Babaganoush: The following contest is scheduled for one fall…
Crowd: One fall!
And is for… the WiR Television Championship! Already in the ring, the challenger, weighing in at 235 pounds, The Suuuuuuperstar!
Banaganoush: And Already in the ring, the champion, “Guaranteed, Gabe Garvin!”
Ding Ding Ding!
Mann: And the bell rings here, and we are back underway at Sound Off! Presented by Dexter Flux.
The Superstar does a little spin as he approaches Gabe Garvin and the two back off from each other. The two wrestlers stare down a moment, before launching at each other with a collar and elbow tie-up. The Superstar gains the upper hand and locks Garvin in a headlock. Garvin, in a headlock, however, gets pushed into the ropes, where he gets pushed away. Garvin looks for a back body drop as The Superstar bounces off the ropes, but eats a boot for his trouble. Garvin tries to regain control by lifting Superstar on his shoulders, Superstar shifts back to the ground, but gets lifted and dropped on his chest! The Superstar is forced to roll out of the ring to recover.
Crowd: [Apathetic Silence]
Garvin goes under the bottom rope and gets quickly caught with a kick to the stomach. The Superstar throws Garvin into the barricade and begins to hammer away.
Woodbridge: And The Superstar turning things around here!
Mann: And folks, we’ll be back after these messages from our sponsors!
Woodbridge: Why are we going to commercial, the match just st-
The following advertisement plays
We fade back into the action with a crowd shot, which stays longer than comfortable on a shot of 40 apathetic fans. As it cuts back to the ring, we see Gabe Garvin deliver a vertical suplex to The Superstar, before going to a pin that convinces nobody of its success.
Mann: And we are back here at Sound Off! Garvin has regained control here!
The Superstar rolls to the corner and forces a momentary break. As the ref tries to restore order, The Superstar throws an overhand shot at Garvin- who blocks it and responds in kind, backing the Superstar back into the corner, and whipping him across the ring. As Superstar bounces off with a thud, Garvin hits the ropes beside him and hits a bulldog. Garvin goes for a cover, which gets a…
ONE
TWO
Kickout!
The Superstar flops into the corner once more, and Garvin is halted from pulling him away by the official. As The Superstar exits the corner, Garvin is right back on top of him, whips him off the ropes, and delivers a back body drop! The Superstar rolls out of the ring once more, but Garvin follows in pursuit. Garvin charges in, but gets caught with a drop-toe hold, and crashes into the announce table.
Mann: Watch out!
Woodbridge: Garvin seeking to capitalize on his newfound momentum here…
Crowd: [Does not care]
The Superstar throws Garvin back into the squared circle, and delivers a club to the back of his head, Followed by stomps and a knee drop. Superstar waits for Garvin to try and get back up, before stomping again, followed by a punch. As Garvin powers back to his feet, The Superstar looks to grab him, but Garvin pulls him in for a belly-to-belly suplex! Superstar shuffles into the corner, followed by Garvin, who eats a boot for his trouble before The Superstar storms out with a lariat. The Superstar looks for a chin lock, but Garvin is too oily, and he slips free. Superstar retaliates for this oily transgression with a fist and applies a headlock to a cornered Garvin.
Mann: And The Superstar getting some offense here, Garvin is in trouble! Can our TV champion save the match?
The Superstar works the headlock in the corner until the ref forces a break, at which juncture The Superstar turns around and throws his fists at Garvin. Following this, The Superstar lifts Garvin to his feet and goes for a whip, but as Garvin hits the other turnbuckle, he lifts his left foot to kick an incoming Superstar! As Garvin looks to capitalize, The Superstar grabs the leg that kicked him and takes Garvin down to the mat. Superstar drops an elbow on Garvin’s knee, and a second elbow, before looking for a knee twist, which Garvin pushes away from.
Mann: And Garvin fends off the Superstar’s onslaught! What a heroic effort by our TV Champion!
Crowd: [awkward silence]
Garvin sells his injured knee for a moment, before using it to pull a charging Superstar down with a drop-toe hold, flip Superstar over, and try to apply a submission, but this time, The Superstar pushes Garvin away! The Superstar delivers an elbow to a staggered Garvin, before delivering a Russian leg sweep, and going for a cover.
ONE
TWO
Kickout!
The Superstar is in disbelief that his leg sweep failed to get the victory, and he pulls Superstar by the arm, before kicking his downed body in the rib. Garvin throws himself off the ground to throw a punch at Superstar’s gut, but as he gets up, he is once again cut off by a clothesline, and a pin attempt.
ONE
TWO
Kickout.
Crowd: [Apathetic, a smattering of boos, and a single portly fan in a Shooting Association shirt attempting to start a “boring” chant]
Woodbridge: The Superstar is unable to get the best of Garvin despite some strong offense here, and the longer this goes on, the more I like the TV Champion’s chances in this match.
Mann: And all the Garvinites in the crowd cheering for their hero to make a comeback!!
Crowd shot of bored audience quickly pans back to the ring, where The Superstar is applying an arm wringer
Mann: And this match of course is presented by our sponsors, over at Mann Corporation!
The Superstar transitions to a half camel clutch, still clutching the arm of Garvin
Mann: Mann Corporation is committed to providing high-quality products to all of our loyal customers! Use code “WiR” at checkout for 3.5% off select items at MannCoStore.com!
The Superstar has transitioned into a standing headlock
Mann: If you buy within the next 7 minutes, all Gabe Garvin merchandise is 10% off! Act fast! And now, back to the action!
Garvin powers out of the headlock and whips The Superstar into a corner. He charges in, and misses, as The Superstar moves out of the way, and attempts to lock in another arm wringer. Garvin tries to power out but fails, and the hold is applied.
Superstar: ASK HIM!
Garvin does not submit, and once again tries to lift himself upwards. Superstar sees this, and shifts so that he is lying down on the back of Garvin, still applying the arm wringer. Garvin winces in agony and reaches for the rope with his free hand. Unable to reach them, Garvin Begins to power himself upwards for the third time, and this one is successful, as he slowly works his way up to his feet, Superstar now trapped in the air in a fireman’s carry. The Superstar pushes himself off as Garvin gets to his feet, and tries to throw a punch. Trying to reclaim the momentum, The Superstar goes for an Irish whip, and looks for a dropkick as Garvin returns, but to no avail! Garvin holds onto the rope, and The Superstar crashes back to the ground.
Mann: And Garvin escaping the hold! Superstar is dazed!
Woodbridge: And this could be the opening the TV Champion needs to regain control of this match! The Superstar is in trouble, as Gabe is Garving up!
Mann: It’s Garvin’ time!
Garvin bounds off the ropes and leaps for a flying clothesline!
Mann: What a maneuver!
Garvin hits the ropes again, and nails a staggered Superstar with another flying clothesline! The Superstar writhes in agony as he tries to pull himself back to a standing base, where Garvin is waiting for him. Garvin bounces off the ropes, and nails a rising Superstar with a shoulder block.
Mann: Vintage Garvin! And he has the upper hand! The fans here on their feet!
Crowd: [Silent, sitting down]
Garvin ascends to the second rope, and as a wounded Superstar ascends once more, he leaps for a double ax handle, but nobody is home! The Superstar looks to capitalize with a DDT, but it gets blocked by Garvin, who fights out, throws Superstar against the ropes, and hits another shoulder block. With The Superstar down, Garvin looks at the crowd, backs against the ropes, and hits a fist drop!
One guy in the crowd Crowd: YEEEAAAH WE FUCKIN LOVE THE FIST DROP YEEEEAAHHH
Crowd: WOOO!! GAR-VIN! GAR-VIN!
Woodbridge: And the people exploding for Garvin’s fist drop! (?)
Garvin looks almost surprised at the suddenly raucous crowd, and motions for his finishing maneuver! As soon as he indicates he isn’t going for another fist drop, the crowd dies and goes back to their silence. Superstar stumbles to his feet, gets his arm trapped, and’s he’s lifted into the air, before being slammed down with a Pump Handle Slam! Garvin goes into the cover…
ONE
TWO
THREE!
DING DING DING!!
Mann: And Gabe Garvin retains!
Woodbridge: His victory was all but Garunteed
Babaganouh: And here is your winner, at a time of Seven minutes and Forty-Five seconds… Garunteed Gaaaaaabeeeeee Gaaaaarviiiin!!
Crowd [Scant Murmors]
Mann: And tonight we have seen a truly memorable title defense from our heroic TV Champion, Gabe Garvin. And to watch all of Garvin’s matches from the comfort of your home, go to WWW dot Wrestle Is Reddit dot com slash Garvin for all the latest updates! And a special thanks to our sponsor for this show, JDate!
The monitor shows Dexter Flux on screen, who immediately gets a crowd pop 10x louder than anything of the past 7:45
Crowd: FLUX! FLUX! FLUX! WE LOVE FLUX!
Flux: I'm not… I'm not Jewish, but that's really not what JDate is about. It's about like… dating. JDate is what JDate is. That's what it is. I'm Dexter Flux. I'm the President of the United States. Thank you for your service.
The monitor cuts back to the crowd going bananas for Flux. A guy is screaming and beating the shit out of the old woman sitting next to him because he loves Dexter Flux so much.
Mann: And you too can be just like these happy people if you buy a Gabe Garvin T-Shirt, now 4% off at select TJ Maxx stores near you!
Garvin holds up his title on the apron while the crowd cheer for Flux, and a photographer gets a photo of the victorious champion in front of a cheering crowd. As Garvin gets down from Bret’s rope, the camera cuts to…
Something else. It's shot differently, worse cameras that pan around instead of cut. No commentary. No acknowledgment. It's a documentary shoved in the middle of a wrestling show.
We're in a church basement, or a community gym, or something like that, with hardwood floors and dim, white light pouring in through windows near the top of the room. There's a table next to the door with a coffee machine and paper cups and a door to the outside propped open, so people can step out to smoke. A voice speaks up.
Teddy (O.S.): I don't think I've ever been a good person.
We move to the middle of the room. There's a circle of people sitting in chairs, looking at one whose face is obscured but whose voice most WiR diehards recognize. The circle's watching him carefully, skeptically. A couple of them glance at the camera as it moves by, which seems like an outsider - a perverse interloper. Some of them are recognizable, heels from all over the wrestling scene. Most of them seem miserable to be here, unrepentant. One figure, dressed up, seems more warm in his posture, but we don't see his face either.
Teddy (O.S.): I don't think I've ever really tried, I mean. I've been a good guy, for a little bit. Here and there. But I wasn't who I was. I was somebody trying to get cheered, trying to make sure they loved me. And when they didn't, I just… I snapped.
Finally, we see him, the object of their attentions. He is sitting in a chair, dressed down in a t-shirt, paper cup of coffee by his feet. Teddy Coronado. There's no charisma to the way he speaks. He was a preacher once, electrifying, manic, an embodiment of television airwaves. Now, he's mumbling. The camera zooms in on his face, as he tried to put together the next few words, shaking his head. The words seem ridiculous to say and maybe that's because they're wrestling words and this man - sitting here, in the basement - does not seem to be a wrestler.
Teddy: I'm Teddy Coronado and… Sorry. I'm Teddy and I'm a heel.
Others (all together): Hi, Teddy.
He cringes at them.
Teddy: I've been…
He stops, sucking on his tongue. It's the noise of a crowd, again.
Teddy: I'm sorry, I don't think I can do this.
Spence (O.S.): It's alright.
The camera pans over to a much more shocking face, Spence Cooper, dressed like a normal person, with a buttoned-up v-neck, instead of his usual attire as one half of the Golden State Stars, wearing mesh shirts and whatever nonsense is left. The rest of the group turns to him with a sort of reverence that seems wholly unfitting for him.
Spence: This is hard stuff, Teddy, alright - this is hard stuff, everybody. I mean, when I was a member of the Golden State Stars-
Chaz (O.S): GOLDEN! STATE! ST-
Spence: Chaz.
We whip pan to Chaz Levine, who is also there. He is dressed less like a normal person.
Chaz: Sorry, bro, still working on it.
Spence: We all have hiccups, is what I was saying. This is hard work. That's why not everybody does it. But it's good work. You've been here for a long time, right?
He's staring at the ground as he said it, as if ashamed.
Teddy: Six months.
Spence: Six months and it's still hard. That should show to everyone else here that even the best of us You can do it, Teddy. You can say it.
Teddy takes a breath, tries to put it together. After a few seconds, he looks back up. And it's almost there. That spark, that fire in his eyes.
Teddy: I've… been thinking about things, recently. I've been thinking about my time as a wrestler. I've done a lot of things in this business - and I'm not bragging about that, but I'm saying it because I need to say it. I was the best guy on the mic for a long time. I was good in the ring, too. I beat some of the best people in that company and sometimes I even did it clean.
There's a chuckle at that, in the room, and he gives a rueful smile, for a second, looking back on everything. Then it fades. So does the light in his eyes. Teddy looks at his feet, again, but the rest of them are listening, now. Most of them hate this place, but they listen
Teddy: I lied, I cheated, I stole. I used every dirty fucking trick in the book - you can look. My granddad wrote it. I used weapons. I hired my own ref. I made my own matches. I attacked people from behind the scenes. I once wrestled with a cardboard cut-out, so I could move its torn-off foot under the bottom rope to get a break.
He's looking up, now, and the fire isn't in his eyes, but it's in his words.
Teddy: I gave up everything for that title, for those accolades, for those year-end awards, for my hand raised up at the end of the night. I've got a claim to being the best champion in that company's history. I went into this business looking for all of that. I said to myself that I'd be different than my family, from my great-grandfather, from my grandfather, from my…
He stops. He leaves the final word unsaid.
Teddy: But that's not what I'm saying. I had the chance to change my name. I had a shitty start, but I had my own agency. What I did was my own. And by the end, I gave up that. I gave up my decency, my integrity, my dedication to this art, I gave up everything I have - and I don't have anything to show for it.
There's a crippling silence, for a few moments, the kind of silence you only notice when everything felt so loud before it.
Teddy: I don't talk to any of the roster I was a part of. My name doesn't get mentioned in promos. The fans - the fans that used to jeer my name, who serenaded me after I was forced out of that company - they don't think about me. I gave up everything I ever had and I don't…
He takes a shallow breath, emotional, seeming to hold back tears as he rubs his temples. A man offers him a tissue box but he waves it aside. For as much pride as he has managed to put aside, he can't allow himself to cry in front of the only people he's ever been genuine to.
Teddy: I got an offer, recently. You guys know about it.
Teddy half-heartedly gestures at the camera and a couple of them glance back at it. Chaz, on the edge of frame, flexes a little bit when reminded a camera is watching him.
Teddy: I got an offer to come back to WiR. They're coming back, apparently, again. They've offered me a couple times, over the years, and I almost took it. I even said I would, once, before. Back when I still had the bookstore. And then I started training and I became what I was, again, and I gave up the bookstore, and I was so fucked up I couldn't even make it to the show, because I realized, in that ring…
He pauses and they're all listening. He hates that, because he knows why they're listening and why he's talking. Because the fire, suddenly, is there. It's there in his eyes. It's there in his voice. It's there in the way he sits in that chair, the knotting his hands do as he talks, but most of all it's there in the crowd, listening with rapt attention.
Teddy: There's the Teddy Coronado with the money, with the television show, with the betrayal and the burials, even the Teddy who dressed up like a dentist and said he hated bullies. They say I've been a lot of people, had a lot of gimmicks, but the trick is they're all the same one. They're all somebody who needs to have the whole world know that they're the best. But they're all masks. Facades. And when I got into that ring, lit by halogen lights, no one in the audience, no one facing me in that ring, no one there but me, I realized the truth.
The fire in his voice has burned away and, now, he speaks in ashes: harsh, more serious than he's ever been, and more painful. He is being true.
Teddy: I don't know what's beneath those masks. I don't. A part of me is terrified that there isn't anything there. That the shit I've done, to other people, to the industry as a whole, that's who I am. I've tried to find out who it is, out here. I tried to open a bookstore, I tried to become a trainer, I tried to get as far away from that ring as possible.
He stops, again. The crowd is fully drawn in, now, and a furrowed brow of concern on Spence's face breaks through the mask of supportiveness.
Teddy: But, when I got that email, that offer… I think I realized that there's only one way for me to figure that out-
Spence: Teddy…
Teddy turns his eyes to Spence, but there's a weariness to his eyes. He's already made up his mind. He made it up before he even entered this room, before he even entered the cameras in, before Spence even says the thing he knows he's about to say.
Spence: Teddy, I know what you're about to say. And I want to tell you in front of the group, because I know you don't want there to be secrets here. I've been lured that way. We all have, but you have to know that there is a risk to what you're about to say. Some people can recover, can re-enter that ring, Teddy, but some people can't.
There is a warmth in Spence's eyes that make you realize that this is not the same man that was a Golden State Star. Not anymore. But he knows that he can't change his mind.
Spence: This is in your hands, Teddy. It always is.
Teddy sits there, genuinely considering the words and then he smiles. Knows how absurd what he's about to say is. And then he speaks, just as resolute as before. No. More so.
Teddy: I know. But I hear it in me. I hear the roar of the crowd, with me or against me. I hear my opponent's music hit. I hear the bending of the mat, the straining of the ropes, the fight. I know that who I was in there was a monster. But I know that, if there's something of me left, beneath all of this, it's in there.
He stands up.
Teddy: This is what I'm choosing to do, Spence. I'm sorry.
Teddy walks out of the circle, across the hardwood floor, and steps out the door. The camera doesn't follow.
Javier (O.S.): Ladies and gentlemen, the Independent Champion, Diiiiiiiiick Dover!
We cut back to Knott's Berry Farm, where the crowd reacts in a mixed fashion to the announcement of Dick Dover. Prisoner of Society hits, and Dick Dover walks through the curtain with the Independent Championship over his shoulder.
Mann: The Independent Champion enters the building, he says he has an announcement to make.
Woodbridge: That’s right, Shay. We don’t know what it’s going to be, but when Dover walked into the venue this afternoon, he insisted on addressing the crowd.
Dover grabs a mic from Maurice Chondon ringside, then walks up the stairs, wipes his feet on the apron, and enters the ring. He then turns to face the crowd.
Dover: I know you all have a lot of thoughts about me, but let’s get one thing clear right now. There’s been a lot of time gone by since you last saw me. But don’t get me wrong, one thing wouldn’t have changed no matter how long we’ve been apart. I am still your Independent Champion.
Crowd: mix of boos and applause
Dover: But there have been changes. Changes in the world and changes with myself, and it’s time for me to share with you all some changes I’ve made. When WiR went on hiatus i-
Nitroglycerin hits as Joey McCarty storms out from behind the curtain holding a mic.
Crowd: Boooooooooo
McCarty: No no no no no no fuck this shit. I know what this is. I’m not stupid.
McCarty stomps down to the ring.
McCarty: Dick, you’ve talked all this talk about being a fighting champion, but I know a retirement announcement when I see one.
McCarty slides into the ring and pops up to his feet, pacing around Dover.
McCarty: and you must be out of your mind to think you can walk out of here title held high, to a cheering crowd, and go out as champion. You’re out of your goddamn mind.
Dover walks towards McCarty.
Dover: You don’t even-
McCarty: Save it, honestly. I came into this business as an outsider, and I was given the crash course. I don’t know where you learned this, it might have been in dogwater Florida, but it certainly wasn’t in Toronto.
Dover: Joey, you’ll shut the hell up if you know what’s good for you.
McCarty: What I was taught is that you always go out on your back. If you won’t do that, then I’ll do that for you.
Dover goes to talk, but McCarty slaps him.
McCarty: So what you’re going to do right now, is lie down, stare at the lights, and you can end your career the way you’re supposed to, and watch me coronate myself as a triple crown champion.
Dover: Interesting point Joey, counterpoint:
Dover hits McCarty with a spinning back elbow, sending him to the mat!
Dover: You don’t tell me what to fucking do. So here’s what we’re actually going to do, I’m going to show these people I am a fighting champion, we’re going to get a ref out here, and I’m going to whoop your ass
Crowd: YAYYYYY
Mann: HOLD ON A SECOND, DOVER. YOU DON’T GET TO PROMISE PEOPLE MATCHES, I MAKE THE MATCHES but that is a good idea so lets get a ref out here BECAUSE I SAID SO.
Crowd (a little more confused): YAYYY
Jeff Boone sprints out from backstage at full speed and dives headfirst under the rope into the ring.
Boone: ALRIGHTWEGOTAREGULARCHAMPIONSHIPMATCHONEFALLLET’SKEEPITCLEANBOYSNOCLOSEDKNUCKLESONPUNCHESNOHAIRPULLINGIWON’THAVEANYNONSENSEINTHISRINGYOUHEREMEOKRINGTHEBELL
The bell rings, leaving both men a little stunned at how quickly this match has started. Joey moves into action first, lurching for Dover, arms outstretched in a clear indication that Joey wants to initiate a classic “Test of Strength.” Dick Dover knocks away the hands and shoots for a double-leg takedown, sending Joey sprawling to the mat.
Mann: Wow, an incredibly technical start for Dover. Sometimes I think we forget home in depth his wrestling knowhow is.
Dick Dover is slowly overpowering Joey from underneath, when a glint shines in the Canadian’s eyes. A brutal knee to the face erupts from McCarty, slamming into Dover’s nose. Dover steps back, covering his damaged face. Blood begins to drip onto the mat.
Woodbridge: Wow, Dover is absolutely busted up!
Paisner: That’s the opportunistic streak of McCarty showing. Give him an inch, he’ll take a mile and sell you back the inch for triple it’s market value.
Dover shakes his head, trying to clear up the fog inflicted from Joey’s move. Before he gets a chance to recover, Joey is behind him, snaking his arms up to lock Dover in a full nelson. Dover is in a precarious position, but he digs his fingers into Joey’s eyes, cause the hold to release.
Woodbridge: A savvy veteran move, but is it legal?
Mann: Absolutely not. It seems like this ref is going to let them play on, for some reason. Very hands off.
Woodbridge: When you’ve got two fighters who will do whatever it takes to win, sometimes it’s best to just let them go at it. Anything less than that could give the other an unfair advantage.
Dover throws a couple quick strikes to McCarty’s midsection. Joey winces and bends over, giving Dick the opportunity to hit him with a Leg Drop Bulldog that pounds Joey into the mat!
Crowd: WOOOOAH!
Dover capitalizes on McCarty’s grounded position, dropping some falling elbows into the fallen man. But the third elbow doesn’t land cleanly, given Joey the opportunity to flip over and nail another knee into Dover, this time right on the side of his head.
Mann: Hard to imagine these headshots won’t have an effect on Dover if this match goes long.
A quick leap to his feet, and Joey finally has the position he wanted in the beginning, locking up Dover in a contested full collar tie. He gains the upper hand, and begins controlling Dover towards the corner. A grasp of Dover’s wounded head, and then suddenly McCarty is rubbing Dover’s face all over the ringpost!
Crowd: OOOF
But Dover isn’t one to take something like this without fighting back. A wild leg flail nails McCarty right in the gonads, sending him backwards in pain. The ref looks to step in, but then decides not to as Dover runs towards his and lands an uppercut into lariat combo that sends Joey back down to the ground. Dover attempts a cover!
1!
No!
Joey kicks out with relative ease, prompting Dover to consider more violence towards the grounded wrestler.
Mann: What could this devilish man be considering next?
Dover sits on McCarty.
Woodbridge: A chair!
A quick pivot from Dover, and suddenly Joey is up in the air, face in anguish from the inverted surfboard stretch.
Woodbridge: A painful chair!
Suddenly, a voice rings out from the crowd.
Random Fan: DOVER IS STILL LAME!
Dover, mildly irritated by the fan, releases the hold on Joey, sending the stretched out man to the mat. He gets up and aggressively points to the crowd in the direction of the mysterious fan.
Dover: Hey Asshole! You wanna see lame? I’ll show you lame!
Dover grabs Joey’s hair and becomes slamming punches into the downed man’s face.
Crowd: LAME DOVER LAME DOVER LAME DOVER
A frustrated Dover now releases the hold and turns his back on Joey, heading over to the ringpost. He begins to remove the cover. At this point, blood has completely covered his chest. Joey stirs and stands, sneaking up to behind Dover. A quick snatch and Joey has surprise rolled up Dover for a pin!
1!
2!
No!
Dover kicks out and gets back to his feet, but Joey is quicker and grabs Dover’s arm for an irish whip, sending him into the exposed ring post!* The hard metal digs into the small of Dover’s back and he reels in pain, back into Joey who snags his wrist, twisting it into a hold. Dover is up in the air and slammed back onto his neck as Joey lands a modified Fisherman Driver on the champion!
Crowd: OOOOOHHHHH!!!!
It’s Joey’s turn to batter the grounded Dover, repeatedly sending soccer kicks into his skull. The dull sound of bone against flesh carries through the arena in a way that makes most attendees uncomfortable. Joey lifts Dover to his feet, intending to whip him into the exposed ring post again, but Dover has seen this before. He counters with a reversal, sending McCarty into the ropes, McCarty rebounds and Dover SLAMS him into the mat with a teeth-rattling spinebuster!
Crowd: YAYYYYY
Mann: I’m not sure if Dover’s winning the crowd over or if they just enjoy seeing Joey get hurt, either way, Dover is red-hot!
Dover grabs McCarty, and goes into the set up for his Doverleaf! But before he can, a small figure pops up onto the apron.
Woodbridge: WOAH, WHAT IS SHE DOING HERE?!
Gigi appears holding a spray bottle and she sprays a fine clear mist right into Dover’s eyes and cackles maniacally!
Mann: What’s this?! It's Gigi! And she’s just assaulted Dover with some sort of liquid!
Dover drops McCarty and grabs at his eyes. Kaitlyn Casey Jones appears from the crowd, holding a sign that says “GAMER GIRL BATHWATER $279.69”, she hops the barricade and grabs a mic, laughing with Gigi. Jones pulls a card out of her pocket and starts reading it.
KCJ: Hey faaaans, if you’re looking to order some of the water that our favorite e-girl actually bathes in, it’s up on the website right now! Guaranteed to have touched Gigi’s skin, go to www.gigigamergirlgush.pizza for more details. Fuck you, Dick!”
Gigi: I wrote that last part.
McCarty clambers to his feet, confused. He notices Dover staggering, and launches himself into the air, connecting with a superman punch to the back of Dover’s skull.
Crowd: BOOOOOOOOOO
Mann: BERTUZZI! DOVER’S OUT COLD
Woodbridge: I can’t believe this, Dover’s had the title stolen from him!
McCarty scrambles to cover Dover.
1
2
3-NO
Crowd: WOAAAAAH YAYYY
Mann: Dover kicked out!
Woodbridge: How!?!?
McCarty stumbles to the corner in disbelief, and collapses into a seated position onto the bottom turnbuckle, the crowd swells, and McCarty’s confounded expression turns to disbelief and then to anger, he pops to his feet and stomps towards Dover.
Woodbridge: What do either of these men have left in the bag?!
McCarty lifts Dover to his feet, cussing him out as he does. McCarty attempts his Bus Driver Uppercut, but Dover springs to life and catches him, and PLANTS him with a kneeling jawbreaker!
Mann: Cliffs of Dover!
Woodbridge: From the last of his energy!
Mann: Cover!
1
2
3
DING DING DING
Crowd: YAYYYYY!
Mann: Dover is still Independent Champion!
Before Javier can make the announcement, Gigi and KCJ hit the ring and attack Dover, as McCarty rolls out of the ring, jumping him and punching and kicking Dover while he’s down.
Crowd: BOOOOOOOO
Woodbridge: What the hell is this?!
Mann: Gigi still thinks she’s owed a shot at the Independent Championship, she must have made some sort of deal with McCarty to get her match!
Woodbridge: And now that her plan is up in smoke, she’s taking it out on Dover!
Gigi and KCJ continue their assault, KCJ picks up the mic and is about to speak, but before she can, Adam Raised A Cain plays.
Crowd: YAYYYYYYYY
Woodbridge: Someone else with unfinished business, Mark Dutch!
Mark Dutch runs out, Joey McCarty is standing on the ramp, and Dutch shoulder checks him out of the way! Dutch then slides into the ring, and pulls KCJ off of Dover and out of the ring! Gigi scrambles out of the ring away from Dutch.
Mann: Last time we saw these two, they were at eachothers throats, but now Dutch comes to save Dover? What’s going on?
Woodbridge: Looks like there's still lots of unfinished business around these parts.
Mann: That’s enough of this.
Mann grabs a stick mic and attempts to stand on the commentary table, but it wobbles so he instead stands on his chair
Mann: When I brought this company back, it wasn’t for what it was, but what it can become, so I can’t have you three stinking up the joint with old beef, so let’s settle this at the next show. You three for the Independent Title. a brief pause to let that sink in
Crowd: WOOOOOOO
Mann sits back down with a grin on his face.
Mann: I like this “making matches live” thing
Woodbridge: Could stand to work on your crowd work though.
Mann: More WiR action, after this!
Dover, Dutch and Gigi staring eachother down as we fade out to commercial.

[←Chapter 51] [Cover Art] [My Links] [Index] [Discord] [Subreddit] [Chapter 53→]
Sorore’s current state could best be described as ‘alarmed’ with considerable regret for good measure. She had entrusted the mage with the knife that she had made, and found it had gone to disaster in short order.
Of course, no such rational analysis came through her mind as she lay on the floor of the church. The shaking and rattling had been so bad her mind had mostly been preoccupied by the grim vision of crushing stones. When the heat and quake had finally abated, she found herself among frightened children and shattered glass. Surprisingly, most of the injuries were fairly minor, given the immensity of what had just happened but still, people glanced up at the warped ceiling with fear.
People slowly staggered to their feet, Niche, having been thrown some ways away, joining them. Outside, there were still screams and the clash of battle, but it seemed smaller than before. Frare took her by the arm, looking around and trying to blink away the dizziness that had taken him to the ground. He began to tug her in the direction of the front door, much to her confusion.
“Not there!” she gasped, “why would we go out there?”
“That’s where…” he said, coughing violently, “that’s where she- where she is.”
“Who? What do you mean?”
“Aya went out, during the chaos,” he said, “Lillian too.”
“We can’t help them now,” she insisted, “did you hit your head? Think about what’s out there Frare! Who knows what the mage conjured up?”
“Only one way to find out,” he said, before peeling away from her and taking off down the centre aisle.
Sorore took one step forward to follow him, yet fear and disorientation held her back from taking another. It wasn’t long however before Frare returned, shaking his head.
“I don’t know what happened out there, it’s like…” he said, eyes crossed in confusion, “I dunno how to describe it. But she’s not out there, at least I don’t think she is.”
“Where else could she have gone?” cried Sorore.
“I don’t know,” said Frare, a little indignant, “I was knocked down. I could barely see.”
“Well, we need to find her,” said Sorore, gesturing at the church to drive the point home.
She looked around the church, trying to figure out where the girl might’ve gone.
“She couldn’t have gone out the window, they’re far too narrow, even for her,” she said, “and you just said she wasn’t anywhere near the front, so she must either be in the hospice or the roof.”
Frare was already moving behind her to examine what remained of the overturned beds and curtains. Many of the patients had been returned with much groans and protest to a prone position, but none of them had a young, dark haired girl attending. In under two minutes, it was clear that Aya was not in the alcove that housed the wounded.
Before the twins could make it to the side door, Niche managed to find them. He was covered with dust, and a significant cut on his head lent a stream of blood to coat his brow.
“What happened?” he said, words coming rather slowly.
“Aya’s gone,” said Sorore, moving towards the door without stopping to greet him.
“What?!” the formerly fuzzy quality of his eyes exploding with anxiety, “where?!”
“Not outside. I checked. Not in the hospice either,” said Frare.
His muddled eyes suddenly flashed bright.
“You did what?!” Niche spat, “you went outside?! How long have I been- don’t ever do that again. You could’ve been attacked! You could’ve been killed! How many close calls do you need before you realise that this is not some childish game?!”
Sorore drew back - Niche could get emotional at times, especially when he talked about duty, especially in the context of his faith. Genuine anger was rare, and a full-on fury like the one he was currently displaying was new. Before he could see much more however, Lillian drew near, having returned from the outside with a stony expression.
“Where is she?” she said, with a grim calm that spoke of devastating consequences should the information be withheld.
“She’s not outside,” repeated Frare, with a slight tremor to his voice, “not with the patients, so she must’ve gone to the catacombs.”
“Or the roof,” added Sorore quickly.
Lillian took off without a word, striding quickly towards the side door and throwing it open. Niche, stumbling a little, followed behind, gesturing for the two of them to follow. They did as much as they could with their shorter length, barely managing to keep their guardians in sight up the stairs.
The church roof was now plain in view, with the fog blowing away to reveal its ruined slates. The cloud banks were now breaking up over the distant trees and village outskirts. They could see the moon light illuminating the fighting below. To her surprise, it looked as if there were far, far less creatures than before.
Perhaps taking that as some token of good fortune, Lillian started forwards. At the far end of the roof, knelt Aya by a crumpled mass of black cloth. Sorore started as she recognized the uniform of the mage and the sleeping cat spirit curled in his lap. The sound of the wind whistling through the trees and over the roof was the only thing to break the silence.
Either the mage was in an exhausted stupor after doing… whatever it is he had done, or perhaps the process had killed him, for he lay motionless and without voice.
Aya at this point had noticed Lillian walking towards her, and perhaps unconsciously took a few steps back. The older woman grabbed at the girl’s wrist, eliciting a gasp from Aya.
“Do I need to put chains on you?” Lillian said without humour, “you were supposed to stay in the church, where it was safe.”
“It’s safe now,” Aya protested,” look, look out there!”
She swept her arm across the rest of the valley and the fighting below. Lillian’s brows were nit, her face crushed in anger, but she did gaze out toward the scene. Still, whatever she found there did little to quell her fury, and she did not release Aya.
The twins took the opportunity to make their way to the far wall and peer over the crenelations. The view yielded much the same as before, and indeed, it seemed like the soldiers were winning handedly. Sorore and Frare watched as the remaining flailing horrors were pinned to the ground with spear and stick, and hacked to death by cold steel. In addition, Sorore realised that the cold fear that had struck her to the core was now abated almost entirely.
“He did that,” she said, “I saw it, I know it. You did too, didn’t you? You were outside Lillian, you saw the fire. It killed the monsters, you saw it. He saved us.”
“It did not save us,” Lillian hissed, “look again, young lady. Do you think all the corpses down there are of the monsters?”
She pointed with her gauntlet down below, where great black marks had been gouged in the hillside. Sorore could make out the twisted remains of bodies, some horribly deformed, some still adorned in armour and clutching weapons. Her stomach turned, and Aya’s expression faltered as she stuttered a half-hearted response.
“We were lucky it didn’t burn down the church instead. Maybe it couldn’t control it, maybe it ran out of power before it could do so. All that I know is that we cannot trust it.”
“He has a name, Lillian,” Aya said, starring the paladin in the eyes.
With a sound of disgust, Lillian handed her over to Niche’s grip, and raised her sword.
“Stop!” Aya gasped, her face blanching as she realised what the paladin was about to do.
“This thing is dangerous, and so is this creature that wears the skin of an animal,” she said, “I will not tolerate his presence, for your safety and ours. Not only that, he’s infected you with corrupt ideas. Unacceptable.”
Sorore felt her breath still as she looked at the glinting edge of the blade. As much as she had her doubts about Efrain, as much as the words of Lillian comported with church teaching, she still had misgivings. The man had attempted to help them, perhaps out of self interest maybe, but so did merchants. Her father was a merchant, and so were many of her family and friends back in Erratz. And it didn’t seem right, to strike this man down when he was so obviously incapacitated.
She began to try and articulate these thoughts, to provide some defence, perhaps to seek some kind of alternative to execution. Lillian was in no mood to hear, however, and prepared a thrust to the heart of the black cloth. Then Frare was there, oh, so brave brother, stepping in between the mage and the paladin.
“No,” he said, planting his feet on the ground and squaring his shoulders, “you’re going to kill someone who isn’t even an enemy, and is unconscious besides?”
Lillian did bring the sword down in response, but only to grab his shoulder, and send him stumbling down the slope of the roof.
“He’s right,” said Sorore, seizing upon the moment, “what about your honour?”
“My task is to keep you safe,” said Lillian, “honour means nothing if it compromises my mission.”
The sword had reached the height of its arc, Sorore trying to think of any excuse to stay the blade. Aya pulled in breath and screamed at the paladin to stop. Frare peeled himself off from the slates and sprinted to catch the blade.
The thing that ultimately ended up stopping it, however, was no action from the children. Through the hills and village, came the sound of a long horn blast. Lillian, temporarily distracted from her grim task, looked out to the west. In the distance was a line of burning torches and glinting steel spears. Her frown deepened, the sword edge touching the roof as she craned her neck. With a final dawn of realisation in her eyes, her jaw tightened as she spoke words through clenched teeth.
“Two days,” she grunted in disgust, “the liar.”
All eyes on the roof of the church turned towards the new column of troops. Frare managed to put himself squarely before the paladin before her attention turned back to the mage at her feet.
“It needs to be done,” said Lillian, frustration audible in her voice, “you can either get out of the way, or I can move you. You do not have a say in this.”
Frare didn’t reply, only raised his fist and bent his knees, ready to spring or defend, whatever came first. Lillian reached out with her gauntlet, fully prepared to repeat the previous engagement. As another horn blast echoed off the mountains, Sorore finally found her answer in the minutiae of church hierarchy.
“Neither do you, Lillian,” she said, stumbling over her words in her haste, “nor Niche. You’re beneath the rank of commander, you’re not a full light-lord. Therefore, if you execute the mage, who is his charge, then you will have committed insubordination. He could use that as a pretext to… do all sorts of things.”
In truth, Sorore had very little idea of what kinds of punishments there were for insubordination, but they were probably quite nasty.
It seemed that assumption was correct, or at least enough to stay her blade for a moment longer. Lillian’s expression was one of confusion bordering on disbelief that Sorore had pulled rank on her. When pain and realisation came into her eyes, Sorore knew that she’d hit the mark.
The riders from the western mountains began to ride up the hill, gaining speed and lowering spears. The creatures outside the blackstone wall, no longer as numerous as they once were, twisted and screamed at the new opponents. The resulting clash was muffled by distance, but it was enough to tell Lillian that her time was up.
“Lillian, please,” said Sorore, “mage or no, I don’t think he’s evil. You don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to trust him. Let the commander choose what to do with him. Besides, he’s not of any harm right now, right?”
All three children nodded emphatically in agreement.
Lillian’s face was stricken, looking back and forth between the fresh host, and the party of five on the rooftop. Finally, her sword point lowered all the way to the roof, as she let out a heavy sigh.
“Are you serious?” said Niche, “we’ll never get a better chance.”
“We need…” she said, begrudging every word, “what do you want me to say, Niche? The man’s a threat, yes. He’s also unconscious. He might well be the commander’s charge, and he… he hasn’t harmed the children yet. Not directly. What am I supposed to- I don’t know what to do.”
The admission stunned Niche, enough to let Aya wriggle out of his grasp and run forward. She crouched by the body of the fallen mage, turning back to look with unbridled defiance at the paladins. Lillian’s shoulders sank and she passed a hand over her eyes, covering them in shadow.
“Niche…” she said, exhausted, “just… just take the children down.”
Niche’s face blurred between anger, disbelief, stolid determination, before finally relenting to his sister-in-arm’s request.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” she said, drawing herself up, “I will not strike the mage, you have my word. But you are all going down into the church, and you are going to stay there, until we give you leave to go. Do you understand?”
Even Frare nodded, recognizing the concession made, but still backed by a steely undercurrent.
All three of them were led away by Niche, whose face had settled into an inscrutable mask. The last thing Sorore saw of Lillian before passing the doorway was her sheathing her blade. A couple of steps down, Sorore flinched at a distant yell of frustration. When Lillian joined them in the main hall of the church, none elected to comment on the bloody knuckles she held in her other hand.
The rest was almost routine, in an odd kind of way. The defenders, invigorated by the sudden reinforcement, began to hoot and holler as the last creatures were butchered. Ladders were thrown over the wall, make-shift, but well made enough to support the weight of armoured knights clambering up.
At the head of the company, fully dressed in gleaming armour, with the brass shoulder plate of command, Naia removed his helm. His dark hair shone with sweat, which he wiped from his forehead using a bare hand. The contingent came into the church, where Damafelce and several of the captains rushed forward to greet him. As the bodies of the slain were collected and laid out in the church grounds, villagers and soldiers alike began to crowd around the commander.
“You all did well,” he said, raising his voice, “and I must apologise for arriving late.”
His soldiers gave wry smiles in response, knowing that he’d ridden his troops as hard as he could. The smile Naia offered in response was stretched if knowing, Sorore noticing the bags under his eyes.
“Well then, ladies and gentlemen of Albion. You have carried yourselves with great dignity with bravery to match. Your homes still stand today because of it, and now you have the chance to return. I must confer with my captains.”
With that, the vast majority of villagers began to filter out toward the town, speaking words of praise and thanks as they did so. The paladins stood with characteristic dark expressions, perhaps anticipating another conflict in the near future. Damafelce gave a clipped report, mostly losses and a broad overview of how the battle had been resolved. Three dozen villagers, half that many knights, a significant blow to their force.
“I expected worse when I saw the fog,” he said, “your performance was exemplary.”
The captains nodded, a handful offering claps on the back to the Hebeenian knight. For a moment, Sorore thought that the great calamity brought by the mage might go impossibly unmentioned.
“Well, there is one person here that deserves more credit, I think,” she said, grown sheepish.
“Oh really?” Naia said, one eyebrow raised, “and where might he be, then?”
“Commander,” said Lillian, stepping into the circle, “we need to have a word with you. Now.”
At her glare, the rest of the villagers made excuses and scampered away, while the captains traded unfavourable looks at the pair.
“Ah,” said Naia, “I see we have quite the story to tell. Damafelce, you stay, the rest of you are dismissed to see to clean up and recover, as best you can. The knights of the Alonshaze will work with you to see this done. There will be a morning brief later.”
“Now,” he continued, after seeing them off, “you obviously have something that needs to be said. Out with it.”
Damafelce issued another report, of the mage’s project over the last few days. With the additions of Sorore’s lessons, and their experience down in the crypt, the picture became clearer. When Damafelce described how the battle came to a surprising and fiery end, Naia held up his hand.
“Well,” he said, eyes glittering with what looked like amusement, “he was certainly not lying about his power being dampened.”
“That’s all you have to take from this?” said an aghast Lillian.
“Oh, I perfectly understand your complaints,” he said, “you believe he’s a threat to the children. I would argue that his actions prove otherwise, at least so long as we hold his self-interest. Besides, any of us could harm the children if we were so inclined, that’s not unique.”
“Commander, you sound as if you’re suggesting we overlook this,” said Lillian, her eyes narrowing.
“Yes. Not forgetting, mind you. But ignoring it for the time being, anyhow,” he said.
“Absolutely not,” she said, “I will not let you-”
“You are not in the position to be making demands, paladin,” said Naia, with a surprising force.
He went on to explain how he had ridden west and up, past the foothills and into the mountain passes. It didn’t take him long to find the road leading to the mountain fortress of the Alonshaze. What he’d found when he’d finally reached it was dire.
Sorore had remembered the walls and towers of the outer wall, the monastery-style church and its library, and the keep, half-carved into the face of a sheer escarpment. She could not believe the commander’s account of its ruin, how the gate had been sundered, how the outerwall largely lay in rubble overflowing into the pass it guarded.
“What’s more,” he continued, “Ryzea is missing, whether dead, or gone on some hunt, none are sure, not even the other commanders.”
Lillian’s face fell at the news, and Sorore felt her heart ache in her chest. She’d only known the massive man with snow white locks for a short time. He’d been blunt, some would say almost crude, but his refreshing honesty and wisdom of ages had charmed her. What’s more, he’d seemed immovable, unshakable, due to his harsh experience and his physical bulk. And now he was dead? That was difficult to conceptualise, let alone believe.
“Half the knights rode to our aid, the others stayed behind to salvage and secure what they could,” Naia continued, “some will continue on to reinforce us on our way to Angorrah, a way of which I will choose.”
He sighed, and shook his head as he looked the two paladins dead in their faces.
“I have been lax over enforcing my rank, because, firstly, I respect the light lords a great deal, and secondly, I believed it was best for order. But there comes a point where I must remind you it was I who was chosen to supervise this mission. Lady Aya’s coming has been a surprise to us all, and complicated things, but that does not change who gives the orders. The next time I have to bring this up, it will be a formal reprimand. Do you understand?
Lillian’s face had gone from white to shame-filled red, though she said nothing. The air was thick with barely repressed outrage, held back by the presence of technical correctness, and two dozen knights standing behind their commander.
“Then,” Lillian said, forcing her voice to be calm, “what of the mage?”
“You will leave him to me,” said Naia, smiling a thin, humourless smile.
[←Chapter 51] [Cover Art] [My Links] [Index] [Discord] [Subreddit] [Chapter 53→]

Greetings yall,
I got a problem with a Remington 550-1 I just inherited from my grandfather. It was in working order when I got it, but was extremely dirty. I took the screw out from the stock, unscrewed the spring on the back, removed the bolt and pin and gave everything a wipe and lube. Now however, when reassembled, I am unable to rack the slide back. It moves a tiny bit, but then gets stuck on something it seems.
I did look at some videos, but the only related thing I thought it could be was something relating to the sear pin/spring, but I didn't touch that screw or those mechanics at all. Does anyone have any advice they could offer on this matter? Thanks

Greetings yall,
I got a problem with a Remington 550-1 I just inherited from my grandfather. It was in working order when I got it, but was extremely dirty. I took the screw out from the stock, unscrewed the spring on the back, removed the bolt and pin and gave everything a wipe and lube. Now however, when reassembled, I am unable to rack the slide back. It moves a tiny bit, but then gets stuck on something it seems.
I did look at some videos, but the only related thing I thought it could be was something relating to the sear pin/spring, but I didn't touch that screw or those mechanics at all. Does anyone have any advice they could offer on this matter? Thanks

Post them here. List your platform and region if possible.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/main-thread-playstation-no-license-too-many-requests/23638/29

Devs are looking into this as the issue’s more widespread than anticipated. If I hear anything else back from them I’ll let you know, but for now just keep trying every 15 minutes or so and it should self-resolve with no further effort on your end.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/invalid-license-issues-on-playstation-consoles/23686

We are seeing reports regarding PlayStation users experiencing Invalid License errors. The team is looking into this right now and will update once we have more information.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/pc-unable-to-log-in-with-digital-deluxe-or-ultimate-edition-early-access-info-here/23617

Hey all!
We’ve gotten some reports that the Battle.net Application isn’t updating correctly with Early Access status. If this applies to you, try the following.

Ensure that you have purchased the Digital Deluxe or Ultimate Edition of the game by checking your orders 94 and games page 39. Note that the standard edition does not get early access Restart your PC Change the battle.net application’s region. To do this, click your BattleTag in the top right, choose “Log Out” then use the settings cogwheel above your username blank to change to a different region and log back in. This refreshes the application’s cache and should fix the problem. Reinstall the battle.net application 33 to clear outdated application data. Reset your Battle.net password 15 to forcibly update your account’s cache. 

If you continue to have trouble, note that forum staff can’t help much with account issues, so you’d want to submit a ticket instead 42.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/main-thread-playstation-no-license-too-many-requests/23638/1410

Hey all,
We’re starting to get reports that things are recovering for Playstation players. Please give it a try and keep us posted. We’re still keeping an eye on it.
Also of note to the players saying to purchase things to resolve the issue, this is NOT necessary. This was a license level issue and it required some fixes, but it seems to be improving. Just keep trying for now and it should fix with no further input on your end.
Edit: Sony is also looking into this on their end.

Yesterday, I went into my local Best Buy and bought myself the SN30 Pro as a PC controller. It seemed like a cheap alternative, plus I wanted a gamepad to use for fighting games. Unfortunately, the moment I plugged it in, I was met with many issues:
- Game I own, Guilty Gear Strive would not launch
- Games I own such as ROBLOX and Honkai: Star Rail having an insane amount of CPU (up to 100%) upon launch
Basically, I was unable to properly launch or play a few games and I had thought it was because of my controller.
This is what I did to circumvent these issues:
- Obviously unplug the controller
-For each game mentioned, I had them updated or re-installed-Upon re-install, I restarted my PC everytime
-For GG specifically, I used different launch prompts to get the game going
-For ROBLOX, I had its "cache" cleared by doing Win+R, doing %temp% and deleting those files (suggestion from a friend)
-Went into Device Manager and attempted to find a "driver" that might've installed upon plugging in the controller, then re-starting my PC
-Ran Command Prompt "sfc /scannow" and re-started my PC
-The classic, unplug and replug your PC
My CPU keeps getting changed or affected by any game I launch and I'm not sure why, but it must be because of the controller. I returned it today and unfortunately, I was not at all pleased with what it potentially did with my PC. If anyone can, please offer some help to potentially fix my CPU-related issues. I don't know if this controller has a driver but if it does, what would it be called and how would I go about removing it? If there is some general CPU help, please let me know. I'm honestly out of options at this point.

So, this whole thing started with Netflix cracking down on password sharing. I've been sailing the high seas for many years and the only reason for having that subscription was for my parents and sister, since they're tech illiterate. When I finally got that message from them stating that I need to pay extra for users outside of my network, I said F it and cancelled it on the spot.
At that point, I had to come up with a new solution to make my family's life easy and straight forward again. I was considering opening up my Plex server to them, but that came with its own headaches (having to keep my PC on 24/7 and downloading whatever they want to watch each and every single time). One thing lead to another and I discovered Real Debrid.
Now, I've a tech power user for more than 20 years and somehow I've been living under a rock as I've never heard about such a wonderful "tool". I created a 15 days subscription for starters and got down to testing. My current setup is as follows:
- Real Debrid + JDownloader for downloads
- Unchained app on my Android phone for Real Debrid management
- Stremio + Torrentio for me and my family.
So far so good, everything is working perfectly. My internet was already great so I never had to wait too long for downloads to finish but holy smokes. Streaming a 80GB+ 4k HDR movie with close to 0 buffer? What kind of sorcery is this? Also, absolutely everything that I looked up so far on Stremio was cached already, and trust me, I looked for some obscure stuff. Considering that my Netflix subscription was already costing me 11.99€ per month, paying 16€ for Real Debrid for 6 months sounds like a literal no brainer.
Here comes the questions now, as I want to make sure that I'm using this thing to its full potential:
- From what I understand, Real Debrid is a legitimate business and the whole torrenting thing falls in some sort of a gray area. Does a VPN still make sense if my only use for it was to hide my sails on the sea?
- How safe are the card payments options? I'm using a disposable card just for good measure, but I was curious if anybody had any issues due to them, especially since your real identity is tied to the purchase.
- From my tests, it seems that you can download pretty much anything, even torrents from private trackers, which got me thinking. Are there any indexes that contain torrents from everywhere (including private sources)? Alternatively, is there a way to see all the content that is currently cached by RD?
- Any other interesting uses for Real Debrid that I'm missing, orr 3rd party tools / integrations?
Thanks!

So, this whole thing started with Netflix cracking down on password sharing. I've been sailing the high seas for many years and the only reason for having that subscription was for my parents and sister, since they're tech illiterate. When I finally got that message from them stating that I need to pay extra for users outside of my network, I said F it and cancelled it on the spot.
At that point, I had to come up with a new solution to make my family's life easy and straight forward again. I was considering opening up my Plex server to them, but that came with its own headaches (having to keep my PC on 24/7 and downloading whatever they want to watch each and every single time). One thing lead to another and I discovered Real Debrid.
Now, I've a tech power user for more than 20 years and somehow I've been living under a rock as I've never heard about such a wonderful "tool". I created a 15 days subscription for starters and got down to testing. My current setup is as follows:
- Real Debrid + JDownloader for downloads
- Unchained app on my Android phone for Real Debrid management
- Stremio + Torrentio for me and my family.
So far so good, everything is working perfectly. My internet was already great so I never had to wait too long for downloads to finish but holy smokes. Streaming a 80GB+ 4k HDR movie with close to 0 buffer? What kind of sorcery is this? Also, absolutely everything that I looked up so far on Stremio was cached already, and trust me, I looked for some obscure stuff. Considering that my Netflix subscription was already costing me 11.99€ per month, paying 16€ for Real Debrid for 6 months sounds like a literal no brainer.
Here comes the questions now, as I want to make sure that I'm using this thing to its full potential:
- From what I understand, Real Debrid is a legitimate business and the whole torrenting thing falls in some sort of a gray area. Does a VPN still make sense if my only use for it was to hide my sails on the sea?
- How safe are the card payments options? I'm using a disposable card just for good measure, but I was curious if anybody had any issues due to them, especially since your real identity is tied to the purchase.
- From my tests, it seems that you can download pretty much anything, even torrents from private trackers, which got me thinking. Are there any indexes that contain torrents from everywhere (including private sources)? Alternatively, is there a way to see all the content that is currently cached by RD?
- Any other interesting uses for Real Debrid that I'm missing, orr 3rd party tools / integrations?
Thanks!

Note from author: I'm incredibly grateful for the positive attention so far. I didn't mean to create a chronological narrative, but here we are. Forgive the odd continuity error, flying by seat of pants. Fun tho.
First Prev
“Now that both of you had time to clothe and calm down,” Toptor said from behind his desk, “I believe a proper discussion is in order.”
Arms crossed, Owen sat with his head down, hunched on the edge of his seat in the captain’s private office. Colored in greens and browns, the room was immaculate, minimalistic, with a focus on functionality. The nanite chairs were a prime example, designed to instantly change shape to best suit the user. Owen’s chair resembled a bucket seat with a comfortable back. Beside him, Skencie perched on a raised bar, feet hidden beneath his feathers.
“I’ll jump to the point,” Toptor continued. “In a blatant breach of security, a collection of federally provided records were tampered with and presumably destroyed. To our knowledge, these acts occurred after we departed the last space station. The ship has not come into contact with another vessel, meaning the culprit is most likely among us. As of yet, there is no definitive proof on who the culprit is. This is… fortunate for the, assumed, individual as the punishment would involve immediate termination and detainment while the proper federal authorities are informed. The authorities would then prepare to collect the individual at the first opportunity for questioning. If found guilty, they would be charged with felony vandalism, destruction of federal property, and sabotage of electronic systems on a federal research vessel—at least.”
Owen watched the light reflect off his boots. Skencie smoothed a feather on the crook of his wing.
“Fortunately, the files in question can be restored at the next major space station, which we are due to pass soon. Of course, proper procedure requires I provide a reason our records need restoration, and how that reason was determined. The disappearance of the matching hard copies rules out a simple system malfunction.
“Proper procedure dictates an investigation be opened. An investigation did occur, but procedure also stipulates the involvement of the captain to ensure proper documentation, provide discretion, and prevent conflicts of interest or xenophobic assumptions. Instead of bringing the matter to my attention to establish a best course of action, an interrogation was immediately launched where our first officer publicly singled out one of our lowest ranked workers in order to privately berate them while barely dressed in a blanket. Nevermind how the incident concluded.
“I regret to acknowledge that the only procedure actually followed was the (albeit unannounced) recording of the incident, in which our first officer clearly denies the right to a third party witness. A denial only revoked when faced with the requirement to document the refusal. Once all this information is presented to federal authority, the ensuing investigation into The Wayfinder’s ability to securely operate outside of federal jurisdiction would likely result in project termination; including the revocation of various titles, acknowledgments, and privileges for all involved. So.” Toptor’s mandibles clacked together. “Who would like to speak first?”
Skencie fitfully adjusted his posture on his perch. Owen hid a frown behind his hand.
Toptor delicately input several commands on the touchscreen of his desk terminal. “Considering the limited time frame before our scheduled stop to refuel pre-deep space exploration, and the precarious situation thrust onto the entire crew, I’ll provide the privilege of knowing this meeting is ‘off the record’.”
Elbows pressed to his knees, Owen folded his hands together. “Permission to speak freely.”
“I heavily encourage it,” Toptor replied.
Owen’s mouth sourly twisted. “I want to apologize to First Officer Skencie for my outburst in the conference room. And for suggesting he’s a roctel. I’m… ashamed of my recent behavior. I should have acted the way I wish others would and work on interpersonal dynamics instead of focusing on race-based stereotypes. I may have proved everyone right by going too far, from outward aggression to putting myself first. Though I still take issue with a rumor I’d be the first to eat someone in an emergency. All because there are rare instances of cannibalism in terran history doesn’t mean- does cannibalism extend across all xenosentience or is it limited to same-species instances?”
Toptor took a long breath before his hands folded behind his back. “Anything else you’d like to add before the investigation of tampered files is opened to include everyone else on board?”
Owen sighed as his shoulders sagged to the point he risked falling on the floor. “Under the assumption- no,” he interrupted himself, “I confess to altering the human/terran files in order to remove the generalized terran-based information.”
Skencie trilled as his crest raised and quickly lowered. “I am shocked.”
Owen turned his head to cast a narrow side-eye at Skencie. “That said,” he removed his uniform hat and pulled out a cheap data chip from the sweatband, which he placed on Toptor’s desk, “a copy of the original files can be found here. If you use it, there would be no need to request replacement files from the federal database.”
“Secure files can’t just be transfered to any old data chip,” Skencie scoffed.
“Correct,” Owen said, “in the same way account passwords can’t be found stuck to the underside of desks.”
Skencie’s feathers ruffled with an embarrassed trill. “I- what- that would be- no one would be foolish enough to-“
“The hard copies also can’t be found in a safe at the bottom of the contraband locker,” Owen added. “The safe that doesn’t have the key code marked on the back.”
Toptor buzzed in annoyance. He rubbed his hands together before he returned to standing with his arms tucked behind his back. “First Officer Skencie, there seems to have been a break in your rogue investigation. Keeping in mind the, currently uninvolved, federal investigators require lengthy, in-depth, highly documented reports, how do you plan to proceed?”
Owen quietly returned his hat to its proper place.
Skencie resettled his wings against his sides. “I… that is…” He whistled in a way the xenolinguistic translators failed to recognize. “It may… be possible the hard copies were misplaced during an overzealous organization routine, and that… some… corrupted files require… minute repairs. Nothing worth getting worked up over.”
Toptor’s antennae twitched. “A fortuitous realization and discovery. Your attention to detail is as beneficial as always. Unrelated, I think I’ll send a reminder to all accounts that passwords should be changed regularly. Additionally, in light of the last interspecies cohesion assessment, it’s been made apparent that not all personnel feel properly perceived. In response, I would like to present Officer Skencie the prestigious opportunity to spearhead a new social program.
“The procedure would include a collection of autobiographical profiles from each team member, ideally listing personal preferences, aspirations, and recreational activities. Once the information is collected, personnel files will require reformatting to place these profiles above standardized racial and cultural data. It is imperative that all personnel are made aware that these profiles will be made public to the entire team to help establish interpersonal common ground. To prototype this project, I recommend approaching Mr. Deskle , who will provide enthusiasm, sincerity, and constructive criticism to the benefit of the program. Any questions?”
“No, sir,” Owen and Skencie said together.
Toptor hummed in satisfaction. “Excellent work, gentlefolk. I will be eagerly awaiting an update by minor-rotation end. Dismissed.”

Hi all, I just recently got a small CRT with a built in DVD player from Facebook Marketplace (it was a free-be, so there's no way I could have turned the offer down), I mostly wanted it so that I could watch some DVDs on a CRT without the hassle of having an external DVD player set up. Anyways, after bringing it in, I noticed that it has some <1mm big little orange-ish bugs crawling around both on the outside and inside and they definitely seem to be from the TV and not something from mine that has passed them onto it (good thing I haven't brought it into the house yet lol). I have tried blowing the inside out with compressed air as well as hoovering the outside/giving it a good wipe down however the bugs still seem to be on it. TLDR: does anyone have a good solution for removing these little pests without damaging/major disassembly of the CRT? Thanks.

I want to wash/detail my car but also use a paint pen to fix some dents/chips from rocks hitting it when driving. Would this be the proper sequence for me:

1. Wet car, get large stuff off
2. Wipe with car shampoo
3. Remove shampoo
4. Manually dry
5. Use detailer + clay bar - especially over the areas I want to paint? Does detailer vs using shampoo water matter?
6. Use the paint pen
7. Clear coat product?
8. Wax?

Is there a difference in clear coat and wax? If I want whatever protects my paint the longest, I should be using a sealer and can skip waxing? I also see autozone keeps one paint sealer under the category of spray detailer: https://www.autozone.com/wash-cleaners-and-exterior-care-products/spray-detailep/chemical-guys-activate-instant-spray-sealant-and-paint-protector-16oz/1158388_0_0
Is this different from the detailer that comes in the clay bar kits? Or I can just use the quick detailer all over to protect the paint?
I have two detailers (Jay Leno's quick detailer and Eagle one wipe and shine detailer), I'm assuming they are both used as part of step 5 - clay bar? So I would still need a clear coat/synthetic/wax product to protect the paint?

Hi all. Faced a problem.
Installed the graphic card driver through custom installation. Computer freezes. After that, it began to freeze when turned on, either in the password selection menu or on the working screen.
Removed all drivers, and installed it from zero, tried new and old drivers, tried new and old bios. Took the battery, and reset everything. I set Windows from 0 and tried everything. This is 100% not drivers, not windows, and not bios.
What I managed to find and understand.

1. Without a graphic card, everything works and does not freeze.
2. When I put Windows on SSD GEN 4 (Samsung 990 pro) (Kingston kc3000 m2nvme gen 4) the computer freezes. I put Windows on a 3rd generation SSD, Samsung MZVLQ1T0HALB-0000. The computer is working. But it freezes on shutdown or reboot. It turns on only through the button on the case.
3. The SSD themselves are working, I tried them on a laptop, and everything is perfect. Updated the driver. Did tests.
4. I tried to start the computer without the NVIDIA driver, and the computer works and does not freeze, I roll the Nvidia driver, and as soon as Windows sees it, everything immediately freezes to death. That is, any Nvidia driver immediately freezes the computer, no matter if the graphic driver is old or new. And this only happens on SSD 4 generations. On the SSD from the laptop, MZVLQ1t0HALB-0000 everything works.
5. The SSD themselves can work on a computer without Windows. As the second SSD.

That is, the motherboard sees SSD, everything works, the speed is ideal, and everything is as it should be. But as soon as I start Windows on them, everything freezes.
Logically, this should be the motherboard, since all the details themselves are working. I did tests of the processor, RAM, graphic card, and SSD, all the details are separately fine.
I also sent my motherboard under warranty, and they told me that everything was working xD. But they did not test the parts like mine, although I sent them all the info, and they said they would use parts like mine. But in fact, when I asked for a photo, they used an AMD processor and a 20-30 generation graphic card with another SSD. It is logical that the power is not the same, and the problem did not get out of them. So what do I need to do to understand exactly what the problem is? :)
Pc parts:
Gigabyte z790 Aorus master
4080 GAMING X TRIO
i7 13700k
G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5 6400
Samsung 990 pro 1tb. + 2 tb + Kingston kc3000 m2nvme gen 4
Corsair HX1200 V2 / 1200W / 80+ Platinum

Inside the boundless expanse of Loria Online, Guspy the elven mage drained the last of his mana vaporizing a Vickerbite. It was his third hour of grinding this particular mob, and he was getting tired.
“What’s the drop rate on this thing again?” he asked Collins.
Collins cleaved another Vickerbite with his greataxe. “0.02% or something. Getting bored?”
Guspy was indeed getting bored. Despite their grotesque appearance (they looked like flying crocodile heads with mosquito feet), Vickerbites were pushovers.
“Yeah, I might only have a few minutes’ more patience for this.”
Collins slammed his axe into the ground, causing a shockwave that killed another three. “That’s ok, we’ve been playing for a while. It just kind of feels like wasted time if we quit now, though.”
“Are you getting close to leveling?”
“Nope.”
“Me neither.”
A Vickerbite burst when he swatted it with his staff. A loot bag dropped onto the rust colored dirt.
Probably another Vicker Tongue or leg or something, Guspy thought. He almost didn’t bother to check. But when he did, he found what he and Collins had been seeking for so long.
“I got it! The belt dropped!”
“Thank God, let’s get out of here,” Collins said, regrouping with the mage he protected.
Guspy read the item description for The Belt of Endurance.
The Belt of Endurance Slot: Belt Rarity: Very Rare Earth Resistance: %%0 Air Resistance: %%0 Fire Resistance: %%0 Water Resistance: %%0 Physical Resistance: %%0 Magic Resistance: %%0 Debuff Resistance: %%0
“What the hell?” Guspy said.
“What’s wrong? Is it the wrong belt?” Collins casually swatted two final Vickerbites.
“The stats are glitched or something. It’s supposed to be 5% resistance to everything, right?”
“The BoE? Yeah, 5% resist all. Is it not?”
“It shows ‘percent percent zero’.”
Collins shrugged. “Put it on, see what happens.”
Guspy equipped the belt and checked his character’s stats. “Ha, that’s so weird. All of my resistances show backslash, open parenthesis, ‘N’, close parenthesis.”
Collins used the Warrior’s Assessment ability on Guspy. “Huh. When I analyze you, I see hashtag ‘null’.”
“That’s either really good or really bad,” said Guspy.
Collins raised his sword and struck Guspy on the shoulder.
Collins attacks you for 0 damage
“There are safer ways to check!” Guspy said.
“It didn’t hurt you, weird. Mind if I use a little Fire Fan scroll on you?” Collins asked with a toothy grin.
“You have one? Aren’t you a little over leveled for that?” Fire Fan produced a tiny cone of flame that did very little damage.
“I’m a hoarder. So, can I?” Collins wiggled the scroll between his fingers.
Guspy agreed.
Collins casts Fire Fan for 0 fire damage
“Guspy, I don’t want to alarm you, but I think that belt makes you invincible,” said Collins.
Guspy began to bounce up and down in excitement. “Oh man, think of the possibilities! I can solo raid a guild hall. The Nighthawks deserve that kind of ass whupping,” he said, referring their rival guild in Loria. “Or I can loot an end-game dungeon! We’re not far from The Death Pit.”
Collins looked into Guspy’s eyes and gave him the smile a parent gives a child when they ask where rainbows end.
“Oh, you asshole!” said Guspy.
“I think you should turn it in,” said Collins.
“Why?! Why would I do that?! The Nighthawks have been bullying us for months now. With this, I could walk right in their guild hall, wipe them out, and tear the whole thing down. They wouldn’t be able to stop me! You can’t tell me they don’t deserve it.”
“Not saying they don’t,” said Collins.
Guspy pressed, “I can farm The Death Pit for Soulflayers. Everyone in our guild could have a Soulflayer, even the newbies. They’d finally be tough enough to join us on raids. You know how they’ve been dying to play with us in high level zones. Think how happy they would be!”
“Oh, they’d be awfully happy,” said Collins.
Guspy unleashed his coup de grace. “And! I can go to Fort Murder, stroll through it without a care in the world, kill the general, and not have to split the loot with anyone. That means I would get a Headsman’s Axe, which I would of course donate to my dear friend Collins. Wouldn’t you like a Headsman’s Axe?”
“I absolutely would,” said Collins.
“Ok, good. So, I’ll just—"
“Turn it in, Guspy,” said Collins.
Guspy stamped his feet in frustration. “Why though? You just said you were on board with the Nighthawks and the Soulflayer and the axe!”
“Oh, I am. The Nighthawks need to get taught. Having the newbies be tough enough to join us would be great. I’ve been dying for a Headsman for months now. But you’d be cheating. Momma didn’t raise no cheater, and daddy didn’t raise no troll,” said Collins.
“That’s so backward. You know the Nighthawks would do that to us if they got it,” said Guspy.
“Sure enough. But we can’t control what they do, and I can’t control what you do. I just want you to remember what I’ve said before: there’s a person on the other end of that character. A person just like you. I can only imagine how tilted you’d get if someone cheated to become invincible and killed you. Or farmed their whole guild ultra-rares and used them on you. I’m just asking you, as a friend, to turn it in. Please.”
Guilt. He’s put the guilt in me, thought Guspy. What an asshole.
“Fine, I’ll head to Pokate and turn it in,” said Guspy, pouting and kicking an errant stone.
“Thanks, Gusp. I promise I’ll help you find a legit one. I gotta go, though. Play later?”
“You know it,” said Guspy, and he watched Collin’s avatar dissipate.
Guspy walked back to Pokate City, the largest player hub in the area. The journey was a particularly hazardous one. Wild beast attacks, an assassin, a rockslide, even an errant fireball from an ongoing battle, all harmless in the face of his perfect resistance. He crossed into the city proper, whitewashed buildings that held little shops and extra dimensional guildhalls. Pokate Palace loomed over all of this like a resplendent sundial. The stained-glass windows shimmered in the sunlight.
Guspy approached a beggar in the street. The beggar’s body was gaunt. His dirty rags and matted beard spoke of hungry days and cruel nights. The beggars of Loria Online were portals to moderator attention. Speaking to a beggar cued a request. A moderator would eventually take control of the beggar and offer assistance.
Guspy knelt before the beggar.
“I’d like to speak with a moderator, please.”
“All in good time, my boy,” the beggar wheezed.
Guspy felt an itch in his legs. There was still time to run wild, to reap the rewards of his lottery ticket. He cursed Collins for guilting him and attempted to distract himself. Guspy admired the features on the beggar. His eyes traced cavernous wrinkled flesh. Saw the tiny movements of lice in the filthy thick beard. Saw the faintest deposits of salt in two long tracks leading down from the cloudy blue eyes.
The beggar had been crying. Why would they include such a heartbreaking detail? Why haven’t I ever noticed this before? Guspy thought.
The clouds in the beggar’s eyes parted, revealing a bright blue sky. “Thank you for waiting, this is Raymond. How can I help you?” A voice as crisp as autumn wind now spoke through the beggar.
“Uhh, hi. I’ve got a problem with an item I found?” Guspy spoke at the mouth of the beggar.
“Sure thing! Is it an item you have equipped right now?”
“Yeah, The Belt of Endurance. The values look wonky, and It makes me immune to every element. I’m immune to physical and magic damage now too.”
There was a long pause, the beggar’s eye fluttered. “You’re reporting that an item is broken in your favor?”
Guspy winced. “Umm, yes sir? It basically makes me immortal.”
Guspy waited patiently. The moderator was using his tools to see Guspy’s menu screens, something that was normally private.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” the beggar said. “It’s a null shunt error.”
“A null shunt error?”
“Yeah. Sometimes during a drop-roll, the system shunts over a clipped value that…sometimes it breaks.”
“Ah.”
“They’re a bitch to fix. Thankfully very rare. This one is particularly bad, and I’m at the end of my shift.” The mod let out a sigh that prophesized an exhausting tedious future.
“Well…thank you for your honesty! Usually when an item glitches in a player’s favor, they keep it a secret for as long as they can. Then they have a temper tantrum when we take it away. Alright, Guspy, I’m on morning shift tomorrow. I don’t want to deal with this right now. I’m giving you eight hours of god mode. Can I trust you not to make me regret it?”
Guspy was stunned. A mod was allowing immortality for eight hours? Trusting him? Why?
“You can trust me,” Guspy said.
“I hope so. I’ll fix this in the morning, don’t take the belt off or you’ll have negative infinite resistance and die from a sunburn.” The beggar’s eyes clouded back over.
Guspy threw a gold piece into the beggar’s bowl, a good luck ritual that even the highest level raiders did before a dangerous run.
He was in the clear. A mod had okayed him having god mode. Anything I do is the mod’s fault now! Guspy thought, but the thought gave him a queasy feeling the moment it passed through his mind. He was being trusted. He had promised to not make the mod regret it.
What was the mod’s name? Randy? He remembered Collins's words about there being real people on the other end of the game. He supposed that meant Randy too. He imagined telling someone to their face that his actions were their fault, like trust somehow absolved him of responsibility. He imagined someone else doing that to him. Or doing that to his little sister…
He spent a fair amount of gold on fast travel scrolls, valuable, single-use items that would transport the player anywhere in Loria. Guspy now stood on the craggy lip of Salamander’s Eye. The massive active volcano dominated the primordial jungle landscape. A vast column of ebony smoke rose from the lava pit, the birthplace of thunderclouds. Guspy spread his arms wide and fell into the heat, letting simulated gravity carry him downward to the roiling floor of liquid earth.
At the last moment he reflexively raised his hands to shield himself. Lava was instant death in Loria, doing an infinite amount of damage per second. Guspy was now sinking slowly in this most dangerous of elements unharmed. He raised his hand in a thumbs up as he sank beneath the surface.
Whorls of incandescent crimson, brown, and orange materialized and dispersed endlessly. It was like looking into the fickle furnace of creation, so eager to invent but too chaotic to design.
Guspy wondered if he’d fall forever. At last, his feet settled on something solid. He was the first player to set foot here. A unique accomplishment, one he could keep. He moved through the lava as though it was water. Must not have been a very important thing to program considering you die as soon as you touch it, he thought.
Guspy explored the floor of the volcano. It was perfectly smooth and without texture, an entire volcano held up on a pane of glass. But then he found something. A deformity in the bottom of the world. He explored it with his hand. It felt like a solid bubble sticking up out of the flat plane beneath him. It moved a little.
It’s a doorknob! Guspy realized. He turned it and felt it fall away beneath him. He sank further and dropped into a vast open room, the lava didn’t follow past the entry. Guspy cast a series of Light spells, banishing the darkness to the black obsidian of the walls and floor.
A giant floating sign that hung suspended in midair grabbed Guspy’s attention.
“IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO GET HERE.”
“Shows what you know, sign,” Guspy said, and began to explore.
In the secret chamber Guspy found dozens of monster models from the surrounding area, frozen in the sterile T-position. He took the time inspect them in the minutest detail. He saw the way salamander skin glittered with the luster of countless ruby gemstones. He watched the dancing flames of fire elementals, and discovered their heat rose above the limitation of their hitbox. He looked deep into the eyes of a stone golem and saw that they were prisms. They split the blue glow of the golem’s magical core into a frigid winter sunset, whites and blues dancing and concealing a secret whisper of deep red.
I don’t think I ever really looked at the models before, he thought. Even now he couldn’t recall any specific details of any monster he had fought. They were all colored blurs in his mind, faceless values and blocks of information.
Despite his immortality, he still froze in fear when his spell illuminated a colossus of steel tucked away in a corner of the room. It was a broad suit of cold iron armor, bereft of adornment and pockmarked with the careless ministrations of a thousand hammers beating the metal into shape. In one clenched fist it carried a wicked looking cleaver, one that belonged in a giant’s butcher shop, used to crack the toughest dragon bones and partition the choicest bits.
Guspy had never seen or heard of this creature in his life.
You must not have made it into the final game. At least not yet, thought Guspy. Despite its beastly ugliness, Guspy felt a pang of remorse. Someone worked to design every aspect of this monstrosity to evoke the feelings of fear and disgust, and they had been very successful. But it had gone unused and unseen since the game’s inception.
I remember the Christmas ornament I made in middle school. A Christmas light made to look like a reindeer, googly eyes and fuzzy brown pipe cleaners for antlers. I was so proud. But when Christmas came, they didn’t want to put it on the tree. They thought it looked too silly.
Guspy left a gold coin at its feet, alms for unsung effort.
He was preparing to depart when he noticed an unadorned chest had appeared beneath the presumptive sign. Guspy was certain it hadn’t been there before. He approached, circling the chest, before reaching out and lightly tapping it. He may invulnerable, but this was a developer’s world. Who knows what treachery could hide here? He lifted the lid, tilting his head and peeking at its contents with one eye shut. Inside was a billiard sized ball of translucent glass. Guspy recognized a Title Sphere. These rare items would grant a moniker to the character’s name. It was a single use item worth tens of thousands of gold. Too curious to resist learning what it would bestow, he shattered the sphere in his palm. Red dust flowed between his fingers like Martian sand. His name had changed from Guspy to Guspy the Wanderer.
Guspy used his next scroll and teleported to the shipwreck of the Soothsayers Doom. A brig suspended above the ocean on a monstrous coral bed, the ship itself was a mid-level dungeon. Players could fight their way from deck to deck, battling undead crewmen that fired grapeshot salvos into crowded rooms, shredding players into bloody clouds. The Captain was the boss of the dungeon, and part of his loot was a map that would send players on a quest line that eventually led players to the halls of the merfolk king, an extremely high-level dungeon at the bottom of the ocean.
Being immortal, Guspy took what players called the ‘express route’, swimming directly downward from the open sea. It was suicide. Besides suffocation, players had to contend with titanic carcharodons, giant squid, invisible water elementals, and elite merfolk guard. These creatures had mastery of the terrain, and few players were accustomed to attacks that could come from any direction.
Beneath him, the phosphorescent glow of the Coral Castle overpowered the distant sun for dominion of the depths. Guspy slipped into a castle window, ignoring the tridents of the pursuing Knights of Pearl. The Castle was a dungeon that needed to be completed quickly, lest the player’s water breathing magic wear off. That made it the perfect sight-seeing location for someone who didn’t need to breathe. Guspy examined the meticulously decorated royal bedrooms. The books in Loria were filled with open source stories from the real world. Players spent hours in this fantasy world engrossed in the prose of Tom Sawyer and Paradise Lost. But yellowed letters fell from between the pages like autumn leaves.
Never whole without you, my beloved Jennifer,
B.C.
Guspy didn’t know the merfolk princess even had a name. Neither had he any idea who B.C was, or if these pages were part of some fetch quest he had never come across.
Deeper in the palace he found the throne room of the merfolk king. The king was gigantic, of course, all raid bosses were. The king was also an enemy that demanded constant focus and attention to defeat. He cycled seamlessly through attack patterns, buffs, and stage activations. Missing the tell-tale signs would leave you a step behind the dance and doomed to failure.
Guspy now had a unique opportunity. He ignored the king completely. The throne room was heaped with chests of gold and artifacts plundered from sunken ships. But they were only decorative, ersatz décor designed to regale the room with the trappings of wealth and luxury. Being worthless, players ignored them. Guspy took the time to closely inspect the mountains of coins and bejeweled quillions that rose from the coin piles. Ignoring the world-shaking bolts of lightning, magical rays, and great sweeps of the merfolk king’s trident, he crouched to the level of a single coin.
There, in the face of the coin, were three smiling children. The normal relief of Empress Aubrianna, a mythical figure in Origin’s history, was replaced with a picture of a family. The normal Latin phrase, “A solis ortu usque ad occasum”, had been replaced with, “Jason, Melody, Brock”. He moved from one coin to the next. Families, pets, and selfies looked back at him. Some had names written, others messages, “Thx Mel, my rock <3” “Joe & Cara 4 eva” “We did it!”
Guspy wondered if any player had ever seen these. Maybe, but he hadn’t, and that made it special to him. He wondered what he would put on his own coin. Me, Collins, and Becca at the beach, he thought. A picture that had been his desktop background for years. The only evidence of a perfect day.
Having taken his fill of the throne room, Guspy pulled out another scroll and teleported away.
Hogglerock dungeon was an aberration. Most dungeons tried to evoke a sense of awe or fear, but Hogglerock was just gross. Its entrance was at the center of a mud-smothered swamp. Poisonous insects and carnivorous slugs roamed the wastes searching for carrion to strip or making their own if none could be found.
To descend into the putrid depths of Hogglerock, you entered the mouth of a great saurian beast. It was long since dead, its flesh in a perpetual state of decay. Down its mucus-caked throat, you entered a dungeon that had been created from the offal that remained of its digestive system. Noxious acid pools, monstrous parasites, and bloated scavengers challenged players that came to plunder the carcass.
Guspy had to stop and think before entering the sixth stomach of the beast. He had no idea if his plan would work, or even made sense. Guspy removed all his armor and weapons, save for the Belt of Endurance. He entered the dungeon’s final room, aggroing a great bipedal minotaur and its bovine kin. Guspy sat and crossed his legs. He closed his eyes and focused on slowing his breath and his heart. Aggro in Loria was based on a series of factors: proximity, source of damage or debuff, equipment levels, class, movement, and supposedly even biometric data the VR rig was able to obtain.
The monsters were instantly aggroed when the rubbery sphincter of the sixth stomach was touched, converging on their only target. Guspy’s lack of equipment, aggression, and stillness would reduce his aggro over time. He waited and he watched. In time the monsters lost interest, ceasing their attacks and wandering back to their starting positions. Guspy continued to watch. For a time, they only bobbed in place, replaying idle animations and howling blistering war cries. But, in time, Guspy saw a strange behavior begin. One smaller minotaur creature pulled out a hunk of meat, clutching it by the pure white protruding bone. It chomped a piece and munched in contentment, eyes closed in blissful indulgence. The giant boss minotaur began to sniff the air, and a game of keep away began. The smaller minotaurs tossed the meat between themselves as the boss zeroed in on the source of the smell.
Who is this for? wondered Guspy. Who was meant to see this? And how? Why hide it? How many monsters of Loria Online had these little secrets? Tiny moments of humor buried in terabytes of code, only visible in a state of extreme passivity. Once the capering script had completed, the bovines returned to their normal places and continued to cycle basic idle motions.
It’s for me. Since I’m the one watching it, that means it’s for me, thought Guspy.
Guspy pulled out his final scroll, completing the spell just before he was beset again.
Guspy the Wanderer appeared back in Pokate City. His new title drew lingering looks from other players who searched their memories. Guspy’s time was running low, and fatigue massaged his mind and eyes. There was more he could search for. He could run down the hours until the mod logged back on and set things to rights. But he didn’t want the last moments of such an enlightening day to be a race against the clock. It would spoil the sense of calm and contemplation he had cultivated. Instead he sat down next to a beggar and composed a message to Collins.
“I won’t be joining you today, Collins, but I’ve got so much to tell you about when I do.”
He had seen beyond the veil. He witnessed tiny miracles of creation hidden from mortal sight. Sparks of love that flickered once more when observed. For a precious few hours, he was blessed with a peace that allowed him to fall in love with the game all over again, to appreciate its creation like a benevolent god.
Collins and Guspy returned to the red rock canyon. Guspy admired the visible strata of the walls. Simulated eons left perfect layers of color stacked like the pages of a book. Little details, so insignificant yet so engrossing. He appreciated the work that went into this game. The efforts of artists always caught his notice.

rWiiHacks' Support Megathread

General Troubleshooting

NOTE: FLASH DRIVES Are not recommended
If you are using one and you find yourself here for support, please reconsider.

Loader Support Here "My Wii/GC Game Won't Load!!"

If you came here with the problem "I am trying to load my Wii or GC game and it's not working", this is your link.
The rWiiHacks Loader Support Document
Please read through this document if you are having problems loading Wii/GC games with your Wii.

Unlock Your Write Protect Switch


Game and App Directory Structure Visualized

Wii Games

💾 SD Card or USB Drives ╸📁 wbfs ╸📁 GameName [GameID] ╸📄 GameID.wbfs

GameCube Games

💾 SD Card or USB Drive ╸📁 games ╸📁 GameName GameID ╸📄 game.iso

Applications

💾 SD Card or USB Drive ╸📁 apps ╸📁 AppName ╸📄 boot.dol ╸📄 meta.xml ╸📄 icon.png

• Note: meta.xml is not always needed but may provide key app functionality. icon.png is not required and may be added in for aesthetic reasons.

Letterbomb

💾 SD Card ╸📁 private ╸📄 boot.elf/dol

• Note: You may have several .txt files. These are simply readmes and are not necessary.

CTGP-R

💾 SD Card ╸📁 apps ╸📁 ctgpr ╸📄 boot.dol ╸📄 meta.xml ╸📄 icon.png ╸📁 ctgpr ╸📁 riivolution

How Perform a Syscheck

RiiConnect24's Guide is great for that!

Wiiflow Lite

• Some versions of Wiiflow Lite come with default settings that cause a black screen on load of Wii games.
• Consider updating to the latest version!

1) Open Wiiflow lite settings.
1) Go into NAND Emulation settings (it's got 3 pages of settings about NAND emulation) and make your settings match this:
``` Page 1- Select NAND: default NAND emulation: Partial Select Saves NAND: default Saves NAND emulation: off
Page 3- Saves NAND Partition: SD Use Real NAND Config: On Use Real NAND Miis: On ```

• Try to see if WiiFlow will play any of your wii games again.
• If it still crashes/black screens:
  • Load WiiFlow again
  • Press HOME on the Wiimote
  • Select Reload Cache
  • Try playing a Wii game again

Modding Support Here

The Guide Wii Recommend

• still RiiConnect24's guide is the best out there
  • its very well maintained
  • if this changes, we'll change our recommendation
• do not use out of date guides
  • this doesn't mean all video/youtube guides are bad, just most of them
  • most print/web page guides are wrong/outdated in some way too
  • if you're adamant on not using RiiConnect24's guide please find someone who knows what they are talking about to verify that the one you use isn't wrong BEFORE you start to mod your Wii

Useful Link to Bootmii SD Files

• Here you can find the direct link to the BootMii SD Files
• This is the hackmii site and completely safe.

To Change a Drive From GPT to MBR

• To change a drive to MBR on Windows
  • open disk management.
  • If you're on Windows 8 or higher, do Windows key + X and click on disk management.
  • Once you're there, find the drive you need to convert to MBR and right click on the area where it says "Disk" and then the number of the disc.
  • If it's not already MBR, you'll see an available option to convert to MBR disk. Use that option.

Updating You Wii System Menu to 4.3x

• Hey whattaya know? RiiConnect24 has a guide on that too!

ISO/Game Image Management

WiiBackup Manager

• Software to help you manage your Wii game collection.
• It will split/convert/prepare images for transfer to your Wii Storage.
• It does not do anything for GameCube images.

Witt Tools (Same As Above, But Nerdier)

• has none of the 'frills' of Wii Backup Manager as it's more focused on image manipulation than collection management
• has a much more complex interface (command line, unix-like)
• it does work on Gamecube images

ISOtoWBFS

• Command line
• no collection management
• no complexity
• it simply does one thing; ISO to WBFS
• there is also a WBFStoISO, but it's less useful

CIOS Offline Script (If You Have No network)

• You need to be able to access discord for this, as the help is provided by our bot
• https://discord.com/channels/582816924359065611/720513394804785162/1052350004020396123

The Wii and Wifi

• Your router must support 802.11 b/g
• A lot do, but 15 years later, none are enabled by default
• You must be able to re-configure your router
• Phone hotspots often work
• In the hardware section below is a listing for a Wii-Working Ethernet dongle

Miscellaneous Hardware

ID Your Wii's Motherboard Revision

• Wanna know what motherboard revision you have?
• Here's a Graphic
• It's for Wiidual compatibility, but they don't make those anymore.
• It'll tell you if your motherboard is prone to overheat (6 layer boards).

Ethernet Dongle That Works With the Wii

• Nuff said

Replacement Jack Socket Dock Connector Port for Nintendo Wii Right/Left Socket Link Controller

• Of course this section title came straight from AliExpress

SD / USB Storage Tester

• H2Testw

What USB Device Do We Recommend?

• A good enclosure, with a cheap and possibly refurbished hard drive
• The enclosure below is known to work with the Wii
• Which means any hard drive you put in it will also work with the Wii
• within the Wii's size limitation of > 2tb
• Sabrient Tool-free Enclosure
• Most of our staff have these

**** FLASH DRIVES OFTEN CAUSE ISSUES ****
We do not suggest using one.

Modernize Your Wii's Video Output

• To get the best out of your Wii without hardware modifications, you need component cables.
• To be the most compatible with modern televisions, you need an HDMI converter that upscales to at least 720p, the minimum resolution defined in High Definition.
• Below are links for the two items we recommend for doing so.
• SUNNATCH Component to HDMI Converter with Scaler Function
• HD Retrovision Wii/Wii U Premium YPbPr Component Video Cable

Wii2HDMI

• if you are low on funds, this is an option
• do not expect the video, sound, or construction quality to be good for ~10$USD
• Portholic Wii2HDMI

Please leave comments below for updated information or questions.

Meta

Q&A

What is This?

• This is a periodical list of resources for the Wii, and Wii modding. It is maintained by the WiiHacks staff and users of our community.

How Often is it Revised?

• As often as needed, when there is time to do so

Can I Contribute?

Comment. Revisions will be discussed in the comments.
If you'd like to be notified when the new revision is out, please also put that in the comments and we'll add you to the list below.

Hello,
Does anyone here have any advice on how to remove the smell of cigarette smoke from a faux leather sofa?
The label says it is 97% polyester so I am assuming it is a polyester faux leather.
We have tried wiping it down with a mixture of 1 part distilled vinegar and 4 parts water with a drop of dish soap which removed a lot of the dirt/grime. We have also started to use baking soda and sprinkled it over it, let sit for 30 mins, and then vacuumed it off 3 times now and the smell has decreased but not significantly yet.
Are there any products or ways that we can do at home to clean this other than soaking the thing in febreeze?
Thanks!

I'm not tech savvy at all. You're talking to an infant when it comes to things like this but I need help.
My husband made a separate partition to download Windows 11 onto my PC. It made my PC so slow, but he doesn't know how to remove it without messing it up. Here's where my issue comes into play. My wifi card does Not like the two OS setup. If I log into my windows 10, usually the wifi will work. But if I don't click on win10 and its boots up win11, wifi will no longer work on win10 and I have to shut down my PC to get it to work. I have a wifi card hardware installed into my PC so I also have to reinstall the driver every time it does this. Today, nothing is working. My husband said to move the file location but I don't even know how to find its current location or what the name of it is. I work from home and haven't been able to clock in at all today.

I just wanted to get a general feel for an issue I have before I get my regular HVAC guy involved.
I have a commercial building that has four 7.5 ton units supplying various parts of the store. One of the units has died and my HVAC guy did his very best but it is dead dead. I tried running with just three but it’s not cutting it.
My question is one of the units is supplying a partitioned off portion of the store that is under 1000 square feet. I want to break off half of the vents and reroute them to the other side of the store to help the other two units. If I remove half the vents, how will that affect that part of the store regarding cooling? In my limited knowledge, I read that a 7.5 ton unit is overkill for 1000 square feet and the unit does an outstanding job keeping this part of the store at 72 degrees.
Thanks in advance!

I’m wiping drives from a large corporation, using dban. Is one have enterprise locks when installing windows. I can get passed them but I’m curious if I do multiple passes with dban will it remove enterprise lock / data as well?

Memory transcription subject: Daniel Price, UTC Special Forces
Date [standardized human time]: September 8, 2140
I don’t know how long the fighting lasted. The sound of gunfire and flamethrower tanks detonating sank into white noise as we held out our position. Colton dealt with most of the initial wave before they even reached the building, but then came the second and the third waves. Halfway into the second onslaught Colton ran out of ammo for his rifle. Switching to his sidearm he assisted us with the defense of the sole entrance to the office. The desk proved sturdy enough to provide cover against enemy fire. Here Tassev’s machine gun did most of the heavy lifting, but we had to take over more than once when the gun's barrel overheated and needed to be switched out. If we had faced a similar amount of resistance trying to get in here we never would have taken this room in the first place.
During this time the Kolshian regained his senses, though he was content to stew silently while the fighting was still ongoing. I noticed him trying to wiggle from his binds more than once, but he got nowhere. We might have gone a little overboard restraining him, overcompensating for his unorthodox biology, but it was better to go overkill than to be surprised at the worst possible time.
I didn’t know what we would do if we ran out of ammo. Grab guns from those we already killed? Take the Governor hostage and attempt to make a break for it? No, we couldn’t carry Amja out with us if we attempted that. As I counted down my few remaining mags I came to the grim realization we couldn’t make it through another assault. With two Arxur on our side we had the advantage in a melee, but as the old saying goes, nobody wins in a knife fight. Steadying my aim through the doorway we waited for the fourth wave. In this lull I had a moment to process the horrid scene in front of me. Bodies were piled along the walkway all the way to the end of the hallway. At some points piled up where they had been used as makeshift cover. Most of our assailants had been Krakotl, whose purple blood dripped sickeningly down from the walkways onto the ballroom floor below. Of the few Yotul that had attacked, most were exterminators, though their charred bodies were hardly recognizable as such. At one point Tassev had managed to nail an exterminator’s tank and engulfed the entire hallway in a fireball. The building itself, despite the seemingly wood detailing, appeared to be fireproof thankfully. If it wasn’t we would be taking a tumble out the second story window by now to avoid being burned alive. Fur and feathers were noticeably more flammable than the manor itself however, and filled the air with a putrid stench. After a long enough pause in the fighting, Usli droned out the area and saw no remaining hostiles. If there were any survivors among the enemy, they retreated. With a sigh of relief I took count of our remaining ammo, and it didn’t look good. I ordered Tassev to collect guns from the fallen. Their ammo would be incompatible with our weapons, so if we ran out we would have to switch to them entirely. Only the manor's guards would have anything of value, lugging around the few intact flamethrowers was the last thing we wanted to do.
As Tassev vaulted the desk I turned to the rest of my squad, “The area’s secure, for now. I want this place turned upside down. Document anything and everything of interest. Colton, there’s got to be a radio or something somewhere in here, if we can get an update on how the battle’s going that would be nice. Usli, search around for any electronics and download anything they’ve got.” I got started searching through the desk which had provided us cover. Most of the documents within that weren't shredded by bullets were of no interest: economic spreadsheets, architectural plans for additions to the manner (all dated after 2139), some personal letters which I opted to document, etc.
There was some commotion as Usli seized the Governor’s holopad. “Quit moving!,” Usli shouted as he kicked the Kolshian, causing him to double over. In most instances I would have told him to cool it, but after what we had just been through I could think of worse ways to release some stress than beating on the SOB.
“Anything Colton,” I asked.
“Nothing. Well, there looks to be an old TV back here but I doubt we’ll get any channels. You know we could try contacting the shuttle again, it’s not like our position hasn’t already been compromised. If they’re still kicking they’ll be in contact with the fleet.”
Pulling out my radio I realized it had a bullet lodged in it. After a second of vertigo I dropped the ruined electronic and turned to Colton again, “Can I borrow yours? Mine is uh, shot. Literally.”
“Seriously? Damn, sure no problem.”
Tuning his radio to the right frequencies I started, “This is Taskforce Revenant calling out, does anyone copy?” Static was the only answer. “This is Captain Price of Taskforce Revenant, does anyone copy?”
“This is UTCS Luanda, over. We hear you loud and clear Taskforce Revenant.”
Wait, Luanda? That’s a battlecruiser, and for it to be contacting us directly… they’d have to be in atmosphere. “What’s the situation up there, we’ve been in the dark planetside.”
“You haven’t heard? Feds are running with their tails between their legs, Captain. We took some minor dings but nothing that won’t buff out. Terran forces have complete orbital control.”
I couldn’t keep the relief out of my voice as I answered back, “That’s great to hear. I need you to relay a message to Command. We are requesting immediate evac from the Yotul capital. Our current position is in a structure called the Chancellor’s Manor. We are in possession of a potential HVT, the military governor of Yotul Prime, and intel on Federation operations on the planet. We’ve been pinned down for, I don’t know, an hour maybe? The site is secure now, but we are low on ammunition and have a civilian in need of medical attention.”
“Relaying now. In the meantime stay put and we’ll have reinforcements sent via drop pod within 15 minutes.”
The whole atmosphere in the room lightened up. It was over. We won in space and soon enough the last holdouts on the planet would either surrender or be destroyed. I turned to Amja, who was still conscious, but obviously in pain, “You hear that? We won! The Yotul are free.” She cracked a weak smile.
“You haven’t won,” The Kolshian piped up. “You’ve freed no one, just enslaved them in ways they can’t see.”
“Well would you look at that,” Colton said. “He speaks! And here I was thinking the squid was a mute.”
“Mock me all you want, predator. It doesn’t change the fact that you are a blight on the galaxy. Nor does it change the outcome of this war.”
“I dunno, that’s a lot of tough talk for someone bound up and surrounded by ‘vicious’ predators.”
“Vile creature. We would have done well to exterminate you all before your corruption spread.”
“Alright I’ll bite,” Colton continued, “no pun intended. What do you have against predators? Don’t lie and say it’s because you’re afraid of me. Sure that applies to most Feds we’ve met, but you’re different. It’s in the way you talk. Your feeling towards us isn’t fear, it’s disgust.”
“How astute for a primate. Like I said, predators are a blight on the galaxy, a malignant tumor that consumes all that it touches. My kind creates order. Your kind only knows destruction. Nay, you are destruction, chaos manifest. It’s in your DNA, crucial to your very being that you must destroy to live. You humans hide behind your facade of ‘civilization’ better than the Arxur, but you can’t hide what you truly are underneath it all.” His frog-like eyes narrowed as his pupils darted between Usli and Amja. “Likewise, of all the predators in this room the stench radiates most readily from the two Yotul among you.”
“What are you on about?”
“Arguably worse than you are those who hide among us, harboring the instincts of a predator unbeknownst to others. They are diseased, no doubt, to stand your kind’s presence let alone work with you.” He looked directly at Usli, “One can call you violent, insolent, primitive, and it rolls off like water. But when I call you what you are, diseased, watch how you recoil. Because deep down you know your ruse has been found out!”
Usli did recoil slightly, but at the insult of being called primitive, not whatever nonsense the Kolshian was spewing. “Enough of that,” I interrupted. “If I have to listen to one more second of that squid’s tirade I am going to jump out a window. There’s nothing to gain from egging him on.” I looked to the Kolshian, “And you. You will only speak when spoken to or I’ll tape your mouth shut personally.”
Colton huffed and turned to dig through a filing cabinet. Jokingly he asked no one in particular, “You think they’ll give us front row seats if he gets the Kalsim treatment?”
Tassev returned with his arms full of weapons. I informed him of the situation and he opted to stand guard in front of the door rather than sort through files with the rest of us. It was probably for the best, I don’t think anyone else besides maybe Jath could withstand the stench that permeated the hall. Finding I had sorted through everything in the desk, I moved over to help Colton search the filing cabinets. After a minute or so of doing that Usli finally broke into the Kolshian’s holopad.
“Well well well, looks like someone left a lot of sensitive files on their personal device, tsk tsk tsk. You’d think you 'advanced' species have better OPSEC,” Usli said mockingly. “Daniel, you want to check this out? I’ll see if I can get that computer up and running again.
“Sure, let’s see,” I said, taking the holopad and flipping through random files. I thought out loud as I opened some, “We’ve got manifests offworld, all going to the same system interestingly enough. Renovation plans including a pleasure garden complete with a 800,000 gallon swimming pool. Always a good look when the people you govern are surviving off scraps. Exterminator incident reports, risk assessment meetings, wait…” I opened the folder of exterminator incident reports. The files were separated by what I assumed was the Federation equivalent of months and years. The dates were auto translated, but it made the subdivisions look somewhat arbitrary as a result. It went back to 2137 and there were thousands upon thousands of reports. “Usli, just how common were predators when you lived here?”
“Not at all. When there was a predator sighting it would make headlines for a week.”
I looked back to the holopad. Clicking on individual incidents revealed more in depth details. The exterminators on the call, what precinct they were with, the location of the incident, resolution, and more. Under resolution every single one was marked DEPURATION. I scrolled down, and it just kept going. Eventually I found a couple instances of other resolutions: TERMINATION, INCONCLUSIVE, and RELOCATION. I opened up other pages, other times, and it was all the same. The number of incidents were excessive. Trying to scroll to the bottom of one subsection I gave up after a solid minute flying past thousands of reports with no end in sight.
“Under Exterminator incident reports there’s thousands of incidents. Almost every single one has its resolution marked as depuration.”
“What?,” Usli said, looking up from the computer. “Let me see.”
“It just keeps going, there must be tens, hundreds of thousands of individual reports.”
“That can’t be right. The Federation wiped out almost every predator on the planet during the uplift.”
I looked back to Amja, she was stone-faced staring at the Kolshian. “Those aren’t wild predators, those are people. The people you took.”
The Kolshian remained silent.
I allowed Usli to take the holopad and focused my attention on the cephalopoid. “What’s the meaning of this?”
The Kolshian took on an uncanny expression, I couldn’t tell if it was his species’ equivalent of a smile or glare. “If you must know, this world was infested when we took custodianship over the Yotul. It is little wonder that they planned to join you. Our scientists during first contact must have had faulty equipment. Either that or our screenings have become far more effective in the last few decades, because cases of predator disease were 256% more prevalent in the Yotul population than the galaxy at large. Perhaps a vestigial remnant of predator ancestors, but I digress. Cases of the disease were even more prevalent among the ruling class as well, being 37% more common in that demographic even when using a Yotul baseline. We simply did what was necessary.”
“And what was ‘necessary’?”
“Hmm, less perceptive than your pack member? Recalling our previous conversation, what do you do to a cancer?”
I knew damn well what he was alluding to, but I needed a straight answer right from his mouth, “I don’t know. Elaborate.”
He groaned, as if bored by the interrogation, “I knew your medicine was primitive, but I had no idea-”
“Answer. The. Question.”
“Hmph. A cancer cannot be allowed to take hold and spread. You are presented with two options, curtail its means of replication or cut it out.”
A stunned silence purveyed the room. I turned and snatched the holopad from Usli’s hands, he made no reaction to this action. I could feel anger slipping into my voice as I said, “All of these ‘incidents’. All of these people. What did you do to them?! And don’t answer me with any analogies or euphemisms! Tell me the truth!”
“We removed them from the general population and salvaged the ones we could. The ones that couldn’t be saved… well originally it would have been a matter of continuing their segregation from the populous and implementing strict population controls, but with the food shortages your kind have caused these past few years I had to make a decision. Why should healthy citizens go hungry because of individuals who are a net deficit to society.”
I stood in silence taking in his answer. The implication was obvious, but the bastard refused to outright say it. Hatred boiled to the surface as I replied, “You starved them.”
“Sending food to this backwater was already a low priority when core worlds needed to be fed. So why not dispose of the refuse of this world and save some for those that remained? Sure a more expedited method could have been chosen, but if the goal is to conserve resources then why spend more to achieve the same result faster?”
“You genocidal motherfucker. How many?” I flipped through the lists faster and faster before throwing the holopad to the floor. “How many millions of innocents did you murder for your perfect world?”
Though the Kolshian’s expression was hard to judge, it took on a look akin to annoyance as he sat silently in front of me.
“Answer me you piece of shit!” I yelled, “You killed all of these people, and for what? Because they had this ‘predator disease’? Murdered them just because they were different, just because they didn’t fit your vision? How many did you starve under the pretense of this pseudoscientific bullshit?!”
The Kolshian’s calm demeanor cracked as he grew incensed at my direct attack on his ideology. He barked, “Not enough!”
“Y-you monster…”, Usli stuttered, backing up out of my peripheral vision in shock.
The Kolshian’s eyes narrowed on Usli again. “Says the one in league with predators! The gall of you to call me the monster.” He looked back to me, “And none of your poisoned, ignorant, words would make me hesitate for an instant to continue my work! You call me a murderer as if your kind is any better. I know what you are even if you refuse to acknowledge it. At least I served to promote the greater good. What ends did the genocides in your own history serve? Exactly, your silence speaks volumes. What is the price of millions when my work serves to save billions? I will not grovel to you beasts or beg for your faux mercy. My only regret is that now all of those deaths will be for nothing. We wasted so much time and so many resources trying to uplift these primitives. And what did we get in return? Nothing! On second thought, I lied. I also regret that I didn’t kill more of these disease ridden, backstabbing, primi-”
A single gunshot rang out, splattering blue blood across my face as the Kolshian slumped over, trailing blood on the wall behind him. I turned around to see Usli standing there, arm shaking, with a pistol in hand. Hearing the gunshot, Tassev vaulted into the room, gun at the ready, before stopping dead in his tracks upon observing the scene in front of him. Silence overtook us as we stood there in shock. Slowly I stepped back and dropped my rifle to the floor. Holding out my arms I approached Usli. The conflicted expression on his face contradicted the action he had just committed. Stepping forward I calmly spoke, “Take it easy, Usli. Put down the gun.” His grip became shakier, but he was still pointing it straight ahead. He breathed out and blinked rapidly. His composure was barely maintained as his breathing accelerated. “It’s okay bud, just put it down. I’m right here, look at me.”
His pupils darted to me and back forward multiple times before he drew his arm back and threw the pistol at the dead Kolshian. Wasting no time he lunged forward, unleashing a barrage of stomps and kicks on the body. He let out a shrill cry before screaming, “HOW’S THAT FOR PRIMITIVE YOU FEDERATION FUCK!”
Tassev immediately moved in to restrain our friend, but even with the massive Arxur grabbing both of his arms his fury was barely contained, his only focus being the dead Kolshian in front of him. “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU! I’LL KILL YOU ALL! EVERY LAST GODDAMN ONE OF YOU! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU ALL! LET GO OF ME!”
Jath moved in and helped Tassev restrain his arms. I never thought in all my years I would see two imposing Arxur struggle to keep hold of a single Yotul, but Usli fought like a man possessed. I snapped out of shock and rushed in front of him, grabbing a leg as he kicked blindly. Finally we were able to take him off balance and pin him to the floor. He was still screaming profanities at the top of his lungs as I tried to get through to him. “Pull yourself together man! It’s us! Chill, chill!” He thrashed like a wild animal caught in a trap, looking in every direction as he expended his finite supply of energy trying to escape our grasp.
“LET ME AT HIM! LET ME GO! I’LL KILL EVERY ONE OF THOSE TENTACLED FREAKS, I SWEAR IT!”
Jath was next to try and calm him, “Relax, look at me. Look at me! It’s me. It’s okay, we’re here. Stop fighting. STOP!”
“I’LL, I- I…” His thrashes waned in intensity and we were finally able to let go. With the last of his energy he curled into a ball on the floor and began sobbing. I stumbled to my feet and tried to catch my breath. Usli’s mumbled words in between sobs were unintelligible, with the only one I could parse being “father”. Wiping the blood from my face, I hunched over the Kolshian. He was dead, no doubt. The bullet went right between his eyes.
I paced in front of the body, how the fuck were we going to explain this to Command? Usli just executed a prisoner, a top ranking official that they would very much have liked to have alive. The bastard had it coming a thousand times over, but fuck not like this! What would they do? Strip him of his rank? Court-martial and imprison him? I walked over to Colton, who was standing off to the side close to Amja. I turned him away from the rest and whispered, “This is bad, this is seriously fucked.”
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know. Last thing Command heard was that we had an HVT ready for extraction and now he’s dead on the floor. You can’t just hide that!”
“But if we tell the truth?”
“They’ll court-martial him. At best they’ll find the circumstances such that he’ll be honorably discharged.”
“And worst case?”
“You already know.”
Colton put a fist to his mouth, trying to think, and muttered a curse under his breath. We stood there for a moment contemplating our options when Amja spoke up, “I did it.”
In unison we turned and responded, “What?”
“I shot the Governor. I killed him.”
Usli, who by now had buried his face in Jath’s shoulder, stepped back on shaky legs and looked at her. His voice came out as a hoarse whisper, “N-no. You shouldn’t take the blame. I did it. It’s my fault. My responsibility.”
“No it ain’t. You did nothing wrong, he deserved every bit of it. Besides, I had the motive.” With some difficulty she unholstered her firearm with her still functioning offhand, “And the means. It was out of your control, you were interrogating him and I shot him, as I intended to from the beginning. I deceived you so I could get revenge, like Ugo warned me not to do.” She looked at me and gestured with her gun, “Take it.”
I hesitated.
“Take it, you wouldn’t let me keep it after what I did.”
I grabbed the gun and inspected it for a moment. I sighed and, crouching down to her level, fired several times, hitting the Kolshian’s body in various locations while purposefully missing a shot or two. Standing up I explained to her, “I imagine you’re not a great shot with your offhand.” That would hold up in the AAR. It would have to. With the last piece of evidence planted it was time to complete the ruse.
“UTCS Luanda, this is Taskforce Revenant do you copy?”
“Copy What’s the situation?”
I took in a deep breath, and let it out before continuing, “High value target is KIA.”
“What happened?”
My gaze wandered to Usli, who was back in Jath’s embrace. “The civilian in our company killed him. I was interrogating the subject when she opened fire. She’s been stripped of any weapons and is cooperative.”
“Roger, ETA on reinforcements is 5 minutes.”
Putting the radio down I fell backwards into a chair and let out a deep breath, slumping forward to cradle my head in my hands. All there was to do now was wait for evac.

The thing I dislike the most about the update is that accolades being gone removes a big part of the excitement and reward for winning a match.
Blood Bonds (and the things you can buy with them) are the only thing that's there to stay. Earning a couple BBs from an extraction adds a lot to the experience, because you know you won't lose them by dying in mission or prestigeing. They give a sense of permanence to your success that won't just get wiped by a couple of "Hunt taketh" kinda matches. Not to mention that slowly racking up BBs for that skin you wanted is an engaging and satisfying overarching progression system.
No, that does not mean I only play to get skins. It means having a meaningful reward for winning added a lot of spice to the experience, which is now made much blander because Hunt Dollars aren't really a reward when you can get them from a billion different sources now. Also, if there's anything that is worth rewarding in a PvP game, it's killing other players and extracting imo, not running around killing AI with fire ammo.
Weeklies reward you as well, but they do so by making you go out of your way to do it. They are essentially busywork, whereas accolades are very naturally implemented into the core gameplay, and reward success and good performance. Not to mention that Questlines and now also Battle passes work on the same system, which not only makes challenges super redundant, but further disconnects the rewards from the core gameplay loop.
I get that the whole point of this was reducing BBs earnable for free, but I think accolades sould be the last thing to go on the chopping block. There are ways to nerf them without completely detracting from the satisfaction of the reward. Like, award them only for bounty extractions, for amount of kills, idk, something that ties into the PvP nature of Hunt and encourages players to play the objectives.
Just my two BBs on the matter.
TL;DR: Accolades are a great reward for winning, and it makes no sense they get the axe first before less satisfying systems like weeklies, dark tribute etc.