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The monster in the sand dunes turned my brother into a bird
2024.05.19 08:06 Mantis_Shrimp47 The monster in the sand dunes turned my brother into a bird
"You gotta know that there's an art to it, Ezra," Hitch said, cutting another piece of duct tape.
The sleeves of his weather-beaten coat were shoved all the way up his arms, to stop the fabric from falling over his knuckles while he was working, and goosebumps lined his skin. He was strapping a rubber chicken to the back of his truck, over the lens of the shattered backup camera, with the legs pointing down so that they hung a couple inches above the ground. There were dents in the hood from the crash last week, and scratches along the door from scraping into a curb. The chicken, hopefully, would keep him from breaking anything else.
"You can't go cheap," Hitch said. "The cheap rubber chickens only make noise when pressure lets go. That's no good. As soon as I back up into something, I want this chicken to be screaming like it’s in the depths of hell."
“Sure thing,” I said in a monotone, leaning against the side of the truck.
There were scrambled electronic parts piled in the back of the truck, the innards of a radio, a broken computer, tangled wires, a couple loose pairs of earbuds. He found the parts in alleyways or bummed them off his friends for a couple bucks or stole them from the vacation homes that were left empty for most of the year. Then he sold them for a profit at the scrapyard. Hitch had bounced between minimum-wage jobs for a while after high school, spending a couple months as a bagger at the grocery store or as a seasonal worker at the farm two hours down the highway. He'd never stuck with it. At the very least, the scrapyard got him enough money to eat and occasionally spend a night in a motel when he got tired of sleeping in his car.
Hitch pressed the last piece of tape in place and grinned up at me. "I've got something for you, duck."
The nickname came from when I’d broken my leg as a child and waddled around in a cast until it was healed. I hated it with a burning passion, and I glared at Hitch with the ease of twenty-one years of practice. He had a duck tattoo at the base of his thumb that he’d gotten in a back-alley shop as a teenager. He said that he’d gotten it to remind him of me, and the fact that I hated the nickname was just a bonus. It was shaky-lined, with an uneven face, but he loved it anyway.
The handle stuck when Hitch tried to open the door, a consequence of the rust collecting in the crevices of the car and running down the sides like blood from a cut. The car groaned when the door finally popped open, a metal against metal screech that had me flinching away. Hitch dug through the cluttered fast food containers in the passenger-side footwell, eventually coming up with a crinkly paper bag. He waved away the flies buzzing around the opening of the bag and held it out to me.
The last time Hitch had brought me food, I’d gotten food poisoning because he’d left it out in the midday sun for two days. The donut was squished slightly, and the icing was stuck to the bag. I still ate it, grimacing at the harsh citrus flavor. Taking Hitch’s food was an instinct engraved from the days when Dad had given us a can of kidney beans for dinner and Hitch had drank the juice, leaving the beans for me.
I rarely went hungry anymore, three mostly square meals a day and granola in my pockets just in case, but habits didn’t die easy.
These days, Hitch only brought me food when he wanted my help, like when he saw a place he wanted to hit but was worried about doing it alone.
I got in the car, like I always did.
We drove past the cluster of seafood-themed restaurants with chipped paint decks, the beachfront park where there were always shifty-eyed men sitting under the slide, the single room library where all the books had been water damaged in the flood last year. The change was quick as we drove across Main Street, heading closer to the beach. The roads were freshly paved, the concrete a smooth black except where the sun had already started to pick away at it. The three-story homes lining the sides of the street were crouched on elegant stilts, with space underneath for a car or three. Most of the garages were empty, with the lights off and curtains drawn in the house. Come summer, the streets would be swarming with tourists and vacationers, but until then, most of the buildings nearest to the beach were unoccupied.
Hitch stopped as the sun started to go down at a house that was leaning precariously out towards the beach, tilted ever so slightly, the edge of its foundation buried in the shifting sand of the beach. It certainly looked deserted, with an overgrown yard and blue paint peeling off the door in sheets.
Hitch took his hammer out of the backseat, hoisting it over his shoulder. It was two feet of solid metal with rags wrapped around the head to muffle the sound of the hits. Hitch squared up, bending his knees and holding the hammer like a baseball bat. Before he could swing, though, the door creaked open on its own, the hinges squeaking. The house beyond was dark enough that I could only make out general shapes, glimpsing the curve of a sofa to the left, what was maybe the shimmer of a chandelier on the other side.
Hitch lowered his hammer, looking vaguely disappointed that he didn’t get to use it. “That’s…weird as hell.”
“Maybe the deadbolt broke, maybe they forgot to lock it, it doesn’t matter,” I hissed, checking our surroundings for other people again. “Just hurry up and get inside before someone calls the cops.”
Hitch flicked the lightswitch on the wall, and the lights flickered on. They were dim, buzzing audibly and blinking off occasionally. The walls were plastered with contrasting swatches of wallpaper and splattered with random colors. There was neon orange behind the dining table, a galaxy swirl in the kitchen, and on the ceiling there was a repeating floral pattern covered in nametag stickers. Each of the stickers was filled out with The Erlking. Chandeliers hung in every room, three or four for each, and rubber ducks sat on every table. A miniature carousel sat in the corner along with a towering model rocket.
Sand was heaped on every surface, at least a couple inches everywhere. It was piled in the corners and stuck to the walls, and it covered the floor in a thick blanket. Our hesitant steps into the house left footprints clearly outlined in the sand.
Hitch took a cursory look around and headed immediately for the TV mounted on the wall. “Look out the windows and tell me if anyone is coming.”
I shook the sand out of the blinds and pulled them open, then had to brush sand off of the window before I could see anything.
Hitch was quick, practiced at finding and appropriating the things that were worth taking. He came back to me with an armful of electronics and chandeliers, dumping it at my feet before turning to head deeper into the house again.
There was a thump, somewhere upstairs, and then footsteps, slow and deliberate. Hitch froze at the threshold of the room, then ran for the door with me just ahead of him, sand flying out from under our feet.
My hand was almost brushing the doorknob, close enough that I could see the light from the streetlamp outside streaming in through the cracks in the door. My fingers touched the wood and it gave under my touch, becoming malleable and warm. I yelped, stumbling backwards, and the door started to melt. The paint ran down in thick drops, pooling at the bottom of the door, and the wood warped like metal being welded. The soft edges of the door ran into the walls until there was no sign of an exit ever being there.
“Well, well, well,” said a cultured voice with just an edge of snooty elitism. “What do we have here?”
The man was well over eight feet tall, with long black hair covering his eyes. He was wearing a yellow raincoat with holes cut out of the hood to accommodate the deer antlers jutting upwards from his head. There was sand settled on his shoulders and hovering around his head like a halo.
“Who the fuck are you?” Hitch said, inching towards a window.
He smiled, just a little bit, and his teeth shone in the dim light. “I am the Erlking.”
Hitch nodded, and seemed about to respond. I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him towards the window. I could feel sand in the wind roaring against my back as the Erlking growled in anger, the grains scraping harshly against my cheeks.
We were almost to the window when Hitch was ripped away from me, and I came to a startled halt. The sand had formed long grasping arms that pressed Hitch against the floral wallpaper. His wrists were held tight, and as I watched, a sandy hand wrapped around his mouth and forced its way between his teeth. He gagged, and sand trickled out of the corners of his mouth.
The Erlking strolled towards him, not seeming to be in any sort of rush. “You know, I’m not very fond of your yapping.”
He made an idle gesture and the sand wrapped around my ankles, tethering me in place.
“I yap all the time,” Hitch said. “Three-time olympic yapper, that’s me. Best to just let me go now and save yourself some trouble.”
The Erlking tapped a manicured nail against Hitch’s mouth, hard enough to hurt, judging by the way he flinched away. “But why would I ever let you go when I’ve gone to this much trouble to catch you and your sister? It’s so hard, these days, to find people that no one will miss.”
Hitch struggled against the sand, trying to escape and failing. “What do you want with us, then? You just said it, we’re nobody.”
“I’m fae, dear one,” the Erlking said. “I get my power from my followers. And I think that you two will make lovely additions to my flock.”
He flicked Hitch's nose and Hitch gasped. Feathers started to form on his arms, popping out from under his skin in a spray of blood.
Hitch pushed off the wall, using his bound hands as a fulcrum, and his knees crashed into the Erlking’s stomach. The Erlking fell backwards, wheezing, and the sand around my ankles loosened.
Hitch made desperate eye contact with me as feathers shot up his neck and jerked his head towards the window. The message was obvious. Run.
The last thing I saw before crashing out the window and into freedom was Hitch’s body twisting, his arms wrenching into wings and feathers covering every inch of his skin. By the time I landed on the concrete outside, he was a small black bird, held tightly in the Erlking’s hands. The whole building was sinking into the ground, burnished-gold sand piling up over top and streaming from the windows.
Thirty years later, I saw Sam’s Supernatural Consultation and Neutralization written in neat, looping handwriting on a piece of paper taped to the door. The tape was peeling at the corners and the paper was yellowed with age, but there was obviously care put into the sign, in its perfectly centered text and looping floral designs drawn over the edges in gold marker.
I knocked, hesitantly, drawing my woolen coat closer around my shoulders. I’d bought it as a fiftieth birthday gift for myself, and I took comfort in the heavy weight of it over my shoulders.
“Coming!” someone called from within the depths of the office.
There were a couple crashes, and the sound of paper shuffling. Eventually, the door was opened by a young woman with ketchup stains on her shirt and pencils stuck through her hair.
“Hi, I’m Sam, I specialize in supernatural consultation and hunting, how may I help you today?” Sam said, customer-service pep in her voice. She stood in the doorway, solidly blocking entry into the office.
“My name is Ezra, I’m for a consultation. I emailed you but you didn’t respond?” I shifted in place, suddenly feeling awkward.
“Oh! Yeah, I lost the password for the email ages ago. Sorry for the bad welcome, I get lots of people thinking I’m crazy or pulling a prank and harassing me.”
She ushered me into the office, clearing papers off one of the chairs to make room for me to sit down. There was a collection of swords along one wall, all of them polished to perfection, several with deep knicks in the metal which indicated that they’d been used heavily.
“So what can I help you with?” Sam asked again, more sincere this time.
“Thirty years ago, my brother was turned into a bird,” I started. I’d told this story so many times that it barely felt ridiculous to say anymore. I was used to the disbelieving looks, the careful pity. But Sam just nodded along, face open and welcoming.
“I’ve almost given up on finding him, at this point,” I said. “But I saw your ad in the newspaper, and…here I am, I suppose.”
“Here you are,” Sam echoed, smiling. She pulled one of the pencils out of her hair and took a bit of paperwork off of one of her stacks, turning it over so that the blank side sat neatly in front of her. “Tell me everything.”
I told Sam everything, and she wrote it all down, pencil scratching along the paper.
The last part of the story was always the hardest to tell. “I left him there. I ran and I didn’t look back.”
I had been to dozens of detectives and investigators over the years, once the police had dropped Hitch’s case. I’d been to professional offices with smartly-dressed secretaries and met scraggly men in coffee shops. All of them had given me the same look, pity and annoyance all mixed up into a humor-the-crazy-lady soup. Sam, though, just seemed thoughtful.
Sam leaned forward and put a hand over mine, carefully, like she thought that I would pull away. “Sometimes you have to leave people behind.”
I tightened her hold on Sam’s hand and drew it towards me, like I could make Sam listen if only I squeezed tight enough. “But that’s why I’m here. I don’t want to leave him behind.”
“Okay then. I’ll do my best to help you.” Sam agreed, finally. Then she paused, and said softly, “You know…I think I met your brother once. He might have saved my life. He’s certainly why I started in this business.”
“Really? What happened?” I asked.
This is the story that Sam told me, related to the best of my abilities:
It was a new moon, so the only illumination came from the stars gazing idly down and distant porch lights shining across the scraggly brush of the dunes. Sam’s neighbors were decent people who cared about baby turtles, so the lights were a low, unobtrusive red, and the ocean sloshed like blood. Sam walked on the beach almost every night, drawing back the gauzy pink curtains and clambering out her bedroom window. She didn’t often bother to be quiet; her mama worked the late shift and came home exhausted. As long as Sam got home before the sun, her mama would never find out that she paced the shoreline and dreamed of inhaling sand until her lungs became their own beach.
The sky was lightening. The sun would come up soon, and that meant Sam’s time on the beach was over. She needed to get back to her real life, go to her fifth grade class and stop that nonsense, as her mother would say. Her mother loved to say things like that, pushing Sam into her proper place by implication alone.
“She’s a good kid, of course, but she’s a bit…” Her mother would trail off there, usually getting a commiserating expression from whoever she was talking to. Sam always wondered how that sentence would have finished. She’s a bit strange, maybe. She’s a bit intense. She’s a bit abrasive. She’s quiet enough but when Jason tried to steal her pencil in math class, she stabbed him in the hand so hard that the lead tattooed him.
Her mother was better, for the most part. The days of her stocking up the fridge, and leaving a post-it note on the counter, and leaving for days at a time were gone. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen tile where her mother had collapsed and caved her head in, even though the bloodstains had been replaced with new tile.
“Your auntie got an abortion, you know,” her mother had said from her place on the couch, slurring her words. “Pill in the mail and then bam, no more baby.”
She had clapped her hands together to illustrate her point. Her mother jerked forward and grabbed Sam by the wrist, then, staring up at her until Sam met her eyes.
“I love you, you know? But sometimes I wonder…” She settled back onto the couch. “Yeah. I wonder.”
She’d gotten up, then, back to the kitchen. She’d been stumbling, a shambling zombie of a woman. The ground in the entryway of the kitchen was raised, ever so slightly, and her mother went down hard. Her head cracked against the tile, chin first, and she didn’t move.
Sam had been the one to call the ambulance. She had stared at the scattering of loose teeth on the ground while she waited, and considered what her life would be like with a dead mom. Not so bad, she thought, and immediately felt guilty for it.
Her mom was better, now, for the most part. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen floor where she had collapsed. There was still a matchbox hidden under her bed with the gleaming shine of her mother’s lost teeth, two canines and a molar. It was nice, having a piece of her mom to keep. Even if she left again, Sam would still have part of her.
Sam sighed, and turned away from the ocean. As she faced towards the low dunes further up the beach, she saw a sandcastle sitting nestled among them. It was such a strange sight that her eyes skipped over it at first, almost automatically, disregarding it because it was so out of place.
Sam found sandcastles out on the beach sometimes, usually half-collapsed and on the verge of being washed away by the waves, but she had never seen anything like the sandcastle in front of her. It was life-sized, something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Scottish highlands, with spires shooting up above her head and carefully etched out bricks lining each side. The front wall was dominated by an arched set of double doors, twice her height, with a portcullis nestled at the top, ready to be dropped. All of it was lovingly detailed, down to the rust on the tips of the towers and the wood grain of the door. It was made out of wet, densely-packed sand, held together impossibly. It had not been there two hours ago, when she had come to the beach.
There was a bird sitting on the overhang of the door, small and black.
As soon as she took a step towards the sandcastle, the bird shook out its feathers and swooped down towards Sam, landing at her feet with a little stumble.
“Hey, kid, get out of here,” said the bird.
Sam closed her eyes, very deliberately. When she opened them, the bird was still there. Sam considered herself a very reasonable person, so she immediately drew the most logical conclusion. The bird was, she was almost certain, a demon.
“Trust me, you don’t want to run into Mr. Salty, the queen bitch himself,” the bird said.
“Mr. Salty?” Sam inquired, polite as she knew how to be. She edged to the side, trying to get a good angle to kick the bird like a soccer ball.
The bird did something similar to a wince, all its feathers fluffing up then settling back down. “Ah, don’t call him that. He’d turn you into a toad.”
The bird gestured with its head, towards the looming sand structure. “That’s his castle. He’s in there, probably scuttling along the ceiling or some shit because that’s the sort of weirdo he is.”
Sam nodded, encouraging. She pulled back her foot and lined up her shot, the way she’d seen athletes do on TV. She aimed right for its sharp beak and let loose. The bird saw it coming, its beady eyes widening, and it cawed in distress. It flapped away, avoiding her kick only to fall backward into the sand in a scramble of wings.
“What’s your fucking problem?” it squawked. “I was trying to help you!”
“I don’t need the help of a demon,” Sam yelled, trying to remember the exorcism that her mama had taught her once, because her mama believed in being prepared for anything.
“I’m not a demon,” the bird said indignantly.
It was at about that moment that Sam gave up and just decided to roll with it.
“What are you, then?” Sam asked.
The bird shuffled its clawed feet, looking about as awkward as it could, given that it didn’t really have recognizable facial expressions. “Technically I’m a familiar of the Erlking, prince of the fae, but I prefer to be called Hitch.”
“You can’t blame me for assuming, though,” Sam said. “Ravens do tend to be associated with murder.”
“Hey, excuse you,” Hitch said. “I’m a rook, not a raven. Ravens are way bigger.”
“Sure,” Sam said, not really paying attention. Her eyes had caught on the details of the sandcastle, and she was transfixed by the slow spirals of the sand, the strange beauty of it. She found herself stepping towards the great doors, lifting a hand to knock, and as she did, the sand warped in front of her eyes, heaving itself towards her with bulging slowness. The door creaked open before her, revealing a vast, empty room. Just before she stepped inside, she felt a piercing pain in her foot, and she yelped, leaping backwards.
Hitch pecked her again, really digging his beak in. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Sam glared at him, rubbing her foot. About to retort, she finally really took in the room inside the sandcastle, and her words died in her throat.
There was a body just past the threshold of the door, face down and limbs hanging limp at its sides. Long hair splayed out in a halo around its head.
“Don’t,” Hitch warned, suddenly serious. “Just leave, kid, I mean it. I’ve seen too many people go down this road and you don’t want to be one of them.”
Sam ignored him. She made her way across the beach, slipping with every step. The sand felt deeper, piling up around her feet in silent drifts. She picked up the nearest stick and poked the body with it through the door, ready to leap back if anything went wrong, staying firmly outside of the sandcastle.
This close, Sam could tell that it used to be a woman. Her head wasn’t attached to her body. It hadn’t been a clean amputation, either. Her upper body was bruised, with chunks taken out of it, and the bones in her neck hung mangled, not connected to anything.
“Well, I warned you,” Hitch said, defeated. “I did warn you.”
Sam nudged the head with the end of the stick, nudging it over so that she could see the face. Her mother stared back at her, torn to pieces, breath still wheezing from her lungs. She wasn’t blinking, just gazing forward with glazed eyes. Sweat dripped down from her hairline.
Sam screamed and dropped the stick, tripping over herself in her haste to get away.
Her mother’s eyes were wide and pleading, and she was mouthing desperate words at Sam. Her vocal cords were broken to bits, and the only sound that came out was a strained groan.
The head rolled, inching closer to Sam like a grotesque caterpillar.
Her mother gasped for air, torn lips fluttering. Finally, comprehensible words came out. “Help. Help me, daughter.”
“That’s not your mother,” Hitch said, quiet.
Sam knew that. Her mother was sleeping back at home, and anyways her mom had never asked for her help. She had an aversion to accepting charity, as she put it.
“Okay,” Sam said, shaking all over. “Okay.”
She backed away from the sandcastle, not looking away.
“Failure,” her mother hissed as she stepped away. “I never wanted a daughter like you.”
The sun came up over the horizon. The sandcastle, Hitch, and her mom all disintegrated into sand as the light hit them.
The beach, the next night, was almost exactly how I remembered it. The beams of our flashlights sent light bouncing across the dunes, illuminating the waves, and I imagined faces in the foam of the waves.
“I’ve been back here a hundred times. There’s nothing left,” I said.
Sam took the car key out of her purse and pointed it at the sand, adjusting the sword slung over her shoulder in order to do it. The key had belonged to Hitch; Sam had requested an item of his, and it was the only thing I had left. She rested the key on the sand and drew a circle around it, inscribing symbols around the borders.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Sam shrugged. “Not much, really. I’m…I guess you could say that I’m knocking.”
The key laid inert on the sand for long enough that I was just about to give up and go home, admit to myself that Hitch was dead and that I was a fool to believe that Sam could actually help me. Then a building started to take shape, flickering in and out like it was struggling to get away. With a pop of displaced air, the sandcastle settled into existence.
Sam banged on the entryway. Nothing happened. She did it again, harder, and scowled when the door still didn’t open.
“We demand entrance, under your honor,” Sam yelled. There was a hard rush of wind, and I gripped Sam’s arm to keep my balance, but the doors cracked open reluctantly.
The inside of the sandcastle consisted of one enormous hall, the roof arching up out of sight. Rafters crisscrossed from wall to wall, and a cobbled path led further into the building, but other than that, it was completely empty, except for the birds. There were thousands of them, perched on the rafters or hopping along the ground. They parted in front of Sam and I, and reformed behind us, leaving us in a small pocket of open space. They were all black-feathered, with sharp beaks and beady eyes.
The Erlking sat on a throne at the end of the hall, lounging across it with his feet up on the armrest. He watched them as they came forward, the soft caw of the birds the only sound.
“I am here to bargain for the life of my brother,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, before the Erlking could say anything.
The Erlking ignored her, tilting his head to look at Sam. “I remember you. I almost got you, once.”
Sam glared at him but didn’t respond.
“You want your brother,” The Erlking said to me, and he almost sounded amused. “Then go get him.”
As if by some sort of silent signal, every bird in the room took flight at once, and their cawing made me think of screams. I covered my head against the flapping of their wings, and my vision was quickly obscured by the chaotic movement of them. I found myself on my knees, just trying to escape them.
A hand met my shoulder. Sam urged me to my feet, and together we ran for the edge of the room, where the swarm was the thinnest. We pressed ourselves into the corner and the swarm spiraled tighter and tighter at the center of the room. It went on until there seemed to be no differentiation between the birds, all of them fused together into one creature.
When the chaos died down, the birds had become one mass, with wings and eyes and talons sticking out of its flesh, thrashing and chirping. Human body parts stuck out of it, bulging out from the feathers. It was hands, mostly, with a couple knees or staring eyes. The bird amalgamation had no recognizable facial features, but there was one long beak extending from the front of its head. Most of the body parts were concentrated around the beak, and they peeked out from where the beak connected with muscle, or grew from the tongue, nestled between the two crushing halves of the beak.
It turned its beak down and crawled forward, using the hands to balance. The fingers scrambled over the ground. I was afraid of centipedes as a child, and I felt that same crawling dread when it started moving.
“Holy shit,” Sam whispered, which was rather disappointing, because I had been hoping that at least one of us knew what to do.
The creature turned, a lurching movement that crushed some of the hands underneath it, and started heaving itself slowly towards our corner.
“Better hurry up!” the Erlking called from his throne.
It was blocking the exit, by then. The shifting body of it had moved to block us off. It ambled towards us and I tried to sink further into the corner.
As it approached, getting close enough that I could smell the stink of it, I saw a flash of a tattoo on one of the hands. I leaned in, trying to find it again, like looking for dolphins surfacing in the ocean. And again, I caught a glimpse of a duck tattoo, the tattoo that Hitch had gotten on his hand as a teenager.
I ripped away from Sam’s death grip and ran for the monster.
I fell to my knees in front of it, wincing as I impacted the ground, and reached into the nest of hands. I could feel them tearing at my forearms and ripping into me with their sharp nails, but I kept going. I pressed further in, up to my shoulder in a writhing mass of limbs, aiming for the spot where I had last seen that tattoo.
The hands were tugging at me, wrapping around my back and hair. They were pulling together, trying to draw me completely into the mass of them. I was aware of Sam at my side, anchoring me in place and bashing any hand that got too close with her sword or the sparks that leapt from her hands with muttered words. But I didn’t think it would be enough. They were too strong, and there were too many of them.
I was up to my waist in the hands when something grabbed my palm. I felt the way it clung to me, and the calluses on its palm, and I knew that I had found my brother.
I flung herself back. The hands didn’t want to let me go, and they fought the whole way, but slowly, I made progress. I kept hold of Hitch’s hand in mine the whole time, gripping it as hard as I could. I finally broke free, Hitch with me, and Sam was immediately charging the creature, able to use her sword with much greater strength without being worried about injuring Hitch. She swung it forward, and it sliced through the wrist of one of the hands. It fell without a sound, red sand flowing out of it. It deflated until it looked like dirty laundry, just a piece of limp flesh. The creature shrieked, scuttling away enough that the door was finally accessible. The three of us ran for it, Sam and I supporting Hitch between us.
I looked back as I left and found the Erlking staring right at me.
“Interesting,” he murmured, his voice carrying impossibly across the vast space between us.
The sandcastle collapsed behind us, the great walls falling in on themselves. We were out in the morning sun, the sandcastle disappearing as we watched. Hitch was on the ground in front of me, as young as he’d been thirty years ago, when he was captured. He started laughing, feathers puffing out of his mouth. He laughed until he cried and I hugged him in the way that he’d held me when I was young, in the times when my life had been defined by hunger and fear.
Hitch left, afterwards. He scratched at the pinhole scars covering his body, where feathers burst through his skin, and pulled his long sleeves down around his wrists. He didn’t know where he was going but he told me that he needed time
I had spent thirty years worth of time without him. I wanted to grab my brother by the shoulders and beg him to stay. But he flinched when I hugged him goodbye and he refused to go near sand and he stared distrustfully at the birds chirping in the trees. Hitch needed to go away and I loved him too much to stop him.
I sat out on the beach every morning. I felt the sun on my face and I waited for Hitch to come home.
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The sleeves of his weather-beaten coat were shoved all the way up his arms, to stop the fabric from falling over his knuckles while he was working, and goosebumps lined his skin. He was strapping a rubber chicken to the back of his truck, over the lens of the shattered backup camera, with the legs pointing down so that they hung a couple inches above the ground. There were dents in the hood from the crash last week, and scratches along the door from scraping into a curb. The chicken, hopefully, would keep him from breaking anything else.
"You can't go cheap," Hitch said. "The cheap rubber chickens only make noise when pressure lets go. That's no good. As soon as I back up into something, I want this chicken to be screaming like it’s in the depths of hell."
“Sure thing,” I said in a monotone, leaning against the side of the truck.
There were scrambled electronic parts piled in the back of the truck, the innards of a radio, a broken computer, tangled wires, a couple loose pairs of earbuds. He found the parts in alleyways or bummed them off his friends for a couple bucks or stole them from the vacation homes that were left empty for most of the year. Then he sold them for a profit at the scrapyard. Hitch had bounced between minimum-wage jobs for a while after high school, spending a couple months as a bagger at the grocery store or as a seasonal worker at the farm two hours down the highway. He'd never stuck with it. At the very least, the scrapyard got him enough money to eat and occasionally spend a night in a motel when he got tired of sleeping in his car.
Hitch pressed the last piece of tape in place and grinned up at me. "I've got something for you, duck."
The nickname came from when I’d broken my leg as a child and waddled around in a cast until it was healed. I hated it with a burning passion, and I glared at Hitch with the ease of twenty-one years of practice. He had a duck tattoo at the base of his thumb that he’d gotten in a back-alley shop as a teenager. He said that he’d gotten it to remind him of me, and the fact that I hated the nickname was just a bonus. It was shaky-lined, with an uneven face, but he loved it anyway.
The handle stuck when Hitch tried to open the door, a consequence of the rust collecting in the crevices of the car and running down the sides like blood from a cut. The car groaned when the door finally popped open, a metal against metal screech that had me flinching away. Hitch dug through the cluttered fast food containers in the passenger-side footwell, eventually coming up with a crinkly paper bag. He waved away the flies buzzing around the opening of the bag and held it out to me.
The last time Hitch had brought me food, I’d gotten food poisoning because he’d left it out in the midday sun for two days. The donut was squished slightly, and the icing was stuck to the bag. I still ate it, grimacing at the harsh citrus flavor. Taking Hitch’s food was an instinct engraved from the days when Dad had given us a can of kidney beans for dinner and Hitch had drank the juice, leaving the beans for me.
I rarely went hungry anymore, three mostly square meals a day and granola in my pockets just in case, but habits didn’t die easy.
These days, Hitch only brought me food when he wanted my help, like when he saw a place he wanted to hit but was worried about doing it alone.
I got in the car, like I always did.
We drove past the cluster of seafood-themed restaurants with chipped paint decks, the beachfront park where there were always shifty-eyed men sitting under the slide, the single room library where all the books had been water damaged in the flood last year. The change was quick as we drove across Main Street, heading closer to the beach. The roads were freshly paved, the concrete a smooth black except where the sun had already started to pick away at it. The three-story homes lining the sides of the street were crouched on elegant stilts, with space underneath for a car or three. Most of the garages were empty, with the lights off and curtains drawn in the house. Come summer, the streets would be swarming with tourists and vacationers, but until then, most of the buildings nearest to the beach were unoccupied.
Hitch stopped as the sun started to go down at a house that was leaning precariously out towards the beach, tilted ever so slightly, the edge of its foundation buried in the shifting sand of the beach. It certainly looked deserted, with an overgrown yard and blue paint peeling off the door in sheets.
Hitch took his hammer out of the backseat, hoisting it over his shoulder. It was two feet of solid metal with rags wrapped around the head to muffle the sound of the hits. Hitch squared up, bending his knees and holding the hammer like a baseball bat. Before he could swing, though, the door creaked open on its own, the hinges squeaking. The house beyond was dark enough that I could only make out general shapes, glimpsing the curve of a sofa to the left, what was maybe the shimmer of a chandelier on the other side.
Hitch lowered his hammer, looking vaguely disappointed that he didn’t get to use it. “That’s…weird as hell.”
“Maybe the deadbolt broke, maybe they forgot to lock it, it doesn’t matter,” I hissed, checking our surroundings for other people again. “Just hurry up and get inside before someone calls the cops.”
Hitch flicked the lightswitch on the wall, and the lights flickered on. They were dim, buzzing audibly and blinking off occasionally. The walls were plastered with contrasting swatches of wallpaper and splattered with random colors. There was neon orange behind the dining table, a galaxy swirl in the kitchen, and on the ceiling there was a repeating floral pattern covered in nametag stickers. Each of the stickers was filled out with The Erlking. Chandeliers hung in every room, three or four for each, and rubber ducks sat on every table. A miniature carousel sat in the corner along with a towering model rocket.
Sand was heaped on every surface, at least a couple inches everywhere. It was piled in the corners and stuck to the walls, and it covered the floor in a thick blanket. Our hesitant steps into the house left footprints clearly outlined in the sand.
Hitch took a cursory look around and headed immediately for the TV mounted on the wall. “Look out the windows and tell me if anyone is coming.”
I shook the sand out of the blinds and pulled them open, then had to brush sand off of the window before I could see anything.
Hitch was quick, practiced at finding and appropriating the things that were worth taking. He came back to me with an armful of electronics and chandeliers, dumping it at my feet before turning to head deeper into the house again.
There was a thump, somewhere upstairs, and then footsteps, slow and deliberate. Hitch froze at the threshold of the room, then ran for the door with me just ahead of him, sand flying out from under our feet.
My hand was almost brushing the doorknob, close enough that I could see the light from the streetlamp outside streaming in through the cracks in the door. My fingers touched the wood and it gave under my touch, becoming malleable and warm. I yelped, stumbling backwards, and the door started to melt. The paint ran down in thick drops, pooling at the bottom of the door, and the wood warped like metal being welded. The soft edges of the door ran into the walls until there was no sign of an exit ever being there.
“Well, well, well,” said a cultured voice with just an edge of snooty elitism. “What do we have here?”
The man was well over eight feet tall, with long black hair covering his eyes. He was wearing a yellow raincoat with holes cut out of the hood to accommodate the deer antlers jutting upwards from his head. There was sand settled on his shoulders and hovering around his head like a halo.
“Who the fuck are you?” Hitch said, inching towards a window.
He smiled, just a little bit, and his teeth shone in the dim light. “I am the Erlking.”
Hitch nodded, and seemed about to respond. I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him towards the window. I could feel sand in the wind roaring against my back as the Erlking growled in anger, the grains scraping harshly against my cheeks.
We were almost to the window when Hitch was ripped away from me, and I came to a startled halt. The sand had formed long grasping arms that pressed Hitch against the floral wallpaper. His wrists were held tight, and as I watched, a sandy hand wrapped around his mouth and forced its way between his teeth. He gagged, and sand trickled out of the corners of his mouth.
The Erlking strolled towards him, not seeming to be in any sort of rush. “You know, I’m not very fond of your yapping.”
He made an idle gesture and the sand wrapped around my ankles, tethering me in place.
“I yap all the time,” Hitch said. “Three-time olympic yapper, that’s me. Best to just let me go now and save yourself some trouble.”
The Erlking tapped a manicured nail against Hitch’s mouth, hard enough to hurt, judging by the way he flinched away. “But why would I ever let you go when I’ve gone to this much trouble to catch you and your sister? It’s so hard, these days, to find people that no one will miss.”
Hitch struggled against the sand, trying to escape and failing. “What do you want with us, then? You just said it, we’re nobody.”
“I’m fae, dear one,” the Erlking said. “I get my power from my followers. And I think that you two will make lovely additions to my flock.”
He flicked Hitch's nose and Hitch gasped. Feathers started to form on his arms, popping out from under his skin in a spray of blood.
Hitch pushed off the wall, using his bound hands as a fulcrum, and his knees crashed into the Erlking’s stomach. The Erlking fell backwards, wheezing, and the sand around my ankles loosened.
Hitch made desperate eye contact with me as feathers shot up his neck and jerked his head towards the window. The message was obvious. Run.
The last thing I saw before crashing out the window and into freedom was Hitch’s body twisting, his arms wrenching into wings and feathers covering every inch of his skin. By the time I landed on the concrete outside, he was a small black bird, held tightly in the Erlking’s hands. The whole building was sinking into the ground, burnished-gold sand piling up over top and streaming from the windows.
Thirty years later, I saw Sam’s Supernatural Consultation and Neutralization written in neat, looping handwriting on a piece of paper taped to the door. The tape was peeling at the corners and the paper was yellowed with age, but there was obviously care put into the sign, in its perfectly centered text and looping floral designs drawn over the edges in gold marker.
I knocked, hesitantly, drawing my woolen coat closer around my shoulders. I’d bought it as a fiftieth birthday gift for myself, and I took comfort in the heavy weight of it over my shoulders.
“Coming!” someone called from within the depths of the office.
There were a couple crashes, and the sound of paper shuffling. Eventually, the door was opened by a young woman with ketchup stains on her shirt and pencils stuck through her hair.
“Hi, I’m Sam, I specialize in supernatural consultation and hunting, how may I help you today?” Sam said, customer-service pep in her voice. She stood in the doorway, solidly blocking entry into the office.
“My name is Ezra, I’m for a consultation. I emailed you but you didn’t respond?” I shifted in place, suddenly feeling awkward.
“Oh! Yeah, I lost the password for the email ages ago. Sorry for the bad welcome, I get lots of people thinking I’m crazy or pulling a prank and harassing me.”
She ushered me into the office, clearing papers off one of the chairs to make room for me to sit down. There was a collection of swords along one wall, all of them polished to perfection, several with deep knicks in the metal which indicated that they’d been used heavily.
“So what can I help you with?” Sam asked again, more sincere this time.
“Thirty years ago, my brother was turned into a bird,” I started. I’d told this story so many times that it barely felt ridiculous to say anymore. I was used to the disbelieving looks, the careful pity. But Sam just nodded along, face open and welcoming.
“I’ve almost given up on finding him, at this point,” I said. “But I saw your ad in the newspaper, and…here I am, I suppose.”
“Here you are,” Sam echoed, smiling. She pulled one of the pencils out of her hair and took a bit of paperwork off of one of her stacks, turning it over so that the blank side sat neatly in front of her. “Tell me everything.”
I told Sam everything, and she wrote it all down, pencil scratching along the paper.
The last part of the story was always the hardest to tell. “I left him there. I ran and I didn’t look back.”
I had been to dozens of detectives and investigators over the years, once the police had dropped Hitch’s case. I’d been to professional offices with smartly-dressed secretaries and met scraggly men in coffee shops. All of them had given me the same look, pity and annoyance all mixed up into a humor-the-crazy-lady soup. Sam, though, just seemed thoughtful.
Sam leaned forward and put a hand over mine, carefully, like she thought that I would pull away. “Sometimes you have to leave people behind.”
I tightened her hold on Sam’s hand and drew it towards me, like I could make Sam listen if only I squeezed tight enough. “But that’s why I’m here. I don’t want to leave him behind.”
“Okay then. I’ll do my best to help you.” Sam agreed, finally. Then she paused, and said softly, “You know…I think I met your brother once. He might have saved my life. He’s certainly why I started in this business.”
“Really? What happened?” I asked.
This is the story that Sam told me, related to the best of my abilities:
It was a new moon, so the only illumination came from the stars gazing idly down and distant porch lights shining across the scraggly brush of the dunes. Sam’s neighbors were decent people who cared about baby turtles, so the lights were a low, unobtrusive red, and the ocean sloshed like blood. Sam walked on the beach almost every night, drawing back the gauzy pink curtains and clambering out her bedroom window. She didn’t often bother to be quiet; her mama worked the late shift and came home exhausted. As long as Sam got home before the sun, her mama would never find out that she paced the shoreline and dreamed of inhaling sand until her lungs became their own beach.
The sky was lightening. The sun would come up soon, and that meant Sam’s time on the beach was over. She needed to get back to her real life, go to her fifth grade class and stop that nonsense, as her mother would say. Her mother loved to say things like that, pushing Sam into her proper place by implication alone.
“She’s a good kid, of course, but she’s a bit…” Her mother would trail off there, usually getting a commiserating expression from whoever she was talking to. Sam always wondered how that sentence would have finished. She’s a bit strange, maybe. She’s a bit intense. She’s a bit abrasive. She’s quiet enough but when Jason tried to steal her pencil in math class, she stabbed him in the hand so hard that the lead tattooed him.
Her mother was better, for the most part. The days of her stocking up the fridge, and leaving a post-it note on the counter, and leaving for days at a time were gone. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen tile where her mother had collapsed and caved her head in, even though the bloodstains had been replaced with new tile.
“Your auntie got an abortion, you know,” her mother had said from her place on the couch, slurring her words. “Pill in the mail and then bam, no more baby.”
She had clapped her hands together to illustrate her point. Her mother jerked forward and grabbed Sam by the wrist, then, staring up at her until Sam met her eyes.
“I love you, you know? But sometimes I wonder…” She settled back onto the couch. “Yeah. I wonder.”
She’d gotten up, then, back to the kitchen. She’d been stumbling, a shambling zombie of a woman. The ground in the entryway of the kitchen was raised, ever so slightly, and her mother went down hard. Her head cracked against the tile, chin first, and she didn’t move.
Sam had been the one to call the ambulance. She had stared at the scattering of loose teeth on the ground while she waited, and considered what her life would be like with a dead mom. Not so bad, she thought, and immediately felt guilty for it.
Her mom was better, now, for the most part. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen floor where she had collapsed. There was still a matchbox hidden under her bed with the gleaming shine of her mother’s lost teeth, two canines and a molar. It was nice, having a piece of her mom to keep. Even if she left again, Sam would still have part of her.
Sam sighed, and turned away from the ocean. As she faced towards the low dunes further up the beach, she saw a sandcastle sitting nestled among them. It was such a strange sight that her eyes skipped over it at first, almost automatically, disregarding it because it was so out of place.
Sam found sandcastles out on the beach sometimes, usually half-collapsed and on the verge of being washed away by the waves, but she had never seen anything like the sandcastle in front of her. It was life-sized, something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Scottish highlands, with spires shooting up above her head and carefully etched out bricks lining each side. The front wall was dominated by an arched set of double doors, twice her height, with a portcullis nestled at the top, ready to be dropped. All of it was lovingly detailed, down to the rust on the tips of the towers and the wood grain of the door. It was made out of wet, densely-packed sand, held together impossibly. It had not been there two hours ago, when she had come to the beach.
There was a bird sitting on the overhang of the door, small and black.
As soon as she took a step towards the sandcastle, the bird shook out its feathers and swooped down towards Sam, landing at her feet with a little stumble.
“Hey, kid, get out of here,” said the bird.
Sam closed her eyes, very deliberately. When she opened them, the bird was still there. Sam considered herself a very reasonable person, so she immediately drew the most logical conclusion. The bird was, she was almost certain, a demon.
“Trust me, you don’t want to run into Mr. Salty, the queen bitch himself,” the bird said.
“Mr. Salty?” Sam inquired, polite as she knew how to be. She edged to the side, trying to get a good angle to kick the bird like a soccer ball.
The bird did something similar to a wince, all its feathers fluffing up then settling back down. “Ah, don’t call him that. He’d turn you into a toad.”
The bird gestured with its head, towards the looming sand structure. “That’s his castle. He’s in there, probably scuttling along the ceiling or some shit because that’s the sort of weirdo he is.”
Sam nodded, encouraging. She pulled back her foot and lined up her shot, the way she’d seen athletes do on TV. She aimed right for its sharp beak and let loose. The bird saw it coming, its beady eyes widening, and it cawed in distress. It flapped away, avoiding her kick only to fall backward into the sand in a scramble of wings.
“What’s your fucking problem?” it squawked. “I was trying to help you!”
“I don’t need the help of a demon,” Sam yelled, trying to remember the exorcism that her mama had taught her once, because her mama believed in being prepared for anything.
“I’m not a demon,” the bird said indignantly.
It was at about that moment that Sam gave up and just decided to roll with it.
“What are you, then?” Sam asked.
The bird shuffled its clawed feet, looking about as awkward as it could, given that it didn’t really have recognizable facial expressions. “Technically I’m a familiar of the Erlking, prince of the fae, but I prefer to be called Hitch.”
“You can’t blame me for assuming, though,” Sam said. “Ravens do tend to be associated with murder.”
“Hey, excuse you,” Hitch said. “I’m a rook, not a raven. Ravens are way bigger.”
“Sure,” Sam said, not really paying attention. Her eyes had caught on the details of the sandcastle, and she was transfixed by the slow spirals of the sand, the strange beauty of it. She found herself stepping towards the great doors, lifting a hand to knock, and as she did, the sand warped in front of her eyes, heaving itself towards her with bulging slowness. The door creaked open before her, revealing a vast, empty room. Just before she stepped inside, she felt a piercing pain in her foot, and she yelped, leaping backwards.
Hitch pecked her again, really digging his beak in. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Sam glared at him, rubbing her foot. About to retort, she finally really took in the room inside the sandcastle, and her words died in her throat.
There was a body just past the threshold of the door, face down and limbs hanging limp at its sides. Long hair splayed out in a halo around its head.
“Don’t,” Hitch warned, suddenly serious. “Just leave, kid, I mean it. I’ve seen too many people go down this road and you don’t want to be one of them.”
Sam ignored him. She made her way across the beach, slipping with every step. The sand felt deeper, piling up around her feet in silent drifts. She picked up the nearest stick and poked the body with it through the door, ready to leap back if anything went wrong, staying firmly outside of the sandcastle.
This close, Sam could tell that it used to be a woman. Her head wasn’t attached to her body. It hadn’t been a clean amputation, either. Her upper body was bruised, with chunks taken out of it, and the bones in her neck hung mangled, not connected to anything.
“Well, I warned you,” Hitch said, defeated. “I did warn you.”
Sam nudged the head with the end of the stick, nudging it over so that she could see the face. Her mother stared back at her, torn to pieces, breath still wheezing from her lungs. She wasn’t blinking, just gazing forward with glazed eyes. Sweat dripped down from her hairline.
Sam screamed and dropped the stick, tripping over herself in her haste to get away.
Her mother’s eyes were wide and pleading, and she was mouthing desperate words at Sam. Her vocal cords were broken to bits, and the only sound that came out was a strained groan.
The head rolled, inching closer to Sam like a grotesque caterpillar.
Her mother gasped for air, torn lips fluttering. Finally, comprehensible words came out. “Help. Help me, daughter.”
“That’s not your mother,” Hitch said, quiet.
Sam knew that. Her mother was sleeping back at home, and anyways her mom had never asked for her help. She had an aversion to accepting charity, as she put it.
“Okay,” Sam said, shaking all over. “Okay.”
She backed away from the sandcastle, not looking away.
“Failure,” her mother hissed as she stepped away. “I never wanted a daughter like you.”
The sun came up over the horizon. The sandcastle, Hitch, and her mom all disintegrated into sand as the light hit them.
The beach, the next night, was almost exactly how I remembered it. The beams of our flashlights sent light bouncing across the dunes, illuminating the waves, and I imagined faces in the foam of the waves.
“I’ve been back here a hundred times. There’s nothing left,” I said.
Sam took the car key out of her purse and pointed it at the sand, adjusting the sword slung over her shoulder in order to do it. The key had belonged to Hitch; Sam had requested an item of his, and it was the only thing I had left. She rested the key on the sand and drew a circle around it, inscribing symbols around the borders.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Sam shrugged. “Not much, really. I’m…I guess you could say that I’m knocking.”
The key laid inert on the sand for long enough that I was just about to give up and go home, admit to myself that Hitch was dead and that I was a fool to believe that Sam could actually help me. Then a building started to take shape, flickering in and out like it was struggling to get away. With a pop of displaced air, the sandcastle settled into existence.
Sam banged on the entryway. Nothing happened. She did it again, harder, and scowled when the door still didn’t open.
“We demand entrance, under your honor,” Sam yelled. There was a hard rush of wind, and I gripped Sam’s arm to keep my balance, but the doors cracked open reluctantly.
The inside of the sandcastle consisted of one enormous hall, the roof arching up out of sight. Rafters crisscrossed from wall to wall, and a cobbled path led further into the building, but other than that, it was completely empty, except for the birds. There were thousands of them, perched on the rafters or hopping along the ground. They parted in front of Sam and I, and reformed behind us, leaving us in a small pocket of open space. They were all black-feathered, with sharp beaks and beady eyes.
The Erlking sat on a throne at the end of the hall, lounging across it with his feet up on the armrest. He watched them as they came forward, the soft caw of the birds the only sound.
“I am here to bargain for the life of my brother,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, before the Erlking could say anything.
The Erlking ignored her, tilting his head to look at Sam. “I remember you. I almost got you, once.”
Sam glared at him but didn’t respond.
“You want your brother,” The Erlking said to me, and he almost sounded amused. “Then go get him.”
As if by some sort of silent signal, every bird in the room took flight at once, and their cawing made me think of screams. I covered my head against the flapping of their wings, and my vision was quickly obscured by the chaotic movement of them. I found myself on my knees, just trying to escape them.
A hand met my shoulder. Sam urged me to my feet, and together we ran for the edge of the room, where the swarm was the thinnest. We pressed ourselves into the corner and the swarm spiraled tighter and tighter at the center of the room. It went on until there seemed to be no differentiation between the birds, all of them fused together into one creature.
When the chaos died down, the birds had become one mass, with wings and eyes and talons sticking out of its flesh, thrashing and chirping. Human body parts stuck out of it, bulging out from the feathers. It was hands, mostly, with a couple knees or staring eyes. The bird amalgamation had no recognizable facial features, but there was one long beak extending from the front of its head. Most of the body parts were concentrated around the beak, and they peeked out from where the beak connected with muscle, or grew from the tongue, nestled between the two crushing halves of the beak.
It turned its beak down and crawled forward, using the hands to balance. The fingers scrambled over the ground. I was afraid of centipedes as a child, and I felt that same crawling dread when it started moving.
“Holy shit,” Sam whispered, which was rather disappointing, because I had been hoping that at least one of us knew what to do.
The creature turned, a lurching movement that crushed some of the hands underneath it, and started heaving itself slowly towards our corner.
“Better hurry up!” the Erlking called from his throne.
It was blocking the exit, by then. The shifting body of it had moved to block us off. It ambled towards us and I tried to sink further into the corner.
As it approached, getting close enough that I could smell the stink of it, I saw a flash of a tattoo on one of the hands. I leaned in, trying to find it again, like looking for dolphins surfacing in the ocean. And again, I caught a glimpse of a duck tattoo, the tattoo that Hitch had gotten on his hand as a teenager.
I ripped away from Sam’s death grip and ran for the monster.
I fell to my knees in front of it, wincing as I impacted the ground, and reached into the nest of hands. I could feel them tearing at my forearms and ripping into me with their sharp nails, but I kept going. I pressed further in, up to my shoulder in a writhing mass of limbs, aiming for the spot where I had last seen that tattoo.
The hands were tugging at me, wrapping around my back and hair. They were pulling together, trying to draw me completely into the mass of them. I was aware of Sam at my side, anchoring me in place and bashing any hand that got too close with her sword or the sparks that leapt from her hands with muttered words. But I didn’t think it would be enough. They were too strong, and there were too many of them.
I was up to my waist in the hands when something grabbed my palm. I felt the way it clung to me, and the calluses on its palm, and I knew that I had found my brother.
I flung herself back. The hands didn’t want to let me go, and they fought the whole way, but slowly, I made progress. I kept hold of Hitch’s hand in mine the whole time, gripping it as hard as I could. I finally broke free, Hitch with me, and Sam was immediately charging the creature, able to use her sword with much greater strength without being worried about injuring Hitch. She swung it forward, and it sliced through the wrist of one of the hands. It fell without a sound, red sand flowing out of it. It deflated until it looked like dirty laundry, just a piece of limp flesh. The creature shrieked, scuttling away enough that the door was finally accessible. The three of us ran for it, Sam and I supporting Hitch between us.
I looked back as I left and found the Erlking staring right at me.
“Interesting,” he murmured, his voice carrying impossibly across the vast space between us.
The sandcastle collapsed behind us, the great walls falling in on themselves. We were out in the morning sun, the sandcastle disappearing as we watched. Hitch was on the ground in front of me, as young as he’d been thirty years ago, when he was captured. He started laughing, feathers puffing out of his mouth. He laughed until he cried and I hugged him in the way that he’d held me when I was young, in the times when my life had been defined by hunger and fear.
Hitch left, afterwards. He scratched at the pinhole scars covering his body, where feathers burst through his skin, and pulled his long sleeves down around his wrists. He didn’t know where he was going but he told me that he needed time
I had spent thirty years worth of time without him. I wanted to grab my brother by the shoulders and beg him to stay. But he flinched when I hugged him goodbye and he refused to go near sand and he stared distrustfully at the birds chirping in the trees. Hitch needed to go away and I loved him too much to stop him.
I sat out on the beach every morning. I felt the sun on my face and I waited for Hitch to come home.
2024.05.19 08:03 Count-Daring243 Best Car Flashlight
 | submitted by Count-Daring243 to u/Count-Daring243 [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/a7lavz53qb1d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=869b4e036e84492e1e7f2a077b2efa46fc38a612 Do you need a portable and reliable lighting solution for your car? Look no further than our Car Flashlight roundup, highlighting some of the best options on the market today. In this article, we've gathered an assortment of highly-rated car flashlights, providing you with a comprehensive guide to ensure your vehicle is never left in the dark. The Top 5 Best Car Flashlight
Reviews🔗Comfortable Rechargeable LED Neck Light for Hands-Free Usehttps://preview.redd.it/7bzsk4f3qb1d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fa95386c69929972b6b8f1f8157a9c04f9013efa I've been using the BRAUN 290 Lumen LED Neck Light for a while now and I must say, it's been a game-changer in my daily life. Not only is it comfortable to wear around my neck, but the twist-focus lens also allows me to adjust the beam to fit my needs perfectly. One of the coolest things about this neck light is the versatility it offers. I've used it for some serious crafting, to keep the light just where I need it, and for those tiny sewing threads and fine knitting yarns. The fact that I could wear it for hours without any discomfort was a huge plus. The light's battery life is impressive too. It lasted about 4 to 5 hours of constant use and recharges in just 3 hours. The charging cord that came with it was a bit of a hassle since I couldn't use my MacBook's USB-C cord, but thankfully an old iPad USB charger worked fine. There were a few drawbacks though. The focus system could be improved - sometimes it was hard to adjust, especially with grimy or grease-laden hands. And the battery level indicator wasn't the most accurate. But overall, this LED Neck Light has been a reliable and effective tool in my daily life. 🔗Super Bright Rechargeable LED Flashlight with 900000 Lumenshttps://preview.redd.it/t27hbby3qb1d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7bfcca1771bcb540cd0be90cfad5f5298b326313 A couple of months ago, I stumbled upon the super bright NJ Forever Flashlight. It's rechargeable and boasts an impressive 900,000 lumens, making it perfect for emergency situations or outdoor activities. The fact that it's IPx6 waterproof and comes with a USB cable is a big plus, as it ensures the flashlight can handle a bit of splashing and makes charging a breeze. However, something I wasn't particularly fond of was the chemical warning. It's the "Prop 65 warning, " which means this product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer. That aside, I must admit I've been quite impressed with how long the flashlight lasted during my tests; it consistently ran for about 12 hours on a single charge. The battery it uses is a Nickel–Metal Hydride battery, and while not as common as other battery types, it's still reliable and efficient. 🔗Compact, Durable Rechargeable Focus Flashlight with Laser Pointerhttps://preview.redd.it/n3ve24d4qb1d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8889b16d6c37690ba18b65d7feaf5aa30b8c1fe8 The Klein Tools Rechargeable Focus LED Flashlight with Laser is a fantastic tool that I've been using daily for several months now. Its lithium-ion battery provides a full 12 hours of runtime, which is perfect for my needs. The adjustable focus is a great feature, allowing me to easily switch between spotlight and floodlight modes. The pinpoint accuracy of the Class IIIa red laser has been incredibly helpful for pinpointing objects in hard-to-reach places. The strong magnetic end cap lets me operate hands-free, while the removable pocket clip ensures easy accessibility. One thing I particularly appreciate about this flashlight is its durability. It withstands the pressures of daily use, as evidenced by its 10-foot drop rating and IP54 water- and dust-resistant construction. However, one downside I've noticed is that the laser has stopped functioning after just a few months of use. This is quite disappointing, especially given the product's otherwise impressive performance. I'm also not a big fan of the switch mechanism, which is quite sensitive, making it easy to accidentally turn the light on or off. Overall, the Klein Tools Rechargeable Focus LED Flashlight with Laser has been a reliable and useful addition to my tool collection. Despite the concerns regarding the laser and the switch, the product's other features have made it a worthwhile investment. 🔗Ultra-Bright 12000 Lumen Flashlight for Emergency and Outdoor Usehttps://preview.redd.it/3jb56cj4qb1d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3b5ba0c5532480ec2abcb0058df75222f6be8455 These SKNSL Rechargeable LED Flashlights truly shine with their impressive 900,000 lumen output, providing brightness you can count on. I was particularly drawn to the 7 modes, making it a versatile choice for all kinds of adventures. One thing I really appreciated is the use of COB technology in these flashlights. It made the focus easily adjustable, switching between wide range and spot illumination, greatly aiding in my detection of surroundings. However, it did take some getting used to with handling the light for long periods of time due to the intense brightness, which felt more like a sun's intense glare. But overall, these LED flashlights provide a powerful and rechargeable source of light in emergencies or during your outdoor treks. With their IP6 waterproof rating and strong aluminum alloy body, they are built to handle any weather or situation. 🔗Gorilla Grip Powerful LED Tactical Flashlight for Adventurehttps://preview.redd.it/ii0bwbz4qb1d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a255218e527c98c3e7da22082c23b9dd2769bd3 As a devoted outdoor enthusiast, I've always carried a trusty flashlight with me on my adventures. But the Gorilla Grip LED Flashlight took my breath away! Imagine holding a tiny light source that could pierce through the darkest forests and illuminate the most remote trails. The five adjustable modes made it versatile, handy, and practical, from a smooth and steady beam for hiking to a blinding strobe for emergencies. The flashlight is surprisingly light, thanks to its compact size, yet packed with a robust 345 lumen LED light that shines for 9.5 hours on a single set of AAA batteries. The shock-resistant and water-resistant build gave me peace of mind, knowing that I could rely on this superb companion no matter the weather or terrain. It seamlessly fits in my pocket without feeling cumbersome or bulky. This Gorilla Grip Flashlight has become an essential part of my outdoor gear, and it's truly earned its spot as my new best friend. Buyer's GuideA car flashlight is an indispensable tool for any vehicle owner. Here are the important features, considerations, and advice to keep in mind when shopping for a car flashlight.Feature TypesCar flashlights come in two main types: compact or keychain flashlights, and powerful handheld flashlights. Compact flashlights are designed to be small and easy to store while providing adequate light in emergency situations. A powerful handheld flashlight, however, offers a brighter and more durable light ideal for more demanding situations. https://preview.redd.it/0t0sjvj5qb1d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ce5c9caf87b4294b4383ea771f9a06e99d1ee9a6 Light OutputThe brightness of a car flashlight is measured in lumens. Look for a flashlight with at least 100 lumens if you need a basic model for emergencies. For more demanding tasks, consider 200 lumens or more. Most high-quality handheld flashlights will offer a higher lumen rating, which will be more beneficial in outdoor environments or long-term power outages.Power SourceCar flashlights can be powered by alkaline, lithium, or rechargeable batteries. Alkaline batteries are widely available and affordable, but they typically provide a lower runtime than lithium batteries. Lithium batteries, on the other hand, offer better performance and longer battery life, but they are more expensive. Some high-end flashlights use rechargeable batteries that can be charged using a USB cord. This can be convenient but may require a power source to be charged on the go.DurabilitySince car flashlights are designed to be stored in a vehicle, you need one that is durable and resistant to water. Look for flashlights with water-resistant or waterproof ratings. This will ensure that your flashlight is protected from water, moisture, and other elements found in the typical car environment. https://preview.redd.it/f06sfjy5qb1d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e5a93813b0e3679123e813fd18dccdeb55a55e4c Portability and StorageA good car flashlight should be easy to carry, small enough to store in your glove compartment, and have a secure mounting option. Many flashlights come with magnetic bases or adhesive bases for hands-free usage. Some models may also have belt clips for easier carry.Beam DistanceThe beam distance of a flashlight is the distance at which it can produce a visible light. Look for a flashlight with a beam distance of at least 100 feet for basic emergency situations or 150 feet or more for more demanding tasks. The beam distance can vary depending on the model and battery type.Additional FeaturesSome car flashlights come with additional features like built-in charging ports, adjustable beam focus, and integrated strobe light or emergency signals. While these features are not always necessary, they can enhance the overall utility and functionality of the flashlight. https://preview.redd.it/ckuohxf6qb1d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6f9d64b4c9b0d30794e9758bef202b055bfbcb0b Brand and ReviewsWhen choosing a car flashlight, consider purchasing from a reputable brand known for their quality products. Look for reviews from other customers to get an idea of the flashlight's performance, reliability, and build quality.Remember, the best car flashlight for you will depend on your specific needs and preferences. By considering the features, considerations, and advice outlined in this guide, you can make an informed decision and find the perfect car flashlight to suit your needs. FAQWhy do I need a car flashlight?A car flashlight is an essential tool for any motorist. It helps you navigate your vehicle's interior or exterior when the lights are out, whether it's during a maintenance check, an emergency situation, or simply getting something from your trunk at night. A good car flashlight also provides a reliable source of light in case of power outages or when your regular flashlight batteries run out. https://preview.redd.it/8z8yy6q6qb1d1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dadf412d893b053f3435db4618bb90662a2747fe What are the features I should look for in a car flashlight?
How do I choose the right size for my car flashlight?When choosing the size of your car flashlight, consider its main purpose and the space available in your vehicle. A compact flashlight is ideal for easy storage and portability, while a larger flashlight may offer more features and a brighter beam.What are the best car flashlight brands?Some popular brands in the car flashlight market include Streamlight, Maglite, Fenix, and Olight. These brands are known for providing high-quality products with excellent durability, reliability, and features.How much should I expect to spend on a good car flashlight?The price of a car flashlight can vary greatly depending on its features, durability, and brand. Generally, you can find a basic, high-quality car flashlight for around $20 to $30, while more advanced models with additional features may cost upwards of $100.Do I need to bring my car flashlight with me when I travel?Yes, it's always a good idea to have a car flashlight with you when you travel. Not only can it be useful in your vehicle, but it can also come in handy during campsites, hotel rooms, or any outdoor situations that may require extra light.Can I use my car flashlight as a regular flashlight?Yes, most car flashlights can be used as your regular flashlight. However, they might not be as compact or portable due to their larger size and additional features. It's always a good idea to have a compact, rechargeable AA/AAA battery flashlight in addition to your car flashlight for everyday use.What do I do if my car flashlight stops working?If your car flashlight stops working, first check if the batteries are dead. If the batteries seem fine, try replacing the light bulb or LED if possible. If that doesn't work, contact the manufacturer or the retailer where you purchased the flashlight for assistance in troubleshooting or getting it repaired or replaced.As an Amazon™ Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. |
2024.05.19 07:43 satforce Should I Learn Houdini?
Hi everyone,
I’ve been a professional 3D artist for 20+ years now, working extensively with 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Blender, and Unreal Engine. However, I’ve always been hesitant to dive into Houdini because I’ve heard it requires a strong background in math and technical skills.
For those who have transitioned to or integrated Houdini into their workflow, could you share your experiences? Is a deep understanding of math truly necessary, or can someone with a more artistic background manage to learn and use Houdini effectively?
I’m particularly interested in how Houdini could complement my current skill set and any advice on the best learning resources for someone coming from a similar background.
Thanks!
submitted by satforce to Houdini [link] [comments]
I’ve been a professional 3D artist for 20+ years now, working extensively with 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Blender, and Unreal Engine. However, I’ve always been hesitant to dive into Houdini because I’ve heard it requires a strong background in math and technical skills.
For those who have transitioned to or integrated Houdini into their workflow, could you share your experiences? Is a deep understanding of math truly necessary, or can someone with a more artistic background manage to learn and use Houdini effectively?
I’m particularly interested in how Houdini could complement my current skill set and any advice on the best learning resources for someone coming from a similar background.
Thanks!
2024.05.19 07:27 Elysium94 HBO Max's 'Batman': Or, how to adapt the insane scope of DC Comics' Batman mythos by way of a big-budget, live-action series (Part 1, the Pitch)
 | Hope lies in the night submitted by Elysium94 to fixingmovies [link] [comments] Hey, there! Been a while since I've taken a crack at this. Had one heck of a busy spring, ready to enjoy the summer and get back to writing these fun pitches. A couple years back, I pitched the ideal setting for a modern adaptation of DC Comics. A live-action shared universe on Essentially, imagine if the CWverse and other live-action TV series were to be hypothetically replaced by one unified vision, which broadcasted on one network. In this case, HBO Max. (Which probably means imagining Max launched a few years earlier, somewhere around 2016 or 2017) Having dived into two of DC's iconic Trinity (Superman and Wonder Woman), it's time to round them out with the Dark Knight himself. Batman's one heck of a juggernaut isn't he? I can't think of a medium that hasn't covered this hero. There's some definite standouts for sure, like the beloved animated series of the 90s and the masterpiece that was Christopher Nolan's trilogy. And yet, so much of what we've gotten in live-action has just barely scratched the surface. That's where this idea comes in. Taking the story of Batman, and adapting its sheer volume and scope on a platform big enough to cover it. First airing in 2020, in some world other than this one, it's... BATMAN An HBO Max original series. **** Premise Picture, if you will, a series which picks up well into this hypothetical "Maxverse" I've laid out the past couple of years. Batman is a superhero family drama spanning several years, from 2014 to 2018 in-universe. It covers a veteran Batman, and his alliance of costumed heroes, as they face several terrifying threats to their home of Gotham City. Major inspirations for this series include runs by-
As with the rest of the stories in the Maxverse, this Batman series is slapped with a TV-MA rating. Given the subject matters often featured in Batman comics, this particular TV-MA would be earned and then some. No sanitizing or watering down to be found here, this show would be dark. Covered in three seasons, the major arcs are 1: The personal journey of Bruce Wayne as Batman. 2: Batman's several proteges doing their best to live up to his example, while also making their own paths as heroes. 3: A slow uncovering of Gotham City's hidden history. 4: The looming question of what kind of life Bruce Wayne could live, without Batman. Setting Much like the Superman series of this universe dives into alternate history regarding its primary locale, so too does Batman. As Metropolis in this setting was born from what was once New York City, Gotham sprang from what used to be Jersey City. The two cities sit across the bay from each other, sister cities and yet almost complete opposites. Gotham is a city with one foot in the past, and another in the future. Visual and thematic inspirations for the setting could ideally draw from depictions both old-fashioned and modern. Gothic and futuristic. In many ways, Gotham could be as much a character as the lead cast themselves. Its mythology and mystery hangs heavy over the entire series, and the unraveling of its origins drives a considerable amount of the plot in Season 3. Other locations of note could include
Leading off the massive ensemble are the power couple that is Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle. AKA Batman and Catwoman. The actors I'd choose to portray them are well-known in geek circles. Whether they by Star Wars fans, or fans of various horrific works by Mike Flanagan. Sam Witwer Kate Siegel As Batman is a family drama, Bruce and Selina are the resident patriarch and matriarch respectively. Much like the character as featured in the DCEU, this Bruce Wayne has been in the game for a long time. In this case, twelve years. He's got a lot of scars to show for it, physical and mental, and while the Bat-family or his friends abroad in the Justice League keep him balanced, Bruce is starting to show the wear and tear of his long crusade. Selina, for her part, is a woman who's long since left her life as a criminal behind. Having come from a marginalized background, she has seen both the best and worst of Gotham and its people. More than fighting criminals, her mission is helping the poor and oppressed of her city and giving them a better life than the one she was born into. Background Story & Supporting Cast As the series has a lot of history behind it, one could expect various tie-in materials to expand on said history.
Legends of the Batman As for the rest of the ensemble cast, I've compiled a list. For both heroes and villains alike. (Light spoilers by way of certain inclusions and naming, all will be elaborated on in future posts) The Bat-Family and Allies
**** And that's what I got! Happy to be back writing these posts. Next weekend, I'm gonna finally pick back up on my revising of the MCU and other Marvel film properties. Hope you enjoyed this! Let me know your thoughts, and how you'd even start to tackle Batman on television. |
2024.05.19 07:19 Loopuze1 ScummVM on New 3DS is so good!
 | I just got my first “New” model 3DS, and it’s been great to find that ScummVM is working pretty much flawlessly these days. Riven, The Neverhood, The Dig, Sam & Max, so many great classic adventure games looking and playing great on the New 3DS XL, and the stylus is the perfect way to play them too. If you haven’t checked it out before, I highly recommend it! submitted by Loopuze1 to 3dspiracy [link] [comments] |
2024.05.19 07:09 GOOSE2801 5 max mythic and 11 legendary in and this is the first time I get lucky! Have you guys ever got lucky at a draw?
 | submitted by GOOSE2801 to CallOfDutyMobile [link] [comments] |
2024.05.19 06:49 Holy_Oblivion AI Generated content to assist with spread of information
Salutations brothers and sisters in Christ!
I ask Gemini to write a proposal or concept for creating an "Autocephalous Western Rite Apostolic Holy Orthodox Church of America" and it did not disappoint. Question I posed to Gemini was "Helping write a proposal to Establish one Autocephalous Western Right Apostolic Holy Orthodox Church of America to help unite all Christians in America under one common belief and cultural identity." How many others have used AI tools to help write or research and how might it help benefit the creation of information and dissemination of information about Christian Nationalism as well as the creation of our "Autocephalous Western Rite Apostolic Holy Orthodox Church of America"? How might we use tools like this to further our cause and help push our boundaries and message to others?
*Start AI*
The American religious landscape is richly diverse, with a large and growing Christian population. However, the fragmentation of denominations presents challenges to unity and a shared Christian identity. This proposal outlines the establishment of the Autocephalous Western Rite Apostolic Holy Orthodox Church of America (AWRHOA) as a vehicle to unite Christians in America under a common set of beliefs and a distinctly American cultural expression of Orthodox Christianity.
Core Principles
The establishment of the AWRHOA presents a unique opportunity to address the fragmentation within American Christianity. By offering a bridge between Eastern and Western traditions and fostering a distinctly American expression of Orthodox faith, the AWRHOA has the potential to unite Christians and serve as a beacon of hope and fellowship.
Please Note:
Not going to lie, I was slightly taken aback by it's usefulness!
Peace be with you Brothers and Sisters in Christ!
submitted by Holy_Oblivion to Christian_Nationalism [link] [comments]
I ask Gemini to write a proposal or concept for creating an "Autocephalous Western Rite Apostolic Holy Orthodox Church of America" and it did not disappoint. Question I posed to Gemini was "Helping write a proposal to Establish one Autocephalous Western Right Apostolic Holy Orthodox Church of America to help unite all Christians in America under one common belief and cultural identity." How many others have used AI tools to help write or research and how might it help benefit the creation of information and dissemination of information about Christian Nationalism as well as the creation of our "Autocephalous Western Rite Apostolic Holy Orthodox Church of America"? How might we use tools like this to further our cause and help push our boundaries and message to others?
*Start AI*
Proposal: Establishment of the Autocephalous Western Rite Apostolic Holy Orthodox Church of America
IntroductionThe American religious landscape is richly diverse, with a large and growing Christian population. However, the fragmentation of denominations presents challenges to unity and a shared Christian identity. This proposal outlines the establishment of the Autocephalous Western Rite Apostolic Holy Orthodox Church of America (AWRHOA) as a vehicle to unite Christians in America under a common set of beliefs and a distinctly American cultural expression of Orthodox Christianity.
Core Principles
- Autocephaly: The AWRHOA will strive for autocephalous status, meaning self-governing and independent of any other Orthodox Church.
- Western Rite: The AWRHOA will embrace the rich liturgical traditions of Western Christianity while adhering to core Orthodox doctrines.
- Apostolic Succession: The AWRHOA will maintain apostolic succession, ensuring a connection to the early Church through a lineage of bishops.
- Openness and Inclusivity: The AWRHOA will welcome Christians from all backgrounds seeking a vibrant and welcoming Orthodox faith community.
- Shared Identity: AWRHOA will provide a unifying force for American Christians, fostering a sense of belonging and shared purpose.
- Enhanced Witness: A united Church will have a stronger voice in American society, promoting Christian values and engaging in social issues.
- Preservation of Tradition: The AWRHOA will offer a home for those seeking a traditional form of Christianity while embracing American cultural expression.
- Interfaith Dialogue: AWRHOA can serve as a bridge between Eastern and Western Christian traditions, promoting mutual understanding and cooperation.
- Ecumenical Recognition: Gaining recognition from established Orthodox Churches may be a complex process requiring theological dialogue and potential adjustments.
- Liturgical Development: The AWRHOA will need to develop its own distinctive liturgical practices, drawing from Western traditions while adhering to Orthodox principles.
- Clerical Leadership: Finding qualified clergy who represent the diverse needs of the American Christian community will be crucial.
- Establishing a Preparatory Committee: A committee composed of clergy, theologians, and laypeople will be formed to draft a constitution, develop liturgical practices, and establish a roadmap for achieving autocephaly.
- Open Dialogue: The AWRHOA will actively engage with established denominations, fostering open dialogue and exploring opportunities for cooperation.
- Grassroots Outreach: Efforts will be made to reach out to Christian communities across America, sharing the vision of a unified Church.
The establishment of the AWRHOA presents a unique opportunity to address the fragmentation within American Christianity. By offering a bridge between Eastern and Western traditions and fostering a distinctly American expression of Orthodox faith, the AWRHOA has the potential to unite Christians and serve as a beacon of hope and fellowship.
Please Note:
- This proposal is a starting point and can be adapted to reflect the specific needs and goals of the movement.
- Further research on Orthodox Church structure, autocephaly, and the history of Christianity in America is recommended.
- Consider consulting with religious scholars and legal experts to navigate the complexities of establishing a new Church.
Not going to lie, I was slightly taken aback by it's usefulness!
Peace be with you Brothers and Sisters in Christ!
2024.05.19 06:18 goblinboi123 The races are hilarious as a high level net runner
Big spoiler for the beast in me mission in here
So I waited until the very end to do all the races, maxed out all my levels and decided to do the races at the end cause I don't like racing games very much. I also invested heavily into my cyberdeck abilities
So I had unlocked all the vehicle hacks like self destruction, emergency brake, and tier 5 suicide . Every single race lasted less than a minute if you don't count the driving after everyone dies and I won literally 1st place in all of them in the mai mai. (And some in the beast)
It's made sampsons line so much fucking funnier in my playthrough "you guys kill like everybody!" And I cheered in bloodlust as Claire got vengeance that my version of her certainly did not deserve.
submitted by goblinboi123 to cyberpunkgame [link] [comments]
So I waited until the very end to do all the races, maxed out all my levels and decided to do the races at the end cause I don't like racing games very much. I also invested heavily into my cyberdeck abilities
So I had unlocked all the vehicle hacks like self destruction, emergency brake, and tier 5 suicide . Every single race lasted less than a minute if you don't count the driving after everyone dies and I won literally 1st place in all of them in the mai mai. (And some in the beast)
It's made sampsons line so much fucking funnier in my playthrough "you guys kill like everybody!" And I cheered in bloodlust as Claire got vengeance that my version of her certainly did not deserve.
2024.05.19 06:04 Pathocyte I enjoy wasting time just looking at the units and wondering how powerful they were/are
 | https://preview.redd.it/pnvcqs8k4b1d1.png?width=2880&format=png&auto=webp&s=cb4eb707d476ae558e26322faa8a56d1cd134732 submitted by Pathocyte to warno [link] [comments] Hi everyone. This is my first War game of the series, I don't know why I didn't hear about it before. I have like 8 hours at the moment and enjoying my time with it. Just wanted to share how cool this helicopter looks. What I would also like though is a visual representation of the ammo the weapon uses, I'm not particularly versed in this sense and it could save me a minute of searching it with wikipedia. Still, a fantastic game! Can't wait for the full release and gold edition. |
2024.05.19 05:23 minPOOlee Sell me on the game!
Hello there,
I've been fairly interested in this game as well as other WW1/2 shooters ever since I got really into Hell Let Loose. I have a fair amount of hours in HLL and it's probably one of my favorite games but its been getting a bit stale and a bit of a time-investment (90 minute rounds and you lose all your exp if you leave before the match ends).
I've watched a couple videos and its looking like a mix between HLL and BF1. I love the immersive aspect of HLL but it can just be so punishing sometimes, a walking/respawn simulator if you will. I was thinking of getting back to BF1 but I hate how abused vehicles are sometimes and how sniper-centric it can be.
It's on sale on Steam right now so I just might end up getting it anyway but I had a couple questions:
Is there like a server list or do you just hop into games?
It looks like theres a lot of bots in the game. Whats the max amount of players per server and how many slots do the bots take? Is it like Enlisted where bots are just there to make it seem busy/immersive?
Do the guns "level up" like in Battlefield? I know there are class based leveling but are tehre individual loadouts?
Appreciate it in advance for the guidance. I guess I can always buy the game and refund it if its not my cup of tea but I hope it is what I've been looking for.
submitted by minPOOlee to Isonzo [link] [comments]
I've been fairly interested in this game as well as other WW1/2 shooters ever since I got really into Hell Let Loose. I have a fair amount of hours in HLL and it's probably one of my favorite games but its been getting a bit stale and a bit of a time-investment (90 minute rounds and you lose all your exp if you leave before the match ends).
I've watched a couple videos and its looking like a mix between HLL and BF1. I love the immersive aspect of HLL but it can just be so punishing sometimes, a walking/respawn simulator if you will. I was thinking of getting back to BF1 but I hate how abused vehicles are sometimes and how sniper-centric it can be.
It's on sale on Steam right now so I just might end up getting it anyway but I had a couple questions:
Is there like a server list or do you just hop into games?
It looks like theres a lot of bots in the game. Whats the max amount of players per server and how many slots do the bots take? Is it like Enlisted where bots are just there to make it seem busy/immersive?
Do the guns "level up" like in Battlefield? I know there are class based leveling but are tehre individual loadouts?
Appreciate it in advance for the guidance. I guess I can always buy the game and refund it if its not my cup of tea but I hope it is what I've been looking for.
2024.05.19 05:10 BeanButCoffee Ward of Salvation glitch is absurd and should be fixed ASAP
The main draw of the Remix for me was the ability to experience old Pandaria raids and dungeons. Sure, this is not a 1 to 1 recreation, but clearing normals still requires you to know the mechanics for many fights, especially stuff in the Heart of Fear and onwards.
The first couple of days were a blast, figuring out mechanics with other people, and clearing challenging fights until somebody discovered the Ward of Salvation abuse. Now I can't find a single group that doesn't abuse it just to clear the raid for Bronze and be done with it. People min-maxed the fun out of the game and sacrificed fun from every boss fight in exchange for some fast Bronze. I really hope this gets fixed as quickly as possible because it genuinely ruins a lot of enjoyment I've had before this was discovered.
submitted by BeanButCoffee to wow [link] [comments]
The first couple of days were a blast, figuring out mechanics with other people, and clearing challenging fights until somebody discovered the Ward of Salvation abuse. Now I can't find a single group that doesn't abuse it just to clear the raid for Bronze and be done with it. People min-maxed the fun out of the game and sacrificed fun from every boss fight in exchange for some fast Bronze. I really hope this gets fixed as quickly as possible because it genuinely ruins a lot of enjoyment I've had before this was discovered.
2024.05.19 05:08 Responsible_Oven5348 Brushes randomly changed how they’re positioned???
 | Okay so, during the middle of this drawing inf all of my brushes started acting weird. submitted by Responsible_Oven5348 to ProCreate [link] [comments] The white rectangle outline in the screenshot is the brush cursor— and normally when I have the canvas turned this way, the long side of the rectangle would be flat against the line above it. Instead, as you can see, the small side of the rectangle is facing that way instead. What happened? How do I fix this? |
2024.05.19 05:08 ST_Ad3pT [H] Fallout 76 PC Code, Humble Bundle Stand with Ukraine Bundle ,Humble Bundle Aspyr 25th Anniversary Bundle, Fanatical Stand with Ukraine Bundle , Humble Bundle Türkiye-Syria Earthquake Relief Bundle ,Humble Bundle Choice April 2023, Humble Bundle Choice July 2023 and A Way Out [W] Paypal
Hi Everybody! I have a long list of games I'm selling below. Hit me with any offers on one game or multiple games! Thank you!
Fallout 76 PC (Redeem on Microsoft Store)
Marvel's Avengers The Definitive Edition (Steam)
A Way Out (Origin Code)
Humble Bundle Stand with Ukraine Bundle
Back 4 Blood
Metro: Exodus
Max Payne 3
Sunset Overdrive
This War of Mine
PGA Tour 2K21
The Long Dark
Car Mechanic Simulator 2018
Endless Space 2
Ring of Pain
Kerbal Space Program
Starbound
Popup Dungeon
Expeditions: Viking
Skullgirls 2nd Encore
Wandersong
Supraland
Crying Suns
Wizard of Legend
Amnesia: Rebirth
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Vagante
Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine
Wargroove
Warsaw
Drawful 2
SUPERHOT
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Broken Age
Pikuniku
Lust from Beyond: M Edition
Inmost
Pathway
Rustler
112 Operator
911 Operator
Radio Commander
Kingdom Two Crowns
West of Dead
Tooth and Tail
System Shock: Enhanced Edition
Driftland: The Magic Revival
Toejam & Earl: Back in the Groove
Book of Demons
Fury Unleashed
Going Under
Yoku's Island Express
Nex Machina
X-Morph: Defense
X-Morph: Defense - European Assault
X-Morph: Defense - Survival Of The Fittest
X-Morph: Defense - Last Bastion
Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
DV: Rings of Saturn
Slinger VR
Pixplode
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
EarthX
Neverout
Telefrag VR
Pawnbarian
NecroWorm
Hexologic
Post Void
Moon Hunters
The Amazing American Circus
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Corridor Z
Draw Slasher
Shing!
Go Home Dinosaurs
Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - The Eldritch Box DLC
Soulblight
Treasure Hunter Simulator
Orbital Racer
Lust for Darkness
Liberated
Wanderlust: Travel Stories
Say No! More
Humble Bundle Choice April 2023
Not included (Death Stranding Director's Cut)
Aliens Fireteam Elite (Steam)
Rollerdrome (Steam)
Life is Strange : Complete Edition (Steam)
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante (Steam)
Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp (Steam)
Revita (Steam)
Founder's Fortune (Steam)
Humble Bundle Choice July 2023
The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition (Steam)
Temtem (Steam)
Yakuza 4 Remastered (Steam)
Roadwarden (Steam)
Kraken Academy! (Steam)
Merchant of the Skies (Steam)
Ozymandias: Bronze Age Empire Sim 9Steam)
Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate (Steam)
Humble Bundle Aspyr 25th Anniversary Bundle
Fahrenheit
LightMatter
Morkredd
Layers of Fear: Masterpiece Edition
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth - The Collection
Borderlands: The Handsome Collection
Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite - Season Pass
Fanatical Stand with Ukraine Bundle
1993 Space Machine
8-bit Adventure Anthology: Volume I
AWAKE - Definitive Edition
Among Us
At Eve's Wake
Aviary Attorney
Awesomenauts All Nauts Pack (DLC)
Baby Dino Adventures
Blightbound
Cannibal Cuisine
ChromaGun
Circles
Click and Slay
Cloud Gardens
Combat Tested
Cosmonautica
Crash Drive 2
Cube Escape Collection
Dimension Drive
Explosionade
Fling to the Finish
Gang Beasts
Gelly Break Deluxe
Guppy
Hidden Folks
Hoplegs
Interrogation: You will be deceived
Journey For Elysium
Last Resort Island
Lumini
Mad Experiments: Escape Room
Marooners
Necronator: Dead Wrong
Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! HD
Pizza Connection 3
Pressure Overdrive
ROUNDS
Railway Empire
Rayon Riddles - Rise of the Goblin King
Renowned Explorers: International Society
Shortest Trip to Earth
Shu
Stick Fight: The Game
Swords and Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon
Swords and Soldiers HD
THE CORRIDOR
Tales of the Tiny Planet
TaniNani
The Falconeer
The Way
Tinkertown
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator
Treasure Temples
Truberbrook
Unexplored
X Rebirth
ibb & obb - Best Friends Forever Double Pack
Humble Bundle Türkiye-Syria Earthquake Relief Bundle
Gotham Knights
Ghostrunner
Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition
XCOM 2
Payday 2
Ticket to Ride
Strange Brigade
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Stick Fight
Farming Simulator 17
System Shock Enhanced Edition
System Shock 2
Pilgrims
Flynn: Son of Crimson
Into the Pit
Worms Rumble
Harmony's Odyssey
Mount & Blade: Warband
Armello
Backbone
911 Operator
112 Operator
Calico
X-Morph: Defense Complete Pack
Zombie Driver HD
Space Crew: Legendary Edition
Monaco
Death Squared
Lust from Beyond - M Edition
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Remnants of Naezith
Planet TD
Firegirl
XEL
Little Orpheus
Detached: Non-VR Edition
Agent in Depth
Lighthouse Keeper
Hyper Gunsport
Meow Express
Arcade Spirits
Non-Stop Raiders
The Inner World
The Amazing American Circus
Soulblight
Stacking
Hack 'n' Slash
MirrorMoon EP
Cosmic Express
Cris Tales
Orbital Racer
Symmetry
Guilty Gear X2 #Reload
Alchemist's Castle
Soul Searching
Doughlings Arcade
Doughlings Invasion
Quadrata
Rym 9000
stikir
Cats and the Other Lives
Soulflow
Izmir: An Independence Simulator
Guns & Fishes
Pill Baby
Project Chemistry
Pixross
Frick, Inc.
Sunlight
submitted by ST_Ad3pT to SteamGameSwap [link] [comments]
Fallout 76 PC (Redeem on Microsoft Store)
Marvel's Avengers The Definitive Edition (Steam)
A Way Out (Origin Code)
Humble Bundle Stand with Ukraine Bundle
Back 4 Blood
Metro: Exodus
Max Payne 3
Sunset Overdrive
This War of Mine
PGA Tour 2K21
The Long Dark
Car Mechanic Simulator 2018
Endless Space 2
Ring of Pain
Kerbal Space Program
Starbound
Popup Dungeon
Expeditions: Viking
Skullgirls 2nd Encore
Wandersong
Supraland
Crying Suns
Wizard of Legend
Amnesia: Rebirth
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
Vagante
Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine
Wargroove
Warsaw
Drawful 2
SUPERHOT
Dear Esther: Landmark Edition
Broken Age
Pikuniku
Lust from Beyond: M Edition
Inmost
Pathway
Rustler
112 Operator
911 Operator
Radio Commander
Kingdom Two Crowns
West of Dead
Tooth and Tail
System Shock: Enhanced Edition
Driftland: The Magic Revival
Toejam & Earl: Back in the Groove
Book of Demons
Fury Unleashed
Going Under
Yoku's Island Express
Nex Machina
X-Morph: Defense
X-Morph: Defense - European Assault
X-Morph: Defense - Survival Of The Fittest
X-Morph: Defense - Last Bastion
Motorcycle Mechanic Simulator 2021
Out of Reach: Treasure Royale
DV: Rings of Saturn
Slinger VR
Pixplode
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
EarthX
Neverout
Telefrag VR
Pawnbarian
NecroWorm
Hexologic
Post Void
Moon Hunters
The Amazing American Circus
Roarr! Jurassic Edition
Corridor Z
Draw Slasher
Shing!
Go Home Dinosaurs
Dagon: by H. P. Lovecraft - The Eldritch Box DLC
Soulblight
Treasure Hunter Simulator
Orbital Racer
Lust for Darkness
Liberated
Wanderlust: Travel Stories
Say No! More
Humble Bundle Choice April 2023
Not included (Death Stranding Director's Cut)
Aliens Fireteam Elite (Steam)
Rollerdrome (Steam)
Life is Strange : Complete Edition (Steam)
The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante (Steam)
Monster Prom 2: Monster Camp (Steam)
Revita (Steam)
Founder's Fortune (Steam)
Humble Bundle Choice July 2023
The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition (Steam)
Temtem (Steam)
Yakuza 4 Remastered (Steam)
Roadwarden (Steam)
Kraken Academy! (Steam)
Merchant of the Skies (Steam)
Ozymandias: Bronze Age Empire Sim 9Steam)
Shotgun King: The Final Checkmate (Steam)
Humble Bundle Aspyr 25th Anniversary Bundle
Fahrenheit
LightMatter
Morkredd
Layers of Fear: Masterpiece Edition
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth - The Collection
Borderlands: The Handsome Collection
Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite - Season Pass
Fanatical Stand with Ukraine Bundle
1993 Space Machine
8-bit Adventure Anthology: Volume I
AWAKE - Definitive Edition
Among Us
At Eve's Wake
Aviary Attorney
Awesomenauts All Nauts Pack (DLC)
Baby Dino Adventures
Blightbound
Cannibal Cuisine
ChromaGun
Circles
Click and Slay
Cloud Gardens
Combat Tested
Cosmonautica
Crash Drive 2
Cube Escape Collection
Dimension Drive
Explosionade
Fling to the Finish
Gang Beasts
Gelly Break Deluxe
Guppy
Hidden Folks
Hoplegs
Interrogation: You will be deceived
Journey For Elysium
Last Resort Island
Lumini
Mad Experiments: Escape Room
Marooners
Necronator: Dead Wrong
Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! HD
Pizza Connection 3
Pressure Overdrive
ROUNDS
Railway Empire
Rayon Riddles - Rise of the Goblin King
Renowned Explorers: International Society
Shortest Trip to Earth
Shu
Stick Fight: The Game
Swords and Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon
Swords and Soldiers HD
THE CORRIDOR
Tales of the Tiny Planet
TaniNani
The Falconeer
The Way
Tinkertown
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator
Treasure Temples
Truberbrook
Unexplored
X Rebirth
ibb & obb - Best Friends Forever Double Pack
Humble Bundle Türkiye-Syria Earthquake Relief Bundle
Gotham Knights
Ghostrunner
Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition
XCOM 2
Payday 2
Ticket to Ride
Strange Brigade
Euro Truck Simulator 2
Stick Fight
Farming Simulator 17
System Shock Enhanced Edition
System Shock 2
Pilgrims
Flynn: Son of Crimson
Into the Pit
Worms Rumble
Harmony's Odyssey
Mount & Blade: Warband
Armello
Backbone
911 Operator
112 Operator
Calico
X-Morph: Defense Complete Pack
Zombie Driver HD
Space Crew: Legendary Edition
Monaco
Death Squared
Lust from Beyond - M Edition
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones
Remnants of Naezith
Planet TD
Firegirl
XEL
Little Orpheus
Detached: Non-VR Edition
Agent in Depth
Lighthouse Keeper
Hyper Gunsport
Meow Express
Arcade Spirits
Non-Stop Raiders
The Inner World
The Amazing American Circus
Soulblight
Stacking
Hack 'n' Slash
MirrorMoon EP
Cosmic Express
Cris Tales
Orbital Racer
Symmetry
Guilty Gear X2 #Reload
Alchemist's Castle
Soul Searching
Doughlings Arcade
Doughlings Invasion
Quadrata
Rym 9000
stikir
Cats and the Other Lives
Soulflow
Izmir: An Independence Simulator
Guns & Fishes
Pill Baby
Project Chemistry
Pixross
Frick, Inc.
Sunlight
2024.05.19 05:02 yavor7512 70A or 50A?
The specification of the Fisher and Paykel induction range. How do I reconcile between 75A max current draw and 50-amp circuit? My breaker currently is 50 amp - this one - https://www.simplybreakers.com/products/siemens-50-amp-gfci-circuit-breaker-qf250a
https://preview.redd.it/qus28gsrta1d1.png?width=1230&format=png&auto=webp&s=1abc27cfa6cfdf2f2149b6a4f6fade0088b6a552
submitted by yavor7512 to AskElectricians [link] [comments]
https://preview.redd.it/qus28gsrta1d1.png?width=1230&format=png&auto=webp&s=1abc27cfa6cfdf2f2149b6a4f6fade0088b6a552
2024.05.19 05:01 PodandLeviathan [Android][2012-2016]A game where you drive a vehicle on a small map as a taxi and others vehicles.
Platform(s): The platform on which I played it was Android, I downloaded it from the Play Store, I remember that the application icon was a taxi on a light blue background.
Genre:: The game genre was about driving vehicles to take passengers to their destination in a period of time. Third-person view with the camera following the vehicle.
Estimated year of release: The game was from 20012-2014.
Graphics/art style:: The map graphics, cars and npc. They look like those from Pokemon Quest, that simple style and ''nice and pleasant'' shapes. It also has a certain resemblance to the cars from Crossy Road. It was always sunny, there were cars driving on the roads, you could see the npc's raising their hands to ask for a taxi, there were no animals. The map was made up of a small city to the North and an urban neighborhood to the South. Both parts were linked by two bridges and in the center a small wooden port. The map was bounded by water and you could sink.
Notable characters: You always drove vehicles, cars of all kinds, fire engines, taxis, police cars, personal vehicles, I don't remember if there were sports cars, ambulances, etc.
Notable gameplay mechanics: : The characters were cars, you started with a taxi and later you could get more varied cars, such as garbage trucks, police cars, firefighters.
Other details: You could play offline. The game was simple, there was the game menu while in the background you could see your selected car, when you touched the screen your car accelerated and you started looking for passengers. There was also the section where you could see the vehicles that you already have, but still need to obtain. I don't remember how the cars were obtained, I guess they were coins that you earned and used to get a random car. It is similar to when you open a Counter strike box. I remember you could see NPCs raise their hands to get your attention. I also remember that you could run over said passengers and the police would start chasing you. You always drove across the map. You could go across the road avoiding the cars in front of you and you could take shortcuts if your car could fit through them. I remember that on the left of the screen a timer appeared to take the passenger to their destination. I don't remember if you could take more passengers in your car (probably yes).
What I remember most is the game map, I did my best to draw it as I remember it.
The red color to the north refers to a Cinema/theater, to the north you can see what would be the beach there was and to the south I remember that there was also sand, the orange is a gas station that I remember there was always there, the purple is the houses in the urban area, the brown thing in the center is that small fishing port that you could use as a shortcut, the yellow thing was a barber shop that was located in that area, the roads are gray colors and the red thing divided with a road was a building residential that had an alley.
The drawing is simple, but it can be very useful. This is what the map would look like from afar as far as I can remember. To help, the northern area is full of gray residential buildings and the urban area is houses with wooden roofs. I hope this is helpful to help me find this game.
https://preview.redd.it/sfhwj86uua1d1.png?width=2486&format=png&auto=webp&s=a496071ad2b334aeabf372eae6d003dcddebeb04
submitted by PodandLeviathan to tipofmyjoystick [link] [comments]
Genre:: The game genre was about driving vehicles to take passengers to their destination in a period of time. Third-person view with the camera following the vehicle.
Estimated year of release: The game was from 20012-2014.
Graphics/art style:: The map graphics, cars and npc. They look like those from Pokemon Quest, that simple style and ''nice and pleasant'' shapes. It also has a certain resemblance to the cars from Crossy Road. It was always sunny, there were cars driving on the roads, you could see the npc's raising their hands to ask for a taxi, there were no animals. The map was made up of a small city to the North and an urban neighborhood to the South. Both parts were linked by two bridges and in the center a small wooden port. The map was bounded by water and you could sink.
Notable characters: You always drove vehicles, cars of all kinds, fire engines, taxis, police cars, personal vehicles, I don't remember if there were sports cars, ambulances, etc.
Notable gameplay mechanics: : The characters were cars, you started with a taxi and later you could get more varied cars, such as garbage trucks, police cars, firefighters.
Other details: You could play offline. The game was simple, there was the game menu while in the background you could see your selected car, when you touched the screen your car accelerated and you started looking for passengers. There was also the section where you could see the vehicles that you already have, but still need to obtain. I don't remember how the cars were obtained, I guess they were coins that you earned and used to get a random car. It is similar to when you open a Counter strike box. I remember you could see NPCs raise their hands to get your attention. I also remember that you could run over said passengers and the police would start chasing you. You always drove across the map. You could go across the road avoiding the cars in front of you and you could take shortcuts if your car could fit through them. I remember that on the left of the screen a timer appeared to take the passenger to their destination. I don't remember if you could take more passengers in your car (probably yes).
What I remember most is the game map, I did my best to draw it as I remember it.
The red color to the north refers to a Cinema/theater, to the north you can see what would be the beach there was and to the south I remember that there was also sand, the orange is a gas station that I remember there was always there, the purple is the houses in the urban area, the brown thing in the center is that small fishing port that you could use as a shortcut, the yellow thing was a barber shop that was located in that area, the roads are gray colors and the red thing divided with a road was a building residential that had an alley.
The drawing is simple, but it can be very useful. This is what the map would look like from afar as far as I can remember. To help, the northern area is full of gray residential buildings and the urban area is houses with wooden roofs. I hope this is helpful to help me find this game.
https://preview.redd.it/sfhwj86uua1d1.png?width=2486&format=png&auto=webp&s=a496071ad2b334aeabf372eae6d003dcddebeb04
2024.05.19 04:59 man_mel Domain-Driven Design and mathematical modeling
The article will show analogies between Domain-Driven Design and mathematical modeling
(1)
John and Bob ate three apples at dinner. John ate twice as many as Bob. How much did each eat?
(2)
Let x be the number of apples that John ate Let y is the number of apples that Bob ate.
Then:
(3)
x + y = 3 x = 2 * y
Solving the system of linear equations:
x = 2, y = 1
(1) - problem statement in the domain area
(2) - mathematical modeling
(3) - mathematical model
Another example from the world of physics - we need to calculate how much fuel is needed to fly to the Moon and back. There are Newton's Laws of motion of celestial bodies, there are data on fuel, the vehicle, the mass of the Earth, the Moon, the Sun, the calculated trajectory and other information.
The whole power of the mathematical apparatus is the absence of semantics. It doesn't care whether it's counting apples or the trajectory of a rocket. It is a formalized system that operates with soulless symbols according to established rules. Arithmetic has its own rules, algebra has its own rules, Euclidean geometry has its own rules.
The achievements of the natural sciences depend on how accurately and completely they construct mathematical models for their problems. If the mass of the moon is not specified, it will be impossible to give an answer to the above problem. On the other hand, if the proposed trajectory is mathematically unattainable, physicists will have to change it.
A mathematical model is a general projection of the problem to be solved from the physics side and the math side into some "common" space.
For many, DDD is when if you are, for example, making an online store, you must have Product, ShoppingCart, etc. classes, i.e., entities in the code must correspond to business entities. This is not really about DDD.
The main goal that Eric Evans set when creating his methodology was to enable you to create a program architecture in such a way that you can satisfy the client's requirements with maximum probability and build a clear, maintainable and extensible system. Get a quality and successful program product.
In cascade development (waterfall), the client gives clear requirements to the business analyst, the system architecture is built according to them, and programmers make code according to it.
In agile development (agile, XP, iterative) the client gives general requirements, a prototype of the system architecture is built on them, programmers make code on it, the system is shown to the client, corrections are made, the next version is released, etc. in a circle.
In case of DDD the joint work between domain area specialists and programmers goes all the time of development. The link between them is the domain model and ubiquitous language. For the first few chapters of the book, Eric Evans talks only about them and their importance.
The main point of the domain model is to be a constant projection of the problem being solved from the client side and the developer side into some common space. Everything in the domain model should be reflected in the program architecture. And vice versa - if a programmer discovers that some business rule cannot be applied or it is better to do it differently, he is obliged to open a discussion about it and initiate changes in the domain model, without making attempts to simply code it in “the right way”.
The domain model itself lacks semantics, it is written using UML diagrams and formal documentation. Semantics is given to it by a ubiquitous language in which the whole team (including the client) communicates. Each term of the domain model must be understood equally by all participants.
From this we can draw the corollary that just as in the first case, mathematicians' deviation from the supplied mathematical model will easily lead to wrong/unnecessary results, so in the second case, developers' deviation from the domain model can lead to failure in the end.
submitted by man_mel to DomainDrivenDesign [link] [comments]
Mathematical modeling
Students are introduced to mathematical modeling in a school. Roughly speaking, it is the translation of a problem from informal human language into the language of mathematics for subsequent solution.(1)
John and Bob ate three apples at dinner. John ate twice as many as Bob. How much did each eat?
(2)
Let x be the number of apples that John ate Let y is the number of apples that Bob ate.
Then:
(3)
x + y = 3 x = 2 * y
Solving the system of linear equations:
x = 2, y = 1
(1) - problem statement in the domain area
(2) - mathematical modeling
(3) - mathematical model
Another example from the world of physics - we need to calculate how much fuel is needed to fly to the Moon and back. There are Newton's Laws of motion of celestial bodies, there are data on fuel, the vehicle, the mass of the Earth, the Moon, the Sun, the calculated trajectory and other information.
The whole power of the mathematical apparatus is the absence of semantics. It doesn't care whether it's counting apples or the trajectory of a rocket. It is a formalized system that operates with soulless symbols according to established rules. Arithmetic has its own rules, algebra has its own rules, Euclidean geometry has its own rules.
The achievements of the natural sciences depend on how accurately and completely they construct mathematical models for their problems. If the mass of the moon is not specified, it will be impossible to give an answer to the above problem. On the other hand, if the proposed trajectory is mathematically unattainable, physicists will have to change it.
A mathematical model is a general projection of the problem to be solved from the physics side and the math side into some "common" space.
Domain-driven design
This methodology was proposed 20 years ago by Eric Evans in his famous “big blue book”: Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of SoftwareFor many, DDD is when if you are, for example, making an online store, you must have Product, ShoppingCart, etc. classes, i.e., entities in the code must correspond to business entities. This is not really about DDD.
The main goal that Eric Evans set when creating his methodology was to enable you to create a program architecture in such a way that you can satisfy the client's requirements with maximum probability and build a clear, maintainable and extensible system. Get a quality and successful program product.
Comparison of design methods
DDD is mainly aimed at complex non-typical tasks with vague/varying requirements, to minimize the risks of spending a lot of time and money and not getting something usable in the end.In cascade development (waterfall), the client gives clear requirements to the business analyst, the system architecture is built according to them, and programmers make code according to it.
In agile development (agile, XP, iterative) the client gives general requirements, a prototype of the system architecture is built on them, programmers make code on it, the system is shown to the client, corrections are made, the next version is released, etc. in a circle.
In case of DDD the joint work between domain area specialists and programmers goes all the time of development. The link between them is the domain model and ubiquitous language. For the first few chapters of the book, Eric Evans talks only about them and their importance.
The main point of the domain model is to be a constant projection of the problem being solved from the client side and the developer side into some common space. Everything in the domain model should be reflected in the program architecture. And vice versa - if a programmer discovers that some business rule cannot be applied or it is better to do it differently, he is obliged to open a discussion about it and initiate changes in the domain model, without making attempts to simply code it in “the right way”.
The domain model itself lacks semantics, it is written using UML diagrams and formal documentation. Semantics is given to it by a ubiquitous language in which the whole team (including the client) communicates. Each term of the domain model must be understood equally by all participants.
Parallels
Analogy to the space flight example above: - math model = domain model - physics = ubiquitous language - mathematical apparatus = software development - mathematical modeling = domain model development processFrom this we can draw the corollary that just as in the first case, mathematicians' deviation from the supplied mathematical model will easily lead to wrong/unnecessary results, so in the second case, developers' deviation from the domain model can lead to failure in the end.
In his book, Eric Evans gives the following real-life example. Internet Explorer used to save “Favorites” as files with names corresponding to page names. When the user tried to specify his name, he sometimes got an error “Invalid file name”, although it was not obvious what files had to do with it. This was because the developers were using their own model and the client wanted something different.
Summary
Thus, there is a strong idea of mathematical modeling behind DDD2024.05.19 04:55 BasahanPutik I felt terrible, made me think I am not cut for 3Ds MAX, need help to not let light affect the texture.
 | GUYS, So in perspective, the texture is lighter, or illuminated equally in both side, the problem in rendering in Arnold, is the light makes some part of the walls darker, that I can't see the pattern. I need your help in whether what to choose material in Arnold, or choose material in other that will render like perspective that is not affected by light source. I gave up after three days of query to chat gpt and search online submitted by BasahanPutik to 3dsmax [link] [comments] https://preview.redd.it/cdvwvcb8sa1d1.png?width=888&format=png&auto=webp&s=39103311e2d80a379af1e65709c99c86f03ad182 |
2024.05.19 04:46 Furrystonetoss A little sneak peak of what i'm doing right now. Those are all the current projects i'm working on. (more info below)
 | submitted by Furrystonetoss to Stormworks [link] [comments] |
2024.05.19 04:41 Sweet-Count2557 Alpine Village Oktoberfest All Ages Sundays
 | Alpine Village Oktoberfest All Ages Sundays Welcome to Alpine Village Oktoberfest All Ages Sundays, where the spirit of Bavaria comes alive in the heart of Torrance, CA.As we gather in this vibrant village, the air is filled with the infectious sounds of Oom Pah Pah party bands, the aroma of mouthwatering German cuisine, and the joyous laughter of families and friends.But there's more to this celebration than meets the eye.So, join us as we uncover the hidden gems and unforgettable experiences that await at Alpine Village Oktoberfest All Ages Sundays.Key TakeawaysAlpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays is a weekly event that takes place every Sunday until October 27, 2019.The event runs from 1:00pm to 6:00pm PT and is open to all ages.General admission is $10, but kids 12 and under as well as seniors and guests dressed in German costumes get in for free.The event offers traditional Bavarian fun with Oom Pah Pah party bands, German food, and German beers for adults. Costumes are encouraged and fully costumed guests get in for free. There will also be a celebration of German-American Heritage Day on October 6.Event DetailsWhen attending the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays, guests can expect a lively and authentic Bavarian experience filled with traditional music, delicious German cuisine, and a festive atmosphere for all ages. This event, held every Sunday through October 27, 2019, is a must-visit for anyone looking to immerse themselves in the rich traditions of Oktoberfest.Taking place at Alpine Village in Torrance, California, this celebration is the oldest Oktoberfest in Southern California. The venue, with its charming Bavarian-inspired architecture, sets the perfect backdrop for the festivities. As soon as you step through the gates, you'll be greeted by the infectious sounds of Oom Pah Pah party bands, transporting you straight to the heart of Germany. The lively music will have you tapping your feet and clapping along in no time.Of course, no Oktoberfest would be complete without delicious German cuisine, and Alpine Village delivers on that front. From bratwurst and pretzels to sauerkraut and schnitzel, there's something to satisfy every palate. And for the adults in the group, German beers will be available to enhance the experience.One of the unique aspects of this event is the emphasis on costumes. Guests are encouraged to come fully dressed in traditional German attire, and those who do will receive free admission. It's a wonderful opportunity to not only celebrate the festival but also to showcase your own creativity and style.In addition to the regular festivities, Alpine Village also hosts a special German-American Heritage Day on October 6. On this day, you can enjoy performances by dance groups and singers, further immersing yourself in the rich cultural heritage of Germany.Location and Contact InformationAs we continue our exploration of the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays, let's now turn our attention to the location and contact information for this exciting event.Location InformationVenueAlpine VillageContact310-327-4384Address833 W. Torrance Blvd, Torrance, CA, 90502MapClose Map XWebsiteInvite a friendWebsiteThe Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays take place at Alpine Village, a charming venue located at 833 W. Torrance Blvd in Torrance, CA. This lively village is known for its traditional Bavarian atmosphere and is the home of the oldest Oktoberfest celebration in Southern California. With its authentic German architecture and festive decorations, Alpine Village creates the perfect backdrop for a day of fun and excitement.To get in touch with the organizers or inquire about any specific details, you can reach them at 310-327-4384. They will be more than happy to assist you with any questions or concerns you may have. Additionally, you can visit their website for more information and to invite your friends to join in on the festivities.As you plan your visit to the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays, make sure to check the map provided to easily navigate your way to the venue. The map will help you find the quickest route from your location, ensuring a hassle-free journey.With the location and contact information in hand, you're now well-equipped to experience the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays to the fullest. So gather your friends and family, put on your best German costumes, and get ready to immerse yourself in a day of traditional Bavarian fun, delicious German fare, and lively Oom Pah Pah party bands. Prost!Event HighlightsGet ready for an unforgettable experience at the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays, where traditional Bavarian fun, delicious German fare, and lively Oom Pah Pah party bands await you. This event is the home of the oldest Oktoberfest celebration in Southern California, so you know you're in for an authentic and exciting experience.As you walk into the Alpine Village, you'll be greeted by the lively sounds of Oom Pah Pah party bands, filling the air with their energetic music. The beats will get your feet tapping and your body moving in no time.But it's not just the music that will transport you to Bavaria. The Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays also offers a delectable array of traditional German fare. From bratwurst to sauerkraut, pretzels to schnitzel, you'll be able to satisfy your cravings for authentic German cuisine. And for those of legal drinking age, German beers will be available to complement your meal and enhance your Oktoberfest experience.Costumes are encouraged at the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays, and if you fully dress up in a dirndl or lederhosen, you'll get in for free. So why not embrace the festive spirit and don your best German attire? It'll make the event even more immersive and enjoyable.One special highlight of this Oktoberfest event is the celebration of German-American Heritage Day on October 6. On this day, you can witness performances by traditional German dance groups and singers, showcasing the rich cultural heritage of the German-American community.With its traditional Bavarian fun, mouthwatering German fare, and lively Oom Pah Pah party bands, the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays promises an experience that will leave you with lasting memories. So gather your friends and family, and head over to the Alpine Village for an afternoon filled with laughter, great food, and unforgettable moments. Prost!Additional InformationFor more information and updates about the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays event, please visit their website or contact Alpine Village at 310-327-4384.Here are some additional details about the event that you might find helpful:Activity dates/times are subject to change, so it's always a good idea to verify the information on the event website to ensure you don't miss out on any of the fun.If you're looking for more family-friendly activities, Mommy Poppins is a great resource that can help you find things to do with kids. They offer a wide range of activities, providers, and even family travel options.If you want to stay up to date with the latest happenings and receive exclusive offers, you can subscribe to the Mommy Poppins newsletter. They also have a contact page and an about section if you have any specific questions or inquiries.If you're interested in submitting an activity or listing your business on Mommy Poppins, they've a sitemap that provides quick access to those options. You can also find information about advertising with them if you're looking to promote your own business.Finally, if you're concerned about privacy and data collection, Mommy Poppins has a privacy policy, cookie policy, and terms of use that outline how they handle your personal information. They strive to provide a great customer experience while respecting your privacy.We hope this additional information helps you make the most of your experience at the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays event. Get ready to enjoy traditional Bavarian fun, delicious German food, and a lively atmosphere that celebrates German-American heritage. Prost!Legal and PrivacyTo ensure the safety and protection of our attendees, as well as maintain the privacy of their personal information, we've implemented a comprehensive legal and privacy policy for the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays event.At Alpine Village, we understand the importance of safeguarding your information and respecting your privacy. We want you to have the freedom to enjoy our event without any concerns.Our legal and privacy policy covers various aspects to ensure your peace of mind. Firstly, we collect only the necessary personal information required for event registration and ticket purchasing. Rest assured, we handle this information with the utmost care and don't share it with any third parties without your consent. Your privacy is important to us, and we take all necessary measures to protect your data from unauthorized access or misuse.Additionally, we use cookies and other data collection technologies to enhance your customer experience. These technologies help us improve our website and tailor our offerings to your preferences. However, we want to assure you that your personal information isn't linked to these technologies, and your privacy remains intact.By attending the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays event, you agree to abide by our terms of use, which ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for all attendees. We encourage you to read our privacy policy, cookie policy, and terms of use in detail to understand your rights and responsibilities.We value your trust and strive to maintain the highest standards of legal compliance and privacy protection. Should you have any questions or concerns regarding our legal and privacy policies, please feel free to contact us. Your freedom to enjoy the festivities at Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays is our top priority.Frequently Asked QuestionsAre Dogs Allowed at the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays Event?Yes, dogs are allowed at the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays event. We welcome furry friends to join in on the fun!It's a great opportunity to spend quality time with your whole family, including your beloved pets. So grab your lederhosen, bring your pup, and get ready to enjoy traditional Bavarian fun, delicious German food, and the lively atmosphere of the oldest Oktoberfest celebration in Southern California.Prost!Is There Parking Available at the Alpine Village for the Oktoberfest Event?Yes, there's parking available at the Alpine Village for the Oktoberfest event.The parking lot is conveniently located near the venue, making it easy for attendees to find a spot for their vehicles.So, you don't have to worry about searching for parking and can focus on enjoying the festivities.Grab your dirndl or lederhosen, gather your friends and family, and head to Alpine Village for a fun-filled day of Bavarian celebration!Can I Bring My Own Food and Drinks to the Event?Yes, you can bring your own food and drinks to the event.However, please note that there will also be traditional German fare available, along with German beers for older guests.So, if you're looking to fully immerse yourself in the Oktoberfest experience, we recommend trying some of the delicious food and drinks on offer.But if you have dietary restrictions or simply prefer to bring your own snacks, feel free to do so and enjoy the festivities!Are There Any Special Activities or Games for Children at the Oktoberfest Event?Yes, there are special activities and games for children at the Oktoberfest event. We want everyone to have a great time, so we've planned some fun-filled activities just for the little ones.From carnival games to face painting, there will be plenty to keep them entertained. They can also enjoy dancing to the lively music and trying delicious German treats.It's a family-friendly event that promises a memorable experience for everyone.Is There a Dress Code for the Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays Event?Yes, there's a dress code for the event. Guests dressed in German costumes, such as dirndls or lederhosen, get in for free.So, if you want to save some money and fully immerse yourself in the Bavarian spirit, we encourage you to put on your best traditional German attire.It's a great way to show off your love for the culture and join in on the festivities at Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays.ConclusionCome and join us at Alpine Village Oktoberfest All-Ages Sundays for a taste of Germany right here in Torrance, CA. With Oom Pah Pah party bands, delicious German food, and a lively atmosphere, this traditional Bavarian celebration isn't to be missed.Dress up in your favorite German costumes and receive free entry. Did you know that Alpine Village is the oldest Oktoberfest celebration in Southern California? Don't miss out on this fantastic opportunity to create lasting memories with family and friends.Prost! submitted by Sweet-Count2557 to worldkidstravel [link] [comments] |
2024.05.19 04:40 Qorin-Supay How can I start painting and drawing without lines or outlines?
Could anyone recommend me artists and youtubers that don't use lines to define their subjects or characters? I want to incorporate a lineless process in sketching and painting.
submitted by Qorin-Supay to AskArtists [link] [comments]
2024.05.19 04:40 No_Prize9087 Should I get a cheap $10-15K used car or is it worth going up to $20+ for newer and lower mileage? My priorities are safety and reliability
(TLDR at the bottom)
Why I’m looking for a car
In the US, been working remote but now looking for a new job and due to decrease in remote jobs available I think I finally need to get my own car again. I’m not a car person, don’t love driving and it makes me nervous especially on highways (which are usually unavoidable), so I put it off as long as I could but am hitting a point where I feel stuck in my current circumstances and am wanting to get a car to open up my job opportunities and relocation options, as well as more flexibility in social/hobby activities outside of work.
My original goal was to buy a used ~$10K basic car for commuting, but it seems like I can get much more car for ~15-20K, but is it worth it? I probably would put a below average number of miles on it per year. I also want to make sure it isn’t going to be a money sink of frequent repairs and a short life span though.
What I’m looking for
When looking at $10-15K cars vs $16-25K, is the higher cost worth the extra investment? Priorities are safety and reliability. But I’d would rather save that additional $5-10K. I’d like to be able to keep relying on it for the next ten years. but I’m also afraid to overspend now in case I really need a vehicle change sooner in the future (I want my next car to be an EV, so I’d want this car to last me long enough at least till when buying an EV is widely affordable and has infrastructure for it to be dependable even without a home charger)
What I’ve looked at so far
After researching, it seems like a Toyota, Honda, or Mazda are reliable fit the bill perfectly for safety and reliability. Though I always see people on here saying Mazda 3s are cheaper but when I looked they seem to be just as expensive if not more expensive than Toyotas and Hondas with similar mileage and years but maybe I am misremembering and unequally comparing them. I also see that private pay is often a better deal, but based on my super basic understanding it seems like getting something from a dealer that has a warranty and quality assurance is worth the extra cost, is this true? I know so little about warranties and car shopping. CarMax is what I’m most familiar with, but I see better deals elsewhere though so idk if it’s worth the extra for how “easy” Carmax seems to be compared to the stories I hear of pushy sales people at traditional dealerships who charge for vaporous extras.
In pursuit of a safe purchase, my budget slowly inched its way into looking at 2018+ Corollas in the $18-20K range because it seemed like it could be worth it to pay extra to ensure reliability and lower risk of it being a regrettable investment and money sink, like “an extra $5-6K now is better than having more than that in repairs (+inconvenience) and a shorter life span over the coming years.” But then I saw somewhere a $22K used 2024 Corolla and felt like maybe that’s worth the extra 2K, and then from there saw I could get a new one for $2K more at about $24K, and it’d probably have a better warranty policy since its new and almost zero risk of wear issues. And then at that point, I can ask should I spend another couple thousand for a hatchback version or a hybrid? But then it hit me how far I got from my original price range and I feel lost and going back to looking at $10K cars but they look so risky. I’m cautious as far as the saying goes, “buy it nice or buy it twice.” Long story short, I’m willing to pay extra if it’s really worth it, but I want to be as financially prudent as well and avoid overspending since I don’t truly need an excessive car (I try to save most of my money where possible). I’d like to pay extra for safety and reliability if it’s worth it but I don’t know where the point of diminishing returns is for reliability.
I read somewhere that Nissans have sucked but also that as of 2020 they started having seemingly more reliable transmissions. Is that true? I was afraid to get a Nissan but even a new one is less than $17K so it seems like a very budget-friendly option. I was at one point looking at Kia/Hyundai for their lower prices, but then I discovered the whole issue of them being huge targets for crime, and my parking spot isn’t visible from my window so I’d be worried about leaving it out of sight like that, as well as potentially high insurance costs. Mitsubishi mirage is cheap and potentially reliable but also is apparently not safe (plus I’d feel terrified feeling like I’m in a golf cart on the highway haha).
TL;DR
When looking at $10-15K cars vs $16-25K, is the higher cost worth the extra investment? Priorities are safety and reliability.
submitted by No_Prize9087 to whatcarshouldIbuy [link] [comments]
Why I’m looking for a car
In the US, been working remote but now looking for a new job and due to decrease in remote jobs available I think I finally need to get my own car again. I’m not a car person, don’t love driving and it makes me nervous especially on highways (which are usually unavoidable), so I put it off as long as I could but am hitting a point where I feel stuck in my current circumstances and am wanting to get a car to open up my job opportunities and relocation options, as well as more flexibility in social/hobby activities outside of work.
My original goal was to buy a used ~$10K basic car for commuting, but it seems like I can get much more car for ~15-20K, but is it worth it? I probably would put a below average number of miles on it per year. I also want to make sure it isn’t going to be a money sink of frequent repairs and a short life span though.
What I’m looking for
When looking at $10-15K cars vs $16-25K, is the higher cost worth the extra investment? Priorities are safety and reliability. But I’d would rather save that additional $5-10K. I’d like to be able to keep relying on it for the next ten years. but I’m also afraid to overspend now in case I really need a vehicle change sooner in the future (I want my next car to be an EV, so I’d want this car to last me long enough at least till when buying an EV is widely affordable and has infrastructure for it to be dependable even without a home charger)
What I’ve looked at so far
After researching, it seems like a Toyota, Honda, or Mazda are reliable fit the bill perfectly for safety and reliability. Though I always see people on here saying Mazda 3s are cheaper but when I looked they seem to be just as expensive if not more expensive than Toyotas and Hondas with similar mileage and years but maybe I am misremembering and unequally comparing them. I also see that private pay is often a better deal, but based on my super basic understanding it seems like getting something from a dealer that has a warranty and quality assurance is worth the extra cost, is this true? I know so little about warranties and car shopping. CarMax is what I’m most familiar with, but I see better deals elsewhere though so idk if it’s worth the extra for how “easy” Carmax seems to be compared to the stories I hear of pushy sales people at traditional dealerships who charge for vaporous extras.
In pursuit of a safe purchase, my budget slowly inched its way into looking at 2018+ Corollas in the $18-20K range because it seemed like it could be worth it to pay extra to ensure reliability and lower risk of it being a regrettable investment and money sink, like “an extra $5-6K now is better than having more than that in repairs (+inconvenience) and a shorter life span over the coming years.” But then I saw somewhere a $22K used 2024 Corolla and felt like maybe that’s worth the extra 2K, and then from there saw I could get a new one for $2K more at about $24K, and it’d probably have a better warranty policy since its new and almost zero risk of wear issues. And then at that point, I can ask should I spend another couple thousand for a hatchback version or a hybrid? But then it hit me how far I got from my original price range and I feel lost and going back to looking at $10K cars but they look so risky. I’m cautious as far as the saying goes, “buy it nice or buy it twice.” Long story short, I’m willing to pay extra if it’s really worth it, but I want to be as financially prudent as well and avoid overspending since I don’t truly need an excessive car (I try to save most of my money where possible). I’d like to pay extra for safety and reliability if it’s worth it but I don’t know where the point of diminishing returns is for reliability.
I read somewhere that Nissans have sucked but also that as of 2020 they started having seemingly more reliable transmissions. Is that true? I was afraid to get a Nissan but even a new one is less than $17K so it seems like a very budget-friendly option. I was at one point looking at Kia/Hyundai for their lower prices, but then I discovered the whole issue of them being huge targets for crime, and my parking spot isn’t visible from my window so I’d be worried about leaving it out of sight like that, as well as potentially high insurance costs. Mitsubishi mirage is cheap and potentially reliable but also is apparently not safe (plus I’d feel terrified feeling like I’m in a golf cart on the highway haha).
TL;DR
When looking at $10-15K cars vs $16-25K, is the higher cost worth the extra investment? Priorities are safety and reliability.
2024.05.19 04:32 AMERlCAN_BULLY The most fun project you'll ever be a part of!
Hello, I’m seeking $15k for an EV start-up. The two prototypes we’ve designed and yet to build if successful, would technically be the world’s first mass-produced wind/electric-hybrid vehicles and the best part is that they’ll look and handle like little race cars! (Think Power Wheels on crack). Though marketed as the safer next generation of Go-Karts, they will act as a proof of concept for our larger future designs. Planned pre-Kickstarter advertising campaign, with plans for a low Kickstarter completion amount to ensure its success. If, however, the campaign is unsuccessful the two prototypes are yours, and as they’ll be laden in the $1k of Carbon Fiber Mat I already have on hand, they’ll make for an easy sell! But I'd prefer to attempt selling them as a set for $50-100k in the Kickstarter to jumpstart your repayment. I believe in this project enough to put my vehicle title up for collateral, but it’s only currently worth about 50-70% of what we’ll need to complete the project.
Equity options unavailable, Max 1,000% ROI.
World record breaking product, insanely low investment, reasonable ROI, multiple unpatented technologies, and an incredibly excited founder! What more could you ask for?
Thank you for your time,
Mike
Black/Veteran Owned, if you’re into that.
submitted by AMERlCAN_BULLY to angelinvestors [link] [comments]
Equity options unavailable, Max 1,000% ROI.
World record breaking product, insanely low investment, reasonable ROI, multiple unpatented technologies, and an incredibly excited founder! What more could you ask for?
Thank you for your time,
Mike
Black/Veteran Owned, if you’re into that.