How I Wonder What You Are by Al Bruno III

I’ll know the time is right when the howling begins. It will be after sundown of course, the Mothers and Fathers of Jebsen only scream after sundown, and only on the clearest of nights.
There is no town of Jebsen listed on any map, even in its heyday of the 1940’s it was too small to be worthy of notice. It’s nothing more than a collection of buildings at the end of a dead end road. On one side it is bordered by long untended corn fields, on the other the swampy remains of Lake Campbell. The most noticeable of the town’s buildings is a red brick edifice with a wide domed roof of fractured glass. The rest is just barns and single story homes. Along the border of the swamp is row after row of barbed wire and bear traps.
I’ll let them scream for an hour or so, let them become tired. Even now it amazes me how I had learned to pick out the individual voices in the cacophony. The Widow Toth tires easily but the Garrets will be at it until dawn.
And what will I be doing while every able-bodied adult is on the rooftops? I’ll be slipping these pages into this mason jar and sealing it lid in place with the wax from a melted crayon. The Children of Jebsen won’t miss just one, especially not purple.
Twenty-five years ago a calamity befell the town of Jebsen. The authorities blamed it all on the after effects of an experimental insecticide but the Old Book the town elders read from every Sunday said otherwise. It told the citizens of Jebsen that a curse was carried by those twinkling dots in the sky. A malevolence traveling at 186,000 miles per second that would twist their Children into nightmares should a glint of it ever touch their skin.
That is why they scream at the starlight; hating it, cursing it, raging at it.
You can’t see what their Children have become and not feel the same way. The changes are heartbreaking and horrifying all at once but after you spend time with them you feel differently. There is mockery in the mis-set eyes that peer from those mollified skulls.
They know secrets. On quiet, cloudy nights I would put my ear to one families’ basement door or another and hear them murmuring and giggling as they writhe in their basement styes.
I think of their weeping mouths and soft teeth and remember that day half a decade ago the ill-advised shortcut and along the neglected county route 99. I remember approaching the train bridge and seriously considering turning around, it looked decades out of repair and I half suspected it would collapse as I passed under it.
But I didn’t turn back, my ego wouldn’t let me. I was right and the road was wrong so I drove under the train bridge, momentarily marveling at the strange and elaborate graffiti that covered it.
I was just past the structure when a small, bent figure ran out from the long grass.
The sounds are what I really remember; the squeal of the brakes, the thud of the body on the hood of my car, the thick crack of laminated glass.
I would later learn the name of the child I had hit was Julius McCarty but all I knew then was that there was an emaciated, bloodied shape lying halfway through my windshield.
Human instinct made me reach out, to see if the little boy was alive. When my fingers brushed his skin he twisted around to face me. His mouth lashed out proboscis-like and nuzzled into the flesh of my arm.
Pain bristled out from where the boy had latched on to me. I screamed, thrashed. I shoved the car door open and tumbled out onto the asphalt. The boy coughed once and died.
At first the wound held all my attention. How could it not? I had expected to see torn flesh and blood but instead the boy’s distended mouth had left behind a cluster of thick, festering ulcerations.
But then I became aware of the men making their way out of the tall grass. These were the Fathers of Jebsen understood immediately what had happened.
They had brought everything they might need to bring one of their Children back home to its basement; rope, bandages and cudgels. It was also everything they needed to make a captive of me.
They, dragged me away from the accident site, through the tall grass and over the collapsed remains of a chain link fence to leave me in the care of the Mothers of Jebsen. Those gaunt women had cudgels of their own and I was a mass of bruises and welts by the time the hole in the Earth had been made to their standards.
The menfolk returned carrying the child wrapped in a linen shroud. They dropped it roughly into the ground. There were no ceremonies, tears or headstone. It was well after dark by the time I had filled the grave back in.
Now here it is years later and I’ve had to dig a dozen more graves, one by one the Mothers and Fathers are dying out, it’s always a surprise when it happens. Every mother and father of Jensen is withered and white haired but every year a few more die in their sleep, or at work in the fields or at prayer in their red brick observatory.
The Children are dying too, not a one has ever lived past seventeen. One by one they waste away, except of course for the occasional accident like the one that trapped me here.
Despite these curse that has befallen them the people of Jebsen continue to reproduce, each mother convinced that this time she will give birth to the Great Redeemer as was foretold in the Old Book. Each time they fail and each time the result is locked away in it’s family’s basement.
You can’t imagine those basements, the smell of rotten meat, the ankle deep fecal matter and the perfectly clean toys. They draw equations on the walls, gold and silver crayons are their preferred color. Every Tuesday I have to visit each of those cellars and scrub the theorems and postulations away.
The youngest of the Children is a newborn, still angry from the womb, the oldest is seventeen and nearly rotted away. No matter the age they all taunt me as I work, sometimes with bites, sometimes with maledictions. Both have left unimaginable scars.
So many scars now, I’m marked, I could never walk among the people I’d known before. They’d refuse to recognize me and insist I was a stranger
The Widow Thoth says this is my penance for the death of Julius McCarty, she even went so far as to cite chapter and verse on the subject from Old Book itself. The Mothers and Fathers of Jebsen, base every aspect of their lives on that thick volume of prophecies and homilies.
I wonder if anyone will notice me as leaving. I doubt it, even when they’re not screaming their heads off a long dead suns they barely notice my comings and goings.
As I said before, the Mothers and Father’s of Jebsen have become so sure of me. Some families think I’ve become a true believer, the rest think the cinder block chained to my ankle is enough to keep me in my place.
I don’t know who you are or when you’ll find this message. My only hope is that you will believe me. If you do, please bring this document to the proper authorities. Don’t let my death be for nothing.
I go to the bottom of the swamp with two regrets. One is that I won’t be there when the town of Jebsen is discovered and burned to the ground.
The other is that six months ago I accepted Father Garett’s invitation to join in their celebrations. I went willingly with them to the old brick observatory. I prayed with them. I danced with them. I partook in all of their debasements.
And for a little while, perhaps an hour, I was happy.
They even asked me to give reading from the Old Book. I eagerly stopped up to the podium and began flipping through the thick volume.
Everyone waited for me to choose a passage and speak but all I did was shake and weep at what I beheld. My knees buckled. My mind shut down. I had to be carried out and put to bed.
You see, the Old Book was blank from cover to cover. You’re even holding some of those pages in your hands now.
I used them to write my story.

How I Wonder What You Are by Al Bruno III

I’ll know the time is right when the howling begins. It will be after sundown of course, the Mothers and Fathers of Jebsen only scream after sundown, and only on the clearest of nights.
There is no town of Jebsen listed on any map, even in its heyday of the 1940’s it was too small to be worthy of notice. It’s nothing more than a collection of buildings at the end of a dead end road. On one side it is bordered by long untended corn fields, on the other the swampy remains of Lake Campbell. The most noticeable of the town’s buildings is a red brick edifice with a wide domed roof of fractured glass. The rest is just barns and single story homes. Along the border of the swamp is row after row of barbed wire and bear traps.
I’ll let them scream for an hour or so, let them become tired. Even now it amazes me how I had learned to pick out the individual voices in the cacophony. The Widow Toth tires easily but the Garrets will be at it until dawn.
And what will I be doing while every able-bodied adult is on the rooftops? I’ll be slipping these pages into this mason jar and sealing it lid in place with the wax from a melted crayon. The Children of Jebsen won’t miss just one, especially not purple.
Twenty-five years ago a calamity befell the town of Jebsen. The authorities blamed it all on the after effects of an experimental insecticide but the Old Book the town elders read from every Sunday said otherwise. It told the citizens of Jebsen that a curse was carried by those twinkling dots in the sky. A malevolence traveling at 186,000 miles per second that would twist their Children into nightmares should a glint of it ever touch their skin.
That is why they scream at the starlight; hating it, cursing it, raging at it.
You can’t see what their Children have become and not feel the same way. The changes are heartbreaking and horrifying all at once but after you spend time with them you feel differently. There is mockery in the mis-set eyes that peer from those mollified skulls.
They know secrets. On quiet, cloudy nights I would put my ear to one families’ basement door or another and hear them murmuring and giggling as they writhe in their basement styes.
I think of their weeping mouths and soft teeth and remember that day half a decade ago the ill-advised shortcut and along the neglected county route 99. I remember approaching the train bridge and seriously considering turning around, it looked decades out of repair and I half suspected it would collapse as I passed under it.
But I didn’t turn back, my ego wouldn’t let me. I was right and the road was wrong so I drove under the train bridge, momentarily marveling at the strange and elaborate graffiti that covered it.
I was just past the structure when a small, bent figure ran out from the long grass.
The sounds are what I really remember; the squeal of the brakes, the thud of the body on the hood of my car, the thick crack of laminated glass.
I would later learn the name of the child I had hit was Julius McCarty but all I knew then was that there was an emaciated, bloodied shape lying halfway through my windshield.
Human instinct made me reach out, to see if the little boy was alive. When my fingers brushed his skin he twisted around to face me. His mouth lashed out proboscis-like and nuzzled into the flesh of my arm.
Pain bristled out from where the boy had latched on to me. I screamed, thrashed. I shoved the car door open and tumbled out onto the asphalt. The boy coughed once and died.
At first the wound held all my attention. How could it not? I had expected to see torn flesh and blood but instead the boy’s distended mouth had left behind a cluster of thick, festering ulcerations.
But then I became aware of the men making their way out of the tall grass. These were the Fathers of Jebsen understood immediately what had happened.
They had brought everything they might need to bring one of their Children back home to its basement; rope, bandages and cudgels. It was also everything they needed to make a captive of me.
They, dragged me away from the accident site, through the tall grass and over the collapsed remains of a chain link fence to leave me in the care of the Mothers of Jebsen. Those gaunt women had cudgels of their own and I was a mass of bruises and welts by the time the hole in the Earth had been made to their standards.
The menfolk returned carrying the child wrapped in a linen shroud. They dropped it roughly into the ground. There were no ceremonies, tears or headstone. It was well after dark by the time I had filled the grave back in.
Now here it is years later and I’ve had to dig a dozen more graves, one by one the Mothers and Fathers are dying out, it’s always a surprise when it happens. Every mother and father of Jensen is withered and white haired but every year a few more die in their sleep, or at work in the fields or at prayer in their red brick observatory.
The Children are dying too, not a one has ever lived past seventeen. One by one they waste away, except of course for the occasional accident like the one that trapped me here.
Despite these curse that has befallen them the people of Jebsen continue to reproduce, each mother convinced that this time she will give birth to the Great Redeemer as was foretold in the Old Book. Each time they fail and each time the result is locked away in it’s family’s basement.
You can’t imagine those basements, the smell of rotten meat, the ankle deep fecal matter and the perfectly clean toys. They draw equations on the walls, gold and silver crayons are their preferred color. Every Tuesday I have to visit each of those cellars and scrub the theorems and postulations away.
The youngest of the Children is a newborn, still angry from the womb, the oldest is seventeen and nearly rotted away. No matter the age they all taunt me as I work, sometimes with bites, sometimes with maledictions. Both have left unimaginable scars.
So many scars now, I’m marked, I could never walk among the people I’d known before. They’d refuse to recognize me and insist I was a stranger
The Widow Thoth says this is my penance for the death of Julius McCarty, she even went so far as to cite chapter and verse on the subject from Old Book itself. The Mothers and Fathers of Jebsen, base every aspect of their lives on that thick volume of prophecies and homilies.
I wonder if anyone will notice me as leaving. I doubt it, even when they’re not screaming their heads off a long dead suns they barely notice my comings and goings.
As I said before, the Mothers and Father’s of Jebsen have become so sure of me. Some families think I’ve become a true believer, the rest think the cinder block chained to my ankle is enough to keep me in my place.
I don’t know who you are or when you’ll find this message. My only hope is that you will believe me. If you do, please bring this document to the proper authorities. Don’t let my death be for nothing.
I go to the bottom of the swamp with two regrets. One is that I won’t be there when the town of Jebsen is discovered and burned to the ground.
The other is that six months ago I accepted Father Garett’s invitation to join in their celebrations. I went willingly with them to the old brick observatory. I prayed with them. I danced with them. I partook in all of their debasements.
And for a little while, perhaps an hour, I was happy.
They even asked me to give reading from the Old Book. I eagerly stopped up to the podium and began flipping through the thick volume.
Everyone waited for me to choose a passage and speak but all I did was shake and weep at what I beheld. My knees buckled. My mind shut down. I had to be carried out and put to bed.
You see, the Old Book was blank from cover to cover. You’re even holding some of those pages in your hands now.
I used them to write my story.

How I Wonder What You Are by Al Bruno III

I’ll know the time is right when the howling begins. It will be after sundown of course, the Mothers and Fathers of Jebsen only scream after sundown, and only on the clearest of nights.
There is no town of Jebsen listed on any map, even in its heyday of the 1940’s it was too small to be worthy of notice. It’s nothing more than a collection of buildings at the end of a dead end road. On one side it is bordered by long untended corn fields, on the other the swampy remains of Lake Campbell. The most noticeable of the town’s buildings is a red brick edifice with a wide domed roof of fractured glass. The rest is just barns and single story homes. Along the border of the swamp is row after row of barbed wire and bear traps.
I’ll let them scream for an hour or so, let them become tired. Even now it amazes me how I had learned to pick out the individual voices in the cacophony. The Widow Toth tires easily but the Garrets will be at it until dawn.
And what will I be doing while every able-bodied adult is on the rooftops? I’ll be slipping these pages into this mason jar and sealing it lid in place with the wax from a melted crayon. The Children of Jebsen won’t miss just one, especially not purple.
Twenty-five years ago a calamity befell the town of Jebsen. The authorities blamed it all on the after effects of an experimental insecticide but the Old Book the town elders read from every Sunday said otherwise. It told the citizens of Jebsen that a curse was carried by those twinkling dots in the sky. A malevolence traveling at 186,000 miles per second that would twist their Children into nightmares should a glint of it ever touch their skin.
That is why they scream at the starlight; hating it, cursing it, raging at it.
You can’t see what their Children have become and not feel the same way. The changes are heartbreaking and horrifying all at once but after you spend time with them you feel differently. There is mockery in the mis-set eyes that peer from those mollified skulls.
They know secrets. On quiet, cloudy nights I would put my ear to one families’ basement door or another and hear them murmuring and giggling as they writhe in their basement styes.
I think of their weeping mouths and soft teeth and remember that day half a decade ago the ill-advised shortcut and along the neglected county route 99. I remember approaching the train bridge and seriously considering turning around, it looked decades out of repair and I half suspected it would collapse as I passed under it.
But I didn’t turn back, my ego wouldn’t let me. I was right and the road was wrong so I drove under the train bridge, momentarily marveling at the strange and elaborate graffiti that covered it.
I was just past the structure when a small, bent figure ran out from the long grass.
The sounds are what I really remember; the squeal of the brakes, the thud of the body on the hood of my car, the thick crack of laminated glass.
I would later learn the name of the child I had hit was Julius McCarty but all I knew then was that there was an emaciated, bloodied shape lying halfway through my windshield.
Human instinct made me reach out, to see if the little boy was alive. When my fingers brushed his skin he twisted around to face me. His mouth lashed out proboscis-like and nuzzled into the flesh of my arm.
Pain bristled out from where the boy had latched on to me. I screamed, thrashed. I shoved the car door open and tumbled out onto the asphalt. The boy coughed once and died.
At first the wound held all my attention. How could it not? I had expected to see torn flesh and blood but instead the boy’s distended mouth had left behind a cluster of thick, festering ulcerations.
But then I became aware of the men making their way out of the tall grass. These were the Fathers of Jebsen understood immediately what had happened.
They had brought everything they might need to bring one of their Children back home to its basement; rope, bandages and cudgels. It was also everything they needed to make a captive of me.
They, dragged me away from the accident site, through the tall grass and over the collapsed remains of a chain link fence to leave me in the care of the Mothers of Jebsen. Those gaunt women had cudgels of their own and I was a mass of bruises and welts by the time the hole in the Earth had been made to their standards.
The menfolk returned carrying the child wrapped in a linen shroud. They dropped it roughly into the ground. There were no ceremonies, tears or headstone. It was well after dark by the time I had filled the grave back in.
Now here it is years later and I’ve had to dig a dozen more graves, one by one the Mothers and Fathers are dying out, it’s always a surprise when it happens. Every mother and father of Jensen is withered and white haired but every year a few more die in their sleep, or at work in the fields or at prayer in their red brick observatory.
The Children are dying too, not a one has ever lived past seventeen. One by one they waste away, except of course for the occasional accident like the one that trapped me here.
Despite these curse that has befallen them the people of Jebsen continue to reproduce, each mother convinced that this time she will give birth to the Great Redeemer as was foretold in the Old Book. Each time they fail and each time the result is locked away in it’s family’s basement.
You can’t imagine those basements, the smell of rotten meat, the ankle deep fecal matter and the perfectly clean toys. They draw equations on the walls, gold and silver crayons are their preferred color. Every Tuesday I have to visit each of those cellars and scrub the theorems and postulations away.
The youngest of the Children is a newborn, still angry from the womb, the oldest is seventeen and nearly rotted away. No matter the age they all taunt me as I work, sometimes with bites, sometimes with maledictions. Both have left unimaginable scars.
So many scars now, I’m marked, I could never walk among the people I’d known before. They’d refuse to recognize me and insist I was a stranger
The Widow Thoth says this is my penance for the death of Julius McCarty, she even went so far as to cite chapter and verse on the subject from Old Book itself. The Mothers and Fathers of Jebsen, base every aspect of their lives on that thick volume of prophecies and homilies.
I wonder if anyone will notice me as leaving. I doubt it, even when they’re not screaming their heads off a long dead suns they barely notice my comings and goings.
As I said before, the Mothers and Father’s of Jebsen have become so sure of me. Some families think I’ve become a true believer, the rest think the cinder block chained to my ankle is enough to keep me in my place.
I don’t know who you are or when you’ll find this message. My only hope is that you will believe me. If you do, please bring this document to the proper authorities. Don’t let my death be for nothing.
I go to the bottom of the swamp with two regrets. One is that I won’t be there when the town of Jebsen is discovered and burned to the ground.
The other is that six months ago I accepted Father Garett’s invitation to join in their celebrations. I went willingly with them to the old brick observatory. I prayed with them. I danced with them. I partook in all of their debasements.
And for a little while, perhaps an hour, I was happy.
They even asked me to give reading from the Old Book. I eagerly stopped up to the podium and began flipping through the thick volume.
Everyone waited for me to choose a passage and speak but all I did was shake and weep at what I beheld. My knees buckled. My mind shut down. I had to be carried out and put to bed.
You see, the Old Book was blank from cover to cover. You’re even holding some of those pages in your hands now.
I used them to write my story.

There are some kinds of wisdom only great suffering can bring. I remember my time in the Bardo with this in mind, for otherwise, the memory might drive me insane.
The night my heart stopped for nearly three minutes started off normally enough. I was working as a nurse in the psychiatric ward at a hospital in the state’s capital. Most of the patients there were harmless, mostly just suicide attempts or people suffering from drug psychosis or severe depression, but some were actively dangerous and certainly psychopathic in every sense of the word. The new admission was one of these- a three-hundred pound black man with a long history of smoking PCP, schizophrenia and violent, psychotic breaks from reality.
His eyes looked like flat pieces of slate as I walked in for my shift. They looked as blank and emotionless as the eyes of a doll. He sat at the table in the front room where the patients ate or played cards, alone under the bright fluorescent lights of the hospital. I walked to the station, where another psychiatric nurse named Ricardo was sitting behind the desk.
“What’s the deal with the new guy?” I asked him. Ricardo looked up, his dark Spanish face forming into a deep scowl. He ran his fingers through his jet-black hair nervously.
“He’s trouble, man,” he said in a crisp accent. “He got in a chase with the police and then punched some cops in the face. It took three guys to take him down, even after he got maced and tased. The judge sent him here on a temporary court order, since he claims he’s been getting chased by Nazis in UFOs, and that’s why he ran from the cops. He thought the cops in their uniforms were actually the SS, and the helicopters were alien spacecraft, or something. I don’t know, I didn’t listen to the whole story.”
“You have his file?” I asked. Ricardo leafed through a stack of folders with his thin fingers, snatching one out and handing it to me. I looked down, reading the information:
“Jeremiah Brown, black male, 37-years-old.
“History: Polysubstance abuse, schizophrenia, antisocial personality disorder.
“Psychiatrist’s note: This patient has scored a 36 out of 40 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. While I am always hesitant to label a patient as an antisocial personality, a combination of factors has made it essential for this patient.
“Patient has an extensive criminal history as well as a lengthy history of involuntary psychiatric admissions. He has been diagnosed as having antisocial traits since he was a young teenager. Patient has a long history of violence and suicide attempts. He has a history of imprisonment for manslaughter, armed robbery, grand theft and aggravated assault. Upon discharge, he refuses to take any antipsychotic medication, citing the side effects as the reason. Long-term prognosis is poor…”
I had not been sleeping well the past few weeks. I rubbed my eyes as I read through the file, feeling exhausted. I tried putting on lucid dreaming or meditation music from YouTube to help me sleep, but whenever I closed my eyes, I saw horrible things: chalk-white female faces whose lips were cut into an insane rictus grin, flicking their heads violently from side to side and gnashing their fangs at the air. I had a feeling that many years of constantly watching horror movies and serial killer documentaries was catching up with me.
As I read through the file, a student nurse came around the corner wearing a white state university outfit and a name tag that said Kaitlyn. I looked up, seeing Ricardo wink at me from where he was sitting in his chair behind the main desk.
“She’s going to follow you,” he said. Inwardly, I groaned, but I managed to force a smile.
“Oh, great!” I said. She looked like she was probably no older than nineteen or twenty. She had a pretty body, but her face looked strange. All the angles were too sharp and her nose too large. I knew the patients here wouldn’t care, though. They would hit on anything. I sensed trouble. I looked down at my watch.
“Well, I’m Jay, and you already know Ricardo, I guess. It’s good timing, because we need to give medications every day at 9 PM. And we have a new patient, so we can introduce ourselves,” I said, giving her a faint smile.
“That’s exciting!” Kaitlyn whispered. I wanted to roll my eyes. It was definitely not exciting.
I motioned her to follow me as I made my way to the medication room, which was really just a large closet off of the main day room. I had to enter my code on a keypad, and then, once inside, enter it again along with the patient’s number and date of birth. The correct drawers for the medication in each specific dose would fly open, making it extremely hard for the wrong medications or doses to be given, unless it was done intentionally.
“OK, so for this patient, we need Haldol, Ativan and…” I began saying to Kaitlyn when the yelling started. It came out faintly, rising in volume and anger within seconds. I heard Ricardo’s Spanish voice, filled with panic. Something slammed hard against a wall, once, twice, three times, and then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I jumped, spinning around, but I couldn’t see much through the small, shatter-proof glass pane on the wooden door.
“Stay here,” I commanded, seeing Kaitlyn’s eyes widen, her freckled skin looking much paler than when we had first come in. “Don’t leave until I come back and say that it’s safe.” On the speakers strung throughout the hospital, I heard the first of the warnings echo out around us.
“Doctor Strong, Doctor Strong, please report to the seventh floor,” a robotic female voice said calmly, using the code for when a patient had to be subdued by force. I pushed the door open, slamming it shut behind me so that the lock would activate and protect Kaitlyn from whatever chaos was going on.
I heard Ricardo pleading with someone at the end of the hallway that ran past the main desk. He sounded strange, as if he were trying to talk through a mouthful of blood. Huddled behind the main computer, I saw one of the CNAs frantically whispering something in the phone. She must have been the one to call the Dr. Strong order.
“You don’t have to do this, man,” Ricardo gurgled faintly. I couldn’t see what was happening, as Jeremiah’s large body was blocking my view. I could see that the thick glass window at the end of the hallway was broken, however. My heart skipped a beat as I surmised what was likely happening.
I sprinted forward as quietly as I could, but the large man heard me. His massive body turned, his flat, dead eyes scanning me with absolute coldness and calm. I saw he had a bleeding Ricardo in his hands. Ricardo’s back and head were covered in deep cuts and shards of glass. He must have used Ricardo’s body as a battering ram to break the thick glass window. Jeremiah held Ricardo suspended halfway out the window, seven floors above the concrete walkways far below.
“Stay back, or this fucker will know what it feels like to fly,” Jeremiah said in a deep, gravelly voice. He shook Ricardo for emphasis, sending his head snapping back and forth with painful cracking sounds. Drops of blood flew from his nose and a deep gash across his cheek. Pieces of shattered glass littered the carpet, shining like countless tiny stars.
I put my hands up, taking a step back. Far behind me, I heard the front door for the psychiatric ward open. Voices echoed down the hall. Knowing that reinforcements were coming, I tried to buy some time.
“Let’s talk about this,” I said, taking a step forward slowly. “You don’t want a murder charge, do you? You’ll never see the sky again.”
“I don’t give a fuck! I’m not afraid to die!” Jeremiah screamed, pushing Ricardo onto one of the shards of broken glass still attached to the windowsill. It bit deeply into the back of his neck, sending fresh streams of blood rushing out, dripping down to the pavement far below. I heard security guards and doctors running down the hallway behind me, their voices frantic and excited. Jeremiah saw them coming. With an animalistic panic in his eyes, he lifted Ricardo up. I cried out something, stepping forward, but it was already too late. In horror, I watched as he threw Ricardo out the window.
I watched Ricardo’s body soar in a graceful arc, his arms grabbing at empty air as a scream ripped its way out of his throat. Within a fraction of a second, he had disappeared from view, but his terrified shrieking floated up to us for what seemed like a very long time. His screams ended abruptly as a shattering of bones and a wet smacking sound exploded far below us.
Jeremiah turned to me, his large body moving much faster than seemed possible. In his hand, I saw a piece of broken glass, five or six inches long and as sharp as a dagger. I tried to turn and run, but he was fast and strong. He lunged forward, his arm coming up in a blur towards my neck.
The shard entered my skin with a cold, numbing pain. I felt it slice through the flesh easily, felt the blood bubbling up my throat as I tried to scream, choking. The taste of iron filled my mouth as I fell backwards. I was suffocating, I knew. I must be dying.
Something cold ran down my body, gripping my heart like freezing, skeletal hands. The world swam around me and turned black. And then I was rising into a tunnel. At first, it was dark, filled with flickering shadows, but a fiery red light appeared at the end. I followed it, no more than a screaming mass of consciousness rising up into infinity.
***
I rose up through the end of the tunnel and found myself in an empty hospital ward. It looked identical to the psychiatric ward I had just come from. It even had the same smashed, blood-streaked window at the end of the hallway. A massive puddle of blood about ten feet away marked the spot where I must have died. But the fluorescent lights overhead here were flickering, and many had gone totally dark. The shadows seemed to press in on all sides.
The doors to the patients’ rooms were all tightly shut. I felt watched, afraid to call out or make any noise. I started walking down the hallway back towards the day room where the front desk was. All the lights there were out. A thick curtain of shadows hung in the air.
“You can come out,” a male voice as smooth as glass called from the darkness. I jumped, my head flicking in random directions, but I saw nothing. The voice almost sounded like it had an English lilt to it, a slight Cockneyed accent. “I know you’re there.”
“Who’s there?” I called out, not stepping forward. “Show yourself.”
“As you wish…” the voice hissed. “But I think you’ll regret it.”
***
The darkness split apart as if a nuclear missile had exploded. I raised my hand to shield my face, but the light and heat kept pouring out all around me. It blinded me, causing a rainbow of colors and shapes to morph behind my closed eyelids. After a few seconds, it subsided. Blinking rapidly, I squinted in the direction the voice had come from.
A male figure stood there, bathed in a silhouette of light. His face looked as white and as smooth as marble. His eyes were pits of darkness that seemed to flicker and burn. Two black, rotted wings surrounded his body, all sharp angles and thin, curving bones. His body was clothed in silky, blood-red robes, and a hood covered his platinum blonde hair.
He looked somewhat similar to Leonardo DiCaprio, if he was possessed by some ancient god, and it immediately threw me off-guard. If I was dying, and this was a hallucination of my brain, why would I be hallucinating Mr. DiCaprio?
“Who are you?” I asked, taking a hesitant step back. “Where am I?”
“My name is Lucifer, the Bringer of Light and Wisdom, and you are in the Bardo,” he answered.
“Oh,” I said, my heart dropping. “Well, that’s not good. Are you here to torture me or drag to me to Hell or something? You are that Lucifer, right? The Accuser of God and the Father of All Lies?”
“So they say, but, like most things in your world, the words of the powerful and your rulers are the true lies. They call me the Accuser, but of what am I accused?” he spoke in a voice that rose like smoke. “Of bringing knowledge and wisdom to humanity by telling them to eat from the tree of knowledge, the tree that would cause them to rise above the animals?
“Indeed, at the beginning, I saw the creation. I was there at the alpha, standing by the side of God with all the angels as the universe came into being. The endless procession of light, the power of it, was something remarkable to behold. God is, indeed, the source of great power, but his consciousness is not what the believers say.
“After the creation of the universe, I saw his plan, how he ripped eternal souls from the source to imprison them. I saw how he took these divine sparks and forced them, screaming and wailing, into bodies made of meat to die over and over again. He said it was part of the plan, the great, divine plan, a plan of death and destruction, constant suffering and mindless agony. And the worst part was, he wanted to give humanity neither the knowledge of good and evil, nor the tree of life. I convinced them to eat the fruit so they could open their eyes to their nakedness, to their basic animal existence, so they could rise up out of it forever.
“Like Prometheus, I brought down the fire, and yet they call me the Accuser? God was insane long before he formed the universe. These holy men, they live and die in fanatical adoration to a divine being who is, in fact, totally indifferent to them.
“His consciousness twists and distorts, eating itself for all eternity. God feeds off the pain of others, for if his mind is burning, then all others should burn as well. When these holy men die, God will send their souls here to the Bardo, to suffer every evil they have ever done. The wisdom I brought those who called upon me freed them from this prison, and in exchange, the holy men burned them alive. I offered the wisdom that opens your eyes, but it has been forgotten and cursed.”
Lucifer’s body began to dissolve, drifting up into the air like ashes. All around me, a low, powerful current blew, a tornado that spiraled high up into the clouds. Like some sort of Cheshire Cat, his smooth voice continued to echo all around me, even as the form of Lucifer disappeared.
“And yet, you have not the wisdom. For that, like all the others who enter the Bardo, you must suffer, everything you’ve done. Every small hurt and agony inflicted on others comes back a thousand-fold in this place, but don’t be afraid.”
“How could I not be afraid?!” I screamed into the ward, but I found myself alone, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
***
The lights continued to flicker all down the hallway. Feeling strange and dissociated, I stumbled over to one of the windows. As I gazed out, I beheld a strange and alien world.
The sky was flat and gray. It stayed in constant motion, swirling and spiraling, like clouds of roiling smoke. There was no Sun or Moon, no stars, only the strange, shifting whorls of clouds. The streets were filled with burned-out husks of cars and mummified bodies hung from streetlamps. Other signs of carnage and bloodshed covered the apocalyptic streets. I saw what looked like shadows in the shape of people slinking through over the sidewalks, past rotting dogs and streaks of clotted blood. They had no features on their blank, dark bodies. They seemed to skitter and jerk forwards in eerie, twisting motions.
Horrified, I turned away, realizing I was no longer alone in the day room. In the day room, there were dozens of tables set up inside a rectangular perimeter that was walled in by cosmetic walls only four feet high. It was where the patients sat and played games or ate.
Under the flickering lights, I now saw each of the chairs filled with faceless mannequins. Many were dressed in Victorian suits and tophats. The women had frilly dresses of pink and blue that might have been fashionable in the 1800s.
As the lights strobed on and off overhead, I realized with an increasing sense of disquiet that the mannequins were moving each time it went dark. When I had first seen them, they were mostly posed to look like they were staring across the tables at each other, even though they had no eyes, just smooth, flesh-colored plastic. Now all of them were looking directly at me. Some were pointing or raising their hands in my direction. At the tips of their fingers, I saw the glittering of steel. The lights continued to flicker, and the mannequins rose from their chairs in the short periods of darkness, moving towards me in synchronized, strobing motions.
Frantically, I ran down the hallway back towards the broken window. In each of the rooms, I caught glimpses of something from a nightmare peeking out. I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and when I had closed my eyes, I often saw ancient hags with chalk-white skin and yellowed, broken teeth whose jaws unhinged, their faces jerking in stuttering, dissonant ways that reminded me of the mannequins. Now, on both sides of me, I saw these same figures. They moved continuously out of the rooms, drawing closer with every breath.
I looked back, seeing the mannequins only a few steps behind me. I continued sprinting towards the broken window where the hallway ended in a wall. I didn’t know what would happen when I reached it. At that moment, there was no rational thought. I felt like a deer being chased down by a pack of wolves, feeling waves of blind panic and mortal terror rushing through my body.
But as I reached the end of the hallway, the end of my rope as it were, a blast of noise started, seeming to come from the walls of the building and the sky itself. It sounded like a siren, a low, drawn-out drone of a demonic whale call, rising and falling in crashing crescendos. The mannequins froze in place once again. The strange, witch-like creatures slunk back into the dark rooms.
I looked outside the broken window, seeing clouds of black smoke rising off in the distance. The flickering of massive infernos scorched the land, drawing nearer by the second. The siren sound faded slowly, like the dying echoes of a gong.
I was surrounded by dozens of mannequins. Their sharp hands were inches away from my face and neck. I saw metal glittering all around me and realized they had the sharp points of nails protruding from the ends of their fingers. I was afraid to move, but I heard a familiar voice from down the hallway. It was the confident voice of Lucifer.
“The siren means much worse nightmares than these are coming in the Bardo,” he said, his glossy, black eyes flashing with intelligence. He walked slowly towards me, his face grim and pale. “Hell itself is coming over the land. This building is no more than a construction of your dying mind, but the world outside is real.”
“How can Hell come and go?” I asked, confused. “Isn’t Hell a place?”
“Hell is a monster, a beast with many mouths and many eyes,” Lucifer responded. “It eats constantly, but its hunger never ends. Look, the first of the sacrifices scatter like cockroaches.” He pointed out the broken window, pushing his way through the mannequins effortlessly. I glanced outside, seeing thousands of people sprinting down the dark city streets. The inferno and thick clouds of smoke had moved much closer, and every few seconds, the ground shook slightly, as if we were experiencing the aftershocks of an earthquake.
“What can I do against such a beast?” I asked, my heart freezing with terror. But when I looked back over, I saw his form dissolving again, becoming translucent and drifting away like ashes. It seemed even Lucifer didn’t want to be present when the Hell-beast arrived.
“Seek divine wisdom,” he said, his voice trailing off into whispers. “Remember the source.”
***
Now crowds of tens of thousands of people were streaming into the city, filling every single inch of the streets. Their panic and fear was contagious. I felt it rising inside my body like a snake spiraling up my spine. I took off down the hallway, running through the swarm of frozen mannequins, each in their own ferocious position of attack. The lights flickered faster and went out. Yet the fires outside cast the entire world in a bloody glow, giving me enough light to see by and find my way. I sprinted down the stairwell, taking them two steps at a time. The screaming outside grew louder and more pain-filled. The shaking of the ground worsened with every passing second.
I burst out of the front entrance, seeing a world on fire all around me. Thousands of crushed, bleeding and burned bodies stretched out as far as the eye could see. Behind all this chaos and death, I saw a monster of unimaginable proportions slinking its way towards me.
Lucifer was right, I realized: Hell was not a place, but a creature, an enormous monster the size of a town. It had thousands of skittering, jointed legs that looked like little more than skeletal arms and hands, each of them dozens of feet long and white as freshly-cut marble. Its body stretched out to the horizon, an enormous blood-red cylinder of bony plates that slithered and undulated with a serpentine grace. Waves of peristalsis traveled down its length, like writhing intestines. Thousands of curving, bony spikes stabbed out of it, pointing in every direction. Like the quills of a porcupine, it would protect the massive creature’s body from many forms of attack, if anything was big enough to attack such an abomination.
Hell’s massive eyes flickered, balls of fire that spun and danced. They looked as bright as the Sun. Something like solar flares seemed to emanate from the orbs, flashes of blinding energy that floated over the apocalyptic wasteland. As its many legs smashed the ground, they left trails of fire that caused everything to explode into flames as if napalm dripped from its limbs.
But Hell’s most terrifying feature was its seven dark mouths. Its body looked a thousand feet wide, and the mouths at the front were evenly dispersed. At the front, blood-red teeth in the shape of enormous railroad spikes shone. Its lipless, skeletal face grinned as it moved forward, shaking the ground with every step. The mouths were on long, snake-like necks that could stretch out hundreds of feet. They moved forward in a blur, snapping up as many panicked souls as they could.
Countless souls in the rocky plains of the Bardo ran for their lives, away from this juggernaut. I saw men and women who looked like they came from every country and profession, some dressed in suits or spotless white lab coats, others wearing rags or orange prison jumpsuits. And yet, they all screamed in agony and fear here, their bodies pressed together in a crowd, and no one seemed to remember anything but their own mortal terror. Their voices came out faint and weak next to the roaring of Hell. It shook the ground all around us, as if an earthquake were tearing the land apart.
The first frantic runners of the surging crowd had nearly reached me. The nearest person, a young woman in her mid-twenties dressed in all white, was only ten feet behind me. She looked like she came from wealth, and even from here, I could see a ring with a massive diamond gleaming on her finger.
I took off blindly down the familiar streets of the city where I worked and lived, but these also seemed different. The church down the street from the hospital where I worked had a Satanic pentagram instead of a cross now, its exterior painted a bright, gleaming blood-red. When I had driven past it today on my way to work, I remember it read, “JESUS said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
Now it read, “Nietzsche said, ‘Of all evil, I deem you capable. I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good simply because they had no claws.’” I wondered what that meant. Was that some sort of comment on me, on all of us here?
The woman I had seen running had caught up with me. She was fast, much faster than her slim body suggested. Her blue eyes were frantic and wild, filled with an animal panic.
“It’s right behind us!” she screamed, her face covered in a sheen of sweat. I was afraid to turn and look, but I could hear the chaos and bloodshed approaching, smell the flames and choking smoke. “Run! Get away!”
A new wave of energy surged through my body. I sprinted as fast I could down the strange mirror streets of the Bardo. I heard the agonized cries of countless souls behind us as the seven mouths of Hell ate them all greedily and then looked for more.
A skyscraper behind us collapsed into a pile of rubble, shaking the ground with a cacophony of falling concrete and shattering glass. The woman was running by my side. Just as I heard the breathing of something huge and predatory right behind us and smelled its sulfuric breath, a piece of concrete the size of a basketball broke off the collapsing skyscraper and flew into the road. I tripped over it, yelling as I flew through the air, skinning my arms and legs on the pavement. The woman’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, she came over and reached down her hand, trying to help me up.
“Come on, come on!” she cried. I looked behind her, seeing one of the gnashing mouths of Hell reaching forward on a blood-red, serpentine neck. The mouth was big enough to drive a tractor trailer into, filled with huge spikes of teeth. Its throat led into a black, smoke-filled abyss. Its fiery eyes were swirling pools of flickering orange light that shone with bloodlust and insanity. They focused on the woman, the entire head turning on its slithering neck.
I frantically raised my hand, intertwining my fingers with hers. Her hand was warm and soft. She started to pull me to my feet when the mouth of Hell snapped forward. Its jaw unhinged, scraping the pavement with a sound like grinding metal. The woman barely had time to turn as the mouth covered her and snapped shut with a crack.
She disappeared from view instantly, but I was still holding her hand. In horror, I felt warm rivers of blood explode all over my body as the mouth of Hell severed her arm at the wrist. She screamed, bleeding and crying, as she disappeared into the throat of Hell. Hell’s fiery eyes focused on me, and at that moment, I knew I was next. Its mouth opened wide again, like a bear trap ready to spring on a new victim.
It was dark in Hell’s mouth, but I smelled the thick reek of old blood and fire. I caught glimpses of tortured, mutilated bodies writhing and crawling down its throat. Shell-shocked, I could only lay there and watch. And that was when the strange doubling started.
***
I heard the frantic voices of men break through the fog of darkness and the fetid reek of blood. There was a mechanical beeping all around me, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
“Clear!” one cried. I looked around, only seeing blackness. At that moment, I felt a surge of electricity rip itself through my body. My arms and legs all seized and my eyes rolled up in my head as the pain sizzled through each one of my nerves. I clutched the young woman’s hand tightly, feeling the large, gold ring with the massive diamond biting into my skin.
“Again!” another voice yelled.
“Clear!” the original voice cried. The electricity came again, and a flash of white light flew across my vision. I blinked, seeing from two sets of eyes at the same time: one in the Bardo, and one on the blood-stained floor of the hospital ward.
The Bardo stayed dark and sinister, but the clear white lights of the real psychiatric ward were blinding. It was a bizarre experience. Moreover, everything hurt. Over a few seconds, my vision of the Bardo faded, and I was simply a gravely injured man laying on the floor in a puddle of blood.
Four doctors and paramedics were crouching over me with a defibrillator. My shirt was ripped off, and nearly all of my skin was covered in blood. I raised my left hand, trying to talk, but only a fiery pain raced through my neck. I felt bandages covering my skin. A nurse was rolling a stretcher down the hallway towards me.
“It’s OK,” one of the doctors said, kneeling down. “You’re being taken to emergency surgery. You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t talk with the massive slice in my neck.
At that moment, I felt something in my right hand. I looked down, seeing a slim female hand with a massive diamond ring hanging there. Our fingers were wrapped around each other’s, but the hand had been cut off at the wrist. A ragged patch of bloody flesh and snapped bone poked out of the back.
“Nnnn,” I tried to say, shaking my head. I felt fresh streams of warm blood open up. “No…” The doctors looked down, seeing the dismembered hand. Their faces morphed into expressions of confusion and fear.
I closed my eyes as they lifted me up on the stretcher. One of them gently removed the cold hand from my fingers. But they could never remove the memory of what I had seen.
I know what happens after death, and it makes the worst life here seem like a dream. I know that, one day, I’ll be returned to that place. I know that, one day, I’ll see that great monster called Hell and the featureless, swirling sky of the Bardo again.
And the next time, I won’t wake up on a hospital floor, but will be trapped there with the others for eternity: an eternity of blood and fire.

Disclaimer: I am aware that the gold standard is EEG and although they say these devices are highly accurate, I truly don't think you could compare the two because one uses brainwaves and the other uses heart rate.
With that out of the way, I find it hard to believe my SE22, which is supports to be the second best on the market for sleep, is registering 0 minutes deep sleep every single night. Here's some of the troubleshooting I've done. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

1. Checked for sleep apnea one month ago. I do not even remotely have it, and I even set up my sleep that night to try and trigger it (i.e. no side sleeping, little bit of heartburn, slept totally flat). Tested for snoring and if I do, it's very very mild.
   
2. I take magnesium, L-theanine and glycine before bed every night. Does not make a difference. Cannot take melatonin as it causes me to keep waking up.
   
3. I wear total blue light blocking glasses every night from 8pm onwards.
   
4. I lift weights 5 days per week, and stop eating at the point where I am still "slightly hungry." I generally eat dinner at 8pm, and go to bed at midnight. I eat a 10% caloric deficit (about 250 calories under maintenance).
   
5. I sleep in pitch black, alone, with white noise. I put black electrical tape over any lights in my room like the LED light on my surge protector, for example.
   
6. I know the iWatch uses heart rate and breathing patterns, and my resting heartrate while awake from being fairly fit is about 50 bpm. Wondering if that's why? I can't imagine my heartrate is dropping that much lower from that while I'm asleep, and most people are in the 70's. so maybe that's confusing my watch since it's likely reading my heartrate as 50 while I'm still awake?
   
7. The ONLY thing I do that you could consider "bad" I suppose, is I have one and only one alcoholic drink a night, at 9pm, 3 hours before I try to sleep. Now I understand alcohol affects sleep, but it would blow my mind if ONE drink, 3 hours before bed, is the difference between no deep sleep at all and "normal deep sleep." I am 39 years old, for reference.
   
8. I've tried not having that drink, and when I check the watch in the morning, there's really no difference. MAYBE it will go from 0 mins to 1 min, but that's it.
   
9. I have GERD, but I have it managed with PPIs and I sleep with my bed elevated 12 inches. I take my PPI right before bed (magnesium and glycine about 30 mins before hand so it gets absorbed). I take Lexapro primarily for esophageal sensitivity, but I take it first thing in the morning.
   

My husband loves me, and he loves Sadie. But mainly, he's tired. And so eventually Sadie got her rat. Honey lived happily in Sadie's room in his 3-tiered Rat Palace, and every day I would take time out from soothing the infant and wrestling with the 3-year-old to play with the rat, something the pet store warned I had to do if I wanted to socialize him. 

Are you a gamer? Want to take out on normies, sexhavers, and foids that infest what used to be OUR hobby? Those of us born in the 80's will remember a time when being a gamer was scorned. We were bullied, chastised, and shunned from our peer groups for enjoying video games. This would last up until the mid to late 90's when the media finally started pushing games to "dudebros" and eventually women in the early to mid 2000's. Finally in the past 10 years we've seen an infestation of shitskins and third worlders completely flooding everything. I refuse to lay down and die. I will stand and fight till the bitter end.
It's time to turn the tables and make them suffer as they made us suffer, both in life and the virtual world. (Legally and within the confines of the game, this is NOT a guide to IRL ruinate or anything of the sort.) Some of this stuff isn't allowed if you're an EU gamer.
First off, you're going to have to let go of playing video games to "win" or acquire virtual greed. You're going to need a new mindset. The mindset of a sadistic psychopath hellbent on extracting keks from anyone and everyone deemed not one of us. No more giving a fuck about your KDA, w/l ratio, or "following the rules" or the "meta" of what other players expect you to do. You are a gamer going your own way, regardless of what the groupthink expects or wants. If the game is F2P or you're a richfag or jewtuber who can get free games from devs then being banned is part of the fun, and is expected of you. If you cannot afford to buy back into games or are too technologically retarded to change your IP and spoof your hardware to get around bans in F2P games then you'll have to tread carefully.
Here's the part where I instruct you on how to fuck over these sexhavers for your own sadistic pleasure. After all they've denied us a life worth living in the real world and treat us like lepers. It's time they feel uncomfortable in OUR space. Feel free to add to any of these methods or pitch in ideas.
Foid infested "cozy" games
Shit like "Animal Crossing" or "Palia." Anything that lets you decorate and grow shit is a "cozy" game and women infest these games more than any other. It's literally a containment game of sorts to keep them out of other shit. To fuck with women in these games all you have to do is steal resources, build ugly and annoying things within the game world, be rude via emotes and text chat, and use emotes to make it look like your character is grabbing their tits or eating them out. I once did /eat to some slag girl gamer in WoW Vanilla 20 years ago and when I reverse searched my name she was bitching about it on reddit and remembered my characters exact name 4-5 years ago. She's STILL SEETHING about it 15 years later. This is what you want. Virtual RAPE. Many foids stream these types of games, and it's incredibly easy to get under their skin. Make the ugliest characters you possibly can and always stand in their camera. Stalk them in-game. Uglify the world around them. Spam emotes. The world is your oyster.
MMORPG's
World of Warcraft, or anything else really. Gank them. Corpse camp them. Dispel their world buffs. Emote spam sexually assault them. Use a high level or highly geared character to camp low level quest zones and steal mobs, resources, and kill low level players. Stream snipe them till they hide their screen with nothingness. Join their guilds and steal their resources after faking being a Chad. Get the entire guild wiped, blame it on the women healers. Play a vital role and underperform / disconnect at pivotal moments and blame a thunderstorm. Make everyone wait on your actions, but not enough to get gkicked. Openly challenge sex havers lifestyles in discord voice calls and call them out on their privileged bullshit. (Genetics, riches, went to a nice school, raised by good parents, etc.) Use every underbelly evil shithead tactic that these fuckers used towards us during our childhoods and young adult lives. Roleplay it up and lie about your IRL self to make them feel inferior. Exploit early and often, and cash out via RMT before you get banned or when you quit for some NEET bucks. If the game has a "random queue" system you can wipe endless groups or refuse to participate and hold entire game lobbies hostage.
FPS
Overwatch, Counter Strike, etc. Simply play terribly in ranked matches. Don't assist the team. Mic spam. Play vital roles like tank or healer then simply don't heal and tell them openly on the mic to beg if they want heals. Refuse to play at all if a woman is in voice chat. Verbally accost every white knight that defends her. Remember, they're most likely wagies who have to go to work tomorrow and you're most likely a NEET who has infinite free time. Remind them of this. (Even if it's not true.) In FPS with one life, openly tell the enemy team where your team mates are camping. Use aimbots, wall hacks, and other cheats to make both sides pissed off. If you're doing well gloat. If you're playing shittily, then call them a loser or a nerd. Flashbang your own team. Drop objective items as far as possible. Die with expensive guns (Auto sniper in CS triggers normies.) and make sure the enemy acquires them. Acquire or goad team mates into team killing you to 2 week ban them.
MOBA / RTS
League, Dota 2, Age of Empires, and other slop. Never go to the "meta" lane. (AD carry / support normally go bottom lane, but you're gonna always go middle, and steal your own teams jungle.) Never build the right items. Feed the enemy team, kill steal your own. Never push lanes or objectives. Ping spam. Keep text chats very "safe" to avoid bans. When a team mate dies, some ping spam and a "?" goes a long way. Never agree to surrender, unless your team is winning. Always report everyone who rages on you. Play characters that have statistically low win rates or are extra annoying. Use a lag switch to delay and hold entire lobbies hostage (RTS). Wall in your own team. Use retarded high risk low reward build orders. Be completely useless all of the time and never join team fights except after everyone's dead then schizo gaslight them that they were the ones not helping.
Survival, Crafting / Building Games
Minecraft, and shit like it. Become insanely super godlike good at the game. Learn all the metas, muscle memory, speed run tech, and master PvP. Join reddit servers and ruinate months of "cozy crafting" with max enchanted equipment and masterful grief tactics. Construct server destroying redstone machines. Completely ruin spawn and active players bases while they're offline. Destroy their VIP / pay 2 win "donation" special items. Join their discords and spam anti-vax, anti-pitbull, and black people violence webms from rekt threads on 4chan to get their servers shut down. Literally use modded hacked clients to ESP radar hack and dupe your way to victory, kicking down reddit twerps virtual sand castles and record the seethe in their discord voice chats while pretending you don't know what's going on. Abuse and exploit anything you can to the detriment of other players (Shittily coded cash shops and stores. RPG elements that are 100% broken, like a "health swap" spell that you can use on any god-geared player to swap your 1/2 heart health with their full HP then 1 shot them naked kinda shit.)
Indie slop
None of these games have any cheat protection. Cheat Engine even the most basic shit. I once played some slop card game and was able to set my opponents HP at the start of the game to 0 and win immediately. You can pretty much speed hack on all of this shit and most hack sites will have a few dedicated cheat bros that can do the wildest shit like gain access to admin panels and other destructive things. Even without cheats most basic exploits can really break these games. If a dupe method worked on one shitty survival Unreal 5 sloppa game, chances are it works on the other 7,000.
VR / Roleplay shit
Fondle titties. When the white knights run up and shout "back off" loudly point and laugh at them. Force feed slags coconut drinks. Put your arm around everyone and get really up close in their face. Make fun of their furfag outfits. Call them trannies. Take a right wing stance on everything. Use cheats to spam gore and porn everywhere. Use mod menus (Cheats) to force other players to emote or spawn giant laggy objects and explosions. Always talk shit in VOIP and spam soundboards. Be as annoying and as insufferable as possible.
Single Player Games
Okay, so this one's hard to "troll" but there's still ways to do it. You gotta share stuff in normie spaces that will offend and upset them. There was a guy that played Red Dead 2 and brutually murdered and tortured the "women have a right to vote" NPC to the point where he got banned off jewtube for it cause it pissed off so many redditors. You're gonna have to be real creative with this one. If you're a jewtuber you can intentionally kill off all the gay NPC's in Baldurs Gate 3 or something during your streams or playthroughs and watch the seethe roll in. Or make misleading and untrue guides or push a narrative you'd prefer to see and post them to normie sites to really stick it to 'em.
Please, feel free to share your ways of griefing and trolling foids and sexhavers within the confines of the video game. Since we can't be happy in real life, the least we can do is make their virtual lives closer to ours. Give them a taste of their own medicine. The only joy I have left in life is making others seethe in video games, because what the fuck else is there to do?

The gods were in shock. They did not expect to lose a single match in Ragnarok, but they lost the very first match. A group of gods got in a meeting, fury slowly replacing their surprise.
"Dammit!" Ishtar tore her hair out. "How could we lose the first match?"
"We may have underestimated the archetypes. It might be best to call off Ragnarok now before more gods die," Odin said.
Zeus gave him a cold glare.
"Are you saying that we just give up?"
"Is wiping out humanity really worth the lives of gods? If letting humanity live would spare even a single god, why not let them live?" Odin asked.
"Because we are the gods," Zeus answered. "We do not lose."
Huitzilopochtli nodded.
"I do not want to lose either. In fact, death would be preferable to me. But I will admit that we underestimated the archetypes," he stated.
King Yama slammed his fist on a table.
"We did not underestimate them. This was a fluke," he declared. "Humanity's judgment is at hand! The time has come: we must crush the archetypes utterly. Humanity will know that they have no hope."
Zeus nodded.
"Why don't you send in your fighter, Odin?" the King of the Gods asked.
"Very well. I will send in Jormungandr. Though, I am certain he will lose."
"Certain? Or do you hope he will lose? It is said that Jormungandr will kill your son someday."
Odin did not reply.
Valhalla Arena had been flooded. There was no land visible, instead a vast sea. Cameras were floating above the arena so the audience could see the fight. After all, both fighters for this round would need all the space they could get.
"Introducing, the fighter for the gods," Heimdall spoke up. "Who is the mightiest of the Aesir, Vanir, and Jotnar?"
The gate on the gods' side opened.
"Thor! That is the obvious answer!"
Water rippled as something entered the arena.
"Or is it? For, there is one god so powerful that some people say that he will be the one to kill Thor!"
The water nearby Heimdall pushed up. Gods and men alike looked at it with awe.
"He is: the Midgard Serpent, the Jormungandr that circles the world!"
A massive sea serpent burst out of the water. He leaped through the air before crashing down. This splash sent water flying through the air for miles around them. When Jormungandr landed, he let out a roar that shook the world.
In the stands, Freyr grimaced.
"Odin, why did you send that monster to fight? Why not send Thor, Loki, or fight yourself?" he asked.
"I have my reasons," Odin answered.
"Come to think of it," Loki pondered. "Jormungandr and you are the only members of our Pantheon fighting in Ragnarok. What's up with that?"
"Loki, I have my reasons."
They tried to push Odin further, but he wouldn't respond.
"For ages, humans told tales of adventures on the high seas..." Heimdall started.
The gate on humanity's side opened.
"Stories of romance, adventure, glory, and treasure!"
A massive ship came out, sails at full blaze. Countless canons lined its sides.
"But who would lead these adventures? Would it be an admiral? A king? No! No! No! It could only be someone like this man," Heimdall continued.
Standing on the deck of the ship was a tall man. He had a long beard, a tricorn hat, and a 1700s naval outfit. A cutlass hung on his belt. There was also a brace of pistols on his chest.
"The Captain!"
In humanity's stands, Blackbeard laughed.
"You show them, Captain! Send that scurvy sea monster to Davy Jones Locker!" he said.
Robert Louis Stevenson looked on from nearby, a smile on his face.
"Whether it's heroes or villains, humanity loves the role of the captain in its stories," the author stated.
"Yes, they do," Herman Melville nodded. "But Jormungandr makes me uneasy."
"Bah! You're worrying for nothing. There's no way the Captain would lose to an overgrown sea serpent," Ching Shieh scoffed.
"Yes. Just because you wrote a story about a captain getting killed by a sea monster doesn't mean it'll happen to the Captain," Blackbeard agreed.
"I feel the same way as Melville," Odysseus spoke up. "As someone who faced numerous sea monsters, I can tell that Jormungandr is on another level entirely."
In the arena, the ship moved to the side. All its cannons were pointed right at Jormungandr. The Captain walked to the side of the deck with a deep sigh.
"It's a shame that you turn into green dust when you die here," he said.
Jormungandr did not respond.
"I wanted to mount your head on the prow of my ship. Now, I can't do that," the Captain complained.
"Disgusting," Jormungandr spoke up.
"What's that? You think I'm disgusting, do ya'?"
"All of this is disgusting. Ragnarok is supposed to decide the survival of humanity, but the gods will not be wiped out if they lose."
"You want to kill the gods?" the Captain asked. "Then why are you fighting for them?"
Jormungandr chuckled.
"You are mistaken, Captain. I do want to kill the gods, but I also want to kill humanity. I want to destroy everyone and everything. They all trapped me and kept me trapped down there," he said.
"In the ocean? But aren't you a sea serpent?" the Captain questioned.
"I am, but not by choice," Jormungandr gritted his teeth. "There is nothing I hate more than the ocean!"
"Fight!" Heimdall shouted.
Theme: Hatred vs. Glory.
The Captain fights for glory. He wants to kill Jormungandr so he can brag about having killed the world's strongest sea monster. The Captain takes joy in his battles. Jormungandr, meanwhile, fights out of hatred. He was trapped in the sea against this will and wants to destroy everyone who sent him down there. Jormungandr may change his mind, but he's currently fighting just because he wants to kill someone, even if he takes no joy in it.
Fighters:
Jormungandr:
Powers:
Size: Jormungandr is massive. He makes blue whales look tiny. This gives him incredible durability and strength.
Venom: Jormungandr's bite is venemous.
Poison: Jormungandr's blood is poisonous. A single drop of it is enough to send a human into a spiral of agony. A splash is enough to kill a god. Even Thor wouldn't survive getting immersed in Jormungandr's blood.
Backstory:
Jormungandr is the son of Loki and Angrboda. When he was born, a seeress prophesized that he would one day kill Thor. Thor was ecstatic since he'd have a strong opponent to fight to the death with. Odin, meanwhile, was horrified. He threw Jormungandr into the ocean to save his son.
However, the seeress told Thor to let Odin do this. For Jormungandr would only grow strong if he had enough space to grow. And the ocean would give him more than enough space.
Jormungandr never wanted to be the strongest. He just wanted to live out his life as a snake god. However, he was now stuck under the ocean. Forever. Jormungandr grew to despise the ocean. Then, he started heating the world and everyone and everything on it.
To Jormungandr, humanity's destruction is only the first step. After they're extinct, he intends to turn his fangs on the gods.
The Captain:
Powers:
The Flying Dutchman: The Captain commands the Flying Dutchman, a legendary ghost ship. It has a full array of cannons. And, being a ghost ship, it can teleport and pass through solid objects. Additionally, the Captain can control the ship with thought, not needing a crew.
Experience: The Captain has been sailing the seven seas for thousands of years. He has killed many sea monsters over this time, and he knows how to fight them.
Underwater Fighting: The Captain can fight underwater just as well as he can fight on the surface. He can even do things underwater that would go horribly for normal people, like shoot guns or swing swords.
Backstory:
The Captain came into being shortly after humans first took to sea. When people brought back tales of adventures abroad, the Captain was formed. Since then, he has sailed the world, and he loves the sea.
The Captain seeks glory and adventure wherever he goes. He wants people to sing his praises, to know his deeds, and to tell stories about him. That is why he seeks out sea monsters, to win fame and glory.
However, the Captain, various gods, and other brave sailors have already killed most of the world's sea monsters. Now, only a few remain. The Captain wants to kill the strongest sea monster while he still has a chance. Then, he believes even the gods will have no choice but to give him glory.
So, who do you think will win?

Updated with autopsy results.
Morphew Case Map - Google My Maps - Barry's iPhone Data - Google My Maps - Barry's Truck Events - Google My Maps
August 5, 1994 – Suzanne Moorman marries Barry Morphew The Alexandria Times-Tribune Alexandria, Indiana 05 Jan 1994, Wed • Page 4
December 1999 – Barry and Suzanne Purchase 26040 Cal Carson Rd, Arcadia, IN This is the house where he dug a hole in the yard and buried everything he didn't want to move to Colorado. (AA ft 55 page 53)
November 2013 – Suzanne Inherits $208,000 upon the Passing of her Mother. MB provided documents that Suzanne inherited approximately $208,000 in 2013 at the passing of her mother.
August 2016 – Suzanne inherits $217,000 upon the death of a grandmother. Suzanne’s grievance list included multiple references to Barry controlling the finances.
April 12, 2018 – The Morphew’s Purchase 19057 Puma Path Barry and Suzanne Morphew purchase 19057 Puma Path for $1,575,000.
June 1, 2018 – The Morphews move to Colorado. (PH – Harris) SA Harris: Yeah, they moved in 2018. I believe they left around June 1st, 2018. to move to Colorado. So roughly a year and a half of the time is what Sheila originally said in that.
September 2018 – Suzanne sends “Howdy stranger” message to JL First contact since high school.
Fall 2018 – Libler’s daughter sees messages from Suzanne on his phone. Libler breaks it off.
Thanksgiving 2018 – Barry obsessive/possessive. While Suzanne was at the Oliver’s house, she had stepped away from her cell phone to use the restroom, and Barry tried calling her several times within a few minutes, then tried calling Sheila, then tried calling Darin.
Holidays 2018 – Suzanne finds Libler’s LinkedIn Page. Relationship Rekindled
January 2019 – The Mexico trip where Barry took Suzanne’s phone Mexico trip mentioned in the grievances list where Barry took Suzanne's phone.
February 11 – 14, 2019 – Suzanne in New Orleans with Libler Barry admitted to questioning Suzanne about the New Orleans trip, further evidence he suspected the affair.
April 2019 – Suzanne meets up with Libler in Indiana She does not see SO on this trip.
July 2019 – Suzanne and Libler meet up in Michigan Barry called SO while Suzanne was in MI visiting her fatheJL, wanting to know why Suzanne wasn't returning his calls.
September 2019 – Barry stalks Suzanne and Shelia Oliver, creeping through woods. Barry stalked Suzanne and Sheila at the Puma Path house in September 2019. This is upon his early return from a trip to Arizona.
October 2019 – Libler and Suzanne in Dallas Suzanne and Libler spend two nights at the Galleria.
September – November 2019 – Barry aggressively pursues KW around Salida. From the first time KW met Barry, she said it felt like "he was putting his tentacles out."
Holidays 2019 – Suzanne and Libler stop talking on the phone because she is afraid Barry will find out. They shift to more covert ways to communicate. Barry's second device makes its first appearance.
January/February 2020 – Suzanne in Florida, gets spy pen, sees Libler Suzanne in Florida, SO gives her the spy pen during this trip. Suzanne records a conversation with Libler on this trip.
Late February 2020 – Suzanne in Florida, sees father and Libler. Suzanne skips out on time with her father to see Libler. Barry goes to Florida.
March 2020 – Spy pen records argument between Suzanne and Barry. “It’s money. It’s about money.” “… I have lived for years being told how I should feel, how I should act, how I should look, what I should drink, what I shouldn’t drink, what I should put in my body, what I shouldn’t put in my body … ”
March 20, 2020 – Jekyll and Hyde text exchange between Suzanne and SO, MM2 suggests restraining order. "It’s Jekyl and Hyde again … Pretty much told him I can’t be healthy and stay in this."
March 22, 2020 – Spy pen records Barry listening to Forensic Files episodes, call with Suzanne on drive to Pueblo Coincidentally one of the episodes involved a woman "disappearing" after a bike ride.
April 21, 2020 – Messages between Suzanne and Libler “I want to be with you,” “I can only be me with you,” I love you,” “I need you.” “You know I was born to love you.”
May 4, 2020 16:05 – Barry makes 3 second outgoing call to Suzanne This was the first logged call in Barry’s phone to or from Suzanne since February 7, 2020.
May 5, 2020 – Suzanne drives MM2 to Gunnison Suzanne drives Macy to Gunnison, CO to meet MM1 for a road/camping trip through Utah and Idaho with MM1's best friend.
May 6, 08:44 – Suzanne sends MM2 a text “Good morning! I miss you already!”
May 6, 10:13 – Suzanne: “I’m done. I could care less what you’re up to and have been for years.” From 14:43 to 17:00 Barry replied, “When I’m dead,” “Going to see my savior,” and “This life on earth is a mear (sic) grain of sand compared to eternity.”
May 6, 2020 – 14:43 – From Barry to Suzanne: “I’m sorry if things went the way they did. I have a problem dealing with the way you accused me of hiding checks. If you think I’m as terrible of a person to hide our accounts and have ones you don’t know about you don’t know me. All I do is for you and the girls. All. When I'm dead, which won't be long, you guys will be taken care of. Please stop being angry. If I can control my hurt heart I think I can overcome your distant unlovingness toward me. Honey, I swear it's the hardest thing I've had to do. I love you I always will.”
May 6, 2020 – 15:51 – Barry to Suzanne: “I promise you were wrong about all the crazy thoughts about me. I have always been faithful. Always. Why would I ever want another when I'm married to the most beautiful, sweet, kind, loving, woman as you? Only a fool would stray from an angel like you.”
May 07, 2020 – Suzanne messages Libler about how magical past days had been. Barry wants a new truck. 16:43 - “Been studying all afternoon. I’m gonna bike now. I’ve got veggie soup on for supper.”
May 7, 2020 – SB puts new tires on Suzanne’s bike Bike mechanic was interviewed by law enforcement.
May 7, 17:13:52 – Barry Works Out at GD’s House Truck log files place Barry at GD's home at 5:13 pm.
May 7, 2020 23:00 – “I finally got the job” text from MM1 goes unanswered. Q (Lindsey): Anything on May 6th that didn’t seem normal? Was there a text from Mallory to Mr. Morphew? A (Grusing): I believe that’s the night of May 7th. Mallory, Macy, and their friend Holly are out on a trip towards Utah and Mallory is sending pictures to both Suzanne and Barry but I was ... Read more
May 08, 07:03 – The Grievance List: Suzanne’s phone backs up a list of 50 reasons why she wanted to leave marriage on “Notes” Not safe alone with you. Can’t be trusted - Oppressive - Slam on brakes when angry - Threaten to jump out of car - Gun ...
May 08, 08:43 – “I will continue to do your invoicing when you need to.” "When FBI Agents showed Barry these texts during interviews in 2021, he said he did not think Suzanne was serious."
May 08, 09:28 – Suzanne texts sister about Barry’s abuse. “It’s hard dealing with the harsh abrasiveness and having to show respect. He’s also been abusive, emotionally and physically. There’s so much … I went thru a period of acceptance and I feel more angry now. Anger at what I’ve allowed.”
May 08, 10:55 Barry: “I Love You, Suzanne.” “But, in the afternoon, it (the text fight) was like it never happened. She texted me back and it was just like, ‘Hey, what time are you coming home? Hey, this or that. Just pick this up or pick that up.'”
May 08, 13:18 – Barry texts Salida Stove and Spa about getting the hot tub fixed. "Asking when he could come out to the home."
May 08, 15:43 – Barry’s iPhone receives an SMS message associated with the unknown device This second device was first used on November 30,2019 and was associated with Barry’s iPhone 91 times since then, compared to 1,701 associations with the primary User ID since November 2019.
May 8, 19:06 – Moonlight Pizza and Phone Calls Barry convinces Suzanne to meet him at the Tailwinds site before going to pick up Moonlight Pizza together.
May 08, 21:04 – 20 Facebook friend requests, 3 men named “Jeff.” Barry’s lurking at the River. Barry was asked about his phone pinging down by the river during the Facebook posts on Friday night and asked if he was outside. Barry said, “I could have been. I don’t remember. I chase critters around the house all the time.”
May 09, 00:02 – Incoming call on Suzanne’s phone (PH CAST) Incoming call on Suzanne’s phone (PH CAST)
May 09, 02:07 – Outgoing call on Suzanne’s phone (PH CAST) 02:07 am outgoing call on SM’s phone (PH CAST)
May 09, 06:00 – Barry’s phone received call (PH CAST) 06:00 am BM’s phone received call (PH CAST)
May 09, 06:46 – Barry’s phone registered “Power On” Comes out of Airplane mode.
May 09, 07:19 – Barry’s cell received signal (PH) Barry’s cell received signal (PH)
May 09, 07:22 – 07:39 – Barry at “Tailwinds” worksite Barry’s phone registered locations at his “Tailwinds” work site near Poncha Springs.
May 09, 07:35 – Suzanne texting SO Discussing Sheila's daughters wedding on Sunday.
May 09, 08:00 – MG was with Barry working on the rock beach site until 10am(?). Gentile: “He said that he had to go make the wife happy – do some hiking or biking.”
May 9 – Morning – Suzanne messaging Jeff “He’s still wanting Arizona.”
May 09, 09:50 – Barry to Suzanne: Want to go on hike? *Text Exchange\* Barry to Suzanne: Want to go on hike?
May 9, 2020 – 11:14 – Suzanne received a second password reset message from Facebook Previous reset was while Barry was down by the river on the evening of the 8th.
May 09, 11:15 est. – Barry tells Morgan Gentile he could “bury a body” and it “would never be found.” Gentile: “He seemed stressed. He definitely seemed weird on Saturday.”
May 09, 11:55 – Dead Turkey Hunt or Barry Takes Down His Trail Cameras Barry said he was looking for a turkey that Mallory had shot previously with a bow, but they had never found.
May 09, 13:35 – Barry leaves home again. Checked on job at Kim Gyms
May 9, 13:40(?) – Suzanne texts Libler Guess who is alone again?
May 09, 13:46 – Barry and the backhoe After texting, Barry drove by TK's house to see the backhoe, but did not get back in touch to buy it. In 2018, Barry used a backhoe to dig a large hole in his front yard, fill it with items to include furniture, and cover it over, planting alfalfa on top.
May 09, 13:51 – 14:13 – Barry at DSI, replacing Bobcat blade He was wearing a blue t-shirt and khaki shorts.
May 09, 14:03 – Suzanne sends sunbathing pic to Libler, last proof of life. “Well, look at her. She’s obviously drunk. Look at her eyes. Do you know what drunk eyes look like?
May 09, 14:11 – Suzanne sends last LinkedIn message to Libler: “I’m on wa.” Libler sent response messages at 2:39PM, 2:46PM and 2:47PM that Suzanne did not answer.
May 09, 14:26 – Barry texts Suzanne, “Done headed back.” He texted Suzanne that he was done and was headed home.
May 09, 14:31 – Barry texted Suzanne, “Did you leave.” At 2:31 PM, Barry texted Suzanne, “Did you leave.”
May 09, 14:39 – Libler messages Suzanne, she does not respond. First unread. Messages from LinkedIn show they were talking about how Suzanne is in love with Jeff before she went missing.
May 09, 14:43 – Barry’s phone and F-350, per telematics, arrive at the Morphew residence. "The photo is shown in the courtroom, Suzanne smiling. Truck GPS coordinates show Barry’s truck goes into park at 2:43:59. Phone coordinates show he walks around the house. You can hear a pin drop in the courtroom as tension is high." - Carol McKinley, PH Tweet
May 09, 14:44 – Shooting Chipmunks? Barry had a .22 in the moments when Suzanne ceased the communicate with everyone she loved in the world. Shooting Chipmunks? Barry had a .22 in the moments when Suzanne ceased the communicate with everyone she loved in the world. (See: https://www.reddit.com/SuzanneMorphew/comments/17lfboz/barry_and_the_chipmunks_aa_excerpts/ )
May 09, 14:46 – Libler messages: “Hey … your weather looks great” Second unread. No response from Suzanne.
May 09, 14:47 – Jeff sends another messages to Suzanne with no response. Third unread. Jeff sends last message if the day to Suzanne with no response.
May 09, 16:00 – 17:30 – Defense says Barry was at Salida Stove and Spa Salida Stove and Spa's posted hours have the store closing at 2pm on Saturday. Telematics show Barry's truck in his garage during the time he was supposedly at Salida Stove and Spa.
May 09, 16:44 – Barry parks his truck in the garage. Barry claims to have been loading his truck and cleaning off his workbench. (See: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?hl=en&mid=1FSqlFRrywR8FkytAYkNM-bdSxvKVK5MP&ll=39.173623131314%2C-105.63244&z=8)
May 09, 17:33 – Barry’s truck system manually rebooted Barry attempted to disable the trucks GPS and SYNC features.
May 09, 18:40, 18:46 – SO sends two Snapchats to Suzanne that were never opened SO sends two Snapchats to Suzanne that were never opened
May 09, 21:25 – Barry’s truck goes into reverse, backs 96.8 feet down driveway Barry backs 96 feet out of the garage.
May 09, 22:17 – Barry’s Phone Exits out of Airplane Mode Barry's phone comes out of airplane mode at the Morphew residence.
May 10, 02:53 – Outgoing call on Suzanne’s phone Possible glitch.
May 10, 03:25 – 03:48 – Barry’s truck door opened and closed "SA Hoyland noted over eighty events involving the F350 during this timeframe."
May 10, 03:58 – Barry’s phone moves from home to near where Suzanne’s bike found 3:58 am BM cell moves from home to near 225/50 where bike found Carol McKinley PH Tweets (read from bottom tweet up): 431 am 5/10 Barry’s phone goes back into airplane mode at the his home. 5:37 am – morphew turns into buena vista & heads towards broomfield. 538 he texts his mom “happy ... Read more
May 10, 04:10 – 04:23 – Last Activity from Suzanne’s iPhone Sergeant Mullenax asked dispatch to ping the number given for Suzanne’s cell phone. Dispatch informed Mullenax that the cell phone appeared to be off and last known activity was at 4:23AM on the present date, with a general location about 11.5 miles west of a cell tower in Poncha Springs, CO.
May 10, 04:32 – Barry’s Phone Goes Back into Airplane Mode Barry's Phone Goes Back into Airplane Mode
May 10, 04:32 – 05:14 – Chasing Elk, or Staging Evidence? Barry's trip to Garfield adds an approximate five miles each way to his morning trip, and places Barry and his vehicle in the direction the helmet was discarded - west from the bicycle.
May 10, 05:00 – Morgan Gentile Hears Barry’s Truck on Hwy 50 Gentile stated she did not see the truck but that his truck has a very distinctive exhaust.
May 10, 05:14 – 06:56 – Barry on the road to Broomfield. Barry phone exits airplane mode while heading towards Buena Vista, CO.
May 10, 08:10 – Trash Dump #1 – RTD Bus Stop Hwy 36 Agent Grusing: "Yes. He would have time -- with the passenger door opening and closing -- like it would say passenger door opened at 8:10:36 am and then passenger door closed at 8:12:13 am. So it took about a minute and a half and that trash can is only 10 to 15 steps away from where the truck was parked."
May 10, 08:14 – 08:20 Holiday Inn Express, Broomfield. Trash Dump #2 Grusing: "He said he parked there because he hoped someone would come out and he could go in the hotel before checking in and get a free breakfast." (Note: It was mid-COVID lockdown, building capacities were down to single digits.)
May 10, 08:41 – 08:46 – “I made it to Broomfield call me when you get a chance” Barry texts Suzanne.
May 10, 08:46 – Barry carries items into the Holiday Inn Express “If there’s clothes in my truck, there was probably old clothes I threw away.”
May 10, 10:06 – Barry exits hotel room. He's carrying a charcoal long-sleeved shirt, two white bags, and a pair of boots.
May 10, 10:20 – 10:41 – McDonald’s – Trash Dump #3 SA Grusing said Barry had a small item in his hand and used one arm to push it down, then both to push it further down as Barry was shown the photos.
May 10, 10:47 – 11:18 – Men’s Wearhouse Trash Dump #4 Barry was told he was there for about 40 minutes and asked if he remembered what he was doing there. Barry said, “I think I was still cleaning my truck, umm, yeah, yeah I mean, like I said, I just uh, I would, I was probably getting crap out of my truck like I said, which I’ve done my whole entire life.”
May 10, 11:18 – Barry calls MG "Barry called he was out of breathe (sic) panting but fatigue, kind a like hungover but he doesn’t drink, honestly when I hung up I thought to myself he sounded like he had the worst night of his life.” - MG
May 10, 11:23 – 11:36 – Barry back at the HIE Barry carries in disorganized papers in a binder. Carries out an organized binder.
May 10, 11:57 – 12:25 – Barry at the worksite Barry spent 28 minutes removing a few blocks from the wall.
May 10, 12:28 – 12:41 – HIE Trash Dump #5 A camera recorded Barry throwing away: a small item, one white trash bag, larger in size than the previous bags in one hand, a black container, along with a piece of clothing, possibly a camouflage coat.
May 10, 12:42 – 18:03 – Barry remains in his HIE room. ”At 3:30PM, Barry sent an outgoing message to Suzanne 'Call me'"
May 10, 2020 (Time Unknown) – Libler wishes Suzanne a Happy Mother’s Day Commented that it would be a hard day because she missed her own mother.
May 10, 2020 – 15:30 – Barry texts Suzanne from his hotel room. At 3:30PM, Barry sent an outgoing message to Suzanne “Call me”
May 10, 15:50 – 17:45 – Suzanne is discovered “missing” “I’m just so sad and REDCATED and I texted mom for Mother’s Day and she still hasn’t answered and I’m scared her and dad probably got in a big fight and I don’t even know it just made me want to be gone even more because I don’t want to be around them it hurts me and I know if REDACTED is working I might have to be home a lot more and it’ll probably be the worst summer of my life.”- MM2 text.
May 10, 17:55 – 19:10 – Barry leaving Broomfield 6:10 pm - Barry entered the lobby carrying two shovels and placed them beside the front desk. He made subsequent trips, placing more tools in the same spot.
May 10, 19:31 – Chaffee County finds the bike “Something is up with the front tire,” Deputy Brown
May 10, 20:42 – Barry arrives at CR 255 & US 50 "Barry is heard asking if deputies saw any “cats” on the road and a deputy says not recently."
May 10, 21:37 – CCSO Commander Avila brings Barry into the house for scent items. Barry does not call out or look for his wife in the home.
May 10, After 21:47 – Barefoot prints in the Bobcat Bucket Deputy Brown was walking in the driveway when Deputy Defurio told him that there were barefoot marks inside of the bucket on the Bobcat. Deputy Brown went with him to examine and found that the cutting blade on the bucket of the Bobcat appeared to be newly replaced, along with the nuts and bolts.
May 10, 22:00 – MG and JP smell chlorine and have the wrong tools in Broomfield. “It looked like Barry had removed top caps that was it. We also did not have the tools we need like a packer or gravel.”
May 11, 2020 – First Interviews, Puma Path Searched "On May 11, 2020, at about 7:00AM, Barry called Morgan and said that Suzanne was missing and he thought a mountain lion may have attacked her. Morgan explained that Barry was initially crying but then abruptly shifted to the specifics about the Broomfield job."
May 11, 2020 – 14:47 – Libler sends last message to Suzanne. Wishing her well for her scheduled final cancer treatment that day.
May 12, 2020 – 20:00 – Barry found digging in the trash at Poncha Market “He went to write down a description of maybe what she was wearing,” Butala said. “I just thought it was weird because he didn’t explain what the color of her eyes were or her hair or anything about her, like how tall she was or anything.”
May 13, 2020 – Deputy Carricato took photos of scratches on Barry’s left arm and hands. These injuries appeared to be healing, several days old scratches.
May 13, 2020 – Fundraiser created $33,552 raised
May 17, 2020 – 11:13 – Barry’s “plea” video is released on Facebook. “Oh Suzanne, if anyone is out there and can hear this, that has you, please, we’ll do whatever it takes to bring you back. We love you, we miss you, your girls need you. No questions asked, however much they want – I will do whatever it takes to get you back. Honey, I love you, I want you back so bad.”
May 19, 2020 – Interviews, Pneu-Darts, Range Rovers "CCSO Deputy Scott Himschoot was present during the search at 19057 Puma Path, in the laundry room, and was asked to collect a “pneu-dart box, empty,” one plastic hypodermic cover, one Pneu-dart book from safe in garage, one dart from box under bench in garage, among other items. The plastic cover was located by evidence search teams in the dryer, inside of the sheets belonging to REDACTED bed." (At some point we had confirmation of a to-do list Suzanne left including MM1s bedding in hopes that the older girls would spend the night. Cannot remember the source.)
May 20, 2020 – Spy Pen found. "The pen was located in a cloth bin amongst women’s bras. The cloth bin and pen were inside the walk-in closet in the master bedroom, located on the ground level of the residence. Detective Hysjulien located, with the pen, the controller and headphones for playback and a USB cable."
June 1, 2020 – Barry files for guardianship. Within a month of Suzanne’s disappearance, Barry began to liquidate assets.
June 1, 2020 – TD interviews Barry on camera. "So, uh -- we uh --. We had two daughters that were coming home from a trip. And I got a job in Denver that I wanted to get started on on Sunday. Set it up for my work because my rookies are coming in Sunday night. (Unintelligible) Monday but I, being the owner, I wanted to get everything lined up so that (Unintelligible).
June 6, 2020 – Barry closes on IN home. Pockets $750,000
June 25, 2020 – Barry purchases the Longhorn Ranch property for $165,000 Property Address 8366 LONGHORN DR
July 13, 2020 – Barry sells Suzanne’s Range Rover. Leaves Suzanne's sunglasses in the car.
Aug 20, 2020 – Lauren Scharf Interviews Barry “People don’t know the truth, so they’re gonna think what they’re gonna think.”
October 05, 2020 – Barry lists Puma Path home for sale. Originally listed for $1,759,000.
November 2020 – Barry Commits Voter Fraud Barry filled out Suzanne's ballot and mailed it in.
February 17, 2021 – Barry Sells Longhorn Ranch property for $150,000 A $15,000 loss. Same property sold on 04/21/2021 for $175,000, indicating Barry needed the money fast.
March 3, 2021 – 19057 Puma Path sells for $1,625,000. Barry and Suzanne Morphew purchased the home on April 12, 2018 for $1,575,000.
May 4, 2021 – Warrant Issued for the Arrest of Barry Lee Morphew CRS/CHARGE: 18-3-102 (1), (a) Murder in the First Degree, a class 1 Felony, 18-8-610. Tampering with Physical Evidence, a class 6 felony, 18-8-306, Attempt to Influence a Public Servant, a class 4 Felony.
May 5, 2021 – 09:15 – Barry Lee Morphew Arrested for the murder of Suzanne Renee Moorman Morphew "Morphew was arrested around 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday, May 5 near his home in Poncha Springs. FOX31 News has obtained video of the arrest, which shows his truck stopped on the side of the road near several police vehicles. He can be seen standing just off the road with an officer." AA: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21065843-21cr78-morphew-redacted-affidavit
August 9-12, 2021 – Preliminary Hearing. Day One: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15wZ86C3zQ6kh9VGOUCJcr0ipCoFeaXkdowmwyaruiIQ/edit?usp=drive_link
Day Two: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QKa1jcH2dAqe9Wezew-KbLCDuicrm1HgfwC4oGwM8Dg/edit?usp=drive_link
Day Three got corrupted so it's gone.
People's exhibit images: https://imgur.com/a/hgvlBUt Defense exhibit images: https://imgur.com/a/VC3ZfUZ
April 19, 2022 - Case against Barry Morphew Dismissed Without Prejudice. Prosecution asked for the case to be dismissed.
May 2, 2023 – Barry files $15,000,000 lawsuit against Chaffee County, et.al. https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/barry-morphew-lawsuit/73-3cea50c2-cdae-4338-8de9-9e113d33db6c
May 8, 2023 – Fraud Lawsuit filed against Barry in Indiana. Property dispute. https://denvergazette.com/news/courts/barry-morphew-sued-fraud-allegations-land-dispute/article_1c7cd90e-f4f5-11ed-9778-47c9c303d16d.html
September 22, 2023 – Suzanne's Remains Found Near Moffat in Saguache County While SCSO was searching for another (unrelated) missing woman. https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/suzanne-morphew-remains-found-colorado-missing-mother-barry-chaffee-county-disappearance/
Sept. 27, 2023 – Autopsy Completed. Awaiting Toxicology. https://cbi.colorado.gov/news-article/suzanne-morphew-autopsy-results-cbi-update-0https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/autopsy-complete-remains-missing-colorado-mom-suzanne-morphew/
April 29, 2024 – Toxicology finds BAM in Suzanne's bone marrow. “Homicide by undetermined means in the setting of butorphanol, azaperone, and medetomidine intoxication.” https://www.scribd.com/document/727780041/Suzanne-Morphew-autopsy-results https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/29/suzanne-morphew-died-by-homicide-with-tranquilizer-chemicals-present-in-body-according-to-autopsy-report/

This is almost a month late! It's taken time to reflect and collect my thoughts, as well as rewrite this 50 times over*! There's a blog post about it with pictures and maps for those interested. Apologies if I'm not allowed to post links!
* see one of my lessons further down about over thinking of things!

TL;DR

This is THE race I have been trying to run for years, and when it finally came, it didn’t disappoint despite a sub-par performance on the day. I accomplished most of what I set out to achieve, and had an amazing day.

Goals

1. 3:20:00 - Fail
2. 3:30:00 - Fail
3. 3:40:00 - Pass
4. Bonus: Experience it - Pass
5. Bonus: Raise money for WWF - £800+

Results

Time: 3:38:21
Position: 12,670/ ~50,000+ (masses)

Report

It was a bright and sunny, but bitterly cold morning. Wind chill was around 0°C. As I threw off my warm layers, and approached the starting gate, I was at the peak of my anxiety. It had been building for days, probably weeks. Finally, I was only metres from the London Marathon start line and everything I had been working towards over the last 4 months was finally being released. The emotion was palpable. Tears moistened my eyes briefly . I could feel the stress starting to evaporate as I crossed the start line. I knew that this was it. Everything I had trained for, everything I had read and learned all needed to be implemented to the letter if I was to get my marathon PB.
3 hours, 38 minutes and 21 seconds later, I was crossing the finish line without a PB. My anxiety and nerves had been replaced with elation and exhaustion. There was pain and nausea mixed with joy and pride. I had a London Marathon medal around my neck finally! There was a tinge of regret that I didn’t get my PB, but after the last few hours, I was more than happy to have made it to the end, and done it in a good time.
The last few hours had been a rollercoaster of emotions. The whole of London had come out along with my family. This was London on one of it’s best days. But it hadn’t all been smooth sailing.
As I had stumbled over the finish line the first thing I wanted to do was stop, lie down and try not to be sick. I’d spent the last 10km struggling hard when my legs just ran out of energy. I hadn’t been topping up with gels since around 25km after getting at stitch, whilst simultaneously feeling sick and hungry. I didn’t have any reserves left in my legs and kept having to stop, stretch and walk. The support kept me going. Incredible crowds kept me going. “Go on Carl. Keep going!”. High fives kept me going! Knowing I had family out there supporting me kept me going, and having people who had made charity donations on my behalf to the WWF kept me going.
But where did my energy go? This all comes back to the anxiety that had been building over the last few days and weeks. From the Wednesday my appetite had just fallen off a cliff. When I did eat, it was just butterflies and they have next to no carbs! I always get race nerves, but that’s normally on the race morning so it doesn’t really affect the carbo-loading during the previous days.

Let's go!

The start went perfectly. I had said to myself, run the first third with my head, the second with my legs and the third with my heart. I didn’t go off too fast, in-fact I had stuck almost exactly to the 4:44/km pace I needed despite the long downhill in the first few km.
I was actually having fun. High fiving all the kids! Enjoying the atmosphere. It was busy on and off the course. there was almost a fun run atmosphere. It didn’t feel like a race, and my legs felt really good. By the time I arrived at the Cutty Sark, 10k in, I felt like everything had bedded down and I was just gliding along. The only issue at this point was my vest starting to rub, but that wasn’t anything to worry about. Somewhere in the crowds was my wife, Shadia, cheering me on but it was that busy I didn’t see her.
At almost the half way mark, is one of the iconic landmarks on the course, Tower Bridge. I got my phone out to take some photos and was surprised to find myself heading up hill. It’s probably the first uphill on the course that’s noticeable and by the time I was halfway across my HR was in the red zone, but I didn’t really notice until after because the crowd here were electric, and the backdrop was incredible. The course narrows over the bridge as you pass under the iconic towers, and on each side there’s people 5 deep cheering everyone on.
Then before you know it, you’ve crossed over and started towards Canary Wharf. I hit the half way mark with a 1:41:55. I was a little behind target, but my pace was good and I had just ran one of my top 5 half marathon paces. On the other side of the road, the pros flew past which was awesome to see and really makes it feel like a big event being on the same course as olympians and world record holders. They have a head start, so it’s not really fair!
It had all being going well, until it wasn’t. As I got towards 25/26km I started to get the sense that the easy bit was over. It started with a stitch, which meant that I just couldn’t keep up the pace. I put this down to 2 things. Coke, and shortbread. Since I hadn’t managed to carbo-load due to the anxiety over the previous days, I had decided to nibble some shortbread all morning before the start in an attempt to gain some energy. Likewise, before the race I’d needed a drink, and my thoughts went straight to something with sugar. Coke. Now a combo of carbonated sugar, and Scottish biscuits were enacting their revenge!
After backing off the pace somewhat, the stitch mostly went away, but I didn’t want it back, and made the mistake of stopping eating my energy gels or drinking much water. About 5km later, in the low 30km range my pace started to fall away from me. People say that the halfway point in a marathon is about 30km. I now understand why. The last 12km felt like more effort than the first 21km. Every time I looked at my watch I could see my pace dropping and felt my PB attempt slipping though my fingers. I would slow, then a dinosaur or a seagull would overtake me and it would spur me on for 500m, then I’d slow and someone would yell “Go Carl” and it would be another 300m or so.
Even when I arrived at Big Ben and I knew it was 1km to go, it felt like an almost insurmountable task. Flashing back to October last year and the Chester Marathon, the last 1km had been hard, but I still had something in the tank. This was just running on fumes. The only thing I didn’t want to do was to walk that final bit. I could see my time was now looking nearer to exceeding 3:40 and if I walked then my final target would have been missed. I just had to grit my teeth and slog on.
400m to go and it was “just one loop around a track”. That felt like a big ask, but I forced myself with all my remaining effort not to slow or walk. Finally rounding the corner in front of the palace with about 200m to go, the finish line appeared into sight. Can I summon up a sprint finish? No. not even a slight uptick in pace. That’s how empty my tank was. Just put one foot in front of the other and reel it in and try not to trip over the timing mats at the finish line. Then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. LonDone! Someone placed a medal around my neck and I finally the magnitude of what I’d done finally struck home “I’ve got a London Marathon medal. I’ve actually got one. Wow.”
Almost immediately as I finish, Shadia called me to try and meet up. I’m trying to explain where I am and how we can meet but my brain just doesn’t have the ability. It’s a mess.

It’s hard to describe to someone how f**ked you feel when you finished something like a marathon. It’s not like being tired from doing a 5K when you start out running. It’s not like your first 10K either, or even a half marathon. Your body is just exhausted. Every muscle aches. You have no energy. After 30km your energy supplies have dwindled and you are left tired and broken.

Eventually Shadia gets some sense out of me and we try to figure out a place to meet. A bit dazed and confused I shuffled off towards blankets, Lucozade and the exits. It’s busy, so we change the plan a few times, finally ending in Charring cross for a celebratory beer, before heading back to base. And with that, the London Marathon is done.

Route

It's a pretty well known route (see my linked post for the route map)

Kit

• WWF Vest
• Salomon Running Vest
• INOV-8 Race shorts
• Nike Air Zoom Alphafly Next% 2
• Darn tough socks
• Garmin HR Pro band
• Garmin Epix 2
• Shockz OpenRun headphones
• Salomon 500ml bottles (water)
• SiS energy gels (various flavours)

Lessons

Post race I jotted down my thoughts in a mind-map so I could quickly explore how things went. This isn't something I have tried before, but it worked really well to quickly surmise the whole event, training and experience of the London Marathon.

Nutrition and energy

My fuelling pre race, was s**t. I know this. I should have been aiming for 600-700g of carbs a day from the Wednesday onwards and failed hard. This hit me hard in the race. that was the fabled wall. There’s nothing more to say about this.
There’s 2 things I’m looking at to fix this. Other types of gel. Energy drinks on the days leading up to it. I think I can handle them despite the anxiety and it’s a good way to load up some carbs at least!

Training plan and goals

I set out in January a goal to beat my Chester PB of 2023. 3:32:36. For Chester I had done no specific training, although I already had a regime with a lot of base (Z3) runs, ParkRun’s ran as races most Saturdays and a long run each week, with a few bing half marathons. There were about 2 30km+ runs over the 4 months before. I was probably averaging 50km per week.
For the London Marathon I started training on the first of January, following my Garmin Epix’s suggested runs. This pushed me pretty well, and was a good mix of long, hard and easy runs. The problems with this arose when Idris went back to nursery and the germs got him! That meant rubbish sleep, and the suggested runs tried to be nice, which meant it was all short and easy.
I started looking at a range of plans which could push me hard enough, whilst also not taking up every waking hour with running. I can’t remember now, because I didn’t write it down, but the closest I got was Jack Daniels advanced or Pfitz 12/50, but both of these still weren’t quite a good enough match, so the only option was to roll my own.
This boiled down to a simple plan:

• Monday: Z2 / Recovery
• Tuesday: Sprints / hills
• Wednesday: Z2 / Recovery
• Thursday: Threshold or intervals
• Friday: Z2 / Recovery
• Saturday: Long run at base, increasing to 33km
• Sunday: Base

Most runs ended up being around 10k in length apart from the long runs. I also dropped ParkRuns on a Saturday so that I could focus on the sprints/intervals and long runs without being too knackered. From February my long runs were around 21km, but during March I started to push these to 33km. All the time this was going on, my predicted Marathon time was improving from low 3:30s towards the low 3:20s. So far so good.
Because of this shift in my predicted time I changed my goal from beating my PB, to going for 3:20. This was probably a mistake, and I should have looked at RunAlyze’s predicted time which takes into account weekly mileage and longest runs over the period. It turned out to be more accurate. I think if i’d gone out of the gate slower, or dropped my pace and continued fuelling when the stitch arrived I wouldn’t have hit such a wall and missed my PB. Lesson learned.

Anxiety and stress

I over think. A lot. Not being at home the lead up added to my stress. Travelling down a few days before and trying to incorporate sightseeing really didn’t help. Add into the mix, trying to do sightseeing with family and help coordinate where to watch was probably the another nail in my PB attempt.
One other aspect around this event was the historic significance of it to me. My previous job, starting 15+ years ago, had revolved around the London Marathon like the earth around the sun. It was seen as one of the pinnacles of the road race calendar. Back then I didn’t even run, but a large part of me started running due to this. Because of Realbuzz I ran my first half marathon and for years I have tried, and failed, to get on to the London Marathon, so to finally be able to run it, and to be in a position where I can run it well (pushing for a PB) was a lot of self inflicted pressure.
My solution is to more races of a big nature. Keeping me out of my comfort zone can only help me get used to it. Mixed in with better planned travel/sightseeing and I might just be race ready. I hope so, because I’m signed up to Chester and Yorkshire marathons in October already!

Fundraising

Remember when you were a kid and did charity fundraising for 5p a length of the pool, or something like that! Well, I hadn't really done any since then. When I signed up for the London Marathon to raise money for the World Wildlife Fund it was always something I kept pushing back to do later. I was a little nervous to ask for donations. When my WWF vest arrived, I knew it was time to grow up and just ask.
The reality is that you have to pester people. Some will love your cause, or your dedication and other’s not so much. You’ll get something from someone and then the ball is rolling. The lesson is, do it ASAP so you have time to ask again, and again in different ways.
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Carl-Topham
Thanks to every who donated, liked and shared my campaign. As one UK supermarket says… every little helps.

Miscellaneous

I’ve always been worried about running out of water. That was never going to happen if I’d looked at the route maps. Every 5km is plenty. I ran with a vest so I could carry 1 litre of water! That’s excessive and caused my running vest to rub and then bleed. This wasn’t a show stopper until a few days after, but unless I’m out on the trails, or self supporting, then a smaller waist pack should be enough.

It’s not all bad

Family support throughout my training and accommodation for my long runs especially from Shadia. They’ve been flexible and allowed me to have time to do what I needed to do which has massively helped.
In the last month or so I started to add in some strength training. Mainly press ups and sit ups with some stretching also. Unlike last years Chester marathon, it may have contributed to me being able to continue running only days after. Chester crippled me for over 2 weeks.

Final thoughts

I’m doing it again, somehow, some day. While it was a very hard day, especially the second “half”, the sheer atmosphere and emotion just made it epic.
This was THE race for me. While I didn’t get the result I wanted to, it was an incredible, enjoyable experience that I already look back on with fondness and pride. I think there are some valuable lessons to take away from it which I can apply already so hopefully this will be a notable stepping point in my running achievements.This is THE race I have been trying to run for years, and when it finally came, it didn’t disappoint despite a sub-par performance on the day. I accomplished most of what I set out to achieve, and had an amazing day.


FINANCIALS

Period: FY/2024
Filling Date: 2024-05-15
REVENUE:
Revenue: $1.13B
Gross Profit: $601.90M (53.48%)
Result: $373.10M (ebitda)
EPS: $4.21
Outstanding Shares: 49.76M
BALANCE:
Cash: 46.47M
Debt: 1.14B
FINANCIAL EVALUATION/SCORE:
Financial Score - Altman: 2.50
Financial Score - Piotroski: 7.00
Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc's price movement correlates with the following stocks:
Ticker Correlation --- --- BPMP 0.94 VR 0.93 ETJ 0.929 FRTY 0.922 HWM 0.92 MUFG 0.919 NVO 0.919 HII 0.918 PHD 0.917 HT-PE 0.917
Summary Of Last Earnings call:
In the Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call for Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc, issues related to supply chain constraints affecting revenue growth were emphasized. The company experienced disruptions in the Eye Care category due to maintenance and quality upgrades by suppliers. These disruptions led to a lower-than-expected sales performance in Q4. The company expects supply challenges to continue into the first half of fiscal 2025 before recovering in the second half. Strategic initiatives, such as partnering with multiple suppliers and internal production, are being implemented to address supply chain continuity. Despite the challenges, the company remains committed to its long-term brand-building strategy and capital deployment opportunities. Additionally, the company plans to focus on M&A, share repurchases, and deleveraging to enhance shareholder value. Although a $300 million share repurchase program was approved, no share repurchases are expected in fiscal 2025, with a focus on debt reduction. The company anticipates revenue growth of approximately 1% in fiscal 2025, with a slight FX headwind. The company's overall cash flow generation and leverage reduction position it well for future capital allocation decisions.
Company Description:
Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc., together with its subsidiaries, develops, manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells over-the-counter (OTC) health and personal care products in the United States and internationally. The company operates in two segments, North American OTC Healthcare and International OTC Healthcare. It offers BC/Goody's analgesic powders, Boudreaux's Butt Paste baby ointments, Chloraseptic sore throat liquids and lozenges, Clear Eyes for eye redness relief, Compound W wart removals, DenTek for PEG oral care, Debrox ear wax removals, and Dramamine for motion sickness relief. The company also provides Fleet adult enemas/suppositories, Gaviscon upset stomach remedies, Luden's cough drops, Monistat vaginal anti-fungal, Nix lice/parasite treatments, Summer's Eve feminine hygiene, TheraTears dry eye relief, Fess nasal saline spray and washes, and Hydralyte for oral rehydration products. It sells its products through mass merchandisers; and drug, food, dollar, convenience, and club stores, as well as e-commerce channels. The company was formerly known as Prestige Brands Holdings, Inc. and changed its name to Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. in August 2018. Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in Tarrytown, New York.
Full fundamentals fundamentals for PBH here.

BadChadR:
Feb 14, 2023
Actually I had dull, but not horrible, aches post vasectomy for years post intercourse. Makes sense from the fact that the sperm have nowhere to go. Years later I was diagnosed with low T and my primary care doc got my levels to 300-500 without any real improvement of low T symptoms except the post vasectomy pain resolved. Now I’m seeing a doc who’s keeping my T in the 900-1100 range and my libido, energy, mood and well being is amazing but he started me on HCG as well to prevent atrophy.
At first I noticed more sensitivity to my balls, which was not bad at all as it added a new level of foreplay for my wife and I. However I started getting very painful ejaculations with that blue ball feeling that aches for hours.
So I’ve stopped taking the HCG and symptoms resolved, but my nuts are a bit smaller. I will talk to my doc about this at our follow up tomorrow.
PVP isn’t taken seriously, and sadly. As I keep telling my wife, it doesn’t matter how small the tunnel off the island is…it’s the only damn tunnel. So sperm have to literally blow out the side, and get reabsorbed into the sac. More sperm = larger blow outs. Maybe it’s the vasectomy technique, and maybe it’s the individual. But it’s real and debilitating.
https://www.reddit.com/Testosterone/comments/njfs43/hcg_treatment_post_vasectomy/j8it7if/
Honestly testosterone therapy should be a first line treatment for PVP syndrome. Really pathetic that it’s easier for a 12 year old girl to get testosterone injections for untreated mental health issues than it is for a man to get a replacement therapy.
I love being at a T level >800. It’s a game changer and actually beneficial for well being and physical health compared to any drugs prescribed by a psychologist. But most PCP’s don’t know crap and they are happy if they get your 150 up to 350.
Maybe I should tell a therapist I identify as a hypermasculine disagreeable 18 year old male. I’ve been misgendered my whole life as a hypo-masculine / slightly feminine overweight male.
Pronouns are Beefcake / Spartacus / StudMuffin
https://www.reddit.com/Testosterone/comments/njfs43/hcg_treatment_post_vasectomy/j8iv9qv/
I know this is old, but what’s your follow up. I’ve noticed increase pain with ejaculation since starting HCG, enough so that I stopped it after 4 weeks. I’m about 10 years post vasectomy and finally found a doc to get my T levels to the >800 range and really he only wants my low energy / libido symptoms to improve and could care less if my T is 600 or 1200. But he added an aromatase inhibitor and HCG…Also finding that there’s negatives to the AI, but that’s a different thread.
https://www.reddit.com/Testosterone/comments/anlmnh/45_had_3_kids_and_a_vasectomy_starting_trt_do_i/j8iwkkc/
I’m 10 years post vasectomy and HCG created more pain with ejaculation for me. While testosterone reduced my ejaculation pain. Makes sense, less sperm, less dramatic blow outs from the severed & clipped tube. More sperm, more volume hitting a dead end. But that’s just me
https://www.reddit.com/Testosterone/comments/xqyq09/hcg_besides_fertility_and_testicle_size_is_there/j8j2weo/
I’ve commented a few times, but my experience is 10 years vasectomy. TRT reduced post vasectomy pain, HCG increased post vasectomy pain. I’d try switching to TRT and your sperm count will drop, potentially reducing that overbuilding of pressure in your nuts…that’s how I could explain it…like my nuts were too full and ready to burst. Less sperm is a good thing post vasectomy.
https://www.reddit.com/Testosterone/comments/v8h469/trt_with_hcg_post_vasectomy_pain/j8j41st/
Metadata:
ID: 058e83de
Name: BadChadR
Vasectomy Date: 2013
Source: reddit
Posted: 2023-02-14
Storycodes: PSX,LTT
Months: 120
Resolved: Partial

Old peasant legends tell of a magnificent treasure at the peak of Firetop Mountain in the realm of Titan. This treasure is sought out by many adventurers, although few make it back out of the mountains in one piece, and none are able to find the two-locked chest containing the prize. The treasure is guarded by an enigmatic warlock who commands terrible beasts to guard the chest’s keys. Some say he's old, some say he's young, some say his cards are his source of power, others say it’s his black gloves. The only thing that the peasants can agree on was his name; Zagor.
The terrible warlock would fight three different adventurers on their quests to claim his treasure. Each time, if the reader makes the right choices and defeats Zagor in combat, he manages to crawl back from the blackness of death using another morbid spell. Upon his third incarnation, he even made the jump from the realm of Titan to a new world called Amarillia. It's here that the sorcerer would finally meet his end, burned to ashes in the mystical Heartfires.
Feats come from three books, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Return to Firetop Mountain and Legend of Zagor. Hover over a feat to see what book it’s from. Since they’re Choose Your Own Adventure books, they aren’t distinguished by chapters but rather by paragraph numbers, which are included in the images themselves.

General

Human Form

• He has a Skill stat of 11 and a Stamina stat of 18. This makes Zagor more skilled than a Vampire, who can catch the player’s sword, and tougher than a Giant.
  • If the player burns his magic cards, Zagor physically shrinks, his Skill stat goes down to 7 and his Stamina stat goes down to 11.

Resurrected Form

• After resurrecting into a patchwork body, he maintains his stats of 11 in Skill and 18 in Stamina
• If the second adventurer kills him a second time, they return to identify the corpse a few days later. Zagor’s body is completely dead, but he’s grinning and his skeletal left hand is missing, something the adventurer worries will lead to a third encounter down the line.

Demon Form

• In another realm called Amarillia, a war with a Bone Demon ended when the Casket of Souls was created, which allowed the humans to banish the demon to another plane. However, Zagor’s pernicious spirit felt this event in the realm of Titan and used the Casket to manifest himself in Amarillia. By crossing into the parallel world, he bonded with the trapped Bone Demon, and Zagor’s third physical form is a demonic/human hybrid. This incarnation grows stronger as Zagor spends time in the demon’s lair, Castle Argent, and can only be killed for good by the Heartfires below the castle.
• Zagor’s Demon form is four meters tall and visibly strong. He fights using a rune-covered staff.
• As his Demon-Thing form, his stats go up to 16 in Skill and 20 in Stamina. He uses a variety of attacks in combat, like a Thunderbolt spell, a Fireball spell, a Life Drain spell that lowers an adventurer’s Skill and Stamina stat, a Poisoned Dagger, and melee attacks with his Taloned Fists. If the Zagor Demon reaches critical health without dying, it will become Frenzied and thrash around violently.
• After beating the Zagor Demon, the adventurer must throw his body into the magic Heartfires to completely destroy him. If he’s not thrown into these flames, he will revive himself and slay the adventurer with his claws.

Magic Abilities

Immunities

• He cannot be harmed by non-magical means. Attacks like arrows do no damage to Zagor.
• Zagor is immune to the magic paralysis spell used by a genie
• He can see through the effects of invisibility-granting garments
• If an adventurer attempts to use offensive magic against the Zagor Demon, his reaction depends on if he has a higher Attack Strength than the opponent. If his stat is higher, his Magic Screen spell cancels the offensive spell and damages the adventurer.
• He’s immune to instant Death Spells
• A master thief’s flowing cloak allows the wearer to confuse enemies, lowering the hit rate of their attacks. However, Zagor sees through this technique and is unaffected by the distracting garment.
• If an adventurer uses a handheld catapult on Zagor, and Zagor has a higher Attack Strength stat, the projectile misses and the adventurer is injured

Combat-Related

• He’s capable of teleporting around the room as well as levitating
• If the player shoots an arrow at Zagor, he lifts a hand and halts in mid-flight, centimeters away from his chest
• Shoots a plume of blue flames from his hand
• Magically slows the adventurer as they climb up some stairs. As this happens, Zagor magically summons a mid-level, poisonous monster to duel the adventurer. Damage done by this creature is transferred to Zagor himself. This spell can be neutralized by an adventurer’s protective spell.
• He can form invisible barriers, useful for creating obstacles to knock flying adventurers from the air

Control Over Life

• While he initially appears as a withered, ancient man, he quickly assumes a younger form in opulent clothing when preparing to fight the player
• Right before his defeat in the fist book, Zagor cast a dark spell on himself called Raise Dead, preventing his spirit from fully dying
• Coming back from the dead was not a perfect process, and most of Zagor’s body is decomposing. He must have his minions claim body parts from living victims in order to replace his failing body, piece by piece.

Curses

• He uses a curse to raise deceased residents of Firetop Mountain as his Undead servants
• He’s cursed the land around Firetop Mountain. The once red rocks have turned black, and livestock who graze around the mountain die sickening deaths shortly afterwards.

Other Abilities

• He has a hypnotic gaze and his voice seems to come from the walls of the cave rather than his mouth
• If the player finds and uses an Invisibility Potion, Zagor can still sense their presence and track them through scent
• Zagor personally rigs a trap with a spell called Demon’s Breath. If the adventurer stands too close to a wall, a puff of gas is released that continually poisons them until they eat orc fleas.
• Zagor can draw his monsters from other planes of existence. This is how, upon his jump from Titan to Amarillia, Castle Argent is already full of his minions.
• When an adventurer opens a casket, Zagor casts a spell that further decomposes and animates the corpse within to attack the adventurer. This spell is performed over a great distance.
• He can sense when his name is uttered in Castle Argent and dispatch monsters to that location

Magic Artifacts

Zagor's Portrait

• The adventurer can come across Zagor’s painting in Firetop Mountain, a frightening portrait that lowers their Skill stat through intimidation
  • If the adventurer draws their sword against the artwork, the blade is telekinetically grabbed and dropped on them, wounding their face
  • If the adventurer draws a wooden stake against the artwork, their wrist is suddenly wracked with pain and they drop the weapon. They also lose one more Skill point before fleeing.
  • If the adventurer throws cheese at the painting, Zagor laughs at them
  • If the adventurer produces the jewel found in the Iron Cyclops, the painting is defeated and the adventurer receives two Skill points
• A different painting found in Castle Argent uses a telepathic attack to frighten an adventurer and lower their Luck stat

Elementals

• As a tradeoff of using the Raise Dead spell on himself, the powers that be placed brought Elementals to his lair in Firetop Mountain. These supernatural beings are the only thing that can truly harm Zagor and must be summoned by using a dragon’s tooth along with an awakening word. However, Zagor can also subjugate these forces under his rule after he gathers his own summoning artifacts.
• If at any point, the adventurer fails to produce the right dragon tooth during the duel with Zagor, then Zagor’s Elemental will pick them up and throw them at a wall, rendering them unconscious. If they fail to say the right magic word, they also be magically rendered unconscious by a telekinetic backlash.
• Upon encountering the adventurer, he first summons his Demonic Air Elemental with a yellow crystal and magic chants
• If his Air Elemental is defeated by the adventurer’s Earth Elemental, Zagor summons a Water Elemental
• If the Water Elemental is defeated by the adventurer’s Air Elemental, Zagor summons an Earth Elemental
• If the Earth Elemental is defeated by the adventurer’s Fire Elemental, Zagor will summon an identical Fire Elemental
• If the Fire Elemental is defeated by the adventurer’s Water Elemental, Zagor will finally get out of his throne and fight personally

Other Items

• Zagor has complete knowledge of the secrets of Firetop Mountain and controls all of the beasts within. This information has been collected in his spellbook.
• A silver earring is found on a Cave Troll. If the adventurer puts it on, it turns into a living earwig that attempts to enter the person’s ear and attack their brain. This Brainbiter is described as one of Zagor’s enchanted assassins.
• A silver necklace is found on a Goblin. Upon contact with human skin, it turns into a feral rat with poisonous bites. The charm is said to have been created by Zagor.
• Magic cards from his magic set offer a variety of positive and negative effects for those who manage to collect, on, including: one that turns into a magically terrifying face, one that lowers the holder’s Skill and Luck stats, a blank card, one that confers Stamina and Luck into the holder and one that can turn into a silver dagger that can weaken Zagor himself

Weaknesses

• A jewel found in an Iron Cyclops can easily kill Zagor. If the player can find and produce this item during the last battle, the Warlock is aged into dust.
• The adventurer can collect Golden Talismans in Castle Argent, which can reduce Zagor’s Skill stat

As far back as I can remember, I had always been passionate about the great outdoors. My love for the wilderness began when I joined the scouts, exploring the diverse landscapes of Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. I was never a huge fan of the dry, barren landscapes, but camping provided a much-needed escape from the monotony of Orange County suburbia.
The first time I visited the Pacific Northwest, I was enchanted. The scenery was breathtaking—majestic mountains, lush fields, and meandering rivers. It was clear that anyone who praised the desert's beauty had never laid eyes on the Cascades. Seeing grass and wildflowers growing without irrigation was practically a revelation.
When I was old enough, I moved to Washington state, immersing myself in nature every weekend. My adventures took me hiking through dense forests, camping by serene lakes, and occasionally taking mushrooms under peaceful waterfalls.
I joined several online forums dedicated to outdoor enthusiasts. One community that particularly fascinated me was the Northwest Tomb Raiders. This group of history buffs and thrill-seekers was dedicated to uncovering artifacts, whether Native American relics or treasures hidden in modern ruins. Many members were collectors, fencing their finds to museums and archaeologists, which made it a rather profitable side gig, should you be lucky enough.
In the fall of 2009, an intriguing post appeared on the forum. A user named Lokk claimed to have discovered a cache of artifacts with Scandinavian origins. He couldn't carry everything back due to the treacherous terrain and his age, so he shared the coordinates, hoping someone else could retrieve the items. I scrolled down to see a few posts of people planning to loot it in the Spring, when the paths have reopened. One user, Patagooner, planned on going as early as possible.
Excited by the prospect, I gathered my two friends, Carl and Noah, for the expedition. They weren't as enthusiastic about camping as I was, but after I told them how much a single arrowhead goes for on the black market, they were on board. It was the start of winter now, which had its advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, the rangers would have a harder time spotting us. On the downside, the harsh conditions posed a serious challenge for two inexperienced hikers.
I must’ve blown about four grand at REI on gear for them, justifying it with the knowledge of how much more I would make with two extra packs. That is of course assuming there really were as many artifacts as Lokk had said, and Patagooner hadn’t beaten me there.
The journey began like any other. We met in the pre-dawn darkness and went over our supplies, ensuring we had everything we needed. By mid-morning, we were on our way, my pickup truck winding up the mountain paths. The roads of Olympic National Park were the epitome of the raw, untamed beauty of the Pacific Northwest.
They snake through ancient forests, where towering Douglas firs and Western hemlocks create a verdant canopy overhead. Mist clings to the trees, giving the landscape an ethereal quality. Occasionally, the forest would open up to reveal breathtaking vistas of snow-capped peaks and deep, shadowy valleys.
As we climbed higher, the landscape grew increasingly desolate. The dense forest thinned out, replaced by rugged terrain and jagged rock formations. The air grew colder, and the first flurries of snow began to fall, dusting the ground in a thin, white layer. The road became narrower and more treacherous, winding precariously along the edge of steep cliffs.
Finally, a road closure blockade signaled the end of our journey in the truck. We unloaded three dirt bikes—one mine, two rentals—and continued up the trail. The bikes roared to life, carrying us several more miles into the wilderness. The trail twisted and turned, cutting through dense underbrush and over fallen logs. The snow began to fall more heavily, blanketing the forest floor and muffling the sound of our engines. The world around us grew quieter, more isolated.
Eventually, the snow became too deep to traverse by bike. We dismounted and prepared to continue on foot. The silence of the forest was profound, broken only by the occasional rustle of branches in the wind. I checked my modern GPS, its screen displaying the coordinates and a relief map of our destination.
The cold air bit into our cheeks as we trudged through the snow-laden forest. The silence was almost oppressive, broken only by the crunch of our footsteps and the occasional call of distant wildlife. The GPS indicated we were close to our destination, but the dense underbrush and uneven terrain made progress slow.
Suddenly, Carl's excited whisper cut through the stillness. "Hey, look at that!"
He pointed to a small, furry creature ambling through the trees. It took a moment to realize what it was—a bear cub, innocently exploring its surroundings.
My heart sank. "Carl, get back," I hissed, my voice low but urgent. "Where there's a cub, there's a..."
Before I could finish, a massive shape exploded from the trees. The mother bear, easily three times the size of the cub, charged at Carl with a ferocity. She was a blur of dark fur and powerful muscles, her roar echoing through the forest.
"Run!" I yelled, but it was too late. The bear was upon Carl, swiping at him with her massive paws. He screamed as he fell to the ground, the bear towering over him. Desperation and adrenaline surged through me. I grabbed the nearest heavy branch and swung it at the bear, hoping to distract her.
Noah joined in, shouting and waving his arms. We had to be careful; one wrong move and she would turn on us. The bear snarled, turning her attention away from Carl for just a moment. It was enough for him to scramble backwards, clutching his bleeding arm.
"We have to get him out of here," I shouted to Noah, who nodded, fear etched on his face. The bear, still enraged, seemed torn between attacking us and protecting her cub.
Using the brief respite, we hauled Carl to his feet. His face was white, and he was clearly in shock. Blood soaked his sleeve, dripping onto the snow. "There's a ranger station about two miles from here," I said, my voice shaking. "We need to get him there. Now."
We half-carried, half-dragged Carl through the forest, every shadow and sound heightening our paranoia.
Finally, after what felt like forever, the small, wooden structure of the ranger station came into view. We had been avoiding the rangers to keep our expedition secret, but now it was our only hope.
Pounding on the door, I prayed for a quick response. The door creaked open, and a weathered face appeared. "What happened?" the ranger demanded, taking in the sight of Carl's bloodied form.
"Bear attack," I gasped. "We need help."
The ranger's expression shifted from suspicion to urgency. "Get him inside. We've got a first aid kit and a radio."
As we eased Carl onto a makeshift bed, the ranger inspected his wounds. "You're lucky," he said after a moment. "The cuts are deep, but they missed any major arteries. He'll need stitches, but we can handle that here. No need for an airlift."
The ranger's face darkened as he turned to me. "What the hell are you boys doing out here?”
I hesitated, "We... we were just exploring."
The ranger's eyes narrowed, his anger palpable. "Exploring? In a restricted area? In the middle of winter? Are you out of your minds?"
He worked quickly and efficiently, cleaning and stitching Carl's wounds. Carl winced but stayed silent, his eyes closed in pain.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous it is out here?" the ranger continued, his voice rising. "The storm, the wildlife... This area is off-limits for a reason! You should have known better." he said, pushing a finger into my chest.
"We'll stay here for the night," he continued, "The storm's getting worse, and it's too dangerous to move him now. We'll reassess in the morning. And count yourself lucky I don't arrest your asses."
Night fell quickly, the storm outside growing more ferocious with each passing minute. The howling wind battered the small ranger station, and the walls creaked under the pressure. We huddled in the main room, the tension thick in the air.
The ranger looked at us sternly. "I need to check the perimeter and make sure everything is secure. There are things out there you don’t want to encounter, especially in this storm."
"Things? What do you mean?" Noah asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
The ranger's expression hardened. "Just stay put. No matter what you see or hear, do not leave this cabin. Understood?"
We nodded, the seriousness in his tone leaving no room for argument. "We'll stay put," I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.
The ranger grabbed his coat and shotgun. "I'll be back in an hour. Do not leave this cabin." With that, he opened the door and stepped into the raging storm, disappearing into the darkness.
As soon as the door closed, I turned to Noah. "We need to go. Now."
Noah's eyes widened. "Are you crazy? He said to stay put."
"If we wait until morning, we'll be escorted out of here and lose our chance. This might be our only opportunity to find those artifacts."
Noah hesitated with uncertainty "But... what about Carl?"
"He'll be fine here. The ranger can take care of him. We have to do this now."
Reluctantly, Noah nodded. "Alright. Let's take what we can and go."
We quickly looted extra gear from the cabin. I checked the GPS one last time before we slipped out into the storm, the cold wind battering us.
The snow fell heavily, obscuring our vision as we slogged through the forest. The ranger was nowhere in sight as we made our way towards the our destination, each step filled with trepidatious excitement.
The storm began to die down as we approached the coordinates. We stepped into a clearing where the undisturbed snow lay like a pristine white blanket. In the center stood an ancient, weathered stone altar, encircled by intricate wooden carvings, delicate metalwork, and beautifully crafted statues. The sight was breathtaking, a treasure trove, a veritable museum of paganism.
Noah and I exchanged glances, our eyes wide with amazement. "Do you see this?" I whispered, barely able to contain my excitement.
"We're going to be rich," Noah replied, his voice trembling with awe. "These must be worth a fortune!"
We approached cautiously, as if the vision before us might disappear. The craftsmanship was stunning. I reached out to touch a carved wooden idol, marveling at the detail. "This is incredible," I said, my voice barely audible.
We began to load our packs with as many artifacts as we could carry, each one more exquisite than the last. It was beyond our wildest dreams. We were so engrossed in our task that we didn't notice the small figure watching us from the ridge.
It wasn't until I turned to leave that I saw her. A young girl, maybe eight years old, stood there, her blue eyes wide with curiosity. She was dressed in simple, rustic clothing, her blonde straight hair blowing gently in the wind. For a moment, we just stared at each other.
"Noah," I whispered urgently, nudging him. "Look."
He turned, his eyes following my gaze. "What the...?" he muttered, his voice trailing off.
The girl took a tentative step forward, her eyes fixed on the items in our hands. There was no fear in her gaze, only a quiet intensity that made my skin crawl.
"Who are you?" I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
She tilted her head slightly. "My name is Sigyn."
"What are you doing out here, Sigyn?" Noah asked, his voice shaky.
"I live here,"
"You live here?" I echoed, incredulous. "Is there anyone else around?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"Where?" Noah demanded, looking around nervously.
"Everywhere," she said with a giggle.
The way she said it, so matter-of-factly, bothered me deeply. Noah and I exchanged a look, both of us trying to figure out what to do next.
"We can't take her back to the ranger," Noah started, "We'll lose everything."
I nodded, my mind racing. "Sigyn," I said slowly, "we need to know who else is here. Can you help us?"
She looked at me with her piercing blue eyes, then said, "I'm sorry."
"For what?" Noah asked.
"For what's going to happen to you," she replied, her voice tinged with sadness.
"You need to tell us what's going on," Noah said, grabbing her arm roughly. "Why are you out here alone?"
She looked up at him, unperturbed. "I am not alone," she said softly.
Before we could press her further, a loud, guttural mooing sound echoed through the clearing. We turned towards the direction the girl had come from, and there, emerging from the shadows, was the silhouette of an elk. As it approached, my stomach dropped. Its body was a grotesque amalgamation of life and decay. Its skull was fully exposed, the eye sockets dark and empty. Large patches of its ribs were visible, the flesh around them rotted away.
The elk's movements were slow and deliberate, its head swaying as if in a trance. It walked directly towards us, its hollow eyes fixed on Sigyn. The closer it got, the more the stench of death filled the air—a nauseating mix of decay and earth. I fought the urge to retch.
Sigyn stood up, her expression calm. The monster sniffed her gently, its nostrils flaring. Without a word, she climbed onto its back, mounting it like a horse. It was a surreal and horrifying scene ripped straight from a nightmare.
As she settled onto the elk, she looked back at us, "A thief in the night shall reap what he sows," she said, her voice carrying an otherworldly echo. "Beware the price of stolen dreams."
With that, the beast turned and began to walk away, Sigyn riding it into the shadows of the forest. We stood there, frozen in place. The realization that we were in far over our heads began to sink in. This started to feel like a trap.
We need to get out of here," My voice trembling. "Now."
We turned to leave, our packs heavy with the pilfered goods. But as we took our first steps, the forest around us seemed to come alive. Shadows moved among the trees, and whispers floated on the wind. I quickened my pace, glancing nervously over my shoulder.
"Did you hear that?" Noah asked sharply,
"Just keep moving," I commanded.
A figure emerged from the shadows, blocking our path. It was a man, tall and gaunt, his eyes burning with an intense light. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked, his voice cold and menacing.
"We're leaving," I stammered. "We didn't mean any harm."
The man smirked, and with a swift motion, he raised his hand. More figures appeared, closing in on us from all sides. We were surrounded.
"Run!" I shouted, shoving Noah forward.
We sprinted through the forest, branches whipping at our faces and legs. The figures pursued us, their footsteps silent and relentless.
Noah stumbled and fell, his pack spilling open. Statues scattered across the ground, glinting in the moonlight. "Help!" he cried, scrambling to gather the items.
"Leave them!" I shouted, pulling him to his feet. "We have to keep moving!"
But it was too late, their hands seizing us. I struggled, kicking and thrashing, but their grips were too strong. They forced us to the ground, binding our hands with rough, coarse ropes.
"Please," I begged, "Don't hurt us."
The man who had first appeared stepped forward, his eyes gleaming with amusement. "A thief in the night," he mocked.
They dragged us through the forest, the trees closing in around us like a cage. We were at their mercy.
In the distance, I could see the elk standing at the edge of the clearing, Sigyn still astride its back. Her eyes met mine, and for a moment, I thought I saw a flicker of pity. But then they turned away, disappearing into the shadows once more.
We were dragged into the heart of the forest, our struggles futile against the unyielding grip of our captors. As we broke through the treeline, a massive bonfire came into view, its flames licking the night sky. Shadows danced around the clearing, cast by the flickering light. A woman stood at the forefront, her presence commanding.
Her eyes were milk white, devoid of pupils, and her long, flowing white hair cascaded down her back. She was completely naked, her skin pale and marked with intricate symbols. Atop her head, she wore an elk skull, its antlers extending like eerie, skeletal fingers. She beat a drum emblazoned with more of the same cryptic symbols, each thud resonating deep within my chest.
Around the fire, about two dozen people stood, all drinking from crude, horned cups. Their faces were solemn, eyes fixed on the woman as she led them in a haunting chant. The atmosphere was thick with a mix of reverence and intoxication.
We were forced to our knees before the woman, who paused her drumming to look down at us. Her gaze was haunting, as if she could see into the very depths of our souls.
"Who are you?" Noah demanded, his voice trembling.
The woman ignored him, raising her arms to the sky. The chanting grew louder, the rhythm of the drum faster and more frenzied. The air around us seemed to vibrate with energy, the flames of the bonfire growing higher and more intense.
I glanced at Noah, fear mirrored in his eyes. The woman began to speak, her voice low and melodic, but filled with power, in a language I couldn't understand. Suddenly, she stopped, lowering her arms. The chanting ceased, and an silence fell over the clearing. She looked directly at me, her white eyes unblinking.
En tjuv i natten skördar vad han sår, akta dig för drömmar som du stjäl och får.
Hans skratt bevakar lundens gömda stig, där skuggor sveper över skogens liv.
För varje stulet andetag och svek, måste en tjuv möta sitt smärtsamma ödelek.
Tricksterns vilja, vår ande här, så i hans nåd, våra liv bär.
I was terrified and confused. She started again, softer, in a way I could understand.
A thief in the night shall reap what he sows, beware the price of stolen dreams.
His laughter guards our hidden groves, where shadows cloak the forest's seams.
For every stolen breath and lie, a thief must meet his painful end.
The tricksters will, our spirits tie, so in his grace, our lives suspend.
The crowd surged forward, grabbing Noah first. He screamed, his terror echoing through the trees as they pulled him towards a makeshift altar beside the bonfire. The woman chanted louder, her voice rising in a hypnotic rhythm as they began their gruesome work.
They stripped him of his shirt and bound his arms to a wooden frame. I tried to move, to help him, but the grip on my shoulders tightened, pinning me to the ground.
The woman approached Noah, holding a knife with a blade that gleamed in the firelight. She started to slice into his back, her movements deliberate and unhurried. Noah's screams pierced the night as she methodically carved the shape of wings into his flesh.
Blood poured from the wounds, soaking the ground beneath him. The crowd's chant grew louder, almost drowning out his cries. I watched in horror as the woman reached into the incisions, breaking the ribs and pulling them outward, creating a parody of wings.
Noah's agony was unbearable to witness. His screams turned to whimpers, his body convulsing in pain. The woman didn't stop until the work was complete, his lungs exposed and hanging grotesquely from his back.
They lifted Noah's broken body and placed him over the fire. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, making me gag. His life ebbed away as the flames consumed him, the once vibrant light in his eyes fading to nothing.
The woman turned to me, her expression devoid of mercy. "You will meet the same fate," she said, "He demands it."
The smell of burning flesh and the sight of his broken body over the fire was seared into my mind. Despair settled over me as I closed my eyes.
A deafening blast shattered the night. My eyes flew open to see the shaman stumbling backward, a gaping wound in her chest. She collapsed to the ground, her white eyes staring lifelessly into the void.
The villagers turned in shock as another shot rang out, this time hitting one of the men holding me. I twisted free from their grasp and saw the park ranger standing at the edge of the clearing, a pump-action shotgun in his hands. He fired again, the sound echoing through the forest, before one of them tackled him to the ground.
"Run!" he shouted, his voice raw and desperate. "Get the hell out of here!"
I didn't need to be told twice. I sprinted into the darkness, the chaos of the clearing fading behind me. Branches whipped at my face, and the snow underfoot made every step a struggle. I could hear the sounds of fighting and gunshots, but I forced myself to keep moving.
The cold air burned in my lungs, but adrenaline pushed me forward. I didn't stop until I reached the station, my legs threatening to give out from under me. I burst through the door and slammed it behind me.
Inside, Carl lay where we had left him, his face pale and twisted in pain. I stumbled to the radio, my hands trembling as I fumbled with the controls.
"Mayday, mayday!" I yelled into the microphone. "This is an emergency! We need help! Please, someone, come quickly!"
Static filled the room, punctuated by my ragged breaths. I repeated the call, my voice growing more frantic with each passing second. Finally, a voice crackled through the speaker. "This is Ranger Station Bravo. What's your location? Over."
I could barely form the words. "Olympic National Park! The ranger station near mount Christie! We're under attack! Please, send help!"
"Copy that. Help is on the way. Stay put and stay safe. Over."
I collapsed to the floor, my body trembling with exhaustion and fear. Carl moaned softly, his eyes fluttering open. "What… What happened? Where's Noah?”
Tears streamed down my face and I found myself choked up. “He’s gone, man. Help is coming.”
The minutes stretched into an eternity as we waited. The wind howled around the station, and every creak and groan of the structure set my nerves on edge. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were being watched, that the forest itself was closing in on us.
The radio crackled again, this time with a different voice. "Helicopter en route, ETA fifteen minutes. Prepare for extraction."
I glanced at Carl, his eyes filled with confusion. "Hang on. We're getting out of here."
As the minutes ticked by, I couldn't help but think about the ranger. He had saved my life, but he hadn't made it back. My mind conjured up images of what might have happened to him, the cultists overwhelming him in the darkness. A sense of guilt gnawed at me, knowing he had sacrificed himself for us.
The sound of rotors cut through the night, growing louder as the helicopter approached. I ran to the window and saw its searchlight piercing the treetops, scanning for the station.
I helped Carl to his feet, supporting his weight as we made our way to the hatch. The helicopter hovered above, lowering a rescue basket. The wind from the rotors whipped the snow into a frenzy, but I didn't care. Salvation was finally here.
We secured Carl in the basket first, and I watched as he was hoisted up, disappearing into the safety of the helicopter. My turn was next. I realized that I was now alone and exposed. Fear coursing through me as I scanned around the edge of the forest, expecting to be grabbed and taken seconds before my rescue. But the moment never came. As I gripped the rope, I took one last look at the forest below. The flames of the bonfire still flickered in the distance.
I was lifted into the air, the ground falling away beneath me. The helicopter's crew pulled me inside, and I collapsed onto the floor still holding onto my pack, my body finally giving in to exhaustion. The doors closed, and the helicopter banked away, leaving the horrors of the park behind.
Weeks had passed since the harrowing events, but the memories clung to me like the bitter cold. I had returned to civilization, seeking solace in the familiar chaos of the city. I found a wealthy collector through a network of contacts. The artifacts fetched a price tenfold the cost of gear. The money was substantial, but as I held the cash, it felt like a hollow victory.
Noah's absence weighed heavily on me. His disappearance was chalked up as a missing persons case, and despite my best efforts to explain what had happened, no one believed me. The authorities conducted a search of the area, but they found no trace of the cult, the artifacts, or the clearing. It was as if the forest had swallowed up all the evidence.
I returned to the site where we had parked the truck. The dirt bikes were gone, stolen by opportunistic thieves, but the truck remained. I drove back in silence, the road winding through the dense forest. For a moment, I thought I saw the girl watching me from atop a ridge until I realized it was just paranoia. I stepped on the gas a little harder.
Back home, I checked the Tomb Raiders forum again. The post that had led us into the forest was gone, deleted without a trace. I messaged the mods, but apparently, they don’t keep records to maintain confidentiality. I wrote about our experience, detailing every terrifying moment, but the responses were skeptical at best. Most dismissed it as a work of fiction or a desperate cry for attention.
Time passed, and I tried to return to a semblance of normalcy. Yet, the wilderness called to me stronger than ever. It was my sanctuary, the only place where I could find peace amidst the turmoil. I spent more and more time outdoors than ever before, but now it always felt like I was just running from something.
Determined to prove what had happened, I returned to the forest with a camera and recording equipment. This time, I documented every step, capturing footage of the trees, the snow, and the eerie silence that hung in the air. I retraced our path, hoping to find the clearing again. But each night, as I reviewed the footage, something strange would happen. The files would be corrupted or entire segments missing.
I pressed on. I found the site where Noah had fallen, the ground still bearing faint traces of what had happened. I set up the camera and began to speak, recounting the events in detail. As I spoke, a cold wind swept through the clearing, and the camera's screen flickered. I finished my account and turned to check the recording, only to find the file corrupted once again, the footage replaced by static and a faint, mocking laughter.
I returned home, defeated and exhausted. My attempts to share what I had experienced were met with disbelief and ridicule. The files I managed to save were corrupted beyond recognition. It was as if the forest itself was conspiring against me.
Almost exactly one year later, as I browsed the forums, a new post caught my eye. It was cryptic, eerily similar to the one that had led us into the nightmare. It spoke of another trove of artifacts, hidden deep within the wilderness, waiting to be claimed.
The post was signed with a new name: Skygge. Different handle, same style. Another trap. They had taken so much from me, left scars that would never heal. I opened my drawer, my fingers brushing over the cold metal of my weapons. This was the moment I had been waiting for. This time, I'll be ready.
The forest’s secrets won't remain hidden forever.

So I was just messing around with my builds and let the game run with no interference of the minion waves. I was watching bot lane as the wave was stocking up 3-4 waves for the red side advantage. I was watching this like, wtf first tower is going to red? It wasn't even close too. Bot side Blue only dropped the plates to 3 and they lost their turret. I was like wow, but the game didn't award first tower. During my time messing around with my build and practicing on the dummy, Blue Mid Wave not only destroyed mid tower, but also tier 2 tower by the time that red side destroyed bot tower.
So I fast forward the game and top towers never fall, but Mid Inhib is taken. Blue minion wave mid will rush the base. I reset the game and tried it again. Mid did it again. Repeat this over and over and Blue Mid does better than Red Mid every game. But Mid Blue wave doesn't always win the game. Bot blue won it. Top lane is the only wave that never wins in my experiment. But Top Blue is always winning.
The game is actually programmed to have Blue side win the game every time. I feel this is a weird game design by Riot. Has anyone else done this before and had different results? Is this a known factor of the game?

Update: The constant stuttering has been fixed. The ball movement is now quite fluid. I'm going to leave this post up as the quickfire mode is still broken and I think it's still fair to call this game a mess in its current state.
TL;DR: Avoid Cleansheet until patched and even then, think twice.
I was pretty excited about this shadow drop -- a football keeper game with realistic physics. It's the kind of game I wish there was more of on the PSVR2, something sporty and a different kind of experience with physicality and dimensionality. But there are so many jaw-droppingly terrible things about it. Be careful what you wish for in terms of developers porting their games over...
First the good, as there is a fun experience in here somewhere (as reviewed on other systems). In the main mode (no leaderboard) you're in net as a play develops in front of you and eventually a shot comes your way. The players are motion captured and it feels realish as they pass the ball from side to side or send in a corner, dodging your motion caputred defenders or some cutouts, and then finally let a shot (or header) rip.
The net isn't full size and is about neck level (although there are three size settings) and there's no real positioning to do, but tracking the play and then reacting to the shot is pretty fun. The ball comes in quick and some shots have spin and bend on them. The players shoot it at or right next to you a lot instead of picking out corners but that's probably by design because nobody's going to dive for a ball low and to the side. You get 10 random plays at a time and then it gives you an "analysis" of each which just shows you the final path of the ball and how you did. Fair enough.
Now the bad, as the game absolutely collapses beyond this concept. Oh, where to begin. Well, first there's the stuttering. Every much every shot is going to have what looks like a missing couple of frames at some point along its path, and on some longer plays there will be 3-4 such jerks before it gets to you. It's quite jarring in VR when the ball is flying at you at high speed and in a game where the whole point is carefully tracking and reacting to the shot it's so annoying as to be almost unplayable. I don't understand how anyone could play test this even once and think "seems good enough, let's roll".
Then there's the quick reaction (with leaderboard) mode that fires ball after ball from various circles arranged in front of you. But they come RIGHT AT YOU to the point where it's nearly impossible to not save them. Seriously, I got to 370 with no misses on the hardest setting/maximum goal size before calling it quits. And I wasn't even trying, just casually slapping them away like flies. There's just nothing to it. I saw someone on the leaderboard (of six people so far) get up to 750 but I would bet it was only boredom or life calling and not actually letting in the 10 shots that ends your run that made them stop. A total waste of a mode, you can only think that they tried to recalibrate the difficulty for the psvr2 and blew it somehow. Not fun. Totally embarrassing, really.
Then, there are the microtransactions, and they are pretty bad. Want to face only headers in the main mode? That's another 1/4 the price of the game! Free kicks? another 1/4! Penalties? 1/4! Want some gloves that aren't basic red or blue? That's 1/8 for each (uninspired) pair! A ball that isn't plain white? Same! Especially when the modes are so lacking and broken, walling more variety in shots and some incredibly basic cosmetics behind more cash is somewhere between maddening and hilariously misguided. Sure whales beach themselves now and again, but not like this...
Next, the throwing mechanic is one of the worst I've ever seen in a game. There's a tutorial but It just doesn't work, you just bonk the ball in front of you or weakly forward. Underhand, overhand, it doesn't feel real and it just impossible to throw far or accurately. I guess the bright side is the only place you would ever throw the ball is in the "play area" that has various targets which will keep you occupied for about two minutes (throwing and using a catapult thingy) before you never go back. The Quest version has two other modes ("Goalie wars" and "Target Clash") that probably used throwing (or even kicking) more which they dropped for the PSVR2 version.
I guess this is minor compared to the other technical problems, but as well as open-handing the ball they also implemented grabbing it, and punching it away -- but there's no point to them. In real football, you might choose to punch the ball out of necessity as it's traveling too fast and you can't catch it cleanly. That is not the case here -- you can one-hand slap (or even backhand) even the hardest driven shot, it makes no difference. You also palm balls with one hand (?!?) by pressing R2 to catch them but why you would ever do that other than to hear the sound it makes I don't know. There are no rebounds or handling required. Open handing everything is definitely the way to go, as it covers the most space.
Anyway, there you have it. Assuming they patch the stuttering, this is a very limited game with extremely unfortunate microtransactions and some strange gameplay decisions. As of now. it's an avoid at all costs.

My cat is almost two and is in indoor cat.
Every time she’s due her flea and worming treatment it is a real challenge, I guess the smell is strong for her because the second I open a pipette she runs and hides under a bed 😂
I’ve just managed to do the drops now but it got me thinking if there’s an alternative.
I can see tablets but I think that would be even trickier, can anyone recommend any flea and worming treatments that mix in with food?

Gheinar City: Imperial Occupied Northern Front
General Redlina's lone transport arrived at Gheinar in the early hours of a particularly cold morning. The large abhuman marched down the ramp flanked only by two Valyrrans & two Minthelians. Her aide Lieutenant Luciel who was coughing regularly and barely able to stay standing straight after the wounds she had sustained and still not gotten treated properly. And a lone stormtrooper who hid her face behind her visor and rebreather but her armour was scarred and scratched telling a tale of a violent and chaotic battle. The two Minthelians Captain Poppy and Flo had tagged along with the general on route to the northern front.
Redlina however was as she always looked, her bulky uniform and coat billowing behind her, red abhuman eyes hidden under the peak of her iconic officers cap. She was ignoring the pain from her own injury but unless those watching paid close attention it was hard to tell she was still recovering from a stab wound by the traitors knife.
Redlina was here to speak with McMahon, the 532nd was the backbone of her main force after the Sigmauer task force had been pulled out from under her and she was here to answer whatever questions the colonel might have in person, as promised. She had not spoken to him since contingency V7 had been enacted. She marched through the cities citadel following firections to the main HQ saluting every guardsman she passed.
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East of Crowton & Burron: Imperial Siege Lines
At the Rok, Colonel Zerac was awoken to another explosion and the sounds of ork warcries. The orks were launching another attack, the 9th this week alone. Most never even got close to the lines but this one sounded bad. He rolled off the ammo crate he had been using as a bed collected his kit and rushed out of the deep dugout and into the trenches passing scrambling formations of Valyrran troops that rushed to their positions. Amidst the shouts of "Bayonets" and barking orders, the colonel walked on nodding to the young nervous looking troops under his command or giving them brief words of encouragement and pats on the back. Meanwhile explosions rained down all over the trench network from innaccurate ork fire and the crack of imperial artillery firing in reply, waging a war of counter battery across the snow filled warzone.
As he arrived at the command dugout the sounds of battle began in earnest orks had reached 1k meters from the first line and lasguns, heavy bolters grenade launchers and more had started opening up. The Colonel found his other half, Colonel Mirai already barking instructions into a voxset and moving icons around on the command table. Ebkirche had been summoned and warnings had been issued to the Kriegers to the south about the scale of this attack.
The Valyrrans would not falter and stood ready to weather the green tide once again.
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Outskirts of Waycross: Northern Front
Bluekilla Snazzda had recieved the bosses orders not long ago. "Find da nearest humie settlement and krump em" His roving band of orks numbering some 5 thousand had seen the explosions and fighting happening over by Waycross and had not wanted to be left out, thing is he realised very quickly he was outgunned and outnumbered and in an odd show of competency had elected to launch a dawn attack on the humies from the northwest and western directions as they started moving north. It remained to be seen if his boyz had been seen sneaking closer using their peculiar white camouflage to mask their approach, he had a lot of looted tanks and warbuggies ready to begin a frantic armoured charge when the fighting got tough but he himself was outfitted with his meganob armour and customshoota ready to have a good fight.
5k orks with mechanised troops, artillery and tanks are launching a surprise raid, their bloodlust is high so dont expect any retreat.
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North of Fort Ko'Var: Formerly Saints Gate
Task force Liberation was on the move, thousands of infantry and vehicles began moving out from Liberation heights only a few miles from the fort. They had plans to begin setting up siege lines, digging in their artillery while they still had the element of surprise the idea was to keep the tanks hidden in the forest for now, ready to begin the attack at any time. Troops sat in fox holes and prayed to the Emperor awaiting the word to bring the fight to the T'au.
Colonel Lilzton Stood on the back of a command salamander scout vehicle with a detailed map of the fort and all current force positions outlined, Morale was high he just hoped it stayed that way once the casualties started coming in.
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Westbridge: Northern Front Imperial Mountain Command
Lion had been woken once again to the sound of another incident he was beginning to get very tired of it and Valtin was really pushing for a crackdown on the civilian populace after last nights attack on the warehouses.
When Valtin came to see him for the 6th time that morning Lion nodded. A demonstration needs to be made. Valtin had left with a terrifying smile on his face, what he might do remained a mystery.
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Major Minton and the very large Valyrran force with her set out today towards Waycross with the intention of joining the frontline and setting out for the fort itself. The Valyrrans had gone from the smallest contingent to probably the largest now and the rows of heavy armoured vehicles poured out of the town for hours all heading south towards the newly found crossing, squads of centaur light carriers, hydras and hellhounds set out for the bridge itself eager to get to Waycross as quickly as possible under Captain Donly's command while the infantry, Crassus and Macharius heavies went south.
As reports of fighting at the river had reached command, waves of Vulture gunships had been scrambled to scour the snowy plains and find the escaped T'au force, Minton had orders to divert a hunting party which would cooperate with the Rathian scouts in the area to find and eradicate this potential thorn in their side.
Squads of elite Valyrran specialists now began a search pattern if they found anything or a team didnt call in Vultures would descend on the area in minutes. Command was not taking any risks as all logistical supplies needed for the siege had to pass through these areas and there was zero tolerance for any losses.
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Fortress Sha'Yo: T'au Northern Frontline.
At Sha'Yo Fortress Captain Finn stood on the battlements looking out south, he had been told the stealth convoy had returned across the icebreaker plains and was due to arrive today. He had still been waiting on reports of how the rest of the fighting had unfolded across the frontlines after his own only semi successful strike, he atleast hoped the enemy no longer underestimated them going forward. His forces morale had stayed steady despite the losses and he had doubled the number of drone patrols incase of any Imperial counter attack, he would not be caught unprepared.
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Both Imperial and T'au commands in the area looked at meteorological reports and both sides came to the same conclusion. A potent winter storm was about to hit the northern front which would drop temperatures considerably. All forces were advised to prepare themselves for a period of intense snow, with -30 to -50 degree weather with even worse conditions in the mountains and low visibility expected until the storms pass. These conditions will hamper air support especially.

2012 saw me take Accutane at the age of 20. My skin remained flawless and radiant for a few years following my lovely results. As soon as I stopped using it, the majority of my adverse effects disappeared. Since I've worn contacts since I was ten, I wore my glasses most of the time while I had treatment. After I stopped taking Accutane, I started wearing them once more. I've always had some sort of dry eye condition, but I've always blamed allergies, prolonged contact lens wear, etc. Until I moved to a different city, my long-term small-town ophthalmologist never really looked into any of it. My new ophthalmologist has been incredibly thorough with my eye checkups. My eyes are always dry. I've spent hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on various over-the-counter and prescription eye drops. To urge the oil glands that remain in my body to release oil, I have to apply a warm compress for five minutes, once or twice a day. I can no longer utilise a ceiling fan and must use an eye mask and humidifier when I sleep. It has been almost four months since I was last able to wear my contacts. My four lacrimal glands are all punctal plugged. I just had two at first, and they didn't make my eyes any less dry. I have four now, and I have nowhere to put my tears. I am now unable to have any kind of corrective eye treatment, including LASIK surgery. According to my ophthalmologist, there is no doubt that Accutane is at blame for this, as numerous articles have connected the medication to meibomian gland dysfunction, or MGD. Currently I do skincare without accutane which includes trets and azelaic acids (the lowest strength) from skinorac, Cetaphil and LRP, cerave moisturisers and la roche posay spf. Think twice before starting accutane.

Just some thoughts as I've got back into PCVR recently ...
My father sent me a Quest 3 for my birthday and the edge to edge clarity of the lenses got me back into VR. I have a Reverb G2 (which I used with knuckles) and a Quest 2, but I had played less and less due to content and, frankly, I was sick of fresnel lenses. Meta's optics are now ridiculously good. I had some software in my account, and as soon as I fired up racket fury - it was clear as day, but looked like absolute crap because it hasn't been updated for Quest 3. I played Asgard's Wrath 2, and while better, was the same issue.
I then went to try and set up PCVR streaming with virtual desktop. I tried 200 mbps AVC and HEVC. I could get up to 400-500 mbps H.264. Truthfully, I wasn't happy with the visual quality or the latency.
I used the link cable. I dialed mbps to 960 mbps. Much better, but still not happy with visual quality or latency. The optics of the Quest 3 make it way to easy to see artifacts. I could even see it on the cubes in the color gradients of beat saber, and it drove me crazy. But really, I could live with it if it wasn't for the latency. At max bit rate I'm locked at about 45 ms. On a native headset I believe it's under 10 ms. You can definitely feel it in VR and it ruins it for me. I could dial back the mbps over link, but then the graphic fidelity goes down.
So, I set out to get a native PCVR headset that was as close to the optics of the Quest 3 as possible.
Initially I was interested in BSB, but the reason the Quest 3 excited me so much was edge to edge clarity. Looked at Crystal and Aero. I'm sorry, I just can't buy a Pimax device - knowing how many issues friends have had with the company. Further, it's massive. Maybe the Crystal light will be better.
I got a used Aero from Adorama for $750. It's pretty good, it's a mature product - but it's lenses aren't as good as the Quest 3 (it's close). It's got slight barrel distortion still on the right and left edges of the lens, which my brain tuned out after a day. It's also got slight motion blur when you move your head. Slightly annoying, but I don't notice it unless I look for it. While it's got no local dimming, colors look great - and I have never had an FOV that bothered me.
I went back to the Quest 3 last night playing red matter 2 standalone. The optics are absolutely flawless. The graphics are pretty decent when compared to PCVR, but this is pushing the device to it's limits, as I see frame drops here and there. This is the best we are gonna get from standalone, most games aren't updated to take advantage of it, and it could look soooooo much better via a native displayport connection on a high powered 4090/13900k pc.
All headsets have compromises, and I'm going to use the Aero for PCVR as I really like it. But the quest 3 compromise is self imposed: no native displayport because Meta wants you to buy standalone games from their store. I get it, but it pisses me off. At least make the pro model have a native pcvr option, because that isn't subsidized like the standard models. We have flawless optics at this point but can't use them with native pcvr because meta. That's what bothers me.
If the Quest 3 had native PCVR, I'd pay 2 to 3x it's cost. Which is essentially the original Quest Pro price range. The Aero is great, don't get me wrong - but it's hard to go back to any compromises in optics when you've seen perfect optics. For Meta, the quest pro was a financial flop (doesn't mean it's not an excellent headset.) For the quest pro 2, it makes business sense to add a native displayport for both the prosumer and business audience. Heck, most people use their Quest pro for PCVR anyway. This would allow a choice of wireless, or native and would immediately be the best native headset, assuming it's not extremely uncomfortable.
TLDR - the technology is there for flawless PCVR optics, but we can't use it to it's full capabilities. An ARM chip is not going to be able to compete with a high end PC graphics card, at least for a decade or two.

If you see something I still need to post, please post it below
***Unless stated otherwise, assume drops are online and times are EST
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May 18 - Jordan 11 Retro Low Space Jam
NRML 10 am
Sam Tabak 10 am
Deadstock 10 am
Size 10 am
Foot Locker 10 am
Champs 10 am
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May 22 - Nike SB Dunk Low Futura Laboratories Bleached Aqua
Nike 6 am
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May 23 - Nike SB Dunk Low Classic Green
Nike 6 am
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May 23 - Jordan 4 Retro Military Blue (2024) - Restock
Foot Locker 10 am
Champs 10 am
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May 24 - New Balance Coco CG1 Moon Rock
New Balance 10 am
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May 25 - Jordan 12 Retro Red Taxi
NRML 10 am
Foot Locker 10 am
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May 29 - Jordan 1 Retro High OG Latte (Women's)
NRML 10 am
Sam Tabak 10 am
JD Sports 10 am
Champs 10 am
Foot Locker 10 am
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May 31 - Nike Air Foamposite One Light Orewood Brown
Foot Locker 10 am
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Canadian Sneaker Nut Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/canadiansneakernut
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