Good morning, Dreamers!

Time for the eighth edition of the bi-weekly update!
Two, four, six, eight... these dev blogs really help us appreciate the passage of time. We're once again surprised by how quickly the time has passed since the last update. There was a book I read once that said something along the lines of "It's amusing how humans are continually amazed by the passage of time. Never once has a man looked at his watch and thought, 'Oh, it's exactly the time I thought it was.'" I don't quite remember what that book was, but here's an XKCD comic that says essentially the same thing. So much discussion of time... perhaps it's because the number 8 looks like a sideways ∞. Anyway, enough meanderings. This game's about dreams and movement, not time. As you most likely know, the demo's been out for quite a while now, and it's just been updated. Some of the new components include new character portraits for Day and Rose, minor dialog changes, some new graphics for night and day, (Three different links!), and a wholly revamped battle system appearance!
If you're unfamiliar with what Antiem is, we recommend self-flagellation and corporal punishment. Alternatively, check out our introduction page on the Antiem subreddit, or the previous dev blog. (I wonder if someone will ever read all these blogs backwards, using the links I've provided?)
I'll quickly list the CliffsNotes^® as to what we've accomplished in every category over the past two weeks, then discuss it in further detail down below.

• Art: Finished revamping of battle screen appearance and "navigator text."
• Sound: Chill theme finalized. Listen here!
• Programming: Fixed bug whereby attempting to "back out" of a decision would crash the game.
• Writing: Minor changes to various dialogues.

Now, let's discuss things in more detail, specifically the Art and Writing sections.

Art

Here's a video of the old battle system in action.
Now, here's a video of the new battle system in action!
Hopefully, the new system should be a lot more straightforward and parseable to the average viewer. We've elected to forego so many blinding colors in lieu of a more unifying palette of aqua and black. The positions of characters and UI elements are more firmly aligned to "good on left, bad on right." The background's been fully redrawn, and I'm loving the new "dankness" of the color palette. Additionally, the UI will do its best to draw your attention to an injured hero, by marking their health in red, and having their character portrait change from happy to concerned, and concerned to distraught, as their health decreases. This is especially important because of something that will be discussed in-depth later, in the writing section.
...Which is right here!

Writing

YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL.
...Wait, sorry, that came out wrong. I didn't mean it like that. See, you, the player, are a very special person. But Aster, the character, is not a particularly special person. At least no more so than the average Dreamer. He's not the Chosen One. He's not the Wild Card, who can possess so many different Egos. He doesn't have unique visions of a hook-nosed man--at least not if everyone else doesn't, too. He has a strange Ego, but every Ego is strange in their own, special way. Think of Jojo stands, for an example of the variance in power and abilities that Egos demonstrate.
This narrative assertion is not just for show. It'll be a consistent thread throughout the game, woven even into gameplay mechanics. Here are, then, a list of reasons that may show why not being special is an interesting opportunity.

• You will not be appointed leader of The Dreamers because you've got the most special powers. You will have to earn your role. Or, perhaps, pass it on to someone else in The Dreamers who very much wants it. You will be The Dreamers' tactician, but that's not due to some supernatural skill--it's due to ordinary, extraordinary skill.
  
• You will not be significantly more powerful than the rest of your team. Remember that you can appoint yourself as navigator. If you were overwhelmingly powerful in combat, there'd be no incentive to do so. Aster's strength comes from your versatility, in that you can be steered toward many different kinds of playstyles, and built to be a supporter, DPS, tank, or healer. And even then, Zoe, your first party member also excels in versatility of a different kind. You can be great at anything, but she'll be good at everything.
  
• A battle system based around keeping all allies alive. In this game, there is no such thing as a "knocked out" or "fainted" condition. If you die, you die. And the rest of the party just watched it happen. It's not that the Dreamers are completely incapable of functioning without you, as in some other protagonist-centric games, but rather that they wouldn't want to continue on such a dangerous road after seeing the consequences firsthand. If anyone dies, the Dreamers disband. Individual members may continue their own journeys, but the story of The Dreamers... and the game... is over. Anyway, this battle system based around the importance of the party as a whole should have, I think, some interesting results.
  
• Parties are almost completely changeable. Characters can be swapped out freely, and you should be able to decide who's in the party, and who's not, at any given time. Even for boss fights. Consider, then, that if a single member falls, the battle is over, and you might actually decide to enter a fight with less than the maximum of four! This isn't even necessarily a bad idea, as characters appointed as navigator, or in the off-party, get more experience than those in the active party. This is to prevent power snowballing, but also to encourage keeping all party members around the same level, and swapping out the active navigator frequently, without resorting to "morale" or "sick day" mechanics. It could also encourage more active use of <4 character parties, which JRPG-style games basically never have after you get your first four characters.
  
• Characters will have unique, different kinds of bonds with different characters, including you. Imagine that there's a character who's cripplingly shy. Her bond with you, the player, would likely be about getting rid of this one, obvious problem... in another game. But in this game, since NPCs can bond with each other, and many have established histories, you may walk into the scenario years after she's already established a bond with another character, specifically so she could work on overcoming this roadblock. If you meet a character who stutters constantly, and doesn't make eye contact, in, say, Persona or Fire Emblem, you can bet dollars to donuts that character's Social Link/Supports will be about becoming more confident and social. Antiem gives the narrative the freedom to have another character deal with that insecurity, while you might discover that said character has an intense and competitive passion for, say, calligraphy. You aren't the only person in the world who wants to--and is able to--help out NPCs.
  
• Because characters may develop in their bonds outside of that with the main character and NPC, you may get several different scenes that could take place in the same "slot." Romances, whoever gets the leadership role, and major reveals in inter-NPC scenes will all get acknowledgement in the main story, and in other bond scenes. Even if I need to go back and add scenes into the past, after writing some significant change that could occur at a variable time, I will do it! I ask that you then be patient when I end up writing new scenes every fortnight, as this "writing in the past" method will doubtlessly improve the narrative, but may extend the length of development.
  

Closing

Ladies, gentlemen, and distinguished others, we at Freudian Creations are so happy to be off our break... that we're going on another one.
Well, not exactly. I'm actually going to be a bit occupied over the next two weeks, so although the rest of the team will be as busy as ever, the actual implementation of features into the game might be slowed a bit.
I know I've been saying this for a while, but I plan to advertise the demo's release out to a bunch of other subreddits as soon as I can. There are a few key features that need to be implemented first.

• Ensure targeting works correctly. Currently, there's a bug where enemies will target themselves or allies with their moves. Additionally, the player's targeting reticle is still aligned to the top-right corner of the screen, when it should really be the top-left, now that the sides of the battlefield have been swapped.
  
• Swap out those gorgeous "PLACEHOLDER" attack animations with actual attack animations.
  
• Swap out the beautiful "PLACEHOLDER" transition animation with an actual transition animation.
  
• Fix saving and loading, and put a spot, in-game, where players can save.
  

Again, I'm going to be quite busy over the next fortnight, so I'm not quite sure if we'll be able to get all of this done, but we'll do our darndest. As always, thank you for following along with the development of Antiem.
This has been u/DraymondDarksteel. 'Til then,
𝒮𝓌𝑒𝑒𝓉 𝒟𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓂𝓈!
EDIT: Because I'll be so busy tomorrow, I elected to post this a day early. I'm certain no-one minds too much, but if this post has salted your crops and laid barren your fields, please alert me.
EDIT2: Feel like I didn't make this big enough up top:

THE DEMO HAS BEEN UPDATED.

hello everybody. i wanted to address something i hear whispered all the time on this sub... the notion of ANY kind of reimbursement in the event that Epic decides to shut down the mess that is STW.
first i can assume most of you understand v-bucks are for microtransactions. they can be used for both modes so you can bet dollars to donuts they wont be issuing a refund for them.
now lets think about your FOUNDERS purchases. im so sorry to break the news to you.... founders pass is just EARLY ACCESS. this means you literally got what you paid for: access to an unfinished game they MAY NOT EVER release. says so right in the disclaimer. sorry
TLDR: your not getting a dollar from eipc no matter what happens to this sad sad game mode

That sweet and sour smell of sulfur sends me back to that street.
Well, that street and that feeling. That feeling that you just became the coolest kid on the block.
No, this isn’t about learning to ride a bicycle. The older kids all knew how to ride, and you can bet dollars to donuts that the younger kids would learn too. The cyclical neighborhood meant that everyone learned how to ride a bike- eventually.
This feeling is about holding that red brick in your hand. 12/80/16 Black Cat Firecrackers. 80 packs of 16 firecrackers. 1,280 miniature dynamite sticks that transformed you into a pint-sized god of thunder.
All your toys instantly became cooler. Army men became suicide bombers. Die-cast cars became stunt mobiles. Those orange-capped guns became a little more believable. And everything around you became that much more dangerous. And that’s what really brought the cool, danger.

In the old days (disclaimer: this post reflects customs in Western societies) the tools of women's oppression were things like "you can't get a credit card or your own bank account" or "there's no such thing as rape in marriage." Today it's "let's not put a label on things" and "we're just talking,"
We've come a long way in terms of material progress in independence and security, but the emotional entrapment is actually more secure than ever. In a dating culture that gaslights us into thinking rules and standards are "uptight," "demanding," and "controlling," we live on the same precipice of fear that our foremothers did--we have no more fundamental sense of security in our relationships than they did.
But our increased ability to achieve material gains (not discounting this is uneven across racial demographics) creates an atmosphere of "what are you complaining about? your grandmother would have killed for the life you have!" She would have, you're right. But I'll bet you dollars to donuts that my emotional misery inside a relationship is identical to hers because the fundamental dynamics haven't changed.
Men have found a new way to make us feel always insecure, always wondering if we're good enough, always afraid he'll cheat/leave. The expectations of women are always climbing higher--beautiful! climbing the career ladder! pinterest mom! always up for sex! While the men are always carefully managing our expectations of them downward, and normalizing the lack of relationship labels, boundaries, and customs.
This is true across the entire relationship length spectrum, from talking online all the way to marriage, and it's a way of denying us dignity. We no longer get to say "we're dating" because that's uncool and threatens him. We no longer get to withhold cohabiting, much less sex, until marriage, because that's so uptight. We no longer get to shame porn use, because sEx pOsItIvItY and "every man does it." We no longer get to assume monogamy as a baseline reality of being in a relationship because "poly is cool." We no longer get to expect a man pays for a date, or brings us flowers, or any modicum of effort because "50/50." We have been deprived by society of every traditional means of expecting men put in effort and adhere to some kind of moral code of respect and care for women.
It's way subtler than the abuse our mothers and grandmothers took, but it's still hellishly damaging. It breaks down our confidence and well-being in exactly the same way their poor treatment did to them. Ten bucks says by the time millennial men hit 80, they will have normalized dumping their wives in nursing homes the moment they need anything (like as small as a cane or a grab bar in the shower) and dating other women even though they're still married, because "she can't function as a wife anymore."
My feeling is that if this backlash of eliminating all dating/marriage customs and labels because it relieves men of emotional and material responsibility continues, we will eventually be forced to be available to men for sex and physical and emotional labor like candy in a vending machine. OLD is perilously close to this as it is--pick a girl from the catalog and order her up! One day shipping just like Amazon!
Fight back, ladies. Stay solo rather than take this sh*t.

Not Financial Advice. This was my response to a post that showed NASDAQ high of $293 for $GME. I have reworded and hopefully made it easier to read. -
From reading multiple perspectives and opinions on $GME and after watching the last two trading days - this is my opinion I’d what’s happening.
HF’s are writing call options, and selling them to MM’s (NASDAQ) at prices up around the $300 mark. The specific post I replied to showed NASDAQ high of $293. $293 is a price that HF’s (who already have large quantities of short positions) would be willing to take on more risk to the downside as they believe price will not go above $300. $293 price gives HF’s security and an psychological resistance of $300 to rely on for resistance - it’s probably a technical price as well but haven’t checked yet.
The call options that I think are being written by the HF’s, then sold to MM’s; in a roundabout way and how I understood it to be were naked calls. This is where the description in the SEC website starts to lose you and can get very confusing. The call options have no underlying share behind them, and from what I understood it’s the underwriters job to provide those shares.
The price of $293 are being displayed on NASDAQ’s website because the HF’s are writing and then selling them to the Market Makers (NASDAQ). In return, they are masking their previously shorted shares by writing call options. Because these call options are naked, HF’s still need to cover those written shares. Its being manipulated to look like everyone is selling their shares. In reality what is happening is they are opening up more naked shorts into the market they need to find shares to cover them with.
What typically happens when you short a share, is that it will be borrowed from a margin account of someone holding it. For every share short theoretically there is a share to cover it. Obviously not the case, with naked shorts. When shorts cover you get buying volume as they repurchase their shares. We don’t see that, in my opinion, the short interest is either around or greater than what it previously was because they are from doubling down on their amount of naked shorts. It’s in essence a bandaid on a gunshot wound. The price isn’t increasing because the majority aren’t covering - it’s going down because there is an increasing short interest or selling pressure made to look like retail selling. To drive off retail investors into thinking it’s all over.
S3 data released tomorrow 2/9 (ones who release one of the short interest reports and what everyone has been waiting the last week for) has been known to previously be manipulated to some extent. I’m not sure how valid that is but that is what I have read. I would bet dollars to donuts that the report that comes out tomorrow shows exactly that. A low short interest on $GME which is bad for momentum and buying pressure on our end.
What will the short report tomorrow bring? I have no idea but I’m going to bet these folks aren’t going to have our best interest in mind for obvious reasons. There’s an article on the SEC website detailing how hedge funds are actually legally allowed to do this. I also know there are a couple good videos on here about exactly this.
In the end, the HF’s are going to have to find shares to cover their shorts with - between FTD’s & interest and a million other variables, it’ll be impossible for them to keep this up. Who knows, maybe this short report will be the catalyst we need to light a fire under everyone’s asses.
I think the short interest is still very high if not higher. And I ain’t sellin. Not advice. Please don’t listen to me.
TL;DR The $293 is appearing on NASDAQ website because MM NASDAQ is probably being sold call options (written by HF’s) that are actually just more naked shorts the HF’s will have to find shares to cover with. $293 resembles a great price for the HF’s to take on more risk from the short side which kind of actually helped confirm my theory of these actually being more naked short positions. HF’s are doing exactly what their name implies; hedging. Just in a secret really sketchy way that makes it seem like it’s game over for GameStop.

Well, I think it is time to document two of my forward looking theories in a thread. If you have not read all the books, then please don't read this post. There are lots of spoilers.
The first is one that people seem to follow about Lara and Harry. The other one is one that is generally disliked about Marcone.
So, let us start with Lara and Harry. My opinion is that they will never end up married. My view of the primary purpose for the relationship is for Mab to uncover Nemesis/Outsider activity in the White Court.
The White Court has been a hotbed of OutsideNemesis activity for almost since they were introduced.
Blood Rites: Papa Raith has some sort of anti-magical protection. This protection is (according the to novels) similar to that attributed to Outsiders. On top of that the Entropy Curse that is in the novel is sponsored by He Who Walks Behind.
White Night: Vittorio Malvora is in league with a being that seems to be Cowl. Cowl seems to be a member of the Black Council and in league with the Outsiders. Vittorio has a power very similar to that of Outsiders. Not a completely direct link but pretty good evidence.
Peace Talks/Battleground: Justine is possessed by He Who Walks Beside. It is implied that this is Nemesis, but I am not 100% clear on that. Justine has been possessed for years and at the right hand of Lara.
So, Mab needs to know if there are other OutsideNemesis vectors in the White Court. Her solution is to send in the guy that seems to uncover this kind of activity and can do something about it - Harry. If Harry and Lara marry at the end of this because the White Court is clean, then so be it. But dollars to donuts, I will bet that the wedding is disrupted by Harry uncovering problems with the White Court.
One other point on this topic. Harry is protected by Murphy from the influence of the White Court. So, I would say Lara can not touch Harry until they are married and potentially even not then. Marriage and protection seem to orthogonal in White Night. There is a somewhat different perspective in Something Borrowed. In either case, I think a physical relationship will be a challenge.
Now to Marcone/Mab/Harry.
We know at the end of Battleground that Marcone has the coin of Thorned Namshiel. If we jump back to Proven Guilty, remember there was a "Black Council attack on Arctis Tor". At the end of Small Favor, there is a scene with Harry and Mab in the chapel. Mab speaks and makes Harry's ears bleed when she talks about that attack and the name of Thorned Namshiel.
Well Mab is for the first time at the end of Battleground aware of Marcone and Thorned Namshiel. Note what Mab says when she hears Harry call Marcone Sir Baron. This is the inciting incident that will eventually pit Marcone and Harry against each other with Mab's blessing (even if such blessing can be disavowed).
Mab has an ax to grind with Thorned Namshiel. There is no reason for her to reveal this as a problem to Marcone. But you can bet that her wheels are now turning on how to get her revenge.

So today me and my family gets pizza. We go pick up, its a large and a small. My dad is repeatedly insisting they are the same because and i quote "both have 6 slices". I point out no theres a massive and obvious difference but whatever idc food is food. He gets so upset i am not joking when i tell you he threw my pizza out the window and started ranting and raving that i'm not going to make it home. So i have to sit there listening to him make thinly veiled threats to kill me over a god damn pizza.
It gets dumber yet. We get home and he says i'm not allowed to come in. I'm now homeless and can "eat under a bridge" (?) for all he cares. He's screaming so loud my mom inside the house hears and comes out. She ask whats going on. i explain to her he threw one of the pizzas on the ground on the way home. She gets mad and starts yelling at him meanwhile he is screaming at her saying its me or him one of has to go.
This is quiet suburbia right outside cleveland. I bet you dollars to donuts everyone on the street heard this dumb argument that once again STARTED OVER A PIZZA. But it gets more pathetic. Mom makes the choice of saying screw this im going inside. I had ran inside shortly before she did.
Dad being pissed storms in and says he is shutting down the phones. He calls verizon who tell him they need to confirm this with the account holder (which is my mom because he hasn't paid for anything in almost a decade.) Mom of course goes no and he blows up more.
Mom wanting him to stop ask if i can go to a friends for a few weeks. I point out it's covid season and she just sighs and tells me to go to my room. Dad wanting of course to keep going decides to say "it isn't his room it's my room. He doesn't own anything." She tells him to leave it and to leave me alone.
He blows up more and starts saying he's leaving. Even goes as far as to come to my door and tells me to say goodbye to the dogs which i took to mean he was threatening to kill them. I of course being used to this after a decade was filming so when he goes to my mom and tells her I threatened to hurt the dogs played back the recording. Mom tells him to leave. He says fine and starts throwing out insults and accusations. He's left but he is sitting in the car in the driveway.
This has all been because of a pizza.

I feel like fucking garbage. I lost most of my irl friends because no one messages me. I reach out and get dry responses. But when someone has a problem I’m the first person people go to.
Guess what. I’m fucking human too. It’s my turn to hurt. To be mad. To be sad and upset. There’s a bunch of shit no one knows I’m going though cause no one fucking asks. No one wants to know how I am. No one wants to know if I’m okay. Hell I might have covid cause of my fuck bag uncle, I bet if I die from it no one is gonna be any the fucking wiser. Because NO ONE even fucking acknowledges my existence.
And I’m willing to bet, dollars to fucking donuts that no one is gonna see this. And if they do they won’t care. I can’t fault you for not caring. I’m a random person typing this, at 9:40pm. Why would you care about me?
I’m tired of being alone. Tired of being abandoned by people I love. Tired of everything.
And before some redditor gets all happy-go-lucky with some half assed words of wisdom or reaching out in a fake attempt at seeming like they care, I’m not gonna hurt myself. I’m just hurting inside and needed to get it out.
Not that anyone will care anyways.

Okay, so this is going to be riddled with spoilers, in all likelihood. I'm disposed to not spoil much, but this is, like, spoiler territory. Besides, you're here probably because you've already seen Part 3. Also, spoilers, but I ramble on for a long time. I debated putting this under Part 3 Discussion, but dang it long.
Overall, I liked Part 3, and Disenchantment as a whole. I laughed at jokes, I sympathized with characters' plights, I dislike the baddies and I like (generally speaking) the goodies. But I'm pretty sure I'm easily entertained. A lot of people seemed to not like it? Well, imagine the threshold for it being well-liked is around 75%, most people seem to be at a 60%. But I liked it, despite its fondness for bare buttocks.
That said, folks are right, it does feel properly disjointed. A number of jokes went on too long, and not just mug-stealing or inner monologue. Things like rolling down a flight of stairs takes twice as long. Only time running long in a joke ever worked was with Spam. They don't even have strict time limits on these episodes, so it's like padding for no reason! That said, I'm going to try to make sense of what's going on. That's never gone wrong, right?
Okay, Dagmar, the big baddie, the plot activator. What's her goal? Pretty sure it's to get Bean to Hell in a specific, controlled manner, and the Cliffhanger paid that off. A large amount of things seem to be out of her control; she's unaffiliated with the Secret Society and the Elves, she lost her relatives and allies, so she's only got the Trogs under her command. Well, she had them, past tense. But I'm pretty sure a not-insignificant part of the 3rd season was her meddling. I'm about 90% sure that she's zapped herself into Bean's mind and is living there rent-free and doing magicky stuff - like worsening Zog's insanity artificially and mind-controlling him to say what she wants to be said so that Princess Bean becomes Queen Bean. Why that factors into the plan, I don't exactly know. It's probably relating to something Dagmar can't do herself, and needs an heidaughter to marry off or something.
Oddvall and the Secret Society (of stagnation) want to be in charge - secretly. They're not good at it, but no-one seems to care. The fact that Oddvall hasn't lost his head yet even though he blatantly plots is becoming something of a joke. I'm not sure if he's even useful anymore. You could just ask Luci for advice, and do the opposite of what he says! But tangent over, the Secret Society wants to have a puppet ruler in place so that they may continue their secret work without interruption. I'm pretty sure that's finding Dreamland's mystery power. Folks say it's magic, I'm not convinced it's magic like 'You are now a wizard' magic. Seems more like 'Storm of Chaos and Destruction Sealed Inside A Jar' magic. Secret Society wants it, doesn't know where it is. It's probably in the old Elven kingdom, probably. Side Note: Oddvall and the Secret Society tricking Bean and Oona into helping them make Zog even more insane was, IMO, legitimately genius. That got a laugh out of me once I realized what had happened (and also compounded on the Karma Houdini this group has going on).
That Wallace-sounding fellow from Steamland is in the same boat, goal-wise. He wants Dreamland's secret power, and he's got a sweat act, but Dagmar is much better at twisting emotions than he is. He's oddly endearing, in a creep-stalker way. Maybe it's the nice-guy British Accent, maybe it's his remarkably ineffectual lightbulb robot minions. But we haven't seen him much. In fact, Steamland as a whole is underused. I thought they were going to do a "Most Dangerous Game" scenario where Elfo becomes a Rambo-style cool dude and takes down his human oppressors. Freeing the Freakshow Prisoners was nice and cathartic, but I did want to see them do The Most Dangerous Game. Also: Regarding the Arch-Druidess: I'm pretty sure she was just reveling in the power. She's not nice, power over people seems like something she enjoys too much. 50/50 on her returning.
The Elves were also really, really underused as well. Maybe it's because they accidentally were too one-note. You've got a fleet of sweet-makers with names that define their personalities and the suffix -o. But they're looking for the old Elf Kingdom, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that whatever mystery power Dreamland is sitting on is in the Elf Kingdom, because Dreamland seems to sit on a lot of things.
Also, what's this curse about? Did the Elves lay a curse on Dreamland and it's set to break soon because Bean is now Queen? Has the curse done anything? Or is perhaps the reason why Dreamland such a stangant, ho-hum medieval setting BECAUSE of this curse? There's a curse, but we're not really seeing it. If it's the rulers meet horrible fates, that's not much of a curse. As Granny Weatherwax said, "Assassination is a perfectly natural cause of death for a King".
I guess I'll go over cliffhangers next. It looks like Elfo got abducted to meet his mother. I got a bad feeling this is going to go nowhere, perhaps because it came out of nowhere. We thought the threat was green smoke advancing, but it's an ogre army who came up because just now the Ogre Queen wants her son home.
Luci's cliffhanger got a good laugh out of me, and might actually be more meaningful. He's in heaven because a: That's the worst place for a demon to end up, and b: There's a good chance that Luci will become a better person. I'm working under the theory that God thinks that Luci can become a better person. Who knows? Maybe he'll be sent down as Bean's guardian angel. But an episode concerning him in Heaven would probably be a good bit of comedy.
And next, Zog. Oh, poor Zog. You had a plan, it wasn't clever but it was more clever than most people would've given you credit for, but you saw the decapitated head of an ally and was buried alive by the Arch-druidess. You got sucked underground by grave-robbing trogs, saw two of your back-stabbing wife, and got turned into no more than a pawn and a figurehead to be used after a life wasted on terrible dietary choices. Gotta feel for the poor shmuck. Here's to hoping that things go well for him, but perhaps the last thing I want for Zog is the ol' Status Quo to miracle-cure him. There's something almost Shakespearean about what's happened to poor King Zog. He's in a tragedy not of his own making, and even as a King, he was just a tool for others to use or an obstacle in other's way, and only barely a parent to Bean and Derek and a husband to Oona. I want things to get better for him, for him to take back some power in his life, but at the same time, I want Bean to remain Queen. I'm conflicted on poor Zog's fate.
Lastly, Bean. Welcome to hell, it appears you're going to be married to Satan. I think we all know where this is going. She'll worm her way out of this one, somehow, and back to the surface world, rescue Elfo, and perhaps see Luci as a new Guardian Angel. Bean's cool, I really do like women of action, but it's strange how her cliffhanger is most important and holds my interest second-lowest. Elfo's last.
Now, I want to get to the quality of writing. It's strange to say this, because these are experienced creators, but the entire story feels.... very beginner. I've read a lot of fantasy, I've written some of it. I breathe this genre, mostly because Sci-Fi becomes disappointing when you learn that warp speed is highly improbable. Like, if I compare Disenchantment to Futurama (this old horse), you'd notice several things.
Firstly, the setting. Futurama has got lots of stuff going on, a constant mixture of the future melting-pot of the city and worlds unknown to us. It's nice and FULL. Meanwhile, Disenchantment's world is Dreamland and friends. Dreamland is a super-stagnatory paint-by-numbers kingdom. It's almost Un-Magical, funnily enough. You got odds and ends here and there, Oddvall's 3rd eye, that incompetent Sorcero, things here and there, but it doesn't feel as innundated with the genre as Futurama was. Futurama is High Science Fiction, but Dreamland is more Low Fantasy. Dreamland's neighbors lean more into the fantasy, what with the swamp kingdom and the richer-than-thou, heading-for-a-French-Revolution kingdom, but they don't feel as captivating. Steamland is wonderfully fleshed out in every scene we see, but I think that's more because Steamland is closer to Futurama conceptually, as Steampunk is retro-future Science Fiction, and Futurama was really strong in regards to the feel of the world and Steamland benefited from that by a lot.
The reason why i think this is is because of Pop Culture Osmosis. If you just skim the surface of Pop Culture, you'll dredge up a lot more science fiction than fantasy. You got your Star Wars and your Star Trek, your robots out the kaboodle, aliens left right and center, your megacities, your advanced technology, it's everywhere. Science Fiction is Popular, so there's a lot on the surface to work with. Fantasy, meanwhile, isn't as much. You got Tolkien, and I don't think most people have read the books. Generic, Surface-Level Fantasy is like, Medieval European Kingdom, you got a wizard and a scheming advisor. People are dirty as heck and dumb as a sack of potatoes. Angels and Demons, sure why not. Ogres, sure. Elves, sure. Mermaids, they're popular, in everything, so toss them in. But the by-the-numbers of Fantasy aren't as expansive as the by-the-numbers of Science Fiction, which shackled Disenchantment, incidentally.
I mean, look at the Elves. What are the Elves in disenchantment? They're the KEEBLER elves. They make edible sweets and have simple names. Look at the Elves in more deep-dive fantasy. What are they? More-perfect-than-perfect, more beautiful-than-beautiful, ancient masters of the world with incredible power and a history fraught with world-shaking events. That's just the standard elf, the Tolkien Elf, if you will. Disenchantment's got the Keebler Elves. Most people are familiar with the Keebler Elves when they buy a box of grasshoppers at the grocery store. Tolkien Elves aren't making anything you see in a grocery store.
And Fantasy does have that kind of over-the-top potential, which is what Steamland has while Dreamland hasn't. But Fantasy stuff isn't as wide-spread as Science Fiction stuff is, so Disenchantment doesn't get as deep a dive. Heck, I'm suprised the basis of Disenchantment isn't the most basic Fantasy Plot Ever: Main Character is the Chosen One, and will destroy the Satanic Archetype in a battle for the fate of the World. Basic as it comes, you see it it loads of fantasy stuff, not here.
That skimming-the-surface approach lets me circle back to my point about the plot and the writing, because it feels almost like a beginner is doing it. These writers are experienced, but it FEELS like this is the first time they're doing a sequential story. The Simpsons has no ongoing plot, Futurama has only the barest bones of an ongoing plot, and even that feels like it never changes, but Disenchantment does have a plot that changes characters and the world. Things matter more, so it feels like the Authors are stuck at 'where do we go next?' in a sheepish manner. I've not done the intensive research on the cast, but it does feel like that awkward stage of writing where you don't honestly know where the characters are going to go next.
And I noticed this problem because of the episode "Last Splash". I swear to the gods, I've read an 'erotica' that had the exact same plot, gender included. I've also read a number of queer romance webcomics that aren't as... teenage-hormonally driven. There's a certain immaturity, or juvenile wish-fufillment, or unresolved desires, that play into a story like Last Splash. You read enough of the things I've read, you start noticing what I could only call as beginner-level queer romancing. Queer folks I've talked to are a LOT better at expressing this than I am, but the beginner-level queer romance is, more or less, a fetish. It's "Let's get these two characters (who are the same gender) to shag", and that's what happens in "Last Splash". And I SWEAR the only time I've ever seen this happen is in starting authors writing what they want to see with little thought into deeper meanings, and authors who continue with little care into deeper meanings (which i classify as more beginner-level).
Reflecting back on it, I realized it happened with Bean's arc in Part Two. In that part, if you recall, she was all about affirmative action, and the menfolk around her were all about unaffirming that. It felt very beginner and super-basic. It felt like the first time someone was approaching Feminism without reading into the topic before hand. It was just super-basic, and that was frustrating. I remember, as a little me, I read the Tortall book series, in which every main character was a girl growing into a woman and fighting for their place in the world, doing things their way, one even disobeying a God of Death for something more meaningful to herself (reanimating dinosaur remains to wreck a palace instead of all the human remains for the same effect). Disenchantment just feels super-basic in regards to plots like these when compared to books I read in Elementary School.
....wow I've gone on for too long. With posts like these, I'm tailor-made for Youtube. Anyways, I like Disenchanted, probably more than I should, but it's outclassed by a lot of stuff I've seen and read. I'll keep on with it, just because I'm attached now. I don't think I mentioned any good points, but it's because the comedy is hit-or-miss HARD, the characters are divisive, and the plot isn't moving very fast. Anything I like, I know for a fact by evidence on this very subreddit is something someone else dislikes. Except maybe Oona. Pretty sure we all like Oona.
Also, you think this is long, you shoulda seen my posts on individual episodes of Tartakovsky's PRIMAL.

The Exhibition Match.
The Opening Round.
Quarterfinals first half.
Quarterfinals second half.
-
NFC Wildcard Opening Round Match; “Wendigo” Wendy Hathale Vs JJ Watson
“BEGIN!”
Wendy’s eyes narrowed, and she cracked her knuckles in anticipation, sighing.
“Alright, we’re both clearly freaks of nature. How do you wanna do this?”
JJ’s smile widens, and he leans down, leering at her.
“You think we can just tear each other apart without issue, don’t you?” He chuckles and licks his lips. “You haven’t realised yet that this isn’t YOUR home, little one.” He looks to what I can only assume is an invisible camera only JJ can see and flashes a far too perfect grin, mechanical in its nature. “The poor girl is so clueless, folks! But don’t you worry, JJ can remedy that stupidity!”
He laughs, shaking his head and slapping his forehead, repeatedly shouting “STUPID!” as his laughter grows more guttural, more manic. He drops to a knee and howls with glee.
“My goodness, my first true contest in a LONG time and it’s against a little girl who reminds me SO much of my dear audience back home. It’s almost ironic, I can’t get away from them how hard I try! I may as well say “HONEY, I’M HOME! DID YA GET ME ANOTHER FAILURE?”
He laughs harder, getting off his feet to lunge at Wendy and pin her down, still laughing as his drool coats her head and mask. I felt sick watching it.
Wendy, to her credit, was unperturbed.
“Man, you ever been told how much of a fuckin’ creep you are? You reek of chemicals, look like a dollar store horror mannequin reject and talk in such a creepy way that even the local pervert wouldn’t touch you. But most of all…” She pushes him off with great force and sends the laughing, drooling JJ smacking the canvas before he rights himself to stare at her. In that time, she darts forward and in an instant is across the side of the pit, clutching an ear in her hand and throwing it to the ground as JJ continues howling with laughter, white fluid and pus trickling out of his ear.
“You’re fucking disgusting, JJ.” She quips, turning back around and extending her fingers. I'm staggered, but I proceed with enthusiasm.
“This truly is a blink and you’ll miss it bout, fight fans! Wendy Hathale clears half the pit in a split second and takes JJ’s ear with her! Curious that she doesn’t go to taste it though…”
“Not at all, if you consider that JJ isn’t human.” Nelle replied, searching the contents page of her book for a particular entry, flicking through the pages until she stopped under “I”. A detailed diagram of a spectral shape that shifts at will to scare townspeople laid bare for me to see. “He’s an Ikaggen, a very special kind of trickster god that can shapeshifter into many things to enact his cruelty. But his most common appearance…” She trails off as JJ splayed out on all fours and began twitching while he laughed.
His back hunched up and snapped, stretching out to form the long neck and thorax, a bulky abdomen housing an extra pair of spindly legs with gnarled hooks across the length of them. The front hands reaching up and bending forwards to form the raptorial saw-like weaponry as his skin darkens and the carapace shimmers under the lights, piercing silver antenna split out of his head as the hair recedes and gives way to grotesque bulging eyes. The jaw crunching, splitting and gnashing as mandibles rapidly replace the perfect teeth. He gurgles as his laughter gives way to hisses and growls.
“You are not in The Hotel just as I am not Beneath The Static, we are both vulnerable to the unyielding jaws of death. I am not willing to risk such a thing in front of a live audience, young one. I will tear you to pieces and show the world what lies beneath the static.”
He lunges forward and takes a swipe at her with his hooked claws, slicing the inside of her thigh as she darts back and ripping the skin, flecks of black blood coating the hooks as he chuckles, his body remaining still.
Wendy landed as her leg gave out, looking at it expectantly, hoping it would fix itself. Instead, the blood continued to trail around her until she ripped away the torn fabric and wrapped it around her.
If she was scared, she damn sure didn’t show it.
“Well, I guess you’re truthful about something, JJ.” She said, breathing a little heavy from the blood-loss, steadying herself as she rose to her feet. “Y’know, we get cable in the Hotel Inertia, I’m aware of who you are and what you do… pickin’ on teenagers for your own amusement. You really THAT much of an attention whore that you can’t stay away? They'll grow up and come back stronger, you know. When you pick on someone your own size, you're always gonna lose.”
JJ didn’t respond, swaying ever so slightly like a brittle leaf caught in a mild breeze. He was waiting to strike. Wendy pulled off her sweater and threw it aside, showing a thin stomach that almost caved in, binding wrapping her chest and ribcages, old wounds and scars littering her body.
“This is the result of countless fights, feedings and gruelling fights. Some at home with my “adopted family”, others with The Order of the 13th floor alongside my friends, the ones this fuckin’ tournament ripped me away from at our crisis moment. You think YOU scare me? You think the idea of being torn up and actually dying scares me?” She laughs, it’s hollow and bitter, like she’s remembering the bright side of a vicious beating is the unconscious state she’ll fall into when the pain gets too much.
“You have NO fuckin’ idea. I’d be so happy to go to sleep and never wake up, to have that ceaseless hunger stop for just one day. Do you know what that kind of hunger does to someone? It makes an ordinary person angry on the first day, delirious on the second and manic by the third. Now take what I am and multiply that number by thousands.”
Wendy takes off her mask and shows the gritted teeth biting on her lower lip so much that she’s torn through the flesh, blood coating her chin as the teeth grow more spiked and the jaw grows larger, her eyes blackening and skin greying. She grows taller and the features of a once beautiful woman give way to a horrifying creature known for its insatiable lust for flesh.
Crouching down like a sprinter at the starting line, she stares down her opponent like a piece of meat.
“So just imagine what that’s gonna do to you now I’ve let loose, JJ.”
I can’t believe my eyes. In that moment, the reality of the situation hit me like a freight train and I feel the innate fear of being a small fish in an ocean filled with sharks. I can’t let my composure falter, not with Alduin’s gaze bearing down on me. I take a long drink of water and tumble headfirst into my adrenaline.
“AMAZING! Wendigo Wendy living up to her name as she assumes a more terrifying form! This fight looks to be heading to its climax folks, expect blood and guts galore!”
I was right. Within 20 seconds, it was over.
Wendy leaves great dents in the canvas as she tears forward, JJ swipes at her in the instant she comes into his range, his front forearm hooking into her flesh and pulling her in. She pushes forward, the skin tearing with the force of her movement and an ungodly shriek emitting from her as she bites into the offending arm and pulls up with her jaws, tearing it free while her right hand slices into JJ’s eye, the nails going straight through the soft flesh and pulling at the socket until it’s wrenched completely free.
She casts it aside and lets the wailing JJ Watson stumble away, leaking that same fluid addled with a horrid chemical stench.
Losing strength, he begins forming back into himself; the eye closing up and his suit tattered as he gripped the stump. Wendy watches him for a moment, bits of JJ’s mantis-arm still in between her teeth that she spits out as she stares him down. He’s breathing heavily as she walks closer, every step impactful.
“Well, folks… It seems I underestimated this young woman’s ability to let go. I thought she’d be like my hardcore audience and just cave under the pressure of mortality…” He looks up, that perfect skin cracking around the edges. “But I’ll tell you something, this will make for great publicity!”
She kicks him square in the gut and he’s sent into the air with a wheeze. As he falls down, she catches the back of his neck in her jaws with a sickening crunch, his body twitching in the air as he gasps.
“Looks like… my time at the NFC… is up. But, Wendigo Wendy… I made you see what you fear. What lies Beneath The Static… Death itself.”
He snaps his fingers and the lights go out across the venue, obscuring us for a moment. When they turn on, Wendy is kneeling on the ground in her normal form, exhausted and her mask firmly back on.
“A stunning turn of events! Right as Wendigo Wendy had JJ in her jaws. He pulls a fast one and escapes out of the back door! But, I think we can all agree that while Wendy had some scrapes, it’s absolutely her fight to win!”
I look to Alduin who is seething with rage, but concedes the fight is over and awards Wendy the victory.
“Wendy Hathale advances, we will announce the remaining participants at the end of the interval, but each has been told of their inclusion already. The tournament will recommence in 3 hours. Rest up, you’ll fuckin’ need it!”
-
Alduin storms off to the back, leaving Wendy still struggling to get up as the crowd disperses. I debate going down there to help, but a surprising hand is offered to help her up.
Eustace De Kolta holds out a red-gloved hand, his curled smile betraying his keen and curious eyes.
The guy gave off the sort of vibe one would expect from an old creepy man on public transport.
“You had quite the ordeal, Miss Hathale. I knew you had something special in you, I just wasn’t aware of how unique you truly are…” His voice was like silk, every syllable softly declared and hanging in the air, Wendy looked up before slapping his hand away, struggling to her feet.
“I know what you are and what you do, De Kolta. A single handshake from you and I could end up in that nightmare fuel Pokemon satchel you keep with you. No thanks.” She walks towards him and despite being a solid foot shorter, gets in his face and stares up at him. “You come near me, I’ll pull a disappearing act of my own on your jugular. Understand?” He shows his teeth as he grins and backs away, bowing deeply.
“I look forward to seeing your future matches and I do hope you succeed. It would be most fortuitous if we were to meet in the pit. I think you’d play well with my menagerie.” He stands and watches her as she leaves, an open door leading into the main lobby of the arena now available. Before I can process everything, his gaze locks onto me and I see something I never expected.
The smile immediately dips into a low, sinister grimace.
He looks at me with a hunger and a hatred I have never seen before.“Hey, Sal.” A voice calls behind me. I turn to see Nora in an orange and white hoodie, the hood turned up and a warm smile beaming at me, immediately disarming my sense of anxiety. When I turn back, Eustace is gone.
“Oh, hi! Nora Zayne, you were fantastic in your bout! I knew Pencak Silat was deadly but man… who’d of thought it’d be used so well against monsters, huh?” I stood up and felt my knees buckle, the adrenaline wearing off and hunger overtaking me. Before I even hit the floor, Nora caught me.
“Easy big guy, I gotcha. Let’s get you some food and talk, kay? You coming along, Nelle?” Her informal nature was so unexpected from a woman I’d just seen decimate something Asia fears across the continent, but I felt myself just naturally going with it. Nelle looked and immediately busied herself with the compendium.
“Oh! Uhh.. no, no. I have far too much work to do, research for the wildcard entrants and whatnot. Oh and there’s that uh.. that thing I have to attend to. Gotta speak to Alduin too about something… I’ll catch you in a couple hours to go over notes, kay Sal?” She looked awkward and hurried herself past us as Nora stared incredulously.
“Huh… well, that was a bit odd. But no matter, let’s go get some grub. I’m sure you have questions, right?” I just nodded as she took me by the arm and kept me steady as we barrelled past the denizens of the audience still debating “who would win” scenarios, old champions and other nightmarish spectres. The upper ring was sprawling and hard to navigate, I had no idea how Nora was so familiar with it. As we descended to the middle floor where the vendors and entertainment was situated, we passed a bar serving strange drinks with a multitude of bottles, a beautiful Bernese mountain dog barking at the window, his big fluffy face licking at the glass until a man pulled him away.
“He’s cute, can we stop there?” I asked. “Feelin’ kinda thirsty… maybe they have an adrenaline drink?” She looked back, a tad confused, but didn’t stop as we made a beeline for the fighters only cafeteria.
“What bar?" She asked. I looked again, but in its place stood a donut stand, a surly older man dishing them out by the dozen with a multitude of sprinkles. My mouth agape, she chuckles. "Hey since you'r so eager, I’ll make you a deal; I make it through the semis, you can buy me a drink.” She winked, and I felt my stomach knot up.
Couldn’t tell you if it was the hunger or butterflies, but motormouth was very much silent for a little bit.
“You’re wondering why I’m taking an interest in you, right?” She called over the booming sound of the crowd and pumping metal music, I nodded. “You showed a support in me when you called my fight and when I had to defend you... Well, I looked up and thought you were cute. Got a thing for the nerdy ones.”
“But that’s not all, is there?” I asked, my head pounding as I did so. Maybe it was the music? She looked back and flashed a cheeky grin.
“Nope, but that’s a story for another day. We gotta eat and you’ve got more interesting questions for all of us.” She laughed as we watched a fighter far too drunk for his own good challenging a still-eating Miroslav Zanaya to a fight.
One side punch later, the guy was on his ass and vomiting.
“All of us? What do you mean?”
“The fighters! You’ve gotta meet and interview ‘em ahead of the semifinals and wildcard, don’t ya?” I shrugged, and she laughed again. “Man, you really are clueless, Nelle wasn’t kidding. You’re doing part of her job, too. I’m doing you a favour by bringing you with me.”
We passed a betting table showing the odds for the semifinals and wildcard, Eustace and Wendy respectively being the odds on favourites to win. Nora and Landry Eavy being the biggest underdogs.
Whatever was lurking in the booth and taking slips from paying customers, it had tendrils and shimmering red eyes. I didn’t dare stare too long as we passed it.
Down one more flight of stairs and we were in the employee section housing the nightmares, fighters and various services like medical stations, prep rooms and the like. One long hallway to our left was all that stood between us and some glorious smelling food. As we got halfway down, however, Nora pushed me to the wall and put a hand over my mouth, her slightly taller frame covering me as someone walked past.
I looked to her and was about to protest, but the look on her face screamed danger. Her brow was furrowed. The calm and kind demeanour she’d showed was replaced with an instinct to protect.
As I followed her gaze, I saw why.
It was like watching a great black swarm that undulated into the visage of a human man with long horns. A cloak of hungry, vivacious locusts that jostled and crawled for position. The sound rippled through my ears, my eardrums threatening to burst and my skull screaming for breath as it neared.
When the locusts parted, a skull with an elongated back that stretched out horizontally peered down at Nora, the arms on the back of the thick spine pulling at a sheathed sword on its torso. The smell of rot was so powerful that I felt my vision blur.
“You realise that by coming back here, you’ve sealed your fate and thus our deal must be concluded.” It spoke in a thousand voices at once, the boom of so many souls screaming for relief and joy and ecstasy. A bead of sweat ran down Nora’s forehead as she tried to find the words.
“I’m aware of our arrangement and what it means to return. But I ask that you wait until my time in the tournament has concluded.” The locusts hissed, and the cloak revealed more of this abomination; the shimmering black armour clad in gold, the powerful arms on the shoulder blades, the hoofed feet and a worn down, blackened and cracked NFC Belt.
It turned its head to me and I felt the looming shadow of death put its hands around my throat in a way I can only describe as seeing an oncoming car and veering out of harm’s way, but amplified 100 fold. A sensation that your life could end with one false move.
This creature was a foot away from me and we both know it could crush me in an instant. Fear doesn’t begin to describe how I felt in that moment. He spoke again, silencing her.
“I will decide when such a contest must be undertaken. Be it now, during your next bout or when you are nearing death at the hands of Alduin IF you somehow survive your next two bouts… I will add you to the chorus where you shall remain.” The locusts covered him again, and he walked away, humming. “You should have stayed forgotten, it would have been better for all.”
As he walked away and into the darkness, both I and Nora collapsed against the wall in a heap. It took a good couple of minutes to regain thought, and I’m man enough to admit I was shaking.
“What… what the hell was that?” I breathed. Nora wiped the sweat from her head and stood up, clenching her fist.
“That was someone I made a deal with when I was last here. He offered me a fight I was not supposed to refuse. The penalty for leaving meant he could challenge me anytime, anywhere, and under his rules. If he beats me… well, you’ve seen what happens." She walks with me expediently to the end of the hallway where the other fighters are waiting. Suddenly, all the terrifying and skilled talent we've seen in the tournament ebbs away, just for a moment. She continues, the noise and ruckus of the semifinalists drowned out by the mixture of fear and anger in her voice.
"Where Alduin rules the openweight division and anyone can compete, making her the queen of the NFC... He rules the nightmare division with an iron fist. Only the most terrifying of creatures compete for that prize and the promise of something... more."
She swallowed and turned to me, genuine terror in her eyes.
“That was Abaddon. The NFC's Abyss Champion. And he’s coming for me.”
-
NEXT: There's more going on here than just the fights.

Probably not your typical "watch out Dick," post, but I wanted to just give everyone a heads up that trolls may be incoming within the next couple of weeks.
Some background: a car YouTuber named Garrett Mitchell who goes by the name Cleetus McFarland hosted an event recently where some goober in shorts and a t shirt "burned out" so much that his radiator exploded all over him. Dude got some serious burns, and his condition is publically unknown. At least he didn't die. So this attracted the attention of the Online Hate Mob as there was some minor drama about car safety and the that got posted to the hate sub SubredditDrama calling him a "COVID denier" for hosting a large outdoor public event with nary a mask in sight.
Granted, Cleet did post "if you're worried don't come" on Instagram which he later deleted. Probably just stoked the flames, so he deleted it. But really now the relatively small subreddit /CleetusMcFarland is totally overrun with absolutely unhinged redditors.
Here's one lunatic so-called "fan":

There WILL be deaths associated with this event. NOT driver deaths... ONE driver was injured. PAYING FUCKING CUSTOMERS!!!!! I'll bet dollars to donuts that 3 or more people who attended this LollapaLOSERS event will DIE from Covid related issues. THEY will each in turn infect another 5-8 people each... THANKS FOR CREATING A FOCAL POINT FOR THE CONTINUED SPREAD OF THIS PANDEMIC Garret!!!! YOU FUCKTARD.
A born rich white guy from the south that's become decidedly ignorant on the topic of public safety? Shocking, I know! But a state that has left clubbing open, made masks a political issue, and proclaimed in the loudest possible voice "FUCK OUR OWN PEOPLE, YOU DON'T FUCKING MATTER!!", Proves that Garret is nothing more than a money grubbing, selfish, elitist trash fuckwit with a penchant for KILLING HIS OWN FANS to prove a point and make a buck.
FUCK YOU GARRET. You effluvium receptacle!

https://www.reddit.com/CleetusMcFarland/comments/jzvkkz/i_thought_garret_was_better_than_this_hes_just/
It's funny you can tell who is and is not actually a fan because they call him "Garret" with one T even though until relatively recently he had his instagram handle "garrett_mitchell" at the end of most videos. You just click on their username and see they've never commented in a car-related subreddit in their lives. They just flood in from rule-breaking subreddits like SRD to just spew hate. There are people in nearly every comment section with similar screeching about COVID and how "Garret is killing people!" So I'm assuming that if anything happens we'll see "big fans of Dox" coming in to say they used to support Dick Show but now they're done.
I never believe the death threat thing, but the head mod did delete his account due to the drama so who the hell knows. Here's a "death threat" you can send to anyone when criticized:
I don't like what you said, so you better keep your doors locked!
So anyway, just know that RR might attract a bunch of lunatics. I'd post this on /drama but it's private, I'm not going to beg to be let in, and the admins just ban any offshoot for who knows what reason. Mods better ask for an advance on that paycheck because they'll be working late.
Yes, it did need to be a thread.

Actually seems like a great guy. Heck, I'd bet ya a dollar to a donut Norby would give you the shirt off his back to keep a guy like Chris Cote in the fold. Not for nothing, but when Norby was at Southern Connecticut State he was considered a VERY likeable guy. I don't know Norby personally (I'm a gay black man from Pennsylvania), but he seems like a stand-up guy who "Understands the Show" haha! That's some inside baseball for my Dan Lebatard Show with Stugotz show fanatics.
​
Anyway, here's to hoping the "shipping container full of frightened refugees" and the entire Miami-based crew can keep those numbers UP UP UP! Go Marlins!

I guess it all begins with the house.
The house I grew up in was small and newly built, people seeing it for the first time would describe it as unique- or even cute. It wasn’t at all the foreboding haunted house that is so common in stories. It just had a couple of odd quirks.
Like how the whole thing was shaped like a big ‘Z’ and lifted six feet in the air on wooden stilts,
-or how it had these giant, shoji-style windows,
-or how sometimes, it screamed.
It was alined northeast, with large windows offset on the opposing ends on the house. My mother and father had designed and built it themselves in a small town on the Big Island of Hawaii.They wanted to build a house that could be easily cooled off by the trade-winds and they had been horribly successful.
On the days when wind came barreling down the mountain like a freight train the giant windows would funnel the air through our house like a pipe organ, and structure would let out a low wail that some people swore could be heard a kilometer away.
We didn’t have many neighbors, living in pastureland on the edge of a town with a populace of about four-hundred, but our house had an island-wide reputation.
It was called the singing house, which was a testament to people's positivity.
It was a big deal when people found out I lived in the singing house.
One of my best friends growing up had a strict religious family. Once, when we were both under ten, I had ended up sleeping over at his house on a Saturday night and in the rush of the next morning they had brought me with them to mass.
I was excited to go. Their church was this huge, wooden building with a high peaked roof and a bell tower, I had never been able to see the inside and I had always wanted to.
When we got there everyone was singing and it felt like I had accidentally been allowed into a secret club.
We walked quietly to an empty pew and I stumbled through some prayers and songs, then all the kids got to go sit on a carpet and watch veggie-tales.
Then we were ushered into another room where heaping plates of sausages and waffles and even donuts were arranged on a buffet bar. At that moment I was 100% on board with God.
My friend’s, Kama’s, parents even told me that if I wanted, I could keep coming with them. It was great.
We all sat down with our food and Kama and I started talking about the sort of junk kids talk about, and then a woman I’d never met joined our table.
She looked at me for a second before turning to Kama’s mother and asking, “who’s this?”
Kama’s mom introduced me as , “K.J. our neighbor and Kama’s friend.”
The lady hummed, staring at me over her plate of waffles. She didn’t seem friendly.
Conversation resumed. I began an exaggerated story about the size of a wasp nest I’d sprayed the night before.
“No joke, the size of a basketball!” I told Kama.
“Psh, no way,” he told me.
“Uh huh! I’ll show you!” I claimed. The wasp nest wasn’t actually the size of a basketball so I don’t know what possessed me to say this, but it convinced Kama for the time being.
“I bet the sound your house makes attracts them,” Kama said.
“Yeah,” I agreed, “they probably think it’s a giant hive.”
Misguidedly sensing an opportunity ingratiate me to the waffle woman, who was still staring, Kama turned to her and announced, “K.J. lives in the singing house!”
Living in the singing house made me a minor celebrity on this side of the Big Island, my house had been featured in tour books! And to be fair, around here it didn’t take much to turn vague recognition into interest. So, usually mentioning the house was a good conversation starter.
This time, however, it was not.
The lady reacted to Kama’s information like he’d informed her that I killed puppies for fun.
Her face drained of color and her chair grinding back loudly as she stood. I remember being afraid I'd done something to her. That at some point I'd wronged this strange woman and she had only then recognized me.
“I can smell them on you," she said, her voice low and shaking. She jabbed at me with a gnarled finger.
“You are not welcome here! You invite the devils! I smell them!” she yelled, her face was flush and twisted.
The sudden commotion brought the room to a confused silence. People stopped mid-chew to look at us. Someone coughed.
"Auntie, why don't you step outside," a young woman tried.
The yelling had stunned me and made my eyes water, I knew I needed to do something to retain my pride.
"You don’t smell great either!” I yelled.
Kama’s parents swiftly removed us from the church, and the drive home was tense.
I was not invited back.
Back then, life in my town was simple. Mostly, people worked on the land. Keeping cows or growing things to sell to hotels and restaurants.
Kids played outside and had fun doing traditional things, like fishing, camping, or hard drugs. Life was small.
I left as soon as I possibly could.
I wanted to go to university in California and I didn’t even care what I learned there. Like an idiot, I dove headfirst into student debt just so I had an excuse to leave home.
I was being selfish.
My father had left when I was small, technically he was a missing person but we were pretty sure he’d just pissed off, and my only brother had died of an overdose when he was sixteen.
It was just me and my mom, who’d only recently retired from teaching.
Then I went to California and it was only her left alone in that empty house. It was something I tried not to think about.
There wasn’t anything I could do, I couldn’t visit her. Any time I wasn’t in school I spent working as
many hours as I could get. I couldn’t afford a ticket to Hawaii every summer.
At first I tried to call her once a week but it didn’t last, there was never much to say. I didn’t want to tell her how badly my life was going and she very rarely left the house. At first I would just listen as she told me about the animals.
She told me about how wild pigs had been tearing up our pasture and how her eyesight wasn’t good enough to shoot them. About how the sheep and chickens kept disappearing.
Then she stopped talking about them. Instead, she started telling me about the owls.
My mom always had a thing for owls but now it seemed to be developing into a kind of obsession. She’d call me in the middle of the night just to tell me she’d seen one.
They were giant, she said, they watched over her.
She sent me pictures, but they were always blurry and out of focus. Her eyes had gone bad.
A couple years after I left she got a dog, a little hair-terrier, and blurry pictures of it replaced the ones of owls.
Now our conversations were mostly just her recounting everything her dog did that day. How many times she brushed it, or how smart something it did was, or how much it liked sitting with her.
When I finally graduated she was so happy.
“I can’t wait to see you, sweetheart,” she told me, “it’s been quiet.”
I took a job in the city the next day.
When I told her she cried, she said she understood that I was building my future, and it was okay. That she was just an emotional old lady. I tried to believe her.
I asked her how the dog was doing, hoping to get her to stop crying into the phone.
She told me the dog had disappeared. That she’d let it out one night and it hadn’t come back.
She looked for it for days, tripping through the fields and calling its name, but then she found some hair and blood and decided she didn’t want to look anymore.
I told her how sorry I was and I offered to buy her a new dog but she just kept crying.
We talked even less after that. She started to send me pictures of blurry, white blobs again, saying they were owls.
Then I lost my job. Five years of my life I spent working there and they let me go like it was nothing, budget cuts.
Without that job I couldn’t make rent anymore, not where I lived, and no other offer would call me back.
I had nowhere to go, so I finally went home.
I didn’t warn my mom that I was coming. I told myself that it would be a surprise, but honestly I think
I just didn’t want to tell her that I’d failed. I was twenty-seven and moving home.
When the plane touched down and I felt the tropical humidity for the first time in nine years, it was almost nice.
It was dark by the time I turned onto the dirt road that would take me home.
When I got to the old gate at the end of our driveway I found the chain that held it in place was broken, leaving it swinging in the wind.
As a child I constantly got in trouble for leaving the gate open, even for just a minute. Every morning it was a challenge for us to get out and keep the sheep in.
But now the animals were gone and the gate no longer had a purpose.
I got out of the car to push it open, propping it on a rock.
I looked down the dark driveway. It had always been unpaved but in my absence it had grown wild, with banana trees and cane grass crowding it in a way they never had before.
A particularly strong gust of wind swept by stirring up a symphony of rustling plants, chirping insects, and the deep, echoing wail of the house. It might have been horrifying if I wasn’t so nostalgic.
The rest of the way up the driveway was hard on the suspension of my rental, but it managed.
Yellow light began to filter through the branches and twigs that were snapping against the windshield and the house came into view.
I had imagined it looking no different than the last time I saw it, with a delicate garden and bright paint. With old boots drying on the front porch and chickens roosting in the trusses of the stilts.
Instead I saw that the paint was flaking off in strips the size of dollar bills and the front porch had begun to sag in a way that looked vaguely dangerous, wild guava trees had twisted right up to the wide windows, and the grass was waist-high and thick.
It twisted around the wheels of my mother’s car, telling me she hadn’t left in a very long time. There was no garden anymore.
If it wasn’t for the dull light spilling from the windows, it would have looked abandoned.
The porch light came on, the door swung open and there was my mother, hobbling out and squinting at me.
“Are you Amazon?” she called, her voice felt like a warm hug.
“Mom?” I called back. She paused, her whole body drawing straight.
I approached her, “I’m home,” I said hesitantly.
Then she was sobbing and we were hugging, she just about collapsed on the porch stairs and she had to lean against me as we went inside.
We sat together on the couch and I held her while she cried, neither of us were feeling up to speaking.
At some point I must have fallen asleep.
The next time I opened my eyes I was seven years old again, listening to my mother’s soft breathing after she’d fallen asleep telling me a story. It took me a couple seconds to orient myself chronologically.
Something was scraping against the window. Three times, then a short pause, then again.
Branches, I thought. My mom was leaning against my shoulder and I couldn’t get up without waking her. I tried to fall back asleep.
It kept going, snapping me awake any time I began to relax. Three scratches, then silence.
My mom began to snore and I looked at her, she was frighteningly unfamiliar as she slept. Her skin was paler, maybe thinner-looking than I remembered, and marred with deep creases and wrinkles. I didn’t remember her looking so old.
I didn’t remember her being especially young, I just-
The scraping came again. Three times, a perfectly repeated pattern. There was no way that was the wind, it had to be something else. I carefully got up, moving my mom’s head so it slumped against her chest.
I walked through the house, standing in the center and waiting for it to come again.
It didn’t for a long time, then I heard a scrape from the window directly behind me, cutting off just as I turned. The light was on in the kitchen and it was casting a reflection against the glass, but behind it I saw the shape of something. It wasn’t moving, not really, but somehow I knew it was alive.
Carefully, I walked to the light switch, my eyes never leaving the animal.
I flipped it off, getting rid of the glare.
Two wide eyes stared back at me, unhuman, but like no animal i could imagine. It leaned forward, raising an appendage as wirey as a branch.
My mother screamed.
I tore my eyes from the creature as she appeared in the doorway, the light came on and when I looked back there was nothing.
My mother looked at me, tears in her eyes, “I thought you left,” she said.
I heard another scrape and my eyes snapped again to the window, where the limb of a guava tree was resting against the screen, the wind blew and it scraped again. There was no monster, I thought, just my own anxious mind.
“I was just turning off the light,” I said.
She smiled at me, “you were always so responsible,” she said, “come, I have a bed made.”
She led me into my old room. It looked cleaner and emptier, but otherwise largely untouched. As if I had gone away to summer camp for a month. As if ten years had not passed since I last stepped foot inside.
She folded back the blankets for me like I was a child, and I noticed that there was no dust in the room.
That night I dreamed a crowd of people were gathered around the house. Hiding in the overgrowth and standing perfectly still. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t speak to them, but I knew they were waiting for something.
Life continued, interrupted only briefly by strange flashes in the corner of my eye or horrible dreams that left me gasping for air.
I got a job working for our neighbor, that the income was modest would be an understatement but it was something. I began to fix up the house.
It was the middle of the day, and I’d just finished swapping out one of the stilts for the porch when it happened.
It was like the ground beneath me evaporated and I plunged into a freezing dark hole. Then I was standing in the trees and brush of the mountain forests. There was a loud sound and a warm feeling in my stomach, and when I looked down, all I saw was blood. Someone was crying and I was being sucked away, this wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I suddenly felt vulnerable, lost, hunted.
Then I was back in the yard of my house, standing as if that’s where I’d always been.
I was afraid that I was really going mad if my nightmares had reached me in the day.
It wasn’t much later that I saw the ghost, a short man in dirty clothes. When I saw him, my first instinct was to call out and ask what the hell he was doing in my yard, but then I noticed the way the grass was moving in the wind, passing through his body like it was nothing.
His eyes met mine and his face twisted in fear, he ran underneath the house, as if to hide.
Through my disbelief I remember wondering why he was afraid of me, what could I possibly do to a ghost?
From then on, I kept seeing him. He would appear and wander fearfully around the yard for a few minutes before disappearing again.
I know that I should have done something about it, but I honestly didn’t know what that thing was. Call a priest?
And what if they came and didn’t see anything, I didn’t want it spreading through the town that I was a lunatic.
The worst part was when I tried to bring him up to my mother. He would be wandering around the yard and she’d be sitting on the porch, and I would see her eyes tracking him, but when I asked her about it, she’d act like she had no idea what I was talking about.
I began to think I had truly lost my mind.
That all changed when I was awoken in the middle of the night by a horrible noise. A loud and desperate rasping that echoed through the house.
I was out of bed in an instant, creeping through the doorway and into the living room, where I saw my mother. She was unmoving, standing like a statue in the moonlight. She turned her head towards me, impossibly slow, “Come,” she beckoned, “there’s an owl in the yard.”
My legs were heavy with dread as I approached her and followed the gaze of her vacant eyes out the window.
At first I saw nothing, “be still,” she cautioned.
Then I saw the glimmer of a figure, the ghost. Everything about him looked desperate, he was crouched and shaking, his body heaving with invisible breaths, “that’s the-”
She cut me off, “shhh.”
Then I heard a sound. It was like the rumble of an earthquake and the hiss of a snake, primordial and terrorizing. Petrifying to the point that even now, when I hear it in my dreams I forget to breathe.
It seemed to come from all over, the man had nowhere to run.
The creature was on him before I even saw it. It moved with limbs like moray eels, nothing but muscle, grace, and sharp unrelenting teeth.
When its many mouths tore into him, he didn’t bleed, chunks of him were simply torn away like puzzle pieces. He struggled and fought but the thing didn’t even seem to notice.
When the man had been entirely consumed, the creature remained in place, hunching over the space that had only moments ago been his meal. Then it turned, almost hesitantly, towards the window.
Its face was as white as bone, small and disproportionate to the writhing mass of its body. The eyes that stared out of it were the ones I had seen on my first night here, over a month ago.
“Beautiful,” my mother said, and all the way through the glass the creature seemed to hear her and prean. It let out a low cooing sound, like the hoot of an owl, and then it was gone.
I said nothing to my mother, what could I fucking say after that. How much of that did her dull eyes actually take in.
“The owls will always protect me,” she said and I was suddenly very afraid of her. I knew she had seen the man, the ghost, I knew she had lied to me about it.
I returned to my room and packed my things.
When this didn’t surprise her, I knew I had made the right choice.
I have a shitty job now, and a shitty apartment with a shitty roommate, but every so often my phone will chime, alerting me that my mother has sent me a photo.
‘Another Owl!’ The message will say, but it isn’t.

Period: 338.33 days

	Submissions	Comments
Total	988	133138
Rate (per day)	2.92	393.07
Unique Redditors	500	34629
Combined Score	1864945	2511190

Top Submitters' Top Submissions

1. 223601 points, 110 submissions: BrianGoodwin_
   
   1. Standing on a conveyor belt. (8882 points, 693 comments)
   2. Long way down. (7191 points, 444 comments)
   3. From minor accident to vehicular manslaughter. (6554 points, 478 comments)
   4. Chainsaw confiscated. (5903 points, 249 comments)
   5. Glass must feel painful. (5731 points, 392 comments)
   6. Fired. (5665 points, 639 comments)
   7. Unaware of power lines. (5489 points, 587 comments)
   8. Ejected. (5452 points, 365 comments)
   9. Met the pavement. (5270 points, 756 comments)
   10. Should have been looking up. (4973 points, 371 comments)
2. 83145 points, 44 submissions: windowseat4life
   
   1. "She ain't got no clip" (11271 points, 336 comments)
   2. Well, he was successful in not getting shot (7424 points, 429 comments)
   3. Crushed by a lift - India (6079 points, 597 comments)
   4. Messing around on an electric tower (5846 points, 846 comments)
   5. Slow down in construction zones (5833 points, 283 comments)
   6. Gotta watch out for obstacles (4037 points, 239 comments)
   7. That's not what I expected (4032 points, 197 comments)
   8. Insurance scam fail (3909 points, 393 comments)
   9. Chain reaction starting with animals on the highway (2426 points, 345 comments)
   10. If dude would have just kept his door shut (2022 points, 236 comments)
3. 36411 points, 17 submissions: PirateDock
   
   1. Homemade Rocket Crash While Trying To Prove The Earth Is Flat (7203 points, 819 comments)
   2. Another Chinese Darwin Award (4810 points, 315 comments)
   3. Man Falls From Hot Air Balloon In China (4360 points, 749 comments)
   4. Waitress mishandled burning decoration torch (3103 points, 174 comments)
   5. Textile Machine Roll Falls on Worker (3102 points, 190 comments)
   6. Woman Crushed By Snow Plowing Tractor (2139 points, 341 comments)
   7. Septic Tank Explodes Because of Rookie Mistake (2078 points, 188 comments)
   8. Ladder Seemed Wobbly From The Start (1485 points, 179 comments)
   9. Spinny Machine (1369 points, 232 comments)
   10. Worker Gets Buried Alive in China (1342 points, 156 comments)
4. 33495 points, 14 submissions: H150180
   
   1. Work accident (8258 points, 1075 comments)
   2. Warehouse door to the head (6559 points, 493 comments)
   3. Pressing headache (5228 points, 578 comments)
   4. Loose clothing and machinery (3186 points, 320 comments)
   5. Chinese escalator (1461 points, 271 comments)
   6. Oldie. Lathe. (1383 points, 275 comments)
   7. Darwin award winner (1310 points, 132 comments)
   8. That's a wrap (1140 points, 143 comments)
   9. Unexpected (993 points, 120 comments)
   10. Marble slat crush (892 points, 153 comments)
5. 32096 points, 15 submissions: thegreatSN0WMAN
   
   1. Ladder goes jousting (6702 points, 365 comments)
   2. 2 Colombian Air Force guys rope breaks as they’re doing a flag demonstration (6506 points, 359 comments)
   3. Girl can’t control her dog so grandma’s face pays the price (5222 points, 390 comments)
   4. Guy tries to break up dogs fighting but went for a spin on a driveshaft instead (2616 points, 280 comments)
   5. Lemme just jostle your back and neck around a little bit more (1800 points, 67 comments)
   6. Russian solider takes getting run over by an APC pretty well (1644 points, 75 comments)
   7. Human claw machine game (1238 points, 119 comments)
   8. Seatbelts can do wonders if you wear one (1060 points, 117 comments)
   9. Driver has a “blackout” and ends up plowing into a group of motorcyclists (1056 points, 136 comments)
   10. This time the kid doing the suplex gets the full neck experience (959 points, 77 comments)
6. 29363 points, 20 submissions: thebigcheese50
   
   1. Go ahead and jump. With sound this time. (5941 points, 436 comments)
   2. Hot metal to the face! (2529 points, 132 comments)
   3. Where's a ref when you need em!! (2319 points, 359 comments)
   4. You decide. (2085 points, 142 comments)
   5. DoV (1893 points, 46 comments)
   6. This guy has guts for messing with the bull. Literally... (1484 points, 189 comments)
   7. Broken back for sure? (1348 points, 86 comments)
   8. Fried veggie. Actually probably not. (1293 points, 181 comments)
   9. Dude runs right into car. (1292 points, 147 comments)
   10. Dead or freshly planted? (1106 points, 120 comments)
7. 27727 points, 10 submissions: _Kristian_
   
   1. POV: You are Indian and downloaded TikTok (9512 points, 686 comments)
   2. Indian man attempts to insurance scam a truck (8174 points, 637 comments)
   3. Indian train video number #173639 (2567 points, 273 comments)
   4. Indian man breaks his neck for TikTok clout (2048 points, 255 comments)
   5. Russian low-budget bungee jump (1992 points, 115 comments)
   6. Damn Indians love playing with death on trains (864 points, 77 comments)
   7. Speeding car falls off flyover in India, hits woman below waiting for the bus (747 points, 80 comments)
   8. Man drops from overpass while getting chased by staff for shoplifting at Forever 21 (687 points, 118 comments)
   9. Window cleaner falls off ladder into opening of flight of stairs (579 points, 66 comments)
   10. Tractor rams a man in India (557 points, 58 comments)
8. 27174 points, 10 submissions: lxsully
   
   1. Truck driver speeding towards a crosswalk with two full loads of tree trunks (5822 points, 556 comments)
   2. D or V after elevator goes up 31 floors in 15 seconds in Chile (5064 points, 519 comments)
   3. D or V if a moose does the salsa on your ribcage? (4756 points, 488 comments)
   4. D or V after getting sucker-punched by nature (4237 points, 201 comments)
   5. Rule 6, guys. D or V? (2339 points, 344 comments)
   6. D or soggy V? (ep. 2) (1488 points, 201 comments)
   7. D or V? x26 (1296 points, 141 comments)
   8. D or V after trying to run a red light (1005 points, 117 comments)
   9. He thought he heard something (607 points, 63 comments)
   10. D or V after getting stabbed for no apparent reason? (560 points, 91 comments)
9. 25281 points, 14 submissions: 9_dani
   
   1. Man gets on top of train, lights a cigarette. Soon, sparks fly. (6140 points, 428 comments)
   2. Cyclist hit by truck (4576 points, 325 comments)
   3. Villagers “fixing” live electricity pylon (3618 points, 369 comments)
   4. Electrical engineer touches the wrong wire... (2259 points, 263 comments)
   5. Sat on by an elephant (1366 points, 149 comments)
   6. POV bike crash into car (1339 points, 153 comments)
   7. Machinist gets pulled into a lathe (1156 points, 197 comments)
   8. Drunk falls over stair railings down gap between floors (1108 points, 98 comments)
   9. Skier(s) caught in avalanche (742 points, 74 comments)
   10. Tire go zoom (702 points, 58 comments)
10. 23057 points, 6 submissions: droopydrip1007
    
    1. Inb4 you watch this 15 times (7272 points, 455 comments)
    2. All aboard! (6156 points, 736 comments)
    3. Like a deer in the headlights (5839 points, 386 comments)
    4. No need to check the mirrors, nobody drives down this road anyway (1347 points, 161 comments)
    5. Bonk! (1233 points, 107 comments)
    6. Street fight ends spectacularly (1210 points, 202 comments)
11. 23019 points, 8 submissions: BillyManHansJr
    
    1. Oklahoma Police Officer Shoots Man Holding a Baseball Bat (8759 points, 1502 comments)
    2. Woman Gets Shot After Charging Police Officer With a Knife (5133 points, 814 comments)
    3. Phoenix Police Officer Shoots Man Charging With a Knife in a Parking Lot (4876 points, 699 comments)
    4. Modesto Police Officer Shoots a Man For Pulling a Gun (988 points, 222 comments)
    5. Las Vegas Police Officer Shoots Man Holding a Knife Outside of a Dollar Tree (901 points, 197 comments)
    6. Man Sets Himself on Fire To Protest Against the Indian Government (840 points, 157 comments)
    7. Man Randomly Sets Himself on Fire in Brazil (828 points, 183 comments)
    8. Delaware Police Officer Shoots a Man For Pulling a Knife (694 points, 292 comments)
12. 21527 points, 7 submissions: Resgignickell
    
    1. That guy was out of luck (6969 points, 263 comments)
    2. Don't do drugs kids (6773 points, 848 comments)
    3. Unfortunate pole climbing event (3556 points, 283 comments)
    4. That was unnecessary complex (1600 points, 306 comments)
    5. He just wanted to chill (1193 points, 117 comments)
    6. The many dangers of mountain biking (800 points, 147 comments)
    7. A bit bumpy ride (636 points, 49 comments)
13. 20606 points, 15 submissions: SlaightTheGreat
    
    1. Guy tries to light cop car on fire (2458 points, 80 comments)
    2. Forklift snaps an object out of the ground and destroys an observer (2016 points, 184 comments)
    3. Zeus is not a soccer fan (1986 points, 227 comments)
    4. Man hits 88 miles per hour (1970 points, 174 comments)
    5. DO NOT PLAY WITH ELECTRICITY (1751 points, 188 comments)
    6. These rides are officially deathtraps (1653 points, 153 comments)
    7. Should have just kept going (1632 points, 68 comments)
    8. These 6 pixels show a man getting dropped by lightning while walking his dogs (1520 points, 72 comments)
    9. Well that was unexpected (1260 points, 156 comments)
    10. She just didn't need this bullshit in her life right now. (Falling glass) (1161 points, 121 comments)
14. 20510 points, 6 submissions: dantrack
    
    1. Dov (6956 points, 1046 comments)
    2. Dov (4905 points, 453 comments)
    3. DOV (3293 points, 503 comments)
    4. Dov (2439 points, 208 comments)
    5. DoV (2037 points, 614 comments)
    6. DOA (880 points, 86 comments)
15. 18976 points, 12 submissions: nycsellit4me
    
    1. I bet he's thinking...Next time I won't stand so close (4608 points, 587 comments)
    2. I think they hit him a couple of times. D or V ? (4121 points, 1066 comments)
    3. 2 elderly women mowed down in the street D or V? or both? (1626 points, 188 comments)
    4. Watch carefully there is a lot going on (CCTV Birds Eye view) - "Did the subjects die, become a vegetable, or walk away unscathed?" (1575 points, 141 comments)
    5. PSA: The lines on the pavement in the roadway is a designated pedestrian crosswalk. All traffic will come to a complete stop if any person steps off the curb. (D or V? keep in mind it's a heavy truck) (1270 points, 200 comments)
    6. The How to video on getting famous on DeadorVegetable - 1. Buy a scooter 2. Do not wear a helmet. (1192 points, 126 comments)
    7. 1st he does the Starfish and then @ least one shoe went flying (1127 points, 178 comments)
    8. After climbing up an 8 foot ladder, his hands slip he falls and slams his spine into a jacuzzi rockwall (909 points, 86 comments)
    9. Following a brief struggle during an arrest, shot twice by the Police Officer he begs "Please finish me please" (his voice sounds so demoralized) (827 points, 260 comments)
    10. The last thing she heard was the warning horn of impending doom (583 points, 49 comments)
16. 18186 points, 9 submissions: XFATKILLERX
    
    1. Russian fall from bridge (6448 points, 853 comments)
    2. Ambulance accident from the interior (2718 points, 113 comments)
    3. Sandwich (2398 points, 171 comments)
    4. Mmmm dead or veggie? (2015 points, 148 comments)
    5. To fast (1462 points, 124 comments)
    6. Cow hits on face a men (896 points, 119 comments)
    7. WTF??what happen? (832 points, 102 comments)
    8. couple run over old woman and then run (815 points, 170 comments)
    9. Speed limit exist for something (602 points, 65 comments)
17. 18185 points, 7 submissions: Jack_The_Karrigan
    
    1. 3 Guys Fight, But One Has a Gun (7749 points, 867 comments)
    2. Well That's Most Definitely Painful (5575 points, 460 comments)
    3. In Ottawa, Canada (2023 points, 300 comments)
    4. Oppan Gangnam Style (901 points, 167 comments)
    5. 200 Kilogram Cotton Bale Hits Driver (731 points, 93 comments)
    6. Skiier Takes Painful Plunge (631 points, 100 comments)
    7. Rocks Hit Miner (575 points, 66 comments)
18. 15895 points, 7 submissions: redddiablo
    
    1. Crazy drivers (6019 points, 202 comments)
    2. Allow me to help you cross the street madame (3542 points, 153 comments)
    3. Luckily the baby didn’t get hit (2349 points, 129 comments)
    4. This happened 2 days ago in Rotterdam (1411 points, 124 comments)
    5. Not sure what he was thinking (989 points, 102 comments)
    6. Man gets sandwiched (909 points, 141 comments)
    7. Guy volunteers to be a speed bump (676 points, 65 comments)
19. 14857 points, 4 submissions: l1ld3ath
    
    1. The ole rope a dope. DoV? (8471 points, 380 comments)
    2. DoV (5181 points, 314 comments)
    3. Does it live? (624 points, 113 comments)
    4. Dead, veggie or Deadgie? (581 points, 78 comments)
20. 13015 points, 6 submissions: atatbilge
    
    1. "Yallah" DoV (3934 points, 268 comments)
    2. Clean Veg (2689 points, 144 comments)
    3. D or V (2508 points, 237 comments)
    4. Watch his neck (1646 points, 139 comments)
    5. Fresh one guys ! (1457 points, 151 comments)
    6. Bong (781 points, 153 comments)
21. 12804 points, 3 submissions: Mirko_88
    
    1. You spin me round round baby... (6677 points, 500 comments)
    2. Do you see the light? (5353 points, 226 comments)
    3. Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'... (774 points, 82 comments)
22. 12311 points, 7 submissions: SvSlazer18
    
    1. Man Initially Walks off Vicious Sword Wielding Attacker, Collapses from His Injuries (6713 points, 448 comments)
    2. Worker Pinned Against Machinery, China (1491 points, 159 comments)
    3. Cat Rescue Ends Badly — Man Cries out in Pain as He Brushes High Voltage Cable (1105 points, 123 comments)
    4. Dump Truck Operator Hit in the Head in Unfortunate Accident (1048 points, 128 comments)
    5. Boiled Vegetables (715 points, 99 comments)
    6. Gas Explosion, China (696 points, 96 comments)
    7. Tree Falls, Lands on Unassuming Bystander (543 points, 39 comments)
23. 12276 points, 5 submissions: pentarh
    
    1. Donk (5977 points, 526 comments)
    2. Drunked + grenade (4517 points, 453 comments)
    3. Rebound (671 points, 88 comments)
    4. Yet another biker body met metal. DoV? (564 points, 57 comments)
    5. Yet another carmageddon (547 points, 44 comments)
24. 11897 points, 4 submissions: Gooch_Butter
    
    1. Friendly reminder to always wear your seatbelt (6280 points, 562 comments)
    2. "Oy yoy yoy blyat" usually means someone is dead or a vegetable (2211 points, 178 comments)
    3. Two things that don't mix well - China and cheap amusement park rides (2019 points, 188 comments)
    4. Whether he's D or V, at least his face is nice and clean (1387 points, 352 comments)
25. 11673 points, 9 submissions: Iflookinglikingmove
    
    1. Snapped chain = Mashed brains? DoV? (5057 points, 541 comments)
    2. First time parasailing. DoV? (1406 points, 287 comments)
    3. BMW rams into protestors in Manhattan. DoV? (1047 points, 339 comments)
    4. Just pumping some gas. DoV? (905 points, 145 comments)
    5. He forgot to look before he leaped. DoV? (731 points, 64 comments)
    6. Well, he stopped the truck. DoV? (657 points, 75 comments)
    7. I think the floor was a little too slippery. DoV? (644 points, 93 comments)
    8. Wrong place, wrong time. DoV? (636 points, 50 comments)
    9. Let's slam your head to the ground to celebrate your wedding. DoV? (590 points, 66 comments)
26. 11055 points, 2 submissions: askances
    
    1. DoV: Motorcycle Crash (5991 points, 412 comments)
    2. DoV: Man Burns Himself (5064 points, 634 comments)
27. 10538 points, 1 submission: sleepysalomander
    
    1. Like yeah, they might have a bruise and a sore jaw but they aint dead (10538 points, 216 comments)
28. 10426 points, 3 submissions: OGKYANITE_YT
    
    1. D o V? Either way, karma bitch. (7472 points, 454 comments)
    2. DoV (1872 points, 236 comments)
    3. DoV (1082 points, 95 comments)
29. 10344 points, 5 submissions: fortressnight
    
    1. Yeah I think he become a vegetable (3514 points, 350 comments)
    2. Man gets slammed on the street and repeatedly gets stomped and kicked (3395 points, 622 comments)
    3. Slammed on the hard floor (1624 points, 192 comments)
    4. There’s a dent in his dead D or V (935 points, 94 comments)
    5. At least he wore a helmet (876 points, 75 comments)
30. 9997 points, 5 submissions: yellayahmar
    
    1. Glass is 𝑹𝑬𝑨𝑳𝑳𝒀 heavy... D or V (5390 points, 615 comments)
    2. Last day on the job, falls asleep at work... d0v? (1487 points, 203 comments)
    3. Working with a live wire, D or V...? (1142 points, 132 comments)
    4. Trying to get her shoes down....? 𝕯𝖊𝖆𝖉 𝖔𝖗 𝖛𝖊𝖌𝖊𝖙𝖆𝖇𝖑𝖊 ? (1051 points, 191 comments)
    5. Driver ejected from car in racing crash... (927 points, 106 comments)
31. 9955 points, 3 submissions: Zachman97
    
    1. D or V after trying to climb this gate? (5124 points, 659 comments)
    2. D Or V? Guy tries to jump over open mineshaft/ well. (2621 points, 204 comments)
    3. Thai police officer tries to kick a grenade that was thrown at them. (2210 points, 299 comments)
32. 9606 points, 9 submissions: bcg85
    
    1. Stealth: 100 (2193 points, 103 comments)
    2. Hit it so hard he knocked it out of gear! (1422 points, 144 comments)
    3. Why use the sidewalk when there is a perfectly good street right here? (1217 points, 108 comments)
    4. Woman pushed onto train tracks by homeless man (1060 points, 150 comments)
    5. Too tired to drive. (953 points, 68 comments)
    6. Dude gets way too fired up. (757 points, 171 comments)
    7. The behavior of some people is just shocking. (734 points, 142 comments)
    8. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. (671 points, 43 comments)
    9. The pressure of this job is overwhelming. (599 points, 57 comments)
33. 9438 points, 2 submissions: dr__hellspawn
    
    1. Afghan Army trying to pull off a Mission Impossible. (8785 points, 560 comments)
    2. His footwear disappeared on impact. (653 points, 61 comments)
34. 9260 points, 1 submission: Thechlebek
    
    1. bro this is dead or vegetable, not homeinjuries (9260 points, 201 comments)
35. 9228 points, 4 submissions: Kadolii
    
    1. Conflict (6187 points, 247 comments)
    2. Waist gone (1229 points, 103 comments)
    3. Misfortune (1168 points, 86 comments)
    4. I wonder why he jumped (644 points, 107 comments)
36. 9146 points, 3 submissions: Slaapzak_24
    
    1. Close call I guess? (6905 points, 357 comments)
    2. D or V? (1689 points, 231 comments)
    3. Another one hits the wall (552 points, 59 comments)
37. 8958 points, 2 submissions: ipqwert
    
    1. Parachute didn’t opened this time! (7766 points, 676 comments)
    2. Ohh damn d or v? (1192 points, 202 comments)
38. 8578 points, 1 submission: BunglingBoris
    
    1. Found on another Sub, DOV (8578 points, 542 comments)
39. 8545 points, 1 submission: ymbapexd
    
    1. Man electrocuted by fan (8545 points, 808 comments)
40. 8529 points, 5 submissions: mydogisonfirehelp
    
    1. biker crashes right into an ambulance, D or V? (3522 points, 370 comments)
    2. head on collision, D or V? (2211 points, 241 comments)
    3. man walks through a semi trucks blind spot, D or V? (1194 points, 188 comments)
    4. d or v? (835 points, 89 comments)
    5. car hits pedestrian at high speed, D or V? (767 points, 177 comments)
41. 8367 points, 3 submissions: im-so-offended
    
    1. Bull riders wild ride...dead or veggie (4207 points, 489 comments)
    2. Full out airplane mode, dead or veggie? (2177 points, 211 comments)
    3. Probably not dead, veggie potential (1983 points, 99 comments)
42. 8079 points, 4 submissions: highvalyriaan
    
    1. A new way to burn the virus out of your lungs (5265 points, 264 comments)
    2. When roommates telling you it’s cold (1518 points, 155 comments)
    3. Donut fear the reaper (721 points, 66 comments)
    4. Veggie for sure? (575 points, 87 comments)
43. 8014 points, 1 submission: Gromann27
    
    1. He was already a vegetable dammit (8014 points, 507 comments)
44. 7987 points, 3 submissions: retisk
    
    1. Didn’t see that one coming (6441 points, 388 comments)
    2. CrossIng four lanes on the motorway. D/V (974 points, 151 comments)
    3. Redneck summer fun DorV (572 points, 48 comments)
45. 7970 points, 2 submissions: swan001
    
    1. D or V (5530 points, 451 comments)
    2. D or V? The guy who fell... (2440 points, 260 comments)
46. 7880 points, 3 submissions: JohnDarkEnergy99
    
    1. Idk if this been posted before but this guy isn’t smart at all. (4066 points, 127 comments)
    2. Wheelies + Car at highway speed = Disaster (2753 points, 216 comments)
    3. Old Balcony Produce (1061 points, 65 comments)
47. 7804 points, 1 submission: Hoodrick
    
    1. 360 noscoped in wedding (7804 points, 1279 comments)

Top Commenters

1. windowseat4life (6966 points, 240 comments)
2. AnotherRandomUs (6659 points, 188 comments)
3. bcg85 (6474 points, 141 comments)
4. mindaugas_mar (6309 points, 73 comments)
5. ThrowRA564738925 (6170 points, 186 comments)
6. vp_spex (5937 points, 64 comments)
7. BigBrown609 (5751 points, 21 comments)
8. lxsully (5491 points, 48 comments)
9. icywoodz (5302 points, 30 comments)
10. PirateDock (5228 points, 33 comments)
11. Steakman765 (5219 points, 105 comments)
12. TheLastCitysDrifter (4850 points, 8 comments)
13. ThatsMrPooToYou (4740 points, 4 comments)
14. DiegotheEcuadorian (4737 points, 5 comments)
15. hondwerpen (4672 points, 33 comments)
16. angloashanti (4591 points, 49 comments)
17. Dspsblyuth (4434 points, 44 comments)
18. whorton59 (4390 points, 275 comments)
19. feltonpbeaver (4358 points, 29 comments)
20. all_tha_sauce (4220 points, 84 comments)
21. KalMusic (4126 points, 4 comments)
22. LilSkills (4041 points, 134 comments)
23. Fyroth (3911 points, 4 comments)
24. Downvoter6000 (3866 points, 3 comments)
25. JohnnyPrecariously (3830 points, 44 comments)
26. nostracannibus (3706 points, 53 comments)
27. onmyknees4anyone (3621 points, 143 comments)
28. MoSalad (3567 points, 61 comments)
29. Lusterkx2 (3560 points, 58 comments)
30. Punishedjuloxx (3485 points, 74 comments)
31. turtleturtletown (3359 points, 22 comments)
32. LeakyThoughts (3345 points, 118 comments)
33. refurb (3343 points, 44 comments)
34. steve_im-lost2 (3325 points, 28 comments)
35. felixjawesome (3324 points, 49 comments)
36. bashfuleve (3316 points, 1 comment)
37. Xatuga (3303 points, 20 comments)
38. Bustanut1755 (3293 points, 157 comments)
39. RIPeepes (3248 points, 24 comments)
40. Dumpster_Sauce (3232 points, 19 comments)
41. Jimrodthadestroyer (3224 points, 32 comments)
42. ZiggoCiP (3167 points, 171 comments)
43. Advisor_Pretend (3163 points, 106 comments)
44. Lord_Slong (3128 points, 6 comments)
45. SubstantialJoke (3108 points, 38 comments)
46. ZePotato (3108 points, 6 comments)
47. MikeDAgreat713 (3072 points, 35 comments)
48. Masol_The_Producer (3005 points, 61 comments)
49. Azhurkral (2979 points, 7 comments)
50. totallylambert (2968 points, 51 comments)

Top Submissions

1. "She ain't got no clip" by windowseat4life (11271 points, 336 comments)
2. Like yeah, they might have a bruise and a sore jaw but they aint dead by sleepysalomander (10538 points, 216 comments)
3. POV: You are Indian and downloaded TikTok by _Kristian_ (9512 points, 686 comments)
4. bro this is dead or vegetable, not homeinjuries by Thechlebek (9260 points, 201 comments)
5. Standing on a conveyor belt. by BrianGoodwin_ (8882 points, 693 comments)
6. Afghan Army trying to pull off a Mission Impossible. by dr__hellspawn (8785 points, 560 comments)
7. Oklahoma Police Officer Shoots Man Holding a Baseball Bat by BillyManHansJr (8759 points, 1502 comments)
8. Found on another Sub, DOV by BunglingBoris (8578 points, 542 comments)
9. Man electrocuted by fan by ymbapexd (8545 points, 808 comments)
10. The ole rope a dope. DoV? by l1ld3ath (8471 points, 380 comments)

Top Comments

1. 4766 points: deleted's comment in Dov
2. 4733 points: DiegotheEcuadorian's comment in "She ain't got no clip"
3. 4468 points: TheLastCitysDrifter's comment in Man electrocuted by fan
4. 4041 points: ThatsMrPooToYou's comment in D or V
5. 3550 points: vp_spex's comment in She slipped
6. 3374 points: hondwerpen's comment in 360 noscoped in wedding
7. 3316 points: bashfuleve's comment in Standing on a conveyor belt.
8. 3094 points: Downvoter6000's comment in From minor accident to vehicular manslaughter.
9. 3076 points: ZePotato's comment in Work accident
10. 2965 points: MikeDAgreat713's comment in Dov

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