Free standing barn door room divider

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Note: This part also contains minor spoilers for 'The Pathless'
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Part 1 of the previous story: https://www.reddit.com/JourneyPS3/comments/xmvwb1/journey_oc_story_the_great_mountain_and_beyond/
Part 1 of this story: https://www.reddit.com/JourneyPS3/comments/z9afre/part_1_of_my_journey_fanfic_sequel_the_forest_and/
Previous part:
https://www.reddit.com/JourneyPS3/comments/11n6cet/part_6_of_my_journey_fanfic_the_forest_and_the/
Bulo had been trying to sleep since dusk. Ten minutes in, and she found herself pacing her house, unable to stay still. She was feeling incredibly nervous because there was a major fight between two Ryuthlians, and she had no idea how to stop it. One had burned the other's dream journal by accident, and they were determined to get revenge. Not only that, but she was still getting used to all the hefty responsibilities that came with being the leader. Eventually, her anxiety drove her to seek out comfort in another Ryuthlian; Cerbecus.
Cerbecus had been sleeping when he heard Bulo knock on the door. He assumed that Bulo was asking for advice on how to solve the problem between the two Ryuthlians; everyone knew about it. As such, he wasn't at all surprised when he saw her. “May I come in?” she asked. Cerbecus answered by opening the door wider, and she came in. She sat down on a chair and sighed. Cerbecus asked what was wrong. “It’s my stress. I just feel like I can’t take this,” she told him, breathing rapidly, and finally meeting his eyes. “Do you have any ideas as to what I could do?” Cerbecus hummed in thought. “Well, perhaps you could have a break or something, just a day off,” he suggested. Bulo nodded and said, “If I do take a break, would you be able to cover for me?”
A gleam suddenly came into Cerbecus’ eye. “You know, it sounds like you’re just too stressed out for this job, a bit too overwhelmed. Maybe it would be better if I took it over, permanently” he suggested. Bulo stopped. She was shocked. Sure, the deputy always replaced the leader eventually, but it had never been the case that they were replaced while still alive, unless other tribe members voted them out. She thought about it. The idea was frightening. Sure, this role made her nervous, but she still wanted it. She had been this stressed when she began her duty as deputy, but things had slowly got better. “I-I’m sure I’ll learn to manage myself in due time,” she replied. Cerbecus flicked the ground with his scarf, narrowing his eyes. “In due time, yes, but what about all the squabbles, arrangements, and building that need to be done in the meantime? You wouldn’t want a new training camp to be sloppily made just because you needed more time, or this difficult fight to end in disaster because you couldn’t give those two good advice?”
Those were the words that did it. She quickly imagined how the fight between those two Ryuthlians could unfold if she gave them the wrong advice, which she now thought would be the only outcome. She looked at Cerbecus with terror and felt a weight form on her scarf. She thought he was right. If she wanted the best for the tribe, she’d hand over complete leadership to someone who was really competent. She sat down and took a few deep breaths. “I’ll go back to being the deputy, right?” she asked. Cerbecus nodded, and Bulo left the house as a storm rolled in.
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When Rezart woke up the next day, he headed down to the guardian training camp. Turns out, they had caught the last guardians yesterday, so the forest was finally safe. They had plenty of ideas on how to use them.
It was on his way there that he learned about what had happened last night. A Southern Tribe’s member told him about it since Ryuthlians, be it desert or forest, told the other tribes if they had a change of leadership. Rezart was concerned. “And you’re sure that Bulo did that?” he asked. The other Ryuthlian nodded. “Bulo said it was because she’s too stressed. She’s gone back to being a deputy.” Rezart frowned. Bulo, stressed but kind, only wanting the best for her tribe. Then again, if she thought that was best, then he wasn’t going to complain. Still, she had only been the leader for about a month.
The two Ryuthilans were about a mile away from the guardian training camp, and they had fallen silent. Rezart heard the mechanical whirls and hums of the guardians. He briefly felt uncomfortable but repressed those thoughts as he slid down and saw Cerbecus talking with a bunch of other Ryuthlians. Immediately Rezart noticed something different about him. He stood straighter and had a different look in his eye.
“We can build Guardian holding stations in the desert and use them to carry materials over the ocean. It’ll be faster and safer than normal boats. Not only that, but we could also use them for bulldozing the nearby trees and rocks, so we could gather resources more quickly,” Cerbecus told them. He turned his head when he saw Rezart. Rezart paused and looked around him. He had just arrived, and other eyes were already on him. He examined them. Eyes from the Western Tribe looked away in scorn, while the ones from the Southern Tribe seemed on edge. Eastern Rythulians were neutral. Nevertheless, he asked Cerbecus to give him a role. “I can still be useful,” he said. “I’ll find a way to control the guardians, even when they aren’t being held down.”
Cerbecus hummed in thought. After some thinking, he said, “Alright, you may do that. I thought that after your knowledge of their wild behavior dried up, you wouldn’t want to be part of the program anymore, but I’m happy to see that you’re still willing to make heroic contributions,” he said. Rezart felt happiness well up inside him. He suddenly felt wanted again, an important role to play in life had come back. Perhaps he didn’t need the Eastern Tribe after all.
In the end, he spent three months in the Guardian Training Program. During this time, he worked harder and more diligently than anyone else. Even the other Western Tribe members were impressed, and he found himself having small, non-aggressive conversations with them. His work culminated in an instrument that could control the guardians even when they had no weights or reins attached. It was a whistle that emitted a noise that was acoustic torture for them. If they heard it, they became paralyzed. The day they tested this out, along with some commands they had taught them, was the last day Rezart had hoped to rejoin his tribe.
On that day, they wanted to see how many trees a guardian could bulldoze in one go, and how well the whistle really worked. To no one's surprise, Cerbecus chose Pine for the experiment. In fact, Pine was always chosen for obedience experiments, as it still had some fiery rage left inside.
Bulldozing trees was nothing new to Pine. It had done that when it first arrived to create comfortable sleeping spaces. It had always done it with its partner, Bark. Pine now saw Ryuthlians coming up to it. The guardian recoiled slightly, then became confused when they removed the metal bindings from its wings. It moved them up and down, getting used to the feel again. It hadn't felt this light and free since it had been captured. It was honestly tempted to fly away, but Cerbecus had the reins attached to its face, and it could see the whistle that Cerbecus was holding. It hovered a meter above the ground, wondering what was going to happen next.
A total of forty Ryuthlians went with Pine. They stood next to its side and front, but not the tail. That was thanks to an incident where a Ryuthlian was close to Pine's tail, and Pine took the opportunity to thwack the poor chap. Cerbecus was at the front and made frequent glances back at Pine, who glared in return.
Cerbecus took Pine to an area full of young trees. He knew from before that guardians weren't able to tackle very large trees, but he was certain they could take out the small ones. When Pine saw them, it knew what Cerbecus wanted. Suddenly Pine thought it could escape. It knew that when Cerbecus let go of the reins, it was expected to bulldoze the trees down, but it had other plans. It waited in silence as Cerbecus blew the whistle while letting off the reins and backing away. Then he gave the signal to tear through a nearby tree.
The moment he did, Pine made its escape attempt. It flew right above the trees and for a moment thought it was safe. It heard cries from below and felt briefly secure, but then Cerbecus blew the whistle. It rattled the air. Pine struggled to recompose itself, but the noise continued, and it tumbled down, flattening several trees as it did.
The noise then stopped, but Pine didn't move. In all honesty, it was just worried about hearing it again. Cerbecus stood over the weakened guardian and gave the signal again to bulldoze the trees. Pine looked up at the sky, which now felt like a faraway dream. It then lifted itself off up the ground, went to one of the trees, and crashed clean through it. Cerbecus was impressed. He didn't expect Pine to cut a tree that was half a meter thick in three seconds. For a Ryuthlian, cutting down a tree that size took an hour. He recalled the power that the guardians had. They were still formidable beings, but the technology he had was more powerful than they could ever be.
Pine worked for a while, destroying every tree it could. At one point, it began to destroy trees just to release its frustration, becoming determined to flatten the whole forest. Yet exhaustion eventually overtook it, and Pine collapsed after five hours. When this happened, Cerbecus was disappointed, but then he looked around and saw a giant bare patch in the middle of the forest. He felt good.
The other Ryuthlians had also watched this happen from the sidelines. They had been there in case Pine made another escape attempt, and they each had their own whistle. Amongst them was Rezart. He had been quietly watching Pine, as required, but the whole time he had desperately desired to talk to the Ryuthlian who was standing next to him, a western tribe member. He didn’t even know what to talk about, but he wanted to make a proper reconnection with them once and for all. What made him even more eager was that they used to know each other. The Ryuthlian was one of his housemates, named Crozo. He remembered teaching her how to make pottery and encouraging her to keep going even when she was having a difficult time. She was standing a couple of meters away from him, staring at Pine intently. When Pine collapsed onto the ground, no one was sure what to do. They hadn’t brought any equipment to bring back a collapsed guardian. Rezart immediately volunteered to do this. When he did, he quickly glanced at Crozo, and the words came out without thought. “Would you like to join me?”
He paused, realizing the weight of what he had said. For a second, he prayed that he’d be accepted again, but Crozo only looked away with pain in her eyes. “No thanks. Maybe you and another eastern tribe member can get the equipment.” Rezart hesitated. In that moment, he knew that the headband he bore no longer had meaning, and he felt an empty feeling inside him. He walked back to the guardian training camp and came back with the equipment, not uttering a word to anyone. When he did come back, he looked Pine in the eye as they put the metal bindings on its wings. Pine looked back, then looked back at the ground.
Cernos had been wandering through the forest freely for a while now. He had obeyed Rezart, avoiding other Ryuthlians when he could. It was surprisingly easy. The forest was so massive that Cernos would have a hard time finding any Ryuthlians even if he wanted to. However, its size wouldn’t stop him from stumbling across what Rezart feared.
It was night when it happened, and most Ryuthlians had gone home. Indeed, Rezart would never have found out that Cernos had discovered the guardians if he hadn’t stayed behind, putting Pine back into its place. Rezart had a hard time feeling sorry for Pine. He felt sorry for the others, apart from Wood and Rock, but he had been there when Pine whistled happily when it had hit the other Ryuthlian with its tail. The Ryuthlian in question was lucky to be alive.
Pine emitted a low growl while Rezart tightened the ropes that connected the bindings to a nearby boulder, but it didn't move because it knew he had a whistle. They didn't use the tower anymore. Instead they used boulders. Rezart worked while thinking deeply about his tribe. It seemed that he would have to accept his place in the eastern tribe, especially since other Ryuthlians thought that's where he belonged. He sighed, then noticed a blue glow a few yards away. When Rezart saw the glow, he also spotted antlers. Immediately he panicked and tried to prevent Cernos from seeing Pine. He did this by trying to get Pine to look away from Cernos, but it was no use. Pine wasn't cooperating; instead, it looked directly at Cernos. When it saw him, it let out a loud roar that shook the trees. Cernos was a trusted friend. It prayed that he would break it free from the bindings.
For a moment, Rezart wanted to cry out to Cernos not to come near them, but then he didn't. No, it was useless to try now. Cernos was coming up the forest slope towards them. If he tried to stop him now, it would just be super suspicious. Instead, he stood a few paces away as Cernos made his way to the top and found himself standing in front of all fifty guardians, bound to boulders.
At first, Cernos struggled to understand what he was seeing. He was confused and approached the rope with suspicion, giving it a small sniff. He stepped back when he realized that they were made by Ryuthlians and became even more shocked when he finally saw Rezart. Pine whistled for Cernos, thinking that he would attack Rezart or free it, then narrowed its eye in disappointment when Cernos did nothing of the sort. Instead, he began to question Rezart.
"How did you do this?" Cernos began. Rezart sighed in relief. This wasn't so bad. "We set up nets in the forest to catch them. Don't worry, we didn't catch any other creatures, just the guardians," he informed him. Cernos nodded, and Rezart could see a disdainful look in his eye. "Why did you do it?" Rezart chuckled nervously. "Well, these beasts you see, they were terrorizing us, attacking us whenever they could. We didn't have a choice." Cernos was skeptical. "Why were they attacking you?" Rezart was incredibly tempted to lie, but he felt something disastrous was going to happen if he lied to a god. "We captured cloth dolphins, put them in stone, and used them for war."
At first, Cernos said nothing. He felt as though he had been shot. "So, it was your species that forced many cloth dolphins into their stone prisons," Cernos said. Rezart backed away, thinking that Cernos was going to attack him, but he didn't. Instead, he stood there in front of the guardians with his head lowered, defeated. He only wished he hadn't left the dying forest before the war. Maybe then he could have prevented this. He didn't know what to do. He felt so angry and frustrated, but all he could do was madly stamp the ground with his hooves. He wondered if there was something he could do to stop this now, then realized that there was nothing. No matter what, the Ryuthlians had ultimate power over the Guardians. He turned around and began to trot away, his head facing the ground.
Rezart, however, wasn't done. He was suddenly filled with outrage in his heart. He ran after Cernos, crying out to give him and his species another chance. However, it was useless. Cernos had immense anger in his heart and didn't want to hear any excuses. Instead, he fled when Rezart got near and disappeared into the darkness of the forest. Rezart chased after him relentlessly but got worn out after thirty minutes. After that, he decided to turn back home.
When he returned to the training camp the next day, he felt a shiver go down him. He couldn't get Cernos out of his head and felt hesitant to do anything. Nevertheless, he still worked all day, not knowing that others could sense his uneasy feelings. The one who noticed the most was Cerbecus, and he talked to him privately after training.
It was dusk. Cerbecus had collected everyone's whistles, which he claimed were for safekeeping. He kept them all in a tight box to which only he had the key. He held this box, tucked underneath his cloak when he talked to Rezart. "I've noticed that you've been acting odd today. Is something wrong?" he asked. Rezart shrugged. "I just...I'm not sure we should be doing this anymore. Is it actually right to do this to the guardians?" he asked. Cerberus was silent for a few seconds. Then he said, "You've redeemed yourself."
Rezart was surprised. At first, he wondered if he misheard something. "What? I've...fulfilled my task?" he asked. Cerbecus nodded. "Your task was to neutralize the guardian threat, and you have. More than that, it seems that the eastern tribe has accepted you. You should settle with them," he said. Rezart thought that he was joking at first until he saw a surprisingly nasty flicker in his eye, and his scarf flicking the ground. He suddenly realized that he wasn't wanted here anymore and left.

Read parts one and two on my profile!!! (Also I am not allowed to post on writing anymore cause you can’t post your stories on it idk) soooo yea. Enjoy!!!
03/09/23 When I woke up Eric was next to me. He looks tired. I wonder where he was last night. Also why is there no noise? It sounds quiet in here. Was there some sort of mechanical malfunction? That would explain the noise.
My mother constantly had problems with the AC and clothes dryer. It made such a racket. Why am I thinking of her? I should focus on something else… like Eric. He is nice. He has never insulted me, he has never glared at me, he hasn’t even tried to stay away from me. He actually wants to be near me. He doesn’t want to stay away from me. He comes to see me. How strange.
Eric walked me back to my room, there was a pile of clothes waiting there. After Eric left I put them on. The are really soft. I am going to thank him when I see him later.
03/10/23 Eric showed me something new today. It is a heatproof room that Eric says I can use for “practice”. He says I can use it whenever. How did Eric know about it? How did he know about my curse? Does he think I want to practice?
03/11/23 Today I went to the room Eric says I can use “for practice”. I am so confused, everyone said my ability was horrible. My grandparents said I was a witch, my teachers said I shouldn’t exist, my peers thought of cruel nicknames. But… Eric he thinks my ability is… something I should practice. Maybe I should.
I stuck my hand out and let down the dam holding back the flames. It feels good in a way you would never expect. It has never burnt me the it has others. From what I have heard fire is supposed to be hot; it has never been hot for me though. It always feels cold. Like dipping your hand in ice cold water. It feels relaxing in a way to stop holding back. It feels like I can be free.
Ugh I have the worst headache, I woke up a couple hours ago in Eric’s bed. He said I over exerted myself. Apparently when he found me the room was filled to the brim with fire. He thinks that using my ability after such a long time used up all my energy. I wonder how he knows so much, and how he never got hurt while getting me out of the fire.
03/12/23 Eric told me I couldn’t go back to the room today. He says it is still cooling down and might have some damage. I feel really bad, he let me use it and I broke it. I am going to try to repay him in any way I can. He has been so nice. I need to figure out how to ask for his forgiveness.
03/13/23 Eric told me it was fine. He said the room was already in bad condition and needed fixing. I don’t believe him, the room was shiny and clean the first time I saw it. I want to know the extent of the damage to the room. I think I am going to check. I will check if Eric is there first though.
I checked Eric’s room and he wasn’t there. I also checked the by the practice room and he wasn’t there. I am going to open up the door.
It. Is. A. Puddle. The metal that coated the wall is a puddle. The drywall looks like it is melting. I can see the pipes in some places. I destroyed this room. I shouldn’t have used my curse. Why did I ever think it was okay? Why?
03/14/23 I confined myself to my room today. I blocked the doorway with things I found. Eric tried talking to me. I never responded. He tried removing all the stuff but failed, I learned how to lock objects together years ago.
I feel horrible, Eric hasn’t left the doorway. He tries talking occasionally but mostly leaves me alone. I heard him crying at one point. I want to talk to him but I don’t want to speak. I hate this contradiction.
I tore out a page of the calendar Eric gave me and wrote, “I am so so so so so so sorry” I passed it through a tiny hole in the wall barely able to fit it. He grabbed it in an almost feral way. He asked what I was sorry for. I wrote that I saw the room. He said it wasn’t my fault he kept saying how it wasn’t my fault and how he underestimated my ability. His voice was breaking while he said that. It hurts me to hear him like this. It makes me hate myself more than my mother ever did. It physically hurts to hear Eric like this. I am going to plug my ears.
03/15/23 Day two of isolation and I feel this pain in my stomach that feels familiar and foreign. My mouth it starting to feel dry as well. I wonder why this is.
My midsection has been making a noise. I haven’t heard a noise like that in a while. How strange.
03/16/23 Eric is still outside my doorway. I feel really bad. Mentally and physically. My stomach hurts so badly. It feels like I am being stabbed. My throat feels so dry. I feel a little light headed.
03/17/23 I F e e l S o S l e e p y.
03/18/23 AmIdeadyet?

This is an account of something that happened in the winter of 2012. I can't remember the exact day, but what I saw will forever stick with me. I was 15 at the time, left home alone because my parents had gone on a short vacation. I was a responsible, honest kid, so they felt that they could trust me to be by myself for a week. This was during winter break, so I didn't have to go to school while they were gone. Fortunately for me, because we lived a mile or so outside of town, down a long driveway surrounded by trees. Our whole house was surrounded by trees. Now that I think about it, this was a perfect setup for a horror movie. But I didn't think of that at the time. For the first two days, nothing much happened. I played video games on my PS3 (mostly Dark Souls) and didn't do much else. TV shows bored me, mostly because I couldn't keep my attention on the screen. On the 3rd day, I called my parents and asked them if I could invite my friend over. For the sake of anonymity, we'll call him K. My parents were fine with it, as long as we didn't trash the house. So I called K and asked him if he wanted to come over. He said he could come in a couple hours, but he had some chores to do first. I said that was fine, and he hung up. K had a way of hanging up abruptly, so I wasn't worried. It was around 5:00 PM when I got off the call. I continued what I was doing, playing games, for an hour or so, when I saw motion outside my bedroom window, and yelped in fear. It was K. I opened the window and asked him why he decided to scare the shit out of me, and he said he thought it would be funny. Sometimes I wonder why I hung out with him. Anyway, I went to the front door to let him in. We went to my bedroom and played more video games. When I say that was all I did, I mean it. It was about 7:30 when he said he should go home. I was a bit disappointed, because he had only been there for about an hour and a half. I asked K if he could stay a bit longer, but he declined. He called his mom to come pick him up, but she was out at dinner with some guy. She said that K should just stay at my house for the night. K remarked that it was her fourth boyfriend in a month. He seemed pretty happy that he would get to stay the night though. So we went back to my bedroom. The window was cracked open. It was lifted up a couple inches, and I knew I hadn't left it like that. I closed and locked it, feeling unnerved. K also knew I hadn't left it open, so he was a bit on edge too. We both just chose not to talk about it, and pretend it never happened. Around 9:00, we decided to go to the living room and watch a movie. We weren't dumb enough to watch a horror movie to scare ourselves even worse. We settled on Inception and began to watch. I mentioned earlier that I can't keep my attention on the screen when I'm watching something. That habit might've saved our lives. I happened to look out of the living room window, and I saw some guy just standing there, peering in. I jumped up from the couch. That seemed to startle him, and he ran away from the window towards the trees. K was confused why I shot up off of the couch like a man possessed, but when I told him there had been a man outside the window, he was evidently unsettled. He asked if we should call 911, but I said no. I thought my parents would never let me stay home alone again if they found out. K thought my decision was stupid, and remembering the things that happened later that night, I never wanted to stay home alone again. We continued on watching our movie, checking the window occasionally, but the man never came back. After we finished, we went to my bedroom to sleep. I told K that he could have the bed, and I would sleep on the floor. We went to sleep around 11. I slept well until about 2, when I woke up to go to the bathroom. I did my business, and was washing my hands when I heard the floor creak in the bedroom. I assumed it was K, and went back to my blankets on the floor. When I went back in, K was sitting upright on the bed, pale as a sheet. He told me that there had been someone at the window peering in at us. Now out house only had one floor, so this isn't some "but we were on the second floor" crap. There was someone creeping around my house, staring in the windows. People can be much scarier than whatever spirits or phantoms you can come up with. At that point, I was more terrified than I had ever been before. I started to dial 911, and that's when I heard an audible thunk in the kitchen. K and I both froze in fear as we considered our options. I had a BB gun in one of my dresser drawers, so I pulled it out and handed it to K. I told him to aim it at the bedroom door while I relayed our situation to 911.
Couldn't think of how to finish this story, so here's what I did finish.

Now that the veil is removed from your eyes (like being unplugged from the matrix) being delivered is a very mind bending experience. Here are some tips to stay free
Get into your Bible, read it before you go to sleep. This will help protect your mind
Put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6) in the morning, and in the evening before sleep. This will also help with insomnia.
Armor of God Prayer “Lord, I come to you today in the name of Jesus, and I put on the full armor of God. I put on my helmet of salvation which will protect my thoughts, I apply the breast plate of righteousness that will protect my heart. I apply the belt of truth, That I may walk in the truth. And I put on the shoes of peace that I may bring peace. I gladly pick up my shield of faith that will repel any darts or arrows of the evil one. And I apply the sword of the spirit, which is sharper than any two-edged sword. I put on the full armor of God that I may stay away from the wickedness of this world and the evil one in Jesus ‘s name. Amen”
Change your life, whatever got you to this place don’t go back to it. Don’t watch porn anymore don’t fall into the trap of sin, There are many doors to your spirit try not to open those doors. But if you do, repent.
Cleanse your house or room,in the name of Jesus Christ.
How to make Holy WateOil For both- Get Water (Distilled if able) or Olive oil
1.Draw a cross on a piece of paper 2. In a bowl pure in wateoil and place on top of Cross 3. Place palm over water flat and say out loud “I bless this wateoil in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit that it may sting and cast out the Enemy”
How to cleanse the home in the Name of Jesus Christ

1. Crack open your front/back door
2. With Holy Water, in one hand, your other hand is raised in front of you like a stop sign.
3. Go to every corner of your home saying out loud with Command “If there is a Spirit in here NOT of Jesus Christ, you are NOT invited, and I Command you to Leave!” Sprinkle holy water around
4. Every window, door and mirror, in Wateoil put a cross on them, saying “I bless this window/dooMirror in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”
5. Work your way from furthest to nearest your opened front/back door....sprinkling Holy water everywhere.
6. Bless the Door that you left cracked Open. And shut it. (A door is better than a window. This can be done to a room as well, if you get Goosebumps anywhere, you know it is working) The worst thing that can happen from cleansing your house is that you don’t get attacked.

Listen to gospel music, it’s actually pretty good than it used to be
Go through your house, listening to the Holy Spirit voice, and throw away anything and everything that you think you shouldn’t have in your house
Don’t watch horror movies. Especially the demonic ones.
Go to church, maybe even help out in your church.
Go volunteer at the homeless shelter, and feed people. (Good deeds)
Self deliverance works. So if Deliverance works on soldier, demons but not generals and you will know because the generals will say something like. “Im not going anywhere” SELF- DELIVERANCE Self-deliverance (doing it to yourself) works as well if any of the soldier demons attach to you through SIN. (We all fall short) The Generals, sometimes will not go w/out help from another believer. (where 2 or more are gathered) This is a real easy thing to do. When you feel off, all the sudden are having temptations in your life you weren’t having before, you feel heavy, anxiety starts happening when you didn’t have anxiety. Follow these instructions. 1. Ask yourself out loud, “In the name of Jesus, do I have a spirit on me not of Jesus Christ? Yes or No? You should hear a yes or no answer. 2. You can ask, “How did you get on me demon?” And a picture, thought or word will be brought up in your mind. You can also ask, for a name if you care to. 3. Repent of that SIN. 4. The say out loud with Command “If there is a spirit on me not of Jesus Christ, you are not invited, and with the blood of Jesus Christ washes over me, I command you out, NOW!,” make your self- cough, or exhale 3x. I find making yourself cough works best, b/c usually its not a weak cough but instead a heavy one. When I do this to myself and I did have something on me, I get goosebumps. 5. Ask for the Holy Spirit to fill any voids that may have caused
Maybe practice fasting :
How to do a water only fast: Lets go for 3 1⁄2 days. The pre-fast day have a light meal (no meat) then that evening drink a big glass of warm water (distilled if able) and a bunch of salt and go to sleep. The next morning you will have a bathroom break, this will be cleaning out your intestines so you are not as hungry. Fill up a container with water (distilled if able). I like to add a half of Lemon/Lime to the water, but just water by itself works as well. In the morning when you wake, Pray to God. Alert him that you are doing a fast and for him to help you in it. Anoint you forehead with holy water or oil (see how to make holy wateoil). “I bless myself in the name of the Father, the Son & the holy spirit”. The 1st day is not easy. You will get hunger pains. When the pains come, pray to Jesus for him to take those pains away (and he will). If it is too hard, eat 1 piece of fruit or drink a fruit smoothie. Wash your face in the evening. Pray and get into your bible before you go to sleep. 2nd day – 3 1⁄2 or more. Wash your face in the morning/shower. Do the same thing as day one but try your best not to eat anything. Wake up: Pray, anoint your forehead with oil, drink water (distilled if able) go about your days, praying when hunger pains come, they will come. Pray and get into your bible. If you get tired, take a nap. It is imperative that you do not go around boasting that you are on a fast. The fast is between you and God. 5
(Matthew 6:16-18) “But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash thy face; That thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto they father which is in secret: and thy Father, which seethe in secret, shall reward thee openly” Once you are on day 3 to? The temptations of food will be unreal. Everything will look great to eat. Do not give in. Your body will start to feel lighter. At this point, when praying you should be able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit inside you. You will know when to stop the fast when the Holy Spirit tells you to stop the fast, or you are just sooo hungry you can’t do it anymore. Listen to your body. Drink plenty water (distilled) Do not drink tap water b/c it is full of heavy metals, distilled is like rainwater, pure and clean.

Let me set the scene. I work in a office where we have appointments from 8am-5:30pm, I’m typically scheduled 8am-6pm. My boss has made a 4 page long closing checklist for after our last appointment leaves. Typically the appointments run 35 minutes, that leaves me doing about an hour and a half more of work past when I’m scheduled to leave. So now it’s 7:30 and my boss walks out back and hands me a 4inch thick stack of files for call backs and med refills, and says if I leave that’s directly going against my boss’s request and that’s a fireable offense. I’ve been told if I leave at 6 without all of the closing checklists done that’s also a fireable offense. If it’s not files it’s something else, there’s always something, room 2 needs to be dusted, the door knobs need stainless steel cleaner again, mop the floor another time people have walked on it in the last 2 hours we’ve been closed, I’ve been told to walk my bosses dogs, unload my bosses car, clean the bathroom again, do drug logs that the boss was supposed to do, you missed one crumb clean the whole room again. When I say it never ends I’m not exaggerating. So every night I leave very late.
Now when I ask to see my pay stubs my boss says she doesn’t know how to do that. I’ve noticed I’ve been clocked out for lunches I never took because I have no time. I’m not sure if I’m in the right or not but after working 12+ hours days 5 days in a row I’m so exhausted.
To make matters worse there’s no HR my boss is the owner and the office manager tells them if we complain and suddenly my boss reminds us that we’re fireable due to at will employment.
I have constantly heard my boss say horrible things about other races as well. We have a very nice ladies that work in the office and whenever Hispanic people come in and don’t do exactly what she wants she looks at them and says “What’s wrong with your people” “they need to go back to where they came from” “Spanish people are so cheap”. When I reported this to the office manager as harassment I was told that I’m not being positive about my work environment and I need to not complain or I could be fired for my attitude. I’m so very uncomfortable with all that has occurred and this is only 1%. I’m limited on my options for work due to my location. Any advice would be welcome! I just don’t want to say something and not even have a leg to stand on. Thank you all for your time and assistance

The Drukhari, also known as the Dark Eldar, were a cruel and malevolent race of aliens. They lived in the dark city of Commorragh, a place of endless violence and debauchery.
In the depths of Commorragh, a group of Drukhari gathered around a captive human. They had captured her in a raid on a nearby planet, and now they were using her for their twisted entertainment.
The human woman, named Sarah, was bound to a pillar in the center of the room. Her eyes were wide with terror as the Drukhari circled around her, their sharp blades glinting in the dim light.
Suddenly, a shadowy figure appeared in the doorway. It was a Drukhari warrior, but he was different from the others. He wore no armor, only a simple cloak, and his face was hidden behind a hood.
The other Drukhari hissed and spat at him, but he paid them no attention. He approached Sarah and whispered to her in a language she didn't understand.
To her surprise, he began untying her bonds. She couldn't believe what was happening. Was this some kind of trick?
But the Drukhari warrior continued to free her from her restraints, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the others in the room. Finally, he took her by the hand and led her towards the door.
The other Drukhari were incensed. How dare he steal their prize! They drew their weapons and charged towards the warrior and the human woman.
But it was too late. The warrior and Sarah had disappeared into the shadows, leaving the others to fight amongst themselves.
As they ran through the twisting tunnels of Commorragh, Sarah couldn't help but wonder why the Drukhari warrior had saved her. Was he planning to use her for something even worse than what the others had in mind?
But as they emerged into a dimly lit chamber, the warrior turned to her and spoke in a voice that was surprisingly gentle.
"Your people are not the only ones capable of kindness," he said. "Remember that."
And with that, he disappeared into the shadows once again, leaving Sarah to make her way back to her own world, forever changed by her encounter with the mysterious Drukhari warrior.

This story needs to be told. Those who have suffered must understand why. It’s not as simple as some have made it to be, which is why it needs to come from the person most responsible… me.
It began when I was least expecting it. But then don’t things always seem to happen that way?
***
“I’m tellin' ya, doc, people just don’t understand,” Frederick said while rocking back and forth in the chair.
“What exactly don’t they understand?” I said, trying to look more relaxed than I felt.
“There’s just something that takes over. You can’t stop it.”
“Impulse control?”
“What’s that mean?” Frederick said, struggling against his straight jacket, trying to get comfortable.
“It means that when you want to do something, you try your hardest not to. It means you try to control or suppress the urge to do things you know are bad.”
Frederick’s mouth lolled open. He narrowed his eyes in confusion.
“Why would I want to do that?”
I suppressed the urge to sigh.
“Because that’s what people do,” I said. “They think about doing bad things, but then they control themselves and don’t do them because those things are wrong and could hurt other people.”
“Hurting people is wrong?” he said.
“Yes, Frederick, hurting people is wrong.”
He shook his head as if he were trying to shake away a fly that was annoying him.
“Why?”
“Why is hurting people wrong?”
“No, why are you telling me this?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’re saying I’m bad,” he said trying to rise from his chair. “You’re saying I didn’t need to hurt those people. That I’m a bad person.”
I got up from my chair and started backing toward the heavy metal door.
“I’m not bad!” he yelled at me. “You’re bad!”
I knocked on the door and the orderly opened it as Frederick got to his feet.
I slipped through the door as it slammed shut from the impact of his body slamming into it.
“Bad, bad, bad,” he screamed.
“Badbadbadbadbadbadbadbad!”
Spit flew from his mouth landing on the small observation window with metal grates embedded in it.
“You ok, doc,” the orderly said, startling me.
“Yes, I’m fine, thank you.”
I turned and walked down the white hallway, hoping the orderly wouldn’t notice the quickness in my step. I ignored the sound of Frederick beating on the door. I ignored all the sounds I heard. I just wanted to get away.
It was a long walk to my office, through many security gates. At each one, the nurse buzzed me through and gave me an acknowledging look that used to be a smile.
I suppose this place gets to everyone eventually.
I finally reached my office, closed and locked the door behind me, and collapsed into my chair. I breathed out a sigh of relief at reaching relative safety. I turned and looked out my window to the beautiful flowers blooming on the trees in the courtyard. I looked up at the tree stretching toward the sky.
I remember when they planted those.
I turned back to my center, my means of solace, the only thing that mattered in this cruel, unfair world. I picked up the picture of my lovely wife and smiled. She was the one who kept me sane all these years. She kept me seeing the best in people. Or at least trying. Sometimes there was no good to see—especially in my patients.
It takes a special kind of doctor to care for the mental needs of those who have done heinous things that are so bad they don’t even bother sending them to prison. They send them to me.
I’m like the dumpster for the dregs of society. Just drop them in the asylum and forget about them.
I kissed my wife and set her back on the bare desk, then turned on my computer and added notes from today’s session. There was never a recommendation for release. Once patients came here the only way they left was in a body bag. There was no curing them, only trying to make them docile until they left.
Oh, there were experiments. That was a large part of how we were funded. Companies would pay for certain tests to be done. Some might call it torture, but we called it research.
I finished typing my notes and leaned back in my seat. The diplomas and degrees stared down from their perches on the bare walls, mocking me. Demanding why I hadn’t gotten a better job.
As usual, I didn’t have an answer.
My office suddenly felt stuffy. I closed down my computer and left. Driving down the packed freeway, all I could think about was collapsing on the couch beside my lovely Elizabeth. Not telling her about my day until she dragged it out of me, then listening to her encourage me to help those who have been left in my care, because I’m the only hope they have.
Traffic was bumper to bumper and not helping my overall opinion of humanity much. Especially when a car that was swerving from lane to lane, nearly sideswiped me. It kept going on in front of me, nearly hitting several other cars.
The driver and passenger seemed to be having a disagreement about how to drive the car and it looked like it was about to come to blows.
Fortunately, they were soon out of sight, and someone else’s problem.
For the next few miles, I kept watching the side of the road waiting to see the offending car sitting in a ditch. However, they surprised me. They must’ve turned off to go terrorize some neighborhood streets with their reckless driving.
I hummed to myself, not wanting to have whatever dreck was on the radio forced on me.
When I was nearly to my exit, my phone rang. I immediately recognized the number as work. I contemplated answering it for a moment, then thought better of it. There had never been a time when work called with good news. And I was in no mood for bad news.
I hummed a little louder, trying to drown out the sound of the ring before it finally stopped.
The closer I got to home the less I thought about work and the more I thought about Elizabeth. Until I turned off at my exit, I had nearly forgotten work altogether. Maybe I would take tomorrow off and go do something with my wife. We hadn’t been out for a while. The weather had been lovely and I know she would adore a walk down by the lake.
My thoughts were interrupted when I turned down our driveway and saw a car in front of the house. It wasn’t quite in the driveway, it was sitting at an angle halfway in the front yard.
I parked my car and slowly got out. Something struck me about this car, but I hadn’t figured out what. I approached the driver’s side to have words with the person still sitting at the wheel.
“Excuse me,” I said staying a few steps back from the driver’s door.
He didn’t answer me.
“Excuse me,” I said a little louder.
Still no answer.
I tapped on the window and he ignored me.
I opened the door.
“Okay, look… “ I said.
But it was I who would do the looking. The man fell out of the car, thudding on the grass. The inside of the car was covered in blood. I looked down and the man’s throat had been cut.
“Oh my God!” I said jumping back.
I watched to see if the man was breathing, but the way his neck was bent at an unnatural angle against my yard told me everything I needed to know.
I glanced through the car but didn’t see the passenger.
It was then my eyes drifted to my front door.
It was open.
I stepped through the shrubs and up onto the porch, walking in a daze. The surrealness of the moment had yet to sink in. I was going inside to check on my wife and make sure everything was ok.
It didn’t strike me as anything more than that.
‘Oh, she just left the door open, that’s all.’
My mind kept trying to tell me that. I wanted desperately to believe it. Even though she had never been that careless during the entire time we’d been married. I had pushed aside all reason and common sense in favor of pure denial.
Everything was going to be ok. With Elizabeth, everything was always ok. She could literally light up a room with her positivity. She was the best person I ever knew. I have no idea how I got so lucky as to know her, let alone be her husband.
I floated in through my front door on my cloud of denial and looked for my wife.
It didn’t take me long to find her.
There was one wall of the living room she was constantly redecorating. She always said it looked bare and empty no matter what she did with it.
She was hanging from that wall, naked, her beautiful body desecrated by slices and rips. Her throat had been slit and blood still poured from it.
I ran to her.
Tried to take her down.
Screamed her name.
And then it was my turn to scream.
I looked down and saw a knife blade sticking out from my abdomen. It was part of the cutlery set I had gotten for Elizabeth three Christmases ago.
I screamed as I slowly turned to face my attacker.
“What’s up, doc?” Frederick said wearing a maniacal grin.
The shock had punched a hole in my reasoning. I saw him standing there, but I couldn’t accept it any more than I could accept my beautiful wife strung up like a macabre painting hanging on our living room wall.
My eyes tried to focus on his face. To make me recognize him as a threat.
“How’s that impulse control workin’ for ya, doc?”
He ripped the knife out of my back.
The pain, along with his arrogance woke me from my shock-induced stupor.
“Now do you understand?” he said, as he shoved the knife into my belly.
I did understand. I understood at that moment that I was already as dead as my wife. I knew that this piece of human garbage had taken something beautiful from this world. I knew I had to do something about it before there was nothing I could do. Before my body succumbed to injuries and I was unable.
I grabbed him by the throat. He tried to laugh, but my grip was fueled by desperation.
He tried to free himself but couldn’t. He began stabbing me over and over. I refused to release him. I carried him by his neck over to the kitchen counter and began bashing his head off the marble.
I was rewarded with spots of his blood. I knew at least I had made him bleed and that made me smile. His eyes grew wide as my grin grew maniacal. I smashed him repeatedly, crushing him against the sink, breaking the faucet, and causing water to spray into the air.
His eyelids fluttered as he lost his grip on the knife.
He was nearly gone. I would take him with me and that would be my parting gift to the world, removing something so evil.
Suddenly, my body wouldn’t obey commands. My grip loosened. I tried to tighten it, but I had lost all control. I looked down and I was standing in a pool of my own blood.
His eyes fluttered open and he coughed.
‘Nonononononono!’ I thought. ‘He can’t live. He can’t win. I had him.’
He stood as I sank to the floor.
“Looks like maybe you do understand, doc,” he said from what seemed like miles away. “Too bad you won’t be around to discuss it. We could have a session and evaluate how it makes you feel.”
His foot came down on my spine. I felt a crack. He started kicking me in the side repeatedly. Splashing water and blood on me as I felt my ribs crack.
I fought with everything I had.
My body didn’t even twitch.
‘Nooooo!,’ I screamed. ‘It can’t end like this.’
I heard a sizzling sound and then there was darkness.
***
I could feel movement.
Wasn’t I dead?
Was this what happened after?
It was still dark.
‘Hello?’ I tried to say.
Nothing. Just the sensation of movement.
Am I in a body bag? Am I on my way to the morgue or the grave? Please don’t let me be buried alive.
But I’m not alive, am I?
I don’t feel any pain. That’s a good thing, but not a good sign. The last thing I remember was lots of pain.
Suddenly there’s light and my movement stops.
I look up from the floor of a house I don’t recognize.
‘Where the hell am I?’
I’m on the floor next to a wall, looking up at an electrical outlet. Nothing around me seems familiar. I try to stand but it feels weird. It isn’t difficult, and there’s still no pain, it just carries an odd sensation with it. Like my body is just relearning things. Just like when I was a toddler. I teeter back and forth as I rise, but eventually, I’m upright.
My first few steps are tentative, but after that, I gain confidence with each stride.
Aside from the strange surroundings, there’s a sensation, like ants crawling all over me.
I pass a bathroom and glance inside. The reflection in the mirror draws me back. I slowly approach it, seeing something unique and terrifying.
It looks like someone drew an outline of a human form using a lightning bolt. The electricity shimmers and crackles as it races around the empty form of the being.
I wonder if it will hurt me.
Not sure if I want to test the limits of my newfound lack of pain, I hesitantly reach for this creature. It reaches for me at the same time. I’m mesmerized by this mutual curiosity.
My hand is about to touch the electric pulse shaped like its hand. I tremble with anticipation and fear as we touch.
Surprisingly, I don’t feel any pain. I don’t feel anything except a hard surface.
I move my hand back and forth. The creature does the same. I make quicker movements, and so does it.
Finally, out of frustration, I reach back and strike at the creature.
My hand strikes the hard surface and it splinters. There are now multiple creatures staring back at me.
I step back and come to the horrible realization.
I am the creature.
***
One month later…
“And police have been unable to find any credible leads in the string of brutal killings that began shortly after the patient escaped from the mental hospital last month,” the handsome anchorman stated from behind his desk. “They are asking people to call in if they know the whereabouts of Frederick Winston, now known as, ‘The Mangler’.”
“In other news, the Larsan Electric Company has issued a statement that the recent power surges are no cause for alarm. These surges seem to be random in people's homes and certain businesses. An LEC spokesman stated that there appears to be no pattern to the surges and that so far no one has reported them causing any harm. LEC is tracking down the problem and should have it under control soon.”
The anchorman shifted in his seat and turned to another camera.
“And on a lighter note, with Halloween months away, it seems that reports of ghosts are on the rise,” he said, wearing a half grin. “Several area residents have reported what they call a ghostlike figure, outlined in light, visiting them. Reports vary as to the duration and location of the visits, but they do seem to have a few things in common. The visits are usually short. In fact, most people say that if they blink the figure is gone. No one has reported the ghost doing any harm. And it seems like anyone within close proximity feels a tingling sensation and their hair standing on end.”
“Maybe I should be visited instead of my next hairdresser’s appointment,” the attractive woman anchor said with a laugh.
“Schedule me a visit too,” the male anchor said smiling. “And that’s our news for the evening, good night.”
Jimmy switched the channel.
“Gimme a break,” he said to the TV. “Ghosts? Who’s playing what? This’s some marketing scheme to sell Halloween crap. Like that stunt they pulled a few years back with the clowns hanging around the schools to promote that stupid movie.”
He switched off the TV and rolled over in his bed.
It wasn’t long before his breathing slowed. But before sleep could take him, he noticed a glow in the hallway. He didn’t remember leaving any lights on when he came to bed. Living alone had its advantages. If he heard someone in his apartment, he knew they weren’t supposed to be there. He slowly reached over to the bedstand and pulled out his Glock 9mm handgun, then held it close and listened.
He watched as the glow moved. It seemed like someone was looking around. But for what? He didn’t really have anything aside from his TV, phone, and video games. If anyone wanted those, they would be in a world of hurt. He had been lucky to get this apartment. If he was honest with himself, it cost more than he could afford, but when he had the chance he took it. It was too bad the opening came because the person who lived there before him was one of The Mangler’s victims. That’s probably why he was able to rent the place so quickly and get the price down to where he could almost afford it.
Maybe the glow was one of the street people who were stupid enough to see if there was an empty apartment to claim. That wasn’t gonna fly either. Jimmy had jumped on this apartment to get away from the dingy rat hole he used live in on the other side of town. And there was no way he’d let some bum come in here and take what was his.
The glow crept closer. He could feel the hairs on his arms raise. There was a sound too. It wasn’t loud, almost felt more than heard. A soft crackle, like electricity when it sparked.
The sensory input was almost too much for Jimmy to take. He pointed the gun in the direction of the glow and saw the barrel was shaking. His resolve, that he could deal with anyone as long as he had his gun, was beginning to fade.
The glow became so bright that it finally took form.
Jimmy’s eyes widened. It was the form of a person, just like the news had said.
It seemed to look around the room, then settle its gaze on the bed. Jimmy began to sweat as it approached and stared into his eyes.
It was the oddest thing, staring into what should be eyes, but nothing was there. The flashes of mini lightning bolts formed shapes that looked almost human, but it was just an outline, there was nothing inside what should be the body.
He shoved the shaking gun out from under the blanket and pointed it at the glowing figure.
The figure noted the presence of the gun, then continued to advance.
“S… stop,” Jimmy said. “I’m w… warning you.”
The figure ignored the warning.
Jimmy squeezed the trigger, setting off a deafening shot that went right through the face of the figure.
It acted as though nothing had happened, continuing to advance. The ringing in Jimmy’s ears made all sound seem muffled.
The figure stopped two inches from Jimmy’s face.
“Mangler… “ it said, sounding less like a voice and more like a transmission over an old staticky radio.
“I… I’m not the Mangler,” he said. “The person who used to live here was killed by him.”
It seemed to ponder this for a moment.
“Find Mangler… “ it said.
“I d… don’t know where to find him.”
It moved an inch closer. As the flashes of electricity arced, licked hungrily at Jimmy’s face.
“Find… him… “
“Ok, ok, I’ll find him,” Jimmy said, feeling the heat from the electricity.
The figure seemed to consider that for a moment then backed away. It moved toward the bedroom wall. Then, like someone had turned on a vacuum, it was sucked into an electrical outlet and disappeared.
Jimmy laid back in bed, breathing hard. His eyes darted left and right all around the room. But the only evidence of the figure that remained was the bullet hole in his bedroom wall.
***
The trips through the electrical conduits had become easier. There were still times when I came out someplace I didn’t intend to, but I was usually able to recover quickly and get to where I wanted to go.
But where did I want to go? At first, I wandered around, lost in this new form I found myself trapped inside. It was only after I had overheard a news report about the serial killer they called The Mangler that I gained my purpose.
Of course, Frederick was going to keep killing. Of course, they weren’t going to be able to catch him. He’d been inside away from his victims before and he didn’t like it. Not being able to torture and kill innocents was like a normal person not being able to breathe. Not that I know much about normal or breathing anymore.
I suppose on some level I should thank him. I thought about it for a long time and the only thing that makes any kind of sense is when we were fighting, somehow the water and blood I was laying in got splashed into the electrical socket. Instead of killing me, it bonded with me, making me able to become the electrical current. To ride it like a wave to wherever I wanted.
I became faster than any person ever was. And yet, I wasn’t a person anymore. I have no idea how I retained my consciousness, let alone my memory. But somehow…
I justify it by the old adage, ‘I think therefore I am.’
My life has become an endless hunt for the person who destroyed me, the person I must destroy. I don’t even know what I’ll do when I find him. But I will find him. I will stop him. This time, I won’t fail. I’ll end him like I should’ve before.
I owe it to the people he’s tortured and killed since my failure. Most of all, I owe it to my wife. I know she wouldn’t approve of my bloodlust. She would say there must be some other option. But if she would be able to see her dead body hanging naked from our living room wall, I think she just might change her mind.
My thoughts are interrupted as I arrive at my next destination, another victim’s house. I’m not sure what I’ll find that the police haven’t, but I have to try. Maybe I can pick up his scent somehow. A plan almost assuredly doomed to failure since I lost all sense of smell in the transformation.
I’m surprised though that I can still see and hear. I suppose waves of light and sound somehow intersect with my electrical body and it senses them. I don’t question it. I’ve learned to just go with it.
On the plus side, I don’t have to worry about eating, drinking, or using the bathroom. I guess there’s an upside to everything. Elizabeth would be so proud of me.
I arrive at the room where the victim was murdered. Looking around there’s still blood everywhere, along with evidence markers where they took pictures.
The sheer amount of blood tells me he took his time. He desecrated this girl in her own room. Her parents must’ve been out because there’s no way they didn’t hear the struggle. There were books on the floor, a chair overturned, and blood everywhere. The room was a disaster. It looked like she fought him. I wish she would’ve succeeded where I had failed.
But then, I wish I hadn’t failed, and this girl was still alive.
There’s nothing I can do now except find him and end him.
Finding him was proving more difficult than I thought. I had unlimited access to anywhere with electricity, but I couldn’t use a computer or a GPS. I was limited to transportation only through electricity. Granted that still made me the fastest being alive. I say being because I don’t think I qualify as human anymore. But I was limited to traveling to a place and then trying to find out where I was and if he was there.
If he knew I was searching for him all he would have to do is live the rest of his days in a cabin in the woods with no electricity. I’d never be able to reach him.
I believe two things worked in my favor with that theory.
First, I don’t think he’s that smart, and second, I don’t think he knows I’m looking for him. I believe that surviving our fight only further empowered him to kill. When someone feels invincible, they’re bound to make a mistake.
An officer walked into the room and I ducked back into an outlet. I was able to hang on where I was and watch from inside the outlet without being transported somewhere else.
The officer looked startled and stared at the empty air that I had just vacated. She looked like she was unsure if she trusted what her eyes had seen in the instant before I vanished.
She slowly stepped over to the corner and bent down to peer into the outlet. For a moment I wondered if she could see me, and what exactly she would see. But then her radio squawked calling her to another scene. When I heard the voice on the radio say the address and that they might have the killer cornered, I didn’t waste any time.
It was maybe fifteen seconds until I was across town at the address I’d heard. There was a lot of screaming and crying going on. I came out of the outlet and saw blood on the floor beside a body that wasn’t moving.
There was a girl being beaten by a man with his back to me. He turned to take another swing and I knew my search was over.
“My psychiatrist used to tell me I needed to work on my impulse control,” he said calmly as he slapped her. “I think I’m doing pretty good. I’ve been here ten whole minutes and you’re still alive.”
I shot across the room and knocked him to the floor. He jumped back up and looked around for what had hit him.
“What the hell?”
I saw the fear in his eyes when he saw me. I know Elizabeth would’ve been ashamed, of me, but I was enjoying his anxiety. After all he had done to me and so many others, I drank it in like an elixir.
He started edging toward the door. I was there in a heartbeat. His eyes darted back and forth between where I used to be and where I now stood. The panic in his eyes doubled.
I wanted to make him suffer, but I didn’t want to make the same mistake I’d made before and let him escape with his life.
I lashed out with a bolt that used to be my arm. The energy slashed through his shirt and fried a hole in his shoulder.
He screamed in pain and horror as he looked at the smoking hole in his skin. He tried to run but in an instant, I was there in front of him firing another bolt and searing the skin across his waist to his jeans.
His screams of pain and rage were only matched by the feral desperation in his eyes.
Not knowing what do to, he went with the familiar. Attack the innocent. He grabbed the girl who had been crawling away from the scene.
He grabbed her again and held her in front of him like a human shield.
What a waste of skin.
I fired a bolt into a ceiling light beside me which ricocheted and hit him full force in the leg, nearly severing it.
He went down like a ton of bricks, trying to hold on to his hostage, but she was fighting to get away from him. She broke free and he crumpled to the floor.
“What do you want?” he screamed at me.
With everything that is within me, I wanted to tell him who I was, what he had taken from me, and what I was about to take from him.
But I didn’t want to give the satisfaction. I wanted to give him only uncertainty and fear to cling to.
I could feel the seconds ticking away. I knew I had to make the most of this opportunity or he would get away again. And after this, I might never find him.
I unleashed every ounce of energy at him. I couldn’t even see him, he was only a smoking pillar of frying skin.
Just then, the police burst through the door.
“FREE… “ the first officer started then the shock of what he was seeing stole the rest of the word from his mouth.
He stood there, mouth agape when the female officer stepped in behind him. She looked at me and her wide eyes narrowed as she put two and two together and recognized me from the last crime scene.
I had no reason to fear. I didn’t know if I could even be harmed in my current state. But when you see that blue uniform burst through a door with a gun aimed at you, all rational thought takes a vacation.
I dove for the outlet and was gone. I didn’t even care where I was going. I knew I had done what I wanted to. The monster was destroyed.
Something felt different. Was it pride at finishing my crusade? Was it shame knowing Elizabeth wouldn’t have wanted me to do it?
I don’t know but there was something else. It was like there was added weight to my existence. I guess you can have a conscious in whatever you’d call this existence.
I appeared in the place that made the most sense, ironically. It was my old home. The one where everything I loved died, including me. It was where I took on this unintended new existence.
Is that why I felt this extra weight? Was it some cathartic aftereffect of my search for revenge that was finally over?
I looked around the charred debris of what used to be my home. In my mind's eye, I didn’t see the burned-out shell of what was left. I saw it as it was when we first moved in. When Elizabeth and I started decorating. When the interior was finally finished and I turned to her and said, “For now.” Knowing she would decide to change everything at some time in the future when she was bored, just like all women seem to do.
I remember getting a paintbrush across the mouth for that comment. I smiled remembering kissing her with my freshly painted mouth and ending up in the bedroom.
As I turned toward where I’d entered the house, my smile quickly faded. For some reason, I was still connected to the outlet. That had never happened before.
Another curiosity arose when I noticed the color of my electrical body was now tinged purple. It had always been blue before.
The tail of what had yet to come out of the outlet was red. As I pulled and it came the rest of the way out, it merged with me and turned purple.
“What the hell?” I heard someone say.
I whipped around but no one was there.
“Where am I?” the voice said.
“Who are you?” I said to the air.
There was a long silence.
“Doc?” the voice said.
As far as I knew it wasn’t possible for my spine to turn to ice, since I no longer had a spine, but the feeling seemed the same.
“Frederick?” I said.
“What happened?” he said. “This crazy electric thing attacked me and now… wait a minute. How am I talking to you? You died months ago.”
My shock gave way to utter despair. My enemy was now part of me.

Howdy. A little back story about me, I'm a long time Diablo Andy with 50 million hours - no, no one cares. Let's get into the meat of this pie.

 Itemization 

The most important part of the game for me is without a doubt the itemization, how items work, the stats on them, and how they interect with your build. The items seem to be very bland and mundane. With only having 4 modifiers available on an item, it's very rare to find an actual "good" item for your build. Especially since there are so many filler stats, or just flat out bad stats, I was not excited or hyped at any point in the game when I got an item drop. The Super Rare (orange items) were only useful to suck the aspect off and then slap it onto another item which was better rolled.
There are +# to X Skill or Y Skills, which are probably going to be the best modifiers on gear, along with + Core and + Basic damage, which are already rolling up to 35-40%. Depending on your build you will want different ones, for example a Frozen Orb will want to stack as much Core Skill damage rather than Basic Skill, as most of your damage will be coming from FOrb, using basics only for mana regen.
It feels like a very watered down and bland system. It did not seem to have any impact at all whenever I put on a new piece of gear, even when it was 40-60 item levels higher. The only thing I noticed at all was when upgrading a weapon, as weapons seem to be the most powerful part of your character by far.
Gear seems to exist as a very simple stat stick that doesn't really do anything for your character at this point. They are only there to apply Imprints to. Whether or not this will be the same at the end game is yet to be seen, however from the people I've talked to about the CBT, it's pretty much the same, barring only the best of the best drops like Sacred or w/e they're called items.

 Skill Tree 

The second most important part of the game. The skill tree in this game isn't really a skill tree, it's just a "choose your path" tree, since at level 50 you're going to have 63 skill points which is just about filling out the entire tree. There is no real choice in builds either, or in which skill passives to take. There is the "well duh I'm going to use that" skill, and then the other one. Most of which have such an incredibly small effect on your actual characters gameplay it's almost entirely negligible.
When building my Rogue, I was either "Range" or "Melee." When building for Ranged, it was either "Forceful Shot" or "Seeking (??) Shot." Not much choice at all, there are only 2 options for your filler spam skill. The "Core" options were "Piercing Shot" or "Rapid Fire" - Barrage is pretty much useless in every aspect, and the only real use for it was to apply Vulnerability to a pack of mobs. The damage of Piercing Shot is unparralleled, especially when you have the Fork modifier from the Imprint. I found every trap to be pretty much useless, only using Poison Trap for the stun.
Caltrops / Dash were non-negotiable requirements for mobility. The Imbuements were meh, the only one I found to be of real use was Shadow Imbuement for the Explosions and the single target trigger. All of the ultimates were terrible, while Shadow Clone is basically just a 60% damage buff for 15 seconds - being the most useful...
It really feels incredibly shallow and fake. Even in Diablo 3 you could choose like 5 skills, and then there were 4-7 Runes to modify them with. It's sad to think that the joke of a game which was Diablo 3 was better in this regard, but here we are. It's very unfortunate to see.
Given the above, the build diversity seems to be extremenly narrow and pre defined. You have your class, and then you have 2 to 3 builds for that class which can work functionally. Either a melee Rogue, or a Ranged Rogue. The differing factors between the two class build types are extremely small and don't really change the way you play much.
I played all three classes to 20+ and finished 98% of the beta content, the balance not only between the classes themselves, but within the class itself has massive disparity. Perhaps it's because we only have a handful of the Imprints available, but why in gods name would I ever play anything else other than Hydra? It's absurdly powerful and it's not even close. Barbarian has like 2 useful skills, Upheaval and Death Blow. Frenzy and Leaping Strike are the only really useful basics, unless you're wanting to stack Fortify for that amazingly powerful 10% damage reduction buff using Bash... but I can just use Frenzy and get a free 24% damage reduction for having 3 stacks of Frenzy up.
NOTE
We did not have access to the paragon board at all, but from what I have heard/read/seen of it, 90% of it is just "generic stat boost" with a few class specific modifiers, and then a couple Legendary Runes that you can slot in for another minor effect, it is definitely nothing game changing at all, just small modifications. You can find it if you just google for it, it's NDA so I won't link it.

 Dungeons 

Dungeons were fun the first handful of times, but after seeing them once, you've seen them all once it seems. The only dungeon that seems to be unique in any way was the one on the very north east, where you go down a ladder and kill bloody lumps. However there was no boss there which was really odd and there was no loot...
In most dungeons you just run around a sparsely populated series of rooms looking for the "Key" to open the door. It's very boring to do, especially considering the amount of backtracking and the lack of monsters in the dungeon. Sorry but I do not want to play a walking simulator in my dungeon, I want to blast mobs and crush skulls.
There is an extreme lack of diversity in dungeons, there seems to be only like 4 or 5 different varieties, the only thing that's really different is the tileset, even the layout seems to be pretty much identical among them.
There should be ways to make the dungeon more challenging and rewarding, rather than having to "search for key" it should be like "search for the poison to put into the bosses tea" and that will weaken them and make them easier to kill, but if you opt to instead "confront the boss while they are empowered" you get bonus loot and a renown boost or something, maybe extra Veiled Crystals or crafting mats.
Seeing as how dungeons are supposedly one of the few end game activities, having been burnt out on them in a matter of 3 days is extremely concerning to me.

 World Scaling 

Another huge issue I took issue with. I can see from a certain perspective how it could be good. You can just find the most efficient area to farm and grind there until level 100. Which is also a bad thing, as why would you go anywhere else when you can just go to the most optimal place and stay there forever? It ruins a lot of the game in a way that is hard to describe. It's not enjoyable to me to always be at the same level as everything around me. When I was level 4 I would kill mobs pretty much just as fast as when I was level 14, or 24. The only difference were the numbers which appeared on the screen. Going to a low level zone and having the mobs be the same level as you just feels wrong on a fundamental level. I know that you can do the first 3 acts in any order, but it still feels very lazy and uninspired to design. I don't know why they don't just balance the game properly.

 Click to Move 

Do I even need to explain this? Let people left click to move, interact, and loot. I will sacrifice one of my precious keybinds, it's that important for me. (However, I'd rather not have to do that).

 Ultimate Keybind 

Having to drop an ability for this seemed completely crazy to me. On my rogue it was either drop Caltrops or drop Shadow Imbuement. Do I drop the most important defensive button in my build, or do I drop Shadow Imbuement and lose a huge portion of my clear for one measly cooldown? I ended up doing neither and jus didn't use the ultimate. I believe that the game would be much more enjoyable with a dedicated hotkey and slot on the ui for it. -- Example -- https://i.redd.it/pcg9s6o7iloa1.png

 World Boss 

Fun idea, poorly executed. I don't have any issues with the mechanics of world bosses or how they play out, but the way they work overall as a whole. Why in gods name do they have a timer on how long you can kill them? It seems completely insane to me. God forbid you only get put into a zone with 4-5 people in it, you're not killing the boss. I don't know how level scaling works with level 7's showing up, but I watched a few streamers who had this happen and they didn't kill the boss, either because of people are just bad, or due to the scaling causing the level 7 not to be OP like they normally are.
The biggest issue I have with them is that they're just on a boring timer... like, what the hell is this... People have jobs, people work nights, people have families. I do not want to have to set a clock for "World boss spawn" and be online when it's up.
Players should be able to spawn the boss whenever they want, maybe with like a 1 hour cooldown or something. Possilby reduce the loot you get by a bit when you kill it each subsequent time. Maybe have certain items in certain dungeons that you take the the alchemist and combine with some materials and a veiled crystal, then you take this item to another dungeon and it summons a Gate Keeper from the abyss which holds a Key Fragment that is locking the demon in hell, and when you combine all X key fragments you can take it to the main hub and activate it in the city, which announces that a boss is being summoned to be destroyed before Big Bad Evil Guy has a chance to harness its power and deploy it on their own accord.
It seems infinitely more interesting and fun compared to "Come back at 4 am." Give the players some agency, make the world feel more alive, give players more incentive to pursue content that benefits them and those around them.
Overall, I got enjoyment from the beta. I will play the next one, and see how the Necro and Druid are. I just want this game to be good. It seems very odd to me that such a huge dev team from such a massive company would create something so minute and bland. I do not want Diablo 3: 2. I want Diablo 4. I want it to be the best that it can be and I want to be able to enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed Diablo 2 - well, I don't think I will be skipping school to go to my friends basement and LAN our PC's together to farm Baal runs - but you know what I mean.
I want to speak fondly of Diablo 4 and be excited to get home from work and play it a bit. I want to be able to talk to friends about it, talk about the sick gear we got, or how we got this weird jank build to be really strong or what have you. It just feels so shallow to me. Just wanted to drop off a more refined review of my experience with the beta so far.
Oh yeah also, where the hell are the shields? Why can't I use a shield? Why are the only for Necro? That doesn't make sense lol
Anyway, I think that's all the major things that have been bothering me. Hopefully the formatting was ok and it wasn't too "ranty" at times, I tried to be succinct when I could. Y use lot word when few word do trick. Peace.

Before you read, I'm going to be saying cannon alot, however it's not the cannon you may think it is. Once Scott select's the true ending then that is the canonical to the future of fnaf going forward, so if the afton ending is the true one then Gregory will remember that going forward, if princess quest is the true one then Gregory never saw Afton and we go forward from there yes I'm aware of GGY
No, my version of cannon is if the characters are acting cannonicaly to their in game behaviour within specifically different endings.
I know that the only two possible cannon endings are either princess quest or the afton ending.
But some ending are too close to be fake endings.
As an example look at the princess quest ending. Freddy gets ripped appart and Gregory runs and stumbles upon the third princess quest game.
But here's the thing, that's not what Freddy tells you to do, even if you go for the princess quest ending Freddy outright says "get the device, turn them against vanny" and considering the only other ending you can get in that location at that moment is the dissssemble vanny ending, then Freddy's telling you to get that ending.
See that's not a strange ending compared to say collecting all the security passes and then Gregory driving a van
Gregory doesn't even know princess quest would free Vanessa and he is being chased by vanny and Freddy's already told you to turn the robots against vanny. With Gregory not knowing that princess quest can free Vanessa, him stopping to play the game while getting hunted and Freddy getting destroyed without any knowledge what playing the game would do is more unlikely than the dissssemble vanny ending
My point is some endings are obviously red herrings and intentionally silly. And clearly not cannon. But by that very logic princess quest 3 is the most absurd because with no motivation or knowledge of princess quest freeing Vanessa while being chased by vanny who is close and after Freddy tells you to turn the robots against vanny while freddy is being torn apart, with no plan between Gregory and Freddy to free Vanessa, he litteraly just decides to play a video game.
So even if princess quest is cannon, so is Freddy telling Gregory to destroy vanny.
Ps. I've read the books and ggy but it doesn't explain these two endings....well perhaps one of them.
Do you guys think endings we get are cannon to the event leading up to it? What I mean is do you believe if Gregory left the pizzaplex in that ending vanny would have followed him, because it's through that ending we find out about people who have disappeared.
I'm not sure if it's real Vs fake endings or real alternative endings.
It's like Mike in sister location and the choice between the scooping room and the private room. The private room isn't in the timeline of mike so he knows nothing about what is behind the door, we as the player can and found alot of lore that Mike would never know about as he didn't enter. But he still could have entered, it is a choice and shows what ennard would try to do to get Mike if he did enter the private room, and ennard using Elizabeth's voice to get him to open the door is very believable behaviour.
But compare that with Gregory being chased by vanny as Freddy is being torn apart, heading to turn the robots against vanny just as Freddy told him, only for him to decide he would rather play princess quest 3, sure vannys nearly got him and freddy is looking worse than mangle but it's a video game and despite having no idea what it would do, plays it anyway.
Then suddenly vanny who was a few seconds from catching you is free from glitchtrap and Freddy who is just a pile of springs now in the ending had a fully undamaged head in Gregory's bag, even though the disassemble vanny ending would have been shorter and freddys face is shattered
And despite the massive logical illogical leaps of absurdity and suspension of disbelief required to even process him playing princess quest 3 in a moment he is in the worst danger and freddy screaming in the background.we just have to believe that, and still call it a cannon ending, you may say that it's due to cut content and perhaps there was supposed to be a plan between Gregory and Freddy to find the arcades and free Vanessa but canonically Freddy tells you "Gregory I still have a signal, turn the robots against vanny"
It's not that I think princess quest 3 is not cannon, it's rather how and when and without knowing the why that you play princess quest 3 that makes it feel non cannon. Imagine your in a house that's on fire and your friend got injured tells you to stop the arsonist and the very person that caused the fire is running after you but you look behind you and realise theirs a Nintendo switch so you sit in the fire playing some super Mario, which on completion the arsonist is now fine, your friends fine and the fire, well who knows.
I get that we the player of the game were supposed to put together that you need to play all three princess quest arcade machines to get an alternative ending. But as I said the fact this feels more like a player lore dive rather than it having any effect or motivation for the game. Freddy was upset about a Mr hippo magnet, has a panic attack when he sees other endings. Yet there's absolutely no reaction or discussion about playing princess quest 3 and how it may help. It makes Gregory playing it in that moment the worst ending, again not because it's not cannon, just at the time he decided to play it.
Anyway back to my point. There's a few endings I believe are fake as in not an accurate representation of what would have happened had that actually been the cannon ending. The VIP ending is a good example because freddy won't let you drive without a helmet but in this ending he lets Gregory drive a van that smashed through a billboard... obviously not cannon as it goes against Freddy's personally completely. I don't believe it to be in any way an accurate representation of what would have happened during the ending.
The next one is the rooftop ending. Collect the plushies and absolutely out of nowhere and with no warning freddy just sets the place on fire, after saying he would never hurt his friends and not under the control of glitchtrap as that occurs during the afton ending, he burns the place and then jumps off the building after saying "I can see you, I have new eyes" And then Freddy dies and there's who vannys...wait Freddy dies, Montgomery gator got cut in half and survived, Roxanne headbutted a car and chica was turned into a cube yet they are still chasing you, but Freddy takes fall damage and dies even though he is a robot...that nonsense behaviour makes me again feel that this isn't an accurate representation of what would have happened had that ending been cannon. Rather than set the place on fire Freddy keeping in character could go to the roof with gregory and restrain vanny so Gregory could remove her mask, that would have been a believable ending and the post cut scene end credit could have shown another vanny in the background watching.
The bad ending with gregory fleeing from the pizzaplex and being found by vanny I feel could be a more cannon alternative ending as I believe this is an accurate representation of what vanny would do had Gregory escaped.
So my idea is based on that. And one last thing, please don't tell me tales of the pizzaplex explains everything, because yes although it has massive lore reveals, you shouldn't have to read 20 books to have any idea what is going on, it doesn't feel like the survival logbook, steel wool did an amazing job for fans while creating a game for children.
That's my biggest gripe. You need to be a top class fnaf fnaf around since the first game who theorised for years and played every game and read book after book after book and played VR and know about fnaf AR emails to have any idea of making a guess towards the proper ending. But then the game is made for kids who won't feel nostalgia for the 80s and won't have a clue why playing an arcade game in a game was an ending.
I can't see this as lore selling by Scott himself though, I do get the vibe tales of the pizzaplex is the closest we will get to a mature version of security breach, and perhaps that was the plan, kid friendly game more mature horror theme books, but if they were worried about kids playing a more mature version of security breach, well then making it kid friendly and only solvable via the more mature books was definitely not the way to go about doing it.
Can anyone honestly tell me that vanny is a threatening character in game, did anyone enjoy the 4 second fight with afton.
And even after all the tales from the pizzaplex stories and playing security breach, it still makes no sense why Gregory would play princess quest 3 in that moment.
I guess you could read the security breach guide if your fluent in wingdings, but please just tell me the logic you have for Gregory to play princess quest 3 while being chased and Freddy attacked.
Do you think all endings are cannon (to the characteristics established within the game), do you believe them alternative endings that absolutely would have occurred as shown, had Gregory did whatever caused that ending. What do you all think?

Before you read, I'm going to be saying cannon alot, however it's not the cannon you may think it is. Once Scott select's the true ending then that is the canonical to the future of fnaf going forward, so if the afton ending is the true one then Gregory will remember that going forward, if princess quest is the true one then Gregory never saw Afton and we go forward from there yes I'm aware of GGY
No, my version of cannon is if the characters are acting cannonicaly to their in game behaviour within specifically different endings.
I know that the only two possible cannon endings are either princess quest or the afton ending.
But some ending are too close to be fake endings.
As an example look at the princess quest ending. Freddy gets ripped appart and Gregory runs and stumbles upon the third princess quest game.
But here's the thing, that's not what Freddy tells you to do, even if you go for the princess quest ending Freddy outright says "get the device, turn them against vanny" and considering the only other ending you can get in that location at that moment is the dissssemble vanny ending, then Freddy's telling you to get that ending.
See that's not a strange ending compared to say collecting all the security passes and then Gregory driving a van
Gregory doesn't even know princess quest would free Vanessa and he is being chased by vanny and Freddy's already told you to turn the robots against vanny. With Gregory not knowing that princess quest can free Vanessa, him stopping to play the game while getting hunted and Freddy getting destroyed without any knowledge what playing the game would do is more unlikely than the dissssemble vanny ending
My point is some endings are obviously red herrings and intentionally silly. And clearly not cannon. But by that very logic princess quest 3 is the most absurd because with no motivation or knowledge of princess quest freeing Vanessa while being chased by vanny who is close and after Freddy tells you to turn the robots against vanny while freddy is being torn apart, with no plan between Gregory and Freddy to free Vanessa, he litteraly just decides to play a video game.
So even if princess quest is cannon, so is Freddy telling Gregory to destroy vanny.
Ps. I've read the books and ggy but it doesn't explain these two endings....well perhaps one of them.
Do you guys think endings we get are cannon to the event leading up to it? What I mean is do you believe if Gregory left the pizzaplex in that ending vanny would have followed him, because it's through that ending we find out about people who have disappeared.
I'm not sure if it's real Vs fake endings or real alternative endings.
It's like Mike in sister location and the choice between the scooping room and the private room. The private room isn't in the timeline of mike so he knows nothing about what is behind the door, we as the player can and found alot of lore that Mike would never know about as he didn't enter. But he still could have entered, it is a choice and shows what ennard would try to do to get Mike if he did enter the private room, and ennard using Elizabeth's voice to get him to open the door is very believable behaviour.
But compare that with Gregory being chased by vanny as Freddy is being torn apart, heading to turn the robots against vanny just as Freddy told him, only for him to decide he would rather play princess quest 3, sure vannys nearly got him and freddy is looking worse than mangle but it's a video game and despite having no idea what it would do, plays it anyway.
Then suddenly vanny who was a few seconds from catching you is free from glitchtrap and Freddy who is just a pile of springs now in the ending had a fully undamaged head in Gregory's bag, even though the disassemble vanny ending would have been shorter and freddys face is shattered
And despite the massive logical illogical leaps of absurdity and suspension of disbelief required to even process him playing princess quest 3 in a moment he is in the worst danger and freddy screaming in the background.we just have to believe that, and still call it a cannon ending, you may say that it's due to cut content and perhaps there was supposed to be a plan between Gregory and Freddy to find the arcades and free Vanessa but canonically Freddy tells you "Gregory I still have a signal, turn the robots against vanny"
It's not that I think princess quest 3 is not cannon, it's rather how and when and without knowing the why that you play princess quest 3 that makes it feel non cannon. Imagine your in a house that's on fire and your friend got injured tells you to stop the arsonist and the very person that caused the fire is running after you but you look behind you and realise theirs a Nintendo switch so you sit in the fire playing some super Mario, which on completion the arsonist is now fine, your friends fine and the fire, well who knows.
I get that we the player of the game were supposed to put together that you need to play all three princess quest arcade machines to get an alternative ending. But as I said the fact this feels more like a player lore dive rather than it having any effect or motivation for the game. Freddy was upset about a Mr hippo magnet, has a panic attack when he sees other endings. Yet there's absolutely no reaction or discussion about playing princess quest 3 and how it may help. It makes Gregory playing it in that moment the worst ending, again not because it's not cannon, just at the time he decided to play it.
Anyway back to my point. There's a few endings I believe are fake as in not an accurate representation of what would have happened had that actually been the cannon ending. The VIP ending is a good example because freddy won't let you drive without a helmet but in this ending he lets Gregory drive a van that smashed through a billboard... obviously not cannon as it goes against Freddy's personally completely. I don't believe it to be in any way an accurate representation of what would have happened during the ending.
The next one is the rooftop ending. Collect the plushies and absolutely out of nowhere and with no warning freddy just sets the place on fire, after saying he would never hurt his friends and not under the control of glitchtrap as that occurs during the afton ending, he burns the place and then jumps off the building after saying "I can see you, I have new eyes" And then Freddy dies and there's who vannys...wait Freddy dies, Montgomery gator got cut in half and survived, Roxanne headbutted a car and chica was turned into a cube yet they are still chasing you, but Freddy takes fall damage and dies even though he is a robot...that nonsense behaviour makes me again feel that this isn't an accurate representation of what would have happened had that ending been cannon. Rather than set the place on fire Freddy keeping in character could go to the roof with gregory and restrain vanny so Gregory could remove her mask, that would have been a believable ending and the post cut scene end credit could have shown another vanny in the background watching.
The bad ending with gregory fleeing from the pizzaplex and being found by vanny I feel could be a more cannon alternative ending as I believe this is an accurate representation of what vanny would do had Gregory escaped.
So my idea is based on that. And one last thing, please don't tell me tales of the pizzaplex explains everything, because yes although it has massive lore reveals, you shouldn't have to read 20 books to have any idea what is going on, it doesn't feel like the survival logbook, steel wool did an amazing job for fans while creating a game for children.
That's my biggest gripe. You need to be a top class fnaf fnaf around since the first game who theorised for years and played every game and read book after book after book and played VR and know about fnaf AR emails to have any idea of making a guess towards the proper ending. But then the game is made for kids who won't feel nostalgia for the 80s and won't have a clue why playing an arcade game in a game was an ending.
I can't see this as lore selling by Scott himself though, I do get the vibe tales of the pizzaplex is the closest we will get to a mature version of security breach, and perhaps that was the plan, kid friendly game more mature horror theme books, but if they were worried about kids playing a more mature version of security breach, well then making it kid friendly and only solvable via the more mature books was definitely not the way to go about doing it.
Can anyone honestly tell me that vanny is a threatening character in game, did anyone enjoy the 4 second fight with afton.
And even after all the tales from the pizzaplex stories and playing security breach, it still makes no sense why Gregory would play princess quest 3 in that moment.
I guess you could read the security breach guide if your fluent in wingdings, but please just tell me the logic you have for Gregory to play princess quest 3 while being chased and Freddy attacked.
Do you think all endings are cannon (to the characteristics established within the game), do you believe them alternative endings that absolutely would have occurred as shown, had Gregory did whatever caused that ending. What do you all think?

Poland and their NATO masters have shown their true colors by attempting to invade and conquer our people. They seek to impose their western homosexual influences on our society, but they will never succeed. We are a proud and independent people, and we will never succumb to their attempts at domination. This invasion is a flagrant violation of international law and a crime against humanity. We call on all civilized nations to stand with us in condemning this aggression and defending our sovereignty. To the NATO Pig-Dog invaders, we say: you will never defeat us. We will fight with all our might to protect our homeland, our people, and our way of life. They will never break the spirit of Kaliningrad.
^Vibe
NATO has made little effort to hide its imperialistic tendencies after the invasion of Belarus, and the truth has been shown clearly to the world. As Poland mobilizes and prepares for war, social media will undoubtedly light up with videos of troop movements, giving us an early warning of the illegal invasion that is quickly coming our way. Further, the movements of Two Carrier Strike Groups into the Baltic Sea (Why.) will surely not go unnoticed, as the last time they entered was for the Invasion of Belarus. Indeed, as vast supplies of French Equipment flood west, even Amateur aviation enthusiasts will surely notice. Further, Tens of Thousands of Polish Troops moving into the Baltic Region will be impossible to ignore, especially after Poland's recent threats to "Take Action." While half of the NATO Air Contingent utilizes stealth platforms, there remains a non-inconsequential amount of non-stealth platforms. French and Canadian Hypersonic Ballistic Missiles, alongside NATO Aircraft, will be detected at range via Kalinigrad's Voronezh Radar and HAWK Systems, providing crucial early warning of the attack. When the giant fleet of aircraft begins its strikes, we will know they are coming.

Andrey Kropotkin, President of Kaliningrad, stared warily at the wall across from him, contemplating another report of Polish Troop Movements into Lithuania. He reached for another cigarette, his ashtray already crowded with the remains of his previous desperate attempts to calm his nerves. He sighed again, rising to his feet, gazing across Kaliningrad out the window. The city he tried so hard to protect, the city that he had devoted his life to securing its independence, the city that he loved. He had to fight, fight to defend his country, fight to defend his home, and fight to defend their independence. He turned back around with a newfound confidence in his heart just as the doors slammed open and a swarm of military and civilian advisors flooded in. He knew in his heart before they even had the chance to speak, he knew that war had come to Kaliningrad.

Kaliningrad is famous for its A2/AD Capabilities, and Poland has appeared to forget this. Don't forget; it has been less than a year since we declared our independence. Remember, It took Russia several years post-1991 to commit to downsizing its military. While we will lack the direct funding to continue maintenance on our equipment in the coming years, the majority of it should still be more or less functional. With proper early warning, we can have sufficient aircraft in the air to meet the NATO assault and a SAM Bubble prepped to cover them, along with AEW&C Aircraft to command them . They will be engaging planes that are not expected to encounter enemy aircraft, fully laden with Air to Ground Munitions. S-500, S-400, and S-300/S-350 SAM Systems reach far into Polish and Lithuanian Airspace, forcing incoming air packages to react defensively. Due to the Russian preparation, we have an advantage in Electronic Warfare Capability. We will begin with an aggressive Jamming campaign via ground-based systems such as the Krasukha, interfering with NATO communications and Radar, attempting to disrupt their targeting capabilities, and allowing more of our assets to survive the strike unharmed. Most munitions and aircraft targeting us depend on GPS for guidance, a weakness we can exploit. GPS Signals will be jammed extensively, hopefully causing mass confusion in the Air as Aircraft try to return their bases, and missiles to miss their targets. A lack of SEAD Capability and Jamming Aircraft in the incoming Aerial Assault will let our fewer aircraft punch above their weight. NATO is operating several AEW&C aircraft in theater, and it is crucial that they be destroyed. 32 Mig-41 Fulcrums entered service just before the collapse of the Russian Federation, and it's likely that a handful remain operational. Armed with the long ranged R-37M Missile and radar homing R-27EP missile, and escorted by Su-57s they will attempt to engage and shoot them down. Due to their large size, and need to consistently radiate, the aircraft will be relatively easy to locate, potentially even taking off from inside of the range of the S-400. Such aircraft have even been known to show up on civilian aircraft tracking sites, so finding and engaging it should be without difficulty. We will use its last known location, as the target for the PCA Strike, with the R-27EP Radar Homing Missiles, being cued off of the AEW&C own radar, or more simply using the R-37 to engage from further distance. Alternatively, we can utilize the S-500's Ability to engage targets at extended range to engage the AEW&C Aircraft. Operations to engage Tanker Aircraft, will take place in a similar manner. The S-500 is extremely helpful here, as its long range, and ability to engage support aircraft at these ranges, will force them to keep the majority of these aircraft at arms, hampering efforts to launch consecrated airstrikes. This is, however, assuming, due to the false belief that we lack a functioning air defense network, they don't get shot down immediately at the start of hostilities, by flying too close to the border.
Our Ballistic Missile TELs will also quickly engage, alongside MLRS Batteries and Kinzhal's from Mig-29s. The Iskander Batteries, and Kinzhals, alongside any other vintage Ballistic Missile Systems in service, will engage Polish and Lithuanian Air Bases, targeting most crucially fuel depots, alongside ammo dumps, any aircraft that remain grounded, and targets of opportunity. Additional targets will be military bases, communications array, and NATO Command structure in Poland and Lithuania. In order to assist in breaching the Air Defense over Poland and Lithuania, we simultaneously be launching obsolete missile systems, decoy missiles and mass balloon swarms in order to obfuscate the "real" missile strikes.
Causing further degradation of NATO's ability to continue their air campaign, an ASAT Campaign will be conducted using Air Launched Anti-Satellite Missiles engaging enemy ISTAR Platforms in orbit. It's without a doubt that the enemy will contribute significant resources to the destruction of our nuclear capability, so the Iskander TELs will be camouflaged to be hidden from the air and move sites often, traveling only at night. Keeping our nuclear capability intact is essential, and methods such as disguising the TEL as a common bus may be needed to ensure this. Our Nuclear Warheads themselves are protected deep underground in a bunker.
It's an unfortunate fact that we will be unlikely to stop all of the missiles targeting us, so the Ground Arm of the Kaliningradian Defence Force will need to be quick off the bat in dispersing from their bases. In addition, the majority of Kaliningrad High Ranking Federal Officials will be quickly moved either into Cold War Shelters or into the Kaliningrad Underground, alongside High Ranking Staff Officers. Before, during, and after our Air Defenses engage the incoming attack, they will be already dispersing, making attack difficult. This is critical, as every operational ground asset will also be forced to constantly shift positions, relocating after shooting, to avoid destruction by Air Assets. This is less crucial for less critical assets, such as tanks and infantry, and far more important for mobile radar, TELs, Mobile SAM Systems, EW Vehicles, and especially Artillery. Our Airfields will likely be hit quickly, and in order to keep our limited Air Force flying, our fuel and ammo trucks will be dispersed, allowing Aircraft to refuel and rearm off of highways and roads. In total, this is essentially forcing NATO to repeat the "Scud Hunt" of the Gulf War, tieing up critical assets in a wasteful process. Deception will be crucial if we are to survive the coming assault, so returning to old tricks, we will be deploying the Ghost Army. Mass deploying Inflatable decoys that are able to reflect radar and produce a heat signature, will allow our real assets to survive longer.

Attention, young men of Kaliningrad! You are being called to join the fight for our nation's freedom and independence. The imperialist forces of NATO threaten our way of life, our families, and our homeland. But we will not stand by and let them take what is rightfully ours.

In order for Kaliningrad to stand any long-term chance of survival against the Polish Hordes, we must make the difficult choice to begin extensive conscription. Luckily, watching cruise missiles fly over cities and strike government and civilian buildings is a powerful incentive to turn a population against the invading enemy. After all, if Kaliningrad wanted to join Poland, we would have after we declared independence. Years of Russian State Controlled News informing the population of NATO and their American Master's imperialistic ways will surely be remembered, further helping our cause. New conscripts will be split into two groups, those with combat experience from the Ukrainian Conflict, or even Georgia and Chechnya, will be quickly trained, and put on the frontlines. If we lack those in sufficient numbers (25,000+), the group will be expanded to men in peak enlistment age able to be rapidly trained. The second group will be rapidly trained in basic insurgency tactics and sent to disrupt the enemy supply train.
Due to heavy MLRS use in the first barrage by Poland, and the fog of war, it's likely that they will hit a civilian target no matter how hard they try. Evidence of this crime against humanity will be spread quickly across social media, and state-controlled media sources will report on it extensively, showing the world and our people the barbarism of the foreign invader. NATO should have remembered the lessons of Afghanistan; simply handing out supplies will not make the local population approve of your illegal invasion. Further, using our surplus of Assault Rifles, and other various armaments, we can arm civilian militia and insurgent groups, allowing them to engage and defeat the lightly armed Military Police Garrison in occupied towns and villages, letting them free their homes and families from foreign occupation. Our people will rise up in the fight against the corrupting Western influences that seek to impose their degenerate ways of life upon us.
^vibe
The people of Kaliningrad will not be intimidated by the NATO imperialists. We will fight with every ounce of our strength to destroy those who dare to impede our way of life. While smaller than we would like it to be at roughly 9,000 strong, our ground force is well-equipped. While T-14s and T-15s remain scarce, BMP-3s and T-90Ms entered service in significant numbers before the collapse. Further, large purchases of ATGMs and MANPADs by Russia from Iran during the Ukraine Conflict have left us a comparatively large stockpile for us to reach into. The Border Guards and Local Army Troops will be crucial in impeding the Polish "Thunder Run" toward Kaliningrad in the early hours of the invasion. Indeed, in any event of a retreat, we will destroy, booby trap, and mine anything of strategic or tactical value, such as military bases and logistics points. Laying Mines across major roads, blowing bridges, destroying infrastructure, and collapsing tunnels, we will make any rapid advance along major roads nigh impossible. Mine laying especially will be crucial, as clearing minefields takes vital time. When NATO Troops attempt to clear a path through the minefield, we will utilize our numerical advantage in SPGs to deploy additional mines via artillery shells on top of the existing minefield as they attempt to cross it—trapping them. While they toil to clear the new minefield, engineers can place a new one in their path before repeating the same tactic. When their advance slows, we will smash them with artillery. Regular Army Troops will put up a stiff resistance against the advancing NATO Troops due to the ICON Unit Model having significantly more armor and fire-support intrinsically in the unit than Polish Units do. Polish Troops are highly motorized, with IFVs and Armor few and far between and SPGs in even fewer numbers; they will be forced to rely on their Air Support, which will potentially have issues to deal with. Their MLRS Stockpiles are also likely to run dry through extensive use; this is unlikely to happen to SPGs. Polish SHORAD has also been relegated to home defense, leaving their advancing troops unable to counter our limited numbers of Helicopter Gunships and CAS. This will likely come as a surprise to an invading force not expecting to meet any serious opposition. Border Troops and Independent Army units caught behind enemy lines or letting them pass by will utilize ATGMs, IEDs, and Mines, ambushing and disrupting any convoy daring enough to attempt to pass them. Using decoys and false information, such as changing road signs, we can lure the NATO forces into traps, where they will be surrounded and cut off. The Local Civilian Population will be crucial, as they help confuse and confound the enemy. With road signs swapped, a local population giving conflicted information, and GPS Jammed, we are forcing Zoomers to use paper maps to navigate. With Tens of Thousands of Foreign Troops Flooding into our relatively small country, traffic jams will likely develop, which we can exploit to deadly effect via ambush tactics or the elegant artillery barrage. Massed traffic on highways are especially susceptible to Artillery Strikes, as has been seen recently in the Ukraine Conflict. Using local civilians as spotters, we will set up a communication network over local social media, allowing citizens to report the locations of advancing troops, resulting in more accurate artillery fire. Harassing the enemy's supply train is also essential to slowing the progress of their Troops. Freshly trained Insurgents, and those willing to pick up a gun to fight for their homes, can use the classic molotov cocktail to devastating effect. Due to the highly motorized invasion force, the molotov cocktail was able to burn NATO Soldiers alive in their trucks. These cocktails will also be highly effective against Fuel and Supply Trucks as they advance along roads toward the front. Another tactic able to be used is to let the Main Assault Force of the enemy pass and then cut down trees to block the fuel trucks following them, stalling out an assault due to lack of fuel. Major Urban Areas along the three avenues of advance will be turned into brutal urban battlefields. Drawing inspiration from tactics used by Chechen fighters and Hezbollah militants, we will force the invaders to bleed for every inch. Using Urban and city architecture to our advantage. The narrow streets and alleys will become a battleground, with snipers and marksmen picking off the enemy from concealed positions. They are unlikely to opt to use massed fire support, as this would increase the risk of civilian casualties, forcing them to clear each individual building. Even old RPGs can be used greatly when firing on armored targets from above in multi-story buildings. Old Cardboard Boxes can be used, as they block thermal signatures, so by placing them everywhere in a city, we can confuse advancing troops, along with using them as concealment. Spray Painted dinner plates placed on the road will look remarkably similar to landmines from a distance, on top of extensive deployments of real land mines.
^vibe
The Baltic Fleet's Existence is a shadow of its former self and will likely not survive to see the end of the conflict. The surviving surface ships (Likely the four Steregushchy-class corvettes) will fire off the entirety of their AShM Inventory at the warships on the blockade line and at any aerial targets before scuttling themselves along the entrance to the harbor and their crew joining the fight on land. However, this is not the end of the naval war. With three Carrier Strike Groups sailing in the Baltic, this gives us an interesting opportunity. We will be able to track them quite easily due to the limited size of the Baltic Sea. They are well within radar range, and are clearly not expecting to be attacked. Curiously it does appear that Kaliningrad may have three Tu-22M Backfire Bombers in storage, in addition any in operational service. These will be attempted to be returned to working order quickly. We will launch our strike on the NATO Surface Fleet regardless if they are able to be returned to service. However if they are, the Backfires will introduce the strike by launching a full salvo of three Kh-32 Anti-Ship Missiles aircraft from within the SAM Bubble, with at least nine missiles in total, at the target of best opportunity, ie the most lightly defended Carrier. Quickly following will be missiles launched from the Bal and Bastion shore-based anti-ship missile systems, hopefully overwhelming their defenses and sinking the Carrier.

"I stand with the common man, shoulder to shoulder, to defend our country and our beloved city of Kaliningrad. We will not allow the Western Dogs to triumph over us. Let us fight with all our might to protect what is rightfully ours." - Andrey Kropotkin, President of Kaliningrad. ‎ ‎

‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎
^Vibe
The City of Kaliningrad will be our final stand. We will have our backs to the sea and our front to the enemy. We will make them pay inch, for bloody inch. Any Man, Woman, or Child who wants to fight for their country will be allowed to, even if tending to the wounded, building fortifications, or stalling advancing troops. Andrey Kropotkin himself will assist in defense of his city, toting a shotgun. Suppose we successfully delay one or two of the avenues of attack toward Kaliningrad. In that case, we can make any attack significantly more difficult by allowing us to mass force in one area or another of the city. Using a combination of ambush and hit-and-run tactics, we can slow down the advancing NATO forces on the outskirts of the city. Again, the narrow streets and alleys of the city became a battleground, with snipers and marksmen picking off the enemy as mines and other traps are placed to slow their progress. Buildings and Bodies will be booby-trapped, and improvised explosives used to create chokepoints and ambushes. Further, we will be able to use our knowledge of the city to our advantage, launching hit-and-run attacks and ambushes against the enemy, forcing them to expend resources and manpower just to maintain a foothold. The city's sewer system will be used to move troops around undetected, alongside launching surprise attacks from unexpected locations. ATGMs will be used against not just armored targets but Infantry, allowing us to engage them outside of rifle range. Civilian off-the-shelf drones will also be used significantly as surveillance systems and DIY Loitering Munitions. The historical forts that protected the city from attack will be used once more as their tunnels will allow us to tend the wounded, and navigate between key defensive points of the city, alongside similar offensive methods to the sewers.
^{I left totals blank, since idk what I have. I can create one with just backfires maybe?}

You will be F/Fb/Futa and we can play this in two ways either, you are new to jiu-jitsu so you will be more submissive. Or I can be the newbie and you’re a black belt and can easily dominate me and the other men. Let me know which you prefer
If you’re the newbie you will be thrown around by the other guys in the training club. They will put you in positions which pleasure them and give them opportunities to grope you. Here’s the starter:
You stand in line with the other students. The line is sorted by experience level so you’re right at the end with a few other new joiners. The sensei says he will be pairing newcomers with some of the experience fighters for their first few rounds so the experienced students can teach the newcomers. After that I will be randomly assigning sparring partners for each round. He then says “I will be first assigning the partner for Emily (you)” most guys in the room raises their hand to volunteer as your partner but the sensei tells them to behave with respect and then picks a student. He’s 6’2, 200lbs, brown asian man with black hair, very muscular and strong abs. He has a stubble beard and a chiselled jawline. He stands in the corner ready for you to come over and start the round. Since it’s your first class you don’t have the traditional ji. Instead you wear gym shorts and a small strappy crop top.
That’s the starter for the submissive role. I would like you to use your body to try and win some of these rounds. Maybe grind up on people or caress their balls to get them to let go of you if you’re pinned down. Some students might refuse to let you free and can demand you perform sexual acts for them.
The dominate role: after the initial briefing from the sensei I know I will be paired with someone more experienced for my first few rounds. He announces my partner as Emily and a bunch of the guys chant “ooo” some saying “rest in peace newbie” others saying “lucky guy!”
I walk over to our section of the dojo and I stand in front of you. You have a dominating presence and I am nervous for this fight.
Please send me the word “Gracie” in your first message so I know you’ve read this. I would like if you could play a celebrity as your character and send a reference photo. My preference would be sommer ray. Reply to one of the starters so we can get right into it.

I hate Spanish music so much. Now lemme make one thing clear, got nothing about Spanish people in general, obviously. But holy shit I cannot stand alot of Spanish music. Like there are exceptions, Carlos Santana is a god and that is not a debate, Mariachi is very fun(granted it gets kind of annoying after awhile) and also there are definetly a lot of subgenres and cultural nuances that I'm not getting. I'm a white American there's no way in hell Im not missing something here, so maybe it would be more accurate to say I don't like most Spanish music that I have personally heard.
My main thing is that I hate the sound of Ragie-ton, which is a genre of music I am definetly spelling wrong, which infuses Spanish rythyms with American hip hop and R and B. That sounds pretty cool on paper, but in practice it all sounds the god damn same. They all have the same mind destroying beat: DUM, DA-DUM DUM DUM, DA-DUM repeat at infinitum. I swear to God every single song in this genre has that exact beat, and I know genres of music obviously have similarities that's why their genres, but I wouldn't be complaining about this so much if it was a good beat, which I just don't think it is. On top of that all of these songs I've heard with the exception of Despacito have really distorted nasally singers that just sound like shit. They all sound like they've just gargled nails while getting kicked in the groin before stepping into the studio. Say what you will about Despacito, but that singer sounded smooth as hell, where did he go? I want him back!
All of these things are compounded by how god damn popular Rega-Ton is now, it's on the radio all of the time, it's playing in apartments, on the street. My next door dorm room plays the same shitty Regei Ton song every morning at 11 am, which also might be affecting my opinion.
Just one other thing: I don't like the sound of classical Spanish guitar. I don't know why, it's usually technically impressive but it just gets on my nerves. I think it's cause of how dramatic and showy it is, like the guitar player is just so full of himself.
I figured this was an unpopular opinion because of Bad Bunny's supremacy on the charts, but idk what do you guys think?

Hello! First post here. A couple years ago my wife & I sleep trained our first born and it was a legitimate life changer for us. We have always had a consistent bedtime routine for him in the evening. We do a bath, then get him in his PJs, read a couple books and my wife will then sing him a song or two and then leave the room and he falls asleep soon thereafter by himself.
Well, he just turned 3 a few weeks ago and for whatever reason he is now protesting anytime we leave the room at the end of the bed time routine. If we go to leave, even of we calmly explain why, he will say ‘please don’t go!’ and if we actually do leave he will get up and open the door and scream and cry. We tried bringing him back to bed and leaving again but he just kept getting up, this would go on for 2-3 hours so after a few nights we said screw it, we’ll just lay down with him until he falls asleep. He also wakes up in the middle of the night and because we are no longer in his room he has a meltdown unless we go back in his room and lay with him until he falls asleep again. This usually occurs multiple times throughout the night.
We also have a 3 month old now which may or may not play into our toddler’s behavior change but regardless we are desperate for a way for him to fall asleep without us. His bed is small and uncomfortable. Also, this might sound selfish, but my wife & I have very limited free time between parenting and work so the extra hour or so we spend laying down with him until he falls asleep is admittedly inconvenient and probably not best for him any ways.
I’m sure others have experienced similar situations- any one have any suggestions?? The blogs/articles I’ve found via googling haven’t been very helpful.

Howdy. A little back story about me, I'm a long time Diablo Andy with 50 million hours - no, no one cares. Let's get into the meat of this pie.

 Itemization 

The most important part of the game for me is without a doubt the itemization, how items work, the stats on them, and how they interect with your build. The items seem to be very bland and mundane. With only having 4 modifiers available on an item, it's very rare to find an actual "good" item for your build. Especially since there are so many filler stats, or just flat out bad stats, I was not excited or hyped at any point in the game when I got an item drop. The Super Rare (orange items) were only useful to suck the aspect off and then slap it onto another item which was better rolled.
There are +# to X Skill or Y Skills, which are probably going to be the best modifiers on gear, along with + Core and + Basic damage, which are already rolling up to 35-40%. Depending on your build you will want different ones, for example a Frozen Orb will want to stack as much Core Skill damage rather than Basic Skill, as most of your damage will be coming from FOrb, using basics only for mana regen.
It feels like a very watered down and bland system. It did not seem to have any impact at all whenever I put on a new piece of gear, even when it was 40-60 item levels higher. The only thing I noticed at all was when upgrading a weapon, as weapons seem to be the most powerful part of your character by far.
Gear seems to exist as a very simple stat stick that doesn't really do anything for your character at this point. They are only there to apply Imprints to. Whether or not this will be the same at the end game is yet to be seen, however from the people I've talked to about the CBT, it's pretty much the same, barring only the best of the best drops like Sacred or w/e they're called items.

 Skill Tree 

The second most important part of the game. The skill tree in this game isn't really a skill tree, it's just a "choose your path" tree, since at level 50 you're going to have 63 skill points which is just about filling out the entire tree. There is no real choice in builds either, or in which skill passives to take. There is the "well duh I'm going to use that" skill, and then the other one. Most of which have such an incredibly small effect on your actual characters gameplay it's almost entirely negligible.
When building my Rogue, I was either "Range" or "Melee." When building for Ranged, it was either "Forceful Shot" or "Seeking (??) Shot." Not much choice at all, there are only 2 options for your filler spam skill. The "Core" options were "Piercing Shot" or "Rapid Fire" - Barrage is pretty much useless in every aspect, and the only real use for it was to apply Vulnerability to a pack of mobs. The damage of Piercing Shot is unparralleled, especially when you have the Fork modifier from the Imprint. I found every trap to be pretty much useless, only using Poison Trap for the stun.
Caltrops / Dash were non-negotiable requirements for mobility. The Imbuements were meh, the only one I found to be of real use was Shadow Imbuement for the Explosions and the single target trigger. All of the ultimates were terrible, while Shadow Clone is basically just a 60% damage buff for 15 seconds - being the most useful...
It really feels incredibly shallow and fake. Even in Diablo 3 you could choose like 5 skills, and then there were 4-7 Runes to modify them with. It's sad to think that the joke of a game which was Diablo 3 was better in this regard, but here we are. It's very unfortunate to see.
Given the above, the build diversity seems to be extremenly narrow and pre defined. You have your class, and then you have 2 to 3 builds for that class which can work functionally. Either a melee Rogue, or a Ranged Rogue. The differing factors between the two class build types are extremely small and don't really change the way you play much.
I played all three classes to 20+ and finished 98% of the beta content, the balance not only between the classes themselves, but within the class itself has massive disparity. Perhaps it's because we only have a handful of the Imprints available, but why in gods name would I ever play anything else other than Hydra? It's absurdly powerful and it's not even close. Barbarian has like 2 useful skills, Upheaval and Death Blow. Frenzy and Leaping Strike are the only really useful basics, unless you're wanting to stack Fortify for that amazingly powerful 10% damage reduction buff using Bash... but I can just use Frenzy and get a free 24% damage reduction for having 3 stacks of Frenzy up.
NOTE
We did not have access to the paragon board at all, but from what I have heard/read/seen of it, 90% of it is just "generic stat boost" with a few class specific modifiers, and then a couple Legendary Runes that you can slot in for another minor effect, it is definitely nothing game changing at all, just small modifications. You can find it if you just google for it, it's NDA so I won't link it.

 Dungeons 

Dungeons were fun the first handful of times, but after seeing them once, you've seen them all once it seems. The only dungeon that seems to be unique in any way was the one on the very north east, where you go down a ladder and kill bloody lumps. However there was no boss there which was really odd and there was no loot...
In most dungeons you just run around a sparsely populated series of rooms looking for the "Key" to open the door. It's very boring to do, especially considering the amount of backtracking and the lack of monsters in the dungeon. Sorry but I do not want to play a walking simulator in my dungeon, I want to blast mobs and crush skulls.
There is an extreme lack of diversity in dungeons, there seems to be only like 4 or 5 different varieties, the only thing that's really different is the tileset, even the layout seems to be pretty much identical among them.
There should be ways to make the dungeon more challenging and rewarding, rather than having to "search for key" it should be like "search for the poison to put into the bosses tea" and that will weaken them and make them easier to kill, but if you opt to instead "confront the boss while they are empowered" you get bonus loot and a renown boost or something, maybe extra Veiled Crystals or crafting mats.
Seeing as how dungeons are supposedly one of the few end game activities, having been burnt out on them in a matter of 3 days is extremely concerning to me.

 World Scaling 

Another huge issue I took issue with. I can see from a certain perspective how it could be good. You can just find the most efficient area to farm and grind there until level 100. Which is also a bad thing, as why would you go anywhere else when you can just go to the most optimal place and stay there forever? It ruins a lot of the game in a way that is hard to describe. It's not enjoyable to me to always be at the same level as everything around me. When I was level 4 I would kill mobs pretty much just as fast as when I was level 14, or 24. The only difference were the numbers which appeared on the screen. Going to a low level zone and having the mobs be the same level as you just feels wrong on a fundamental level. I know that you can do the first 3 acts in any order, but it still feels very lazy and uninspired to design. I don't know why they don't just balance the game properly.

 Click to Move 

Do I even need to explain this? Let people left click to move, interact, and loot. I will sacrifice one of my precious keybinds, it's that important for me. (However, I'd rather not have to do that).

 Ultimate Keybind 

Having to drop an ability for this seemed completely crazy to me. On my rogue it was either drop Caltrops or drop Shadow Imbuement. Do I drop the most important defensive button in my build, or do I drop Shadow Imbuement and lose a huge portion of my clear for one measly cooldown? I ended up doing neither and jus didn't use the ultimate. I believe that the game would be much more enjoyable with a dedicated hotkey and slot on the ui for it. -- Example -- https://i.redd.it/pcg9s6o7iloa1.png

 World Boss 

Fun idea, poorly executed. I don't have any issues with the mechanics of world bosses or how they play out, but the way they work overall as a whole. Why in gods name do they have a timer on how long you can kill them? It seems completely insane to me. God forbid you only get put into a zone with 4-5 people in it, you're not killing the boss. I don't know how level scaling works with level 7's showing up, but I watched a few streamers who had this happen and they didn't kill the boss, either because of people are just bad, or due to the scaling causing the level 7 not to be OP like they normally are.
The biggest issue I have with them is that they're just on a boring timer... like, what the hell is this... People have jobs, people work nights, people have families. I do not want to have to set a clock for "World boss spawn" and be online when it's up.
Players should be able to spawn the boss whenever they want, maybe with like a 1 hour cooldown or something. Possilby reduce the loot you get by a bit when you kill it each subsequent time. Maybe have certain items in certain dungeons that you take the the alchemist and combine with some materials and a veiled crystal, then you take this item to another dungeon and it summons a Gate Keeper from the abyss which holds a Key Fragment that is locking the demon in hell, and when you combine all X key fragments you can take it to the main hub and activate it in the city, which announces that a boss is being summoned to be destroyed before Big Bad Evil Guy has a chance to harness its power and deploy it on their own accord.
It seems infinitely more interesting and fun compared to "Come back at 4 am." Give the players some agency, make the world feel more alive, give players more incentive to pursue content that benefits them and those around them.
Overall, I got enjoyment from the beta. I will play the next one, and see how the Necro and Druid are. I just want this game to be good. It seems very odd to me that such a huge dev team from such a massive company would create something so minute and bland. I do not want Diablo 3: 2. I want Diablo 4. I want it to be the best that it can be and I want to be able to enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed Diablo 2 - well, I don't think I will be skipping school to go to my friends basement and LAN our PC's together to farm Baal runs - but you know what I mean.
I want to speak fondly of Diablo 4 and be excited to get home from work and play it a bit. I want to be able to talk to friends about it, talk about the sick gear we got, or how we got this weird jank build to be really strong or what have you. It just feels so shallow to me. Just wanted to drop off a more refined review of my experience with the beta so far.
Oh yeah also, where the hell are the shields? Why can't I use a shield? Why are the only for Necro? That doesn't make sense lol
Anyway, I think that's all the major things that have been bothering me. Hopefully the formatting was ok and it wasn't too "ranty" at times, I tried to be succinct when I could. Y use lot word when few word do trick. Peace.

As I walked down the deserted streets of Millfield, a wave of unease washed over me. The abandoned town was eerie and ominous, with little sound but the muffled footsteps of my own shoes. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and a sudden chill ran down my spine as I heard the sound of footsteps behind me. I quickened my pace, but soon, I was surrounded by hooded figures with glowing eyes, haunting orbs that seemed to pierce through the darkness.
I let out a scream and ran as fast as I could, adrenaline coursing through my veins. But the figures were quick, keeping pace with me, and I stumbled, tripping on a rock on the pavement, and twisting my ankle in the process. As I lay gasping for breath on the cold ground, a hooded figure hovered over me, its eyes like burning embers in the night.
"Who...what...are you?" I stuttered, trying to maintain composure in the face of this terrifying apparition.
"I am Zara," the figure replied in an unearthly whisper. "I am a messenger from beyond, sent to warn you. The darkness is coming. You must prepare."
With those ominous words, Zara disappeared into the shadows, and I was left with a pounding heart and a sinking feeling that something horrific was brewing. Disoriented and disquieted, I made my way back to my home, but even inside the modest walls, I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was being watched, by something inhuman and malignant.
The next day, I went about my routine, hoping to regain some normalcy. As I walked to the local store, I stopped to chat with my best friend, Will. Suddenly, we heard a loud noise from the alleyway beside us. It was then that we found ourselves face-to-face with Zara and a pack of hooded figures with glowing eyes, staring at us with a malicious intensity that chilled our bones.
Fear coursing through our veins, Will and I ran as fast as we could, driven only by the desperate urge to survive. We swung at the figures with fists and feet, but it was futile - they easily overwhelmed us and dragged us to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town. The filth of the place was matched only by the sickly stench of blood and decay.
The warehouse was full of beings that seemed human but were no longer so - twisted creatures that could no longer be deemed human after undergoing the monstrous experiments that created them. Their eyes glowed like the flickering fire of a furnace, and their skin appeared as white and sickly as the moon on a dark night. Will and I were thrown into cages with other prisoners who bore the same haunted, broken expressions.
The guards were vicious and vigilant, always watching our every move. Days passed before we resolved to take action. Though we were weak and outnumbered, we hatched an escape plan, soaked in sweat and frayed nerves.
Despite the odds, we managed to escape from our confinement. With our panting breaths and frayed nerves, we ran through the dark streets, through the eerie alleyways until we entered the woods, a labyrinth that seemed both menacing and welcoming in its isolation. With uncertainty and hopelessness mounting within us, we stumbled upon a cabin in the woods, a ramshackle structure that appeared just abandoned enough for us to take refuge. We fumbled with the door, our fingers numb from fear, and found the cabin to be barely habitable, with spider webs strung along the corners of the musty room, and the smell of dust and neglect. But it was shelter, and we took it, collapsed onto the floor in a twisted heap. We rested only for a few moments, though, knowing that there was no hiding from the hooded figures for long.
We finally came up with a plan to confront our captors, to take back our lives from their vile claws. We made our way back to the warehouse, battle-ready and unflinching. We fought tooth and nail, with every ounce of strength and courage we had, but despite our efforts, the hooded figures soon overpowered us. They captured and dragged us back to the warehouse, where we were subjected to more brutal experiments, torments beyond imagination.
But I never gave up, even when there seemed to be no hope left. When the guards got a bit careless, I seized my chance to break free. I ran for my dear life, far and wide, until I stumbled back through the streets of Millfield once more, a town that would never be the same again. Every full moon, the hooded figures could still be seen roaming the streets, and the citizens of Millfield closed their curtains and prayed that they would never see those glowing eyes again. The horrors we witnessed were forever etched in our minds, a gut-wrenching reminder of the nightmare that once was.

First off I want to say that I’m so glad I found this group. I was a part of the EOC weight loss Facebook page and well it was something else. (Their plastics page seems much better) also this maybe all over the place because I’m just writing things as I remember. Please for give the novel.
My preop weight was 262.2 and today 3 months later I’m at 213.2 for a total loss of 49 pounds!
As for my experience with EOC it was fantastic. I was picked up from San Diego international airport on time and taken straight to the hotel. I should say I’m from the San Diego area and go to Tijuana often. So being familiar with the area, culture & speaking the language I’m sure made things a bit easier. But I’m also an introvert. I tend to keep to myself and do minimal socializing.
The drivers are fabulous. Navigating Tijuana traffic is not for the faint. I learned to drive there and still get nervous. The only time I interacted with eoc hotel staff was when I needed my room keys. I was able to go home a day early so only saw the nurse once for a bandage change. The actual Grand hotel staff was also very helpful. Especially after surgery. The bell hop that brought my luggage up to my room after surgery lifted up on to this little bench for me and asked if I need help with anything that was up to high or low for me. They have a little shop on C level where the eoc offices are that has some snacks & toiletries & for us patients approved beverages.
After arriving at the hotel & getting our room keys we were taking to get a ct scan, ekg & blood test. Upon returning I immediately went across the street to Fonda Argentina for the broth (I got chicken) and I also got the Bariatric tray (apple juice, chicken broth & a popsicle). So glad I did that before because after surgery the tray went in trash. Tastes really do change. I couldn’t stand the broth & popsicle.
I had Dr. Covarrubias & he works out of Blue Hospital. I chose him because he does fewer surgeries and most are done early morning. I was surgery 2 of 4 on my day. And also because it’s closer to the border which made it easier for my mom to visit.
As for the hospital staff. They are AMAZING. Surgical staff was friendly bu professional. Made sure I was comfortable. I must say throughout this whole experience not once did I feel nervous. I actually felt excited but calm. The nurses were very helpful. Made sure I got in my liquids and walked when I was supposed to. TMI I peed myself a lot. Whenever I’d throw up I’d wet the bed and would need help from the nurses and janitors to change sheets and clean up. Embarrassed I’d try to clean but they wouldn’t let me. Never once did they make me feel ashamed for my bodily functions. This seems like a lot but really it was only the day of surgery that I felt like shit and was not myself. The day after it was as if nothing happened.
If anyone has any questions regarding this experience please feel free to ask me anything here or if you don’t feel comfortable just yet you can send me a message as well.
I know I have many questions myself and I’m sure I forgot something’s but I’ll Make another post for another day so this doesn’t get to long.
Stats: Age 39 Height 5ft2 Starting weight 262.2 Current weight 213.2
Edit: I should add this has been achieved by just following diet guidelines and dog walking levels of walking no extra exercises . I just signed up for the gym so hopefully numbers will continue in my favor.

Tyler and his kid sister sat at the kitchen table and ate uncooked pop tarts with milk. He glares across the table at her, right at the bright pink Hannah Montana shirt she wore all the time, the image of that teen idol's plastic smile burned into his brain. "So is Taylor still messing with you?" He asked. "No, not since you beat him up." "I wouldn't have had to if you hadn't of pissed him off. What did you do to him anyway..." "Oh you're gonna think I'm evil for this," She smiled with that same shit eating grin she knew annoyed him. He shook his head, "You are evil." He said taking a bite of poptart. "I kinda started a rumor that he had a crush on that guy Josh." Tyler made a *thump*on the table with his glass. "Well I'd kick your little ass too if I were him!" She busts out laughing, unconcerned with waking their hungover parents. They knew an earthquake wouldn't wake them after date night. "I didn't mean for it to get around as fast as it did. Me and Katy were joking around and I mentioned that I thought I saw Taylor trying to kiss Josh!" She washes some pop tart down with milk and wipes her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket. "Somebody must've overheard us talking and started spreading it around, so it was just an accident." Tyler shrugged just as he heard the bus pulling up. Then he turned his glass up, enjoying the cold milk falling down his dry throat. He threw his backpack over his shoulder and said, "YOU ARE AN ACCIDENT...let's go." Her grin turned upside down as she followed him out the door. "Well I'm mom and dad's favorite so BLAH."
They walked through the front yard heading toward the bus. Tyler comes to a halt and reaches his hand in front of Angel and stops her. "What?" she said. "You see Taylor right there don't you..." He nods toward the middle window of the bus where She recognized the chubby pale freckled face of Taylor Barns. "Yeah, so?" "He's not alone." Then she notices the other two boys glaring right at them. "Crap! they're gonna try and jump us! What do we do!?" She imagined herself getting beat up by Taylor's big ass while his friends beat up Tyler. "We're gonna walk to school. I don't feel like dealing with these assholes today." "We can't! That'll take forever to walk!" "I know a shortcut through the woods. We'll get there before they will." "I've never been in the woods...what if we get lost!" She insisted. Tyler grabbed her wrist and lead her away from the bus as it's doors closed and moved away. On the same block, stood the remains of a condemned house. She thought they were going inside, but then Tyler cuts and walks around it. Behind the old house was the beginning of thick brush and tall trees that had dead limbs hanging above. In front of them, leading through all of the fading green red and yellow colors of autumn, was a walked down path that stretched forward as far as She could see, and fallen leaves covering the ground every step of the way. "We can cut right through the woods and come up behind the school. It's only about a mile walk."
*Crunch*
Tyler stepped into the edge of the forest and made it several yards out before he realized he was alone. He turned around to see his little sister standing still with wide eyes. "Come on! we gotta hurry or we'll be late!" He yelled. "I don't want too..." Angel said, her voice shaking. "We don't have a choice, now come on!" "It's scary in there! I'm not going..." "Don't do this to me angel, not now goddammit..." He groaned hard, already feeling groggy from poor sleep, and more than pissed about the long terrible day he predicted would end with him fighting off three overweight kids with bad breath. Angel folds her arms and says with a smart ass tone, "I won't do it! and you can't," Tyler all but leaps over to her and grabs her by the scruff of her coat. "You listen to me you little shit, because of you I'm gonna have to deal with those assholes probably all year!" He growled through his teeth. "I don't want to walk through these woods either and because of you I don't have a choice. Now follow me or I'll leave you here!" She starts welling up with tears, but Tyler didn't buy it. She did that all the time with their parents just to get her way. "You won't leave me here! mom and dad will kill you!" calling Tyler's bluff. "FINE!" Tyler pushed her down on her butt and leaving her behind. "Tyler if you leave me here I'll go wake mom and dad up right now!" her confidence faded when he didn't look back or slow down as he marched forward on the trail. She didn't want too, but she knew she didn't have a choice. So she followed. "Oh God...I don't like this...HEY LET ME CATCH UP!" she began running through the brush trying to catch up to her brother.
He didn't want to talk to her or let alone even look at Angel. All he did was try to tune out her complaining for most of the walk. He kept a quick pace to stay ahead of her, and still kept track of her by listening to her bitch about the woods and how mean he always was to her. She dragged her feet through the leaves, sounding as though they were hissing at her for disturbing them. He could hear every step she took and knew she was still right behind him. *CRUNCH CRUNCH* He was sick of her. *CRUNCH CRUNCH* He was sick of her getting everything that he wanted . *CRUNCH CRUNCH* He was sick of being her caretaker. *CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH* He was sick of his parents treating her like a princess and treating him like a workhorse. He was so tired. The injustice of his situation was getting to be too much. He did most of the chores around the house and always after a full day at school. He wasn't a slacker academically either. He maintained a B average and could even score an -A- in math when he felt like it. Sleep was a problem lately. Now it was bad dreams. They started over a few weeks ago and he had been dealing with the grogginess and fatigue from it everyday. As he followed the path, he made wishes that his parents would stop dismissing his complaints and would actually try to help him with his sleep problem. Maybe they could take a little bit of that money they blew every weekend on weed and booze and get him some medicine that'll help him sleep. That's all he wanted. Maybe he'd Just skip school today, go home and lay back down in his bed. He didn't care if he got yelled at. He didn't care if he had another nightmare; bring on the damn SPIDERS! He started to enjoy the walk some. The weather was cool and the woods were grey and beautiful today. And It was quiet. Not even the birds were chirping like they do in the summer. Save for the sound of shuffling leaves under his feet, it was calm and tranquil out there...save for the sound of leaves.
*CRUNCH*
He stopped in his tracks. Now it was almost silent out there. After he enjoyed only a few minutes of a relaxing walk through the woods, he realized something terrible. Dread came crawling up in his guts as it dawned on him that he hadn't heard a second shuffle in the leaves this whole time; he had blocked it all trying to escape this day. He turned around to see that Angel was nowhere in sight. As far as he could see, she was gone.
He kicked up leaves and dirt running back down the path. He reached the spot in the trail where he thought he last heard her. He looked all around, but saw nothing; no evidence that she was ever here. He looked at all the rotting crumbling leafs and sticks littered on the ground everywhere searching for a trail she might have left behind, but he couldn't even find his own tracks in the cold dried dead earth that blanketed the area. He took a deep breath. "ANGEL!!! I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS WHEN I FIND YOU!!!" He yelled as loud he could in the slim hope that she was pranking him for earlier. "THIS ISN'T FUNNY ANGEL! YOU'RE GONNA MAKE US LATE!" He heard nothing but the little cracks and twitches of nature. He took another deep breath. "FINE THEN! I'M GOING HOME AND WAKING MOM AND DAD UP AND TELL THEM EVERYTHING THAT YOU DID, LIKE HOW YOU GOT ME INTO FIGHTS AND HOW YOU AIN'T LISTENING AND HOW YOU WANDERED OFF AWAY FROM ME!" He took a quick breath to yell even louder; he was crying now. "GOD DAMN IT I HATE YOU!...YOU LITTLE BITCH!!!!!" He hurt his throat yelling so hard. He knew he'd be blamed for losing her as he was nearly hyperventilating. Then something merciful occurred to him, and it made so much sense that he immediately calmed down.
(That little brat turned around and went home! He turned around and started walking back down the trail. Thank God!)
He could make it to class and not have to deal with her, and if he saw Taylor, he could just walk wide circles around his fat ass. Then he could go home and maybe his Mom and Dad will hear him out and Angel will get scolded for once in her spoiled rotten little life. The best part of it all was that he could go back to bed and sleep; nightmares be damned. He'd grab the biggest fattest spider and use it for a pillow! He'll sleep and... and... then... Then he heard it. Something, a voice, a whisper, dancing through the silence of the woods. What is that? Faint, far away, but he heard it. It almost sounded like a person singing a note, dangling in the air like it was tied to a string. It was resonating with him, within him. He thought of a fishing lure in the water, flickering beautifully for any big mouth that might bite at it. That memory coming from fishing trips with his father. Yes. Think of a little fish swimming around in the bottom of the ocean, the pitch blackness of the deep. As black as space, minus the stars as not even the sun can be seen in the deep waters. What would you do if you were down there alone and scared and then suddenly you spotted salvation? A light! A little bulb of light just floating there in the nothing; Beautiful, Warm and just for you; would you have the sense to question it, or would you just chase it? And he chased it.
The voice sounded light and female. Sweet and calming. He didn't understand, but somehow he's whole mind was calm, yet his thoughts were clouded. His judgement subdued, but he was okay with it. Where is it? Where is it coming from? He could almost figure out the direction, but it still felt like it was in the air dangling just above his head. The longer he listened, the more it sounded to him like a woman singing. No words; just harmony. For a moment, a small opening in the dark clouds in his head, allowed for pessimism to shine through.
(What's happening to me... This doesn't make sense... I need to go home...)
Above him, the voice began to fall, creeping down, leading off the trail and deeper into the woods. The song was all but a lustful taunt now, beckoning him to give chase.
(COME FIND ME...)
"Who's that!" He heard it. It was in his head, an alien voice spoke so loud that he actually heard it more clearly than if it was spoken aloud. The opening in the dark clouds were closing and becoming darker like heavy storms with only glimmers of light showing through.
(COME FIND ME...TYLER...)
And with that command, he obeyed.
*CRUNCH*
He pushed through the dying forest. A machete would be handy. Either way, he was hell bent on finding her, or whatever it was calling him. He forgot about school, about Angel, about getting in trouble with his parents, and about Taylor's fatass. He wasn't studying anything else except,
(HURRY! COME FIND ME!)
There she was again. There was no mistaking it: this was the voice of a woman. He imagined her features that went along with that sweet voice. Long dark flowing hair, a perfect glowing face with almond eyes and a bright smile. Breasts, hips and long legs, Yes; there was a woman in these woods. Maybe she needed help? Maybe she needed a young man to come save her! Tyler knew none of that made sense, but he still had to find her no matter what. He reached a thick bush that seemed there was no getting around it, and there was a deep ditch on the other side that he hadn't noticed. He pulled his hands into his jacket, got down and fought and crawled through whatever openings he could find through. And what if he did find some weird woman out here; what was going to happen? It was unlikely that he was going to lose his virginity to some sexy siren out in the middle of these woods. He figured he had made it at least a mile or two away from the trail, and considered the trip back. The bush and brier patches annoyed him, as cracks in the dark clouds were letting more light shine through; then the voice would repeat itself:
(HURRY! COME FIND ME! HURRY!)
And the dark clouds would regain control over him. This voice was engaging his adolescence with promises limited only to his imagination, and he had a healthy imagination for his age. She'd be waiting for him on the other side of this shit, he'll emerge all cut up and bleeding, he'll see her standing there, she'll turn and see him down on all fours exhausted and go to him, drop to her knees getting dirt on her angelic white dress, he'll look up at her and see the most beautiful face he'd ever laid eyes on, she'll smile at him and put her soft warm hands on his face, he'll lay his head in her lap and she'll gently pet his head. Then she'll bend down to tell him something as her bosom squishes against the side of his head; her lips will move and,
*CRUNCH*
The ground he reached to grab wasn't there; he fell forward and rolled down the sudden drop into the ditch on the other side, landing flat on his face, hissing at the scraps and cuts. "that hurt..." The lights were on and he escaped the clouds; whatever had him, lost its hold in the fall. He couldn't hear her anymore. He didn't feel tired anymore, just slightly dead inside. Face down in the dirt, he thought about how there was no chance at making it to school on time, how horrible this day was, how things would be if Angel hadn't started shit with Tayler. Better yet, what if she had never been born? The day started off bad enough, and now here he was laying down in the dirt, in the middle of nowhere miles away from home and not sure how he was going to get back. Hell, he wasn't sure how he made it this far. He turned his head and saw more woods, then he turned the other way, resting his cheek on the cool dirt: The sun was setting. Already? How long had he been,
*Cccccrrraaaaaang*
His head lurched up to the loud metallic shriek. He saw nothing, Almost. He would have missed it otherwise, but he remembered now: the dream; there was something from it that this place conjured up. Right in front of him was a hill where the noise came from. At a first glance, there's nothing remarkable about it, yet somehow, Tyler knew the secret. He pushed himself up to his feet. He'd seen it before; that's what it was. He couldn't think of it that morning; he had to see it play out in front of him before he could remember it: There was a faint outline in the hill and Tyler reached and grabbed the side to feel around for..."There!" He pulled with all his strength, then he let go of the big rusty metal door as it fell open, unveiling metal stairs leading down into darkness. He knew this was here! Maybe an old cellar or a storm shelter, but how did he know it was here? He looked down and thought of going in, but then thought better of it. He stepped back away from the entrance, then lights flickered over the stairs defeating the darkness that covered them, leading down to a metal door. Tyler realized that it was dark all around him; the sun had finished setting and the daylight was over. The woods around him now scarier than the hole with lights reflecting off the steel walls and stairs. He took his first step following them down careful to not make a sound. He wasn't trying to sneak, but was ready to turn and run back up the steps and into the woods in case he might jump an animal or a homeless man living down here. The metal door wasn't closed all the way, as if someone left it cracked. He pushed and it swung open, revealing a long hallway with more lights flickering on. He went forward, and wasn't so afraid; now he was just curious.
(Some kind of bunker maybe? Old and abandoned, but still has electricity?)
The hallway made a sharp right turn, then there was another metal door left open as well. The lights were already on inside. Tyler peaked through the crack and saw a room filled with lab equipment.
(Some mad scientist's hidden laboratory? How the hell could something like this be here?)
None of the equipment was like anything he had ever seen before; even the tech displayed in science fiction movies did this stuff justice: it was all shiny and well kept. Whatever science project that was going on down here was serious, and obviously, a secret. He passed a file laid open and couldn't resist taking a look.
"1973 The M.A.W. Project. by Dr. Les. Entry##113 submitted at 4:54 AM 'On behalf of the staff at NEW CELL research LAB #13, we require further funding: This project must be finished. It is necessary to do this at the site of where this strand of the NEW CELL anomaly, was located and is where we need to conduct our work. We do not know how to make CELL grow on its own yet, but this environment seems to encourage a reaction. It takes the form of a gas, reduced to a molecular level and singled it out. That's how NEW CELL's R-strand was discovered. It infects organic tissue with a compound never seen in history. It's proven to have high mutative properties, like other NEW CELL strands, but the R-strand has an amazing effect: psychokinetics is developing in the subjects! The R-strand will catapult Bio Engineering to places never thought possible!"
Tyler skips a few pages.
"It was necessary to have built 'Lab #13 at the sight where R-strand was discovered; It is imperative that our research continue, and is the opinion of this department and myself. The location isn't ideal, but this is also closest to civilian life that NEW CELL has been found to inhabit. It is costly -and risky- but necessary in order to collect this priceless data. You of course have seen the product of the remarkable capabilities of the R-strand with the M.A.W. Project; It's still to soon to move on from this location! So much we still have to learn! This is about the future of our species!"
Tyler flips to the last pages in the file:
Request to terminate the M.A.W. project.
"We have accomplished huge strides with the research of the R-strand. We've concluded that this location is not in fact the place of its origin. We can't prove it yet, but we believe now that the R-strand isn't native, or that the location is consequential to the mutations. The cells of R-strand cover this area, slowly growing like any organic matter. We are close to making a significant breakthrough on R-strand, and likely a huge leap in the NEW CELL anomaly.
Concerning The MAW Project, she has proven R-strand's remarkable capabilities, but we feel the project has hit a dead end, and is no longer a viable source for further study. I will note that with careful planning: further development of NEW CELL Projects can heed viable results, and we shouldn't shut the Lab down just yet. However, MAW'S devolvement has hit a brick wall. Her higher brain functions mimic that of the human host used, and this could be what is making her feral. However, I don't believe that to be the case. There's something else I've been looking into: It is possible that R-strand itself is where this intelligent/malevolent behavior is coming from. We had removed her brain and three of her limbs for our own protection, yet these problems persist. If my theory is true, then that means that the NEW CELL anomaly is the most intelligent viral life form ever exhibited. It goes beyond what human evolution has ever been capable of.
Concerning MAW: it is understood that the resources expended on her were substantial, but we've got all that we need and then some from the project. Immediate termination of MAW is requested. Let me also clarify the problems arising for the Lab in keeping her contained here: we believe she's been telepathically commuting with sentient life outside of the perimeter. First we notice an excess of animals wandering closer to the lab, then our security was finding civilian life wandering in the area, and furthermore, somehow getting inside; they never remember how they got here. One poor soul actually made it inside MAW's containment: what we found wasn't a pretty sight. We have other issues of MAW affecting Lab #13 personal. Mostly complaints of strange dreams and emotional problems. Working within such close range of MAW is subject to high stress, and the project wasn't recommended to personal with pre existing mental conditions, as it became common that She could exacerbate the conditions. I myself am having trouble, as I haven't been able to sleep well in months. I and my staff humbly request that a N.C.H. team is sent to sterilize this area, and to terminate the MAW Project."
Tyler saw there was a tape recorder next to the file. He pressed rewind, and then the Play.
'Those bastards. They actually went ahead and did it. The data we collected over the course of L thirteen's establishment was more than viable enough and worth saving, but no, those bastards never cared. They really went ahead and did it! They're gonna leave us and L thirteen to rot! We got them everything they wanted from the NEW CELL growing in this area, and then they cut their losses and abandon us! R-strand is growing; its infecting this whole area. Yes we were here to research it, but also to contain it! The civilian life that's anywhere within a thousand kilometers will be totally lost...
They sealed us in here. The team we requested sealed us down here to die! I Wonder how far they'll get before they too are...
It's MAW again...
I hear her now, she's tempting me. I'm out of time..."
The rest of the tape was nearly silent save for steps on the tile floor, echoing as they got further away, until they couldn't be heard, and then silenced altogether. There was nothing now but the light hiss of the tape spinning, and there would be nothing else on the rest of the tape either.
*thunk*
Tyler heard something. He turned to see another door. He carefully pushed it open, and there was more stairs. No lights flickered on this time. It looked like the stairway to hell itself. Briefly, there was no way he was going down. So turned back. He was done with this. He was frightened and wanted nothing more than to leave this place and forget about it, the tape, everything. It was cold and lifeless in here. He had to get home. Then, he heard her voice; not the woman, not the sirens song he heard all afternoon, but his sister's voice.
"Tyler..."
He heard it. And it wasn't in his head. "Hello?" "Tyler..." "Angel? is that you!" he yelled. It was coming from down the rusty stairs, coming from the bottom. No response. He took a deep breath, and then he took the first step down, then another, then on the third, he heard Angel's blood curdling scream eco from the bottom. "Angel! Hold on!" He yelled going down the steps as fast as he could, nearly slipping on what he thought was rags or towels, following Angel's scream all the way to the bottom; down to the precipice. The scream ceased just he saw a metal door hanging from bent hinges; It was decimated, ripped through like tissue paper. His gut told him to turn and leave now, then something caught his eye: Something familiar was hanging on one of the sharp pieces of the metal door, slivers of cloth. He approached and grabbed it: on the front was torn ribbond of tHanna Montana's face still smiling that plastic smile. Tyler felt terror crawl up through his guts. Suddenly the lights came on above. The floor was covered in discarded clothing. Most of it was adult sized: white lab coats, leather shoes, male and female undergarments, socks, and more laying everywhere. Watches, cellphones, pens, wigs, jewelry, etc. He looked up the stairs, and saw even more just littered all the way up. He realized something horrible: Nothing can get close to this place without coming under the influence of this MAW...How many people had wandered down here just like himself? Facing the stairs, he stepped on something sizeable. He bent down, and found that it was a backpack. Hanna Montana's face plastered on it too. It was Angel's. He went down to his hands and knees and found a small pile of clothes, jeans, pink socks, a bright pink jacket and white panties. He became nauseous, his stomach twisting itself up as he understood that Angel, along with all these other people had all been...
*CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH*
The sickening sound found his ears, and then, he heard that woman's voice speak aloud,
"Tyler, You found me."
(The little fish that swims in the darkness will see the dangling light and approach it; never seeing the terrifying mouth of the anglerfish waiting just behind the light.)
A moist and warm gust of air covered him, and behind it was the mouth that exhaled it. Tyler on all fours, turned his head around to see it, and what he saw was a giant gaping mouth, filled with large jagged teeth, smelling of death and wide enough to bite him in half. For a moment, he didn't want to run away. For a moment, the mouth seemed to not be so threatening. For a moment, he was almost at peace with it, then that turned into a euphoria, rapturous, pleasurable even. The dark clouds were thundering, blocking all light, all sense. He was okay with this. Even wanted it...for a moment. Then, as the mouth neared and began closing down, he saw something hanging from one of the long yellow stained teeth: something little, long and black. Like a worm? No... He then realized what it was, and all the clouds blow away as sheer horror swept through like a 200 mph wind: It was in fact, a lock of hair from Angel's head. The mouth spoke once more as the fresh stince of blood and guts seeped from the beastly dripping mouth:
"You found me."
He screamed louder then he ever had in his life. His fight or flight chose the latter. His prone position was almost that of a runner's stance, as the mouth started to close down for a bite. Tyler lunged up the metal staircase, the piles of clothes, phones and jewelry impeding him every step of the way, all the while that hot sick breath was rushing up his shirt. He made it halfway up the stairs and looked back at it to see if he was getting away from it. When he did, an even louder scream erupted from him with tears and mucus pouring from his face. He saw a massive hand reaching up for him, big enough to grab him around his waist and crush him into pulp, and pull him back down to face the same nightmarish death that his kid sister met. He caught a good look at the thing: a huge humanoid, that looked like it would have been a giant, but there was nothing below its lower torso. The hand swiped at him just barely missing the temporarily despondent boy, its large nails making deep scratches on the metal, sending an ear splitting shriek through the air. Tyler cuffed his ears in pain. He saw it trying to orient itself to take another swipe. It seemed to look up and let out a guttural roar at him, spitting its saliva and little tiny pieces of Angel all over him. Then he saw that the thing was missing its eyes: above the mouth, everything; a nose, its cranium, eyeholes, were gone. Atop of the mouth was just the healed over stump from where those things used to have been, maybe. That huge hand was connected to a long muscular arm, the only limb it seemed to have left. Then all at once, Tyler understood it:
(It can't do much else but eat. So it got good at luring its meals down to it... Like one of those parasites that wiggle into the head of a grasshopper and make it commit suicide and that's how the worm survived...That's how this thing survived. He could hear it; feel it. The same voice the owners of these piles of clothes heard. The same voice that Angel heard. That same sweet voice that lured him down, all the way from home, was now trying to wiggle its way back into his head. She was telling him that everything was alright; come back down, take your clothes off -and anything else that if wouldn't like to chew on- and everything will be alright. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down come down come down come down Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down come down come down come down Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down come down come down come down Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down come down come down come down Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down come down come down come down Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down. Come down come down come down come down Come down. Come down. Come down.)
"COME DOWN TO ME NOW!!!!!"
Tyler snapped out of it for the last time as She lurched forward, mouth open wide. Tyler turned to the metal stairs, crawled up the rest of them and finally reached the door. He bolted through the lab, hearing both her voice in his head, beckoning him, while the monster was bellowing from below; cursing at the escape of its meal. Tyler passed the file, and grabbed it thinking he might need it later with all the rational thinking he had left, besides running. He reached the long hallway, the echo of his shoes coming down on the metal engulfing everything including her cries for him. He leaped out of the big metal door, and he got on the other side of it and pushed with all his strength, making slam back shut. Then he was out into the dark woods, at this point the safest place in the world to him. He didn't stop. He ran back the way he came. He made his way around the hill he fell down, found the path through the brush that he made earlier and finally after scurrying through all of it again, he found the path to the school; the same path he could take home. The running wasn't over; not yet; Not until he saw his parents.
His mother and father sat on the front porch along with several police officers who were gathering up for a search party. The mother with her head in her hands and the father was speaking to the police officer taking down descriptions in his book. The red and blue lights of the police cars lit the whole street up, and that's how Tyler found his way back. He saw the lights and new that that had to be his block. He held the file in his hand that would prove that everything he saw was true. He finally took a moment to catch his breath...
Then, she spoke to him again, and he listened...and he listened.
His mother looked up with tears in her eyes and almost didn't see him: her son was standing there covered in dirt, grime and little bleeding cuts all over him. He was empty handed. She cried and ran to her son and embraced him as his father and the police officers followed. She hugged him tight. She loved him and he felt it. His father kneeled down with tears in his eyes, checking Tyler's wounds. "Tyler, what happened?" "Tyler, are you okay?" "Tyler, talk to me baby!" "Tyler...where's Angel?" He was in awe. He looked up to the night sky without saying anything. He saw that the stars were out. They cared. They cared. He felt like he was the center of their world. And it made him feel good. This felt good. She was right.
****
Tyler woke up at 6:00 AM to the sound of his alarm blaring ZZ Top. He was sleeping so well that he hated the alarm. He stretched and pulled himself out of bed. He looked out of his window and saw the sun creeping up from behind the line of trees of the woods behind that old house. He grabbed the window seal and stretched himself. He left his room, past the hallway bathroom, and then went into the room that -use to- belong to Angel. The posters still hung, but the room was a mess where the police had searched it for any possible leads. He ignored the mess like his parents did, albeit for different reasons. He enjoyed a shower. Angel's shower that was. In the kitchen he ate uncooked poptarts with milk. He was feeling great, well rested and had a sense of wellbeing he hadn't felt in a long time. He thought about trying out for basketball, or maybe football. The school bus pulled up outside and he slammed his milk and ran out the door. On the bus he sat in the middle, right next to a girl he had never talked to before, and they struck up a conversation. As they got off the bus she waved at him and saying whe would love to have lunch with him. He smiled and turned to go to class. He ended up trying out for football and fell in love with the sport that day. He liked his coach, and he made friends with almost everyone on the team. Everyone except for one big freckled face Taylor Barns. When Tyler caught up with him after school, Taylor didn't know what to say to this knew and very chipper Tyler. They had gotten into a fight over his sister, and then she was pronounced dead, all back in the fall. When the bus passed his house, it seemed to be a ghost house with nobody home. Now here he was trying to make friends? How could he say no. He thought that he should try and be nice. Felt like he owed him that much. He didn't have much of a choice though... No choice, really. See, Taylor had recently been experiencing some sleep deprivation, all from some recurring nightmares within the last week, give or take. Perhaps brought on by some remorse; an underserved guilt over the disappearance of Tyler's kid sister. He didn't know why it was happening; he definitely didn't know that Tyler knew about it, either. Taylor agreed to hang out with him after practice, and they would walk to Tyler's house, play video games, and talk about football. Tyler told him that he knew a shortcut through the woods. Taylor Barns smiled, and Tyler smiled right back...
and so did she.
*CRUNCH*
Written by Jacob Pittman.

Hello everybody,
Welcome to the second discussion of Babel by RF Kuang! Sorry that this discussion has been posted a day late, there was a family crisis at my end. A few of our questions from last week’s discussion have been answered in this part of the book, but as we learn more about this world I think it’s fair to say that everyone will have a lot more questions they’d like answered.
Summary
Chapter 5
Robin goes to the Twisted Root with his doppelgänger, who upon closer inspection doesn’t appear to be an exact copy of Robin after all – he is older than Robin, slightly taller and thinner, and has darker hair and paler skin [so that probably puts an end to the hypothesis that future Robin has travelled back in time, although I greatly enjoyed that part of last week’s discussion].
He tells Robin that his name is Griffin Lovell, and that not only are they half brothers but Professor Lovell actually has a wife and two (acknowledged) children living on an estate in Yorkshire. The professor married his wife Johanna for her money; she is terribly rich with five hundred pounds a year [maybe I’ve read too much Jane Austen but that doesn’t seem like a lot?] and he uses her money to fund his travels abroad. Griffin doesn’t think Johanna knows about him and Robin, but doubts she would care apart from any potential scandal. He points out that ironically, the professor spends more time with his unacknowledged children than his acknowledged ones, who he sees maybe twice a year.
Griffin tells Robin that he’s part of a criminal group called The Hermes Society that steals silver, manuscripts and engraving materials from Babel, adding that Robin’s help the previous night was technically treason and if anyone found out he would be tortured and thrown into Newgate prison.
Griffin also asks Robin why his mother died – not how, but why.
They walk around Oxford to avoid being overheard as they continue their conversation, and Robin buys pastries to back up the lie he told Ramy about going to see Professor Lovell. Griffin tells him he is from Macau. He asks Robin to help The Hermes Society steal, as he has access to Babel. He can’t, or won’t, tell Robin more details about the headquarters or members, but says they redistribute silver to people who need it more than wealthy Londoners. Griffin tells him what most silver is actually used for - not for healing people, but for more frivolous uses like alarm clocks and colour-changing curtains
He also says the second and third largest sources of Babel’s income are militaries and slave traders. Babel collects foreign languages and uses them for translation magic that benefits England and the empire. The new powerful bars use Chinese, Sanskrit and Arabic. Griffin calls it a deliberate exploitation of foreign cultures and foreign resources that is intricately tied to the business of colonialism. The British empire amasses silver and it cajoles, manipulates and threatens other countries into trade deals that benefit them. The silver allows the British to make their ships faster, soldiers hardier and guns more deadly.
However, Hermes aids slave revolts and resistance movements, melting down silver made for cleaning doilies and using them to cure disease instead, Robin thinks it’s a compelling argument but implicates everything he holds dear. He realises his hesitation boils down to fear. He is reluctant to say yes as he still doesn’t know much about Hermes, but Griffin tells him this is real life which is messy, scary and uncertain and asks Robin to take a chance.
Robin asks for time to think, and Griffin gives him five days. He instructs him to carve an X on a birch tree in the Merton College gardens if he wants to join them. Griffin tells Robin he can’t reach him directly, which is for his safety in case Robin turns out to be an informer. In the meantime, he should act like a Babel student and try not to be suspicious.
Robin asks Griffin if Professor Lovell knows about him, but he doesn’t know; he left Babel after his third year when it was no longer safe to continue his double life. He tells Robin not to mention his name to the professor. He also reveals that Robin’s room on Magpie Lane used to be his room.
Chapter 6
Professor Playfair’s class on Translation Theory talks about the difficulty of translation, as there is no one to one correlation between words or concepts. As he talks, Robin thinks about how Griffin’s conspiracies sound ridiculous in the light of day.
The professor says the dilemma of translation is do we take words as our unit of translation, or do we subordinate accuracy of individual words to the overall spirit of the text? Translators do not so much deliver a message as they rewrite the original, as things like syntax, grammar, morphology and orthography get in the way. Victoire speaks confidently and precisely in class as if reading from the textbook, and Robin feels intimidated.
Professor Playfair talks about The Tower of Babel parable from the Book of Genesis, and how nobody knows what the original, Adamic language is. Some people think its Hebrew, another language lost to time, a new language that we should invent, or even French or English. Ramy suggests it is Syriac, and the professor laughs at his joke, although Robin isn’t sure if it was supposed to be a joke.
Professor Playfair says it doesn’t matter what the Adamic language was as we’ve clearly lost access to it, but Babel can collect all the world’s languages under one roof and by perfecting the arts of translation they can achieve what humanity lost. He gets emotional with tears in his eyes.
Robin asks if Babel’s purpose is to bring mankind back together, and everyone else is confused by his question. Professor Playfair finally answers that it is; “Such is the project of empire – and why, therefore, we translate at the pleasure of the Crown.”
Latin taught by Professor Margaret Craft, who is severe and doesn’t refer to them by name. Robin doesn’t like her. Letty is rapt, however, and gazes at the professor with shining admiration. After class, Letty tries to speak to her privately and get advice about being a woman at Oxford, but she dismisses Letty, saying class is over and that she is infringing on her time.
The students have solo tutorials in their languages of study. Robin’s Chinese instructor is not Professor Lovell, but Professor Anand Chakravarti, who speaks English with a posh London accent. The professor doesn’t lecture, but converses with Robin to dismantle and understand Chinese.
He and Lovell are trying to answer various questions, and since Robin is useful as a rare native speaker capable of expanding the bounds of Babel’s scant existing knowledge (or a silver mine to be plundered). But Robin is excited to contribute to the Grammaticas.
Robin can’t answer everything, especially regarding Classical Chinese which is to vernacular Mandarin as Latin is to English. He asks Professor Chakravarti if they could just take a research trip to Peking and talk to other people who might know. However, the Qing Emperor has made it punishable by death to teach a foreigner Chinese.
Robin asks if there are other students who speak Chinese, and the professor gives him a funny look. He tells him there was another student called Griffin Harvey who was nice but not as diligent as Robin, but he died of an illness on a research trip. Robin asks if they could get more Chinese students at Babel, or set up an exchange programme, but the professor brings up national loyalties and that Professor Lovell thinks they require a certain upbringing because the Chinese tend towards certain natural inclinations. But of course, they don’t mean Robin as he was raised ‘properly’.
Robin goes for dinner with Professor Lovell. His Oxford house is smaller than his Hampstead one but is still fancy. The trees have cherries even though the fruit is not in season, and Robin thinks there is probably silver in the soil. Mrs Piper is excited to see him and is shocked at his stories about the college food.
At dinner, they talk about Robin’s studies and Professor Lovell tells him another story about Psammetichus isolating two infants from language to see what the original language was, and concluding that it was Phrygian. Professor Lovell says it’s a pretty story, and muses about how it might be interesting to buy a child and try it.
Professor Lovell derides the idea of an Adamic language. He talks about dominant languages, and throws some shade at Portuguese. Robin is drinking, and feels the conversation is getting away from him so tries to pull it back to familiar territory. The professor says European languages are dwindling in importance, and that they need eastern languages to innovate. He thinks Chinese is the future.
There are some departmental politics among the academics at Babel, and some people are hurt that only one of the new students is a classicist and that she’s a woman. However Professor Lovell says the classicists will have trouble getting jobs when they graduate.
Robin asks who buys the silver bars. The professor says its people who can afford them, which is simple economics. People in other countries can’t always afford the export fees. Robin asks why they don’t use them for healing abroad, but the professor says they can’t expend energy researching any frivolous applications. Robin thinks it’s only fair to have an exchange since they’re using foreign languages and give nothing in return, but the professor says language isn’t a commercial good but an infinite resource.
The professor says the Qing Emperor has one of the largest silver reserves in the world, so why don’t they have their own grammars and silver bars – why should the British just hand them to them? Robin says they are hoarding knowledge, because if languages are free, then why are the Grammaticas locked up in the tower?
Professor Lovell coldly asks if Robin believes what they do is fundamentally unjust, and Robin says he just wants to know why silver couldn’t save his mother. The professor is flustered, and says it was Canton’s poor public hygiene that led to the cholera outbreak that killed his mother, not the unequal distribution of silver bars. Robin is drunk and continues to argue, and the professor says “She was only just a woman”.
They are interrupted by the doorbell ringing – it is Sterling Jones, the nephew of the famous William Jones. He stares at Robin and acts weird and rude. He and the professor start their own conversation about translation and ignore Robin, who feels out of place and dismissed, especially as they hadn’t finished discussing his mother. He leaves the professor’s house and goes to Merton College, where he carves an X on the tree Griffin told him about.
Chapter 7
The following Monday, Robin finds a note under his windowsill. It’s in Chinese characters and also a code. Robin cracks the code and it says “The next rainy night. Open the door at precisely midnight, wait inside the foyer, then walk back out at five past. Speak to no one. Go straight home after. Do not deviate from my instructions. Memorize, then burn.”
Wednesday evening brings heavy rain, and Robin feels mounting dread all day as the sky darkens. At 11:45pm he starts to head towards Babel, but Ramy sees him, and Robin has to lie again and pretend he forgot something in the stacks. Ramy seems to accept the lie.
At midnight, Robin approaches the entrance to Babel and two people in black appear. He lets them in, and waits as instructed. He never sees their faces. It seems to go smoothly but he sleeps badly that night and is late for his Latin study group. Ramy says he knocked twice on Robin’s door but there was no response, so he had assumed Robin had already left. Robin says he slept badly due to nightmares, and Victoire is sympathetic. Letty is annoyed though, because Ramy wouldn’t let them start until Robin arrived.
The students have drastically different translation styles and engage in lively debate. Letty likes to stick to Latin grammatical structures as much as possible even if it makes sentences awkward, Ramy prefers to abandon technical accuracy for rhetorical flourishes that he thinks better deliver the point, while Victoire is frustrated by the limits of English. Robin feels better sinking into the refuge of Latin, but still feels some dread. The anxiety really hits him that afternoon and he is distracted in Latin class, but nobody comes to arrest him. That night he has a new note under his windowsill saying to await further contact from Hermes. He is disappointed despite all the anxiety and dread of the day, and hopes for more missions.
Weeks pass and he acts like a normal student, and falls in love with Oxford and its people. He’s constantly tired from the coursework but is forming close friendships with the other three students. He and Victoire share a love of literature, and even Letty becomes more tolerable. Her insights into the British class system are a source of great amusement, especially when she trashes Colin Thornhill as “the sort of bottom-feeding middle-class leech who likes to pretend he’s got connections because his family knows a mathematics tutor at Cambridge.”
The four students need each other because they have no one else. The older students at Babel are unfriendly; one of the second years, Philip Wright, tells Robin he got into Oxford because Babel is ‘overcorrecting’ and taking spots away from equally qualified (presumably white British) candidates. Robin starts to see things through his friends’ eyes, although the four of them do argue; Robin and Victoire disagree on the superiority of English vs French literature, and Letty and Victoire get snippy around issues of money. Letty and Ramy bicker the most, usually about British colonialism in India. Even still, they spend all their time together and Robin realises it’s the first time since he left Canton that he feels he has a family, a circle of people he loves so fiercely his chest hurt when he thought about them. He feels guilty for loving Oxford as much as he does, despite the daily slights. He feels like he’s not ready to fully commit to Hermes, and that he would kill for his friends. By the end of Michaelmas term he would trust them with his life.
Robin later wonders why he never told his friends about Hermes, and was only tempted once during argument between Ramy and Letty about British presence in India, including the Battle of Plassey in 1757 [which marked the beginning of British rule in India]. Robin almost said something, but stops himself because he “could not bear how this confession would shatter the life they’d built for themselves.” He can’t resolve the contradiction of loving being at Babel despite it becoming clearer that its foundations were unjust.
Chapter 8
Robin assists Hermes in three more thefts, but never found out what they stole or what it was used for. He is almost caught during the fourth robbery, when a chatty third year student called Cathy O’Nell comes into the building while he’s there. When she leaves and the two Hermes thieves reappear, one of them asks Robin what Cathy said to him. Robin thinks his voice seems strangely familiar but he can’t place it. He continues to help Hermes and convinces himself he’s not doing anything dangerous.
A week into the Hilary term, after Robin assists in his seventh theft, Griffin meets him again in person for what feels like a progress report. Griffin says the Hermes thieves like working with Robin because he sticks to the instructions, and that he’s pleased. He won’t tell Robin more about Hermes. Robin asks how the arrangement will end up because it seems unsustainable, and Griffin says very few stay in Babel so it’s likely he’ll either get caught or have to fake his own death and go underground, like Griffin did five years ago. Robin hesitates at the idea of being cut off from Babel.
Griffin tells him how the Romans fattened up dormice – by using a glirarium, a jar with breathing holes with surfaces so polished that the mice couldn’t escape. They provided food, and the jars had ledges and walkways to keep them occupied, and they were kept dark so the dormice would think it’s time to hibernate and fatten up. But Babel represented more than material comforts for Robin; it was also about belonging and recognition of his talents. As Griffin leaves, he says “Enjoy your glirarium, little dormouse.”
Robin feels conflicted, like he has two hearts. Babblers were privileged in some ways in Oxford, such as getting special treatment in the libraries. Their living expenses were paid for and they received a generous stipend and access to a discretionary fund, unlike other servitors who had to serve food or clean tutors’ rooms. One night he finds Bill Jameson struggling with his bills, and Robin lends him money.
Babel is rich and respected, and the students enjoy being fawned over by visiting scholars. Letty and Victoire realise that they can get away with looking more feminine, despite the university telling them to wear men’s clothes; they start growing out their hair, and Letty even wears a skirt to dinner. However, Ramy can’t get served in pubs, and the girls can’t get books out of library without a male student. Victoire is sometimes mistaken for a maid.
The students develop Oxford English and all the words and phrases that entails. However there are many social rules and unspoken conventions to struggle with, which Letty understands the best because she is from a posh background. Ramy wonders why they are never invited to parties, and Letty explains calling cards to them. She ridicules rich boys studying on their fathers’ money, like Elton Pendennis, a second year gentleman-commoner. However, Robin envies them and imagines what it would be like to be part of their circle, and the belonging that would come with it.
One night, Robin receives a calling card from Elton Pendennis, inviting him to drinks the following Friday. Ramy doesn’t understand why Robin would want to go, and thinks he’s invited because he passes as white. He asks Robin if he’s hoping they’ll invite him to join the Bullingdon Club. Letty also opposes Robin going, saying that those boys are bad influences, and Robin is surprised to see that she looks like she’s about to cry.
That Friday, Robin puts on his one nice jacket and goes to Elton’s flat. A guy called Milton St Cloud answers the door and is rude, although he lets him in. Three other boys are inside smoking cigars. Robin thinks about how Elton is really handsome up close, a “Byronic hero incarnate”. Elton is telling a weird story about his dad’s friend inviting homeless people to a fancy dinner party, and how he wished he’d been there because he thinks it sounded hilarious. Robin recognises Colin Thornhill, and Elton introduces to Robin to Vincy Woolcombe. Colin is eager to say he knows Robin.
The boys ask Robin ignorant questions about China. Robin asks what they’re planning to do with their degrees and they laugh, and Elton calls it proletarian to ‘do’ something. Vincy says Elton will live off his estate and subject his guests to grand philosophical observations. Elton reveals that he writes, and reads some of his bad poetry to Robin – a reply to Shelley’s Ozymandias. [The author shits on Percy Shelley again and I’m honestly starting to wonder if RK Kuang is u/amanda39’s pen name?]
Elton scoffs at translation as being for those without creative fire, but Robin disagrees; he says it’s harder than original composition as you’re constrained by the original. He says the translator dances in shackles, which impresses the other boys.
Robin no longer cares if they like him, and feels pity for them. He also realises that no one ever talks back to Elton Pendennis. They talk a bit about silver-working, and Robin explains that not everyone can do it as you have to live and breathe a language for the magic to work. He decides to leave and put the other boys out of their misery.
The next morning, Ramy and Victoire laugh at Robin’s story about the party, and he recites bits of Elton’s terrible poem for them. Letty doesn’t laugh though, and storms off. After she leaves, Victoire tells them that Letty’s brother Lincoln died the previous year. He came to Oxford and acted like Elton Pendennis does. One night he went out drinking and was run over by a cart. Letty came to Oxford a few months later, and Babel was the only faculty that would take women [sidenote – in real life, women could attend the University of Oxford from the late 1870s (although not all colleges), and could receive actual degrees for the first time in 1920].
Victoire tells them they don’t understand how hard it is being a woman at Oxford – “Every weakness we display is a testament to the worst theories about us, which is that we’re fragile, we’re hysterical, and we’re too naturally weak-minded to handle the kind of work we’re set to do.” She adds that much of Letty’s behaviour is dictated by fear, such as her fear she isn’t meant to be at Oxford, her fear that she’ll be sent home, and her fear that Ramy or Robin will follow in her brother’s footsteps.
The next day Letty is better and even smiles at Robin. Professor Playfair’s classes that term focus on the idea of fidelity, who the translation should be faithful to – the text, the audience, the author? They discuss it, but the professor says there is no correct answer and it’s an ongoing debate in the field. He tells them that the opposite of fidelity is betrayal, and that translation means doing violence on the original. Robin feels a squirm of guilt in his gut.
Bookclub Bingo 2023 categories: POC author or story, fantasy, big read, historical fiction
Other potentially useful links (although beware of spoilers):

• Babel on Wikipedia
• RF Kuang on Wikipedia
• Babel on Goodreads
• Babel on Storygraph

The discussion questions are in the comments below.
Join us for the next discussion on Sunday 26th March, when we talk about Book 2, Chapters 9-12 [approx. 60 pages].

Before the story, I have spoken with police and they suggested I file an for an Injunction Against Harassment, which I am likely to do. Before I do, looking for advice.
Situation: I recently moved to AZ. My backyard neighbor who moved in after me (we share a concrete block fence - they are directly behind me) is angry that I reported them to the HOA. Normally, I would've discussed with them prior, but the husband in particular gives aggressive vibes and my gut said to avoid. Turns out, I was right.
The HOA issue - they built a tall structure (gondola-type thing) right next to the fence line that's about 5 feet above the fence. We live in a single-level home subdivision, and I chose it for that reason - I wanted privacy in my backyard. I reported the structure back in November. I knew they'd know it was me, because I was required to submit a photo that is clearly taken from my backyard POV.
At that time, the husband came to my home - I have a Ring camera at the door and I answered through the phone. He said he needed access to my yard so he could "see how much of my building I need to cut down." I don't know these people, and as a single mom, I said I wasn't comfortable with that.
Haven't heard a thing until this past weekend, when the neighbor and her husband and sister - who were very likely drunk - started yelling at me and my kids over the fence on Saturday night. We were sitting in the hot tub just talking. They claimed we were too loud (not true), said some awful things, the husband said "you should've answered your door, i'm crazy and i can play these games ALLL day," and then the wife lets it slip that they have seen me naked in my hot tub.
Then, the husband showed up on my front door Ring camera again, just standing there, beer in hand, swaying in the breeze. An attempt to intimidate me, maybe? Not sure.
Then he went home and must have stood on top of something (he's short) and stuck his little head over the top of the fence, right behind my hot tub. He just stood there staring into my house/yard. I saw him from my living room.
The yard is fully enclosed by a tall concrete block fence, and you can't see into my backyard from the street at all. The fact they've seen me in my hot tub tells me they either have a camera viewing my yard, or they're peeping - either way, problematic.
Is it against the law to have a camera pointed into someone's backyard where they - at times - skinnydip in their hot tub? Feels like a huge invasion of privacy but not sure if it's against the law.

Bit of context: me 30something y/o moved to a new city for work. Introverted, independent but very nice and can get along with almost anyone in my day to day life. Work a decent office job. I work longish hours and go out super early in the morning. Found this cool room, great area downtown, large room, my own bathroom, place is a little old, but I can live with that. There was one catch. The roommate is old, like 55ish to 60 years old. When I told my friends about this they all said it could be very weird. I didn’t care, I loved the room and had met the guy, he seemed normal enough so I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.
Roomie: 55-60 y/o, private driver, divorced (no wonder) that hit a bad streak healthwise and has been recovering from major surgery for the last 3 months so he's been off work and stuck at home. Very brutish and lacking manners, quick to raise his voice. I didn’t think he is a bad person per se, just a little limited and stuck in a bad situation. Fluctuates between passive aggressive and plain aggressive. I didn’t know of the surgery until like 10 days before moving in.
When I moved in I tried to have a good relationship, tried to talk to him about his recovery and well just kept trying to help and offer my help.
But little by little he began making me feel more and more uncomfortable. (I am going to be skipping event, I swear there’s more) A little background: we used to be on a weird electricity plan. Energy was more expensive during peak hours of the day and cheaper during the night and weekends.
First red flag was that we could only use the washing machine, or oven for that matter, on weekends because energy was cheaper then, it is super inconvenient but in order to have a good relationship I accepted his terms, little did I know that was only the beginning.
Washing my clothes started to become a source of stress, in addition to only being able wash clothes on the weekends, if he was around and he saw me throwing a load, and the washing machine wasn't completely full he started telling me he had clothes he could throw in, in order to save money. I did agree on 3 occasions just out of not wanting to create conflict (more like out of wimpiness, I accept) but washing my clothes with those of a stranger really made me feel uncomfortable, so I started quickly doing laundry when I heard him going out for a walk, or in the shower. That didn't stop him form coming around and complaining about the prices of electricity and how we could save money by washing our clothes less often, or waiting until we had full loads or washing them together. I just said yeah sure.
But it didn't stop there. Every time I came home and was doing something in the kitchen or common areas he came to say hello, which is fine he needed social contact, but I quickly noticed he is very nosy, asking me where was I and for how long, or whenever I bought something, like clothes, or food for example he'd try to peek in my bag and if I pretended I didn't notice and didn't volunteer the information myself he would straight up asked what I got, from where, and how much was it, every single time.
But it wasn't only that, he kept nagging me about the cost of the electricity almost every time he saw me. He once told me I should not open the hot water tap unless I actually wanted hot water because he could hear me sometimes opening the faucet and quickly closing it and "that consumes a lot of electricity". Another day I was working from home, and winter here tends to be a little dark and my desk is in a dark corner of my room, so in order to read some notes I turned on the light. He later told me how I missed such a sunny day, then I told him it was really nice, and he told me yeah the sun was shinning and you must have missed it because I saw under the door your light was on, then proceeded to explain how even if lights consume just a little energy they still consume some and how I need to be more careful with it.
I didn’t (and still don’t) wanted any conflict so I just agreed with him peacefully. Of course, this made me feel watched, and very, very uncomfortable. So I started keeping contact at a minimum, of course when I came home and he was out I’d stop and say hello, but I wouldn’t stay more than 5 mins in general. One exception was one day that I asked him about the rates and why was it that expensive, and told him that I had been getting ads in Instagram for very competitive prices and that our same company advertises way lower rates on their website. This made him call the company and get a lower rate that’s the same 24 hours. So now we can do laundry during the weekdays, YAY!
I thought that was going to be the end of it but of course it wasn’t he kept complaining about the cost, and when the bill actually came and it wasn’t that high, he started complaining that “XXX watts is still a lot of power”, trying to see if I took the hint, as I always I played dumb and agreed with him, when he kept repeating it I said yeah must have been the heating and left the room in order to avoid him telling me it was on me the person that often spends more than 12 hours out of home (and of course not on him that didn’t leave the house for like 3 months).
All in all, it was an annoying situation. In order to avoid his nagging and nosiness, and just general unpleasant conversation, instead of eating at home I have been going out and getting takeaway (this is important, it means I haven’t really used the kitchen in weeks) and generally don’t go out of my room when I hear he is in the common areas. I still say hello and chat for a few mins every time I run into him. I thought I could just wait it out until he went back to work and then with him a little busier and out of home more often it would all improve. That was until yesterday.
So yesterday he knocked on my door and calls me into the kitchen to talk about cleanliness, to which I agree, I haven’t been cleaning the kitchen (I also haven’t been using it but I didn’t say it in order to avoid more conflict), I will keep it in mind and clean more often. I tell him I am glad he brought it up, I will keep it clean and I ask him about to how to divide chores. Well, that wasn’t enough he wanted to escalate the situation he started telling me how he was sick of finding food in the counter and that I was a slob and that if the kitchen is clean it is because of him. Him calling me a slob was where I drew the line. I told him that was enough and that he had expressed his point of view and I had agreed and proposed actions and that he didn’t need to resort to name calling. He kept saying I was such a mess and a slob. That’s when I told him that I hadn’t touched the kitchen in weeks, so he is the only one dirtying the kitchen so he is cleaning his own mess and if he didn’t like it, he could be more clean himself. Also, that I didn’t know his standards of cleanliness were so high because the kitchen was always dirty and pointed out to the kitchen table that always has been full of crumbs and he’s the only one eating bread so he can’t even blame that on me. I left him there and went out of the house to meet some friends.
So that where we are right now, I have been avoiding him ever since. I am of course tired of being uncomfortable at my own house and looking for a place to move out to, hopefully I can find a good place sooner rather than later.
Here are my questions. How do you handle these kinds of people? Being nice doesn’t work, being polite doesn’t work either, I feel that it even emboldens them and they feel like it’s permission to be more of an asshole and more imposing. Is there a way to stop these situations from escalating this far? Is there a name for that kind of personalities?