn't spend $5k on something that isn't right, lol

Hi! So I’ll try to be as clear as possible about what I’m looking for. I’ve taken a minute off of dating completely and I have a really good idea of what I’m looking for in a relationship.
First, if you’re just looking for a text buddy or something “online”, I’m not for you. I’m open to meeting someone from anywhere, as I realize what I’m looking for might not be right down the street. But I’m not looking for months of endless texting. I’m looking for something real. Distance isn’t an issue, I literally solve problems for a job, but if you’re not open to living in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest I’m probably not for you. I moved here a few years ago and I’m absolutely in love with it.
Anyway, about me. I guess in a nutshell I’m the most athletic nerd you’ll ever meet. I’m 5’8”, brown hair and green eyes. I play and coach soccer. I’m out on my mountain bike as often as possible. I love books, video games, crosswords, medical journals, and my dog and cat. I have a happy, chill little life that I love. After taking a minute away from dating I’ve decided I should probably make room for the right person. I’m not looking for a girl. I’m looking for “the” girl. Also no one thinks I’m 42. Most people guess early 30s and are shocked to find out my actual age.
About you: Small to medium sized. Cute. Sweetheart. AFFECTIONATE. Not constantly depressed. Loves animals. Wants something serious/long term. Funny is a bonus. Clingy is fine, as I keep my close friends circle pretty small.
Sexually: I’m pretty (very) Dom. So please at least lean submissive if not full blown. I don’t want to punch you in the face or anything, but choking, light slapping, and a good girl that gets hot being told what to do and loves getting praise for it is insanely attractive. I love affection. Kissing, touching, contact. Please LOVE having a guy go down on you. Please love holding hands in public. There is nothing hotter than a girl who acts like she knows who she belongs to.
Annnnnyway, if I sound like your type send me a message. I have some NSFW stuff on my profile if you’re curious. 🙂. Talk to you soon!
https://www.redgifs.com/watch/agitatedstableislandwhistler

It was always foggy and cold in a very small town in the mountains. People gave up walking up to the hills as the coldness made one’s bones shiver and the fog covered one’s eye sights. Even though no one ever went to the top of the mountains, there was a red-roofed house in a gloomy town there. On the way to the red-roofed house, there were tall wrinkly trees, houses that seemed abandoned, and old lanterns. During the nights, the tree branches swung as the cold night breeze blew. The shadows of the moving branches looked like a skinny ballet dancer tip-toeing. It was no wonder why villagers who dwelled under the mountain feared the mountain. During midnights, these eerie shadows danced ominously in the fading light as if it was trying to scare off people. It was here, in this haunting setting, that our story unfolds.
A young girl named Lily lived in the red-roofed house. Hiding from all people, she dwelled in the mountains with an air of anxiety clinging to her every step. Her daily life was monotonic as she lived by herself, waiting for the sun to set. She found comfort living alone, and she did not want to interact with anyone. So, she was very careful with locking the doors and was cautious if there was anyone approaching her. Only her trustful dog Cookie was a soul she relied on. She wandered through the desolate streets with him. Like usual, she went out to walk her dog to kill time. Her heart pounded with a mix of anticipation and dread as her mind clouded with disturbing thoughts. As if Cookie knew how she was stressed with the thoughts in her mind, he got closer to her. As soon as they passed an abandoned playground, memories from her past flooded her thoughts and transported her back to a time filled with joy and laughter. In that memory, there was her mom and her grandma; now, she has no one except herself and Cookie. She barely remembered what her mom looked like. Her squealing voice and her tall figure suddenly came across her mind. She screamed and broke down on the floor. “Breathe, Breathe. It’s okay she’s not here. I am alone. I am okay.” She panted as she placed her arms crossed, holding her shoulders.
As she sat down on a swing and looked down the mountains, trying to relax, she smelled the delicious scent of broccoli soup. It reminded her of the good days when she lived with her grandmother, who was the only person Lily trusted. During the weekends, they would go out to a nearby beach and listen to the melodic sounds of the splashing tides and the birds chirping in peace. The beach was her dearest place to spend time. Every single time, the tides had different color shades to her eyes. She never thought that the beach was blue. She saw different colors like silver, gold, and red. She was pleased by the beach because no matter how it changed colors all the time, people would always visit there and admire it. She thought that if she spent the majority of her time on the beach side, she would eventually be someone like the beach. She realized how she was being loved when she spent time on the beach with her. Lily's laughter echoed through the air as she swung higher and higher on the creaking swings.
The scrawny trees reminded her of the reality, and everything looked so dull now. Brushing off the sand, she got back on her feet. Lily's steps grew hesitant as her imagination conjured up dark figures lurking in the shadows. As the evening sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky with hues of crimson and violet, Lily quickened her pace. She felt like the sun was her only friend that accompanied her day no matter what. The sun was always shining on her as if it was reassuring her. When the sun went down, she felt abandoned. She felt attacked as if her friend was taken away from her. She took bigger gaps in the walk. She had to go home before it was dark. Clenching her fists, she felt it sweaty, but she also felt heat coming out from the top of her head. Every creak of a rusted gate or rustle of leaves sent shivers down her spine as if an unseen presence watched her every move. Glancing down to the villages again, she felt a quick shiver. The once familiar streets now felt like a labyrinth of uncertainty, each corner holding the possibility of something sinister. The darkness reminded her of her mom. Anxiety gnawed at her, fueling her desire to escape the encroaching darkness. The rhythmic tap of her shoes on the cobblestone seemed to echo with a sense of urgency as if the town itself whispered warnings of impending doom. Within each second, Lily's morbid curiosity intertwined with her growing fear. Her imagination conjured up scenarios of what horrors might await her around the next corner. The tension grew palpable, as if the very air held its breath, awaiting a dreadful revelation.
But just as the night threatened to consume her, a glimmer of hope appeared. A warm light spilled from a cracked window, casting a faint glow onto the street. Lily's heart skipped a beat as she recognized the silhouette of her home, a sanctuary amidst the encroaching darkness. Relief washed over her, momentarily easing the anxious grip that had held her captive. She heard a sound in her ears — it seemed like a white noise. On the top of the mountains, the air pressure is low. Was that the reason why she couldn’t breathe well? Was that the reason why she felt dizzy? As a dark shadow approached her from inside, her eyes unconsciously rolled and she felt the hard pebbles all over her body. Her eyes started to close on their own and she slowly was losing control of her own senses, and at that movement she realized she was about to collapse.
When she opened her eyes, the ceiling was the first thing she saw. As she turned her head to the side, she heard her bones crack. The humming sound was all she heard and the tik-tok of the brown clock.
“Lily, Lily, Lily”
She heard a voice calling out her name. She looked around and tucked in the blanket. She knew it. It was her mom. Just by recognizing her voice felt like the old bruises and scars were dimming on her body. The voice kept getting louder and squeakier.
“I should protect myself. I don’t want her to destroy my place here.” Lily cautiously crawled out of bed, being afraid that the figure would get any closer. She saw a bat under her desk and grasped it without hesitation.
“Let’s go down to check if she is there in the living room.” She stepped down the stairs very carefully. As she came downstairs, an old radio was on. The connection was weak, and it made unidentifiable screechy technological sounds. She tried to adjust the volume and the antenna, trying to figure out what it was saying. A man’s voice dimmed: “Ripley syndrome is the term for antisocial personality disorder that denies one's reality and believes that the fictional world they imagine is real. Many teenagers into adulthood can get this mental state and it often develops if one doesn't receive love…” She was baffled as it was unexpected. She grabbed​​ the bat and laid it on her elbow again, sliding her pupils left and right. “I am so scared that she will hurt me again. I have to protect myself now.” She could taste a bit of metal and blood on her tongue. Perhaps she was panicking. It has to be her mom. Thinking of her mom made her heart beat very rapidly. Her right eye twitched, and she could not stop picking her nails. As she had a traumatic relationship, her presence did not comfort her at all. She reminded her of the days when her mom would be mad at Lily. “Mom, I won’t forgive you for what you did. When will you stop hurting me as a way to heal yourself? I never got to be simply a child. I always had to be something more, and I will never have the chance to be a child again. You told me that I was your everything. But Mom, why was I never enough for you? You have hurt me so much that I have to heal to live,” she imagined telling her mom the words that never came out of her mouth in front of her. Her presence made Lily’s presence so small and invisible, and Lily did not want to live with her ever again.
Having searched every room of the house, Lily realized that she was in front of the last chamber of her house. “She must be here. I looked everywhere,” she whispered. She clenched her fists, and she kicked the door as forcefully as she could. Before she could proceed with her thoughts, she dropped her bat. Her red-roofed house in the mountains remained quiet. There was no sound but only an echo of the metal bat dropping to the floor.

I know I have seen similar posts before but I can't find any recent ones, so sorry if this is a repeat or I'm just bad at searching.
The situation is a bit complex.
I currently live in Latin America and I earn a salary in USD so I kinda do this already to an extend, however, where I live you can pay pretty much anything in USD, so most of the time I don't bother and when I do expend something in my country's currency it's usually small enough that I just handwave it and adjust the budget afterwards when I'm doing my weekly reconciliation.
But now it's about to become a lot more complex for me, in a few weeks I'm moving to Europe (HUGE YNAB win btw, this wouldn't have been possible without YNAB) and I have been estressing over how I'm going to deal with my budget now so it is at least somewhat accurate. For at least the first month or 2 I will continue to use my US bank account to recieve my salary while I finish up paperwork. I also have to option to move my salary payments to my wise account (or maybe N26) which does multicurrency expending very easily and at low cost but I still have no idea how I should budget.
Should I budget in euros and correct the account balance according to the exchange rate everytime I reconciliate, should I keep my USD budget and just wait for the transactions to hit the account to get the actual amount?
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
On a side note, any recommendations for good banks in Spain that play nicely with YNAB would be awesome.

I’m terrible at this apparently.
Here hoping for some luck even if it’s just friendship. I’m a photographer, a parent of one human, and the cliche lesbian cat mom of 3 and a fluffy doggo. A lot of my time goes into my kiddo, but I’m also outside adding to my garden, doing random sketches (if I like ya I’ll doodle for ya), skateboarding, or playing video games. I do more than that but I’m trying to give you an idea.
A connection is always great to find but I’m also down for a solid friendship. I look for deep conversations and try to stay away from small talk. I like getting to know people for who they really are.
Appearance wise I’m 5’9, average build, tattooed to the extent that counting is very difficult, blonde/silver short hair, blue eyes, glasses, and a nose ring.
I’m very much open to swapping photos and seeing if we get on.

I'm currently facing a persistent and frustrating issue with Unreal Engine. For context, I'm a Computer Science student who does student assistant work for my University where I help the school's faculty bring their ideas for XR (Extended reality, AR, VR etc.) to life for their classrooms. I am the only student working on this project, and I am being assisted by the head Engineering professor who is the head of this small 'Extended Reality department.'
For several months now, I've been working on a VR project for a geology professor but I have been at an absolute standstill due to this issue for a large majority of the time spent on this project. The overall idea is he wants to have a bunch of individual .LAZ files of some lidar-scanned geographical area created into one map. He wants this map to be a VR environment that can be navigated around. The core of this project involves importing a .udatasmith file of this geographical site's LIDAR environment scan into Unreal Engine. His students are then supposed to import a geological .tif map overlay that they've created on their own, align it with the environment in VR, and check its accuracy against a master (key) .tif file provided by the professor.
However, whenever I attempt to import the .udatasmith file into Unreal Engine, the engine crashes every time. I've tried importing the file into multiple versions of Unreal Engine with no success. I have tried importing on various versions of Unreal, such as 4.27.2, 5.0, 5.0.3, and 5.2 with the same result of it crashing every single time.I use the Unreal official Datasmith plugin. I import the file from City Engine in the UE format, and from within UE, I select the file and click on the 'Import' button, and then the crash of the entire engine begins.
The .udatasmith file was provided to me by my collaborator on this project. (The engineering professor- NOT the geology professor who the project is being created for.) Along with this, they also provided a .cej file (CityEngine project file) which viewed in City Engine is the map for LIDAR environment scan. When I open the .cej file in City Engine, the environment appears, but it's very very transparent.
I've tried a few things to troubleshoot this, such as ensuring that my hardware meets the requirements for running Unreal Engine and checking for any obvious corruption or issues with the .udatasmith file itself. However, I've been unable to identify or resolve the issue that's causing Unreal Engine to crash.
I'm at a bit of a loss here, and I'm reaching out in the hope that someone might have encountered a similar issue or could provide some insight into what might be going wrong.
Any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance for your help.

Hey TTT25, long time sub member using a throwaway so I don't get doxxed. I got into 3 out of the 7 ivies I applied to along with USC. Penn and Brown were my top choices and I officially decided to attend Penn. Here are my stats - DM me if you need any help!
Demographics:

• Indian, Female
• State school on the West Coast (2 years)
• No financial aid

Academics:
Major: CS + Psychology
GPA: 3.9 GPA HS: 3.75
ACT: 33 ACT
ECs:

• Created an app that has gained traction

Essays:
Personal statement:

• Wrote a story about my mobile app and how the idea came to me and how tech can be leveraged for good to impact entire communities

Why Transfer:

• Wrote that I wanted to attend a smaller college/work closer with professors

Others:

• Wrote about my heritage and how I paid for part of my education dancing at Indian weddings/events. Included how I was trying to keep traditions within our communities by teaching other girls how to dance (katak).
• I grew up in small town America and was bullied for the food I brought to lunch.

Overall:

• Tried to make my application very diverse in terms of things I was interested in and what I was doing to give back to my community. All of my essays were very different topically but had unifying themes.
• I put a strong emphasis on my reasons for transferring

Admissions Results:
Acceptances: Penn, Brown, Columbia, USC
Rejections: Harvard, Yale, MIT, Cornell, Stanford, Princeton, CMU

For context, I have been a Chessable user for like 5 years now. However, I only recently acquired a powerful computer that has allowed me to analyze positions much more efficiently than before. I've been amazed by some of the ideas I have found myself, and I can say that I have a generally improved understanding of how to study courses like those on chessable.
​

1. To start, I should probably say this idea can't apply to everyone. Ideally, you should be at a point in your chess growth where you have a very good understanding of the kind of player you are. I value piece activity and I'm often willing to make small sacrifices to get that. I generally like to finish my opponents before I reach endgames. If I have to play an endgame, I tend to prefer openings that give me a chance at being the better side in an endgame. If you can't honestly answer specific questions about how you like to play. There is no point doing any of this.
2. Of course, you need access to a powerful engine. I know many people won't fit my profile, but there are ways to get your hands on decently powered engines if you know how. There are websites that will give you access to their cluster for a small fee. ChessTempo will let you run your lines on the engine cluster for like $3 or $4 a month.

I've found that in many cases where I seem to have a hard time committing a particular course line to memory, it's because it doesn't jive with my playstyle. Sometimes it has nothing to do with playstyle, some lines straight up don't make sense. Authors will very often choose bizarro "engine-approved" lines to put in their courses as a way to differentiate themselves. The good ones will make an attempt to at least explain the ideas behind the lines. The bad ones won't bother. They'll expect you to just memorize. In times like these, don't hesitate to run the lines yourself. You may find better lines, or at least lines that make sense to you. You can mix things up.

I (20F) have been dating my boyfriend (21M) for a year & a half now. He’s a very easy-going and respectful guy. however, I feel bored and a getaway seems perfect. I have been working nonstop as I’m going on vacation in 10 days. there’s also a lot of miscommunication. On saturday I had family event in a small town with no service and when I woke up in the morning, I saw a long message of him saying that he had no idea that I didn’t service and that he’s sorry for being upset. I didn’t even know he was upset to begin with, and I talk to him yesterday saying I feel bored, and the only thing he said was there’s nothing to talk about since his life is boring and when I try to start a conversation, I would just get a simple “mhm” now here’s where I might be the asshole. I’m if you’re a believer that you should not find anybody else attractive while in a relationship. I’ve had a couple guys ask for my number while I’m working. and I didn’t turn them down because I had a boyfriend, but rather because I was working. and I want to be free on my vacation but i’m selfish for wanting to come back to him once i return. I told my friend about this, and he said no I’m stupid and I will regret it. but honestly, I believe that once I come back from vacation while I’m still dating him, the miscommunication will make things worse. even if I do decide to sever ties with him. Should I break up with him before I go on vacation or stay with him till the very end?

I'm hoping this post will result in some ideas to help fire me up about using it more often. Ever since buying it, I've used it Nights and a few other games but it's not really doing much for me. The funny thing is, I've been a diehard Dreamcast fan since the turn of the millennium, so I'm used to the shape and all... but maybe that ends up working against me? Because I'm so used to the DC pad, the small differences are just enough to throw me off.
I dunno, sell me on it! Tell me everything you like about the 3D Pad and your favorite games to use with it.

Part 1
"When we Firmas were pushed north into the Pyrimian mountain valley after the death of their chain of command, they settled down and instead of focusing on expansion focused on necessities like food. With co-operation from the first goblins and other creative minds that joined the First Wave of the migration, they managed to grow food over the summer in first-iteration greenhouses. "My parents were part of the first wave. They were old for a couple, but joined the Firma clan in founding a government and keeping the area safe, as well as spreading word. The dragonic gods didn't like their behavior at all; cities burning is more entertainment for them, so they were the first to be Forsaken in this era, publicly, in the main square of the old Dragonic Capital. "However, that backfired, with more and more dragons tired of running around and fighting all the time, they decided to settle down in a place where nobody would bother them; now that they had this place given to them, and the Second Wave started. Basically the entirety of the dragonic clans and several other species amassed in this wave, and the Sapient Unification Government held. "My parents had an egg in one of the more northern caves, right on the coast. Then, the third wave arrived and everything went downhill from there. "The Unification Wars were fought between those who wanted one government to cover this region, and those who wanted governments segregated by species. This would have been fine if the secessionists didn't step in on people's behalves, without their consent; it took fifteen years of war for the war to end. Millions died and some species like the Snow Fox beastpeople almost went extinct. My parent were part of the death wave. "The war evolved so rapidly it was impossible for a commander to last more than two months. It started with sticks and stones and within a month there were arrow volleys. A year saw guns, two tanks, three battleships, four planes. Bombs, bigger bullets, bigger guns, bigger bombs. "In the last few months of the war, the first nuclear devices were used, creating miniature stars on the land with immense destructive potential unleashed. It ended with mutually assured destruction protocols being activated, and when all was said and done the land was a snow-fallen irradiated dustball. "It took years for the survivors to pick up the remnants of our short-lived civilization and restart it into the Terra Firma Sapience Union. All the time, my egg didn't hatch because I had no incubator, but didn't die thanks to my ice type. It was located close enough to a mana vein where I just... absorbed the entire vein. When the cave was found by explorers following maps for my parents den, all they found was my egg glowing brighter than Sunstones. "I was taken to an incubation facility in Cellyia, one of the bigger cities. There I hatched, and after more than one test I grew. My growth was still... affected by the time without an incubator, so my already slow growth stopped after fifty years instead of continuing to infinity. And then I took some magic courses, did my best to drain my mana reserves, and settled down here, well away from... the bustle of Cellyia. It never quite felt like a home, you know. It was a good place to grow up, don't get me wrong, but I like it here better. Remote, and in the same place my parents met for the first time. As much as I can tell, anyway; a number of records were destroyed in the Unification War. "When your heroes continued to come up here, I would be the one on first guard. Damming a river, I used water magic to break it. Trying to destroy some transit infrastructure, I would be the first one to either fake it, finish it off, or lure them away. When your latest one decided to head for Cellyia, it was out of my range for such activities. I shadowed the party on the way and let others take care of it. "I never thought that your 'heroes' would be heartless enough to burn what they were told and even acknowledged as a hospital with patients inside. A library and museum with most of our pre-unification works inside. An orphanage, a school... an entire neighborhood of ten thousand citizens' homes. What for? To try to kill just one of us. "We... couldn't take that kind of behavior. Cellyia might have not been the best place for someone with my personality to grow up, especially without parental figures, but that orphanage still had some good memories. An all-citizens vote was called, an all-citizens vote was passed, and we started a counter-offensive military campaign into your Civilization Nations. We've been waiting for you elves, leaders of the Civilized Nations, to advance your society; it's been seven hundred years, all the most you've done is grow your population and add an extra floor to your townhomes. "So we're going to do it for you. You ran our patience down, so we're going to change your society for you. Is it a repeat of the Unification War? I don't think so, given that you Civilized Nations never rescinded the declaration of war against us 'monsters' over two thousand years ago; one that you still follow through on to this day. "But that isn't the end of my story. "When the gods forsook us, they tried to pry away our magic, our land, and our lives. So we defended. Space radars monitor their movements on the mortal plane. There's so many more technical details I can go into. All I can tell you is, at one point, the old god of Dragonic Princess-kidnapping; yes, they were a god; they came and asked us to restart worshiping them. "That went over as well as you'd expect, and the next thing that happened... was that I absorbed her mana and powers. Technically, I am an undefined god, and... at this point, I'm afraid to get a definition. "What if it's something I don't like? Something evil, immoral... something my parents, the leaders of the Second Wave, wouldn't be proud of? What if... what if it kills me? Everyone hates me? I'd no longer be free... "So my solution was to hide. Here, in a mountain cave in the middle of nowhere. This is my life, all of it... and I don't know where to go from here." ----- "So... you're a god?" I asked. I couldn't think of another question to ask. "Yes and no." The cat replied. It did nothing to satisfy my fearful curiosity. How could one both be and not be a god? "Princess-kidnapping was a... niche god, rarely prayed to by still enough to be, you know, and actual deity. So her mana ran out first, and most of it dissipated back into the environment yada yada yada, but like the sponge my mana reserves are, I sucked more of it up than I should have; enough to had just a slight touch of divine control. On par with a low-level demigod. If I was omnipresent, I'd solve me problems with a snap of my claws, and then I wouldn't be hiding from my problems here." "If your powers came from a god, how are yours undefined?" My mind was seeking knowledge now. I was a mage, after all, and this was more than just the opportunity of a lifetime; it was the opportunity of a aeon. "Because I absorbed her essence from the environment before it had the chance to fully dissipate, but still late enough where it was no longer hers." Vixie shrugged "Or something like that, mana gets weird sometimes. All that matters now is my stockpile is slowly increasing its grow rate, which gets annoying pretty fast." "Annoying?" The cat laughed again. "Do you think this is all of my baseline reserve? Half of the reason I stay away from the rest of society is because the last time someone with multiple aura got involved with politics..." She trailed off, and then let another, this time impeccably cast illusion fall. The air around her was burnt crisp with the power of several mandatory auras in her current small size. Twelve tails flicked behind her back, eleven of them made of energy. Floating specs of light, some smaller while others the size of ice crystals surrounded the air around her. The six orbs on her back were joined by six more, and were attached to a ring. Her head had two halos, and her entire body was engraved with glowing lines. If she before radiated power, now she was made of it. The lights on the cave's ceiling flickered as more and more of the illusion fell away. Geometric shapes orbiting her body, a platform made of mana at her feet, lightning whizzing between all sorts of objects. Finally, it was gone, and the cat that stared at me with big, sad, glowing blue eyes had told me her deepest secret. As soon as it had started, the illusion repaired itself, and before me was one cat, a halo, six orbs, two crystals, and two mana tails. I did the second most instinctive thing when it came to seeing a cat. I pulled her in for a hug. There was a quickly quieted hiss as she squirmed a bit in my grip, trying to get more comfortable, before letting herself get stroked by me. Several images flashed before my eyes, and a tear came out of mine. We had gone to war against the less lucky sapients on our world, and were now paying the price. It felt like hours, but then my stomach growled, reminding me I hadn't eaten in literal days. Vixie shot out of my grip and led the way down into the cave. I followed, and soon enough I was eating some salted crackers with dried meat and cheese while Vixie moved around between other caves. "What are you doing?" I asked her between bites. "Packing," She replied. "Why?" "It's time I got out of here and, to follow the phrase, touched some grass." ----- It took three days for the elf, whose name was Nick, to recover enough to be able to make the journey to Cellyia. In those three days, I realized just how - and why - the Civilized Races looked at us the way they did. For starters, I'd forgotten just how many things ran on electricity, let alone other, more complicated mechanics. Pressurized water, instant hot water, even sinks, showers, and toilets were all completely unknown to the 'civilized races.' Ah, yes. Civilized without toilet paper. Bitter ramblings about the people who set off the chain reaction of events that killed my family aside, those were the second longest three days of my life; the first was my thirteenth birthday so I could get a personal HUD and social media. I was also a mess of thoughts. The elf had shown me, over the course of the three days - aside from the two-minute get-my-life-together moment - that I couldn't hide from my problems forever, or they would team up and try to hunt me. Hence my new, reluctant guest from the overflowing hospital they had oh-so-nicely delivered to my door. I had words for the medical staff. And I was also a mess of thoughts. Did I mention that one already. In all seriousness, Nick adapted to electronics pretty well. All I had to do was explain what it was, what it did, and file it under the name of science. It took an impressive four minutes of rambling about quantum mechanics before Vick realized that he was in way over his head asking how the 'magic rock that can half-think with bottled lightning' worked. He backed out when I yanked a textbook from my knowledge hoard and flipped through the pages to the start to explain how quantum superposition affected the set of particles it was entangled to. Fun. Finding out what toothbrushes were took some convincing, but soon the elf's teeth started to recover from lack of proper dental care. Food was easier than I expected, and Vick was pretty accepting of whatever I tossed on his plate. Except for artichokes, for some reason he hated those. Over the three days we bonded, and Nick got pretty used to life in my home. On the second day I moved him to the guest bedroom I had built but never maintained, but one wave of my paw and a splurge of magic later that was solved. "Why don't you use magic more often?" Nick asked. I explained that was much as I wanted to burn my reserves like they were a forest before a forest fire, the mental strain was tough without learning proper casting, which requires one to drain their reserves to practice wielding physical willpower. That meant that I was caught in an infinite loop of negativity, so I could only get away with a couple spells a day before the mental exhaustion metaphorically turned my brain to mush. On the morning of the fourth day, we left. Honestly, Nick could have left on the first day but I wanted him to be able to have the stamina to walk around for hours on end with me in Cellyia. Either way, as long as he kept by me it would be fine. There was a small population of elves, humans, and dwarves who had come up to the TFSU for one reason or another and never left, which meant that he wouldn't be too far out of place. My plan, instead of just flying into the Cellyia while steering clear of the airport, was to make it to the closest town, Lymian, and take a train from there north to Union Station. It would dump us a bit further downtown than I liked, but Cellyia was built in levels, and I could take the footpath level to wherever I needed. All said and done and one passenger seat clipped to my saddlebag harness on my dragon form, I opened the door to my cave. And was promptly blocked by a wall of snow. "Right," I half-grumbled. I enjoyed tunneling through snow, but spray would make the entrance cave wet and that wouldn't dry for another couple days, and until it did the sound of drips would echo throughout my home like nothing else. Either way, checking one last time that Nick was secure, I prepared my wings and powered forward. The snow and ice parted for me, and then melted and fixed itself back together behind me as I power-swam through the snow the same way I would through water. After ten seconds of this, I burst up from the snow-covered mountain the snowstorm had left behind and started to change my heading for Lymian. It would take thirty minutes of flying to get there, as I was flying lower and slower than usual to take care of my passenger, but we soon enough turned the next mountain and saw the town. The elf gasped as he took in the sights, while I kept my eye out for more activity. It had been fortified as a military base due to the war, but not by much; the town was useless from a defensive standpoint anyway. I spotted the next train arriving from its winding track around the next mountain, which also meant that I was a bit early. The citizens of Lymian were used to my presence, as I usually stopped by to pick up supplies and occasionally a bit of correspondence. So when I landed on top of a several story tall snow pile, nobody cared. I let Nick out, and then transformed into my cat form and slid down the snow pile to start to jogging towards the train station. That's when I remembered that unlike me, elves without snowshoes do not float on snow. Oops. ----- The sights were more than pretty, more than beautiful... If the gods had rejected these people, they might have just as well done it out of jealousy. After I'd been dropped off on top of a snow mound, I immediately flattened myself on my stomach to not fall through. I'd been in more than enough snowstorms and snow mounds to know how it would go if I didn't. The cat climbed the hill below me, reappearing as naturally as the snow fell. "Sorry," Vixie apologized. "Here, let me..." I felt the snow melt around me and we descended down to the ground. Vixie glowed brightly, literally; Even using as little magic as reshaping some snow was threatening to cascade out of her form. We moved to the train station without incident, where the massive 'train cars' were loaded full of passengers and cargo and then taken off towards the big city. Apparently this was the same one the hero burned, but the 'rebuilding and recovery efforts we going well; no critical infrastructure had been severely damaged.' Either way, the ride there was uneventful. Stepping out into Union Station was different. It was like I had entered a busy capital marketplace or square, with everyone rushing in another direction to another place. I trailed after Vixie, where even the oddity of an elf in these mountains was outshone by just how many different races there were; beastkin and kobolds and orcs and undead all filled the streets in, well, peace. "The city is built in layers," Vixie explained. "So while yes, residential and office towers here in the capital were set alight, underground public transit, personal transit, and cargo and fluid transit was all untouched, so we were able to circle around the hero and put out the fires to be replaced with smoke generators, and a couple holograms snatched from a nearby cargo transport." I had no idea what any of that meant, only that the city also had extensive underground bits. The towers soared over everything, and lights covered every spare centimeter of the city. Vixie led me down market stalls, across plazas, through parks and through building lobbies. Eventually, the babble increased, something I didn't think was possible. "Welcome to the commercial district," Vixie said after she had pulled me into a corner away from the masses of people and crowds moving around. "We're right near the harbor, and when we get there I'm going to show you the lighthouse and explain the city a bit better." I almost lost track of Vixie as we continued to move through the throngs of people going about their daily lives. I saw a couple boarded up shops, but most of them were either undamaged or didn't care about the scorch marks on their shops. Jewelry boutiques and grocery stores lived in tandem with furniture stores and a massive slab of too-smooth-to-be-natural stone of a rock type I had never seen before. It was covered in signs depicting some kind of diagram. Right around the corner was the waterfront, with a massive promenade running alongside it. Snow-covered trees lined the walkways, and soon enough Vixie and I came out of the crowd near a large, tall abandoned - though no unmaintained - building. "Right then," Vixie explained and started climbing. "Here's the old lighthouse, it's perfect for seeing the city. They never officially decommissioned it, so it's still legal to climb and properly maintained, but they never use it either." "What was the large thing they were building?" I asked, clambering onto the next ladder. "That? Oh, that was the space elevator." Vixie replied. "The ground part has been completed for three years now, we're just waiting for the rest of the nanotubes to make it into orbit and then run a kevlar cord up, follow it down with the space-grade heavy-duty nanotube cord, and then that's that." "Space?..." I was confused. "When the gods said that they were higher than mortals, you took that both figuratively and literally; they live above you and in a higher dimension. In this case, space is where they live in terms of height, but not number of dimensions. We're working on interdimensional travel, and interuniversal too, but those aren't replicatable on any sort of large scale yet." Vixie shrugged. "Either way, it's not like I care." "But you have it?" I pressed. "Dimensional travel." "Yes." She replied. "Well," I let out a short laughed. "The Civilized Nations are screwed over." "That's putting it lightly," She climbed on top of the last platform and showed me the city against the setting sun, lit up brighter than the night sky and more lively than the earth. It was beautiful. I sat there and watched the city glow with a power not even the gods had, side by side with not a dragon or monster, but a friend. END. A/N: Rushed this last bit of the arc, but school is ramping up at the end of the year so it was either fast story or incomplete story, and I chose fast story. Happy pride month, everyone, and I hope to see more of you when I have more time.
Original Prompt: [WP] For as long as all the races have known, Dragons have been seen as violent, destructive creatures. After an attack on your village, you black out and find yourself in the den of a dragon. It's rather annoyed that that is how they're seen, and wants to prove that isn't the case.
u/Lycan_Jedi thank you for the prompt!
Part 1

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Ch. 1085 p2
Hello once again! I'll start with page 2 so I can spare you from the atrocious Franky scribble in the cover.
Last chapter was an absolute rehash of past moments and though not to the same length, this chapter starts like that as well. There's nothing going on in this page other than we being told, just like 5 years ago, that no one should be sitting on the empty throne, but since we already knew Imu does, this time it's not a shock for us.
By the way, WTF happened to Cobra in the big panel? I know he's supposed to be bending a bit forward and coughing, but last time I checked he didn't have that hump on his back. We've seen fodder victim to Law's shambles be more anatomically correct than Cobra here.
I also didn't want to talk much about this becaue it's a recurring theme, sadly, and I think everyone is well aware by now, but I just had an epiphany looking at something I thought I'd never see: The Gorōsei drawn as a doodle in a big panel. And I just wanted to share it with you:
Right-most gorōsei totally looks here like an old version of the gentleman with the amazing horse.
Look at my horse
And... if you don't mind scrolling back up a bit, you're surely used to the huge margins of empty whitespace around characters where backgrounds disappear because of pure laziness and lack of actual teamwork between Oda and his assistants (The scribbled gorōsei are drawn by Oda, the a bit more detailed background is drawn by the assistant(s)).
But, why are there random spots of empty whitespace at the wall behind the swords?? O_o What's the meaning of that?
Ch. 1085 p3
Cobra asks Imu for his/her identity and says he remembers that name from history class. However, Imu doesn't want to answer.
Why not? Imu and the gorōsei are determined to kill Cobra before he gets out of the room. Why answer some questions and not others? This doesn't make sense in the story. This is just Oda controlling which bits of information we get and which we don't.
He wants to put something on the chapter, so the chapter exists but at the same time not let us know things that we should naturally learn from the chapter. This will get worse in a moment.
So, the question: Is Imu one of the 20 kings who founded the World Government? Might be. Personally, if I were to get a throne for me and me alone throughout 800 years, I would not have it made many times bigger than how I need it to be.
Also, if Cobra can learn of "Imu" by reading history, "world government seal of approval" history, then everyone can and there's even less of a reason not to tell him. But whatever. Let's see what Imu answers:
"D. is the name of our ancient enemy". Nice. Really, thank you very much Imu, we had never heard that one before. You certainly solved Cobra's and our every doubts about the meaning of "D." Previously I said Oda wanted to put some info in the chapter but not all, didn't I? Well, scratch that. There's nothing actually new.
Didn't he say "from here on out I'm going to write all the answers to the mysteries of the world"? If he doesn't want to reveal the meaning of "D." yet, it's okay, but if he just teases us like this, like always, then that's not "answers to the mysteries" and it feels like he's just trolling us again and again.
Imu talks about Lili's "blunder". Is that really the appropriate word? Or a mistranslation? It'll be relevant later.
Look at Imu sitting on the throne for a moment. Why is Imu completely 2-dimensional? I mean, everything is 2-dimensional in a paper sheet, but why is Imu 2-dimensional even when accounting for the perspective? Imu is completely flat on the throne. Like a towel left over it. Is Imu really meant to be flat? Or is this just Oda's next level of "I couldn't care less about drawing well anymore"?
Ch. 1085 p4
Okay, there's a little bit of drama going on in this page and I'll get to that in a moment, but first and foremost: How can I take any of this seriously when the one telling me about this drama is nothing else than the spillover of Oda's inkwell??
Everyone has been talking about the extreme overuse of silhouette piece this chapter because of the gorōsei showing not showing their powers, but the truth is that Imu has already had more than enough screentime, so that she's no longer a stain of ink in the paper.
It's perfectly okay if you want to not properly show a character in order to create some mystery and tension around it. We're even more than okay with having a black spot placeholder rather than an actual character even though there is no reason, story-wise, why the character shouldn't be seen. We accepted that long ago.
But that's always under the circumstance that the character is being introduced. And this is no longer the case with Imu. She's been doing things, creating consequences and more importantly, she's now holding conversations with other characters and with ourselves directly. This is way past being a teaser for the character, and this is completely unacceptable.
Oda should make up his mind, does he want Imu to take the spotlight or does he want her appearance to be a mystery? But it's not possible to put the character on the spotlight and pretend it's fine to never actually draw it.
In fact, there's a pretty easy way for Oda to reasonably get away with it. He's used it plenty of times as well. The chocolate character. He just needs to put a mask on Imu's face and that's it. Mystery continues and we get our manga with actual images.
Whenever he feels like, he can unwrap the chocolate and never wrap it again. King, Duval... the list is long. No one would have cared for one more.
So, the drama... Imu claims the poneglyphs were scattered around the world, that they were "released". Implying that the poneglyphs once were all together and under the custody of the World Government. She blames Nefertari Lili for that and wonders whether it was an accident or treason on her behalf. Imu says that was the worst possible outcome for them.
Call me an optimist if you want, but keeping control of most of the world for at least 800 years doesn't sound to me like "the worst possible outcome" nor a bad outcome in any way.
Also ¿WAT? The poneglyphs were under W.G's custody? How come?? The faction opposed to the 20 kingdoms that would late found the W.G. created the poneglyphs in coalition with the Kōzuki clan as a way to prevent history from being erased by the W.G. but then all the poneglyphs are somehow under W.G control??
Ch. 1085 p5
Is Cobra really begging for his life here? Did he not know how likely it was to die here when he came to raise all these topics? And more importantly, why did he do it? Is there any reason at all why Cobra would come here to risk his life (and endanger her daughter's) just to be pain in the ass to the gorōsei?
Does any of this have any explanation? Or is this the only way Oda came up to give us some exposition to what Imu says?
How disastrous it is to have characters act in unreasonable and unbelievable ways just to create a specific situation to provide info to the reader and then hide as much information as possible in that scene at the same time?? What's the point?? Does Oda want to explain a story here or does he not??
Ch. 1085 p6_7
Sabo is there in the same room, Cobra reveals Queen Lili had the "D." middle name, a gorōsei attacks him and Sabo intervenes attacking the gorōsei and Imu back. Let's go about it one thing at a time:

• Nefertari D. Lili.
  • Last page Imu seemed to be aware of that and simply wanting Cobra to confirm it, but now she seems surprised, like she actually needed an answer from Cobra to know.
  • Wasn't Lili one of the 20 founders of the W.G? How come is she a "D." too?
  • Wouldn't that fact be quite notorious back then, so that the Nefertari lineage was known for it to this day? At least by the gorōsei and Imu??
  • Between this and last chapter this part has been very obscure but, Queen Lili never made it back to Arabasta after founding the W.G. and the gorōsei said she might have "suffered an accident" *wink wink* if you know what I mean...
  • And Oda made it look like Lili's "accident" was a punishment for "scattering the poneglyphs".
  • Without going too deep in how did she manage to do that, to give poneglyphs back to the close-bordered Wano or to Laugh Tale, really, how did she put a poneglyph on the family's mausoleum if she never returned there???
• Sabo is there, huh?
  • No one noticed.
  • The gorōsei don't have the most basic observation haki to know there's someone else in the room. Neither does Imu. Nice.
  • Is the "smothered mate" move actually Sabo's? It's kind of difficult to be sure who's saying what. Just as it's hard to know what's exactly happening. The gorōsei are met with a huge burst of fire but Sabo sends to Imu a small flame that crawls over the wall and stairs like a snail?? WTF?
• Cobra attacked.
  • According to the position from which Cobra is attacked, it looks like our friend Garcia is the one doing it.
  • The question though is: WHY?
  • Why would they attack Cobra like that so suddenly? Like they just lost their patience when he answered the question. Imu could want to know more. Why attack him like that? The gorōsei never looked to me like the impulsive type of guys.
  • Can Garcia risk killing Cobra while Imu still wanted to get more information from him? What would happen to him if that were the case?
  • By the way, didn't they all prepare their guns a page ago? What was that? You show the gun just to attack with an arrow-shaped tail? O_o

Ch. 1085 p8_9
A Den Den Mushi takes a picture of Sabo next to the injured king Cobra. Cobra recognizes Sabo as Luffy's brother. Sabo tries to leave with Cobra, but the king asks him to let him go and deliver a message to Luffy and Vivi instead.

I was hoping to take you all out in one move. - Sabo

Is this a joke or what?

There's no way I could've known people here would be strong. - Sabo

What are we supopsed to do with this text? It is no more and no less than the principal speech bubbles in this double page. Did Oda forget to fill in these bubbles and then just before publishing someone realized and had to write the first thing that came to mind? As a joke, I would have laughed way more if the bubbles read "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..."
Can someone remind me since when does Cobra know Sabo and Luffy are brothers??
Okay, okay, let's talk about the important stuff. The gorōsei and Imu transformed / summoned a stand / were tag teamed by some substitutes... how could we know, right? When everything is just a big stain of ink.
There are hundreds of ways of teasing about someone's powers or any feature in general and this must be the worst one or one of them. I'm not going to extend on this. Is unacceptable no matter how you look at it.
Some of you who know of the book might find a connection between the ink stains and these guys
Where the wild things are by Maurice Sendak
However, I want to share with you the actual model used for one specific silhouette:
One punch-Man (manga) Ch. 100 (originally 97) p12
I find it astonishing how close to this looks the shadow second from the right.
Ch. 1085 p10
Nefertari D. Cobra, Nefertari D. Vivi... Cobra wants Luffy to know they share the "D."
First, new hidden "D."s, just like Trafalgar Law. They were not special enough and now Oda makes them more special because...
https://preview.redd.it/ev112fgoqa4b1.jpg?width=620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ed59c05829caa5563b5da1357d6bdfe395d256a4
I don't know... I find this very boring. We started the chapter with the prospect of finally getting some answers about the meaning of "D." but we just got this instead.
And I wonder, why does Cobra want Luffy to know? Cobra doesn't know its meaning, Luffy doesn't know either... this information is totally useless for anyone. Why not tell someone, Luffy or not, about Imu existing? That would make more sense. That is actual information that might be relevant to someone.
I think this message thing was just an excuse for Cobra to confirm on screen that he and Vivi are Ds. Which, again, couldn't not matter any less.
The page ends with the anticipation of the inky tail. Or not. You can't build any anticipation for something we already know you're not going to show us. Least of all when you've got a track record by which we know by the time this is actually revealed, this arrow-shaped tail can perfectly be an octopus' tentacle or something even further from this silhouette.
Ch. 1085 p11
Ink strikes back. Multiple depictions of black shapes that add nothing to the reader. And Cobra stands to let himself be killed as Sabo escapes.
Congratulations! You just made Cobra a D in time so that he could die NOT smiling, and now the only thing we knew about D people isn't true anymore.
We came to the chapter to take something from it, and the chapter took it from us instead. Awesome. Can this get any better?
Ch. 1085 p12
YES it gets even better: Wapol was watching everything through a glory hole in the throne's room. Can you believe that??
The most luxurious place in the whole world and it has a hole in the wall. Why would they not repair that hole? Why would Imu make such a blunder? And she was the one speaking of "blunders" before. The irony...
The gorōsei realize someone's watching through the hole. They, who could hurt Sabo's logia body a second ago, won't be able to get to Wapol now. He'll manage to escape too. The gorōsei and Imu won't take further action to stop Wapol.
Seeing this, I wonder whether Cobra could have actually escaped as well. Maybe he did and will make an appearance later. Fake death's are a classic after all.
HA! I wrote that for a manga where so few characters die and, when they do, it's done in a very epic or emotional scene, Cobra's death was very shallow. Then I remembered Ashura Dōji and Izō so I had to fix this paragraph.
Ch. 1085 p13
Now Oda wants us to remember than in this new reality, the Ryūgū royal family didn't left Mariejoise yet and that the Reverie is still going on.
So... the kings were waiting for Cobra. No one said he wasn't going to attend. Personally, I think Cobra would have attended every meeting and only then, with his responsibilities taken care of, he would meet the gorōsei, but I get this is very nitpicky when the plot is moving forward through glory holes in the middle of the royal palace.
On the other hand, "they just received word" that Cobra and Wapol wouldn't attend. Why? Why would Wapol not attend? What was he doing? I mean, we just saw what he was doing, but what's the excuse? He didn't know what was going to happen there and I bet he didn't knew about the glory hole beforehand, so... what was he doing?
Who knows... the important thing is the kings just received word those two weren't attending the meeting. They didn't receive word, though, about a major terrorist attack two blocks from there, admirals fighting and even calling for a meteor strike.
Why is this meeting going on under this circumstances?? There are actual world nobles hurt over there and even Charloss hurt right there. The idea that these meetings went on like they were completely detached from the world is delusional.
Ch. 1085 p14
Hm... First Vivi was being escorted by Rob Lucci and went all the way to the port (not saying good bye to Shirahoshi, where's her diplomacy??) and now the other CP90 have her kidnapped.
Jabura looking like a maniac is out of character. Kalifa being cruel for no reason is out of character as well. What happened to the cool, fun and easygoing CP9??
No, really, what happened to them? It's been a long while since they've been slowly returning to the story as CP0 agents and... well, so far we've got no explanation why this is the situation.
It's not like they were promoted from CP9 to no CP0. Remember that after losing at Enies Lobby the World Government itself tried to kill them. They escaped and swore revenge against the government. So, I think an explanation is not only in order but long overdue if we're to accept that they work for the government again with such passion.
And why is it so hard to have the characters retain their personality? This is so sad. They were the funniest villains in One Piece (and badass at the same time) and not they're not one thing nor the other.
Ch. 1085 p15
And just like this we go from CP9 bullying Vivi to them having a casual conversation with her. Great. Totally reasonable.
I wonder how relevant Sai and Leo saying they're part of the Mugiwara fleet can be, but I'm way more concerned about why Jabura is speaking in past tense of things that should be happening right this instant. I'm talking about the admirals fighting each other.
Anyway, admiral Broccoli was complaining that they couldn't fight properly against the revolutionaries because of the place they were, but he had no problems in fighting properly against Fujitora at the same exact place. Nice.
And Fujitora let (or helped) the slaves to escape. Sure. He was already threatened by the world nobles that they would have his head if he did anything against them (or just failing) and now we must believe that he openly helped the slaves and later he was sent on another mission like nothing happened.
Ch. 957 p4
That after freeing the slaves of the world nobles, Akainu would be having a casual conversation about how Fujitora got what he wanted regarding the abolition of the Shichibukai and about the SSG and Big Mom and Kaidō. Absolutely.
Akainu practically banished Fujitora just for making the Marines look bad in Dressrosa but he has nothing to say regarding Fujitora helping the revolutionary army against the world nobles and even getting into a fight with a fellow admiral.
Even the surreal glory hole in the throne's room makes much more sense than this.
Ch. 1085 p16_17
Having this final double page is quite nice because here we have a perfect example of reasonable plot convenience. Of all places Wapol could run across, Vivi is exactly on his way. Coincidences need to happen in order for most stories to have surprising elements and, though, an accumulation of them can be jarring, things like this here and there are completely fine.
At the same time we have an example of plot convenience that's not fine (precisely because it's not even a coincidence), the CP0 realize Vivi is gone, but do nothing.
Truth be told, the chapter ends with a fun joke. I don't remember the last time One Piece was funny, but at least with this one I laughed.
https://preview.redd.it/95vear4j2b4b1.png?width=540&format=png&auto=webp&s=bb30f78eb73760a23ecb38de4865f2913f276fef

I am working on picking out my bridesmaids. I initially planned on having 6 comprising of my friends. My parents have been hinting that i should include my sister in the party. My sister and I are not super close and I was not planning on including her in the party.
Especially after having had a huge fight last year that I'm still not 100% over it yet. And Her asking to be my matron of honor recently. Last year while "apologizing" sgee commented on the fact that she has little friends and was forced to choose me as her maid of honor when she got married. And that how her friends who would have had her as a bridesmaid eloped so she'll never be a bridesmaid. So none of this is making me wanting to add her to my party.
However she is very dramatic and manipulative if you can't tell. And I rather there not be drama on my wedding day. If there is drama before, I'll deal with it I guess. I think the only way to limit the drama day of is to include her in the party. But at the same time I feel like including her will only cause me stress beforehand. However not including her will as well.
The benefits of including her would be that she would be the only one my party that has planned a wedding before. And that eventually this petty argument will be a past history and I may regret not having her next to me on my big day.
Also the main issue I have with this is that my fiance and I are planning a small ish wedding 50 -75 people. Having 7 people in the party sounds like a lot with only 50 people and the idea of kicking out one of my friends to replace with my sister doesn't sound great.

Oh man, im gonna try to make this concise.
Edit: I tried. Read the last 4 short “paragraphs” for the TLDR.
30M 5’6” and probably 115-120 soaking wet. Yep.
Now I’m not a bad looking guy by any means, but I’m skinny as hell (despite having good muscle tone). But for anyone wondering, it definitely makes things harder. Women just prefer taller men who have more on em.
I’ve always had self esteem issues, but being silly short king with ADHD, I’ve been pretty adept at getting around it somehow. But that was all before I had two excruciatingly terrible years of my life.
Skipping the really heavy stuff, I bounced back EXTREMELY tough. Its been an eventful year and 3 months or so. But man, I just keep crushing myself. There’s stuff in my life that’s got me a little down, and there’s absolutely some wounds I’m still healing from.
The idea of dating someone again is more terrifying than exciting. Due to my love for music and wanting to go pretty hard with it despite earning no money from it (Thats death metal, baby, ain’t no real money to be made here) and me not having the greatest time management skills/being very hard on myself, and a job i have to learn for often, I just can’t seem to shake the feeling that my next relationship will fail. I worry ill not have time or focus to make it work, or the usual voice in my head telling me I’m not shit and never will be takes over in grand fashion.
Due to related and non-related reasons, my last relationship’s end was absolutely devastating. But I know getting hurt or stuff not working out again is definitely possible, and there’s no way to know unless I just send it. Though a calculated send, of course. I’m having a hard time going through with it knowing that.
Other pertinent info: I primarily used dating apps because if we’re meeting up, it means youve read my bio and know what im looking for, saw my face/body in different contexts, and have decided it was worth it to meet. It takes tons of pressure off.
But dating apps are pure shit now. Fuck. In-person game is awful. I usually end up having to drink enough beer to drown a small flyover state in to get the courage up, and thats not how i wanna be.
Anybody else overcome something similar or have any advice to share? Given all factors, I’m definitely not feeling very confident anymore.

Hi all, I'm in a little bit of a pickle. I am a 45F and a highschool calculus teacher in Eastern United States for past couple decades. I've been dating a younger guy (20M)for past two years whom I met on tinder ( He was never a student at the highschool I teach at. But however, he has mentioned that one of my students older brothers (who doesn't go to my school) is one of his close friends.
We have one child together (both our first) and I recently came back to work from maternity leave. It wasn't supposed to be long term relationship but here we are. We are quite happy and things have been working out well so far and we plan to have a quiet small wedding in few months.
My coworkers know I'm in a relationship and obviously about the kid but they don't know about the age difference and they never met him or seen pics of him. Since it's summer and all I've been invited to number of barbecues at my colleagues homes. I've usually gone alone or just with my baby. My colleagues usually bring their partners. I can tell my fiance is getting a little frustrated and all about being excluded. Idk how long I can keep this up tbh
I'm just a little paranoid about my job being in jeopardy if anyone finds out and decide to pass around ridiculous rumors. I've never been nor never will be involved with a student. Is it a good idea to bring my fiance to the social events or is it in my best interest to just keep my private life separate for long as I can?

I have a general idea of what I want the frequency to be on each platform as well as CPMs.
The question is, what is the most accurate way to model reach over the course of 12 months?
Let's say the frequency is 3/mo, would it be better to multiply 3 * 12 months or to divide monthly impressions by 3? On a platform like FB, it is difficult in my experience to consistently get a frequency of 3/mo that continuously reaches the same people every month unless the audience is really small (there is also turnover)
If on average we are reaching 10% of the audience/mo wouldn't it make sense that in the forecast we would divide monthly impressions by 3 instead of totaling the yearly impressions and dividing it by 36 (3*12 months)?

Part 2
If you travel far enough North on the map, well above where the Civilized Nations stop because no crops grow, you'll find a mountain range. Crossing this range leads to the Monster Kingdom, though for some reason they prefer the name 'TFSU.' Yes, they prefer. The literal forces of anarchy and chaos in the universe have a government. However, ignoring that whole thing, the Monster Kingdom is fine. No armies march on them, mostly because of supply and logistical issues. The Monsters never say how they grow their own food, but given that they don't trade and millions of kobolds worth of food don't go missing every day, it's safe to say they make their own. Now, that doesn't stop the Civilized Nations to send one hero a decade to 'keep them in check.' Four decades ago, the hero closed off a mountain pass, which was supposed to cause a massive flood. Four days later, it was cleared, and the only thing to show for it were the cities that glow like the sun at night. However, yesterday, the Hero returned having burnt one of the bigger cities down. It was empty of all monsters, but the act was the first real damage they had taken in seven hundred years, since their founding. For seven hundred years, the TFSU have taken the beating of seventy heroes and simply moved on. But now. Now, millions of kobolds make up heavy 'machinery' units that march in armored, self-moving caridges that spit fire and metal. Thousands of beastpeople make up scouting and light infantry ranks. The TFSU use hellish 'guns' that hit harder than a catapult from kilometers away, all in a single 'bullet' not the size of a human's thumb. Metal birds and dragonflies join dragons as they assault cities. We poke the very literal sleeping dragon in the eye. Yet the armies don't do much. They march for our capitals and leaders, but on the way our civilians live. Surendees live. People go about their daily lives without too much change. Of course, that fact didn't stop the front line from finally crashing over my small village, located so close to the pass for a while we thought they the monsters had bypassed us entirely. The Civilized Nations had decided to send an entire legion to prevent the Monsters from getting across a nearby canyon pass. We were hit with an air-based assault with only dragons and metal dragonflies, our balista uselessly demolished by pillars of metal and flame thrown out of the metal dragonflies. I blacked out when the legion managed to shoot enough arrows to take down one of the dragonflies. I remember it crashing down onto my house... and then nothing.
-----
The elf stirred as they woke up. I'd been raised in the Terra Firma Sapience Union, so I was... less than familiar with the clothing and lifestyle the Southerners used. The elf groaned again, before their eyes shot open and they looked around, quickly settling on my frame. "A-Are you going to kill me now?" They asked, their voice shaken with fear. I let out a laugh. "If I wanted you dead, you'd already be dead." I decided to transmorph into my secondary form - a cat - to help the conversation go better. In a land where humans lived to forty, elves only lived to a hundred, and that meant that even I was older than this elf, and they were no older than thirty. The elf, to their credit, quickly figured out I wasn't pulling any mindgames. I'd heard tales from my relatives before the Kobolds founded the TFSU. People, especially when panicked, usual acted with more than enough stupidity to make the situation worse. "Where am I?" The elf asked. Their tone told me that they were still suspicious, but it wasn't outright denial of the situation. "My home," I answered bluntly. "Your village tried to fight our ground forces when they moved in, so most of them are currently under house arrest." Still in my cat form, I created a portal into my storage cavern and reached my arm through, while summoning a lab coat around my shoulders and glasses. It was a trick I had only learned to do recently. "Let's see..." I found the clipboard and brought it out, flipping to the elft's page and taping the pen against the paper. "You suffered a collapsed lung, severe burns on the right side of your body, three broken ribs and two fractured ones, shattered three wrist bones, three breaks in your right upper arm and another two in your lower arm, and on the left side you have another fractured rib and three broken fingers. Your left leg was shattered and your left foot was completely torn up. Healing magic stabilized you and surgery did the rest. You've been comatose for the past three days, and was brought to my home yesterday due to a surge in hospital patients from the seige of Trembolorne. "In terms of organ damage, that was also severe. A busted kidney, I already mentioned a collapsed lung, and your entire digestive system was... well, pulverized would be putting it lightly. Also, unrelated to the incident with the helicopter, you had cancer in your liver and kidney. "In terms of medical treatment, you've been given an IV line for the past couple days and several painkillers, and you underwent four separate surgeries. We reconstructed your organs, welded your bones to metal plates, and used a genetic printer to replace your skin. You're lucky to have gotten time with the genetic printer in the first place, you know; those things are expensive, and I mean expensive to run. Though it's all billed on the government anyway, but that just means that they'll only run it if they have to." The elf sat up in bed looking at me as I just stood on two paws on the cave floor. "Right, sorry, you wouldn't understand most of that." I sheepishly scratched the back of my head with my right paw. "Um... put this way, you were crushed by debris and we basically reconstructed your body before you died. So not necromancy, though you did get close to needing more advanced magical treatment." "Oh," The elf replied. The cat thing seemed to have helped, because they were no longer stuttering with their single word response. "Um... do you want anything to drink?" I tried to kickstart a conversation. "Where am I?" The elf asked again. I was silent for a second. "My home? It's right on the edge of TFSU territory, one of the southernmost places you can be while still being with the recognized borders. I chose this place because I like to fly out in the summer over the flowers in the forest at the foot of the mountains. Your village is a couple hour dragon-flight time away." "Mmmhm." The elf commented halfheartedly. "OK, um... who are you?" "My dragonic name isn't something most can pronounce, so my public name is just Vixie Remminie." I answered. "What's yours?"
The elf's eyes narrowed. "Why do you want to know my name." I blinked. "Because... It's a name? I'm not a Fey, you know, it's not like I can tie ancient demons to your soul and call it a prank or something ridiculous like that. Besides, you asked for mine; now I get to ask for yours." "And who says you won't just burn my village to the ground and eat me right now!?!" The elf suddenly burst out. "You monsters ruin everything! You trespass on our land, take our resources, and kill our people! All we did was try to defend ourselv-" I cut him off, and poured just a bit of attention in giving myself an aura. Blue fire licked the bottom of my vision as I rebuttaled his point. "Don't forget, you stole the land from us. We were the ones living in the wild when you razed our forests and grew crops. We couldn't even purchase land to live on! So yes, we stole what we could to survive and those who didn't starved and died! And when all was said and done, you tried to kill us and turned it into a war, one where we had no choice but to kill you back. And when we found someplace to run, a spot to hide and do our own thing with our own land? You blistering idiots sent you 'courageous heroes' to try and kill us! What for? Nothing! Just your stupid, moronic fear making, forcing you to decide to 'kill the big thing over there!' We can't even have freaking farmland, we have to grow it all in hydroponic farms and harvest thousand-year-old vines out of caves because this is all we have!" I realized that my aura was burning fully and scorching the ground around me. I let out a long sigh, and it died down. Several memories flashed through my head, but I pushed them away. "Apologies, my parents are still a... sensitive topic for me. It would be best if we just stayed away from talking about the war until the hospital has room for more patients again." "Yeah?" The elf was still enraged. Even sitting down, they were still trying to construct an argument. "You parents who killed how many? Your family killed how many more? You dragons, you monsters are nothing more than one large grouping of murders that deserve to die! As the gods will!" The elf was spitting in rage, but I recognized his determination to hold onto his worldview. It was the one thing I needed to pry away before it got out of hand. "And you elves killed how many more?" I asked in a low voice. "Can you tell me the number of kobold dens exterminated in caves, the number of beastpeople sent to an early grave in slave camps? Because I can tell you ours. My father's was two, my mother's four, and my extended family including deceased relatives is one hundred and thirty seven. "You declared war against monsters, you child of an elf," I growled. "And death the reality of war. We know. The Unification Wars weren't fought with swords and honor. They were fought with artillery barrages and death. They were fought with miniature suns and political backstabbing, with tanks and guns and submarines and warships and all the more death. "You say the gods don't like us! That's put lightly. They forsook us! Abandoned us in our hour of need. So we learned to live without them. There are no gods we pray to anymore, elfling. Only each other, our creations, and the universe itself. They don't want us, we don't need them. It's more than they deserve." My aura was once again charring the floor and I had transformed back into my dragon form, but this time I refused to cool it down. "You call us creations of death, the primal forces of anarchy? We are you. You are us. We are sapient, we are all mortals, no matter our advantages. We are bound to this dimensional plane, forced to serve our betters, and live out our lives not with earnest but with trepredition for when it ends. We are all death incarnate, because we can all die. That is just the way it is. Besides, you've wondered about my kill count; tell me, can you tell me the gods'? Can you tell me how many souls they have cut from fate for their own entertainment? No? I can tell you." I growled, moving closer until the blue flames enveloping my body threatened to light the elf's cot on fire. "More people than are alive on this planet right now." I pulled back, bottling up my aura and reverting to my cat form. "We can talk all we want about death and destruction, and I won't lie and say you aren't victims of the war; pre-unification dragons we're exactly kind and merciful to those with treasure hoards. But perhaps, I implore you to consider that maybe we both are victims of the war, and maybe we can one day work together instead of fighting each other. "Maybe, one day, we can fight for our rights against the gods." I moved into my dragon form and darted deeper into my cave, moving so fast I could hear the howl of the wind against my ears. Only when I had reached my memorial wall for my parents did I stop and take a breath and think over my conversation with the elf. We had a long way to go, but I hoped I had put a little bit of sense into him. I hoped that the world could change.
-----
When the dragon cat thing sped away, I took a moment to survey my surroundings. Only now did the effects of my first question hit my formerly-groggy head. "My home." He said. Dragons live in caves. Oooooh. I'm screwed. However, there were no treasure hoards visible from my perspective; then again, while the Monsters were stupid, they still had brains to them, and carrying me into a treasure room would probably be something they'd be able to tell was a bad idea. Pops said never underestimate you foe, A voice in the back of my head said, and the dragon even launched in a full conversation with you. You're selling the dragon very, very shor- Shut up I growled internally to the treacherous voice in my head. The cave itself was... a cave. There was a metal slab on one end, it went deeper in the other, and that was that. In a 'corner' of the jagged room there were a number of red, glowing rods attached to some kind of giant mechanism three elfs wide and six deep, but the rods glowed against the cave's light- What light source? My eyes darted around looking for one. Only now was I aware of how unnatural each shadow was, how awkward each shining rock looked, how each stalagmite could hide an entire dragon, and that was before they started transfiguring into cats. How bright the ceiling- I looked up. The bright light burned my eyes, but I needed to know what fiendish magic was in play so I could counter it. But the light didn't flicker like fire - they were far too bright for that anyway - but they also didn't have the magical circles surrounding each spell. They were... lights. As if the universe simply willed brightness into existence. Each far-too-bright-hurts-to-look-ats was placed along a main hallway clear of stalagmites running from the metal slab deeper and around a corner where I couldn't see. The lights were only poised above this one hall, and they just... shone one the rest of the cave. Looking closer, I could see thin black lines, too thin to be mana feeds, running along the walls to both the glowing red rods and to the so-shiny-the-lit-up-the-cave. And... that was that. There was no massive pile of treasure in the hall, though I suspected the dragon kept their hoard deeper than... wherever I was. There was no pile of skull trophies or the banner of cities and armies slain, and I noted that while he had told me his parents', the dragon had never told me his own. Then again, the cat thing could be lying. Dragon transfigured into a cat. Probably has Circle Of Truth around his entire den. Nonsense, dragons can only do elemental magic. Evidently not. Would you just shut up already? No- I moved my attention back to the metal slab, cutting off whatever the voice in my head had to say about my current situation; it wasn't every day one just got kidnapped by a nation of monsters, after all. The slab was truly elegant. It was painted with the monster language, and then was painted with some kind of mural. I could barely make out a blue circle with green splotches on it surrounded by twelve rings in the bottom corner because most of the door was taken up by a ice-blue cat with lighter strips engulfed in blue fire. It was a mural of the dragon cat thing. That didn't stop it from being pretty, and someone had obviously put a lot of effort into it. The flames looked realistic from what I had seen minutes ago, and the cat's details were perfectly engraved. It was... acurrate. Yeah, because I think Vixie was just trying to tell you that they built their civilization for a reason, and it wasn't carnage. You don't know what you're talking about. We both know I do. How else to you think- Listen to me, you treasonous voice of a- No, you listen to me, you pathetic excuse for a brain. The dragon was able to hold and win an argument with you, fixed your wounds that would've been a dead write-off for any other hospital, and then you think SHE barely meets the threshold for sapient? THE ABSOLUTE MORON I'M ARGUING WITH IS THE ONE YOU BARELY MEETS IT!!! You moved to your frontier village because the world was changing, Lazerot the Sixth. Congrats, you were right. It did change. Now shut your OVERSIZED EGO up at being bested by a creature ten times older than you, and go appologies before they decide that saving your life wasn't worth it. I... I... OK- No. I'm in control now. Shut up. I....... yes, sir. Good. With new resolve, I stood up. My head throbbed, and the next thing I knew was my face hitting my cot again.
-----
When I heard the thud of something falling in the entrance cave, I carefully moved back into the entrance cave. The elf was face-down in their cot, unconscious again. It looked like they had tried to stand and just.... fallen over. I sighed and used a claw to nudge the elf back onto his pillow, and then covered him with a blanket. I watched him for a minute, and then returned to the deeper parts of my home. The TFSU was completely overloaded with the number of patients needing treatment. Apparently, the Southener's hospitals just... didn't do anything, so in addition to soldiers, there was a massive influx of civilians to our hospitals too. Of course, this meant that they were absolutely overloaded, and the Civilized Nations strategy of fighting to near-death and then surrendering wasn't helping. So, stable recovering civilians like the elf were just... shipped out. When shelters filled up because the Civilized Nations overpopulation crisis was too bad to do anything, people just had to take them into their homes. Long story short, the government was in way over their head attempting upgrade the standard of care in the Civilized Nations while occupying their territory. My job so close to the border was remote infrastructure maintenance, and my ability to change size while not dissolving made me an expert at it - and that was before my two hundred years of experience. And then I didn't need a vehicle to get on-site, and was fast. The alarm pinging me that one of the space radars was down again gave me an excuse to avoid the elf and do some work. I grabbed a pack of supplies, put on my shapeshift-compatible uniform, and wrote down a note on a piece of paper. On my out past the sleeping elf, I dropped it for him.

Space radar system needs repair, as it's returning a false positive. It's my job to repair all the infrastructure around here, so I need to go fix it. I'll be back soon. If you're hungry, my pantry is the first cave on the right. You can just eat anything that's easily open-able in there. If it has a lock or airtight opening mechanism (anything more than a clip, really) then don't eat it. If your thirsty, there's a stream in the entrance cave near the heaters. When the door mechanism beeps, step back. Sometimes pressure in the cave can get a bit wonky, and I don't want you to get hurt. Other than that, feel free to explore. I've locked all the doors to the rooms I don't want you to enter. For toilet necessities, the second cave on the left has a properly-sized toilet. And running water, but stuff I can explain later means don't drink it. See you soon! - Vixie.

Satisfied, I left opened the door. There was a puff as the air from inside flowed out to the lower-pressure atmosphere. I could spot a snow squall to the north, and the pressure meant that it was probably coming my way. I moved out onto the ledge and closed the door behind me. At high altitudes this far north, the air was already near-zero and it was still five in the afternoon. I took just a second to confirm with the weather report that the snowstorm was in fact going to arrive on my doorledge using a smartwatch I had strapped around my wrist. When I found that the storm was coming, I opened my wings and flew. Being an Ice Dragon had its advantages, but being a Water-Ice Combined Dragon was much better. The frosty air curled around my wings as the freedom of ignoring gravity filled my brain. Ice and Water dragons both had large wings to deal with the cold air (and lower pressure leading to the requirement for more surface area to achieve the same amount of lift) and incompressable water physics (to let the wings act like a one-way fan blade as they move back and forth, increasing efficient). Dragons might be magestic creatures, but we were still bound to the physics of the mortal plane, after all. Being part of both, my wings were even bigger, making me one of the best high-altitude fliers on the planet. The ability to use both gills and lungs at said altitudes helped with oxygen also helped. Air Dragons were better at flying in normal air, but I liked to think of it like stats from a video game. Air Dragons min-maxed their stats for low-altitude, but I could go anywhere - even underwater - can keep my speed relatively high. I took full advantage of this on my way to the space radar, soaring well above the cloud ceiling and to the point where I could make out the curvature of the planet below me. The ocean spread out to my west, while more land was to my east. Snow covered the north as to the south was the telltale splotchy color of industrialism. My smartwatch beeped, as I crossed the normal altitude limit. I hadn't realized I'd gone so high; I had a radar to repair, after all. I dove down towards the surface, ignoring more beeps as I crossed half the way to the speed of sound. The wind howled angrily in my ears, but I flattened those (thank you, streamlined water genetics) and came out of my death dive right over the radar. The repair itself went relativity smoothly, though I couldn't find a broken component and chalked it up to more space anomalies. They weren't infrequent, and usually marked where the gods decided to look over the planet. For my radars, anyway. Further north, ignoring the north pole, almost no gods came out and wanted to deal with us. Our unspoken agreement was held that way. I flew straight back for my return journey. The storm was definitely closer, but fifteen minutes of flying later and I was entering the opening mechanism for my door. As it swung inwards, I heard the high-pitched scream of an elf.
-----
When I awoke, I found myself tucked into some covers. It took all of seven seconds for reality to catch up with me. Right. I got into a heated argument with a dragon. I instinctively touched the part of my face that had been closest to the dragon's flame. I'd read about Auras in books, but never thought I'd get to see one. They were only ever found in the most powerful and competent individuals of a race in an entire plan of existence. I wondered which skill gave the dragon hers - Vixie, I reminded myself. Either way, given that Auras are technically illusions, I wasn't hurt. The flames didn't get close enough to hurt anyway, but that didn't stop me from checking. This time, I was much more careful when I stood up. I sat up first, then started to kick my legs back and forth. That's when I spotted a paper on the other side of my cot. I stood up without thinking, but managed to keep my consciousness this time and moved towards the note. It was handwritten and contained a lot of jargon that I wasn't familiar with. Space. Radar. False positive. Airtight opening mechanism. Heater. Beep. Pressure. Toilet. Running water. I could deduce some of it. A message had come in requesting the services of the local dragon to repair a thing that has an issue, and that she would return shortly. I could wander around as I pleased, besides eating food that wasn't open or contained in a clip bag. From the tone of the message, I could deduce what a 'toilet' was. The heaters would logically be things that produced heat, so all I had to do was look for those. I wasn't able to tell time, but I supposed at this point it didn't matter. I moved over deeper into the cave, and quickly heard the sound of a stream. It led directly into a forest of stalagmites. After clambering over those, the temperature started to increase, which was all I needed to know that I was getting a drink of water. I was only now catching up to the fact that I had been out for three days, and that meant that I was extremely thirsty. I wasn't sure how I wasn't dead of dehydration at this point. I found the stream next to the glowing metal rods, and with it a clear path to my location. Sighing slightly at the wasted effort on climbing through Rock Forest, I snatched an undersized cup off a rack built into a nearby jut in the cave wall and filled it, before entering the bliss of fresh water. Back in the village, we had some of the best and cleanest water in all the land thanks to snow melt, but this took that to a new level. Cold, crisp water melted in the sun only minutes ago. It was... pure. I spent the next couple minutes simply drinking and processing everything over in my mind. The gods might have willed the monster dead, but if even the monster gods had abandoned them and survived... then how come the Pantheon never told us? Religious issues aside, there were more practical issues regarding my own survival. How did I get out. There was a thud at the metal slab, and I moved back towards it, leaving my cup to dry on the rack I pulled it from. The engraving of the cat on the metal slab was- BEEEP! What was that sound? There was a hiss, and the slab started to peel away. A gust of frigid cold air washed over me as a mage Ice-Water hybrid Aura-capable dragon that I had argued with stared me down. I did the instinctive thing and let out the scream of a human three year old, squeezing my eyes shut and waiting for the final blow. When the end of my life didn't arrive, I reopened my eyes to find the sky-blue cat standing in the hole where the metal slab was supposed to be. Then there was another... sound, and the metal slab started to move back into position. The cat was surprised for a single moment before simply charging the door and jumping through, skidding to a halt right in front of me. Which meant that I got a closer look at her. Ocean-blue strips crossed an ice-blue body fur in a fifty-fifty ratio. Small crystals of ice twinkled, floating here her wings would be. One tail was accompanied by two more made of pure blue-white energy, and the cat even had a halo. Six orbs of blue-white light hovered in lazy circles around her back, and even in a diminutive form the size of a cat the being radiated the power of an aura-capable creature. "Oh, right, sorry," Vixie said, and all the ethirial energy disappeared. Now that I knew what I was looking for, however, I could just barely tell, using my power as a mage, that Vixie was using illusion magic to hide her true energy. "You don't need to hide your reserves," I said. "Though if you're shapeshifting into forms so small that you need to expose yours, then you should just burn yours instead. It's not worth the trouble of people bottling yours." Vixie gave some kind of half-shrug. "They're not reserves, no." She said, emphasizing the word. I looked at Vixie with a sharp look, and for a second I forgot I was talking to a dragon. "Then what are they?" "They're..." The cat blushed, something I wasn't even aware was possible. She let the illusion fall away, and the tails, crystals, orbs and halo returned. "They're my regenerative baseline minimum." I looked her up and down for a second, dumbstruck. She really is a creature of power, huh? "Um.... uh..." I stuttered. "Is... that where you get your aura from?" I asked. Vixie closed her eyes with an expression on her face, and this time green flame started to peel off her. "Part of it, yeah." To control an aura like that... two auras. Just how powerful is she? I was so deep in thought that I didn't realize that the expression on her face was pain. "I... uh... what happened?" I asked, shellshocked. "Why aren't you fighting in the war?" The worldwide-powerful dragon masquerading as a cat sighed. "I... haven't told anyone. It's... personal." "I..." Only now did it hit me that I was talking with a dragon, not another person. Not just a monster, but a... creature with emotions. "You don't have to tell me." I quickly backtracked. "No, no, it's a fair question. It..." The cat let out a chuckle, and it filled the cave with a beautiful sound. "I suppose it's kind of ironic... but it starts with a kobold and a god, back when the Firma kobold tribe decided to travel north to escape the civilized nations, shortly before the amassing of all creatures in these same northern mountains and the Unification War. "Back before the gods forsook us."
Original Prompt: [WP] For as long as all the races have known, Dragons have been seen as violent, destructive creatures. After an attack on your village, you black out and find yourself in the den of a dragon. It's rather annoyed that that is how they're seen, and wants to prove that isn't the case.
u/Lycan_Jedi thank you for the prompt!
Part 2

I'm planning on getting my sixth tattoo fairly soon, and have been planning on doing half of a leg sleeve. I've been on the fence between either getting Cthulhu or the Kraken, design-wise. I really want the tentacles to drape down onto my foot, as well. I'm no stranger to tattoos, but I've never gotten anything on my legs and figured I'd reach out to people who have more experience in this realm. Does this seem like a realistic idea? Which image would hold up best? What are expectations for inking and healing? For reference, as well, I have a 4" tattoo on my ribcage, a small tattoo on the juncture of my hip, a tattoo spanning my shoulder blade, a tattoo on my inner elbow, and one on my wrist. Most of them are either intricate or filled in black. Out of all of them, the one on my hip hurt the worst; the rest of them were either a total cakewalk or caused mild discomfort.

So I started my third term June 1st. I ran out of Pell grant and am having to take out small loan amounts each term. This term, I had to take out a higher amount. I’ve had no issues so far with refunds or FA….until now.
I never got a financial aid award letter, or any correspondence from financial services. My remaining Pell grant has been disbursed and I received a refund for the supplemental grant. However, my loans are not listed as pending or anything. No notice that WGU altered my financial plan or rejected my loan request- in the portal everything has a green check mark and all should be well.
Except I have a balance due to WGU and a pressing life matter that the refund needs to apply to in order for me to stay in school.
Any ideas as to what is going on? How quickly could the FS office fix this (whatever needs fixing) if I call them during business hours? I’m on a deadline of about 2 weeks.