Podcasts about Xan

Conflict in marriage isn't just inevitable—it can actually be good… if you know how to handle it. In this episode, we (Nathaniel and Xan) share five unhelpful ways couples commonly navigate conflict (think: avoidance, blame-shifting, and yelling matches) and contrast them with the six simple steps we use when tension arises in our own marriage. We talk about why a conflict resolution plan might sound stiff—but actually leads to deeper connection, better communication, and much less chaos.  Whether you're newly married or ten years in, this episode is packed with practical tools to help you stop fighting at each other and start fighting for your marriage. One Degree Shift: Create a conflict plan that works for you and your spouse… or at least start the conversation.

Quaranteam – Book 1: Part 21 Andy's spirits are lifted by an old friend. Based on a post by CorruptingPower, in 25 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels. Chapter 36 Half an hour later, his phone rang and Andy glanced down to see it was Phil calling, a picture of him with the words "Phil The Elder" superimposed over part of it. The poker group actually had two Phils in it,  Phil Marcos and Phil Pak. The two men were dramatically different from one another, but also remarkably similar in others. They shared the same first name, so the group had given them nicknames when they were talking about them if it could've been either of them. Phil Marcos a.k.a. Phil The Elder a.k.a. Greater Phil was 34, Filipino and worked for Boeing with the Air Force at a base in the East Bay, and was certainly the closer friend to Andy. They'd met at a local comic book store just after Andy had moved out to the West Coast, and had hit it off immediately. When Andy had started his poker group up a few years later, Phil was one of the first people Andy had called. Phil Pak, a.k.a. Phil The Younger a.k.a. Lesser Phil was 32, Korean and worked for the NSA out of San Francisco, and not someone they'd seen as often as they liked. For the last couple of years, Lesser Phil had been trying to convince Andy to come work as a data analyst for the NSA in terms of interpretation and extrapolation. Lesser Phil had been a college friend of Eric's, and had been introduced to Andy only a few months after he'd met Greater Phil. While Andy still typically thought of them as Greater and Lesser Phil, he tried not to call them that out loud, and had them as Phil The Elder and Phil The Younger in his phone. Andy asked if it was a common name, and Eric remarked that he knew at least a couple more Phils but none he knew that well. Andy told him he'd had a similar problem with Jennys in high school. "Talk to me, Phil," Andy said to his friend. "You heard the recording. Should I be worried?" "Concerned, yes. Worried, no," Phil sighed. He sounded exhausted on the other end of the line, but as of late, Phil had always sounded exhausted. Whatever he was doing over at the base, it was certainly taking a toll on his friend. "So the good news is that in the long run, it shouldn't make too much of a difference. But that reaction means that Lexi had been infected with the Orange Variant of the DuoHalo virus before we introduced the serum to her body." "The 'Orange Variant?'" "We started naming them after colors, working our way through the spectrum. The Red Variant was first but it died off very quickly, so this is the second one," he grumbled. "But she isn't our first exposure to it, so we know how the serum's going to generally react to it, and what it's going to do to her. There are only two real major differences you're going to need to worry about." "Is she going to be okay?" "I told you, in the long run, it shouldn't make too much of a difference. The two differences you need to pay attention to are this,  first, her margin of error for recursion is far less forgiving. That means don't ever make her go more than a week without getting some Rook juice, if you know what I mean, otherwise she see temporary cognitive decline set in pretty fast, and she'll be ripping your clothes off no matter where you are, so keep that in mind." "Every seven days minimum," Andy repeated, writing it down on a notepad in his writing office. "What's the other major difference I need to worry about?" "It shouldn't even be a concern, but you should still know about it. You know how other men's semen will typically make an imprinted woman ill?" "Sure?" "Those who've been exposed to the Orange Variant, if they come in contact with the semen of a man other than those they're imprinted with, they go into a violent fit of rage, attacking anyone other than their imprinted man on sight. Those rage fits tend to be relatively short lived,  only a hour at most,  but they're still incredibly dangerous and not the kind of thing you want sprung on you as a surprise." "And this is my bodyguard who has this," Andy sighed. "Oh it's fine," Phil chuckled. "She won't harm you, and you know how to protect your family better than anyone. I think anyone who tried to use it as a weakness against Lexi would probably not live to regret it. She'll also be imprinting for longer than normal, so if she's sleeping for like a day and a half, don't worry about it. That's to be expected." "You doing okay, Phil?" Andy asked. "You look like shit, and I'm more worried about you now than I am Lexi." Phil sighed then laughed a little bit. "You know me. I'll sleep when I'm dead. Lots of long days in the office turning into long nights, and on top of that, Audrey and Linda are making sure that I have several partners as well, so that my immunity to DuoHalo continues to be strong. We're not entirely sure of the science of it yet, but it looks like the more people inside a particular polypod, the stronger the internal herd immunity the male at the center get is. Once we knew that for certain, my two queens made sure I had a good litter of partners in our household. So I'm up to eleven myself now." "I still can't believe I'm a level five and you're not, Phil," Andy said, deliberately testing a theory by trying to bait it out of his friend. "Okay, Andy, you got me," Phil said with amusement. "I'm also a level five. I was lying to you earlier, for security reasons. In fact, I think technically I was one of the first level fives. I've also technically had DuoHalo, but I can't really get into the details of that all that much. Let's just say that when we're finally through this whole pandemic, I'm going to have a bunch of stories to tell you that will blow your mind. I probably have to get clearance for you so that I can tell you some of them, but it'll be worth it." "I've always known you were up to something over there, Phil," Andy laughed. "I just couldn't figure out what it was." "Greater Phil, International Man of Mystery. It's got a nice ring to it." "Speaking of Mystery. Poker, this week. Let's do it." "Yeah, sure," Phil said. "I could use a break, so you call everyone else, and I'll make a point of coming over with as much of the family as I can convince to come out, although it has that weird side effect of making every poker night feel like a giant party where we're all hiding from our wives. Maybe we should see if there's enough interest to set up a second table and we can mix and match, so you can spend a bit more time meeting my partners and vice versa." "Well, you see Niko all the time, what with her being at your work, so you probably know her about as well as I do." "That girl's got secrets upon secrets, Andy." That caught him a little off guard. He wasn't bothered by it, but he was amused at the idea of her trying to hide something from him. "Niko? My Niko? I can't see it. She's open and transparent about everything with me." "Sure, okay. Didn't you feel that way about Erin?" "That was different?" "Was it though?" Phil said in a tone that immediately conjured the Smug Thor meme to his mind. "I mean, sure, Niko's secrets are probably being kept from you for the right reasons, as opposed to Erin's, but secrets are secrets." "The last thing I need is you making me more paranoid, Phil." "Forget I said anything. Oh, one last bit of news for you. Maya won't be there until tomorrow midday. Turns out she's also got the Orange Variant, so we're making sure the serum is getting a good foothold before we send her over to you. It's all just safety precautions, but it'll be over soon enough." "Great. We can do poker night on the 20th, so we can all watch the President's speech and the 60 Minutes story together." "Sounds like fun," Phil agreed. "Hopefully Katie Couric's team caught my good side. See you on Friday." As Andy hung up the phone, he noticed that Whitney was lingering in the doorway. She was dressed impeccably in a white button up shirt and a black pencil skirt with black pantyhose on beneath, and the shirt was just barely thin enough that he could see hints of her red bra on underneath. "Have you got a moment, sir?" "Sure thing, Whitney, what's up?" "Just wanted to go over the set up work I've done for the house so you know what's going on, and to ask you a few questions so I can start the process of replacing your laptop for you," she said, her hands folded together in front of her, her eyes mostly lowered. "Sounds great, but Whitney, you don't have to look down all the time. I know you're more used to a stern hand than I am, and I'll do my best to be what you like when we're intimate, but when you're acting in your duties as the house IT manager, you need to relax a little more and try to fit in." Whitney smirked a little bit, those dark red lips perked up as she lifted her head, nodding at him with a little smile. "Oh, I know, sir. I think I mostly just wanted to see if you would notice. Shall we?" For the next half an hour, Whitney explained to him in good detail all the changes she'd gone about to the house in the last day, getting all the rooms configured to work within the house's larger intranet. As it turned out, there were multiple LAN ports in the walls of every room in the house, it seemed like, and once again, Andy found himself wondering who this house had been built for originally. In addition to making sure all the ports were working, Whitney had also set up wireless hubs and repeaters all throughout the house, enough so that no matter where a person was in the house, they should always have a good signal to the internet. The house's security systems ran on an entirely separate network, one with minimal external connectivity, and Whitney said that she would work with Lexi to make sure the system was up to whatever standards his new head of security had in mind. They walked while they talked, and outside in the back, Andy could see Katie astride her riding lawn mower, zipping in lines across the monstrous amount of green grass in his back yard, making sure to get all of it cut even and levelly. He could also see Tala hauling things into the back house with the help of Nicolette, who had ditched the maid outfit for the time being for a more practical set of blue jeans and a baggy t shirt covered in paint splotches. All of the changes, Whitney assured him, had been done with minimal disruption to anyone's work in the house, and she'd been trying to get as much of it today, as it was a Sunday. The last thing they talked about was his replacement laptop, something that Andy was remarkably picky about. Oh, he didn't care about the things most people cared about,  when it came to processors and memory, Andy insisted none of that mattered to him,  but the thing he was adamant about was that the keyboard feel as close to the one on the laptop he was currently using, an eight year old IBM ThinkPad. Too many keyboards were difficult to use for long periods at a time, and considering how many words Andy found himself putting into his laptop on a daily basis, if the keyboard was unwieldy, the laptop might as well be non existent. Whitney made a special note that "keyboard feel" was of the utmost import, and she insisted to him, she would do her best to get him a good replacement within a week or so. She had already begun backing up all the files from his existing laptop to the house's master network, as well as to a backup kept in a fire safe, so that even if disaster struck, he would still have his work in a safe location. Andy did tell her that she didn't have to work full time on the weekends, and that she should make a point of getting settled into her own room, and spending some time catching up with her friend Nicolette who had brought her here. Whitney had smiled at that, and agreed to go get changed so she could help Tala move in, and then they could all help Whitney get moved in afterwards. He was starting to walk back towards his office when he ran into Lauren, clearly just back from a jog around the neighborhood, sweaty and out of breath, a big smile on her face. "Hey there, fella, just the bloke I was lookin' to have a moment with. Got a snip?" He grinned, leaning against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. "Sure, what's up?" "I've been thinking, and I think maybe we should let Taylor off the hook now," she said, looking down at her feet for a second. "I know, I know, I was the one who set the whole month punishment in place but, strewth, seeing her walking around naked all the time is starting to make me feel bad. I'm thinking she's learned her lesson, and she knows she's got lots of trust to earn back from me, so I'm only keeping her from getting to spend time learning more about all the other amazing sheilas you have in this house, and that's not fair of me." "I agree," Andy chuckled, "but I didn't want to be the one to tell you, seeing how fire and brimstone you were about the whole thing when you set the rules in place." "Strewth," she muttered. "Was it really that much a dunnybrook?" "I was a little worried the heavens were going to part and you were going to call down lightning bolts from the skies," he said, the smile wide on his face. "Real wrath of god type shit." "Bugger. Anyway, you should tell'er that you've talked me down, and that you laid down the law, and you decided, and eventually I relented, that she is done with that punishment and should just join the family like all the other birds. Make it clear you decided, not me, so I still get to keep a bit of that big scary reputation." Andy rolled his eyes but nodded. "Sure sure, you'll look mean. You'll look really scary. Anyway, I'll go find her and tell her while you're hopping into the shower." "Stink that bad, do I?" "Your sweatstains have got sweatstains, Lauren," he said with a laugh as he was backing away from her, while she mimed punching motions in his direction. He wasn't certain where he'd find Taylor in the house, so he decided just to go wandering the halls and see where he stumbled into her. He found her in Hannah's room, where she, Asha and Hannah were sitting on the bed, gossiping. Asha and Hannah hadn't bothered to change out of their pajamas, enjoying a lazy Sunday, while Taylor sat nude with her back against the wall. One of his two cats, Muninn, the Russian blue, was sitting on the bed near Asha, who was petting him idly. All three girls tensed a little bit when he entered the room,  Taylor wasn't supposed to be sitting up on furniture unless Lauren or himself had told her to do so, but Andy hadn't really followed the rules at all, and had made it clear multiple times that Taylor's 'punishment,' such as it was, was mostly for Lauren's mollification, and that if Taylor slipped on the rules from time to time while she wasn't around, he didn't particularly care. "No no, don't get up, Taylor, it's fine," he said, coming into the room. "In fact, it's what I came to talk to you about." "You need to get Nicolette to turn up the house furnace, babe," Asha said to him. "If I'd ta walk around all day in me skivvies, I know I'd be freezin'." "Totally, Daddy," Hannah said. He'd repeatedly told her that she didn't have to call him that (in fact, going so far as to hint that it made him a little uncomfortable when she did) but she had repeatedly answered that she liked calling him that, so she wasn't going to stop any time soon. At least she knew enough not to do it when other people were around the house. "We're just talkin' anyway, so I told her to hop up here, so if you gotta punish someone, it should be me." "You look far too eager when you suggest that, Hannah," he told the Asian teenager. "Anyway, I had a talk with Lauren just a little bit ago. I told her this is my house, and I'm in charge, and that I've decided you've served this part of your punishment long enough. You're free to get dressed, wear clothes around the house, sleep wherever you want, sit wherever you want. You can get your phone back, and you can start working with Lauren at the 49ers camp whenever you feel like you're ready. You're a full member of the household now, and there's no reason for this silly punishment to go on any further. And you can certainly take off that ridiculous dog collar." Taylor's bright blue eyes had been focused on him the entire time he'd been talking, and she slipped off the bed quickly to throw her arms around him, pressing those impressive tits of hers against his chest as she hugged him very tightly, clinging to him, even as he could hear her sniffling back some tears. "Thank you, Andy," she said quietly. "I know Lauren's still mad at me, but this has been really hard, being made to feel like less than a person." He wrapped his arms around her, patting her bare back. "I know, and I get that, but you also have to realize that cheating on her hurt her in a way she'd never been hurt before, and that won't go away fully for a long long time. Just because you're done with all of this doesn't mean you're done with all of that. I know you know that, but it doesn't hurt to be reminded that you're going to be repairing that damage between you two for years to come. You screwed up, but there's a way back from that, as long as you're willing to put in the work and learn from your mistakes." Taylor pulled back, looking at him as something just dawned on her. "So, wait, all the rules have been lifted? Like all all of them?" He tilted his head a little. "Yyyyes? Why, is there one in particular you're asking about?" "So, like, next time, y'know, when me and you, then we can,” He bit back a smile and nodded. "Yes, yes we can. And if you want to masturbate again, you're welcome to start doing that too." She shook her head over dramatically once then leaned in to kiss him. "After we've had our first time together, our first real time together, then I will, but I want the first thing inside of my cunt after all this time to be your cock. If that's okay," she said, biting her lip nervously. "Of course it's okay. I think your next day in the rotation was going to be the 20th, but if you want, we can try and find some time before then instead. It can even be just the two of us, without Lauren around, if that's what you want." She pouted again for a moment. "Anything I want?" "Well, within my usual limits, but sure." She slipped her arms away from him, and turned back to look at Asha and Hannah, extending a hand to each of them. "I want the four of us together, for my first time normally with you, Andy," she said, as Asha took one hand and Hannah took the other. "Oh rrrrreally?" Asha said, dragging the sound out, her London accent dripping through the word. "All four of us together? Sounds like a spot of fun. I'm game if you are, Whiskers," she said, looking over at Hannah with a smile. "Anything you can throw at me, I can totally handle, Goldfish," Hannah shot back at her friend. Clearly the girls had developed nicknames for each other when he wasn't around. "I was supposed to have tomorrow night, Daddy, so instead of it just being me, it'll be all three of us, if that's totally cool and shit." "Yeah, that's, ahem, totally cool. And shit." He leaned in to give Taylor a quick kiss, but she kissed him back harder than expected, and it lasted longer than he'd planned, not that he minded. "And you, young lady, should get some clothes on, and maybe unpack your stuff, whether that's in your own room or in Lauren's room, that's up to you." "Oh it totally all goes in with Lauren," Taylor said. "I don't even want my own room. Either I'm in her bed or yours. You want to come help me move in, girls?" "You couldn't stop us, love," Asha said. "Last one there has a smelly cunt!" Hannah said as she bolted towards the door, Asha and Taylor just a step or two behind her. "Y'know," Andy said to himself and the cat, "I feel like I should've yelled that there's no running in the house after them, but I just know it wouldn't have done any good." "Meow," Muninn said to him in response. "Oh hush," Andy said. "What the hell do you know?" "Meow," Muninn agreed. "Damn straight." After leaving Hannah's room, he was halfway down the hall when he ran into Sarah, who was wearing one of his t shirts, one for a band called Stereophonics, and sweatpants beneath it, her hair done up in the least stylish ponytail he'd ever seen from her, as if she'd just put her red mane up to get it out of the way for a while. "Hey you," she said, her pearly white smile beaming at him. "Maya should be here any minute, and I know you're just gonna love her." "I actually spoke to Phil a little bit ago, and she's not going to be here until tomorrow, but she's still coming, don't you worry." He explained the Orange Variant to her, and while she was a little disappointed that her friend's arrival would be delayed, she understood that Maya's health was the most important thing, and the base didn't want to let her out of their sight until she was ready. "What've you been up to today?" She rolled her oceanic blue eyes at him with a big harumph. "Reading screenplays that my agent sent over, trying to pick my next project. It's looking like everyone's going to want to do serialized television right now, because they can get more content out of smaller budgets, but so many of these stories are just so boring," she groaned. "It's like my agent's only sending me the same stuff." "Well," he said, taking her hand in his as they walked down the hallway, "tell your agent what you want then, whether that's more drama, more action, more comedy, more whatever it is you want more of. They only know what you want when you tell them. I had to learn the same lesson with my literary agent early on." She squeezed his hand thankfully. "My agent really should know better, but you're right. I can get her on the hunt for the kinds of things I want to be doing. You know there aren't really any good spy stories on television right now? I should see if she can get me something like that. I'll give her a call tomorrow, see if maybe she can reach out to the production companies, see who's already got projects winding up I can try and piggyback onto." They walked past the door of Emily and Sarah's workspace, and Andy noticed it was closed. He pointed with his other hand at the closed door as they kept on walking. "Em in some kind of meeting?" Sarah nodded. "London based production company wanted to reach out to her, so she's taking the call today, but she should be out in an hour or so." The doorbell rang, and Sarah arched an eyebrow in surprise. "I thought you said Maya wouldn't be here until tomorrow." "That's what Phil told me," he said, as the two of them started to head downstairs, although Andy could hear someone answering the door, followed by a loud squeal of recognition. When they came down the stairs, Andy could see it was Piper who'd answered the door, and she had her arms wrapped around a short blonde girl, hugging her tightly. "Andy! Sarah! Brooke's here!" Piper said to them, swinging the shorter girl around a bit. "That's great, but I thought she was  " "Surprise, man!" Xander said as he stepped in through the doorway. Andy let go of Sarah's hand and rushed down the rest of the stairs, suddenly stopping about six feet away from the door. "Are you...?" "Paired with three people this morning, so I'm 100% safe as houses," his tattooed friend said. Once he'd gotten the word 'paired' out, Andy had continued rushing his best friend, wrapping his arms around the burly guy, giving him a hell of a hug. "Oh Jesus, it's good to know you're safe, man," Andy sighed. "And it's so fucking good to see you. I know we hung out last December, but fuck, these eleven months have felt like five fucking years,” "Glad to see my mouth's rubbing off on you," Sarah laughed, closing the distance to meet them. "Xander, these are my partners Piper Brown and Sarah Washington, both of whom you've talked to a bit through FaceTime. Piper, Sarah, this is my best and oldest friend, Xander Baker, whom I've known since we were both, like, what, 6?" Xander laughed, nodding. "6, 7, something like that. However old we were in kindergarten." "Not very," Andy said. "Not enough!" Xander replied. "Anyway, Andy, Sarah, this is my soon to be partner Brooke Maloney, whom I have your partner Piper to thank for." "Well," Piper laughed, "I'd originally pitched her to come here and be Andy's partner, but he realized she'd be a much better fit for you, considering how much you both love classic cars, although really, I think it was just so he didn't have to hear her singing Vince Gill songs around the house all the time, 'cause she does that a lot, and I hope they warned you about that, Xander." "She can be singing Vince Gill while I'm singing Wu Tang Clan, and somewhere in the middle, over the engine of a Dodge Charger, I think we can make it work," Xander said. "Honestly, Pipes," Brooke said to her, "the only reason he said soon to be is because I wanted to come over and say thank you to y'all, and let Xander have a bit of time with his friend before we got to bumpin' uglies. But all the other gals in his house have just been so sweet, y'all, I can't wait for you to meet'em." "Why don't Piper and I give you a tour of the place, Brooke," Sarah said, "and the boys can do a little bit of catching up. You want me to have Jenny bring drinks to you out on the patio, hun?" "Yeah," Andy said, "I'll take a pina colada. Xander?" "Just a Corona." Sarah nodded. "Drinks coming up! This way ladies!" she said, marching them down towards the kitchen first. "Jesus Andy," Xander said quietly. "You really bagged Sarah Washington. I mean, I know I've talked to her vidchat, but seeing her in person like this,” "Seriously, I don't deserve this much luck," Andy said with a chuckle as he started to lead his best friend towards the back patio. "Oh fuck you," Xander teased. "You deserve exactly this much luck. Our entire lives, I've been watching you do good things for people left and right and never asking for so much as a thank you in return, and this is what karma has brought you, dude, so live a little. Enjoy it." As they moved out onto the patio, Xander shook his head. "I will say, however, that my house isn't quite as big as yours is. Don't get me wrong, it's still a fucking palace compared to that one bedroom shithole I lived in back in Ohio, but I'm just saying,” Andy rolled his eyes with a smirk. "You know I didn't pick the places myself, right jackass?" "I guess so," Xander said, as the two men moved to sit down on deck chairs near the pool. It was cool for November but not so cold that either man felt like they needed to add layers, both having grown up in the Midwest, where California winters would be considered nice spring days. "God, I'm really here. It's wild, man." "It's great having you out here, Xander. Jesus, the stories I have to tell you. You're here early, though. I didn't expect you out here for at least a few more days." "Turns out these DuoHalo Variants are pretty intense," Xander sighed, "and since they were pairing me up with someone in the military, they wanted to make sure I got hooked into the system as quickly as they could, so everything got very rush rush rush. When you told me to be ready to go at a moment's notice, you weren't kidding. As soon as we finished up that conversation, I started packing, and just barely got done before they showed up to cart me away. They're even taking care of selling my house for me, although I suspect it's just going to become government housing or something." "Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me," Andy agreed. "God, it's good to have you here, man." "Well if it isn't my favorite hoodrat," Fiona said, carrying out a tray with three drinks on it, setting it down on a table as Xander immediately got up and hugged him hard. "How you been, lunkhead?" "Better now that I know you made it here okay, muckraker," he teased back. "How the hell you been Fi?" "Better now that I know you ditched that crazy ex of yours," she laughed. "Can I say it?" "Oh I think you've earned it." "I told you that girl was no good." "You did indeed tell me that," Xander agreed, taking his bottle of Corona from the drinks tray, as Andy grabbed his pina colada and Fi grabbed a tall glass of wine. "Hey hey hey, the gang's all back," Fi said with a smile. "To old friends and new flames." "To life, liberty and us getting through this fucking plague together," Xander toasted. "To family," Andy corrected. "To family!" they all toasted together, clinking glasses. Piper has a confession to make.. Chapter 37 The conversation had gone far into the evening, with members of the household coming in and out several times, joining for a while before leaving the trio to their own devices once more, mostly anyway, a couple of Andy's partners choosing to remain longer. Sarah and Aisling in particular were intent on getting as many stories about Andy's youth as they could, and he felt a little like they hoped either Xander or Fiona would tell them embarrassing tales from their college years. While Fi had been mostly coy about the years they'd spent at university, Xander, by contrast, had been eager to tell at least a handful of hilarious and ridiculous stories about the troubles they'd found themselves in during their misspent youth. Despite how flustered he got a couple of times, it was a wonderful night of reminiscing, and a chance for the girls to see Andy in a different light. A piece of advice Andy had never let go of was that as you got older, it was almost important to keep people around you who knew you when you were young and fearless. At least a few times, he'd managed to deflect the conversation off himself and onto other people, a detour letting both Sarah and Emily talk about their experiences making movies, and Xander talking about the process of being relocated from Ohio out to California. Xander's trip had been surprisingly surreal, and he told the group about it in explicit detail. He'd been loaded into an isolation chamber on a cargo plane along with twenty other men, each in their own little plastic bubble tent, although each of the tent also had curtains that could be dropped for privacy. Xander told them he'd found that odd but understood why eventually. The plane had been mostly full of men when it picked Xander up in Ohio. The little isolation chamber was like a emergency field hospital's clean room, with a mattress on the floor as well as a few days of rations, both food and water, and a little sealable chemical toilet. Nearly everything was ziptied to weights to keep it steady. There was also a little headset that connected to a series of voice chat channels all the men could use to talk to one another. The main channel had been too hectic for Xander to stay in for more than a handful of minutes, but he'd eventually peeled off a couple of the men in the plane into a separate channel, and was able to both give them some information and get some on his own. All of the men on the plane had been gathered from cities in the central and eastern United States, and were being ferried out to partners, generally military but some in other branches of the government, and they weren't being let out of their isolation chambers until they'd been paired up with at least one woman, thus, the beds and the privacy curtains. At least a couple of the pods had not only men in them, but also a woman in the middle of the imprinting process . The government didn't want to risk the life of any man, so this was an emergency plan decided to keep as many people as they could safe. The two men Xander spent the afternoon talking with were Klaus, a 26 year old Master Sergeant from Georgia that Xander felt like was probably in special ops of some kind, and Bill, a 34 year old schoolteacher from Tennessee who was being paired up with a prominent Silicon Valley businesswoman he'd dated back in high school. Klaus clearly knew far more than he wanted to share with Xander and Bill, but he'd done his best to give the two men some information to make their journey a little less panic stricken. There were two women in the isolation chamber with Klaus, a twenty year old blonde named Olivia and a twenty two year old Korean American named Naya, or so Klaus told them, as both women were still in the middle of the imprinting process. The man was part of the security forces for the flying hospital that was transporting men and women around the country. He knew what he could and couldn't tell Xander and Bill, and just having a conversation with Klaus had made Xander feel more safe in their travels. He had a calm and casual demeanor to him while discussing how everything had been carefully planned, even if it all felt pretty slapdash. He couldn't answer all of their questions, for security reasons, but he told the two men that the airplane had basically been in motion nonstop for the last three weeks, doing its best to ferry people around the nation. Xander had asked him if it was truly necessary, only to be told how high the casualty rate was for men around the nation. Klaus had seen the stacks of bodies, and the man sounded rattled when he described the hundreds of empty apartments he'd seen in his native Queens, as the corpses had filled up dump trucks, and they'd had to conceal the bodies as they were taking them out in the dead of night. Klaus told them he'd been in a biohazard suit for most of the last week, but now that he had two partners, he would be able to go out and provide an escort for everyone going to and from the plane, although he planned to return to his isolation room with his two partners in between each stop they made. From Ohio they flew down to Nebraska, stopping at Offut Air Force Base, where they picked up a handful of soldiers and dropped off a handful of women. Bill had asked Klaus how long they'd been running these routes. Klaus said they'd been running for a few weeks now, and they were only one of five planes that were crisscrossing the nation. Olivia and Naya had both been brought into the inoculation center in Denver earlier and then swapped planes to meet up with him in New York, where they'd met up after he'd returned bringing in another stable of surviving men. All privacy had basically gone out the window. Klaus told him that most of the men had the option to wait until they were in a house or an apartment or something, but Klaus had been told by his commanding officer that they couldn't spare him that much time, so he needed to just get on with his business on the plane so he could get back to work as soon as he was done. By the time they'd touched down at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas, Bill had been just about ready to break out into full fledged panic, between the constant shift in air pressure, the take offs and landings done without proper seatbelts and his inability to go anywhere that wasn't his little sealed off compartment, but a quick talking to from Xander had gotten the man to cool down at least a little bit. They were barely on the ground in Nevada an hour, taking people off and bringing new people on, as well as refueling the plan, before taking off again, landing at Oakland airport a few hours later under the cover of night. Their cellphones had been taken from them when they'd arrived at the plane, so Xander had been forced to guess at the time, but he would've placed their arrival in Oakland at something around 2 a.m. or so, although the lock in had made it impossible to use traffic as a gauge. In Oakland, everyone had been taken from their individual compartments and loaded onto a large troop transport truck, with no caution given to cross contamination or infection, as they were all told they would be getting paired up within a few hours, so even if they caught DuoHalo now, it wouldn't matter. Xander had been concerned by that but he had decided to go along with it, because Klaus seemed to consider the whole thing fine, and he was the one loading people onto the trucks. The trucks had ferried them from Oakland up to a staging area next to the lab near Mount Diablo, just adjacent to New Eden, and once there, they'd been introduced to their new partners and from there, sorted into where they were going to go. The building they were using as a staging area felt like a converted aircraft hangar, with a high curved metal ceiling and big fluorescent lights hanging high above them. Although there were some tented parts of the space, similar to what had been inside the cargo hold of the airplane that had brought him here, most of the space was open, with long painted striped lines on the ground, leading people through the processing. Men weren't being given any injections, something Xander had thought was odd, until all the men were given a five minute lecture on "Your New Reality," something that the men were told to take deadly seriously. The lecture included basic things like how they would be receiving their vaccinations (sexually transmitted from their new partners), how their partners would need sexual satisfaction about once a week or so, how their semen would be toxic to any woman they weren't paired with, and how if they ever felt like they were coming down with the symptoms of DuoHalo they should have sex with one of their partners immediately, which would resolve them. At the point when the men had been told that their semen would be toxic to any woman they weren't paired with, a handful of the men had quietly jeered and rolled their eyes, but the next slide in the presentation showed a wound on a woman's arm that had silenced all that nonsense quickly. The end of the lecture included a video message from President Pelosi, urging the men to consider fatherhood like a new version of the World War 2 draft,  every man needed to do his service to help save the country. Extensive tax breaks and financial aid would be provided to families with multiple children, it was stressed. The country needed to be rebuilt. As soon as the lecture was done, they'd been marched single file to a series of processing windows, over a dozen clerks taking people's names and social security numbers before assigning them a holding area to head over to, where they would meet their partners. A sticker was placed on their chest before they were sent on their way. It had all felt very assembly line, as if there wasn't time for kindness or courtesies, and people were simply being pushed through the grinder as quickly as possible. Klaus had joked around with them on the ride over that while it might seem rough, it was being done for optimal performance in getting people in and through the system and into their new lives, wherever they may be. Xander had heard several different locations mentioned,  the San Jose highrises, the Stanford campus, the Berkeley campus, the SF towers, the Altamont sprawl, the Tracy ghosttown,  but when it came time for him to be told where to go, he was told he wouldn't need to go far, as he was being assigned to Dos Eden, the first expansion zone to New Eden. He'd been given four partners on site, with one more to be waiting for him at the location. They'd been waiting for him in the holding area assigned to him, each having arrived sometime over the previous day, so they'd all had a chance to get to know one another. Letting the women have some time to bond in advance of the man's arrival seemed smart to Xander, as they could size each other up without having to worry about keeping their new mate's attention. The women had also been given their injections in the holding area, and so Xander assumed the spaces had also doubled as observation areas, making sure none of the women had suffered any adverse reactions to their injections the day before. Captain Betsy Ross had turned out to be a complete knockout, a blonde pint size pocket rocket dynamo who was training men nearly twice her size in hand to hand close quarters combat, and they had clicked immediately, almost as if they were custom made for each other. She'd kissed him hard enough to nearly knock him off his feet before he'd even been able to say hello. The second woman had been Serena Ortiz, a Latina woman in her late twenties who was a U.S. Marshall, and had built a career out of tracking down fugitives. Tall and statuesque, she had a certain grace to how she'd moved, he'd noticed immediately. She'd spent the past few hours talking with Betsy before Xander's arrival, and the two already had a friendly relationship, having bonded over the fact that they could both kick Xander's ass if needed. The third was a slender blonde woman in her late 30s who had looked hauntingly familiar before her introduction, but Xander had struggled to place her, even after she identified herself as Alicia Geller. When she'd told Xander that he would likely know the role she'd played in her youth, Rascal Rachel, that had made it all come together immediately. Alicia was a child actress who had been the star of a popular kids show until she'd grown out of it and the show had been canceled. Instead of continuing acting, she had retired from show business and gone into education, teaching history to high school students. She seemed a little shy, but had assured him that once they'd had time to get to know one another, she would come out of her shell. The final one on site had been Brooke, and she'd detailed the story to him how her friend Piper was paired up with Andy, and that they had recommended Brooke pair up with Xander, so she had. She'd been wearing a Shelby GT Cobra necklace when they met, and Xander had known it was going to work out just fine. A second sticker was placed on his chest and the girls were told to stay with him, as everyone was sorted into lines and sent towards trucks. Most of the trucks were large troop transports, but Xander had been surprised to see that the vehicle he and his partners were set to was much smaller, and they were the only group loaded up onto it. He'd felt a little bad, since really they could've just been loaded up into an Escalade, him, his four new partners and the MP driving them over to their new home. On the way over, the MP delivered the final set of instructions to Xander, as to why his fifth partner hadn't been waiting for him at the base and was, instead, at the new home. Her name was KC Kadrey, and she was a 20 year old Vietnamese American student over at Stanford, studying mechanical engineering. She'd needed to get her injections a couple of days prior, and there had been some concerns that she might simply just grab the first man she saw and go after him, so she'd been taken to their new home and allowed to settle in. But, the MP warned him, it meant that she might be a bit intense when they arrived. She'd also brought her golden retriever with her, and keeping the large dog at the staging area had seemed problematic. Xander, like all the men who'd been on the airplane, had been forced to travel light, a single wheelie suitcase all he'd been allowed to bring with him. All of his things that had been picked up in Ohio would show up at some point within the next few weeks as the truck conveying them drove cross country, but until they, he would have to make due with the things he had. Xander had been forced to argue with the people picking him up that the one car he'd been restoring, a black 1970 Barracuda, would be part of the things taken to his new home, and while the discussion had gotten a little heated, eventually the people picking him up had relented and loaded it into the truck with the rest of his stuff. Each of the women had a similar amount of things with them, and when they arrived at their new home, they all felt woefully unprepared. Dos Eden was technically part of New Eden, but it was an expansion to the original enclave, and the dwellings there were much more of nice houses than they were the sorts of mansions and manors that made up New Eden itself. The MP driving them over had said she lived in Dos Eden, and she was incredibly thankful, as it meant having a family was a distinct possibility, while the people in many of the other locations were going to be doing lots of relocating and readjusting over the next few years. Those in the tower condo buildings were generally being given an entire floor to themselves, and as needed walls would be knocked down and units combined as families expanded. The views were nice, the MP told them, but it just didn't feel like a home. When they pulled up to the house just around dawn, Xander was a little surprised by it. They had told him not to expect a grandiose mansion, but the home was far nicer than any place he'd ever lived in before, a two story building with five bedrooms and four bathrooms, so not enough that each person had their own bedroom, but they would make it work, all of them agreed. It was mostly glass walls, and Xander found himself thankful for the ring of trees, and the high fences, that would provide him with at least a little privacy from his neighbors, who were only a short walk away on either side. It had a three car garage, and Xander was told there were new Teslas charging inside for them. (Xander immediately planned to turn one of the three garage spaces into his own little workshop where he'd continue restoring the Barracuda.) The driveway was long enough that they would be able to comfortably fit at least four more cars out front if needed. The place had its own pool with hot tub, however, something Xander was astonished to find. He'd never lived in a place with a pool before, and now his home had one. They'd barely gotten in the door before KC had rushed Xander, practically mauling him with love in the entry way to the home. She'd been coherent enough to talk with him, the two of them moving into the master bedroom before he'd had sex with her and she'd fallen into her imprinting process. The other girls had moved into the bedroom somewhere in the middle of their tryst and Betsy had immediately insisted on going second, having stripped down while watching Xander and KC. Alicia had gone third, leaving him with only Serena and Brooke conscious. The three of them had taken a shower together, and somewhere in the middle of the shower, Serena had decided she couldn't wait any further, and had gone through part of the process in the shower and the rest bent over the bathroom countertop. As much as he wanted to, he told Brooke that he was going to need a while before he could imprint her, his entire body more than a little exhausted, as the chemicals from the four women had been flowing through his bloodstream, giving him immunity from DuoHalo and doing some rather significant changes to his body. Brooke had laughed and just suggested they go over to visit Andy and Piper, which brought them up to now. "Fuckin' hell," Andy laughed. "No fucking wonder you look exhausted, Xan. How much have you slept in the last two days?" "Oh, we took a nap after we settled into the house, and I slept a bit on the plane while it was hauling our asses through the skies," his best friend said with a chuckle. "So yeah not as much as I should but more than I do some days. Was your experience similar, Fi?" Fiona's journey had been very similar, with her and Moira catching an earlier flight out of Washington a few days ago, although their plane had made only one additional stop before landing in Oakland, their plane having gone straight from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles, where many of the men in the chambers had been unloaded and several women had been loaded on board. Because Fi and Moira had been traveling together, they'd had each other to talk with and neither had felt especially lonely during the voyage. Fi even admitted they had spent much of the time talking about Andy, speculating how much he might or might not have changed over the years. As the hour grew late, Brooke returned to the main room with Piper, suggesting she and Xander head home, reminding the two old friends that they now lived less than fifteen minutes apart, and could see each other as often as they wanted to, but Andy and Xander still hugged for a long minute, thankful to have reconnected on the other side of the disaster, before they walked the two to the door and sent them home. Several of the girls had peeled off and gone to bed over the course of the evening, and at the end of the night, the only people still awake were Andy, Piper and Sarah. Aisling had been the very last to go to bed before reminding Sarah not to stay up too late, otherwise she would be too tired to talk to Maya when she arrived tomorrow, but Sarah had laughed it off and dismissed it. After closing the door behind Xander, he walked back down stairs, intending to clean up the remaining empty beer bottles and glasses left behind in the living room, only to find that Nicolette had beaten him to it, having cleaned it all up and then disappearing into her room for the night, so he couldn't even say thank you to her. "I swear, we've got a ninja for a French maid around this house," he muttered to himself with amusement. Huginn, his black cat, stood up from his perch on the back of one of the couches, stretched by arching his back, then moved to sit back down exactly where he was. "I feel ya, bud," he agreed with the cat. "We should probably see about getting to bed, don't you think, ladies?" Piper shook her head, pushing Andy back to sit down on the couch. "Not for a bit. You can sleep when you're dead," she said with a grin. "Don't you agree, Sarah?" "Oh totally," the tall redhead said, moving to slide in to one side of Andy on the couch. "You lose one third of your life sleeping, well, I mean I guess you don't really lose it since you have to sleep otherwise you'll go insane, but it's, like, a lot a lot of time to be spending doing just one thing." "Besides, I have to say thank you for making sure you brought my best friend to be nearby so I didn't feel so lonely all the time," Piper said, peeling her shirt up and over her head, tossing it aside, leaving her in a sports bra and tight fitted blue jeans, her toned stomach bared to the cool night air. "We've been kinda dancing around each other for the last few weeks, Andy, and I don't want you to think I'm not grateful, because I'm very thankful for all the things you've done for me since we've met." "Piper, you don't have  " he started before she lifted her hand up to cover his mouth, "Andy, enough," she giggled. "You can just say 'you're welcome' when you're being thanked for something, you know. You don't have to try and play down the work that went into it." He smirked a little bit, as she pulled her hand back. "I just don't want you to feel like you owe me anything." "Oh, but Andy, I do owe you," she said, bending down to press a kiss to his lips, just a soft and quick one. "You got me away from that asshole Covington. When I couldn't think straight, you did everything you could to bring me back to being me again, and that's not something anyone would do." She inhaled the scent of him, and he could swear he saw her pupils dilate a little in response. "You remember how I told you I could smell you from far away? I still can, but the raw musk of you is even more intense up close, and I fucking love how you smell, you sexy bastard. It makes me feel warm and safe and gooey and sticky and protected all at once. And I know that at least some of that is just the chemicals flowing through my brain bonding me to you, but you know what?" She leaned in and nibbled on his earlobe a little bit. "I've decided that I don't fucking care why I feel how I feel. I feel how I feel and that's all that fucking matters. You've kept me safe. You've given me space when I wanted it, and been happy to talk with me when I needed that. You helped me get my friend here and kept her safe, and as soon as you thought it was time, you pushed my ass to get back to work and reminded me not to give up on my dreams. So don't you dare fucking tell me I don't have to repay you, because even if you don't think that I do, I do, and I want to." "You're the only one of the girls who says she can smell me anywhere in the house, Piper," he told her. "I hope that's not a sign that anything's wrong because Covington held off so long on letting you get imprinted after the injections." "Oh, there's nothing wrong with me, Andy," she purred, unbuttoning her jeans before pushing them down to her ankles, not having bothered to put shoes on earlier, stepping out of them and her panties, leaving her in just the sports bra. She had such an athletic body that it had a tendency to make Andy feel a little ashamed of how out of shape he was. "I'm just different, that's all. Being able to smell you when you're in the house? I consider that a benefit, not a side effect. I get a little anxious when you leave and I can't smell you, not so much that it bothers me, but just enough that I notice the feeling of longing I have that you aren't on hand. And I've reread that letter you left me over a dozen times, because each time, I think I fall for you a little more." She grinned, grabbing her sports bra, pulling it up over her head, tossing it aside. "So yeah, I was scared of saying that, but I'm definitely falling for you, Andrew Rook. Falling in love with you. That's why I was so deep in thought the other morning. You didn't do anything to make me upset or angry. I just was worried about how to tell you." "Piper, Why would you be worried?" Andy said with a kind smile. "You've got so many beautiful women here, Andy," she said, gesturing back to the house. "I mean, shit, you've got Sarah Fucking Washington with her arm around you right now! I know I'm fit, but I'm not beautiful like she and Em are." At that, he raised a single finger, pointing at her. "How dare you," he said, his tone evening a little bit. "You are fucking stunning, I mean beautiful like you cannot even imagine and I do not want to hear you saying you're not beautiful ever again, okay? Because whatever dumb ass boyfriend or athlete you met who said you weren't pretty was the biggest fucking moron you ever met, and you shouldn't give whatever that prick said another thought ever again. Tell her I'm right, Sarah," he said with a soft laugh, shaking his head. "Yep yep yep," Sarah said with a giggle. "Stop being fucking stupid because you're not just pretty, you're fucking hot, and every girl in this house who likes girls thinks so. Shit, I heard Katie telling Jenny that if she wanted to give her a hall pass for her birthday, she'd want to use it on you over all the other girls in the house." Piper giggled, shaking her head, her dark hair covering her eyes for a minute. "You're fucking lying, Sarah." "Cross my fucking heart, swear to fucking God, may she strike me the fuck down if I'm lying. Katie thinks you're the hottest bitch in the house, so you need to shut the fuck up about saying you aren't fucking pretty because that's the stupidest fucking thing anyone's said today, and people talk, like, the worst amount of shit in this house when they think people aren't listening," Sarah said, rolling her eyes, as if she found the whole thing hilariously sad. "Well, that's something I wouldn't have believed if you hadn't told me," Piper replied with a smile. "And I was talking about us dancing around each other, Andy, and I want to apologize for that. I know we've had a handful of encounters, but I've been, guarded, and I'm sorry for how guarded I've been emotionally. I think maybe I was a little hurt that you didn't want to bring Brooke into this house, even though I know you said you thought she'd be a better match with Xander. I thought maybe that was a polite way of you trying to duck out of meeting her,” She looked down at her feet. "I feel a bit guilty about that right now, having spent a bunch of the evening talking with her. I have known that girl almost half a de

Xan discusses all the issues with his past job that he's been holding onto.

Studiedagen, uitzwaaidag, uitblaasdag, whatever dag! De zomervakantie hijgt weer in ons nek en alles wat daarbij hoort begint weer. Eigenlijk betekend dat, dat we weer totaal overprikkeld raken en zo gestresst de zomervakantie inrollen als moeders. Als we überhaupt onthouden wanneer ze vrij zijn. Verder is het natuurlijk allemaal weer uit de hand gelopen bij Sas met teveel witte wijn en Boekt is compleet klaar met haar kinderen (of althans met het alarm wat Xan in handen heeft gekregen). Verder hoor je waarom je altijd in het voorvakje van een Amsterdamse taxi moet kijken, alhoewel je dan geen idee hebt wat het is en waar het vandaan komt. Is dit te cryptisch? Dan moet je zeker luisteren haha. Veel luister plezier en niet luisteren met je kids erbij hoor ;) oMOLO30 voor 30% korting op Vacu VinNiet alleen handig voor je wijn – ze hebben ook super handige producten voor bubbels, cocktails en borrels.Gebruik MOLO30 op vacuvin.com/nl en je krijgt 30% korting. Geldig t/m 30 september 2025.Fietsen is de ultieme manier om jezelf een gevoel van vrijheid te geven – puur genieten! En Oostenrijk is de perfecte plek om dat te beleven. Laat je inspireren en boek je fietsvakantie in OostenrijkWil je adverteren in deze podcast? Stuur dan een mailtje naar adverteren@bienmedia.nlProductie: MIDDLE CHILD MEDIA.Muziek: Soundsright Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Quaranteam – Book 1: Part 13 Decisions are made on who's being added to the Rook family. Based on a post by CorruptingPower, in 25 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels. Chapter 27 For most of the next day, Andy kept to himself a bit, staying mostly in his office with the cats. Jenny had swung by to bring him lunch midday, and after he finished it, he decided it was time to talk with his best friend Xander Baker. While Andy was a little chunky, Xander was the whole damn brick. Xander wasn't so much fat as just a mountain of a man. But also a bit fat, if people were being blunt. Xander stood some four inches taller than Andy but was at least a hundred pounds heavier, maybe more, a weird combination of muscle and blubber, much of his skin covered in tattoos. And god help him, Xander was still rocking a mullet, as out of fashion as ever. Much of the time, the back of the mullet was pulled into a rattish ponytail, but today it hung free over his shoulders. He and Xander had grown up together, best friends since they were seven. They'd met playing Little League, something they'd both hated. The two of them had quit playing the next year, but they'd never stopped hanging out. They'd been roommates throughout college, and when Andy had moved to the West Coast, Xander had driven with him and then flown home one way. For years, Andy had been trying to convince Xander to abandon the Midwest, and it always felt like Xander was considering it, though it just never seemed to happen. There had been a two year period where they'd stopped speaking, because Xander had gotten married and gotten divorced all within those two years. Xander's ex wife had hated all of his friends and had driven them away, insisting none of them be invited to the wedding. She'd actually been living with Xander and Andy for the last year Andy lived in Cleveland. They'd gotten married six months after he left, and divorced two years to the day afterwards. On the very day that Xander had decided to divorce her, the first person he'd called was Andy, to apologize for the two years of radio silence. Andy hadn't been mad, and had welcomed his oldest friend back into his life with welcome arms. Xander had drifted from job to job for a couple of years until he'd seemed to find his natural calling as an auto mechanic, one specifically focused on restoration and maintenance of classic and vintage cars, although he did work on pretty much anything to keep the bills paid. Some of Xander's restorations had won awards at car shows, though, and he'd done a few special commissions for some well known people that was starting to get him a little national recognition. For the last six months, Xander had been living vicariously through Andy, when he wasn't working on cars. Thankfully, Xander's work backlog had been more than enough to keep him occupied for a couple of years. He'd even had a 3D printer delivered to help him make molds so he could smelt custom parts when he couldn't find what he needed via mail. It had been a frustratingly solitary life, so his contact with Andy had been what kept him going. They generally talked via FaceTime for an hour every week, like clockwork. When Andy had first gotten Aisling in his life, he'd called Xander the next day to introduce her to him first, and they'd gotten along perfectly. Since then, generally the day after someone had been added to the household, he'd called Xander the day after to introduce them, although it had been about a week or so since they'd talked, simply because between the poker game, his brother's death and all the various arrivals. It had been an overwhelming week, and for the first half an hour of the videocall, Andy had literally simply relied all the various information. Xander had been sad to hear about Matty's death, and had also told Andy that his Xander's own brother, Randy, also passed away, along with his father. Both of them had lost a lot of family in a very short period of time. So the two of them had shared a little cry for a bit, before they'd decided to just plow on. From there, Andy had to inform Xander that not only was he getting married, he was getting married to multiple women, including two that he hadn't even been introduced to yet, but Xander had been laughing at that point. He'd also asked Xander to be his best man, something he'd readily agreed to, even if he was a bit jealous of some of the women lined up to wed Andy. He had sent Xander the group photo shortly before the call, and Xander's immediate question was how the hell he'd ended up hooking up with not only Sarah Washington, but Emily Stevens as well. That had turned into Andy relaying the entire poker story to Xander, who went through a roller coaster of emotions while Andy talked him through it. Xander had long been a Daggerfall Academy fan, not just of the movies but of the books as well, so he was understandably a little jealous of Andy's connection to Emily, but promised not to get too hung up on it when they finally did meet. Xander had still never forgiven him for not meeting E.F. Winston, but Andy had explained to him over and over again that she was simply too big a person to show up to conventions and do meet'n'greets. And then, of course, Andy had needed to tell Xander that he was also going to be a father, and that both Niko and Aisling were pregnant, which resulted in the oddest moment ever, because Xander had just been grinning. Apparently, Niko had called Xander to tell him about it before they'd even told Andy, just to make sure that he'd really be cool with it. Andy found himself a little annoyed with Niko and Aisling, but the moment was fleeting, and in the end, he also found it a little funny, knowing that Xander had had the news about the girls' pregnancies before he did. The last thing they had to talk about was the previous day where the girls had spent hours pitching their friends and colleagues to him, and how overwhelmed by it all Andy was. That was why he'd called Xander, because while Andy had done some thinking about whittling it down, he wanted to talk it all over with his best friend, the person who knew him best in this world. For the next hour or so, Andy and Xander had talked through all of the pitches one by one, covering all of the women, Andy's pros and cons (because of course Andy had made a pros and cons list) and where his head was at with each of them. The call went on long enough that both men had been forced to plug their phones in and let them charge while they continued talking. Internet calling was truly a wonderful thing. It helped his state of mind, being able to talk it all out with someone. He'd thought about talking it all over with Aisling, but he felt like involving any of the girls in the actual decision making process might put undue stress on their relations, and he didn't want to put any of the girls in that kind of awkward position. Xander had proven to be an excellent sounding board, as he always was, and Andy was able to talk himself through all of his decisions over the course of their conversation. At least a couple of times, Andy had joked that maybe it would be better if he didn't invite anyone in, to which point Xander had threatened to phone Niko, so she could slap Andy in the head for him, since Xander was still in Cleveland. He didn't doubt that Xander would do it in the least, and Andy joked that his friend was getting too reliant on one of Andy's soon to be wives to do his dirty work for him. Which, of course, led Xander into dropping a bombshell of his own on Andy. As it turned out, once the quarantine was lifted, Xander was likely going to be moving out to Fresno, a city about an hour away from the Bay area, which meant the two best friends would be able to hang out and see each other regularly, something that made Andy cry a little more. Xander also said, however, that there was also a decent chance the relocation might happen much sooner than that. One of the women he was getting paired up with was a Major in the Air Force, and so she was leaning on people to get him safely relocated across the country, where she could protect him. He'd laughed, saying it was weird to be treated as such precious cargo when just a year ago he was getting turned down by nearly every woman he approached at a bar. Xander, like Andy, had lost most of his roots, especially after the deaths of his brother and father, so he didn't really have much keeping him in the Midwest. In fact, he'd actually been told to pack all of his things immediately, so that if the relocation came through, he'd be ready to move. That was why he felt like the relocation was going to happen much sooner than the "after quarantine" he'd originally been told to expect. If anything, Xander seemed a little annoyed by his lack of information or control in his own relocation, but Andy gave him just enough information to make it all make sense, and after that, Xander seemed a lot more prepared to get to safe ground as fast as possible. Andy had asked to see pictures of the women Xander was getting paired up with, but his friend didn't have those yet. Once he did, though, he would inform Andy and the two could hash it out then. Xander had originally been marked as a level 1, but what with the incredibly high male mortality rate in the country, even level 1s were suddenly moving up in terms of importance for protecting. His friend had some excellent points about some of Andy's initial thoughts and in a few cases, was able to help Andy put his finger on what had been bothering him about a few of the pitches, as well as helping him get out of his own way on a few personal quirks. The thing Xander had stressed to him, above all else, was that he needed to trust his instincts about whether or not the women would personally get along with him, and that if they wouldn't, that he would be doing them a disservice by mixing them into his family. He already had a couple of women whom he knew weren't very much into him beyond their needs, and the last thing he wanted to do was compound that problem. His friend tried to settle his worries about disappointing some of the women, noting for him yet again that any of the women who didn't want to come would have the option of declining his invitation, something that Andy had to keep reminding himself of. The last thing he wanted was to be someone like Covington, abducting women against their will for his own desires. He didn't need any of that shit. With the list finally settled on, and Andy caught up on all the news that Xander had to share, his best friend had asked him if he'd given much thought about who he was going to use his one personal choice on, which had made Andy smile. Andy pointed out that he suspected his invite would be turned down, but that he would be kicking himself if he didn't extend it to the one and only obvious choice, which made Xander punch the sky and cheer. "She's going to say yes," Xander told him, the grin from ear to ear, while he danced around in his bedroom in Cleveland. "You know this. I know this. Everyone knows this. Why are you pretending to yourself that she won't?" "Because," Andy said, in between laughs, "she and I haven't spoken in, what, ten, fifteen years? She could be married for all we know." "Liar!" Xander cackled. "You and I both know you're lying, because we are both Facebook friends with her, and if she had gotten married, we absolutely would have been invited to the wedding, or at the very least heard about it! She's the kind of person who would've had that all over her social media, but she hasn't, which means she isn't, which means she's going to say yes to you, because she's still pining for you like you're still pining for her! I fucking knew you weren't over her, you goddamn liar! How many times did you tell me you were okay with it? How many times did I tell you that you were full of shit? She's going to say yes to you, my most righteous dude, " "It's not just me she would have to say yes to, Xan! She's been living in DC for a decade now! I'm sure she's put roots down." "She's hated living in DC for a decade now, you mean. She would hook up with a lemur if it got her out of DC. I doubt she's put any real roots down so that if she wanted to bail on that shithole cesspit of political vipers, she could." "She works in DC. Her entire job is in DC. She's a political reporter. She may not be working at the White House any more, but she's a congressional reporter. She needs to be in DC to do that job." Xander rolled his eyes. "She will take another option if there's one available, and if she moves out there with you, she'll just get into some other kind of reporting. Or maybe she'll just start writing political books. Or historical novels. Or fucking anything else. I never understood why you two didn't stay together in the first place." "She wanted to be a White House reporter, and she actually got the job with the bureau, so she moved out there, and I got the job writing for Netflix and had to move out here," Andy said with a shrug. "We talked about trying long distance, but it was the entire length of the country, and I didn't want to be a burden on her." "You two have unfinished business, Andy," Xander said to him. "Extend the invite, and then we'll see who's right in the long run, huh?" "That's what I'm going to do, Xan," Andy said. "Let her make her own mind up. My money's on her still being upset with how we ended things." "Willing to make a little wager on that?" "Sure, what did you have in mind for stakes?" "Since you're mister moneybags now, when I win, you buy me a Tesla." Andy laughed and nodded. "And if I win?" "Then I owe you one complete restoration of a car, no matter what the state it's in, but it's never gonna happen." "I'll remind you that you said that when you're having to completely rebuild a Ferrari from a busted frame." Xander waggled a finger at him. "We'll see then, won't we?" He sighed a little bit. "Shit, brother, we've been talking for hours. You should probably get your list done and tell your girls so you can start that whole process, since your buddy Phil seemed to think you should get it started as soon as possible. How much shit are we going to be in next week?" Andy shrugged slightly. "Let's just say if they show up to move you soon, Xan, let them. The sooner you can get settled in your new home, the better off you'll be." His friend nodded. "Yeah, most definitely. Hey, you think you've got enough clout that you could get me and my ladies to move into New Eden with you guys?" Andy rolled his eyes. "I doubt it, but shit, I can ask Phil. What's the name of the Major you're getting hooked up with? Maybe Phil can get her reassigned to the base here." "Okay look, I'm gonna tell you, and you're gonna laugh, so get all your laughing done now, get all your jokes off your chest, and then do not tease her about it when you meet her, okay?" Andy shot his best friend a dirty look. "C'mon. I'm usually above that kind of thing. You really think I'm going to take pot shots at her name?" Xander looked at him dead on and said. "Her name is Captain Betsy Ross." While he waited for Andy to say something, he lifted both hands into the frame of the camera and flicked his fingers inward in a 'come at me' gesture. Andy did his stoic best to hold as long as he could, but finally he couldn't hold it back any more. "Does that make you Xander Washington? Is she going to wear a flag for your wedding? Oh my god, are you going to take her last name and become Xanderous?" "Finished?" "Yeah, 'kay, I won't say shit about it to her, but I will talk to Phil and see if I can get all of you brought here. She's stationed in Fresno you said?" "I assume so, considering that's where they're relocating me." "Got it. I'll give you a call in a couple of days when I know what's going on." "Cool. Cool cool cool. Anyway, congrats on all the things,  the engagements, the pregnancies, the sudden wealth and the influx of beautiful women. Your life is such a struggle." Andy chortled at the serious tone with which his friend Xander had delivered that. "Fuck you too, buddy. Hopefully I'll see you in person soon." The two hung up and all that left was for Andy to write up the list. So he opened up a fresh document in Word and started typing. At the top of the page he made a clear note that anyone he hadn't chosen would be recommended over to trusted friends, to see if they could be brought into the community at the very least. He also stressed that just invitations were being extended, and that if anyone didn't want to join the family, they certainly were not going to be compelled to on his behalf. Beneath that, he wrote that the names were in alphabetical order, not in order of preference. The list did include one alternate, in case anyone said no. If multiple people said no, well, then they would have less people than originally planned. He also said that anyone who was a friend of someone listed below had until tomorrow morning to craft an invitation video for their friend that would be delivered, along with a video invitation from Andy himself, to the women in question. Phil would be by for lunch tomorrow, so the deadline on recording an invitation video was hard set and non negotiable. Finally, if anyone was upset by his decisions, they could come and talk to him about it, and he would explain his reasoning to them, but he also hoped the girls would trust in his judgment on the matter and not try to convince him to change his mind, because as he wrote on the sheet, his decisions were final. The List,  staff Alexis Coleman (security) Dr. Morgan Fitch (pediatrics) Whitney Wells (technical support) The List,  family Fiona Smith Larissa Cotton Maya Summer Steele Tabitha Jefferson Tala Jordan The List,  alternate Jade Dillon Andy looked over the list on his screen for a few minutes, making sure all of his decisions were final in his head, before he finally muttered to himself, "Yeah, fuck it." He hit Control P print, and a minute later, his laser printer hummed to life. As the printer vomited its single page, he considered for a moment the people he hadn't chosen. He'd decided to pass on Olivia because she just felt like she and he wouldn't have had anything in common. He'd never say it aloud to Asha, but her friend struck him as a little vapid and self centered, at least for his tastes. She did, however, seem like someone his friend Eric's first partner Lily could whip into shape, or at the very least would mesh well with Lily's friend (and another of Eric's partner) Jenny, who was not to be confused with his own chef, whom was also named Jenny. Piper's friend Brooke had practically been tailor made for his best friend Xander, and since Xander was on his way out to California anyway, Andy was going to see if he could maneuver the two of them together. Their mutual love of classic cars would be an instant tie binding the two together. Of course, he hadn't told Xander about that, but he figured it didn't hurt to put some good into his friends world when he had the chance. Taylor's friend Natalie had seemed nice enough, but she was also young, and Andy had to be honest with himself that he needed at least a few more women who were closer to his own age, people whom he could relate to a little better. He also fully suspected at least one or two of his invitations would be declined, and that Jade would end up being extended an invitation in the end. He'd put her as an alternate simply because he liked the other options slightly better, but if (or rather when, he figured) someone said no, Jade would be invited and no one would ever mention that she hadn't been a first choice. Although, if he thought about it, considering Jade's relentless positivity, she might not even care. All of the staff pitches had made sense, and while he was a little nervous about how Dr. Fitch had been described as overly blunt, he had hopes that they could make it work, or if they couldn't that she would decline the invite. Lexi and Whitney had been slam dunks from the second they'd been presented. Once the sheet was printed out, he opened the sheet of paper that Aisling had given him with her predictions, not having looked at it before then. It read: "In: Maya, Tabitha, Lexi, Jade, Whitney, Natalie. Alternate: Tala." When he came out of his office with the paper in hand, he couldn't see anyone around, but was fairly certain he heard someone shuffling around a corner behind him as he started to walk down the hall towards the stairs. He strode down the stairs and then down another hall before entering the downstairs living room area, where Aisling was sitting watching TV. She'd clearly been waiting in the room for him, to his amusement. That meant he still had the ability to surprise her, and he found himself delighted by that. However confident she'd pretended to be in her predictions, obviously she hadn't been that confident if she'd rushed to look at what the list said. "That the list?" she asked him, as he strolled over towards a highly exposed section of the wall. "It is." "How'd I do on my predictions?" "75%, so very well," he said, as he taped the list up to the wall, hearing the sound of some footsteps near the entrances of the room. Aisling scooted over quickly to read it, as other girls were standing in the doorways, not yet ready to rush into the room. She nodded, then started walking with Andy out of the room, as the room was suddenly flooded behind him, various members of the house swarming in to read the list. "Passed on the stripper, huh?" the redhead teased, as they headed back up to his office. "I suppose I'm not surprised, just a little disappointed. I wanted her to teach me some of those pole tricks." Andy smirked. "I needed to make sure some of these women I can have a conversation with, Ash, and I just don't know that me and girls barely out of college are going to connect on that much. I'm going to recommend Natalie over to Eric, or, let's be honest, I'm going to recommend her over to Lily, and Lily will decide whether or not to bring her over for Eric." The Irish girl snickered, nodding fiercely. "I'm sure Lily will bring her in, if for no other reason that to see Eric get all bashful about it. I wasn't sure if Tala's kink might have been a bit much for you, so I put her in as an alternate." He waved a hand in the air. "I don't care about that one way or another, but she's a musician, she makes puzzle boxes and she's got a wicked sense of humor. How did you not think that would be a shoo in for me?" She grinned, shrugging. "I guess I gave a bit more weight to the virgin sacrifice, although I did see she was an alternate." "Yeah. I'm betting either Tabitha or Larissa, or maybe both, will pass on joining the family, for whatever reason, and that Jade will get an invite in the end, but I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about the idea of being someone's first and only male partner." "You'll do fine, love," she said, as they stepped into his office and closed the door behind them. "So now you have to tell me: Who's Fiona?" Andy moved over to his arm chair, picking up the cat that had settled there, sliding in to sit down. He was about to put the cat into his lap, when Ash slid to sit on his lap, then took Huginn from his hands and set the black cat atop her own lap. "Fiona's my choice. She lives in Washington D.C." "But who is she, Andy?" "She's my ex. My college ex. So you know that Xander and I were roommates all five years of college, but for the last half of it or so, both he and I had girlfriends living with us. Annie was living with Xander  " "Wait, psycho bitch 'I found her cheating on me with two guys on my birthday' Xander's ex wife Annie? That Annie?" Andy laughed and nodded. "Yep. Annie never much liked me or, hell, anyone Xander was friends with. But she's gone from his life now, so thankfully you'll never meet her, because she's insane. Did I tell you that she tried to argue, in court, that Xander's lack of attention to her forced her to cheat on him with those two dudes?" "What a cunt," Aisling groaned. "Awright, so forget her. Tell me about Fiona! Why haven't you ever mentioned her before?" "I haven't talked to her in at least a dozen years!" he chuckled. "She going to say no anyway, but if I had any major regrets in my life, it's that Fi and I split up, even though I don't see any way my life could've gone in which we didn't. We met as sophomores in a political science class together, and she was dating my boss at the newspaper at the time. She dumped him like two weeks after that, and just after I got back for Christmas, she asked me out and we started dating." "Awww!" "About a year and a half or so later, her two roommates bailed on her like two weeks after the spring semester started, and she couldn't find someone to take their places. With no roommates she couldn't afford the rent on the three bedroom house she was renting, and breaking the lease was going to put her hard into debt, so she invited me and Xander, who were renting out a shitty apartment month to month, to leave our place and move into hers." "Why is this the first I'm hearing of any of this?" "I didn't think it was important! It was a long, long time ago!" he sighed. "Anyway, when we graduated, Fiona had gotten a job offer to work in the DC Bureau of the Associated Press as a reporter, and I had gotten the offer to come out here for Netflix. I visited DC with her, and she visited SF with me, while we tried to figure out what we were going to do about it. Neither of us really liked DC all that much, but she very much wanted the job. I loved the Bay. I asked her to move out with me, but she insisted she wanted to give the DC job a chance, and so we parted ways." "What? Just like that?" "Well, we tried having a long distance relationship for a few months, but this was like fifteen years ago, and after about six months, we agreed it wasn't working, and sort of fell out of touch. About three months later, I started dating Erin, and you know how that worked out, and she started dating some cop named Sam. After that, we basically just stopped talking to one another, although about two years ago, both Xander and I got Facebook friend requests from her, which we both accepted, although neither of us has had a conversation with her yet." "Why not?" "Shit, Ash, I dunno. How do you even start that conversation? 'Hi, remember me? I know we were talking about getting married at one point, but we didn't and then we moved across the country from one another. I'm getting married to at least four women now and wondered if you might want to join us. Oh, how've you been?'" "You have to start it somewhere, Andy." "Well, she's not married, at least she doesn't have herself marked as married on Facebook, and Xander's done a little internet stalking of her, I'm sure on my unwilling behalf, and says she doesn't even seem to have a regular boyfriend, and that she's spent most of the last several years bitching and moaning about how she hates living in DC, although considering she's more liberal than I am, I'm not all that surprised." "Do you think she's going to accept your invitation?" "Ye ” n  , I really don't have a fucking clue, Ash," he said with a laugh, which made her laugh as well. "I guess we'll just wait and see." Over the rest of the day and into the evening, the girls all came to thank him, even if he hadn't chosen the girl they'd put forth, and to see how he was doing, making sure he hadn't been too stressed out by the whole process. The rest of the time, everyone was recording their invitation videos. Each of the girls made a video for their friends, although a few of them recorded multiple videos, one for the person they'd put forth and one for someone they also knew. Andy himself recorded a unique video for each and every invitation, and also made sure to record one for Jade, in case it was needed. The next day, Phil showed up for lunch, and had a bit of a grim look on his face. "Why the dark cloud, friend?" Andy asked him, as the two walked out onto the back patio, where Jenny had set up a nice lunch for them. "So we had our first death in New Eden yesterday," he sighed. "And it was absolutely unnecessary." "I thought only vaccinated people were allowed into New Eden?" "They are. A woman decided she didn't believe all the warnings we give them at the base about not partaking of a man's cum that she isn't paired with." "Wait, what?" "So some woman decided she wanted a bit of strange, so she was fooling around with some guy other than the one she was paired with." "What the fuck happened? I thought there were early warnings that would've discouraged her." "Apparently they were using a condom, and they were convinced because that seemed fine that everything we told them must be utter bullshit." "Goddamn it." Niko had filled him in on some of the details of how the vaccine paired people just after they'd arrived in New Eden, at least as how she understood it. If a woman came in contact with semen from a man other than the one she was paired with, it would cause her to break out in a violent rash. The rash happened almost immediately on skin contact, so even a tiny bit of precum would be enough to discourage anyone from going further. "So she took off the condom right before the dude popped, and then swallowed his load, and it ate her open from the inside." "Fuck, Phil!" Andy said, wincing a little. "I hate to say it, but you may need to show pictures of that to people so they understand what kind of danger they're in if they're unfaithful." "I so don't want to, but it's up to the mayor now, and he's considering it." "Who were the people?" "Don't think it's anyone you know. The guy's name is Brian Morrison, a banker. He's in custody right now, because he might be guilty of manslaughter or murder, nobody's really sure." "And who was the woman?" "Veronica De La Cruz. She was part of that bastard Arthur Covington's house." "Oh shit," Andy muttered. "I met her, briefly. She was supposed to be the dealer at the poker game. I thought it was particularly in poor taste that Covington made her be topless in front of a bunch of strangers, but I didn't realize she was quite that unhappy there." "This new world is so utterly fucked up some days. Oh, also Audrey's pregnant, so I've apparently picked the best time to bring a new life into the world." "You and me both, friend. Ash and Niko are both pregnant as well." Phil grinned a little at that. "Well, at least our kids will grow up with good friends nearby. Anyway, you get your list and videos done?" Andy slid across a thumb drive to him. "All on there, including contact information for everyone we have, or at least general location for the ones we don't. I'm not going crazy and asking for a bunch of celebrities like Covington did." "Seemed like his requests worked out pretty well for you, though." "Can't blame me if the dude's a shit card player." "Well, I can but I won't, because fuck that guy. Anyone I might recognize on the list?" "A couple of people. And, uh," he said before lowering his voice to almost a whisper. "Fi's on there." "What was that? I believe your pride was stuck in your throat, or maybe that's just your foot," the Filipino engineer laughed. "I'm sending Fiona an invite, okay?" "Good for you," Phil said, as he finished his sandwich. "I've been telling you to reach out to that woman ever since she added you on Facebook, but you just kept avoiding it. Nothing like an apocalypse to get you to get off your ass, huh?" "Yeah yeah, Phil, go fuck yourself." "Anyway, tell all your girls about the death, and prepare them that they may be shown some rather graphic autopsy photos in the near future if the mayor decides to go ahead with his discouragement campaign. I don't think any of your girls would fool around with other guys, but I think they're just gonna show everyone." "Oh, you know Xander, right?" "Your friend from Ohio? Sure." "Apparently he's paired up with Captain Betsy Ross," he said, raising a finger. "No jokes." Phil was struggling not to laugh, but managed. "He was wondering if maybe you could relocate them to New Eden." "I'm not a goddamn genie, Rook." "You know you'd like having him around here. Besides, I've got a few recommendations for you and Eric on that thumb drive as well, so don't say I never gave you anything. There's also one in there who might be a great match for Xander. Plus, look at it this way,  you get him out here, and he'll probably build you a classic car as a way of saying thank you." Phil smirked for a bit, picked up the thumb drive and walked away humming the "I Dream of Genie" theme song. Chapter 28 As Phil had promised, things moved incredibly quickly from there. The next morning, Andy got a call from Xander, informing Andy that Xander was being relocated to New Eden, and that he would see him in just a few short days. He also told Andy that he'd heard Andy had lined up some kind of welcoming present for him, and that he hoped he'd enjoy unwrapping it. It was clear that Xander didn't actually know what was waiting for him, but Phil had already sent word that Brooke, Piper's friend, had accepted the offer for her to be paired up with Xander, all without Xander's knowledge. It would make for a hell of a surprise when Xander showed up. Andy intended to make sure he was there to greet his friend upon his arrival, and it was nice to help his best friend out. Andy was quickly learning how to trade in on favors, so having Xander owe him a few was bound to pay off sooner or later, even if he wasn't sure quite how. But it also just felt good improving his friend's life. Later that day, Andy also found out which of his offers had been accepted and which had been rejected. He was surprised to find that he'd been rejected not twice, but three times, which Niko teased him not to take personally. The first to decline his offer to join the family was Dr. Morgan Fitch, Katie's friend and ex girlfriend. Dr. Fitch had said in the video message she'd sent back that she appreciated Katie thinking of her, but that living in a house with one of her exes simply did not appeal to her, and that she had sworn off men regardless. Katie seemed more bothered by it than Andy did, but Andy assured her that if Dr. Fitch had been having reservations about it, it was best for her to decide that now than after she was locked in, to which Katie reluctantly agreed. The second to pass was Larissa Cotton, which came as no real surprise to Andy. As it turned out, Larissa had in fact gotten married years ago, and she and her husband were doing well in lockdown. The complaint she'd had to Sarah about not having gotten laid recently months ago had stemmed from an accident that Larissa's husband had endured, which left him temporarily impotent, but which he had thankfully recovered from since then. She also mentioned that she didn't always think to put on her wedding ring, so she admitted she might not have been wearing it the last time she'd video chatted with Sarah, so she could see where the misconceptions might have sprung from. Larissa also offered Andy her sincerest congratulations on his partnership with Sarah (as well as all the others) and insisted he call her up some time so that they could gossip as only colleagues could. Finally, she promised to be more thankful if he would give her another first edit pass in the future. His final rejection of the day came from Hannah's former cheerleading instructor Tabitha Jefferson. She had also declined to take the Rook family up on their offer, not because she wasn't intrigued by the idea, but because in the past two weeks, she had relocated up to Portland, where she had moved in with her former lovers Dom and Mike. With her mother no longer around, Tabby had simply decided California no longer held any sway over her, and she reached out to her previous partners, who had welcomed her back with open arms. The two men had been living in virtual isolation, and had taken their quarantine deathly serious, so they'd both remained completely uninfected. Tabby also sent along a message just for Hannah, encouraging her to make the most of her new situation, and giving her a contact number so they could remain friends moving forward. Hannah had been a little saddened at first, but after hearing that the reason was that Tabby was now reunited with her throuple and extremely happy once more, she brightened immensely and skipped out of the room to go and call Tabby so the two could catch up. There had also been one more call for the day, a complication that only intrigued Andy even further. Late in the afternoon, Phil called to inform Andy that the women who had accepted (which included Jade) would be arriving in a few waves, with those who were already local being delivered to his house tomorrow, and those who lived further out coming in one or two more separate waves. But that hadn't been why Phil had been calling. The videoscreen suddenly split into two, with Phil on the left, and the still achingly beautiful Fiona on the right. "Hey Andy," she said, that sly, lazy smile he was all too familiar with on her face, the smile he knew could hold a thousand different meanings in its subtext. "Hey Fi." He stopped there, because for once in his life, Andy was at a complete loss for words. "So, about this offer of yours," she said, trailing off a little. She didn't just look good; she looked fucking great. Despite the fact that it had been fifteen years since they'd been a couple, she had shrugged off the signs of aging far better than he had, only a few scant wrinkles around her distractingly deep green eyes, the shade of newly clipped summer grass. Her brown hair still had reddish highlights in it, as it had when they'd been dating what felt like lifetimes ago. It currently hung down to her shoulders, like it might have been a bob when the pandemic started and she'd just let it grow out. She'd grown up in Georgia, and while she'd lost almost all of that southern accent, Andy could still hear very faint hints of it, just around the edges, like she'd never quite been able to shake it fully. It was certainly less prominent than it was back in college. "I have a couple of questions, and that'll determine my answer, if that's alright." "Yeah, sure, go ahead." "Hi Fiona!" Niko chimed in, poking her head into the camera's view, giving an enthusiastic wave. "I'm one of Andy's partners, well, one of his fiances, actually, so you can ask me anything as well." Andy wasn't sure, but he felt like he saw Fi try and stifle a slight smile, but whether that was at Niko's interjection or Andy's blushing in response to it, he couldn't tell. Fiona didn't choose to acknowledge Niko's comment, and instead focused intently on Andy. "Alright, first, why haven't you reached out to me before now Andy?" He sighed and shrugged, a sheepish smile on his face. "I wasn't sure what to say, or even how to start, Fi. When you sent me that friend request a couple of years back, I assumed there was something you wanted to talk to me about, so I accepted it, and then, nothing." "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I wanted you to make the first move?" "You know me pretty well, Fi, or at least you did," he laughed, arching one of his bushy blonde eyebrows at her. "Did you honestly think I'd come to that conclusion on my own?" She openly smiled that time, nodding. "Alright, you've got me there. I suppose that's fair. Second, why didn't you ask me to come with you when you moved out to California, all those years ago when we graduated from college together?" "I did ask, Fi. You know I did." She scowled at him, shaking her head a little. "You gave it one half assed try at best, Andrew," she said, the use of his full name definitely feeling like it was meant to belittle him a bit, or at the very least scold him. "You asked just the one time, I said no, and you never brought it up again, which isn't like you at all. Why didn't you really try and convince me to come out west with you?" He bit his bottom lip for half a second, but decided too much had gone unspoken between him and Fiona for too long now, so he came to the conclusion that he should just be upfront and direct. "Because I was afraid I would've gotten you to say yes." She started to speak, frustration plain on her face, Andy could see, so he raised a hand to silence her for a moment longer and continued. "And that would've made me the happiest man in the world, Fi, I promise you, it really and truly would have. But I knew that it would come with dire consequences you couldn't see yet, things that I could. I knew, I mean really knew, that if you moved out to California with me, it would've been preventing you from chasing your dreams, the ones you'd had since you were a little girl. I would've always been worried that you resented me for keeping you from that life, even just a little bit. It probably would've eventually led to us breaking up over it, and you wouldn't have known why, and I wouldn't have been able to fix it, no matter how hard I tried. You wanted so desperately to work in the White House; I didn't want to give you any excuse at all not to go chasing after that dream. I felt like you were trying to use me as an excuse not to go and do the thing you really wanted." "I wouldn't have resented you, Andy," she sighed. "I wanted you to talk me out of it. I did. I really, really did. DC has been nothing but a decade and a half of frustration and disappointment." "Sure, but you only know that now, Fi. You couldn't have known that back then. There's no way you could've know that then. You needed to see it through for yourself, to have the experiences needed to make that decision. And if you really wanted me to talk you out of it, you should've said something back then. If you thought you were hinting at it, you were far too subtle for me to pick up on it. I'm not a mind reader. Wasn't then, and I'm still not now. I can't just guess that you're looking for me to help sway you one way or another." Fiona looked like she wanted to object further, but then nodded once more, as if coming to grips with all of that in her head, like a million puzzle pieces were suddenly falling into place, and she could see the entire picture for the first time. "Okay then. I have one more thing, though. A condition. I have a condition for me coming to join your household. Well, two conditions, actually." "Sure," Andy said, "fire away." "The first is that you have to actually marry me. I know you said in your message said that you're marrying some of your partners and not others, but I absolutely insist I be one of the people that you do marry, if we're going to do this. You know that I'm Catholic. I also know you're an atheist, and that's fine, but my religion still means something to me, and you've always respected that, so I need you to respect that now. Because I'm going to want to get pregnant, if we do go through with this, so I have to be married before that happens. We lived together for two years, so you know we're both compatible in sharing a home and a bed together. So that's the first thing. Are you okay with that?" Andy smiled a little bit shyly. "More than okay, but I think you knew that already, as long as you're still alright with me not going into church every week with you. I imagine you're going to have a harder time convincing the Catholic church that polygamy's okay, though." "Are you kidding?" she snorted. "When word gets out how many American men are dead, they're going to be desperate to get every good Catholic boy and girl out there to be doing as much being fruitful and multiplying as they can get." Niko began to quietly hum Monty Python's "Every Sperm Is Sacred" until Andy swatted her on the thigh and she stopped, although her grin had only widened. "Hey, it's your religion, not mine," he said to Fi. "If they're cool with it, so am I. What's the other thing?" "The other thing is that you need to agree to something, one specific thing, not knowing what it is or anything about it." He blinked in confusion. "Er, what?" This was uncharacteristic for Fiona, being deliberately vague, and Andy wondered what was behind it. "I have another condition but you need to agree to it without knowing anything about it. You just have to trust me and either agree to it, or I'll have to pass." Andy paused and considered for a moment, perhaps even a moment longer than Fiona had expected him to. He could give Fiona an almost complete blank check, almost, but he decided he needed to clarify one thing. "Assure me that this condition that I can't know anything about won't harm or injure anyone. Since arriving here in New Eden, I've learned first hand that people can be capable of some truly terrible things, and while I don't think that you are, Fi, I just want to make sure I'm not getting anyone else hurt because of this. I couldn't live with myself if it was." "The only thing that might be injured is your pride, that's all," she said, a playful smirk resting on her face. "I might bust your balls a bit for ditching me, but I'm not going to do anything you'd always regret over the long term. So what's it gonna be, Chuckles?" The fact that she still remembered her old nickname for him told him everything he needed to know. Of course he was in. He was all in. "Fine, you got yourself a deal, Peaches," he replied, using his old nickname for her, which made her smile widen a little more on the other end of the video call. "Great," she said. "I'll start packing and we'll see you in a few days. Later skater." She tapped the button and ended her portion of the call, leaving just him and Phil on the line. Phil had been quietly watching the entire conversation with a bemused look on his face, like he was supposed to be doing or saying something, but couldn't tear himself away from the drama. "You're an idiot, you know that, right?" he said, rolling his eyes a little at Andy's naivety. "Based on just a few minutes worth of watching you two talk, I don't think either of you ever fell out of love with the other." "As much a surprise to me as it was to you, Phil," Andy chuckled. "It's been a long time." "You did hear what she said though, right Andy?" Niko said to him, poking him lightly. "Wait. What did I miss?" "She said we'll see you in a few days," Niko giggled. "I somehow don't think she was talking about the royal we." "Ah hell. Well, I did agree to anything, so we'll burn that bridge when we come to it." "Pretty sure that's not how that line goes," Phil joked. "Anyway, I'll be by tomorrow to drop off your locals. Jade, Tala and Whitney are on their way here to the base, and will get their injections tonight so they'll be ready to meet you tomorrow. You know what they're like when they're newly injected, so be prepared to take care of them for their initial imprinting within a few days. Also, you can tell Taylor her friend Natalie will be in New Eden tomorrow as well, just over at my house." "Decided you just couldn't pass her up, huh? I thought you were going to ship her over to Eric." "Audrey's always wanted to take pole dancing lessons, so I figured why not have an in house teacher?" "Having an overly flexible eager teenage stripper in your bed is just a bonus, huh?" Phil's grin spread from ear to ear. "Oh, sure, sure. I mean, I'll learn to live with it, I guess. If I have to." He rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. "We all make sacrifices. Anyway, I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" "You got it, man. Stay safe." "You know it, brother." "So that's the girl who took your virginity, huh? Your first true love? She didn't look at all like I expected her to look like, Andy," Niko said to him, as he stood up from the couch, stretching his arms over his head. "What did you expect her to look like?" "I dunno, but under possible things this mythical mysterious ex of yours might look like, I don't think I ever considered 'a lot like a young Gina Davis' to be anywhere in the vicinity." Andy smirked a little bit. He'd heard the comparison more than a couple of times back when they were dating, what felt like a lifetime ago. "I take it that she meets with your approval then?" "Hell, she called you Chuckles. For that alone, the woman immediately earned a place in my heart. I'm sure there's a story behind that." "There is," Andy said, not elaborating further. "You gonna tell me what it is?" "I am not," he said, smugly. "You can dig it out of Fiona yourself when she arrives." He rolled his eyes with anticipated dread. "She probably still even has the photo, knowing her,” "Did you keep up on her coverage of politics after you two split up?" He shrugged. His emotional state after they'd split from one another had been messy at best, and his mind had been a whirlwind of emotions. "I mean, I'd see her name on a byline from time to time, but I didn't go out of my way to find her work. After we'd split up, I figured she wouldn't ever want to talk to me again. Ending a relationship sometimes does mean things to a person, and despite the fact that I thought we broke up pretty gracefully, one day about fourteen years ago, we ended a phone conversation and she said she'd call me in a week, and she never called again." "And you didn't call her?" "After about a month, sure. But by then, her phone number had been disconnected, as she'd apparently moved, so I figured it was a none too subtle way of telling me to fuck off." "Or a test to see if she still mattered enough to you for you to track her down." "God," Andy groaned. "Maybe. Probably? Maybe. Fuck, I don't know. But that's a shitty thing to do to a guy, especially one who's always dealt with low self esteem. It's like I told you, like I've told each and every one of you who've decided to stick out your lives with me,  sometimes you're just going to have to come right out and say what it is that's on your mind, because if you're expecting me to guess it, I'm probably gonna make a few giant mistakes here and there." Niko giggled a little, nodding. "We women can be needlessly cruel from time to time, but you have to realize, we don't even know we're doing it sometimes. It's just something we've been indoctrinated into making second nature. At least you can see that it might have been a mistake now, though." "Yep. And then she went and complicated things further by adding me and Xander on Facebook as friends a couple of years ago, which we both accepted. But neither of us felt comfortable messaging her first, and she never messaged us either, so it's just been one long detente." Niko shook her head in mock disappointment at him. "You can definitely be an idiot some times, you know that, Chuckles?" "Hey hey hey," he tsked. "You can't call me that until after you get the story out of Fiona." "You should've reached out to her, Andy," Niko said with a sigh. "It sounds like that's what she very much wanted from you." "Should've, would've, could've. We're here now, so I'll just have to live and learn. And when Fiona gets here, I'll give her the 'speak your mind speech I gave to you, so we're all on the same starting point." The house had mostly kept itself busy today by the girls getting all their things moved in, as well as adding some décor to the house that wasn't purely Andy's. Sure, the publicity posters for all of his novels were still hanging on the walls, but now they'd been joined by movie posters for both Sarah and Emily's movies, framed photographs that Asha had taken before leaving London, framed posters from Sheridan's Cirque Du Soleil shows, a couple of framed articles detailing Piper's rise in the volleyball community, a framed sand painting done by Niko's mother and a few original paintings that Aisling had done as a break from her more commercial work. It helped make the place feel less like his house and more like their house. He would encourage all the girls to make sure they left some kind of a mark on the house as they arrived. He didn't want any of them to feel lesser that the girls who'd arrived first. Emily and Sarah had also converted one bedroom into a makeshift studio for them to use, lining the walls with sound dampening foam, setting up cameras and microphones, so the room could be used for them to record lines for voice overs, or to film video auditions. There

Xan and Cam talk about Xans trip and Hell island!

As the wait for the next Best Picture to reveal itself continues, we discuss Xan's movie pick, "Ninotchka"!!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : @oscarsgold @hidarknesspod @beatlesblonde @udanax19⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : facebook.com/goldstandardoscars⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : patreon.com/goldstandardoscars

Xan tackles Übel Blatt by Etorouji Shiono —a brutal seinen revenge saga often compared to Berserk. Does this Yen Press manga carve its own path, or does it live in the shadow of giants? We dissect its grim worldbuilding, relentless action, and moral ambiguity. In This Episode: Why Übel Blatt's antihero Koinzell stands out Latest manga releases worth your attention Animazement 2025 Panel Announcements (May event) *No episode 5/21* (Con prep mode activated!) Support the Show: Keep us reviewing: Gofundme (Thanks to our donors!) Engage With Us: Subscribe: YouTube | Website Follow @spiraken on X, Bluesky, Instagram Join our Discord Support on Patreon Rate us: Apple Podcasts Random Question: "What's your favorite dark fantasy manga—and does it need a moral compass?" #Spiraken #MangaReview #ÜbelBlatt #EtoroujiShiono #Seinen #DarkFantasy #BerserkComparisons #RevengeManga #YenPress Music Credits: "Trendsetter" by Mood Maze (via Uppbeat) License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US Bluesky: @spiraken.bsky.social Instagram: instagram.com/spiraken Email: Spiraken@gmail.com | Xan: xan@spiraken.com Patreon: patreon.com/spiraken Discord: tinyurl.com/spiradiscord X: x.com/spiraken YouTube: youtube.com/@spiraken Twitch: twitch.com/spiraken Amazon Store: amazon.com/shops/spiraken

Xan taste-tests Cooking With Wild Game by EDA, a J-Novel Club isekai manga adaptation that blends fantasy survival with culinary adventure. Can this webnovel-turned-manga stand out in a crowded genre, or does it reheat tired tropes? We break down its flavors—both fresh and stale.   Discussion Includes: How it compares to popular isekai/cooking manga Panel announcements for Animazement 2025 (May event) Latest manga releases worth your shelf space ----more---- Support the Show: Fuel our reviews: Gofundme (Thanks, donors!) Engage With Us: Subscribe: YouTube | Website Follow @spiraken on X, Bluesky, Instagram Join our Discord Support on Patreon Rate us: Apple Podcasts Random Question: "What's your favorite ‘unusual premise' manga (e.g., cooking, farming, etc.)?" #Spiraken #MangaReview #CookingWithWildGame #EDA #Isekai #CookingManga #JNovelClub #FantasySurvival #WebNovelAdaptation Music Credits: "Trendsetter" by Mood Maze (via Uppbeat) License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US Bluesky: @spiraken.bsky.social Instagram: instagram.com/spiraken Email: Spiraken@gmail.com | Xan: xan@spiraken.com Patreon: patreon.com/spiraken Discord: tinyurl.com/spiradiscord X: x.com/spiraken YouTube: youtube.com/@spiraken Twitch: twitch.com/spiraken Amazon Store: amazon.com/shops/spiraken

Xan & Beebaby | QUIVR | 26-04-25 by QUIVR

In this episode, Xan explores Kingyo Used Books by Seimu Yoshizaki —a heartwarming iyashikei anthology where a Tokyo used bookstore becomes a haven for manga lovers. Discover how this Viz Media Signature title celebrates manga's power to heal, connect, and inspire through its vignettes of everyday life. ----more---- Discussion Highlights: Why this series stands out in the healing manga genre How Yoshizaki blends nostalgia with quiet humor Latest manga releases & industry updates Support the Show: Keep us creating: Gofundme (Thank you, donors!) Engage With Us: Subscribe: YouTube | Website Follow @spiraken on X/Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram Join our Discord Support on Patreon Rate us: Apple Podcasts Random Question: "What manga changed your life—or comforted you when you needed it most?" #Spiraken #MangaReview #KingyoUsedBooks #SeimuYoshizaki #Iyashikei #SliceOfLife #VizMediaSignature #HealingManga #BookstoreStories Music Credits: "Trendsetter" by Mood Maze (via Uppbeat) License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US Bluesky: @spiraken.bsky.social Instagram: instagram.com/spiraken Email: Spiraken@gmail.com | Xan: xan@spiraken.com Patreon: patreon.com/spiraken Discord: tinyurl.com/spiradiscord X: x.com/spiraken YouTube: youtube.com/@spiraken Twitch: twitch.com/spiraken Amazon Store: amazon.com/shops/spiraken

In this episode, Xan dissects The Climber—a profound sports manga adaptation of Jiro Nitta's novel, with story by Toshio Nabeda and Hiroshi Takano, and striking art by Shin'ichi Sakamoto. This Viz Media Signature title explores the psychological extremes of solo mountain climbing, blending breathtaking visuals with existential tension. Discussion Highlights: Why this manga transcends typical sports narratives How Sakamoto's art amplifies the story's isolation themes Animazement 2025 Panel Announcements (May event details) Support the Show: Help us continue creating content: Gofundme (Thank you, donors!) Engage With Us: Subscribe: YouTube | Website Follow @spiraken on Twitter/X, Bluesky, Instagram Join our Discord Support on Patreon Rate us: Apple Podcasts Random Question: "What's your personal ‘mountain'—an obstacle or goal that consumes you?" #Spiraken #MangaReview #TheClimber #Seinen #SportsManga #ShinichiSakamoto #JiroNitta #VizMediaSignature #PsychologicalManga #Isolation #Podcast Music Credits: "Trendsetter" by Mood Maze (via Uppbeat) License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US: Bluesky: @spiraken.bsky.social Instagram: instagram.com/spiraken Email: Spiraken@gmail.com | Xan: xan@spiraken.com Patreon: patreon.com/spiraken Discord: tinyurl.com/spiradiscord X: x.com/spiraken YouTube: youtube.com/@spiraken Twitch: twitch.com/spiraken Amazon Store: amazon.com/shops/spiraken

 In this powerful episode, Xan examines Real - Takehiko Inoue's (Vagabond) brutally honest seinen manga about wheelchair basketball and overcoming physical/emotional trauma. How does this Viz Media-published series tackle disability with more nuance than typical sports narratives? We break down its unflinching realism and why it stands apart in Inoue's legendary career. Support the channel: Keep Spiraken running via Gofundme (thanks to our donors!) Engage with us: Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@spiraken Follow @spiraken on Twitter/X, Bluesky, Instagram Join our Discord Support on Patreon Rate us on Apple Podcasts Question of the Day: "Have you ever watched wheelchair basketball?" Share your experiences below! #Spiraken #MangaReview #RealManga #TakehikoInoue #Seinen #SportsManga #DisabilityRepresentation #WheelchairBasketball #VizMedia #WheelOfManga Music Credits: "Trendsetter" by Mood Maze (via Uppbeat) License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US: Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/spiraken.bsky.social Instagram: instagram.com/spiraken Email: Spiraken@gmail.com | Xan: xan@spiraken.com Patreon: patreon.com/spiraken Discord: tinyurl.com/spiradiscord X: x.com/spiraken YouTube: youtube.com/@spiraken Twitch: twitch.com/spiraken Amazon Store: amazon.com/shops/spiraken

Today we're journeying to Middletown, Delaware, and chatting with Mr. Xan Hong, the lead consultant for Drive Phase Consulting. Xan helps clients leverage no-code and artificial intelligence technology to scale their companies. He's a start-up veteran with over 15 years of experience and helps other founders with their start-up idea validation. During that time, he has generated over $15 million in revenue in a variety of industries, including marketing, communications, food and beverage, e-commerce, financial services, real estate development, and technology.  Visit the C4C website to gain full access to the transcript, show notes, and guest links. Coaching 4 Companies  

As the wait for the next Best Picture to reveal itself continues, we discuss Xan's movie pick, "The Front Runner"!!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : @oscarsgold @hidarknesspod @beatlesblonde @udanax19⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : facebook.com/goldstandardoscars⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : patreon.com/goldstandardoscars

Xan Ramírez nos describe una ruta en la que nos lleva a un lugar cercano a Ferrol, en el Coto da Lagoa, un monte que comparte límites con Narón. Aunque no es el pico más alto, con sus 300 metros de altura, es un sitio espectacular con vistas impresionantes, ideal para un paseo matutino o para disfrutar de un atardecer. Además, es un lugar desde donde los parapentistas suelen despegar, lo que ofrece un espectáculo visual fascinante. La ruta comienza en O Confurco, que conecta Mandiá con el Valle de Papoi, justo en un puerto de montaña bajo. Desde ahí, se toma una pista ancha de tierra que no tiene dificultad para caminar, dirigiéndose hacia el Coto do Vilar. A lo largo del camino, se pasa por una zona tranquila con unas casas antiguas, la Espiñeira, que aún están habitadas, y se disfruta de vistas panorámicas del Valle de O Val. El recorrido continua por varias pistas que llevan a diferentes puntos de interés, como Pena Molexa, donde el grupo de O Val organiza rutas, y se llega a la parte más alta de la ruta. Desde allí, se pueden observar paisajes deslumbrantes que incluyen la Ría de Ferrol, la costa atlántica de Narón y varias montañas cercanas. Xan menciona un antiguo cuartel militar, que nunca se usó, y hoy día está en ruinas. Desde este punto alto, se tiene una vista de 360 grados, comparable a otros miradores populares de la zona, pero con una panorámica aún más amplia. Además, se destaca la posibilidad de disfrutar de los paisajes a lo largo de la Ruta Ártabra, que conecta con varios puntos de interés histórico, como las minas romanas de oro en la zona de Cobarradeiras. La ruta es una excelente opción para los amantes del senderismo, la naturaleza y la fotografía, ofreciendo vistas espectaculares de las montañas, la costa y el entorno natural de la zona.

 In this episode, Xan explores Akihito Tsukushi's critically acclaimed Made in Abyss - a haunting seinen manga that blends adorable character designs with disturbing body horror. Follow the journey of young explorers venturing into a mysterious chasm where beauty and terror intertwine. Is this Seven Seas Entertainment title worth reading despite its unsettling themes? Join us for a deep dive (pun absolutely intended) into one of manga's most unique dark fantasy worlds. Support the channel: Keep Spiraken running by supporting our GoFundMe: tinyurl.com/spiraken Special thanks to our anonymous donors! Connect with us: Subscribe to our YouTube: youtube.com/@spiraken Follow @spiraken on Twitter/X, Bluesky, and Instagram Join our Discord community Support us on Patreon Rate us on Apple Podcasts Question of the Day: "How far would you descend into the Abyss?" Share your answer in the comments! #Spiraken #MangaReview #MadeInAbyss #AkihitoTsukushi #SeinenManga #DarkFantasy #HorrorManga #SevenSeas #WheelOfManga #MangaRecommendations Music Credits: "Trendsetter" by Mood Maze (via Uppbeat) License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US: Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/spiraken.bsky.social Instagram: instagram.com/spiraken Email: Spiraken@gmail.com | Xan: xan@spiraken.com Patreon: patreon.com/spiraken Discord: tinyurl.com/spiradiscord X : x.com/spiraken YouTube: youtube.com/@spiraken Twitch: twitch.com/spiraken Amazon Store: amazon.com/shops/spiraken

Xan and Cam bring you to hell island once again

In this episode, Xan dives into Gachiakuta by Kei Urana —a brutal, high-octane shonen manga about a "Cleaner" navigating a dystopian wasteland. How does it stack up against classics like Battle Angel Alita and Dorohedoro? Is it the next big action series? Let's break it down!

 Xan tackles Hikari-Man —Hideo Yamamoto's (Homunculus) twisted tale of electromagnetically sensitive outcasts seeking vengeance. Is this brutal seinen sci-fi a cathartic triumph or a descent into madness? Some Minor spoilers, and some raw analysis of Yamamoto's signature darkness, plus updates on new manga releases you need to know. ----more---- Support the channel:

In this episode of the One Degree Podcast, we're talking about what it looks like to go from feeling like roommates in your marriage to actually thriving as a team. We're sharing honest convos, practical tips, and real-life stuff that's helped us stay connected and rooted in our faith—especially in the thick of busy, everyday life. We'll chat about how easy it is to drift into that “just coexisting” phase and what you can do to get back on the same page. From simple daily check-ins and learning each other's love languages to setting shared goals and handling conflict like teammates instead of opponents—we cover a lot.  • 0:00:01 – Meet us, Nathaniel and Xan! We're kicking off this new video podcast journey and sharing what you can expect.  • 0:03:13 – Why we're focusing on Christian marriage (spoiler: it started with a convo at Great Wolf Lodge).  • 0:12:19 – What the “roommate stage” looks like and how to be more intentional.  • 0:19:58 – How to build that teammate dynamic and prioritize time together.  • 0:27:09 – The magic of small moments and why they matter so much.  • 0:33:03 – Reigniting connection with love languages and fun little things.  • 0:37:41 – Communication tips that actually help you feel like you're on the same side.

Xan dives into Last Quarter, a haunting romance from Ai Yazawa (creator of Nana) —blending supernatural mystery with her signature emotional depth. Does this hidden gem live up to her legendary status? No spoilers, just pure admiration for Yazawa's art and storytelling magic. Plus, updates on the latest manga releases you won't want to miss! Support the channel:

For some reason, sleep training has become one of the most controversial parenting topics out there. Everyone wants their baby to be sleeping well, but many people feel that “sleep training” automatically means “cry it out” and therefore opt out. In today's episode, we are breaking the silence and talking ALL THINGS baby sleep. I'm sharing exactly how we sleep trained our 2 babies and walking you (step-by-step) through the method that worked for us. I break down our personal experience, the challenges we faced, and how we got both of our kids sleeping through the night by 12 weeks old.Then, we bring in baby sleep expert Xan from MyBaby Sleepology to answer all of your burning questions: Is sleep training psychologically harmful? Does it really work for all babies? How do you handle regressions? Whether you're in the trenches of newborn sleep deprivation or just curious about different approaches, this episode is packed with insights, expert advice, and practical tips! I hope you enjoy it!!Twelve Hours' Sleep by Twelve Weeks book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525949593/ref=cm_sw_r_as_gl_api_gl_i_Q0MBBJZW1GB40WCRT1T1?linkCode=ml2&tag=luciefink-20Follow Xan: https://www.instagram.com/mybabysleepologyWatch this episode in video form on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjmevEcbh5h5FEX0pazPEtN86t7eb2OgX To apply to be a guest on the show, visit luciefink.com/apply and send us your story. I also want to extend a special thank you to East Love for the show's theme song, Rolling Stone. Follow the show on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealstuffpod Find Lucie here: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luciebfink/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@luciebfink YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/luciebfink Website: https://luciefink.com/ Produced by Dear Media.Executive Producer: Cloud10See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode, Xan dives into Takahashi from the Bike Shop by Arare Matsumushi   - a critically acclaimed josei romance about an office worker falling for a blunt bicycle shop owner. Despite its unconventional art style, this Yen Press title has captured readers' hearts. But does the storytelling overcome its visual quirks? Join us as we explore what makes this slice-of-life manga work (or not)! ----more---- Support the show: Help us keep creating content at tinyurl.com/spiraken - special thanks to our anonymous donors! Engage with us: Subscribe to our YouTube: youtube.com/@spiraken Follow @spiraken on Twitter/X, Bluesky, and Instagram Join our Discord Support on Patreon Rate us on Apple Podcasts Random Question of the Day: What life experience of a josei mangaka would you most want to read about? Comment below! #Spiraken #MangaReview #JoseiManga #TakahashiFromTheBikeShop #ArareMatsumushi #YenPress #RomanceManga #SliceOfLife #WheelOfManga #MangaRecommendations #MangaPodcast Music Credits:

 In this episode, Xan cracks open Ice Head Gill by Ikuo Hachiya a new Shonen Jump series about an axe-wielding boy battling liches in a frostbitten world. Does this Norse mythology-infused action manga deserve its spot in Jump's lineup? Tune in as we break down its standout moments, generic tropes, and icy lore! Support the show: Help us keep the lights on at tinyurl.com/spiraken (thank you to our anonymous donors!). Want more Spiraken?

In this episode, Xan explores Super Cub by Tone Koken (illustrated by Kanitan) - a heartwarming slice-of-life manga about a lonely girl discovering freedom through her Honda Super Cub. ----more---- Is this motorcycle-focused story worth your time? Join us as we dive into the manga adaptation of this popular web novel, geek out about what makes the Super Cub so special, and discuss the latest releases in the series. Before we wrap up, we'd love your support to help keep this show running! Check out our GoFundMe at tinyurl.com/spiraken - we've got some great donor rewards, and every contribution makes a difference. Special thanks to our anonymous supporters - you rock! If you're enjoying the podcast, please: Hit like, share, and subscribe wherever you're listening Follow us @spiraken on Youtube, Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky Support us on Patreon at patreon.com/spiraken Join our growing community on Discord at tinyurl.com/spiradiscord Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts at tinyurl.com/helpxan Thanks for tuning in, and we'll catch you next time for more manga adventures! #spiraken #mangareview #wheelofmanga #seinenmanga #relaxingmanga #supercub #tonekoken #hondasupercub #motorcyclemanga #sliceoflifemanga #spirakenreviewpodcast Music Credits: Closing Theme: Trendsetter by Mood Maze (via Uppbeat) Free music for creators: https://uppbeat.io License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES Connect With Us: Bluesky: @spiraken.bsky.social Instagram: /spiraken Email: Spiraken@gmail.com | Xan: xan@spiraken.com Patreon: patreon.com/spiraken Discord: tinyurl.com/spiradiscord Twitter: X.com/spiraken YouTube: /@spiraken Twitch: /spiraken Amazon Store: amazon.com/shops/spiraken Random Question of the Day: What's that one hobby that's totally your thing? Let us know in the comments or on social media!"

Xan and Cam take everyone on a journey to hell island.

In this episode, Xan dives into Hikaru in the Light by Mai Matsuda, an inspirational music manga now being released in full color by Scholastic. Does the colorization enhance the story, or does it change the tone of this limited series? Join him as he explores its origins on the Azuki Manga app, shares his thoughts on the adaptation, and breaks down why this series is worth your attention. Before we wrap up, a quick reminder: if you've been enjoying the podcast and want to help keep the lights on, please consider supporting our GoFundMe at tinyurl.com/spiraken. We've got some fantastic tier rewards to thank you for your generosity, and every bit of support goes a long way. A huge shoutout to our anonymous donors—you're the real MVPs!   Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. Follow us on social media @spiraken on Youtube, Instagram, and Bluesky, and join our Discord community at tinyurl.com/spiradiscord. If you're feeling extra generous, leave us a glowing review on Apple Podcasts at tinyurl.com/helpxan—it helps more than you know! Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you enjoyed this episode. Until next time, keep turning those pages! ----more---- #spiraken #mangareview #wheelofmanga #seinenmanga #dramamanga #musicmanga #newmangaexplained #bestmanga #mangarecommendation #hikaruinthelight #maimatsuda #azukimanga #scholastic #graphix #podcasthq #spirakenreviewpodcast Music Used in This Episode: Closing Theme: Trendsetter by Mood Maze (via Uppbeat) Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/mood-maze/trendsetter License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US: Bluesky: @spiraken.bsky.social Instagram: /spiraken Email: Spiraken@gmail.com | Xan's Email: xan@spiraken.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/spiraken Discord: https://tinyurl.com/spiradiscord X (Twitter): https://X.com/spiraken YouTube: /@spiraken Twitch: /spiraken Amazon Store: http://www.amazon.com/shops/spiraken Random Question of the Day: What's your favorite J-Idol group? Let us know in the comments or on social media!"

Xan and Cam are back!

As the wait for the next Best Picture to reveal itself continues, we review Xan's pick, "The Lion In Winter"!!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : @oscarsgold @hidarknesspod @beatlesblonde @udanax19⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : facebook.com/goldstandardoscars⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : patreon.com/goldstandardoscars

In This Episode, Xan has the privilege to review a cornerstone manga series that has influenced so many. Is it worth the hype? Let's find out as he reviews Ashita no Joe/Tomorrow's Joe/Ashita no Joe: Fighting For Tomorrow by Asao Takamori and illustrated by Tetsuya Chiba. ----more---- As our intrepid host goes over this inspirational story of a young man reaching for a better future, he also goes over the latest manga news and reveals some upcoming events for the podcast. Remember to support our gofundme to help repair our editing computer at www.tinyurl.com/spiraken and thanks to our anonymous donors. Producer Alexander H. Regardless, Remember to Like, Share and Subscribe. Follow us @spiraken on Twitter @spiraken.bsky.social, and @spiraken on Instagram, subscribe to this podcast and our YouTube channel, Support our patreon and if you would kindly, please go to www.tinyurl.com/helpxan and give us a great rating on Apple Podcasts. Also join our discord and Thank you, hope you enjoy this episode. #spiraken #mangareview #wheelofmanga #shonenmanga #actionmanga #sportsmanga #newmangaexplained #bestmanga #mangarecommendation #ashitanojoemanga #tomorrowsjoe #asaotakamori #mangarecommendation #kodanshacomics #kodansha #podcasthq #manga #spirakenreviewpodcast Music Used in This Episode: Closing Theme-Trendsetter by Mood Maze (Uppbeat) Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/mood-maze/trendsetter License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US Our Bluesky @spiraken.bsky.social Our Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spiraken/ Our Email Spiraken@gmail.com Xan's Email xan@spiraken.com Our Patron https://www.patreon.podbean.com/spiraken or https://www.patreon.com/spiraken Our Discord https://tinyurl.com/spiradiscord Our X https://X.com/spiraken Our Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@spiraken Our Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/spiraken Our Amazon Store http://www.amazon.com/shops/spiraken Random Question of the Day: Have You Heard of This Manga Before?

In This Episode, Xan has the privilege to review a signature samurai manga that discusses one of the most popular Japanese Swordsman of all time. Is it worth the hype? Well, sit back and find out as he reviews Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue. ----more---- As he discusses this novel inspired manga, xan also discusses the latest manga releases as well as the special new collector's edition of Vagabond that was just released. Remember to support our gofundme to help repair our editing computer at www.tinyurl.com/spiraken and thanks to our anonymous donors. Producer Alexander H. Regardless, Remember to Like, Share and Subscribe. Follow us @spiraken on Twitter @spiraken.bsky.social, and @spiraken on Instagram, subscribe to this podcast and our YouTube channel, Support our patreon and if you would kindly, please go to www.tinyurl.com/helpxan and give us a great rating on Apple Podcasts. Also join our discord and Thank you, hope you enjoy this episode. #spiraken #mangareview #wheelofmanga #seinenmanga #actionmanga #historicalmanga #newmangaexplained #bestmanga #mangarecommendation #winderbreakermanga #takehikoinoue #vagabond #musashimiyamoto #vizmedia #mangarecommendation #vizmanga #podcasthq #manga #spirakenreviewpodcast Music Used in This Episode: Closing Theme-Trendsetter by Mood Maze (Uppbeat) Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/mood-maze/trendsetter License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US Our Bluesky @spiraken.bsky.social Our Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spiraken/ Our Email Spiraken@gmail.com Xan's Email xan@spiraken.com Our Patron https://www.patreon.podbean.com/spiraken or https://www.patreon.com/spiraken Our Discord https://tinyurl.com/spiradiscord Our X https://X.com/spiraken Our Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@spiraken Our Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/spiraken Our Amazon Store http://www.amazon.com/shops/spiraken Random Question of the Day: Will this manga ever return from hiatus?

 In This Episode, Xan reviews a shonen action series about protecting a neighborhood and kicking ass. Is it worth reading? Well, sit back and find out as he reviews Wind Breaker by Satoru Nii. ----more----As our host discusses the familiar yet revised plot of this story, he also goes over the latest manga releases. Remember to support our gofundme to help repair our editing computer at www.tinyurl.com/spiraken and thanks to our anonymous donors. Producer Alexander H. Regardless, Remember to Like, Share and Subscribe. Follow us @spiraken on Twitter @spiraken.bsky.social, and @spiraken on Instagram, subscribe to this podcast and our YouTube channel, Support our patreon and if you would kindly, please go to www.tinyurl.com/helpxan and give us a great rating on Apple Podcasts. Also join our discord and Thank you, hope you enjoy this episode. #spiraken #mangareview #wheelofmanga #shonenmanga #actionmanga #highschoolmanga #newmangaexplained #bestmanga #mangarecommendation #winderbreakermanga #satorunii #windbreakeranime #mangarecommendation #kodanshacomics #kodansha #podcasthq #manga #spirakenreviewpodcast Music Used in This Episode: Closing Theme-Trendsetter by Mood Maze (Uppbeat) Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/mood-maze/trendsetter License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US Our Bluesky @spiraken.bsky.social Our Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spiraken/ Our Email Spiraken@gmail.com Xan's Email xan@spiraken.com Our Patron https://www.patreon.podbean.com/spiraken or https://www.patreon.com/spiraken Our Discord https://tinyurl.com/spiradiscord Our X https://X.com/spiraken Our Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@spiraken Our Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/spiraken Our Amazon Store http://www.amazon.com/shops/spiraken Random Question of the Day: Why is this manga so successful?

 In This Episode, Xan reviews a seinen manga about arranged marriages, psychotic fiancès and weird overtures of love. Is it romantic? Well sit back and find out as he reviews Yakuza Fiancè: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii by Asuka Konishi. ----more---- As our intrepid host goes over this compelling story, he also talks a bit about our gofundme http://www.tinyurl.com/spiraken and recent manga. Thank you to our producer donator, Alexander H and thanks to an anonymous donor.(you know who you are) Thank you so much Regardless, Remember to Like, Share and Subscribe. Follow us @spiraken on Twitter @spiraken.bsky.social, and @spiraken on Instagram, subscribe to this podcast and our YouTube channel, Support our patreon and if you would kindly, please go to www.tinyurl.com/helpxan and give us a great rating on Apple Podcasts. Also join our discord and Thank you, hope you enjoy this episode. Producer: Alexander H. #spiraken #mangareview #wheelofmanga #seinenmanga #romancemanga #yakuzamanga #newmangaexplained #bestmanga #mangarecommendation #yakuzafiance #asukakonishi #mangarecommendation #sevenseas #podcasthq #manga #spirakenreviewpodcast Music Used in This Episode: Closing Theme-Trendsetter by Mood Maze (Uppbeat) Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/mood-maze/trends... License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US Our Bluesky @spiraken.bsky.social Our Instagram / spiraken Our Email Spiraken@gmail.com Xan's Email xan@spiraken.com Our Patron https://www.patreon.podbean.com/spiraken or / spiraken Our Discord https://tinyurl.com/spiradiscord Our X https://X.com/spiraken Our Youtube Channel / @spiraken Our Twitch / spiraken Our Amazon Store http://www.amazon.com/shops/spiraken Random Question of the Day: Are you the crazy one in the relationship?

 In This Episode, Xan reviews a slice of life manga that is about love, coincidences and fish? Is it a good manga? Well, sit back and find out as he reviews Friday At The Atelier by Sakura Hamada. ----more----   As our intrepid host goes over the confusing nature of this manga, he also talks about our new gofundme, which you can find at https://gofund.me/7f1eb404 . Also thank you to our First Donator, Alexander H. Thank you so much Regardless, Remember to Like, Share and Subscribe. Follow us @spiraken on Twitter @spiraken.bsky.social, and @spiraken on Instagram, subscribe to this podcast and our YouTube channel, Support our patreon and if you would kindly, please go to www.tinyurl.com/helpxan and give us a great rating on Apple Podcasts.Also join our discord and Thank you, hope you enjoy this episode. Producer: Alexander H. #spiraken #mangareview #wheelofmanga #seinenmanga #romancemanga #sliceoflifemanga #newmangaexplained #bestmanga #mangarecommendation #fridayattheatelier #sakurahamada #mangarecommendation #yenpress #podcasthq #manga #spirakenreviewpodcast Music Used in This Episode: Closing Theme-Trendsetter by Mood Maze (Uppbeat) Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/mood-maze/trendsetter License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US Our Bluesky @spiraken.bsky.social Our Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spiraken/ Our Email Spiraken@gmail.com Xan's Email xan@spiraken.com Our Patron https://www.patreon.podbean.com/spiraken or https://www.patreon.com/spiraken Our Discord https://tinyurl.com/spiradiscord Our X https://X.com/spiraken Our Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@spiraken Our Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/spiraken Our Amazon Store http://www.amazon.com/shops/spiraken Random Question of the Day: What stimulates your creativity?

In this episode, ⁠Xan Hong⁠ shares his journey into the world of no-code development, highlighting the challenges faced by non-technical founders and the flexibility offered by platforms like Bubble. The conversation explores the evolving landscape of software development, the importance of creativity in problem-solving, and the impact of no-code solutions on traditional development roles. San emphasizes the need for adaptability in a rapidly changing technological environment and discusses the value of a well-rounded skill set in today's market. They delve into the intricacies of no-code platforms, particularly focusing on Bubble. They discuss backend workflows, API integration, and the advantages of no-code solutions for MVP development. The conversation also explores how no-code platforms can be utilized in various business contexts, from startups to large enterprises, and the future landscape of software development in relation to AI-generated code. Xan shares real-life case studies demonstrating the effectiveness of no-code solutions, while Krish raises thought-provoking questions about the evolving role of coding in the tech industry. Takeaways • No-code platforms like Bubble can save significant development costs. • Learning data structuring is crucial for using no-code tools effectively. • Bubble offers flexibility but has a steeper learning curve than other platforms. • Creativity is essential in problem-solving with no-code solutions. • Developers may feel threatened by the rise of no-code tools. • Adaptability is key in the fast-changing tech landscape. • A combination of business and technical skills is valuable in development. • Clients appreciate understanding their needs during the development process. • Problem-solving skills are more important than technical skills alone. • No-code platforms can expose backends as APIs. • No backend server is needed for user management. • No-code solutions can significantly reduce development time. • Enterprises can save millions by transitioning to no-code. • Startups can validate ideas quickly using no-code tools. • No-code platforms are more accessible for non-technical users. • AI-generated code may not always be the best solution for MVPs. • The perception of no-code limitations is often exaggerated. • Education in tech is shifting towards practical problem-solving. • No-code tools can complement traditional coding practices. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to No-Code Development 02:57 San's Journey into No-Code Development 06:02 Challenges of Starting Without a Technical Background 08:54 Exploring No-Code Platforms: Bubble vs Others 11:57 The Flexibility and Limitations of No-Code Solutions 14:54 Creativity in Problem Solving with No-Code 17:56 The Impact of No-Code on Traditional Development 21:01 Navigating the Future of Software Development 23:53 The Value of a Well-Rounded Skill Set 27:07 Client Perspectives on No-Code Development 30:04 Hands-On with Bubble: Features and Functionality 38:41 Exploring Backend Workflows and API Integration 45:10 Understanding No-Code Solutions for MVP Development 50:14 No-Code Platforms in Different Business Contexts 54:47 The Future of No-Code vs. AI-Generated Code 01:08:56 Closing Thoughts on No-Code and Personal Insights

Happy 2025, we have returned!!! And to celebrate that, Xan discusses a historical fiction manga about the Miburo/ The Shinsengumi. Is it worth checking out? Well, sit back and find out as he reviews The Blue Wolves of Mibu written by Tsuyoshi Yasuda. ----more---- As our intrepid host goes over a little of the history behind this manga, he also discusses some good manga adaptations for the miburu's story as well as discusses why we have been away for the last 3 months. Regardless, Remember to Like, Share and Subscribe. Follow us @spiraken on Twitter @spiraken.bsky.social, and @spiraken on Instagram, subscribe to this podcast and our YouTube channel, Support our patreon and if you would kindly, please go to www.tinyurl.com/helpxan and give us a great rating on Apple Podcasts.Also join our discord and Thank you, hope you enjoy this episode.   #spiraken #mangareview #wheelofmanga #shonenmanga #actionmanga #samuraimanga #newmangaexplained #bestmanga #mangarecommendation #bluemiburu #thebluewolvesofmibu #tsuyoshiyasuda #mangarecommendation #kodanshacomics #kodansha #podcasthq #manga #spirakenreviewpodcast Music Used in This Episode: Closing Theme-Trendsetter by Mood Maze (Uppbeat) Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/mood-maze/trendsetter License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US Our Bluesky @spiraken.bsky.social Our Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spiraken/ Our Email Spiraken@gmail.com Xan's Email xan@spiraken.com Our Patron https://www.patreon.podbean.com/spiraken or https://www.patreon.com/spiraken Our Discord https://tinyurl.com/spiradiscord Our X https://X.com/spiraken Our Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@spiraken Our Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/spiraken Our Amazon Store http://www.amazon.com/shops/spiraken Random Question of the Day: What is your favorite story about the Shinsengumi?

Xan and Cam discuss 2024 and also Cam getting back with his ex.

In this episode, we sit down with Xan Stofko to explore what happens when you take a bold step away from a life that doesn't feel right and give yourself permission to discover who you truly are. Xan shares her incredible journey, from a career in insurance to a life-changing sabbatical in New Zealand that opened the door to self-discovery, joy, and connection with nature.   We dive into how a working holiday visa became the launchpad for adventures like living off the grid, canoeing New Zealand's rivers, and meditating for 10 days in complete silence. Xan also reflects on the transformative power of stepping out of your comfort zone, embracing the outdoors, and reconnecting with what truly matters. Join us for this inspiring conversation about courage, self-discovery, and finding joy in the unexpected.   Check out Xan's Instagram @xan.i.am to follow her journey and visit 10Adventures.com to explore tours and inspiration for your next big adventure!   About Us

As the wait for the next Best Picture to reveal itself continues, we are joined by Frank Mandosa to review Xan's pick, "A Trip To The Moon"!!! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : @oscarsgold @hidarknesspod @beatlesblonde @udanax19 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : facebook.com/goldstandardoscars ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : patreon.com/goldstandardoscars

Xan and Cam talk about PTSD once agin.

As the wait for the next Best Picture to reveal itself continues, we discuss Xan's pick, "The Adventures Of Prince Achmed"!!! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : @oscarsgold @hidarknesspod @beatlesblonde @udanax19 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : facebook.com/goldstandardoscars ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : patreon.com/goldstandardoscars

Xan Brooks, acclaimed author and journalist, joins the podcast to discuss the coiled power of Come Together. He reflects on the track's unique sound, its ambiguous lyrics, and how it foreshadows John Lennon's political activism in the early 1970s. We also talk about Xan's latest novel The Catchers, which explores the early days of popular music and its cultural implications.Xan's novel The Catchers: https://t.co/cMS3KsKZ68Xan on X.com: https://x.com/XanBrooksFollow My Favourite Beatles SongX (Twitter): https://twitter.com/myfavebeatlesFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/MyFavouriteBeatlesSongInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/myfavouritebeatlessongOriginal music by Joe KaneLogo design by Mark Cunningham

Xan and Cam talk about Samsung and Chappell Roan

In This Episode, Xan reviews a manga about two teens in rival schools who fall in love. Is it generic or does it do something new? Let's find out as he reviews the Rom Com Drama Manga series The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity by Saka Mikami. ----more---- As our intrepid host discusses this manga, he also goes over the latest manga releases. Remember to Like, Share and Subscribe. Follow us @spiraken on Twitter @spiraken.bsky.social, and @spiraken on Instagram, subscribe to this podcast and our YouTube channel, Support our patreon and if you would kindly, please go to www.tinyurl.com/helpxan and give us a great rating on Apple Podcasts.Also join our discord and Thank you, hope you enjoy this episode. #spiraken #mangareview #wheelofmanga #shonenmanga #romcommanga #romancemanga #newmangaexplained #bestmanga #mangarecommendation #fragrantflowerbloomswithdignity #Sakamikami #mangarecommendation #kodanshacomics #kodansha #podcasthq #manga #spirakenreviewpodcast Music Used in This Episode: Closing Theme-Trendsetter by Mood Maze (Uppbeat) Music from Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/mood-maze/trendsetter License code: YEPNB5COHX56JVES WHERE TO FIND US Our Bluesky @spiraken.bsky.social Our Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spiraken/ Our Email Spiraken@gmail.com Xan's Email xan@spiraken.com Our Patron https://www.patreon.podbean.com/spiraken or https://www.patreon.com/spiraken Our Discord https://tinyurl.com/spiradiscord Our X https://X.com/spiraken Our Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@spiraken Our Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/spiraken Our Amazon Store http://www.amazon.com/shops/spiraken Random Question of the Day: What did you expect from this manga?

As the wait for the next Best Picture to reveal itself continues, we are joined by Beth Ann Gallagher to review Xan's pick "Metropolis"!!! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : @oscarsgold @hidarknesspod @beatlesblonde @udanax19 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : facebook.com/goldstandardoscars ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ : patreon.com/goldstandardoscars

Xan Spencer, an accomplished entrepreneur in online business development, currently serves as the CEO of Live Outfitters in North Carolina. Renowned for his strategic vision and dynamic leadership, Xan is also a motivational speaker, inspiring audiences with his passion and purpose-driven approach. With a commitment to both business success and community impact, He continues to shape the landscape of entrepreneurship through his innovative and inspiring leadership. In this episode Xan and Sathiya discuss: [02:43] Live Outfitters' innovative outdoor gear sales approach. [03:48] Xan's childhood outdoors and entrepreneurial journey. [11:07] Fatherhood challenges amid addiction. [16:23] Exploring masculinity and outdoor connections. [17:54] Nature, creation, and family dynamics. [19:13] Values from fishing, hunting, and fostering. [23:41] Faith, Jesus, and the spiritual side of nature. [27:53] Unplugging for focused outdoor experiences. [29:55] Starting outdoor activities tips. [33:22] Modern camping trends like "glamping." [35:39] Xan's boat captaining challenges. [37:55] Xansea's electrical fire and water intake hurdles. [39:23] Xan's pivotal sailing decision and family impact. [41:24] Boat life: freedom, challenges, and tech limits. [43:45] Nurturing an outdoor legacy and family traditions. Check out the Live Outfitters Download the app from the App Store or Google Play Book A Call With Sathiya's Team For more Free Resources, check this out Follow Sathiya on Instagram

Amy and Andrea are joined by campaign expert, Xan Blake, in a lively conversation about boards and capital campaigns. Xan suggests that for the early planning phases of a campaign, board members should be in learning mode. Once the campaign plan takes shape, your board will move into a more active role that falls into three buckets: organizing, advocating and participating.

Xan is 28 years old and resides in Bozeman, Montana. He is the General Manager and Co-Owner of RegenMarket, a business that connects regenerative producers of animal proteins from the Mountain West with consumers across the country. Xan first tried the Carnivore diet towards the end of his internship with the New York Giants. He noticed remarkable improvements in his gut health, energy, and focus levels. Since then, he has transitioned to an animal-based diet, incorporating some fruit and sweet potatoes, but he is a true believer in the power of animal protein. As an avid outdoorsman, Xan enjoys snowboarding, surfing, hunting, and camping in his free time. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/regenmarket/ Website: https://regenmarket.com/ Timestamps: 00:00 Trailer. 00:55 Introduction. 03:39 Transitioned to regenerative farming after carnivore diet experience. 07:37 Supporting regenerative ranchers' marketing efforts. 10:01 Ranchers face challenges in winter animal feeding. 14:27 Adding regenerative beef to your diet. 15:57 Managing day-to-day ranch operations. 20:01 14¢ of every food dollar supports American producers. 20:44 Ranchers struggle with profit due to big companies. 25:08 Local USDA processors. 27:34 Regional hubs for food connection and impact. 29:52 Sustainable wild salmon. 34:24 Electrolytes helpful for health. 35:53 Vegan activists. 40:56 Regenerative agriculture and carbon sequestration. 41:59 Viability of regenerative cow-calf operations. 44:56 Supporting ranchers and farmers in sustainable practices. 47:26 Where to find Xan. See open positions at Revero: https://jobs.lever.co/Revero/ Join Carnivore Diet for a free 30 day trial: https://carnivore.diet/join/ Carnivore Shirts: https://merch.carnivore.diet Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://carnivore.diet/subscribe/ . ‪#revero #shawnbaker #Carnivorediet #MeatHeals #HealthCreation   #humanfood #AnimalBased #ZeroCarb #DietCoach  #FatAdapted #Carnivore #sugarfree  ‪

0:00 - Intro  0:50 - the guys have 9s, glocks and 38s on them  1:24 - Adam says a certain area does body shot DPs, says he learned that from YBN Nahmir, says he may have been talking about put ons  2:43 - Adam says Bricc is dressed like he's going to do a magic show, Bricc says he's styled by Xan  4:17 - Bricc says he went to Ralfy's show and performed, Adam and Lush say Bricc is like Kramer  5:10 - Adam says he was excited to walk past 55th street in Manhattan 6:02 - Adam says he talked to C Mac on the phone and C Mac introduced him to so many gang members locked up with him  8:30 - Bricc ask if Adam holds his breath when people talk in his face, Adam says he learned that when your talking to a girl it's best to keep your distance look at her and let her talk 11:40 - Guys talk about how cool MTV was back in the day, Lush says it was the worlds window into pop culture  13:00 - Lush says No Jumper is the equivalent of what MTV was to the kids back in the day, Adam remembers MTV the grind being like watching an orgy  15:40 - Adam says he used to go to his uncles house and make excuses to stay inside to watch BET because of the videos they played  17:13 - Bricc says Big tigga messed up “The basement” by being exposed as gay  18:25 - RIP Mr Cee, who had a few Gracie Janes under his belt, Adam says he seen her at the corn awards  19:40 - Bricc says he seen a gay guy fight a real demon on his Influence reality show, says he wanted to fight the gay guy after seeing him fight  21:25 - Adam tells Bricc the feds are watching, Bricc says he's not taking accountability for no gun, Adam says the people are massively mislead that say he doesn't take accountability  23:31 - Adam on going to Starlets for the first time, 25:16 - Adam says a bunch of chicks were lined up next to the section staring at them, says the girl groping him didn't even know who he was  27:00 - Adam messes up and says he kept taking “Naps” while in NY, Bricc gets up and walks off  28:00 - Bricc says Lena told Adam he had a pass while he was in NY, Adam says Lena is lying says she went through his phone multiple times since he's been back, Adam says he can't f*ck without a condom  30:10 - Bricc ask Adam if he eats the p*ssy every time he f*cks, Bricc & Lush say they can smell a STD on the p*ssy, Bricc says there's a difference between cum stink and stink stink  33:25 - Lush says he smells his own cum, guys talk about washing up after sex, wet wipes  35:25 - Lush brings up Adam's 3 wipe method after pooping, Adam explains how he wipes his a**  38:24 - The 5 grand toilet thats programmable and sprays fragrances, says Lena experienced them in Japan  42:06 - Adam says Long live Emily Willis whose in a coma, talks about legendary video of him her and Lena, talks about how it's not proper to repost scenes when a cornstar passes away  44:10 - Ms.Parker, Lush says Friday meant even more on the westcoast  46:50 - Bullet Train from Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga is expected to cost $400, Adam says it's more expensive than driving and almost as expensive as taking a jet to Vegas  50:30 - Little girl Jelly beans who dances on top of Cyber truck and smashes it with bat, Adam says her niche is destroying cars  51:51 - Bricc says he's thinking about smashing him and Adam's midget friend  54:10 - Adam says a industry person hit him up with the Kanye Like that remix, Bricc and Lush say Kendrick needs to hurry and respond  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices