Fine thread crossword clue

DJs: A Reddit for DJs

2009.11.27 03:42 o__0 DJs: A Reddit for DJs

General DJ discussion. Visit Beatmatch for beginner questions.
[link]

2010.11.28 01:59 porkchop-sandwiches skrillex

skrillex community http://discord.gg/skrillcord
[link]

2023.05.29 04:00 bridger713 RECRUITING, TRAINING, & LIFE IN THE FORCES THREAD - Ask here about the Recruitment Process, Basic & Occupational Training, and other questions relating directly or indirectly to serving in the Canadian Armed Forces.

This is the thread to ask all your questions about the Recruitment Process, Basic & Occupational Training, and other questions relating directly or indirectly to serving in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Before you post, please ensure:
  1. You read through the the previous Recruiting Threads.
  2. Read through the Recruiting FAQ, and;
    a. The NEW "What to expect on BMQ/BMOQ Info thread".
  3. Use the subreddit's search feature, located at the top of the sidebar.
  4. Check your email spam folder! The answer to your recent visit to CFRC may lie within!
Every week, a new thread is borne:
This thread will remain stickied for one week and will renew Sundays at approx. 2200hrs ET.
RULES OF THE THREAD:
  1. Trolling, off-topic comments, sarcastic, or wrong info/answers/single word answers will be removed. Same with out-dated information, anecdotal (" I knew a guy who...") or bad advice; these comments will also be removed.
  2. Please don't delete your questions (or answers), as others/lurkers may be looking for that same info. Questions duplicated throughout the thread may be removed by Mods, and those re-posting may be restricted from participating.
  3. NO "Let me Google that for you" or "A quick search of the subreddit/Google..." -type answers. We're more professional and mature than that. Quote your source and provide a link, but make sure the info you provide is current (within a couple of years). But, it is strongly suggested you see points 1-3 above.
  4. Please do not send PM's to people answering your questions. Conversely, don't ask for PM's from people posting questions. Ask your questions, give answers in these threads, for all to see. We can't see your PM's, and someone lurking may be looking for the same answequestion. If the questions are too "sensitive," then use a throwaway, or save it for the MCC Interview. Offenders will be reported to the Mods, and potentially banned from participating in these threads.
  5. Questions regarding Medical Eligibility (except Vision) will be removed, as no one here is qualified to answer whether or not you will be able to join with whatever condition you have. Likewise, questions asking what conditions in general would lead to disqualification will also be removed. If you have such a question, you're encouraged to review the Medical FAQ. Questions regarding the Recruiting Medical Process, Trade Eligibility Standards, or the documentation you need to submit regarding your medical condition as part of your application may still be accepted. Vision requirements are fine to post, as the categories are publicly known. Source
  6. If you report a comment, or have concern about info being provided, Message the Mods, and provide a link. Without context or explanation, the report will be ignored. Comments may be removed at Moderator discretion, with or without warning.
USEFUL RESOURCES:
DISCLAIMER:
The members answering in the vein of CAF Recruiting may not have specific information pertaining to your individual application status or files. The information presented in this thread should be current, but things do change. Refer to the forces.ca site or your local CFRC detachment for the current official answer. This subreddit, moderators, and users hold no responsibility or liability as to the accuracy of information, given or received. All info here is presented as "at your risk."
submitted by bridger713 to CanadianForces [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 03:50 StarcraftSnake OnePlus 8 Pro intermittently not receiving phone calls (straight to voicemail). Disabling Bluetooth fixes the issue.

Hi I have a weird problem and I'm hoping that some of you fine folks can help me out.
​
I have a OnePlus 8 Pro, I like the phone a lot and I don't really want to get a new one, but after being on for some amount of time (anywhere from 1-48 hours) the phone will stop receiving calls (they go straight to voicemail) unless Bluetooth is disabled. Upon re-enabling Bluetooth, the phone can still send or receive calls, until it just doesn't.
I have the latest system software and the only device I connect via Bluetooth (mostly) is the OnePlus Watch through the OnePlus Health app. I have never rooted the phone or messed with system apps except for clearing storages and caches (mostly in an attempt to remedy this issue). I have not and am trying not to perform a factory reset, and I don't think that it would help since updating to the same software would probably cause the same issue. I would very much like to continue to use my watch as sometimes the feature where you can speak through the watch comes in handy.
I'm not expecting to get a ton of replies but if you have any experience with an issue like this please let me know if you were able to fix it or if you had to get a new phone entirely or just never use Bluetooth. This is immensely frustrating as I need to be able to receive calls for work and from my friends and family.
I found a person with a similar issue here, but no solution was discussed in the forum: https://community.oneplus.com/thread/1420105
Things I have tried:
Thanks in advance. If you need any further information on the issue let me know.
submitted by StarcraftSnake to oneplus [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 03:40 bobgooober The Ditch

I came back to my hometown for spring break. Pretty depressing stuff—driving past the same boarded up storefronts downtown, killing time in the same grimy dollar theater, listening to the same trainwhistle wail down the tracks as I lay awake on the musty futon in my dad's guest room, staring at the same brown water stains spreading across the ceiling. Two mind-numbing days into my week of “freedom,” I was starting to wonder why I had even bothered. I should have just stayed in my dorm and saved myself the headache. Even my seldom-showering roommate and his shitty seeds and stems seemed more appealing company than my dad's sullen silence—still pissed at me for going into graphic design—and the prospect of running into more people I hated from high school every time I had to venture to the corner store.
I got a Facebook message from a guy from my old junior high chess team, Mike, asking me if I wanted to catch up and have a few beers at the old football field that night. Desperate to escape my dad hocking up phlegm into the kitchen sink and reruns of NCIS, I agreed.
The field he was talking about was at our old junior high, which had been closed down a couple years after we graduated because I guess they found some black mold and it was cheaper to just vacate the place than try to clean it. Choked with dry brown weeds, patches of bare earth rubbed bald here and there, the field still held memories of after school soccer practice that were mostly positive, even if I was a clumsy nerd who never scored a goal. The school looming over us was much more depressing. Every window was cracked. Graffiti of illegible names and cartoon dicks covered the old bricks.
Mike waved me over to the pollen-dusty bleachers, where he had a styrofoam cooler of beers set up. Mike looked like...Mike. You ever experience that, where you haven't seen someone since they were a kid, but even though they look completely different they look exactly the same? Same goofy, toothy smile, same red hair, same trying-to-be-funny overanimated expressions, the same ones he'd had when he'd try to crack the chess team up with impressions from Austin Powers. I wonder if I looked the same too. I spent so much time trying to be a different person than that dorky kid from a nowhere town—trying to be cool, trying to be adult—but my facade was probably just as thin.
“Man, I'm glad we had a chance to catch up,” Mike said, sentimental, three beers deep. “I didn't even know you were back in town.”
“Yeah, just stopped by to see my dad. How's grown-up life treating you?”
Mike told me about his job at the textile mill outside of town, about his pregnant girlfriend. My back was starting to cramp from sitting on the bleachers, so we got up and walked around. At the edge of the field was a rusty chain link fence and a stunted wooded area rambling to a creek. We both curled our fingers through the rusty holes and jangled the fence, startling some crows out of a leafless tree. The first stars began to appear in the soft purple sky.
“Remember when we used to sneak out here after soccer practice and smoke your brother's weed?” I asked Mike, smiling at him, starting to relax for the first time since spring break began. Mike didn't return my smile, instead staring at me with a weird, stricken expression. “Shit, dude, remember when you almost died out here?”
“What the fuck?” The beers caught up with me suddenly—I felt clammy and stupid, kinda sick. “What are you talking about?”
“Over there.” Mike pointed beyond the fence. A ways past the creek—really, barely a trickle, a sliver of black water in the rotten underbrush—there was a cluster of rocks. “That ditch. You slipped down there. I saw it happen, heard you scream and everything. I tried to grab you, but the ditch was so narrow and dark that I couldn't reach you. I freaked out and ran to get Coach Morris. When we got back, you were just sitting on one of those rocks, totally fine. I guess you pulled yourself out. It scared the shit out of me, though. When you fell in, you screamed, but then it was like—bam. Total silence. I thought you snapped your neck for sure.”
Cold beads of sweat rolled down the back of my neck. “God, I don't remember that at all.” The smell of wet earth, of dirty creekwater, of dead pine needles—my head spun. I don't know why I felt so nauseated all of a sudden. All the cheap beer.
“It was stupid anyway. You were fine. I don't blame you for not remembering.” Mike, to my alarm, started to climb over the fence. “I have to take the craziest leak.”
“Mike...” I started to say something, like “better be on my way,” but something stopped me. I felt stupid for feeling so shellshocked and dizzy on this warm March evening, with a guy who I used to play Tekken 2 until 3 AM with, on the same field where I used to play middle school soccer. I followed him over the fence.
While Mike found a patch of reeds to pee into, I stepped over the creek and walked towards the pile of rocks. Just beyond the woods, the faint yellow lights of downtown shimmered in the last bit of evening. A trainwhistle cut through the quiet rumble of faraway traffic and the chirping of crickets. I pressed my palms into the rough, cool surfaces of the rocks and peered over into the ditch. It didn't seem so big to me, barely wide enough for a scrawny kid to trip into, but in the fading light it seemed endlessly dark and deep.
I swung my legs over the rocks and crouched down at the ditch's edge. Coolness radiated from the hole. The perfect, dense blackness fascinated me. I probed one foot down, experimenting with the depth—it was shallow enough that I could easily climb out, but if I ducked down, I would be hidden. I lowered myself inside, feeling silence slip over me like a heavy wool blanket, smelling the cold damp earth, tasting the darkness, like the metal taste of rain and dirt. I breathed the darkness into my lungs.
Huddled against the side of the ditch was a ten year old boy in a soccer uniform long since rotted to gray threads. His hair was brittle and colorless, his eyes clouded white. He turned his head towards me. Tears made pale tracks on a face smudged with wet earth. When he opened his mouth, it was full of rotten black leaves. When he reached his hand out to me, I could see every delicate bone through his translucent skin.
“Are you done yet?” he asked, in a familiar voice, my voice, my child's voice, a hollow croak now. “Are you done being me? Can I please come out now? Can I please go home?”
submitted by bobgooober to nosleep [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 03:39 betweenyourteeth Ticket Mistakes

I can't believe I just bought a fast lane pass for SSF in philly instead of a normal ticket. They were similarly priced on the site I bought it on, and it even said "Row GA". Like, come on! PSA always read the fine print I guess... I attempted to post to sell on the SSF ticket thread but if anyone has any other suggestions that would be greatly appreciated!!
submitted by betweenyourteeth to poppunkers [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 03:10 Essbeebr Thinking about recovery time

My surgery is scheduled (July 17!) so I’m starting to think about how to get prepared. The main thread here is very helpful, but I have a couple of specific questions.
  1. I have 5 year old twins. We already have a camp planned for them week 1. Should I try to find a camp for them week 2 also? My H is a SAHD so I won’t have to take care of any childcare. But they will want to hang out if they’re home. Or they’ll want to go places which will leave me home for long stretches.
  2. We don’t have a tv in our bedroom and don’t want one long term. I’m more of a readepuzzler than a tv watcher but have heard that concentrating on things is tough the first couple of weeks. Worth it to buy a cheap ish smart tv for the bedroom? Or will I be fine lounging on the couch to access a tv? We could find a spot for it after I’m sure in another room, but definitely not something needed.
Really appreciate hearing about others’ experiences and insights. Thank you!
submitted by Essbeebr to hysterectomy [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 03:07 Manacow7 Im lost on the different board types

I have a friend who wants to go longboarding together. Im fine with it its just i dont have a longboard and the only skateboard i have is one from 10 years ago i got at toys r us that im 99% sure is mainly for tricks and all that based off research and yada yada.
I was doung some research online about different longboards and im just so lost. I just want one to cruise around in yet they throw in so much information that i have no clue.
Im a car guy so ill understand so many weird sounding parts others wont and know whats good for what. Does the boards design matter too much( as in if it looks like a surfboard or has squidwards nose on the front and back) curves on the side and all that, wheels i might understand but idk.
I really just want someone to help me choose a longboard thats good for cruising. Any help will be very appreciated
Edit-I used to skateboard just for the hell of it but that was when i was in middleschool. I dont remember longboards even being popular in my area
submitted by Manacow7 to skateboarding [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 03:01 Tryintounderstand88 Crank shaft bolt for a 420cc predator motor? It’s supposed to be 3/ 8, 24 Tpi. I bought one of them but no luck. Open to suggestions.

I bought a torque converter now I can’t figure out what size my crank bolt is? I looked up the specs and it’s supposed to be 3/8th 24tpi. My inner threads on the crank shaft look fine. I’m gonna take it to my mechanic and just start trying bolts Tuesday but was hoping for some feed back on other potential options? Thx for any help. :)
submitted by Tryintounderstand88 to gokarts [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 02:57 TTLAAJ Waco Events - Week of 5/27

Event Links - here

Monday - 5/29

Tuesday - 5/30

Wednesday - 5/31

Thursday - 6/1

Friday - 6/2

Saturday - 6/3

Family Events - link here

submitted by TTLAAJ to Waco [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 02:40 BananakinSkyflopper [WTS] 24 more hours on Memorial Day 10% off slings and keychains - Coyote, M81, Black, Ranger Green, Desert Night Camo, Multicam, and Multicam Black

Timestamp: https://i.imgur.com/XTTiDR1.jpg
Other pics: Imgur album
Everything 10% off until Monday night
Slings in stock, 2023-05-28 @ 10:11 PM EST:
Keychains in stock, $13 shipped or $10 addon:
If you want one, dibs it in the thread and shoot me a message. Please don't use Reddit chat.
THE BLEMS:
THE SALES PITCH:
I sew these slings up myself. Some are berry compliant webbing, some aren't... depends on the pattern. Everything is sewed up with Berry compliant hardware and bonded nylon V69 thread. The front half of the sling is 3ft long and the rear is 4ft long; max length is about 66" when the slack adjusters are backed all the way off.
These have quick adjust slider on the front with an elastic loop behind it for keeping the slack when storing your musket. The ends are left open with a triglide so you can attach any kind of 1" QD/snap hook/paracord loop/etc or just fasten them to the built in sling loops on your stock, FSP, etc.
If you purchase more than one I'll throw in a 10% discount on each additional item.
17337 slings tend to be very smooth to adjust out of the box. 55301 tends to need to be broken in a little bit but becomes just as slick once it has a chance to pass through the adjuster a few times.
FAQs:
submitted by BananakinSkyflopper to GunAccessoriesForSale [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 02:26 throwstuff165 Here's a long analysis of what it might take to trade for a second lottery pick.

So, as a lot of us expected, a recent report says that the Spurs have interest in making a rather unusual move by their standards to pick up a second first-rounder in the draft next month, presumably to acquire a PG that they hope can start next to Victor Wembanyama for the next decade-plus. It’s an idea that had been gaining traction with fans even before the real whispers started because of how much sense it seemed to make - this is seen as a relatively deep draft, with a lot of intriguing options at a position of need that are currently being mocked in the mid-to-late lottery. I'm sure most people have seen plenty of discussion about it on this sub over the past few days, and in every thread, people are asking the smart first question: "Okay, but what would it take?"
There's a lot of things that factor into that answer, and I'm just some internet dork who watches and reads about and talks about and thinks about basketball too much so I obviously have no idea what kind of discussions GMs are actually having on that front. But I thought it would at least help to look at what the positions we'd presumably be targeting have brought back in trade in the past decade, and then try to approximate value with the Spurs' assets. Firstly, though...
Why would San Antonio do this?
There's two ways to answer that question, and the first is to look at it from the perspective of what the Spurs don't have: a long-term starting Point Guard. I like Tre Jones a lot - he's everything we could've hoped for as a second-round pick and then some - but he's not a player that's going to feasibly run the offense for a contending team. He'd make a fantastic backup, and the Spurs are obviously hoping that Sochan and Victor and to a lesser extent Branham evolve into above-average playmakers, especially as the organization makes strides to get closer to their positionless basketball philosophy. But I don't think any of that is going to supersede a desire to bring a more traditional lead guard into the fold, especially considering what the team does have.
And what San Antonio has right now is a lot of picks. Maybe not as many as OKC or Utah, but a lot nonetheless. Six first-rounders that aren't our own, to be exact, plus the swap rights to Atlanta's 2026 first-rounder and over twenty second-rounders. Simply put, I can guarantee you that the team won't be making all of those picks, because it's not smart roster building to be quite so overloaded with very young players when the idea is to start being competitive again. Having a lot of young talent with promise is a good problem to have until you hit the point of having so many mouths to feed that it starts stunting their development, and we're already looking at a potential slight roster crunch this year. As an example, the Pacers, who are arguably behind us in terms of the rebuilding process now since we won the Wemby sweepstakes, have 5 picks in this year's draft, 3 of them first-rounders, and Kevin Pritchard has already come out and said they're not making all of them. The Spurs, by comparison, could potentially have FIVE first-rounders in 2025 depending on league standings over the next couple years. Eventually, some of these picks will be used as a package to get one better pick or a star player. And there's a good argument that, if it's going to be the former, now is the time, because again, this is a strong draft.
So what specific assets do we have?
I'll go ahead and rank them in descending order by my perception of their value, excluding Wemby because he's obviously the most untouchable of untouchables.
We also, again, have all of our own FRPs, but there's too many unknowns across the next couple years for me to try and predict their value. Suffice it to say that I wouldn't trade next year's under any circumstances, would only let go of 2025's if it was protected for the lottery, and would probably be willing to have talks about any of them in or after 2026.
Potential Trade Analysis
Before anything else, I want to be clear that I'm not advocating for all or even most of these trades. I'm simply doing my best to demonstrate what we might have to give up based on history.
And again, there are a lot of mitigating factors to these other recent trades. Draft class strength, roster makeup, financial situation, etc. - it's impossible to ever get 1-to-1 comparisons for something like this. But I think they work pretty well as rough examples.
Oh, and here's an aggregation of the current "professional" mock drafts out there in case anyone wants an idea of what prospects we'd be talking about in each position.
One last thing: When I'm talking about trades that have been made for these picks historically, I'm only including ones that were made between the lottery and draft day or on draft night specifically, since obviously the slots for future picks in other trades wouldn't have been known at the time of the deal.
Pick #5 (Detroit)
PROPOSAL: This.
We don't have a great comparison point to open with here, but this feels about right to me. No one, media or fans, can agree on Keldon's trade value, and there's some teams I think he very much would not fit on, but I think it makes a lot of sense on Detroit’s end for the reasons Edwards laid out - he opens up a ton of options for the Pistons to experiment with assuming that they actually get a full year of Cade this season and, in the best-case scenario, can become a very good sixth man for them long-term. They really need a young wing, and after the gut punch of falling to #5 where they’re in the unenviable position of having to decide between a bunch of low-floor, high-ceiling guys, they might be tempted to take out the guesswork and go with someone who’s already shown what he can do for a couple years. I'll return to this comparison later, but if Detroit takes Cam Whitmore in this spot, for example, and he becomes what Keldon is now, I think they'd call it a successful pick.
MY EVALUATION: Spurs say no. I think Keldon has more value to SAS than anyone they could be targeting in this spot unless Amen Thompson is still there and the FO is supremely confident in him becoming a decent off-ball player.
Pick #6 (Orlando)
PROPOSAL: SAS trades Devin Vassell, CHI 1st and pick 33 for picks 6 and 36
I’ve seen rumors that ORL might want to package this and their #11 pick to move up, but I don’t know where that comes from. Can’t see Charlotte taking a deal like that, Portland and allegedly Houston want immediate help instead of two more rookies, and the #5 from Detroit wouldn’t really be worth it from the Magic’s standpoint. Maybe they can send #6 and #11 plus Suggs to the Rockets? Either way, the Magic are another of those teams I was talking about earlier that already has a lot of young players that they want to get touches, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they move one of their two picks for something else.
Holiday was coming off an all-star season, and though Vassell is obviously not an all-star (at least not yet), I do think he's a pretty decent approximation of 2013 Jrue Holiday. Same age, and the best players on their respective teams. Good defense, good outside shot and still some room to grow as a self-creator. I think he was probably looking at some MIP votes last year if he hadn’t gotten hurt.
MY EVALUATION: Spurs say no, obviously. They're not trading Devin. I think they could theoretically get this slot just by giving up a big package of picks, but at that point the evaluation becomes too difficult to really be worth it for this exercise IMO.
Pick #7 (Indiana)
Obviously there’s no real similar deal to be found here - if we had a Jimmy Butler we’d be in a wildly different situation in the first place. I could try to put together a big picks package, but IND is guaranteed a very promising prospect at this spot and, in my opinion, they have too many holes in their team right now (or at least a very large defense-shaped hole) to move it for futures when they're already looking at more picks than they want to make.
MY EVAULATION: They'd ask for Vassell and they won't get him; this pick won't be ours. Moving on.
Pick #8 (Washington)
PROPOSAL: SAS trades Malaki Branham, Tre Jones, TOR 1st, CHA 1st for pick 8 and Delon Wright
Here’s where things start getting a little interesting, because this is the first slot where I can see one of the presumptive primary targets for the Spurs enter the mix in Anthony Black. Indiana might give him a look if they really value his defense and versatility, but I think Walker and Hendricks are more likely directions. So that brings us to Washington. That organization makes my head hurt but I have a hard time seeing a universe where they don’t make this pick. Either they keep smashing their head against the wall of irrelevance or they finally decide to tear it down, and either way it doesn’t make much sense for this pick to find its way to us.
But if the Wizards were to trade this pick, I imagine it'd be because they’re getting a young and high-upside prospect who’s already shown legit NBA flashes in Branham, which they’re sorely lacking and could reasonably be thought of as equivalent to or probably even a little bit better than Bogdanovic in 2016. This also gets them an uber-reliable young backup PG that can be had for a few cheap years (something you'd be pretty happy to get with a #28 pick) and the Spurs take back Wright for salary purposes and to have a veteran PG option of their own, though it’s entirely possible WAS values Wright more highly anyway for defensive purposes.
MY EVALUATION: Both teams say no, although if we put Wesley in there instead of Branham I think things get interesting from the Spurs' point of view. You can never predict the Wizards, but I think Michael Winger would have to be given an offer they can’t refuse to tempt them not to just stay here and pick Black or Hendricks or Whitmore or whoever else has fallen to them. Reportedly, he has the blessing to finally rebuild if he so chooses, and it’s hard to see them not starting the process off here. Not for nothing, but Winger used to work under Presti.
I do wonder what would happen if the Spurs offered Keldon for this pick straight-up, though. If Kuzma leaves, the Washington wing situation suddenly looks completely ghastly. Returning to the "Whitmore-Johnson test," if the Wizards picked Cam up here and he turned into Keldon, I think they'd be quite pleased. Not "all-time draft victory" pleased, but a huge win for a team that's mangled their draft a couple times recently.
Pick #9 (Utah)
PROPOSAL: SAS trades CHA 1st and CHI 1st for pick 9
Pretty simple here. If a team thinks that Chicago pick will convey, late lottery seems like a reasonable place to expect it to land. If the Charlotte pick conveys, it'll be in that 15-20 range.
MY EVALUATION: Utah says no because there's a good chance those picks don't convey, because picks in future drafts are always treated as less valuable than those in the same draft, and because Ainge doesn't make trades when he's not fleecing the other team for all their worth. Also, Utah doesn't really need more future picks either.
You know what? That was boring. How about another option?
PROPOSAL: SAS trades Keldon for pick 9
The Ainge factor remains, but in a vacuum I do think this is pretty fair value straight up. Let’s talk about the SAS rotation for a minute assuming they do indeed make SOME trade for a PG prospect. Wemby and Vassell are starting, no question. Collins got the Pop endorsement at the end of last season, so he’s in there too. That leaves four players fighting for two starting spots: Keldon, Sochan, Tre Jones, and the newly drafted PG. Sochan started 53 of the 56 games he played last year, and with the excellent upside he has, I have a hard time imagining he’s not getting the nod at the 3; even if he’s not, he’ll be getting tons of minutes. I and others have supported the Point Sochan experiment, but if we’re bringing in a real PG, I doubt we’ll see a whole lot more of that and they certainly won’t start a Sochan/Vassell/Keldon/Wemby/Collins lineup. So Keldon’s probably sliding to the sixth man role. And that’s fine - if he has a role on this team when they’re ready to contend again, it’ll be that one - but trading a sixth man for the right to select the guy you theoretically think can be Victor’s running mate for a decade, especially when there’s plenty of other guys off the bench that you want to keep giving minutes to, is more than reasonable all things considered.
As far as UTA goes, they need a PG prospect all on their own but I think they can get Kobe Bufkin with their #16 pick and I kinda love the fit there for him. If you’re the Jazz, would you rather have Keldon and Bufkin or, say, Wallace and Leonard Miller? I don’t know the answer to that, but I think there’s at least a chance they’d prefer the latter, as even with a pretty lean roster I don’t know how badly they want to find playing time for three first rounders this year. Keldon and Markkanen don’t even step on each other’s toes in the UTA system, and though they’ll definitely continue the tank this year to avoid losing their 2024 pick, Keldon could easily still be around on a very team-friendly deal by the time they’re ready to start pushing for the playoffs again.
MY EVALUATION: Utah says no strictly because Ainge gonna Ainge. I'm not sure I'd do it if I was the Spurs, either, because injuries will happen and Victor might get more DNPs for load management this year than any of us want to see. But it’s a conversation worth having and I can’t say I’d be falling to my knees in an HEB if it happened on draft night.
Pick #10 (Dallas)
Strap in, this is a fun one.
PROPOSAL: This.
This is the pick in the lottery that I think is most likely to move, outside of maaaybe #3. That’s kind of awkward, because Dallas wants (needs) talent to help them win now and we don’t have much of that. Specifically, they need defense and a real starting center - if they can get both of those in one guy, so much the better. Keldon doesn’t move the needle for them IMO and we’re obviously not gonna give up Vassell at this slot. The OTHER thing Dallas needs, though, is something we do have in spades: cap room. Our old friend Davis Bertans has one of the worst contracts in the league for next season - $17m for a guy whose defense deficiencies make him unplayable - and while he only has $5m guaranteed in 2024, I think Dallas needs help right now to keep from running a real risk of fracturing their relationship with their best player since Dirk.
I think it’s POSSIBLE Dallas just trades this pick with Bertans and, say, McGee for, the TOR 1st + CHA 1st + a bucket of SRPs or something, then tries their luck in free agency (to go for Jakob or Brook etc.) before using their new draft capital to seek another trade if need be, but I think it’s more likely that we’d be looking at a full-on three-teamer here. There’s a lot of options there depending on which teams are panicking or not, and most of them I don’t find overly likely. Does Boston overreact and give up Robert Williams in a psychotic episode? Does Atlanta move Capela? Eh. Maybe, I guess, but I doubt it. How about Cleveland, though?
This is a pretty skeletal framework of what a deal could look like so don’t take it as absolute gospel. Three-team trades are often complicated enough that there could easily be a few more moving pieces were such a trade to happen.
MY EVALUATION: This could be a winner. I don’t think CLE has to trade Allen yet, but if they’re not exploring the option and asking themselves some tough questions about whether the pairing with Mobley is the real long-term answer after what happened against the Knicks, they’re not doing their job. THJ shot almost the same percentage on 3s as Caris Levert did last year on over three more attempts per game, and his defense, while not amazing by any means, is better than it gets credit for. Getting rid of Rubio also gives them a little extra salary to play with in free agency - it’s not much, and it’s not a great class, but I think there’s enough there for Cleveland to find a way to make themselves a better playoff team than they were last year. This also lets them recoup some draft capital that is basically nonexistent for them right now after the Mitchell trade.
On the Spurs side, even if Rubio is basically washed, he’s an incredibly smart and experienced PG who could do a lot to mentor the young guy that we’d be bringing in at the position, and if he needs to come in for a few minutes here and there to hold down the fort, that’s fine too - we’re not trying to be good yet. I’d be surprised if we don’t bring in a vet guard in some fashion this offseason regardless. Plus, we have to get to the salary floor before the season starts anyway; why not kill three birds with one stone on this trade?
Cleveland probably still says no. I don't know if they're quite ready to pull the plug on Allen. But I don't think it's that far off.
Pick #11 (Orlando)
PROPOSAL: SAS trades TOR 1st, CHI 1st, and Doug McDermott for pick 11
Last year's trade is the easiest comparison to make on this list. Not perfect, still, but with the added context of what other trades in this range have brought back, I think it still works. The DET and WAS picks were fairly heavily protected (top 18 and lottery, respectively) and I don’t think it surprised anyone that the Nuggets pick is as late as it is, so despite it being three first rounders the overall value OKC traded wasn’t huge. Even with the Knicks having financial incentive to move off the pick, the package was pretty well in line with historical trades in this range. That said, I think people are viewing the talent around this slot higher than 2022’s at the time, so the offer might need to still be a tiny bit stronger. But one could reasonably argue the TOR pick alone is more valuable than anything else that's been given for this slot in the last 10 years.
Let's talk about the Magic a little more. Let’s say Orlando is pretty happy with what they’ve got right now, which I think they should be. Banchero was a very deserving ROTY, Franz is a bucket, and they’ve got a lot of promising supplemental pieces. They looked pretty dangerous at times last year, especially in the second half of the season when they were healthy. What they DON’T have is a lot of excess draft capital. They own Denver’s pick in 2025 which isn’t likely to be very valuable, and other than that they have only their own firsts. A trade like this allows them the chance to keep adding lottery talent into the future even if they expectedly become a consistent playoff team, and since they also have #6 this year they don’t even have to completely go without a shiny new rookie to do it. Doug is included because the return still felt a tad light to me and because Orlando was 25th in the league in 3PT% last year - it’ll help if they get a full season of Gary Harris, but if they want to make a strong run at the play-in, they might need a little more. Lots of mocks like them to take Gradey Dick here, and while McDermott obviously wouldn’t figure into their long term plans, if they’re making to look a little noise this year, McDermott is almost definitely giving them more than what Dick would as a rookie.
MY EVALUATION: This is my favorite slot to target and I think it's a fair trade for both teams. Orlando doesn't necessarily need to add two more lottery guys to their roster this year when they can conceivably make a push for the play-in with what they already have, even while still getting touches for their foundational pieces. The Spurs like McDermott and I'm sure would love to keep him around all else being equal, but I don't think they'd let him stand in the way of getting their PG of the future. It might take the CHA pick as well or maybe a bunch of seconds or something, but I think we have something here all things considered.
Pick #12 (Oklahoma City)
Now this spot on the other hand... There's nothing to be done here. There’s nothing to be done here. Teague averaged 15pts and 6ast per game as a starter for 5 years in ATL with an all-star season in ‘15. Hill had slightly worse stats in 4 years as a starter in Indiana. Tre Jones plus the TOR 1st might be comparable value, but OKC doesn’t need a PG even at the backup position and they already have more future picks than they know what to do with. The scuttlebutt seems to be saying OKC will trade up if anything, which makes sense, and they certainly don’t need to do anything drastic after the improvement they showed last year and Holmgren still waiting in the wings. I’ve done plenty of looking for an angle on this pick and I just don’t see one. They’ve even got plenty of cap room and no bad salary to begin with. We’ll just move on.
Pick #13 (Toronto)
This one needs some intro first. I have no idea what the Raps are planning to do and allegedly the team doesn’t either. Reportedly, Masai still thinks they have the ability to win now - I don’t know if that means actually winning a championship or just getting to the playoffs, but I think he’s wrong either way. Regardless, he’s such a bizarre trader that it feels impossible to predict what may or may not get a deal done. He overvalues his own players to an absurd degree, but he seems to do the same with Spurs players too. How we ever got a first rounder (that became Branham) for Thad Young and Drew Eubanks I’ll never know. So yeah, there’s certainly a recent history of swaps between us and them, one of which famously worked out amazingly and a couple others that very much didn’t.
Whatever direction Toronto does decide to go in, I think they’d be best served just making this pick. Keldon doesn’t make sense for them and we’re way past the part of the lottery where we’d even consider trading him anyway. But how about another direction?
PROPOSAL: SAS trades CHA 1st and pick 44, plus more future SRPs, and extends protection on 2024 TOR 1st to top-12 in 2024, top 10 in 2025. In return, SAS receives pick 13.
I wonder if something this simple gets it done. Maybe what we can best offer Toronto is flexibility. Maybe they carry this whole “I dunno” mentality into the season and then they’re a completely mediocre team at the trade deadline again staring down the barrel of a lost season where they probably still have to give up a pick to us that could easily fall into the 7-10 range. Would they give up #13 this year to ensure they can’t lose, say, pick #8 next year if their season falls apart? I don’t know, but maybe. With this offer, they even still get to make a couple other picks this year, and they’ve had success with late firsts and early seconds recently on drafts that looked a good deal thinner. Hell, looking at recent swaps for this slot, this even feels almost like an overpay - I think PATFO would have to be very sure about the guy they’re picking to give up a top-6 protected selection from a team in TOR’s current position.
This is the pick right now that I think is the most up in the air as far as availability - it could change dramatically over the next month depending on what sorts of conversations are happening in Raptors HQ. They could move up, they could move down, they could stand pat. I have no idea. It’s also the deal that I think has the most potential to come together extremely quickly on draft night; I could see Toronto having a couple specific guys in mind here and then scrambling to make a deal if they’re suddenly off the board.
MY EVALUATION: Raptors say no, but they think long and hard about it first.
Pick #14 (New Orleans)
Has not been traded in the last decade.
Sorry to end with a whimper, but yeah, I don’t see a deal to be made here. If they’re healthy they’ll be a team no one wants to see in the playoffs, and if they’re not, there’s nothing much they can do about it at this juncture. They’ve got plenty of future picks, they won’t want anyone on the SAS squad that we’d give up for pick 14, and there will absolutely be talent here that can help them immediately; they’re keeping this. I GUESS they might look for someone to dump Valanciunas in favor of one of the free agent Centers, but that would be kinda risky on their part and they’d probably want a return that’s less abstract than just the cap room and a few second rounders or whatever.
JUST-FOR-FUN PROPOSAL: This hilariousness.
I expect PHX to have better offers on the table for Ayton, but after his disappearing act in the playoffs I wouldn’t say it’s a certainty. Maybe they’re so tired of him that this feels like an okay return, and maybe New Orleans thinks they can unlock whatever potential might be left. This also gets the Spurs the veteran C they reportedly want; JoVal isn’t exactly an elite rim protector but he’s a heck of a rebounder and can stretch the floor on the other end.
Like I said, though, this is just for kicks anyway for the people who want a wild idea; I don’t think the Pels want Ayton and I don’t think they should.
MY EVALUATION: New Orleans says no because they're not insane and Phoenix probably does too. But it was a fun time in the trade machine.
So, just to recap...
Pick #11 is the one I’d spend most of my time going after on the phone if I was an executive. #10 has its merits, especially because I personally like the Rubio idea a lot, but we can get a Cory Joseph or George Hill in free agency just as easily to fill that role, and the larger problem is that we’re already going to be dealing with a roster crunch that Bertans and/or McGee would exacerbate. #11 could end up costing nothing but picks that we have an excess, plus maybe McDermott, who we were perfectly willing to move at the deadline anyway and who would actually open up one of those valuable roster spots as well. I also don’t think there’s much danger in Dallas taking the guy we want if he is still on the board at 10.
Again, don’t take my proposals as any kind of hard offers; several of them I wouldn’t even support myself, as you can see. This is just meant as a quick-and-dirty (well, at least dirty) reference for what kind of value we might be looking at in these discussions.
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2023.05.29 02:19 YoutubeSGSAMI Throne & Liberty The TRUTH They WONT TELL YOU!

Aight lets Run it back I got really tired of Streamers streaming this game who have no idea how to play an old school style MMORPG and before you say anything there are currently 3 other School MMORPGS in development in the west and Runescape is currently the WORLDS MOST played game by daily numbers.
Don't ask me what it cost to get into the beta because it cost way to much then i am willing to admit so lets talk about the good the bad and the streamers got it wrong stuff.
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The Good:
Optimization OH MY GOD what else is there to say in the clip below you can see my stream highlight. Am standing on a pretty open ledge seeing the world down below playing on MAX OUT graphics 100% Epic not a SINGLE FRAME LOSS not 1 FRAME was lost i had my capped at 144 and NOT A SINGLE frame was ever lost Optimization in this game is beyond insane not 1 other game company has ever come close to game optimization like this. During events with over 100 people nearby my FPS on EPIC MAXED OUT will not drop below 80 and thats over 100 people on screen! and what else is there to say the game looks amazing. For the record i don't have the best PC on the market right now i have a 3090 with a Ryzen 5900X Cpu and 32GB Ram. so if your rocking a 2060+ you should be able to play on at least High/Med with maxed out settings.
https://www.twitch.tv/sgsamii/clip/StylishSaltyMonkeyKappaWealth-CCR81z89Cebop5v_
^ Clip of the view from stream highlights.
Story/Cinematics
The story and cinematics up to first 6 hours of gameplay is extremly fun and engaging am a very avid MMO Lore fan and honestly when certain events happen no spoilers it really did put a tear in my eye even after seeing it 4 times the music just hits PERFECTLY followed by the very detailed animations on the face and body posture. There are story cinematics, Movie Cinematics, and Stop motion animated picture cinematics and ingame engine cinematics there are so many cinematics in this game and i honestly love the lore so far.
World Events
The best MMO with world events for me has been Guild Wars 2 no other MMO has ever given me that itch until today Throne and Liberty has some of the best world events both PVE and PVP (tho mainly i tried the PVP) World Events basically entire Zones once every 2 hours different zones a world event occours for example wolf tails you kill wolfs collect tails and deposit easy reward. People can attack you and steal your tails so be careful. These events are fun but fun really only comes from rewards without rewards its just brainless repetition. The Rewards are by far the most important rewards in the game in the form of Paper you use paper to craft all of your skills No papper No skills. I grouped up with 3-4 people and we were gaming we placed top 5 and all of us got some paper!
Crafting
Similar to Albion & Runescape all items are player crafted. The only exception as far as i can tell is Green/Blue that can drop from monsters everything else especially Purple drops as a craftible materiel you need to spend extra recourses to make. Crafting actually goes very in depth in this game not only items but as mentioned earlier skills are also craftible this game WILL NOT GIVE YOU SKILLS so if your lvl 20 and wondering when your getting your first skill? you Wont you have to go craft it and you can even do that as low as lvl 5 you just need paper.
Bosses
World Bosses aside that turn into loot pineata like every other MMORPG TL goes a step ahead and fixes this problem the same world bosses will appear as solo 1v1 world bosses the player can challange for massive XP and Gold you can rechallenge but the XP/Gold get MUCH lower. if you wanted to have fun with friends you can! THE SAME WORLD bosses will drop BETTER loot if done as a Guild RAID. it sounds exactly as it sounds the same world bossess and much more can be done in a guild group only your guild has to work together to take them down.
Guld System
By far the most advanced Guild system i have ever seen in my life END GAME LOOT is directly obtainable through the guild system from bosses to other aspect of the game. You also have a guild house that can be upgraded to add more layers and layers the guild house can be visted by all guild members there is even a private guild dueling arena inside the house. You can also directly declare war with other guilds this will turn to open world pvp anywhere you are for the avid PVP fans.
Skills
I mentioned you need paper to craft skills but then you can upgrade each skill each skill has 5 upgrades and then a Rare, Epic and LEGENDARY upgrade effect. this is not trivila this is a WHOLE NEW SKILL your entire skill will change in some cases from basic > Legendary for example the legendary skill on 1 of the skills allows you to recast if the skill crits INFININETLY.
Exploration
This game world is like nothing you seen before there are clues hidden everywhere a random shipwreck? oh there a letter hiddin in the cabin? oh it tells you to find the hidden treasure BIG LOOT. i have honestly never played a game that prioritizes exploration to this level TL has surprised me at every step.
Enhancing
This is by far the best enhancement system in any game i have ever seen at least UP TO BLUE and purple but not 100% confirmed THERE IS NO FAILURE you will always 100% Succeed when enhancing BUT you have chances to succeed BETTER and with Higher percentages when upgrading gear. So yes you will not fail but you only got 5% or 1% when you need 100% instead of getting 40% on a 10% chance. this might be the dopamine hitting but NEVER failing ALWAYS succeeding really does feel much better.
The Cons OH BOY.
Combat
This has been mentioned a lot so lets talk the combat will feel like Runescape in unreal engine 5 an updated version of Runescape 3 into a brand new world and a new engine so if your coming from black desert this is not the game for you. However i will admit Melee combat needs to be changed you should be able to move while auto attacking as Melee its far to much of a disadvantage to not be able too. If your Into Lineage & Runescape like me with over 50,000 hours across 17 years on Runescape you will enjoy the combat at least i did. The skills combo into each other really well but yes there is "clunkyness" now this VERY WELL COULD be because of the 300+ ping every streamer is playing on and the beta server is holding over 15,000 players on 1 server but at the end of the day its not game breaking if your use to it. There are YouTubers for example "ForceGaming" Claiming there are not that many movement skills as a Melee this is wrong your first Skill you learn starting the game is a dash with the 2H Sword and your first big skill on daggers is Shadowstep. and they are on a very short cooldown.
Auto Combat (Astral Hunting)
This is an instant turn of for most of you and after watching most the streamers you probably think this game can be played 100% afk and for the most part up to lvl 30 even though max level is 70 but we don't know about later on this game can be played on Astral Hunting now the later you get especially lvl 20+ if you are AFK and not hunting monsters at least 5+ levels below you then you will die. On top of that Astral Hunting will not corectly use your skills for example Fire bolt on Staff can be cast 3 times the 2nd Faster and 3rd Instant but Astral Hunting only casts it 1 time.
No matter what the streamers tell you Astral Hunting is 1000% Slower i Reached lvl 18 in under 5 hours on stream while other streamers playing for 48+ hours were only lvl 20 ish after only using astral hunting. This is a PVP open world Game if you are behind when the game launches and you want to partake into PVP action good luck lmao being lvl 20 while everyone else is lvl 30+
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Pay2Win
Its a korean game and honestly am tired of this song and dance what game is not pay2win?? Argubaly WOW is the most pay to win spend $1000 on gold every 6 months BOOM you can get a raid group to BOOST you for The BEST GEAR in the game repeat in 6 months this is genuanly how some people will play world of warcraft. There will be pay2win from what we seen there is Growth pass, Battle Pass then a Battle pass part 2?!?! I would like to say its Korean? But you can Pay2Win in WOW, BDO, Albion, Runescape and there not all korean it just depends on your own standards but so far in the shop other then the battle passes there really is not anything too pay 2 win especially the market place you could argue yes you can buy gear from market place directly but so can a free to play player all they got to do is sell the items on market and they get pay 2 win currency so realisiticly this actually a really fair system.
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Honestly there so much i have not even discovered and so much i want to share with you that i have learned across my first 6 hours but lets be real most of you won't read this thread or care about the game outside of bad misinformed YouTubers & Streamers talking about the game and your going to miss out on potentially one of the greatest Oldschool Style MMORPGS ever invented.
Thank you for reading if you got this far the Amazon Beta will be announced on June 8th.
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2023.05.29 01:56 KnightBreeze What I've Become: Chapter X

First Previous
The first thing that Si’feri became aware of was the gentle rocking motions. She hadn’t been held like this since she was a chick, and while it was incredibly soothing, it was still somewhat demeaning. “I’m awake, you can set me down, now,” she said as she opened her eyes to look at whomever was carrying her.
She had to push down a wave of terror when she saw that it was Al’ecs. As much as she knew that the alien would never hurt her, his face was still something that had been dredged up from the deepest of nightmares, and really wasn’t something anyone wanted to wake up to. “I’m up… I’m up…” she said, gently tapping the alien on the shoulder, trying to make it clear that she didn’t want to be held any more.
Al’ecs stopped immediately before he set down the groggy hen. Sir Kev, who had apparently been walking next to Al’ecs, drew closer with a concerned look on his face. “Are you well, M’lady?” Kev asked, holding out a hand to help steady her.
“I’m fine, this has been known to happen from time to time,” she said, before taking stock of their surroundings. They were still in the forest, though they were nowhere near the clearing anymore. She also noticed that Al’ecs still carried her basket, though she had no idea why. “Were we on our way back?”
“I believe so, M’lady. You passed out not long after completing your vision, and Al’ecs picked you up and began taking you towards town. I have merely been following,” Sir Kev said, bowing respectfully. “I hope we did not disturb any after visions or effects you might have been experiencing.”
“You did not. In fact, thank you for doing just that, as we have very little time to waste, and staying where we were would have just delayed us. I need to speak with Tor and Ja’vail as soon as possible, preferable the second we get out, though I already know that that is not going to happen,” Si’feri said before she turned back towards Al’ecs. As she studied the expressionless alien, the warning from the vision seemed to echo in her ears, reminding her of the possible doom that she might have to place on him. With a chipperness she did not feel, her crest perked back up to its original bounciness as she placed a hand on the creature’s upper arm. “Don’t worry, we’ll work through this, okay?”
The creature clearly didn’t understand her, but he seemed to appreciate the sentiment all the same, as evidenced by the way the creature gently placed a hand on her head. Al’ecs tried to say something, but whatever came out of his maw was both far too garbled, and in a completely unrecognizable tongue. Si’feri really had no chance of understanding the creature, but somehow that didn’t matter to her. It was clear to her that Al’ecs was just happy to have someone to interact with, regardless of any actual understanding.
That realization alone was enough to bring the baker to tears. How long have you been alone like this? she thought as the creature slowly removed his hand. He turned around, clearly intent on making his way back to his cave, but stopped when Si’feri reached out and touched his back. He turned back to her, his face as expressionless as the first time she had seen him in her dreams, but that didn’t stop her from seeing past all of that, and into the being that lay underneath the monster.
The face looked far fuller, with an odd set of lips, like those on a dragon or a pig, though neither of those comparisons did them justice. Their corners were turned upwards somewhat, in an expression that, on anything else, would have made the creature more menacing as it bared its teeth. On Al’ecs, however, it was a warm expression, made even friendlier by how the corners of his eyes changed to match. On the top of his head was a shock of reddish orange fur, a small, button-like nose sat in the center of his face, and right above them was a pair of gray eyes that shone with intelligence.
The vision only lasted a second, but in that instance she truly understood just how much Al’ecs had lost. Without even thinking about it, she threw her arms around the alien’s neck, pulling him into a tight hug, though she was mindful not to stick herself on the spikes on the creature’s back. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you home, I promise.”
The creature seemed stunned at this, completely unsure of what to do with his hands. After a few seconds of this, and when nothing terrible happened, he finally seemed to realize that this was very real. He then gently wrapped his arms around the hen, before a shuddering sob racked his body as tears began to flow freely from his eyes again. It didn’t take Si’feri long to realize that the feathers on the top of her head were quickly becoming soaked, but she didn’t care. It was a small price to pay when she considered the fact that the promise she had made was most likely a lie.
After what felt like an eternity of this, the two finally separated, and Si’feri could only watch as Al’ecs awkwardly tried to dry his face with his hands. Not knowing what else to do, Si’feri reached out and took the blanket from the basket the creature was holding before she offered it to him. He took it, but not before letting out a grateful sort of sound. “We’ve got to get going. We’ll be back tomorrow, though, okay?” Si’feri told him as he began patting his face dry with the blanket in his hands.
Despite him not understanding a single word she said, Al’ecs nodded, then proceeded to return the blanket to the basket before he held it out to her. Si’feri gently pushed it back, shaking her head as her crest bobbed in a happy manner. “It’s yours, as well as everything in it.”
Al’ecs just looked down at it, before he turned it upside-down, revealing that he had already eaten everything she had brought him as only the blanket fell out of it.
“I’m thinking that he really enjoyed your cooking, M’lady! So much so, that I think he’s trying to ask for seconds!” Sir Kev said with a laugh.
Si’feri’s crest perked up even higher as she took back the basket, but she still pushed the blanket into his open hands. “Well, why don’t I bring this back to you tomorrow? Filled to the brim, of course. But this is still yours.”
Al’ecs didn’t try to say anything in his garbled tongue, choosing to instead give them one last nod in gratitude before he turned back towards the forest, putting the blanket over his shoulders like a mantle as he walked away.
Si’feri was briefly tempted to bring the alien back to town, but quickly dismissed the idea. Despite night quickly coming, the Town of Jov was still quite alive. Getting the alien anywhere comfortable would require more magic and drake power than they currently had available, not to mention that Al’ecs would most likely spook and run in the event that someone started screaming.
No, it’s better this way, she thought as she watched the alien disappear into the forest.
It wasn’t even ten seconds later when she started having second thoughts. This was further compounded when several knights fluttered from the trees above and landed in front of her, their heads bowed low in respect.
“How long were you up there watching?” she asked them curiously.
“For quite some time, Ma’am. Sir Kev instructed us to stay hidden while the creature was still around,” the knight in front said, not rising from his bow. “I must say, it is an honor to-”
“Leave the formalities for someone who cares,” Si’feri said as she reached out to raise the knight from his bow. “We do not have time for ceremony, nor will such things save us from what is to come.”
“M’lady Siv?”
“Si’feri will do fine, for the time being,” Si’feri said before she turned back to town. She stopped, however, as a thought occurred to her. “How many knights are stationed at the creature’s cave?”
“Four, M’lady.”
She thought about this for a few seconds, before shaking her head. “Better increase it. Two of you should head to the clearing, and provide additional protection. The creature is to survive the night, am I clear?”
“As the rising sun, M’lady,” the leading knight said, rising from his bow. He then turned to his subordinates and clapped his hands together. “Tilvan, Mor, you two provide additional protection. We’ll send more once we get back to town, but in the meantime you and the others are to defend the creature with your lives, understood?”
The two soldiers quickly cut sharp salutes, then took off into the skies. The sight of the two valiant knights disappearing into the night sky did much to relieve the worry that had been building in Si’feri’s heart, but that relief was a fleeting thing. As Si’feri and her escorts traveled back towards town, she couldn’t help but feel her heart fall further and further, and she found herself wondering if it would be enough. * * * “Hey, Genpi, take a look at this, will you?”
Genpi released his magic, deactivating the heat wand in his hand that he had been using to cut through the alien ship. The vessel was made of some kind of metal the dakri had never seen before, and the team in charge of investigating the craft had found it extremely difficult to cut or pull apart the vessel through conventional methods, hence the reason why Genpi was painstakingly cutting into the metal siding of the ship with a heat wand. He had been making good progress, too, or rather, he would have been making progress, if it wasn’t for his colleague’s constant interruptions.
With a disgruntled sigh, Genpi pushed up his black tinted goggles and looked up at the excitable drake, his expression telling the whole world that this had better be worth his attention. “What is it now Penirl?”
Penirl stood about three meters away, in his hands an oddly shaped piece of metal. It was long and staff-like, but had what looked like a stock at one end.
It also looked like it had survived the crash reasonably intact.
“I’m thinking it’s some kind of weapon, but I already ran a detection spell to look for any enchantments, and I didn’t find anything,” Penirl said as he held up the thing for Genpi’s inspection. Penirl then grabbed the weapon by its grip, and held it in front of him like he would a Lightning Rod.
Thankfully, the drake had enough sense not to point it at anyone, otherwise Genpi would have smacked him upside the head right then and there. “Well, don’t just play with it, the higher ups will want to have a look at it,” Genpi said, waving the excitable young drake away.
“What do you think it does, though?” Penirl asked, ignoring Genpi’s instructions. “I’ve already tried the triggering mechanism, but nothing happened.” As if to demonstrate this, Penirl stuck his finger into the hole near the grip and squeezed the rather obvious trigger.
Nothing happened, but that did nothing to lighten Genpi’s mood about the drake playing around with something he didn’t understand. “Stop messing around and get that thing logged and put with the other artifacts,” Genpi said, shooing the drake away.
Penirl looked a little downcast at this, but quickly perked up. “Come on, Genpi! Aren’t you even the slightest bit excited?”
Genpi looked up at the drake before slowly returning his goggles to their old position. “I'll be ‘excited’ when I find out whether or not friends of these things are going to come looking for their lost ship. More importantly than that, though, is if they find the inhabitants of this planet in any way delicious.”
“Oh poo, you really need to lighten up,” Penirl said, sticking out his tongue at the older drake.
If Genpi saw this, he didn't show it, choosing to instead reignite his wand and get back to cutting.
Penirl shook his head in disapproval before he turned and carefully picked his way out of the wreckage of the ship. It didn't take him long to log and store the new discovery, during which he started having the oddest feeling that he was being watched. He looked up and around for a little bit, drawing a confused stare from the hen in charge of the recovered artifacts, but that didn’t matter to him as much. He would never admit it to Genpi, but what the older drake had said earlier had shaken him to the core.
“Are you okay?” the hen with the clipboard asked, her crest lowered ever so slightly in worry.
“Yeah… yeah, I’m fine…” Penirl said before he tried to shake off the feeling.
“Well, if you’re sure, then you probably should be getting back to work,” the hen reminded him.
Penirl nodded, but didn’t say anything as his eyes searched the edges of the crater for a few more seconds, before they moved to the skies above. After a few seconds of finding nothing, he turned and made his way back to the ship and into the depths below.
The hen’s eyes followed him until he disappeared, before she shrugged to herself and muttered about the strangeness of drakes, completely ignorant of the strange area of warped air that hovered just above the wreckage as it silently recorded the activity below. * * * Tor was in a bit of a panic. Lady Siv was one of his closest friends, but that relationship was somewhat marred by the fact that she never came to him with good news. When one coupled this with the fact that Siv had apparently had a vision specifically about the alien survivor, one could understandably see why the small king was distraught.
Nightmarish scenes began playing through his head; vastly superior forces invading his planet, insect-like creatures that could shape-shift infiltrating his forces, and his people rounded up like cattle, being used as weapons like the unfortunate survivor, or even as a source of food.
All of this and more danced through his mind and kept him at his desk as he desperately tried to think of some way out of this hellish scenario. Plan after plan was drawn up, considered, then ultimately thrown away, as he had no way to gauge the strength of his opponents with the information he currently had, but even with his limited understanding, he knew that he and his people would be conquered within a week should the aliens come. If they had the power to send a ship across the vast distance of space, what stopped them from hurling a meteor the size of Tor’s castle at his tiny Diarchy? What about several meteors? What about their own moon?
None of this sat well with the small king. If their enemy wanted, they could annihilate Tor’s little world before the planet’s inhabitants even knew what had hit them.
Unbidden, the king felt his eyes drawn to a particular book on his shelf. It was one he had read before, quite extensively for that matter, since it had been penned by one of his previous students. The concepts inside were just that, though: concepts. Nothing more than pipe dreams that the imaginative young drake had drawn up during his free time.
With a small grunt, the king held out his hand, while his beak glowed a brilliant golden color. Almost immediately, the book on the shelf took on a similar hue, and flew from its place on the shelf and into the king’s outstretched hand. He didn’t know why the book caught his eye, but something about the problems he faced reminded him of his long dead student. Maybe something about the way the curious drake saw the world would help me. At the very least, it would be a welcome diversion, the king thought to himself as he began to flip through the pages.
It wasn’t long before one of his student’s scrawls caught his eye, and he had to suppress a chuckle at the strange invention the drake had penned. “A wooden, flying golem. I remember that one,” Tor said fondly to himself. “Was supposed to be able to ferry weapons and equipment to soldiers in the field. If I remember correctly, Jovask even made a land-based version for transporting foodstuff. Pity, he never did get the instructions on his golems to work right…”
The king continued to idly flip through his apprentice’s notes and designs, stopping every so often to laugh fondly at what the drake had thought up, and the memories they conjured. There was an automatic arrow golem, a creation designed to do the washing up, and something that would gather flowers for some reason. Each and every creation brilliantly designed, but flawed by the creator’s inability to overcome the inherent weaknesses found in golemmancy.
With a shrug, Tor flipped through the remaining pages, fully intent on putting the book back once he reached the end, but stopped at the final page. On the page was a very strange device indeed. It looked like a random assortment of items, all tied to a central statue made to look like a Nightmare Falcon’s head. Tor remembered this particular invention: it was supposed to be the ultimate telescope, capable of not only gaining information on distant objects, but also able to track them for the benefit of the user. It could even locate invisible objects, if enough information for basic scrying was available.
The only problem was, again, the inherent problem with the school of golemmancy: The more complex the task, the more arcanite was required for the golem to perform said task. In order to get this thing to work, Jovask would have needed a hunk of arcanite the size of a large mountain.
Tor let out a weary sigh as he snapped the book shut. Shame, too. If we had Jovask’s Omniscope, we would at least be able to determine if there were any alien ships in orbit about to destroy us, maybe take a few with us using the sun and moon, but… golemmancy, of all things… he thought as his beak began to glow again. With no small amount of nostalgia, the King of the Dawn returned his former student’s work to its resting place.
“What’s wrong, Tory?”
Tor looked towards the open door of his study, his heart falling at the sight of the Lady Siv. Her crest was just as bouncy as he remembered it, though her dress and occupation seemed to have changed since the last time he saw her. “I see you’ve decided to take up baking,” Tor said as he stood to greet her.
“It was either that or basket weaving, and I felt that the people of Jov needed a baker more,” Siv said as she approached her old friend. “I see that Javy’s been rubbing off on you, as you seem to have grown mopey in your old age.”
Tor felt his crest perk up ever so slightly at that jab. “Hey, if I remember, wasn’t it you who told me that I should start acting my age?” he asked, placing his hands on his hips in mock anger.
“Yes, but I never expected you to take my advice!” Siv said as she rolled her eyes at the king. “It was just one of those things you say to a friend. ‘Act your age.’ ‘Don’t date your mortal enemy.’ ‘Don’t eat all the karro berry pockets.’ Never expected you to actually listen, though…”
They both stared at each other for some time until Tor couldn’t take it anymore and broke down in a fit of laughter. “Oh Siv, it’s been far too long…”
The Lady let out a few chuckles of her own, but the laughter never reached her eyes. Instead, there lurked a profound sadness there, one that made Tor’s laughter disappear as quickly as it had appeared.
“So, my friend, what doom have the spirits pronounced upon us?” Tor asked, his crest falling ever so slightly.
Siv let out a sigh, before slowly walking over to the king’s desk and taking a seat. “It’s bad. Really bad. Before, I’ve given you many ways to avoid fate’s decrees. Until this morning, I had never once seen a doom that had but one escape.”
Despite the hen’s gloomy demeanor, the king’s crest rose as he felt his heart leap in hope. “You mean there’s still a way out?”
Siv let out a weary sigh. “Yes, but it may involve the sacrifice of an innocent, and even then I cannot guarantee that your people will come out completely unscathed.” Siv fixed Tor with a stare that seemed to pierce straight through to his soul. “Are you prepared to hear the doom I would announce against you? Are you prepared for the doom that would swallow your people?”
“I am always prepared for this burden. You know that better than anyone, M’lady,” Tor said as he slowly circled his desk, then sat back down in his chair.
Siv reached into the pouch at her belt and pulled out a single memory crystal. “Then, O King of the Dawn, receive this doom, and turn it away for the sake of the living, and the sake of those yet to live,” she said as she placed the glowing red crystal on the desk.
Without hesitation, Tor reached out and took the crystal and gently prodded it with his power. His mind instantly became scorched with images of depravity and violence: Monsters and fire rained from the sky, and his people were turned into cold, unfeeling machines. Anguish washed over all of his senses, and it felt like he was being turned inside out.
Just as quickly as it had come, however, the feeling vanished. Tor now knew everything Siv had placed inside the crystal. Every torment she had experience now scarred his mind, including the way to annul the whole ghastly future.
“No… You cannot be serious…” Tor said, his voice shaking somewhat as he stared down at the crystal in disbelief.
“I am completely serious, King of the Dawn,” the Lady Siv said as she rose from her chair, stretched out her wings, and cast her gaze straight towards the heavens. “His fate is now in your hands. I pray for his sake and for ours that you will continue to be the wise king you have proven yourself to be.”
With those final words, the Lady Siv disappeared in a flash of fire, leaving behind a whiff of smoke, and a single, green feather.
Tor reached out and caught the feather in his magic before it had touched the ground, his eyes narrowed as he stared at the memento left behind. “Easy for you to say, old friend. You’re not the one who’s going to have to explain this to Ja’vail…” * * * Sir Viar looked up at the sound of flapping wings, his crest perking up ever so slightly as he recognized Tilvan and Mor. “Ho, what are you two doing back here?”
Tilvan, the superior of the two, cut a quick salute the moment he landed. “New orders, sir. We’re to reinforce you and protect the creature with our lives.”
Viar looked at the two, somewhat troubled. “Then shouldn’t you two have stayed with it? We only stayed here because The Lady wished it!”
“We did stay with it, sir,” Mor said, pointing to a particular patch of forest. A few seconds after he spoke, the bushes shook and parted to reveal the monster. It immediately spotted the group of dakri knights at the top of the cliff and gave them a short wave before approaching the ladder to its lair. “It seems to have incredibly accurate senses, and even slowed down for us once it knew that we were following it.”
Viar let out a sigh of relief before fixing the two with a searching stare. “Did either of you happen to hear Lady Siv’s vision?”
Both of them shook their heads, their crests lowering ever so slightly. “No sir. Whatever it was was pretty bad, though,” Tilvan said, watching carefully as the creature climbed its ladder to enter its cave. “I’m not an expert on the mood of The Lady, but I’d say that whatever she saw frightened her.”
Viar folded his wings as he thought about that. It wasn’t a good sign, and it made him wonder just what sort of doom was about to befall their planet. As he pondered the future, one of his drakes, Sir Isal, looked over the edge at the ladder below. “Anybody else wonder why this thing is completely okay with the fact that it’s basically under armed guard? I mean, we tried to stay hidden at first, and you remember how quickly it spotted us.”
“I do,” Viar said with a nod, but seemed to be completely unconcerned about this. “I also know that this thing is extremely intelligent, and we left plenty of clues that we were the ones that pulled it out of the river, including a note.”
Isal looked a little confused. “But if this thing isn’t even from this planet, how would it read it? I don’t think it speaks Midlander.”
Viar shook his head. “No, it doesn’t. Which was why the note was only pictures, not Midlander, Sunrise, or Nightmare. We’re trying to talk with it, not confuse it.”
“But how can we be certain that it understands pictures the same way we do? How can you be sure that it can even see in the same spectrum of light?” Isal asked, his skepticism clear on his face. “For all we know, this thing can’t see the charcoal marks on the paper, or even at all. I mean, it doesn’t exactly have irises.”
Mor looked a little confused. “If it can’t see, then how is it able to navigate so easily? I mean, it never got hit once by the undergrowth of the forest.”
“I’m thinking it probably uses echolocation, like how the Nightmare tribe would conduct their ceremonial hunts!” Isal said, his crest rising with excitement. “I’ve been reading up on them, and apparently-”
Before the excited knight could build up any steam, however, Viar cut him off with a single, light thwap to the back of Isal’s head. “Stow it, Isal. It can see, the queen was quite certain of that. In fact, from what I’ve heard from Her Majesty, it’s actually quite remarkable how similar we are on the inside.”
Isal and the other drakes that had been sent to relieve Dorn and his team all perked up at this. “The queen told you that?” they asked in unison.
“Of course she told him that,” Tilvan said, folding his wings. “She also told Dorn the same thing. We’re supposed to be guarding this thing, and how can we do that without a basic knowledge of how its mind works?”
Viar nodded in agreement. “That’s the first thing you need to know when guarding someone. The next one is their habits, but since this thing is still pretty new to all of us, we’re kind of in the dark on that one.”
The other knights all looked to him, as if expecting him to go on, though Viar didn’t look like he wanted to continue this conversation at all. He instead chose to walk back to the fire pit to inspect his gear. Finally, after a few moments of Sir Viar being completely closed-beaked, Isal’s curiosity got the better of him. “Well? How is it like us?”
Viar looked surprised at that. “It what?”
“The creature! We were just talking about it, and you suddenly started doing your best Solar Slave impression!” Isal snapped at him.
Viar shook his head before he drew his sword and began to carefully inspect the edge for any nicks. “It’s not my place to gossip,” he said, as if that ended that.
It didn’t, naturally. If anything, it made the other drakes all the more curious. “You can’t honestly just leave it at that,” Isal said, tapping his claw on the ground.
Viar took a look around at the assembled drakes, before he sighed in defeat. With one quick motion, he sheathed his blade, then reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a folded square of paper. The others all moved behind the senior knight and watched him unfold it to reveal an old-fashioned, black and white photo of a group of dakri, all gathered around the carcass of a dead boar. Isal quickly recognized a much younger Viar in the photo, and by extension, guessed at who the others were. “Your family, I gather? Was that taken during your first boar hunt?”
Viar just looked at it for a while before he folded it and took out his blade and whetstone again. “Yeah, but that’s not important. What’s important is that this thing had its own family and its own life. The queen made it clear that she didn’t understand half of what she saw in the creature’s head, but she did gather this much: It’s incredibly homesick.” The others were quiet as Viar slowly began running the whetstone over the edge of his blade, his hands as steady as a mountain, even as his voice began to crack. “She didn’t tell me much, but from what I’ve heard, I can easily guess why it doesn’t care that it’s under armed guard. It most likely only cares about one thing at this point, seeing as how everything it loves and cares about is forever out of reach.”
Sir Mor looked towards the cliff’s edge, before giving his superior officer a questioning look. “And what’s that, Sir?”
Viar looked up, before he looked back down at his blade, his stare boring into his reflection as he thought about what he had guessed. “It’s an alien, so it’s entirely possible it thinks in a completely different way than us, but I know what I would want, if our places were reversed,” he said, his eyes finally leaving his reflection as he went back to sharpening. “If I were the creature, I would want revenge.”
First Previous
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Hey, sorry about missing yesterday. My babies kept me up all night, and I turned off my alarms to get some sleep during the day, including the one that told me to post a new chapter. What's worse is that I woke up sick, so that's me with egg on my face!
Anyway, here's the links for my books, in case you want to skip the drip-feed and just get right into the meat and potatoes of my story. Thanks for reading, and any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I love to hear how I can improve!
Amazon:
What I've Become
Nightmare of the Past
Google:
What I've Become
Nightmare of the Past
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2023.05.29 01:52 7iwe Ownboard Bamboo Zeus Pro Impressions/review

Ownboard Bamboo Zeus Pro Impressions/review
I’ve been through 2 bars yesterday and 100%—>10% today and here is my review after just getting it. Could do a follow up in the future.
Background I have been riding longboards for 8 years and esk8 for 3 years. I like to ride hard, high speeds, lots of carving.
Before the Bamboo Zeus Pro arrived I’ve been riding a Loaded Vanguard Flex 2 with Backfire OG Zealot electronics, soft Meepo 90x62mm 78a wheels and riptide krank 87a kone + barrel bushings) which is a very carvy, agile and playful board that is stable at top speed (43km/h) and easy to turn at lower speeds as well.
Shipping took 32 days with 80$ truck shipping to Sweden.
Unboxing Packaging did not feel like a premium board, no paperwork, info or anything just ziplocks with extra screws, pulleys, bearings, attachable handle, T-tool etc. (It was nice that they included some spare-parts though)
First inspection of the board
  • Large air bubbles under the grip-tape, it was not properly installed, next day I took it off and installed the hexagonal grip tape that was included.
  • Front truck was rattling, tightened all the screws properly. Same with back truck but at least it didn’t rattle. (It’s pretty tricky to secure 2/4 nuts under the trucks since the hangers are in the way of using the T-tool) no separate tool to do this included. I grabbed a small wrench + Allen key and secured all the nuts that way.
  • Belts were to tight, adjusted them and put on loctite on all the screws on the motor mounts.
  • After first full ride I unmounted the battery to have a look inside and one of the 16 Allen screws were almost stripped from factory install, wasn’t easy to get it out and there are no replacement screws for the battery pack.
It would not have been safe to ride it out of the box. Apart from these things, it was fine.
First start up
I turned on the remote and board and it connected, on the remote screen you can see what speed mode you’re in, brake strength, if it’s in “drive” or “reverse” and of course the speed and trip/total distance.
I had no clue how to change it from MPH to KPH (European rider), or how to change break strength etc. After some Googling I found out that all those settings are applied after remote pairing. (Turn everything off and hold power button on board and remote for 5sec)
First ride
I quickly noticed that I needed to tighten the trucks because it felt super wobbly at first. The back truck needed so much tightening (to be able to go full speed in turbo) that I snapped the included T-tool tightening it, but after it snapped it was luckily tight enough.
The board is heavy and it’s a totally different ride feel compared to my other smaller board. The deck is hard, wouldn’t say it’s flexy but it does have a slight flex.
Acceleration isn’t extreme but it picks up to top speed really fast on 100% battery and makes even straight flat roads kinda intimidating on turbo lol.
The 120 Cloudwheels are too hard for my liking, it didn’t feel safe to carve with them, easy to slip which is very scary in the beginning with such a heavy board.
I switched to 115mm Onsra Rubber wheels and that felt smoother, grippier and more safe.
First 100%-10% ride the next day
I’m 82kg and did some off road ( couple of KMs on grass and gravel), but mostly street, uphill and flat roads (pretty windy as well) and got 37km range, mostly in speed mode 3 with quite a lot of top-speed runs in turbo. This was on 115mm Onsra rubber wheels and 40T pulley.
Battery sag was substantial during half of the 3rd bar and 2 last bars (50-40%) getting worse until end which I found weird since I heard that the P42A should have little to no sag. May be because it’s the first charge cycle and the softer Onsra rubber wheels and 40T pulley draws higher current. But I’ll have to see after more riding.
My guess is that 120 cloudwheels and stock 44T pulley would get a bit more range cause of gearing and CWs are harder.
After some experimentation with tightening of the trucks I got it to handle pretty well between 25-60km/h. It carves all right and it’s a blast to zip around. But on stock truck/bushing configuration I struggle to get a good balance between top speed stability and lower speed carve/manoeuvre ability.
Conclusion The Ownboard Bamboo Zeus Pro is a fast, great board with good range BUT I wouldn’t call it premium because of the quality control and the packaging/documentation. I would have been 100% satisfied if it arrived ready to ride but in my case it didn’t.
It feels like it was assembled in a rush.
Stock bushing config doesn’t allow for good turning capability and stability at 50km/h+
I would have appreciated some documentation and instructions on how to set up the remote and board for different wheel/pulley configurations, what’s included and maybe some tips on how to customise it for your riding style.
I personally would pay 50$ more if it came fully prepared to ride with nicer packaging, documentation and setup guide.
I’m happy I didn’t go with the M50A cells if they have more sag than the P42As because of the experienced battery sag.
After a couple of rides and getting used to it; it’s really fun and scary in a good way, I think it’s possible to improve the handling with other wheels and bushings
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2023.05.29 01:49 Tatu_Philosophe A Path for Aventure - 2nd Session

Aaah, finally refreshed, thank you sweet gal, I really needed this. So... Where was I ? Ah, yeah, I remember !
So, our merry band had a few clues about their prey : it was tiny, it sucked out the blood of its victims, it was probably cursed and our resident Witcher, Elainne Belleteyn, found an empty tomb while on the trail of the creature. So... It was more than probable a botchling ! I don't know a lot about these pesky buggers myself, I must say. When I asked my sweet friend Elainne about these creatures, she said that they were created from a stillborn children, or abandoned babies in the woods. Apparently, you can... Use some kind of strange elvish ritual to transform them into something called a lubberkin. Unfortunatly, the Witcher didn't knew it. As she said herself :
"Heck, you really think the School of the Cat would go for the harsh and long way when it's easier to kill it ?"
Let's be clear, I do hope she was kidding me, 'cause we would probably have a lot of them roaming around in the Kingdom of the North...
Well, whatever... So, it was prolly a botchling. And everything linked it to Catrina aep Luk, the daughter of the bourgmestre. Fortunately, Morriga aep Proserpa knew the ritual. So they splitted up : Zokir, Zerath and Kite went to meet the bourgmestre daughter, while Morriga and Elainne would hunt down the creature.
The Dwarf, the Human and the Elf went to the house, while the sun was still in the sky. They met with Catrina aep Luk privately, Zerath and Zokir disguising themselves as some kind of ambulant apothecaries and Kite being here to introduce them to the bourgmestre. So... They explained the situation to the young maiden and she... Kinda freaked out that they knew about her failed pregnancy. Apparently, only the doctor, Liam aep Carys, knew about it. She accepted, a bit reluctantly and remained in her bedroom with Zerath while Zokir and Kite went to the garden and prepared a tomb. Cruel irony, it was at the same place where the last victim had been found.
Meanwhile, Elainne and Morriga were about to track the monster when... The Witcher remembered she gave her medaillon to Kite, as some kind of proof if needed during the meeting with Catrina. I can assure you, Witcher can feel shame, for her cheeks were burning RED when she recollected me this tale. So they ran as fast as they could, took the medaillon and went back to the hunt. They found the botchling in a chicken coop, about to climb a window. Elainne used of one of her magic trick to calm down the creature and Morriga took it. They went as fast as possible to the bourgmestre's house... Followed by a bunch of villagers who were morbidly fascinated by the scene, until Morriga asked them "politely" to go off unless they were willing to risk some curses.
And then, Zerath had to lead Catrina to the garden. Let's just say it wasn't easy : her father was trying to get at the front door to understand what was all the agitation he heard outside. Zerath... Well, he told me that he managed to diplomatically prevent him to do so, while his daughter escaped by some back door. And Kite went inside too, but from the front door, closing it behind him.
As for the ritual... Apparently it consists to name the child, accepting them as your. Morriga led the ritual, inside a kind of magical protection set up by Elainne. Zokir was inside the circle too, while the Witcher was outside, blade drawn. Apparently, it can attract some nasty guests, so... She was there to protect, in doubt. The ritual was pretty quick, the botchling... Died ? Apparently ? I mean, Witcher ca kill ghosts, so I guess this is pretty normal. And they buried it, before going away. The only problem was that someone had to wait near the tomb during 24 hours, to make sure it would come back as a lubberkin. And Elainne elected herself to the task. Apparently, the bourgmestre asked her about all this and she handwaved it (probably by threatening him if he was going to disturb her : patience is NOT one of her quality).
The following day was... Long. Elainne was like a wild beast in cage, waiting impatiently. The others went doing... Whatever they were doing, I guess when something happened. So... I have the recollection of the two parties and as far as I know, it began with the Witcher. Apparently the legend was true, but didn't needed the 24 hours long part. A spectral creature rised from the grave and... Apparently gave her a warning about an imminent assault on the village.
So she hid in ambush... And waited again. But she was fine with it, for once. And soon, some peoples climbed the outside wall, apparently some kind of assassins trying to reach the mayor. And they met her instead. An angry and frustrated Witcher wielding her trusty blade coated in hanged's man venom. I will spare you the details, you can thank me lads.
Meanwhile, someone opened a portal outside the walls of the village and it poured out many members of the Blue Rose of Nazair rebels, led by no one else than the Gardener himself ! And it turned out that the whole place was almost depleted of their militia AND members of the Nilfgaardian army ! So... Our brave heroes braced themselves to the fight. Morriga litteraly vaporised many of the assaillants and even forced some to retreat ! Kite flew a true rain of arrows on them and even Zerath, not the one with the most fighting spirit among them, did his fair share. Zokir told me that he fought a veritable army of rebels, fending them off by himself to protect his companions, but I surmise that he was lying to me, especially the part where he sang a serenade to a bystander while doing so.
Apparently, the Gardener was expecting a defensless place, but... It wasn't. And his troop were mawed down in all senses of the term. Elainne was openly laughing like a maniac while slaughtering her opponents, there was a barrage of fire from Morriga, Kite was striking everything moving and even Zerath went out to kill some peoples with his dagger. Oh, and apparently, some of his rebels were using bombs and... Blew themselves up by mistake. So he grabbed Zerath of Attre and tried to teleport away. I suppose he thought about using the young cintrasian as some kind of hostage, something like that. Unfortunatly, he took an arrow to the knee and... Teleported in the village, above a roof and they both landed pretty badly. Well, especially the Gardener, in fact. Zerath must be a lucky one and stayed conscious enough to avoid falling from said roof. Seeing the defeat of their leader, the Blue Roses capitulated. Though, I suspect it was a matter of time : it's pretty demoralizing to go for an easy assault and be welcomed by fire and steel.
Once done and the rebels captured, the group was about to leave the place (well, when Elainne would come back from the grove where there was a secret cache belongign to the Blue Roses) when a small contigent of the army came, led by the Sergent Klarsfeld of the Impera Brigad, and the Capitain Joshua. It was the regiment tasked to hunt down the Blue Roses rebels. The Sergent spoke with Kite, calling him "The Duke of Neunreuth's Hound", and gave him the promised reward for the capture of the Gardener. And... He told him about a certain "Wynn Deryn", a strange man apparently known of Kite, who, having met the Nilfgaardian army, told them that a certain Witcher whose looking alike a lot of Elainne was wanted in Angren. Apparently, she really pissed off a powerful noble a while ago and said noble doesn't seems to be the kind of woman who forget easily an offense.
Well... I think it's all for the night folks ! Sorry to leave you in such cliffhanger, but it's getting late, I'm not the only bard who's here to entertain you tonight and I have a rendez-vous with a bottle of cider ! Though, I promise you to see you again tomorrow, with new tales about their aventures !
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2023.05.29 01:35 lofijin Laptop for CS major - suggestions for a new one?

My 2017 MacBook Pro recently got accidentally run over by a car--surprisingly, it still works decently fine but is physically hanging on by a thread, so I thought it'd be a perfect time to buy a new laptop.
I've used a MacBook for as long as I remember, but as a CS major, I am worried that I will run into issues in classes. I LOVE the look and interface of a MacBook, but I don't want to sacrifice usability for looks. I have a Windows PC at home, so if worst comes to worst, I could always use that if necessary--except in situations where I need a laptop for in person classes.
I am aware that some classes at my college occasionally have issues with MacBooks, but if I have a VM, would I be fine? Or should I look into a Lenovo ThinkPad with Linux?
Any advice?
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2023.05.29 01:19 TeddyBearToons The Stowaway, Part 5

Previous
A ship never truly sleeps. Instead there are shifts - watches, if you want to get pedantic. But every ship has a period when only the skeleton crew is active, usually on the most boring legs of the journey when human input is only needed for emergencies. Humans hate boredom.
As the rest of the ship slept, Second Engineer Barry Hammond stood watch. He was the one who found Stabby, and though it was only Stabby's fault that Captain Rybalov's sleep was interrupted, Stabby couldn't be blamed, and so Barry was thrown under the bus.
He was given the conn, which meant he had the helm. Of course, the ship was moving fine by itself, so all Barry got to do was sit at the wheel and browse memes.
At the navigation post sat Li Zhoufei, the ship's navigator. Navigator Li was an excellent astronomer but a middling navigator, with her prodigious skill hindered only by her hatred of concrete calculations. This made the ship's computer Li's eternal nemesis.
Her eyes had a faint tint to them: blue as a midnight sky. Amanda had been trying to see what contact lenses Li used. Amanda had been unsuccessful so far.
Li also loved spices of all kinds: paprika, cumin, cinnamon, peppercorns. The only spice she did not like was melange, which was pungent and overpowering, not to mention expensive.
And the psychedelic visions were not a plus; the one time she cooked with melange she had the entire ship trip balls for a solid two days straight. They got to their destination weeks early due to the visions somehow guiding them home, but Captain Rybalov swore to ban the stuff from the ship; never again.
Since the incident, Li noted that she got much better at charting courses. It was almost as if she knew the positions of obstacles before they appeared on radar.
Currently Barry was regaling her of his recent escapades. "So then Stabby stabbed the Cap'n in the leg, and that's how he got its name."
Li looked up from her star charts. "An alien. Fascinating. I wonder how it's finding things on the ship. Is it happy, or sad, or anything?"
Barry shrugged. “He’s been eating, and Conrad says he’s happy. Conrad’s already bonded with him, so we might as well make him the ship’s pet. You know the old ships on Earth, the ocean ships, used to have cats on them? Apparently it was for good luck.”
Li stopped to think for a moment. “No, I’m not sure.”
Li felt something. Like a half-forgotten memory. A sense of danger, of lethal, brutal cunning. An ancient force stirring in the deep. Or maybe that was just the headache.
There were many headaches now, but sometimes there were also other things. Li felt a sense of… toolness. The danger, the cunning could be used. Reasoned with, the way a power-hungry dictator could be reasoned with.
There was a path laid out, a winding, unpredictable and precarious one. A footbridge of a single thread of spider silk, twisting in the wind over a fathomless depth. Appeasement would lead to exploitation; chastisement to provocation. But within that footbridge there was hope. Survival.
Li pondered for a minute while Barry scrolled through his memes. Most everyone liked Stabby; they had bonded to it without much hesitation. Conrad had even made a bed for it in his footlocker. Of the crew, only Captain Rybalov showed any sort of qualms involving their new alien friend.
Li would bring this up with the Captain, once he woke up. She had a bad feeling about this.
…
Captain Rybalov named his ship the Farewell of Slavianka, after a song he heard in Ukraine. He likened the ship to the tank bays there, which were cramped, rusty, and utterly devoid of safety measures. While the Local Authority enforced stringent safety and hygiene measures for all spacegoing vessels, Farewell of Slavianka was still a sardine can of a freighter.
The ship’s engineering deck was really a crawl space under the floor, a metal labyrinth of air ducts, emergency passages, and a central workshop Conrad had set up from which he would pop up from vents and scare his crewmates.
Conrad claimed it was an ancient family tradition dating back to his grandfather, who had played a video game resembling the prank. Conrad neglected to mention that the offender was often thrown from the airlocks if caught.
It was in this central workshop that Stabby rested now, in its new footlocker bed. The blood sample it had taken was far more information dense than the previous material it had found, and it took the better part of a day to process the new data. While there was no formula for chlorophyll, there were formulas for more interesting things.
Bone. Muscle. Circulatory fluids. The data was incomplete; Stabby would have to obtain more samples for a more complete blueprint. Theoretically, if Stabby obtained enough diverse samples from the same specimen, it could fabricate an exact copy. It certainly had the material; the large volume of fats it had eaten attested to that.
But what information that was there was interesting. Most fascinating was an incredibly delicate organ, an air passageway filled with thin protrusions that were meant to vibrate, according to the data.
Stabby, being a spaceborne organism, had no concept of sound. It didn’t need to; there was nothing to carry vibrations in space. It didn’t know why these particular organisms needed to vibrate part of their internal anatomy, but there must be a reason. Maybe it was a propulsion thing.
Within Stabby’s shell, proteins and structures came together like automatic arms in a car factory. RNA from the sampled blood was scanned, copied, and scanned again. Cells were built piecemeal within the shell, and slowly the strange organ began to take shape.
Stabby posited that gaseous fluid was forced through the organ, which was excited by the vibrating portions in order to speed it up. It would work somewhat like a rocket. The area around Stabby was filled with gas that would fit the propellant description.
A rudimentary bladder was constructed, and finally the shell itself opened up in many sections like a crustacean’s mouth. A high-pitched, infant’s wail sounded as Stabby attempted to use the organ to propel itself off the bed.
Nothing happened beyond that; if anything the organ had been damaged by the blast. Clearly the organ was not meant for propulsion.
Stabby shifted, trying to think of what the organ could be used for. Stabby could easily recycle it, but something told Stabby it was important, somehow. It remembered something.
Those strange organisms that roamed the ship let loose blasts of vibrations on occasion, which traveled through the gas that suffused the structure. Stabby didn’t know what they were for, but the creatures seemed to respond to these blasts. Perhaps these creatures were synapses of a greater being, and the vibrations were akin to neural signals.
It made sense. All of Stabby’s senses told it that it was inside some kind of moving structure. Perhaps that was the greater being, and the strange organisms were really just organs. It explained the gas; maybe it was a kind of amniotic fluid.
Perhaps if Stabby could mimic the synapse transfer vibrations of these organs, it could trick the organism into supplying it with food. Material that it would need to build more of itself.
Stabby tried the air bladder again, relying on its memories of the vibrations it had seen the organs use.
"Haaa… haaaaaaa. Ha?"
No. That was definitely not a transfer. There were muscles around the openings; maybe if Stabby compressed the opening.
"Haaaaeeeeee. Heeeay. Hey."
That was better. Stabby would need to refine this, but it was at a good start.
Stabby experimented, tested and experimented again with an uncanny parody of the scientific method. It compared and contrasted and modified until the sounds it made matched the sounds it remembered.
In the crawl space, a voice echoed, eerily similar to the voice of a certain Barry Hammond.
"Theee.. err. There. Eeeessss. Is. zumm-theeng.. in tha… keet-chen?"
A pause.
Then came Conrad's twangy timbre.
"Weee.. uh. Naem. Hyim."
A coughing sound, the clearing of the throat. A new voice, one Stabby improvised itself. A voice that was cobbled together from various audio samples, appearing at once to be all of the crew and none of them:
"Ph… ph.. f. Food. Fooood."
Next
submitted by TeddyBearToons to HFY [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 01:17 JennaGetsCreative Newb Question - Review Percentage Timeline

I've read Vine's help and FAQ, read the FAQ here, and scrolled through about a week's worth of threads, and I'm still unsure on this.
It's clear that Vine Voices accounts are reviewed every 6 months, and it's clear that the upgrade to/maintain gold tier requirement is 100+ items and 90+% reviewed. Fine, good.
Then it also talks about maintaining at least 50% at all times, and vaguely being assessed and potentially put on review for being under 50%.
So as a newbie with 12 items requested and only 2 reviews turned in (2 of 2 received) should I pause requesting until I can review at least 4 more for 6 of 12 or is there a grace period? Do the undelivered items count against me? Are there random or periodic checks on my percentage between account review dates?
submitted by JennaGetsCreative to AmazonVine [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 01:12 sabrenation81 My Puppy Got Bit :(... (Well, Kind Of...)

OK, first the important thing since I know it's what everyone immediately wants to know in a thread like this - pupper is fine. He's fully back to his normal playful puppy self with barely any ill effects at all. Blood was drawn but it was a family gathering and we have a nurse in the family. She checked to ensure it wasn't a deep cut requiring a veterinary ER for stitches or anything. It wasn't, it stopped bleeding fairly quickly and we were able to clean it up a bit. We'll take him to our vet on Tuesday when they reopen just to be safe.
OK, so probably question two on your mind - "how does a dog 'kind of' get bit?" So we were at a family gathering at my wife's uncle's house for the holiday weekend. We brought our puppy as is pretty traditional. He has a lot of land and two older labs himself and everyone in the family always wants to meet the new puppy whenever one joins a household.
It was toward the end of the party and the senior Lab, Daisy, was tired and trying to nap but the puppy wanted to play. She growled a bit but he didn't listen so she barked and went for an "air nip" in his direction which is her normal means of telling puppies to back off because she's not interested in playing. He got startled, jerked his head back, and caught his snout on one of her canines. Puppy starts yelping and momentary drama ensues. I honestly felt as bad for my wife's uncle and his wife as I did for our pup. They were mortified but it was just a freak accident. It wasn't aggression, their dog didn't try to attack our puppy, she just tried to nip the air near him to tell him to back off, as she's done before (it wasn't their first time meeting today or anything.)
Of course, our puppy being all Husky personality-wise (he's a lab mix but his personality is 100% Husky) went into full drama mode. He was scared and hurt so the yelping was certainly justified but if you know a Husky you know how extra they are about everything. 10 minutes later he was fine, exploring around again, and desperately trying to get the other adult lab, Roxy, to play with him. That part I was very happy to see. Once I knew he was fine health-wise my next thought was "please don't let him be traumatized and fearful of/reactive to other dogs now." Nope, within minutes he was back to wanting to play with another lab twice his size like nothing ever happened.
That's all. I don't know that Vent was even the right flair here. I had a story and wanted to commiserate a bit with other puppy parents so vent... I guess? Anyway, I'm gonna go cuddle with my puppy a bit because he's certainly earned some extra cuddles today.
submitted by sabrenation81 to puppy101 [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 00:59 Vcoutelier My brain hurts

So. I've been dealing with this issue for a couple days. My pc works fine till i D.O.M.P my RAM till its speed at which i paid for 5200MHz. then i get a ton of issues. Bsods. 0xc0000221, 0xc000098. Kernel Security Check Failure, 0xc0000428. System thread not handled, fvevol.sys,
Pc specs. Ryzen 9 7900X Asus tuf gaming x670E-plus Kingston fury 2x16gb 5200Mhz (on package it says 5200MT/s) Rtx 3070ti msi ventus 3x OC Corsair 1000e gold
Ive done multiple sfcs, chkdsk and nothing. Just spirals into more bsods. Could the ram be faulty or the storage? Or the mobo. Because Ive had a moment where all the text in the UEFI overlapped. Taken the batter out. Didn't happen anymore. When i shut my pc off. My mic still has power. (Yeti nano)
submitted by Vcoutelier to pcmasterrace [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 00:49 Bikerdude_TURBO FH5 Thrustmaster TMX wheel issues on PC

I got FH5 the other day and was super excited to play it on my wheel I just picked up. But the force feedback will not stay working, I can launch the game with the wheel plugged in and the FFB will work fine. But as soon as I tab out of the game to change settings or look at discord it stops working and the only way to fix it is leaving the game and then restarting the game again. I updated my firmware to no avail and genuinely have no clue what to do. I was super excited for the game but was really disappointed that after the game being our for 2 years it still doesn't work as promised. The wheel is a thrustmaster TMX and after research I've found people with the same issue with no solution but restating the game. Anyone have a fix to this?
submitted by Bikerdude_TURBO to forza [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 00:46 EntirelyPossible13 The Book: Introduction

It had to be there somewhere. I refused to be believe that the authors of this damned thing hadn't included any cypher, master code, or cryptogram of any kind. It still didn't make any sort of sense at all; why go to all the trouble to write the cursed thing and not bury the solution to unlocking its secrets somewhere in its pages?
Shoving my glasses to my forehead and pinching the bridge of my nose in equal measures of exhaustion and resignation, I rocked back in my chair, away from the pile of scanned pages before me. I knew the ceiling wouldn't hold the answers I sought, but I searched for them there anyway. Dr. Van Gennep would drop me for sure if I didn't come up with something soon; funding my project and research had already cost him and the department a small fortune over the last four years. Granted, the fact that I'd actually found the thing right where I said it would be had bought me considerable favor among the assorted faculty of the school's Archeology department, but that was almost two years ago now, and I'd produced a whopping fuck-all since then. The way I saw it, I had another 6 months, tops, to make good on my proposals before the "We're sorry to inform you" emails started filling my inbox.
As the more discerning among you might have surmised, I was a graduate student late in my funded research terms at that time. The tagalong son of a pair of prolific treasure hunters and grave robbers, I'd spent my youth being packed up and dragged along on my parents' oft misbegotten adventures. Turkey, Tunisia, Madagascar, Thailand; there wasn't an inch of sacred earth those two wouldn't plunder if given half a chance. I missed them tremendously. It was all I could do for their memories to dedicate my life's work to something they'd be proud of.
Of course, any success I'd enjoy to that point had been entirely thanks to them. If not for all our 'special vacations', I'd never have made it half as far as I had. Hell, the only reason I was here now was because the 'Cambodian temple of the dead' that I'd recovered this profane tome from in the first place was actually a dusty shelf in the basement of our old house. Dr. Van Gennup didn't need to know that though. Nor did the faculty. As far as they were concerned, I was a first rate researcher who had enjoyed a highly productive field excursion, on the university's dime, and made the find of a lifetime. In reality, I'd spent a semester's funding stipend earning a penicillin-resistant strain of chlamydia on a beach you've never heard of.
It didn't rightly have a name, so to speak, but my parents always just called it "The Book". Heavy, several hundred years old, and bound in a repulsive brown material of dubious origins, my parent's had bought the thing for a handful of pennies from a street peddler in Marrakesh the year before I was born. Having failed to fence the thing to their usual customers repeatedly, eventually they just stuffed the thing on a shelf and forgot about it entirely. Valuable or not, Pa always insisted it's worth was beyond measure to the right person. The right person ended up being his own orphaned son, and 'beyond measure' turned out to be a whopping 5 years of doctoral funding to Yale's Archaeology department.
I was done for the day. I'd looked at the scans for hours, again, tonight. The actual volume sat in the rare items collection of the faculty library, just up the street; as the dubiously rightful owner of the volume, I was welcome to access it whenever I wanted, but it was kept in better conditions than I could manage there. Besides, this thing smelled horrendous, and I didn't want it around.
I stripped down and hopped in the shower, failing to make good on my intention to stop thinking about the scrambled scrawling of the mad author who'd frustrated me for months. As the faculty's resident occultist, Van Gennep had helped nudge me along with the translation of anything I hadn't managed myself, but his aid continually failed to reveal anything of substance on the velum pages. That it was an allegorical text was obvious; the tale of a timeless consciousness doomed to visit depraved predations on the souls of those who eagerly embraced their own intentional destructions, written as an account from the being's point of view. The missing piece of the puzzle was, irritatingly, evidence of what drew the ire of the entity in question. The origin of The Book, some 800 years old, was impossible to determine; if I could just figure out what cardinal sin the thing was drawn to, then I might be able to confidently trace it's origins or identify its author; if it went for gluttons, I'd look at places wracked by famine in that period. If it went for blasphemy, then areas with documented religious turmoil would be candidates. Still, nothing sprung from the pages.
Exasperated, dejected, and worn out entirely, I trotted off to bed after lazily toweling off. I knew sleep would elude me entirely unless I redirected my frustrations toward something irrefutably more interesting which, as you'd be correct in guessing, meant a date with the tissues and baby oil on my nightstand. Pornhub never left much to the imagination, or forced me to decode impossible puzzles to give me what I wanted. Unlike a certain centuries-old exercise in frugality, the ol' Hub always bared its secrets to me. Tonight's prize was "Blonde Cutie Cums in the Library". A favorite of mine, both the video and the girl never failed to disappoint. 4 minutes of heavenly stroking later while the busty coed rubbed herself into oblivion, I began to urgently reach for the tissues on my nightstand. I slapped around desperately with the hand not flagellating my abused cock while the certainty that I wasn't going to find them in time built; this would have to be a free range eruption. Eyes screwed tightly shut while the wet ministrations and stifled moans continued to play from my laptop beside me, I covered myself from navel to chest in the hot mess I'd produced. My hand dropped limply to my side as my dick did the same back between my legs. I slammed the spacebar to pause the video, suddenly revolted at the idea of busting a nut in the library.
Laying for long, quiet minutes like that, I was entirely at ease and blessedly relaxed for a change. Fearing I'd fall asleep with my own cum all over me, I grabbed the shirt occupying the other side of the bed and lazily scrubbed it off my tummy and out of my chest hair. I flung the thing into the corner of the room, flicked the light off, closed the lid of the laptop, and let myself drift off into the sweet nothingness of my slumber.
"Oh god yes".
My eyes flew open and my heart skipped a beat as my body jerked itself awake in terror.
"Fuck, that's so good" the voice said again, breathy and quiet. The fans of my laptop hummed next to me. "I'm gonna cum soon".
Relieved to find that my sleep's interruption came at the hands of my outdated and unreliable laptop instead of a home invader, I spied the time on my alarm clock with less enthusiasm; 6:20am. It ought to be illegal to wake up this early.
"Fuck, I have to be quiet" said the voice from the inexplicably resumed video.
"I don't want to get caught" I said in unison with Jennica St. Claire, opening the lid of the computer and keying in my password to close the tab and cease her unwanted murmurs. I might have watched this one a few too many times.
The login screen faded and the video resolved itself, right where I had left off last night. I paused in the act of pushing the cursor to the top right of the screen, spotting something I hadn't before; joke at my expense if you want, but the green walls in the background were an unmistakable shade of vomitus green that I'd know anywhere. Yes, there over the shoulder of the woman I'd donated a hundred loads to in the last 6 months alone, was the unmistakably tacky pastel green of the Yale Archeology department's special collections library. There was no way in hell. It just wasn't possible; the coincidence was too great. I searched around the frame for more clues, wishing for the first time ever that Jennica's tits would get out of the shot so I could confirm my suspicions. I scanned through the video like a man possessed, but couldn't spot anything more useful than what was surely the corner of the shelf dedicated to Mesoamerican reference materials. I had to confirm this for myself. I had to know.
The card scanner flashed green as the happy beep admitted me to the building; locked on weekends, I was permitted access by dint of my status as a grad student. Steaming coffee in hand and nearly empty messenger bag slung over my should more out of habit than necessity, I beat a hasty path to the basement stair case and thundered down.
The familiar smell of old books and slightly rotted carpet filled my nose. This place was more a home to me than any I'd known. Call me a fraud if you want for the deception of how I came to possess The Book, I was nonetheless a decent academic. I'd have ended up here on my own, without the book, if I'd had to. I just hadn't needed to.
Another swipe of my keycard and I pushed into the special collections room, seeing it as if for the first time again. This had to be it, the room from the video. I looked around furtively to try to find the exact desk she'd sat at. It had to be in the back somewhere if she'd wanted to avoid detection. I hurried on through the stacks, delightedly matching the color of the walls to the video. My heart beat unreasonably fast as I neared the corner I suspected to be the one she'd used, unwilling to admit that confirmation wouldn't actually mean all that much; it's not like she'd be sitting there.
I rounded the corner of the last shelf, and there it was. The desk. The very one. And the chair, too. I refused to acknowledge my fading enthusiasm, going through the motions of placing a reverent hand back of the chair and imagining that this discovery meant literally anything at all. I looked back, away from the desk, lining the background elements up with what I remembered from the video. This was definitely it. Yup.
Yup.
I don't know what I thought I'd get out of this. It had seemed so important half an hour ago as I was pulling on anything at hand and rushing out the door. I must have oozed crackhead energy at the coffee place, impatiently standing there checking my watch every thirty seconds while the girl poured my flat white at a half past the ass crack of dawn. Now just felt dumb; I'd skipped brushing my teeth to be at a library at like 7:00 in the morning just to look at a chair that someone had masturbated in at some point in the past. Woo hoo.
Entirely underwhelmed, I figured I'd make the most of the trip. There was no harm in pulling the stupid thing out and flipping through it for the million and seventieth time.
I fumbled the keys into the locked cabinet that The Book slumbered in, scribbling my name on the access record card that bore only my own autograph in the last dozen lines, and hefted the weighty tome out with carefully practiced caution.
"Come on you stupid bastard" I muttered as I knocked the drawer back shut with a hip.
"Oh god yes."
My eyes widened in horror as I realized what must be happening. Piece of shit thing. I should have left it at home.
"Fuck, that's so good" she said again from my bag, muffled only slightly. I worked to calm down by assuring myself that there was nobody else there to hear. I still didn't waste any time getting back over to the desk, only slightly amused at the irony of having left my stuff at 'her' desk while her digital memory did its naughty work there again.
"I'm gonna cum soon" she insisted predictably.
"Yeah yeah," I replied sarcastically, "but what if someone hears you, huh?". I set The Book down carefully and reached for the bag.
"Fuck, I have to be quiet" she replied. I chuckled to myself as I undid the clasps and flopped the bag open.
I froze.
I had left it at home. I hadn't brought it at all. My laptop was still sitting on my bed, where I'd left it. There wasn't anything in my bag except a notebook, a stack of papers I needed to grade, and a few pens. There was nothing that could have produced the audio at all.
The Book sat there, immobile and unremarkable, as it always did, daring me to look upon it. I don't mind admitting to having let my imagination get the best of me in the moment; it was what it was, and the things it portrayed were hardly the stuff of children's bedtime stories. Telling myself that I knew better did absolutely nothing to steel my nerves. A fat pearl of beading sweat ran from my brow; it was late in the fall and cooling quickly outside, but I felt as though I'd burst to flame as I stared down at that damned book. I absentmindedly unzipped my hoodie and tore it off, dropping it to the floor and raising my hands to put them between me and the leather-bound volume, as if I'd fight it if need arose.
"I DON'T WANT TO GET CAUGHT"
I did scream then, and jumped half out of my skin. It's a wonder I didn't shit myself.
I realized almost immediately, before I'd even finished my terrified yelp, that the voice had come from my phone; in my earlier uncaring haste, I'd dumped it along with the rest of my pockets' contents onto the table, and thrown my bag down atop it. Recalling that I'd opened the video before leaving the house to compare details of the room, if needed, I laughed at my own nervousness. It wasn't even a little laugh either; relief at not being haunted by an ethereal pornstar washed over me in waves that produced a deep belly laugh in me. Clutching my chest with the effort to catch my breath, I patted The Book's cover in earnest appreciation for it's part in the now-hilarious deception. Her dialogue had sounded so loud a moment ago, but my nerves had undoubtedly amplified the effect; the rest of the video's audio continued on reasonably from my otherwise dormant phone on the desk. I must have hit play from the home screen preview when I took it out of my pocket.
Relieved laughter subsiding, I flicked the phone's lock slider to the left and closed the web browser, taking care to be absolutely sure that I'd done so, and committing the act to memory. It was only then that I afforded myself the clarity of mind to realize what I'd done; in a rush to get here, and not exhibiting an ounce of adult patience, I'd pulled on whatever was lying around before I left the house. Yes, dear reader. I had put on my cum shirt.
Horror of a different flavor bloomed within me as I let myself lift my hand from the cover of The Book; the same hand that I'd clutched my wheezing chest with moments ago, and the same one I'd wiped up my cum with only a few hours earlier in the privacy of my own home. Examining my sticky digits in disgust, I could only thank my lucky stars that I'd pulled a sweater overtop; I'm pretty sure the barista's would have called the cops if I'd walked in proudly wearing a load of cum all over myself.
Worse was the realization that I'd gotten it on the front of The Book. Mine by right of inheritance or not, the thing was likely to end up in a museum at some point during it's life, and I was loathe to consider some graduate student 50 years in the future getting writing their capstone project on The Jizzy Handprint Grimoire's dubious provenance.
Cursing myself for a fucking fool, I scrubbed the drying mark off the cover, praising myself for the fine work that I was able to do in removing any trace of my unholy offence. Deciding that the day was entirely too fucked already to consider getting any work done, I put it back in it's drawer, muttered an apology to it, and left the building as swiftly as I could. There were other libraries, and I could always mark some papers or something.
submitted by EntirelyPossible13 to u/EntirelyPossible13 [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 00:45 DingleDangleDom PC will not power on for random amounts of time

I've been dealing with this issue for approximately 3 months with no obvious remedy.
Sometimes, after I turn off my computer, I can boot it back up completely fine.
Sometimes, it will not, and ive messed with re-plugging power, re-seating RAM, clearing CMOS, using the prongs on the motherboard that link to the power button.. and it will Sometimes work.
And Sometimes, like this moment, it has been dormant since 8 am this morning.
Other troubleshooting that I've done is going from my current PSU to my old one, but it still had the same issue of not powering on (I dont even know if that one has enough power for my setup).I've replaced my motherboard but haven't the faintest clue if that was the source of the issue, since most everywhere I look says that it's most likely a PSU issue.
I still have my old motherboard but that is the absolute last thing in the world I want to do just for it to still not work correctly..
TLDR and Specs
Past 3 months I've upgraded PSU and Motherboard, but have now begun an infuriating process of an inability to use my PC and then it magically working when it decides to.
Relevant Specs are : New - X570 MB - Corsair 850W Gold - Ryzen 7 5800X (I did not mention this but not sure how relevant)
Old - ASRock B450M/ac - Thermaltake Smart 500W - Ryzen 5 5600
SIDE NOTE
I have not done the paperclip check on my 15/16 Pins for the PSU MB connector
If there is a soul out there with a direction that I haven't explored, I'd love you forever
EDIT
I bought a paper clip to put onto pins 16 and 17 *** and, sure enough, she spun for all of 10 seconds before petering out
submitted by DingleDangleDom to techsupport [link] [comments]