Control your own men war games
God of War
2012.03.23 17:42 AegeanSea God of War
God of War is a third person action-adventure video game developed by Santa Monica Studio and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. God of War won Game of the Year 2018. This subreddit is dedicated to discussion of the games and sharing news about them. Or posting anything related to GOW really.
2018.06.12 03:44 Mricypaw1 r/Control
The subreddit for the third-person supernatural shooter, Control by Remedy Entertainment.
2011.06.19 19:59 evanevan297 The Men of War Community
2024.05.15 16:20 Honest-File9357 Why I'm vehemently FTP
Tl;dr Version for anyone who doesn't want to read a bit of a rant: This game is way too damn greedy.
Some Various disclaimers and background information before the rant:
1.The top heavy nature of the roster. "When everybody's special, no one will be"- Angry animated ginger dude (rip in peace). When I first started playing this game and doing some pulls I felt like a superstar, I mean wow I'm pulling all these super rares like it's nothing, even got all my counter girls maxed out and after about ~60 pulls I've managed 2 super super rares! Then I started to notice how all these "super rares" seem to have all hit max limit break and peeked at the Nikkepedia to realize the sad truth of this game. Given my past experiences with gacha I expected maybe something like 30% of the roster to be "SSR", not 95%. What's even more baffling is that the SSR actually does have it's own subcategory of "hey, these are actually the super rare ones" with Pilgrims having a miniscule chance to pull. I didn't want to put a list inside my list ( yo dawg, heard you like lists) but there's a few reasons why I really dislike this, and it was getting more and more "massive block of text" while I typed it so sorry.
-The first and probably most readily apparent issue being that it means you're unlocking new characters at a snails pace. It feels like the intended way to unlock new characters is to throw thousands of gems/ recruit rosters at the slot machine so you can do the high quality mold to actually have a chance (more on this later) to get a new character. I realize luck is a subjective matter, and yeah I've seen posts from people bragging about pulling 4-5 SSR in a pull, but objectively speaking the other gacha games were far more generous with the unlocking of new characters.
-Secondly, and probably what I hate the most, is that these "SSR" are simply not created equally (putting aside the obvious and aforementioned "actual SSR" of the pilgrims). I'm not saying every Nikke has to be an absolute powerhouse (more on this later) but if you want to make Nikkes that are just inferior versions of other Nikkes or have kits that just straight up aren't good, I dunno chief...maybe put them in a lower tier of the roster? Hell putting aside the meta/ actually caring about the kits of your waifus let's just talk about the lore/ backstory of these characters. Matis (my favorite squad, big hearts and kisses especially for Drake), the super star hero squad and best the Missilis company has to offer? Okay sure, makes sense they're SRR. Prima Donna Nikkes that...work in the music industry for some reason? Uh okay not sure why these military bots are making music but they're famous ig so why not, SSR it is. Oh hey Absolute, Rapi's former squad and supposed elite of Elysion now that's a contender for SSR for sure. Maid for you, Nikkes that run a maid cafe...well let's make em SSR. Okay okay I shouldn't hawk on the waifu game having waifus that are character archetypes even if it makes absolutely no sense in the setting of the game but you still get the point right? You have characters that are presented to you as the cream of the crop (in other words have lore friendly reasons to be classified as SSR) thrown into the same category of rarity of characters that work in maid cafes or other random civilian jobs/ hobbies. This all putting aside the actual strength of these character's kits (Matis is pretty good at least, big hearts and kisses) I'm simply referring to the story reasons for characters to be presented as "SSR".
-Thirdly this all just reeks of some system you see in a lot of games where they use certain words to artificially make you feel more accomplished, if that makes any sense. The lowest tier (of absolute garbage) is referred to as "rare", the slightly better but ultimately still useless (<3 u Rapi/ Anne) tier is "super rare", and the bulk of the roster is "super super rare." Fellas, that's not how the word "rare" works at all. I feel like most games at least refer to their filler trash as "common" or the like so why does the game call the, in lore, mass produced no personality foot soldier Nikkes "rare"? This leads back to "SSR" having it's own category of rarity, did they realize "SSSR" would look and sound stupid so that's why Pilgrims don't have their own category? I dunno, could have called it "ultra super dooper cream your pants because you're a real winner rare" or they could have just (alongside making some of the "unworthies" a lower tier) gone with 4 tiers with a more honest and conventional naming system (common- uncommon-rare-epic) but they didn't because that doesn't trigger the dopamine in slack jawed gamer so they like you more and spend more money or whatever reason so many games use terminology that feels like patting you on the back. Almost lost my cool there, sounding a lil schizo huh? Let's move on to the other main point to save face.
-Oh yeah, recommended power levels. A lot of games have the system of "increase your number to keep up with the enemies increasing number" but none of those feels like a slap in the face as this game's system of "you'll either meet this required number or we'll just nerf your damage to the ground" (evidently the exact percentage of this used to be a lot worse before they patched it, further proof that the playerbase isn't against the game being made more accessible). This is probably the part where the Nikke superfan tells me I just have a massive skill issue and it's totally possible to clear these missions at a deficit, and this is absolutely true. I've seem some superstars talking about clearing levels while under 20k or more the recommended amount (I've only managed 10k, all thanks to Crown whom I love and cherish) and you know what the secret to success is? I just hinted at it in those parenthesis but it comes down to pulling "the right" SSR Nikkes. Okay that's a little disingenuous , as there's a little bit of skill/ understanding of the games system involved and grinding out the various resources you need to level said actually good SSR Nikkes, but it doesn't change the fact that there are Nikkes you actually want if you care about progressing through the game and there's all the ones you don't that seemingly only exist to reduce your chances of pulling these Nikkes. Let's backtrack to that "wishlist" system for a bit, which is what is intended to make sure you get the (non pilgrim) Nikkes you want like Liter or Tia. You'll recall that the wishlist doesn't increase your total chance to pull a SRR (makes sense) but just ensures that you only pull the designated SSR, but the problem is this only applies to this normal pulling. It is still my opinion that most of the SSR you're gonna get are going to come from the various molds, which cleverly has no such system of wishliting (because let's be honest, this would probably destroy any incentive to pay money for people who don't care about costumes). So you're either dealing with a system of most likely not getting any SSR from normal pulling or having a slim chance of pulling the SSR you need (assuming you even pull a SSR to begin with) with the mold, neither of which sound too appealing to me
-Speaking of molds, and this probably going to be my most controversial take (or at the least the most demanding), it is blatantly unfair that high quality and company molds aren't a guaranteed SSR. In the case of of the high quality mold the process of getting one is slow enough (I maybe manage 1 a week, outside of events or CD redemption that may give more) and there are enough SSR (putting aside the fact that you want to pull the same SSR multiple times anyway) that I really don't think it would be that bad if you just don't let us get kicked in the gut by pulling Neon after all that effort. In the case of the company specific molds from the tribe towers you are quite literally hard limited to pulling 3-7 a day (assuming of course you have a squad capable of tackling the tower), and you're going to make them have an even lower total chance of a SSR than the normal high quality mold. I'm only half way to my pilgrim mold (I had to wait till crown before I even felt like starting the tower, because even doing the easiest levels is mind numbing with just one Nikke) but I've heard horror stories of going 5 pilgrim molds with no pilgrim in sight, and ngl I may just weep when it's my turn to experience that. If you want to further reduce the acquisition of molds to still encourage some spending that's fine by me, but please let us have some safety net in this ruthless Nikke grind.
That's pretty much it for the rant so I just want to finish with some closing thoughts. I really do like this game, honest, and I wouldn't mind supporting it if it just didn't make me feel so used and abused. There are plenty of games with microtransactions or additional content where it feels like you're buying them because you want to support the dev, not because it feels like they're holding a gun to your head, and I just want this game to feel more like the former. I'm happy to discuss this rant further if anybody has their own ideas and opinions (or even if people just want to defend the game) so let me know what yall think, assuming you even read that blob of text up there.
submitted by Honest-File9357 to NikkeMobile [link] [comments]
Some Various disclaimers and background information before the rant:
- No, this is post is not to shame people who aren't FTP. Do what you want with your money, I just want to explain why I don't think I'll ever support this game financially and see how the rest of the community feels. This is also not some propaganda to get you to either not spend money or stop spending money, or in other words by all means keep supporting Shift-Up and their products, do you boo.
- I'm not the biggest gacha game player, I've only played two prior to this (Girls Frontline and some Star Wars one), both that I did end up throwing a little money at to support them despite Nikke ultimately being more fun imo (just to show no, I'm not against in game purchases for free games out of principle)
- I do enjoy this game and don't imagine I'll stop playing any time soon, as far as phone games go this is probably the most fun I've had (not the highest bar to set, I know).
- I understand that ultimately the goal of any game is to generate income, and I don't hold it against any game. Rather I have a problem with how this game "encourages" you to spend money.
- I started playing this game during the RE:Zero collab and quickly came to this conclusion, don't know what ultimately compelled me to rant about it (maybe just one too many all blue pulls)
1.The top heavy nature of the roster. "When everybody's special, no one will be"- Angry animated ginger dude (rip in peace). When I first started playing this game and doing some pulls I felt like a superstar, I mean wow I'm pulling all these super rares like it's nothing, even got all my counter girls maxed out and after about ~60 pulls I've managed 2 super super rares! Then I started to notice how all these "super rares" seem to have all hit max limit break and peeked at the Nikkepedia to realize the sad truth of this game. Given my past experiences with gacha I expected maybe something like 30% of the roster to be "SSR", not 95%. What's even more baffling is that the SSR actually does have it's own subcategory of "hey, these are actually the super rare ones" with Pilgrims having a miniscule chance to pull. I didn't want to put a list inside my list ( yo dawg, heard you like lists) but there's a few reasons why I really dislike this, and it was getting more and more "massive block of text" while I typed it so sorry.
-The first and probably most readily apparent issue being that it means you're unlocking new characters at a snails pace. It feels like the intended way to unlock new characters is to throw thousands of gems/ recruit rosters at the slot machine so you can do the high quality mold to actually have a chance (more on this later) to get a new character. I realize luck is a subjective matter, and yeah I've seen posts from people bragging about pulling 4-5 SSR in a pull, but objectively speaking the other gacha games were far more generous with the unlocking of new characters.
-Secondly, and probably what I hate the most, is that these "SSR" are simply not created equally (putting aside the obvious and aforementioned "actual SSR" of the pilgrims). I'm not saying every Nikke has to be an absolute powerhouse (more on this later) but if you want to make Nikkes that are just inferior versions of other Nikkes or have kits that just straight up aren't good, I dunno chief...maybe put them in a lower tier of the roster? Hell putting aside the meta/ actually caring about the kits of your waifus let's just talk about the lore/ backstory of these characters. Matis (my favorite squad, big hearts and kisses especially for Drake), the super star hero squad and best the Missilis company has to offer? Okay sure, makes sense they're SRR. Prima Donna Nikkes that...work in the music industry for some reason? Uh okay not sure why these military bots are making music but they're famous ig so why not, SSR it is. Oh hey Absolute, Rapi's former squad and supposed elite of Elysion now that's a contender for SSR for sure. Maid for you, Nikkes that run a maid cafe...well let's make em SSR. Okay okay I shouldn't hawk on the waifu game having waifus that are character archetypes even if it makes absolutely no sense in the setting of the game but you still get the point right? You have characters that are presented to you as the cream of the crop (in other words have lore friendly reasons to be classified as SSR) thrown into the same category of rarity of characters that work in maid cafes or other random civilian jobs/ hobbies. This all putting aside the actual strength of these character's kits (Matis is pretty good at least, big hearts and kisses) I'm simply referring to the story reasons for characters to be presented as "SSR".
-Thirdly this all just reeks of some system you see in a lot of games where they use certain words to artificially make you feel more accomplished, if that makes any sense. The lowest tier (of absolute garbage) is referred to as "rare", the slightly better but ultimately still useless (<3 u Rapi/ Anne) tier is "super rare", and the bulk of the roster is "super super rare." Fellas, that's not how the word "rare" works at all. I feel like most games at least refer to their filler trash as "common" or the like so why does the game call the, in lore, mass produced no personality foot soldier Nikkes "rare"? This leads back to "SSR" having it's own category of rarity, did they realize "SSSR" would look and sound stupid so that's why Pilgrims don't have their own category? I dunno, could have called it "ultra super dooper cream your pants because you're a real winner rare" or they could have just (alongside making some of the "unworthies" a lower tier) gone with 4 tiers with a more honest and conventional naming system (common- uncommon-rare-epic) but they didn't because that doesn't trigger the dopamine in slack jawed gamer so they like you more and spend more money or whatever reason so many games use terminology that feels like patting you on the back. Almost lost my cool there, sounding a lil schizo huh? Let's move on to the other main point to save face.
- The way progression is handled (and how that ties to the roster) "When you come to it and you can't go through it and you can't knock it down, you know that you've found the wall, the wall, the wall." -Mark Henry (still kicking, I think). Gacha games, or really most games, have parts that are for the cream of the crop. The real go getters (or go spenders) who invest a lot of time (or money) into the game and are rewarded for it. Usually these are things like raids or other limited time events, typically speaking though it's not the main story of the game that's the major hurdle for the playerbase to surmount. Typically speaking there's a slow and steady incline of requirements for players to progress through the story of a game, be it skill (let's be honest, not really a factor for gacha games) or equipment/loot, but not here. Instead you have rapidly increasing arbitrary "recommended power levels" (yes, we'll talk about this later) coupled with a massive middle finger in the form of level limit/ limit breaking in a nice package of pain and inconvenience, because I hate you for enjoying and caring about the story we wrote (which the game will proceed to spoil in events, which have a way lower bar of entry) or something idk. Jamie, pull up that list again.
-Oh yeah, recommended power levels. A lot of games have the system of "increase your number to keep up with the enemies increasing number" but none of those feels like a slap in the face as this game's system of "you'll either meet this required number or we'll just nerf your damage to the ground" (evidently the exact percentage of this used to be a lot worse before they patched it, further proof that the playerbase isn't against the game being made more accessible). This is probably the part where the Nikke superfan tells me I just have a massive skill issue and it's totally possible to clear these missions at a deficit, and this is absolutely true. I've seem some superstars talking about clearing levels while under 20k or more the recommended amount (I've only managed 10k, all thanks to Crown whom I love and cherish) and you know what the secret to success is? I just hinted at it in those parenthesis but it comes down to pulling "the right" SSR Nikkes. Okay that's a little disingenuous , as there's a little bit of skill/ understanding of the games system involved and grinding out the various resources you need to level said actually good SSR Nikkes, but it doesn't change the fact that there are Nikkes you actually want if you care about progressing through the game and there's all the ones you don't that seemingly only exist to reduce your chances of pulling these Nikkes. Let's backtrack to that "wishlist" system for a bit, which is what is intended to make sure you get the (non pilgrim) Nikkes you want like Liter or Tia. You'll recall that the wishlist doesn't increase your total chance to pull a SRR (makes sense) but just ensures that you only pull the designated SSR, but the problem is this only applies to this normal pulling. It is still my opinion that most of the SSR you're gonna get are going to come from the various molds, which cleverly has no such system of wishliting (because let's be honest, this would probably destroy any incentive to pay money for people who don't care about costumes). So you're either dealing with a system of most likely not getting any SSR from normal pulling or having a slim chance of pulling the SSR you need (assuming you even pull a SSR to begin with) with the mold, neither of which sound too appealing to me
-Speaking of molds, and this probably going to be my most controversial take (or at the least the most demanding), it is blatantly unfair that high quality and company molds aren't a guaranteed SSR. In the case of of the high quality mold the process of getting one is slow enough (I maybe manage 1 a week, outside of events or CD redemption that may give more) and there are enough SSR (putting aside the fact that you want to pull the same SSR multiple times anyway) that I really don't think it would be that bad if you just don't let us get kicked in the gut by pulling Neon after all that effort. In the case of the company specific molds from the tribe towers you are quite literally hard limited to pulling 3-7 a day (assuming of course you have a squad capable of tackling the tower), and you're going to make them have an even lower total chance of a SSR than the normal high quality mold. I'm only half way to my pilgrim mold (I had to wait till crown before I even felt like starting the tower, because even doing the easiest levels is mind numbing with just one Nikke) but I've heard horror stories of going 5 pilgrim molds with no pilgrim in sight, and ngl I may just weep when it's my turn to experience that. If you want to further reduce the acquisition of molds to still encourage some spending that's fine by me, but please let us have some safety net in this ruthless Nikke grind.
That's pretty much it for the rant so I just want to finish with some closing thoughts. I really do like this game, honest, and I wouldn't mind supporting it if it just didn't make me feel so used and abused. There are plenty of games with microtransactions or additional content where it feels like you're buying them because you want to support the dev, not because it feels like they're holding a gun to your head, and I just want this game to feel more like the former. I'm happy to discuss this rant further if anybody has their own ideas and opinions (or even if people just want to defend the game) so let me know what yall think, assuming you even read that blob of text up there.
2024.05.15 16:18 DivineSperm MDP : Scourge of the Islands
MDP(Most Demonic Perverts).
They will repeat “Join us” until you go insane. What throws these deranged psychopaths into a frenzy is when their evil venomous words do not bother, reach or harm the person
Each and every night, MDP conducts an air raid of High Altitude Pseudo Satellites, swarming the atmosphere, hijacking actual satellites to spy for their human trafficking and prostitution organization.
Each MDP facility contains a male homosexual drill instructor training prostitutes on how to capture people, how to trick people into signing a contract.
Do not let these extremist radical terrorists force you into suicide or anything, hold out! The more that are resilient, the quicker this will be resolved.
Once these radical terrorist biohackers successfully causes an individual to commit suicide or die in anyway, they burst from the persons dead body, giggling and laughing as they kill humans for fun and infects another person as if they were a horrific virus.
They bulge and twitch the persons eye lids as a sign of their technology’s existence within the person. If you notice any of these signs in either you or your family, you and/or them have been hijacked by biohackers.
This is an outbreak of radical terrorists in high platform airships and drones, illegally eavesdropping and trafficking humans into sex prostitution utilizing electromagnets, radio waves, and radiation
They can force a person to cough with sonic weaponry, imitating illnesses on a wide scale for control and as well, to assimilate identities illegally.
Don’t believe me! Research it!
STDs are being used to keep a person stuck within their prostitution rings.
MDP is an entire organization of drug addicts with advanced technology trafficking humans. They are all the same, against the people, not one of these demon-lovers are on the people’s side.
Cesspool homosexual orgies with drugs and STDs are systematically given to new cult members to keep them stuck in one place.
Whatever you do, do NOT care about them. They will try to use your empathy to have you kill yourselves.
Don’t panic! The hostiles are on Debilitating/Sedative drugs. Stop your bitching and fight your way through it until the threat is resolved. Keep relaxed. Let your friends, family, and kids know! Awareness destroys their recon
It’s NOT the “Illuminati”.
Keep Calm/Be Confident and Live.
Study magnets/Electromagnets.
You are not missing out on anything if someone or a group is pressing on you. Go do you! Do not let anyone influence you!
Their command centers are hidden within some call centers (Do not be paranoid!). It is urgent that you stay on the surface if you work around them. Do not let them systematically control or allure you into signing a contract to an unknown authority to make love with their merchandise in plain sight as spies or to be involved in illegal reconnaissance operations.
As long as you do not sign a contract for, and I quote, “everything you always wanted!” You will be fine.
YOU ARE NOT INVITED! Do not submit to any of their offers! They can alter words in the mind with their weaponized drones.
Stop Feeding This World Wide Threat!
Stop Surrendering because it’s too much to deal with! They are on high class drugs nearly 24/7 everyday!
Reclaim your identity or have it taken away by a criminal organization!
Non-lethal weapons modified to be lethal weapons!
Their captive women/children are their front line against men! They WILL try to force you to kneel to the their dictator, Solih, the shapeshifting hybrid. You will then be susceptible and subjected to heavier sonic attacks as well as abuses.
Do Not Quit! Do NOT Surrender!
Observe them for one year if you do not believe me. Take notes, keep quiet and carry on with your own personal life in the meanwhile. You will take notice of their patterns.
MDP terrorists are pretending to be schools as part of their scripts! They murder doctors and healers of any kind if they do not submit to being trafficked into human/sex trafficking facilities/homes!
They are not Authority of any kind, unless you surrender and you sign their contract and accept them as your handlers.
THIS IS NOT A GAME!
Stall them out! Do not move!
I can’t believe I am stating this. What is written below is not intended to be satire or a joke. This has actually contributed to their narcissism, their abuses, and mass murders
Stop masturbating to these terrorists! They are raping and abusing you and your fellow citizens, HEAVILY! Your fellow Maldivians are being raped over sonar hearing that only YOU can hear, and you masturbate to the Maldivians moaning, being raped??
You do NOT need to sign a contract to the MDP using sonar hearing to be allowed to marry, be intimate, or are subjected and forced to “marry” their trained terrorists.
They are paid liars and spies that trains prostitutes how to screw their targets exactly the way their targets want. This is done to have the target “test” the human traffickers prostitutes before they sign to keep them. Instead, you are selling yourself into human/sex/drug trafficking rings
Do not accept their “lust” they do have spies in person that are drug abuse/humans traffickers. They will bribe with sex and “free housing” then make you sign your life away, with you under the impression that you are going to some brothel or “sex club”. You will be susceptible to extreme abuses revolving around rape, drugs, and traumatic physical and mental abuses. Sound Proof Your Homes!
THEY ARE ALL THE SAME!!
They use prostitution to allure their new victims! DO NOT BELIEVE THEM!
The MDP consists of homosexual elitists, human traffickers, terrorists, Eavesdroppers/Spies utilizing sonic weapons/sonar hearing weapons to euthanize/Traffic and enslave the general public. DO NOT GO!
They will go to war with federal officials/agents to keep their bodies enslaved!
Their cults authority are primarily shapeshifting Reptillian-Jinn-Human hybrids that are seeking “World Domination utilizing Sonic weapons” in an attempt to force the innocent and the vulnerable into surrendering themselves to human/sex/drug trafficking ring.
They are not the police!
Spies are very obvious to point out!
They are illegally eavesdropping families to extract their young. Their groups primarily consists of autistic and the mentally ill, that abuses a series of class A drugs to traffick and create new slaves.
Do NOT sign the contract! It’s ridiculous! They have two contracts, one for you to surrender, and the other for you to contract yourself into surrendering voluntarily. They also wordplay aggressively.
( I am disclosing the depths of their criminal business for abusing sonar hearing technology to assimilate identities, killing ruthlessly while induced under highly potent drugs, mass kidnappings, weapons, and prostitution/pedophilia. You will be stripped of all privileges and rights to these lifelong detention facilities!)
The threat progresses like humans, but the hostiles are progressing entirely against your person.
They are trying to steal your entire identity, do not sign the contract! Otherwise you will never make choices in your own lives again!
They look like everyday people, but do not be paranoid. Be aware of your surroundings and leave a way out for yourself if you are ever caught in a potentially dangerous situation. But do NOT be paranoid, delusional, or psychotic about it as not only would you be more susceptible to any abuses, your vulnerabilities may force you to make the wrong decisions. Man/woman up if you want to keep your own free self.
Do not give into extreme paranoia!
Most Demonic Perverts human trafficking networks has expanded. Be weary of unknown terrorists/individuals giving victims rides to parties, “mansions”, or a trip to the ghetto islands for drugs
They are not the police! They are not aliens!
They will use love to manipulate you.
Think of online scams or common pop up scams you would receive on your daily Internet commute. Same thing except, they want you to traffick yourself into a entrapment facility. Using various sexual exploitation tactics, infinite gaslighting strategies to force negative emotion to their targets and threats a long with actions of inhumane abuse cycles in hopes of subduing their targets
If you accept any bribes and sign the contract offered, you will be paying taxes to a criminal organization/network, times the current state and/or government taxes you already currently pay for, along with any other extra expenses that will occur if you sign the contract.
Ex: Government Taxes + Criminal Organizations Taxes = Taxes x2 or more since you will not be in control of your currency any longer.
If you do not see actual law enforcement individuals in front of your physical self, DO NOT GET ON THE GROUND! They are NOT any authority to the people outside of their trafficking homes!
Drug abuse/Addictions attracts these hostiles. They WILL psychologically trick you into subduing yourself.
Do not be fooled by their fake friendly appearances and smiles. You will be robbed!
Pay attention to your aiground horns! But do not panic!
They are NOT the government or federal agents. They are spies from criminal organizations worldwide!
If you do not believe me, then what I am speaking of may not not make any sense to you now. (Do your own research, don’t take only my word for it) But a great number of those who reads my news update will understand that we are dealing with outlaws that are mainly responsible for the random disappearances of children.
Be aware of homes with “No trespassing” signs, unusually high activity and surveillance cameras in ghetto islands.
They are not the MNDF/MPS/NASA/God/You/yourself/or anybody else you know. Even though some has defected and joined this horrific network full of criminals and pathological murderers, pretending to be friendly or family.
Global Human Trafficking Evolution
They want to ultimately farm your kids and sell them into prostitution!
Human traffickers will start a ground war to capture their victims and to keep spying on them with aircrafts.
Cyber ventriloquism/Sonar Hearing, common tactics.
This has been worsening since 2008.
The criminal agents will immediately disinform and satire this disclosure or any as if nothing was wrong or happening right now.
Educate yourselves to save yourselves! This is NOT a test from any governments within the security fields (MNDF, MPS or any other) though these organizations may or may not be involved, credible evidence is needed to prove that these organizations are apart of the worlds most inhumane experiments utilizing electromagnets and radiation to subdue any man or woman.
Disinformation campaigns are set up and used by the villainous organization to keep the public from knowing about their “spying” on various individuals around the world and from raising awareness on their secret experiment using electromagnets and a machine that rewrites the brain in a flash.
The threat mimics medical conditions to stay hidden. Very heavy human/sex trafficking organization and operations getting worse everyday.
This is NOT a special or a unique opportunity for anyone, do not fall for this! You will be chipped, trapped, and abused inhumanly like a wild animal.
They also possess disinformation campaign divisions made solely for the purposes of covering their trafficking and tracks.
The technologically driven human traffickers will preemptively meditate on murdering you if you do not reclaim your identity!
Do NOT surrender yourself to MDP! Traffickers are seeking your signature to lock you away inside a facility.
Do NOT play hero or games with extremists. They are studying every word, step, and actions you make. With the goal to either capture, subdue, or mind break an individual into harming theirselves and/or other’s.
The traffickers wagers that they can defect millions into trafficking the victims into their criminal networks/organization and facilities around the globe, the organization calls it “hiding bodies” utilizing the individuals past as their entire method to cause the person as much psychological harm as inhumanly possible.
Powerful electromagnetic radiation is beamed into the victims skull to send and receive data, bypassing the skull to access the brain as if it was a computer hard drive. The program is only to torture and ruin lives. If not forewarned about it, lives will be abducted, or killed secretly.
Traffickers can completely invade and compromise a person and force the victim into either surrendering theirselves to their abusers and never be seen again, or the victim is left with nothing, outstripped from jobs through 24/7 focus groups to psych a person out of a job and attempt to have their victims deconstruct theirselves and others around.
This is an everyday 24/7 torture system designed to traffick, kill, torture, and molest an individual.The traffickers breed with their brothers, sisters and other blood related individuals for experimental and pedophila is a major part of their cult, DO NOT BE FOOLED!
PEDOPHILIA, TORTURE, NECROPHILIA, RAPE! These are four pillars of the Most Demonic Perverts.
Silent/Covert inbreds are waging war against innocents
All out war with mankind on one side and Most Demonic Perverts on the other.
Hostiles are taking hostages secretly through aggression and various fear tactics. MDP terrorists can cut breathing with their weapons.
Love your spouses and who you are and they may spare you by moving on to someone else.
Protect yourselves with neodymium magnets!! Protect your brain with magnets! Hover the magnets over your head.
(This is NOT fake news, we have been compromised, completely and utterly compromised!)
DO NOT GO!!! There is nothing there that will benefit you!
MDP preys on any vulnerabilities that a human possess. Stay strong to those that are affected, investigations are becoming more widespread
They entrap individuals for experimental purposes in a room with 1 bathroom and 40+ prostitutes and drug addicts, and other mentally ill criminals who enjoys their jobs in systematically destroying human lives in the most inhuman and extreme ways.
They are lead by drag queen homosexuals with a goal to create slaves by converting them into homosexuals, making it easier to control individuals.
They also have these systematic gay orgies where they abuse a plethora of drugs (crack, meth, cocaine, scopolamine, etc) before severely abusing and raping a singular victim inhumanly. The victims were once a targeted individual before they gave up and accepted becoming a sacrifice for MDP.
If you are a new victim of these crimes, do as much research as possible and disclose, disclose, disclose. DO NOT MOVE TO VOICES THAT ARE NOT AROUND YOU!
Schizophrenia is NOT the reason due to the lack of evidence, proving that schizophrenia does not exist. Do not keep silent for this horrendous criminal network! They are all traffickers and they kill in the most inhumane way and call it their “fun”.
TLDR: MDP is a nefarious organization of drugged up lunatics. The are traffickers and are replicating theirselves to be your spouse, military officials, or any government identity to force and fool any person into trafficking theirselves into a criminal network through endless gaslighting through megaphone like devices that targets one individual at a time and projects their voices bypassing their targets auditory cortex. Once the drone targets a person, they stay on that person 24/7 everyday. If you are instructed to move to Winnipeg Canada or anywhere for bribes, sexual favors, money, and/or free housing through any means of transportation, Do Not Go! You are a victim of a class action crime that has gone out of hand. Do NOT give these criminals anymore power by giving yourself up to them. You did not win anything and being targeted by these drones means that they chose you to either traffick or to be murdered covertly using drones with electromagnetic weapons attachments and technology which allows sonic hearing that the MDP criminal organization network uses to communicate directly to one another without needing to use a phone. Captured victims are forced into unpaid labor and forced prostitution. The targeted victim will be missing and stored away within one of their run down homes/facilities, unable to escape or leave. The handlers forces their new members into various ritualistic initiations cycles within their cultist group kneel, to sniff up drugs.
Once captured, they immediately commence their routines of total control and exploitation of the fully captured person. The victims are broken down to less than nothing due to repeated rape and abuse sequences. Felons within the MDP organization are to either traffick or murder a victim because their data brokers does not want to exposed and has paid a great sum of currency to illegally purchase the personal records of their targets and to send a weaponized drone to the illegally purchased individual, equipped with biohacking weapons to break down their targets into trafficking themselves, committing suicide or murdering others. They run criminal schools/organizations that breeds more human traffickers and prostitutes into the public. They Will Say Anything to Force You to move!
“We need you!” “We love you, Move!” “We want to lust your body.”
They work on every emotion within their targets brain and force the individual either into a blind rage or to try to confuse the person with their own emotions through a series of gaslighting and abuse, into moving their targets to them (I can not stress this enough, do not let them force you into trafficking yourself.
The felons also pretend to be some type of close friend to their victims in order to keep control over them. They are fully trained and prepared personally to place severe torture on one individual (they pair up and gang up on one individual at a time and “jumps” said victim. They act like grade school kids, but that’s due to the heavy influence of their handlers, crack and cocaine that has degenerated them. They also are heavily involved in the drug/prostitution ring where everyone gets raped and are all under heavy mind control from a cocktail of different drugs including cocaine.
The felons has their victims set up as empty puppets who are under complete control. The victims now turned felons/rapists/addicts are raised specifically to absorb abuse, while abusing drugs to remain numb during their operations, scopolamine, crack and cocaine to remain numb to any words from their victims.
They train individuals this way so they can deal more damage than receive it during their illegal operations. They are completely separate from reality and are all under one criminal control.
They are aware of people resisting and they promise to do everything to try to force their targets into submitting to their handlers. Warning! These Malicious Drone Operators WILL Say ANYTHING to force a person to move!
The terrorists all have their handlers speaking directly into their ears during their operations to murder or capture the innocent, giving them orders on their scripts made to place torture and destroy random individuals, innocent or not.
They tend to target the innocents more since these felons find it more satisfying to rape, brainwash, and intoxicate the innocent heavily until the innocent is completely empty. As soon as as they’re successful, they turn the captured individuals into drug addicts, whores, and forced laborers, working for gift cards and sexual/party favors.
They will always refuse to leave their targets unless the person gives in and moves to them. Or if the victim gathers any evidence leading to the arrest and shutdown of MDP
To the many different individuals that takes the time to read this, I am taking the time and energy out of my life to warn everyone about a massive data breach that has occurred and that is endangering many lives, including my own at this very point in time.
This type of data breach is the very worst of its kind. Before, the biggest threat was internet crimes, malware, and viruses that may have affected your assets if you were to click the wrong link. Now your actual physical being is at risk by MDP data brokers who are currently funding these criminal networks and are providing illegally purchased records of random individuals around the world.
Now, the MDP criminals today have gone above and beyond the internet and are sending drones with biohacking technologies attachments to random individuals. These weapon attachments magnetizes to specific muscles within the human anatomy of the hijackers choosing. This allows the hijacker to manipulate small muscle tissues within the human body such as rotating an individuals eyes at the hijackers will to keep their victims sleep deprived. They focus on the genitals primarily to exploit the human desire to make love with another individual through the manipulation of their genitals such methods, human traffickers and terrorist organizations are now utilizing these magnetic weapons attached to drones to lock a persons own body up for ransom which could be assets, or force you to sell your body into slavery.
They offer the remote of the victims body, to the victims they use to manipulate certain muscles and veins in the body in exchange for the capture of the victims body.
MDP human traffickers have evolved from footwork to airborne to stay covert. Hiding behind custom biohacking drones ordered online and through various other biohacking black market trades.
“Voices in the head” has been declassified and debunked as electronic biohacking through electromagnets, radiation, drones and neurophones funded and powered by criminal Fusion Centers, MDP who fund radical extremists and terrorists around the world. This was thought out to be a medical condition that is often confused with schizophrenia or another mental illness. But I challenged the theory and discovered that the public has been heavily misinformed.
If a person never had a history with voices in their head that were not of their own voices, and they have proof of their attackers transmitting these frequencies, how could it be a medical condition if the person has evidence of the voices being transmitted directly to his/her skull? So, not only the voices are there, they are also instructing people to either murder, rape, or traffick themselves to one of the many fusion centers, human/sex trafficking homes within undisclosed locations, “ghettos”, and divisions that could be in any closed off homes, (homes with unusually active activities) so they could focus and convert their captives through a series of abuse and ritualistic routines 24/7 everyday.
They force the individual to impregnate one of their paid prostitutes that are doppelgängers to their targets. They do this to raise another human into being another drug addict/trafficker, born and raised into the criminal network so it’ll appear more natural to kill, traffick and brainwash victims.
The MDP pretend to be on the victims side, but they really are not. They all have an illegal drill instructor that only teaches the trafficked “warloot” abuse, rape, and how to torture.
submitted by DivineSperm to maldives [link] [comments]
They will repeat “Join us” until you go insane. What throws these deranged psychopaths into a frenzy is when their evil venomous words do not bother, reach or harm the person
Each and every night, MDP conducts an air raid of High Altitude Pseudo Satellites, swarming the atmosphere, hijacking actual satellites to spy for their human trafficking and prostitution organization.
Each MDP facility contains a male homosexual drill instructor training prostitutes on how to capture people, how to trick people into signing a contract.
Do not let these extremist radical terrorists force you into suicide or anything, hold out! The more that are resilient, the quicker this will be resolved.
Once these radical terrorist biohackers successfully causes an individual to commit suicide or die in anyway, they burst from the persons dead body, giggling and laughing as they kill humans for fun and infects another person as if they were a horrific virus.
They bulge and twitch the persons eye lids as a sign of their technology’s existence within the person. If you notice any of these signs in either you or your family, you and/or them have been hijacked by biohackers.
This is an outbreak of radical terrorists in high platform airships and drones, illegally eavesdropping and trafficking humans into sex prostitution utilizing electromagnets, radio waves, and radiation
They can force a person to cough with sonic weaponry, imitating illnesses on a wide scale for control and as well, to assimilate identities illegally.
Don’t believe me! Research it!
STDs are being used to keep a person stuck within their prostitution rings.
MDP is an entire organization of drug addicts with advanced technology trafficking humans. They are all the same, against the people, not one of these demon-lovers are on the people’s side.
Cesspool homosexual orgies with drugs and STDs are systematically given to new cult members to keep them stuck in one place.
Whatever you do, do NOT care about them. They will try to use your empathy to have you kill yourselves.
Don’t panic! The hostiles are on Debilitating/Sedative drugs. Stop your bitching and fight your way through it until the threat is resolved. Keep relaxed. Let your friends, family, and kids know! Awareness destroys their recon
It’s NOT the “Illuminati”.
Keep Calm/Be Confident and Live.
Study magnets/Electromagnets.
You are not missing out on anything if someone or a group is pressing on you. Go do you! Do not let anyone influence you!
Their command centers are hidden within some call centers (Do not be paranoid!). It is urgent that you stay on the surface if you work around them. Do not let them systematically control or allure you into signing a contract to an unknown authority to make love with their merchandise in plain sight as spies or to be involved in illegal reconnaissance operations.
As long as you do not sign a contract for, and I quote, “everything you always wanted!” You will be fine.
YOU ARE NOT INVITED! Do not submit to any of their offers! They can alter words in the mind with their weaponized drones.
Stop Feeding This World Wide Threat!
Stop Surrendering because it’s too much to deal with! They are on high class drugs nearly 24/7 everyday!
Reclaim your identity or have it taken away by a criminal organization!
Non-lethal weapons modified to be lethal weapons!
Their captive women/children are their front line against men! They WILL try to force you to kneel to the their dictator, Solih, the shapeshifting hybrid. You will then be susceptible and subjected to heavier sonic attacks as well as abuses.
Do Not Quit! Do NOT Surrender!
Observe them for one year if you do not believe me. Take notes, keep quiet and carry on with your own personal life in the meanwhile. You will take notice of their patterns.
MDP terrorists are pretending to be schools as part of their scripts! They murder doctors and healers of any kind if they do not submit to being trafficked into human/sex trafficking facilities/homes!
They are not Authority of any kind, unless you surrender and you sign their contract and accept them as your handlers.
THIS IS NOT A GAME!
Stall them out! Do not move!
I can’t believe I am stating this. What is written below is not intended to be satire or a joke. This has actually contributed to their narcissism, their abuses, and mass murders
Stop masturbating to these terrorists! They are raping and abusing you and your fellow citizens, HEAVILY! Your fellow Maldivians are being raped over sonar hearing that only YOU can hear, and you masturbate to the Maldivians moaning, being raped??
You do NOT need to sign a contract to the MDP using sonar hearing to be allowed to marry, be intimate, or are subjected and forced to “marry” their trained terrorists.
They are paid liars and spies that trains prostitutes how to screw their targets exactly the way their targets want. This is done to have the target “test” the human traffickers prostitutes before they sign to keep them. Instead, you are selling yourself into human/sex/drug trafficking rings
Do not accept their “lust” they do have spies in person that are drug abuse/humans traffickers. They will bribe with sex and “free housing” then make you sign your life away, with you under the impression that you are going to some brothel or “sex club”. You will be susceptible to extreme abuses revolving around rape, drugs, and traumatic physical and mental abuses. Sound Proof Your Homes!
THEY ARE ALL THE SAME!!
They use prostitution to allure their new victims! DO NOT BELIEVE THEM!
The MDP consists of homosexual elitists, human traffickers, terrorists, Eavesdroppers/Spies utilizing sonic weapons/sonar hearing weapons to euthanize/Traffic and enslave the general public. DO NOT GO!
They will go to war with federal officials/agents to keep their bodies enslaved!
Their cults authority are primarily shapeshifting Reptillian-Jinn-Human hybrids that are seeking “World Domination utilizing Sonic weapons” in an attempt to force the innocent and the vulnerable into surrendering themselves to human/sex/drug trafficking ring.
They are not the police!
Spies are very obvious to point out!
They are illegally eavesdropping families to extract their young. Their groups primarily consists of autistic and the mentally ill, that abuses a series of class A drugs to traffick and create new slaves.
Do NOT sign the contract! It’s ridiculous! They have two contracts, one for you to surrender, and the other for you to contract yourself into surrendering voluntarily. They also wordplay aggressively.
( I am disclosing the depths of their criminal business for abusing sonar hearing technology to assimilate identities, killing ruthlessly while induced under highly potent drugs, mass kidnappings, weapons, and prostitution/pedophilia. You will be stripped of all privileges and rights to these lifelong detention facilities!)
The threat progresses like humans, but the hostiles are progressing entirely against your person.
They are trying to steal your entire identity, do not sign the contract! Otherwise you will never make choices in your own lives again!
They look like everyday people, but do not be paranoid. Be aware of your surroundings and leave a way out for yourself if you are ever caught in a potentially dangerous situation. But do NOT be paranoid, delusional, or psychotic about it as not only would you be more susceptible to any abuses, your vulnerabilities may force you to make the wrong decisions. Man/woman up if you want to keep your own free self.
Do not give into extreme paranoia!
Most Demonic Perverts human trafficking networks has expanded. Be weary of unknown terrorists/individuals giving victims rides to parties, “mansions”, or a trip to the ghetto islands for drugs
They are not the police! They are not aliens!
They will use love to manipulate you.
Think of online scams or common pop up scams you would receive on your daily Internet commute. Same thing except, they want you to traffick yourself into a entrapment facility. Using various sexual exploitation tactics, infinite gaslighting strategies to force negative emotion to their targets and threats a long with actions of inhumane abuse cycles in hopes of subduing their targets
If you accept any bribes and sign the contract offered, you will be paying taxes to a criminal organization/network, times the current state and/or government taxes you already currently pay for, along with any other extra expenses that will occur if you sign the contract.
Ex: Government Taxes + Criminal Organizations Taxes = Taxes x2 or more since you will not be in control of your currency any longer.
If you do not see actual law enforcement individuals in front of your physical self, DO NOT GET ON THE GROUND! They are NOT any authority to the people outside of their trafficking homes!
Drug abuse/Addictions attracts these hostiles. They WILL psychologically trick you into subduing yourself.
Do not be fooled by their fake friendly appearances and smiles. You will be robbed!
Pay attention to your aiground horns! But do not panic!
They are NOT the government or federal agents. They are spies from criminal organizations worldwide!
If you do not believe me, then what I am speaking of may not not make any sense to you now. (Do your own research, don’t take only my word for it) But a great number of those who reads my news update will understand that we are dealing with outlaws that are mainly responsible for the random disappearances of children.
Be aware of homes with “No trespassing” signs, unusually high activity and surveillance cameras in ghetto islands.
They are not the MNDF/MPS/NASA/God/You/yourself/or anybody else you know. Even though some has defected and joined this horrific network full of criminals and pathological murderers, pretending to be friendly or family.
Global Human Trafficking Evolution
They want to ultimately farm your kids and sell them into prostitution!
Human traffickers will start a ground war to capture their victims and to keep spying on them with aircrafts.
Cyber ventriloquism/Sonar Hearing, common tactics.
This has been worsening since 2008.
The criminal agents will immediately disinform and satire this disclosure or any as if nothing was wrong or happening right now.
Educate yourselves to save yourselves! This is NOT a test from any governments within the security fields (MNDF, MPS or any other) though these organizations may or may not be involved, credible evidence is needed to prove that these organizations are apart of the worlds most inhumane experiments utilizing electromagnets and radiation to subdue any man or woman.
Disinformation campaigns are set up and used by the villainous organization to keep the public from knowing about their “spying” on various individuals around the world and from raising awareness on their secret experiment using electromagnets and a machine that rewrites the brain in a flash.
The threat mimics medical conditions to stay hidden. Very heavy human/sex trafficking organization and operations getting worse everyday.
This is NOT a special or a unique opportunity for anyone, do not fall for this! You will be chipped, trapped, and abused inhumanly like a wild animal.
They also possess disinformation campaign divisions made solely for the purposes of covering their trafficking and tracks.
The technologically driven human traffickers will preemptively meditate on murdering you if you do not reclaim your identity!
Do NOT surrender yourself to MDP! Traffickers are seeking your signature to lock you away inside a facility.
Do NOT play hero or games with extremists. They are studying every word, step, and actions you make. With the goal to either capture, subdue, or mind break an individual into harming theirselves and/or other’s.
The traffickers wagers that they can defect millions into trafficking the victims into their criminal networks/organization and facilities around the globe, the organization calls it “hiding bodies” utilizing the individuals past as their entire method to cause the person as much psychological harm as inhumanly possible.
Powerful electromagnetic radiation is beamed into the victims skull to send and receive data, bypassing the skull to access the brain as if it was a computer hard drive. The program is only to torture and ruin lives. If not forewarned about it, lives will be abducted, or killed secretly.
Traffickers can completely invade and compromise a person and force the victim into either surrendering theirselves to their abusers and never be seen again, or the victim is left with nothing, outstripped from jobs through 24/7 focus groups to psych a person out of a job and attempt to have their victims deconstruct theirselves and others around.
This is an everyday 24/7 torture system designed to traffick, kill, torture, and molest an individual.The traffickers breed with their brothers, sisters and other blood related individuals for experimental and pedophila is a major part of their cult, DO NOT BE FOOLED!
PEDOPHILIA, TORTURE, NECROPHILIA, RAPE! These are four pillars of the Most Demonic Perverts.
Silent/Covert inbreds are waging war against innocents
All out war with mankind on one side and Most Demonic Perverts on the other.
Hostiles are taking hostages secretly through aggression and various fear tactics. MDP terrorists can cut breathing with their weapons.
Love your spouses and who you are and they may spare you by moving on to someone else.
Protect yourselves with neodymium magnets!! Protect your brain with magnets! Hover the magnets over your head.
(This is NOT fake news, we have been compromised, completely and utterly compromised!)
DO NOT GO!!! There is nothing there that will benefit you!
MDP preys on any vulnerabilities that a human possess. Stay strong to those that are affected, investigations are becoming more widespread
They entrap individuals for experimental purposes in a room with 1 bathroom and 40+ prostitutes and drug addicts, and other mentally ill criminals who enjoys their jobs in systematically destroying human lives in the most inhuman and extreme ways.
They are lead by drag queen homosexuals with a goal to create slaves by converting them into homosexuals, making it easier to control individuals.
They also have these systematic gay orgies where they abuse a plethora of drugs (crack, meth, cocaine, scopolamine, etc) before severely abusing and raping a singular victim inhumanly. The victims were once a targeted individual before they gave up and accepted becoming a sacrifice for MDP.
If you are a new victim of these crimes, do as much research as possible and disclose, disclose, disclose. DO NOT MOVE TO VOICES THAT ARE NOT AROUND YOU!
Schizophrenia is NOT the reason due to the lack of evidence, proving that schizophrenia does not exist. Do not keep silent for this horrendous criminal network! They are all traffickers and they kill in the most inhumane way and call it their “fun”.
TLDR: MDP is a nefarious organization of drugged up lunatics. The are traffickers and are replicating theirselves to be your spouse, military officials, or any government identity to force and fool any person into trafficking theirselves into a criminal network through endless gaslighting through megaphone like devices that targets one individual at a time and projects their voices bypassing their targets auditory cortex. Once the drone targets a person, they stay on that person 24/7 everyday. If you are instructed to move to Winnipeg Canada or anywhere for bribes, sexual favors, money, and/or free housing through any means of transportation, Do Not Go! You are a victim of a class action crime that has gone out of hand. Do NOT give these criminals anymore power by giving yourself up to them. You did not win anything and being targeted by these drones means that they chose you to either traffick or to be murdered covertly using drones with electromagnetic weapons attachments and technology which allows sonic hearing that the MDP criminal organization network uses to communicate directly to one another without needing to use a phone. Captured victims are forced into unpaid labor and forced prostitution. The targeted victim will be missing and stored away within one of their run down homes/facilities, unable to escape or leave. The handlers forces their new members into various ritualistic initiations cycles within their cultist group kneel, to sniff up drugs.
Once captured, they immediately commence their routines of total control and exploitation of the fully captured person. The victims are broken down to less than nothing due to repeated rape and abuse sequences. Felons within the MDP organization are to either traffick or murder a victim because their data brokers does not want to exposed and has paid a great sum of currency to illegally purchase the personal records of their targets and to send a weaponized drone to the illegally purchased individual, equipped with biohacking weapons to break down their targets into trafficking themselves, committing suicide or murdering others. They run criminal schools/organizations that breeds more human traffickers and prostitutes into the public. They Will Say Anything to Force You to move!
“We need you!” “We love you, Move!” “We want to lust your body.”
They work on every emotion within their targets brain and force the individual either into a blind rage or to try to confuse the person with their own emotions through a series of gaslighting and abuse, into moving their targets to them (I can not stress this enough, do not let them force you into trafficking yourself.
The felons also pretend to be some type of close friend to their victims in order to keep control over them. They are fully trained and prepared personally to place severe torture on one individual (they pair up and gang up on one individual at a time and “jumps” said victim. They act like grade school kids, but that’s due to the heavy influence of their handlers, crack and cocaine that has degenerated them. They also are heavily involved in the drug/prostitution ring where everyone gets raped and are all under heavy mind control from a cocktail of different drugs including cocaine.
The felons has their victims set up as empty puppets who are under complete control. The victims now turned felons/rapists/addicts are raised specifically to absorb abuse, while abusing drugs to remain numb during their operations, scopolamine, crack and cocaine to remain numb to any words from their victims.
They train individuals this way so they can deal more damage than receive it during their illegal operations. They are completely separate from reality and are all under one criminal control.
They are aware of people resisting and they promise to do everything to try to force their targets into submitting to their handlers. Warning! These Malicious Drone Operators WILL Say ANYTHING to force a person to move!
The terrorists all have their handlers speaking directly into their ears during their operations to murder or capture the innocent, giving them orders on their scripts made to place torture and destroy random individuals, innocent or not.
They tend to target the innocents more since these felons find it more satisfying to rape, brainwash, and intoxicate the innocent heavily until the innocent is completely empty. As soon as as they’re successful, they turn the captured individuals into drug addicts, whores, and forced laborers, working for gift cards and sexual/party favors.
They will always refuse to leave their targets unless the person gives in and moves to them. Or if the victim gathers any evidence leading to the arrest and shutdown of MDP
To the many different individuals that takes the time to read this, I am taking the time and energy out of my life to warn everyone about a massive data breach that has occurred and that is endangering many lives, including my own at this very point in time.
This type of data breach is the very worst of its kind. Before, the biggest threat was internet crimes, malware, and viruses that may have affected your assets if you were to click the wrong link. Now your actual physical being is at risk by MDP data brokers who are currently funding these criminal networks and are providing illegally purchased records of random individuals around the world.
Now, the MDP criminals today have gone above and beyond the internet and are sending drones with biohacking technologies attachments to random individuals. These weapon attachments magnetizes to specific muscles within the human anatomy of the hijackers choosing. This allows the hijacker to manipulate small muscle tissues within the human body such as rotating an individuals eyes at the hijackers will to keep their victims sleep deprived. They focus on the genitals primarily to exploit the human desire to make love with another individual through the manipulation of their genitals such methods, human traffickers and terrorist organizations are now utilizing these magnetic weapons attached to drones to lock a persons own body up for ransom which could be assets, or force you to sell your body into slavery.
They offer the remote of the victims body, to the victims they use to manipulate certain muscles and veins in the body in exchange for the capture of the victims body.
MDP human traffickers have evolved from footwork to airborne to stay covert. Hiding behind custom biohacking drones ordered online and through various other biohacking black market trades.
“Voices in the head” has been declassified and debunked as electronic biohacking through electromagnets, radiation, drones and neurophones funded and powered by criminal Fusion Centers, MDP who fund radical extremists and terrorists around the world. This was thought out to be a medical condition that is often confused with schizophrenia or another mental illness. But I challenged the theory and discovered that the public has been heavily misinformed.
If a person never had a history with voices in their head that were not of their own voices, and they have proof of their attackers transmitting these frequencies, how could it be a medical condition if the person has evidence of the voices being transmitted directly to his/her skull? So, not only the voices are there, they are also instructing people to either murder, rape, or traffick themselves to one of the many fusion centers, human/sex trafficking homes within undisclosed locations, “ghettos”, and divisions that could be in any closed off homes, (homes with unusually active activities) so they could focus and convert their captives through a series of abuse and ritualistic routines 24/7 everyday.
They force the individual to impregnate one of their paid prostitutes that are doppelgängers to their targets. They do this to raise another human into being another drug addict/trafficker, born and raised into the criminal network so it’ll appear more natural to kill, traffick and brainwash victims.
The MDP pretend to be on the victims side, but they really are not. They all have an illegal drill instructor that only teaches the trafficked “warloot” abuse, rape, and how to torture.
2024.05.15 16:17 Sarcosmonaut Tales of Tribute, The Basics
I’ve had a few people ask me how to play, and this is intended as a basics guide and some of my personal thoughts on the subject. Anybody who wants can butt in with their experiences as well, but I wanted to get this up so I don’t lose it.
Let’s start with the very basics. Each game you select a total of 4 patrons which inform what card suites are available to you and your opponent. Finding the right decks for you is essential to your success. Not every deck clicks the same for everyone.
Know every deck. This comes with practice, but by knowing the decks you know the probable strategies your opponent wishes to employ. If he picks Hermaeus Mora, he’s going fast. If he picks Raj he’s going to make you suffer etc
Don’t clutter your deck. Pick only what you need. If you’re stumped, just upgrade a coin to a 2 coin at the bank. You could have amazing cards, but if you only get to play them once every 5 hands, you’re probably not going anywhere. You want a fast deck cycle time. That’s how often you can expect to play your whole deck. As an example your starting deck has a cycle time of 2 turns.
When possible try to stick to only building a deck of 1 or 2 colors. These cards have synergies with their suite so the more you stack your deck with a given suite, the more likely your cards will “do the cool thing”.
Gold allows you to buy cards. You can also spend it at a couple different patrons.
Power allows you to kill opposing agents, and at the end of the turn is converted into prestige.
Prestige is the “Win” condition. Less complicated than the others.
Crow (Purple) is the best all around deck. If he’s in the shop, buy purple. You do NOT want your opponent to build a deck of him. That’s gold, power, AND draw. Nasty stuff. If you’re a true beginner, focus on Crow and hope for the best. My advice? Don’t use his patron ability unless you’ve got a FAT pile of gold (at least 10+). Prevents you locking yourself out of the ability. Pairs well with gold generating decks like Hlaalu or Rhajiin.
Pelin (Red) is straightforward power gain with some minor attention to defensive agents. A good deck, and pairs very well with patrons who SPEND power such as Red Eagle (Black) and Mora (Dark Green).
Hlaalu (Gold) is the ultimate gold generator. Focus is on gaining high value cards or simply massive gold piles (excellent strat to pair with Crow patron). The real trick with this patron is to continually pare down junk cards after play so you can keep your cycle time low. Otherwise it’s a noob trap that bloats the deck.
Psijiic (Blue) focus is on deck manipulation by SKIPPING your junk cards. Decent gold gain. Patron is a decent emergency anti agent button. Not my favorite but that’s just because his players tend to take forever haha
Ansei (Light Green) is focused on choice and versatility. Most of his cards let you choose the effect, tailoring to your need. Can also recycle old cards back to top of draw. Not my favorite. I prefer more pointed win conditions.
Red Eagle (Black) is another power deck, but also focused on shrinking your deck. I like to pair him with chain heavy decks like Crow or Mora because his patron helps you push out just one more when you’re on the edge of a monster turn.
Orgnum (Light Blue) is focused first and foremost on prestige gain directly. Almost always turns into a match of “who can click the patron the most” because you can’t afford to let your opponent spam it. I pair it with Hlaalu because it has some cards that can give you cards for free. You can spend gold at the patron and use the free card for more merchant cards. Not a favorite deck.
Almalexia (Dark Blue) is about controlling the opponents cards and tossing your own cards for synergies. Complex but versatile. Good but not a favorite.
Druid (Super Light Green) is all about agent spam. I hate him lol. Can also control the shop by spending power.
Rhajiin (Orange) is focused on gold gain, but MOSTLY trolling. Excellent at killing agents, reducing prestige, cluttering decks, and generally slowing down your opponent. It’s a good deck but if both players are good at him it makes games take ages.
Hermaeus Mora (Dark Green) is my favorite. He focuses on accelerationism. He does a lot. He can prune your deck, generate gold and especially power (at ludicrous rates). The catch is that each card you play helps your opponent. This means you have to COMMIT to a Hermy deck or you’re just handing free resources to your opponent. Patron ability can spend a little power to hand a card to both players (can be great to use tactically such as if it’s a card that helps you but hurts them. Or if you’re fighting over crow cards and you’re out of gold… sometimes it’s better to make sure you both get it rather than only them). Leads to fast games.
submitted by Sarcosmonaut to elderscrollsonline [link] [comments]
Let’s start with the very basics. Each game you select a total of 4 patrons which inform what card suites are available to you and your opponent. Finding the right decks for you is essential to your success. Not every deck clicks the same for everyone.
Know every deck. This comes with practice, but by knowing the decks you know the probable strategies your opponent wishes to employ. If he picks Hermaeus Mora, he’s going fast. If he picks Raj he’s going to make you suffer etc
Don’t clutter your deck. Pick only what you need. If you’re stumped, just upgrade a coin to a 2 coin at the bank. You could have amazing cards, but if you only get to play them once every 5 hands, you’re probably not going anywhere. You want a fast deck cycle time. That’s how often you can expect to play your whole deck. As an example your starting deck has a cycle time of 2 turns.
When possible try to stick to only building a deck of 1 or 2 colors. These cards have synergies with their suite so the more you stack your deck with a given suite, the more likely your cards will “do the cool thing”.
Gold allows you to buy cards. You can also spend it at a couple different patrons.
Power allows you to kill opposing agents, and at the end of the turn is converted into prestige.
Prestige is the “Win” condition. Less complicated than the others.
Crow (Purple) is the best all around deck. If he’s in the shop, buy purple. You do NOT want your opponent to build a deck of him. That’s gold, power, AND draw. Nasty stuff. If you’re a true beginner, focus on Crow and hope for the best. My advice? Don’t use his patron ability unless you’ve got a FAT pile of gold (at least 10+). Prevents you locking yourself out of the ability. Pairs well with gold generating decks like Hlaalu or Rhajiin.
Pelin (Red) is straightforward power gain with some minor attention to defensive agents. A good deck, and pairs very well with patrons who SPEND power such as Red Eagle (Black) and Mora (Dark Green).
Hlaalu (Gold) is the ultimate gold generator. Focus is on gaining high value cards or simply massive gold piles (excellent strat to pair with Crow patron). The real trick with this patron is to continually pare down junk cards after play so you can keep your cycle time low. Otherwise it’s a noob trap that bloats the deck.
Psijiic (Blue) focus is on deck manipulation by SKIPPING your junk cards. Decent gold gain. Patron is a decent emergency anti agent button. Not my favorite but that’s just because his players tend to take forever haha
Ansei (Light Green) is focused on choice and versatility. Most of his cards let you choose the effect, tailoring to your need. Can also recycle old cards back to top of draw. Not my favorite. I prefer more pointed win conditions.
Red Eagle (Black) is another power deck, but also focused on shrinking your deck. I like to pair him with chain heavy decks like Crow or Mora because his patron helps you push out just one more when you’re on the edge of a monster turn.
Orgnum (Light Blue) is focused first and foremost on prestige gain directly. Almost always turns into a match of “who can click the patron the most” because you can’t afford to let your opponent spam it. I pair it with Hlaalu because it has some cards that can give you cards for free. You can spend gold at the patron and use the free card for more merchant cards. Not a favorite deck.
Almalexia (Dark Blue) is about controlling the opponents cards and tossing your own cards for synergies. Complex but versatile. Good but not a favorite.
Druid (Super Light Green) is all about agent spam. I hate him lol. Can also control the shop by spending power.
Rhajiin (Orange) is focused on gold gain, but MOSTLY trolling. Excellent at killing agents, reducing prestige, cluttering decks, and generally slowing down your opponent. It’s a good deck but if both players are good at him it makes games take ages.
Hermaeus Mora (Dark Green) is my favorite. He focuses on accelerationism. He does a lot. He can prune your deck, generate gold and especially power (at ludicrous rates). The catch is that each card you play helps your opponent. This means you have to COMMIT to a Hermy deck or you’re just handing free resources to your opponent. Patron ability can spend a little power to hand a card to both players (can be great to use tactically such as if it’s a card that helps you but hurts them. Or if you’re fighting over crow cards and you’re out of gold… sometimes it’s better to make sure you both get it rather than only them). Leads to fast games.
2024.05.15 16:14 Flame0fthewest Let's share some really memorable deep moments from the show!
 | https://preview.redd.it/x59kgsnthl0d1.jpg?width=736&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d21d947ac54162ebd368ab132e14aef0870f17f submitted by Flame0fthewest to BlackSails [link] [comments] For me, one of the best (and darkest) scenes is the one when Gates finally corners Flint during the "Urca hunt", and openly admits that he leads the mutiny and he won't cover up the captain's shady things anymore. There are a lot of interesting things going on there. First of all, Gates and Flint were close friends and deeply trusted each other with their lives. Of course, this relationship required a lot more from Gates, since he was the one who had to clean up after Flint every time, and despite of the trust between them, Flint was rarely totally honest even with him. And yet, Gates choose to cover his captain's back every time, even when people died from their own crew because of Flint's decisions. He was loyal, for as long as humanly possible. The nail in the coffin was Billy's "death". Gates loved him as his own son and wanted him to become his successor. After Flint decided to "kill" him, the quartermaster reached a breaking point and choose not to support Flint's plans anymore. He didn't care about the wealth. He didn't care about fame - he just wanted a peaceful ending of the hunt, but he had to admit that his captain went way too far. The saddest part was their last conversation. Gates didn't know that Flint's hate towards England roots too deep to ever accept the pardon - and by forcing Flint to accept his terms, he sealed his fate. But even tho he was controlling the mutiny and even tho he gave evidence against the captain, and DESPITE the fact that he killed his loved one - he still couldn't really hate Flint. He wanted to help him disappear after the hunt from Nassau, so he could start a new life with the woman he loved. After all these things, Gates still cared enough about him, so much that he was willing to risk his life by protecing him from the crew's rage. The last moments hit really deep tho - when Flint started BEGGING. We know that he is a scary, powerful man who killed many others for wealth, for love... he was feared by everyone, he was one of the most successfull captains on the seas, and yet, he was begging for his friend. That's something we literally almost never see from him, ever. Because he knew that if Gates opens the cabin door without changing his mind... then his only option will be to kill him. Of course, his words were useless after everything that happened and Gates didn't change his mind. But what also touched my soul is the fact that Gates didn't have a "backup plan" against Flint, if he'd go totally mad. He didn't reach for his gun or sword. He didn't bring men with him as protection. He simply turned his back against Flint - because he NEVER THOUGHT that Flint would go so far that he would try to attack him. (sorry if this was too long, I like to talk about scenes I love :D) What were your memorable moments? |
2024.05.15 16:10 Lower_Appointment Could we update war rankings or the way match making works?
War is kinda out of hand. When you log in and you’re going against one of the big five or even the top ten for that matter. The top ten alliances are in a world of their own. It makes war unplayable when you go against a kraken alliance every third war. I think you need to revisit match making and war rankings in general.
What if you updated war rankings similar to crucible rankings? So we have grandmasters, masters, diamond, platinum, and so on. It would realign the alliances to have better match making.
I understand the hard part would be zones. What if there was only two zones? One starts twelves hours after the other. We’ll still get 24 hours to get our attacks in. What ever time zone works better for you and your game play. Instead of the four zones and alliances jump around from each one to avoid playing the other kraken alliances.
There is just such a huge gap between all of that it needs to start reflecting
1-5 is a difference of 500m 6-10 is a difference of 200m 11-20 is a difference of 400m 21-100 is a difference of 350m
By the time a top five alliance plays a top 100 alliance in the same zone. It could be upwards of a 1.5b tcp punch down. How is that fun for either alliance?
I know this probably wouldn’t be a perfect solution. The krakens pay a lot of money to have that advantage. I get it you have to keep your paying customers happy. This wouldn’t change that much for them. They would still get their trophies like they do now. They would just have to try a little harder for it a few more wars a season. I think the vast majority of the player base would like to not go up against one of the big kraken alliances every third war. Maybe every six wars wouldn’t be bad. So one kraken war a season.
submitted by Lower_Appointment to MarvelStrikeForce [link] [comments]
What if you updated war rankings similar to crucible rankings? So we have grandmasters, masters, diamond, platinum, and so on. It would realign the alliances to have better match making.
I understand the hard part would be zones. What if there was only two zones? One starts twelves hours after the other. We’ll still get 24 hours to get our attacks in. What ever time zone works better for you and your game play. Instead of the four zones and alliances jump around from each one to avoid playing the other kraken alliances.
There is just such a huge gap between all of that it needs to start reflecting
1-5 is a difference of 500m 6-10 is a difference of 200m 11-20 is a difference of 400m 21-100 is a difference of 350m
By the time a top five alliance plays a top 100 alliance in the same zone. It could be upwards of a 1.5b tcp punch down. How is that fun for either alliance?
I know this probably wouldn’t be a perfect solution. The krakens pay a lot of money to have that advantage. I get it you have to keep your paying customers happy. This wouldn’t change that much for them. They would still get their trophies like they do now. They would just have to try a little harder for it a few more wars a season. I think the vast majority of the player base would like to not go up against one of the big kraken alliances every third war. Maybe every six wars wouldn’t be bad. So one kraken war a season.
2024.05.15 16:02 docXfamas [H] DOOM Eternal DELUXE EDITION, Have a Nice Death, Dying Light Definitive Edition, Torchlight III, Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered, Omensight Definitve Edition and lots of other bundled games [W] Trepang2, PayPal, tf2 keys, gems, wishlisted games
Note:
MY REP Wishlist
Gems
TF2 keys/ CS2 Cases
submitted by docXfamas to SteamGameSwap [link] [comments]
- All keys are primarily from US/NA region
- My list maybe slightly outdated so I apologize in advance if some of the games mentioned are already traded/Sold.
- I accept XBOX keys as well.
- I accept paypal only via goods and services so all transactions will include fees.
- My Wishlist, I am just interested in these games and mentioned in wants below.
HAVE
- .hack//G.U. Last Recode
- 10 Second Ninja X
- 112 operator
- 198X x 2
- 8 doors
- 9 Years of Shadows
- 911 Operator x 2
- A Fisherman's Tale
- A Juggler's Tale
- A Little Golf Journey
- A Sceptic's Guide to Magic
- A Tale of Paper: Refolded Edition
- A.I.M. Clan Wars
- Aces and Adventures x 1
- Aegis Defenders x 3
- Ageless x 3
- Alekhine's Gun
- Alien Spidy
- Alwa's Awakening
- Amanda the Adventurer
- American Fugitive x 3
- Amnesia: The Dark Descent + Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
- Amnesia: Rebirth x 2
- Anna's Quest x 2
- Anuchard
- Arcade Paradise
- Arcade Paradise - Arcade Paradise EP x 2
- Arcade Spirits
- Arto
- As Far As The Eye
- Astalon: Tears of the Earth
- AtmaSphere
- Attack of the Earthlings
- Automachef x 3
- Automobilista
- Autonauts vs Piratebots x 3
- Axiom Verge
- Axiom Verge 2
- Back 4 Blood - STRICT NA REGION LOCK x 2
- Ballpoint Universe - Infinite
- Bartlow's Dread Machine
- Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition
- Batman: Arkham City GOTY
- Batman: Arkham Knight Premium Edition
- Batman: Arkham Origins
- Battlestar Galactica Deadlock
- Bayonetta
- Beacon Pines x 2
- Before We leave
- Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery
- Beholder 2
- Bendy and the Dark Revival x 2
- Between the stars x 4
- Beyond the wire x 2
- Big Crown Showdown
- Bionic Commando x 2
- Blade Assault
- Blasphemous
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night x 3
- Book of Demons x 3
- Boomerang Fu
- Borderlands 2 Game of the Year x 2
- Boreal Blade x 3
- Boundless
- Bravery and Greed
- Broken Age
- Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
- Builder Simulator x 1
- Bunker Punks
- Butcher
- CAPITALISM 2
- CHESS ULTRA
- CODE VEIN
- CROSSBOW: Bloodnight x 2
- Call of Juarez Gunslinger
- Canyon Capers
- Capitalism 2
- Car Mechanic Simulator 2018
- Car Mechanic Simulator VR
- Cardaclysm
- Carnival Games VR
- Caveman World: Mountains of Unga Boonga
- Celeste
- Charlie's Adventure
- Chicken Assassin Reloaded
- Children of Silentown x 2
- Chivalry 2 x 2
- Chivalry: Medieval Warfare x 2
- Citizen Sleeper
- CivCity: Rome x 3
- Civilization III x 2
- Clutch
- Cobra Kai: The Karate Kid Saga Continues
- Conan Exiles
- Convoy
- Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3
- Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!
- Cook-Out
- Cookie Cutter
- Cosmic Star Heroine
- Crash Drive 3
- Crazy Machines 3
- Crown Trick
- Cultures - 8th Wonder of the world
- Cursed Castilla (Maldita Castilla Ex)
- Cyber Hook x 2
- DISTRAINT 2 x 2
- DOOM Eternal DELUXE EDITION
- DUCATI - 90th Anniversary
- Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - The Eldritch Box DLC x 2
- Danger Scavenger
- Dangerous Worlds x 2
- Dark Future: Blood Red States
- Darksburg x 2
- Darkwood
- Dead Age
- Dead In Vinland x 2
- Death's Gambit: Afterlife
- Deleveled x 2
- Demon Pit
- Deponia: The Complete Journey x 2
- Derange
- Desert Child
- Desolate x 2
- Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed x 2
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - Digital Deluxe Edition
- DiRT Rally
- DiRT Rally 2.0 - H2 RWD Double Pack
- DiRT Rally 2.0 - Opel Manta 400
- Dirt Rally 2.0 - Porsche 911 RGT Rally Spec
- Dirt Rally x 2
- Disco Elysium - The Final Cut
- Disjunction - gog
- Do Not Feed the Monkeys
- Dracula: Love Kills
- Drake Hollow x 2
- Draw Slasher x 2
- Drawful 2 x 2
- Dreams in the Witch House x 2
- Dreamscaper x 2
- Driftland: The Magic Revival x 5
- Ducati - 90th Anniversary
- Due Process x 3
- Duke Nukem Forever collection x 4
- Dust to the End
- Dying Light Definitive Edition
- ELEX II x 4
- ETHERBORN
- Eador. Imperium
- Earth 2140
- Earth Defence Force 4.1 + all dlc
- Earth Defence Force: Iron Rain
- EarthX
- Edge Of Eternity x 3
- El Matador
- Elderand
- Eldest Souls
- Ember
- Enclave (Gold) x 2
- Encodya - GOG x 2
- Endless Space 2 x 2
- Endzone - A World apart
- Enslaved™: Odyssey To The West™ Premium Edition
- Eternal Threads x 4
- Eternity: The Last Unicorn
- Evergarden x 2
- Evoland Legendary Edition x 2
- Exiled Kingdoms x 2
- Expeditions: Rome x 2
- Expeditions: Viking
- F1 2017 1988 McLAREN MP4/4 Classic Car DLC
- FAR: Lone Sails x 2
- Family Man x 3
- Fantasy Blacksmith
- Fantasy Versus
- Farmer's dynasty x 2
- Fated Souls 3
- Fear Effect Sedna
- Fictorum
- Field of Glory II x 2
- Field of Glory: Empires
- Figement
- Final Fantasy III (3D Remake)
- Five Dates x 2
- Fling to the Finish
- Fobia - St. Dinfna Hotel x 2
- For The King
- Foretales x 1
- Four Sided Fantasy
- Friends vs Friends x 4
- Frog Detective 2: The Case Of The Invisible Wizard x 3
- Frogun
- From Space x 3
- Fun With Ragdolls: The Game x 2
- Fun with Ragdolls: The Game
- Fury Unleashed x 5
- GOD EATER 3 x 2
- GRID Autosport - Premium Garage Pack DLC
- GRID Autosport - Road & Track Car Pack DLC
- GRIP: Combat Racing Artifex DLC x 3
- GameGuru x 2
- GameMaker Studio 2 Creator 12 Months x 2
- Garage: bad trip
- Garfield Kart
- Garfield Kart - Furious Racing
- Gauntlet
- GemCraft - Chasing Shadows
- Genesis Alpha One Deluxe Edition x 3
- Ghost Of A Tale
- Ghost Song
- Gift of Parthax
- Glitch Busters x 2
- Gloria Victis x 2
- Gnog
- Go Home Dinosaurs x 2
- Gold Rush! Classic
- Golden Light x 3
- Golf Club Wasteland
- Gotham Knights
- Gothic 3
- Grand Mountain Adventure
- Green Hell (Region locked)
- Guts and Glory
- Guts and glory
- Hardspace: Shipbreaker x 3
- Have a nice Death
- Headsnatchers x 2
- Heal
- Heavy Burger
- Heli Heroes
- Helion
- Hell Pie
- Hell let loose
- Hellpoint x 2
- Hero's Hour (NA Region) x 3
- Hexologic
- Hi-Fi RUSH
- Hidden & Dangerous 2: Courage Under Fire x 3
- Hidden & Dangerous: Action Pack x 2
- Hiveswap Friendsim x 2
- Hiveswap: Act 1
- Homefront
- Homestead Arcana x 2
- Honey, I Joined a Cult x 2
- Horizon Chase Turbo x 2
- Hot Brass x 2
- Hot Wheels Unleashed
- Hotshot Racing x 3
- Hue x 2
- Hyperdrive Massacre
- I Expect You To Die
- Ice Age: Scrat's Nutty Adventure
- Ikenfell x 3
- Imperator: Rome Deluxe Edition x 2
- In sound mind x 2
- Indivisible x 5
- Injustice 2 Legendary Edition
- Insurmountable
- Interplanetary: Enhanced Edition
- Interstellar Space: Genesis
- Introvert Quest
- Iratus: Lord of the Dead
- Iris And The Giant
- Iron Danger
- Iron Sky Invasion
- Jack Move
- Jack Orlando: Director's Cut
- Journey of Greed
- Journey of a Roach x 2
- JumpJet Rex
- Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection
- Just Cause 4 Complete Edition
- Karma City Police
- Kerbal Space Program
- King Of The Castle
- King's Bounty: Warriors of the North
- Kingdom: Classic
- Kingdom: New Lands x 2
- Kings of Kung Fu
- Kitaria Fables
- Knights and Merchants
- Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara
- Kraken Academy!!
- Kyle is Famous: Complete Edition
- LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
- LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
- LEGO® MARVEL's Avengers
- Last Inua
- Lawn Mowing Simulator x 2
- Layers of Fear + Soundtrack
- Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry
- Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Dry Twice
- Levelhead
- Liberated
- Liberated GOG x 2
- Liberte
- Lichdom: Battlemage
- Life is Strange 2 Complete Season (incl. Mascot Bundle DLC)
- Life is Strange: True Colors x 2
- Little Orpheus
- Loddlenaut
- Lords and Villeins x 3
- Lostwinds
- Lovecraft's Untold Stories x 3
- Lust for Darkness
- MO:Astray
- Mad Max
- Magrunner: Dark Pulse
- Main Assembly
- Majesty 2 Collection x 2
- Making History: The Calm and the Storm Gold Edition
- Marvel's Midnight Suns Digital+ Edition + Doctor Strange Defenders Skin
- Mass Effect 2 Origin key
- Medieval Kingdom Wars
- Mediterranea Inferno
- Meeple Station x 2
- Mega Man Legacy Collection
- Memoria + Soundtrack
- Men of War
- Merchant of the Skies x 2
- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition x 2
- Middle-earth: Shadow of War Definitive Edition x 2
- Midnight Fight Express
- Midnight Ghost Hunt
- Midnight protocol x 2
- Milky Way Prince - The Vampire Star x 2
- Monaco
- Monorail Stories
- Monster Crown x 3
- Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp x 2
- Monster Slayers
- Monster Slayers - Advanced Classes Unlocker
- Monster Slayers - Fire & Steel Expansion
- Morbid: The Seven Acolytes x 2
- Morkredd x 3
- Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Edition x 2
- Mortal Kombat XL x 2
- Moving Out
- Mr. Prepper x 2
- Munin
- Murder by Numbers
- My Big Sister x 2
- My Time At Portia
- Mystery Castle: The Mirror's Secret
- Mytheon
- Mythforce
- Narita Boy
- Nebuchadnezzar
- NecroVisioN: Lost Company
- NecroWorm x 2
- Neoverse x 3
- Neverout x 2
- Neversong
- Nickelodeon all-star brawl x 2
- Niffelheim x 2
- Nigate Tale
- Nioh 2
- Nobody Saves the World
- Noosphere
- Northend Tower Defense
- Nowhere Prophet
- Nuclear DAWN
- OTXO
- Oaken x 2
- Oddworld: Soulstorm Enhanced Edition x 2
- Of Orcs and Men
- Oh My Gore! x 3
- Omensight Definitve Edition x 2
- Operation Tango x 2
- Orbital Racer x 2
- Othercide
- Out Of Space
- Out of Reach: Treasure Royale x 2
- Overcooked
- Overlord: Ultimate Evil Collection
- Ozymandias - NA region x 2
- PAC-MAN 256
- PAC-MAN MUSEUM+ x 2
- PC Building Simulator x 2
- PGA Tour 2K21 x 2
- PULSAR: Lost Colony x 2
- Partisans 1941 x 2
- Patch Quest x 3
- Path Of Giants
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Royal Ascension
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Wild Cards
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker Enhanced Plus Edition
- Paw paw paw x 4
- Peaky Blinders: Mastermind x 2
- Perfect x 2
- Pesterquest x 4
- Phantom Doctrine x 2
- Pikuniku
- Pine
- Pitiri 1977
- Pixel Puzzles: UndeadZ
- Pixplode x 2
- Planet Alcatraz
- Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville (ORIGIN KEY)
- PlataGO!
- Police stories
- Popup Dungeon
- Port Royale 3
- Prison Architect + Aficionado (Dlc)
- Prodeus
- Propnight
- Purrfect Date
- Quern: Undying thoughts
- RAD x 2
- REPLIKATOR
- RICO: London
- RIOT - Civil Unrest
- RPG Maker VX
- Rage in Peace
- Railroad Tycoon 2: Platinum x 3
- Railroad Tycoon 3 x 3
- Railway Empire
- Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan x 2
- Re-Legion
- Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
- Rebel Inc: Escalation x 3
- Red Wings: Aces of the Sky
- Redeemer: Enhanced Edition x 2
- Relicta x 3
- Remnants of Naezith x 2
- Remothered: Broken Porcelain
- Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood x 2
- Rescue Party: Live! x 2
- Resident Evil HD REMASTER
- Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Episode 1: Penal Colony x 2
- Resident Evil Revelations x 2
- Retimed x 3
- Reventure
- Revita
- Rig n Roll
- Ring of pain x 4
- Rise Of Industry x 3
- Rise of the Slime x 2
- Roadwarden
- Roarr! Jurassic Edition x 2
- Roboquest
- Rogue Lords x 2
- Roguebook
- RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic
- Rollerdrome NA region
- Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered
- Rover Mechanic Simulator x 3
- Rustler x 4
- SCP : Secret Files x 3
- SPACECOM
- SPRAWL x 2
- STONE x 2
- SUPERHOT VR
- SYSTEM SHOCK: ENHANCED EDITION
- Sairento VR
- Satellite Reign
- Saturday Morning RPG
- Save Room - Organization Puzzle
- Say No! More
- Scheming Through The Zombie Apocalypse: The Beginning x 2
- Scorn x 2
- ScourgeBringer
- Seed Hunter x 2
- Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun - Aiko's Choice
- Shadowhand: RPG Card Game
- Shady Part of Me x 2
- Shantae and the Pirate's Curse
- Shark Attack Deathmatch 2
- Shing! x 2
- Shining Resonance Refrain x 2
- Ship Simulator Extremes x 2
- Shooting Stars! x 2
- Shooty Fruity
- Shoppe Keep 2
- Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate - NA region x 2
- Sid Meier's Railroads! x 3
- Sifu Deluxe Edition Upgrade Bundle x 2
- Silver Chains
- Simple Rockets 2
- Simplerockets 2 x 2
- Simulacra + Simulacra 2
- Sin Slayers
- Size Matters x 3
- Skullgirls 2nd Encore
- Slain: Back from Hell
- Slinger VR x 2
- Snake Pass
- Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts x 2
- Snowtopia x 2
- Songbird Symphony
- Songbringer
- Sonic Adventure 2: Battle Mode DLC x 2
- Sonic Adventure™ 2 x 2
- Sorry, James
- Soul Axiom Rebooted x 2
- Soulblight x 2
- Souldiers
- Space Cows
- Space Hulk Ascension
- Sparklite
- Speed Brawl x 2
- Spirit Of The Island x 3
- Splasher
- Star Wolves
- Star Wolves 3: Civil War
- Stars End
- Starsand x 2
- Staxel
- Stealth 2: A Game Of Clones
- Steel Rats x 2
- Steelrising
- Still There x 3
- Strange Brigade x 2
- Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection
- Street Fighter V
- Strider x 2
- Struggling x 2
- Stubbs The Zombie In Rebel Without A Pulse
- Sunblaze
- Super Magbot
- Super Meat Boy x 2
- Super Panda Adventures
- Super Trench Attack!
- Supraland x 2
- Supreme Ruler 1936
- Supreme Ruler: Cold War
- SurrounDead x 2
- TEKKEN 7 x 2
- THE HEX
- THEM'S FIGHTIN' HERDS
- Tabletop Playground x 3
- Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition
- Tango Fiesta
- Tannenberg
- Telefrag VR x 2
- Tesla vs Lovecraft
- The Amazing American Circus x 2
- The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
- The Ascent
- The Assembly
- The Bard's Tale IV: Director's Cut x 3
- The Beast Inside x 3
- The Big Con x 2
- The Blackout Club
- The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters x 2
- The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets
- The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
- The Darkness II x 2
- The Deed Dynasty
- The Deed II
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind x 2
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion x 2
- The Elder Scrolls Online
- The Excavation of Hob's Barrow
- The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA TOUR x 3
- The Gunk x 2
- The Haunted Island, A Frog Detective Game x 3
- The Henry Stickmin Collection x 2
- The Hong Kong Massacre
- The Invisible Hand x 2
- The Knight Witch
- The LEGO Movie - Videogame
- The LEGO NINJAGO Movie Video Game
- The Legend of Tianding x 2
- The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
- The Long Reach
- The Mummy Demastered
- The Pale Beyond
- The Quarry - Deluxe Edition x 2
- The Red Lantern
- The Red Solstice x 2
- The Shapeshifting Detective
- The Surge
- The Survivalists
- The Swords Of Ditto: Mormo's Curse x 2
- The Textorcist: The story of Ray Bibbia x 3
- The Town of Light
- The USB Stick Found in the Grass x 2
- The Uncertain - The Last Quiet Day
- The Walking Dead
- The Walking Dead: 400 Days
- The Walking Dead: A New Frontier x 2
- The Walking Dead: Michonne x 2
- The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution
- The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners x 4
- The Walking Dead: Season Two
- The Walking Dead: The Final Season x 2
- The Wild Eight
- The Wizards - Dark Times
- Them and Us
- Them's Fightin' Herds
- There Is No Light
- Thief of Thieves: Season One x 2
- This Strange Realm Of Mine
- This War of Mine: Stories - Season Pass DLC
- Throne Of Lies® The Online Game Of Deceit
- Through The Darkest Of Times x 3
- Tilt Brush x 2
- Timelie
- Tin Can x 2
- Toejam & Earl: Back in the Groove x 2
- Tohu x 3
- Tools Up!
- Tools up x 2
- Tooth and Tail
- Torchlight
- Torchlight III
- Total Tank Simulator x 2
- Townscaper
- Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt x 2
- Toy tinker Simulator
- Toybox Turbos x 2
- Train Station Renovation x 2
- Treasure Hunter Simulator x 3
- Trek to Yomi
- Tropico 4
- Truberbrook / Trüberbrook
- Truck Racer
- Tumblestone
- Turbo Golf Racing x 4
- Two Point Campus
- Tyrant's Blessing
- UNDETECTED
- UnMetal
- Undungeon
- Unexplored
- Unto The End
- V-Rally 4
- Vagante
- Vagrant Hearts 2
- Valfaris: Mecha Therion
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows Of New York x 3
- Vane x 3
- Verdun
- Victoria 3
- Vikings - Wolves of Midgard
- WARSAW x 5
- WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS + Ultimate Brawlers Pass x 4
- WWE 2K23 x 5
- WWE 2k Battlegrounds
- Wanderlust: Travel Stories - GOG key x 2
- Wandersong x 2
- Wargroove x 2
- Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters x 2
- Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus
- Warhammer 40,000: Sanctus Reach
- Warhammer: Chaosbane x 2
- Wayward Souls
- We Are Alright x 2
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse Heart Of The Forest
- West of Dead
- Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
- Whispering Willows
- White Day: A Labyrinth Named School x 2
- Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus? x 3
- Wick
- Windjammers 2
- Windscape
- Wordle 1-5 Quintology Pack
- World's Dawn x 2
- Worms Clan Wars
- Worms rumble + legends pack dlc x 3
- WrestleQuest
- X-COM: Complete Pack x 3
- X-Morph: Defense + European Assault, Survival of the Fittest, and Last Bastion DLC x 2
- X-Morph Defense x 3
- Xcom® 2: Resistance Warrior Pack
- Yakuza: Like a Dragon
- Yet Another Zombie Defense HD x 2
- Yoku's Island Express
- Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
- Youtubers Life 2
- Zanzarah: The Hidden Portal
- Zombie Army 4: Dead War
- Zombotron
WANT
- Trepang2
- The Pedestrian
- OPUS: Echo of Starsong - Full Bloom Edition
MY REP Wishlist
Gems
TF2 keys/ CS2 Cases
2024.05.15 16:01 docXfamas [H] DOOM Eternal DELUXE EDITION, Have a Nice Death, Dying Light Definitive Edition, Torchlight III, Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered, Omensight Definitve Edition and lots of other bundled games [W] Trepang2, PayPal, tf2 keys, gems, wishlisted games
Note:
MY REP Wishlist MY IGS REP
Gems
TF2 keys/ CS2 Cases
submitted by docXfamas to indiegameswap [link] [comments]
- All keys are primarily from US/NA region
- My list maybe slightly outdated so I apologize in advance if some of the games mentioned are already traded/Sold.
- I accept XBOX keys as well.
- I accept paypal only via goods and services so all transactions will include fees.
- My Wishlist, I am just interested in these games and mentioned in wants below.
HAVE
- .hack//G.U. Last Recode
- 10 Second Ninja X
- 112 operator
- 198X x 2
- 8 doors
- 9 Years of Shadows
- 911 Operator x 2
- A Fisherman's Tale
- A Juggler's Tale
- A Little Golf Journey
- A Sceptic's Guide to Magic
- A Tale of Paper: Refolded Edition
- A.I.M. Clan Wars
- Aces and Adventures x 1
- Aegis Defenders x 3
- Ageless x 3
- Alekhine's Gun
- Alien Spidy
- Alwa's Awakening
- Amanda the Adventurer
- American Fugitive x 3
- Amnesia: The Dark Descent + Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
- Amnesia: Rebirth x 2
- Anna's Quest x 2
- Anuchard
- Arcade Paradise
- Arcade Paradise - Arcade Paradise EP x 2
- Arcade Spirits
- Arto
- As Far As The Eye
- Astalon: Tears of the Earth
- AtmaSphere
- Attack of the Earthlings
- Automachef x 3
- Automobilista
- Autonauts vs Piratebots x 3
- Axiom Verge
- Axiom Verge 2
- Back 4 Blood - STRICT NA REGION LOCK x 2
- Ballpoint Universe - Infinite
- Bartlow's Dread Machine
- Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY Edition
- Batman: Arkham City GOTY
- Batman: Arkham Knight Premium Edition
- Batman: Arkham Origins
- Battlestar Galactica Deadlock
- Bayonetta
- Beacon Pines x 2
- Before We leave
- Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery
- Beholder 2
- Bendy and the Dark Revival x 2
- Between the stars x 4
- Beyond the wire x 2
- Big Crown Showdown
- Bionic Commando x 2
- Blade Assault
- Blasphemous
- Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night x 3
- Book of Demons x 3
- Boomerang Fu
- Borderlands 2 Game of the Year x 2
- Boreal Blade x 3
- Boundless
- Bravery and Greed
- Broken Age
- Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
- Builder Simulator x 1
- Bunker Punks
- Butcher
- CAPITALISM 2
- CHESS ULTRA
- CODE VEIN
- CROSSBOW: Bloodnight x 2
- Call of Juarez Gunslinger
- Canyon Capers
- Capitalism 2
- Car Mechanic Simulator 2018
- Car Mechanic Simulator VR
- Cardaclysm
- Carnival Games VR
- Caveman World: Mountains of Unga Boonga
- Celeste
- Charlie's Adventure
- Chicken Assassin Reloaded
- Children of Silentown x 2
- Chivalry 2 x 2
- Chivalry: Medieval Warfare x 2
- Citizen Sleeper
- CivCity: Rome x 3
- Civilization III x 2
- Clutch
- Cobra Kai: The Karate Kid Saga Continues
- Conan Exiles
- Convoy
- Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3
- Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!
- Cook-Out
- Cookie Cutter
- Cosmic Star Heroine
- Crash Drive 3
- Crazy Machines 3
- Crown Trick
- Cultures - 8th Wonder of the world
- Cursed Castilla (Maldita Castilla Ex)
- Cyber Hook x 2
- DISTRAINT 2 x 2
- DOOM Eternal DELUXE EDITION
- DUCATI - 90th Anniversary
- Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - The Eldritch Box DLC x 2
- Danger Scavenger
- Dangerous Worlds x 2
- Dark Future: Blood Red States
- Darksburg x 2
- Darkwood
- Dead Age
- Dead In Vinland x 2
- Death's Gambit: Afterlife
- Deleveled x 2
- Demon Pit
- Deponia: The Complete Journey x 2
- Derange
- Desert Child
- Desolate x 2
- Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed x 2
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - Digital Deluxe Edition
- DiRT Rally
- DiRT Rally 2.0 - H2 RWD Double Pack
- DiRT Rally 2.0 - Opel Manta 400
- Dirt Rally 2.0 - Porsche 911 RGT Rally Spec
- Dirt Rally x 2
- Disco Elysium - The Final Cut
- Disjunction - gog
- Do Not Feed the Monkeys
- Dracula: Love Kills
- Drake Hollow x 2
- Draw Slasher x 2
- Drawful 2 x 2
- Dreams in the Witch House x 2
- Dreamscaper x 2
- Driftland: The Magic Revival x 5
- Ducati - 90th Anniversary
- Due Process x 3
- Duke Nukem Forever collection x 4
- Dust to the End
- Dying Light Definitive Edition
- ELEX II x 4
- ETHERBORN
- Eador. Imperium
- Earth 2140
- Earth Defence Force 4.1 + all dlc
- Earth Defence Force: Iron Rain
- EarthX
- Edge Of Eternity x 3
- El Matador
- Elderand
- Eldest Souls
- Ember
- Enclave (Gold) x 2
- Encodya - GOG x 2
- Endless Space 2 x 2
- Endzone - A World apart
- Enslaved™: Odyssey To The West™ Premium Edition
- Eternal Threads x 4
- Eternity: The Last Unicorn
- Evergarden x 2
- Evoland Legendary Edition x 2
- Exiled Kingdoms x 2
- Expeditions: Rome x 2
- Expeditions: Viking
- F1 2017 1988 McLAREN MP4/4 Classic Car DLC
- FAR: Lone Sails x 2
- Family Man x 3
- Fantasy Blacksmith
- Fantasy Versus
- Farmer's dynasty x 2
- Fated Souls 3
- Fear Effect Sedna
- Fictorum
- Field of Glory II x 2
- Field of Glory: Empires
- Figement
- Final Fantasy III (3D Remake)
- Five Dates x 2
- Fling to the Finish
- Fobia - St. Dinfna Hotel x 2
- For The King
- Foretales x 1
- Four Sided Fantasy
- Friends vs Friends x 4
- Frog Detective 2: The Case Of The Invisible Wizard x 3
- Frogun
- From Space x 3
- Fun With Ragdolls: The Game x 2
- Fun with Ragdolls: The Game
- Fury Unleashed x 5
- GOD EATER 3 x 2
- GRID Autosport - Premium Garage Pack DLC
- GRID Autosport - Road & Track Car Pack DLC
- GRIP: Combat Racing Artifex DLC x 3
- GameGuru x 2
- GameMaker Studio 2 Creator 12 Months x 2
- Garage: bad trip
- Garfield Kart
- Garfield Kart - Furious Racing
- Gauntlet
- GemCraft - Chasing Shadows
- Genesis Alpha One Deluxe Edition x 3
- Ghost Of A Tale
- Ghost Song
- Gift of Parthax
- Glitch Busters x 2
- Gloria Victis x 2
- Gnog
- Go Home Dinosaurs x 2
- Gold Rush! Classic
- Golden Light x 3
- Golf Club Wasteland
- Gotham Knights
- Gothic 3
- Grand Mountain Adventure
- Green Hell (Region locked)
- Guts and Glory
- Guts and glory
- Hardspace: Shipbreaker x 3
- Have a nice Death
- Headsnatchers x 2
- Heal
- Heavy Burger
- Heli Heroes
- Helion
- Hell Pie
- Hell let loose
- Hellpoint x 2
- Hero's Hour (NA Region) x 3
- Hexologic
- Hi-Fi RUSH
- Hidden & Dangerous 2: Courage Under Fire x 3
- Hidden & Dangerous: Action Pack x 2
- Hiveswap Friendsim x 2
- Hiveswap: Act 1
- Homefront
- Homestead Arcana x 2
- Honey, I Joined a Cult x 2
- Horizon Chase Turbo x 2
- Hot Brass x 2
- Hot Wheels Unleashed
- Hotshot Racing x 3
- Hue x 2
- Hyperdrive Massacre
- I Expect You To Die
- Ice Age: Scrat's Nutty Adventure
- Ikenfell x 3
- Imperator: Rome Deluxe Edition x 2
- In sound mind x 2
- Indivisible x 5
- Injustice 2 Legendary Edition
- Insurmountable
- Interplanetary: Enhanced Edition
- Interstellar Space: Genesis
- Introvert Quest
- Iratus: Lord of the Dead
- Iris And The Giant
- Iron Danger
- Iron Sky Invasion
- Jack Move
- Jack Orlando: Director's Cut
- Journey of Greed
- Journey of a Roach x 2
- JumpJet Rex
- Jurassic Park Classic Games Collection
- Just Cause 4 Complete Edition
- Karma City Police
- Kerbal Space Program
- King Of The Castle
- King's Bounty: Warriors of the North
- Kingdom: Classic
- Kingdom: New Lands x 2
- Kings of Kung Fu
- Kitaria Fables
- Knights and Merchants
- Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara
- Kraken Academy!!
- Kyle is Famous: Complete Edition
- LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
- LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
- LEGO® MARVEL's Avengers
- Last Inua
- Lawn Mowing Simulator x 2
- Layers of Fear + Soundtrack
- Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Don't Dry
- Leisure Suit Larry - Wet Dreams Dry Twice
- Levelhead
- Liberated
- Liberated GOG x 2
- Liberte
- Lichdom: Battlemage
- Life is Strange 2 Complete Season (incl. Mascot Bundle DLC)
- Life is Strange: True Colors x 2
- Little Orpheus
- Loddlenaut
- Lords and Villeins x 3
- Lostwinds
- Lovecraft's Untold Stories x 3
- Lust for Darkness
- MO:Astray
- Mad Max
- Magrunner: Dark Pulse
- Main Assembly
- Majesty 2 Collection x 2
- Making History: The Calm and the Storm Gold Edition
- Marvel's Midnight Suns Digital+ Edition + Doctor Strange Defenders Skin
- Mass Effect 2 Origin key
- Medieval Kingdom Wars
- Mediterranea Inferno
- Meeple Station x 2
- Mega Man Legacy Collection
- Memoria + Soundtrack
- Men of War
- Merchant of the Skies x 2
- Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition x 2
- Middle-earth: Shadow of War Definitive Edition x 2
- Midnight Fight Express
- Midnight Ghost Hunt
- Midnight protocol x 2
- Milky Way Prince - The Vampire Star x 2
- Monaco
- Monorail Stories
- Monster Crown x 3
- Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp x 2
- Monster Slayers
- Monster Slayers - Advanced Classes Unlocker
- Monster Slayers - Fire & Steel Expansion
- Morbid: The Seven Acolytes x 2
- Morkredd x 3
- Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate Edition x 2
- Mortal Kombat XL x 2
- Moving Out
- Mr. Prepper x 2
- Munin
- Murder by Numbers
- My Big Sister x 2
- My Time At Portia
- Mystery Castle: The Mirror's Secret
- Mytheon
- Mythforce
- Narita Boy
- Nebuchadnezzar
- NecroVisioN: Lost Company
- NecroWorm x 2
- Neoverse x 3
- Neverout x 2
- Neversong
- Nickelodeon all-star brawl x 2
- Niffelheim x 2
- Nigate Tale
- Nioh 2
- Nobody Saves the World
- Noosphere
- Northend Tower Defense
- Nowhere Prophet
- Nuclear DAWN
- OTXO
- Oaken x 2
- Oddworld: Soulstorm Enhanced Edition x 2
- Of Orcs and Men
- Oh My Gore! x 3
- Omensight Definitve Edition x 2
- Operation Tango x 2
- Orbital Racer x 2
- Othercide
- Out Of Space
- Out of Reach: Treasure Royale x 2
- Overcooked
- Overlord: Ultimate Evil Collection
- Ozymandias - NA region x 2
- PAC-MAN 256
- PAC-MAN MUSEUM+ x 2
- PC Building Simulator x 2
- PGA Tour 2K21 x 2
- PULSAR: Lost Colony x 2
- Partisans 1941 x 2
- Patch Quest x 3
- Path Of Giants
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Royal Ascension
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Wild Cards
- Pathfinder: Kingmaker Enhanced Plus Edition
- Paw paw paw x 4
- Peaky Blinders: Mastermind x 2
- Perfect x 2
- Pesterquest x 4
- Phantom Doctrine x 2
- Pikuniku
- Pine
- Pitiri 1977
- Pixel Puzzles: UndeadZ
- Pixplode x 2
- Planet Alcatraz
- Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville (ORIGIN KEY)
- PlataGO!
- Police stories
- Popup Dungeon
- Port Royale 3
- Prison Architect + Aficionado (Dlc)
- Prodeus
- Propnight
- Purrfect Date
- Quern: Undying thoughts
- RAD x 2
- REPLIKATOR
- RICO: London
- RIOT - Civil Unrest
- RPG Maker VX
- Rage in Peace
- Railroad Tycoon 2: Platinum x 3
- Railroad Tycoon 3 x 3
- Railway Empire
- Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan x 2
- Re-Legion
- Rebel Galaxy Outlaw
- Rebel Inc: Escalation x 3
- Red Wings: Aces of the Sky
- Redeemer: Enhanced Edition x 2
- Relicta x 3
- Remnants of Naezith x 2
- Remothered: Broken Porcelain
- Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood x 2
- Rescue Party: Live! x 2
- Resident Evil HD REMASTER
- Resident Evil Revelations 2 - Episode 1: Penal Colony x 2
- Resident Evil Revelations x 2
- Retimed x 3
- Reventure
- Revita
- Rig n Roll
- Ring of pain x 4
- Rise Of Industry x 3
- Rise of the Slime x 2
- Roadwarden
- Roarr! Jurassic Edition x 2
- Roboquest
- Rogue Lords x 2
- Roguebook
- RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic
- Rollerdrome NA region
- Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered
- Rover Mechanic Simulator x 3
- Rustler x 4
- SCP : Secret Files x 3
- SPACECOM
- SPRAWL x 2
- STONE x 2
- SUPERHOT VR
- SYSTEM SHOCK: ENHANCED EDITION
- Sairento VR
- Satellite Reign
- Saturday Morning RPG
- Save Room - Organization Puzzle
- Say No! More
- Scheming Through The Zombie Apocalypse: The Beginning x 2
- Scorn x 2
- ScourgeBringer
- Seed Hunter x 2
- Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun - Aiko's Choice
- Shadowhand: RPG Card Game
- Shady Part of Me x 2
- Shantae and the Pirate's Curse
- Shark Attack Deathmatch 2
- Shing! x 2
- Shining Resonance Refrain x 2
- Ship Simulator Extremes x 2
- Shooting Stars! x 2
- Shooty Fruity
- Shoppe Keep 2
- Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate - NA region x 2
- Sid Meier's Railroads! x 3
- Sifu Deluxe Edition Upgrade Bundle x 2
- Silver Chains
- Simple Rockets 2
- Simplerockets 2 x 2
- Simulacra + Simulacra 2
- Sin Slayers
- Size Matters x 3
- Skullgirls 2nd Encore
- Slain: Back from Hell
- Slinger VR x 2
- Snake Pass
- Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts x 2
- Snowtopia x 2
- Songbird Symphony
- Songbringer
- Sonic Adventure 2: Battle Mode DLC x 2
- Sonic Adventure™ 2 x 2
- Sorry, James
- Soul Axiom Rebooted x 2
- Soulblight x 2
- Souldiers
- Space Cows
- Space Hulk Ascension
- Sparklite
- Speed Brawl x 2
- Spirit Of The Island x 3
- Splasher
- Star Wolves
- Star Wolves 3: Civil War
- Stars End
- Starsand x 2
- Staxel
- Stealth 2: A Game Of Clones
- Steel Rats x 2
- Steelrising
- Still There x 3
- Strange Brigade x 2
- Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection
- Street Fighter V
- Strider x 2
- Struggling x 2
- Stubbs The Zombie In Rebel Without A Pulse
- Sunblaze
- Super Magbot
- Super Meat Boy x 2
- Super Panda Adventures
- Super Trench Attack!
- Supraland x 2
- Supreme Ruler 1936
- Supreme Ruler: Cold War
- SurrounDead x 2
- TEKKEN 7 x 2
- THE HEX
- THEM'S FIGHTIN' HERDS
- Tabletop Playground x 3
- Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition
- Tango Fiesta
- Tannenberg
- Telefrag VR x 2
- Tesla vs Lovecraft
- The Amazing American Circus x 2
- The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines
- The Ascent
- The Assembly
- The Bard's Tale IV: Director's Cut x 3
- The Beast Inside x 3
- The Big Con x 2
- The Blackout Club
- The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters x 2
- The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets
- The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
- The Darkness II x 2
- The Deed Dynasty
- The Deed II
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind x 2
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion x 2
- The Elder Scrolls Online
- The Excavation of Hob's Barrow
- The Golf Club 2019 Featuring PGA TOUR x 3
- The Gunk x 2
- The Haunted Island, A Frog Detective Game x 3
- The Henry Stickmin Collection x 2
- The Hong Kong Massacre
- The Invisible Hand x 2
- The Knight Witch
- The LEGO Movie - Videogame
- The LEGO NINJAGO Movie Video Game
- The Legend of Tianding x 2
- The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante
- The Long Reach
- The Mummy Demastered
- The Pale Beyond
- The Quarry - Deluxe Edition x 2
- The Red Lantern
- The Red Solstice x 2
- The Shapeshifting Detective
- The Surge
- The Survivalists
- The Swords Of Ditto: Mormo's Curse x 2
- The Textorcist: The story of Ray Bibbia x 3
- The Town of Light
- The USB Stick Found in the Grass x 2
- The Uncertain - The Last Quiet Day
- The Walking Dead
- The Walking Dead: 400 Days
- The Walking Dead: A New Frontier x 2
- The Walking Dead: Michonne x 2
- The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners - Chapter 2: Retribution
- The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners x 4
- The Walking Dead: Season Two
- The Walking Dead: The Final Season x 2
- The Wild Eight
- The Wizards - Dark Times
- Them and Us
- Them's Fightin' Herds
- There Is No Light
- Thief of Thieves: Season One x 2
- This Strange Realm Of Mine
- This War of Mine: Stories - Season Pass DLC
- Throne Of Lies® The Online Game Of Deceit
- Through The Darkest Of Times x 3
- Tilt Brush x 2
- Timelie
- Tin Can x 2
- Toejam & Earl: Back in the Groove x 2
- Tohu x 3
- Tools Up!
- Tools up x 2
- Tooth and Tail
- Torchlight
- Torchlight III
- Total Tank Simulator x 2
- Townscaper
- Townsmen - A Kingdom Rebuilt x 2
- Toy tinker Simulator
- Toybox Turbos x 2
- Train Station Renovation x 2
- Treasure Hunter Simulator x 3
- Trek to Yomi
- Tropico 4
- Truberbrook / Trüberbrook
- Truck Racer
- Tumblestone
- Turbo Golf Racing x 4
- Two Point Campus
- Tyrant's Blessing
- UNDETECTED
- UnMetal
- Undungeon
- Unexplored
- Unto The End
- V-Rally 4
- Vagante
- Vagrant Hearts 2
- Valfaris: Mecha Therion
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Shadows Of New York x 3
- Vane x 3
- Verdun
- Victoria 3
- Vikings - Wolves of Midgard
- WARSAW x 5
- WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS + Ultimate Brawlers Pass x 4
- WWE 2K23 x 5
- WWE 2k Battlegrounds
- Wanderlust: Travel Stories - GOG key x 2
- Wandersong x 2
- Wargroove x 2
- Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters x 2
- Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus
- Warhammer 40,000: Sanctus Reach
- Warhammer: Chaosbane x 2
- Wayward Souls
- We Are Alright x 2
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse Heart Of The Forest
- West of Dead
- Where the Water Tastes Like Wine
- Whispering Willows
- White Day: A Labyrinth Named School x 2
- Who Pressed Mute on Uncle Marcus? x 3
- Wick
- Windjammers 2
- Windscape
- Wordle 1-5 Quintology Pack
- World's Dawn x 2
- Worms Clan Wars
- Worms rumble + legends pack dlc x 3
- WrestleQuest
- X-COM: Complete Pack x 3
- X-Morph: Defense + European Assault, Survival of the Fittest, and Last Bastion DLC x 2
- X-Morph Defense x 3
- Xcom® 2: Resistance Warrior Pack
- Yakuza: Like a Dragon
- Yet Another Zombie Defense HD x 2
- Yoku's Island Express
- Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
- Youtubers Life 2
- Zanzarah: The Hidden Portal
- Zombie Army 4: Dead War
- Zombotron
WANT
- Trepang2
- The Pedestrian
- OPUS: Echo of Starsong - Full Bloom Edition
MY REP Wishlist MY IGS REP
Gems
TF2 keys/ CS2 Cases
2024.05.15 15:52 NikolaiOlsen Here's a Pitch Meeting inspired post, If Ryan George ever was to make one
Producer: So, you have a video game for me?
Writer: Yes, sir, I do! It's a battle royale game called Fortnite.
Producer: Fork Knife? Is it a food-making game where you eat with a Fork and a Knife?
Writer: Well, No actually, sir, this is a shooter game where players are dropped onto an island where they must scavenge for weapons and resources inside people's homes while trying to be the last person standing.
Producer: Sounds a lot like that game PUBG.
Writer: Well, yes, it's Very similar to that.
Producer: So, Isn't that kind of a rip-off? Whats the point of making this game if its gonna be a Complete rip-off?
Writer: What if we give the player the ability to build stuff in the game?
Producer: Thats different enough. So how do we do the building in this Fork-knife game of yours?
Writer: Well, we add a building mechanic where players can gather materials and construct forts and other structures to defend themselves.
Producer: So, they can build in the middle of a fight?
Writer: They sure can!
Producer: Won't that make the combat complicated and kind of confusing?
Writer: Oh, definitely. Super confusing. And we're going to have this cartoony art style, so it's all bright and colorful.
Producer: Cartoony art style?
Writer: Yes, sir, we want to attract a younger audience, you know, kids and teenagers.
Producer: Really? And what about older players?
Writer: They'll probably play it too. Some might even play it so much while filming themselves sitting, eating, and drinking inside a room infront of a bunch of cameras to a bunch of digital people on some kind of streaming-platform out there. And some older players might even be so good that they can be placed inside a room with other players that are as good as them.
Producer: Okay, okay, But wait. Why would older players be interested in a game designed for kids?
Writer: Because it's free.
Producer: Oh, older people love free things.
Writer: And we’ll have these things called Emotes where players can dance and do fun gestures for no reason.
Producer: Why would they need that?
Writer: To taunt other players and express themselves, and making it easier for other players to get kills!
Producer: And we're sure kids will love this?
Writer: Oh, absolutely. They'll be flossing in no time.
Producer: What’s flossing?
Writer: It’s one of the dances that we’ll include in the game.
Producer: Ah, okay, and how will we make money?
Writer: Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Producer: How come?
Writer: Microtransactions.
Producer: Microtransactions?
Writer*: Yeah, Microtransactions. Players can buy this thing called V-Bucks, which is our in-game currency, to get skins, emotes, and other cosmetic items.
Producer: So, none of these items give players a competitive advantage?
Writer: Nope, just cosmetics.
Producer: And people will spend real money on that?
Writer: Oh, they definitely will.
Producer: How are you so sure?
Writer: Because we’ll make it really cool and hard to resist. Plus, we'll create this thing called FOMO.
Producer: FOMO?
Writer: Fear of Missing Out. We’ll have limited-time items so players feel pressured to buy them before they're gone.
Producer: So, we’re going to exploit psychological weaknesses?
Writer: Oh, for sure.
Producer: Exploiting psychological weaknesses is tight! So, how will players get to the Island?
Writer: They’ll skydive from a flying bus.
Producer: A flying bus?
Writer: Yeah, we’ll call it the Battle Bus.
Producer: Why would a bus be flying?
Writer: Because it's fun.
Producer: But How does it fly tho?
Writer: Listen, sir, i'm gonna need you to get all the way off my back about why the Battle Bus can fly using a very big sketchy pop-able baloon but only moves one direction, okay.
Producer: Okay, let me get off of that thing.
Writer: Oh, and every few minutes, a storm will shrink the play area, forcing players into a smaller and smaller circle until one player remains.
Producer: Why would a storm do that?
Writer: To make the game faster and more intense.
Producer: But thats not--- never mind.
Writer: And we’ll have different game modes, including solo, duo, and squads, so players can team up with friends.
Producer: What if players don’t have friends?
Writer: Then they’ll be loners. Solo mode is perfect for that.
Producer: And how will we keep the game fresh?
Writer: We'll have seasonal updates with new themes, items, and challenges.
Producer: Seasonal updates?
Writer: Plus, we’ll add crossover events with popular franchises from all our child hoods we can think off.
Producer: Like what?
Writer: Well, i'm just gonna throw some names out there, just top of my head, *Marvel, Star Wars, DC, Avatar, Family Guy, TMNT, POTC, Rick and Morty, and a Whole bunch of other stuff.
Producer: So, we’re going to have superheroes and nerds fighting each other in a game where you can build forts and dance?
Writer: Exactly.
Producer: That sounds amazing!
Writer: Oh, it’s going to be super amazing.
Producer: And that's Fortnite. So, what do you think?
Writer: I think we’ll make billions.
Producer: We're gonna be rich!
Producer: Wow, wow, wow. Wow.
Producer: But wait, you forgot to say what’s the story behind this game?
Writer: Oh, right, well, the island is constantly changing and evolving. At first, there isn't much backstory, only younger and older players ACTIVELY hunting each other down and killing each other, but over time, we introduce a series of events and lore that shape the game's world.
Producer: Interesting. What kind of events and lore are we talking about?
Writer: Well, Each season, we add new story elements to the game. For example, there's this mysterious organization called "The Imagined Order" that's manipulating the island. Players uncover clues and secrets about them as the game progresses.
Producer: So, there are hidden stories and mysteries?
Writer: Exactly. One season, we had a massive meteor strike that changed the landscape. Another season, a giant iceberg crashed into the island, bringing new areas to explore. We also introduced a volcanic eruption that altered the terrain significantly.
Producer: Sounds like a lot of natural disasters.
Writer: Ye ye ye. But all these events tie into the overarching narrative. There's this powerful artifact called the Zero Point at the center of the island, and it's the source of all these changes.
Producer: What’s the Zero Point?
Writer: It's a mysterious energy source that can manipulate time and space. Different factions and characters try to control it, leading to conflicts and alliances.
Producer: Who are these characters?
Writer: We've introduced various characters over time, like Jonesy, who starts as a standard avatar but becomes central to the story. He’s sort of the player’s guide and gets involved in all the major events.
Producer: And these characters, they have backstories?
Writer: Yes, each character has their own backstory and motives. Some are heroes trying to save the island, others are villains seeking power. We add new characters regularly to keep things fresh and engaging.
Producer: How do players learn about all this?
Writer: Through in-game events, cutscenes, and quests. For instance, we might have a live event where something dramatic happens, like a giant robot fighting a monster. These events often change the map and advance the storyline.
Producer: Live events? How do those work?
Writer: At specific times, we host live events where players can participate or just watch something big unfold. These events are usually massive, with millions of players logging in to witness them.
Producer: That sounds like a logistical nightmare.
Writer: It can be, but it creates a shared experience that players love. It's a huge part of what keeps the community engaged.
Producer: So, the story is dynamic and ever-changing?
Writer: Exactly. We keep evolving the narrative with each season, adding new mysteries and plot twists. It's like an ongoing TV show where the players are part of the story.
Producer: And this keeps players coming back?
Writer: Absolutely. The evolving story and frequent updates make sure there's always something new to discover and experience.
Producer: Sounds like you’ve thought of everything.
Writer: We’ve tried to make it as immersive and engaging as possible. The story is just one part of what makes Fortnite a unique and exciting game.
Producer: Well, I’m sold. Let’s make this game!
submitted by NikolaiOlsen to FortNiteBR [link] [comments]
Writer: Yes, sir, I do! It's a battle royale game called Fortnite.
Producer: Fork Knife? Is it a food-making game where you eat with a Fork and a Knife?
Writer: Well, No actually, sir, this is a shooter game where players are dropped onto an island where they must scavenge for weapons and resources inside people's homes while trying to be the last person standing.
Producer: Sounds a lot like that game PUBG.
Writer: Well, yes, it's Very similar to that.
Producer: So, Isn't that kind of a rip-off? Whats the point of making this game if its gonna be a Complete rip-off?
Writer: What if we give the player the ability to build stuff in the game?
Producer: Thats different enough. So how do we do the building in this Fork-knife game of yours?
Writer: Well, we add a building mechanic where players can gather materials and construct forts and other structures to defend themselves.
Producer: So, they can build in the middle of a fight?
Writer: They sure can!
Producer: Won't that make the combat complicated and kind of confusing?
Writer: Oh, definitely. Super confusing. And we're going to have this cartoony art style, so it's all bright and colorful.
Producer: Cartoony art style?
Writer: Yes, sir, we want to attract a younger audience, you know, kids and teenagers.
Producer: Really? And what about older players?
Writer: They'll probably play it too. Some might even play it so much while filming themselves sitting, eating, and drinking inside a room infront of a bunch of cameras to a bunch of digital people on some kind of streaming-platform out there. And some older players might even be so good that they can be placed inside a room with other players that are as good as them.
Producer: Okay, okay, But wait. Why would older players be interested in a game designed for kids?
Writer: Because it's free.
Producer: Oh, older people love free things.
Writer: And we’ll have these things called Emotes where players can dance and do fun gestures for no reason.
Producer: Why would they need that?
Writer: To taunt other players and express themselves, and making it easier for other players to get kills!
Producer: And we're sure kids will love this?
Writer: Oh, absolutely. They'll be flossing in no time.
Producer: What’s flossing?
Writer: It’s one of the dances that we’ll include in the game.
Producer: Ah, okay, and how will we make money?
Writer: Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Producer: How come?
Writer: Microtransactions.
Producer: Microtransactions?
Writer*: Yeah, Microtransactions. Players can buy this thing called V-Bucks, which is our in-game currency, to get skins, emotes, and other cosmetic items.
Producer: So, none of these items give players a competitive advantage?
Writer: Nope, just cosmetics.
Producer: And people will spend real money on that?
Writer: Oh, they definitely will.
Producer: How are you so sure?
Writer: Because we’ll make it really cool and hard to resist. Plus, we'll create this thing called FOMO.
Producer: FOMO?
Writer: Fear of Missing Out. We’ll have limited-time items so players feel pressured to buy them before they're gone.
Producer: So, we’re going to exploit psychological weaknesses?
Writer: Oh, for sure.
Producer: Exploiting psychological weaknesses is tight! So, how will players get to the Island?
Writer: They’ll skydive from a flying bus.
Producer: A flying bus?
Writer: Yeah, we’ll call it the Battle Bus.
Producer: Why would a bus be flying?
Writer: Because it's fun.
Producer: But How does it fly tho?
Writer: Listen, sir, i'm gonna need you to get all the way off my back about why the Battle Bus can fly using a very big sketchy pop-able baloon but only moves one direction, okay.
Producer: Okay, let me get off of that thing.
Writer: Oh, and every few minutes, a storm will shrink the play area, forcing players into a smaller and smaller circle until one player remains.
Producer: Why would a storm do that?
Writer: To make the game faster and more intense.
Producer: But thats not--- never mind.
Writer: And we’ll have different game modes, including solo, duo, and squads, so players can team up with friends.
Producer: What if players don’t have friends?
Writer: Then they’ll be loners. Solo mode is perfect for that.
Producer: And how will we keep the game fresh?
Writer: We'll have seasonal updates with new themes, items, and challenges.
Producer: Seasonal updates?
Writer: Plus, we’ll add crossover events with popular franchises from all our child hoods we can think off.
Producer: Like what?
Writer: Well, i'm just gonna throw some names out there, just top of my head, *Marvel, Star Wars, DC, Avatar, Family Guy, TMNT, POTC, Rick and Morty, and a Whole bunch of other stuff.
Producer: So, we’re going to have superheroes and nerds fighting each other in a game where you can build forts and dance?
Writer: Exactly.
Producer: That sounds amazing!
Writer: Oh, it’s going to be super amazing.
Producer: And that's Fortnite. So, what do you think?
Writer: I think we’ll make billions.
Producer: We're gonna be rich!
Producer: Wow, wow, wow. Wow.
Producer: But wait, you forgot to say what’s the story behind this game?
Writer: Oh, right, well, the island is constantly changing and evolving. At first, there isn't much backstory, only younger and older players ACTIVELY hunting each other down and killing each other, but over time, we introduce a series of events and lore that shape the game's world.
Producer: Interesting. What kind of events and lore are we talking about?
Writer: Well, Each season, we add new story elements to the game. For example, there's this mysterious organization called "The Imagined Order" that's manipulating the island. Players uncover clues and secrets about them as the game progresses.
Producer: So, there are hidden stories and mysteries?
Writer: Exactly. One season, we had a massive meteor strike that changed the landscape. Another season, a giant iceberg crashed into the island, bringing new areas to explore. We also introduced a volcanic eruption that altered the terrain significantly.
Producer: Sounds like a lot of natural disasters.
Writer: Ye ye ye. But all these events tie into the overarching narrative. There's this powerful artifact called the Zero Point at the center of the island, and it's the source of all these changes.
Producer: What’s the Zero Point?
Writer: It's a mysterious energy source that can manipulate time and space. Different factions and characters try to control it, leading to conflicts and alliances.
Producer: Who are these characters?
Writer: We've introduced various characters over time, like Jonesy, who starts as a standard avatar but becomes central to the story. He’s sort of the player’s guide and gets involved in all the major events.
Producer: And these characters, they have backstories?
Writer: Yes, each character has their own backstory and motives. Some are heroes trying to save the island, others are villains seeking power. We add new characters regularly to keep things fresh and engaging.
Producer: How do players learn about all this?
Writer: Through in-game events, cutscenes, and quests. For instance, we might have a live event where something dramatic happens, like a giant robot fighting a monster. These events often change the map and advance the storyline.
Producer: Live events? How do those work?
Writer: At specific times, we host live events where players can participate or just watch something big unfold. These events are usually massive, with millions of players logging in to witness them.
Producer: That sounds like a logistical nightmare.
Writer: It can be, but it creates a shared experience that players love. It's a huge part of what keeps the community engaged.
Producer: So, the story is dynamic and ever-changing?
Writer: Exactly. We keep evolving the narrative with each season, adding new mysteries and plot twists. It's like an ongoing TV show where the players are part of the story.
Producer: And this keeps players coming back?
Writer: Absolutely. The evolving story and frequent updates make sure there's always something new to discover and experience.
Producer: Sounds like you’ve thought of everything.
Writer: We’ve tried to make it as immersive and engaging as possible. The story is just one part of what makes Fortnite a unique and exciting game.
Producer: Well, I’m sold. Let’s make this game!
2024.05.15 15:45 itsgreymonster Unfunhouse Mirror 11 (Nature of Predators/The Last Angel)
This is a crossover fanfiction between original fiction titles: Nature of Predators by SpacePaladin15 and The Last Angel by Proximal Flame respectively. All credit and rights reserved goes to them for making such amazing science fiction settings that I wanted to put this together.Otherwise, enjoy the story! Thanks again to u/jesterra54 and u/skais01 for beta and checking of work!
You can read The Last Angel here: Be warned, it's decently long, and at its third installment so far. I highly suggest reading it before reading this, or this story will not make sense.
First Prev Next (soon)
Date [standardized human time]: October 22, 2136
The reveal of the Arxur's assistance of Earth was a unsettling, but mostly overlooked note to add to the headlines filling news sites today on Venlil Prime.
UNKNOWN SHIP DEVASTATES FEDERATION FLEET ABOVE EARTH, HUMANITY LIVES
While the ship wasn't currently unknown to us, given the UN's report, General Kam had advised that it would be better left unspoken of what capabilities we did know, so as to not worry the populace. "Leave causing panic to the humans" he said. But I heard the worries and anxious rumors throughout both social media and verbal conversations...
"That ship destroyed an ENTIRE fleet!?"
"Oh Protector, please tell me its not an Arxur vessel..."
"Why don't we know more?"
I couldn't help but feel for my people. I came to disagree with Kam's advice more and more, as I wished desperately to allay their fears of it being an Arxur superweapon, or that it was going to destroy us soon, or other similar worries.
Are you so sure yourself, Tarva? Even the UN government is scared of it, and it supposedly was made by a future Humanity...
I tried not to focus on that pang of paranoia. I just hoped soon enough the UN would make a statement on the Nemesis already. As I accompanied Noah to the UN's remembrance speech today, I did my best to scan for the feelings worn on peoples faces. The Venlil were unsettled as before, but the human refugees were an odder story altogether.
They were devastated, and scared as well as us Venlil were. But on top of it, I could see a common face worn of confusion. The information disambiguation hadn't made its way to Venlil Prime like it had Earth, and as such they were as much in the dark as the public here was. I could only imagine their uncertainty, knowing their race was likely saved by something they had no idea about.
Noah spoke out of nowhere. "I feel for the refugees here. Forced to an unfamiliar place, so unofficially hostile to them, and now they learn of Nemesis like this? I'd be as confused as them in their place." He checked his suit, attending to shift it so slightly as to make him look better in it. "I also can't imagine your opponents didn't run the whole ball with their existence here, too. Are we taxing you harshly, Tarva?"
I gripped his hand tighter. "No, Noah. While there are those that want you off-planet, I will not let them kick you off. I'll fight for you, no matter the cost."
"Seems like anywhere we go, we cause a fight some way or another. Pops always said space was our ticket to a better future, yet all we seem to cause is trouble for merely existing."
"Noah, its not your people's fault we're afraid of you. The Arxur are to blame for that, and we're at fault for holding it against you. What happened to Earth was not your doing, you tried your best, and it just was not convincing enough for millennia of cultural momentum."
He smiled at that, a muted, but still genuine smile. "Thank you Tarva. I'm glad you see the best in us, even when we don't."
I continued to scan the crowd, looking for the sight of Meier. He always seemed alight in diplomacy whenever he was around, it was a strength of his, outshining the room like that. I could only hope he was doing okay in the current state of Earth. The last time we talked, he seemed very tired, very...frustrated with everything.
But I was glad to see him in some his element soon after, amongst a group of dignitaries from other Federation species. He seemed to be listening to a Mazic diplomat, one I remembered by the name of Cupo. Sadly, however, despite Meier's attempt, it seems the conversation was not on a good track.
"-they're a menace to the rest of the galaxy, and you just let them in, not so soon after this ship blindsided an entire Federation fleet out of nowhere!?"
Meier dejectedly sighed. "Cupo, I thought I already told you, when the Arxur showed up, we had no capability to tell them to take a hike. They were ten-thousand strong and we barely managed several hundred ships left. That they even engaged in dialogue rather than just subjugation was a surprise to me."
"That doesn't make much sense either, Elias Meier. Since when do the Arxur play merciful? You're not telling us something here, and it curls my trunk in knots. How can we trust you when you can't even give us the details on what that ship is, or why the Arxur even showed up in its stead?"
The Mazic was not interested in Meier's friendly act, not giving any room for benefit of the doubt. The other diplomats crowded around began to mumble in agreement, as Meier stood there, formulating some response.
"What we do know about the ship and the Arxur, we'll clear up publically later in this event. But neither were expected by us, you have to believe me. Humanity is just as confused as you all are on the results of that battle, and-"
Cupo interrupted this time, clearly not willing to hear an explanation out. "You're running out of trust, Human. We think you ought to be given a chance; as the empathy studies show, you're not the Arxur. But associating with them as you are, with little transparency is not doing you favors with us, and if you want further association with us, you'd best cut ties with those monsters sooner, rather than later." The Mazic's ears hung in displeasure, and I could sense the nervousness in Meier as he stood down one of the races in the room far bigger than he was. Whether Cupo knew it or not, Meier was intimidated by his presence, and was trying to keep it cool to some degree. "We'll at most help with the Gojid refugees at the moment, as they've suffered both of your kind, but beyond that, consider it on hold until that problem is resolved."
They walked away, and some of the alien crowd amongst them followed. The only ones still sticking around seemed to be a Yotul diplomat, a Nevok, and a Fissan. The latter two stuck obviously to discuss more trade details, seeking to cut the other off from Earth to a degree in hopes of exploiting the system, but the Yotul was a surprise. I didn't even realize they had sent one this way.
Given the relatively new uplift of their world, I didn't imagine the Yotul having much stake or spread throughout the galaxy, so how did humanity...?
Meier turned to him. "Ah...Ambassador Laulo, I'm sorry you had to see that. We're...not doing so hot in the grand scheme of things, and some relations are boiling over as a result."
Laulo enthusiastically shook his head in denial. "No, it's okay! I understand the feeling of that persecution, even if it's for a different reason. Feels like the galaxy kicking you while you're already down."
"I appreciate any help we can get in regards to this. You're one of the very few races left that's pledged some sense of unconditional aid. I promise, with all I have in my power, I'll try and return the favor-Tarva!" Elias noticed my presence at last. "I...uh, how long have you been standing there?..."
"Long enough to hear most of it. I'm sorry the more neutral species aren't helping any, Meier. But that's not why I'm here, specifically. We need to talk about the human refugees."
Meier looked at me funny with that statement, as if he wasn't expecting something out of me. "I see...I hope it's not anything too bad, is it?"
I silently cringed at the exact words. Noah filled in the details in my stead. "Meier, the refugees here are seeing images of Earth, of those not too horribly in shock to do anything, there's been an uptick in suicides...a massive uptick. They aren't aware of the full story, due to the Venlil government's reluctance to publish the report sent here publicly. This remembrance speech better give the people here a semblance of peace, of stability, because there's an extreme lack of morale left in the camps."
Meier grimaced and scanned the crowd, glancing at the humans that were here. I assume he too could see how dejected many were, how many seemed at the end of their rope, coming here for the slightest hint of hope left in their lives at the news. They would need some good news, or there was a chance some wouldn't be here tomorrow.
I felt for them. They didn't deserve this, and our intentional censor of the details, so that Meier could deliver the news likely didn't help with the rates.
"I get that Noah. I really do. What happened at Earth was a tragedy, and the death toll is nearly 800 million. You could likely gather a group of ten or so humans from anywhere, and one of them lost someone close to them. I'll...do my best to raise their spirits, there's plenty to talk about here. The alien diplomats just aren't making this easy..." Meier gestured to the clearly forming bloc of neutral species dignitaries that gathered in the room. They did not seem to want to talk further on any support of Earth until some demands were met, mostly on why things were kept so information-blackout heavy at first. The speech would have to be twofold, at raising human refugees' spirits, and at convincing some of the touchy species to support Earth.
His work was cut out for him.
"Did you wish for any assistance on that front, Meier?" Noah offered. His kindness shone through even in the depths of despair that wore
itself on humanity currently. His soul was purely sweet and kind, regardless of his predator disposition, I so deeply respected that about him.
They began to talk shop, Noah mentioning his current experiences with human refugees upon Venlil Prime, and what topics Meier ought to add on and hit on in his speech. As rushed of advice as it was, Meier seemed determined to fit it in somehow, but I knew he had a silver tongue, his capability to navigate and convince was downright bewildering, present company excepted of course. Nothing would get those species over his diet anytime soon, so I could only hope he could appeal to their empathy as another sentient in this case.
I believed in them. If anyone could turn the state of the galaxy around, it would be these two.
Date [standardized human time]: October 22, 2136
I sat on my desk, watching out the window of my office at the Westminster Palace, reminiscing on the sad scene outside. Another body under cloth cover, wheeled out on a stretcher from a home surrounded by paramedics. Another swept up in despair, seeing the state of our beautiful planet, of our populace, so brutally scarred, enough to take their own life.
How many was it, so far? Nearly a half-percent suicide rate for every hundred thousand in England? More than eight times the highest resting rate in our entire history. And we were hardly hit in comparison to the rest of the world...how are they doing if it's this bad here?
I leaned back in my chair, back cracking in old age, forcing myself away from the scene outside. I tried to not think about it, just tried to focus again on my work. On the coordination efforts with the UN, the Arxur, and any other races seeking to help. But it was a mountain of work ahead, a peak of papers I could barely see myself climbing in an entire week, let alone the mere day it was handed down here.
We've all lost someone. Not a single soul hasn't been touched by the Federation's bombing.
I thought about how the targeting of cities took. How they focused so heavily on Africa and Asia, the most booming corridors of population on Earth. How they erased 78 cities from existence before their fleet was devastated by The Sword. They weren't aiming to cripple humanity, on industrial depots and power plants, but to exterminate us. They aimed for the most populated cities first, before taking potshots at what remained.
Being put to the death by The Sword serves them right, they deserved judgement by that blade for what they had done.
Or, rather, the Nemesis, as reports had given us. A human ship, but not quite our humanity. A time traveler conveniently sent here by accident, saving us from extinction. An AI piloted ship that sought now to reunite with Earth having defended us. Given what remained of our Guardian Angel, I sought to do everything I could to make their welcome home a celebration, for they defended humanity in our darkest hour.
I recalled my journeys around the globe as a younger man. How my endless wanderlust took me to every corner of the globe in the wake of the Satellite Wars. How the global power vacuum led to so much relief efforts, as the less-touched nations finally had room to breathe, the canopy of carefully controlled superpowers no longer eating up their light needed to grow. How African countries like South Africa and Niger found themselves expanding to match the designation of First World. How beautiful the Seychelles were to see in person.
How my volunteering in the UN's Unfurled Umbrella Initiatives after the Treaty of Shanghai took me to the partially collapsed countries amidst Asia. How Tokyo, despite its immense infrastructure failure, dragged itself back to a powerhouse of a city, as Japan built for itself after so long. How China's government reformed into a Republic after the post-war coups, and how Taiwan finally opened its heart more to them for it. How Beijing found itself all the stronger for adversity.
How the South and Central Americas found themselves no longer under the impressive hand of the United States' geopolitical influence. How the first Diaspora vessels took off from Argentina, seeking to establish a government sentenced only to the annals of history on Earth upon the distant surfaces of Mars. How they were so determined to prove the world wrong on its presuppositions of how a place should be ruled, free of the influence of bullying countries. And how their dream led to the now Martian Collective.
I thought of all the other places the UN took me. Of Cairo, and its deep connection to our most prominent civilization of the ancient past. Of Istanbul, to see the beauty of mixing Christian and Islamic influence over centuries of swapping hands. Of the stunning ports of Singapore, an industrial powerhouse of a nation, so tightly packed into one single city. Of the stunning silver forest of skyscrapers that was New York City, still kicking even after the devastation of the Satellite Wars. Mumbai, Baghdad, Lagos, Mogadishu, Guadalajara, Rio De Janeiro, Berlin. How I drank in all the beauty and magnificent history and culture of the world, and was all the fuller a person for it. These and so many more.
I thought of the honey farmer I met by the Saigon River; how Châu Được's family had kept the traditional job going for so long, and divinely sweet their harvest was they shared with me. I thought of Dari Qazi, how the humble Afghani-borne man had found himself at the forefront of a secular revolution in Pakistan, reaching unrivaled progress not seen since the 1980's. I remembered the ambitious young woman in Monterrey, Mexico, who talked to me of her dreams to build spaceships for the Diaspora program, how she wished dearly she could leave a mark on history, and how now her name was on the finest rockets of the age.
All gone. Dust on the wind. Atomized debris now. Their homes, their families, their history gone, according to reports of which cities have evaporated to bedrock.
Thousands of years of history, erased in moments by antimatter over Rome. Los Angeles was reduced to the basin it was built on those long years ago in America. Cape Town's hard fought for progress from humble beginnings to the most populous and prosperous city in all of Africa, wiped from the record in an instant. Seven-hundred and eighty million dead in the span of an hour.
All those years spent, traveling around the world, drinking in the sights, to know they will never return. To know they are gone and buried, snuffed out by a bloody cruel universe, filled with utterly contemptible aliens. A deep voice spoke inside me on a loop, constantly asking an enraging question.
"Did it all mean nothing to you, Dorian?"
There was only one answer I considered giving to that accusation. To the monsters that took so many lives and homes from humanity, merely for having the gall to eat differently. What answered back blistered with hatred, yet kept frigidly focused.
"It meant everything to me."
Something clicked inside; the Federation wouldn't get away with this. We deserved justice. I rustled through my desk drawers, looking for old contacts from my political days. The stacks of papers on my desk could wait, this was more important. I needed to make some calls. Humanity deserved better, and I knew just how we could get it. But it would require a far more coordinated effort than just me. No, it needed a movement.
The galaxy will hear us. One way or another, we deserve justice. And we have just the circumstances to deliver it...
Date [standardized human time]: October 22, 2136
"-the sting of these days will someday pass. Maybe not in the near future, maybe not even in our lifetime, but we will one day no longer feel his pain, this suffering. Until that day comes, we will not go gently into that dark night, we will live on, mourn our dead, defend those still living, and make humanity known to the galaxy that it will not roll over when faced with such hostility. To those who support us even now, I thank you deeply to the core, and ask for a moment of silence to those lost both above and on Earth...to those who would stand with the Federation, who did so cruelly act upon us, we urge you to reconsider, and turn away, for we bring not a olive branch, but a sword. Those species governments that did this will not get away with this, and those who stood aside and watched...either choose a side, or be labeled on one for your inaction. Thank you."
Meier finished his speech with that, and some applause was heard from human refugees amidst the crowd, but a majority remained mostly quiet, in remembrance of the lives lost. A good majority of the dignitaries from the Federation neutral races had already left by this point, so the pointed message at the end likely missed them personally, even if they listen in later. It was a good speech, but it felt...infused with something that was clearly not Meier's normal calm. It was like seeing a side I had never seen with him before, not rant-angry, but mad nevertheless, hidden behind a veneer of diplomatic politeness.
Noah put it in terms I thought best as Meier walked off stage. "You're a bit more of a firebrand than I thought Meier, but nevertheless a good speech! I'm glad you tied in what advice I could give for the refugees here so smoothly."
Meier smiled at that, a cathartic smile that spoke of being proud of what he delivered just a moment ago. I could only imagine he was aching with tension over the pain of so much loss of life, it was only fair that he be angry at the galaxy at large for it, and make it heard.
"Thank you, Noah. I sincerely mean every word of it. The Federation must not escape scot-free for what they have done, and already now at home we're preparing to bring the fight back to them." He looked at me. "We'll...obviously not go as far as the Federation did, but I speak for everyone in that humanity is not happy, and it shows. Even the refugees that came here looking a mere instant from giving up seem a bit resolved now to that goal. I just wish more were on our side to start...I never wanted war, but the galaxy's forcing it."
"I'm so sorry, Meier. My deepest sympathies for how the galaxy has treated you and yours. Despite the hiccups recently, I guarantee we'll still remain close allies; humanity deserves nothing less."
The remainder of the species in the remembrance assembly started to funnel out; it was mostly just humans and Venlil at this point, but a few stuck around. The Yotul ambassador, Laulo, was an obvious one amongst the stragglers, clearly meaning to talk with Meier and us further. As the room became more and more empty he walked over to us once again.
"Meier! Your speech was wonderful, full of spice and vigor, yet calming all the same. It was like a call to arms while smoking spiritwood. The Federation stragglers hopefully will reconsider!"
I felt a little weirded out by his choice of focus in the speech on The Federation, rather than humanity, but I responded in Meier's stead positively: "Yes, Meier's an expert in political and social matters. Anyways, what did you want? You seem to be just hanging around, waiting for a moment here."
"Ah...yes, about that..." Ambassador Laulo nervously tugged at his uniform. "I was sent here initially just in good faith for humanity, as we knew what it must've felt like for the Federation to bully you so immensely. But this second visit, to the gala itself...we actually want to propose something to Humanity and the Venlil, but I wanted to wait for Federation sympathizing eyes and ears to be far away from here first."
He looked somewhat desperate, but resolved. "We're planning on breaking off from the Federation. Their influence on our planet is awful, given what they've done to us during the uplift. They seek to repress our culture, they constantly call us backward, and primitive, hardly capable of thinking for our own in this galaxy. We're tired of it, but we still are partially relying on their technological development to get to this point, and we don't have a proper fleet made. Your space is closest to ours, and we hoped-"
Meier finished "-that'd we begin our war fronting towards Leirn first? Free your people from the Federation? I'll gladly bring it up with our military advisors. You helped us, we help you back."
Laulo sighed in relief at that, a huge weight taken off their shoulders. "T-thank you. Thank you so much for this. Leirn has sought to be free of their grasp ever since we learned their intentions were not pure. You've been the first species to actually care to some degree, and were our only hope out of this mess."
"Don't thank us just yet. If you'd like to get in contact with our military, I can set you up with some Generals and your government as a liason for the war. You can coordinate anything on your side of the bargain to us through them, and make this smoother." Meier handed him a card, and waved over a human attendant of his to Laulo. She talked with him as the two walked away, and Meier remained.
Noah turned to me, a warm hand scruffing my fur. "I know the state of things doesn't look too great, love, but it could be so much worse. We'll make due with what we can get, and hopefully the galaxy will be a better place for it. Don't worry, all will be well someday."
I believed him. Who wouldn't believe in humanity?
2024.05.15 15:37 RationalSchizo812020 *PSA* Real life Street Stars: Possibly a Controlled Influencer Psyop
*If anyone takes the time to read and would like to share, feel free to repost and accept the credit, I don't have enough karma to share anywhere else relevant and could care less. All I ask is that you repost it in full and not cherry pick the information you agree or disagree with or whatever will get the most karma. I would like to avoid exactly what I'm describing in the post below. If any claims I make turn out to be false, I'll update and eat my words.*
(I obscured celebrity and influencer names to prevent fans from seeing the post and flagging it)
I saw someone posted an interview with (O *rlando Brow *n) from the channel Real life street Stars and wanted to put out a little PSA for this community. The channel has recently been growing in subscribers because of a 2020 interview with a 90's R&B artist named (J -aguar W r:ight ), who claims to have suffered abuse of all types that she during her time in the industry, and claims she was blacklisted for fighting back. Now she claims she's been on a mission for the last 20 years to bring down the vast networks of famous sex criminals she has firsthand knowledge of. In her first two interviews she speaks pretty eloquently and drops a lot of facts about the industry. Enough to get people sucked in. You'll see in her latest interviews the lady is clearly struggling heavily with some serious mental health and rumored substance issues.
I truly have empathy for her and (O rland,o B row-n,) because they are obvious examples of the Hollywood machine chewing up celebrities, especially with mental illness, and spitting them out. Both of them have publicly struggled for years, and around 2020, were both homeless and started doing YouTube interviews with obscure content creators where they were paid next to nothing to share their traumas with their viewers and creators who use these traumas to form false narratives and clickbait video titles that either are completely false or that are buried in an 8 hour live stream containing a thirty second audio clip that was stolen and reposted from another exploitative content creator's interview. Not only is it taking money out of their pockets, but also monetizing off their trauma, stealing their content and viewers, and harming their credibility even further due to them being blatantly false or misleading the viewers into thinking their all day live stream talking about the aforementioned video and accompanied by a slideshow is the primary source. One thing I've learned is most people will believe or immediately dismiss most information without even trying to read it. If you choose to go down this rabbit hole you should definitely start with their Insta pages and check out the last couple months. Without people majorly censoring and heavily editing their content, you can tell that they are doing this intentionally to hide the fact they are exploiting trauma survivors for petty cash. If you're still not wary, start with their latest interviews they're both total shit shows. Recently with the (Di +ddy stuff and Ka;tt William ,s) interview going viral, the channel "real life street stars" has blown up. Even more so in the last couple weeks with all the K- Anon stuff attracting people to their channels. If you choose to go down the rabbit hole I just beg you to please research ANY claims from ANY content creator and find a source before sharing. A lot of the time they are spitting celebrity fan fiction juxtaposed with occasional pieces of truth and (Jagua /r Wri /ght) was pretty damn convincing until about a year ago.
A lot of people get sucked in with ( Jag !uar W !right's ) first two interviews because she clearly had them prepared for a long time and was reading from a script. Now she's just exploiting the algorithm and spamming clickbait interviews with the craziest titles possible, thus contributing to the same exploitation she claims to be fighting against. This is not to say all her claims are bullshit, both most are recycled 90s and early 2000's gossip that is new to Gen z mixed with any breaking celebrity news or gossip that is big in the media. To make her stories sound more legit she'll Forrest Gump her way into every story and leading people into believing she was a big time celebrity, but these interviews and her instragram scamming are what she's most known for. The last interview she claims to have taken a boat to Epstein Island where she rescued two young girls who were trafficked and then talks about the Dark Web, "Red Rooms," that are pretty well known to be internet myths because if they were real they'd be invite only and require blackmail to access so no one is gonna talk about it even if they do exist. It amazed how many videos popped up overnight repeating her claims as facts and spreading the virus of media manipulation. If you're still thinking, "Hey, you never know!" She also claims these snuf. f videos and videos of celebrity orgies sell for 500 million dollars, which would be enough to build a whole chain of your own red rooms or throw your own Hollywood sex parties and join the fun. I know some people will probably still be curious, but just watch her 2020 interview the rest are trash, also anything with (O r.lando B,rown) is recycled lies mixed with more lies, with a couple buzzwords he's probably required to say so they can add trending topics to their video tags and get a lascivious title.
Another recent example of blatant manipulation is all the shit with (D j A ^kademics) the past couple days. His court records have been public for months with a vivid description of him and two friends drugging and raping a girl that was obviously premeditated and not his first rodeo. He is also now being sued for defamation because he pretty much told his fans she was drunk and asking for it then regretted it later and went on to say he didn't even know she was at the house until the next morning and blamed it on his friends. Meanwhile the court documents clearly show a rap with an e kit being administered and them finding his spermicide which was the same type found in the r word kit. They also describe video evidence of his two friends doing the same thing while she was unconscious, but he screenshotted a section and posted it in his defense saying clearly she was down. There are also identical allegations to the ones made against (D-rake) stating he has a history of hitting up sixteen year olds and grooming them until they turn eighteen and repeated history of similar drug related s. crimes. It took one post on his twitter and his fans started harassing the poor girl for months. The same thing happened to the lady who was a victim of (N$icki Min _aj's) husband who was doxxed by her fans for not dropping the charges. The next day AK was acting like it was all gravy and if anything gained even more followers. This is a brilliant example of why (Dra! ke's) line about being too famous to be a predator is so stupid. Almost as stupid as blatantly defaming the woman who appears to have more the enough evidence to beat him in a civil suit. Which is almost as stupid as he pretended to be during the (e- bony kin g) livestream where he was obviously ignoring the thousands of comments mentioning anything related to sexual crimes, while talking shit on the guy who successfully blackmailed his handler even after possibly being blackmailed himself on the same stream. This stupidity can only be surpassed by the millions of fans who are still watching his content instead of the news and continue regurgitating the lies of someone so fucking stupid who is most likely a s offender. These are the same ones who automatically dismissed the rumors and instantly believed the dog in the kennel story, the same who believed his alibi, and the same people who are the reason most survivors don't come forward and choose not to accept inconvenient truths right in front of their eyes.
Interestingly enough the portal.njcourts.gov site containing A.k's full court documents were offline for hours last night and a certain sight has banned reposting it for fear of doxxing, another great way to quell any dissent amongst the the ranks. Server's crashing often happens when there is a huge influx of web traffic or a site has been a victim of a DDOS attack, which is just an artificial version of the former that uses bots instead of people. I could talk forever about how fucked things are, but this is simply the world we live in. I really want to drive home the point that in order for any movement to retain credibility, everyone needs to stop sharing any type of info unless they're from a verified, reputable source and define the difference between facts and your opinions as clearly as possible. A couple million hits on youtube, twitter memes and tiktoks, and gossip blogs with broad information being deciphered by mostly idiots don't count as credible. Most of these influencers and blogs have been bought and paid for years ago and usually are biased toward certain celebrities based on the perception of whoever's sharing or whoever pays them the most. For a while now rumors have been circulating of influencers doing shady shit in Dubai for the ultra wealthy. Lot's of ties were made to Dra .ke, but have very little supporting evidence. The blind items containing the rumors also made it so anyone could decode the clues, and as soon as these posts made it on to the Kendric kl amar the moderator crew began the "conspiracy," crackdown. It took one mention of q-anon and the majority of the community jumped ship out of fear of association because "Q-anon bad, they're all scizophrenic." Overnight theories that once had been consensus were completely dismissed after being deemed conspiratorial. A couple of days later, the were forced to place a blanket ban on anything them deem, "conspiracies," regardless of it's validity due to their inability to moderate the amount of incoming posts which are almost always spammed at least ten times a day for the next week. This is the exact thing that was done with q, anon and pizzagat, e stuff back in the day. They'd find the nuttiest people to use as an example so they could paint the whole movement in the same light, then dismissed all related information, and completely censored any discussion on most major platforms. I don't subscribe to either, but they were undeniably on to something. The problem was the disinformation campaigns and general stupidity. One was quashed almost overnight because a crazy guy shot into the front window of a pizza shop and it somehow hit their computer and obliterate their hard drive containing possible evidence. The lessons is truth in every lie and it's not hard to find if you know where to look, it's what you do with it that defines who you are as a person. Some people can't handle the truth because it conflict's with their world view and those who do usually suffer because of it. If everyone does their part though, no one would have to die a martyr in its pursuit.
I've noticed a recent pattern of influencers proliferating the spread of false information especially in relation to any sa allegations. This trend really took off when (Kat -t Will/iams's) interview went viral and helped to revitalize his career and reputation. Since then many copycats have come out of the woodworks, hoping to cash in on the trend. Some other common media suppression trends and manipulation tactics to watch out for are synthetic smear campaigns dedicated to destroying the credibility of anyone with alternative beliefs, and it's gotten exponentially worse throughout the years. A great example is all the shit (Y,e). had to deal with through the years, even prior to his antisemitic remarks and all the other famous people who spoke up about their industries and were silenced. (D av+e Chapp? elle) used to talk a lot about the tactics used to humiliate and destroy many influential black men who dared to challenge the system. Another case that's similar to Ak's is the (T/or y La^ne z and M ,egan T (hee Stallio, n) trial. If you look at the court records, it's obvious the shooting was part of a larger altercation. He still might have shot her, but she at the least totally lied her ass off about the actual story to avoid incriminating friends while ensuring they could hit him with a ten year sentence. Not long after (Me ..gan THE" E S !tallion) won three Grammy's and was voted woman of the year, then disappeared off the face of the earth until her manager sued her a couple weeks ago for having sex in front of him and threatening his job over it. There are countless other celebrities and influencers who are clearly wiling to say anything for money, and those who aren't usually have some blackmail on them. There is such an abundance of glaringly obvious disinformation campaigns in the media and most are accepted as gospel without question or are suppressed if they reveal too much, raise too many questions, or start to sway public opinion. Another very common example of this phenomena is the mass release of information that paints a positive image of the celebrity while containing the same buzzwords related to controversies they don't want popping up on anywhere near the top of Google. This keeps any relevant information limited to the most recent AI generated bullshit that plays the algorithm game the best. While doing my investigation, it was unbelievably difficult finding any relevant information from before 2020, and often had to use Duckduckgo to filter out any articles written after 2023. Even then every search engine required extremely specific search terms, which would often still provide me with the exact same results. It got so bad I considered switching to Yandex.
Recently all the things I've discussed have seemingly been kicked into overdrive, especially over the last few weeks. This leads me to believe that a lot more is going down behind the scenes than most realize. I believe the day will come soon when everyone who actively fought to dismiss peoples opinions out of ignorance will be forced to accept these truths whether they like it or not I was a victim myself last week when I shared a detailed, neutral commentary on a rap feud and was shadow banned from a popular subreddit and ignored by it's moderators. This same subreddit is currently deleting any and all information related to the subject I covered. This is why I wanted to raise awareness if this doesn't get suppressed as well. Karma requirements and shadow bans that can sometimes circumvent the use of Vpn's on all connect devices, lead me to believe Reddit as a whole may also be at least partially compromised.
Chances are the same people who promote biased garbage and obvious lies are the same ones who will scroll right past any post containing more then three sentences and the ones who spread any lie they are told without question and accept everything at face value. My personal favorites are the ones who don't read past the title and clog up the comments while obscuring valuable information because they want the spark note version. This is all by design. They are the sheep the government count on to help them consolidate their wealth and power. More and more people are waking every day though. I encourage anyone new to conspiracies to really keep all this in mind going forward, especially with the proliferation of AI powered disinformation bots that dominate your front pages and control the majority of content. If you want to fight against this and keep your freedom of speech, this is a call to arms. To anyone who values the truth, the powers that be will do anything they can to try to censor any public dissidence. Remain steady in your search for truth, and learn how to effectively help other join you in lifting the veil. Stay strong in your convictions and don't allow other's to moderate your options, your beliefs, or your truth.
Thanks for Reading
-The Original Random Moniker
submitted by RationalSchizo812020 to DarkKenny [link] [comments]
(I obscured celebrity and influencer names to prevent fans from seeing the post and flagging it)
I saw someone posted an interview with (O *rlando Brow *n) from the channel Real life street Stars and wanted to put out a little PSA for this community. The channel has recently been growing in subscribers because of a 2020 interview with a 90's R&B artist named (J -aguar W r:ight ), who claims to have suffered abuse of all types that she during her time in the industry, and claims she was blacklisted for fighting back. Now she claims she's been on a mission for the last 20 years to bring down the vast networks of famous sex criminals she has firsthand knowledge of. In her first two interviews she speaks pretty eloquently and drops a lot of facts about the industry. Enough to get people sucked in. You'll see in her latest interviews the lady is clearly struggling heavily with some serious mental health and rumored substance issues.
I truly have empathy for her and (O rland,o B row-n,) because they are obvious examples of the Hollywood machine chewing up celebrities, especially with mental illness, and spitting them out. Both of them have publicly struggled for years, and around 2020, were both homeless and started doing YouTube interviews with obscure content creators where they were paid next to nothing to share their traumas with their viewers and creators who use these traumas to form false narratives and clickbait video titles that either are completely false or that are buried in an 8 hour live stream containing a thirty second audio clip that was stolen and reposted from another exploitative content creator's interview. Not only is it taking money out of their pockets, but also monetizing off their trauma, stealing their content and viewers, and harming their credibility even further due to them being blatantly false or misleading the viewers into thinking their all day live stream talking about the aforementioned video and accompanied by a slideshow is the primary source. One thing I've learned is most people will believe or immediately dismiss most information without even trying to read it. If you choose to go down this rabbit hole you should definitely start with their Insta pages and check out the last couple months. Without people majorly censoring and heavily editing their content, you can tell that they are doing this intentionally to hide the fact they are exploiting trauma survivors for petty cash. If you're still not wary, start with their latest interviews they're both total shit shows. Recently with the (Di +ddy stuff and Ka;tt William ,s) interview going viral, the channel "real life street stars" has blown up. Even more so in the last couple weeks with all the K- Anon stuff attracting people to their channels. If you choose to go down the rabbit hole I just beg you to please research ANY claims from ANY content creator and find a source before sharing. A lot of the time they are spitting celebrity fan fiction juxtaposed with occasional pieces of truth and (Jagua /r Wri /ght) was pretty damn convincing until about a year ago.
A lot of people get sucked in with ( Jag !uar W !right's ) first two interviews because she clearly had them prepared for a long time and was reading from a script. Now she's just exploiting the algorithm and spamming clickbait interviews with the craziest titles possible, thus contributing to the same exploitation she claims to be fighting against. This is not to say all her claims are bullshit, both most are recycled 90s and early 2000's gossip that is new to Gen z mixed with any breaking celebrity news or gossip that is big in the media. To make her stories sound more legit she'll Forrest Gump her way into every story and leading people into believing she was a big time celebrity, but these interviews and her instragram scamming are what she's most known for. The last interview she claims to have taken a boat to Epstein Island where she rescued two young girls who were trafficked and then talks about the Dark Web, "Red Rooms," that are pretty well known to be internet myths because if they were real they'd be invite only and require blackmail to access so no one is gonna talk about it even if they do exist. It amazed how many videos popped up overnight repeating her claims as facts and spreading the virus of media manipulation. If you're still thinking, "Hey, you never know!" She also claims these snuf. f videos and videos of celebrity orgies sell for 500 million dollars, which would be enough to build a whole chain of your own red rooms or throw your own Hollywood sex parties and join the fun. I know some people will probably still be curious, but just watch her 2020 interview the rest are trash, also anything with (O r.lando B,rown) is recycled lies mixed with more lies, with a couple buzzwords he's probably required to say so they can add trending topics to their video tags and get a lascivious title.
Another recent example of blatant manipulation is all the shit with (D j A ^kademics) the past couple days. His court records have been public for months with a vivid description of him and two friends drugging and raping a girl that was obviously premeditated and not his first rodeo. He is also now being sued for defamation because he pretty much told his fans she was drunk and asking for it then regretted it later and went on to say he didn't even know she was at the house until the next morning and blamed it on his friends. Meanwhile the court documents clearly show a rap with an e kit being administered and them finding his spermicide which was the same type found in the r word kit. They also describe video evidence of his two friends doing the same thing while she was unconscious, but he screenshotted a section and posted it in his defense saying clearly she was down. There are also identical allegations to the ones made against (D-rake) stating he has a history of hitting up sixteen year olds and grooming them until they turn eighteen and repeated history of similar drug related s. crimes. It took one post on his twitter and his fans started harassing the poor girl for months. The same thing happened to the lady who was a victim of (N$icki Min _aj's) husband who was doxxed by her fans for not dropping the charges. The next day AK was acting like it was all gravy and if anything gained even more followers. This is a brilliant example of why (Dra! ke's) line about being too famous to be a predator is so stupid. Almost as stupid as blatantly defaming the woman who appears to have more the enough evidence to beat him in a civil suit. Which is almost as stupid as he pretended to be during the (e- bony kin g) livestream where he was obviously ignoring the thousands of comments mentioning anything related to sexual crimes, while talking shit on the guy who successfully blackmailed his handler even after possibly being blackmailed himself on the same stream. This stupidity can only be surpassed by the millions of fans who are still watching his content instead of the news and continue regurgitating the lies of someone so fucking stupid who is most likely a s offender. These are the same ones who automatically dismissed the rumors and instantly believed the dog in the kennel story, the same who believed his alibi, and the same people who are the reason most survivors don't come forward and choose not to accept inconvenient truths right in front of their eyes.
Interestingly enough the portal.njcourts.gov site containing A.k's full court documents were offline for hours last night and a certain sight has banned reposting it for fear of doxxing, another great way to quell any dissent amongst the the ranks. Server's crashing often happens when there is a huge influx of web traffic or a site has been a victim of a DDOS attack, which is just an artificial version of the former that uses bots instead of people. I could talk forever about how fucked things are, but this is simply the world we live in. I really want to drive home the point that in order for any movement to retain credibility, everyone needs to stop sharing any type of info unless they're from a verified, reputable source and define the difference between facts and your opinions as clearly as possible. A couple million hits on youtube, twitter memes and tiktoks, and gossip blogs with broad information being deciphered by mostly idiots don't count as credible. Most of these influencers and blogs have been bought and paid for years ago and usually are biased toward certain celebrities based on the perception of whoever's sharing or whoever pays them the most. For a while now rumors have been circulating of influencers doing shady shit in Dubai for the ultra wealthy. Lot's of ties were made to Dra .ke, but have very little supporting evidence. The blind items containing the rumors also made it so anyone could decode the clues, and as soon as these posts made it on to the Kendric kl amar the moderator crew began the "conspiracy," crackdown. It took one mention of q-anon and the majority of the community jumped ship out of fear of association because "Q-anon bad, they're all scizophrenic." Overnight theories that once had been consensus were completely dismissed after being deemed conspiratorial. A couple of days later, the were forced to place a blanket ban on anything them deem, "conspiracies," regardless of it's validity due to their inability to moderate the amount of incoming posts which are almost always spammed at least ten times a day for the next week. This is the exact thing that was done with q, anon and pizzagat, e stuff back in the day. They'd find the nuttiest people to use as an example so they could paint the whole movement in the same light, then dismissed all related information, and completely censored any discussion on most major platforms. I don't subscribe to either, but they were undeniably on to something. The problem was the disinformation campaigns and general stupidity. One was quashed almost overnight because a crazy guy shot into the front window of a pizza shop and it somehow hit their computer and obliterate their hard drive containing possible evidence. The lessons is truth in every lie and it's not hard to find if you know where to look, it's what you do with it that defines who you are as a person. Some people can't handle the truth because it conflict's with their world view and those who do usually suffer because of it. If everyone does their part though, no one would have to die a martyr in its pursuit.
I've noticed a recent pattern of influencers proliferating the spread of false information especially in relation to any sa allegations. This trend really took off when (Kat -t Will/iams's) interview went viral and helped to revitalize his career and reputation. Since then many copycats have come out of the woodworks, hoping to cash in on the trend. Some other common media suppression trends and manipulation tactics to watch out for are synthetic smear campaigns dedicated to destroying the credibility of anyone with alternative beliefs, and it's gotten exponentially worse throughout the years. A great example is all the shit (Y,e). had to deal with through the years, even prior to his antisemitic remarks and all the other famous people who spoke up about their industries and were silenced. (D av+e Chapp? elle) used to talk a lot about the tactics used to humiliate and destroy many influential black men who dared to challenge the system. Another case that's similar to Ak's is the (T/or y La^ne z and M ,egan T (hee Stallio, n) trial. If you look at the court records, it's obvious the shooting was part of a larger altercation. He still might have shot her, but she at the least totally lied her ass off about the actual story to avoid incriminating friends while ensuring they could hit him with a ten year sentence. Not long after (Me ..gan THE" E S !tallion) won three Grammy's and was voted woman of the year, then disappeared off the face of the earth until her manager sued her a couple weeks ago for having sex in front of him and threatening his job over it. There are countless other celebrities and influencers who are clearly wiling to say anything for money, and those who aren't usually have some blackmail on them. There is such an abundance of glaringly obvious disinformation campaigns in the media and most are accepted as gospel without question or are suppressed if they reveal too much, raise too many questions, or start to sway public opinion. Another very common example of this phenomena is the mass release of information that paints a positive image of the celebrity while containing the same buzzwords related to controversies they don't want popping up on anywhere near the top of Google. This keeps any relevant information limited to the most recent AI generated bullshit that plays the algorithm game the best. While doing my investigation, it was unbelievably difficult finding any relevant information from before 2020, and often had to use Duckduckgo to filter out any articles written after 2023. Even then every search engine required extremely specific search terms, which would often still provide me with the exact same results. It got so bad I considered switching to Yandex.
Recently all the things I've discussed have seemingly been kicked into overdrive, especially over the last few weeks. This leads me to believe that a lot more is going down behind the scenes than most realize. I believe the day will come soon when everyone who actively fought to dismiss peoples opinions out of ignorance will be forced to accept these truths whether they like it or not I was a victim myself last week when I shared a detailed, neutral commentary on a rap feud and was shadow banned from a popular subreddit and ignored by it's moderators. This same subreddit is currently deleting any and all information related to the subject I covered. This is why I wanted to raise awareness if this doesn't get suppressed as well. Karma requirements and shadow bans that can sometimes circumvent the use of Vpn's on all connect devices, lead me to believe Reddit as a whole may also be at least partially compromised.
Chances are the same people who promote biased garbage and obvious lies are the same ones who will scroll right past any post containing more then three sentences and the ones who spread any lie they are told without question and accept everything at face value. My personal favorites are the ones who don't read past the title and clog up the comments while obscuring valuable information because they want the spark note version. This is all by design. They are the sheep the government count on to help them consolidate their wealth and power. More and more people are waking every day though. I encourage anyone new to conspiracies to really keep all this in mind going forward, especially with the proliferation of AI powered disinformation bots that dominate your front pages and control the majority of content. If you want to fight against this and keep your freedom of speech, this is a call to arms. To anyone who values the truth, the powers that be will do anything they can to try to censor any public dissidence. Remain steady in your search for truth, and learn how to effectively help other join you in lifting the veil. Stay strong in your convictions and don't allow other's to moderate your options, your beliefs, or your truth.
Thanks for Reading
-The Original Random Moniker
2024.05.15 15:35 karenvideoeditor The Zoo [Part 6]
First / Previous
Back on the job, my eyes kept going to the camera that was on enclosure one. Andrew told me its real name, but I think that’d be a step too far, putting that out on the internet. I’d just stick with ‘Steve the bear’. Whatever it was, I just knew I’d have a nightmare about it eventually. Last night I slept fitfully but okay. But I know my brain, and I’d already had a nightmare about Yui stabbing me with one of her legs (they are not needle-sharp in real life, this was dream logic) and walking around, having not noticed I was a Ripley-kebab on her leg. I kept trying to get her attention but for some reason I’d been worried about sounding rude.
On my third walk around the zoo, at about 12 a.m. I saw Leila again, who I’d been noticing more and more often. She never looked interested in talking, only walking through the enclosures, and by that I meant any and all of them. She didn’t seem to have a favorite. I assume that however much of her mind that was left over from being alive still gravitated toward looking at the animals, since getting too close was what killed her in the first place.
Then, in enclosure eight, I saw a new creature and stopped abruptly. This one looked chill, but I wasn’t about to make any assumptions. It looked unique in a strange way, shaped like a giant lizard but built like a big cat of some sort. It had an uncanny valley human face, green hair for a mane, and also a horn like a unicorn. It felt like something drawn by an imaginative five-year-old brought to life, but was still somehow oddly endearing.
“Hello,” she spoke, noticing me noticing her. Her voice was distinctly female and oddly deep.
“Hello,” I responded with false cheer.
She pushed herself to her feet and I took an instinctive step back, but she seem to notice, much less take offense. “You’re the guard here?”
“Yup. That’s me.”
“Thank you.”
I blinked, taken aback. “Ah…you’re welcome. For what?”
She cocked her head. “For guarding me.”
That was different. Most of the impressions I had gotten from the animals so far were that they wanted to eat me. And the idea that this one was thankful for me doing my job was refreshing, don’t get me wrong, but made me wary. Call me a cynic, I guess.
“My name is tàiyang. You can call me Sun,” she told me.
“Hi, Sun. I’m Ripley.”
Then she looked toward the sky. “It’s going to rain tonight.”
After a thoughtful moment, I asked, “Does that make you sad?”
“Why would it make you sad?”
I smiled. “Because your name is Sun.”
She paused and then said, “I don’t understand.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, telling a pun to one of the animals. “Never mind.” I glanced up at the sky. “I thought the rain is supposed to stay away from here. Are the ones who told me that wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Well that’s good to know,” I murmured to myself, thinking of my raincoat hanging in the security office closet. It wasn’t that surprising, honestly. Sometimes I felt like the meteorologists in Arkansas try to read the entrails of goats to figure out the weather. It’s all a mess and it’s all made up.
At that, the animal looked to the sky and fell silent. She appeared to be the most uneventful introduction I’d had so far, and I was incredibly grateful for it. Except then the animal kept talking. “He’s under a spell.”
I blinked. “What?”
She looked back to me. “Andrew. He’s under a spell. He’s very unhappy.”
I had no idea how to react to that. For a second I just stared. The sudden jolt of being told my boss was currently being afflicted by magic left me floundering. “He… What?” I finally asked. “Where is he?”
“In his office.”
Oh shit. My eyes instinctively darted in the direction of the main office. I always just entered through the door on the west side of the building, of course, since it led to the security room. It was unnecessary for me to go through the door that first led into the lobby-slash-office Andrew worked out of. Sometimes he even left early, so it was locked anyway. I had the key, but again, it was unnecessary.
Whatever had happened, assuming this animal wasn’t joking around (she seemed completely serious), I needed to establish whether she was right. Leaving the enclosure of the animal I’d just met, I quickly walked back to the small building.
Taking a deep breath, I knocked loudly. “Andrew, are you in there?”
The only reply was silence. I stood there until enough time had passed that it was obvious that no one was coming to answer the door. Taking out my phone, I dialed his cell number and wait as it rang. Then I grimaced when I heard it ringing inside.
Hanging up and shoving the phone back in my pocket, I stared at the closed door.
Trying the doorknob, I found that it was unlocked, and my heart skipped a beat. Andrew always locked his office before leaving. Opening the door slowly, the lights were off in the room, leaving only the faint red glow of the lights outside peeking around his curtains, so I turned on a light. Then my heart plummeted into my stomach, because there was Andrew, splayed limply on the ground, his eyes only half open.
I bolted to him and dropped to his side as he let out a whimper.
“Andrew,” I said, putting two fingers to the side of his neck. He remained silent, and despite his relaxed, wilted appearance, his heart was racing, and I wondered if he was in pain. The room smelled, and it was clear to me that he’d lost control of his bowels. I couldn’t believe I’d been working here for hours without knowing he was in the next room like this.
“Fucking hell. I’m so sorry it took me so long to find you. Can you hear me? What happened?” He made a small sound, unfocused eyes attempting to meet mine, but it was as if he were severely deprived of sleep or something, unable to focus. His mouth opened and he tried to say something, but he couldn’t speak. All I got was halting words mushed into each other. I felt for him; he must’ve been mortified by his condition. I would’ve been, at least.
The obvious solution would be to get Suzanne’s number from Andrew’s phone, so I searched him for it and found it in his right jacket pocket. I pressed the button the iPhone, swiped, and let out a sigh of frustration. He was security conscious enough to lock his phone with a code, of course.
“Can you… You can’t tell me the code,” I said knowing. He grunted quietly.
“What happened?”
I shrieked and jumped to my feet. Leila stood in the doorway, staring in shock at Andrew’s body. “You scared the bejesus out of me,” I exclaimed. I stopped myself before asking if she could make some noise when she moved or if I could put a bell on her. “What does it look like happened? Someone put a spell on him.” Abruptly, my stance changed, standing up straight. “Wait. Do you know how to get in touch with…anyone?” I asked desperately.
“I know Ms. Cooper’s phone number,” she said frankly.
My eyes widened. “Seriously? How?”
“Andrew gave it to me after I worked here for three months.”
That stopped my brain dead in its tracks. “You…used to work here?” I whispered. I remembered Andrew telling me that one of the night shift managers had been killed, but he hadn’t told me it was Leila. Whether it was for her own privacy or her dignity or some other reason, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that I could call Suzanne.
“I worked here for three months,” Leila confirmed as I took out my own phone.
“Okay…what’s her number?” I asked, ready to dial. She rattled off the number and dialed it.
The phone rang twice times before someone answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Suzanne?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
She had a British accent like Andrew did. I took a deep breath and said, “It’s Ripley Mason. I got your number from Leila. I’m here in Andrew’s office and he’s in really bad shape. Someone cast a spell on him and it’s like he’s lost control of the part of his brain that lets him move around and speak.”
“What?” she snapped. “What happened?”
“I-I don’t know,” I said, glancing back to Andrew. He actually looked calmer now, and I hoped that was because he knew Suzanne could fix this. “I was doing my rounds and I met Sun; she’s the one that told me and that’s why I came into his office. I don’t- Who would do this? What do I do?”
“It’s okay, Ripley. I’ll leaving now and will be there soon,” she told me. I heard rustling in the background, the sounds of getting out of a chair and footsteps. “Did you check the security cameras?”
My eyes shut in irritation against my stupidity. It hadn’t even occurred to me. “I’m sorry. Of course, I’ll do that right away.” Proof positive that I was completely out of it. Some security guard I was, not even able to keep my head in an emergency.
“Don’t apologize, Ripley, you’re quite within your rights to be discombobulated at the moment,” she said. “And I’d like you stay with Andrew, but I would prefer to know what happened. Leave his side just for a second to check the footage.
“Okay.” I crouched down to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be right back.” His eyes flicked to me, but he didn’t make a sound. Getting back to my feet and walking over to the security room door, I went in and sat at my desk, putting the phone on speaker so I could more easily navigate the footage.
After fidgeting around with the unfamiliar aspect of the program, since I’d never needed to look back before and Andrew only showed me how to do it once, I finally went back to the point where the spell had been cast. “Okay, he walked into his office with two men at…4:08 p.m. and it looks like he was fine with it. He wasn’t under duress, from what I can see.”
“That’s likely Michael Wise and Eric Henry,” Suzanne told me. “They were allegedly making a donation, a herd of Bagot goats.”
“Allegedly?”
“Well, I’m operating under the assumption that they lied if Andrew is spelled.”
I grimaced. That was a good point. Watching them have a conversation, I saw Andrew tense, and then turn to dart toward his desk, but he only made it two steps before one of the men raised what looked like a wand, snapping it in my late boss’s direction, speaking something. As I saw Andrew’s body seize like he’d been hit with a taser and collapse, I hissed in a sharp breath. “Cripes.”
“What is it?”
“One of them had a wand,” I managed. “He-He did something with it.”
“I’m here, Ripley. Come back to the office.”
My eyes widened and I did as I was told, stunned to see her opening the front door. “How did you get here so fast?” I asked.
The woman gave me a small smile, rendered grim by the situation. “Call it a trick of the trade.”
“Oh. Gotcha.”
Suzanne was all hard edges, her pin-straight blond hair cut at an angle just below her ears, and she wore a smart blue pants suit with matching pumps. But then she looked to Andrew and her face softened, despair and fury flashing across it as she quickly walked to him and knelt at his side, taking his weak hand in hers.
“Oh, Andrew,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. You’ll be okay. I already texted a healer and asked her to come by. A friend of mine named Janine.”
I looked back to Andrew’s face, his eyes open and his expression one of exhaustion, but then quickly looked to Suzanne. “Why would someone do this?” I asked.
“I have a feeling at least one of our animals is missing,” she told me, her voice low and hard.
Anger flared up in me. “What?” I asked tersely. I glanced back in the direction of the cameras. “Should we check the cameras to see which enclosure they went to? Do we- Are there cops you can call for this? What do we do?”
Suzanne’s face slowly faded to sadness. “I’ll take care of it,” she said. “You’re accurate in that I do have a different police I’ll call about this. But there’s a good chance we won’t get the animal back.”
“Wait, why? Come on, there’s got to be magic you could do, right?” I asked anxiously.
“The animal will have been warded and sold to someone immediately,” she explained. “They would’ve had a buyer set up, and gone straight there to reduce the risk of being caught with it. Anyone who is buying an animal like this is extremely powerful, which means that even if we catch the men who stole it, they’d go to prison, but they wouldn’t risk angering the buyer. They won’t tell the authorities who it was, even for a lesser sentence. Losing an animal to robbery has only happened twice in the zoo’s history, this is the third time, but that’s how it played out both times. Actually, in the first instance, the police didn’t even catch the people who took it, since they were wearing masks.”
Just then, there was a knock at the door, and Suzanne pushed herself to her feet, walking over and opening it without hesitation. “He’s in here.” I took the opportunity to open the windows and turned down the thermostat so it would start displacing the smelly air.
A woman walked in, Janine presumably. “Oh, goodness,” she breathed, going quickly to Andrew. She took his pulse with one hand as she pulled a wand out from her purse with the other. “It’s good he’s staying calm. Redire orior can be terrifying to be subjected to.”
“He wasn’t calm when I got here,” I told her quietly. “I’ve been here for hours and didn’t know he was here until just a few minutes ago.”
Janine swore softly. “All right. Let me get started.”
I didn’t know what that meant, so I turned to Suzanne. “What did she call this?”
“The spell is ‘redire orior’. It’s a regression of part of the mind, basically all the way back to when we were first born,” she said tightly, anger flickering across her face. “He has no more control over his body than he did when he was a newborn baby.”
I grimaced, looking back to him. “Oh my god,” I whispered. It meant exactly what it had looked like when I’d walked in: Andrew had been rendered completely helpless. Rage welled up inside me, despising the men who’d done this and wishing desperately that Suzanne had been more confident in finding them.
Suzanne took the opportunity to walk into the security office and I heard her sit in my chair. Janine put down her wand to have both hands free and told Andrew, “Just relax, concentrate on breathing slowly,” she said, carefully pulling both of his legs out and rolling him onto his back. She then put his arms at his sides and, picking up her wand, pointed it at his forehead.
I took in a sharp breath of surprise as I saw a faint glow coming from the wand, through the top of it and then to Andrew’s forehead. She held that position for a while, muttering under her breath.
A few minutes later, Suzanne came out and took her phone from her pocket, saying, “I don’t recognize either of the men in the footage. But they seemed distressed, particularly the one that didn’t hurt Andrew. I don’t think that’s what was meant to happen.”
“Meant to or not, it happened,” I muttered through clenched teeth. I’d already decided that my new to-do list every day included first checking the office cameras.
“Andrew,” Janine said, letting the glow fade. “Can you speak?”
“I…yeah,” he whispered.
Suzanne came over to my side. “Thank goodness. How are you feeling? How’s the vertigo?”
“Pretty much gone,” he said, closing his eyes for a long moment, though he didn’t try to stand up.
“Andrew, I pulled up the cameras in the office and listened to the audio,” she told him. “I know what happened.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “The cameras have audio?”
“It’s under admin privileges, but yes. Andrew, you should have known better,” she said softly, looking back to him. “The gun in one of the desk drawers? I presume that’s what you were lunging for, because those two men had just made it clear they were here for an animal.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I just…” He looked distraught.
“They told you to just let them get what they came for,” Suzanne said. “Why didn’t you?” My lips parted in shock.
“The last time this happened, I cooperated, but…I regretted it,” he growled. “We never saw Harriet again. I couldn’t just stand here and let them do whatever they wanted. Not again.” I assumed Harriet was one of their animals, but I didn’t ask.
“Don’t ever do something so foolish again,” she told him, on the verge of being upset, her emotions likely tempered by his condition. “I want to make it clear to you that this job, these animals, they’re immensely important, but they are not worth your life. He could have killed you. If someone gains access to the zoo again to steal an animal I want you to cooperate fully. Understood?”
“Yeah,” Andrew muttered.
The idea that Andrew had tried to bring a gun to a wand fight was staggering. Something heavy curled in my stomach at the thought. It was clear he cared about the wellbeing of the animals to a degree I hadn’t comprehended.
Janine took one of the small pillows from the couch and tucked it under Andrew’s head as Suzanne continued. “All right,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll go through the footage to determine what they stole and then call the authorities to report the theft. Janine, can you continue to treat him?”
I wasn’t sure what that entailed, but Janine apparently did, since she nodded and knelt back down as Suzanne went back into the security office. Janine did the same thing that she’d done before, that soft glow channeling light into Andrew’s head. Obviously, I wanted to ask what she was doing, but I knew better than to think I’d get an answer. Instead, I sat in one of the loveseats in front of Andrew’s desk, turning it to face them.
I heard Suzanne’s voice faintly speaking to someone on the phone and the minutes ticked by. Eventually, Suzanne came back out again and she stood next to me for a long moment, watching the healing process before turning to me.
“Andrew told me you were attempting to create some enrichment activities for the animals?” asked my boss.
“Oh, uh…yeah, I am,” I answered. I assumed she was trying to make small talk to distract me from the current situation, and I appreciated it. “The first one went well. Spike loves artichokes, pecans, and hazelnuts. I went with things that made it a challenge to eat, like it’s a challenge to pull out fingernails of its prey.”
Suzanne’s expression brightened just enough for me to notice. “Ripley, that’s wonderful. Very clever.” She let out a breath. “It’s becoming more and more obvious to me that Andrew chose well in hiring you.” I gave her a small smile. “Listen, I’m going to hire someone else to be here with you on duty,” Suzanne told me, “and by that, I mean someone from my neck of the woods. Andrew explained that to you, correct?”
“Not much. Just that you’re not from Earth.”
Suzanne smiled. “That makes me sound like an alien, but yes, I’m not from this dimension. I can hire someone who has similar abilities to mine, who can check in every few hours, make sure everything’s all right, but generally make themselves scarce unless there’s an emergency. He wouldn’t have been able to do much if he’d already been here, but he’d have known what was going on. Andrew would have received assistance immediately.”
I was curious of what those abilities were, aside from being able to see the animals, but I wasn’t bold enough to ask. Also, I was curious about who this new ‘employee’ would be, but presumably I’d find out sooner or later. “That would make me feel a little better,” I said, nodding. “Knowing there was someone else here.”
She nodded once. “It’s as good as done, then. As for Andrew, he’ll need to take a few days off to recover. Would you be willing to give the tours until he’s back in ship-shape?”
My eyes bugged out of my skull. “Wait, what? I can’t even see all the animals!”
Suzanne chuckled at my expression and shook her head. “I can enchant a pair of specs for you to wear,” she told me. “It’ll give you a bit of a headache, but you’ll be able to see all of the animals. Also, I’ll give you the background for each of them, because you’ll be speaking about them to the tourists.”
I blinked, thinking of how awesome it would be to finally know all about them all. And it was flattering, the fact that she had such confidence in me that, without hesitation, she asked if I could take over for Andrew. The best thing for me to do, of course, was to be confident and assure her that I could take any temporary promotion in stride. “I’m…I’m not great with people,” I managed.
Yup. Nailed it.
“You can be a little harsh with them if you need to,” she said with a small, knowing smile. “I assumed that signing up for a job where you interact with a screen of cameras the whole time means you aren’t great with people. And Andrew did brief me on you when he hired you. How good are you at couching your insults in polite talk? The British are quite skilled, but I know Americans aren’t too bad at it.”
I smirked, remembering how a coworker friend of mine once told a customer, “Oh, bless your heart,” in her thick southern accent and it sounded like the worst insult. “I can manage that, I think.”
A buzz from the gate that went to the panel on the wall drew our attention and Suzanne walked over to let the visitors in. It was three people, a man and two women, with a gurney.
Walking over to Andrew, I folded my arms with a small smile as Janine released his head from the glow the wand was emitting. “Hey. Sorry you had to lay on the floor for so long knowing I was cluelessly reading a book in the next room.”
“Eh, not the end of the world,” he whispered. “I’ll be back on my feet soon. So, no parties while I’m gone.”
I snorted and my smile widened, and he returned it.
Going back into the security room, I pulled the system back to the multi-camera exterior view, and I sat there and listened to Suzanne talk to one of the medics, explaining everything that had happened in detail. Once she’d done that and they brought Andrew outside on the gurney, presumably to a waiting ambulance, I gave my statement, and then…it was back to work.
Obviously going back to work like nothing had changed felt weird, but Suzanne stayed, letting me know that she would get some work done at Andrew’s desk until my shift was over. It was likely the opposite of necessary, the robbers were gone, but it did make me feel a tiny bit better knowing that she was in the next room with her wand.
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Back on the job, my eyes kept going to the camera that was on enclosure one. Andrew told me its real name, but I think that’d be a step too far, putting that out on the internet. I’d just stick with ‘Steve the bear’. Whatever it was, I just knew I’d have a nightmare about it eventually. Last night I slept fitfully but okay. But I know my brain, and I’d already had a nightmare about Yui stabbing me with one of her legs (they are not needle-sharp in real life, this was dream logic) and walking around, having not noticed I was a Ripley-kebab on her leg. I kept trying to get her attention but for some reason I’d been worried about sounding rude.
On my third walk around the zoo, at about 12 a.m. I saw Leila again, who I’d been noticing more and more often. She never looked interested in talking, only walking through the enclosures, and by that I meant any and all of them. She didn’t seem to have a favorite. I assume that however much of her mind that was left over from being alive still gravitated toward looking at the animals, since getting too close was what killed her in the first place.
Then, in enclosure eight, I saw a new creature and stopped abruptly. This one looked chill, but I wasn’t about to make any assumptions. It looked unique in a strange way, shaped like a giant lizard but built like a big cat of some sort. It had an uncanny valley human face, green hair for a mane, and also a horn like a unicorn. It felt like something drawn by an imaginative five-year-old brought to life, but was still somehow oddly endearing.
“Hello,” she spoke, noticing me noticing her. Her voice was distinctly female and oddly deep.
“Hello,” I responded with false cheer.
She pushed herself to her feet and I took an instinctive step back, but she seem to notice, much less take offense. “You’re the guard here?”
“Yup. That’s me.”
“Thank you.”
I blinked, taken aback. “Ah…you’re welcome. For what?”
She cocked her head. “For guarding me.”
That was different. Most of the impressions I had gotten from the animals so far were that they wanted to eat me. And the idea that this one was thankful for me doing my job was refreshing, don’t get me wrong, but made me wary. Call me a cynic, I guess.
“My name is tàiyang. You can call me Sun,” she told me.
“Hi, Sun. I’m Ripley.”
Then she looked toward the sky. “It’s going to rain tonight.”
After a thoughtful moment, I asked, “Does that make you sad?”
“Why would it make you sad?”
I smiled. “Because your name is Sun.”
She paused and then said, “I don’t understand.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, telling a pun to one of the animals. “Never mind.” I glanced up at the sky. “I thought the rain is supposed to stay away from here. Are the ones who told me that wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Well that’s good to know,” I murmured to myself, thinking of my raincoat hanging in the security office closet. It wasn’t that surprising, honestly. Sometimes I felt like the meteorologists in Arkansas try to read the entrails of goats to figure out the weather. It’s all a mess and it’s all made up.
At that, the animal looked to the sky and fell silent. She appeared to be the most uneventful introduction I’d had so far, and I was incredibly grateful for it. Except then the animal kept talking. “He’s under a spell.”
I blinked. “What?”
She looked back to me. “Andrew. He’s under a spell. He’s very unhappy.”
I had no idea how to react to that. For a second I just stared. The sudden jolt of being told my boss was currently being afflicted by magic left me floundering. “He… What?” I finally asked. “Where is he?”
“In his office.”
Oh shit. My eyes instinctively darted in the direction of the main office. I always just entered through the door on the west side of the building, of course, since it led to the security room. It was unnecessary for me to go through the door that first led into the lobby-slash-office Andrew worked out of. Sometimes he even left early, so it was locked anyway. I had the key, but again, it was unnecessary.
Whatever had happened, assuming this animal wasn’t joking around (she seemed completely serious), I needed to establish whether she was right. Leaving the enclosure of the animal I’d just met, I quickly walked back to the small building.
Taking a deep breath, I knocked loudly. “Andrew, are you in there?”
The only reply was silence. I stood there until enough time had passed that it was obvious that no one was coming to answer the door. Taking out my phone, I dialed his cell number and wait as it rang. Then I grimaced when I heard it ringing inside.
Hanging up and shoving the phone back in my pocket, I stared at the closed door.
Trying the doorknob, I found that it was unlocked, and my heart skipped a beat. Andrew always locked his office before leaving. Opening the door slowly, the lights were off in the room, leaving only the faint red glow of the lights outside peeking around his curtains, so I turned on a light. Then my heart plummeted into my stomach, because there was Andrew, splayed limply on the ground, his eyes only half open.
I bolted to him and dropped to his side as he let out a whimper.
“Andrew,” I said, putting two fingers to the side of his neck. He remained silent, and despite his relaxed, wilted appearance, his heart was racing, and I wondered if he was in pain. The room smelled, and it was clear to me that he’d lost control of his bowels. I couldn’t believe I’d been working here for hours without knowing he was in the next room like this.
“Fucking hell. I’m so sorry it took me so long to find you. Can you hear me? What happened?” He made a small sound, unfocused eyes attempting to meet mine, but it was as if he were severely deprived of sleep or something, unable to focus. His mouth opened and he tried to say something, but he couldn’t speak. All I got was halting words mushed into each other. I felt for him; he must’ve been mortified by his condition. I would’ve been, at least.
The obvious solution would be to get Suzanne’s number from Andrew’s phone, so I searched him for it and found it in his right jacket pocket. I pressed the button the iPhone, swiped, and let out a sigh of frustration. He was security conscious enough to lock his phone with a code, of course.
“Can you… You can’t tell me the code,” I said knowing. He grunted quietly.
“What happened?”
I shrieked and jumped to my feet. Leila stood in the doorway, staring in shock at Andrew’s body. “You scared the bejesus out of me,” I exclaimed. I stopped myself before asking if she could make some noise when she moved or if I could put a bell on her. “What does it look like happened? Someone put a spell on him.” Abruptly, my stance changed, standing up straight. “Wait. Do you know how to get in touch with…anyone?” I asked desperately.
“I know Ms. Cooper’s phone number,” she said frankly.
My eyes widened. “Seriously? How?”
“Andrew gave it to me after I worked here for three months.”
That stopped my brain dead in its tracks. “You…used to work here?” I whispered. I remembered Andrew telling me that one of the night shift managers had been killed, but he hadn’t told me it was Leila. Whether it was for her own privacy or her dignity or some other reason, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that I could call Suzanne.
“I worked here for three months,” Leila confirmed as I took out my own phone.
“Okay…what’s her number?” I asked, ready to dial. She rattled off the number and dialed it.
The phone rang twice times before someone answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Suzanne?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
She had a British accent like Andrew did. I took a deep breath and said, “It’s Ripley Mason. I got your number from Leila. I’m here in Andrew’s office and he’s in really bad shape. Someone cast a spell on him and it’s like he’s lost control of the part of his brain that lets him move around and speak.”
“What?” she snapped. “What happened?”
“I-I don’t know,” I said, glancing back to Andrew. He actually looked calmer now, and I hoped that was because he knew Suzanne could fix this. “I was doing my rounds and I met Sun; she’s the one that told me and that’s why I came into his office. I don’t- Who would do this? What do I do?”
“It’s okay, Ripley. I’ll leaving now and will be there soon,” she told me. I heard rustling in the background, the sounds of getting out of a chair and footsteps. “Did you check the security cameras?”
My eyes shut in irritation against my stupidity. It hadn’t even occurred to me. “I’m sorry. Of course, I’ll do that right away.” Proof positive that I was completely out of it. Some security guard I was, not even able to keep my head in an emergency.
“Don’t apologize, Ripley, you’re quite within your rights to be discombobulated at the moment,” she said. “And I’d like you stay with Andrew, but I would prefer to know what happened. Leave his side just for a second to check the footage.
“Okay.” I crouched down to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be right back.” His eyes flicked to me, but he didn’t make a sound. Getting back to my feet and walking over to the security room door, I went in and sat at my desk, putting the phone on speaker so I could more easily navigate the footage.
After fidgeting around with the unfamiliar aspect of the program, since I’d never needed to look back before and Andrew only showed me how to do it once, I finally went back to the point where the spell had been cast. “Okay, he walked into his office with two men at…4:08 p.m. and it looks like he was fine with it. He wasn’t under duress, from what I can see.”
“That’s likely Michael Wise and Eric Henry,” Suzanne told me. “They were allegedly making a donation, a herd of Bagot goats.”
“Allegedly?”
“Well, I’m operating under the assumption that they lied if Andrew is spelled.”
I grimaced. That was a good point. Watching them have a conversation, I saw Andrew tense, and then turn to dart toward his desk, but he only made it two steps before one of the men raised what looked like a wand, snapping it in my late boss’s direction, speaking something. As I saw Andrew’s body seize like he’d been hit with a taser and collapse, I hissed in a sharp breath. “Cripes.”
“What is it?”
“One of them had a wand,” I managed. “He-He did something with it.”
“I’m here, Ripley. Come back to the office.”
My eyes widened and I did as I was told, stunned to see her opening the front door. “How did you get here so fast?” I asked.
The woman gave me a small smile, rendered grim by the situation. “Call it a trick of the trade.”
“Oh. Gotcha.”
Suzanne was all hard edges, her pin-straight blond hair cut at an angle just below her ears, and she wore a smart blue pants suit with matching pumps. But then she looked to Andrew and her face softened, despair and fury flashing across it as she quickly walked to him and knelt at his side, taking his weak hand in hers.
“Oh, Andrew,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. You’ll be okay. I already texted a healer and asked her to come by. A friend of mine named Janine.”
I looked back to Andrew’s face, his eyes open and his expression one of exhaustion, but then quickly looked to Suzanne. “Why would someone do this?” I asked.
“I have a feeling at least one of our animals is missing,” she told me, her voice low and hard.
Anger flared up in me. “What?” I asked tersely. I glanced back in the direction of the cameras. “Should we check the cameras to see which enclosure they went to? Do we- Are there cops you can call for this? What do we do?”
Suzanne’s face slowly faded to sadness. “I’ll take care of it,” she said. “You’re accurate in that I do have a different police I’ll call about this. But there’s a good chance we won’t get the animal back.”
“Wait, why? Come on, there’s got to be magic you could do, right?” I asked anxiously.
“The animal will have been warded and sold to someone immediately,” she explained. “They would’ve had a buyer set up, and gone straight there to reduce the risk of being caught with it. Anyone who is buying an animal like this is extremely powerful, which means that even if we catch the men who stole it, they’d go to prison, but they wouldn’t risk angering the buyer. They won’t tell the authorities who it was, even for a lesser sentence. Losing an animal to robbery has only happened twice in the zoo’s history, this is the third time, but that’s how it played out both times. Actually, in the first instance, the police didn’t even catch the people who took it, since they were wearing masks.”
Just then, there was a knock at the door, and Suzanne pushed herself to her feet, walking over and opening it without hesitation. “He’s in here.” I took the opportunity to open the windows and turned down the thermostat so it would start displacing the smelly air.
A woman walked in, Janine presumably. “Oh, goodness,” she breathed, going quickly to Andrew. She took his pulse with one hand as she pulled a wand out from her purse with the other. “It’s good he’s staying calm. Redire orior can be terrifying to be subjected to.”
“He wasn’t calm when I got here,” I told her quietly. “I’ve been here for hours and didn’t know he was here until just a few minutes ago.”
Janine swore softly. “All right. Let me get started.”
I didn’t know what that meant, so I turned to Suzanne. “What did she call this?”
“The spell is ‘redire orior’. It’s a regression of part of the mind, basically all the way back to when we were first born,” she said tightly, anger flickering across her face. “He has no more control over his body than he did when he was a newborn baby.”
I grimaced, looking back to him. “Oh my god,” I whispered. It meant exactly what it had looked like when I’d walked in: Andrew had been rendered completely helpless. Rage welled up inside me, despising the men who’d done this and wishing desperately that Suzanne had been more confident in finding them.
Suzanne took the opportunity to walk into the security office and I heard her sit in my chair. Janine put down her wand to have both hands free and told Andrew, “Just relax, concentrate on breathing slowly,” she said, carefully pulling both of his legs out and rolling him onto his back. She then put his arms at his sides and, picking up her wand, pointed it at his forehead.
I took in a sharp breath of surprise as I saw a faint glow coming from the wand, through the top of it and then to Andrew’s forehead. She held that position for a while, muttering under her breath.
A few minutes later, Suzanne came out and took her phone from her pocket, saying, “I don’t recognize either of the men in the footage. But they seemed distressed, particularly the one that didn’t hurt Andrew. I don’t think that’s what was meant to happen.”
“Meant to or not, it happened,” I muttered through clenched teeth. I’d already decided that my new to-do list every day included first checking the office cameras.
“Andrew,” Janine said, letting the glow fade. “Can you speak?”
“I…yeah,” he whispered.
Suzanne came over to my side. “Thank goodness. How are you feeling? How’s the vertigo?”
“Pretty much gone,” he said, closing his eyes for a long moment, though he didn’t try to stand up.
“Andrew, I pulled up the cameras in the office and listened to the audio,” she told him. “I know what happened.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “The cameras have audio?”
“It’s under admin privileges, but yes. Andrew, you should have known better,” she said softly, looking back to him. “The gun in one of the desk drawers? I presume that’s what you were lunging for, because those two men had just made it clear they were here for an animal.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I just…” He looked distraught.
“They told you to just let them get what they came for,” Suzanne said. “Why didn’t you?” My lips parted in shock.
“The last time this happened, I cooperated, but…I regretted it,” he growled. “We never saw Harriet again. I couldn’t just stand here and let them do whatever they wanted. Not again.” I assumed Harriet was one of their animals, but I didn’t ask.
“Don’t ever do something so foolish again,” she told him, on the verge of being upset, her emotions likely tempered by his condition. “I want to make it clear to you that this job, these animals, they’re immensely important, but they are not worth your life. He could have killed you. If someone gains access to the zoo again to steal an animal I want you to cooperate fully. Understood?”
“Yeah,” Andrew muttered.
The idea that Andrew had tried to bring a gun to a wand fight was staggering. Something heavy curled in my stomach at the thought. It was clear he cared about the wellbeing of the animals to a degree I hadn’t comprehended.
Janine took one of the small pillows from the couch and tucked it under Andrew’s head as Suzanne continued. “All right,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll go through the footage to determine what they stole and then call the authorities to report the theft. Janine, can you continue to treat him?”
I wasn’t sure what that entailed, but Janine apparently did, since she nodded and knelt back down as Suzanne went back into the security office. Janine did the same thing that she’d done before, that soft glow channeling light into Andrew’s head. Obviously, I wanted to ask what she was doing, but I knew better than to think I’d get an answer. Instead, I sat in one of the loveseats in front of Andrew’s desk, turning it to face them.
I heard Suzanne’s voice faintly speaking to someone on the phone and the minutes ticked by. Eventually, Suzanne came back out again and she stood next to me for a long moment, watching the healing process before turning to me.
“Andrew told me you were attempting to create some enrichment activities for the animals?” asked my boss.
“Oh, uh…yeah, I am,” I answered. I assumed she was trying to make small talk to distract me from the current situation, and I appreciated it. “The first one went well. Spike loves artichokes, pecans, and hazelnuts. I went with things that made it a challenge to eat, like it’s a challenge to pull out fingernails of its prey.”
Suzanne’s expression brightened just enough for me to notice. “Ripley, that’s wonderful. Very clever.” She let out a breath. “It’s becoming more and more obvious to me that Andrew chose well in hiring you.” I gave her a small smile. “Listen, I’m going to hire someone else to be here with you on duty,” Suzanne told me, “and by that, I mean someone from my neck of the woods. Andrew explained that to you, correct?”
“Not much. Just that you’re not from Earth.”
Suzanne smiled. “That makes me sound like an alien, but yes, I’m not from this dimension. I can hire someone who has similar abilities to mine, who can check in every few hours, make sure everything’s all right, but generally make themselves scarce unless there’s an emergency. He wouldn’t have been able to do much if he’d already been here, but he’d have known what was going on. Andrew would have received assistance immediately.”
I was curious of what those abilities were, aside from being able to see the animals, but I wasn’t bold enough to ask. Also, I was curious about who this new ‘employee’ would be, but presumably I’d find out sooner or later. “That would make me feel a little better,” I said, nodding. “Knowing there was someone else here.”
She nodded once. “It’s as good as done, then. As for Andrew, he’ll need to take a few days off to recover. Would you be willing to give the tours until he’s back in ship-shape?”
My eyes bugged out of my skull. “Wait, what? I can’t even see all the animals!”
Suzanne chuckled at my expression and shook her head. “I can enchant a pair of specs for you to wear,” she told me. “It’ll give you a bit of a headache, but you’ll be able to see all of the animals. Also, I’ll give you the background for each of them, because you’ll be speaking about them to the tourists.”
I blinked, thinking of how awesome it would be to finally know all about them all. And it was flattering, the fact that she had such confidence in me that, without hesitation, she asked if I could take over for Andrew. The best thing for me to do, of course, was to be confident and assure her that I could take any temporary promotion in stride. “I’m…I’m not great with people,” I managed.
Yup. Nailed it.
“You can be a little harsh with them if you need to,” she said with a small, knowing smile. “I assumed that signing up for a job where you interact with a screen of cameras the whole time means you aren’t great with people. And Andrew did brief me on you when he hired you. How good are you at couching your insults in polite talk? The British are quite skilled, but I know Americans aren’t too bad at it.”
I smirked, remembering how a coworker friend of mine once told a customer, “Oh, bless your heart,” in her thick southern accent and it sounded like the worst insult. “I can manage that, I think.”
A buzz from the gate that went to the panel on the wall drew our attention and Suzanne walked over to let the visitors in. It was three people, a man and two women, with a gurney.
Walking over to Andrew, I folded my arms with a small smile as Janine released his head from the glow the wand was emitting. “Hey. Sorry you had to lay on the floor for so long knowing I was cluelessly reading a book in the next room.”
“Eh, not the end of the world,” he whispered. “I’ll be back on my feet soon. So, no parties while I’m gone.”
I snorted and my smile widened, and he returned it.
Going back into the security room, I pulled the system back to the multi-camera exterior view, and I sat there and listened to Suzanne talk to one of the medics, explaining everything that had happened in detail. Once she’d done that and they brought Andrew outside on the gurney, presumably to a waiting ambulance, I gave my statement, and then…it was back to work.
Obviously going back to work like nothing had changed felt weird, but Suzanne stayed, letting me know that she would get some work done at Andrew’s desk until my shift was over. It was likely the opposite of necessary, the robbers were gone, but it did make me feel a tiny bit better knowing that she was in the next room with her wand.
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2024.05.15 15:34 lbabinz [PSN] Digital PlayStation Game Sale
PlayStation Indies Sale
submitted by lbabinz to VideoGameDealsCanada [link] [comments]
2024.05.15 15:16 Xciv Tips for others after 50 Hours of fun
Putting it down for now while waiting patiently for the game to be finished!
Big list of tips after roughly 3 playthroughs:
Economy:
submitted by Xciv to ManorLords [link] [comments]
Big list of tips after roughly 3 playthroughs:
Economy:
- Make sure you have enough Oxen for all the work in your village. Work with Ox includes: construction, sawmill, and plowing fields if you perk into it. Prioritize that 2nd Ox so you can simultaneously make planks and build buildings. If you're poor and stuck with one Oxen, either pause your Sawmill or pause construction if you want to prioritize doing one or the other. If you go heavy into farming I recommend 4 oxen.
- Burgages with sizeable vegetable gardens solve your food problems. My first playthrough was plagued with chronic food shortages, until I figured out the power of vegetable Burgages. But do remember that the larger your vegetable plot, the less that family works their assigned job. So make sure they're working low priority jobs, like Mining and Ox handling, rather than critical full time jobs, like Trading or managing the Stockpile.
- I start each village with four 0.5 Morgen vegetable gardens with double families, which covers your basic food needs. You can force two families per Burgage plot by clicking the minus icon to have larger plots. Use farming fields to measure 0.5 Morgen with precision.
- Roads are free, use roads to force Burgage plots into the exact shapes and sizes you want.
- You can use farm fields (free to put down and delete) to shuffle Hunting zones around. Keep shuffling that deer around different patches of forest until they're where you want them.
- Trade is king. Even if you do not spec into it, one of the first jobs among your first 10 families should be a trader. Sell literally anything you don't immediately need that can generate some town wealth. I prefer berries and hides. This initial town wealth is invaluable because it can buy Burgage extensions, which keeps your food income self-sufficient. One of the biggest pitfalls is an expanding population without an equally expanding source of food.
- Farming is for 3 things: (1) Ale for Level 3 Burgages // (2) Linen for Gambesons and Clothing variety // (3) Wheat for Bread for food variety and food security for large populations. So counterintuitively, do not build farms until late game. It is only for late game when you're pushing your village to Tier 3. Also because of this, I recommend building your largest town (300+ population) in a zone with good farming fertility. Farming has a lot of more complex supply chains that require a lot of people. Do not start farming in the early game, prioritize getting a Manor and Church up, first, with stable food supply from Extensions.
- If you have a ton of resources but some households are still not being supplied (I have 10 months worth of firewood but a house is not getting firewood???), it's because your Market is not being stocked. To stock more to the Market you need to build more Stockpiles and Granaries. People assigned to these will open market stalls and transport goods to them, which will then supply your town.
- Houses get stocked with resources in a priority system based on distance to the market. Close to market get stocked first, so try to plan your town where your Tier 3 houses are hugging closest to your market as they have the greatest demands for resource variety.
- Distance to the Church and Wells DO matter, at least from what I've observed. Villagers physically travel to wells and the church (correct me if I'm wrong and it's just cosmetic), so make sure to build multiple wells, and have the church centrally located.
- Build a Manor ASAP. Your Retinue are your standing army and using them against bandits does not interrupt your economy. You want your Retinue ASAP. They are also powerful fighters.
- The Baron gets Influence from killing bandits, and he uses this influence to claim provinces and contest your provinces. If the Baron runs out of provinces to claim and contests your home province before you manage to build a large enough army, it's GAME OVER. So it is of vital importance to beat the Baron to bandit camps and monopolize the glory and loot from the camps for yourself.
- As soon as bandit camps appear, you want to beeline over there and beat the Baron to killing these camps. You can manage this with the starting 20 Spear Militia by building 2 units of Spears, splitting this 20 into 10 and 10. Always choose to send the spoils of the looted camp to your Personal Wealth.
- Use this to purchase temporary Mercenaries to clear future camps (it's a net gain in Personal Wealth if you fire the mercenaries so you only pay them for one 30 day period, and more importantly, you deny the Baron Influence and keep your Militias alive). You can rely on mercenaries this way until you have your Retinue up and running.
- Having more units is better. Six units, 10 men each, is more tactically valuable than having two units, 30 men each. The reason is if you surround an enemy unit from multiple sides, they get the Surrounded debuff, which reduces Efficiency by -40%. So if you surround a unit from 3 sides they get a whopping -80%, making them basically useless in combat. So if it's 30 vs. 30 units of equal quality, you can whoop them by splitting up into three groups of 10.
- Spears are good for tanking. Swords are all-rounders. Polearms are good for offense but are made of paper. Retinue are good at fighting but baaaad at running around (they lose stamina faster). My personal preference is to hold the center line with Retinue, and work the flanks with Spears and Polearms.
- As soon as you unlock a 2nd province and you have enough Personal Wealth to do so, start building your 2nd village. Beeline it to that 2nd Manor, which instantly spawns 5 men of Retinue for free. Remember, having two units of Retinue, 5 men each, is stronger than having one Retinue of 10, because of flanking debuffs. Three Retinues is the magic number that will see you through the whole game, but more is always merrier.
- The hardest battle in the game has you facing 7 enemy units, one of which is a 36-soldier Retinue unit. This is why I recommend having 3 Retinue of your own along with your 6 Militia. Due to a bug you might be limited to 5 Militia, in which case just colonize one more village and bring 4 Retinues for an easy victory!
- Use stances to maximize situations. If you're in a 1v1 against a stronger unit (Spear Militia vs. enemy Retinue), use the defensive stance. If you've surrounded an enemy on three sides use offensive stance.
- Do not sprint all over the map unless you absolutely need to get somewhere fast. You want to save stamina for combat. At the start of combat, assuming your units start at full stamina, turn on sprint for all your units. Tactically getting somewhere a little faster and getting those juicy surrounds is worth more than getting to a position late but with full stamina. You can toggle sprint with the R key.
2024.05.15 15:08 WhatCanIMakeToday Operational Efficiency Shares: Rehypothecating 🐇🐇🐇🐇 And Breaking Free Of Chains [WalkThrough] (4/n)
![Operational Efficiency Shares: Rehypothecating 🐇🐇🐇🐇 And Breaking Free Of Chains [WalkThrough] (4/n)](https://external-preview.redd.it/S1npNPd9uCWh6ZS9ztHfqn8XoZIQP9fMPymVci5aNiM.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=33905fb683797e7f1f266633840ff90ea767e7c6 "Operational Efficiency Shares: Rehypothecating 🐇🐇🐇🐇 And Breaking Free Of Chains [WalkThrough] (4/n)") | From the prior DD in this series [1], we know that ComputerShare can “give” the DTC registered DSPP shares to hold onto for operational efficiency which are then “given back” as shares beneficially owned “for the benefit of” (“FBO”) DSPP Plan Participants at ComputerShare, as illustrated in this diagram: submitted by WhatCanIMakeToday to Superstonk [link] [comments] From The Prerequisite DD It’s time to explore what “operational efficiency” benefits may be gained by DSPP shares going around this roundabout. At first glance, shares are basically just going in a big circle from DSPP Plan Participants with registered ownership DSPP shares at ComputerShare heading to the DTC, who hands shares to ComputerShare’s broker who maintains those shares for the benefit of ComputerShare who holds those shares for the benefit of Plan Participants. While I think it’s unlikely that shares just go around in a big fat circle for no reason, I do remember people getting onto flights to literally go nowhere a few years ago [CNN, NYT]; so maybe these operational efficiency shares simply miss hanging out at the DTC? Let’s look more closely… While title is held by a registered DSPP Plan Participant, ComputerShare is giving the DTC possession [1] of registered DSPP shares to the DTC to hold for operational efficiency which then ultimately end back in the possession of ComputerShare’s broker (who isn’t lending out shares) for the benefit of ComputerShare for the benefit of Plan Participants. If we treat the DTC’s operations as a big black box, we see registered shares going into the DTC black box and beneficially owned shares coming out of the black box to ComputerShare for Plan Participants. DTCC Black Box: Inputs vs Outputs Investopedia says that shareholders have rights, with a list of 6 main rights including:
§ 240.13d-3 Determination of beneficial owner.ComputerShare basically confirms this list (except for the right to sue as that’s probably not one their issuer customers would emphasize) and adds that beneficially held shares may be lent by brokers generally (but not by ComputerShare’s broker). Registered Shareholder Rights vs Beneficial Owner Rights Maybe you’ve had different experiences from me, but I’ve never known Wall St to deliver more than the bare minimum they’re contractually obligated to. Which means the DTC black box is very likely watering down shareholder rights from the 6 that go in down to the 2 which come out. (And yet, we’re supposed to believe that all shares are equal. 🙄) Dividends (#4 on the list) [2] may be the clearest example of a watered down shareholder right. Registered shareholders have the right “to directly receive share dividends” [CS FAQ] which means if a company (e.g., GameStop or OverStock) issues a dividend, registered shareholders have the right to directly receive the dividend as issued. If the company issues a crypto dividend (as OverStock tried to do), registered shareholders have the right to directly receive the issued crypto dividend. Beneficial shareholders would get an issued dividend, if available, or a cash equivalent if not. Historically, stock and other dividends to beneficial shareholders could easily be delivered as a cash equivalent, a watered down form. Crypto dividends don’t scale well with shorts (both naked and legal via, for example, share lending and borrowing) because crypto tokens are unique which makes it abundantly clear why a crypto dividend was nixed for a heavily shorted idiosyncratic stock like GameStop; especially given GameStop’s particularly active shareholders. Ownership (#2 on the list) may be the second clearest example of a watered down shareholder right as more security interests to shares exist in the DTC’s beneficial ownership system than there are shares; with the SEC saying beneficial shares get a pro rata interest in the securities of that issue held by DTC. [See End Game Part Deux: Problems at the DTCC plus The Bigger Picture, particularly the section “The Pie Is Shrinking: Get Out (And DRS) While You Can”] Voting (#1 on the list) is also an example watered down shareholder right; this one having a long history on this sub with, for example, BroadRidge tossing 7B votes and bragging about it. (Beneficial owners only need to get shared voting rights per Rule 13d-3 above so those 7B “shared” votes just lost out to who they shared with.) Unlike other beneficially held shares, voting rights for DSPP shares are not watered down as ComputerShare sends registered holders their voting forms. Operational Efficiency Shares, Whatcha Doing In There?A big black box is a pretty good description of the DTC which does not want us to know the ins and outs of what’s going on. Black holes are a pretty good example of a big black box and, most importantly, we know a lot about black holes even though they can’t be directly observed. Just as we learned about black holes without direct observation, we can similarly learn a lot about the Operational Efficiency shares even though we can’t directly observe them in the DTC habitat.Even though we can’t look inside the DTC’s big black box, it turns out we don’t really have to in order to identify some benefits from these operational efficiency shares taking their roundabout trip to nowhere. Locates A few commenters have suggested that OE shares could be used for locates so I’ll address this first. Possible, yes. But I don’t view this as the most interesting use for OE shares. Brokers are supposed to “locate” securities available for borrowing before short selling. [Wikipedia)] Basically, before selling short a broker is supposed to find a source to borrow. The “locate” requirement does NOT require the security to be borrowed before short selling which can result in a legal naked short. You may be wondering why I don’t view “locates” as particularly interesting for OE shares if short sellers need to locate shares to borrow before shorting. Well, market makers are also exempt from this requirement as long as they’re market making. 🙄 On top of the market maker exemption, remember House Of Cards? In House Of Cards 3 [SuperStonk], we learned about the now 🤦♂️ hilarious F**3 key **- yeah, the one on a keyboard. Brokers like Goldman found the locate requirement simply too much work so they would press the F3 key and their system would auto-approve the locate requirement based only on the number of shares available to borrow at the beginning of the day; regardless of whether those shares were still available to borrow or not. House Of Cards 3 Meaning as long as there were some shares available to borrow at the beginning of the day for their share copying system, brokers could just smash the F3 key to make as many copies of shares as they need. Even if only 1 share was available to borrow at the beginning of the day, a broker could simply smash the F3 key 100 times to approve the locate requirement for 100 shares. So while OE shares could be used for locates, they wouldn’t need many shares each day to make an unlimited number of copies - even just 1 is enough. Lending shares on the other hand… Rehypothecation Rehypothecation is the reuse of customer collateral for lending. Per a 2010 IMF Working Paper, The (sizable) Role of Rehypothecation in the Shadow Banking System, Rehypothecation occurs when the collateral posted by a prime brokerage client (e.g., hedge fund) to its prime broker is used as collateral also by the prime broker for its own purposes.This IMF paper defined a “churning factor” to measure how many times an asset may be reused; and then estimated a churning factor of 4 noting that it could be higher because international banks (e.g., HSBC and Nomura) were not sampled. This IMF paper found a single asset may be lent and borrowed 4 times, or more; an average which could be higher globally. https://preview.redd.it/ymr3j03zri0d1.png?width=795&format=png&auto=webp&s=1555314cefd520658a4f78dc4745867063e3bf34 Churn Factor Could Be Higher Globally How much higher? We may have seen a churn factor as high as 10 for a less idiosyncratic meme stock per my prior post, Estimating Excess GME Share Liquidity From Borrow Data & Churn Factor. Presumably, the idiosyncratic meme stock would have a higher churn factor (but not that important for this post). More recently (2018), the Federal Reserve published this Fed Note on The Ins and Outs of Collateral Re-use studying how often collateral is reused (i.e., rehypothecated) for Treasury & non-Treasury securities [3] with a beautiful figure illustrating how “for any given moment in time, one security can be attributed to multiple financial transactions” where a share could be posted multiple times through Security Financing Transactions (SFTs) and sold short. [4] Sounds familiar, right? https://preview.redd.it/zsztmji4si0d1.png?width=1530&format=png&auto=webp&s=f222dfe50929f668af8f8f0b39514a7d862db9c9 Figure 6c of this Fed Note shows a Collateral Multiplier over time illustrating how “PDs [Primary Dealers] currently re-use about three times as many securities as they own for non-Treasury collateral and seven times as many securities as they own for U.S. Treasury securities”. AKA \"Money Multiplier\" The Fed Note describes their Collateral Multiplier as a “money multiplier” (Seriously, I couldn’t have made this up in a million years.), In a sense, our Collateral Multiplier is akin to a "money multiplier," as it compares private liabilities created by a firm with the amount of specific assets held to create those liabilities. [The Ins and Outs of Collateral Re-use]And, of course, the Collateral Multiplier aka “money multiplier” ratio goes up when there’s less collateral available and down when there’s more collateral available. (Can I get one of these multipliers?) Intuitively, we expect the ratio to increase when collateral is scarce and to decrease when collateral is more abundant.Which means Primary Dealers [Wikipedia has a list of familiar names including Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, BofA, Citigroup, TD, UBS, and Wells Fargo; amongst others] can simply kick securities around a few extra times (e.g., with SFTs and short sells) to effectively multiply the amount of money and/or collateral they have any time they need it. (Within limits, I hope…) Thus, rehypothecation is a very interesting use of Operational Efficiency shares from ComputerShare as various primary dealers can simply “multiply” the number of shares they have – a concept that we’re already quite familiar with. As rehypothecation, short sells, and securities financing transactions are all perfectly legal, rehypothecating more GameStop shares provided to the DTC via operational efficiency satisfies Ground Rule #2 [defined in (1/n) in this series], We can update our conceptual model to include rehypothecation to more clearly illustrate how Operational Efficiency shares held in the DTC can be rehypothecated (e.g., with SFTs and short sells) until a watered down share is delivered to ComputerShare’s broker to hold FBO ComputerShare, who holds the watered down share FBO DSPP Plan Participants. https://preview.redd.it/bt3gnx99si0d1.png?width=4764&format=png&auto=webp&s=7b0b72b935f740e8a3036f88e1a4e1dfb57dd46c You might notice from this illustration that ComputerShare has been telling the truth satisfying Ground Rule #1 [defined in (1/n) in this series]. Neither ComputerShare’s nor their broker lend or need to lend shares. All the rehypothecation happens “upstream” amongst other DTCC and NSCC Participants until shares are finally delivered to ComputerShare’s broker at the end of the “Churn Chain”. ComputerShare has made no representations about what the DTC can or can not do with the shares in their possession. And, realistically, ComputerShare is in no position to make any representations about what happens within the DTCC system – ComputerShare is only responsible for themselves and, to some extent, their broker. The Fed Note and IMF paper found assets may be churned and reused 3-4 times (overall market average) which means the end of the chain is typically around D3 or D4. (If my prior DD estimates are correct, there were signs a less idiosyncratic meme stock may be churned up to 10 times ending the chain at D10 which suggests a potentially longer chain for GME, the idiosyncratic meme stock.) If there is no collateral reuse for an asset, the chain would have zero length meaning Operational Efficiency shares go straight from the DTC directly to ComputerShare’s broker. (Programmers almost certainly understand zero length chains very well – go find one if you need an explanation.) GameStop is idiosyncratic, thus atypical. Per the IMF paper, collateral reuse increases when collateral is scarce and decreases when collateral is abundant (quoted above). If we consider GameStop investors have been direct registering shares (i.e., DRS) and registering shares (e.g., DSPP) thereby removing title and/or possession of shares from the DTC/DTCC/Cede & Co, then GameStop share availability has been becoming more scarce and the “Churn Chain” for GME should be longer than average representing a higher collateral multiplier and churn value. While we may not know the exact length of the Churn Chain for GameStop shares, we can pretty well surmise that it’s not a zero length Churn Chain where there is no collateral reuse based simply on scarcity. After all, a shortage of available shares is, by definition, required for any short squeeze (including MOASS). Requests by brokers to enable Share Lending [5] is another example indicator that GameStop shares are scarce. In addition, according to Investopedia [6], “Banks, brokers, or other financial institutions may navigate a liquidity crunch and access capital by rehypothecating client funds” and we’ve seen indicators showing us banks are in deep trouble:
There are also leverage considerations that increase that risk of default. Overleveraged investments often face covenants; when specific conditions are met, trading accounts may receive a margin call or face debt default. As a row of dominos fall after a single collapse, a single margin call may cause other debts to fail their account maintenance requirements, setting off a chain reaction that places the institution at higher risk of overall default. [6]This risk for rehypothecation sounds exactly like what the Options Clearing Corporation was complaining about to the SEC when the OCC Proposed Reducing Margin Requirements To Prevent A Cascade of Clearing Member Failures [SuperStonk] early 2024. If the OCC can eliminate margin calls, then no dominos get knocked down. (Thankfully, apes have done a phenomenal job in convincing the SEC that this OCC proposal is a very bad idea. Support the SEC’s rejection of this as Simians Smash SEC Rule Proposal To Reduce Margin Requirements To Prevent A Cascade of Clearing Member Failures!) Most importantly, it may be tough to regain possession of an asset when someone in the rehypothecation chain defaults. Remember from the prior DD the expression about possession: Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Clients must be aware of rehypothecation as it is technically their own assets that have been pledged for someone else's debt. This creates complicated creditor issues where an investors shares may longer be in their possession due to their custodian's default. [6]We know assets are rehypothecated 3-4 times on average, GameStop shares are scarce, banks are in trouble, stock loan volume is skyhigh, and the risks of rehypothecation are real. So it’s pretty clear that rehypothecation is happening generally with pretty darn good reason to expect GameStop’s Churn Chain is at least of non-zero length (i.e., GameStop stock is being rehypothecated). Breaking The ChainsWhile some may like chains and being tied up, I’m not one of those apes. Especially as a Churn Chain waters down my shareholder rights and may make regaining possession of DSPP stock difficult in the event of a cascade of defaults, as warned by the OCC. (If you like chains, feel free to skip this section.)As it turns out, we don’t need to know exactly how long the Churn Chain is for GameStop stock. Simply knowing a Churn Chain exists with non-zero length means there is a chain. Where there is a chain, it’s possible to break the chain. (Even if you don’t know how much health) your enemy has in a game, you still try to take your enemy out. Right?) A churn chain that starts from ComputerShare holding DSPP shares in DTC for operational efficiency can easily be broken as “[a]n investor can, at any time, withdraw all or part of their shares in DSPP book-entry form and have them added to their DRS holding”. [ComputerShare] See also [7]. Quite possibly one of the easiest chains in the world to break as the Churn Chain is weak to DRS. Simply DRS the DSPP shares to take away the head of the chain and the rest of the chain falls apart. (And, DRS-ing "street name" shares cuts chains into pieces too!) One side effect of breaking a Churn Chain is that all shares attributed to transactions in a broken chain (e.g., SFTs and short sells) need to be reallocated to other chains, effectively making other chains longer and increasing the risks from a default. Analogy: Think of the shares as a deck of cards. If you deal 52 cards to 4 players (A, B, C and D), each player gets 13 cards. Each stack of 13 cards is basically a Churn Chain. But if you take out a stack by removing the bottom card from A and distribute the remaining 12 cards from A to B, C and D then B, C and D each now have 17 cards. If at any given time a card can cause a player to lose the game, it's better to have fewer cards than more. And, the players who get out early won't lose. Any party in the Churn Chain who defaults will make it hard for the original owner to regain possession. Longer chains include more transactions and more parties so there’s more risk of default on longer chains than shorter chains. Thus we see another vicious cycle setup where incentives are aligned such that DSPP and beneficial shareholders may want to avoid the impending default and rehypothecation risk from their shares being held in DTC. In order to avoid the impending default and rehypothecation risks, shareholders are incentivized to Directly Register shares to ensure having both title and possession. (Shares held in “street name” have little or no protection from rehypothecation risk and simply registering shares in DSPP doesn’t guarantee possession [1].) As with the other vicious cycle, any remaining shareholders in DTC share a shrinking pie of diluted ownership so it is in their best interest to get out and DRS; thereby shrinking the diluted ownership pie even more which is more reason for remaining shareholders to get out. These vicious cycles will eventually leave few, if any, remaining shares at the DTC for beneficial shareholders. Nobody knows what will happen if this ♾️🏊 happens. Footnotes[1] If you haven’t already, please read the prerequisite DD in this WalkThrough Series to understand how ownership of property is separated into two concepts: title and possession. [See, e.g., StackExchange] Understanding the differences between title and possession are particularly important here where it’s worth being extra careful identifying how an entity is in control of an asset.
[3] Footnote 16 of the Fed Note itemizes various classes of non-Treasury collateral which includes equity which, per Investopedia, is a synonym for stocks. [4] While short selling is pretty well known, Security Financing Transactions (SFTs) may be more obscure despite discussion of them in the past so here’s some historical SuperStonk links for you (where you may notice some well known OG DD apes):
[6] https://www.investopedia.com/ REMOVE_FOR_AUTOMOD terms/r REMOVE_FOR_AUTOMOD /rehypothecation.asp [7] Withdrawing whole DSPP shares into DRS seems to make a lot of sense as doing so guarantees possession. Selling fractionals, less so. If you intend to keep buying, I would think adding to the fractionals to later withdraw whole shares makes more sense. As for the concern about fractionals tainting the whole account, I’ll cover that in another post. For now, you do you. |
2024.05.15 15:01 ibid-11962 More Murtagh Questions [Post Murtagh Christopher Paolini Q&A Wrap Up #5]
As discussed in the first post, this is my ongoing compilation of the remaining questions Christopher has answered online between August 1st 2023 and April 30th 2024 which I've not already covered in other compilations.
As always, questions are sorted by topic, and each Q&A is annotated with a bracketed source number. Links to every source used and to the other parts of this compilation will be provided in a comment below.
The previous post focused on the essence of the Murtagh book and character. This installment will cover additional Murtagh-related questions, such as about specific elements of the writing process. The next post will cover the writing and publication of Eragon.
submitted by ibid-11962 to Eragon [link] [comments]
As always, questions are sorted by topic, and each Q&A is annotated with a bracketed source number. Links to every source used and to the other parts of this compilation will be provided in a comment below.
The previous post focused on the essence of the Murtagh book and character. This installment will cover additional Murtagh-related questions, such as about specific elements of the writing process. The next post will cover the writing and publication of Eragon.
Further Details about Writing Murtagh
Creating the MapsFor Murtagh I did all the maps after writing the book, but that's because I already knew all the locations and was familiar with them from writing the series. So I didn't need to do the maps before writing the book. [12]Favorite Parts
What is your system for drawing maps? I usually start by thinking of what I want a location to look like. And that has nothing to do with a map. That's usually just thinking about how it will serve the story. And then the map will be based off of that. The biggest decision is usually what the style of the map should be, whether I want to do like a top-down city map for a place, or if I want it to be a more of a realistic image. So more of, let's say, a landscape painting, one could say, or if I want to do something that's more allegorical and evocative or symbolic, which there's actually one of those in Murtagh that really isn't a map, but it's a symbolic map, let's put it that way. And all of that is governed by what is the effect I hope to achieve with the reader. Because if it doesn't achieve the effect I want, then what's the point of doing it. I do try to avoid maps where I have to draw every single building if it's a city map because that's just annoying. I'd rather draw mountains than cities. [12]
I love the sort of top-down look, which is why I drew the the original map for Eragon in this style. [12]
Maps are an awesome thing, and they add so much to a world. And that's why I love drawing them, and I love finding them in books I'm reading. And it's also why I make such an effort to draw and paint maps for my own books. [12]
What kind of scenes do you enjoy writing most? I really empathize with the characters, so I find it difficult to write scenes where they experience difficulties. I like to write scenes where people wonder about the world, or where the story reaches a climax. With Murtagh, for example, this is the confrontation at the end of the book. Or the fight with the big fish, Muckmaw. There are also quiet moments that I enjoy writing. Again in Murtagh, when Silna – the werecat child – kisses Murtagh's head, that was a very special moment. I like to write things that have meaning and that requires context, so you have to build up to moments that are meaningful, both for myself as a writer and for the reader. [23]Providing Context
Do you have a favorite moment in the book between Thorn and Murtagh? I have a couple of them. There's a moment after the encounter with Muckmaw when they exchange true names that I quite liked. The end of the Gil'ead sequence. Thorn has an appearance at the end of that sequence, which was rather dramatic. And then right near the end of the book, Thorn gets a crowning moment of awesome, one might say, to use internet speak. But Thorn really, he comes through in a pinch, and I just loved writing that. [32]
What was your favorite scene or moment that you wrote for Murtagh? I'd say the last chapter, and I'm not gonna say why, but I think it's obvious. There's a scene with a creature named Muckmaw, which I quite enjoy. Not just the confrontation with Muckmaw, the aftermath in the water. I was reading Blood Meridian at the time, and I think that influenced my descriptions. And there is a point in the story where something is renamed. And that was a very meaningful scene for me. Also, there's a werecat in the book and I love werecats. They're so much fun to write. [34]
What is your favorite line you've written? The first line I wrote for Murtagh before I had anything really for the book, I thought it was going to be the first line of the book and it ended up being partway through the first chapter, and it was "A man with a dragon is never truly alone." Which since he's an outcast the whole theme of being alone or not alone is kind of relevant. [33]
My favorite good/bad line from Murtagh is: “The water was like liquid ice.”.. . . Yeah, yeah. I know. But you understand what I meant! And that’s the point of writing. Ahahaha!* I didn't notice! just imagined really cold water Can’t tell you how many times I stepped into the Yellowstone River and thought: “This feels like ice! But liquid.” [T]
In the acknowledgments section you said you owe your agent some sushi? Yes! I bet him a sushi dinner, an expensive new York sushi dinner, that I could keep Murtagh under the length of Eragon. And I got close. The first draft was one hundred and sixty eight thousand words long. Eragon is one hundred and fifty six thousand words long. And I figured well I usually drop about ten percent of length in editing, so I thought I'd do that. The problem is I hate over explaining things. I know that sounds incredibly hypocritical based off what I've actually written, but because of my experiences of over explaining things, I've really tried to not do that as much, and so I wrote the book assuming that someone had read the Inheritance Cycle and remembered it. So I didn't explain what a lot of things were because I assumed the reader knew. And my editor came back and said "Christopher, I know what you're doing, but you can't do that. Because someone might pick this up without having read the Inheritance Cycle. And even if someone read the Inheritance Cycle, it's been twelve years. So provide a little context." Well, that ended up being thirty-three thousand words, give or take. So now we're at one hundred and ninety eight thousand words, so I owe my agent a sushi dinner. [17]Gil'ead Sequence
It's always interesting to me to see how people do their first chapters in a series. Because I always feel like chapter one is like "previously on..." It's funny. I wrote my latest book with basically no callbacks or explanations of established information. After four books and a million published words, you kind of think people have it under their belt. And my editor came back and she was like, "It's been eleven years since the last book, even if people are fans of the series, you got to give them a little more." So usually when I write a first draft, it drops by about 10% in editing. And with that book, it went up by 33,000 words, which all of it was basically context, which was interesting. So that was a first for me. I'm a kitchen sink author, so I throw everything in and then I usually cut back during editing. [33]
I would love to write books that are more around the length of 100,000 to 150,000 words. Like that's a good, solid length. That's where I was shooting for with Murtagh, but for some reason my editor kept asking me to add more and more stuff so we ended up close to 200,000 words. [1]
Final word count of Murtagh is 198,983 words. So my editor had me ADD about 34,000 words to the book over the course of editing/revising. Ha! That's a first. [T]
Interesting choice to break it up into the sections of each city. Just the section in Gil'ead is basically a novel on its own. There's a full arc in Gil'ead that would be a normal size novel for any other writer. I nearly split it into two volumes, actually, there. But my editor said, "no, don't do that". The funny thing about Gil'ead is that actually was not in my original outline. The whole sequence. And the reason is that, for me, I was envisioning a much shorter book. And the whole thing was going to be them going to the village and dealing with Bachel. So let's get to the village as quickly as possible. So we'll just have a chapter or two at the beginning of getting the information. Well, storytelling 101, you can't make it easy for the character. So having Murtagh just be able to go get that information somewhere, find it out, just felt too easy. Also, I kind of locked myself into a little path because the first chunk of the book is reworking the short story from The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm. And at the end of that, Murtagh does not have the information he needs. So he can't get it from the people he interacts with in that chapter, which if I were writing Murtagh as a complete standalone, I could have considered that. So then I thought, "well, he'll go to Gil'ead and we'll have a really quick thing there. And he'll get his information." I started writing it the way I originally envisioned. But again it was too easy. So it was like, "OK. There needs to be a challenge here. What else is going on? How does it tie into my larger world and story?" And it does. There's some unresolved storylines there, but it does tie into the larger stuff I'm going to later. And then it was half the book. Seriously. At the end of the following chapter, right after Gil'ead, is almost perfectly 50% through the book. I'm sure everyone's heard of the three act play, but there's a competing theory of storytelling, which I'm actually very fond of, which is the five act play. So you have two acts at the beginning, two acts at the end, and then your middle act, and then you have an act in the middle. And in that middle act, you have a tipping point where your character sort of sees what they need, or sees what they can become. They ultimately see their own solution to their problems, but then the rest of the back half of the story is them grappling with that solution, coming to terms with it. And that actually worked, it was not intentional, but it worked out perfectly with the structure of this book. The structure of this book is also directly inspired by some of the structuring that I did in my sci-fi novels and I carried some of it back into Alagaësia. [11]Thorn
In regard of Murtagh or any other part of your work, what's the most intense moment for you during the creative process when you are in the midst of writing a novel? A lot of it is intense. I'm gonna divide it into two sections. The creative process itself, in the sense that where I'm creating the story and the characters and the world. In this case, of course, the world was pretty much in place, but in the outlining phase, I should say, that's a lot of fun. There's some pressure in the sense that I know if I don't get it right in that stage, that no matter how well I write the book, it won't hang together particularly well for the reader. So there's strain in that sense that I really want to get it right. But I wouldn't say there's any real pressure, because there's no deadlines at that point. I'm not actually writing the book. During the writing itself, there's definitely strain and intensity in wanting to get it right and do a good job of writing each individual scene and chapter and storyline. And sometimes that can get difficult, especially if I feel like I'm not really getting where I need to get in terms of the effect on the reader. I had that in a couple places in the first draft with Murtagh. One was with the character Bachel herself, who was quite different in the first draft. And then another one actually was the whole Gil'ead sequence, where my original idea for that sequence is actually what happens now in terms of the werecat kittens and all of that. And then I second guessed myself and thought, "well, maybe that's a little cheesy. Maybe I won't have a ticking clock element to that sequence. So I'm just gonna not have that, but he'll still have these various adventures in order to earn this information from the werecat Carabel." And the problem is it removed any sense of tension from that sequence. So I ended up having to rework a lot of the Gil'ead sequence to reintroduce that element, bring in the tension and make it all work. But both of those things happened in the second chunk, which I was gonna say is revision. And revision and editing tends to be the most intense part of the process, because at that point we're usually under deadline. We've committed to a release date and things are happening on the business side of things, that are sort of like unstoppable forces. The ticking clock in the real world. And that tends to be the most intense part because it's not that I can't do the work, I always can and I always am able to get where I wanna go. I'm not stressed about that, it's just instead of having two months to do something, now you got to do it in two weeks, and oh hey, you got a new baby you got to take care of at the same time. And that's what makes it really intense. [19]
One of the things that I loved about the very first half of this novel is that it is a quintessential RPG action adventure. Because poor Murtagh gets pushed and pulled willingly and unwillingly in the strangest directions. Yeah, he's on the series of fetch quests. It's funny. I've had a bunch of people react differently to that. I've seen people who kind of hate it and really love it, and a lot of people who say, "Well, Christopher's just writing out his D&D session". I literally have never played D&D except for my recent trip down to the Authors in the Dungeon down in Utah. So I don't play D&D. I have no one here to play it with. The only RPGs I've ever played are Skyrim and the Mass Effect series. My logic with that sequence was there was a whole lot we needed to see about Murtagh's back history without rehashing the Inheritance Cycle, without actually going back and rewriting scenes from his point of view. And just doing it all in flashbacks and dreams gets a bit tedious. On top of that, originally that sequence wasn't in the book I was going to write. I was going to start with essentially the opening. And then we were going to go to Nal Gorgoth fairly quickly in the book. But it just made it too easy. No one's going to give them the information for free. There's always a price attached to information. There had to be difficulty in getting it. And then once I was digging into that, I was like, okay, how can I use this to show some aspects of Murtagh's character, and then how will that then get reflected in the second half of the book? And how will that let me inform what happens in the second half of the book? And I really enjoyed that stuff. Muckmaw was a particular favorite of mine. [32]
One of the things that we get a lot of in this book that was really wonderful after reading Inheritance, was Thorn's-- we don't really get his POV, but we get some POV through Murtagh of him. I think he only has one line in the entire Inheritance Cycle. In the last book. And we get a lot of him here. And we get a very different Rider-Dragon relationship between him and Murtagh versus Saphira and Eragon. What was the process of crafting that relationship to be similar in its like magical quality, but also different in the fact that they had a very trying kind of hatching? Well that was the key right there. I wanted it to feel different while still maintaining the sense that they'll back each other up no matter what, which they have in the past. That's an important part of that. But Murtagh is kind of a difficult personality himself. Thorn, as we see in the book, of course, had a very, very difficult upbringing under Galbatorix and then later on. And that leaves scars. That leaves marks. So trying to find a way to reflect that in the relationship without having them also just be at each other's throats, because they're not. They are being supportive. But at the same time, it's perhaps an overused word these days, but they have trauma that they are having to battle. [11]Claustrophobia
One of my favorite things is the relationship between Murtagh and Thorn--they’re such a lonely duo, but it allows the book to kind of delve into that dragon/rider bond in a new way. What sets their relationship apart do you think? Murtagh and Thorn were joined under the most difficult of circumstances, and that shapes their interactions in a thousand different ways. Their relationship is more, ah, thorny than Eragon and Saphira’s, but they also still love each other and would lay down their lives for one another, should the occasion demand it. I found their interactions really interesting to write. Also, it felt important that I didn’t directly replicate Eragon and Saphira’s relationship. Murtagh and Thorn are very different beings, and readers should see that. [15]
What is the relationship between Murtagh and his dragon Thorn? Thorn's egg hatched when they were imprisoned by King Galbatorix. The two friends have been tortured and manipulated. They retain many traumas. They care deeply for each other and are closely bonded. But their relationship is more difficult than that of Eragon and his dragon Saphira. [4]
I definitely got choked up with just Thorn and his claustrophobia and how it was written, how it was handled, everything surrounding it. Out of pure curiosity, do you or do someone you know have that kind of claustrophobia that you were able to speak to about? No. A large part of the act of writing is the act of imagination, just like with acting. But even though there's no one in my life who suffers from that, when I'm writing Thorn or anyone who might feel that, I do my best to feel what they're feeling, which is why when writing scenes or a large chunk of a book where perhaps things are difficult for the characters, I have a bad time. Yeah, I hope you take breaks. Yeah, that's where it's good to go play with the kids and take a load off one's mind. But some of the battle scenes in Inheritance really got to me at times, because I'm thinking actually especially in Inheritance, but also in Brisingr, there were some large set pieces, battles. And it just takes a couple of weeks to write sometimes. And that's a long time to have your head in blood and guts. [11]Bachel
You write so many diverse women in your books that we really enjoy. Between Arya, Angela, Nasuada, Queen Islanzadi, you write fantasy with women in positions of power, with agency and with action. And then we get to this book and we meet this villain, Bachel, and she's basically like, "what if Angela was evil?" I hadn't thought of it that way. I was reading the book. I was like, "Did Christopher Paolini and his sister have a fight? What changed in that relationship?" Because she's awful. So I've watched a lot of movies in my life, and a lot of old movies too. I was thinking of some of the classic actresses from the Golden Age of Hollywood who would come on the screen with a very imperious feel, like Sunset Boulevard or All About Eve or some of those films. And Bachel is sort of in that category of presence. And I think it's exactly what was needed to put Murtagh off balance. I was also thinking of Kai Winn from Deep Space Nine. I've always said that Kai Winn and from Harry Potter the headmistress Umbridge, and Hyacinth Bouquet from the British show Keeping Up Appearances. The three of them in a room together will be like a nuclear explosion. When you were approaching bringing this book from the short story about The Fork into a full novel, at what point did you create this character and where did she come from? I had a general idea before writing Murtagh, of course. I did a lot of plotting and preparatory work, but you never know how a character is going to come across until you write the first draft. And in the first draft, Bachel was not as successful as she is now, I think. I was writing the first draft quickly, and I was thinking of the stories a little bit more of like a Edgar Rice Burroughs style adventures. You go off into the jungle, and you find a hidden temple and lost civilization sort of thing. And as a result, in the first draft, Bachel was much more vampy. I really went hard on that angle. And then looking back over, it's like it didn't work. And it was so cliche and obvious. It was like, yeah, I needed to find another approach. So I kept reworking Bachel with each cycle of revision and it was getting better. The character was getting better and better, but I wasn't fully committing to the change. And it was right at the end of revisions. I mean, we were down to the wire and my editor said, we're still not quite there. And even though I hated to have to have any more work at that point, I knew she was right. So I went in. We're talking with a week to spare before we went to the printers. And I rewrote the first four chapters or so when he gets to the village. I rewrote pretty much every line of dialogue of hers and every description of her to bring it to where we are. And then I was like, "OK, now it works", and my editor agreed. She is terrifying and one of those characters that's not mustache twirly evil, but has so much evil within her. She thinks she can do no wrong, that she is always doing the right thing and that she knows what's best for all the people around her. And as a result is capable of anything. So all of which is to answer your question, her character was an iterative process to get where she needed to go. [11]Puce
I try to imagine what it is to create characters and if some of them have the purpose to be a particular message or stand as a parable for a message or an idea and if yes, what does Bachel mean to you in a deeper way? I think the Bachel to me represents unquestioning belief and also the tyranny of unchecked power and control over people's lives. I think what differentiates Bachel from a real world cult leader, for example, and this actually kind of made it interesting to me, is that the Dreamers and Bachel are rational in the sense that they are believing in something that actually exists. The power that they are in awe of and that they are afraid of and that they worship actually exists. And the same is true of the priests of Helgrind. So in a sense they are not irrational to have that reaction. You might argue it's the wrong reaction. I would argue that they're overdoing it and the reaction is wrong and perhaps even evil, but they have more reason for their belief than a lot of people sometimes do because they have physical evidence on an ongoing basis of their object of worship. But again, Bachel would to me represent unchecked fanatical belief as well as personal exploitation of one's power over others. [19]
The cult experience in the pages of Murtagh eerily echoed in some ways certain experiences I've had with religion. Could you talk about where that part of your writing came from or how you went about writing it? I understand why that comment's anonymous, and I'm going to kind of adhere to that philosophy of anonymity here. Without going into details, I've had some family members who were in a cult at one point. And that occasioned quite a bit of discussion in my life growing up. Although the cult might seem, and probably is, completely over the top and cartoony in some ways, you would be astounded by how much of that was essentially true to life. Let's put it this way, playing Far Cry 5, if anyone's familiar with that, was a distinctly uncomfortable experience for me. So I did whatever I do when I encounter something uncomfortable. I played the game like four times in a row. [34]
No matter how outlandish a belief seems, it can be completely realistic in your world. Especially if you have people committed to it. I've had family members who've been in a cult at one point. That was interesting. So I've had firsthand experience seeing a lot of this stuff in person, and I used some of that in my latest book. [25]
How come Bachel is pronounced like that when it’s only one little line away from Rachel? The English language hurts my head. Because it’s not from English, and I wanted it to sound different from every other name in the series. [T]
In Murtagh I have a dragon who's not supposed to be a very nice dragon. I gave him the worst color I could. I have a puce dragon. And mind you, I don't necessarily mind the color itself. It's just for those who don't know, the original definition of the word puce is the color of dried flea blood. So it's a puce dragon. [33]Traumatic Sequences
What was it like cranking up the anxieties of it, the horrors of it? It feels more mature this time around. Well, good. Murtagh is a more mature character, and he's always had a harder road to walk than Eragon. So, going easy on him was never an option, but it was hard to write. It's hard to put my mind in difficult situations for days on end, weeks on end, months on end when writing and editing. It takes a toll on you emotionally. At least, that's my experience because I empathize with the characters and the world. But at the same time, it's so interesting dramatically that I can't avoid it. Actually [the reason] why I wrote the book was that last chunk of the book. That's what everything leading up to was building and hopefully supporting so that when that hits, you're there going, “Oh my god.” [6]Uvek
There is a extended period of this book uh that is very traumatic. That is the darkest I think the series ever gets. Where did you find the line? Were there any drafts where you felt like you went too far with that section or where you had to pull it back? Yes. Not a huge amount though. First of all, I throw everything in in my first drafts, kitchen sink, because you can always dial it back, whatever it is. Even if it's a funny scene, it's like I push it as far as I can and then see how it hits the audience. So in the sequence you're talking about, there was one thing in particular I did that I actually don't want to talk about, that I cut out during editing at my editor's very wise advice, and I'm really glad I did. But that was a thing. Because I was like how far can I take this, and that was too far. [11]
Hopefully this is not scaring anyone off from reading Murtagh. No, it's fantastic. And I think just because it is darker doesn't mean it's bad. I think that it's honestly a perfect natural progression from the Inheritance Cycle to this character. I think it's what the character needed. I also don't think it's depressing, ultimately. [11]
Tell me a little about how you see Murtagh’s journey in this book. He’s certainly on a much darker road than his half-brother, how was it getting to write a story that has more mature themes? I found it enormously rewarding to write about a character who is both more mature and more complicated than Eragon was for the majority of the Cycle. Especially now that I’m older myself. Dramatically, Murtagh (and Thorn!) presented all sorts of interesting opportunities, and I did my best to take advantage of them in this book. Also, since a lot of my readers have grown up with the series, even as I did, I wanted to give them a book that would satisfy them as much as it will also hopefully satisfy younger readers. [15]
As a fifteen-year-old boy I would never have been able to imagine such a flawed character as a central figure, but I now view life very differently. And you notice that my readers who have grown along with me also see these extra shades of gray. [18]
Murtagh is indeed a more mature book than Eragon. Did you write it that way on purpose? Yes, Murtagh is an older character in the story than he or Eragon were in the first books. He is also a complicated person. And my readers have grown up with me in the meantime. So I felt it was important to write a book where my oldest readers would see my progression as writing, and read about characters they could once again identify with. At the same time, new readers should not be forgotten. That's why I wrote Murtagh in such a way that you can also read it without knowing the previous four books. I wanted to write a book that revolved around the difficult history of Murtagh and Thorn, but was still a fun adventure to read. [23]
If you love this fandom, why are you making us suffer so much with this book? I mean the ending redeems you a little bit but oh my god. I'm sure it's been an emotional rollercoaster for you too. There are parts of the story that are definitely very difficult for Murtagh and Thorn and part of that may be my own predilection for writing that sort of stuff but mostly it was that Murtagh has done some very unpleasant things in the Inheritance Cycle, especially to Nasuada. And he needed to come to terms with that, he needed to grapple that, he needed to face it. And there was no easy path forward for him. If I had done easy on Murtagh I feel like readers would have decided that I was cheating, going easy, and that Murtagh didn't actually have to face the consequences of his actions. Even if he wasn't a hundred per cent responsible for them at the time. I can assure you that, and I'll say this to other fans as well, after this story Murtagh is going to have an easier time of it. This book resolves his personal journey and Thorn's on a really fundamental level, and so life's going to be a little bit easier for Murtagh moving forward. [17]
So going to Uvek, you've introduced another Urgal. I think that for a lot of readers, the twist on the Urgals in Eldest. They are not just beastial orcs or Uruk-hai or whatever other franchise does with them, Trollocs for Wheel of Time. They are this sentient race that wants to join the fight on the side of good. I think that that shook me when I first read it. How was it bringing another lead character really from that race into the book? And one of the things I really loved about the book is the scene where they're flying to the village, and they see the village of Urgals. And they're just playing with bows. They're just having a normal day. And he has this moment internally where he's like, "oh, maybe I need to be more inquisitive?" Uvek is one of my favorite characters from the book. I like the Urgal culture. I find it interesting. I wouldn't want to live next to an Urgal village, necessarily, especially since I have kids. But dramatically, creatively, they're really interesting to write about. And trying to balance them in the sense that they're a warrior culture like, we could say, the Klingons. But the Klingons take it to such a degree that realistically, you start asking the question of, how have they survived? How do they build a space-frame civilization when it seems like they tear each other apart super quickly? So with the Urgals, I wanted to show more. And in fact, in The Fork of the Witch and the Worm, the largest of the stories in that is The Worm, which is an Urgal story. And since I was looking at ways of exploring the idea of Murtagh and Thorn's relationship with society, being an outcast, all of that. The Urgals are outcasts in the land also. The other races aren't particularly fond of them. That was a nice connection to bring in and reflect off of Murtagh, so to speak. [11]Typos
I just got off a very fresh reread of Murtagh. I just sent in typo corrections and a couple little tweaks here and there for the reprints. [32]Divers
You mention in Murtagh that Murtagh's Gedwëy ignasia is on his right hand, but I think the community assumed it was on his left from Eldest. We're we all wrong or is that a continuity error I found? Typo. Getting fixed in reprints. [T]
I've seen a couple of questions about this, so -- for the record, "divers" is not a typo of "diverse". (Probably got too clever for my own good, but there you go.) Archaic language in fantasy books?!?! Say it ain't so! The language is half the fun. :D [T]Reading Order
Not a typo. :D Archaic word. [T]
If this hypothetical typo is “divers” … that’s actually the correct word and not a typo. If it’s something else, just send a pic and we’ll get it fixed in reprints. [T]
CHRIS WHAT IS THIS? An excellent and archaic word. [T]
*sigh* . . . “divers” is a real word. Not a typo (and it doesn’t mean those who dive in the water) [T]
I mean, "divers" isn't a typo, so . . . That said, if you do find typos in Murtagh, feel free to tweet them at me. We'll get 'em fixed in reprints. Happens with every book. [T]
Heh. Good thing “divers” is actually a word (and it doesn’t mean someone diving into water). [T]
The thing I want to talk to you about today is Twitter drama. You've been getting in tons of fights with readers lately on Twitter. You've been saying some really awful and hateful things to them just because they're pointing out typos in your book. What's the deal with this "divers" typo? Yes, on the first page of Murtagh there's a word "divers", which is an archaic word that means many or a multitude or different things. And too many people think that I'm referring to scuba divers. So it is a fight worth having. You make up fake words all the time. You're a fantasy author. I think the difference here is that you've made up a fake word which also has a real world definition, a person who dives as a sport, and you've put it on the front page of Murtagh without any context clues provided as to how we should interpret this. This is a book that's part of a world that no one has read in more than 10 years. So don't you think that maybe you should apologize to your readers who have waited all this time for a quality product only to be let down by an "archaic" word, aka a typo, on the first page? Absolutely. In fact, I had a conversation with my editor about this before heading out on book tour and we'll be reprinting the books but we're going to translate it all into Pig Latin which should make it more understandable for readers. [31]
I didn't read FWW,should I read it before read Murtagh? I Thought it was a spin-off book. You don't have to read it ... but I would. It acts as a direct lead-in to Murtagh Honestly I'm finding it shocking the number of people who haven't read FWW. There's a solution to that. . . . (Why does that sound mildly threatening?) [T]
Even if you haven't read the other books I think you can certainly enjoy Murtagh as much or even more. [12]
Is Murtagh Book 5 in the story about Eragon/Alagaësia? Yes [R]
Murtagh is a direct inline full-length sequel to the series, even though it has a different main character. [1]
I just finished Fractal Noise last night, and when you mentioned in the afterward about another book for a certain Eragon character, I was hoping it would be him. Yeah, I wanted to mention Murtagh on the "Also By" page in Fractal Noise, but we weren't sure if Murtagh was getting announced before Fractal Noise got released to early readers. [T]
2024.05.15 15:00 wisdom_and_frivolity Buckler's Boot Camp - Posted every wednesday for questions and training
This post is to provide a place for everyone to ask simple questions and chat about anything reasonably on topic. If someone posts something worthy of their own thread, let them know! Like wise, if a thread is personal or answered in the FAQ elsewhere on the subreddit, point them here!
subreddit overview: the rules and my perspective on modding
submitted by wisdom_and_frivolity to StreetFighter [link] [comments]
| PLEASE READ! | ☚☚☚ |
|---|---|
| Got a question? | This is the place! Ask anything you like! |
| Just wanna get something off your chest? | Have at it! |
| Want to help? | 1. Help other players with their questions |
| 2. Apply for mod status on any of our projects | |
| 3. Request wiki edit powers! /streetfightewiki |
If you didn't get a response in the last thread before the new one was made, feel free to post again!
FAQ:
| /STREETFIGHTER FAQ | effort time! If there's a blank spot, make a thread to link here! |
|---|---|
| Beginning | |
| Who should I start with? | |
| Where can I find a basic overview of each character? | SF6 Universe Android and iOS, Supercombo.gg |
| What does _____ mean? Is there a glossary? | The latest glossary thread, iPlayWinner General Glossary, Infil's glossary |
| Tips for Story Mode | Ongoing reddit thread |
| Training | |
| Where can I find character combos / bread-n-butters? | https://combotier.com/ |
| How can I stop being bad? | For the new players struggling... |
| What are footsies? | Footsie handbook, Juicebox's explanation of footsies, RPS footsies in SF6 |
| How can I improve my execution? | |
| What are 'advanced techniques'? | (some of these are old) Option selects, hit confirms, negative edge and input shortcuts, input buffering, tiger knee motion and kara cancel, plinking, pianoing, sliding, double tapping, links and frame data, safe jumps |
| Participating | |
| What controller should I get? | Check out /fightsticks, they're more than just fightsticks |
| Where is everyone posting Avatar codes to copy? | Check out /SF6Avatars |
| Where can I find replays of good players? | |
| Where can I find good shows? When are they on? | |
| Where are other fighting game communities? | fgc.network and mstdn.games twitter alternatives |
| supercombo.gg wiki-like | |
| discord list | |
| reddit list | |
| Newbie fight club | |
| Faulty Hands fight club For people with limited motor skills | |
| How can I get critique on my replays? | You can post here, or make your own thread. Up to you! |
| What is the current version of the game? | The current version is |
2024.05.15 14:57 RodMunch85 Diablo 2 review
It is finally time to review what is in my opinion the greatest game of all time. I am going to attempt to explain the addiction, the dedication, the variety and paradoxically the repetition of this hack n slash rpg masterpiece.
First off let me take you back to when I was first introduced to the game. Way back in 2001. I was a 16 year old, obese sweaty lad.
My friend Hugh who lived down the road from me would frequently have multiple people round his house, where we could relax and party. One day sitting round there I saw Hugh playing this little beauty on his desktop. When I asked what it was, he raved about it. He called the addiction 'catching the Diablo bug.'
He was running a Barbarian and had managed to get his level to the mid 90s. Hugh never had the internet back then. So looking back, I have always been impressed with how far he got on his own, especially considering he happened to choose the barbarian. Which is one of the more slower characters to get going. The amount of time he put in must of been immense.
Eventually he got off the damn pc and I got to experience the game for myself. I chose the Necromancer. I was hooked instantly. What really got me was the character experience progression. I was so excited collecting enough experience to gain each level. Then choosing what new skill I wanted to add to my repetoire. At that time I had no idea about character builds and stupidly got every skill available.
Another thing that really hooked me was the hunt for loot. Everytime a boss group fell I would dilegently search through the loot hoping for an improved piece of equipment. Maybe a new helmet, or wand? My life had changed I knew I had to have this game for myself. I knew there was only so much that Hugh would put up with me visiting, when I was there obviously just to play the game rather than visit him.
But there was a problem. I did not own a pc. I had a Playstation 1 and my mum would not be able to afford the £600 to £700 needed to buy me one. I was devestated and tried to find a replacement for Diablo addiction. So like an ex junkie trying to satiate his need for heroin with methadone, I scoured my local HMV store for something similar, some sort of rpg. I settled on the 9th installment of a series I had never heard of. I purchased Final Fantasy IX. Now this actually turned out to be another of my favourite games ever. But at the time I was dissapointed that it did not scratch my Diablo itch.
After probably a year of nagging my mum she spoke to my Grandad and he agreed to buy me my own pc and Diablo II LOD. He also bought me Star Wars Galactic Battleground, that I had witnessed round another friends house. I finally got to play Diablo as much as I wanted. And boy did I play it. Non stop. For hours. For days. For weeks. For months. For years. Here in 2021 I still play this game.
Now let me explain one of the game's greatest features. The variety of character builds. There are seven main character types that you can choose from. Necromancer, Barabarian, Sorceress, Amazon, Paladin and with the Lord of Destruction expansion the Druid and the Assassin. But in each of these characters there are multiple different character builds you can make. For instance with the Necromancer you could choose to be a Summoner, focusing mostly on the summon tree, pumping all your skill points into raising the dead and calling golems to do your dirty work for you. But if you wanted a more hands on approach you could focus on the bone skills. Pumping your skills into bone spears and bone walls. Trapping your enemies then firing your projectile bones at them. Don't fancy bone? Why not go poison? Pump your points in poison dagger, poison explosion and nova. I used to have loads of fun running into multiplayer games online and hostiling lower level player characters and pumping them full of poison nova and watching them die. This is just four obvious examples of build for the necromancer. There are many more. With sub builds and hybrids.
I would say the Paladin is the most versatile character with over 20 different possible builds. Before I die I want to make every single one for every character. The way it changes your play style really gives the game almost endless possibilities.
But it is strange that I am praising variety as one of it's greatest features, when it is also one of it's greatest faults. The repetition. Not in characters, but in quests and acts. The game is split up into five acts, in varying environments, including wide open green plains, a vast baron desert, a luscious and deep jungle, the depths of hell itself and with the LOD expansion, a snowy mountainscape. Inside each of these acts there are six quests for you to complete, except act 4 which only has three. After completing all the acts and beating the final boss you have the option to play on a higher difficulty. Normal, Nightmare and Hell. In this greater difficulty you can go back through the game against harder enemies, continuing to level your character. Also the best items are not available in Normal and Nightmare. It is impossible for them to drop anywhere but the Hell difficulty.
This is not a bad system but it would been better to have 15 different acts of progressive difficulty instead of running the same 5 over and over. The damn repetition. You run certain bosses repeatedly hoping they drop that item you're waiting for. You repeatedly run bosses to gain experience. I must of killed the act three boss Mephisto over 200,000 times as he is one of the best places to hunt for magic items. This didn't bother me. It was exciting every time one of my targets dropped, hoping that this would be the one where something awesome would spawn. Some of the most sort after items are runes. Little stone pieces that can be put in socketed items in a certain order to create a rune word. Which are some of the best items in the game.
I remember grinding for months, trading all my finds for runes, slowly building them up until I could afford my target. The Enigma. A rune word armour that gives any character the sorceress exclusive skill of teleport. That was a game changer. I will never forget the day I got my first one. Something that seemed so impossible to obtain as the runes needed to create it have something like a one in a million chance of dropping. But all my hard work paid off and I got to tele my paladin around. Priceless gaming moment for me. The graphics look dark and gritty, absolutely perfect for the game's content.
I love the way the game looks and am not a fan of the more cartoony looking Diablo III. the enemies look awesome especially Diablo himself. The music matches the graphics with its haunting tones. Each area has a theme, some being very intense. Act 1 has a kind of minimalist feel to it with its quiet tinkling on acoustic guitar. Act 2 has a more Arabic feel to it and is my personal favourite. Each act's music is well suited to the landscape and it is very well done.
The game does have a storyline but it really isn't about that. With the amount of times you're going to be playing through the same acts and quests you'll be skipping all text boxes.
So I have tried to explain what makes this game the greatest of all time in my opinion but words can not really convey how I feel about it. It's like an old friend I still visit. I love you Diablo!
Gameplay 20%
Graphics 20%
Sfx 20%
Controls 20%
Replayability 20%
Overall 100%
submitted by RodMunch85 to Diablo_2_Resurrected [link] [comments]
First off let me take you back to when I was first introduced to the game. Way back in 2001. I was a 16 year old, obese sweaty lad.
My friend Hugh who lived down the road from me would frequently have multiple people round his house, where we could relax and party. One day sitting round there I saw Hugh playing this little beauty on his desktop. When I asked what it was, he raved about it. He called the addiction 'catching the Diablo bug.'
He was running a Barbarian and had managed to get his level to the mid 90s. Hugh never had the internet back then. So looking back, I have always been impressed with how far he got on his own, especially considering he happened to choose the barbarian. Which is one of the more slower characters to get going. The amount of time he put in must of been immense.
Eventually he got off the damn pc and I got to experience the game for myself. I chose the Necromancer. I was hooked instantly. What really got me was the character experience progression. I was so excited collecting enough experience to gain each level. Then choosing what new skill I wanted to add to my repetoire. At that time I had no idea about character builds and stupidly got every skill available.
Another thing that really hooked me was the hunt for loot. Everytime a boss group fell I would dilegently search through the loot hoping for an improved piece of equipment. Maybe a new helmet, or wand? My life had changed I knew I had to have this game for myself. I knew there was only so much that Hugh would put up with me visiting, when I was there obviously just to play the game rather than visit him.
But there was a problem. I did not own a pc. I had a Playstation 1 and my mum would not be able to afford the £600 to £700 needed to buy me one. I was devestated and tried to find a replacement for Diablo addiction. So like an ex junkie trying to satiate his need for heroin with methadone, I scoured my local HMV store for something similar, some sort of rpg. I settled on the 9th installment of a series I had never heard of. I purchased Final Fantasy IX. Now this actually turned out to be another of my favourite games ever. But at the time I was dissapointed that it did not scratch my Diablo itch.
After probably a year of nagging my mum she spoke to my Grandad and he agreed to buy me my own pc and Diablo II LOD. He also bought me Star Wars Galactic Battleground, that I had witnessed round another friends house. I finally got to play Diablo as much as I wanted. And boy did I play it. Non stop. For hours. For days. For weeks. For months. For years. Here in 2021 I still play this game.
Now let me explain one of the game's greatest features. The variety of character builds. There are seven main character types that you can choose from. Necromancer, Barabarian, Sorceress, Amazon, Paladin and with the Lord of Destruction expansion the Druid and the Assassin. But in each of these characters there are multiple different character builds you can make. For instance with the Necromancer you could choose to be a Summoner, focusing mostly on the summon tree, pumping all your skill points into raising the dead and calling golems to do your dirty work for you. But if you wanted a more hands on approach you could focus on the bone skills. Pumping your skills into bone spears and bone walls. Trapping your enemies then firing your projectile bones at them. Don't fancy bone? Why not go poison? Pump your points in poison dagger, poison explosion and nova. I used to have loads of fun running into multiplayer games online and hostiling lower level player characters and pumping them full of poison nova and watching them die. This is just four obvious examples of build for the necromancer. There are many more. With sub builds and hybrids.
I would say the Paladin is the most versatile character with over 20 different possible builds. Before I die I want to make every single one for every character. The way it changes your play style really gives the game almost endless possibilities.
But it is strange that I am praising variety as one of it's greatest features, when it is also one of it's greatest faults. The repetition. Not in characters, but in quests and acts. The game is split up into five acts, in varying environments, including wide open green plains, a vast baron desert, a luscious and deep jungle, the depths of hell itself and with the LOD expansion, a snowy mountainscape. Inside each of these acts there are six quests for you to complete, except act 4 which only has three. After completing all the acts and beating the final boss you have the option to play on a higher difficulty. Normal, Nightmare and Hell. In this greater difficulty you can go back through the game against harder enemies, continuing to level your character. Also the best items are not available in Normal and Nightmare. It is impossible for them to drop anywhere but the Hell difficulty.
This is not a bad system but it would been better to have 15 different acts of progressive difficulty instead of running the same 5 over and over. The damn repetition. You run certain bosses repeatedly hoping they drop that item you're waiting for. You repeatedly run bosses to gain experience. I must of killed the act three boss Mephisto over 200,000 times as he is one of the best places to hunt for magic items. This didn't bother me. It was exciting every time one of my targets dropped, hoping that this would be the one where something awesome would spawn. Some of the most sort after items are runes. Little stone pieces that can be put in socketed items in a certain order to create a rune word. Which are some of the best items in the game.
I remember grinding for months, trading all my finds for runes, slowly building them up until I could afford my target. The Enigma. A rune word armour that gives any character the sorceress exclusive skill of teleport. That was a game changer. I will never forget the day I got my first one. Something that seemed so impossible to obtain as the runes needed to create it have something like a one in a million chance of dropping. But all my hard work paid off and I got to tele my paladin around. Priceless gaming moment for me. The graphics look dark and gritty, absolutely perfect for the game's content.
I love the way the game looks and am not a fan of the more cartoony looking Diablo III. the enemies look awesome especially Diablo himself. The music matches the graphics with its haunting tones. Each area has a theme, some being very intense. Act 1 has a kind of minimalist feel to it with its quiet tinkling on acoustic guitar. Act 2 has a more Arabic feel to it and is my personal favourite. Each act's music is well suited to the landscape and it is very well done.
The game does have a storyline but it really isn't about that. With the amount of times you're going to be playing through the same acts and quests you'll be skipping all text boxes.
So I have tried to explain what makes this game the greatest of all time in my opinion but words can not really convey how I feel about it. It's like an old friend I still visit. I love you Diablo!
Gameplay 20%
Graphics 20%
Sfx 20%
Controls 20%
Replayability 20%
Overall 100%
2024.05.15 14:54 NikolaiOlsen Here's a Pitch Meeting thing if he ever made one for Fortnite
Producer: So, you have a video game for me?
Writer: Yes, sir, I do! It's a battle royale game called Fortnite.
Producer: Fork Knife? Is it a food-making game where you eat with a Fork and a Knife?
Writer: Well, No actually, sir, this is a shooter game where players are dropped onto an island where they must scavenge for weapons and resources inside people's homes while trying to be the last person standing.
Producer: Sounds a lot like that game PUBG.
Writer: Well, yes, it's Very similar to that.
Producer: So, Isn't that kind of a rip-off? Whats the point of making this game if its gonna be a Complete rip-off?
Writer: What if we give the player the ability to build stuff in the game?
Producer: Thats different enough. So how do we do the building in this Fork-knife game of yours?
Writer: Well, we add a building mechanic where players can gather materials and construct forts and other structures to defend themselves.
Producer: So, they can build in the middle of a fight?
Writer: They sure can!
Producer: Won't that make the combat complicated and kind of confusing?
Writer: Oh, definitely. Super confusing. And we're going to have this cartoony art style, so it's all bright and colorful.
Producer: Cartoony art style?
Writer: Yes, sir, we want to attract a younger audience, you know, kids and teenagers.
Producer: Really? And what about older players?
Writer: They'll probably play it too. Some might even play it so much while filming themselves sitting, eating, and drinking inside a room infront of a bunch of cameras to a bunch of digital people on some kind of streaming-platform out there. And some older players might even be so good that they can be placed inside a room with other players that are as good as them.
Producer: Okay, okay, But wait. Why would older players be interested in a game designed for kids?
Writer: Because it's free.
Producer: Oh, older people love free things.
Writer: And we’ll have these things called Emotes where players can dance and do fun gestures for no reason.
Producer: Why would they need that?
Writer: To taunt other players and express themselves, and making it easier for other players to get kills!
Producer: And we're sure kids will love this?
Writer: Oh, absolutely. They'll be flossing in no time.
Producer: What’s flossing?
Writer: It’s one of the dances that we’ll include in the game.
Producer: Ah, okay, and how will we make money?
Writer: Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Producer: How come?
Writer: Microtransactions.
Producer: Microtransactions?
Writer*: Yeah, Microtransactions. Players can buy this thing called V-Bucks, which is our in-game currency, to get skins, emotes, and other cosmetic items.
Producer: So, none of these items give players a competitive advantage?
Writer: Nope, just cosmetics.
Producer: And people will spend real money on that?
Writer: Oh, they definitely will.
Producer: How are you so sure?
Writer: Because we’ll make it really cool and hard to resist. Plus, we'll create this thing called FOMO.
Producer: FOMO?
Writer: Fear of Missing Out. We’ll have limited-time items so players feel pressured to buy them before they're gone.
Producer: So, we’re going to exploit psychological weaknesses?
Writer: Oh, for sure.
Producer: Exploiting psychological weaknesses is tight! So, how will players get to the Island?
Writer: They’ll skydive from a flying bus.
Producer: A flying bus?
Writer: Yeah, we’ll call it the Battle Bus.
Producer: Why would a bus be flying?
Writer: Because it's fun.
Producer: But How does it fly tho?
Writer: Listen, sir, i'm gonna need you to get all the way off my back about why the Battle Bus can fly using a very big sketchy pop-able baloon but only moves one direction, okay.
Producer: Okay, let me get off of that thing.
Writer: Oh, and every few minutes, a storm will shrink the play area, forcing players into a smaller and smaller circle until one player remains.
Producer: Why would a storm do that?
Writer: To make the game faster and more intense.
Producer: But thats not--- never mind.
Writer: And we’ll have different game modes, including solo, duo, and squads, so players can team up with friends.
Producer: What if players don’t have friends?
Writer: Then they’ll be loners. Solo mode is perfect for that.
Producer: And how will we keep the game fresh?
Writer: We'll have seasonal updates with new themes, items, and challenges.
Producer: Seasonal updates?
Writer: Plus, we’ll add crossover events with popular franchises from all our child hoods we can think off.
Producer: Like what?
Writer: Well, i'm just gonna throw some names out there, just top of my head, *Marvel, Star Wars, DC, Avatar, Family Guy, TMNT, POTC, Rick and Morty, and a Whole bunch of other stuff.
Producer: So, we’re going to have superheroes and nerds fighting each other in a game where you can build forts and dance?
Writer: Exactly.
Producer: That sounds amazing!
Writer: Oh, it’s going to be super amazing.
Producer: And that's Fortnite. So, what do you think?
Writer: I think we’ll make billions.
Producer: We're gonna be rich!
Producer: Wow, wow, wow. Wow.
Producer: But wait, you forgot to say what’s the story behind this game?
Writer: Oh, right, well, the island is constantly changing and evolving. At first, there isn't much backstory, only younger and older players ACTIVELY hunting each other down and killing each other, but over time, we introduce a series of events and lore that shape the game's world.
Producer: Interesting. What kind of events and lore are we talking about?
Writer: Well, Each season, we add new story elements to the game. For example, there's this mysterious organization called "The Imagined Order" that's manipulating the island. Players uncover clues and secrets about them as the game progresses.
Producer: So, there are hidden stories and mysteries?
Writer: Exactly. One season, we had a massive meteor strike that changed the landscape. Another season, a giant iceberg crashed into the island, bringing new areas to explore. We also introduced a volcanic eruption that altered the terrain significantly.
Producer: Sounds like a lot of natural disasters.
Writer: Ye ye ye. But all these events tie into the overarching narrative. There's this powerful artifact called the Zero Point at the center of the island, and it's the source of all these changes.
Producer: What’s the Zero Point?
Writer: It's a mysterious energy source that can manipulate time and space. Different factions and characters try to control it, leading to conflicts and alliances.
Producer: Who are these characters?
Writer: We've introduced various characters over time, like Jonesy, who starts as a standard avatar but becomes central to the story. He’s sort of the player’s guide and gets involved in all the major events.
Producer: And these characters, they have backstories?
Writer: Yes, each character has their own backstory and motives. Some are heroes trying to save the island, others are villains seeking power. We add new characters regularly to keep things fresh and engaging.
Producer: How do players learn about all this?
Writer: Through in-game events, cutscenes, and quests. For instance, we might have a live event where something dramatic happens, like a giant robot fighting a monster. These events often change the map and advance the storyline.
Producer: Live events? How do those work?
Writer: At specific times, we host live events where players can participate or just watch something big unfold. These events are usually massive, with millions of players logging in to witness them.
Producer: That sounds like a logistical nightmare.
Writer: It can be, but it creates a shared experience that players love. It's a huge part of what keeps the community engaged.
Producer: So, the story is dynamic and ever-changing?
Writer: Exactly. We keep evolving the narrative with each season, adding new mysteries and plot twists. It's like an ongoing TV show where the players are part of the story.
Producer: And this keeps players coming back?
Writer: Absolutely. The evolving story and frequent updates make sure there's always something new to discover and experience.
Producer: Sounds like you’ve thought of everything.
Writer: We’ve tried to make it as immersive and engaging as possible. The story is just one part of what makes Fortnite a unique and exciting game.
Producer: Well, I’m sold. Let’s make this game!
submitted by NikolaiOlsen to RyanGeorge [link] [comments]
Writer: Yes, sir, I do! It's a battle royale game called Fortnite.
Producer: Fork Knife? Is it a food-making game where you eat with a Fork and a Knife?
Writer: Well, No actually, sir, this is a shooter game where players are dropped onto an island where they must scavenge for weapons and resources inside people's homes while trying to be the last person standing.
Producer: Sounds a lot like that game PUBG.
Writer: Well, yes, it's Very similar to that.
Producer: So, Isn't that kind of a rip-off? Whats the point of making this game if its gonna be a Complete rip-off?
Writer: What if we give the player the ability to build stuff in the game?
Producer: Thats different enough. So how do we do the building in this Fork-knife game of yours?
Writer: Well, we add a building mechanic where players can gather materials and construct forts and other structures to defend themselves.
Producer: So, they can build in the middle of a fight?
Writer: They sure can!
Producer: Won't that make the combat complicated and kind of confusing?
Writer: Oh, definitely. Super confusing. And we're going to have this cartoony art style, so it's all bright and colorful.
Producer: Cartoony art style?
Writer: Yes, sir, we want to attract a younger audience, you know, kids and teenagers.
Producer: Really? And what about older players?
Writer: They'll probably play it too. Some might even play it so much while filming themselves sitting, eating, and drinking inside a room infront of a bunch of cameras to a bunch of digital people on some kind of streaming-platform out there. And some older players might even be so good that they can be placed inside a room with other players that are as good as them.
Producer: Okay, okay, But wait. Why would older players be interested in a game designed for kids?
Writer: Because it's free.
Producer: Oh, older people love free things.
Writer: And we’ll have these things called Emotes where players can dance and do fun gestures for no reason.
Producer: Why would they need that?
Writer: To taunt other players and express themselves, and making it easier for other players to get kills!
Producer: And we're sure kids will love this?
Writer: Oh, absolutely. They'll be flossing in no time.
Producer: What’s flossing?
Writer: It’s one of the dances that we’ll include in the game.
Producer: Ah, okay, and how will we make money?
Writer: Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Producer: How come?
Writer: Microtransactions.
Producer: Microtransactions?
Writer*: Yeah, Microtransactions. Players can buy this thing called V-Bucks, which is our in-game currency, to get skins, emotes, and other cosmetic items.
Producer: So, none of these items give players a competitive advantage?
Writer: Nope, just cosmetics.
Producer: And people will spend real money on that?
Writer: Oh, they definitely will.
Producer: How are you so sure?
Writer: Because we’ll make it really cool and hard to resist. Plus, we'll create this thing called FOMO.
Producer: FOMO?
Writer: Fear of Missing Out. We’ll have limited-time items so players feel pressured to buy them before they're gone.
Producer: So, we’re going to exploit psychological weaknesses?
Writer: Oh, for sure.
Producer: Exploiting psychological weaknesses is tight! So, how will players get to the Island?
Writer: They’ll skydive from a flying bus.
Producer: A flying bus?
Writer: Yeah, we’ll call it the Battle Bus.
Producer: Why would a bus be flying?
Writer: Because it's fun.
Producer: But How does it fly tho?
Writer: Listen, sir, i'm gonna need you to get all the way off my back about why the Battle Bus can fly using a very big sketchy pop-able baloon but only moves one direction, okay.
Producer: Okay, let me get off of that thing.
Writer: Oh, and every few minutes, a storm will shrink the play area, forcing players into a smaller and smaller circle until one player remains.
Producer: Why would a storm do that?
Writer: To make the game faster and more intense.
Producer: But thats not--- never mind.
Writer: And we’ll have different game modes, including solo, duo, and squads, so players can team up with friends.
Producer: What if players don’t have friends?
Writer: Then they’ll be loners. Solo mode is perfect for that.
Producer: And how will we keep the game fresh?
Writer: We'll have seasonal updates with new themes, items, and challenges.
Producer: Seasonal updates?
Writer: Plus, we’ll add crossover events with popular franchises from all our child hoods we can think off.
Producer: Like what?
Writer: Well, i'm just gonna throw some names out there, just top of my head, *Marvel, Star Wars, DC, Avatar, Family Guy, TMNT, POTC, Rick and Morty, and a Whole bunch of other stuff.
Producer: So, we’re going to have superheroes and nerds fighting each other in a game where you can build forts and dance?
Writer: Exactly.
Producer: That sounds amazing!
Writer: Oh, it’s going to be super amazing.
Producer: And that's Fortnite. So, what do you think?
Writer: I think we’ll make billions.
Producer: We're gonna be rich!
Producer: Wow, wow, wow. Wow.
Producer: But wait, you forgot to say what’s the story behind this game?
Writer: Oh, right, well, the island is constantly changing and evolving. At first, there isn't much backstory, only younger and older players ACTIVELY hunting each other down and killing each other, but over time, we introduce a series of events and lore that shape the game's world.
Producer: Interesting. What kind of events and lore are we talking about?
Writer: Well, Each season, we add new story elements to the game. For example, there's this mysterious organization called "The Imagined Order" that's manipulating the island. Players uncover clues and secrets about them as the game progresses.
Producer: So, there are hidden stories and mysteries?
Writer: Exactly. One season, we had a massive meteor strike that changed the landscape. Another season, a giant iceberg crashed into the island, bringing new areas to explore. We also introduced a volcanic eruption that altered the terrain significantly.
Producer: Sounds like a lot of natural disasters.
Writer: Ye ye ye. But all these events tie into the overarching narrative. There's this powerful artifact called the Zero Point at the center of the island, and it's the source of all these changes.
Producer: What’s the Zero Point?
Writer: It's a mysterious energy source that can manipulate time and space. Different factions and characters try to control it, leading to conflicts and alliances.
Producer: Who are these characters?
Writer: We've introduced various characters over time, like Jonesy, who starts as a standard avatar but becomes central to the story. He’s sort of the player’s guide and gets involved in all the major events.
Producer: And these characters, they have backstories?
Writer: Yes, each character has their own backstory and motives. Some are heroes trying to save the island, others are villains seeking power. We add new characters regularly to keep things fresh and engaging.
Producer: How do players learn about all this?
Writer: Through in-game events, cutscenes, and quests. For instance, we might have a live event where something dramatic happens, like a giant robot fighting a monster. These events often change the map and advance the storyline.
Producer: Live events? How do those work?
Writer: At specific times, we host live events where players can participate or just watch something big unfold. These events are usually massive, with millions of players logging in to witness them.
Producer: That sounds like a logistical nightmare.
Writer: It can be, but it creates a shared experience that players love. It's a huge part of what keeps the community engaged.
Producer: So, the story is dynamic and ever-changing?
Writer: Exactly. We keep evolving the narrative with each season, adding new mysteries and plot twists. It's like an ongoing TV show where the players are part of the story.
Producer: And this keeps players coming back?
Writer: Absolutely. The evolving story and frequent updates make sure there's always something new to discover and experience.
Producer: Sounds like you’ve thought of everything.
Writer: We’ve tried to make it as immersive and engaging as possible. The story is just one part of what makes Fortnite a unique and exciting game.
Producer: Well, I’m sold. Let’s make this game!
2024.05.15 14:48 Winbug1871 ⚠️ PROJECT NOVA LAUNCHING FRIDAY 6PM EST ⚠️
Join the Project Nova Community Today! 🚀
Welcome to Project Nova, an immersive gaming community like no other. Dive into an expansive world where you shape your own destiny and forge alliances in the heat of intense battles.
👕 Customize Your Style: Stand out with our extensive array of custom clothing options, allowing you to express your unique identity.
🚗 Explore with Freedom: Roam the city streets in style with our diverse selection of over 100 vehicles, each waiting for your command.
👑 Establish Your Dominance: Rise through the ranks and assert your crew's dominance in the city's underworld with our organized gang system and adrenaline-pumping turf wars.
🌈 Inclusivity at its Core: We celebrate diversity and welcome players of all backgrounds and genders to our vibrant community.
💼 Entrepreneurial Ventures: Build your empire from the ground up with player-owned businesses, turning your dreams into reality in our bustling cityscape.
🏡 Find Your Sanctuary: Discover the perfect abode in our diverse neighborhoods, each offering its own unique charm and atmosphere.
💊 Navigate the Underworld: Delve into the depths of the underground economy with our intricate drug manufacturing and distribution mechanics.
🔫 Craft Your Arsenal: Equip yourself for any challenge with our custom gun crafting system, ensuring you're always prepared for whatever comes your way.
🛠️ Dedicated Support: Our passionate staff is committed to providing you with the best possible experience, ensuring your journey in Project Nova is nothing short of extraordinary
Ready to embark on your adventure? Click https://discord.gg/9BAfnQ8uAf to join our Discord server and begin your journey in Project Nova today!
Join the Ranks: Whether you're drawn to the thrill of law enforcement, the heroism of firefighting, the excitement of entrepreneurship, or the pursuit of justice in legal practice, there's a role for you in Project Nova. Join us as we expand our ranks and embark on thrilling new adventures together.
Engage in Dynamic Conflict: Immerse yourself in heart-pounding turf battles and adrenaline-fueled graffiti tagging as you fight for supremacy in the city streets.
Protect and Serve: Step into the shoes of a dedicated law enforcement officer or firefighter, equipped with top-of-the-line gear and unwavering dedication to keeping our city safe.
Don't miss out on the opportunity to become part of something extraordinary. Join Project Nova today and experience gaming like never before!
JOIN THE DISCORD TODAY TO GET STARTED!!! https://discord.gg/9BAfnQ8uAf
submitted by Winbug1871 to FiveMServers [link] [comments]
Welcome to Project Nova, an immersive gaming community like no other. Dive into an expansive world where you shape your own destiny and forge alliances in the heat of intense battles.
👕 Customize Your Style: Stand out with our extensive array of custom clothing options, allowing you to express your unique identity.
🚗 Explore with Freedom: Roam the city streets in style with our diverse selection of over 100 vehicles, each waiting for your command.
👑 Establish Your Dominance: Rise through the ranks and assert your crew's dominance in the city's underworld with our organized gang system and adrenaline-pumping turf wars.
🌈 Inclusivity at its Core: We celebrate diversity and welcome players of all backgrounds and genders to our vibrant community.
💼 Entrepreneurial Ventures: Build your empire from the ground up with player-owned businesses, turning your dreams into reality in our bustling cityscape.
🏡 Find Your Sanctuary: Discover the perfect abode in our diverse neighborhoods, each offering its own unique charm and atmosphere.
💊 Navigate the Underworld: Delve into the depths of the underground economy with our intricate drug manufacturing and distribution mechanics.
🔫 Craft Your Arsenal: Equip yourself for any challenge with our custom gun crafting system, ensuring you're always prepared for whatever comes your way.
🛠️ Dedicated Support: Our passionate staff is committed to providing you with the best possible experience, ensuring your journey in Project Nova is nothing short of extraordinary
Ready to embark on your adventure? Click https://discord.gg/9BAfnQ8uAf to join our Discord server and begin your journey in Project Nova today!
Join the Ranks: Whether you're drawn to the thrill of law enforcement, the heroism of firefighting, the excitement of entrepreneurship, or the pursuit of justice in legal practice, there's a role for you in Project Nova. Join us as we expand our ranks and embark on thrilling new adventures together.
Engage in Dynamic Conflict: Immerse yourself in heart-pounding turf battles and adrenaline-fueled graffiti tagging as you fight for supremacy in the city streets.
Protect and Serve: Step into the shoes of a dedicated law enforcement officer or firefighter, equipped with top-of-the-line gear and unwavering dedication to keeping our city safe.
Don't miss out on the opportunity to become part of something extraordinary. Join Project Nova today and experience gaming like never before!
JOIN THE DISCORD TODAY TO GET STARTED!!! https://discord.gg/9BAfnQ8uAf
2024.05.15 14:36 Angel466 [Bob the hobo] A Celestial Wars Spin-Off Part 1012
PART ONE THOUSAND AND TWELVE
[Previous Chapter] [The Beginning] [Patreon+2]
Sunday
Lucas stretched and yawned in bed, taking a moment to enjoy the complete lack of needing to rise before his hand stretched out in search of Boyd.
And once again, that side of the bed was empty.
Biting back a whine of dismay, Lucas rolled until he was face down on Boyd’s pillow, breathing in the cologne they both now wore. The detective in him quickly deduced that Boyd had been gone a while based on the chill in the sheets. He curled his hands around the pillow and hugged it tight, wishing it was the big mountain of a man himself instead of this weak substitute.
As thrilled as he was about Boyd finding a new career that he was so passionately driven about, he was equally happy that his fiancé took his responsibility to his clients seriously. Still, would it have killed him to sleep in just one morning instead of abandoning their wrecked bed the morning after their engagement party?
After several minutes of wallowing, he finally accepted the inevitable that no amount of wishful thinking was going to make Boyd appear and climbed out of bed. He removed his snore rings and took a quick shower.
Once he was dressed, he felt a little better.
The next thing he had to do was strip down the bed and remake it. They’d been very busy last night, which was why he’d only just woken up at—his gaze fell upon the clock— DAMN! It’s nearly lunchtime!
“I’m gonna kill him for letting me sleep in so long,” he muttered under his breath, carrying the linen through the apartment and into the kitchen, which doubled as a laundry on their end. After nine years of living in this layout, he didn’t need to see over the pile in his arms to know precisely where he was, and with the load balanced on one arm, he turned at the right moment, opened the massive frontloading washing machine and stuffed it all in.
“Hey, Unca Luke!” Maddy’s shrill voice had him leaping into the air, slamming the door shut and swivelling around in front of it to hide the evidence. “Didja pee the bed?”
His brother and his niece were sitting at the island, Maddy with her breakfast of honey-and-cream-covered waffles, which were only half-eaten, and Levi patiently waited for her to finish since the plate in front of him was empty. The latter was grinning at him as only a brother could.
He’d forgotten all about them staying over.
It took a hot second for what Maddy asked to register with him, and when it did, his mouth dropped, and he glanced at his brother, who was twisting himself into a pretzel to avoid laughing out loud. Asshole. “No, Peaches,” he said, glaring daggers at Levi for not even trying to help him out. “Boyd and I like clean sheets every day, and it’s not fair to make somebody else wash them for us, is it?”
Bright red ringlets of hair swayed as the little girl shook her head. “Daddy makes me fix stuff too.”
Lucas moved the three feet between the washing machine to his brother sitting in Mason’s seat at the corner. “That’s because Daddies always know what’s best.” He wrapped an arm around his brother’s neck in a loose chokehold and gave him a noisy morning kiss on the cheek. “Ain’t that right, Daddy?” He said that last word in a sultry purr the way Robbie would, and the reaction from Levi was priceless.
“Fuck off with that shit, you prick!” his brother swore, shoving Lucas away with all his might.
“DADDY!” Maddy squealed in horror, and Lucas clapped his hands together once behind Maddy’s chair and raised his clenched fists in victory. He’d been angling for one swear word, maybe two to distract young Maddy from his not-so-discreet linen run. Three was a veritable home run.
Snickering quietly to himself, he went back to the washing machine, loaded it up with soap and softener and turned it on. Then, he walked over to the wooden box under the window. ‘Just think what you want,’ Charlie had told him at the party. ‘It’s a Nascerdios box that Robbie fills up throughout the night.’
He stared hard at the box while he considered his options, settling on a plate of breakfast tacos with seasoned mince, fried eggs, tomatillos, shredded lettuce, and cheese wrapped in soft tortillas buttered with a thin spread of mashed avocado.
After the last month, it didn’t surprise him in the least when he opened the lid and found that exact meal sitting there, waiting for him. Maybe the quantity, since they were piled three high, but not the meal itself.
The same could not be said for Levi when Lucas turned around with the plate in his hand. “Robbie had that ready for you too?” he asked, as Lucas grabbed a glass from the cupboard and placed it and the plate in his regular sitting place adjacent to his brother before sliding into his seat. He knew Levi wasn’t questioning Viola since the box itself was made and gifted by someone with the last name Nascerdios.
The veil was an ass.
“I told you; he did most of the catering yesterday, too,” Lucas said, reaching for the jug of juice. He was curious what it would be today. Yesterday, it had been orange and mango juice, with apple the day before.
A quick sniff made it most likely grapefruit.
He tightened the roll on the first taco and lifted it to his lips, enjoying the flavours that exploded in his mouth. Because Levi had finished whatever had been on his plate, he was watching him eat as if he’d never seen it before. It finally clicked why. “You want to try one?” Lucas asked, nudging his plate towards his brother. “There’s plenty here if you want one. Too many, if anything.”
Levi didn’t need to be told twice and reached over, using his fingers just as Lucas had. “How did he learn to cook so well?” Levi demanded, almost fitting the whole thing in his mouth.
“He’s always cooked,” Lucas answered, fudging things slightly. “When he was growing up, cooking was his chore while his mom was at work. He only stopped because Mom refused to let him help in the kitchen.”
“I would’ve fought that a lot harder if I’d have known he could produce this.”
“Yeah, you and me both, bro. Even when we were upstairs, he was forever watching the cooking channels for new ideas.” Lucas didn’t want to mention that these days, Robbie only did so to critique the so-called experts. “Have you seen Boyd?”
Levi shook his head. “I was assuming he was still in with you. If I’d known you were in there alone, I’d have sicc’d Maddy onto you.”
“I can wake Daddy and Unca’ Austin good!” Maddy said proudly. “I gets me a dolla’.”
“Ssshhh, Peaches. That’s out secr—wait. Does Uncle Austin pay you, too?”
Maddy was adorable the way she looked at Lucas like he would intervene for her. “Sorry, baby girl,” he laughed, eating another taco. “You’re on your own.”
The two brothers bantered as Lucas ate, with Levi stealing another taco, bringing Lucas’ total number down to five. Maddy told them both about wanting to be a vet, and Lucas knew precisely who to blame for that. Still, it was better than her previous choice of ‘stripping’ the way Robbie and Angelo used to. Levi’s meltdown over that revelation had been priceless, even if he, too, was firmly in the ‘fuck that noise’ camp.
When he polished them and half the juice off, he poured the last into Maddy’s cup and put his things and the jug in the dishwasher. “You can hang out here if you want,” Lucas said. “The guys and I are heading out this afternoon to play some ball over at Angus’ place, but if you call Austin and find out Pepper’s roommate is still with him, the TV over there has…”
“Every cable channel imaginable, I know. Charlotte—”
“Charlie.”
“Charlie told us last night.” Levi sat back in his seat and stared at his brother. “What do you make of Larry, Luke? Does he have kids?”
“Why?”
“He watched Maddy for me last night while I was having a shower, and Maddy loves him. You know how picky she is about people she doesn’t know.”
“I know he’s married to a career soldier and was one too before being assigned to us. I’m not sure about his past, but he’s a good guy and ridiculously protective of those either in his charge or that he happens to care about.”
Levi grunted. “Charl*—lie* said so too. He certainly knows his Spongebob.”
Lucas squinted. “Why all the questions?”
“Just thinking out loud. If he’s going to be here all the time with Robbie, and Austin and I get called into the house together, it’s always been a struggle figuring out where we can leave Maddy on short notice. We don’t exactly have time to drive all the way over to Queens to drop her off at either Mav’s or Mom and Dad’s. I mean, so far, we haven’t needed to, but it’s a constant concern.”
Lucas frowned at him. “We’ve been here for years. Why didn’t you ask before now?”
Levi seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “You know…” he said, gesturing to the ceiling without finishing that sentence.
And just like that, Lucas did understand.
Six men, all sharing one shoebox-sized apartment with two of them being sex workers, was not where anyone would want to drop off a little girl. Even if Lucas did vouch for all of them and swore they’d all be protective as hell over little Maddy. “Look, I can’t speak for them specifically, but Charlie’s here under house arrest for the next ten months, and Boyd now works out of his studio, so technically, someone will be here all the time. There’s not a chance in hell we’ll turn you away.”
“I’ll ask her and Miss W before we go.”
Lucas looked at what the two of them were wearing. “You know, I could duck out and grab you and Maddy some clothes just as soon as I check in with Boyd, if you like.”
He watched Levi look down at the shirt and boxers that were a little big on him width-wise and across at Maddy, who still wore Charlie’s favourite Giants’ shirt.
“That’d be good, thanks,” he admitted.
“I’ll get extras, and that way, she can have a few changes of clothes here. Actually, do you want me to grab you some spare stuff too?”
Levi stiffened in his seat. “I don’t need you to buy me clothes.”
Lucas wanted to slap him in the back of the head (and would’ve if Maddy wasn’t there). “Stop,” he commanded instead. “I’m already going to a clothes shop. It’s not going to be anything fancy, and if you hate it, you can swap it out with your own stuff later.”
Knowing his brother was still uncomfortable, Lucas waved his hand at the kitchen. “Seriously, Levi, look around. Look at how I’m living, and I’m not paying a dime in rent. Llyr won’t let me since we’ve been looking out for Sam for years. Let me do this for you, so you’ll always know you and Maddy have somewhere safe to go.”
Levi glanced around, his lips tightening before he finally nodded, unwilling to say the words out loud, and Lucas clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re family, dumb-ar—dumb,” he amended, with little ears sitting on the other side of his brother. “Dumb-dumb. I meant Dumb-dumb.”
Levi chuckled and patted his brother’s hand. “I appreciate it, bro. We’ll chill here until you get back. Don’t rush … apparently, you have a gazillion cable channels to choose from, and Maddy doesn’t want to leave until she’s seen them all.”
“I don’t think you’ll live that long,” Lucas laughed and headed back to his room to grab his gear since he was now leaving the apartment. As he clipped and slid everything from sunglasses to his wallet, keys, phone, badge bifold, and ankle-holstered BUG, he almost envied women with carryall handbags that could be grabbed on their way out the door.
Almost.
* * *
((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗))
I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here
For more of my work, including WPs: Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.
FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!
submitted by Angel466 to redditserials [link] [comments]
[Previous Chapter] [The Beginning] [Patreon+2]
Sunday
Lucas stretched and yawned in bed, taking a moment to enjoy the complete lack of needing to rise before his hand stretched out in search of Boyd.
And once again, that side of the bed was empty.
Biting back a whine of dismay, Lucas rolled until he was face down on Boyd’s pillow, breathing in the cologne they both now wore. The detective in him quickly deduced that Boyd had been gone a while based on the chill in the sheets. He curled his hands around the pillow and hugged it tight, wishing it was the big mountain of a man himself instead of this weak substitute.
As thrilled as he was about Boyd finding a new career that he was so passionately driven about, he was equally happy that his fiancé took his responsibility to his clients seriously. Still, would it have killed him to sleep in just one morning instead of abandoning their wrecked bed the morning after their engagement party?
After several minutes of wallowing, he finally accepted the inevitable that no amount of wishful thinking was going to make Boyd appear and climbed out of bed. He removed his snore rings and took a quick shower.
Once he was dressed, he felt a little better.
The next thing he had to do was strip down the bed and remake it. They’d been very busy last night, which was why he’d only just woken up at—his gaze fell upon the clock— DAMN! It’s nearly lunchtime!
“I’m gonna kill him for letting me sleep in so long,” he muttered under his breath, carrying the linen through the apartment and into the kitchen, which doubled as a laundry on their end. After nine years of living in this layout, he didn’t need to see over the pile in his arms to know precisely where he was, and with the load balanced on one arm, he turned at the right moment, opened the massive frontloading washing machine and stuffed it all in.
“Hey, Unca Luke!” Maddy’s shrill voice had him leaping into the air, slamming the door shut and swivelling around in front of it to hide the evidence. “Didja pee the bed?”
His brother and his niece were sitting at the island, Maddy with her breakfast of honey-and-cream-covered waffles, which were only half-eaten, and Levi patiently waited for her to finish since the plate in front of him was empty. The latter was grinning at him as only a brother could.
He’d forgotten all about them staying over.
It took a hot second for what Maddy asked to register with him, and when it did, his mouth dropped, and he glanced at his brother, who was twisting himself into a pretzel to avoid laughing out loud. Asshole. “No, Peaches,” he said, glaring daggers at Levi for not even trying to help him out. “Boyd and I like clean sheets every day, and it’s not fair to make somebody else wash them for us, is it?”
Bright red ringlets of hair swayed as the little girl shook her head. “Daddy makes me fix stuff too.”
Lucas moved the three feet between the washing machine to his brother sitting in Mason’s seat at the corner. “That’s because Daddies always know what’s best.” He wrapped an arm around his brother’s neck in a loose chokehold and gave him a noisy morning kiss on the cheek. “Ain’t that right, Daddy?” He said that last word in a sultry purr the way Robbie would, and the reaction from Levi was priceless.
“Fuck off with that shit, you prick!” his brother swore, shoving Lucas away with all his might.
“DADDY!” Maddy squealed in horror, and Lucas clapped his hands together once behind Maddy’s chair and raised his clenched fists in victory. He’d been angling for one swear word, maybe two to distract young Maddy from his not-so-discreet linen run. Three was a veritable home run.
Snickering quietly to himself, he went back to the washing machine, loaded it up with soap and softener and turned it on. Then, he walked over to the wooden box under the window. ‘Just think what you want,’ Charlie had told him at the party. ‘It’s a Nascerdios box that Robbie fills up throughout the night.’
He stared hard at the box while he considered his options, settling on a plate of breakfast tacos with seasoned mince, fried eggs, tomatillos, shredded lettuce, and cheese wrapped in soft tortillas buttered with a thin spread of mashed avocado.
After the last month, it didn’t surprise him in the least when he opened the lid and found that exact meal sitting there, waiting for him. Maybe the quantity, since they were piled three high, but not the meal itself.
The same could not be said for Levi when Lucas turned around with the plate in his hand. “Robbie had that ready for you too?” he asked, as Lucas grabbed a glass from the cupboard and placed it and the plate in his regular sitting place adjacent to his brother before sliding into his seat. He knew Levi wasn’t questioning Viola since the box itself was made and gifted by someone with the last name Nascerdios.
The veil was an ass.
“I told you; he did most of the catering yesterday, too,” Lucas said, reaching for the jug of juice. He was curious what it would be today. Yesterday, it had been orange and mango juice, with apple the day before.
A quick sniff made it most likely grapefruit.
He tightened the roll on the first taco and lifted it to his lips, enjoying the flavours that exploded in his mouth. Because Levi had finished whatever had been on his plate, he was watching him eat as if he’d never seen it before. It finally clicked why. “You want to try one?” Lucas asked, nudging his plate towards his brother. “There’s plenty here if you want one. Too many, if anything.”
Levi didn’t need to be told twice and reached over, using his fingers just as Lucas had. “How did he learn to cook so well?” Levi demanded, almost fitting the whole thing in his mouth.
“He’s always cooked,” Lucas answered, fudging things slightly. “When he was growing up, cooking was his chore while his mom was at work. He only stopped because Mom refused to let him help in the kitchen.”
“I would’ve fought that a lot harder if I’d have known he could produce this.”
“Yeah, you and me both, bro. Even when we were upstairs, he was forever watching the cooking channels for new ideas.” Lucas didn’t want to mention that these days, Robbie only did so to critique the so-called experts. “Have you seen Boyd?”
Levi shook his head. “I was assuming he was still in with you. If I’d known you were in there alone, I’d have sicc’d Maddy onto you.”
“I can wake Daddy and Unca’ Austin good!” Maddy said proudly. “I gets me a dolla’.”
“Ssshhh, Peaches. That’s out secr—wait. Does Uncle Austin pay you, too?”
Maddy was adorable the way she looked at Lucas like he would intervene for her. “Sorry, baby girl,” he laughed, eating another taco. “You’re on your own.”
The two brothers bantered as Lucas ate, with Levi stealing another taco, bringing Lucas’ total number down to five. Maddy told them both about wanting to be a vet, and Lucas knew precisely who to blame for that. Still, it was better than her previous choice of ‘stripping’ the way Robbie and Angelo used to. Levi’s meltdown over that revelation had been priceless, even if he, too, was firmly in the ‘fuck that noise’ camp.
When he polished them and half the juice off, he poured the last into Maddy’s cup and put his things and the jug in the dishwasher. “You can hang out here if you want,” Lucas said. “The guys and I are heading out this afternoon to play some ball over at Angus’ place, but if you call Austin and find out Pepper’s roommate is still with him, the TV over there has…”
“Every cable channel imaginable, I know. Charlotte—”
“Charlie.”
“Charlie told us last night.” Levi sat back in his seat and stared at his brother. “What do you make of Larry, Luke? Does he have kids?”
“Why?”
“He watched Maddy for me last night while I was having a shower, and Maddy loves him. You know how picky she is about people she doesn’t know.”
“I know he’s married to a career soldier and was one too before being assigned to us. I’m not sure about his past, but he’s a good guy and ridiculously protective of those either in his charge or that he happens to care about.”
Levi grunted. “Charl*—lie* said so too. He certainly knows his Spongebob.”
Lucas squinted. “Why all the questions?”
“Just thinking out loud. If he’s going to be here all the time with Robbie, and Austin and I get called into the house together, it’s always been a struggle figuring out where we can leave Maddy on short notice. We don’t exactly have time to drive all the way over to Queens to drop her off at either Mav’s or Mom and Dad’s. I mean, so far, we haven’t needed to, but it’s a constant concern.”
Lucas frowned at him. “We’ve been here for years. Why didn’t you ask before now?”
Levi seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “You know…” he said, gesturing to the ceiling without finishing that sentence.
And just like that, Lucas did understand.
Six men, all sharing one shoebox-sized apartment with two of them being sex workers, was not where anyone would want to drop off a little girl. Even if Lucas did vouch for all of them and swore they’d all be protective as hell over little Maddy. “Look, I can’t speak for them specifically, but Charlie’s here under house arrest for the next ten months, and Boyd now works out of his studio, so technically, someone will be here all the time. There’s not a chance in hell we’ll turn you away.”
“I’ll ask her and Miss W before we go.”
Lucas looked at what the two of them were wearing. “You know, I could duck out and grab you and Maddy some clothes just as soon as I check in with Boyd, if you like.”
He watched Levi look down at the shirt and boxers that were a little big on him width-wise and across at Maddy, who still wore Charlie’s favourite Giants’ shirt.
“That’d be good, thanks,” he admitted.
“I’ll get extras, and that way, she can have a few changes of clothes here. Actually, do you want me to grab you some spare stuff too?”
Levi stiffened in his seat. “I don’t need you to buy me clothes.”
Lucas wanted to slap him in the back of the head (and would’ve if Maddy wasn’t there). “Stop,” he commanded instead. “I’m already going to a clothes shop. It’s not going to be anything fancy, and if you hate it, you can swap it out with your own stuff later.”
Knowing his brother was still uncomfortable, Lucas waved his hand at the kitchen. “Seriously, Levi, look around. Look at how I’m living, and I’m not paying a dime in rent. Llyr won’t let me since we’ve been looking out for Sam for years. Let me do this for you, so you’ll always know you and Maddy have somewhere safe to go.”
Levi glanced around, his lips tightening before he finally nodded, unwilling to say the words out loud, and Lucas clapped him on the shoulder. “We’re family, dumb-ar—dumb,” he amended, with little ears sitting on the other side of his brother. “Dumb-dumb. I meant Dumb-dumb.”
Levi chuckled and patted his brother’s hand. “I appreciate it, bro. We’ll chill here until you get back. Don’t rush … apparently, you have a gazillion cable channels to choose from, and Maddy doesn’t want to leave until she’s seen them all.”
“I don’t think you’ll live that long,” Lucas laughed and headed back to his room to grab his gear since he was now leaving the apartment. As he clipped and slid everything from sunglasses to his wallet, keys, phone, badge bifold, and ankle-holstered BUG, he almost envied women with carryall handbags that could be grabbed on their way out the door.
Almost.
* * *
((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗))
I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here
For more of my work, including WPs: Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.
FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!
2024.05.15 14:34 MountainSkald [A Valkyrie's Saga] - Part 102
Prequel (Chapters 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie
First ¦ Previous ¦ Royal Road ¦ Patreon
Christie emerged from the bathroom once her nerves had calmed and found one of the chateau’s windows that looked out on the western ridgelines. She reached into her handbag and produced a stick of lipstick, sighted on a curve of blackness intersecting a particular constellation rising into the night sky, and pushed a discreet button on the base. The task force now had confirmation that Rayker was inside the chateau and the machine would be set in motion.
As she turned to head back to the party, Christie saw a different range of mountains in the corner of her eye. A fishhook stabbed into the muscle of her heart and tugged, while she was nearly overwhelmed with nausea. For a moment, a dusty valley surrounded her, the rocky ground coursing with streams of blood. The ghostly white face of Rose Djallen was before her, life fading from her eyes. Christie wanted to gasp, but she let the pain wash over her in silence, as they had all done so often. A moment’s concentration brought her back to the present, and the dangerous operation ahead.
Rayker’s expression had been so devoid of warmth—as though she wore her psychotic nature with pride. Christie couldn’t understand how someone could be so inhuman. She wondered what would happen if Rayker sensed the trap that was closing around her. Christie knew that she, and probably some of the guests, would be taken hostage. No doubt the dozens of Rangers stalking through the darkness would break cover, racing through the night to rescue her, with one particularly hard-headed individual out front. The highly skilled operators now preparing their own move on the chateau would fight their way inside, killing anyone who resisted them. The Banshee, their well-armed gunship, would break its cloak, leaving its position behind Ambrosia’s second moon to rain hellfire down on the small army that provided security for the Helvetic League’s pleasure planet. Rayker would probably die in a hail of gunfire—giving Rose her deserved retribution—for the Valkyrie would eagerly sacrifice their own lives before leaving one of their own behind.
Then the news of the incident would spread, and humanity’s thirty-seven worlds would talk of nothing else but the secret army of super soldiers that protected them from the arsenal of the Jotnar—an ancient and extinct civilization, who’s abandoned weapons and warships littered the stars. Nations, corporations and crime syndicates would find ways to track down those weapons, exploiting their incredible destructive power for their own selfish purposes. There would be war, billions would die, and, like those who had preceded them, humanity would probably wipe itself out.
Rose had died protecting Christie from Rayker’s drone army, but she had also died to uphold Valkyrie’s ancient responsibility.
That operation had ultimately saved the planet Caldera, but in the chaos and confusion of the battle Rayker had managed to slip away. The organization had spent nearly two years trying to hunt her down, but she was too skilled, too deeply enmeshed in the Helvetic League’s underworld.
The council of chiefs, Valkyrie’s inscrutable governing body, had agreed to form Task Force Nemesis under the command of General Smyrna. She was assigned the Mountain Ranger’s Bravo company—the Venomous Vipers—a Raider squadron of elite counter terrorists, and a task unit from Orbital Demolition Team Four. Supported by the Banshee and guided by Christie’s intelligence gathering unit, their mission statement was simple—do whatever it took to kill or capture Allana Rayker.
As they made slow, painstaking process, they began to receive indications that their target had rejoined her old corporate paymasters at VennZech, the most powerful weapons manufacturer in the galaxy. Then, the news broke that Joakkim Meissner, one of Rayker’s suspected allies, had been promoted to Chief Executive, arranging his party on Ambrosia to celebrate.
He had also invited one of the League’s rising stars in physics. The brilliant young doctor Ernst Kolar was a specialist in theoretical energy development. He had recently published a paper describing a theoretical anti-matter reactor alarmingly similar to those that powered the warships and killing machines of the Jotnar. Christie’s team leader, Jiao Zhang, had offered the high-confidence assessment that Rayker would refuse to let such an asset out of her sight. And, on the protected world of Ambrosia, what could she have to fear?
But Valkyrie had been breaking through Helvetic security barriers since the creation of the quasi-imperial state, and had become extremely good at it. And so, the operation had been set in motion.
Christie took a deep breath and prepared herself, soothing away any traces of nervousness. She left the outer hall and re-entered the party.
***
“Olympus, Olympus, Olympus,” a voice intoned through Kayla’s headset.
The code word signaled that Christie had identified Rayker in the chateau, and the operation was a go. A double burst of static followed; a squad-level transmission from Kes. It was the order to take out the security guards.
Kayla and Ray had crawled as close as they could to their position, readied their stun rifle and waited patiently. As the signal came in, the men had pushed away from their boulder rest spot and were resuming their patrol through the woods. Kayla waited until their line of sight had passed her, before she stood slowly, weapon aimed. A faint rustle told her that Ray had done the same.
The guard at the back, still slurping from a water bottle, fell a little further behind. The stun rifle’s projectile hit him in the neck, shocking his nervous system into an overload state. He seized and dropped to the ground, unconscious. The men ahead of him span and there was a mechanical thump from Ray’s weapon. Her shot struck center mass, and another figure collapsed, just as Kayla pulled the trigger again. The last guard went down quickly, but, to Kayla’s shock, seemed to remain conscious. He struggled on the ground like a dying fish as he tried to reach for his radio, so she sprinted forward and kicked him in the head.
Kayla wrinkled her nose and cursed quietly. The scientist who had trained her squad on the weapon had explained that a failed shot would result in the victim emptying the contents of their bowels and bladder. Looks like she had been right.
“Three down,” she muttered into her helmet mic. “No other contacts in sight.”
Even so, she continued to scan the distant trees carefully.
Ray secured the guards with serum injections while Tian and Yak, the other two members of the fire team joined them. The projectiles were gathered into Tian’s rucksack, and, when the rest of the squad arrived, they moved off through the trees together, climbing the slope until they reached another crest, and a chain link fence.
Half a mile away from the chateau, the main security compound provided a base for the guard’s rapid reaction force. The compound had a single entrance and out of the blockhouse blue light flickered to the loud chatter of an excited racing commentator.
Kayla stopped in the shadows of the trees and waited patiently. The air above her head snapped and cracked as rounds shot past, impacting security cameras and sensors around the compound. The bullets were a large caliber, but with a thermic charge core. Each strike glowed brilliantly as intense temperatures melted through their targets, leaving no evidence of what had neutralized them.
She grinned. Thandi was going to work, and though her presence and skill made Kayla feel much more confident, she would still tease her about doing the ‘easy part’ later.
In the near distance, there were a pair of flashes and loud zaps as the base’s generator and backup went out to EMP charges. Another squad from their platoon was working their own approach. That made Kayla nervous. The two elements would soon have to meet up, and nothing could be more dangerous to those who owned the night than confusing each other for the enemy.
She took her team around the base to the now dark main gate as the on-duty guards emerged to check on the loss of power. Stun rifle shots knocked them out, and the squad regrouped behind the cover of a vehicle bay, while Kayla identified the largest building in the compound and watched it attentively.
They waited patiently until the silence was broken by a new voice on the radio.
“Eyes on the barracks, north side. No movement.”
“South side clear,” Kayla confirmed.
“Approaching,” the other squad leader said.
Kayla waited until she saw shapes emerging from the shadows and sprinting behind the back of the large structure. Then, one leaned out from the corner, watching. Kayla tapped a control on her helmet, and a perfect white line broke through her grey world, pointing towards the figure. She was answered with a similar flash of infra-red energy, and her anxiety eased.
Kes, who had also been watching, tapped her shoulder, and Kayla led off towards the barracks.
From outside the Rangers could make out the annoyed calls of men and women stumbling around in the darkness. One emerged from a side door and nearly got off a shout before Tian tackled him and knocked him out. The two squads moved quickly, cracking open doorways and rolling gas grenades inside.
Invisible and odorless, the gas contained the signature compound Valkyrie used to erase memories. The Rangers waited a few minutes, safe behind their face masks, then entered and confirmed that all inside were unconscious. Kes and Thandi smashed a few liquor bottles against the walls, while others dragged the bodies into the main room, and distributed more ‘evidence’.
Eventually, Kes called ‘all clear’, and Kayla emerged from the building into the night, lifting her faceplate to breathe in some fresh air. She saw her fire team, Ray, Tian and Yak, heading to the vehicles to place EMP charges, and began to follow them, when a sharp rap on her helmet brought her up short.
She turned to see Thandi, vizor up, and an expectant expression on her face.
“Was that a curse word I heard earlier?” Thandi asked, keeping her voice low.
Kayla shook her head. “Negative. I was providing a biological assessment of the dude.”
“Ick. Two in the barracks were uh… in the middle of something when they passed out. I had to pull them apart.” She pulled a face. “That was gross.”
Kayla winked at her friend, who was spiritual enough for the both of them. “Unmarried, I bet. Your god approves.”
Thandi nodded gratefully, then shot her a look. “He’s not just my—"
Kes marched over, her expression severe. “Do either of you have EMP charges left?” she demanded.
“Yes Corporal,” Kayla nodded, and patted her rucksack.
“There’s a couple of transports left in the north corner. Get on it, then rejoin us on the east fence. Come on, we need to move quickly!”
Kayla scampered away, buzzing with energy. The squad still had to head for the chateau, and take up their position in the perimeter that was slowly drawing tighter around Rayker. She glanced at the dark mountains around her. In a dozen locations, radar arrays, missile defenses and communications stations were being similarly neutralized by small teams of Valkyrie from the various units. Soon they would have their prey, and Kayla privately hoped that she wouldn’t surrender.
***
Christie found Doctor Kolar, alone as usual, in the main hall and painfully out of place at such a large social gathering. He nursed a champagne glass, and smiled at passersby. Christie stared at him until their eyes met, and he quickly looked away, pretending to study one of Meissner’s diamond statues.
She walked in his direction, and as she passed, she flashed him a shy smile. Then, returning to her coterie of admirers, she looked back with another friendly expression.
Kolar cautiously approached the group, obviously unsure of what to do. The men ignored him, but the second he managed to breach the outer mass of bodies, Christie was on him.
“Oh hello! I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure!” she cried, extending her hand and beaming like a searchlight.
The other men frowned as they lost her attention.
“Um… All mine,” stammered Kolar. “Sorry. I’m—”
“Doctor Kolar, isn’t it?” interrupted a renowned and pompous pianist. “You’re working on space batteries for VennZech weapons research, or some such thing?”
“Well…” Kolar gulped. “We’re starting a new project on micro-singularities at the Planck scale, you see the current theory on weak—”
“It’s weak, you say?” The pianist laughed raucously as he slapped the doctor’s back. “Well, I never would have guessed, old boy.”
“Tell me, Zotty,” Christie cut in, addressing one of the other men, “Didn’t you just tell me this was one of Meissner’s inner circle?” she tottered forward slightly as she spoke.
“Correct,” the elder son and heir apparent of the largest media corporation in the League replied with a smile. He lifted his gaze from her bosom. “Doctor Kolar’s work is vital for the Maestro.”
Kolar smiled gratefully. “Indeed. Well, it’s about energy generation.”
“Oh, I hope you aren’t helping him make more of those dreadful bombs,” Christie said, and pouted. “War is very wrong! Really, I don’t know why they haven’t sanctioned the company for some of the absolutely horrid things they produce.”
The surrounding billionaires nodded their approval, while Kolar flushed. “No… well, I mustn’t talk about it, but I shouldn’t be getting involved in that side of VennZech’s business.”
“Quite right.” Christie nodded. “Oh, but you’re dry.” She turned to a waiter, grabbed a pair of glasses from his tray and handed one to Kolar.
First ¦ Previous ¦ Royal Road ¦ Patreon
Prequel (Chapters 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie
submitted by MountainSkald to redditserials [link] [comments]
1. Rise of a Valkyrie
First ¦ Previous ¦ Royal Road ¦ Patreon
Christie emerged from the bathroom once her nerves had calmed and found one of the chateau’s windows that looked out on the western ridgelines. She reached into her handbag and produced a stick of lipstick, sighted on a curve of blackness intersecting a particular constellation rising into the night sky, and pushed a discreet button on the base. The task force now had confirmation that Rayker was inside the chateau and the machine would be set in motion.
As she turned to head back to the party, Christie saw a different range of mountains in the corner of her eye. A fishhook stabbed into the muscle of her heart and tugged, while she was nearly overwhelmed with nausea. For a moment, a dusty valley surrounded her, the rocky ground coursing with streams of blood. The ghostly white face of Rose Djallen was before her, life fading from her eyes. Christie wanted to gasp, but she let the pain wash over her in silence, as they had all done so often. A moment’s concentration brought her back to the present, and the dangerous operation ahead.
Rayker’s expression had been so devoid of warmth—as though she wore her psychotic nature with pride. Christie couldn’t understand how someone could be so inhuman. She wondered what would happen if Rayker sensed the trap that was closing around her. Christie knew that she, and probably some of the guests, would be taken hostage. No doubt the dozens of Rangers stalking through the darkness would break cover, racing through the night to rescue her, with one particularly hard-headed individual out front. The highly skilled operators now preparing their own move on the chateau would fight their way inside, killing anyone who resisted them. The Banshee, their well-armed gunship, would break its cloak, leaving its position behind Ambrosia’s second moon to rain hellfire down on the small army that provided security for the Helvetic League’s pleasure planet. Rayker would probably die in a hail of gunfire—giving Rose her deserved retribution—for the Valkyrie would eagerly sacrifice their own lives before leaving one of their own behind.
Then the news of the incident would spread, and humanity’s thirty-seven worlds would talk of nothing else but the secret army of super soldiers that protected them from the arsenal of the Jotnar—an ancient and extinct civilization, who’s abandoned weapons and warships littered the stars. Nations, corporations and crime syndicates would find ways to track down those weapons, exploiting their incredible destructive power for their own selfish purposes. There would be war, billions would die, and, like those who had preceded them, humanity would probably wipe itself out.
Rose had died protecting Christie from Rayker’s drone army, but she had also died to uphold Valkyrie’s ancient responsibility.
That operation had ultimately saved the planet Caldera, but in the chaos and confusion of the battle Rayker had managed to slip away. The organization had spent nearly two years trying to hunt her down, but she was too skilled, too deeply enmeshed in the Helvetic League’s underworld.
The council of chiefs, Valkyrie’s inscrutable governing body, had agreed to form Task Force Nemesis under the command of General Smyrna. She was assigned the Mountain Ranger’s Bravo company—the Venomous Vipers—a Raider squadron of elite counter terrorists, and a task unit from Orbital Demolition Team Four. Supported by the Banshee and guided by Christie’s intelligence gathering unit, their mission statement was simple—do whatever it took to kill or capture Allana Rayker.
As they made slow, painstaking process, they began to receive indications that their target had rejoined her old corporate paymasters at VennZech, the most powerful weapons manufacturer in the galaxy. Then, the news broke that Joakkim Meissner, one of Rayker’s suspected allies, had been promoted to Chief Executive, arranging his party on Ambrosia to celebrate.
He had also invited one of the League’s rising stars in physics. The brilliant young doctor Ernst Kolar was a specialist in theoretical energy development. He had recently published a paper describing a theoretical anti-matter reactor alarmingly similar to those that powered the warships and killing machines of the Jotnar. Christie’s team leader, Jiao Zhang, had offered the high-confidence assessment that Rayker would refuse to let such an asset out of her sight. And, on the protected world of Ambrosia, what could she have to fear?
But Valkyrie had been breaking through Helvetic security barriers since the creation of the quasi-imperial state, and had become extremely good at it. And so, the operation had been set in motion.
Christie took a deep breath and prepared herself, soothing away any traces of nervousness. She left the outer hall and re-entered the party.
***
“Olympus, Olympus, Olympus,” a voice intoned through Kayla’s headset.
The code word signaled that Christie had identified Rayker in the chateau, and the operation was a go. A double burst of static followed; a squad-level transmission from Kes. It was the order to take out the security guards.
Kayla and Ray had crawled as close as they could to their position, readied their stun rifle and waited patiently. As the signal came in, the men had pushed away from their boulder rest spot and were resuming their patrol through the woods. Kayla waited until their line of sight had passed her, before she stood slowly, weapon aimed. A faint rustle told her that Ray had done the same.
The guard at the back, still slurping from a water bottle, fell a little further behind. The stun rifle’s projectile hit him in the neck, shocking his nervous system into an overload state. He seized and dropped to the ground, unconscious. The men ahead of him span and there was a mechanical thump from Ray’s weapon. Her shot struck center mass, and another figure collapsed, just as Kayla pulled the trigger again. The last guard went down quickly, but, to Kayla’s shock, seemed to remain conscious. He struggled on the ground like a dying fish as he tried to reach for his radio, so she sprinted forward and kicked him in the head.
Kayla wrinkled her nose and cursed quietly. The scientist who had trained her squad on the weapon had explained that a failed shot would result in the victim emptying the contents of their bowels and bladder. Looks like she had been right.
“Three down,” she muttered into her helmet mic. “No other contacts in sight.”
Even so, she continued to scan the distant trees carefully.
Ray secured the guards with serum injections while Tian and Yak, the other two members of the fire team joined them. The projectiles were gathered into Tian’s rucksack, and, when the rest of the squad arrived, they moved off through the trees together, climbing the slope until they reached another crest, and a chain link fence.
Half a mile away from the chateau, the main security compound provided a base for the guard’s rapid reaction force. The compound had a single entrance and out of the blockhouse blue light flickered to the loud chatter of an excited racing commentator.
Kayla stopped in the shadows of the trees and waited patiently. The air above her head snapped and cracked as rounds shot past, impacting security cameras and sensors around the compound. The bullets were a large caliber, but with a thermic charge core. Each strike glowed brilliantly as intense temperatures melted through their targets, leaving no evidence of what had neutralized them.
She grinned. Thandi was going to work, and though her presence and skill made Kayla feel much more confident, she would still tease her about doing the ‘easy part’ later.
In the near distance, there were a pair of flashes and loud zaps as the base’s generator and backup went out to EMP charges. Another squad from their platoon was working their own approach. That made Kayla nervous. The two elements would soon have to meet up, and nothing could be more dangerous to those who owned the night than confusing each other for the enemy.
She took her team around the base to the now dark main gate as the on-duty guards emerged to check on the loss of power. Stun rifle shots knocked them out, and the squad regrouped behind the cover of a vehicle bay, while Kayla identified the largest building in the compound and watched it attentively.
They waited patiently until the silence was broken by a new voice on the radio.
“Eyes on the barracks, north side. No movement.”
“South side clear,” Kayla confirmed.
“Approaching,” the other squad leader said.
Kayla waited until she saw shapes emerging from the shadows and sprinting behind the back of the large structure. Then, one leaned out from the corner, watching. Kayla tapped a control on her helmet, and a perfect white line broke through her grey world, pointing towards the figure. She was answered with a similar flash of infra-red energy, and her anxiety eased.
Kes, who had also been watching, tapped her shoulder, and Kayla led off towards the barracks.
From outside the Rangers could make out the annoyed calls of men and women stumbling around in the darkness. One emerged from a side door and nearly got off a shout before Tian tackled him and knocked him out. The two squads moved quickly, cracking open doorways and rolling gas grenades inside.
Invisible and odorless, the gas contained the signature compound Valkyrie used to erase memories. The Rangers waited a few minutes, safe behind their face masks, then entered and confirmed that all inside were unconscious. Kes and Thandi smashed a few liquor bottles against the walls, while others dragged the bodies into the main room, and distributed more ‘evidence’.
Eventually, Kes called ‘all clear’, and Kayla emerged from the building into the night, lifting her faceplate to breathe in some fresh air. She saw her fire team, Ray, Tian and Yak, heading to the vehicles to place EMP charges, and began to follow them, when a sharp rap on her helmet brought her up short.
She turned to see Thandi, vizor up, and an expectant expression on her face.
“Was that a curse word I heard earlier?” Thandi asked, keeping her voice low.
Kayla shook her head. “Negative. I was providing a biological assessment of the dude.”
“Ick. Two in the barracks were uh… in the middle of something when they passed out. I had to pull them apart.” She pulled a face. “That was gross.”
Kayla winked at her friend, who was spiritual enough for the both of them. “Unmarried, I bet. Your god approves.”
Thandi nodded gratefully, then shot her a look. “He’s not just my—"
Kes marched over, her expression severe. “Do either of you have EMP charges left?” she demanded.
“Yes Corporal,” Kayla nodded, and patted her rucksack.
“There’s a couple of transports left in the north corner. Get on it, then rejoin us on the east fence. Come on, we need to move quickly!”
Kayla scampered away, buzzing with energy. The squad still had to head for the chateau, and take up their position in the perimeter that was slowly drawing tighter around Rayker. She glanced at the dark mountains around her. In a dozen locations, radar arrays, missile defenses and communications stations were being similarly neutralized by small teams of Valkyrie from the various units. Soon they would have their prey, and Kayla privately hoped that she wouldn’t surrender.
***
Christie found Doctor Kolar, alone as usual, in the main hall and painfully out of place at such a large social gathering. He nursed a champagne glass, and smiled at passersby. Christie stared at him until their eyes met, and he quickly looked away, pretending to study one of Meissner’s diamond statues.
She walked in his direction, and as she passed, she flashed him a shy smile. Then, returning to her coterie of admirers, she looked back with another friendly expression.
Kolar cautiously approached the group, obviously unsure of what to do. The men ignored him, but the second he managed to breach the outer mass of bodies, Christie was on him.
“Oh hello! I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure!” she cried, extending her hand and beaming like a searchlight.
The other men frowned as they lost her attention.
“Um… All mine,” stammered Kolar. “Sorry. I’m—”
“Doctor Kolar, isn’t it?” interrupted a renowned and pompous pianist. “You’re working on space batteries for VennZech weapons research, or some such thing?”
“Well…” Kolar gulped. “We’re starting a new project on micro-singularities at the Planck scale, you see the current theory on weak—”
“It’s weak, you say?” The pianist laughed raucously as he slapped the doctor’s back. “Well, I never would have guessed, old boy.”
“Tell me, Zotty,” Christie cut in, addressing one of the other men, “Didn’t you just tell me this was one of Meissner’s inner circle?” she tottered forward slightly as she spoke.
“Correct,” the elder son and heir apparent of the largest media corporation in the League replied with a smile. He lifted his gaze from her bosom. “Doctor Kolar’s work is vital for the Maestro.”
Kolar smiled gratefully. “Indeed. Well, it’s about energy generation.”
“Oh, I hope you aren’t helping him make more of those dreadful bombs,” Christie said, and pouted. “War is very wrong! Really, I don’t know why they haven’t sanctioned the company for some of the absolutely horrid things they produce.”
The surrounding billionaires nodded their approval, while Kolar flushed. “No… well, I mustn’t talk about it, but I shouldn’t be getting involved in that side of VennZech’s business.”
“Quite right.” Christie nodded. “Oh, but you’re dry.” She turned to a waiter, grabbed a pair of glasses from his tray and handed one to Kolar.
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Prequel (Chapters 1 to 16)
1. Rise of a Valkyrie
2024.05.15 14:32 Weddingcomingup12 Wedding coming up in a week - can you please let me know what you think of the speech?
I know a good speech is a short speech - however, i'm doing this on behalf of myself and my partner. Appreciate any feedback you might have.
WEDDING SPEECH:
INTRODUCTION:
When Mary (and I) were planning our wedding, we sat down and decided we wanted a small overseas wedding because it would be easy to plan and execute. In doing this we would only need to invite our closest friends and family members, totaling to around 30. As was sat down and planned out our list over various nights, this list very quickly grew into the high 90’s and we realized, this was no small wedding. The reason we landed in the 90's is that every single person in this room has had a monumental impact on our life for better, so from the bottom of our hearts thank you for joining in this very special moment with us. There are those who we would have loved to have been here, who have recently passed like XXX and XXX, they are forever in our hearts and here in spirit.
Now for the few minutes, there will be a series of thanks to very important people to both myself and Mary – can you please ensure your glasses are full and ready to go!
Please be assured that if you aren’t mentioned by name, we have not forgotten you, you’re still very important to us; however, I can’t imagine anything worse for you all and myself than me being up here for 30 minutes, so without further ado.
SUPPORT TEAM
Firstly, I would like to thank all the support staff, especially the XXX, for your efforts in bringing this to life.
I don’t want to imagine the stress Mary and I would have gone through trying to organize this without your help.
Bridal Party:
Thank you all for being apart of our wedding celebration. Mary and I are so thankful to have you part in our lives. None of this could have happened without you.
PARENTS XX/YY, special thanks to ZZ:
To XX and YY, thank you for entrusting me with your beautiful daughter. I know that you both care and love for her immensely and I will do my best to take care of her. Thank you both for welcoming me into your house, family and treating me as if I was your own. To add to this, thank you for welcoming Doug, our labrador into the house, despite him slowly tearing it apart - I promise you we will fix the floorboards someday soon.
Despite the challenges you’ve both faced over the last couple of years, you’ve been nothing short of amazing and supportive to both Mary and myself.
To XX:
Thank you for every day without fail, knocking on my door at 11am, asking me “lunch?” and then coming up 20 minutes later with a big breakfast plate. This gesture, done every day without fail, shows how much you truly care for me.
To YY:
Thank you for having my back each and every day. You’re one of the kindest and most caring men I’ve ever known, and I’m so grateful to be your son in law. Even when I burn food and serve it up to the family, we all put ours in the bin, you put a big smile, finish the plate, and tell me it's good.
Special thank you to ZZ, thank you for the monumental effort of organizing and reverse refugeeing the entire Vietnamese clan over here. This is no small feat and Mary and I both appreciate it.
PARENTS AA and BB and CC
To my mother, thank you for always taking the time to be present and celebrating every moment, big or small. Your ability to create meaningful memories moves me deeply. I recall my 30th birthday, when I expressed a desire not to celebrate. Despite this, you organized a fantastic home dinner and surprised me by inviting some of my close friends. Your thoughtfulness and attention to detail have been evident since my early years, shaping my appreciation for life's simple joys.
I also want to thank you for being so welcoming to my partner, Mary. From the onset, you have been so caring and appreciative, sharing in the joys of celebrating her achievements. Your love and acceptance mean the world to us both.
Dad, your speech tonight on behalf of the family was moving and a reflection of the love and care you've always shown us. CC, your warmth, and kindness have made Mary feel truly at home.
CC, your thoughtfulness in always ensuring Mary receives a special christmas gift does not go unnoticed. More than that, thank you for your unwavering support and willingness to lend an ear, whether we need advice on work or any of the other responsibilities of being an adult, your guidance and love mean the world to us.Thank you both for being so welcoming and accepting of Mary into the family.
Mary:
Saving the most important person for last. Mary. You look absolutely breathtaking tonight. Words cannot even begin to describe just how much I love you, but I’ll try my best.
Events like these don’t just happen, they take months of planning. We’ve been planning this wedding for the better part of a year and when I say we, I mean Mary. Thank you for the monumental effort in for all your research, planning, and hard work to make this day magnificent for us all.
Throughout our seven year journey together, you’ve been a consistent source for inspiration, pushing me to become the best version of myself, always encouraging me to not take the easy way out and challenging me in the best way possible. You’ve stood with me during my darkest of times, and made each achievement into a massive celebration. Your kindness and love are such a huge motivator for me to continue to grow with you. I cannot imagine the person I would be without you by my side.
But it’s not always about the big moments. It’s about the everyday, the little things that make you who you are. You’re not just my partner, you’re also my closest friend (and now my wife). We can spend all night gaming, we can talk for hours, or simply enjoy each other's presence, every moment with you is treasured. Thank you for always going out of your way to make me feel special, whether it’s planning surprise dates to restaurant bookings, or even picking up some food, you never fail to make me feel loved.
This love that you show to me also extends to our beloved labrador Doug. The way you adore Doug with kindness, care and love fills me with joy. It’s truly no wonder why you’re his favorite. I know we’re only married today, but I can’t help but imagine the day when you bring the same warmth and devotion to motherhood.
One of your most admirable characteristics is your selflessness. You always go above and beyond for your family and friends, happy to drop everything and put the needs of others before yourself. You consistently go out of your way to ensure the happiness and well-being of those closest to you. This dedication is a testament to the incredible person you are and I admire and love you all the more for it.
Your infectious personality brings laughter and joy to everyone you meet, you light up a room when you enter. Your presence transforms ordinary moments into extraordinary memories, and your positive energy leaves an unforgettable impression on everyone around you. Something as simple as seeing your beautiful smile, brightens even the most cloudiest of my days.
It is the greatest honor of my life to be your husband. I love you more than words could ever say, and I look forward to spending forever by your side.
submitted by Weddingcomingup12 to wedding [link] [comments]
WEDDING SPEECH:
INTRODUCTION:
When Mary (and I) were planning our wedding, we sat down and decided we wanted a small overseas wedding because it would be easy to plan and execute. In doing this we would only need to invite our closest friends and family members, totaling to around 30. As was sat down and planned out our list over various nights, this list very quickly grew into the high 90’s and we realized, this was no small wedding. The reason we landed in the 90's is that every single person in this room has had a monumental impact on our life for better, so from the bottom of our hearts thank you for joining in this very special moment with us. There are those who we would have loved to have been here, who have recently passed like XXX and XXX, they are forever in our hearts and here in spirit.
Now for the few minutes, there will be a series of thanks to very important people to both myself and Mary – can you please ensure your glasses are full and ready to go!
Please be assured that if you aren’t mentioned by name, we have not forgotten you, you’re still very important to us; however, I can’t imagine anything worse for you all and myself than me being up here for 30 minutes, so without further ado.
SUPPORT TEAM
Firstly, I would like to thank all the support staff, especially the XXX, for your efforts in bringing this to life.
I don’t want to imagine the stress Mary and I would have gone through trying to organize this without your help.
Bridal Party:
Thank you all for being apart of our wedding celebration. Mary and I are so thankful to have you part in our lives. None of this could have happened without you.
PARENTS XX/YY, special thanks to ZZ:
To XX and YY, thank you for entrusting me with your beautiful daughter. I know that you both care and love for her immensely and I will do my best to take care of her. Thank you both for welcoming me into your house, family and treating me as if I was your own. To add to this, thank you for welcoming Doug, our labrador into the house, despite him slowly tearing it apart - I promise you we will fix the floorboards someday soon.
Despite the challenges you’ve both faced over the last couple of years, you’ve been nothing short of amazing and supportive to both Mary and myself.
To XX:
Thank you for every day without fail, knocking on my door at 11am, asking me “lunch?” and then coming up 20 minutes later with a big breakfast plate. This gesture, done every day without fail, shows how much you truly care for me.
To YY:
Thank you for having my back each and every day. You’re one of the kindest and most caring men I’ve ever known, and I’m so grateful to be your son in law. Even when I burn food and serve it up to the family, we all put ours in the bin, you put a big smile, finish the plate, and tell me it's good.
Special thank you to ZZ, thank you for the monumental effort of organizing and reverse refugeeing the entire Vietnamese clan over here. This is no small feat and Mary and I both appreciate it.
PARENTS AA and BB and CC
To my mother, thank you for always taking the time to be present and celebrating every moment, big or small. Your ability to create meaningful memories moves me deeply. I recall my 30th birthday, when I expressed a desire not to celebrate. Despite this, you organized a fantastic home dinner and surprised me by inviting some of my close friends. Your thoughtfulness and attention to detail have been evident since my early years, shaping my appreciation for life's simple joys.
I also want to thank you for being so welcoming to my partner, Mary. From the onset, you have been so caring and appreciative, sharing in the joys of celebrating her achievements. Your love and acceptance mean the world to us both.
Dad, your speech tonight on behalf of the family was moving and a reflection of the love and care you've always shown us. CC, your warmth, and kindness have made Mary feel truly at home.
CC, your thoughtfulness in always ensuring Mary receives a special christmas gift does not go unnoticed. More than that, thank you for your unwavering support and willingness to lend an ear, whether we need advice on work or any of the other responsibilities of being an adult, your guidance and love mean the world to us.Thank you both for being so welcoming and accepting of Mary into the family.
Mary:
Saving the most important person for last. Mary. You look absolutely breathtaking tonight. Words cannot even begin to describe just how much I love you, but I’ll try my best.
Events like these don’t just happen, they take months of planning. We’ve been planning this wedding for the better part of a year and when I say we, I mean Mary. Thank you for the monumental effort in for all your research, planning, and hard work to make this day magnificent for us all.
Throughout our seven year journey together, you’ve been a consistent source for inspiration, pushing me to become the best version of myself, always encouraging me to not take the easy way out and challenging me in the best way possible. You’ve stood with me during my darkest of times, and made each achievement into a massive celebration. Your kindness and love are such a huge motivator for me to continue to grow with you. I cannot imagine the person I would be without you by my side.
But it’s not always about the big moments. It’s about the everyday, the little things that make you who you are. You’re not just my partner, you’re also my closest friend (and now my wife). We can spend all night gaming, we can talk for hours, or simply enjoy each other's presence, every moment with you is treasured. Thank you for always going out of your way to make me feel special, whether it’s planning surprise dates to restaurant bookings, or even picking up some food, you never fail to make me feel loved.
This love that you show to me also extends to our beloved labrador Doug. The way you adore Doug with kindness, care and love fills me with joy. It’s truly no wonder why you’re his favorite. I know we’re only married today, but I can’t help but imagine the day when you bring the same warmth and devotion to motherhood.
One of your most admirable characteristics is your selflessness. You always go above and beyond for your family and friends, happy to drop everything and put the needs of others before yourself. You consistently go out of your way to ensure the happiness and well-being of those closest to you. This dedication is a testament to the incredible person you are and I admire and love you all the more for it.
Your infectious personality brings laughter and joy to everyone you meet, you light up a room when you enter. Your presence transforms ordinary moments into extraordinary memories, and your positive energy leaves an unforgettable impression on everyone around you. Something as simple as seeing your beautiful smile, brightens even the most cloudiest of my days.
It is the greatest honor of my life to be your husband. I love you more than words could ever say, and I look forward to spending forever by your side.