One of the new formats for the bonus drops (Tgxx picture number picture number) really makes my blood boil.
I understand that you have to be fast, but this just doesn’t make any sense.
Sure, I can accept that the lower wager requirements means that a lot more people are capable of claiming it, but the higher wager requirements (10k and above) is fully claimed barely even 30 seconds after I put in the code. How is that physically possible?
Maybe i am too slow, maybe there are just that many players that are also waiting on the drop or maybe bots are being used, but I have never seen the higher requirements get fully claimed this fast in my 3+ years on Stake.
Also wth is with the guess the picture and the simple maths? I’m here to gamble, not play pub quiz ffs. Is this suppose to deter bots? Cos if it is, it’s a terrible way to go about it.
Just gimme the damn code that I can copy and paste. If I’m too slow with this method then so be it.

https://beforewegoblog.com/interview-with-sebastien-de-castell/
Hello dear reader or listener! Our fearless leader Beth has once again been incredible and given me the opportunity to interview one of my all-time favorite authors and modern bard, Sebastien De Castell! Most known for his Greatcoats (one of the very first series I ever reviewed!) and Spellslinger series, he’s also the author of The Malevolent Seven and The Argosi series, and, as of December 2023, he began his new series Court of Shadows, with its prelude Crucible of Chaos.
With his latest novel, Play of Shadows, having just come out in late March, and this year being his tenth as a published author, what better time to ask to pick his brain? De Castell cordially obliged us and I got to gather all of my rambling fangirling thoughts into a semblance of a respectable interview!
So, without further ado, please enjoy some of his bardly wisdom!
******
Let’s start with two-fold congratulations, first on your latest novel, Play of Shadows, recently coming out, and second, on ten years as a published author this past February! I can only imagine how satisfying that must be for you, especially as you’ve just published your 17th novel, so what is going through your head?
I just counted them all and technically Play of Shadows is my sixteenth novel (Tales of the Greatcoats, Vol. 1 is a collection of short stories). Nonetheless, sixteen is a lot more books than I ever imagined I’d get to see published when I started out ten years ago. Honestly, this has been a wonderful time for me – the culmination of a lifelong dream achieved through the support of my fabulous agents, editors and, most of all, amazing readers. If it weren’t for all those Greatcoats, Argosi (and now a growing number of Wonderists) spreading the word about my books, I would never have made it this far.
You’ve said you don’t have a set writing method or plan, so each book is a different beast for you, but now that you’ve come up on ten years of being an author, how do you feel your work has developed/grown in all that time?
That’s a great question, though I always bridle at the notion that writers necessarily improve or produce ‘more mature’ work over time. Most of us don’t; we simply change as human beings and so do our stories. Would I write my debut novel, Traitor’s Blade, the exact same way today as I did all those years ago? Of course not. I’d doubtless tweak the prose here and there, perhaps re-structure events and avoid choices that some reviewers might complain about. But then it would be a different book. Traitor’s Blade as it appeared ten years ago was the best version I could write of the story I most wanted to tell. Its flaws are my flaws, its best moments are those inspired by who I was at the time. A more refined version of the book might appeal to me today, but might not have impacted readers as strongly as the original.
Looking at it another way, imagine if we applied the notion of developing and growing to poets: that an older, more experienced poet would necessarily compose a better love sonnet than a younger one. Even saying it out loud sounds preposterous because we know that there are all different kinds of love, and some of them are expressed most eloquently without the use of technique or guile. We often mock teenagers for being too emotional or ‘driven by hormones’, but some of the finest poetry and pop music of all time came out of those hormones – not because it was technically sublime, but because it was raw and honest.
I say all this because newer writers sometimes put off the story they most want to write until they’ve become more sophisticated at the craft. But if you wait too long, you risk no longer being the person meant to tell that story. One reason why I never try to ‘write to market’ or jump into some hot publishing niche is that I’m confident I’d be terrible at doing so; whichever book I’m currently writing is the one that represents who I am at this moment – as a novelist and as a human being.
Publishing the start of this latest book series was a small Odyssey over the last few years, with dates and book order being moved around a lot, so how are you feeling now that the Court of Shadows is finally making its way into the hands of readers?
Mostly, I’m just relieved that readers are taking to Play of Shadows so enthusiastically. I wasn’t sure whether a swashbuckling fantasy featuring a bunch of misfit actors trying to uncover a hundred year old conspiracy by conjuring up those events on stage would be received. Thank goodness fantasy readers are such an eclectic bunch!
That we are and such a premise would very hard to resist for anyone! From what you’ve said so far about the Court of Shadows as a whole, it will be a series of interconnected standalones, each bringing a piece of a wider puzzle to light, in order to somewhat reflect the fact that not one person or small group of people can see the whole picture of big events, which I find really intriguing. How did that come about? Did you just want to write something slightly different after two completed series, or was it something else?
I have a tremendous sympathy for historical fiction writers because they often have to contort the details surrounding historical events into knots in order to have their main characters always be in the right time and the right place for the story to make sense. Writing fantasy gives us more leeway because there’s no historical record to contradict our version of events, but most of the time, one person isn’t at the centre of so many massive incidents. No one gets to witness the beginning, middle and end of a war or revolution. Moreover, it’s probably never happened that one nation decided to attack another on a single front. Instead, they destabilize their enemies militarily, economically and psychologically through multiple offensives, and no one sees it all coming at once.
With the Court of Shadows series, I wanted the reader to experience both the fast-paced, swashbuckling adventure that defined the Greatcoats novels, but also the unease of a conspiracy – and an enemy – too big for any one person to perceive. Events unfold through the first books of the series simultaneously, so each book reveals one facet of the threat even as it introduces us to new heroes. Doing it this way means the reader is always getting a complete story rather than having to wait a year to find out what happens next, while still allowing for a climactic finale that I can’t wait to write!
You mentioned how your first draft of Play of Shadows was written as a theatre play because, even though the story is full of action, the themes get fought out in and are driven by the dialogue and aforementioned banter. To me, two of the main themes I found here but also in your other books, have been questions on legacy (leaving, preserving, or even revising one) as well as expectations (avoiding or rising to meet them) and, for both those themes, how they can be a burden or tension point for the protagonists. Is this a key way for you to ground your characters and make sure they connect with the reader? Because to an extent we can all relate to those kinds of tension and emotion?
Grounding characters in ways that readers can connect to them is one of the great challenges of writing fiction. Many of the attributes that critics say readers want from characters such as having realistic flaws and not being too heroic end up turning readers off. Often, my first pass at a main character will have them being too extreme in that direction. For example, Estevar Borros (the hero of Crucible) was actually more arrogant in the first draft of Crucible (if you can believe that!) and Damelas even less heroic. What I search for as I write and revise aren’t flaws anymore but contradictions. Yes, Estevar is arrogant, but he’s also self-aware of his arrogance and what it costs him. True, Damelas likes to run from a fight, but that doesn’t stop him from putting himself between danger and the people he cares about. For me, those kinds of contradictions are what make both fictional characters and real human beings so endlessly fascinating!
Which leads me to another thing I wanted to talk about specifically, and that is Damelas’ dynamic with Beretto and with his grandparents respectively. There are parallels and differences that exist in how these characters each place expectations on Damelas and push him to be the man they know he is, but can we say that while in relation to his grandparents whose expectations weigh him down for a long time, Beretto’s in some way encourage him more? There is a nuance there about the importance of how you try to push someone to reach their potential even if you mean well, and also accepting that they are their own person.
Ah, Beretto! I adore writing him because he’s someone who’s been told all his life that he’s too big, too stupid, too talentless to be the things he dreams of being. And yet, he transmutes this hurt into a determination to hold others up on his shoulders. For anyone else, he’d be the perfect motivator: supportive, trusting and full of faith in what you could accomplish. For Damelas, however, who’s lived his entire life in the shadow of his grandparents’ accomplishments and expectations, that only makes him more conscious of his own failings. The relationship between the two of them is always fraught by the fact that Damelas has never known a truer friend than Beretto, and yet the big man’s faith in him is almost more than he can bear. Meanwhile, Damelas looks up to Beretto so much that he often fails to notice when his friend needs a kind word of support. Those moments can be hard to write, because, like the reader, I always want them to be united as brothers-in-arms against the world, but it’s that tension that makes the growth of the friendship so satisfying to me.
Those moments were definitely hard to read for my feelings so I’d say mission accomplished! We must protect Beretto at all costs.
Moreover, something that deeply resonated with me and doubtlessly with many other readers, was a moment later in the book when Damelas and his grandfather finally talk about his complicated feelings towards his grandmother. More importantly about the fact that even understanding her own feelings/beliefs, as explained by her husband, things are still not easily resolved for Damelas. I was hoping you’d tell us a little more about what went into that whole dynamic and tension to and fro, because even with a short time you rendered a lot of nuance there.
You’re absolutely right, which is why I toiled for several drafts over the question of when to bring Paedar into the story. On the one hand, it’s rare for me to wait so long to have someone so important to my main character to make an appearance, but on the other, I really needed Damelas to be the one telling us about his childhood and the burden of his grandparents’ expectations for as long as possible. Had I introduced Paedar earlier, he would’ve shown us where Damelas is mistaken, and that would’ve broken the progression I wanted the reader to experience. More than any other character in the story, Paedar is the one who sees events and people as they truly are. He knows who Damelas really is under all that inner conflict and insecurity. He senses instantly how Shariza really feels about his grandson. Heck, he even gets a pretty good read on Duke Monsegino within minutes of meeting him.
In a very real sense, Play of Shadows is a book not just full of swashbuckling but about swashbuckling: whether that sense of reckless, romantic idealism has any place in an otherwise cynical world. Paedar Chademantaigne, the King’s Courtesy, represents both the awareness of how antiquated such swashbuckling idealism can be along with the determination to hang onto it anyway because, after all, we can all use a little more romance in our lives!
I’m definitely with you there!
Also, part of the fun for me when reading series set in the same world is seeing how much an author will pepper in from the other works so that it’s still in a way all connected but each series has its own identity. With Court of Shadows, I was very interested in seeing how that wider world, and the other characters in it, perceive those previous protagonists some time after their saga. What legends and tales will start to spread and so on. How did you go about deciding how much of the original teratology to mention and were there times when you felt it might either encumber or facilitate the new story you were trying to tell?
I try as much as possible to write the world as an extension of the character. In other words, even if both Estevar and Damelas live in the same Tristia as Falcio (of the Greatcoats Quartet) does, I want them to feel different. You and I might both visit Istanbul, see the same sights and talk to the same people, and yet describe the city in completely different ways. That’s because we experience them differently. This is made especially pronounced in Play of Shadows which is set in the Duchy of Pertine – a place Falcio refers to as little more than a cesspool of cowardice and mediocrity yet Damelas tells us is full of culture and dignity.
The same is true of other characters. Estevar, despite being a Greatcoat, refers to Falcio val Mond as ‘the execrable former First Cantor of the Greatcoats’ (a designation I hope readers of the first series will disagree with!)
Ultimately, I bring in other characters or details from the first quartet only when they feel like things that would be meaningful to the characters in the current book, and in this way I hope to avoid extraneous detail that would otherwise be unnecessary to the story. The only exception, of course, is in the last two chapters in which I felt the need to bring back a certain red-bearded varlet because he felt like the perfect person to both irritate Damelas and yet make him (and the reader) see how the Knights of the Curtain have transformed from a misfit, squabbling bunch of actors to . . . well, readers will have to pick up Play of Shadows to find out.
Oh yes, I spent those last two chapters grinning throuhgout. So, speaking of irritating others, humour and banter in your books is never without a purpose and in a recent interview you highlighted that – “Humour as defiance and banter as a shared language”. I love that for all the deeper reasons but also wanted to ask, how much fun do you have coming up with progressively more and more creative and devasting insults? And have you ever had any coming out in the moment you’re writing that you went back to edit later and thought ‘hmm, maybe too far’?
Crucible of Chaos and Play of Shadows both allowed for me to play with insults in different ways. Estevar can be such a pompous arse at times and thus the insults and challenges he delivers to those who get in his way can become rather . . . extravagant. With Play of Shadows, we’re dealing with theatre actors, so naturally, the various jibes and taunts take on a loquacious, almost Shakespearean style. Both are fun to write, though Estevar’s in Crucible of Chaos tend to come in more serious moments and therefore can’t be quite as over-the-top as some of Abastrini’s in Play of Shadows.
As to going too far, I’ve never found myself thinking an insult within a story went too far; only that I have to remind myself that sometimes less is more. I can get a bit expansive in the banter department at times.
We do love the banter though! You’ve also said that Estevar is your favourite new Greatcoat to write, can you tell us how come? Aside for being the supernatural detective extraordinaire that he is, and for having Imperious the mule as his companion, that is.
What I love about writing Estevar is that he’s significantly smarter than I am, which means I never know how he’s going to solve the next puzzle. There’s something about his personality that makes him first tell us he’s figured it out and then reveal it to us, which means I end up writing him already confident he knows what’s going on and then having to guess at what the hell he’s talking about. I imagine that in real life Estevar would consider me something of a slow-witted dolt.
What also made Crucible compelling to me was how, in this book, you employed from the get-go, a trope that is usually present in stories some time after the protagonist is introduced and shown at the peak of their abilities; that is showing them stripped of all their advantages. In this case, Estevar’s greatcoat with all its knick-knacks, and his physical health given he goes into this investigation mortally wounded. What made you want to introduce Estevar to the readers this way, with this subverted character arc of sorts?
I gave Estevar the wound from his recent duel as a constant reminder throughout the story that his arrogance is often his undoing. Don’t get me wrong – Estevar’s arrogance is part of what makes him a delight to write. But in a novel about monks questioning which gods they should or shouldn’t worship, I wanted my main character to be questioning his own faith. In Estevar’s case, that faith is in the law and himself.
The loss of his greatcoat early on was important to me not as a way to make life harder for Estevar but simply as a price for saving Imperious. As much fun as that peculiar relationship can be, I wanted it to be genuine. Estevar doesn’t view Imperious as a useful beast of burden, but as a friend or – as Estevar himself might put it – a comrade.
You also play on juxtapositions very well, it’s safe to say, and one thing I’ve seen quite a few times in your writing overall is the presence of a seemingly stalwart and strong or a larger than life figure, that is paired with a much smaller and delicate one in a scene. Be it literally or metaphorically. I can think of several examples, for instance Beretto and Damelas in more than a few moments of Play, or Rhyleis and old Mags. Even Cade and Corrigan from The Malevolent Seven. But I want to focus on that very specific moment between Estevar and Caeda in Crucible, where, in the face of her momentary fraught fragility, it becomes imperative for him to keep the act going. Because it brings out the true vulnerability of all parties, doesn’t it? It’s like trying to hold onto a cracked porcelain cup that you already know or fear will fall apart the moment you ease on the pressure.
For me, it’s about compassion. There’s something wonderful, almost miraculous, about genuine compassion. Often we can be empathetic with those whom we share a common set of traits, yet be comfortable treating those who don’t share our backgrounds or views with disgust and even cruelty. Compassion, though – the kind of compassion that Ferius Parfax displays and turns almost into a kind preternatural talent in the Spellslinger and Argosi books – that’s real magic.
William Goldman, the legendary screenwriter of The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid used to say that what got to him most in a book or movie was something he called “stupid courage” – a kind of reckless bravery in the face of certain doom. For me, it’s improbable compassion: a moment when someone is kind when we’d otherwise expect them to be dismissive.
In the moment to which I think you’re referring between Estevar and Caeda, he’s already figured out who she is and what’s really happened, and yet, he knows that even if she knows deep down, too, she’s not ready to accept it. The porcelain cup – to use your analogy – is cracked, but not yet broken, and he wants to give it a chance to hold together – to be a cup and not a shattered, forgotten object – a little longer.
An example of this that is even more potent for me is the moment you mention between Rhyleis and Old Mags in Play of Shadows: not because of how Rhyleis gives Mags a chance to be a musician, but because of how moments later, when Vadris the drug peddler, who’s been an arse the entire book, has the chance to shatter Mags’ newfound confidence and instead reassures her, and in so doing, creates space for his own redemption.
Those improbable moments of compassion are my version of Goldman’s “stupid courage”. They get me every time.
Those are the moments that get me most as well, they are such a treat to read and make for lots of food for thought.
How about some lighter questions to wrap up? Is there anything you’re always hoping someone will ask you about in interviews but so far, you’ve never gotten the chance to mention?
“Excuse me, sir? I just found this huge bag of money. Is it yours, by chance?”
Now that’d be handy! Do you have a story idea that you love, or you’ve had kicking around in your mind, maybe even gotten started on a few times, but haven’t been able to make it work yet?
Ages ago, when I first sat down to write the manuscript that would become Traitor’s Blade, I had an entirely different idea about a story featuring four septuagenarian women in an old age home in the aftermath of a flood that’s cut off the town from outside help and vampires have come to feast on those left behind. The old women kick the vampires’ arses.
Ok, but I definitely need the kickass septuagenarians so please don’t let that idea go. I think I speak for everyone in saying we’d love to see it one day.
Would you give us two recommendations, one for a book you’ve read and loved recently and another for a book you think fans of your work would enjoy?
I recently had the rare privilege of reading a manuscript from the legendary Ellen Kushner (author of Swordspoint). I can’t tell you anything about it, but it was terrific fun to read and fans of her unique blend of Jane Austen-esque fantasy have a treat in store.
Those who enjoy my books and have yet to read Jhereg by Steven Brust . . . what are you waiting for? It’s fantastic!
Oooh eyes peeled then. Finally, is there anything you can tell us about any future books? Personally, I can’t wait for Our Lady of Blades!
Well, let’s see . . .
• I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be announcing this yet, but fans of mercenary mages who go around blowing things up and swearing constantly will have much to celebrate come Spring 2025.
• Our Lady of Blades, the most challenging book I’ve ever attempted (and hopefully the best), will be coming out in the Fall of 2025.
• One way or another, my quirky mystery novel is coming out within the next year. Soon thereafter, a very, very secret science fiction project written with a fellow author that I think will make a big splash.
• Fans of Ferius Parfax might be interested to know I’ve already written the fourth book, though I’m not yet sure when it’ll be coming out or from which publisher.
• Both Spellslinger and the Greatcoats have been optioned for film and television and, I believe, currently being shopped to studios. Who knows if anything will come of it, but you never know!
Well now I am positively vibrating with excitement for all that is to come! Thank you again for taking the time to answer my questions here today, it was such a pleasure getting the chance to pick your brain!
My pleasure. Thanks for the insightful questions!

• Brief description: England, 900 AD, In this story we meet an arab physician in exile from Cordoba who encounters a small lordship in dark ages Europe with a problem. The king's son has died of a mysterious illness and he has requisitioned our physician to uncover the cause of his death, whether intentional or something supernatural. The story is told in both prose and recollections from the phsyician's journals, all beneath the gaze of a unidentified narrator of sorts who is sifting through these texts in modern day, piecing together the story.

Similar to: Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton, Between Two Fires by Christopher Beuhlman, The Walking Drum by Louis LAmour

• Goal: Honest feedback on the writing, as well as the plot itself. This was a project written in a feverish week spent haphazardly researching the time period and I'd eventually like to expand it into a full novel, while also making sure it is more historically accurate.
• I'm flexible with my timeframe, but would love feedback on the whole thing, or even the first half if that is easier.
• If you're interested, send me a message or reply to this post! I'd be willing to swap manuscripts as well. Thank you!

This is my first post here, so I apologize if it is not formatted 100% right.
EXCERPT:
The wagon bucked and trundled up the road with a dreary kind of determination. Ibn Hasan rode in the back, shrouded in a dark cloak and containing enough vomit to cake the road but somehow holding it within himself out of love for the wagons following. He stared bleakly through bloodshot eyes up at the grey smote sky.
How is it I find myself here? Twelve hundred miles from the light of civilization? Amongst the pale Northmen and their dead or dying lands?
He gave in to the need to vomit, stretched himself over the side of the wagon, and emptied his bowels.
It was the most satisfying feeling he’d experienced in months.
The guardsmen saw him, the great physician so knowledgeable and wise, and laughed, rattling their plate.
Ibn Hasan watched them with rheumy eyes, and despaired.
The countryside was indeed devoid of all signs of life.
Sometimes cook fires of brigands and outlaws lit the late evening dusk like fireflies. They were steered away from, and not spoken of. The distant horizon provided no light to steer towards, so for all Hasan knew they were going in some drunken haze of direction, soon –or perhaps never– to arrive.
Murky green, rolling hills gave way to bogs and marshes unfit for wagon travel. That’s when the caravan would stop and break up into tiny camps strung together loosely by the smoke of cookfire, and the sounds of separate conversations.
Hasan stared into his cups with a sense of dread. Like most nights, the two cups greeted him as soon as his unpacking duties were finished. One cup of thin gruel, floated with earth grubs, and another of cold wine, three parts distilled water.
From his cups Hasan looked up past the tent tops of their small camp and into the array of stars above. He named what constellations he could see, comforted that they were the same that Al-Razir had shown him as a boy, in far-off Cordoba.
See the rear foot of the lion? Then the crab -no…follow his carapace, and there - the pincers. See the shepherd over all, and his lost sheep.
Al-Razir would paint the night sky with his hands while Ibn Hasan, only a boy of twelve, peered closely and tried to imagine his destiny.
There are all things greater than heaven and earth. Al-Razir was fond of saying. But perhaps between the two are the stars and they are greater still.
Even in the lone wastes of England, Hasan thought the blanket of stars Al-Razir had cast over him those nights followed him still. Forever visible in every season, baring the intrusion of fog and clouds. He found himself smiling and drank half his dull wine, then the entiriety of the gruel. This erased his smile. Then he chased it with the rest of the wine, barely a finger. He wanted to fling his cups into the fire but alas, there were no more cups to be found.
The Caliph spares no expense in outfitting his journeymen. He thought fouly. The riches of Al Hakaam II are incomparable, in that he parades like a prince while having empty pockets.
Hasan echoed the knowledge that most men in his company had known for years. Some of the hired guards had been living this life for almost a decade, and somehow always returned to Cordoba, even if their scholarly charges did not.
Even these hardened veterans had been surprised when after a week of lavish bread and salted meat, copious strong wine and enough to feed both horses and men, they had uncovered the second layer of casks in their provisions.
One of the veterans had told Ibn Hasan:
“It used to be we ate like kings on the way out, and then, on the way back, like beggars. Rich beggars but still….”
It seemed that now the Caliph’s pockets were not only hollow, but holed as well.
Hasan slept his nights in the comfort of his one prized possession; the sleeping hide made from Andalusian sheepskin and lined with the warm fur of a wolf. It was a true treasure, and had been gifted to him one night under the Summer Mediterranean moon. This the Summer before his fateful Winter departure.
At the time he had known he was to leave –or be banished, more like– for weeks. The letter that had summoned him to the lower garden grove that night had come as a scrap of paper beneath his soup bowl. He had eaten the soup until the other physicians had fallen asleep then removed the scrap and lifted it to his nose even before reading it.
Peppermint and clove….and something sweeter. The scrap had been warmed by the soup and made more fragrant.
Meet me beneath the fountain
where fish die
a silvery death
each night reborn again
He escaped the academy three nights later, beneath a full moon. His path took him into the streets, beneath walkways and hanging lamps. He hid his face with the cloak he’d bought from a beggar the day before.
He found the fountain after scaling the low wall around the compound of the Caliph’s uncle. The fountain bubbled soft crystalline water into the pool where the full moon danced like the women with bared stomachs in court. He watched the fish swim about madly in the unexpected light, thinking it was day at this impossible hour. Hasan was still breathing hard from his climb when she appeared like a phantom beneath the hanging flowers.
She uttered his name, and his soul felt like the pool of moon-crazed fish. His heart was alight with wild, unexpected power.
He met her and held her, at first cautious, then stronger at the urging of her own hands. He pulled her to him and as far as shadows were concerned they were one.
Their hands and lips moved secretly in the dark before they pulled apart just enough to see each other's dim outline.
“When they make my sins public," Hasan began. "I will take every effort to keep them from learning your name. You will not face the consequences with me, I will not allow it."
"What sins?” She admonished him. “You are to be glorified, not punished –I have seen to it.”
It was already widely held knowledge that one of the high physicians had been caught with one of the Caliph’s many nieces. The identity of which niece, however, was not known. Not even to the caliphate himself.
Even in his many journals on the subject of his secret lover, Ibn Hasan never discloses the name of the Caliph’s niece with whom he had become entangled. To this day, her identity is a mystery.
"But how?" Hasan blubbered. "Your uncle knows it was me who was caught leaving the chambers that night…"
"Yes. Unfortunately so. But he wants my name from your lips. And he is willing to torture to get it. All week I have been pleading for help amongst the more discreet members of court. And some of which advise the Caliph directly. He is going to make you one of his grand sojourners. He is going to send you on a mission of great import to the east.”
Hasan took a step back. "No… To leave you here…"
She followed his step, bringing them further into the moonlight and casting her face in the iridescent glow. “You were always going to have to leave me, my beloved. I would rather it be as a freeman to the east than in the dungeons beneath my feet."
Hasan took another step back. "But to go on one of the academic journeys… Many never return. Many of my peers have simply vanished in the wild lands of the barbarians.”
Again, she followed his step until they stood side-by-side with the fountain pool. It was as if they were conducting some slow dance in the moonlight. "If all goes to my plan… You will never return to the west."
He was silent.
“In the far east, in Asyria, my cousin owns a small villa ran only by his sons. They are drunkards, and hate the Caliph for stealing the throne and casting them back. They hold no love for my uncle. If I can arrange passage for you, you could go and live on that villa…tend the vineyards as one of the workers… And I could visit my cousin… who will know I am really there to see you."
He uttered her name, making it sound like a moan, a prayer. “And if I die before I get there…?"
She reached out and touched his cheek with her slender hand. Her eyes –naked now in the glow– held him fast.
“I will pray every day for your survival and safety.”
It did not take Hasan long to realize this was his only chance. The Caliph wanted the name of his beloved, and at some lucky wise counsel, had abandoned torture and instead hoped that by sending Hasan out into the wilderness on one of his buffoon expeditions to spread knowledge, he would be able to bring him back broken. Broken and willing to give up the name he held so dearly.
But if Hasan broke free in some place where the caliph had no power…
There in the dark night of an English gloom, Hasan studied the few stars and thought of his beloved. He pictured the vineyards in Syria, and the touch of her lips, secret and welcome in the shade of another sun.
He slept soundly in the warm hide, which she had slept in for a month, to imbue her scent into its very fiber.
All these long months and longer roads later, it still had just a little of her left in it.

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Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20240421213019/https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1c9t9iy/roundup_ufos_kona_blue_unhidden_osmium_bob/
Moon phase waxing gibbous, two days before full
Mars Right Ascension 23h 38m 14s
.1 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1c9tcxy/what_is_this/ photos, nighttime sky, at home, outside window, contemporaneous report, single light object, low over rooftop, stationary, duration 20 minutes, orange 🟠, photos show brightness change, it was as if the centre of it darkened for a moment and then returned to Orange., eye 👁, urban area, South Dublin Ireland 🇮🇪 , near an army aerodrome ., [GOODPOST], OP deleted, lost data
.2 https://old.reddit.com/Skydentify/comments/1c9kuxq/have_you_ever_seen_a_ufo/ discussion of sightings
.3 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1c9nfjh/ufo_sighting_sedona_412_810pm/ video, nighttime sky, urban area, Sedona Arizona, single light object, diffuse, friend said they saw two little lights behind the main large light too, smaller objects accompany it, two witnesses
.4 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1c9ys5c/weekly_mexican_and_peruvian_ufo_disclosure/ information, state of disclosure, Mexico and Peru https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cadymb/all_the_relevant_uap_updates_from_april_1521/ different OP, state of disclosure USA
.5 https://old.reddit.com/astrophotography/comments/1ca9rxb/caught_something_drone_bird_crossing_the_luna video, nighttime sky, single dark object moving fast, traversing the face of the moon,
.6 reference ISS https://old.reddit.com/astrophotography/comments/1ca7cxl/my_first_decent_picture_of_the_iss/ photo, international space station, ISS, nighttime, single light object, irregular shape, white ⚪️ light
.7 https://old.reddit.com/AnomalousEvidence/comments/1ca1bfh/an_experience/ dream description, entities, communication, They told me that they could see us but we couldn’t see them.
.8 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ca28gj/ufo_sighting_upstate_ny_19931995/ childhood sighting description, from car, nighttime, single light object, zigzag movements, I saw a light in the sky, moving in a perfect zig zag pattern. Like a "VVVVV" pattern. It was white, spherical. , Moira new York state, apathy in other witnesses,
.9 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ca4ln7/ufos_at_daytime/ video, daytime sky, repeat visitors, ongoing, threelights
.10 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cakyps/need_help_identifying_object/ video, nighttime sky, possible timelapse, moon?, from home security camera, OP is not the witness, single light object moving, descending
.11 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1camz3s/what_are_these_lights_in_the_chicago_night_sky/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, fourlights, diffuse, spotlights type, splitting and merging, from car, urban area, Chicago Illinois , repeat visitor, emotional reaction unease, What’s really weird is that a week ago I was telling someone about how might have seen a UFO when I was younger and I described them just like this video. This is the 3rd time I’ve seen these lights with this pattern in Chicago. And when I saw them again Saturday night, my heart sank a bit on how weird it was that they appeared not even a week into talking about it.
.12 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cakt3z/possible_sighting/ video and photo, nighttime sky, OP is a pilot, over central Kentucky , fleet, all different directions, moving erratically, formation change observed, forming shapes and maneuvering in reference to each other., duration 1 hour, [GOODPOST], photo shows triangle formation
.13 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cavgzg/any_idea_what_this_is_i_filmed_this_object_on/ video, nighttime sky, southwest Oklahoma, single light object moving straight, satellite?
.14 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cat6ss/first_sighting_meta_observations/ sighting description and discussion of apathy, contemporaneous report, daytime, two witnesses, fleet, overhead, duration 4 minutes, six silver things in the sky that were unlike anything I've seen before.,
.15 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cb8kez/seeking_other_constructive_opinions_as_to_what/ video, nighttime sky, threelights, triangle formation, stationary, from airplane, contemporaneous report, approach to Seatac International Airport, Seattle Washington, near water pacific ocean, video shows flareup, one object moving horizontally, possible light beams, landing lights?, two witnesses
.16 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cb240p/ufo_or_satellite/ long exposure photo, nighttime sky, single light object moving, trajectory change, Hampshire the UK 🇬🇧 , downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted
.17 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cazsm7/im_going_to_go_ahead_and_write_about_my_experience/ sighting description, at home, single object, V-shaped, approach, It was a open V with one side longer than the other. It had a red 🔴 shiny spot at the top of the long side. The short side had varied blues 🔵 and shiny white like diamonds . The frame was a metallic shiny green 🟢, moving and stationary, directly in front, splitting, sudden departure, All the sudden it turned into uniformed balls of white light in a spiraling motion. It was just gone after that., emotional reaction unease, I didn’t feel well afterwards for some time.
.18 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1ca3whk/i_could_have_seen_a_ufo_once/ sighting description, single light object, possible reaction to being observed, vanishing, California
.19 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1c9cg28/do_aliens_visit_me/ experience description, at home, audio description beeping sound outside the house. , repeat visitor, two witnesses, heard a beep coming from my room, and I whispered "they're going to leave," and then I fell asleep., She says when I said that, the beeping went away. , Sometimes when I was falling asleep when I was about 12 or 13, I heard some kind of celestial or galactic music outside my window.
.20 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1c9dxrw/green_ball_falling_down_fast/ sighting description, at home, outside window, single light object moving fast, descending, green 🟢, two witnesses, the Netherlands 🇳🇱 , has anyone seen?
.21 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1c963b2/fully_robed_aliens/ dream description, landed craft, entities, aliens that were tall and they were all completely covered in black robes like a niqab but even their eyes were covered.
.22 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1cap7gl/invertedv_no_lights_ufo_later_cloaked/ sighting description and reference image, V-shaped, has anyone seen?, at home, backyard, It was an inverted-V shaped UFO flying apex first. It had a weird clear bubble around the point or nose of the craft and it had water vapor pouring over the wings. I tried to draw that part in myself. It was banking when I saw it before it turned parallel to the ground and cloaked itself. The cloak looked similar to the cloaking style in the movie “The Predator.”, two objects observed, haze, orientation change, similar sightings in comments, [GOODPOST]
.23 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cbmj59/indepth_jason_sands_is_legitimate/ discussion of Jason Sands, OP is a member of the Intelligence Community, I am here to vouch for Jason Sands in attempt to support his credibility and encourage you all to also show support for him., OP comments downvoted, big debunker energy
.24 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cbpw5q/help_identifying_object_seen_today/ video, daytime sky, contemporaneous report, at work, Mojave California, powerlines, single object blackwhite, moving slowly, tumbling, approach, moving and stationary and moving, trajectory change to vertical, It was traveling against the wind. It came down into the field across the road and came close to ground level and hovered for a bit. After hovering for a bit it began to rise directly vertically until it rose out of sight., downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted, big debunker energy
.25 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cbuu8n/fleet_of_lights_over_australian_beach/ sighting description, fleet, Far North Queensland Australia 🇦🇺 , starlink?, 20 to 30 anomalous lights all following the same flight path, all at the same height, stopped at 19:27., three witnesses, similar sighting in comments , downvoted to zero
.26 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cc658p/was_this_a_sighting_happened_a_few_weeks_ago/ sighting description, urban area, single light object moving and stationary and moving, jumpy movement, trajectory change, kind of stood there for a second, then reversed, and continued to drop a bit. Finally, it did a loopy ∞ shape, just before shooting "up" and disappearing., sudden departure upward, thought its behavior was sentient, dancing, downvoted to zero , information about UFOs in Peru 🇵🇪
.27 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cc98a6/ufo_sighting_in_cardiff_uk/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, Cardiff the UK 🇬🇧, nighttime, urban area, single light object, metallic sphere, solid silver orb with what I can only explain as white/orange 🟠 electricity or plasma shifting around the object., haze , reaction to being observed, vanishing, duration 15 seconds, emotion of fear, shock, evening cloudy sky
.28 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccde77/orb_like_object_over_galway_bay_ireland/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, over water, Galway Bay Ireland 🇮🇪, stationary, pulsating, three witnesses, moving, looked to me like a grid pattern.
.29 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cce86y/thoughts/ photo, nighttime sky, Helensbay Northern Ireland the UK 🇬🇧, two objects, possible pyramid shape, multiple lights, splitting, She described the two objects as moving stars two and then both became three each.
.30 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccf2p2/richmond_virginia_sightings_in_past_month/ photos, multiple events, repeat visitors, near water, James River, Richmond Virginia, similar sightings in comments, at home, nighttime, witness woke up, felt compelled to go outside, made three passes, directly in front, zigzag movements, The third time was just last week and the craft seem to move left to right three times in front of me.
.31 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccfhon/nycwhat_is_this/ photos, nighttime sky, at home, outside window, contemporaneous report, fleet or single object multiple lights splitting, contemporaneous report, low over rooftop, urban area, NYC New York state, downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted, duration 1 hour
.32 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccftbw/i_finally_saw_something/ sighting description, downvoted to zero, contemporaneous report, Arkansas, nighttime, single light object moving, silent, two witnesses, perception discrepancy, other witness observed plane,
.33 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cctozw/high_speed_object_caught_near_airport/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single object moving fast, from airport, RHO Diagoras Greece 🇬🇷, near water, Mediterranean sea , OP is not the witness
.34 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cchu9a/saint_augustine_fl/ video, nighttime sky, urban area, st augustine Florida, single light object, pulsating, video shows stationary and moving, observed splitting, twolights observed , One bright orange light comes out, splits into 4,
.35 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccop7z/unknown_flying_object/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, flareup, I was filming what I thought was a satellite but then this very bright flash happened, contemporaneous report, urban area, Quebec Canada 🇨🇦, very bright, golden to the naked eyes
.36 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccoybi/weird_point_of_light_in_the_sky/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, nighttime, single light object, moon for comparison observed, duration 5-10 seconds, witness looked away and looked back, vanished
.37 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cczt88/sighting_in_minneapolis_42424_story_in_comments/ video, urban area, Minneapolis Minnesota, two witnesses, duration 10 minutes, threelights, flying in formation, reaction to being filmed, formation change, lighting configuration change, As I started filming on my phone, the 'lead' light moved out in front of the others and off to the side. Shortly after, the second light disappeared, leaving just one which hovered in place until we lost sight of it behind some trees., from car, nighttime, contemporaneous report, has anyone seen? , near airport, Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport.,
.38 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ccqc4l/strange_moving_lights/ video, nighttime sky, from car, woodland hills California, single object multiple lights, moving erratically, trajectory change, crossed directly in front, possible law enforcement response, a few cops with lights and sirens passed by quickly after.,
.39 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cc7mbl/ufos_what_is_this/ video, daytime cloudy sky, urban area, Groningen the Netherlands 🇳🇱 , contemporaneous report, fleet, flashing erratically, video shows appearing out of nowhere, horizontal trajectory,
.40 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cc6vqz/potential_sighting_in_london/ video, daytime cloudy sky, fleet observed, video shows single light object, orange 🟠, urban area, London England the UK 🇬🇧, made two passes, twolights, two witnesses, reaction to being filmed, vanishing, When I told my wife to record, four of them disappeared and only one remained. I then drove towards Highbury and Islington roundabout, and then two appeared after.,
.41 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cd1cih/went_back_through_some_old_videos_i_took_last/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, diffuse light, low over treeline, anomalous to witness, at home, that night the land was glowing in a way we’ve never seen before, maybe I’m a crazy old lady but it looked like something landed there., electronic effects camera interference, Canada 🇨🇦 ,repeat visitor ,two witnesses https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cdfpty/tonights_blue_cloud_et_show/ more video, contemporaneous report
.42 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cbn6cl/can_someone_identify_this_green_beem/ photo, nighttime cloudy sky, powerlines, single light object, elongated, vertical orientation, green 🟢, Atlantic island of st. Vincent part of the cape verde archipelago, near water Atlantic Ocean, stationary, duration 10 minutes,
.43 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdmlce/maybe_caught_something_on_camera_nj/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single object, observed moving erratically, abruptly zipped back and forth as though under control., somerset new jersey
.44 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdbxj2/what_am_i_seeing/ timelapse video, nighttime sky, multiple objects, trajectory change horizontal to vertical, Ontario Canada 🇨🇦, downvoted to zero
.45 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdf2wc/what_is_this/ video, daytime cloudy sky, from car, powerlines, Gold Coast Australia 🇦🇺, contemporaneous report, single object blackwhite
.46 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cd59kz/ufo_i_personally_shot_footage_of_at_the_end_of/ video, at home, urban area, Miami Florida, possibly rotating, moving erratically, up down left right, duration 40 minutes, witness went to sleep, I got tired at some point and took a small nap, woke up it was still there, went to sleep, woke up again and it was gone. , downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted, daytime cloudy sky, single dark object, elongated, horizontal orientation, stationary
.47 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdm7hi/tracking_the_plasmoid_is_quite_difficult_as_the/ video, nighttime sky, through infrared camera, repeat visitors , downvoted to zero
.48 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdpxba/just_saw_this_from_lambertville_nj_headed_west/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, Lambertville new jersey, daytime sky, single light object moving straight, plane for comparison observed, downvoted to zero
.49 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cbk7rv/random_stories_from_the_life_of_a_boring_person/ experience descriptions, multiple events, ongoing, at home, two witnesses, single light object, approach, jumpy movement, blue 🔵, Almost like it zeroed in on us as soon as it knew that we noticed it., emotion of fear, witnesses left the area, similar sightings in comments
.50 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1ccbgls/strange_happenings/ sighting descriptions, multiple events, entity, Ohio, ongoing, multiple people saw a large creature standing in the woods between trees watching all these players, through night vision scope, humanoid, antlers, vanished, anomalous silence, footsteps, missing time , mimicking
.51 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cddvg5/does_anybody_remember_being_an_energy_orb/ memory description, has anyone seen?, I remember I was part of a litter of lights with siblings all around me. A tribe of little stars with the background of the universe except all these galaxies and such were brighter.... I chose my parents....I was raising my legs, resting on the floor on my back while my diapers were getting changed. And I clearly thought, "Aww shit, here we go again."
.52 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1ccr8tq/7_tall_shadow_silhouette_in_my_bedroom_what_do_i/ sighting description, at home, nighttime, inside bedroom, entity, humanoid, shadow figure, witness looked away and looked back, vanished, it looked slightly hunched over and was staring directly at me, contemporaneous report, similar sightings in comments
.53 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cd3tot/my_sighting_that_made_me_believe/ sighting description, Bibione Italy 🇮🇹 , daytime, over water, Mediterranean sea, single light object, metallic sphere, overhead, stationary, witness looked away and looked back, vanished, similar sightings in comments
.54 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1cddyzb/interesting_object_near_langley_afb/ photos and videos, nighttime, from car, fleet or single object multiple lights, there was a string of lights and some blinking green lights., duration 45 minutes, stationary or moving slowly, video shows flashing in sequence, multicolored, near USAF, Langley Virginia, [GOODPOST]
.55 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1cdal29/unidentified_object_flying_over_san_jose_ca_today/ photo, daytime cloudy sky, single dark object, elongated, vertical orientation, contemporaneous report, urban area, san Jose California, two witnesses duration 1 minute, disappeared into clouds
.56 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdv28y/what_looks_like_a_moving_star_that_moves_in_a/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, nighttime, single light object, moving and stationary and moving, overhead, jerky movement as it was constantly speeding up and slowing down in two second increments., at home, two witnesses, duration 3 minutes, Tartu Estonia 🇪🇪, similar sightings in comments
.57 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdwhk9/ufo_sighting_westchester_ny_october_2023_at_2am/ photos, nighttime cloudy sky, at home, outside window, twolights, reaction to being filmed, sudden departure, Westchester new York state, over water, Hudson River, downvoted to zero
.58 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdynoc/3_white_orb_ufos_over_carson_city_nv_april_24/ video, nighttime sky, threelights, urban area, Carson city Nevada, single light object stationary and moving, reaction to being observed, additional twolights, overhead,
.59 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdynswhat_was_it/ video, nighttime sky, single light object, flashing erratically or jumpy movement, possibly rotating, repeat visitor, possible reaction to being filmed, Used to see them often and I haven’t seen them again since then. , similar sighting in comments , urban area, Las Vegas Nevada
.60 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1cdxz9j/i_guess_ill_just_throw_this_experience_out_there/ childhood experience description, entity, I just have this memory of running through what seemed to be a building. I was running away from someone, but I don't remember why, I ran until I came across this door that opened by itself and hid inside. Then this tan or brown colored "mantis" being appeared in the doorway. I don't remember anything after that., event amnesia
.61 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1cdw5ka/uniform_cloudgas_ball_with_bright_light_inside/ long exposure photo, nighttime sky, single light object moving, also seen by eye, Northern Arizona., two witnesses, powerlines,
.62 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ce1lmi/a_light_from_above_lit_my_friends_entire_house_up/ experience description, no craft, at home, nighttime, witness woke up, outside window, backyard, darkness bright as day, After he looked out the front, he said the light was everywhere, as if it were coming from above. , upstate New York, anomalous silence, he noticed everything fell completely silent. , apathy, witness went to sleep, he felt compelled to no longer search for the source of the light, despite spending a few minutes looking already., similar sightings in comments, [GOODPOST]
.63 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ce3snh/earliest_memory_is_of_an_owl_when_i_was_3_years/ childhood experience description, my earliest memory is of an owl, and me riding on its back to the back of my parents property, and then me walking back in my pajamas and climbing back in the window. , repeat visitors, downvoted to zero, Michigan
.64 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cdw4vl/by_the_facilitators_of_the_x_space_full_jason/ the Jason Sands interview, OP is the interview host
.65 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ceh0c2/strange_orange_light_silently_moving_in_unison/ video, nighttime cloudy sky, single light object, orange 🟠 observed, urban area, Sydney Australia 🇦🇺, recorded on 2 different cameras, flew overhead, emotion of fear, I felt a bit of fear and my legs started shaking as the lights silently moved above my head., fleet observed, two pairs of twolights, [GOODPOST]
.66 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ce8i3v/i_saw_my_first_ufo_i_think/ video, nighttime sky, near home, i noticed something very odd on top of a tree in my neighbor's front yard., single dim object, irregular shape, shape change observed, looked like some sort of net just floating there, it looked translucent., reaction to being observed, stationary and moving, vanishing and reappearing or second object, over the witness home, video shows diffuse object, elongated, horizontal orientation, felt as it was absorbing the light in the back yard and emitting a sparkly light., downvoted to zero, OP comments downvoted , near USAF, Lockheed Air Force Base, fort worth Texas, physical effects goosebumps, wtf_is_this
.67 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ceilz4/my_ufo_encounter_in_khartoum_2016_similar_to/ sighting description and drawing, Khartoum- Bahri Sudan 🇸🇩 , nighttime, single object, crescent 🌙 shape or manta, moving straight, possibly cloaked, silent, duration 30 seconds,
.68 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cedcsw/i_think_i_saw_a_ufo/ sighting description, contemporaneous report, nighttime, two witnesses, single dim object moving straight, This thing was barely visible with a few brighter white dots here and there, it was also absolutely silent.,orientation change, boomerang 🪃, approach, trajectory change, disappeared behind treeline, Australia 🇦🇺
.69 https://old.reddit.com/aliens/comments/1ce2bam/flying_over_detroit_at_the_draft/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single dark object, oval-shaped, tumbling, trajectory change, descending, low over rooftop, two witnesses, contemporaneous report, urban area, Detroit Michigan
.70 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ceptdd/mysterious_orange_lights_in_the_sky/ photo, nighttime sky, threelights, triangle formation, orange 🟠, at home, backyard, low over treeline, the UK 🇬🇧, They moved in really weird speeds and directions while one of the lights was stationary for a couple of seconds., similar sightings in comments
.71 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ces9bl/ufo_didnt_show_up_on_camera/ video, daytime cloudy sky, single dark object observed, electronic effects camera can't detect it, two witnesses, moving straight, possibly rotating or tumbling, The other odd thing is it looked like it had distortion around it., submission statement issues, removed, urban area, Philadelphia Pennsylvania
.72 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1ceo8w3/truth_too_strange_for_public_consumption_old_man/ information, family story, father, worked at Wright Patterson air force base for over 20 years, aliens were not pacifists. As they had several battles one destroyed a planet beyond mars, then the battle moved to mars where they stripped the atmosphere with weapons and the survivors from the multiple races then came to earth as a last resort. Only ape men were here when they came.
.73 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cesul0/ufo_yesterday_upstate_new_york_jet_followed_5/ photo and reference images, daytime cloudy sky, single light object, elongated, trail or disk shape, angled from the horizon, plane for comparison observed
.74 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1ce5m5l/has_anyone_else_had_an_encounter_with_a/ sighting description and drawing, entity, cloaked, has anyone seen?, inside home, suddenly out of no where, A large being appears in front of me. It was tall and slim. It was like the silhouette of a man. It was, what I always described as, “see through.” , wavy edges, directly in front, physical effects paralysis, It then raised its right arm, witness felt observed, emotion of, witness left the area, similar sightings in comments, [GOODPOST]
.75 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cevkh8/today_around_230am_i_was_able_to_capture_some/ video, nighttime sky, fleet, multiple objects, Camargo Chihuahua Mexico 🇲🇽 , moving slowly, low over rooftop, urban area, very bright, satellites?
.76 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cf0nhn/uaps_spotted_in_central_alabama_april_5_2024/ video, daytime cloudy sky, Prattville Alabama, downvoted to zero, three witnesses, cylinder shaped observed https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cfd99y/uaps_spotted_in_central_alabama_april_5_2024/ slowed version, single light object moving fast, possible disk shape with dome or triangle 🔺️, horizontal orientation, smaller objects accompany it
.77 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cex9x8/possibly_true_ufo_story/ sighting description, family story, grandmother's father, Russia 🇷🇺, nighttime, from car, out of nowhere, there’s a massive floating disk in the sky, which flies right over them. My granny’s dad pulls the car over, and looks at this flying disc, which was still right above them, and a bright light beams out for a good amount of time (do not know the exact time) and just flies away at a unnatural speed, overhead, sudden departure, two witnesses, possible physical effects illness, colleague died of a sudden cancer a year later.
.78 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1ceid79/i_stumbled_into_what_i_can_only_describe_as_a/ experience description, hiking, At one point during my walk, I had an intense sensation of crossing some kind of boundary. , emotional reaction shock, The first thing I noticed was the branches, covered in fuzzy black things that moved like “electrical” or energy wisps. , audio description distant, deep, vibrating noise that undulated back and forth., physical effects paralysis, I saw what looked like a geometric pattern in the woods., temperature change, it had become much colder. However, I felt a warmth coming from behind me, light illuminating surroundings, emotion of fear, witness left the area, Blue Ridge Mountains Virginia, the cathedral - a complex vaulted structure that seems to underlay what we experience as reality. , similar experiences in comments
.79 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1ceo42v/central_florida_east_side_near_colonial_town_and/ video, nighttime sky, contemporaneous report, fleet, one following another, low below treeline, horizontal trajectory, urban area, central Florida, similar sighting in comments
.80 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cex54b/dreams_where_greys_teach_me_how_their_engines_work/ dream description, entity, inside craft, a Grey alien took me onto his ship. While on the ship he taught me how their engines worked. The only things I remember specifically is that they have a "photon engine" and that it works like the large hadron collider., has anyone seen?
.81 https://old.reddit.com/HighStrangeness/comments/1cdrecc/hypnopompic_hallucinations_showing_me_the_words/ experience description, at home, nighttime, witness woke up, the words "syntax error" were written multiple times around a central anchor spot like a wheel of fortune spin thing., similar experiences in comments
.82 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1cf1he6/my_ufo_story/ sighting description, nighttime, near water, Prince Rupert British Columbia Canada 🇨🇦, two witnesses, underwater light, single dark object, exiting water, green red and blue 🟢🔴🔵, flashing in sequence, silent, approach, flew overhead, military response helicopter, the coast guard had dispatched a helicopter to follow it and it was really loud. It followed the UFO as it passed over the city sky, out of view. the USO began to sink into the harbour, and eventually disappeared., entering water,
.83 https://old.reddit.com/ufo/comments/1ce7a9c/i_observed_an_unusual_shining_object_in_the_sky/ sighting description, Chandapur Karnataka India 🇮🇳 , at home, nighttime, single light object moving fast, possibly elongated, similar sighting in comments
.84 https://old.reddit.com/Thetruthishere/comments/1cey4ce/i_think_i_saw_a_witch/ sighting description, la bruja, three witnesses, daytime
.85 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1cevddw/blue_plasma_ball/ sighting description, two witnesses, single light object, blue 🔵, nighttime, horizontal trajectory, low over ground, from car, similar sightings in comments
.86 https://old.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1cf6osq/new_to_reddit_saw_tons_of_ufos_at_sessanta/ sighting description, moving stars, multiple objects observed, single light object moving and stationary, flareup, possible electronic effects monitors showing the stage glitched for a few minutes after that. , north Carolina
.87 ➡️ https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1cbozwe/a_tear_in_space_a_glitch_in_the_matrix/ experience description, near USAF, Travis AFB northern California, daytime sky, plane for comparison, part of the sky started to glitch and warp like it was shorting out., a cloud-like structure started to form from nothing. It began to swirl horizontally., two witnesses, When he left that day. I saw the look on his face. He looked shattered., wtf_is_this, physical effects paralysis, As we kept watching, another part of the sky began to glitch., A long vertical line materialized., A huge battleship slowly appeared in the void on the other side of the tear., structure observed, stationary, duration 10 minutes, vanishing , got the feeling we weren't supposed to see this., [GOODPOST]
.88 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1cekl9g/the_light_disappeared_for_a_second/ experience description, flash of darkness,
.89 https://old.reddit.com/Glitch_in_the_Matrix/comments/1cf8n14/here_is_my_story_and_i_am_interested_in_hearing/ experience description, no craft, at home, witness woke up, audio description computer sounds, brief duration, physical effects paralysis, for a split second all the cats and myself froze in place.

According to my understanding, this subreddit is meant for fictional horror stories. I've seen many authors there who advertise their books and openly state that their stories are literary fiction, such as Blair Daniels. That's why I don't understand why my fictional story was removed, even though it was told in the first person.
Over 70 years ago, something ominous made its home in our woods
My name is Milena and I'm currently 83 years old. I'm here to tell you an old, strange story, which will also be quite lengthy, so consider yourselves warned. Frankly, this is a story best told at night, where the boundaries between reality and the realm of legend blur, and the faces of listeners are illuminated by the flickering glow of the bonfire. But well, we live in the age of internet. Yes, I know, you're not here to listen to an old person's kvetching. Let's move on to my story then.
My parents lost their lives in the Auschwitz concentration camp when I was only 2 years old. I didn't remember them, so even though I envied other children for having parents, I couldn't really miss them. I was raised by my grandparents in a remote village, nestled near the woods somewhere in Poland. Life was quite simple there. I was an unproblematic kid, and I gladly lent my hands to assist my grandparents in tending to their flock of chickens and cows. I had a small group of good friends, with whom I used to play outside for hours, exploring nearby fields and woods. That was, until the woods became a forbidden zone. Because strange things started to happen in our once calm, boring village.
It began with the disappearance of a man simply known as Wiesiek, a figure both familiar and shadowed. He was a middle-aged man, often seen intoxicated and without a permanent home, occasionally taking refuge in people's sheds without asking for permission. We all heard certain rumors about him. Apparently, during the Soviet occupation, he was labeled an 'enemy of the state' and subsequently deported to Siberia. After spending some time there, he was eventually granted amnesty and returned to our village a couple of years after World War II concluded. However, he seemed different upon his return, never quite the same as before. Some speculated that the harsh experiences had taken a toll on his mind, as he often rambled about strange creatures straight from the darkest folk tales, which were supposedly lurking in the Siberian taiga. Most people avoided him. It's sad, but I can't say that anyone was devastated by his disappearance. He didn't have any family, and no one seemed to care about his fate, whatever it may have been. The police were involved, of course, but we never heard of any resolution.
However, it was a different story with Krystyna. As a young, beautiful mother, she had garnered the care and concern of many. So when she, too, vanished, the entire community mobilized in search of her. The woods became the focal point of their efforts. Yet, all that was ever unearthed was a single shoe belonging to her, discovered deep within the forest, far from the beaten paths frequented by nature enthusiasts and mushroom pickers. Some people speculated that there was a bear or a pack of wolves residing somewhere in our deep, beloved woods. While not entirely implausible, such animals typically leave traces of their presence behind, yet none were found. Then, a strict ban on playing in the forest and its immediate vicinity was imposed on us kids.
Over the next few months, two more people went missing: a teenage boy and an elderly woman. They too were last seen in close proximity to the woods, which had now fallen out of favor with us. None of them were ever found, despite the intense efforts of our community and the less intense efforts of the authorities. I wondered about the origins of the strange rumors that started circulating in our village. Who started them, and why? Was it because Wiesiek disappeared first? Maybe some people took his stories more seriously than they were willing to admit. You see, it was the '50s, and our village was nearly forgotten by everyone, even by God himself. Many folks lacked education, and some couldn't even read. Back then, everyone was deeply religious and superstitious. As a child, I caught snippets of conversations that gave me a vague sense of what people of our village were thinking about all this. It might seem silly now, but it didn't back then.
One night, I overheard my grandparents' conversation. My grandpa was telling my grandma about something he heard at the only bar in our village. Apparently, the men were out hunting when they stumbled upon strange symbols carved into the trees, filled with a red substance. My grandma immediately started reciting "Zdrowaś Mario, łaskiś pełna...", a well-known prayer meant to shield her from all evil. Later, my best friend, a girl named Kasia, told me that her parents were once discussing the discovery of multiple traces of bonfires spotted in the woods. Then, there was the thing that stirred my imagination the most, making it difficult for me to fall asleep for a long time. One Sunday after mass, while I was waiting outside the church for my grandparents, I overheard a conversation between three elderly women. One of them lived very close to the edge of the forest. She mentioned that due to her struggle with insomnia, she often sat by her open window at night, breathing in the fresh air and listening to the sounds of nature. Several times, she heard something that immediately made her shut the window and hide under her quilt. It was a prolonged, high-pitched scream that pierced the ears, rising rapidly before abruptly cutting off. She described it as sounding like the call of some demonic entity summoning its brethren. After a moment of silence, all three of them simultaneously crossed themselves, shook their heads, and went their separate ways.
With those and a handful of similar clues, my friends and I were able to piece together the haunting picture: Wiesiek was right after all. A sinister presence lurked in the depths of the Siberian taiga, and it followed Wiesiek to our village. It claimed him first, along with the other missing souls, to satiate its hunger. During long, warm summer evenings, we sat around a bonfire and reminisced about the stories of dark mythological creatures that our parents and grandparents had once told us. There was Licho, a one-eyed creature resembling an old, gaunt woman. It was said that it wanders the world, seeking places where people live happily, only to bring upon them all sorts of misfortunes, hunger, poverty, and diseases. When someone deceives Licho, it follows them, always behind their back, glimpsed out of the corner of one's eye, relishing in tormenting its victim. We all agreed that it's something that could've happened to Wiesiek. Or perhaps he was seized by a strzyga, a female demon with bird-like talons, feeding on blood. We could have speculated for hours, devising theories, each more drastic than the last. While it was obviously tragic that people had vanished, the circumstances were somehow...exciting. At least for us kids. Something was unfolding—something mysterious and sinister—and it ignited our imagination. Filled with anxious anticipation, we waited to see what would happen next.
But...nothing happened. No one else disappeared. Time passed, and gradually, the villagers began to forget. For those who lost their loved ones, the pain lingered, of course. Yet, as the years went by, the wild theories faded into distant memories, becoming more absurd as we grow older and smarter. When I was 18, I left my home village to pursue education. Life under the communist regime was difficult. Most people were poor, and there were no prospects for young people eager to achieve something greater. So, like many other Polish people, I decided to emigrate. I would occasionally visit my grandparents, but after they passed away, there was nothing that drew me back to Poland. I had made new friends and started my own family in Sweden. I lost contact with my childhood companions.
However, as one grows older, distant memories begin to resurface. Childhood becomes an idealized realm of happiness. Sentimentality blooms, beckoning a yearning for the embrace of ancestral grounds. For this reason, I decided to visit my home village. Considering my age, it was likely to be the last time I would tread upon those old paths, embrace the flavors and scents once intimately known to me, and hear the melody of my native language. And as I thought, so I did. I spent a week in Poland during what was supposed to be a month-long stay, when a quite unexpected encounter occurred. I was slowly strolling through the village, which I could barely recognize anymore, when suddenly, from behind me, I heard an old, frail voice:
"Milena? Is that you? I heard that you came back..."
I turned around and saw an elderly, hunched woman with a flowery scarf on her head. I locked eyes with her weathered, wrinkled face, adorned with large, piercing blue eyes. A wave of sudden recognition washed over me.
"Kasia? No way!" I exclaimed, taking her fragile body into my arms.
She invited me into her modest home, where we spent several hours sharing stories about the most significant events from our long lives. I won't bore you with the details, but I'll mention that unfortunately, Kasia's life turned out to be much less fortunate than mine. She never left our village. Later, like old women often do, we delved into the treasure trove of our oldest childhood memories.
"Do you remember those missing people from the '50s? That darn Wiesiek. We couldn't believe it." She spoke with a voice brimming with disapproval, her head gently shaking in disbelief.
I didn't understand exactly what she was referring to. I hadn't been interested in the affairs of my village after emigrating, but I remembered that particular time and our wild speculations. So I asked her to elaborate. The story I heard from her made my hair stand on end.
No, no more disappearances occurred, and as I mentioned, the incident faded from the community's memory. Until the '90s came. It was autumn. A man was working in the forest, chopping wood, when suddenly, from the somber depths of the forest, emerged a strange, unfathomable figure. It was a very old man, incredibly dirty, dressed only in a hastily woven cloak of branches and leaves. Madness lurked in his eyes. He walked bent over in half, as if in great pain. When he saw the woodsman, he only managed to wheeze a plea for help before losing consciousness. As you've probably guessed, it was Wiesiek. He was taken to the hospital, and then questioned by the police in the presence of a psychiatrist. His tale was as fantastical as it was unsettling, and it made headlines, so I'm surprised it never reached me before.
The doctors concluded that Wiesiek was suffering from a severe mental illness. His affliction reached its zenith during his exile in Siberia, where he endured constant starvation in addition to being forced to work beyond human strength. He was plagued by dreadful visions of strange, ancient figures inhabiting the taiga, peering out from behind trees, whispering maddening, crimson secrets into his ears. These creatures spoke of an old era when they coexisted with humans, bestowing peace upon their worshippers in exchange for regular offerings of blood. Yet, with the advent of Christianity, the offerings ceased, and their wrath was awakened. They were hungry with a primal, insatiable appetite, intolerant of defiance. Wiesiek believed that upon leaving Siberia, the haunting visions would subside. His hopes proved to be in vain. His demons pursued him, ever more resolutely demanding restitution for centuries of neglect, wrought by faithless humanity. He attempted to drown out their voices with alcohol, but it proved futile. Thus, one day, he resolved to heed their call. He fled into the unexplored depths of the forest, where he crafted a makeshift shelter for himself and plotted to make his first sacrifice. Krystyna's abduction was not difficult. She was alone in the forest, gathering wild berries, when she was struck unconscious by a heavy branch and dragged to his new lair. Then, following the instructions echoed by alien voices in his twisted mind, he sacrificed her body in the intricate, blood-soaked ritual. The ceremony also included carving specific symbols into the bark of trees and filling their lines with the victim's blood. Well, this accounted for one of the rumors I had heard in my childhood.
Unfortunately for our village, the yearning of the ancient beings did not cease. They wanted more. So Wiesiek obediently provided two more victims, believing that his suffering would finally end, and the voices would fall silent. To his astonishment, after the third sacrifice, he was finally left alone. But his relief was tinged with darkness, as he was made to understand clearly that the hunger had been only temporarily satisfied. It was not the end.
However, there was one demon that never left his side: the consuming sense of guilt. He chose to remain in the woods, recognizing he no longer belonged among ordinary folk. He sustained himself by foraging from the forest's abundant resources. While winters could be harsh, they were no worse than in Siberia. He lived for many years, relatively undisturbed. Why did he decide to emerge from his hiding spot after so long? His explanation was straightforward: the voices, the terrifying creatures—they had returned, seeking his assistance once again. He asserted that he would rather be confined to a psychiatric hospital for the remaining short span of his life than be forced once again to harm another human being. He passed away a few months later.
Well, although this whole story was so shocking, it still made some sense. Minds ravaged by illness possess the capacity to interpret reality through a lens divergent from that of sound minds. Sometimes, this leads to terrible crimes. This was neither the first nor the last instance of its kind. That's exactly what I thought when Kasia finished speaking. And I probably wouldn't have given this matter much more thought if it hadn't been for one thing.
When night fell and I returned to my rented room, I decided to spend a few moments on the balcony, letting the warm, summer air envelop me. The village was settling into sleep. It seemed so peaceful and idyllic. Ahead of me, I could see the forest, still standing despite the passage of time and human activity. A light breeze rustled the treetops. I closed my eyes. Then, carried by the wind, came words spoken in a clear whisper. As a matter of fact, it was one word, repeated over and over, unmistakable from any other:
Krew
Krew
Krew

Story time!
tldr: on Nevia 3 of us - me (Arwa the hunter; organizer), Serby and Kohaminha completed the most expensive and one of the hardest bosses to complete in the game - Ancient Spawn of Morgathla (60/60), as second team in tibia (first one was Gentebra - some of them finished on 21st of April, 1 week before us). We are the first team in GBE and it took 1.5 years and cost more than 40k tc.
Long story:

1. The Journey

I was having about a year of break from the game between 2021-2022, decided to return around October 2022, and to my surprise, my interests in the game shifted a bit, towards making achievements. One of the achievements which you can get, is from opening a chest after killing Ancient Spawn of Morgathla - boss I haven’t even heard about prior to this date. In order to have a chance of killing Morgathla, one has to gather 3 items, which are very rare drop from wz 4-6 bosses - mallet head, mallet pommel and mallet handle. There was a problem though, there were no pieces for sale on my server. I had 1-2 chars on other servers, and I saw there were no pieces other than a mallet handle available either. I figured that this might be one of the things that takes a bit more effort, therefore I used the closest double XP event to level up on separate account characters on every GBE Optional PVP server there is. I’ve checked all of them, and found pieces for Morgathla, scattered on 2 servers. Organized world transfers for them, collected them on Olima, arranged this to be a public event for everyone from the server who wishes to come, asked for some donations etc (didn’t want to charge people at this point - I had no idea if anyone would be interested to come). Our first kill happened sometime in the beginning of December 2022.
After this kill, i realized there was massive interest, and hardest part is already in place - having characters on every gbe n pvp, so I started scoping markets every few days for those to see if they show up - they did, so while transferring them I arranged few more public, free of charge kills (I was only asking people to donate me some money, some did, but it was way too little to cover expenses). In the meantime someone suggested to me also checking pvp and rhc pvp servers, this turned out to be a jackpot - few more mallets were waiting for me there, ready to collect. In April 2023, we had maybe 12 kills completed and I realized, some of the people that come, are not playing fair with me - e.g. one person that was taking part in every kill dropped mallet head (by far the most scarce piece of strange mallet) and wanted me to pay for it, to give it back to community (he was hiding who he is at first, keeping it as anonymous sell offer on market, but for way more than i was willing to pay). In the end, I did pay him some money for it, but I asked him to not join the Morgathla organized by me ever again, and started talking with moderators of the boss hunter community, to not have this as a public event anymore, but to move it to boss hunters and have it done more privately.
This move however required some rework - first of all, I have already spent over 10k tc from my own pocket for everyone's benefit, so I decided it’s enough, and it’s time to make costs public too. I decided to not waste my time being ticketing police, and instead work with donation goals - anyone that wants to contribute, can send me some money or tc, once combined donation reaches an average cost of 3 strange mallets, I organize the next run during which we kill 3 Morgathlas. However, since I was about to use resources of boss hunters community, rather than arrange things on my own, I had to work out transparency - once again using knowledge I gathered, I created separate account, to which also boss hunting mods received access, where I leveled up character on every server I identified to either be able to provide mallet piece, or already did provide one in the past. On top of that, Boss hunting mods created a shared google spreadsheet, which anyone with direct link can access, that’s only editable by us, to check for information - how much was spent, how much money there is, how much money was donated etc. At some point, boss hunting mods also decided that except for regular way of joining our community (finding and sharing at least one rare nemesis boss), they would also introduce option to pay - if someone wants bosses, but doesn’t want to look for them, they can pay 250 tc per month, out of which 125 tc goes directly to Morgathla fund, and another 125 tc is to be raffled/given away to the most successful boss finders (not gonna go into details - mix of raffle and giveaway).
This was basically it. For the next year, each and every day, I have been checking every market on this account (sometimes twice a day) + once per week every other market, to see if any mallet pieces showed up. Since we were working with donations, some part of it was also spent to keep the account with premium status and keep buy offers up. Once we gathered enough donations and enough mallet pieces, we were setting up another run of 3 kills. Only thing that was very seldomly paid for from Morgathla's banking account, was world transfers - I was simply running a comparison check between two servers, and bought everything that would bring me profit upon bringing to Olima (and later after the merge Nevia). Usually the amount of items I found was enough to cover the cost, sometimes it was also bringing fairly decent profit on top of world transfer.

1. Current set up

What we currently have is money flowing from 50+ active boss hunters, pumping buy offers on selected GBE markets, and used also towards keeping the account in premium status. Once enough money is collected, and mallet pieces are available, another run with 3 kills on standardized time and day of the week is being held. Every market is being checked a few times a day to battle any bid wars that may show up.

1. A little bit of numbers

• over 200 individual donations, ranging from 25 tc to 1k tc donation each + money coming from paid ranks
• 40k tc spent excluding costs of most of world transfer (but including 10k+ tc I paid from my own pocket at the beginning)
• total north of 400 hours spent of my time over the span of 17 months on: market checking and character leveling, world transfers, market prices comparison, building spreadsheet tools that will help with data gathering and math, selling items etc. Killing itself takes 10 minutes per kill, therefore additional 10 hours here
• current average price of strange mallet already went up to 1.3k tc and trend is also up, therefore right now this boss seems like already something that will easily cost north of 100k tc to complete
• between 5 and 10 mallets built from mallet pieces dropped by participants themselves
• between 30 and 40 world transfers done (would be another 30k tc cost, if it wasn’t for market flipping)

FAQ
Q: Would you do it again? A: hell no, no chance
Q: Why only 3 of you completed? A: Everyone else either swapped chars in the meantime, or had to skip a run. There are a few more people that are almost completing though.
Q: What is the loot? Is there a chance for anything fun? A: Sadly, not really, at least not to our knowledge. On average, this boss gives about 150k profit to each participant per kill.
Q: What are the noteworthy rares, and what are the chances to get them? A: ETA (Earthborn Titan Armor) - below 0.1% chance Ravager’s Axe - below 0.1% chance Plan for a Makeshift Armour - 2% chance that’s it, everything else costs below 1kk, even though there are items that we collectively dropped just once per all of the runs.
Q: Do gnome items drop from this boss? A: No.
Q: How many people were coming? How many people do we need to make it? A: I have seen pictures of teams of 5-7 people doing this boss, however due to scarcity of it, usually there’s way bigger interest. In our case it was usually around 50 people showing up
Q: Is there any cooldown between kills? A: none, right after kill, you can do it again
Q: Can this boss be trolled? A: yes - beware who you are inviting to kill, due to its mechanics, one person is capable of ruining it for everyone.
Q: What are your next plans? A: Me - I continue achievement hunting, currently collecting money for Ferumbras Hat (1209 achievements on 660 lvl now). Nevia boss hunting group - continue with getting mallets, as I have handovered entire set up to the next person.
Q: Any recommendations with regards to this boss? A: Yeah, don’t do it, unless you are a really hardcore completionist. Think of this boss as a menacing egg equivalent. Super costly and very hard to come by. What I can absolutely recommend is checking your depo for mallet pieces. Mallet head is an item you are after.
Room for advertisement: I am proud to support the initiative of my friend Kusnier in his official fansite project - Tibiapal.com. Place with toolkits and guides for everyone, focused mainly on mathematical analysis of gameplay and guides for returning players. Come and pay us a visit, join us on our discord, and take a peek at Kusniers youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@Kusnierr) for hunting spots guides.

Hey everyone! This is my third attempt at reaching out, and I hope you can connect with my love for gaming. Lately, I’ve been on the hunt for a new RPG to dive into, and I believe Assassin’s Creed Odyssey might just be the answer.
Why Assassin’s Creed Odyssey?
Expansive Worlds and Mythical Adventures:
I’m all about immersing myself in vast, detailed worlds with captivating stories. Odyssey, set in ancient Greece during the Peloponnesian War, promises just that. Imagine sailing across the Aegean Sea, uncovering ancient secrets, and battling mythic creatures. It’s an adventure waiting to unfold! The game world itself is stunning—white-stone isles, autumnal forests, sun-blasted desert islands, and alabaster cities guarded by colossal statues. The sheer beauty of Greece comes alive thanks to Odyssey’s impressive graphics and lighting system[1].
Choices Matter:
What excites me most about Odyssey is the impact of my decisions. Every choice I make ripples through the game, affecting alliances, friendships, and even entire cities. It’s like being a hero in a living, breathing world. The weight of those choices adds depth and replayability to the experience. The thrill of deciding whether to support Athens or Sparta, forging alliances, and shaping the fate of Greece—it’s a dynamic journey that keeps players engaged and invested.
Historical Content and Greek Mythology:
The blend of historical accuracy and imaginative storytelling is intriguing. As a fan of Greek mythology, I’m excited to explore this rich tapestry of legends and lore. From the grand battles between Athens and Sparta to the mysteries hidden within ancient ruins, Odyssey promises an unforgettable journey. The attention to historical detail extends to architecture, clothing, and even the way people lived during that era. It’s like stepping back in time while embarking on a mythical quest.
Epic Battles and Mythic Creatures:
Picture yourself facing off against a towering Minotaur or battling a fierce Cyclops. Odyssey introduces mythical creatures into its narrative, adding an extra layer of excitement. These encounters are not only challenging but also visually spectacular.
A Personal Connection: My Uncle’s Influence
My love for RPGs began with Batman: Arkham City, kickstarted by my uncle. We’ve spent countless hours gaming together, and he’s also a fan of the Assassin’s Creed series. His recommendation has me eager to dive into this franchise and experience it firsthand.
A Humble Request
Unfortunately, my budget doesn’t allow me to purchase Assassin’s Creed Odyssey right now. But perhaps someday, I’ll be able to give back to this wonderful gaming community. If any kind-hearted souls out there are willing to help a fellow gamer, I’d be incredibly grateful. Thank you for reading, and may your adventures be as epic as those in Odyssey! 🎮❤️
The game > https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/store/assassins-creed-odyssey/BW9TWC8L4JCS
My region is US and my Xbox gamertag link is here > ItchyBalboa

What about the yellow fog in Man of Medan? And Little Hope that since we was first introduced to the game the comparisons with Silent Hill were inevitable? But what if both Man of Medan and Little Hope originally used to be new games for the Silent Hill franchise?
Dusk Golem, a well know Resident Evil insider, once said in twitter that Konami was looking for new partnerships to revive Silent Hill franchise by 2018. According to him, one of the game developers that were contacted by Konami was Supermassive Games. But sadly, the Supermassive Silent Hill project didn't received a greenlight.
The Dark Pictures Anthology was released in 2019 with Man of Medan as the first title. In Man of Medan we have a yellow fog that cause all kinds of hallucinations. And then in 2020 Little Hope was released and bring a foggy town full of mysteries. But the fog this time represented mental confusion... Two games. Two kinds of fog. Two different concepts. So maybe, the Supermassive Games Silent Hill project was about the meaning and different concepts of fog, since the fog is probably the most iconic element in Silent Hill franchise.
Actually, Konami is working with different game developers in the Silent Hill revival - Bloober Team (Silent Hill 2 Remake), One Code, Annapurna (Silent Hill Townfall), NeoBards (Silent Hill F), HexaDrive (Silent Hill: The Short Message), Genvid (Silent Hill: Ascension)... Did you guys think we will have a Silent Hill made by Supermassive Games someday?

Beforehand, excuse me for any poorly worded sentences, as English isn't my native language.
(I know I could ask boys for this, but to be honest, a girl answering this seemed more fitting. I'm expecting advice from both, though.)
For some background, I'm a senior in High-School in Europe and have never been in a relationship before. Matter of fact, I have avoided long conversations with women, even if they were online. Part of it is because I used to find no reason to keep them going and/or I just find academic challenges(another way to just mean that I would rather do math) more interesting. I'm a straight 10s Student(which for American Grading system it corresponds to a A+ or A*, the very highest possible) and I am a premed. I spend tons of time studying, mainly with advanced exercises etc. You get the overall picture I suppose. About social media, I never used anything to be honest as they came with no practical use for me, other than Facebook, where I chose math problems to solve with my professor(yeah very boomer). I downloaded Instagram only the last December lol.
Now to give a background of this girl, She is stunning. I mean, very, very, very stunning. To me, of course. To be honest, if I have to unavoidably suffer in this life, I better be suffering standing by her shoulders. She ain't a premed, but she is on same school as me. She does pre-engineering and most likely she will pursue an architectural degree on University (unlike me which chose medicine). She is a very sporty girl, was part of volleyball team(not anymore 'cause schoolwork increased its demands) and the most mature(I would say) among every other girl I've ever met(which ain't a lot but still). She works really hard about her academic life, she helps on her dad's business as well(and I help on my dad's business as well) and I really appreciate this humbleness of hers. She's very friendly, very talkative, not awkward at all etc and I can say all of these with a secure tone, as I've been on the same class as her for the previous two years(High School here is 3 years). Now, in 12th class, we're in different classes as mentioned above.
I could say that I've been a pretty good friend to her overall, but never really thought to take a different approach with her. To be honest, now I've seen more than enough and I really think it would be awesome if I could become something closer than that. I don't know... the "tingly" feelings that I get when I get time to spend with her are so outstanding... or when I see that she sent me a message on Instagram of a reel with a caption "You haha" and the reel is the exact description of mine in a meme, and so on so forth, you get it. I've "tested the waters" and can say that she also might be having a new approach towards me, but I don't really know if that's just kindness or what... lol. She does compliment on my fit, especially on the last school trip that we took, and she did appreciate the fact that I accompanied her friend group and her during lunch and dinner time, she does give the usual jokes to me and whenever I'm alone, not really alone, but probably waiting for somebody or waiting for the bus whatsoever, she comes and does a small chit-chat before she leaves, giving the "daily news and drama". Or when we're home and so, the "relatable" memes are sent over our chat, and to be honest, none has ever done that to me other than a dude, lmfao. I don't know if she's into me, exploring me, or understanding if I'm into her right now, but for a fact, I know that I should become more expressive and interesting when it comes to conversations. Remember how I said about the Instagram chats and memes and all? Well, other than just the "haha" or the "heart reaction" or the "that's so real omg" I've got pretty much nothing to say. I don't really spark the conversations with any type of questions either. Pretty much, seems like I can poorly form some type of conversation starter or conversation "go-er". I don't really know how corny it would sound to compliment her on chat, seems really ... I don't know ... kinda too much.
To not make this any longer, I struggle to setup a conversation, or keep it going with some type of question or so, even if it is just online. I kinda am smoother in real life than on chat, now that I'm thinking.
So Girls of Reddit or whoever reads this, what are some type of starters, or memes, or chats, or videos, I could send and how to keep that going? Of course not forever, but I would like to meaningfully talk to her, at least once a day, rather than sharing funny content. :D

Hello, just as the title says, my bf (ldr kami ngayon kasi he went to study abroad). We're both male and ako out sa family ko pero discreet to people outside my circle. Siya naman feeling nya alam ng family nya since inaasar asar sya minsan na ipakilala na raw yung kachat nya and all.
Architect ako dito sa ph and sya naman engineer.
Napakilala ko na at least sa picture man lang si bf sa family ko. Pero si bf, ang pinakamalapit sa pakilala pa lang na nakuwento nya na nangyari is nabasa ng ate nya yung message ko ng "I miss you" since gamit ng ate nya phone nya nung time na nagchat ako sa kanya nun.
Just to give background lang. My bf kasi is very secretive in a way (ayaw nyang sinasabihan sya na pa-mysterious sya). Kahit socials nya walang laman, yung ig niya kahit pangalan jumbled letters lang like "vscxlxcx" mga ganyan lang, tapos yung pics lang na laman is selfie nya na nakatakip yung phone sa salamin tapos the rest about random stuff na lang like landscape, books, etc. And yung mga followers nya dun is mga nakatalking stage nya before, some friends and some former workmates.
Recently, I asked him kung bakit di niya pa ako napapakilala or at least nakukwento sa family nya and sabi niya kasi natatakot raw sya sa sasabihin ng mga kuya nya (8 silang magkakapatid, 5 na kuya , 2 na ate, and sya yung bunso). Pero kasi hindi lang sa family nya ako hindi kinukuwento. Nakuwento nya lang ako dati sa isa nyang friend/former workmate kasi binisita namin. Aside from that wala na. Ngayon nasa ibang bansa siya and tinatanong ko siya kung tinatanong ba sya ng mga bago nyang friends dun kung may partner ba sya and sinasagot nya lang daw na meron.
I feel like kini-keep nya ako na secret and I don't know what to feel about it. Initially I feel uncomfortable since 1.5 years naman na kami.

That sentence would throw me into an absolute spiral. Sometimes people would say it outright, other times it was the underlining message.
"Yes this symptom is pretty normal."
"Everyone experiences this."
"I've got that too so no big deal."
Or my parents who would give me the feeling that yes I was different but not in a good way.
"You've always been different than other children."
"That's so typical I would never think/act like that."
I initially prided myself about being perceived as different but there was always this bittersweet undertone. It made sense when I learned at how often my parents and I had fought over me being different. They were overwhelmed and instead of overthinking their ways to parent they let out their frustrations on their child. I don't remember that time. I've got one picture in my head were I can see a child pressed in a corner crying her eyes out, snot running down her face because she's so angry and overwhelmed and a bigger person standing infront of her screaming at her with wide gestures. It's probably just a made up picture but it describes the dynamic pretty well.
I couldn't just put my shoes on an leave on time because I first had to finish the drawing I was painting. I wasn't coming home on time from school because I'd daydream the whole way back, loosing track of time. I was terrible at math and so my mother would spend hours standing besides me watching me do my homework growing increasingly impatient. I got so lost in books or in daydreams that I didn't hear them talk to me or call me. I was a brat. I was strong-willed. I was too much to handle.
But after all these years I still carried pride for being different. It made me unique. It made me special. It was the reason I got attention from my parents good or bad.
I don't think a child would do this out of a malicious intention. But that's exactly what my parents accuse me off to this day. And maybe I was the spawn of demon like they always portray me as ...
Then one day my ex therapist told me that sentence:
"YOU'RE NOT SPECIAL."
and even though there's positive meaning behind it, at that time all I could hear was "
You're not valid."
"Your existence has no meaning."
"You have no use."
I still hear this sentence sometimes. I can now recognise that feeling better and therefore know how to deal with it but at that time it dropped on me like a bombshell. "What do you mean I'm not special!? I'm far more ill than anyone around me! I'm the worst. Why don't you see that!? Why don't you see me!?"
And then I realised I need to prove how ill I actually was to get the validation I was looking for. I spiraled into self harm and alcohol abuse. I stopped sleeping, developed an ED, I worked out on top of all that exhausting my body even more.
Nowadays I'm in recovery. I'm working on myself, "choosing the new way" as DBT therapists would call it. But sometimes ... when no ones looking I wish I could fall back once. I wish I could prove all those people who are telling me :
"You're doing really well."
"I'd actually never think you've got Borderline!?"
"Are you sure they diagnosed you right?"
"I mean I've gone through a similar phase I think everyone goes through that right?"
"I know people with BPD and you act nothing like it!"
...that I'm worse. I am hurting. Don't you see that?!

General Content Warning for this entire write-up, so everyone can have a good time: - Extensive discussion of topics related to mental illness, including self-harm, suicidal ideation, mania / bipolar disorder, distortion of truth, medication, involuntary hospitalization, medical abuse in a hospital setting, and romanticization of mental illness. - Non-detailed mentions of domestic violence (implied abuse by intimate partner and parents) and sexual / gender-based violence (including rape, child sexual assault, grooming, sex trafficking and torture). These last few items feature prominently in one installment, pertaining to a work of fiction; descriptions may be a bit more specific/detailed in that segment, but not graphic. - Mentions and quotes of unchill bigoted behavior, including ableism (mental and physical), white nonsense / white fragility / racism, fatphobia, prejudice against drug users.
Additional CWs may be added at the beginning of specific segments when relevant. While these are heavy topics, the tone of this write-up is generally light-hearted and aims to entertain. If this approach sounds uncomfortable or trivializing, this may not be a good read for you; please trust your gut!
*
Picture this: it's the early 2010s, somewhere in the western world. Instagram is a novelty, Harvey Weinstein runs Hollywood, almost no one on Earth leans one way or the other about RNA vaccines, and Donald Trump is that one real estate guy you vaguely remember from Home Alone 2. New player Lady Gaga is the most interesting thing to have happened to pop since Madonna, and the whole industry is attempting to catch up; Miley Cyrus is the chick who used to be on Hannah Montana; Melanie Martinez hasn't hatched yet. The time of Oddball Concept Divas is dawning just below the horizon.
You're a Bowie-loving student who skipped goth night at the club to tag along with your art school friends for a very special evening. You're a giddy sixteen-year old rocking cat ears, purple Wet 'n Wild eyeliner, a polyester petticoat, and a coffin-shaped backpack. You're an effete theater kid who sewed his own waistcoat for the occasion, but won't dare wear it to school the next day. You're a buff, bearded dude in a Venom shirt who's trying not to look too excited, since your girlfriend supposedly had to drag you here. You're a slightly bemused parent leaning against the back wall of the venue, sipping a warm half-pint, wondering if this isn't all a bit dark for a tween. (“It's called 'Victoriandustrial', mom,” you've been told in the car, “and it's not dark, it's art.”)
On stage is a pink-haired woman, with red porcelain-doll lips and a heart painted on her cheek. Among a set of antique consoles, twee tchotchkes, teacups and plastic rats, she pounces and twirls in glittery platform boots, tattered striped stockings, and a tightly laced crystal-studded corset that looks like it's splattered in blood. This is ostensibly a concert, but there is no live band. Where one would expect a drum kit or a bass, three bedazzled burlesque vixens act as back-up singers and dancers, with the occasional vaudeville act – a fire-twirling number, a fan dance, throwing pastries and spitting tea into the audience. Lots of wholesome girl-on-girl kissing, too. The music on the backing track is a genre-bender of clanging beats and beeps, lofty orchestral strings, and the frantic hammering of a MIDI harpsichord, as the pink-haired frontlady sings of heartache and betrayal and drowning. Think if the Brontë sisters had invented industrial rock.
The audience gasps in excitement when the lady whips out a vamped-out wireless electric violin. With rockstar cool and virtuoso poise, she leans into the instrument, touches the bow to the strings, and tears out a single plaintive, impeccably distorted high note. Then her fingers go wild, and for a few seconds, everything is perfect suspended animation. Uncannily perfect, almost. Just behind you, you hear someone whisper: “Wait, is she miming it?”
*
Forgive the theatrical intro, but I had to set the stage for... the drama. And I do mean drama in the thespian sense of the term! This, ladies and gentlemen, is a Shakespeare play: wordy and confusing, but it's neat how the main character's opening lines foreshadow the tragic climax. It's a Greek tragedy for the digital age – if, instead of killing his dad and banging his mom, after becoming king, Oedipus was doomed to becoming uniquely obnoxious. It's The Rocky Horror Show under the grim direction of Samuel Beckett. Like all good theatre, this story is about how fiction bleeds into reality – through the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and how all the world's a stage and all that.

WHO IS EMILIE AUTUMN, AND WHAT'S THE DRAMA?

Here's the Broadway Weekly blurb, so you can decide whether the show is worth your time: Emilie Autumn, also known as EA, is a US-American alternative singer-songwriter, author, and actor. She became known in alt circles in the mid-2010s for her violin skills, unique fashion, outspoken stances on feminism and mental health advocacy, and the way she dramatized and sublimated her own life story in her art. In 2009, she self-published a semi-autobiographical book that became a sort of bible to her creative universe and fandom. She toured extensively and enjoyed niche, but considerable success until the mid-2010s – with hordes of devoted fans adopting her fashion sense and lingo, and crediting her music for getting them through dark times.
For the past twelve years or so, EA has mostly been focused on adapting her book into a stage musical, releasing two more albums of songs intended for the libretto. At the time of this write-up, it has been six years since the last album and a decade since the last live show. Although she still talks about the musical as an ongoing, Broadway-bound project, in recent years, she's often gone dark for months at a time on social media. There is no forum, no large Discord, no active community to speak of; comments are restricted on her currently-inactive Instagram and blog.
Who is she hiding from, you ask? Why, you've probably guessed it: the hordes of devoted fans whom she infuriates every time she does anything.
And what are they furious about? (Or frustrated, flummoxed, or plain ol' flabbergasted?) Well, it depends who you ask. For some, it's disappointment in her artistic and marketing choices (what are fans for?). Others cite unkept promises or absurd release delays. For others yet, it's the AliBaba merch sold at jaw-dropping markups with three paragraphs of purple prose in the product description.. Or maybe it was the angry rants on Twitter? Okay, it's the casual bigotry that she staunchly denies or dismisses. It's the criticism she can't take. It's the fact that she won't stop lying about her own life! Either way, I don't personally know of any fanbase that has been so consistently exasperated, for so many years, and for such a diverse array of reasons, by their favorite artist.
In truth, each individual mini-scandal isn't all that juicy or scandalous. Nobody died, no one got sued; nothing of significant value, other than time and sanity, was taken away from anyone. What I find interesting here is the years and years of bizarre parasocial codependency (and antagonism) between a fragile woman who became addicted to her own poppycock, and an obsessive fanbase who cared way too much not to take it personally.
Before we even get to EA's relationship with her fans, you're going to need some lore about EA herself. A “Hobby History” of sorts. Strap in! There's romance, tragedy, laughter, character development, variety numbers, numerous costume changes, (actual) celebrity cameos – and based on how long this OpenOffice doc already is at the time of my writing this, we're probably going to need several intermissions too. This write-up is link-heavy, both with receipts and with additional watching and listening material. Not all of them need to be clicked in order to understand the story; I'm merely providing the rabbit holes. I've tried to make things more easily navigable by including a little glossary about the nature of links; one emoji-indicator carries over the next link until I use a different one.
🪞 = picture / visual 🎵 = music 📺 = video 📝 = primary source / receipt 🔍 = press article / write-up / further reading 🎤 = song lyrics / spoken word audio 🐀 = anonymous fan confession 🦠 = reaction / meme

BAROQUE BEGINNINGS: THE VIOLIN YEARS

VampireFreaks: Do you ever smile to yourself knowing your old music teachers might be seeing your success? EA: I smile to myself knowing they might be dead. (Long-lost interview, late 2000s)

Born in Malibu in the late 70s, Emilie Autumn, often known as EA, was originally trained as a classical violinist.
By her account, she started playing the violin at age 4, and was homeschooled at age 9 so that she could focus on her instrument. After stints at various performing arts colleges, some rather prestigious, she dropped out of formal schooling in her mid-to-late teens to embark on a solo violin career.
In 2001, after disappointing experiences with major record companies, she created her own label, Traitor Records, and released a EP of chamber music, with minor success. The stuffy industry of classical music didn't “get” the twenty-something manic-pixie-fiddler, who played Bach just a bit too fast, but with electric stage presence – wearing period corsets, combat boots, and the occasional fairy wings. But EA evidently knew that there was an audience for that somewhere.
And that somewhere – drumroll – was Illinois.

VW: What do you most hope to accomplish? EA: Everything. (‘Virtual World Radio’ Interview, 2002 📝)

ENCHANT ERA: BRUSHES WITH FAME ON FAERIE WINGS

What if I'm an ocean, far too shallow, much too deep? (...) What if I'm a siren singing gentlemen to sleep? (“What If”, 2003 🎵)

Soon, EA relocated from her native California to Chicago. There, in between odd jobs, she veered away from baroque and began performing her own “fantasy rock” stylings at piano bars, holiday fairs and local venues – and building a decent following through her LiveJournal, website, and IRL friends. People loved the whole renegade genius thing, loved the violin, loved the nightingale voice, loved the fairy wings and costumes🪞, loved the handmade merch and general disdain for The Business, loved her deadpan humor and bookish nerdiness. In 2003, she released her first LP, Enchant 🎵 – an ethereal, introspective indie-pop joint, born under the sign of Imogen Heap, with a moon in Fiona Apple and Tori Amos rising.
Everything about EA's act was exquisitely DIY, personal, and intricate. For instance, the Enchant booklet folded out into a Masquerade-style puzzle of her own design.🪞 The first person to solve the puzzle would win “the Wings, Ruff, Fan and Scepter of the Faerie Queene herself” – all lovingly handmade by EA, and depicted in peak 2003 graphic design on the booklet. For months, YEARS after Enchant came out, people poured over the cryptic metaphors and literary references, the historical symbolism and visual puns of the artwork, looking for hints and patterns. They read every fan chat, every interview, every relevant Shakespeare play, hoping to decipher the inner workings of EA's mind and find new keys to the puzzle. Sure, it's been two decades now and no one's ever managed to crack the damn thing 🔍, which is by now widely assumed to be flawed and unsolvable; still, it's the kind of zany, brainy, immersive experience that tends to cultivate a niche but hyper-invested fanbase.
So it makes perfect sense that underground aficionada and internet frontierswoman Courtney Love (she haunted public AOL chatrooms as early as 1995! 🔍) would take an interest. Just a few months after releasing Enchant, EA was off to southern France to record violin and vocals for Courtney's new solo album; a few months after that, in early 2004, she joined Courtney's band on a brief tour to promote the record.
Alas, no cigar: America's Sweetheart flopped. Maybe because most of those summer recording sessions were ultimately lost to an engineering oopsie; maybe because Courtney was having an especially rough year – and going through all the “rock-bottom moments” that she would discuss in group therapy, later that fall, when she began her sobriety journey at court-ordered rehab. EA, a former homeschool kid who had never done drugs, seems to remember the tour as a generally terrifying experience; she later stated, with some bitterness, that the experience was not worth the time it had taken away from her own solo career.
But it was a good year for TV appearances! Here she is on the David Letterman Show in March 2004, rocking out on a perfectly inaudible violin as C-Love fades in and out of her own body. 📺 She also landed a cute tutorial segment on HGTV's Crafters: Coast to Coast, making sushi-shaped soap and fairy wings. In December, she accompanied Billy Corgan for a Christmas song on a Chicago station.
All of this was chronicled in quirky, wordy posts on her blog – interspersed with late-night musings about casual misogyny in the media 📝, including against Courtney, handmade crafts and clothing auctions, candid pictures of outings with friends in Chicago... as well as periodic updates on the progress of her next opus: Opheliac.

God, too much to even begin to tell right now, and I’m recording anyway, but I can give you this update: I just finished yesterday recording violin parts and backing vocals for B. Corgan’s first single (...) More later, recording piano for my new track “GOD HELP ME”…why do I torture myself with my own self-inflicted drama…or is it a way of exorcizing…yes, I’ll go with that one for now…☠ (“Whirlwind...”, December 2004)

By that point, EA was starting to be more open about her conflicted relationship with what would later be diagnosed as bipolar disorder. The galaxy-brain moments, the trance of creative frenzies, the liminal high of going three days without sleep, the magic... the crippling sensitivity, the restless anxiety, the Zoloft that one both needs and hates, the ever-lurking suicidal thoughts. As EA gradually revealed over the course of 2004, Opheliac would be an exploration of the “mad woman” archetype. The title was a medical neologism for “the syndrome of Ophelia”, as in the tragic character from Hamlet 🔍, driven to insanity and ultimate self-destruction by the fuckboys who rule her life. Here's EA explaining it in her own words. 🎤 The album would dive into how psychiatry and romantic relationships are governed by old misogynistic tropes, and how the “mentally ill” label is used to silence and downplay the justified anger and hurt of abused women.
In a striking case of life imitating art (are you picking up on the theme yet?), this concept was about to become more painfully relevant than ever to EA's personal existence.
CW: implied partner abuse, suicidal ideation.

DISENCHANTMENT: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS

In the lake, you will find me Behind your house, behind your house (...) My ocean is bluer than the heart you had to break My sea is deeper than your lake (“In the Lake”, 2005 🎵)

Where were we? Ah yes, the Christmas song with Billy Corgan at the end of 2004. Around that time, EA was also recording violin parts and backing vocals for his upcoming solo album. 🎵 They had presumably connected through Courtney, they both lived in Chicago, I guess something clicked.
In January of 2005, EA abruptly went off of her meds, broke up with her live-in boyfriend-slash-bassist, packed up her violin and corsets, and moved into Corgan's mansion. In March of 2005, she posted very melancholy lyrics about drowning in a lake to haunt a deceitful lover. The post was entitled“In The Lake (The Zoloft is calling my name...)” 🎤📝. Later, after the song was released as a B-side, EA disclosed that it had been intended as a public suicide note 📝.
Blog entries from that time touched on a “whirlwind of action and emotion”, “changing residences” and feeling like “you're falling through the air, but you don't know if you'll hit the water or the rocks” 📝. But, EA being an expert vague-poster, her posts remained very elusive about what was going on, who was involved, and how it impacted her. (The specifics were pieced together years later, by fan-led forensic efforts – which, obviously, involved ascertaining the existence of an actual body of water in Billy Corgan's backyard 📝).
Whatever happened over the course of those months was never disclosed explicitly by EA, but is widely assumed to have inspired songs such as “Liar” 🎤, “Misery Loves Company”, “Let the Record Show”, and “I Know Where You Sleep”, , recorded that same spring. A solid quarter of the Opheliac tracklist – which was shaping out to be decidedly darker and grittier than Enchant.

You can lie to the papers, you can hide from the press (...) I know your tainted flesh, I know your filthy soul I know each trick you played, whore you laid, dream you stole I know the bed in the room in the wall in the house Where you got what you wanted and ruined it all I know the secrets that you keep I know where you sleep

Even as her personal blog posts grew more somber, nihilistic, and generally fed-up in the face of what she called “the worst breakdown of her young life”, even as the songwriting process had her rummage through traumatic memories [CW: CSA] 🎤, and even as the Corgan-adjacent trauma was compounded by various rushed moves and broken friendships over that summer and fall, EA remained remarkably (some might say frantically) prolific.
Other than progress on Opheliac, 2005 saw multiple violin collaborations with alternative bands, numerous auctions of, mh, visually strident “punktorian” fashion pieces 📝🪞 (“STRESS COUTURE!” 🦠📺), and an updated re-issue of her 2001 poetry collection, complete with audiobook. ("...The book has been selling like crack in a limo with Courtney Love (and believe me, I know)." - Ooooof, EA. Low-hanging fruit. 📝)
In October, she started recruiting:

WANTED: Hot goth bitch to join touring band of other hot goth bitches. (...) Must be able to: sing backing vocals in a wide range with excellent pitch, growl à la Kittie, handle minimal keyboard parts, push buttons/turn knobs with killer attitude, be extremely comfortable on stage in bloomers and a corset, reside in the Chicago area, know the difference between a crumpet and a scone, have at least one hidden talent. 📝

By winter, most of her blog post titles were written in THIS FORMAT!!!!!!!! In December, she announced that “Emilie Autumn and the Bloody Crumpets” would preview Opheliac live at the Double Door in Chicago, on Friday the 13th (ooh!) of the following month. “We are coming to destroy your world,” the post threatened enticingly. "Miss it and suffer. We really don't want to hurt you.” The flyer advertised a dress code:

Masquerade, Ophelias, green girls, Victorian insane asylum escapees, princes of Denmark, bloomered harlots and rogues – general burlesque ribaldry!

Exit diaphanous butterfly wings and elven tiaras 📺, enter the haunted murder-doll with the blood-red heart on her cheek; out with Elizabethan chamber-pop, in with Victoriandustrial. The fairy had to die to make way for the iconic, the sublime, the tragic, the ridiculous, the positively bananas...

OPHELIAC ERA: LET THE RECORD SHOW

EA: What's more interesting, and what's more fun to watch, than a crazy girl's self-destruction? Nothing. Nothing in the world. (The Opheliac Companion, 2008 🎤)
If I'm going down Then I'm going down good I'm going down Then I'm going down clean (...) The prettiest broken girl you've ever seen (“Let the Record Show”, 2006 🎵)

CW: mania, self-harm, abortion, suicidal ideation, hospitalization.
If you haven't gathered as much by now, what fans were witnessing in real time on EA's blog, without necessarily seeing it, was the ebb and flow of a months-long manic episode. That's not me armchair-diagnosing: EA herself has discussed penning and recording a lot of her best material in a trance-like rush, “when you're writing on the ceiling because there's not enough paper to contain your thoughts”.

...Once I became stable and healthy, I realized that I had no memory of how a great deal of my music had been created. I had written and even programmed most of my best work in a similar manic state, and, when stark raving sane, I didn’t know how to do it anymore, because the part of me that really composes never needed to know how to do it, it just did. (2019 Instagram post 📝)

It's not an uncommon experience for artists with bipolar disorder. Before you burn so hot that you wind up in the back of an ambulance, and/or before the pendulum swings back towards debilitating depression, the boundless energy, heightened sensitivity, and unexpected thought patterns associated with mania can lead to periods of prolific and effortless creation.
Mania also has the potential to lower your inhibitions, making you more bodacious, more quick-witted – more dazzling, more fun at parties, more dramatic. All traits that are valued in the entertainment industry, especially one that, with the rise of social media, was coming to rely increasingly on parasocial engagement and “personal branding”. Why would you refrain from oversharing, overreacting, overworking, overpromising, overcurating a fantasy image of yourself... when new industry models reward exactly that?
My point is that, in retrospect, “the end was built into the beginning”: all the things that would make fans go “What the hell, Emilie!” in subsequent years were brewing below the surface before the album even dropped.
In the summer of 2006, EA said goodbye to her Chicago friends and returned to California, where she moved in with her new beau, another Illinois-born guitarist with an impressive forehead: Brendon Small, of Dethklok/Metalocalypse quasi-fame. (If you're into that sort of thing: the orchestral strings on “Detharmonic”? Yep, that's EA! 🎵📺)
In September, Opheliac was released into the world. Expectations were high... And many sources agree it was a goddamn banger. It was ultrafemme, ultradark, unhinged, hilarious and deadly and brilliant. It had gnarly kitchen-sink drums layered under angelic string harmonies, fauxperatic swells, and guttural screaming. It had sarcastically self-aware double-entendres that were also literary references that were also musical notation jokes. You get the idea: it was the album that a small, but sizable demographic of tormented millennial teens had been waiting to obsess over. Some time in late 2005 or so, EA had signed with German label Trisol Records, which gave her access to better promotion, press coverage and touring opportunities in Europe when the album came out in the fall. By winter, she was on the cover of alternative mags, and the talk of the town on underground music webzines. Within a year, she was embarking on the first of three almost-back-to-back European tours.
It was around that time that EA started giving her fanbase a more defined, aesthetically on-brand identity. EA, funnily enough, disliked the term “fan” due to its proximity to “fanatic”, and started calling individual supporters “muffins” or the "Bloomer Brigade". (After The Book came out in 2009, they would become “Plague Rats”. You know how pets get weird if you re-name them too many times? I wonder if the same is true of fans.) Meanwhile, EA's fanbase as a collective – as well as her home, her recording studio, her online forum and her inner brainspace... – became canonically known as “The Asylum”. Cue infinite jokes about her fans being “committed.”
And they really were, in a slightly more intense way than your average indie-alternative fanbase. Many fans enthusiastically adopted facets of EA's mannerisms and lingo, which gave the fandom a definite LARP-ing bend; and the official forum did, in fact, offer a subforum for Asylum-themed role-play. (In a number of ways, the Asylum was basically Juggalos for socially anxious theater goths. Substitute the clown facepaint, Faygo, and hatchets for cheek-hearts, Earl Grey tea, and obsolete medical tools.) While there was always some side-eye at the embarrassingly candid, often very young Plague Rats who took the Asylum thing too seriously (always speaking in character and worshipping the ground Mistress Emilie walked on), a lot of people were quite thrilled to play romantic Victorian madhouse with their new favorite artist. Live shows were like costume balls. The forum thrived.
It was like Opheliac had opened a portal to this vibrant and inclusive alternate dimension, which the community was now bringing to life in the real world. And each tour brought more inmates (muffins, Plague Rats, you get it) to the Asylum. “Spread the Plague!” was the name of the game.
So, on paper, in the three years that followed Opheliac, EA kind of won the high-concept-indie-artist equivalent of the lottery. After going through her own personal hell of abuse, major upheavals and serious mental health crises, she had decided to gamble on a radically different tone and musical direction. She came out the other side with critical acclaim for her soul-baring record, tons of live shows with a badass girl squad, photoshoots so iconic they pop up on random Pinterest boards to this day, snazzy corporate sponsorships (including Manic Panic and RockLove Jewelry), and an exponentially growing fanbase who couldn't get enough of whatever she had to give. And she gave quite a lot!
Within those three years, in between tours, EA released A Bit O' This & That 🎵 (a compilation of demos and back-catalogue curiosities), Laced / Unlaced (a full-instrumental double album - one side was the baroque recordings from her late teens, the other was demented, distortion-heavy classical-prog), and three EPs packed with new songs, covers, remixes and bonus content. There was also a deluxe reissue of Enchant, without the puzzle, but with a brand new booklet of handwritten lyrics and marginalia. All came in lovely inter-matching digipaks that really made you want to collect them all – much like the handmade merch 📝🪞 that EA still sold on some legs of her tours. She spent time with the fans at most shows, eventually holding meet-and-greets and private showcases for VIP ticket-holders. She also released “The Opheliac Companion”, a kind of “director's commentary” of the album – roughly 10 hours worth of lyrical deep dives, microphone specs, tangents within tangents within tangents, and whacky (tipsy, sometimes unintelligible) banter between EA and her sound engineer🎤. On top of all that, she wrote, designed and self-published a fully illustrated 200-page coffee-table book, the first print of which sold out within a year. Not bad!
Of course, things that seem to good to be true usually are: at this stage in the story, EA is never as enthusiastically prolific as when her personal life is falling apart behind the scenes.
In the three years that followed Opheliac, along with soaring success, EA got to experience: more rapid-cycling between manic phases and the pits of depression, multiple harrowing medication adjustments, an very-much-unwanted pregnancy followed by a traumatic abortion, a suicide attempt, at least one inpatient stay, and a break-up in the aftermath of it all. There were also a few physical health scares that required hospitalization. On one occasion, she had to go off all her meds cold-turkey when they were confiscated at the EU border right before the start of a tour. In some pictures from her summer 2007 festival appearances, you can make out faint self-harm scars on her thigh through the layered stockings. (Obvious CW, for the morbidly curious.🪞(But if you weren't, would you still be reading?))
So yeah. EA was not doing great.
She didn't share any of these struggles with her fans in real time; her posts were all droll banter and updates on tours and releases. Most of what I just listed was disclosed in late 2009, in the autobiographical part of The Book. (The Book gets at least one instalment of its own. Bear with me, there's a LOT to unpack.) And The Book, while never specifying a timeline, kind of really made it sound like the Bad Stuff (the abortion, the suicide attempt, the hospital stay) had taken place a while back, before the release of Opheliac. In fact, EA plainly stated as much, citing “getting locked up and being put in the asylum" 📝 as the reason for the shift in sound between Enchant and Opheliac.
She repeatedly referred to herself as “stabilized” and “now properly medicated” in interviews. As far as the fanbase was concerned, she had triumphed over her abusers, turned trauma into beauty, and lived to pass on her story of survival. And now she had found balance and community and true acceptance of herself, all that good stuff – and all was fine and dandy within the Asylum. On stage, she sang about blind rage and all-consuming despair and general hopelessness, but she didn't actually feel like that – not anymore, right?
This narrative was both inspirational and quite convenient for the fans. We love our Mad Hatters 🎵📺, our Rainmen, our manic pixies. We love and celebrate “crazy” when it manifests as outside-the-box brilliance and/or bubbly eccentricity. But in my experience, even in spaces that ostensibly focus on "destigmatizing mental illness", positivity and support can quickly turn to rejection and awkwardness when your “quirks” manifest in more challenging ways – like through erratic decisions, aggressive or dishonest behavior, or increasingly untethered beliefs about yourself and the world. No matter how much people claim to “embrace the madness”, it just isn't that fun or in good taste for a large group to play-act ~ whimsical insanity ~ with someone who is for realsies mentally falling apart.
Before time has had time to do its thing, "revisiting your trauma" is just called ruminating. And it's rarely good for you, even when you commit some of greatest art in the process.
I think fans had to assume that there was some critical distance in EA's act, that these extreme negative emotions were all theater – because if they weren't, then the Asylum wasn't an empowering performance about healing from past hurt. It was more like a years-long reality show in which a woman picked at her wounds publicly, again and again, in real time, to the cheers of oblivious strangers who thought they were watching a play.
All I'm saying is that EA was essentially still in the thick of raw trauma when she became a poster-child for overcoming it; that the last thing a person needs, at such a vulnerable stage in their life, is an intense parasocial relationship with sad goth teenagers, let alone one centered around romanticized retellings of their own darkest moments; and that if more people had declined to actively engage in pretend-play that toed the line of self-harm... there is a chance that things might have turned out differently. Maybe EA would still be a successful musician whose career isn't plagued by conflict and mutual disappointment, and maybe some fans wouldn't have wasted years getting red in the face at an over-exposed mentally ill woman for not getting her shit together.
OKAY, THAT GOT HEAVY (and preachy), apologies and thank you for your patience. I will now quit my soapboxing, resume telling the story, and let you draw your own conclusion as our dark plot unravels.

EPILOGUE: DEAD IS THE NEW ALIVE

A quick taste of the poison A quick twist of the knife When the obsession with death, the obsession with death Becomes a way of life ("Dead is the New Alive", 2006 🎵)
I am still over-glorified My reasons to live Were my reasons to die But at least they were mine (“306”, 2006)

In summation: becoming an overnight success thanks to your darkest trauma will do things to person's mind.
As EA kept hyping up how much her fans meant to her, and what an amazing and inclusive and free-thinking motley crew the Asylum was, she was also growing more and more controlling of her increasingly large (and opinionated, and overall rather young) fanbase – and more generally, of the way people ought to talk to and about her.
It was during the Opheliac era that she started reveling in made-up stories about her own life. Then came the habit of losing her shit on fans that she perceived as ungrateful or disrespectful. It was also then that massive kerfuffles became routine on the merch and planning front, and EA's creative output started to routinely fall short of her promises. The more fans started raising legitimate complaints, the more defensive and uncompromising EA became in her public interactions. The more people expressed weariness of the Asylum theme, or started questioning EA's hot takes on mental health and feminism, the harder she doubled down on the Asylum lore and fictional universe. Which is where the drama really starts.
Alright, the time has come. Let's talk about The Book.
...Actually, let's not. I'm nearing my character limit, and you could probably use a break and a stretch after making it this far. This is our intermission, and we'll get to The Book in our next instalment.
Thank you for reading! Stay tuned if you're interested in how it all comes tumbling down.

If this gets out i might have my school hunting me down so i came here instead, theres this girl in my year, shes an absolute chav, fake tan and everything, shes probably darker than me at this point,, anyways, one of my classmates lets call her J had taken a picture of her, so the whole fkn school day one of my best mates and her fg which J was the ringleader were being hunted down by the year above us. Quite shitty ik, if it were me, i wouldnt have done it at all, bc i do the dirty work myslef, this is giving of one of us is lying isnt it? So, we're in science and i need to take a piss, i go to the bathroom but i wasnt expecting chav and a yr nine to be chatting abt hunting J down, this chav was in my maths and DT and no im not bad at maths, last year i was tho, so i tell my best mate abt what chav and the yr nine were talking abt, i also didnt realise that one of chav's minions was infront of me in the class, im pretty scared bc i dont wanna be jumped by chav, im so sorry if its all a bit vague its bc i dont want my school, staff and students finding out it was me who wrogte this anyways, what would you do? Ive been trying to get on chav's good side but i think i may have fked it up for good. Pls if ur older ans been in this situation before help me out, i have two lessons with chav and she sits pretty close to me,

I have gossip but if it gets out i might have my school hunting me down so i came here instead, theres this girl in my year, shes an absolute chav, fake tan and everything, shes probably darker than me at this point,, anyways, one of my classmates lets call her J had taken a picture of her, so the whole fkn school day one of my best mates and her fg which J was the ringleader were being hunted down by the year above us. Quite shitty ik, if it were me, i wouldnt have done it at all, bc i do the dirty work myslef, this is giving of one of us is lying isnt it? So, we're in science and i need to take a piss, i go to the bathroom but i wasnt expecting chav and a yr nine to be chatting abt hunting J down, this chav was in my maths and DT and no im not bad at maths, last year i was tho, so i tell my best mate abt what chav and the yr nine were talking abt, i also didnt realise that one of chav's minions was infront of me in the class, im pretty scared bc i dont wanna be jumped by chav, im so sorry if its all a bit vague its bc i dont want my school, staff and students finding out it was me who wrogte this anyways, what would you do? Ive been trying to get on chav's good side but i think i may have fked it up for good. Pls if ur older ans been in this situation before help me out, i have two lessons with chav and she sits pretty close to me,