How to unlock autotune

Discussing how to unlock climate finance

2020.09.08 05:46 sidtralm Discussing how to unlock climate finance

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2020.10.26 20:51 Doge_McLol IdleOn - Join us at Discord.gg/idleon

Show off cool items you've found, discuss the best builds for each class, and theorize about how to unlock the super secret areas!
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2020.12.19 11:51 Dkayed9 Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel!
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2023.12.18 12:07 roflmaobitch Unlock My World by fromis_9 and Hard by Shinee are kpop's most well-thought out LPs this year

I would put The World EP.FIN: WILL by Ateez in the title but it wouldn't fit lol. People I have talked to about this have completely disagreed and told me that albums other than this do what they need to, so I consider this unpopular. This is not me saying "I like these albums more than I do the rest", but moreso looking into the thought behind most kpop full albums released this year, each of the soon-to-be-mentioned groups' musical directions, the cohesion within the albums released and across their discography as a whole and finally whether the songs in each release proved to be true assets to their respective albums. [and I'll try to make this as SHORT as possible cuz I'm abt to talk abt ±TEN full albums ;-;]
So what makes the three mentioned albums ESPECIALLY solid?
• They effectively continue these groups' sonic identities with more modern conventions while still making listening to the albums an enjoyable experience. Looking at Unlock My World, it takes fromis_9's already-evolving more electric sounding side of their music [think of DKDK, Love Bomb, Weather], their R&B sound [think Somebody to love & Coloring] as well as bringing in their music's more fun, funky sound [think of Feel Good, DM and Stay This Way]. A standout track would be Prom Night geniusly joining in on the current UK Garage wave and is an understandable fan favourite. I will say, though, a gripe I have with the album would be it's title track, #menow, and it being a watered down recreation of their current title track streak and failing to prova a competitor to the current music scene.
• The said albums are cohesive both when looking at the project itself, and when considering them alongside the group's entire discography. A stellar example would be Ateez. I'm not an Atiny whatsoever, nor did i quite like The World EP.FIN: WILL but it's commendable for Ateez to simultaneously be having a distinct sound, consistently have their albums remain cohesive and find success with each release. This LP shows just how Ateez has progressed sonically but remains fitting once compared to their past work.
• Each track truly adding something to the albums. I sound like a kiss-ass right now lmao but the album has proven the variety of hard-hitters it has to offer. Sultry? 10X. Euphoria? The Feeling. Dreamy music? Sweet Misery & Insomnia. Anthemic dance floor hits? Identity. The amount of love constantly being given to tracks off of the Hard album is telling enough.
What makes other albums more lacking in:
• A sound evolution that offers an enjoyable listening experience and can compete in KPops current soundscape? Phantasy by The Boyz, Reboot by Treasure and 5-Star by Stray Kids. I KNOW — TBZ's Phantasy trilogy hasn't been completed yet, I'm just commenting on its progression so far. It's fortunately cohesive so far, makes sense alongside their past work and may be beloved by Deobis but it lacks any standout tracks, or just much significant tracks in general. It wasn't bad just okay, also a bit eventless. As for Treasure, Reboot is painfully generic, INSANELY dated [as we all know] and is overall almost pathetic and very forgettable. If we ignore the overstimulating mess that is S-Class, 5-Star is an album that i can understand people enjoying, but just doesn't prove it's own significance at all. We all know how people called SKZ's music "noise music" which was just untrue for the most part and we know the members themselves are aware of this. What I do not find commendable is them leaning heavily into that label, to the point where half of the tracks have the fomulaic structure of members rapping, typical melodic prechoruses, and then either choruses that lack the punch of a satisfying enough or just plain noise [i think i can excuse 'Item' from this though]. Why is the release of Get Lit's chorus characterised by a synth and a beat alone? No idea. Why that synth resembles an autotuned fart at that? I couldn't tell you. And the non-noisy songs consist of borderline insipid, soulless dance pop music that fails to deliver the messages intended. I can compliment Collision for at least being an interesting and genuinely quality enough song, but it isn't even THAT good, it's just nice.
• Cohesion? I've IVE unfortunately is one that offers plenty of songs worthy of competing in the music scene but as a whole fails to have them all be effectively tied together. Their title tracks make sense I guess but regarding their bsides, the amount of ideas and possibilities attempted to be stuffed into this project is too much for this one album. I would note on how uncertain IVE's music direction is regarding their bsides/music as a whole but maybe I'll make a separate post.
• Their tracks adding something to them? NCT Dream's ISTJ and EXO's EXIST. The former, although cohesive, fails to display the style they found success with as well as most its songs lacking any flavour, leaving more to be desired and, dare I say, sound unfinished. The latter, although cohesive and effectively evolves EXO, unfortunately cannot compete with more jam-packed albums, is actually quite forgettable and falls completely flat on its face on some tracks, namely Hear Me Out and Another Day, with Another Day being a bonafide filler track that EXIST could've done without.
I definitely am able to talk about more albums but this post would just go on for WAY TOO LONG like I know no-one wants to read all that so I'm leaving it off here.
View Poll
submitted by roflmaobitch to unpopularkpopopinions [link] [comments]


2023.12.12 21:46 GavintheGregarious Looking for a Clean Video of Marc... to Show my 9 y/o Nephew Why He Should Stick with Piano Lessons

Are there any videos showing his workflow where he isn't cursing or singing about something inappropriate for a young mind?
My nephew is 9 and learned the piano really fast! He's super smart and goes to a school for smarty-pants. Not bragging, just saying he is an extra formidable foe when it comes to convincing. I want to show him what learning the piano can unlock... I want to show him how much fun Marc has and how he moves people.
*I know you all will ask: He plays a digital piano with a MIDI out. I downloaded Garageband to my iPad for him to start out. If he takes to the art, I'll expand his equipment or software. I also like the idea of getting the family an external MIDI controller and autotune hardware so they can jam. Holy crap that would be cute AF.
submitted by GavintheGregarious to loopdaddy [link] [comments]


2023.11.27 17:52 Critical_Remote7798 Parts in EXO songs that scratch that itch in your brain.

Let’s get straight to the point.
I love Exo’s music. It’s fun, vocally brilliant, razor-sharp production and just over all a great time. I really enjoy immersing myself in the listening experience. Breathe if you agree.
But sometimes, I will be listening to a song and suddenly one of the boys comes comes on the track sounding DISRESPECTFULLY GOOD. Like-made-my-neck-snap-cause-I-turned-around-so-hard-to-look-at-my-phone-and-catch-the-exact-time-stamp-when-it-happened good.
I’d call it a “killing part” but I don’t mean EXACTLY that, cause I think killing part implies like an ad-lib or high note. These moments can be them simply talking on the track or singing very low-key but I’m getting goosebumps cause the voice is right, the pitch is right, the production is right and the mixing is right. It unlocks something in me and I transform into a feral being for a few seconds.
Like it’s lightening in a bottle.
Some illustrative examples:
  1. Second half of Chanyeol’s rap in “Gravity”. The pacing drops suddenly and Chanyeol delivers such a smooth and lazy sounding rap over the pulsating beat in that song….it’s so good!
  2. Sehun’s part in groove (2:13 -2:17) when the autotune is removed from his voice so abruptly it sounds like a glitch in the Matrix and it’s so good. Coupled by Baekhyun’s adlibs ofcourse. Actually this whole song is just very innovatively composed. Sehun should sing more, even if it’s just melodies.
  3. Artificial Love. The part where Sehun-Chanyeol and Kai-Xiumin are ASMR battling. It sounds so immersive and disjointed like I am in a space shuttle moving at breakneck speed. I love it so much.
  4. Whenever Suho comes on the track in Touch it. Like that song is K-pop boy band perfection but Suho? He was so smooth. When he sings the chorus I am levitating. My favourite chorus singer in that song (sorry D.O.) he brought out the flirty part of the song the best. “Cmon cmon do it again”. Also Chanyeol’s ending in the song is also fiiiinnnnneeee.
  5. The Ooh La La, harmonies I mean…
  6. Lay on Lotto. I think autotune works with his voice the best. Not a huge fan of empty choruses but he makes it worth every second. I’d like to see him experiment more with auto tune. He’s also the exceptional in Love Me right and Monster.
7.Not the biggest fan of Chen’s voice but he was sooo good in the blooming day high note. Easily the best highnote in Exo’s discography.
  1. Kai’s part in Day after Day. I just think it’s funny how everyone else sounds so earnest on it and Kai sounds cute. Like they’re all serious but I can’t help feel like Kai is giggling on the track.
  2. Xiumin’s part in Forever. I think the way this song is so sharp that Xiumin’s icy cold tone helps deliver a lot of the drama in this song. “The im thirsty part” sounds so dangerous. Controversially perhaps, I think out of all the exo members Xiumin has the most unconventional tone it’s so light but also clear like a needle. It’s well suited for Hyperpop songs like it’s very Sophie coded.
  3. Chanyeol again in Cloud 9. His bridge is so heavenly. I think he shines vocally in Exo’s music because he balances out a lot of the tenor powerhouses in the group. He’s easily my favourite voice in the group.
  4. Baekhyun in what you do the drop part where he adlibs “saranghae saranghae” it’s sounds so fun and whimsy I love it. I think he does more pop songs better than ballads, where he can have more fun.
  5. D.O. Everytime he opens his mouth. That man kills every line on every song. (Ironically still my favourite exo album is obsession where he isn’t on it).
What are exo song moments that scratch that itch in your brain.
submitted by Critical_Remote7798 to exo [link] [comments]


2023.08.26 03:22 Quartzeemer Top 10 most overrated ERB characters

Top 10 most overrated ERB characters
I absolutely love ERB's work. So even if I will criticize these 10 characters more or less strongly, I still find them amazing, just like every single ERB character. Yeah, even Caitlyn and Things 1&2 (they're not on this list, don't worry, but I still find even them amazing). These are just characters who I feel like are not as good as people keep saying. I will of course try to stay as objective as possible, and avoid any bias or preferences, especially since those same preferences are often the reason why some characters are overrated.
10. Terminator
Props to EpicLloyd
Now that was an outstanding impression. Honestly, Lloyd's performance was truly great, and him being on this list shows that not that many characters are overrated. He has some incredible punchlines, and a marvelous flow.
Now, I think we all agree his second and third verses were not as great as Robocop's. On the second round, saying how he will attack Robocop, a bit like Christopher Colombus but with a Geordi La Forge pun, is not on the same level as "programmed robot boner for John Connor" and the prime directive (4th directive, hidden at the start of the verse) unveiling. On the third round, calling Robocop out for being affected by emotions wasn't a clever move after being the emotional one throughout the battle, and wasn't on the same level as Robocop's outstanding use of "Murphy's Law".
Maybe he still won thanks to his first verse, despite losing rounds 2 and 3 by pretty far, and despite the fact Robocop's first verse was far from being bad. I don't know, maybe Terminator still won, although that seems unlikely to me. Most people believe he won, but that's not the part that I find overrated about him.
What triggers me is how everyone praises his use of catchphrases. "It's time for your next shit verse, and then I'll be back", and then "It's Judgement Day, baby; Hasta la Vista". Honestly? He made a terrible use of iconic lines. He chose the easiest way to use them, which is just: saying them, without a pun, without a diss. Just saying them. That's completely effortless, and there's no reason to praise it. Look at Ash Ketchum: did he just say "Gotta catch 'em all" for the sake of saying it? No, he used it as a brutal pun to make a diss even more impactful. Did Thanos say "You should have gone for the head" in an easy way, just to tell Oppenheimer "your verse missed" or something? No, he turned it into a pun as well, making it the most brutal pregnancy bar since Cleopatra. Even back in season 1, remember how Vader used "I'm your father" in a pretty clever way to call out Hitler's mom? Terminator is a champion of one-lines, so why did he not find clever way to use his quotes as well!? Why did he use them in such weak ways!? Those are such missed opportunities and I don't see anybody talking about it; I even see many people praising Terminator's battle quotes. That's why Terminator is in this top 10.
9. Sherlock Holmes & Dr. john Watson
Props to Zach Sherwin and Kyle Mooney
They're near the bottom of this list because I have nothing to criticize about their first's verse lyrics. Of course, I dislike their very exaggerated (and several times off-beat) flow throughout both their verses, but that's subjective since I assume many people like their flow. Now the huge problem is their second verse's lyrics.
Most of the ERB community praises their second verse, calling it the best verse in the battle and even one of the best verses in ERB. Alas it is a very empty verse in termes of lyrics. There's a cool rhyme scheme, alright, but there isn't a single good diss. All he does is re-telling Batman's childhood story, which everyone already knows.
Like, ok Sherlock, you're proving us that you've heard the basics of Batman's life before, but where are your disses? Are people gonna scream "OOOOHHHH" every time a comics references the fact Batman's parents are dead? Seriously, Sherlock could've used that fact for a far better diss. Like, "[insert strong diss], no wonder you have no parents" or "your parents being dead don't mean you can [insert strong diss]". But like, just "your parents died and you were a child so you could only stay there watching the scene" ? Insufficient.
The part that bother me most, personally, is the end of that verse. Sherlock says "Dissing these dynamic douchebags was elementary, my dear Watson" and Watson screams "OOOHHHH". But I frankly don't know anybody else who would've screamed "OOOHHHH" at that line. Where's the insult, beside calling them "dynamic douchebags"? I know it's a reference to their Dynamic Duo, but how is that supposed to be an impactful diss? He didn't even mention Robin in his verse, so there shouldn't be a plural form or a reference to the Duo. Plus, just like Terminator, he didn't even try to make a pun or an insult out of it. Now's the most bothering part to me: Sherlock calls "elementary my dear Watson" his catchline, which it is NOT. Arthur Conan Doyle has never ever written that line.
See, a verse without disses and not without mistakes can't be called a very great verse. It was a lot worse to me than Batman's 2nd verse, which had Robin's beautiful performance and ended on some actual killer punchlines by Batman.
8. The Joker
Props to Nice Peter
Just like Terminator, that's a brilliant performance that I really enjoy. And just like Terminator, he has an excellent first verse with no other problem than its ending (which is a little off-beat in the Joker's case). However, the Joker's second and third verses are highly problematic, and I see no one mention it. People are rather praising them, especially his third verse...
Let's go into details. His second verse's only good diss is "when I compare your antics to the devil schemes that I revel in, they pale like the moonlight you can dance with the devil in." It's a beautiful line with a beautiful rhyme and a beautiful reference to Jack Nicholson's beautiful interpretation of Joker, alright. Unfortunately it's immediately rebutted by Pennywise with an even better punch, the Heath Ledger one. In a rap battle, when you rebut a line from your opponent while also making an even better line, it nullifies the damage of your opponent's line (actual rap battlers said that, not me). So here, Pennywise rebuts the only diss of Joker's second verse, only leaving that verse's flaws.
Before you come tell me "no, that wasn't his only good diss, he also said ‘you lost to a turtle‘ and ‘beat by the kid from Stranger Things‘": NO. Those aren't good disses, since those are respectively the 3rd and 4th instance of "you got beat by"/"you lost to" in this battle. So Joker's second verse is the point where this kind of line starts being very repetitive. You can't tell me that repeating the same diss three times makes three good disses, right?
Another problem from the second verse: Joker disses Bob Kane and Bill Finger. His own authors. And that's an extremely bad move, since it nullifies Joker's best line of his 3rd verse: "tell your author for his next gangbang scene, how about a little more pg and a lot less 13?" That could've been an excellent line, but it only aims at Stephen King, not at Pennywise... But if it was efficient to diss Pennywise's authors, why did Joker diss his own authors? Either the pg-13 bar is completely nullified, or Joker dissed himself. Same situation occurs when Joker inserts a discreet diss against Skarsgard a little later.
The rest of Joker's third verse is pretty cool... Except for the fact it doesn't even mention Pennywise himself, except when saying he has a lot of prickly teeth, and comes from space. Those aren't very heavy insults. The rest of the verse is about Batman, or Robin, or the pace of the "It" movies... Don't get it wrong, "ask Robin if I drop bars" was a fantastic line, but it wasn't an insult against Pennywise, so it didn't contribute to the battle part of the rap battle. Also, saying "we live in a society" is pretty bold since that line is originally an inaccurate meme that was only turned real by Jared Leto. Honestly I would've rather had this line used as an insult against Joker, like in CamSteady's version of Joker vs Pennywise.
Long story short, Joker was cool but didn't play his cards flawlessly, but he's still often overrated into one of the best ERB rappers. Best impression/impersonation/performance? Sure. Best rap battler? Far from it.
7. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Props to Nice Peter
A very good rapper for sure. Very cool energy, cool impersonation, and one of my favourite beats in the background. Really feels like a prodigal child rapping. But also feels like an arrogant adult who doesn't like modern music and finds 8 different ways of saying that dubstep is bad. Unfortunately for him, his verses are essentially made of those 8 different ways, and he barely mentions anything else about Skrillex. I can hardly believe such a repetitive rapper could defeat Skrillex, who actually dissed Mozart on very various points.
I won't go over each mention of "dubstep sounds like hiccups," "dubstep unenjoyable," "dubstep not complex," "dubstep not know music theory," "dubstep bad clothing," "dubstep is just pressing a space bar," "dubstep excrements," "dubstep diarrhea," dubstep poopoo, dubstep caca. Let's just take a look at everything he said that was not about dubstep.
"Prodigy, Sonny" and "Smack a Bitch Up?" That was fire. Very multi-layered. Doesn't really insult Skrillex beside calling him a bitch, but still a very clever line. "200 years old and it's still excellent?" That was a fire flex too. "Lonely little troll?" Well, Skrillex isn't that much of a hater... I don't listen to Skrillex: I only heard Bangarang from him and I didn't like it, so I'm not biased at all; but I must say, he sounds pretty nice. He accepted being sued by a fan who got hurt in one of his concerts and losing the case, saying his priority was his fans' well-being... Okay, I don't know the entire story, and maybe he used to behave like a troll, but calling him a troll didn't feel most accurate to me. Just tell me if I'm wrong.
Anyway, let's continue with Mozart's fire lines. "See I've transcribed it here" is a good flex on his musical talent. "I rocked harder than you when I was five years old" is also an excellent flex, especially because it's pretty true. In the end, all his disses were extremely repetitive, but his flexes were very cool. That's a terrible situation in a rap battle where you're supposed to insult the opponent (so I believe he lost the rap battle), but at least I think I understand why he's overrated, and what people like about him. That's why he's ‘only’ seventh on this list.
6. Abraham Lincoln (presidential battles)
Props to Nice Peter
You can't tell me this guy solo'd Romney vs Obama? If this was a presidential debate, okay, he would've won. If you see this battle as a presidential debate, then sure, whatever. But in terms of rap battle? Oh god. He's quite hardly listenable. He's amazing just like everyone in ERB, but I'm grateful there are subtitles, or I would've had a hard time understanding anything! Anyway, maybe that's just a me problem...
Look, "I fought for what was on my brain until a bullet went through it" is a very powerful line with a powerful meaning, but I don't think Obama was the most inactive president of all time— I don't want to start any political debate though! Just saying. Anyway, it was a very good line from Lincoln, which characterizes very well American presidents of our era, and his sentence to Romney was accurate as well I guess, but you can't tell me that's better than all the impactful and well-thought disses Obama and Romney threw at each other throughout the battle?
I feel like many people consider Lincoln as the winner by default, but I feel like people tend to forget everything that happened in the battle before Lincoln arrived. Like, okay, he stopped the debate by being right and leaving, but did he crush the entire rap battle rap-wise? Before you say "yes", please try to re-evaluate Obama's raps and Romney's raps, then ask yourself whether Lincoln's verse was really better than both of them. Don't just say that Lincoln neg diffed without remembering the content of the original contenders' verses.
As for Trump vs Hillary... Everyone calls out Lincoln for being biased. I mean, yeah, kinda. I'd rather call him out for breaking his old wise Lincoln spirit into pieces. In every battle prior to this, he'd brag about his achievements at his time, and he'd actually sound like someone from his time. He'd even teach new presidents how old presidents like him were more efficient. But in Trump vs Hillary, he pollutes his old vibes by mentioning TMZ, Facebook feeds and Twitter. I feel like the character progressively killed himself, as one of the reasons why he didn't appear in Biden vs Trump...
5. Stephen Hawking
Props to Nice Peter once again
Okay, the battles were very short back then, so there isn't that much content to discuss about him in his battle. The autotune is a subjective point: some people like it, some people dislike it, but all of them are right since it's their opinion. Now let's see some more objective points, like why he clearly did not have better lyrics than Einstein, contrary to very popular belief.
His first diss is calling Einstein a troll doll with a moustache. Before that first diss at the end of his first verse's first half, he doesn't say anything notable, beside the fact he "rolls" thanks to wheels... Usually, the rapper who starts requires some set-up before his first diss, and the second rapper can go straight for the kill without losing time. But here, unfortunately for Hawking, it's the opposite. Einstein pulled the "oop! I see you brought your own [chair]" very quickly, while Hawking took more time before calling Einstein a... a troll doll with a moustache. Yeah, he'll need stronger disses than that if he wants to keep up, lmao.
His next diss is the "p-brane" line. I like the math reference, but calling out Einstein's "pea brain" is very bold from someone with ALS, which is a brain disease. In comparison, Einstein's brain was very well functioning, wasn't it? Then it's funny from Hawking to compare himself to Snoop Dogg in general, while he's supposed to be more famous than Snoop Dogg— at least I think so. If he's not, then he let me know that he wasn't more famous than Snoop Dogg, and that would be a self-burn. Finally, the "shoulders of giants" line... which is immediately, brilliantly countered by Einstein's rebuttal that gets flipped into "if you could stand". Same situation as I said earlier for Joker's second verse: the damage of the final diss is nullified, and Hawking's only diss left is "moustache on a troll doll". Looks like Hawking's not winning the battle.
Then comes Hawking's second verse... We get to the overrated part. Look, we're not in 2011 anymore. It's not because you find the "ten million million million..." line very funny that it's necessarily a very mature and well-written line. You can't say he wins the battle with a playground insult. You have the right to find it very funny, but not to say it destroys every of Einstein's disses. Worst case is when people say Hawking's second verse is one of the best verses in ERB history, pfft. Most iconic? Sure. Best-written and most effective in a battle? Certainly not.
Let's pass on the Carl Sagan line which has no interest beside making Carl Sagan appear. What's left... ah yes, "I'm a super computer, you're like a TI-82." Can I be very honest? The "I'm ..., you're ..." kind of lines is extremely useless, except to hardcore Nice Peter fans (not targeting Ronald McDonalds at all 😗~🎵), and the fact Hawking does indeed possess a super computer does not make the line any more clever.
In conclusion, you have the right to love Stephen Hawking's performance and raps, but stop saying he should be on every top 10 best ERB verses. Your top 10 favourite ERB verses? Sure. Top 10 best verses? That's an insult to every other ERB verse. Please don't make a confusion between something funny and something of high quality.
4. Nikola Tesla
Props to Dante Cimadamore and Nice Peter
In a debate over who I prefer between Tesla and Edison? Tesla by very, very far. But rap-wise in their ERB? Edison. People believe Tesla won, or even believe he absolutely neg diffed, just because they are convinced by his exposing. Indeed, he keeps exposing Edison, calling him a thief who steals credit and oppressed Tesla's work... I mean, that was a good action from him. I'd even say, a good sacrifice. Tesla revealed to everyone the truth about Edison, at the cost of losing the rap battle.
Remember how I said how repetitive Mozart was? Tesla's even worse. Almost every single line of Tesla is about Edison stealing credit and shadowing Tesla's lifework, yet unlike Mozart, he doesn't even have great flexes the rest of the time. Now I see you coming, I can hear you shouting that he had the most amazing flex of all time, which is "you did not steal from me, you stole me from mankind"... Alright, that's a very good wordplay, and that's very intensified by the computer amplification of Peter's voice on that one line. A pretty good choice, since the line turns indeed into something that sounds impactful. Yet, it's once again based on "steal from me" like we've heard tons of times from Tesla already; it's just reformulated in a more self-crediting way (don't get it wrong, Tesla deserves all the credit as a person, but it's just getting too repetitive in the rap battle).
Actually, let's do like for Mozart, and review all his lines that weren't just repetitively exposing. His two first lines are pretty cool, with great references to physics. Third line: "impeccably dressed" yeah because OCD; he's at the edge of self-burning... Fourth line: "this will be on the test", to remind that Edison is a dropout. Seriously? That's something he could've disses Edison super hard on, but he just said "this will be on the test"!? A wasted opportunity which would have been better than repeating the same stuff over and over again, like he does from his fifth line onwards. From there onwards, the only lines that don't follow the repetitive scheme are the Reddit line -seriously?- and the "banker and you" bar. That latter bar is also a wasted opportunity: Tesla could've gone a lot more in depth about Edison's problems with J.P. Morgan, but no, he just said "shocking real story of a banker and you" without even trying to say what was shocking about that story. He preferred continuing his exposing instead.
Now, that's surely just a choice from the ERB crew. Maybe y'all wanted Tesla to just claim the credit he deserves instead of battle-rapping. Problem is, Edison battle-rapped for real and pulled some actual disses against Tesla, so he won the battle and it was kinda unfair. Tesla just made everyone love him and vote for him and overrate him, but from a critical point of view, all of Tesla's lines were ineffective from the moment Edison said "I'll rip your style and add it to my long list of patents," bragging about his credit stealth... at the start of his first verse. He made it clear that he would be unaffected by any diss about him stealing credit, and yet what did Tesla keep doing?
I respect that choice from the ERB crew, but it could've been done way better. Frederick Douglass encountered the same choice, spending all his time exposing Jefferson, but at least he also battle-rapped and punched Jefferson back instead of just preaching and distributing tracts to the crowd to distract them while letting Jefferson massacre him, like Tesla did.
3. Renaissance Artists
Props to Smosh and Rhett&Link
Yeah, their verse was longer than the Turtles. Yet they managed to have even less good disses than the Turtles. I just see them as unnecessarily long. I feel like everyone feels like they destroyed their battle just because they rapped for a longer time and had a better flow. But flow is subjective here since I feel like theirs wasn't that much greater than the Turtles's. And duration didn't change how weak their verses were.
Leonardo starts with eight entire lines of saying nothing very notable, beside calling Turtles turtles ("reptiles", "three-toed freaks", "a turtle") and saying they live under the street. Like, okay, everyone knows that already, and it isn't formulated into any clever pun. Yeah, flash news, saying you'll turn your animal opponents into meat is not a battle-winning diss. That's too much set-up for saying nothing: the Artists start slow and light with Leonardo.
Donatello is a little better, since he actually attempts to diss the Turtles in a way more original than Leonardo's obvious stuff. But in the end, "born in goop, raised in poop" is the most hurtful he can do within 4 lines (indeed, the Fruit Ninja reference is not hurtful). Plus, Leonardo ruined it since he already mentioned that they lived under the street, so what Donatello says appears to just be a repetition, even if it's better formulated. Would've been even better if Leonardo didn't say anything. So the Artists are still very light so far.
Raphael is... Sorry Anthony Padilla, I don't know you but I'm sure you're a very cool guy. However, Raphael is just so cringe from his title card's facial expression onwards. "I get the feeling I should pass it up to my man on the ceiling..." dude you only got 4 lines, stop wasting lines on passing the mic! Leonardo did it because he had 8 lines to waste, but now you're even more empty than Leonardo! Well, 16 lines into the battle and the Artists still got nothing.
And Michelangelo just sets up for 4 lines. Sadge. Oh and he also makes references to his works. Oh my god, that's so brutal, the Turtles are gonna feel so hurt from Michelangelo making puns with the names of his sculptures and paintings! Ohhh, I really wouldn't want to be the Turtles right now! No, seriously, the Artists kind of forgot they were in a rap battle. Maybe they thought they were in a cypher or something, but you're supposed to draw blood from your opponent in a rap battle. And they still haven't drawn a single drop.
Then all 4 of them rap together and... they still manage to say nothing to the Turtles. They wasted sooooooo much time setting up individually, so I thought that once they were going to rap together, they would at least stop setting up and finally diss their opponents very hard! But noooo, they keep talking about themselves! They even compliment their opponents ("you beat the Foot") a lot more than they hurt them, in that part where they rap together!
See, their first verse may have been twice as long as the Turtles's, but they said NOTHING battle-wise. And that's a pity. I'm still flabbergasted by all those people who consider the Artists' first verse to be one of the best verses in ERB history, and demand it to be at the top of every top 10 best verses... More like most wasted verse in ERB history.
Nothing to really add about their second verse. Leonardo's line "you wouldn't know genius if it pissed in your sewer" is kinda whack, but still better than his 8 first lines combined, honestly. So, maybe a slight improvement? But still super light. Seems their best diss in that second verse is "we're like your NES game because we can't be beat".... Ugh, please don't make me say this is also the Artists' best diss in general. Please.
Anyway, yeah. Super overrated. You get it.
2. Robin Williams
Props to EpicLloyd
The only people I can see voting for him in Carlin vs Pryor are the people that are too nostalgic to bother comparing all comedians' lyrics, and the people who just vote by default for the last person rapping. How come that makes a majority of people!? Do you seriously think he rapped better than his opponents? I didn't think nostalgia would lead people to overrated him this much. Anyway, let's take a look at his lyrics.
You know, it's very easy to tell that he initially wasn't planned to be in the battle, but was added later than the other comedians. Because everything he says about the other comedians has already been said. He does not bring anything new, since all material has already been used in the other comedians' verses. So half of his verse is just repeating stuff they have already said, and the other half of his verse is just talking about himself and comedy in general. Very bad move in a rap battle.
Look: Carlin uses the shit jokes about him and his way of walking, as a well-thought flex: "non-stopping brain droppings like my wit's got the shits." So he becomes immune to bars about shit, and Pryor and Rivers diss him about many other things. Then Robin comes in with "I don't think you've had a good shit since 1962." Damage completely canceled.
Then Joan Rivers uses all her plastic surgeries in a clever way to diss her opponents: "at this point I've got more plastic than flesh, but my Tupperware body couldn't keep your raps fresh." She uses that fact about herself as a source of insulting power, so she becomes immune to any diss on her plastic surgeries, since it would feed her flex. Yet, what does Robin diss her on? "80 years old but that nose looks brand new! Nanu!" Damage canceled once again!
Pryor already mentioned the time he sets his hair on fire, as a clever way of swagging: "Even the shit that I spit off the top: flames!" Now that he made it a flex, it would be absurd to diss him on that, right? Yet what does Robin do!? "I Doubtfire makes a good shampoo"!!! This dude Robin Williams clearly wasn't there when the three other rappers were rapping! He clearly did not listen to what they were saying, and what disses they were making themselves immune from! For each of the three, he repeats something they have said about themselves, but he even says something less clever than they said themselves. In other words, he's as bad as Bill Cosby in terms of disses in this battle.
What about everything else Robin says? It's not even cool flexes! It's just his movies' plots, his hairy arms, and some stuff about comedy, all to make people feel nostalgic! At some point he attempts trying to diss his opponents again (as he finally remembers he has opponents and isn't just in front of a crowd lol), with "you got second-hand raps, found 'em Goodwill Huntings," but that's so far already from the level of violence of Joan Rivers, or even Carlin and Pryor. Literally everyone was better than him battle-wise.
Yup. No way everyone's saying he solo'd his battle, especially considering how brutal the others actually were, especially Joan Rivers who pulled a killer punchline at almost every single line. People thinking he won are definitely not seeing this like a rap battle.
1. Frederick the Great
Props to EpicLloyd
Someone even more overrated than Robin Williams? Someone with a verse even emptier than the Artists', and yet who people praise even more? There you get one: Frederick the Great. This dude has his own community of numerous people claiming he has the best verse in ERB history. Allow me to strongly, strongly disagree.
He does indeed start with a flute solo. A very great flute solo. Is the flute solo insulting to the person he's trying to diss, Ivan the Terrible? I've studied music theory for 12 years and I can guarantee that he wasn't communicating any insult through any musical language with his flute. In a cypher, that would have been very cool. But this is a rap battle, in which the goal is to attack the opponent and draw blood from them. A flute solo is a cool entrance but doesn't contribute to the battle at all, so it doesn't make his verse any better battle-wise. When I ask people why they think Frederick won his battle, they all talk about his flute solo, not about his lyrics. Well, certainly because he does not have a single good line in his lyrics, so their only excuse is the flute solo, but it is useless in a rap battle so I guess Frederick got nothing left... Actually, people confessed it was because of his energy. Just his energy alone makes his verse the best in ERB history, to them. Well, that's the most subjective justification I've ever heard, since I didn't feel any special energy from him at all. Let's keep to more objective stuff.
For example, let's take a look at his lyrics, and let's justify why I just said he didn't have a single good line. So he starts with "I'm Frederick the Great, out the gate, first servant of state (...) genteel in the palace." In other words, he wastes 4 lines out the gate on just swagging without mentioning his opponent. But at least most ERB rappers are able to swag properly, and make people respect them a lot. For example Newton's "I'm a master! I discovered gravity" and "I unlocked the stars you're dancing with" and "I create the science you explain to kids:" this man spends time swagging with extremely powerful facts but also manages to diss his opponent. Or Mozart, who we mentioned earlier, with "I rocked harder than you when I was five years old." Brilliant flex which doesn't forget that there is an opponent in the ring." Same with Tolkien's "In book sales, you've got nothing to say! I'm number one and two! You're under Fifty Shades of Grey! I got the prose of a pro! Your shit's sub-par!" Bro's flexes are better than whatever Frederick said in his four first verses, and he also kills his opponent at the same time.
Alright, now we've seen that Frederick loses 4 lines with some below-average swagging that doesn't mention his opponent and doesn't even say anything crazy about himself. So let's move on to his next lines. "Russia's fucked up, but no wonder why:" here I was genuinely expecting him to throw an insane diss about Ivan the Terrible after that. Indeed, it sounded like some great build-up to follow up with an awful, disrespectful fact about Ivan, in order to be like "someone like you ruled Russia, really? no wonder it's fucked up" you see... Catherine did something like that. But Frederick wasted his build-up, preferring making a reference to the Wizard of Oz rather than dissing Ivan. Weird choice, especially since the Wizard of Oz has strictly nothing to do with either Frederick or Ivan. It would've been far more efficient to attack Ivan, than to make that quote.
Then comes Frederick's only diss in the entire battle: "I'd pay a guy to tear out my eyes if I had to look at your troll face every night." Congratulations, Frederick: you just called your opponent's face a troll face. That's the most insane diss I've ever heard. Plus you've referenced a fact that never even happened (Ivan gouging out the eyes of Saint Basil's Cathedral's architect is a false rumor). Frankly, congratulations, Frederick. I'm sure you won the entire battle with that single line, haha. Yeah, I mean, if it wasn't with this very high-quality line, with this not-playgroundish-at-all line, with this perfectly mature and brutal line, then what other line would people think you got the best verse in all of ERB with, since none other line from that verse tries to be a diss against Ivan?
Zero. Zero out of ten. Alright let's move on to his next lines.
"Now go get me my chair! I'm weary from tearing you a new derrière from here to Red Square!" Sorry Frederick, but the only people allowed to say that are those who have actually just teared a new derrière from their opponent. Acting like you've won, while you've said NOTHING battle-wise, is a very bad and pretentious move, although that can fool anyone who wasn't listening closely into thinking he actually won, without being able to explain how he won (because -spoiler alert- he didn't.)
"Fought a Seven Years' War, I ain't scared of a Tsar!" Yeah yeah, Ivan the Terrible fought a 25-year-long war by the way, look it up it's a true fact, Wikipedia that. 🥱 By the way, you say you ain't scared of a Tsar, but you would've committed suicide if Elizabeth of Russia didn't convince you to keep living onwards, and if your enemy during the Seven Years' War (Tsar Peter III, husband of Catherine the Great) didn't change sides in your favour during that same war, allowing you to win. You should be grateful to Tsars, Frederick.
"'Cause beating you only took me twelve bars!" Freddie, you did not beat anyone. Your verse did not have a single good line, not even an amazing flex, and you dissed yourself more than you dissed Ivan the Terrible in your own verse. Fun fact, I remember someone on YouTube telling me that Frederick the Great won because he said "beating you only took me twelve bars" and indeed he only had twelve bars. What a battle-winning coincidence!
Seriously, all Frederick fans, stop overrating him. You have the right to love his verse for whatever reason that I don't understand, but keep to saying his verse is "your favourite." Please don't say it's "the best in ERB history," because that's an insult to every other verse in ERB history.

Alright, that's all for me today. I hope you found it useful. And I hope I didn't hurt you if you really liked one of those characters. Just tell me if you disagree with something I've said; I'm open to discussion (EXCEPT to political discussion).
submitted by Quartzeemer to ERB [link] [comments]


2023.05.21 05:16 RabbitEater2 Error with no groupsize

Error with no groupsize
If I try to run in ooba a gptq model made with no groupsize like VicUnlocked-30B-LoRA-GPTQ, I get this error:
NO_GROUP: tl.constexpr, BLOCK_SIZE_M: tl.constexpr, BLOCK_SIZE_N: tl.constexpr, BLOCK_SIZE_K: tl.constexpr, GROUP_SIZE_M: tl.constexpr):“”"Compute the matrix multiplication C = A x B.A is of shape (M, K) float16B is of shape (K//8, N) int32C is of shape (M, N) float16scales is of shape (G, N) float16zeros is of shape (G, N) float16g_ptr is of shape (K) int32“”"infearure_per_bits = 32 // bits
But if the model has a groupsize it works. I tried openassistants 30b no-groupsize gptq model and 128-groupsize gptq model and the no groupsize model gives the same error while the 128 groupsize model loads correctly.
My settings:

https://preview.redd.it/u8nyfua1r31b1.png?width=2524&format=png&auto=webp&s=1601d7ebf659430094008a3cf98e2991df723228

https://preview.redd.it/miwaucf2r31b1.png?width=2531&format=png&auto=webp&s=b75586a473708c29a96037e21a2b42932bf21fba
I am running this on runpod servers if that makes a difference.
I inputted the settings in gptq as per instructions for the models. How can I fix this? Any help appreciated.

Full error below if needed:
Traceback (most recent call last):File “”, line 21, in matmul_248_kernelKeyError: (‘2-.-0-.-0-1e8410f206c822547fb50e2ea86e45a6-d6252949da17ceb5f3a278a70250af13-3b85c7bef5f0a641282f3b73af50f599-3d2aedeb40d6d81c66a42791e268f98b-3498c340fd4b6ee7805fd54b882a04f5-e1f133f98d04093da2078dfc51c36b72-b26258bf01f839199e39d64851821f26-d7c06e3b46e708006c15224aac7a1378-f585402118c8a136948ce0a49cfe122c’, (torch.float16, torch.int32, torch.float16, torch.float16, torch.int32, torch.int32, ‘i32’, ‘i32’, ‘i32’, ‘i32’, ‘i32’, ‘i32’, ‘i32’, ‘i32’, ‘i32’, ‘i32’, ‘i32’, ‘i32’, ‘i32’), (True, 16, 32, 128, 8), (True, True, True, True, True, True, (False, True), (True, False), (True, False), (False, False), (False, False), (True, False), (False, True), (True, False), (False, True), (True, False), (False, True), (True, False), (True, False)))
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 937, in build_triton_irgenerator.visit(fn.parse())File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 855, in visitreturn super().visit(node)File “/uslib/python3.10/ast.py”, line 418, in visitreturn visitor(node)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 183, in visit_Moduleast.NodeVisitor.generic_visit(self, node)File “/uslib/python3.10/ast.py”, line 426, in generic_visitself.visit(item)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 855, in visitreturn super().visit(node)File “/uslib/python3.10/ast.py”, line 418, in visitreturn visitor(node)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 252, in visit_FunctionDefhas_ret = self.visit_compound_statement(node.body)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 177, in visit_compound_statementself.last_ret_type = self.visit(stmt)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 855, in visitreturn super().visit(node)File “/uslib/python3.10/ast.py”, line 418, in visitreturn visitor(node)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 486, in visit_Ifself.visit_compound_statement(node.body)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 177, in visit_compound_statementself.last_ret_type = self.visit(stmt)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 855, in visitreturn super().visit(node)File “/uslib/python3.10/ast.py”, line 418, in visitreturn visitor(node)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 301, in visit_Assignvalues = self.visit(node.value)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 855, in visitreturn super().visit(node)File “/uslib/python3.10/ast.py”, line 418, in visitreturn visitor(node)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 338, in visit_BinOplhs = self.visit(node.left)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 855, in visitreturn super().visit(node)File “/uslib/python3.10/ast.py”, line 418, in visitreturn visitor(node)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 339, in visit_BinOprhs = self.visit(node.right)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 855, in visitreturn super().visit(node)File “/uslib/python3.10/ast.py”, line 418, in visitreturn visitor(node)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 618, in visit_Subscriptlhs = self.visit(node.value)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 855, in visitreturn super().visit(node)File “/uslib/python3.10/ast.py”, line 418, in visitreturn visitor(node)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 325, in visit_Namereturn self.get_value(node.id)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 156, in get_valueraise ValueError(f’{name} is not defined’)ValueError: zeros_shifter is not defined
The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):File “/root/text-generation-webui/server.py”, line 68, in load_model_wrappershared.model, shared.tokenizer = load_model(shared.model_name)File “/root/text-generation-webui/modules/models.py”, line 95, in load_modeloutput = load_func(model_name)File “/root/text-generation-webui/modules/models.py”, line 275, in GPTQ_loadermodel = modules.GPTQ_loader.load_quantized(model_name)File “/root/text-generation-webui/modules/GPTQ_loader.py”, line 177, in load_quantizedmodel = load_quant(str(path_to_model), str(pt_path), shared.args.wbits, shared.args.groupsize, kernel_switch_threshold=threshold)File “/root/text-generation-webui/modules/GPTQ_loader.py”, line 96, in _load_quantquant.autotune_warmup_linear(model, transpose=not eval)File “/root/text-generation-webui/repositories/GPTQ-for-LLaMa/quant/quant_linear.py”, line 436, in autotune_warmup_linearmatmul248(a, qweight, scales, qzeros, g_idx, bits, maxq, no_group)File “/root/text-generation-webui/repositories/GPTQ-for-LLaMa/quant/quant_linear.py”, line 283, in matmul248matmul_248_kernel[grid](input, qweight, output, scales, qzeros, g_idx, input.shape[0], qweight.shape[1], input.shape[1], bits, maxq, input.stride(0), input.stride(1), qweight.stride(0),File “/root/text-generation-webui/repositories/GPTQ-for-LLaMa/quant/custom_autotune.py”, line 102, in runreturn self.fn.run(*args, num_warps=config.num_warps, num_stages=config.num_stages, **kwargs, **config.kwargs)File “”, line 41, in matmul_248_kernelFile “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 1621, in compilenext_module = compile(module)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 1550, inlambda src: ast_to_ttir(src, signature, configs[0], constants)),File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 962, in ast_to_ttirmod, _ = build_triton_ir(fn, signature, specialization, constants)File “/uslocal/lib/python3.10/dist-packages/triton/compiler.py”, line 942, in build_triton_irraise CompilationError(fn.src, node) from etriton.compiler.CompilationError: at 41:26:def matmul_248_kernel(a_ptr, b_ptr, c_ptr, scales_ptr, zeros_ptr, g_ptr, M, N, K, bits, maxq, stride_am, stride_ak, stride_bk, stride_bn, stride_cm, stride_cn, stride_scales, stride_zeros,NO_GROUP: tl.constexpr, BLOCK_SIZE_M: tl.constexpr, BLOCK_SIZE_N: tl.constexpr, BLOCK_SIZE_K: tl.constexpr, GROUP_SIZE_M: tl.constexpr):“”"Compute the matrix multiplication C = A x B.A is of shape (M, K) float16B is of shape (K//8, N) int32C is of shape (M, N) float16scales is of shape (G, N) float16zeros is of shape (G, N) float16g_ptr is of shape (K) int32“”"infearure_per_bits = 32 // bits
pid = tl.program_id(axis=0) num_pid_m = tl.cdiv(M, BLOCK_SIZE_M) num_pid_n = tl.cdiv(N, BLOCK_SIZE_N) num_pid_k = tl.cdiv(K, BLOCK_SIZE_K) num_pid_in_group = GROUP_SIZE_M * num_pid_n group_id = pid // num_pid_in_group first_pid_m = group_id * GROUP_SIZE_M group_size_m = min(num_pid_m - first_pid_m, GROUP_SIZE_M) pid_m = first_pid_m + (pid % group_size_m) pid_n = (pid % num_pid_in_group) // group_size_m offs_am = pid_m * BLOCK_SIZE_M + tl.arange(0, BLOCK_SIZE_M) offs_bn = pid_n * BLOCK_SIZE_N + tl.arange(0, BLOCK_SIZE_N) offs_k = tl.arange(0, BLOCK_SIZE_K) a_ptrs = a_ptr + (offs_am[:, None] * stride_am + offs_k[None, :] * stride_ak) # (BLOCK_SIZE_M, BLOCK_SIZE_K) a_mask = (offs_am[:, None] < M) # b_ptrs is set up such that it repeats elements along the K axis 8 times b_ptrs = b_ptr + ((offs_k[:, None] // infearure_per_bits) * stride_bk + offs_bn[None, :] * stride_bn) # (BLOCK_SIZE_K, BLOCK_SIZE_N) g_ptrs = g_ptr + offs_k # shifter is used to extract the N bits of each element in the 32-bit word from B scales_ptrs = scales_ptr + offs_bn[None, :] zeros_ptrs = zeros_ptr + (offs_bn[None, :] // infearure_per_bits) if NO_GROUP: scales = tl.load(scales_ptrs) # (BLOCK_SIZE_K, BLOCK_SIZE_N,) zeros = tl.load(zeros_ptrs) # (BLOCK_SIZE_K, BLOCK_SIZE_N,) zeros = (zeros >> zeros_shifter[None, :]) & maxq ^
submitted by RabbitEater2 to LocalLLaMA [link] [comments]


2023.05.01 17:59 TakeOnMeByA-ha [RATE ANNOUNCEMENT] Hyperpop Rate: Charli XCX vs. SOPHIE vs. 100 gecs vs. food house

Hello to all the angels, immaterial boys and girls, little piss babies, and hot pink bitches named breakfast, and to those groups of people only. You'd be forgiven if you saw the title of this rate and assumed you accidentally clicked over to popheads, but rest assured, you eyes do not deceive you. Today, we're gonna be taking a look at one of the most in-your-face, avant-garde, stupidly catchy, and most importantly, GAY genres to make a breakthrough in the past few years. Grab your poppers and your choice of doritos and/or fritos, it's the Hyperpop rate baby!!!!
For the raters who already know the rules and wanna get straight into the good part, here's all the links you need:

Submit ballot HERE Backup Pastebin ballot Spotify Playlist Apple Music Playlist Youtube Playlist

Hey, quick question, what are rates?
Obviously, if you're familiar with the process, skip this. But if you're new, I'll explain so this doesn't seem like a wild block of text!
Rates are a subreddit game in which a user scores a group of songs on a scale from 1-10, with each individual also given a single 11 and a single 0 to be used exactly once per rate. They will then message their ballot to the rate host, who will tally up all the points and then reveal the final results over a weekend, eliminating songs one by one until the last track remaining wins the rate and bragging rights forever. While there's just a bit more to know, I feel this is the basics of what you'll need to understand what's going on. I do recommend this video made by our popheads brethren to get a fuller picture; while some of the info applies specifically to the way popheads do their rates, the overall format is similar.

Ok, but what exactly IS Hyperpop?

Hyperpop is a genre that simultaneously means very much and very little at the same time. It's arguably not even a real genre to begin with. In fact, much like the last time we did a rate centered around a controversial music genre, Hyperpop's origins can be traced back to the Spotify playlist of the same name that was created in 2019. Despite the murky origins of the name however, there is something of an actual credible musical movement here that connects the artists under this label. "Hyperpop", sometimes also referred to as Bubblegum Bass, is exactly what you would imagine it sounds like based on the name: it's pop, but hyper! Taking all the elements of pop music and taking them to their most logical extreme - excessive amounts of autotune, extremely distorted and metallic sounding production, and borrowing a lot of tropes from other similarly loud genres like EDM and hip hop - it's a genre that very intentionally does not make itself accessible on first listen. Another important element of the genre is that it is very, VERY queer. Mainly in part due to the genre's emphasis on pitch shifting and being based on pop, already a very gay genre on its own, many of the hyperpop scene's biggest stars identity as LGBT+, and this rate is no exception: three of the four albums in the rate are made by artists under the trans/nonbinary umbrella.
With a genre so loosely defined like hyperpop, it's reasonable to question what exactly counts as a defining hyperpop release, and which albums are the keystones in establishing the genre. In general, I would say that there's two main "waves" of hyperpop. The first is based on and inspired by the PC Music production collective. Arguably the codifier for the genre as a whole, PC Music's sound took a lot of inspiration from Japanese pop music and eurodance, and the result is a sound that sounds futuristic and almost cute at the same time. The second wave of hyperpop stems mainly from what is featured on Spotify's Hyperpop playlist. Almost a complete contrast to what PC Music's production style entailed, this newer style of hyperpop is a lot filthier and DIY, mainly due to its larger influence in genres like emo rap, punk, and dubstep compared to earlier takes on the genre. Now, I'm not gonna bore you all on which of these waves I think is better than the other, or if I think that hyperpop is a "dying" genre and it's being ruined by the mainstream, because quite frankly I could not care less about that discourse. What IS important is why I included these four albums specifically in the rate. And the answer to that is quite simple: these four albums serve as something of a time machine throughout hyperpop's weird and complex history. All of them were released between 2017 and 2020, a period of time when hyperpop experienced its greatest peak in popularity, and there's an equal representation of both waves of the genre that people think about: Charli XCX and SOPHIE represent the more futuristic, candy pop vision of the genre, while 100 gecs and food house represent the genre's more modern, trashier and eclectic take. Without further adieu, let's dive deep into the main stars of our show...

Charli XCX - Pop 2

"Rollercoaster ride in the fast lane
Got the roof down, kiss me hard in the rain
You got the candy-colored eyes, pink and gold chain
Million dollar babe, whip it out like I'm propane"
Charlotte Aitchison (she/her), better known by her stage name Charli XCX, seemed like yet another british pop star doomed to fade into irrelevancy. Having had one decently successful solo song in her contribution to the Fault In Our Stars soundtrack Boom Clap, and having features in big hits from Iggy Azalea and Icona Pop, Charli never seemed to really become a so-called "main pop girl", and her disappointing album sales seemed to doom her into yet another C-list star. That all changed when, in 2015, after meeting with PC Music affiliates A.G. Cook and SOPHIE (more on her later), Charli began to branch out into a more experimental pop style, with her EP Vroom Vroom becoming a cult classic among pop fans and becoming one of the biggest major records for establishing the hyperpop scene as we know it today. After the EP's success, she went on to produce two mixtapes in 2017 continuing the styles found on Vroom Vroom. While Number 1 Angel found critical success in its own right, its impact was nothing compared to the immediate critical acclaim its successor Pop 2 had.
Pop 2 stays true to its name throughout its runtime and gives listeners the full experience of what Charli's vision of pop in the future will sound like. There's hardly a single second where Charli's vocals aren't lathered in autotune, and the beats combine the best worlds of dance pop, art pop, and electronic music all together to make for an experimental pop sound that had almost never been heard before. What's most striking about Pop 2 however isn't necessarily Charli herself, but rather all the guests that she invites to join in on the party. 8 of the mixtape's 10 tracks feature contributions from other artists, many of whom are also big players in hyperpop's adjacent scenes. From the screeching cries of Caroline Polachek, to Kim Petras' signature glossy girlpop flow, to Brooke Candy, Cupcakke, and Pabllo Vittar coming together to make pop music's greatest posse cut, every feature brings their own flair to the mixtape and showcases their own ideas of their future of pop.
Charli has grown into one of the most beloved popstars in nearly every music corner of the internet, will her adoring fanbase be able to give her her very first rate win?
  1. Backseat (ft. Carly Rae Jepsen)
  2. Out Of My Head (ft. Tove Lo & Alma)
  3. Lucky
  4. Tears (ft. Caroline Polachek)
  5. I Got It (ft. Brooke Candy, Cupcakke, & Pabllo Vittar)
  6. Femmebot (ft. Dorian Electra & Mykki Blanco
  7. Delicious (ft. Tommy Cash)
  8. Unlock It (ft. Kim Petras & Jay Park)
  9. Porsche (ft. MØ)
  10. Track 10

SOPHIE - OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES

"My face is the front of shop
My face is the real shop front
My shop is the face I front
I'm real when I shop my face"
It's not an exaggeration to say that Sophie Xeon (she/her) was one of the most important and influential producers of the 21st century. Ever since her debut single released in 2013, SOPHIE's work from the very beginning sounded futuristic and unlike anything that had ever been heard before, mainly because she quite literally built her beats from the ground up. Transforming simple waveforms into sounds resembling metal, plastic, latex, fizz, and much more, SOPHIE relished in creating pop music that pushed boundaries, and it's not surprising that she quickly found work producing some of music's biggest names, like Vince Staples, Madonna, and even Japanese pop icon Namie Amuro. Despite all her fame and accolades, SOPHIE kept a very low profile during the beginning of the career, never revealing her face or even her real voice (interviews conducted with her would use a little girl answering in her place). Then, in 2017, to start the promotion of her upcoming debut album, SOPHIE revealed her image to the world for the first time, and officially came out as a transgender woman.
OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES, an intentional mondegreen of "I love every person's insides", is simply a stunning listen from front to back. From the glittering synths of It's Okay to Cry, to the downright dirty and nasty production found in Ponyboy and Faceshopping, to even the straight up synthpop banger that is Immaterial, SOPHIE never wastes a single note in producing some of pop's most mesmerizing and intimate musical landscapes. First time listeners may find themselves scared or confused by its more abrasive and unconventional tracks, but it's impossible to deny the album's otherworldly feel and immaculate soundscapes. It's evident just from first listen that SOPHIE had truly revolutionary plans for the future, and the album serves as a shimming manifesto of a talent that was unfortunately taken far too soon.
OIL is widely considered to be hyperpop's greatest masterpiece, but will its nearly legendary status be reflected in the rate results?
  1. It's Okay to Cry
  2. Ponyboy
  3. Faceshopping
  4. Is It Cold in the Water?
  5. Infatuation
  6. Not Okay
  7. Pretending
  8. Immaterial
  9. Whole New World/Pretend World

100 gecs - 1000 gecs

"No rules, then I smoke, then it's all gone
Hit that G so hard that I fall off
Taking shots in the dark, that's a bad call
Going straight for your head, gotta saw it off"
gecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgecgec
Dylan Brady (he/him) and Laura Les (she/her) were both already accomplished producers in their own right prior to their first encounter at a house party (Brady releasing work under his own name while Les produced under the pseudonym osno1), but their collaborative work under the name 100 gecs quickly made them one of the hyperpop scene's biggest names, and it only takes one listen to their work to see why. While hyperpop is already a genre built on taking pop music tropes and turning them up to 10, 100 gecs takes hyperpop itself and turns its tropes up to 10, and the result is perhaps some of the most chaotic, noisy, and flat out insane music that you will ever hear. After releasing their self titled EP that received little attention at the time, the duo came back better (and louder) than ever in 2019 to release their very appropriately named sequel, 1000 gecs.
1000 gecs is, for better or for worse, THE defining hyperpop album for many people. In just 23 minutes, the duo offer their takes on dubstep, screamo, pop punk, ska, nightcore, electropop, and many more genres that you would never in a million years would expect to work together. The end result is, predictably, an absolute trip to listen to, and you'll never know where the gecs will take you next. Noisy, unconventional, and above all eclectic, it comes as no surprise the duo practically blew up overnight following its release. But don't let all the controversy deter you from giving it a chance: 1000 gecs is an insanely catchy and unique experience you'll never find anywhere else. Songs about stupid horses and changing your ringtone have never sounded so good before, and you'll quickly find yourself addicted to the undeniable sugar rush it provides - good thing they released a new album a month ago that should help satisfy your cravings.
It goes without saying that 100 gecs is a very controversial band, and that everyone either loves them or hates them. Will their fans be able to outnumber the haters and take the crown?
  1. 745 sticky
  2. money machine
  3. 800db cloud
  4. I Need Help Immediately
  5. stupid horse
  6. xXXi_wud_nvrstøp_ÜXXx
  7. ringtone
  8. gecgecgec
  9. hand crushed by a mallet
  10. gec 2 Ü

food house - food house

"I used to fantasize about being or kissing Skrillex
I need to delete Twitter 'cause it gives me fucking mental illness
Foaming at the mouth like I put a fucking Mento in it
Get your ass off Twitter 'cause it gives you fucking mental illness"
Up and coming hyperpop producers Gupi (she/they) and Fraxiom (they/she) found themselves suddenly thrusted into the spotlight in early 2020 when Thos Moser, a collaborative track the two created for Gupi's debut album None, became a surprise underground smash hit and quickly became one of the biggest anthems of the hyperpop scene. With a new found fanbase and a global pandemic keeping their schedules wide open, the duo quickly got to work on creating a full length collaborative album. The duo, who are signed to Dylan Brady's label Dog Show Records, built up a small but dedicated fanbase by playing online festivals throughout the year and playing early demos of colaborative songs, and by the end of the year, their debut self titled album was released.
The best way I can describe food house is that it's an album made by the terminally online, FOR the terminally online. That may sound like an insult (and depending on how you view that term, IS an insult), but Gupi and Fraxiom, under all their layers of irony and parody, are very genuine at heart about their craft. Taking inspiration from Emo Rap and EDM and with a heaping dose of 2000's internet nostalgia, there is never a dull moment on the album. Gupi takes reign of most of the production on the album while Frax writes and sings all of the tracks, blending serious, heartfelt sentiment with more pop culture references and memes than I can fit into one writeup. It's also the most explicitly political and queer album in the rate, with both members being very outspoken about their leftist activism and transfem-nonbinary identities. Encapsulating everything that hyperpop had built up to over the years in one package, it's the perfect representation of the state of hyperpop in the new decade.
As a relatively niche band compared to their competitors, food house have stiff competition to beat. Will they produce an underdog victory story for the ages?
  1. sole
  2. ride
  3. 8 now
  4. 51129
  5. one you know
  6. mos thoser
  7. curses
  8. clown nose
  9. pharmacy
  10. metal
  11. foresight

Bonus Rate (Optional)

Of course, there's far, far more to what hyperpop and its related scenes has to offer, so in typical indieheads rate fashion, we'll be taking a listen to 18 songs by other artists not already in the main rate. There's a lot of variety in our bonus rate field, from two of the godfathers of the PC Music crew, to leading faces of the rising digicore scene, to an 8 minute long, 11 featured artists mega collab, even a kpop song makes an appearance here!
Reminder: Please do not use a 0 or 11 in the bonus rate! As this section is completely optional, feel free to score as many or as few songs in the bonus as you wish, but if any part is incomplete, please do not remove the songs from the ballot. Simply leave them blank.
  1. 8485 - 1:15
  2. A.G. Cook - Beautiful
  3. aespa - Savage
  4. aldn - glittr
  5. Alice Longyu Gao - LEGEND (ft. Alice Glass)
  6. brakence - deepfake
  7. Danny L Harle - Boing Beat
  8. Dorian Electra - Ram It Down (ft. Mood Killer, Lil Mariko, & Lil Texas)
  9. ericdoa - movinglikeazombie - remix (ft. umru, SEBii, angelus, kmoe, Lewis Grant, savepoint, Tony Velour, emotegi, d0llywood1, & 4kmirage)
  10. GFOTY - Poison
  11. Hannah Diamond - Concrete Angel
  12. Jane Remover - your clothes
  13. Namasenda - Finish Him (ft. Joey LaBeija)
  14. quinn - from paris, with love
  15. Rebecca Black - Crumbs
  16. Slayyyter - Over This!
  17. That Kid - Taco Bell
  18. underscores - Spoiled little brat

Rules - READ ALL OF THESE BEFORE SUBMITTING YOUR SCORES

  1. Listen to each song and assign each a score between 1 and 10. decimals are fine, but please refrain from giving decimal scores that have two decimal spots: giving a 7.2 is okay, but giving a 7.25 will give me a headache. This is because I'm using a computer program to parse the votes and print everything out (more on that later).
  2. Yes, you have to listen to every song. We're all in this together. I will not accept your ballot if you have a score missing, because it will crash the program (more on that later).
  3. Your scores should NOT be considered confidential. They aren’t. Feel free to shitpost about them in the general discussion threads whenever you feel like it - users over at popheads usually just talk about their averages of the albums and what 11 and 0 they gave (which I will explain on the next bullet point!)
  4. You may give ONE song a 0 and ONE song an 11. This is ONE song TOTAL. Please reserve these for your least favorite and most favorite tracks; excessive sabotage ruins rate results and generally makes things less fun.
  5. You can change your scores at any time! Feel free to PM me at any point after submission and I'll be happy to revise them for you.
  6. I am using a computer program that the great and wonderful letsallpoo designed in order to parse these votes! While this will make things a lot more efficient and reduces errors on my part, this does mean that scores need to be sent in a very specific way. The easiest way to make sure your scores follow the necessary format is to use the pre-prepared link at the top & bottom of this post. PLEASE USE THAT. You can copy and paste it to a notepad file or something and fill in your scores there, but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE use that format to send in your scores.
  7. This is an extra rule I am including for this rate, and it should really go without saying, but I will add it here anyway just to make myself clear: This rate features many trans and nonbinary artists, and I will be monitoring comments very closely to weed out any comments that could be taken in bad faith. If you misgender any of the artists in the rate intentionally, your ballot will be rejected, no ifs ands or buts about it.
Did a lot of copy and pasting here, so thank you thank you to all the raters of old, ily: roseisonlineagain; DolphLundgrensArms; R_E_S_I_G_N_E_D; stansymash; ClocktowerMaria; aerocom; themilkeyedmender; greencaptain; Crankeedoo; dirdbub; ThatParanoidPenguin; tedcruzcontrol; kappyko; FuckUpSomeCommasYeah; LazyDayLullaby; SRTViper; Whatsanillinois; NFLFreak98; freav; freeofblasphemy; RatesNorman; aPenumbra; idontreallycare4; p-u-n-k_girl; luigijon3; WaneLietoc; dream_fighter2018; darjeelingdarkroast; smuckles; PiperIBarelyKnowHer; welcome2thejam; imrlynotonreddit; kvothetyrion; thedoctordances1940; b_o_g_o; vapourlomo; MCK_OH; TiltControls; and tons of people on popheads.
Formatting
This is correct (single space after colon)
Pretending: 9
You can also add comments after your score!
This is correct (single space after colon, single space after score if commenting):
Pretending: 9 I'll be pretending that I don't see any of the low scores for this song
These are incorrect:
Pretending 9 I'll be pretending that I don't see any of the low scores for this song
Pretending: 9: I'll be pretending that I don't see any of the low scores for this song
Pretending: (9) I'll be pretending that I don't see any of the low scores for this song
Pretending: I'll be pretending that I don't see any of the low scores for this song 9
Pretending - 9 I'll be pretending that I don't see any of the low scores for this song
You can also comment on the complete albums by adding a colon after the album name and then your comment, like so:
Album: Pop 2: This album is so good, it should be called Pop 10!

Submit ballot HERE (If the previous link does not work, you can find the ballot HERE)

Spotify Playlist Apple Music Playlist Youtube Playlist

Due Date: June 2th

Reveal Weekend: June 9th-11th June 16th-18th (due to personal circumstances I have to push the reveal back one weekend)

If you want a reminder of what rates are coming up soon, here is the link to the announcement post for the current cycle, and if you want to learn about all the past rates we have done, here is the rate history spreadsheet.
submitted by TakeOnMeByA-ha to indieheads [link] [comments]


2023.04.28 21:55 poslednyavatar fl studio struggle

Hi there . i was using fl studio 12 and after few years i decide to try 20. now im stucked , autotune got me serious cracking sound verry often and a lot of plug-ins got me this note .
(The plugin Fruity Compressor couldn't be found or opened.
If it has to be unlocked, please make sure that you unlocked it correctly.)
can someone tell me step by step how i can fix it ? thanks a lot
submitted by poslednyavatar to u/poslednyavatar [link] [comments]


2022.05.30 15:07 phoenix_flies I received a text from my wife, while sat next to her (Part 2)

It's not just Sophie. This is bigger than I thought. And the worms are really making me suffer.
I have made some startling discoveries since my last post, and in spite of my best efforts I can't rationalise what's happening. I'm going to assume you're all up to speed with the story so far and continue where I left off.
I can't thank you enough for your advice on my last post. Well, I really appreciate the gesture, but I don't think things panned out quite the way I'd hoped.
I was recommended a de-worming medication called ivermectin, and managed to track down some of the paste by visiting a farm supply shop. I took a gamble and bought an excessive supply of the stuff. Thankfully, the guy behind the counter was stoned out of his skull, and either didn't notice that I looked like a walking corpse or didn't care. Either way, the only question he asked was "what for?" and he seemed satisfied with my mumbled response of "animals".
I think I'm getting better at this deception thing.
Having measured and taken three times the recommended dose, I convulsed and threw up so hard I thought I'd meet an organ. Those black worms fed to me by the imitation of my wife were still inside, and were making their malice known. I fought to keep down another two doses, wanting to send them a message of my own.
It had been four days since I left, and I finally had a plan. I may have felt half-dead, but what remained was functioning on pure determination.
The sky was cloudless, the day so bright it felt like an insult. At least the window glare might work in my favour, I thought, parked across the road from Harriet's house.
This was the last place I knew Sophie had visited - my Sophie, the real Sophie. She had not returned, but something had come home masquerading as her. There was a chance, however slim, that I might find her here alive. Failing that, I might at least find out what happened to her.
A marked police car rolled up in front of me, just on time.
I had called ahead, claiming there had been an altercation between Sophie and Harriet, bookending my story with half-truths to make it easier to weave. I told them Sophie had gone over to confront Harriet about a missing phone. I told them a friend had heard a commotion while walking past that night - shouting, things being thrown. I told them Harriet was unpredictable, with a dangerous reputation. Then I finished with the absolute truth. I told them Sophie hadn't come home for days, and that I was gravely worried.
They almost caught me out when they asked why I hadn't reported her missing already. I choked on my own words, launching into a fit of hacking coughs, but somehow that worked to my advantage. "You don't sound too healthy yourself," they said, handing me an excuse which I clung to like driftwood after a ship wreck. Somehow, everything was going better than expected.
Two uniformed police officers approached Harriet's door. One knocked, while the other took a step away and glanced around the street. Instinctively I shrunk down in the car seat as they looked in my direction, then chided myself as I realised how suspicious the move would seem if I were spotted. I awkwardly scooted back upright, and the last scraps of my confidence dissolved when I noticed the police officer staring right at me. The window glare had not worked in my favour as I'd hoped - they had witnessed the whole of my pathetic pogo-dance routine, and leaned in to whisper something to their partner. Both were facing me now. One took out a notepad. I wanted to shrink back down into the footwell, but told myself look normal, be normal, and held my ground for a second - until my nose erupted with another enormous bleed.
I swore loudly, grabbing a thick wad of tissues and holding my face down into it, waiting for the draining flow to stop. By the time it cleared and I raised my head, the officers had disappeared into the house. I blinked, relief giving way to despair before it could even take hold. My plan had hinged on witnessing either Sophie or Harriet answering the door, and now I was cast into unknown territory.
I waited, weighing my options against one another - but the more I turned them over, the more my plan came apart, as if held together by the cheapest glue logic could buy. Looking back, it's clear that I slipped into the worst anxiety spiral I had experienced for years, but at the time it was nothing so simple. What would I have actually done if Sophie had answered? Ran to her? I'd have no way of knowing if it was her or the imitation, and I could be running into a death trap, or worse. And if had been Harriet who answered... what the hell was I planning on saying? "Sophie told me you were dead - also, have you seen her lately, and are you sure it's actually her?" At some point I felt like the conversation had been clear in my head, scripted word-for-word through a dozen different outcomes, but everything suddenly felt so blurry and uncertain. Sweat flooded my face. The road in front of me seemed to stretch on forever, shrinking to nothing. What was I hoping to gain from being here? The steering wheel pulsed, swelling along with the rest of the car interior. I felt like I was being crushed, running out of space and air. _Why was I here?_ I fought for breaths that wouldn't come. I fumbled and failed to open the window, painted the inside of the car door with vomit and passed out.
I blinked back into consciousness to the dull thump of a car door closing.
The police were leaving, and I could make out the silhouette of another figure on the back seat, a silhouette with shoulder-length hair. This wasn't Harriet, who wore her perpetual pixie-cut with pride. My heart leapt as a thought took over my bleary mind - that could be Sophie, she could be safe - but on the other hand, it could be not-Sophie, the imitation. She could have been staying at Harriet's house to ambush me, knowing I would return to track down my real wife, waiting just inside like an eager spider.
If that were the case.. then the danger had gone, whisked away in the back of a police car. Either Sophie was safe... or the danger had gone.
I had to go inside.
The oppressive brightness of the day had finally given way to evening gloom. A handful of keen street lights had judged it dark enough to activate. Most were holding higher standards, waiting for nightfall proper. They would not be waiting long; the darkness was drawing in.
A breeze struck me as I left the car, cutting deeper through my saturated shirt. I caught a glimpse of myself in the wing mirror, a corpse clad in a Pollock canvas of puke and blood. Would Sophie even recognise me like this? No matter. All I could think about was finding her, or finding evidence of what had happened to her. While there was still a chance she was alive, I had to try. I had to go inside. I had to.
The house sat detached from its neighbours, identical buildings with identical lawns and driveways. Aside from their numbers, and the odd flourish of coloured curtains laid by particularly daring residents, there was nothing to tell them apart - as was the way with many of these new-build estates. It was, of course, the interior that mattered, where the mask gave way to truth.
The street was graveyard-quiet as I flanked Harriet's house. A side gate led to the back garden, barely waist height, and unlocked. Dark blinds obscured all the windows, not a glimmer of light shining through. The place was empty, as far as I could tell. None of the windows were open. I pondered the best way to approach entry, and on a whim, tried the back door with the weight of my shoulder... it clicked open and I stumbled inside, my knee landing hard on the tiled kitchen floor with a resounding thump.
A hiss of pain escaped, and I reflexively clamped my palm over my mouth. The house was dead quiet in response. Pain was shooting through my leg as I hauled myself up to feebly lean against the countertop. I pulled out my phone, turned on the torch light and cast it around the room, the beam shaking as I fought to keep my hand steady.
Just a kitchen. Oven, microwave, fridge covered with tacky magnets. Kettle, toaster. Dirty dishes. A vase of flowers, a few days past their prime. Regular old kitchen, nothing unexpected. Eerie in the stark spotlight, but just a kitchen. I took a deep breath, and continued into the house.
The stairway banister cast prison-bar shadows up the wall as I passed. I swept the torchlight around the living room and bathroom without gleaning much information, and then I saw the door.
Set into the staircase, this door either led to a cupboard... or a basement.
I swallowed with all the ease of ingesting a golf ball. If this house held secrets, my gut told me they would be found here.
I opened the door. There were stairs, and they went down. My light spilled into the narrow space, barely lighting the bottom of the passage, but enough to show me Sophie.
She was standing there in the darkness, in the same green dress she'd worn when I last saw her. Her hair was its usual wavy mess. Her back was toward me, but when she noticed the light, she turned. It was a sluggish movement, as if she was dazed. Her gaze met the lower stairs and followed them upwards. Her eyes widened as she saw me. She raised an arm, pointed directly at me, took a deep, deliberate breath, and screamed.
She screamed at me, her finger extended. A screeching fry of a scream - someone being burned alive, put through a faulty autotune. It wavered, crackled. In the poor light, her facial features seemed to distort with her voice.
She screamed that horrific scream; and as she screamed, she fell apart into bugs.
She collapsed into them, as if her entire form dissolved into particles from head to toe, only those particles had legs and wings. Some fell to the floor, crawling and writhing. Others took to the air. In a matter of seconds she became a swarm, and then the swarm started up the stairs toward me.
I was already running, my skin crawling and jolts running down my spine. What I had witnessed defied explanation, but I wasn't about to hang around and ask questions. Moth wings brushed the back of my neck, and I knew the spiders wouldn't be far behind.
I sped around the front of the house, heading for my rental car, but stopped dead.
The pitch of night was pierced by glares from across the street. Open doorways, spilling light, each silhouetting a single figure. Four of them... Five. No, six. The neighbourhood had stirred, and they were watching from their doors, standing as still and uniform as their houses. I blinked, somehow taken aback more by this than the bugs.
Three more figures were standing by the car, between me and my escape.
Tiny legs brushed up my shins, the first of the swarm flowing over the top of my socks. I yelped, kicking out as I took off in a flailing sprint down the street, swatting at moths as they dived in front of my face.
Through the haze of wings I saw the neighbours in their doorways, each lit from behind like in some 50s alien abduction movie. Each of them raised an arm, each pointed at me. Each one echoed the same screech of a scream as I passed them.
Door after door was the same. Ten houses. Fourteen. Twenty? I lost count. Pointed fingers and piercing screams, ringing in my head. On and on, silhouettes and screams, as if the whole world had conspired toward my exile.
Tears streaked my face as I ran, longer and harder than I felt I ever had. The cloud of bugs seemed to thin. The road led to a forest path, which I took without a second thought. The promise of darkness was far more alluring than the lights I was leaving behind.
I knew I had been seen entering the forest, so I deliberately took a difficult and unpredictable path. I emerged, seemingly a lifetime later, on a quieter street. I was battered and bruised, I was scratched and torn but I was still breathing, and I didn't stop running until I had put three more roads between myself and the madness.
Reason finally took over from panic as I leaned against a lamppost to catch my breath in the night's frigid embrace. I couldn't rely on picking up a trail from Harriet's house. Whatever this was, it had spread through the whole neighbourhood. It could replicate people, and the entities they became were capable of working together, coordinating wordlessly. I didn't know whether the Sophie I saw whisked away by the police was the original or another copy. If it was not-Sophie, I didn't know if the police officers were still human or not, and if they were, I didn't know how long that would remain the case. I needed time, I needed to be away from here, and most importantly I needed medical attention.
I made the most important phone call of my life, and requested to be sectioned in a mental hospital.
I told them I had an anxiety disorder, had been away from my medication for days, and I explained everything I had seen tonight. I explained that of course, I know none of this could have been real, and yet I still saw it all. I said that I needed help, and more than anything, that I needed to be isolated.
My greatest act of deception was to claim that I knew I was mad.
I have been treated well since I arrived. I have my own room, and since I am here on a voluntary basis, I still have my phone and internet access. There are communal areas, which I don't use. I can leave whenever I want. I don't.
I requested a de-worming medication, and was given some sickly banana-flavoured syrup. They won't allow me the dosage I want, but this is better than nothing. I haven't noticed any worms in what I bring up, and I still feel like death, but I'll persist. The nosebleeds still come, but now I can shower and keep myself clean.
They bring me strong antipsychotics, they bring me tranquillisers. I thank the staff, and then I hide them.
I have been feeling safe here. The past few weeks have practically breezed by. The horrors I lived through could almost have been a dream.
Each night, moths gather at my window. They flock to the pane, as if adhering to a massive bulb. Dozens of the creatures, crawling over one another, flexing their wings.
And in the movements of those wings, from their shifting formations, her face.
I try not to look.
submitted by phoenix_flies to nosleep [link] [comments]


2021.11.03 14:58 shockwaverc13 Subject Tyler - Half Life Beta 2 Wiki

From Half Life 2 Beta Wiki
Subject "Tyler" is born sometime in September to October 2003
Subject "Tyler" owns a youtube channel called Valve News Network.
Subject "Tyler" exists and runs on Source 2013
He is a journalist that reports on Valve related content.
Subject "Tyler" has escaped from Northwest Ohio Psychiatric Hospital and is currently on the run from local police forces within the Ohio-Michigan-Indiana region.
Please look out for Subject "Tyler" AKA Tyler McVicker or ValveNewsNetwork.
His known areas of crime are in North Ohio, Northeast Indiana, and Michigan.
His motives are unknown.
Timeline of events THIS LIST WILL BE UPDATED FREQUENTLY!
2011
January 30th, 2011: Dropped the TV down SCP-087 and helped the SCP foundation discover a bottom to the staircase 
[NO KNOWN CRIMES IN THIS PERIOD]
2013
June 8th, 2013: Subject "Tyler" posted a video on why HL3 would be announced at E3 but was very wrong. June 12th, 2013: Robbed the Federal Reserve Bank in Cleveland, Ohio July 1st, 2013: Went searching for a young girl, whom he claimed to be his adopted daughter. Records show that he does not have a daughter. December 8th, 2013: Robbed the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan 
2014
March 9th, 2014: Killed 3 men in a drive-by shooting in Toledo, Ohio July 2nd 2014: Leaked government papers July 17th, 2014: Held an FBI member hostage in Kalamazoo, Michigan November 15th, 2014: Robbed a house in his hometown of Newton Falls, Ohio November 24th, 2014: Subject "Tyler" managed to sneak his way into the archives of Valve's Master Servers, showcasing content he dug out of Gabe's computer to the masses through his YouTube channel. Rather unfortunately, the subject failed to realize that we at the Real HL2 Beta Wiki Trademark had gotten access from u/vjill himself to the files from Boneworks. 
2015
January 3rd, 2015: Claimed responsibility for the extremely infamous furry convention gassing at Cleveland Airport [EDITORS NOTE: MIGHT NOT BE A CRIME] February, 22nd 2015: Many Human trafficking victims were found in a basement of his house in Fort Wayne, Indiana May 13th, 2015: Was caught with money laundering July 2nd, 2015: Was last seen carrying his wife, limp-bodied, to his car. What little evidence there is suggests she was smothered to death. [INCARCERATED IN BETWEEN AUGUST 2015 AND DECEMBER 2015]=== December 19th, 2015: Broke out of jail by managing to destroy the walls in his path. No known cause to how he was able to pull this off was ever found and is still a mystery to this day. December 21st, 2015: Stole a car 
2016
January 4th, 2016: Stole $600,000 worth of guns from a gun store somewhere in rural Michigan March 23rd, 2016: Used all of those guns at a very infamous raid on the Franklin Park Mall in Toledo, Ohio July 17th, 2016: The Renaissance Center bombing of July 17th, 2016 August 2nd, 2016: Destroyed an electronics store in Detroit, Michigan after attempting to steal a TV August 5th, 2016: Bankrupting GM by destroying multiple production plants and assassinating the owner September 14th, 2016: Stalked a teenage girl known as Heather [REDACTED]. There is no known reason for this, but reports show that he claimed to be a private investigator hired by her father. October 22nd, 2016: Robbed a hospital in order to find drugs in Canton, Ohio November 14th, 2016: Stole shoes from a homeless man 
2017
January 30th, 2017: Destroyed a freeway outside of Cleveland, Ohio February 7th 2017: Celebrated his 20th birthday by setting fire to southern Cleveland, Ohio March 24th, 2017: Broke into a school in Lima, Ohio and cannibalized a teacher while class was in session. April 17th, 2017: Murdered a prostitute in a rural city just outside of Fort Wayne, Indiana July 1st, 2017: Destroyed some evidence used against Bill Cosby in his arrest August 28th, 2017: Rented an apartment room for a short period of time. According to the superintendent, Frank [REDACTED], he locked himself in room 302, slowly driving himself to madness and claiming to see ghosts, which he referred to as "hauntings". September 9th, 2017: Drugged and raped 17 people in Norwalk, Ohio October 2nd, 2nd, 2017: Crashed the stock market December 23rd, 2017: Caused a fifth global recession 
2018
March 30th, 2018: Gunned down 37 police members during a raid on his compound in southern Michigan April 2nd, 2018: Gunned down 5 police officers before being caught during the 2nd raid on his compound in southern Michigan [INCARCERATED BETWEEN APRIL 2018 TO OCTOBER 2018 WHERE HE WAS MYSTERIOUSLY TRANSFERRED TO A MENTAL HOSPITAL IN TOLEDO, OHIO] October 19th, 2018: Was caught performing a sacrificial ritual the day before the incident October 20th, 2018: Robbed a Mental Hospital's armory and killed all of the staff, while letting all of the patients free October 23rd, 2018: Subject "Tyler" found as captain of a boat phasing in and out of realityapproximately 10 stories up inside of the building Valve Headquarters is located in. The boat is made of very blocky pieces of metal and is barely round enough to actually function as a real boat. The boat phasing had caused all of the building supports to break and the building started to collapse. Interestingly enough, it appears the damages done existed on the same plane of reality as the boat that "Tyler" was in. Therefore, all the damages had flickered and disappeared alongside "Tyler" and his vessel. November 14th, 2018: Fled to the town of Shepherd's Glen, Texas, and broke into his "childhood home" looking for his "little brother", a child named Joshua [REDACTED]. The homeowner stabbed him in the leg with a drill out of self-defense. He claimed the "Red Demon" made him do it. December 15th, 2018: Shut down the Cleveland, Ohio subway system by collapsing the tunnels December 20th, 2018: Subject "Tyler" sighted reclining in a recliner with eyes open and was unresponsive to any communication attempted. Upon trying to retrieve the subject, it was found that there was an impenetrable telekinetic force surrounding the area. After 30 minutes of attempts, the subject and recliner started to hover before going on a murder spree by running into people at high speed, launching them into the air. The subject continued to be unresponsive. This continued until the subject was lost. 
2019
January 12th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" had been incarcerated at Ryall State Prison after stealing a police cruiser. January 15th, 2019: After savagely beating another prisoner, subject "Tyler" is moved to another prison via a prison bus. The bus crashes after an unexpected drop, killing all but him. February 7th, 2019: Collaborated with known terrorist "Simpleflips" on Subject "Tyler"'s 22nd birthday after freeing him from the mental hospital in Toledo, Ohio by assassinating the Senators and State Representatives of Ohio February 16th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" hosted a "Fortnite Live Festival" in Norwich, England. February 17th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" disappeared after hosting the "Fortnite Live Festival". March 1st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" went onto his channel and showed people the tools he uses to kill his victims, made out of bones. He called them "boneworks," after the material they're made of and how he worked hard to make them. March 2nd, 2019: Set fire to a hospital, a fire station, a police station, and the city hall of Cleveland, Ohio March 2nd 2019: Ripped a path of destruction across Cleveland, Ohio using a tank he stole alongside "Simpleflips" March 3rd, 2019: Destroyed schools and multiple apartment buildings using fire and explosives in Cleveland, Ohio after the death of fellow terrorist "Simpleflips" March 3rd, 2019: Almost completely demolished the Cleveland, Ohio neighborhoods of "Tremont" and "Ohio City", causing the entire city west of the Cuyahoga River to be evacuated. March 3rd, 2019: Shot down a helicopter in Cleveland, Ohio March 3rd, 2019: Stole a helicopter in Cleveland, Ohio, taking down a fuck ton of policemen, soldiers, paramedics, and firemen in the process, before crashing it into Lake Erie and being presumed dead March 4th, 2019: Tyler, The Creator emerges out of Lake Erie into the flaming hell hole that Cleveland, Ohio is with the same prosthetic replacements as the Post-Human concept art, and murders 3,436 people there. The United States Military starts moving in half of it's forces towards Subject "Tyler" March 4th, 2019: The United States Armed Forces start work on the space cannons used in Call of Duty Ghosts. The idea is to hit Subject "Tyler" head on with one of the rods to potentially destroy them. The President says it will be ready by the next day had already finished working on it March 4th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was found destroying one of the satellites. The United States falls into Martial Law following this event March 4th, 2019: Nuclear bombardment of Ohio has been authorized. March 4th, 2019: The entirety of Ohio has been vaporized by nuclear bombardment, Subject "Tyler" is no where to be seen. March 4th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" has been spotted in Toronto, Canada. March 4th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" demolishes the CN tower March 4th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was spotted purchasing a Barrett 50. Cal Sniper Rifle from a well known weapons trafficking gang by an undercover police officer. March 4th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" crossed the border into New York (illegally). March 4th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was reported to have broken into a nuclear missile silo. March 4th, 2019: Nuclear missile launch was detected, it is predicted to be heading towards Washington DC. March 4th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" is bragging on twitter about how he had launched a nuclear missile at Washington DC. March 4th, 2019: Missile was shot down by the US Airforce. March 4th, 2019: The New York subway system shut down due to bombings inside the tunnels, Subject "Tyler" was responsible. March 4th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" started streaming his murderous rampages on the website Twitch. March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" shot up a drug rehabilitation clinic while giving out meth and heroin to the patients there. March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" shot down 4 F-16 Fighter jets, 3 civilian 747 passenger jets, and a news helicopter. March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" threw a cup of coffee into the ocean. March 5th, 2019: A special forces division codename "McVicker Containement Unit" or "MVCU" has been created in the US military all for the purpose of containing Subject "Tyler" and to stop his rampage. March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" entered an office in New York, The US military mobilized an MVCU unit. Subject "Tyler" had a 3 hour standoff with the unit until the building was demolished for his escape. Whereabouts are currently unknown. March 5th, 2019: An MVCU Helicopter Patrol spotted Subject "Tyler" climbing down a manhole. March 5th, 2019: The entire New York sewer system was flooded with tear gas, Subject "Tyler" was found unconscious above ground. March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" is currently being held inside a maximum security containment building. March 5th, 2019: The high security containment building Subject "Tyler" was being held in was destroyed by unknown means, Subject "Tyler" was not located after this incident. March 5th, 2019: Indian Point Energy Center reported a break in at 3:07 PM, security footage shows Subject "Tyler"'s face. March 5th, 2019: Indian Point Energy Center reported a reactor core meltdown at 3:24 PM. March 5th, 2019: Mass Evacuation of New York was issued by the US Government. March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was seen exiting the Indian Point Energy Center holding a rocket launcher. March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" shot down 4 helicopters. March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" disappeared. March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" reappears high on weed at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in a Falcon X cockpit, with the crew completely mutilated March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" pushed the Tesla that Elon Musk launched, into the sun. March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" landed in Redding, California. March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" destroyed 3 city blocks in a radius of where he landed. March 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" is heading towards San Francisco. March 5th, 2019: San Francisco has begun evacuating civilians. March 6th, 2019: Civilians have been moved to Floor 14, 10400 NE 4th St, Bellevue, WA 98004. This is due to Tyler's restraining order set in place by Maya Khuns for reasons of sexual misconduct. March 6th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" is witnessed placing copies of Half-Life 2 in Gamestops around the world. Subject "Tyler" believed to be high at the time. Subject "Tyler" then detonates said game copies, killing a mass of 100 people and injuring 30. Police discover evidence that suggests the actions were caused by Valve not releasing Half-Life 2: Episode 3 for almost ten years. March 7th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was found eating the corpses of the Valve VR Team on March 7th. He reported on his channel that they were fired, by which he meant that the bodies were "flame grilled." March 8th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" hosted a stream on his Twitch channel. There, he showcased his plans to hijack Air Force One, amongst other things. He went over his bodycount, to which he later stated that he wasn't going to rest until he's killed 1/4th of the human population. Twitch staff did not take down the stream, but took down the innocent stream of b1g_m1tch3Ll_yfumf, who was streaming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Nintendo 3DS. March 8th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" stated on the same Twitch stream that he successfully crashed Air Force One into the One World Trade Center, although the President was not aboard the plane at the time. He did, however, kill the Vice President, who was on the plane with a hooker. Moments before the plane hit the tower, the subject commanded the hooker to give him a blowjob. He, quote, "had an orgasm as the plane flew in." He went into details on his next scheme, [REDACTED], where he plans to invite fellow terrorists "A Jolly Wangcore" and "Jerma985" to help him reap havok in his old stomping grounds of Michigan. March 8th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" uploaded a video of him asking Gabe Newell how he would like to die. Newell stated he would like all of his knives thrust into his chest all at the same time. March 8th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was seen dating a man named "Penispants Rockwall". March 8th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" broke into the Half Life Discord's webhooks and spammed 700 @everyone messages. This event resulted in 500+ members of the discord server to leave. March 9th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was seen throwing bags of cat piss at Valve's Bellevue offices, more specifically at members of the Artifact team. March 9th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" uploaded a video to LiveLeak, crying with autotune and about how Valve hasn't released a game yet. March 9th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was witnissed by Jonathan Ewald, attempting to overdose while playing In Deep and was promptly put in an mental institution in Fucking, Australia. March 9th, 2019: A distress call from the Fucking Institution of the Fucking Insane shows that Subject "Tyler" escaped by mixing his tears with sodium and hydrochloric acid and pouring it all over the Institute. March 10th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" posted a video of what it is like to work at Valve HQ. What he didn't specify, however, is how he managed to slip past security, even when the clap of his "dummy thicc ass cheeks" kept alerting the guards. The subject also stated that he was looking forward to finally killing Gabe Newell with all of his knives, and that infiltrating Valve was the first step. March 10th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" manages to reach a time machine stowed deep beneath Valve HQ using his faux access. He hops into the portal, further driving him insane with the thought that Half-Life 3 will come out, as he is teleported to the year 2057 where Half-Life 3 has officially been released. He attempts to go back in time, but accidentally teleports to 1980s New York on December 8th. They say he shot John Lennon and was teleported back to Valve HQ. March 10th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" begins research on the teleporter technology that Valve has. He connects the dots and realizes that they use the Borderworld, known as "Xen," to teleport. He begins developing his own technology, but it lacks the ability to use the same array that Valve launched into space, and he is forced to use multi-dimensional telportation to get around. He finds out later that the rocket was made using the tears of people who can not get their hands on the Gasmask Citizen. March 11th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" runs over a cat and shares the images of it onto the VCC discord. March 11th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" conducts another interview with Gabe Newell. He asks if he has more beta, to which he says yes but that none will ever be released publicly. Subject "Tyler" chases Gabe Newell to his car, stopping it attempted to murder him all because "he would not give over any more beta". Gabe Newell is now forever scarred for life. March 12th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" and fellow terrorist "Matthew Patrick" were seen on a stream, ready to sacrifice Kirby to Gabe Newell to get more beta. The stream was promptly ended when the subject grabbed "Matthew Patrick's" knife and succeeded in sacrificing him to Gabe. Instead of beta, the subject got more Artifact news. March 12th, 2019: In an interesting turn of events, Subject "Tyler" managed to help Gabe Newell kill the Epic Games Store by threatening Bill Gates and forcing him to get Halo on Steam. The exact details of the threat are unknown at this time, but rumours have it that the subject killed 3 cats in front of Gates' house, pissed on their corpses, and threw them into his home. March 12th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" drives around Bellevue, WA with a Half-Life 2 Jeep he made out of scrap metal March 12th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was seen in a Best Buy store changing the backgrounds of phones to be his face. Unbeknownst to the people who bought the phones, he also rigged them to explode when unlocked. Casualty rates are high, with at least 30 people dead or wounded. March 13th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" broke into Valve offices and deleted the Gas Mask Citizen. March 14th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" robbed 26 banks in the state of California March 15th, 2019: Police found the stash of money Subject "Tyler" robbed from the banks in California in a storage unit, upon walking inside a fire bomb went off and the entire storage facility caught fire. March 15th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" steals the beta code for Half-Life: Tactics and reports about it on his channel. Gabe Newell, upon seeing this, shuts the project down and slaps the subject in the face. The subject, angered by that, takes his Half-Life 2 Jeep made out of scrap metal and drives it straight through Valve's offices. Reggie happily pays for the damages on "Tyler's" behalf, saying "he's my only son, gabe, don't send him away." March 16th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" destroyed a convenience store in LA. March 17th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" burned down an apartment complex and a office building in downtown LA, there were no casualties. March 18th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" played the entire Valve Cut Content community like a damned fiddle by posting fake beta everywhere. The search for the subject is now in full force. March 18th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was captured by the FBI and taken to a prison in California. 1 hour and 27 minutes later Subject "Tyler" destroyed the prison and released all the prisoners. March 18th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" bamboozles Sergeant Stacker with a fake Gas Mask Citizen. The sergeant noticed the crust of fake beta and called him out. The subject promptly left the building and the sergeant was promoted General of the HL2 Beta Army for handling the situation well and not taking the fake beta. March 18th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" cried himself to sleep after a Twitch.tv stream. March 20th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" uploaded a malware to Gabe's computer, which changed his desktop background to be a picture of himself. The computer wasn't rigged to explode, but was rigged to steal beta files. Instead, the subject got only Gabe's pornography stash. March 22nd, 2019: Subject "Tyler" drills a fucking hole in Gabe's skull to try to find beta. March 22nd, 2019: Subject "Tyler" bound someone to a chair and forced them to make him a new intro for Valve News Network. March 22nd, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was arrested after attempting to drill a hole in Gabe Newell's forehead and thrown in solitary confinement. March 22nd, 2019: Subject "Tyler" escaped solitary by digging through the walls with wooden spoons. March 23rd, 2019: Subject "Tyler" goes silent as he finds out he's been put on the FBI's most wanted list. March 27th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" became active again and started a rampage across the state of Oregon. March 27th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" Detonated a bomb in a hospital causing 402 casualties and injuring 825. March 27th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" blew up an oil refinery causing $675 million dollars in damages. There were only 22 casualties and 4 injured. March 27th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" destroyed the entirety of Portland, Oregon. Fires and destroyed buildings litter of whats left of the city. Estimated casualties are up to the millions. March 27th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" lit the entire state of Oregon on fire. March 27th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" put chemicals in the water to make everyone forget. March 27th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" planted an IED in a hospital. This is the sound that was heard before it detonated. March 27th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" shot down 5 airplanes at the SEATAC airport in Washington. March 27th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" destroyed the city of Seattle. The Space Needle is currently the only building standing. March 27th, 2019: The entire state of Washington started hearing the "Nokia Ringtone Arabic". After 10 minutes of the music playing the entire state started shaking, After 12 seconds it caught fire. March 28th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" destroyed the entire I-5 freeway. March 28th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" started a rampage in the state of California. March 28th, 2019: The SCP Foundation has started intervening on Subject "Tyler"'s actions. March 28th, 2019: The SCP Foundation attempted to capture Subject "Tyler" upon entering San Francisco. March 28th, 2019: San Francisco is burning. March 29th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" broke into steam's servers and replaced the Valve Index webpage with a memetic hazard. There are currently 1.2 million casualties. March 30th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" burned down Gabe Newell's house in an attempt to get the Valve Index early. March 31st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was spotted outside the Valve Offices screaming about how he "needs a Valve Index or else he will die". April 1st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" reported on actual valve news properly with sources and factual information. April 1st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" forced a Valve employee at gunpoint to post the Valve Index steam page early. April 1st, 2019: Gabe Newell himself burned down Subject "Tyler"s makeshift recording studio on stream. April 1st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" took LSD on stream and started screaming for 2 hours straight before going unconscious. Approximately 1 hour after, Subject "Tyler" woke up and went on a rampage and destroyed a small town in California. April 2nd, 2019: Subject "Tyler" murdered the entire staff team of a McDonald's after they refused to give him "cooked human meat". April 3rd, 2019: Subject "Tyler" destroyed a house in a rural town in California. Reasons are unknown. April 4th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" broke into a military base and stole a tank. He then proceeded to destroy 234 buildings in Los Angeles. April 5th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" stole 41 Million dollars from a bank in Los Angeles. April 6th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" destroyed a skyscraper in the middle of Los Angeles. April 6th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" got tired of Valve, so he stole a Pokémon beta from Nintendo. This is the only existing footage, taken from a D-VHS tape, found by a tourist outside of Nintendo of America's headquarters. April 7th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" put up a paywall for a video on Boreal-Alyph. April 8th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was spotted in Redwood City. April 8th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" destroyed EA Headquarters. April 8th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" uploaded a video to his second YouTube account (Valve News Extra), explaining how he murdered 5 Keep Away From Fire employees to get a copy of Boreal Alyph. April 14th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" loses his engagement ring so he murders 4 people. April 14th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" begins to cannibalize his forced girlfriend, henceforth known as Subject "Electra," live on stream. Unfortunately, Subject "Electra" is heavily into vore and this arouses her more than horrifies her, thus horrifying the fearless Subject "Tyler" to no end. April 15th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" burns down the Notre Dame because he hates the French government. April 16th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" used the carve tool on the city of Dallas, Texas. In a 500 mile radius of the city, time froze. No one could enter the area or come out. Approximately 29 hours later time resumed and the entirety of Dallas, Texas was gone. April 18th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" decided to read his criminal history on a stream some day. April 18th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" shares old screenshots of L4D3 to the community. Upon hearing that they're old, he kills Frying1Pans' parents for being older than the screenshots. April 18th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was banned from Valve's Offices after stealing Gabe's big pink cookie and eating it. May 1st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" states publicly that for every victim he has murdered, which is nearing 1/5th of the total human population on earth, a part of his mortal body haunts the victim. He then proceeds to murder, brutally, 3 men on stream, haunting their bodies in the process through a ritual that can only be described as "naming off each holiday and waving their soul to eternal damnation in my own special circle of hell like a dumbass." May 7th, 2019 Subject "Tyler" breaks into the [REDACTED] Research Facility and starts the Residence Cascade. The definition of a "Residence Cascade" has been aggressively debated to the point of exhaustion and experts appear to have acknowledged the meaning as "moving in to the residence of inhabited individual(s) and making the live(s) of said individual(s) a living hell". May 14th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" got an infected cyst. May 14th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" disappeared. May 21st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" reemerged and stole money from the "Probably straight, who knows?" charity, ran by James Charles. May 21st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" listened to Cardi B's verse in "EARFQUAKE" and only spoke in intelligible mumbles for 10 hours, returning to normal speech by the end of the night. May 22nd, 2019: Subject "Tyler" destroyed a Walmart in Florida. May 23rd, 2019: Subject "Tyler" attached rockets to a wheelchair and flew across the state of Florida. May 24th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" burned down an apartment building. May 25th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" destroyed a power plant causing a city in Florida to have a blackout. May 26th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" destroyed a small island in the pacific ocean. The island was not inhabited by civilians. May 27th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" broke into Valve's internal server network and downloaded Gabe's brain interfacing chip design documents. May 27th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" got angry on stream and then murdered 19 people. May 27th, 2019: After crashing a car into the World Trade Center causing the worst vehicular homicide that America has ever seen, Subject "Tyler" later suffered from a life threatening anal fissure, seemingly hospitalizing the subject. May 28th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" was spotted naked in a public restroom while eating a small metal can of what appeared to be raw beef. After noticing he had been spotted Subject "Tyler" faded away into the universe to escape. May 29th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" cried on stream after a viewer told him that Bridge Constructor Portal 2 was announced by valve. May 30th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" murdered the viewer that told him about Bridge Constructor Portal 2 being announced. May 31st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" found a tape in Valve's dumpster labeled: "TOTALLY HALF LIFE 3". May 31st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" stole a tape drive and plugged it into his computer. May 31st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" showed the contents of the tape on stream, within 12 seconds of the contents being shown the stream was taken down by Valve. May 31st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" announced on twitter that the contents of the tape was Gabe Newell's nudes and was infact not Half Life 3. May 31st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" watched this video and immediately murdered 22 people after watching it. June 1st, 2019: Subject "Tyler" obtains an infection from fighting off a rogue clone of himself. The Subject was taken to the [REDACTED] hospital, where he is expected to make a good recovery. June 2nd, 2019: At 10:15 PM, Subject "Tyler" assults the [REDACTED] residence, killing one resident known as [REDACTED], his encounter was detailed in a chatroom, however, he could not make it out alive and died at June 3rd, 2019 1:05 AM due to an hemorrhage. The encounter details Subject "Tyler" having dropped a tape drive that supposedly belonged to The Valve Corporation in the stairs of the home, however, when the house was visited, the tape drive in question was not found. Additionally, a few hours before the incident took place, one of the tape drives at Valve was reported missing and because of this, the headquarters were locked down and the employees went home early. June 3rd, 2019: Subject "Tyler" shits, farts and pees into a local pool, after which he proceeds to stick posters about a new Portal game called "The Portal Paradox" in all of the walls and proceeds to jump into the stratosphere. June 6th, 2019: Subject "Tyler" broke into ZeniMax Media for information on Fallout Shelter 2 and proceeded to break several NDA's with both ZeniMax and Valve. He also announces that he lied to everyone about HLVR. 
Valve News Network
Valve News Network is Subject "Tyler"'s news channel. This news channel has been criticized for posting "Fake News" but in fact has not.
Post-Human Post Human was a leak that was reported on by Subject "Tyler." It has been heavily criticized for being "fake news". Bill Gates has proven that Post-Human is in fact real.
"Post Human is real" -Bill Gates, also a Mental Ward escapee
Trivia
Subject "Tyler" has high functioning autism If there was ever a fire, Subject "Tyler" is most likely the one who caused it. Shoutouts to simpleflips Credits for writing this page goes out to Frying1Pans#1500, Aarik#1902, Biozeminade#9315, PCF13#1535, Suprito "Neil" Burrito#2677, and Sylenth#1562 May or may not also feature reports from Orlando2303#2346 and Lunch Bone#4202 
submitted by shockwaverc13 to u/shockwaverc13 [link] [comments]


2021.07.05 23:10 Possibility-Natural Another satisfied Bo customer

Long, poignant, hopefully profound rant here. The TL;DR version is “tough guys revere Bo, too.”

I’m a cis male, low-key artistic, steady leader type. Fit, prior Marine, loud and confident, business titan type that does not click with Bo’s perceived demographic. But since I was 19 (born in 1985), Bo has appealed to me and had a seat reserved in my mind. Here’s one example of how he has broken down my walls and why he is one of the finest artists and performers of our time: during the Kanye autotune portion at the end of Make Happy, there are the lines (abridged):

“The truth is my biggest problem’s you.
I wanna please you but I wanna stay true to myself.
I wanna give you the night out that you deserve but I wanna say what I think,
And not care what you think about it.
A part of me loves you.
A part of me hates you.
A part of me needs you.
A part of me fears you.
And I don’t think that I can handle this right now…

Come and watch the skinny kid with steadily declining mental health
And laugh as he attempts to give you what he cannot give himself.”

Today while I watched this finale for at least the fifth time, I wept again. I do every single time even with months between viewings. There’s a little hidden corner inside of me and many of us, that has only one frequency to unlock it, residing in which is the same bullied kid uncertain of his mental health and his convictions that Bo describes. It’s relieving and liberating every time it gets opened and aired out, and I think it gets masked behind the comedy more than talked about.
Bo gives himself shit about being insecure, timid, and ashamed, but he is the bravest motherfucker ever. I’ve been to war, and I can say that’s easier than what he does. So many of us suffer from confidence/self-esteem issues and Imposter Syndrome and cover it up with being funny and affable (e.g. comedians like Robin Williams, Chris Farley, John Belushi, Jim Carrey, Bill Hicks, Conan O’Brien, Sarah Silverman), but he pushes right through it to make it the guts of his shows.
I hope the depression and mental sadness stuff Bo talks about is contrived for the act because he is a legend and he articulates what many millions of people cannot. That’s why he has the following he does. His insight into the performance culture and the dysmorphic disconnect of our real lives compared to our perceived lives is so on point that he’s like a living, breathing Red Pill.

Rant complete. I hope others feel that way and that Bo somehow comes to learn how profoundly he has affected millions of people like this.
submitted by Possibility-Natural to boburnham [link] [comments]


2021.05.26 00:43 akoishida stop commenting on vocals if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

edit for clarification: “vocals” in title = vocal technique
I am so tired of hearing fans say things like “so-and-so sounds too nasal” like what do you even mean?? anyone who knows anything about vocal technique knows that mask placement and resonance is a MAJOR part of getting a focused sound especially for high notes. (visit any teacher and ask to learn how to belt. she will make you sing dozens of exercises involving the nasal placement as a means of unlocking mask placement). just because the sound is focused and resonant does not mean it’s nasal- I won’t say there aren’t idols that don’t go too far with it, but just because someone’s sound is sharp (in terms of tone, not pitch), that doesn’t automatically mean it’s nasal.
the other major thing is falsely equating range with technique. just cause someone can squeeze out some high notes doesn’t mean they’re the best vocalist of the generation.
also, I think many people can’t tell when an idol has pitch matching issues? there are a few singers out there who are almost always consistently sharp or flat, and I’m sorry but intonation issues that major are extremely problematic for someone who’s supposed to be a professional musician. I’m not saying we have to hate on idols for pitch issues but you can’t attack anyone just cause they bring it up either.
another small one- I’ve seen some idols singing classical repertoire or opera arias. this doesn’t make them an opera singer!! don’t say that PLEASE. that is honestly offensive to everyone who’s ever dedicated years of their life to the extremely difficult art form that is operatic singing. some idols have sung beautifully- I remember onew doing nessun dorma and I think someone from loona sang lascia ch’io pianga? both of them sounded great but too many fans were way too quick to call them opera singers.
I don’t even want to get into the delusional fans who deny that there’s live autotune and stabilizers on basically every performance nowadays just cause they don’t know how to tell it’s there.
at the end of the day, it’s fine if you’re not a pro musician, it doesn’t matter. we can all enjoy what we enjoy and you don’t need to be a pro-singer to say if you like listening to someone’s singing or not. BUT if you’ve never learned anything about music yourself, you have no business getting into debates about actual vocal technique or arguing with someone who does know better.
if you think alto is a voice type, you probably don’t know enough to comment on technique lol.
sincerely, a tired kpop fan who studies vocal technique
submitted by akoishida to kpoprants [link] [comments]


2020.10.31 19:22 JamesHisGuitar My Best Friend Turned Out To Be A Nightmare

Every person I talk to, to help me, told me to write this down. Write down my story so they could read it in the way it went for me. The way I experienced it. So they could understand it more and help me get better, and even others. So here I am, writing it down. I better start right away.
Most people don't know how it feels to be lonely; having no friends, always being alone, sitting alone at lunch. I just described myself until 5 months ago. I was always different, most of the people at my school were bad at English. Because my dad moved to the Netherlands I needed to go to a Dutch school. I hated it, learning a new language. It was hard for me because I lived the whole 16 years I was alive in America. I had nothing with the country, it's so boring. I was the 'weird' girl. I spoke a different language, I didn't act like anyone in the school. I mostly wear black and listen to bands like 'Green Day,' 'all-time low,' 'Fall out boy,' and 'blink-182'. Most of the people at that school listen to bad Dutch rap music with way too much autotune. People called me emo, but I am nothing like an emo. Of course, there were some people from other countries, but no one from a place with English as the first language. Most of them are from Turkey or Morocco, some others from Poland, Russia or some other countries in Europe. Every time I tried to talk to someone, or they were trying to talk to me, they would go away after 5 minutes or less because I talk more English than Dutch. So you'll understand that I was desperate to make a new friend.
A new girl came to school, she was from Australia. Her name was Lucy. In the 1st week of school she was with a random girl, but after that week she sat alone, just like me. Because I knew she spoke English, I walked up to her one day. I didn't know it, but that was the worst mistake I've ever made in the 17 years I have lived. I do remember our 1st conversation. "Hey," I said to her. She looked at me a little surprised, "Oh, hey!" Her voice was so innocent and sweet. "What is your name?" I asked her, just a basic question when you meet someone. So she said her name, and I said mine: Lilith. She told me she liked my name and we had a connection instantly. We didn't have any classes together, but we did hang out a lot and were together every single break. Soon I found out she was into the paranormal. I didn't know a lot about it at that time so I asked her some questions about it and got interested too. One day she asked me: "Hey, I found out there is an abandoned house in the town next to ours. Do you wanna go with me and explore it?" Crazy me didn't see any danger, what could go wrong? So I said yes and we planned a date to go. September 3th, a Saturday. We wanted to go there at night time so I told my mom and dad I had a sleepover at Lucy's. When the day came I arrived at her house at 4 PM. It wasn't a big house, but it also wasn't a small house. There was a cute little garden in front of a tree and a handmade swing. I walked to the pitch black door and rang it. I waited a few seconds and she opened the door. We greeted each other in the way we always did. We did our handshake and ended it with a hug. She let me in. The hallway was small, there was a stairway, a small restroom and a door to the living room. We walked upstairs to her room. Her room wasn't big at all. There was a king sized bed, closet, and desk in it. We packed one bag each. I had the food and drinks and she had the stuff for ghosts. When I say ‘stuff for ghosts’, I mean a ghost box, Ouija board, holy water, and other things like that. I don't remember everything we had, but we came prepared. We made our self some sandwiches to bring to the house we were going to. There was a family murder in the house. A man killed his wife and his 2 kids. They found the man in the lake next to the house and a knife in his pocket. He killed himself. It was a big house. It was abandoned because every time they tried to sell the house a creepy old man came and scared the shit out of the people who wanted to buy the house. The last thing sounds weird, I know, but it is on the internet. Not that you can trust the internet… After some research we walked downstairs, we walked through the living room to the kitchen. We make our self some food, just a simple sandwich. After our meal, it was 7 PM. We wanted to leave at 12 AM, so we went upstairs to take a nap so we weren't that sleepy once we left. We woke up at 11:30 PM and I changed clothes. I brought some sweatpants and a hoodie with me, so I was going to wear that. I fixed my hair a little and fixed my makeup, not that anyone would see it. We did a recheck on the stuff and drank some water. We left around 12 AM.
On our way to the house, what was 3 miles with our bikes, I felt kinda uneasy. Almost like I knew something was gonna happen. I didn't mention it to Lucy because I didn't want her to freak out or anything "So," Lucy said after we cycled a mile without saying anything to each other. "Are you scared?" I laughed, "Of course not. What can go wrong?" Once we arrived there I felt even more uneasy. Almost like my inner instinct told me to go, run away, before something would go wrong. Of course, I ignored it. What if Lucy thought I was weak and didn't dare to go inside? Just ditching her wasn't good, I knew that. The house wasn't that big, well it was big for a house in the Netherlands. It had 2 floors and a basement. The house was definitely old, it looked dirty. The front door wasn't there anymore, it was laying in front of it. Like someone kicked the door to get out. To make it even worse, I saw scratch marks on it. When I looked up from the door and Lucy was standing inside with a flashlight in her hand. "Hey chicken, are you coming inside or not?" She said. I walked inside, "Why would I go to a house without going inside?" The answer to that question is: because some fucked up shit is about to happen to you. Of course, I didn't know it back then. I keep saying that too much, right? I need to stop using it. Anyway, we were standing in the hallway. There was a family portrait hanging on the wall. It looked like a happy family, a mom, a dad and 2 kids: a girl and a little baby. There was a dusty desk with some candles. In the corner was a stairway and there was a door, which leads to the restroom, and a door to the living room. We walked around in the complete house. When you walked out of the living room you were in the kitchen. Upstairs there was a bathroom, 3 bedrooms and a creepy room I didn't know what the use was for it. The furniture was there still. Everything was dirty and in bad condition. The smell in the house was terrible.
We were standing in the living room and Lucy came up with the idea of using the Ouija Board. I was always curious about it, so I agreed with it and she opened her bag to take out the board. We lit up some candles and placed the board on the ground. We sat down and put our hand lightly on the planchette. "Are you gonna asks the questions?" I asked Lucy. "Sure. I know most of the rules anyway." "Great, but don't mess with the board!" "Don't worry, I won't." We started by asking if a spirit was there. In what felt like the first 20 minutes, nothing happened. "If there is any spirit who wants to communicate with us: move the planchette to 'yes'," Lucy asked, knowing nothing would happen. To our big surprise, the planchette moved to 'yes.' "Are you kidding me?" I ask. "I didn't move it, I swear," Lucy said. "I didn't either." I was kinda terrified. I thought she moved it, well I hoped that she did. We started to ask the spirit some questions. We asked if it was evil, it said yes. We asked it was going to hurt is, it said no. We asked the age, it said 0. It was pretty basic questions so far. I kinda felt safe while playing the game, but not for long. It started to get colder and I felt like more people in the room. Which was weird seeing as Lucy and I were the only ones there. I looked at Lucy and her eyes were focused on the board. "How many people are in this room with you?" She asked. It moved to 3. "Are they also evil ghosts?" It moved to 'yes'. "Are they going to cause harm?" It went to 'no'. Let's fast forward a bit to when things start to get worse. We simply asked some questions and discovered that we were talking to that family. The dad was moving it around most of the time. A door slammed close to us. I jumped but stayed calm.
"We should end the game," I said, knowing it was heading the wrong way. Lucy nodded and we ended the game. It was just then when I felt the temperature changed. It was so cold. We ignored it and put the board away and we heard footsteps coming from the hallway. I started shitting my pants. "I'll check it out," Lucy said, as brave as she was. She got up and walked towards the footsteps. I stayed where I was, sitting on the floor. Too scared to move or look around. After a few minutes, she still wasn't back. I got up, mainly because my ass started to hurt because of the hard floor. "Lucy?" I asked, low key scared. No answer. "Lucy? Hello?" Yet again: no answer. "Lucy I swear to god-" I stopped because I heard a scream. It was her, she was screaming. I ran to the room that I heard the scream from. I opened the door and found her laying on the ground. She was passed out. "Lucy!" I yelled and I checked her wrist for a heartbeat. Thank god she was alive. I tried to wake her up but it didn't work. Okay, Lilith, I thought to myself, you need to get out now. I lifted up Lucy and walked downstairs. Somehow Lucy went upstairs. I picked up one bag, the one with the ghost stuff, and got out of the house. "Okay, Lucy, you better wake up now," I said even though I knew it wouldn't work. I heard more noises coming out of the house. I got on my bike and somehow I managed to get to her house with her and a bag on my bike. Her parents were asleep so I got to her room. I laid her down in bed and sat down in a chair. I didn't know what to do. My best friend was passed out and I didn't know why. I didn't know how to get her to wake up. I didn't know anything. I was freaking out. But somehow I managed to fall asleep in that chair because I woke up in it. I don't remember falling asleep, but that is just something that happens. The 1st thing I did was look at the bed. Lucy was gone. I checked my phone and saw that it was 5 am. I frowned and got up. I noticed I was a little light-headed because I got up to quickly and closed my eyes. After a while, I felt okay and went to check out where Lucy was. I can tell you that nothing was ever the same to me after that night. Looking for her, and even being in the same house as her, it felt like it was a mistake. Let me explain what happened. "Lucy?" I whispered loudly while walking down the stairs. There was no reply. "Lucy, where are you?" Again: no answer. I got downstairs and heard noises from the kitchen. I took a deep breath and walked into the living room. Since there wasn't a wall between the kitchen and living room I could see her. The light was on and I froze the second I saw her.
Her eyes... They were pitch black. "Lucy?" I said in confusion. She froze and looked at me. Her eyes were normal again, "Oh, hey Lilith." Her voice sounded weird. Almost like her Australian accent faded away a little. If you know what I mean? "What are you doing here? It’s 5 am," I asked. "I was thirsty," she walked towards me. "We should go upstairs now. We don't wanna wake up my parents, do we?" That wasn't a thing she would normally say. I got freaked out by it but stayed calm, "no we don't."
We got upstairs again and she got in her bed. I laid down on the ground. I didn't want to be close to her after what just happened. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. After hours of lying awake, I heard her parents wake up. Thank god they were awake. I looked over at Lucy and saw her just standing on the bed looking towards the ceiling. My heart dropped. She was just staring at the ceiling even though nothing was there. She started to laugh and giggle like babies do when they get attention from their parents. I just looked at her, frozen because of what was happening. After about a minute she kneeled down on the bed. She was mumbling something I didn't understand. It wasn't Dutch or English. I still don't know what she was saying to this day. After a few seconds, she just fell back and was asleep. I slowly got up, still terrified of what just happened, and walked towards the door. When I put my hand on the door handle I heard her gasp for air and waking up. I almost pissed myself and turned on the light switch that was next to me. I looked at her. She looked at me, confused. "W-what happened?" She asked me. "I have no idea," I said, her parents now walking into the room. "What happened?" Her dad asked while walking in. "No idea," I said. I looked at my phone. It was 10 am. "I should go home," I said. "My parents wanted me to be back early." "Okay," her mom said. I packed my stuff and just got out of the house as soon as I could. I didn't want to be around Lucy or even be in the same house as her anymore. I was so scared. I got home really quickly and went to my room right away. I locked the door and turned on my music. My parents must have been wondering what was going on because within seconds, there was a knock on my door. I opened the door and saw my dad. "What's wrong sweetie?" He asked. "Nothing," I said acting all chill. "I'm... Just tired." He nodded and walked out again. I sat down on my bed, trying to figure out an explanation for everything that just went down. She could have been joking, but she is bad at acting. It looked so real... Almost like she was possessed. I got the chills. What if she really was possessed? I mean... I didn't know what the hell went down upstairs in that goddamn house.
My phone rang, I looked to see who was calling me. It was Lucy. I didn't know if I should pick up or not. It felt like my body was forcing me to pick up, so I did. I put my phone to my ear. "Hello?" I asked quietly. There was breathing on the other side of the line. It creeped me out. "Lucy I swear to god stop doing that," I said. The breathing got heavier. "Lucy stop it. It's not funny. I hate this." "I'm not Lucy," the voice whispered. "How'd you get Lucy's phone? If you hurt her I swear to god-" They hung up. They fucking hung up on me. I needed to know if Lucy was okay, but I was too scared. I was too scared to go to her house and check in on her. I walked downstairs to my parents, who were in the living room. "Lilith, what's wrong? You are so pale," my mom said in worry. "Someone’s got Lucy's phone..." I took a deep breath, "... I need to know if she is okay." "Do you want us to go to her house?" My dad asked. I nodded, "Please."
And so they did. Waiting for them to come back was the longest 20 minutes of my entire life. I was sitting in my room, checking my phone every 5 seconds to see if Lucy was okay, or even if my parents were okay. When they finally came back I ran downstairs. "Nothing is wrong with her," my mom said. "What? And her phone?" I was confused. It wasn't Lucy speaking on the phone. "She has her phone too," my dad said. I freaked out again. "You're probably just sleepy. Get some rest" my dad said. I nodded and went upstairs. I laid down on my bed and tried to get some rest. When I woke up I checked my phone. 20 messages from Lucy? I opened them up and got scared again. They were all in English, luckily.
Lucy: Lilith Lucy: Sweet sleeping Lilith Lucy: I see you, sleeping beauty Lucy: Peter wants to say hi Lucy: Peter is standing next to you Lucy: Peter is feeling ignored Lucy: Never ignore Peter Lucy: Scratch, scratch, down your neck Lucy: Scratch, scratch down your chest Lucy: Scratch, scratch marks on you Lucy: Peter is saying bye to you Lucy: He is gone now Lucy: He said I needed to tell you he said hi Lucy: He hopes he can see you soon again Lucy: Sweet little Lilith Lucy: Sleepy sleepy Lilith Lucy: 4... Lucy: 3... Lucy: 2... Lucy: 1...
It didn't make sense at all. I got out of my bed and got changed. When I got changed I noticed 3 scratches from my neck to my belly button. I gasped. I softly went over them. How did this happen? I quickly put on a shirt because I was too scared. I wasn't having it anymore. This was the last thing. I needed to cut Lucy out of my life. She was not good anymore. She texted me about someone scratching me and now I have scratches on my body. No, no, no. I don't want this. We should have NEVER gone to that house, and now I’ve finally found that out. I wanted nothing to do anything with her anymore. I blocked her on everything and deleted her number. She was out of my life for a few days. But then school came. I already skipped Monday and now it was Thursday. I biked to school like I always would, but now I was alone. When I got to school I walked to my locker. I unlocked it with the key and grabbed my books. "Why are you ignoring me?" Someone asked. A voice I didn't want to hear ever again. Lucy's voice. "I'm not ignoring you," I said while closing the locker. "You blocked me on everything. What's wrong? Weren't we best friends?" "You scare the hell out of me, okay. Leave me alone." She gave me a confused look, "what do you mean?" "The calls, the messages, what happened in the house and when we got to your place. It's all too much for me. I can't do this." "I have no idea what you're talking about, Lilith." I signed and just walked away. I checked what classroom I need to be at and then walk towards it. The door was locked so I leaned against the wall waiting for the teacher to come to open the classroom. I couldn't be happier about the fact that she wasn't in my class. That day, Lucy kept trying to talk to me but I ignored her and walked away every time she tried. I felt bad for her. But she was the one who scared me. After a while Lucy kind of understood I didn't want anything to do with her anymore and she left me alone. But a break was coming up... I thought I could go on the break without her and she would leave me alone forever but I was wrong.
A few weeks before the break began, my parents came to me and said that mine and Lucy's family are going on a vacation together. We were going to Spain. I normally would be so happy but I really didn't want to go. The vacation would be for 2 weeks and, of course, our families would be spending a lot of time together. So there was no way out of this. My parents didn't know I had stopped talking to Lucy. Her parents are close to mine and I didn't want to hurt them. They loved the friendship our families had together and it would break their heart if they found out I stopped talking to Lucy without a reason at all.
So, the day came and we drove towards the airport to fly to Spain. I wasn't excited at all. I tried to fake it to make my parents happy but I just didn't want to deal with Lucy. And there was a big chance that I would be staying in a room with her. I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to share a room with her. But when we got to the hotel we found out they booked 3 rooms. One for her parents. One for my parents. And one for the two of us. I knew that asking if we could stay in different rooms wouldn't be an option. And switching with a parent wasn't an option either. So I just stayed quiet and got to the room. I dropped off my suitcase and Lucy already claimed a bed. She laid down on it and stared at the ceiling. She had a frown on her face which meant that she was in her own thoughts. She always frowned when she thought about things. I ignored her and got my bikini. I walked into the bathroom and got changed. When I walked out, Lucy was standing facing the door. I almost bumped into her and held in a scream. "Lucy! Don't do that!" I said angrily. "Why are you ignoring me?" She asked. Her eyes looked emotionless. "I don't want to be your friend anymore." "Why?" "Because you're scaring me." "How? You never explained why to me." "For example: standing in front of the door when I walked out. And the way you acted after you woke up when you fainted." "How did I scare you? And you never told me I fainted?" "Don't you think it's scary to wait for someone to walk out? And I thought you would know you fainted. Don't you remember anything from that night?" She slowly shakes her head. "Not even going there?" I ask with a frown. "Well... I remember being in front of the house. But after that... It's a blur." "Oh..." I thought for a second. "I mean I can tell you what I know...?" "Please." And so I told her what I knew, what happened. She turned pale after I was done. "I don't remember anything," she says in a terrified whisper. "I mean... It's creepy." "I'm so sorry." I sighed, "It's fine, I guess." "I-I got to go," after that Lucy disappeared. I just left for the beach and sunbathed. When I came back Lucy wasn't there and no one knew where she went. Yet her parents weren't worried about her, because she had done this lots of times before. Well in the past month at least. The next morning came and there was still no sign of Lucy. Everyone started to get worried. Of course, they asked me if I knew why she left and I told them I didn't know anything. Her parents went to look for her and asked around if people had seen her but had no success. When they came back her mom was in tears. She just wanted Lucy to come back.
At around 11 am Lucy randomly was in the room. Everyone was out looking for her and I was surprised to find her. "Lucy, are you okay?" I asked. She was sitting on the bed with her hands on her lap with perfect posture. She was staring at the wall. I couldn't see her face. She ignored me so I asked her again. She turned her head and gave me one of the creepiest smiles I've ever seen in my life. "I'm totally fine," she said. It was the same voice that she spoke in the night I found her at 5 am in the kitchen. Chills filled my arms and I was terrified. I turned around to leave the room when I felt a hand grab my arm. I turned around and saw Lucy. She tightened the grip on my arm which hurt me. So I said that she needed to let go of me and that she was hurting me. Her smile on her face turned into a grin and she hurt me even more. I started to scream in pain. My parent ran into the room and Lucy quickly let go of my arm. It was bright red. "You're mental!" I yelled at her. "Do you understand it now?! You're insane. Stop this! It's not fucking funny!" My parents gave Lucy and me a confused look. My dad took my arm and frowned. "Since when is Lucy back?" My mom asked. "She was here when I entered the room," I told her. "Did she do this?" My dad asked. I nodded slowly. I glared over at Lucy. She looked all innocent. "Why didn't you tell us that Lucy was back?" My mom asked. "I was about to tell you. But then Lucy grabbed my arm and started hurting me." "Well, I'm going to her parents." My mom left the room. When Lucy's parents came in we explained the whole situation and I ended up staying one night in my parents' room with them while Lucy stayed alone.
The next day we went to the beach. That day changed my life. What I have written out and told you was what I believed happened. What happened at the beach is still weird to me. Even though I know what actually happened now. It's weird to think about. That day, a boy walked over to me. I never knew his name. He never told me. When he walked over to me he asked if I was Lilith. I told him I was and asked him how he knew my name. He said it didn't matter and started to tell me something about myself I didn't know. I still remember every word.
"I know this sounds weird, but you got I believe me. You're in a coma. You aren't in the real world. This is all on your head. You've been in a coma for 3 years now and the doctors are going to let you die in 3 days if you don't wake up. You need to kill Lucy. She needs to die in order for you to wake up. So please, do it. Listen to me." Of course, I was confused so I told him, "You're not funny telling me this. You're weird. Who are you? Why do you know my friends? Leave me alone." He grabbed me by my shoulders and shook them. He looked me into my eyes, "Please believe me. You can't die. I can answer all of your questions. You can ask me everything. If it makes you believe me." I crossed my arms, "Oh... well... I have too many questions... why am I in a coma?" "You and your parents went on a vacation to the Netherlands. It was the last day and you crossed the street without looking and a tram hit you. You were hurt badly. The damage was so bad that you went into a coma." I frowned. It strangely made sense.
"But... why do I have to kill Lucy? And how do you know this?" I looked him into his eyes. "Lucy is the part of you that wants you to die. And I know everything because I'm the part who wants you to live. And I know everything." Everything about how he talked and acted was so truthful. He couldn't be lying. "She wants me to die? Then why was she nice to me? And didn’t kill me already? You aren't making much sense with that." He sighed softly, "Well she was nice to you to get your trust. She wanted you to trust her so she could get close to you. After gaining your trust, she leads you to the house to play the board. That whole scene was fake. It just made you realize she was bad. Now you can see her true colors. But you don't want to believe it, so her personalities are changing moods. Your mind didn't realize it earlier. Making sense now?" I nodded slowly and confused, "Sadly, it does make sense" My head started to hurt because of this whole mindfuck. "This is all so weird. So I'm dying in 3 days if I don't kill my own best friend? And what about my parents? What are they? Or her parents? Does everyone have a role?" "Everyone does in their own small way. Your parents are the part that doesn't know you're in a coma. Her parents are the part that kind of know but are too confused to actually do something. And all those people at school are all the people you ever saw in real life. The people who used to talk to you are people you used to be friends with. And the only way you really can wake up is by killing her. You don't want to die, do you?"
I shook my head, "Of course, I don’t want to die. But is the location something important too? Or what?" "You remember moving from America? It is your mind not realizing you went on a vacation to the Netherlands and thinking you live here now. You going to their high school? You should have gone to school the week after you came back and you were stressed out over it. You going to Spain? The next break you and your parents planned was a trip to Spain." "So I really have to kill Lucy. How? I can't kill anyone ever in my life." I gave him a desperate look. "You need to kill her. Only you can kill her. I can help you through it but I can't do it." I sighed, "Okay. Well... when do I have to do it?" "We can do it anytime. Even now." My eyes got big, "Now?! Are we crazy! We're in public!" "We're in your mind. This isn't real, remember. You're not actually killing someone." I nodded slowly and took a deep breath, "Okay. Let's do it." He smiled weakly. "Okay. Let's drown her. It's the easiest way." "I am not drowning her. I can't do that." "Okay. Wait here then. I'll get a knife." After those words, he walked away. I just stayed where I was and sat down in the sand. I rested my head on my hands and thought about everything that was going on. It's too much. Way too much. I was about to kill my own best friend. After a few minutes, the boy came back with a knife. No one even looked at him as he passed people holding a big kitchen knife. He stopped in front of me and held out the knife for me. I took it and looked at the murder object in my hands. This really was about to happen... I slowly got up and looked at the boy but he wasn't looking at me. I looked in the direction he was looking at and he was looking at Lucy. She was laying in the sand with her eyes closed.
I felt an arm on my shoulder and a second later the boy said close to my ear, "You better do it now. I'll come with you. I promise everything will be better after this." I turned my head to look at him, "What if I don't wake up?" "That's impossible." I nodded. "Wait. I never asked you this... How do I know you?" He smiled, "That will be clear soon. Now kill Her." He gave me a push into her direction so I decided to just walk towards her. My eyes were only focused on Lucy. I was next to her now, I looked at the boy and he gave me a nod. I knelt beside her with the knife in one of my hands. I was shaking. "I'm so sorry for this Lucy," I said with a shaky voice. "I don't want to do this but I have to." I raised the knife and pointed it down her chest. At that moment her eyes struck open. I quickly closed my eyes and stabbed her in her chest. I felt it go through her. When I opened my eyes I almost fainted from what I saw. "Remove the knife. That way she will die quicker," the boy told me. I removed the knife and blood went everywhere. I started to get more light headed every second and in the end, everything went black and I passed out.
I woke up in the hospital. The light was really bright and I heard a heartbeat, my heartbeat. It took a few blinks to get used to the light but soon enough I could keep my eyes open. I looked around and I was alone. My throat was burning and I was shaking. I heard my heartbeat rise. Did it work? Am I awake? People ran into my room. It was a doctor. He went to check on me and then walked away saying he was getting a nurse and my parents. My parents literally ran into the room. When they saw me they started to cry. "Thank God you are awake. We almost had to let you go," my mom said. She sat down next to me and took my hand. "Lucy," was all that could leave my mouth. My voice was soft and broken. My dad gave me some water and my mom was frozen. "Did you just say 'Lucy'?" She asked after a while. I nodded, "Yes. Is she okay?" "She died when you were 7. She used to be your best friend. She died from cancer..." I frowned. I didn't know this... "What about the boy? There was a boy." "What boy? Lilith, what are you talking about?" My dad asked. At that point, a nurse walked into the room. "There was a boy. He told me how to wake up," I say. "What did he look like?" "I don't remember..." My dad looked at my mom, "The only boy I can think of is... you know... him. Our miscarriage." My mom started to tear up, "You met our little boy?" "I- I don't know," I say. "Why did you guys never told me this?" "Because it was too hard for us," my dad said. The nurse came into the conversation to check on me more and ask me some boring questions.
So my parents' miscarriage apparently got into my mind and the same as my old best friend who died. One was my worst enemy and one was my savior. After telling all of this I'm sure people don't want to believe me. But I swear to God, it's true. It’s all true.
submitted by JamesHisGuitar to spoopycjades [link] [comments]


2019.12.16 20:10 itsHannahTeresa The Ordinary Corpus Day

“SECOND VENUSIAN PROXY DESTROYED. ANYO DISGRACED, INVESTORS DEMANDING ANSWERS.”
Kota leaned against the wall, frowning as he scrolled through the news story. The Tenno again. What a surprise.
“You gonna help me or not?” His partner Clohs loudly snapped a pair of pliers. “Busted wires don’t fix themselves, and I'm not used to doing all the work around here.”
“You read this, right?” Kota held up the datapad. “That experimental Venus proxy just got blown to shreds. Exploiter.”
Clohs shot him a look. “What’s with the tone of surprise?”
Kota shrugged took another reading of the electrical current. “It’s just that AnyoCorp said the Orb Mother proxies were Tenno-proof. You know, it’s been years and you’d think they’d have it figured out by now.”
“Yeah, okay.” Clohs reached into his bag and pulled out a spool of fresh wire. “Bek said that about the last models, the Ambulas. You know what happened to them?"
Kota snorted. "They weren’t Tenno-proof, huh?"
"Of course not. Report said it was just one guy who mangled every last one of them, looted the facility, and blew up everything they didn’t take, including Bek’s flagship. The whole place was a total loss."
"I’d pay good credits to see the board's faces when they read that damage report,” Kota said dryly.
“Over a quintillion credits down the drain, and he looked like a total idiot to the investors. I don’t even know how Anyo pitched the Orb Mothers to that same crowd. Wonder how he’s taking it now that he’s been made to look like a fool for the fiftieth time.”
“Don’t know, don’t wanna know, don’t get paid enough to find out.”
Clohs sliced off the broken hatch hinges, removed the panel, and pushed a ratel equipped with a vacuum into the dusty darkness. “Venus gives me the creeps. Damn rig jockeys just staring at you all the time, croakin’ away in those cheap shit autotuned voice boxes. Went there once and that was once too many.”
“I’ve never been,” Kota said. “I… kinda want to. At least once the third Orb Mother gets unveiled.”
“Oh, Void, not you too.” Clohs rolled his eyes. “I swear, I’ve heard that shit from every other dork on the station. ‘Let’s look at the Jackal, the Tenno won’t blow it up. Let’s look at the Hyenas, the Tenno won’t blow them up. Oooh, how about the Raptors? I’m sure they won’t get blown up either.’ And then 48 hours later… Hang on, what’s this?”
Kota squinted in the light of the laser cutter. Something gold and white sat in the ventilation crawl space. Clohs scooped it up and turned it over. It looked like some kind of statue."Orokin salvage, maybe. I guess the gold might be worth something to someone." Kota shrugged. “Looks like someone tried to hide it.”
Clohs polished the metal on his sleeve. "You think anyone would notice if I took it? I got a mouth to feed."
Kota looked up, surprised. "You never told me you had kids."
"I don't. It’s my own damn mouth." Clohs laughed at his joke and put down the laser cutter. "For real, you think anyone would miss this thing?"
Kota shrugged and began breaking down the hinge scraps for disposal. "Not me."
"Alright.” Clohs cracked open one of the supply lockers, pocketed the contents, and stashed the sculpture under a pile of rusted alloy. “Let's move on to the next order before the boss looks in. The ratel can just sit tight until we come back.”
"The whole panel should get replaced and welded shut." Kota made a quick note of it on the work papers before slinging his supra off his shoulder, and Clohs did the same. "Moving out."
"Got your back," Clohs said.
The door slid smoothly open, revealing a hallway illuminated by patches of starlight. They stepped out onto the catwalk and Kota checked his work orders again. "Alright, there's a blown circuit all the way down on deck 75. High priority because they're storing spare coolant there, and the backup generators are letting it get a little too warm."
Clohs sighed, looking back at the locker. "Too far. Someone else might take that thing. Hang on, I'm gonna grab it."
"Just lock it up. It's too bulky-"
A low, gurgling growl echoed from the far end of the hall. Both of the techs froze.
"What was that?" Kota hissed.
Footsteps- or paws- clicked across a surface high above them. He looked around wildly but nothing presented itself. “Is that... something in the ceiling?"
"No idea." Clohs touched his supra's trigger. "Hit the alarms and form up. Pretty sure it’s just the boss keepin’ us on our toes."
Kota punched the alarm combo. "Control tower, this is Kota Tech Seven. Unknown footsteps in improbable area. No visual. Sounds organic."
Something leaped to the ground in front of them. His heart stopped.
It was... a beast? The thing was skinless and hairless, gleaming like liquid metal, but it reeked of decay. Long claws carved scratches into the steel platform as it padded towards the techs. A growl built low in its skeletal chest and crescendoed to a terrible roar. White fangs dripped with venomous green slime that sizzled on the floor.
"CT, we just got visual," Kota said shakily. "Lock down the entire sector. Now."
Klaxons began to wail. Every light turned yellow as the door began to descend. The footsteps changed from slow padding to a full pounding run.
Clohs tossed a ratel pad at the thing, hoping to slow it down. Kota punched the console, trying to slam the door, but it continued the steady unbothered descent. An osprey hummed overhead, supercharging both of their shields.
"OPEN FIRE!" Kota shouted.
Bullets peppered the gap and the floor as a huge paw appeared, followed by the creature's head and snapping jaws. Clohs tried to stomp on the paw, but one of the claws hooked into the leg of his uniform and yanked his feet out from under him.
"No!" Kota unloaded another burst into the rubbery skin. A void shield glittered blue, shedding the bullets like raindrops. "Clohs, it's shielded!"
"GET OFF!!" Clohs landed a solid kick squarely on the beast’s muzzle. Its claws flailed back and forth, unhooking from his calf, but it dug into the floor and dragged itself into the room with them. The door slammed shut, locked, and sealed.
Kota backed up, putting as much distance between him and the beast as he could. He slapped a fresh magazine into the supra, but before he could fire, Clohs grabbed the animal by the neck and pinned it to the ground.
"Back up! Give me a shot!"
"You said he was shielded!" Clohs dug his fingers into the foul, slippery skin. "Fuck his shields!" He seized its chin and twisted its head back. The snapping jaws managed to yank Clohs’ weapon out of his hands and crunched it cleanly in half.
"Clohs, they're void shields! There's a TENN-"
CRACK. Kota's fingers went numb. The supra dangled loosely, barrel to the ground. Pins and needles surged through his chest as he stared at the dead beast. Thick black blood oozed from the protruding neck bones.
"See?" Clohs wiped his hands triumphantly and grinned. “Easy.”
“No. It's never that easy.” Kota stared at the body. His mind was racing. “Clohs, that beast had a master. There's a Tenno in here. Somewhere.”
“So what? We're on lockdown. Security’s searching everything.” Clohs kicked the ruined halves of his gun aside and put his ear against the door, listening. “As soon as that door unlocks, we'll be back to normal.”
Seconds after the words left his mouth, the console and door lights turned green.
“Bam.” Clohs snapped his fingers. “I'll pick up my toy and we'll be on our way.” He popped open the locker, took out the statue, and started trying to cram it into the laser’s carrying case.
The door slid open and someone stepped inside with a dull clunk of metal wrapped in cloth. Kota dropped his supra completely.
“Sorry boss, we had a little scuffle,” Clohs said without looking up. “I'm just gonna-”
The only warning was a swirl movement, of black ribbon, red armor, and orange light. A poison-green glow enveloped Clohs in an instant, immobilizing and suspending him in thin air, as the osprey exploded overhead in a shower of golden sparks. The remains were pinned to the opposite wall by a glittering pink arrow.
Kota heard something slam behind him. He dimly registered that he was sitting in the dark, inside the empty locker that had contained Cloh's statue. His legs refused to move an inch. He knew he should rush out and confront it, as his training had specified, but something held him in place.
He put his eye to a crack in the lock. The Tenno was ignoring Clohs, who still hung silent and motionless in a green orb. It knelt down to cradle the beast in its arms, as tender as a mother. Slim grey hands ghosted over the broken neck, feeling the shattered bone and the puddle of black blood, then brushed its deformed face to close the staring eyes. The blank red face rested on the creature's forehead as it stroked the body helplessly.
The scene was strangely moving. Kota was stunned to find his eyes burning with tears as he watched it wipe the blood from the creature’s wound with its own cloak. Could Tenno grieve? More importantly, could they love? He was certain that the monster in the room with him would weep if it could.
Then it turned to face Clohs and the illusion vanished.
Pure hatred radiated from the slender form. It stalked towards the helpless tech with death written in every curve of its limbs. Two ornate golden knives tapped menacingly against its thighs as the green lights vanished. Clohs fell to the floor, gasping for air, then looked up at the Tenno. His face was sickly pale in the console lights.
It tore him apart. Slowly, surgically, delighting in every scream and every gush of blood. Even when the sounds stopped, even after Clohs was an unrecognizable heap of gore, the Tenno moodily diced up the scraps until they were a puddle of smooth pink paste. It ground the rest underfoot, then wiped the knives on its cloak, picked up the body of its beast, and turned to leave.
Kota let out the breath he’d been holding and opened the locker door. The smell of blood and death struck him like a blow. He gagged, falling back, as the door reopened.
Panicking, he slammed the locker shut. The Tenno had returned, without the body of its beast. Worst of all, there was another beside it: a glittering mountain of gold armor topped with a tattered silken cloak that swept the floor.
The gold Tenno wandered around, poking at lockers and bins. It passed close to Kota's locker, making him curl up into an even tighter ball, but it didn't try the door. It was looking at the statue Clohs had dropped.
The red Tenno picked it up and poked the other in the chest with it, almost playfully, but the gold one slapped its hand away without any real force. Both of them headed out the door and vanished around a corner.
Kota buried his head in his hands, shaking from the strain and terror. He didn't know how long he waited, certain every moment that the locker door would be wrenched open and the blank face of death would look into his eyes. But then the door opened and the familiar tramp of clone workers’ boots crossed the floor, pausing when they reached the bloodstain.
“Kota Seven. You’re alive.” The locker popped open and rough hands helped him to his feet. “We saw the Tenno on CT surveillance. They got away shortly after they lost the beast. Did they take anything?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe.” Kota took his first deep breath in ages. The air filtration had removed most of the stench. “The wall panel was left open. They could have done anything.”
“We’ll sweep the crawlspace to make sure. Have the ratels clean this floor and move onto your next assignment as soon as possible. Your new partner will meet you at the site.”
Kota nodded numbly. His hands were cold and sweating at the same time. As if from a great distance, he watched himself activate a fresh ratel pad. The tiny yellow drones began searing the remains off the floor with bursts of electricity, filling the air with the hideous smell of burnt blood.
He thought of the Tenno again, despite himself. Killing machines, the field manuals had said. No mercy, no reason. Faceless drones of superhuman speed and unmatched physical power. They could summon fire, ice, wind, and water out of thin air. They could transform their own bodies, shatter their enemies’ minds, and even raise the dead.
But a machine would have killed him. It would have searched the room until it found him, and he would have suffered the same fate as Clohs, or worse. Instead, it had ignored him in favor of the little statue trinket, and it had certainly teased the big gold Tenno. The field manuals had said nothing about them showing social or playful behavior. He thought of the way the red Tenno had rocked the body of the dead beast in its arms, and wiped away its blood. Love, loss, grief, friendship… it really wasn’t much different from a human.
And that was the most terrifying thought of all.
submitted by itsHannahTeresa to Warframe [link] [comments]


2019.12.02 04:31 KXDouglas [The Vulgar Apocrypha] Part 2

Xavier walked back to the living room and sat on the couch. The strange creature that he had just summoned was still perched on his shoulder. He unlocked his phone and browsed through the recent texts, all from his friends telling him that the book wasn’t theirs.
How the hell did this book get here, then?
The creature made its strange buzzing noise, and with its body language it almost reminded Xavier of a cat’s purr. It was as if it could sense his confusion. He looked into one of the creature’s many, beady black eyes, trying to understand what it wanted to tell him.
I’m not going to figure this out by just sitting around playing with this weird wasp-thing.
He undressed and showered. The spawn tried repeatedly to fly over the glass door, curious as to what was going on, to no avail. By the time he had finished and stepped out, it had given up and apparently gone to sleep on the floor outside the bathroom. He couldn’t actually tell for sure if it was sleeping, because it seemed to lack eyelids, but it was laying on its side.
“What am I gonna do about you, huh?” he said out loud. “I don’t really want the authorities to know you exist, so I’m gonna have to leave you at home when I go to work on Monday.” He sighed. “But I have to tell somebody, at least.”
After drying off, Xavier picked up his phone and made a call.
“Hey, man, what’s up? I’ve got a pretty bad hangover, but besides that I’m alright.” Xavier dressed himself as he talked, putting on jeans and a t-shirt. “You forgot something at my place last night. You think you’ll be able to swing by and pick it up? Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s yours. Sure as hell isn’t mine. Sweet, see you in a few.”
About a half hour later, someone knocked on the front door. Xavier peered through the peephole to make sure it was who he was expecting, then opened the door to let the man in.
Tyson Young was of average height and build. He had curly dark brown hair and green eyes. It was clear that he had gotten dressed quickly; he was wearing a tank top and jeans.
“I lied, by the way. You didn’t forget anything, I just have something I want to show you and I had to think of an excuse.”
“This have anything to do with that book you found?”
“Yeah. Come here.”
He walked over to the bathroom, and Tyson followed. The creature was exactly where Xavier had left it, and it was still asleep.
When he laid eyes on the creature, Tyson jumped back.
“Omigod, kill it with fire! With fire!”
Xavier just facepalmed.
“What the fuck is that thing?” Tyson asked. “Where did it come from?”
Xavier entered the living room, picked up the book, and showed it to Tyson.
“I don’t get it,” Tyson said.
“This is the book I found this morning. It was stuck in the couch cushions.” Xavier opened it to the page that had a diagram of the Spawn of Ak-Yurath on it and showed it to Tyson. “There’s this poem here. I was bored, so I followed the instructions and recited it in front of my bathroom mirror. Now said mirror no longer exists, and I have this weird creature following me around.”
“Following you?”
“Yeah, it seems to be attached to me for some reason. I don’t get it.”
“Lemme see that book for a sec, dude.”
Xavier handed to book to Tyson, who began to flip through it. Meanwhile, the creature still slept.
“So, you can read it, right? I’m not the only one who can read that gibberish for some reason?”
“I can read it, all right. What the fuck, dude?”
“I dunno what I’m gonna do, Tyson. I’d love to get rid of it, but I don’t think I can just dump this thing in a ditch somewhere. I can’t exactly drop it off at an animal shelter, either.”
“You gonna try taking care of it, then?”
Xavier sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I suppose so. I wish I knew what it ate.”
“It looks kinda like a big-ass wasp, maybe it eats insects?” Tyson asked. “You can probably go to a pet store and get some crickets or mealworms.” He started to flip through the book, but hissed under his breath when he didn’t find what he was looking for. “Man, this book has instructions on how to ‘summon’ a giant wasp but it doesn’t tell you what it eats? Who wrote this shit?” He handed the book back to Xavier.
“Yeah, I’ll have to try crickets. To be honest, I hope it works. I don’t want to have to feed it rats.”
“You think of a name for it yet?”
For a moment, Xavier looked Tyson directly in the eyes.
“No, I haven’t,” he said. “Shit, I’m terrible at coming up with names for things.”
“Have you never had a pet before?” Tyson asked.
“No, I haven’t! I’m allergic to most animals. God, I’m surprised I’m not sneezing right now or breaking out in hives after it rode on my shoulder.”
“It rode on your shoulder? Dude, that’s fuckin’ weird.”
Suddenly, Tyson jumped back and ran into the living room. Xavier looked down at the spawn and saw that it was awake now.
“What’s up, buddy?” he asked.
The creature made a happy autotune noise and crawled up to his foot. It looked up at him and fluttered its wings, but did not take flight, as if it was waiting for him to do something.
Xavier walked into the living room, where Tyson was sitting on the couch, and the creature followed.
“Are you really that scared of it, Tyson?”
“Fuck yeah I am! It’s like a wasp, but bigger.”
“It doesn’t even have a stinger.”
“It could be fucking venomous or some shit, you don’t know! It’s got hooves, man! What kind of wasp has fucking hooves?”
Xavier sat next to Tyson, and the spawn flew into his lap.
“I don’t know, man. This whole thing doesn’t make any sense.” Apprehensively, he reached out for its head and tried to pet it. The creature made its strange buzzing noise and relaxed its posture. “It came out of my mirror because I read a poem from a book that showed up out of nowhere.”
“You think we could go to a pet store and ask around? You’re gonna have to get food anyways.”
“That’s as good an idea as any.”
They got into Xavier’s car and drove to the nearest pet store. The spawn flew around inside the car until Xavier told it to stop. For some reason, it seemed to understand and obey any command that he gave it.
When they arrived and Xavier found a parking spot, he unbuckled his seatbelt but did not open the door.
“Okay, so how are we going to do this?” Xavier asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I don’t know which is worse, leaving Captain Huggles in my car by itself or taking it into the store and possibly causing a panic.”
“Dude. You named it ‘Captain Huggles’?”
“Sure. Why not?”
It was Tyson’s turn to facepalm.
“Anyways…you aren’t leaving me alone in here with that thing. I don’t want to be here when it possibly freaks out from being separated from you, since it seems to have, like, imprinted on you or something. Either we leave it in the car, or we take it inside. Your choice.”
“Okay.”
They both exited the car. Xavier gestured to his shoulder, and Captain Huggles flew out and perched on it.
The pet store was a standard big-box store, with a high ceiling and rows upon rows of shelves. Display cases full of litters of puppies and kittens lined the front, where they would have maximum exposure to window shoppers. Xavier made a beeline for the reptile section and picked up a large container of crickets.
He didn’t notice any of the people that were staring at him ever since he entered the store. He also didn’t notice that Tyson wasn’t following him.
Captain Huggles, meanwhile, was fascinated by the different animals that were for sale. In the reptile section, it flew off of Xavier’s shoulder to inspect a panther chameleon that was on display in a small glass enclosure. The chameleon, currently in the middle of moving from one branch to another, froze in place.
“Whatcha’ lookin’ at, buddy?” Xavier asked in a mock-baby voice.
Captain Huggles made a buzzing noise as it rubbed its face against the glass.
“No, you can’t eat that, it’s too expensive. We’re getting you some crickets,” he said, gesturing to the container he was holding. “See? Crickets.”
They returned to the front area of the store, which was more open, and began searching for Tyson. Xavier saw him talking with a fully grown scarlet macaw that was on display in a large cage. As he got closer, he could hear Tyson trying to make the bird say ‘hello’.
“You’re not thinking of buying it, are you?” Xavier asked.
“Oh, hell no,” Tyson said. “Can’t afford it. Damn thing would probably outlive me, too.”
“Hell no,” the parrot squawked. They both burst into laughter.
“I don’t think it wants you to buy it, either,” Xavier said.
Captain Huggles flew up on top of the cage and landed on it. It peered through the bars at the parrot, which looked back and hesitantly approached it by climbing up the bars with its claws.
The parrot spoke again, this time vocalizing anathemic speech reminiscent of the poem from the Codex of the Watcher.
“Tyson, run.”
“What?” he asked.
“Just run.”
Tyson sprinted towards the exit.
“Captain Huggles, c’mere. Get away from the bird.”
However, Captain Huggles did not obey. It stayed atop the cage and stared at the bird.
The parrot’s feathers fell out all at once, and its flesh began to warp. It collapsed upon itself and shifted into the form of a bony, spider-like thing with rubbery, wrinkled skin. Appendages materialized and dissolved all across its form repeatedly as it jumped at the bars of the cage, trying to escape.
After bashing against the steel multiple times to no avail, it broke down into an ooze and slithered between the bars. Captain Huggles took flight and followed it wherever it went.
Xavier froze. A chill ran down his spine, and he gulped.
“Captain Huggles, what are you doing? Get away, that thing could be dangerous!”
Once it was outside the cage, the creature reformed into an arachnidian shape and jumped at Captain Huggles, lashing at it with a scythed appendage.
Shit.
“Captain Huggles, if you aren’t going to get away from it, then at least try to defend yourself!”
In that moment, Xavier’s consciousness ejected itself from his body and entered some other plane of existence, wherein he gained a third-person view of himself and his surroundings in still time. A tendril of light extended from his heart out to Captain Huggles, and it pulsed to some otherworldly rhythm. The glow began to intensify until it eclipsed his vision, at which point he returned to his body.
When time resumed, Xavier looked into his hand and saw The Codex of the Watcher, though he had not brought it with him to the pet store.
I guess Tyson is right, in a way. Captain Huggles and I have some sort of supernatural link.
He opened the book, and the pages began to turn themselves until the page just after the diagram of the Spawn of Ak-Yurath was exposed. The text written on it had changed.
“Captain Huggles, invoke the chant of twelve dooms!”
Captain Huggles opened its mouth and let loose a cacophonous howl. The spider-thing shuddered as its skin ruptured like freshly-popped bubble wrap and thick pus bled out from it. It slumped to the ground and fell apart.
Xavier looked around, and it was only then that he noticed that everyone else had fled the store.
I better get out of here before emergency services show up. Don’t want to have to explain Captain Huggles to the cops.
submitted by KXDouglas to redditserials [link] [comments]


2019.03.25 09:34 JamesHisGuitar My Best Friend Turned Out To Be A Nightmare

This story is ficional. I wrote this myself. For whoever reading this: Enjoy
Love,
Dani


Every person I talk to, to help me, told me to write this down. Write down my story so they could read it in the way it went for me. The way I experienced it. So they could understand it more and help me get better, and even others. So here I am, writing it down. I better start right away.
Most people don't know how it feels to be lonely; having no friends, always being alone, sitting alone at lunch. I just described myself until 5 months ago.
I was always different, most of the people at my school were bad at English. Because my dad moved to the Netherlands I needed to go to a Dutch school. I hated it, learning a new language. It was hard for me because I lived the whole 16 years I was alive in America. I had nothing with the country, it's so boring. I was the 'weird' girl. I spoke a different language, I didn't act like anyone in the school. I mostly wear black and listen to bands like 'Green Day,' 'all-time low,' 'Fall out boy,' and 'blink-182'. Most of the people at that school listen to bad Dutch rap music with way too much autotune. People called me emo, but I am nothing like an emo.
Of course, there were some people from other countries, but no one from a place with English as the first language. Most of them are from Turkey or Morocco, some others from Poland, Russia or some other countries in Europe. Every time I tried to talk to someone, or they were trying to talk to me, they would go away after 5 minutes or less because I talk more English than Dutch.
So you'll understand that I was desperate to make a new friend.
A new girl came to school, she was from Australia. Her name was Lucy. In the 1st week of school she was with a random girl, but after that week she sat alone, just like me. Because I knew she spoke English, I walked up to her one day. I didn't know it, but that was the worst mistake I've ever made in the 17 years I have lived.
I do remember our 1st conversation. "Hey," I said to her.
She looked at me a little surprised, "Oh, hey!" Her voice was so innocent and sweet.
"What is your name?" I asked her, just a basic question when you meet someone. So she said her name, and I said mine: Lilith. She told me she liked my name and we had a connection instantly. We didn't have any classes together, but we did hang out a lot and were together every single break.
Soon I found out she was into the paranormal. I didn't know a lot about it at that time so I asked her some questions about it and got interested too.
One day she asked me: "Hey, I found out there is an abandoned house in the town next to ours. Do you wanna go with me and explore it?"
Crazy me didn't see any danger, what could go wrong? So I said yes and we planned a date to go. September 3th, a Saturday. We wanted to go there at night time so I told my mom and dad I had a sleepover at Lucy's.
When the day came I arrived at her house at 4 PM. It wasn't a big house, but it also wasn't a small house. There was a cute little garden in front of a tree and a handmade swing. I walked to the pitch black door and rang it. I waited a few seconds and she opened the door. We greeted each other in the way we always did.
We did our handshake and ended it with a hug. She let me in. The hallway was small, there was a stairway, a small restroom and a door to the living room. We walked upstairs to her room.
Her room wasn't big at all. There was a king sized bed, closet, and desk in it. We packed one bag each. I had the food and drinks and she had the stuff for ghosts. When I say ‘stuff for ghosts’, I mean a ghost box, Ouija board, holy water, and other things like that. I don't remember everything we had, but we came prepared. We made our self some sandwiches to bring to the house we were going to.
There was a family murder in the house. A man killed his wife and his 2 kids. They found the man in the lake next to the house and a knife in his pocket. He killed himself. It was a big house. It was abandoned because every time they tried to sell the house a creepy old man came and scared the shit out of the people who wanted to buy the house. The last thing sounds weird, I know, but it is on the internet. Not that you can trust the internet…
After some research we walked downstairs, we walked through the living room to the kitchen. We make our self some food, just a simple sandwich. After our meal, it was 7 PM. We wanted to leave at 12 AM, so we went upstairs to take a nap so we weren't that sleepy once we left.
We woke up at 11:30 PM and I changed clothes. I brought some sweatpants and a hoodie with me, so I was going to wear that. I fixed my hair a little and fixed my makeup, not that anyone would see it. We did a recheck on the stuff and drank some water. We left around 12 AM.
On our way to the house, what was 3 miles with our bikes, I felt kinda uneasy. Almost like I knew something was gonna happen. I didn't mention it to Lucy because I didn't want her to freak out or anything
"So," Lucy said after we cycled a mile without saying anything to each other. "Are you scared?"
I laughed, "Of course not. What can go wrong?"
Once we arrived there I felt even more uneasy. Almost like my inner instinct told me to go, run away, before something would go wrong. Of course, I ignored it. What if Lucy thought I was weak and didn't dare to go inside? Just ditching her wasn't good, I knew that.
The house wasn't that big, well it was big for a house in the Netherlands. It had 2 floors and a basement. The house was definitely old, it looked dirty. The front door wasn't there anymore, it was laying in front of it. Like someone kicked the door to get out. To make it even worse, I saw scratch marks on it. When I looked up from the door and Lucy was standing inside with a flashlight in her hand.
"Hey chicken, are you coming inside or not?" She said.
I walked inside, "Why would I go to a house without going inside?" The answer to that question is: because some fucked up shit is about to happen to you. Of course, I didn't know it back then. I keep saying that too much, right? I need to stop using it.
Anyway, we were standing in the hallway. There was a family portrait hanging on the wall. It looked like a happy family, a mom, a dad and 2 kids: a girl and a little baby. There was a dusty desk with some candles. In the corner was a stairway and there was a door, which leads to the restroom, and a door to the living room.
We walked around in the complete house. When you walked out of the living room you were in the kitchen. Upstairs there was a bathroom, 3 bedrooms and a creepy room I didn't know what the use was for it. The furniture was there still. Everything was dirty and in bad condition. The smell in the house was terrible.
We were standing in the living room and Lucy came up with the idea of using the Ouija Board. I was always curious about it, so I agreed with it and she opened her bag to take out the board. We lit up some candles and placed the board on the ground. We sat down and put our hand lightly on the planchette.
"Are you gonna asks the questions?" I asked Lucy.
"Sure. I know most of the rules anyway."
"Great, but don't mess with the board!"
"Don't worry, I won't."
We started by asking if a spirit was there. In what felt like the first 20 minutes, nothing happened.
"If there is any spirit who wants to communicate with us: move the planchette to 'yes'," Lucy asked, knowing nothing would happen. To our big surprise, the planchette moved to 'yes.'
"Are you kidding me?" I ask.
"I didn't move it, I swear," Lucy said.
"I didn't either." I was kinda terrified. I thought she moved it, well I hoped that she did.
We started to ask the spirit some questions. We asked if it was evil, it said yes. We asked it was going to hurt is, it said no. We asked the age, it said 0. It was pretty basic questions so far. I kinda felt safe while playing the game, but not for long.
It started to get colder and I felt like more people in the room. Which was weird seeing as Lucy and I were the only ones there. I looked at Lucy and her eyes were focused on the board.
"How many people are in this room with you?" She asked. It moved to 3.
"Are they also evil ghosts?" It moved to 'yes'.
"Are they going to cause harm?" It went to 'no'.
Let's fast forward a bit to when things start to get worse. We simply asked some questions and discovered that we were talking to that family. The dad was moving it around most of the time.
A door slammed close to us. I jumped but stayed calm.
"We should end the game," I said, knowing it was heading the wrong way. Lucy nodded and we ended the game. It was just then when I felt the temperature changed. It was so cold. We ignored it and put the board away and we heard footsteps coming from the hallway. I started shitting my pants.
"I'll check it out," Lucy said, as brave as she was. She got up and walked towards the footsteps. I stayed where I was, sitting on the floor. Too scared to move or look around.
After a few minutes, she still wasn't back. I got up, mainly because my ass started to hurt because of the hard floor. "Lucy?" I asked, low key scared. No answer.
"Lucy? Hello?" Yet again: no answer.
"Lucy I swear to god-" I stopped because I heard a scream. It was her, she was screaming.
I ran to the room that I heard the scream from. I opened the door and found her laying on the ground. She was passed out.
"Lucy!" I yelled and I checked her wrist for a heartbeat. Thank god she was alive. I tried to wake her up but it didn't work.
Okay, Lilith, I thought to myself, you need to get out now. I lifted up Lucy and walked downstairs. Somehow Lucy went upstairs. I picked up one bag, the one with the ghost stuff, and got out of the house. "Okay, Lucy, you better wake up now," I said even though I knew it wouldn't work. I heard more noises coming out of the house.
I got on my bike and somehow I managed to get to her house with her and a bag on my bike.
Her parents were asleep so I got to her room. I laid her down in bed and sat down in a chair. I didn't know what to do. My best friend was passed out and I didn't know why. I didn't know how to get her to wake up. I didn't know anything. I was freaking out.
But somehow I managed to fall asleep in that chair because I woke up in it. I don't remember falling asleep, but that is just something that happens. The 1st thing I did was look at the bed. Lucy was gone. I checked my phone and saw that it was 5 am. I frowned and got up. I noticed I was a little light-headed because I got up to quickly and closed my eyes.
After a while, I felt okay and went to check out where Lucy was. I can tell you that nothing was ever the same to me after that night. Looking for her, and even being in the same house as her, it felt like it was a mistake. Let me explain what happened.
"Lucy?" I whispered loudly while walking down the stairs. There was no reply.
"Lucy, where are you?"
Again: no answer. I got downstairs and heard noises from the kitchen. I took a deep breath and walked into the living room. Since there wasn't a wall between the kitchen and living room I could see her. The light was on and I froze the second I saw her.
Her eyes... They were pitch black.
"Lucy?" I said in confusion.
She froze and looked at me. Her eyes were normal again, "Oh, hey Lilith."
Her voice sounded weird. Almost like her Australian accent faded away a little. If you know what I mean?
"What are you doing here? It’s 5 am," I asked.
"I was thirsty," she walked towards me. "We should go upstairs now. We don't wanna wake up my parents, do we?"
That wasn't a thing she would normally say.
I got freaked out by it but stayed calm, "no we don't."
We got upstairs again and she got in her bed. I laid down on the ground. I didn't want to be close to her after what just happened. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.
After hours of lying awake, I heard her parents wake up. Thank god they were awake. I looked over at Lucy and saw her just standing on the bed looking towards the ceiling. My heart dropped. She was just staring at the ceiling even though nothing was there. She started to laugh and giggle like babies do when they get attention from their parents. I just looked at her, frozen because of what was happening.
After about a minute she kneeled down on the bed. She was mumbling something I didn't understand. It wasn't Dutch or English. I still don't know what she was saying to this day. After a few seconds, she just fell back and was asleep. I slowly got up, still terrified of what just happened, and walked towards the door. When I put my hand on the door handle I heard her gasp for air and waking up. I almost pissed myself and turned on the light switch that was next to me.
I looked at her. She looked at me, confused.
"W-what happened?" She asked me.
"I have no idea," I said, her parents now walking into the room.
"What happened?" Her dad asked while walking in.
"No idea," I said. I looked at my phone. It was 10 am.
"I should go home," I said. "My parents wanted me to be back early."
"Okay," her mom said. I packed my stuff and just got out of the house as soon as I could.
I didn't want to be around Lucy or even be in the same house as her anymore. I was so scared. I got home really quickly and went to my room right away. I locked the door and turned on my music. My parents must have been wondering what was going on because within seconds, there was a knock on my door. I opened the door and saw my dad.
"What's wrong sweetie?" He asked.
"Nothing," I said acting all chill. "I'm... Just tired."
He nodded and walked out again. I sat down on my bed, trying to figure out an explanation for everything that just went down. She could have been joking, but she is bad at acting. It looked so real... Almost like she was possessed. I got the chills. What if she really was possessed? I mean... I didn't know what the hell went down upstairs in that goddamn house.
My phone rang, I looked to see who was calling me. It was Lucy. I didn't know if I should pick up or not. It felt like my body was forcing me to pick up, so I did. I put my phone to my ear.
"Hello?" I asked quietly.
There was breathing on the other side of the line. It creeped me out.
"Lucy I swear to god stop doing that," I said.
The breathing got heavier.
"Lucy stop it. It's not funny. I hate this."
"I'm not Lucy," the voice whispered.
"How'd you get Lucy's phone? If you hurt her I swear to god-" They hung up. They fucking hung up on me. I needed to know if Lucy was okay, but I was too scared. I was too scared to go to her house and check in on her. I walked downstairs to my parents, who were in the living room.
"Lilith, what's wrong? You are so pale," my mom said in worry.
"Someone’s got Lucy's phone..." I took a deep breath, "... I need to know if she is okay."
"Do you want us to go to her house?" My dad asked.
I nodded, "Please."
And so they did. Waiting for them to come back was the longest 20 minutes of my entire life. I was sitting in my room, checking my phone every 5 seconds to see if Lucy was okay, or even if my parents were okay. When they finally came back I ran downstairs.
"Nothing is wrong with her," my mom said.
"What? And her phone?" I was confused. It wasn't Lucy speaking on the phone.
"She has her phone too," my dad said.
I freaked out again.
"You're probably just sleepy. Get some rest" my dad said.
I nodded and went upstairs. I laid down on my bed and tried to get some rest.
When I woke up I checked my phone. 20 messages from Lucy? I opened them up and got scared again. They were all in English, luckily.
Lucy: Lilith
Lucy: Sweet sleeping Lilith
Lucy: I see you, sleeping beauty
Lucy: Peter wants to say hi
Lucy: Peter is standing next to you
Lucy: Peter is feeling ignored
Lucy: Never ignore Peter
Lucy: Scratch, scratch, down your neck
Lucy: Scratch, scratch down your chest
Lucy: Scratch, scratch marks on you
Lucy: Peter is saying bye to you
Lucy: He is gone now
Lucy: He said I needed to tell you he said hi
Lucy: He hopes he can see you soon again
Lucy: Sweet little Lilith
Lucy: Sleepy sleepy Lilith
Lucy: 4...
Lucy: 3...
Lucy: 2...
Lucy: 1...
It didn't make sense at all. I got out of my bed and got changed. When I got changed I noticed 3 scratches from my neck to my belly button. I gasped. I softly went over them. How did this happen? I quickly put on a shirt because I was too scared.
I wasn't having it anymore. This was the last thing. I needed to cut Lucy out of my life. She was not good anymore. She texted me about someone scratching me and now I have scratches on my body. No, no, no. I don't want this. We should have NEVER gone to that house, and now I’ve finally found that out.
I wanted nothing to do anything with her anymore. I blocked her on everything and deleted her number.
She was out of my life for a few days. But then school came. I already skipped Monday and now it was Thursday. I biked to school like I always would, but now I was alone.
When I got to school I walked to my locker. I unlocked it with the key and grabbed my books. "Why are you ignoring me?" Someone asked. A voice I didn't want to hear ever again. Lucy's voice.
"I'm not ignoring you," I said while closing the locker.
"You blocked me on everything. What's wrong? Weren't we best friends?"
"You scare the hell out of me, okay. Leave me alone."
She gave me a confused look, "what do you mean?"
"The calls, the messages, what happened in the house and when we got to your place. It's all too much for me. I can't do this."
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Lilith."
I signed and just walked away.
I checked what classroom I need to be at and then walk towards it. The door was locked so I leaned against the wall waiting for the teacher to come to open the classroom. I couldn't be happier about the fact that she wasn't in my class.
That day, Lucy kept trying to talk to me but I ignored her and walked away every time she tried. I felt bad for her. But she was the one who scared me.
After a while Lucy kind of understood I didn't want anything to do with her anymore and she left me alone. But a break was coming up...
I thought I could go on the break without her and she would leave me alone forever but I was wrong.
A few weeks before the break began, my parents came to me and said that mine and Lucy's family are going on a vacation together. We were going to Spain. I normally would be so happy but I really didn't want to go.
The vacation would be for 2 weeks and, of course, our families would be spending a lot of time together. So there was no way out of this.
My parents didn't know I had stopped talking to Lucy. Her parents are close to mine and I didn't want to hurt them. They loved the friendship our families had together and it would break their heart if they found out I stopped talking to Lucy without a reason at all.
So, the day came and we drove towards the airport to fly to Spain. I wasn't excited at all. I tried to fake it to make my parents happy but I just didn't want to deal with Lucy. And there was a big chance that I would be staying in a room with her.
I was hoping that I wouldn’t have to share a room with her. But when we got to the hotel we found out they booked 3 rooms. One for her parents. One for my parents. And one for the two of us. I knew that asking if we could stay in different rooms wouldn't be an option. And switching with a parent wasn't an option either. So I just stayed quiet and got to the room.
I dropped off my suitcase and Lucy already claimed a bed. She laid down on it and stared at the ceiling. She had a frown on her face which meant that she was in her own thoughts. She always frowned when she thought about things.
I ignored her and got my bikini. I walked into the bathroom and got changed. When I walked out, Lucy was standing facing the door. I almost bumped into her and held in a scream. "Lucy! Don't do that!" I said angrily.
"Why are you ignoring me?" She asked. Her eyes looked emotionless.
"I don't want to be your friend anymore."
"Why?"
"Because you're scaring me."
"How? You never explained why to me."
"For example: standing in front of the door when I walked out. And the way you acted after you woke up when you fainted."
"How did I scare you? And you never told me I fainted?"
"Don't you think it's scary to wait for someone to walk out? And I thought you would know you fainted. Don't you remember anything from that night?"
She slowly shakes her head.
"Not even going there?" I ask with a frown.
"Well... I remember being in front of the house. But after that... It's a blur."
"Oh..." I thought for a second. "I mean I can tell you what I know...?"
"Please."
And so I told her what I knew, what happened. She turned pale after I was done.
"I don't remember anything," she says in a terrified whisper.
"I mean... It's creepy."
"I'm so sorry."
I sighed, "It's fine, I guess."
"I-I got to go," after that Lucy disappeared.
I just left for the beach and sunbathed. When I came back Lucy wasn't there and no one knew where she went. Yet her parents weren't worried about her, because she had done this lots of times before. Well in the past month at least.
The next morning came and there was still no sign of Lucy. Everyone started to get worried. Of course, they asked me if I knew why she left and I told them I didn't know anything.
Her parents went to look for her and asked around if people had seen her but had no success. When they came back her mom was in tears. She just wanted Lucy to come back.
At around 11 am Lucy randomly was in the room. Everyone was out looking for her and I was surprised to find her.
"Lucy, are you okay?" I asked.
She was sitting on the bed with her hands on her lap with perfect posture. She was staring at the wall. I couldn't see her face.
She ignored me so I asked her again.
She turned her head and gave me one of the creepiest smiles I've ever seen in my life. "I'm totally fine," she said. It was the same voice that she spoke in the night I found her at 5 am in the kitchen.
Chills filled my arms and I was terrified. I turned around to leave the room when I felt a hand grab my arm.
I turned around and saw Lucy. She tightened the grip on my arm which hurt me. So I said that she needed to let go of me and that she was hurting me.
Her smile on her face turned into a grin and she hurt me even more. I started to scream in pain.
My parent ran into the room and Lucy quickly let go of my arm. It was bright red. "You're mental!" I yelled at her. "Do you understand it now?! You're insane. Stop this! It's not fucking funny!"
My parents gave Lucy and me a confused look. My dad took my arm and frowned.
"Since when is Lucy back?" My mom asked.
"She was here when I entered the room," I told her.
"Did she do this?" My dad asked. I nodded slowly. I glared over at Lucy. She looked all innocent.
"Why didn't you tell us that Lucy was back?" My mom asked.
"I was about to tell you. But then Lucy grabbed my arm and started hurting me."
"Well, I'm going to her parents." My mom left the room.
When Lucy's parents came in we explained the whole situation and I ended up staying one night in my parents' room with them while Lucy stayed alone.
The next day we went to the beach. That day changed my life. What I have written out and told you was what I believed happened. What happened at the beach is still weird to me. Even though I know what actually happened now. It's weird to think about.
That day, a boy walked over to me. I never knew his name. He never told me. When he walked over to me he asked if I was Lilith. I told him I was and asked him how he knew my name. He said it didn't matter and started to tell me something about myself I didn't know. I still remember every word.
"I know this sounds weird, but you got I believe me. You're in a coma. You aren't in the real world. This is all on your head. You've been in a coma for 3 years now and the doctors are going to let you die in 3 days if you don't wake up. You need to kill Lucy. She needs to die in order for you to wake up. So please, do it. Listen to me."
Of course, I was confused so I told him, "You're not funny telling me this. You're weird. Who are you? Why do you know my friends? Leave me alone."
He grabbed me by my shoulders and shook them. He looked me into my eyes, "Please believe me. You can't die. I can answer all of your questions. You can ask me everything. If it makes you believe me."
I crossed my arms, "Oh... well... I have too many questions... why am I in a coma?"
"You and your parents went on a vacation to the Netherlands. It was the last day and you crossed the street without looking and a tram hit you. You were hurt badly. The damage was so bad that you went into a coma."
I frowned. It strangely made sense.
"But... why do I have to kill Lucy? And how do you know this?" I looked him into his eyes.
"Lucy is the part of you that wants you to die. And I know everything because I'm the part who wants you to live. And I know everything."
Everything about how he talked and acted was so truthful. He couldn't be lying.
"She wants me to die? Then why was she nice to me? And didn’t kill me already? You aren't making much sense with that."
He sighed softly, "Well she was nice to you to get your trust. She wanted you to trust her so she could get close to you. After gaining your trust, she leads you to the house to play the board. That whole scene was fake. It just made you realize she was bad. Now you can see her true colors. But you don't want to believe it, so her personalities are changing moods. Your mind didn't realize it earlier. Making sense now?"
I nodded slowly and confused, "Sadly, it does make sense"
My head started to hurt because of this whole mindfuck. "This is all so weird. So I'm dying in 3 days if I don't kill my own best friend? And what about my parents? What are they? Or her parents? Does everyone have a role?"
"Everyone does in their own small way. Your parents are the part that doesn't know you're in a coma. Her parents are the part that kind of know but are too confused to actually do something. And all those people at school are all the people you ever saw in real life. The people who used to talk to you are people you used to be friends with. And the only way you really can wake up is by killing her. You don't want to die, do you?"
I shook my head, "Of course, I don’t want to die. But is the location something important too? Or what?"
"You remember moving from America? It is your mind not realizing you went on a vacation to the Netherlands and thinking you live here now. You going to their high school? You should have gone to school the week after you came back and you were stressed out over it. You going to Spain? The next break you and your parents planned was a trip to Spain."
"So I really have to kill Lucy. How? I can't kill anyone ever in my life." I gave him a desperate look.
"You need to kill her. Only you can kill her. I can help you through it but I can't do it."
I sighed, "Okay. Well... when do I have to do it?"
"We can do it anytime. Even now."
My eyes got big, "Now?! Are we crazy! We're in public!"
"We're in your mind. This isn't real, remember. You're not actually killing someone."
I nodded slowly and took a deep breath, "Okay. Let's do it."
He smiled weakly. "Okay. Let's drown her. It's the easiest way."
"I am not drowning her. I can't do that."
"Okay. Wait here then. I'll get a knife." After those words, he walked away. I just stayed where I was and sat down in the sand. I rested my head on my hands and thought about everything that was going on. It's too much. Way too much. I was about to kill my own best friend.
After a few minutes, the boy came back with a knife. No one even looked at him as he passed people holding a big kitchen knife. He stopped in front of me and held out the knife for me. I took it and looked at the murder object in my hands. This really was about to happen...
I slowly got up and looked at the boy but he wasn't looking at me. I looked in the direction he was looking at and he was looking at Lucy. She was laying in the sand with her eyes closed.
I felt an arm on my shoulder and a second later the boy said close to my ear, "You better do it now. I'll come with you. I promise everything will be better after this."
I turned my head to look at him, "What if I don't wake up?"
"That's impossible."
I nodded. "Wait. I never asked you this... How do I know you?"
He smiled, "That will be clear soon. Now kill Her." He gave me a push into her direction so I decided to just walk towards her.
My eyes were only focused on Lucy.
I was next to her now, I looked at the boy and he gave me a nod.
I knelt beside her with the knife in one of my hands. I was shaking. "I'm so sorry for this Lucy," I said with a shaky voice. "I don't want to do this but I have to."
I raised the knife and pointed it down her chest. At that moment her eyes struck open. I quickly closed my eyes and stabbed her in her chest. I felt it go through her.
When I opened my eyes I almost fainted from what I saw. "Remove the knife. That way she will die quicker," the boy told me. I removed the knife and blood went everywhere.
I started to get more light headed every second and in the end, everything went black and I passed out.
I woke up in the hospital. The light was really bright and I heard a heartbeat, my heartbeat. It took a few blinks to get used to the light but soon enough I could keep my eyes open. I looked around and I was alone. My throat was burning and I was shaking. I heard my heartbeat rise. Did it work? Am I awake?
People ran into my room. It was a doctor. He went to check on me and then walked away saying he was getting a nurse and my parents.
My parents literally ran into the room. When they saw me they started to cry. "Thank God you are awake. We almost had to let you go," my mom said.
She sat down next to me and took my hand.
"Lucy," was all that could leave my mouth. My voice was soft and broken.
My dad gave me some water and my mom was frozen. "Did you just say 'Lucy'?" She asked after a while.
I nodded, "Yes. Is she okay?"
"She died when you were 7. She used to be your best friend. She died from cancer..."
I frowned. I didn't know this... "What about the boy? There was a boy."
"What boy? Lilith, what are you talking about?" My dad asked.
At that point, a nurse walked into the room.
"There was a boy. He told me how to wake up," I say.
"What did he look like?"
"I don't remember..."
My dad looked at my mom, "The only boy I can think of is... you know... him. Our miscarriage."
My mom started to tear up, "You met our little boy?"
"I- I don't know," I say. "Why did you guys never told me this?"
"Because it was too hard for us," my dad said.
The nurse came into the conversation to check on me more and ask me some boring questions.
So my parents' miscarriage apparently got into my mind and the same as my old best friend who died. One was my worst enemy and one was my savior.
After telling all of this I'm sure people don't want to believe me. But I swear to God, it's true. It’s all true.
submitted by JamesHisGuitar to cjades [link] [comments]


2018.08.28 02:39 KiqueDragoon I am getting it all out of the closet today because I have no money for a therapist TMI WARNING

Coming out has made me stronger and braver and a better person.
I've always been the meek little man in the corner. I'd stutter when talking to someone new, I hid all the things I liked because I was afraid of ridicule and I spent all of my youth trapped in the safety of my home around my family, I was happier than most, but also not as happy as I deserved to be.
My first contact with bullying came at the age of 6, when I started getting fat. Cue 7 long years of bullying and isolation. No real freinds, on 3 separate schools and grades people pretended to be my friends so they could get closer to me and then humiliate me. I was so used to being the object of everybody's laughter I still have a sort of aversion to laughter.
By the time I was 12 I mirrored some bad examples around me and started to tell homophobic and racist jokes in order to fit in. A desire to be like everybody else, even absorbing some of that hatred in my day to day life. These "Just Jokes" that "Don't mean anything" would have a huge part to play in my life. One of them was covert and took another 10 years to blow up in my face, the other was immediate. I became a racist teen. Mind you I never acted physically nor harassed other people with these beliefs, I kept to myself, I was shy after all, and my cowardice only allowed me to share this humor in specific places.
I made my first friend when I was 13 and that was a huge confidence boost. But I was not an easy person to befriend, remember i've been burned many times in the past and for a while he was my only true friend. Even after I moved this person has struggled to keep in touch with me no matter how far away I moved, or dodged him on the internet. But still, no confidence boost was enough to make me new friends, go to parties, talk to girls, or anything like that. I eventually called myself an assexual, I had no intention or desire to be with a girl, though I was still terrified of them. American cinema influenced me on that a bit.
When I turned 18 I spent some time alone, and I figured out I liked some stuff, I was educated out of my racist and homophobic beliefs but I still repeated some classics like "I don't have a problem if you're gay, just don't hit on me" (ironic to say the least) or "I have no problem with gays, but the effeminate ones though, ugh" God I want to punch old me in the face.
Anyways, I was spending a lot of time with myself and I discovered an unhealthy obsession with Disney Movies, a passion for musical cinema, a love for disco music and jazz too! (but I also was raised as a music snob, and that would take a while to get sorted out, I dismissed any pop diva as an untalented slut who relied on autotune and sex to sell) I became a more loving and caring person and people who my brothers would bring home started to gravitate towards me, calling me smart, sensitive, and a great listener. Being nice and genuine had been such a better strategy to make friends than being mean and nasty, and the people who were around these new circles were so much better and loving and caring too. I was on the right track.
Come my 20s, still a shut in though my brother's friends were now my friends too. But i never had made a friend on my own, just meeting people through family, and it took a while for my self loathing mind to allow me to realize they wanted to spend time with me too. But as the shut in that I was I discovered a community online of the most varied people, and I started to talk to them, just like I am talking to you now, it's so much easier behind a screen. I met them, I met people from all backgrounds, people with drug problems, rape victims, gay people, furries, and the nicest people you'll ever meet. They tought me so much of the world, and so much of life, that it felt like a waste to pretend to be somebody else irl. So I tried to loosen up. I quickly did my first "coming out" sharing some of my hobbies I deemed "shameful" and that was okay, it made me feel okay, it made me feel normal. It was a good sensation.
Then, I got to be great friends with 2 of these people, like, so much that we started chatting directly, out of this forum, though online we're all from different countries. They happened to be gay, and we were playing truth or dare, and I took this oportunity to make a lot of questions about being gay, and that dismissed so much of my internalized homophobia that a little door buried shut deep within my mind was suddenly unlocked. I was now aware that being gay was okay. By this time, I was 23 years old. I started to question my own sexuality, to dig out repressed memories of things I hid, people I found attractive, I took to the internet, watching porn (which I always hated) and now, after 10 years, I was reliving puberty. I who had no sex drive, was horny, I couldn't stop exploring and touching myself and over the process of a year, at the age of 24 I looked in the mirror and said "I'm Gay" it took 23 years to go even question my sexuality. 1 year to accept myself. And now I realize what was in the way. It was the passive aggressive cultural casual homophobia and micro agressions from day to day life. All of the faggot calling, gay shaming, "that's gay" comments. It made me afraid of me. Afraid to be that. SUBCONSCIOUSLY! And after that I started to live my life in the closet, testing the waters, I'd let slip something I liked that was particular and I deemed embarassing, like musical theatre, or a game, or a lgbt movie and so on. Little by little I was crawling out of the closet. And then I came out to my family, and now. I want to rid myself of all prejudice. I want to see everything with new eyes. I spent 23 years in hiding but no more, I spent 23 years thinking wether or not I should like something because of someone else would think of me but no more.
Now I everything I do I do like I was living a new life, a life that started when I came out. And now, remember all those repressed memories and opinions, I used to sing and dance around the coffee table when I was 3, I used to wear t-shirts as fake hair, I liked lady gaga but was afraid to admit it to myself because it was "inferior"
And now I can't stop listening to Carly Rae Jespen along with Edith Piáf and Ariana, and Lady gaga, and Beyoncé, and Billie Holiday, and Louis Prima, and Ella Fitzgerald and I smile more, I am more outgoing, I am losing weight so I can find my first boyfriend and hopefully lose my virginity (at the age of 25, so many good years gone ;-;) I am calling out casual racism and homophobia because I don't care anymore, I dance at home, I speak my mind, I am stronger, I am braver, I am better now that I love myself enough to have come out of the closet. This was a rant about casual discrimination and people who justify them as just jokes but it became a full blown mini biography rant because this has been trapped for too long. I needed to say this to anyone, and even if no one reads or replies, I'm glad I took this to the gay_bros because you were pivotal to my journey of self acceptance. Thank you so much. And if you happened to read this far. Thank you so much.
P.S. Forgive grammar and punctuation I don't feel like revising this Wall of text.
submitted by KiqueDragoon to gaybros [link] [comments]


2015.03.08 09:41 oGsBumder Setup for home music recording and mixing

I've been into recording my own music for a while now but I haven't had much money and I feel very limited by my current setup. Therefore I'll be looking to upgrade in the near future. I just have a couple of questions:
I'm a student so not wealthy but I will get a bursary soon. I want to keep the total cost down but still get good hardware. I'm also a gamer so I'll get a decent graphics card too but I know enough to choose one myself. Here's roughly what I'm thinking:
Some recommendations for the following would be appreciated:
One final question is regarding the software. I'm currently expecting I will get Cubase Artist since it seems to have everything I would need. What are your thoughts? And how about autotune software? My singing is not terrible but I feel a subtle (not noticeable) autotune would help me out quite a bit but I've no idea about whether this can be done in Cubase or would require another piece of software.
Many thanks to anyone who answers.
Edit: my current setup is an i7 860 over clocked to 3GHz, 8GB RAM, Samsung spinpoint f1 hard drives, some £50 Logitech speakers and a line 6 pod gx using Ableton Live Lite 7. The latter two are probably the biggest limiting factors in my current setup.
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