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I pay with the following:
TF2 & PayPal
 

I BUY HB Games	with TF2	with PayPal	Currently Active Humble Bundle?
7 Days to Die	0.8 TF2	$1.56 PP	-
A Little To The Left	2.1 TF2	$3.98 PP	-
Alien: Isolation	1.5 TF2	$2.93 PP	-
Aliens: Fireteam Elite	1.4 TF2	$2.69 PP	-
Arma 3	4.2 TF2	$7.95 PP	-
Assetto Corsa Ultimate Edition	1.9 TF2	$3.56 PP	-
Automobilista 2	1.6 TF2	$3.03 PP	-
BIOMUTANT	1.4 TF2	$2.75 PP	-
BROFORCE	0.8 TF2	$1.46 PP	-
Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.43 PP	-
Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.44 PP	-
Barony	2.6 TF2	$4.9 PP	-
Barotrauma	3.8 TF2	$7.26 PP	-
Batman - The Telltale Series	1.3 TF2	$2.43 PP	-
Batman Arkham Collection	1.1 TF2	$2.08 PP	-
Batman: Arkham Origins	0.6 TF2	$1.21 PP	-
Batman™: Arkham Knight Premium Edition	1.0 TF2	$1.83 PP	-
Bayonetta	0.7 TF2	$1.34 PP	-
Beyond Two Souls	1.7 TF2	$3.31 PP	-
Blasphemous	1.4 TF2	$2.69 PP	-
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night	0.5 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe Edition	4.9 TF2	$9.36 PP	-
Borderlands 3	3.1 TF2	$5.88 PP	-
Borderlands: The Handsome Collection	3.0 TF2	$5.73 PP	-
Builder Simulator	0.4 TF2	$0.78 PP	-
Celeste	0.8 TF2	$1.57 PP	-
Chernobylite Enhanced Edition	0.9 TF2	$1.78 PP	-
Cities: Skylines	2.2 TF2	$4.18 PP	-
Code Vein	1.2 TF2	$2.26 PP	-
Conan Exiles	2.5 TF2	$4.79 PP	-
Contractors	2.9 TF2	$5.56 PP	-
Control Ultimate Edition	2.6 TF2	$4.85 PP	-
Crusader Kings III	4.4 TF2	$8.38 PP	-
DARK SOULS™ II: Scholar of the First Sin	4.8 TF2	$9.15 PP	-
DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR'S CUT	4.4 TF2	$8.34 PP	-
DRAGON BALL XENOVERSE 2	2.3 TF2	$4.44 PP	-
Dark Souls III	7.2 TF2	$13.74 PP	-
Dark Souls III: Deluxe Edition	9.9 TF2	$18.86 PP	-
DayZ	10.6 TF2	$20.07 PP	-
Dead Island - Definitive Edition	0.8 TF2	$1.52 PP	-
Dead Island Definitive Collection	0.9 TF2	$1.72 PP	-
Dead Island Riptide Definitive Edition	0.7 TF2	$1.24 PP	-
Dead by Daylight	3.1 TF2	$5.97 PP	-
Deep Rock Galactic	3.0 TF2	$5.62 PP	-
Destiny 2: Beyond Light	1.0 TF2	$1.85 PP	-
Destiny 2: Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack	1.3 TF2	$2.47 PP	-
Destiny 2: Forsaken Pack	1.0 TF2	$1.9 PP	-
Destiny 2: Lightfall	4.0 TF2	$7.55 PP	-
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep	1.0 TF2	$1.93 PP	-
Destiny 2: The Witch Queen	2.0 TF2	$3.85 PP	-
Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed	0.7 TF2	$1.4 PP	-
Devil May Cry HD Collection	1.8 TF2	$3.45 PP	-
Devil May Cry® 4 Special Edition	1.4 TF2	$2.74 PP	-
DiRT Rally	0.8 TF2	$1.51 PP	-
Disco Elysium - The Final Cut	1.6 TF2	$2.95 PP	-
Doom Eternal	2.2 TF2	$4.17 PP	-
Dragon Ball FighterZ	2.0 TF2	$3.79 PP	-
Dragons Dogma - Dark Arisen	0.9 TF2	$1.77 PP	-
Dungeon Defenders	3.0 TF2	$5.78 PP	-
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 5	4.3 TF2	$8.2 PP	-
ELEX II	0.8 TF2	$1.57 PP	-
Europa Universalis IV	3.2 TF2	$6.16 PP	-
Expeditions: Rome	0.5 TF2	$0.89 PP	-
FTL: Faster Than Light	0.7 TF2	$1.41 PP	-
Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game	0.4 TF2	$0.81 PP	-
Farming Simulator 19	2.2 TF2	$4.23 PP	-
For The King	0.5 TF2	$0.92 PP	-
Forager	0.8 TF2	$1.58 PP	-
Frostpunk	0.8 TF2	$1.51 PP	-
GRID 2	1.9 TF2	$3.66 PP	-
Gang Beasts	2.6 TF2	$4.97 PP	-
Gas Station Simulator	3.1 TF2	$5.8 PP	-
Generation Zero®	0.7 TF2	$1.36 PP	-
Ghostwire Tokyo	1.4 TF2	$2.69 PP	-
Goat Simulator	0.4 TF2	$0.8 PP	-
Golf It!	1.8 TF2	$3.42 PP	-
Gotham Knights	1.5 TF2	$2.83 PP	-
Graveyard Keeper	0.5 TF2	$0.9 PP	-
Grim Dawn	2.5 TF2	$4.66 PP	-
Hell Let Loose	7.1 TF2	$13.47 PP	-
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice	1.4 TF2	$2.69 PP	-
Hitman Absolution	0.4 TF2	$0.79 PP	-
Hollow Knight	3.4 TF2	$6.43 PP	-
Homeworld Remastered Collection	0.4 TF2	$0.78 PP	-
Hotline Miami	0.5 TF2	$0.87 PP	-
House Flipper	2.0 TF2	$3.89 PP	-
Injustice 2 Legendary Edition	0.6 TF2	$1.2 PP	-
Into the Radius VR	2.9 TF2	$5.5 PP	-
Jurassic World Evolution 2	2.7 TF2	$5.19 PP	-
Just Cause 3 XXL Edition	1.4 TF2	$2.63 PP	-
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes	1.7 TF2	$3.16 PP	-
Kerbal Space Program	1.1 TF2	$2.07 PP	-
Killing Floor 2	0.6 TF2	$1.14 PP	-
Kingdom: Two Crowns	1.5 TF2	$2.94 PP	-
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes 2 - Deluxe Edition	0.9 TF2	$1.77 PP	-
LEGO Star Wars : The Complete Saga	0.6 TF2	$1.17 PP	-
LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars	0.6 TF2	$1.22 PP	-
LEGO® City Undercover	0.7 TF2	$1.3 PP	-
LEGO® Jurassic World™	0.8 TF2	$1.57 PP	-
Lethal League Blaze	1.8 TF2	$3.44 PP	-
Life is Strange 2 Complete Season	1.4 TF2	$2.72 PP	-
Life is Strange: True Colors	1.5 TF2	$2.82 PP	-
Little Nightmares	1.1 TF2	$2.06 PP	-
Loop Hero	0.8 TF2	$1.44 PP	-
METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN	3.3 TF2	$6.31 PP	-
METAL GEAR SOLID V: The Definitive Experience	3.5 TF2	$6.61 PP	-
Mad Max	0.7 TF2	$1.3 PP	-
Mafia: Definitive Edition	2.4 TF2	$4.56 PP	-
Mass Effect™ Legendary Edition	4.7 TF2	$8.87 PP	-
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries	2.6 TF2	$4.89 PP	-
Men of War: Assault Squad 2 Deluxe Edition	1.3 TF2	$2.4 PP	-
Metro 2033 Redux	0.5 TF2	$0.92 PP	-
Metro Exodus	1.3 TF2	$2.47 PP	-
Metro Redux Bundle	0.7 TF2	$1.25 PP	-
Middle-earth™: Shadow of War™ Definitive Edition	0.9 TF2	$1.65 PP	-
Midnight Ghost Hunt	0.8 TF2	$1.45 PP	-
Monster Hunter: World	2.0 TF2	$3.87 PP	-
Mordhau	1.9 TF2	$3.6 PP	-
Mortal Kombat XL	0.6 TF2	$1.13 PP	-
Mortal Shell	0.5 TF2	$0.97 PP	-
NASCAR Heat 5 - Ultimate Edition	0.4 TF2	$0.75 PP	-
NBA 2K23	5.3 TF2	$10.16 PP	-
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4	2.2 TF2	$4.18 PP	-
Naruto to Boruto Shinobi Striker	0.9 TF2	$1.76 PP	-
Nioh 2 - The Complete Edition	2.7 TF2	$5.18 PP	-
Nobody Saves the World	0.5 TF2	$0.95 PP	-
Northgard	2.4 TF2	$4.5 PP	-
Orcs Must Die! 3	1.6 TF2	$3.01 PP	-
Outlast 2	0.9 TF2	$1.68 PP	-
Overcooked! 2	1.2 TF2	$2.3 PP	-
PC Building Simulator	0.6 TF2	$1.14 PP	-
PGA TOUR 2K21	0.9 TF2	$1.8 PP	-
Plague Inc: Evolved	1.9 TF2	$3.56 PP	-
Planet Coaster	2.4 TF2	$4.59 PP	-
Planet Zoo	2.5 TF2	$4.75 PP	-
PlateUp!	1.0 TF2	$1.85 PP	-
Prison Architect	2.7 TF2	$5.14 PP	-
Project Wingman	1.5 TF2	$2.94 PP	-
RESIDENT EVIL 3	2.0 TF2	$3.76 PP	-
Rain World	0.9 TF2	$1.78 PP	-
Remnant: From the Ashes - Complete Edition	2.5 TF2	$4.69 PP	-
Resident Evil 4 Ultimate HD Edition	1.0 TF2	$1.83 PP	-
Resident Evil 5 GOLD Edition	1.1 TF2	$2.04 PP	-
Resident Evil 6	1.3 TF2	$2.46 PP	-
Resident Evil® 5	1.7 TF2	$3.18 PP	-
Rising Storm 2: Vietnam	0.5 TF2	$0.9 PP	-
Road 96	0.5 TF2	$1.02 PP	-
SCUM	4.7 TF2	$8.86 PP	-
STAR WARS® THE FORCE UNLEASHED II	0.6 TF2	$1.11 PP	-
STAR WARS™ Knights of the Old Republic™ II - The Sith Lords™	0.5 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Satisfactory	5.0 TF2	$9.55 PP	-
Scorn	0.8 TF2	$1.49 PP	-
Sid Meier's Civilization VI	1.2 TF2	$2.33 PP	-
Slay the Spire	2.5 TF2	$4.79 PP	-
Sleeping Dogs™ Definitive Edition	1.0 TF2	$1.95 PP	-
Slime Rancher	1.1 TF2	$2.11 PP	-
Sniper Elite 4	1.0 TF2	$1.96 PP	-
Space Engineers	2.6 TF2	$4.91 PP	-
Spec Ops: The Line	4.3 TF2	$8.21 PP	-
SpeedRunners	0.4 TF2	$0.82 PP	-
Spintires: MudRunner	1.0 TF2	$1.85 PP	-
Squad	6.7 TF2	$12.77 PP	-
Star Wars Republic Commando™	0.4 TF2	$0.82 PP	-
Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy	0.4 TF2	$0.71 PP	-
Star Wars® Empire at War™: Gold Pack	0.6 TF2	$1.09 PP	-
State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition	4.9 TF2	$9.37 PP	-
Stellaris	3.3 TF2	$6.25 PP	-
Stellaris: Federations	2.7 TF2	$5.11 PP	-
Streets of Rogue	0.5 TF2	$0.91 PP	-
Subnautica	5.3 TF2	$10.08 PP	-
Sunset Overdrive	0.8 TF2	$1.52 PP	-
TEKKEN 7	1.9 TF2	$3.56 PP	-
The Ascent	0.6 TF2	$1.18 PP	-
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes	1.3 TF2	$2.42 PP	-
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan	2.2 TF2	$4.21 PP	-
The Escapists 2	1.0 TF2 Refer To My Other Thread	$1.89 PP Refer To My Other Thread	Team17: From Gold Greens to Battle Scenes Bundle
The Jackbox Party Pack 3	2.3 TF2	$4.45 PP	-
The Jackbox Party Pack 5	2.3 TF2	$4.33 PP	-
The Jackbox Party Pack 7	3.6 TF2	$6.81 PP	-
The LEGO® Movie Videogame	0.4 TF2	$0.73 PP	-
The Mortuary Assistant	3.9 TF2	$7.41 PP	-
The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition	2.7 TF2	$5.1 PP	-
The Quarry Deluxe Edition	2.7 TF2	$5.21 PP	-
The Universim	3.0 TF2	$5.78 PP	-
The Walking Dead: A New Frontier	0.7 TF2	$1.42 PP	-
The Walking Dead: Season Two	0.4 TF2	$0.79 PP	-
The Walking Dead: The Final Season	1.2 TF2	$2.25 PP	-
The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series	3.4 TF2	$6.41 PP	-
The Witness	0.8 TF2	$1.58 PP	-
The Wolf Among Us	1.3 TF2	$2.53 PP	-
Total War SHOGUN 2 Collection	1.8 TF2	$3.48 PP	-
Total War: Attila	1.6 TF2	$3.12 PP	-
Total War: Napoleon - Definitive Edition	1.6 TF2	$3.05 PP	-
Total War: ROME II - Emperor Edition	2.5 TF2	$4.68 PP	-
Total War™: WARHAMMER®	3.1 TF2	$5.96 PP	-
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator	1.7 TF2	$3.23 PP	-
Trailmakers	0.7 TF2	$1.37 PP	-
Tropico 6	1.6 TF2	$3.03 PP	-
Two Point Campus	1.0 TF2	$1.83 PP	-
Ultimate Chicken Horse	1.6 TF2	$2.96 PP	-
Unpacking	0.9 TF2	$1.8 PP	-
Unrailed!	0.9 TF2	$1.74 PP	-
VTOL VR	4.6 TF2	$8.76 PP	-
Victoria 3	1.4 TF2	$2.72 PP	-
Viscera Cleanup Detail	1.4 TF2	$2.74 PP	-
WRATH: Aeon of Ruin	0.7 TF2	$1.33 PP	-
WWE 2K23	6.7 TF2	$12.75 PP	-
Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War III	2.2 TF2	$4.17 PP	-
Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters	1.9 TF2	$3.6 PP	-
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Master Collection	1.7 TF2	$3.28 PP	-
Warhammer: Vermintide 2	0.7 TF2	$1.41 PP	-
Wasteland 3	1.8 TF2	$3.46 PP	-
Witch It	1.4 TF2	$2.65 PP	-
Worms Armageddon	0.4 TF2	$0.84 PP	-
Yakuza 0	3.1 TF2	$5.82 PP	-
Yakuza 4 Remastered	0.5 TF2	$0.86 PP	-
Zombie Army 4: Dead War	1.1 TF2	$2.02 PP	-
rFactor 2	0.6 TF2	$1.11 PP	-

 
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First time posting; I'm sorry if I screwed up anywhere!
This happened about a year ago so I apologize if I misremember a few details.
At the time, I was running for a new group of four players. The players so far have had one adventure together: killing rats in a basement. Already the party is roleplaying together and making inside jokes. Even the new players who are a bit shy are starting to open up.
For their next adventure, the party has been recruited to go to a nearby farm that is been harassed by nearby goblins. The farm is tended to by three NPC's: Hillard, an old crotchety man who is secretly a powerful wizard in hiding after a "job gone wrong;" Mallory, his wife (who never got developed); and Dolores, their restless daughter. Hillard wants Dolores to stay on the farm, but Dolores has a hunger for adventure. The party decide to take Dolores along with them to go oust all the goblins and give her some spare equipment they have lying around. For context, her stats are all atrocious with about 6 HP to her name.
Miraculously, she survives their encounters, but not without her almost dying several times and realizing that adventuring is a lot more dangerous than she thought.
The party, to my surprise, convinces Hillard to let Dolores join them. More inside jokes appear with some players in character doting on their new adventuring buddy.
Here's where things get weird.
One of my players, our rogue, takes Dolores on his protégé. He spends most of his gold in town buying her equipment and healing potions and attempts to give her life lessons and training in their downtime. While I don't give a mechanical benefit, I do roleplay Dolores slowly building confidence, namely feeling more safe now that she has a shield and armor to hide in.
Another new player who is playing our druid decides that she is going to roleplay that she's not a fan of Dolores. While the rogue is building up Dolores' confidence and coddling her, the druid instead makes remarks that it's a waste of time as Dolores is probably just going to wind up dead. Other players in character chastise the druid for this, but it's all in character so I think nothing of it. Post session there are more jokes and things seem to be going well.
Later, I get a bunch of discord messages from the druid player that the rogue player is DM'ing her and making her feel upset and useless.
I go and talk to the rogue player and he's complaining because he doesn't like how the druid player is putting down Dolores. I tell him that firstly if he has problems with other players to bring it to me first (a policy I have so that I can filter out the vitriol if players have legitimate concerns) but I remind him that Dolores is an NPC with about 6 HP and that while he might be getting attached, the druid player is under no obligation to do so. I ask him if that's a problem for him and let him know that I will address it if it is, but he says that it isn't and apologizes for his behavior.
I speak with the other players and ask if they're having any issues with this and they're surprised I'm even asking. To them (and me) it added a much needed dynamic to Dolores.
I then ask both the druid and rogue players privately if they would be okay meeting together in a group call to have a discussion, namely to see if this can be salvaged, and they agree. Surprisingly, the rogue player apologizes for being out of line and admitting that he let it get to him. I propose that players are allowed to have different opinions and can roleplay different opinions but that any conflict will stay between characters and not extend outside the table. The players agree and make up, and the next session goes pretty smoothly.
Three sessions later and he has a full-on explosion, calling the druid player a female dog and an impolite word for female genitals, rants that she's "ruined the game by being such a downer to Dolores" and leaves the call. He messages me privately that he really enjoyed our game and would love to be invited to another one if I host, but that he can't stand how miserable "that c---" is by making everyone feel depressed (again, I spoke with the other players and they were surprised he felt that way at all.)
Part of me wanted to call him out, but I'm too nice and instead thanked him for his compliment, told him he would not be receiving a future invite to my tables, and blocked him.
I then had a long conversation with the druid player who has been absolutely emotionally destroyed by this and in tears. We have a player meeting with the remaining players about it. I offer to end the game if no one feels like playing anymore, but everyone says that they enjoyed the game thus far and wanted to see what more I had in store.
Even the druid.
Somehow that game is still going on. And Dolores is somehow still with them, alive and well.

I can't sleep, and I have some truth to spill.
A few months ago, my colleague and I argued because he wouldn't take my advice over a DeWalt drill, we use all Makita tools here, and it seems meaningless to buy new chargers and batteries for a different line of power tools. I shared that question here, and oh boy I got smacked in the face. https://www.reddit.com/Dewalt/comments/1clmntl/are_they_trying_to_dupe_me_universal_power_tool/
Now, I'm over that. He can get whatever he likes, that's his right, I understand that. BUT! Why there're so many of y'all are defending the Youtuber and that third-party battery brand?
discombobulated38x has 3 upvotes cuz he mentioned that he trusts Dean and TTC? Kubuntu55 got 5 upvotes cuz he said these youtubers did a lot of tests? Oh my gooooood,. No-Names-Left-Here got 36 upvotes cuz he said "I'd trust that youtuber over you too." Don't you see this is a personal attack on my specialty? because of what? A third party battery?
Universal Power Tool Battery in concept is good, but there is no way it's good, I don't even need to watch youtube videos or visit their website to know how ridiculous this product is bad.
Nothing good comes along without loyalty, you are loyal to your friend, and he will give you a hand when you are in need, that's the same with your relationship with the brand! My dealer gives me a 5% cut every time. Expensive batteries mean good batteries, unlike that stupid "universal battery" which I saw a facebook post today, you know what they did? 50% off discount! no sh*t! Any reliable brand ever does that? It only makes me more skeptical. My advice to you all! If you see a "universal power tool battery" with 50% off like this, run off! I can't recall when is the last time I'm wrong. You will thank me later.

Hey licks, I'm still kind of new to all of this so forgive me for any faux pas, but a nos friend in my city connected me and I wanted to throw out a line for a very important question. I need a relatively safe route from Seattle to Chicago, and I was wondering if you all know any good domains to pass through for that?
I don't know many details, but for context my sire's coterie is actually from Chicago originally. They came to Seattle on some kind of order from the prince back there to drop off a "package". Apparently they came through Canada the first time but pissed off some locals along the way and swear they can't go back. Lucky me, I got embraced while they were in the area... Now I've gotten press ganged into their group, and they're looking for a safe way home without any answers.
So without any better solutions, and apparently being the only one of them that can actually use the internet, I thought I'd see if you folks have any advice. My sire's coterie is pretty experienced, but there's only three of them plus me. She's also told me the roads are pretty dangerous? I know there are other licks out there but I think she implied there may also be werewolves??? She didn't clarify...
TLDR; A coterie of idiots got themselves stuck in my town and can't find their way back to Chicago, now I'm along for the ride and need help.
~ Thanks for helping out the new kid, I'll see you on the road!
P.S. If more info helps at all, I'm a Gangrel and so is the rest of the coterie. They also seem to prefer working with the Cams than they do the Anarchs? I think my sire has some kind of beef with them... but I think I could rein her in if there's somewhere we have to pass through. They also only use motorcycles instead of cars? and our coteries leader refuses to change! Because who needs protection from the sun anyways? I was just born yesterday blah blah blah...

Josh (M,16)
Back in 2011 in the big flood that swept the town (Gympie) we were trapped on the southern side. Because the place is all hills surrounding a river, it turned the town into an almost set of islands.
Our dad worked FIFO and was gone at the time, my older bro (18) had about 4-5 of his mates staying over, the floodwater came up right to our backyard that was usually grazing paddocks.
Home suddenly evolved into a lakeside party house. It was grouse.
We had a tinnie and a couple of canoes so we decided to make the most of the town shutting down and did grog runs and became a little ferry service, bringing friends and family and friends of friends back and forth and what not.
Half the town was submerged, The main street was completely underwater.
It was honestly like a holiday. A mud smelling holiday, but everything shut down and we had an unknown amount of time before things would return back to normal. The town was abuzz with people driving around their little sections seeing where the flood water levels were at now. It was a sight to see.
The cleanups always gross and it's devastating for some townsfolk whose homes and businesses were damaged, but we were young, no responsibilities and no assets lost, so it was fucking awesome for us.
So one night about 4-5 days into the flood, two of my brother's mates and I took the canoe across the ‘lake’ near pengullies bridge which was meters under. There was this weird patch of water that had been bubbling for days, it was around a fossicking field and the town's littered with thousands of abandoned mine shafts, so we speculated it was one of those, or a sewerage line, or a gas vent, but whatever it was the whole time it was flooded the water never stopped it's strange bubbling motion and it was straight up sus.
Now we don't know if that patch of water had anything to do with what we experienced. It could be completely irrelevant, but I wanted to add that in because we were close to that part of the water.
Now, this wasn't just like going through a lake, there were half submerged trees, floating logs/ branches and debris floating around. A time or two before that, logs had seemingly popped up out of nowhere and rammed into us. It was actually pretty dangerous if you weren't careful.
So anyway, it was night time and we were headed across the lake, we were just nearing the weird patch. Our destination was where the water hit the road, where our mates were waiting in their car parked up to the water's edge with a delivery.
So we were about 100 meters offshore when we hit something solid. It jolted us in the boat as we went from fast paddle to stop.
We continued onwards assuming it was just a big branch or something, and we slowly navigated through that area inspecting the depths with our paddles.
Then something between us and the shore thrashed at the surface of the water. Whatever it was, it was big to make that sort of splashing. Our mates in the car turned on their spotties to get a better look as they noticed it too. This in effect blinded us.
The three of us in the canoe stayed dead quiet. The land was so close, yet so far away. The big splash was between here and there.
We very enthusiastically paddled the rest of the way over and had a good laugh with the boys once we got on shore. They said the looks on our faces was priceless, but agreed whatever had jumped had been big and we speculated on what sort of fish it could have been.
We spent an hour or so ‘in town' before we decided to head back. One of my brother's mates bailed saying he was gonna chill this side of the lake and head back over tomorrow. Dog.
So it was Richy and me to brave the floodwater alone after the big splash. The others made sure to bring it up as much as they could to try and freak us out, but they didn't have to. The sort of fear that comes to you on water when you feel uneasy or unsafe is an instinctual primal one. I was honestly terrified but I put on a brave face.
This time we didn't have the headlights pointed over the water so it was darker and the world was turned to shadows, even the house lights on the hilltops were mostly out.
It was so silent, I remember the oars sounded so loud as they splashed through the water and try as you might it's impossible not to get drenched. My discomfort was through the roof to put it mildly.
We passed the weird spot and I began to feel safer. That was the creepy part done, now the other 800 or so meters. Yippee.
We hit another solid thing and did our careful prod and poke method to slowly maneuver away.
My oar touched something and it jolted. I don't know if you've ever felt that feeling before, it's similar to stepping on a fish at the beach. It's happened to me before with big eels during the day but this time I was SHOOK, mostly due to the fact I was in this situation.
I brought my paddle out of the water and began swearing profusely letting Richy know that I touched something and it moved.
We stared around the glass like water around us for a few breaths, then out of nowhere breaking the silence something rammed the canoe… hard. We rocked back and forth and kept it steady somehow. All my wildest nightmares seemed to be playing out.
Richy pleaded frantically for me to paddle. I was honestly just stunned and frozen.
I was reluctant to put my arms anywhere near the water, but staying out here we were sitting ducks.
I joined in Richys paddling, the lights of the varanda were off in the distance, we were getting closer. Then bang, whatever it was collided with the canoe again and it lifted the back of the canoe where I was seated upwards, the hit was hard enough to propel us forward a few metres.
By this point we were shouting out towards the house as we paddled for dear life. One more hit like that and the canoe would capsize and if that happened… It makes me feel sick just thinking about it.
My bro and his mates ran down with torches and were shouting out to us. Communication was intangible at this point. My ears were rushing, I was puffed and felt like I couldn't breath yet all the same I tried to convey that there was ‘a thing.’
On that last leg, nothing else happened except loud scraping and scratching sounds under the canoe, at the time I thought it was ‘the thing’ but later summed that up to the tops of bushes in the shallows. All the same my body clamped up at the sounds and I let out more swear filled wails.
We stood watching the water for a few hours into the night... from a safe distance. After I went to bed, my brother, Richy and another mate said they saw something splash again.
The next morning I still went out on the water, but only in the tinnie. I hate canoes and personally think kayaks are only for the truly reckless.
I was sitting on the veranda the next afternoon when I swear I saw something big bob in the water from very far away, it was probably just a log, but I swear every stick and shadow I came across felt like it was ‘the thing' from that point. I honestly don't even know what it looked like.
Straight up strange. Don't know what it could have been, but I personally think it was a cave monster from one of the old mine shafts and the mysterious bubbling swirl. Richy thinks it was a croc. The ‘Dog’ thinks it was just some sort of fucked up fish, my brother thinks WE were just fucked up. Guess we'll never know.
One thing I do know is… be careful near floodwater. You never know what lies beneath.
.VJ

I am so unsure about my wife.

Dear Reddit. I come to you with my hat in my hand as I do not know what to do. I am split down the middle in terms of self respect, love, and fear.

I 36(M) have known my wife 35(F), since we were 18, and have been married since 2016

We have 2 kids M(8), F(9), a house, jobs, cars, dogs.

But things from the past have now come back to haunt me, and I am unsure about everything, about respect, love, pride, attractiveness, safe to say my mind is in the biggest turmoil it has ever been. I’m going to cut straight to the chase, with a little about me in order to get my point across as clear as I can.

We met young, and I found my soulmate with no prior experience with woman. She was my first everything, while I know that she has had a few sexual partners. This didn’t bother me at first, but years down the line I found out that while I was head over heels for this girl, she met with a random guy and had sex. (We were not a couple then, but became a few weeks later) She has not had many sexual partners; from what I’ve been told I am her 7th partner.

I must admit still to this day that, this episode doesn’t affect me much anymore, but with all that has/is happening right now its re-surfaces and stings like a needle.

Throughout our relationship she has done things that crosses my boundaries. Let me come with the examples here:

1) We were at a party with mutual friends, and one of our friends was hooking up with a guy, we went into their room and started teasing them as they were making out. Out of the blue, my wife, then girlfriend, grabbed his crotch and said “It’s not even hard” right in front of me, I obviously got furious, and we had a fight but made up over a few days.

2) During her school year, she had to travel to Germany with her class, and be with a German family as part of her education, sort of like an exchange student. While she was in Germany she went out with her entire class for drinks, and from what she says there was a few guys that was making moves on her, and since she got drunk and had no way to figure out how to get home safe to her exchange family, she decided to head home with one of her male classmates to his exchange family and went to sleep in his room. As she put it, he slept on the floor, and she slept in the bed. And he was a friend, not one of those making moves.

3) We were once again with mutual friends at a BBQ and was later heading out into the cityLife to hit up bars and discos. Me and my best friend were on the toilet, putting wax in our hair, putting on fresh cologne and all that jazz. She the suddenly burst in, saying she really needs to pee, proceeds to pull down her pants and thong, honestly from what I remember you could see everything. We had a big fight about this again.


4) This episode was last summer during two mutual friends that got married. She was the toastmaster, and after all was done, she needed to do a wardrobe change. We went to our hotel room; she got changed to another more comfortable dress. While walking back, we could see some of our mutual friends with their husbands, and she decided to lift up her entire dress up to the start of her bra and do a silly side-to-side dance. Everyone saw it no questions asked. I again got furious, and I told her calmly, that I will not tolerate this, and be disrespected like this, there is other men seeing what only I should be seeing. She apologized immediately, and I said, I don’t want to talk more about this now, as I don’t want to ruin the night. We didn’t talk about it afterwards.

5) This is a month ago. She was celebrating her 35 birthday and went out with all her girls. One of her girlfriends is addicted to social media, and she must post everything. I have a very strict rule when it comes to nights out, this goes both ways.
Example 1 to 3 was when we were from the ages of 19 - 25

1. Don’t dance with other men!
2. Don’t go away from the venue alone!
3. Don’t take a pirate taxi, or a normal taxi home, call me instead!
4. Don’t flirt (This is a grey area, you cannot define flirting so if she flirts a little it’s fine, but don’t overdo it kind of way)
At this party I saw a video from the social media addicted girlfriend of hers on her snapchat story of my wife dancing and having a blast, she looked so good, and so happy, and I smiled when I saw it, quickly my smile faded away as a guy approached holding out both his hands towards my wife, and she looked different then, I can’t put it as to why, it’s like her personality changed, she looked very keen on going with this guy, to the dance floor, the exit, the toilets I don’t know because I could not see much from the video. What happened next is one of her other girlfriends grabbed her hard and pulled her away from the guy and the video ended.

I was the designated driver that night, so when she would call me in the night, I would come pick up her, and girlfriends and drive them home safely. But I got a call from one of her girlfriends that they could not find my wife anywhere and that she has been gone for like 30 minutes, they asked if I could track her from “Find my iPhone” but I have not saved her location so I could not. I got scared that she broke rule nr. 2 and that something bad might have happened.

Also in my mind, I thought about the video I saw, and then all else mentioned above. All the instances where she crossed my boundaries came flooding in. I am not proud of it. My first thought was her safety, the second thought was, did she envelope with this guy, and is doing something a married woman should not. Her girlfriend that called me, called me back 10 minutes later, saying they found her, and that she was just escorting the social media addicted girlfriend to her car, as she was not drinking, she basically broke rule nr. 2. I got relieved she was ok. But the pit in my stomach was still there.

I later picked them all up, and on the whole drive my wife obviously drunk, kept talking about nothing than men/boys “And then there was this guy” “And this guy looked like name of a friend we know” “and this guy reminded me so much of our boy” on and on, I was upset at this point, not showing it, but in my head I wanted to scream. All these emotions, all these times my line was crossed, the sex she had with another guy while I was in love with her. I know this is some sort of PTSD.

We got home, I put her to bed. And a few days went by, where I was silent, hurt, and went to the gym as much as I could as I could not look at her without being sad, hurt, angry. After about a week when we were lying in bed, I told her not to say anything but just to listen. It went something like this (it was not smooth at all, but I needed to get it out)

“In all our time together, you have touched a man’s crotch in front of me, went with another man and slept in the same room, not that I think anything happened between you two. You have basically shown your lady part, and butt to one of my best friends with me being present, at the wedding you decided to flash nearly your entire body to your girlfriends and their husbands in front of me, and lately at your birthday party (I explained the video) and then you were gone for like 40 minutes with no one knowing where you were. I’m not saying you did anything, but can you see how all of this puts a boulder in my stomach?”

She cried and said we have talked about this before, and we have, many times. I let say her piece. But in my mind, it went something like this:

“Yes we have talked about it many times before, but you keep triggering everything by crossing my boundaries, and you know it, so don’t cry and play the victim, this is your fault, and just because we have talked about it 2-4 times doesn’t mean that my feelings just disappear, feelings takes times, and when you constantly say sorry but then do it again, how am I suppose to heal?” I know I should have said this out loud, but I just got so small in the moment, as I opened up about some deep feelings.

This brings me to now. Why I am reaching out for external inputs on how to proceed.

I feel emasculated as a man, I feel disrespected, I do not feel like the most important person for her, I’m angry, hurt, and all of this has led me down following options none of which I want to do, but I feel like I must in order to respect myself, and say enough is enough.
1) I have been thinking of divorce.
2) Swallow my pride and move on, maybe talk it over with a professional.
3) Continue as always.
4) Give her an ultimatum, that if she crosses any of these in the future, I am gone for good.
It’s all very hard, because I love her so much, I love my kids, I don’t want to destroy everything. But I can’t handle being disrespected and emasculated any longer, and have my boundaries crossed again.

I trust her fully when she says nothing has ever happened, she is not that kind of girl, but you can always be surprised down the road.
Am I controlling, is this all justified in your eyes, am I wrong?
Any help, tips, how to proceed, personal opinions is welcome.
TL;DR Wife keeps crossing boundaries in the relationship, should I leave or stay?

Intro

It’s not much of a stretch to say that violence is the primary form of interaction in video games. With a handful of exceptions, most video games involve guys whacking other guys, with varying degrees of brutality. Even chill games fall into this - Stardew Valley has sections with combat in them! Considering the pervasiveness of violence in video games, there has been a ton of amateur and academic commentary on the topic. However, while this is a well-established school of thought, I haven’t seen people try to apply this to Fire Emblem specifically.
So, let’s do that now! In this post, I’ll be exploring how violence in Fire Emblem is implemented - what limitations are placed on violence, how it warps wider game and narrative design, and what it implicitly says and does not say. I hope this post doesn’t come off as too early-2010s “makes you think”-y, but I do think there are multiple interesting things worth talking about here!
Despite the length of this post, "a brief discussion" is an appropriate title, as we won't be able to go into depth on everything. After all, video games are holistic works, so the attitude towards violence is relevant to every aspect of their design. However, I have managed to wrangle some of these threads into the following structure: first a discussion on the fundamental mode of interaction in Fire Emblem, then how stories are constructed with regards to violence, and ending with the aesthetics of violence and how they relate to characters. Also, as FE is a huge series, be aware that I am gonna be making some broad statements which may not apply to each individual plot point of every game. I actually planned to write 3 case studies around Thracia 776, Fates, and Three Houses (which have the most interesting attitudes to violence in the series IMO) which point out these deviations, but this post is way too long and full of tangents already. If people are interested, I’ll make a followup to this post which goes into them in more detail. Also also, because of the nature of this post, I’ll actually give a useful TL;DR for once:
TL;DR: Nintendo games must be fun mechanically, and they can’t be too uncomfortable narratively. If you try to provide a counterpoint by saying “oh this Kirby final boss is super dark it eats 100 morbillion galaxies”, you do not deserve rights. IntSys has to keep to this as a 2nd party publisher, but they also have to deal with the fact that their games are at least nominally about ‘war’ (or at least they put their toes into that particular thematic pool). This conflict between making a fun video game for children/teens and the wider framing of the narrative leads to interesting narrative and aesthetic tensions. also fun is cringe, misery is based

“Do you like hurting other people?” (or The Fundamental Mode of Interaction)

OK LISTEN I KNOW I LITERALLY JUST SAID THAT I DIDN’T WANT TO COME ACROSS AS A EARLY 2010s “VIOLENCE IN VIDYA BAD :O????” PERSON BUT I SWEAR I’M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS
The best place to start when talking about violence in video games is to think about the primary form of interaction in said game. In the case of Fire Emblem, this is in the in-chapter gameplay. Sure, in objective terms the player moves arbitrary objects across a 2D grid which perform subtraction on arbitrary objects controlled by the computer, but this is always framed as controlling a squad of soldiers to engage in (typically lethal) combat with enemies (who are normally also soldiers). When you’re not doing this in-chapter gameplay, you are preparing for the next chapter of combat. This involves surveying the area of combat, preparing weapon loadouts, etc, however more recent entries also include light life-sim-esque elements. To summarize, Fire Emblem’s interactivity involves ordering violence as well as the preparations to order said violence.
For players, this strategic thinking is extremely fun and is the primary draw of the series! You have all these tier lists of who’s better at killing, discussion of the maps where you do the killing, complaints about the length of gameplay sections where you don’t do killing, etc. This is by design, as while I don’t know the core brand tenets of Nintendo, I imagine the Reggie quote “If it isn’t fun, why bother?” is carved into a solid gold statue of Mario in the office lobby. This then is enforced on all associated studios, including IntSys and so Fire Emblem. While I would disagree with that Reggie quote (especially the bit where he says “If it’s not a battle, where’s the fun?” which is a wild statement to make about an entire medium), this approach to making games is ultimately fine, and so IntSys tailored the strategic gameplay to be satisfying to your dopamine receptors. You could analyse what the normalisation of violence even in ‘just for fun’ games says about wider gaming culture, but I won’t get into that here. In any case, let’s dig into a few specifics of FE’s interactivity.
One thing that’s interesting with regard to strategy games is the detached perspective of the player. You order units and observe the resulting violence, but it’s not tactile, you don’t directly swing the sword or shoot the bow or cast the spell like with action games. This adds a layer of separation between the player and what fundamentally happens, at least within the framing that the game provides. It’s not like Call of Duty, where your relationship to the violence is very visceral, where you view everything down the barrel of a gun. OK, I probably shouldn’t use a series that I have very little personal experience with (I only listen to the supplementary lore material, so let’s talk about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. While you’re not directly in the driver’s seat, John Sekiro reacts to your every input with extreme responsiveness, so overcoming the game’s challenges i.e. stabbing people is incredibly visceral and satisfying. While this violence is fantastical in nature, there is sufficient blood and explicit sword-action to clearly say “oh yeah you are violently killing all of those bozos with a katana”. Coming back to FE, not only are you far more detached from the violence, it is presented in an extremely cartoony manner… but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, we’ll get to the aesthetics later. Point is, Fire Emblem gives the viewpoint of a stoic commander, who Does What Needs To Be Done™, and not the viewpoint of an actual soldier who has to do the actual killing.
Now let’s view the player’s perspective on violence from a different angle. Fire Emblem intends for its combat to be relatively relaxed on the player side of things - the turn-based nature allows the player to calmly think through all of their moves, and you typically have perfect information on the enemies. The only exceptions to this are Fog of WaSame Turn Reinforcements, which are rare and typically unpopular amongst the fanbase. This leans into ‘combat as sport’, where (going back to the Reggie quote) you have a fun time picking apart a puzzle with the tools you have, and we all collectively enjoy this! This is a valid way of designing strategy games, and I like what IntSys has done. However, it’s not the only way of making these games - for example, in Total War you have to juggle all your battalions in real time whilst the enemy is bearing down on you, and the XCOM games always have Fog of War and limited information on the enemies, with you never knowing what kind of awful new monster is going to suddenly charge at you. Don’t get me wrong, neither of these follow ‘combat as war’, the principle that violence should properly mimic the stress, tension and unfairness of actual conflict. Hell, neither of them are particularly mature either - Total War is the strategy game equivalent of smashing action figures together, and XCOM emulates a pulp sci-fi alien invasion story. However, the additional pressures these games have make them hew slightly closer to actual conflict, putting you more in that mindset in a way that the clean fun Fire Emblem doesn’t really do. Again, I want to say FE’s approach to violence in in-map gameplay is fine, but when all three of these franchises have an explicit narrative framing of ‘warfare’, it does make Fire Emblem’s narrative a little more… stretched.
Finally, I want to briefly mention the maps. To steal from a brilliant Jacob Geller video, these are Worlds Designed For Violence. At least outside of the Kaga games, the maps you fight on are primarily designed around how the player interacts with them, i.e. fights on them. While I imagine the narrative designers and artists at IntSys are involved throughout the map design process, the gameplay flow probably takes precedence most of the time. Maps are not designed to resemble realistic places that you have to fight through, they are instead designed primarily to provide fun gameplay experiences before being dressed up by the artists to look realistic/fit the specific story beat. This is a more consistently entertaining approach to map design - heaven knows we have a lot of Kaga castle assault maps which are as fun as actually assaulting an entrenched position IRL - but this lack of friction could potentially take the bite out of the intended vibe, neuter any commentary on violence throughout the story.
You may have noticed that we’ve only talked about the “in-map” gameplay for now, when there’s an entire second half of these games, i.e. all the gameplay between the maps. Don’t worry, we’ll get to all of that, but this may fit better in:

Something something “ludonarrative” something something (or Narrative Implications)

(To clarify, here I’m going to talk about the wider plots and narrative structure as opposed to characterisation, as that fits more into the aesthetics of the series)
It’s not bold to say that the narratives of games have to warp around the core gameplay structure. Especially in AAA video game production, the narrative designers usually have to take a back seat to the systems and level designers, at least outside of the initial rough outline they provide in the original game pitch. In this case, the job of the writer is to form vaguely coherent connective tissue between individual levels, setpieces and expensive pre-rendered cutscenes. This must be a very difficult job, and is probably the reason why most video game stories are the way they are. I am not privy to IntSys internal meetings, but I imagine they abide by this paradigm, trying to give a reason for why you fight 20 battles which roughly align with plot beats that were decided years ago.
Put another way, the writers of Fire Emblem must contrive a reason why the characters fight a vast number of violent battles in a strategic manner. This has a pretty easy solution - war! We have found something it’s good for, as whenever the gameplay designers decide that an extra map is required, the writers can just insert “oh no there’s a blockade of enemy soldiers in the way, guess you gotta kill them all”. This is the case for almost all the games and is a fair enough narrative choice, as it’s frankly one of the few scenarios where you could reasonably contrive so many battles, but it’s worth examining this in a bit more detail.
Even in the framing of warfare, there are still a lot of skirmishes, which sometimes the narrative or tone fails to support - or at least, their presence means that violence isn’t taken that seriously. Let’s take an example from early in Awakening: Emmeryn sends the Shepherds to negotiate an alliance with Regna Ferox. On the way, they are ambushed by Risen on the Northroad (1), have to fight the border guards who think Chrom is a bandit I think??? (2), and then after arriving they need to take part in Regna Ferox’s ritual combat to secure their alliance (3). These beats aren’t necessarily bad, and I actually think Awakening uses these opportunities quite well: the Risen are established as a constant threat to the world (except not really in the main story but that’s a whole other thing), “Marth'' gets more development, we set up Regna Ferox as fighty people who like to fight, and while the middle encounter is very tenuous it does set up a funny joke in Cynthia’s paralogue. However, I want to communicate that if the map/encounter designers need X maps between plot points A and B - in this case, needing low-stakes trials in the tutorial period - then there’s gonna be a fair bit of narrative filler. That is to say, there must be multiple combat encounters that kinda just happen, which makes violence a lot more casual in the narrative. See also the myriad examples of “oh shit random bandits attack!”, used to have a lower stakes map, with bandits appearing and vanishing as needed. This works fine enough in the context of ‘combat as sport’, allowing your favourite scrunglo to build up a triple-digit body count, but this casual attitude circumvents potentially interesting ideas with regards violence. Taking the example further, banditry and its causes are never seriously explored, as bandits are just treated as a filler enemy (except in Based As Hell Thracia 776).
Another narrative consequence of needing so many fights is that… you need to fight. That is to say, any anti-war sentiment or appeal to diplomacy in the series is fundamentally undercut by a) strategic combat being a core appeal of the series and b) narrative beats needing to be structured around fighting enemies. It’s a struggle to have moments of diplomacy and reconciliation when you had a fight within 3 minutes of said moment, lest some people start screaming that things are getting boring. This also makes any appeals to pacifism kinda moot. Xander’s quote about “war bad” in Conquest is utter bullshit, as a huge part of the marketing around that route focuses on the coolness of the tactical combat and its challenge. Eirika and Ephraim can never be equal, because Ephraim’s “fighting is fucken awesome” is encouraged by the gameplay, and Eirika can NEVER save 11037 because we need a final boss and no-one else fits the bill.
Speaking of, in video games it’s best practice to have a big bad guy you fight at the end of the story, the toughest mechanical challenge coinciding with the narrative climax. In Fire Emblem, you have one grand final battle which decides the fate of the war and/or world, before cutting to a brief wrap-up and then credits. This is an attempt to make these games satisfying, which is fine, but this is at odds with an anti-war message (which FE often gestures towards) - that is, actual wars tend to be deeply unsatisfying in a narrative sense! Oftentimes, after a decisive battle, things just kinda keep going for a little while afterwards with casualties continuing to pile up until peace terms are agreed. In the few cases where there is a final battle, it’s more of a formality as the decisive moment occurred months ago. See World War 1 and… World War 2 for examples of each, not to mention a whole host of war-related books and films. The problem with doing this in a video game is that it would require having multiple one-sided fights past the most climatic fight, which would be unfun, and we return to that fucking Reggie quote again. While video games can effectively explore this anti-war narrative space - This War of Mine is a fantastic example - it just doesn’t gel with the fun games that IntSys wants to make. I bring this up in the context of FE because Fire Emblem has such an aesthetic focus on warfare compared to other video games, so it sticks out even further. Even in FE6/FE9 where the war is effectively over in the final few maps, the enemies still remain extremely challenging, because if they didn’t things would be boring.
A few minor things that didn’t fit in above before we wrap up this section. First of all, in making an action packed story, Fire Emblem neglects an important aspect of army life in warfare - the “hurrying up and waiting”. In the majority of cases, the breaks between fights is under 10 minutes, it’s just glossed over. Fire Emblem Three Houses is the exception to this, but there it’s more framed as school life. Some people may say “what’s the point in having large amounts of timewasting where nothing happens in my game about war” and to that I would say fuck you, I want to play Jarhead Emblem. Next, Fire Emblem involves fighting people AND monsters, but these targets are typically given equal narrative weight, outside of maybe a funny line of dialogue about someone being afraid of monsters. In 99% of cases, enemy soldiers you fight have no more humanity than literal monsters. The death of any of your beloved soldiers is a tragedy with big sad death quotes, the death of those poor fuckers is quite literally a statistic which is proudly used to rank how well your guys have done at the end of the game. Finally, the limited scope of the violence the series can show limits the potential impact of scenes. In some cases, this is good as the implication is enough, e.g. the ‘Monica’ scene in Sacred Stones is wonderfully grim and would be weakened by anything explicit. However, a number of other scenes are neutered by the limitations on violence. This fundamentally relates to the aesthetics of the series:

insert prozd tweet/skit here (or Aesthetics, Tone, and Characters)

I’ve been talking a lot about ‘the violence committed’, and this might have seemed a bit weird to you. It’s a true statement, but because the violence is mostly cartoony and abstracted - bad guys disappear into nothingness, there’s no blood, etc - it’s hard to think of it in that way. It’s basically impossible to place Fire Emblem in the same artistic sphere as, say, All Quiet on the Western Front. This aesthetic sense was partially tech-limited in the early NES and SNES games, which was grandfathered into the more graphically complex titles, but it’s also related to how the aesthetics unavoidably warp the tone of the work. IntSys needs their games to be relatively lighthearted and unconcerned with the consequences of its violence, as one of the core appeals of these games is the charming cast of characters. As you would expect, it would be a lot harder to appreciate your goofy blorbos and their lighthearted chats about nothing if you could see the brutal consequences of their triple digit body counts. If violence was more realistic, there would be a lot less “ooh I like training and/or this one hyperspecific food” or “I like peace, but I guess violence may be possibly needed sometimes” and there would have to be a lot more trauma and dourness. There are also age rating concerns, as you can’t exactly sell Come And See Emblem to pre-teens. And once more, to clarify: Fire Emblem as it exists now is fine! I like the lighthearted tone of this series, and I like the characters that reside within it. However, a few problems do arise from IntSys’s approach to violence, as occasionally they brush up against darker ideas but (due to similar reasons to the above) they can never commit to them, which neuters their potential impact. This is especially troublesome with regards to characterisation, as the little dudes are a core appeal, so if something is off that could cause problems. In a sense, at points we have severe aesthetic tension.
A fairly useful case study to see how this affects characterisation is with Mozu in Fire Emblem Fates. Mozu is a charming character, a genial country bumpkin with a bit of an edge at times, who has fond memories of her hometown. This lines up with the lighthearted tone of her recruitment paralogue, where (checks notes) her entire village gets massacred by inhuman monsters, with her mother literally being murdered right in front of her, and she joins up with Corrin’s party because there is literally nothing left of her old life. I understand that people who experience extreme trauma do still manage to live meaningful lives, and that IntSys wouldn’t want to have a character who is a barely functional traumatised mess for 90% of the campaign. However, this doesn’t explain the sheer dissonance between the relatively normal and well-adjusted Mozu who quietly remembers her lost loved ones, and the fact that her village got My Lai’d a handful of weeks ago in the game’s timeline. IMO this would work a lot better if there were a few survivors (instead of literally everyone else dying), with Mozu actively choosing to leave her old life to help others instead of being forced to leave by circumstance. This reduction in scope would mitigate the dissonance between the character and what actually happens to her. This is by far the most extreme example in the series, however I’m sure you can think of others. My issue here is not with having ‘normal’ characters, or with them suffering tragedies, my issue is the dissonance between the two when viewing the scope of said tragedies. This is just one way the series wants to get into darker territory, then swiftly backing off instead of delving into the consequences.
This aesthetic restriction also affects the potential impact of dramatic scenes in the main story, limiting what the focus of these scenes can actually be. This little bit will involve heavy spoilers for Genealogy of the Holy War and Spec Ops: The Line (I KNOW THESE GAMES ARE VERY DIFFERENT WITH VERY DIFFERENT INTENDED DEMOGRAPHICS IN VERY DIFFERENT CULTURAL CONTEXTS, SHUT UP). Both have a very important narrative moment around their midpoints, involving fire magic/white phosphorus respectively. In each game, the deaths that occur are utterly horrific when you think about them. In FE4 the focus is on the drama of the plot twist and effects on the characters, with the actual effects of the violence being left to implication. We don’t know if this was the original intent of Kaga and the team, or if this was enforced by various tech- and publisher-related restrictions, but in either case we do not see anything explicit. In any case, in Spec Ops: The Line, the horror and graphic nature of the violence is completely inescapable, and therefore forms the core of the turning point of the story. The specifics of the violence itself are crucial - the game does not work if you don’t see the consequences of the white phosphorus - and it leads beautifully to the complete descent of its endgame. You may be saying “of course you couldn’t show that violence in FE, it’s a kids game” which is true, and in any case the scene in Genealogy is very good, even without showing the violence. I imagine if we get a remake in the year 202X we wouldn’t see anything explicit anyway, partially due to the publisher but also because the scene doesn’t necessarily need it. The point I am trying to make is that the aesthetics form a limitation on what Fire Emblem can explore, narrative space that the series fundamentally cannot reach.
One more thing, and this isn’t really about the games themselves but the impressions leading into them, and how the aesthetics can affect that. Do you guys remember when the intro cutscene of Three Houses was released a few weeks before release? I do, and I also remember the collective shock of the community when seeing the early previews. It was so drastically different to everything that had come before, and consequently was really intriguing - you can see a lot of speculation in the above comments. To clarify, I don’t want to pretend that 3H is some kind of super mature ultra gritty war story, or that blood = good game, but that beginning cutscene gave one hell of a first impression. Even though the game isn’t that much darker than any other FE game, the sheer unexpectedness put people off-kilter in a kinda awesome way. Does the game actually deliver? YMMV, but I think this (and some of the later cutscenes, such as the mid-game Dimitri one) work quite well. Sometimes, a little injection of harsher violence can go a long way.

Conclusion

Frankly I don’t really have a conclusion, sorry. As you can see, there are so many disparate strands, I can’t possibly make one grand thesis statement. Maybe the inherent contradictions of having warfare in a family friendly video game weakens the potential end result? I guess, but I don’t want to imply that what we have now is bad, as it is pretty good tbh. So, uhh…
…
OK, if I had to say something, it’s more about the process of making this. Having to try and think about how violence intersects with a video game you like takes you in a number of different directions. Ultimately, this process was really fulfilling for me, and I would recommend that you do the same (for FE or anything else)! Trying to analyse something you enjoy from a perspective not usually applied is pretty neat. If you guys have any thoughts (on the points above or your own), I’d be very interested to hear them!
Also, if people are interested, I’ll try to make a few case studies. I would focus on Thracia 776, Fates, and Three Houses, as (when thinking on this topic) I found that these games were consistently the most intriguing, with the most interesting relationships to violence. This would probably take a while though, as I am gonna be very busy in June, and I probably won’t have time this month either.

Hey everyone, I’m typing this on my phone so I apologize if there is weird formatting. Anyways, to get to the point, there’s something really off with some people on my campus. I have come seeking answers.I noticed it first walking home from my 7pm class last Wednesday.
To set the scene, most of the campus is tucked back into the woods a little, and my 7pm class is in the farthest building from the parking lot (further into the woods). I get out from that 7pm class around 9pm, so on cloudy nights like last Wednesday, the only lights on that long sidewalk are the lights radiating from the other buildings. Usually, there’s roughly 30 feet where it’s pitch black because the foliage is pretty dense. I usually walk back to my apartment with some classmates that live in the same complex as me, but I told them to go ahead of me while I finished the rest of the project.
After packing my laptop away, I started heading back home. It was roughly 9:30 at this point, and my brain was slowly shutting down preparing for the deep sleep that has yet to come.Walking down the sidewalk, I heard somebody not too far into the woods laughing like they’ve just heard the funniest joke ever. I immediately thought, “probably some Freshman walking the trails with their friends smoking weed”. Chuckling to myself, I put in my AirPods and picked a playlist for my journey back home.
When I looked up from my phone, there was the silhouette of somebody walking towards me. I have no idea how I missed them before, but honestly, it’s very possible they were just in a spot where the light wasn’t quite reaching them. A little unnerved, I shifted over to the left side of the sidewalk.
(Now I’m usually fine walking alone at night; I’m a 6’2 man who’s dabbled in the world of MMA. But something about this person gave me a primal feeling of unrest.)
When they shifted over to the left mirroring me, I felt my blood run cold. But alas, I had to keep walking because this was my only way back home. As I neared closer to the figure, I almost laughed at myself when I realized it was just some harmless girl walking towards the Murphy building. If anything, I’m the intimidating one to her.
This is where it really gets weird. She stopped as I was passing her and turned to me. Thinking she needed to ask me something, I took an AirPod out and asked “what’s up?”. After staring at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, she opened her mouth, and I kid you not, mimicked the laugh I heard moments before perfectly. Before I could chalk it up to it just being her in the trails earlier, I noticed something. Her mouth wasn’t moving at all. If I had left my AirPods in, it would just look like she was just opening her mouth and staring at me. She then shifted into a deep raspy laugh. She did all of this without moving her mouth at all; I couldn’t even see her throat moving as you would expect if someone was laughing. It was almost like she was some fucked up human-shaped gramophone. The feeling of absolute horror that came over me is something I’ve only experienced in my imagination. Before I could think to do anything next, My body began to run off some sort of primal instinct. With my legs burning, it took me about 10 minutes to get all the way back to my apartment and lock myself in relative safety.
I’m coming on here now to ask if anybody knows what I experienced? I have been hearing that same laughter outside my window every night since that night, I am too terrified to sleep well and have refused to go to any of my classes. Please I just want answers, I don’t want to keep living in fear.
Part 2:
Hey everyone, I’ve gotten some DMs telling me what it may be. I’ve heard everything from banshee to skinwalker. After further research I pray to god it was neither of them. I’m praying it was just some girl with a speaker playing some sort of cruel joke. I mean yes there are people who don’t like me on campus, I’ve made some enemies over the past 4 years. But, I just don’t understand what could’ve brought it to this point. I had to stop hiding in fear and go to my classes before my grades plummet, I’m almost done with my degree and only have a few more weeks. If I let some sort of stupid prank ruin my career, It would be everything I swore against to my parents.
A lot of you guys in the DMs were also asking what college I go to and what my name is. First I want to say sorry for not providing that information in the first post, I’m sure you can understand where my head was at typing that. So let me introduce myself, my name is Nick and In order to keep my privacy, I will only provide that I go to a midwest university.
I’m sure you may be wondering, “so did it just stop?”. I would love to say yes, but really things have just gotten weirder. Though, I am pleased to say that there is no longer laughing out my window every night.
Ever since that night, I’ve been noticing more things off with the people on campus. Now you may just think it’s paranoia, but just be patient and listen.
Yesterday, I decided to muster up all of my courage and go to class. Luckily my first class is at 10AM, when the sun is well in the sky, so walking across campus seemed much less threatening. When I sat down in my first class, I noticed something off with the girl that sits in front of me. Usually she’s chatty and excited to be in class, but today she just stared blankly ahead. I tried to say good morning and ask about her weekend, as we do every Monday, but she continued to have that blank stare. She did turn her head towards be, but her eyes read “lights on, but nobody is home”.
Thinking to myself, she may just be hungover, or going through the bout of college student depression. I decided to shrug it off and turn to the front of the class and get my notes ready. But the moment I turned around, I could feel it. Her eyes burrowing deep into the back of my head. When I flipped around to see if I was just being irrational, I quickly learned I wasn’t. Her eyes went from the blank glare, to the most enthusiastic face I’ve seen on her. It was horrible, it almost seemed like she was trying so hard to pretend she was thrilled to be in class and to speak to me. It was inhuman.
I’ve been on the internet long enough to catch on to the term “Uncanny valley”, and what I witnessed In my first hour gives me that same gut feeling I got when I saw that girl last Wednesday.
I was right to be uncomfortable though, I texted her after class to make sure she was doing alright. But her response only reignited the flames of deep fear burning in my soul.
I’ll copy and paste the messages here:
Me: Hey Is everything good? You seemed off in class today.
Steph SCI 101: Uh yeah, I’m fine. but I was not in class today, I’m severely hungover from Tanner’s party last night.
Me: Haha, good one.
Steph SCI 101: No I’m so Fr, are you okay?
Steph SCI 101: Are you trying to fuck with me or something?
Me: Nevermind, I’m sorry to bother you.
(End Of Texts)
Okay so I’m sure that this gives you all the same feeling of dread that it gave me but I’m sure scaled down a bit. This is where I have started to doubt that it’s a prank, because me and Stephanie are cool. There’s no level of hate for either of us, and even if it was some joke, we don’t know each other on that type of level.
Not only did this seem to happen in my first class, but in between classes while I was walking across campus as well. I walk past hundreds of faces in my many treks across campus, and I swear to you, at least 1/4th of the people I walked past had that same dead stare look. And the way they walked, god I hate even thinking of it. It was like they were an alien trying out their new body suits for the first time. The steps and the bends of their legs just seem so meticulous, dramaticized, and puppeteered.
I’m going to try to investigate further, because at this point my fear for my life is more of a reason to try and figure out what it is so I can try to stop it.
I’m no hero, and I’m sure as hell nothing special, but If I can know what to expect for another encounter, maybe I can avoid meeting the demise I have imagined.
Part 3

First off I would like to apologize for my 20-day hiatus. For those who were worried that curiosity killed the cat so to speak, I appreciate your concern. On top of my investigation, I have also had to go through finals and work for a boss who didn't believe in life outside of work. So let's start where we left off. I had a feeling that this task was left for me to solve. it may sound stupid, but let me explain why. That night, after my last post, I had a dream that further solidified my need to solve the mystery. I tried to write all that I remembered down the morning after so here is what I wrote. 

April 4th, 2024
I had a strange dream last night, stranger than usual at least. I awoke in the woods, laying face down in the grass with someone looming over me. I heard their footsteps flee rapidly before I flipped over. I found myself just off the trail where the “incident” happened, on the trail laid a girl, bloodied and motionless. When I got up to approach her, she was quickly dragged into the parallel section of the woods. Seeing this I turned and ran into the section of woods I was in. When my legs gave out I found myself near an old supply shed, worn and long abandoned. Searching for cover, I tried the door, which luckily gave after a quick pull. There I found a trapdoor which emanated a blue hue through the cracks. The only thought on my mind, survival brought me to throw it open and climb down. I clattered down the ladder and right before my feet touched the ground, I was pulled backwards by my shirt. That’s where I woke up.
I have always trusted my gut and having a dream that vivid gave me a sense of courage I did not previously have. I know where to start my search now. I have decided my best course of action will be to record my findings on a tape recorder app. After I finish each entry it will be uploaded to a cloud that will ensure if anything happens to me, the story will get out. I am packing my backpack now with a flashlight, glow sticks to mark my trail, and a machete I was gifted by a local in Mexico. All of my recordings will be uploaded below and auto posted after 10 days. Wish me luck everyone, I’m going to need it.
Entry 1: I have started at the only place that makes sense, the trail. It is currently 1:45 PM and I have plenty of sun left in the sky. I just needed to find exactly where to start my journey into the woods. Strangely it was very easy to find. I recall one of the trees having a funky twist near the middle of the trunk. Probably just some two lovebirds trying to carve their name into the tree and realizing there were softer trees to carve into. Anyways hiking further into the woods I believe I can see the shape of the shed through the branches. I wish you guys could see how dense these trees are so you can understand my struggle.
Entry 2: I made it to the shed, but unfortunately the floor in here is concrete. This really sucks for me because I have absolutely no idea where to go from here. It’s identical on the outside but I just don’t understand. Maybe I’m just delusional, which in that case what a waste of time and energy. I’m going to head back home and just start packing for summer. Maybe it’ll be best if I just forget about all of this and leave it behind me. I am graduating after all. Wait hold on what is this?? there’s a button behind one of these shelves. I am going to press it, but idk how it would work because this floor is seamless. I’m just going to leave this recording so if anything does happen I don’t have to worry about holding the phone the whole time. Holy shit, the entire floor is lowering. It’s a fucking elevator.
Entry 3: Okay so I’ve been going down this elevator for like 30 seconds, how far down am I going?.. Oh wait hold on, Im stopped… There’s a metal door with a padlock. Ig since I have the machete there’s only one thing to do, break it. Im going to use the blunt side so I don’t ruin this thing, I like it too much. the lock clatters to the ground after 3 solid hits. Well ig there’s only one way to go now, there’s no button to get back up so I pray there’s another way up. The metal door creaks loudly. Fuck I regret this, It’s dark and I can tell it’s a big area because it’s so echoey in here. I’m currently praising my past self for thinking about the flashlight and glow sticks. I need to find out what in the hell this place is and most importantly, if there’s a damn light switch.
Entry 4: God this place is terrifying I’ve been walking around the sterile white halls of this place for like 10 minutes and have found nothing, no doors, no light switch. I feel like a rat in a maze. Also scratch what I said about being glad I packed glow sticks, because my stupid ass only brought like 20 of these things and I’m already down to 5. Also I feel like I’m not alone, every now and then I’ll turn a corner and the glow from the previous glow stick quickly vanishes. I feel like it might just be because the darkness seems to envelop everything like a blanket. But I have that feeling that I’m being followed. You know the one, where you know somethings wrong you just can’t pin point what it is. Oh shit no way, there’s light, I think there’s a door or something up ahead.
Entry 5: Holy shit… It’s a lab, and worse, there’s people strapped too tables, completely naked and unconscious. I know they are alive because each of them are hooked up with a million different cords, and one of those are plugged into a heart monitor. This place is huge, there has to be at least 50 people on these tables.
“Hey you, you’re not supposed to be in here” yelled a man adorned in a lab coat.
“What are you doing to these kids you sick fucks.” I yelled back at the man across the lab.
In a haste the scientist rushes towards a red button, setting off a loud alarm, turning the lights to a flashing red. With no exit behind me, I could only do one thing... Rush towards him. My training kicked in as I launched into a flurry of calculated strikes. My first hit connected, a right overhand clean under his eye. The doctor stumbled back, but I didn't give him a chance to recover. I pressed the attack, keeping him off balance with a relentless barrage of punches and kicks. He fought back ferociously, but I was one step ahead, anticipating his moves and countering with swift, efficient strikes. We wrestled, the room around us becoming a blur of pain and adrenaline. I used the environment to my advantage, improvising weapons from the scattered medical equipment and turning the empty tables on my opponent. Pinning him to the ground, I laid down a harsh barrage of final blows. His face was a bloody pulp, unrecognizable. But I didn’t walk away unscathed, somewhere in the tussle, the scientist buried a scalpel deep into my stomach. With my adrenaline wearing off, the pain overtook me, sending me into darkness as I fainted from the blood loss and adrenaline dump. I awoke with my arms and legs strapped to the cold metal operating table. Before I could try to struggle, a face overtook my field of vision.
“Quite a fight you put up, you turned poor Dr.Samson into a soup” the looming face said with a chuckle. “You are the first person to put the pieces together and for that I am thoroughly impressed Mr. Hayes”
“Who are you?!” I said fighting at my binds. “Let me go!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that Mr.Hayes. You have seen far too much, and I definitely can’t have you running around telling the world what you saw here. Although nobody would believe you.” “And to answer your other question, I’m surprised you don’t recognize me… really take a moment and look at me” He said pulling down his face mask.
“Dr.Blackwood?” I said as I looked back on my freshman year biology class.
“Ding ding ding ding. We have a winner!” He said in a maniac joy.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
“Well Mr.Hayes, first I’m going to sew you up from your little tussle you had with my late assistant and then I will put you under and cut into that skull of yours and take out a small piece of what we call in the science world your hippocampus. Then I will draw from that all of the necessary memories to create the perfect clone of you.” He responded.
“Why? Why would you need a clone of any of us. Why can’t you just clone someone willing to be apart of this?” I asked
“Because that’s no fun Mr.Hayes, the hunt excites me. Actually you’re lucky I didn’t get you the first night. Unfortunately my creation had a little bit of a malfunction and formed a wee bit of an attachment to you. I’m sure you remember the ruckus outside your window? Anyways I digress, I do this because everyone of you lowly students will go onto do mediocre jobs where you waste away at a desk. I must also add that with having a clone of you under my control, I can do anything and get away with clean hands. My plan with you originally was to have you go into the admissions office and steal every last cent all for me. On top of that I like the power, because one day I will have a clone of every student on this campus and eventually I will cause a revolt against our comedy of a government. Who will stop me, when I won’t even be on the front lines?” Dr.Blackwood explained.
“I will” I said freeing my last hand from the binds.
What he didn’t realize is that with all of this monologue and the questions I had been feeding him, I was slowly loosening my binds with each wiggle and movement in retaliation.
Lurching forward I grab onto his collar, pulling him into a vicious headbutt. The impact sent Dr. Blackwood reeling backward, his grip on consciousness loosening as he staggered. Seizing the moment, I lunged off the table, adrenaline coursing through my veins despite the searing pain in my abdomen. With a swift motion, I grabbed a nearby surgical instrument, holding it in a defensive stance as I faced my adversary. Dr. Blackwood, recovering from the blow, snarled with rage, his once calm demeanor now replaced by a feral intensity. The room seemed to shrink around us, the tension thickening with each passing second. This was my chance to stop Blackwood's twisted plans. As he lunged forward, I met his attack head-on, the clang of metal reverberating through the room. Blow after blow, we fought with an intensity born of desperation and determination. Despite my injuries, I refused to yield, driven by a fire burnt under me to protect myself and others from Blackwood's actions . In a final, swift move, I delivered a powerful front kick, sending Blackwood crashing to the ground. The room fell silent, the echoes of our struggle fading into the darkness. Coughing he sat in the corner laughing with blood spilling down his face. “You know that it’s too late to save any of these one lying on the tables. I would’ve released you, you know that right? I would’ve simply taken your memory from today out of your brain and leaving you in your bed to wake up thinking you had a fun night” he said with final resolve as he watched me grab the scalpel from the ground taking slow steps near him.
Looking down over him, It was my turn to laugh. Kneeling down to eye level with him I grabbed him by his hair and delivered a final message to him “Fuck you and your little science experiment” as I sliced deep into his throat watching the life fade from his eyes.
I eventually found an exit door, which lead me to a storm drain deep in the woods far from my campus. It took me 2 hours to limp my way onto a main road and flag down a passing car. Pulling over I was rushed to the hospital and later interrogated by some men in suits, my guess is CIA. Here I am now, writing my final entrance. I think I heard them say something about trying a new medical process on me to help me heal quicker.

Hey everyone, I’m typing this on my phone so I apologize if there is weird formatting. Anyways, to get to the point, there’s something really off with some people on my campus. I have come seeking answers.I noticed it first walking home from my 7pm class last Wednesday.
To set the scene, most of the campus is tucked back into the woods a little, and my 7pm class is in the farthest building from the parking lot (further into the woods). I get out from that 7pm class around 9pm, so on cloudy nights like last Wednesday, the only lights on that long sidewalk are the lights radiating from the other buildings. Usually, there’s roughly 30 feet where it’s pitch black because the foliage is pretty dense. I usually walk back to my apartment with some classmates that live in the same complex as me, but I told them to go ahead of me while I finished the rest of the project.
After packing my laptop away, I started heading back home. It was roughly 9:30 at this point, and my brain was slowly shutting down preparing for the deep sleep that has yet to come.Walking down the sidewalk, I heard somebody not too far into the woods laughing like they’ve just heard the funniest joke ever. I immediately thought, “probably some Freshman walking the trails with their friends smoking weed”. Chuckling to myself, I put in my AirPods and picked a playlist for my journey back home.
When I looked up from my phone, there was the silhouette of somebody walking towards me. I have no idea how I missed them before, but honestly, it’s very possible they were just in a spot where the light wasn’t quite reaching them. A little unnerved, I shifted over to the left side of the sidewalk.
(Now I’m usually fine walking alone at night; I’m a 6’2 man who’s dabbled in the world of MMA. But something about this person gave me a primal feeling of unrest.)
When they shifted over to the left mirroring me, I felt my blood run cold. But alas, I had to keep walking because this was my only way back home. As I neared closer to the figure, I almost laughed at myself when I realized it was just some harmless girl walking towards the Murphy building. If anything, I’m the intimidating one to her.
This is where it really gets weird. She stopped as I was passing her and turned to me. Thinking she needed to ask me something, I took an AirPod out and asked “what’s up?”. After staring at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, she opened her mouth, and I kid you not, mimicked the laugh I heard moments before perfectly. Before I could chalk it up to it just being her in the trails earlier, I noticed something. Her mouth wasn’t moving at all. If I had left my AirPods in, it would just look like she was just opening her mouth and staring at me. She then shifted into a deep raspy laugh. She did all of this without moving her mouth at all; I couldn’t even see her throat moving as you would expect if someone was laughing. It was almost like she was some fucked up human-shaped gramophone. The feeling of absolute horror that came over me is something I’ve only experienced in my imagination. Before I could think to do anything next, My body began to run off some sort of primal instinct. With my legs burning, it took me about 10 minutes to get all the way back to my apartment and lock myself in relative safety.
I’m coming on here now to ask if anybody knows what I experienced? I have been hearing that same laughter outside my window every night since that night, I am too terrified to sleep well and have refused to go to any of my classes. Please I just want answers, I don’t want to keep living in fear.
Part 2:
Hey everyone, I’ve gotten some DMs telling me what it may be. I’ve heard everything from banshee to skinwalker. After further research I pray to god it was neither of them. I’m praying it was just some girl with a speaker playing some sort of cruel joke. I mean yes there are people who don’t like me on campus, I’ve made some enemies over the past 4 years. But, I just don’t understand what could’ve brought it to this point. I had to stop hiding in fear and go to my classes before my grades plummet, I’m almost done with my degree and only have a few more weeks. If I let some sort of stupid prank ruin my career, It would be everything I swore against to my parents.
A lot of you guys in the DMs were also asking what college I go to and what my name is. First I want to say sorry for not providing that information in the first post, I’m sure you can understand where my head was at typing that. So let me introduce myself, my name is Nick and In order to keep my privacy, I will only provide that I go to a midwest university.
I’m sure you may be wondering, “so did it just stop?”. I would love to say yes, but really things have just gotten weirder. Though, I am pleased to say that there is no longer laughing out my window every night.
Ever since that night, I’ve been noticing more things off with the people on campus. Now you may just think it’s paranoia, but just be patient and listen.
Yesterday, I decided to muster up all of my courage and go to class. Luckily my first class is at 10AM, when the sun is well in the sky, so walking across campus seemed much less threatening. When I sat down in my first class, I noticed something off with the girl that sits in front of me. Usually she’s chatty and excited to be in class, but today she just stared blankly ahead. I tried to say good morning and ask about her weekend, as we do every Monday, but she continued to have that blank stare. She did turn her head towards be, but her eyes read “lights on, but nobody is home”.
Thinking to myself, she may just be hungover, or going through the bout of college student depression. I decided to shrug it off and turn to the front of the class and get my notes ready. But the moment I turned around, I could feel it. Her eyes burrowing deep into the back of my head. When I flipped around to see if I was just being irrational, I quickly learned I wasn’t. Her eyes went from the blank glare, to the most enthusiastic face I’ve seen on her. It was horrible, it almost seemed like she was trying so hard to pretend she was thrilled to be in class and to speak to me. It was inhuman.
I’ve been on the internet long enough to catch on to the term “Uncanny valley”, and what I witnessed In my first hour gives me that same gut feeling I got when I saw that girl last Wednesday.
I was right to be uncomfortable though, I texted her after class to make sure she was doing alright. But her response only reignited the flames of deep fear burning in my soul.
I’ll copy and paste the messages here:
Me: Hey Is everything good? You seemed off in class today.
Steph SCI 101: Uh yeah, I’m fine. but I was not in class today, I’m severely hungover from Tanner’s party last night.
Me: Haha, good one.
Steph SCI 101: No I’m so Fr, are you okay?
Steph SCI 101: Are you trying to fuck with me or something?
Me: Nevermind, I’m sorry to bother you.
(End Of Texts)
Okay so I’m sure that this gives you all the same feeling of dread that it gave me but I’m sure scaled down a bit. This is where I have started to doubt that it’s a prank, because me and Stephanie are cool. There’s no level of hate for either of us, and even if it was some joke, we don’t know each other on that type of level.
Not only did this seem to happen in my first class, but in between classes while I was walking across campus as well. I walk past hundreds of faces in my many treks across campus, and I swear to you, at least 1/4th of the people I walked past had that same dead stare look. And the way they walked, god I hate even thinking of it. It was like they were an alien trying out their new body suits for the first time. The steps and the bends of their legs just seem so meticulous, dramaticized, and puppeteered.
I’m going to try to investigate further, because at this point my fear for my life is more of a reason to try and figure out what it is so I can try to stop it.
I’m no hero, and I’m sure as hell nothing special, but If I can know what to expect for another encounter, maybe I can avoid meeting the demise I have imagined.
Part 3

First off I would like to apologize for my 20-day hiatus. For those who were worried that curiosity killed the cat so to speak, I appreciate your concern. On top of my investigation, I have also had to go through finals and work for a boss who didn't believe in life outside of work. So let's start where we left off. I had a feeling that this task was left for me to solve. it may sound stupid, but let me explain why. That night, after my last post, I had a dream that further solidified my need to solve the mystery. I tried to write all that I remembered down the morning after so here is what I wrote. 

April 4th, 2024
I had a strange dream last night, stranger than usual at least. I awoke in the woods, laying face down in the grass with someone looming over me. I heard their footsteps flee rapidly before I flipped over. I found myself just off the trail where the “incident” happened, on the trail laid a girl, bloodied and motionless. When I got up to approach her, she was quickly dragged into the parallel section of the woods. Seeing this I turned and ran into the section of woods I was in. When my legs gave out I found myself near an old supply shed, worn and long abandoned. Searching for cover, I tried the door, which luckily gave after a quick pull. There I found a trapdoor which emanated a blue hue through the cracks. The only thought on my mind, survival brought me to throw it open and climb down. I clattered down the ladder and right before my feet touched the ground, I was pulled backwards by my shirt. That’s where I woke up.
I have always trusted my gut and having a dream that vivid gave me a sense of courage I did not previously have. I know where to start my search now. I have decided my best course of action will be to record my findings on a tape recorder app. After I finish each entry it will be uploaded to a cloud that will ensure if anything happens to me, the story will get out. I am packing my backpack now with a flashlight, glow sticks to mark my trail, and a machete I was gifted by a local in Mexico. All of my recordings will be uploaded below and auto posted after 10 days. Wish me luck everyone, I’m going to need it.
Entry 1: I have started at the only place that makes sense, the trail. It is currently 1:45 PM and I have plenty of sun left in the sky. I just needed to find exactly where to start my journey into the woods. Strangely it was very easy to find. I recall one of the trees having a funky twist near the middle of the trunk. Probably just some two lovebirds trying to carve their name into the tree and realizing there were softer trees to carve into. Anyways hiking further into the woods I believe I can see the shape of the shed through the branches. I wish you guys could see how dense these trees are so you can understand my struggle.
Entry 2: I made it to the shed, but unfortunately the floor in here is concrete. This really sucks for me because I have absolutely no idea where to go from here. It’s identical on the outside but I just don’t understand. Maybe I’m just delusional, which in that case what a waste of time and energy. I’m going to head back home and just start packing for summer. Maybe it’ll be best if I just forget about all of this and leave it behind me. I am graduating after all. Wait hold on what is this?? there’s a button behind one of these shelves. I am going to press it, but idk how it would work because this floor is seamless. I’m just going to leave this recording so if anything does happen I don’t have to worry about holding the phone the whole time. Holy shit, the entire floor is lowering. It’s a fucking elevator.
Entry 3: Okay so I’ve been going down this elevator for like 30 seconds, how far down am I going?.. Oh wait hold on, Im stopped… There’s a metal door with a padlock. Ig since I have the machete there’s only one thing to do, break it. Im going to use the blunt side so I don’t ruin this thing, I like it too much. the lock clatters to the ground after 3 solid hits. Well ig there’s only one way to go now, there’s no button to get back up so I pray there’s another way up. The metal door creaks loudly. Fuck I regret this, It’s dark and I can tell it’s a big area because it’s so echoey in here. I’m currently praising my past self for thinking about the flashlight and glow sticks. I need to find out what in the hell this place is and most importantly, if there’s a damn light switch.
Entry 4: God this place is terrifying I’ve been walking around the sterile white halls of this place for like 10 minutes and have found nothing, no doors, no light switch. I feel like a rat in a maze. Also scratch what I said about being glad I packed glow sticks, because my stupid ass only brought like 20 of these things and I’m already down to 5. Also I feel like I’m not alone, every now and then I’ll turn a corner and the glow from the previous glow stick quickly vanishes. I feel like it might just be because the darkness seems to envelop everything like a blanket. But I have that feeling that I’m being followed. You know the one, where you know somethings wrong you just can’t pin point what it is. Oh shit no way, there’s light, I think there’s a door or something up ahead.
Entry 5: Holy shit… It’s a lab, and worse, there’s people strapped too tables, completely naked and unconscious. I know they are alive because each of them are hooked up with a million different cords, and one of those are plugged into a heart monitor. This place is huge, there has to be at least 50 people on these tables.
“Hey you, you’re not supposed to be in here” yelled a man adorned in a lab coat.
“What are you doing to these kids you sick fucks.” I yelled back at the man across the lab.
In a haste the scientist rushes towards a red button, setting off a loud alarm, turning the lights to a flashing red. With no exit behind me, I could only do one thing... Rush towards him. My training kicked in as I launched into a flurry of calculated strikes. My first hit connected, a right overhand clean under his eye. The doctor stumbled back, but I didn't give him a chance to recover. I pressed the attack, keeping him off balance with a relentless barrage of punches and kicks. He fought back ferociously, but I was one step ahead, anticipating his moves and countering with swift, efficient strikes. We wrestled, the room around us becoming a blur of pain and adrenaline. I used the environment to my advantage, improvising weapons from the scattered medical equipment and turning the empty tables on my opponent. Pinning him to the ground, I laid down a harsh barrage of final blows. His face was a bloody pulp, unrecognizable. But I didn’t walk away unscathed, somewhere in the tussle, the scientist buried a scalpel deep into my stomach. With my adrenaline wearing off, the pain overtook me, sending me into darkness as I fainted from the blood loss and adrenaline dump. I awoke with my arms and legs strapped to the cold metal operating table. Before I could try to struggle, a face overtook my field of vision.
“Quite a fight you put up, you turned poor Dr.Samson into a soup” the looming face said with a chuckle. “You are the first person to put the pieces together and for that I am thoroughly impressed Mr. Hayes”
“Who are you?!” I said fighting at my binds. “Let me go!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that Mr.Hayes. You have seen far too much, and I definitely can’t have you running around telling the world what you saw here. Although nobody would believe you.” “And to answer your other question, I’m surprised you don’t recognize me… really take a moment and look at me” He said pulling down his face mask.
“Dr.Blackwood?” I said as I looked back on my freshman year biology class.
“Ding ding ding ding. We have a winner!” He said in a maniac joy.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
“Well Mr.Hayes, first I’m going to sew you up from your little tussle you had with my late assistant and then I will put you under and cut into that skull of yours and take out a small piece of what we call in the science world your hippocampus. Then I will draw from that all of the necessary memories to create the perfect clone of you.” He responded.
“Why? Why would you need a clone of any of us. Why can’t you just clone someone willing to be apart of this?” I asked
“Because that’s no fun Mr.Hayes, the hunt excites me. Actually you’re lucky I didn’t get you the first night. Unfortunately my creation had a little bit of a malfunction and formed a wee bit of an attachment to you. I’m sure you remember the ruckus outside your window? Anyways I digress, I do this because everyone of you lowly students will go onto do mediocre jobs where you waste away at a desk. I must also add that with having a clone of you under my control, I can do anything and get away with clean hands. My plan with you originally was to have you go into the admissions office and steal every last cent all for me. On top of that I like the power, because one day I will have a clone of every student on this campus and eventually I will cause a revolt against our comedy of a government. Who will stop me, when I won’t even be on the front lines?” Dr.Blackwood explained.
“I will” I said freeing my last hand from the binds.
What he didn’t realize is that with all of this monologue and the questions I had been feeding him, I was slowly loosening my binds with each wiggle and movement in retaliation.
Lurching forward I grab onto his collar, pulling him into a vicious headbutt. The impact sent Dr. Blackwood reeling backward, his grip on consciousness loosening as he staggered. Seizing the moment, I lunged off the table, adrenaline coursing through my veins despite the searing pain in my abdomen. With a swift motion, I grabbed a nearby surgical instrument, holding it in a defensive stance as I faced my adversary. Dr. Blackwood, recovering from the blow, snarled with rage, his once calm demeanor now replaced by a feral intensity. The room seemed to shrink around us, the tension thickening with each passing second. This was my chance to stop Blackwood's twisted plans. As he lunged forward, I met his attack head-on, the clang of metal reverberating through the room. Blow after blow, we fought with an intensity born of desperation and determination. Despite my injuries, I refused to yield, driven by a fire burnt under me to protect myself and others from Blackwood's actions . In a final, swift move, I delivered a powerful front kick, sending Blackwood crashing to the ground. The room fell silent, the echoes of our struggle fading into the darkness. Coughing he sat in the corner laughing with blood spilling down his face. “You know that it’s too late to save any of these one lying on the tables. I would’ve released you, you know that right? I would’ve simply taken your memory from today out of your brain and leaving you in your bed to wake up thinking you had a fun night” he said with final resolve as he watched me grab the scalpel from the ground taking slow steps near him.
Looking down over him, It was my turn to laugh. Kneeling down to eye level with him I grabbed him by his hair and delivered a final message to him “Fuck you and your little science experiment” as I sliced deep into his throat watching the life fade from his eyes.
I eventually found an exit door, which lead me to a storm drain deep in the woods far from my campus. It took me 2 hours to limp my way onto a main road and flag down a passing car. Pulling over I was rushed to the hospital and later interrogated by some men in suits, my guess is CIA. Here I am now, writing my final entrance. I think I heard them say something about trying a new medical process on me to help me heal quicker.

Hey everyone, I’m typing this on my phone so I apologize if there is weird formatting. Anyways, to get to the point, there’s something really off with some people on my campus. I have come seeking answers.I noticed it first walking home from my 7pm class last Wednesday.
To set the scene, most of the campus is tucked back into the woods a little, and my 7pm class is in the farthest building from the parking lot (further into the woods). I get out from that 7pm class around 9pm, so on cloudy nights like last Wednesday, the only lights on that long sidewalk are the lights radiating from the other buildings. Usually, there’s roughly 30 feet where it’s pitch black because the foliage is pretty dense. I usually walk back to my apartment with some classmates that live in the same complex as me, but I told them to go ahead of me while I finished the rest of the project.
After packing my laptop away, I started heading back home. It was roughly 9:30 at this point, and my brain was slowly shutting down preparing for the deep sleep that has yet to come.Walking down the sidewalk, I heard somebody not too far into the woods laughing like they’ve just heard the funniest joke ever. I immediately thought, “probably some Freshman walking the trails with their friends smoking weed”. Chuckling to myself, I put in my AirPods and picked a playlist for my journey back home.
When I looked up from my phone, there was the silhouette of somebody walking towards me. I have no idea how I missed them before, but honestly, it’s very possible they were just in a spot where the light wasn’t quite reaching them. A little unnerved, I shifted over to the left side of the sidewalk.
(Now I’m usually fine walking alone at night; I’m a 6’2 man who’s dabbled in the world of MMA. But something about this person gave me a primal feeling of unrest.)
When they shifted over to the left mirroring me, I felt my blood run cold. But alas, I had to keep walking because this was my only way back home. As I neared closer to the figure, I almost laughed at myself when I realized it was just some harmless girl walking towards the Murphy building. If anything, I’m the intimidating one to her.
This is where it really gets weird. She stopped as I was passing her and turned to me. Thinking she needed to ask me something, I took an AirPod out and asked “what’s up?”. After staring at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, she opened her mouth, and I kid you not, mimicked the laugh I heard moments before perfectly. Before I could chalk it up to it just being her in the trails earlier, I noticed something. Her mouth wasn’t moving at all. If I had left my AirPods in, it would just look like she was just opening her mouth and staring at me. She then shifted into a deep raspy laugh. She did all of this without moving her mouth at all; I couldn’t even see her throat moving as you would expect if someone was laughing. It was almost like she was some fucked up human-shaped gramophone. The feeling of absolute horror that came over me is something I’ve only experienced in my imagination. Before I could think to do anything next, My body began to run off some sort of primal instinct. With my legs burning, it took me about 10 minutes to get all the way back to my apartment and lock myself in relative safety.
I’m coming on here now to ask if anybody knows what I experienced? I have been hearing that same laughter outside my window every night since that night, I am too terrified to sleep well and have refused to go to any of my classes. Please I just want answers, I don’t want to keep living in fear.
Part 2:
Hey everyone, I’ve gotten some DMs telling me what it may be. I’ve heard everything from banshee to skinwalker. After further research I pray to god it was neither of them. I’m praying it was just some girl with a speaker playing some sort of cruel joke. I mean yes there are people who don’t like me on campus, I’ve made some enemies over the past 4 years. But, I just don’t understand what could’ve brought it to this point. I had to stop hiding in fear and go to my classes before my grades plummet, I’m almost done with my degree and only have a few more weeks. If I let some sort of stupid prank ruin my career, It would be everything I swore against to my parents.
A lot of you guys in the DMs were also asking what college I go to and what my name is. First I want to say sorry for not providing that information in the first post, I’m sure you can understand where my head was at typing that. So let me introduce myself, my name is Nick and In order to keep my privacy, I will only provide that I go to a midwest university.
I’m sure you may be wondering, “so did it just stop?”. I would love to say yes, but really things have just gotten weirder. Though, I am pleased to say that there is no longer laughing out my window every night.
Ever since that night, I’ve been noticing more things off with the people on campus. Now you may just think it’s paranoia, but just be patient and listen.
Yesterday, I decided to muster up all of my courage and go to class. Luckily my first class is at 10AM, when the sun is well in the sky, so walking across campus seemed much less threatening. When I sat down in my first class, I noticed something off with the girl that sits in front of me. Usually she’s chatty and excited to be in class, but today she just stared blankly ahead. I tried to say good morning and ask about her weekend, as we do every Monday, but she continued to have that blank stare. She did turn her head towards be, but her eyes read “lights on, but nobody is home”.
Thinking to myself, she may just be hungover, or going through the bout of college student depression. I decided to shrug it off and turn to the front of the class and get my notes ready. But the moment I turned around, I could feel it. Her eyes burrowing deep into the back of my head. When I flipped around to see if I was just being irrational, I quickly learned I wasn’t. Her eyes went from the blank glare, to the most enthusiastic face I’ve seen on her. It was horrible, it almost seemed like she was trying so hard to pretend she was thrilled to be in class and to speak to me. It was inhuman.
I’ve been on the internet long enough to catch on to the term “Uncanny valley”, and what I witnessed In my first hour gives me that same gut feeling I got when I saw that girl last Wednesday.
I was right to be uncomfortable though, I texted her after class to make sure she was doing alright. But her response only reignited the flames of deep fear burning in my soul.
I’ll copy and paste the messages here:
Me: Hey Is everything good? You seemed off in class today.
Steph SCI 101: Uh yeah, I’m fine. but I was not in class today, I’m severely hungover from Tanner’s party last night.
Me: Haha, good one.
Steph SCI 101: No I’m so Fr, are you okay?
Steph SCI 101: Are you trying to fuck with me or something?
Me: Nevermind, I’m sorry to bother you.
(End Of Texts)
Okay so I’m sure that this gives you all the same feeling of dread that it gave me but I’m sure scaled down a bit. This is where I have started to doubt that it’s a prank, because me and Stephanie are cool. There’s no level of hate for either of us, and even if it was some joke, we don’t know each other on that type of level.
Not only did this seem to happen in my first class, but in between classes while I was walking across campus as well. I walk past hundreds of faces in my many treks across campus, and I swear to you, at least 1/4th of the people I walked past had that same dead stare look. And the way they walked, god I hate even thinking of it. It was like they were an alien trying out their new body suits for the first time. The steps and the bends of their legs just seem so meticulous, dramaticized, and puppeteered.
I’m going to try to investigate further, because at this point my fear for my life is more of a reason to try and figure out what it is so I can try to stop it.
I’m no hero, and I’m sure as hell nothing special, but If I can know what to expect for another encounter, maybe I can avoid meeting the demise I have imagined.
Part 3

First off I would like to apologize for my 20-day hiatus. For those who were worried that curiosity killed the cat so to speak, I appreciate your concern. On top of my investigation, I have also had to go through finals and work for a boss who didn't believe in life outside of work. So let's start where we left off. I had a feeling that this task was left for me to solve. it may sound stupid, but let me explain why. That night, after my last post, I had a dream that further solidified my need to solve the mystery. I tried to write all that I remembered down the morning after so here is what I wrote. 

April 4th, 2024
I had a strange dream last night, stranger than usual at least. I awoke in the woods, laying face down in the grass with someone looming over me. I heard their footsteps flee rapidly before I flipped over. I found myself just off the trail where the “incident” happened, on the trail laid a girl, bloodied and motionless. When I got up to approach her, she was quickly dragged into the parallel section of the woods. Seeing this I turned and ran into the section of woods I was in. When my legs gave out I found myself near an old supply shed, worn and long abandoned. Searching for cover, I tried the door, which luckily gave after a quick pull. There I found a trapdoor which emanated a blue hue through the cracks. The only thought on my mind, survival brought me to throw it open and climb down. I clattered down the ladder and right before my feet touched the ground, I was pulled backwards by my shirt. That’s where I woke up.
I have always trusted my gut and having a dream that vivid gave me a sense of courage I did not previously have. I know where to start my search now. I have decided my best course of action will be to record my findings on a tape recorder app. After I finish each entry it will be uploaded to a cloud that will ensure if anything happens to me, the story will get out. I am packing my backpack now with a flashlight, glow sticks to mark my trail, and a machete I was gifted by a local in Mexico. All of my recordings will be uploaded below and auto posted after 10 days. Wish me luck everyone, I’m going to need it.
Entry 1: I have started at the only place that makes sense, the trail. It is currently 1:45 PM and I have plenty of sun left in the sky. I just needed to find exactly where to start my journey into the woods. Strangely it was very easy to find. I recall one of the trees having a funky twist near the middle of the trunk. Probably just some two lovebirds trying to carve their name into the tree and realizing there were softer trees to carve into. Anyways hiking further into the woods I believe I can see the shape of the shed through the branches. I wish you guys could see how dense these trees are so you can understand my struggle.
Entry 2: I made it to the shed, but unfortunately the floor in here is concrete. This really sucks for me because I have absolutely no idea where to go from here. It’s identical on the outside but I just don’t understand. Maybe I’m just delusional, which in that case what a waste of time and energy. I’m going to head back home and just start packing for summer. Maybe it’ll be best if I just forget about all of this and leave it behind me. I am graduating after all. Wait hold on what is this?? there’s a button behind one of these shelves. I am going to press it, but idk how it would work because this floor is seamless. I’m just going to leave this recording so if anything does happen I don’t have to worry about holding the phone the whole time. Holy shit, the entire floor is lowering. It’s a fucking elevator.
Entry 3: Okay so I’ve been going down this elevator for like 30 seconds, how far down am I going?.. Oh wait hold on, Im stopped… There’s a metal door with a padlock. Ig since I have the machete there’s only one thing to do, break it. Im going to use the blunt side so I don’t ruin this thing, I like it too much. the lock clatters to the ground after 3 solid hits. Well ig there’s only one way to go now, there’s no button to get back up so I pray there’s another way up. The metal door creaks loudly. Fuck I regret this, It’s dark and I can tell it’s a big area because it’s so echoey in here. I’m currently praising my past self for thinking about the flashlight and glow sticks. I need to find out what in the hell this place is and most importantly, if there’s a damn light switch.
Entry 4: God this place is terrifying I’ve been walking around the sterile white halls of this place for like 10 minutes and have found nothing, no doors, no light switch. I feel like a rat in a maze. Also scratch what I said about being glad I packed glow sticks, because my stupid ass only brought like 20 of these things and I’m already down to 5. Also I feel like I’m not alone, every now and then I’ll turn a corner and the glow from the previous glow stick quickly vanishes. I feel like it might just be because the darkness seems to envelop everything like a blanket. But I have that feeling that I’m being followed. You know the one, where you know somethings wrong you just can’t pin point what it is. Oh shit no way, there’s light, I think there’s a door or something up ahead.
Entry 5: Holy shit… It’s a lab, and worse, there’s people strapped too tables, completely naked and unconscious. I know they are alive because each of them are hooked up with a million different cords, and one of those are plugged into a heart monitor. This place is huge, there has to be at least 50 people on these tables.
“Hey you, you’re not supposed to be in here” yelled a man adorned in a lab coat.
“What are you doing to these kids you sick fucks.” I yelled back at the man across the lab.
In a haste the scientist rushes towards a red button, setting off a loud alarm, turning the lights to a flashing red. With no exit behind me, I could only do one thing... Rush towards him. My training kicked in as I launched into a flurry of calculated strikes. My first hit connected, a right overhand clean under his eye. The doctor stumbled back, but I didn't give him a chance to recover. I pressed the attack, keeping him off balance with a relentless barrage of punches and kicks. He fought back ferociously, but I was one step ahead, anticipating his moves and countering with swift, efficient strikes. We wrestled, the room around us becoming a blur of pain and adrenaline. I used the environment to my advantage, improvising weapons from the scattered medical equipment and turning the empty tables on my opponent. Pinning him to the ground, I laid down a harsh barrage of final blows. His face was a bloody pulp, unrecognizable. But I didn’t walk away unscathed, somewhere in the tussle, the scientist buried a scalpel deep into my stomach. With my adrenaline wearing off, the pain overtook me, sending me into darkness as I fainted from the blood loss and adrenaline dump. I awoke with my arms and legs strapped to the cold metal operating table. Before I could try to struggle, a face overtook my field of vision.
“Quite a fight you put up, you turned poor Dr.Samson into a soup” the looming face said with a chuckle. “You are the first person to put the pieces together and for that I am thoroughly impressed Mr. Hayes”
“Who are you?!” I said fighting at my binds. “Let me go!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that Mr.Hayes. You have seen far too much, and I definitely can’t have you running around telling the world what you saw here. Although nobody would believe you.” “And to answer your other question, I’m surprised you don’t recognize me… really take a moment and look at me” He said pulling down his face mask.
“Dr.Blackwood?” I said as I looked back on my freshman year biology class.
“Ding ding ding ding. We have a winner!” He said in a maniac joy.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
“Well Mr.Hayes, first I’m going to sew you up from your little tussle you had with my late assistant and then I will put you under and cut into that skull of yours and take out a small piece of what we call in the science world your hippocampus. Then I will draw from that all of the necessary memories to create the perfect clone of you.” He responded.
“Why? Why would you need a clone of any of us. Why can’t you just clone someone willing to be apart of this?” I asked
“Because that’s no fun Mr.Hayes, the hunt excites me. Actually you’re lucky I didn’t get you the first night. Unfortunately my creation had a little bit of a malfunction and formed a wee bit of an attachment to you. I’m sure you remember the ruckus outside your window? Anyways I digress, I do this because everyone of you lowly students will go onto do mediocre jobs where you waste away at a desk. I must also add that with having a clone of you under my control, I can do anything and get away with clean hands. My plan with you originally was to have you go into the admissions office and steal every last cent all for me. On top of that I like the power, because one day I will have a clone of every student on this campus and eventually I will cause a revolt against our comedy of a government. Who will stop me, when I won’t even be on the front lines?” Dr.Blackwood explained.
“I will” I said freeing my last hand from the binds.
What he didn’t realize is that with all of this monologue and the questions I had been feeding him, I was slowly loosening my binds with each wiggle and movement in retaliation.
Lurching forward I grab onto his collar, pulling him into a vicious headbutt. The impact sent Dr. Blackwood reeling backward, his grip on consciousness loosening as he staggered. Seizing the moment, I lunged off the table, adrenaline coursing through my veins despite the searing pain in my abdomen. With a swift motion, I grabbed a nearby surgical instrument, holding it in a defensive stance as I faced my adversary. Dr. Blackwood, recovering from the blow, snarled with rage, his once calm demeanor now replaced by a feral intensity. The room seemed to shrink around us, the tension thickening with each passing second. This was my chance to stop Blackwood's twisted plans. As he lunged forward, I met his attack head-on, the clang of metal reverberating through the room. Blow after blow, we fought with an intensity born of desperation and determination. Despite my injuries, I refused to yield, driven by a fire burnt under me to protect myself and others from Blackwood's actions . In a final, swift move, I delivered a powerful front kick, sending Blackwood crashing to the ground. The room fell silent, the echoes of our struggle fading into the darkness. Coughing he sat in the corner laughing with blood spilling down his face. “You know that it’s too late to save any of these one lying on the tables. I would’ve released you, you know that right? I would’ve simply taken your memory from today out of your brain and leaving you in your bed to wake up thinking you had a fun night” he said with final resolve as he watched me grab the scalpel from the ground taking slow steps near him.
Looking down over him, It was my turn to laugh. Kneeling down to eye level with him I grabbed him by his hair and delivered a final message to him “Fuck you and your little science experiment” as I sliced deep into his throat watching the life fade from his eyes.
I eventually found an exit door, which lead me to a storm drain deep in the woods far from my campus. It took me 2 hours to limp my way onto a main road and flag down a passing car. Pulling over I was rushed to the hospital and later interrogated by some men in suits, my guess is CIA. Here I am now, writing my final entrance. I think I heard them say something about trying a new medical process on me to help me heal quicker.

Hey everyone, I’m typing this on my phone so I apologize if there is weird formatting. Anyways, to get to the point, there’s something really off with some people on my campus. I have come seeking answers.I noticed it first walking home from my 7pm class last Wednesday.
To set the scene, most of the campus is tucked back into the woods a little, and my 7pm class is in the farthest building from the parking lot (further into the woods). I get out from that 7pm class around 9pm, so on cloudy nights like last Wednesday, the only lights on that long sidewalk are the lights radiating from the other buildings. Usually, there’s roughly 30 feet where it’s pitch black because the foliage is pretty dense. I usually walk back to my apartment with some classmates that live in the same complex as me, but I told them to go ahead of me while I finished the rest of the project.
After packing my laptop away, I started heading back home. It was roughly 9:30 at this point, and my brain was slowly shutting down preparing for the deep sleep that has yet to come.Walking down the sidewalk, I heard somebody not too far into the woods laughing like they’ve just heard the funniest joke ever. I immediately thought, “probably some Freshman walking the trails with their friends smoking weed”. Chuckling to myself, I put in my AirPods and picked a playlist for my journey back home.
When I looked up from my phone, there was the silhouette of somebody walking towards me. I have no idea how I missed them before, but honestly, it’s very possible they were just in a spot where the light wasn’t quite reaching them. A little unnerved, I shifted over to the left side of the sidewalk.
(Now I’m usually fine walking alone at night; I’m a 6’2 man who’s dabbled in the world of MMA. But something about this person gave me a primal feeling of unrest.)
When they shifted over to the left mirroring me, I felt my blood run cold. But alas, I had to keep walking because this was my only way back home. As I neared closer to the figure, I almost laughed at myself when I realized it was just some harmless girl walking towards the Murphy building. If anything, I’m the intimidating one to her.
This is where it really gets weird. She stopped as I was passing her and turned to me. Thinking she needed to ask me something, I took an AirPod out and asked “what’s up?”. After staring at me for an uncomfortable amount of time, she opened her mouth, and I kid you not, mimicked the laugh I heard moments before perfectly. Before I could chalk it up to it just being her in the trails earlier, I noticed something. Her mouth wasn’t moving at all. If I had left my AirPods in, it would just look like she was just opening her mouth and staring at me. She then shifted into a deep raspy laugh. She did all of this without moving her mouth at all; I couldn’t even see her throat moving as you would expect if someone was laughing. It was almost like she was some fucked up human-shaped gramophone. The feeling of absolute horror that came over me is something I’ve only experienced in my imagination. Before I could think to do anything next, My body began to run off some sort of primal instinct. With my legs burning, it took me about 10 minutes to get all the way back to my apartment and lock myself in relative safety.
I’m coming on here now to ask if anybody knows what I experienced? I have been hearing that same laughter outside my window every night since that night, I am too terrified to sleep well and have refused to go to any of my classes. Please I just want answers, I don’t want to keep living in fear.
Part 2:
Hey everyone, I’ve gotten some DMs telling me what it may be. I’ve heard everything from banshee to skinwalker. After further research I pray to god it was neither of them. I’m praying it was just some girl with a speaker playing some sort of cruel joke. I mean yes there are people who don’t like me on campus, I’ve made some enemies over the past 4 years. But, I just don’t understand what could’ve brought it to this point. I had to stop hiding in fear and go to my classes before my grades plummet, I’m almost done with my degree and only have a few more weeks. If I let some sort of stupid prank ruin my career, It would be everything I swore against to my parents.
A lot of you guys in the DMs were also asking what college I go to and what my name is. First I want to say sorry for not providing that information in the first post, I’m sure you can understand where my head was at typing that. So let me introduce myself, my name is Nick and In order to keep my privacy, I will only provide that I go to a midwest university.
I’m sure you may be wondering, “so did it just stop?”. I would love to say yes, but really things have just gotten weirder. Though, I am pleased to say that there is no longer laughing out my window every night.
Ever since that night, I’ve been noticing more things off with the people on campus. Now you may just think it’s paranoia, but just be patient and listen.
Yesterday, I decided to muster up all of my courage and go to class. Luckily my first class is at 10AM, when the sun is well in the sky, so walking across campus seemed much less threatening. When I sat down in my first class, I noticed something off with the girl that sits in front of me. Usually she’s chatty and excited to be in class, but today she just stared blankly ahead. I tried to say good morning and ask about her weekend, as we do every Monday, but she continued to have that blank stare. She did turn her head towards be, but her eyes read “lights on, but nobody is home”.
Thinking to myself, she may just be hungover, or going through the bout of college student depression. I decided to shrug it off and turn to the front of the class and get my notes ready. But the moment I turned around, I could feel it. Her eyes burrowing deep into the back of my head. When I flipped around to see if I was just being irrational, I quickly learned I wasn’t. Her eyes went from the blank glare, to the most enthusiastic face I’ve seen on her. It was horrible, it almost seemed like she was trying so hard to pretend she was thrilled to be in class and to speak to me. It was inhuman.
I’ve been on the internet long enough to catch on to the term “Uncanny valley”, and what I witnessed In my first hour gives me that same gut feeling I got when I saw that girl last Wednesday.
I was right to be uncomfortable though, I texted her after class to make sure she was doing alright. But her response only reignited the flames of deep fear burning in my soul.
I’ll copy and paste the messages here:
Me: Hey Is everything good? You seemed off in class today.
Steph SCI 101: Uh yeah, I’m fine. but I was not in class today, I’m severely hungover from Tanner’s party last night.
Me: Haha, good one.
Steph SCI 101: No I’m so Fr, are you okay?
Steph SCI 101: Are you trying to fuck with me or something?
Me: Nevermind, I’m sorry to bother you.
(End Of Texts)
Okay so I’m sure that this gives you all the same feeling of dread that it gave me but I’m sure scaled down a bit. This is where I have started to doubt that it’s a prank, because me and Stephanie are cool. There’s no level of hate for either of us, and even if it was some joke, we don’t know each other on that type of level.
Not only did this seem to happen in my first class, but in between classes while I was walking across campus as well. I walk past hundreds of faces in my many treks across campus, and I swear to you, at least 1/4th of the people I walked past had that same dead stare look. And the way they walked, god I hate even thinking of it. It was like they were an alien trying out their new body suits for the first time. The steps and the bends of their legs just seem so meticulous, dramaticized, and puppeteered.
I’m going to try to investigate further, because at this point my fear for my life is more of a reason to try and figure out what it is so I can try to stop it.
I’m no hero, and I’m sure as hell nothing special, but If I can know what to expect for another encounter, maybe I can avoid meeting the demise I have imagined.
Part 3

First off I would like to apologize for my 20-day hiatus. For those who were worried that curiosity killed the cat so to speak, I appreciate your concern. On top of my investigation, I have also had to go through finals and work for a boss who didn't believe in life outside of work. So let's start where we left off. I had a feeling that this task was left for me to solve. it may sound stupid, but let me explain why. That night, after my last post, I had a dream that further solidified my need to solve the mystery. I tried to write all that I remembered down the morning after so here is what I wrote. 

April 4th, 2024
I had a strange dream last night, stranger than usual at least. I awoke in the woods, laying face down in the grass with someone looming over me. I heard their footsteps flee rapidly before I flipped over. I found myself just off the trail where the “incident” happened, on the trail laid a girl, bloodied and motionless. When I got up to approach her, she was quickly dragged into the parallel section of the woods. Seeing this I turned and ran into the section of woods I was in. When my legs gave out I found myself near an old supply shed, worn and long abandoned. Searching for cover, I tried the door, which luckily gave after a quick pull. There I found a trapdoor which emanated a blue hue through the cracks. The only thought on my mind, survival brought me to throw it open and climb down. I clattered down the ladder and right before my feet touched the ground, I was pulled backwards by my shirt. That’s where I woke up.
I have always trusted my gut and having a dream that vivid gave me a sense of courage I did not previously have. I know where to start my search now. I have decided my best course of action will be to record my findings on a tape recorder app. After I finish each entry it will be uploaded to a cloud that will ensure if anything happens to me, the story will get out. I am packing my backpack now with a flashlight, glow sticks to mark my trail, and a machete I was gifted by a local in Mexico. All of my recordings will be uploaded below and auto posted after 10 days. Wish me luck everyone, I’m going to need it.
Entry 1: I have started at the only place that makes sense, the trail. It is currently 1:45 PM and I have plenty of sun left in the sky. I just needed to find exactly where to start my journey into the woods. Strangely it was very easy to find. I recall one of the trees having a funky twist near the middle of the trunk. Probably just some two lovebirds trying to carve their name into the tree and realizing there were softer trees to carve into. Anyways hiking further into the woods I believe I can see the shape of the shed through the branches. I wish you guys could see how dense these trees are so you can understand my struggle.
Entry 2: I made it to the shed, but unfortunately the floor in here is concrete. This really sucks for me because I have absolutely no idea where to go from here. It’s identical on the outside but I just don’t understand. Maybe I’m just delusional, which in that case what a waste of time and energy. I’m going to head back home and just start packing for summer. Maybe it’ll be best if I just forget about all of this and leave it behind me. I am graduating after all. Wait hold on what is this?? there’s a button behind one of these shelves. I am going to press it, but idk how it would work because this floor is seamless. I’m just going to leave this recording so if anything does happen I don’t have to worry about holding the phone the whole time. Holy shit, the entire floor is lowering. It’s a fucking elevator.
Entry 3: Okay so I’ve been going down this elevator for like 30 seconds, how far down am I going?.. Oh wait hold on, Im stopped… There’s a metal door with a padlock. Ig since I have the machete there’s only one thing to do, break it. Im going to use the blunt side so I don’t ruin this thing, I like it too much. the lock clatters to the ground after 3 solid hits. Well ig there’s only one way to go now, there’s no button to get back up so I pray there’s another way up. The metal door creaks loudly. Fuck I regret this, It’s dark and I can tell it’s a big area because it’s so echoey in here. I’m currently praising my past self for thinking about the flashlight and glow sticks. I need to find out what in the hell this place is and most importantly, if there’s a damn light switch.
Entry 4: God this place is terrifying I’ve been walking around the sterile white halls of this place for like 10 minutes and have found nothing, no doors, no light switch. I feel like a rat in a maze. Also scratch what I said about being glad I packed glow sticks, because my stupid ass only brought like 20 of these things and I’m already down to 5. Also I feel like I’m not alone, every now and then I’ll turn a corner and the glow from the previous glow stick quickly vanishes. I feel like it might just be because the darkness seems to envelop everything like a blanket. But I have that feeling that I’m being followed. You know the one, where you know somethings wrong you just can’t pin point what it is. Oh shit no way, there’s light, I think there’s a door or something up ahead.
Entry 5: Holy shit… It’s a lab, and worse, there’s people strapped too tables, completely naked and unconscious. I know they are alive because each of them are hooked up with a million different cords, and one of those are plugged into a heart monitor. This place is huge, there has to be at least 50 people on these tables.
“Hey you, you’re not supposed to be in here” yelled a man adorned in a lab coat.
“What are you doing to these kids you sick fucks.” I yelled back at the man across the lab.
In a haste the scientist rushes towards a red button, setting off a loud alarm, turning the lights to a flashing red. With no exit behind me, I could only do one thing... Rush towards him. My training kicked in as I launched into a flurry of calculated strikes. My first hit connected, a right overhand clean under his eye. The doctor stumbled back, but I didn't give him a chance to recover. I pressed the attack, keeping him off balance with a relentless barrage of punches and kicks. He fought back ferociously, but I was one step ahead, anticipating his moves and countering with swift, efficient strikes. We wrestled, the room around us becoming a blur of pain and adrenaline. I used the environment to my advantage, improvising weapons from the scattered medical equipment and turning the empty tables on my opponent. Pinning him to the ground, I laid down a harsh barrage of final blows. His face was a bloody pulp, unrecognizable. But I didn’t walk away unscathed, somewhere in the tussle, the scientist buried a scalpel deep into my stomach. With my adrenaline wearing off, the pain overtook me, sending me into darkness as I fainted from the blood loss and adrenaline dump. I awoke with my arms and legs strapped to the cold metal operating table. Before I could try to struggle, a face overtook my field of vision.
“Quite a fight you put up, you turned poor Dr.Samson into a soup” the looming face said with a chuckle. “You are the first person to put the pieces together and for that I am thoroughly impressed Mr. Hayes”
“Who are you?!” I said fighting at my binds. “Let me go!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that Mr.Hayes. You have seen far too much, and I definitely can’t have you running around telling the world what you saw here. Although nobody would believe you.” “And to answer your other question, I’m surprised you don’t recognize me… really take a moment and look at me” He said pulling down his face mask.
“Dr.Blackwood?” I said as I looked back on my freshman year biology class.
“Ding ding ding ding. We have a winner!” He said in a maniac joy.
“What are you going to do to me?” I asked.
“Well Mr.Hayes, first I’m going to sew you up from your little tussle you had with my late assistant and then I will put you under and cut into that skull of yours and take out a small piece of what we call in the science world your hippocampus. Then I will draw from that all of the necessary memories to create the perfect clone of you.” He responded.
“Why? Why would you need a clone of any of us. Why can’t you just clone someone willing to be apart of this?” I asked
“Because that’s no fun Mr.Hayes, the hunt excites me. Actually you’re lucky I didn’t get you the first night. Unfortunately my creation had a little bit of a malfunction and formed a wee bit of an attachment to you. I’m sure you remember the ruckus outside your window? Anyways I digress, I do this because everyone of you lowly students will go onto do mediocre jobs where you waste away at a desk. I must also add that with having a clone of you under my control, I can do anything and get away with clean hands. My plan with you originally was to have you go into the admissions office and steal every last cent all for me. On top of that I like the power, because one day I will have a clone of every student on this campus and eventually I will cause a revolt against our comedy of a government. Who will stop me, when I won’t even be on the front lines?” Dr.Blackwood explained.
“I will” I said freeing my last hand from the binds.
What he didn’t realize is that with all of this monologue and the questions I had been feeding him, I was slowly loosening my binds with each wiggle and movement in retaliation.
Lurching forward I grab onto his collar, pulling him into a vicious headbutt. The impact sent Dr. Blackwood reeling backward, his grip on consciousness loosening as he staggered. Seizing the moment, I lunged off the table, adrenaline coursing through my veins despite the searing pain in my abdomen. With a swift motion, I grabbed a nearby surgical instrument, holding it in a defensive stance as I faced my adversary. Dr. Blackwood, recovering from the blow, snarled with rage, his once calm demeanor now replaced by a feral intensity. The room seemed to shrink around us, the tension thickening with each passing second. This was my chance to stop Blackwood's twisted plans. As he lunged forward, I met his attack head-on, the clang of metal reverberating through the room. Blow after blow, we fought with an intensity born of desperation and determination. Despite my injuries, I refused to yield, driven by a fire burnt under me to protect myself and others from Blackwood's actions . In a final, swift move, I delivered a powerful front kick, sending Blackwood crashing to the ground. The room fell silent, the echoes of our struggle fading into the darkness. Coughing he sat in the corner laughing with blood spilling down his face. “You know that it’s too late to save any of these one lying on the tables. I would’ve released you, you know that right? I would’ve simply taken your memory from today out of your brain and leaving you in your bed to wake up thinking you had a fun night” he said with final resolve as he watched me grab the scalpel from the ground taking slow steps near him.
Looking down over him, It was my turn to laugh. Kneeling down to eye level with him I grabbed him by his hair and delivered a final message to him “Fuck you and your little science experiment” as I sliced deep into his throat watching the life fade from his eyes.
I eventually found an exit door, which lead me to a storm drain deep in the woods far from my campus. It took me 2 hours to limp my way onto a main road and flag down a passing car. Pulling over I was rushed to the hospital and later interrogated by some men in suits, my guess is CIA. Here I am now, writing my final entrance. I think I heard them say something about trying a new medical process on me to help me heal quicker.

be me; ex LizarDM
be also me; Adonis Valintellis (Tiefling Paladin), Thalia Milakos (Human Ranger) and Zaahir Kehmet (Earth Genasi Wizard)
the soldier stifled a yawn as he patrolled the sandy beaches of Kalikos
clouds hid the island from the moon’s spectral glow, casting the land into darkness and turning the often silver seas black as coal
his shift had been a long one and just as boring as expected
where once his mind had been sharp and alert, it now lingered on thoughts of a cold drink and a warm bed
his eyes scanned the shore superficially, passing over the same stones and grassy knolls he’d seen a hundred times before
on any other night, he may have noticed the discrepancies in the shoreline
the new rock that appeared almost boat-like on second glance
but alas, his mind was a thousand miles away, and the javelin hit him without warning
the soldier collapsed to his knees, gasping for air like a fish on land
his armour had spared him from the worst of the damage, but the javelin had done its job
stunned and winded, he was rendered defenceless against the four figures that emerged from the darkness
a thought crossed his mind to sound the alarm; but his limbs refused to move and his lungs pleaded for breath
one member of the pack split from the rest. A stout dwarf with a full beard and a grim expression
they approached the helpless man, drawing a sharply curved short sword from their belt
the soldier tried to move
tried to yell
but the dwarf closed the distance between them and cut his throat, putting a violent end to his struggles
wiping the blood clean from his weapon, Oryk hauled the body behind cover before jogging to catch up with his companions
the Order of the Twins moved like shadows in the night. Their passage muffled by the spells woven about their feet
that said, their infiltration still proved easier than expected
skirting the edges of the island, the party avoided common paths and watchful eyes; slipping between gaps in the meagre defences they encountered
their route took them just below the peak of the island; where a lavish home stared out across the ocean
in the distance, tiny twinkling lights just barely outlined the Athosi mainland
the house itself was lit up like a beacon in the night, and roaming globules of fire identified the few guards on rotation. Six or seven at most
less than a third of what they had anticipated
counting their blessings, the small band of adventurers navigated the narrow pathways around the house and approached the island’s southern side, where a lonely dirt road wound its way towards a grove of trees
they moved swiftly and silently through the long grass that grew on either side, but they needn’t have bothered
the road was unguarded, and the entrance to the grove lay bare
“this is too easy,” Cyrene whispered; fidgeting nervously with an iron band around her wrist. “Where are the rest of the guards?”
she, like the rest of her companions, had a dishevelled look to her appearance
a thinness to her features that implied more than a couple missed meals
Oryk shot her a stern look, and the half orc immediately shut her mouth
turning his gaze to the two half elves to his rear, he was answered with obedient silence
Maia had always been thin, but now she was practically gaunt
her eyes carried a weight, and an ugly scar split her lip on the left side
Iris, her sister, had once identified herself with long curly hair
now, it was cut short, and crudely so. As if done with an altogether uncaring hand
both twins wore the same iron band as Cyrene around their left wrist
a thin piece of metal that coiled around their limb like a snake
with a commanding wave of his hand, Oryk led the party through the grove’s northern entrance and into the trees beyond
moving like ghosts between the thin trunks and shallow underbrush, the group made good progress before they heard the sudden snap of a twig in the darkness
Oryk raised a fist and the advance came to an abrupt stop, scanning their surroundings with tense expressions
a series of soft whispers drifted between the trees, accompanied by the rustling of leaves and groaning of branches
the dwarven fighter drew his sica and his companions complied, unsheathing their weapons in response
they began to spot lithe, feminine figures peering out at them from behind the trees. Staring at the strangers with bright, emerald eyes
the women had skin like mottled bark, and hair that plumed about them like foliage
“dryads,” Cyrene declared, lowering her rhomphaia with the faintest hint of relief
Iris and Maia exchanged a look before lowering their own weapons, albeit keeping them close at hand
Oryk, however, raised his short sword threateningly, and pointed it at the nearest nature spirit
“get back in your trees and stay there. Interfere, and we will not hesitate to kill you”
the dryad in question retreated, but the others stood their ground as a frantic whispering filled the trees around them
something dangerous glimmered in Oryk’s eyes, and his fingers tightened around the hilt of his sica
“NOW!” he suddenly bellowed, his voice deep and commanding
the drayds scattered into the trees, leaving a myriad of foul curses and even fouler odours in their wake
Oryk gave a satisfied grunt and turned to leave, only to nearly walk into the dryad that now stood in his way
a spirit with speckled, ashy skin and a stern, stubborn expression
Oryk approached them with his weapon raised
“get out of my way,” he growled. “I won’t ask a third time”
the dryad stared down at him like a disapproving adult would a petulant child, and when it spoke, it did so with a voice like wind through a canopy
“if you were wise, you would return to your masters. You will not find what you seek here”
its eyes lifted to the party, as if directing its words to them
with a snarl, Oryk swiped at the dryad, only to be met by a cloud of pollen and stinging nettles
cursing aloud between bouts of frantic coughing, the dwarf fled the swarm and started rubbing his eyes, which had already begun streaming with tears
muttering under her breath, Cyrene approached his side and laid a hand on his shoulder
“come now, let me see”
lowering his hands to his side, Oryk turned to face her with a grimace, his eyes puffy and red
“Archons above, Oryk,” Cyrene cursed. “You should know better than to taunt a dryad”
as the words left her mouth, the band on her wrist suddenly tightened and the half orc gave a small yelp of pain
glaring at her through bloodshot eyes, Oryk gave the cleric a venomous look
“and you should know better than to speak out of line”
Cyrene’s hands fumbled at the metal around her wrist, refusing to meet the dwarf’s cruel gaze
the cuff continued to coil and squeeze; writhing like a living being as Cyrene frantically whispered a foreign chant beneath her breath
the words seemed to appease the magic item, and it loosened its grip in response
witnessing this cruel display of discipline, the twins began unconsciously massaging the band around their own wrists; as if reminiscing on a similar experience
shaking the pain from her arm, Cyrene set to work curing Oryk’s ailment, uttering a slew of healing spells
with his eyesight restored, Oryk sheathed his weapon and pushed past Cyrene, wandering into the trees
with little other choice other than to follow, the group set off after him
the party walked for some time before a sound other than buzzing insects and murmured curses reached their ears
a low, rumbling that echoed through the trees. Like a dull droning that came in ebbs and flows
once more the group came to a stop, and before Oryk could even turn to look towards the twins, they had already begun to move
creeping forward with the lightest of footsteps, Maia and Iris stealthily approached the sound, deftly avoiding any stray branches or betraying stones
the droning grew louder and louder, until the pair had stopped just shy of its source
peering around a trunk with sharp blue eyes, Maia scanned what lay ahead
the trees parted around an ancient oak, its roots deep and its branches tall
a hollow sat about half way up the trunk. A small opening just wide enough to put a hand or two inside
but the tree was not so interesting as what lay beneath
coiled around the trunk was a creature with a long, serpentine body
its scales, green and flecked with brown, were hard and interlocked like shields in a phalanx
its head, immense and filled with razor sharp teeth, lay curled just below the hollow of the tree
the low rumbling emanated from the monster’s chest, as it uttered a long, prolonged snore
Maia’s jaw tightened and her eyes flitted over to her sister
Iris’ face had gone pale, and her hand had instinctively dropped to grab at the empty sheath on her belt
a prize taken by their employer
the twins locked eyes, and shared a moment of profound fear
wetting her suddenly very dry lips, Maia gestured back towards the trees and Iris nodded in silent agreement
the two stealthily retreated, keeping their footsteps light all the way back to their comrades
Oryk almost jumped when the twins materialised beside him, emerging from the darkness without warning
“well?” he hissed, his voice rising above the droning snores. “What did you find?”
Iris frantically gestured for the dwarf to quiet down, as Maia shot a terrified glance back in the direction of the oak tree
only when they heard the low droning of the monster’s snores did the pair relax enough to answer
“dragon”
the word held in the air like a curse
Cyrene’s eyes widened, and had it not been for the band on her wrist, she most certainly would have uttered a prayer
even Oryk’s permanently affixed scowl faded as the blood drained from his face
when he finally spoke, he did so with no semblance of his usual condescension
“...how big?”
“8 meters,” Iris answered. “No more than 12”
Oryk nodded, his brow knitting together as he dropped into a crouch
“a juvenile,” he thought aloud. “Hasn’t reached full adulthood. Scorch marks?”
“none that we could see”
“good. Then either it’s too young to breathe fire, or it spits poison”
his eyes narrowed to points as he mulled things over in his head
the group kept quiet, forced to listen to the distant, droning snores as their leader considered their options
after a long stretch of time, Oryk took a sharp inhale and straightened his posture
“it’s asleep?”
his eyes shifted to Maia, and the half elf tensed
“we think so but…”
“we don’t know for certain,” Iris quickly interrupted. “We’ve never encountered a dragon before. We should call off the mission and come back more prepared”
a deadly silence fell over the group as the dwarf went still
“call off the mission?” he repeated
his voice was calm, but the words held a distinct edge to them
like the blade of a meticulously sharpened knife
“and since when did you make the calls in this party?”
Maia shot her sister a look, and Iris lowered her eyes
“never,” she answered
“that’s right. Never,” Oryk reiterated, holding the half elf in his steely gaze. “We do things my way, as we always have”
Iris’ clamped her mouth shut and the dwarvish fighter turned to look at his other companions
“unless you have all forgotten what awaits us if we fail? What will happen if we come back empty handed?”
he was met with silence and a slow shake of Cyrene’s head
“failure isn’t an option,” he continued. “If the drakon is asleep, we need to act now”
his gaze shifted to Maia
“so can you do what I need you to?”
the half elf swallowed and tried to slow her racing heartbeat
“I think so,” she meekly answered
“good. The rest of us will wait in position. We’ll flank the tree from three sides and-”
“-I’ll do it,” Iris suddenly interjected
Oryk’s teeth flashed in a grimace before he turned to face her
“I’ll retrieve the objective,” Iris clarified, meeting the dwarf’s gaze
“Maia is quieter,” Oryk bluntly retorted. “She stands a better chance of getting to the tree than you do”
“but with my magic-”
“-your magic that we need for the escape,” he interrupted. “We have a plan, stick to it”
he turned back to the front and began drawing out a rough plan in the dirt with his sica
“-while Maia sneaks in, we hold here to provide support. Once we have what we came for, we leave back through the northern exit”
Iris’ eye twitched, and Maia reached out to drop a hand on her sister’s arm
“Iris-” she quietly started
but her warning went unheeded, and Iris spoke up again
“what’s the point of saving my magic if we don’t get what we came for?” she argued
Oryk spun with a stormy expression, pointing his blade to her chest
“because I said so!” he snapped. “And you will do what you’re told!”
he may have stood half a head shorter than Iris, but in that moment, Oryk felt like a giant, and in the silence of the trees, his voice sounded like a clap of thunder
Iris’ face paled and Oryk realised what he had done
instinctively, the party held their breath; anticipating a monstrous roar, or the crash of falling trees
but after a few tense seconds, all they heard was the rhythmic rumbling of distant snores
the group letting out a collective sigh of relief that cut through the tension like a knife
tension that returned the moment Oryk opened his mouth
“do you want to be sent across the Chronaean?” he hissed. “Do you want to leave your sister alone?”
Iris’ eyes shifted to Cyrene, searching for some glimmer of support
instead, the half orc looked away, leaving the half elf to face their leader alone
“of course I don’t,” Iris mumbled
“exactly,” Oryk spat. “Stay in line, do what you’re told, and keep your mouth shut”
he turned to Maia with an expression that encouraged absolute obedience
“get the objective, and get out. Nod if you understand”
Maia gave a slight jerk of her head
“good. Now get moving”
the dwarf stormed off into the trees, and Cyrene quickly shot up to follow him
Maia and Iris exchanged a look of resignation before joining their trusted comrades

Maia stood in position by the edge of the clearing, mentally projecting her path to and from the hollow
it was a simple job, really
dart across the open ground
jump up to the low branch on the left side
climb over to the main trunk
grab the objective
and do it all again
simple
if it weren’t for the dragon in the way
Maia's heart began to pound in her chest until she felt a hand fall gently across her arm
she turned, meeting Iris' concerned gaze
“you don’t have to do this,” her sister whispered; practically breathing the words into Maia’s ear
“yes I do,” Maia answered, keeping her voice just as quiet. “You heard Oryk. We can’t go back empty handed”
“f*ck Oryk,” Iris cursed. “We’re only here because of him”
in spite of herself, a grim smile lifted the corner of Maia’s lips
it was a rare thing to hear Iris curse
“we could run, you know. Make a break for the mainland”
Maia’s smile dropped in an instant
“Iris, no”
“why not?” Iris replied earnestly. “We can make it. I know we can”
“they’ll catch us. And even if they don’t, what then? We’ve got nowhere to hide. No friends to help us. We’d be on our own”
“we’ve been alone before. We survived, didn’t we?”
Iris’ words were hopeful, but they couldn’t hide the desperation beneath
when Maia didn’t seem convinced, Iris took her sister’s face into her hands
“please don’t do this. I can’t lose you”
Maia’s eyes softened, and she placed her hands atop Iris’
“that’s why I have to do this”
she took a deep breath and tried to put on a half convincing smile
“you don’t have to worry about me. I’ve got this. I promise”
Iris’ thumb traced the scar across her sister’s lip
“I’m older. It’s my job to worry about you”
a frown fell across Maia’s face
“older by 10 minutes”
“and I’ll never let you forget it”
Iris pulled her sister into a tight hug
“don’t you dare get yourself caught”
“when have I ever?”
the two reluctantly parted, and Iris held her sister at an arm’s length
“remember. Once you have it-”
“-run like the Hounds of Chaon are after me”
a smile touched Iris’ lips, and the shadows rose up to swallow her
when they parted, the monk was gone
inhaling a slow, shaky breath, Maia composed herself, and refocused on the tree
30ft to the centre
branch on the left side
over the dragon
down to the hollow
reverse and get out
she exhaled slowly, letting the shake fade from her breath
she had this
Maia broke from the tree line, moving in a swift but stealthy manner
every step carefully laid. Every movement intentional
the dragon’s snores rumbled like thunder, growing louder with each step
before she knew it, she was beneath the low branch
taking a quick stutter step to gain momentum, she threw herself upwards, catching the branch with both hands
thankfully, the branch held firm, and Maia swung her legs up and around it
shimmying along inch by inch, she drew closer to the trunk itself, inadvertently holding her breath as she passed over the sleeping body of the dragon
its breath reeked up close. Like spoiled fruit and vinegar
it took all her strength not to gag
before she knew it, she was at the trunk of the tree and at the next step of her plan
hoisting herself up to a crouched position, she flattened her body against the side of the trunk and began sliding her foot along its length
eventually, she found a suitable foothold and began clambering across to a more central position
the hollow was just beneath her now
and beneath that, the massive head of the dragon
this close, she realised just how easily such a creature could snap her up
with her small frame, she’d be gone in one or two bites
pushing such morbid thoughts out of her mind, she leaned down until her head and arm were low enough to reach inside the hollow
her lungs were beginning to burn from holding her breath for so long, but she dared not exhale
she wasn't sure how good a dragon's senses were, but she wasn't keen to find out either
reaching her arm into the hollow, her fingers touched loose leaves and knotted wood
she pushed a little deeper, searching for any sign of her prize
something cold
something metal
but instead, she felt the hard back of the hollow
frowning, she pressed again, but still felt only the rear of the hollow
had she somehow missed it?
her fingers scrambled around, but continued to feel only wood and leaves
her lungs were really burning now, and she could feel her face flushing with colour from being upside down
regardless, she removed her arm and leaned her head down further, trying to peer inside
in the black gloom of a moonless night, a human wouldn’t have been able to see a thing
but even with her enhanced elvish sight, Maia was granted only the slightest advantage
just enough to make out the shape of the interior and the contents within
dried leaves
knotted wood
a couple insect husks
and nothing else
sure she had somehow made a mistake, she looked again and again
but with each scan, the truth became undeniable
“you will not find what you seek, here”
the dryad’s words echoed in Maia’s head, and with a cold sense of dread, she realised that the spirit hadn’t been speaking rhetorically
the amulet wasn’t here
and with that realisation, Maia’s lungs could hold on no longer
her breath escaped all at once, her awkward position driving the air out in an undignified huff
she clamped a hand over her mouth, but the damage had been done
she had made a sound, however small, and already her breath was mixing with the cool air
time slowed to a crawl as the dragon’s snores came to a stop
she watched in terror as its head, mere inches below her, began to stir
its nostrils flared; drawing breath with a deep, rasping inhale, and its eyes rolled in their sockets
the dragon’s jaws cracked open, revealing a black, forked tongue and rows of fetid teeth
rancid breath assaulted Maia’s senses, making her stomach turn and her head spin
she waited for the creature to open its eyes
to see the tiny morsel dangling helplessly above it
but they never did
to her greatest relief, the dragon remained asleep and blissfully unaware of her presence
relief swiftly turned to dismay, however, as the dragon proceeded to shift; its scales rippling like water across its long, serpentine body
the tree shook violently as the monster scraped against its surface, shearing away bark and causing branches to groan and sway
wrapping her arms around whatever she could find, Maia clung desperately as the shaking threatened to throw her loose
after what felt like an eternity, the vibrations mercifully ended, and the dragon returned to its snoring
but even after the tree had long fallen still, Maia found herself unable move; as if every single muscle in her body had frozen solid
in a moment of clarity, she realised that her hand had found her dagger in the chaos, and that the weapon was now clutched in an iron grip at her side
she almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation
as if a dagger would keep her safe if the dragon had actually awoken
nonetheless, she kept it in her hand, unwilling to relinquish the one defence she had
lifting her gaze to scan the surrounding treeline, she spotted the pale faces of her companions waiting in position. Intently following her progress with their eyes
Iris looked just as high sprung as she was. All but ready to throw herself into the open in order to save her sister
Maia silently prayed that her twin could keep her composure for just a little longer
wetting her incredibly dry lips, the rogue began scaling the tree; taking care to avoid any of the small twigs and leaves that had been shaken loose by the dragon’s shifting
upon reaching her chosen branch she paused, taking a moment to slow her racing heart beat
in spite of everything telling her otherwise, she needed to calm down
stress would lead to mistakes
and mistakes would lead to her death
feeling her muscles relax ever so slightly, Maia continued, stretching her body out to reach the low branch
her feet found purchase, and the rogue began creeping along its length
a few more steps and she’d be home free
“Maia!”
a single word
muffled and distorted, and yet agonisingly loud
Maia’s eyes dropped to the bronze surface of her dagger and saw a young woman’s face staring back at her, their eyes grey and piercing
there was a flash of familiarity in the half elf’s mind, but in that moment, she could barely recall her own name
a million thoughts raced through her mind as her heart pounded like a drum in her ears
one thought, however, screamed louder than the rest
run
Maia’s feet moved before the thought had even finished forming, propelling her from the branch a split second before it detonated into an explosion of jagged splinters
she hit the ground hard, feeling something give in her shoulder
she didn’t have time to dwell on it, as an earth shattering roar tore the world asunder
her feet were under her in an instant, and she broke into a sprint, not daring to look behind her
she knew that if she turned, all she would see is a flash of green scales and a mouth full of fangs closing in to end her life
the air began to reek of rotten fruit and then a body collided with her, throwing her aside
a cloud of noxious fumes ripped through the space she had just occupied, causing grass to shrivel and trees to wither
she felt hands on her arms and shoulders, and then Iris was yelling at her, hauling her to her feet amidst pained racking coughs
they didn’t have time to stop, barrelling through the trees in a mad dash to get away
as furious roars filled the air behind them, Iris stumbled through the underbrush, her legs unsteady beneath her
Maia looped an arm under her shoulder, and now the twins were supporting each other in a tangle of limbs
minutes passed. Or maybe just seconds. And then the two broke from the tree line onto an open road
sea winds rushed up to meet them, and Iris' legs fully gave out as she began greedily sucking in gasps of fresh air
“come on!” Maia urged, trying to drag her sister to her feet
but Iris was of no use now, her eyes bulging and her face flushed with colour
something ripped its way out of the underbrush and Maia turned sharply, instinctively raising the dagger that was still clutched in a death grip
instead of the dragon she was expecting, she found Cyrene and her rhomphaia, halfway through a cut that would have cleaved her in two
recognising each other at the same time, the pair lowered their weapons and turned to the wheezing half elf at their feet
concern flashing across her face, Cyrene dropped to her knees in preparation to cast a spell
before she could begin, however, Oryk emerged from the grove, blood splattered across his hands
“we don’t have time for that. Get her up!”
he raced past them, leading the charge back towards the beach
with a grunt of exertion, Cyrene lifted Iris into her arms like a baby, shoving her rhomphaia into Maia's hands
keeping a wary eye on her sister, Maia followed the half orc as she began jogging after their leader
as they ran, Oryk settled into pace beside Maia, shooting her a questioning look between grunts of breath
“do you have it?”
the half elf's shoulders fell, and she quietly shook her head
“it wasn’t there”
Oryk’s face turned a dark shade of red, and a vein bulged in his head
“what do you mean it wasn’t there?!”
“the amulet is gone. We missed it”
a stream of vile curses flowed from Oryk’s lips, and Maia wisely chose to keep her eyes forward and mouth shut
they reached the beach in record time, and Cyrene carefully laid Iris down into their waiting boat
as Oryk and Maia began pushing the vessel into the rolling surf, the dwarf gave her a hateful glare
“hells spare you when they find out we failed”
“we...haven’t...failed...yet”
Oryk turned his ire on Iris, who lay curled across the edge of the boat trying her best to suck in what air she could
“we...know...where...its...going,” she continued between strained, wheezing breaths. “We...still...have...time...”
leaping into the boat with a splash of water, Oryk waited just long enough for his companions to get in before heaving away with the oars
“we’d better. For all our sakes”
he sliced through the water with powerful strokes, driving them into deeper and darker waters
Maia slunk down beside Iris, taking her sister’s hand into her own
Iris dropped her head onto Maia’s shoulder, and the twins watched as the shores of Kalikos drifted further and further away

First Post: https://www.reddit.com/CradledDnDStories/comments/x8zwpv/athos_1_a_new_world_of_opportunity/
Last Post: https://www.reddit.com/CradledDnDStories/comments/1b2taqi/athos_35_mirror_mirro
Next Post:

Apologizes for the long post, some important details to explain in the beginning to help better set the stage to explain things.. So my fiancé and I got engaged back in 2021 after dating for 10 years, being high school sweethearts & moving down south together to start a new life together where it’s more affordable. We’ve always managed to do ok for ourselves & are completely self sufficient. With that said our jobs pay well but we still struggle sometimes.. which is part of the reason why we haven’t tied the knot just yet.
We originally set our date to fall of 2023 back in spring of 2022.. proposed to our bridesmaids and groomsmen, mailed out save the dates, etc. In early spring of 2023, my fiancé ended up getting hurt at work which required surgery on his shoulder.. with the timing of everything this would mean he’d still be in a sling at the wedding.. we made the hard decision to postpone our big day to next fall of 2024 so we could both properly enjoy our big day and sent out new save the dates immediately. (This gave all our guests little over a years notice of the switch)
Jumping to the whole point of this now, December 2023 comes around and my best friend of 18 years gets engaged to her now fiancé whom she started dating right after I moved & barely know aside from the stories she tells me yet I’m OVER the moon for her ! (How exciting I am to have someone to go thru this wedding stuff with who can related !?) She is so excited and starts planning immediately & they tour venues the following week. They toured 2 venues & instantly loved 1 of them and immediately put down a deposit. She tells me right after and sends me pics & it’s this gorgeous venue that is also right on the wateocean. I am so shocked they lucked out so fast and ask when’s the wedding ?! She told me the date LITERALLY 3 weeks before my wedding…
At this point I’m speechless.. I immediately while in a state of shock congratulate her.. I’m so happy for you...
I told this to my fiancé who’s known my BFF just as long as me as we all grew up & went to the same school & he was FURIOUS & hurt.. he said it was selfish & that she basically f’d me over by getting married literally 1 month prior to us. He now wants nothing to do with her and refuses to speak to her again or attend their wedding period due to the disrespect of it all. I’m not a confrontational person & was so hurt by all this.. but knew I had to address it with her.. I waited a week or 2 then explained how hurt both me and my fiancé are & how difficult of a situation this puts us in (given she’s my BFF & knew how sad I was to have had to postpone the year prior) & how it hurt that they could consider his brothers feelings and his big day but not mine ?
(FYI she’s an only child if it means anything & we were so close my parents call her their daughter & I refer to her as my sister… she also told me I’d be her maid of honor whenever she’d get married bc of how close we are.. she was at least smart enough to not throw that on my plate thankfully.. however not to sound arrogant but if our dates weren’t on top of each other I’m POSITIVE she would’ve asked me)
Shel went into “defense” mode and instantly began stating why they chose the date..
1) her fiancés little brother is getting married in 2025 & so he refuses to get married the same year as it’s “not fair to steal his spotlight” if I remember correctly
2) it’s their dream venue
3) the only available dates left for 2024 was that last week of summer or November 2024.. she stated that bc her venue is on the water, she couldn’t do November bc of her elderly grandmother and how she could get sick (which is understandable)
4) they want to start having kids like now so they are in a rush to get married asap
Now this left me in such a weird feeling of confusion, hurt & sadness.. she already agreed to be my bridesmaid 2 yrs ago, our other mutual best friend who is a single mom as her child’s father passed was now asked to also be her bridesmaid too.. we have a TON of mutual friends & guests & with me moving down south 5 yrs ago & having the wedding down here.. my wedding is kinda considered a “destination” wedding as majority of our guests are traveling to our state.
She then tried to smooth it over by saying how she never meant to make me feel that way & then blamed her fiancé bc HE wanted that date & “didn’t give her any other option”… By her blaming it also makes me want to believe her bc he has always been very controlling of her.. constantly makes comments about her weight & says she’s getting fat, calls her 3x a day to see if she went to the gym, gets mad if she ever plays Xbox w me once in a blue moon bc that makes her “lazy” (mind you she’s an LPN and works 12 hour shifts smtns and is ALWAYS on her feet, she never wants to do nothing period- she has gastro issues that cause bloating & HE KNOWS THIS). He always tells her she’s not allowed to cut her hair prior to the wedding bc HE wants it long.. and it’s not like he asks or says it nicely either.. (bottom line, me and the rest of her bridesmaids strongly dislike him for all this and several other reasons which we’ve told her for years but are trying to be supportive bc in the end it’s her life/decisions )
Fast forward a little more, right after I tell her this & she gives me that story.. I tell her I need some time to heal, get over it, etc.. but that I love her bc she’s like a sister to me and I can’t imagine missing her big day or not being apart of it…
About a week or 2 after this, her MOH starts a chat and surprisingly has her bridal shower & Bach dates picked out already.. leaving me with not many options of when to do mine as mine will also be up North since none of my family is down south.. this makes my fiancé even more mad bc now he’s saying how I have to plan around her & this adds to why he was initially pissed bc it takes my spotlight away that I’ve patiently waited for.. so her Bach is May 2024 & shower is June 2024.. wedding last day of August 2024.. I decline her bach bc I can’t afford/take more time off work to travel.. and said I’d aim for shower if I can and yes to her wedding..
my Bach & Shower are now in July 2024.. back for back weekends so I’m up there for a week and a half for both.. (I had no idea how else to make it work at this point so just decided to do it all together.. )
She just had her Bach this past weekend and apparently she fought and said mean things to ALL of her bridesmaids and they are all pissed at her and 1 even dropped out of her wedding all together because of it.. our mutual BFF went and called me in tears when she got home bc of how selfish she was acting apparently & basically told them all that “this weekend was all about her and it’s not like any of them are getting married anytime soon or have anything excited going on in their lives so they need to get their shit together” (this was the 1st night on a Friday after everyone worked an 8+ hour day then drove 4-5 hours to the Airbnb). They dropped so much $ on this trip for her and she got into a verbal altercation with each of the 7 of them about how they weren’t doing enough to “party” and have fun with her the moment they got there.. this same argument continues the next day/night apparently to the point NOBODY wanted to be near her as they felt they’d be her next target. Come morning, everyone packed their stuff & ran home upset that the whole weekend they planned was nothing but arguments and ruined..
After hearing this & the comments she made, it really sent my thoughts racing.. how can she be so selfish to these girls whom I watched and helped from afar plan this whole trip for her? I’ve only been “gone” for 5 yrs and visited at least 1-2x a year since & constantly kept in touch everyday but I don’t recognize this person who’s supposed to be my BFF anymore..
To sum up this whole thing now.. I’m torn.. should I have ever bothered letting my initial hurt of the whole month before our wedding situation go in the first place when I forgave her? My Father, FIL & SIL are just as pissed as my fiancé is and don’t understand how I could just be okay with it all but commended me on being the bigger person to save my 18+ yr friendship bc they couldn’t.. Should I just back out of shower too and or her wedding entirely to save myself the extra stress ? I also have my Bach & Shower in July & her still one of my bridesmaids on top of all this to which some of my other bridesmaids are also mad at her for the situation & also agree w my fiancé who messed up it is… 🤦🏻‍♀️ SOS & please be kind to me if you can.. I’ve been so emotionally all over the place bc of this 🙏🏻🫶🏻

I’ve got an NB Mx-5 that I’m looking to mod, I’m just wondering how to go about it and how to deal with insurance. It’s on a classic policy and only covered 3rd party for limited miles.
I’m currently doing the accessory mods and haven’t mentioned anything to insurance - upgraded to OEM wheels with NS2Rs, yellow stuff pads, braided lines, aluminium rad, upgraded coolant hoses, Meister R Zeta CRD and just an M2 backbox. I’ve also got a hardtop and intend on tracking it soon enough too.
The plan is to go FI, still debating between Turbo or Supercharger love the sound of the Supercharger but feel for the price and performance turbo is a better shout.
I’m just cautious of how to go about it with insurance - if I crash my car I won’t be covered if it’s my fault but I’m cautious of my policy being voided when paying out for damages to a second party’s car.
The car hasn’t got an OBD port which makes things handy (no dashboard lights if I prick about with the exhaust), but to pass emissions and go FI ill need to go with a sports cat and a few other mods.
Anyone dealt with insurance on this shite?

Hello fellow devs, i have a usecase to ingest a application log to the elastic using Elastic Agent on my Java application, right now I got a problem when the application caught an unhandled exception and it prints it to the server log. My goals is to make the multi line exception message into single event.
Exception sample:

2024-05-06 14:46:22 ICT [SCC.0126.0200I] (tid=351) SCC ConnectionManager pool KomiUBPJDBCConn.conn:KomiUBPNoTrx started 2024-05-06 14:46:45 ICT [ART.0114.1100I] (tid=351) Adapter Runtime: Facility 1 - JDBCAdapter registered with bundle com.wm.adapter.wmjdbc.JDBCAdapterResourceBundle. 2024-05-06 14:46:45 ICT [ISS.0095.0042I] (tid=351) The ERRSTACKTRACE field in a WMERROR audit record was truncated. CONTEXTID: ee93ae3f-59a4-4af7-a2ee-70a22cfdaad5. MSGID: 491d55b6-e8d6-f612-d8ea-608365a3fe29. Full value: java.io.IOException: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond at java.base/sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read0(Native Method) at java.base/sun.nio.ch.SocketDispatcher.read(SocketDispatcher.java:43) at java.base/sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.readIntoNativeBuffer(IOUtil.java:276) at java.base/sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.read(IOUtil.java:245) at java.base/sun.nio.ch.IOUtil.read(IOUtil.java:223) at java.base/sun.nio.ch.SocketChannelImpl.read(SocketChannelImpl.java:353) at oracle.net.nt.TimeoutSocketChannel.read(TimeoutSocketChannel.java:144) at oracle.net.ns.NIOHeader.readHeaderBuffer(NIOHeader.java:82) at oracle.net.ns.NIOPacket.readNIOPacket(NIOPacket.java:252) at oracle.net.ns.NSProtocolNIO.negotiateConnection(NSProtocolNIO.java:118) at oracle.net.ns.NSProtocol.connect(NSProtocol.java:317) at oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CConnection.connect(T4CConnection.java:1438) at oracle.jdbc.driver.T4CConnection.logon(T4CConnection.java:518) 

I tried to use multiline parser based on the documentation on my elastic-agent.yml but it still printing each line as single events
elastic-agent.yml inputs

inputs: - id: bni_app_logs type: filestream multiline: type: pattern pattern: '^[0-9]{4}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2} [0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}' negate: true match: after paths: - /opt/softwareag/sag1015/IntegrationServeinstances/is5555/logs/server.log data_stream: namespace: bni_app_logs 

If anyone had any opinion or suggestion, please help. Thank You.

We met at work, and very quickly fell in love. Things were great for a while. But slowly things started to change. She didn't like my friends, in her mind they were a bad influence. These were people I had known and trusted for years, they helped me through my mum passing away and have always supported me. So I stopped seeing them.
I'd have to ask permission to go and see the one friend she approved of. I knew when we got pregnant that I'd be unable to see my friend as much. So I didn't protest when she asked me to stop seeing him. Every Holliday was always so one sided, we'd spend all of the Christmas holiday with her family apart from Christmas eve where I was allowed to go and see my family for a couple of hours whilst we spend Christmas eve night - 27th of December with her family. This was repeated for years. Easter, fathers day, mothers day.
I started to lie about how long it took me to get home from work so that I could secretly see my friends. When she found out about this she demanded to know all of my income and expenditure, to the penny. If I spent more than £5 a week on then she would shut me out completely.
She used intimacy as a weapon to control me. There was a period where she'd say "your actions speak louder than your words" soon I found myself with nobody. So I'd tow the line.
When our daughter was born I was able to take 6 months off with her, I got statutory shared parental pay, that covered my half of the bills and that's it. I had no money to do anything, I'm happy that I got to spend that time with my daughter. But when my wife was on maternity she had the support and opportunity to truly enjoy the time and see friends.
When I started openly refusing to do things the way she wanted she would shout and scream. This all came to a head before Christmas when on the Christmas party I received a text telling me to be home by 8 or don't bother. She left the key in the door that night.
The following day she told me she was done with me. And didn't speak to me unless she was with family. I had never felt so alone. I fell into a bout of depression and often thought of ending it all. When I lost my job because of my mental health I knew it was the beginning of the end.
I managed to get another job, much less money but it was something, when she found out how much I made she made me sleep in the spare room.
A month later she told me to leave the house and that she was done with me.
I don't know what to do now. She wants me to still pay for my half of the mortgage and bills. But I'm not allowed in the house.

AITA. I (28M) got angry and told off my DM for not explaining something properly to me.
For context, my DM (Let’s call her Brittany, 26F) has just started running a campaign, the premise is that we are playing a regular party but every night we switch bodies with someone in the future after a world ending event. This is Brittany’s first time running a game and I am a new member of this group, the other players including her sister (Call her Nadia 25F), 2 other party members(they weren’t around for this), her current DM for 2+ years (Let’s call him Tom 30 something M) and my high school buddy (Joey, 28M). The group seemed cool and Brittany and I hit it off fast (we briefly dated as a result but other things happened including myself not showing up for a date and she called that aspect off). We got to session 3 and I was already in a mood. Brittany started off with us in our changed bodies, this was happening every night for 30 days, and there was a spy group that was gonna return in 7 days. So I naturally assume we were the spies and celebrated that we won’t be dealing with this bullshit for 30 straight days. Brittany got confused about this and mentioned we weren’t the spies. I’d had enough and just yelled at her for not being clear, Nadia interjected that it was totally easy to understand so I also did yell at her. I’m not proud but I was in a bad mood, and Joey was also confused and backing me up. We stopped once Tom said he understood and explained it the exact same way Brittany did but a little more slowly. I didn’t like that he was treating me like I was stupid but I didn’t talk further because he also looked annoyed at me and I’d rather avoid the situation. The game went on and I was bored, there’s been no combat (it was said in session 0 that roleplay was the bigger part but as I said, boring).
At the end Tom told Brittany that the game was amazing and fun, he’s only saying this because Brittany was open that she’s nervous about this game so I know he’s not being honest, and it ended. Brittany called me shortly after and asked if I was ok because that was a big moment of me getting mad. I quickly said it was in character (it wasn’t but as I said, I was in a bad mood and I don’t want to have that held against me) she accepted it and that was it.
Next week I decided to quickly say sorry and got donuts. Tom didn’t grab one and just stared daggers at me while everyone happily ate. It was a good session, Joey and I took lead (admittedly no one else got any lines in for 3 hours but I like to be engaged) and this carried into the group chat, we asked about stuff she’s gonna spring on us, more plot points and info that we can’t be bothered to discover in game. Tom decided to tear Joey a second hole in the chat, saying stuff like “Play the game and let it all be discovered” which I took issue with because Joey is engaging unlike Tom, so I told him to back off and let us ask Brittany what we want. I reminded him that I’ve been nothing but supportive to her and suddenly Tom posted to everyone that I threw a tantrum last week and called her game boring, which upset me terribly because I was only frustrated and it wasn’t fair that he was degrading me to everyone like I was a child. I got rightfully upset because the boring part was between Brittany and I, so Tom had no right to air that to everyone.
Tom then messaged me about how he thinks I’ve done nothing but gaslight Brittany and that I’m childish for my age which once again is unfair. He then mentioned he also knows I threatened to physically strike her when she said she was gonna tickle me. This is true but Tom doesn’t know what it is to be ticklish.
I feel like Tom is causing issues in the game because Joey is telling me I’ve done nothing wrong. AITA for this or is Tom and Brittany making a toxic setting for me?

hey!
here’s what I look like
I’m in the midwest, in the middle of my phd, using the sacred few hours of sleep I got to scroll reddit while binging on the trashiest reality TV and early 00s MTV music videos
tbh, since moving here I’ve been aching to meet people that aren’t related to my professional or academic sphere, and rarely got the time to do much outside the lab, so, here I am, it seems meeting people online could be good bet :o
some random trivia

• my work is on machine learning and proteins
• love running and cycling, pretty much any heavy cardio activity
• love playing soccer but suck at it
• love signing but suck at it
• love drawing but suck at it
• I only sing in spanish, because I got a thiccc accent and feel a bit self-conscious singing in english
• expert in early 00s shitty pop music
• best disney movie is ratatouille
• most overrated disney movie is up
• love dancing cumbia and bachata… and actually do not suck at it! lmao
• can move my ears on command
• have lived in 4 countries, 6 cities, 2 continents
• I’m trying to get into video games. help? I have a swtich, xbox, and pc
• not a fan of scifi or fantasy :(
• once got jump-scared by a possum while riding my bike
• knows two and a half languages
• love crafts (specially origami) and playing the accordion

here are two truths and a lie

• I was personally invited to a fancy rooftop party by a google hotshot, but bailed on it
• a mexican bill saved my life while I was stranded in serbia
• I was suspended from middle school for burning a whiteboard with body spray and a lighter

If you're interested in talking, send me a line about yourself!

hey!
here’s what I look like
I’m in the midwest, in the middle of my phd, using the sacred few hours of sleep I got to scroll reddit while binging on the trashiest reality TV and early 00s MTV music videos
tbh, since moving here I’ve been aching to meet people that aren’t related to my professional or academic sphere, and rarely got the time to do much outside the lab, so, here I am, it seems meeting people online could be good bet :o
some random trivia

• my work is on machine learning and proteins
• love running and cycling, pretty much any heavy cardio activity
• love playing soccer but suck at it
• love signing but suck at it
• love drawing but suck at it
• I only sing in spanish, because I got a thiccc accent and feel a bit self-conscious singing in english
• expert in early 00s shitty pop music
• best disney movie is ratatouille
• most overrated disney movie is up
• love dancing cumbia and bachata… and actually do not suck at it! lmao
• can move my ears on command
• have lived in 4 countries, 6 cities, 2 continents
• I’m trying to get into video games. help? I have a swtich, xbox, and pc
• not a fan of scifi or fantasy :(
• once got jump-scared by a possum while riding my bike
• knows two and a half languages
• love crafts (specially origami) and playing the accordion

here are two truths and a lie

• I was personally invited to a fancy rooftop party by a google hotshot, but bailed on it
• a mexican bill saved my life while I was stranded in serbia
• I was suspended from middle school for burning a whiteboard with body spray and a lighter

If you're interested in talking, send me a line about yourself!

The way America especially is falling to pieces is no secret. And Project 2025 is the biggest danger there is right now. Already we are seeing us going backwards on human rights and dehumanising anyone who is not a straight white rich man with mush for brains. Utah has banned trans people from public bathrooms and launched a ‘snitch line’ to report trans people. People are pushing for child marriage and labour to be legal. Abortions are punishable by jail in Texas. The genocide in Gaza is happening in the first place. The people protesting it are demonised. Even near me in Australia we have more right-wing nut jobs running the United Australia Party and a library near my town has banned books about same-sex couples. The list goes on. And it’s easy to feel like there’s no hope for anything.
But there is.
As long as there are people fighting this shit, the people doing it have not won. As long as anyone has common sense and sees the danger here, it has a chance to be stopped. As long as we fight, they aren’t succeeding at their goals.
This is not hopeless.
Spread the actual danger of Project 2025. Give some real coverage to Palestine protesters. Protest it yourself. Fight the injustices in this world however you can, and draw as much attention as possible to them besides.
Remember this post. Do not dismiss this.
Nothing will go away if we sit around and do nothing.
Keep fighting, and do your best to make it so you don’t fight alone.

In the bustling city of Bangalore, amidst its vibrant culture and thriving arts scene, lies a hidden world of intrigue and mystery—the realm of mentalists. These modern-day magicians possess a unique ability to delve into the depths of the human mind, captivating audiences with their mind-bending feats and uncanny insights. In this article, we'll delve into the captivating world of mentalists in Bangalore, exploring their artistry, performances, and the awe-inspiring experiences they offer to audiences across the city.
Unraveling the Mystery of Mentalists in Bangalore
Mentalist in Bangalore are masters of the mind, harnessing the power of psychology, intuition, and showmanship to create unforgettable experiences for their audiences. Through a combination of sleight of hand, suggestion, and psychological manipulation, these performers blur the line between reality and illusion, leaving spectators spellbound and questioning the limits of human potential.
From intimate close-up performances to grand stage shows, mentalists in Bangalore offer a diverse range of experiences for audiences of all ages. Whether you're seeking an evening of entertainment, enlightenment, or sheer astonishment, Bangalore's mentalists never fail to deliver.
The Artistry of Mentalism
At the heart of mentalism lies a deep understanding of human psychology and perception. Mentalists in Bangalore possess an innate ability to read subtle cues, decipher body language, and tap into the subconscious mind, allowing them to seemingly predict thoughts, influence decisions, and perform seemingly impossible feats.
Through a combination of observation, intuition, and skillful presentation, mentalists create an atmosphere of mystery and wonder, drawing audiences into their world of illusion and intrigue. Each performance is a carefully crafted blend of magic and psychology, designed to leave a lasting impression on those who witness it.
The Thrill of Live Performances
One of the most captivating aspects of mentalism is its live performances. Whether performing on stage, in a theater, or up close and personal in a small venue, mentalists in Bangalore thrive on the energy and interaction of a live audience. With every show, they invite spectators to become active participants in the experience, engaging their minds and senses in ways they never thought possible.
From mind-reading and telepathy to psychokinesis and memory feats, mentalists in Bangalore showcase a wide range of skills and techniques that defy explanation. Each performance is a carefully choreographed spectacle, designed to amaze, entertain, and leave audiences questioning the nature of reality itself.
The Rise of Mentalism in Bangalore
In recent years, Bangalore has emerged as a hub for mentalism and magic, attracting both seasoned performers and up-and-coming talents from across the country. With its vibrant arts scene, diverse audience, and spirit of innovation, the city provides an ideal platform for mentalists to showcase their skills and push the boundaries of their craft.
From regular performances at theaters and clubs to corporate events, private parties, and special occasions, mentalists in Bangalore are in high demand, captivating audiences with their mind-bending abilities and leaving a lasting impression wherever they go. With each performance, they continue to push the boundaries of what is possible, inspiring awe and wonder in all who witness their artistry.
Conclusion
In conclusion, mentalists in Bangalore are true masters of the mind, captivating audiences with their awe-inspiring performances and mind-bending abilities. Through a combination of psychology, intuition, and showmanship, these performers create unforgettable experiences that leave spectators spellbound and questioning the nature of reality.
Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, a night spent in the company of Bangalore's mentalists is sure to be an unforgettable journey into the depths of the human mind. So why not immerse yourself in the mystery and magic of mentalism, and discover the artistry of these mind masters in the heart of Bangalore?