Pro xies for run escape

At the world’s top college of magic and technology, every day brings a new discovery -and a new disaster. The advanced experiments of the college students tend to be both ambitious and apocalyptic, with the end of the world only prevented by a mysterious time loop, and a small handful of students who retain their memories.
Surviving the loops was hard enough, but now, in his senior year, Vell Harlan must take charge of them, and deal with the fact that the whole world now knows his secrets. Everyone knows about Vell’s death and resurrection, along with the divine game he is a part of. Now Vell must contend with overly curious scientists and evil billionaires hungry for divine power while the daily doomsday cycle bombards him with terrorists, talking elephants, and the Grim Reaper himself -but if he can endure it all, the Last Goddess’s game promises the ultimate prize: power over life itself.
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“Should I be worried?”
Why would you be worried?” Kim said. “Dean Lichman loves us.”
Dean Lichman had asked the two of them to stop by his office, though his brief message had not said what for. That left Vell to concoct nightmare scenarios in his head.
“He doesn’t love all of us.”
“Alex doesn’t count as ‘us’,” Kim said. She was a looper in purely a technical sense, mostly due to her own refusal to be a team player. “Besides, she’s been behaving lately. She’s only been an asshole, not an active liability.”
“That we know of.”
“If we don’t know about it, Dean probably doesn’t either,” Kim said. “It’s fine, Vell, he probably just wants to ask us for advice or deal with some problem he has.”
“That’s not much better,” Vell said. “How weird would things have to be that the Dean is asking us for help personally?”
“Only one way to find out,” Kim said. She gestured to the door to the Dean’s office.
Kim entered first, and found it in much the same state as it always was. The desk piled high with paperwork, a small bowl of assorted candies shoved into the corner of the desk, and Dean Lichman behind it, frantically tapping away on a laptop. Vell had not been in this office for several years, and it was vastly different than the last time he’d been here.
“Ah, there you are, come in, have a seat,” Dean Lichman said. “Unless you’d rather we have our conversation elsewhere, Vell.”
“Why would I want that?”
“Well, it’s my understanding you haven’t been in this office since my, uh, predecessor,” Dean Lichman said.
“Oh, right, the kidnapping,” Vell said. “No, I’m good, I don’t really get traumatized by things anymore.”
Vell had been killed too many different ways in too many different places to have a functional trauma response. A few days ago he’d gotten his legs chewed off by a vending machine, and still stopped by it to pick up a soda on his way to the office.
“That’s a very concerning response, Mr. Harlan.”
“Yeah. Anyway, what did you need?”
Dean Lichman gestured for the duo to take a seat, and both did so. He folded desiccated hands in front of himself before beginning to speak.
“I would like to ask you two to take a look at an experiment that will be occurring later this week,” Dean Lichman said. “I don’t have any reason to believe it poses a threat, but I would like to be assured it is a safe and ethical environment, and, well, you two have a knack for identifying trouble spots.”
“You could say that,” Kim said. It was more accurate to say that trouble had a way of identifying them -and then leaping at them and ripping their heads off.
“I’d appreciate it if the two of you could simply examine the laboratory and give it your approval, or disapproval, as the case may be,” Dean Lichman said. “Though if you’re too busy, I fully understand.”
“If you don’t think this is dangerous, why are you asking for our help anyway?”
“Simply for my own peace of mind, frankly,” Dean Lichman said. “The school’s policies on animal experimentation are...satisfactory, I suppose, but I do want to take extra precautions when the subject is a creature as smart as an elephant.”
“An elephant?”
“Yes, a resident of a reserve in Thailand,” Dean Lichman said. “An older elephant by the name of Mae Noi. She has cancer, apparently, and she is submitting to experimental treatment in the hopes it will be useful for younger elephants.”
Kim’s digital face briefly flashed with a facial expression of concerned skepticism.
“‘She’ is submitting to treatment? As in the elephant?”
“Yes. Apparently the elephant can talk,” Dean Lichman said. “No, I don’t know how it works, they said it was ‘more impressive in person’.”
“Well now I kind of want to go just to see the talking elephant,” Vell said.
“Same.”
“Well, do try to take a few glances at the experiment’s safety while you’re there,” Dean Lichman said.
“Sounds like a plan,” Vell said. “Thanks for the heads up.”
“I’ll be there too,” Kim said.
“Excellent. Thank you both, and I’ll try not to take up too much of your time,” the Dean said. He then bid them both a polite goodbye and returned to his mountains of paperwork. Vell took a step out of the office and then took a sip from the soda he’d recently retrieved from the evil vending machine.
“So, what do you think?”
“I think I really do want to see the talking elephant,” Kim said.
“Obviously, yeah, we all want to see the talking elephant,” Vell said. “I mean the whole situation. You think the elephant thing is going to be the daily apocalypse for that day?”
“Well, on the one hand, an elephant seems like the kind of thing that would kill us,” Kim said. “But on the other, I feel like the fact we have advance warning means it’s not going to happen.”
“True. The universe probably wouldn’t make it that easy for us.”
“Yeah, but the elephant thing still feels pretty threatening,” Kim said. “Only way to find out is to wait a few days, I guess.”
A FEW DAYS LATER
“Hello you two,” Dean Lichman said. “And Hawke.”
“Hey,” Hawke said.
“He also wanted to see the talking elephant,” Kim explained.
“Well, that’s not a problem, it was an open invitation,” Dean Lichman said.
“Thanks. Still, sorry for not saying I was going to show up in advance,” Hawke said. “It took me a long time to make up my mind whether I was more interested in or afraid of a talking elephant.”
“They are rather large, aren’t they? I suppose that could be intimidating.”
“I’m okay with elephants on their own, it’s the talking part that doesn’t sit right with me,” Hawke said. “What if the elephant doesn’t like me? What if I’m the first person to ever get insulted by an elephant?”
“You’re less afraid of getting trampled by an elephant than insulted by one?”
“I’m a little afraid of trampling, but elephants are chill,” Hawke explained. “They wouldn’t attack unless provoked. I kind of feel like one might call me a dipshit unprovoked, though.”
“You have oddly specifics fears, Mr. Hughes,” Dean Lichman said.
“Yeah.”
In spite of those fears, Hawke happily stepped through the door to the zoology lab. It did not take a long time to locate the elephant in the room, as it was a literal elephant. The towering pachyderm was in a makeshift pen in the center of the lab, with an ample supply of food and a strange pedestal in front of her.
“Dr. Chanthara,” Dean Lichman said, with a polite wave to one of the researchers in the room. “Good to see you. These are the students I told you about.”
“Hm. Nice to meet you,” Dr. Chanthara said. He was, perhaps not unreasonably, skeptical of why three seemingly random students were in charge of a safety inspection. The fact that one of the three was a robot made him even more skeptical.
“Hi, nice to meet you too, and, uh, don’t mind us,” Vell said. “We just have an eye for weird things other people might miss.”
“Sure. I- wait. Aren’t you that kid who got chosen by a god?”
“Yeah, that’s me,” Vell said. “And her too, technically.”
Kim shrugged. She didn’t care for any extra attention on that point.
“Right,” Chanthara said. He was beginning to see why these students might know their stuff. “I suppose we should start by introducing you to Mae Noi. Say hello, Mae.”
The elephant shifted on her feet and poked her trunk at the wide pedestal in front of her twice.
“Hello. Friends,” a synthesized voice droned. Vell stepped a little closer to the pedestal, just enough to see that there were an array of buttons on the side facing Mae Noi.
“Oh, it’s kind of like a keyboard,” Vell said. He’d seen similar things used with dogs, though usually in a much simpler fashion. Mae Noi seemed to have a few dozen buttons at her disposal.
“Smart,” Mae Noi said, with another prod of her trunk.
“We initially put it into our sanctuary as a bit of a novelty, something elephants could choose to interact with,” Dr. Chanthara explained. “Mae Noi took to it a bit better than most. Especially once she found out she could use it to ask for food.”
“Food. Pumpkin. Pumpkin. Pumpkin.”
“No, Mae, no food until after experiment,” Dr. Chanthara scolded.
“Experiment,” Mae Niko said with a prod. “Pumpkin.”
“Yes, experiment then pumpkin,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“That’s not really a talking elephant, is it?” Hawke said.
“It’s more talking than most elephants,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“Elephant. Smart,” Mae Niko said. “Smart.”
“Yes, uh, right, elephant smart,” Hawke said. He took a step back, to avoid any further offense and any further risk of being insulted by Mae Noi.
“You’re very impressive, Mae, don’t mind him,” Kim said. “How many words does she know?”
“Our platform back home has around three hundred words, though she’s still learning some of them,” Dr. Chanthara said. “The ‘travel’ version we put together only has a hundred, just enough to make sure she can get her basic needs met and communicate about the experiment.”
“Right, speaking of, I do believe we should put some time into our reason for being here,” Dean Lichman interjected. “You’re welcome to stick around afterwards, at Dr. Chanthara and Mae Noi’s discretion, of course, but we should get underway.”
“We probably should get to business, yeah,” Kim said. She tapped the side of her metal head. “I’m going to scan the lab. Vell, you talk to the elephant and make sure everything’s above-board.”
“Abov- oh, right,” Vell said. “Sorry, not exactly used to being able to ask animals if they agree to animal experimentation.”
“Experiment,” Mae said.
“Yeah, experiment,” Vell said, as he turned to Mae. “So, Mae Noi, this experiment might hurt, do you know that?”
“Experiment. Hurt. Elephant,” Mae Noi prodded. “Experiment. Help. Elephant. Help. Baby.”
“Help baby?”
“Baby. Baby. Elephant. Sick. Baby. Sick.”
“We’ve explained the nature of her condition to Mae Noi as best we can,” Dr. Chanthara said. “She has several children, and is concerned they might be similarly affected.”
“Help. Baby,” Mae Noi said. “Experiment. Help.”
The way Mae Noi frantically tapped the buttons tugged at Vell’s heartstrings, but he choked those emotions down.
“So you want to do this experiment to help baby, got it,” Vell said. “Even if it hurts you?”
“Elephant. Old,” Mae Noi said. “Hurt. Okay. Help. Baby.”
“Huh. Well, that does sound like informed consent to me,” Vell said. “Passes ethical muster, at least.”
The campus rules allowed students to be experimented on, with their consent, so Vell saw no reason not to apply the same standard to an elephant.
“You speak up if you change your mind about the experiment, okay?”
“Stop. Stop. Stop,” Mae said, mashing the same button a few times. “Yes.”
“You got it. I’m going to go help my friends check things out,” Vell said. “Good talking to you, Mae.”
“Good. Talk. Friend,” Mae said. She waved goodbye with her trunk, and Vell waved back. He wandered away from Mae Noi’s pedestal and found Kim and Hawke carefully examining rows of beakers and various other supplies.
“Nothing sus yet, boss,” Hawke said.
“Nothing caustic, mutagenic, or explosive?”
“Well, something mutagenic, but it’s supposed to be,” Kim said. She had scanners built into her body much like those that had once been in Vell’s glasses, allowing her to analyze the complex chemical formulas at a glance. “They’re going for some gene editing similar to what we’ve tried to do on human cancer patients. Low success rate, but not harmful. Some adaptations to work on elephants, of course.”
“Run it by any of our chemistry and biology student friends yet?”
“A few,” Kim said. “Haven’t gotten anything back yet, though.”
“Maybe run it by Skye, too,” Vell said. “She’d recognize anything that’d mutate an animal.”
“She does love to mutate things,” Kim said.
“Benevolently,” Vell insisted. “Just show her. I’m going to check for any stray equipment.”
The presence of an unusually large test subject had resulted in the lab being rearranged and reshuffled, so Vell did a quick scan for any misplaced equipment that might pose a threat. He found, to his surprise, a tidy and well-organized environment, with any and all extraneous materials securely locked away. There wasn’t so much as a shrink ray out of place. Vell did another loop just to be sure, but returned to his friends empty-handed.
“This place has less safety hazards than my lab,” Vell said. Hawke stared at him for a while.
“Why does your lab have safety hazards?’
“I do runecarving, there’s like, hammers and chisels,” Vell said. “Those can hurt people.”
“Mm, true,” Hawke said. “So you really didn’t find anything?”
“Nothing,” Vell said. “This place is secure as I’ve ever seen a lab be.”
“It’s like I said,” Kim began. “We got an actual warning about it, so obviously nothing’s going to go wrong. That’d be too easy.”
“Maybe,” Vell said. “Things can get teleported in, or someone could cast a spell, or something.”
“Yeah, but that applies to anywhere, at any time,” Kim said.
“Kim’s right,” Hawke said. “I say we go business as usual.”
“I guess,” Vell said. “We have to branch out a little, at least. Can’t keep an eye on one room all day.”
The trio stopped sulking around the outskirts of the lab and returned to Dean Lichman and Dr. Chanthara.
“Everything looks good,” Kim said. “Probably the safest lab I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment,” Dr. Chanthara said.
“We have very high safety standards here at the Einstein-Odinson,” Dean Lichman said, defensively. “Relatively speaking. Innovation requires some risk.”
“I understand perfectly. So does Mae.”
“Hurt. Okay,” Mae said.
“Not that okay,” Vell said. “Nice meeting you, Dr. Chanthara. You too, Mae.”
“Wait.”
Mae prodded one of the buttons on her pedestal and then pointed her trunk at the three of them. Hawke looked deeply concerned, but stepped forward alongside Vell and Kim. Mae Noi appraised them with massive brown eyes, and then moved her trunk back towards the pedestal. Vell noticed a distinctive scar on the bridge of her long nose just as Mae Noi pressed another button.
“Joke.”
“...Joke?”
Dr. Chanthara sighed and rolled his eyes.
“Just go along with it,” he said. “She likes to tell her joke.”
“Uh, okay,” Vell said. “Let’s hear it.”
“What. Elephant. Favorite. Part. Tree.”
“Umm...I don’t know, Mae,” Vell lied. He’d heard this joke from a kid, once. “What part?”
“Trunk,” Mae said. She gave a loud bray of amusement and then slammed her trunk down a few more times to emphasize the punchline. “Trunk. Trunk.”
“Oh, ha, I get it,” Kim said, hoping her feigned laugh was convincing. She’d never tried to lie to an elephant before. “Good one, Mae.”
Mae Noi shifted from side to side, looking pleased with herself, while the trio took a step back and stopped their feigned laughter.
“Did you give her buttons just to tell that joke with?”
“She gets upset,” Dr. Chanthara said. “I’m not even sure she understands the pun, she just likes people’s reactions.”
“As long as she’s having fun,” Hawke said.
“We’ll get out of your hair now,” Vell said. “Good luck with the experiment, feel free to let us know if you need a hand with anything.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Dr. Chanthara said. Some of his earlier skepticism seemed to have softened, but he did not seem entirely onboard with three strangers mucking about with his experiment. Vell and his friends left before they stretched what little goodwill they had any further. Mae Noi waved her trunk goodbye as the three left the lab and stepped back onto the quad.
“I’m going to try and sneak some classes in,” Hawke said. “Later.”
“I’ll check some of our usual hot spots,” Kim said, before she too left. Once again alone, Vell headed to one of his own classes, and called up Samson.
“Hey, Samson,” Vell began. “See anything interesting while we were playing with the elephant?”
“Well, I thought I clocked someone acting suspicious, but it turns out he was only sneaking around to go see his boyfriend,” Samson said. “Nothing apocalyptic, but I did get called a homophobe, which is pretty emotionally devastating.”
“I’m sure you’ll recover someday,” Vell said. “Keep an eye out. Usually the safer things look, the more dangerous things end up being.”
“Will do,” Samson said, before saying goodbye and hanging up.
***
Vell got increasingly nervous the longer the day went without its daily disaster. He thought about checking in on Mae Noi again, but then recalled Kim’s warning about it being too obvious, but then remembered that nobody had seen anything suspicious anywhere else, but then remember that Mae Noi’s lab had looked perfectly safe-
“Vell.”
“Huh?”
“You’re spiraling,” Kim said.
“I’m not spiraling, I’m just,” Vell said, with a pause for contemplation. “Considering multiple options.”
“In a spiral fashion,” Kim said. “Eat the damn french fries. Honestly, what’s the point of ordering so many if you’re just going to let them get cold?”
“It’s not like they’re going to go to waste,” Vell said. The same time loop that allowed him to eat massive amounts of french fries without fear of gaining weight also allowed him to avoid food waste. One of the upsides of life in a time loop.
“Just eat, Vell,” Kim said. “You worry too much about all this shit.”
“I’m in charge, it’s my job to worry about it,” Vell said.
“It’s your job to handle it,” Kim said. “There’s no point thinking about this shit before it happens, you spend all day thinking about an elephant and then the universe drops, like, a bat with tentacles on your head. Just deal with as it comes, Vell.”
Vell leaned on the table and managed to chomp down on a french fry or two.
“You know, next year, when I’m not running the show anymore, I’m going to call and see if you still think it’s that easy.”
“I sure hope so,” Kim said. “I’m saying all this shit trying to make myself believe it too.”
“Oh good, you’re lying to both of us,” Vell said. “That’s cool.”
“Fake it ‘til you make it, Vell, that’s how it goes,” Kim said. “Eat your damn french fries.”
Vell rolled his eyes and returned to his fries, which were now starting to cool. Thankfully he would not have to worry about finishing them. A loud crash from across campus interrupted him mid-bite and nearly made Vell choke on his fries. He painfully swallowed the half-chewed food and then looked over his shoulder.
“Son of a bitch, finally,” Vell said. A few years ago he’d found it weird whenever he was relieved about a disaster, but now he was just genuinely glad to get it over with. The waiting was as killer as the apocalypse. He tossed his fries in the trash and headed toward the sound of chaos, with Kim right behind him.
“Already told everybody?”
“Well, I may or may not have left Alex and Helena out of the loop…”
“Kim.”
“They’d find out anyway,” Kim said. “I got to use my brain parts to get in touch with them, even over wi-fi that shit feels dirty.”
“Just get in- stop.”
Vell held out his hand. Kim froze in place and did not move. Not intentionally, at least. There was a small amount of unintentional movement. The ground was vibrating.
“Always love a good earthquake,” Kim said.
“That’s not a quake,” Vell said. “That’s...footsteps!”
Vell grabbed Kim and dove out of the way just in time for something to barrel through the walls of the dining hall and stampede across the room. Tables, chairs, and more than a few students were crushed under the feet of a hulking, brown-furred behemoth as it charged. Kim picked herself and Vell up off the floor and tried to trail its progress.
“That’s a- oh fuck me,” Kim said. “Please don’t say you told me so.”
Vell got his bearings and looked across the room at the titanic form of a woolly mammoth. Though it was definitely recognizable as an archaic mammoth, the ancient creature was also heavily mutated, unnaturally large even by mammoth standards, and with multiple curled, jagged tusks protruding from a slobbering maw.
“Well that could be unrelated,” Vell said. “Mammoths can come from a lot of places, cloning accidents, time machines…”
The mammoth reached a wall, and rather than barreling through, turned around, facing directly towards Vell. A prominent scar covered the bridge of its broad trunk.
“Oh, nope, that’s definitely Mae,” Vell said. The scar was in the same place and at the same angle. Even a clone wouldn’t have an identical scar.
Once the revelation had struck, Mae took her turn. Vell found himself staring straight down the barrel of a very angry mammoth coming right at him at Vell-squishing velocity. Luckily he’d been charged at by a lot of creatures over four years of looping.
Vell jumped up and to the side, and latched on to one of the curled tusks, which made for very convenient handlebars. Kim did the same on the opposite side of Mae, and punched her in the head.
“Wait, wait, hold off on the violence for a second,” Vell shouted. He tried to wave at Kim to stop, but Mae was thrashing so violently he had to grip the tusks with both hands.
“Good plan,” Kim shouted. “Can you get Mae on board?”
Another set of tables got crushed underfoot. Thankfully the other students were out of trampling range by now, but Mae Noi’s feet were still coated in the blood of earlier victims.
“Mae’s smart, maybe we can calm her down,” Vell said. He then ducked to dodge a swat from Mae’s mutated trunk.
“Call me crazy, Vell, but I think this is more than just a bad mood,” Kim said, as she climbed up Mae’s seven jagged tusks like a ladder.
“We have to try,” Vell said. The loopers rule against hurting other intelligent life forms had some flexibility for blood-crazed mutants on violent rampages, but they had to at least try to reason first. Vell climbed up on of Mae’s tusks and looked into one of her bloodshot eyes for any sign of recognition. “Mae! It’s Vell, do you remember?”
The only response Vell got was an enraged trumpet, which he didn’t think was a “yes”.
“Come on, bud,” Vell said. “What’s an elephant’s favorite part of a tree, right? The trunk?”
The massive brown eye staring at Vell blinked, and he felt a brief glimmer of hope. He then felt a brief glimmer of his lungs being crushed as Mae swung her head and slammed her tusks into the wall, and Vell along with them. Kim punched Mae in the throat and then jumped across the tusks to grab Vell and carry him to safety.
“You okay, Vell?”
He opened his mouth to respond, and a pint or two of blood came out instead.
“Apparently not,” he mumbled. “I might be down a few ribs. And a lung. Or two.”
Kim carried Vell a safe distance from the fight and set him down on the ground, where he promptly spat out another mouthful of blood.
“Okay, uh, you just lie there and try to die peacefully, I guess,” Kim said.
“Way ahead of you.”
***
“Was that last bit as funny as I thought it was?” Vell asked. “I think the blood loss was affecting my sense of humor.”
“It was kind of hard to appreciate in the moment,” Kim said. “But as far as dying jokes go, it was pretty good.”
Vell and Kim walked into the lair for their morning meeting and joined the loopers that had already gathered.
“Okay, what’d I miss while I was dead?”
“Well, after Alex was done getting herself killed,” Samson began.
“You’re saying that as if it’s something to be ashamed of,” Alex said. “Vell also died.”
“Yeah, but he got killed trying to do something good. You got killed trying to do something stupid.”
“Trying to eliminate a threat is not stupid,” Alex said.
“We don’t kill intelligent creatures,” Hawke said. “Sometimes we punch them into a coma, but we don’t kill them.”
“When a dog bites, you put it down, I don’t see why the same principle doesn’t apply to a mammoth that’s crushed seventy people.”
“That wasn’t Mae’s fault,” Vell said. “She got mutated, or something. On that note: did you guys figure out what happened to Mae Noi?”
“Nothing,” Hawke said. “Looked like Mae smashed up the entire lab, trampled everyone involved in the experiment too. Nothing left to investigate, and nobody left alive to interrogate.”
“Typical,” Vell sighed. “At least we have an easy out. Dean Lichman was really concerned about the ethics of that whole experiment. We raise some kind of complaint, we could probably get the whole thing shut down.”
“The problem is getting the complaint,” Hawke said. “That lab was airtight, Vell.”
“Apparently not completely airtight,” Kim said. “I can camp out in the lab and raise an entirely justifiable stink whenever something capable of making a murder-mammoth shows up.”
“And what if it happens so suddenly you can’t complain about it?” Samson asked. “For all we know that could’ve been some kind of dimensional rift, or time anomaly, or something. It might not be as simple as somebody just putting in the wrong syringe at the wrong time.”
“He’s got a point,” Vell said. “We might want to shut this down before it gets there.”
“Seems like our best option is to plant evidence, then,” Alex said.
Everyone else at the table spent a few seconds brainstorming ways to prove her wrong, and much to their frustration, could not.
“Okay, fine,” Vell said. “But it needs to be something incidental, not something anyone would get blamed for. We want to cancel the experiment, not get anyone in trouble.”
“I could have a seizure on some sensitive equipment,” Helena offered. “It’ll break something and nobody would dare get mad at me.”
“Can you fake a seizure?”
“No, but I’m allergic to elephants, so I’d probably have one anyway the moment I stepped in the lab,” Helena said.
“I don’t feel entirely comfortable sending you into anaphylactic shock for a bit,” Vell said.
“Offer’s on the table,” Helena said. “I’ll live. Wouldn’t have made it through that trip to the zoo otherwise.”
“Anybody have any non-medical emergency suggestions?”
“Seagull in the air vents,” Kim said.
“Will that work?”
“It happens now and then,” Kim said. “Seagull gets in, and Dean has to close down the whole lab for potential material damage and biohazard risks if they shit in the vents.”
“Really? We’ve never had to deal with anything like that,” Hawke said.
“It may shock you to learn that sometimes minor, tedious bullshit happens that we have nothing to do with,” Kim said.
“That is kind of surprising, actually.”
“Enough. Kim, can you grab a seagull?” Vell asked. He shouldered his bookbag, and stuck a hand into the extradimensional pocket that existed within it. “I can probably smuggle it in with my bag.”
“Yeah, I can get you a seagull,” Kim said. Since she did not need to sleep, she had to find ways to keep herself entertained at night, seagull-grabbing being among them.
“Alright, we’ll go grab one and put it in the bag,” Vell said. “The rest of you, be ready to meet us when I call.”
***
Roughly three minutes later, Vell put out the call and they reconvened in front of the biology lab.
“Yeah, that was much faster than I thought it would be,” Vell said.
“I’m great at grabbin’ birds,” Kim said. Seagulls were among the easier birds to snatch, even. They were suckers for food, and many of them were attracted to her shiny metallic body anyway.
“Let’s just get this over with,” Vell said. “I want this thing out of my bag ASAP.”
Even though the seagull was safely within a pocket dimension, Vell would swear he could still feel the bird thrashing and squawking inside his bag. He tightened his grip on the shoulder strap and led the way towards the zoology lab entrance. He grabbed the handle and held it as he froze for a second.
“Vell, what’s up? Is this bird escaping?”
“No, the handle’s vibrating,” Vell said. It was shaking the same way a wall near an incredibly loud speaker might. He pressed his ear to the door and listened closely. He opened the door immediately, and let all his friends hear the frantic trumpeting of a panicked elephant.
Inside the lab, Mae Noi was stomping her feet and trumpeting as loud as he long trunk would allow. She swayed from side to side in her pen, bumping against the walls not quite hard enough to damage them, but hard enough that it was clear she was doing it on purpose.
“What the heck is happening here?”
“Ah, Vell,” Dean Lichman said. He hustled over to Vell’s side and gestured to the entire room. “Maybe you can figure out what’s going on.”
Mae Noi stopped braying long enough to start mashing her trunk against her pedestal, mashing out the word “Bad” over and over again.
“Our test subject, Mae Noi, has been throwing an absolute fit ever since she got here,” Dean Lichman said. “Dr. Chanthara, these are the students I was telling you about earlier.”
While Vell reintroduced himself to Dr. Chanthara, Kim and Hawke stepped up to examine Mae Noi and her enclosure. It was a far cry from the peaceful, orderly scene they had examined on the first loop. They were half an hour earlier this time than before, but Kim found it unlikely that they had been able to calm Mae Noi down, clean everything up, and get back to work in such a short amount of time. They hadn’t mentioned any of this panic on the first loop either. They were soon joined in their confusion by Chanthara and Vell.
“We’ve tried everything; food, water, her favorite toys, even videos of her children,” Dr. Chanthara said. “We’ve even offered to call off the experiment, but she won’t listen.”
“She is an animal,” Alex said. “Sometimes they do things arbitrarily.”
“Not Mae,” Dr. Chanthara said. “Some of our sanctuaries residents from traumatic backgrounds can have outbursts, but Mae was injured in the wild. She’s never been like this.”
“Maybe some experiment on the island is upsetting her,” Vell said. “A sonic experiment only she can hear, or something…”
Vell stopped and thought about it. If there had been such an irritant, it would’ve been there on the first loop too. Everything always repeated exactly the same, except for-
“Could you, uh, take a step back for a second?” Vell mumbled. “I want to try talking to her.”
“Don’t get close,” Chanthara warned him.
“I’m not, I’m not,” Vell said. He didn’t need to get very close to tell a joke.
The massive brown eyes of Mae Noi stayed locked on Vell as he approached, and she continued to mash the “Bad” button on her pedestal.
“I know, I know, bad,” Vell said. “But, uh, do you want to hear a joke?”
Mae Noi stopped. She locked eyes with Vell for a few seconds, and then cautiously tapped a button on her pedestal.
“Joke.”
“Right, joke,” Vell said. He tried to recall the exact sequence of words Mae had used on the first loop. “What elephant favorite part tree?”
Mae didn’t blink.
“Trunk,” Vell said.
After a moment of contemplation, Mae Noi let out one final, fervent, trumpet, and then started mashing buttons on her pedestal again.
“Bad. Help. Help. Experiment. Bad. Help. Bad. Help.”
“Yeah, bad help, one second,” Vell said. He turned away from Mae Noi to look at Dean Lichman. “Hey, uh, excuse me, Dean? Hey, uh, if I remember correctly there are some pretty complicated rules on having intelligent animals on campus, yes?”
“Well, yes,” Dean Lichman said. After hearing of some questionable ethical practices involving an octopus back in first year, he had instituted a few clauses into the school’s ethical code of conduct regarding intelligent animals like elephants, octopuses, and dolphins. “Mae’s presence here is a bit of an outlier, but there were workaround, given her apparent consent to the experiment.”
“Yeah, about that, is she, uh,” Vell began. “Is she registered as a student?”
“Yes.”
Vell pursed his lips. It took a few seconds for his friends to catch on.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Samson snapped. He turned his back on the crowd and leaned against a wall while Hawke put his head in his hands.
“The first rule of looping,” Alex said quietly. “Loopers are randomly selected-”
She looked up and locked eyes with Mae Noi.
“From all registered students.”

Me and my buddys are running a 5v5 3 match series, is the pro league setting best for this or should I make my own??

To start this story off, I suppose it's best to talk a little bit about myself and my experience in the TTRPG space. I've been an avid TTRPG enthusiast for almost two decades now. Yes, I'm a bit of an old hat/old fogey. I started my enjoyment of the hobby with Pathfinder 1st edition, eventually transferring over to DnD 5e when it first arrived on the scene, mostly because it was the new hotness, but I ultimately found that it was better suited for the type of games that I enjoy running at my table. While I very adamantly enjoy the structure that a game's mechanical rules bring to the table, 5e provided a rules system that wasn't invasive, and so me and my friends were able to focus on the things about the game that we enjoyed the most - the roleplaying, the storytelling, and (most importantly) the fun.
Many years would go by, as well as a couple of what I would consider to be successful campaigns - basically anything that managed to survive longer than 3 months. Scheduling, right? I digress. Eventually, I arrived at a point where my current circle of friends and I were itching to play a new campaign, and for the shits and giggles of it we decided we would livestream it on Twitch. At the time, we had managed to get affiliated on Twitch, and one or two of us would occasionally have a couple of viewers pop in when we were streaming whatever video game we were playing, and we figured it would be fun to do the same thing with our next campaign. So we did. As you might expect, nothing really ever came out of it. We were just doing it for fun. The campaign only lasted about 3 months or so, and we never set out with the expectation that what we were releasing into the world was anything amazing - we were just four normal dudes having fun playing a game we enjoyed, and if you happened to find yourself on our Twitch channel to see it, awesome! If not, cool. We weren't doing it for you.
So, yeah, that campaign eventually fell off, and we would eventually return to just streaming whatever video game excited us. One of friends got married, and had a kid, and was too busy for DnD. Another friend got a new job, and his schedule just didn't give him the time. Hell, even I managed to land a pretty decent job at the time, and I struggled to make time for our weekly video game nights, but I managed. But ever since that streamed campaign had ended, I had an itch in the back of my mind that I really wanted to scratch. I thoroughly enjoyed everything about livestreaming our campaign. Sure, it was nothing to write home about, but I fell in love with the showmanship of it all. Maybe it was because of the thought of the potential for someone to eventually watch it, but whenever we would stream, I would get in the zone and pretend I was putting on a show for thousands (even though we may have only ever had three or four viewers at max). Basically, I had fallen in love with the idea of putting on a show for others, and I knew I would jump at the chance to do it again in the future. Enter Wayne.
A little over a year ago (at the time of this posting), I was perusing through the /LFG subreddit and not looking for anything in particular, when I stumbled across a post that checked off all the boxes.
I don't like to admit that I'm picky, but that fact that this sub exists should give credence to that fact that one should, at the very least, have a criteria when looking for games to invest yourself in when looking at advertisements. And if my little backstory above should inform you, there were a number of things on my checklist that this post had. For starters, it was longer than a few sentences. Clearly, the person who posted this was meticulous about what they wanted and what they didn't want (I would learn, much later on, that Wayne was not the one who wrote the post, but one of his players). Secondly, the post was very adamant about what was of paramount importance at the table - rich and compelling narratives, deep exploration of characters, and a passion for roleplay. And thirdly, the plan was to turn this into a "production". The post even included a promo video of respectable quality. Clearly, the people involved with this had a plan, much more of a plan than my friends and I had when we streamed. And, I considered myself a pretty decent roleplayer, so I applied. They were only looking for 1 applicant, but I figured I had a decent shot, with my previous livestreaming experience, and the fact that I already owned a (what some would call excessive) microphone and camera. So I shot my shot. If I didn't get picked, no biggie, life goes on. But when I received a discord invite and told that I had made it to the second round of the application process, I was ecstatic.
It is around here that I should introduce you to our cast of characters (names have been changed, of course:

• There is, of course, me, Dave - a guy who fundamentally believes that fun and safety at a table supersedes everything else, who happens to really enjoy hamming it up in character, and telling exciting stories.
  
• Ava - an already confirmed player at the table, with a past experience of playing with Wayne. I would come to find out that Ava was the one who had written the LFG post. Ava was also in charge of Discord moderation, and the second round interview process. She has her own story, which I will allude to here, but is ultimately hers to share.
  
• Jelly - Wayne's significant other. Jelly was supposedly not involved with the upcoming campaign at all, but had a presence on the Discord, and have previously played in Wayne's campaigns.
  Seth - another already confirmed player at the table. Admittedly, Seth plays a minor role in the story, but his inclusion is necessary.
  
  • and Wayne - the lead character of our story. The DM of the upcoming campaign. The visionary. The guy who plans to have the next big thing in the TTRPG actual play space.

There are at least a half dozen other individuals involved in this story, but ultimately play very minor roles. If at some point while I am writing this one of them pop up, I will update the list above to include them.
Back to the story. I was ecstatic to find out I had been selected for an Discord interview and scheduled it at my earliest convenience. This is where I first meet Ava. To be honest, I don't recall much about the interview, but I remember it being pretty standard and what I was expecting an interview to be. Mostly it was just going into detail about some of the stuff I had included in my primary application and talking about expectations and goals. I was told that after the Discord interview, the next step would be a participation in a practice one shot, to get a feel for how I would play at the table. After the interview was over, Wayne hopped into the voice channel, and this would be when I would meet the man, the legend.
I pride myself on being very good at reading people. I can usually pick up on when someone is trying to sell me something, pretty quickly. I tend to over analyze words and expression looking for intent. I have been gaslit and manipulated several times in my past by people very close to me, and so I have developed this defense when meeting people for the first time. Very rarely do I take someone at their word, or completely buy what they are selling when I hardly know them, and even less so to a complete stranger. In this case, when meeting Wayne for the first time, my defenses failed me.
Perhaps it was because it had been over a year since I last ran a campaign. Perhaps it was because it had been even longer than that that I actually got to be a player in a campaign. Perhaps it was because of that itch of wanting to perform again for an audience. Or, perhaps, it was because Wayne was very good at pitching his plans. Whatever the reason, my first impression of Wayne was that this was a guy who had a plan, and had the means to enact that plan, and I wanted to be a part of it in any way that I could.
Wayne, you see, had two big passions in life. The first was DnD. The second, as he would admit, was being an entrepreneur. He owned his own business in New York City. One of several ventures he had pursued, and it afforded him a premium NYC apartment and the time and luxury to spend on his second passion - playing DnD. And so, he thought, why not marry these two passions together? He had a great head for business. And according to him, the last campaign he had run was fantastic. So fantastic, he thought, that surely other people would enjoy listening to it. And so he hatched a plan - he would use his business knowledge and savvy to launch a Youtube channel that would be home to his next great campaign. But he had the foresight, at least, to know of just how saturated the DnD actual play space has become in recent years. If he wanted to be successful at this venture, he would have to stand out from the rest. And he had a solution to that. He wasn't going to put out just any old DnD actual play. He was going to create "DnD Cinema".
To do that, he said, he needed the right people that share in the same core philosophies that he had. Namely, a "pretentious level of hyperfixation on roleplaying and narrative storytelling". Most other actual plays, to him, were playing "beer and pretzels" DnD. You know, the type of game were you sit around with your friends having a good time and a laugh, where you might spend five minutes on an out of character joke, etc. Shit like that wasn't going to fly in this campaign. When you came to the table, you were going to be in character from start to finish. And recording sessions were going to be seven hours long. Could I handle that?
And I admit that I told him I could. Like I said, he had a way with words. He was clearly passionate about it. And he talked a good talk. And he was friendly enough. So he said he would be in touch. And the wait began.
Over the course of the next month or so, I would come to become friends with Ava and Wayne. We would hop into Discord and play games, talk about the upcoming campaign, etc. It was going to be several months before the campaign actually began recording, and so Wayne was still conducting the interview process while also working on worldbuilding for the campaign. He was also spending over $3000 dollars commissioning an animated table for the youtube video. This was clearly something he was very proud of, as he took every and all opportunity to talk about how amazing and innovative it was going to be.
You see, in Wayne's vision of "DnD cinema", the videos that would be put up on youtube would not include the faces of the players. Or battlemaps. Instead, it would be animated table that he could manipulate in editing at various cue points. It would feature portraits of the characters that would light up when they speak. It was the next big thing in the TTRPG space - a (frankly) audio only experience that was accentuated with the occasional fancy animation that cost thousands of dollars. No one else was doing it, he would say, and that would help him stand out even more.
It was also during these more innocent days that I would come to understand Wayne's obsession with Brennan Lee Mulligan. He idolized the guy. In fact, he would brag on multiple occasions that his significant other's job had her 3 or 4 degrees removed from Brennan - basically, she worked for someone who worked for someone who was involved with the Dungeons and Drag Queens season of Dimension 20, and he would often mention how he was hoping to use that connection to someday have a sit down and meet and greet with BLeeM himself. As time would go on, I would eventually find out that Wayne actually considered Brennan Lee Mulligan as his competition.
About a month would past before I would hear anything about my application. I never brought it up during our gaming sessions, as another core tenet of mine is that I don't want my friendship or acquaintance with someone to give me an edge over other candidates. I want my experience and what I bring to the table to stand on its own merit. This will come up later in our story. Eventually, I would get a message from Wayne asking me if I would be interested in participating in a try out one shot for the campaign. Apparently, he had completely forgotten that I had applied, and wanted to schedule in a last minute try out for me. My fellow players during the one shot would be Ava, some other member of the discord community, and Jelly.
I'll be honest, the one shot was nothing to write home about. And even Wayne would admit it was something he threw together last minute so that he could say I had my chance. I immediately found Ava to be a fantastic scene partner, and even for a one shot, put the time and effort into her character and actions. Jelly, on the other hand, was not that good. To be fair to Jelly, my criteria for grading her performance was strictly on the curve that Wayne himself said he was grading people on. I found her to be a very selfish player, who failed to pick up on narrative cues, and was solely focused on her time in the spotlight. But it was a trial one shot that didn't mean anything. My biggest take away from Jelly was that she was a player that I would not enjoy playing with in the future, and that I wouldn't seek out as a player at a table that I was DMing for. Not horror story bad (yet), but not good. Average.
When the application process was done, it would eventually come down to two choices. I was one. Wayne loved my southern twang, and thought it would sound good in a production. And we had become friends. The other was someone with a theater and acting background, who had been to Julliard. I was not selected. And I was okay with that. The decision did not impact my friendship with either Ava or Wayne, and we continued to hang out and play games together. I then learned of Wayne's new plan.
In the original posting ad for the campaign, it had been mentioned that a possibility for guest character appearing in the campaign could happen. The original idea was that, as members of the Discord community would play in one shots, Wayne would then be able to invite stand out performance to appear in an episode or two of the new campaign, as a gift to the community and to give those players a chance to play in a campaign with other players of similar caliber. This all changed as the months got closer to release date. The idea for guests at the table changed completely. Instead, Wayne's plan was to use the guest spots at the table as a networking opportunity. Don't forget - Wayne is an entrepreneur. This was a business venture for him, and successful businesses need to show growth. And he wanted to achieve growth at an accelerated pace. The plan was simple - as the channel grew, Wayne would scour the internet for similar channels with slightly higher subscriber count than his. Well, I say Wayne would do this. Wayne would actually pawn this off on to someone else. A tangent that I will perhaps need to touch on later in this story - Wayne was very good at finding ways of pawning off work on to others, and then taking the credit. He very much believe himself to be a manager, and other members of the Discord that showed any interest in the success of this venture as his employees. He would then engage in communications with these other channels in the hopes of achieving some Quid Pro Quo. You send someone to be a guest on our channel for a few episodes, and we'll shout you out. In return, he would send someone from his channel to theirs, and get a shout out in return. Something to note here - all of this was done without ever including his players in the discussion. He was offering them up to strangers without even asking if they even wanted to do that.
Time passes, and eventually recording for the campaign begins. It would be about two months into recording when Wayne approached me about being the first guest character. (At this point, I had been an active member of the Discord community for over six months now). He wanted me to be the first guest character for two reasons. The first was because I was familiar, and he wanted to test out the format before bringing in strangers. The second was because of my prior livestreaming experience. I was a part of an affiliated Twitch channel that met the criteria of having a slightly higher subscriber count than his. But for the most part, our old Twitch channel was dead. Sure, we still streamed games into the void, but there was practically no engagement. And I told him so when he asked me if I wanted to be introduced as someone from that Twitch channel. I was more involved in his community as that point, anyway. And so, I finally got what I was wanting - to sit down and play quality DnD with like minded individuals for the purposes of entertaining others.
At this point, only a handful of episodes had aired. The recording schedule had them a grace period of a month or so before release, and I admittedly hadn't watched them. Honestly, I wasn't that interested. I don't know if that's bad or not. There are a lot of actual plays out there of varying quality. And each one requires a lot of time commitment to watch. Already I was regularly watching Critical Roll, and I was having a hard time to find time to watch some of the other really good shows I was enjoying, like Dimension 20 and The Glass Cannon. On top of that, it was an game that I wasn't a part of, so yeah, I admit I hadn't watch any of it. But even if I had, it wouldn't have prepared me for what playing at the table was actually like. The released episodes were highly edited, with sound effects and music. It wasn't until I became actually involved at the table that I would find out just how manufactured the game actually was. And I use the word "game" very generously.
For starters, once recording began, all out of character talk and banter was immediately and explicitly forbidden. We were to remain in character at all times. Secondly, I would find out that Wayne had developed a "formula for success" in regards to time spent recording. No scene would ever last longer than ten minutes. If players spent too much time having their characters engaging with each other and the time elapsed, we were moving on the next scene, regardless of if it was a natural conclusion or not. Speaking of the characters, I would come to learn that the characters that the player brought to this campaign were secondary to the story that Wayne wanted to tell. "This campaign isn't character focused, it's story focused" he would say. The campaign simply did not have time for that. I don't like to toss out the word "railroaded" very often, but it quickly became apparent that there was a good bit of railroading being done here. The only character decisions or choices or conversations that would ever make it to the final cut were ones that provided what he thought would be the most interesting while pushing his narrative forward. And for a DnD game, there wasn't a whole lot of game being done here. Sure, the players had character sheets, and classes, but it was all superficial. Combat was a rarity on the level of a shiny Pokemon. I think mostly because Wayne didn't find combat narratively compelling. But in that case, I have to ask, why use DnD as your game system? If all you want to do is roll clicky dice and improv, there are much better systems out there. And speaking of the dice - I'm sad to say that in most cases they were superfluous, as well. The only real purpose the dice served to Wayne was when they could be used to clip epic moments of success or failure. A natural 20 or a natural 1 was gold for him, because then he could clip it into a Youtube or Tiktok Short and grow those subscriber numbers. For a game in which "every decision hung on the roll of a dice", there weren't a lot of dice rolls, there weren't a lot of decisions, and when there were decisions, most of the time, the outcome was predetermined by Wayne. Everything Wayne did in regards to this game was in service to growing his Youtube channel. And the sad part? It worked.
In a shockingly short amount of time, Wayne was able to grow his Youtube channel from just over a 100 subscribers to over a 1000. This was mostly done by his excessive push of Youtube and Tiktok shorts. For a short period of time, I was deemed trustworthy enough to have access to the Youtube channel's admin, and I could view the statistics. The turnover rate for shorts into actual video views was miniscule. Only a tiny fraction were tuning in for the actual show. At this point, he had just become a Youtube Shorts creator.
And I want to mention at this point - I understand and respect the hustle. The world of Youtube is a dog eat dog world, and you have to have to play the game to stay in the game - I get it. I don't have any issue with being proud of what you've created, and pushing it out to people. I really don't. My issue was with how deceptive Wayne was being with it. And how deceptive he was, in general, as I would come to find out.
You see, before the inaugural campaign had even launched, Wayne approached me one day to see if I would be interested in running a campaign on his channel, as I had experience before in it, and had expressed an interest in doing it again. And I will admit, I was excited about the prospect. But before my words of "Yeah, I'd love to talk about" even had a chance to dissipate into the ether, Jelly would hop into the channel, in the middle of the discussion to say, "You know who should run a campaign? Seth." And then immediately log off.
I don't have a lot to say about Seth. I think he is an amazing, caring, friendly guy. He also happens to be an incredible roleplayer and storyteller, and his character is Wayne's campaign is truly phenomenal. I envy how easy it is for Seth to get into and portray the wide arrange of emotions of a character. He also happens to be a great GM. I understand why Jelly would suggest him to run a campaign. What I didn't understand, at the time, were her motives. Wayne, Ava, Jelly, and Seth had all played in a previous campaign together, and Wayne and Jelly had become enamored by just how good Seth was. And even prior to that, Ava and Seth had a past campaign together. Jelly wanted to be a player in a Seth run campaign. And if Wayne was going to have a second campaign on the channel, she wanted it to be Seth's, and she wanted to be a player in it.
And so, immediately, any and all discussion about me running a campaign was ceased, and the legwork was put forth for Seth to run a campaign. Wayne would approach him about it, and he was interested. Seth would already have in mind the players that he wanted for it - two friends of his from outside the server, Ava, and another player from the Wayne campaign. Noticeably missing from that list - Jelly.
Strangely, Wayne would then tell Seth that if he was going to run a campaign on the channel, he would have to have an application process for the players, and open it up so that anyone could apply. After Seth had already stated he already had players in mind - players who already said yes. I don't know about you, but as a DM, I would never let someone dictate to me who I could have at my table. If I have players in mind already, it's because I have a reason. But Wayne demanded an application process be followed, and a second LFG post would appear in LFG for the Seth run campaign - that was noticeably advertising for 4 players. After Seth had chosen his players. The advertisement came with another well edited and narrated youtube promo that was, and still is, the highest viewed video on the channel. And all of it was a sham. Which I knew it was. And I confronted Wayne about it. It was then that I learned some unsavory backstory involving Ava and Jelly and the prior campaign. That is not my story to tell. I have shared my accounts of events with Ava, and she is considering posting an account from her perspective following this. The most I am willing to say on this is that involves situations that should never be okay at a DnD table, and that Wayne would gloss over and sugarcoat these situations as no big deal. It would lead to Ava not being comfortable with being at a table with Jelly which both I, and Seth, would understand.
Wayne, however, found this to be unfair and manipulative on Ava's part. Those past incidents should have had no bearing on Jelly's consideration for the Seth run campaign. Which is why he would demand an application process. He would then confide to me when I questioned the duplicity of the LFG advertisement that it wasn't completely misleading. There would still be someone chosen from the list of applicants - because he was going to make sure that Ava wasn't part of the campaign. After Seth had already told both Wayne and her that she was. After the players for that game had already come together for a session zero. He claimed that Ava had prior incidents of being difficult to work with, and that because he wasn't involved in the campaign, he couldn't be there to handle any situations that might arise of conflicts between players at the table. At the time I thought that was an odd statement to make - if you are trusting enough of another person, like Seth, to run a campaign on your channel shouldn't you be trusting enough in their ability to handle problems between players? Looking back now, I can only assume he made that statement because he was certain that Jelly would be a player at the table, and that problems might arise between Jelly and Ava. He asked that I keep the conversation between us. But that was something I could not do. None of that situation felt right to me. Wayne, Ava, and I had been friends playing games together for nearly a year now. I never saw any inclination of Ava being a "problem player" - she was great at the table, and a great person to hang out with. And I found it weird that Wayne would say those things about her, and not approach her about it. So of course I talked to her. For weeks she had been sharing her excitement of the new campaign with me, often with Wayne in the voice channel with us. Ava would then share with me her past experiences with Wayne and Jelly. Again, it is not my story to tell, but I am a good judge of character. I believed Ava's account of events. It made sense to me, with how Wayne and Jelly acted.
I wish I could say this story had a happy and/or satisfying conclusion. I'm not even really sure if there is a point to it, or even if it will be a good read. It has been clear for some time now that Wayne has been entirely obsessed with the growing of his Youtube channel, damn any and all bridges burned, and walking back some of his initial promises of what he claimed the campaign and the Youtube channel would be. It's also very clear to me that Wayne is someone who absolutely has to have control over everything, especially the narrative (fictional and real life).
There are so many minor grievances to air about Wayne that I haven't already touched on, and I feel like I've already taken up too much of your time already. Here's just a brief overview, I'd be more than happy to go into more details if you want them:

• Multiple players from the Wayne campaign confided in me about some of the problems they had with Wayne and how the game was being run. When Wayne found out, he blew his lid, and said that he was both Manager and HR, and no one should be complaining to anyone outside of the table. If they were going to complain to anyone, it should be him.
  
  • It turns out, Wayne has a prior history of being an asshole. Long before the Youtube channel, and the campaign, even before the previous campaign, he told his then group that they were playing the game wrong. He then found a new group, sang their praises to the old group, and then even brought both groups together to show the old group "the right way to play"
  • In addition to Wayne, he has two editors working for him. One of which he pays. The other one has had no compensation. The one not getting paid is doing the same work as both Wayne and the paid editor combined.
  • I mentioned way early on in the story that Ava was the Discord Administrator for the Discord server. After the Seth campaign incident, Wayne unceremoniously removed Ava as Administrator, told her it was "by mistake", and never put it back. As far as I can tell, there was nothing to warrant this other than control. I suspect it was because there were certain Seth campaign related channels or other channels he didn't want Ava to see.
  • The unceremonious removal of myself and Ava from the Youtube channel admin. Admittedly, we contributed very little to it, but it was removed without a word mentioned.
  • Recently making a post requiring his "talent" to purchase a minimum $5 dollar Patreon subscription. He has admitted to me the reasoning for this was to inflate Patreon subscriber numbers to entice new subscribers. He has since walked that back after much outcry from the "talent"
  • Asking Seth if it wouldn't be too much to convert his envisioned DnD campaign into a Daggerheart campaign, because Daggerheart is the new hotness, and will attract more viewers.

Ultimately, I suppose I feel disheartened and deceived. Deceived because I originally signed up for what I thought was going to be a bunch of friends sitting around and recording themselves playing quality DnD, and it has shifted so far from that original purpose. Wayne is obsessed over subscriber numbers and views, it's all he ever talks about. He claims that his goal is to reach a level of success to which all 10+ people involved will be able to achieve financial freedom (which he claims is roughly $2000 a month). I'm sure you've done the math, just like I have. Even if you believe $2k a month is financial freedom (I certainly don't), that comes out to $240,000 a year. That's an insane level of success to promise your players. Oh, I'm sorry, your "talent".
I feel disheartened because....there's actually good work being done here. Some of the players are some of the best I've ever played with. Wayne can actually be a good storyteller, when he's not pushing for likes or clicks. The editors do a really fantastic job. I have seen and listened to the work being done on the Seth campaign (luckily Wayne is only tangentially involved), and Seth's campaign is turning out to be something really special. There is something good being done here, but it seems so tainted by Wayne and his obsession for Youtube and Tiktok success. So, maybe this is an RPG Horror Story, maybe it's a cautionary tale. I dunno. I have committed to finishing out my run in the campaign, (I was brought back to the table multiple times because the players enjoy playing with me, and also I suspect I was involved in one of his highest viewed shorts), but my hearts not in it. I've told Wayne I've no interest in any of his future projects, and I wish him well on his Youtube journey. But in the pursuit of clicks, and likes, and subscribers, I feel like he has fundamentally lost what attracts people to actually watch and invest in TTRPG actual plays - authenticity.

There was a wedding this weekend. But it was a couple in college and their idea of a wedding primarily centered around being newly 21 so lots of toasts and alcohol, also, religious, with homilies and hymns. Such an event is not a great place for someone with a debilitating, poorly controlled depressive mood disorder, characterized by terrible general and social anxiety.
When I first started dating my s/o, they had a story they would tell me on repeat about going to a family wedding some years ago and losing it, crying, big crying, during the ceremony, and their plus one at the time was embarrassed to have gone with them. The rest of the wedding involved getting drunk to bury emotions. The story would come up out of the blue like a trauma flashback. ...It probably WAS a trauma flashback. Having a mental health meltdown so publicly, in a nearly silent event hall, where everyone knew who they were was one of their great terrors, and they lived it.
Life post-ketamine has been very different. Still, my s/o was freaked out that there was a wedding to go to but felt obligated to say yes. The rehearsal dinner the day before involved everyone being instructed to give a toast, and there were a LOT of guests.
Instead of being overwhelmed and getting hammered, then more emotionally unstable due to alcohol, then freaking out at giving toast, my s/o took some air and decided it was better to leave the rehearsal dinner early, skip the bar, and call it good. They made it through the dinner and introductions and a hoard of college students with slumped shoulders and circles under their eyes fidgeting with their first ever suit or gown, not knowing how to walk around in nice clothing. It was an anxiety inducing event for sure, to be surrounded by self-esteem impaired kids who were all going for the booze but without the benefit of self control from experience at fine dining parties, with what looked like over 100 people, and everyone asking for public sharing of personal details, also a pro photographer yelling to smile! They held up well, discussed current work projects and some new construction, introduced me to people I had never met, and put out some effort to show pride in me and make me look good socially. I was pretty stunned.
But that night they panicked a little that they would fall apart again at the actual wedding, and everyone would think they were some kind of weak fool. The story went back on repeat after being gone for over a year.
For about an hour, they were trying to negotiate with me to support using drugs or alcohol to dull the experience, some lashing blame, general disarray of thinking and planning. But they assumed it would be the same as last time, they couldn't live through that embarassment again, falling apart in front of 100 people and being obligated not to leave. The
The next morning they had calmed down, apologized for being so strung out, and we strategized and bought a wine bottle shaped jug of grape juice for the table, so the glasses would be full of something wine-ish and no one would try to force alcohol into their empty glass, and demand they toast and drink, which would definitely put them into a downward spiral.
The wedding later that day was worse in terms of anxiety induction. The hymns, and religious speeches, and a nearly hour long preacher lecture to the couple was a prelude to the too loud background music and people all around yelling to be heard while everyone in fine clothing tried to eat the catered tacos and liquid cheese pour over nachos, with their hands, while avoiding necktties and lace.
And it was fine. No emotional upheaval, no panic due to the crowd, no horror at meeting people.
After four hours, they had congratulated the happy couple, dinner with relatives, family photos, signed the Bible, written note to the couple for the memory scrap book, caught up with relatives, and had real conversations for about two hours of the event. When it was clear there was no emerging timeline for cake cutting, they asked to take a quick walk outside where we could hear each other and we made an exit plan. They had enough bandwidth to compliment the mother of the bride and father of the bride and congratulate them, beg off early due to being a little overwhelmed and blamed their social anxiety diagnosis, and stopped to say goodbye to close relatives.
Since we missed the cake, we pulled in at the nearest gas station and they pounded down a nasty Hostess type pastry cake as a stress relief/token of achievement and we had a good laugh.
They felt depressed for a couple hours afterward, talking about how gross it felt to be surrounded by people who were parading polite personas and be expected to wear the same mask. That the religious content had been much more than they'd been expecting, e.g. required singing about how we are all God's weapons against devils (an interesting choice for a wedding.) Church was never a safe place for them, it was social group where you "can pray away mental illness," and remaining mentally ill was a sign of further personal failure. So feeling low and blue wasn't so much a symptom as a very normal response to being sat down through prayers and hymns and recitations, etc.
And then they played with their kitten to have the kitten run around chasing toys until exhausted and happy sleepy, gave it dinner and asked if I wanted to snuggle and catch up on the news on TV.
And things were fine. They reflected that they didn't fall apart, that they never expected to be able to handle an event like that. That leaving a little early was not much of a sin and they'd been talkative, likeable, well-dressed, and nice company.
The next day there was no recovery or fall out. They did a big favor (1.5 hours driving) for an acquaintance who was rushing in from out of town for an elderly family member who broke their leg. This favor did not stop them from getting some work done, kitten care, and schedule planning.
What a change. From a mental health melt down and subsequent years of relived trauma, improving to the point where the big follow up was them giving me an eyeroll in the car and saying "next time, I'm asking about how many hymns and homilies there will be before I RSVP."

I dont know what else to do, ive searched google for an answer but before I do a support ticket im going to ask you guys if anyone knows about this.
I know wyze has been asking me to setup 2Factor auth but I had done it a while back and then i couldn't for some reason sign into my wyze cameras using TinyCam Pro.
I have always had an NVidia Shield as well as an older Dell Precision computer Running MemuPlay Android Emulator with Tinycam pro running on both of them. But Today my maine screen (the computer with the emulator) it signed off for some reason and now it asks me to Link Wyze : Link the app to your wyze account [CANCEL / LINK]
If I push Link to sign in and it acts as if its connecting to a sign in webpage but just goes to black and i cant do anything except close the program that I've found to get out of that, and therefore I can no longer see my cameras. I thankfully atleast for now still have it visible on my NVIDIA Shield but that thing is way in my room on a tv. I need to get this working asap. Anyone else have this problem and know the work around for it? Thanks in advance! I will also be doing a support ticket for it, but think I might get the answer way faster with some of you guys and all the shit yall know! I actually already have a ticket out for support for another issue that has yet to be corrected, man Wyze has been loosing so many de·mer·it (points) with me Im really starting to rethink who I have my security setup with.

• What are your goals for your car audio system - as loud as possible (SPL)? Sound quality (SQ)? Some combination of both? Describe to us how you want your system to sound.

Sound Quality. Looking for a bit louder than stock.

• What vehicle? - year, make, model, type (coupe, sedan, SUV, truck, etc.)

2016 Optima with navi but NO harmon system.

• What is your maximum budget?
  $750
  

• Will you be installing the gear or are you going to a shop? If a shop is doing the work, does your budget include the cost of labor?
  Shop install with labor. My days of system installing are long gone. Mind says yes, body says "are you serious"
  

• What gear is in your existing system? (Is it stock? List any aftermarket gear.)
  Stock everything for now. Want to keep head unit to keep as factory as possible. Want to install a 5 channel amp using a PAC LPHHY04 LocPro Advanced T-Harness so i do not have to cut factory wiring. Want to use factory wiring for speakers. Also want to run the sub speaker wires to the back trunk but not installing a sub , yet. I can replace speakers in doors and dash by myself.
  

• What is your country of purchase? Leave any finishing thoughts here.
  US........... Looking for recommendations on a 5channel amp. Smaller the better. How is Soundstream, Clarion, and Kenwood. I do not need "rolls royce" amps but something louder than stock.
  

I know they had their origins as metabolic slow life on their homeworld. But what does 'slow' mean exactly?
What I know, is that they had little energy to play with when they were still slugs because they didn't live close to the hydrothermal vents on the sea floor. What I'm straight up guessing however, is that because of the little energy they had, they had to be very efficient with it. So slow growth, slow reproduction, slow evolution, slow locomotion, slow reactions, slow thoughts. Basically their entire clocks were slowed down. And so they evolved the ability to pilfer genetic material to catch up to their faster cousins near the vents.
But then they started acquiring the fancy toys. How did their 'slow' nature interact with their new ability to generate light signals? When one of their nodes received light from surrounding nodes, did it take fucking forever to process the information before broadcasting its own light to the nodes it shared dendrite analogs with? Wouldn't this present a challenge to the emergence of the overall consciousness? I usually imagine their consciousness, indeed any consciousness, as a sort of a symphony that must be time limited between one note and the next. Otherwise it's just keys being played in sequence and not music, or a bunch of lights on a timer and not a moving picture.
Did they carry this slowness with them when they went post biological? Like how uploaded humans in fiction mostly choose human/humanoid avatars? A relic of times past that they can't help but keep? We know by the time the humans stumble onto them they are at least able to count a hundred and thirteen events in one second. But what if their clocks don't tick that much faster than that? What if they are only able to squeeze an eternity out of a day and not a second as we imagine emulated minds to be able to do? On any given power source, you can run some emulated minds very fast, or you can run a fuckton of them at a normal pace. Maybe the romans maximized on emulated nodes. Maybe they saw speed as a luxury to be traded for more of them. Maybe there is a limit on how fast you can run emulated minds in the Expanse universe. Maybe the energy-time uncertainty principle means you get a lot of noise if you try to orchestrate quantum interactions too fast and since consciousness is quantum in this verse all your minds die or something (Probably bullshite physics here but I'm not a physicist, put down the pitchforks please).
The entire reason this issue is nagging away at my brain is because the timeline of the roman-goth encounter seems weird to me. Why does the star killer capability of the slow zone station take so damn long to charge and fire? Where did the Romans get the time to build a black hole shotgun when the goths were shutting down systems left and right. Given how slowly we see the star killer capability of the slow zone station charge up before firing, how did the Romans get the time to fire and kill off entire systems as the goths were attacking them? We've seen the goths sterilize systems in an instant. How did the Romans get the time to do anything??
Tl,dr: The timeline of the Roman-Goth conflict made me suspect that the Romans somehow never managed to escape their slow life era. I'm very confused, send help!

I'm rebuilding my home studio after a move, and I'm wondering whether an online double-conversion UPS like an Eaton 9SX would be a better choice for audio applications than an Eaton 5P despite the significant increase in cost.
I'd be running my M2 Pro Mac mini along with a Yamaha DM3 mixing console and support equipment (monitors, synths, Juniper EX2200C switch, etc) from the UPS along with a PowerEdge R430 server (peak draw 200W on the server) for a total of around 700W.
Would the 5P be fine, or would I have fewer issues with audio noise with the 9P?
(To clarify, I'm talking about noise in the audio signal from power-related issues, not noise produced by the UPS itself.)

Bought these 2 mice to replace my Viper V2 Pro. I opened the Beast X Mini and tried it for 5 minutes before realizing it's too small for my hands. I also realized that the software doesn't auto switch profiles between applications like Razer Synapse which is important to me. This made me realize I may run into the same issue with the Sora V2 so I didn't even open it. It is still BNIB Sealed. Looking to just get money back or trade for Viper V3 Pro.
WLmouse Beast X Mini - $140
Ninjutso Sora V2 - $100
Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/dzlqCyx

Greetings Swap! Have a few knives up for sale this evening.
Timestamp
Demko AD20S Clip Point 20CV - Second owner. Previous owner disassembled to swap scales with a different model. Other than that, basically LNIB. I have not carried it or cut with it. Never sharpened. Comes with box. SV: 400
Demko AD20.5 Smooth Ti Sharkfoot 20CV - First owner. I disassembled it to install Skiff bearings, but just enjoy the textured ti more. Has one small snail near the clip-side pivot that's really hard to see, and some slight scratches near the slot on the same side. Carried a couple times, but never cut anything. Never sharpened. Comes with plastic tube/box, lefty clip, and original bearings. SV: 225 SOLD
Grimsmo Norseman #6654 - Third owner. Was originally anodized turquoise, but a previous owner had custom anodizing done by Valley Bladeworks. Was only ever disassembled to anodize. Never carried by me or previous owners. Never sharpened. Flawless condition, comes with Grimsmo hard case, docs, tool, COA, oil, and sticker. SV: 550
Chaves 229 Liberation Blackout - This was a Thanh V Nguyen exclusive. I'm the first owner. Has seen a bit of pocket time, but never cut anything. I disassembled to install skiff bearings. Easily one of the smoothest knives I have, feels like it runs on glass. Never sharpened. Comes with box, skull clip, Thanh's card, and original bearings. SV: 350
Microtech Socom Bravo S/E - First owner. Pre-ordered this when they were first announced. Has seen a lot of pocket time, but never cut anything. Small snail on the pocket clip, but everything else is flawless. Disassembled to clean. Never sharpened. Comes with box and docs. SV: 300
Pro-Tech TR-3 Magnacut - First owner. Only carried a couple times, managed to put a faint snail down the side of the clip-side scale. Never cut anything. Never sharpened, but came with a slightly uneven cutting bevel from the factory. Comes with box and pouch. SV: 250
PayPal Friends & Family only, no notes. CONUS only. Will try and get any that sell out USPS tomorrow, if not, Thursday at the latest.
Yolo's trump DMs/chat. Not interested in any trades at this time.

Young Avengers film formed by Kamala Khan & Lead by Kate Bishop, will bring together the Young Avengers via Quantum Entanglement.
First seen in The Marvels, where they are Entangled by thier light based powers. connection to Kree based teleportation devices such as the Bangles and the Infinity Stones themselves. Quantum entanglement key element is transportation. Transportation will be the key to the Film, as it is a theme of the Multiverse Saga in general.
The Movie will see Kamala once again being in an entanglement scenario, where a Time traveling Nathinel Richards arrives in Kate’s Pad and warns the teens about Kang’s invasion onto the multiverse. As he was searching for the Avengers in other timelines, but his Armors Temporal pad malfunction after a Kang Fight and lead him to Kamala & Kate’s timeline.
Ironlad is also a teenager, but feels like Kamala isn’t ready for the responsibilities to help save his world. Ironlad attempts to time jump to another universe but actually transports Kamala and Kate to San Francisco in the same timeline. In need to fix his temp pad, he asks where is Tony Stark. Kamala informs him that he died in Endgame. Kate tells him that her parents own a Security company and both of thier partners are Avengers. The girls reach for thier phones, but they left them back in New York. Kamala goes asking people to borrow thier iPhones so she can call Carol Danvers. But Hawkeye and Carol don’t answer. Kate tells them they can try to go find Scott Lang. IronLad is arrogant and doesn’t need the kids help to find a hero, Kamala grabs him before he can fly off. To test thier power he begins a fight with them in the middle of the city.
Kate quickly hits him with a emp arrow, but IronLad advanced armor reboots itself. Kamala uses her newly improved Embiggen powers to protect civilians and stall IronLad. Kate uses several trick arrows in coordination with Kamala and they manage to remove his helmet. (The actor that played Harley Keener Ironman 3) reveals his face, and stops fighting once Antman intervenes. Kate, Kamala, & Cassie meet for the first time at Scott Lang’s lab as they interrogate Ironlad about the validity to his warnings about Kang.
Scott is traumatized that he didn’t actually defeat Kang, and tells the kids that he will buy them a flight back home and to let the adults handle this situation. Kamala ask Cassie what’s it like to have a superhero dad. Even tho her’s is human, Kamala thinks her family is as much of heroes as the Avengers. Cassie & Kate realize their favorite color is purple. Ironlad gets bored of the bonding, and doesn’t think Antman is up to the challenge of helping him. He begins to start his temp pad, but realizes that high quantum frequencies are being detected by his armor. Ironlad demands Scott use his science to help rebuild his pad. For Quantum is the basis to his tech as well. Antman tries to reason with him, but ironlad describes the eradication on his world. Antman and Ironlad begin to fight for access to the basement of his home. Cassie and Scott shrink, while Kamala & Kate try to fight and reason with him. The team crashes into the basement, where ironlad races to the focal point of quantum in the room. Picking up the device that sent the Pym family into the Quantum realm in Quantumania. Ironlad’s nanotech absorbs the device and the temp pad starts to activate. Scott gets serious and starts to enlarge, but Ironlad blasts him back upstairs. The kids all shift and are transported to Westview New Jersey.
They all start having a screaming match, as Cassie is furious that he shot her dad. Kamala tries to calm the team down, but it’s Kate Bishop who makes everyone shut up with a puzzle arrow. This arrow expand an entire acre of land with Purple lasers. She explains it’s a game, that you have to work together or you’ll burn. Cassie laughs and shrinks, ironlad armor is tough enough to not be phased, Kamala has to actually maneuver around to escape the maze of lasers. Kate shows her reflexes and experience by doing flips and evading the laser beams.They all laugh realizing Cassie and Ironlad cheat. As tension dwindles, ironlad explains why he is so serious. That in his future he is a genius prodigy, and learn about the existence of the multiverse in a dream as a kid. Then a week ago Kang invaded his world and eradicated a majority of human life, and took away knowledge and education rights to the slaves of his world. The teens tell thier experience during the blip and how it took away thier own youth, and that’s why the Avengers are an important symbol of hope for them. Kamala starts to fangirl about Carol, Hawkeye, and Ironman… but is stop by Agatha.
Agatha says she saw the kids in her crystal ball, and is aware of the Kang Situation. Using magic to transport them into her suburban home. IronLad is confused why a witch is helping them. Cassie & Kate both keep thier guards up, but hear her out. Agatha tells them that they are on a children’s Crusade, but she can help them all get back home. Ironlad interjects, he needs heros that are competent and ready for war. Agatha uses magic to upgrade thier outfit, then tells them her step son should be home from school soon. Ironlad is tired of waiting as the girls continue to bond and learn more about their abilities. He doubts Billy/Wiccan is as powerful as Agatha claims, and ask why won’t she just use her magic to fight Kang. Agatha says that’s not her role. Billy enters awkwardly, wondering why all these teens are in his house. Kamala ask just how powerful is he, and he simply says he can do whatever he wants.
IronLad test him, and fires a rocket. Wiccan makes it turn into a headband. Picking it up and wearing it, he repeats he can do whatever he wants. Agatha, ask what exactly is Ironlads plan to stop Kang since his Quantum enhanced temp pad can teleport but still can’t take him home. Ironlad says he just needs more power, and rushes Wiccan. Sending his armor to liquidity and consume the sorcerer. Wiccan force pushes back and as they struggle for control, the temp pad activates and sends the group to a new Location; Kahmer Tajh.
Agatha makes fun of the monastery architecture and compares it to her home. Only Kamala & Agatha know this is the home of the sorcerer supreme. Wiccan and Ironlad argue over the consent of letting him suck his energy. And the girls grow more wary of how much they can trust ironlad. Agatha tells them they can find power in teamwork, and disappears into the castle. Kate & Kamala breaks the team into groups. To find Wong or other sorcerers that can help thier fight against the Kang invasion. Wiccan follow where Agatha went. Kate & Cassie search the for more weapons and gear. Kamala and ironlad find Wong & America Chavez.
The 2nd half of the movie has the group coming to face thier teenage fears, as the castle has a horror hex. Ironlad is too afraid to time jump, as memories from his home being overran by Kang haunts him. Wiccan and Agatha are immune to castles spells, as they are magical in tune, however they can’t use thier magic to its fullest extent due to the runes places around the Thaj that prohibits forbidden spells. Wong meets Kamala and tells the young avengers that he didn’t put the horror hex on. There is a Skrull sorcerer in the castle doing this. Kate finds an Asgardian bow and arrows, and takes it for “emergency”. Cassie tells her she is a criminal too, and jokes she spent a day in Jail. Ironlad finds the skrull sorcerer, under stress from the truama spell he is getting beat in the fight. But Wiccan arrives and they team up to defeat him. With a massive display of science meets magic, the young avengers put thier animosity behind them and regroup with Kamala and Wong. Wong is then impaled by a spear by Agatha. Wong’s skin turns Green and it’s revealed he is a skrull too.
America Chavez is distraught, and prepares to fight all the young avengers as she don’t know who to trust. Kamala relates to her humanity, and proves she is just a kid too. She tells her to help them fight off the other skrulls that may be in the castle. Agatha and Wiccan use thier magic sight to determine who is a skrull and who is a real sorcerer. The young Avengers fight off the skrulls, and learn America Chavez can travel the multiverse freely. IronLad sends his armor around her, but she punches and the star impact sends them to Baltimore, USA. The result sends all the hero’s and the Skrulls they were fighting as well.
Inside the Bradley home, Eli is playing video games when the hero’s instantly appear in his house. This sequence is shot from his perspective, as if it’s a home invasion. He runs for his granfathers room, to get his gun. But the safe is only full of a vials of Serum. A skrull breaks into the room and swings an axe at him. He ducks, and drinks the serum. He takes a diluted version of the serum as a hormone and steroid boost, but he never drank the original source of his grandfather saved juiced. He punches the Skrull so hard that his guts explode. Eli runs into the living room ready to box, but see’s the young avengers beating up the Skrulls. Shrugging his shoulders he jumps in and helps.
The team see’s how Brutal he fights and Ironlad likes him. Kamala says they can’t just recruit every teen they see, but looks closer and realizes she seen him on tv. He is the grandson of the first black super soldier, revealed in Captain America Brave new world where they were wrongfully accused of a terrorist attack at the White House. He explains that he has actually been taking his grandfather’s serum and synthesizing it for a hormone steroid supplement. But today he drank the original source out of fear for his life. Making him 10x stronger than he has ever been on the drug. Agatha has a funny don’t don’t drugs PSA, as the kids formulate a way on how to repay Eli for his housing damages. We learn his grandfather is still on trail, and he lives alone. Kate gets everyon back on focus and tells them maybe they can’t help ironlad. They have destroyed homes & Castles today and she needs to get back home to feed her dog Lucky. Kate makes a PowerPoint presentation on how to get ironlad out of their lives, and get Captain Marvel. Ironlad becomes more interested in Carol after Kamala keeps hyping her up to be the strongest avenger of all. Wiccan & Agatha use magic to fix the house as the hero’s finally contact Fury and the whereabouts of Captain Marvel. Fury asks why the hell didn’t she just call him to begin with. Kamala didn’t want to get in trouble for stealing the intel about all these characters
The final act has Kamala & Kate using each hero’s best quality to get Ironlad back to his world, and deflate the Kang dictator in his timeline. Kamala nicknames them Team Red & Team Blue after Captain America & Ironman and Team Purple after Hawkeye since he Don’t get much love.
Team Red; Ms. Marvel, America Team Blue; Wiccan, Eli, Team Purple; Kate Bishop, Cassie, Agatha
America Chavez punches 2 Star portals, one to ironlads homeworld and another to the location fury tells them Carol is. They all wear a harness rope that Kate gives them so they don’t get lost in the multiverse jump. America isn’t sure she can send so may people at once into a diffrent timeline, but Cassie uses her quantum shrinking disk and ironlad’s tech to help keep them from all turning fall off and turning into spaghetti.
While they are preparing, Kamala meets Carol in a New York park and catches up. Ironlad watches them from behind the portal and says this must be what it’s like to have a true friend. Kamala tells Carol that if she keeps asking her for support then she wouldn’t be a hero. Carol gives her the 2nd Bangel and tells her just let her know if she needs backup. Ironlad is still hesitant that going into the fight against Kang with a bangel isn’t gonna do much. Kamala tells them she isn’t a normal human, she is inhuman.
And the team all suit up as the prepare to Jump into the Star. IronLad suddenly laughs and fires his rockets around the building. Knocking out America and collapsing the roof, and shoves Kamala into the future with him.
It’s assume all the young avengers and Agatha are crushed under debris. The perspective changes to Eli who has to save all the hero’s bleeding out or stuck. Eli saves them By bear crawling and dragging them out of the fires. America uses her last strength to send the heros into the future
Kamala fights IronLad alone in a future hala. Ironlad reveals that he is the Kang variant, and his master plan was to go to a past timeline where both bangles existed. These weapons of mass destruction are his way of fighting off other Kang’s tryin to conquer his conquered timeline, following the events of Loki. Due the branching timelines, not even the tva knew he was a variant of Kang since his biological DNA is that of a Reed Richards. Kamala is losing the fight, as Ironlad has one of the bangles and can temporarily stop time. He continues to toy with Kamala and steals her other bangle. Mocking her for playing hero, he kicks her off a platform and into a pit of terrain crystals. Kamala uses the last of her will to let out a furry of punches, cracking the crystals around her and filling the battlefield with mist. Kamala goes through terrgenises, turning into stone. Ironlad fires a missle at her, but ironlad blocks it with a shield formed by Wiccan
Kate Bishop arrives saying Young Avengers Assemble, all the Young Avngers exit America portal. Kate then says that ones for Kamala, and Cassie grows and begins the final fight. The team hold off the firepower of ironlad while Kamalas scales break off. Ironlad can combat Wiccan’s magic with the bangles, and uses time stop techniques to stay ahead of the gang. Kate shoots Cassie’s shrinking disk onto one of the bangles, crushing ironlads left arm. Wiccan uses kamala’s satchel scarf to drag ironlad like a whip. Eli uses his magic shield to block the repulsor blast, and Kate uses the Asgardian bow to pierce his Armor. Cassie uppercuts and shrinks rapidly as the team closes in to fight close quarters. Ironlad makes an energy shield then blows back them all, Kamala is awake and grabs his wrist from far away. Realizing she don’t have light energy anymore, but can stretch her body like Reed Richards. She slams him like hulk did in the original Avengers. Nathinel monoluges about how there will be more conquerors just like history. Tva agents appears, Mobius enters telling the heros thanks for fixing this slight anomaly they better return home or they will all be prune in seconds. IronLad vaporizes and the timeline is erased as the heros return home
The movie ends with Kamala having a to explain to the khan family the events of the film and who all her new friends are. They all are ready to return to thier respected homes, when fury enters and says he heard there was a secret invasion. A running joke about how fury is now last to know anything
Post credit 1: Jessica jones is taking on a private investigator case when she spots a teen couple in an alleyway. She comments that they must be runaways, she zooms in and it’s Cloak and Dagger. They teleport away
Post credit 2: on another planet the Skrull Queen is talking about the failed relations of Kree following Captain Marvel restarting the Hala Sun. The humans are no longer allies after the declaration of war against all allies the President made. She says maybe it’s time we fight back son; and the camera pans to Hulkling
The Young Avengers will return in Avenger’s Secrt Wars

Hello! I am hoping to get some advice / consulting from those that are more knowledgeable about current hardware and what it takes to min/max and optimize a custom PC build. I worked in IT years ago and for the last 20 or so years I've always built my PC. I am at a loss now though with what I should do to either upgrade or optimize my current build to maintain the speed and power that my work and hobbies demand.
I frequently utilize real-time render programs such as Unreal Engine, Adobe Premier and After Effects. I also play games like Helldivers and a few other higher end ones. I have found lately that my machine doesn't seem to be as fast as it should/could be and I am not sure what could be the bottleneck. I will post info below and hoping that I can get some insight on possible solutions, upgrades and maintenance procedures / best practices.
Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 3950x 16-Core Processor 3.5GHz
Motherboard: MSI MEG X570 ACE Gaming Motherboard AMD AM4 SATA 6Gb/s M.2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 Wi-Fi 6 ATX
Video Card: MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 3080 10GB GDDR6X PCI Express Gaming Z TRIO
Memory: Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 32GB (2x16GB) 3200MHz CL16 Intel XMP 2.0 iCUE Compatible Computer Memory x2 (64gb total)
Drives:
1. Samsung SSD 980 PRO 2TB (Temp Data)
2. HGST HDN 4TB (Archive)
3. Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 1TB (Operating System)
4. SanDisk SDSSHD3 2 TB (Temp Data)
Power Supply: GAMEMAX 1050W ATX 3.0 & PCIE 5.0 Power Supply, 80+ Gold Certified, Addressable RGB Sync, Fully Modular ATX Gaming Power Supply, RGB-1050
CPU Cooler: H100i Platinum SE Cooler
My CPU is in a large warehouse/studio. The side panel is off and the warehouse is almost always around 76 degrees F. Should I elevate the machine so it's not on the ground? The floor is concrete.
TLDR: I feel my computer should be running faster and I am not sure what I should do to check/test and troubleshoot before upgrades.
I am not sure how to provide PCIE Lane info or other windows settings like virtual memory etc. I know I should start with my drives first and clean those up.
Is there anything that is blatantly holding me back? How often should I be applying thermal paste?
Do I need to post my BIOS settings?

I always knew I was incapable. I always knew I’d be a good for nothing. I was never smart or wise or intelligent, I was only good at studying and getting good grades but I always knew they weren’t worth anything. I’m weak, an absolute embarrassment, a complete disappointment. I lie to myself about my wants because I knew I’d never get them and don’t deserve them. Not when I’m not doing anything to improve myself. I’m not a good child to my parents, I’m not a good friend. I run away from messes that I cause and I never take responsibility for my mistakes. I’m not a good person, I have filthy thoughts and desires, I stopped caring for the injustices in this world and I never help anyone or any animal. I can’t do anything for myself even though I’m abled. I can’t think for myself. I don’t care for myself, I’m so careless about my surroundings I keep on getting into small accidents. I can only fantasize and daydream. I hold conversations with others only in my mind without having the guts to talk to them about my issues. I start projects but can never complete them. I can only whine to myself and cry. I don’t express myself, I’m too stuck in this cage I forged. I’m not worthy of life. I knew, even as a kid, that I’d be a burden someday, with my unstable thoughts and passivity. I’m just like my other deadbeat relatives, relying completely on my dad. I guess my suicidal aspirations are also a form of escapism. It’s another excuse to not do anything. I wish I were someone else, I wish my life was given to someone more deserving at the start.

Okay so i finally got the book today and.......eh.......i can see what its trying to do but there's just this feeling of it all being orbs of locations suspended in a void with nothing between them and very little Vecna. And that gave me an idea of a way to run this adventure still using most of the locations aand setups it gives but just making it more dire.
Vecna Won
First off Vecnas the god of secrets, hell yeah he would keep his universe domination plan a secret as well so heroes cant get the hint and stop him. The first change therefore happens in chapter 1 when the party are disrupting the ritual.
First off this is THE ritual and its functionally complete, its one of many rituals taking place across the multiverse around those obelisks that came up a lot in 5e. The party are able to disrupt this ritual however they cant stop them all and Vecna still succeeds in rewriting the multiverse. However, now he misses a bit, the party themselves.
The party tumble through the 'crevice of dusk' and find themselves in the dark reflection of Neverwinter, however now its not the Shadowfell, its reality. Vecna is worshipped there as a god, characters the party met earlier are now twisted as Vecna wished and the universe is cataclysmically changed. If the party follow up on their backstories they are changed as well, close family members are now evil tyrants, all the heroics they performed are all for naught. Vecna won and made the universe as he wished and he wished for Evil!
The party are one of the few bastions of the old universe, missed by Vecnas reality rewrite by disrupting the ritual, and now they are Vecnas only Blindspot.
The Wizards three (actually three)
Once the setting is established as being Vecnas and the party have started causing a ruckus they are picked up by one of the last bastions of the old universe left, the wizards three but this time Mordenkainen is actually himself. The wizards have spotted them as not beloning to this new reality and are apparently relativly unoticed by Vecnas sight so far. Comparitivly the wizards three are trapped in their sigil sanctumn and under siege by vecnas forces. the three of them are tired and wearing thin, eventually they will give out but for now they can help the paarty by instructing them on restoring the universe by restoring the rod of seven parts.
The rod here is still an ultimate symbol of law, however it is a symbol of the old universes laws, all of them, enough to rebuild the universe as it was if these laws are restored. You can think of the rod as being like a blueprint of the universe before Vecna changed everything and if brought to the right place it could Re-establish its laws and restore the universe to its original form.
The rods pieces are trying to do their thing, maintaining pockets of the old reality within Vecnas new one, though Vecna wishes to obtain them to destroy it and some are held in the hands of some terribly powerful beings who don't want to see Vecna ruling the universe.
And so now the quest is set, collect the rod pieces before vecna can to restore a blueprint of the universe before Vecna changed it. The Wizards three can direct the party towards one of these places of stability where the first piece of the rod is but they don't have knowledge of the other pieces..
At a certain point in the adventure have the wizards sanctum finally be breached and Vecna himself destroy them easily, a final bastion of the old universe fallen to his might.
Between the pieces
This now gives us an opportunity to build what Vecnas universe is, have characters backstories twisted by his will so where one player was a noble guard captain, now he's seen as a corrupt tyrant. Another player who had a heroic father now looks upon a villain. This in between world is just the normal dnd world but now twisted for vecnas evil goals. Have characters within this world give the party clues on these other areas of stability so the party can try to reach them. Use the areas around the stability areas as setups for what vecnas done to the unuverse. It fills in the gaps between the set pieces of the adventures.
The rod pieces themselves
The rod pieces should all be protected by powerful beings who see their potential or work for Vecna to protect them. Maybe some pieces are held by villains who would rather stick it to Vecna than live in his world. I personally love the idea of Strahd in his castle fighting a siege war against Vecnas forces and the party have to infiltrate the castle to reach and convince him to give up his piece of the rod so they can destroy Vecna, only for Strahd to choose to accompany them to make sure of it.
Have new allies within these pockets of the old reality who can join them or aid them in their quest, villains who grant them boons, other great heroes who offer a heroic sacrifice so they can escape. These are the last threads of the old reality and every one of them wants to do a big hit against Vecnas new one that twisted their world into the monstrosity it is.
Kas
Okay so Kas has to be here but having him in a deception role seems......weak.....he's a powerful general and fighter, not a deception master. So lets have him be resistant to vecnas reality change the same as the party. H e is also on a quest to restore the rod of seven parts but he intends to use it to restore the universe to his specifications instead. He will still help the party collect rod pieces but with the condition that he gets to be there when they eventually fight vecna. I would also add in background fluff on him where Vecnas new reality constantly mocks him as a failure and there are monuments to Vecna beating him in battle and the like. Really making him hate Vecna more.
Vecna is a god, he's always here!
So Vecna himself, he's a god in this new reality and he enjoys it, often appearing to his greatest worshippers and giving them guidance, maybe striking the final blow on battles against the old reality and mopping up the remnants of some of the reality pockets. He cant enter them himself as he would be significantly weakened but he can still send his forces in from outside.
Vecna is also a God with a capital G. He doesn't have a stat block, he cant be killed by just being stabbed on the street, if a player tries to attack him they are just disintegrated on the spot with no hope of survival against a God. The only way to defeat Vecnas godhood is to begin restoring reality to how it was when he was only the god of Secrets
One bit that I'm not fully sold on but i think could work is that the party are 'Outside' his realm, they were missed in the spell so unless he directly looks at them and works out they aren't from his remade reality he doesn't know they exist. The party are his one blind spot caused through the pure luck of them disrupting a tiny part of his ritual. A fluke that will eventually bring him down. He may occasionally speak to the party and make his prescense known but unless the party give themselves away he remains unaware of their true goals until the end. The one secret he doesnt know himself.
Finale
Going into the finale, when the rod is rebuilt the party will now have the goal of reaching where Vecna originally cast the spell. Maybe they have allies from the other reality pockets, maybe the wizards three survived, maybe Kas is helping the party out. Whatever allies they have they infiltrate Vecnas lair and reach the birthplace of his universe. When they attempt to use the rod Vecna himself appears and the fight ensues. Vecna being within range of the rod when it irs restoring reality is weakend to just his god of secrets form but still can call in aid from his reality to help and exhibits enhanced power. Maybe the rod restores other heroes from the old reality to help, maybe the party bring their own horde of allies gathered over the campaign, theres lots of ways this can go.
Conclusion
Eventually Vecna will be defeated and the rod can do its thing, at this point each party member gets a perfect wish each to influence the restored universe...….and are then dropped off in the tavern where it all started, no-one else has any memory of what happened, Vecna himself doesn't even know he succeeded and follows other methods of ascension instead. The party have the choice of telling people what happened but the chance of vecna finding out this plan and trying it again is too much of a risk......... I guess the party need to keep it a secret to themselves...…
Roll Credits I don't know if this is actually a good campaign but it sounds like the kind of thing i would run if i was to do this campaign concept. Meanwhile I'm going to return to my Curse of Strahd sequel campaign where Strahd and Azalin are duking it out to rule the domains of Dread.
Thank you for reading

TL:DR
Some parts of the text was in Reddit-tables, but they got somehow lost.
This project began when someone on Reddit asked about the export speed of Rekordbox 7 compared to Rekordbox 6, prompting the entire initiative. My intention is not to "blame" or "shame" any company or its products. I approached these tests with an unbiased, open mind, taking great care to provide a level playing field for all tests conducted. This report reflects my impartial findings.
Test DateMay 16th - May 20th 2024 Report ReleaseMay 21st 2024 AuthorMixMasterG CompanyAnd The Groove Remains Production Team Websitewww.ATGR.nl
Publication of (sections) of this report is allowed, with full data source statement included.
Introduction:
Welcome to the real world Rekordbox 6/7 speed comparison test on macOS 2024.
When I began these tests, my initial goal was to quickly compare the speed difference between Rekordbox 6 and Rekordbox 7 on an Apple ARM computer for tasks that are notoriously slow, such as opening, exporting to USB, and analysis. I used my personal, extensive track collection for these tests. Due to unexpected results, I expanded the test to include several other macOS computers. As a reference, I decided to include Algoriddim djay Pro 5, the most optimized DJ software for macOS, and Serato, the second most popular DJ software on macOS.
Mandatory Rekordbox 7 analysis when exporting to USB
When I initiated the tests, the measured export times from Rekordbox 7 to USB were unreasonably long. Similar reports poured in from users of my applications in various settings. Identifying the cause of this sluggishness swiftly became my top priority. It turned out that Rekordbox 7's export process necessitated the analysis of tracks by RB7, even if those tracks were already fully analyzed in Rekordbox 6.8.5. When an artist updates from Rekordbox 6 to Rekordbox 7, RB7 silently analyzes the tracks before exporting, leading to excessively prolonged export times. Fortunately, RB7 analysis is a one-time requirement per track and can be manually initiated at times that its more convenient then minutes before a gig. I issued this short YouTube video to make users aware: Slow USB export from Rekordbox 7? This is why and how to fix!
I gave the full explanation and interpretation of the test results, together with performance tips in my weekly Ask Me Anything live stream for DJs, the video can be watched back here Ask Me Anything for DJs - Results of the Rekordbox 6 Vs Rekordbox 7 real world speed-test There is a time index in the first remark under the video.
All previous AMA livestreams, are available in this YouTube playlist: Ask Me Anything conversion & collection management for DJs past streams
The Test parameters:
Main collection managerMusic (the app formerly known as iTunes, will be referred to as iTunes) Total number of tracks in collection116.747 / 1.47 Tb Audio file formatMP3 preferred - 320 Kbs / 44.1 kHz / 16bit/CBR Location of audio filesexternal SSD, Samsung T7 2Tb / formatted macOS Extended Export driveexternal SSD, Samsung T7 2Tb each test run (FAT32 and HFS) started with a fresh formatted export drive Drive's connection to computeron all test systems USB-C
The software used:
Music (=iTunes)1.2.5 RB6Rekordbox 6.8.5 RB7Rekordbox 7.0 SeratoSerato 3.1.3 djaydjay Pro 5.1.7
Computer specifications
M1 = MacMini (2020) - M1 8 cores (4 efficiency 4 performance) - GPU 8 cores - RAM 8Gb - macOS Sonoma 14.4.1
i9 = Intel MacPro - i9 9900K u/3.6Ghz 8 cores - GPU AMD RX 580 8 Gb - RAM 16Gb - macOS Monterey 12.7.5
MBP = MacBookPro 14" (2021) - M1 8 cores (2 efficiency 6 performance) - GPU 14 cores - RAM 16Gb - macOS Monterey 12.7.1 because the similarity in times for Rekordbox 7.0 on the M1 and MBP, the Rekordbox 6.8.5 tests were skipped on the MBP.
Note: for the tasks that were tested, none of the DJ softwares utilizes the GPU
Test conditions
I aimed to standardize all test conditions as much as possible, including:

• Data for collection was stored on the internal drive, the audio files were stored on external storage.
• Each test used the exact same external drives, connected to the computer over USB-C, using the same cables.
• All collection data was identical across all systems, synchronized using Carbon Copy Cloner before the test.
• All computers were freshly rebooted prior to the test, with the "open windows from previous session" option disabled.
• No other applications were open besides an on-screen stopwatch.
• Wi-Fi was disabled, and network cables were disconnected.
• No screen capture applications were used; all video recording was done externally to avoid occupying system resources from the test.
• Between the various exports in a single test run, the export drive was not formatted (so each of the 3 exports added to the previous). Only after a full export run (sync1, sync2 and sync3) on a given computer, the drive was reformatted.
• The partitioning scheme used in both FAT32 and HFS (=macOS Extended journaled) was Master Boot Record.
• Analysis in Rekordbox was only performed for "Phrase" to maintain the converted Mixed in Key/Traktor values. Analysis requires at least one option to be checked, all other options (BPM/Grid, key etc) were disabled.
• In Serato DJ Pro analysis for BPM and Key were disabled
• In Rekordbox, the Sync Manager was enabled to synchronize all playlists from iTunes, ensuring the sync was up-to-date with no changes made to the iTunes collection during the test.
• All test playlists originate from iTunes and were accessed through the iTunes section of the DJ software.
• All (116.747) tracks from iTunes had been pre-analyzed in: Rekordbox 6, Serato, and djay Pro 5. In other words, the DJ software had a real and big collection of tracks. Since djay Pro 5 does not re-analyze already analyzed audio files, all djay analysis data was deleted from the system before running the analysis tests.
• Because iTunes sync can not be disabled in djay Pro, the values used for startup without iTunes are the same values from the test run with iTunes sync enabled.

Fault tolerance:
During computer speed testing, achieving 100% identical situations is unfeasible due to the unpredictable consumption of system resources by various OS-related operations. I estimate the fault tolerance in the measured times to be around 5%.
The iTunes playlist(folder) used for the tests:
Sync1
Playlist folderATGR Necessities Number of playlists in folder24 Total number of tracks 3823 / 45,93 Gb Export to USBSyncManager
Sync2
Flat playlist Top 40 2023 Total number of tracks 587 / 4,46 Gb Export to USBRight click playlist -> export
Sync3
Flat playlistTop 40 2024 Total number of tracks 283 / 2,17 Gb Export to USBRight click playlist -> export
https://preview.redd.it/hmajmvglru1d1.png?width=1497&format=png&auto=webp&s=108356518b3998c94ec848f07a78b545425b5d7f
https://preview.redd.it/eo3gvokqru1d1.png?width=1400&format=png&auto=webp&s=4487f3193d07c5e98ff8a796cc56fc303042e58d
https://preview.redd.it/qzzzy78sru1d1.png?width=1400&format=png&auto=webp&s=deffef82a834e3ad3ef13aa2a59bd705316a6ef1
https://preview.redd.it/hqed25ntru1d1.png?width=1400&format=png&auto=webp&s=2fb3c7ba5283722e569a207d2faa242b3aa32e26
https://preview.redd.it/7ubiz7iuru1d1.png?width=1400&format=png&auto=webp&s=2f2cb345cf718b30cd473cca3b9c1d8a33c714e1
https://preview.redd.it/zu5yiajvru1d1.png?width=1400&format=png&auto=webp&s=df06eed0e2d8cea446469ed498cf32c341f064c7
https://preview.redd.it/mq1chq9wru1d1.png?width=1400&format=png&auto=webp&s=cfa752e197d88b63bd6fbea2ff95f9b9b552cabc
https://preview.redd.it/7eu2rl1xru1d1.png?width=1400&format=png&auto=webp&s=863ce32b59be277fbc4a6d32b4b4cf90f8417213
Important conclusions and findings from these tests:

• Rekordbox 7 on macOS is not multithreading when it comes to analysis, hence the spikes in the tests. On Windows Rekordbox 7 utilizes all available CPU cores. Rekordbox 6.8.5 is also multithreading.
• Export to an HFS formatted USB is faster than a FAT32 formatted, especially after consecutive exports.
• Disabling iTunes integration in the SyncManager can improve startup times of Rekordbox considerably. Disabling iTunes sync can cause issues with exported USBs that were originally created using the SyncManager.
• Rekordbox 7 has a bug, where custom/edited BPM/Grids can be overwritten with mandatory analysis. Even when the BPM/Grid analysis is disabled!
• Export to USB using the SyncManager still shows 2 progress bars, where export through right click -> export only shows 1

(c) 2024 And The Groove Remains Production Team

Dracula: World of War --- The Violet Reaper ---- Humans Don’t Make Good Familiars Book 1 ---- The Lonely World --- Discord ---- YouTube --- My Patreon --- My Author's Page --- ArcAngel98 Wiki ---- The Next Best Hero ---- HDMGF Book 2 ---- Jess and Blinx: The Wizard ---- The Questing Parties ---- Previous
It took a month for Zanwy to recover from losing her wing. The shaman said everything went well, but afterwards she developed a fever for three days, and couldn’t move from the pain for over a week. Even after the fever broke and the pain faded, she was still too weak to move, and could not eat for some time. I visited her every day, bringing her food, making sure she ate even a little, and peeling the chard scales off the wound to help it heal. The shaman never even returned once to check on Zanwy. Her parents and siblings stayed with her, but that may have only been because they lived there too. After she recovered her strength, we started making plans on what to do. She knew the swarm wouldn’t accept her anymore, and I never felt at peace within it, so our plan was to leave.
“Are you ready?” I asked Zanwy as we overlooked the cliff edge. Even though I could fly now, I was not strong enough to carry her, so she needed to climb down. Which, after a month of infrequent meals and not moving much, seemed risky. “We could wait a few more weeks. Until you recover.”
“No. I can’t stay here.” One claw after the other, her wing pressed tightly to her back so she didn’t catch an updraft and twist, her belly flat against the rock, and her head pointed to the ground, she climbed down carefully. Of course, I could have glided down, but I didn’t. It felt wrong now somehow. The rocks shadows had moved over an inch before we made it to the bottom, with the forest we loved so much as our first destination. We thought that maybe the first place we should go could be past the furthest point we’d gone together.
Walking through those familiar rolling grassy hills and past the jumper’s nests, I listened to these familiar sounds one last time. Taking it all in, I heard, of course, that penetrating roar of the swarm, but there was also the small wet splashes of the jumpers moving about, the small howl of the wind as it made waves in the tall grass, the crunch of that same grass under our claws as we walked, and Zanwy’s slight panting. She was out of breath, but was keeping quiet, hoping I wouldn’t notice.
Eventually, we reached the edge of the forest, and stopped to eat red-berries. We sat in the grass and ate the red-berries that had fallen out of the treetops. Once we’d had our fill, and juice dripped from our snouts, I asked Zanwy, “How do you feel?”
“Off balance. Walking is a lot harder than I remember it being.” Zanwy said, limping slightly.
“Can you climb?” I looked up to the branches we always run along.
“I… no. I don’t think so.”
“What if I helped you?”
“Maybe, but jumping along the branches would be hard.” A drop of berry juice ran down her mouth and landed on the grass as she licked her claws clean.
“Okay, we can just-”
“No, I wanna try.” Zanwy said.
Getting Zanwy up the tree truck was clumsy and hard. She rested her tail on my head as I climbed below her, pushing her up for support. It took a few minutes but she and I made it to the strong branches. The branch swayed with the wind, and Zanwy flared her one wing, before quickly realizing her mistake and pulling it, and herself, closer to the branch. Using my wings to balance myself, I walked over to her. “Should we go back down?”
“Not yet. Just let me…” She slowly stood back up, and kept her wing pressed to her body. The nub where her missing wing had once been pressed itself down too, mimicking the movements of the other like an invisible mirror. Pushing off, she jumped to another nearby branch, and landed safely on the other side. Once again, I heard heavy panting, but she couldn’t hide it as well right now. “See, I can do it!” Zanwy yelled excitedly as her tail swayed back and forth from the edge. I followed suit, and lept to the branch next to her. It took a while, but she found a rhythm, and we ran along the branches for nearly an hour, until the sun began to set.
“It’s almost night. Let’s find somewhere to sleep.” I suggested.
“Yeah, let’s head back to the ground.” Zanwy agreed.
“You don’t want to sleep in the trees?”
“No. Without my wing… I don’t wanna risk falling by accident. Do you mind sleeping with me on the ground?”
“Okay, let’s find somewhere safe.” We spent a few minutes looking around, and found a tree with a hollow spot near the base. It was cramped, but empty. By the time the moon rose we had already settled down. Zanwy rested closer to the back of the hollow, and I slept near the entrance.
“It’s cold.” She said, and yawned. Since we were under a tree, the walls of the hollow couldn’t be heated with fire directly. So slowly and carefully, Zanwy and I used our fire to heat the dirt under us instead. Small embers of grass charred, caught fire, and burned away, leaving the ground much warmer; enough for us to sleep comfortably.
That night, I dreamt of Zanwy. She was flying around, soaking up the sunlight with her wings. I was the too; flying right beside her. We danced in the sky together. Zipping and diving about. It was so quiet. It was just us; as a perfectly happy swarm of two. Later that night, I woke up feeling sluggish and dizzy. A moment later I realized how cold it had gotten, and that the heat from the ground had long since gone. Zanwy was still asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her up.
Controlling flames is easy… to a point. But once something is on fire, you don’t control how it burns. That was something my father taught me when I breathed my first flame. The grass had already burned, so I assumed it could burn again. Because of that, I thought it would be safe to use more this time. I assumed wrong. One breath was all it took, and the walls turned yellow with fire. I tried to put it out by beating it with my tail and wings, but that only spread it faster.
“Zanwy! Get up!” I shouted. Dragons may be harder to burn, but enough fire can char and blacken even our scales.
Zanwy startled awake, “what’s going on? What happened!?” The flames started creeping closer, so she scrabbled to her and we both ran out of the hollow. It didn’t take long for the rest of the tree to burn, and for the fire to spread to the nearby trees. We ran away as fast as we could, the smell of smoke in our noses, and the sounds of crackling flames left behind us. Once we’d gotten safely out of the forest, I told Zanwy what happened.
“I’m sorry.” I told her.
“I guess the forest isn’t as used to fire as our nests are.” She said. She was upset, but was trying to not let me hear it. “Let’s just find someone else to sleep for tonight.” It was dark, but we could both see well enough to spot a rocky outcrop.
“Rocks are harder to burn than trees.” Zanwy said, crawling into an opening between the rocks. We crawled inside, and made sure there was nothing that could burn this time.
“Looks safe to heat these up.” I suggested. Zanwy agreed, and we spent several minutes making the place warm. “Much better.”
We finally got to sleep again after that, and woke up to beams of light hitting our eyes from the opening in the rocks. I rolled my head away from the light, and covered my eyes with my wings. I was all set to go back to sleep, until Zanwy said, “Woah… look at this, Blinx.”
Sliding one of my wings down, I peaked an eye open. With the sun out, the cave we were in became a lot brighter. Enough to see that it was much deeper than we’d realized. Zanwy, who’d slept further in than I did, noticed it first.
“This hole is really deep.” She said. “And it gets darker inside too. Do you wanna go explore it?”
I stood up, and my stomach growled. “Sure, but let’s eat first.” We left the cave in search of food. Outside, we found three things. One, some tasty slitherers under a big rock. Two, some water under another rock. And three, a burned down forest. Well, not the whole forest, but a lot of it that we could see. In the distance, white smoke rose into the sky from a few different places. A lot of the grass around the rocky area had been burnt up too.
“I guess we slept through the worst of it.” Zanwy said.
“Are the fires out now, at least?”
“Yeah, the smoke it white, so nothing’s burning anymore.” The was a moment of quiet, and I thought about how lucky we were to escape that tree in time, and how careless I was.
“I’m… sorry. We almost got hurt because of me.”
“Forget it. Name one dragon who hasn’t accidentally burned something with their breath. Let’s just go look at that cave. That’s why we left, right? To explore?” She said.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
The cave itself was very deep, and the walls were made of stones of lots of different colors. As we climbed down, we had to squeeze between rocks, and scrabble with our claws to make holes as we went deeper and deeper down. Eventually, the light from outside didn’t shine, but we could still see fairly well, though not as far, and without any colors. The cave quickly went from colorful, to just shades of gray. As we went along, the sounds of our claws on the stone did something strange. The sounds started happening several times, and coming from all around us.
“Do you hear that Zanwy?” I asked.
“Hear what?”
“Listen,” I said, and tapped the stone with my claw. Suddenly, the same tap came from above, below, and beside us; like a tiny swarm was clattering all around the rocks.
“Let me try.” She said, and scratched a stone. Once again, the sounds repeated. “Oh wow!” We decided to go deeper, and find out what was causing the sounds to do that. Eventually though, we entered a big open area in the cave.
“What is this?” I asked, hoping down into the area, and looking around.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the village of another species!” Zanwy said. “Hello!” She cried out with her mind in a way that any species could hear and understand, but there was no answer. As we continued to look around, we found all kinds of things. There were strangely small hard clay nests all around, but they were filled with tiny rocks and ash and mud. There were also lines of white mud on the ground. I followed them, and they led to the center of the ‘village’.
“Find anything?” Zanwy asked, walking over.
“No, but I am getting cold.”
“Yeah, it was much warmer aboveground.”
“Do you wanna warm up?”
“No, you go ahead, I’m going to keep looking around.” She said. As she walked away, I used my fire to warm up the rocks below me. Suddenly, light started to shine from the mud lines, revealing that I was standing on a large, circle with a strange pattern on it. The light got brighter and brighter, and I tried to run, but found that I couldn’t move. “Blinx!”
“Zanwy!” Without warning, I felt dizzy, and I could move again. Then I heard the sounds of something behind me, but it wasn’t Zanwy. Growly, I tried to make myself look bigger, and threatening. Whatever it was, it stood on two legs, and was rubbing its eyes. In its hand was a broken tree branch, with a rock at one end. The cave village had been filled with light, but it came from all around.
“What the?” The creature mumbled, looking at me. “Are you a dragon?” I growled at the creature, while looking around for Zanwy, but she wasn’t there.
“Who are you? Where’s Zanwy?” I demanded. I let the flames build up in my mouth to show that I was dangerous.
The creature grabbed her head. “Telepathy. That’s new. My name is Jess. I’m a wizard. Who are you?”

Traveling for work and everything wrapped up by about 2:15p. Naturally, I went to the hotel, got changed, and drove to one of the nearby golf courses. Walked in and talked to the guy in the pro shop “hey I’m a single, don’t have a tee time, when/where can I get on to walk 18?” He sets me up for a solo tee time in 20 minutes—great!
Spent about 15 minutes on the practice green struggling to figure out the green speed. I don’t have a stimpmeter, but I’m hammering putts and they’re only going 20-25 feet. I begin to pray for my wedge game to help me out around the green.
About 5 minutes before my tee time, I walk over to the first tee and there’s a group of 4 younger guys (late high school/early college) hanging around doing some practice swings on the tee box. They ask if I want to go ahead of them since I’m by myself. I say sure and take about 2 practice swings before teeing up.
I hit a pretty straight drive, not a ton of distance, and it rolls off the left side of the fairway—slight dog leg right. Walking up, it takes me a few minutes to find my ball, and when I finally found it, I look back and the guys on the box are hands on hips staring at me (probably wondering how I couldn’t find my ball).
I quickly estimate about 115y to the hole and quickly grab my A wedge (49°). Take one half swing and then line up. I hit it, it takes a clean bounce off the fringe, rolls towards the hole, and disappears.
I throw my club at my bag and start running to the hole with my hands in the air. As I get up to the green, I don’t see my ball, so I run up to the hole. MY FIRST EVER EAGLE!!
I look back at the tee box and all the dudes all have their hands in the air and are jumping around. They high-fived each other and I shouted out a THANK YEWWW and a ric flair WOOOO before running grabbing my club and bag to head to the next tee box.
The rest of the round? Carded a 10 on an easy par 5, two triple bogeys, and a few bogeys to finish at +15. The Golf Gods aren’t ready to let me have a sub-80 round just yet, but they let me have a 1h20m front 9 until I caught up with a league.
Thanks for reading!

Hi everyone! I'm curious on some of you all's opinion on this! (I apologize for the bad english as we start since it's not my main language)
Long story short: I'm in my final year of high school and I really want to use macs for my work when I go to university. Anyways, right now I use my main desktop (Ryzen 9 7950x cpu and 4070Ti gpu, 32 Gb of ram and something like 6Tb of storage) both for work and gaming and I really really want to separate my workflows, gaming on windows, and work on macos.
I already have an "old" M1 MacBook pro 13 inch, but I would really like to either upgrade it to a better MacBook (currently debating M2 Pro vs M2 Max since 1. I've been hearing meh stuff about the M3 lineup 2. They are on sale right now), or just get a Mac Studio. I really don't know which one to go for!
What I plan to do with it: - make projects with the Microsoft Office lineup of programs like word, excel and powerpoint; - coding, I mainly use Code::Blocks (I DIDNT HAVE A CHOICE IT WAS FORCED UPPON ME, OK?) right now but I plan to switch to something else after high school; - watch media; - I also really need 2 monitors so... (I'll use the MacBook with a stand and a 2nd monitor attached if I'd have it, but I'd use 2 monitors with the Mac Studio)
My curent M1 MacBook Pro is *enough* right now I should say? But I don't know how it would hold up in the future, especially another 4 years of university. It's the 2020 base model and I have it since release afterall it's sort of showing it's age? 8gb of ram and 256gb of storage isnt really enough for me, but the battery still holds amazingly! 99% health and only 65~ ish battery cycles (can you tell I didnt rly use it much, I just couldnt get it to run Word or Powerpoint idk why and I gave up on it for a few years). But in recent times I find myself actually using it more and more and thats why I really wanted to ask the question:
Should I get the MacBook Pro with M2 Pro/Max or the M2 ultra MacStudio?

Hey, I've got what I would've thought was a pretty standard audio use-case, but the more I look, the more complex it seems to be. I am searching for an audio device that:

• allows me to easily separate audio channels in Windows
• support 3 XLR microphone inputs
• Independent headphone outputs.
• This should all then be routed back into windows, maintaining the separated audio channels.
• A routing table

In the past, I have fought with Voicemeeter, but have consistently run into issues with the software. Primarily, the documented issue that comes up when the software runs across multiple cores, which starts heavily stuttering and dropping "packets" (Idk the audio term, I'm an engineer not a sound engineer). In the past, I worked with a GoXLR that seemed to do ok, but I really wanted more functionality available to me. Most recently, I've swapped to giving the Rodecaster Pro 2 another try, and while it's certainly close, the lack of available audio channels for windows has still been painful.
For an example of a use case, I work an FGC event that streams the matches. This means I need access to multiple inputs/outputs, as well as being able to route the destinations to one another (this lets me talk to people without it getting mixed into the live feed). Additionally, a game feed, music feed, and (depending on guests), chat feed all need to be broadcast as well. I'd like the option to, in post, rebalance/mute these as needed to improve the final product before upload. I'd like as many of these as possible to be controlled via physical faders.
I saw some options that looked like they'd be what I need (like the Allen & Heath Qu-16), but I'd like to keep the budget under 1k if possible, especially if I'm not sure that they do what I need.

Howdy. I am officer M (only M, privacy reasons, could lose my job if I was exposed). I’ve been investigating these three cases for the past few years, and I wanted to see if anyone had any clue how to solve them.
I normally wouldn’t go to places like Reddit for this, but I’m desperate. Everyone else I’ve tried has said that this is some kind of webseries project thing. It isn’t.
I’m gonna show you the transcriptions of three sets of video tapes. The first set is from James Barlowe, the second from Daren Redd, and the third from Nick Robin.
Well, I’d better get on with it.
[- - -]
There’s only one tape in this section. It begins with a man in a priest’s uniform (identified as James Barlowe) in the driver’s seat of a car. The person holding the camera is in the passenger’s side.
CAMERAMAN (LATER IDENTIFIED AS NICK ROBIN): “So! What’re we doing, James?”
JAMES: “Oh, uhm, we’re going to a haunted house to perform an exorcism.”
NICK: “Hell yeah we are!”
Nick turns the camera towards his face.
NICK: “Someone tipped us off on a haunted house recently, so we’re gonna go check it out. And James is gonna use his cool priest powers or whatever to get rid of the ghosts! Right James?”
The camera pans to James.
JAMES: “Ah- Yeah.”
The camera turns back to Nick.
NICK: “Now, I’m not gonna be in this one too much, since James is gonna be doing his stuff on his own.”
JAMES: “Wait what?”
The tape cuts off here, and picks back up with James holding the camera. He’s in front of a run-down, abandoned house. He seems nervous, fidgeting with the stole around his neck.
JAMES: “Okay, so, uhm. I am Father Barlowe, and, uhm..I kind of thought Nick was gonna be here. He- He told me he was gonna be here. I dunno. Uhm. Today I’m going to exorcise this ghost. I, uh, don’t know if I’m allowed to do that anymore. But I know how.”
James turns the camera around, and starts to walk into the house. The front door opens into a hallway, which leads to a living room. The camera shakes as James fumbles with his pockets, then brings out a cross. He holds it out in front of him.
JAMES: “Uhm, if there are any ghosts here, show yourself.”
Nothing happens. James mutters something about editing. He waves the cross around dramatically.
JAMES: “Ghost, or demon, or whatever you are, please come and-”
A loud bang comes from somewhere within the house. James seems to flinch. He can be heard heavily breathing as he turns the camera towards the sound.
JAMES: “Uhm..Okay. That’s okay. I’ve got a cross. I’m okay.”
James begins to walk down the hall, where the sound was heard. The camera is shaking, and James is holding out his cross.
JAMES: “Okay, uhm- I think..I think the ghost is in there.”
James points to the doorway at the end of the corridor, then advances towards it. He walks through, and into what appears to be a study. There is a desk and chair in the corner. The chair has a pitch-black figure in it.
JAMES: “Oh god, okay, uhm- Okay. Okay. Uhm. Uh- Demon!”
The figure turns to face James. He holds out his cross with a trembling hand.
JAMES: “Foul creature, begone from this home-”
The figure stands up and begins to walk towards James. The camera is dropped.
JAMES: “Oh God, oh God!”
James can be heard running away.
[- - -]
This first tape is very intriguing to me. The figure has not been identified. At least, not as anyone in the town.
I interviewed both Nick Robin and James Barlowe (they had not gone missing after this video. quite the contrary, in fact. James Barlowe is the one that brought the video to police), and they revealed that most of the content in their videos was fake.
They said that the events of the video were not planned.
[- - -]
The camera appears to be moved around a bit, before setting up to show a man in a red hoodie (identified as Daren Redd) sitting in an office chair. It can be assumed that he’s at his desk. He smiles at the camera.
DAREN: “Uh- Hi. This feels weird, haha. I don’t think I should introduce myself? I don’t know. No one but me’s gonna see this anyways. Unless I make, like, a giant scientific discovery. Or break a world record.”
Daren fidgets with the strings of his hoodie, twirling one between his fingers.
DAREN: “So. My sleep schedule sucks. I’ve been trying to fix it for weeks now, it isn’t working. I’ve decided, fuck it, I’m just gonna roll with it. So! I’m gonna try and stay up for 12 days straight.”
Daren grabs the camera, and shows a calendar up on the wall. The month and year are cut off. Two days are circled (Tuesday, then the next Saturday).
DAREN: “I’ve got a calendar here so that I can figure out how long I’ve been up. If I do more physical stuff, maybe I’ll stay up longer! Haha.”
The camera pans back to Daren.
DAREN: “I’ve got my room-mate watching over me. He’s actually in here right now- Say hi, Nick!”
(PRESUMABLY) NICK, IN THE BACKGROUND: “Hey.”
DAREN: “I rested up real good to prepare for this, so I’m hoping that my plan works. So, uh..Yeah. D-Man out.”
The next tape starts out with Daren holding the camera up to Nick Robin.
DAREN: “Niiiiiiiick.”
NICK: “Why are you recording me?”
DAREN: “Nick how long have I been awake?”
NICK: “Since yesterday, I think.”
Daren flips the camera around to face him. He has a large grin on his face.
DAREN: “That’s right, baby! D-Man has been awake for one whole day! Well- Two? One? Since Tuesday. It’s, uh, Wednesday.”
Daren shows the calendar to the camera. Tuesday is crossed off.
DAREN: “So far, nothing weird has happened yet. I’m tired, but I’ve been drinking a ton of Monster.”
The camera pans to a trash can, with several cans of Monster in it.
DAREN: “So! I should be able to stay up as long as I need. World record, here I come!”
The third tape begins with Daren dragging a trash bag outside.
DAREN: “Ok so I forgot to record a tape today, and I know that if I don’t do it now I’m gonna forget again. But, uhm, I’ve been up for..Uh..I dunno. Time is a concept, anyways. It’s Thursday now, though!”
Daren heaves the trash bag into a can. He walks back inside, and sighs with relief as he enters.
DAREN: “Whew, I love air conditioning.”
NICK (IN THE BACKGROUND): “Dude- Why don’t you take your hoodie off?”
DAREN: “Ah, y’know.”
NICK: “I really don’t.”
DAREN: “See, you get it!”
Daren chuckles and brings the camera into his room. He sets it down on his desk, and sits down in the office chair. He has bags under his eyes, and his hair looks messier than usual.
DAREN: “So. Recently, I’ve been tired. Like, horridly tired. To the point where even sitting down is a..” Yawn. “Risky move for me. But, working from home is keeping me on my toes. Who knew that writing reports could be so exhilerating!”
He looks over his shoulder for a moment, before turning back to the camera. His eyes appear wide and frightened, but he’s still smiling.
DAREN: “Uh, pro tip, maybe don’t try this stuff! I’m stupid enough to try and get a world record, but you, uh, shouldn’t be. Anyways, uhm, D-Man out.”
The fourth tape shows Daren in the hospital, sitting next to Nick, who is in a bed with an IV in his arm. Daren’s eye bags have gotten worse.
DAREN: “Hey, uhm. I don’t know if I’m supposed to record in here. I had to drive Nick to the hospital- He had a dairy allergy thing.”
NICK: “I said he could record in here, don’t worry.”
DAREN: “Yea, he- He said I could record this. I think I’m gonna stay the night here- People do that at hospitals, right? But, uh, they don’t need a bed for me. Because I’m not sleeping! I’m just gonna, uh, play on my phone for the night.”
Daren looks over his shoulder, before turning back to the camera.
DAREN: “Well! It’s Friday now. Been, uh, four days, I think? Yeah. I’ve been awake for four whole days! Well, uhm, this is more filler than anything. Nothing to note. D-Man out.”
The fifth tape is corrupted. Nothing is salvageable.
The sixth tape begins with Daren sitting at his desk. He looks tired beyond comprehension. His knee is bouncing, and he’s tapping his fingers on the table.
DAREN: “Uh, day..Six. I think. It’s Sunday now. The Lord’s day, ha-ha! I’m- I’m not religious. But, uhm, I know one of Nick’s friends is. James something. Maybe I should call that guy. I-”
Daren cuts himself off by looking over his shoulder. He looks back. His eyes are wild and terrified.
DAREN: “I think this was a bad idea. A horrible idea. I- I tried to sleep yesterday. But I couldn’t. I can’t- I can’t close my eyes for too long. Uhm..Nick has been in the hospital since Friday. He’s- He should be back by now. His visits never take this long.”
Daren chuckles. His voice sounds nervous.
DAREN: “He should be back soon, though, right? Right. He’s just taking a bit longer than usual. Uhm, Darry out.”
The seventh tape shows Daren sitting under his desk. He sets up the camera and brings his knees to his chest.
DAREN: “Nick came back today. He, uhm. He’s acting different. I was- I was talking to him, and he, uhm. He forgot he had a dairy allergy. He just..Forgot. I reminded him and he went- He went, oh, yeah. Like he didn’t go to the hospital for it a couple days ago.”
Daren appears to be trembling. He pulls his hood over his head.
DAREN: “..Been awake for seven days, ha-ha. So close! Just, uhm..Five? Four? Something around that. That many days left. I don’t- I don’t wanna do this. But I think I have to. I think it’ll leave me alone if I..”
Daren looks up at something offscreen, and screams.
[- - -]
Daren Redd went missing after this video. I’ve been looking for him for years. I’m trying to stay professional here, but I really don’t know what’s going on. I still sometimes try to figure out what he was looking at in the last tape. But there’s no reflection in his eyes- No shadows anywhere. Nothing. Could he be hallucinating?
I don’t think he is. I think he’s seeing things, sure, but they’re real. They have to be real.
[- - -]
This last section begins with Nick Robin in a car. He’s driving this time, with the camera on the dashboard. James is in the passenger seat. There’s camping gear and a few bags in the back seats.
NICK: “Hey! Welcome back to the PDC (later identified as Paranormal Discovery Channel, the youtube account that both Nick Robin and James Barlowe share), today we’re gonna be exploring a whole abandoned town! It’s called, uh..What was it called again?”
JAMES: “Sasbol heights.”
NICK: “Right, right. Sasbol heights or whatever. Anyways! It’s gonna be cool. Oh- There it is! Dude dude dude- Look!”
The camera points to a charred-looking town. Maybe burnt down?
NICK: “We’re gonna get settled, then get back to all of you. I’ll see y’all soon!”
The next tape begins with Nick sitting in a tent.
NICK: “So! It’s been, like, a day. The first night was pretty underwhelming- Just some creepy old town with bugs and stuff. Nothing too special. Just a bigger version of a haunted house.”
Nick looks off screen- Presumably at James. Nick chuckles.
NICK: “James is sleeping right now. Apparently he’s been having nightmares? That’s, uh, pretty normal for him, though. Oh! Today I started setting up the ghost hunting stuff. Unpacking, putting up cameras, all that jazz.”
There’s shuffling from behind the camera. Nick smiles at (assumedly) James, and winks at the camera.
The third tape starts with Nick and James going into one of the abandoned houses. Nick seems much more enthusiastic than James.
JAMES: “We’re gonna put a voice-over on this, right?”
NICK: “Yea, yea. Something something, abandoned house, something something.”
JAMES: “Good, good, uhm..Nick, man, you know I like doing this and all..But I don’t think I like this episode. It’s like- It feels wrong, y’know?”
NICK: “Mm..You’re right, you’re right. But hey! Think of the money we’ll get from this. Our reactions are gonna be authentic and shit. Plus, we’ve only got a day left.”
Nick pats James’ back, and James smiles.
JAMES: “Right. You’re right.”
The fourth tape is corrupted.
The fifth tape doesn’t include James or Nick’s face, but we can assume who is talking.
NICK: “Listen, man, it- It just got corrupted. It’s fine, right? It’s cool. We can redo it-”
JAMES: “I’m fucking serious, Nick! This isn’t normal! None of the shit we saw yesterday was planned!”
NICK: “I know, I know, but come on man! I need this money!”
JAMES: “Money isn’t worth it, at this point. Please, God, let’s just leave.”
NICK: “If you wanna leave, just go! I can do the video without you.”
JAMES: “I’m not just leaving you with these demons!”
Both Nick and James are quiet for a while. Nick silently walks back to the tent, bringing the camera with him.
The sixth tape is shot from within Nick’s car. Nick is driving, the camera is on the dashboard. He seems terrified.
NICK: “I’m not publishing this. I’m keeping this for myself, and- I don’t know! The police, probably! Jesus Christ- I’m fucking speeding. Are there even road laws here?”
Nick looks at his gas tank, seeing the needle nearing the E. He begins to tear up.
NICK: “Fuck- Uhm. What happened. James tried to kill me, and- And I don’t think he’s James anymore. I really don’t. He’s- He’s not that guy I went to high school with. There’s actually no way.”
He looks at the camera briefly, doing a quick double take.
NICK: “What- No. No. No- Goddammit! Leave me alone!”
The car swerves, and the camera topples over.
[- - -]
I’ve been thinking about these cases since I found them. The actual police department doesn’t know about them- And I haven’t told my superior about them. These tapes just kind of appeared at my doorstep one day, along with a camera.
I looked at the camera’s film, and found three images.
The first one is a picture from the first set of tapes. It seems edited, though. James has a halo.
The second one is from the second set. It shows an image of Daren, with some kind of pitch-black figure behind him.
The third one is, supposedly, from the third set. Though nothing like it is seen anywhere in the tapes. It’s an image taken from the driver’s seat of Nick’s car, showing the camera from the video on the dashboard. On the screen of the camera is Nick. The image is edited to show a car tire over Nick’s face.
If anyone knows anything about James Barlowe, Daren Redd, or Nick Robin, please tell me at [xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]@gmail.com.