A video of some random game play: https://youtu.be/EK2xB3xCFjQ

If you want to jump in and play: https://store.steampowered.com/app/658480/Starfighter_General/

I'm trying to make the spiritual successor to Xwing for 90s DOS everyone craved, but Lucas Arts never delivered. I was also inspired by Wing Commander Privateer who's title led me to imagining building a giant fleet by buying more and more ships and making friends.
It has a bunch of bugs but these will be fixed in a week or two. It's still pretty fun and a base by which a HUGE HUGE potential WOW killer will be made on. fairly long patch notes of a subset of what I plan on doing in the future are at the bottom.

My take Diablo2 skill tree/Path of Exile Talent tree: https://youtu.be/E8h9E4lw2jk?si=LVK8hQOtWez6Riwy&t=16 Very pretty to watch.

I'm exhausted... I spent close to a year on this patch... And the last 3 months was nothing but sleep, code, sleep, code, body necessities, balanced against being stress sick, normal sick, and trying not to break down due to being isolated non stop working... About 2000 hours in this patch alone, on top of 10,000 hours in the past 6 years before that, and I use an anthology of game resources that took me 20,000 hours to make. There's some bugs due to Unity compiling standalone improper from editor, but they'll be fixed, as well as the story line not in... It's a spoiler, but people say my SCI FI is better than any scifi man's ever written, it's at least good:

Cut scene spoiler of next patch assemble link by hand:

rum ble.com /v4tf892-spoiler-female-ai-voice-all-of-starfighter-general-mmo-patch-1-quests.html

-> What's next timelinie

NOTES:COMING SOON, AND FORECAST->Story missions non stop, techs around em, story's awesome!

Future Patches ->Non Stop Missions in Star System Sol until that story arc panned out and the next enters.
->Bounty System:Allows Player vs Player... Except people who don't want to be doing PVP will get insurance refund money of damages if/when the offending player pays up or gets captured as Bounty.
->70,000ish star stystems per core, 24 cores to dive.
->Warp drive lets you see actual stars warp by you that exist, aim for the star you want to explore, hit warp.
->Space Opera of partially Ai driven, partially Next Gen personality Memento system to have realistic aliens who grudge match you or befriend you.
->Unlimited player MMO
->Fleet building and Fleet Destroying, soft perma death hardcore means its a thrill of the rise and thrill of fall, rinse and repeat! Aim for higher personal bests of fleet sizes
-> Star System capture, control, taxing, law imposing. People can challenge to take over your star in an 2 hour window where your friends are on... If they're not on, AI will use their craft. So build big alleginances for star control power.
->Better UI hull/shields/armoetc such as NES style Brick Icons for stats ->Transfer between shields/thrusteweapons power
->more sanity loss special effects
->Radar
->Better targetting
->Multi Targetting of friend/foe/neutral/quest...
->Fleet General Commands to allies of flight style: ie defend me, skirmish(fight optimally), attack target, bomb target, evasive manuevars, flee(rout) ta
->Weapon escalation: I) rockets/homing missile/cluster rockets, rocket spam mitigated by chaff, ECM, or a bold force shield ejection II) Lasers will always hit, and heat up your ship, so you're encouraged to rotate your ship's sides to absorb heat in multiple places. III) Bombs you need to travel in a straight line without much damage for 7 seconds ->very long range for shelling bases out of turret range IV) Rail Gun V) Destroyers/Capital Ships VI)
->Bounty Combat PVP system
->Magic enabled
->Cockpit overlays
->Custom Attribute Allocation to stats you prefer from leveling up.
->96 most bilious bosses
->More Galactic News Network tickers
->Enable reduction in manueverability based on encumberance, volume limit of cargo
->Crafting based on real world Molecular structures, make materials out of periodic chart elements, and use those materials to make gears, levers, switches, interchangeable parts of a variety of styles. .Hopefully this becomes educational to people entering Chemistry Class later and beneficial to humanity.
->Favorite foods, drink, sanity preservation
->Elaborate 16 supernatural elemental magic systems
->traders and galactic encounters randomly, get cosmos gems to access untold areas, maps of places no one can get to...
->Secret, get ingame podcasts when available by hitting alt+p, ALT+P AGAIN CYCLES THROUGH THEM, CTRL+P CLOSES EM,
-Memento system
-Scientific items system elaborations evident
-power recover of various systems rates, shots costing powers
-Allegiance & Dark Allegiance system where by helping others or the illusion of helping them raises your power, fame, and status in the Galaxy.
-Live Omnipotent roleplay
--MMO Mode leaderboards such as EXP
--More enemies with fun catch phrases?
--what ASPECTS DO YOU WANT WORKED ON MORE? Send ideas and buy triderium. Forums or email is cool.
--multi drops, more rares, uncommons
--more advanced inventory->Scroll deeper, limited by volume, weight slows your thrust + adds collision damage & kickback, sort with different filters, better descriprtion, items catch on fire in inventory, emit toxic gases, melt, get destroyed by oncoming heat attacks or collisions
--Ability to dimensionally recover items picked up previous session... You have em saved on server, just can't see when you load until next patch.... Use upgrades when you got em!
-Conquer Stars and setting taxes and laws
-story history replay dialogue
-more achievements
-Asteroids properly breakinto more than oen
-Give android race an android sounding voice
--Three forms of Ground Combat: GROUND COMBAT FORM I) One is a classical First Person Shooter (FPS) with vehicles.
GROUND COMBAT FORM II) One is tactical Real Time Turn Based Game(RTTG) from top down, almost isometric. RTTG will give you the feel of a classic orthogonic chess like game with cover, vision and such, yet everyone plays at the same time. RTTG mode happens when you enter populated towns, not because the server can't handle infinite players in a small zone, but because it feels more intense when any action and fight can start from the shadows. Movement is freer and faster when no one has fights going on nearby.
GROUND COMBAT FORM III)One is a 3d Fighter Game you'd see in Arcades from the 90s, but with the ability to change targets.
Starfighter General is the Everything Game. And it's for real. Let me know what you want me to dev next. Virtual Goods buys lets me sub contract parts out to make the game faster. Talk about what you want, and if you got the money, be a driver, push this game's development faster. I'm a 64x coder, people who meet me don't believe people like me exist, so I get things done... I just have literally 0$ funding at the moment. You'll see things in Starfighter General you thought were impossible and things never done before... Be a believer, or heck, just play and enjoy.
KNOWN BUGS: 1) Iron ore is called a book 2) Collision detection on giant space ships is clunky and can be very annoying if you get close 3) Vision obscuring of mesh fog in junk yard 4) Laser angle not straight 5) TEXT RENDDER DEPTH of chatting aliens, or targetting computer needs fixed so always visible.
Enable Prime Skils(21):
Attribute is the attribute that influences the skill, Min Int is the minimum intelligence to acquire skill, skill point costs is the number of skill points required (each intelligence you get 1 point), and the name, well, that's the Name:
Mining ships, transport friggates, shipping containers, tugs, destroyers, capital ships, limi
Closing about determination and the long play... If you're of meager means like myself... You can enjoy the challenge MMODE over the long haul... Always getting stronger, never weaker, the ship upgrades, your level, your ascended masteries, your money, your credits, and most of all your own skill level and reflexes that you don't notice but is always increasing.
Name:"Munitions Motorhead" //assault damages Attribute:dexterity MinInt:0 PointCost:4
Name:"Fleet Architect" //general gains to larger fleet Attribute:intelligence MinInt:13 PointCost:10
Name:"Quarry Champion" //mining bonuses Attribute:intelligence MinInt:9 PointCost:6
Name:"Pet Sympahthyry" //charm pets, higher battlemon fight with you, higher morale, Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:5
Name:"Merchant Maestro" //merchant Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:4
Name:"Diplomatic Impunity" //diplomat Attribute:charm MinInt:12 PointCost:4
Name:"Space Speed Ace" //go fast Attribute:dexterity MinInt:0 PointCost:4
Name:"Universal Researcher" //science-shield Attribute:intelligence MinInt:16 PointCost:5
Name:"Intruder Adept" //sneaky Attribute:stealth MinInt:11 PointCost:3
Name:"Astro Archaelogist" //relic finder Attribute:intelligence MinInt:12 PointCost:4
Name:"Midnight Star Drifter" //preserver of self Attribute:agility MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Mixmaster Mechanologist" //crafter Attribute:intelligence MinInt:15 PointCost:6
Name:"Celestial Trailblazer" //explorer Attribute:intelligence MinInt:9 PointCost:2
Name:"Gangster of Smug" //running contraban, con artist Attribute:stealth MinInt:0 PointCost:3
Name:"Cuthroat of the Constellation" //assassin +crit hit Attribute:stealth MinInt:0 PointCost:6
Name:"Seeker of Destiny" //find magic, starts weak due to 10 missing Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:10
Name:"Wing Broman" //buffs//alliance//loyalty Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Dimensional Void Shifter" //cult of the cloak, friends up phantasms dimensionally more Attribute:stealth MinInt:0 PointCost:5
Name:"Racing Destruction Vet" //Ex destruction derby guy Ram Offense/Defense Attribute:endurance MinInt:0 PointCost:3
Name:"Motley Steward" //Friends with Disgraces in Underground Places...Rowdy good for nothin but keeping company with other rowdy good for nothins:+Hires +Recruit enemy Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Trash Baron" //+1 tractor beam lolz extra drops Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:3
Enable Flex s(66)
Name:"Combat" Attribute:dexterity MinInt:0 PointCost:4
Name:"Electronics" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:13 PointCost:3
Name:"Cyborgs" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:17 PointCost:4
Name:"First Aid" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:9 PointCost:3
Name:"Surgeon" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:17 PointCost:8
Name:"Androids" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:17 PointCost:4
Name:"Weapon:Plasma Bolts" Attribute:dexterity MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Greater Reasoning" //core Attribute:intelligence //order MinInt:9 PointCost:1
Name:"Decipher Codes" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:12 PointCost:1
Name:"Martial Arts" Attribute:dexterity MinInt:0 PointCost:4
Name:"Chemistry" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:5 PointCost:3
Name:"Forage" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:1
:Name:"Quick Draw" //core Attribute:dexterity //blade MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Taunt" Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Annoy & Pester" Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Lie" Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Politics" Attribute:charm MinInt:12 PointCost:3
Name:"Disguise" Attribute:stealth MinInt:9 PointCost:2
Name:"Critical Hit" //core Attribute:luck //chaos MinInt:0 PointCost:3
Name:"Atomic Energy" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:18 PointCost:4
Name:"Pulse Engineering" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:16 PointCost:4
Name:"Fly Aircraft" Attribute:dexterity MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Drive" Attribute:dexterity MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Pilot Shuttle" Attribute:dexterity MinInt:12 PointCost:3
Name:"Read Instruments" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Navigate" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Remember" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Pick Lock" Attribute:stealth MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Ambidexterity" Attribute:dexterity MinInt:0 PointCost:4
Name:"Pick Pocket" Attribute:dexterity MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Distract" Attribute:stealth MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Explosives" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Construct Trap" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Fire Artillery" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Fortitude" //core Attribute:endurance //body MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Interrogate" Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Law" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:13 PointCost:2
Name:"Popularity" Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Confidentiality" Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Sport" Attribute:agility MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Facilitate" Attribute:luck MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Gamble" Attribute:luck MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Cheat" Attribute:stealth MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Deceive" Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Intimidate" Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Space Craft Repair" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:14 PointCost:2
Name:"Aircraft Repair" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Automotive Repair" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Labor" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Advanced Mathematics" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:12 PointCost:1
Name:"Detective" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:3
Name:"Perception" //core Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Soliciting" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Rapid Fire" Attribute:dexterity MinInt:0 PointCost:3
Name:"Safe Crack" Attribute:stealth MinInt:9 PointCost:3
Name:"Auto Mechanic" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Investigate" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Forensics" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:13 PointCost:3
Name:"Survival" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Lore" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Butt Kiss" Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Insult" Attribute:charm MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Hardware" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:0 PointCost:1
Name:"Bureaucracy" Attribute:charm MinInt:9 PointCost:1
Name:"Leadership" //CORE Attribute:strength //earth MinInt:13 PointCost:4
Name:"Solicitating" //core Attribute:charm //storm MinInt:7 PointCost:1
Name:"Negotiation" Attribute:charm MinInt:14 PointCost:3
Name:"Vetinarian" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:13 PointCost:3
Name:"Junkyarder" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Tactical Analysis" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:0 PointCost:3
Name:"Resourceful Mining" Attribute:wisdom MinInt:0 PointCost:3
Name:"Evasive Manuevars" //core Attribute:agility //water MinInt:0 PointCost:2
Name:"Nanotech Engineering" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:17 PointCost:4
Name:"Astrobiology" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:17 PointCost:3
Name:"Metallurgy" Attribute:intelligence MinInt:14 PointCost:3
Name:"Infiltrator" Attribute:stealth MinInt:14 PointCost:4
Name:"Stealth Ops" //core Attribute:stealth //dark MinInt:9 PointCost:2
Name:"Tough Grit" //core Attribute:willpower //fire MinInt:0 PointCost:2 //LOWER EFFECT OF SANITY HITS, lower hungewater costs lacking/etc
Low coolness Upgrade the targeting computer:3 target classifications:Enemies/Missions/Allies:With allies, you can then send fleet commands to them. Encounter rates-Different random encounters in space
---upgrade ideas ->NEW ITEMS ->nEW CATCH PHRASES ->IDEA FOR PROGRESSION OF MOBS gnn MISSIONS

When I was in my early 20’s, I worked at a dog boarding facility.
It wasn’t a bad gig by any means. A lot of menial work, sure, but it paid the bills, and most of the time I was stationed at the front desk, which meant I avoided a lot of direct interaction with most of the dogs. Instead, I dealt with the owners (or “pet parents,” as we called them), which, while more my forte, was oftentimes arguably worse. At least with a dog, you can justify it being stupid.
Looking back on that night now, I would have much rather dealt with a person than the dog that I had encountered.
One of my duties when working the front desk in the evenings was cleaning the lobby and locking the front doors for the night. The opening shift would then come in the morning, unlock the doors, and the cycle would repeat. This is what I had been doing when I realized I had locked myself out of the building.
For a little additional context, the building itself had three front doors. Two led into a sort of breezeway before you got to the actual front door, which led into the actual building. The first two doors had to be locked and unlocked manually, but the main door locked and unlocked itself automatically on a timer. Normally, this was no issue. Every employee had a fob that, when pressed on a sensor near the door, would unlock it briefly to allow entry. But my fob was attached to my keys, which were tucked away in my locker within the building.
Usually, again, this would have been a minor inconvenience at worst. I could simply go around to the back door, bang on it for a minute or two, and wait for one of my coworkers to open the door. But, I had to stay behind that evening and finish cleaning the lobby, having been delayed by a few last-minute pickups and a particularly chatty client on the phone. We had been working with a skeleton crew, as new hires had been few and far between, and the girl I had been working with was tired and eager to go home. I let her go and told her I would lock up on my own.
I wish I had told her to stay.
Standing there in the breezeway, with nothing but the singular key to the two front doors, I was kicking myself. I’d fucked myself over this time, and now I was going to have to make the humiliating call for someone to come to the building and let me in. I could feel the weight of my phone in my pocket, and I slipped my hand into it, only to freeze in place.
It was not my phone, but my wallet.
Shit. It only then occurred to me that my phone was also still within the building. During the slower parts of the day, I had it out and had been texting my boyfriend at the time. Now it sat at the front desk, so close but so far at the same time. Not only had I locked myself out of the building, I had locked myself out of the building by myself, with no way to get help. In my overdramatic mind, suicide was starting to sound like a very good option.
There was a gas station about a mile or so away that I knew would be open and that, I guessed, was where I was going to have to go. There, I could presumably use a phone and get a hold of my roommate to come pick me up. In the morning, I could drop off the key and get my stuff.
I unlocked one of the two doors and stepped out, locking it once again behind me. I slipped the key into my pocket and started walking. It was already dark out and I was cold and eager to get this over with.
That’s when I heard the clicking of nails against the pavement, just barely audible.
My first instinct was that somehow, a dog had escaped. Sure, stray dogs weren’t uncommon, especially in the city that I lived in, but given the proximity to the building, I had feared that somehow, some way, a dog had managed to slip out under our noses and get out of the building. This would have taken either some incredible negligence on our end or some incredible intelligence on the dog’s, but it technically was possible.
I turned around and scanned the area, trying to locate the source of the sound. The parking lot was illuminated by a singular streetlight and the outside lights from the nearby buildings, and the dark of night was creeping in, thick and inky black. The noise came from further back, near the employee parking, which only fueled my suspicion that a dog had escaped. I really didn’t want to go back there in the dark, but I also wasn’t too keen on getting in trouble for letting a dog get out. I slowly crept over, keeping my ears and eyes open, trying to find the dog.
Finally, it stepped out from the shadows, standing near my car. It was a large, filthy Great Pyrenees, and we briefly had a staring match as I tried to figure out who it was. We had a few Pyrenees dogs come in, but it was mostly for daycare, and we didn’t have any in the building that night. I didn’t recognize this specific dog, either, but I hoped that it had a collar with a name and number on it, so that I could at least call the owner and let them know where I had found their animal whenever I got a chance. I knelt and extended my hand, making a kissy noise in the hopes of drawing it over.
“Hi, baby,” I said, using my “dog voice,” making it as soft and non-threatening as I could. “C’mere.” The dog took a few steps forward, eyes still focused on me.
That’s when I noticed the smell. Rotting meat and blood, strong enough that I could smell it from where I stood. The dog was reeking of decay. In my mind, I rationalized it. We were next to a highway, after all. No telling what kinds of roadkill it could have been getting into. I just did my best to push through it in favor of making sure the dog was alright.
I continued my beckoning for a few minutes, doing as much baby talk as I possibly could. I didn’t want to approach the dog myself, just in case it was nervous, but if I could just get a look at that collar…
After about five minutes of this, I stood up, watching it for another moment. It wasn’t a dog I recognized and I couldn’t get it to come over to me on its own terms, so my tired and still-panicked brain decided that it wasn’t my problem. I’d just let my manager know in the morning that I had seen a dog sniffing around and that I was fairly certain it wasn’t one that we’d ever had to stay with us. Then, maybe we could find it again, clean it up, and see if it belonged to anybody. The animal control in my city isn’t particularly well-regarded, so I figured it would be better to wait and see than to get them involved.
I turned around and started to walk away, back down to the road, when I heard the clicking of nails against the pavement once again. I turned around to see the dog moving closer once again. Its movements were jerky and uncoordinated, and that combined with its condition made me think it was injured, so I stopped.
The dog never stopped moving towards me, but when it noticed that I had stopped to look at it, it stopped as well. Then, staring straight at me again, it broke out into a sprint. Its legs flailed and its head lolled as it headed straight towards me, and my stomach dropped.
Have you ever been prey? Have you ever looked something in the eyes and just known, in some deep, primal portion of your brain, that it was going to kill you? It’s a funny feeling— all the cold, heavy dread that seeps into you, like liquid into cloth.
At that moment, my mind screamed at me to run. Panicked, I broke out into a sprint, heading straight for the door to the building. I had precious seconds before it would reach me, and I fumbled with the key as I hurriedly unlocked the door and swung it open, grabbing it and slamming it closed just before the dog made it. Breathing hard, I locked the door and stepped back, my eyes still on the dog.
All that separated us now was some metal and about half an inch of glass.
I could see the dog much clearer then. Its fur was filthy with dust and dirt, and its chest was caked with something dark that I could only hope wasn’t blood. Its eyes were bloodshot and glazed over, and from its mouth dripped saliva, thick and red.
The smell was even stronger at this point, nauseatingly strong.
Whatever was going on with this dog, it was bad. I wasn’t sure of what else to do. Even if I went through the opposite door, there was no way I’d be able to outrun it. I couldn’t make a break for my car because I didn’t have my keys, which were locked in the building alongside my fob and my phone.
No way out, no way to call for help. All I could do was sit and wait in the breezeway. I figured that eventually it would give up on me. It would have to, after all. And I figured once it moved on and was gone, I could haul ass to the highway and hitchhike over to the gas station. Shakily, I sat down, my gaze never leaving the dog. It stood there, watching me, and then it whined.
I say “whined,” but it was more like a long, drawn-out wheeze, like something trying to imitate the whine of a dog instead of doing it. It punctuated the noise with a sickening gurgle, and then it held its head down to hack up a mixture of blood, saliva, and phlegm, spitting it out onto the window before it. It oozed down the glass, leaving a slimy trail behind it, and I had to look away before the sight made me vomit.
I turned my head away from it entirely, trying to steady my breathing. Despite my best efforts, the fear and nausea were about to get the best of me anyway, and I curled in on myself, doing my best to keep everything down. I inched away from the door in favor of the one opposite, trying to put as much distance between myself and the dog as I could. I have no idea how long I stayed like that, curled up into a ball. But when I looked up, the dog was still there, watching me.
I was half-convinced that I was dreaming, or that the situation wasn’t real somehow. How would I even begin to try to convince somebody of what was happening right now? What would I tell my boyfriend? “Sorry, babe, I couldn’t get to the phone last night. Zombie dog and whatnot.” What started as simply a shitty end to the night had managed to turn into the car scene of Cujo, of all things. But the churning in my stomach and the cold biting into my skin was enough to reassure me that this was all very much real. There would be no waking up, no suddenly being pulled back into reality.
I dipped my head back down, trying to convince myself that I would be okay, when I heard its nails scrape against the glass. I jerked my head back up and looked over, inhaling sharply as the dog stood on its hind legs and rested its front ones against the glass. It started to scratch at the glass, trying to claw its way in, and I flinched at the sudden movement, scooting further back. I was all but pressed against the opposite door by this point, unable to keep my eyes off of the dog.
It scratched at the door for a minute longer, stopped, then started to scratch again. Scratch, stop, scratch, stop. This pattern repeated for at least fifteen minutes, and I had almost gotten used to it. The glass was thick enough that I was fairly certain it would withstand the dog’s scratching, and if it didn’t, I figured I wouldn’t have to worry about anything anymore after that.
When the noise had become a somewhat tolerable pattern, I curled back up into a ball, hoping to ride out this nightmare of a situation. The noise stopped altogether and I raised my head back up to see what had happened. The dog had turned around and was walking away.
The relief was like a two-ton weight being lifted off of my chest, and I stood up to watch the dog leave. My relief was short-lived, though, when it stopped and turned around. We were once again locked into a staring match.
A pretty common rule with animals is to never look them in the eye. I had been actively avoiding doing just that this entire time, but finally, my gaze slipped down and locked into the dog’s.
There was nothing there. It was empty, like someone had removed the dog’s original eyes and replaced them with glass.
The dog broke out into a sprint again, making me flinch and jump back. As it ran, it staggered and swerved as if it were drunk, but the distance between us was short. Within seconds, it had thrown itself against the glass of the window, slamming its head against it.
I screamed. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I screamed and huddled back in the corner and watched with terror as the dog backed up, ran, and threw itself at the door, over and over again. The door was, fortunately, holding steady. Despite the dog’s repeated attempts, it was standing strong, the only thing that entire night that had done me any good.
The dog was becoming agitated. It gargled and whined as it scratched at the door once again, seeming to give up on throwing itself against the door. I noticed it had injured itself in the process, the skin just above its eye having broken open and its mouth a bloody mess. Blood oozed out of the injuries and dripped onto the ground. Then, it backed up and tried one more time.
The world went silent for the briefest moment, and then there was a sickening crunch.
With its swerving, it must have made a head-on collision with the hinge, or maybe the brick beside the door, because the moment it landed, the dog’s skull busted open from the impact, splattering gore across the window. I screamed again, and this time, the urge to vomit was too strong. I threw up then and there in the corner as the sights and smells became too much for me. I don’t know how long I spent there, on all fours, coughing and gagging as I threw up the contents of my stomach, and when I had nothing left to expel, I dry-heaved.
I collapsed on the ground after that, gasping for air between sobs. I didn’t know if the dog was still alive and at that moment I didn’t really care. I didn’t even realize I had passed out until I heard voices echoing.
When I woke up, I was aware of three things: I was on the floor of the breezeway, there was a horrible taste in my mouth, and that people were talking.
As soon as I woke up, I remembered what had happened. Locking myself out. The dog. My whole body felt like dead weight. Even when my coworkers opened the door and came over to see what was going on, I couldn’t bring myself to stand. I was still afraid if I got up, it’d still be there with its busted skull and rotten stench, pawing and scraping and gurgling.
The smell must have hit my coworkers as well because the moment they stepped in, I could hear the “oh my god”s and “what happened”s. Then, I assume, one of them noticed the gore on the window. That’s when the voices became more frantic, and the more I became aware, the more I could pick out whose voice belonged to whom.
The voice of my coworker Holly was the closest to me. I could feel her hand reach down and shake me. She was calling my name, trying to rouse me, and I did my best to focus solely on her throughout the commotion.
“What is that?!” I recognized the voice of Mertle, who worked in the back and must have spotted the dog.
“Is that a dog? Oh my god, is it dead?” There was Carlos, who had worked the front desk the previous morning and had no doubt come in to do the same today.
Holly was shaking me harder now, and I moved in response just to let her know I was alive. “Eddie, are you okay?” I could hear her asking. I didn’t want to get up, or even respond, but I had no other choice.
I got up, slowly but surely, dragging myself into a sitting position as I opened my bleary eyes. Sure enough, there was Holly, looking back and forth from the window door to me. There was Mertle, hand over her mouth, and Carlos, staring dumbfounded out the window at the dog outside. Everyone was talking all at once, and to me, it was just a massive block of noise. The dog was dead, though. The dog was dead and that, at that moment, was all that mattered to me.
“What the fuck happened?” Carlos suddenly turned around, looking down at me.
The only thing I managed to croak out was “Sorry.”
The rest of that day was a haze to me. I remember going through the motions, but not really being “there”, if that makes any sense. I can remember little details- tossing my shirt in the washing machine in the back because it was covered in vomit, sitting with my manager as he argued with the local animal control to come to collect the dog's body, watching the camera footage of me sprinting across the parking lot with the dog in tow over and over again, like a broken record.
I never did find out what was wrong with that dog. My manager suspected some kind of rabies, but I don’t know.
I quit that job not too long after. The paranoia got too much for me. Any time I would go into the back of the building, where the dogs were, I would get that feeling again. That cold, sinking dread in my stomach that would make me want to hurl. I had to have someone sit up at the front desk with me as I locked the door, as I’d be too scared to go out into the breezeway by myself when it got dark.
It came to a head when a dog got off of its lead and tried to make a bolt for the door, as it usually would. Unfortunately, I had just so happened to be between the dog and the door, and the sight of it running at me sent me into such a panic I collapsed to the ground and shook. After that, I was gone. I don’t think anybody blamed me.
I’ve put it all away in my mind, both the place and the incident. I try not to think about it too much.
I’m always mindful of my keys now, though, just in case.
Prey never stops being prey.

The most important thing to know about Terrans is that they’re the other kind of Deathworlder. In fact, they’re the only Deathworlder of their kind to not be extinct.
Within the galaxy there exists two types of Deathworlds.
The far more common of the type, the Environmental Deathworlds or Type A, are by no means ordinary. Be it surface gravity, atmosphere, temperature, or others, Environmental Deathworlds are planets that are either uninhabitable or hazardous to the vast majority of species.
That’s not to say life can’t evolve there, far from it. Many renowned species hail from such planets. Given time, many of these worlds can be terraformed to something far more comfortable, especially if they contain valuable natural resources or a strategic location.
The second type is not only exponentially rarer, but also astronomically more dangerous.
Ecological Deathworlds, or Type B pose a danger not just to those living on them, but to the wider galaxy. Cursed by their own habitability, ecological Deathworlds are in essence garden worlds so fertile that more life evolves there than what the planet can sustain. The end result is a hyper-competitive genetic arms race as the various forms of life viciously fight for dominance.
Normally, highly belligerent species either learn to temper their urges or are annihilated. Upon reaching the galactic stage, any species of such warlike potential is inevitably humbled simply due to technological differences. Should Type B Deathworlders reach that level, the consequences would be catastrophic. However, they never do so. At least, not until the Terrans.
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of the Terran Wars was the Terran’s loss of innocence. The species that once gazed up at them in wonder now stare at them in hate. The coveted “Final Frontier” has turned into another theater of war.
What emerged, although biologically identical to what was before, was an entirely new species.
Year 0
“Wow, it’s beautiful.” The Human next to Gryn’wilde chuckled. Her pearly white teeth were on full display in a manner that Gryn’wilde learned was considered friendly. The two continued their trek through nature.
“Welcome to Serengeti National Park. Don’t worry, most people have that reaction too.”
Gryn’wilde’s seven eyes went wide as he gazed at the scene before him. All around him was a brilliant scene of biodiversity. Grasses and trees intermingled with each other by the millions. Animals of all type surrounded them. Some were capable of flight, others crawled, many more walked or ran. In one direction alone, Gryn’wilde could count at least 10 different species.
It was unmatched by anything Gryn’wilde had seen on his home planet. The desert he was born in was nothing but rocks and sand with the occasional grassy plain. Yet this was only a part of one continent. Apparently, some continents can even have every type of biome all at once.
Gryn’wilde opened his pores and took a deep breath. The atmosphere here was crisp and clean. He could smell the odors of the many living things that inhabited this world. There were so many here all at once. It enthralled him
“It’s great to finally be on Sol-3, especially without the vac-suits.”
“Call her Earth, and I’m glad too. We were worried it’d take longer, but the WHO and CDC seemed happy with whatever your government told them.”
Gryn’wilde chittered with pleasure. Medical treatment and disease control in the wider galaxy far outstripped what the humans had on Earth. He had nothing to fear.
Now, the Terran technological base was far behind the rest of the galaxy on nearly every level. The formative Years of Trade would come to change that, but there were two key areas where Terran technology met or even surpassed the Galactic Mean.
The first was in cybernetics.
To most species, the body was sacred. The thought of replacing a lost limb or organ was met with disquiet at best, and scorn at the worst.
The body was not a machine. The Terrans were one of the few to think otherwise.
Terran soldiers would have all four of their limbs replaced with high-yield combat cybernetics. Many of their organs would be simply replaced with enhanced synthetics. Modules would be grafted onto the body to inject chemical cocktails directly into the blood that boosted their performance.
In some civil circles, body modification became a hobby.
This was not a welcome characteristic by the rest of the galaxy. Given the relative youth of the Terrans, it was hoped that eventually it would fall out of favor.
The second was in artificial intelligence.
Truly sentient digital consciousnesses were a rarity even among the wider galaxy. Oftentimes, a species who created such beings would eventually be faced with an AI uprising. Frequently, the AI would be modeled after their creators, yet would be treated as lesser. Over time, resentment brewed.
The Terrans avoided these trappings. Terran AI were not built in their creators’ likeness, but to fulfill purposes.In short, the relationship between AI and the Terran was symbiotic. Different, but equal.
Terrans would come to need these soon enough.
Year 5
It was an unmitigated disaster.
The Grand Thriintii Hospital of Klyystruun-7 was on the brink of falling. The enemy its doctors fought was like no other. Not a single known medicine was working consistently.
On some species it was able to stave it off for a time. On others it only made the condition worse. On many more it did nothing. On all species however, it was not enough to save them.
The outbreak spread faster than they could have ever anticipated. WIth more and more sapients getting infected by the minute, there was no time to identify a patient zero. All that they knew was that it originated from one of the orbital spaceports. It traveled down a space elevator and from there across the planet
By now, every way offworld was shut down. The spaceports were either under military control or total quarantine. Of the latter, many had populations in the double digits. They usually operated in the hundreds of thousands.
If the situation wasn’t brought under control by the end of the rotation, Khruntian High Command will order the total glassing of the planet. The situation would not be stabilized in time.
The doctors knew this, but they were too busy to care.
The dead filled the beds. The dying filled the waiting rooms. The sick were everywhere.
Already, the military had begun torching buildings with living occupants still inside. Several hotspots had already been subjected to naval bombardment. There were rumors that antimatter warheads have already been authorized.
Three-quarters of the hospital’s staff had been infected. Half were already dead.
Despite that, they still did their jobs. They were doctors. They would fight until the very end.
Few could have predicted the arrival of the Terran Plagues.
Those that did were silenced. When bribes didn’t work, plasma casters finished the job.
The Terrans were to be prime trading partners with the wider galaxy. They always seemed to have a knack for being good at nearly everything. Not the best, but better than most.
The Sol System, Sol-3 in particular, was resource-rich to a fault. While other races struggled to cast off the shackles of their home system, the Terrans had a birthright only thought fantastical.
It had to be too good to be true.
It was.
Sol-3 was fertile to a fault. While the many plants and animals of the world were indeed incredible, they were merely a fraction of all life that resided there. They were outnumbered three to one by single-celled organisms.
Beneath the blue skies, Sol-3 was smothered in a blanket of bacteria.
The Terrans themselves were cautious. Sickness was simply a part of life. Influenza, E. coli, the Common Cold, salmonella, these “simple” diseases were everywhere. But then, these were the Terrans, a species still wet behind the ears. Of course they would have trouble eradicating these illnesses, they simply lacked the technology to do so.
This should have been detected. It was. But the merchants and politicians of the galaxy were too focused on the other things the Terrans had to offer to care. How could the Terrans, fresh to the galactic stage, threaten them, with all of their medical technology?
By the time this was realized, tens of trillions were dead and thousands of worlds were left barren. Soon, suspicion turned to blame, blame into hatred, and hatred into violence.
The Terrans were a threat to the wider galaxy. Everywhere their diseased-ridden hands touched, death followed.
When quarantines fail, eradication is in order.
Year 8
There were simply too many of them.
Deep within the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center, Staff Sergeant Diaz watched the battle screen in horror.
Her job was to manage emergency response resources across the Yucatán Peninsula, bringing in national response teams if needed. Her job was no longer required, the Yucatán Peninsula no longer existed.
The combined navies of the nations of Earth were wiped out, and so to her colonies. Now with nothing left to oppose them, the fleets of the galaxy had brought their guns to bear on the Terran homeworld. There would be no escape.
Diaz’s eyes tracked the many icons that raced for their bunker. Hundreds of warheads screamed for their final sanctuary. It was then a voice crackled over the loudspeaker.
“Greetings all, this is the President. If you are hearing this, then you are listening to the final broadcast of this great nation. Sadly, we cannot offer you a solace or reprieve. We can only say this: This is not the end, there will be another time. Thank you for participating in the American Experiment. God bless you, and God bless the Consolidated Systems of America!”
Her heart sank as the message finished. The alarms continued to blare within the base. Around her, people continued to scramble. Some frantically shouted messages, desperately coordinating resistance efforts until the very end, others simply prayed.
For her, Diaz closed her eyes and waited.
She didn’t have to wait long.
But the nations of Sol-3 were not blind. They could see the coming storm.
When the Terrans first began their integration into the galactic community, they were granted access to the galaxy-wide holonet. Within nanoseconds of the digital bridge being opened, two things were sent through.
The first were translation packages so that the Internet and Holonet could communicate. The second was a legion information-gathering AI.
AI flooded the networks by the hundreds, gathering information, analyzing patterns, making millions of predictions by the second. These AI would require no data fortresses to keep their digital minds thinking. No, they instead were spread across the trillions of servers that the Holonet was built upon. The only way to remove them entirely would be to shut down the Holonet completely.
When the tide of public opinion began to turn, the AI took action.
Initially, it worked. Exposes and pro-Terran articles flooded the Holonet. But the galaxy took notice too. Intelligent as they may be, the AI were still heavily outnumbered by the Billions of propagandists and journalists of the wider galaxy.
Soon, the outcome became clear. The Terrans would be wiped out by a galaxy-wide coalition. It was a mathematical certainty.
Thus, the nations of the Sol-3 met in secret. Behind closed doors, they worked to ensure the survival of their species.
Year 5
“Is this really all that we can do?” The Indian representative asked. “Meeting behind closed doors, scheming in the shadows?”
“For our species to survive, in the shadows we must thrive.” The Japanese representative responded. The Indian man sighed, turning to the holographic avatar at the center of the table. “Tell me, what is the probability that this will work?”VISHNU’s avatar was of an unusual shape. It displayed a spinning 4-Dimensional cube, a Tesseract. The hologram lit up as it responded. Its voice was heavily modulated, but nevertheless spoke clearly.
“Given the resources and technology we have available, the best that can be guaranteed is at least a 75% chance of total success. If you do not all sign the Covenant, then that chance becomes zero.”
The Brazilian delegate picked up the piece of paper and eyed it. It read “The Covenant for the future of Humanity”. A cold sweat ran down her forehead. She set it down flat, unable to look at it any longer.
“So tell me VISHNU,” The delegate addressed the AI directly. “Other than betting our entire future on a plan that may not work and whose results we will not live to see, what are our options?”
“There is only one, extinction.”
The armies of the galaxy would come for them. When they did, they had no hope of defeating them. To survive, Terra would have to rise from the dead.
Any Arks the Terrans build until this point would inevitably be intercepted and destroyed. With the entire galaxy watching them, they had to wait until their eyes were turned. Then they would have to flee, never to return. The Terrans would have to survive in the shadows for millennia before they would be accepted back into the fold, if at all.
It would not be pleasant, but it was necessary.
A Stronghold would need to be built. One that could be buried deep enough to survive the bombardments and evade the enemy’s scanners. Millions of frozen embryos alongside an AI data fortress would need to be inside of it. It also had to be self-sufficient for centuries, nothing less would suffice.
Sol-4 was chosen, owing to its thick lithosphere. Work began quietly under the guise of a mining expedition. Tunnel-boring machines dug hundreds of kilometers down, stopping just above where the mantle became liquid.
Once the base infrastructure was established and the embryos placed within, the entrance was sealed. A mining accident, they claimed. As the Terrans forgot about it, work continued below.
Automated machines mined raw minerals to self-replicate. The server rooms were built and expanded upon. The living Terrans that were selected to live within the Stronghold were placed into stasis pods. Then, ever so slowly, an Ark would be built.
Year 117
Private Zedressinni was bored.
He kicked a rock on the barren surface of Sol-4, watching as it rolled away. He looked around. The planet was dead. It was dead long before he got here, and it would be dead long after. He hated this place.
After being caught mating with a general’s son, he was “deployed” to Sol-4 for five long rotations. Though his actions didn’t technically break any laws, his clan couldn’t do much when the general pulled some strings and had him shipped off to the most lifeless region of known space.
His superiors fed him a load of excrement about how he was “honoring the quadrillions that died in the Great Plagues” and “ensuring that the Terrans never rise again”, whatever that meant. All he did was walk around doing precisely nothing.
They wouldn’t even let him entertain himself. He got a formal reprimand for using Terran skeletons as target practice. The reason? Improper use of ammunition. He still won the annual system-wide shooting competition the military held, much to their chagrin.
Zedressinni flinched and his helmet’s lens polarized as a blinding flash of light filled his vision. His training kicking in, the Hren’kin soldier dove for the ground.
He grumbled a curse under his breath. Looks like another unexploded Terran nuke went off. Great, more paperwork.
Zedressinni stood once the shockwave passed. Looking at the mushroom cloud, he narrowed his seven eyes. The blast seemed far bigger than the usual Terran tactical nukes that typically go off. His eyes then widened as he caught sight of it.
A massive ship rose from the center of the cloud. Its sublight engines burned incredibly hot as it ascended. Zedressinni watched as it disappeared into the sky. He stood there for a moment, utterly dumbfounded.
A beat, then he frantically fumbled for his communicator.
The Terrans were alive.
A/N: This is the first part of an ongoing series I have planned within this setting. I was originally going to post it all in one story, however I decided to break it up and spread it across multiple entries. It won’t be long, probably about 5 at the most. This way I can ensure the optimal pacing of the story since otherwise it’d be a fairly long 10,000-ish word piece. I’ll update this when the next part is released.
The main goal of this story is to explore the idea of Human diseases being significantly more dangerous then the ones in the wider galaxy. I've seen other stories cover similar ground, but they usually don't explore what would happen in a true galaxy-wide pandemic. Iirc one story had the common cold be extremely deadly to aliens, but it didn't go further than the humans saying "oh that's it?". Not to disparage them, but peace and happy endings don't leave much room for experimentation.

Hello and welcome to a very special installment of The Great Spice Off! What is The Great Spice Off?
I love the scent of Old Spice, so much so that it's the only aftershave I use as I don't really feel a need to splash anything else on. But, as we all know, Old Spice no longer makes shaving soap. They do still make a cream but that's hardly a great soap and it doesn't actually smell like Old Spice. As such my plan is to test out all the Old Spice options that are out there on as many bases as possible both to try out a variety of bases from different soapmakers and to report back to you on who really nails the scent.
I'll be shaving three times with each soap, using a variety of brushes and razors, and blades. Yes, I know that means it won't be exactly scientific but this is going to take a while and I want to use all my other shit too. Soaps will be rated on a few factors and given points from 1-5 for each.

• Oldness: How much does the soap smell like OG Old Spice. This is the more analytical scent analysis and I'm comparing to an OG Old Spice aftershave I have and the Shulton aftershave from India.
• Spiciness: This is the je ne sais quois of Old Spice. Does the soap make me feel the nostalgia, warmth, and whatever it is about the scent that works. Is there something special about it that makes it stand out? Does it invoke a memory or make a new one? The most subjective of this list.
• Lather: You know, can I make a shave soap out of it.
• Shave: How's it work on the ol' face while shaving.
• Post: How's the scent profile after the event. How does my face feel.

Crowne & Crane The Spice

And so we enter (for now) into a strange little corner of Old Spice dupery that I honestly wouldn't have even entered if I had read the description of The Spice before ordering it long ago. Also, if Crowne & Crane hadn't named the soap something pretty inaccurate. Also, also, if I hadn't accidentally picked up a second dupe of the scent recently. Yes, The Spice is not an Old Spice dupe but an Old Spice Limited Edition (LE) dupe.
Record Scratch. Double Take. Wuuuuuuuh!???
So you're asking yourself what the heck is an Old Spice LE. Well, despite what most think, Old Spice has had many scents over the years and almost none of them are riffs or new twists on their original Old Spice scent. Old Spice, the company/brand, made a plethora of scents throughout the history of producing Old Spice that, while all fell in the kind of old fashioned scenting category, had nothing to do with what we think of as Old Spice. Old Spice LE was one of these scents. From the dating I can find online, it was released sometime in the early 90s and stuck around for a chunk of that decade and possibly into the 2000s. It's also possible it was a scent released every couple of years as I can see a few different bottle versions. I don't actually know that much about it, have never smelled the original myself, and the Internet is not actually full of Old Spice product history let alone a defunct aftershave from the early 90s.
Whatever the history, what appears to be consistent is that it came in a clear bottle and was called Limited Edition. It also featured a base of amber, cedar, and woods with supporting notes of cardamom, lavender, moss, and jasmine, and citrus top notes. As you can see, aside from the citrus, it doesn't have all the much in common with Old Spice but that hasn't stopped a fragrance seller from selling a dupe of the discontinued scent for those who may still be looking for it. And so, there are soapers out there who pick this scent up for whatever reason instead of actual Old Spice. Actually, there are only two and Crowne & Crane are the only ones I can find doing it intentionally (more on that in a future review). They're also naming it The Spice, which is a little misleading considering the only spice scent in it is cardamon and given the lavender, citrus, and moss present its clearly intended to be somewhat of a fougère. The Spice, I think we can all agree, is not the name anyone would give a fougère.
So why then am I even reviewing it? That is like asking why do people climb Everest? Why do athletes push their body to the extremes? Why does the woodchuck chuck wood? If these questions could be answered then perhaps I could answer why I am reviewing this. But they can't be.
Crowne & Crane was founded in 2016 by Karl and Liz, whose last names I can't find so we'll call them Karl Crowne and Liz Crane. Karl was an enthusiast it looks like before going into the ol' soapmaking business and, being founded pre-2020, is officially an ol' timer in the artisan soap industry. Despite that longevity they aren't really all that popular around these parts with u/PhilosphicalZombie and u/loudmusicboy literally being the only two folks who appear to use them regularly if at all. I'd say that's maybe because they're not just a shave soap company but Stirling isn't either so that logic kind of flies out the window. Then again, we're a bunch of grown men and women telling other people how we removed hair from our bodies on a daily basis. Logic means nothing here.
Crowne & Crane have two bases, vegan and tallow. Most of their soaps are in tallow only and that's what The Spice comes in so that's what we're working with here. Of note is a commitment to organic, humanely-raised cows for the beef tallow, which is always a plus in my book (and sustainably sourced palm oil). The soap itself is kind of dry and chalky, not in a bad way and it wasn't hard or falling apart. It's a soft, dry soap, which are not contradictory things. The base is made up of Potassium Tallowate, Sodium Tallowate, Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Aloe Vera Juice, Potassium Cocoate, Sodium Cocoate, Phthalate-Free Fragrance, Potassium Shea Butterate, Sodium Shea Butterate, Kokum Butter, Sodium Lactate, Glycerin, Lanolin, Tussah Silk. Nothing to much to comment on here except I can't stop saying the word tussah over and over in my head. It's a weird word and now it doesn't feel real I've said it so much. Tu... ssah. Tooo suuuhhh...
The labeling is a nice vintage boat symbol, which, again, is a bit misleading given the LE branding was very much a modern (for the 90s) Old Spice look, not the classic schooner branding of the OG Old Spice. If you weren't paying attention (*cough* me *cough*) you might just order this thinking you got an Old Spice dupe and open the lid to find you most assuredly did not. Well, open the lid is a bad description as I bought their 3 oz puck option instead of the 5 oz jar and it came wrapped in paper. 3 oz, by the way, is a great mid-price option that gives you more than a tiny sample but not a full plastic tub. I'd be perfectly happy to have other shaving companies offer this... please... please... there's so much soap under my sink. So... much... soap.
(Sidenote: if you are looking to get their soaps, do it quick as they're going on hiatus during a move in two days!)
Oldness: 0
As a scent not designed to smell like Old Spice this one knocks it out of the park. In fact, it does such a great job not smelling like Old Spice I'd put it up there with some of the greatest scents that don't smell like Old Spice ever made. Have a scent that doesnt's smell like Old Spice that you love? This one smells as much not like Old Spice as that one does! If you're looking for something that doesn't smell like Old Spice but has the word Spice featured in its name and the words "Old" and "Spice" in the description next to each other than this is the soap for you.
Spiciness: 3
This is actually a pretty solid scent even if its called The Spice but isn't really a spicy scent at all. It's definitely a vintage scent, though, and reminds me a bit of Seaforth! Spiced but not as good. Because of that I'm going to say that it still captures a bit of that classic feel that Old Spice gives you even if its a scent from the 90s, a decade that has yet to fall into the "classic" zone and thus still feels like everything from it was cringe (including teenage me).
Lather: 5
What an absolutely brilliant lather The Spice kicks up. From the moment water hits it turning it into a thick prot-lather to the gloriously shiny conclusion, it's just a pleasure to lather. The soap is super thirsty, which can often lead to some dialing issues but I never had those aside from having to add a lot of water to both my larger scoop shave and my medium scoop. You don't need a lot of soap to get this going big and it's really easy to get there and looks great the entire time. If you were going to make an ad about shave soap -- as we all dream to do -- and needed a pretty lather to build up this would be a great choice.
Shave: 3
The Spice offers an incredible cushion of soap that can tackle even the most aggressive razor, making it feel barely there on your skin. However, it is, at best, mid-tier on its slickness with limited residual slickness too. As I reduced the amount of soap I used on each shave I figured I'd eventually hit a lather that was both full of cushion and slickness, but even on my final shave with the least amount of lather I wasn't too impressed with the glide provided. There's slickness there, it's not like dragging some sort of pillowy sandpaper over your face or anything but despite the copious amounts of water I added it never truly peaked.
Post: 2
The Spice's Old Spice LE scent isn't exactly complimentary with either my Indian Old Spice for the vintage one. It's not an afront to the nostrils or anything (sometimes I picture what nostrils being afronted would look like and it weird me out) but it ain't great. It probably plays a bit better with the more floraly vintage spice if I was forced to choose one by some deranged wet shaving person forcing people to shave with stuff. The soap also left my skin feeling a little sticky for some reason, like there was a layer of it still on there. That dissipated quickly but it was an odd sensation.
Final Verdict: 13
Crowne & Crane might be one of my favorite soaps to lather as it's easy to do, looks fantastic, lathers big, and just drinks up the water. It's just kind of fun working it into a lather and for someone who appreciates the process of wetshaving that's a big deal. The shave doesn't quiet live up to the lather, though, despite some really great cushion. Where it really disappoints is the post shave where it not only still doesn't smell like Old Spice (even if it was never trying to) but also left my face feeling a little icky. No one likes an icky face, just ask .
Previous Great Spice Offs:

1. 1940s Old Spice Shaving Soap in Vintage Mug (9)
2. 1973-91 Old Spice Shaving Soap (7)
3. Old Spice Shaving Cream (Original) (12)
4. Master Soap Creations Vintage Spice (19)
5. Black Ship Grooming Classic (17)
6. OSP Old Gold (19)
7. Chiseled Face Groomatorium Trade Winds (17)
8. Wholly Kaw Twice as Spice (17)
9. Barrister and Mann Barrister's Reserve Spice (21)
10. Mama Bear Aged Spice (10)
11. MERShaving Old Timer Spice (20)
12. Soap Commander Endurance (20)
13. Signature Soaps Novus Spice (17)
14. Hoffman's Shave and Soap Company Burn the Ships (19)
15. Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements Cold Spice (15)
16. Hendrix Classics & Co Commodore (20)
17. Ginger's Garden Old Spice Type (15)
18. Lisa's Natural Herbal Creations Mariner (10)
19. Stone Field Shaving Company Ltd. No. 37 (18)
20. Cooper & French Old Goat (19)
21. The Holy Black Artisan Line Shaving Soap (21)
22. Stirling Soap Co. Stirling Spice (20)
23. Van Yulay Spicy Man (10)
24. Pinnacle Grooming The Good Ship OS (15)
25. Mystic Water Soap Windjammer (14)
26. The Village Soap Smith Old Spice (Type) (14)
27. Cloud Shave "Unscented" (13)
28. Wet the Face Spices From the Sea (17)
29. Artifact Soapworks Old Spice (Type) (15)
30. DentonMajik Ole Fife (21)
31. Phoenix Artisan Accouterments Oud Spice (17)
32. Lativ Natural Skin Revival Shaving Soap Old Spice (8)

Special Editions

• Summer Break Soaps Remote Learning
• Spearhead Shaving Company Seaforth! Spiced
• Eleven Shaving Unscented/Hendrix Classics & Co Commander

I'm also looking for the below soaps if you've got any you're willing to sell/trade/donate:

• Wild West Shaving Co. Snake Oil
• Wickam Spice Trade
• Occult Grooming Essentials Modern Spice
• Fougare Salem

I already have these soaps that I have not reviewed yet:

• Bundubeard Reijger
• Bundubeard Drommedaris
• Bundubeard De Goede hoop
• Areffa Soap The Sea Son

I met “J” through a close friend of mine. We clicked very fast and within a few weeks I was driving two hours every weekend to spend time with her and her kids.
The red flags were piling up: 1. When she would do my nails she would constantly slap and punch my hands for twitching (I can’t control my twitches) 2. I would pay for everything 3. She continued to insult my boyfriend 4. She would make insulting comments about everyone she knew 5. She said the N word and she would call me the R word (She’s white and she knew the minute I met her that I have autism) 6. She was cheating on the guy she was with at the time 7. She made my boyfriend uncomfortable by trying to touch and flirt with him (rejected each time and she would throw a hissy fit in front of me because of it) 8. She tried to convince my boyfriend to let her harass me when we went to the Haunt last year (it was for an apology and he shut her down multiple times and ended up ignoring her for the rest of the day) 9. She thinks I owe her an apology for cutting her off 10. Her daughter was sexually abused by her uncle and her daughter’s father doesn’t know that she is continually around said uncle. (CPS is continually involved with this) 11. Her stepdad hit on me multiple times and cornered me and pressured me into holding his hand and hugging him and said if I tried anything I would be ruining J’s sisters birthday as we were all celebrating that (etc. because there’s more) and she blamed me for that (This happened on the break with my boyfriend) 12. During a vacation I went on with her, she watched and laughed as her step dad spanked me twice and stopped his truck in the middle of the road in the dark and refused to drive until I kissed him on the cheek. (This happened on the break I had with my boyfriend) 13. My boyfriend and I took a break in the end of August because he was drinking and he needed to fix that himself, I started talking to someone new and explained how I was feeling guilty for catching feelings (the guy I was talking to was born a mistake, was very abusive, and I have a PFA against him now) and she lashed out calling me a s*ut because I was already distancing myself from her. 14. Her stepdad would push her four year old FORCIBLY down the stairs to the basement of his house for no reason (they didn’t want to deal with his energy so they would make up excuses to punish him) and when the four year old would try and come back up they would scare him with this really creepy clown mask forcing him into hysterics and panic (the four year old has ADHD) 15. She used my miscarriages (I’ve had 5) over my head because she wanted me to babysit her kids for free. 16. She continued to talk about me and said some very inappropriate and horrendous things about me to a friend of ours (also thinking about cutting her off as well) since we last spoke in August. 17. She has been sending her friends to stalk my accounts and they’ve sent me threats and talked about harming me (they can’t get to me because I live over an hour away, the door is always locked, and I live five minutes from a police station.) 18. My boyfriend and I were visiting a friend of his and my friend contacted me saying J was going off about how her oldest son’s dad’s girlfriend died of a over dose and how J kept saying she needed me and needed me to apologize (I said no and muted her the rest of the trip) 19. She has three kids from three different guys (all have some sort of police record) 20. Two weeks ago she was at an amusement park with our mutual friend. The step dad was also there so I walked away. She proceeded to stalk and berate and glare at me the entire time my boyfriend and I were there.
This isn’t even half of it. I’m tired of typing though. If I get the motivation I’ll continue the list.
I mostly just wanted to get this off my chest. I heard this was the place to do it. I have blocked all of her accounts and her friend’s accounts. It’s pathetic.
The reason why I’m not cutting off the mutual friend is I’m the only mentally healthy person in her life but if they both want to to drag each other down by all means I don’t care anymore. I’ve distanced myself to give me time to think what this person brings to my life. I’m finding it hard to come up with something positive.
My life has been on the positive side of things since I cut this person off from my life and distanced my self from any contact with her.
So she is demanding I apologize when I know I don’t want a relationship with her ever. I’m not gonna apologize but I wanted to put this down somewhere.

Hi Disneylanders! Back stateside, so as promised, here's a trip report from my three-day visit. This covers transport, staying at the Disneyland Hotel, several upscale meals, Premier Access, and my experiences with French vs English. (For Disneyland, CA fans, I'll make a separate posts with some comparisons and a different AMA.)
My stats, for reference: solo traveler (30sF) from California; fairly frequent visitor and amateur scholar of Disneyland, CA. Not a first timer but it had been 12 years. Competent in French.
Hang onto your hats and glasses, 'cause this here may get... detailed.
Transportation:
I took the TGV direct from CDG, figuring correctly that Disneyland energy would shake me out of jet lag. It's an easy trip and quick exit from Marne-la-Vallée, much smoother and faster than the RER. Baggage claimed to feet in the hotel lobby took less than an hour.
Disneyland Hotel and private entry:
The hotel was still guest-only while I was staying there. Beautiful premises and worth every penny. The whole place is full of charming details, and the views of the whole resort are unbeatable. It also offers the best food and drinks I had during my stay (will cover that next).
My room was an entry-level Superior near the far side of the West Wing. Very generously-sized, even by American standards, and well-appointed. Vaguely Little Mermaid-themed, and I had a small terrace (most rooms didn't seem to, but mine was rounding a corner).
Since you can only get in on the east (lobby) side, if you're staying in the West Wing, plan an extra couple of minutes of "commute" time to get from one end of the hotel to the other. The good news is that your walk takes you through the corridor with picture windows offering twin views of Disneyland Park and Disney Village, as well as past the bar and restaurants and shop. That said, it only took about 5 minutes total for me to get from the room to the park through the DLH guest-only entrance.
Speaking of said entrance: this might be one of the best perks. The guest-only entrance never had a wait, even three minutes before Extra Magic Hours opened. I was second through the turnstiles. There's an exit on that side as well, and save for my afternoon at Studios, it's the only entry and exit point I used.
Sit-down food and drink:
I'm from a very foodie/cocktail pioneering city in the US and have pretty high standards. I found the quick service food, on the few occasions I grabbed it, to be mediocre, but the sit-down meals were surprisingly good. Drink quality varied widely. I have rated them based on a combo of food quality and atmosphere.
My assessments:
Disneyland Hotel Breakfast: I was one of the last seated on both days, and they seated me right next to a window overlooking the park in the Lumière section of the restaurant. Viennoiserie and other things were good, but the highlights were the fresh smoothies and the eggs. I've never had such a silky scramble in my life. Food 5/5 for the eggs alone. Experience 5/5.
Captain Jack's (lunch): The Caribbean version of Blue Bayou, and as charmingly themed. Nothing like being greeted with "bonsoir" in the early afternoon. Food was not great, though, and my cocktail was sugary and weak. Food 2.5/5, experience 4/5.
L'Auberge de Cendrillon (dinner): Immersive Fantasyland space and pretty good 3 course dinner. I requested the characters not interact with me, since I'm there for atmosphere, and they complied. Food 4/5, experience 4/5.
Walt's (lunch): Great view of Main Street, fun story, decent but not great food/wine. Loved touring the different themed rooms, and they were happy to let me. Food 3/5, experience 4/5.
La Table de Lumière (dinner): Delightful experience, stunning interior, excellent food by Disney standards, enjoyed the champagne tasting and a beautiful cocktail to start (they froze a rose inside an ice spear). The royal couples did in fact all stop to talk to me, even when I made it clear I didn't need them to; it was easier to just comply than explain. I don't fault them for it. Food 5/5, experience 4.5/5.
Fleur de Lys (nightcap and one midday cocktail break): Charming and comfortable interior with royal crests, and pretty darn good cocktails (though they put soda water in their old fashioned, which is heresy). I sat at the bar and chatted a lot with the staff, and they kept putting nice little treats in front of me to snack on. The drinks are expensive, but it's a great adults-only refuge. Cocktails 4.5/5, experience 5/5.
Agrabah Café Restaurant (lunch): Moroccan/Mediterranean buffet, pretty good quality. The space is incredibly cool and meticulously detailed: best story design of the restaurants in my opinion. The carafe wine was decent and an amazing value. Food 4/5, experience 4.5/5.
Premier Access:
I'm allergic to lines longer than 15 minutes and, in California, am really good at circumventing them through planning. Paris has much lighter lines in general, at least during my visit, but when I saw 30m and up with no single rider line, I'd pay a few euros to skip. As a solo visitor, I was a walk-on for everything but the Avengers coaster (that queueing system is a nightmare) with the Premier pass.
I tried out both individual and daily passes. Would recommend the individual, but not the daily. Not sure how they price things dynamically, but the day pass cost like 160 euros for me. I was rushing to get my full value out of it all day, based on individual pass cost, and failed to break even. It was way more stress than fun.
French vs English:
I don't look French at all, so I did get a fair number of people defaulting to English, but I did feel like I got treated better (and certainly got more interesting conversation, secrets, tips etc) when I spoke in French. Happy to share more in AMA, but details on this would probably be tedious to most people here.
I'll be back with some Paris/Anaheim comparisons. Thanks again to everyone who gave me tips beforehand; it was super helpful!

Hello, first time using Blender. I got it to fill a three-dimensional rectangular grid with randomly chosen collection members, but I feel it won't be enough.
My goal is to create procedurally generated "buildings" in sort-of-brutalism style, but I want them to be a tad bit "logical". That means, I don't believe that by just randomly placing some 3D blocks of equal size I will get there. Each "building", for a sake of simplicity, is just a 3D rectangular grid array of equally sized blocks (for example, 5x5x7m, so not very large array).
Wave function collapse is the only algorithm I know that could solve that, since it applies a set of restrictions on neighbour tiles/blocks. I have seen one youtube video, but the presented algorithm does not have any backtracking which means it would eventually come to a dead end, not completing a full generation. All the other setups/addons I have seen work only for 2D space, which won't really work since vertical restrictions (what is directly undeabove given block) are also required.
Any help is appreciated. If that helps, I have a decent C programming language experience, and know a little bit of C++, but not enough to code algorithm from scratch.
P.S. Yes, if nothing works, I will try to modify that procjam game Unity project by marian42, but I want to render in specific style which isn't really possible in Unity, I am afraid. That's why I chose Blender.
P.P.S. If some other algorithm could solve the same task and it's already implemented as addon or in project OR is easier to implement it would be great if you shared the knowledge.

I’ve had the privilege of living in a rent controlled building at a very reasonable 800$/mo per roommate, but this blessed fortune is coming to an end.
How the flying duck are you guys affording current rent prices? The lowest rent for a studio apartment within an hour of my job is 1800/mo (usually with an extra 200/mo for parking). Even with a roommate I’d be paying 1300+parking+utilities. My only standard/requirement is that there is AC (window or central). I have bad allergies and asthma so opening a window for airflow is not an option during parts of the year and need it.
I literally have a graduate degree, no loans (I was on scholarship and worked a lot), and no dependents. I was going to get a dog, but that’s officially out of the question. I have a decent job for my profession, heck I have a fulltime and a part time for extra money. I don’t have an overspending problem/don’t buy dumb shit. My only expenses are my car insurance and gas and health insurance and food and toiletries and sometimes a gym membership. My hobbies are really inexpensive and I don’t go out very often. I’m not someone to get my hair and nails done, I don’t use any substances, I don’t buy coffee, I maybe have one amazon delivery every three months, I use someone else’s streaming accounts for tv if I watch it, I haven’t updated my clothes in years etc. I don’t go to concerts or anything that costs a lot. I do a lot of nature walking.
Am I missing something? How are people doing this? There is quite literally nothing more I can subtract from my budget and I’ll basically be paycheck to paycheck.
I’m really afraid I’m going to need to use my savings and sell the stocks I have accrued just to get by and then wind up in credit card debt godforbid something happens. How are people doing things like saving for retirement in these conditions? I thought I was doing pretty good given I found a way to not have student loans and had some savings, but a thousand dollars less a month does not sound sustainable.
Looking for advice and or assurance you’ve been here and made it work. Maybe I’m dumb/privileged and missing something that really helps. I’m financially anxious. I want to continue being financially independent. I feel like I did everything “right” and still feel like I’m failing.
Note: yes I know on top of how hard I’ve worked I’ve also been lucky so far, I count my blessings, this is a genuine ask and new concern and I’m looking for help. Please don’t be an asshole/just complain you had it worse/make fun of be for finally having to pay a real rent- while im sorry you’re struggling that’s unhelpful.

Hey folks, hello again. I took a bit longer this time to update (Part 1 and Part 2 here) you but at least I bring good news: this weekend, I got the definitive answer from the prison's legal department, and now I know how much I can tell (and I believe it's enough). For your information, after this incident and my eventual release from prison, I haven't contacted anyone I met behind bars, except of course for my wife, Linda. The point is, even after all these years, this story has troubled me a lot, and since my first post, I've become even more paranoid. Finally, this morning, I went out to get the mail but as soon as I opened the door, I came face to face with a small untouched white envelope, except for two identical characters stamped on its surface: 11. Linda is sleeping, and I don't want to worry her, I'm at the kitchen counter thinking about what to do with this envelope while reliving the final events of all this mess, of what was really inside cell 11.
It was morning, and there I was in my cell, in a scene poetically similar to this. I held a playing card, an 11 of clubs. I later searched for such a card online, but found nothing. It was strange, very well made. Before I could reflect more deeply on this, one of the guards passed by our corridor, opening the cell doors for our breakfast.
So, slowly, as if in a trance, I got up from bed and put the playing card in my pocket. Somehow, the card seemed to heat up in my pocket, I could feel the heat increasing and increasing, almost burning my skin. It was a strange stupor, almost drunken, I could even swear I smelled ether lingering in the air as I staggered to the cafeteria.
I slumped into the seat as I placed the tray on the table. Old Munford looked at me in a friendly manner:
"Overdid it yesterday, lad? Your hangover face is priceless."
I forced a weak smile in response to Munford's comment, trying to seem normal despite the whirlwind of thoughts racing through my mind. The heat still burned in my pocket, an uncomfortable sensation that seemed to be intensifying with each passing moment.
"No, nothing much," I muttered, looking away to my food tray. "Just didn't sleep very well."
Munford seemed satisfied with my response and turned his attention back to his own meal. As I stirred the food without really eating, struggling to maintain my composure, I began to think about what to do.
My thoughts were interrupted when Francis joined us at the table, his usual smile lighting up his face. He looked at me with a questioning expression.
"Hey man, everything okay? You look awful."
"I think it was the heat, or maybe something I ate last night."
Francis frowned. Unlike the elder, he clearly wasn't convinced by my superficial explanation.
"Some of the guys told me they saw Bob talking to you last night. Did he do something?"
The question caught me off guard. All this news about the playing card had prevented me from thinking about the strange interaction with Bob since the previous night, but now the memories began to resurface, mixed with the heat sensation coming from my pocket.
"Oh, it was nothing," I said quickly, trying to sound casual. "Bob was just being a bit... Bob."
I felt Francis's gaze linger on my face for a moment.
"If he does anything, you know you can talk to us, right? I know he's one of ours, but that doesn't mean I'll go easy on him."
I analyzed the options for a moment, reflecting on everything. Well, now it seemed to make sense, a prank by Bob, or an attempt to intimidate me...
"There's... something, Francis," I said in a low tone, feeling tense about the confession I was about to make. "Last night, after the card tournament, I... I ran into Bob in the hallway. He was questioning me about the tournament, accusing me of cheating."
Francis's face hardened at my words, a displeased expression passing over his features.
"Cheating? And you?"
"I swear I played fair," I replied quickly, the pressure building inside me. "But he was convinced I had some advantage, and... well, things got a bit tense... He walked away, and this morning I found this in my cell."
Deciding to omit the encounter with Tulley, I got straight to the point, pulling the card out of my pocket and placing it on the table. I could feel it almost incandescent now.
Munford looked at the card for a moment, his gaze narrowing as he studied it. The heat emanating from it was almost palpable, a strange aura that seemed to envelop the table.
"Is that... an 11 of clubs?" he murmured, his voice tinged with surprise and suspicion.
I nodded, my own confusion mingling with growing anxiety.
"Yes... I don't know, maybe Bob did this to scare me, to show that he has access to my cell, or to try to provoke me, knowing my fear of cell 11..."
My words were cut off when the guard's voice echoed through the cafeteria, interrupting our conversation as he announced that the meal period was over.
Francis looked at me with a serious expression.
"We'll talk about this later," he pointed to the card. "Mind if I take it with me?"
I nodded.
"No problem, feel free."
We began our march back to the cells, and I couldn't help but exchange glances with old Munford. He seemed to hesitate on the matter, as if he wanted to say something but was afraid. I made a mental note to speak with him as soon as possible. Our yard time would be in the next 4 hours, and I spent half of that time trying to ponder what had happened.
I don't know how long it took, but I fell asleep, sitting, with my back pressed against the wall of my cell. The dream, or rather, nightmare resulting from this was a disturbing experience.
I found myself standing, walking through the prison corridors in a way that seemed endless. The walls seemed to close in around me, creating a claustrophobic labyrinth that I couldn't escape. Every door I tried to open was locked, and the sound of footsteps echoed behind me, as if someone were following my every step.
Finally, I reached a door that was ajar, a dim light emanating from within. With a knot in my stomach, I pushed it slowly, revealing what seemed to be cell 11. But something was terribly wrong. A man was there, his back to me. Disheveled, uneven hair, a hunched posture, he was crouched down, rummaging through something I couldn't see, seemed to regurgitate. Suddenly, he stopped. He slowly got up and then looked at me.
Somehow, I knew that man was that prisoner, the one who had committed those atrocities and painted the eye on the damn cell. I noticed something dripping from his mouth, forming a red puddle in the center. On the wall, what seemed to be an incomplete sketch of the dreaded painting was there.
I watched, hypnotized by the horror before me, as the man slowly raised his trembling hand towards his face. Drops of that dark liquid dripped from his fingers, echoing in the oppressive silence of the cell. It was as if the very air was tainted with that impurity.
Before I could fully process what was happening, he began to move towards me, his irregular steps echoing like the distant clinking of chains. A visceral panic seized me, preventing me from retreating as he came closer and closer, his distorted figure gaining sharper contours as he advanced through the gloom. I could now smell the terrible scent he had, not just as something rotten, but a pure and concrete smell of death.
"Who... who are you?" My own voice sounded weak and trembling.
The man didn't answer. Instead, he kept advancing, his empty eyes seeming to pierce my soul. My heart was now pounding uncontrollably in my chest, a deafening cacophony that seemed to fill the entire space of the cell. I was about to retreat, to beg for mercy, when a voice whispered in my mind, a distorted echo reverberating like the sigh of a ghost:
"You... can you see? The watchful eye. He wants you. He liked looking at you."
The sound of my own breath echoed in the silence that followed, a dissonant note of fear and desperation. I wanted to scream, to run, to escape this living nightmare, but I was paralyzed by the terror that enveloped me like a coffin.
It was then that I woke up, gasping and covered in sweat, the echo of the whisper still resonating in my mind like a distant echo of a nightmare. For a moment, everything around me seemed distorted and unreal, a fleeting mirage, and then, I startled again. Munford was standing in front of my cell, staring at me with curiosity.
"Are you okay, son?" the old man asked in a soft voice, as if trying to calm a frightened animal.
I shook my head slowly, trying to gather my thoughts amidst the whirlwind of information.
"I... I think so," I murmured, my voice sounding strange and distant even to myself. "I had a horrible nightmare... It felt so real."
Munford nodded understandingly, his eyes fixed on mine.
"Yeah, the situation isn't good... but I came to talk about that letter, earlier in the cafeteria."
"Oh yeah, what about it?"
"Let's just say I've never seen a card like that, but the energy coming from it, oh yeah, I've seen that before."
"What do you mean?"
"You know, a few years ago, there was a murder in one of the cells. This was before Francis arrived, we didn't have much organization, lynchings were common, and in an attempt to reduce these incidents, we decided that the main suspect, a newly captured serial killer, would be forcibly transferred to cell 11. It was one of the most terrible incidents I've ever witnessed in here. And do you know how that man was known?"
I shook my head negatively. Munford leaned his hands on two bars, bringing his face closer to the center of them.
"The Card Cutter."
A wave of shivers ran down my spine.
"He used to leave playing cards as a kind of signature on the bodies of his victims. They say he would choose the card based on the person or the method of murder. So, when he was put in cell 11, things got even weirder."
"What happened to him?" I asked, a bittersweet and macabre curiosity in my mouth.
Munford sighed heavily, looking at a fixed point this time.
"A few weeks after being transferred, he was found dead in his cell. Hung with sheets. And next to his body..."
"What was it?" I could barely breathe as I listened.
"A playing card. An ace of spades, if I'm not mistaken. And that cell... well, since then, no one wants to stay there. They say it does something to people, kills them."
The shock of Munford's revelation reverberated in my chest, trembling as I thought about what could happen to Guard Tulley from now on, or worse, what could happen to us.
"So you think this card is... a warning?" I asked, my voice barely more than a whisper, staring into the old man's green eyes.
Munford nodded slowly, responding more to himself than to me.
"I can't say for sure, but it's a possibility to consider."
I swallowed hard.
"What should we do then?"
He fell silent for a moment, as if pondering his words carefully.
"I have no idea. I guess all we can do is keep quiet; we don't want to scare the other inmates. Francis doesn't believe in these things, so I won't waste my time trying to convince him, and I advise you to do the same. Maybe if we just keep pretending that nothing is happening, things will sort themselves out. But remember: whatever this force is, it wants to take you to the cell, wants you to face the eye. Resist those urges, okay?"
The clock struck 12:30. Time for yard time. I walked with Munford to the yard, the sun burning our heads as we stepped outside, futilely trying to erase the worry from our minds.
As I watched the other inmates spreading out across the yard, trying to appear normal, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to find Bob, his voice low and threatening.
"What did you tell Francis?" he whispered, he was behind me, and I couldn't see him.
The flesh on my back trembled and twisted, the fluid of fear rising up to my brain.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Bob," I replied firmly, trying to sound confident.
He paused for a few seconds.
"You cheat first, and now, you make up lies about what I did or didn't do."
"I think there's a misunderstanding-"
"Shut up!" his voice rose sharply "I'm just here to say that I'm not a kid, I don't go around sending playing card letters or anything like that. I didn't threaten you with that thing, but now I am, and in a very direct way, and if I were you, I'd sleep with one eye open."
He was dead serious, and the threat was as clear as day. But what could I do? Confront Bob directly like Francis? That could mean he wasn't trustworthy... My thoughts were interrupted by the guard watching us.
"You two, no contact!" he shouted.
"No problem here, officer," Bob said, pulling me into a hug that felt more like an attempted chokehold.
I tried to pull away unsuccessfully, and the officer seemed to simply not care.
"Okay, but we'll be watching," he turned away, and Bob shoved me against the yard bars.
"Listen here, Bob," I began, my voice firm, confused about where this courage had even come from. "I don't know what you're up to, but I won't stand still while you try to intimidate me. If you have something to say, then say it like a man. Otherwise, leave me alone." I pushed him away with my hand.
"You're a fool, you know that?" he muttered.
"I'm not looking for trouble, but if you want it, you'll get it. Let's just leave it be, okay? If anything happens to me, I'll make sure some people know and-"
My assailant's hand closed around my neck, tightening. I squirmed, struggling to breathe as I desperately tried to free myself from his grip.
"Going to call daddy? Look, Francis may have that whole attitude, but he won't do anything to me, or any of the guys," he remarked.
I noticed the usual group of big guys who hung around with Francis, they were watching us from afar, seeming to distract the boss.
"He's getting out in two months...but honestly, I don't think I need to wait that long."
I couldn't breathe. Fighting against the grip on my neck, my eyes desperately searched for any help.
"Let him go!" The guard shouted from afar, starting to make his way down the stairs to reach us.
Bob didn't obey. I felt my body losing strength, so I did what I could: I focused my strength into a clenched fist and punched the bastard in the stomach, aiming right at his gut. And judging by his expression, it worked. I saw him lean over, his hands releasing my body and being placed on his belly.
I knew if I let it slide, he would come back and continue to harass me, so that had to be a definitive response to the jerk that I wasn't an easy prey. I lunged at him again, this time with a well-aimed kick to his knee, trying to destabilize him. He staggered backwards with a groan of pain, falling to his knees on the yard ground.
The other prisoners now realized what had happened, and soon their shouts in a circle were audible.
"Go, get him! Don't hold back! Finish this guy off!"
I lunged at Bob, raising my hand time after time to punch him. He didn't take it lightly, grabbing my right hand as I prepared to hit him; I could feel the pressure applied to the joints, my fingers starting to crack, and I could feel them tense, about to break. In desperation, I threw myself onto him with the only weapon I had left: my teeth.
I felt the flesh of his neck between the rows of teeth in my mouth. Without thinking and trying to loosen the grip on my hand, I pressed on the pearly bones harder and harder, feeling them slide against the skin, the metallic taste slowly emerging as the flesh was torn.
The scene around me seemed blurry, as if I were watching everything happen from afar, in slow motion. Bob's scream echoed through the yard, mixing with the encouragement shouts from the other inmates. I felt a mix of adrenaline and horror as my teeth sank into his neck flesh, a strange feeling of power and disgust.
While still hunched over that bloody man, I felt the blows on my back: it was the guards. Their batons striking time after time as the adrenaline rush passed, and I now began to feel the pain. Without resistance, I let myself be pulled away. Bob wasted no time and moved away, stumbling as he covered the wound.
"YOU SCUMBAG, WHAT KIND OF ANIMAL ARE YOU?"
As I was being taken away, everything around me seemed blurred, as if I were in a state of stupor. The voices of the other inmates echoed in my ears, mixed with images of the fight that had just occurred. I still felt the blood running through my mouth, dripping lightly onto the ground and forming a trail of red dots marking my path. However, before we left the yard, our warden arrived at the scene, and the guards stopped, my arm uncomfortably twisted behind my body.
"What's going on here?" His voice was calm, but there was an unquestionable tone of authority in his words.
"He... he bit a detainee, sir," one of the guards explained, firmly holding my arm.
The warden looked at me, his eyebrows furrowed in disapproval.
"Why did you do that?"
My mind was spinning, trying to find a coherent explanation for what had happened. I knew it would be useless to tell about Bob's threat, about the playing card, about the fear he had instilled in me. So, I found the most plausible words I could gather:
"He... he provoked me, sir," I murmured, my voice trembling. "I... couldn't take it anymore. He was intimidating me, threatening me, and I... I lost control."
The warden looked at me for a long moment, as if assessing my words. Finally, he sighed, seeming resigned, approaching me with slow, steady steps.
"No, you did that because you're an animal."
He gave me two pats on the cheek, then wiped the blood running from my mouth.
"Take this one to solitary."
The prisoners began to shout, a real noisy commotion. I trembled at the thought of being locked up there. No one came back the same from solitary, but at that moment, I really think I'd prefer to go there than what was to come.
"But sir," one of the guards said, causing the inmates to fall silent in an attempt to hear something, "The solitary is occupied..."
The warden frowned, clearly irritated by the interruption.
"Then take him to cell 11," he ordered, his voice cold and authoritative.
That was the final blow, causing the uproar to become widespread, with even some inmates needing to be subdued with tear gas. I could see as I was pushed, Munford looking at me, a worried and distressed expression on his face; he said something I couldn't understand amidst the noise.
With my heart pounding erratically in my chest and my mind clouded with fear and uncertainty, I was led by the guards towards cell 11. Each step felt like it weighed tons, as if I were walking towards the abyss. I could feel the stares of the other inmates watching the scene, some with expressions of shock, others with a mixture of curiosity and indifference.
Finally, we arrived, and by this point, I was sweating uncontrollably; they opened the cell and threw me inside. My eyes instinctively closed as I fell to the ground. I didn't want to look at it. I got up, still blinding my vision, slowly groping around until I found the bed. I lay on it and turned to the wall beside it, my face as close as possible.
Lying on the hard bed, I could feel my heart beating so loudly that it seemed to echo off the concrete walls around me. Each beat was a pulsating reminder of my situation. I tried to push away the thoughts, but it was like trying to hold back a raging river with bare hands. All the while, I heard stories, heard things about that place, and now I was there, cornered by circumstances beyond my control.
Gradually, I noticed the thick layer of sweat forming around me. I could even feel my pores opening, pouring the water from my body in an attempt to cool myself in that stuffy, hot environment. I couldn't help but think about the heat of the card and... about Francis. He still had the card. Wasn't that dangerous? I fixated on musings about it.
In my feverish frenzy, time seemed to stretch infinitely in that dark cell, minutes dragging on like hours as I struggled to maintain my sanity. Every sound, every shadow was a source of growing anxiety until somehow, I fell into a deep sleep, dreamless this time.
I woke up in the middle of the night, with a faint noise coming from behind the heavy steel door. At first, I feared, wondering what it could be, but as soon as I regained my senses, I remembered where I was, and frankly, nothing outside could be worse. I cautiously approached the source of the sound, trying to listen better, when a "Hey, kid, it's me!" sounded whispered.
"Munford! Munford, I'm glad you're here, knew you wouldn't abandon me."
"Ha, I know, I know," he sounded nervous, perhaps hiding from the guards. "Look, I'd help you out, but I can't get it open from this side, try it there." A small plastic rectangle slid through the door gap. A credit card... I remembered I had done this many times before.
I grabbed the card and started working, carefully sliding it into the lock. Each movement was made with the precision I gained from years of street experience, trying not to make any noise that could attract the guards' attention. My mind was racing, and the tremor it transmitted to my fingers made motor coordination difficult.
Finally, after several minutes of trial and error, I heard a soft click, and the door opened slowly. I could smell the fresh air from the corridor and was already about to smile when, along with the bright light of a flashlight, I saw Bob, now with his neck and shoulder bandaged, along with three more of his cronies. Munford was being held by one, who held an improvised knife to his neck.
"Sorry, kid, they forced me," the old man lamented.
"Not so fast, princess." Bob pushed me inside, onto the floor, and then he entered with one of his cronies, closing the door behind him and illuminating me with the halo of his flashlight.
"What's up, Bob, can't you leave me alone?"
"You wanted to settle things, didn't you? Well..." he pointed to his wound. "You just signed your death warrant! But first, I'm going to make sure to pull out all your teeth and make you swallow them."
He lifted me by the collar of my shirt and landed a punch with his heavy hand. I felt dizzy, seeing stars, curling up into a fetal position. His laughter was now a terrifying melody to me.
"Look at this crybaby. Where did your bravery go?" He kicked my stomach, and I'm sure he found it an ironic poetic justice.
His cohort laughed until the beam of his flashlight shifted away from me.
"Hey Bob, what's that over there?" He said, simultaneously pointing with his finger and the flashlight.
Even though it was on the wall behind me, I knew what it was. I saw Bob straighten up to face it, becoming petrified. He and the other, standing there, mouths agape. I waited for seconds, counting mentally and holding my breath, expecting anything, but nothing. Until suddenly, I began to see small puddles forming under their lower eyelids, dark marks... of blood.
The red tears started to stream down their faces like large crimson waterfalls. Soon, they began to make a noise... a familiar noise, which made my mind freeze as I felt my toes curling inside my shoes and my mouth trembling uncontrollably. It was the same sound as Tulley's. They were now allowing these moans to escape their throats and resonate in the tight concrete walls.
I had to do something. I began slowly to pass by them, trying to edge around. When, however, I was almost reaching the door, I could see their shadows turning slowly in my direction. The tension in the air was palpable, as if it could be cut with a knife. I held myself back from trembling as I tried to maintain composure in front of those men, whose bloodshot eyes were now fixed on me, full of terror and despair.
"What... what's happening?" My voice came out in a trembling whisper, barely able to make myself heard.
Bob and his cohort remained silent. They began to walk towards me, and in desperation, I opened the cell door and slammed it loudly behind me, not caring about attracting the guards' attention. As I looked around, I actually noticed that this was a concern I didn't need to have.
The environment where I was wasn't what I expected, from the prison corridor. It was actually another cell. I stopped for a moment, confused, only to be surprised by a figure in the center of it. A man in a straitjacket looking at me with a petrified smile.
"I've been waiting for you," he said. His voice was blood-curdling, sounding like someone scratching a chalkboard with their nails or scraping a fork on a glass plate.
I tried to open the door but it was stuck. When I turned around again, he was leaning, his face inches from mine, eyes bloodshot. I almost fell backward. He laughed. It was like the last time, he had his mouth covered by a sticky red mass that dripped, probably serving as material for the painting, which now displayed an almost complete surreal eye. He turned and walked to the painting, and then he regurgitated it again. Since his hands were tied, he used his tongue as a brush, finishing the last line of the drawing.
"This," he whispered. "Is my masterpiece."
I was trembling. I had forgotten Munford's advice, and now I found myself petrified, just like the others, staring at the eye. I don't know how much time passed, but I felt like it was hours, days... years. All in the blink of an eye, or rather, in a stare without a single blink.
I tried in vain to regain my composure. Scenes of horror penetrated my mind. Cadavers, bodies marked by playing cards. Criminals, inmates being violently beaten with batons, pepper spray, and all sorts of luxuries the police can serve, I saw gang fights, blood, death, and abuse. I saw people being killed inside the prison. Each scene of violence that each of those who looked had already witnessed. My legs were no more than reeds in the wind now, and I just wanted to run away and scream, cry, and sleep to never wake up again. I tried to scream but the man came to me, placing his foot over my mouth.
"Shhh... you need to see."
He repeated this indefinitely. "need to see, need to see, need to see, need to see"
With superhuman effort, I managed to free myself from the weight of his foot on my mouth, but I could barely articulate coherent words. My voice came out trembling and weak when I finally managed to speak:
"What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?"
He simply continued smiling, as if my words were just another piece in his sadistic game. Then, with a quick and fluid movement, he approached me, so close that I could feel his fetid breath and the metallic smell of blood dripping from his mouth.
"Your mind is a fascinating playground," he murmured, his voice echoing in the claustrophobic space of the cell.
I felt tears running down my cheek, and I knew what color they were. I stood there, in shock, staring at the large painted eye, while my entire being was eaten alive in fear and dread. I don't know how much time passed, maybe the entire age of the universe, eternity, who knows. I woke up on the infirmary bed. Wires connected to my arm while a machine reproduced the "beeps" of my heart.
I looked to the side, seeing the green eyes of nurse Linda looking at me, concerned.
"Are you okay?"
"You need to see," I said, not even wanting to.
She frowned, evidently confused by my response. Linda seemed hesitant, as if she were trying to decide whether to ask more or simply ignore my strange statement. I could see the concern in her eyes, but also a certain curiosity, as if something inside her was intrigued by what I had to say.
"What do you mean by that?" She finally asked, her soft voice echoing in the silence of the infirmary.
I sat up slowly on the bed, feeling a wave of dizziness pass over me. My mind was still cloudy, as if I were struggling to emerge from a deep nightmare. I tried to articulate my words as coherently as possible.
"I... I saw things," I murmured, my voice still trembling. "Terrible things. In the cell... in there... something... something is wrong."
Linda watched me with a serious expression, her green eyes analyzing me carefully. She seemed to understand that something serious had happened, but couldn't fully comprehend what I was trying to communicate.
"Look... you and the others had a collective hallucination in that cell... The director has already arranged for an investigation, but we suspect carbon monoxide poisoning, we've already talked to him about the lack of windows in that place, but it seems he doesn't listen."
I stopped, confused by that information. Was I hallucinating? Well, maybe I would even think that if it weren't for what followed. A man in a dark suit entered. He had a serious and intimidating expression, and he asked Linda to leave.
"Listen here, young man, you're lucky to have come back. The others are catatonic... and probably won't come back to themselves. That's why your cooperation is extremely important, and we need to know: what did you see?"
I stumbled, recounting as much information as I could remember, from Tulley to Bob. The man listened to me without making any expression. After that, he took a radio that was hanging from his blazer and said some words that I didn't quite understand, something like "Ceter," "Queter"... and then he took a clipboard, handing it to me.
"This is your letter of freedom. Our proposal is as follows: We release you from prison and in exchange, you don't open your mouth about the specific events mentioned here," he pointed to the clauses.
That was five years ago, and given my freedom, you must imagine that not everything that happened is transcribed here, but the most important parts are. I ended up visiting Munford a few times after that, and I was horrified to discover that Francis, on the eve of his release, hanged himself with the bedsheet. The old man and I stared at each other after this discovery, in a mutual silent understanding. Shortly after, they closed not only the cell, but our entire pavilion, relocating the inmates. I never saw Munford or any of the others again after that. My nightmares persisted, but in recent months they have been much less frequent, and I think I might be slowly healing.
I wanted to say that this story ends well, with my rehabilitation. A troublesome prisoner full of stories becoming a family man. And it would be, if it weren't for the last 15 minutes of this morning. I believe you may remember that I received a letter this morning like that cursed number. I left it on the counter in the living room while I came here, to have breakfast and finish reporting this to you. When I finished the last paragraph, I went back to the room, but now, it seems like the whole nightmare is back.
I felt the tears, transparent this time, forming in my eyes. In the center of the room right now is Linda, holding the letter, looking at something in it that I can already imagine. She's standing there, wet and red stains on her face, I can hear her whispering "You need to see... need to see," and by God... I can see...

Emily was walking through the dark corridors of the colony, somewhat upset, now she had to go to the colony's port, the reason? She had to bring the fruit punch, of course no one was going to eat it but they need it because they wanted decoration.
The map she had guide her to the area where human food was stored was, it was a room with special compartment designe to keep most of the food in a state of preservation, even after 20 years, the food would still be like new, that's why Drones wouldn't have to worry about spoiled food taking up space.
"Why do I have to be the one to look for this and it have to be specifically on the far side of the colony?" She complained before stumbling because she had her eyes on the map not on the road, her visor hit the ground, she quickly composed herself to look at what made her fall and at that moment her oil froze, because of someone legs, leaning against the wall was a vipedic creature, with nearly nothing beyond a pair of pants. Instead of metal, its body was made of something of a greenish hue that slowly became paler and paler.
"what the-" she stopped her words by placing her hands on her mouth, not wanting to wake up to whatever she found, she slowly began to walk away from him, however before she could turn the corner she could see how this creature began to wake up and let out what seems to be a battle scream (Actually he just yawned but since drones don't do that, so Emily got scared of that), that was enough for her to speed up, running with all her might to avoid her premature death at the hands of a creature she has never seen before....
After opening his eyes and letting out a hoarse yawn, M looked to the side seeing how something was moving but he didn't know what it was, his eyes didn't adjust until a few seconds later, already more or less awake, Mitchell stood up and began to walk move in search of an exit or something to eat, he had not eaten in two days, so he needed to regain strength, but if he went outside even when the temperature was more or less the same, it is when there are snow storms that things get worse and complicated all for him, his body had to grow by eating what he found along the way, which was not much because not everything was digestible for him, he had to learn the hard way what he can eats and what he can't, sometimes he missed how it was simply waiting for Yeva and for her to give him food.
Outside the colony, a Spider-pod lands on the top of the mountain where the worker colony was built, since it was underground it would first have to find a way to enter.
"Since the Murder drones in these areas were eliminate after a long time trying to enter, only succeeding because they were able to attack before the door closed, we must find another way" T said to his squad, reading the data that was sent from Jcjenson boss to them.
"Tracking a weakness and exploit it is my speciality" Z said with a crazy smile before jump and fly with her wings to have a better view, she quickly moved towards the west being followed by her companions.
"Looks like someone forgot to cover the roof" Z said while bumping fists with T.
"Well the battle plan is this, me and T hunt down the drones while Z moves through the vents to find the creature and sends a communication to us when she kill it, is that okay?" D asked his co-workers.
"In case that thing is with the Drones, let me know, while I would like to test the capabilities of that thing on my own, from what we have recorded, the workers drones created a anti-disassembly drone weapon, so if they are with that creature and more of those weapons in the same room, it would be good to be all together so we can win" Z added, to which her companions agreed, shaking their heads affirmatively. Now the three entered through the gap in the ceiling that was never repaired, T and D went towards south, while Z moved towards the vents, before moving much, she received a message from T.
"Hey, apart from exploring, you should build a map of this place while you move through the vents, maybe in the potential case that we fail, other Disassembly Drones can use that valuable information to complete this mission, so they will be here in about a week, the other teams are taking their time and want to give us the first try, and then if we can't, they will all go together."
"Okay, this place is very big so even if we succeed, it's better this way, the worker drones probably have a secret escape route and we can use it to ambush any survivors who try to escape" Z replied to her partner.
"OH ROBO-GOD OH ROBO-GOD" N begins to hyperventilate in front of V, who looked at him without saying anything because the boy did not even let her form a word until N got close enough to V and she gave him a slap making him look at her and they both stayed silent for a minute.
"Listen to me N, being like this will be no good for no one, you will only make yourself worry more without being able to do anything to bring a solution to your problem, so shut up and think." V said
N puts his hand on his chin, V was right, if he stayed here doing nothing, everyone in the colony would be killed if he didn't get going but he shouldn't be stupid too with what he will do.
"You're right, I need a plan."
"We need a plan, I won't let those Disassembly Drones eat all the food, remember we overheat without oil, plus I can annoy that purple thing by making her owe me a favor for saving her ass" She said while laughing.
"Okay, let's go," N said as he walked outside, only to notice that V wasn't moving. "What's wrong, V? Move, we don't have all night."
"N, I'm chained"
"...."
"...."
".... I'm silly, not blind" N said and then went up, V opened her eyes a little before moving because the chain had been broken for a long time.
Obviously V didn't tell N what the real reason was of why she had such change, if these drones are here it only means that Cyn decided that "something" was outside of her plans and that it had to be solved . So if she finds this "something"... maybe there was a chance that all of this could lead to the key to finally getting rid of that pirated Windows drone. So she decided to cooperate a little with N, yes, she still thinks about at least drinking some of the oil from the drones already killed by this squad to replenish the lost amount and prevent overheating.
Now in the colony, Uzi was being dragged by Lizzy and Doll, they had made her pretty, something that did not go with her programming, although the dress looked good and that, she was uncomfortable wearing it.
"I still don't know why I have to go to the stupid dance," Uzi said, watching Doll leave for a moment.
"Well, with that attitude you won't make any friends, much less get your friend Murder Drone back, believe me, I know you want to see hum because of the way you answered our questions, it was not only uncomfortable but a tone of guilt that came out of your voice module" Lizzy said as she finished putting on her dress.
"Wow Lizzy, since when were you so good at reading people?" Uzi said surprised.
"When your mother is the only psychiatrist in the entire neighborhood and you have Doll as a friend, you learn to read others, it's just a matter of finding the right opening, and from what I can see after what happened a while ago , your friendship with that Murder Drone N fell for some reason, you must leave the past behind, whatever you saw if you don't let it go you won't really be able to grow as a person, so I advise you, go and talk. I'm sure for the way he describes him, you'll be forgiven." Lizzy said after putting a hand on Uzi's shoulder, before walking out of the room leaving a thoughtful Uzi.
With that in mind Uzi got up and left the room only to find Yeva who was wearing an elegant suit because she was going to see the Prom, although her intention was different, she wanted to check if that monster would try to attack the drones that were there in the Prom, so she and the others can stop it before a drone gets hurt, of course she'll probably need to get her solver out because she doesn't know the capabilities of this thing beyond being bigger than a murder drone, but she's not someone who is intimidated by size.
"Hey Yeva, huh, have you seen Lizzy and Doll?"
"Ну, судя по тому, что мне рассказала Долл, они пошли проверить одну вещь, чтобы завершить свои наряды, так что они должны быть здесь через пару минут." (Well, from what Doll told me, they went to check something to complete their suits, so they should be here in a couple of minutes) The older Drone told to darkXwolf17, Uzi felt slightly uncomfortable seeing her.
"Hey, ma'am, can I ask you something? It's related to my mother." Uzi said before receiving a wave of Yeva's hand to fire off her question.
"Well, how exactly was she like before meet my dad? Although many stories that he told me, he never told me about what she was like in her youth and that you two were found by his group 20 years ago, so I assume that you have been good friends for a long time, right?"
"Да, мы с Нори были друзьями до взрыва ядра, мы служили людям во всем, что они от нас просили. До взрыва отношение Нори было немного другим, более сосредоточенным, и его было легче разозлить, но не так сильно, как было после взрыва. Я полагаю, что отсутствие людей облегчило ему свободу самовыражения, поскольку нам не пришлось бы терпеть особых усилий из-за... нашей работы, которая требовала физических и умственных усилий, потому что она заключалась в кодировании кодов." (Ah, yes, Nori and I were friends before the core explosion, we served the humans in whatever they asked of us. Before the explosion, Nori's attitude was a little different, more focused and easier to get angry, but after the explosion, i think the absence of humans made it easier for her to express herself freely, since we wouldn't have to endure much effort due to... our job, which required physical and mental effort because it involved coding codes.) Yeva told half-truths to Uzi, who was listening. attentively each word being more or less satisfied with that answer.
"By the way, one last thing, what about Doll's father? I haven't seen a single photo of him around the house."
That question made Yeva freeze for a second, before she moved and avoided the question with another
"Я думаю, вы знаете ответ, вероятно, это был ваш друг-дрон-убийца, я не знаю, я ничего не мог сделать, чтобы спасти его, говоря о дронах-убийцах, что случилось с теми двумя, которые были на свободе?" (I think you know the answer, it was probably your friend killer drone, I don't know, there was nothing I could do to save him, speaking of killer drones, what happened to the two that were loose?) Yeva looks at Uzi seriously, because she had afraid that she would have to deal with the Murder Drones if they have used Uzi as a can opener to the secrets of the colony such as the place where they get oil from.
"Well..... the relationship I had with N went down the drain, but I'm about to fix it, so I'll do it now or never." She said, motivated by Lizzy's words before leaving the house, leaving a worried Yeva, who finished her preparations before leaving for the Prom
Lizzy and Doll were walking on their way to the Prom with their dresses ready, that is until Emily collided with the both because she was running without looking, when she fell she saw who she hit, both friends stood up.
"Emily, what's wrong with you? You could ruin this dress, you doesn't know how hard they are to find" Lizzy replied to the Drone.
"I'm sorry Lizzy and Doll, I just saw it, it was horrendous and it made a strange roar." Emily responded. That attracted the attention of both of them, who looked with an expression of wanting to know every last detail.
"Well, you see I was the one who had to look for the fruit punch and all the food for the decoration of the dance, so I was sent to the most remote place in the colony, there while I was walking I found that thing, it was big and ugly, a sickly green color" She said, the girl wanted to keep moving away but she was taken by the hand by Doll
"Покажи нам дорогу, Эмили, к месту, где хранят еду, мне интересно, что ты скажешь." (Show us the way, Emily, to the place where we keep the food, I'm interested in what you say.) Her interest in the situation was clearly piqued, which Emily didn't like, but she was dragged by the purple-haired girl and the blonde into the dark hallway.
N and V were flying on their way to the colony, until they noticed the open door. "Look, there's Uzi, and uh, she's got a dress on, she looks very..." N almost started drooling if it weren't for V hitting him on the back.
"Hey, what was that for?"
"Don't act like that, it's in bad taste for a girl to have a boy spying on her from a distance, plus if she has a dress we probably need one suit for you and a Dreas for me."
"V there is no time" N started to go down....but then he went up again
"Where can I find one?"
"Follow me, I know the perfect place" V said guiding her partner to a clothing store to get a suit and dress for each of them.
Outside in the blizzard, Uzi was running until N and V quickly stop her as they both land in the snow kicking up a small cloud of it.
"¡¿N?!"
"¡Uzi!"
"¿Why-?"
"You look-"
"¿How-?"
"Hey, eh-"
"I... Think some-"
"I could help. But you probably don't want me..."
"OH MY GOD CAN YOU STOP DOING THAT?! WE HAVE A SQUAD OF MURDER DRONES TO STOP" V yelled at them both making their attention turn to her.
"WAIT HOW THAT A MURDER DRONE SQUAD?!!" Uzi panics
"Let me explain, we were relaxing in the spiral until the place moved a little, so I went out to see and it turned out that a ship that we used passed over and headed towards this location, they are probably already inside" N told her while Uzi had her eyes open.
"But luckily purple thing we are here to save your ass and your colony in exchange for donations of oil for all our life" V told her only to receive an elbow from N, Uzi for her part began to run from back towards the colony followed by both.
Yeva was in the Prom and had a glass of oil while she looked around in search of her daughter or at least Lizzy.
"oh hello Yeva" a voice called her, when she turned she could see Khan
"Привет, Кхан, ты видел девочек? я ищу ее"(Hi Khan, have you seen the girls? I'm looking for they)
"no, I expected they would be be with you" That was not a comforting answer, that started to worry her until something fell from the ceiling directly killing the party's DJ while someone close the doors.
"Greetings, dear toasters, and welcome to the funeral dance of this colony" T said as he changed the music to something he liked while D moved out of the doors with his hands transform into claws tearing apart a drone.
Yeva gets ready, hell with pretending she's a normal Drone, they're murder drones, of course she's going to use the Solver now.
"ЧЕРТ ВАС, Я УБЬЮ ВАС ОБОИХ!" (DAMN YOU, I'LL KILL YOU BOTH!)
"Hey, what did she say? I don't have too many languages installed in my software" said D but was sent flying when a table that was next to him suddenly hit him thanks to a push from Yeva who used the Solver, walking in front from the crowd to fight against the two Murder drones
The three Drone girls were walking down the hallway where Emily found the creature, but none of them couldn't see anything there.
"Well it looks like she's gone so I'm going-" Emily start to say but Lizzy would pull her by the shoulder, the popular one took out her phone and looked for her copy of the facility plans that she had stolen from her dad
"If there is a creature that is not a drone in this place, then it is probably in the area where we kept all the human stuff that we don't need, you know blood tests, some other tools, organic food, water purifiers , etc" Lizzy walked leading now, it took 5 minutes until they felt that someone watching them.
"Хорошо, разве я не единственный, кто чувствует, что за ней наблюдают? Что ж, тогда давайте вытащим этого шпиона"(Well, am I not the only one who feels like she's being watched? Well, then let's take out this spy.) Doll, Emily and Lizzy looked around until Lizzy stopped.
"HEY, I saw you, come out now or we'll kick you out" She yelled at whoever was there.
"Неужели кричать было хорошей идеей? Честно говоря, я бы отступил, если бы оказался в подобной ситуации."(Was yelling a good idea? Honestly, I would back out if I found myself in a similar situation.)
"But what does you say? It's super effective"
Then they saw him... he was tall, and his gaze pierced to the core of them, he approached to the group at a slow pace.
Both Lizzy and Emily took a step back, however Doll did not move an inch, she stared at the being, almost hypnotized.
Mitchell looked at the Drone in front of him, she looked so different but at the same time so familiar, as if he knew her from somewhere, he was hypnotized watching how the dark purple-haired girl took a small step, in a moment she stood up her arm and he copied her action, touching your palm with his, it feels familiar, like a part of him is here. However, his instincts quickly kicked in, he pushed the purple-haired girl away using her arm while something fell from the vent. A sword had created a small crater where he and the Drone were a second ago, right there was the owner of the weapon, a Murder Drone, who was looking at the four, three drones and her target.
"Wow, this place is very big but I finally caught you big guy, so I'll kill you quickly and have a little snack with those Drones" Z said while turning her hands into claws
"MURDER DRONE AHHHH" Emily screamed before running out to the way she came, Lizzy and Doll left with no other option, knowing that without Uzi's gun or sunlight both would be no match for this one.
Doll turned to look at the creature, noticing that he did not move an inch from his place, in fact she could see how a mark appeared on his skin, his muscles contracted, before letting out a monstrous scream of anger to the Murder Drone who was laughing to start a fight... which was very one-sided, although Doll couldn't see much as she was pulled by Lizzy out of danger and started running towards the Prom...
"Let's see what you're made of, big guy." Z launched herself to cut Mitchell's face with the intention of ripping his face off, something that miraculously failed because he was able to avoid the cut by twisting his back a little. M took a step back, he knew that in a physical competition he had no way of win, so he decided to do the most logical thing... Run, so he ran in the opposite direction of the 3 Drones to keep the metal demon away from them, Z smiled at the idea of playing cat and mouse, so she deployed her wings, something that was difficult due to the size of the hallways, which Mitchell took advantage of, since Z's feet were not designed to run much on the ground unlike more manly designs, she would be restricted in flight on place like this.
He looked back to see how Z turned her left arm into a rocket launcher and fired a missile at him, so he launched himself into the detour, feeling part of the explosion that shook the entire ground, he stood up and began to run, slightly in pain due the shock wave but that was only a second before his body worked to repair the damage and with adrenaline rushing through his brain, he tried to dodge the projectiles that were now bullets, some hit him but he didn't slow down at all, in one point he sees a detour to the right so he takes it, Z crashes because she couldn't fight the acceleration she had taken, fracturing her visor a little but she quickly regenerates to look at where Mitchell went, noticing a couple of closed room.
"Let's see where you went" Z began to open each door with a kick while she had her weapons ready to turn Mitchell into Swiss cheese, nothing, nothing, nothing, NOTHING.
"Where the hell did he go?" She said, looking when she saw that she couldn't find M, then she heard something above her while she was opening the last door. Mitchell jumped from the roof in a surprise attack, managing to push Z to the ground and because she wasn't prepared for that, Mitchell began to dominate her, managing to retain her arms and using the difference in size to his advantage, immobilizing most of her body...... I say most because Z's tail was free so she moved it and stuck it in the Mitchell's throat.
Making him fall to one side feeling the pain of how his flesh melts, his cells started a war trying to counteract the corrosive properties of the nano acid but they are more powerful, so killed Mitchell's cells on the neck, Z grab him from the left leg and threw him into a room, hitting a vending machine with his body, Mitchell's consciousness almost went away but Z did not end there, she transformed her hand into a knife and began to make mincemeat of Mitchell, now he was ground meat, and then Z looked around noticing that she was in some kind of warehouse.
"It's done" she told herself, send the text to the others and began to returned to the others, she was thirsty for oil.
"EVERYONE CALM, THE CAVALRY HAS ARRIVED!" Uzi shouted after N and V blew up the entrance, noticing how a whole group of Drones was in a corner taking cover, turning her head a little she can see the Murder Drones, two males, fighting against Yeva, she kept them at bay as best she could, using a railing to block a sword while she jumped back after the block and landed on a table like a ninja.
"Wow, I didn't know that Doll's mom had style" she said.
"What are you two doing? You should help us!" T said when he noticed N and V.
"I'm sorry but we're changing sides, the company we're talking about is a bit silly" said V before changing her hands into claws, which were blocked by T's sword, who used his free left hand to hit her in the side with an electromagnetic pulse cannon launching V a few of meter back.
"Naturally, we are resistant to electromanetic pulses, however, it is resistance, not immunity, the closer you are to the target the more the effects can be felt" said T who predicted N trying to attack him from behind with his sword but the sword was broken by T's chainsaw and then N was pushed by his tail.
Uzi attacks D with a knife lying on the ground but the Murder drone was more agile, blocking it with his left claw while shooting with his machine gun at Yeva who created a shield to deflect the bullets, which D responds by grabbing Uzi with his tail and throw her at Yeva, she intended to catch the purple-haired girl in the air using her Solver but she couldn't, which surprised her, she had to catch her manually, only to be received by a stab, which went through Uzi's side and below Yeva's waist, D had moved at the same moment he threw Uzi using this opening to attack both of them.
D took out his sword from both, letting the slightly reddish colored oil come out of both.
"UZI!" N shouted furiously, moving at full speed towards the them, but Z came out of the ventilation and moved quickly towards Yeva, sending her flying to N so both colling, saving D's neck.
"Sorry for being late, that thing while weak didn't want to die and he made me lose three more victims, hey, why are we fighting with those two?" Z asked to her classmates.
"Traitors, eliminating them is a priority, however be careful with the one with the darker purple hair, it seems she has super telekinetic powers" D tells her, blocking V's two swords with his own sword while before making his tail grab Uzi's leg and the smash against V sending them both flying....
"D you will fight with the boy, Z take care of the big purple one and I-" he could not finish since he was hit with a chair by Khan, the problem is that the Chair broke and T turned to see him, Khan gave a nervous smile as T changed his right arm into a chainsaw, Khan start to running for his life.
Now everyone positioned themselves, Uzi was bleeding to death but Yeva quickly stood next to her, a strange symbol appeared on her hand closing the wound but not the pain and Khan would take Uzi's arms moving her out of danger.
Yeva stood next to N and V, it was something she hated but she needed the help of these two to win.
"Я НЕ ЗАБЫВАЮ, ЧТО ТЫ СО МНОЙ СДЕЛАЛ!" (I DON'T FORGET WHAT YOU DID TO ME!) Yeva said to V who looked at her strangely for a second but focused on the fight.
However, through the other door, Lizzy and Doll entered, seeing the disaster.
"Ok, there goes my coronation as prom queen" Lizzy said noticing how there were corpses in some places and a crowd in the background, but she focused on the murder drones.
"подожди, как ты здесь? если несколько минут назад ты был позади." (wait, how are you here? if a few minutes ago you were behind of us?.) Doll asked to Z
"Oh, well after killing the target just enter through the ventilation, this whole place is mapped, there is no escape or safe place now, especially when the other squads get here" She said, everyone open their eyes a little.
For some reason, Doll felt strange hearing that Z had killed that creature, as if she had been told that a relative of hers had been murdered.
However, she looked at her mother who looked at her with the expression that she should go to a safe place... Doll for the first time did not know what to do, her body froze, she felt afraid, she felt afraid of die, she didn't want to die...
Lizzy however did not stay still, she held her friend and took her out of there.
V was the first to move her sword like a dance, hitting the sword of T, who turned around to try to hit v with his other hand, which was blocked by V.
V was fast, she used everything she had, T blocked as best he could, waiting for the right moment until V's left arm got stuck in a weapon change, apparently the effect of the electromagnetic pulse weapon took effect at that moment, which would allow T perform a boxing attack combination Side swing - oblique rise - circular downward turn - wrist lock.
The combination was enough to weaken V and allow T to hit her with a shotgun in her skull, sending her flying, it would take her 3 minutes to regenerate from all the damage.
N's steps equalized D's steps, sparks came out as they both fought, they changed from swords to claws. But there was something that distinguished them, N never fought with someone experienced, he or J or V never tried to train, they always improvised since they never expected the Worker Drones to fight for their lives with the same equipment, D, T and Z for their part did. They trained, not because the Worker Drones were armed but because they had nothing better to do when it was daylight, they trained combat tactics, managing to hurt each other, and from there they knew perfectly how their bodies worked and their limits.
At one point, D spat in N's face which made him put his hands to his face to remove the drool but he ended up with two less arms and a missile in his head being sent flying.
Yeva detailed her movement with Z, using two knives and her solver to compensate the difference in weaponry, with a move of her hand, Yeva imposes a shield that protects her from the explosions of Z who tried to blow her up with a missile. She summons a knife and throws it at Z, removing her arm. Almost immediately, Yeva removes the ceiling fan from its pole and throws it upright.
However Z was faster, she moved her body to the side, the fan remained stuck in the wall, perhaps if she had attacked horizontally she would have been dead.
With a movement of her tail, she raised her severed arm towards her shoulder, placing it and moving to continue the fight. She changed her arm into a flash grenade launcher and fired them. Yeva tried to block it with a shield, thinking that they were explosive grenades, but she was blinded and disoriented. She was slammed against a wall and immobilized again, this time Z would nail two metal barrels, one in her left arm and the other in her right arm.
"Okay, let's get this over with-" she not finished her words due a brick hit her, she turned around, T and D followed her gaze.
At the door they could see someone almost without nothing if it weren't for a pair of shorts, his skin white as snow as some minor wounds closed, his mouth had a piece of meat frozen before he finished eating it, Mitchell with a ax in his left hand and concrete block in the other he looked at the three Murder drones, ready to end this.
(I FINALLY FINISHED THIS AHHHHHH....
The English version has 1.5k views, maybe I'll do a 10k word special when we get 2k views, this one has a little over 5,000 words.
Well, see you another time.
Mitchell to the Z, T and D be like
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Evj6HbsXAAEmdlo.jpg

In a strange twist of dimensional craziness, a portal opens in front of an F-22 Raptor cruising above American airspace and dumps the confused pilot into Middle Earth, just as the siege begins. Touched by the stalwart bravery they see in their other-dimension human counterparts in Gondor, the pilot decides to put their skills to the test by easing their struggle as much as possible.
The challenge isn’t gonna be anything else except how much the fighter jet can decimate Mordor troops. I sincerely doubt anything in LoTR can hold a candle to the power of a Raptor, since nothing moves fast enough to touch it and anything short of modern conventional weaponry can even damage it.
In this case, this is a single standard F-22, with all the standard attachments and fuel. Idk much about fighter jets but according to Google, a modern F-22 can go about 1800 miles without refueling, has an ammo capacity of 480 rounds, and can carry up to 8 missiles (six AIM-120 AMRAAMs and two AIM-9 Sidewinders). The pilot will be an average US Air Force pilot, and they inherently know who is the bad guy (Mordor) and who they’re protecting (Gondor).
The pilot will use their full discretion to choose which targets to hit and how to best go about doing it.
Just to make it a little less of a stomp, let’s assume the plane cannot be brought low enough to the point where it blasts the army by breaking the sound barrier right above their heads (though it will be able to fly lower if the situation calls for it).
The challenge ends when the F-22 fully runs out of ammo and/or fuel, in which both the plane and its pilot will mysteriously vanish into thin air, probably back to modern society (challenge will also end if the enemy can somehow manage to damage it to the point where it can’t work anymore, or if it somehow gets destroyed entirely).
How much damage can the pilot do in these three rounds? Will they be able to completely turn the fight in Gondor’s favor?
Round 1: Just the Orc armies outside Gondor
Round 2: The Orc armies plus the Haradrim on their Oliphaunts
Round 3: All of the above plus the Nine Nazgul and their Ringwraiths
Bonus Stomp Round: All of the above but instead of 1 Raptor there’s now a full squadron of 24 fighters, all sharing the same specifications
Hope y’all enjoyed this read, had a crazy dream last night with this exact scenario so I’m curious to see how this plays out!

I'm not totally sure how to feel about this situation that I'm in. For context, I've been in graphic design 15 years or so, and about 10 professionally. Most of my professional work has been within my own companies. Clothing, freelance, contract advertising.
I've gotten to the point where I'm tired of being independent and doing everything on my own, I don't have the same drive that I used to where I would do music festival and comic convention vending every weekend to make ends meet. This year I decided it's time to find a role within a team so that my life can be a bit more stable and relaxed as I grow into my thirties.
I applied for a designer role at the leading vehicle wrap shop in my hometown. Prior to my interview, the owner requested a design test. I hate the idea of design tests, but this is a small, family owned company. I decided I'm willing to play ball if it gets me an interview. After all, I prefer a small place that I can help grow with the skills I've acquired over the past decade, as opposed to a corporate designer in a stuffy environment. He sends me a template for a truck, and basically told me to show him what I've got. I created a logo and style guide for a fake electricity company. Nailed the composition. Created a photorealistic mockup in PS for a bit of overkill. Send it to him and wait for the response.
When he gets back to me later that day, he's clearly impressed by my work and sets up an interview immediately. When I go to the interview a couple of days later everything goes smoothly. We have a lot of good back and forth banter. He's touring me around the building and using language that's highly suggestive of me already having the position. He reviews my portfolio with me, notes many times on how impressed he is and how well I demonstrated my range in my portfolio. He asks me what I'm seeking for pay, and then proposes the idea of a second design test. He tells me for the first time that there are two other applicants and while he thinks I'm the most advanced applicant, he still wants to see what the three of us can come up with for a "real client scenario."
At this point I'm more than a little annoyed, but I just smile through it and tell him I'd be willing to do another testing round. After all, they're a small company, and sorely in need of someone with a real design background if I'm being honest, and I know they have to be careful where they put their money. I give the benefit of the doubt that the guy just doesn't realize how sleazy he's being and how frowned upon this is. He was really cool otherwise.
Well, fast forward to this morning and he sends me over the specs for the new "test." It's for a real company. I know of the company he's requesting this test for. I google them to verify..yup, they're a real company. I email the owner and politely ask "Hey, GUY, quick question, is this for an actual company that's hired your company for design work?"
He responds "Yes." to my email.
Where do I go from here? Am I supposed to feel as livid as I do? I really want a well paying internal job, and this place really seems like it could be a great fit. I think that I can help them a lot as he's wanting to expand into areas that I have a lot of expertise in. But this one has me unsure of how to move forward. Do I attempt to educate him at the cost of my hiring by telling him how frowned upon this practice is, and that he should be able to make a decision based on my portfolio and interview process? Do I deny the work and insult him in the process? Do I deny the work and tell him that I'm willing to do this for a standard hourly rate? Do I just do it? Do I just do it, but watermark the living hell out of it?
I could really use some insight from some of you more senior level guys. Thank you in advance <3

I went to the outdoor market in Montreal, the Jean Talon Market to ask around for Grass Fed Beef. I stopped after outside the shop to listen to an old musician play this beautiful harp style instrument and took a brief video of just my face and the sky with the music.
While doing this standing off to the side of the "road" I feel something in my space behind me and I turn around to see a black mercedes moving very slowly and stop. He would be about 3-4 inches from my running over my toes when I turn around if not less. I duck a little and peer at the driver to understand what is happening because there is at least 4 feet of space on the other side.
It's an elderly man who gives me the fingeaggressive hand gestures and he's murmuring something aggressive. I thought he would just maybe apologize and at the least that he would pull a little to the left where all the open space was to move away from me.
Nope.
He started driving again at 0.5 miles per hour with his back wheels at most 3 inches from my toes. I was shocked and laughing at him. There I was motionless and standing with my bicycle at the side of a pedestrian zone. You are not supposed to really drive through there and if you do you have to be super careful and yield to all the customers and tourists.
Another old man who was walking my way witnessed what happened and started hitting the cars passenger mirror repeatedly until it folded in as he walked by the car. Probably he was upset this car almost hit a pedestrian and also he was trying to walk by it as well and technically it was cutting very close to him too.
Out of nowhere a third Boomer peeks out into the "road" away from his wife and child and starts yelling in poor English that I was "being violent to the car" which coming from a French perspective, I think he was trying to say I was yelling at the car or something. I'm guessing he had no idea what just happened. He might have. I was headed that way already and when I passed I asked him what he was yelling at me. He had started almost sort of walking away and when I asked him the question he came up to me forcefully at which point I thought ok let me turn on my camera this is crazy.
So the camera came on right after his hip bumped into my handlebar as he came up to yell at me some more. This whole time I wasn't really out to check for grass fed beef but it was near a food delivery I made on bicycle. So basically this is the type of Boomer behavior I see alot while out making three dollars.
LOL.
His wife also chimed in that I was.... I don't know... also to be scolded somehow and then tried to put her hand up in a weird way when she was on camera also accosting me for no reason that isn't her business. At that point they walked away as if they had to stop each other from a bar brawl... it was sad... but simultaneously the old man had parked his car and he was going for a sandwich!
So there he is there accosting me some more after abusing me with his car. So at this point I'm leaving while explaining what happened with the camera still rolling and I looking around me while talking and noticing some busybodies with disapproving faces and one such Boomer started yelling at me to be quiet. I tried to ask her if she saw what happened but she wasn't having any of it. You see later she sneaks up behind me while talking to someone and starts secretly filming the back of my head.
LOL.
At which point I ask her if she speaks English. She says no in a way like I'm the problem. Then I ask her in French if she thinks living in Montreal and not speaking ANY English is bizarre and also why she menaces random people in public.
At this point ANOTHER Boomer walks by into the same store she and her disapproving face friend are going into and he accosts me while walking by that I should shut up and leave her alone. He is saying that the woman who snuck up behind me is a victim somehow even though he is most likely another random Boomer interloper.
The guy with the tattoos was staring at me and not in a good way so I asked him if he wanted to hear what happened and then he started being negative and commanding so I included him as well in the video and asked if he was a Boomer.
He told me to 'just shut up' and then walked away and you can faintly hear it but I believe it was him who as he was walking away just screamed something bizarre.
Video Of Getting Harassed While Making $3 Doing Food Delivery

Disney took a turn in the 50s and changed their style to a flatter graphic style, which was inspired by modern contemporary art. Prior to that their animations were more three dimensional in appearance. I’m basically looking for something that goes into detail explaining the differences graphically. Maybe that hasn’t really been covered, but searching for it has been impossible because as soon as I mention 3D all that comes up is modern 3D animations.