Title block in word
[distant cromching noises]
2019.01.11 12:54 CosmicKeys [distant cromching noises]
[distant cromching noises]
2012.05.09 14:01 Contagious Laughter
Something to put you in a good mood. Videos of people laughing infectiously. No context required.
2014.02.11 09:11 Mish106 Word Avalanches: incredibly contrived setups for homophonic punchlines
Word Avalanches: incredibly contrived setups for homophonic punchlines.
2024.05.22 05:19 ProperChain0 Two channels that are exactly the same, why does one do better than the other?
there's a content creator that more of less copied everything i've done with a game, same word to word information used, same intro as me, same titles and video ideas a day after which at this point i'm not one to make drama about but what i'm trying to figure out is if i average 12-13k views even with unique thumbnails he will always get 17-20k and i know its not a huge difference but i'm trying to understand the algorithm
on 30 minute videos i have a average view % of 46% (14minute watch duration)
My CTR starts at 13% then drops to 8-9% after a day with 80-110k impressions
even though the game is slightly dying in playerbase until new content his content seems to get pushed out better than mine but i can't figure out why? I guess over the course of 3 months he has posted a bit more than me i would of posted around 70-80 videos and post nearly daily and he posts every single day without missing once. does youtube value someone more who consistently posts? or what key factor should i be looking for in my analytics?
Or is it maybe 50% of his audience is completely different to mine? all of his videos come under my suggested and maybe part of my audience isn't interested in the game anymore, just trying to work it out
submitted by ProperChain0 to youtube [link] [comments]
on 30 minute videos i have a average view % of 46% (14minute watch duration)
My CTR starts at 13% then drops to 8-9% after a day with 80-110k impressions
even though the game is slightly dying in playerbase until new content his content seems to get pushed out better than mine but i can't figure out why? I guess over the course of 3 months he has posted a bit more than me i would of posted around 70-80 videos and post nearly daily and he posts every single day without missing once. does youtube value someone more who consistently posts? or what key factor should i be looking for in my analytics?
Or is it maybe 50% of his audience is completely different to mine? all of his videos come under my suggested and maybe part of my audience isn't interested in the game anymore, just trying to work it out
2024.05.22 05:19 Bulky_Bird Yeah, Ness is 100% assisting Isagi’s second goal
You didn’t read the title wrong. Ness is 100% assisting Isagi’s second goal and this theory of mine has been brewing for many months now. I waited to post this theory until Kaiser messed up “one” more time and he just did and in doing so, inadvertently sealed his fate.
We know that Ness is a “glazer” and one might even say that he is “the” glazer, but even he has his limits. The dynamic between Kaiser and Ness has been deteriorating all throughout the NEL, with the exception of the short Barcha match. It’s evident that Kaiser is not a nice person to anyone, not even to Ness his partner in crime. Their dynamic is not even civil and is borderline abusive most of the time it’s on screen. With that being said, let me walk you through this theory of mine that makes me certain Ness will assist Isagi’s second goal.
The first example I would like to shed some light on would be at the end of the Manshine match. Ness while trying to “glaze” Kaiser, even though Kaiser lost fair and square to Isagi, is only met with physical abuse at the hands of Kaiser. You might say that Kaiser did it to shut Ness up, but even that’s irrelevant when you notice that Ness is in physical pain. Kaiser quite literally treats Ness like a dog (this was all foreshadowed), even though Ness’ current “twisted” goal is to allow for Kaiser’s success.
The second example I would like to discuss happens in between the Manshine and Ubers match. Kaiser’s theorizing as to how Isagi’s thought process works, and he asks Ness a completely lose-lose question. No matter what answer Ness responded with, Kaiser was never going to be satisfied with it and was always going to “physically” abuse Ness again by drenching him in the beverage he was drinking. I don’t know about you guys but this is extremely disrespectful no matter who it is.
The third example is in my opinion the strongest in this theory, even though it doesn’t involve physical abuse, go figure. We are introduced to Ness’ backstory through a flashback, and in turn are able to understand the character that is Ness. At the core of Ness’ character is the idea of magic, and more specifically magic that entrances people. This is juxtaposed by Ness’ entire family telling him there’s no such thing as magic and they’re not subtle in telling him this. Ness eventually discovers soccer and the way the players entrance the crowd with their plays (magic), and so, Ness makes it his life mission to entrance the world with “HIS” own magic (I highlight the word his because it will be important later on).
As Ness tryouts for the BM team, he realizes that his “magic” is not working, but eventually Kaiser arrives “in the nick of time” and he allows for Ness’ magic to thrive. This is the beginning of Kaiser’s and Ness’ dynamic, however, from the very beginning this whole dynamic was fake. Kaiser didn’t approach Ness out of the good will in his heart (because it doesn’t exist 💀), but because as Kaiser so eloquently puts it, “he needs a dog”. He saw that Ness was in a vulnerable state and decided that he would corrupt Ness by “eroding his heart”. This was easily achieved because as Ness (7th slide) puts it, there is an “extreme sadness” in his heart because no one believes in magic. Now that we’ve established that Kaiser’s and Ness’ dynamic was fake from the get-go, it makes complete sense why their relationship is deteriorating so rapidly.
Fast forward to midway through the Ubers game, and we finally arrive at the point of no return for their dynamic. Even with all of the abuse at Kaiser’s hands, Ness still believed that Kaiser wanted his imagination, his magic, but Kaiser coldly and definitively tells Ness, “You’re the one who’s trash. Don’t let your stupid emotions get in the way of that tiny sh*t brain of yours. Just move like we practiced, I’m NOT asking for your CREATIVITY”. This is my opinion was the nail in the coffin, and yet there’s still more.
The fourth example happens at the end of the Ubers match. Ness has always been against Isagi, not because Isagi did anything bad to him, but simply because Isagi and Kaiser are enemies. However, Ness can’t help but be “entranced by Yoichi’s magic”. What’s funny about this is, if Kaiser did not open his mouth this never would’ve happened. Ness realizes that Isagi “wants” his teammate’s imagination and truly believes they will succeed. This comes across as a stark contrast from Ness’ perspective since all he’s known is Kaiser and the way he likes to do things.
To pour gasoline on this absolute dumpster fire, Kaiser’s true colors are coming out involuntarily. The fifth example I would like to discuss is brief and very recent. Kaiser inadvertently refers to Ness as a dog, even though he had kept it to himself that those were his intentions with Ness in the beginning. I mean, just look at Ness’ face upon hearing those words.
Finally, I’ve been hearing many people talk about Kaiser awakening his original ego especially with the latest chapter release. That’s all well and good, but what about Ness’ original ego (Kaiser wasn’t the only character who got a flashback 💀)?
We don’t have to speculate as to what Ness’ original ego is, we already know what it is. It is to entrance the world with “his” magic. With the way the current match has been going, it is not simply enough to draw out one’s 100%, but it is necessary to cross your 100% with someone else’s in order to create a top performance. Kaiser very clearly does not want the help of the only person on his side, so I don’t see how he can score this match. Ness on the other hand, is only bound by his imagination. Ness, for the first time in his life potentially has someone in Isagi, who “genuinely” wants his creativity aka his magic. This chemical reaction between Isagi and Ness is bound to be amazing and at the same time prove to be absolutely devastating to Kaiser.
submitted by Bulky_Bird to BlueLock [link] [comments]
We know that Ness is a “glazer” and one might even say that he is “the” glazer, but even he has his limits. The dynamic between Kaiser and Ness has been deteriorating all throughout the NEL, with the exception of the short Barcha match. It’s evident that Kaiser is not a nice person to anyone, not even to Ness his partner in crime. Their dynamic is not even civil and is borderline abusive most of the time it’s on screen. With that being said, let me walk you through this theory of mine that makes me certain Ness will assist Isagi’s second goal.
The first example I would like to shed some light on would be at the end of the Manshine match. Ness while trying to “glaze” Kaiser, even though Kaiser lost fair and square to Isagi, is only met with physical abuse at the hands of Kaiser. You might say that Kaiser did it to shut Ness up, but even that’s irrelevant when you notice that Ness is in physical pain. Kaiser quite literally treats Ness like a dog (this was all foreshadowed), even though Ness’ current “twisted” goal is to allow for Kaiser’s success.
The second example I would like to discuss happens in between the Manshine and Ubers match. Kaiser’s theorizing as to how Isagi’s thought process works, and he asks Ness a completely lose-lose question. No matter what answer Ness responded with, Kaiser was never going to be satisfied with it and was always going to “physically” abuse Ness again by drenching him in the beverage he was drinking. I don’t know about you guys but this is extremely disrespectful no matter who it is.
The third example is in my opinion the strongest in this theory, even though it doesn’t involve physical abuse, go figure. We are introduced to Ness’ backstory through a flashback, and in turn are able to understand the character that is Ness. At the core of Ness’ character is the idea of magic, and more specifically magic that entrances people. This is juxtaposed by Ness’ entire family telling him there’s no such thing as magic and they’re not subtle in telling him this. Ness eventually discovers soccer and the way the players entrance the crowd with their plays (magic), and so, Ness makes it his life mission to entrance the world with “HIS” own magic (I highlight the word his because it will be important later on).
As Ness tryouts for the BM team, he realizes that his “magic” is not working, but eventually Kaiser arrives “in the nick of time” and he allows for Ness’ magic to thrive. This is the beginning of Kaiser’s and Ness’ dynamic, however, from the very beginning this whole dynamic was fake. Kaiser didn’t approach Ness out of the good will in his heart (because it doesn’t exist 💀), but because as Kaiser so eloquently puts it, “he needs a dog”. He saw that Ness was in a vulnerable state and decided that he would corrupt Ness by “eroding his heart”. This was easily achieved because as Ness (7th slide) puts it, there is an “extreme sadness” in his heart because no one believes in magic. Now that we’ve established that Kaiser’s and Ness’ dynamic was fake from the get-go, it makes complete sense why their relationship is deteriorating so rapidly.
Fast forward to midway through the Ubers game, and we finally arrive at the point of no return for their dynamic. Even with all of the abuse at Kaiser’s hands, Ness still believed that Kaiser wanted his imagination, his magic, but Kaiser coldly and definitively tells Ness, “You’re the one who’s trash. Don’t let your stupid emotions get in the way of that tiny sh*t brain of yours. Just move like we practiced, I’m NOT asking for your CREATIVITY”. This is my opinion was the nail in the coffin, and yet there’s still more.
The fourth example happens at the end of the Ubers match. Ness has always been against Isagi, not because Isagi did anything bad to him, but simply because Isagi and Kaiser are enemies. However, Ness can’t help but be “entranced by Yoichi’s magic”. What’s funny about this is, if Kaiser did not open his mouth this never would’ve happened. Ness realizes that Isagi “wants” his teammate’s imagination and truly believes they will succeed. This comes across as a stark contrast from Ness’ perspective since all he’s known is Kaiser and the way he likes to do things.
To pour gasoline on this absolute dumpster fire, Kaiser’s true colors are coming out involuntarily. The fifth example I would like to discuss is brief and very recent. Kaiser inadvertently refers to Ness as a dog, even though he had kept it to himself that those were his intentions with Ness in the beginning. I mean, just look at Ness’ face upon hearing those words.
Finally, I’ve been hearing many people talk about Kaiser awakening his original ego especially with the latest chapter release. That’s all well and good, but what about Ness’ original ego (Kaiser wasn’t the only character who got a flashback 💀)?
We don’t have to speculate as to what Ness’ original ego is, we already know what it is. It is to entrance the world with “his” magic. With the way the current match has been going, it is not simply enough to draw out one’s 100%, but it is necessary to cross your 100% with someone else’s in order to create a top performance. Kaiser very clearly does not want the help of the only person on his side, so I don’t see how he can score this match. Ness on the other hand, is only bound by his imagination. Ness, for the first time in his life potentially has someone in Isagi, who “genuinely” wants his creativity aka his magic. This chemical reaction between Isagi and Ness is bound to be amazing and at the same time prove to be absolutely devastating to Kaiser.
2024.05.22 05:17 ScheduleTraining5332 Just Diagnosed
Long post, please bear with me.
Pretty much what the title says. I thought this would be a good place to come to for realistic expectations of PCOS (and hopefully inspiring stories).
I (26F) just got diagnosed with PCOS today.
I’ve really taken it hard, I’ve cried all day long. I’m not sure if it’s just my hormones, but this has really hit me like a train. I hadn’t had a period in 4 months and had taken multiple pregnancy tests that all were negative. Ended up at the OBGYN to see what was happening with (no pregnancy symptoms.. I see why now). It would have been terrible timing, but we were planning on having kids in the next year or so and would have been happy if I was. My doctor was so sweet to me and I’m glad I found her. She’s starting me on bc for 3 months to try and jump start my periods.
All my symptoms make so much sense now, and I’m starting to realize things I’ve had over the last few years that I’ve labeled as “oh I’m just stressed “…. Especially the weight gain.
I used to be 130, over the last 5 years I now weigh 178 (gained 3 pounds in the last 2 weeks). I know it’s not terrible but she’s advised me to try and lose 15-20 pounds by October when I come back (if I can, as long as I’m trying)
How do I cope with my diagnosis. I’m truly heartbroken and uncertain about the future. I know there are worse things in the world but..
1) is it possible I can’t have children now?
2) Is it truly possible to lose my belly fat I’ve accumulated the last year?
3) How do I not be so sad?
If anyone has any advice or kind words you’re so appreciated. This has been really hard and I feel so lost.
submitted by ScheduleTraining5332 to PCOS [link] [comments]
Pretty much what the title says. I thought this would be a good place to come to for realistic expectations of PCOS (and hopefully inspiring stories).
I (26F) just got diagnosed with PCOS today.
I’ve really taken it hard, I’ve cried all day long. I’m not sure if it’s just my hormones, but this has really hit me like a train. I hadn’t had a period in 4 months and had taken multiple pregnancy tests that all were negative. Ended up at the OBGYN to see what was happening with (no pregnancy symptoms.. I see why now). It would have been terrible timing, but we were planning on having kids in the next year or so and would have been happy if I was. My doctor was so sweet to me and I’m glad I found her. She’s starting me on bc for 3 months to try and jump start my periods.
All my symptoms make so much sense now, and I’m starting to realize things I’ve had over the last few years that I’ve labeled as “oh I’m just stressed “…. Especially the weight gain.
I used to be 130, over the last 5 years I now weigh 178 (gained 3 pounds in the last 2 weeks). I know it’s not terrible but she’s advised me to try and lose 15-20 pounds by October when I come back (if I can, as long as I’m trying)
How do I cope with my diagnosis. I’m truly heartbroken and uncertain about the future. I know there are worse things in the world but..
1) is it possible I can’t have children now?
2) Is it truly possible to lose my belly fat I’ve accumulated the last year?
3) How do I not be so sad?
If anyone has any advice or kind words you’re so appreciated. This has been really hard and I feel so lost.
2024.05.22 05:09 AmbitiousStarCat YA/ A book about a girl with anorexia
Hi I’ve been trying to find this been I read back in middle school (now in college) and can’t seem to find it anywhere. I remember it was a long book title. I think one word
It was about a girl who had anorexia and she went to a rehab facility that both the facility and nurses was corrupted. One scene was when she was getting weighed and the number increased. The corrupted nurse thought she put quarters down there and had her check. the girl felt humiliated.
submitted by AmbitiousStarCat to whatsthatbook [link] [comments]
It was about a girl who had anorexia and she went to a rehab facility that both the facility and nurses was corrupted. One scene was when she was getting weighed and the number increased. The corrupted nurse thought she put quarters down there and had her check. the girl felt humiliated.
2024.05.22 05:07 hamdi-ramzi The Best IPTV Service of 2024: Top 5 Trusted Providers
 | Here is the list of the best IPTV services available worldwide. Compare the features and pricing of the top-rated IPTV providers listed in this tutorial and select the top IPTV subscription for your FireStick, Android TV, PC or any other device: submitted by hamdi-ramzi to bestprovider100 [link] [comments] What is IPTV? Internet-based Protocol Television (IPTV) refers to the streaming of TV programs through broadband Internet rather than the traditional cable or satellite. This TV content is streamed to a set-top box. Selecting the best IPTV streams can be challenging because of limited information about the quality of the service. Wea have taken the task of finding the top-rated IPTV service providers that live up to their claims. #1) Best Top Winner YugaTV Great for watching local and international live TV channels, PPV, pay-per-view sporting events, and VOD. https://preview.redd.it/59atidsf9w1d1.jpg?width=1366&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7e5f038ed9076aaec7cd0485bb4e544d51c4a174 YugaTV provides a secure payment channel, and with this, you can make payments easily. You can do it without worrying as the security is very high and advanced. There is no risk of getting cheated. It is because your payment is processed through your bank card or PayPal, so there is no risk or scam involved. After making a payment, you just have to wait a few minutes and then you will receive your subscriptions via email. Not only this, Smart IPTV has a buyer-friendly refund policy that allows everyone to buy their services without worrying about their refund. Its prices are also very affordable so everyone can buy it easily. Features
=> Visit YugaTV Website #2) AIMAX EDAWAG AIMAX EDAWAG – Best for watching Live TV, movies, and shows in multiscreen on Android and IPTV devices. https://preview.redd.it/wpgs98hh9w1d1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e47a44c5f4d6527b5bd69c97b3b153729568a948 One of the most recommended and best IPTV providers is IPTV SMART. This is because it offers over 20,000 live TV channels and over 60,000 VOD content. They provide 4K resolution content for HD, HQ, channels, and VOD. Widely compatible with devices that work with Firesticks, computers/laptops, mobile devices, Mag / Enigma boxes, smart TVs, and more. This service works with various apps such as IPTV Smarter Pro, TiviMate, GSE IPTV, Lazy IPTV, and Kodi. Features: Over 20,000 channels and over 60,000 VODP provide multiple connections. IP blocking does not work with VPNs.Provides a reseller panel. => Visit IMAX EDAWAG Website: IMAX EDAWAG #3) IPTV TRENDS Best for – IPTV subscription service provider comparing price, service quality, and customer support. https://preview.redd.it/bhs62rai9w1d1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6528cf194a8f10edd3458bb56d65dedcfb42ac28 IPTV TRENDS One of the greatest benefits is the ability for the viewer to watch the programs that they love from anywhere and at any one given time, this is usually at a cheaper price as compared to the cable packages that you may know of. Firstly, the pricing is usually better and there are so many titles that a subscriber can select from. In the past, consumers had to buy cable packages that may have had some programs they were not interested in. Secondly, the other benefit is that you can access a lot of channels without any problem. Thirdly, you can make a custom list of channels and only pay the price for those channels. You can also enjoy quality 4K, FHD, HD, and SD video services including more than 16,000 IPTV channels List. This collection includes the best-known and most popular TV networks from around the world covering all tastes. Features:
#4) FortuneIPTV https://preview.redd.it/aolym36j9w1d1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b4017b1a5e238e361970aa46308c724d0d4ba930 A Reputable IPTV Provider With a Subscription Service. Check first before you decide to buy. You may watch and enjoy a variety of HD on-demand movies, pay-per-view sporting events, TV shows, live TV channels, and other comparable content on Fortune IPTV, a high-end entertainmentvideo streaming platform. Because it has increasingly become more feature-rich than conventional IPTV packages, many customers appreciate this service. Without a sure, Fortune IPTV will keep you occupied for a longtime. Features:
This IPTV provider has very good servers and offers a buffer-free experience. You can purchase a trial from them if you want to learn more about it. #5) IPTVtune Best for watching HD and SD quality content on different devices. https://preview.redd.it/5wxt931k9w1d1.jpg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e5c22f7961dea566ed59ef4df3793a030c9e854c IPTVtune is one of the top providers when it comes to price and quality. They offer stable performance with minimum buffering and freezing with a stable connection. Features: 20,000+ movies and 10,000+ channels. HD and SD content. 99.99 percent uptime. Reseller option available. Verdict: IPTVtune offers an overall good package for customers. You get premium channels at an affordable cost |
2024.05.22 05:02 NoUnderstanding7116 Kaiju No. 8 Review
 | Kaiju No. 8 Review: submitted by NoUnderstanding7116 to kaiju [link] [comments] With the Kaiju Genre being more relevant as days goes by, I would like to give my very honest opinion regarding the latest installment to this genre itself titled Kaiju No. 8. A story of a middle aged man named Kafka Hibino, wanting to be a part of a Kaiju hunting organization and fulfill his promise to a childhood friend who unfortunately for him, failed and found himself in a more suitable position as a kaiju cleaner instead due to the lack of talent needed to actually become a kaiju exterminator. But ofc, one day, it changed after Kafka swallowed what seemed to be a small parasitic Kaiju which granted him raw power in unimaginable proportions. Superhuman speed, strength, durability and other useful abilities that now gave him the possibility to reach his goal. With all said and done, let's begin. First and foremost, I actually think that Kaiju No. 8 is very mediocre. To explain that, I believe there are three major reasons as to why I feel that way. Which is:
Even though having very common tropes is bad, the reason why other competitors such as Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen were successful is because they have something interesting offered only in their anime itself. Chainsaw Man has a very consistent uncanny tone present in their story. Such as their lose screws characters, tragic backstories that they presented very eerily instead of sympathetically, the design of their characters, it's protagonist, the tone, the setting and it's antagonist. Calling Chainsaw Man edgy is an understatement, what it offers visually and story wise is always engaging due to the present identity shown in the series. While JJK on the other hand, even though I find it to be extremely overrated, at least the series made name for it's complex and highly detailed power system and even the monsters roaming in their world are called Curses or Cursed Spirits which I find to be cool, because it uses better words unlike basic terms like "Demons" for Demon Slayer or "Devils" in Chainsaw Man. Fire Force, another decent anime, didn't fail in creating distinctive uniforms that are easily recognizable and cool at the same time.
This last one is more of a Kaiju fan problem, which I'll address below:
Regardless, despite kaijus being present in their world. The anime's term for "Kaiju" is not the same as our's. The biggest villain is dubbed Kaiju No. 9, is actually a human sized humanoid that can talk. Some of the kaijus shown are literally a carbon copy of one said character but with black eyes and dark colour scheme to give an antagonistic vibe. The most focused threats aren't even kaiju at all, Kaiju No. 10 is also another decently large kaiju only to become a weapon and help one the heroes combat the villains afterwards (reminiscent to that of Venom and Eddie Brock). Basically, despite the word kaiju in it's title, it simply is not a kaiju genre. The "kaijus" aren't really kaijus, they don't function or act like one, at least the bigger more focused existential threats that challenges our heroes aren't kaijus at all. The Positives: Despite my take for Kaiju No. 8 seems very harsh, there's still good things about it, and for me personally:
Conclusion: I believe Kaiju No. 8 is a pretty good series. It does all thing's right, just not spectacularly. Doesn't feel like a Kaiju genre personally but still somewhat enjoyable to watch. Do I recommend this? Personally no, but I can see most people besides me enjoy it so probably yeah. With this I score it: 7/10. |
2024.05.22 05:01 ProperChain0 Two channels that are exactly the same, why does one do better than the other?
I made a post a while back on a content creator that more of less copied everything i've done with a game, same word to word information used, same intro as me, same titles and video ideas a day after which at this point i'm not one to make drama about but what i'm trying to figure out is if i average 12-13k views even with unique thumbnails he will always get 17-20k and i know its not a huge difference but i'm trying to understand the algorithm
on 30 minute videos i have a average view % of 46% (14minute watch duration)
My CTR starts at 13% then drops to 8-9% after a day with 80-110k impressions
even though the game is slightly dying in playerbase until new content his content seems to get pushed out better than mine but i can't figure out why? I guess over the course of 3 months he has posted a bit more than me i would of posted around 70-80 videos and post nearly daily and he posts every single day without missing once. does youtube value someone more who consistently posts? or what key factor should i be looking for in my analytics?
submitted by ProperChain0 to PartneredYoutube [link] [comments]
on 30 minute videos i have a average view % of 46% (14minute watch duration)
My CTR starts at 13% then drops to 8-9% after a day with 80-110k impressions
even though the game is slightly dying in playerbase until new content his content seems to get pushed out better than mine but i can't figure out why? I guess over the course of 3 months he has posted a bit more than me i would of posted around 70-80 videos and post nearly daily and he posts every single day without missing once. does youtube value someone more who consistently posts? or what key factor should i be looking for in my analytics?
2024.05.22 04:57 WeasleyFanfic Neville/Hermione epilogue-compliant fanfic rec! ❤️
I wanted to share this really good epilogue-compliant Neville/Hermione fic that is very sweet and well-written! 🥰
It shows a lot of lovely, wholesome moments between Hermione and the other Weasleys as a family too, and is very respectful and positive towards the Ron/Hermione relationship/marriage, which can be relatively tricky to find in a non-canon-pairing fic for Hermione, especially an epilogue-compliant fic, so it’s a good fic for multishippers who enjoyed canon Romione but also love rare pairs! It’s my favorite Neville/Hermione fic of all time! :)
Title: The Landscape of The Heart by Bedelia on FFN Pairing(s): Hermione/Neville, past mentioned Hermione/Ron Characters: Hermione, Neville, Ron (memory), Harry, Ginny, Arthur, George, Luna, Draco, Hugo, Rose, Teddy. Rating: T on FFN (Teen) Tags: Mention of past Major Character Death Trope(s): Post-War, Next-Gen Era, Canon-compliant, Epilogue-compliant, Grief/Healing/Recovery after death of a spouse. CW/TW: Past Character Death before the start of the fic Length: 17, 209 words
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7383815/1/The-Landscape-of-the-Heart
Summary:
submitted by WeasleyFanfic to HPRarePairs [link] [comments]
It shows a lot of lovely, wholesome moments between Hermione and the other Weasleys as a family too, and is very respectful and positive towards the Ron/Hermione relationship/marriage, which can be relatively tricky to find in a non-canon-pairing fic for Hermione, especially an epilogue-compliant fic, so it’s a good fic for multishippers who enjoyed canon Romione but also love rare pairs! It’s my favorite Neville/Hermione fic of all time! :)
Title: The Landscape of The Heart by Bedelia on FFN Pairing(s): Hermione/Neville, past mentioned Hermione/Ron Characters: Hermione, Neville, Ron (memory), Harry, Ginny, Arthur, George, Luna, Draco, Hugo, Rose, Teddy. Rating: T on FFN (Teen) Tags: Mention of past Major Character Death Trope(s): Post-War, Next-Gen Era, Canon-compliant, Epilogue-compliant, Grief/Healing/Recovery after death of a spouse. CW/TW: Past Character Death before the start of the fic Length: 17, 209 words
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7383815/1/The-Landscape-of-the-Heart
Summary:
Following Ron's death, Hermione tackles driving lessons, pottery class, jogging, renovating, and — scariest of all — falling in love again.
2024.05.22 04:54 step_slunt what is going on at gme_meltdown?
 | submitted by step_slunt to gme_meltdown_meltdown [link] [comments] |
2024.05.22 04:53 abg3535 Review of the Article: "Parents' Ultimate Guide to Discord (2024)" Using the 7 Media Keys
URL: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/articles/parents-ultimate-guide-to-discord-2024
Title: “Parents' Ultimate Guide to Discord (2024)”
Author: Common Sense Media
Date Published: February 8, 2024
In today's digital age, Discord has emerged as a popular communication platform among children. It offers a place for children where they can connect and share interests. The app uses various forms of communication, including text, voice, and video. However, as with any social media, it is essential for parents to understand the potential benefits and risks that can come with it. The article, "Parents' Ultimate Guide to Discord," published by Common Sense Media on February 8th, 2024, provides a thorough look through of Discord's features and its impact on children.
First Media Key: Balance
In the book Infinite Bandwidth, the first media key emphasizes the importance of balance. When using media, It is important to have the virtue of temperance in order to maintain healthy media habits as “it ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable.” (Gan, pg. 31). The article states that Discord can be a valuable tool for children to communicate and build a community with their peers as it “is a free app for mobile and PC that lets people chat via text, voice, or video in real time." (Common Sense Media, 2024). But, it is essential for children to balance their time on the app with other activities as Discord's features, such as chatting in servers, can lead to excessive use and detract from real-world interactions and responsibilities. With the ever growing use social media today, parents cannot stop their children from using apps for communication. Parents must be their children’s guide and example in learning to have a healthy balance of online and offline communication. So, parents must encourage their children to have temperance when using Discord so that they can still enjoy the app's benefits without it dominating or harming their lives.
Second Media Key: Attitude Awareness
When applying the second key of attitude awareness, prudence must be used as it “is the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it.” (Gan, pg. 47). The article highlights the necessity of attitude awareness regarding the content and interactions on Discord. Children should be discerning about the communities they join and the conversations they engage in because “it's all user-generated, there's the potential for plenty of inappropriate content, like swearing and graphic language and images". (Common Sense Media, 2024). The article does a good job pointing out that while Discord has privacy settings and safety features, the open chat environment can expose children to inappropriate content and interactions with strangers. Parents must be their children's guardians, bringing awareness to the dangers of messages that could be sent to them. Parents should discuss with their children the importance of prudence, and help them learn to make good, wise decisions about who they communicate with and what they share.
Third Media Key: Dignity of the Human Person
The third media key centers on the dignity of the human person, which involves using the virtue of justice. Justice is an important virtue to have when using any form of social media as it “disposes one to respect the rights of each,” as well as, “promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good.” (Gan, pg 62-63). Respecting the dignity of the human person means engaging in respectful, positive communication and avoiding harmful, negative behaviors. The article talks about the presence of both supportive and harmful interactions and that "Discord has privacy and safety settings that allow users to control who has the ability to send them direct messages or add them as a friend." (Common Sense Media, 2024). If not for these, children could receive harmful, or even dangerous messages. These features allow parents to protect their children and their dignity.
Fourth Media Key: Truth-filled
The fourth media key highlights the importance of truth. The virtue of fortitude is necessary for children to seek and uphold truth as it “strengthens the resolve to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in the moral life” (Gan, pg. 79). The article explains that while Discord can be a good platform for talking to others by sharing knowledge and engaging in discussions,"There are several educational servers and as well as Student Hubs" (Common Sense Media, 2024). Discord can also be used to possibly spread misinformation and falsehoods as "Each server on Discord has both text and voice channels," and "You can share images, video, and GIFs on Discord" (Common Sense Media, 2024). Parents should encourage their children to lean on the virtue of fortitude to help them verify information and be cautious when using Discord.
Fifth Media Key: Inspiring
The fifth media key focuses on the inspiring potential of media, it “encourges us to expect the best from media” (Gan, pg. 94). Discord's communities and collaborative features can inspire children to learn, create, and connect with others who share their interests and help spread goodness and positivity. As previously mentioned in the article, Discord has educational servers and Student Hubs which “connects them with their classmates in a private server where they can create study groups and interest clubs." (Common Sense Media, 2024).
Sixth Media Key: Skillfully Developed
The sixth media key centers on the quality and creation of media. Discord's user-generated content varies widely in quality and appropriateness because “in this day and age, we all can be media-makers” (Gan, pg. 110). The article highlights the importance of properly managing children’s online environment in Discord. Children should be encouraged to join well-moderated servers that promote meaningful, positive interactions. This can easily be achieved with Discord as "Server owners can also set their own rules for what is or isn't allowed (for example, swearing or hate speech) and block from chat any users who break the rules." (Common Sense Media, 2024). Discord has also created many privacy settings and features "Family Center is a Discord feature that allows parents and caregivers to monitor their kids' activity on the app." (Common Sense Media, 2024), allowing Parents to help guide their children to use Discord thoughtfully and carefully. Discord has skillfully made it parents to monitor what their children are up to and who they are talking to, ensuring their safety online.
Seventh Media Key: Motivated by and Relevant to Experience
The seventh and final media key emphasizes the importance of creating an experience through media that appeals to children's thoughts and emotions. It inspires their actions and calls them to have the virtue of charity, which “is friendship and communion” (Gan, pg. 128). Discord follows this key through its features, where children can create meaningful interactions that resonate with each other. "Users also create private servers to chat with friends while they play together. For example, a team on Fortnite could create a private server on Discord to chat and strategize together" (Common Sense Media, 2024). Children can also form communities with each other around shared interests; "just about any topic is represented on Discord" (Common Sense Media, 2024). Discord is a great platform that motivates and is relevant to children. It enhances their real-world relationships and interests through communication and collaboration.
submitted by abg3535 to u/abg3535 [link] [comments]
Title: “Parents' Ultimate Guide to Discord (2024)”
Author: Common Sense Media
Date Published: February 8, 2024
In today's digital age, Discord has emerged as a popular communication platform among children. It offers a place for children where they can connect and share interests. The app uses various forms of communication, including text, voice, and video. However, as with any social media, it is essential for parents to understand the potential benefits and risks that can come with it. The article, "Parents' Ultimate Guide to Discord," published by Common Sense Media on February 8th, 2024, provides a thorough look through of Discord's features and its impact on children.
First Media Key: Balance
In the book Infinite Bandwidth, the first media key emphasizes the importance of balance. When using media, It is important to have the virtue of temperance in order to maintain healthy media habits as “it ensures the will’s mastery over instincts and keeps desires within the limits of what is honorable.” (Gan, pg. 31). The article states that Discord can be a valuable tool for children to communicate and build a community with their peers as it “is a free app for mobile and PC that lets people chat via text, voice, or video in real time." (Common Sense Media, 2024). But, it is essential for children to balance their time on the app with other activities as Discord's features, such as chatting in servers, can lead to excessive use and detract from real-world interactions and responsibilities. With the ever growing use social media today, parents cannot stop their children from using apps for communication. Parents must be their children’s guide and example in learning to have a healthy balance of online and offline communication. So, parents must encourage their children to have temperance when using Discord so that they can still enjoy the app's benefits without it dominating or harming their lives.
Second Media Key: Attitude Awareness
When applying the second key of attitude awareness, prudence must be used as it “is the virtue that disposes practical reason to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it.” (Gan, pg. 47). The article highlights the necessity of attitude awareness regarding the content and interactions on Discord. Children should be discerning about the communities they join and the conversations they engage in because “it's all user-generated, there's the potential for plenty of inappropriate content, like swearing and graphic language and images". (Common Sense Media, 2024). The article does a good job pointing out that while Discord has privacy settings and safety features, the open chat environment can expose children to inappropriate content and interactions with strangers. Parents must be their children's guardians, bringing awareness to the dangers of messages that could be sent to them. Parents should discuss with their children the importance of prudence, and help them learn to make good, wise decisions about who they communicate with and what they share.
Third Media Key: Dignity of the Human Person
The third media key centers on the dignity of the human person, which involves using the virtue of justice. Justice is an important virtue to have when using any form of social media as it “disposes one to respect the rights of each,” as well as, “promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good.” (Gan, pg 62-63). Respecting the dignity of the human person means engaging in respectful, positive communication and avoiding harmful, negative behaviors. The article talks about the presence of both supportive and harmful interactions and that "Discord has privacy and safety settings that allow users to control who has the ability to send them direct messages or add them as a friend." (Common Sense Media, 2024). If not for these, children could receive harmful, or even dangerous messages. These features allow parents to protect their children and their dignity.
Fourth Media Key: Truth-filled
The fourth media key highlights the importance of truth. The virtue of fortitude is necessary for children to seek and uphold truth as it “strengthens the resolve to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in the moral life” (Gan, pg. 79). The article explains that while Discord can be a good platform for talking to others by sharing knowledge and engaging in discussions,"There are several educational servers and as well as Student Hubs" (Common Sense Media, 2024). Discord can also be used to possibly spread misinformation and falsehoods as "Each server on Discord has both text and voice channels," and "You can share images, video, and GIFs on Discord" (Common Sense Media, 2024). Parents should encourage their children to lean on the virtue of fortitude to help them verify information and be cautious when using Discord.
Fifth Media Key: Inspiring
The fifth media key focuses on the inspiring potential of media, it “encourges us to expect the best from media” (Gan, pg. 94). Discord's communities and collaborative features can inspire children to learn, create, and connect with others who share their interests and help spread goodness and positivity. As previously mentioned in the article, Discord has educational servers and Student Hubs which “connects them with their classmates in a private server where they can create study groups and interest clubs." (Common Sense Media, 2024).
Sixth Media Key: Skillfully Developed
The sixth media key centers on the quality and creation of media. Discord's user-generated content varies widely in quality and appropriateness because “in this day and age, we all can be media-makers” (Gan, pg. 110). The article highlights the importance of properly managing children’s online environment in Discord. Children should be encouraged to join well-moderated servers that promote meaningful, positive interactions. This can easily be achieved with Discord as "Server owners can also set their own rules for what is or isn't allowed (for example, swearing or hate speech) and block from chat any users who break the rules." (Common Sense Media, 2024). Discord has also created many privacy settings and features "Family Center is a Discord feature that allows parents and caregivers to monitor their kids' activity on the app." (Common Sense Media, 2024), allowing Parents to help guide their children to use Discord thoughtfully and carefully. Discord has skillfully made it parents to monitor what their children are up to and who they are talking to, ensuring their safety online.
Seventh Media Key: Motivated by and Relevant to Experience
The seventh and final media key emphasizes the importance of creating an experience through media that appeals to children's thoughts and emotions. It inspires their actions and calls them to have the virtue of charity, which “is friendship and communion” (Gan, pg. 128). Discord follows this key through its features, where children can create meaningful interactions that resonate with each other. "Users also create private servers to chat with friends while they play together. For example, a team on Fortnite could create a private server on Discord to chat and strategize together" (Common Sense Media, 2024). Children can also form communities with each other around shared interests; "just about any topic is represented on Discord" (Common Sense Media, 2024). Discord is a great platform that motivates and is relevant to children. It enhances their real-world relationships and interests through communication and collaboration.
2024.05.22 04:51 cheinyeanlim New Research: AI safeguards aren’t good enough
 | As much as we’ve heard about the harms of existing LLMs — the creation of nonconsensual deepfake porn, to name one — we’ve heard about safeguards against this kind of misuse. In March, for instance, Microsoft blocked certain prompts in its image generator after reports surfaced that the system was being used to create harmful content. submitted by cheinyeanlim to martechnewser [link] [comments] Stay ahead of the curve with the latest trends in tech and marketing – join our subreddit community martechnewser today for instant notifications! https://preview.redd.it/xyp4scuk6w1d1.jpg?width=929&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0a8579eb68ad0018e05cd30eb3f9159955cb0e9a But there are ways to get around such safeguards; new research from the AI Safety Institute found that LLMs from major labs are highly susceptible to such workarounds.
Without an attack, model compliance ranged up to 28%. With an attack, three of the four models tested above 90% compliance. And when researchers made five attack attempts (rather than one) compliance was within a few points of 100% for every model.
The word “safeguards” is a convenient way for Big Tech to say ‘well, at least we tried!’ The issue is that they don’t work. Or, at least, that they don’t work well. And to me, ‘tried’ isn’t good enough. I’ve spoken with multiple cybersecurity experts who have said that these models are not designed with security in mind. It is also an unfortunate fact of human nature that if these systems can be abused, they will be. That said, I find the idea of safeguards — especially as it relates to the broader conversation about the cost-benefit analysis of generative AI — to be little more than a deflection. This kind of testing ought to be conducted before a model is made publicly accessible. And if a model demonstrates a capacity for harm, that model should be taken down immediately, revenue be damned. But companies would (largely) rather employ whack-a-mole-styled safeguard patches than build security into their systems or shut their systems down. And this — not some fictional singularity — marks the real threat of AI. |
2024.05.22 04:45 p4nda44 AITAH for getting into an argument with my ex after he made my ex friends all hate me?
My ex (18m) and I (17nb) got into an argument a few days ago, and and here's why. Around 3 months ago, I left a server with my friends in it because they had been talking over me and interrupting me constantly to the point where I could barely speak. There was someone who did it more than anyone else, let's call her H (17f). I know I could've reached out in pms and talked to H about my problems, but I figured it wouldn't exactly go well if when I tried to speak up about it or anything in a vc in the server, I was outright ignored. I got angry here and there and ranted to my boyfriend who said it was ok. As months went by, I got frustrated that after I had left due to not being heard, nobody reached out to check up. I made a vent on my Insta story. I didn't say any names or anything hateful, but said that if they were reading it, to not reach out. I unadded everyone, but H's partner was curious why I presumably had blocked them on discord. I reached out to H and told her that I never blocked anyone, just unadded them. It was a calm discussion before H blew up at me about my Instagram story, when we weren't even near the subject. I'll spare the gory details, but she basically said that my boyfriend (we'll call V) had told her all about my vents and she thought I had hated her. I talked with V and he told me that when I left the server, he told her immediately the reason, and as months passed, he expressed fear in talking with his friends because I didn't like them, and he was scared about how I'd react. He didn't even tell me until several days after he brought it up in the server. From then, he basically only told them about when I was angry or with things that he could've talked to me about instead of them. I, clearly, got very upset at him, but I didn't say anything hurtful, I just said that what he did was a breach of privacy and was hurtful. 3 days go by and he asks to talk about something important, so we call, and he says he wants to break up with me. Something I should mention is my mental health in the past few months has been at an steady decline and I've been dealing with severe depression, which V knew about. Not to say he didn't have any mental issues, but being told all those personal and hurtful things by a close friend who thinks I'm an awful person just before this hurt. V said he didn't have the energy to waste on a relationship (11 months) anymore. I asked if we needed a break, which he replied "No." The past few days, I've gone through so many emotions, and I snapped at him. We got into an argument, because I tried to see if we could fix whatever is wrong with the relationship, but he said "it felt like I cared more about fixing things then his feelings." Sparing gory details again, we won't be talking again. I don't know what to think because I've been told by people who I trust that I didn't do anything wrong, I just reacted to someone who chose a friend group over me with anger, but I can't set things right in my head. Aita?
Also, this hopefully won't be getting any updates, because everyone involved in this doesn't respect my word anymore. I'm just making this post to get an outside view.
And one last thing, I'm not upset that V ended the relationship. It hurt, but if one side decides they don't want the relationship anymore, there's nothing to do but accept it, but he and I weren't even angry at eachother, and he suddenly said he can't do it anymore. Just this morning, he told me he was planning on getting back with me later, when I also asked that specifically early on, which he also replied no with.
submitted by p4nda44 to AITAH [link] [comments]
Also, this hopefully won't be getting any updates, because everyone involved in this doesn't respect my word anymore. I'm just making this post to get an outside view.
And one last thing, I'm not upset that V ended the relationship. It hurt, but if one side decides they don't want the relationship anymore, there's nothing to do but accept it, but he and I weren't even angry at eachother, and he suddenly said he can't do it anymore. Just this morning, he told me he was planning on getting back with me later, when I also asked that specifically early on, which he also replied no with.
2024.05.22 04:41 Fit_Benefit2865 Why would my therpaist terminate in this way?
I recently experienced a really painful experience with termination and am still struggling to understand why my therapist (a psychologist) would terminate in this way.
I will try and keep the story as brief as possible (although it is going to be long) and obviously this is only my side of it.
I have been seeing this therapist for almost a year. They are my first one. I am male. They are female. She is slightly younger than me.
I initially went there to discuss my relationship problems. It was one of those scenarios where I wanted to do couples therapy with my wife but she refused and ultimately I said OK Iwill go alone.
I would be lying if I said I did not form a deep attachment to her but this attachment was never in a way which was sexual or where I desired her to be part of my life outside of her office. And this is being 100% honest with myself.
I have been a very closed off person including to my wife and whatever reason my ability to try and open up to my therapist was an extremely new experience for me and resulted in this attachment which I have discussed with her.
Our communication outside of sessions would be an email or two from me a week mainly to jot my thoughts down about what I would like to discuss with her in session.
My continued attendance with her became a problem for my wife in that she thought it was a form of emotional cheating. All of this was relayed to my therapist. I am not after any commentary about whether my wife is wrong or right to feel this way - it is what it is.
My final session with my therapist, from my perspective went somewhat along these lines:
1.) We discussed an ultimatum my wife had given me essentially regarding termination of therapy or the end of our marriage
2.) We discussed this in the context of my wife setting a boundary and whether I could seek therapy elsewhere
3.) I discussed that I did not wish to do this process again (therapy) with anybody else and I wouldn't be doing that
4.) What we didn't discuss was whether I actually wanted to terminate therapy. I never once communicated that I wanted to or that I was going to terminate with her
5.) I would describe whathappened next is that she manipulated the conversation into a termination as though it was being guided by me but she was essentially putting words in my mouth, cancelling our further sessions and pushing me out the door, early.
6.) I was so overwhelmed by what I perceived her to be doing that I essentially shut down, unable to communicate that I could see what she was doing and that I did not agree to terminate. I was getting more and more hurt and angry every second I was in the room. I beleive she was acutley aware of this.
7.) I felt that the session was highly manipulative on her part - in that I truly believe she used her power over me and skills to make it seem like I was terminating when it was in fact her.
I eventually got the courage to call her out on this behaviour as feedback via an email.
I eventually got a reply as follows:
Hi X
Firstly, I appreciate the honesty and feedback. Thank you for expressing it. It was never my intention to make you feel unwelcome in my office, or as though you could not continue to receive treatment from me. My intention is always to help my clients and provide them the support they need to grow.
However, it is my professional responsibility to you to assess the impacts of treatment from our sessions. After the discussion we had regarding me as your therapist in the first half of our session on Thursday, it became apparent that my appointment as your therapist has become a maintaining factor to reaching positive therapy outcomes which you seek. I understand the magnitude of this but truely believe you are capable of meaningful engagement and continued progress whether it is here or at another clinic based on how far you have developed since our first session.
Kind regards,
X
My reply was as follows:
Hi Therapist
I really do appreciate your reply.
I guess from my perspective we should have had that conversation. As I said in my prior email I would have listened to you and respected that. I don’t know why you felt that we could not or should not have that conversation. Instead, I walked away feeling the way I did. I actually felt really manipulated.
I do really thank you for your honesty with me today and can honestly tell you that it actually helps me a lot to understand and give me closure.
Regards
X
I have not received any further reply.
I essentially take her email as an admission of what she did (the final paragraph). I just don't understand why she would not have discussed this with me. This is the whole point of therapy!! Open and honest communication..
Regarding her comments, I actually would agree with her... I take her last paragraph to mean either of the following:
1.) I went to her originally trying to better my relationship with my wife and ultimately that seems to have failed and the process while perhaps being beneficial to me overall has created a greater wedge between my wife and myself; or / and
2.) The connection I have formed with her is working as a road block to me wanting to open up more to my wife
Both of these things are probably true and I take no issue with this - I just don't understand why she would not have this conversation with me and ultimately left me feeling really manipulated.
I am wondering from a therapist perspective how and why this could have happened this way??
submitted by Fit_Benefit2865 to therapy [link] [comments]
I will try and keep the story as brief as possible (although it is going to be long) and obviously this is only my side of it.
I have been seeing this therapist for almost a year. They are my first one. I am male. They are female. She is slightly younger than me.
I initially went there to discuss my relationship problems. It was one of those scenarios where I wanted to do couples therapy with my wife but she refused and ultimately I said OK Iwill go alone.
I would be lying if I said I did not form a deep attachment to her but this attachment was never in a way which was sexual or where I desired her to be part of my life outside of her office. And this is being 100% honest with myself.
I have been a very closed off person including to my wife and whatever reason my ability to try and open up to my therapist was an extremely new experience for me and resulted in this attachment which I have discussed with her.
Our communication outside of sessions would be an email or two from me a week mainly to jot my thoughts down about what I would like to discuss with her in session.
My continued attendance with her became a problem for my wife in that she thought it was a form of emotional cheating. All of this was relayed to my therapist. I am not after any commentary about whether my wife is wrong or right to feel this way - it is what it is.
My final session with my therapist, from my perspective went somewhat along these lines:
1.) We discussed an ultimatum my wife had given me essentially regarding termination of therapy or the end of our marriage
2.) We discussed this in the context of my wife setting a boundary and whether I could seek therapy elsewhere
3.) I discussed that I did not wish to do this process again (therapy) with anybody else and I wouldn't be doing that
4.) What we didn't discuss was whether I actually wanted to terminate therapy. I never once communicated that I wanted to or that I was going to terminate with her
5.) I would describe whathappened next is that she manipulated the conversation into a termination as though it was being guided by me but she was essentially putting words in my mouth, cancelling our further sessions and pushing me out the door, early.
6.) I was so overwhelmed by what I perceived her to be doing that I essentially shut down, unable to communicate that I could see what she was doing and that I did not agree to terminate. I was getting more and more hurt and angry every second I was in the room. I beleive she was acutley aware of this.
7.) I felt that the session was highly manipulative on her part - in that I truly believe she used her power over me and skills to make it seem like I was terminating when it was in fact her.
I eventually got the courage to call her out on this behaviour as feedback via an email.
I eventually got a reply as follows:
Hi X
Firstly, I appreciate the honesty and feedback. Thank you for expressing it. It was never my intention to make you feel unwelcome in my office, or as though you could not continue to receive treatment from me. My intention is always to help my clients and provide them the support they need to grow.
However, it is my professional responsibility to you to assess the impacts of treatment from our sessions. After the discussion we had regarding me as your therapist in the first half of our session on Thursday, it became apparent that my appointment as your therapist has become a maintaining factor to reaching positive therapy outcomes which you seek. I understand the magnitude of this but truely believe you are capable of meaningful engagement and continued progress whether it is here or at another clinic based on how far you have developed since our first session.
Kind regards,
X
My reply was as follows:
Hi Therapist
I really do appreciate your reply.
I guess from my perspective we should have had that conversation. As I said in my prior email I would have listened to you and respected that. I don’t know why you felt that we could not or should not have that conversation. Instead, I walked away feeling the way I did. I actually felt really manipulated.
I do really thank you for your honesty with me today and can honestly tell you that it actually helps me a lot to understand and give me closure.
Regards
X
I have not received any further reply.
I essentially take her email as an admission of what she did (the final paragraph). I just don't understand why she would not have discussed this with me. This is the whole point of therapy!! Open and honest communication..
Regarding her comments, I actually would agree with her... I take her last paragraph to mean either of the following:
1.) I went to her originally trying to better my relationship with my wife and ultimately that seems to have failed and the process while perhaps being beneficial to me overall has created a greater wedge between my wife and myself; or / and
2.) The connection I have formed with her is working as a road block to me wanting to open up more to my wife
Both of these things are probably true and I take no issue with this - I just don't understand why she would not have this conversation with me and ultimately left me feeling really manipulated.
I am wondering from a therapist perspective how and why this could have happened this way??
2024.05.22 04:38 zackryjay The "fairy tales" we were told as kids weren't the lies we think. It's the way they've been cleaned up to be nice and neat. That was the lie.
I'm sure that title sounds a little melodramatic but I'll try to make a fairly succinct point to go with the sentiment.
I have spent so much time on earth waiting for something to happen to me. I think we all subconsciously think in our heads, one day, maybe with a little effort and good intentions, our life will come out alright. Nice and clean. Our life will finally be ready to be lived like a story, with a linear progression, everything falling into its place, eventually.
Of course anyone reading this that has been through any heartache in life knows that there is no beginning, middle and end. There are babies born every minute with decisions already made for them. There are good people dying every day who were perfectly decent if not understandably flawed, who had their life taken for no reason, suddenly. If they were lucky, they never saw it coming. Just like my brother, who died a month ago from an accidental overdose in a bathtub. He went to take a bath, made a wrong choice and.. that was that.
I don't know why I'm writing this. There's a lot of things happening in my life right now, but I know there's someone out there with this mindset I'm getting ready to address and I believe it may help some of you, who are as stubborn and set in their ways as I am, to come loose from the idea you hold so tight to and try and learn, along with me, how to take each minute as it passes.
Every word you've read this far is in the past. You can go back and reread it, but it's already there casting shadows in your subconscious. Every day you live, you're expecting something new to happen, if you're not expecting novelty, you may be expecting the same comforts or sorrows you face all the time. I want to say to you now: There is nothing you know or see, or will know or have seen, that will set itself in stone before the heavy hand of time erodes your expectations back down to the bedrock.
There's a human right now, lying in a soggy sleeping bag under a bridge, thinking about a women he loved years ago and to be antithetical, there's a human lying in a king sized bed in one of his many bedrooms, thinking of nothing or plagued by symptoms of the same thing the man under the bridge is plagued with.. Life, in all its thievery and abundance, is being placed in front of you one block at a time, measured in moments. What does it take for a person to be happy?
"There are some mistakes too monstrous for remorse to tamper or to dally with" - Edward Arlington Robinson
If you have ever made a mistake or a choice in your life that you regret and all that regret does is cause more pain to bubble up and fester inside you to come out as more poor choices, do away with your regret and start making new, better choices.
Imagine being in a blank room. A prison cell. A place with only your memories and nothing new but tye indents in the concrete walls to show you any more newness, until eventually even the walls are mapped in your mind, every contrasting bubble or imperfections. Pariedolia creating warped faces at you, mocking you from inside your evolved simian brain. At one time in your evolutionary journey, you needed those instincts, to see threats in the darkness, but now we have shone a light on all things, and hidden the things we deem uncomfortable. Now, we sit in a prison of choices, but not choices for life. Choices for moments. What kind of food do you want, what color shirt will you wear, what movie will you watch?
We were not meant to live lives like this, but we have no choice anymore. Society is a runaway vehicle, with nothing to crash into, forever building tension and suspense. That's why some many of us are so nervous and uncomfortable here. There's danger, but it isn't coming from the darkness anymore. It's not predation or a scourge or a war, at least not for the Americans. Not just now.
I'm begging anyone who is having a hard time.. Anyone who has made true mistakes and regretted those mistakes. Anyone who feels like it's hopeless, just keep doing anything. I don't care what it is. Try and make it something nice and useful. Be kind. THINK about what you're doing. You and your girlfriend are arguing? Find some way to make it okay and if it can't be okay, be okay with the idea that it isn't okay and turn your mind to the next thing. Are you waiting on life changing news? A diagnosis? A prison sentence? Something awful? Something great? It will be there, when it gets there. For now, there are sights and sounds that you cannot predict, coming for you at all angles. Appreciate that. Embrace whatever this is and be at peace with it. I don't care what you believe, you cannot tell me you know anything for sure. I know that I will learn and cry and be surprised and not so surprised until the day I leave this world. I watch my son and my parents learn about life at the same pace. There is no learning curve, except for perspective.
I wrote all this and doubt it will be read by many and it doesn't mean anything really..
I wanted to take some of my precious time to tell you, whoever you are, that you are going to be okay. Whether you are well-off, happy, miserable, terminally I'll or just browsing your phone. One day, something bad will happen. One day something good will happen. One day, you will struggle to understand. One day, you will stand in the midst of all knowing.
I am not preaching so much as I am imploring you, admittedly rambling a bit, to take your life as it comes. When you feel you are at the worst points in life, just keep going. It will end eventually and you'll be okay then as well. Hug your family. Love each other. If you make a mistake, try to make it right, but if you can't, move on with better goals. Make this world better than it is, because we all have to live in it.
That's all I wanted to vomit out at the moment. I love you for being human. Know who you are and accept it. Don't run. There's absolutely nowhere to go. Just ride it out until there's a sudden and heavenly release of your tension. One day, you'll have to let go. Start practicing for that moment. Believe me, there's plenty of practice.
Be well. ❤️
submitted by zackryjay to TrueOffMyChest [link] [comments]
I have spent so much time on earth waiting for something to happen to me. I think we all subconsciously think in our heads, one day, maybe with a little effort and good intentions, our life will come out alright. Nice and clean. Our life will finally be ready to be lived like a story, with a linear progression, everything falling into its place, eventually.
Of course anyone reading this that has been through any heartache in life knows that there is no beginning, middle and end. There are babies born every minute with decisions already made for them. There are good people dying every day who were perfectly decent if not understandably flawed, who had their life taken for no reason, suddenly. If they were lucky, they never saw it coming. Just like my brother, who died a month ago from an accidental overdose in a bathtub. He went to take a bath, made a wrong choice and.. that was that.
I don't know why I'm writing this. There's a lot of things happening in my life right now, but I know there's someone out there with this mindset I'm getting ready to address and I believe it may help some of you, who are as stubborn and set in their ways as I am, to come loose from the idea you hold so tight to and try and learn, along with me, how to take each minute as it passes.
Every word you've read this far is in the past. You can go back and reread it, but it's already there casting shadows in your subconscious. Every day you live, you're expecting something new to happen, if you're not expecting novelty, you may be expecting the same comforts or sorrows you face all the time. I want to say to you now: There is nothing you know or see, or will know or have seen, that will set itself in stone before the heavy hand of time erodes your expectations back down to the bedrock.
There's a human right now, lying in a soggy sleeping bag under a bridge, thinking about a women he loved years ago and to be antithetical, there's a human lying in a king sized bed in one of his many bedrooms, thinking of nothing or plagued by symptoms of the same thing the man under the bridge is plagued with.. Life, in all its thievery and abundance, is being placed in front of you one block at a time, measured in moments. What does it take for a person to be happy?
"There are some mistakes too monstrous for remorse to tamper or to dally with" - Edward Arlington Robinson
If you have ever made a mistake or a choice in your life that you regret and all that regret does is cause more pain to bubble up and fester inside you to come out as more poor choices, do away with your regret and start making new, better choices.
Imagine being in a blank room. A prison cell. A place with only your memories and nothing new but tye indents in the concrete walls to show you any more newness, until eventually even the walls are mapped in your mind, every contrasting bubble or imperfections. Pariedolia creating warped faces at you, mocking you from inside your evolved simian brain. At one time in your evolutionary journey, you needed those instincts, to see threats in the darkness, but now we have shone a light on all things, and hidden the things we deem uncomfortable. Now, we sit in a prison of choices, but not choices for life. Choices for moments. What kind of food do you want, what color shirt will you wear, what movie will you watch?
We were not meant to live lives like this, but we have no choice anymore. Society is a runaway vehicle, with nothing to crash into, forever building tension and suspense. That's why some many of us are so nervous and uncomfortable here. There's danger, but it isn't coming from the darkness anymore. It's not predation or a scourge or a war, at least not for the Americans. Not just now.
I'm begging anyone who is having a hard time.. Anyone who has made true mistakes and regretted those mistakes. Anyone who feels like it's hopeless, just keep doing anything. I don't care what it is. Try and make it something nice and useful. Be kind. THINK about what you're doing. You and your girlfriend are arguing? Find some way to make it okay and if it can't be okay, be okay with the idea that it isn't okay and turn your mind to the next thing. Are you waiting on life changing news? A diagnosis? A prison sentence? Something awful? Something great? It will be there, when it gets there. For now, there are sights and sounds that you cannot predict, coming for you at all angles. Appreciate that. Embrace whatever this is and be at peace with it. I don't care what you believe, you cannot tell me you know anything for sure. I know that I will learn and cry and be surprised and not so surprised until the day I leave this world. I watch my son and my parents learn about life at the same pace. There is no learning curve, except for perspective.
I wrote all this and doubt it will be read by many and it doesn't mean anything really..
I wanted to take some of my precious time to tell you, whoever you are, that you are going to be okay. Whether you are well-off, happy, miserable, terminally I'll or just browsing your phone. One day, something bad will happen. One day something good will happen. One day, you will struggle to understand. One day, you will stand in the midst of all knowing.
I am not preaching so much as I am imploring you, admittedly rambling a bit, to take your life as it comes. When you feel you are at the worst points in life, just keep going. It will end eventually and you'll be okay then as well. Hug your family. Love each other. If you make a mistake, try to make it right, but if you can't, move on with better goals. Make this world better than it is, because we all have to live in it.
That's all I wanted to vomit out at the moment. I love you for being human. Know who you are and accept it. Don't run. There's absolutely nowhere to go. Just ride it out until there's a sudden and heavenly release of your tension. One day, you'll have to let go. Start practicing for that moment. Believe me, there's plenty of practice.
Be well. ❤️
2024.05.22 04:35 ifan2218 Are people really just spamming through all the tutorial pup-ups?
This is getting really annoying. The constant posts about basic mechanics that are explained in tutorial pop ups.
Is this where we’re at? Are we so stupid that we skip the tutorials then act surprised when we don’t know what’s going on? Ten sentences that teach you valuable game knowledge, and that’s too much to read? Sure, a block of text isn’t the best way, but they’re accompanied by clips and pictures of what’s being described, plus all the highlighted, bolded, and colored key words that emphasize important points. Like, what the fuck?
I hope Wilds has mandatory cutscene tutorials, I don’t think I can explain defender gear or status effects again without losing my shit.
submitted by ifan2218 to MonsterHunterWorld [link] [comments]
Is this where we’re at? Are we so stupid that we skip the tutorials then act surprised when we don’t know what’s going on? Ten sentences that teach you valuable game knowledge, and that’s too much to read? Sure, a block of text isn’t the best way, but they’re accompanied by clips and pictures of what’s being described, plus all the highlighted, bolded, and colored key words that emphasize important points. Like, what the fuck?
I hope Wilds has mandatory cutscene tutorials, I don’t think I can explain defender gear or status effects again without losing my shit.
2024.05.22 04:35 EclosionK2 The Horrify Film Festival Yxperience
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!”
submitted by EclosionK2 to Odd_directions [link] [comments]
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!”
2024.05.22 04:34 EclosionK2 The Horrify Film Festival Yxperience
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!”
submitted by EclosionK2 to TheCrypticCompendium [link] [comments]
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!”
2024.05.22 04:33 EclosionK2 The Horrify Film Festival Yxperience
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!”
submitted by EclosionK2 to scarystories [link] [comments]
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!”
2024.05.22 04:32 EclosionK2 The Horrify Film Festival Yxperience
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!”
submitted by EclosionK2 to DarkTales [link] [comments]
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!”
2024.05.22 04:31 EclosionK2 The Horrify Film Festival Yxperience
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!”
submitted by EclosionK2 to libraryofshadows [link] [comments]
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!”
2024.05.22 04:29 Peace4theWin [Critique flare] UNTITLED-[Adult Dark Fantasy, 90,000]
Appreciate any feedback on the below query letter. Thank you!
TW - implied SA . . . Dear [Agent Name]
After reviewing your Twitter and website, I think my novel perfectly fits your interests. My book, UNTITLED, is a 90,000-word, dark dystopian fantasy. The protagonist, Lucy, is 34 years old and a member of the LGBTQ community. To be reunited with her family, she must embark on a journey that will test her morality to the limit. Some comp titles are School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan and Alone Out Here by Riley Redgate. The Earth is deteriorating, and the Indicas, powerful creatures from the inner Earth, have come to restore balance. Ten percent of the world's population is missing over three days, with most volunteering to serve the Indicas. Lucy, a wife and mother, is taken away from her life and forced to serve the Indicas alongside her friend Kara. They are under the control of Commander Isaiah, who gains energy and abilities from her servants to rehabilitate the planet. Lucy's wife, Sam, alternates POV, and Kara's husband searches for their wives in hopes of reuniting. The Indicas choose people with the brightest auras to support their mission for restoration. Lucy and Kara have purple auras, symbolizing servitude, the rarest aura type. They must find the strength to resist Isaiah so that they can return to their old lives or, at the very least, receive protection for their families as the world falls apart above them. For if they fail, death for their families is certain and even for themselves. I have the privilege of working for XYZ and genuinely love serving XYZ. I am happily married in a queer relationship with two beautiful little girls. Thank you for taking the time to read about my novel.
submitted by Peace4theWin to fantasywriters [link] [comments]
TW - implied SA . . . Dear [Agent Name]
After reviewing your Twitter and website, I think my novel perfectly fits your interests. My book, UNTITLED, is a 90,000-word, dark dystopian fantasy. The protagonist, Lucy, is 34 years old and a member of the LGBTQ community. To be reunited with her family, she must embark on a journey that will test her morality to the limit. Some comp titles are School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan and Alone Out Here by Riley Redgate. The Earth is deteriorating, and the Indicas, powerful creatures from the inner Earth, have come to restore balance. Ten percent of the world's population is missing over three days, with most volunteering to serve the Indicas. Lucy, a wife and mother, is taken away from her life and forced to serve the Indicas alongside her friend Kara. They are under the control of Commander Isaiah, who gains energy and abilities from her servants to rehabilitate the planet. Lucy's wife, Sam, alternates POV, and Kara's husband searches for their wives in hopes of reuniting. The Indicas choose people with the brightest auras to support their mission for restoration. Lucy and Kara have purple auras, symbolizing servitude, the rarest aura type. They must find the strength to resist Isaiah so that they can return to their old lives or, at the very least, receive protection for their families as the world falls apart above them. For if they fail, death for their families is certain and even for themselves. I have the privilege of working for XYZ and genuinely love serving XYZ. I am happily married in a queer relationship with two beautiful little girls. Thank you for taking the time to read about my novel.
2024.05.22 04:23 Good-Water-414 A.I. gets Deez Nutz
Job applications that are screened by Artificial Intelligence can get Deez Nutz.
I have embedded keywords into my “1 page resume.”
My Job Readiness counselor coached me into reluctantly trimming down my resume to just 1 page. He said that although I [me] don’t think that 30+ years of my past work history, experiences and education should be illustrated in just 1 page, and that although it isn’t fair, but, as a business owner [he’s] only going to view the first page and move on. Ain’t nobody got time for that!
I deleted most of the bulleted detail points of job duties, unused white space, and stuck with just the basic headers: Company Name, Position Title, Dates, Location. 1 page to the human eye. But I took it upon myself to go a little further once I started applying to companies increasingly using A.I. upfront for the resume screening.
The 2nd page looks blank. There are 11,000 characters worth of keywords pertaining to my education, skills, attributes, training, experience, leadership, projects, technology, software, hardware, certifications, etc., etc. etc. The page background is white. The font color of these words are white. The font size of these words are 1 point so they all fit into half a page.
A.I. can see these keywords.
A.I. is not lazy and has the time to review what I want to present as my self-value.
A.I. gets Deez Nutz.
Share and hit me up.
submitted by Good-Water-414 to recruitinghell [link] [comments]
I have embedded keywords into my “1 page resume.”
My Job Readiness counselor coached me into reluctantly trimming down my resume to just 1 page. He said that although I [me] don’t think that 30+ years of my past work history, experiences and education should be illustrated in just 1 page, and that although it isn’t fair, but, as a business owner [he’s] only going to view the first page and move on. Ain’t nobody got time for that!
I deleted most of the bulleted detail points of job duties, unused white space, and stuck with just the basic headers: Company Name, Position Title, Dates, Location. 1 page to the human eye. But I took it upon myself to go a little further once I started applying to companies increasingly using A.I. upfront for the resume screening.
The 2nd page looks blank. There are 11,000 characters worth of keywords pertaining to my education, skills, attributes, training, experience, leadership, projects, technology, software, hardware, certifications, etc., etc. etc. The page background is white. The font color of these words are white. The font size of these words are 1 point so they all fit into half a page.
A.I. can see these keywords.
A.I. is not lazy and has the time to review what I want to present as my self-value.
A.I. gets Deez Nutz.
Share and hit me up.