I just came back to the game after a long hiatus and left off at Chapter 8 so quick question.
Is there a preferred Order that I should play the Story Chapters and Event Stories in since I’m catching up?

Miquella speaks of the beginning, and the camera shows Marika (it's definitely Marika, the bracelet is hers) shoving her hands into something that seems covered in clothes, to take out golden threads. Through treason and seduction Marika ensures the rise of "Gold", that I assume means her Golden Order.
The theme of the Elden Beast plays while we see Marika holding the golden strand in a pose that resembles a Rune Arc, while standing in the middle of two giant piles of corpses. The creation of gold seems to cause the creation of "Shadow" as well.
A terrible war followed, one that couldn't be put to song, a purge that was deliberately hidden and to this day no historical references survive in the Lands Between and everything remains hidden in the Realm of Shadows, whatever it is. Messmer led this war, fighting Omens and pre-Erdtree civilizations.
Miquella "spoke" of these things, meaning he somehow came to learn of these historical events, and because of this he gave up his divine flesh and destiny to wander in the Lands of Shadow, for whatever reason, and we'll follow him together with the other people who were his followers and possibly learned from him about the true bloody origins of the Golden Order.
The final part doesn't concern me too much, it'll be something we'll figure out by playing the DLC and figuring it out what Miquella is up to. What really interests me is Marika, the bloody origin of the Golden Order, and the intertwined trees.
Speculation
Here's what I think is happening here.
1) Marika usurps the Elden Ring, possibly from Placidusax's god, and ascends to godhood herself.
We see Marika as she ascends to godhood, which is to say, as she acquires the Elden Ring. Marika's ascension to godhood was one of the events explicitly stated to be explored in the DLC and we're seeing it here.
Marika's ascension is actually one of the unclarified spots of Elden Ring lore because, as far as we know, there was Placidusax's time when he was Elden Lord, and he had a god (that should have been the container of the Elden Ring, like Marika later on), and there was a representation of an ancient Elden Ring in Farum Azula. Then Placidusax's god disappears, he goes into hiding, is seemingly greatly wounded and the Dragon civilization collapses. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Marika pops out of existence with Godfrey and wages war against the Giants. How much time passed between each of these events is unclear, and what's even less clear is when and how did Marika became a god.
Even before the trailer I started having a suspicion: what if Marika actively usurped godhood from Placidusax's god? What we could be seeing in that trailer is Marika physically taking the Elden Ring from the corpse of Placidusax's god and ascending to godhood. This would rewrite our understanding of prehistory in Elden Ring, tying up the age of the Dragons with Marika's time, placing stuff like the Ancient Dynasty and the Astrologers still slightly before Marika, during Placidusax's reign, but toward its end.
2) Marika kicks off her reign by transforming the pre-existing Crucible of life into a giant golden tree. To create the Erdtree Marika needs a massive amount of human sacrifices, that she gets by waging extermination wars against pre-Erdtree civilizations. This affair is led by Messmer, and it's brutal enough that all references to these events were utterly censored from history and a parallel realm of Shadow was created to contain the evidence, Messmer included.
Minor Erdtree require to be fed with the corpses of warriors, as seen by the presence of pots near their sites, and Miquella's own Haligtree was fertilized with Miquella's blood and flesh. Sacred Trees need blood to grow, and the Erdtree reasonably needed a massive amount of blood to be created.
This is the terrible war the trailer talks about, and this why Marika is standing among piles of corpses. Millions must die to create the Erdtree, and Messmer's troops are ready to do the deed for their god-queen. I have no idea if and where Godfrey is at this point in time, it might be before his time or he might even have been an accomplice in all this, I have no idea.
Omens and other beings associated with the previous era are particularly targeted by Marika's purge, possibly because they are a living representation of the era she's trying to wipe out and replace. The transition from the period when Crucible influences were seen as benign to being maligned as barbarous therefore seems to be violent and sudden instead of slow and gradual, which makes things like the Crucible Knights a little strange considering they served Godfrey all through his reign, even after the Erdtree was established. I guess Omens were just something Marika particularly disliked, which would make the characters of Morgott and Mohg being Marika's own sons all the more ironic.
Also, the Crucible is the primordial form of the Erdtree, so we need to keep that in mind as well. The Erdtree is an evolution of the original Crucible, inheriting its life-giving powers and it can be seen during the age of prosperity with the sacred sap and gifts that the Erdtree gave initially in its life.
3) The image of Marika standing between the two piles of corpses while holding up the golden filament actually calls back to the door of the modern Erdtree, with the two piles of corpses starting to build up the outer shell of the Erdtree while the hole in the middle would turn into the entrance we can use to go and fight Radagon.
This is a visual comparison I've seen people arguing for in the community, I actually first heard it from Sabaku no Maiku who pointed it out in his stream, and if correct it would further point toward the idea that Marika is trying to create the Erdtree in that shot, that this is how the Erdtree was created starting off from the original Crucible, and it makes it easy to explain why Marika would go to great lengths to hide this historical event.
4) Messmer is Marika's son. Messmer might even be Marika's firstborn, and not from a human mate.
Marika's ascension to godhood is something that comes very early in the timeline. Potentially even before Marika and Godfrey were together, but even if Godfrey was already around this should be long before any of their sons (Godwyn, Morgott and Mohg) were around. Messmer is also definitely Marika's son because we have interviews referring to him as a demigod and we have him sitting on a demigod's throne, so he's one of Marika's lineage.
Because of the events taking place so long in the past, there's a very real possibility that Messmer is actually Marika's very first son. And with Marika potentially having usurped godhood from the dragons, the fact that there's "seduction" involved, and the fact that Messmer has draconic features, makes me think that he might be the result of Marika mating with a dragon as part of her plan to usurp them. That's why Messmer looks the way he does and why he's living evidence of things that can't be made public in the modern age, and so he rules over the Realm of Shadows as Marika's jailer, forever outside of the Lands Between.
Such an idea wouldn't even be anything new. The Ancient Dragons are said to be able to take human form, and Lansseax acted as a priestess for the draconic knights, with Vyke being one of her favourites, and if I recall correctly the Japanese version might even ambiguously hint at sexual relations between Lansseax and the knights.
5) I still have no idea what the intertwined trees stand for.
Maybe it's a representation in the Lands of Shadow of how Marika's order took over the previous system? Maybe it represents how there were two actual giant trees in that time period (so the Great Tree believers would be vindicated at the end)? Maybe it's just something that exists in the Lands of Shadow and doesn't have anything to do with the real Erdtree?
Being potentially a representation of how the Erdtree came to be, it's something that might have huge lore implications, but the trailer keeps the two trees far away from sight, and probably for good reasons.
This is the end of my very rushed thoughts on the new story trailer, and most likely all of this will be proven entirely wrong by the DLC, but it's fun to speculate when new ideas are still hot and being created.

Hello community! I'm planning to buy my first F1 car, a bit late perhaps since there are 5 seasons available in the game... anyway! I'm wanting to acquire a car that i can actively use in order to get the daily 250k M$ with the least amount of grinding time possible
Or maybe i should wait for the LeMans events and use the M$ i saved for upgrades and try to get a car for free and only pay the upgrades

Demographics: Rising senior, Indian, Female, East Coast. Super competitive school, 13 got into Penn, 8 into Cornell, 5ish into Georgetown, etc.
Intended Major(s): BS/DMD (early assurance dental school) programs at schools that offer. Otherwise, biochemistry/biology.
SAT: 1550 (750 EBRW, 800 Math)
UW/W GPA and Rank: UW is 3.91/4, W is 6.88/7, rank about 20 something (because we have 17 valedictorians 😒)
Coursework:

• Completed so far: AP Seminar, APUSH, AP Bio, AP Psych, APES, AP Lang, AP Research
• Senior Year: AP Chem, AP Lit, AP Calc BC (my school doesn't have AB), AP Stats, AP Macro + Micro, Human Anatomy Honors

Extracurriculars (kind of vague so I don't doxx myself):

• Extern at a dental practice nearby - very hands on, I suction and such during procedures ranging from basic prophys to complex extractions or root canals - about 300 hours
• Research assistant at state uni's school of dentistry, working on a project dealing with constructive oral surgery and materials to be used - in the publishing process to top dental journals
• Research intern at local university, project on ALL growth using mice models
• Candidate for Leukemia Lymphoma Society's Student Visionaries of the Year Comp., raised over 38K in a 7 week period to go towards cancer research
• Leading a social-media based health-related (can't say specific topic bc of doxxing but it is a very niche topic and is helping fulfill a gap by reducing stigma) awareness campaign
• Wrote a review paper on cervical cancer and how it affects South Asian women specifically - in one of the final reviewing processes by The Lancet!
• Founder + Co-Pres of Operation Smile at my school (club focusing on cleft palates and helping kids with them in underprivileged countries)
• President of Biology Club (anticipating, not out yet - if I don't get it then I'll speak about being Vice President of Science National Honors Society)
• Job at Kumon for the past 4 years, work as the lead center assistant
• President of Indian Club, leading over 100 members in order to choreograph a 8 min dance for the school's International Day event as well as coordinating various cultural activities throughout the year

Essays/LORs: Definitely going to ask the dentist who owns the practice I extern at - she knows me super well, has been the one who sparked an interest in dentistry for me, and I also tutor her kids (11/10). In school, my math teacher (should be 10/10, we are quite literally best friends) and AP Bio teacher (8/10 - she likes my work and labs and uses them as examples, I just haven't participated the most in her class)
Other: The only thing keeping my GPA from being a perfect 4.0 is that I got 2 Bs in my freshman year (an 88 and an 87) in English and History. However, I've shown an upward trend, ending with all As for my sophomore and junior years, and my English grade improving up to a 99 final grade this year. So I hope it's not that much of a bad look?
Schools I'm Applying To: UPenn 7 Year BA/DMD (ED), Cornell, Barnard, Harvard for fun, UMich, NYU 7 Year BA/DMD, Case Western 7 Year BS/DMD, Boston University 8 Year BA/DMD, Tufts 8 Year BA/DMD, Carnegie Mellon, UNC Chapel Hill, Georgetown, and then some local safeties.

Ihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qLoh37QjtQ
I think this opening cut scene tells of events slightly out of order. As it stands:
-the war has spread to the mountains, and Ashina province
-Isshin Ashina staged a bloody coup, wresting control of Ashina province
-Owl finds wolf on a bloody field, takes him in.
So, if that's linear and in order a guy named Isshin Ashina goes to Ashina province and wrestles control from... who? Someone else?
Its a little confusing. But, then I was reading that the Ashina Clan, historically, was wiped out at the battle in which the Tokugawa Shogunate solidified control of Japan.
Shogunate=ministry.
So I got to thinking. What if:
War was in the lowlands. Shogunate/ministry wins it. Ashina is opposing them, and is wiped out. Except for Isshin.
Isshin flees to the mountains. Goes to a small mountain province, takes it over, renames it Ashina.
The Shogunate is on his heels but cannot take the region back, because "mountains," "Isshin Ashina," and "Dragon's blood is everywhere."
But they try... leading to perpetual conflict. And on one hand, Isshin is clan-bound to oppose the ministry, so he does...and adopts a son, so the son can continue that legacy... but then folk start turning into demons, and, Isshin starts wondering what it's all worth. After all, Ashina is already dead. just like him.

Is anyone even able to kill the event boss, ive tried twice, once myself and the boss was 1mil hp, and once with 2 others (3 total) and the boss was 3mil hp, and both time it seems like every person needs to fight perfectly in order to kill it, in the first 30-60 seconds the timer and hp will be pretty even and then after that the timer just slowly gets smaller and smaller than the hp and i wasnt able to kill it both times. Any tips?

I'm curious what you all think about this dilemma I'm having.
Basically, the main character in my feature film starts as non-conformist, which is making his life become more difficult to the point where his ability to survive is in question.
The first act break of the screenplay is him finally conforming in order to make he and his family's lives easier. Initially, for the first half of the second act, this move works out to his benefit and he enjoys the new life. However, it all comes crashing down and he begins to lose the life he cared for before. He then spends the rest of the film trying to undo what he's done to his life.
By the end, he is mostly able to restore his old life after an intense climax, and the news of his tribulations prompt the rest of society to begin a shift.
I'm hung up about this ending as it doesn't really mean my main character changes at all. His beliefs are basically confirmed by the events of the story and he essentially goes back to his old life, but in the setting of a new world, now coming back closer to his values. Yes, his situation has now improved, but I don't really think he's changed much as a character from the beginning of the first act to the final image. He went from being a non-conformist to being a non-conformist.
Is this "full-circle" character arc a faux pas? Or is it fine, as long as it is done well? I know there are some films that have static main characters, but I cannot think of any films that have a full-circle arc.
I've toyed with the idea of making the screenplay a tragedy. He wants to return to his old life, but is unable and gets swallowed up by the new world he conformed to. I'm just not sure if that's the way I want to go. Particularly because there is another film involving a similar subject matter that ends in a similar way.
I would love to know what you all think and if you've ever come across a similar story issue. Thank you!

Hello, I am wondering how this sounds for my Sap appeal. I am in good standing and above a 2.0, as of right now, I am kit eligible for fafsa, which is the reason why for my appeal. I would love any and all feedback. Thank you!
I am writing to appeal against the loss of my federal financial aid eligibility due to not meeting Satisfactory Academic Progress. (SAP) requirements and ask you to please restore my eligibility to receive all forms of federal aid. I regret that I have not been able to meet the Satisfactory Academic Progress ( SAP ) requirements. Should I not receive aid, I will not be able to continue my wonderful path here at the University of Texas at San Antonio. During my time of enrollment in a university at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, I had faced numerous challenges that put a delay on my growth and hindered me from reaching my goals of being an academically successful student. After taking a year off to be more proactive about my situation I am writing this letter in hopes of appealing my aid for SAP, which was revoked due to a failure to meet the completion rate. I understand the reason for the stopping of my aid, and I take full accountabilities for all events leading up to that point. I am writing this letter to express the importance in which I hold my education, as well as to outline the steps I plan on taking to ensure that I remain on the road to academic success and completion at University of Texas at San Antonio.
I went back to school in 2017 as an independent student. I faced many obstacles, and being the only person in my family that was able to enroll in college, I was determined to make something of myself and be successful by excelling in my studies, but I came into that college experience with a blind eye and did not utilize the campus resources to be a scholar, like I should had done. During my following semester in 2019, I had recently become pregnant with my son, and that was around the time that COVID-19 had happened. During that time, I was let go from my job due to the lockdown, which left me in a finical crisis, so I was unable to pay for my semester at the time. During the fall of 2020, I had just given birth to my son, so I was finding new self, and my new lifestyle, which had me switched my major multiple times, because I did not have passion for the previous majors that I had selected, so I dropped many courses as well. During the terms for the year 2022, I was still attending the Alamo Colleges out here, but I had recently found my passion in the tech field, I started to be on top of my courses and class work and was able to successfully 2 / 3 succeed during the following years. Once I got transferred to the University of Texas at San Antonio, I knew exactly what my passion was, and I was more than excited to start my growth academically and soar. In the begging of the spring semester, I had just recently bought my first house, so I was preoccupied with packing, and the whole process of buying your first home. I was overly overwhelmed with the moving process, raising my 3-year-old son, and working full time that I lost focused on one of my courses for the term. Since not passing that class, my life has done a complete 360, I decided to take the summer off to organize my house and get everything in order. Now that I have finished moving into my new house, I can fully stay focused and determined not to lose sight of my academics. Now that I am fully moved into my house, My parents help out with my son so that I can take 3 hours every day to study each of my courses, I organized my time to make sure that I will be attending at least 2 tutoring sessions a week, as well as utilizing the university resources to help gain more of an advance on my academics and make sure to meet with my professors and advisor at least twice each semester so I can make sure that I can stay caught up on my course work, and getting more assistance if I do feel lost. If I knew then what I know now, I would have taken a break after my first failed semester, as well truly knowing where my interest lies, so that I didn’t switch my major multiple times. I did not understand the impact of changing majors, and dropping courses that would influence not only my GPA, but also my completion rate for SAP. I also realize that I should’ve taken more of advantage of the student resources provided to me, by the colleges and universities. I also take full responsibility and accountability for the consequences of my actions.
What will be different if given the chance to receive aid again is that I am in a much better place than I have been in the past 5 years, and I will continue to always improve myself and never let my studies go. I will always stay focused during each term of the school year and will never let myself get lost or behind again. I will also commit to routine/ scheduled meetings with my academic advisor as well as professors, and tutoring aids that are available to help with each course. I have a tremendous amount of support from my loved ones who want to see me succeed and be the first one in my family to graduate from college / university. I am not only determined to make something better of myself for myself, but for my son. If I am given this extra chance at this opportunity, I can show my son how successful one can be with life going on, but also that if you don’t give up on your dreams, you can do anything you set your mind to. I am very disappointed in the person who I was in the past, but I am more than happy to say that that person is not me anymore. I have grown so much, and the old me would be so shocked that I even made it this far in life. I know that in life, things are always going to come up and hit you out of nowhere, but I have now realized that no matter what life throws at you, you just got to push through it and keep going, no matter how hard it is. I understand that this chance does not come around often but if you take this amazing chance on me, not only will I succeed and go far in life, but I will provide my son with a better life than I could ever imagine. If awarded this opportunity, I will do everything It takes to become successful and remain successful throughout the remainder of my academic career the University of Texas at San Antonio.
3 / 3 I plan on taking on more tutoring sessions at least twice a week with my professors. I will also take up more of the student resources that the university has to offer, as well as scheduling more appointments with my tutor. I will never drop any of the courses that I am registered for and going to take in the future. I will also never let myself not pass any of these courses. I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that not only will I pass every course that I am taking / and or will take, but I will also make sure that I stay determined and focused and seek out any help from my scholars with my academics.

The HRRFY.
It’s the horror movie festival where something genuinely fucked happens every year. And I mean every year.
Like, there are some screenings that unleash hordes of bats while the movie is playing. You're free to leave whenever you want, but the movie will still play for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Other screenings hire actors to turn at you and scream at some point in the movie. You have no idea when, or how many times.
It's a festival where the word "illegal" can't even begin to describe what happens. You'd only attend if you were a young, stupid edgelord like me who was trying to prove he was hardcore to his friends.
Trust me. DO NOT GO.
You have nothing to prove to anyone. Don't be stupid.
Wait for the lamer film versions to come out streaming. That's what everyone else does. They're neutered edits but they're fine.
All they lack is the real gleaming thing everyone wants to see at HRRFY, but who cares. At least you don’t get traumatized. At least you’re not risking your life.
Anyway, if you really want to know what attending HRRFY is like. I’ll be quick and summarize the one screening I went to. It was the 20th anniversary, and I was lucky enough to get in.
***
I had signed up for the HRRFY mailing list, and joined the subreddit. Through a series of cryptic online emails I solved a sequence of riddles and was entered in the lottery for a HRRFY entry.
Lady Luck took a shine to me, because one day in my mailbox, I received a physical ticket. I had done it.
I was going.
The actual ‘ticket’ was a black USB key that announced the location of the festival the night before (which I won’t disclose here) and it did force me to pay for a very expensive flight in order for me to make it on time.
You see, to prevent getting shut down, the location of HRRFY changes every year. Some years the local police have managed to stop it, but for the most part, authorities have given up. What’s the point of arresting or charging anyone, if all the organizers and attendees actually want to be there?
Upon arrival, I had to pick between three participating theaters.
Based on title alone, I decided to go see “Many Drownings” (directed by Oleksander Gołański.) It was in the theater that was furthest away from the downtown core, which meant it was likely the one where the craziest shit was bound to happen.
That’s what I came here for right?
I lined up a solid two hours before the screening like everyone else. The entire line was jittering, just vibrating with excited twenty-somethings. Rumors flew left and right.
“I heard they’re going to force everyone to take acid.”
“I heard an actor’s gonna run in and shotgun the ceiling.”
“I heard they’re going to disappear like four more people this year. At this screening!”
Each year people disappeared. And each year the same people were ‘found.’ And yes this is the worst part, and why should never, ever, ever go to this event.
Again I will repeat myself. DO NOT GO.
No one has ever truly gone 'missing' at HRRFY in any legal or physical sense, because every missing person always shows up a day later, convinced that they are fine—refusing to elaborate further.
There are some small support groups for people who have family members who had gone to HRRFY, and came back irrevocably changed after being ‘found.’
These few unlucky people lose all semblance of personality. They don’t want interviews, or help, or therapy, or contact of any kind. And they never, ever want to talk about what they saw.
Some HRRFY fans think that these ‘found’ people were body-snatched. Cloned in a lab or replaced by a cyborg, or something stupid like that.
But I think there’s a far simpler explanation. The ‘found’ are still the same people. They're just terrified. They got shaken by something that shattered the foundation of their mind, body and soul. They got too scared.
They got HRRFY’d.
***
I should mention I had a cough the day I went. And I was worried my sickly appearance might give me trouble at the airport.
So I invested in an intense double N95 mask which I wore for the whole flight, and continued to wear even at the screening of “Many Drownings.”
It made my face hot and uncomfortable, but it still didn’t stop me from yelling “excuse me, excuse me!” as I ran to snag a seat in the back of the theater.
I always preferred sitting in the far back. You get a good view of the whole screen, and a good view of the whole audience.
Beside me sat a big dude named Sylvester, who apparently flew all the way from Australia to attend HRRFY.
“Worth the full Seventeen hours mate! It’s gonna be epic!” he dropped a massive camping backpack beside me, which I assume contained all of his luggage.
The lights dimmed, and the production company logos started to play.
The whispering, giggling and suspense all stacked upon each other to create an electric feeling in the air. I was giddy. It's like the entire audience was embarking on a massive roller coaster.
The anticipation was the best part for sure. It might have been the only good part.
Then the movie started.
It was a wide shot of a gray, stormy sea. The waves were massive, and the thunderclouds were looming. There was no land visible in any direction.
All we could hear was the sound of waves foaming, swirling, and crashing over and over. Lightning crackled. Rain poured. The camera held perfectly still over this storm as if it was mounted on a perfectly hovering drone. A drone so resilient that it didn’t waver at all.
I thought it had to be CGI.
The shot held like this for the next few moments. Everyone sat glued to their seats. Everyone was thinking the same thing.
What’s going to happen? How are they going to scare us?
People chuckled. People cheered. People wanted to tease whatever was going to happen—to happen already.
But nothing did.
Five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes went by without any change. People started snoring.
I looked beside me and saw that Sylvester—the most excited audience member of them all—had fallen totally asleep. The jet lag must’ve gotten to him.
Then I peered beyond the rest of the audience members and saw other people snoozing too. Heads were keeled over, some people were curled in their seats, some had even spilled out into the aisle and were dozing on the floor.
I looked above the bright screen, at the huge vents in the corner of the theater. I saw a faint white gas emerging from the vents.
Holy shit. What have we been breathing? I tightened the straps on my N95 mask, and made my breathing shallower.
The gas must have been pumping since the opening credits—because how else would an audience of two hundred people all fall asleep?
As I moved my hand through the air in front of me, I could sense the thickness. It was definitely hazier than usual. I took the scarf off my neck and wrapped it around my mouth as well.
Then I spotted movement in front of the screen.
It was a tall blonde man, wearing a black trenchcoat and military-grade gas mask. Beside him arrived six hazmat suits who started pointing at various audience members.
I slunk in my chair, pretending to sleep like everyone else.
Two hazmats walked over to the front row and picked out a sleeping guy in flannel. They lifted flannel up, under the armpits and by his ankles, carrying him between them both like a hammock.
The hazmats walked back up to the stage, where the blonde leader inspected the flannel man and tapped his head. Something was approved?
The hazmats began to swing flannel back and forth, as if they were getting ready to toss him. Despite their masks, I could hear a very muffled, very distant countdown.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“One…”
The flannel audience member was tossed into the screen.
I literally watched him fly into the image of stormy waves … andfallinto them. The flannel man sank into the gray water like a rock, leaving a few bubbles and foam. A wave came crashing down. All trace of him was gone.
What the fuck.
All six hazmats began grabbing more audience members with much more urgency. It became a minute-long process where they would pick the sleeping person up, bring them beside the screen, and then swing-toss them into it.
How was this possible?
I turned slightly to see if there was a projector above me, and realized there was none. Which meant maybe there was no screen on stage.
Which meant … maybe it was a portal?
I tried to wake Sylvester by shaking him. I pinched his leg and arm a bunch.
He was out cold.
The hazmats started grabbing audience members from the middle rows now. They were emptying the whole theater. What the hell was I supposed to do?
I waited until they grabbed another batch, only a few rows down from me. When all hazmats had their backs turned—I broke into a run.
With my left arm, I tightly gripped my mask and scarf against my face, while my right arm vaulted me over seat after seat.
I had never breathed so hard—through so much fabric—in my life.
The hazmats all turned to me. “Hey! Hey!” But their hands were full with their next victims.
I ran all the way down the aisle, to the big exit sign on the left. My heartbeat filled my head. My plan was to dropkick through the exit door.
I imagined myself breaking through like some flying gazelle.
I jumped.
I angled my kick.
It might as well have been a brick wall. I fell ass-first to the ground, followed by my head. Of course the door was locked.
Through a muffled mask I heard a sneering scoff.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Above me stood the one wearing a trenchcoat. I could see his piercing gray eyes through his gas mask.
I rolled aside and tried to run by him. He lifted a foot and tripped me without effort.
My forehead bashed into an empty seat. It dazed me.
The blonde leader bent down and grabbed me by the neck, tearing away my scarf and mask.
“No! No!”
A sweet, ether-like smell filled my nostrils. I did my best to hold my breath, but I could already feel myself getting light-headed.
The other hazmats joined in, grabbing me from all sides. Even if I had the strength to struggle, there was no escape now.
Above me, all I could see was the dark theater ceiling, and some of the light behind me from the cinema screen.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“No. Please. Don’t do thi—”
SPLASH.
I was plunged deep into cold, wet chaos. My head was completely underwater.
Gagging. Bubbles. Spinning.
I fought for dear life, dog-paddling like a maniac.
Churning. Freezing. Panic.
For a second, my head popped above the water. I inhaled all the air my lungs could muster. I stared across a vast, violent ocean.
An enormous thirty foot wave came in my direction.
My whole body lifted higher and higher as the wave approached. I did my best to tread water. It seemed to be working.
Then a series of smaller waves arrived and smacked my chest.
SPLASH.
Spinning. Kicking. Flipping.
My view alternated between the pitch dark ocean beneath me, and the moonlit night sky above.
Again I swam to the surface, popped my head out. Ravenously sucked in air.
There was a small lull in the water.
Around me I now registered the other theater goers. Most of them were lying face-down or sinking … but a few were flapping about like me, fighting for their life.
And above all of us, a floating white shape.
It was painfully bright, I had to lift one hand to look at it.
My jaw dropped.
It was the movie screen, hanging completely still in the air. It showed a dark, empty theater. The exact same theater we all occupied moments ago.
It was tremendously high, above all of our heads. There was no way of reaching it.
Then I saw another thirty foot wave come our way. It grazed the bottom of the screen.
I knew what had to be done.
***
One of the theater goers happened to be on a college swim team. She was the first one able to traverse one of the giant waves and climb into the screen.
Once she was up there, she found a firehose in the theater and reeled it out to us like a rope.
One by one, we swam as hard as we could, praying to God we could reach the rope. Everyone’s energy was sapped. Your body can only sustain itself on adrenaline and fear for so long.
By some miracle, five of us got out.
I was the last.
I climbed the rope coughing and vomiting. I had swallowed so much water that my stomach felt swollen.
When I reached the top and they pulled me into the screen, I sobbed. I couldn’t stop crying.
My life had flashed countless times before my eyes. In bubbling, suffocating visions, I saw both my parents and my brother. I saw my highschool graduation. I saw my favorite Christmas from when I was six years old.
I had almost lost all of that. I had lost almost everything.
On the dirty, carpeted theater floor, I lay with my face down, savoring the fact that I now lay on a hard surface. God bless ground. God bless this filthy, popcorn-strewn ground.
Beside me I heard bantering, hugging, the wringing of wet clothes. Sylvester was the second last to be saved, and he was particularly vocal.
“Wooooooaaaaahh!” He came and drummed me on the back, lifted me up. “Oh my god dude! Holy shit!”
I sat on my knees, wiping the tears and snot off my mouth.
Sylvester clapped his hands, held his face and screamed some more.
“Holy shit dude! That was so fucking scary! Like literally people were dying beside us. Like I SAW people die!”
I nodded, shivering in my drenched clothes. “ I know it was—”
“—That was craaaaazy!”
He laughed and stood up, patting everyone on the back. He kept clapping his hands like this was some sports event.
“That was sick! That was siiiiiiiiick!”
He ruffled someone’s hair then ran up to me with an open palm.
“High five dude! WE MADE IT! High five!
“Don’t leave me hangin’ dude!”

The HRRFY.
It’s the horror movie festival where something genuinely fucked happens every year. And I mean every year.
Like, there are some screenings that unleash hordes of bats while the movie is playing. You're free to leave whenever you want, but the movie will still play for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Other screenings hire actors to turn at you and scream at some point in the movie. You have no idea when, or how many times.
It's a festival where the word "illegal" can't even begin to describe what happens. You'd only attend if you were a young, stupid edgelord like me who was trying to prove he was hardcore to his friends.
Trust me. DO NOT GO.
You have nothing to prove to anyone. Don't be stupid.
Wait for the lamer film versions to come out streaming. That's what everyone else does. They're neutered edits but they're fine.
All they lack is the real gleaming thing everyone wants to see at HRRFY, but who cares. At least you don’t get traumatized. At least you’re not risking your life.
Anyway, if you really want to know what attending HRRFY is like. I’ll be quick and summarize the one screening I went to. It was the 20th anniversary, and I was lucky enough to get in.
***
I had signed up for the HRRFY mailing list, and joined the subreddit. Through a series of cryptic online emails I solved a sequence of riddles and was entered in the lottery for a HRRFY entry.
Lady Luck took a shine to me, because one day in my mailbox, I received a physical ticket. I had done it.
I was going.
The actual ‘ticket’ was a black USB key that announced the location of the festival the night before (which I won’t disclose here) and it did force me to pay for a very expensive flight in order for me to make it on time.
You see, to prevent getting shut down, the location of HRRFY changes every year. Some years the local police have managed to stop it, but for the most part, authorities have given up. What’s the point of arresting or charging anyone, if all the organizers and attendees actually want to be there?
Upon arrival, I had to pick between three participating theaters.
Based on title alone, I decided to go see “Many Drownings” (directed by Oleksander Gołański.) It was in the theater that was furthest away from the downtown core, which meant it was likely the one where the craziest shit was bound to happen.
That’s what I came here for right?
I lined up a solid two hours before the screening like everyone else. The entire line was jittering, just vibrating with excited twenty-somethings. Rumors flew left and right.
“I heard they’re going to force everyone to take acid.”
“I heard an actor’s gonna run in and shotgun the ceiling.”
“I heard they’re going to disappear like four more people this year. At this screening!”
Each year people disappeared. And each year the same people were ‘found.’ And yes this is the worst part, and why should never, ever, ever go to this event.
Again I will repeat myself. DO NOT GO.
No one has ever truly gone 'missing' at HRRFY in any legal or physical sense, because every missing person always shows up a day later, convinced that they are fine—refusing to elaborate further.
There are some small support groups for people who have family members who had gone to HRRFY, and came back irrevocably changed after being ‘found.’
These few unlucky people lose all semblance of personality. They don’t want interviews, or help, or therapy, or contact of any kind. And they never, ever want to talk about what they saw.
Some HRRFY fans think that these ‘found’ people were body-snatched. Cloned in a lab or replaced by a cyborg, or something stupid like that.
But I think there’s a far simpler explanation. The ‘found’ are still the same people. They're just terrified. They got shaken by something that shattered the foundation of their mind, body and soul. They got too scared.
They got HRRFY’d.
***
I should mention I had a cough the day I went. And I was worried my sickly appearance might give me trouble at the airport.
So I invested in an intense double N95 mask which I wore for the whole flight, and continued to wear even at the screening of “Many Drownings.”
It made my face hot and uncomfortable, but it still didn’t stop me from yelling “excuse me, excuse me!” as I ran to snag a seat in the back of the theater.
I always preferred sitting in the far back. You get a good view of the whole screen, and a good view of the whole audience.
Beside me sat a big dude named Sylvester, who apparently flew all the way from Australia to attend HRRFY.
“Worth the full Seventeen hours mate! It’s gonna be epic!” he dropped a massive camping backpack beside me, which I assume contained all of his luggage.
The lights dimmed, and the production company logos started to play.
The whispering, giggling and suspense all stacked upon each other to create an electric feeling in the air. I was giddy. It's like the entire audience was embarking on a massive roller coaster.
The anticipation was the best part for sure. It might have been the only good part.
Then the movie started.
It was a wide shot of a gray, stormy sea. The waves were massive, and the thunderclouds were looming. There was no land visible in any direction.
All we could hear was the sound of waves foaming, swirling, and crashing over and over. Lightning crackled. Rain poured. The camera held perfectly still over this storm as if it was mounted on a perfectly hovering drone. A drone so resilient that it didn’t waver at all.
I thought it had to be CGI.
The shot held like this for the next few moments. Everyone sat glued to their seats. Everyone was thinking the same thing.
What’s going to happen? How are they going to scare us?
People chuckled. People cheered. People wanted to tease whatever was going to happen—to happen already.
But nothing did.
Five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes went by without any change. People started snoring.
I looked beside me and saw that Sylvester—the most excited audience member of them all—had fallen totally asleep. The jet lag must’ve gotten to him.
Then I peered beyond the rest of the audience members and saw other people snoozing too. Heads were keeled over, some people were curled in their seats, some had even spilled out into the aisle and were dozing on the floor.
I looked above the bright screen, at the huge vents in the corner of the theater. I saw a faint white gas emerging from the vents.
Holy shit. What have we been breathing? I tightened the straps on my N95 mask, and made my breathing shallower.
The gas must have been pumping since the opening credits—because how else would an audience of two hundred people all fall asleep?
As I moved my hand through the air in front of me, I could sense the thickness. It was definitely hazier than usual. I took the scarf off my neck and wrapped it around my mouth as well.
Then I spotted movement in front of the screen.
It was a tall blonde man, wearing a black trenchcoat and military-grade gas mask. Beside him arrived six hazmat suits who started pointing at various audience members.
I slunk in my chair, pretending to sleep like everyone else.
Two hazmats walked over to the front row and picked out a sleeping guy in flannel. They lifted flannel up, under the armpits and by his ankles, carrying him between them both like a hammock.
The hazmats walked back up to the stage, where the blonde leader inspected the flannel man and tapped his head. Something was approved?
The hazmats began to swing flannel back and forth, as if they were getting ready to toss him. Despite their masks, I could hear a very muffled, very distant countdown.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“One…”
The flannel audience member was tossed into the screen.
I literally watched him fly into the image of stormy waves … andfallinto them. The flannel man sank into the gray water like a rock, leaving a few bubbles and foam. A wave came crashing down. All trace of him was gone.
What the fuck.
All six hazmats began grabbing more audience members with much more urgency. It became a minute-long process where they would pick the sleeping person up, bring them beside the screen, and then swing-toss them into it.
How was this possible?
I turned slightly to see if there was a projector above me, and realized there was none. Which meant maybe there was no screen on stage.
Which meant … maybe it was a portal?
I tried to wake Sylvester by shaking him. I pinched his leg and arm a bunch.
He was out cold.
The hazmats started grabbing audience members from the middle rows now. They were emptying the whole theater. What the hell was I supposed to do?
I waited until they grabbed another batch, only a few rows down from me. When all hazmats had their backs turned—I broke into a run.
With my left arm, I tightly gripped my mask and scarf against my face, while my right arm vaulted me over seat after seat.
I had never breathed so hard—through so much fabric—in my life.
The hazmats all turned to me. “Hey! Hey!” But their hands were full with their next victims.
I ran all the way down the aisle, to the big exit sign on the left. My heartbeat filled my head. My plan was to dropkick through the exit door.
I imagined myself breaking through like some flying gazelle.
I jumped.
I angled my kick.
It might as well have been a brick wall. I fell ass-first to the ground, followed by my head. Of course the door was locked.
Through a muffled mask I heard a sneering scoff.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Above me stood the one wearing a trenchcoat. I could see his piercing gray eyes through his gas mask.
I rolled aside and tried to run by him. He lifted a foot and tripped me without effort.
My forehead bashed into an empty seat. It dazed me.
The blonde leader bent down and grabbed me by the neck, tearing away my scarf and mask.
“No! No!”
A sweet, ether-like smell filled my nostrils. I did my best to hold my breath, but I could already feel myself getting light-headed.
The other hazmats joined in, grabbing me from all sides. Even if I had the strength to struggle, there was no escape now.
Above me, all I could see was the dark theater ceiling, and some of the light behind me from the cinema screen.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“No. Please. Don’t do thi—”
SPLASH.
I was plunged deep into cold, wet chaos. My head was completely underwater.
Gagging. Bubbles. Spinning.
I fought for dear life, dog-paddling like a maniac.
Churning. Freezing. Panic.
For a second, my head popped above the water. I inhaled all the air my lungs could muster. I stared across a vast, violent ocean.
An enormous thirty foot wave came in my direction.
My whole body lifted higher and higher as the wave approached. I did my best to tread water. It seemed to be working.
Then a series of smaller waves arrived and smacked my chest.
SPLASH.
Spinning. Kicking. Flipping.
My view alternated between the pitch dark ocean beneath me, and the moonlit night sky above.
Again I swam to the surface, popped my head out. Ravenously sucked in air.
There was a small lull in the water.
Around me I now registered the other theater goers. Most of them were lying face-down or sinking … but a few were flapping about like me, fighting for their life.
And above all of us, a floating white shape.
It was painfully bright, I had to lift one hand to look at it.
My jaw dropped.
It was the movie screen, hanging completely still in the air. It showed a dark, empty theater. The exact same theater we all occupied moments ago.
It was tremendously high, above all of our heads. There was no way of reaching it.
Then I saw another thirty foot wave come our way. It grazed the bottom of the screen.
I knew what had to be done.
***
One of the theater goers happened to be on a college swim team. She was the first one able to traverse one of the giant waves and climb into the screen.
Once she was up there, she found a firehose in the theater and reeled it out to us like a rope.
One by one, we swam as hard as we could, praying to God we could reach the rope. Everyone’s energy was sapped. Your body can only sustain itself on adrenaline and fear for so long.
By some miracle, five of us got out.
I was the last.
I climbed the rope coughing and vomiting. I had swallowed so much water that my stomach felt swollen.
When I reached the top and they pulled me into the screen, I sobbed. I couldn’t stop crying.
My life had flashed countless times before my eyes. In bubbling, suffocating visions, I saw both my parents and my brother. I saw my highschool graduation. I saw my favorite Christmas from when I was six years old.
I had almost lost all of that. I had lost almost everything.
On the dirty, carpeted theater floor, I lay with my face down, savoring the fact that I now lay on a hard surface. God bless ground. God bless this filthy, popcorn-strewn ground.
Beside me I heard bantering, hugging, the wringing of wet clothes. Sylvester was the second last to be saved, and he was particularly vocal.
“Wooooooaaaaahh!” He came and drummed me on the back, lifted me up. “Oh my god dude! Holy shit!”
I sat on my knees, wiping the tears and snot off my mouth.
Sylvester clapped his hands, held his face and screamed some more.
“Holy shit dude! That was so fucking scary! Like literally people were dying beside us. Like I SAW people die!”
I nodded, shivering in my drenched clothes. “ I know it was—”
“—That was craaaaazy!”
He laughed and stood up, patting everyone on the back. He kept clapping his hands like this was some sports event.
“That was sick! That was siiiiiiiiick!”
He ruffled someone’s hair then ran up to me with an open palm.
“High five dude! WE MADE IT! High five!
“Don’t leave me hangin’ dude!”

The HRRFY.
It’s the horror movie festival where something genuinely fucked happens every year. And I mean every year.
Like, there are some screenings that unleash hordes of bats while the movie is playing. You're free to leave whenever you want, but the movie will still play for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Other screenings hire actors to turn at you and scream at some point in the movie. You have no idea when, or how many times.
It's a festival where the word "illegal" can't even begin to describe what happens. You'd only attend if you were a young, stupid edgelord like me who was trying to prove he was hardcore to his friends.
Trust me. DO NOT GO.
You have nothing to prove to anyone. Don't be stupid.
Wait for the lamer film versions to come out streaming. That's what everyone else does. They're neutered edits but they're fine.
All they lack is the real gleaming thing everyone wants to see at HRRFY, but who cares. At least you don’t get traumatized. At least you’re not risking your life.
Anyway, if you really want to know what attending HRRFY is like. I’ll be quick and summarize the one screening I went to. It was the 20th anniversary, and I was lucky enough to get in.
***
I had signed up for the HRRFY mailing list, and joined the subreddit. Through a series of cryptic online emails I solved a sequence of riddles and was entered in the lottery for a HRRFY entry.
Lady Luck took a shine to me, because one day in my mailbox, I received a physical ticket. I had done it.
I was going.
The actual ‘ticket’ was a black USB key that announced the location of the festival the night before (which I won’t disclose here) and it did force me to pay for a very expensive flight in order for me to make it on time.
You see, to prevent getting shut down, the location of HRRFY changes every year. Some years the local police have managed to stop it, but for the most part, authorities have given up. What’s the point of arresting or charging anyone, if all the organizers and attendees actually want to be there?
Upon arrival, I had to pick between three participating theaters.
Based on title alone, I decided to go see “Many Drownings” (directed by Oleksander Gołański.) It was in the theater that was furthest away from the downtown core, which meant it was likely the one where the craziest shit was bound to happen.
That’s what I came here for right?
I lined up a solid two hours before the screening like everyone else. The entire line was jittering, just vibrating with excited twenty-somethings. Rumors flew left and right.
“I heard they’re going to force everyone to take acid.”
“I heard an actor’s gonna run in and shotgun the ceiling.”
“I heard they’re going to disappear like four more people this year. At this screening!”
Each year people disappeared. And each year the same people were ‘found.’ And yes this is the worst part, and why should never, ever, ever go to this event.
Again I will repeat myself. DO NOT GO.
No one has ever truly gone 'missing' at HRRFY in any legal or physical sense, because every missing person always shows up a day later, convinced that they are fine—refusing to elaborate further.
There are some small support groups for people who have family members who had gone to HRRFY, and came back irrevocably changed after being ‘found.’
These few unlucky people lose all semblance of personality. They don’t want interviews, or help, or therapy, or contact of any kind. And they never, ever want to talk about what they saw.
Some HRRFY fans think that these ‘found’ people were body-snatched. Cloned in a lab or replaced by a cyborg, or something stupid like that.
But I think there’s a far simpler explanation. The ‘found’ are still the same people. They're just terrified. They got shaken by something that shattered the foundation of their mind, body and soul. They got too scared.
They got HRRFY’d.
***
I should mention I had a cough the day I went. And I was worried my sickly appearance might give me trouble at the airport.
So I invested in an intense double N95 mask which I wore for the whole flight, and continued to wear even at the screening of “Many Drownings.”
It made my face hot and uncomfortable, but it still didn’t stop me from yelling “excuse me, excuse me!” as I ran to snag a seat in the back of the theater.
I always preferred sitting in the far back. You get a good view of the whole screen, and a good view of the whole audience.
Beside me sat a big dude named Sylvester, who apparently flew all the way from Australia to attend HRRFY.
“Worth the full Seventeen hours mate! It’s gonna be epic!” he dropped a massive camping backpack beside me, which I assume contained all of his luggage.
The lights dimmed, and the production company logos started to play.
The whispering, giggling and suspense all stacked upon each other to create an electric feeling in the air. I was giddy. It's like the entire audience was embarking on a massive roller coaster.
The anticipation was the best part for sure. It might have been the only good part.
Then the movie started.
It was a wide shot of a gray, stormy sea. The waves were massive, and the thunderclouds were looming. There was no land visible in any direction.
All we could hear was the sound of waves foaming, swirling, and crashing over and over. Lightning crackled. Rain poured. The camera held perfectly still over this storm as if it was mounted on a perfectly hovering drone. A drone so resilient that it didn’t waver at all.
I thought it had to be CGI.
The shot held like this for the next few moments. Everyone sat glued to their seats. Everyone was thinking the same thing.
What’s going to happen? How are they going to scare us?
People chuckled. People cheered. People wanted to tease whatever was going to happen—to happen already.
But nothing did.
Five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes went by without any change. People started snoring.
I looked beside me and saw that Sylvester—the most excited audience member of them all—had fallen totally asleep. The jet lag must’ve gotten to him.
Then I peered beyond the rest of the audience members and saw other people snoozing too. Heads were keeled over, some people were curled in their seats, some had even spilled out into the aisle and were dozing on the floor.
I looked above the bright screen, at the huge vents in the corner of the theater. I saw a faint white gas emerging from the vents.
Holy shit. What have we been breathing? I tightened the straps on my N95 mask, and made my breathing shallower.
The gas must have been pumping since the opening credits—because how else would an audience of two hundred people all fall asleep?
As I moved my hand through the air in front of me, I could sense the thickness. It was definitely hazier than usual. I took the scarf off my neck and wrapped it around my mouth as well.
Then I spotted movement in front of the screen.
It was a tall blonde man, wearing a black trenchcoat and military-grade gas mask. Beside him arrived six hazmat suits who started pointing at various audience members.
I slunk in my chair, pretending to sleep like everyone else.
Two hazmats walked over to the front row and picked out a sleeping guy in flannel. They lifted flannel up, under the armpits and by his ankles, carrying him between them both like a hammock.
The hazmats walked back up to the stage, where the blonde leader inspected the flannel man and tapped his head. Something was approved?
The hazmats began to swing flannel back and forth, as if they were getting ready to toss him. Despite their masks, I could hear a very muffled, very distant countdown.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“One…”
The flannel audience member was tossed into the screen.
I literally watched him fly into the image of stormy waves … andfallinto them. The flannel man sank into the gray water like a rock, leaving a few bubbles and foam. A wave came crashing down. All trace of him was gone.
What the fuck.
All six hazmats began grabbing more audience members with much more urgency. It became a minute-long process where they would pick the sleeping person up, bring them beside the screen, and then swing-toss them into it.
How was this possible?
I turned slightly to see if there was a projector above me, and realized there was none. Which meant maybe there was no screen on stage.
Which meant … maybe it was a portal?
I tried to wake Sylvester by shaking him. I pinched his leg and arm a bunch.
He was out cold.
The hazmats started grabbing audience members from the middle rows now. They were emptying the whole theater. What the hell was I supposed to do?
I waited until they grabbed another batch, only a few rows down from me. When all hazmats had their backs turned—I broke into a run.
With my left arm, I tightly gripped my mask and scarf against my face, while my right arm vaulted me over seat after seat.
I had never breathed so hard—through so much fabric—in my life.
The hazmats all turned to me. “Hey! Hey!” But their hands were full with their next victims.
I ran all the way down the aisle, to the big exit sign on the left. My heartbeat filled my head. My plan was to dropkick through the exit door.
I imagined myself breaking through like some flying gazelle.
I jumped.
I angled my kick.
It might as well have been a brick wall. I fell ass-first to the ground, followed by my head. Of course the door was locked.
Through a muffled mask I heard a sneering scoff.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Above me stood the one wearing a trenchcoat. I could see his piercing gray eyes through his gas mask.
I rolled aside and tried to run by him. He lifted a foot and tripped me without effort.
My forehead bashed into an empty seat. It dazed me.
The blonde leader bent down and grabbed me by the neck, tearing away my scarf and mask.
“No! No!”
A sweet, ether-like smell filled my nostrils. I did my best to hold my breath, but I could already feel myself getting light-headed.
The other hazmats joined in, grabbing me from all sides. Even if I had the strength to struggle, there was no escape now.
Above me, all I could see was the dark theater ceiling, and some of the light behind me from the cinema screen.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“No. Please. Don’t do thi—”
SPLASH.
I was plunged deep into cold, wet chaos. My head was completely underwater.
Gagging. Bubbles. Spinning.
I fought for dear life, dog-paddling like a maniac.
Churning. Freezing. Panic.
For a second, my head popped above the water. I inhaled all the air my lungs could muster. I stared across a vast, violent ocean.
An enormous thirty foot wave came in my direction.
My whole body lifted higher and higher as the wave approached. I did my best to tread water. It seemed to be working.
Then a series of smaller waves arrived and smacked my chest.
SPLASH.
Spinning. Kicking. Flipping.
My view alternated between the pitch dark ocean beneath me, and the moonlit night sky above.
Again I swam to the surface, popped my head out. Ravenously sucked in air.
There was a small lull in the water.
Around me I now registered the other theater goers. Most of them were lying face-down or sinking … but a few were flapping about like me, fighting for their life.
And above all of us, a floating white shape.
It was painfully bright, I had to lift one hand to look at it.
My jaw dropped.
It was the movie screen, hanging completely still in the air. It showed a dark, empty theater. The exact same theater we all occupied moments ago.
It was tremendously high, above all of our heads. There was no way of reaching it.
Then I saw another thirty foot wave come our way. It grazed the bottom of the screen.
I knew what had to be done.
***
One of the theater goers happened to be on a college swim team. She was the first one able to traverse one of the giant waves and climb into the screen.
Once she was up there, she found a firehose in the theater and reeled it out to us like a rope.
One by one, we swam as hard as we could, praying to God we could reach the rope. Everyone’s energy was sapped. Your body can only sustain itself on adrenaline and fear for so long.
By some miracle, five of us got out.
I was the last.
I climbed the rope coughing and vomiting. I had swallowed so much water that my stomach felt swollen.
When I reached the top and they pulled me into the screen, I sobbed. I couldn’t stop crying.
My life had flashed countless times before my eyes. In bubbling, suffocating visions, I saw both my parents and my brother. I saw my highschool graduation. I saw my favorite Christmas from when I was six years old.
I had almost lost all of that. I had lost almost everything.
On the dirty, carpeted theater floor, I lay with my face down, savoring the fact that I now lay on a hard surface. God bless ground. God bless this filthy, popcorn-strewn ground.
Beside me I heard bantering, hugging, the wringing of wet clothes. Sylvester was the second last to be saved, and he was particularly vocal.
“Wooooooaaaaahh!” He came and drummed me on the back, lifted me up. “Oh my god dude! Holy shit!”
I sat on my knees, wiping the tears and snot off my mouth.
Sylvester clapped his hands, held his face and screamed some more.
“Holy shit dude! That was so fucking scary! Like literally people were dying beside us. Like I SAW people die!”
I nodded, shivering in my drenched clothes. “ I know it was—”
“—That was craaaaazy!”
He laughed and stood up, patting everyone on the back. He kept clapping his hands like this was some sports event.
“That was sick! That was siiiiiiiiick!”
He ruffled someone’s hair then ran up to me with an open palm.
“High five dude! WE MADE IT! High five!
“Don’t leave me hangin’ dude!”

The HRRFY.
It’s the horror movie festival where something genuinely fucked happens every year. And I mean every year.
Like, there are some screenings that unleash hordes of bats while the movie is playing. You're free to leave whenever you want, but the movie will still play for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Other screenings hire actors to turn at you and scream at some point in the movie. You have no idea when, or how many times.
It's a festival where the word "illegal" can't even begin to describe what happens. You'd only attend if you were a young, stupid edgelord like me who was trying to prove he was hardcore to his friends.
Trust me. DO NOT GO.
You have nothing to prove to anyone. Don't be stupid.
Wait for the lamer film versions to come out streaming. That's what everyone else does. They're neutered edits but they're fine.
All they lack is the real gleaming thing everyone wants to see at HRRFY, but who cares. At least you don’t get traumatized. At least you’re not risking your life.
Anyway, if you really want to know what attending HRRFY is like. I’ll be quick and summarize the one screening I went to. It was the 20th anniversary, and I was lucky enough to get in.
***
I had signed up for the HRRFY mailing list, and joined the subreddit. Through a series of cryptic online emails I solved a sequence of riddles and was entered in the lottery for a HRRFY entry.
Lady Luck took a shine to me, because one day in my mailbox, I received a physical ticket. I had done it.
I was going.
The actual ‘ticket’ was a black USB key that announced the location of the festival the night before (which I won’t disclose here) and it did force me to pay for a very expensive flight in order for me to make it on time.
You see, to prevent getting shut down, the location of HRRFY changes every year. Some years the local police have managed to stop it, but for the most part, authorities have given up. What’s the point of arresting or charging anyone, if all the organizers and attendees actually want to be there?
Upon arrival, I had to pick between three participating theaters.
Based on title alone, I decided to go see “Many Drownings” (directed by Oleksander Gołański.) It was in the theater that was furthest away from the downtown core, which meant it was likely the one where the craziest shit was bound to happen.
That’s what I came here for right?
I lined up a solid two hours before the screening like everyone else. The entire line was jittering, just vibrating with excited twenty-somethings. Rumors flew left and right.
“I heard they’re going to force everyone to take acid.”
“I heard an actor’s gonna run in and shotgun the ceiling.”
“I heard they’re going to disappear like four more people this year. At this screening!”
Each year people disappeared. And each year the same people were ‘found.’ And yes this is the worst part, and why should never, ever, ever go to this event.
Again I will repeat myself. DO NOT GO.
No one has ever truly gone 'missing' at HRRFY in any legal or physical sense, because every missing person always shows up a day later, convinced that they are fine—refusing to elaborate further.
There are some small support groups for people who have family members who had gone to HRRFY, and came back irrevocably changed after being ‘found.’
These few unlucky people lose all semblance of personality. They don’t want interviews, or help, or therapy, or contact of any kind. And they never, ever want to talk about what they saw.
Some HRRFY fans think that these ‘found’ people were body-snatched. Cloned in a lab or replaced by a cyborg, or something stupid like that.
But I think there’s a far simpler explanation. The ‘found’ are still the same people. They're just terrified. They got shaken by something that shattered the foundation of their mind, body and soul. They got too scared.
They got HRRFY’d.
***
I should mention I had a cough the day I went. And I was worried my sickly appearance might give me trouble at the airport.
So I invested in an intense double N95 mask which I wore for the whole flight, and continued to wear even at the screening of “Many Drownings.”
It made my face hot and uncomfortable, but it still didn’t stop me from yelling “excuse me, excuse me!” as I ran to snag a seat in the back of the theater.
I always preferred sitting in the far back. You get a good view of the whole screen, and a good view of the whole audience.
Beside me sat a big dude named Sylvester, who apparently flew all the way from Australia to attend HRRFY.
“Worth the full Seventeen hours mate! It’s gonna be epic!” he dropped a massive camping backpack beside me, which I assume contained all of his luggage.
The lights dimmed, and the production company logos started to play.
The whispering, giggling and suspense all stacked upon each other to create an electric feeling in the air. I was giddy. It's like the entire audience was embarking on a massive roller coaster.
The anticipation was the best part for sure. It might have been the only good part.
Then the movie started.
It was a wide shot of a gray, stormy sea. The waves were massive, and the thunderclouds were looming. There was no land visible in any direction.
All we could hear was the sound of waves foaming, swirling, and crashing over and over. Lightning crackled. Rain poured. The camera held perfectly still over this storm as if it was mounted on a perfectly hovering drone. A drone so resilient that it didn’t waver at all.
I thought it had to be CGI.
The shot held like this for the next few moments. Everyone sat glued to their seats. Everyone was thinking the same thing.
What’s going to happen? How are they going to scare us?
People chuckled. People cheered. People wanted to tease whatever was going to happen—to happen already.
But nothing did.
Five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes went by without any change. People started snoring.
I looked beside me and saw that Sylvester—the most excited audience member of them all—had fallen totally asleep. The jet lag must’ve gotten to him.
Then I peered beyond the rest of the audience members and saw other people snoozing too. Heads were keeled over, some people were curled in their seats, some had even spilled out into the aisle and were dozing on the floor.
I looked above the bright screen, at the huge vents in the corner of the theater. I saw a faint white gas emerging from the vents.
Holy shit. What have we been breathing? I tightened the straps on my N95 mask, and made my breathing shallower.
The gas must have been pumping since the opening credits—because how else would an audience of two hundred people all fall asleep?
As I moved my hand through the air in front of me, I could sense the thickness. It was definitely hazier than usual. I took the scarf off my neck and wrapped it around my mouth as well.
Then I spotted movement in front of the screen.
It was a tall blonde man, wearing a black trenchcoat and military-grade gas mask. Beside him arrived six hazmat suits who started pointing at various audience members.
I slunk in my chair, pretending to sleep like everyone else.
Two hazmats walked over to the front row and picked out a sleeping guy in flannel. They lifted flannel up, under the armpits and by his ankles, carrying him between them both like a hammock.
The hazmats walked back up to the stage, where the blonde leader inspected the flannel man and tapped his head. Something was approved?
The hazmats began to swing flannel back and forth, as if they were getting ready to toss him. Despite their masks, I could hear a very muffled, very distant countdown.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“One…”
The flannel audience member was tossed into the screen.
I literally watched him fly into the image of stormy waves … andfallinto them. The flannel man sank into the gray water like a rock, leaving a few bubbles and foam. A wave came crashing down. All trace of him was gone.
What the fuck.
All six hazmats began grabbing more audience members with much more urgency. It became a minute-long process where they would pick the sleeping person up, bring them beside the screen, and then swing-toss them into it.
How was this possible?
I turned slightly to see if there was a projector above me, and realized there was none. Which meant maybe there was no screen on stage.
Which meant … maybe it was a portal?
I tried to wake Sylvester by shaking him. I pinched his leg and arm a bunch.
He was out cold.
The hazmats started grabbing audience members from the middle rows now. They were emptying the whole theater. What the hell was I supposed to do?
I waited until they grabbed another batch, only a few rows down from me. When all hazmats had their backs turned—I broke into a run.
With my left arm, I tightly gripped my mask and scarf against my face, while my right arm vaulted me over seat after seat.
I had never breathed so hard—through so much fabric—in my life.
The hazmats all turned to me. “Hey! Hey!” But their hands were full with their next victims.
I ran all the way down the aisle, to the big exit sign on the left. My heartbeat filled my head. My plan was to dropkick through the exit door.
I imagined myself breaking through like some flying gazelle.
I jumped.
I angled my kick.
It might as well have been a brick wall. I fell ass-first to the ground, followed by my head. Of course the door was locked.
Through a muffled mask I heard a sneering scoff.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Above me stood the one wearing a trenchcoat. I could see his piercing gray eyes through his gas mask.
I rolled aside and tried to run by him. He lifted a foot and tripped me without effort.
My forehead bashed into an empty seat. It dazed me.
The blonde leader bent down and grabbed me by the neck, tearing away my scarf and mask.
“No! No!”
A sweet, ether-like smell filled my nostrils. I did my best to hold my breath, but I could already feel myself getting light-headed.
The other hazmats joined in, grabbing me from all sides. Even if I had the strength to struggle, there was no escape now.
Above me, all I could see was the dark theater ceiling, and some of the light behind me from the cinema screen.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“No. Please. Don’t do thi—”
SPLASH.
I was plunged deep into cold, wet chaos. My head was completely underwater.
Gagging. Bubbles. Spinning.
I fought for dear life, dog-paddling like a maniac.
Churning. Freezing. Panic.
For a second, my head popped above the water. I inhaled all the air my lungs could muster. I stared across a vast, violent ocean.
An enormous thirty foot wave came in my direction.
My whole body lifted higher and higher as the wave approached. I did my best to tread water. It seemed to be working.
Then a series of smaller waves arrived and smacked my chest.
SPLASH.
Spinning. Kicking. Flipping.
My view alternated between the pitch dark ocean beneath me, and the moonlit night sky above.
Again I swam to the surface, popped my head out. Ravenously sucked in air.
There was a small lull in the water.
Around me I now registered the other theater goers. Most of them were lying face-down or sinking … but a few were flapping about like me, fighting for their life.
And above all of us, a floating white shape.
It was painfully bright, I had to lift one hand to look at it.
My jaw dropped.
It was the movie screen, hanging completely still in the air. It showed a dark, empty theater. The exact same theater we all occupied moments ago.
It was tremendously high, above all of our heads. There was no way of reaching it.
Then I saw another thirty foot wave come our way. It grazed the bottom of the screen.
I knew what had to be done.
***
One of the theater goers happened to be on a college swim team. She was the first one able to traverse one of the giant waves and climb into the screen.
Once she was up there, she found a firehose in the theater and reeled it out to us like a rope.
One by one, we swam as hard as we could, praying to God we could reach the rope. Everyone’s energy was sapped. Your body can only sustain itself on adrenaline and fear for so long.
By some miracle, five of us got out.
I was the last.
I climbed the rope coughing and vomiting. I had swallowed so much water that my stomach felt swollen.
When I reached the top and they pulled me into the screen, I sobbed. I couldn’t stop crying.
My life had flashed countless times before my eyes. In bubbling, suffocating visions, I saw both my parents and my brother. I saw my highschool graduation. I saw my favorite Christmas from when I was six years old.
I had almost lost all of that. I had lost almost everything.
On the dirty, carpeted theater floor, I lay with my face down, savoring the fact that I now lay on a hard surface. God bless ground. God bless this filthy, popcorn-strewn ground.
Beside me I heard bantering, hugging, the wringing of wet clothes. Sylvester was the second last to be saved, and he was particularly vocal.
“Wooooooaaaaahh!” He came and drummed me on the back, lifted me up. “Oh my god dude! Holy shit!”
I sat on my knees, wiping the tears and snot off my mouth.
Sylvester clapped his hands, held his face and screamed some more.
“Holy shit dude! That was so fucking scary! Like literally people were dying beside us. Like I SAW people die!”
I nodded, shivering in my drenched clothes. “ I know it was—”
“—That was craaaaazy!”
He laughed and stood up, patting everyone on the back. He kept clapping his hands like this was some sports event.
“That was sick! That was siiiiiiiiick!”
He ruffled someone’s hair then ran up to me with an open palm.
“High five dude! WE MADE IT! High five!
“Don’t leave me hangin’ dude!”

The HRRFY.
It’s the horror movie festival where something genuinely fucked happens every year. And I mean every year.
Like, there are some screenings that unleash hordes of bats while the movie is playing. You're free to leave whenever you want, but the movie will still play for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Other screenings hire actors to turn at you and scream at some point in the movie. You have no idea when, or how many times.
It's a festival where the word "illegal" can't even begin to describe what happens. You'd only attend if you were a young, stupid edgelord like me who was trying to prove he was hardcore to his friends.
Trust me. DO NOT GO.
You have nothing to prove to anyone. Don't be stupid.
Wait for the lamer film versions to come out streaming. That's what everyone else does. They're neutered edits but they're fine.
All they lack is the real gleaming thing everyone wants to see at HRRFY, but who cares. At least you don’t get traumatized. At least you’re not risking your life.
Anyway, if you really want to know what attending HRRFY is like. I’ll be quick and summarize the one screening I went to. It was the 20th anniversary, and I was lucky enough to get in.
***
I had signed up for the HRRFY mailing list, and joined the subreddit. Through a series of cryptic online emails I solved a sequence of riddles and was entered in the lottery for a HRRFY entry.
Lady Luck took a shine to me, because one day in my mailbox, I received a physical ticket. I had done it.
I was going.
The actual ‘ticket’ was a black USB key that announced the location of the festival the night before (which I won’t disclose here) and it did force me to pay for a very expensive flight in order for me to make it on time.
You see, to prevent getting shut down, the location of HRRFY changes every year. Some years the local police have managed to stop it, but for the most part, authorities have given up. What’s the point of arresting or charging anyone, if all the organizers and attendees actually want to be there?
Upon arrival, I had to pick between three participating theaters.
Based on title alone, I decided to go see “Many Drownings” (directed by Oleksander Gołański.) It was in the theater that was furthest away from the downtown core, which meant it was likely the one where the craziest shit was bound to happen.
That’s what I came here for right?
I lined up a solid two hours before the screening like everyone else. The entire line was jittering, just vibrating with excited twenty-somethings. Rumors flew left and right.
“I heard they’re going to force everyone to take acid.”
“I heard an actor’s gonna run in and shotgun the ceiling.”
“I heard they’re going to disappear like four more people this year. At this screening!”
Each year people disappeared. And each year the same people were ‘found.’ And yes this is the worst part, and why should never, ever, ever go to this event.
Again I will repeat myself. DO NOT GO.
No one has ever truly gone 'missing' at HRRFY in any legal or physical sense, because every missing person always shows up a day later, convinced that they are fine—refusing to elaborate further.
There are some small support groups for people who have family members who had gone to HRRFY, and came back irrevocably changed after being ‘found.’
These few unlucky people lose all semblance of personality. They don’t want interviews, or help, or therapy, or contact of any kind. And they never, ever want to talk about what they saw.
Some HRRFY fans think that these ‘found’ people were body-snatched. Cloned in a lab or replaced by a cyborg, or something stupid like that.
But I think there’s a far simpler explanation. The ‘found’ are still the same people. They're just terrified. They got shaken by something that shattered the foundation of their mind, body and soul. They got too scared.
They got HRRFY’d.
***
I should mention I had a cough the day I went. And I was worried my sickly appearance might give me trouble at the airport.
So I invested in an intense double N95 mask which I wore for the whole flight, and continued to wear even at the screening of “Many Drownings.”
It made my face hot and uncomfortable, but it still didn’t stop me from yelling “excuse me, excuse me!” as I ran to snag a seat in the back of the theater.
I always preferred sitting in the far back. You get a good view of the whole screen, and a good view of the whole audience.
Beside me sat a big dude named Sylvester, who apparently flew all the way from Australia to attend HRRFY.
“Worth the full Seventeen hours mate! It’s gonna be epic!” he dropped a massive camping backpack beside me, which I assume contained all of his luggage.
The lights dimmed, and the production company logos started to play.
The whispering, giggling and suspense all stacked upon each other to create an electric feeling in the air. I was giddy. It's like the entire audience was embarking on a massive roller coaster.
The anticipation was the best part for sure. It might have been the only good part.
Then the movie started.
It was a wide shot of a gray, stormy sea. The waves were massive, and the thunderclouds were looming. There was no land visible in any direction.
All we could hear was the sound of waves foaming, swirling, and crashing over and over. Lightning crackled. Rain poured. The camera held perfectly still over this storm as if it was mounted on a perfectly hovering drone. A drone so resilient that it didn’t waver at all.
I thought it had to be CGI.
The shot held like this for the next few moments. Everyone sat glued to their seats. Everyone was thinking the same thing.
What’s going to happen? How are they going to scare us?
People chuckled. People cheered. People wanted to tease whatever was going to happen—to happen already.
But nothing did.
Five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes went by without any change. People started snoring.
I looked beside me and saw that Sylvester—the most excited audience member of them all—had fallen totally asleep. The jet lag must’ve gotten to him.
Then I peered beyond the rest of the audience members and saw other people snoozing too. Heads were keeled over, some people were curled in their seats, some had even spilled out into the aisle and were dozing on the floor.
I looked above the bright screen, at the huge vents in the corner of the theater. I saw a faint white gas emerging from the vents.
Holy shit. What have we been breathing? I tightened the straps on my N95 mask, and made my breathing shallower.
The gas must have been pumping since the opening credits—because how else would an audience of two hundred people all fall asleep?
As I moved my hand through the air in front of me, I could sense the thickness. It was definitely hazier than usual. I took the scarf off my neck and wrapped it around my mouth as well.
Then I spotted movement in front of the screen.
It was a tall blonde man, wearing a black trenchcoat and military-grade gas mask. Beside him arrived six hazmat suits who started pointing at various audience members.
I slunk in my chair, pretending to sleep like everyone else.
Two hazmats walked over to the front row and picked out a sleeping guy in flannel. They lifted flannel up, under the armpits and by his ankles, carrying him between them both like a hammock.
The hazmats walked back up to the stage, where the blonde leader inspected the flannel man and tapped his head. Something was approved?
The hazmats began to swing flannel back and forth, as if they were getting ready to toss him. Despite their masks, I could hear a very muffled, very distant countdown.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“One…”
The flannel audience member was tossed into the screen.
I literally watched him fly into the image of stormy waves … andfallinto them. The flannel man sank into the gray water like a rock, leaving a few bubbles and foam. A wave came crashing down. All trace of him was gone.
What the fuck.
All six hazmats began grabbing more audience members with much more urgency. It became a minute-long process where they would pick the sleeping person up, bring them beside the screen, and then swing-toss them into it.
How was this possible?
I turned slightly to see if there was a projector above me, and realized there was none. Which meant maybe there was no screen on stage.
Which meant … maybe it was a portal?
I tried to wake Sylvester by shaking him. I pinched his leg and arm a bunch.
He was out cold.
The hazmats started grabbing audience members from the middle rows now. They were emptying the whole theater. What the hell was I supposed to do?
I waited until they grabbed another batch, only a few rows down from me. When all hazmats had their backs turned—I broke into a run.
With my left arm, I tightly gripped my mask and scarf against my face, while my right arm vaulted me over seat after seat.
I had never breathed so hard—through so much fabric—in my life.
The hazmats all turned to me. “Hey! Hey!” But their hands were full with their next victims.
I ran all the way down the aisle, to the big exit sign on the left. My heartbeat filled my head. My plan was to dropkick through the exit door.
I imagined myself breaking through like some flying gazelle.
I jumped.
I angled my kick.
It might as well have been a brick wall. I fell ass-first to the ground, followed by my head. Of course the door was locked.
Through a muffled mask I heard a sneering scoff.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Above me stood the one wearing a trenchcoat. I could see his piercing gray eyes through his gas mask.
I rolled aside and tried to run by him. He lifted a foot and tripped me without effort.
My forehead bashed into an empty seat. It dazed me.
The blonde leader bent down and grabbed me by the neck, tearing away my scarf and mask.
“No! No!”
A sweet, ether-like smell filled my nostrils. I did my best to hold my breath, but I could already feel myself getting light-headed.
The other hazmats joined in, grabbing me from all sides. Even if I had the strength to struggle, there was no escape now.
Above me, all I could see was the dark theater ceiling, and some of the light behind me from the cinema screen.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“No. Please. Don’t do thi—”
SPLASH.
I was plunged deep into cold, wet chaos. My head was completely underwater.
Gagging. Bubbles. Spinning.
I fought for dear life, dog-paddling like a maniac.
Churning. Freezing. Panic.
For a second, my head popped above the water. I inhaled all the air my lungs could muster. I stared across a vast, violent ocean.
An enormous thirty foot wave came in my direction.
My whole body lifted higher and higher as the wave approached. I did my best to tread water. It seemed to be working.
Then a series of smaller waves arrived and smacked my chest.
SPLASH.
Spinning. Kicking. Flipping.
My view alternated between the pitch dark ocean beneath me, and the moonlit night sky above.
Again I swam to the surface, popped my head out. Ravenously sucked in air.
There was a small lull in the water.
Around me I now registered the other theater goers. Most of them were lying face-down or sinking … but a few were flapping about like me, fighting for their life.
And above all of us, a floating white shape.
It was painfully bright, I had to lift one hand to look at it.
My jaw dropped.
It was the movie screen, hanging completely still in the air. It showed a dark, empty theater. The exact same theater we all occupied moments ago.
It was tremendously high, above all of our heads. There was no way of reaching it.
Then I saw another thirty foot wave come our way. It grazed the bottom of the screen.
I knew what had to be done.
***
One of the theater goers happened to be on a college swim team. She was the first one able to traverse one of the giant waves and climb into the screen.
Once she was up there, she found a firehose in the theater and reeled it out to us like a rope.
One by one, we swam as hard as we could, praying to God we could reach the rope. Everyone’s energy was sapped. Your body can only sustain itself on adrenaline and fear for so long.
By some miracle, five of us got out.
I was the last.
I climbed the rope coughing and vomiting. I had swallowed so much water that my stomach felt swollen.
When I reached the top and they pulled me into the screen, I sobbed. I couldn’t stop crying.
My life had flashed countless times before my eyes. In bubbling, suffocating visions, I saw both my parents and my brother. I saw my highschool graduation. I saw my favorite Christmas from when I was six years old.
I had almost lost all of that. I had lost almost everything.
On the dirty, carpeted theater floor, I lay with my face down, savoring the fact that I now lay on a hard surface. God bless ground. God bless this filthy, popcorn-strewn ground.
Beside me I heard bantering, hugging, the wringing of wet clothes. Sylvester was the second last to be saved, and he was particularly vocal.
“Wooooooaaaaahh!” He came and drummed me on the back, lifted me up. “Oh my god dude! Holy shit!”
I sat on my knees, wiping the tears and snot off my mouth.
Sylvester clapped his hands, held his face and screamed some more.
“Holy shit dude! That was so fucking scary! Like literally people were dying beside us. Like I SAW people die!”
I nodded, shivering in my drenched clothes. “ I know it was—”
“—That was craaaaazy!”
He laughed and stood up, patting everyone on the back. He kept clapping his hands like this was some sports event.
“That was sick! That was siiiiiiiiick!”
He ruffled someone’s hair then ran up to me with an open palm.
“High five dude! WE MADE IT! High five!
“Don’t leave me hangin’ dude!”

I find that Steel Springs doesn't really connect well with The Lord's Arrival. They are like two unconnected events when there should be direct connections between the two sections.
The basic idea is this: Instead of Lord Bakaris foolishly leading troops to their doom, it is the Red Dragon Army pulling off a brilliant tactical maneuver.
By positioning a seemingly small raiding force near Kalaman, it entices Kalaman to send its army out. This kills two birds with one stone:

1. An ambush out in the open is an easier way to weaken Kalaman's troops than a siege of Kalaman.
2. More importantly, it draws the army out. This makes it easier for Lord Soth to enter Kalaman unopposed.

The changes:
Sowing the Seeds: In "Missing Scouts", modify the rescued scout's report to include a Dragon Army raiding force north of Kalaman. Have Marshal Vendri comment on the Dragon Army making a tactical mistake by raiding this close to Kalaman.
Darrett's Message: In "Battle of Steel Springs", instead of Darrett leaving a message about how foolish Lord Bakaris is leading them to ruin, alter the message to be an emergency call for reinforcement after the battle had begun. It could be via carrier pigeon or use the fargabs. darrett's message now says, "Our troops has been drawn into a trap. We urgently need reinforcements." Have the castle be busy preparing to send out even more soldiers. The party's orders are to move out ahead of the reinforcements, make contact with what's left of Darrett's troops and help where needed.
Caradoc's Boasting: In "The Lord's Arrival", Caradoc is supposed to buy time by talking to the party. Use this time to have him boast, revealing Lord Soth is personally behind this brilliant tactical move. This should also hint to the party that what's in the catacombs is a lot more consequential.

Good evening Healthcare_anon members
I believe we are at the midpoint of the multi series DD on the paper:
Rooke-Ley H, Brown E, Grumbach K, Hoffman A, Ryan A, Roy V, Grogan C, Appelbaum E, Lipschutz D. Medicare Advantage and Vertical Consolidation in Health Care. American Economic Liberties Project, April 2024. Available: https://www.economicliberties.us/our-work/medicare-advantage-and-vertical-consolidation-in-health-care/#, accessed 05/19/24 (for this subreddit post).
Today's discussion will be centered around page 23-31. I will be collaborating with u/ Fabulous-airport-273 on the remainder of the paper, as I believe we should address the topic in a collaborative fashion after this midpoint. If you like, you may review the previous DD in the following links:
https://new.reddit.com/Healthcare_Anon/comments/1culz57/medicare_advantage_capitation_model_prio
https://new.reddit.com/Healthcare_Anon/comments/1cw50xp/vertical_integration_of_the_healthcare_insurance/
https://new.reddit.com/Healthcare_Anon/comments/1cwsavi/vertical_integration_of_the_healthcare_insurance/
I was thinking on also discussing Aetna and Humana within the model as well, however in the interest of time and effort, I may have to revisit those 2 creatures at a later time - not because they are particularly difficult, but that it would be a similar rehash of UNH and BHG. The minutiae of improper population model care and investment made by CVS/Aetna and Humana is in my personal belief the reason why their MCR exploded, and perhaps inadequate preparation for CMS V28 blend adjustment also played a role. Even though CVS/Aetna has an adequate service sector, Humana does not, and we may see further margin divergence of these 2 behemoths.
Without further digression, let us begin:
Vertical consolidation - what is currently happening
"Consolidation allows these vertical conglomerates to use capitated payment structures in ways that drive profits without creating value. As noted above, corporate consolidation in health care has existed for decades, largely driven by hospitals. The primary result: hospitals can negotiate higher prices in the commercial market, cut labor costs and demand more of clinicians, and exploit various loopholes in the fee-for-service Medicare system. In addition, private equity (PE) rollups in health care have risen dramatically over the decades, also exploiting fee-for-service reimbursement and threatening patient care."
We have certainly seen the damage from PE acquisition on practices, especially in emergency medicine, which I previously alluded to in: https://new.reddit.com/Healthcare_Anon/comments/1c0bi4u/the_healthcare_workforce_staffing_crisis_a/. The damage to physician morale is especially acute during this consolidation process.
We are also seeing widespread practice buyouts in the PCP arena now:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/08/health/primary-care-doctors-consolidation.html
https://www.beckersasc.com/asc-transactions-and-valuation-issues/optum-s-multibillion-dollar-acquisition-spree-3-deals-to-know.html
https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/finance-revenue-cycle/mergers-acquisitions/news/55000097/steward-health-care-plans-to-sell-physician-network-to-optum
https://radiologybusiness.com/topics/healthcare-management/healthcare-economics/unitedhealth-earns-emergency-order-buy-radiology-provider-placed-crisis-due-change-cyberattack
The last one from Corvallis is a particularly spicy acquisition - the change healthcare cyberattack created a cash flow crunch within Corvallis, creating the impetus for Corvallis to then sell itself to Optum. If I were to use cruder terminology, the analogy is this: Optum/Change groomed Corvallis to be dependent on its "service", and once Corvallis is dependent on Optum/Change, Optum/Change then "convinced" Corvallis that Corvallis needs to sell its body (clinics) to Optum for the couple to stay together after Optum/Change failed in its basic "pimp" duty on protecting the groomed subject. Absolutely disgusting analogy, and I hope it brings the message across - what Optum did was absolutely abhorrent and should have paid Corvallis interest and damages, but instead gets to steal the Damsel-in-distress. Who said pimping doesn't pay?
"Today, as policy moves away from fee-for-service, analogous patterns of corporate consolidation are emerging under capitation-based financing. While vertical conglomerates promise clinical integration, familiar harms are emerging, such as the push toward “productivity” medicine and the replacement or supplementation of physicians with less expensive advanced practice providers."
Ok, I am not sure if that last part was absolutely necessary. Advanced Practice Providers (APP) are Physician Assistants (PA), Advanced Nurse Practitioners (APRN), or in the case of Anesthesia, CRNA (Certified Nurse Anesthetist) who work under a supervision of an overall Medical Doctor (MD) for the practice. In the current labor shortage, there are not enough physicians to make up for lack of physician help. I would rather work with our APP colleagues on creating a more equitable platform, and this paper is not helping the cause in this manner. Vertical integration can bring plenty of harm, but having APP being part of the Team is NOT a problem. In fact, I have worked with many APP who are wonderful healthcare colleagues and we all want the same thing: equitable treatment of our patients in the most humane, effective, and medically appropriate way possible.
I. Gaming capitated benchmarks:
"Vertical conglomerates in capitation-based models are keen on controlling primary care physicians, who are essential for inflating risk-adjustment payments and quality bonuses. In MA alone, gaming of risk adjustment is responsible for at least $23 billion in annual overpayments to insurers, while quality payments amount to another $10 billion in subsidization without demonstrated value. In addition to increasing costs, the preoccupation with risk-coding and box-checking wastes scarce time with patients and contributes to dissatisfaction among clinicians."
Remember my CMS DD a month ago? If not, I will submit those links again:
https://new.reddit.com/Healthcare_Anon/comments/1c1n3tf/cms_finalizes_payment_updates_for_2025_medicare/
https://new.reddit.com/Healthcare_Anon/comments/1c1yg8q/cms_finalizes_payment_updates_for_2025_medicare/
We on the field AND CMS knows this is happening. In fact, CMS is attempting to stop this practice by the rollout of CMS V28 AND the April 1 2024 Contract Year 2025 Medicare Advantage and Part D Final Rule (CMS-4205-F). What CMS is attempting to do is to decrease the capitated payments on risk adjustment and quality bonus payments to elongate the Medicare Trust Fund depletion runway, which hopefully also will force the MA companies to take care of patients. As was seen in our 24Q1 DD, companies will instead retrench, retreat, and cut benefits instead. this indicate a potential market failure of the capitated model payment. We should readdress this point in a future post.
***"***The centrality of data in diagnosis coding puts vertical conglomerates in the driver’s seat. It helps contextualize UnitedHealth’s recent $13 billion acquisition of Change Healthcare, the nation’s largest billing clearinghouse, which, according to the Department of Justice, would give UnitedHealth a near monopoly (94% market share) over the clearinghouse market. Through the prism of risk coding, as well as other financial strategies discussed below, the business case was obvious: acquiring Change gives UnitedHealth visibility into the claims, diagnosis codes, and provider IDs of tens of millions of patients"
With the Change Cyberattack in February 2024, UNH unleashed the biggest cybersecurity threat on our patients' medical history in this nation's history, all because someone forgot 2 factor authentication on a whole server worth of data. Good job United. We thank you for proving the ineptitude of private enterprises. We no longer get to just make fun of the National Health System in UK for ineptitude, or that only government agencies suck, but a private enterprise that is a small nation state with a profit margin higher than the NSA's yearly budget can't figure out 2FA.
***"***As with risk adjustment, vertical conglomerates can inflate quality scores with greater control of clinicians. They can, for example, game medication adherence quality measures by pushing providers to put their patients on 90-day refills, mail-order prescriptions, and automatic refills, even if patients never take the medications. Similarly, they can discourage or prohibit clinicians from giving samples to patients and allowing them to use lower- cost alternatives. Further, Star Ratings and other quality programs require significant administrative efforts, placing small practices at a disadvantage."
I do take exception to the samples argument. Look, we just got out of the VERY SHADY stuff happening in the 90s with MD offices taking a HUGE backhand deal when giving out samples, I don't really want to see that stuff back in vogue again. Do you know how frustrating it was for a patient to say they are on a med that is from their doctor's office, they got it for free, and they must have it as an inpatient, when they don't even have it on the medication fill list or on the electronic medical record database? Who do I trust?
II. PATIENT STEERING AND “CAPTIVE” REVENUE:
This section is the reason why I did UNH and BHG as a DD - to pave the way for the discussion on this section. If you haven't read it, please see:
https://new.reddit.com/Healthcare_Anon/comments/1cw50xp/vertical_integration_of_the_healthcare_insurance/
https://new.reddit.com/Healthcare_Anon/comments/1cwsavi/vertical_integration_of_the_healthcare_insurance/
"UnitedHealth is increasingly relying on this captive revenue—or “intercompany eliminations”—with its growth of its provider subsidiary, Optum. UnitedHealth has increased intercompany eliminations by over 80% in five years, reaching $108 billion in 2022. It now sends over 25% of its medical claim revenue to its own subsidiaries. Its market presence shows why: UnitedHealth exists in 87% of insurance markets, only rivaled by Humana at 90%. 130 Further, UnitedHealth has over 50% share in more than 140 MA markets."
OK even though this paper is quoting another paper, my 10K/10Q analysis does match what this paper said, except it isn't 25%. Its 37.7% now. WHOA!
"These captive revenue strategies enable regulatory arbitrage. Medical Loss Ratios (MLRs) were established in the Affordable Care Act to cap insurance administrative costs and profits and to ensure that a minimum percentage of capitation payments and private insurance premiums were spent on medical care. However, insurance companies can circumvent this regulation by paying themselves, directing above-market payments and end-of-year bonuses to their own sister subsidiaries. This is referred to as “transfer pricing” and has been best documented with PBMs. For example, UnitedHealth can evade the MLR requirement by paying higher-than-cost fees to its Optum PBM, booking that fee as a medical cost. The same is possible with medical providers: insurers can increase fees to their sister primary care or post-acute providers to conceal profits as costs and to therefore evade the MLR constraint."
Is this how UNH continues to have high profits, and how the impact of CMS V28 somehow did not threaten UNH and Elevance the same way as Humana and CVS/Aetna? I think they may be onto something...
"In addition to increasing profits, steering squeezes independent providers and other competitors. In the prescription drug space, the gaming of medication adherence, explained above, diverts business away from unaffiliated pharmacies while gaming quality metrics. As another example, vertical conglomerates that own PBMs can devise formularies and copays that funnel patients to their own pharmacies, squeezing independent pharmacies. The proliferation of “specialty” pharmacies embeds these anti-competitive practices.".
Personal anecdote: I know of independent pharmacies who CANNOT compete anymore due to high PBM requirements, "clawback" penalties, quality metrics that is impossible to achieve, and "out of network" processing fees, that these pharmacies either have to be shut down, or acquired. "Specialty Pharmacies" are basically pharmacies who carry high dollar cost items that may have more stringent FDA counseling requirements, but because now the Marketplace is littered with PBM funnels, most independent pharmacies cannot "enter the foot in the door" of the PBM requirements. Guess who does though? Optum Rx!
"Vertical consolidation in the post-acute setting presents similar steering risks. MA insurers have increasingly been under scrutiny for limiting or denying care through narrow networks, “ghost networks,” and onerous prior authorization. Recent reporting revealed that UnitedHealth and Humana are using artificial intelligence with their conveners, specifically NaviHealth, to drive “clinical” prior authorization decisions and override clinical judgment."
I think I've beaten this dead horse many times already.
"Another way to steer patients in post-acute care is to effectively bring the prior authorization function “in house.” By directly employing physicians, the risk-bearing entity can cut costs by prohibiting or discouraging clinicians from authorizing expensive care. In a 2020 whistleblower lawsuit reported by The Prospect, Maxwell Ollivant, a UnitedHealth-employed nurse practitioner in a nursing home, alleged that his supervisor denied requests to transfer UnitedHealth-MA patients with exacerbations to the hospital. This, Ollivant alleged, was consistent with UnitedHealth’s compensation structure, which gave bonuses to their clinicians who kept patients in the nursing home and out of the hospitals."
Well holy shit Batman, that is more degenerate than a WSB 0-5DTE put taken on a Thursday afternoon.
III. PATIENT “FLIPPING” AND ENROLLMENT ARBITRAGE
" In MA, favorable selection is responsible for another 11%-14% of overspending, or as much as $56 billion annually. Selecting enrollees also allows insurers in MA to game county benchmark bonuses, which excessively rewards insurers with patients in areas of low Medicare spending, to the tune of another roughly $10 billion in excess MA payments. As vertical conglomerates increasingly own physicians and operate in ACOs, similar risks of selection may arise."
CMS is acutely aware of this gaming, however their model hasn't exactly been able to pinpoint how to address this yet. This was discussed in the CMS Final rule comments section.
"More direct than marketing, provider acquisitions allow conglomerates to “flip” patients into MA plans or ACOs by coordinating efforts with sister provider subsidiaries. Conglomerates can initiate the flipping strategy by using some of the steering tactics discussed above. In a recent lawsuit, UnitedHealth was accused of terminating contracts with unaffiliated physicians in order to force the patients to establish care at nearby Optum practices. In another suit, UnitedHealth, with 50% of the MA and commercial insurance markets, allegedly attempted to force the sale of local practices to Optum. UnitedHealth was accused of cutting insurance reimbursement and steering members away from the target practice, and as a condition of insurance contracting, forcing the target practice to give UnitedHealth the first right of refusal upon sale.
I inivite our physician colleagues to comment on this section. I have personally heard of such anecdotes, but further validation is always helpful and will also increase our membership engagement on such complicated subjects
And we now reach the end of page 31. This paper is extremely dense, and required basically a multi-layer DD on top of it to corroborate and create discussion points on the topic discussion.
We hope you enjoyed this half of the mini-series, and we hope to bring you the 2nd part of the mini-series soon as a collaborative post.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this. I hope this provides you with a better perspective on a glimpse of the landscape that I am personally aware. Please submit your comments below on your thoughts
Sincerely
Moocao
​

The HRRFY.
It’s the horror movie festival where something genuinely fucked happens every year. And I mean every year.
Like, there are some screenings that unleash hordes of bats while the movie is playing. You're free to leave whenever you want, but the movie will still play for 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Other screenings hire actors to turn at you and scream at some point in the movie. You have no idea when, or how many times.
It's a festival where the word "illegal" can't even begin to describe what happens. You'd only attend if you were a young, stupid edgelord like me who was trying to prove he was hardcore to his friends.
Trust me. DO NOT GO.
You have nothing to prove to anyone. Don't be stupid.
Wait for the lamer film versions to come out streaming. That's what everyone else does. They're neutered edits but they're fine.
All they lack is the real gleaming thing everyone wants to see at HRRFY, but who cares. At least you don’t get traumatized. At least you’re not risking your life.
Anyway, if you really want to know what attending HRRFY is like. I’ll be quick and summarize the one screening I went to. It was the 20th anniversary, and I was lucky enough to get in.
***
I had signed up for the HRRFY mailing list, and joined the subreddit. Through a series of cryptic online emails I solved a sequence of riddles and was entered in the lottery for a HRRFY entry.
Lady Luck took a shine to me, because one day in my mailbox, I received a physical ticket. I had done it.
I was going.
The actual ‘ticket’ was a black USB key that announced the location of the festival the night before (which I won’t disclose here) and it did force me to pay for a very expensive flight in order for me to make it on time.
You see, to prevent getting shut down, the location of HRRFY changes every year. Some years the local police have managed to stop it, but for the most part, authorities have given up. What’s the point of arresting or charging anyone, if all the organizers and attendees actually want to be there?
Upon arrival, I had to pick between three participating theaters.
Based on title alone, I decided to go see “Many Drownings” (directed by Oleksander Gołański.) It was in the theater that was furthest away from the downtown core, which meant it was likely the one where the craziest shit was bound to happen.
That’s what I came here for right?
I lined up a solid two hours before the screening like everyone else. The entire line was jittering, just vibrating with excited twenty-somethings. Rumors flew left and right.
“I heard they’re going to force everyone to take acid.”
“I heard an actor’s gonna run in and shotgun the ceiling.”
“I heard they’re going to disappear like four more people this year. At this screening!”
Each year people disappeared. And each year the same people were ‘found.’ And yes this is the worst part, and why should never, ever, ever go to this event.
Again I will repeat myself. DO NOT GO.
No one has ever truly gone 'missing' at HRRFY in any legal or physical sense, because every missing person always shows up a day later, convinced that they are fine—refusing to elaborate further.
There are some small support groups for people who have family members who had gone to HRRFY, and came back irrevocably changed after being ‘found.’
These few unlucky people lose all semblance of personality. They don’t want interviews, or help, or therapy, or contact of any kind. And they never, ever want to talk about what they saw.
Some HRRFY fans think that these ‘found’ people were body-snatched. Cloned in a lab or replaced by a cyborg, or something stupid like that.
But I think there’s a far simpler explanation. The ‘found’ are still the same people. They're just terrified. They got shaken by something that shattered the foundation of their mind, body and soul. They got too scared.
They got HRRFY’d.
***
I should mention I had a cough the day I went. And I was worried my sickly appearance might give me trouble at the airport.
So I invested in an intense double N95 mask which I wore for the whole flight, and continued to wear even at the screening of “Many Drownings.”
It made my face hot and uncomfortable, but it still didn’t stop me from yelling “excuse me, excuse me!” as I ran to snag a seat in the back of the theater.
I always preferred sitting in the far back. You get a good view of the whole screen, and a good view of the whole audience.
Beside me sat a big dude named Sylvester, who apparently flew all the way from Australia to attend HRRFY.
“Worth the full Seventeen hours mate! It’s gonna be epic!” he dropped a massive camping backpack beside me, which I assume contained all of his luggage.
The lights dimmed, and the production company logos started to play.
The whispering, giggling and suspense all stacked upon each other to create an electric feeling in the air. I was giddy. It's like the entire audience was embarking on a massive roller coaster.
The anticipation was the best part for sure. It might have been the only good part.
Then the movie started.
It was a wide shot of a gray, stormy sea. The waves were massive, and the thunderclouds were looming. There was no land visible in any direction.
All we could hear was the sound of waves foaming, swirling, and crashing over and over. Lightning crackled. Rain poured. The camera held perfectly still over this storm as if it was mounted on a perfectly hovering drone. A drone so resilient that it didn’t waver at all.
I thought it had to be CGI.
The shot held like this for the next few moments. Everyone sat glued to their seats. Everyone was thinking the same thing.
What’s going to happen? How are they going to scare us?
People chuckled. People cheered. People wanted to tease whatever was going to happen—to happen already.
But nothing did.
Five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes went by without any change. People started snoring.
I looked beside me and saw that Sylvester—the most excited audience member of them all—had fallen totally asleep. The jet lag must’ve gotten to him.
Then I peered beyond the rest of the audience members and saw other people snoozing too. Heads were keeled over, some people were curled in their seats, some had even spilled out into the aisle and were dozing on the floor.
I looked above the bright screen, at the huge vents in the corner of the theater. I saw a faint white gas emerging from the vents.
Holy shit. What have we been breathing? I tightened the straps on my N95 mask, and made my breathing shallower.
The gas must have been pumping since the opening credits—because how else would an audience of two hundred people all fall asleep?
As I moved my hand through the air in front of me, I could sense the thickness. It was definitely hazier than usual. I took the scarf off my neck and wrapped it around my mouth as well.
Then I spotted movement in front of the screen.
It was a tall blonde man, wearing a black trenchcoat and military-grade gas mask. Beside him arrived six hazmat suits who started pointing at various audience members.
I slunk in my chair, pretending to sleep like everyone else.
Two hazmats walked over to the front row and picked out a sleeping guy in flannel. They lifted flannel up, under the armpits and by his ankles, carrying him between them both like a hammock.
The hazmats walked back up to the stage, where the blonde leader inspected the flannel man and tapped his head. Something was approved?
The hazmats began to swing flannel back and forth, as if they were getting ready to toss him. Despite their masks, I could hear a very muffled, very distant countdown.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“One…”
The flannel audience member was tossed into the screen.
I literally watched him fly into the image of stormy waves … andfallinto them. The flannel man sank into the gray water like a rock, leaving a few bubbles and foam. A wave came crashing down. All trace of him was gone.
What the fuck.
All six hazmats began grabbing more audience members with much more urgency. It became a minute-long process where they would pick the sleeping person up, bring them beside the screen, and then swing-toss them into it.
How was this possible?
I turned slightly to see if there was a projector above me, and realized there was none. Which meant maybe there was no screen on stage.
Which meant … maybe it was a portal?
I tried to wake Sylvester by shaking him. I pinched his leg and arm a bunch.
He was out cold.
The hazmats started grabbing audience members from the middle rows now. They were emptying the whole theater. What the hell was I supposed to do?
I waited until they grabbed another batch, only a few rows down from me. When all hazmats had their backs turned—I broke into a run.
With my left arm, I tightly gripped my mask and scarf against my face, while my right arm vaulted me over seat after seat.
I had never breathed so hard—through so much fabric—in my life.
The hazmats all turned to me. “Hey! Hey!” But their hands were full with their next victims.
I ran all the way down the aisle, to the big exit sign on the left. My heartbeat filled my head. My plan was to dropkick through the exit door.
I imagined myself breaking through like some flying gazelle.
I jumped.
I angled my kick.
It might as well have been a brick wall. I fell ass-first to the ground, followed by my head. Of course the door was locked.
Through a muffled mask I heard a sneering scoff.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Above me stood the one wearing a trenchcoat. I could see his piercing gray eyes through his gas mask.
I rolled aside and tried to run by him. He lifted a foot and tripped me without effort.
My forehead bashed into an empty seat. It dazed me.
The blonde leader bent down and grabbed me by the neck, tearing away my scarf and mask.
“No! No!”
A sweet, ether-like smell filled my nostrils. I did my best to hold my breath, but I could already feel myself getting light-headed.
The other hazmats joined in, grabbing me from all sides. Even if I had the strength to struggle, there was no escape now.
Above me, all I could see was the dark theater ceiling, and some of the light behind me from the cinema screen.
“Three…”
“Two…”
“No. Please. Don’t do thi—”
SPLASH.
I was plunged deep into cold, wet chaos. My head was completely underwater.
Gagging. Bubbles. Spinning.
I fought for dear life, dog-paddling like a maniac.
Churning. Freezing. Panic.
For a second, my head popped above the water. I inhaled all the air my lungs could muster. I stared across a vast, violent ocean.
An enormous thirty foot wave came in my direction.
My whole body lifted higher and higher as the wave approached. I did my best to tread water. It seemed to be working.
Then a series of smaller waves arrived and smacked my chest.
SPLASH.
Spinning. Kicking. Flipping.
My view alternated between the pitch dark ocean beneath me, and the moonlit night sky above.
Again I swam to the surface, popped my head out. Ravenously sucked in air.
There was a small lull in the water.
Around me I now registered the other theater goers. Most of them were lying face-down or sinking … but a few were flapping about like me, fighting for their life.
And above all of us, a floating white shape.
It was painfully bright, I had to lift one hand to look at it.
My jaw dropped.
It was the movie screen, hanging completely still in the air. It showed a dark, empty theater. The exact same theater we all occupied moments ago.
It was tremendously high, above all of our heads. There was no way of reaching it.
Then I saw another thirty foot wave come our way. It grazed the bottom of the screen.
I knew what had to be done.
***
One of the theater goers happened to be on a college swim team. She was the first one able to traverse one of the giant waves and climb into the screen.
Once she was up there, she found a firehose in the theater and reeled it out to us like a rope.
One by one, we swam as hard as we could, praying to God we could reach the rope. Everyone’s energy was sapped. Your body can only sustain itself on adrenaline and fear for so long.
By some miracle, five of us got out.
I was the last.
I climbed the rope coughing and vomiting. I had swallowed so much water that my stomach felt swollen.
When I reached the top and they pulled me into the screen, I sobbed. I couldn’t stop crying.
My life had flashed countless times before my eyes. In bubbling, suffocating visions, I saw both my parents and my brother. I saw my highschool graduation. I saw my favorite Christmas from when I was six years old.
I had almost lost all of that. I had lost almost everything.
On the dirty, carpeted theater floor, I lay with my face down, savoring the fact that I now lay on a hard surface. God bless ground. God bless this filthy, popcorn-strewn ground.
Beside me I heard bantering, hugging, the wringing of wet clothes. Sylvester was the second last to be saved, and he was particularly vocal.
“Wooooooaaaaahh!” He came and drummed me on the back, lifted me up. “Oh my god dude! Holy shit!”
I sat on my knees, wiping the tears and snot off my mouth.
Sylvester clapped his hands, held his face and screamed some more.
“Holy shit dude! That was so fucking scary! Like literally people were dying beside us. Like I SAW people die!”
I nodded, shivering in my drenched clothes. “ I know it was—”
“—That was craaaaazy!”
He laughed and stood up, patting everyone on the back. He kept clapping his hands like this was some sports event.
“That was sick! That was siiiiiiiiick!”
He ruffled someone’s hair then ran up to me with an open palm.
“High five dude! WE MADE IT! High five!
“Don’t leave me hangin’ dude!”

I had updated my marital status and IRCC has requested some docs. My spouse is already PR( e-COPR inside Canada, awaiting PR card). I am pretty sure that I don't need to send docs or not apart from Marriage certificate, birth certificate and PR card
First Para of letter says, you only need to submit PR card, marriage certificate and Birth Cert if spouse is P Citizen
"Thank you for informing us of your change in marital status. If your spouse or common-law partner (CLP) is a Canadian citizen or if they have obtained permanent residence status in Canada, he or she does not need to be added to your application for Permanent Residence. However, you must provide our office with a proof of his/her status such as a copy of birth certificate, proof of citizenship or permanent residence card. If your spouse or common-law partner (CLP) is NOT a Canadian citizen or has NOT obtained Permanent Residence status in Canada, you will need to complete each of the following steps in order to have them added to your existing application and examined for compliance with admissibility requirements (medical, criminality and security). Unless otherwise stated, the following is mandatory, whether or not your spouse or CLP decides to accompany you to Canada. The following information/documents must be received within 30 days from the date of this correspondence. If this deadline is not met, your application will be assessed based on the information available and could be refused."
Also there is list of docs with a questionnaire. I am confused whether that questionnaire is required or not.
INCLUSION OF A SPOUSE/COMMON-LAW PARTNER ON AN ECONOMIC CLASS APPLICATION

QUESTIONS FOR THE PRINCIPAL APPLICANT << Provide a complete and precise response to each question in your own words. Failure to provide the information requested below will delay processing and could result in a refusal of your application. Make sure you have indicated your name, application number, the questionnaire title and the number or letter of the question you are answering. Please answer the following questions on a separate page and include the question number with your answer. DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP 1. Describe the development of your relationship, including the following details: a. First contact with your spouse/common-law partner (i.e., when and where) b. Provide timeline of dates, photos, and documentation of events in which you both participated in, such as trips and outings. c. Have you visited each other during your relationship? (i.e., when and where) d. How do you communicate when not together? (e.g., phone, email, online chats) e. Please provide dates of cohabitation, if applicable. 2. Was your relationship known to your close friends and family members? Yes/No If in common-law relationship skip to question #8 3. Was your marriage arranged? Please provide details on who arranged the marriage and when it was arranged. 4. Was there a formal ceremony to recognize/celebrate the engagement? Please provide details such as when, where, and who attended. 5. Was there a formal ceremony to recognize/celebrate the marriage? Please provide details such as when, where, who attended, and the religion in which the marriage was performed, if applicable. 6. Provide information regarding your religious beliefs. 7. Was there a reception? If so please provide details such as when, where, and who attended. 8. Did you have a honeymoon (a holiday or trip taken by you and your spouse after the marriage)? Provide details such as when and where. 9. If in a common-law relationship, was there a commitment ceremony? Please provide details such as when, where, and who attended. Applicant Signature: ___________________________________ Date: __________________________

INCLUSION OF A SPOUSE/COMMON-LAW PARTNER ON AN ECONOMIC CLASS APPLICATION

QUESTIONS FOR THE PRINCIPAL APPLICANT << Provide a complete and precise response to each question in your own words. Failure to provide the information requested below will delay processing and could result in a refusal of your application. Make sure you have indicated your name, application number, the questionnaire title and the number or letter of the question you are answering. Please answer the following questions on a separate page and include the question number with your answer. DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP 1. Describe the development of your relationship, including the following details: a. First contact with your spouse/common-law partner (i.e., when and where) b. Provide timeline of dates, photos, and documentation of events in which you both participated in, such as trips and outings. c. Have you visited each other during your relationship? (i.e., when and where) d. How do you communicate when not together? (e.g., phone, email, online chats) e. Please provide dates of cohabitation, if applicable. 2. Was your relationship known to your close friends and family members? Yes/No If in common-law relationship skip to question #8 3. Was your marriage arranged? Please provide details on who arranged the marriage and when it was arranged. 4. Was there a formal ceremony to recognize/celebrate the engagement? Please provide details such as when, where, and who attended. 5. Was there a formal ceremony to recognize/celebrate the marriage? Please provide details such as when, where, who attended, and the religion in which the marriage was performed, if applicable. 6. Provide information regarding your religious beliefs. 7. Was there a reception? If so please provide details such as when, where, and who attended. 8. Did you have a honeymoon (a holiday or trip taken by you and your spouse after the marriage)? Provide details such as when and where. 9. If in a common-law relationship, was there a commitment ceremony? Please provide details such as when, where, and who attended. Applicant Signature: ___________________________________ Date: __________________________

I had updated my marital status and IRCC has requested some docs. My spouse is already PR( e-COPR inside Canada, awaiting PR card). I am pretty sure that I don't need to send docs or not apart from Marriage certificate, birth certificate and PR card
First Para of letter says, you only need to submit PR card, marriage certificate and Birth Cert if spouse is P Citizen
"Thank you for informing us of your change in marital status. If your spouse or common-law partner (CLP) is a Canadian citizen or if they have obtained permanent residence status in Canada, he or she does not need to be added to your application for Permanent Residence. However, you must provide our office with a proof of his/her status such as a copy of birth certificate, proof of citizenship or permanent residence card. If your spouse or common-law partner (CLP) is NOT a Canadian citizen or has NOT obtained Permanent Residence status in Canada, you will need to complete each of the following steps in order to have them added to your existing application and examined for compliance with admissibility requirements (medical, criminality and security). Unless otherwise stated, the following is mandatory, whether or not your spouse or CLP decides to accompany you to Canada. The following information/documents must be received within 30 days from the date of this correspondence. If this deadline is not met, your application will be assessed based on the information available and could be refused."
Also there is list of docs with a questionnaire. I am confused whether that questionnaire is required or not.
INCLUSION OF A SPOUSE/COMMON-LAW PARTNER ON AN ECONOMIC CLASS APPLICATION

QUESTIONS FOR THE PRINCIPAL APPLICANT << Provide a complete and precise response to each question in your own words. Failure to provide the information requested below will delay processing and could result in a refusal of your application. Make sure you have indicated your name, application number, the questionnaire title and the number or letter of the question you are answering. Please answer the following questions on a separate page and include the question number with your answer. DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP 1. Describe the development of your relationship, including the following details: a. First contact with your spouse/common-law partner (i.e., when and where) b. Provide timeline of dates, photos, and documentation of events in which you both participated in, such as trips and outings. c. Have you visited each other during your relationship? (i.e., when and where) d. How do you communicate when not together? (e.g., phone, email, online chats) e. Please provide dates of cohabitation, if applicable. 2. Was your relationship known to your close friends and family members? Yes/No If in common-law relationship skip to question #8 3. Was your marriage arranged? Please provide details on who arranged the marriage and when it was arranged. 4. Was there a formal ceremony to recognize/celebrate the engagement? Please provide details such as when, where, and who attended. 5. Was there a formal ceremony to recognize/celebrate the marriage? Please provide details such as when, where, who attended, and the religion in which the marriage was performed, if applicable. 6. Provide information regarding your religious beliefs. 7. Was there a reception? If so please provide details such as when, where, and who attended. 8. Did you have a honeymoon (a holiday or trip taken by you and your spouse after the marriage)? Provide details such as when and where. 9. If in a common-law relationship, was there a commitment ceremony? Please provide details such as when, where, and who attended. Applicant Signature: ___________________________________ Date: __________________________

INCLUSION OF A SPOUSE/COMMON-LAW PARTNER ON AN ECONOMIC CLASS APPLICATION

QUESTIONS FOR THE PRINCIPAL APPLICANT << Provide a complete and precise response to each question in your own words. Failure to provide the information requested below will delay processing and could result in a refusal of your application. Make sure you have indicated your name, application number, the questionnaire title and the number or letter of the question you are answering. Please answer the following questions on a separate page and include the question number with your answer. DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP 1. Describe the development of your relationship, including the following details: a. First contact with your spouse/common-law partner (i.e., when and where) b. Provide timeline of dates, photos, and documentation of events in which you both participated in, such as trips and outings. c. Have you visited each other during your relationship? (i.e., when and where) d. How do you communicate when not together? (e.g., phone, email, online chats) e. Please provide dates of cohabitation, if applicable. 2. Was your relationship known to your close friends and family members? Yes/No If in common-law relationship skip to question #8 3. Was your marriage arranged? Please provide details on who arranged the marriage and when it was arranged. 4. Was there a formal ceremony to recognize/celebrate the engagement? Please provide details such as when, where, and who attended. 5. Was there a formal ceremony to recognize/celebrate the marriage? Please provide details such as when, where, who attended, and the religion in which the marriage was performed, if applicable. 6. Provide information regarding your religious beliefs. 7. Was there a reception? If so please provide details such as when, where, and who attended. 8. Did you have a honeymoon (a holiday or trip taken by you and your spouse after the marriage)? Provide details such as when and where. 9. If in a common-law relationship, was there a commitment ceremony? Please provide details such as when, where, and who attended. Applicant Signature: ___________________________________ Date: __________________________