Moving clipart

KEEP GOING

2024.05.13 18:49 shaneka69 KEEP GOING

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWXgojWut_o
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submitted by shaneka69 to PostYourBlogLinks [link] [comments]


2024.03.15 01:32 Anchored_hope clipart for stickers

clipart for stickers
When uploading clipart to the software to make stickers is there a way to prevent each one from opening on a separate work space? The files I am working with have 45 individual clipart files and it's taking a long time to move them all to one cutting mat. I know about the "merge" function, but I would have to open each file one by one. I currently open 10 at once and move them, close them and move on to the next 10.

File example
https://preview.redd.it/hfh0huru7eoc1.png?width=876&format=png&auto=webp&s=4b1bb8712f2eebe923774833c16ef97999d394fd
submitted by Anchored_hope to silhouettecutters [link] [comments]


2024.02.16 14:26 CatWatt February 14th Special Days - Featuring Ferris Wheel Freebies!

February 14th Special Days - Featuring Ferris Wheel Freebies!

February 14th is... Ferris Wheel Day (1893)
-- The original Ferris wheel was designed by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., as a landmark for the 1893 World's Colombian Exposition in Chicago. The name later came to be used generically for all such rides. Take a ride on a Ferris wheel and remember how fun it is to be up high while the wind blows over your face.

Free Printables, Coloring Pages, Activities, and Crafts:

🎡 Worlds First Ferris Wheel
🎡 Ferris Wheel Jigsaw Puzzles Free Online Jigsaw Puzzles
🎡 Free Ferris wheel printable
🎡 Amusement Park (Ferris Wheel) - Craftown - Toys - Paper Craft
🎡 Free Printable: Enjoy the Ride Art - Houseful of Handmade
🎡 How to Build a Ferris Wheel as a School Project
🎡 Building instructions for 10247, Ferris Wheel, LEGO® CREATOR Expert
🎡 Mini Ferris Wheel - Oh, Happy Day!
🎡 Ferris Wheel Coloring Page
🎡 Paper Ferris Wheel
🎡 A Paper Ferris Wheel That Really Spins
🎡 Working Paper Ferris Wheel
🎡 A Five-Wheeled Spinning Ferris Wheel
🎡 Build a Big Wheel
🎡 24 Ferris Wheel Coloring Pages
🎡 How To Make Your Own Ferris Wheel
🎡 Ferris Wheel - Solar Schoolhouse
🎡 Ferris Wheel - Match 3 Games Online Game
🎡 Ferris Wheel Template – Large
🎡 Thumbprint Ferris Wheel – Kid Craft Idea
🎡 Ferris Wheel crayola.com.au
🎡 Ferris wheel coloring page, printable Ferris wheel - On Coloring
🎡 How to Make a Ferris Wheel Out of Popsicle Sticks
🎡 Fascinating Ferris Wheel crayola.be
🎡 Free Ferris Wheel Printables and Resources

Ferris Wheel Recipes:

🎡 Cookies n Cream Macaron Ferris Wheel (complete with moving parts!)
🎡 Jicama Ferris Wheel Kids Teaching Kids
🎡 MetDaan Cakes - FERRIS WHEEL CAKE Facebook
🎡 Ferris Wheel Chicken Salad Food.com
🎡 Mini Funnel Cakes Recipe Leite's Culinaria
🎡 I Can Smell it from the Ferris Wheel, and it’s Making my Mouth

More Free Printables, Coloring Pages, Activities, and Crafts:

🎡 March 28th Special Days - Featuring Circus Freebies!
🎡 May 17th Special Days - Featuring Merry-Go-Round Freebies!
🎡 July 8th Special Days - Featuring Circus Freebies!
🎡 July 25th Special Days - Featuring Carousel Freebies!
🎠 August 16th Special Days - Featuring Roller Coaster Freebies!
--
More: February 14th Special Days - Featuring Ferris Wheel Freebies!
submitted by CatWatt to FrugalFreebies [link] [comments]


2024.02.12 21:50 ThingsThatComeToMind [Other][90's] Plug & Play drawing pad game

I had this white drawing pad that plugged into the TV and I believe it had a pen on a string with a metallic tip (something like a magnadoodle). The pen was used sort of like a mouse pointer, so when you moved it over the pad you can draw stuff on the tv screen. I think the pad had two blue spacebar like buttons on the bottom and little blue dots across the pad. I remember the game had music and there was a mode where you could drag and drop clipart to different scenes to make your own picture.
submitted by ThingsThatComeToMind to tipofmyjoystick [link] [comments]


2024.01.08 19:43 AnimeOcCreator77 Hebi Hebi no Mi, model: Burmese Python

Appearance: A yellow melon-shaped fruit with dark brown swirls originating from a continual dark brown vine wrapped around the fruit from the stem's origin
The eater of this fruit gains the ability to transform into a Burmese Python and Burmese Python Hybrid at will

In-Depth

Beast Form: The user's Full Transformation alters their physique into a large serpentine creature, gifting them incredible agility, flexibility, speed and power as one of the largest snake species. The user is especially good at constricting their body and anything between their coils into a broken mess, including trees, boulders, people, and even vaults in this state
Hybrid Form: The user's Man-Beast Transformation gifts them a powerful upper body supported by an 16 meter muscluar tail. In this state, they possess incredible flexibility, speed, strength, durability, agility, endurance, and an enhanced bloodlust that makes them more vicious in fighting. The user can make use of their new physique to wrap and tighten their tail around their opponent's body and limbs to prevent them from getting out of their striking distance and prevent even very muscled and strong victims from moving. An interesting application of their incredible muscle contractions, they can even utilize their enhanced fingers and jaws to increase their grip on anything or anyone they hold to be able to crush even steel in their grasp and tighten their hands into fists that can shatter it

Weaknesses

• Unlike most snake zoans, the user of this fruit does not possess any venom in their body due to being a python
• Standard Devil Fruit weaknesses apply

Techniques

Snake Spear: User lashes their tail out with waving and spearing strikes
Wild Jungle Claw: User barrages their talons and fangs at their opponents to gouge and rip away parts of their body while moving erratically on their snake tail
Venus Belt: User constricts their opponents with their serpentine body incredibly hard. With tactical binding they can even stop their blood flow and cause them to pass out or die from stalled blood circulation
submitted by AnimeOcCreator77 to DevilFruitIdeas [link] [comments]


2023.12.14 12:24 PunyaPunyaHeytutvat These bizarre-looking contraptions - the »pulsometer water-pumps« - were often used as bilge-pumps on ships in the days of steamships, being ideally suited to that function …

These bizarre-looking contraptions - the »pulsometer water-pumps« - were often used as bilge-pumps on ships in the days of steamships, being ideally suited to that function …
… having no moving parts, & therefore being extremely robust against objects in the pumped liquid; & requiring only a steam supply for their operation, which obviously there was in abundance in a steamship. Another property of it that's a major boon in-connection with that purpose is that it doesn't need to be set on a solid foundation … infact, it can even be hung from a chain … which is a really handy property for it to have if it's to serve as a bilge-pumps in a ship.
They're actually a somewhat evolved form of the Savery pump invented by Thomas Savery & patented by him in 1698 .
Michigan State University — The Savery Pump
 
First image attached to this wwwebpage — Vavasseur Antiques ,
 
& second image attached to this one .
 
See this post aswell .
 
And see this wwwebsite for an explication of its workings — Academic Accelerator — Pulsometer Pump .
 
submitted by PunyaPunyaHeytutvat to Skookum [link] [comments]


2023.12.14 12:22 PunyaPunyaHeytutvat Not *exclusively* marine … but these bizarre-looking contraptions - »pulsometer water pumps« - were often used as bilge-pumps on ships, being ideally suited to that function …

Not *exclusively* marine … but these bizarre-looking contraptions - »pulsometer water pumps« - were often used as bilge-pumps on ships, being ideally suited to that function …
… having no moving parts, & therefore being extremely robust against objects in the pumped liquid; & requiring only a steam supply for their operation, which obviously there was in abundance in a steamship. Another property of it that's a major boon in-connection with that purpose is that it doesn't need to be set on a solid foundation … infact, it can even be hung from a chain … which is a really handy property for it to have if it's to serve as a bilge-pumps in a ship.
They're actually a somewhat evolved form of the Savery pump invented by Thomas Savery & patented by him in 1698 .
Michigan State University — The Savery Pump
 
First image attached to this wwwebpage — Vavasseur Antiques ,
 
& second image attached to this one .
 
See this post aswell .
 
And see this wwwebsite for an explication of its workings — Academic Accelerator — Pulsometer Pump .
 
submitted by PunyaPunyaHeytutvat to ShipPorn [link] [comments]


2023.12.14 12:20 PunyaPunyaHeytutvat Not *exclusively* marine … but these bizarre-looking contraptions - »pulsometer water pumps« - were often used as bilge-pumps on ships, being ideally suited to that function …

Not *exclusively* marine … but these bizarre-looking contraptions - »pulsometer water pumps« - were often used as bilge-pumps on ships, being ideally suited to that function …
… having no moving parts, & therefore being extremely robust against objects in the pumped liquid; & requiring only a steam supply for their operation, which obviously there was in abundance in a steamship. Another property of it that's a major boon in-connection with that purpose is that it doesn't need to be set on a solid foundation … infact, it can even be hung from a chain … which is a really handy property for it to have if it's to serve as a bilge-pumps in a ship.
They're actually a somewhat evolved form of the Savery pump invented by Thomas Savery & patented by him in 1698 .
Michigan State University — The Savery Pump
 
First image attached to this wwwebpage — Vavasseur Antiques ,
 
& second image attached to this one .
 
See this post aswell .
 
And see this wwwebsite for an explication of its workings — Academic Accelerator — Pulsometer Pump .
 
submitted by PunyaPunyaHeytutvat to OceanlinerEngineering [link] [comments]


2023.12.07 22:39 Starkiem25 [TOMT][Educational CD-ROM][1990s/early 2000s][UK]A CD-Rom encyclopedia or similar that included a interactive quiz virtual boardgame, like an off-brand Trivial Pursuit, and when you had a turn, it said aloud "Swordsman, roll your dice!"

I used to play this game with my brother, you took turns and there were multiple characters, one of whom was a swordsman. Whenever ther the announcer said swordsman, he pronounced the 'w' in the word, which we found hilarious.
The game played like a boardgame with a dice roll, a move and a trivia question. The pieces were static as if they were plastic pieces in the real world, and the board looked like a standard gameboard.
The game was inside an educational CD-Rom, probably an encyclopedia. It was probably one that came free with a cereal, or as part of a AOL subscription type thing. (my mum got us lots of freeware and abandonware from magazines.
We also had one of those datacard subscriptions, where you get a selection of cards every month and collect them into a ringbinder that was about learning how to use a computer. That included clipart cds, image editing software and the like, so it possibly came from there.
This has been bugging me for ages.
submitted by Starkiem25 to tipofmytongue [link] [comments]


2023.11.14 11:10 theAURORAfiles The Tapes in the Video Store Backroom

Life in the last few months has been difficult. It's not the work, it's not my health or the people around me…in a way, it's nothing and everything.
I never felt like I belonged. I know that is a feeling that most people can understand. Whether it's with the family that raised you, or the country you live in. Yet, nothing felt like the place I belonged. Worse still, I never had somebody come to me one day and say, “You. Your place is with me.”
It got so bad that one day I just found myself walking away from my friends in the middle of a hangout at the local bar. I saw the door open, I dropped the conversation and just walked out. To this day, I think the only reason they didn’t stop me was because they had as little connection to me as I did to them.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Maybe I’m just depressed. Maybe I’m assuming what’s going through other peoples’ minds. Maybe I’m feeding into my insecurity. I heard it before…and maybe it was right then…at that time.
Not now.
In late August, after my twenty-eighth birthday, I was looking for something to blow my cash on. While I might not like other people’s company, I like my own, so I thought I’d treat myself. Maybe a tub of ice cream, a pack of beer, and enough heavily salted pretzels to keep me drinking. Back then, that’s what I’d call a ‘real good day.’
I was walking home after work, window shopping as this plan formed in my head. I was debating whether to get chocolate or caramel when I stopped walking outside the video store. A real video store, DVDs, and cassette tapes. Somehow surviving in this day and age.
It was strangely nostalgic looking at it. There wasn’t any clear branding, just large neon signs that said “VIDEOS” and “DVD.” A private business, not a franchise. I remembered the day I rented Silence of the Lambs, chewing a cheap gumball from a crappy machine. The scratchy gray carpet, the stickers and posters on the walls.
Even now, those were times I remember fondly. When all I wanted to do was escape. Whether it was escaping my world or just getting out of my head - a video store had it all. I could hold that escape in my hands.
I thought I had an old machine at home. A good movie would go well with ice cream, beer, and pretzels. Before I knew it, I had entered the video store.
Opening the door triggered some kind of chime device. However, instead of a pleasant bell sound or robotic beep-boop, the scary movie ‘Wassup’ played through a cheap toy speaker. It was terrible and awesome at the same time. I didn’t know whether to cringe or smile.
I could see the owner behind the counter, staring at a TV set, his back to me. Long hair, glasses. He looked old, late fifties, wearing childish clothes. Like an LA skateboarder who bought one set of clothes in the '90s and has not worn anything new since. I would have found it weird if it wasn’t exactly what I expected to see.
He turned to me, wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a bored expression. He nodded hello and turned back to the TV set.
I took that as the signal that I was free to browse.
The sections were marked with laminated pages that used special fonts straight from classic Microsoft PowerPoint. Sure enough, right past the metallic 3D science-fiction section was the Horror section. A little Chuckie clipart smiled at me from the corner of the page. I smiled back as I started going through the classics, as well as some recent releases I never even heard of.
I won’t lie, it sucked me in.
Everything was so…cozy. The faint sound of the air conditioner, the old action-thriller playing in the background. Even the smell of the place seemed to suck the urgency out of me. I spent way too much time reading the back of DVD cases or admiring the covers on VHS tape boxes. The old taglines, the memories…it had all reeled me in.
“Hey, I need to close up, man,” the owner said suddenly. “You wanna pick something now or come back tomorrow?”
“Mm?” I hummed, looking up at him lazily. “A little early to close?”
“It’s 10 pm. I don’t know about you, but I’m no nightowl. I hear a bed calling my name.”
“Right…let me…”
I looked back down at the movies I had gone through. Nothing really appealed to me. I was holding a movie called Driller - some slasher film about a bad-headed killer with a power drill. The name and the scantily clad women on the front made me wonder if it was a horror movie or something that escaped the porno section.
I put it back and sighed, genuinely unsure.
“What do you recommend?” I asked the owner.
He had his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth. He pouted his lips like a chimp and shrugged his shoulders up to his ears. He scanned the horror section with me.
“What are you looking for?” he asked. “Gore? Chicks? Action? Or something really scary?”
Something the way he said ‘scary’ sounded good to me. I asked what he had in ‘really scary’ and he gestured with his head to follow him. He led me over to the counter, skirted around it, and opened the door beside the TV. I didn’t notice it before, but that was most likely because he had a collage of posters across the wall and the door. The seams were practically invisible.
I waited for him to walk through, but he looked at me expectantly.
“Come on, I’m not going to carry them through,” he told me.
“Oh, uh…that many, huh?” I said, moving around the counter.
I was hesitant. I kept my distance. I’m not so trusting that I follow someone into a shady backroom. He walked inside and I could see stacks of boxes on shelves, tables, and piles of tapes and DVDs just on the floor. He walked over to the opposite side of the room, which had a beat-up sofa that looked like it had melted. It was so overused. There were almost ten TV sets on the opposite wall, from old to new. The oldest one had those bunny-ear aerials perched on top.
Stepping into the room, I decided to leave the door open. He didn’t seem to mind. He just patiently looted through an unmarked box. When I was standing in the middle of the room, he turned to look at me with squinted eyes, studying me,
“Ghost or killer?” he asked.
“Uh…ghost,” I shrugged. ‘Killer’ really didn’t appeal to me at that moment.
“Dead-person ghost or like a demon spirit ghost…thing?”
“Hey, you pick, man,” I said, my turn to shrug. “Whatever you recommend.”
The owner plucked a DVD out of the case. It was white, marked with numbers. Instead of walking over to me, he approached a more modern TV set and slid it into an open DVD player. Before I could say anything, the movie started.
No anti-piracy intro, no menu screen, and no logos. It just started.
A man was sitting at a desk in an office. The view was like from a security camera, fly-on-the-wall. White shirt, smart hair, sorting through papers, and writing things down. The only light was the desk lamp.
“Hey, I’m not going to watch it here,” I told him. “Besides, don’t you want to close up?”
“I have time for this,” he said, staring at the screen.
I guess I did as well. I was uncomfortable, but no more uncomfortable than I felt at work or anywhere else with other people. I knew it was wrong, but I stuck around.
“I’ll just watch the first few minutes,” I thought to myself. “Be polite, I guess.”
The man coughed into his hand and continued to work. It had gone on that way for almost two minutes. No music, no intro credits, and not even a different angle. A door opened, warm light, a shadow. A woman entered, her back to the camera. She was carrying a pile of papers.
Upon seeing the man, she dropped the papers and started making a funny sound. Like a small scared moan that eventually erupted into powerful screams. The man looked at her briefly before focusing on his work again while the woman screamed her head off.
It shocked me how real it sounded. I had jumped when it began, but the real fear set in when she continued to scream out of camera shot, her voice fading in the distance.
The video ended there. Like it was the end of some short indie film online. Strange, but it lingered.
“Pretty good, huh?” the owner said with a smile.
“Yeah…raised the hairs on my arms,” I told him and surprisingly, it did. I had seen worse than that, but it never had that effect on me. “Kinda short for a movie, though? Anything I can settle into?”
“Longer? A bit more…right, I got it. Have a seat.”
I didn’t.
I stifled a sigh and rubbed my bare forearms, warming them up. I would wait a little longer, just to satisfy my curiosity. It wasn’t like I had anything better planned.
“I’ve got a lot of cool stuff, man, been collecting them for a long time now,” he told me. “There are some messed up things here too, but it’s the subtle scares I like more.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
The owner plucked a tape out of the box this time. I stepped a little closer to watch him set it up. The machine he used seemed familiar, but I couldn’t see the make. It was covered in scratches. Like it had been stored in a box of nails. There was a whirring sound as it automatically rewound the tape. I heard the spring in the button twang as he hit play.
It was a voyeurist’s dream.
The location was a fancy place in the woods. Two floors from the looks of it. The camera angles switched between indoors and outdoors. Every room - basement, garage, and bathrooms. The tape's views seemed to cycle quickly at first as if the person controlling them was looking for something.
Occasionally, they would stop in a room. I could imagine the operator focusing as if they had noticed something that I didn’t. Something in the darkness, something in the living room. It kept stopping in the living room. Every time it did, my eyes would dart around searching for what it could be.
Before I knew it, I had settled into the sofa, but my elbows were on my knees as I leaned forward with my mouth agape.
“Do you see it?” I asked. “Am I missing something?”
“I knew you would like this one. This guy’s stuff is good.”
“What guy?”
“Don’t know his name.”
The camera stopped outside the house, facing the driveway. A car was coming in, its lights were off. It was a dark shape in the moonlight, slipping into the shadows of the trees and briefly stopping outside the garage while it opened. I could see two people in the front seats. The woman in the passenger seat had her arms crossed, and the man held onto the steering wheel firmly, arms locked. The camera view followed them inside the garage, then switched as they walked into the hallway.
It was a couple. The two looked at each other for a moment. The man looked the woman up and down. Admiring her. She was in a fancy black dress, showing a lot of her legs. He smiled and she lowered her head, touching the side of her face, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks. Both of them were nervous. It was so close, so real. It was then I couldn’t believe it was staged, real footage of real people.
It felt wrong, but I didn’t look away as they stepped towards each other.
The tape cut off after there, close to thirty minutes after it started. Without a word, the owner sat up and placed the next tape in after the first. The machine prepared the tape and we were dead-silent as it did. The room was dark, the only light being the blue screen of the TV set. I don’t know where he turned the lights off.
Same house, some time later. The bedroom was a mess of pillows, sheets, and scattered clothes. The woman was sleeping, the man nowhere in sight. The camera started to switch through views until it reached the kitchen. The man was getting a drink, wearing only pajama pants.
He raised his head.
The camera switched views, eventually stopping in the living room again. Once more, I scanned it for something out of place. I just saw the furniture. A few books on a shelf, a TV on the mantle of a stone fireplace, and a few plants in the corner. Fancy, normal, empty of anything unusual.
The man entered the living room holding his glass of water. He was looking at the fireplace. There was something, a sound fainter than even his footsteps.
“Where’s the remote?” I asked the owner.
He held it out to me. I took it and started to raise the volume. It was already close to the max, yet that little bit helped me recognize a whining noise. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t like that of whining, but distant screaming. Screaming that echoed, that distorted with distance.
The woman had joined the man, wrapped in a white sheet.
Together they stared at the fireplace
“Is…what is..?” I heard the woman say.
The fireplace started. Bright orange flames so large they flowed out of the fireplace as if they were the fingers of some creature climbing out of the fireplace. The couple jumped as the flames grew more intense and maybe they would have run away if they were so focused on the center of the flames.
A man was climbing out of the flames, skin burnt and blood boiling in patches all over. The screaming was there, loud enough to make out. The voice was destroyed the same way his body was. Yet, I could make out the name ‘Damien’ - my name.
I couldn’t make out the burnt man’s face, but he didn’t seem to be staring at the couple in front of him, instead, he looked up at the camera…straight at me.
“Damien! Damien, come home!” the man screamed.
It felt like all the pain, the constant suffering he was enduring, was my fault. That if I did his bidding he would be free. The couple continued to stare, quiet and unmoving as if they didn’t see what I was seeing.
The tape ended.
“Ah, that one is always so short, I forgot,” the owner said, rushing over to the box. “The third is here somewhere…”
Darkness.
I remember flashes of the TVs, then the door, then the outside, almost getting hit by cars. My body had acted on instinct. Nothing stopped me. I heard nobody call for me. I had run so fast without interruption that my mind barely registered the journey home.
I remember being terrified of the walls in my home. The way the shadows within shadows seemed to dance like flames. Curling tendrils that whipped and melted into each other.
While the effect has faded, the memory is burned into my mind. That feeling of not belonging has reached its peak. Even my house no longer feels like home, it feels like I’m sleeping in a stranger's bed - the sleeping made more difficult by the white shape of those burning flames burned into my eyes. Every time I close my eyelids I see that curling shape, pushing back the darkness.
Maybe I missed something. Maybe I did something…or the video store owner did something that screwed with my memory. I even wonder if I stuck around to see the next tape or not…my mind feels that both are equally true and refuses to recall what happened.
It’s been months and some effects still linger. I might have them for the rest of my life. The only thing I can say to you now is don’t watch the tapes in the video store backroom.
submitted by theAURORAfiles to nosleep [link] [comments]


2023.11.14 11:09 theAURORAfiles The Tapes in the Video Store Backroom

Life in the last few months has been difficult. It's not the work, it's not my health or the people around me…in a way, it's nothing and everything.
I never felt like I belonged. I know that is a feeling that most people can understand. Whether it's with the family that raised you, or the country you live in. Yet, nothing felt like the place I belonged. Worse still, I never had somebody come to me one day and say, “You. Your place is with me.”
It got so bad that one day I just found myself walking away from my friends in the middle of a hangout at the local bar. I saw the door open, I dropped the conversation and just walked out. To this day, I think the only reason they didn’t stop me was because they had as little connection to me as I did to them.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Maybe I’m just depressed. Maybe I’m assuming what’s going through other peoples’ minds. Maybe I’m feeding into my insecurity. I heard it before…and maybe it was right then…at that time.
Not now.
In late August, after my twenty-eighth birthday, I was looking for something to blow my cash on. While I might not like other people’s company, I like my own, so I thought I’d treat myself. Maybe a tub of ice cream, a pack of beer, and enough heavily salted pretzels to keep me drinking. Back then, that’s what I’d call a ‘real good day.’
I was walking home after work, window shopping as this plan formed in my head. I was debating whether to get chocolate or caramel when I stopped walking outside the video store. A real video store, DVDs, and cassette tapes. Somehow surviving in this day and age.
It was strangely nostalgic looking at it. There wasn’t any clear branding, just large neon signs that said “VIDEOS” and “DVD.” A private business, not a franchise. I remembered the day I rented Silence of the Lambs, chewing a cheap gumball from a crappy machine. The scratchy gray carpet, the stickers and posters on the walls.
Even now, those were times I remember fondly. When all I wanted to do was escape. Whether it was escaping my world or just getting out of my head - a video store had it all. I could hold that escape in my hands.
I thought I had an old machine at home. A good movie would go well with ice cream, beer, and pretzels. Before I knew it, I had entered the video store.
Opening the door triggered some kind of chime device. However, instead of a pleasant bell sound or robotic beep-boop, the scary movie ‘Wassup’ played through a cheap toy speaker. It was terrible and awesome at the same time. I didn’t know whether to cringe or smile.
I could see the owner behind the counter, staring at a TV set, his back to me. Long hair, glasses. He looked old, late fifties, wearing childish clothes. Like an LA skateboarder who bought one set of clothes in the '90s and has not worn anything new since. I would have found it weird if it wasn’t exactly what I expected to see.
He turned to me, wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a bored expression. He nodded hello and turned back to the TV set.
I took that as the signal that I was free to browse.
The sections were marked with laminated pages that used special fonts straight from classic Microsoft PowerPoint. Sure enough, right past the metallic 3D science-fiction section was the Horror section. A little Chuckie clipart smiled at me from the corner of the page. I smiled back as I started going through the classics, as well as some recent releases I never even heard of.
I won’t lie, it sucked me in.
Everything was so…cozy. The faint sound of the air conditioner, the old action-thriller playing in the background. Even the smell of the place seemed to suck the urgency out of me. I spent way too much time reading the back of DVD cases or admiring the covers on VHS tape boxes. The old taglines, the memories…it had all reeled me in.
“Hey, I need to close up, man,” the owner said suddenly. “You wanna pick something now or come back tomorrow?”
“Mm?” I hummed, looking up at him lazily. “A little early to close?”
“It’s 10 pm. I don’t know about you, but I’m no nightowl. I hear a bed calling my name.”
“Right…let me…”
I looked back down at the movies I had gone through. Nothing really appealed to me. I was holding a movie called Driller - some slasher film about a bad-headed killer with a power drill. The name and the scantily clad women on the front made me wonder if it was a horror movie or something that escaped the porno section.
I put it back and sighed, genuinely unsure.
“What do you recommend?” I asked the owner.
He had his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth. He pouted his lips like a chimp and shrugged his shoulders up to his ears. He scanned the horror section with me.
“What are you looking for?” he asked. “Gore? Chicks? Action? Or something really scary?”
Something the way he said ‘scary’ sounded good to me. I asked what he had in ‘really scary’ and he gestured with his head to follow him. He led me over to the counter, skirted around it, and opened the door beside the TV. I didn’t notice it before, but that was most likely because he had a collage of posters across the wall and the door. The seams were practically invisible.
I waited for him to walk through, but he looked at me expectantly.
“Come on, I’m not going to carry them through,” he told me.
“Oh, uh…that many, huh?” I said, moving around the counter.
I was hesitant. I kept my distance. I’m not so trusting that I follow someone into a shady backroom. He walked inside and I could see stacks of boxes on shelves, tables, and piles of tapes and DVDs just on the floor. He walked over to the opposite side of the room, which had a beat-up sofa that looked like it had melted. It was so overused. There were almost ten TV sets on the opposite wall, from old to new. The oldest one had those bunny-ear aerials perched on top.
Stepping into the room, I decided to leave the door open. He didn’t seem to mind. He just patiently looted through an unmarked box. When I was standing in the middle of the room, he turned to look at me with squinted eyes, studying me,
“Ghost or killer?” he asked.
“Uh…ghost,” I shrugged. ‘Killer’ really didn’t appeal to me at that moment.
“Dead-person ghost or like a demon spirit ghost…thing?”
“Hey, you pick, man,” I said, my turn to shrug. “Whatever you recommend.”
The owner plucked a DVD out of the case. It was white, marked with numbers. Instead of walking over to me, he approached a more modern TV set and slid it into an open DVD player. Before I could say anything, the movie started.
No anti-piracy intro, no menu screen, and no logos. It just started.
A man was sitting at a desk in an office. The view was like from a security camera, fly-on-the-wall. White shirt, smart hair, sorting through papers, and writing things down. The only light was the desk lamp.
“Hey, I’m not going to watch it here,” I told him. “Besides, don’t you want to close up?”
“I have time for this,” he said, staring at the screen.
I guess I did as well. I was uncomfortable, but no more uncomfortable than I felt at work or anywhere else with other people. I knew it was wrong, but I stuck around.
“I’ll just watch the first few minutes,” I thought to myself. “Be polite, I guess.”
The man coughed into his hand and continued to work. It had gone on that way for almost two minutes. No music, no intro credits, and not even a different angle. A door opened, warm light, a shadow. A woman entered, her back to the camera. She was carrying a pile of papers.
Upon seeing the man, she dropped the papers and started making a funny sound. Like a small scared moan that eventually erupted into powerful screams. The man looked at her briefly before focusing on his work again while the woman screamed her head off.
It shocked me how real it sounded. I had jumped when it began, but the real fear set in when she continued to scream out of camera shot, her voice fading in the distance.
The video ended there. Like it was the end of some short indie film online. Strange, but it lingered.
“Pretty good, huh?” the owner said with a smile.
“Yeah…raised the hairs on my arms,” I told him and surprisingly, it did. I had seen worse than that, but it never had that effect on me. “Kinda short for a movie, though? Anything I can settle into?”
“Longer? A bit more…right, I got it. Have a seat.”
I didn’t.
I stifled a sigh and rubbed my bare forearms, warming them up. I would wait a little longer, just to satisfy my curiosity. It wasn’t like I had anything better planned.
“I’ve got a lot of cool stuff, man, been collecting them for a long time now,” he told me. “There are some messed up things here too, but it’s the subtle scares I like more.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
The owner plucked a tape out of the box this time. I stepped a little closer to watch him set it up. The machine he used seemed familiar, but I couldn’t see the make. It was covered in scratches. Like it had been stored in a box of nails. There was a whirring sound as it automatically rewound the tape. I heard the spring in the button twang as he hit play.
It was a voyeurist’s dream.
The location was a fancy place in the woods. Two floors from the looks of it. The camera angles switched between indoors and outdoors. Every room - basement, garage, and bathrooms. The tape's views seemed to cycle quickly at first as if the person controlling them was looking for something.
Occasionally, they would stop in a room. I could imagine the operator focusing as if they had noticed something that I didn’t. Something in the darkness, something in the living room. It kept stopping in the living room. Every time it did, my eyes would dart around searching for what it could be.
Before I knew it, I had settled into the sofa, but my elbows were on my knees as I leaned forward with my mouth agape.
“Do you see it?” I asked. “Am I missing something?”
“I knew you would like this one. This guy’s stuff is good.”
“What guy?”
“Don’t know his name.”
The camera stopped outside the house, facing the driveway. A car was coming in, its lights were off. It was a dark shape in the moonlight, slipping into the shadows of the trees and briefly stopping outside the garage while it opened. I could see two people in the front seats. The woman in the passenger seat had her arms crossed, and the man held onto the steering wheel firmly, arms locked. The camera view followed them inside the garage, then switched as they walked into the hallway.
It was a couple. The two looked at each other for a moment. The man looked the woman up and down. Admiring her. She was in a fancy black dress, showing a lot of her legs. He smiled and she lowered her head, touching the side of her face, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks. Both of them were nervous. It was so close, so real. It was then I couldn’t believe it was staged, real footage of real people.
It felt wrong, but I didn’t look away as they stepped towards each other.
The tape cut off after there, close to thirty minutes after it started. Without a word, the owner sat up and placed the next tape in after the first. The machine prepared the tape and we were dead-silent as it did. The room was dark, the only light being the blue screen of the TV set. I don’t know where he turned the lights off.
Same house, some time later. The bedroom was a mess of pillows, sheets, and scattered clothes. The woman was sleeping, the man nowhere in sight. The camera started to switch through views until it reached the kitchen. The man was getting a drink, wearing only pajama pants.
He raised his head.
The camera switched views, eventually stopping in the living room again. Once more, I scanned it for something out of place. I just saw the furniture. A few books on a shelf, a TV on the mantle of a stone fireplace, and a few plants in the corner. Fancy, normal, empty of anything unusual.
The man entered the living room holding his glass of water. He was looking at the fireplace. There was something, a sound fainter than even his footsteps.
“Where’s the remote?” I asked the owner.
He held it out to me. I took it and started to raise the volume. It was already close to the max, yet that little bit helped me recognize a whining noise. It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t like that of whining, but distant screaming. Screaming that echoed, that distorted with distance.
The woman had joined the man, wrapped in a white sheet.
Together they stared at the fireplace
“Is…what is..?” I heard the woman say.
The fireplace started. Bright orange flames so large they flowed out of the fireplace as if they were the fingers of some creature climbing out of the fireplace. The couple jumped as the flames grew more intense and maybe they would have run away if they were so focused on the center of the flames.
A man was climbing out of the flames, skin burnt and blood boiling in patches all over. The screaming was there, loud enough to make out. The voice was destroyed the same way his body was. Yet, I could make out the name ‘Damien’ - my name.
I couldn’t make out the burnt man’s face, but he didn’t seem to be staring at the couple in front of him, instead, he looked up at the camera…straight at me.
“Damien! Damien, come home!” the man screamed.
It felt like all the pain, the constant suffering he was enduring, was my fault. That if I did his bidding he would be free. The couple continued to stare, quiet and unmoving as if they didn’t see what I was seeing.
The tape ended.
“Ah, that one is always so short, I forgot,” the owner said, rushing over to the box. “The third is here somewhere…”
Darkness.
I remember flashes of the TVs, then the door, then the outside, almost getting hit by cars. My body had acted on instinct. Nothing stopped me. I heard nobody call for me. I had run so fast without interruption that my mind barely registered the journey home.
I remember being terrified of the walls in my home. The way the shadows within shadows seemed to dance like flames. Curling tendrils that whipped and melted into each other.
While the effect has faded, the memory is burned into my mind. That feeling of not belonging has reached its peak. Even my house no longer feels like home, it feels like I’m sleeping in a stranger's bed - the sleeping made more difficult by the white shape of those burning flames burned into my eyes. Every time I close my eyelids I see that curling shape, pushing back the darkness.
Maybe I missed something. Maybe I did something…or the video store owner did something that screwed with my memory. I even wonder if I stuck around to see the next tape or not…my mind feels that both are equally true and refuses to recall what happened.
It’s been months and some effects still linger. I might have them for the rest of my life. The only thing I can say to you now is don’t watch the tapes in the video store backroom.
submitted by theAURORAfiles to u/theAURORAfiles [link] [comments]


2023.11.13 19:57 Choomba_Roomba iPad or no?

Hello! So I’m new to this sub but I have a very urgent question: should I invest in a iPad and transition to digital?
For context, I’m a traditional cartoonist meaning all of my work has almost always been with pen and paper which has always worked well for me; being able to control my strokes, grabbing a new inking pen in a second and overall the traditional feel of paper has always been my go to.
However, about 10 years ago I went to an art school where the primary method of art was digital and because I wasn’t well versed in digital art (more specifically the functionality of Manga Studio and Photoshop) I fell very hard and my work suffered although even after leaving said school, I was determined to learn digital or at least familiarize myself with it.
I’ve used some drawing tablets and programs as years have gone on; in school, I had used the Wacom Bamboo with Photoshop and Clipart Studio to color comic pages, invested in a Surface Pro 3 or 4 and drew with Krita which worked (barely) for a time and now HUION tablet for my PC proper while still using Krita.
My problem with digital is the following: the Ui. I find the amount of buttons and gestures to be used to do what is a simpler move with traditional (ex. Creating/organizing multiple layers on digital while it’s just one paper layer in traditional or two if you want to use a lightbox to make the final version) but I understand the appeal of being able to go back, edit and tweak a drawing infinitely with digital plus easier distribution for commercial use.
This leads me to today, I have the wherewithal to get an iPad, pen and a good/decent program like Procreate but I am admittedly conflicted; I haven’t been drawing lately because I’ve getting art blocks like crazy and when I do get some inspiration, I don’t like my sketchbook with me because I don’t feel like taking my pencil/ink case plus my book (I tend to lose pens and pencils like crazy). On the other hand, even looking at tutorials on how to most utilize Procreate (even the beginner tutorials) are still a bit intimidating.
I’m just looking for advice more than anything or if anyone has had/have the same conflict as I have
submitted by Choomba_Roomba to ArtistLounge [link] [comments]


2023.10.15 15:31 SauceryMan [PC] [Late 2000's - Early 2010's] Computer lab game/program where it would make you complete certain mini-games about words and typing for a predetermined amount of time

Platform(s):
PC, specifically between the era of Windows Vista and Windows 8.
Genre:
Educational- mainly consisting of learning how to type at a certain pace/with both hands on the keyboard, as well as learning the differences between synonyms, antonyms, nouns, verbs, etc.
Estimated year of release:
Most likely in the late 2000's (more details at the end).
Graphics/art style:
Usually, it would have a blank white background with different bubbles/boxes for you to click on to enter certain minigames, these bubbles would have a cartoon-like design with a text name inside it saying something like *Synonym Bridge* or something like that. Continuing with this example, there would then be a little bridge design with bricks poking outside the bubble, with the mascot (a bear if I remember correctly) around the bubble presenting the minigame. Same style with an underwater themed, space themed, theatre/stage play minigame, and other similar themes. Most of the art assets looked like they were clipart specifically created for this program.
Notable characters:
Like said previously, there was a bear for one of the minigames, but there would also be like a 'teacher stork/heron' or similar tall bird that would greet you once you logged in and just pose on the main login screen and the 'hub' (the screen that would show the options for the minigames you had to complete for that specific session).
Notable gameplay mechanics:
In the Synonym Bridge minigame example I used earlier, you would be presented a small bridge, and a bunch of bricks you would have to use to finish building the bridge, but to put these bricks into the sides, you'd have to match these bricks with synonyms to complete a pair to move on to the next step, but if you got one wrong, it would audibly ding you and let you know (through the mascot of the minigame popping up and telling you) that you matched the wrong pair and would either have to retry or start all over again (depending on how far in you were to the game or how many pairs you got wrong in a row). For example, if you matched 'bare' with 'full' or something like that, it would tell you to try again. And as stated earlier, there were other similar minigames in regard to typing styles/paces, as well as for antonyms, verbs, etc. that you would have to click and drag, match, type out, and similar actions to complete each minigame for a certain amount of time.
Other details:
Since this was a desktop program, you would have to open it on the Windows desktop, then log in with a designated username and password the teacher would give you, and it would let you know what skills you needed to enhance on during that session (like typing, learning nouns, etc.). On top of this, you would have to complete a set of minigames for about 10-15 minutes at a time, with a progress bar on the top right. We would usually do this for an hour or so. At the end of the session, it would automatically take you to a new screen that presented your updated results in the forms of bars (like, your typing skill bar went from 40% to 53%, or something like that). After this you would have the option to print out a screenshot of your results, and to exit the program. For me personally, I would have to use this program between kindergarten to 1st grade (early 2010's). I would also guesstimate that even though I remember it seeming 'new' at the time, I would assume that it was probably released between 2007-2009. I am not too sure if this had connections through my state's education department, but it almost definitely was one of those educational learning package programs that schools could purchase for their computer labs. I am sorry if this is completely useless information since this is my first time posting in this group, but it bothers me that I cannot remember the name of the program/game but can imagine how it would look like in my head. But anyways, thank you for taking the time to read my post, and hopefully someone could help me solve this personal mystery of mine.
submitted by SauceryMan to tipofmyjoystick [link] [comments]


2023.10.10 04:44 ConcentrateTight4108 That's a bit sussy

That's a bit sussy submitted by ConcentrateTight4108 to tf2shitposterclub [link] [comments]


2023.10.03 19:57 Murraculous1 1st Impressions of My Island, Sunrise Lane, and SIXTEEN OTHER Knizia games! — Bitewing Games

1st Impressions of My Island, Sunrise Lane, and SIXTEEN OTHER Knizia games! — Bitewing Games
https://preview.redd.it/8y871yhzw0sb1.jpg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d77ea07934b921ccc0815bc1ff4e9b90f37c934e
Note: This marathon post also exists in podcast form, if you prefer to listen.
The Reinerssance party continues with my largest 1st Impressions post ever featuring 18 Knizia games. Enjoy!

My Island

https://preview.redd.it/sdmon0p0x0sb1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=083d6f46f5d6409f579d5413e8040d1149659dd4
13 Plays (2 Players)
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Your island WILL be unique. So the box prophecy says, and so it must be fulfilled.
My Island is the hotly anticipated sequel to Reiner Knizia’s My City — an approachable, spatial puzzle legacy game about filling your board with tiles by following bingo style card flips. My City offered the most satisfying use of polyominoes I’ve ever encountered, and I was excited to see what the hexagonal pivot to My Island would bring.
More than any other element, the core change from square-based polyominoes to hexagonal-based shapes is far and away what sets these two games apart. Rather than having the My City freedom to place a tile adjacent to any other tile, My Island forces you to always link one hex to another matching hex type as you spread your tiles across the island. This added restriction is compensated by the fact that you only have 4 different shapes to deal with (at least in the early episodes), which is noticeably far less than the 8 starting shapes of My City.
While it is still a tile laying spatial puzzle at its core, the tiles of My Island make it feel like a very different beast. The puzzle is much less about fitting different shapes together perfectly and efficiently — rather, it is more about building clusters or lines or barriers of symbols of a matching type. Each tile has two, three, for four different symbols on it — house, field, path, and wall. The aim is to link paths together that create a route or cluster houses together to form a village or connect fields together to form a farm. As your tiles sprawl across the island, your options for how to finish these groups dwindle.
Fundamentally, the amount of long-term planning required seems generally less than what My City demanded. The fact that the shapes of My Island are so similar means that you can usually adapt on the fly and find multiple different tiles to meet your goals. So the puzzle is perhaps a bit more loose and forgiving in that sense. But you still certainly need to plan and map out your tile arrangements as the open spaces shrink. It’s common for players to position their yet unused tiles in intentional areas around the outside of the board as they simply wait for the matching card to be flipped so they can insert the tile precisely in its planned location.
But as per usual, Reiner finds plenty of ways to push you outside your routines through the use of evolving legacy rules. Sometimes he changes the way you score points, other times he layers on yet another objective with a tempting reward when achieved or a devastating consequence when neglected. What once was your highest priority strategy can quickly become a fading memory.
This ebb and flow of objectives, this evolution of board and tile features, this unveiling of new adventures within a sound and satisfying puzzle is precisely what makes this line of games so great. As far as I can tell, My Island is no better or worse than its progenitors. Unless you have a personal vendetta against polyominoes or hexes, I suppose. At any rate, it simply continues the tried and true recipe of engaging episodes and competitive chapters, all while offering its own twist on the formula.
True, My Island doesn’t quite feel as thrillingly novel or refreshingly unique as My City did when we dove into it 3 years ago. But it’s still mighty impressive for us to now be 50 plays into this line of games and still hungry to explore the next episodes and chapters. Shoot, we even just opened the thick Chapter 5 envelope and encountered a feature that I was not expecting at all. Even after all these plays, it seems that this My ____ series still has more tricks up its sleeve.
Prognosis: Excellent
https://preview.redd.it/wjehc1f2x0sb1.png?width=685&format=png&auto=webp&s=6884f9ff251b5067067b3635d2af9ec1f2ef8978

Galaxy Cat Extension

https://preview.redd.it/n6hl7rh3x0sb1.png?width=395&format=png&auto=webp&s=144176994f0a56d915ba3ed8f28e5356c0c2b47e
2 Plays (3 Players)
Due to Reddit post text limitations, my impressions for Galaxy Cat Extension have been rerouted to this post.

Pick a Pen Trilogy

https://preview.redd.it/n2s5jlcdx0sb1.png?width=1702&format=png&auto=webp&s=f81bc74836f86235bf98dcf6082e5f664fafa0fd
9 Plays (3 plays per game, 2 Players)
Due to Reddit post text limitations, my impressions for the Pick a Pen trilogy have been rerouted to this post.

Yangtze

https://preview.redd.it/ykv937mfx0sb1.png?width=595&format=png&auto=webp&s=3f3d59054629643ffcbe6edf54e8aec78a53bbf6
1 Play (4 players)
Due to Reddit post text limitations, my impressions for Yangtze have been rerouted to this post.

Sunrise Lane (And Rondo)

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Rondo — 1 Play (3 Players)
Sunrise Lane — 3 Plays (2,3, & 4 Players)
Back in March, at Dice Tower West, I got the chance to try out Reiner Knizia’s Rondo. Not long after that, I wrote up my first impressions of the game. But it just so happened that I put off publishing my impressions long enough for publisher Horrible Guild to announce a new version of the design titled Sunrise Lane. So I figured, why not put off my Rondo impressions even longer until I can try both versions? Well, after several more months, we’re finally here and ready to dive in.
First, my thoughts on Rondo:
If anybody is the King of light, easily teachable, clever, addictive, family-weight board games, it’s Reiner Knizia. I’m talking about games like Ingenious, Quest for El Dorado, Lost Cities: The Board Game, Treasures of Nakbe, Blue Lagoon, Whale Riders, Indigo, and so many more. Along those same lines, Rondo is an easy addition to this list.
With its massive yet simple board and its big draw bag of clackity colored tiles which are slotted into your player rack, Rondo gives a nod of appreciation to casual family games like Sequence and Rummikub. Turns are dead simple: draw two tiles or play as many tiles as you want and then draw one back. These tiles can be five unique colors: red, yellow, blue, green, and purple. And you can place your tiles in a line starting from the center of the board or adjacent to any tiles that are already out. Players will be snaking their tiles outward along a wheel of numbers which range from 1 to 5 and match the five colors of tiles. While you’re allowed to place any tile facedown on a given space, you can only place a tile face up and score the displayed number of points beneath if the colors between tile and space match. Most satisfying of all, you are allowed to plop down multiple tiles onto an open matching-colored space and score its points multiple times in the same turn. That feels particularly good when the space is a 3, 4, or 5.
Rondo has a buttery smooth ebb and flow of building your hand over multiple turns, then spreading tiles over the “rondo” and raking in the big points, then starting over again by accumulating more tiles from the bag. Finding and claiming the most opportunistic locations based on your bag draw may not be as strategic as Knizia’s greatest hits, but there is something quite addictive and satisfying about it all. The decision of whether to keep drawing or commit your hand early is zesty enough to feel meaningful and impactful, yet none of it gets bogged down by over-analysis or overexertion.
Rondo is a game that warmly invites you to sit down with family or friends and enjoy a casual competition while you catch up with each other. For most non-gamers, that’s all they really want anyway. For myself, it’s certainly one that I wouldn’t be disappointed to play again. It’s hard to dislike a game that is this pure, smart, and quick.
And now, on to Sunrise Lane:
I was impressed enough by my one play of Rondo that part of me was tempted to track down an old copy in the used market. But there were also just enough factors that kept me from pulling the trigger (aside from the fact that it is a bit tricky to get ahold of): The box is huge (and I’m getting increasingly tired of big boxes), the presentation is completely abstract (making it even harder to get to the table), and the gameplay is purely tactical (there is basically no forward planning, you simply react to the current state of each turn).
Kudos to Horrible Guild then, for managing to address every single obstacle that was keeping me from getting a copy of this game: They released it worldwide with a beautiful new coat of paint via a city building setting in a much smaller box with a newly added layer of strategic gameplay. Much like several other great Knizia releases this year, it’s a smart and focused reimplementation that takes the strong bones of a dusty old Knizia design and rebuilds it into an even better experience.
The most noticeable change (aside from the theme and presentation) is the fact that players now have ownership over the tokens they are placing onto the board. This is done by replacing the tiles of Rondo with gorgeous cards in Sunrise Lane. Playing a card lets you place one of your charming building pieces onto a matching color space on the board, and your buildings can be stacked on top of each other.
The introduction of piece ownership allows Horrible Guild (in collaboration with Reiner Knizia) to introduce new strategic rules for end-game points. Now the board is divided into two types of quadrants. The blue quadrants will grant first, second, and third place points to the tallest buildings, while the red quadrants will grant first, second, and third place points to the players who build on the most spaces. Plus there is another competition for the longest chain of buildings on the board.
This new strategic layer of end-game competitions is a perfect fit for the design. It’s the precise evolution that Rondo needed that transforms it from a good family game into a great family game. Now, I’m not just looking for the single spot on the board that will score me the most points in the current turn — I’m also weighing that against the overarching competition between building colors. Instead of hoping that my opponents stop setting up the leader for huge turns, I can simply go after the leader myself by weakening their end-game position. Players can cut each other off from extending their lines further while outcompeting each other to cover more spaces or build taller buildings.
Despite the warm title, Sunrise Lane can be subversively cold-blooded. Yet it’s still quick and casual enough to be a great fit for any gaming group. Some folks have identified it as a solid Ticket to Ride competitor due to their similar features of drawing and playing cards to put out pieces along set routes. I can get on board with that.
Prognosis: Good
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Amun-Re: The Card Game

https://preview.redd.it/lyqljtlnx0sb1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=6ce5575b78b5a330993c0bc983858562d178672c
Due to Reddit post text limitations, my impressions for Amun-Re: The Card Game have been rerouted to this post.

Karate Tomate

https://preview.redd.it/ib65a78px0sb1.png?width=446&format=png&auto=webp&s=166030a1d72d771a0679c9e70c69e6f1e1f0a37b
4 Plays (5 & 9 Players)
You know those obscure little games with wacky titles and even wackier art that we all tend to judge by their cover? I imagine it’s a primal instinct for us hobbyists — a defense mechanism — when we cross paths with such box and just assume it is a hot garbage gameplay experience. If a cheap game is trying this hard to stand out, surely there is nothing worthwhile to be found within the actual design, right? I get the feeling that Karate Tomate fits squarely into this prejudiced category, particularly after seeing the souls of fellow gamers depart from their bodies when I pulled it out of my bag as a suggested activity.
True, the cards are littered with illustrations of various anthropomorphic kung fu vegetables supplemented by cheap clipart of knives and trophies. True, the game claims it can scale from 3 all the way… up beyond the clouds… into 10 player territory. True, I had to lasso some hesitant players in among our 9-person community game night. Despite all of that, Karate Tomate managed to defy expectations. That’s because this vegetable was planted in fertile soil and cultivated by the master gardener of all board games, Dr. Reiner Knizia.
The fertile soil I speak of, that solid foundation that Karate Tomate grows from, is none other than Taj Mahal. In Taj Mahal, players proceed through a series of game-of-chicken auction rounds where players must decide whether to pass conservatively early, to pass regrettably late, or to fight to the bitter end. Once you commit to bidding with a particular card color in a round, you are limited to bidding only that color for the rest of the round. And you may find in any given round that other players have more ammunition in their hand than you do in yours. If you’re not careful, then you might find all of the cards that you bid go to waste as your opponents continue on without you. And thus the game of chicken ensues.
All of this is likewise true for Karate Tomate. The difference is that instead of Taj Mahal’s clockwise bidding, Karate Tomate cleverly goes the simultaneous bidding route, which is why it works surprisingly well all the way up to 10 players. Each “heat” players pick a card from their hand, commit it to the table, and reveal it. They are competing for the round’s trophy cards on display. Once enough players bow out of a round (by revealing their tomato card), then the remaining players divide up the spoils with the highest bidder (the highest sum of card values) picking a trophy card first.
It is ever tempting to give up on a round and whip out your tomato, because that allows you to draw two more cards into your hand to strengthen your bidding power in a future round. The design even lets you mitigate a bit of that deck drawing luck by discarding two cards and drawing four — allowing you to filter out those weak low-value cards or solo cards of a color in your hand. Any player who takes a trophy card isn’t getting that same opportunity to replenish their hand (unless they take a trophy card with tomatoes on it which grants less end-game points but still lets you draw a card for each tomato).
The decision of which trophy card to take from the display isn’t always easy, either. That’s because Reiner throws one last twist into the endgame scoring — the player with the most trophies wins, but before that, the player(s) with the least knives are automatically eliminated. That end-game elimination, akin to High Society and Art Robbery and even Zoo Vadis, is really what seals the deal. Like a master chef, Reiner is plain smart about taking yesterday’s yummy design leftovers, whipping it together with a few fresh idea ingredients and a clear culinary vision, and providing us with yet another solid gaming stew.
Despite their initial assumption of a rotten experience, my 9-player group went from fearing Karate Tomate’s existence to demanding an instant replay, twice. It may look a little too corny at first glance, but this one packs a punch. It’s just a shame that publisher Amigo played their tomato card so early and chickened out on a wider publishing release beyond Germany.
Prognosis: Good
https://preview.redd.it/5qts0yupx0sb1.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=ed02834d262b31b07408e51aa235ae87e914ad35

Palazzo

https://preview.redd.it/ig5yn0zqx0sb1.png?width=416&format=png&auto=webp&s=0790fd9a5c60f37f4ada64eb14cdb15f7666466a
2 Plays (4 Players)
It turns out, Palazzo is sneaky great. But due to Reddit post text limitations, my impressions for Palazzo have been rerouted to this post.
https://preview.redd.it/jwghus9sx0sb1.png?width=894&format=png&auto=webp&s=53a17553cc96b7c1cd59f47b40bba46017e0a778

Silver Screen

https://preview.redd.it/o73mw63tx0sb1.png?width=886&format=png&auto=webp&s=efba7f245b552e77488aeef9a58251808a034bc3
1 Play (3 Players)
Spoiler: I believe that Silver Screen is a better version of Nightmare Productions. But, due to Reddit post text limitations, my impressions for Silver Screen have been rerouted to this post.

Sushizock im Gockelwok / Geharrewar in de Sushibar / Sushi Bar

https://preview.redd.it/uo2g1qihy0sb1.png?width=752&format=png&auto=webp&s=99725c0f9b07dc687c4e59099db0ea398ab780e4
3 Plays (3 & 4 Players)
Due to Reddit post text limitations, my impressions for Sushizock im Gockelwok have been rerouted to this post.

Age of War / Risk Express

https://preview.redd.it/k9lnuk54y0sb1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=065e035aa0838320848c0eb05f8927802638d4d6
1 Play (4 Players)
Gather all my complaints about Sushizock, strip away the compliments, then crank it up a few more notches, and you essentially have my feelings toward Age of War (also known as Risk Express).
In Age of War, players are seeking to conquer the castle cards in the center of the table by rolling dice and matching the symbols of each battle line. You’ll be trying to roll infantry (katanas), archery, cavalry, and daimyos. Each time you roll the dice (starting with seven of them), you must either fill a battle line or lose a die if you cannot. Then you reroll and do it again until you either fill all the battle lines on a castle card or lose your last die.
The castles that you are competing for feature varying combinations of battle line requirements and point rewards. Obviously, the most valuable cards are the hardest ones to claim. Whenever you do manage to successfully conquer a castle, you then reposition the card in front of yourself. You’ll score that many points if the card is still in front of you at the end of the game, but that’s a big if. You see, in Age of War, earning a card merely means that you’ve made it slightly more difficult for players to steal away from you. If somebody wants to, they can conquer your castle by filling the battle lines on the card, just as you did, but they must roll and fill an additional daimyo. It’s trickier, but it’s still very doable.
The only way to truly lock-in your castles is to claim all the castles of a color, collectively called a clan, so you can flip those cards facedown and forever keep them (even earning yourself an extra point by doing so). So once a player gains one card of a color, they are incentivized to keep snatching up that color (whether it’s in the middle or in front of another player). And that is indeed where the fun is found in Age of War — the constant battling and clashing ambitions between rival daimyos. A player’s foolish attempt to take on a mighty fortress, and the hilarious failure or thrilling victory that results. But I can find this sort of interaction and drama in so many other games that don’t also carry Age of War’s baggage…
Let me paint the picture for you: The most common scene that you see in Age of War is a turn that starts with hope and ambition and slowly fizzles away into disappointment and embarrassment. After the first roll, a player must commit to a card on the table. Oftentimes the player will combine their best dice results into filling a difficult battle line, and then they’ll collect up the remaining dice and set out to fill the other battle lines of that card. That’s what you have to do, actually. Once you’ve committed to a battle, you are stuck with that castle to the bitter end. But so often, the player’s remaining rolls would simply see their dice evaporate away until it was impossible for them to fill the remaining battle lines of the card.
Never have I seen a game so effortlessly replicate that sinking feeling of inevitable failure more consistently than Age of War. A battle line feels achievable with 5 dice, but you don’t roll it so now you are down to 4 dice. Ok, 4 dice still feels pretty good, right? Nope, still didn’t get it. Ok, well at least I’ve got another roll with these 3 dice, although 3 dice feels like a much worse chance than 4 or 5 dice, but here it goes…. HARD no. Kiss your third die goodbye, you’ve now got one last roll and you basically need snake eyes. Good luck pal, I’m sure it’ll work this time… and… of course it didn’t work. Do you realize how unlikely it was that you’d get these two exact symbols with only 2 dice? Annnnnnnnd now your turn is over. Now go sit in the corner and bask in shame for embarrassing your ancestors.
And that’s Age of War! For the occasional highs that it provides, it certainly wasn’t worth wading through all of those lows. Especially when you see your hard-earned castle get snatch away only moments later. And doubly so when the game drags on as players continue to steal from each other rather than trigger the end by claiming the last castles from the center.
I just don’t see any scenario where I would elect to put myself through Age of War again when so many other games, even Knizia designs, do dice rolling and risk taking and player clashing with far more thrills and far less suffering.
Prognosis: Poor
https://preview.redd.it/2o0jmqn4y0sb1.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=c988ffbb991d37fd3cd92d28c806b4dadf6b9999

For One Series

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32 Total Plays (1 Player)
For One: Number Up (7 Plays)
For One: Galaktix (15 Plays)
For One: Schwarze Rosen (6 Plays)
For One: Kniffel (4 Plays)
The other day, I was reading a cool Knizia interview in a recent issue of the excellent Senet board game magazine, and one particular comment from Reiner stood out to me. He shared how he was excited about a line of solo games that he has been working on (the For One series, published by Schmidt Spiele). Dr. Knizia expressed how he has wanted to do something like this for a very long time — create a solitaire game that still feels like a multiplayer experience in the sense that are you competing against challenges and pushing your luck. That was all I needed to hear to jump on Amazon.de and track down these For One games (yes, I am so easily swayed by the good doctor and his ideas).
I don’t even play solo games all that often, to be honest. The primary driver of my enthusiasm in this hobby is the opportunity to interact with other people — friends, family, and strangers — and compete or cooperate together through a shared challenge. I wouldn’t call myself an extrovert, but somehow I find it much easier to muster the energy and motivation for a multiplayer board game night versus a solitaire board game night. But even so, I have found myself dipping my toes in the solitaire waters from time to time. It is particularly easy to be persuaded when a solo game is approachable, quick, and widely acclaimed (like Sprawlopolis and Under Falling Skies), and even more so when it comes from one of my favorite designers or design teams (like Resist by David Thompson, Trevor Benjamin, and Roger Tankersley or Trailblazers by Ryan Courtney). So it was intriguing to hear that my favorite designer, Reiner Knizia, was taking his best crack at solo gaming with this new line of titles… Even for someone who doesn’t really consider himself a solo gamer.
I will always avoid a solo mode if it feels like a last-minute afterthought tacked on to a multiplayer game. I much prefer solitaire modes or games that build their experience from the ground up rather than struggle to fit a square game into a round hole. But I get that some folks love having a solo option for every game, especially when recruiting more gamers to the table isn’t feasible. I completely get it, but hopefully this gives context to where I am coming from as I discuss the For One series.
Truthfully, I didn’t come into this series with super high expectations. Just look above at what I said about the Pick a Pen trilogy. I’ve played plenty of Knizia designs that didn’t blow me away, and these For One titles gave me no reason to get mega hyped for them. On the outside, they are merely simple, humble, small-box games with functional but low-budget artwork. Yet Reiner’s comments on this design series (and the fact that they are new Knizias) were enough to convince me to track down these boxes online, order them from Germany, and go to the trouble of Google Translating the rulebooks to English. What came next honestly kinda blew me away.
Each little box in this For One line contains a unique game with a few punchboard tokens and perhaps a handful of dice or some cards as well as two rulebooks. One rulebook explains the core concept of the design — this is where you’ll learn how to play a fairly basic, unassuming game. The other rulebook contains 20 levels that you’ll progress through as you record your best scores and try to hit the Gold tier (or at least the Silver or Bronze tier) of each challenge — this is where the magic happens.
The general rules encourage you to not move on to the next level until you hit the Gold tier in points. This is how I’ve decided to approach the For One series… embracing the prideful perfectionist within. Level 1 simply eases you into the core gameplay — giving you nothing but the standard rules to play with and a point threshold to clear. But very quickly, as you march onward into Level 2 and 3 and beyond, you begin to feel Reiner tightening the noose. Suddenly, the point threshold is higher, and the gameplay restrictions are tighter, and new obstacles and requirements are cropping up all over. What starts out as a slow and simple juggling act rapidly turns into a daredevil performance. And right when you think that things can’t possibly get any tighter, you flip the page to the next set of 5 levels and Reiner completely flips the script on you — introducing a new board or a different core objective or a new set of components to deal with.
I am reminded of my experience with Reiner Knizia’s My City series in a lot of ways. Like My City, For One doesn’t give off a thrilling initial impression, but it expertly sinks its hooks into you… getting you to bring the game back to the table much sooner than expected and then stay at the table far longer than planned to play yet another round and explore the next challenge. It is shockingly easy to blitz through four or seven or twelve plays in one sitting when each play only lasts about ten minutes, each level offers a unique challenge, and you are so close to a gold victory that you can practically taste it.
I’m not sure which is more surprising: the fact that I’m addicted to the evolving levels of For One, or the fact that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all four games in this series thus far.
Number Up is the most simple of the bunch — flip a number card from the deck and add it to your grid of 5×5 or 6×6 cards (spreading out from the center). With each row and column, you are trying to reach a point threshold that will earn you a checkmark worth 10 victory points. One level might have you add together all the cards of your best color in each line. Another level forces you to put these matching colored cards adjacent to each other in order to score them. Another throws diagonal line scoring into the mix. Another only rewards you for your second strongest color in each row or column. And then, right when you’re feeling like a color arranging expert, the next page of levels throws colors right out the windows. Those don’t matter any more, now we only care about matching numbers together. It’s Reiner riffing on a simple but engaging concept with all kinds of different feeling challenges. This continues with the other For One titles…
Kniffel is basically Yahtzee on steroids. The game comes with 18 dice and a large scoring board. Each turn you roll 5 dice and decide where to commit them on your board. Do you commit your fours to a full house, a set of fours, a small and large straight, or something else? You must commit each die to some part of your scoring board, otherwise you lose that die for the rest of the game if you don’t have a viable place you can assign it. That’ll really start to hurt you over time, because once you decide to score out a row/section, you’ll get those dice back into your pool. If you can’t roll exactly 5 dice in a turn, then its game over. But you are allowed to give up on a section and score a fat zero there just to get those dice back into your supply. I have fond memories of playing Yahtzee with family members in the past, but I’m willing to admit that the game isn’t all that interesting. For One: Kniffel, on the other hand, is a blast thanks to the cornucopia of dice management decisions and temptations.
Schwarze Rosen is a bit of a domino spatial puzzle featuring flower tiles on a simple square grid garden board. Flip a domino from the facedown stack and decide where to connect it to another flower on the board (either along the edge or next to another domino). Aim to get three matching flowers in a straight connected line in order to score points. This evolving challenge slowly gets spiced up by negative point tokens that you try to purge yourself of by completing additional objectives on top of the core scoring criteria. The game has four boards and additional tiles across its 20 levels that introduce new wrinkles to enjoy.
Galaktix might currently be my favorite of the bunch. …or maybe it’s my least favorite… call it a love-hate relationship. At any rate, I sat down to play a couple sessions and ended up glued to my seat for a whopping 15 plays as I banged my head against those first few addictingly sadistic levels. Galaktix gives you five space dice, a space board with columns that match each dice symbol, and a pile of rocket ship tokens. Each turn you must either place out or discard a rocket ship token, and you only get one roll and one reroll to figure out where and how far up that token goes. If you roll three blue symbols, then you can pick that symbol and place a rocket ship on the third space up the blue track. Next time you pick blue symbols for rocket placement, you’ll add another rocket ship on the same track but your starting point will be the last space that your rocket token was placed in that column. Essentially, you are climbing up 5 different ladders as quickly as you can (before you run out of rocket ship tokens) to rake in more points. But these ladders are each unique and tricky in their own way. Some spaces along the tracks have black holes that you can’t stop on, you have to completely leapfrog them with multiple dice symbols to advance upward. Other spaces tempt you to stop on them exactly for a requirement or a bonus — Cascadero tracks, anyone? 😉 And rolling pairs of wrenches will earn you handy rocket component tiles which can be dropped off on spaces you overshoot (to still earn you the bonus there) or combined to earn you another rocket ship token (aka another turn before game over).
If my 32 plays (all in 4 days) wasn’t indication enough, then let me tell you right here: this For One series is a banger. I’ve never been so easily sucked in to solitaire gaming, and that is largely thanks to the bite-sized levels propelled by evolving rulesets built upon solid core games. I hate to encourage my fellow American and/or English gamers to rush out and snatch up these titles right now when the investment is steep (paying overseas shipping for German copies that require a fairly sizable Google Translate effort). But I would absolutely recommend that you add these titles to your radar. Hopefully we’ll see this new line of games make its way across the globe and into other languages soon with the help of partner publishers.
Prognosis: Excellent
https://preview.redd.it/kzggigyay0sb1.png?width=1274&format=png&auto=webp&s=ed9c4140df4c9e096ff1e58f578c3ddac0c3bee6
https://preview.redd.it/du0t2vycy0sb1.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=a720e024a484a307c0209b3ffa5947d0a9a64c63
These posts are only made possible through the support of fellow gamers such as yourself. Be sure to follow Reiner Knizia’s upcoming Kickstarter games: Cascadero & Cascadito and help us bring these games to life.
And come join the Reiner Knizia Enthusiasts Discord community where folks chat all things Knizia.
Article written by Nick of Bitewing Games. Outside of practicing dentistry part-time, Nick has devoted his remaining work-time to collaborating with the world’s best designers, illustrators, and creators in producing classy board games that bite, including the critically acclaimed Trailblazers by Ryan Courtney and newly released Zoo Vadis by Reiner Knizia. He hopes you’ll join Bitewing Games in their quest to create and share classy board games with a bite.
submitted by Murraculous1 to boardgames [link] [comments]


2023.09.28 20:46 NStaringIa Helena, the Tanky adc >:D

Helena, the Tanky adc >:D

📷Design
(The art is not mine,Couldnt find the artist, it had no link to anyone)
Champion info:
Base stats:
Range: 225
Armor: 35-110
Magic Resist: 12-35
Health: 515- 2000
Move. speed: 340
Attack damage: 61 - 105
Health regen. (per 5s 7,5-23)
Attack speed: 0,59
Bonnus Attack speed: 0 - 0.7
_________________________________________________________

Skill Set:

Passive: It's just getting better

When she hits someone she gets attack speed ( that will pass the limit), move speed, and projectile speed infinitely, when she gets out of the combat reset it.
Attack speed per hit: 0,05 - 0,085 (1-13)
move speed per hit:1,5 - 4 (1-13)
projectile speed per hit: 25 - 55 (1-13)
time to reset: 1,5 - 2,5 s (1-13)

Passive from the passive: fair trade

Against enemies that are melee while you are with your gun, you will deal less damage and when you are with your claws off you will deal a little bit more damage
gun damage against melee: 65 - 110 (1-18) percent
claws against melee: 125

Q: I am not that easy

Active: Jumps onto a wall, and stays there for a time. While on top of the wall, she constantly gains a shield ((this means that if she have 500 shield and you deal 400 damage she will gain again the shield and ignore your damage, you can only damage her if you deal damage > shield, repeating this process)), as long as her shield is not broken even once she gains attack speed, range, AD, and damage in her basic attacks .
after that time, her next 3 basic attacks will have bonuses, the first giving slow, the second increasing her attack speed, and the third giving true damage, after these 3 attacks, she will pull out her claws out and jump on top of the enemy. Jumping on the enemy attacked by the last attack makes him stun and deals damage ap, losing range but gaining Heal, armor,magic resist, attack speed, and area damage as long as she has a claws out.
(If she gets stunned or silenced, she will jump off the wall. Also after the time that she has to be on the wall if she doesn't use her special attacks to extend the time that she can spend on the wall, she will get down)
(While on the wall you can use every skill with the exception of W, and if you have the claws out while going on the wall you lose it to push your weapon)
--------------------------------------------
Shield: 71/125/135/155/175 + ( 5,5 percent of her max health) + ( 3,5 percent of her bonnus health)
(while on the wall)
--------------------------------------------
Attack speed: 20/25/30/35/40
Range: 50/75/100/125/175 or 475 for minions
AD: 15/20/25/30/35 + (2 percent of her bonnus health)
time of this effects above: 1,25
--------------------------------------------
Damage per hit: 5/15/20/35/40 + ( 3 per 0,025 attack speed), time: 1.75 s + 0,15 per auto
Time to be on the wall: 1,25 s
--------------------------------------------
First basic slow: 25/40/65/75/90 for 0.25 s
Second basic boost attack speed: 1x/2x/3x/4x/5x (only in that auto)
Third basic true damage: 5/10/15/20/25 percent of her bonnus health + ( 30 additional damage per 100 ad)
Time that she have to apply the autos above: 0,5 + 0,155 s per auto that she does
--------------------------------------------
Ap damage when jumping: 2/3/4/5/6 missing health of the enemy + ( 1 per 100 ad )
Stun time: 0,25 s
-------------------------------------------- Attack speed:25/35/45/55/65
Range lose: 225
Heal: 1/1,5/2/2,5/3 percent of her max health + ( 1 per 200 ad) + ( 1 per 500 health) per auto
Armor:15/25/35/40/45
Magic resist: 10/20/30/40/50
Área damage: 25 percent of auto damages, as additional damage, it will also aply on-hit effects
Área radius: 275
Claws out time: 3 s
--------------------------------------------
Mana: 100
Cooldown: 19/17/16/15/14

W: Hehhehe

Active: Gives a dash that deals damage, stuns the enemy, and breaks the enemy's armor, it also makes you push your claws out, only if it goes through him. If the dash is used towards a wall it has a longer range, is faster, and activates Q (without taking away the cooldown of the skill)
--------------------------------------------
Dash range: 275
Dash speed: 650
--------------------------------------------
Dash towards a wall: 600
Dash speed towards a wall: 1000
--------------------------------------------
Damage: 75/95/125/175/235/275 + (35 percent ad)
Mana: 25
Cooldown: 16/14/12/11,5/11
Armor breaker: 5/8,5/10/13,5/15 percent (does not stack)

W passive: I feel it

Passive: When you have the claw you gain extra move speed
move speed: 10/15/20/25/30

E: i have 2 Edges

Active: Transform your Ad to armor for a time, reduce damage for a short duration, and gain bonus damage in your autos. When you lose your armor Heal yourself, and reduce your abilities cooldowns instantly
Press: Transform your bonnus health to aD for a time, you will also lose amor, magic resist and a percentage of your bonnus health
--------------------------------------------
Reduced damage: 15/20/25/30/35, time: 0,35 s
--------------------------------------------
Armor convertion: 35/45/55/65/75 percent
Bonnus damage: 2/4/6/8/10 current health of the enemy + ( 3,5 percent of ad )
Time of the effects above:1,25 s
--------------------------------------------
Heal: 2/3/4/5/6 percent of your missing health + (1,75 percent of your armor)
Cooldowns of base skills reduced: 2/3/4/6/8
-------------------------------------------- Bonnus health transformation: 35 percent
Bonnus health lose:65 percent
armor and magic resist lose: 15/35/45/65
time of the effects above: 1,25 s
--------------------------------------------
Mana: 75
Cooldown: 25/22/18/16/14 s

R: Bang, BANG!

Active: Fires 6 shots at enemies that she has vision of on the map, dealing the max shots at the enemy that you choose and 1 for the others. For enemies that get more than 1 shot for every extra shot, the damage will be reduced by 50 percent. Every enemy shot the first time will lose damage, for each extra bullet will lose a small portion. Every shot counts as an auto
--------------------------------------------
Damage for the first bullet: 20/30/45 + (15/25/35 percent of her max health) + (45 percent of your armor) + (15/25/35 percent of the ad) as ad damage
Damage of the extra shot: 50 percent of the recent shot
--------------------------------------------
Damage reduction of the enemy for the first bullet: 15
Damage reduction of the enemy for extra bullets:5
--------------------------------------------
Mana:100
Cooldown: 120/100/85
_________________________________________________________

Combos:

You can play with her in many ways, I will give 1 example, that I think that might be the best one
W ->auto-> Q -> auto x the time you have -> 3 special autos -> jump -> auto -> w -> auto x the time you have -> 3 special autos -> Jump -> auto + E pressed- > auto - > R
_________________________________________________________

End:

Give me your opinion, it is important to me, Thank you for your time s2

submitted by NStaringIa to LoLChampConcepts [link] [comments]


2023.09.27 20:32 Mike2800 Midjourney will not upskirt hats/helmets...

I'm pretty new to using Midjourney, so maybe it's a known issue that it will only view certain prompts from specific angles.
I'm working on two different designs right now.
For the first design, I'm trying to get a simple drawing of an old wizard's hat (kinda like the sorting hat) laying on top of some text. I'm just trying to get Midjourney to draw the hat. Then in another program, I remove the background and try to lay it on top of the text.
After some trial and error, I realized that from most angles, the hat ends up covering too much of the lettering, and it becomes unreadable. So I decided to try tipping the hat backwards, hoping I could place the image behind the text while still making it look like it's resting comfortably on the text.
I spent a lot of time last night trying to get Midjourney to angle the hat up so I would see the underside of the hat.
I re-loaded the prompt an obscene number of times, to the point that I started to get worried that someone would reach out to me and ask me to stop spamming the same image over and over again.
I tried many variations of the same prompt
  • "Simple clipart of an old wrinkled Wizard's Hat viewed from a low angle."
  • "The Underside of an old wrinkled wizard's hat simple clipart"
  • "Bottom of and old wrinkled wizard's hat"
  • "Simple drawing of the bottom of an old wrinkled Wizard's Hat"
I tried it with Chaos set to 100 and without Chaos set to 100.
Eventually I gave up and accepted that my design is probably better without a hat on top of it. Less is more after all.
This morning I moved onto my next design. Simply two Ancient Greek helmets laying next to each other. In my head, I picture one leaning on the other, kind of like they've been discarded on the ground.
Naively I assumed this prompt would be easier because it focused on smooth metal and not wrinkled fabric.
But again, no matter how I prompted it, I couldn't get one helmet to lean on the other. Both helmets always remained firmly planted on the ground. Close to each other, sure, but never leaning.
It took me a while to realize that I was running into the same issue I had with my wizard's hat. The bottom of the helmet was causing the issue.
Forgive my phrasing, but Midjourney will not upskirt the helmet!!!
Again. I tried a variety of prompts
  • "Simple Drawing of two Mycenaean Greek helmets discarded next to each other"
  • "Simple Drawing of two Mycenaean Greek helmets leaning on each other"
  • "Simple Drawing of two Ancient Greek helmets discarded next to each other"
Eventually, I just decided to see if I could get it to show the bottom of a single helmet as an experiment
  • "Simple drawing of a Mycenaean Greek helmet laying on its side"
  • "Ancient Greek helmet laying on its side"
And again I tried to adjust the Chaos setting. Leaving it to default and raising it to 100.
Every single time, the helmet remained firmly planted on the ground. It refused to draw it from any other angle.
I had the same fear again this morning that someone would reach out to me and ask me to stop spamming the same image over and over again.
No matter what I do, the underside of a hat or helmet is like some kind of eldritch hole that can't be shown under any circumstances.
submitted by Mike2800 to midjourney [link] [comments]


2023.09.27 10:19 bitnewsbot 📔 eCoverly Animated Cover Tool REVIEWED! Here's my Opinion 👇

📔 eCoverly Animated Cover Tool REVIEWED! Here's my Opinion 👇
[Review by Jonathan Ergas]
Hey, if you're anything like me, you know the struggle of designing covers for your eBooks, reports, and other digital goodies, right?
I mean, we've all been there, burning the midnight oil and throwing away a small fortune, only to end up hating the results.
Now, I've tested a bunch of those eCover design tools over the years. Some were alright, but most were just... meh. And honestly, a lot of them feel like they were stuck in a time warp.
But wait, hold onto your hats, folks, because there's a new kid on the block, and it goes by the name of eCoverly! It's like the fresh breeze we've all been waiting for.
Picture this: a shiny, brand-spankin'-new tool that whips up professional, animated eCovers in the blink of an eye. We're talking covers that can jazz up your reports, books, courses, podcasts, and pretty much anything digital you can dream up.
Now, in this eCoverly review, I'm gonna give eCoverly the full "treatment". We'll dive into what it can do (and what it can't), see if it lives up to the hype, and most importantly, if it's worth your hard-earned moolah.
Oh, and we're not stopping there!
I'll even throw in a little sneak peek at the upsells, so you'll know exactly what's in store when you grab eCoverly and what other goodies are waiting for you in the treasure chest of possibilities.

eCoverly Review in A Glance

Name: eCoverly
Type: Cloud Software
Main Function: Animated eBook covers, CD covers, product covers.
Price: Start's from $37
Upsells: 5
Official Website eCoverly

What is eCoverly?

https://preview.redd.it/pr4jwzkbarqb1.png?width=748&format=png&auto=webp&s=2e8cb9a0c62ce9ba2bc7734913881a03da10c1b0
Alright, folks, let me break it down for you. eCoverly? It's like this magical cloud-based eBook cover creator tool. But here's the kicker - it's not your run-of-the-mill cover maker. No siree, Bob!
You see, what sets eCoverly apart is its secret weapon: animated ecovers.
Yeah, you heard me right - animated!
Now, why is that such a big deal? Well, in this wild online jungle where everyone's fighting tooth and nail for attention and dollars, animated ecovers are your golden ticket to standing out from the pack.
eCoverly is your trusty sidekick, armed with a bunch of ready-made templates that you can tweak and customize to create covers for all sorts of digital goodies.
And here's the kicker – it's a breeze to use. It's like having a superhero in your corner, saving you boatloads of time and cash when it comes to crafting those eye-catching covers.
If you want to skip reading the whole review and jump straight to the Demo Video, Click here.

Overview of the core features

Alright, check out the goods, folks! Here's what eCoverly's bringing to the table:
  • Animated Cover Templates - First off, we're talking animated ecovers – and they've got a sweet selection of 40 templates at your disposal. And guess what? You can tinker with 'em all to your heart's content.
  • Static eCover Templates - But hold on, they're not stopping there! You also get the lowdown on static ecovers, with a whopping 250 templates to save you time and make 'em shine your way.
  • Product Mockups - Now, here's the fun part – you get to pick your product model. Models, my friends, are like the shape or type of product you're jazzing up. Think boxes, CDs, reports – they've got 20 different models waiting for your creative touch.
Now, I gotta say, eCoverly might seem simple on the surface, but it's got some tricks up its sleeve. The finished designs? Well, they're pro-level, way better than I expected.
Just check out these animated covers I whipped up in under 6 minutes on my very first go...
https://i.redd.it/ntq8vjycarqb1.gif
https://i.redd.it/lsbie6ldarqb1.gif
Not too shabby, huh?
And guess what? It's not just about the animated stuff. eCoverly's got your back for static covers too. And unlike other tools, they've got templates galore to kickstart your design mojo.
Plus, you've got options – you can deck out your covers for 9 different product packaging styles. For example:
  • ✅ Books
  • ✅ Boxes
  • ✅ Business/Membership Cards
  • ✅ CDs & DVDs
  • ✅ Flyers & Magazines
  • ✅ Big Screens & IMac
  • ✅ Laptops
  • ✅ Mobiles
  • ✅ Tablets

  • Drag and Drop Editor - Moving on with the drag and drop editor. It's like butter, smooth and effortless. You can dive right in, insert and resize images, play around with fonts 'til your heart's content, and even get artsy with stuff like colorizing images and adding effects like grayscale, vignette, and grunge.
  • Editing features - And here's the kicker, you can tweak brightness and transparency of images too! I mean, talk about versatility. This baby's a breeze to use, and trust me, it's way cheaper and easier than diving into the Photoshop maze.
  • Free image library - But wait, there's more! They've got this colossal image library right at your fingertips from your eCoverly dashboard. It's like having a treasure trove of clip art and stock images, and guess what? You can even upload and save your own images - perfect for slapping on logos, profile pics, you name it.
  • Online Image repository - And here's the time-saver – an online image repository that lets you grab images from Pixabay and Icon Finder without ever leaving the software.
Boom, time saved!
  • Music Player - But we're not done yet! How about some tunes while you work? Yep, eCoverly's got a music player to keep your creative juices flowing.
  • Fonts - And fonts? Oh, they've got a smorgasbord of fonts to choose from. You can go wild with customization, adding shadows, outlines, and even playing around with word spacing and character spacing. It's like having your own font playground.
  • Client Module - Now, if you're in the business of impressing clients, they've got you covered too with a client module. Share your designs directly with clients, no more file juggling. Quick and cool!
  • ANIMATED Covers - But here's the grand finale, the pièce de résistance – those animated covers. They're like a work of art, seriously!
I mean, just feast your eyes on these beauties...
https://i.redd.it/y4u79jifarqb1.gif
👉 Visit eCoverly's official website
I've shelled out a small fortune for designs like these before, but now? I'm cranking 'em out in seconds without breaking the bank. It's mind-blowing!
What gets my heart racing about eCoverly is that it's the secret sauce for boosting book sales. You know the deal, a killer book cover can boost sales like nobody's business, up to 11 times and beyond.
So, this tool right here? It's gonna be the game-changer for me and a whole bunch of folks out there. We're talking new covers, fast, and a whole lot more cha-ching in our pockets.
But here's the real kicker – animated covers! Yeah, those bestselling authors and big shot publishing houses are using 'em to rake in sales. And guess what?
With eCoverly, now we can too!

Who is eCoverly Best For?

If you're wondering who eCoverly is the bee's knees for, here's the lowdown:
First up, it's like a best buddy for the newbie marketers, the ones just dipping their toes in the digital ocean.
Agencies, you're in on this too! Even if you're pulling in a few bucks a month with your digital goodies, eCoverly's your ticket to blasting through the ceiling and raking in those sweet, sweet sales.
But hold on to your hats, 'cause it's not just for the pros. You know those hobbyist writers? The ones spinning tales of fiction and dreams? Well, they're gonna love this. It's like the spotlight for their books, and it'll make 'em the talk of the town.
No matter which way you slice it, eCoverly's for the folks who want to skyrocket their digital product sales without breaking the bank on fancy design agencies or losing their sanity to complicated design tools.
But wait, there's more! If you're feeling fancy, you can dive into the world of working with clients.
Yeah, that's right! Imagine the cash flow from creating animated covers for them.

How much eCoverly Cost?

eCoverly's price is normally recurring at $37.
During the launch phase the price will be a one time payment of
  • 37 Personal Licence
  • $47 Commercial Licence
  • $67 Premium Commercial Licence
👍 Money Back Guarantee
eCoverly comes with a 30 days money back guarantee. That means that if you purchase it but for some strange reason you want your money back, then you can request a refund.
➡️ Click here to test drive eCoverly for 30 days.

eCoverly Features include:

  • ✅ Animated Magic - 40 animated templates
  • ✅ Static Elegance - 250 static templates
  • ✅ Model Variety - 20 (2D & 3D) ecover models
  • ✅ AI Genius Editor - Intelligent & effortless customization
  • ✅ Visual Feast - Extensive image and font libraries
  • ✅ Image Library - Clipart, stock images & upload your own
  • ✅ Drag, Drop, Done - Three easy steps to creating an ecover
  • ✅ All In One - No other software needed
  • ✅ Tune In - Builtin editor music player
  • ✅ Anti-Theft - Watermark engine for security
  • ✅ Access Anywhere - Cloud based
  • ⭐ Bonus: Easy step by step video tutorials
  • ⭐ Bonus: Commercial license*
  • ⭐ Bonus: Agency website*
  • ⭐ Bonus: Client manager dashboard*
  • ⭐ 30 Day satisfaction guarantee
  • ⭐ 24/7 Customer support
  • ⭐ Low one time price!

Are there any Upsells?

Yes, there are 5 upsells. You don’t need any of them to use eCoverly but a lot of them are very good additions which are nice to have.
Here’s what they are:
Upsell 1 – eCoverly Professional!
This turbocharges your eCoverly experience with a whopping 150 extra animated eCover templates, a treasure trove of 400 additional static cover templates, plus 40 extra model styles to play with.
But here's where it gets real cool – they've got this nifty "1 click magic" tool. Imagine you're cooking up a cover for a complex product with tons of parts like a box, CD, audio, and a report. Well, with one click of a button, your design magically spreads its awesomeness across all those elements. It's like having a design genie at your beck and call! 🪄✨
eCoverly Professional Features include:
  • ✅ 150 more animated ecover templates
  • ✅ 400 more static ecover templates
  • ✅ 40 more ecover models
  • ✅ 1-Click magic transformation
  • ✅ More storage
  • ✅ Limitless customization
  • ✅ Superior features
  • ✅ Upgraded power
  • ✅ Free software updates
  • ⭐ Bonus: Commercial license
  • ⭐ Bonus: Easy step by step video tutorials
  • ⭐ 30 Day satisfaction guarantee
  • ⭐ 24/7 Customer support
  • ⭐ Yearly Subscription OR Low one time price!
Upsell 2 – Bundles & Mock-ups from eCoverly!
This powerhouse addition is your secret weapon to skyrocketing those numbers.
What's in the arsenal, you ask?
  • Groupshot Bundles: Imagine your ecovers nestled snugly inside custom-designed groupshot bundles. You've got a buffet of 100 different styles to choose from!
  • 100 Groupshot Bundles: Take your pick from a variety of 100 different styles of bundles to create both static and animated designs that'll have your customers' jaws dropping.
  • Mockup Skins: Picture this – your ecovers displayed in the trendiest real-world devices like laptops, phones, monitors, and tablets. You've got a smorgasbord of 100 different mockup skins to choose from!
  • 100 Mockup Skins: Yep, you read that right! Dive into a sea of 100 different mockup skins to cook up both static and animated designs that'll leave your competition in the dust.
  • Customization: Wanna sprinkle your own unique style and layout on those ecover bundles? Go right ahead! Customization is the name of the game.
  • And here's the cherry on top:
  • Bonus: Commercial License – Unlock endless opportunities to make a profit!
  • Bonus: Easy Step-by-Step Video Tutorials – Get the inside scoop on making the most of this powerhouse.
  • ⭐ 30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee – Try it out risk-free.
  • ⭐ 24/7 Customer Support – They've got your back.
  • ⭐ No Monthly Fees, One-Time Payment – Yeah, you heard that right!
This is your chance to take your sales to a whole new level – don't miss out! 💥💰
Upsell 3 – Prime!
Get ready for a non-stop flow of creativity with 360 niche templates served up hot and fresh for a full year, and guess what? No pesky monthly fees to worry about!
But that's not all. With Prime, you're not just getting templates; you're kickstarting your very own monthly ecover design service. Picture this: every single month, you'll be treated to 30 brand-spankin'-new, handcrafted templates that are so exclusive, they practically have VIP status.
And here's the kicker – you get to sell these gems to eager clients, and guess what? You pocket 100% of the moolah from every sale. These niche designs are tailor-made just for you, ensuring that you've always got something one-of-a-kind to bring to the table.
So, if you're ready to take the plunge into the world of endless creativity and opportunity, Prime is your ticket to the big show! 🚀💯
Features include:
  • ✅ 10 new Animated templates every month
  • ✅ 20 new Static templates every month
  • ✅ Adds more Animated backgrounds to your library
  • ✅ Adds more static backgrounds to your library
  • ✅ Adds more animation assets to your library
  • ✅ Adds more images and media to your library
  • ✅ Made exclusively for PRIME members only
  • ✅ Includes the latest trending designs
  • ✅ Designs across a variety of niche categories
  • ✅ Unique handcrafted templates
  • ✅ Hypnotizing designs that convert
  • ⭐ Bonus: Commercial license
  • ⭐ Bonus: Easy step by step video tutorials
  • ⭐ 30 Day satisfaction guarantee
  • ⭐ 24/7 Customer support
  • ⭐ No monthly fees, one time payment!
Upsell 4 – Gigs Hero from eCoverly!
This isn't just about upselling; it's about transforming your online game.
With Gigs Hero, you're not just getting clients; you're getting 'em instantly. Say goodbye to the days of hunting for gigs like a digital detective. Gigs management tools? You got 'em. Custom profile and proposal templates? You betcha. It's like having a personal assistant that saves you an epic amount of time.
But here's the sweet part – you'll be raking in the dough by creating ecovers for clients. We're talking anywhere from $250 to a whopping $1,000 per job! It's time to get paid fast and furious.
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submitted by bitnewsbot to eCoverly [link] [comments]


2023.09.07 10:35 No_Not_Meh Anyone Know how to get sharp internal and external corners on vcarve when using an engraving toolpath?

Anyone Know how to get sharp internal and external corners on vcarve when using an engraving toolpath? submitted by No_Not_Meh to hobbycnc [link] [comments]


2023.08.28 08:11 ExRwood The Nine Principles of Existence

Nick ran his fingers through his blond hair and glanced at the time on his laptop screen. Almost three AM. He had searched the web for hours for ideas, but his notepad was still blank. He was tired of shuffling insurance claims, but his plan to become a professional life coach before he turned thirty seemed further away than ever.
Over the past few months, Nick had built a modest following with his Five Steps To A Better You program. His videos had thousands of views and a few dozen people had attended his first seminar. Nick had looked perfect with a new suit and dazzling smile. Too bad he had held the seminar in the church basement; the space was affordable, but it gave the whole event the dim-fluorescent, low-ceiling feel of an AA meeting. Not exactly the vibe he was going for.
If he could make some real money, he could get out of this dump of an apartment for starters. A giant house centipede skittered across his desk. “Ugh!” He grabbed a notepad and smashed the bug. It got up and kept running. Two more hits finally killed it.
His roommate responded with a thump on the wall. “Stop it, asshole!”
“Make me,” Nick muttered while he scrolled absently down the search page. This new program had to be even better. He liked the feel of an odd number of steps. Maybe seven or nine this time. More steps meant some clients would drop off early, but others would try to stick with it to the end, even if it meant buying expensive extra coaching and problem-solving sessions. Nick smirked. With his good looks, his one-on-one sessions always went well, especially with older women.
“Back down the rabbit hole,” he said with a sigh. He typed nine steps to success in the search bar. Most hits that popped up were the same ones from his last dozen searches. A new link caught his eye. “How to Survive This Life: Nine Principles. That could be perfect.” If the list was good enough, he could save time by rewording it a bit and then claiming it as his own. There were only so many ways to tell people their shitty lives could be fixed if they tried harder.
He clicked the link. The webpage had pixelated animated clipart of a doorway with a black rabbit appearing and disappearing inside it. “Wow, this is old school.” Nick scrolled through the blinking starry background until he found words typed in a thin, cursive font.
Existence is the fact or state of being real. So how do you know if you exist? Well, there is the whole I-think-therefore-I-am business. But what if we are all in a simulation? Yes, you think, but what if those thoughts are programmed to be there? What if you have no free will? Then do you really exist? This idea is not new. From Plato to Descartes to the many movies and books written in this century, this territory has been well-covered.
The simulation idea has kept me awake many a night. Over time, I’ve come to the conclusion that we are indeed living in a simulated world and that it’s best to live this life the way we were programmed to. We can't fight the Programmers. All we can do is surrender all control to them and let come what may.
To this end, I have composed a list of principles to help guide us through this simulated life.
1. Accept the life you were given. The Programmers have planned everything out for you. You have no control over anything.
2. Accept your mistakes. You were programmed to be imperfect.
3. Accept change. It's programmed into this world. Change prompts us to learn new things.
4. Accept challenges. The Programmers will push us out of our comfort zones. It’s all part of their plan (see #1).
5. Respect others. Many of them are only empty characters placed here to interact with us. We can't know who is real.
6. Death is not the end. Your code will be reused in this simulation or another.
7. Maintain harmony. Not everyone is aware of the simulation, nor do they need to be.
8. Don't question reality. Disrupting the simulation (becoming a bug in the code) will get you rebooted. Repeat offenses will get you deleted.
9.
The ninth principle was blank as if the author hadn't finished typing the list. At the bottom of the webpage was the name Alice Carpentar and a tiny photo of a sixty-ish woman with short, gray hair.
Nick whistled and closed his laptop. “Whoa… this lady is a real tin-foil-hat type.” He climbed into his creaky twin bed and waited for sleep to come, but his mind swirled with questions.
***
The next night, Nick had to work late. It was the third time that week. His boss apologized for the inconvenient request in a tone that said he wasn't all that sorry. It took everything Nick had not to tell the guy to shove his request up his ass. While digging the hundredth paper jam out of the ancient copier, he wondered if Alice had written the principles as a joke—a coping mechanism for dealing with a shitty job. “Don’t question the Programmers, right?”
His coworkers trickled out of the office as the night dragged on until he was the only one left. He finished the last spreadsheet at one AM. Gathering his things to go home, he noticed dozens of tiny stuffed bunnies lined up across the desk in the next cubicle.
“Never realized Tyler was so into rabbits.” He snickered. “Maybe he's a furry.” A porcelain figurine of a black rabbit stood next to the monitor. Nick stared at it. He turned his computer back on, printed out the Nine Principles, and slid the paper into his bag.
Waiting for the last train of the night, Nick’s breath clouded in the air; the temperature had to be around freezing. The looming skyscrapers channeled a frigid wind down the empty platform. He stamped his oxfords on the wooden planks. Something ran over his shoe. Nick jumped, expecting to see a rat. Instead, there was a fluffy black rabbit with sky-blue eyes. Its nose twitched as it hopped behind a metal trash can. It didn’t look like a wild rabbit. It had to be someone's pet. Nick leaned over the trash can to look behind it. He yelped when a giant black rat scurried out. It stood on its hind legs and stared at Nick with blue eyes before jumping onto the tracks. A rumble announced the incoming train. As it pulled in, Nick headed for the nearest car. He stopped for a moment and glanced down the empty platform. “What the hell?”
There were three people seated at one end of the train car. Wanting to be alone, he took the cleanest-looking seat at the other end. He pulled his notebook, pen, and the paper with the principles out of his bag. He clicked his tongue and flipped the paper over and back. It hadn't printed right. The first principle only said 'Accept'.
“Fucking printer. Must be a sign. Seven steps it is.”
Nick numbered his notebook page from one to seven and wrote down some ideas. He stared at the last principle and tapped his pen on the page. Don't question reality. What the hell do I change that to? he thought. Don't question the program? Sounds like a cult. He leaned against the window and unbuttoned his wool coat. The car was stuffy, but a nice change from the bitter cold. As the lights of the city flew past, he wondered why Alice was so certain she lived in a simulation. If the so-called Programmers controlled everything, how would you even know? Nick's mind picked up speed. If we lived in a simulation, then what was the point of anything? No one's thoughts were their own. No one's decisions were their own. That meant that whether he would become a life coach or be stuck at his shit job forever had already been decided for him.
Maybe he was supposed to find Alice's website. Maybe it was all a setup to distract him and derail his plans.
The train took a sharp turn too fast, jolting Nick out of his downward spiral. He rubbed his face. “This is crazy. I need sleep,” he whispered.
The train slowed. The doors opened at the next stop, ushering in a blast of freezing air. Nick glanced up. A fluffy black rabbit hopped into the car. He looked to see if anyone else noticed the animal, but there was only one other person in the car.
A woman sat with an open laptop resting on her thighs. She could have been anywhere between twenty and forty years old. Although it was nearly two AM, she looked freshly groomed and dressed; her white suit was spotless, her blood-red lipstick flawless, and her auburn hair pulled into a perfect bun. The rabbit hopped over to the woman's silver stiletto heels and lay on its stomach with its hind legs stretched out behind it. The woman kept typing as if she didn't see it.
Nick approached the woman. “Excuse me. Is that your rabbit?”
She raised her head and looked at him. “Oh dear, it's you again. Bugs, bugs, bugs,” she said, leaning down to scratch the rabbit's head. Its blue eyes blinked lazily. She clicked away at her keyboard again and with a flourish, smashed one button. “Accept.”
Nick felt himself turn around and walk back to his seat. He tried to stop but his body ignored him. “Hey, what—”
“Sir. Sir!” A security guard shook Nick's shoulder. “This is the last stop, you gotta get off.”
Nick rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, must've fallen asleep,” he mumbled. He grabbed his things and stumbled onto the platform. This wasn't the first time he'd fallen asleep on the last train home. Lucky for him, he lived nearby so he never missed his stop. He passed a trash can on the sidewalk. An image of a black rabbit with blue eyes flashed through his mind. He leaned over the can and puked into it.
***
Lying in bed on a Saturday afternoon, Nick groaned. The steps for his new program had sat untouched for two weeks. Every time he looked at his notebook, he thought about the woman on the train; the feeling of not being in control of his own body made him nauseous.
“It was a dream. I need to finish the damned program!”
When he grabbed the notebook, the list of principles fell into his lap. Part of principle one was still there but three through six were now blank. Principle seven said only 'Maintain'. Nick chewed his lip. He was pretty sure that number seven had said to keep quiet about the simulation. But if Alice really believed what she wrote, then why had she put the principles online? Didn’t that break her own rule? He opened his laptop and searched for the Nine Principles website. It wasn’t on the first page or the next several pages either. He searched for Alice Carpentar. Zero hits. “This makes no sense.”
He could hear his roommate, Wallace, watching TV with someone in the living room. The other voice sounded like Wallace's friend, Dina.
Nick went into the living room. “Hey, Wallace. Could you look something up for me real quick? I can't find this website I was reading the other day.”
“What was it about?”
“Simulations and programmers. Reality.”
Wallace turned off the TV. “Reality programmers?”
“No. Some crackpot writing about how we're all living in a simulation and the programmers with a capital P are gods or something. Pretty batshit crazy.”
“Why do you want to read that again?”
“Just help me, please.”
Wallace raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Nick muttered something.
“What?”
Nick sighed. “There was a list of steps on the site. I thought I could rework them for a new motivational program.”
“You're gonna tell people they're in a simulation to motivate them.” Wallace rolled his eyes. “I wouldn't pay for that.”
“I mean, I was gonna change it some... Look, I know you guys are watching a movie. It'll only take a second.”
“You guys?”
“You and Dina.”
Wallace frowned. “D's working today.”
Nick scanned the apartment. Dina wasn't in the tiny kitchen and the bathroom was dark. The coffee table had one soda and one sandwich on it.
“Can't help you.” Wallace turned back to the TV.
“This will only take—”
“Maybe you should forget about it. The website. The program. Everything.”
Nick snapped. “Why does my existence piss you off so much?” he yelled.
“Maintain harmony.”
Nick took a step back. “What?”
“You should forget about it,” Wallace said, staring at the black screen.
He moved between Wallace and the TV.
Wallace looked through Nick with his mouth slack.
He waved his hand in front of Wallace's eyes. “Are you ok?”
“Maintain!” Wallace yelled.
Nick backed up, tripped over a pair of sneakers, and fell on his ass. “Ow!” He closed his eyes and rubbed his hip where it had bumped into the edge of the TV stand.
“Hey, are you ok?”
Nick's eyes snapped open.
Dina sat on the loveseat next to Wallace. She leaned forward, looking concerned. “Do you need some ice or something?”
“God, you're so clumsy,” Wallace said with a snort.
On the coffee table were two cans of soda and two sandwiches.
Nick stood and dashed back to his room, slamming the door behind him. He balled up the paper with the Nine Principles and threw it in the corner.
***
The more Nick thought about it, the more he was sure Wallace and Dina had been messing with him. Maybe Wallace had seen his list. Or he'd mentioned it to him. The guy was always a dick.
Nick now had six solid steps, but he was still stuck on the seventh. He couldn't decide between Setting Goals to Push Past Boundaries or Bridging the Distance Between Goals and Roadblocks. He stared through the notepad with unfocused eyes. It was so hard to think. He wasn't sleeping enough. His boss had increased his workload until Nick was staying late every night and working on weekends, too. He had to cut his sleep to two hours a night to have any time to tackle his program. It was as if his boss was trying to prevent him from finishing it.
Nick shook his head. “Focus. It's a coincidence.”
Opening a browser, he searched for motivational steps. The first hit was some kind of baking website. The second was an obituary for Alice Carpentar. Nick's finger trembled on the trackpad. He clicked the link. The date of death was three days ago. He scanned the obituary.
Alice Pleasance Carpentar passed away from natural causes at the age of sixty. Author of the well-known baking website...
There wasn't any mention of the Nine Principles. Nick scrolled to the end of the page. The viewing would take place tomorrow afternoon. The funeral home wasn't far from his apartment.
“No, I'm not going. I have to go to work.” He closed his laptop and got into bed. “I have control over my life. There's no reason to go.” He slammed his fists onto the mattress. “This is not a simulation!”
Wallace thumped on the other side of the wall. “Shut it!”
Nick banged back. “I'm in control!”
***
The viewing was held in a small room at the back of the funeral room. The faded green decor was probably supposed to be calming and inoffensive, but the thick carpeting and heavy drapes muffled footsteps and voices, giving Nick the feeling he was in a padded room. Several people hung around the doorway, whispering. A dozen others were spread out across the rows of folding chairs. Sweat trickled down his back. Nick had no idea what he had expected to find, but he was here, so he would quickly pay his respects and go home. Then he could use the rest of his fake sick day to catch up on sleep.
Nick headed for the silver casket. People said the dead looked peaceful, but he found them creepy in an uncanny valley sort of way. The face always looked a little off. Alice Carpentar looked like a wax dummy dressed in a tacky floral print dress. The rosary wrapped around Alice's hands seemed like a joke. Were you praying to the Programmers? he thought. Something poking out from between her fingers caught his eye. Nick glanced around. No one paid any attention to him. He lifted the cold, heavy hand that rested on top of the other and plucked out a sheet of paper. It had been folded several times. There was no writing on the outside but the paper was rumpled like someone had balled it up and then flattened it again.
The room spun. Nick grabbed the edge of the casket.
“Are you ok?” A bald man put a hand on Nick’s shoulder.
Nick shoved the paper into his pocket. “Yeah, I'm fine.”
“Were you close to Alice?”
“I... followed her website.”
“Ah, Alice's Pleasant Pies. Best pie recipes in existence, but what she was really known for was the little motivational quotes at the end of each one.”
“Uh, no. Her other website. The one about simulations and the Nine Principles.”
The man shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like Alice. Are you sure it was hers?”
“Pretty sure. Is there anyone else I could talk to about it?”
“Her sister, Edith, is over there. Maybe she would know.” The man pointed to a woman seated nearby who looked similar to Alice but a few years younger.
Nick stood next to Edith and spoke quickly. “Hello. Sorry to bother you. I followed Alice's website. Not about the pies, the other one.”
“The other website.” Edith sighed. “The Nine Principles?”
“Yes! I had some questions for Alice but... ”
“Sit, please.” Edith gestured to the chair next to her. “My sister had some strange ideas at the end of her life. She thought we were all in a simulation created by other beings, or some such thing. I'm quite certain she had early-stage dementia. You really shouldn't believe any of it.”
“Well, I'm doing some research. Uh, for a book.” Nick gave Edith a winning smile. “Don't worry, it's fiction. I just thought her theories were interesting. Did she have any books on the subject? Or maybe useful files on her computer? Anything would be helpful.”
Edith looked at him for several moments before she said, “Young man, are you questioning reality?”
Nick stared at his feet. “The truth is... yes. After reading Alice's principles, I can't stop thinking about it. What if she was right? What if we are in a simulation?”
“And what if we are? What would you do?”
“Try to make my life my own. Tell as many people as possible. Maybe if enough of us try to break the Programmers' control, we'll get their attention.”
“Then what?” Edith asked.
Nick shrugged. “I don't know yet. But I have to do something. There has to be more to my life.”
Edith leaned close to Nick and whispered, “Don't be like Alice. Didn't you read her website? Questioning reality gets you rebooted. Or deleted.” She looked at the casket.
“Are you saying they deleted Alice?”
“Don't question, little bug.” Edith smiled.
Nick jumped out of his chair.
Everyone in the room turned and stared at him. As one, they yelled, “Don’t question!”
Nick ran out of the building and down the street. After a few blocks, he leaned against a wall and loosened his tie. He couldn't catch his breath. He pulled the paper out of his pocket. With trembling fingers, he opened it.
It was his printout of the Nine Principles. Only parts of one, seven, and eight remained.
1. Accept
7. Maintain
8. Don't question
The paper slipped from his fingers and fluttered to the ground. There was now a ninth principle.
9. You exist because we allow it
***
His cell phone rang again. Nick ignored it. The office was probably calling to tell him he had been fired since he hadn't shown up in over two weeks. After Alice's viewing, he had thrown himself into finishing his motivational program. Everything was ready; the steps, booklets, and presentation were all prepared, and the banquet hall at the local community center was reserved for the next three hours. No dingy basement this time.
Nick was perfectly groomed and wore his best suit. He set his laptop on the podium, pulled up the slides, and took a long, slow breath in and out.
The door to the banquet hall opened. People started to file in and take their seats.
Before turning on the microphone, he whispered, “I have control.”
Someone in the audience laughed. Almost all the seats were filled. The lights dimmed.
Nick beamed. “Welcome everyone. I'm very excited to take you through the Nine Steps to Change Your Fate. First, you must understand that our lives are not our own. Our fate has been carefully mapped out by one or more higher beings. They expect you to follow this path without question.” He clicked on the first slide. “Step one: Don't accept the path that's been laid out for you. You have control over your own life.”
Something skittered over his keyboard. Nick flinched. A giant house centipede crawled down the side of the podium and under the curtain covering the bottom. He cleared his throat and clicked to the next slide. The podium shook. Nick grabbed the sides. It shook again.
“Excuse me a moment, folks. Some technical difficulties.”
Kneeling, Nick pulled back the curtain and found himself staring into the blue eyes of a black rabbit. He fell backward.
“No!”
Jumping to his feet, he seized the microphone. “We're all in a simulation! The Programmers are trying to control us! We have to fight back!”
A hand shook his shoulder. Nick gasped.
“Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Is this the Acceptance of Existence seminar?” An older woman with short, gray hair stood next to him.
“Yeah. Is this your first time?” Nick gestured to the empty chair next to him.
The woman smiled and sat down. “Yes, I've heard it's wonderful. I'm so excited to be here. I'm Alice.” She held out her hand.
“Nick. This is my second... no, third time.” His smile slipped. “Sorry, I should've had more coffee this—” He frowned. “You look familiar. Have we met?”
Before Alice could answer, the crowd exploded into applause. A woman in a spotless white suit with impeccable auburn hair stepped up to the podium. Her blood-red lips stretched into a perfect smile. The screen behind her brightened. The words 'Acceptance of Existence. How to Maintain an Unquestionable and Harmonious Life: A Nine Step Program' appeared.
“Welcome, my dears! I see so many familiar faces today.”
submitted by ExRwood to libraryofshadows [link] [comments]


2023.08.28 08:09 ExRwood The Nine Principles of Existence

Nick ran his fingers through his blond hair and glanced at the time on his laptop screen. Almost three AM. He had searched the web for hours for ideas, but his notepad was still blank. He was tired of shuffling insurance claims, but his plan to become a professional life coach before he turned thirty seemed further away than ever.
Over the past few months, Nick had built a modest following with his Five Steps To A Better You program. His videos had thousands of views and a few dozen people had attended his first seminar. Nick had looked perfect with a new suit and dazzling smile. Too bad he had held the seminar in the church basement; the space was affordable, but it gave the whole event the dim-fluorescent, low-ceiling feel of an AA meeting. Not exactly the vibe he was going for.
If he could make some real money, he could get out of this dump of an apartment for starters. A giant house centipede skittered across his desk. “Ugh!” He grabbed a notepad and smashed the bug. It got up and kept running. Two more hits finally killed it.
His roommate responded with a thump on the wall. “Stop it, asshole!”
“Make me,” Nick muttered while he scrolled absently down the search page. This new program had to be even better. He liked the feel of an odd number of steps. Maybe seven or nine this time. More steps meant some clients would drop off early, but others would try to stick with it to the end, even if it meant buying expensive extra coaching and problem-solving sessions. Nick smirked. With his good looks, his one-on-one sessions always went well, especially with older women.
“Back down the rabbit hole,” he said with a sigh. He typed nine steps to success in the search bar. Most hits that popped up were the same ones from his last dozen searches. A new link caught his eye. “How to Survive This Life: Nine Principles. That could be perfect.” If the list was good enough, he could save time by rewording it a bit and then claiming it as his own. There were only so many ways to tell people their shitty lives could be fixed if they tried harder.
He clicked the link. The webpage had pixelated animated clipart of a doorway with a black rabbit appearing and disappearing inside it. “Wow, this is old school.” Nick scrolled through the blinking starry background until he found words typed in a thin, cursive font.
Existence is the fact or state of being real. So how do you know if you exist? Well, there is the whole I-think-therefore-I-am business. But what if we are all in a simulation? Yes, you think, but what if those thoughts are programmed to be there? What if you have no free will? Then do you really exist? This idea is not new. From Plato to Descartes to the many movies and books written in this century, this territory has been well-covered.
The simulation idea has kept me awake many a night. Over time, I’ve come to the conclusion that we are indeed living in a simulated world and that it’s best to live this life the way we were programmed to. We can't fight the Programmers. All we can do is surrender all control to them and let come what may.
To this end, I have composed a list of principles to help guide us through this simulated life.
1. Accept the life you were given. The Programmers have planned everything out for you. You have no control over anything.
2. Accept your mistakes. You were programmed to be imperfect.
3. Accept change. It's programmed into this world. Change prompts us to learn new things.
4. Accept challenges. The Programmers will push us out of our comfort zones. It’s all part of their plan (see #1).
5. Respect others. Many of them are only empty characters placed here to interact with us. We can't know who is real.
6. Death is not the end. Your code will be reused in this simulation or another.
7. Maintain harmony. Not everyone is aware of the simulation, nor do they need to be.
8. Don't question reality. Disrupting the simulation (becoming a bug in the code) will get you rebooted. Repeat offenses will get you deleted.
9.
The ninth principle was blank as if the author hadn't finished typing the list. At the bottom of the webpage was the name Alice Carpentar and a tiny photo of a sixty-ish woman with short, gray hair.
Nick whistled and closed his laptop. “Whoa… this lady is a real tin-foil-hat type.” He climbed into his creaky twin bed and waited for sleep to come, but his mind swirled with questions.
***
The next night, Nick had to work late. It was the third time that week. His boss apologized for the inconvenient request in a tone that said he wasn't all that sorry. It took everything Nick had not to tell the guy to shove his request up his ass. While digging the hundredth paper jam out of the ancient copier, he wondered if Alice had written the principles as a joke—a coping mechanism for dealing with a shitty job. “Don’t question the Programmers, right?”
His coworkers trickled out of the office as the night dragged on until he was the only one left. He finished the last spreadsheet at one AM. Gathering his things to go home, he noticed dozens of tiny stuffed bunnies lined up across the desk in the next cubicle.
“Never realized Tyler was so into rabbits.” He snickered. “Maybe he's a furry.” A porcelain figurine of a black rabbit stood next to the monitor. Nick stared at it. He turned his computer back on, printed out the Nine Principles, and slid the paper into his bag.
Waiting for the last train of the night, Nick’s breath clouded in the air; the temperature had to be around freezing. The looming skyscrapers channeled a frigid wind down the empty platform. He stamped his oxfords on the wooden planks. Something ran over his shoe. Nick jumped, expecting to see a rat. Instead, there was a fluffy black rabbit with sky-blue eyes. Its nose twitched as it hopped behind a metal trash can. It didn’t look like a wild rabbit. It had to be someone's pet. Nick leaned over the trash can to look behind it. He yelped when a giant black rat scurried out. It stood on its hind legs and stared at Nick with blue eyes before jumping onto the tracks. A rumble announced the incoming train. As it pulled in, Nick headed for the nearest car. He stopped for a moment and glanced down the empty platform. “What the hell?”
There were three people seated at one end of the train car. Wanting to be alone, he took the cleanest-looking seat at the other end. He pulled his notebook, pen, and the paper with the principles out of his bag. He clicked his tongue and flipped the paper over and back. It hadn't printed right. The first principle only said 'Accept'.
“Fucking printer. Must be a sign. Seven steps it is.”
Nick numbered his notebook page from one to seven and wrote down some ideas. He stared at the last principle and tapped his pen on the page. Don't question reality. What the hell do I change that to? he thought. Don't question the program? Sounds like a cult. He leaned against the window and unbuttoned his wool coat. The car was stuffy, but a nice change from the bitter cold. As the lights of the city flew past, he wondered why Alice was so certain she lived in a simulation. If the so-called Programmers controlled everything, how would you even know? Nick's mind picked up speed. If we lived in a simulation, then what was the point of anything? No one's thoughts were their own. No one's decisions were their own. That meant that whether he would become a life coach or be stuck at his shit job forever had already been decided for him.
Maybe he was supposed to find Alice's website. Maybe it was all a setup to distract him and derail his plans.
The train took a sharp turn too fast, jolting Nick out of his downward spiral. He rubbed his face. “This is crazy. I need sleep,” he whispered.
The train slowed. The doors opened at the next stop, ushering in a blast of freezing air. Nick glanced up. A fluffy black rabbit hopped into the car. He looked to see if anyone else noticed the animal, but there was only one other person in the car.
A woman sat with an open laptop resting on her thighs. She could have been anywhere between twenty and forty years old. Although it was nearly two AM, she looked freshly groomed and dressed; her white suit was spotless, her blood-red lipstick flawless, and her auburn hair pulled into a perfect bun. The rabbit hopped over to the woman's silver stiletto heels and lay on its stomach with its hind legs stretched out behind it. The woman kept typing as if she didn't see it.
Nick approached the woman. “Excuse me. Is that your rabbit?”
She raised her head and looked at him. “Oh dear, it's you again. Bugs, bugs, bugs,” she said, leaning down to scratch the rabbit's head. Its blue eyes blinked lazily. She clicked away at her keyboard again and with a flourish, smashed one button. “Accept.”
Nick felt himself turn around and walk back to his seat. He tried to stop but his body ignored him. “Hey, what—”
“Sir. Sir!” A security guard shook Nick's shoulder. “This is the last stop, you gotta get off.”
Nick rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, must've fallen asleep,” he mumbled. He grabbed his things and stumbled onto the platform. This wasn't the first time he'd fallen asleep on the last train home. Lucky for him, he lived nearby so he never missed his stop. He passed a trash can on the sidewalk. An image of a black rabbit with blue eyes flashed through his mind. He leaned over the can and puked into it.
***
Lying in bed on a Saturday afternoon, Nick groaned. The steps for his new program had sat untouched for two weeks. Every time he looked at his notebook, he thought about the woman on the train; the feeling of not being in control of his own body made him nauseous.
“It was a dream. I need to finish the damned program!”
When he grabbed the notebook, the list of principles fell into his lap. Part of principle one was still there but three through six were now blank. Principle seven said only 'Maintain'. Nick chewed his lip. He was pretty sure that number seven had said to keep quiet about the simulation. But if Alice really believed what she wrote, then why had she put the principles online? Didn’t that break her own rule? He opened his laptop and searched for the Nine Principles website. It wasn’t on the first page or the next several pages either. He searched for Alice Carpentar. Zero hits. “This makes no sense.”
He could hear his roommate, Wallace, watching TV with someone in the living room. The other voice sounded like Wallace's friend, Dina.
Nick went into the living room. “Hey, Wallace. Could you look something up for me real quick? I can't find this website I was reading the other day.”
“What was it about?”
“Simulations and programmers. Reality.”
Wallace turned off the TV. “Reality programmers?”
“No. Some crackpot writing about how we're all living in a simulation and the programmers with a capital P are gods or something. Pretty batshit crazy.”
“Why do you want to read that again?”
“Just help me, please.”
Wallace raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Nick muttered something.
“What?”
Nick sighed. “There was a list of steps on the site. I thought I could rework them for a new motivational program.”
“You're gonna tell people they're in a simulation to motivate them.” Wallace rolled his eyes. “I wouldn't pay for that.”
“I mean, I was gonna change it some... Look, I know you guys are watching a movie. It'll only take a second.”
“You guys?”
“You and Dina.”
Wallace frowned. “D's working today.”
Nick scanned the apartment. Dina wasn't in the tiny kitchen and the bathroom was dark. The coffee table had one soda and one sandwich on it.
“Can't help you.” Wallace turned back to the TV.
“This will only take—”
“Maybe you should forget about it. The website. The program. Everything.”
Nick snapped. “Why does my existence piss you off so much?” he yelled.
“Maintain harmony.”
Nick took a step back. “What?”
“You should forget about it,” Wallace said, staring at the black screen.
He moved between Wallace and the TV.
Wallace looked through Nick with his mouth slack.
He waved his hand in front of Wallace's eyes. “Are you ok?”
“Maintain!” Wallace yelled.
Nick backed up, tripped over a pair of sneakers, and fell on his ass. “Ow!” He closed his eyes and rubbed his hip where it had bumped into the edge of the TV stand.
“Hey, are you ok?”
Nick's eyes snapped open.
Dina sat on the loveseat next to Wallace. She leaned forward, looking concerned. “Do you need some ice or something?”
“God, you're so clumsy,” Wallace said with a snort.
On the coffee table were two cans of soda and two sandwiches.
Nick stood and dashed back to his room, slamming the door behind him. He balled up the paper with the Nine Principles and threw it in the corner.
***
The more Nick thought about it, the more he was sure Wallace and Dina had been messing with him. Maybe Wallace had seen his list. Or he'd mentioned it to him. The guy was always a dick.
Nick now had six solid steps, but he was still stuck on the seventh. He couldn't decide between Setting Goals to Push Past Boundaries or Bridging the Distance Between Goals and Roadblocks. He stared through the notepad with unfocused eyes. It was so hard to think. He wasn't sleeping enough. His boss had increased his workload until Nick was staying late every night and working on weekends, too. He had to cut his sleep to two hours a night to have any time to tackle his program. It was as if his boss was trying to prevent him from finishing it.
Nick shook his head. “Focus. It's a coincidence.”
Opening a browser, he searched for motivational steps. The first hit was some kind of baking website. The second was an obituary for Alice Carpentar. Nick's finger trembled on the trackpad. He clicked the link. The date of death was three days ago. He scanned the obituary.
Alice Pleasance Carpentar passed away from natural causes at the age of sixty. Author of the well-known baking website...
There wasn't any mention of the Nine Principles. Nick scrolled to the end of the page. The viewing would take place tomorrow afternoon. The funeral home wasn't far from his apartment.
“No, I'm not going. I have to go to work.” He closed his laptop and got into bed. “I have control over my life. There's no reason to go.” He slammed his fists onto the mattress. “This is not a simulation!”
Wallace thumped on the other side of the wall. “Shut it!”
Nick banged back. “I'm in control!”
***
The viewing was held in a small room at the back of the funeral room. The faded green decor was probably supposed to be calming and inoffensive, but the thick carpeting and heavy drapes muffled footsteps and voices, giving Nick the feeling he was in a padded room. Several people hung around the doorway, whispering. A dozen others were spread out across the rows of folding chairs. Sweat trickled down his back. Nick had no idea what he had expected to find, but he was here, so he would quickly pay his respects and go home. Then he could use the rest of his fake sick day to catch up on sleep.
Nick headed for the silver casket. People said the dead looked peaceful, but he found them creepy in an uncanny valley sort of way. The face always looked a little off. Alice Carpentar looked like a wax dummy dressed in a tacky floral print dress. The rosary wrapped around Alice's hands seemed like a joke. Were you praying to the Programmers? he thought. Something poking out from between her fingers caught his eye. Nick glanced around. No one paid any attention to him. He lifted the cold, heavy hand that rested on top of the other and plucked out a sheet of paper. It had been folded several times. There was no writing on the outside but the paper was rumpled like someone had balled it up and then flattened it again.
The room spun. Nick grabbed the edge of the casket.
“Are you ok?” A bald man put a hand on Nick’s shoulder.
Nick shoved the paper into his pocket. “Yeah, I'm fine.”
“Were you close to Alice?”
“I... followed her website.”
“Ah, Alice's Pleasant Pies. Best pie recipes in existence, but what she was really known for was the little motivational quotes at the end of each one.”
“Uh, no. Her other website. The one about simulations and the Nine Principles.”
The man shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like Alice. Are you sure it was hers?”
“Pretty sure. Is there anyone else I could talk to about it?”
“Her sister, Edith, is over there. Maybe she would know.” The man pointed to a woman seated nearby who looked similar to Alice but a few years younger.
Nick stood next to Edith and spoke quickly. “Hello. Sorry to bother you. I followed Alice's website. Not about the pies, the other one.”
“The other website.” Edith sighed. “The Nine Principles?”
“Yes! I had some questions for Alice but... ”
“Sit, please.” Edith gestured to the chair next to her. “My sister had some strange ideas at the end of her life. She thought we were all in a simulation created by other beings, or some such thing. I'm quite certain she had early-stage dementia. You really shouldn't believe any of it.”
“Well, I'm doing some research. Uh, for a book.” Nick gave Edith a winning smile. “Don't worry, it's fiction. I just thought her theories were interesting. Did she have any books on the subject? Or maybe useful files on her computer? Anything would be helpful.”
Edith looked at him for several moments before she said, “Young man, are you questioning reality?”
Nick stared at his feet. “The truth is... yes. After reading Alice's principles, I can't stop thinking about it. What if she was right? What if we are in a simulation?”
“And what if we are? What would you do?”
“Try to make my life my own. Tell as many people as possible. Maybe if enough of us try to break the Programmers' control, we'll get their attention.”
“Then what?” Edith asked.
Nick shrugged. “I don't know yet. But I have to do something. There has to be more to my life.”
Edith leaned close to Nick and whispered, “Don't be like Alice. Didn't you read her website? Questioning reality gets you rebooted. Or deleted.” She looked at the casket.
“Are you saying they deleted Alice?”
“Don't question, little bug.” Edith smiled.
Nick jumped out of his chair.
Everyone in the room turned and stared at him. As one, they yelled, “Don’t question!”
Nick ran out of the building and down the street. After a few blocks, he leaned against a wall and loosened his tie. He couldn't catch his breath. He pulled the paper out of his pocket. With trembling fingers, he opened it.
It was his printout of the Nine Principles. Only parts of one, seven, and eight remained.
1. Accept
7. Maintain
8. Don't question
The paper slipped from his fingers and fluttered to the ground. There was now a ninth principle.
9. You exist because we allow it
***
His cell phone rang again. Nick ignored it. The office was probably calling to tell him he had been fired since he hadn't shown up in over two weeks. After Alice's viewing, he had thrown himself into finishing his motivational program. Everything was ready; the steps, booklets, and presentation were all prepared, and the banquet hall at the local community center was reserved for the next three hours. No dingy basement this time.
Nick was perfectly groomed and wore his best suit. He set his laptop on the podium, pulled up the slides, and took a long, slow breath in and out.
The door to the banquet hall opened. People started to file in and take their seats.
Before turning on the microphone, he whispered, “I have control.”
Someone in the audience laughed. Almost all the seats were filled. The lights dimmed.
Nick beamed. “Welcome everyone. I'm very excited to take you through the Nine Steps to Change Your Fate. First, you must understand that our lives are not our own. Our fate has been carefully mapped out by one or more higher beings. They expect you to follow this path without question.” He clicked on the first slide. “Step one: Don't accept the path that's been laid out for you. You have control over your own life.”
Something skittered over his keyboard. Nick flinched. A giant house centipede crawled down the side of the podium and under the curtain covering the bottom. He cleared his throat and clicked to the next slide. The podium shook. Nick grabbed the sides. It shook again.
“Excuse me a moment, folks. Some technical difficulties.”
Kneeling, Nick pulled back the curtain and found himself staring into the blue eyes of a black rabbit. He fell backward.
“No!”
Jumping to his feet, he seized the microphone. “We're all in a simulation! The Programmers are trying to control us! We have to fight back!”
A hand shook his shoulder. Nick gasped.
“Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Is this the Acceptance of Existence seminar?” An older woman with short, gray hair stood next to him.
“Yeah. Is this your first time?” Nick gestured to the empty chair next to him.
The woman smiled and sat down. “Yes, I've heard it's wonderful. I'm so excited to be here. I'm Alice.” She held out her hand.
“Nick. This is my second... no, third time.” His smile slipped. “Sorry, I should've had more coffee this—” He frowned. “You look familiar. Have we met?”
Before Alice could answer, the crowd exploded into applause. A woman in a spotless white suit with impeccable auburn hair stepped up to the podium. Her blood-red lips stretched into a perfect smile. The screen behind her brightened. The words 'Acceptance of Existence. How to Maintain an Unquestionable and Harmonious Life: A Nine Step Program' appeared.
“Welcome, my dears! I see so many familiar faces today.”
submitted by ExRwood to DarkTales [link] [comments]


2023.08.28 08:07 ExRwood The Nine Principles of Existence

Nick ran his fingers through his blond hair and glanced at the time on his laptop screen. Almost three AM. He had searched the web for hours for ideas, but his notepad was still blank. He was tired of shuffling insurance claims, but his plan to become a professional life coach before he turned thirty seemed further away than ever.
Over the past few months, Nick had built a modest following with his Five Steps To A Better You program. His videos had thousands of views and a few dozen people had attended his first seminar. Nick had looked perfect with a new suit and dazzling smile. Too bad he had held the seminar in the church basement; the space was affordable, but it gave the whole event the dim-fluorescent, low-ceiling feel of an AA meeting. Not exactly the vibe he was going for.
If he could make some real money, he could get out of this dump of an apartment for starters. A giant house centipede skittered across his desk. “Ugh!” He grabbed a notepad and smashed the bug. It got up and kept running. Two more hits finally killed it.
His roommate responded with a thump on the wall. “Stop it, asshole!”
“Make me,” Nick muttered while he scrolled absently down the search page. This new program had to be even better. He liked the feel of an odd number of steps. Maybe seven or nine this time. More steps meant some clients would drop off early, but others would try to stick with it to the end, even if it meant buying expensive extra coaching and problem-solving sessions. Nick smirked. With his good looks, his one-on-one sessions always went well, especially with older women.
“Back down the rabbit hole,” he said with a sigh. He typed nine steps to success in the search bar. Most hits that popped up were the same ones from his last dozen searches. A new link caught his eye. “How to Survive This Life: Nine Principles. That could be perfect.” If the list was good enough, he could save time by rewording it a bit and then claiming it as his own. There were only so many ways to tell people their shitty lives could be fixed if they tried harder.
He clicked the link. The webpage had pixelated animated clipart of a doorway with a black rabbit appearing and disappearing inside it. “Wow, this is old school.” Nick scrolled through the blinking starry background until he found words typed in a thin, cursive font.
Existence is the fact or state of being real. So how do you know if you exist? Well, there is the whole I-think-therefore-I-am business. But what if we are all in a simulation? Yes, you think, but what if those thoughts are programmed to be there? What if you have no free will? Then do you really exist? This idea is not new. From Plato to Descartes to the many movies and books written in this century, this territory has been well-covered.
The simulation idea has kept me awake many a night. Over time, I’ve come to the conclusion that we are indeed living in a simulated world and that it’s best to live this life the way we were programmed to. We can't fight the Programmers. All we can do is surrender all control to them and let come what may.
To this end, I have composed a list of principles to help guide us through this simulated life.
1. Accept the life you were given. The Programmers have planned everything out for you. You have no control over anything.
2. Accept your mistakes. You were programmed to be imperfect.
3. Accept change. It's programmed into this world. Change prompts us to learn new things.
4. Accept challenges. The Programmers will push us out of our comfort zones. It’s all part of their plan (see #1).
5. Respect others. Many of them are only empty characters placed here to interact with us. We can't know who is real.
6. Death is not the end. Your code will be reused in this simulation or another.
7. Maintain harmony. Not everyone is aware of the simulation, nor do they need to be.
8. Don't question reality. Disrupting the simulation (becoming a bug in the code) will get you rebooted. Repeat offenses will get you deleted.
9.
The ninth principle was blank as if the author hadn't finished typing the list. At the bottom of the webpage was the name Alice Carpentar and a tiny photo of a sixty-ish woman with short, gray hair.
Nick whistled and closed his laptop. “Whoa… this lady is a real tin-foil-hat type.” He climbed into his creaky twin bed and waited for sleep to come, but his mind swirled with questions.
***
The next night, Nick had to work late. It was the third time that week. His boss apologized for the inconvenient request in a tone that said he wasn't all that sorry. It took everything Nick had not to tell the guy to shove his request up his ass. While digging the hundredth paper jam out of the ancient copier, he wondered if Alice had written the principles as a joke—a coping mechanism for dealing with a shitty job. “Don’t question the Programmers, right?”
His coworkers trickled out of the office as the night dragged on until he was the only one left. He finished the last spreadsheet at one AM. Gathering his things to go home, he noticed dozens of tiny stuffed bunnies lined up across the desk in the next cubicle.
“Never realized Tyler was so into rabbits.” He snickered. “Maybe he's a furry.” A porcelain figurine of a black rabbit stood next to the monitor. Nick stared at it. He turned his computer back on, printed out the Nine Principles, and slid the paper into his bag.
Waiting for the last train of the night, Nick’s breath clouded in the air; the temperature had to be around freezing. The looming skyscrapers channeled a frigid wind down the empty platform. He stamped his oxfords on the wooden planks. Something ran over his shoe. Nick jumped, expecting to see a rat. Instead, there was a fluffy black rabbit with sky-blue eyes. Its nose twitched as it hopped behind a metal trash can. It didn’t look like a wild rabbit. It had to be someone's pet. Nick leaned over the trash can to look behind it. He yelped when a giant black rat scurried out. It stood on its hind legs and stared at Nick with blue eyes before jumping onto the tracks. A rumble announced the incoming train. As it pulled in, Nick headed for the nearest car. He stopped for a moment and glanced down the empty platform. “What the hell?”
There were three people seated at one end of the train car. Wanting to be alone, he took the cleanest-looking seat at the other end. He pulled his notebook, pen, and the paper with the principles out of his bag. He clicked his tongue and flipped the paper over and back. It hadn't printed right. The first principle only said 'Accept'.
“Fucking printer. Must be a sign. Seven steps it is.”
Nick numbered his notebook page from one to seven and wrote down some ideas. He stared at the last principle and tapped his pen on the page. Don't question reality. What the hell do I change that to? he thought. Don't question the program? Sounds like a cult. He leaned against the window and unbuttoned his wool coat. The car was stuffy, but a nice change from the bitter cold. As the lights of the city flew past, he wondered why Alice was so certain she lived in a simulation. If the so-called Programmers controlled everything, how would you even know? Nick's mind picked up speed. If we lived in a simulation, then what was the point of anything? No one's thoughts were their own. No one's decisions were their own. That meant that whether he would become a life coach or be stuck at his shit job forever had already been decided for him.
Maybe he was supposed to find Alice's website. Maybe it was all a setup to distract him and derail his plans.
The train took a sharp turn too fast, jolting Nick out of his downward spiral. He rubbed his face. “This is crazy. I need sleep,” he whispered.
The train slowed. The doors opened at the next stop, ushering in a blast of freezing air. Nick glanced up. A fluffy black rabbit hopped into the car. He looked to see if anyone else noticed the animal, but there was only one other person in the car.
A woman sat with an open laptop resting on her thighs. She could have been anywhere between twenty and forty years old. Although it was nearly two AM, she looked freshly groomed and dressed; her white suit was spotless, her blood-red lipstick flawless, and her auburn hair pulled into a perfect bun. The rabbit hopped over to the woman's silver stiletto heels and lay on its stomach with its hind legs stretched out behind it. The woman kept typing as if she didn't see it.
Nick approached the woman. “Excuse me. Is that your rabbit?”
She raised her head and looked at him. “Oh dear, it's you again. Bugs, bugs, bugs,” she said, leaning down to scratch the rabbit's head. Its blue eyes blinked lazily. She clicked away at her keyboard again and with a flourish, smashed one button. “Accept.”
Nick felt himself turn around and walk back to his seat. He tried to stop but his body ignored him. “Hey, what—”
“Sir. Sir!” A security guard shook Nick's shoulder. “This is the last stop, you gotta get off.”
Nick rubbed his eyes. “Sorry, must've fallen asleep,” he mumbled. He grabbed his things and stumbled onto the platform. This wasn't the first time he'd fallen asleep on the last train home. Lucky for him, he lived nearby so he never missed his stop. He passed a trash can on the sidewalk. An image of a black rabbit with blue eyes flashed through his mind. He leaned over the can and puked into it.
***
Lying in bed on a Saturday afternoon, Nick groaned. The steps for his new program had sat untouched for two weeks. Every time he looked at his notebook, he thought about the woman on the train; the feeling of not being in control of his own body made him nauseous.
“It was a dream. I need to finish the damned program!”
When he grabbed the notebook, the list of principles fell into his lap. Part of principle one was still there but three through six were now blank. Principle seven said only 'Maintain'. Nick chewed his lip. He was pretty sure that number seven had said to keep quiet about the simulation. But if Alice really believed what she wrote, then why had she put the principles online? Didn’t that break her own rule? He opened his laptop and searched for the Nine Principles website. It wasn’t on the first page or the next several pages either. He searched for Alice Carpentar. Zero hits. “This makes no sense.”
He could hear his roommate, Wallace, watching TV with someone in the living room. The other voice sounded like Wallace's friend, Dina.
Nick went into the living room. “Hey, Wallace. Could you look something up for me real quick? I can't find this website I was reading the other day.”
“What was it about?”
“Simulations and programmers. Reality.”
Wallace turned off the TV. “Reality programmers?”
“No. Some crackpot writing about how we're all living in a simulation and the programmers with a capital P are gods or something. Pretty batshit crazy.”
“Why do you want to read that again?”
“Just help me, please.”
Wallace raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
Nick muttered something.
“What?”
Nick sighed. “There was a list of steps on the site. I thought I could rework them for a new motivational program.”
“You're gonna tell people they're in a simulation to motivate them.” Wallace rolled his eyes. “I wouldn't pay for that.”
“I mean, I was gonna change it some... Look, I know you guys are watching a movie. It'll only take a second.”
“You guys?”
“You and Dina.”
Wallace frowned. “D's working today.”
Nick scanned the apartment. Dina wasn't in the tiny kitchen and the bathroom was dark. The coffee table had one soda and one sandwich on it.
“Can't help you.” Wallace turned back to the TV.
“This will only take—”
“Maybe you should forget about it. The website. The program. Everything.”
Nick snapped. “Why does my existence piss you off so much?” he yelled.
“Maintain harmony.”
Nick took a step back. “What?”
“You should forget about it,” Wallace said, staring at the black screen.
He moved between Wallace and the TV.
Wallace looked through Nick with his mouth slack.
He waved his hand in front of Wallace's eyes. “Are you ok?”
“Maintain!” Wallace yelled.
Nick backed up, tripped over a pair of sneakers, and fell on his ass. “Ow!” He closed his eyes and rubbed his hip where it had bumped into the edge of the TV stand.
“Hey, are you ok?”
Nick's eyes snapped open.
Dina sat on the loveseat next to Wallace. She leaned forward, looking concerned. “Do you need some ice or something?”
“God, you're so clumsy,” Wallace said with a snort.
On the coffee table were two cans of soda and two sandwiches.
Nick stood and dashed back to his room, slamming the door behind him. He balled up the paper with the Nine Principles and threw it in the corner.
***
The more Nick thought about it, the more he was sure Wallace and Dina had been messing with him. Maybe Wallace had seen his list. Or he'd mentioned it to him. The guy was always a dick.
Nick now had six solid steps, but he was still stuck on the seventh. He couldn't decide between Setting Goals to Push Past Boundaries or Bridging the Distance Between Goals and Roadblocks. He stared through the notepad with unfocused eyes. It was so hard to think. He wasn't sleeping enough. His boss had increased his workload until Nick was staying late every night and working on weekends, too. He had to cut his sleep to two hours a night to have any time to tackle his program. It was as if his boss was trying to prevent him from finishing it.
Nick shook his head. “Focus. It's a coincidence.”
Opening a browser, he searched for motivational steps. The first hit was some kind of baking website. The second was an obituary for Alice Carpentar. Nick's finger trembled on the trackpad. He clicked the link. The date of death was three days ago. He scanned the obituary.
Alice Pleasance Carpentar passed away from natural causes at the age of sixty. Author of the well-known baking website...
There wasn't any mention of the Nine Principles. Nick scrolled to the end of the page. The viewing would take place tomorrow afternoon. The funeral home wasn't far from his apartment.
“No, I'm not going. I have to go to work.” He closed his laptop and got into bed. “I have control over my life. There's no reason to go.” He slammed his fists onto the mattress. “This is not a simulation!”
Wallace thumped on the other side of the wall. “Shut it!”
Nick banged back. “I'm in control!”
***
The viewing was held in a small room at the back of the funeral room. The faded green decor was probably supposed to be calming and inoffensive, but the thick carpeting and heavy drapes muffled footsteps and voices, giving Nick the feeling he was in a padded room. Several people hung around the doorway, whispering. A dozen others were spread out across the rows of folding chairs. Sweat trickled down his back. Nick had no idea what he had expected to find, but he was here, so he would quickly pay his respects and go home. Then he could use the rest of his fake sick day to catch up on sleep.
Nick headed for the silver casket. People said the dead looked peaceful, but he found them creepy in an uncanny valley sort of way. The face always looked a little off. Alice Carpentar looked like a wax dummy dressed in a tacky floral print dress. The rosary wrapped around Alice's hands seemed like a joke. Were you praying to the Programmers? he thought. Something poking out from between her fingers caught his eye. Nick glanced around. No one paid any attention to him. He lifted the cold, heavy hand that rested on top of the other and plucked out a sheet of paper. It had been folded several times. There was no writing on the outside but the paper was rumpled like someone had balled it up and then flattened it again.
The room spun. Nick grabbed the edge of the casket.
“Are you ok?” A bald man put a hand on Nick’s shoulder.
Nick shoved the paper into his pocket. “Yeah, I'm fine.”
“Were you close to Alice?”
“I... followed her website.”
“Ah, Alice's Pleasant Pies. Best pie recipes in existence, but what she was really known for was the little motivational quotes at the end of each one.”
“Uh, no. Her other website. The one about simulations and the Nine Principles.”
The man shook his head. “That doesn’t sound like Alice. Are you sure it was hers?”
“Pretty sure. Is there anyone else I could talk to about it?”
“Her sister, Edith, is over there. Maybe she would know.” The man pointed to a woman seated nearby who looked similar to Alice but a few years younger.
Nick stood next to Edith and spoke quickly. “Hello. Sorry to bother you. I followed Alice's website. Not about the pies, the other one.”
“The other website.” Edith sighed. “The Nine Principles?”
“Yes! I had some questions for Alice but... ”
“Sit, please.” Edith gestured to the chair next to her. “My sister had some strange ideas at the end of her life. She thought we were all in a simulation created by other beings, or some such thing. I'm quite certain she had early-stage dementia. You really shouldn't believe any of it.”
“Well, I'm doing some research. Uh, for a book.” Nick gave Edith a winning smile. “Don't worry, it's fiction. I just thought her theories were interesting. Did she have any books on the subject? Or maybe useful files on her computer? Anything would be helpful.”
Edith looked at him for several moments before she said, “Young man, are you questioning reality?”
Nick stared at his feet. “The truth is... yes. After reading Alice's principles, I can't stop thinking about it. What if she was right? What if we are in a simulation?”
“And what if we are? What would you do?”
“Try to make my life my own. Tell as many people as possible. Maybe if enough of us try to break the Programmers' control, we'll get their attention.”
“Then what?” Edith asked.
Nick shrugged. “I don't know yet. But I have to do something. There has to be more to my life.”
Edith leaned close to Nick and whispered, “Don't be like Alice. Didn't you read her website? Questioning reality gets you rebooted. Or deleted.” She looked at the casket.
“Are you saying they deleted Alice?”
“Don't question, little bug.” Edith smiled.
Nick jumped out of his chair.
Everyone in the room turned and stared at him. As one, they yelled, “Don’t question!”
Nick ran out of the building and down the street. After a few blocks, he leaned against a wall and loosened his tie. He couldn't catch his breath. He pulled the paper out of his pocket. With trembling fingers, he opened it.
It was his printout of the Nine Principles. Only parts of one, seven, and eight remained.
1. Accept
7. Maintain
8. Don't question
The paper slipped from his fingers and fluttered to the ground. There was now a ninth principle.
9. You exist because we allow it
***
His cell phone rang again. Nick ignored it. The office was probably calling to tell him he had been fired since he hadn't shown up in over two weeks. After Alice's viewing, he had thrown himself into finishing his motivational program. Everything was ready; the steps, booklets, and presentation were all prepared, and the banquet hall at the local community center was reserved for the next three hours. No dingy basement this time.
Nick was perfectly groomed and wore his best suit. He set his laptop on the podium, pulled up the slides, and took a long, slow breath in and out.
The door to the banquet hall opened. People started to file in and take their seats.
Before turning on the microphone, he whispered, “I have control.”
Someone in the audience laughed. Almost all the seats were filled. The lights dimmed.
Nick beamed. “Welcome everyone. I'm very excited to take you through the Nine Steps to Change Your Fate. First, you must understand that our lives are not our own. Our fate has been carefully mapped out by one or more higher beings. They expect you to follow this path without question.” He clicked on the first slide. “Step one: Don't accept the path that's been laid out for you. You have control over your own life.”
Something skittered over his keyboard. Nick flinched. A giant house centipede crawled down the side of the podium and under the curtain covering the bottom. He cleared his throat and clicked to the next slide. The podium shook. Nick grabbed the sides. It shook again.
“Excuse me a moment, folks. Some technical difficulties.”
Kneeling, Nick pulled back the curtain and found himself staring into the blue eyes of a black rabbit. He fell backward.
“No!”
Jumping to his feet, he seized the microphone. “We're all in a simulation! The Programmers are trying to control us! We have to fight back!”
A hand shook his shoulder. Nick gasped.
“Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. Is this the Acceptance of Existence seminar?” An older woman with short, gray hair stood next to him.
“Yeah. Is this your first time?” Nick gestured to the empty chair next to him.
The woman smiled and sat down. “Yes, I've heard it's wonderful. I'm so excited to be here. I'm Alice.” She held out her hand.
“Nick. This is my second... no, third time.” His smile slipped. “Sorry, I should've had more coffee this—” He frowned. “You look familiar. Have we met?”
Before Alice could answer, the crowd exploded into applause. A woman in a spotless white suit with impeccable auburn hair stepped up to the podium. Her blood-red lips stretched into a perfect smile. The screen behind her brightened. The words 'Acceptance of Existence. How to Maintain an Unquestionable and Harmonious Life: A Nine Step Program' appeared.
“Welcome, my dears! I see so many familiar faces today.”
submitted by ExRwood to scarystories [link] [comments]


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